Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gods

Suguru POV

Suguru notices.

Of course he does. They’ve been glued together since childhood, long before they even knew what it meant to choose a friend, a best friend. Back then, their families chose for them.

Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo — heirs of two dynasties whose names held enough weight in the business world to crush anyone beneath them.

It was inevitable they’d be thrown in the same classrooms, dressed in the same uniforms, sitting at the same long tables at private dinners where the adults drank too much and whispered too loudly about mergers and markets.

Boring, but necessary, or so they told him.

He’d hated those dinners. Satoru never did.

Satoru turned them into a stage, grinning too wide, laughing too loud, throwing jabs across the table until even his father’s face twitched in irritation. 

He was born knowing how to bend a room.

Suguru? He learned to watch Satoru, to study the silences around him, to see the hairline cracks no one else wanted to admit were there. He knew Satoru was putting on a show to entertain him now, and later he would be corrected by his father.

Didn’t matter how many times Suguru told him it wasn’t necessary, Satoru would always brush him off saying things like ‘Enjoy the show while it’s free, soon people will have to pay to see me perform.”

And that’s why, when they’re sixteen, Suguru knows the first time Satoru snorts coke.

It’s in some lacquered bathroom at a classmate’s house party, the music too loud, the air thick with perfume and beer, the kind of scene Satoru thrives in completely. He tilts his head back, thumb pressing against one nostril, sniffs hard and then flashes Suguru that careless wild grin, like he’s done nothing more than sip from a soda can.

“It helps me think faster!” Satoru says, nose red, eyes brighter than they should be, pupils growing and turning the bright blues into black voids.

Suguru doesn’t call him on it then.

He lets his shoulders sag and tells himself it’s just experimenting, just one of the thousand stupid things Satoru does because he’s bored, because he can with no repercussions, because his family won’t support his dreams of becoming an artist.

Everyone’s got a vice at that age, he thinks. Better coke than crashing his father’s imported car into a tree and dying.

But then the years stack, and Suguru watches it shift from a stupid thing to something bigger, worse.

By the time they’re in college, music school against the Gojo family’s wishes, Suguru sees how it hooks its claws in.

He knows the tells now — the way Satoru’s knee never stops bouncing when he’s high, the way his jaw clenches and releases as if chewing on something invisible, the way he talks faster, louder, convinced he’s stringing brilliance together when half of it comes out as chaotic tangents no one else can follow.

Suguru laughs along, because he always does to keep Satoru from spiraling. But in private, his stomach knots.

His best friend is being dragged under.

He knows the pressure that drives it. The Gojos don’t waste words on subtlety. Every phone call, every meeting, every dinner — it’s the same script.

“Music is a child’s hobby, not a life.”, and “Once this phase ends,” they say, “you’ll come back to the firm, take your place where you belong. Don’t embarrass us further.”

It doesn’t matter that Satoru is brilliant. That he’s been brilliant since the day he was born.

That when he stands on a stage, mic in hand, he can command more people with one note than his family ever could with money.

That brilliance doesn’t count in their world.

Suguru sees it hollow him out. The coke isn’t just to “think faster” anymore. It’s armor. It’s the shield Satoru straps on before he walks into another lecture knowing he hasn’t slept in two nights. It’s the fuel that lets him stay up until dawn scribbling lyrics and melodies like if he stops for even a second the music will vanish.

And Suguru lets him.

Because every time he tries to bring it up, Satoru laughs, says, “What, you jealous? Want a line?” and the moment passes, smoothed over with that grin that’s half charm, half dare.

His best friend is an impossible man.

But then comes the night Suguru can’t laugh it off.

It’s winter, second year.

Their apartment reeks of smoke, sweat, incense and cologne, papers and books stacked like barricades on every surface because Satoru needs to study everywhere.

Satoru hasn’t gone home in weeks — home being a word that means little more than a penthouse prison, anyway — and he’s been pushing harder, faster, chasing something no one else can see, not even his closest friend in the whole world, and it makes Suguru restless until he finally returns.

Suguru’s sermon is met with that same wild grin, the same croon asking if he missed him that much, if he wanted to come with next time. Suguru wants to punch him, but he seems too… frail.

He’s too pale, his eyes don't shine that bright anymore.

The silence is the first thing Suguru notices on the next day.

Usually Satoru fills every inch of space with noise, with his voice, his music, his manic tapping against the table.

Tonight, there’s nothing.

Just the faint hum of the fridge, the whistle of wind sneaking through a cracked window.

Something is wrong.

Satoru didn’t go out did he?

Suguru calls his cellphone, the familiar ringtone echoes from his bedroom twice before he hangs up.

Something is very, very wrong.

Badum, badum, badum, badum.

Suguru can feel his heart beating against his ribcage, strong, fast. A sense of dread and panic crawling up his body and a bitter taste taking his mouth.

No.

He rushes to Satoru’s bedroom and slams his door open.

He finds him in there.

Satoru’s sprawled on the floor, back against the side of the bed, head lolling, white hair plastered damp to his forehead. The familiar little mirror is still balanced on his thigh, streaked with white residue.

His pupils are blown wide, chest rising too fast, too shallow, the tendons in his neck straining with every breath.

Suguru freezes.

For one terrifying moment he thinks — no, he doesn’t let himself finish that thought.

“Satoru.” His voice is soft and trembling, cutting the silence.

No response.

“Satoru!” tone sharper now, louder.

He drops to his knees in front of his best friend, hands already shaking as he grabs Satoru’s shoulder, shakes hard enough to jolt his limp body.

“Stay with me, idiot! Come on, fucker! You don’t get to do this!”

You don’t get to leave me!

A rasp of air rattles out of Satoru’s throat, wet, broken.

