CHAPTER 11: POISON ROOT

CHAPTER 11: POISON ROOT

ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader

It disgusted you a little bit, needing them like a fiending addict. Living with yourself and yourself alone was starting to get old, though you aren’t sure how much left of you feels whole. You were always fruit split in between a blade, all the gory parts splayed out by the hand of someone greater than you.

ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , unprotected sex, drunk sex, threesome, oral sex, cumplay, phone sex, mentions of depression, angst, descriptions of mild gore

ੈ✩ wc: 7k

ੈ✩ a/n: here's a nice and fat chapter for you before we enter The Dark Ages <3

playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist

“Sorry, what?”

Yaga scowls at you and you’re unfazed. Mostly, you’re exasperated.

“I’ve repeated myself twice already,” he says calmly. More so brusquely, but you didn’t care enough to gauge his reaction. You’re too busy processing his words.

“I—I know, I’m sorry,” you mutter. “But why me? Shoko’s technique is way stronger than mine.”

“Shoko’s technique is not your technique. And unlike her, you actually engage in combat.”

“Because the boys forced me—”

He brings a hand to your shoulder in an attempt for reassurance. You freeze.

“Your technique is remarkable. Stronger than you think,” Yaga sighs, almost in resignation. He doesn’t seem particularly enthused about what he’s proposing to you, but you consider that you’d probably worn him down over the past half hour.

He rolls his eyes at the look on your face. Mouth parted like an animal struck with fear. 

“But—”

“There hasn’t been anyone with a technique like yours in over ten years. I remember it. I had a family friend as a teacher here first—she talked about a boy that could regenerate cells. Practiced on plants and small animals as a child until he was able to resurrect bigger ones at your age.”

“That boy isn’t me,” you protest, your brows furrowing.

“He isn’t,” Yaga snaps back. “He died, and his death could’ve been prevented. This is why I want you to do this. I want you to be strong enough so that the same thing doesn’t happen to you.”

You swallow and look down, pretending to be interested in your thumbs. Your hands are delicate compared to anyone else’s. You had always admired people who could make something out of nothing, people who sculpted, crafted. Sometimes, you often wonder if what you do could be considered the same.

You haven’t told anyone, but it’s easy to destroy things with your hands. Much easier than it is to build anything up, to heal. 

You’d tried it during long walks through the forest. On your way back from solo missions, you’d take routes that were less traveled, needing to clear your head. Once or twice, you remember finding animals that were victims of hunting. Broken limbs, bleeding out too much for you to save. You’d practice the darker parts of your technique, letting quick rot take away their misery.

“For how long?”

“Just two months. July and August.”

You take a deep breath. You could be alone in Kyoto for two months. The boys would survive. At least, you think Suguru would.

When you tell Satoru the next day, it’s a disaster.

“You’re what?”

“Satoru,” you warn, crossing your arms. 

Dealing with him is arduous. You knew he would react this way. He looks at you with irritation, nipping at your bare thigh just to see you pout. You were in the middle of reading when he had barged in, craving the scent of your moisturizer on your inner thighs. Needed the whipped softness of your flesh squeezed in between his hands after some heated sparring with Suguru.

“You can’t.”

“That’s not your decision—”

“You can’t. What did that old man say? Some other guy had your technique and died?”

“I’m not going to die!” you huff, rolling your eyes. 

Satoru frowns, his blue eyes glowing. He was free of missions for the past week, treating you to dates whenever he could. It seems that you’ve ruined his bliss. That ugly thought in his head festered in his mind again — the need to possess you. Trap you in a glass cage to stay alive forever like you were his enchanted rose.

“Like hell you won’t,” he mutters. “Which is why you’re staying.”

“I want to get stronger, Satoru.”

“You didn’t even want to be a sorcerer in the first place! And now you’re desperate to train with your little cell regeneration? Are you gonna dabble in necromancy?”

You frown at his condescending tone. He isn’t taking you seriously. He never does. Satoru has always had his way of belittling others, but he’d sworn to never do that to you given your history. You take a deep breath.

“It’s just… an independent study, alright? This could help me in the future. I could go to medical school with Shoko or something, you know? If you’re so scared of me dying because of combat, then I could just focus on the regeneration part and—”

“And what about the other part? How you make things rot and disintegrate?” he asks you incredulously, nearly snarling.

“That’s another thing I can learn to control.”

“But–”

“I didn’t have private lessons like you! I’m not a prodigy like you. Can I just have this one thing?” you plead with exhaustion. You can see the way his eyes flicker with a quiet rage, his mouth turned down into a pout. Petulant even at his big age.

