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Chapter Text

Shark tank – a type of training where a fighter is constantly sparring with a new opponent every 60 seconds within a 5-minute round, simulating the late rounds of a fight where fatigue and stamina are crucial. This intense workout is designed to build endurance and the ability to perform under pressure.

—

Late-night pro team training, Jujutsu MMA gym in Tokyo, 2019

Only the real ones were left after rounds and rounds of shark tank, a brutal exercise that had Gojo Satoru burning through opponents, sweat dripping, muscles tense, air heavy.
One after the other, they had tapped out, strewn around the ring in various states of exhaustion. He’d just freshly run out of meat to tear through.
So his coach brought in a new fish to sate his feeding frenzy.
Or to show him teeth.

Head Coach Yaga Masamichi watched from the edge, arms crossed, stopwatch in hand.

Satoru stood in the blue corner, the “new guy”, Geto Suguru, that had joined weeks before and had yet to be broken in, in red.

“Light spar, boys,” Yaga called to them. “Flow only. No ego.”

"Got it, Coach," Satoru said. He was smiling, but it was a touch too sharp, too eager.

Suguru bowed politely. “Just practicing reads.”

That had been the plan, really. But they’d only been at it for moments before something sparked in the charged air between them. They’d danced around each other for weeks now, two alphas destined to clash sooner or later. Drills, bags, light touches, teasing feints, always sizing one another up from afar. 
But this was different. 
Gloves on. Mouthguards in. Focused.
Satoru was still grinning though. Always grinning.

“Try not to fall in love with me when I start dancing,” he smirked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Suguru, calm as still water, adjusted his wraps around his knuckles and raised them, then replied with a cool, “I’ll try. You keep your hands up.”

No more preamble.
Satoru was eager for violence and fast.
He sliced the air with brutal jabs and spinning feints like he was drawing arcs with a blade, and Suguru - slower, yes, but steady, watching, adjusting - met him like he was reading from a page that hadn’t been finished in writing yet.
Satoru liked the straightforward approach, to make strategists like Suguru quake in their boots when he crowded them mercilessly.
The rapidfire exchange had the gym around them rousing to new life, people starting to pay attention, watching their match, no, their spar. Just a spar.

Until it was not.

The shift was subtle. Suguru’s guard was tight, his feet deceptively lazy, drawing in, baiting. But Satoru wasn't the champion just because he was a powerhouse. He was perceptive and clever, and every time Suguru tried to control the rhythm, Satoru shattered it with a flash of movement and a grin that was half feral, half charming.

“Gotta move faster than that, newbie,” he panted between hits, sweat curling along his jaw, the white fangs painted on his mouthguard bared in challenge.
But Suguru didn’t get frustrated. He was focused.

And then- the moment.

A feint. A half step. A flicker in Satoru’s shoulder that Suguru reacted to faster than the champion himself put the words down on the page.
And with all the calm precision of a surgeon, he landed a clean, vicious liver shot.

Satoru choked on air.
He stumbled, actually stumbled, as pain ripped through his core like lightning. It was pure instinct that saved him from going down, a wild, reactive swing, elbow loose, eyes wide and not quite present.

Suguru backed off instantly, hands raised. “Satoru-”
But it was too late.

Satoru lunged. Something primal kicked in, ugly, automatic, all that easy confidence gone. He threw a series of punches that weren’t sparring-speed anymore. They were instinctive. They were thirsty for blood.
Suguru defended. Barely.
He didn’t retaliate, didn't strike back. But it didn’t matter.

Coach Yaga’s voice boomed. “That’s enough, goddamnit!”

They’d first met in summer.
Sweltering heat had turned the gym into blessedly air conditioned reprieve, though the smell like mats, sweat, and power was ever present. Cool air blew through the industrial fans, but nothing could cut through the thick presence of pheromone fumes in the changing room after training hours. Even scent patches couldn’t suppress everything after a half-day of cardio and drills.

Satoru was half-draped over the ring’s corner, shirt clinging to sweat-damp skin humming with heat as he dragged out his cooldown and stalled on replacing his own worn-down patch. It wasn’t about comfort or laziness, it was about seeing who could meet the challenge. His scent rolled through the room almost unfiltered, the kind that made most people twitch and avert their gaze.
And then a new guy walked in.

He didn’t look like much at first glance, not compared to the loud ones hitting pads or slamming protein, or shadowboxing in mirrors. Or maybe that made him all the more noticeable.
The too long hair for a fighter stood out, tied back except for a loose strand falling into his face, though at least that wasn’t ugly. Duffle over one shoulder, dark blue gi jacket worn down like it belonged on him made the black belt he wore over it nearly invisible in the low contrast.

But Satoru knew immediately. Quiet, understated, yet definitely alpha.
Because alphas knew when another walked in.
And this one didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. Just… acknowledged him. Eyes steady, posture loose, he walked in like someone stepping into neutral territory. Cool, calm, self-contained. That spine didn’t say new. That spine said watch me.
His scent patch? Half-off. Probably from the heat. Maybe a coincidence.

Satoru didn’t buy it.
Not when the guy had clearly taken the time to neatly pull his hair back, to smooth his sleeves and bow to Nanamin before lining up for drills like a fucking model student. That patch was coming loose on purpose. Subtle, almost imperceptible, but intentional. Marking the air just enough to make the fine hair along Satoru’s arms and neck stand on end, making sure everyone in the gym felt his presence, whether they could name its source or not.
Satoru’s nose twitched, catching the faintest whiff of something foreign in what he considered his home turf.
Not challenging. Just there. It was the kind of control that made his teeth itch.

Their eyes met. Just for a second.
And something stuck. He didn’t know what. Just that he kept glancing, trying to figure it out.
It only got worse when Nanami informed him briefly, reluctantly, that it was his senpai. A recommendation from the most uptight hardass on the roster? 
That meant serious business.
So Satoru decided the only reasonable thing to do was investigate.
Up close.

That spring, three months earlier, Suguru had walked into a run-down community center in Shinjuku, just trying to shake the rust off his joints. He hadn’t expected to find Nanami there, his old kohai from the high school boxing club. 
Nanami had grown. Broad-shouldered, calm. Same deadpan lack of humor, but hardened by the world of corporate bullshit, after which he’d decided to go back to fighting, since at least that he was naturally good at.

“Still telegraphing your throws,” Suguru told him, a touch nostalgic.

“Still reading everyone like a book,” Nanami replied with a huff, handing him a towel.

They trained together for weeks, stiltedly getting to know one another again between drills and light sparring. It felt good. Like breathing again after being underwater.
Nanami had only joined the gym as a short-term help, training the adults while another trainer was down for the count. He had such substitution deals with other gyms, too, but worked mainly for one in particular. Suguru didn’t find out which one until Nanami’s trainer period ran out and he told him in no uncertain terms that he was wasting his footwork on weekend smokers.

“If you’re serious… come to Yaga’s,” Nanami had said, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like Yaga wasn’t the head coach of the most exclusive private MMA gym in the city. Maybe the country.

“The Yaga?” 

“Yes,” Nanami confirmed, then with a more stiff expression. “Unfortunately, you’ll meet him, too. He’s insufferable, but you’ll learn to tolerate him. Probably sooner than I did.”

Suguru blinked. Nanami wasn’t talking about the head coach, if the obvious change in tone was anything to go by. “You mean-?”

Heavy with sigh, Nanami just said one word. “Gojo.”

Suguru smiled. Meeting the champion didn’t sound half-bad.

Jujutsu Gym didn’t advertise itself. No signs on the street. No social media campaigns. No flashy neon boards. With its completely non-descript front it lived by reputation, word of mouth, and one of the strictest referral-only entry policies in Tokyo, nestled just at the edge of a park that made it seem more remote than it really was.
Suguru hadn’t stepped into a space like this in years. Not since high school, when tournaments still felt like some kind of pathway to something. Glory, maybe. Recognition. Not just survival. A future. Somewhere along the way, that future had splintered, and he’d left it behind.

Until he stepped into the Jujutsu Gym, and he knew. This was the place for a fresh start.

It wasn’t just clean. It was sharp. Intentional. Every inch of it smelled like discipline and money. Sweat was polished off mats with antiseptic wipes, not left to rot into the foam. The locker room was cold steel and matte black tile. The gear was top-tier. Trainers moved like soldiers, not hobbyists. Fighters here didn’t posture for attention. They earned it.

The air was clearer, too.
It took Suguru a second to put his finger on why, until he realized it was because the overall scent saturation was lower. Not gone, just… controlled. Managed.
The scent patches made the difference. Government regulation required any omega and alpha individual in a communal space to wear scent patches over their primary glands and supply them with blockers on the less active glands where needed so barely any pheromones slipped past.

Cheaper gyms didn’t enforce it well. Here, every person walked in taped. No one complained. It was just the standard.
The patches were sleek and medical, waterproof, meant to last at least twelve hours. He almost felt out of place with his own old custom of making his arrival known the first time he walked into a competitive space like this until he sensed the other prominent presence in the room. 

It seemed rules didn’t apply to someone like Gojo Satoru, who seemed to spend twelve hours a day throwing punches, the artificial pheromone equalizers soaked into the medicinal fabric probably worn-down after half that time, hanging on by sheer stubbornness or slipping off by a careless pass of his towel. 
Or maybe he was showboating on purpose. The champion himself was glistening from a session and unbothered, laughing it off. Like the whole gym was his territory.

Suguru caught the scent. Airy and energetic, charged like the crackling air before lightning struck.
It made sense. Champions didn’t hide and everyone who belonged here knew who he was. The ghost-white hair, those too-bright eyes, and the mile-long legs that set him towering over the rest of the fighters had set him apart from day one in the pro-world. 

He floated around the gym like something untouchable, drifting in and out of classes just because he could. He belonged to the champion team, a class of its own, separate from the rest. Invite-only. Rumor had it he still sparred in open-class sometimes when he was bored. Like testing the fences to see who might be worth keeping an eye on.
Suguru wasn’t here for that.

Not officially.

He wasn’t even in a class yet. Nanami was easing him in, vetting him quietly under the guise of showing him around, to see whether his attitude and skill was a match for such an illustrious place as this. Official enrollment came after evaluation by the head coach himself.

Already, Suguru was thinking of what it’d take to stay.

The gym ran like a machine. Morning blocks were mobility and stretch work, quiet, methodical, fighters easing into the day with resistance bands and yoga flows. Midday brought the technique drills. Forms, grapples, transitions, mitt work. Afternoons were for weight training, timed circuits and lifts under the supervision of trainers with clipboards. Evenings? That was sparring. Controlled chaos. Fumes running hotter, scent patches strained thin by the end of a brutal rotation.
There were divisions. Youth classes. Beta-integrated programs. Omega-only training blocks, though a few joined the general team voluntarily, like Haibara, another of Suguru’s previous kouhai he was happy to reunite with, who’d earned his stripes the hard way and smiled through every black eye.
Suguru liked the structure. It was something to hold onto.

And still, between stretches and circuits, he found himself watching Gojo out of the corner of his eye. Tracking the easy, arrogant way he moved through the gym, towel over his shoulder, fanning his shirt to cool down, always grinning. Rumors said he’d never been knocked down. Not once. A freak even among prodigies. Untouchable.

He wasn’t here to challenge him for the title.
But he had to admit… he was curious.
Curious enough to look. Curious enough to wait.
And maybe, just maybe, curious enough to see if the champion ever looked back.

The sound of feet on mats, the shout of rep counts, the rhythmic slap of contact pads - bam-bam-pow - like a beating heart, it all folded together into a low, steady roar that made Suguru’s blood sit warm under his skin.

Nanami called for a switch in grip as they ran a couple drills on the side away from the gym crowd. He gave no compliments, probably felt it was disrespectful or condescending to do so toward his former senpai, but his nod was acknowledgement enough.
That was fine. Suguru didn’t need praise. He moved clean. Precise. Didn’t waste energy. If Nanami noticed he was adapting faster than most newcomers, or people that supposedly only recently jumped back into it after nearly a decade out of practice, he didn’t say anything.

But someone else did notice.

He caught the stare first as a prickle between his shoulder blades. That sense of being seen, not glanced at, not surveyed, but watched. He turned subtly, just as Nanami reset the drill, and found the broad, immovable form of head coach Yaga standing at the edge of the mat.
Arms crossed. Brows drawn. Not disapproving, not quite interested either.
Just watching. Like a man watching the tide come in, waiting to see if it’d bring something useful or wreck the dock.
Nanami gave a short nod once the last set wrapped. “That’s enough for today.”

Suguru took a towel to the back of his neck, breathing quietly through the cooldown. Then-

“You,” Yaga said, voice a low rumble over the room. “Come with me.”
No explanation. Just turned and walked off.
Suguru didn’t ask. He followed.

The office was tucked behind the weight racks, half-obscured from the rest of the gym. Glass-window to look out but soundproofed. Like everything here, it was clean and functional. No motivational quotes. No trophy shelves. Just a desk, a monitor, a file cabinet, a kettle half-full of tea gone cold and… Needle felting supplies…?

Yaga gestured toward the chair. “Sit.”

Suguru did.

The old man didn’t sit himself. He stood behind the desk, watching him a moment longer like he was waiting for something to click into place.

“You ever fight pro?”

“No.” The answer came easily, mostly true.

Yaga grunted.
“You’ve got hands like a striker, but your stance says ground game first. Tactician. You don’t get that sharp from sparring at a community center. You’ve been in scraps. Smart ones. You showed up with no federation record, no documented tournaments past high school, no amateur log-ins. And yet Nanami brought you on. You move like someone who’s had his ass handed to him at least a few dozen times and learned from all of it. And then struck back.”
The man tapped a finger once against the desk. “What about unsanctioned?”

Suguru stayed quiet for the duration of a held breath.
It made sense Nanami had warned the head coach he’d be bringing someone, but this wasn’t just doing your homework. The man really knew his trade.
He met the coaches eyes after a brief pause that felt heavy as the baggage he’d dragged in here, right to the coaches front door. He was well aware his answer could send him packing to never return within a moment’s notice, but he didn’t get the sense the old man could be lied to easily.
“Not recently.”

Yaga didn’t kick him out immediately. He leaned back, cracked his knuckles one by one. Left him room to explain, he realized.

Suguru’s jaw ticked once. Then he sighed.
“After high school I fought for cash. Off-grid. Before now. It wasn’t… clean.”

Yaga nodded slowly. Like he already knew. “Figured.” He circled the desk and finally sat down. The chair creaked under his weight. “You shouldn’t be here. Gym like this, we vet people. You know that. Should’ve been bounced at the door.”

“I know,” Suguru said evenly. “You want me gone, I’ll go.”

Yaga snorted. “Did I say that?” He looked him over again. “You’re a ghost on paper. That makes you a risk. But I’ve seen what ghosts can do.” There was a long pause. “Kento trusts you.”

Suguru didn’t answer.

Yaga added, quieter, “And you’ve got that look in your eye. Like someone who’s already had their shot. Blew it. Wants a new one bad enough to play by the rules this time.”

A beat. Then he changed Suguru’s future.

“You keep it clean. No drama, no unsanctioned side work, no street shit. You register. You stay patched. You move through the classes properly. You prove you’re worth my time. And you keep your nose out of the Champion Team until I say otherwise.”

Suguru held his gaze, giving a slow nod to show his understanding, and forced the words past the tightness in his throat. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Yaga leaned forward. “Then I’ll keep your past quiet.”

The first official class Suguru made it to in the new gym was all conditioning and drill work around noon.
Most guys didn’t talk much. The air was competitive, but he had kept pace, hadn’t shown off. Just flowed, read people, adapted fast, gathered some goodwill, some nods and claps on the shoulder from fast and loose acquaintances.
Head coach Yaga watched him carefully.

And he didn’t miss the way the champion’s eyes lingered on him, either.

Later, during bag drills, Gojo walked by, shirt pulled up to wipe at his face and flash his abs, towel forgotten somewhere near the benches. For the cherry on top he brushed a hand through his white hair like he was on a magazine cover, looking every bit the star.
He slowed down near Suguru. Just enough to make his proximity abundantly clear to him, watching him for mere moments. And, already turning away again, he threw out a casual, “You missed the tempo on that switch kick. Gotta pivot faster.”

Suguru blinked, lip twitching. “Thanks for the tip, champ.”

Gojo finally turned, smiled wide and sharp. “You’re welcome, what’s-your-name. You’re Nanamin’s guy, right?”

“Geto Suguru,” he replied with a nod, though tempted to raise a brow at the cutesy nickname his kouhai had earned.

Gojo paused at the full name, some distant recognition flickering in those bright blue eyes for a moment.
“…Huh. Good name for a fighter.”

“Right back at you,” Suguru said coolly, his smile soft, but there.

There was a beat. Two alphas. No posturing. Just presence, the air thick with it.

Someone across the gym dropped a weight with a loud thud.

Gojo broke eye contact first to check it out, but not before letting out a slow exhale that had smelled too warm, too intentional. His scent, unobstructed by the patches that had yet to get reapplied filled the space between them.

Suguru’s expression didn’t change. The head coach was still watching, after all.

Later, in the locker room, Nanami murmured to Suguru, “He clocked you the second you walked in.”

“I noticed.”

“You know what that means?”

“That I’m doing something right,” Suguru shrugged, projecting easy confidence.
Internally, he was still trying to convince himself that there was no reason the champion should know of him, that the pit he’d clawed his way out of was no place someone like Gojo would ever have reason to go.

“Or that you won’t have peace again.” Nanami sighed, too focused on his own suffering to notice Suguru’s struggle.

At the far end, Gojo was laughing with someone, or rather laughing at someone, but his eyes keep flicking back every now and then, past shoulders and mirrors, right to where Suguru’s towel was slung around to catch the sweat dripping from his hair and his scent patch had fully come off in the heat, his fingers stalling subtly in their motions to replace it.
Suguru wasn't looking at him, but he knew. They were both aware, could feel it even if intention hadn't yet fully taken root.

They’d already started circling each other, two sharks in a tank. 

Chapter Text

First Blood – can be used to describe the first round of a match, meaning the first to land a significant strike or inflict damage.

—

There was no elegant way to put it. That first week in the new gym Suguru’s schedule was shit.

Between bouncing at sketchy clubs and pulling last-minute security shifts for people who barely remembered his name, his nights ended late and his mornings started slow and with too much caffeine for cardio to be a good idea. The only reason he hadn’t dropped from exhaustion yet was years of baseline athleticism and sheer spite.

He hadn’t managed to hit a rhythm with the gym’s regular classes either, not yet.
Most of the real action happened in the evening, but that was exactly when he was clocked in. Open floor when everyone including the more casual gym goers squeezed themselves into the free slots between would have been more convenient for his time management, but Suguru wasn't content with casual.
Thus he’d joined the midday technical sessions, 11 to 1, so far, where drills rotated between grappling, striking, and wrestling. It wasn’t ideal, but it was something.

Still, he was determined to learn the ins and outs of the place, building a presence.

The gym’s daily structure was tightly run. Morning blocks included cardio and endurance, 6 to 9 a.m., mostly run on treadmills and bikes in the backroom with the standard motivational playlists and half-awake regulars plodding along rather than running toward something. If you were lucky or timed it right, you could catch one of the light mobility or stretching classes run by the stern but competent omega instructor, Utahime. She’d side-eyed him during his first attempt at downward dog but had said nothing, which he took as tacit approval.

Midday training was more serious. Sparring on certain days, technical drills more frequently. Coach Yaga ran a tight ship and had already barked at Suguru once for drifting out of stance during a drill. It wasn’t personal. The man barked at everyone. That, more than anything, had reassured him that this place had structure. Rules. Standards.
People respected Yaga, but more importantly, they listened, even the champion, though Gojo was prone to roll his eyes and groan about it before he made a show of putting on a new patch when the old one wore off.

Ieiri Shoko, the gym’s in-house alpha medic, was another story. Laid-back, eternally unimpressed, and sharp as hell under the deceptively sleepy gaze, courtesy of her droopy eyes. She patched people up between sessions like she was bored and overqualified at a hospital internship and didn’t mind the blood. She liked Suguru for some reason. Or maybe she just found him less annoying than the others.

He hadn’t yet managed to attend the later blocks, strength and conditioning from 3 to 5, or the elite-level evening sessions where the champion team did padwork, strategy, and broke down fight footage like war generals. That was Gojo’s time.

Still out of reach. For now.

One morning, when he could drag himself out early enough, he had tried the cardio block but staring at a gym wall while trotting on a treadmill made him want to chew drywall, so more often than not he went to the gym, dropped off his bag there to come back for later, if he had the time to tack on midday sparring, and skipped the morning block in favor of something more familiar. Roadwork. 

Long, quiet runs through the nearby park, earbuds in, world distant. It helped reset his head. Felt like home.

That was where he spotted him. The champion, Gojo Satoru, ahead of him again.

First from a distance. Strikingly white hair ruffled into disarray by the wind, sunglasses on even in the morning haze, running like he wasn’t even trying. The kind of stride that made you irritated just watching it. Too long, too smooth, too effortless. Like treading on clouds.

Suguru never approached when he spotted him from afar. Nothing more annoying than getting interrupted mid-run by some overeager gym rat, and besides, it wasn’t like they really knew each other yet. They hadn’t introduced themselves beyond names and Suguru hadn’t been given reason to believe the other alpha was paying any attention to him beyond registering him as another body in the mass of normies taking regular sparring classes, far from the elite level. He was intending to change that soon enough as he rose through the ranks, but for now he likely wouldn’t even recognize him outside the gym.

At least, he didn’t think so.

Until one morning, Gojo spotted him first.

Suguru was mid-stride, cresting a hill just before the park loop flattened out again, when he caught the flash of silver hair ahead, closer this time. Their paths were crossing. Suguru glanced once, quick, automatic.

Gojo grinned at him. A real grin, wide and lazy and wolfish, then he gave a nod, subtle, like they were old training partners. Or competitors.

And without a word, he picked up the pace.

Suguru blinked.

Then, lips twitching, he sped up too. 

For noon training, they met again.

The gym pulsed with noise, leather smacking pads, bodies hitting the mats, humid air stuck to skin and rolling down spines in heavy drops of perspiration. Clouds loomed outside like a lid on a pot, sealing the heat in. The industrial fans hummed in protest, barely cutting through the haze of sweat, effort, and alpha stink starting to leak through.

Yaga barked out instructions from the center mat, deep voice echoing. “Partner drills! Start from takedown entries into ground control! Flow through the sequence, reset, repeat. Get your damn patches replaced – looking at you, Satoru – and let’s go!”

Suguru wiped his face with the hem of his shirt and moved to the wall, grabbing his water bottle. It was the first day his timing lined up just right to not just enter open class but actually get picked by Yaga’s searching gaze looking to bolster the elite training ranks with a few lucky trainees, getting him closer to the real action to train parallel to the champion. Suguru tried not to look too eager when he got the approving nod, but he’d been waiting for this. Very eagerly.

He was just refilling his bottle when Gojo Satoru strolled up, humming to himself, rash guard clinging to his torso, towel slung around his neck. He moved like the gym was his living room and everyone else was just visiting.

Suguru hadn’t meant to say anything. He rarely did. He watched, he learned. But something about the casual arrogance of Gojo’s stance, weight on one hip, elbow hanging just a little too far from his body as he took a long swig, pushed the words out of him.

“Is there any tactical advantage to leaving your right side open like that?”
Really, Suguru hadn’t meant it in a condescending way when he had said it. For all he knew, Gojo was doing it on purpose to bait an attack from his previous opponent. The response he got had the polite benefit of the doubt he’d curated falling away.

Gojo turned to look at him properly, vibrant eyes fixed right at him, the most direct exposure Suguru had gotten thus far. They were a bit freaky up close purely because it was hard to accept that a human could walk around with stolen pieces of sky seamed by cloud white lashes naturally. He tilted his head at him, confused.
“…You talking to me?”

Suguru raised a brow at him, refrained from gawking, and demonstratively turned his head left and right too, before letting his eyes land back on the alpha before him.
“Unless you’ve got a twin with the same bad habit.”

For a beat, Gojo just stared. Then he barked out a laugh. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” Suguru mimed it with a loose stance and an exaggerated version of the motion Gojo had made during striking earlier. He figured the champion wasn’t used to anyone being left standing after his deadly right hook for it to matter after his hit landed, but that didn’t mean it was right to be careless.
“You leave your elbow hanging after your rear cross and float it out just a bit. Opens up the ribs. Left hook, liver shot, even a body kick… it’s right there.”

Gojo’s grin twitched like he was trying to decide if he was being trolled. “And you just noticed this now?”

Suguru shook his head, screwing on his bottle cap. “I noticed it last week. Just didn’t think it was such an ingrained habit rather than bait.”

That pulled another laugh out of the champ, short and sharp. “Well damn. Someone’s cocky.”

“I’m observant,” Suguru replied, tone flat. He rather considered it cocky not to take freely given advice, but he was willing to give Gojo the benefit of the doubt, again, since he’d been direct with him about his own technique’s shortcomings from day one, and being told of mistakes by the newbie might come off as insulting, so he tried to explain, “And I thought, since you let me know about my pivot-”

The champion didn’t hear him out.

“You think I’m wide open?” Gojo said, dramatic now, pressing a hand to his chest like he'd been mortally wounded.

Suguru didn’t flinch, didn’t grimace, didn't do whatever else the champion must've expected from acting brazenly like that. Just took another sip of water. Privately, he was wondering how someone who took so badly to feedback had made it this far. He supposed stubbornness was another champion trait, though.

Gojo, still grinning, turned over his shoulder and yelled, “Hey, Coach! Suguru here says I’m leaving my right side open! What do you think?”

Yaga didn’t look up from the pair he was watching. “Could be. We’ll check the tapes.”

Gojo raised his brows. “Tch. Harsh crowd.”

He walked off without so much as another glance Suguru’s way, but he counted it a win when the champion kept his elbows noticeably closer for the rest of the drills. 

He focused on that, instead of the fact that he’d remembered his name, called him Suguru, like they were close.

Later that evening, after getting the tip from Geto, Yaga Masamichi did check the tapes with Satoru hovering by his side, yapping the whole time about how it couldn’t be, he didn’t make rookie mistakes like that. Right until they replayed his rear crosses, one by one. 

Satoru went quiet after that because sure enough, there it was. Just a few inches, just long enough. Not enough to matter against most, but enough to matter against someone who’d spot it. The fact that Geto had seen it when it had slipped the champion team’s notice, including Masamichi’s own, was enough to boost the fighter’s standing in his eyes.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just filed the observation away. But the next day, when they broke off into rotation groups, he called Geto over with a sharp whistle. 

He didn’t just pick him for elite drills, pushing him into the shark infested waters once again, no. He pitted him right against the great white himself.

No better way to see whether he’d sink, swim, or show teeth. And Satoru? A walking trial in temper and restraint.
Depending on how he acted… well, first he’d see what he was made of.
“You. With Satoru. Let’s see what you can do.”

Satoru, his mood long recovered from the watch party, perked up like a cat hearing the food bag crinkle. “Oh? First date already?” he said, tossing Suguru a pair of gloves. “Try not to break my heart.”

Geto just tightened the wraps around his wrists and replied, dry as bone, “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Satoru grinned wide. Too wide.
Maybe his mood wasn’t reset quite as well as it seemed at first glance.

Masamichi, from the sidelines, watched closely. Because whatever that exchange was, whatever tension hummed in the air between them, it was exactly the kind of spark he liked to see between fighters who’d push each other to evolve.

Or maybe make something dangerous out of it.

—

“No sparring,” Yaga warned, once everyone had taken their places and the warmups were done, his voice cutting through the gym like a boxing bell. “Just reps. Controlled.”

“Sure, sure,” Gojo drawled, his usual lopsided smirk firmly in place. “I’ll play nice.”

He didn’t.

From the first lock-up, it was clear Gojo had no interest in ‘just reps’. His transitions were sharp, clean, but landed with weight. Every hold flirted with dominance. Not enough to be penalized, just enough to set the pace. Fast. Aggressive.
He moved like a man testing the edges of something new. Or someone.

Suguru didn’t rise to it despite his gi getting rumpled and strands of hair tugged loose from his bun in the rough handling more than once.
Not at first, at least.
He just mirrored the drills with calculated discipline, maintaining perfect form, if a little too clean. His movements were dialed back, smoothed over.
Holding. Containing. Letting go again. Reset. Leading by example.
There was no doubt he could’ve met the intensity, but he refrained. He didn’t want to snap, not in front of the coach, all too well aware that he was still in the trial phase.

The next sequence came, Suguru’s turn to lead. Gojo, of course, pushed harder.

“You sure you trained Nanamin?” He grinned after another lightning-quick transition, outside of his turn, that ended with Suguru on his back, caught in a clean pin. “Not the other way around? Hinges might need some oiling, if you ask me.”

Suguru exhaled slowly through his nose, steady despite the flare of heat in his gut at getting called rusty. Usually, he didn’t engage with such childish provocations anymore, didn’t answer back. But a part of him, the part Gojo kept poking, rose like bile past his throat despite himself, more viscous than he allowed his public face to be these days just when he’d sworn to himself he would play nice for the head coach watching. That didn’t mean he was a doormat, though.

“Only when I’m paired with someone who doesn’t know what ‘controlled’ means,” Suguru replied coolly, brushing sweat from his brow, standing with that unshakable calm that would’ve lesser fighters backing up, reading the warning behind it.

Gojo laughed. Loud. Delighted. Like the whole room was his playground and Suguru had just joined the game. “Hey, pressure makes diamonds, right?”

Suguru smiled, barely. His lips moved, but his eyes didn’t soften.

If Gojo was an untamable storm, so be it. Then Suguru would be the quiet drop in air pressure before it. Unassuming but heavy with intent.

He moved with quiet precision, took the lead back again, the rhythm of the drill finally settling as he put more force into his movements. Gojo showed an ounce of interest, eyes flashing, until he apparently got bored when nothing more exciting happened, and lunged a touch too far, adding a flicker of unpredictability out of turn again, a jab that blurred the line between friendly competition and bait, drill and spar.

Suguru countered smoothly. Too smoothly, too fast, all instinct. Not like a rusty has-been. So before the champion could latch on, he corrected, pulled back. Just a hair. Just enough to avoid flattening the other alpha with a growl. Enough to avoid the kind of reflexive counter he’d learned in bloodier rings.

But that slight retreat, that shift in control that read too much like a flinch, cost him.
His heel landed in a faint trace of sweat on the mat. Suguru staggered, the balance breaking, just for a second.

Gojo’s hand shot out to catch him, reflex or kindness, hard to say, but the half-contact Suguru moved to dodge only tangled things further and he went down hard on one knee.
A sharp twist in the ankle. Not serious. But enough to feel.

“Oh shit, you good?” Gojo asked, crouching halfway like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, his voice having lost its easy playfulness, replaced with just a flicker of hesitance now, threaded behind the vanishing grin.

Suguru pushed himself upright without help, testing the weight. It twinged, but nothing he couldn’t walk off. He’d fought in worse conditions before. Still, he hadn’t meant to drop and hated that it looked like a stumble.

“Fine,” he said shortly. “Just twisted.”

Yaga’s voice cut through the space without hesitation. “Geto. Off the mat. Get that checked.”
Suguru opened his mouth to protest. Closed it. There was no arguing with Yaga once the call had been made. Especially not in front of everyone.
Gojo hovered awkwardly, still watching him like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what.

Suguru just gave him a cool, unreadable look. “Don’t worry,” he said, dry and composed. “I’m tougher than I look.”
He walked off, spine straight. Careful not to limp.
But behind his calm, his hands flexed once at his sides.
Next time, he thought, he wouldn’t pull back quite so much.

Yaga caught Satoru before he could wander back into the ring.
“Satoru.” Just his name, flat and clipped like a slap to the back of the head. 

He slowed. Braced.

Yaga herded him toward the whiteboard, a handler pulling a leash short. Satoru allowed it, because that was the condition he had been given to keep training here.
Respect, compliance - in turn, as much freedom as he’d sorely missed under his family’s thumb.
The class kept going behind them, resuming, mitts clapping, but Satoru could already tell he wasn’t walking away from this one with a shrug and a grin.

“You push him like that again,” Yaga said quietly, “and I’ll pull you from sparring for the rest of the week. He’s new blood, not a professional punching bag.”

Satoru blinked. That’s what it was about? “It was an accident-”

“You think it was. That’s the problem.” Yaga crossed his arms. Firm. Unblinking. “You don’t notice when you’re going too hard. You’re used to everyone folding before it matters. He didn’t.”

“He’s just got that quiet macho thing going on,” Satoru tried to joke but was punished with a sharp glare before he could elaborate that it was just a bit of alpha rivalry, all in good fun, no harm intended. Yaga clearly wasn’t in the mood for joking, so he sighed and dropped it, getting serious.
“It wasn’t like that. He could take it. He was holding back. You didn’t see that?”

“I saw enough,” Yaga said, didn’t raise his voice because he didn’t need to.
“And what I saw was you trying to force something out of a man who knows better than to show it.”

Satoru folded his arms, frustration simmering just below the surface.
“Come on, you feel it. He’s not some quiet returner. He’s got something under there. I was just-”

“Trying to rip the lid off.” Yaga’s tone didn’t budge. “He’s not here for you to test.”

That stopped Satoru short. Not because he didn’t believe it. But because it sounded... personal.
“He’s a fighter,” Satoru said slowly, assertively. “He came here to prove himself like everyone else.”

“No,” Yaga said, sharp enough to shut him up. “He came here to start over. And you don’t get to decide how that goes.”

Satoru stared at him. Trying to read the edges of what Yaga wasn’t saying.

Yaga held his gaze but didn’t elaborate.
“Don’t dig at him again,” he said instead. “He lets it out, he lets it out on his terms. And if you push him, if you get reckless, like you do when you think someone might finally be worth the effort-” he paused, just long enough to mean it, “-you’ll regret it.”

That feeling he’d had a couple days before, when he’d heard the name the first time, Geto Suguru, like he’d heard it somewhere before, crept up on him again.
Satoru narrowed his eyes, trying to parse the weight behind the words.
“Wait, you know something about this. What’s his deal? …Who is he?”

“Someone who can keep it clean,” Yaga said, a trace of approval ringing in his tone. “Let him.”

Then he clapped Satoru on the shoulder like punctuation and dismissal at once, and walked back to the mats, back to the drills, leaving Satoru standing there with more questions than answers.

And the first one wasn’t even who Suguru was.

It was how he had gotten not just the gym's resident hardass, but the medic, the regulars, and apparently even the head coach too, wrapped around his little finger in under a week.

Why the hell was everyone trying to crawl up this guy's ass?!

Ieiri Shoko didn’t believe in fate. What she did believe in however, were well-placed security cameras and the uncanny ability of certain people to make her job harder when bored.
She had one monitor tuned to the mats at all times, purely for triage, of course. She liked to catch injuries before they hobbled their way in, bleeding on her linoleum. Not a hard rule, per se, but personal preference on the slower days, perhaps.

So when Suguru Geto walked in, undone dark hair messily pushed back, his usually controlled gait just a little too careful, she didn’t need supernatural instincts to guess who’d caused it.
Just for fun, she pretended to, anyways.

“Let me guess,” she said, twirling her chair lazily as he approached, “Gojo forgot he’s not in a cage match. Again.”
She didn’t need to look at him to know how well he'd taken to it. The silence that followed said plenty.

“How’d you-” he started, clearly not used to being read. Admittedly, he was hiding the limp admirably.

Shoko raised a brow.
“You’re a promising new chew toy. Bound to happen,” she said, then gestured to the monitor behind her, black and white feed looping quietly in the corner.
“And cameras. You know, for medical purposes. Caught the whole mess. Looked like he thought he was doing you a favor.”

Geto stopped at the edge of the bench. “Drill just got sloppy,” he confirmed eventually, too polite, or something adjacent to it, to accuse, but still a little rattled.

“Mm,” she said, reaching for the ice pack she already had chilling. “Sit. Shoe off. Let me see it before it balloons.”

He obeyed without drama, unlike a certain princeling, which was nice. She didn’t have to wrestle compliance out of him the way she did with some of the younger fighters who thought limping was a personality trait. He had that quiet, old-soul discipline about him. Military spine. Didn’t flinch at the spray, didn’t wince when she pressed into the joint. Just grit through it, expression calm as ever.

Still, something about him struck her as… carefully muted. His face said calm, but his body? It was like it didn’t know how to sit still anymore.

“Minor sprain,” she pronounced. “Day or two off sparring, but light exercise should be fine as long as you don’t go up against that adrenaline junkie. Do your stretches. Don’t try to be a hero, and avoid pivots.”

He nodded. Didn’t argue. Another point in his favor.

She sipped her coffee, black, strong, still steaming in its chipped mug, and leaned one hip against the desk, appraising him out of the corner of her eye.
“You know, I haven’t known you for very long, but you don’t strike me as the type to just eat a fall,” she said lightly. “Let alone from Gojo of all people. So what was that? Slipped, didn’t feel like putting him on his ass for it?”

That earned her the barest twitch of a smirk.
Geto adjusted the ice pack on his ankle. “Wasn’t worth the paperwork.”

Shoko let out a short laugh, tilting her mug in mock salute. “Practical. I like that.”
There was a pause, quiet but not uncomfortable, filled with the hum of the A/C and the low sound of padwork echoing faintly through the wall.
Usually she wouldn’t have bothered with some rancid gym romance, but subtlety sure wasn’t the champion’s strong suit. The circling wasn’t one-sided, or at the very least Gojo was glancing just enough to keep things from going stale in their little pseudo-rivalry. Shoko was a little tempted to start a betting pool on them.
She let the silence linger just long enough before adding, breezily, “So. Are you gonna make me say it, or should we just not acknowledge that you’ve been orbiting like a very dignified satellite?”

Geto glanced up, expression unreadable. But not denying it.

Shoko lifted both brows, leaning closer just a bit like someone about to exchange secrets, someone to be trusted with secrets.
“Oh? You don’t look like the kind of guy who blushes over locker room glances, but if you were into loud, chaotic, and let’s say high-handed… I mean, I know who I’d put my money on.”

Geto’s face stayed calm, too calm, which was its own answer, but his eyes flicked away, just once, betraying something. Not enough to confirm. Just enough to let her know she wasn’t entirely wrong.

She smiled, wide and pleased. “Hah. Knew it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to.” She reached for the roll of athletic tape just in case he needed bracing for the next day and tossed it at him. “Don’t worry, I don’t meddle. I just watch. With interest. It’s like preventative care.”

He caught it, deadpan. “Preventative care.”

“Exactly. If I see sparks flying, I like to know ahead of time if I’m going to need to stock extra gauze. And to lock my office when I’m out. Not fond of having my beds getting desecrated.”

He chuckled under his breath. First real one she’d heard out of him since he started coming in. Nice sound. Dry. Warmer than he looked.

She nudged open the back door with her foot, letting the late summer heat seep in. “You still don’t smoke?”

“Still trying to keep my lungs.”

“Suit yourself.” She stepped out with her coffee and her lighter, casting a look over her shoulder. “But don’t think that makes you immune to gossip.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

By the time the door swung shut behind her, she was already smiling again. There was definitely something there. A flicker, maybe. A mess waiting to happen.

But so long as she didn’t have to stitch anyone back together after, she was happy to watch it play out.

Coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other. Front-row seat.

The gym was quiet. Most of the fighters had long since cleared out for lunch, their laughter and stomping feet fading into the buzz of vending machines and faraway train horns.

Suguru was almost alone aside from a few stragglers collecting gloves, rolling up mats, not minding the alpha where he was sitting barefoot on the far end of the wide open space, finishing up with some stretches, still not cleared for playing rough again but back at the gym for the first time in a few days, since the training drills incident. He was going through the motions slowly, methodical, hair tied back messily, a few strands hanging loose, stuck to his cheek. 

He looked almost soft in the way he moved. Not weak, but deliberate. Controlled. Still protecting that ankle, but no longer limping.

From the stairwell, Satoru had a clear view. 
He leaned on the railing, half in shadow, chewing on the edge of a protein bar he’d forgotten he didn’t really like, all chalk. He’d been meaning to say something for days, but the other alpha hadn’t been around for a chat and Nanami refused to give him his number. How was he supposed to get any investigation done efficiently like that?

When Suguru twisted into a deeper stretch, Satoru pushed off the rail and sauntered over, slow and casual, towel slung over his shoulder like he didn’t spend the last ten minutes debating if this was a bad idea. Then again, he didn’t usually overthink, so he chucked the shitty piece of styrofoam pretending to be nutrition into the nearest bin and stopped pussyfooting around, saying the first thing that came to mind when he got into earshot.
“Yo,” he called, grinning, then immediately put his whole entire foot in his mouth. “Look who’s back on his feet. Should I start watching my ankles now?”
Okay, that had come out wrong. Like he'd made him take that spill on purpose.

Suguru looked up, blinking once, and miraculously didn’t take offense. His mouth quirked. “No need,” he said, voice light. “Yours are already impossible to catch.”

Satoru had been halfway to a smirk and corrective joking measures when that answer completely disarmed him.
No bite. No sarcasm. No grudge. He blinked, laughing a little too loud. “Hah! So you’re saying I’m slippery?”

“I’m saying,” Suguru said evenly, settling into a knee, “you’re fast. Too fast, probably. But I’ll keep trying.”
The words weren’t sharp. They were... playful. Honest. And the way he said it, like it was a simple fact, not a complaint, lodged something awkwardly warm in Satoru’s chest.

He walked up, flopping down way too close for most everyone's comfort with a thud, legs crossed like a delinquent pretending to meditate.
Not that he was trying to pressure a confession of resentment out of the guy, but Satoru was practicing reading the room, so to say.
Plus, it gave his days a little kick being within striking range, especially when he dodged a swipe or tea chucked his way, (Utahime's aim was improving, but still too short).
“You’re not upset I got you taken right off the elite roster your first time on?”

Suguru glanced over. “Should I be?”

Eh? Not even a glare thrown his way?
Hell, Yaga had made him steep over this shit for nothing. This dude was totally unruffled.
Satoru shrugged. “Most people are when I accidentally get them injured.”

Suguru didn’t answer right away. Just leaned over to re-wrap his ankle after his stretches. Loose, slow movements. No tension in his voice.
“You said it yourself. Accidentally. You clearly didn’t mean to,” he replied, easy as that. “And it’s not like I told you to slow down, either.”

Satoru squinted at him, looking for cracks in a mask that wasn’t there. Not currently, at least.
“Still,” he heard himself say, more stilted than he meant to, because he was somewhat unfamiliar with such ease coming from others when faced with his innate and unrelenting jackassery.
“That grab was kinda dumb of me. You totally would’ve had it without that.”
Okay, maybe he was skirting around taking actual responsibility for going too hard. He could admit he had gone a bit overboard, provoking the guy. Was about to, too. People were fragile things, and easy to offend, after all-

“Wouldn't say dumb. Reckless, perhaps,” Suguru said with a soft grin. “But I figured that out on day one.”

And for a moment, Satoru just stared at him. There it was again. No subtle malice… It was just mischievous enough to make his brain short-circuit. Kind. Warm.

“…You’re weird,” Satoru muttered, face heating for no reason.

Suguru shrugged nonchalantly. “You started it.”

Satoru snorted, couldn’t deny it. “You gonna hold that against me, too?”

“No,” Geto said, meeting his eyes. “I think I’m gonna thank you.”

Satoru blinked. “Huh?”
Had he blacked out for a minute or something? He was tempted to check for cotton in his ears. What had he missed? No way someone would be grateful about rolled ankles and half-baked apologies, right? Had to be the run-up for the punchline, he figured.

But instead of revealing a hidden grudge, Suguru elaborated with a light smile. “You woke something up. It’s been a long time since I wanted to be better because someone was better.”

For some reason the words hit harder than a kick to the ribs, his chest giving the echo of an odd throb.
Satoru found he didn’t know what to say to that, coming up short even for a smartass joke, so instead, he flopped back onto the mat like he was bored, arms sprawled.
It was a little like hiding in plain sight. He’d always been untouchable under the spotlight, but as he squinted, the ceiling lights dimmed, too low to draw a clear line between him and the other alpha.
“…You’re a total weirdo,” he muttered.

“Mm,” Suguru hummed, not denying it. Satoru was still thinking about how to respond to all that when in the next moment, Suguru was already standing up, brushing off his sweats.
“Night, Satoru,” he said simply, voice low and gentle in a way that error-messaged every part of Satoru’s systems.

Satoru?

He was used to calling everyone and their grandmother by their first name in the ever detested art of lacking respect, but that didn’t mean many did it back. The fact that the oh so polite rookie returned the sentiment caught him somewhat off guard. He sat up, watching him walk away, stunned into silence, his own faint scent flickering and confused in the empty air.
The door clicked shut behind Suguru. And Satoru, alone in the dim gym, exhaled a quiet-

“…What the hell was that?”

Nevermind Nanamin, Shoko, Yaga, and whoever else this guy had gotten to... How come Satoru was starting to feel charmed, too?!

He'd meant to be investigating!

The park outside the gym was quiet, vibrant foliage casting long shadows across the twisting paths.

Suguru walked slowly, hands in his pockets, earbuds in but nothing playing. The light breeze cooled the heat still lingering in his muscles.
He was distracted by his thinking. Replaying every second of that conversation.

He hadn’t planned to say all that but it had slipped out, unfiltered. 
For once, he didn’t regret the bare honesty, if only for the ridiculous reaction it had earned him from the champion all too happy to sprawl out like a beached starfish, the wind stolen right out of his sails.

As Suguru rounded a bend, he quietly wondered if that counted as a knockout.

There was no one else around. No need to school his expression.
That’s when, for a fleeting second, his usual quiet composure slipped. Just enough for the corner of his lip to lift into a full, genuine smile.

So ridiculous, Suguru thought, and then, ah, I’m in trouble.

Back home that night, Satoru’s sprawled on his absurdly large couch, one leg hanging off the side, a protein shake half-finished on the table and some muted space documentary playing on the TV that he was absolutely too wired to watch.

His phone lit up next to him. System notification. He grabbed it like it personally offended him.

No messages.

He opened Nanami’s chat anyway.

It was late. Too late for anything good to come from texting.

Kento was reading in bed, glasses on, a single lamp casting warm light across the page. His phone buzzed once. Twice. Three times.

He frowned. Frowned harder when he saw the name on his display.

Gojo Satoru
3 New Messages

He sighed, placed a bookmark, and unlocked his phone to access his messaging app, regretting once again giving the other man access to his private number. It had been meant for emergencies, but not once had it been used for that purpose. Tonight, it seemed, wasn’t going to be a precedent, either.

Gojo Satoru:
hey nanamin~
quick q
u were in school with suguru, yeah?

Kento stared blankly at the screen for three full seconds. Unfortunately, problems regarding Gojo rarely disappeared overnight.
They came back steeped in more drama. Against his better judgement, he replied.

Nanami Kento:
It is 11:34 p.m.
Why are you texting me.

Gojo Satoru:
idk u trained with him longer than me
just wanted to know what he was like back then
does he have a few screws loose in general or was he always like… *that*

Nanami Kento:
Like what.

Gojo Satoru:
idk
weirdly chill? defs got anger issues under all that right?
looks polite but kind of a smartass
actually kinda nice
but definitely kind of an asshole too
i mean how did *you* even befriend someone like that?

There was a long pause. No backtracking or joking.

Kento put the phone down.

Gojo Satoru:
i can ask yuu instead u know

He picked it up again. The texts, unfortunately, were still there after he’d finished rubbing the inside corners of his eyes. He typed slowly.

Nanami Kento:
He has always been talented.
A good training partner, a better teacher.
Disciplined. Humble.
Unlike some people.

Gojo Satoru:
lol jealous?

He felt his left eye twitch. Just once.

Nanami Kento:
I’m not sure what emotion you’re attempting to provoke, but I can assure you, I’m not feeling it.

Gojo Satoru:
aw dont be like that nanamin~
thought u’d be all proud i’m taking interest in a promising new talent
isn’t that what mentors do?

Nanami Kento:
You are a mentor to no one, least of all him.
You are barely his gym mate.
Please refrain from derailing him with whatever this is.
He doesn’t mess around with people and would surely prefer not being messed with in return.

Gojo Satoru:
ok rude
i’m not derailing anyone
he called me satoru btw
looks p derailed without my help
like you think he got a crush on me or smth?

Kento set the phone face-down. Rested his eyes for five full seconds.

He picked it back up. Begrudgingly.

Nanami Kento:
I cannot begin to fathom why he did that but it's not that.
Good night, Gojo-san.

Gojo Satoru:
nanamin wait come back i need more context
nanamin
nanami.
🗣️🧱🧱🧱

Kento turned his light off and decided to end the night with some breathing exercises.

Chapter Text

Footwork – crucial for transitioning between striking and grappling, controlling distance, and avoiding attacks.

—

Since the ankle thing, pretty much healed off by week two, Suguru had found himself absorbed into the elite rotation more or less permanently, training right along Satoru’s champion’s team. Yaga never officially said it, but his name kept showing up on the whiteboard with the rest of them. And Satoru? Satoru started popping up in his vicinity more. Not just to midday sessions, but to the early morning runs, too. Sometimes late. Always loud. Suguru noticed.
It helped that he actually made it to morning classes now.

Not because his work hours had shifted. They hadn’t.
But Suguru had stopped entertaining after-hours drink invitations from his colleagues or the occasional obligatory team karaoke and smoke breaks he didn’t participate in that turned into watching the sunrise and waking din of the city that never truly slept.
Now, when his shift ended, he left. Straight home. Straight to sleep. Straight to prep for the gym.

Suguru was still working nights as a bouncer, a job he’d gotten through Manami. One of her rare favors pulled without strings. They were still good, technically. They just didn’t see each other much anymore. These days, it was more calls than drinks, more texts than drop-ins. She didn’t seem offended, exactly. She just noticed and let him feel it, too.

But he had other priorities right now.

And maybe it was selfish. Maybe it wasn’t “career-minded” in the way she envisioned for him, but the payoff made it hard to regret.

Yaga approved of him, that much was obvious. Not just in a nod-at-your-effort sort of way, but in how over time he’d started giving Suguru real reps with the core fighters, put him in charge of leading warmups sometimes, trusted him to run drills clean with the juniors. It was the kind of quiet status promotion that didn’t come with ceremony, just expectation.
And perks.
Advice. Special offers for new gear. One-on-ones with names that usually didn’t give the time of day to anyone new.

The youth division carried word fast. Those kids had mouths, and bigger eyes. Suguru, without trying, had started to become someone they looked at a little longer during demonstrations. A couple even started tailing him between sessions.

Itadori, the wildly athletic one, approached him first.
“Hey, hey, how did you do that lift during the sweep earlier? That torque thing?” He had asked, bouncing on his feet.

Kugisaki had flanked him and criticized his question, saying the switch kick was what he should’ve asked about. And then another, Fushiguro, seemed to pop out of nowhere, looking like he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be there, but hovering nearby anyway, a trio of chaos moving like one eager shadow.

Suguru blinked, caught off guard, glancing behind to see if they were asking someone else. But no. Three faces. All pointed at him.

He’d shown them. Talked through the mechanics. Demonstrated. Carefully. Even let Fushiguro try it on him once, before quietly adjusting his stance and nodding. He didn’t talk down. Didn’t play it too cool. Just tried to be useful.

By the time they left him alone, a few of the older teens had drifted closer to the edges of the mat, clearly watching. He hadn’t missed that either.

Later, during cooldowns, Satoru sidled up beside him, toweling off his hair, water bottle tucked under one arm, all teeth in the illusion of a grin.
“You’re a real charmer, y’know that?” he said, voice pitched for teasing but eyes watching for the reaction.

Suguru side-eyed him, acting unimpressed but sensing something was off. “What now.”

Satoru nudged him with an elbow. “Megumi asked you for help with his grip form. You know how long I’ve been trying to get that little brat to ask me anything without groaning like I’m pulling teeth?”

Suguru raised a brow, slowly stretching out his triceps. Jealousy was cute on him. “Maybe he’s just not into showboats.”

Satoru’s mouth fell open in mock offense. “As if you’re any better!”
But his smile stuck around longer than his pout did, warm and genuine as he slumped beside Suguru, close but not overbearing. Not to Suguru at least.

They didn’t really spar.

Suguru’s night shifts kept him out of the evening matches and most of the technical sparring classes and having spotty presence in that regard was something even his rising reputation wasn’t going to help in terms of joining the elite sparring roster. But he was there for everything else. Drills, weight circuits, recovery protocols.
Mornings, no matter how grueling the process of dragging himself out of bed, to early afternoons, hedging it close to the start of his shift. If the gym was open, he was there. 

If Satoru was around, he found his way into Suguru’s radius, always with a dumb joke, a sharp grin, a presence that somehow never wore thin.
He was watching him. Like he was trying to figure him out still. Like he liked what he saw.

Suguru didn’t say it, but he kind of liked being watched like that. Not as a curiosity, not as a threat. Just… noticed.

Suguru noticed, too. Noticed the way he lingered longer after warmups, circled closer during partner assignments, asked questions he didn’t really need answers to. The banter had cracked through the previous cool distance between them, and now it came easy.
During water breaks, between reps, during glove changes… he’d shown up when Suguru had joined early morning mobility classes once, instead of running, and they’d both gotten kicked out by Utahime for disruption, snickering with each other on their way out about stupid shit like a bunch of scolded high schoolers.

Today, it started in the middle of a pad change.

“You always this calm?” Satoru asked, bending at the waist to lean too close while Suguru sat and retaped a knuckle.

“You always this nosy?” Suguru replied without looking up.

Satoru grinned, unbothered. “Just trying to understand the guy who’s trying to ruin my illusion of being untouchable.”
Still very much bothered about the elbow comment, then.

Suguru glanced back at him. He still hadn’t managed to land a hit on him, but his training was finally starting to come to fruition thanks to continuously getting pitted against such strong opponents, Satoru chief among them, though the others from the elite rotation he’d gotten to know, weren’t such bad practice either.

It was hard not letting his meteoric rise to the top get to his head at least a little bit, and when he reached back casually to rap his knuckles against Satoru’s collar, making him back up with a confused twist of the mouth he had to suppress his smugness over tagging the champion with all his might. Failed, of course.
“Your illusion’s pretty fragile,” he replied coolly as he could make it sound.

That earned a laugh, full-throated and delighted.

Drills started up again. They were paired. Again.

“Ready to sweep me off my feet?” Satoru asked as he rolled his shoulders and shot him a wink. 

Suguru didn’t smile. But his hands worked a little faster, the tape neat and tight. He didn’t mind the noise anymore. Satoru’s presence had stopped feeling like a spotlight. It was something else now. Not quite comfortable, but familiar. Predictable, in the way a blade could be once you knew the edge.
Suguru stood, controlling his expression. “If I must.”

The mat thudded beneath their feet as they moved into position.

The ice hadn’t broken so much as melted. Whatever was growing between them now moved invisible beneath the clear surface. Sharp, fluid, inevitable.

The sharpest edge never hurts at first, after all.

It gets clean under your skin.

The gym was alive with the thud of gloves meeting pads and the low chorus of voices echoing off steel beams and padded walls just past noon, sunlight spilling through the high windows, striping the floor in gold and shadow.

Haibara Yuu stepped through the doors with a spring in his step, gym bag slung over one shoulder. Three weeks abroad in an exchange program and it already felt like forever. The familiar buzz of the place hit him like a shot of caffeine mixed with warm milk. He loved it here, the smell of sweat and disinfectant, the subtle hum of sparring intensity just under the surface. This was home.

He barely made it five paces before he caught a familiar face near the ring.

“Nanami!” he called, waving.

Kento turned, always unreadable but, to Yuu’s trained eye, marginally less unreadable than usual. Normally he liked it better addressing each other formally in public, but today, it seemed a rare exception.

“Yuu,” he said, and that, from Kento, was basically the equivalent of a warm hug.

Yuu grinned, bouncing slightly as he adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “Feels good to be back! I missed this place. It’s so quiet over there in Kyoto! I swear, I didn’t break a sweat the entire second week!”

“Then you’ll enjoy the warm-up drill today,” Kento said, deadpan. “Kirara’s been running it. We’re all dying.”

Yuu laughed, then froze mid-step as he caught something just from the corner of his eye. Two large shapes leaned lazily against the ropes of one of the main rings, too casual for someone who’d just finished rounds. He looked twice.

Oh. Gojo and right beside him, close enough to be sharing body heat, was-

“Is that Geto-senpai?” Yuu blurted, awed.

Kento sighed, resigned.

Yuu blinked a few more times, trying to process it.

“Whoa... since when are they friendly, or, uh…?” he asked, turning to Kento, his voice dropping to a whisper even though the gym was too loud for it to matter. He didn’t finish the sentence. But Nanami’s jaw ticked.

Geto, calm, composed, gentle-in-a-way-most-alphas-weren’t, was half-leaning into Gojo’s space, one hand on the other’s forearm, maybe guiding something technical... or maybe just not bothering to move away. They were smiling. Breathless. 

Geto’s expression was relaxed in a way Yuu hadn’t seen in years, not since before he’d left their high school gym. During those few and far inbetween reunions shared with some former classmates he’d always seemed normal, only the contrast now making Yuu realize how he’d looked maybe a little lost until…

Gojo tilted his head and grinned, the kind that stretched wide and self-satisfied.
“You sure you don’t just wanna hold my wrist a little longer, Suguru?”

Geto rolled his eyes, grip still firm. Scolding, but fondly amused. “I’m making sure you didn’t throw your shoulder out. Again.”

“I was improvising,” Gojo said, dramatically offended. “Innovating.”

“You were compensating for bad footwork.”

“Potato, potahto.”

Geto huffed a laugh, short and low. “You keep making excuses like that, I’ll start charging you for corrections.”

Gojo leaned in, eyes bright with something too amused to be just banter. “What if I like the corrections?”

Geto didn’t dignify that with a response, but he also didn’t pull away.

What the hell happened while he was gone?

Yuu’s brain rebooted.

Nanami didn’t answer immediately, just adjusted his towel with a sort of quiet suffering that Yuu remembered from their high school days.

“So... they’re sparring partners now?” he asked. “Like, regularly?”

“Not exactly,” Nanami muttered, voice clipped. “They just run most exercises together outside of the ring. Gojo keeps showing up whenever Geto is training.”

Yuu blinked. “That doesn’t sound like ‘not exactly.’ That sounds like very exactly.”

Nanami didn’t even deny it.

“Geto-senpai’s really made himself at home while I was gone, huh?” Yuu said softly, trying to keep the note of amazement out of his voice.

He hadn’t expected this.

Sure, Geto was strong. Like super duper strong. But Gojo Satoru was a different type. An alpha so dominant he made even other alphas stand straighter when he walked into a room. Yuu had always admired him from a cautious distance: awe wrapped in layers of no thank you. Not his kind of energy. Not by a long shot.

Geto though… Geto was centered. Calm. Someone who looked at people, not through them. He and Nanami and Shoko were the kind of alphas Yuu felt comfortable around, the kind who didn’t posture or loom. And now he was standing that close to Gojo-san like it was nothing?

If he would have been asked to picture how they’d act around each other, he would’ve expected them to growl at each other like in one of those crazy nature documentaries on their predecessors, showing aggressive alpha dominance fights and complex territorial dynamics before the invention of blockers and suppressants and all that, or very least not get along like this.

But they just… coexisted.

From the corner of the ring, Gojo flicked a lazy finger through Geto’s bangs, laughing at whatever reply Geto gave him in return. He didn’t even try to dodge.

Yuu tried again, softly this time. “Geto-senpai looks… happy.”

That gave Nanami pause. He didn’t respond immediately.

He looked, and Yuu watched his expression shift into something closed off and tense.

“Too happy,” Nanami muttered, and turned away before Yuu could ask what that meant.

Satoru had a hand on his hip, the other scrubbing a sweaty towel at his neck, eyes scanning the gym like a bored cat. His gaze landed on Nanami across the mats, arms crossed as he chatted with Yuu returned to their fold, but watching them as so often these days like he was already planning the obituary for his peaceful days. Smart man.

Satoru grinned. He lived for this.
“Hey, Suguru.”

Suguru, mid-wrap removal, glanced over. “Yes, Satoru?”

Satoru felt a grin already breaking across his face, bright and unstoppable.
He directed that energy into mischief, tipping his head toward Nanami, not subtle. He wanted him to sense it coming. More fun that way.

