Chapter Text
he had read it in a book he no longer remembers the name of: ‘the slow crawl of time leads to inevitable changes of the world and the self.’ he sees it again and again and again; how time grows his hair long enough to pull into a bun and shrinks his body as his appetite evades him. how the foul taste of a curse gradually stops making him sick; how shoko’s hands no longer shake when stitching a wound; how satoru has become untouchable. looking back, he knows that he had been naive. for as observant as he was, he had been ignorant of how much could change in a single instant - until.
[ he remembers it vividly. riko had been smiling; teeth bared and face bright with joy and hope. she had never stopped smiling, even after the bullet shattered her skull, and even as suguru cradled her body in his arms and felt her breath slow to a stop. in a split second, the world as suguru knew it no longer existed. he had spent a lot of time in the weeks to follow wondering what life would be like if riko had survived. he would never know where the four of them would have ended up, but he knows that they would have been happy. ]
a year had crept by, sluggish and blurry, and suguru does not think he will ever feel at ease again. peace felt unfamiliar, and stagnancy uncomfortable. he had been blind; a stranger to the depths that human cruelty and desire could reach. he had felt untouchable back then, sitting above the rest on a pedestal shared only with satoru. the comfort that his ignorance had once allowed him to bask in now felt like a distant memory, nothing but a nostalgic ache in his chest. he had once welcomed the feeling of laughter bubbling up from his chest to his throat, shaking his body and bringing him to tears. he could once craft a genuine smile with ease, shaping his lips and baring his teeth into a gentle smile, coy smirk, or a proud grin. his chest feels hollow when he laughs now, like a cavity that cannot be filled. he has less to smile for; joy tastes unfamiliar.
they had been kept busy following the star plasma vessel incident. their training had intensified, and the number of missions assigned to them had increased; sometimes together, often alone. he had received the brief for his current mission an hour before departure: he was to investigate a report of two curse users, supposedly responsible for a recent string of misfortune in an isolated northern village.
after four hours of driving deeper and deeper into a quiet, dense forest, he is dropped off at the dead end of the lonely road. the car is quickly swallowed by the trees as it retreats, and suguru closes his eyes. even from a kilometer away, he is able to sense the energy he knows will guide him to his destination.
he opens his eyes, and begins to walk.