Satoru sighs heavily. He nuzzles his face into your hand, kissing the heartline. You almost feel proud of yourself for not giving into him before the conversation began. He’d come into your room wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves messily cut off, exposing the hard lines of his stomach. Just a gaze had ripped away your autonomy, brain dumb at the sight of him. 

You wanted to lick him clean before he opened his damn mouth.

“I won’t tell you what to do,” he says in defeat.

“Thanks.”

You sit with him for a while, staring at the ceiling, hair strewn around your pillow. Silence fills the air save for the sound of his breathing. Eventually, he curls into you, nose into your bare shoulder as he mumbles unintelligible things. His mouth in the shape of I’ll miss you.

“I know,” you murmur. “I will, too.”

__

Suguru copes by getting buzzed in the daytime. He liked the hope on your face, how the light hit your eyes in a certain way. It meant something more. He knew that you were worth more.

Lately, Suguru feels like less.

Not particularly less than anyone else, though he knows that he’s certainly less than Satoru just by default. He remembers the mission all too clearly—it’s the only thing that haunts his nightmares. The blankness on Satoru’s face, his willingness to kill a group of people just for the sake of it.

He thought he’d lost Satoru forever, that he’d fucked up the mission by letting a bullet go through Riko’s head. But then, of course, Satoru survived. Of course Satoru found a way to bring himself back to life. Everything should be fine, because Satoru came out alive, and so did he. So did you.

It didn’t feel like enough. The taste of curses started to get worse, if that was even possible. Suguru has been starting to believe that he didn’t deserve anything palatable. That the universe was working against him maybe, because his depressive spirals last longer now.

And you’re fucking leaving.

He knows he can have you whenever he wants, but he likes to lick the taste of you out of Satoru’s mouth. 

He bites Satoru’s lip and it makes the boy yelp.

“What the hell was that for?” Satoru pouts. Suguru only grins wolfishly. 

“Thought you wanted me to make you feel better. You don’t like it rough?”

“Of course I like it rough,” Satoru grunts. “But you know I hate teeth.”

“On your dick.”

Satoru pauses, rolling his eyes, then sinks his teeth into Suguru’s neck instead. 

“You smell like a dive bar. It’s fucking 3 pm.”

“Day off, bitch,” Suguru mutters.

Satoru pushes Suguru against the mattress and spoons him, rutting against his ass. It’s always a little violent with them. You used to joke about it—something about dogs and masculinity. Satoru kept wanting to fuck like it was a cage match. Bull-headed, annoying. For Suguru, intimacy always felt like a car crash no matter who it was with.

“You’re not fucking my ass,” Suguru mumbles.

Satoru whines childishly, of course.

“Ran out of lube.”

“Spit?” Satoru begs, his eyes comically large.

“Fuck you, dude,” Suguru scoffs.

“I’m trying!”

Suguru turns to fall onto the bed facing Satoru, then shoves his head downward. He feels numb despite his throbbing cock. He knows Satoru’s mouth is probably watering for him.

“C’mon,” Suguru slurs, unzipping his shorts. “You need to work on giving head.”

“Hey!”

“Not my fault she does it better than you.”

Satoru huffs but leans over the end of the bed anyway, his limbs too long to crouch on the bed. He spits on Suguru’s cock and pumps agonizingly slowly, coaxing out guttural sounds vibrating out of the boy’s throat.

For once, Suguru feels a little powerful when the Jujutsu world’s boy-god chokes over his dick. He looks down and pushes his head down, reveling in the sound of him gagging, throat slack. Not as good as you, but getting better. The drool makes him look pretty. It matched the glazed look in Satoru’s eyes.

Suguru nearly finishes right then and there, the barbed wire inside of his body starting to untangle until there’s a knock on his door. Of course you knock—the polite girl you are.

“S’unlocked,” he calls after you. Satoru makes a noise. Something in between a moan and a sound of protest.

Suguru likes your wide eyes. You’re out of your school uniform, dressed in a white number with embroidered flowers at the hem that hits halfway above your knees.

“Oh… I—”

“C’mere, baby,” Suguru rasps, his hand reaching out for you. He’s so close, threading his fingers through Satoru’s hair before pulling at his snowy mop.

Satoru coughs, his throat raw. It makes Suguru laugh. You watch like you’re outside of your own body, eyes wide. It was easy for them to get you under a spell. 