“You think if I wink at Nanamin, he’ll finally confess how much he secretly loves me?”

Suguru didn’t look, just deadpanned, “Only if you dispose of Haibara first.”

“Ooh, bummer. Shark bait on his first day back.”

Suguru flicked a towel at his face.

Haibara sat on the bench beside Suguru like a gust of fresh air, towel-dampened with water to cool off, sneakers half-laced, protein shake in hand and full of energy like the trainer exchange to Kyoto hadn’t done anything to him but recharge him even further. Suguru was finishing packing his gym bag for when he had to run home later, prepared to stay until the last minute before duty called.

“You’re fitting in like you’ve been here this whole time, huh?” Haibara asked, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet where he sat. “Feels weird coming back and seeing you, like, in this place. You look good, senpai!”

Suguru offered him a nod and a quiet smile, distracted by the tape. “Welcome back. You’re fitting right back in too, I see.”

Haibara beamed. “Ahh, they’re tough but nice. And the gear here is way better. But what about you?” He leaned in, lowering his voice slightly. “I heard from some of the guys you weren’t fighting for a while? Like, since high school?”

Suguru paused, then gave a vague shrug. “Yeah… I lost my scholarship.”

“Wait, what?” Haibara blinked, no attempt at hiding his bewilderment. “But you were- Sorry, I just- Weren’t you undefeated back then?”

Suguru tilted his head, as if amused by the memory. “Things change. I wasn’t exactly in the best place at the time. I didn’t want to go back home, so I ended up working here and there. Didn’t pick up gloves again until this past spring.”
He said it like a simple detour. Left out the bruises, the blood, the dark. The cracked noise of a crowd that never knew his name.

“Whoa,” Haibara breathed, wide-eyed with honest awe. “That’s seriously badass. You just walked away? And now you’re here? I mean- Geto-senpai, you're in the champion’s rotation. That’s insane. I can’t even imagine taking that much time off and coming back like this.”

Suguru let out a soft chuckle, finishing with prep and sitting, flexing his ankle carefully, still mindful of it even weeks after the sprain, habit more than necessity by now. “Bit of luck. Bit of persistence.”

“Don’t forget talent,” Haibara added, grinning. “Oh! And thank you! For looking after the kids while I was gone. Fushiguro and Kugisaki told me you were showing them some clinch escapes last week. Yuji said you fixed his stance like, magically!”

“They asked,” Suguru said simply. “Figured I’d help. They’re sharp.”

“They are! And now they all wanna be like you.” Haibara nudged him playfully with his shoulder. “Honestly, senpai, I think they’re a little starstruck.”

Maybe Haibara was a little starstruck himself, still. Not that Suguru had ever minded, since his junior had never made it an issue between them. Suguru hummed, sipping his water. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

Then came the unmistakable call, loud, cutting through the gym like it always did.
“Suguru!”

Satoru, all limbs and sweat and ridiculous confidence, came sauntering over like he’d won something. Probably had. He was wiping his neck with a towel, still grinning. “Mobility’s done. You’re not skipping sled pulls with me again, right?”

Suguru didn’t even look up right away. “After water.”
Didn’t miss Haibara’s legs stopping its bouncing, still smiling, but not at ease.

Satoru made a noise of mock offense, threw a towel at him, missed. “Fine. Five minutes. But then I’m dragging you.” Suguru didn’t dignify that with a reply either. Satoru winked and jogged backward toward the sleds.

Once he was gone, Haibara tilted his head and said, a little too quietly, a little too observantly, “You’re really relaxed around him.”

Suguru blinked. Seemed like he hadn’t been the only one to take note. “Am I?”

Haibara didn’t push it. Just smiled, sweet and sunny, and said, “It’s nice. I’m glad you found people here who… y’know. Make things lighter.”

Suguru didn’t respond. Not right away.

But the words stayed with him long after the water was gone and the sleds were pushed.

Like a weight he didn’t realize had gotten lighter. Until someone pointed it out.

It started small. 

A pair of gloves mysteriously glued together, Satoru denying involvement loudly when Nanami got on his ass about acting unprofessionally and hazing the omega while Haibara just laughed it off. Suguru stood beside him, hiding his snort behind a fist, clearly involved and gleeful he didn’t get the same attitude from his little kohais.

Then, the day after, Nanamin’s wraps got replaced with comically pink and sparkly ones. Nanamin looked like he was either seconds away from skipping training altogether, or relieving his rage by bedazzedly punching out a sandbag.

Yaga walked past. Stopped. Looked at Satoru, in stitches, then at Suguru, badly trying to disguise a laugh as a cough. The rest of the gym turned quiet under Yaga’s gaze.
“Satoru.” 

He froze. 

“Midday mat duty. Don’t leave until it’s spotless.”

“But I didn’t even-” Satoru started, but didn’t get to finish, locking shocked eyes on the damn sell-out pointing an accusing finger at him.

“Now,” Yaga barked. “You too, Suguru.”

Suguru smiled very faintly, folding his arms behind his back. “Yes, Coach.”

Satoru looked at him with a pout, betrayed. Damn sycophant.

Yaga turned to go, muttering something about “goddamn children” under his breath.

Whatever. That at least gave them some time to plan their next heist. Suguru was a surprisingly good accomplice, coming up with ideas that rivaled his own evil genius. When he didn’t fold like a deck of cards, at least.

In summer, everyone fled the gym during lunch hour like a swarm of locusts on the hunt for the next protein rich field to raze to the ground, so it was no wonder Suguru and him were left pretty much by themselves.

Satoru dragged a mop with all the half-hearted grace of a sulky cat. Suguru remained methodical, sleeves rolled up, not talking much, even while doing time. Typical.

“Was it worth it, Brutus?” Finally, Satoru spoke. “I don’t see you laughing.” 

Suguru quietly exhaled, amusement more visible in his eyes than on his lips. “I am. Internally.”

Satoru squinted at him. “This is how horror movies start, you know. Two dumbasses alone in a gym.”

“Only one of us is a dumbass,” Suguru murmured, spraying disinfectant.

“You were in on it,” Satoru accused and flopped onto the freshly cleaned mat dramatically. “Why does Nanamin hate me?”

Suguru looked down at him. “Because you’re loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, flirt with everyone, and you never finish warmups properly.”

Satoru tilted his head cutely. “Flirt? Me?”

Suguru gave him a look.

Satoru grinned, wiggled his brows.

Suguru smirked back, shook his head at him. “Just clean the mat, Satoru.”

Satoru hummed. “Yes, Senpai~ ”

Suguru nearly threw the mop at him, but didn’t because he totally knew better by now. That kinda thing would end in more gym vandalism than he seemed to be in the mood for before lunch, which was just as well. He’d crack him sooner or later.

After what had turned into an impromptu mop fight Suguru had ended up doing most of the cleaning while Satoru “supervised” from a sitting position. Now they found themselves outside the gym under the burning midday sun, sweat sticking to the backs of their necks and nowhere else they needed to be. Well, Satoru didn’t. Suguru apparently had a shift in a few hours.

“Ramen?” Satoru offered, slinging his gym back over his shoulders. “You gotta eat to feed the gains.”

Satoru didn’t expect Suguru to say yes. He usually tossed out lunch offers like throwing seed bombs just to see if something would grow.
He did it with anyone, cause it was the kind of thing you said after a shared chore. Unlike the juniors, too ravenous to refuse anything food shaped, most people tried to duck out, mumbled excuses, waited for him to insist and then playfully gave in once they were sure he’d pay, so he usually made sure to advertise his unlimited bank account accordingly.

But Suguru, before Satoru could even pull his black card, just blinked at him through a few damp strands of hair, and said, “Sure. There’s a place nearby, right? I’ve got an hour before work.”

Just like that.

Suguru picked the place so they found themselves sitting side by side at a narrow counter in a ramen shop with no AC and one flickering light. The fan above them made a whining sound like it was pleading for release and losing the negotiations. Still, compared to the sweltering temperatures outside, it was heaven inside. Cold water, marginally colder air, and the scent of broth so rich it made your mouth water with a single whiff. Okay, maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all. Unassuming front, maybe.

Satoru ordered the tonkotsu with extra chashu, hold the spice. Suguru got the zaru soba and the old guy behind the counter nodded with an air of familiarity.

“You dieting?” Satoru muttered with a grin when their meals were served soon after, no long lines like in the fancier places he tended to frequent around the gym. “Or just too refined for pork broth?”

Suguru smiled, dry. “It's more refreshing in the summer.”

As if you couldn’t enjoy ramen in any season. Satoru snorted. “You’re such a snob.”

“Just discerning,” Suguru corrected, dipping his noodles calmly into the sauce. “There’s a difference.”

Satoru took a dramatic slurp of his tonkotsu. “Yet you still agreed to come eat with me. Most people need coercion. Or free gyoza.”

“Tempting,” Suguru said lightly, gaze flicking sideways at him for a moment. “But I figured, if you’re going to keep flinging your limbs at me like a muppet, the least I can do is feed you before you pass out from exertion.”

“Oh, so you’re treating me?” Satoru snorted, expecting Suguru to tell him he’d meant it figuratively, like his company should be payment enough to balance the cost of one measly meal at the expense of the champion.

Suguru liked to keep him on his toes, though. 

“Yes.”

Eh? Satoru’s smirk froze for half a second, but he recovered just as quickly, already with a laugh on his lips again. “Now I really can’t believe you came.”

Suguru sipped his iced tea like he wasn’t making a statement. Total weirdo.
“I like to repay kindness in equal measure. And you’ve been... unexpectedly accommodating.”

There was something polite in his tone, but also something veiled. A little too smooth. Satoru squinted at him. “Is that your way of saying I’m annoying but useful?”

Suguru’s mouth curved. “Would I say that?”

“You would, but you’d do it with so much charm out your ass other people just don't notice.”

Suguru dipped his head in mock modesty.

Satoru chuckled, settling into the stool with his chin on his hand. “What kind of work do you do, anyway?”

“Security,” Suguru replied. “Mostly night shifts. Clubs, some venues. Temp work.”

“That explains why you only show up for the midday bloodbath.”

Suguru nodded. “It’s the only time I can consistently make.”

“Shame. You’re sharp,” Satoru said before thinking about it, then added, half a joke, half serious, “Why don’t you go full-time fight life? You’ve clearly got the eye.”

Suguru didn’t hesitate, like he’d thought about it before. “I planned on it when I was younger but quit a while ago. Took a break when my circle changed, so I switched up my career path. Came back once I realized I was getting soft.”

Satoru paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Suguru said simply, but not flippantly. “Decided I’d rather be in control of that part of myself.”

“No, I mean. You. Soft?” Satoru glanced at him from the side, exaggerating how truly aghast he was at the mere idea. The guy was built like a tank, one of the few people that didn’t end up looking like a garden gnome next to him. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Suguru tried to hide his subtle smugness behind a sip of tea. “I try.”
Not all that subtle, really.

Satoru leaned back, watching him. Suguru didn’t talk like someone trying to impress him, but like someone who didn’t need to. Easy confidence.

They ate for a few minutes in peace before Suguru glanced toward the time. “Gotta head out soon. My post’s in Shinjuku tonight.”

“Nightclub?” Satoru asked, wondering what kinda place opened this early.

“Host club,” Suguru corrected, which made more sense. Satoru figured places like that would hire security that would at least not stand out like a sore thumb in a place like that so he bet Suguru was popular there, surrounded by pretty alphas and omegas...

And then he elaborated.

“Some afternoon drunks here and there, entitled, rich assholes. Lots of standing around and riding the fine line between looking mean and aesthetically pleasing enough to keep around.”

Satoru whistled, his dazzling mental image blown to pieces. “Sounds like a blast.”

“It’s rent,” Suguru shrugged. “And protein powder.”

Satoru threw him a look, eyes squinting playfully. “How old are you again?”

“I’m only two months younger than you,” Suguru replied without hesitation. “Don’t make it weird.”

“You should call me senpai,” Satoru purred, most definitely making it weird.

Suguru ignored him expertly, finishing his noodles. “If you try to make me to call you that in class, I’m dropping you on your head.”

“You’re so cruel,” Satoru grinned, finding it funny how protective the other alpha was of his rep when he pretty much already got the whole gym wrapped around his finger just a month into training.
“You know Utahime’s been praying for someone to humble me and have a cackle about it with Shoko.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that,” Suguru wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She’s probably praying I don’t steal her chance.”

“And her job. You do stretch better than her,” Satoru said, always delighted to do a little affectionate trash talking of his friends.

“All things considered, that’s not so surprising,” Suguru replied evenly, tone utterly neutral, and added, “She’s good, but the stick up her ass must be getting in the way of things.”

Satoru choked on his broth.

Fuck, he liked him. He really liked him. Satoru was no better than all the other fools at the gym, pulled in by that charm but in moments like these it felt so personalized. Cut right out for him. No way he talked like that in front of Nanamin. That made it even better.

Before Satoru could fully recover, Suguru stood up, slinging his bag over one shoulder.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Don’t work too hard,” Satoru replied, still laughing into his empty bowl, leaving him to finish eating without rushing. When Satoru went to pull out his wallet, Suguru had already passed a few bills to the owner with a nod.

“Seriously?” Satoru blinked. “You didn’t have to-”

“I know, but I wanted to,” Suguru said.

Huh. Satoru felt himself getting heart burn or something. Broth must be too salty here. He brushed it off, narrowed his eyes at the other alpha. “You trying to suck up or something?”

“Just showing my appreciation,” Suguru replied with a smile, like, earnestly, as he stepped into the sunlight. “Thanks for your hard work, Satoru.”

“Uh. You too,” Satoru mumbled, watching him walk off while a soft furrow settled between his brows. And that was when it really hit him.

He’d totally lost sight of his initial objective. Satoru wasn’t investigating shit. He was invested.
Suguru wasn’t even trying to get Satoru’s attention. He just had it.

And for the first time, Satoru found himself wanting to capture someone’s attention in return.

Chapter Text

No Contest – If both fighters commit violations or one fighter cannot continue due to an injury from an accidental illegal move, the fight can be declared a "no contest".

—

A mere three months could pass in the blink of an eye but to Satoru, that summer felt like it lasted lifetimes.

He almost couldn’t remember what it had been like before Suguru had joined the gym, memories without him seeming empty, less vibrant, and far away.

The first month, the alpha had predominantly attended midday classes, some mornings sprinkled in to keep things dynamic and making Satoru laugh too loud during warm-ups, but his presence had quickly turned into the highlights of his lunch period.

Suguru turned out to be one of the few people hiding his own laughs instead of eyerolls when he was with him, and didn't tell him to shut up. 

Not with any seriousness, at least.

They got paired up again for striking drills as long as they both swore to going easy, but both had to hide bruised ribs and too sharp grins from the coaches anyway after some grappling and elbow jab wars gone overboard.

Yaga raised a brow when he saw them jostling each other out of the ring, but said nothing.

Life was good.

And maybe he grew a bit too complacent because of it.

“You’re still holding back,” Satoru accused one late noon after class, wiping sweat from his jaw.

“Maybe you’re not worth my full effort yet,” Suguru replied, perfectly cordial, as if he hadn’t taken the words out of his mouth. Like Satoru wasn’t waiting.

Snarky bastard.

Satoru grinned like he had just won something anyway.

By month two, they were a pair, seen in each other’s company more often than not.

Utahime walked by, correcting posture. Suguru nodded, thanking her sweetly. Then Satoru, next to him, murmured under his breath to him, “If I wanted a yoga influencer’s opinion, I’d scroll Instagram.”

Suguru choked on a laugh and Satoru waved with a big smile when Utahime squinted at them suspiciously.

Sometimes, things didn’t work out, but they always bounced back.

Satoru invited him for ramen again. Suguru declined, blaming a shift at work starting early. Covering for a colleague. Suguru had at some unknown point gotten quieter when he showed up at the gym. Sharper around the edges. Didn’t joke around as much.

Satoru had been around the block often enough to know the excuses by heart, to recognize when someone was pulling back. But unlike most people, Suguru came up to him a few days later, and extended his own invitation, which Satoru accepted without hesitation. 

Suguru paid again. Said it was “only fair” for leaving him hanging that last time, which had already been forgiven and forgotten in Satoru’s books the moment he asked him where he wanted to eat, and that it was “thanks for his hard work” again as if spending time with Suguru was such a chore, not the other way around.

After a good meal and some good old banter, all was well again.

Or at least that’s what Satoru thought.

By the time Suguru’s third month at the gym rolled around, they were adjusting each other’s wraps without comment, had their own inside jokes, even shared a water bottle during drills. Satoru complained when Suguru forgot to bring the cold kind.

“You’re making a face,” Satoru muttered one Monday morning during warmups.

“What face?”

“Like, one where you’re about to end someone’s bloodline.” 

The shadows under his eyes were sort of recent, or maybe Satoru was only just now taking note as they came accompanied by Suguru’s unusual quiet, though it wasn’t an entirely bad look on him. He wore it with determination, kinda like war paint. 

Ignorantly, Satoru thought it was kind of a vibe. 

Not like a guy with a face like that could look bad. Just in need of a nap, maybe.

Suguru gave him a tight smile. “It’s just Monday.”

Satoru figured work had been a bit rough on him as of late, long weekend, that was all, and didn’t question it further.

In retrospect, he really should have dug deeper but he had started to look forward to Mondays himself, not because kickboxing was on the schedule in the evenings, but because it meant he would see Suguru again after the weekend, blinded by the proximity he’d been missing for days. Fridays and Saturdays were always the busiest for him and Sunday, Suguru used to recharge for the next week.

They didn’t text or call in between. Hell, Satoru didn’t even have his number. 

Mostly because he wasn’t in the habit of asking anyone for such things.
(Really, it was kind of ridiculous. Suguru should just give it to him already. Did he really expect him to ask?)
Usually, people either practically threw themselves at him, or, if they knew anything about him beyond his looks and they consecutively refused to hand out their personal info, he just snuck into the personal files cabinet in the coaches office and got what he needed, like everyone’s birthdays so he would have an excuse to throw silly parties at the gym. 

Unfortunately Nanamin, the killjoy, had threatened to take it up with Yaga if it happened again, so his hands were bound.

And Suguru didn’t ask for his number, either.

So while they saw each other practically all the time, Satoru had no way of reaching him to ask what was up when Suguru didn’t linger long enough for a chat after class.

Right after midday drills he’d seen him slip into Yaga’s office, and when he watched him leave it again Satoru noticed the shift. 

Of course he noticed. But before he could ask, Suguru told him, “I’m coming for evening classes tonight.”

He should’ve questioned it then, but the excitement washed away all questions from his mind and Satoru went bounding up to Yaga to make sure they’d get pitted against each other for their first proper spar.

Suguru showed up ten minutes late for evening class, eyes ringed with exhaustion but focused like a blade. 

He taped his hands slowly, ritualistically.

When Satoru caught his gaze, Suguru held it, steady.

“You good?” Satoru asked, teasing but cautious. Suguru didn’t usually look at him like that. Familiar to Satoru, but not from him. Never from him.

Suguru smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m ready.”

It didn’t really answer Satoru’s question, but he could see in the other alpha’s stance that he meant it with his whole chest, that he needed the outlet that day. 

So he put on his typical grin and bumped his shoulder with a fist, figuring they could talk about it after spars.

Shark Tank - such a charming euphemism. Three rounds, five minutes each. Fresh opponent every few minutes. No breaks. No mercy. All eyes on you.

Satoru lived for it.

First up was Yuki. Wild, untamable alpha, the kind of striker who could end a round with one haymaker or gas herself out in a flurry of missed shots. Satoru danced around her like usual, fast and taunting, slipping under jabs and tapping at her guard until she got pissed and overcommitted. One quick counter, and down she went, not hurt, just grinning with annoyance. “Asshole,” she muttered as she rolled out. He winked.

Next up was Todo, once her little disciple, now not so little anymore, and twice as devoted.

Bigger. Meaner. An ego that outweighed even his impressive footwork. Satoru enjoyed this one, took a few body shots to test the waters, slipped a takedown, sprawled him hard enough to get a cheer from the wall-huggers watching. Todo was a tough cookie, so he kept at it, slippery for his size. Not slippery enough. 

“You’re getting slow, Aoi!” He missed a roundhouse by inches and almost fell before he really got felled. Satoru barely broke a sweat.

Then Nanami. Predictable but no less dangerous than the previous two. Stiff as a board and twice as rigid, but his strikes had weight. They always did. It was never personal with Nanami, just textbook. They clashed like math problems and solved each other, breath by breath. Satoru edged him out on timing and movement, but he left that round with a pounding heart and a narrow smirk. 

“Decent ring control,” Nanami muttered, which, from him, king of ratios, counted as high praise.

Satoru had been waiting for the last one.

Suguru.

Suguru, with his perfectly polite nod and the solemn little bow before stepping onto the mat. Suguru, who hadn’t said more than ten words to him all day. Suguru, who had that perfectly smooth fighter’s posture, inconspicuous until you hit a nerve. Too quiet, too composed, too calm.

Until he wasn’t.

It started fine. Respectful distance. Testing the rhythm. A few light strikes. Satoru was fast, Suguru efficient. Clean footwork. Breathing. Precision. He wondered, as they circled each other, if Suguru even wanted this. He seemed a little… off.

He’d gone into the fight with the urge to break that careful facade, whether it would turn into a grin or a furious scowl. Any breach of emotions would do for Satoru, too hopped up on adrenaline and giddy energy to think about it too deeply.

And then came the first real exchange. Suguru parried, stepped in, and something shifted.

Ka-pow!

Yeah, that move came with a full-on cartoon onomatopoeia, it was that nuts.
Left hook to the ribs. And not just any hook. A precise hook. Sharp. Intentional. Aimed just beneath the guard. The liver shot to end them all.

Had Satoru been in the stands watching something like this unfold he would’ve jumped up and whooped with savage approval. 

As it was, he folded instead. 

Only for a second. Long enough.

The pain ripped through his side like a blade, a delayed detonation. His vision tunneled. His knees buckled. His body screamed.

And then-

His body lashed out on autopilot.

Instinct. Ego. Pride. He wasn’t in a ring or a cage but in a plain, traditional room, tatami mats, no spotlights on him, but ever-present eyes making his skin crawl. He didn’t even recognize the faces around him as he drove his opponent back with a combination that bordered on reckless, every movement too fast, too harsh, not measured like his usual flow. A strike clipped the other alpha across the chin. Another grazed the shoulder. The third, a body blow that should’ve been pulled, connected hard enough to draw an approving murmur through the ranks of the watchful-

No, that wasn’t right. It was alarm. 

Colleagues and gym mates gasping out.

Yaga called time, sharply.

Satoru staggered back, chest heaving. His vision cleared. No hushed voices. No creeping eyes. No tatami - what the hell - of course there wasn't. Just his blood rushing like a waterfall in his ears.

His opponent – Suguru – was still standing. Barely. Holding his side.

Breathing through gritted teeth, a flush high on his cheekbones, crimson painting the side of his mouth, jaw clenched, expression unreadable.

Almost unreadable.

But Satoru realized then, that he might’ve been the only person who could’ve recognized the hollow look Suguru gave him before he dropped his eyes. He knew it from what felt like a lifetime ago, had seen it too many times in his own mirror image staring back at him to forget. 

Suguru hadn’t landed that shot to prove a point.

He hadn’t done it to win.

He’d done it because something inside him was boiling, because he was hanging on by a thread. Because he’d needed to take control where he could.

And he’d warned Satoru months ago, so calmly. “It’s right there.”

That gap. That flaw. That split-second of arrogance Satoru had always gotten away with, had played with to get a reaction.

Suguru had seen it before anyone else. And he’d taken the shot when he needed to.

Not to humiliate him.

But because it was all he had left.

Satoru stood there, the ache in his side already blooming black and purple, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel victorious.

He felt like he’d missed something critical. Like he'd failed someone.

Suguru didn’t look at him when he left the mat. Didn’t say anything at all.

And for once, Satoru didn’t speak either.

Because he didn’t know how to ask the questions he should have asked weeks ago.

Too little. Too late.

When Satoru’s brain recovered from bullet time, Yaga wasn’t even yelling anymore. He’d gotten in the ring between them in two seconds flat, created a physical barrier between him and Suguru that Satoru had simply looked over and past, keeping his eyes on the other alpha the whole time until Yaga grabbed his collar and shook him by the front of his rash guard.

Satoru’s chest was still heaving, gloved fists belatedly falling, not sure why he lost control but still riding the edge of it.

Suguru was breathing harder too, but steady. He spat out his plain, white mouthguard, shoulders dropping, wiping at his face. His lip was bleeding from a glancing hit that never should have happened.

Yaga looked furious. “Get out of my gym. Both of you.”

Satoru blinked, sweat stinging his eyes. “What?”

“You heard me. Out. No more sparring between you two. I won’t have this place turn into a damn street fighting rink.”

Satoru opened his mouth, but shut it again when Suguru just nodded once, saying nothing, bringing something like regret roaring to life in his chest.

They left the ring in silence.

Yaga had sent Suguru off to their infirmary first, off worse than him, then had Satoru follow him to his office like a pup snatched by the scruff for a berating session while leaving Nanami to coordinate the rest of class.

The coach's words went in one of Satoru’s ears, out the other. He knew he was mostly there to keep an eye on his health, though, while they were waiting on Shoko to finish up with Suguru. Champ couldn’t get knocked off the roster long term, not even during the off season.

Satoru still felt the muscles in his right side torso quiver faintly over the sore spot. He’d gotten Suguru in the face, though. Head shots like that without pulling the punches were definitely out during sparring and they were right to prioritize checking he hadn’t concussed him.

Later, in the locker room, Satoru sat on the bench alone after his own check-up. He was fine, glove still on one hand, the other rubbing his ribs where it still ached from Suguru’s hit. He’d been completely zoned out in the infirmary but Shoko had only confirmed what he already knew. That he was fine, probably wouldn’t even bruise.

He’d been more preoccupied with what had happened, the look in Suguru’s eyes.

He hadn’t said a word to Satoru when he’d had walked past. Hadn’t even looked at him.

But their faint scents, traces even the patches and blockers couldn’t fully erase, lingered in the air. Sharp, sour, unsteady.

They didn't speak again that night.

Satoru regretted that, too.

The gym’s med room was dark, save for a flickering fluorescent buzzing softly above the examination table. It was after hours, most of the lights in the building off, the air smelling like antiseptic and the distant hum of pine-scented mop water from earlier mat duty.

Yaga, deep down, was a softie. 

In the end, despite his previous threats of kicking him out, he had left Satoru alone when he’d trailed in again like a lost dog barely an hour later, telling him to clear his damn head before going to bed for a good night's sleep. Probably because he knew the hollow carcass of his apartment was the farthest thing from home he knew.

The gym, the ring, that was where he lived and breathed.

Shoko was still there, of course. Bent over her desk, reading a file one-handed, unlit cigarette dangling lazily from her mouth. She didn’t look up when the door creaked open.

“If you’re not bleeding, dying, or unconscious, I don’t wanna hear it. Got me into enough paper work for the day.”

Satoru stepped in anyway. His hoodie was halfway zipped, hair still damp from a rushed shower, and he was unusually quiet. She probably sensed he wasn’t here to joke around, not kicking him out right away when he asked what he hadn’t been alpha enough to ask Suguru himself.

“He okay?”

That got her to glance up. Just briefly. Then back to the file. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Come on, Shoko. I’m not gonna, like, publish it in a newsletter.”

She exhaled, slow and weary. “He walked out on his own, you saw that. That’s all you get.”

Satoru shifted his weight. He didn’t move to sit. Didn’t crack a joke. His hands were in his pockets, a strange tension in his shoulders. Not pain. Not guilt. Not exactly.
Something else.

Shoko watched him from the corner of her eye. He was doing that thing where he didn’t feel like grinning and making light of it, which, on Satoru, probably looked like a shark forgetting how to swim, how to breathe when they weren’t going forward. He could relate to that.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he said finally, voice quieter than usual, needed to say it out loud, even if not to the person that deserved to hear it.

Shoko tapped her unlit cigarette against her clipboard. “I know.”

Another pause. He was still standing. She could probably feel him thinking. “He’s... different.”
That got her attention, so Satoru leaned against the wall, arms crossed, frowning at nothing. “Not like Nanamin. Always playing hard to get. Or Haibara. That guy blushes when I sneeze too loud.”

Shoko raised a brow. “And me?”

“You’re a cryptid. You don’t count.”
That earned him a smirk. But it faded just as fast, because Satoru was still staring at the floor like it was going to answer a question he’d never asked before.
“Suguru’s- I dunno. He doesn’t bite the way the others do. But he doesn’t... back down either. He doesn’t even try to match me. He just... is. And it messes with my head.”
Shoko said nothing, just listened.
“I’ve fought guys bigger than him. Faster. Scarier. But when he landed that shot today-” He swallowed. Shrugged. “I freaked out.”

“Yeah. You did.”

Satoru glanced at her, then away again. Shame touched his features in the barest hint of a line at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s not like I was unprepared for him to get a tap in. He’s good, of course he would sooner or later. I know I’m not actually invincible. Close to it. But I just thought I’d laugh it off. And then he looked at me like-” Another pause. Heavy. His voice went softer, almost like he was afraid to hear it out loud. “Like it wasn't even me he was fighting.”

The silence hung between them.

Shoko put her cigarette down slowly. Folded the file closed. She had often insisted she wasn’t a therapist or dump for everyone’s problems, but she did have ears and was better at using them than most. When she did say something, it usually struck a chord, just like now.

“And that’s what scared you?”

Satoru didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to answer that. How could he explain that it wasn’t himself he was scared for, but for Suguru?

She watched him a moment longer, then stood up, stretched her arms overhead with a catlike yawn. “He’ll be fine, you know that. Messed up his pretty face a bit, but nothing permanent.”

Satoru nodded. Still didn’t leave.

Shoko picked up her cup, took a sip of tea that had probably gone tepid by now. “If you’re asking me whether you care about him, then yeah. You do.”

He looked up, startled. “Is that it?” Satoru hadn’t thought it’d be that simple, but yeah, Suguru did have a special standing with him despite being one of the freshest additions to the gym.

“Yeah, and it's pretty damn obvious to nearly everyone in the gym by now. Always has been.”

Satoru ran a hand through his hair. Mumbled, “I thought it was just rivalry.”

Shoko raised her brow again. “Sure. That’s why you came here at midnight to ask how he’s doing.”

He made a face. “...It’s not like that.”

"What's it like then?" She asked, and when he couldn't find an answer, she smiled a little, not mockingly, just amused. Patient. “You’ll figure it out.”

He stared at the floor again. Then finally turned toward the door, exhaling like he’d been holding something in his lungs all day. Just before he left-

“Thanks, Shoko.”

She waved him off. “Not getting me in any way involved in this again is thanks enough. Speak to each other.”

"Fine," Satoru scoffed, throwing a wave over his shoulder as he turned. “I guess I have no choice.”

She watched him go, the door clicking softly behind him.
And when she was alone again, she picked up her cigarette, went to her door and lit it up, muttering to herself with a sigh. 

“How can they both be this stupid…?”

The gym was empty. 

Even before everyone else had left it had felt emptier without Suguru coming in the day after the spar.

The air conditioner hummed quietly above. The ring ropes had long stopped swaying faintly from someone brushing past them hours ago, but if Satoru concentrated hard enough on it until his eyes burned, he could still see the phantom of movement. He sat at the edge of the mat, barefoot, elbows on his knees, forehead resting against his hand, knuckles twinging faintly from the infinite punches he'd thrown at the sandbags to drown out his thoughts. Hadn't helped, obviously.

He didn't feel like going home yet, either. Not because he was injured or waiting up on someone. Physically, he was fine.

The hit Suguru had landed hadn’t even bruised his ribs. It had bruised something deeper. Shook something loose that had been bolted shut for years.

Satoru let his thoughts slip.

He had been born into power.

The Gojo family didn’t do “average.” Not in bloodlines, not in reputation, not in expectations. There was no if for Satoru. Only when. He had been groomed for greatness before he could walk, and by the time he could throw a punch, it wasn’t a matter of wanting it. It was expected. Preordained.

“You’ll lead the way, Satoru. You’ll be the strongest.”

And he was.

He is.

But that came at a price.

He remembered the early lessons - harsh, cold, efficient. No softness. No warmth. If he cried, he was weak. If he laughed too loud, it was undignified. If he hesitated, someone else took his place. The only affection - or something adjacent to it, approval maybe - that he remembered clearly came from victory. From being better than the other kids.

“You’re gifted,” they’d said. “You’ll be a star.”

But stars didn’t have friends, only looking like they were surrounded by their kind to the untrained eye.
They burned. Alone. Wrapped in the cold emptiness of space. 

By the time he was old enough to argue for his independence, he used his stubbornness as a weapon to leverage for his freedom.
“You can forget about me being under your thumb or staying in Kyoto. If I’m going to be the best, I’ll do it my way.”

And so Tokyo became his line in the sand.
He hadn’t had a plan, not really. Just gloves, raw talent, and a chip on his shoulder the size of his inheritance. He’d trained relentlessly, harder than anyone, broke records, broke bones, broke through. He became the champion because he had to be.
Not once did he stop to ask himself why it was so important to him.

Not until Suguru.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. His jaw was tight. He hated how raw this felt. He was used to admiration, to envy, to fear, not this... quiet disappointment curled behind Suguru’s eyes when Yaga pulled them apart.

Satoru didn’t do particularly well with silence.

But he didn’t even have his number.

He’d never asked for it. Never thought to. Because they weren’t friends. (Were they?)

Suguru had always been calm, polite, and reserved with everyone. 
Annoyingly perceptive with him. Snarky. Didn’t challenge Satoru with brute force or big talk… he was just there when Satoru came looking.
Steady. Watching. Seeing him in a way most people didn’t dare.

And now?

Now Satoru realized that he’d never really had someone like Suguru in his life before.
Someone who could stand beside him without being overshadowed or trying to eclipse him.
Someone who looked at him and saw not a symbol. Not a star but a person.

And now he might’ve ruined that because of pride, instinct, a knee-jerk reaction. Day one, and he was already spiralling.
Because he didn’t know how to say “Are you alright,” or “I’m sorry I lost control.”

Didn’t know how to say “I respect you.”

“Please don’t pull away.”

He exhaled, leaning back on his hands, staring at the rafters.
If it had been Nanami he had messed up with, he’d have acted pouty and left him to cool off for a day. Or half an hour, at least. 
Had it been Haibara, he’d have laughed and said, "My bad!" Bought him an apology orange juice, maybe.
Shoko would've kindly told him to fuck off and allowed him to gravitate closer again once she was ready to tolerate him again.

But this wasn’t that easy.

Suguru was different. Suguru got under his skin in ways Satoru didn’t have a map and compass for.
None of his standard approaches felt like they'd fit here. Like they'd be enough.

Maybe because he didn’t know how to do friendship. The real kind.

Maybe because he didn’t know how to say that once the sweat cooled the fight wasn’t what scared him.

Losing Suguru did.

A text buzzed on his phone. Not Suguru. Of course not.

He didn’t even check it. Just locked the screen again.

Staring up at the ceiling, he muttered under his breath.

“I should’ve asked for his number.”

The gym stayed silent.

And Satoru, for once, didn’t feel like filling it with noise.

Chapter Text

Fight Club – typically refers to underground or illegal fighting events, often held outside of sanctioned arenas, characterized by less strict rules, potentially harsher penalties for illegal moves, and a more raw and chaotic atmosphere.

—

A mere three months could drag on for what felt like lifetimes but to Suguru, that summer had passed in the blink of an eye.

The gym had become the only place he didn’t feel like he was decaying. Communication with his circle outside the gym had become spotty, work shifts turning to exercises in restraining his temper when the summer heat brought more and more scum to the place Suguru temped at. Manami, usually in self-imposed charge of checking in with him about the jobs she secured for him, was busy with running her businesses, or maybe she’d finally decided it was a waste of resources.
She'd be right, too. He should be able to handle things like this himself.

Suguru’s past was constantly nipping at his heels, so all that did was make him speed his step, keeping his eyes forward.

Seeing Satoru, effortlessly vibrant with life, lighting the way forward was one of the few things keeping him from slowing down.

He didn't mean to be selfish.
Even after Suguru had quit underground fights, his friends had still looked toward him for direction. As if he could show them the way while he was lost, himself.
He’d just figured he had to find his own way first, before offering anyone a way out.
So all his free time had started going into his training, where he felt in control of himself, of his life, the most. 

The time he’d spent at the old community center had been a breath of fresh air, but at Jujutsu Gym he actually relearned what it was like looking forward to a new week after having lived too long in a vicious cycle of starving for his next rest only to get back on the clock when the first signs of relaxation had just started to take hold.

Three months in, and Suguru had settled into a rhythm of quiet survival. He wasn't thriving, not quite, but he was keeping his head above the water.
There was a clean honesty to sweat and bruises, a kind of dignity in a perfectly timed sprawl or a corrected form that made all the other parts of his life sting a little less.

But Tokyo was unkind. The gym wasn't cheap and even without it, rent ate through his savings. Temp work bled him dry.

Going to the park for roadwork in the mornings helped keep his energy up, but getting coffee with Nanami before heading back to the gym never hurt either.
Anything he could do to clear his head, forcing himself to get out of bed early enough mostly because he wasn’t great at sleeping as of late anyway and needed the workouts to tire him out so he would just hit the mattress at night and black out instantly without thinking any more of the night shift’s infuriating events.

Midday training was good for releasing the tension, too, putting his trapped energy and frustrations to good use, working his brain on technique and taking breaks outside with Shoko who had become a good friend and listener. Coach Yaga by now trusted him to advise and assist with supervision, an extra set of eyes during some classes, especially on the younger divisions, while he himself was busy circling through the other teams.

On Sundays, if he wasn’t too beat from the previous week, he even sometimes managed to make it to the afternoon strength and conditioning, focusing on weightlifting and core training, fortifying the areas the other training types left out and spotting Haibara who liked to have someone familiar nearby when he worked out in the mostly alpha dominated weights room, even if he never said as much.

All throughout the week, almost every class Suguru managed to come in for, Satoru was a constant presence, living and breathing the gym, even more involved in each step.
Where Suguru’s time there stopped when his shift approached, Satoru’s day was just getting started. All day, every day safe for his scheduled rest days shifting throughout the week. As the champion, he followed a structured plan but even so, he was seemingly always in a good mood, bouncing around people to chat up, orbiting Suguru more often than not.

His grins, his jokes, the little jabs and stupid comments about their gym mates, even just his being there - Suguru was pretty sure Satoru had no idea how it breathed life into him.

Since Yaga had stopped hawking over them so much, even if all else failed and Suguru couldn’t make it to morning or afternoon classes, at least he always had midday drills with Satoru to look forward to.

Until even that was threatened.

The last job, a shitty overnight gig running security for a club that stank of pheromones, overpriced vodka, and fake IDs, had kept Suguru afloat longer than it should have. Management was rotating through staff like socks, and the moment two coworkers quit without notice, he found himself carrying triple the workload until the inevitable Friday night.

Suguru’s boss found him after a gruelling shift, and told him not to bother coming in the next day.

Budget cuts. New security company. An empty sorry.

No warning. 

No backup plan.

Suguru said nothing for a long time, didn’t dignify it with a fight.

He only had acceptance left to give, just a too calm nod for how he felt like tearing down the place with his bare hands.

He packed up what little he had at the security booth, called no one, said goodbye to no one, and went home with a numb buzz in his ears.

He spent the weekend skipping training and making calls he hadn’t wanted to when Manami didn’t pick up the phone, touching base with people he had quietly cut loose, names that tasted sour in his mouth, voices too friendly or too guarded. 

Nothing good came of it. One offer had him biting back bile, just polite enough to say he’d consider it, knowing he wouldn’t.

Sunday night, Suguru lay awake, listening to the buzz of the old air conditioner in his apartment and staring at the ceiling.

The gym wasn’t just his escape anymore.
It was a lifeline.

If he didn’t find a job, any job, and fast, he couldn’t afford to hold onto it for much longer.

Monday.

Midday drills brought BJJ and wrestling sequences under a ticking clock to be obeyed and the echo of Yaga’s barked instructions. Suguru moved with precision, like every pivot and grip might buy him another week of peace. They might. He didn’t half-ass technique. He never did. That was what made him dangerous.

Afterwards, towel slung around his neck, still catching his breath, he approached Yaga in his office.

“Coach.”

Yaga didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Suguru.”

Suguru tried to take it as a good sign that he’d gotten enough recognition in the gym by now to be addressed like any other long-term fighter by the prestigious head coach.

“I heard there might be some shifts with the staff so I came to apply for a position, if anything opens up,” he said, voice even, respectful. The reek of desperation tended to throw most people off, so he kept it brief, to the point. “I’ve got a solid grasp on the syllabus and I’ve been supplementing some of the newer guys already.”

Yaga glanced up then. A single brow lifted, skeptical. “What, trying to make a career out of this now?”

Suguru’s mouth quirked. He didn’t want to explain his whole situation, had only shown up here in the first place was because he needed the job, the money, the proximity to this place.
Truthfully, he'd been working towards employment at the gym since the start, hoping Yaga would make him an offer sooner or later. Now he didn't have the time to wait around for it anymore.
He settled on the simplest response.
“I’m just considering options.”

There was a long pause. Yaga studied him, not unkindly, but with the edge of someone used to testing limits.
“You’re signed in for spars tonight, aren’t you? Land a clean hit on Satoru during shark tank, and I’ll think about it.”

Suguru stared at him. Not surprised. Just… bracing. “That all?”

“That’s all.” Yaga turned back to his papers. “Show me something.”

Suguru left the office with a calm nod, walked back toward the locker room.

The thing was, he’d shown plenty already. But he understood the language of men like Yaga. You wanted a seat at the table, you bled for it.

Suguru did just that.

He just hadn’t meant for it to end like this.

Monday evening, Shark Tank.

The moment he stepped onto the mat, Suguru felt it.

He’d skipped afternoon class in favor of going home to rest and reset since he hadn’t really slept more than a fitful few hours that weekend, but it hadn’t really helped.

That switch in his brain was flipped. The one he’d buried under routine and discipline, under polite smiles and technical refinement.
The hum in his limbs that said, “You’re not here to spar. You’re here to survive.”

The gym lights were too bright, the mat too quiet between the rhythm of other rounds winding down. 

He could hear the clang of an imaginary cage door slamming shut behind him, a ghost of the underground fights he’d clawed his way out of. Grimy walls, chalky, rust-red blood, bets screamed over chain-link fences. The scent of unbridled alpha testosterone and cloying omega pheromones making his stomach twist, mixed with spilled energy drinks and cheap alcohol in his nose.

Gojo Satoru, the reigning champion, stood across from him now. No dirty lighting. No crowd of degenerates. Just ring lights, their coach’s broad stance by the edge of the mat, and that stupid, charming smirk on Satoru’s face like he couldn’t imagine Suguru would even take the first round too seriously.

He didn’t deserve that smirk.

Suguru admired him. The way Satoru moved, the way he played with tension and distance like it was music and his body the instrument. The way he never had to struggle like Suguru did, and yet somehow never looked down on him for it. The way Satoru had made space for him, more than once, without making it feel like charity. A kindness that never asked for thanks.

Which was why this, all of this, felt like a betrayal.

He’d been foolish enough to ask Yaga if he could help with the technical coaching but didn’t want a handout, wouldn't have accepted it if it had just been given to him. He wanted to earn it.

That was all.

So now here he was. Hands wrapped, courtesy of Satoru helping him out when he’d been too stiff to get the bandaging tight enough. He forcibly evened out his breathing and tried not to think about the numbers on his bank account slipping distressingly fast toward ruin with Tokyo city rent coming knocking soon. The cold texts from recruiters offering less-than-legal gigs. The coil in his chest that said, do it or drown.

Because he didn't want to lose this.

He didn’t plan the hit. That was the worst part.
It came out of muscle memory, the kind built on desperation, not drills. The kind that came from ducking wild swings in cage matches where one wrong move could break something.

It was fast. Clean. A liver shot, same side Satoru left just a little exposed after his killer right. Maybe not as badly as when Suguru had pointed it out months ago.
But just enough.

Satoru’s body folded mid-step. Not all the way, not yet. Just a flicker of the pain hitting. And then- 

That expression. 

Suguru wouldn’t soon forget the look in those bright eyes he had gotten so used to coming alight with mirth as all amusement burned to cinders wrapped in blue flames.

Gone was the grin. Gone was the sparkle. Satoru reset in the space of a breath, and Suguru knew. He'd triggered something in him. Not technique. Not friendly sparring.

Calamity.

And Suguru took it all. Every strike Satoru threw at him after that, he accepted without resistance. Didn’t dodge, didn’t throw back. He kept his guard up just enough not to get knocked out, but otherwise let it happen. Let himself be punished.

Because he’d broken the unspoken rule.

He hadn’t entered that match as a sparring partner, a teammate or a friend. 

He’d brought something darker with him. 

He’d used Satoru as a stepping stone when he was the one person Suguru had never wanted to cheapen like that.

The infirmary was quiet after.

Shoko pressed a cold pack to his ribs, the silence stretched so long it began to feel like static. She didn’t say what the hell was that because she didn’t need to. Her silence was disappointment distilled into a sterile atmosphere.

Suguru didn’t speak, didn’t justify it.

When he limped out and passed Yaga’s office, the coach didn’t even look up from his desk.

“Come back when you’ve got your head screwed on right,” he said. “Not before.”

Fair.

More than fair.

He didn’t expect leniency. He didn’t expect forgiveness. In all honestly, he was surprised not to get kicked out on the spot for daring to break the equilibrium in a place like this when it was the one thing Yaga had asked him not to do.

He probably should have.

When he caught sight of Satoru walking down the hall in the opposite direction, jaw tense, hands flexing slightly at his sides, expression unreadable, Suguru didn’t stop, didn't try to say anything.

He couldn’t even look him in the eye.

Didn’t deserve to.

Tuesday - Rooftop Bar, Kabukicho

The place was technically closed, shutters half-down over the front, but Manami had keys. Of course she did. The bar owner, like most in this neck of the woods, owed her a favor or three. It was a sleek little rooftop spot overlooking the Shinjuku skyline, all string lights and a battered speaker humming lo-fi beats into the warm evening air.

Manami stood with a sleek cocktail glass she didn’t really want and leaned against the bar, heels kicked off.
“You think he’ll come?” she asked, not looking.

Miguel stood nearby, arms folded, quiet as usual, gaze fixed toward the stairwell. “Yeah.”

“You sound sure.”

“He’s late,” he said. “But he said he’d show.”
That was all. Like it was enough.

She wanted to believe it too. 

And then, finally, he walked in like he hadn’t just dropped off the map for months, and the sight of him, busted lip, jaw tight, ribs clearly giving him trouble, made her want to scream when he slouched into a seat at their usual table. From the clench of his jaw, the shallow rise of his ribs as he leaned forward, she knew something was wrong.

Well. More wrong than she’d expected.

Suguru had gotten broader again, regained muscle he'd exchanged for a quieter life away from the cage some time ago, but he also looked like someone had rung him out, torso tight with pain beneath his black hoodie when he reached for the glass of water on the table. Yet what got her, what pulled something sharp in her chest was that he didn’t even try to hide it.

That scared her more than she was ready to admit.

He used to straighten his spine when she walked in. Flash that easy smirk, the one that said I’ve got it handled. You don’t need to worry about me.

Now he just looked... tired.

She'd been pissed for weeks.
Not the fiery kind of pissed where she started throwing bottles or tearing down sleazy club managers. No, this was the kind that sat heavy in her stomach. A slow-burn resentment wrapped in confusion, one she hadn't known what to do with until she'd seen Suguru drag himself to their meeting spot.
He hadn’t told her. Hadn’t told any of them.

She slid into the seat across from him with no preamble.
“What the fuck, Suguru.”

His voice was flat. “It looks worse than it is.”

“Bullshit,” she bit. “What are you even doing at that place to come back like this?”

“The gym’s not the problem,” he said. Miguel was already claiming the seat beside him, quiet, observant, eyes flicking from the stiff way Suguru sat to the way his ribs barely moved when he breathed.

“It isn’t?” she asked.

“No,” Suguru said, rubbing a thumb over the condensation on his glass. “This is... recent.”

Miguel spoke up before she could again. “So what happened?”

“I’ve been working. Trying to make it stick.”

That settled in her chest like a lead weight.

She remembered when he had quit the underground. When he swore off the circuit after that last fight, ugly, bone-deep, the kind that made even her question if he’d come out again, not whole, but at all. And still, he found a way to climb back out. For all of them.
She followed him back then not because she believed in his dream, but because she believed in him. He made you believe in better things like it was an inevitability. Sharp smile. Steady eyes. That unshakeable gravity people circled whether they liked it or not.
But the man in front of her now wasn’t all grit and promise. He was worn down. Pacing the edge of something he hadn’t named yet.

“The club job?” she asked, more careful now.

He nodded once. “Team got cut last weekend, since they’re looking to “start fresh”. No warning, no severance, nothing. Been looking for a replacement since. You got my text, right?”

Manami went still. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
She got the text that he wouldn’t be returning there, that he needed something new but-
“Wait- they fired you?”

Suguru nodded, way too calm for the situation.
“Probably the best thing they did. Staff was pretty much husked by that point, anyway.”

Ah, now her anger finally had a target.
“I vetted those bastards. You should’ve told me they pulled that shit!”

“You couldn’t have known,” he said, but that didn’t matter.

Maybe not. But it should’ve been her responsibility to notice sooner.
She’d been letting him dangle. Giving him space, maybe even testing if he’d come crawling back once the shine of his new crew wore off. She hadn’t expected this. The silence. The absence. The ache.
So she pulled out her phone. “I’m going to make him regret it.”
She was already halfway into her contact list, teeth grit. 

Suguru shook his head, half exasperated, half fond. “Pity the fool that crosses you.”

“You should,” she growled, “Because now I get to ruin his day. You think I let people get away with screwing my fighters? You think I let people screw you? Like I don’t know how to talk to degenerates like him? Suguru, I wouldn’t have sent you there if I thought it was a meatgrinder.”

“I know,” he said simply.

“I mean it,” she said, looking back up at him, flicking her hair back over her shoulder.
“He’s gonna hear about it,” she muttered. And he would. She might’ve eased off the bloodier side of things, but Manami didn’t forget how to bite. No one fucked with her people and walked away smiling.

Suguru’s eyes met hers, repeating it with added weight to the words for her benefit. “It’s not your fault.”

It only made her feel worse about this whole thing.
“No, I really didn’t know it was this bad. I will have his license revoked, his supply chain audited to the ground, and his reputation turned to absolute ash in under a week-”

“Manami,” Miguel said quietly, not stopping her, just grounding her electric anger with a steady look bringing her focus back to the core issue sitting at the table between them. That wasn’t all there was to this.

She took a deep breath, putting her phone down again.
“We thought you were happy,” she said softly, finally. “Living it up with your new team. Big-name gym, champion training partner... You didn’t say a thing.”
She thought he’d left them behind for something shinier. More stable. Cleaner. But no, he’d been grinding in silence, trying to build a foundation that wouldn't crumble underneath him like everything else had before.

She used to think he had all the answers. That he was the kind of person who charged into things headfirst because he knew he’d make it out the other side.

Now she knew better. And it made her chest ache.

He explained not with excuses, but facts, like someone reporting the weather, and she could finally see the weight he’d been dragging around. Trying to carve something better out of nothing, the way he’d once tried to do for her.

Hell, she’d been so stupidly in awe of him, back then.

He’d had ideals and bruised knuckles and this look in his eyes that made you think he knew what came next. She'd followed that like a moth to flame. And when he started trying to go legit, she'd tried too, even if she never quite got it right. But now here she was.

And here he was, too, but still hurting, not asking them for a damn thing.

His gaze dropped to the table.
“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew I could hold my own,” Suguru said, voice quiet. “Didn’t want to look like I was chasing status. Or dragging you into something I hadn’t earned.”

She stared at him for a beat. “Damn, you’re dumb.”

Miguel chuckled under his breath. “Stubborn.”

“Same difference.”
She didn’t realize she was clenching her fists until Miguel reached across the table, calm but firm, a grounding touch near her elbow. She let go.

“Suguru.” Her voice was steadier now. “We’re not your pack to protect anymore. We’re just your people. That means we carry our own shit and we help with yours, if you’d let us.”

He looked up at that. Really looked at her.

“You could’ve said something sooner,” she insisted, feeling a tight ball of guilt and shame forming in her gut remembering how she’d ignored his calls a couple days ago. She was never too busy, not for him, and shouldn't have pretended otherwise.

He shrugged, looking away. “I haven’t been keeping in touch with you as well as I should have. Didn’t think it mattered.”

Miguel raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think we’d care?”

“Didn’t think I had a right to ask.” He looked tired. Not just sore but hollow. She hated how easily that disarmed her.

Miguel exhaled slowly through his nose, like he was biting back a thousand words. “You carried us for years, man. That wasn’t just about giving us a place to belong. You gave us direction when we didn’t have shit. You think you’ve got to do it all alone now?”

“I just didn’t want to drag anyone down,” Suguru said. “I thought I could handle it.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t,” Manami snapped, then softened, eyes narrowing. “Ask for a fucking float next time. We’re not made of glass.”

He looked at her like maybe, just maybe, he was starting to believe it.

Miguel listened while Manami ranted, arms crossed, face neutral. She had history with Suguru that was tangled and raw, tied up in dreams they'd all quietly abandoned or redefined.

But Miguel? Miguel had always stood at a slight distance. Not because he didn’t care - he cared too damn much - but because someone had to be the one to keep their feet on the ground when everyone else was flying into walls.

So when Suguru finally said it - that he didn’t want to drag them down - Miguel didn’t flinch either, not even at what he didn’t say - “I’ve been trying not to drown.”

He just nodded. “You’re not saving anyone if you bleed out on the mat.”

Suguru gave him a tired look, like he wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be comfort or a punchline.
“I figured you had your own shit to deal with.”

“So do you,” Miguel said. “And this-” he gestured vaguely at the bruises, the exhaustion, “this doesn’t look like ‘handling it.’”

Suguru huffed a laugh that sounded like it hurt but that faint smile stayed, and for the first time, it looked real.

Miguel had sat through this kind of conversation before, had watched people look at Suguru like a myth unraveling. But not once had Suguru asked anyone to believe in him. He just carried the weight, like that made up for everything.

And Miguel, who had never bought into the illusion the way Manami had, who’d seen Suguru through the cracks, understood the truth for what it was.

Suguru never set himself above them.

He set himself apart because he thought that was safer.

And now here he was. Not limping, but clearly wrecked. Worn out, the scent slipping through his worn patch dull with restraint. Not fear, not shame, but exhaustion that ran far deeper than soreness.

Miguel didn’t need to know every detail to recognize that weight. It was the same kind he’d seen back when they were all half-feral, looking for direction. Difference was, they weren’t those people anymore.

Miguel watched the city lights flicker against Suguru’s bruised face and thought: He’s always been like this.

The last to complain. The first to blame himself. The kind of guy who’d train until his hands bled if he thought it would make life easier for someone else.

And it showed now, in the silence between his words, in the way he braced his ribs without thinking, in how reluctant he was to explain what the hell had been going on until they practically dragged it out of him.

“No one’s asking you to go back to carrying us,” Miguel continued. “We’ve got jobs. Places to crash. Manami’s got that fire. No one would even dare making trouble for us.”
Suguru looked up, a faint smile on his lips this time. Realer than before.
“We’re not waiting on a savior, Suguru. We’re family.”

There was silence then. But it was the good kind. The kind where things settled into place. Where breathing came easier. 

“I’ll send new job leads,” Manami said. “Better ones. No more backroom deals or sketchy managers.”

Suguru just dipped his chin in that quiet way of his that said he’d heard her, apology, forgiveness and gratitude all rolled up in one.
Then he added, like an afterthought, “I’d asked Yaga about a spot. Long-term. Staff work. Thought I’d earned his trust. Was looking good.”

Miguel leaned in, sensing the shift. “Let me guess. Not so good anymore?”

Suguru’s jaw worked once, silent.

Manami frowned, motioned at his appearance. “Because of this?”

“Because I took it too far.”

They both went quiet.

Miguel’s brows drew down. “Gojo?”
Who else could put Suguru in a state like this in a fair fight?

Suguru didn’t answer. Not really. Just stared down into the glass like it might offer him a better explanation than he could give, but it was the kind of guilt that lived in his bones, the kind that didn’t go away with wins or good intentions, that told Miguel everything he needed to know.

“So you got him, too… And you’re not proud of that hit you landed,” Miguel gathered.

Suguru’s lips pressed together. “No,” he said. And then he looked up to meet his eyes. "But I'll make it right again."

Ah, there it is, Miguel thought. That spark. The reason they all gave a damn. Suguru wasn’t some martyr walking himself into the fire. He was someone who wanted something real, even if he didn’t know how to ask for it without apologizing.

“We’ve got you,” Manami said firmly. “Whatever this is, whatever you’re trying to clean up, we’ve got you.”

Miguel looked between them, steady. “There’s more to it, huh?”

He didn’t say it like a challenge. He said it like someone who already knew the answer.

Suguru didn’t deny it. 

And then, he told them the whole story, at last.

Chapter Text

Seconds Out – a boxing term the referee says at the end of the break between rounds, to signal that it's time for the "seconds" (coaches, trainers, etc.) to get out of the ring so that the next round can begin.

— 

Midday drills were always a blur. Sweat, motion, impact. The sound of bodies hitting mats, of panted breaths and barked commands echoing in unison. But that Thursday, three days since the spar gone wrong, for Satoru, it might as well have been underwater.

He couldn't stop watching him.

Suguru wasn’t pushing it. Yaga’s orders when he’d walked into the gym, even though he had’t said a word, had been loud and clear. “Take it easy.”  

So instead of joining the usual constellation his absence had torn a hole into since Monday, he was stretching with the new recruits, doing low-contact drills, only testing his footwork-
Guarding one side, but still moving with the same quiet elegance that had tripped Satoru up in more ways than one.

And Satoru’s eyes tracked him across the room like he was running on instinct.

Again.

But Suguru was watching him, too.

Their gazes met. Once. Then again. And again. And it didn’t matter how many times they broke eye contact, the tension snapped right back like a pulled rubber band.

Satoru didn’t know what to do with it until-

“Water break!” Yaga's voice cut through the clamor. 

Either Satoru had blacked out for thirty minutes, or coach had called it early but it didn't matter.

The group dispersed like a wave. Grumbling, grabbing bottles, shoving each other playfully. Haibara bounded over from his welterweight division and tried to start a conversation with Nanami, who was happy to immediately turn away from Satoru who he’d just been doing reps with in order to walk with the omega instead, leaving him behind without a word. Shoko was already halfway through her morning “coffee”, reaching for her cigarettes to take her break, slipping out the door with a quick, meaningful look.

Everyone left.

But they stayed.

Both still standing. Not frozen. Just... waiting.

Satoru didn’t bolt toward him, all desperation. He didn’t need to. Because Suguru was already looking at him, and it wasn’t weird. Not quite. Just heavy.

So they gravitated.

Their steps didn’t sync, but the silence did, swelling between them as they stood face to face for the first time since the spar. Close enough now that Satoru could see the shadow of the healing cut on Suguru’s lip.

Satoru opened his mouth, words already brimming, crowding behind his teeth-

Suguru beat him to it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice soft but sincere. “I shouldn’t have thrown a punch like that.”

Satoru blinked. For a second, he thought he'd misheard. Then he huffed a stunned, disbelieving laugh.
“You’re sorry?” He gawked at him, shook himself, because, okay, okay, okay-
“I mean, yeah, you almost cracked my soul in half, but you’re- I was the one- you-” He spluttered. He was spluttering. That was a total, definite novelty for Satoru, making him pause to take a breath, slow down, and ask seriously, “Are you messing with me?”

Suguru just smiled, crooked and tired. “I mean it.”

The sight alone could've melted Satoru with relief, puddle on the floor. Janitor-san, mop on the mats, please! The whole nine yards.
Instead, he covered it up the only way he knew how.
Breezing past it with ill-timed humor.

