Chapter Text
Suguru wakes to the muffled shriek of his alarm, phone caught somewhere beneath his head and the rumpled pillows, having slipped from where he’d finally fallen asleep with it resting on his chest after he’d stayed up too late doom scrolling again. Groggily, he digs around for it and lazily swipes at the screen until the shrill sound cuts off before slowly peeling his eyes open, letting the bleariness naturally subside in the wake of the sudden silence. His midnight cigarette—the bad habit he conveniently forgets he’s kicked when it’s quiet and dark and the insomnia kicks in and he’s been left alone with his thoughts for too long—is still thick on his tongue.
It’s half past seven, his usual wake up time, and the soft glow of the morning sun steadily creeps in underneath the line of the blackout curtains, warming the hardwood and the leg he’d rucked from the sheets and tossed over the side of the bed some time in the night. Restless, he’s just so restless. With a jaw cracking yawn, he stretches his arms above his head, pressing his palms deep into the dark purple plush of the headboard as he cranks his aching muscles back to life. His thighs and biceps still burn from the hour of weight lifting he’d done before. Thankfully, today is solely reserved for cardio; easy shit he can shut his head off for, feet senselessly pounding the pavement as he counts his steps and the miles he takes while he thinks of nothing in particular at all.
He’s kept up quite well with his regiments and routines after last year’s depressive spiral. He’d let himself with away to practically nothing, never sleeping, barely eating, caught between ideals and expectations he suddenly wasn’t sure were really his. His room, the purple headboard and dark bedspread and empty walls, became a sunken place, where he’d lay his head down and melt into the mattress, staring into the nothingness of the void walls until everything blurred and he didn’t even feel like he was really there at all. He was just outside of his body, watching each day pass until they came and went so quickly that he forgot to get up and shower and be a person.
He remembers how Satoru’s lips had thinned, having lost a bit of their glossy luster in the last few weeks, always watching him like a hawk, suspicious and narrow-eyed like he was constantly on the verge of pitching himself out of their living room window so he could fly for just a bit before splatting onto the concrete, and well—he hadn’t been too far off. He hadn’t realized his bullshit affected Satoru so much, or maybe he just hadn’t cared in a while.
Either way, when Satoru’s brow creased with genuine worry as he wrapped his hands around Suguru’s puny biceps and squeezed, the meat of them more squish than solid in a way they had never been before, not even when he was seventeen and hadn’t touched a bench press a day in his life, he’d felt more guilty over upsetting his best friend than he had when he’d flipped his entire life upside down, abandoning his course work and the future his parents and professors had carefully laid out for him—always expecting the most from him, the best from him, and then disappointed when he inevitably fell short of their impossible ambitions—in favor of moping around the apartment and doing fuck-all because he just wasn’t sure what to do now that he’d taken back control of his own life.
It was freeing, sure, but it also fucking sucked to be in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t known which way to go. Not until Satoru, at least.
“Kind of wasting away, aren’t you?” He’d murmured, disapprovingly poking a finger into the soft flesh of his abdomen, Suguru shamefully shrinking away from the touch. Satoru had taken his sudden lifestyle change in remarkable stride, shrugging in that blaze way of his when Suguru broke down and broke the news that he was dropping out, crossing out all the plans they’d been making since they were fifteen. “Cool. I was gonna beat your test scores, anyway,” was all he really said about it, and that was that, and the part of Suguru that had feared he’d lose him entirely when they were no longer in the same orbit wilted and breathed a soft sigh of relief.
Satoru had only drawn the line when Suguru stopped taking care of himself. He didn’t give a shit about a thing as long as he was okay, and that validation had just… felt really nice, like a weight had lifted and he could finally breathe and that Satoru would be there. No matter what. It was easier after that; to live, to be, to focus on the future when he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Satoru would never abandon him, even when he was nothing more than a greasy-haired bump on a log.
“You need to eat, you need to sleep, and you need to get the fuck out of this apartment. Go get some sun, you idiot. You’re paler than me,” he’d said with a slight smirk as Suguru glared at him without heat, mostly just defeated, because if Satoru was ribbing him like this, his mouth pinched, his eyes a bit dim, it was serious. He’d let himself be manhandled onto the couch, sinking into the cushions as Satoru clumsily tucked a blanket over his shoulders and fed him a veggie tray he didn’t remember buying before practically shoving him out the door and onto the front stoop, cold water bottle in hand. “Go to the gym, shrimp!” He’d crowed before slamming the door in his face and flipping both the lock and the deadbolt.
And really, that had been that, because he was not a shrimp, and he liked the glimmer of something in Satoru’s eyes when he curled his fingers around Suguru’s arm and squeezed, feeling tight corded muscle instead of sad, sallow skin. He’d gone to the gym that day and every day after that except for the weekends, and he’d gotten a job at a care center working as a mentor to a gaggle of struggling kids. He ate well, and he mostly slept well, and for once, he didn’t feel like he’d just missed his purpose, like he’d walked right past it when he was following along with someone else. He was fulfilled, satisfied. He could have stuck with academia, dogging Satoru’s heels but never quite making the cut, always just a stagger behind, could have stuck with what would have brought him the most money and notoriety, but he was better off without it. His mother cried and his father pursed his lips, but he didn’t give a shit.
Besides, Satoru often joked that he was smart enough and rich enough for the both of them, so just like that, they remained a package deal.
The thought of Satoru has him rising, shifting to sit up in his bed. It was Monday, and Mondays were just so nice. Unlike the general consensus, Mondays were arguably his favorite day of the week. A cardio sweat out and Satoru’s disheveled bright and early hair, two things that will always have him up-and-at-’em like no other, two things that steal the breath from his lungs and punch through his chest to squeeze at his heart until his pulse is racing double time.
Satoru had class at 9 am, so when Suguru comes in from his run he’ll regretfully drag himself out of his silk sheets and sleepily slurp at his coffee while he waits on whatever delicacy Suguru can whip up with what they have lying around in the fridge. Their kitchen is too small for a proper table so they’ll each pick a side of the galley and lean back against the counters, Satoru stretching out his impossibly long body and bracketing Suguru’s legs with his, animatedly waving his fork around as he talks a mile a minute, absently running the side of his foot along the knob of Suguru’s ankle and a little way up his calf. He’ll get all tingly, hyperaware of every point of contact between them as he mentally weighs the gravity of the situation, the pros and cones and the risks and the rewards. He’ll think about scooping him up and kissing him silly, scooping him up and never letting him go, and while he drowns, while he pines like a dog, throughout it all Satoru will just smile and smile.
Mondays are reserved for that; for second guessing his choices every time Suguru resists the urge to gather him close and stick him across his body like a leech. Mondays are for Satoru, for laughter and gentle light pouring in from the window above the sink.