It doesn’t take long for their hands to grope you, have your dress pooling at your waist so that your bare ass is on display. Heathens. Being with them was always like throwing yourself to the wolves.

“So wet,” Suguru groans, circling a finger in the heat hiding behind your underwear. “Wanted a proper send-off, angel? Gonna miss us all the way in Kyoto, aren’t you?”

You can’t respond when your head is already so dizzy with Satoru’s teeth on your collarbone.

“Don’t talk about that, I’ll lose my boner,” Satoru huffs. 

“What a baby.”

“Stop arguing,” you roll your eyes. 

Suguru decides to be selfish, his dick already out and pulsing from the tease of Satoru’s tongue. He slides it along your folds, wetness pooling right underneath him. It makes him groan, his insides white-hot. He’d been craving this since he’d woken up this morning. The heat was making his moodiness deliquesce into desperation burning like acid in his stomach. He needed you and Satoru like a bullet begging to be lodged, piercing out of a bannister.

“Not fair,” Satoru grumbles, his knees bent as he gropes you. Rutting against the mattress pathetically as he whines, his desperation puppy-like. 

His mouth is salty, leftover from Suguru’s precum. His hair smelled like Suguru’s too—he must’ve been copying his hair routine for the hell of it. It was enough to keep him close without asking to sew himself into the boy’s skin. 

Suguru looks down at you and your blissed-out face, vulnerable before he’s even entered you. Your mouth is wet from Satoru’s kisses, spit drooling out of the corner of your pink mouth. Suguru smears it around and already imagines himself pulling out of you to finish there instead, just to see it on your lips. He’d like to see you cry again one last time.

You hum when you’re filled with him. Stuttering hips hitting slack thighs. Soft despite the violence inside him, the little voice in his head taunting him to wreck you. 

He likes you like this, first. Daisy-soft, his fingers in your mouth until you gag. Yelping in time with Satoru’s stupid whines. 

“Twigs,” Satoru breathes, his hot breath fanning your jaw. “Can I put it in your ass?”

You groan, shaking your head as Suguru howls with laughter. 

__

July, 2010

Gakuganji has you on a leash. It hasn’t even been a week and you’ve already gone on two missions, each that ended with you covered in blood, but luckily unscathed. Satoru would have a fit if he knew. The ghost of him hovers on your shoulder at your weakest moments — taunting you, challenging you. You know he wouldn’t be as cruel if he was with you physically, but your psyche conjures him in a way that feels like punishment. 

You can’t escape him, either. He’s needier than you expect — visiting you during off times during your weekends, treating them like serendipitous encounters. You don’t believe him, and you shouldn’t. 

(He warps to you when he gets in fights with Suguru. When he gets too horny to find someone at a bar, because if it’s not Suguru, it’s you. But he could never tell you that.)

You like to keep yourself busy in Kyoto. Whether it’s immersing yourself in your studies or practicing your technique, you can occupy yourself easily, even if you’re bombarded by images of veiny hands, long black hair, pink mouths. Blue eyes that are too bright, even in your dreams. 

You spend most of your time by yourself, anyway. It’s what you need. If not that, then you’re at the local bars with Utahime-senpai, who transferred to Kyoto months before. 

“Are you their little plaything?” she teases. You’re loosened up after a few beers, all on her tab, but the mention of the boys sobers you up immediately. You scowl.

“What?” She holds her hands up in surrender. “Everybody knows… Shoko kind of already told me.”

“Of course she did,” you snort.

“I’m just saying, you should be careful. They’re insatiable. And never in their right mind. I could advocate for Geto-kun, but I’m sure Gojo’s already corrupted him.”

Corrupted. It’s a funny notion. You wonder if you’ve been corrupted by both of them. Satoru as your first didn’t bother you. To have Suguru as your second only complicated things. You haven’t known anything else but them. You aren’t sure if this should concern you until Utahime talks about it.

“They’re kind of the same in that way,” you mumble.

“Are they both your boyfriends?” Utahime giggles.

“N-No…”

“So it’s not serious? I know I’m not much older than you, but I still went through a few flings. You shouldn’t let them keep you on a chain.”

“They’re not–”

“Are you sure?” she laughs. “You’ve been checking your phone every five minutes. It’s like they brainwashed you.”

“Hime,” you frown.

“I’m just saying,” she shrugs. “There are lots of men around here staring at you.”

“No, there aren’t.”

“Someone is staring at you right now. Behind you. Blonde. Tacky if he wasn’t like, a little hot like he is.”

“Shut up.”