His lips are pale, almost blue at the corners. Suguru’s chest tightens with a kind of fear he’s never known before, raw and suffocating.

He’s losing Satoru.

Badum, badum, badum, badum.

No time to think, he needs to act immediately.

He pulls the mirror away, shoves the baggie under the bed with a violent sweep and sits on his calves before he handles Satoru onto his side over his thighs, making sure his airway stays open like he remembers from a first aid seminar.

He’s watched everything, read everything since Satoru started snorting coke.

His hand slaps hard against Satoru’s cheek, over and over, coaxing, demanding.

“Breathe, damn you! Breathe! Now! Satoru!”

Nothing.

He lowers him back to the floor, joins hands and presses them over Satoru’s chest, forcing the base of his palms down in a rhythmic movement. No response means Start CPR.

The minutes stretch, cruel and endless.

Badum… badum… badum… 

The thoughts inside Suguru’s head are heavy, terrible, nightmare fueling.

“SATORU!”

Suguru’s heart slams against his ribs, throat raw from shouting Satoru’s name and commanding him to fucking breathe as he massages his best friend’s chest tirelessly.

And then — a cough.

A sputter.

Satoru’s body jerks, and Suguru feels something like life crawl back into the dead weight he’s been clutching.

He stops for a moment and tilts his body sideways, letting him vomit on the bedroom floor what has been constricting his airway.

Relief floods him so hard it nearly knocks him flat. His hands are still trembling when he pushes damp hair off Satoru’s face, when he sees those blue eyes blink open, unfocused but there.

“You stupid, reckless motherfucking cocksucking impossible bastard,” Suguru mutters, voice breaking, tears streaming endless down his sweat damp cheeks, though he’ll deny it later. “You almost—” He can’t even say the word.

Satoru tries to smirk, but fails. His lips barely twitch.

“Relax,” he croaks, voice rough, shredded. “Told you I could handle it.”

Suguru almost hits him. Almost shakes him until his teeth rattle. Instead, he sits back on his heels, presses the heel of his palm hard against his eyes, and lets himself cry in relief as the silence settle around them again — this time thick with something heavier than fear.

Because Suguru knows.

This isn’t the last time.

Satoru POV

He doesn't feel the moment it tips.

At first it’s fine. More than fine — it’s clean, electric, sharp enough to carve through the noise in his skull.

The coke lights him up in all the right places, cracks open the dam, lets everything rush out at once. Every idea connects, every sound has weight, every lyric, every riff — it all makes sense.

He’s not drowning anymore.

He’s untouchable. Unstoppable. A motherfucking God.

That’s what he tells himself. That’s what he’s told Suguru a hundred times, that it makes him better.

A better version of him.

Faster. It cuts through the drag of exhaustion, makes the world move at his speed for once. Without it, hed’d choke on all the pressure crammed down his throat by his family, by their empire, by their smug certainty that this — music, art, his entire fucking heart — was nothing but a childish phase.

Without it, he’d crumble.

He snorts again, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, doesn’t bother with the mess on the mirror. His chest feels tight, but that’s nothing new, just his body catching up.

He laughs under his breath — the sound is too sharp, too dry this time — and starts scrawling another half-line of lyrics on the notebook scattered across the bed.

Then the pen falls out of his hand.

It’s stupid. It just slips.

But his fingers don’t close again, don’t obey.

They twitch against the sheets like they’re not his anymore. He frowns, tries to bend down, tries to grab it, and the floor comes up too fast.

The world turns and revolves.

The air claws at his throat.

His lungs can’t catch.

He blinks and the room slides sideways. His heart is a wild drum, but it doesn’t feel like rhythm, it feels like terrible chaos, like too many beats tripping over each other until they blur into something monstrous.

B̶͚̮̋͑̚a̸̠͓̜͚͌̀̇̊̏ͅd̸̪͚̮̮̯̏̐͒u̴͈̩̓̐͛ͅm҈̭͚̟̙̔͛̐̉,̷͚͚͔̳́̒͋ b҈̪͔͓͕͓̾͋a̶͙͇̠̣͈͌̓̽̋d̶̙͖͉̫̳̆͊̓̈́ū̸͎̿̍ͅm̴̱͍͔̘͔̅̽̃̈́͌,҈͇͕̟̒̆͆̇ b҈̜̮͎͉̈͌͂ȧ̴͙̩̣̾ͅd҈̩̮̳̀͒̐̒̌ụ̶̖̲̥͙͐̈́͂̆̏m̴̫̯̾̒̀,̶̭̜̱̖̊̄͑ b̷̲̤͖̱̂͆a̸͓̫̐̓d̶̬̫̜͕̠̿̒u̸͓͎͚͛́͌m̷̘͓̃̔,̸͇̗͆́̔͊ͅ b̸͉͚̳͉̪̐͒ä̸͉͙̩́̀͊̿d̵̫͍͚̂͒͋͌͋u̴̬̠̖̘͐̅̂m̴̝̝̗͈͂̾́,̴͖͈̀̄̐͛̊ͅ b̶̥͎͇͓̦̔̊̃̓a̶͖͖̖̯͆̊d҈̫͑̾͗̋ͅu̸̮̲͛̉͊m̶̦͓̅͐̉,҉͇̬̠̝͉̋́ b̸͓̳̱́͌̑̏̚a̴̘̖̲͓̎̔̀̍̈́d̸͈̗́͛͋̒u҈̰̬͙̉̀̒͊̄m̴̰̣̫̩͖̆̄,̸̙͖͎͉̞̎́ b̵̘̮̪͕̈̄̉a҉͙͙̩̎̓̅̎d̶̩̣̥̂̊̂u҉̜͎̘͔͖̆̔̊͋m҈̬̟̉̑̀,̶͚͓̟̓͑͆̚҈͖͚͚̒̈́̀͗͗

He tries to tell himself he’s fine.