If every day could be like that, he thinks he might be a happier person, but sometimes a guy just has to take what he can get and be grateful for it. He’s not cured, probably never will be, but he’s better—if not still a little more melancholic than most. He’s found something good, something that shows him the way out. The north star that guides him through the fog, never blinking out, never wavering from where it hangs in the sky, distant but somehow still tangible, touchable.
Just two feet across the kitchen, really, if Suguru can ever bring himself to cross to the other side.
Their codependency is the least of his concerns, honestly, not when it comes as naturally as breathing. So he’ll get up and run and he’ll come home and make omelets because they need to use up the mushrooms and peppers Satoru had insisted upon when they’d gone grocery shopping the week before (even though they both knew he only ate vegetables when they were shoved down his throat and accompanied by airplane noises—how he stays so scrawny with the amount of sweet he inhales at alarming rates, he’ll never know) and he’ll feed him and he’ll wait to leave for work until Satoru is ready so that they can walk out together and then he’ll spend the rest of the week waiting for the next Monday. The next time they can get close. The next time things will feel easy and normal.
After scooting out of bed Suguru pads to his closet, careful to keep his bare feet within the square of warm light cast across the floor. He changes into dark joggers and a loose hoodie before slipping on his running shoes and popping his earbuds in, cranking the volume and letting the music wash away the last of his fatigue. Truthfully, despite staring at his phone screen until he could barely see, he’s not even all that tired. He’d fallen asleep thinking of the morning, of waking up and it finally being the day he looks forward to the most. It was a bit pathetic, and he’d never dare breathe a word of it aloud, least of all to Satoru, but if there’s a slight skip in his step as he exits his room, there’s nobody awake to notice.
He tiptoes past Satoru’s room on his way down the hall, carefully avoiding the floorboards that creak. He knows Satoru hasn’t been sleeping well lately; final exams start in a few weeks so he’s been up at all hours of the night, cramming to the point of physical collapse (or mental breakdown). He’s surprised Satoru hasn’t resorted to only speaking in terms of physics, his nose shoved into a textbook, only coming up for air when he wants a snack or attention. Because of this, combined with Suguru’s hectic schedule at the care center, they haven’t had a chance to really talk in weeks.
He’s so fucking glad he’s not dealing with that shit, the constant thirst to prove himself, prove that he was deserving, having died out long ago. But where he’d accepted his place in the world, Satoru had stayed the course, intending to obliterate it, knowing he was the best and the brightest. He just had so much brain in his stupidly thick skull. He was absurdly brilliant and set to graduate with the highest honors in just a few short months, and then he’d go off and become a mad scientist and build colonies on the moon or something. He’s proud of him, really, it’s just that sometimes he wonders where that leaves them. He doesn’t think Satoru will just up and disappear, but he’s afraid that they’ll somehow just… fizzle out.
Sure, they’re fine now, Suguru’s momentary lapse in sanity hadn’t really changed anything between them, but what about later, when Satoru’s navigating a career and the real world, putting his big brain to the grindstone and bounding over every hurdle thrown his way as he shoots for the sky? Where will he fit into all of those plans, if he’ll even fit at all? This apartment can’t hold Satoru forever, he knows. He’ll have to break free eventually, just like Suguru himself did. He’ll become famous—revered, desired.
And Suguru’s… inherently selfish when it comes to Satoru, possessive and mean when anyone else drifts a little too close to his star. His ego and his jealousy get so big, nearly impossible to keep inside, and he lashes out and ruins things and puts Satoru into awkward positions, all for the sake of staking his claim, making it known to anyone that might think they have a chance, some fucked up shot in the dark, that they should save themselves the disappointment and take their delusions elsewhere.
It’s insane. Maybe. Probably. But it is what it is.
He hates that their time together has slowly dwindled to sleepy hallway nods as they pass like ships in the night. More often than not, he’s left with an empty apartment and a check-in text here and there. That’s why Monday mornings are so special to him—sacred, even. They have nowhere to be but with each other. There are no pressing matters, nothing but the sweet press of Satoru’s shoulder against his own.
The simple domestic moments have always been the ones Suguru enjoys the most, just sitting there and existing with the one person who understands him, who never judges him, who comforts him by being there at all. He might act like their touches mean nothing, like it’s just business as usual, but the truth is that if Satoru stopped swinging an arm around his neck, stopping cuddling into his side when they sat on the couch, he might very well become certifiable, spinning out over the alarming loss of his enormous presence.
He can maintain his composure, keep a tight lid on his plethora of anxieties and mental health problems when Satoru is at his side, but without his vice, without the easy thing to fall back into when he needs tender care… there’s no telling what he would do, who he’d become. He’s medicated and keeps strict routines for that very reason. Control. He always has to keep meticulous control. Sudden changes and shifts in patterns make him impulsive, and when he’s impulsive… Well, he doesn’t really like to think about times like that, when he was young and eager to fight and cause problems and hurt people for the fuck of it.
That’s why Mondays with Satoru are so important.
They ground him. Remind him he’s human and humans need things, too. They need people. They need love. They need to be home where it’s safe and comfortable and where a show doesn’t need to be put on.
Home where it’s safe and comfortable and Satoru will scribble goofy drawings and his weekly schedule on the whiteboard stuck to the side of the fridge so that Suguru will know where he is at any given time, and Suguru will make a grocery list in a (vain) attempt to expand Satoru’s childlike palate and shuffle through bills because his other half was hopeless without autopay.
It’s always been this way, and although there’s a tiny part of him that always worries it will all come to a sudden and terrible end, he stays true, and he waits, waits for Monday, for Satoru to carve out a special space just for him.
All he needs is this routine, for nothing to ever change.
Suguru flies through his two mile run, eager to return home and get started on breakfast. He kicks his shoes off at the door once he’s inside, showers and brushes his teeth, pulls his hair up and knots it. He usually wears it down, but he’ll be working with a few rowdy kids that like to climb all over him later so it’s best to have it out of the way. But as always, his bangs persist, falling over one eye as he ventures back down the hall and towards the kitchen. When he’s close, he hears the steady drip of the coffeemaker and the soft clink of the cupboards shutting.
His stomach flips, nervous anticipation and excitement coiling inside of him. The thought of seeing Satoru is always like that, like the moment can’t come fast enough, like the moment won’t ever last long enough.
He turns the corner into the kitchen, and Satoru is there, lazing against the counter beside the toaster as he mindlessly scrolls on his phone with half-lidded eyes, balancing the device on the edge of his coffee mug. He’s still dressed in his pajamas; purple fuzzy socks with white smoosh-faced cats printed all over them, plaid sleep pants, and a worn dark blue long sleeve (his, he thinks) a few sizes too big that hangs off of his frame, slipping low around his neck to reveal smooth milky skin and the elegant sloping lines of his clavicle.