She gives you a pointed look that causes you to look over your shoulder. Lo and behold, there is a man of that description making glances at you with a cocky smirk. It reminds you of the way Satoru looks at you. It makes your stomach flip.

“See?”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you mumble.

You move past the crowd to the single stall, plastered in posters from vintage porn magazines and graffiti. Your phone’s about to die, but the group chat with you and the boys has unread messages. It’s mostly Satoru complaining, arguing with Suguru about things that you couldn’t care less about. There are separate messages from them, too. Satoru’s suggestive selfies and Suguru’s words of affirmation. You scoff at the difference between them.

When you return, Utahime grins at you like she’s plotting.

“What did you do?” you narrow your eyes.

“He came over here! I knew it. He was interested in you,” she beams.

“What?”

“Relax. He’s a sorcerer. And I gave him your number.”

“Hime!” You shove her arm lightly, groaning when she laughs.

“You need to get laid by someone who isn’t an idiot.”

You roll your eyes. The many beers are making your head swim too much for you to actually be angry. If anything, your cheeks feel warm at the prospect of someone else being interested in you. It’s not something you’ve experienced in your youth, or now for that matter, since Satoru had sunken his teeth in you so quickly.

Images of him talking to other girls at parties flash in your mind, making you grimace. Maybe Utahime was doing you a favor.

The bachelor in question is nowhere to be found. You curse yourself for not getting a good look at him. A pit forms in your stomach at the idea of him texting you – a handsome stranger who watched you babble drunkenly to Utahime. It occurred to you that you hadn’t even considered yourself something desirable in a context that wasn’t bound to Satoru or Suguru.

On the walk home, the thought consumes you. You aren’t sure if you even know yourself without them. During most of your life, you’ve only known obedience. Intimacy with Satoru was no different, you realize. You were wrapped around his finger since you were children – it didn’t matter that you were apart for years. It would always be him.

You aren’t sure if this bothers you or not. You try to push the thought away, shaking your head slightly as if daydreams of him would fall out of your head. It doesn’t work, not really. You’re drunk. Naturally, you think of his pink mouth. The veins on his hands.

You unlock the door of your room. When you enter, darkness envelops you, which you’re used to, if not for the bright blue eyes that stare back at you. 

“Jesus!” you mutter, cursing to yourself once you can get the nearest lamp on. 

“What? Not happy to see me?” he slurs, flashing you a sloppy smile. 

“Can you at least give me a heads-up before you show up randomly?”

“That ruins the surprise, baby,” he purrs, walking over to you to set his hands on your hips.   Trapping you gently. 

“You’re drunk.”

“Hm?”

“You’re. Drunk. Why are you here?” 

“Had a mission nearby. Then I went to a bar to relax. And then, I thought, warping to Tokyo would take too much for a drunk. Why not stay here?”

“I’m not a motel.”

“C’mon, baby,” he pouts. “You’re not gonna kick me out, are you?”

You scoff, moving past him to sit on your bed and take off your shoes.

Satoru chuckles, taking a seat right next to you, thigh touching yours. “You’re drunk, too. I can smell it.”

“I haven’t even been here for a full month and this is like, the third time you’ve surprised me. What’s going on with you?”

“What? Can’t miss my lover?”

He says lover like it’s an inside joke. He never says girlfriend. Never partner.

“You’re so needy.”

“You like me that way,” Satoru says, his voice velvety. He’s not in his uniform, but a light blue button-down and slacks. You wonder if he’s planned this or if he dressed up for someone else, running to you as the safest option because you’re always there. Always willing.

You’d been ready to sink into your shitty mattress and dream of him. You hadn’t been anticipating the real thing in front of you. It was stupid, how he took your breath away, as if he was still something new to you. As if he hadn’t been in the back of your mind since you were a little kid, always.

“I’m tired, Satoru,” you sigh.

“You sure?” he grins. “You smell like beer. Still trying to have some fun tonight?”

You narrow your eyes at him and he laughs. He comes closer, pinching the meat of your thigh right under the hem of your skirt, chuckling when you swat his hand away.

“So short. Who’s this for, huh?” he taunts.

You swallow back an insult the moment you look down at the way his large hands play with a loose thread of your skirt. How large they are compared to your thigh, the calloused tips of his fingers running circles in your skin.

“No one,” you breathe.

“You cheating on me, Twigs?”

“Yeah, with Utahime,” you roll your eyes.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that. Sounds hot, to be honest.”

Your cursed energy flares. You hate when he belittles you, but you could never do anything about it. You could only fall into his trap, giving into him the way he knows you will. You don’t even notice that he’s caged you within his arms, his hands settling on your hips as his body backs you into your bed. The back of your knees hit the mattress.