He’s been higher than this before many, many times.

He’s had your chest seize, his head spin, his jaw lock — it always passes.

He always comes out grinning.

But his body doesn’t listen this time and it’s starting to scare him a little.

He can’t get a full breath.

Each inhale is thinner, shallower, and his vision fuzzes at the edges.

This doesn’t happen often. It actually never happened like this.

Maybe he outdid this time, with no rest between the days, his body probably needed some relief he denied for almost a week.

There’s a cold burn racing down his arms, pooling in his fingertips, and his skin feels like it doesn’t fit right.

Is he dying?

His mind keeps firing, faster, faster — he needs to stand, he needs to drink water, he needs to ride this out, he needs to—

“Satoru.”

The voice cuts through, soft and embedded in fear.

Suguru.

He’s here.

He tries to answer, tries to throw him some stupid line about catching him in the middle of the not so beautiful part of brilliance, but his throat seizes and nothing comes out but a broken rasp.

Hands on his shoulder, shaking him, grounding him to the floor he didn’t realize he’d hit.

The mirror’s gone. Suguru’s face swims above his pale, eyes wide in a way he’d never seen before.

He wants to laugh at him, tell him not to look so scared, but his lips won’t move right.

They’re numb. Cold.

“Breathe,” he says and his voice sounds like he’s underwater.

He tries.

God, he tries.

But his chest is a cage and his heart is a hammer gone wild inside it, slamming too fast, too hard, like it’ll shatter bone.

For a split second, the thought cuts through the haze.

This is it. This is how he goes.

Not on stage, not in the middle of some triumphant finale, but here on the floor, white powder still clinging to his skin, his best friend having to witness his failure.

Pathetic.

Something in him wants to fight it, wants to claw his way back if only to prove the world wrong. He’s not done, goddamnit.

He hasn't even started.

Then the world jerks — a cough, a sputter tearing his throat raw — and suddenly air scrapes back into his lungs with a taste that’s too similar to iron.

He’s back ragged, burning, but real at least, he breathes, he lives.

His chest stutters, but the drum doesn’t stop. Suguru’s hand is hard against his cheek, his voice sharp enough to bring him back.

He clings to it, even as shame coils hot and ugly in his gut.

When his eyes finally focus, Suguru’s looking at him like he’d almost broken his best friend. And that scares him more than the coke ever could.

He mutters something, anything, about being fine, about handling it, because the alternative — admitting the truth — is unbearable.

And for years, he carries that night like it didn’t happen. Suguru doesn’t talk about it again, and he doesn't either.

He doubles down.

More charm, more brilliance, more powder to keep the wheels spinning.

He tells himself he’s in control.

Until he’s not.

Now.

It’s after the first Cenotaph live show.

The one that lit the stage up like it had been built for them, that fed the crowd’s roar straight into Satoru’s veins.

Vessel has never sounded better, never felt more alive.

The band had never looked so fucking amazing. For the first time in years, he thought maybe he had finally proven it — proven that this wasn’t a phase, that his family’s sneers would choke on what he’d built.

But the high doesn’t land too right this time.

It’s the same climb, the same frantic brightness, the same gnawing edge at the corner of his chest, coming from too many rehearsals, too many nights cut short, too many lines just to keep the machine moving.

He should be riding the high.

Instead, it feels the same as once before.

The coke in his system isn’t enough anymore, not after weeks of pushing, of rehearsals that devoured his nights, of nerves he drowned with one line after another.

His jaw aches. His chest is too tight.

And then it hits him — that same wrongness, that same tilt, that same panic he’s swore he’d never let touch him again.

The memory slams through him all at once.

Suguru’s broken voice, his hands, the mirror slipping off his thigh, the desperate claw for air that wouldn’t come.

B̶͚̮̋͑̚a̸̠͓̜͚͌̀̇̊̏ͅd̸̪͚̮̮̯̏̐͒u̴͈̩̓̐͛ͅm҈̭͚̟̙̔͛̐̉,̷͚͚͔̳́̒͋ b҈̪͔͓͕͓̾͋a̶͙͇̠̣͈͌̓̽̋d̶̙͖͉̫̳̆͊̓̈́ū̸͎̿̍ͅm̴̱͍͔̘͔̅̽̃̈́͌,҈͇͕̟̒̆͆̇ b҈̜̮͎͉̈͌͂ȧ̴͙̩̣̾ͅd҈̩̮̳̀͒̐̒̌ụ̶̖̲̥͙͐̈́͂̆̏m̴̫̯̾̒̀,̶̭̜̱̖̊̄͑ b̷̲̤͖̱̂͆a̸͓̫̐̓d̶̬̫̜͕̠̿̒u̸͓͎͚͛́͌m̷̘͓̃̔,̸͇̗͆́̔͊ͅ b̸͉͚̳͉̪̐͒ä̸͉͙̩́̀͊̿d̵̫͍͚̂͒͋͌͋u̴̬̠̖̘͐̅̂m̴̝̝̗͈͂̾́,̴͖͈̀̄̐͛̊ͅ b̶̥͎͇͓̦̔̊̃̓a̶͖͖̖̯͆̊d҈̫͑̾͗̋ͅu̸̮̲͛̉͊m̶̦͓̅͐̉,҉͇̬̠̝͉̋́ b̸͓̳̱́͌̑̏̚a̴̘̖̲͓̎̔̀̍̈́d̸͈̗́͛͋̒u҈̰̬͙̉̀̒͊̄m̴̰̣̫̩͖̆̄,̸̙͖͎͉̞̎́ b̵̘̮̪͕̈̄̉a҉͙͙̩̎̓̅̎d̶̩̣̥̂̊̂u҉̜͎̘͔͖̆̔̊͋m҈̬̟̉̑̀,̶͚͓̟̓͑͆̚҈͖͚͚̒̈́̀͗͗

And then it hits. The same tilt, the same drop.