He really is just so pretty. Sometimes people will stop and stare as he walks by, like they’ve just watched an angel touch down to earth, parting the crowds with snow-white wings tucked against his back, his hair like clouds and his eyes watercolor blue. In this one thing, Suguru can’t blame them. He’d been caught off guard too the first time he’d laid his eyes on Satoru. It had felt a bit like he’d been hit over the head with a crowbar he’d been so dazed, birds zinging in a circle around his head, singing that this was the one, the one he’d waited for, the one he’d unknowingly searched for his entire life.
Of course, Satoru had immediately opened his mouth and ruined it, but it hadn’t taken all that long for it to come back in full swing.
Suguru saw him nearly every day, but his beauty was just astounding as it had been then, when he’d been struck stupid by those strangely blue eyes and maybe drooling a little over how he was just so tall, terrified because no matter how long or hard he looked, Satoru always looked back. Like he saw something worthwhile in him, like he was something beautiful, too.
He’s always liked pretty things; warm colors and the patterns of a butterfly’s wings and the flowers in the midst of spring bloom. Sometimes a sick part of him liked them because he could so easily ruin them, destroy them, pluck them between his fingers and crush until there was nothing left but dust and they finally understood what it was to be like him.
But he never did. Instead, he admired, he longed from afar. He touched when he was given consent, and he never closed his fist. He learned how to be softer, how to touch without feeling like he was holding something better off swallowed whole, taken with no intent to cherish.
He used to always, always wait for Satoru to initiate, to draw the lines between them as he saw fit, but their ever-growing familiarity had long since given way to trust and casual touch, hugs and linking arms and lingering hands on backs. Now, sometimes, he just can’t help himself; can’t help but trace the gritty ridges of the callouses on his fingers and palms from his tight grip on sanity and the bench press down Satoru’s strong, unblemished jawline, pressing his thumb into the dimple that will inevitably appear, smile breaking like dawn, Satoru needing no permission from anyone for anything, turning his face and affectionately nuzzling into Suguru’s hand, as if what was rough both there and inside of him didn’t matter.
He was just so…
He was just so unlike anyone Suguru had ever met.
If astrophysics somehow fails him, he’ll surely take up modeling. He was impossible to ignore, a moon-painted marble idol drawing the attention of every person in every room, carved into perfection, smoothed until he shined, with his bubbling laugh and his striking eyes and his fluffy hair, soft like silk whenever Suguru grows brave enough to touch it. Even now, the tips of his fingers tingle as Satoru cards long fingers through that very hair. His restraint is paper thin at this point, but he’s able to keep his impulses in check when he thinks of how stupid he’d look shoving Satoru’s own hand out of the way so he can pet his snowy head instead.
Though, Suguru smiles slightly as he watches him, Satoru would probably like it. He was practically a cat already; spoiled with cuddles and little bags of treats, winding around his legs and obnoxiously meowing for attention at all hours of the day and night, the first thing Suguru looks for when he comes home, panicking slightly when he isn’t at the door waiting to greet him.
He would have felt more pathetic about it if Satoru didn’t absolutely preen under his ministrations; the focus of his gaze was where he flourished, where his dramatics were not only entertained but encouraged, where he could be himself without presumption, just a rich dork with a sweet tooth who treated holding hands like a challenge, grappling for the tightest, fullest grip.
Mostly, Suguru is content to let him win, as long as it’s his fingers Satoru’s slip into sync with.
This burning desire is nothing new. It’s as much a part of Suguru’s routine as popping antidepressants and working up a sweat in the gym. He’s used to it by now, the itch that crawls beneath his skin, inescapable and almost unbearable with the way it presses and burrows, urging him to get close and then closer still, edging in until he’s as close as can be. It’s so constant that he wonders if he’s ever been without it, if he’s felt like this his whole life and he’d just been waiting for Satoru to appear and awaken what had laid dormant inside of him for so long. The desire to connect with someone, to relate, to finally have something of his own that nobody could take away. The click between them had been damn near instantaneous, and the attraction had followed shortly after because how could it not? No one, no one, could stand up against Satoru when he unveiled his bright eyes and beaming smile. Suguru was just right where he wanted him, a slave to the unparalleled beauty. He was just another victim, caught up in Satoru’s tractor beam gaze.
Suguru had thought about crossing a few lines in those early school days, when it had all been one big party and he was always high and he’d catch Satoru’s eye through the smoky hazy of his cigarette, the two of them sharing a look that meant something, he just wasn’t really sure what. From his dark corner, he’d watch him. How he moved, how he threw his head back when he laughed, the long line of his neck so pale and inviting, practically begging to be kissed and marked. He’d watch and to himself he’d wonder if their spark would translate further, like to his bedroom for example, if Satoru moaned like he laughed, eyes closed, head tilted back, his body arching off of the mattress as Suguru’s teeth sank into the soft flesh of his neck.
His fantasies have unfortunately never come to fruition. They stayed within the confines of his imagination, easy enough to conjure up, harder to stamp back down. It was simply too late now. He’d wasted any opportunity he’d had to change the trajectory of their relationship from completely platonic bros who occasionally held hands to completely un-platonic bros who could not be left alone in a room together for more than five minutes before they were fucking on any available surface. Yeah, opportunities. A few times… He’d thought Satoru was looking at him a certain way, like he was just waiting for something, patient for just this one thing, but then the moment would pass with the skipping of Suguru’s heart and he’d get all flustered and anxious and turn away from those baby blue eyes before he did something neither of them could ever come back from.
Too late. It was just too late. Satoru had meant way too much to him way too quickly. The stakes were high, so how could he risk it all when what they already were brought him so much satisfaction? He’d worked too hard to maintain this; himself, his friendship with Satoru. It wasn’t worth it, it just wasn’t worth it. Not when he could lose it completely with just one wrong move. So he lets the jumbled strings of messy, desperate confessions stay knotted up in his head, never to be unraveled because the what-ifs bring about this heavy sense of dread, like if he squeezes his fingers too tightly around whatever exists in the space between them it will disintegrate and cease to be, withering until it was like it had never been there at all. Muddied colors that never should have mixed, a butterfly’s wing collapsing into dust with the tiniest brush of human skin, poisoned flower fields rotting back into the earth.
He can’t give up what’s tangible for impulses, for pipe dreams, for the thought of sharing beds and showers and space.