“Alright, alright, fine! Apology accepted,” he said quickly, bouncing slightly on his heels, socking Suguru lightly in the shoulder in lieu of something more sentimental, eager to get breathing room from this conversation even if it meant saying stupid shit again.
“I mean, I busted your side good too, huh? If your knees are still wobbly from going against the champion, it's fine if you have to lean on me to get water.”

“That so?” Suguru snorted, low and amused.
But he played along, leaning into Satoru’s sore side. Not enough to hurt, just enough to nudge him lightly in the ribs with a pointed elbow.

“Ow,” Satoru hissed, grinning. “You absolute bully. That’s abuse.”

Their laughter mingled, not loud but alive, sparking in the empty space between them. It was warm. It felt easy. Too easy.
He was just wondering what the hook was, when-

“Just making sure you’re still structurally sound. But,” Suguru added, voice firmer, “don’t just forgive me like that.”

Satoru’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“I’m glad you’re not mad. Really. But you should be. A little. At least enough to hear me out before brushing it under the rug like it didn’t happen.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, not quite sheepish, but maybe like he had more on his mind.
“I owe you more than an apology. You should know why I lost control like that.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I want to,” Suguru interrupted gently. “And I need you to know I’m serious. About fixing this. About not being that guy again.”

Satoru’s expression softened. His grin faded, but not in a bad way. “Okay. We’ll talk.”
He hesitated, then smirked. “But in exchange, I'm getting your number. Just so you know.”

People began to trickle, then swarm back in from the short break, everyone getting in position again, though giving the two of them a wide berth, nothing more than a blur in comparison to the clear cut silhouette of Suguru before him. A swarm of fish parting around a pair of sharks in their midst.

“Oh? You didn’t ask for it before.” Suguru tilted his head, and started teasing him about it. “Missed me, huh?”

Satoru blinked, mouth already opening with a snappy comeback, but it short-circuited somewhere mid-thought, snagging on the implication behind the words. “What? It’s not like that-!”

“It’s not?” There was a glint in Suguru’s eyes. Something still playful but bold. The shift was subtle, yet Satoru caught it, and it threw him off.

His mouth opened. Closed. He waved a hand, flailing slightly, brain rebooting, caught himself laughing at how ridiculous this was, getting flustered by a smirk and a look.
Usually he had that effect on people. “I mean- no- yes- but not like that, okay? I meant for training. So I can text. About drills. And stuff.”
His words tumbled out faster than he intended, crashing over each other in their hurry to deflect.

Suguru smiled, wide and insufferable. A killer combo. He needed to turn that off. It was deadly. Someone should arrest that face.
Satoru barely resisted the urge to rub at his chest where something fluttered entirely out of sync.

“Mhm. Right. Well,” Suguru said, turning slightly as they approached the others again, “you’ll have to wait till we’re done. No phones on the mat, remember? Let’s do it over lunch.”

Satoru made a strangled noise somewhere between a scoff and a whine.
He didn’t even know anymore.

He’d come to the gym prepared for pain, awkwardness, maybe even confrontation.
He had not come prepared for this.
For easy smiles. For Suguru looking at him like that. For the way his own heart couldn’t seem to pick a speed and stick to it.
(Maybe Shoko should run a cardio scan on him? Definitely after lunch, though. He wasn't missing that.)

All he knew was that, for the first time in years… He couldn’t wait for training to be over.

Satoru only shook himself out of it when he was forcibly yanked from their little bubble.

“If you two goddamn lovebirds are done giggling, we’ve got more work to do!” Yaga's voice boomed across the floor to them.

“We’re coming!” Satoru yelled back, laughing outright this time at the unfortunate wording and the way Suguru turned his head away just in time to hide a sharp eye-roll from their coach.

Still smiling, Satoru’s gaze drifted back to the alpha’s profile. The cut lip again. His eyes lingered on it for a moment pulled too taut.
He told himself it was because of the cut. Because it was new. It wouldn’t scar, but for now it just… stood out.

Not because Suguru’s laugh still echoed in his chest, the memory of a sound he didn’t want to stop chasing.

Not because he wanted to hear it again and again.

Just adrenaline, he told himself. Just leftover tension. That was all.

Definitely.

Probably.

…Maybe.

Yaga Masamichi watched from near the corner, towel slung around his neck, stopwatch dangling from one calloused hand as the hum of drills tapered off with the team splitting to hydrate.

His eyes settled, unintentionally, on two shapes that didn’t split with the rest.

Satoru and Suguru.

Again.

He’d have expected the recent incident to have cracked a larger chasm between the two alphas. If not personal, it had been intense to a degree that shouldn’t be possible to bridge within a matter of minutes. They proved him wrong.

Satoru’s usually cocky lean was a little… softer today. Not so loud. He was still talking too much, sure. He always talked too much. But the way his gaze stuck to Suguru was something quieter than his usual exuberance. Curious. Constant.

And Suguru?

Suguru should be keeping his distance. After the spar, Masamichi had laid down the law. “No more one-on-ones between you two.”
He had a good head on his shoulders so the warning should have made him cautious. Focused.

But the way his shoulders shifted when Satoru was near, the way his eyes lingered too long when he thought no one was watching…

Masamichi had seen this before. Well, not exactly this, no. Two alphas drawn together in this way wasn’t something often seen. But he’d seen tension. Camaraderie tilting too close to something heavier. Fighters dancing that knife’s edge.

He didn’t know how this would turn out yet, not for certain. But it didn’t take a genius to see something was brewing. 

And he really hoped it didn't end in any more blood on his mats again.

Masamichi grunted, pinched the bridge of his nose, and called out the next set.

If they thought he was letting either of them back into joint spars anytime soon, they had another thing coming.

But still, as he watched them drift toward each other like it was involuntary, like magnets pulled too close, he sighed under his breath.

“…Idiots.”

“Totally,” Shoko agreed, appearing out of nowhere next to him with her thermos, nearly making him jump out of his skin.

These damn kids were going to be the death of him.

Mobility coach, former national gymnast, Gojo Satoru hater and peacetime enjoyer.

Yeah, peace.

Iori Utahime remembered peace.

That brief, blessed interlude from Monday to Wednesday when the air in the gym was breathable, when warm-ups happened on time, when drills didn’t derail because a certain six-foot menace had “adjustments” to suggest, which in Gojo-speak meant something like flinging himself across the mat like a peacock on Red Bull?

Yeah. That.

Utahime missed not having to deal with that. Deeply. With the full weight of her soul.

Because peace? Peace was over.

She clocked it the second she rounded the corner with her tea, intent on taking her mid-session break before the youth division gave her another tension headache. And there they were.

Them.

Gojo and Geto. Standing too close. Talking too quietly.
The kind of conversation that wasn’t actually loud, but might as well have had fireworks and a brass band announcing “EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE HAPPENING HERE.”

“Ugh,” Utahime muttered. “Not again.”

The mats weren’t even cold yet from the last time they imploded on each other, and now they were doing that thing. The slow orbit. The eye contact that lasted too long. The entirely unnecessary, absolutely criminal shoulder bumping. She watched with a faint sense of disgust making her upper lip stiffen as Gojo laughed too loudly and Geto smiled back like some smug bastard who knew exactly what he was doing.

Utahime actually groaned.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”
Shoko appeared at her side, leaning against the wall with a thermos for her iced coffee in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other, putting it away in her white coat’s breast pocket. “That sounded visceral.”

“Shokoooo,” Utahime whined, trudging over to drop her head on her only support pillar’s shoulder. “I hate it here.”

Shoko sipped, petting the top of her head placatingly. “So, hear me out. I’m thinking of starting a betting pool.”

Utahime mentally went through upcoming baseball games, then matches that may have slipped her mind, but came up empty, raising her head to look at her friend. “For what?”

“You know. Timeline odds. For when they finally get their heads out of their asses.”
Shoko shrugged. “I think two months is generous. But maybe you’ve got some insights from class. If they’re talking about who’s bendier, that might cut my estimation. How long are you giving them?”

Utahime choked. “What?”

Shoko nodded lazily towards the mats. “Come on. You see it.”

“See what?! They’re alphas!” Utahime whisper-hissed, tone caught somewhere between scandalized and appalled. “They’re- you know! That’s not- that’s not how it works!”

Shoko raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, making Utahime feel inexplicably naive and small-minded. “According to outdated biology books, maybe. Believe me, it’s a thing.”

“No, no, no,” Utahime shook her head furiously, trying very hard not to look at them again, but catching it in her periphery anyway. Gojo leaning in a little too close, Geto nudging him away with that look. That look. Oh, hell, she saw it now.
Why had Shoko done this to her? Utahime would’ve rather stayed ignorant. She wasn't worldly like her! Back in Kyoto she’d been raised traditionally, as any good omega should be.
Properly. With structure. Standards.
“They can’t just- they’re alphas!"

Shoko took another slow sip. “Sure. And I’m a doctor. Doesn’t mean I’m not watching this like a soap opera.”

“This is a violation of nature.”

“It’s a violation of your day maybe. Which is why I’m monetizing it.”

Utahime turned away, grumbling into her cup, trying not to stare as the two most unbearable men in the gym, possibly in Tokyo, drifted back to the others like they hadn’t just casually unbalanced her worldviews. As if their whole vibe wasn’t already turning the emotional climate into a pressure cooker.

Denial and anger were over. She was desperately bargaining now to find a silver lining of this debacle.

“Alright,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “if they do end up together, the omega community would be done a tremendous service… Actually, we should throw a parade. We’d be safe. No one else would have to deal with them.”

“Exactly,” Shoko said, utterly unbothered. “A self-contained disaster. Perfect ecosystem. Evolution at work.”

Utahime sighed. And just like that, Shoko had turned her from scandalized anti to a reluctant supporter.
“You really think with EQs like theirs, they’ll get it anytime this year?”

The loss of her peace was a little easier to stomach with the gentle sound of Shoko’s chuckling ringing softly in her ears.

Chapter Text

Touching Gloves – a common tradition before and after a fight symbolizing respect and acknowledging the opponent as a fellow competitor. It's a way of acknowledging the hard work and dedication both fighters have put into preparing for the fight, and it can be seen as a sign of sportsmanship.

—

When they left the stuffiness of the gym behind in favor of lunch, the air greeting them was blessedly devoid of the muggy humidity that had defined monsoon season or the heat that had followed them into late summer.

The first breath Suguru inhaled held that perfect crispness that only arrived in Tokyo for a few precious weeks in the fall. Dry, breezy, the sun bright but not oppressive. 
He liked days like this, always had.
Maybe because they felt like grace notes between extremes. A short intermission from either drowning in sweat or being soaked through with icy rain.

Despite knowing they’d have to talk about things properly once they settled, he didn’t address the elephant on the sidewalk as they made their way to the park after training.
A comforting sense of normalcy had only just started to settle between them as they chatted. Satoru didn’t push it either, so Suguru rather used this time to mentally prepare himself for the conversation ahead of them.

They ducked into a konbini instead of going to a restaurant.
Suguru didn’t even need to awkwardly mention his need to budget. Satoru had just shrugged his acceptance with a grin and had made a beeline for the brightly colored shelf of snacks with the same distracted enthusiasm as a kid let loose in a candy store, looking, for all intents and purposes, like he’d already forgiven him and was ready to move on like nothing had happened. Suguru watched him hover near a strawberry drink, then veer away toward where fresh pastries were just getting put into the display case up front, easily distracted.

At checkout, Suguru quietly added the strawberry jelly drink to their stack and paid for both their lunches.
He caught Satoru’s confused glance when they stepped back outside and pressed the cold plastic pouch into his hand without fanfare. It was the least he could do.
“You were eyeing it.”

Satoru blinked, then grinned. “You are observant. Should I be worried? Any more weak spots you wanna exploit?”

“No,” Suguru replied, lips tugging up. “But if I’m asking for your time, making sure you’re not hypoglycemic seems like the least I should do.”

That got a short, soft laugh from Satoru, easy and genuine, and they continued on to the park in a comfortable rhythm.
The bench they chose had a good view, patchy trees just starting to flirt with the idea of autumn, the occasional jogger passing. Familiar ground. They’d seen each other a lot in passing in the early days, often from a distance but not like this, never having coordinated morning runs together due to mismatched schedules.

They ate in relative silence for a little bit, the kind that wasn’t awkward but mutual. Satoru made a pleased sound at his onigiri, murmuring something approving about the sauce.
Meanwhile, Suguru picked at his bento more slowly, thinking. Bracing.

He’d spent most of the day before pacing his apartment, cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning, replaying the words in his head and how they might land. Miguel and Manami had both talked him through it separately, two people who knew him well enough to challenge him when he started leaning into his usual habits of downplaying, of assuming rejection before he even gave someone a chance.

Miguel, blunt as ever, had said, “You’re betting against yourself, man. Are you scared of what he’ll think or scared he might still like you after?”
It had stuck with Suguru. He was right. Whether Satoru accepted him or not, shouldn't be his main concern. The important part was being honest, letting him decide for himself what to do once he knew the truth.

So here he was. Sandwich finished, fingers loosely laced in his lap, watching pale rays of sunlight hesitate to push through the clouds like they were giving him a moment.

“I was laid off,” he said at last.
Voice steady, deliberately not fragile, so as to not make it sound like he was making a big deal about it or trying to shift the blame to his shitty job situation.
Because his behavior was definitely still squarely on himself.
“Last Friday. The club I was doing security for had some kind of internal fallout. Half the staff got cut. That’s why, before our spar, I went to Yaga. Told me he’d think about taking me on if I could land a hit on you.”

Satoru looked over at him, chewing slowing down. He didn’t interrupt, just listened. That alone gave Suguru a little more ground to stand on.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Suguru continued, still watching the edge of the path where two pigeons fought over crumbs. “Didn’t think it mattered. But it made me volatile. That spar-”
His jaw tensed. “I wasn’t in control. I took it out on you.”

Satoru tilted his head, drinking quietly from the jelly pouch, his mouth turning pink with it. “You hit me fair and square. If I didn’t block, that’s on me.”

“No,” Suguru said firmly, turning to look at him now. “I wasn’t sparring, Satoru. I was trying not to drown. And I dragged you into that. You didn’t deserve it.”

Satoru frowned a little at that, quietly sucking on the jelly drink turning his lips pink. “...You’re not the first guy to swing with baggage. Just the first who apologized to me after.”

Suguru gave him a slow, slightly self-deprecating smile. “I suppose that’s something.”
He took a slow breath, and then pushed himself to get the words out.
“I used to fight,” he said finally, forcing it to not let his voice quieten but unable to resist looking straight ahead.
As if it would be easier to say if he wasn’t staring directly into those clear blue eyes. He didn't want to see their light dim with disappointment. Not again.
“Illegally. Cages. Backrooms. Nothing professional, definitely nothing safe. It was desperation, not ego. Money for rent, for groceries. It kept me in school. Kept me fed, my friend circle safe. And it stuck with me, even after I got out.”

Satoru didn’t respond right away, but Suguru could feel the focus shift beside him.
More present. More alert. Satoru leaned forward, elbows on his knees now, gaze steady on the side of his face.

“I figured you’d want to know,” Suguru added, swallowing past the thing in his throat trying to cut off his voice. “Before you decide if you really want to keep spending time with someone like me.”

He didn’t expect grace or tolerance. He was well aware most people wouldn’t want anything to do with a person coming from a background like that.

What he got instead was Satoru turning toward him with a small, awed smile. Not giddy. Not flippant. Not the cocky grin he threw around the gym like confetti, but something a little more curious. Warmer, open in a way Suguru didn’t know how to brace against.
“Seriously? That’s the coolest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Suguru blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“I mean, yeah, the circumstances suck,” Satoru clarified, waving that off like that part was obvious, “But like, cage fighting? In college? That’s gritty, raw movie protagonist territory. No wonder your instincts are borderline supernatural."
He barely breathed before lobbing a volley of questions at him.
"Did you wrap your hands or just bare knuckle it? What were the rules? Were there rules? Did you fight other alphas feral style? Were matchups random? How many fights did you win?”

Suguru had to reorient himself to the trajectory shift of the conversation before anything else, turning to stare at him, stunned. “You’re… not put off?”

Satoru tilted his head. “Why would I be? You’re sitting here in a public park slurping soba, not murdering anyone. And whatever version of you survived all that?”
He gave a small smile. “I think he’s doing alright.”

Suguru looked down, a breath leaving him quietly. He finally managed to dislodge the lump building in his throat, its sudden absence filling his chest with unexpected lightness, something unknown blooming in his chest. Not just tolerated. Not excused. Accepted. Maybe almost a bit too enthusiastically.

His friends standing with him were one thing. They’d been with him the whole way, had come from similar backgrounds and clawed their way up from the bottom along with him. But Satoru? Despite coming from a completely different background, a world sheltered by spotlights and fame, he still found within Suguru something to salvage, and maybe even worthy to stand beside him.
“...You’re strange,” he said after a moment, voice almost soft.

“Flattered,” Satoru beamed, leaning back like he hadn’t just rocked Suguru’s entire internal map of self-worth. “Took you long enough to notice.”

Suguru chuckled, then reached into his pocket for his phone, and tapped around to maneuver to the contact app before handing it over. “Here.”

Satoru looked mildly surprised for just a second, but then grinned and took it, tapping in his number with flourish. “About damn time.”

When he handed it back, Suguru saved the contact and muttered, “You gonna spam me with your memes at 2AM now or something?”

“Oh, I will,” Satoru said, already leaning back and stretching his legs out toward the sun fading behind a cloudbank. “But first, you’re gonna tell me everything about your fight club days. Especially the part where you accidentally slipped into becoming one of Tokyo’s most badass reformed delinquents.”

Suguru huffed a laugh in disbelief, but his shoulders relaxed and for the first time in a long time, the weight in his chest felt like it belonged to something good.

The wind picked up, brushing across their skin like a second chance. And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what this was.

Their talk wasn’t just clearing the air.
It was opening the door to something honest, mutual, and sorely needed.

Satoru had always had a vivid imagination, enjoying to come up with wild scenarios and spicing up his surroundings by putting them into circulation, but he’d never really imagined what it would be like to sit on a park bench in the middle of Tokyo, a pouch of sugary strawberry goo in one hand, and the quiet confession of underground cage fights lingering in the air.
It felt strange. Not bad or unwelcome. Just… an unpredictability he hadn't called into life himself.
It was kinda cool, even?

He stared at Suguru for a second longer than he should have, maybe because the image wouldn’t quite resolve in his head.

But no, it wasn’t that he couldn’t believe it. Hell, knew Suguru moved like someone who’d conquered more than the average number of fights. 

Yet imagining him in that context, in some neon-lit backroom surrounded by smoke and sweat and the roar of strangers gambling on pain was like watching a documentary on wolves and realizing one of them had been sitting next to you the whole time. Calm. Quiet. Watching you too.
At least that explained the dead livestock dragged onto his front porch, his sore side pointedly reminded him with a soft twinge.

Not like Satoru hadn’t been suspicious of the too skilled returnee story before, but this definitely filled some holes he hadn’t even considered before. He sucked on the last of his drink pouch, doing his best to pace himself on it instead of coughing some back inelegantly like he’d done in the past in an attempt to not inhale or deepthroat the jelly. The plasticky slurp cut through the moment and he balled it up to throw into the trash across the pathway to have something to do with his hands.

“So,” he said, leaning back like he wasn’t thinking about blood-slick mats and the way Suguru had hesitated before saying I used to fight, “what was it really like?”

Suguru blinked at him. “You mean the fights?”

“No, the catered brunch,” Satoru deadpanned. “Yes, the fights. Like, did you get walk-out music? Did anyone ever throw in a folding chair? What were the rules? Did you win a lot?”

Suguru gave him a look, but he was pretty sure he secretly appreciated the casual atmosphere taking some of the pressure off his broad shoulders. He hadn’t missed how they’d subtly started to relax, free from a weight they’d been carrying for who knew how long. Maybe Satoru hadn’t seen him without it before.

“There were no chairs. Or music,” Suguru told him at last, voice dry, not trying to make it sound more glorious than it was. If anything, it just made the story more credible.
“Mostly just noise. Blood. Money changing hands.”

Satoru tilted his head. “No ref?”

“Sometimes. Depending on who ran the place. Most of the time the crowd policed it. Or didn’t.” He paused, watching a squirrel dart across the path in front of them. “It wasn’t glamorous. But it paid. And I needed it to.”

Satoru let that sit for a second. His stomach twisted slightly, not from discomfort, exactly but a creeping understanding that though their roads ran parallel, his own had been the fast lane paved with gold and glory while Suguru... He had walked barefoot over broken glass, and yet he'd still made it here all the same.

“But you still kept going?” Satoru asked, quietly. He couldn't say for certain whether he would have had resolve strong enough to do the same, were he in Suguru's place.

"It wasn't easy. It scared and appalled me at times..." Suguru shrugged, eyes on the tree line. “But not as much as going back to nothing. I told myself that it's how I wanted it.”

That hit harder than Satoru expected. He could relate. Somewhat.
He looked down, crinkling the wrapper of his onigiri in his fist.
“...I didn’t really have a Plan B either,” he admitted, quieter now. “But for me it was, just, you know, come to Tokyo, join the circuit, find someone to train me. Prove I could earn it. No fights in alleys. Just gyms, training until I dropped, and a lot of chalky protein powder.”

“Your family didn’t mind you leaving?” Suguru asked, not sharply, not taking offense to the comparison, just curious.
His family's business was well known so when he'd reached fame his success had often been cited to the company standing behind his sponsorship.

Satoru exhaled through his nose, short and a little bitter. “They didn’t stop me but they didn’t exactly cheer either. We ended up striking a deal. They’d keep sponsoring me as long as I kept winning, raking in laurels in the family’s name.”

Suguru arched a brow. “Through Rikugan, right?”

“Technically,” Satoru admitted. “An investment in my potential or whatever.”
He flashed a dry smile. “I’m the charming black sheep. They tolerate me as long as I don’t make them look bad.”

Suguru gave a low hum, and nodded, as if something clicked into place. “Still better than nothing.”

Satoru glanced sideways at him. “...You lost yours?”

There was a pause. Suguru nodded once. “College.”

He didn’t elaborate, and it wasn’t Satoru’s place to push.
All he could offer was a quiet, “Sorry,” because he figured it mattered, but it came out Satoru-style. Flat, irreverent, tinged with something truer.
“Family’s overrated anyway. Half the time they just want you to be quiet and obedient and mold yourself into something they already decided on. If it got you here instead of wherever they wanted you… I mean, hey. Worked out for me.”

That got Suguru’s attention, something heavy like recognition in his gaze.

Satoru grinned at him, a little sharp. “Who knows, if things had been different maybe we would’ve ended up facing each other in the ring instead.” Instead of being… Friends. Right?
It was a tease, but the truth of it was in the delivery. Testing the waters. Prodding gently for something more real beneath it all.

Suguru could’ve taken it the wrong way, an oversimplification of loss and hardship, but instead, his expression softened, that rare kind of private warmth showing through.
“Maybe,” he said, then added, “But then I might've hated you, or envied you, or both.”

Satoru shrugged, trying to dislodge the tightness sitting on his chest. “Still time for that.”

“Unlikely,” Suguru said simply. “And looking at it that way… yeah. I think I’m grateful. For the turns my life took. For the people I found because of it.”

Satoru paused, not thrown, exactly, but caught by the honesty of it.
“I’m one of those people, right?” he said, because he couldn’t help himself.

Suguru just looked at him, gaze steady.
“Obviously,” he said. “Why else would I be telling you any of this?”

The wind picked up then, cool and dry and threading through the lull in conversation between them that followed. Satoru leaned back against the bench, and let it settle around them, the quiet certainty of something not needing to be said again.

He’d come to the city with fists and ambition, rebellion in his heart.
But now Satoru was starting to believe what he’d found here was something worth a hell of a lot more precious than a belt or a title.

Masamichi didn’t look up when Suguru stepped into the office.
Needle felting required precision, and he wasn’t about to stab himself in the thumb just because some punk had finally decided to face the music. The door clicked shut behind the kid.
Quiet, polite. Always was.
Always watching. Always waiting.

A respectful little pain in the ass.

“’Bout time,” Masamichi muttered, finally setting the felted scrap aside. “Thought maybe you’d tuck tail and skip.”

Suguru stood in front of the desk, posture perfectly straight, scent even. He hadn’t looked shaken, exactly, when he’d stepped into the gym that morning.
More like a tightly wound wire. Not unspooling like the last time he'd seen him.

He looked steadier now. Something had shifted.
Probably whatever conversation had gone down over lunch with Satoru.

Good.

“You said to come by,” Suguru replied. "And I’m not in the habit of dodging the consequences of my own decisions.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that clear,” Masamichi grunted in acknowledgement and decided to poke at the bruise to see if it still stung. “Especially when you decided to punch the reigning champ in the liver like you were trying to yank the title from him in a friendly spar.”

“You said if I wanted to be considered, I had to land a clean hit,” Suguru said, unflinching. “I did.” 

“Yeah, that you did.”
That had just been a dare. A poke.
A see-if-he-bites test thrown out by a man who’d already made his decision and wanted to confirm the gut feeling. Masamichi had seen it in Suguru from the start. The control, the force under the surface, the grit it took to start over and not beg for it. He’d seen plenty of strays walk in through these doors trying to outrun their past. Most of them didn’t last a week. Suguru had made himself a fixture in two and seamlessly integrated into the closed-off community within the span of a summer.
“You’re insane,” Masamichi summarized, meaning for attempting it. For pulling through. “But at least you keep your word, huh?”

The fact that he’d worked it out with Satoru after the hit said more than the hit itself.

Suguru lowered his head in what could have passed as deference, but Masamichi knew better.
“Would’ve been pointless to ask if I wasn’t serious.”

Masamichi huffed a dry laugh, waving at the chair opposite the desk and Suguru took a seat.
Iron spine, that one.
That was the thing about cage fighters. They weren’t just tough, they were built for it. Suguru hadn’t flinched all week, even while trying not to burn from the inside out.
Yaga would have offered his assistence, had Suguru requested it. Instead, he'd worked it out himself.
Now, the kid looked like someone who’d come through something. Talked it out. Made peace. Wasn’t groveling. Wasn’t trying to justify. Just… standing, steady.
Waiting to see what came next.

Masamichi had made his decision long ago. He’d just needed to see if the follow-through held.
“You realize most people would’ve taken that as a figure of speech, right? Not a mission objective?”

Suguru raised his chin, tall, ready for anything.
“Most people don’t get to be trainers here.”

Masamichi eyed him. The boy was arrogant, yes, but he still managed to be a more grounded counterweight to Satoru.
Reasonable, when he had to be.
Regulating how much teeth to show, when some bite was necessary.

Masamichi opened the drawer, but asked, deadpan, the last hurdle.
“So you’re not here to empty your locker then?”

“If that’s what you want,” Suguru said, calm like he already knew the answer. “I’ll be out in ten.”

Masamichi snorted. “I’d be an idiot with an empty gym if I chucked out every fighter who finally showed backbone.”
He reached into his desk and pulled out a set of staff room keys. Tossed them across the desk. Suguru caught them mid-air.

The kid blinked, clearly not expecting that just yet.

“You passed,” Masamichi told him, watching the kid’s eyes turn to the keys for a beat, thumb brushing the worn metal. 

Suguru’s hand stilled around it as he looked up, not with gratitude, but acknowledgment of the weight of the moment, and a new role taken on.

“Staff locker room’s down the hall. You’ll get the rest of your uniform later and hash out the details at the front desk,” Masamichi said, like he was reading off a checklist. “Start shadowing the other trainers next week.”

“I thought you weren’t looking to hire,” he said quietly, testing the waters.

“I wasn’t. Thought you were still gunning for the ring,” Masamichi replied. “Wasn’t gonna be the one to put you back in the spotlight with a face that might still be recognized. But then you asked.”

No desperation in Suguru’s voice when he’d walked into this office earlier in the week and asked to be considered. Just purpose.
No begging, no explanations, just a single clear offer. Use me. I can help.

And Masamichi wasn’t a fool. The kid belonged, worked for the trust.
He had the right tone and the older kids liked him, idolized him. Hell, everyone he’d talked to liked him.
He even managed Satoru, and no one did that.

Time to lay down the law, though, before the kid got too smug about it.
“You’re getting the shirts now,” Masamichi said, leaning forward, tapping the desk once. “But don’t think that makes you special.”

“I don’t.” Clearly suppressing a smile.

“You’ll float between classes where you’re needed for a start. Youth division’s short-staffed and the little monsters look up to you.” Especially after the stunt he’d pulled… word spread fast.

Suguru gave a short nod. “Got it.”

Masamichi didn’t stop there.
“You start shit again, I’m not covering for you. I'm giving you a chance, what you do with it is up to you. And don’t let me see you and Satoru throwing reckless punches like that outside official match-ups again.”

Suguru’s expression didn’t change. But something in the silence between them shifted.

Masamichi narrowed his eyes. “I don’t need blood on my mats.”

Suguru, ever careful, let his answer land light.
“I understand.”

Subtle, that, but Masamichi could see the calculation behind those dark eyes, hearing the loophole where it was presented. He wasn’t going to make it any more blatantly obvious or encourage anything, though he usually preferred transparency and blatant honesty as heavy-handed as a sledgehammer.

However, in this case he could turn a blind eye as long as they kept that shit clean, away from the impressionable youth and didn’t get hurt. He’d rather those idiots worked it out between themselves before more serious tensions arose. He could pay forward this much trust with someone who’d proven himself worthy of it.

Suguru looked down at the keys again, smiling now. “Thank you, Coach.”

“You’re not thanking me,” Masamichi said, dry. “You’re working. You showed up. You bled a little. You cleared the air with Satoru without turning it into a pissing contest. You’ve made yourself at home in here whether I said yes or not.”

Suguru nodded, steady. “I’ll prove it was the right call.”

“Good,” Masamichi said, leaning forward, tone dropping low. “I know you’ve got more in you than drills and band-aids, Suguru. I saw that the second you walked in here pretending you weren’t hungry for something more. You ever feel like putting all that potential to real use, in the ring, not just around it, the legit way, you know where to find me.”

Suguru held his gaze for a long second. It wasn’t uncertainty in his expression, just the weight of a road not taken. “You checked my record.”

“Of course I did,” Masamichi said, gruff. “Clean. No names, no dirt. Which means unless someone from the scene recognizes you, you’re nobody here. You get to start fresh.”
Suguru gave a slow nod. Something unspoken passed between them. Weight, history, the understanding that some things didn’t need to be said aloud.
Masamichi had been there, so he knew it was an uphill battle to fight your way out of it, but it was possible. And the kid had people believing in him, cheering for his success.
A pause, then he added with quiet finality, “Don’t waste it.”

Suguru exhaled through his nose, just short of a smile. “Careful. I might take you up on the offer.”

Masamichi’s allowed his mouth to twitch into something gruffly proud for just a moment. The he picked his felting needle back up and waved him off like it was all routine.
“Go, get outta here.”

Suguru stepped back with a crisp, respectful nod, but his fingers curled tighter around the keys in his palm as he turned. Masamichi didn’t miss the uplifting glow of something hard-won in the kid’s posture as he left the room.

After the door clicked shut behind him, Masamichi grunted, satisfied.

Kid was dangerous.

But he was theirs now.

Satoru had been not-so-patiently waiting since lunch. Suguru had said he was meeting Yaga.
Something about a follow-up, maybe a long shot, but he hadn’t given much detail. Which of course meant Satoru had immediately started imagining every possible scenario from dramatic expulsion to surprise promotion to the pro team as a ranked fighter in his own right.

He spent the time between afternoon and evening training horizontal on his couch, scrolling aimlessly through streaming services and checking his phone way too often. By the time it actually buzzed, he damn near rolled off the cushions in his rush to grab it.

Suguru’s name was on the screen. He opened it fast.

Suguru:
Hey. Done talking.

Satoru:
finallyyy
what took you forever?? i was dying over here

Suguru:
Had to run a victory lap to aisle 6.
Picked up more of those jelly drinks.

Satoru:
SEE i told you he wouldn’t boot you
and good choice, that jelly thing slapped
11/10 would get my insides rearranged for it again

Suguru:
And that’s either devotion or a cry for help.
Luckily that won’t be necessary.
I’ve got keys now.

Satoru blinked at that one. Then his fingers flew.

Satoru:
WAIT
hold up
you got the job???
officially????
and you're celebrating with convenience store jelly drinks instead of letting me throw you a party???

Suguru:
Didn’t want to jinx it till it was real.
And I figure I’d wait until coach stops pretending to be mad before making any waves.

Satoru:
oh i see so you’re just keeping it on the dl
cool cool cool
didn’t take you for a strawberry man though
unless the drink is for me? in that case i accept
but if this is your way of courting me you gotta try harder
i’m VERY high maintenance

Suguru:
I’ll make a mental note to pick up the gummies you were eyeing at the register next time, too.

Satoru grinned before he even knew it.
Something about that made his stomach go fizzy, kicking his legs behind him like a teenager with a crush, and buried his face in his throw pillow as he typed his response.

Satoru:
omg you ARE courting me
should i be concerned

Suguru:
Probably.
I tend to ruin lives.
Mostly my own, though.
Except for slightly suicidal liver shots, apparently. That’s two knockouts for the price of one.

Satoru:
homicidal more like
i felt that one in my SOUL
if i cant throw a party for you i demand a rematch 😤

Suguru:
Just cause I got the job doesn’t mean I’m not still on health probation, unfortunately.
You’re not allowed to bully me till coach gives the all-clear.

Satoru:
aw man ok but what if i pinky promise not to bully
just vibe
do some light pad work
i’ll even bring YOU a drink this time

Suguru:
…Are you trying to court me now?

Satoru:
🤔😏
…actually nah
i take offense to that

Suguru:
Do you, now?

Satoru:
yes
i’d do it way smoother than this obvs

Suguru:
Smooth? You? That’s one word for it.

Before Satoru could fully type back something snarky or, even better, proof, Suguru moved on with another couple texts in quick succession that had his heart pick up a beat.

Suguru:
About training, though.
I’ll be busy getting job training for the next week or so.
But if you want we can do drills and light spars together. Just us.
Yaga said not to let him see us getting up to any fighting, but…
Gym’s empty after hours. No one to stop us.

Satoru stared.

He reread it five times.

Fucking hell, Suguru actually might be beating him at this courting game. 

Finding loopholes to sneakily get away with one-on-ones after hours? If there was a surefire way to get Satoru’s heart beating faster that had to be it.

Satoru:
damn now we’re talking
sugar AND rebellion??? my favorite flavors 💙
gonna tell me all about your fight club moves?
you really know how to make a guy swoon

Suguru:
First rule of fight club:

Satoru:
nope none of that! i won’t be silenced and its too late for take-backsies!
bring your best moves
(or worst)
(i’ll still win)
(winner gets snacks on the loser)

Suguru:
You wish. But it's a deal.

Satoru:
can’t wait to kick your ass and celebrate my victory with a strawberry-flavored energy boost 😎

He hit send on the last one… And then stared at the screen for like an hour.
Not because he was waiting for a reply.

But maybe just because it had Suguru’s name on it.

Chapter Text

Walkout Music - chosen by fighters to accompany their entrance to the cage, setting the tone for their performance.

—

The gym was buzzing again that night. Warm up drills before spars, impact pads, the sound of wraps being tightened, sweat rolling down temples like quiet proof of effort. Satoru was early for once, stretching half-heartedly on the mats, fighting the itch under his skin that came with boredom and no Suguru to poke at yet.

That itch got its answer when the new resident trainer walked in.

Gym bag under one arm, plastic convenience store bag swinging from the other.
Trainer uniform, black, tight over his arms and chest showing off the definition that he usually hid under his gi.
Hair half tied up high, half of it falling over his shoulders.
Like he didn’t know how dangerous he looked like that.
Or like he was well aware.
He belonged in the uniform.

Which was, frankly, annoying.

Something about it just made Satoru sit up straighter before his brain caught up, trying to look like he hadn’t been waiting. Like it was no big deal. 

“Yo,” Suguru greeted, already heading for the staff lockers to deploy his bag there before circling back to Satoru like he owned the place now.

Satoru snorted, dialing back his grin. “Oi, aren’t you supposed to be coming in earlier, babysitting the kiddies? You slacking off on day one?”

Everyone knew the youth division had been short a trainer, hell, maybe the whole place would’ve benefitted of a shirt or two more on staff. Suguru had been helping out unofficially a while already, but Satoru had figured that was his new turf now.

Suguru stopped beside him, brow raised like he knew exactly how to get under his skin. Unruffled, mildly amused.
“Nah, I’ll be floating between divisions and weight classes for a while, learning the lay of the land.”

He plopped something into Satoru’s lap before Satoru could process that.

A jelly drink. The kind with the weird screw cap and the oddly refreshing energy burst. Strawberry. His favorite flavor.

Satoru blinked down at it, confused.

“Wait…For me?” He put a hand dramatically over his chest, leaning into the bit to cover the way his pulse jumped for real. And over what? Sugar in a cheesy, cartoonized packaging.
“We were joking about the courting thing, right? You trying to bribe me into going easy on you now that you’re staff? Or are you already admitting defeat for our upcoming spar?”

Suguru’s expression stayed deadpan, but something flickered at the edges.
“Bribe would mean I want something out of it. So, no, I already got what I wanted. This is just a small token of thanks.” He paused, letting it hang there just long enough to make Satoru’s ears heat weirdly for no reason at all.
“And Yaga’s still watching like a hawk, so let’s keep that bit about the spars quiet.”
Suguru should not be allowed to punctuate with winks.

Satoru had only just popped the cap and put it to his lips but the unexpectedly playful gesture had him slurping the gel obnoxiously, nearly inhaling the whole thing in his carelessness.
Right, no sparring during business hours.
“Pff. Wow. So what, you’re my gopher now? Beat you up once and now you’re bringing me snacks? What a deal,” he joked, coughing a bit to cover up the fumble.

For a fraction of a second, Suguru’s brow ticked, jaw tightening.
Then his expression evened back out to neutrality.
Satoru felt it like static crackling between them. He stilled, caught somewhere between smug, curious, and... something else. Suguru’s body stayed relaxed, but it was like watching a storm decide whether to roll in or not.

Satoru’s grin froze, mesmerized. Oh, that was a fun reaction. What was that about? Was he getting pissed? That’s all it took? All this work Satoru had been putting into it, and Suguru got irritated by getting called his gopher? Immediately, he wanted to keep poking at that groundbreaking discovery. This was like seeing Nanamin snap again for the first time, but better.

Then Suguru’s voice dropped, razor-thin, all while displaying a deceptively sweet smile.
“Careful. Might start expecting me to kiss your bruises better next.”

Satoru had to put the drink away because he nearly choked it again, laughing too loud, too sudden. It startled a guy down the row of sandbags.
“Whoa there, getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”
His heart was skipping with something stupid like misplaced adrenaline for a fight going undelivered at all the sparks flying between them, making him grin too wide.
“At least buy me dinner first.”

Suguru shook his head with a scoff, no heat behind it. “I just did.”

Technically, if they were only counting meals here, sure, Suguru had taken him out quite a few times, but that wasn’t dinner. Satoru held up the jelly drink like it was the saddest excuse for a meal in existence. “Have you seen the size of me? Where’s the rest?”

But the grin he gave after that felt off. It felt wrong. Because Suguru’s gaze didn’t linger, didn’t bite back like usual. The teasing dulled at the edges, pulling back just a little too smoothly as Suguru stepped back, glancing toward the open floors where the kiddies were starting to gather.

“Oh, you’ll manage not to starve until lunch, I’m sure,” he said, as if that was all there was to be said about it. “I’ll check on the kids before Yaga gets cranky.”

Something heavy sat under Satoru’s ribs.
They moved on. Spars started. Suguru didn’t train with him because he was a trainer now, not a regular like before.

He stuck to the sidelines, coaching the youth division while Nanami handled the floor. They split duties, Satoru overheard. Suguru would be shadowing various coaches while getting a crash course in paperwork and class planning, already settling into the staff crew like he’d always been there.

During breaks, they still gravitated toward each other, still bantered, but the air had changed.
Suguru’s smiles hit softer now. His jokes stayed sharp, but distant. Like holding back just enough to keep from slipping. 

Like someone who remembered the line between staff and fighters too well.

And Satoru?

He didn’t understand why that made his chest feel weirdly tight.
He didn’t know what he was reacting to, exactly.
They were gym mates. Colleagues, now.
Friends, maybe? Hopefully. Getting there, definitely.

So why did it feel like he was losing something instead of gaining it?

Kento really, really didn’t want to ask.

But unfortunately, being the interim technical advisor for the pro team meant noticing when someone couldn’t keep their damn head in the game.

And right now, someone was not even pretending to try.

“Gojo,” he said, sharp and flat, wiping his face with a towel. “Are you planning to focus at all tonight, or should we reschedule this session when you’ve finished staring holes into Geto’s back?”

Gojo blinked at him with those unnerving eyes from behind his taped fists like a cat caught with a paw in the fish tank.
“Eh? What do you mean? I’m totally focused, Nanamin,” he said, grinning like he hadn’t just botched a combo. “You gotta relax. You’re always so serious. It’s bad for your wrinkles.”

Kento, unimpressed, crossed his arms. “You’ve been watching Geto every thirty seconds. Even when you’re mid-spar.”

Gojo gave a slow, almost comically exaggerated shrug. “Hey, I didn’t say what I was focusing on.”

Kento shut his eyes for a moment. Inhaled. Exhaled. Tried to remember why he hadn’t walked out the minute this session started.

He could have left it at that. Should have, even. But Yaga had roped him into the administrative meetings. He knew the schedule changes coming down the pipeline. And Geto, who had apparently not told Gojo anything, was going to be on Gojo’s team more often from the following week onward.

So, reluctantly, against his better judgement, and only to restore some semblance of order, Kento muttered, “You’ll have plenty of time to bother him later. He will be supervising during my time off, and I’ve requested a shift to the youth division sometime in the future. Geto will be covering more of my shifts.”

He regretted the words immediately.

Gojo lit up like a firecracker. “Wait, seriously?! You’re leaving me with him?”

Kento gave him a look. “He’s a qualified trainer.”

“Yeah, but- He didn’t even say anything! When is this starting? How many shifts? Is this, like, for real for real? Does this mean he’s staying long term? Why is he being so cold lately? Like, professional-cold, you know? It’s weird. You think it's ‘cause I flirted a little too hard last week? I was joking. Mostly. You think he’s mad?”

Kento stared at him.

He’d made a terrible mistake.
He should have feigned a phone call. Walked into traffic.
Anything to get away from this. Whatever this was.

Kento tried to keep it impersonal. Short. It was the only thing that worked with Gojo when he got like this. The more he was left to his own devices, the more he fed into his own delusions and fabricated scenarios he had latched on.
“I’m sure Geto is being professional,” he said, dry as sandpaper. “Because it’s a job. Not a high school drama.”

Gojo looked utterly unconvinced, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully like he was forming some kind of ridiculous theory.

“I mean, I have been a little extra annoying,” he said in a far too unbothered tone considering he was aware of his faults, “but c’mon, it’s me. He used to laugh at my dumb jokes. Now he just nods like he’s got better places to be, all ‘Yes, coach. Of course, coach.’ Like he’s you or something.”

Kento pressed his fingertips to his temple. Privately, he wondered how it was possible for Gojo to act more annoying.
Maybe he should be expressing his gratitude to Geto for soon taking over his pro team duties by inviting him out for drinks. Strong drinks.

“Perhaps,” Kento said at last, resolved to get himself a drink after work, if nothing else, “because he does have better places to be. Like the division he’s been assigned to supervise. Like the classes he’s building from scratch. Like the literal children he’s responsible for now.”

Gojo flopped back onto the mat like he’d just been hit with a knockout blow. “So cold, Nanamin. So harsh. You don’t believe in love?”

“I believe in work ethic,” Kento said. “And you clearly lack both it and the ability to stop talking.”

Gojo rolled onto his side with a pout. “You think I should flirt less, then? Or maybe I just need to switch up the style. He strikes me as the ‘playing hard to get’ type so maybe ‘annoyingly persistent’ would be best. Oh, or, wait, do you think I should go for broody and mysterious next time? I need data, Nanamin. C’mon, don’t be stingy.”

Kento pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do not involve me in this.”

“But you know him! C’mon, Nanamin. Does he like the attention? Hate it? Is he secretly into me but just pretending? Is this the long game?”

“You’re playing a game,” Kento deadpanned. “He’s doing his job. If you want answers, ask him. Preferably after you’ve stopped acting like a child denied his favorite toy.”

Gojo grinned, unbothered. “I am the favorite toy.”

Kento sighed. Loudly. “For your sake, I hope not.”
He glanced at the clock and then at the mat, where Gojo was still lounging like a content cat who’d chased the bird but didn’t know what to do with it once it stopped flapping.
“Get up. Focus. Drill your sets, and don’t rope me into your pretend courtship antics ever again.”

Gojo made a whining noise like a dying seal, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face in his arms. “You don’t get it, Nanamin. It’s like he’s there but not really. It’s annoying.”

This was going to be a long night.

“I understand perfectly,” he deadpanned. “You’re projecting. You’re used to him giving you attention. Now he’s keeping professional boundaries. You’re unhappy about it, but that’s to be expected. Welcome to the adult world. And please don’t drag me into it again.”

Gojo sat up with a little bounce, finally pulling his wraps tight. “See, now that sounds like encouragement. You do care.”

“I care about not being here until midnight.”

“Fair enough. But just wait,” Gojo said, flashing a wicked grin. “Once we’re sparring partners again, he won’t be able to resist. I’m very charming in close quarters.”

Kento muttered something unprintable under his breath and turned away before he could be dragged any further into the juvenile hell Gojo called making friends.

He needed that transfer processed yesterday.
And that drink. Preferably something strong enough to erase the last five minutes from memory.
And a vacation. A long one.

Malaysia… Malaysia was supposedly nice this time of year.

Suguru knew better.
Or more accurately, he should know better.

The dark of his apartment felt heavy, lit only by the phone screen glow and the TV running on in the background, muted, completely forgotten. His thumb hovered over the keyboard. Not to type, of course. He wasn’t that far gone. But just to rest there. Like his body was betraying him, itching to close the space Gojo left behind.

He knew he shouldn’t have been staring at his phone like that, rereading message threads like they held the answers to the universe, looking for meaning in emojis and ellipses like some love-struck teenager. 

He was a grown man. An alpha. A fighter.
Not some teenager kicking his feet and dissecting tone like this was a confession instead of workplace banter with one of the most distracting human beings alive.

He exhaled. Let his head drop back against the couch.

What he should be elated and relieved about was the talk with Yaga he’d had recently, the old grump of a head coach actually having pulled him aside and told him he did commendably so far.
Another week of training, tops, then he’d get to substitute Nanamin during his leave, testing how he did in open waters.

If Suguru did well in the position, coach had said they could revisit the conversation about starting as technical advisor full-time sometime in the future.

Suguru didn’t go to sleep on that uplifting thought, though.

He scrolled up. Again. Exposure therapy.

It wasn’t the flirting that got to him. Satoru flirted with everyone. Playfully, aimlessly. It was part of his charm, a tool he used the same way he used a jab.
Sharp, sudden, fun until it left you missing a step, breathless.

And Suguru knew it wasn’t meant to be serious. That was the whole point. 

But Satoru’s replies, ridiculous and blindingly him, stupid emojis and all, still stuck to Suguru’s ribs like molasses.

Suguru groaned, dropped the phone onto his stomach, and dragged a hand over his face, turned off the TV. He hadn’t been doing anything except drifting closer to the warm, stupid pit of affection he’d tried very hard not to fall into.

Too late now.

Because he’d been fine admiring from a distance. Fine with teasing, pushing, testing the line between them in their drills, in their banter, in the way Satoru always made it feel like the two of them were in on something no one else got. It was a private orbit, a dynamic he thought he understood.

And then Suguru had brought the jelly drink.

What was supposed to be a small gesture of gratitude, a small, dumb, intentionally low-stakes split-second decision at the konbini register bolstered by relief had ended up looking like some unfortunate blushing schoolgirl confession. Insignificant enough not to raise any real alarms…

But Suguru had chosen the flavor. Satoru’s favorite. Had thought about it. 

That was the mistake.

Because the second Satoru lit up, wide-eyed and so goddamn pleased with himself, Suguru knew he was in big trouble. And when he’d opened his big mouth and shot back that gopher comment, all smug and bright and careless… He’d almost snapped.
Not with anger. Not entirely. But with something. Something too raw to show on the gym floor.

Because this? This wasn’t just rivalry or friendly, funny gym mate chemistry anymore.
Not to Suguru. He wasn’t just being weak to stupidly bright blue eyes and stronger punches and that infuriating laugh that cracked through Suguru’s carefully composed walls like it had every right to be there.

He’d realized it during that spar, the one that had ended in disaster.

When his fist had connected, too clean, too perfect, right against Satoru’s ribs he’d felt his fist’s echo in his own ribcage. 

The fight had come to an end, but Suguru’s heart had only just gotten started on beating him into pulp.

He wanted Satoru to take him seriously. He also didn’t want him to see him like a threat or a gopher for that matter, someone who barely deserved to hand him snacks.
Not as another alpha trying to climb the ladder, either. Not as someone trying to replace him. Never that.
Just someone on equal footing, maybe. Not that he’d done anything even close to worthy of standing by his side like that.

It wasn’t that Suguru was down in the dumps about his skill level or anything, knew he was damn good and still slowly and steadily improving, not just getting back to his former glory days, but growing beyond his limits with such strong peers all around to motivate his growth.

Mostly, he just didn’t want Satoru to realize how deeply he had let him in, how far beneath the skin he’d already spread his roots while Suguru was working hard to catch up, too easily swayed by emotion while the other didn’t mean anything by the flirting.

Hell, he called Nanami, the least likely guy to respond well to cutesy nicknames, “Nanamin" and other things that had Suguru choking back laughter when his kouhai grit his teeth through them like Satoru was insulting his family three generations back.
He teased Haibara, too, until the poor guy practically melted and hid behind his hands. He was loud and brash and charming in that way that made people feel like they were the center of the world until he wandered off to find his next amusement.

And Suguru?

He was trying not to be amusement.
He was trying to be professional. To stay focused. To keep things simple.

But the truth was, it didn't feel simple around Satoru. He’d felt like he was fifteen again, starry-eyed and burning up from the inside.

He didn’t even think Satoru liked alphas. Certainly didn’t see Suguru like that.
He’d wrinkled his nose and called him “ultra brawny” one time when he’d seen Suguru do bench presses before, with that infuriating cackle.

And even if he didn’t find him too broad, too alpha for his tastes…

Suguru sighed, finally setting the phone down and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until stars bloomed.
“I’m not doing this,” he muttered to no one.
Not tonight. Preferably not ever.
Alphas only interested in omegas were definitely off limits.

He was just- spiraling. A little. Quietly.
With the silent dread that this wasn’t just a passing thing. It had slipped under his skin months ago, evolved from a far-away awe of watching the champion take to the ring many, many years ago. Now it was rooted. Worse, it was real. Not just admiration. Not just a crush. But something that could mess with his judgment, could get in the way of what he was actually here for. Well, his new reason for being here. Because, yeah, at first he'd very much just been drawn to the light.
Not that he was in love. No need to be dramatic.

But now his career was finally starting to take shape again.
It was the chance he’d been working toward for months. A real future. And the last thing he needed was to torpedo it by getting too close to the star attraction of the gym. Too obvious. Too involved. Even if Satoru didn’t realize or care how closely people watched him, Suguru did.

Professional boundaries. At least during hours. Keep things neat, friendly, clean. The two of them could joke around, sure. But nothing like before. No more waiting for him to show up. No more jelly drinks.

That hadn’t been him giving in.

That had been a one-time lapse.

Because whatever Satoru was doing, whatever game he thought he was playing with all the flirty comments and shameless grinning, it wasn’t real. Not really. He didn’t see Suguru like that. Never had, never would. And Suguru wasn’t about to get dragged into that gravitational pull just to be spun out when Satoru found a new object of affection next week.

No, he couldn’t afford that.

Couldn’t be the punchline to a flirtation that never meant anything beyond amusement.

This was fine. This was good. He could handle this.
He would go to work, do the job, be a damn good trainer. He wouldn’t make it weird. Wouldn’t get pulled in.
He could admire from a safe distance. That was allowed. Friends did that.

He could do this. He’d have to. 

Because the truth was, the second his phone buzzed with Gojo’s name again, Suguru knew he’d open it before the first vibration even stopped.

And no matter how careful he tried to be, he’d smile. Every time.

Suguru didn’t mean to loiter. Not really.

It’s just that the timing lined up. Perfectly. Coincidentally.

Totally.

Suguru leaned against the wall opposite Shoko’s office, arms crossed, the line of his mouth set in what he hoped passed for nonchalance. He had gotten the badge of approval from Yaga earlier. He should be heading to warmups. He had every reason to be elsewhere.

But his heart thrummed a guilty rhythm.

The door cracked open.

Satoru stepped out like a force of nature. Bright, electric, his entire posture lit with energy. The very air around him felt lighter, a hint of his refreshing scent filtering through his peeling patch. He practically bounced on his heels, arms stretching overhead with a grin that split his face wide open.

“Finally,” he huffed, tossing his head back. “She held me hostage in there. Swore she needed to ‘check my alignment’, whatever that means. Tch. Like I’m a busted car.”

Suguru watched him, warmth he tried his best to ignore curling like a tired cat in a patch of afternoon sunshine.

“You're free then,” he said, tone level. “Guess we’re both cleared.”

Satoru stopped mid-stretch.

Turned.

“Oh, shit.” That grin flashed again. “You’re done with training wheels?”

Suguru nodded once, and for a moment, Satoru just looked at him.

“That means…” he said, stepping closer, voice suddenly a little breathless. “We can train again. Together.”

It landed on Suguru like a gut-punch. Not the words, but the way he said it. Like it was Christmas morning and he just unwrapped a brand new toy. Like it was important.
Like he had been holding out for it.

Suguru let himself smile, soft and careful. “Didn’t think you’d miss me that much.”

“Miss you?” Satoru scoffed, but there was no mockery in it. “I’ve been dying. You think Nanamin hits like you? That guy punches like a damn spreadsheet.”

Suguru snorted. “That’s because he hits where it hurts.”

“And you hit like you’re trying to make me feel things.”

There was a pause. A long one.

Satoru’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t even have the decency to backtrack. Just looked confused as to why Suguru wasn't saying anything back.

Suguru breathed in slowly, trying very hard to play it cool. “…Should I apologize for that?”

“No,” Satoru said, way too quickly, like he’d only just realized he may have said something awkward, then, “I mean. Only if you’re planning to stop.”

Suguru huffed a quiet laugh, amazed at how Satoru could just say these kinds of things with a straight face like that. He shook his head as he started to walk but Satoru fell into step beside him, close enough their shoulders almost brushed, and suddenly the air felt thin with something unsaid.

“Drills first?” Suguru asked, half-teasing.

“Oh yeah,” Satoru replied, amusement dancing in his voice. “So you can try to kill me again.”

Ah, this holding back thing wasn't going well... "And if I bring you a jelly drink after?”

Satoru stopped. Turned to him, bottom lip sticking out in a pout, and it took everything Suguru had not to smirk at how the little inside joke had yet to fail getting a reaction from the other alpha.
“You’re trying to seduce me again,” Satoru accused.

Suguru grinned, just a touch smug. “Thought you said you weren’t that easy.”

“I’m not.” Satoru said, already reaching for his phone. “Which is why I’m texting myself a reminder to hold this over you forever.”

Suguru rolled his eyes and kept walking. "Text yourself a reminder to keep your grappling game tight next time, too."

Behind him, Satoru laughed, too loud, too happy, and Suguru could feel the sound follow him, echoing in his ears.

Someone help him. He was in so much trouble.

Chapter Text

Grinding Style - a form of grappling in MMA in which the fighter drags their opponents to the mat and then uses a relentless pace, constant pressure, and a barrage of strikes to wear down an opponent's will and ability to fight

Suguru’s phone buzzed just as he stepped off the train home from shopping.
He didn’t even need to check to know who it was. Satoru had been texting him since that morning, their shared day off, with a relentless energy that didn’t seem to understand the concept of “down time”.

He waited until he cleared the platform, then thumbed over the notification.

Satoru:
(^ΦωΦ^) so its getting serious now huh
we’re really doing secret after hours sparring
breaking the law
*scandalous*
but what if we made it spicier
like real back alley vibes
you said fighters don’t use patches right?
bc it messes with your head? that thing about scent advantages?

Suguru’s fingers paused over the screen before he leaned against the station pillar, letting the early evening crowd flow by, the station din swallowing his quiet exhale.

When they’d agreed on a time to meet up he’d told himself it was harmless. Controlled. Technically still professional.

But this? Yaga may have implicitly sanctioned after-hours training between them, yet he doubted that included going fully feral with no supervision.

They weren’t doing anything illegal. No bets, no crowd, no performance.
Just two trained fighters working outside hours to push past their limits.

But no patches? That was a different story.

Sure, it was frowned upon to ditch them in public, but the law allowed for a gray zone taking scent saturation into account. As long as they were both on suppressants and didn’t bother anyone, maybe even sprayed the shit out of the lockers with neutralizers afterwards, they should be fine.

Probably.

Point was, they weren’t gambling or drinking or doing anything they or the gym would get in trouble for.

The counter point was, Suguru had been wanting this for too long, and it was clouding his judgement.

Maybe he was bending some rules a little but if no one got hurt and they kept things clean? No harm done. Did that make it a good idea? Probably not.
And yet…

It wasn’t the rules he was worried about. It was Satoru.

Suguru had fought in circles where patches were laughably unheard of. Cage leagues where blood and scent clung to the walls, where fights ran long into the night, and no one cared how close you were to your rut or if your opponent could smell it. Biology was just another tool. A tactic. A psychological advantage, if you knew how to use it. Or at least withstand it.

And he had. Time and time again.

So, no. The idea didn’t bother him personally. Not the way it should.

In fact, half the time at the gym, he had to stop himself from weighing people the old-fashioned way by inhaling subtly as he passed by, reading the fine edge of pheromones seeping through patches the same way he read a shift in stance. Scent was just information. It told you who was bluffing, who was close to panicking, who was testing your threshold before a strike.

Fighting with patches on had always been the real adjustment.

In public, sure. Patches were law, especially during high saturation periods. Unchecked cycles in crowded spaces were dangerous, sharp scent spikes affecting everyone within a devastatingly large range. Some alphas and omegas with especially low scent saturation could get away with wearing patches throughout, but for most it was impossible to leave home during that time.

Suguru belonging to the latter example group.
So, yes, he understood the rules. Understood why people relied on suppression.

But he also remembered what it felt like to fight without it.
Raw and brutal, sure, but honest. Stripped down. The way instincts sang under your skin. The way your body told the truth, even when your mouth lied.

A real fight.

He wanted that, with Satoru, more than anything. At least once.

And so, selfishly, he thumbed out a response before he could think better of it.

Suguru:
Yeah.
Fighters use everything they’ve got.
Some even time matches near their ruts to throw off opponents.
Biology’s another weapon.
If you can handle it.

He added the last line deliberately, knowing Satoru well enough to anticipate his reaction.

And sure enough, it came moments later.

Satoru:
ARE YOU KIDDING
that sounds fucking awesome
let’s do that
no patch. no mercy.
let’s see if you can handle ME (¬‿¬ )

Suguru locked his phone after that to walk out of the station before he could take it back or say anything he would regret. 

He stepped into the cooler night air, pulling his hoodie tighter and falling into a steady pace. The city around him was shifting into its evening rhythm, bars and clubs coming alive, commuters heading home, lights flickering on in scattered windows. He cut through the streets like muscle memory, mind already quieting.

It would be fine. Just training. Controlled.

Suguru didn’t like the idea of throwing him into scent-heavy sparring without experience, but Satoru would show up. He always did. Eager and unfiltered and so certain of his place in the world it was infuriating.

And he would insist on doing it “back-alley style”, despite having made it sound like it was some kind of joke. He’d meant it. Suguru could tell.

And Suguru, like a fool, couldn’t say no to him.
Didn’t want to say no to him.

Not when Satoru asked for something with that kind of excitement. Not when it wasn’t technically reckless. He would take the lead, he’d already decided. Ease him into things. Let him get used to it in time, unlike how Suguru had gotten thrown into it himself.