The same suffocating wrongness he swore he’d never feel again.

The lights backstage smear and double.

His knees give.

He tastes metal in his throat.

The floor shifts under him. The lights backstage blur.

And it’s not Suguru who finds him this time.

It’s you.

Why, from all the people, it had to be you?

You come stumbling into the wrong corridor, maybe chasing quiet, maybe just lost — and instead you find him crumpling, breath stuttering, his skin cold despite the sweat soaking his collar.

Your voice breaks on his name the same way Suguru’s did.

He feels a sour, painful grin that never reaches his cold lips.

Your POV

You don’t know how long you stand there, frozen in the corridor.

The world narrows to the sound of his shallow, hoarse breathing — if you can even call it that — the wet, rattling rasp like something stuck in his throat.

His name leaves your mouth on half of a breath and it’s small and useless against the way his chest is failing at the job it’s supposed to do.

“Satoru please breathe!” It comes out again, firmer now despite the increasing panic you feel clawing up your spine, a pebble thrown into a pond that barely ripples.

He doesn’t look at you.

His head is tipped to one side, mouth slightly open, skin the wrong color under the backstage lights — a waxy pallor that makes the veins in his temples stand out like blue rope.

Sweat beads along his hairline, matting his white strands to his forehead.

He’s barely conscious, pupils blown too wide, eyes rolling like they don’t know where to rest.

You see the tiny white residue crusted at the edge of his nostril and at the corner of his lip and a hot, hollow nausea uncoils behind your ribs.

All the training you don’t have — every textbook you half-read for a course, every first-aid kit you’ve ever opened for curiosity — virtually collapses under the weight of the real thing.

You can feel the panic like a pressure on your tongue and it tastes like metal.

For a breathless second you think of running — finding someone, anyone — but your legs respond before your brain does. 

No time for that.

It’s on you.

You need to do it.

Satoru will die.

And it’s going to be your fault if you leave.

You crouch automatically, the way you used to when Maki taught you to steady someone who might fall.

You press your fingers against his collarbone and feel the faint flutter of a heartbeat, erratic and too quick, a small animal trying to escape its cage.

You shove your hand under his neck, awkward and clumsy, tilt his head the way you’ve seen it in videos whose details you can’t fully trust, the motion a mimicry of competence.

He coughs once, a small, raw sound that doesn’t clear his throat.

You try to get him to blink, to squeeze your hand, anything.

Anything, Satoru, please.

“Satoru, hey! — wake up. Satoru, focus. Look at me!” Your voice cracks and you hate how thin it sounds, you hate that there are tears streaming endlessly down your cheeks, you hate that you need to ground yourself while you try to save the life of someone you love.

He responds with a wet wheeze that makes your skin crawl.

No no no no no.

He tries to form a smile, some ridiculous go-to of his, but it blows like a paper boat on a tide. 

Then he goes slack, and your hands are suddenly full of a heavy weight that isn’t sleeping.

 It’s going under.

You strip off your sleeve with clumsy fumbling and pat his face with cool fabric.

Cold touches the sallow hollows of his cheeks and his eyelids flutter.

Not nearly cold enough.

You know you should call for help, call someone who knows exactly what to do, but phone calls feel impossible when your fingers are shaking.

You’re gonna make them possible then.

You pull your phone out with one hand, thumb hovering over the emergency number before your training — poor and improvised, but more than nothing — forces you to decide.

“Yuji.” You need to find him, he came with you.

You dial. The phone trembles in your hand, the corridor seems longer by the second.

He answers on the second ring, breathless and loud with the after-glow of the show. 

“Hey—what’s—are you okay? Where are—”

“Stay where you are, call an ambulance and give them this address, now! Telll Toji and Suguru to get to backstage after. Tell Sukuna too.” You bark it out because you don’t have time to be polite. “Right now, Yuji, please, I need you.”

There’s a pause, then frantic compliance on the other end. The relief that rips through you when you hear the panic coil into action on his voice is small and immediate.

Someone’s coming. But you can’t rely on someone getting here fast enough — your body knows the tilt, the abrasion of a heart that slips.

You’re weirdly, horribly aware of how Satoru’s been pushing.

The shows, the rehearsals, the late nights. The desperation he masks as manic brilliance. 

You remember things you’ve seen — his jittery hands, the way he sometimes laughs too loud when he’s tired, the way his eyes stop being a million things and go hollow.

You just didn’t know it came from fucking coke addiction.

You turn your gaze back to him.

Your hands know what to do in a way your brain won’t steward into order. You ease him slowly onto his side, careful with the rustle of fabric and the tremor in your own muscles, checking that his airway is clear, feel the safety of the motion as if it were a promise you can keep.

He coughs and gags and then settles with uneven breaths that still worry you. You loosen his collar because you can’t bear the thought of constriction, of anything making the job of breathing more difficult for him.

Your mind grabs fragments, you need to keep him cold, keep him on his side to ensure he’s breathing, don’t let him swallow his own vomit — little clips of instruction from impossibly quick reads and frantic internet searches on your cellphone in the seconds you steadied your hands enough after talking to Yuji.

You force yourself to move, to act, each step like pushing through water. You find a bottle of water nearby, fumble with the cap, splash cool liquid at his lips, at his face.