But on days like this, Satoru quietly tapping at his phone, his toes curling in his fuzzy socks as he waits for Suguru to feed him something that will kick-start his massive brain cells, he wonders if he’s just a massive coward who’d rather run from the truth than face it, afraid to ever fully reveal himself, afraid to let Satoru slip away and fucking afraid to let him come closer.
Afraid that if Satoru’s back ever meets Suguru’s sheets, his stark white hair blending with the moonlight cast across his dark bedspread, Satoru will find that what he’d thought was there wasn’t really at all.
Looking at him now, sleep eyed and waiting to be taken care of, Suguru feels the edges of his resolve fragment, crumbling and falling inside of him. It’s just different somehow. Like he’ll die if he doesn’t get his hands on him soon. Maybe he’s just thought about it for too long and too deeply. Maybe this strange and sudden urgency he’s feeling is because of the distance that has never been there before stretching. Maybe he’s finally at the end of his fucking rope and he just can’t take it anymore—Satoru lounging there in his shirt, frustratingly kissable as sunrays filter through the gaps in the tree branches outside the window, bathing him in golden light, the morning haze settling in and turning every speck of dust floating in the air around him into a snowflake.
He’s too weak for this; for Satoru, for the marble boy leaned against the counter, with his fine lines and feathery hair and fluttering lashes.
Perhaps his lapse in sanity last summer had rattled loose more than just his desire for a different path, a different future. A different future with the same boy who had seen him through it all, who’d been there for every future he’d ever envisioned, always somewhere in the limelight of his mind’s eye.
The same boy who any future without was dark and lonely and worth nothing in the end.
See, the thing about Suguru is that he rots, he festers. He takes his emotions between gloved hands, examines them in and out to the point that they lose all meaning, and then shoves them down, down, down until they have no choice but to die off. Die off or release gnarled roots, praying that someday they’ll breach the surface, only to be clipped at the bud whenever they crop back up. He’s always treated his emotions like weeds, rip them out and keep moving on down the line. There was no use in dwelling, dwelling and spinning out and spiraling and making himself sick over things he had no control over.
And yet, all he did lately was dwell on these emotions and Satoru and how they all mixed up into one thing—dirty, desperate desire.
Soon he will be brimming with this. There will be no room for anything else. Soon he will have nothing left to do but let it out, let it out and hope it doesn’t do irreparable damage, that Satoru isn’t too smug about it. That he isn’t disgusted.
He can see it now: the vanity in his smile, the teasing and the over the top flirting he’ll be forced to endure until they can get back to normal, if they even can.
On the other side, he sees what is worse, too: Satoru’s eyes shuttering to him forever, his mind no longer Suguru’s to read, what has always been nothing more than the whisper of a memory.
He hated change, but people always did, and Satoru was no different.
He could cross the kitchen right now and kiss him stupid, open his mouth with his tongue and swallow his muffled squawk of surprise. It plays out so easily, just like it always does. How Satoru will gasp, how the shock will fade into soft whimpers of pleasure as he curls his arms around Suguru’s neck, his long fingers expertly tugging the tie from his hair, letting it loose so he can wind his hands into it. They’d sink down, wrapped so tightly together it was impossible to tell who was who, and then they’d fuck on the kitchen floor because there was hardly enough time to make it to a bed, and after Satoru would lie beside him on the tile, lightly tracing the lines of his abdomen, looking like the cat that got the canary, his eyes bright, those specks of dust still falling around them like snow.
But it’s nothing more than a fantasy, a foolish hope, one that has somehow grown a mind of its own, taking Suguru’s deepest, darkest desire and running rampant.
He’s stood there long enough. He’s pretended long enough.
Suguru swallows the truth, clears his throat, and makes his presence known as he finally, a bit reluctantly, enters the kitchen.
Satoru’s eyes lift and he perks up immediately at the sight of him, a beaming smile cracking across his face. It does nothing to wash away the residuals of the dream that had just lived and died on the kitchen floor. None the wiser to his internal struggle, Satoru airily wiggles his fingers at him. “Morning,” he greets on the tail-end of a big yawn, his nose scrunching up with the force of it.
Satoru is bleary and adorable. There are cats on his socks and Suguru is fucked.
He can only hum in return as he grabs a mug from the rack and pours himself a much needed cup of coffee. Satoru, easily picking up on his sullen mood, wordlessly pushes the creamer across the counter towards him before going back to the silly videos he’d been watching on his phone. Ten minutes pass like that, Suguru finishing his coffee before digging around in the fridge for ingredients, then washing his hands and preparing the cutting board all while avoiding the spot on the kitchen floor where fantasy him had fucked fantasy Satoru until his lashes glistened with tears and he’d raked his nails down Suguru’s back, begging for release. Such a sweet dream, something soft for the spank bank when he was feeling sentimental instead of achingly desperate.
In the midst of this, Satoru pours himself another cup and licks at the cream that splashes onto the side of the mug, forcing Suguru to avert his eyes just when he’d been about to speak, mostly convinced he could be casual. Instead, he focuses on slicing through the pile of vegetables before him, each knock of the knife like a slap upside the head.
Stupid, this is so stupid.
He must really be losing his mind. He’ll never look at the kitchen floor the same way again.
Time crawls past a snail's pace and eventually, the silence becomes strained—to Suguru, at least. He’s fine with the lack of conversation, but it wasn’t like Satoru to be so still, especially when Suguru was clearly brooding about something. He’s usually less than tactful and he’ll simply act like an idiot until Suguru can’t help but laugh and become himself again. Perhaps he’s distracted and all that studying had finally fried his brain. He feels a stab of sympathy and then a little shame, standing there having sexy daydreams when Satoru has been working himself to the bone, barely a functioning human being lately. He’ll just have to cheer him up then, make him forget all the bad for just a bit.
“You’re quiet this morning,” Suguru remarks as he switches the stove on and oils a pan before setting it on the burner, thinking that Satoru should be hanging off his neck by now, chattering right into his ear about his classes or something shiny he’d seen in a shop window.
“Mm,” Satoru acknowledges from behind him. “I’m just tired. I had a late night.”
Which was usually code for ‘I was with someone’.
Suguru nearly drops the carton of eggs he’s holding, his sympathy instantly evaporating, replaced by cold neutrality. His face goes blank, his emotions draw back in, hidden once again beneath the mask of indifference. With the air of someone not at all affected by that particularly loaded statement, he sits with what he’d said for a long second before deciding he doesn’t like the implications of it. No, he doesn’t like it one bit. He carefully cracks three eggs into a bowl, whisks them, and then watches them spill into the pan. He was having an out-of-body experience again. He can’t be present because if he’s present he’s going to freak the fuck out. He doesn’t quite know what to say, what to think. When he’d come home the night before and saw that Satoru was still out he’d just assumed he was still on campus, but perhaps studying wasn’t all he’d been doing.