His breath smells sweet. It usually does, but it’s something sour this time. Something citrusy, along with the smell of something much too alcoholic. One of those whiskey sours, you guessed. You don’t realize how drunk he is until you look him in the eyes, his blue irises unfocused despite the desperation in his gaze.

“Of course not,” he grins, leaning in to inhale your scent. “You’d never. My sweet girl. My best girl, right?”

“You say that like I’m one of many,” you scoff.

“Are you jealous?” he rumbles, laughing. “As if there’s anyone else I like as much as you…”

He says girl and you think of Suguru. An exception, just barely. You realize how much you miss him, too.

Your eyes flutter closed as Satoru backs you into your bed, teeth grazing your earlobe. You aren’t sure if it’s him or the drunkenness of your brain. You don’t even notice his fingers massaging your thighs, trailing up to hook your underwear to the side to tease your dripping core. It’s his teasing laughter that snaps you awake.

“So wet… did you know I was coming, baby? Or were you expecting someone else?”

You don’t answer. Your breath hitches at the contact of his eager fingers prodding you, pushing upwards into your pulsating cunt before you can protest. The wounded noise you make only spurs him on further.

“You went to a bar, right? Were you thinking about me when you were there? Got yourself all wound up?”

You don’t reply. He’s too busy pushing his fingers to the very edge, stimulating the spot that makes your knees buckle before you can even form a thought.

You gasp, your mouth parting. Slack-jawed, eyes rolling back as you get closer to the edge before he’s even inside you. It could be pathetic if you cared, but Satoru always made everything around you melt, like you weren’t in your own mind anymore. You accepted being a body that belonged to him, nothing more.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he breathes, his lips tickling your jaw. “You’re so quiet.”

“Satoru,” you sigh. His other hand rubs the small of your back, touching the bare skin underneath your thin shirt.

He digs his fingers in further, knuckle-deep until he hears you make a pained noise. He grins at your broken moan like he’d just won a prize. He doesn’t stop, either — he wanted to hear more of those sounds out of your mouth. It was proof that you were still his, wrapped around his finger. 

You try to catch your breath as you lay back on your bed, his strong arms hoisting you up to the wall. You hiss at the feeling of his teeth on your thighs, biting desperately. Satoru was already sweating despite only coaxing bliss from you once. 

He claws at you, pulling at the buttons of your blouse and tugging your skirt down until you’re left bare for him. He groans at the sight of your silky skin, the way your chest heaves in anticipation. Everything about you is ripe, ready to break underneath his hands.

He’s less vocal this time when he takes you, pushing into you before you can say anything. He doesn’t realize how drunk he is until he does this, considering every sense of his was numb until he entered you, igniting his synapses on fire. 

You whimper from the abruptness, aching between your legs. You think that you would’ve bled if you weren’t so in love with him, but you knew better. Anything from him made your entire body warm and pliant, wet beyond your comprehension. You hated it, sometimes.

But you couldn’t hate anything about it now. You were doused in bliss.

“My girl,” he slurs. “So fucking perfect. Say it.”

You mutter nonsense under your breath.

He bends you in half, your calves resting on his broad shoulders. He chuckles at your pathetic whines.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Fuck — I – I’m your girl,” you sob.

“My perfect girl,” he mutters, correcting you. He groans when he looks down at you, his hips stuttering. His thrusts are harder than usual on purpose — he’d rather die than tell you that he’d only warped to you because he was having a panic attack in his room alone. 

He thought he could get his mind off of you, off of Suguru, who he’d assumed was angry with him all day. There were only dry texts from the both of you. No woman at the bar could compete, even if he managed to get a decent handjob in the bathroom. He could only think of you. 

Satoru knew you’d hate him for it. He was disgusted with himself. He feels it now, aching inside the cavern of his chest when you moan his name, knowing he doesn’t deserve a praising word out of your mouth.

He whines, on the verge of tears as he rides out his orgasm in your cunt. 

“Shit,” he hisses into the skin of your neck.

You can barely reply before he kisses down your stomach, licking himself out of you with his nails digging into your thighs.

“Satoru, what are you—oh, fuck—”

“Cum for me,” he slurs, lapping at your clit as he pushes his fingers into you. He pauses, mesmerized at the way his cum drips out of you, only for his fingers to push it back into the hilt, up to his knuckles.