It wasn’t like they’d be fighting for real.
No audience. No pressure. Just them, and maybe some sweat, maybe some heavy breathing. Just… training.

With extra steps.

The only thing he might have to worry about was keeping his cool.

But that, too, he rationalized. He could handle it. He had handled worse. And Satoru didn’t know. Didn’t understand the kind of edges they’d be brushing up against tonight.
It would be different this time. No getting into the survival mindset.

Definitely nothing inappropriate. Just a friendly match between friends. Because that’s what they were.

Friends. That’s what they were.

This was fine.

It had to be.

And still, Suguru adjusted his grip on the bag again, a tension coiled low in his gut he wouldn’t be getting rid of until he saw Satoru.

Until this whole thing resolved.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

Satoru skidded to a stop at the gym doors, breath fogging the cool air as his damp hair clung to his forehead. He hadn't even dried off properly, tied his shoes properly, grabbed his shades-
He hadn’t done anything properly.

Because after Suguru and him had texted to meet up he’d told himself he’d just hop in the shower and come in fresh.

He'd done just that, thrown himself on the couch in his pjs to relax on his day off until he had to leave. And instead of getting up and ready for it?
He’d conked out on the couch like an idiot. Phone dead after playing a stupid mobile game until his eyelids had gotten too heavy. Alarm useless.

Now he was here, shoes squeaking on the mats, heart thundering in his chest as he frantically scanned the empty gym floor. The ring was empty. No one stretched in the corners or hovered near the bags. He was late. Late late.

“Shit,” he muttered, harsh and hoarse. His pulse roared in his ears as he bolted toward the locker rooms on pure instinct. Suguru wouldn’t just leave, right? Some lights were still on, but-
Would he?

He hadn’t even charged his damn phone before running here so he couldn’t text, couldn’t call.

Stupid, stupid, stupid-

The soft click of a door stopped him short, shoulder knocking into the lockers as he spun around.

Suguru stepped out of the staff room, towel slung over one shoulder, an eyebrow raised like Satoru was the punchline to a joke only he got.

“You’ve got drool on your cheek,” Suguru said, tone flat, amused, just this side of dry, motioning at the corner of his mouth. “And is that... a Digimon shirt?”

Satoru wiped his face with the heel of his palm, scowling, defensive by default. “It’s vintage, thanks. You don’t get it. You weren’t there.”

“I was there,” Suguru replied without missing a beat. “That’s why I’m judging you. Agumon? Couldn’t be more basic.”

Satoru nearly lobbed into an argument defending his jurassic fav on reflex, but the fact that there was no sting behind Suguru’s words stopped him short.
If anything, he looked... relaxed. Barefoot, hands tucked into the black belt of his gi, hair tied up loose like he hadn’t spent the last hour wondering if he’d been stood up. Like he’d known Satoru would show eventually.

Which only made Satoru’s chest tighten, sharp and miserable.
He scratched at the back of his head. “I... overslept. Phone died. I wasn’t-” he gestured at himself, shirt hanging crooked off one shoulder, no gear bag, no gloves. “I wasn’t planning to show up like this, okay?”

Suguru shrugged, easy. “You’re here now. I’ll lend you my spare gloves, if you need some.”

Damn, Satoru could’ve kissed the guy then and there. Or, well, at least given him an affectionate slap to the shoulder in lieu of something more sappy. He stepped up to do just that-

And that’s when the scent hit him. Subtle, not overpowering. 

At first.

Then it bloomed. Like smoke curling off slow-burning incense but without the fire. Not ashy but clean and rich and full-bodied. Earthy, herbal, with a darker, sweet undercurrent that made something primal in Satoru rear up and take notice.

He nearly staggered.

Not because it was strong. 

Because it was compelling.

Because of how it dragged his focus, his instincts sharpening, his breath catching in a way that had nothing to do with alarms.

His mouth went dry.

It wasn’t like any alpha scent he was used to. Not smothered but not aggressive, either. Not clawing for dominance. 

It was present without trying to be. Sure without being loud.

A low thrum woke up in his chest. 

Suguru’s scent wasn’t muted anymore. No patch.
And Satoru, for the first time in his life, realized he wasn’t prepared.

Satoru had never been this aware of another alpha before. Not even close.

“...You good?” Suguru asked, eyeing him with a faint tilt of his head.

Satoru tried to laugh it off.

A mistake.

Because as soon as he opened his mouth and sucked in a shallow breath the scent unfolded further, stretching out in his lungs, slow and almost deliberate, the uncurling of a feline finding a sunning spot, content where it effortlessly took up space within him.

He could practically taste it.

White tea, clean and delicate.
Hinoki wood, grounding and warm, sacred.
Yuzu’s faint brightness, like laughter on the tip of his tongue.
Underneath it all, soft and coaxing, jasmine blooming deep in the night.

And that was just the layers he could pick out.
There was more to it, so rich and complex, things he couldn’t even name, all coiled around his senses, sinking in slowly, making the fine hair along Satoru’s arms and neck stand up on end like cool silk slipping over bare skin.

Anchored and unbothered and there. 

He could feel the calm deliberately projected from it.
But there were more subtle notes weighing on Satoru like expectation, a nearly untraceable edge of- Worry?

That- fucking hell, that was freaky, first of all. Being able to tell that by just standing opposite Suguru. Because he didn’t look worried, not exactly. But the realization grounded him too, brought him back down to earth.

Satoru forced words, tight and late. “Yeah, yeah, just... uh. The no patch thing? Jumping right in, huh? You weren’t kidding, that's kinda intense.”

Suguru’s mouth quirked slightly. It wasn’t his expression or words that told of, what, sympathy? Caution? Oh. Care.
“What, getting cold feet already? You're the one who wanted the full experience.”

“Please,” Satoru huffed, rolling his shoulders to cover the way his skin prickled. “I can handle anything. You forget who I am?”

Suguru made a sound, unimpressed, and gestured toward the mats. “You’re almost late enough that we’ll skip the warmups, but I won't be that lenient. You just missed your chance for spars. We’re going straight into pad work and home after.”

Despite him sounding all business, exuding certainty, that edge in his scent lingered, though maybe Satoru was reading it wrong, unpracticed in these things. Could be anticipation, or...
Or Satoru projecting his own feelings.
“Seriously? I thought we came here to spar.”

Suguru rolled his eyes at him, but there was a small, private smile pulling on his lips.
The cut there had healed over by now, new skin a subtle shade lighter than the rest, distracting, and yet it remained the scent that rolled off of him, warm, amused, playful, honey diffusing in jasmine tea, that had Satoru staring.

Indulgence?
Palpable. Quantifiable.
“Yeah, and then you showed up late, so we’ll see” he said, the fact that he was just playing hard to get so blatantly clear now that Satoru could smell it on him, it was almost funny. Suguru motioned him over to his locker before he could find the breath to laugh.
“Patch off, get changed.”

And Satoru, hopeless, didn’t bother arguing another word, just threw himself into his locker to grab his spare rash guard to change out into.

He told himself it was just adrenaline.
That the flush creeping up the back of his neck was from running here.
That the way his heart hammered against his ribs was just the rush of waking up too fast, nothing more. People weren’t usually this affected by scents, were they? How did anyone living with someone else get anything done at all? He felt so out of it just being in the same room as Suguru right now, holy shit.

Then, as he pulled the shirt over his head, Suguru’s voice broke through from where he sat on the bench with his back turned to him, dry and somewhat amused.
“You planning to take those patches off or do you need me to remind you again? It will be easier once you do. Should balance things out.”

Satoru blinked, touching his fingers to his neck. Shit. The patches. Of course.
He’d slapped them on by habit, even in the rush he’d been in, before sprinting out the door.

“Right,” he muttered, peeling them off either side of his neck, feeling a bit stupid.

It did not, in fact, get any easier to breathe.
He just took more shallow inhales until he got done dressing, turning toward the other alpha.

Suguru tilted his head, giving him a look like he was seeing straight through him. “Underground fighting etiquette 101,” he said, slow and patient like Satoru was one of the youth division kids.
“No patches, no rules except the ones we set. And if you’re going to let scent throw you off this badly, you’re going to be flat on your ass in about two minutes.”

Satoru flashed him a grin, all teeth, masking the spike of something like anticipation tightening his gut. “I can handle it.”

Suguru gave a hum that said he doubted it, but didn’t disrespect him by offering they blow this off before he’d even had a try at it.
“Let’s start slow,” he said instead.

So they stepped onto the mats.
Suguru leading, Satoru trailing just behind, eyes dragging down the clean lines of Suguru’s back pulling the baggy fabric of his gi taut as he stretched out slow and loose like he had all the time in the world.

Satoru swallowed hard.
He was in so much trouble.
And he had no idea what to do about it, his pulse roaring in his ears.

The rhythm was good.
Easy.
Almost too easy.

Satoru’s movements were sharp as always, his strikes clean, precise.
At least on the surface.

Suguru could count them in his bones, the echo of impact against the training pads coming in the familiar cadence of an opponent that, after months of training together, he knew down to the twitch of a tendon. But there was something off. Off enough that even if Satoru hadn’t telegraphed it with his drifting guard or the late snap of his jab, Suguru would’ve known.

He smelled it before he saw it.

Beneath the faint tang of sweat and the slow unfurling heat of Satoru’s focus, there was a flicker. An unexpected spike of uncertainty, buried under layers of bravado.
Like cold metal left in the sun.
Warm on the surface, yes, but cool just underneath, biting and raw.
And it wasn’t nerves, not really. Satoru wasn’t scared or self-conscious and it wasn’t his usual brand of chaotic energy, either. No smirking taunts, no wild theatrics, just the occasional flicker of something behind his eyes, like he was a few seconds behind his own thoughts.

Distraction. A hesitation that tugged at the sharp edge of his confidence, fracturing it ever so slightly at the corners, a subtle hesitation in every third punch, twitchy at times Suguru couldn’t anticipate.
Not sloppy. Just… distracted.
Too aware of the fact that there were no scent patches tonight.

Suguru narrowed his stance, adjusted the pace, drawing back into a steadier rhythm, giving Satoru space to catch up.
He kept his own breathing even, masked. Kept his scent from rising, possibly overwhelming.
No reason to escalate even as the air between them started to feel heavier.

Even if the heat rolling off Satoru’s skin wound itself around Suguru like it was trying to make a home there, his scent a siren call whispering of danger under its breath.

Even if it spiked like static caught between his teeth, his heartbeat getting stuck in his throat.

Satoru’s scent was the kind that rode just a little too easily up the back of Suguru’s spine, curled around his senses. Not suffocating but impossible to ignore. A slow-infiltrating distraction that shouldn't have been this hard to tune out.
But he was already tuned in.

Because it wasn’t just the scent. It was the way Satoru had shown up late, all breathless apology and wet hair and that stupid shirt with a Digimon plastered across it like they were sixteen, having a slumber party. It was the way he had looked genuinely gutted to have kept Suguru waiting.
And it was the way he was watching him now.

Openly. Always so openly. Suguru could feel his gaze between every movement. How it lingered too long when he stretched out his arms. How it sharpened when he stepped just a little closer than needed during pad work.

They circled again, and Suguru let the seconds stretch out, using the time to parse the layers unraveling from Satoru like frayed thread. It wasn’t just tension anymore. There was something else. Slight, but unmistakable. A growing hum in Satoru’s scent, not quite adrenaline.

A wanting. Not physical, not overt. But the kind of instinctive pull that twisted around the gut and settled deep in the sternum.

It swelled and dimmed like a tide with every moment Suguru got closer. With every brush of proximity. And even when Satoru tried to mask it behind banter or bravado, his scent betrayed him. Suguru caught the micro-spikes in his pheromones whenever their arms grazed during mitt drills, the hitch in his breath when Suguru corrected his footing with a nudge at his calf, the subtle cooling of embarrassment threaded with an ever-present undercurrent of, yes, fuck, genuine affection.

Suguru had trained himself to read these things. To isolate the cues.
Cage fighting without scent patches had been a sensory battlefield. Emotions bled out in waves when the body failed to hide them. He'd smelled fear in grit teeth, resolve like iron in blood. Lust, anger, shame, all of it, stained into sweat and breath and bone. His nose had become a near perfect detector. But that was only when everything was clean and calculated.

This wasn’t.

Suguru kept his expression calm. Breath controlled. Made his motions as casual as possible despite the heat crawling up the back of his neck. Tried not to wonder how much of his own scent was betraying him in return, whether Satoru could pick anything out of it.
Thinking about those things would only make you crazy.

Suguru pulled back mid-punch, rotating off-center.
“Alright,” he said, more clipped than intended. “That’s enough.”

Satoru blinked, pads still up, his scent wavering. Confusion. Quick, shallow. Then something heavier, tinged in something like sadness. Disappointment.

“What?” Satoru dropped his arms. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

“It’s late,” Suguru said, already unwrapping his knuckles, steadying the tight coil in his gut.

Satoru snorted, brushing a lock of damp hair from his face. “Oh please. Don’t tell me Utahime’s got you up for shadowing her sunrise yoga again.”

Suguru gave him a flat look, but didn’t rise to the bait as he started unwrapping his hands, keeping it smooth. He wasn’t going to mention the way his instincts had been clawing under his skin since they’d taken it to the mats or the way Satoru’s scent was setting off all the quiet alarms he’d trained himself to ignore.

Not dangerous, not hostile. Worse. Open. Honest. Welcoming. Wanting.
It pulled at something Suguru couldn’t explain but felt under his skin, the wrong kind of tension starting to knot in his gut. He’d promised himself this wouldn’t complicate things.

Satoru, the spoiled little brat, pouted. Actually pouted.
His bottom lip stuck out and his shoulders slumped and it was so ridiculous that Suguru was halfway to telling him to quit being dramatic when it hit him. The scent changed.
Subtle, but he caught it.
It wasn’t fake.

That flash of hurt. The real kind.
The kind that turned down the heat in Satoru’s scent to something cooler, folded in, inward-facing.
It hit Suguru like a gut punch because it came at odds with the way Satoru looked. He looked like he was putting on a show, all playful theatrics. But the scent didn’t lie.

It never lied.

“...Are you sulking?” Suguru asked, gaze narrowing, like he was trying to solve a puzzle that kept changing shape.

Satoru rolled his shoulder in a faux-casual shrug, but his scent tightened again. Hesitant, uncertain, like he didn’t quite know how much was too much.
“I dunno. Just figured we’d get more time in.” A beat. Then, quieter. “Kinda missed this. You know.”

Suguru stood still, wrap half-unwound in his hand. The moment hung heavy in the air, and he tried, really tried, to keep the flicker of emotion from shifting his own scent in return. But the tension was there. That ache of recognition. The throb behind his sternum. Because he had missed it too. Missed this. Whatever the fuck this was.

The worst part was how honest it was. The sincerity soaked into Satoru’s voice, subtle, open-hearted, was like a blade laid down instead of drawn.

Suguru could turn away flirt or fight. Could dodge a blow, deflect an insult. He knew how to tune out pretty faces and compliments and even scent when necessary. But this?
He didn’t know what to do with this. This quiet, genuine softness, this kind of earnestness that made him ache with something too complicated to name.

This disarmed him in ways scent training had never prepared him for.

He sighed, low and even through his nose, and dropped the wrap into his bag.
“Fine,” he said. “Fifteen more minutes.”

The spike of pure joy that burst off Satoru’s scent nearly staggered him. Bright and golden and unfiltered. Suguru didn’t need to look to know Satoru was grinning like an idiot.
“Hell yes!”

Suguru’s lips twitched despite himself. He didn’t say you’re a child. Didn’t say you’re trouble.

Instead, he stepped back onto the mats.

Fifteen minutes. That was all. He could keep it contained for fifteen more minutes.

Even if Satoru’s scent was blooming warm across the room again, drawn to him like gravity, like inevitability.

Even if it was whispering truths Suguru had never let himself say out loud.

“Hey,” Satoru said, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck, bouncing a little on his heels, “we could do some groundwork, maybe?”
It was one of those dumb things that just slipped out while his mouth ran a little faster than his brain. Par for the course with him, really. He’d just thought, well, they’d never really done that before. 

He hadn’t thought about it. Well, he had, but not in the way it mattered.

It made sense. Safer. Smarter. Less chance of getting clocked if one of them slipped, and less room for his brain to go haywire with… whatever the hell had been circling it all night. 

Suguru’s eyes had flickered to him. Quiet. Reading. Always reading.

Satoru had barreled forward before he could lose the nerve. “Y’know, probably better than sparring full speed this late at night? Can’t knock out a tooth if we’re already on the ground.”

He hadn’t expected Suguru to agree so easily. But then again, Suguru always agreed when it counted, didn’t he?

Maybe it wasn’t as weird as Satoru had made it out to be in the split second of self-doubt squeezed between the words coming out of his mouth and Suguru’s calm assessment. Maybe it was totally normal to want to roll around with another alpha in a closed gym at ass o’clock in the night, no scent patches, and nerves crackling under his skin like live wires.
Totally normal.

Satoru sat back on his heels, hands resting lightly on his thighs, faking ease with everything he had.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, and smiled too wide.

Suguru only nodded, calm as ever, and they moved.

It was fine. It was fine. Their hands touched first, light grip, push, pull, feint. A little give, a little take. Satoru focused on the angles, on Suguru’s hips and his center of balance, on the way he was not reacting like he usually did in training, but doing something quieter, smoother, more deliberate.

He wasn’t testing Satoru’s reflexes.
He was reading him.

And Satoru was reading too, but the signals weren’t making sense.

Suguru’s scent wasn’t aggressive. Wasn’t challenging. If anything, it was… low. Calm. Watching. There was a warmth to it that was wrong, not in a bad way, just in a not-right-now kind of way. Too gentle, too steady. It made something twitch under Satoru’s skin, like a muscle too taught you just felt it’d cramp up if you moved the wrong way.

And then Suguru shifted his weight and pulled.

They tipped sideways, fluid as breath, and Satoru let him, because what was the worst that could happen? He could deal with all kinds of body locks and bars.

Satoru didn’t see what he’d done until Suguru was on him. Calm. Methodical. Patient. The way he flowed around his defenses like water, like he wasn’t just reacting but predicting.

Satoru’s whole body stiffened with the realization. Suguru knew what he was doing.
Not just trained. Not just capable. This was his thing.
And he was good.
Really fucking good.

Where Satoru struck fast and ended quick, Suguru grinded. Controlled. Smothered.
And suddenly, the ring felt smaller.
The gym felt loud with the echo of his own heartbeat. His breath turned short. Not winded. Caged.

Then Suguru took his back.
Hooked a leg. Slid one arm around his chest, the other up to his shoulder, not choking, not pinning, just there. Tight. Secure.

And-

Satoru’s breath caught. Shit. Shit.
That scent.

Satoru jerked instinctively, a twist of his hips to break out, but Suguru just adjusted, smooth like he’d done this a hundred times. He probably had. He had the positioning, the leverage, the weight distribution down to a science and it was tight.

Satoru’s pulse spiked.
His skin went cold-hot all at once. Suguru’s chest pressed flush to his back, breath grazing the side of his neck, and the world tilted. The mat dropped out from under him. His pulse spiked so hard it hurt.

It wasn’t words, it wasn’t thought.
It was instinct overriding every thought in his brain.

He remembered this feeling. Or rather, his body did.

Half a lifetime ago, when he was just a kid and they kept throwing him in against older, bigger, meaner ones, ones who wanted to make an example of the cocky prodigy with the family name and the freakish stats. He would get trapped under too much weight, forced to prove his superior technique in impossible escape moves to turn the tides.
Then, he’d been able to brush off the edge of something too heavy in the air around him. Something he hadn’t been equipped to recognize at the time.

He’d never drowned in it, was never helpless, never scared. Always countering it with viciousness before it got too much to handle.

But now, Suguru was breathing slow. Even. Calm. Satoru could feel it, steady like an anchor against the chaos suddenly slamming through his ribs. And worse than that, he could smell it. Suguru’s scent in his nose, in his mouth, up against his throat.

Too close. Too much.

He felt his own scent flare sharp in answer, involuntary, like his body was sounding some ancient alarm. And Suguru smelled it too, didn’t he? Of course he did. Satoru could tell by the way his hold eased, just slightly, cautiously, and that made it worse, so much worse, because it wasn’t condescending, it was concerned, and Satoru didn’t know how to survive being seen like that.

There was a flicker, quick and hot and old -

A memory. That feeling of being pinned for just a second too long, when he was younger, when they wanted to remind him no amount of talent made up for being the smallest one in the room. Rough hands. Getting cornered by smothering weight and sneering grins.

Satoru thrashed before he knew it, something in him snapped to alert like a dog yanking against a leash. Too hard. Too sudden. Not a move anymore. An eruption.

“Wait-” Suguru’s voice, close and startled and not fast enough.

Satoru was already halfway through a violent scramble, limbs flailing for escape, for dominance, for air-
His elbow connected hard with something solid, a grunt, he wasn’t sure whose, and the next thing he knew they weren’t on the mat anymore.

Satoru’s chest was heaving, sweat slick down his spine like cold fire. His hands were clenched so tight he could feel every bone in them creak under the force.

Suguru lay half sprawled, propped up on one elbow, blinking, one hand to his jaw.
Not angry. Not even surprised. Just stunned.
His hair was half out of its tie, and his eyes were locked on Satoru like he didn’t want to spook him.

Which was insane.

Because Satoru was the problem.

Neither of them spoke for a beat too long. His mouth opened, closed. He wiped a shaking hand across his face, more sweat than skin.
“That was…” His voice cracked. “That was new.”
Satoru’s throat felt raw. Not from effort. From the feeling that had just seized him by the throat like a ghost.

He’d never- he hadn’t. Since when did he combust like that?

Suguru nodded slowly. Still watching. Still calm. Like Satoru hadn’t just panicked like some half-wild thing in a locked room.

“Let’s call it,” Suguru said, soft. “For real this time.”

Satoru nodded back. Because what else could he do?

His heart was still racing. His skin was still lit up in goosebumps. That old fear.
No, not fear. That thing, whatever it was, was still pacing around in his chest like it wanted out.

And the worst part?
He missed Suguru’s touch already. Even as it burned.
Even as it made him feel small and wild and stupid.

He walked home with the night air biting at his skin, his hands deep in his pockets, head bowed low.
He didn’t feel like the strongest.
He felt like a kid again. Trapped in a body that was too big, too fast, too loud and didn’t know how to understand the way someone so gentle could still take him apart.

Suguru had ended up cleaning the mats alone, spraying the place down.
Not because it was his turn, or because Yaga had told him to if he ever came in on his own, but because Satoru had looked so lost he’d told him to go ahead without him.
Hadn’t spoken much. Hadn’t joked. Hadn’t looked back.
Just nodded, said “Sorry”, like a scolded, lost kid, and left.

Suguru had never seen him like that.
Wide-eyed. Pale. That jerk away, like he’d been burned.

It hadn’t even been a chokehold. Not tight. Not threatening. Just a transition, a grip.
One of a hundred they’d trained in drills.
But something in Satoru had snapped.
And Suguru hadn’t seen it coming. He should have. He should have reminded himself that most people these days weren’t built for withstanding another alpha’s scent in close quarters, not under such circumstances. 

He’d just been too used to his old bubble of the more feral type.

Hadn’t been taking Satoru’s feelings and background into consideration as much as he should have.

He went home later than he should have, didn’t bother showering at the gym. Just packed his bag in silence, head buzzing with questions. He scrolled through his music on the train and ended up playing nothing. Stared at the dark window like it might offer him an answer.

His phone buzzed in his pocket when he was near his station.

Satoru:
hey so
about earlier
lol

Suguru stared at the screen. Blinked once. Twice. Another ping.

Satoru:
i guess that was weird huh
not like bad weird
just y’know
unexpected lol

It kept going.

Satoru:
i mean u didn’t do anything wrong
just felt off for a second
i dunno
anyway
sorry if i freaked you out or whatever
not my best moment lol
also sorry i ditched

Suguru read the string of messages over and over again. They were fragmented. Nervous. Not like Satoru, not even his usual deflections. They were off.
And they ached.
A slow, dull throb in the center of his chest.

He wanted to ask. What happened? What did I do? Are you okay?
But he didn’t know how. He didn’t know if he was allowed to ask. He didn’t know what line he’d crossed. Or if this was even about him.

But it felt like it was. And that was what had his stomach twisting in knots.

He tried to write something back.
Deleted it.
Tried again.

Suguru:
You didn’t freak me out.

Pause.

Suguru:
I just hope you’re okay.

And then, against better judgment:

Suguru:
If I did something wrong, tell me. Please.

There was no answer for a while.
He stared at the screen, waiting for the dots to appear.
Wishing he hadn’t sent that last one. Wishing he had said more. Or less.

And there it was again. That feeling. That low, gnawing worry that he’d ruined something good.
That maybe Satoru had felt something, some thread between them, and maybe Suguru had pulled too hard on it without realizing.
Maybe this was what happened when he got too close. Maybe this was why they didn’t do this, alphas, whatever this thing was between them. Maybe Satoru didn’t want-

ping

Satoru:
nah man
u were solid
it was just
idk
a me thing
got a little in my head
sorry for making it weird
we’re cool?

Suguru let out a slow breath he’d been holding for too long.
He wanted to write yes, plain and simple, but his thumbs hesitated.

Because yes, they were “cool,” but also he wasn’t. Not cool. Not fine. Not over the fact that for a split second, he’d seen something in Satoru’s eyes that wasn’t jokes, or bravado, or even confusion.
It was fear.

And that was the part Suguru didn’t know what to do with.

Instead, he typed:

Suguru:
We’re good.
Next time, we take it slower.

Satoru:
next time, huh (¬‿¬ )
didn’t scare u off after all (⁀ᗢ⁀)

Suguru stared at the little kaomoji. That teasing tone that was almost normal, bringing relief and a faint ache all rolled into one.
That Satoru might already be laughing it off when Suguru was still sorting through every look, every brush of skin, every breath between them.

He typed back, after a beat.

Suguru:
It’ll take more than that to scare me.

He hit send before he could think too hard about it.
And then he lay awake a long time afterward, staring at his ceiling, waiting to feel less like he was falling.

Chapter Text

Matchmaker - the person responsible for pairing fighters for bouts, considering factors like skill level, style, and rankings.

—

The week started boring.

Not in the nothing to do sense.
There was plenty. Paperwork. Rotation schedules.
Boring meant Shoko’s inbox was full of routine lab reports and poorly scanned requisition forms. The fridge hadn’t exploded in three days. No rookies had puked on the floor mid-training, and the worst thing she’d had to deal with was the new intern somehow managing to misplace an entire box of clean gloves.

It was the kind of boring that made Shoko want to stick a pencil in her eye.
Repetition. Predictability.

That was when she noticed it. Them.

Gojo was being Gojo, of course. Loud, obnoxious, grinning like someone dared him to make everyone in a hundred-foot radius want to strangle him. He’d already shoulder-bumped Nanami twice and made Haibara blush four shades of terminal before they even hit the warmup circuit.

Geto was being Geto. Steady, deliberate, eyebrows ever-so-slightly furrowed as he took in the chaos with that calculating stillness of his. The kind that made it seem like he already knew how the day would end, and it wouldn’t surprise him.

But there was something different.

It was in the way they weren’t moving toward each other. Like the gym floor had been magnetized in reverse, and neither of them wanted to admit they were constantly fighting the pull.

They weren’t pairing up during drills. That was weird. They always paired up. Like clockwork. Like gravity.

Shoko leaned on the upper-level railing and watched.

They rotated through other sparring partners, sharp, focused, clean. But Geto kept glancing up mid-transition, like he was checking something. And every damn time, Gojo was already watching him.

She raised a brow. Interesting.

Then, during a sweep-heavy round-robin, Gojo nearly missed a block and had to take a too-wide evasive move. Just a beat too slow. Not enough to get tagged, but enough to notice. His partner looked surprised.

Shoko wasn’t.
She’d seen where his eyes were.

Now that was worth a note.

She pulled out her phone and pretended to check messages, but really she was watching the two of them orbit like idiots. If she squinted, it was almost poetic. Two gravitational forces pretending they weren’t causing tides.

Damn, she needed a hobby.

That’s when she remembered the bet.
Utahime owed her two drink rounds if Gojo cracked first. But only if he cracked without knowing he was doing it. If Shoko pushed too hard, the bet was off.

But a nudge? A nudge was fair game.

She leaned against the railing by the stretching zone where Gojo had flopped down like a deranged octopus with those freakishly long limbs, casually sipping her coffee.

By the time Haibara jogged past for water, Geto pretending to need a water break at the exact same time and tagging along, just to walk by right in front of Gojo, she decided she’d seen enough.

She didn’t even look at Gojo when she said, voice dry, “Hey, is it just me, or did the vibe between you and Geto change?”

Gojo froze. Mid-quad stretch. One foot in hand, the other on the ground, mouth half open.

Shoko took a sip of her coffee. Waited.

“What? No. What are you talking about? We’re totally cool. I mean, okay, I guess, yeah, it could’ve changed a little, maybe. But not in like, a weird way, right?”

Boom, floodgates open. It was just way too easy. Didn’t even need more than a hum in prompting to get him to go on.

“Okay, fine, fine, so there was a thing during drills, we trained a little later than usual together, right? Basically got greenlit by Yaga, nothing. It wasn’t even a big thing, like, just business as usual, right? Except it kind of was- Well, it was more like-”

He cut himself off with a breath, like he realized how fast he was going, then blurted out like a popped bubble, “ I think it’s messing with me that he’s an alpha? ”

Bingo. There it was. Shoko was so winning this bet.

“Like, you know how that usually doesn’t really seem real ‘cause you’re not fully confronted with the fact? Patches and shit? Like, you don’t even have gender to me, for example-”

Her snort cut that off real fast.

“Right, so- I got… confronted.”

Shoko sipped her coffee, unimpressed. This was so much easier than she’d thought.

“So?” she said.

Gojo blinked at her, mouth still half open.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s normal. Being reactive to another alpha’s scent? Happens all the time. Fades with exposure.”

Gojo stared at her like she’d just solved world hunger.

Then, as if the conversation had never happened, he rolled up to his feet, turned on his heel, and walked straight across the gym. Didn’t even say goodbye.

Shoko chuckled to herself as she watched him make a beeline for Geto, already fully locked in on whatever half-baked excuse he was about to invent to talk to him.

Haibara glanced over, confused. “Shoko-senpai? What’s funny?”

She waved her coffee vaguely toward the two of them. “My favorite idiotic romcom just got a second season.”

Haibara blinked. “Uh… which one?”

She didn’t answer.

She just kept sipping her coffee, enjoying the show.

Satoru knew he’d overreacted.

It had just been a move. A completely legal, textbook grappling maneuver that any decent close quarters brawler would have had in their toolkit. Nothing special.

Except it had been Suguru doing it. And he hadn’t been wearing a scent patch. And Satoru had gotten a few too many lungfuls of that maddeningly clean, barely-there-spice that made him think of temple incense and warm nights in Kyoto, at the family estate.

So yeah. Maybe he’d flipped his shit a little. Maybe he’d shoved Suguru off too fast, made up lame excuses, and left like an idiot.

It was laughable in hindsight. Hell, it was still laughable now.
He’d actually spent half the night turning over in bed thinking about it like it was the defining event of his adult life. And that morning? He was no closer to figuring out how to bring it up without sounding like a lunatic.

Which was why Shoko’s offhand diagnosis had landed like gospel.

Of course it was normal. Of course it would fade. Suguru just had a head start on all the alpha training stuff. No wonder he was so unfazed. He probably didn’t even realize Satoru had been five seconds away from losing all his composure just because he’d been put in a rear naked choke by Suguru’s pretty boy temple officiant smelling ass.

Damn.

Anyway.

He was fine now.

Totally fine.

Which was why he jogged across the gym with only the most casual amount of bounce in his step, sweat cooling on his neck, posture relaxed, totally normal.

“Oi, Suguru.”

Suguru glanced up from his post-spar stretch. “Hm?”

“You free tomorrow night?” Satoru asked, voice low, controlled. Cool. Like it was no big deal. “Thought we could run it back. Grappling. I’m not put off by your ninja choke moves anymore.”

“Rear naked,” Suguru corrected automatically, a flicker of amusement tugging at his mouth.

“Oh, I bet you wish it were,” Satoru replied, brushing it off with a roll of his eyes because he totally knew that and Suguru was being a smartass, and needed to match that, or at least make him choke on a laugh for it in return.
“Rear naked ninja death grip. I’m over it. Caught me weird last time, but I’ll be early this time. Super early. Like, annoyingly early.”

Suguru visibly bit back a laugh and folded his arms, clearly playing along. “And you’re bribing me with…?”

“Snacks,” Satoru said solemnly, pressing a hand to his chest. “The good kind. I’m talking actual vending machine robbery. You want energy gummies shaped like boxing gloves? I got you.”

That got him a soft exhale of laughter.
“Fine,” Suguru said. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Satoru beamed. “It’s a date!”

Suguru’s brows lifted, just a little. “A date?”

Satoru grinned wider, cocky now. “Yeah. You know. The sweaty, roll-around, stare-into-each-other’s-souls kind. Classic alpha bro date.”

Suguru let out a quiet huff of amusement, more breath than sound, but real, and shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Satoru didn’t take it back.

“Very normal,” he added, still smug. “Professionally homoerotic.”

Suguru rubbed the bridge of his nose like he regretted ever entertaining this. “You are…something.”

“I prefer ‘gift to the world.’ ” He said, feeling oddly proud about the easy turnaround, and then-

“Alright. What did she say to you?”

Satoru didn’t even bother turning around.

Utahime’s presence was never quiet and he’d noted her approach, but hadn’t really bothered acknowledging it until she was right there, arms crossed, face set in her trademark mix of deeply suspicious and unamused big sister. 

Totally ruining the moment right now, though.

“Who?” Satoru asked, all fake innocence, playing dumb.

“Shoko,” Utahime snapped. “Five minutes ago, you were avoiding Geto like the plague, and now you’re calling it a date?”

Satoru gave her a long, dramatic sigh. “Utahime, hey, no need to be so roundabout. Just admit it. You’re so painfully single you’ve decided to live vicariously through my love life. It’s kind of flattering, honestly.”

Her eye twitched. “ What love life?”

“The one you were just accusing me of, obviously. Ah. Oh no,” he said, mock-serious. “The meddling’s given you chronic brain disease. Someone call Shoko, we need a prognosis- Oh wait, that’s where you’re headed, right?”

Suguru made a soft, thoughtful noise. “Utahime, you really should work on your boundaries. This sort of emotional projection doesn’t suit your maturity.”

Damn, two in one. Calling her a raving banshee and old. Suguru really knew his stuff.

That earned him a look.

Predictably, Utahime snapped. “You’re the worst. Both of you. Literally the worst.”

“Hey, let’s not get judgemental of what everyone’s best looks like,” Suguru said placidly, like this was a teacher-parent conference and not casual psychological warfare.
“I hear ranking productivity in the workplace is detrimental to mental health.”

Satoru turned to him. “Wait, but we’re totally the strongest here.”

“That goes without saying,” Suguru returned with a smile matched by Satoru in answer, so with little intermission done, he went back to the act.

Satoru clutched his chest, drama turned up to max. “Right, so our workplace love may be forbidden, Utahime, but that doesn’t give you the right to make judgement calls here!”

She made a sharp, frustrated noise you might expect after stepping on a mountain lion’s tail, turned on her heel, and stalked off with the unmistakable gait of someone who had fully had it.
“You’re all awful!” She hissed, already halfway to the lab corridor.

“Tell Shoko I said thanks!” Satoru called.

She didn’t flip him off, this time, but he could tell it was a near thing. Oh, next time for sure.

Suguru looked over at him, shaking his head, still faintly smiling.

Satoru leaned in, conspiratorial. “So... tomorrow night?”

Suguru gave him a dry look. “Training. Not a date.”

Satoru winked. “Sure. Training.”

Suguru walked off toward the lockers, shaking his head again, but not denying it.

And just like that, things were back to normal.
More or less.
Training resumed.

Totally regular.

Probably.

Chapter Text

Rematch - a second fight between two opponents who have previously faced each other.

—

Satoru was five minutes late.
Not because he forgot or overslept. Not like last time.

This time, it was because he stood in the damn snack aisle, frozen in front of the jelly drinks section for a full ten minutes trying to decide between strawberry, peach or grape flavor, and whether Suguru even liked them for himself at all, because he’d never actually seen him drink any. But if so, which ones? 

Rather than just texting, he got stuck debating the cosmic implications of pretend courting via artificial fruit sludge like it actually mattered. It didn’t. But somehow, it did. So he bought all the flavors. And whatever mochi he could grab. Some chips, in case Suguru was more into savory snacks. Plus some weird protein bar with a cartoon panda on the wrapper because it looked stupid and Suguru would probably make fun of it.

He jogged up to the gym doors with his hoodie half-zipped and a crinkling plastic bag in hand, pulse already ticking a little too fast, not from the run.

Suguru was already inside warming up on the mats, kneeling slow and steady into his stretches. Satoru didn’t miss the subtle lift of an eyebrow when he entered. 

“You’re late, Satoru,” Suguru told him, but the scolding tone was softened by something like a breath of ease there. Maybe relief. Then he stood up to greet him.

“Only five minutes,” Satoru said, grinning through a roll of his eyes because in his books that was basically hyper punctual. He swung the bag in front of him. “But look, I come bearing tribute!”

He tossed the bag at Suguru, who caught it one-handed and peered inside.
“…Eh? Did you bring the whole aisle with you?”

Satoru shrugged, nonchalant. “Couldn’t decide.”

Earned himself a doubtful look, the edge of a smile he felt in his chest like a badge pinned to the front of it.
“You bought five different things. In different flavors.”

“And yet somehow not a single thing for myself,” Satoru lamented, already peeling off his hoodie and tossing it aside. He’d come prepared this time, training garb already on underneath. “Tragic, right? The sacrifices I make for you.”

“I’m touched,” Suguru deadpanned, but he didn't hoard the bag away. Just grabbed the first two drinks from inside and handed Satoru one of them. Talk about touching.

They were both wearing scent patches tonight in some unspoken agreement since the last incident. Neither of them said it aloud, but they stayed on when they got on the mat, too. Neutralized. Leveled. Safe.

It worked.
Damn, did it work.

The gym was silent except for the hum of old lights and the soft creak of movement. No audience, no drills, no noise. Just them and the mats.

From the first clash, it was easy. Satoru was sharper than he’d been in weeks. Suguru met him with subtle resistance, reading him with that meticulous tempo of his, testing his footing like he was still waiting for another panic twitch or late pullback.

But there was none of that.

Satoru was in it. Really in it. No flinches. No cracks. Gave Suguru trouble for all it was worth. He laughed when he got reversed, jabbing back with his knees, scrambling through half-formed counters like it was all a game again. 

And still, he felt it, that slight tentativeness.

“Quit with the kid gloves,” he huffed when they broke apart, Suguru’s knee still pinning his shin.

“You sure?”

“C’mon,” Satoru goaded, breaking a too light transition, with a decisive shifting of his weight, throwing himself into it with a grin. “You scared I’ll bruise your delicate ego? Or is your jaw still sore from my last glorious takedown?”

Suguru snorted and Satoru couldn’t help but match him in a delighted huff of a laugh when Suguru caught him in a leg hook that sent them both rolling.

And they went again, harder.

They tumbled through pins, escapes, counter-grips, near-chokes and rear-chokes. Suguru’s precision was unmatched, his weight always perfectly distributed, his pressure devastating. But Satoru was slippery, explosive, scrappy in a way that turned every failed hold into a new angle of attack.

They were evenly matched in a way that shouldn’t be possible.

And Satoru loved it, grinning through it all, chest heaving, adrenaline buzzing, aching in the good way from tangling too long limbs until he was too tired to think, an unexpected blessing.
It was kinetic meditation, everything stripped down to motion and muscle and the drive to beat Suguru without reserve.

It didn’t happen.

When Suguru got him in a body triangle and there was just no way out, Satoru tapped not to the floor but a slap to his thigh.

“Uncle,” he panted. “Triangle ninja death grip wins again.”

“You named it yourself,” Suguru replied dryly, not even trying to hide the smile tugging at his mouth as he eased his grip.

They separated, breathing hard, sweat-slicked and flushed.

And then there was a moment, suspended in time. 

Quiet, shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the ceiling together as they caught their breath. The fluorescent buzz of the overhead lights seemed louder than usual, but somehow it felt like peace.

Then, Suguru rolled to his feet, turned toward him with a smile, offering Satoru a hand up.

Satoru took it.

And for once, tapping out didn't feel like giving up.

But meeting somewhere in the middle.

It wasn’t said outright, but when Satoru grabbed a bottle of mat spray and a towel, Suguru didn’t blink. They wiped down the mats together in companionable silence, saving the morning crew the trouble. It was something Satoru never used to do. Never wanted to do. But now something about it felt good. Like ritual. Like being part of something.

As they worked, the phantom itch under his scent patch wouldn’t stop nagging at him. Maybe it was the sweat. Or maybe it was that voice in the back of his head, the one that had been getting louder each week.

By the time they finished and Suguru was packing up to leave, Satoru couldn’t hold it in anymore and just blurted it out.

“We should leave them off.”

Suguru paused. “The patches?”

“Yeah. Not like, during sparring. Yet. Just…” He scratched the back of his neck but kept his tone casual. “During clean-up. Breaks. Locker room. You should just take it off, you know, sometimes when it's just the two of us? I should get used to it. Lemme get a redemption arc on that last time.”

“It's fine, we don't have to do it without them. It's safer with, really.”

“Sure, sure. But you want to, don't you?”

Suguru looked at him then, mildly surprised, but with this kind of softness to it, like it was a good surprise. Like he hadn't anticipated being seen.

“That's reason enough to try,” Satoru told him, smiled big and earnest, buzzing with a quiet joy when Suguru nods, matching him with a more muted, but all the same genuine smile of his own.

“All right,” he said. “Just another form of training together, right?”

Satoru nodded, because yeah, duh, of course. It made so much sense when he said it like that and there was nothing to be so hesitant about it at all.
Feeling elated and a bit silly for thinking about it so hard when the answer was so easy.
So he peeled his patch off, followed a moment later by Suguru. 

Instantly, the difference hit. Like static crackling along his skin. Suguru’s scent filtered in. Subtle, temple-clean and earthy and him. It didn’t bowl him over this time, but it was enough to make his pulse spike.

Still, he kept his cool. Grinned like it was nothing. Just two guys dropping their training weights for the real deal.

They were laughing when they hit the locker room, easy, no problems with crowding each other by the sinks, shoulders bumping. Suguru had some of his stuff left here for casual training, keeping his uniform and other shit separate in the staff room, so they were still trading barbs and echoing the worst moments of each other’s rolls with exaggerated impressions and groaning sound effects.

“Seriously,” Satoru said, toeing off his socks. “Where did you learn that thing you did with your shoulder and my arm? I thought my whole spine was about to get turned into a slinky.”

“Worried about your modeling career?” Suguru snorted.

“I have a brand to protect, thank you very much.” Everything was good, almost normal if Satoru didn't inhale too deep.

They joked around until parting to different sides of the locker rooms, something Satoru still had to fix sometime soon by kicking whatever unlucky punk was occupying the spot beside Suguru to the curb. 

Satoru was a bit loopy after all that wrestling, the fading adrenaline like sparkling bubbles in his veins, and he didn't even get a towel slap in, unfortunately, with how quick Suguru was to the showers while his own muscles groaned in protest.

Satoru sighed, but followed shower etiquette, one empty stall between them. That unspoken gym law. It annoyed Satoru. Not the distance, really. Just the silence of it.

He wanted to talk. To hear Suguru’s voice through the steam. Maybe ask about a move. Maybe ask about… something dumber.

But the water was loud, and Suguru didn’t speak first. Such things weren't something he was usually concerned with, yet the quiet hum of deep relaxation drummed into his tired bones by the hot water raining down on him hit so good, the steam a momentary reprieve for his nose, and Satoru truly couldn't think far past it.

So, despite how relaxing it was, he finished fast. Dried off. Pulled on his hoodie, shook out his hair, and waited near the exit where the cold air seeped in through the cracks.

Because what he was more eager for was getting a bit more time in with his favorite person before parting ways.

Eventually, Suguru emerged, damp hair slicked back, towel wrapped around his hips while Satoru was already done dressing.

Not for the first time Satoru caught himself absentmindedly tracing the contours of Suguru's body with his eyes from where he sat on the bench, admiring the fighter's physique. Sure, they weren’t too far apart in that regard, being in the same weight class and all, but there were distinct differences. 

Satoru had packed on considerable muscle mass since his teens, having filled out in the chest and shoulder area, where it mattered most in the ring, but looking at Suguru, he wondered whether he should do more core work. The taper of his waist was there, but he looked so solid compared to Satoru. Not that he was self-conscious about it, but that additional tone on Suguru was probably the reason his hip-driven flips worked out so well…

The purr of a hoodie zipper getting pulled up made Satoru finally pop out of his quiet contemplation bubble and he boosted himself to stand when Suguru turned to him, realizing he'd been near dozing off. Or something.

They didn’t say much, just stepped outside together into the late autumn chill.

The cold night bit through damp skin, but it was quiet. Peaceful.

In unspoken agreement, they split a late snack, sitting with their backs leaning against the wall under the buzzing parking lot lights, their breath fogging between them.

“I’ve kinda been craving this,” Satoru said suddenly.

Suguru glanced at him, curious.

“This. Us. The training. Someone who doesn’t just keep up but makes me better.”

Suguru’s gaze softened. Not pitying, not surprised. Just quiet understanding. “You’re not the only one,” he said.

Satoru smiled, wide and honest, warming from the inside out despite the cold.

They said goodnight and went their separate ways, but something was different now.

Not broken. Not tense.

Just…

Right.

And Satoru was already looking forward to the next match.

They shower in silence for a bit, the good kind. The kind full of worn-out muscles and settled adrenaline. The air is thick with steam, but their scents are muted behind waterproof patches. No tension, no confusion.

Just two alphas. Training partners. Teammates. Maybe something inching toward friends.

Maybe more.

But that’s a thought for another day.

Suguru:
📸 [Image of the panda protein bar resting on his counter]
Did you get me this because it looks vaguely like Yaga’s son?

Satoru:
WHAT
WHAT THE HELL 💀💀💀
i’m crying
i’m in ACTUAL tears rn
you can’t say that to me suguru omg
i didn’t even think of that
but now that you said it
i can’t UNSEE it

Suguru:
Look at its tiny round eyes.

Satoru:
STOP
i’m gonna die
i’m gonna go into cardiac arrest in my digimon shirt and this is what’ll be on my gravestone
“died doing what he loved: being bullied by geto suguru”

Suguru:
I’ll send flowers. Panda-shaped.

Satoru:
🥺💐 u do love me
(just a lil)

Suguru:
Just a lil.

Satoru stared at the screen long after the texts stopped coming. The messages replayed in his head, again and again, like they were trying to etch themselves into his bones.

He curled tighter into his couch, hoodie still a little damp at the collar from earlier, jelly drink sitting half-finished on the table next to him. The room was quiet except for the low buzz of the TV he forgot to turn off.

He didn’t want to go to bed. Not yet. It felt like ending something too nice. So he lingered, thumbs tapping at the text box, but nothing good coming out. Everything felt like too much or not enough even for his chronically immediate thought-to-mouth-pipeline brain.

Eventually, he set the phone down, letting it rest against his chest.

Wished they didn’t have to part.

Suguru’s commute wasn’t quite so short.
The night air was brisk and dry, clinging to Suguru’s hoodie pulled up over wet hair headed down the dark streets. His duffel bag weighed comfortably on his shoulder, the soft buzz of a sugar-high still thrumming somewhere low in his bloodstream thanks to that ridiculous grape jelly drink Satoru insisted on splitting with him like it was a toast to something unspoken.

He adjusted the strap with one hand, adjusted the phone pressed to his ear with the other.

“Satoru said he wants to go no patch with you now?” Mamami’s voice asked, pitched with barely toned down incredulity through the speaker, just after he got done describing the situation. That hadn’t necessarily been the thing he’d meant to be the main takeaway, but oh well.

Suguru glanced both ways before crossing the street. “What? It’s not that weird.”

“Don’t what me,” Manami said, voice sharpening with glee. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you. I know that little ‘maybe this could be a thing’ tone. That’s not normal, Suguru. That’s not platonic sparring buddy behavior. That’s flirting. That’s ‘I’m letting you scent train on me’ levels of intimacy. Now, what’s he bringing to the table, huh?”

He sighed, tugging his hoodie closer around his neck. “It’s not like that. He’s just- he doesn’t know any better. The no patch thing during our first spar was just too weird for him. He didn’t grow up around it like we did. No background, no context. It’s just-”

“Bullshit~♡,” another voice cut in melodiously.

Suguru startled slightly, blinking at his phone.

“…Is that-”

“Yes,” Manami said, entirely unrepentant. “You’ve been on speaker the whole time. Say hi to everyone.”

“Are you serious,” Suguru muttered, already half-laughing, half-resigned.

“Yo!” Larue called in the background, clearly way too pleased with himself. “Suguru, darling, that bee is out for your honey.”

Suguru choked, stopping in his tracks. “What- Larue, what? ”

“You heard me,” Larue said smugly. “Guy’s sniffing around like he wants to build a hive. You better lock it down or suit up.”

“Ugh, that’s awful,” Suguru groaned, but his mouth was twitching into a reluctant smile, feet carrying him slowly toward the nearest train station even though he hadn’t fully committed to getting on it yet rather than walk home just to talk with them a bit longer, now that he heard all of them were there, chiming in for a hello.

“And speaking of suiting up,” Manami jumped in, her voice suddenly way too innocent. “Tell me one thing. How are you not bricked up at least once a week if you’re rolling around wrestling with the hot champ like that?”

“I- Manami,” Suguru spluttered, covering his face with one hand.

“You heard her,” Larue cackled. “Man’s got legs for days, arms, the smirk, and that dumb messy hair thing going on. And you’re putting hands on each other for like an hour? And you’re saying you’re not hard even once? Suguru, honey, you okay?”

Suguru was not okay. “Thank you, Larue, I’m fine. There’s such a thing as groin cups,” he ground out, “and cold showers.”

A beat.

“Oh word ,” Manami said, too smug. “I forgot in official fighting you’re allowed to wear protection like that.”

“I hate you both,” Suguru muttered, but he was laughing despite himself, heat crawling up his neck. “This is harassment.”

“Call it like it is,” Larue said. “We’re just concerned friends. Who want details.”

“No details,” Suguru shot back, heading for the crosswalk now. “None. Ever.”

“You’re blushing, though,” Manami said gleefully, like she could see it through the phone.

“Yeah, because I’m being attacked by jackals in the street.”

“ Loving jackals,” Larue corrected, and the two of them burst into giggles.

“’Sup, Suguru,” Toshihisa finally cut in before those menaces could go on with their bullying, mercifully changing the subject. “You doing okay? Still working yourself into the ground over there?”

“Hey,” Miguel added, and Suguru could practically picture the slight, skeptical squint that came with it. “Don’t let Gojo’s nonsense infect your sleep schedule. You’re already half-masochist for letting him flip you around like that.”

“I’m fine,” Suguru said, laughing now, properly. “And it’s not- He’s not-”

“Don’t even try to defend him,” Manami sighed. “From what I’ve been hearing, that man is six feet of chaos wrapped in charisma and weaponized daddy issues.”

“…He’s not that bad,” Suguru said, too slowly.

“Wow,” Larue drawled. “That was the weakest defense I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Yeah, no, I’m calling it,” Manami said. “You’re already down bad. And I say this with love.”

“I’m not -” Suguru started, but the words tripped over the edges of a smile he couldn’t quite suppress.

He looked up at the night sky. The stars were out, just barely, faint and scattered above the city lights. He could keep walking, get on the last train and go home. Let the silence in. Stare at his ceiling until the thoughts looped again, relentlessly.

Or…

“Where are you guys?”

There was a brief pause.

“Drinks,” Manami said. “Larue’s place. You in?”

Suguru exhaled, then shifted direction without missing a beat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m in.”

A chorus of cheers erupted from the phone.

“You better be,” Larue said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. We’re making a pros and cons list.”

“I am not the subject of a group analysis-”

“You brought snacks last time,” Miguel cut in. “You better bring snacks again.”

Suguru laughed fully this time, a sound that felt like old warmth stitched into new seams.

“Fine. I’ll bring snacks,” he said, already eyeing the bag Satoru had so kindly given him dangling from his arm. He was never going to be able to finish it all by himself anyways.
“But you’re all paying for the therapy you’re trying to trick me into.”

“Love you too, Suguru~” Manami sing-songed.

And the call went on. Full of ribbing and warmth and light-hearted threats, the easy rhythm of people who knew him well and loved him better. Suguru smiled into the night, pace lighter than it had been all week.

Because yeah, he could go home and spiral. Or…

He could be with his people. Let himself laugh a little more.

And maybe, just maybe, not think too hard about the way Satoru had looked at him tonight.

That could wait.

For now, there were drinks and teasing and warmth waiting for him.

And that was enough.

Chapter Text

Octagon Control - a criterion used in judging, referring to a fighter's ability to dictate the pace and location of the fight within the cage.

—

Ijichi Kiyotaka could hardly believe his luck.

He’d just been finishing up the week’s fighter schedule reports. It was nothing glamorous but it was good work, necessary, the kind of administrative tangle that gave him a strange sense of control.
And then the office door creaked open and she walked in, cream pumps clicking on the floor as she approached, lab coat swishing behind her.

His honored senpai, Ieiri Shoko.

Just the sight of her had him straightening up in his seat. Not consciously, just instinctively. As if he might look a little more competent if he sat up straighter.

She didn’t knock. She never knocked. Just leaned on the edge of his desk like she’d always belonged there.
Calm, sharp, tired in the eyes but somehow never careless. Hair pinned back in that low knot she wore when she was halfway between shifts or through a pack of cigarettes.

He looked up too quickly. Then, after a beat too long, remembered he should probably say something. Immediately forgot what.

“You doing anything Friday night, Ijichi?”

His mind blanked in the kind of catastrophic, full-system silence reserved for emergencies and fire drills.
He blinked dumbly. Frowned slightly. Tried to make sure he’d heard her right.

Was she-?
No. No, not like that.

Still, it was the kind of question he didn’t hear very often. Certainly not from someone like her. Someone he admired, professionally and otherwise.
Cool under pressure. Clinical but kind. The kind of person who saw straight through the noise of a situation, made a joke at the worst possible moment, and still got the job done.

What was Friday? Did he have plans? Not anymore, he didn’t, and he wasn’t going to invent some to sound cool.
He scrambled to answer before the question could vanish.
“Uh… no?” Kiyotaka squeaked, instantly wincing at the uptilt of his voice. “Why?”

She smiled.
That same dry, barely-there smile that lived somewhere between amusement and sublimity. Like her lips were in on a secret she would never tell him. Like he’d never be clever enough to earn the punchline. Not big, just that same small, precise curve of the mouth she used when she thought something funny or was about to say something devastating.
He never minded not knowing which.

“Great,” she said. “Nanami and I were thinking of checking out that new izakaya by the station. Thought you might wanna tag along.”

Ah. There it was.
Of course it wasn’t a one-on-one thing. Not that he thought it was. Not seriously. Not really.
She was just including him. Like a colleague. A friend, maybe, if he stretched the definition a bit. And even that felt... very good.

He nodded, heart still doing something strange and hopeful in his chest, trying not to show quite how touched he was.
“Yes! Sure,” he said. Like it was easy. Like it didn’t mean so much coming from her.

She added, as casually as if it were nothing, “It’s for Geto's welcome drinks. I'll ask the others, too. You know, Utahime, Haibara, the usual suspects.”

A group thing. A friendly, work-adjacent, totally normal kind of social event.
It was a gesture. An invitation. He hadn’t always been included in things like that. Not really. Not without being the one to organize them. And it meant something to be thought of.

She didn’t linger. Just tapped the edge of his desk twice with her fingers and stepped back, already halfway toward the door, sure like the tide pulling back from shore, leaving only the scent of smoke and florals behind.

“See you there,” she said.

He stared at the empty space she’d left, letting out a slow, quiet breath. And smiled to himself, just a little.

She’d asked. She’d thought of him, not just like an afterthought, not even as the last person picked. She’d said his name like it belonged among theirs. And that meant everything to him.

He’d wear his best button-down. The navy one with the collar that sat right. Maybe arrive a little early, make sure the seating wasn’t too chaotic. Ieiri worked so hard.
He could show his appreciation by trying to take some of the weight off her shoulders.

And if he got to sit near her, share a few laughs, blend into the edge of the table like he belonged…well.

That sounded like a wonderful evening to him.

The place was warm already, full of chatter and steam rising from shared nabe pots and fragrant appetizers, the clink of glasses and the scrape of chopsticks.
Kiyotaka arrived a little early, just ten minutes. Not enough to look too desperate about it, but punctual, prepared, helpful - hopefully.

He bowed his way in quietly, coat still damp from the icy fall rain, murmuring his greetings as he circled around to find the table reserved for their party after toeing off his shoes.
He immediately spotted Geto Suguru - hard to miss the striking figure the alpha cut - already at their table.

Of course.

Kiyotaka paused, hovering by the entrance to their private booth.

Geto was kneeling by the low table, sleeves cuffed up, helping the server unpack lacquer trays with a soft, practiced touch. He spoke to her like a colleague, not a server. With a small smile, he handed off one of the large hot pots as if they were in his home kitchen.
Then, even without him needing to make a noise or awkward shuffle closer, he glanced over at Kiyotaka with that easy calm of his, like nothing was ever unexpected.

“Ichiji-san. Right on time.”

“I- thank you,” Kiyotaka said, a little breathless, bowing halfway out of habit. “I thought I’d offer to help set up, but…”
It seemed handled already. However, instead of making him feel out of place, the alpha offered a respectful bow in greeting in return.

“Oh, I appreciate that,” Geto said with a smile, already making room for him to kneel across the table. “Would you help me unwrap the chopsticks? I figured if we leave them in the sleeves, Iori will give me hell.”

Kiyotaka gave a huff of a laugh before he could stop himself. “That… does sound like her.”

The work was quick and smooth. He hadn’t expected the comfort. He hadn’t expected Geto to be so… present. So grounded. And so genuinely kind, in a way that didn’t make him feel condescended to or crowded out. Just welcomed.

The others arrived in waves. Iori, brisk and opinionated, but subtly mollified by the neat table set up. Haibara brought the warmth of summer with his beaming smile and never-ending enthusiasm, and Nanami came with a pressed shirt and a tight-lipped acknowledgement that somehow still managed to feel like approval, together with Ieiri, loose-limbed and wry-eyed, settling in like smoke curling around a candle flame.

Kiyotaka bowed and murmured greetings all around when each of them arrived. “Iori-san. Haibara-san. Nanami-san. Ieiri-san.”

When Nanami made an appreciative comment about Geto coming in early and preparing everything for them despite this being his welcome party, the alpha shook his head and directed the attention back to Kiyotaka to share in the credit, catching his eye, smiling. Warmly, even. Not the too-bright, too-wide kind of smile that made Kiyotaka wary, but something softer. Collected.
It took him by surprise, heated his cheeks a little bit.

He’d expected someone more performative, maybe even smug. There was a quiet confidence to Geto, sure, the kind that could make lesser men not unlike himself uncomfortable, but it was wrapped in a sense of patience. He greeted their colleagues with genuine familiarity, handed off empty plates to staff with a quiet thank-you, adjusted the shared serving dishes to make room when others sat down.

It was strange.
Kiyotaka didn’t know him well, but he recognized something in Geto’s manner.
Something he often saw in Ieiri. That rare kind of calm that didn’t come from arrogance but from clarity. It settled things. Eased the space around him.

What a kind person, he thought.

He was just settling in comfortably in the inner corner of the table when the door slid open again, and everything shifted.

Kiyotaka didn’t have to turn. He felt it. That shift in air pressure, like the whole room had just inhaled. A presence that came in loud even when it said nothing.

Alpha.

No, even more imposing.

Gojo stepped in like a storm-front.
Shoulders loose, grin half-cocked, hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets, sunglasses still on like it was noon on a beach.
He took his time scanning the room, already smug, already halfway to chaos.