Satoru—sweet, strong, and sexy Satoru—had several glaring flaws that Suguru could usually overlook in favor of his many better qualities, but his most fatal was that he was a serial dater, someone with any number of suitors at any time. It wasn’t the fact that he dated so much that bothered Suguru. He hated it for his own petty reasons, but he knew well that it was going to happen. A guy didn’t look like that and not get any play. It was how Satoru went about it that bothered him. He flitted from one partner to the next with ease, as if they were nothing more than passing time. He’s never invested, never interested beyond his own sexual motivations, and that’s… fine, Suguru supposes, if one only cares about their next release.
It just makes him wonder—will he ever be invested? Will someone come along one day and sweep him off his feet and out of Suguru’s life for good? Any potential long-term partner was bound to see what Satoru was somehow still blind to, and then they’d do their best to separate them, to get rid of the narrow-eyed shadow always dogging Satoru’s heels. He doesn’t blame them, he’d do the same. Actually, he has done the same. Satoru doesn’t bring his dates around often but when he does and Suguru doesn’t like them at all, if they treat Satoru like a pretty idiot or seem a little too comfortable, all he has to do is look at Satoru a certain way—get rid of them—and he will. Just like that. It used to swell him with pride, how Satoru was at his beck and call, how he could make him do anything with just a look.
But how long could that last? Especially if he found someone else?
With all the frantic studying Satoru had been doing lately seeing someone has been the last thing on his mind, so Suguru had been afforded a bit of reprieve. He should have known it was only temporary. Satoru’s whims changed with the weather, but for now at least, even if he was back to prowling around, he was still allergic to monogamy. Or maybe that was just what Satoru hoped. If he’s averse to something serious, then he’ll never settle down, he’ll never drift away. He’ll stay just as he’s always been—Suguru’s and Suguru’s alone.
If that remains true above all things, then what does it matter if he feels petty jealousy slice through him like a lance each time Satoru comes home with lipstick on his cheek or a hickey on his neck as long as he comes home?
The way his stomach sours tells him it must matter.
It has to matter, because suddenly it isn’t enough.
He feels sick, like his heart has dropped to his feet, laying limp on the tile floor that hasn’t been swept in a fucking week. The jealousy bubbles and burns and boils over. He should be the one sucking purple bruises into Satoru’s skin, his should be the bed Satoru crawls into late at night. It’s less of a realization and more like… a revelation. All the times he’s thought about it, he’d never really actually been considering it. Never actually thought with intent about telling Satoru how he feels. It’s always just been in his head, some fucked up play he’d run over and over again just to see the parts he’d perfectly orchestrated where everything went exactly the way he wanted it to.
But… he can just do it. He can just tell him it makes him physically ill to think about him with someone else, that he’d loved him when he hadn’t even loved himself. That nothing has ever made as much sense as the two of them together. That’s something Satoru has to believe, too.
This time around, the fear of a rejection doesn’t even faze him.
As Suguru sprinkles the diced mushrooms and peppers into Satoru’s omelet and folds it over with a spatula, he’s thinking about the next time Satoru gives him a flirty smile and flutters his lashes, how he’ll take it as a sign from the universe itself, telling him to stop being suck a fucking coward and Just Tell Him. Divine intervention, that’s what Satoru is to him. He’ll have no choice but to crack like the eggs in the pan and let the roots he’s chopped the moment they sprout come spilling back out to latch onto the white-haired menace currently slurping his coffee like a toddler with chocolate milk.
In this moment, he feels nothing but peace. He forgets the anger and the jealousy, coming back to himself knowing that there’s only one way things will ever be right, and that all this time he’s just been holding himself back from his own happiness. Out of punishment, out of shame, he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter anymore.
It’s strange how everything pales in comparison to how much Suguru loves him.
He’s just spent all morning talking himself down, convincing himself that their friendship was for the better, for the best, and all it had taken to knock the wall of bullshit down was the thought of Satoru ending up with someone else.
Suguru looks over his shoulder, feeling tender for the first time in a long while, intent on telling Satoru—in some kind of clumsy way—how satisfied he is to be there with him when he catches sight of his dreamy expression and his slight half-smirk. He’s laughing a bit, his mouth ticking up the way it does when he’s thinking up some innuendo and his thumbs are flying over his keyboard at lightning speed.
Suddenly, he is white hot, seething again. The audacity. The fucking nerve. He’s spent literal years working to keep his temper in check, but sometimes—like when Satoru is all giddy and giggly and it has absolutely nothing to do with him—it gets away from him. Here he is catering to Satoru’s every want and whim, and there he is sexting some random, someone he probably has no intention of seeing beyond a couple of backseat fucks.
What’s worse—he has no idea who this person Satoru’s texting is. He rarely keeps track of Satoru’s dates, preferring to only hear about them when they’re already long gone. A massive oversight on his part apparently because now he has nothing to go on.
If he wasn’t a person who had to always maintain meticulous control over his actions, otherwise he’d run around unchecked and completely unhinged, he’d snatch that offending phone right out of Satoru’s hands and shoot off a mass text message to every single one of his contacts that read: ‘back off. love, geto’ that was accompanied by several knife emojis. But no, he has to be reasonable because when these emotions get away from him they get big, like end of days big.
Besides, there was no reason to lose it yet! Satoru is only paying more attention to his phone than he has Suguru all morning, he’s only practically kicking his fucking feet, a dusting of pink brushed across his cheeks and the tip of his nose as he smiles down at his screen.
There’s totally no reason to lose it! He’s fine!
Suguru forks a bite of eggs into his mouth, chewing irritably. Hmm. The omelets definitely need more seasoning. Coincidentally, the rack is right behind Satoru. He’ll just take a peak and see who has him blushing this early in the morning. It’s probably nothing, anyway! He was getting all worked up for nothing. Satoru was most likely rereading all the Shakespearean love poems people left in his Instagram comments, as if his ego needed any more inflating.
Nonchalantly, perfectly innocent, he goes over, Satoru lazily smiling at him when he’s prodded to the side with a poke to the abdomen. He bends out of the way as Suguru snakes an arm past him to reach for some random seasoning he has no intention of actually using.
When Suguru looks he sees that he’s in a chat, the walls of texts between Satoru and an unsaved number stretching. His jaw ticks. Of course. No name to put with the unknown face he’s itching to punch. It figures that the moment he’s decided to take what he wants, someone else gets in the way. Like a person completely in control of his actions and totally not losing it he turns away, clutching the bottle of seasoning so tightly in his hand that the plastic cracks.