You sob in protest, your thighs shaking as he plays with you. He doesn’t stop for a second. It’s almost as if he doesn’t realize you’re there, his heavy-lidded gaze fixed on the way your pussy swallows his fingers.

“S’too much,” you whine, grasping his wrist tightly.

“Fuckin’ love you,” he murmurs under his breath. You don’t hear him. Your body convulses as he continues to play you like an instrument. He only stops when he looks up to see tears pricking your eyes.

“S-Satoru…”

“Fuck,” he mutters. He finally retracts, licking his fingers as he looks at you intensely. “Mine… you’re all mine.”

The glassy look in his eyes is from the alcohol, you assume, but there’s something tantalizingly too real about the expression on his face. Raw with something he only buries inside his gut. He snaps out of it like it’s not something you’re supposed to see. 

He grunts when he lays his head on your lap, his fingers digging into your skin possessively as you tremble. You prop your head up on your pillow, trying to catch your breath as you stroke his hair.

“Why’d you get so drunk?” you ask quietly. “Were you alone?”

“Of course I was,” he scoffs, almost defensive. But he smells a sweetness on his skin that isn’t from you, and he knows you’ve already picked up on it. 

“You could’ve texted or called me instead of breaking into my dorm.”

“You just hate fun,” Satoru mumbles. 

Despite his attitude, he rubs his cheek against your thigh like he’s a pet. He thinks about taking you again, just to shut you up — enough to have both of you sweating, the musk of your sex drowning out any remnants from the bitch that Satoru had tried to use hours before.

Nothing could replace you and he had to live with that. 

He nips at your thigh, his mouth getting dangerously close to your core. You whine as you pull him back by his scalp, like the scruff of a dog. Satoru is always insatiable when he’s drunk, which is saying something considering what he’s like sober. His cravings for you are always intense. When he’s not in his right mind, you’re more considered prey than a craving.

You don’t have the energy to respond to him. His warmth satiates you for now as he locks his arms around your bare waist. The light breathing fanning your stomach calms you.

When you wake up, he’s nowhere to be found, but there’s a small floral arrangement on your desk. White orchids and blue hyacinths.

___

August, 2010 

You hate bringing anything back to life as much as you hate desecration.

It’s unnatural — though you know that nothing about the Jujutsu world is natural. Everything to you is a myth you have to deal with. After knowing Satoru for so long and seeing what nasty curses humanity could birth, you shouldn’t be stunted.

It makes you feel a bit ill when you realize how much power your hands wield. As ordinary as you’ve always been, these days you often wish that you were the true epitome of it. Only human, unable to see the horrors of the world. Left in the dark when it came to sorcery. Perhaps you aren’t cut out for this, despite how much you tried to convince Satoru you were.

His voice echoes in your mind. His pleading. The ways he wanted to protect you. He’d belittled your technique for a reason, maybe. You aren’t sure you’re cut out for this shit.

Necromancy is only exciting the first couple of times. After that, it’s the reanimation of body parts that freaks you out. It doesn’t matter that it’s the revival of small birds and rodents on a lab table. You feel like you’re playing God and not even doing a decent job of it.

It catches up to you in your dreams. The image of you getting held down, leaving you to resort to your technique. Rotting flesh. Even in your unconscious, the smell is somehow striking, as if you’re really there. Other times, you find horror in the reanimation of corpses under your hand. Split limbs coming together. Limbs that belong to people you love.

Tonight, you’re shaken by the image of Suguru mauled beyond belief. Sacrilegious violence that makes your stomach turn. 

When you wake up in a sweat, gasping, the alarm clock on your bedside table reads 1:12 am. You dial his number before you can even come to your senses.

“Twigs.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

You hear Suguru chuckle, deep and sweet like teeth sunken into cake. You’re filled with warmth almost immediately. 

“What’s up? Isn’t it past your bedtime?” he breathes.

“Had a nightmare,” you mumble.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” you sigh. 

“Fine. What are you thinking about, then?”

“You,” you mumble.

There’s silence on the other end. Despite this, you can still hear his grin. You can see his little smirk perfectly in your head. 

“Yeah?” his voice lowers. “What about me?”

“Y-your hands,” you mumble. “You make me feel safe.”

“Is that right?”

You make a small noise that shows your agreement, but it’s noncommittal. You hum at the thought of him. You’re sleep-dazed, partially wishing for this moment that he was more like Satoru. Able to talk your ear off without any effort from your end.

Suguru had always known you differently. He had you memorized as much as Satoru did, but uniquely, given the similarities between your personalities. He knew how you worked and he never held it against you.