Kiyotaka froze mid-motion, chopsticks clicking against the edge of his plate.

But- wait. Had Gojo been on the invite list. He hadn’t he? No. He wasn’t, Kiyotaka was sure of it!
There had been no mention of him in the messages, and he hadn’t been in on the thread either! 

When he looked around the table he saw Ieiri raising a brow at the new arrival but just refilling her glass without comment.
Iori stiffened, gearing up. Nanami’s brow pinched like a man preparing for a migraine. Haibara just wore a wide eyed smile, like he wasn’t quite sure if this was a surprise or happy coincidence. 

So Kiyotaka wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known. He'd been worried he'd been left out of the loop or something, but... so this wasn't planned?

"Hello, everyone," Gojo grin widened as he dropped his jacket onto the seat back, tipping his shades up to meet each of them with a piercing gaze, like he was waiting for someone to try and stop him just so he could ignore them. "Sorry for being late to the party."

This was the part where things usually derailed. The spotlight would center, whether they wanted it or not. Something would get said, bickering would start, and maybe, if he was very unlucky, Gojo would pick him as tonight’s target to rib on while Kiyotaka tried not to stammer or sink into the corner.

Yet, none of that happened.

Because Geto looked up, entirely unbothered, and said, “There you are.”
He scooted over, patting the seat beside him with a warm smile. “I saved you a spot.”

Saved him a-?

Kiyotaka’s mouth opened, then closed again. Oh, so-

Nanami straightened slightly. “This was meant to be a staff gathering.”

Kiyotaka cheered internally for the dependable alpha next to him saying what everyone must’ve been wondering about. He certainly would never dare to say it out loud!

“It is,” Geto agreed easily, not defensive, just certain. “But it’s also my welcome party, no?”
He glanced around the table once, mild and calm. “I wanted Satoru here, and you’ve all worked well together for years. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

And somehow… when he said it like that, it sounded completely reasonable. Even Kiyotaka found himself nodding slightly, like the logic had folded neatly around him without a seam. It wasn’t like he disliked Gojo or anything, of course not! He was an admirable man, an unattainable idol of confidence and popularity to aspire to in secret lest he embarrass himself with his dreaming.
It was just… well, unexpected.

Gojo dropped down beside Geto, clapped him on the back in greeting and fitting himself into the space made for him there like it had been choreographed.
“See? Suguru gets it. Weird you’d invite Ijichi and not me, though. I’ve been around longer than the manager.”

Kiyotaka’s heart spiked hard in his chest.
Oh no. He felt everyone look his way. Don’t react. Don’t cry. Don’t make it worse. Don’t-
“That’s not fair, I was invited,” he blurted, then winced, voice losing volume off with each word. “By Ieiri-san. She said- she said I should come. That it was for staff. I do work at the gym...”

His voice dropped at the end, but he sat a little straighter, like the act of saying it out loud gave it more weight.
It came out too soft. Too fast. His throat locked up immediately. Why had he said that? Clearly Gojo was only saying things again.
He might have backtracked, but Ieiri paused mid-sip and flicked her gaze toward him, brief, but not unkind. A flicker of approval that landed like a hand on the shoulder.

And then it was too late.

Gojo turned his head toward him slowly. “Haaah? What was that?”
The sound stretched out, that long, low faux-surprise Gojo used right before tearing someone apart for sport.

Kiyotaka flinched, a squeak escaping him under the intensity of the champion’s scrutiny. His fingers twitched where they curled against his thigh. Maybe he should apologize. Laugh it off. Pretend it was a joke. Pretend he hadn’t said anything at all-

“Satoru,” Geto said. One word. Not scolding, not stern.

Just his name. 

And yet the effect was immediate.

Gojo paused, facial expression resetting, turning his full attention toward the alpha by his side. 

Geto hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t even turned fully toward him. Just looked, with something quiet and weighty behind his eyes.
“He didn’t mean to imply you don’t belong. Right, Ichiji-san?”

Kiyotaka’s eyes grew to the size of saucers and he quickly and vehemently shook his head, waving his hands about in denial. “No! No, of course not!”
He hadn't even considered it might come off that way. Gojo? Not belonging? He practically owned every space he stepped into by virtue of just being there!

But Geto nodded at him, and then turned his eyes back to Gojo, who for some reason seemed genuinely mollified when the alpha told him, “Then, you see, if there’s anyone you should be starting a fight with, it should be me for not informing everyone you were coming ahead of time.”

“Oh?” Gojo looked excited about that. “Can I?”

“Not here, Satoru,” Geto huffed with a wry smile.

Gojo then grinned like a chastened cat, not repentant at all.
“Haaah... alright, alright,” he muttered, waving it off as he slumped back into the booth beside the other alpha. “I’ll be good. Probably.”
He leaned in toward Geto as he said it, not exactly sheepish, but willing to let the moment go. Like brushing lint off his shirt. “You ordering for both of us or what?”

“Not if you’re going to start crying about vegetables again,” Geto murmured back, barely loud enough for the rest of the table to hear.

Gojo snorted and craned his neck toward the menu like the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened.
Kiyotaka stared at the exchange, dumbfounded. Ieiri offered the smallest of nods. And beside him, Nanami didn’t sigh, which was almost like praise.

Somehow, impossibly, the table moved on.

He’d heard stories, of course, but he’d never seen it firsthand. The way Geto could shift a current without raising a ripple. Just one word, and Gojo folded like it had never been a contest. How did he do that? How could Geto just say his name and make Gojo behave himself?

Across the table, Iori still looked unconvinced. Ieiri, next to her, swirled her drink and made a dry comment about children needing supervision. Gojo stuck his tongue out at her. She flicked a napkin at him without even looking.

Kiyotaka sat quietly next to Nanami, the most grounded of the group, and let the conversation flow on without him.

Gojo was still loud, still himself, but something about sitting next to Geto softened it. Like the edges didn’t quite spill out as far.
Geto didn’t match him, didn't smother him. He redirected, absorbed, shifted the tone. Even when Gojo teased or went off on a tangent, Geto met him with a calm sort of humor that pulled things back into orbit.

They all began eating soon after.
Gojo leaned into Geto’s space, laughing at his subtle remarks, tugging on Ieiri’s sleeve for a taste of her drink even if it made him pull a face at the bitterness, nearly spilling some.
But something about Geto beside him grounded him. He didn’t spiral out into theatrics and misconduct quite as much as he usually did. And when he did veer off course-

“Satoru. She’s not going to give you the whole mochi. Ask nicely.” - “Satoru, don’t swap plates when Nanami isn’t looking. He’ll notice.” - "Satoru, no.”

-Geto reeled him back in with little more than a phrase and, more often than not, a barely stifled laugh. 

Kiyotaka watched it all, quietly stunned.

And the rest of them? They let it go. Even Iori, though she glared at Gojo across the table like she was holding a grudge from 2008, eventually settled with a tired sigh. Ieiri, unbothered as always, offered her glass out to Kiyotaka instead.
“You’re sitting in the eye of the storm, away from those two” she said, tipping her head toward Gojo and Geto next to her, engaged in their own conversation with Haibara across from them.
“Smart play.”

Kiyotaka flushed, ducking his head.

Because it was true. Somehow, he’d ended up right at the edge of the action, furthest from Gojo.
He wasn’t sure if it would have mattered even if he had sat on his other side. Disruptive as the champion liked to act, he had his attention snugly held by the one person who could withstand it.

And honestly?

It felt like he’d gotten away with something.
He was here. He belonged. And no one was questioning it.

He lifted the glass and let himself smile, just a little.

—

Kento had meant for this to be a small, controlled, purposeful outing.

Just a quiet welcome drink for Geto. Nothing too loud, nothing extravagant. Something dignified and relaxed to show his gratitude toward for Geto finally taking the gym’s king clown off his hands.

Then Ieiri caught wind of the word “drinks” and decided it should be a full team affair.

Now he was sandwiched between Ijichi, still red in the face from his earlier brush with social annihilation now slowly getting replaced by the flush of drink and company, and Yuu on his other side, trying to convince the servers to let him help clear the table “as thanks for their hard work”. Ieiri, at the head of the table, was three glasses deep, talking with Iori in that amused, hushed tone that promised eventual chaos while Iori glared daggers at Gojo over Geto’s head.

Geto, to his credit, remained composed, easy with conversation, asked questions and laughed at the right moments, charming as ever, drawing out quieter voices without making a show of it. Somehow even Ijichi had relaxed, sipping his drink slowly like he realized he belonged here.

Kento let out a sigh as Gojo, across the table, waved for yet another sparkling mocktail, taking pictures of it before taking a sip through the loopy straw. This one came served in something resembling a vase, rim glittering with sugar, with two parasols and candied fruit that was the first to go.
One of the parasols, however, went to Geto, who accepted it without question.

Kento sipped his own drink and let the warmth of it mellow him. It helped.
That, and the fact that his vacation was getting closer. Real vacation. No phones. No emergencies. No Gojo.

Children. He was about to spend a week wrangling actual children before he could think about what to pack. And yet, somehow, the prospect felt easier than dealing with the one across from him now.

He’d meant to talk to Geto tonight. Quietly. Alone. Say something about expectations, maybe offer a few tips about managing Gojo’s more… combustible tendencies. A kind of preemptive apology.

But now, watching them interact, he realized it really wasn’t necessary. Or his place.

Because, while Gojo whined and rolled his eyes when Geto gently corrected him, reminding him, through a helpless laugh, to use coasters and stop sticking chopsticks in the tempura to make a ‘crunch man’, the other alpha never truly pushed back. Not in the way he would with someone else. Not with the usual defiance or smugness.

Instead, he sulked for ten seconds and then brightened when Geto leaned in and murmured something only he could hear, the kind of thing that made Gojo’s laugh snap out sudden and genuine, head tilted back, eyes crinkling.

It wasn’t just that Geto tolerated him. It was balance. And it worked. In its own strange, sideways rhythm, it worked.

Because Geto… he looked happy next to Satoru. Brighter, more lively.

That had been the unspoken concern. The quiet, mutual question between all of them. But watching now… there was nothing uneasy in his expression. Nothing guarded. Just calm, and warmth, and ease.

Kento reached for his glass again. Maybe staying out of it was the best he could do.

They were three toasts in when Haibara brought it up:
“Your last shark tank match was so wild! You two sparring again soon? I'd love to see it.”

Satoru lit up immediately.
“Oh yeah, we actually-”

Suguru’s hand brushed his wrist. Just a gentle cue. Enough.
“Not quite yet,” he said easily, before Satoru could go off-script and overshare about their not-so-secret, off-the-record sparring sessions.
“But I’m excited to start stepping into Nanami’s role soon as technical coach. We’ll see more sparring once that happens.”

That landed hard enough to distract from Satoru’s near fumble - the whole table paused in surprise before toasts were raised and congratulations spoken. Some questions came Suguru's way, obviously, but some were directed at Nanami, creating an opening.

Satoru had already known, of course, but he still turned toward Suguru, mock-offended. “You told them before telling me? Wow. Here I thought I was your best friend.”
Then, with a grin that could’ve been mistaken for harmless: “Oops, my bad! Didn’t mean to friendzone my sweetheart like that.”

Suguru snorted. The sound was low, fond.
“That’s alright,” he said, mouth twitching like he was trying not to laugh. “We can be best friends first, scandalous workplace romance second.”
All of them in their chatter unaware the two of them were having an entire bonding right there.
But Suguru, despite the playful lilt in his voice, didn't sound like he was wholly joking, not about the friend thing at least. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Satoru came to a stand-still.
Then a grin broke out across his face. Wide. Delighted.
“Ohhh,” he said, leaning in just a little, “So you’re saying there’s a timeline.”

Suguru hummed, noncommittal, didn’t shift away when Satoru’s knee bumped his.

And Satoru, eyes lighting up behind the sunglasses, stayed exactly where he was. Because this, joking, warm, close, chosen, this felt better than any victory.

And then-

“I’m saying,” Suguru murmured, eyes straying from the rest of the table to Satoru and him alone, “You’ve always been someone special to me.”

Satoru’s breath hitched.
A beat passed. His mind did a quick rewind, fast and flickery.
Lunches after training, quiet check-ins, inside jokes, the mutuality of seeking each other out to make up after things went awry, sharing their history with one another…
The way Suguru always made space for him without making it feel like Satoru had to elbow his way in.

Holy shit.

They’d been best friends all along. Not kidding.

Was he stupid for not realizing this sooner? Satoru hadn’t had one before. Not really.
He’d had colleagues, teammates, fans.
He considered everyone at the table friends, of course, all of them dear to him in different shades... But a best friend? Someone who thought he was important right from the start and just... stuck around? Someone who would think to invite him to a staff–only party, not to foot the bill but simply because he wanted him there...

Yeah, no, there was only Suguru. That totally checked out.

Suguru turned his attention back to the table as the conversation moved on, but Satoru didn’t get back into it right away. Just leaned in a little closer, shoulder brushing Suguru’s.
Again, Suguru didn’t move away. 

And Satoru, all long limbs and sharper edges, grinned like a kid who’d just gotten picked first for something he hadn’t realized he was auditioning for.

Satoru hadn’t minded the chill in the air or the slight drizzle outside at first, when he’d made his way to the izakaya earlier that evening, too busy looking forward to meeting up with everyone, but just a few hours later the night had cooled to uncomfortable levels. Summer was well and truly gone, the air crisp with the kind of early autumn bite that sneaks up on you.

The party hadn’t wrapped up too early, miracle of miracles. No one had ducked out with an excuse, no weird tension leftover from his unannounced arrival. Even Utahime hadn’t scolded him. Much.

And Suguru had stayed close the entire night. That was the part still fizzing in his chest.

They’d laughed. Bantered. Teased each other quietly under their breath like it was second nature. He had shared a sip of his drink with Suguru had shared his drink. Satoru had stolen a bite of his mochi in return like he was entitled to it. And Suguru? He'd rolled his eyes every time Satoru threatened to cause a scene and then smiled like he secretly wanted him to.

Now, outside, with everyone scattering off into the night after a wordless agreement of sticking around and chatting some more while Shoko finished her smoke, Satoru was still buzzing. Faintly glowing. He didn’t even register the chill until his teeth almost chattered.

Shoko, halfway to getting into Ichiji's car, Utahime and Haibara already in the backseat, paused long enough to call out, “Same constellation next time! My birthday’s coming up. You’re all invited.”

“Even me?” Satoru called back, one hand dramatically pressed to his chest.

“Even you,” she sighed. “You’ll be in the group chat now.”

No one protested. No awkward glances or silence. Utahime pulled a grimace behind the tinted windows, but that was just part of their thing. Nanami said they’d figure out dates in the thread. Even Ijichi looked quietly pleased, standing near the curb like he’d found his place and wasn’t planning to let it go.

Satoru turned to say something smug to Suguru only to find him already standing with his phone out, screen glowing.

“Give me a minute,” Suguru said. “I’m adding you.”

“So fast. Were you lonely?” Satoru asked, leaning in, watching his fingers fly across the screen. Suguru gave him a little shove off his shoulder when he hooked his chin over it.

He was still laughing when the first drop of rain hit his cheek. Then a second. The hoodie he wore was too thin, and the cool breeze didn’t help. He opened his mouth to complain about the weather-

And found a jacket slung over his shoulders.

“Here,” Suguru said, already stepping back like it was nothing. “I don’t have far to the station, and it’s a straight shot to my place from there. You’ve got a walk ahead of you, right?”

Satoru blinked dumbly at the heavy fabric draped over him, still warm from Suguru’s body. He tugged it closer on instinct, burying his fingers in the sleeves.

“Oh?” he said, grinning, the teasing lilt of his voice no less than knee-jerk reaction. “So you’re taking this dating thing seriously, huh?”

Suguru rolled his eyes like it didn’t fluster him at all. “Best friends get jacket privileges too,” he said, tugging Satoru’s hood up roughly in retribution, like he was an overgrown kid, then turned with a small wave and headed off into the light rain to catch his train.

Satoru stood there, stunned for half a second.

Then smiled, wide and dumb and crooked.

He wrapped the jacket tighter around himself, pulling the sleeves over his hands. It smelled like Suguru. That sophisticated-floral-comfort scent that made something warm and stupid curl in his chest.

Perfect scent training, he told himself, breathing it in like it might settle him. Just practical. Sensory memory. Nothing weird.

Still…

He gave the sleeve an experimental tug, like maybe he could stretch it out just enough to look like his.

Maybe Suguru wouldn’t mind if he kept it. Just for a little while.
It was really comfortable.

The street had gone quiet, a damp breeze tugging at Suguru's shirt sleeves, the warmth of his jacket left with Satoru.
He’d barely thought about it when he’d handed it off, only registered the way Satoru’s hands were rubbing up and down his arms a little too briskly for someone not cold, the dip of his shoulders hunching just slightly under the rain.

So Suguru had shrugged the jacket off, draped it over him like it was second nature. Because, maybe, by now, it was.

He was still warm on the inside, despite the air. Not just from the company, or the drinks, or the quiet thrill of finally being able to laugh freely around his colleagues again. Not just from the strange, sideways comfort of seeing even Utahime crack a smile, or Ijichi drop his guard enough to argue for his place.

No, he was warm because he’d stopped trying to overcorrect. Stopped holding himself at arm’s length like it was some kind of precaution.

That last talk with Manami and the crew had stuck with him longer than he had expected.
All of them sprawled on Larue’s couch, arguing over his life with their usual irreverent wisdom, roasting his texts to Satoru like it was a sport...

“Don’t play the ‘distant professional’ card now, you coward,” Manami had said, twirling a wine glass.
“Let the man flirt back,” Larue added. “If you like him, just say you like him. No one’s asking you to propose.”
“You literally roll around with him for hours every week,” Toshihisa snorted. “Pretty sure the tension's already unprofessional if you’ve got enough material to tell us about it all night.”
“Okay, yes, but respectfully.” Suguru had muttered, tugging his hoodie tighter.
“Then flirt respectfully,” Miguel had concluded. “Try just being… yourself. Stop sanitizing everything.”

Tonight, he had.

And, Suguru could admit it, he liked what happened when he did.

Satoru made it easy, of course. Always had. Suguru just hadn’t trusted that enough, not at first. But somewhere between the sparring sessions and mocktail tastings and the ridiculous way Satoru had whispered anything for my best friend with the most unbearable smugness, he realized he was done pretending to be aloof.

It didn’t mean he was reckless. It didn’t mean he’d forgotten where the lines were. But he had stopped drawing them like fences.

He exhaled, smiled to himself, and took a deep breath in. The cool scent of rain made it seem like Satoru was still right next to him, nudging close for attention, and the warm phantom weight of an arm slung over his shoulders accompanied him until he entered the station.

Friends. Colleagues. Satoru. A night that hadn't gone perfectly, but had gone right.

Suguru shoved his hands into his pockets, boarded the train, and felt, despite the chill, like the warmth of it might just last a while longer.

Chapter Text

Murderer's Row - a series of difficult opponents or challenges faced by a fighter in a short period.

—

It was supposed to be a normal youth division class. One of the last Suguru would teach before officially stepping into his new role as Satoru’s technical adviser. With Nanami on vacation and the second-years scattered between their own routines and mock trials, the class should’ve run smoothly.

But then an interloper showed up.

Uninvited. Sprawled criss-cross-applesauce front and center of the mats like a deranged camp counselor, shades still on, wearing a shirt that said “I’m the Problem” in aggressive bubble font. He beamed like this was the best seat in the house.

“Why,” Suguru asked dryly, not even turning fully toward him, “are you here.”

“I’m auditing,” Satoru said. “Gotta stay sharp. Support local educators. Nurture young minds. Support my coworkers. You should try it sometime.”

“You’re not my coworker.”

“I’m your spiritual burden,” Satoru agreed solemnly. “Which is a much deeper bond.”

“Please leave.”

“I physically can’t. The kids love me. Look.”

Itadori gave an enthusiastic double thumbs-up from where he was stretching, and Kugisaki yelled, “He brought snacks but ate most of them himself!”

“I was quality-testing,” Satoru argued.

Fushiguro looked mildly annoyed. Junpei sat cross-legged, quietly trying not to stare. Toge and Maki were stretching near the back. And Panda, slouched near the back, offered a lazy salute.

And yes, they were calling him Panda now. Everyone. Without a shred of irony. It had started as a nickname Satoru threw out half-jokingly after their texting back and forth and Suguru had used it once by accident, but somewhere along the line it had just stuck. Now it was part of the gym’s language. Coaches used it. New kids picked it up without even realizing there was any other option and now even Yaga called roll that way. No one even questioned it.

And when the boy was asked? All he had to say about it was “Panda is Panda,” with a light shrug like that explained anything. Suguru was pretty sure had just accepted his tragic resemblance to the protein bar mascot and was genuinely delighted by the mystery the distinct moniker created around him. The last time the boy had wiped the floor with someone, he'd beat his chest like a gorilla afterward and roared "Panda" like he needed some biology lessons.

They just rolled with it. Pretty much how no one even raised an eyebrow when Inumaki communicated exclusively using onigiri ingredients as cues during training. 

This gym was filled with weirdos, but no one really questioned it.

They made it through warm-ups and basic footwork without much incident, Satoru’s live commentary notwithstanding, and Suguru finally clapped his hands for attention.

“Today we’re working throws that don’t rely on size. Doesn’t matter how strong you are, if your timing’s right, you can make it work.”

Satoru immediately flung his hand into the air. “Pick me, pick me, pick me. I volunteer!”

Suguru looked directly at him. "You're up."

Satoru perked up.

Then Suguru said, “Another volunteer, please.”

Satoru’s face fell like a kicked puppy.

“You’re using me as bait,” he accused.

“Yes,” Suguru replied evenly. The class had suddenly become much more interested in participating, and he picked the most bloodthirsty of them. “Maki, grab him.”

Maki rose with a glint in her eye and a smug smirk on her lips, obviously pleased to get to throw Satoru around. She was strong, aggressively so, but Suguru had watched her struggle with leveraging, which this should help with nicely. He guided her step by step, walking her through the throw calmly with detached professionalism he didn’t extend to the mouthy ragdoll volunteer.

“Pivot in tight. Arm high, elbow close. Use his own movement against him. He’s dramatic, so that’ll help.”

“I’m right here,” Satoru muttered.

“And then - go.”

Maki threw him clean across the mat.

The kids were howling. Panda had collapsed against Toge in laughter. Kugisaki was miming the move on a water bottle. Itadori cheered. Even Fushiguro cracked a smirk.

Satoru played along good-naturedly, groaning dramatically. “My back is shattered. You’re all witnesses.”

“That was good,” Suguru said to Maki, adjusting her foot position slightly. “Again, but watch that shoulder line.”

“This is abuse,” Satoru said, like he was feeling faint.

“This is training,” Suguru corrected. Then, he turned toward the smaller group still watching from the edge.

“If you’ve got a size or even strength disadvantage, don’t think this won’t work for you. You just need the right moment.” His gaze landed on Junpei. “You up for it?”

Junpei went pale. “Uh. Me? I can’t-”

“You can,” Suguru said gently, stepping up himself. “Trust me.”

Satoru whined immediately. “Why does he get to throw you?”

“Because he doesn’t interrupt,” Suguru retorted and, with a little direction and some encouragement, Junpei tried. The throw wasn’t perfect but the rhythm was right and it worked. Suguru rolled with it, springing lightly back to his feet and offering Junpei a small nod.

Junpei stood frozen, wide-eyed.

“Nice work,” Suguru said, brushing off his pants. “See? It’s not about power. It’s about timing.”

The kids clapped as the boy took his spot again while Satoru sulked. “I feel like this is a targeted attack.”

“Not yet,” Suguru muttered.

“Can we learn a move to shut someone up?” Fushiguro asked dryly from the corner, without even glancing in Satoru’s direction.

Satoru’s mouth dropped open in pure betrayal. “Et tu, Megumi?!”

And in that brief window of outrage, he didn’t raise his hand. Which was exactly why, expression unreadable, Suguru pointed directly at him. “Satoru. You’re up.”

“What. Wait. No. I didn’t even raise my hand yet!”

“Oh, now you’re shy?”

Satoru groaned theatrically as he came forward, flopping onto the mat with limp resignation. “Bully. This is bullying.”

“Then you’ll enjoy it,” Suguru deadpanned. “Everyone gather around. Let’s go over a basic rear naked choke. Also referred to as rear naked ninja death grip by some, if that helps certain people focus. It's a perfect finisher for when you've taken your opponent down.”

He positioned himself behind Satoru, adjusting their stance so the kids could see. “You want the arm here, elbow tucked. Pressure across the neck, not the windpipe. Control the hips with your legs if you can.”

Satoru squirmed. “I’m a visual aid. I deserve hazard pay.”

“And now… here.” Suguru gently locked in the hold. Satoru stilled immediately.

“That,” Suguru said, calm as ever, “is the sound of peace.”

Satoru tried to nod and failed. The kids erupted with laughter.

But Suguru didn’t let go immediately. Instead, he loosened the choke, then placed a careful hand just on the thick line of Satoru’s trapezius, right below the base of the nape.

“Now. This part’s important,” he said, tone sharpening just slightly. “You do not want to grab or squeeze anything above this point. Not in practice. Not in a match. Not even by accident.”

His hand was firm and warm, not even on the edge of discomfort but Satoru still struggled not to flinch away, more from misplaced tension than anything else.

Just to him, Suguru murmured a quiet “This okay?” Only after Satoru gave a weak nod did he hum and go on. 
“You see that?” Suguru asked, still addressing the class. “Even getting near it, you’ll notice a reaction. Pressure above here immobilizes your opponent for a second. It’s instinct. But it’s also illegal.”

He let his hand drop away. Satoru exhaled like a deflated balloon.

“It’s called scruffing. You’ll get fouled for it. And in a real match, you could lose points, or worse, make someone panic,” Suguru said to the class, sitting up and letting Satoru lean on him.

Kugisaki raised a hand. “But if you're in a pinch it works, right?”

“Sure. So does eye-gouging. That doesn’t mean you use it.” Suguru’s gaze slid toward Satoru. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Satoru sighed dramatically. “I’m never coming back to this class.”

“You were never in this class.”

“Technicality,” Satoru sat up, still blinking slowly. “I saw the light.”

“You’ll live,” Suguru said, then added under his breath, a whisper of fingers against the small of Satoru's back, “Thanks for letting me demonstrate.”

And as the class broke into practice pairs, Satoru lingered at the edge of the mat, still rubbing his neck, watching Suguru quietly, this time, with no commentary. Just something like pride.

And something quieter under it.

Something impatient.

Waiting.

Their next late night match couldn’t come soon enough.

The platform doors slid open with a sigh, and there Suguru was, travel-weary but composed, a new jacket zipped neatly up to his neck.

Satoru spotted him instantly, his grin blooming even faster than he could register.

The moment their eyes met across the station, Suguru brightened too, not quite as dramatic as an RBF reversal cause he never quite looked all that unapproachable in the first place, but noticeable.

“Well, well,” Satoru said, hands stuffed in the pockets of the oversized jacket he hadn’t given back, the one that still smelled faintly like Suguru and fabric softener and long nights on the mats. “Look who upgraded his wardrobe. What’s the occasion? Finally realized drab doesn’t suit you?”

“It’s cold,” Suguru returned accusingly, like it was Satoru's fault, then pointedly glanced at the jacket Satoru wore - his jacket. “And you’re one to talk.”

Ahhh… what better to warm the heart than a little affectionate trash talk, right?
Satoru stepped closer, leaning in conspiratorially.
“You know, if this is a ploy to get me to switch jackets right now, it’s working. I feel... betrayed. Replaced. Abandoned. I'm sure your jacket agrees.”

“Or you could just give it back.”

“Oh no. Too late for that. This is basically heirloom status now.” He tugged at the collar dramatically. “I’ve bonded with it. It’s mine.”

Suguru snorted, getting them moving toward the exit to head to their evening destination. “And you still want this one, too? You are unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably fashionable, yes. And generous. Did you see how good I make your clothes look?”

“You’re lucky I’m not going for a public takedown.”

“What, you miss going up against me that much? Not my fault you had plans with your other friends all week.”

Suguru didn’t dignify that with a response but it was no matter. Satoru loved it when he looked at him like that. Like he wanted to body him, right then and there.
But he didn’t deny it either. He did miss it.

Satoru bumped their shoulders as they started walking. “New jacket looks good on you, by the way.”

There was a beat, a pause too deliberate to be accidental, before Suguru answered, voice soft. “Thanks.”

The izakaya was already humming when Mei Mei stepped inside, cool air replaced by the warmth of laughter and clinking glasses. She shrugged off her tailored coat and slipped into the flow of the party with a confidence born from always knowing exactly where to look and what to say.

Her first stop was, naturally, the birthday girl.

“Shoko,” Mei Mei said, raising a hand in a half-salute, half-toast. “Older, none the wiser, and still unreasonably stylish. Happy birthday.”

Shoko chuckled and accepted the dry affection with a tip of her glass. “You only show up when there’s free sake.”

“Only when it’s good sake,” Mei Mei corrected, sliding into the booth beside her. “And because I knew you’d invite Utahime.” She let her gaze slide over to her former colleague.
“Been a while since your last visit.”

Utahime leaned over with an exasperated smile. “Not long until I'm back in Kyoto.”

“That's mandated,” Mei Mei argued, “What if I want to keep tabs on you between exchange programs and my spies don’t give me enough details?”

Utahime huffed with a smile like she thought it was a joke. “You’re so unserious.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me otherwise.”

Their banter was well-worn, smooth from years of proximity and rivalry. They shared updates, gossip, and the occasional fond jab while the table gradually filled.
Nanami arrived with his stoic composure and Haibara animatedly telling him a story, making sure to pause, gush congratulations at Shoko, and continue through their drink order. Ijichi appeared less awkward than usual, though still hovering before Shoko gestured him into a seat.

But it was later, much later, when the energy shifted.

Mei Mei noticed it even before she turned to look. The air grew electric.

Gojo Satoru had arrived.

All long limbs and loud presence, the reigning champion slid into the room like his grin, brighter than the lights overhead, was a claim of territory, like the whole bar belonged to him now. And in many ways, it did. As always, it was just a bit too overbearing for her tastes, making her smile mildly through the suffocating feeling curling along the nape of her neck.

But Mei Mei’s eyes were already on the one beside him.

Geto Suguru.

Now this one… this one was something else.

He didn’t command the room like Gojo did, no. He calibrated it.
The way he moved, quiet but deliberate, shifted the flow of conversation subtly around him. The others made room without thinking about it. His laugh wasn’t loud, but it drew attention. Controlled. Natural. Intentional. A different kind of charisma. Haibara was eager to hear his opinions, Nanami respected them enough to nod along and offer his own views, Ichiji relaxed subtly and Shoko greeted him like an age-old friend. Even Utahime was affording the newcomer alpha some grudging respect.

And the way Gojo leaned toward him?

Well, that was interesting.

They weren’t seated yet, but their banter had already started, an easy back-and-forth that carried something heavier underneath. Familiarity laced with potential. Something personal, but not yet defined.

And Mei Mei, ever the strategist, made a note of it.

She didn’t address it right away, let the impression steep, let them settle before another probing glance that slid sideways like a blade, subtle and sharp. She leveled her gaze at Gojo, and let a slow smile tug at her lips.
“You know,” she said, crossing one leg over the other, “I almost thought you were bringing a date.”

Gojo, halfway through a sip of his mocktail, choked with an unflattering snort. “Pft- what, Suguru? That’s my technical coach. My corner guy. The bane of my training existence.”
The alpha next to him just rolled his eyes in what seemed to be a thin veneer of mild affront to cover real fondness… interesting.

Mei Mei raised a brow. “Mm. That’s a lot of time to spend with someone who’s not your type.”

“Hey,” Gojo leaned in, elbow on the table, cocky and conspiratorial. “My type’s gorgeous and capable. I don’t discriminate beyond that. Much.”

“I’m right here,” Mei Mei said dryly, tapping the edge of her glass.

“You’re terrifying,” Gojo replied without missing a beat, grinning like he thought it was funny. “Also, we’re strictly business.”

“Pity.” She flicked her gaze toward Geto now, subtle as a test feint. “But what about you? How’s working with Tokyo’s golden boy treating you?”

Geto met her look without blinking, just the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “He’s a handful but…” his eyes slid over to a preemptively scowling Gojo, “It’s worth it.” Made the scrunch wrinkling the champion’s nose drop right off his face, something more intense taking root behind the sullen look he was giving Geto.

“A ringing endorsement,” Mei Mei mused, “You sound like someone trying to convince themselves their rescue cat isn’t ruining their couch.”

“That’s not fair,” Gojo whined, switching tracks before his slightly too open expression could be taken note of by the other alpha. “I’m adorable. And I only scratch when I’m cornered.”

Geto chuckled under his breath, and that was interesting, too. It wasn’t a performance. It was genuine. Easy. There was a rhythm here, a rapport that was already beginning to border on dangerous, if one knew where to look.

And Mei Mei always knew where to look.

She tipped her head, eyes narrowing with a touch of curiosity. “So then, Geto-san. You think you’ve got what it takes to handle Kyoto’s wolves? Or are you too busy house-training this pup?”

Before Geto could answer, Gojo barked a laugh. “Hey! What’s with all these unflattering animal comparisons, huh? This wolf has won national titles, thank you very much!”

“Exactly,” she said, cool as ever. “That’s why it might be time to see if his coach is ready to win something of his own. From what I hear, he’s not too bad at keeping up with you.”

Now that gave Geto pause. Not in discomfort… but consideration.

And Mei Mei? She watched the way he took it in. The compliment, the challenge, the weight behind it. No fluster. No bravado. Just that same, steady confidence.

Oh yes, she thought. Very promising.

She waited a beat before tilting her body toward them, swirling her drink thoughtfully.

“You know,” she said, voice light but pointed, “there’ll be an opening at the Kyoto gym soon. One of our trainers got knocked up and I’ve been meaning to bring it up with Yaga, see if anyone over here with real ring experience is ready to jump in, temporarily at the very least. Long term, if its a good fit.”

The table’s volume dipped just enough. Her eyes flicked between them, Geto and Gojo. And sure enough-

Gojo’s smile faltered, turning to a pout. “Tch. I just got used to Suguru rubber-balling me around during drills. You trying to sabotage me before my title defense?”

Mei Mei arched a brow. “You’ll live. He’d be back before your match anyway. Assuming he doesn’t find reason to stay.”

Geto, to his credit, didn’t flinch under the sudden attention. His gaze steadied on hers, thoughtful but not too cautious. He didn’t jump for it, didn’t brush it off. Mei Mei liked that. Someone who measured his words and actions alike.

“I’d want to talk to Coach Yaga first,” he said, diplomatic. “And I wouldn’t want to step away before the team’s prepped for the winter matches. But… I'll be where it's considered necessary.”

There was no ego in it. Just purpose. Vision.

Mei Mei tipped her glass toward him. “I like how you think.”

She caught Gojo’s mock-horrified look and added with a smirk, “Don’t worry, champ. You’ve still got a few fans left in Tokyo.”

Geto smiled, just a little, and Gojo leaned over to knock their shoulders together. Dramatic, of course, like he couldn’t bear the betrayal.

But he was smiling too.

And Mei Mei? She just sat back, let the conversation flow again, and kept watching.

She’d only meant to pitch an opening.

Now she was seeing something far more valuable take root. Chemistry. Potential. Something that didn’t just belong in a gym, but under lights, in front of cameras, in the storylines that sold fights.

Oh yes, she thought, sipping her drink slowly.

This could be very, very profitable. 

Would be a shame not to feed that spark.

“You sure someone else can’t go to Kyoto instead?” Satoru asked, hands stuffed deep into his pockets as they left the izakaya behind, heading together to where they would part for the night, voice too casual to be casual.

Suguru didn’t look up from adjusting the lapels of his own jacket. “Who else is there? You?”

“I mean, I am the most charismatic choice,” Satoru said, throwing him a grin. “Panda would miss me terribly.”

“Nanami’s still on vacation,” Suguru said, tugging the zipper shut. “And he’s taking over the youth division when he’s back. He already did his stint away. So did Haibara. Utahime is a borrow from Kyoto in the first place. It’s rotation.”

“So?”

“So,” Suguru said evenly, “I’m next in line. My contract says I accept temporary reassignments unless there’s decisive cause to decline. Yaga already hinted that something like this would likely happen rather sooner than later. I knew it was coming.”

Satoru leaned back with a theatrical groan, facing skyward and dragging his feet. “You and your contractual integrity.”

Suguru huffed a laugh. “That’s dramatic. Even for you. What, you've already grown attached to getting your ass handed to you in grappling sessions?”

Satoru straightened, picking at the sleeves like it helped him focus. “I just thought maybe… you’d say no.”

“And give them a reason to sideline me?” Suguru shook his head. “No. Not when I’ve fought to get here. Not when I’ve just stepped up.”

Satoru didn’t argue. Didn’t press. Just shifted his weight like the mat was tilting beneath him. “Mei Mei better take care of you.”

“She will,” Suguru said, then added, amused, “You’re scared of her, huh?”

“I am not scared of her,” Satoru said, deeply offended. “I’m duly cautious. There’s a difference. She’s like… a terrifying older sister, or, no, no, not that benevolent. More like someone who could sell someone’s secrets for profit and still make them thank her for the privilege of being allowed to breathe. What’s that called..?”

“Yakuza.”

“Right, right," Satoru said, pointing like Suguru had expressed his thoughts exactly.

“She’s one of the only people you give an honorific to," Suguru countered.

“She earned it,” Satoru muttered. “Sharp as hell. Strategic. Funny in a ‘this might be your last laugh’ kind of way.”

“And yet you flirt with her,” he said aloud, but absently he thought they get along, filing his observations away. Their personalities click. Not the same, but not at odds either.

Satoru scoffed. “I don’t- what? No, not seriously, I don’t.”

“You kinda do,” Suguru said, too calm to be wrong.

Satoru stared at him for a beat, then laughed, sharp, surprised, and entirely unbothered. “Okay, yuck. And she’s an alpha too, you know? Is that your roundabout way of calling me emotionally unstable? Do I look of unsound mind?”

Suguru let the question hang there, let Satoru’s expression fester into a mock-offended scowl, and tried not to put too much weight on the way he had said that, yuck, and alpha.
“I'm just saying you flirt with people you like.”

Satoru couldn’t deny that so he let a grin curl at the edges like it didn’t quite know whether it was supposed to stay.
“For the record,” he said, quieter now, “I didn’t push back harder because I trust her. Because she’s good. And because… I know why you’re going.”

Suguru didn’t say anything for a moment, didn’t try to console or claim nothing was written in stone yet. Instead, he settled on what he could promise with certainty.
“If I do go, I’ll come back better.”

“Obviously,” Satoru said.

“I won’t be late.”

A beat passed, the quiet telling Suguru everything he’d been guessing at already. That this wasn’t really about the leaving as much as the timing of when he’d be back.

Then Satoru reached out and flicked Suguru’s sleeve, catching the edge with two fingers. “Still. Just in case. Train hard. Sleep enough. And don’t let her trick you into investing in crypto.”

“I’m not you,” Suguru said with an amused huff, but he did appreciate the undercurrent of care Satoru showed, knew he was probably a bit worried since the toll that summer had taken on him and his mental health.

They stood like that for a second longer than they needed to, neither stepping away, neither saying what was quietly clawing under the surface.

The truth that hadn’t been spoken, not really.

That they didn’t know how many hellos would follow this goodbye.

“You better make a name for yourself over there,” Satoru said, bumping shoulders. “Otherwise, what was all that midnight mat work for?”

"I won't waste it," Suguru replied, fond and aching a little too much, so he followed it up by telling Satoru, “Try not to fall apart without your technical advisor.”

The reluctance with which they dragged their steps in parting said more than enough.

Ijichi approached Satoru that very next day, Suguru’s day off, clipboard shaking slightly.

“Gojo‑san, Yaga‑san wanted me to remind you that your title defense is in a few weeks. Official drills start next Monday. No diet deviations. The, uh, the nutritionist flagged a few empty Pocky boxes yesterday…”

Satoru blinked. “Snitches.”

“It’s protocol…”

Satoru flashed his signature grin, making sure he got a delightful little reaction out of the tragedy at least. “What about late-night mat sessions?”

Ijichi, the lightweight, looked like the mere idea had him nearly passing out. “That- Absolutely not!”

“Gotcha.” He stretched, shoulders masking the tension he felt. “No fun allowed. Crystal clear.”

Title defense meant lockdown mode. Tighter training schedules, stricter food logs, more supervised conditioning, no distractions. The routines that had carried him to the top in the first place.

But something about this time felt heavier.

He kept his face smooth as Ijichi rattled off more bullet points and shuffled away. But as soon as he was alone again, Satoru exhaled through his nose and ran a hand through his hair.

Because what really stuck with him wasn’t the pressure of the fight, or the drills, or the pocky ban. It was what he’d never learned to deal with missing before.

No more late-night training with Suguru, easy and steady across from him on the mat, matching his rhythm like they shared a heartbeat

And sooner than he'd anticipated, at that.

He’d only just gotten used to tolerating Suguru’s scent at close proximity, that deep, grounding calm that settled in his chest when they trained together, familiar now, even comforting. 

The jacket had helped. He’d half-joked about scent training at first, but by the third night of bunching it up next to his pillow, it had stopped being a joke. It had started working. He'd started waking up without headaches or tension in his gut. He’d even been ready to ask Suguru, really ask him, to take his patch off tonight. Just to try. Just to see if he could handle the real thing before they were forced to take a break from it anyway with Kyoto on the horizon.

And now?

All of that was on pause.

Would it set them back? He knew he could hold his own in the ring but they were just starting to fall into a tighter rhythm outside of it, too. And the “temporary” opening…

Satoru swallowed, tongue pressing into the roof of his mouth.

He wasn’t mad about it. Not really. Not when Suguru deserved the chance to grow and stand in the spotlight just as much as he did. More, in some ways. He worked harder, strategized smarter, and didn’t coast on raw talent the way Satoru had been accused of since he was fifteen.

No, what Satoru felt was… complicated.

A part of him didn’t want to be the reason Suguru stayed.

Didn’t want to be the anchor that made him hesitate. Even if that meant missing him.

Even if that meant going into his title defense without the calm center he’d slowly built over weeks of quiet midnight circuits, of laughter between sparring rounds, of subtle closeness he hadn’t known how much he needed until it was there.

He adjusted the strap of his gym bag, fingers tugging down the sleeves of the borrowed jacket absently as he headed out.

It still smelled like Suguru, but for how long would the scent linger?

Even when stepping outside into the cold, that strange warmth bubbled up again, part longing, part pride, part ache.

Guess I’ll just have to make the most of it, he thought to himself, never one to let himself get beat down for too long. He summoned a grin, sharp and certain. The roadmap ahead was easy to construct, really.

Win the fight. Look good doing it. And when it was over...

Well. They’d see where Suguru ended up. 

Wherever he went, Satoru was pretty sure they’d end up meeting back up in the middle, like they always had. For that, he’d make the first step forward.

If only because he didn’t want to get left behind.

The new week brought a cold snap and heavy skies over Tokyo, all dim steel and drizzle just on the edge of freezing. Inside the gym, the air felt... different.

Not wrong. Just quieter.

Like someone had turned down the volume a few notches too low.

After warmups with the youth division, leaving the rest to Haibara, Suguru wrapped his hands methodically, gaze drifting. Across the room, Satoru was sparring, hardly more than a blur of sharp movement. Efficient, relentless. Punches landed a little harder, footwork tighter. He wasn’t talking much. No teasing flicks of tape sent across the mat. No lazy stretches performed next to Suguru with exaggerated, dramatic groans meant to earn a snort.

Suguru flexed his taped knuckles and stared down at the mat, jaw ticking.

“Suguru.” Yaga’s voice pulled him back. The older head coach stood near the windowfront that overlooked the main floor. “Got a sec?”

He nodded and jogged over, toweling sweat off his neck.

Yaga gestured toward Satoru with a subtle nod. “You’ve noticed the shift.”

Not a question.

Suguru didn’t bother playing dumb. “He’s locking in.”

“He has to,” Yaga confirmed with a nod, “His opponent’s the real deal. Made it up the ladder like it was nothing. Not many come back from early retirement and chew through that kind of roster.”

The name wasn’t said, but the weight of it hung between them. Everyone knew who it was. Everyone knew why it mattered.

But Yaga didn’t linger.

“Which brings me to you.” He folded his arms. “Mei Mei put in a formal request.”

Suguru nodded, already knew what was coming. “She wants someone in Kyoto.”

“She wants you specifically,” Yaga said. “And it’s not for the youth exchange circuit, either. Their gym’s got a position open. Technical advisor, with ring time. You’d be training fighters on a pro track. She’s already got exhibition slots lined up, starter fights to build your name. You wouldn’t be in Satoru’s shadow over there. You’d be on your own stage.”

Suguru felt his heart thud hard. Just once, but it echoed.

Pro circuit. Real fights. With real eyes on him. Not next to the champ, but beyond him. Not as a sidekick. As a name of his own.

Yaga studied his silence.

“She’s got connections. If you want a debut, she can make sure it gets seen. It’s a better shot than I could offer you here. That’s just the truth. And getting into Mei Mei’s good graces never hurt anybody’s career.”

Suguru exhaled, slow. The trainer exchange was set in stone, it seemed, but getting on the stage was still his decision. “I’ll think about it.”

“I figured,” Yaga said, already nodding. “But think quick. She wants a yes by Friday.”

Suguru paused, then tilted his head. “And my duties here? Nanami’s still on vacation. Haibara’s got the omega focus group and half the youth division already.”

Yaga waved a hand. “Youth division’s thinned out during this stretch. Finals season. Most of ’em will barely touch the mats this month until Kento’s back. I’ll cover the pro circuit. Satoru’s camp will be my focus.”

Suguru glanced back toward the mats. Satoru was finishing a burnout drill, his shirt soaked through, form clean but harsh with effort. He hadn’t looked over once.

“Right,” Suguru said again, quieter.

Suguru almost didn’t said yes.

He almost told Yaga he needed more time before debuting, that he should wait until after the title match when things might quiet down and the gym wouldn’t feel like a pressure cooker, thrumming with tension and expectation.

But then-

Then he watched Satoru spar again. Watched the way he moved through opponents like they were paper targets, the glint in his eyes laser-focused and bright, the bite of pressure in his frame coiled but contained, running drills like they were lines in a script he’d memorized by heart. The way he moved with so much intent it felt weaponized. Purpose.

He had watched how Satoru lingered just a second too long at the edge of the ring after it was over. Like he might walk toward Suguru’s side to joke around again. But he didn’t.

That was when Suguru understood the weight of inevitability pressing down on his shoulders.

He didn’t want to be left behind.

He didn’t want to be just a soft patch of memory in Satoru’s head. A sparring partner for off-season and after-hours.

He wanted to grow. To keep up. To stay alongside him.

So when Yaga asked, one last time-

He said yes.

Suguru stepped out of Yaga’s office, and paused, surprised.

Satoru was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, hair tousled like he’d run a hand through it too many times. He was dressed down from training, sweatpants, sleeves of his hoodie pushed up to his elbows, and he straightened the moment Suguru appeared.

“Finally,” Satoru said, drawing the word out. “You’re slower than Yaga on leg day.”

Suguru raised a brow, disbelief flickering behind his lashes. “Were you waiting?”

“Pfft. What? No. Obviously. I just happened to be loitering in this exact hallway during your incredibly suspiciously long meeting because I’m mysterious and have very little going on.”

Suguru rolled his eyes, but the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth was inevitable. “You’re a compulsive liar, and yet you’re still terrible at it.”

“I’m an excellent liar,” Satoru corrected, tapping his temple. “I just don’t usually waste my talents on you.”

“Wow. I’m touched.”

“You should be.” Satoru grinned. “Anyway, I had this whole dramatic speech planned. Something about withdrawal symptoms from my jelly drinks addiction and how you’re gonna leave me emotionally starved for real mat time when you go off to Kyoto in these trying times. But now I’m thinking we should save the drama for a beach episode.”

“A beach episode,” Suguru echoed.

“Yup. When I win my title match? Boom. Serious holiday. I’ll need recovery. Sun. A tragic lack of upper body garments. I expect you to be there.”

Suguru blinked, the words registering a second behind their delivery. “You’re... inviting me to go yachting?”

Satoru clicked his tongue. “Ugh, don’t make it weird. I’m extending a alpha-bonding opportunity. Totally normal gym-bro procedure. You know. Punch together, sunburn together.”

The laugh bubbled up before Suguru could stop it, too real, too quick.

Satoru beamed like he’d just won something.

Then Suguru took a breath and said, calm, “Yaga just offered me entry into the pro scene.”

Satoru froze. It was brief, almost imperceptible. His grin faltered, then widened in full force. “Wait- Seriously? ”

“Mei Mei’s handling the matchmaking,” Suguru said. “Yaga says she’s got a better eye for opponents than anyone else in the game. Four to six weeks in Kyoto. Training. Corner work. If I hold my own, I debut.”

Satoru sucked in a breath. “You said yes? Tell me you said yes.”

Suguru nodded and watched Satoru light up like fireworks.

“You’re- holy shit. You’re joining me!” His voice echoed exuberance, thrilled and reverent at once. “We’re gonna be pro bros.”

“Please never say that again.”

“No promises.” Satoru practically bounced in place. “Man, this is perfect. You’re gonna kill it. And then maybe, one day, we’ll be one of those famous duos everyone wants to see go up against each other so bad but they never do ‘cause the bromance goes too hard.”

Suguru snorted. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m motivated,” Satoru said, giving him a wink. “You’re my favorite reason to stay sharp.”

Something warm stirred in Suguru’s chest. Fondness, maybe. Maybe something sharper underneath.

Their dynamic was still intact. Stronger, maybe.

Suguru wasn’t getting left behind.

He was taking a step forward.

And Satoru had been waiting.

Chapter Text

Camp - short for training camp, this term refers to the period before a fight when a fighter prepares through sparring, conditioning, and strategy development.

—

Title defenses didn’t win themselves.

Satoru had already started pulling back. He had to. 

Ever since the schedule dropped, he’d clicked back into fight mode: diet clean(ish), training sharper, sleep on schedule. He even cut the late-night snacks, which Yaga swore was a miracle and Nanami suspected was an early symptom of a breakdown. Suguru had helped in the week leading up to his departure, staying late to drill combos, helping him stretch out sore joints, handing him electrolyte drinks without saying anything when the weight cut started to suck.

But hesitation had snuck itself into faint pauses at the end of shared breaks. A half-second where Suguru’s gaze lingered a little longer before glancing away, like he was looking for the cracks in the facade. Satoru plastered them shut with a smile before he could.

Suguru had crafted him a meticulous plan leading up to his title defense, detailed enough it had even Yaga nodding approvingly over it, having nothing to add. It was easy to understand, had different kinds of options in case of contingencies, hell, it was color-coded even. Satoru didn’t need an explanation, but he asked Suguru to go over it together anyways.
Called it prep. Called it curiosity. Called it anything but what it was.
An excuse to sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the quiet of the analysis room, heads tilted toward the same thing, feel the solid press of the other alpha’s shoulder against his own.

Satoru had hung around the gym later than usual, had thought about trying to convince Yaga to keep Suguru one more day, one more drill, one more anything.
In the end he talked himself out of it, hit himself with a flat “don’t be a child”, and didn’t try to push for anything.

And so, Suguru was going.

Just for a few weeks, Satoru reminded himself. Nothing will change. He won’t like it better there. He won't like them better there. He won’t stay. He’ll be back for the final stretch.
Just before the fight.

It was just Kyoto. Just a different ring, different crowd.

But “a few weeks” had never sounded so dreadfully long.

They didn’t talk about it, not really.
Suguru didn’t ask if he wanted him to stay and Satoru would never expect it of him, would never ask him not to go, even if he wanted to. 
He didn’t say he was going to miss him because they both knew that already too.

So instead, he trained.
Harder. Cleaner. More focused.

And when Suguru in turn gradually pulled back to start packing, preparing, corresponding more with Mei Mei about the exchange, Satoru tried to ignore how quiet it got between sets.
Tried to ignore that no one else ever passed him a towel without being asked, or reminded him to drink something, or looked at him like they knew how much work it was to stand at the top and keep your spot there, even before the lights came on.

The day Suguru left, it felt like the gym dimmed just a little.

Not in any dramatic, cinematic way. No storm clouds. No tiny violins. Just a shift in the air. Like the air vents stopped humming right, or the bulbs overhead went half a shade too sterile. A silence at the edges that hadn’t been there before, the faces passing by indistinct.

He almost didn’t see Suguru off. Told himself it was better that way. He had training to get to, anyway, and Suguru didn’t need some clingy, overgrown alpha looming over his shoulder like a damn one-man-farewell parade. He'd already talked to everyone about it in the days leading up to it, so no one was getting any special treatment.

So Satoru tried to keep it light.

Tried to play the cool, collected one. Slung an arm around Suguru’s shoulders after morning drills, made some smug crack about how the gym would finally be peaceful without him. Suguru snorted, shoved him off. Normal. Casual.

But that evening, when he left the staff lockers, duffel bag zipped up and slung over one shoulder, Satoru stood there with a too-wide grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Later, then,” Suguru said at the doorway, with that level, unreadable calm he always wore when holding something heavier underneath.

Satoru nodded. “Yeah. Later.”

His feet didn’t move.

Suguru turned. He turned toward the door with his bag over his shoulder. Walked out just like that.

A beat. Then two.

And that was when Satoru broke.

He turned on his heel and bolted after him, out the front doors, into the sharp cold of late evening air, not even pausing to grab a hoodie. Just sprinted after that damn duffel bag until he caught up, breath fogging in the sharp mid-November air.

“Oi!” he called out, voice cracking halfway up into something not quite smooth. “Suguru!”

Suguru turned, eyebrows lifted, surprised, but not too surprised.

“You weren’t seriously gonna just dip without a proper send-off, were you?”
Satoru didn’t give him time to comment. He closed the gap and wrapped his arms around him in a hug that was tighter than necessary, face pressed into his shoulder.

The heavy warmth of Suguru's arms wrapped around him like a buffer against the weather.
“You didn’t come to the locker room,” Suguru pointed out, voice almost too soft to hear.

“I was trying to be cool,” Satoru muttered, breathing in that faint, comforting scent seeping through the patches. “That obviously failed.”

Suguru huffed a laugh, gave him a squeeze that somehow went right through Satoru’s ribs, and then stepped back just a bit to start scolding him, because of course he would.
“You’re going to catch a cold dressed like that. Are you trying to up the ante by getting pneumonia before your title defense?”

“I’m not a child,” Satoru grumbled, even as his body betrayed him with a visible shiver. “My immune system’s top tier. A+.”

Suguru sighed and tugged his scarf off. In one practiced motion, he wrapped it around Satoru’s neck, knotting it gently at the front. Maybe Satoru was imagining it, but it felt like his fingers lingered longer than necessary.

“You need to stay warm,” Suguru said, smoothing down the edge. “And stay focused. This defense matters.”

“I know,” Satoru said, quieter than he meant to, fingers tightened in the scarf, holding it close. “It’s just…”

Suguru looked up at him, waiting.

“It’s stupid,” Satoru said. “You’re gone four, maybe six weeks and it feels like everything’s less fun already.”

Suguru’s mouth twitched. “I’ll be back in time for crunch. You’ll hate me by the third round of mitts.”

“Doubt it,” Satoru muttered, straightening his posture like the words alone were armor. “I’m gonna wipe the floor with everyone in here while you’re not around. You’ll be super unpopular for letting this happen by the time you’re back, you know?"

Suguru snorted. “Spare me.”
He stepped back, but not far. Eyes steady.
“This isn’t goodbye forever. Just a while. We’ll still talk. I just… won’t be around to drag you off the mat when you fall asleep after sparring,” Suguru said, “Stay warm. Stay sharp.”

He stayed just long enough for the reassurances to land properly, taking Satoru's nod in answer, and gave Satoru’s shoulder one last squeeze.

And that was it. He turned and walked off, boots crunching on the pavement, bag swinging at his side. Didn’t look back.

Satoru stood there for a second, scarf still wrapped around his throat, soaking up the scent of someone who had been at his side nearly every day for months, sparring, pushing, laughing, being. 

Making him feel like he could be more than the champion. More than the strongest.

He turned back toward the gym.

When he stepped inside, the heat hit him harder than it should have. His cheeks were pink, and his eyes stung a little from the temperature change. Definitely not because his throat had done that thing. That traitorous tightening thing.

He waved off the glances.

“Cold out,” he muttered.

Totally the cold.

A few weeks weren’t that long. He was just being dramatic.

Probably.

Satoru was being so normal about this.

Incredibly normal.
He did his cooldown. Hit the showers.
Drank his protein shake. Checked his schedule.
Responded to Ichiji’s text about the revised media obligations while heading home, nose buried in a scarf that wasn’t his own.

All so normal.

Except for the part where he kept glancing at his phone every ninety seconds like he was expecting Suguru to text right now. Even though he knew, logically, that the train to Kyoto had shitty signal through half the route. He told himself to wait. Not to be that guy. The weird clingy one who couldn’t handle a single evening apart.

He made it almost four hours.

And then-

Ping.

Suguru:
Made it on. Still hate the seats. Got a quiet part, though.
You’re probably still awake, huh?
Get some sleep.

Satoru’s shoulders sagged with relief so hard he nearly slid off his couch.
Even Suguru’s stupid scolding was more than welcome. At least now Satoru didn’t have to measure out the appropriate amount of minutes/hours/days to not look uncool before he could stop pretending like he was above being clingy as fuck and calling every free second he got, because already hours after he left felt like he was missing a limb.

His fingers moved before his brain did.

Satoru:
(ಡ‸ಡ) suguwu…

His heart shook in time with the phone vibration.

Suguru:
Stop that. It doesn’t work through text.

Satoru:
damnit
but wait
so it works in person
huh? huuuuh???
(¬‿¬ )

Before he could send another one, the screen shifted.

Incoming video call: Suguru

Satoru flailed. He actually vaulted over the back of his couch, nearly clipped his ankle on the armrest, scrambled to check the camera lighting, shoved his hair into some semblance of structure, wiped the emotional wreck off his face with two slaps to the cheek, then leaned coolly on the wall like he hadn’t just panic-sprinted across the room like a romcom lead whose beloved was about to get on a plane forever.

He picked up with a lazy smirk. “Wow, video calling? You really have no chill, huh, Suguru? Missing my face this much already? Kind of desperate, even for you.”

Suguru, framed by the curved window of the train, jacket half-zipped and cheek resting on his knuckles, just blinked at him. “Yeah, yeah. That’s me.”

He didn’t even deny it.

Satoru felt like something in his chest unclenched, stupidly, deeply, but he just raised an eyebrow and said, “Well damn, say it like that and I might start blushing.”

Suguru gave the tiniest twitch of a smile. “Forgot to ask you what kind of regional snacks you want.”

Satoru squinted. “Huh?”

“For when I come back. Post-fight. You’ll want to eat like a feral animal again, right?”

“Oh my fucking- yes . Shelf-stable, obviously, I won’t be able to eat them until I reclaim my right to sugar and joy and carbohydrates. Okay, let me think... Mochi, duh, and some chocolates, whatever pocky flavors they have and, oh, definitely those citrus jellies, the yatsuhashi in all flavors, especially black sesame- Actually, shit, those might not keep that long. Nevermind, maybe some weird souvenir crackers that taste like actual shrimp-”

Then he paused.
Looked at the tiny screen.
Suguru, listening with quiet amusement, eyes soft in the late trainlight. Didn't tell him no, didn't tell him that's quite enough... just smiled at him, waiting for Satoru to go on.

“...Marry me,” Satoru said, only half-joking.

There was a beat. Then Suguru chuckled. “I offer to bring you one box of mochi and suddenly you’re proposing.”

“Not suddenly,” Satoru huffed in mock-offense. “We’ve been courting for months, you just never take me seriously.”

“Well,” Suguru said, dragging his fingers slowly along the edge of the window glass, “maybe I should.”

Satoru blinked. “Wait, what.”

“Text me a list,” Suguru said, smirking now. “While I still have signal.”

And just like that, the call ended.

Satoru stood frozen, staring at his reflection on the darkening screen. Still in his ratty training shirt. “...What the hell, he flirt hung up on me.”

