14/10/2021
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ㅤ 私が持っていた唯一の愛と私がこれまでに愛する唯一の人 [tw: JJK MANGA SPOILERS]
ㅤㅤㅤ BREAKING DOWN ∅ 日本では 2017
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"I’ll take care of it now" he said scarily calm and no one dared to say otherwise. It wouldn’t matter to Satoru if someone did anyways, he wouldn’t listen.
To be honest, Satoru never liked that room. Always too cold and too dark even if the lights were on, too uncomfortable to be in. He didn’t turn the lights of the ceiling on though, but rather choose a little lantern with a soft warm light even if Satoru knew nothing could make that awful basement warm. His head was hurting even if it wasn’t supposed to since he was running an inverse technique around his brain to keep that from happening, he was always his exception. His muscles and arms felt beaten and tired as well as if he had carried a heavy weight for hours or days; and even if he did carry something, it wasn’t for hours and it wasn’t heavy. Actually, Satoru thought, Suguru always felt lightweight in his arms. Although this time, he felt heavier.
He filled a bowl with water and brought it next to the litter, over a tiny metal table, alongside white towels he knew people (shoko) used to use for the labor. The truth’s that although he was aware of how the process of cleaning worked thanks to Ieiri, he had never done anything like that. And he never thought he would, to be honest, but there he was.
It was difficult to be precise about what he was thinking or feeling. He looked calm but tired. His body felt dizzy and tense at the same time (is that even possible?) as if he was in some kind of drug. Satoru turned off his brain and thoughts as soon as his work and responsibility, one he avoided for over ten years, was completed. As he was really used to keeping things to himself and letting any other people or concerns out, it wasn’t difficult to pretend it was okay. He saved the day and he smiled at his students, congratulated them, he talked about ‘him’. Though he didn’t smile at Shoko, Yaga, or any of the higher-ups. He neither cried nor talked to anyone after it was over and no one talked to him either, without a word everybody let him carry the co**se to the morgue. He moved automatically and without thinking because, for Satoru, thinking meant feeling, and feeling something at that moment meant being crushed. And he couldn’t do that just yet. So he endured. He shouted down his mind and allowed, as he always did when he was by his side, his body to do the work.
He numbly sank the white towel in the water for a few seconds with the patience you put into a ritual, patience he’d never had before, and then got close to his best friend.
Satoru took his hand and held it softly. Something very unlikely for him, but not strange to Getou at all, who would always hold him back with the same softness. Of course, he didn’t do it this time. He cleaned the blood now dry fondly, brushing through his harsh skin. And so he thought about how much he used to touch his hands and how many years had passed since the last time he got to do it. How much since he was able to rush his lips against his knuckles and to play with his fingers or squeeze them just to make him mad, or laugh, just to get his attention. Suguru’s hands were always harsh, strong, and firm… but somehow gentle. Satoru's, otherwise, were clumsy and kinda rude even though they looked elegant and thin. Just one of their many contradictions.
“He is always gentle,” he thought, so he made himself sure to be as careful as he knew Suguru would be in his place, as the water in the bowl was slowly inking red because everything has happened painfully slow. Before that, he undressed him without any hurry, even though every time he did it before it was anxious and messy as if they were running out of time. Now it has already run over, so he guessed he didn’t have to go that fast anymore.
His hand slid through his chest and the water ran through the pale skin, framing scars, and he let his fingertips trace them as well; the new ones and the ones he already knew before, and all those little fights and little pranks and little laughs and little things that only they knew. He thought about how they were always running out of time. And before he knew it, he was already thinking too much. Always running out of time. Timeless. Even when they were younger and they didn’t know they would have a deadline. And even if he found out about it, it didn’t matter, he ignored it because he was a fu***ng coward, a selfish little bastard and now it was too late to fix it.
Satoru surrounded the litter and then looked at Suguru’s face… He seemed calm, and even apart from the state of the body, he looked beautiful, as he always did. His eyes closed just as they were when he slept in his arms or when he would make fun of him, smiling at him. His lips before pink, now white, slightly parted away and dry and broken, something he would always fix with a kiss. And Satoru knew that it won’t fix it this time, but he did it anyways. He pressed his lips against Geto’s absently, with immense tenderness.
And it didn't fix it.
And it wasn’t the same because Suguru would always, without exception, reach him back, even when they were supposed to be enemies. He would always cup his face or his waist or his hands and he would always kiss him back. But he didn’t this time, of course. And even though Suguru’s hands and body were always at a lower temperature than the common, his lips were always warm, especially against Satoru's. And now they weren’t.
His hand crisped against the cloth he was holding and his throat closed. Satoru realized that it felt like hellfire inside him, acid, like his eyes and chest were burning down, almost melting as his memories were merciless opening paths through his wretched heart and mind until it got transformed into a crushing pain.
A sore shattered sound made it's way roughly through his gullet and it sounded as if someone was scratching his neck from inside, choking him, making it difficult to breathe, and the harder he tried the worst it was, every second it was more and more incontrollable, even if he tried to keep it calm.
And then a single tear slid through Suguru’s cheek to the table. Then another one, and another one over his lips and nose and forehead and everything, and his face started to look blurry and distorted even before Satoru could notice. The white-haired man took his own hand to cover his mouth in a helpless and desperate way to try to stop the wail that tried to come out. His heart got torn apart under his chest if someone crushed it or was slashed with a salted blade. And a hurtful lament came out of his mouth.
"Why the f**k, Suguru?" he cried out barely understanding and his fingers sank into his dead skin, as if he was desperate to keep even the slightest blow of life left in his body, even if he knew there wasn’t any. Because Suguru was dead.
And when that fact he already knew but keep avoiding became clear in his head, once it was impossible to ignore it anymore, to deny it, he broke down.
"What am I supposed to do without you!?" he screamed or he thought he screamed, because his voice was so shaky he could barely talk, he put effort in every word, messy and sloppy and he sounded so defeated, he could barely pronounce anything because he was hardly breathing; because his hand was so tight clinging to his dead body he didn’t felt it anymore, his fingers won’t respond and neither would his legs, that were shaking uncontrollably because he couldn’t keep himself together anymore. His knees stormed into the ground but he didn’t feel any pain because all of it, every inch of hurt he could feel was consuming his chest, wrenching him apart as he cried and cried and cried. He couldn't stop crying.
He cried so loud and so inconsolable that he started to cough, he really couldn’t breathe anymore, the feeling and the crying felt like the blood in his mouth, choking him, and his face was all swallowed and red and messy, and yet he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop crying, nor put himself together, he couldn't even stand up. So he stayed there on the cold floor, a miserable poor soul without a reason to exist anymore. As he cried he thought about Suguru, and how and when everything went so wrong, how did they end up like this, with him having to clean his dead body on Christmas evening? He cursed, he cursed so loud that probably everyone heard it, the higher-ups, jujutsu high, earth, heaven, and hell, he cursed himself because he was supposed to be strongest but there he was, unable to protect the love of his life. He cursed everyone, everybody, but Getou.