Satoru would probably try to pry it out of you. Suguru would already know.

And at this moment, he knows. It’d be infuriating if you didn’t see it coming.

“You’re upset,” Suguru says.

“No.”

“You are. Or you’re pent up, which is also like being upset. Need some catharsis?”

“Maybe,” you mumble.

“Tell me what’s wrong, then. Or tell me about your nightmare.”

“No.”

He laughs. 

“Stubborn as always,” he purrs.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” you whisper.

“You want to hear me be mean to you. You like not being in control. That’s what makes you feel safe, isn’t it, princess?”

“Shut up.”

“C’mon, baby,” he laughs. “Give me something to work with.”

Your eyes nearly glaze over as you watch the flickering lights outside of your dorm. A broken street lamp flashes on and off, shadowing your room in darkness only to illuminate seconds later, back and forth. Unpredictably so. You aren’t sure what else you should look at while you’re still so drunk on Suguru’s voice. You think maybe you’d handle this phone call better if you were far from sober.

“I fucked someone else yesterday.”

The line goes silent. Your heartbeat picks up.

After almost an eternity, you hear Suguru’s voice again. It’s soft, almost cooing. It feels awfully dangerous despite this.

“Yeah? Who?”

You swallow thickly. 

“This guy who got my number last month. Like, I didn’t give it to him — Utahime did,” you ramble. “But then we started texting and stuff and he’s… funny. He, uh, came over yesterday.”

“Did you like it?”

You imagine your throat closes up. Part of you wishes it would, that you’d just pass out immediately for no reason just so you didn’t have to have this conversation. You curse yourself for even bringing it up.

“Y-Yes.”

“You don’t sound so sure about that,” he chuckles.

“I am…”

“You don’t have to be so scared, baby. I know that Satortu took away your virginity, but he’s not some kind of god watching over you.”

“I know,” you huff.

“But you feel guilty, don’t you? Like you’re betraying him?” he teases.

You open your mouth to say something, then close it. You notice how he talks about Satoru and not himself.

“Do you care?”

“I know how you feel about me.” His answer is simple. Blunt. It almost sounds sarcastic, but Suguru often talks like he’s cock-sure about everything. Even if he isn’t, he’s always held a certain confidence that was different from what Satoru exuded. 

Satoru was a bad liar, to you, at least.

“Tell me about your boy. What’s his name?”

“He’s not–” you gruff. “Naoya. His name is Naoya.”

“That Zenin brat?”

“Huh?”

“He’s in the Zenin clan. A right bastard, I’ve heard.”

“He seems fine,” you mumble.

“Someone’s defensive,” he teases.

You pause, staring at the darkness of your ceiling. You fix your shorts, your fingers grazing the wetness of your core. You didn’t even realize you were aroused.

“I should go back to sleep,” you whisper.

“I thought you couldn’t. That’s why you called me, right? You need some help?”

“I don’t need help,” you scoff. “I just… I had a nightmare and wanted to talk to you.”

Suguru smiles. He knows you can’t see it, but he’s beaming in the darkness of his room. He’d been restless for the past few days after some disagreements with Satoru. He tried to blame the heat on physical altercations — the sun burning down to rev up the irritation in their shared systems like they were still boys. Always wanting to pin each other to the ground.

They didn’t have you to mediate, so they’d come out of arguments with bruises. Marks from skin tugged too harshly. The ghost of teeth biting down on flesh. 

“I wish you were here, babygirl,” he sighs, his tone desperate. You almost cringe at it — you always assume he’s playing with you.

“Yeah?” you snort.

“Mhm. It’s funny. You didn’t even wake me up when you called. I was already awake, thinking of you.”

“Were you, now?”

“Mhm,” Suguru hums.  “I just kept thinking about your thighs. How small your leg is compared to my hand.”

Your breath hitches and he almost laughs when he hears it.

“Can you do something for me, baby?” he asks. “Want you to touch yourself. Tell me how wet you are.”

You gulp. Your fingers prod at the hem of your athletic shorts, the nylon riding up as you squirm in your bed. Your index and middle fingers prod at the center of your core experimentally. You’re fucking dripping and it makes your breath hitch.

Suguru calls your name.

“I”m…” you stammer. “I’m wet. Why?”

“Poor thing. Maybe that’s why you can’t sleep, no?”

“I-I’m fine… I just—”

“You should play with your clit. Since I can’t be there to do it for you,” he breathes.

“What?”

“C’mon, sweetheart. I can tell my favorite girl just needs to relax. That’s why you called me, right?”