He clutched his phone to his chest like a swooning heroine, grinning like an idiot, and then dove into the kitchen to start typing an unhinged list of Kyoto snacks he fully expected Suguru to scoff at half of and still bring back anyway.

Because that’s what they were like.
A little ridiculous. A little clingy.
Totally incapable of pretending they weren’t each other’s favorite person.

Even just a few hours apart.

The call ended with a flick of Suguru’s thumb, and the screen dimmed to black, swallowing the afterglow of Satoru’s grin, all teeth and the unbridled joy he could summon up for inordinate amounts of sugar, even through the digital blur.

Suguru stared at the reflection of his own face, faint in the glass of the train window. The night-dulled countryside rushed past behind it, a quiet blur. His own expression was unreadable. Tired, maybe. A little tender. Mostly resigned. He really wasn't made for drawn out goodbyes.

He set the phone down on his thigh beside him, one hand still resting against it like he couldn’t quite let go.

Damn, he was hopeless.

Again, he'd left something of himself behind, not just the scarf that wasn’t around his own neck anymore. He’d wrapped it around Satoru in a fit of instinct and affection and now the too-strong air-con nipping at his skin reminded him of it in the most absurdly literal way.

It was just a scarf. Just a goodbye. Just a call.
Nothing more than what they’d always done in jokes and teasing and stupid voices, toeing the line of sincerity like showing emotions was lava.

But now that he was away, now that he had space to breathe and space to think, it was suddenly harder to convince himself that none of it meant anything.

Because he missed him. Already. With a dull, dragging ache.

And Satoru… Satoru made it worse in the way only he could, because even through a screen, he was still bright. Still so much. Still Satoru.

The flirting didn’t help.

It was always just on that edge of joking, of daring, of disarming Satoru-style affection. Suguru could laugh it off, play along, take the hit and roll with it. He always did. He didn’t let himself think too hard about how many times Satoru had joked about courting him, or said he was his favorite sparring partner, or touched his wrist in passing like it meant everything and nothing.

He knew what Satoru liked. He wasn’t stupid. Heard him talk, offhandedly, about the kind of people who caught his eye. 

Gorgeous and capable, he’d said to Mei Mei. He’d shown Suguru his phone wallpaper once, some lean, mean, but definitely daintier looking woman, a wrestler or something, joking about how alphas like him shouldn’t have a thing for omegas who looked like they’d pass out if you so much as breathed on them wrong. Suguru had laughed at the time.

But he remembered.

He wasn’t that. Never had been. Never would be.

He wasn’t pulling himself back, not anymore, not in the way he used to, flinching from the thought of being too attached. But he wasn’t walking forward either. Wasn’t about to shove his feelings onto Satoru like a challenge.

Not when things were good. Not when they still had each other, even if just like this.

So he let the scarf go. And he’d let the flirting pass. Let it skim over his skin like the cool air against his collarbone now.

He hadn’t left Tokyo to chase some kind of closure anyway.

There were other things that needed his head. New training rhythms, people to impress, sponsors to vet, experience to be gathered and brought back to Tokyo. He had to find his pace again, prove himself, build a future not tied to anyone’s shadow. He could think about them later.

Maybe some distance would help. Maybe clarity would come with time. But for now? 

Suguru exhaled softly, picked up his phone again, and opened his notes app to jot down a list of snacks. Some of the ones Satoru had asked for, and a few extras he hadn’t, just because.

He wasn’t expecting anything in return.

But he did want to see his face light up again when he opened the bag.

And yeah, maybe that was enough to think about for now.

Mid-morning technical training, Jujutsu MMA gym in Kyoto

Suguru finished lacing his gloves. The gym was loud, not in laughter and camaraderie but in pads slapping, feet shuffling, timers screaming. His mind was elsewhere. For a beat too long, he stared down at the wraps around his knuckles, thumb brushing over the cloth like a worry stone.

Not his own. At some point before he’d departed, him and Satoru’s must have gotten mixed up. He treasured them like a lucky charm.

With an exhale, sharp and short, he boosted himself off the bench and went to throw his first jab into the mitt.

Evening spars, Tokyo

Satoru flipped his training shirt up to wipe at his chin, towel forgotten back on the bench, hair damp and clinging. His sparring partner dropped like a sack of bricks from exhaustion after relentless heat. Satoru should’ve felt good.

But his eyes drifted toward the wall Suguru used to lean on, arms crossed, biting back laughter when Satoru did something impressive or dumb.

It was empty. It stayed empty. But still, he could imagine the phantom of the nod he'd give in approval and encouragement.

Satoru took a breath, turned back to the ring.

“Alright, again,” he told his next partner, getting his mouthguard back in. “Try not to faint.”

Staff lounge, Kyoto

Suguru sat across from Mei Mei, a pen rolling under his fingers. Her voice droned on about appearance clauses and tiered incentives, but he only half-listened, the phone buzz under his thigh a quiet, steady constant.
He didn’t need to check to know who it was, already knew by what time it was.

When Mei Mei looked up, one brow raised, he said, “Don’t worry. It’s not Manami.”

Her smile sharpened with amusement. “Mm. Then I’ll assume it’s your other manager. Or is he just the person that keeps you managed?”

Locker room, Tokyo

Satoru peeled off the tape from his wrist, phone cradled in his lap.
The scarf Suguru had left with him hung off the bench hook beside him, out of place against the sweat-stained gear and metal lockers.

He hadn’t let it be washed. Hadn’t taken it home either. Just kept it there. Call it a visual reminder to keep it up.

He clicked on Suguru’s name. It rang once. Twice. Then connected.

External trainer accommodations, Kyoto

Suguru answered with wet hair and a post-shower tank top, one eye half-lidded, the other closed like he’d already been in bed. “You’re late.”

Satoru grinned. “You’re early.”
They bickered about timing like they hadn’t both been waiting all day.
“You talk to Mei Mei today?” Satoru asked, having heard buzz about some kinda sponsorship deals in the making and Suguru hummed, flipping the screen around briefly to show a three-ring contract binder on his floor.

“She and Manami are going to end up in a lawsuit or married. Possibly both.”

“Call me when they start throwing hands.”

“Oh, I will.”

Satoru paused, lips twitching. “You ever think about how terrifying they’d be if they teamed up?”

“I tried not to,” Suguru said dryly. “I like being able to sleep at night.”

They kept sending each other pictures, videos, memes.

From Satoru, a steady stream of protein powders he was testing, looking for something that didn’t taste like chalk, or ass, or chalky ass.

From Suguru, snide commentary on fighters to delight Satoru, observations about the city, morning run routes to keep getting fresh recommendations for.

A video of a botched pad drill. 

A can of sugar-free energy drink Suguru thought Satoru might like and promised to bring along for him. 

A half-used jar of muscle rub that Satoru insisted “smelled like him.”

They were apart.
But never far enough to fall out of rhythm.

Third week, Kyoto/Tokyo

Satoru stood in the ring, panting, gloves up, Yaga barking about footwork. He glanced once toward the corner where Suguru used to lean, then reset.

Suguru mirrored the movement in Kyoto, different ring, different lights. He parried a jab, stepped back, and reset. Mei Mei didn’t speak, just nodded.

Two gyms. Two cities. Still in sync.

They weren’t together, but they hadn’t lost the thread. Not once.

And they both knew it wouldn’t be long now, if everything went well.

Chapter Text

Hype Train - the growing excitement and anticipation surrounding a fighter or upcoming fight, often fueled by social media and promotional efforts.

—

Nearly a month in, Suguru had settled into Kyoto’s fight scene like water into the cracks of concrete. Smooth, measured, inevitable. He didn’t belong here, not fully, but he was learning how to function inside the frame of it. 

To Mei Mei’s credit, she had been the one stable constant since he had arrived. Sharp, strategic, and, if one ignored her taste for financial profits above all else, disarmingly easy to work with. She had a good eye for growth, and better instincts than half the coaches he’d met this side of the country.

Suguru had fallen into a familiar routine of mornings filled with technical sparring and conditioning MMA hopefuls, afternoons of strategy sessions and, the most grating of all, evenings peppered with Gakuganji‑sensei’s outdated lectures, the old man was always rambling on about “honor of the old ring,” while Suguru thought he belonged in a retirement home far more than on a coach’s chair. 

(Satoru was delighted to hear him comment on this once during a call and since had taken to asking him whether the old fossil was still kicking in place of a hello anytime he called. As opposed to Gakuganji, the joke didn’t get old.)

When Suguru absolutely could not avoid it, there were team dinners too, where naive rookies and overconfident tryhards rattled on about YouTube followers and “sponsorship dreams,” making Suguru long for the steady earnestness of his own youth division back in Tokyo, his colleagues, his friends, and most of all, Satoru, keeping things grounded and real. Here, it felt sometimes like he was mentoring his own blind side.

And yet, this was what he’d signed up for.

The gym was high-end, well-funded, and cutthroat in its own way. On the surface, the energy buzzed with potential. Up-and-comers with sharp footwork and sharper egos, managers with connections and clipboards, scouts always watching from the corners like wolves behind glass.

But underneath, it was different. Rougher. Political. Strategic.
This wasn't Tokyo, where competition bred camaraderie.
This was a battlefield with pecking orders dictated by tradition, etched in sweat, spit and tears on the mats.

And no one embodied that more obnoxiously than Naoya Zenin.

"Omegas and Betas just don't belong in combat sports. Or females, for that matter," the disgrace of an alpha said, for what felt like the hundredth time that month, something or other having set him off again to yap on about it as he lounged on the bench beside Suguru, hands half-wrapped, voice smug like he thought he was being profound. "Like, it’s basic biology. Omegas are soft. And betas? Background noise. If you’re not an alpha, why’re you even stepping into the cage?"

For some reason he still expected a laugh, a nod, a conversion to his camp of idiots. Even just acknowledgement, or a fuck perhaps.

Suguru gave none, never had.

Instead, he exhaled sharply through his nose, the closest thing he’d offer to amusement. Not about Naoya’s brazen statement, but in how he possessed the audacity to think Suguru would ever agree with him. Like it was some form of alpha bonding.

And yeah, alright.
Once upon a time he’d constructed his own worldviews in rebellion to a system meant to swallow people like him whole, to flatten difference, punish intensity, and polish down the sharp edges of what it meant to be an alpha or an omega.

Suguru used to be loud about it.
Used to believe the pack mattered more than the world it was snarling against.
That omegas had fought too hard for too long to earn a seat at the table. That alphas, always first to be accused of being violent and unyielding and impulsive, were judged before there was even any evidence against them, locked away for the mere potential of harm. It wasn’t just discrimination. It was design.

Alphas were over-prosecuted, faced sentence-disparities and were denied custody in divorce cases, even when their partners were unfit guardians. As long as they were betas, regardless of gender and circumstance, they had practically won already, since they were considered more stable parental figures.

Meanwhile, omegas were over-policed and infantalized, sheltered, often assumed incompetent, and expected to conform to traditional dynamic roles more than anyone. Even while they were considered the nurturing type by default, few judges would rule in favor of leaving child rearing to an unmated omega.

And betas? Betas made up the majority, over 80% of the population, and they used that quiet comfort of normalcy to write the rules. To dictate what “balance” should look like. No cycles. No pheromones. No perceived threat. They shaped the socioeconomic structure to center themselves and called it peacekeeping.

Suguru had studied this.
He’d been a humanities major before he ever stepped into a cage. He knew the history. Knew the bias. Knew the blood cost.

And yet...

He glanced at Naoya now, posture relaxed but gaze hardening slightly as the other man rattled on with a venomous certainty about betas being weak, omegas being distractions, alphas being the only real contenders.

It was laughable.
Worse, it was a similar enough rhetoric Suguru had once been guilty of, just flipped to suit the speaker’s ego.

Back then, he'd thought he was speaking for something righteous. That carving out space for alphas and omegas in a world hostile to their biology was a noble cause. And maybe it had been, at first. 

But righteousness wasn’t a cause to fight for. People were.
And so, when he had disbanded the pack he’d let go of the rotting hatred in his heart and opened his eyes to issues he could fix on a personal level, problems he could actually solve.

He’d had his own prejudices for a long time. Still did, if he was honest. Edges, softened by time and self-reflection, that maybe needed some more sanding down. But one thing he was sure of now? You couldn’t fight for your people by becoming the kind of person who needed to be fought against.

"Maki’s a beta,” he said plainly, not bothering to look up from the tape he was carefully wrapping over his own knuckles. “And she’s one of the best students I’ve ever had.”
That was just truth. It was also, incidentally, the most aggravating thing he could’ve said to the snobby asshat. Oopsie.

Naoya scoffed, jerking forward like he’d been challenged to a duel. “Maki? She wouldn’t last a round with me.”

“Hm? Are you sure? She might flatten you in two minutes if you underestimate her,” Suguru replied with a faux smile. “It’s not very wise to look down on your opponents.”

Naoya bristled. He was always bristling, like he was just waiting to draw a shiv from his sleeve or something else appropriately snake-like to fit his personality. Any contradiction was taken like a direct jab to the throat. And Suguru, well, he didn’t have the time or patience to untangle the knot of superiority complexes and masculinity issues that made Naoya tick.

Especially not today.

The other man eventually peeled away, muttering something under his breath about “Tokyo freaks.”

Suguru didn’t rise to it.

There was nothing to gain from tearing down someone already beneath the level of discourse. He exhaled slow, steady, and leaned forward to finish taping his fists, the motions precise, practiced, grounding.

He still believed that the world wasn’t built to be fair to people like him. That alphas were over-corrected. That omegas were still climbing out of a generational pit. That betas, for all their insistence that they were neutral, wielded cultural power too carelessly.

But he also believed now, more than ever, that balance wasn’t found in shouting down the rest.

You didn’t protect your people by burning every bridge.

You did it by teaching Maki to throw like a monster and then watching her win.

By telling Naoya to shut the hell up without ever needing to say the words.

By taking a page out of the champion’s book, indiscriminate of dynamics.

By growing.

Quietly.

Relentless.

Staff lounge, Kyoto

They sat separated by an open bottle of wine and half a dozen sponsor pamphlets Mei Mei had ruthlessly ranked by profitability.

“This one’s solid,” she said, pointing to a mid-tier contract with bonuses stacked like a Jenga tower. “You’d be the poster boy in six months, maybe less.”

Suguru tilted his head. “Too flashy. I want a promotion with fighters that’ll challenge me. Not fighting tomato cans or sponsors expecting me to skip out on actual sparring to sell protein powders.”

Mei Mei rolled her eyes, but the smile playing on her lips meant she wasn’t truly annoyed. “Fine. Be idealistic. It’s almost charming.”

She reached for the bottle and poured herself a refill, letting the pause stretch.

Suguru stayed quiet, letting his gaze drift over the remaining folders. He already knew which one he wanted. Knew it the moment he saw the roster. The terms weren’t the best, the exposure would be moderate at best, but the fighters? They were real. Tough. No deadweight. No setup wins.

His fingers tapped the table once, twice, then came to rest on the folder in question.

“Send this one back with a counteroffer,” he said, almost offhand. “Cut the media obligations down and increase the performance incentives.”

Mei Mei arched a brow, wineglass midair, just shy of touching her pursed lips. “Are you serious?”

Suguru didn’t answer. Just picked up the folder, flicked through it again, and set it down with a quiet finality that spoke louder than any announcement could.

She leaned back, appraising him, a slow grin spreading across her face. “You’re not making things easy for yourself, you know.”

He shrugged. “Guess so.”

“You’re going to make a splash,” she said. “Not because of your sponsor. Not even because of your non-record before this. But because you’ll make them remember your name.”

Suguru smiled faintly, gaze steady. “Then let’s make sure they do.”

Press tour, Tokyo

The seventh of December dawned cold and ugly. One of those mornings where Tokyo’s sky hung low like it was waiting for a reason to snow, but that didn’t matter. Not to Satoru.

He was already up before the light even had a chance to fully settle in, bouncing off the walls of his apartment with the kind of energy that could power a city block. One protein shake, one selfie, approximately two dozen texts to anyone in his contacts who he felt like gracing with his early morning rise and grind attitude, another protein shake, and one devastatingly sharp suit later, he launched into his schedule like a meteor on a collision course with media day.

A little more than two weeks out from his title defense, and the hype machine was in full swing. He was the golden boy, after all, Tokyo’s alpha champion, face of the league, undefeated, untouchable, and, more importantly, available for photos.

Interviews? Check.

Press junkets? Absolutely.

Sponsor meet-and-greets? Hell yeah, give him five mics and a ring light, and he’d turn any boardroom into a stage.

He burned through the day like a star gone nova. Bright, loud, impossible to ignore. Every question thrown at him got flipped into something more entertaining. 

When one reporter dared to ask a snoozefest of a stats question, Satoru leaned forward with a glint in his eye behind his blue tinted glasses and fired back, “All available on the internet nowadays, isn’t it? See, what you should be asking is how I managed to stay undefeated and keep looking this good under pressure. Where’s your pen? You’re gonna want to jot this down. So, first of all, do you know those weird jelly drinks from the convenience store? So, turns out there’s a sugar free variant-”

The reporter laughed, flustered, a little confused, but nodding.

Satoru grinned, dazzling and weaponized, and went on with unmatched confidence. The cameras loved him for it.

Hell, the entire league loved him. The fans adored him. Especially today, his birthday, no less, he’d been flooded with messages and warm congratulations from every direction. Publicists. Fighters. Rival gyms. Some actor he’d met once on a panel who swore they were besties.

He got some texts and calls from his friends and colleagues of course, even Yaga - unrelated to his schedule. Mostly, he missed picking up due to his packed schedule, though he always found time to type some thanks or at least something ridiculous to that effect back.

And still… In any free minute he found, Satoru found himself refreshing his messages a little more than necessary.

Because none of it came from Suguru.

His phone had been silent all day from that number. Not even a dumb emoji.

Maybe it was because it was Saturday. Maybe Suguru was busy. Probably was, if Satoru was being fair. They’d been talking daily, slipping easily into that cadence of long-distance comfort, even if Suguru was a little more booked on weekends. Kyoto stuff, friends, gym dinners. Satoru didn’t mind. Not really. He just... noticed. Suguru had always made time for him before. 

So now, as the sky started to dim into that particular bruised purple of a Tokyo winter afternoon, Satoru found himself getting restless. And yeah, Suguru had said he was prepping stuff. That there’d be more time next week. That they’d do something when he got back.

Which, yeah, that was fine.

He was coming back in four days. December 11th. 

Four days. 

Four days, and then maybe they’d celebrate together, maybe late but quiet and familiar. Satoru loved flashy, but it didn’t even have to be.
He didn’t need much, not really. Just-

Just that.

Just Suguru on the other line, wishing him a happy birthday. That’d be enough.

And sure, he’d been booked back to back with cameras all day, so there hadn’t been time to make a fuss. (But still.)

Everyone else had been able to make time, though.
Nanami was busy prepping lesson plans for the youth division’s comeback. Haibara was holding down omega focus classes alone for the week. Yaga was reviewing fight tapes in grim silence. Shoko had her hands full putting someone’s dislocated shoulder back in place. Utahime was ignoring most of his texts but sent just one curt congrats back. (Rude, but classic.)

The kids weren’t loitering at the gym like they usually did because of their exams, but even so, the younglings had managed an organized FaceTime to scream-sing for him, while he was in the car to his next appointment, complete with balloons and everything. Hell, even Yuuta was in on it, and he was in Africa.

He shouldn’t complain, like at all.
Even Ichiji didn’t sigh or rush him with jitters when Satoru had him stopping by an eatery for lunch, though they were running a bit late for the next pomp because of it. Just reminded him to stick to his macros or whatever.

And yet, complain he did. What he always tried to avoid anyone else’s birthday ending up like lonely and shit, but what if literally everyone was showing up except for his best friend? He tapped a quick message to Shoko between interviews about it, trying to distract himself.

It turned into a call.
Maybe he shouldn’t have started the whine fest in the middle of fan autographs, switching to a grin at a moment’s notice, and inadvertently drowning out the answer he got.

“ Did you hear anything I just said?” Shoko asked, voice flat and tight, clearly still mid shoulder relocation.

Satoru blinked, halfway through posing for a photo while balancing a celebratory cupcake on his head. “Hmm? Something about scapulae?”

With how hard Shoko sighed, that bit must’ve been a while ago. “You’re impossible. I’m hanging up on you. Happy birthday, I guess.”

“Aww, c’mon, Shoko, you can’t stay mad on my special day,” he cooed, pouting as soon as he turned his back on the fans he’d just waved goodbye.

“Yeah, okay.” Click.

...Alright. He kind of deserved that.

Come early evening, Satoru was physically untouchable, energy barely dipped, but mentally? Emotionally? Spiritually? He was kind of scraping the bottom of the bowl.

So when Ijichi pulled the car around to bring him home, Satoru flopped dramatically into the passenger seat instead of the back, limbs sprawling, sunglasses still on despite the fact that it was very much night.

“Drive me into the sunset, trusty steed,” he said with a yawn. “Except replace sunset with ramen. And the horse with your sad little half-limo.”

Ijichi, already white-knuckled around the steering wheel, gave a small, strangled cough. “The dietary restrictions… and there... there isn’t a sunset, it’s 7PM, Gojo-san.”

“You’re right.” Satoru adjusted his glasses. “Let’s focus on the tragedies of the day! The real sad part is the fact that nobody bought me a cake shaped like my abs. Even though I dropped very obvious hints for weeks. This is an outrage. A national disgrace. Who do we sue?”

“I… um- I can check the PR calendar for any last-minute catering notes?”

Satoru groaned. “Don’t bother, nutritionist’s been on my ass for weeks now. But that’s not the real crime, Ijichi.”

A long pause.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Ijichi muttered. 

But oh, he didn’t have to ask. Satoru was generous enough to volunteer the info for free.
“I haven’t gotten a birthday message from Suguru.”

Another pause, a beat too long.

“...Oh.”

Satoru narrowed his eyes. “Oh? What kind of oh was that, clipboard man?”

Ijichi started fiddling with the climate control. “Well, there was some chatter... rumor mill stuff... about a major sponsor courting one of Mei Mei’s top fighters. It sounds like it will be very high-profile. The fast-track kind of talk.”

Satoru sat up straighter. “You don’t say.”

It wasn’t a leap. Not with the kind of attention Suguru had always drawn when he let himself be seen. And Mei Mei wasn’t shy about dangling her most promising fighters in front of the highest bidder.

“Wait,” Satoru said slowly. “You’re telling me Suguru-?”

“It’s just gossip,” Ijichi added quickly, nervously. “They haven’t made any names public yet, and, well, these things take time. It’s not like you make it public the day after signing them, but, ah, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to build their new challenger right as title defense is coming up...”

“What sponsor?” Satoru interrupted, voice far too casual.

Ijichi gulped. “Uh… It’s um, Noroi League? They’re trying to muscle in on the Tokyo circuits. Might be eyeing a heavyweight face to sell a new campaign-”

Satoru stared out the window. 

Rival league.

Suguru hadn’t said anything, throat dry all of a sudden. 

That... wasn’t what they’d talked about. Or joked about. Or not talked about. He’d kind of thought that their thing was, well, their thing. Something private. Something theirs. Like, yeah, okay, maybe he’d tossed out a few too many “our bromance is too legendary to survive an official match” jokes. And yeah, Suguru had chuckled, maybe rolled his eyes, but he hadn’t disagreed.

He hadn’t... agreed, either.

And now? A rival league? An actual public fight? Something that big?

It felt... different.

It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just... unexpected.

As soon as he stepped into his apartment, he called.

When he got home, he called. Obviously.

The line rang.

And rang.

And then-

“Hey- Ah, gimme a sec,” came Suguru’s voice, faint and staticky. “Heading into the underground right now- Bad reception, I’ll get back to you in a bit, okay?”

“Wait-”

Click.

Gone.

Satoru stared at the screen, holding the phone away from his face.

He waited five minutes. Ten. He checked behind the couch. Just in case. No surprise party. No balloons. No hidden birthday serenade.

“Lame,” he muttered, and then dropped his phone onto the couch to follow it face-first, arms flung out like he was auditioning for a crime scene outline.

The cushions made a sound like sympathy.

He turned his phone over on the table, checking the screen every five minutes like clockwork.

Nothing yet. No Suguru. Just... the lingering sound of a call that didn’t last long enough.

But he knew it would come.

It always did.

He had half a mind to fuck restrictions and go for the long cupcake sitting in his fridge but that would mean getting up… Nevermind. 

Moping time now.

The text came while he was still face-down in the couch.

Shoko:
Again, in writing for Mr. Popular: 9PM pickup.
Put on real clothes. We’re getting drinks. Or like, juice, in your case.
Don’t show up in those sunglasses.
You’re already recognizable enough with that dumb hair as is.
Wear a hat or something.
If you show up with groupies, I leave you on the curb.

Satoru sat up with a delighted gasp, his spirits perked up like a sunflower, limbs flopping like a crash test dummy.
Finally. Someone who showed up for him.

Satoru:
👍😎👍

Shoko:
😒

He immediately started typing a text to Suguru, grin already in place.

Satoru:
i know you couldn’t wait to wish me happy birthday
but looks like you’re gonna be too late 🎉
Shoko’s throwing me a birthday party
and everyone’s probably gonna be there
guess you missed the exclusive invite 😎

He stared at it.

Deleted “too late”, then the rest of it, rewrote.

Satoru:
shoko’s throwing something for me tonight
guess you won’t have much luck reaching me later
you snooze, you lose 😌

Damn, that sounded petty.

Satoru:
guess who’s not gonna be lonely tonight?
shoko’s kidnapping me for a birthday thing
looks like you missed your shot at being the favorite
try not to cry too hard about it
i’ll eat something boring in your honor.

Still too spicy. Rewrote again.

Satoru:
shoko’s taking me out for a birthday thing.
I’ll save you a cupcake.

He stared at it. Pouted.
Well, damn, now it just didn’t have any character at all anymore.

He deleted it altogether and decided to reformulate later, maybe send Suguru a pic when he was on his way to Shoko. It was probably the calorie deficit making him grumpy, anyways.

He stood, still down to his underwear from the earlier suit peeling, and paced to his closet.
Sparkle shirt? No, not for Shoko. She might actually leave him at the curb…
Maybe the murderously good-looking one? He still had to uphold his title as the prettiest fighter in Tokyo, after all. Even if he was feeling a bit moody. Even if he couldn’t have the damn cupcake that had been haunting his mind like a mocking calorie threat in pastel.

“Dietary requirements,” he muttered under his breath, adjusting the collar in the mirror. “Fuck, what am I, a monk?”

He huffed and reached for his socks.

He could’ve used a sugar hit after the stupid long day.
He could’ve used a hug, if he was being honest. Hell, he thought briefly, wildly, of the puppy dog from the earlier promo shot. The one that was supposed to be a boxer, har har, real clever, but some intern had failed organizing that, so they’d been trying to get a bloodhound, and well, the droopy-eyed basset that sneezed in his lap during the final photoshoot and then passed out on his foot was close enough.

It had snored through their whole photoshoot and left him covered in drool but weirdly emotionally seen. Yeah, just a little wrinkly-faced validation would’ve been good right about now.

Doorbell rang.

He blinked.

“…Shoko?” he called, hurrying barefoot to the door, shirt just tucked into place under his belt. “Am I in trouble already? I didn’t even post a thirst trap today, relax- ”

He opened the door.

Stopped. Mute button hit mid-breath.

It wasn’t Shoko.

It was-

“Suguru.”

Suguru, stood in his doorway, wind in his hair and that calmly smug face he wore whenever he knew he’d done something right. Over one elbow hung a white plastic bag from some conbini. No bakery box. No cake. Better. Him.

Satoru stared, brain empty except for sugurusugurusugurusuguru here -

Suguru started, “I was trying to beat the clock. Happy birth-”

Satoru launched himself forward like the fuse on birthday candles had just been lit on a bomb, colliding with him mid-word, arms locking around his neck, full birthday-tackle mode activated. Arms around his neck, feet coming off the ground from the force, full-force. The kind of hug that made Suguru stagger back a step and then stay steady, like he’d braced for it. Like he knew that was coming.

Suguru laughed against his shoulder, steadying both of them with a sure hold and impeccable balance.
“-oof. Okay, yeah, that’s one way to answer the door. Happy birthday, Satoru.”

“You’re here!” Satoru accused, muffled into his neck. “You weren’t supposed to be here yet! You’re supposed to be in Kyoto, eating sad cafeteria protein and being late !”

“Plans changed. Burned through some weekends to make it back faster, pulled some strings. What, you expected me to miss this?”

“You suck. You absolute asshole, you suck so bad.”

“You missed me.”

“ Obviously. ”

Suguru held him tighter.

They stood like that for a beat, Satoru holding on like he meant to absorb the other alpha, soaking up the familiar scent that had been losing its mark on the jacket he’d stolen from him. Finally, he pulled back enough to glance at the bag between them.

“Wait. What’s this? Where’s my cake? You know birthdays mean cake, right?”

Suguru offered the bag like a peace treaty. “Kyoto snacks. Like you ordered.”

Satoru blinked. Peered inside.

“...I don’t recognize any of these.”

“Well, yeah, all of these are diet-approved. I asked your nutritionist.”

“You-” Satoru choked. “You called my nutritionist?!”

“She’s surprisingly nice. Once you stop trying to charm her out of every restriction.”

Satoru rifled through the bag with rising awe. “You’re a monster.”

“I also got a second bag,” Suguru said, smiling slightly now. “It’s not here. You get that one after your win. All the good stuff’s in it. Stuff you’d definitely sneak if I gave it to you now.”

Satoru’s mouth fell open. “You got me a post-fight snack bag?!”

“You’d have devoured it tonight.”

“You know me so well I hate you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Satoru didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t melting. He dropped the snack bag onto the table, already forgotten, and surged forward again, wrapping his arms tight around Suguru’s middle this time.

“This is the dumbest best present I’ve ever gotten.”

“I know.”

“I was gonna sulk so hard tonight.”

Suguru’s arms wrapped around him again. Slow but firm. Sure. Warm right down to the bones. “I missed you too,” he said.

Suddenly, the bloodhound incident, the cupcake mockery, the muted birthday text drafts, all of receded from background noise to perfect silence.

Tonight, the real present had shown up.

Right on time.

Nothing was beating this. No sugar rush. No artificial boost.

Just- This.

This was everything Satoru needed right here.

Satoru didn’t so much let Suguru inside as he dragged him in, fingers still wrapped around his sleeve like he thought the man might evaporate if he let go.

“C’mon, five more minutes,” he said, ignoring the way Suguru’s boots half-tripped over the genkan. “You can’t just ambush me and then leave.”

“I wasn’t going to leave.” Suguru tugged lightly back, toed off his shoes like the polite gentleman he always pretended to be. “But we do have to pick up Shoko in like, ah, fifteen minutes?”

Satoru froze. “Wait. We ?”

Suguru gave him a look, one part sheepish, nine parts smug. “I’ve been in on the plan since Wednesday.”

And just like that, Satoru’s insides turned to sparkling melon soda bubbles. “You scheming little- You’ve been plotting with Shoko? You didn’t even text me today!”

“Well, that would’ve ruined the surprise.”

Satoru beamed so wide it almost hurt. “Okay but now you have to come in, I can’t be expected to handle the weight of that information without some answers!”

He pulled Suguru deeper into the apartment, past the mess of gift bags by the door, into the kitchen that looked like a florist had exploded in it. Bouquets were stuffed into every vaguely vase-shaped object he owned, glasses, cereal bowls, an empty soda can he’d spontaneously cut open. Suguru paused, reached over, and gently freed a bunch of blue long-stem roses from a cup currently trying to hold a bouquet, unwrapping the crinkly plastic around it to let them actually reach the water at the bottom. Oh.

“…What’s with this is chaos,” he said, amused.

“I didn’t know you had to arrange them,” Satoru said, defensively. “I thought you just… put them in water and prayed.”

They fell into an easy rhythm, sorting out the worst of the mess, Satoru flitting around half-wild with nerves and chatter, and Suguru doing the actual fixing in between dodging scented cards and fan plushies that had clearly been... marked.

“I had to bag up a few of these,” Satoru muttered, holding one up with the tips of his fingers like it was hazardous. “Is it bad when you come in? I feel like my place smells like omega dorms during heat week. I’m flattered, but if I see one more phone number covered in lipstick marks…”

“You’re a celebrity,” Suguru said, with no sympathy.

“I’m a tragedy.”

“You’re spoiled.”

“Tragically spoiled.”

Suguru just smiled again and reached for the last of the flowers.

As thanks, or maybe as punishment, Satoru plucked the cupcake that had been destined to go bad or be bad for his weight requirements from his fridge and shoved it into Suguru’s hands.
“Here,” he said solemnly. “I can’t eat it because of, you know, the regime -” he made a face, “-so you’re going to tell me if it tastes like poison or what dreams are made of.”

Suguru raised a brow. “You’re feeding me fanmail food?”

“Could have ground-up horny goat weed, aphrodisiacs, that kinda stuff. Or glitter. We’ll never know unless we try! Well, unless you try. But that’s just the price of fame. Consider it part of your training for your big debut.”

“You’re a terrible influence.”

“Eat the cupcake, Suguru.”

With a resigned breath, Suguru peeled back the wrapper and took a bite. His face gave like, literally nothing.

“Well?”

“Vanilla frosting,” he said slowly, chewing. “Strawberry core. A bit gooey, like… underbaked. Little bland.”

“Sounds fake.”

“It’s okay…ish.”

“You’re lying to spare me.”

“I would lie to spare you, but in this case? I don’t have to. But I’ll make you a better one, keeping this theme, if you need consolation.”

Satoru practically glowed. “What, you’re a baker, too, now? So talented. Oh! Speaking of-” he bumped his fist into Suguru’s shoulder, maybe a bit too hard to be entirely playful. “Kyoto’s talking about you! Buzz even reached Tokyo. One of the big leagues, huh? Word’s out.”

Suguru blinked, mid-swallow. “Really? I didn’t think it would leak that fast.”

Satoru tilted his head, smile faltering just a fraction.

“I mean,” he said, picking at the edge of the counter. “I’m happy for you, really. But it had to be that sponsor?”

Suguru blinked again. “What?”

“Y’know, Noroi? Rival league? Thought our little midnight brawls were gonna stay secret.”
A beat.
“Guess not. But hey, I mean, if you’re that eager to go up against me-”

Suguru frowned, not waiting for him to finish.
“Wait, stop. Noroi? I didn’t sign with them.”

Satoru looked up. “You didn’t?”

“No. I talked to them. Briefly. But that deal fell through. The one I’m signing is Maximum Uzumaki.”

“Oh.”

“I meant to tell you first. Guess I was slower than the rumor mill could get it mixed up.”

Satoru let out a slow breath. Something uncoiled in his chest.

“I’m not trying to go up against you, Satoru,” Suguru said, voice quieter now, their arms brushing where they leaned against the kitchen counter side by side. “That’s never been the plan.”

Satoru lifted his eyes. “Because you’re my corner guy?”

Suguru held his gaze, steady. “I’ll be fighting too. But I’ll always be in your corner.”

Satoru very nearly dissolved into a puddle right then and there. Only years of top-tier training held his composure in check.

He sniffed, nodded once like he wasn’t on the verge of combusting. “Okay. Wow. Cool. Coolcoolcool.”

Later, when they finally got dressed and headed out, Satoru floated more than walked. Suguru told him the bar was a place Shoko picked. Fancy presentations, experimental drinks, whether you wanted alcohol, soda, or sparkling water. Every glass a statement piece.

“I’m gonna order the most outrageous thing they have. Dry ice, edible sparkles, flamethrowers,” Satoru announced proudly. “Make it look like I’m drinking unicorn blood.”

“I’m going to make sure you don’t set the table on fire.”

“You can certainly try~!”

On the way to the subway, Satoru launched himself onto Suguru’s back in a gleeful, graceless piggyback.

“Let me love you,” he sang against Suguru’s ear while his friend groaned under the sudden weight.

“I’m being abused,” Suguru said, walking anyway.

“You’re being treasured. ”

“You’re treating me like your pack mule.”

“You’re my soulmate-slash-ride-share.”

“Unbelievable.” Suguru shook his head, but Satoru could see the grin growing on his face from the back.

“Unbelievably cute,” Satoru corrected, tightening his grip. “Birthday’s already the best I’ve ever had.”

And it was.

It really, really was.

Shoko didn’t exactly get out much these days, but birthdays were the kind of excuse even she couldn’t turn down. Especially not this one.

The birthday boy and his most favorite arm candy showed up right on time to collect her, Gojo practically vibrating out of his skin, still floating off some high she’d bet money was ninety percent emotional and ten percent inborn. Geto looked... well, infected.  

For once he’d left the calm, composed facade on the coat hanger at home and came dressed down but still far too good-looking for someone who claimed to not do it for the attention, basking in Satoru’s blinding shine with a warm smile. The contrast between them was still sharp, but not as much as it once had been.

“About time you let yourself have fun,” Gojo grinned, already halfway leaning into her apartment doorway like he was planning to barge in even if she wasn’t ready.

Shoko pushed him back out with, raising an unimpressed brow, but she smiled all the same, coat already on. “You’d be surprised how often I have fun without you two, actually.”

Gojo gasped, scandalized. “Without us? Rude.”

Ah, so back to us, was it? Seemed like the dramatics from that afternoon were buried under the champion’s too easy forgive and forget attitude. Though, for what it was worth, the other alpha was blameless in this case.

Geto just huffed a soft laugh, stepping aside to let her lock up. She caught the quick flick of his gaze toward Gojo, fond, attentive, impossible to miss. Not that Gojo, for all his quick reflexes, ever seemed to notice. The man was too busy prattling about the drink menu at the place they were headed to.

“I’ve been craving sugar for a month and a half,” Gojo moaned. 

“That’s longer than you’ve been on diet.” Shoko reminded, which fell on deaf ears.

“If they have something with, like, whipped cream and fireworks on top and I can’t have it, I will riot,” Gojo went on.

“You were crying over salad yesterday,” Geto pointed out mildly, backing her up, which, in contrast, didn’t go ignored.

“I was not crying. I was emotionally compromised and kale was involved.”

Shoko followed them down the stairs, taking a long, lazy drag on her cigarette once they were out in the open, smiling behind the cloud. They were completely lost in each other’s gravity. Walking shoulder to shoulder, jostling, teasing. It was disgusting.

It was also the cutest shit she’d seen all week. A little sickening, in that wish-that-were-me-but-with-more-braincells kind of way.

By the time they reached the bar, a cozy tucked-away place with more mood lighting than reasonable safety standards, they were already halfway through three inside jokes and one debate about Kyoto’s ranking system. Shoko didn't bother trying to follow. She just settled into her seat, ordered something strong, and prepped her liver for what was likely going to be a long evening.

She got her payoff early when Yaga arrived, huffing about needing to “check in” but staying for two drinks anyway. One round less than he’d stuck around for her birthday, and Shoko didn’t hesitate to raise her glass and gloat about it.

“I have proof now,” she whispered to Utahime. “I’m his favorite.”

“I’m not sure that’s what that proves,” Utahime muttered. “He might just be fleeing from the PDA.”

“Don’t ruin this for me.”

Then came Nanami and Haibara, two halves of the world’s most unconfirmed, suspiciously domestic pair. Haibara was already beaming, muted scent bright and relaxed, waving like they hadn’t seen each other just a few days ago. Nanami looked... vacation-soft. Still buttoned-up, still composed, but the scowl had downgraded to a vague furrow.

And then it was chaos again, because Satoru and Suguru were still operating like they were the only two people at the table, Suguru expertly wrangling sparklers away from Satoru’s drink while the man gestured wildly and nearly set a cocktail menu ablaze.

“Mess,” Utahime muttered.

“Kinda adorable mess,” Shoko corrected.

Haibara was already knee-deep in some trainwreck of a conversation, dropping terms like primebond and moonmate like he’d learned them off the worst corner of omega forums. Nanami tried not to engage but couldn't help twitching every time Haibara opened his mouth.

“They’re valid dynamics,” Haibara argued cheerfully. “Just not as normalized in the public eye-”

“That’s because half the terminology is pulled from fanfiction,” Nanami said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m just saying,” Haibara insisted, “you can’t write off an alpha-alpha bond just because it’s rare. And it’s definitely not a clash-pair like Utahime said.”

“Don’t quote me,” Utahime hissed. “I said that privately.”

“They’re not that rare,” Shoko added lazily, sipping her drink. “Just underreported. Iso-bonding is starting to show up in clinical studies. Ask any of my endo friends.”

Utahime buried her face in her hands.

And then, just in time to really keep things interesting, Gojo and Geto returned from the bar. Gojo had what looked like a full parade float in his hand, garnished with candy glass and sparklers. Geto had his free arm, steadying the walking disaster zone with an ease that screamed lifelong handler.

Gojo flopped down into the booth, squished to Geto’s side, the drink miraculously surviving intact. That, he knew how to keep care of.

“What’d we miss?” he asked brightly, moving to hand-feed Geto the elements of the drink he couldn’t have for himself like he had done all night, demanding ratings all of it and pressing for getting it recreated or, if too elaborate, coming here for it again when he was released from his torturous carb starvation.

Utahime didn’t hesitate. “We were talking about how pathetic people are getting. Some are even convinced same-dynamic bonding is a good idea.”

Gojo blinked, then laughed like a sharp pop. “Damn. So hard-pressed to find someone you’re switching teams now? That’s kinda desperate, even for you.”

Geto didn’t laugh. Pressed out a thin-lipped smile like he was deadlifting the weight of his life-regrets. He just looked at Gojo with something he probably thought wasn’t blindingly obvious pining, then smoothly changed the subject before it could spiral.

Shoko, already halfway through drink two and watching it all like a nature doc, just leaned back with a sigh.

They were idiots. Beautiful, codependent, completely unaware idiots.

But hey. She was drinking on a weekend night. Her friends were happy. There was a betting pool growing at the far end of the table.

Not the worst birthday party she’d been to.

Fight Week always had a certain electric current to it, tense, exacting, brimming with momentum. 

Suguru had hardly known such dedicated preparation from his own less-than-legal fighting days, so the experience he’d gathered in Kyoto had been invaluable to do his job as official technical advisor right.

Being back in Tokyo after months away, that current felt different. Sharper. Louder. Warmer.

It felt like being home. Most of that was probably due to who he was coaching now.

Suguru had only just made his comeback in time for Satoru’s birthday, and since then, he hadn’t had more than five minutes to himself that weren’t filled with either fighter prep or Satoru himself.

Which he really wasn’t complaining about. Not in any serious capacity, at least.

Satoru had barely let him out of arm’s reach. Suguru had barely pretended he’d try to leave, if only to get the satisfaction of getting reeled right back in.
It was a bit two-faced maybe, but really, who didn’t like a bit of an ego boost?

If the lead-up to the birthday had been full of late calls and cryptic messages and missed connections, the days after had made up for it tenfold. The closeness, the trust, it had resettled between them so naturally that it his concerns about what it’d be like being gone so long were almost laughable. Like there hadn’t been distance. Like they hadn’t been living in different prefectures, walking different league floors, pretending not to orbit each other like they did.

Now, Suguru was back at his rightful post: in Satoru’s corner.
Physically. Strategically. And, if he let himself be a little dramatic about it, emotionally, too.

He was here for Satoru’s fight camp in full. Every spar. Every tape breakdown. Every light press-day workout in front of cameras and every behind-the-scenes whisper of doubt or worry from staff or fans or analysts that Suguru swatted down like flies.

Because Satoru might laugh and joke and bounce his way through most things in life, but this? This mattered. And Suguru could see it. The tension in his shoulders before a particularly brutal pad round. He might be a true beast in conserving his energy, but even his stamina wasn’t endless.

So Suguru was there in the quiet moment afterward where he didn’t even have to ask for water, because he was already holding it out for him. He was there for the way he grinned a little more boyishly when Suguru showed up early to the gym. Like he didn’t expect it, but was grateful every time.

Suguru poured everything he’d picked up in Kyoto into Satoru’s regimen. Advice from old-timers. Mental prep strategies that weren’t just regurgitated sports psychology. Recovery routines that didn’t suck. All of it, honed and edited to fit Satoru, because Satoru required a different touch, someone who could match his fire without trying to smother it. Someone who could remind him how to breathe without dulling the edge that made him so good.

He’d told Suguru once, when they were alone and half-drunk on exhaustion in an empty locker room, that he didn’t like overpreparing.

“I’d rather go in slightly undercooked and pissed off,” Satoru had said, wiping sweat from his brow with a grin. “Keeps me sharp. Too long and I feel caged.”

So Suguru let him loose when it counted. Endorsed him clowning around between drills, made snide jokes that got him laughing again after a grueling round, and didn’t mind that their cooldowns turned into wrestling matches or that Satoru sometimes flopped backwards onto his lap without warning and stayed there until someone had to move.

The effect? Satoru moved easier. Hit cleaner. He even stopped locking up during certain grappling moves, slinkyfying himself to break out of impossible holds. In short? He was doing better. Drastically.

The others were more anxious than Satoru was.
Yaga had turned to pacing and aggressive needle-felting, Nanami reviewed footage like a few minutes of overtime didn’t matter so much after all, Haibara made noise over supplements he’d gotten approved by the nutritionist, and Shoko- Well, okay, Shoko and Utahime were fine.

"What's there to worry about?" The doctor had said, her friend agreeing with a huff. "He's gonna win anyway."

Suguru knew this fight would be big. Maybe the fight. Satoru’s name would be in headlines for weeks. His title defense was already getting coverage from western leagues, international networks circling like sharks.

It made Suguru feel something. Nervous? Maybe. Proud? Definitely. Possessive? He’d always been bad at lying to himself.

His friends had noticed it, of course. Even before he left Kyoto, they’d started pushing: “Just tell him.” Even the emotionally stunted ones had taken turns telling him this was dumb.

Shoko had told him bluntly, when they’d accompanied home after the celebration, “He’s not going to figure it out unless you say something, you know that, right?”

Suguru knew. Of course he knew. But the timing…

Now? In the middle of this? With Satoru riding this wave, and the whole league waiting to see if he’d falter for even a second?

No. It was the worst possible time.

And to top it off, the match had been scheduled for Christmas Eve.

December twenty-fourth.
Supposedly a romantic day in Japan. Date night on steroids. Whole restaurants booked out weeks in advance, couples wandering under the lights with overpriced desserts in hand. The match promos were leaning hard into it too, plastered with slogans like “Bring your date and a bucket of KFC!” and “Love and blood under the lights—Shimetsu Kaiyū Superdome Christmas Clash!”

It was borderline embarrassing. But it sold tickets. And more importantly, it was Satoru’s fight.

So no. Suguru wasn’t going to hijack that spotlight for something as messy as a confession. Not now. Not when everything Satoru had built. his career, his rhythm, his momentum, was hurtling toward that night like a comet.

Satoru needed balance. Needed stability. Needed someone who wasn’t there to drop emotional bombs on him right before he stepped into the cage with the biggest challenger of his career.

And yeah. Maybe it burned a little when Satoru said something offhanded, like “Can you imagine dating an alpha? How do they not rip each other’s throats out?”
Maybe it made Suguru shut down for an hour or so. But he told himself it didn’t mean anything. That Satoru just didn’t get it.

He was oblivious to how loud his own scent got when Suguru adjusted his gloves for him. To the way his body always leaned toward Suguru in a room, no matter how many others were there. To the softness in his eyes when Suguru told him good job, low and genuine, after a tough session.

Suguru could wait. He had waited.

For now, his job was to keep Satoru steady, focused, free.

To be the one person in the room who never pulled him down, who never added pressure.

The fight was close.

The feelings? He could deal with those later.

Right now, there was only one goal: make sure Satoru stepped into that cage ready.

And make damn sure he walked out of it still undefeated.

Chapter Text

Taping Hands - typically supports the wrist joint, keeping the joint aligned when the impact of a punch is absorbed by the wrong part of the hand.

—

December 24th, Fight Day

Satoru sat still.

He’d woken up before the sun had, and for once, the sky felt like it was keeping quiet just for him.

There was a text from Suguru on his phone. It’s the first thing he saw, and it’s the only thing he needed.

Suguru:
Meet you for prep by 10.
Got a post fight snack ready for your win.
You got this.

Satoru grinned to himself because hell yeah, he did, then boosted himself out of bed, stretching out languidly and bouncing on the balls of his feet to shake off any leftover tension before he made his way to the kitchen for breakfast. Light, pre-portioned per nutritionist’s orders. No variables today.

It wasn’t chocolate drizzled, fried or even satisfyingly crunchy for how he wanted to sink his teeth into something, but hell, it did its job and he didn’t complain. Not without an audience, at least.

His mind was on the snacks Suguru might bring for him, brain tuning out the blandness he was chewing through to neatly organize his favorites in a mental list for after, imagining the order he would devour them in. Sweet, salty, crunchy, soft. Just like Suguru to know how to play to his cravings even under league restriction.

Already he was floating, just a little, electric in his own skin. The kind of energy that didn't buzz, but hummed, low and steady, right under the sternum.

Before he walked out the door, dressed in his sponsorship tracksuit, he opened his phone again, just once.

Dozens of unread messages. Contacts from all over. 

He tapped through his phone just long enough to read the waves of support. Old friends, current rivals, teammates, near-strangers, former opponents. Some heartfelt, some obnoxiously meme-heavy. One even has a dancing cat in a custom gi.

He loved it. All of it.

But he replied to exactly one. Suguru.

Satoru:
bring it on
( ง☆ω☆)ง
and bring gum
oh and remember to look hot ringside
you're gonna be on camera too y'know

And then he powered his phone off. No distractions. Not now.

Just this moment. Just the breath in his chest and the stillness before the fight.

—

Once he arrived at the gym, more of a comfort place than even his home, the day gained some more traction.

The league officials showed up with their clipboards and their tablets, ready to run him through the usual checklist. He nodded. Smiled. Ticked every box. 

Blood work? Fine. He rolled up his sleeve with a smirk.
Weigh-ins? He was bang on the mark.
The lab results came back spotless, better than ever. Not that he ever doubted it.

Shoko liked to insist she wasn’t a family physician, even though, between the fighters and the coaching staff, she basically was. She’d throw medical supplies if he said it out loud though, and he’d rather avoid getting clocked with a roll of tape… or worse. 
Still, she'd had him on a clean supplement stack to round out his nutrition since the match announcement, especially because she knew he’d rather skip his greens. And honestly? That was probably his saving grace, making up for his ghastly sugar binges in off season and, admittedly, skipping his greens here and there.
He trusted her more than he trusted gravity. If Shoko said he was in top form, then that was the end of the conversation.

Because he knew his team.
Yaga had been running the master schedule behind the scenes and now the gym was ghost city, not closed but manned by a skeleton crew because, really, who would even go to the gym while there was a title defense of this magnitude, the clash of two living legends, to watch instead?

Nearly every staff member was out there now, dressed in his colors, holding signs, filling seats. Even Ijichi, who could be spending his time peacefully staying behind to catch up on his pencil pushing and bean counting or whatever he did in that little head manager office of his all day, took a non-obligatory personal day to come to the stadium. That’s how big this was.

Satoru had no doubts, no hesitance, no worries. Not one.

Because everyone who mattered was here and made sure the only thing Gojo Satoru had to do today… was fight.

And fight he would.

The hours ticked by in low hums of static.

Nanami reviewed last-minute footwork with Suguru while Satoru leaned against his side, turning out their conversation in favor of the headphones sitting over his ears, playing a steady bassline that matched the beat of his pulse while he watched the beehive buzz. Shoko double-checked the ice packs, the gauze, the adrenaline swabs in her kit. Yaga paced like a storm system in motion. Haibara bounced on his heels like a child on Christmas morning.

Which, yeah, fitting, given the date.

Romantic in Japan. Candlelight dinners. Strawberry shortcake. KFC buckets booked out weeks in advance.

And here was Satoru. About to walk into a ring against a man who once left other fighters unrecognizable, back in his glory days.

A nation tuned in with bated breath.

Elsewhere, the challenger’s camp was sweating. Literally.
He was in the sauna, stripping ounces, dropping the last bit of water weight in time. A grace period, it was called. Just a little leeway of time given right before the fight, drawing out the inevitable.

Satoru hadn’t ever needed it, didn’t cut corners.

“Weight bully,” Suguru had called the other fighter during prep. “He’s gonna look bigger in the ring.”

Satoru had just grinned. “Then he’ll fall harder.”

He visualized it now, imagined the sound it would make when his opponent hit the ground, ringing his victory true like a bell.

Satoru had his legs stretched out on the bench, spine long, chin tucked. His hoodie was half-zipped, and his breathing was steady. Not relaxed. Locked in. He wasn’t joking anymore, wasn’t bouncing on his heels like he used to before casual spars.

This was different. He was conserving energy, every last drop of it.

Suguru knelt in front of him, unspooling tape. The usual rhythm. Wrap, press, tighten, reinforce. It filled the otherwise empty locker room with the well-tended comfort of ritual.

Satoru kept his eyes closed.

He didn’t need to see to know Suguru’s touch. Didn’t need to direct or adjust. Every motion from Suguru was measured, deliberate, familiar. He finished one hand, smoothed over the wrist joint, checked the tension.

“How does it feel?” Suguru murmured, probably referring to more than the white wraps covering his knuckles.

Satoru flexed them anyways, and breathed deep. Gave a nod. They were comfortably worn in, his favorite kind. He recognized them by feel alone.
“Thought I lost these. Where’d you find them?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Took them to Kyoto with me. Sorry.”

Satoru winked one eye open to see Suguru’s sheepish expression, a smirk tugging at his lips already.
“Souvenir, so you wouldn’t feel so lonely without me?”

“Accident,” Suguru corrected with a huff, but smoothed over the closure once more before he offered Satoru his glove to slip on. “But maybe they brought me some luck. Well, not that you need it.”

“Heh, damn right.”

Then Suguru said, softer, “You know this isn’t gonna be a walk-off KO.”

Satoru’s smile didn’t falter. “I wouldn’t want it if it was.”

Suguru taped the second hand in silence. When he was done, he tightened the last bit at the knuckles. His hands lingered for just a second longer than needed.

Then, a quiet exchange, the only one that mattered.

“You ready?”

“Always.”

Grace period had been slowly but surely ticking down, and then, all at once and right on the mark, the music outside faded. The announcer’s voice dipped beneath the swell of the crowd.

It was time.

When Satoru stood, Suguru moved up with him, meeting his eyes seriously.
“Don’t let your guard down.”
Not challenge, not warning. Just a reminder.

“Aw, you don’t believe in me?” Satoru’s grin carved itself slow and sharp across his face. “Who do you think I am?”

Suguru just looked at him, steady, unblinking.
And underneath it, something warm, blooming into a smile. Quiet. Proud.
“I just know your tendency to showboat.”

Satoru chuckled but didn’t deny it. His bones itched for the fight. The blood. The rhythm. He was the kind of man who didn’t run from chaos. He courted it.

Suguru gently tapped his side with his knuckles just once, liver side.
“Guard low when he spins. You know his feints.”

“Yeah.” Satoru flexed his fingers. “I got this.”

A knock broke the quiet of the moment, then laughter, loud and familiar.

Yuji’s voice came first. Then Nobara, Maki, Panda, Toge, quieter still, Megumi. Hell, even his little cousin Yuuta had made it back from his own little fight camp across the pond in time to watch him fight. They all crammed in against regulation, just to pat him on the back, to grin like he was the final boss they believed in.

Satoru let it in. Soaked it up.

For a second, he wasn’t the strongest, the champion. He was just their senpai, their mentor. Someone they looked up to, someone they wanted to make proud.

They walked him down the corridor headed out to the ring with pats on the back, the staff, his friend, all lined up to join in on it. Satoru’s grin stretched wide, his laughter making it to the stage before he did. But before he followed it, he turned, found Suguru in his send-off party, grinning wide.

“Well? Come on, give it to me!” 

Suguru stepped up and gave him a firm smack right between Satoru’s shoulder blades, knocking loose the breath that had been stuck there, where the weight had once sat the heaviest. Now, the shock of contact gave him wings, carried him forward light-footed, laughing.

The ring waited.

Floodlights blazed, white, wild, unforgiving.

Satoru bounced into its light, didn’t look back.

He didn’t need to. He carried Suguru’s advice with him, everyone's encouragement, belief, support like armor stitched into every inch of him. 

The crowd erupted.

“In the Blue Corner - GOJO SATORU!!!”

A wave surged behind his ribs. He grinned for the camera, shadowboxed and winked his way to the ring, flashing his infinity handsign for the fans waving it on banners all around.
The adrenaline hit for real now, but so did something deeper.

Not just the excitement for a good fight, the pride of defending the title, or even Suguru’s smile still engraved in his mind.

No, he was here because this meant everything to him - understanding through connecting with fists, taunts, smiles and all.

And so, he got into the ring with a grin just in time to watch his opponent enter the arena.

“And in the Red Corner-!”

There he was, opposite him, measuring him up, a rumored monster with too much weight and not enough humanity.

“RYOMEN SUKUNA!”

While the the youth division, herded by Nanami and Haibra, flanked by Ijichi, took to the front row seats, Suguru took his place designated to him as technical advisor, along with the rest of the corner team.

Next to him Yaga looked every bit the cool and composed head coach now, like he hadn’t stress-felted an entire gorilla keychain backstage, on the other side, Shoko, already reclined in her cutman chair, deceptively relaxed, though undoubtedly ready for anything, her kit in easy reach.

To Suguru, it still felt unreal being back here, ringside with the world roaring around them. This wasn't the shadows or nosebleed seats anymore. This wasn’t student tournaments or low-stakes regional matches, certainly not shady underground dealings over cagefights. 

This was legacy, on full display.

And Satoru? Satoru was walking out like he owned every goddamn echo of applause in the arena, shaking from the inside out. 

Floodlights swept over the ring as if searching for a myth, and there he was.
Blue-Corner brilliance, barefoot and bare-shouldered, hoodie tossed back out the ring like a lost banner or the discarded cape of a king riding into battle, grin sharp as a blade. The crowd screamed his name. Champion. Unbeaten. Untouched.

And then the red corner.

Ryomen Sukuna.

A ghost resurrected, a not-forgotten king of past honed like a blade, still sharp after all the years.
His weight cut had been brutal. Suguru had seen him briefly before, towel-wrapped and hollow-eyed in the grace period. But now? Now he stalked in like a predator in perfect form, rehydrated, invigorated.
Lean muscle, leaner smirk. Suguru’s stomach twisted, but he kept his expression calm.

They met in the center of the cage, but no gloves were touched, though Satoru offered.

He dropped his fist with a smirk when it was clear the other fighter wouldn’t show him the same respect.
“Welcome back to the big leagues. Hope you’re not expecting to be the one to break the streak.”

Sukuna’s eyes narrowed, cutting through him.
“Break it?” he scoffed. “You brat. I’m the one who built this kingdom. I’m here to take it back.”

“Good luck with that. It’s mine now,” Satoru returned with a cheeky grin, sticking his tongue out at him.
Suguru wanted to bury his face in his hands - not in shame, but to hide his snort. The audacity.

The referee stepped back.

First round.

And everything exploded.

The opening exchange was so fast Suguru barely breathed throughout it. His legs flexed before he knew what he was doing, halfway out of his seat just to see it better. Sukuna came low, sharp, a blur of muscle and malice. Satoru twisted around the strike like water, retaliated with a jab that kissed the edge of Sukuna’s jaw, and then a flash of a spinning elbow whistled past Satoru’s ear.

Back. Reset. Clash again.

They circled each other like stars caught in orbit, equal, devastating, dancing. The crowd lost their minds. The pulse of the arena synced with every step, every hit. Sukuna struck like he was dissecting the fight in real-time, one move ahead, and Satoru met it with a grin.

He loved this part. Suguru could see it in every taunt, every bob and weave. The satisfaction of solving the unsolvable. Of getting to play. He even feigned a misstep, dropped low, inviting Sukuna in, and when Sukuna took the bait, Satoru dragged him into a near-takedown with a cocky flourish, the mat thundering as they both rolled to escape each other’s hold.

Satoru tapped him a few times, light, got the first few hits in, but then-

Blood.

Satoru came up grinning, but his right brow was split open, red spilling fast down the side of his face. Suguru surged fully to his feet now, heart hammering, but a hand clamped around his wrist.