“Who’s got you texting at the speed of light?” Suguru asks once he’s back at the stove, setting the seasoning aside in favor of curling his fingers around the panhandle, the slight burn grounding him. Be reasonable, just be reasonable. It’s not that hard, he tells himself. Miraculously, he keeps from throwing both the pan and the entire stove out the window. He keeps his tone neutral, treading lightly as he fishes for information.
“Oh, just a guy I met at the library,” Satoru says offhandedly, completely oblivious. “We’ve had a couple of study dates.”
It was someone new, then. Relief courses through him. Study dates. How laughably trivial. This was someone who didn’t know a thing about what they were getting into, didn’t know a thing about Satoru at all. Someone easy enough for Suguru to sweep aside now that he knows exactly what he wants. But before he can steer the conversation that way it has to open up right. He has to go about this a certain way, especially if he wants to avoid sounding like a bitter and jealous lunatic. He has to make it A Moment because Satoru lives on vibes and if he fucks this up, he’ll never hear the end of it.
Casually, Suguru asks, “What about that girl—the one from the boba shop?” That’s the last escapade he remembers, so he’s trying to gauge just how many jilted lovers he’ll have to worry about. He ignores the way his hands shake as he asks, flipping Satoru’s omelet onto a plate. It’s immediately snatched away and Satoru busies himself with picking at the shredded cheese layered on top without so much as a ‘thank you’.
Suguru stares at him, his brow arching expectantly as he waits.
Satoru frowns at him cutely as he chews, his eyes darting across Suguru’s face as if he’s trying to sus him and this sudden game of twenty questions out. Then he seems to remember that yes, he was seeing some dark-haired cafe worker with an admittedly excellent figure and oddly familiar piercings. He’d met her once and hadn’t liked the way she’d hung off Satoru’s arm, loudly popping her gum and looking at Suguru like he was the one intruding. Satoru hadn’t brought her to another night out again. He idly waves his fork, as if that’s old news. “It was never serious. We broke up weeks ago.”
Thank fuck, he thinks, a bit of the tension inside of him uncoiling. Though, it stings a little that he hadn’t been informed. He crosses his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Try as he might, some frustration leaks into his voice.
Satoru’s brows pinch together in confusion. Suguru forces himself to take a breath, to dial it back. This is feeling less like a love confession and more like a love confrontation. To be expected, maybe, when it came to the two of them, but that’s not how he wants this to go. He lowers his shoulders, makes his eyes big and sad, and softly adds, “You know you can trust me.”
I’m the only one. Only me, only me.
“I know,” Satoru says slowly, eyeing him with something like caution. “It just wasn’t worth mentioning. Shit fizzles out, you know? Besides, I didn’t think you cared to know about that stuff.”
He didn’t. Not for a long time. But now?
“I do,” Suguru says quickly; too quickly, judging by the way Satoru’s eyes instantly spark up, his lips twitching, suddenly very interested in the turn this conversation was taking. He changes tactics then, channeling best friend Suguru instead of nagging wife Suguru. “Of course I care, Satoru. I always want to know what’s going on with you.”
The sweet smile he receives in response is almost enough to set things right. Almost. Except, after all the spiraling he’s done today—he needs more than just smiling platitudes. He needs something to change. He looks at Satoru, who’s edging near, sliding his hip along the counter until he’s close enough to touch. He looks at him, the perfect lines of his profile, the moon of his hair, the way he’s all too eager now, sensing something in the air, a disturbance in the force, and he needs more. Satoru pops a bite of omelet into his mouth, never taking his watercolor eyes off of Suguru, not even as he slides the licked clean fork out from between his lips, somehow completely innocent but also completely obscene.
Fuck.
“So…” He begins, palms suddenly clammy. Like he was fifteen and talking to the angel boy for the first time. “Why did you two break up?”
Satoru’s eyes sparkle. “Does is matter?” He asks, cheeky.
Evasive, but for the sake of how much he wants to grab at him and have his way, he’ll allow it. “I suppose you don’t seem too upset about it,” Suguru concedes. Satoru only snorts in response, leaving him to wonder if there would ever come a loss Satoru couldn’t take in stride. “And this new guy—you like him?”
Now they were getting to the meat of it, the raw center.
“He’s fine,” Satoru shrugs. “Attractive enough.” He sets his empty plate in the sink before turning back around and bracing his palms against the edge of the counter. He slouches slightly and Suguru’s shirt slips a little lower on his neck. His skin is unblemished, no scratches or hickeys to lament over. If he’d been with anyone last night, they obviously hadn’t done a good enough job. He should be marked up, claimed, wearing the bruises around his neck like a medal.
Heat rushes through him, burning from his head to his toes as something inside of him snaps. There’s a roar in his ears, cold sea waves crashing against molten lava, hissing as it chars into lava rock. He forgets to be tactful, to be careful. “Is that all you look for in a partner? Fine, attractive?”
Satoru’s answering smile is sly, his ever mischievous eyes brightening a shade. Suguru gets the sense that he’s being messed with.
“What else is there?” Satoru asks, tilting his head thoughtfully, tapping his chin as if he’s never considered something more than that, like love or happiness or something good and safe and true. He’s stupid, so stupid, and Suguru hates him so much for being such a brat. Especially now that he knows Satoru is fucking with him.
But to what end?
He feels like he’s being tested with the way Satoru is watching him, his calculating eyes roving all over him as they search for a chink in his armor. They zero in on his clenched fists, pressed into the curves of his elbows where he still has his arms crossed. His smile sharpens, and Suguru is sure there’s a game here somewhere. He just has to find it and figure out the rules before Satoru flips the board and declares himself the winner. He’s not sure who’s holding the dice or who’s turn it is to roll, but the tension between them, the tension he hadn’t noticed was mounting until it was pressing in, crackles into something hotter, something smokier.
This is how Satoru likes to play—at a distance, where he waits to strike until the precise moment in order to inflict the most damage. He waits until Suguru is all riled up, teasing until he just can’t take it anymore. He’s probably indulged him too much, always playing along and egging him on, instigating because it was entertaining and Satoru always came running back to him for comfort and a boo-boo kiss when someone was mean to him. He’s indulged him so much that he thinks he’s slick now, thinks Suguru can’t see when he’s working up to something.
Satoru is leaning forward, drumming his fingers across the counter, glasses tipped low on his nose as he peers at Suguru, waiting to see if he’ll play. He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but he’s definitely going to, as curious as Satoru is in seeing where this would go. They can’t be talking about how boringly fine and attractive enough his library boyfriend is for no reason.
Besides, Suguru likes to win, too.
“Lots of things, Satoru,” he finally says with an eye roll, choosing the safe play. Distance, circling around it. “Fine and attractive are fine and attractive, but what about passion, devotion? What about—”
In true Satoru fashion, he goes right for the throat.