His response is sluggish but he takes a sip and spills, but his throat opens slightly and you let out a sound that could be a laugh or a sob. Maybe both.

He mumbles something — enough for you to catch a word, “sorry,” slurred, ashamed — and then his fingers curl weakly around yours. The contact jolts something raw and immediate inside you, a furious, unexpected protectiveness that makes your chest ache.

You’re so tired from your own life, from deadlines, the studio, the mask you don’t take off, and it’s only the beginning of it all.

Will it get worse?

Will you be forced to see him like this another time?

Seeing him like this splinters something in you, you can’t let this happen again. Never again.

You shout again when you hear boots thudding and voices, practised fury and worried noise, rushing corridors — Yuji, Suguru, Toji, the others.

Suguru bursts through the door like an avalanche, eyes already cutting to Satoru’s pale face, face creased into something far worse than anger. 

He kneels without hesitation near the both of you, checks pulse, checks breath in the way he’s done it once before in the past that hangs heavy in his bones.

You notice his hands shake just a fraction and it makes you wonder for a second before he speaks.

“Call an ambulance, now” Suguru orders, voice flat but urgent.

Yuji tells him they’re on their way already, a kind of frantic efficiency you haven’t seen from him before.

Toji is moving through the small room like he’s assessing exits.

Suguru’s hand finds yours and squeezes it, a quick, half-apologetic pressure.

His eyes flick to you and for a breathless second you see — under the half stoic half flirty armor — a memory that looks like cheer terror.

You know then, suddenly and without asking, that he knows what this is.

That he’s been here before.

The way his jaw tightens is not anger at Satoru.

It’s a wound being reopened forcefully.

The corridor fills with a rising sound of still too distant footsteps. You can hear someone calling out instructions from down the hall, paramedics on their way.

You and Suguru keep him stable, Toji goes after the paramedics to bring them in quickly, and Sukuna is there too, you haven’t even noticed his arrival amidst all of this — Sukuna’s voice drops to you like something dangerous and oddly soft.

“You did the right thing getting him on his side,” he says. “Don’t let him slip on his back.” He leans down and steadies Satoru’s head again so he stops jerking, the gesture feels mechanical. “Keep his airway clear. Don’t let anyone do anything drastic until they arrive. Move back if they tell you to.”

His words are curt and you follow them because your hands are still shaking too much, and you are sniffling too loud, and because his certainty steadies you.

You didn’t know you would be so glad he is watching you collapse once again.

A medic arrives and floods the room with much needed professionalism.

They take over and your role narrows to the thing you do best, observe, note, remember — because there will be a thousand words later, every decision second-guessed, everything you missed catalogued like a murder report.

They check him, talk in clipped sentences to you that blur into a loop, but Sukuna is there still, and he’s listening close. Suguru steps aside when the lead medic asks what happened. His voice is a low rumble as he explains, giving the history in clinical fragments that you realize he’s practiced saying once before.

Yuji leans into you, face painted with a stupid, surreal kind of worry, and you feel more tired than you have in months.

One of the paramedics slaps a monitor to Satoru’s chest. The beep is a wild, jagged thing for a second, then steadier.

You want to crash.

Instead, they leave with Satoru and Sukuna nudges you to move. You follow Suguru outside as they prepare to transport Satoru, and you’re suddenly running to be by his side.

When the EMTs move him towards the ambulance, Satoru’s hand twitches in yours for a second — an absent, sleepy grasp. His eyes find yours and, for a moment, they’re lucid, the light sharpening in them like it’s trying to remind you of a promise he’s made to himself and everyone who keeps helping him.

He manages a crooked, exhausted grin and the word slips out, barely a whisper

“Sorry.”

You don’t answer. You want to scream and cry. You want to hug him so tight and don’t let go. 

Words feel useless and brittle. You offer him the warmest smile you can while your face is a mess of sweat and tears.

Then he’s taken inside the ambulance, you can’t go with him.

You put your hand to your temple and feel the headache bloom. Somewhere inside you, something knits itself into a new, terrible determination. There will be calls to make, explanations to assemble, apologies to write and songs to finish.

There will be a new album to deliver and deadlines that will gnaw. And now, an emergency that will refuse to be simplified—

You stop suddenly, standing in the parking lot as people move around, as the ambulance is loaded and soon heads to the hospital.

Satoru almost died and you’re thinking about the things you will have to fix.

Your friend, someone you love, had a coke overdose and you’re worried about how you will solve everything else since you can’t solve this one problem.

You’re becoming someone you don’t recognize.

Maybe Sukuna was right, maybe the layers you wear, the masks you have are turning you into someone else. Into someone ugly.

The cold night outside hits your face like a wash of reality and snaps you back after a ride you don’t remember.

You stand under the weak buzz of the hospital parking lights and watch, and the present dissolves into memory like sugar into hot tea. Toji drove you and Suguru there following the ambulance.

Suguru’s shoulders are ragged, as if the night has already carved something in him. He says nothing for a long time, and then, in a voice so small you almost miss it.

“He almost didn’t make it this time, huh.”

The words don’t belong to the bright, mocking Suguru you know.

They belong to someone who has watched a person he loves almost disappear and who still wakes in the dark from the shape of that event.

You press your palms together to stop them from trembling. Your own exhaustion is a different animal from Satoru’s — yours is the slow, deliberate burn of too many sleepless nights, of listing tasks until your chest is full of stones.

You’re standing under the sickening bluish hospital lights now, watching Suguru’s face close into itself, you understand something in a way that makes your throat ache.

Brilliance burns, but it can also, fatally, devour the one it feeds.

The pressure from the world, from managers and labels, from your own impossible promises — these are not abstract forces.