Shoko.

She was out of her seat, too, but didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. Her grip was steady, firm. Not yet.

The ref gave no call. No pause.

They went back in.

Strike. Clash. Taunt. Slip. Sukuna was laughing now, even as blood bloomed at the corner of his mouth. Satoru was relentless. They were throwing bombs and catching each other’s rhythm like they'd trained together for years, like they knew each other’s instincts better than their own.

Suguru’s throat was dry, acid bubbling in his stomach.

Round one ended with a slam and a scramble. Satoru had nearly gotten him down again, had almost secured it, but Sukuna reversed at the last second, broke away, and the buzzer saved them both from deciding it then and there.

They'd gone at each other for a full round - five whole minutes of spiking Suguru's blood pressure.

Now, finally, they retreated back to their corners.

Suguru and Shoko were already there. He got in the ring, knelt beside Satoru, water bottle in hand, towel ready. But Satoru wasn’t really there. His eyes were locked on Sukuna, his breathing controlled, pulse sharp, attention laser-focused on the echo of the fight just passed and the one still to come.

Suguru handed him water. Satoru drank without looking at him.

Shoko swiped a cotton swab across his brow, efficient and precise, whispering something about the cut not being too deep. The bleeding slowed. Treated it best she could in the short break.

Across the ring, Sukuna was getting patched up too, his chest rising and falling, imposing like a tiger that had tasted blood. His corner was urgently murmuring and treating, but he didn’t look away from Satoru either.

But neither did Suguru. 

He'd fought battles with everything on the line too, knew Satoru didn’t need superfluous words from him right now. Just presence. Someone to anchor him.
So, just before the bell rang again, just before the storm resumed, Suguru leaned in, voice low.
“Guard high, then low. He’s aiming there next.”

Satoru didn’t nod. Didn’t blink.

But his shoulders shifted just slightly, tightened. Acknowledged.

They were motioned to step back from the ring again. Round two was starting.

And Suguru knew Satoru would be ready.

Shoko had seen a lot of fights. Had stitched up enough of them, too. Bloodied brows, split lips, shattered noses that would never quite sit straight again. She didn’t flinch easy.

But when Sukuna opened round two with those kicks, body shots, brutal, punishing, she leaned forward without realizing.

Sharp. Sharp. Sharper.

Gojo caught one on instinct, or good ringside intel, pivoted into a counter so fast the crowd barely caught it. A textbook sidekick to the chest sent Sukuna stumbling into the ring border.

“You getting tired, old man?” Gojo called, voice laced with a grin, breathless but bright.

Sukuna grinned back, blood staining his teeth. “Just bored.”

Then he blitzed.

Shoko saw it before the crowd even reacted, the shift in Sukuna’s stance, the violent economy in his shoulders, that flash of muscle tension that screamed danger.

A flurry of movement, elbows, knees, punches threaded in-between like needles. Gojo moved like he always did - reactive, fluid, slippery. But one elbow clipped too close to his temple. His balance wavered.

The crowd gasped. No cheers now.

Shoko’s hand clenched around the edge of her kit. That wasn’t a dodge. That wasn’t play. That was a hit. 

And not the kind he meant to take.

Her chest felt tight. She’d seen Sukuna fight before, in clips, in history. She knew how ruthlessly he capitalized on damage, how he didn’t give space for recovery. If he thought there was blood in to taste, he bit harder.

And Gojo-

Fuck, he was still grinning.
She’d heard Geto warn him of exactly this, and still he hadn’t been quick enough to yank his guard up so high. If he’d even heard. He was so deep in the rhythm now.

She wanted to scream at him to stop it, just for a second, to focus, to breathe. But he wasn’t looking at anyone but his opponent. He was all locked in, nothing else in the world but this impossible brawl.

Sukuna had taken damage too, that much she could tell, even through the chaos. A strike during the blitz, a crack to his ribs that left him just a fraction slower, a fraction tighter in his movement. But that didn’t make him less dangerous.

If anything, it made him meaner.

They didn’t stop. They didn’t break.

It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t cinematic. It was messy, close, personal. A war of attrition happening in real time. Every time they separated, it felt like it was the last, but then one of them surged forward again, pulling the other into hell with them.

Then it happened-

Sukuna’s heel swept low, hooking behind Gojo's knee while a punch came aimed straight at the body. Shoko’s heart stopped.

Satoru twisted just in time, arm snapping down to guard his side, barely catching the impact. If he hadn’t, if he’d missed it-

The liver shot would’ve crumpled him.

Gojo staggered back, chest heaving. Sukuna followed, and for a second, they were both just standing there, eye to eye, blood dripping onto the mat from matching cuts and bruises.

Neither of them gave in.

But Shoko could see the difference now. They weren’t standing tall anymore. They were swaying.

She hated it. Hated how thin the line looked from here. Hated the way Gojo's knuckles curled like he was holding himself upright through will alone. Hated that no one had called it. Because it couldn’t be called, not yet. Not unless someone went down and stayed down.

The bell rang.

It sounded like salvation and a sentence.

Gojo walked back to his corner on legs that didn’t look quite steady. Shoko was moving before the ref even waved them over. Geto was already there, hands sure, calm, doing what he always did, what only he could do. Anchor. Ground.

But Shoko’s job was different. Her hands moved fast, dabbing the reopened cut above his brow, checking the way his eyes tracked her, flicked just briefly toward the blood on the towel.

“You still with me?” she asked.

He blinked, then grinned. “Still prettier than he is.”

“Delusional, then,” she muttered, but the relief was real.

She pressed the gauze, cleaned, checked his pupils. No signs of that hit having left a lasting mark. Yet.

The break was short.
Geto iced his face, leaned in, said something she didn’t catch, low and direct.

And Satoru, quiet for just a beat, listened.

Round three was coming.

She could feel it in her bones.

Neither of them would last another like that. It had to end. Now.

Suguru pressed the ice pack to his ribs. It made Satoru hiss through his teeth and brace hard against the seat, but he didn’t let himself flinch. Didn’t give in to the pain. Not in front of Sukuna, still watching him from across the ring. Not here, not now.

The fight wasn’t over.

Suguru’s voice was steady as stone beside him, calm even though his fingers had a white-knuckled grip on the corner of the stool. “He’s aiming high next. You have to brace-”

“I know,” Satoru cut in, hoarse.

“You’re not doing it.”

A beat of silence. Satoru’s jaw clenched.
Snapping at Suguru just wasn’t in the books, not right now, not with where his focus had to be.
He was breathing hard, slow through his nose, one eye already nearly swollen shut. His heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of his ribs, his pulse roaring like surf in his ears. But even with all that, his lips twitched upward, grinning. Not for show. Not for ego. Because this… this mattered. And he was still here. 

But the possibility of losing? Didn’t sound like so much of a ridiculous fantasy anymore.
How thrilling.

“Don’t worry,” he rasped, voice rough. “I’ll make him work for it.”

Suguru leaned in, rested a hand on his shoulder. Firm, grounding.
“Guard. High, then low. Stay vigilant. Don’t give him your back. You’re not untouchable, we both know that. Fight like it. Show me again, how the champion does it.”

For a moment, just one moment, everything else in the world went quiet. More than the words, Suguru’s presence, his certainty, his unshaken confidence shook through him.
And Satoru could smell him. That familiar warmth. Something safe buried in the chaos. His spine straightened almost on instinct.

“I will… Thanks,” he muttered.

And just like that, the moment of doubt was behind him.

He stood.

No ceremony. No fanfare. He stepped into the ring for the final time like a man stepping into his own legend.

There was no music. Or maybe there was, and it was swallowed by the pounding in his ears, the crackling energy from the crowd, the hum of the storm building above the ring.

Across from him, Sukuna was already there. Bloody. Smirking. Deadly.

Round Three. It had to be the last one - neither of them could afford another, after this.

They collided in the center before the bell had fully faded.

No taunts. No bullshit. Just impact. 

Strike, parry, block, strike again. Every movement sharp, every breath calculated. Satoru’s style shifted, cut down to the bone, no flourish, no wasted energy. Every step was about survival now. Every hit had the weight of the whole world behind it.

Sukuna lunged.

Satoru ducked low, pivoted inside his guard, and landed an uppercut that buried itself deep into Sukuna’s liver. He felt it hit. Felt the momentary buckle in his opponent’s core.

But Sukuna snapped back like a whip, spinning with a backfist that scraped open Satoru’s cheek. Heat flared. Blood splattered.

The world narrowed again.

Then he saw it.

Low- No. A feint. High.

Satoru reacted on trust before instinct, raised his hands.

Too slow.

The shot came through anyway. His head snapped back.

Stars bloomed across his vision. The mat tilted under his feet, and suddenly, he wasn’t sure which way was up.

His legs locked. Not from control. From panic. From sheer grit.

Sukuna was closing in. Relentless. Eyes cold and gleaming.

The panic Satoru had come to know the moment Suguru had landed that punch once, during shark tank, never seized his throat. He was steeled from the experience, didn’t let raw instinct take over.

Now Satoru could feel his brain scrambling, trying to reboot, but he found his footing. The dizziness told him he might be concussed, but-

Sukuna was in range now.

If Satoru went down, it would be with him.

They clashed again. A flurry of fists and knees. They were dancing on a knife’s edge, one clean hit away from collapse, from lights out.

And then the low kick came.

Fast. Brutal. Right for his ribs.

But Suguru’s voice rang out in his skull like a divine command - Guard low.

Satoru pivoted.

The kick grazed, painful, yes, but not shattering.

Sukuna was off-balance. Overextended.

Satoru saw the window.

Right hook - crack. Left elbow - thud. Knee to the chin - snap.

And then the finisher, an uppercut so precise, so devastating, it sent shockwaves up his own shoulder. It would’ve lifted a lesser man clean off his feet but Sukuna stood.

He swayed.

The ref was already stepping up. 

And still, Sukuna swung.

A last, desperate strike. Wild. Dangerous. A kill shot if Satoru had already been celebrating.

But he wasn’t.

No showboating. No grin.

Suguru had said it, and Satoru had listened.

He caught the arm. Redirected it. Landed a clean blow to the chin.

And Sukuna went down.

The ref dove in.

Round Three. TKO.

It was over - Gojo Satoru retained his belt.

The crowd detonated, but Satoru didn’t hear them.

His ears were ringing. His mouth tasted like small change. He stood on legs that trembled with every breath.

He raised a single fist. Quiet. Shaky.

The gesture of a man who knew he’d survived something meant to end him.

He hopped out of the ring. One foot, then the other, on autopilot, vision swimming.

He made it halfway to the barricade before the ground swayed and tilted like it had been waiting for him to stop pretending. His knees buckled-

Strong arms caught him. Suguru. Always there.

Satoru slumped against him, breathing like he’d run through hell and back. His cheek brushed Suguru’s temple.
“Not bad,” he croaked.

Suguru didn’t answer immediately. His arms were firm. His hold didn’t shake.

“You were watching, right?” Satoru whispered. “I didn’t turn my back.”

“I saw.”

“He almost had me.”

“I know.”

And still, somehow, Satoru grinned through it, dazed, soft, felt his whole face glowing like a kid with a scraped knee and a trophy in hand.
“It was fun,” he murmured. “Got to go all out.”

Suguru’s breath caught. Just a flicker. Barely there.

“…Yeah,” he said, voice low, a bit weird through the fuzz in Satoru's ears. "Finally satisfied, now?"

Satoru didn't have to think about it. Didn't have the capacity to think about it.
"Ask me again, when like, we can go back to midnight spars."

Suguru made some odd noise, a breathy laugh, maybe.

Then Shoko was there. Flashlight in hand. She pried open Satoru’s good eye and clicked the penlight once, twice.

“Definitely a concussion,” she muttered, voice tight. “You’re not walking out of here unassisted.”

“I’ve got him,” Suguru said before anyone else could open their mouth.

And he did.
Satoru leaned on him like it was natural. As if he'd done it a thousand times, as if it had always been this way.
Satoru didn’t care to remember a time before him.

The floodlights were dizzying now. Everything was noise. Screams from the crowd, medics hovering nearby, Shoko’s voice somewhere in the periphery giving instructions with terrifying calm.

But the moment someone mentioned interview, Satoru straightened like someone had hit his spine with a defibrillator.

“No way I’m skipping that,” he muttered, voice hoarse but alive.

“You can barely stand,” Shoko warned, one brow raised.

“Watch me.”

He caught Suguru’s wrist around his middle and dragged him along.

“Satoru, no-”

“Satoru, yes,” Satoru returned cheekily and Suguru, naturally, was no match for him when it came to willpower - or it was something about the sharp exchange of looks between him and Shoko he just registered in his peripheral vision.

“He stumbles, I’m calling it,” Shoko threatened.

“If he stumbles, I’m carrying him out of here myself,” Suguru returned, like such things were to be decided above Satoru’s head all of a sudden?

Either way, his friend resisted for maybe another half a second before following with a resigned exhale, one hand still supporting Satoru’s back, just in case.

They reached the post-fight mic circle, cameras already rolling. Flashbulbs. Reporters jostling for position.
Satoru, bruised and bloodied and grinning like a lunatic, threw an arm around Suguru’s shoulders and leaned heavily on him, not just for support but for presence. He wanted him there, in the frame, like he belonged. Because he did.

“Gojo! A hell of a finish! What do you have to say about that final round?”

Satoru licked the blood off his split lip, winced, and let out a low whistle. “He almost had me. Real talk? That man’s a monster.” He chanced a glance over. Four eyes, four arms - whoops, no, just his visions going a little wonky! He swayed a little, leaned harder into Suguru’s side. Suguru didn’t budge.
“Props where they’re due,” Satoru continued, squinting out at the cameras.
“Sukuna brought the kind of fight that makes it worth getting out of bed in the morning. That’s respect. That’s the stuff that makes the belt mean something.”

The reporters surged forward.
“How’d you weather that last exchange?”

Satoru laughed, short and a bit manic. “Honestly? My corner saved my ass. You think I was smart enough to block that kick on my own?” He nudged Suguru with an elbow, eyes gleaming. “I got my voice of reason right here.” The arm around his middle, wrapped more securely than the belt that had made it around him at some unknown point, tightened.
Just a fraction, just enough to keep him from breaking in half.

But the questions kept coming.
He fielded a few more, Suguru getting palpably impatient with him while Satoru ducked one asking about his medical clearance (“I’m fine, totally fine, just a scratch, stop worrying, Shoko’s here, she’ll glue me back together”) until a sudden, unmistakable voice bellowed from the edge of the media circle.

“SATORU.”

Satoru flinched.

Yaga.

Oh, the old man was giving the stink eye hard. He knew what that meant. Press time’s over. Med box. Now.

“Well!” Satoru glanced at the reporters, gave them a half-salute. “Show’s over, folks.”

And then he let Suguru guide him back through the crowd. The noise faded behind them. The high was still there, under his skin, but the crash was coming. He could feel it. Every bruise. Every breath.

But he’d done it.

Not untouched. Not invincible.

But still the champ.

Still standing, barely. But standing. Whole.

And Suguru by his side.

Probably had more to thank him for than anyone in the arena would ever know.

Satoru didn’t remember sitting down, but apparently he had, because there was a thin med box mattress under his ass and Shoko was swishing back and forth in front of him now, the motions too smooth, ghostly almost, until he realized she was sitting on one of those twirly chairs without back and, yep, waving that damn penlight again.

“You shouldn’t even be conscious,” she snapped, voice sharp enough to cut through the fog. “You have a serious fucking concussion. Your pupils are uneven, your eye is already swelling, your coordination is shot. You’re barely vertical, Gojo.”

He blinked at her, slow and sticky. “Yeah, but... I’m still sexy, right?”

“Goddamn,” she growled, and that was when he realized- Shit, if she was taking swearing cues from Yaga now meant she was mad.
Serious Shoko, full medical-mode now, gloves on. 
“Walking around. Talking. Posturing like you didn’t just take five years off your life expectancy. Yapping doesn’t require brain function apparently! And you!” She pointed a needle for the drip right at Suguru’s nose, his support pillar inadvertently catching some heat by proximity. Satoru saw him swallow thickly. Good sense to be afraid.
“You let him do it! If he turns out more stupid than he already is, that’s on you, not me!”

Satoru tried to nod, fully supportive of the blame shift to someone else, but ended up listing to the side. Suguru caught him smoothly by the shoulder.

“See?” Shoko gestured with her flashlight like it was a weapon. “That's exactly what I'm talking about!”

Satoru was tuning her out now, not intentionally, but everything around him was a little gauzy. Her voice was still going, but his brain had filtered it into polite white noise. Suguru, on the other hand, was right beside him, tight lipped through his own scolding round, but also warm and quiet, focused on something else.

Satoru's hands, he realized.

He was unwrapping them with the same steady care he’d wrapped them earlier, peeling back the tape and gauze. His thumbs moved slow, precise, checking for swelling, easing cold compress packs over Satoru’s throbbing knuckles. Immediate quiet.

Satoru stared. Then he thought, with sudden, diamond-clear urgency - I want my treats.

Sugar. Salt. Snacks. Victory cake, or ice cream, or maybe one of those sweet jelly drinks that came in a pouch, that’d be poetic right about now.
Something cold and rewarding and probably neon-colored.

“Shoko,” he mumbled. “Shoko. Shoko. I wanna- Can I have something sweet? Please? Like, ah, like a juice box? Or gummies. Or- Suguru, she’s not listening to me. Shoko, pleaaaase-”

She barely looked at him. “You just asked if I was a fork a minute ago.”

“I did not-! ”

“She’s saying no,” Suguru said mildly, without pausing his hand care.

Oh. Oh wow, so now he was on her side, huh? Throwing him under the bus? Traitor, switching teams as soon as he got a little reprimand, how typical-

But the  Suguru's brow furrowed slightly, and he looked up at Shoko.
“...Wouldn’t eating something actually help? He’s losing color fast.”

His hero. Suguru was - is - always had been - the best. The bestest best friend anyone could ever wish for-

“Replenishing energy is one thing,” Shoko snapped, “Shoving junk into his face hole is another. He can have simple sugar, very slowly, after I’ve confirmed he won’t vomit the moment I look away. Drip first.”

“That’s me,” Satoru said faintly, belatedly. “Simple sugar.”

“Right now you're nothing but simple, idiot. You’re a slushie in a concussion helmet.”

Satoru groaned dramatically and started slumping, cheek landing on Suguru’s shoulder.

“Shoko, you’re mean.”

“Not as mean as you deserve," she scoffed back, then, not directed at him, "You, make him shut up, will you?”

Suguru tilted his head to the side, just enough to softly nudge into Satoru’s temple, voice low in a way that had Satoru’s skull buzzing - or maybe it just did that all automated now.
“You really want me getting up to go fetch sugar for you right now?”

Satoru opened his mouth-

“I’m pretty sure you’ll fall over while I’m gone.”

He frowned. “That’s... that’s fake news.”

“Mmh,” Suguru hummed, not buying it. “I’d rather not find out.”

Satoru went silent for a second, lips squished against Suguru’s shirt. Inhaled. A trickle of that sweet jasmine scent got under his tongue, making it heavy. Then, finally, he sighed.
“...Yeah, okay. Don’t leave.”

“Thought so.”
He felt Suguru smile, just a little, against his forehead. Maybe. He felt kinda numb in places. Drip drop working it's magic maybe.

Shoko returned with a cold compress for his eye and a cup of water he was explicitly told not to chug. Satoru gave up on arguing that she should’ve given him a straw then, halfway through. She was still muttering dire threats and or worse, harsh promises - “If you try to stand up again I’m zip-tying you to a gurney,” - so Satoru accepted his fate with only mild pouting now.

Because really?

He was happy here. Slumped into Suguru’s side, breathing him in, head buzzing and body wrecked and victory sitting heavy in his hands.

So fine. No treats yet.

He could wait.

Kind of. Maybe. Sorta. Definitely maybe.

(Probably not.)

Chapter Text

Gassed - when a fighter is exhausted and unable to maintain their pace, often due to poor conditioning or a grueling fight.

—

After the fight, Satoru learned to hate hospitals.

Weeks slipped past in a blur of sterile light and pain, migraines grinding behind his eyes like broken glass.

The dark became a refuge. Too much noise, too much light. He couldn’t hold onto time, not really.

Visiting hours came in bursts of color, again too loud, too bright, too much, but he smiled anyway, cracked jokes with a dry throat and a too-quick heart, and only let himself fall apart when the door shut and he was alone again.

Several weeks later


“He’s in a bad way,” the woman said seriously, arms folded, her face ghost-pale under the hallway lights.

Suguru inclined his head, a small bow of thanks. “I feared as much. Thank you for watching over him while I was gone.”

“Not at all. It’s my job.”

They nodded like clockwork, practiced in this dance of concern and professionalism through too many visits already.

Suguru stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind him softly. Darkness swallowed him. All curtains were drawn tight to keep out the light that could trigger Satoru’s migraines.

A wail met him immediately.

“Kurooooiii? You back again already? Good, I wanted to ask you to bring me-”
Satoru froze like a deer in headlights in the entrance to the large living room, brain haltingly computing the new situation.
“Suguru!”
And then, belated, Satoru remembered not to sound too chipper and hale, lest he miss out on being pampered.
Immediately, his delighted expression dropped into one of pure anguish. “Suguru…”

The voice was a miracle of melodrama, and he draped one arm over his face, Satoru’s blue eyes peeking out from underneath, wide and glistening, pushed to maximum puppy look capacities as if to check the act landed as he wobbled forward like the world’s most pitiful swan, leaning against the wall for support, half performance, half necessity.

“Tell me,” he said dramatically, “have you brought my cure?”

“Back to bed,” Suguru replied, not even bothering with a hello. They’d been through this routine too many times.

“But-”

“Bed, Satoru.”

“I was just-”

“Don’t make me pick you up and take you there myself.”

That got a pout. A real one. Lower lip out, shoulders slumped.
“You like carrying me.”

“Not when you’re more bruise than man.”

That shut him up. He huffed and pouted, but at least he stopped protesting.

Suguru gently but firmly steered Satoru back to his bedroom, easing him down as if he were made of porcelain. Satoru always huffed and puffed about this part, but Suguru could feel the tremor in his body and the way he curled instinctively around his ribs, even while pretending otherwise. The bruising hadn’t fully faded, persistent even weeks after the fight despite Satoru’s unusual healing speed.

And his head… well, it was Satoru’s head. There’d always been something wrong with it.

Still, concussions were serious shit.

Satoru had made light of it every chance he got, checking every possible box for cliche reenactments.

In the past few weeks he’d:

- Pretended to be in a coma when Haibara visited, only to actually fall asleep halfway through the prank and admit it blearily when paramedics showed up.

- Acted like he’d lost his memories when Nanami was on watch duty, repeatedly asking why there was a stranger in his house and threatening to call the police if he continued to be stalwartly denied basic amenities (snacks).

- Invented a fantasy language (half Klingon, half ancient Latin for some reason) and refused to speak to Shoko in anything else for her entire visit, driving her to throw down her stethoscope and storm out.

- Nearly gave Ijichi a heart attack by lying sprawled on his living room floor with ketchup splattered around his head, pretending he’d split his skull open in the brief window between caretaker shifts.

- Called Utahime every day over the gym landline, acting like she was the one with a head injury and cheerfully insisting she’d regain her full brain capacity soon, until she slammed the phone down so hard she broke it. (He’d at least paid for the replacement.)

- Done something with Yaga during his one visit that neither man would discuss afterward. Even Satoru stayed suspiciously quiet about it, which meant Yaga had probably threatened violence or, worse, a gym ban.

- Persuaded Kuroi, head of gym maintenance, into giving him house visits to “keep the place livable” because he didn’t want strangers around. He mostly used this as an excuse to argue with Riko, Kuroi’s younger relative, like a bored older brother.

Lastly, he’d greeted Suguru by rising from bed like a mummy, arms stiff in front of him, head bandaged in gauze he’d wrapped himself. Completely unnecessary for his actual head trauma. He’d likely started wrapping it to block out light and gotten carried away.

“You have to do it,” he’d insisted, “I’m a braindead zombie now. Suguru, only you’re allowed to kill me. Take me out of my misery.”

“It’s mummies that are wrapped in bandages, idiot.”

“I’d prefer ‘daddy’ myself, but whatever floats your boat~,” Satoru had shot back, then promptly lost the thread and started a heated debate about whether zombies and mummies were the same thing.

Suguru maintained they were not. Mummies were vengeful souls, protecting tombs. Zombies were mindless creatures driven to eat brains. Their lore was ridiculous, that was Suguru’s point. But Satoru had needled him until he’d fallen asleep in the middle of their argument. Suguru had technically won, though it had felt like a cheap victory.

Some people claimed, as far as the terrible pranks went, that Suguru was getting the sweetest end of the ordeal, yet no one volunteered for champ-wrangling lessons with him. Suguru had basically become the sole willing caretaker, except perhaps for Kuroi, who was simply too kind to say no.

They’d even developed a kind of code language. “In a bad way,” for example, meant the ailing champion was in an especially whiny mood… which was every day Satoru wasn’t allowed to bounce around all over the place in a deranged Flubber reenactment.
So Suguru pulled the Tupperware from his bag. Time to coax him into cooperation.

Satoru sat up immediately, nose twitching. “Wait, is that- uh… frosted muffin?”

“A recreation,” Suguru said mildly, careful not to highlight how sometimes Satoru’s brain still lagged. Words slipped away, thoughts dropped mid-conversation. He spoke calmly, like he was just clarifying, because he’d had his own share of concussions back in his fight-club days and knew how humiliating it felt.
“Of the birthday cupcake you wanted. Fan edition.”

Satoru looked at him like he’d hung the moon. “You love me.”

Suguru chose not to answer that and instead fixed Satoru, who was already reaching for it, with a serious look, holding it away.
“This is only if you sit still and let me check you over.”
Some would call it bribery. Suguru called it taming. Check-up days were no easy thing.

He peeled back the lid and presented his hard work. It was topped with the exact same kind of swirl, same confetti flakes, carefully sourced, and even a little edible star, baby blue.
It was a stunning match for the original.

He’d basically burned the mental image of it into his brain because…

Truth was, Satoru’s birthday cupcake? That gooey, underbaked, bland mess Suguru had sold it to his friend as?

Yes, Suguru had abso-fucking-lutely lied through his teeth about it.

That thing had probably been the best fucking cupcake - no, food item - Suguru had ever put in his mouth, having melted on his tongue like a blessing. And he wasn’t even a huge sweets guy, honestly.

Fuck, he’d barely kept a moan back when he’d tasted it, and he’d known he couldn’t let Satoru have even a swipe of the (heavenly, fluffy) swiss Meringue buttercream frosting or see the wrapper scrawled with the name and number of whoever baked it. Suguru’s pride as an alpha refused to let him feed Satoru something homemade by a potential rival for his affections.

No. Fucking. Way.

So he’d spent hours researching, test-baking, and turning his kitchen into a war zone of bowls and batter. Then he’d called his most trusted consultant for help. The day before now, he’d visited Nanami and Haibara (who didn’t live there, but had been so casually present Suguru hadn’t questioned it) for an impromptu baking crash course that turned into a sort of high school reunion.

He wished he could say it was just to hang out with them. But no. This was entirely about his ego.

Of course, his mistake had been dangling the cupcake in front of a sugar addict. He’d only turned away to put the lid back on when it happened. Satoru lunged like a cat after catnip, only to immediately groan in pain as Suguru snatched the cupcake out of reach.

Suguru caught his shoulder as he sagged forward, fighting dizziness. Or so someone with an untrained eye might think.

Satoru whined. “You’re- urk- torturing me. The Geneva Convention-”

“...Satoru. You know I know you’re acting, right?”

Satoru sucked in a breath-

And then went for another damn swipe at the sugary treat, like Suguru wasn’t expecting exactly a devious move like it when it came to Satoru and food.

Hah. Didn’t even get close.

“I will leave, if you are. With the cupcakes. I’ll eat them myself.” Empty threats and lies.
Suguru had already eaten the other half of the batch with his kohai and could barely stomach another bite. They were that good.

Satoru slumped dramatically into Suguru’s side.
“Fine. You win, you absolute bully. Do your dumb check-up.”

“Why can’t you just let me do it from the start? Do you want Shoko to come instead, pinching you every time you misbehave?”

“No…”

“That’s what I thought. I don’t think she’d bring you cupcakes either.” Suguru pointed out, slowly relaxing as his unwilling patient stopped being contrary just for the sake of it. Well, mostly. 

Satoru rolled his eyes while Suguru rolled out the medical supplies kit Shoko had given him. She’d long since grown weary of Satoru’s dramatics and started outsourcing to Suguru once Satoru was stable enough to stay home. It had taken a hospital stay first, though. Shoko had discovered Satoru was walking around with a severe concussion, hiding his pain behind laughter. That hadn’t held up for very long when the adrenaline had started to fade.

His hospital room had been a revolving door of friends, fans, trainers, and flowers. Suguru had watched them all come and go, especially on the first day of the new year. Only when they were alone, or when Shoko was there, did Satoru let the mask slip a bit more. She’d kept him longer than other doctors might have dared, because she knew what his pain tolerance could hide, but it was only after he’d been sent home that Suguru had really seen the true extent of it.

Recovery hadn’t been easy. Deep tissue trauma. Sensory overload. Nausea so bad he couldn’t eat more than broth and ginger chews for a week. And the constant whining about how he was being starved and how cruel it was to promise him sweets and then withhold.

But the worst of it? Rest. Rest, rest, rest. He knew Satoru grew more sick of hearing it than of his light meals. Satoru, or, well, everyone, had been kind of assuming he’d walk it off in record time, but the reality was, getting back to full health wasn’t always such a linear path.

Suguru had held firm. No screens. No bright lights. Weighted blankets. Carefully timed small bites of food. Quiet reassurance. Scent patches always on. The proper medical grade, no matter how much Satoru argued that this would be the perfect time to build his scent tolerance.

The toughest battle had been enforcing moderation on the champion who’d been looking forward to turning his cut into a bulk phase.
Small bites of food, carefully timed, one kind of sugar at a time.

Finally, Shoko had given the green light for more complex meals just a few days ago and so, once the check-up was wrapped up, Satoru bit into his cupcake with relish like it held the cure to all ailments.

“I forgot how good real food tastes,” he moaned after his first bite. “I’m gonna cry into this muffin.”

Suguru didn’t correct him about the cupcake versus muffin issue, though his inner smartass reared its head each time, itching to ‘um, actually’, and just raised the rest of the cupcakes in the box for Satoru to see.

Satoru’s eyes sparkled, and his voice grew soft. “Really? No more ban?”

“You’re impossible to deal with when you’re hangry,” Suguru shrugged, downplaying it a bit by sipping from his thermos and offering it to Satoru so as to not cause too much excitement.

They were quiet for a moment as Satoru drank. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and handed the cup back.

“So,” he said, eyes twinkling, “when you’re done with your fight, and you’ll be recovering quicker since you’re kicking ass, not getting it kicked… we’re doing it, right? You, me, zero responsibilities, sand in every crack? Beach vacation?”

Suguru raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re up for that kind of sun exposure so soon? You might burst into flames.”

“Pff, my transformation into a vampire isn’t even complete yet,” Satoru waved off, unconcerned, “And anyway, I’ll bring sunscreen. You bring sarcasm. Together, we’ll be unstoppable.”

Suguru huffed a quiet laugh, hiding his smile behind the thermos cup. “I’ll consider it. After the fight.”
That, at least, should give a realistic time frame for recovery… March, maybe early April.

Satoru, to his credit, didn’t argue but instead gave a satisfied nod.

Then, for once, he fell silent. A few minutes passed in peace. Satoru finished a second cupcake beside Suguru, who perched on the bed’s edge, imagining brushing the frosting from the corner of Satoru’s mouth with a knuckle before his friend lazily smudged it away himself, licking his thumb clean. 

…Hm. 

Bad time to be getting thoughts, Suguru told himself firmly, and pushed them to the back of his mind, refocusing on the present.

Satoru’s eyelids were growing heavy, blinking slower, head already nodding as he tried to crumple up his cupcake wrapper. Even talking and moving around still exhausted him fast these days. He hadn’t even narrated the cupcake experience, didn’t ask for another, or try to emotionally manipulate Suguru into giving up fighting in favor of opening up a private bakery just for him… not with words, at least.
Instead, he leaned against Suguru’s shoulder and hummed softly, eyes fluttering shut.

That was his cue.
Suguru raised a hand, cupping it gently over Satoru’s eyes to block out the faint light coming through the blinds. The little darkness calmed him, helped with the migraines, though Satoru didn’t ever remark on them when they actually got bad. Just like now, he let Suguru figure it out himself.

With a soft sigh, Satoru went out like a light.

Suguru stayed there a moment longer, watching him sleep, each time awed anew by the depth of trust Satoru placed in him. He’d planned to tell him, once the spotlights were off, about the feelings. The fight and how he’d reacted to it had made everything clear.

If not for Satoru, then for Suguru himself. The fear, the fury, the need to stay. It all pulsed inside his chest, a steady rhythm of loyalty and longing.

But it wouldn’t be fair to spring all that on him now. Not when Satoru would throw himself into anything he loved without moderation. He’d grin through headaches, ignore symptoms, make grand gestures. If Suguru opened the door to those feelings, Satoru wouldn’t approach it halfway.

Amazingly, Suguru wasn’t even afraid of being rejected anymore. He recognized, of course, that Satoru still might not feel the same way, that even if he did, he might not want the same things, but he didn’t believe that would be anywhere near enough to break them apart at this point.

He just didn’t want to give Satoru something he might not be ready to handle until he was truly well again. Besides, Suguru appreciated the grace period. This time to orbit closer and closer.

So Suguru waited. After his fight.

When Satoru could come cheer for him instead. When they’d both be standing tall, eyes wide open, with no brain fog getting between them.

Until then…

He smoothed the blanket over Satoru’s shoulders, picked up the crumpled cupcake wrapper, and tucked the remaining cupcakes into the fridge for later. Then he settled into the chair beside the bed and reached out, quietly, to rest his hand over Satoru’s.

Still here. Still waiting.

And he would wait as long as it took.

Satoru had never realized how easy it was to get Suguru to spoil him.
Honestly, it was a little alarming.

He’d been losing his mind. Still was, spectacularly, dramatically, one mild headache at a time. One leftover ice pack sweating into his couch cushions at a time.

It was the end of January, which was borderline offensive, because how the hell was it already nearly February when he hadn’t been allowed to leave the apartment long enough to see snow properly? His calendar claimed he’d been “recovering” for almost a month, but he refused to count it in months. Months sounded tragic. Weeks. It had only been a few weeks.

His body felt better by now, mostly.

The vertigo wasn’t flooring him daily anymore, and he could finally think in full paragraphs instead of scattered memes and static. But every day still felt like he was dragging himself through molasses, his brain a second behind where he wanted it to be.

He’d been used to moving at ninety miles an hour. At handling people, problems, emergencies, life, flying through all of it on pure momentum and adrenaline unmatchable by caffeine. Now… he was fragile. “Restricted.” Banned from sparring. Banned from running. Banned from screens for so long it nearly broke him, though thankfully that particular ban was mostly lifted now.

And, yeah, of course he was self-aware enough to know that this made him absolutely insufferable, but what was he supposed to do about it? Take a walk to clear his head? Punch it out on a sandbag? Hah!

A month ago, he’d expected maybe a week, two max, before Suguru would tap out like everybody else. Not that he could blame them. He’d worked through half the symptoms by sheer force of will and comedic distraction, but even he could admit it had been…a lot. The dizziness, the headaches, the fog. The whining. So much whining.

But Suguru? He just kept showing up. Like it was nothing. Like it was normal. Like he’d planned, on purpose, to use all his time off work, what little of it he even took, to fuss over Satoru and bake cupcakes and make sure he didn’t do something catastrophic with the toaster oven.
(Which, for the record, he hadn’t. Technically.)

Today, Satoru was especially keyed up. He could tell by the way his body practically vibrated against the couch, restlessness a physical thing pressing out from under his ribs. He’d already tried pacing the living room (denied), reorganizing the spice cabinet (vetoed), and proposing that Suguru let him watch a training stream (shut down with a single look).

And yet…for all the cabin fever, he was also a little giddy. Because no matter how much of a nuisance he’d been, Suguru hadn’t flinched once. Even now, when Satoru insisted, like he did every other day, that Suguru promise not to schedule his own fight before Satoru was ringside and ready to shout at the ref if things got dicey.

“Promise me,” he demanded, prodding Suguru in the bicep where he’d perched next to him. “Swear. None of this ‘oh I’ll just take something small at a local venue’ nonsense. I’m going to be there. VIP.”

Suguru didn’t even hesitate. “I swear.”
Just like that. No huffing, no needling. Like it was obvious.

That was almost more disorienting than the concussion itself.

Maybe Suguru was going soft on him. But…he didn’t hate it.
And anyway, he was mostly fine now. The headaches were mild compared to the ones he’d spent weeks covering up with forced laughs and elaborate pranks. Thanks to Suguru, and okay, to Shoko and everyone else, he could admit that, he was well enough to start light stretching again.
(Not that Shoko would forgive him if he credited Suguru first in his big triumphant return speech. But hey, Shoko hadn’t baked him cupcakes so good he’d seriously contemplated proposing marriage over the frosting alone.)

Still, they all deserved credit. Probably.
He just had his favorite.

Satoru stretched his legs out and sighed theatrically. “You know what else you didn’t tell me?”

Suguru glanced up from his phone. “What now?”

“That you went viral.”

He grinned, teeth flashing as he pulled up the clip again, one of many he’d saved. “I can’t believe you didn’t show me this. I had to find it myself like some common fan.”

It was the footage from right after the last title defense, where Satoru, half conscious, high on adrenaline, still in his wraps, all sweaty and grinning, had insisted on stopping for a post-fight interview. Suguru had been balancing Satoru with one arm, quietly trying to steer him toward the medic station, and Satoru, ever the gracious champion, had declared to the camera, “I got my voice of reason right here!”
(Pretty fitting considering he didn’t even remember like, half that interview.)

Meanwhile, Sukuna was off to the side giving the press his unimpressed scowl, and Uraume, behind him, was glaring absolute daggers at Suguru. Like they were personally offended he had stolen the spotlight.
The memes were glorious.

Satoru scrolled gleefully through them:

“Gojo u better watch your corner guy’s back after painting that target on it”

“Red corner guy: ‘Die.’ Blue corner guy: ‘Drink some water, babe.’”

“blue corner guy giving tired spouse energy”

“Gojo’s designated handler deserves hazard pay”

“what’s with that sassy lost child?” - accompanied of a freeze frame of Uraume’s glare directed at Suguru's back.

“when u see your ex thriving without you”

“w hen your rival’s corner is hotter than yours ”

He was cackling by the time Suguru sighed. “I didn’t show you because I knew you’d end up glued to your phone all night. You can’t moderate, Satoru.”

“Huh? Wasn’t listening. Hey, look at this one! Uraume looks two seconds away from summoning an ice spear with their eyes to shank you. You could’ve warned me my tired spouse-”

“-not your spouse-”

“-my very tired spouse was trending.”

Suguru rolled his eyes, but Satoru could see the corner of his mouth twitch. He liked this, Satoru was sure of it. He probably missed the chaos.

So, of course, Satoru saved every meme to his phone, then set one as Suguru’s contact photo, just to be thorough.
When Suguru caught him doing it, he only shook his head, resigned.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Satoru said, grinning as he leaned in to bump their shoulders together and saved Suguru as “tired spouse” in his phone. “But you missed the ridiculousness.”

Suguru didn’t deny it.

Suguru’s Birthday Eve – Suguru’s POV

Suguru leaned against the kitchen counter, twisting the cap off a sparkling water. The low murmur of laughter from the living room followed him like static. The clock on the microwave blinked 11:46 PM. Fourteen minutes to his birthday, and his friends were determined to drag him over the finish line.

Toshihisa joined him, carrying two beer cans. “Manami and Larue are relentless tonight,” he said, nudging Suguru’s arm. “So… how’s it going with Satoru?”

Suguru paused, thumb running over the ridges of the bottlecap.

“It’s… yeah, he’s been doing better. Much better. I want to tell him,” he admitted quietly. “I just… I’m waiting until he’s a little more steady. He’s getting there. But if I dump all this on him now, I’m afraid he’ll overthink it, or push himself too hard. He deserves to heal without me adding anything complicated.”

Toshihisa cracked open his beer, giving him a gentle grin. “I trust you to know when it’s right. You’re a patient guy. And he’s not looking like he’s going anywhere.”

Suguru huffed a soft laugh. “He better not. He’s a pain in my ass, but he’s mine.”

“Gross,” Toshihisa said, smirking. “That's like a full-on love declaration in you-speak. I’m telling the others you said that.”

“Don’t you dare-”

But before either could leave the kitchen, Manami and Larue burst in.

“What’s the holdup?” Manami demanded, slapping Suguru lightly on the shoulder. “We’re on countdown, birthday boy!”

“Five minutes!” Larue chimed in, shaking a phone like a metronome. “Miguel’s waiting on video. Don’t make him stay up till dawn in Nairobi for nothing.”

Suguru rolled his eyes. “I’m coming. It’s not midnight yet, and besides, we’re the ones ahead of Miguel.”

But right then, his phone buzzed with an incoming call.

Satoru.

A sheepish look up at his friends was met with unanimous eyerolls and shooing motions, telling him to just take it.

Suguru answered the video call with an exasperated smile. “Hey, you’re up late.”

“Duh,” Satoru shot back, fluffy haired and half-nestled in pillows but looking awake and well. “Like I’d miss your birthday? Wait… are you with people?”

Larue leaned in, yelling into the phone, “Oi, it's the cutie~ We’re celebrating Suguru’s happy birthday eve! Don't hog him! ♡”

"Birthday eve? That's a thing?" Satoru asked, awed and seemingly immediately ready to adopt the idea.

"Jesus did it, why can't anyone else, right?"

Satoru rubbed his chin, nodding along like that made perfect sense, and hell, Suguru hadn't considered the catastrophic energies his friend circle coming into contact with Satoru would create until he was confronted with the accomplished reality of it.

“Hey, champion. Congrats on the title defense!” Manami said, crowding in beside them, nudging even Miguel on his own video call into the frame so he could see what was going on.

Toshihisa raised his can in salute. "We were just talking about you."

Satoru’s eyes widened on the screen. “Wait, wait, wait, you guys know me? I mean, I know I'm kind of famous and Suguru probably can’t stop talking about me, but-”

“Oh man,” Manami said, elbowing Suguru, who had just been trying to subtly do the same to Toshihisa. “You have no idea.”

Larue, at the same time, pointed a manicured nail at the camera. “Honey, you have no idea.”

They high fived over Suguru's head, Manami jumping a bit to reach.

Satoru cackled. “Let me guess. You’re the secret mystery circle I keep not getting to meet? I know all your names, though. I’ve done recon.”

Manami waved him off. “Get better so we can actually hang out ringside at Suguru’s big fight.”

“Bet!” Satoru said. “But listen! You guys keep my corner guy perky for tomorrow. I’m getting him. It’s my turn for custody.”

Toshihisa laughed. “Yeah, yeah. You can have him. Not like it's gonna get too wild since his birthday falls on a Monday.”

“Hey,” Suguru protested with a laugh, “I didn’t pick the calendar.”

Larue rolled his eyes. “As if you'd be any more likely to let loose on a Friday night.”

Manami walked out ahead into the living room and yelled back, “Hey, wrap it up, Suguru! Miguel’s on the line waiting!”

Suguru motioned to bid for just one more minute, much to everyone's exasperated amusement, and slipped out onto the balcony with Satoru still on the screen.

The city lights flickered below him, cool air brushing his skin.

“Happy almost-birthday,” Satoru said, voice dropping a notch. “Sorry I can’t be there to throw you a crazy party on a yacht or something like that right now.”

"It was me who asked you not to," Suguru returned, voice softened, leaning into the railing. He could tell it really bothered Satoru, probably still feeling bothered due to his slow recovery, and even more so now that he couldn't  “Don’t worry about it. I prefer quieter things anyway, so this is more than enough for the occassion. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Satoru beamed. “Good. ‘Cause I’m gonna spoil you rotten for a change.”

Suguru barely had any time to feel all fuzzy and yearning about it. Inside, the hollering for the countdown was already starting.

“Go,” Satoru told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Suguru said his goodbyes and hung up, letting a rare grin spread across his face as he stepped back inside.

He wasn’t worried about the timing anymore.

Tomorrow felt like the right day for a lot of things.

Maybe even for being spontaneous, for once.

Chapter Text

Ankle Picker - a fighter who specializes in takedowns that target the ankles, often used to describe someone who repeatedly goes for low-level takedowns.

—

Setsubun Morning came right on cue with the first really heavy snowfall of the season.

Satoru hadn’t yet been cleared for training but he refused to let it beat him down. Because now? Now he was definitely ready to emerge from under his covers like a particularly buff butterfly ready for the start of spring. He cracked open his apartment door the second Suguru’s silhouette filled the peephole, not even letting him ring the doorbell or use the spare key issued to him.  

“Happy birthday!” he exclaimed first thing before Suguru was even given half a breath of time to say hello, flinging the door wide, grinning like a cat who’d just devoured the whole koi pond. “Come on in, come on in!”

Suguru blinked, did just that, and stopped short, eyes scanning the apartment.
“Was Kuroi here already?” he asked, a trace of bemusement in his smile.

“Nope! No Kuroi this time. Cleaned everything myself. Even the bathroom. Place was starting to feel like a sick ward.“
He paused, fingerguns pointing over his shoulder into the immaculate hallway. “Observe: no more of Shoko’s migraine voodoo charms or blood pressure sleeve or whatever it’s called! In a bag by the door, so you can take that back to her later. ‘Cause guess what, it’s been six weeks, baby! That’s the magic number. I’m done being an invalid.”

That had been the official estimation anyways, and so he went by that. No need to mention how he’d still woken up dizzy this morning. Or how he’d dropped the vacuum on his toe while tidying. None of that was relevant today. Today was about Suguru.

And Satoru had prepared.

Last time Suguru had been over Satoru had watched the steam swirl lazily from the cup of tea Suguru had made using a pot on the stove like some kind of medieval peasant and thought next time, I'm buying a goddamn kettle .

Suguru had made a face when he'd realized there wasn't one. Had muttered something under his breath about “how do you live like this” in that dry tone of his, teasing but not cruel, never cruel, and Satoru had laughed too loud, trying to wave it off with a joke about how “boiling water over open flame builds character.”

It hadn't stung. Not really. But he'd taken note, tucked the thought away. Added it to a quiet list of things to fix, not because he had to, but because Suguru noticed. Because it was him.

And so, now, he stepped back, arms spread, presenting the key points like a proud circus director announcing the attractions to come.
“Behold: the humble tea kettle, like real grown-ups own. And-!” he scrambled over to the kitchen counter and dramatically yanked the cover off his new pride and joy, “Look what I found on sale while I got this thing! A Transformers helmet rice cooker!”
He lifted the plastic lid, beaming. “The mask flips open to shout ‘AUTOBOTS, ROLL OUT!’ every time the rice’s ready. You cannot tell me that’s not peak domestic life.”

Satoru, though he may have rolled his eyes at Suguru or given snarky comebacks each time the other alpha had nagged at him about missing such japanese household vitals in the past and may have argued that takeout services and personal chefs existed for a reason, he’d also gotten pretty good at keeping his mouth shut when it mattered to get Suguru to spoil him with bringing him tea and making rice and other simple meals at his own home for Satoru. Now, however, it was time to prove his independence and show Suguru that this wasn't just another day of caring for the frail champion but rather all about the birthday boy and having fun - Satoru had gotten everything in order accordingly. 

Still, the awe and appreciation didn't yet seem to be setting in appropriately for Suguru who was still standing in the doorway, or maybe he just needed a bit more convincing, one brow creeping higher with each reveal. Satoru barreled on before he could get a word in.

“Also, just so you know, I went out by myself this morning. The sun was trying to murder me, but sunglasses exist for a reason. And check this out-”
He gestured grandly at the counter, where multiple grocery bags sat sorted into neat rows. “All the snacks your crunchy-salty-loving self could ever want. I hired Ichiji on my way back for extra arms because, you know, that’s what friends are for, right? Helping you lug home twenty kilos of senbei and Pocky and getting your dry-cleaning.”

Suguru choked on air, eyes widening. “You’re kidding.”

“What else is a manager friend for if not picking up my laundry and bringing me furikake onigiri on demand?” Satoru said sweetly.

“That’s not management or friendship. That’s indentured servitude.”

“Same thing.”

“And bullying.”

“Hardly. He likes helping me. He gets to feel useful. Win-win,” Satoru corrected, flicking on the TV, Digimon startscreen lighting up in brilliant color as he walked deeper into the living room just to see Suguru wasn’t really following.
“Come on. Take your shoes off and prepare to be amazed. Plan for today: enriching your tragica pop-culture void with Digimon. Games and movies. Snacks arranged by crunch-level, so you don’t accidentally go munch-deaf through emotional plot reveals. And later, if you’re not too blown away, we can go on the balcony and make a mini snowman.”

Satoru turned, finally pausing for breath, looking back at Suguru who was still in the entryway, looking genuinely touched. Maybe he had dropped all of this on Suguru a bit more rapidfire than he’d intended, but he really wanted to take advantage of the unexpected energy high he was experiencing. Still, the important things bear repeating.
Satoru’s voice dropped a fraction, softer.
“So, anyway… Happy birthday, Suguru.”

And he grinned. Because this time, for once, it wasn’t about him. Well, it was about spending time together, really, and Suguru seemed to get that if the sappy look on his face was anything to go by. The little splash of color looked actually really good on his cheeks. Maybe Satoru just missed seeing him exerted in training… or, uh, going to training in general.

Suguru finally stepped out of his shoes, setting them neatly in the genkan, and Satoru felt a zing of triumph zip down his spine. Victory. He was so ready for the ooing and aahing of admiration over the rice cooker or at least a comment on the Digimon playlist.

But instead, Suguru crossed the apartment in a few long strides and wrapped Satoru up in his arms.

Satoru stiffened for less than a breath, blinking stupidly, finding himself unexpectedly gathered against the solid wall of Suguru’s chest. “Ah-?”

“Thank you,” Suguru said just over his shoulder, voice low but warm enough to soak through Satoru’s skin. Made him go all funny-fuzzy inside. “Seriously. You didn’t have to go this far. I’d have been fine just staying in and… y’know. Not doing much today.”

Satoru scowled, squeezing Suguru back too tightly before shoving halfheartedly at his shoulders. The whole gym crew would get their turn taking Suguru out for drinks that upcoming weekend, but his birthday was today and not celebrating that accordingly just wouldn’t do.
“Well, that would’ve been boring. And your birthday should not be boring.”

“I know,” Suguru murmured. He pulled back a little, but not out of Satoru’s space. “Just… you don’t have to push yourself for me. But I appreciate it. All of this.”

The look in Suguru’s eyes made something in Satoru’s chest squeeze tight. He felt a flush crawl up his neck, equal parts fluster and relief that Suguru wasn’t making a big deal about recovery stuff today and liked this, wasn’t fussing or treating him like he might break.

So he cleared his throat and made a show of rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up and sit your ancient bones down.”

Suguru finally let him go and moved to the couch, sinking into it with a faint, indulgent smile. Satoru, pouncing on the moment, grabbed a bag from from the armrest and hid it behind his back, wresting out its contents.

“Blue or yellow?”

Suguru blinked for a second, then hesitantly brought out “...Blue?” right before Satoru flung one of the hoodies he'd just gotten out straight at his face.

“Happy birthday part two- uh, three!” Satoru crowed. “Try that on. I dare you.”

Suguru peeled the soft fabric off his head since he'd only managed to snatch the sleeve midair despite his quick reflexes, brows shooting up when he saw the Digimon crest and evolution line on the chest.

“Are you serious,” he said. But he was already tugging it over his shirt, sleeves stretching over broad shoulders.

“It’s perfect. Shut up. I knew you’d pick this one,” Satoru said, positively vibrating as he yanked on his own matching hoodie, motioning between them. “See, I got us a set. It’s called being soulmates, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Suguru deadpanned, smoothing the hoodie down his chest. “Huh. It's actually really comfy. Does it come with emotional damage immunity for watching Digimon with you screaming at the screen?”

Satoru gasped. “You love it and you know it. Besides, I’ve got the snack plan worked out so you won’t go crunch-deaf and miss any of the emotional trauma cutscenes or episodes.”

Suguru accepted the controller Satoru thrust into his hands, fingers automatically adjusting around the buttons. He leaned back into the couch, and Satoru crowded in, their shoulders squeezed together, warm and solid.

“You’re impossible,” Suguru muttered, but there was a softness in his tone.

“Yeah, but I’m your impossible,” the response almost automatic catchphrase status at this point, something just between them.

They settled in. Satoru tried to focus on the bright, spinning colors on the TV, but he had to blink away a dull throb of pain behind his eyes, the light pulsing too sharp sometimes. So instead, he let himself get distracted by the minute changes in Suguru’s face, the slight twitch of his mouth, the way his brows furrowed as he got pulled into the game, the occasional muttered curses.

A beat later, Suguru elbowed him lightly. “So. When are we planning our trip?”

Satoru barked a laugh. “Wow, that’s so you. Can we play one game without you plotting logistics? We’ll plan it later. In the snack breaks. Or while we eat. Which I’m ordering now, by the way, because snacks are snacks, but they’re not main food.”

Suguru shook his head, biting back a grin. “You’ve got this all mapped out, huh? Trying to fatten me up before my fight?”

“Duh. It’s your birthday. The only plan is: Suguru gets to relax, and I get to be annoying in peace.”

And maybe it was a little self-indulgent, Satoru thought as he called up the food delivery app. Maybe he was imposing his own perfect afternoon fantasy on Suguru. But the other alpha was right there, going along with it, occasionally snarking about the games just to poke him. And Satoru… he liked even that, though he would’ve booed anyone else who criticized his favorite franchise - it was fun with Suguru.

Because for the first time in weeks, it didn’t feel like recovery. It felt normal.

And their version of normal, Satoru decided, grinning as Suguru grumbled at the Digimon boss on screen, was a whole lot different from boring when in the right company.

Later, when the sunlight softened into gold and the ramen bowls were empty and a Digimon movie was in full swing so they could be hands-free for eating, Satoru nestled in beside Suguru like it was instinct. Suguru had made comments, insightful ones even he may not have considered before, about the character and relationship development over time as well as the lore, which seemed to be his favorite part. A sure sign the conversion was well underway.

Satoru leaned his head back against the couch, watching Suguru sip his tea. Well, his tea. Satoru hadn't had anything but instant, but he'd gotten some of those weird health blends and the more sophisticated shit Suguru liked. He'd still picked the instant, saying he'd gotten kinda used to the taste. Didn't mind it with a bit of sugar, like how Satoru drank it.
And that's when Satoru had felt it again, that fizzy, under-the-skin buzz of something not quite unfamiliar anymore but nice.

Happy. That was the word. Happy, like how he thinks normal kids must feel having their friends visiting. The snacks. The game. The easy laughter. No expectations. No cameras. No pressure to be the strongest or the most marketable or the face of the gym .

Just Satoru .

And Suguru. Sitting beside him like he belonged here.

“This feels like… those high school afternoon hangouts people talk about,” Satoru murmured, voice low, like saying it too loud would crack the peace. “Y’know. Minus the homework and emotional repression.”

Suguru gave a small hum, but nothing more. The silence stretched. Not tense, not awkward, just... noticeable. Satoru opened one eye lazily. He already knew the movies by heart, so he could let the movie run in his head while listening without overtaxing his retinas with the bright colors.

“You asleep?”

“Nope.”

“Weird. You usually say something snarky.”

Suguru glanced at him, then back at the screen. “I never really had that kind of casual after-school thing. Not in high school, at least. Even after that, it definitely was nothing like this.”

“Oh.” That made Satoru pause. “Huh. Well... me neither. I mean, this is premium tier. Ramen, anime, great lighting, top-tier company. Peak slice-of-life vibes.”

Suguru breathed in like he might say something else, but didn’t.

So Satoru felt the sudden urge to fill the lull. It was meant to come out light, totally in line with after school special topics. “So. Did you ever have a dumb school crush or something on an omega classmate? Like... the kind where you swore you'd marry them and run off into the sunset with matching sneakers or some shit?”

It was playful. Supposed to be, anyway.

Satoru caught the way Suguru’s eyes shifted slightly, the way they always did when he didn't want to say something. “Not really.”

“Oh.” Satoru blinked. “Not even, like, a celebrity or cute omega from a differnet school? Nothing?”

“No… I didn’t really think about stuff like that back then,” Suguru said, reaching for his drink without looking at him. “Still don’t.”

“What, like not even when some classmates had unexpected heat scares in class?”

“That mostly only happens in dramas, Satoru. In real life, that'd be horrifying, you know.”

“Ahaha, really? You're ruining my high school fantasies. But that whole too cool for school and crushes thing kinda make sense for you. I mean, you don’t look it, but deep down you really got that lone wolf kinda thing going for you, huh? Can’t be tied down. Very toxic masculine of you. I get it.”

“Do you, now,” Suguru snorted, remained quiet for only a few moments, then shook his head. “How about you?”

Satoru laughed. “What, having crushes? While being homeschooled? Nah. When I was running away from my responsibilities I didn’t have time for crushes, and I had taste. Arcade time all the way. Most of the omegas that came up to me couldn't even bench their own weight. Also I was… very hot. There’s probably a huge hidden figure of those too intimidated by that to come forward.”

“Right... But no crushes?”

“Unless you count models in magazines. But dating them sounds exhausting. I like, you know, strength. Inside and out. Brains before looks but hot enough to match and zero insecurities about standing next to me.”

Suguru hummed like he understood, but then he came up with an absolute banger of a conclusion, saying “So… someone like Yuki?”

“Pffft- what?! Suguru, she’s an alpha. As if I’d ever be so desperate. I’m sure someday some freak omega will come her way, and mine for that matter, but until then? I’m pretty content single.”
And he was, really. Satoru couldn’t imagine wanting to spend his day any other way, the possibility of having some clingy partner making him hang on the phone and make promises to finish up before midnight or whatever sounded absolutely dreadful to him. He’d rather be spending his time with Suguru.

Next to him, his friend hummed in answer again but didn’t ask anything else and their conversation drifted off as the next Digimon battle lit up the screen. Satoru, resting his shoulder against Suguru’s, let his eyes drift closed, belatedly feeling like somehow he’d missed a step there somewhere but unable to pinpoint where. Or maybe it was just the food coma making them both lethargic and quiet. Also the scene was really good. Couldn’t fault Suguru for paying attention.

When the movie finished, finally Satoru clapped his hands to breathe a bit of life back into the party and startle them both out of the drowsy mood. “Now that we got the most important parts checked off the agenda, let’s discuss what I know you’ve been looking forward to the most! We’re long overdue to argue about the trip. So. Beach. Ocean. Sunshine. Am I dragging you to jetskis or are you more of a ‘sip something on the veranda and judge everyone’ kind of guy?”

Suguru huffed out a soft laugh at that. “Definitely the latter.”

“So no snorkeling?”

“I didn’t say that,” he replied, lips curling just slightly.

Satoru beamed, heart doing stupid things as he pulled his phone out. “Okay, cool, I already have five places saved, but this one has a rooftop pool and the other has breakfast included, but I also kinda like grabbing that on the fly, so definitely this other one here with dynamic-”

“Why did you announce we would plan this together if you already decided?”

“Because,” Satoru said, breezily, “I needed your input on which of the five amazing options to book. Duh.”

“And we did the Digimon initiation first, instead of this, so it’s already this late and we’re both tired, because…?”

“Critical to the vibe of the trip,” he insisted. “But also bait for your freaky scheduling fetish, so you'd stay engaged. Now come on, at least pretend to be with the program. We’ll look hot. We’ll get sun. We might even finally see some fat sunburnt guy in swim trunks that looks like Ice Cream Drop Man from Lilo&Stitch. Life-altering stuff.”

Suguru gave him a look that was far too fond for someone trying to act unimpressed and not snort tea up his nose.
After composing himself a bit, he said, “Right. But we’re not just staying by the water the whole time, are we?”

“Oh no,” Satoru groaned dramatically, flopping sideways over the arm of the couch. “Here comes the hiking agenda.”