His laugh is near instantaneous. “I just met him! How can he be devoted to me already? Not everyone is like you, Suguru.” His name comes as a soft purr, low and teasing and designed to strike him right through the heart.
Suguru straightens his back, his eyes narrowing into slits. “What’s that supposed to mean?” His nerves are shot now, Satoru snagging on a point of contention he didn’t even know he had. Like he knew, and he just wanted Suguru to be sure, to know what he was going to get if he opened the door.
I am devoted to you. Holy fuck. I am.
Love was one thing, but devotion, near worship, was another. He knew his feelings were intense, were mad and delirious with hunger, but for it to be said aloud—by Satoru, no less—slid things fully into perspective. It was almost too much. The fantasies of the future, the things he’d have if he allowed himself to grasp them, weren’t as far out of reach as he’d previously thought. Satoru wouldn’t acknowledge Suguru’s feelings in his own way if he weren’t perfectly aware of where the subtext would lead them. He’s thinking about the rest of his life here, a life with Satoru—because logically, realistically, where the fuck else would he be?
It’s terrifying, and he curses his cold feet, but they freeze up anyway. Isn’t this what he wants? Hasn’t he been imagining waking up to him since they’d met? It’s so gut-wrenching now that it’s so close, now that it’s resting just on the tip of his tongue. He wants to stuff everything back down into the pit inside, keep it hidden away so that the horrors of this conversation can be forgotten, chalked up to ‘weird as fuck’ and then never spoken of again. But like Pandora’s box, the lid has been lifted, and that was really all the feelings needed. Just a bit of room, enough to break free.
He’s revealed more of himself than he’d thought all these years, more than he’d ever intended to, and what’s worse is that Satoru is being a shameless tease about it. He was always so smug. Suguru wants to wring his scrawny little neck.
Satoru’s smile has only grown more devious in the wake of Suguru’s silence, like this is all going according to some bizarre plan—that is, if the plan is to piss Suguru off enough to do something about it. “I think you know,” Satoru murmurs as he leans closer, reaching out and trailing his hand down the soft cotton sleeve of Suguru’s t-shirt, nails smooth as they glide along his bicep, the tiny hairs all over his body lifting. He’s watching the way his fingers curve along the muscle one second, and then Suguru the next, his head tilting slightly as he wraps a hand around Suguru’s wrist and pulls himself forward, the lines of Suguru’s forearms still banded across his chest, separating them as Satoru fully leans on him. His mouth is dangerously close.
Kiss him, kiss him, this is your divine intervention, just kiss him, everything inside of him chants, but he just—
“Well, I don’t,” he lies steadily, sidestepping the clear callout and cleanly knocking Satoru’s hand off of him as easily as swatting a fly.
Satoru is right. Not everyone can pine and yearn as thoroughly as he can, and not everyone can fuck it all up right when they’re finally on the cusp of something like he can.
Satoru rocks back onto his heels, his arms falling back to his sides. He seems sort of surprised, and that coy smile fizzles and dissolves. Suguru hasn’t played his part correctly. He’s botched it out of sheer stubborn will. They should be lip-locked and tearing at each other’s clothes.
Instead, Satoru’s shoulders slump as he falls back against the counter. “Yeah, guess you’re right,” he mutters dejectedly, eyes downcast as he tugs the collar of his shirt higher. “You’re about as passionate as a stick in the mud, anyway.”
Suguru thought the worst would be Satoru seeing him, petty jealousies, fiery temper, natural bitterness and all, then realizing that he isn’t who Satoru thinks he is, isn’t who he wants. But he’d been wrong. The worst is Satoru seeing him, and wanting him despite, and Suguru pushing him away, anyway. He doesn’t like it when people look too hard and see too much, past the facade with its gentle smiles and soft eyes, but Satoru always had a way of sliding right past that defense. It hadn’t mattered so much when his romantic feelings weren’t involved, but it was different now, and he hasn’t even actually said anything too incriminating. He’s just been grumpy and obvious and careful, always too fucking careful.
And now everything he’d never wanted to risk is all on the line, anyway.
By his own choice, no doubt. All of his greatest failings were by his own choice.
When Satoru reaches into his pocket and pulls his phone back out Suguru feels his chance slipping away, slipping away like he’s always feared Satoru would. He has to hold on—he just has to. He drifts forward, because he never should have shoved him off in the first place, and lightly touches his arm, pleading look at me, please just look at me. Satoru’s eyes flick up in the silence, but they don’t settle on him quite the same. He just dully stares at him, expression blank.
“That’s not true,” Suguru says quietly, earnestly. I can be passionate. I can be whatever you want.
Satoru lets out a disbelieving scoff and brushes him off, already in the midst of firing off another message. That white hot feeling returns, slicing through the layers of himself that Suguru has peeled away, right down to the bone. He’s onto the next, just like that. He’d fucked up there a bit, yeah, but to not even hear him out, to not let him make amends?
Ouch.
Satoru could be cold as ice when he wanted to be.
Suguru’s got that rejection he was so afraid of, but now he just really doesn’t fucking care. It’s too late to take any of it back, the only way out is to plow through it. What does Satoru want? Why does he make everything an impossible game? To see who could play long enough to please him?
Passion, Suguru had said. Devotion. Only then had Satoru really looked at him, like he was getting warmer, like he was nearly there. He was always drifting from one partner to the next, searching for the right taste, and Suguru had thought he was just killing time, and maybe… Maybe he’d been right. Maybe Satoru was just waiting for the right moment, just like he always did when he was playing for keeps. He must have been so dissatisfied these last few years, fine and attractive enough library dates, Suguru keeping him at arm's length for the sake of his own heart, never really letting Satoru in the way he wanted. He must think he’s devoid of all emotion.
But he’s not. He’s not.
Suddenly, Suguru sees with such clarity. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m incapable of something deeper?” Satoru just shakes his head. Annoyance spikes through Suguru. With deft fingers, he snatches the phone right out of his hands and slips it into his back pocket.
Satoru blinks in rapid succession, surprised, his hands still formed to the shape of it.
The galley-style kitchen makes it easy for Suguru to trap Satoru against the counter. Satoru is skittish now, his eyes wide and frazzled, lips parting slightly as he scrambles back. All Suguru has to do is step forward, a smirk forming at Satoru’s dumbfounded expression. He might win this, after all. He just has to see it through, and Satoru just has to keep his mouth shut and let it happen.