They are bodies pressed to the throat of a person who can still laugh like a god five minutes before their heart betrays them.

Suguru looks at you then, directly, with a weight in his eyes that loosens something private wide inside you.

“When he wakes,” he says quietly, “we’ll be honest about what happened. No glossing. No jokes. He needs to know what this does to us.”

The ambulance’s taillights vanish into the wet street.

The hospital doors slide closed.

You are left under the hum of neon, and the thin, metallic taste of fear sits at the back of your tongue, bracing you for what comes next — what confessions you will have to make to yourself, what compromises will be demanded, who you will have to be for a man who gives everything onstage and almost gave everything away to powder and silence.

*****

The beeping is unnerving and doesn’t stop.

It burrows under your skin, crawls through your ears, settles in your chest like a second heartbeat — mechanical, too steady, too clean. Not human.

Every time it chirps, you’re reminded that the only reason Satoru’s chest rises at all is because a machine is watching him closer than you ever could.

The antiseptic air tastes sour on the back of your throat and the fluorescent lights above you hum faintly, like some cruel joke about clarity, when everything inside you feels like sludge.

You’re so tired.

Your eyelids are raw from lack of sleep, but you can’t leave.

He would never leave your side if the situation was inverted. Actually, you’re sure he wouldn’t let things get to this point.

He would have noticed, unlike you, and you beat yourself endlessly for that.

But he didn’t notice how you’re barely a husk of the person you were, did he?

You don’t even remember sitting down — just that you were standing in the hall, some nurse asking you if you were family, and your mouth opening before you could think. Yes. That’s what you said.

Yes. You are.

Now you’re here, curled stiff in the chair by his bed, one hand twisted in your own shirt, the other hovering near his.

You haven’t touched him again since the nurse left. You’re too afraid that if you do, something in you will crack, spill, flood the room with all the things you refuse to say out loud.

He looks wrong like this.

The strongest person you know — not strongest in muscles, not even in music, but strongest in sheer noise, spirit, in presence, energy, in how he can burn oxygen out of any room — looks like a porcelain figure left too close to the sun.

Pale, fragile, a crack just waiting to split through him.

His hair’s a mess, sticking to his forehead, damp with sweat. There’s a shadow of dried blood under his nose, missed by whoever rushed him here. The oxygen tube curls like a leash over his cheek.

You hate him for it.

Not for almost dying — though, yeah okay, that too — but for leaving you to watch.

For making you sit in this chair, drowning in helplessness.

You’re good at fixing things, at organizing, at carrying the chaos of the five boys present in your life and a band and a dream stitched out of nothing.

But this? This is flesh, blood, addiction, something bigger than you.

You can’t fix this.

You press your nails into your palm until it hurts.

The monitor keeps chirping.

Hours blur. Nurses in, nurses out.

Yuji tries calling twice; you miss the calls.

Suguru sent a message earlier — let me know if anything changes — but you couldn’t bring yourself to type back.

Toji hasn’t reached out at all.

Maybe he knows. Or maybe he doesn’t want to.

When the first twitch comes, you think you imagined it. Just your mind playing tricks in the static silence. But then Satoru’s fingers flex against the sheet, slow, weak, and his chest rises deeper. His eyelids flutter, lashes clumped with sweat.

You sit up so fast your vision swims.

“Satoru?” The name sticks to your tongue, hoarse, your eyes widen and you’re filled with bright hope. You don’t even know if you should call him that here, in this sterile cage, but it slips out before you can stop it.

He groans, head rolling slightly to the side you’re talking from.

The oxygen tube tugs. He winces. His lips part, cracked and dry, and when he finally rasps something out, it’s not what you expect.

“...the lighting in here’s terrible.”

Your laugh is broken, half a sob, half a bark, muffled behind your palm.

Of course.

Of course the first thing out of his mouth would be something like that.

Dumbass motherfucker.

He shifts, tries to push himself up, but the IV jerks his arm and he hisses through his teeth. 

His eyes find you, blurry at first, then sharpening into recognition.

And he smiles. Weak, lopsided, but still that same unbearable grin. A grin you feared so much you wouldn’t see again.

Your heart aches.

“Hey. You look like shit.”

He teases and you chuckle at first before the anger bursts through you like a wave breaking against stone. Your blood boils to the point of seeing red. A few seconds ago you wanted to hug him, to kiss his face, to have him close to you and never leave again.

Now you’re considering ripping his head from his neck with your bare hands.

“You almost fucking died!”

He blinks, as if the words don’t make sense.

Then he shrugs — actually shrugs — and mutters.

“Didn’t, though.”

You slam your hand against the bedrail, the clang loud enough to make him flinch and wide his eyes at you.

“Don’t you dare joke about this. Don’t you dare make me—”

Your voice cracks, splinters, but you don’t stop.

“I thought you were dead, Satoru. I got to the hospital with Suguru and I thought you were fucking gone, and you’re sitting here smirking now like it’s nothing?” you seethe, your exhaustion boiled away in sheer wrath.

His smile falters. The bravado slips for a heartbeat, and in that gap you see it — fear. Shame. A flicker of something he doesn’t want anyone to catch, and then it’s gone, smoothed over with another chuckle.

“Relax, sugar. I’ve handled worse.”

“You haven’t handled anything!” The words rip out of you before you can hold them back. “That’s the problem! You keep running and snorting and pretending you’re invincible, but you’re not. You’re just—” You choke, heat rushing to your face. “You’re just a fucking idiot who thinks coke makes him a genius.”

He thought you were done, but oh boy you aren’t.