You whimper. It was maybe half-true. Suguru had stopped answering his texts as frequently as he usually did, and you missed the sound of his voice. The odd ache in your chest wasn’t something that you felt like exposing to anyone else, not even Satoru.

The silk of Suguru’s voice brings you back. You wanted to breathe him in, but he hadn’t visited like he said he would. Didn’t have the warping feature that Satoru had, which to this day, still startled you whenever it happened. Ocean eyes whipping your senses from thin air, like a lightning strike. 

Despite your recent gripes about him, you needed the both of them like you needed air. At least to make it all more bearable. It disgusted you a little bit, needing them like a finding addict. Living with yourself and yourself alone was starting to get old, though you aren’t sure how much left of you feels whole. You were always fruit split in between a blade, all the gory parts splayed out by the hand of someone greater than you.

You needed Suguru’s musk, his hair in between your fingers as he rocked into you. Your hands were too small compared to his. 

He has you panting, sweating through Kyoto’s mugginess. The dorms were in even worse shape here than on the main Tokyo campus, probably why Gakuganji was such a vapid old man. Everything was too hot and falling off the bone.

“I feel like I’m hallucinating. It’s like I can smell you through the phone,” Suguru murmurs, his voice like a mirage. You’d laugh if you weren’t so deep in your cunt, fingers pruning and pushed to the knuckles. 

Suguru knew you would do anything for him, so he made you torture yourself because he wasn’t there to do it himself.

Your groans are muffled from you smothering your face in the sheets, knees pressing down and ass up. Willing to humiliate yourself without him even being there.

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up already,” he chides.

“I’m not,” you whine.

“How many times have you cum?”

“None.”

He laughs. “What are you thinking about?”

“You know what.” 

You’re close to tears by the time he lets you cum. The sound of his voice hitting you deep in your core, insides permeated with the thought of him. Sweeter than smoked sugar.

It was the sound of his grunt that tipped you over, imagining him with black strands sticking to his high cheekbones with sweat. The apples of his face candy-pink. Where Satoru looked cherubic, Suguru looked like a girl’s first wet dream. 

“Were you touching yourself?” you pant, coming down from your high. You don’t bother putting on your underwear again.

“Obviously,” he groans. The vibrations of his voice made the speaker blow off-kilter like the audio of a shitty VHS. “Came all over myself.”

You could fall asleep to the sound of his static hums. The chaos in your gut is settled by the time your alarm clock strikes devil’s hour.

“How are things?” you ask sleepily.

“With me?” Suguru asks. “Fine. Same as always.”

“You sound tired.”

“It’s three in the morning, sweetheart,” he chuckles dryly.

“Mm. My phone bill’s gonna be so high.”

“Get Satoru to pay for it.”

The bastard probably would, if you asked.

You don’t get much out of Suguru for the remainder you’re awake. His answers are deflective and clipped. He hangs up by the time he hears you breathing, knowing you’ve fallen asleep.

He sighs in his room, rummaging for his pills. If nightmares didn’t keep him up, then the sheer unwillingness of his brain’s tranquility was often enough for him to run a graveyard shift. Stumbling in the dark, half-dead. He’d gotten productive in finishing the video games he’d started with Satoru by himself. Not much else.

His throat feels dry. He couldn’t differentiate the tastes of anything anymore. It all tasted like curses.

___

You keep having dreams about Suguru.

Tonight, there’s two of him.

One is the image you’re used to – hair swept up in a bun. Broad chest in his Jujutsu Tech uniform. Eyes crinkling into half moons.

The other seems to be an alter ego. A cursed version, one with eyes to kill and blood on his hands. Hands that are trying to tear you apart.

When you grip his wrist, you can see the imprint of your hand on his skin. Flesh falling away, much too easily. The air around you splinters like you’re in a glitched matrix. The Suguru you know and love falters beside you, his skin suddenly sallow. Pale as bile.

When you scream, nothing comes out.

Pseudo-Suguru smiles as your Suguru fades away into ash. You stare into his cat-like gaze, the familiar of his mouth. 

“Come with me,” he says. 

It’s the last thing you hear before your body wakes you up in a sweat. You gasp as you jolt awake, fingers curling your damp bedsheets. You’re further startled by the crack of thunder as a torrential downpour occurs without warning — unusual for late August, considering the rainy season had died down weeks prior. 

You sit up and reach for your phone almost automatically, your hands shaking as you go through your contacts. Your fingers hover over two names as you swallow thickly.

A few beeps follow the push of the call button.

“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”