“I know that I’m reserved, that sometimes I’m quiet,” Suguru starts, his voice dipping low, crackling hotly in the total and complete silence. He swears Satoru isn’t even breathing, gaze darting about his face. From his lips to his eyes and then back again. How had he missed this? It was so obvious. “But I can be passionate, Satoru. There is someone I want. Someone I… desire.” They are so close now, so close he can see himself reflected in the shattered glass of Satoru’s eyes. They’re as angelic as always, but tinged with something hot and needy, pupils dilated like he’s just taken his first hit and instantly become addicted.
Suguru brushes the soft hair from his face, trails a knuckle down the line of his throat, feeling the gentle bob of it as he nervously swallows. Nervous—Satoru is never nervous. He always knows just what he wants, and he doesn’t stop until he gets it. This is something he’s had to wait for, to hope for, knowing it was all out of his control, that nothing could be done about it until Suguru himself opened the door. How sweet of Satoru to let him take the lead when he’s probably been bursting with need for years, resorting to lesser fine and attractive partners because he had no other choice.
Suguru carefully places his hands on either side Satoru’s slim hips, caging him in. “But my passion,” he continues with a fond sigh, leaning in to brush his mouth over the shell of Satoru’s ear. “He’s complicated. He plays with me. He’s always leaving me to wonder.”
Satoru sucks in a shaking breath, his hand curling into Suguru’s shirt. “He sounds awful.”
Suguru huffs an agreeable laugh against his cheek before pressing his lips to the same spot, testing the skin to see if it truly is as soft as he’d always thought. It is, for the record. Soft and blushing and shivering beneath his mouth. “Oh, he is. Awful and terrible, but so beautiful, so fair. He is all I see.” With his knee, he nudges Satoru’s legs apart, a thrill of pleasure shooting through him when they spill open with no hesitation. “In fact, he was just here this morning.”
Satoru’s eyes instantly flick to his, betrayed.
Suguru suppresses a grin.
“He was?” Satoru whispers, the tiniest bit of hurt coloring his voice.
He almost feels bad for him, but then again he hadn’t been the one flaunting his library boyfriend to drive him into doing something drastic. It was clever, really. A commendable strategy on Satoru’s part. Jealousy has never been something he easily coped with. He wonders just how long he’s been pulling that shit, waiting for him to finally snap over it. Probably about as long as it had been pissing Suguru off.
“Mhm.” Featherlight, he kisses his jaw before bringing a hand up to tilt his head back, revealing the long expanse of his neck. Satoru lets him; lets him brush his mouth down his throat, soft and teasing and barely there at all, yet he’s squirming, his arms wrapping around Suguru’s middle and his nails sharply digging into his lower back as he wiggles closer.
The lines of their bodies fall flush as they sink into each other, bowing away from each other on a flinch for just a moment as they meet, like the heat wasn’t just in the air. It was between them, scorching flames that licked up all the oxygen and spread like wildfire. Through his hands, down to his toes, straight to his cock.
So this was what it was like to touch a god, to touch and caress a god and enjoy the feel of him as he fluttered about, gasping with excitement and nervous frenetic energy, as if he’d never been held the right way before. This was all new for him, too. There was no desire to ruin, to spoil, and maybe he might have taken it slow in another life, let Satoru give permission and set the pace, but not in this one. They fit together so tightly, and it is only natural—the shape they’ve taken.
“I laid him out right here on the tile floor. You should have heard how he begged for it. So eager, so sweet.” He says this all against Satoru’s skin, exhaling cool air across the wet marks he’d left with his teeth and tongue. Satoru shivers and inches closer, practically crawling up his form. He may have been taller, but he was willowy, moving along a breeze, moving whichever way Suguru twisted him.
By now, Satoru’s caught on. He’s pulling on Suguru’s hair, clutching at his neck, always demanding, always needing it right this very second. “Then what’d you do?” Satoru prompts as Suguru trails off, more concerned with the smooth, taut skin and pliant body now at his disposal. He can’t stop touching him. He’ll have to be pried off with a crowbar.
But bratty Satoru is insistent. Tell me more, get me there, he presses, a hand snaking underneath his shirt, fingers splaying out across the flat of his abdomen. His touch is so hot, burning him from the inside out and Suguru’s desperate for skin on skin, for Satoru in nothing but his fuzzy socks.
“I made him say my name,” he says as he roughly rucks Satoru’s shirt up his body, every exposed inch like a reward. “I made him fucking sing it.”
Satoru chokes, gripping Suguru’s face and pulling it to his just as his shirt comes off. Despite all they’ve done to stoke the fire between them, the kiss is soft, curious, a test to see if it’s really worth it. It’s the barest brush of lips, barely there at all, and yet Satoru’s pulse races wildly under his thumb, his fingers closing around the back of his neck as he holds him in place, wanting to enjoy this moment, wanting to relish in finally having it. More, is all he can think. More light, more water, more to help him grow.
He pulls back and pinches Satoru’s glasses between two fingers, ignoring his whine at the loss of contact and gently lifting them from his face. Satoru’s eyes fall shut, but the sun isn’t bothering him. He’s just waiting, waiting to see if another press of Suguru’s mouth will come. He wants it; wants to be kissed stupid, wants to be worshipped and pampered and loved by just one, by just him. So he does. He kisses him again, and again and again. He tastes like toothpaste, like coffee and sweet vanilla cream. This motion is as easy as breathing. He knows this mouth, this body. They’ve been here all this time, sitting quietly, patiently.
It’s nothing to lift him, to prop him on the counter and slant his lips over every bit of skin Suguru can reach. He tastes his chest and his collarbones, the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Satoru is practically molten, melting all over him as he drapes his long arms around Suguru’s neck, latching on and bringing him in with heels hooked around his back. The warmth of his thighs around Suguru’s waist changes things.
Suddenly, he is just so fucking hungry.
Suguru lays Satoru out on the floor, and it’s just as he pictured it. He is loose and languid, legs parting for him like water, hands tugging his shirt over his head, soft, needy gasps in his ear as he runs his hands over the smooth and pale expanse of his torso, the soft hairs trailing down to his groin, pinching his pink nipple until it runs red, Satoru yelping and squirming and clinging onto him.
Years of waiting, years of suppressing his feelings, and now with express permission, with enthusiastic encouragement as Satoru tugs on his hair and nips at his neck, there’s no reason to hold himself back any longer.
"How do you like it?" Suguru asks Satoru, as if he doesn't already know. He likes to be bent over, twisted in every position. He likes to gasp and moan and arch his back. He likes to scream and claw until there are tears in his eyes and he can't remember his own name.
Satoru's smile is a slow and devious draw, his fingers digging into either side of Suguru's waist, forcing him to grind his hips down, his arousal thick and pulsing and wet at the tip, so ready. Satoru's breath catches, his mouth falling open, an aching moan pulled from deep in his chest.
"Fuck me like you mean it," Satoru orders, and Suguru is always weak to his whims.