“And the biggest issue— is that when you’re a fucking dumbass and when you’re dead you are not the one suffering. We are! We’re left to grieve, to think about you, to—”

“I’m sorry.” he snaps, and then again, softer. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

The room is too small for your fury, for the tremble in your knees. You force yourself to stay standing, to stare down at him, to let him see all of it.

Satoru licks his lips, stares at the ceiling for a long moment, then back at you. His voice is quieter now, almost careful.

“You don’t get it. I can’t slow down. If I slow down, everything—” He gestures vaguely with the hand not tethered to wires. “Everything slips. The band. The music. My family. It’s the only way I keep it together.”

You shake your head.

Unbelievable.

“No. It’s the only way you’re tearing yourself apart. And one day—” Your throat locks, but you force the words through. “One day you won’t wake up.”

Silence swells. The monitor keeps chirping, oblivious.

He doesn’t argue.

He doesn’t promise he will stop.

He just looks at you, really looks, like maybe it’s the first time he’s seen how much you’re shaking. How bad you fear losing him.

And for once, he doesn’t grin.

Your hand hovers over his, hesitating, before you finally let your fingers settle on his knuckles. Warm. Alive. For now, that has to be enough. He lowers his eyes to where your hands meet.

You whisper it because you can’t keep it in.

“Don’t you dare fucking leave me and Suguru alone. Don’t you fucking dare.”

His chest rises, slow, shallow.

His eyes raise back to yours and linger. He doesn’t know how to act when your voice breaks.

And maybe it’s the exhaustion cracking him open, or the way the IV needle glints like a reminder of what almost didn’t happen tonight, but Satoru doesn’t reach for another joke. He just breathes, shaky, uneven, and lets the silence stretch until you’re almost sure he’ll retreat again.

Then, softly.

“You scare me.”

You blink.

The words land wrong, like you misheard. But his eyes are on you, pale and sharp even through the glaze of whatever drugs still run his veins, and he repeats, voice thin as paper.

“You scare me, sugar. The way you look at me like I’m… like I’m worth something. Like I can’t mess up. You don’t say it, but it’s there, hovering. You look up to me and see me as someone worth running yourself down for—” His lips twitch into a humorless curve. “And then I go and do this, and I see your face when you walked in, and — fuck.” He tips his head back against the pillow, eyes closing. “I’d rather take another line and burn out than see that look again.”

Your chest tightens, as if someone pulled a cord through your ribs and yanked hard.

“Then don’t make me see it again, Satoru.”

“That easy, huh?” He huffs, more breath than laugh, then turns his head to the side, studying you like he’s trying to memorize the cracks.

His voice lowers.

“You think I don’t know I’m killing myself? Of course I do. But I’ve been—” he falters, swallows dry. “I’ve been running since I was a kid. Family, pressure, business, image. Coke just… it quiets the noise. Makes me think I can outrun it a little longer.”

You want to scream.

You want to shake him until that justification rattles loose. Instead you grip the edge of the chair you’re back sitting on so tight your knuckles ache.

“And when you can’t outrun it anymore? What then? You expect us to just… bury you and move on?”

He flinches. This time he doesn’t hide how those words scare him.

For a moment you both just breathe, machines humming, light buzzing above, a thousand things unsaid filling the sterile air.

Then he shifts again, slow, deliberate, like every word takes effort.

“I saw you.”

You frown at the sudden subject change.

“What?”

“Tanabata.” His voice softens further, so low you almost have to lean closer to catch it. “Me and Suguru were walking back after fireworks, and I saw you. With him.”

Your breath catches. 

The memory floods back, and it’s warm. Lantern light, yukata fabric stiff around your ribs, him on his haunches in front of you, making you breathe, those red eyes like they could strip you bare. You look away before Satoru can read it on your face.

“You were—” he hesitates, choosing his next words carefully, “—different. I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re about to break. And you were breaking that night in front of him. I don’t know what he did to you, but you don’t need to endure it.”

Your nails bite into your palms again.

He knew you long enough to see when you’re about to break and yet he let you run yourself into this? Into the mess of a woman you are right now.

But you knew something wasn’t right with him either, and you did the same, didn’t you?

You both stare at each other in silence.

You don’t answer.

Satoru exhales through his nose.

“I don’t like it.” He says it flat, like stating the weather, or like he had any say on what you do or don’t do. “Not because I don’t trust you. I do. But him? He’s not… He’s not safe. He’s a wildfire, and you’re already burned raw. I don’t want you to end up hurt.” his eyes dart to your hands and back to yours again, sharper this time despite the weakness in his frame. “Promise me you’ll be careful. With him and with yourself.”

The silence after is suffocating.

You open your mouth, close it, then finally force words out before the weight crushes you. 

“You almost died tonight, and you’re worried about me?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften his tone. Just deadpans. “Always.”

Your throat locks, tight and hot.

You want to be furious again, want to tell him he has no right, but the truth in his gaze makes the words collapse before they can form.

How can someone be a genius and a fucking idiot at the same time?

You drop your face into your hands instead, dragging air into your lungs, shaky and uneven.

And in the quiet that follows, with the monitor’s chirp steady, with the sterile air pressing in from every corner, you let yourself believe him just for a heartbeat.

You spend the night by his side, you let Yuji know and ask him to tell the others that Satoru is awake.

The quietness of the next morning doesn’t last long, they run checkups on him, there are a few exams he needs to take so you are free to walk around the hospital and have a little snack you buy from a snack machine.

You’re back by his side in the afternoon, just talking, actually talking about life. Talking about his family, about his feelings, everything that is not band related. You refuse to talk about work with him and you cut him off if he even starts to slip into music matters.

The door cracks before you can answer it. A rush of hallway noise leaks in — footsteps, chatter, the faint squeak of rubber soles — then cuts again as it shuts.

Suguru enters first, tired but composed, a bouquet of convenience-store blue flowers in one hand and his guitar case slung over his back like he came straight from rehearsal.

Yuji is at his side, eyes darting everywhere, relief flooding his face the second he sees Satoru propped up in the bed.

Toji lingers at the threshold a beat too long before stepping inside, arms crossed like he’d rather be anywhere else but still came anyway, of course he came, despite his posture he cares about Satoru.

And Sukuna — last, always last to come — fills the doorway with broad shoulders, expression unreadable but his crimson eyes immediately cutting to you, and then to Satoru.

Satoru, of course, grins. The smile is weak, cracked, but it’s still his masks his frail self, sliding into place like it never left.

“Well, well. Guess I’m more popular than I thought. Should’ve overdosed sooner.”

Yuji winces, Suguru’s sigh is sharp as a blade, Toji frowns and calls him an idiot, Sukuna doesn’t even move, just watches with back against the closed door, deciding whether the room is worth stepping into after Satoru said that.

Suguru sets the flowers on the side table, ignoring the half-smirk aimed his way.

“Don’t.” Just one word, quiet and loaded, making Satoru shrug, but his gaze flicks to you, almost imperceptible.

Yuji moves closer to the bed, blurting too fast

“You scared the hell out of us. Don’t—just don’t do it again, okay?”

His fists are clenched by the sides of his body, knuckles white. He’s still a kid in so many ways, and the fear in his voice makes your stomach sink a little.

Sometimes you forget he’s really younger than you all.

Satoru ruffles Yuji’s hair with shaky fingers. “Relax, little man. I’m not going anywhere.”

And Sukuna finally steps forward, his gaze slicing through the tension like he’s bored of watching the scene play out. He doesn’t say anything at first, just runs his gaze at Satoru and lets his lips twist into a little scowl.

“When you’re done fucking up our schedule you let me know.”

It’s all he says before his gaze rises only to fall on you. He studies you for a moment, huffs and turns around to leave the room.

Even after he left the room feels still too small, too crowded with unspoken words, and you realize the private moment you had with Satoru is already dissolving, swallowed by the band.

Satoru exhales, tilts his head back, tries to laugh it off, but the sound falters. You can see the shadow flicker across his face, that brief glimpse of the weight he carries, the pressure coiled around him like barbed wire.

“What do you all want me to say, huh? That I fucked up? Congratulations, you win. I fucked up.” His tone isn’t angry, it’s too tired for that.

The admission just slips out like smoke.

Toji finally speaks, his voice is deep, even, but startles you because you’re not that used to hearing him talk.

“Then stop before you don’t wake up next time, shithead.” His arms remain folded, eyes fixed on the wall like he doesn’t care if Satoru listens or not, but his words land anyway. You see it in the way Satoru’s gaze falls on his own hands.

You shift in your chair, hands knotted in your lap. The urge to say something presses against your ribs, you swallow down the ache and just breathe.

Yuji sits down hard on the bed edge, wiping at his face.

“You matter too much for this. To all of us. Don’t you get that? She’s been awake for two whole days and she didn’t leave your side.” he gestures at you and you realize that it’s true. But you don’t feel tired, the adrenaline must be keeping you up. “I may not have known you for long but you’ve been nothing but bright and kind.”

His voice trembles but doesn’t break, earnest as the boy he still is. And for a flicker of a moment, you see something soften in Satoru’s expression. Another crack. The grin slips, replaced by something closer to guilt, or maybe love, some raw and unguarded feeling.

But he shoots you a glance from the side of his eyes, worried. He frowns and you avert your eyes — you will not let him turn this situation into something that’s not about him.

Suguru reaches out, resting a hand lightly on the rail between them.

“I’m not letting you do this alone. You’ll come home with me when they discharge you. Until you’re steady. I’ll make sure of it.” his tone brooks no argument.

It’s not a request nor an offer. It’s a verdict.

Satoru looks at him, something unreadable flickering in his pale eyes.

He doesn’t fight it, not this time at least, and you feel something inside of you relax a little.

He lets out a small breath and mutters.

“Yeah. Okay.” his voice is too soft for him, stripped of the bravado, almost grateful.

Around you, the tension thins but doesn’t vanish. Your chest feels tight, like you’ve been holding your breath since the door opened.

The reality of it all sits heavy in your gut.

The fragility under Satoru’s glitter, the way this band you’re holding together by threads could unravel at any second.

And the image of him slumped pale in this bed will haunt you long after you leave.

You press your palms into your thighs, grounding yourself, reminding your lungs to keep working.

You can’t afford to break down.

Not here. Not now. Not soon.

And when Satoru finally tilts his head toward you, a soft grin tugging at his lips despite everything, you know he remembers and cherishes the words you two shared before the others came. The mutual sharing of feelings, of thoughts, of your stories. The reason behind his addiction, the struggles.

The weight of it presses against your ribs.

The night presses on, and though you leave with the others when visiting hours end, the sound of Satoru’s rasp, shallow breaths, his gray lips, his pale eyes, — everything follows you out into the dark.

They coil together, whispering promises of fracture.

I see the Gods avert their gaze from me
My fucking form is but a wreck beneath them
And there are always people I can call on
It's all so easy for me

No more taking chances
No more teeth to bite with
No more smiling faces
I am alone again

You want to talk
You want to talk it out?
'Cause the joke's on me and I'm laughing too
You want to watch me bleed 'cause I bleed so well?
It's all so easy for me

Eternally, eternally

And do you like the way it feels?
Like fire from the heavens
Carving past the surface into you

And do you like the way it feels?
Like fire from the heavens
Tearing me asunder beside you

It's all so easy for me

It's all so easy for me