“I’m just saying.” Suguru shrugged, casual but not really. “There’s stuff to see. Shrines. Lookouts. Trails. Hot springs.”

Satoru lifted his head. “You looked it up.”

Suguru didn’t answer that. Just sipped his tea, careful not to smile too wide.
“And,” he added lightly, “you’d probably find it funny to take pictures in front of some huge mascot statue or something.”

“That’s what you want to do?” Satoru grinned, wide and real, delighted. “Corny tourist traps?”

“I think you’d enjoy them more than I would,” Suguru murmured. “But yes.”

There’s a beat where Satoru just watched him, head tilted, lips parted in something like awe. If alpha on alpha marriage were a thing, he’d be dropping to his knee right about now.

It was technically still his birthday, though Suguru hadn’t expected it to stretch this long. The ramen bowls were rinsed out hours ago. The last of the Digimon movies on the must-watch list had rolled credits to the very end and they’d argued at length about overall pricing, when to book, which activities to do and other general stuff that needed to get put down before anything else could happen as Suguru had reminded they still needed to wait for his fight before actually putting anything in stone. But the foundations were definitely set and this alone, let Suguru’s little over-prepper heart beat a little easier.

Now the TV glowed with the garish colors of some B-grade action flick Satoru kept heckling, though Suguru, inexplicably, was the one who’d “picked it out” under Satoru’s also heckled instructions to do so.

Before starting Satoru had disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve cupcakes, calling out commentary from behind the fridge door, and Suguru found himself fidgeting, glancing at the time.

It wasn’t that he wanted to leave. Just… he’d started getting used to slipping away before it got too late, before Satoru noticed he was still half-hovering, still worrying, and so they both actually got some sleep, not more migraines from staying up too late.

But Satoru returned, practically bouncing, with a cupcake box balanced on one palm, energy still rocketing back up after the brief dip in the middle as there was sugar to be had.

“Ta-dah!” He popped the lid open dramatically. “Special birthday cupcakes, ordered half the batch less sweet, just for Mr. Grown-Up Taste Buds. Though you’ll still have to deal with some of the normal ones. That’s the law of birthdays. Unless you’re forced into a cruel contract like me to keep a title.”

“Heavy is the crown,” Suguru teased, unable to stop a smile. “You seriously deliberately ordered some of those frosting bombs with less sugar? That's so out of character.”

“Tch, of course,” Satoru said, puffing up a bit. “I’m a delightfully thoughtful person. You should write that in my birthday card next time!”

Suguru coudln't stop the fond smile from conquering his lips. Moments like these made him want to put a ring on it, so just writing a nice card? Very doable, he decided.

They settled back on the couch, cupcakes distributed on napkins between them, the cheesy explosions onscreen going mostly ignored.

Satoru was quiet for all of five minutes before twisting to look at him with a glint Suguru recognized all too well. Trouble.

“Hey, Suguru…”

Suguru grunted an acknowledging mm around a bite of cupcake. He felt privately smug that the bakery’s version tasted inferior to the ones he’d painstakingly recreated. Small victories. He raised an eyebrow, prepared for any nonsense. Or so he thought.

“Caaaan,” Satoru began, drawing out the word in a voice so sugary it threatened cavities, before blurting out the rest like a child confessing a crime, “you-take-your-patches-off-for-me?”

He didn’t look at Satoru at first, choosing instead to flick crumbs from his fingers, considering how best to shut him down easy without accidentally encouraging him. He could feel Satoru leaning in, practically vibrating, eyes locked on him like a cat about to pounce.

Finally, Suguru hummed low in his chest, turning to give him a flat stare. “Mh. My pants next?”

Satoru barked a laugh, bumping their shoulders together hard enough to jostle the cupcake plate.

“Dude! I’m just asking, but like, if you wanna be more comfortable, be my guest. Then I’ll for sure take mine off too, though, so be warned.”

Suguru gave him a withering look. “Warned about what? Your Transformers underwear?”

“Since you're so eager to know: It’s Digimon today, to match the vibe, but if you’d rather see-”

“We’ve shared a locker room before. I’ve seen plenty.”

“Well, someone’s been paying close attention," Satoru said, wiggling his thin, pale brows. "So? Patches first, then pants?”

Satoru didn’t mean a single word of it, Suguru knew that. Satoru teased like he breathed, thoughtless and constant, a cascade of shiny distractions meant to keep himself from ever sitting still long enough to feel things too deeply. Plus, the earlier comments on alphas had kind of put a damper on his flirtatious aspirations for now.

Suguru finished chewing, deliberately drawing it out just to be petty, enjoying the faint pout growing on Satoru’s pink lips. He swallowed carefully, dabbed his own mouth with a napkin, and gave his verdict. “No.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Satoru groaned, flopping sideways so dramatically that he nearly slid off the couch. “I’m ready. I wanna train again. I need to get back to scent drills, and who else am I gonna practice on? Shoko would punch me. Utahime would file a complaint. Nanami would actually kill himself, or me if I asked Haibara instead. Ijichi… no, actually I don’t think I could practice on Ijichi, haha, can you imagine? Does he even have a scent? I mean, I know he’s an omega, but-”

“It’s not a good idea,” Suguru said firmly, cutting that short, though the mention of Satoru asking anyone else... It was painfully, achingly Satoru. Pivoting the conversation from borderline indecent to a logistics problem about scent training, all in the space of a single breath, and Suguru couldn’t delude himself about it. He found it infuriating. No. No, he couldn’t let that spike of possessiveness get to him. “Your head-”

“I’ll be fine.” Satoru cut in, leaning forward, eyes bright. “I am fine. No migraine in sight.”

Suguru’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard Satoru’s 'no migraine in sight' voice before. It was the same one that meant I’m lying through my perfect teeth.

And Satoru knew he was caught. Because his next move wasn’t logic or whining. It was pure weaponized charm.

He tilted his head, lashes sweeping down, looking up at Suguru through a soft fringe of white hair. Not dramatic enough for Suguru to call him out, because if Suguru flagged this as emotional manipulation tactic, Satoru would make fun of being too easy to influence when he wasn’t even doing anything. When he really wanted something from Suguru with the least amount of resistance involved he didn't do the exaggerated caricature of cuteness anymore, all with balled up fists to push up his cheeks, and had actually gotten control of that too pouty lip by now. No, these days he did just enough to squeeze at something primal in Suguru’s chest, shining blue eyes like arrows striking his heart.

Goddamn him.

Suguru sighed, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “Satoru…”

“Pretty pleeeease?”

Suguru wanted to say no. He really did. But that look, combined with the lingering guilt that Satoru was missing pieces of his life because he still couldn’t go to training, no matter how often Satoru denied it bothering him, ate away at his resolve when this was something he could easily provide to make him feel more normal, headed somewhere, getting better...

“…Fine.”

The grin sparking to life on Satoru’s face could’ve powered the whole of Tokyo, fistpumping and everything. “Yes!!”

“But,” Suguru warned, voice firm, “you back off if it hits you too hard. Don’t act like you love vinegar burn up your nose just to prove a point.”

Satoru puffed up indignantly. “Pah, it’s nowhere near vinegar potency. I can totally handle your scent. I’m practically immune by now.”

Suguru snorted softly. “That’s just factually incorrect.”

Still, he reached up and peeled off the nude scent patch discreetly covering the gland to just one side of his neck, not meaning to overwhelm Satoru.

Instantly, the air in the room got a little easier to breathe with the rich warmth he recognized as his own scent emanating from him, neutral to himself but instantly making him feel more relaxed as he claimed the space with his unfiltered presence. Still, he was mindful of keeping a calm mind so as to not project his muddled feelings into the air. He’d been told his scent was naturally gentle, a touch woodsy, something that put people at ease. It didn’t hit as sharply as pure alpha aggression unless he did mean business, but it was potent all the same, and Suguru watched Satoru’s pupils flare wide.

Satoru sucked in a too-deep breath, then went visibly wobbly even while sitting down.

“Shit,” Suguru muttered, reaching out automatically to steady him.

“No, no,” Satoru insisted, waving him off with a shaky laugh. “I’m okay. I just… need to get used to it again.”

Suguru arched a brow. “Your definition of ‘okay’ is deeply flawed. If it’s too much you can take yours off or I put mine back on-”

Satoru slumped sideways, still holding onto his cupcake like it was the only thing anchoring him to earth, and pressed into Suguru’s side. His face was a little flushed, but he was grinning like an idiot.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself. It’s not bad. Just… strong. I mean I had your scarf and stuff, but the real thing’s better,” Satoru mumbled, eyes half-lidded. “Kinda makes my brain swim. In a nice way. No pain. Just… warm.”

That was... a lot to digest at once, and so Suguru didn't know what to say, except, “You tell me when it’s too much.”

“It’s not too much.”

Suguru sent a pointed look Satoru’s way.

“What? It’s not.”

Very convincing with his body language all over the place, yeah.

So Suguru put a calming hand on Satoru’s knee to stop the restless jiggling.
“Quit fidgeting, then.”
Satoru went perfectly still. Suguru removed his hand. Satoru started jiggling his knee again.

Suguru sighed, because he didn’t know how to properly respond to that without giving himself away, other than by saying, “Seriously, you’re impossible.”

“Delightful,” Satoru corrected primly, and nestled closer, no longer rattling around on purpose. They both settled, quiet until the credits rolled and Suguru could feel the subtle rise and fall of Satoru’s chest against him.

And despite the headache he was certain Satoru was hiding, despite the mess of complications between them, Suguru couldn’t help feeling fulfilled by the small, content warmth that had settled in his own chest.

Maybe he should say something. Or maybe he should’ve fought harder to say no.

But then Satoru would’ve just looked at him like that again and Suguru… Suguru had never stood a chance. He was kind of glad Satoru was so eager for closeness, but his heart was also going through a rollercoaster with the other alpha basically crying cooties every time romantic implications toward other alphas came up in conversation before he turned right back around and asked for something like this, getting up close and personal.

Suguru always made up these big plans and strategies inside his head for how he would act once he met up with Satoru again, what to say and how to succeed in finally letting his feelings be known and get a definitive answer, but when they ended up like this, just the two of them, all of that was pushed into the background by the brightness that was Satoru, demanding nothing but authenticity and to think on his feet. 

Suguru felt like he could brace himself all he wanted, know him better than anyone else ever would, yet still never be prepared for the impact that was Gojo Satoru. 

Which was why, for the first little while, he didn’t really say anything about the clinginess, needing a moment to compute it, how to react, how to settle into it. Sure, Satoru was more touchy than most, something that had only kept building between them over time, but this was… a lot. Even for him. Satoru's head was on his shoulder and their sides pressed tight, too tight for Satoru to actually be nodding off, nose to Suguru’s hoodie and breathing deep and content as a cat that had found a sunspot to stretch out in.

Really, he was a bit impressed he could stand to do so. Satoru was doing far better than he’d expected, so soon after his recovery.

Still, Suguru carefully asked, voice gentle and low, because the running commentary had stopped some time ago, “Hey… were you even paying attention to the movie towards the end?”

He tried to keep it teasing, but his chest felt tight. He was hyper-aware of the press of Satoru’s weight, the way he held his own shoulder so stiffly as to not jostle the alpha resting against it, the soft warmth of Satoru’s exhale against his throat since he’d moved in closer.

For a moment there was no answer but the hush of the credits rolling. Then Satoru gave a lazy hum, like he was considering whether it was worth the effort to speak at all.

Suguru snorted, despite the pounding of his pulse. “You getting tired? Should we go to sleep?”

He expected Satoru to scoff, toss his hair, and declare the movie was boring as hell, putting him to sleep. Instead he got that same vague, low hum. No snark.

Suguru blinked. His amusement slipped into quiet concern. He shifted slightly, angling his face to look at Satoru- and found vivid blue eyes half-lidded, blinking drowsily up at him.

Then Satoru looked him straight in the eye and rubbed his cheek into Suguru’s shoulder with the softest groan of contentment.

Suguru’s entire brain short-circuited.

Holy shit. Satoru was scent-drunk off his ass.

Suguru tried not to let the rush of heat or the wild flutter of his pulse spike his scent too much. His suddenly stiff fingers trembled only a little as he tilted Satoru’s chin up with careful pressure under his jaw.
“Satoru…hey, look at me.”

Satoru hummed again, lids drooping. But he didn’t fight it. His pupils were huge, nearly swallowing the sky-blue iris. His body swayed toward Suguru like a plant preening up to sunlight, until the full weight of his head settled into Suguru’s palm, a dopey grin stretching his lips.

Suguru fought the surge of instinct to curl closer, to bury his face in the pull of warmth exuded by Satoru like a magnetic field. Instead, he swallowed hard, trying to sound normal.
“I’m gonna take your patches off, okay?”

Satoru didn’t protest, just gave another soft, agreeable noise, likely registering nothing more than what must read to him as affectionate touch through the scent haze.

Suguru was starting to feel really conflicted about this, since it was his fault it had come to this. He’d wrongly assumed being in Satoru’s place surrounded by his scent would register for him as his space sufficiently to not view Suguru as a threat or overpowering presence and as long as he kept his scent calm there was nothing else that could go wrong since he wasn’t actively trying to claim Satoru’s 'territory'. He still smelled Satoru in here most of all, even though he wore his patches, and had thought keeping them on would be best to keep the overall scent saturation low but Satoru had just gotten completely lost in his scent it seemed. He'd just been so relaxed he hadn't thought- Well. Obviously he'd thought wrong.

This, of course, would be fine if Suguru were an omega or part of his family that he grew up with but Suguru was an alpha and this was not normal, it was anything but normal between two adult alphas not connected by blood to be so entirely relaxed in each other's space. To get this severely scent drunk… he was getting worried it had something to do with Satoru’s head, messed up hormones, maybe a change in his suppressants- 

Shit. He needed to not think about that right now. So he focused on what to do.

Carefully, Suguru peeled the small scent-suppressing patches from the sides of Satoru’s neck. Even though he’d expected it and was kind of an expert on dealing with other alpha scents, especially in aggressive high adrenaline states, though he’d smelled Satoru countless times, in the ring and out, he was still nearly overwhelmed at the first breath, digging his fingers into his own thigh while his other hand peeled off the second patch.

This was something else.

The shift was instant. Like warm air suddenly pressing in after a thunderclap.

It wasn’t sharp, not fierce lightning when he meant business or the more settled but still high-energy feel of thin air in high altitudes and ozone before a storm like when Satoru was bouncing around, nor did it come with that playful edge of cool ice that set Suguru on edge each time it curled up his nose whenever Satoru was teasing, pushing, testing, and just generally playing jump-rope with boundaries drawn like lines in too soft sand.

Instead, it was sweet, gentle. Cozy. Like hot cocoa cut with bright peppermint syrup, distinctly Satoru, but without the usual electric edge. Suguru’s breath hitched.

This should not be happening.

Two alphas. Not even remotely committed in a physical sense. Not family. No established hierarchy between them. Satoru should not be like this. He should not be curling closer, trying to scent him, pressing his nose to Suguru’s hoodie, nuzzling against him.

Suguru had to steady himself with a slow breath. He was half sure if he let his own feelings show, if he let his scent shift with how goddamn conflicted between panicky and affectionate he felt, he would just make matters worse.

“Satoru,” he murmured, barely a whisper, not trying to startle Satoru out of this state lest his instincts flare alarm, “I’m gonna open a window, okay? You might just need a little air.”

But Satoru furrowed his brow, blinking at him as if Suguru’s just suggested moving to another planet.

A beat later, Satoru’s fingers curled tightly in Suguru’s hoodie, pulling him closer, so close Suguru could feel the soft brush of his lashes against his throat.

“Don’t wanna,” Satoru mumbled, lips brushing fabric.

Suguru froze. His heart tried to claw its way out of his ribs.
“Satoru,” he tried, really tried to sound firmer in his conviction than he felt right now, though his scent, the only thing that mattered to Satoru right now, must have betrayed him before he’d even opened his mouth.

“Nooo…” Satoru slurred, sounding petulant like a child trying to weasel its way out of bedtime. “Suguru... stay.”

And Suguru nearly lost the last of his composure.

Because Satoru was not only scent-drunk. He was possessive and clingy and warm and entirely his for these few hazy seconds. And Suguru didn’t know if he could let himself want it as much as he did without absolutely wrecking everything between them.

Satoru had been floating, deep in that syrupy, near-dreaming mindset where everything felt warm and viscous, like he was wrapped in an emotional weighted blanket. It was odd, because beneath it all buzzed a restless hum he could detect if he tried, but it was easy enough to ignore. The only things that truly mattered were the scents cocooning him: woodsy hinoki, fragrant white tea, sweet jasmine, and a bright splash of yuzu, slightly out of place yet still belonging to the symphony.

He felt high. He’d never actually been high, but this must have been the closest he’d ever come, bobbing along the water’s surface, untethered from the world, yet somehow the center of it all. He wasn’t so much lost in the sauce as he was the sauce, and the sauce was him. Wow. That felt poetic. He thought maybe he should write it down, but words were slippery things at the moment. His thoughts moved more fluently in vibes only, and the vibe was cozy and Suguru’s hands on him.

Suguru smelled so good, seriously, and when he picked at Satoru’s neck, Satoru felt even better. Free in a way he didn’t quite know how to express except by inching closer. Being near Suguru didn’t feel like a trap. It felt like he could finally relax and let someone else handle all the pesky stuff that no longer seemed important.

He knew Suguru had said something to him, but it was funny how late it registered, how easily it slipped his mind after mere moments. Not because he didn’t understand or because his head was in a bad way, not this time, but because it was as if Suguru was communicating on a whole different channel without moving his mouth, and that only made sense in Satoru’s own brain. So he tried to communicate, as best he could, that he really didn’t want him moving away right now. Everything was perfect. Why change a perfect system? Moving away seemed like a downgrade, definitely.

But Suguru had insisted. And so Satoru had gotten insistent, too.

Then Suguru gave him a look: part regret, part determination, and just a smidgen of something that twisted Satoru’s stomach deliciously. Satoru felt nothing but eager for whatever was coming next. And he definitely heard the words loud and clear this time, because Suguru had said something a bit ridiculous. That he’d have to scruff him if he didn’t let him go.

Ha. Funny. Both haha-funny and funny in his stomach because somehow that sounded like a thrill. So Satoru told him to do it, would’ve double-dog-dared him if he’d been able to string more words together and- 

Yup. No need. Suguru really just did as announced.

Static. No thoughts. No vibes. Just stop.

Suguru’s hand landed at the back of his neck, fingers squeezing, not hard, but pressing into the sides under and away from his glands. Close. And Satoru’s body went both tight and loose at the same time, which was the weirdest fucking thing. Not unpleasant. Not exactly anything. Just…

Suguru let go, and Satoru slumped into the side of the couch, a rush of breath leaving him all at once. And before he could regather his scattered brain cells, Suguru was already halfway across the room, letting in cool February air through the window.

Satoru blinked as though he’d just been yanked up from the bottom of the ocean, eyes unfocused and a little glassy.

“Wh-… huh?” he croaked out, voice raw with confusion.

Cold February air bit at his cheeks and crawled down the back of his neck. He sucked in a sharp breath, and it felt like snapping elastic in his chest, clearing away cobwebs he hadn’t realized were there.

His arms came up around himself, a little self-conscious, trying to trap in the heat that seemed to have leaked out of him. But it wasn’t only warmth that had gone missing. Something deeper was absent, like a note of music cut off mid-song. His scent was dispersing into the cool air, leaving him oddly hollow.

He shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable, and gave Suguru a sidelong glance.

“…What the hell was that just now?” he asked, scratching the side of his neck where the patch used to be.

Suguru, ever reliable, had already slipped into explanation mode, voice steady even as his thumb rubbed anxiously over his palm. “You got scent-drunk,” he said. “That’s all. It happens sometimes when… well. When certain factors align.”

Satoru furrowed his brow, as though he’d been handed a puzzle missing half its pieces.

“Wait, seriously?” he said, flabbergasted. “I didn’t know that could even happen between, like… alphas.”

Suguru let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “Yeah, well. There’s… a few factors. And… I guess I might’ve contributed.”

Satoru tilted his head. He could practically see Suguru folding in on himself, avoiding his gaze like he’d been caught shoplifting. It made something sharp and protective twist in Satoru’s chest.

“Hey, hang on. Are you blaming yourself?” Satoru said. “Why? This isn’t a blame game. I don’t think it was any mistake on your part at all.”

Suguru’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, as if wrestling words into obedience. He lowered his eyes, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks, but finally gave a small nod, still looking unconvinced.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Satoru insisted. “It was… kinda chill, honestly.”

Suguru only nodded again, as though trying to believe him. He reached for his patches and pressed them back onto his skin with careful fingers, then moved to close the window so the room wouldn’t chill too much.

Satoru shifted, doing the same for his own patches though the peeled adhesive wouldn't stick quite as well anymore, and made room for Suguru on the couch once he returned. His body felt pleasantly settled now, the residual tremor in his limbs receding like the tide. He realized, with a start, that he felt more invigorated than he had in a long time. His head, which had been toeing into ache territory in the background for days, felt miraculously clear.

“Oh, huh,” he said suddenly. “My headache’s gone. Like, completely. No migraine. Nothing. My brain’s actually operating again.”

Suguru shot him a flat look, brow arching high enough to nearly disappear behind the sleek strand of his bang. “So you did have a headache,” he said, voice low but pointed.

Satoru winced. “Oops?”

Suguru’s glower could have curdled milk.

But Satoru waved him off, breezy as ever. “Anyway, see? It’s good we tried this. Now I know there’s a readily available headache cure sitting right next to me.”

Suguru made a strangled noise, halfway between a scoff and a groan. “We are not doing that again.”

Satoru blinked at him, affronted. “Why not? What gives?”

Suguru huffed, folding his arms tight across his chest. “Because you got completely lost in it, that’s why. I had to scruff you to snap you out of it. You… you don’t mind that I did that?”

Satoru tilted his head, thinking about it. The memory of Suguru’s fingers curling around the back of his neck sent a shiver down his spine, though not necessarily a bad one.

“Nah,” he said at last. “I don’t mind. You did what you had to. And besides… it wasn’t a big deal. No harm done, right?”

Suguru stared at him for a beat longer, eyes dark and searching, as though trying to gauge the sincerity beneath Satoru’s casual grin.

Finally, Suguru let out a slow sigh. “Right,” he said softly. “No harm done.”

And though he still sat a little apart, Satoru could feel the invisible thread stretching between them, pulsing like a quiet promise neither of them was quite ready to name.

They’d moved on, or at least, Satoru decided they had, and so Suguru decided to do the same instead of letting himself get swept along in the current. It was high time to sleep, or rather not sleep and heavily overthink on the incident, declaring that it was bedtime to Satoru who responded by flopping down face first on the couch with all the tragic gravity of a man being announced exile to Siberia.

“Nooo, I’m not tired,” Satoru whined, “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”

Suguru merely raised an eyebrow at him, arms folded.

“Stop that, I can feel your judgement even without looking... Ugh. Fine, fine.”
Protests aside, Satoru had clearly planned ahead for this so-called “impromptu” sleepover, so, dragging his socked feet like a kid sentenced to nap time he got up and moving despite his reservations, to rifle through cabinets and drawers, producing a fresh toothbrush, a small bottle of mouthwash, and even a hair tie in case Suguru needed one.
“See?” Satoru declared, thrusting a bundle of soft cotton into Suguru’s arms. “I’m an excellent host. Wear this.”

Suguru looked down to find a loose T-shirt that proclaimed I NEED SOME SPACE in neon letters and a splattered bunch of cartoony stars and planets, plus a pair of baggy black sleep pants. The back said JUICY in bold letters, of course. He exhaled a long-suffering sigh but accepted the offering.

They ended up in Satoru’s bathroom side by side, brushing their teeth in perfect sync.

Foam frothed at the corners of Satoru’s lips as he hummed some pop song, hips swaying like he was performing for a sold-out stadium. Suguru tried not to laugh, mouth full of minty paste, but a snort escaped him anyway.

It was a scene sweet enough to induce instant cavities, a domestic tableau that felt entirely too intimate for two theoretically badass MMA fighters who’d just had a rather intimate accident. 

Yet for all Satoru’s blithe comfort, Suguru struggled to slip back into normalcy.

To him, it had been a big deal, scruffing his best friend, his crush-is-an-understatement, because Satoru had gotten scent-drunk on him. And worse, he couldn’t even demand an explanation, because clearly, Satoru hadn’t a clue himself and seemed distressingly eager to pretend it had all been nothing.

Suguru resigned himself to stewing in his thoughts alone. He trudged toward the pullout couch, where Satoru had already fluffed pillows. Suguru thought he was just going to grab a spare blanket, and say goodnight. Instead Satoru ducked into his bedroom, a flash of pale hair and sleepy grumbling, while Suguru slumped into the cushions, telling himself he could manage one night of mental chaos… and returned with two blankets and another pillow under his arm.

He was now wearing an equally ridiculous T-shirt that read WORLD’S OKAYEST ALPHA and matching lounge pants. Without a word, but with a big grin, Satoru climbed right onto the couch beside him.

Suguru stared at him, incredulous. “What are you doing?”

Satoru scoffed as though Suguru had asked whether the sun rose in the east. “Uh, duh. It’s Part Three. Actual sleepover gossip time. You’re supposed to tell me all your dirty little secrets now.”

Suguru dropped his head back against the couch cushions and groaned. “I can’t believe I signed up for this.”

“You came here though, so technically, you did~” he returned like a cheeky little shit.
And yet, as Satoru grinned at him, eyes shining mischievously, Suguru found he couldn’t summon a single ounce of regret.

The lights were off, the city glow leaking in soft and pale through the wide windows. Suguru lay bundled into his blankets like an excessively shrimpy spring roll, and Satoru lay a few feet away, limbs sprawled in deliberate starfish fashion, grinning into the darkness because this was the part he’d been waiting for. The couch was a massive piece of furniture, probably large enough to host a diplomatic summit, but with two alphas their size, it still promised a degree of proximity that felt… thrilling. He wasn’t far from launching a random playfight attack, really.

Even after everything, the weird scent episode and the odd burst of slice-of-life content after, he still felt electric with leftover adrenaline, his headache gone as if it’d never existed. And right there, a little further down the couch, was his new miracle cure, looking warm and soft and only slightly irritable-

“No,” Suguru said flatly into the dark.

“I didn’t even say anything yet,” Satoru protested, clutching his blanket around his shoulders like a cape.

“I can feel you looking, and no, I’m not taking my patches off again.”

“Boooo… Not even if I-”

He got a couch cushion flung at his chest. And then another. Suguru started constructing what could only be described as a modest suburban home out of couch cushions, each one stacked with grim determination.

And what were walls for, if not to climb?

Satoru was halfway over the barrier, trying to pry a cushion loose, when Suguru’s pillow hit him square in the face. The thing smelled like him, cool forest with something dark and sweet and grounding underscoring the masculine scent, and Satoru reflexively buried his nose into it before slinking back to his side of the wall, cackling triumphantly.

“Give it back,” Suguru demanded. Pff, as if.

Satoru flung over a random pillow, which was probably his own, but fair was fair.

“This is nice,” Satoru said, stretching out dramatically, “Just the three of us. You, me, and this cushion wall you built between us.”

“Don’t misquote SpongeBob at me.” Suguru’s voice came muffled from the other side.

“Hahah, didn’t think you’d catch that one.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I was there when the ancient texts were written.”

“Riiiight, you’re old now.”

“Still younger than you.”

“Ouch.” Satoru clutched his chest, rolling over so his foot pressed into the barricade. And then he couldn’t hold it in anymore. The question practically vibrated out of him.

“Okay but actually, what was all that scent-drunk stuff about earlier? You said there were ‘factors’ or whatever. What factors? I’ve been thinking about it. Not that I minded, y’know. If that’s a headache cure, sign me up to act like a dumbass for a minute, especially if it’s just with you.”

Suguru made a noise like he’d been hit with something and was bracing for the second impact. Of course, Satoru was happy to deliver, hoping to trigger a reaction out of his friend that would justify a pillowfight.

“Are you about to reveal you’re secretly on a bitching agenda,” Satoru added, poking his toe through a crack in the cushion wall like a battering ram. “Because honestly, I’m starting to suspect this is a ploy for you to get me all pliant and defenseless-”

“I’m not on a bitching agenda,” Suguru interrupted vehemently, making him bite his lip to bring his grin down. So easy to get a rise of, if you knew which buttons to push. Well, okay, Satoru was still figuring out the exact ones, but he was making up by simply pushing all of them at once.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Satoru sing-songed.

“Bitching is a myth,” Suguru declared.

“You think so? Pretty widespread myth if you ask me.”

“It’s still a myth. I know so.”

“Oh, you know. Wow, so you tried it out before, or what?”

“...No…”

“Hmm, sounds to me like you don’t actually know that, then. Like, from what I hear you’d have to court the alpha for a really long time beforehand to lower their guard, so how would that even work? Of course they’d notice. And what alpha in their right mind wants to get bitched and just lets it happen, right?”

“…Right…” Suguru sounded deeply fatigued, as though the conversation aged him ten years.

Satoru huffed. “Your answers are kinda lukewarm, you know? Are you a prude, or what? Come on, carry at least some weight of the conversation. If it’s not bitching, then what was that all about, huh?”

Suguru sighed again, music to Satoru’s ears. Man, he just loved getting any kind of reaction out of his usually calm-fronting friend.

“Fine, you want my best guess? You’re scent-sensitive, that’s all. What with your recent concussion and not exactly being exposed to a lot of unfiltered scents, it’s not unlikely. I didn’t consider it’d hit you so hard, but everyone’s different when it comes down to it.”

“That’s more like it! What else?”

“What, what else? This is basically just conjecture. Talk to an expert-”

“I am, actually.”
Satoru rolled to face the pillow wall, peeking over the top of it.
“Lecture, lecture, lecture!!” Satoru chanted. “Come on, I’m asking for it for once, and now’s the time you refuse to fess up about your encyclopedic world-knowledge? Fess up.”

“I’m not- I’m not lecturing or an expert, Satoru,” Suguru said in his lecturing tone of voice. “What you’re asking is all basic knowledge you can easily look up on the internet.”

“Yeah, okay, sure. But I’m asking you. Indulge me, Suguru. How do I get scent resistant like you and just tank that shit, huh?”

Suguru let out a sigh that probably belonged in a tragic novel, amazing, and fell silent for a moment before he started speaking, low and steady.
“Again, I’m not an expert on these things, I just have some personal experience, so take this with a grain of salt, but… It’s not like it’s easier for me. Scents still affect me. They always will. But the more you keep the focus on your own baseline instead of theirs, the better. That’s all control is, really. Being mindful of your own scent instead of the other person’s. The way I picture it is like an invisible shield, keeping it close like a buffer. The more you project it outwards, the weaker it grows, so you might cover some space, but it's like you’re dropping your natural defenses in favor of offense.”

Satoru blinked at him through the dark. “That sounds…like a lot of self-flagellation.”

“The way I learned it probably was,” Suguru admitted. “From when I was in my teens, I got pitted against all kinds of people in underground fights. Omegas, alphas, whoever showed up. I was usually younger, though not necessarily smaller. Size doesn’t matter in these kinds of environments, though. Experience does. So if I let their scent overpower mine, I ate shit. My biology just learned how to dominate, early and fast. How to shut it all out and keep mine buried when needed.”

Satoru stared, momentarily quiet. “Suguru... Suguru, you have to stop being so hardcore. I’m starting to feel like a loser next to all that and that’s not my vibe.”

“It’s not that cool. I’d swap with you any day.”

“You wanna be scent sensitive and have problems with personal space when you can be an underground fighting scent immune badass?”

“You have personal space problems regardless of the patches being off or on.”

“Well, technically, you’re in my personal space, since this is my apartment.”

Suguru snorted, a short, exasperated puff of air.
“Please consult your endocrinologist about your territoriality. There’s meds for that.”

Satoru couldn’t help but laugh as well, and the lull that fell felt like the universe gently suggesting it might be time to sleep. But naturally, Satoru couldn’t leave things alone.

“Well, it’s frustrating, alright!” he burst out, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I feel like I’ve been trying to get this scent shit down forever now, but you’re just tanking it fine. What’s the trick?”

“The way I did it won’t help you,” Suguru said gently.

“Who knows, it might! At least tell me instead of this whole ‘I know better’ bullshit!”

Suguru sighed again, but kept talking. “I’m just…good at hiding. Even if it affects me, I just try my best not to let it show unless I want it to. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s it.”

Satoru considered that for a moment, the cushions a firm weight pressing into his ribs. “Hmm. Okay. I’m gonna try that-”

“For once, leave it until morning.”

“Hahh…. Alright, maybe.”

They drifted for a moment, silence punctuated only by the hum of the city outside. But Satoru’s curiosity nipped at his heels like a small, relentless dog.

“So… you’re kinda right, I’ve never really spent time with anyone patchless,” he admitted, trading truth for truth into the dark. “I’m on pretty strong suppressants. Maybe my hormones are kinda fucked, but there’s no time for cycles between championship seasons anyway. It’s all scheduled. Family doctor’s orders.”

Suguru shifted behind the wall of pillows. “I haven’t had a rut in a while either. Not because I don’t care about it.”

Satoru recognized the subtle note of steel beneath his friend’s voice and winced internally, reminded of the few and far in between times Suguru had sounded like this, usually meaning he’d been talking carelessly again. He tried saving it. With more carelessness, of course.
“Ah, sorry, sensitive topic? You know infertility is pretty common-”

“It’s fine,” Suguru said, for once stopping him before Satoru made a complete ass of himself, and his voice was calm, but softer than before. “I get cycles just fine, but... my mental health goes downhill during a rut. Makes my head go to places I don’t want it to go. So I’m on a pretty high dose of suppressants. Just at the maximum threshold so that it doesn’t mess with my antidepressants.”

Satoru lay there, stunned. A million quips clustered behind his teeth, all of them suddenly tasting sour. He hadn’t known that.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So… you take antidepressants?” Satoru blurted. He’d meant to ease into it, but his mouth had other plans. “Why? You wanted to croak, or something?”

The silence that followed felt endless. Then Suguru sighed, but there was faint amusement in the sound for some reason. Somehow, with him it always felt like Satoru, cursed to forever pick all the wrong dialogue options, still arrived at the right outcome. 

“Not anymore,” he said. “But yeah. It was bad for a while. Mostly because of my parents.”

“Oh. The dead folks?” Case in point: wrong dialogue option again.

And still Suguru didn’t get offended, but shared after a brief pause, “Haibara actually asked me today if they’d sent me a birthday present or called.”

Satoru shot upright, scandalized. “He really asked you that? I didn’t know there was a more inconsiderate person than me out there. Go Yuu.”

Suguru snorted. “They’re not dead. Just not in the picture anymore.”

“Oh.” Satoru fell silent, fell back into the couch blanket mess he’d built around himself, eyes tracing the ceiling’s shadows. He wasn’t…that surprised. Not entirely. He just hadn’t thought to ask. He added it to the unfinished puzzle of Suguru in his head and wondered where the piece would fit.

Suguru spoke after a long, quiet moment. “Anyway. I’ve got some appointments scheduled. Hormone health is important. Blah blah. Lecture over. Happy now?”

Satoru blinked blearily, a grin tugging at his mouth despite the heavy turn of the conversation. “Yeah, that was a pretty good pillow talk.”

“Not what that means.”

“Our heads are on pillows, we talked. What else would you call that?”

“Can you at least wait until morning before you continue being annoying?”

“Wow, I’ve never been asked to be annoying so straight forwardly. Of course, it would be my pleasure! But only since you’re an old man who needs to stick to his bedtimes now.”

“Still younger than you.”

Satoru gave the cushion wall one last dramatic push. “Double ouch.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure that hurts as much as your joints.”

“Oof, okay, tired Suguru is a grumpy motherfucker, noted. Goodnight then, you old grouch.”

“Hmph, good night.”

And then, finally, they let the silence stay.

Suguru still stayed up for another long, long while, contemplating his inability to express his feelings after having resolved to do so. It wasn’t that he wanted to block Satoru off or that he had lost his resolve, but whenever the words hovered on the tip of his tongue, he choked.

He knew how to flirt, could wield charm like a blade or a fan, turning the winds in his favor, but somehow, with Satoru, it just wouldn’t come as easily as it once might have.

Probably because the stakes had never been this high.

If some random person didn’t like him, Suguru couldn’t care less. But if he misstepped with Satoru, his best friend and so much more, how could he possibly make it right again?

He felt suspended, perched on a tightrope, waiting for the right moment. Yet with his eyes fixed on how far he might fall, he wasn’t sure he could even keep his balance, much less distinguish right from wrong. And so, perhaps, it felt safer to try and find his footing again, especially after the curveballs Satoru hurled his way any time he thought he might have stabilized.

It was hard, because even lying less than an arm’s length from each other on the couch, Suguru felt like there were miles stretching between them. And he put the distance there on purpose, because at least if he was the one building the walls, he could pretend he was in control of them.

Ah… Manami would beat him up for this.

He finally drifted off, somewhere past four, chest achey, the first streaks of dawn still far off, only the false dawn of city lights illuminating the skyline to keep him company in his drifting thoughts.

When he woke up, he found his blanket half-dragged off his body, Satoru starfished out next to him hanging onto the edge of it even in deep, open-mouthed, drool-puddle-heavy sleep, the wall nearly torn down completely.

Octopus would have been an understatement for how tightly Satoru managed to wind himself around the cushions Suguru had pushed his way through the night. Kraken? Far more size-appropriate and clingy all the same with how he’d managed to cross all obstacles and distance and get an ankle hooked behind Suguru’s even in sleep.

With that sight alone, by the time proper morning poured in through the windows, everything felt a little less dire.

Sunlight streamed golden across the rumpled blankets and drifted dust motes through the living room, and Suguru felt the knot between his shoulders ease, just slightly.

Especially because he still got to have this: the two of them perched in the kitchen, half-asleep and squinting at the morning brightness, with Suguru trying to wrestle Satoru into eating veggies alongside the leftover snack boxes raided from the fridge.

“Greens are for obedient little nerds, Suguru. I’m only one of those things, so I still prefer my vitamins in gummy bear shape. Lecture all you like, I’m having this cupcake, no matter what-”

And so the morning rolled on. After breakfast they went to cobble together that promised miniature snowman on Satoru's balcony, which ended up looking like letting it melt into a puddle in the pale sunlight would really be the most merciful thing. It was peaceful, ridiculous, and somehow exactly where Suguru wanted to be.

Chapter Text

Ring Rust - a decline in a fighter’s performance due to a long layoff or inactivity, often used to describe fighters returning after extended breaks.

—

Shoko heard him before she saw him.

Of course she did. You could hear the champ from across time zones if he got excited enough, and judging by the sudden spike in noise from the front of the gym, the hollering, the distinct yelps of excitable teenagers welcoming him, he’d arrived precisely how she expected:

Like a damn parade float with legs.

Shoko exhaled the last good drag of her cigarette, back against the wall behind the building, letting the quiet wrap around her for just one more moment. The brick was cold at her back, the asphalt still holding on to the early spring chill. She stared up at the sky and counted the seconds until she’d be forced inside.

Five.

Four.

Three…

Two-

“BOOM, BABY! I’M BACK!!”

There it was. Like clockwork.

She sighed. Utahime was probably already seconds away from a rage aneurysm, which meant she, Shoko, would be picking up the shattered remains of her colleague’s patience for the rest of the day. Again.

Typical.

She stubbed the cigarette out on the concrete and ground it under her heel.

“Well,” she muttered to herself, pushing off the wall. “Showtime.”

She emptied her mind and walked through the back entrance like another doctor might while mentally prepping for surgery. As expected, the lobby was already a mess. Half the younger fighters formed a makeshift welcome committee, grinning like they were meeting a celebrity. Which, fine, Gojo sort of was, but still. It was exhausting watching people revolve around him like enthusiastic moons.

And there he was.

Six-foot-something of blinding smile and dramatic hand gestures, sunglasses pushed up into that ridiculous hair, one foot propped on a bench like he was about to launch into a TED Talk about how peak fitness had personally chosen him as its vessel.

Utahime stood stiff nearby, expression so tight Shoko could practically hear her grinding her molars.

Slipping past the chaos without drawing attention, Gojo hadn’t spotted her yet, she made it to the front desk, where the clipboard with his medical chart was already stashed since this morning.

She picked it up and leafed through it with a practiced hand.

Yep. Just as she thought. Yaga had given it a once-over and given full-contact clearance a big fat no for obvious reasons.

Which meant…

Today would go exactly as planned.

Gojo would declare, exuberantly and with too much volume, that he was fully healed.

She would inform him, dryly, that his file said otherwise.

He would proceed to whine like a toddler denied candy.

He would insist on checkups anyway, to deny such claims, and she would have to indulge him despite his attitude, as per protocol.

By the time bloodwork came up, he’d stall. Pout. Groan.

But if she was very lucky, Geto would be tagging along as distraction, and she could none-too-gently shove the problem into his hands while she snuck off to go tattle to Yaga if the tall child proved to be too uncooperative for easily handling. Coach was the only one with the authority to actually enforce her orders, because while Geto might resist being worn down into submission with enough “but Suuuuguuuuuru” crooning from the peanut gallery he would definitely fall for the ragebait that would inevitably follow.

And Satoru was sure to get testy if he didn’t get his way. Only one way this could go.

They were a single organism now. Two halves of one shared, malfunctioning braincell. Both smitten and refusing to admit it, both ridiculous, and both enabling each other with a synergy that should be illegal in at least fifteen prefectures.

She tucked the clipboard under one arm, smoothed out her lab coat, and started walking toward the inevitable.

Showtime.

Yaga had seen the tail end of the chaos in the lobby from across the gym floor, the crowd parting like the sea for the second coming of Gojo Satoru.

Suguru had trailed after him, naturally. Not quite a leash but close enough, the invisible tether between them as obvious as ever.

Yaga folded his arms across his chest and waited.

Shoko had come to him shortly after, had already done the preliminary check-in, and he’d seen the clipboard tucked under her arm like a loaded weapon. She looked ready to commit a crime with it.

Good. Maybe she’d save him the trouble.

Still, protocol was protocol.

He jerked his chin at Satoru, who was halfway through pissing off Suguru with his arguing about there being no need for continued kids gloves or needles, and caught his attention with the coach look. The kind that stopped grown men in their tracks. Satoru grimaced, made a theatrical show of dragging his feet, and fell into step behind him as he led him to the office.

Suguru glanced up just long enough to catch Yaga’s eye.

The kid didn’t speak, but the slight lift of his brows was answer enough.

Yaga gave a small, almost imperceptible nod in return, meaning thanks for the backup.

He knew Suguru would brief him after. He always did. Had done so throughout Satoru’s injury and recovery period, even when no one asked him to. Quiet reports over coffee, offhanded remarks after class, never dramatic, just facts, the things Sayoru wouldn't say but bore mentioning. Steady hands, cool head. Yaga appreciated it more than he let on.

So he’d rearranged the kid’s schedule where he could. Freed up his time. No one had blinked an eye. Suguru’s duties had already been redistributed while Satoru was out, and if anyone could use a lighter load for a while, it was him. He hadn’t said it out loud, but Yaga knew what it was: he was keeping watch. Champion’s corner man. Handler. Something closer than either of those things, really.

He just called it insurance.

Now, though, he had the other half of that disaster duo planted in his chair, long legs stretched obnoxiously out in front of him, tapping one foot against the desk like he owned the place.

Yaga sat with a sigh.

“Alright, Satoru. Let’s talk.”

“About how amazing I look back in daylight? Thank you, Coach, that’s so kind-”

“You already heard it: No contact,” Yaga said flatly. “You are not cleared. No sparring. No drills. No goddamn running full tilt at people for fun.”

Satoru groaned like he’d been sentenced to life in prison. “But I feel fine!”

“You felt fine last time after your title match too and tore your shoulder worse because you wouldn’t listen to Shoko.”

“That’s a technicality.”

“That’s a ligament,” Yaga growled.

Satoru slouched dramatically, arms folded. “You’re all such worrywarts. I had some aromatherapy the other night, fixed me right up.”

Yaga blinked. “Aroma… what now?”

“You know,” Satoru said, grin slipping in. “Bit of a scent reset. Did wonders. Should’ve prescribed Suguru instead of PT, honestly. Don’t know why you’re all so uptight.”

Yaga stared.

Then he stared harder as the meaning finally slid into place, like a brick dropping in slow motion.

He held up both hands like he was directing traffic.

“Stop. Stop right there. I don’t need to know this. I don’t want to know this.”

Satoru blinked innocently.

Yaga rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Congratulations. I think. You’re going back to Shoko for your follow-up and blood work. And keep your… your scent therapy out of my gym.”

Satoru just looked at him like he was the one saying nonsense. “I didn’t even say anything weird.”

Yaga didn’t dignify that with a response. Just pointed at the door.

Satoru shrugged, unbothered, and strolled out like the world’s most self-satisfied health hazard.

And that was when Yaga realized:

This dumbass didn’t even get what he’d said out loud. He didn’t even realize.

Yaga wasn’t even a religious man, but God help them.

Suguru had lingered behind with Shoko while the lobby buzz quieted and Yaga led Satoru off with the resigned heaviness of a man escorting a firework into a match factory.

The resident doctor, her next cigarette primed for lighting, eyes tired but clear, had waved him into the infirmary with a nod.

“Sit,” she said, already reaching for her clipboard. “Let’s talk while he's occupied.”

He sat. Perched on the same chair he’d sat in a dozen times these past weeks, reporting quietly when Satoru refused to slow down. She’d come to expect it. She looked at him now like she was waiting for the update she knew she’d get.

“So,” she said, flipping to a fresh page. “Has there been a shift in symptoms? Frequency, intensity?”

Suguru folded his hands loosely between his knees. “Steadily improving. The migraines stopped a while back. Just minor tension headaches recently. And even those seem to have-”

He hesitated.

Shoko raised a brow, pen pausing.

He exhaled softly. “…There’s been a noticeable decrease under certain… stimuli.”

“Like?”

“Scent,” he admitted carefully. “A particular one.”

Shoko hummed, jotting that down with no real concern, just clinical interest. “Yeah, that’s not uncommon. Certain scents can have calming properties. Lavender, chamomile, something liek that. Association-based relief is a real thing. I’ve had patients respond to things as simple as a favorite cologne or fabric softener.”

Suguru bit the inside of his cheek. Not quite fabric softener.

He nodded instead, noncommittal. "Right."

Shoko didn’t look up, still scribbling. “Could be psychological safety. Familiarity. Associative relaxation. That’s a good thing, really.”

Except she clearly wasn’t catching the implications. Suguru wasn’t about to spell it out, either. He valued his privacy too much, and Satoru- …Well, Satoru had about as much tact as a live grenade.

Case in point-

The door swung open and in came the grenade himself, wearing a lopsided grin and a truly unnecessary amount of swagger for someone currently benched by doctor’s orders.

“What’re we talkin’ about?” Satoru chirped, striding in like he hadn’t just gotten grilled.

Shoko replied without looking up. “Headaches. Suguru said they’ve been easing up under certain conditions. You remember what you were doing last time you had one?”

Satoru looked amused. Too amused.

He cut a glance at Suguru, full of glinting mischief. “Wait. You didn’t tell her?”

Suguru sighed internally. Here it comes.

“Oh,” Satoru continued breezily, “I got all scent-drunk on this guy and the headache vanished. Poof. Like magic.”

Shoko blinked. Looked up.

Satoru, delighted with himself, continued, “Told Yaga too. He made a whole thing of it, like I’d announced we were eloping in the middle of training. Guy’s so old-school. It’s just scent, not scandal.”

Her eyes flicked to Suguru slowly. One of her thin brows climbed up. Then climbed higher.

Suguru stayed very, very still.

“I was just explaining,” she said dryly, “how scent association can be therapeutic. Usually, in medical context, we mean things like essential oils. Tea. Maybe a favorite lotion. Not…” she waved her pen vaguely between them. “…your training partner.”

Satoru just grinned like she was complimenting him. “Yeah, that’s what he said too.” He jabbed a thumb toward Suguru, pleased. “But it worked. I mean, look at me. Fresh as a daisy.”

“Between two alphas,” Shoko said slowly, gaze now narrowed in full scientist mode, “this is… interesting.”

Satoru didn’t even flinch. “Thanks!”

Suguru rubbed a hand down his face.

“And with continued aroma therapy,” Satoru said, already pivoting back to his agenda, “when can I get cleared for contact?”

Shoko gave him a look caught somewhere between amusement and scientific curiosity that promised a full hour of tests before he was even allowed near a mat again, diplomatically choosing not to answer that particular question. Or maybe eager to see the two of them hash it out between themselves.

“Stop calling it that,” Suguru scolded, leaning back slightly in his chair, feeling the familiar dull ache behind his ribcage. Not from strain, but from proximity to this. The whirlwind. The neon hurricane of a man who could never, ever keep things quiet. Putting it all out in the open, reminding Suguru through the lingering eyes of others that this was far from usual. Not that he'd ever been truly unaware, but being around Satoru, so easily shrugging it off, it felt like a jump into cold water being subjected to public judgement once again after leaving the quiet bubble of respite Satoru’s place had become during his recovery, even if it was just Shoko looking at them with dry amusement.

Maybe he should’ve warned him not to go around blabbing. Then again, knowing Satoru, that would’ve guaranteed he shouted it off the rooftop with fireworks for punctuation.

Whatever. At least now Shoko would likely pull him aside about the specifics later, and he wouldn’t have to try dancing around it anymore.

He thought he’d at least have a few more moments to mentally prepare himself for this, but then, just moments later, the check-up just concluded, Nanami and Haibara walked by the cracked door and Satoru’s laser focus snapped to new victims of his boundless energy regained. 

Suguru, from the back, enjoyed the comic widening of Haibara’s smile, as well as Nanami’s eyes, the rest of his face remaining frozen, as Satoru came their way.

But Haibara was already halfway down the hall, waving over his shoulder like a man late to his own birthday party. “Sorry, Kento! I’ll make it up to you! I’ll bring snacks!”

“Yuu-”

Suguru watched him vanish around the corner, basically throwing Nanami to the approaching shark, with the casual detachment of someone who’d long since accepted the gym’s ecosystem as fundamentally chaotic. Nanami just looked weary. He adjusted his glasses like they personally offended his face, or maybe it was the sight through them that was what was burdening him.

Then, with a sigh as soul-deep as a monk’s chant, he turned to face the brunt of an incoming Satoru.

The moment they were gone, Shoko slid into the space beside Suguru, hands in her coat pockets, eyes sharp as a scalpel.

“Well, well,” she said, voice casual and edged. “So it finally happened.”

Suguru didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know what she meant. He just sighed.

“Nothing happened,” he muttered.

She raised a brow.

“We were just… spending time together. I didn’t think about it. I took my patch off. Satoru didn’t. It caught him on the wrong foot. That’s all.”

“Mm. ‘That’s all,’ he says. Well, that’s not so uncommon, you know. Between, you know…” Her droopy eyes glinted with a spark, delivering the kill shot with a small, but vicious smirk, “Bonded pairs.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose. “We’re not bonded.”

She shrugged. “Take off your patch for a moment, then. I bet you don’t smell bonded, either.”

Suguru dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think alphas could even-” not bond, that would be admitting his own doubts “-get close like that.”

“Oh, exceptions to everything,” Shoko said airily. “It’s rarer, sure. But not impossible. Especially if you’ve got…complicated biochemistry. Or a long enough history.”

He looked away, studying a hairline crack in the plaster near the floor.

She nudged him, a little more doctor than devil now. “Speaking of. How’s it going with your endocrinologist?”

He straightened slightly at that. “I’ve got a follow up appointment lined up with Dr. Ito next quarter. Once my brain chemistry stabilizes a bit. My psych team’s still readjusting dosage, so I’ll need to wait a few months before it’s safe to lower the suppressants accordingly.”

Shoko nodded thoughtfully. “That’s good. It’s the right call, especially in light of this… recent development.”

He gave her a dry look.

“I mean it,” she said. “If your scent starts shifting, and it might, depending how your hormone levels rebound, it’s better to do it with supervision. Your system’s been running with the brakes on for a long time. If you were an omega this would hit you way harder.”

“I know.” He softened, just a little. “Thanks. For the counsel. And for not making this about, you know, the scent thing.”

Her grin was immediate, wolfish, the devil back in the clinic. “Oh, that thing?”

He groaned. “Shoko.”

“You and Gojo,” she sing-songed, “sitting in a gym. One gets woozy and the other gets grim.”

“Please stop.”

“I’m just saying. A little scent-drunkenness is one foot in the honeymoon suite, Geto.”

He gave her a flat look that barely masked the way his ears turned the faintest shade of pink.

“I take it back,” he said. “You’re worse than Gojo.”

“High praise,” she replied cheerfully, and clapped him on the shoulder like a proud older sister.
They stood side by side for a beat longer, breathing in the hum of voices and echoes in the hallway, the teasing folding back into quiet camaraderie, a familiar, yet welcome kind of trouble.

It had only been a week since their return, but the gym felt different again.

Haibara bent to tie the laces on his shoes, still listening in on the easy chatter from across the mats. Gojo was arguing with Kento again, something about proper warm-up technique and whether his stretches looked cool enough while he was doing them, or if he could skip them if not. Utahime was sighing with her entire soul, leaned against the wall like she’d aged thirty years overnight. Standard stuff. So normal it made his heart feel warmer in his chest.

Only…

Only it wasn’t quite the same.

Not in a bad way. Just… different.

He thought maybe no one else had noticed, but then Utahime muttered under her breath, "They’ve gotten worse. I swear, I can’t even tell where Gojo ends and Geto begins these days."

Haibara blinked, lips parting. Oh.

That’s what it was.

He’d noticed it too, but it had taken him days to piece together why.

When the patches came off for alphas scent turned to signifiers of status and expression. Something to be read and controlled.
But for an omega, scent was everything. It was how the world filtered in through skin and breath, body language and instinct. And Gojo had always had a scent that announced itself even through peeling patches. It charged into a room ahead of him like a parade booming its fanfares before you even laid eyes on the spectacle, all brightness and swagger and electricity.
Sometimes, if you were like Haibara, it made your hairs stand on end and stomach drop like going on a too-fast roller coaster ride, knees wobbly and chest tight from a held breath, even with the medicinal grade tapes filtering out most of it.

But this past week?

It wasn’t that Gojo wasn’t noticeable. It certainly wasn’t that his scent had dulled, not at all. It still cut through the air the way a breeze does through summer heat. A brush with something uncatchable. Only now it didn’t overpower. It lingered.

Less loud, Haibara thought, chewing the inside of his cheek. A funny way to think of it. Scents didn’t make sound. But Satoru’s had always felt loud. That was the thing. Like it crashed against your senses. Now, though…

Now it curled. Now it moved like it had found rhythm.

Or something to cling to.

He wondered, briefly, if it was just the health stuff. If, maybe, because of the easier routine he’d been sweating less lately, or taking Shoko’s patch-changing schedule more seriously, or maybe Coach Yaga had threatened him into basic hygiene again. All possible. All very likely.

But then this morning Geto-senpai had walked in behind him, towel slung low on his neck, water bottle dangling from a finger. And Haibara had smelled him, too.

Usually softer. Usually quieter.

Not today.

His scent had always been steadier, more grounded, subtle in a way that let you breathe without noticing you’d filled your lungs until suddenly it's warmth was all you were aware of. A creeping pull that never asked for too much until you felt the first drop of sweat roll down your back...

But this week, something about him had grown. Not stronger, still not aggressive.
Just clearer. Like the subtle shift from spring to summer months ahead of the actual season change being due.

He belonged in the space beside Satoru now, naturally, comfortably. Their scents neither clashed nor matched, not really, but played off each other in a way that made them impossible to separate.

He’d barely even realized it until Utahime had said it out loud.

Now, though, Haibara watched them.

Satoru sprawled on the edge of the mat, legs splayed out like a starfish, whining up at Geto about being unfairly limited to light sparring only and “how could he be expected to suffer like this” while Geto, calm as the tide, reached down and tugged Gojo's headband, murmuring something too low to hear, and then let it snap back over Gojo's eyes, eliciting a loud yelp disproportionate to the damage caused.

Haibara giggled, watching them bicker, playfighting right up to the edge of Gojo's imposed limits and- Yup. He caught another whiff of it. That was it.

Two different notes. Same hum.

He smiled to himself. He didn’t think they knew it yet. Not really. Not consciously. But everyone else?

They were starting to.

Scent didn’t lie.

And those two?

Those two were on the same page now.

Even if they were still loudly arguing in the margins. He was starting to get a bit giddy, thinking about how they might realize soon.

Oh, he thought, maybe he should get back to Ieiri about that bet?

Larue loved going out, especially for grand occasions such as belatedly celebrating one of his dearest friend’s birthdays and properly mingling with his new colleagues and friends for the first time.

It was not, strictly speaking, Larue’s scene.

Too many gym rats, not enough drag queens, but oh, what it did have was Suguru Geto looking criminally sharp in a deep green button-down that clung to his biceps like a lover with poor impulse control. So Larue could suffer a sports bar for one night in honor of that.

He’d come in the best of company, of course.

Manami, heels high and eyeliner sharp, sipping a lychee martini like she’d invented it. Toshihisa, his unofficial hubby and silent storm cloud, already deep in an incomprehensible discussion with some tragic man in a tie who had introduced himself as “Ijichi” and then apologized for existing.

And Gojo Satoru. Of course. The walking prism, the center-stage attention-sponge, had burst into the bar half an hour late wearing sunglasses indoors and declaring, “You can stop drinking now, the real fun’s here.”

“Oh wow,” Larue had murmured to Manami, fanning himself with a bar menu. “He’s real. Like, flesh and blood real.”

“And here I thought the first thing you’d mention are those legs,” Manami whispered back. “He’s tall.”

“And needy,” Larue added in a delighted hush, watching how Gojo practically molded himself to Suguru’s side, hip to hip on the booth’s edge, one arm slung over the backrest behind him like a half-step out of line with boyfriending hard. “We’ve got a clinger. Oh, that man is not leaving without a bedtime story and a goodnight kiss.”

Suguru endured it all with his usual deadpan grace, making room for Gojo with the air of someone who had long since stopped fighting the tide.

Meanwhile, Manami had started to orbit toward someone, eyes narrowing like a hawk mid-hunt. Larue followed her line of sight and spotted the matchmaker. White braid falling over her shoulder, sharp purple eyes, sharper jawline, nursing a highball and exuding the kind of charisma reserved for noir femme fatales. Mei Mei. Even her voice sounded like it should be accompanied by smoky jazz.

“She drinks like a man but looks like trouble,” Manami purred.

“You love trouble, darling,” Larue sighed. “And if the only thing you were looking out for were troublemakers and alcoholics you’d check out the doctor next to that one.”

“Taken,” Manami waved off, casting but one glance at the testy-looking woman next to Ieiri as trouble came in threes, apparently. Larue didn’t argue with that, though he wasn't sure himself if that statement was all the way true.

The table was chaos. Sugar-rimmed cocktails, rising laughter, every conversation layered over another like a symphony of gossip and flirtation. Iori muttered murder when Gojo interrupted her for the third time, Ieiri kept pace with Manami’s drinking like it was a duel to the death, and Larue? Larue was thriving.

Until Suguru stood up.

“Gonna call it early,” he said, low but final, setting down his half-finished drink.

Larue blinked. “Already? But I haven’t even forced you into karaoke yet.”

Suguru gave him a rueful smile. “Next time.”

There was a shift. A subtle ripple. Gojo didn’t even wait for the front door to close behind Suguru before ejecting himself from the previously scathing conversation with the mobility coach, rising himself, stretching in that obnoxiously athletic way.

“I’ll go drag him back,” he said. “Can’t let the birthday boy pull a Cinderella.”

He did not return. Neither did Suguru.

Manami blinked once, twice. “Well then.”

“Exactly,” Larue said, licking sugar from the rim of his glass. “If I disappeared for ten minutes with someone who looks like that, there would be bite marks and a formal declaration of war.”

“Honestly? I hope they’re making out. Or fighting. Or both.”

Across the room, Toshihisa chuckled softly at something Ijichi had said. Larue filed that for later dissection.

It was Shoko who leaned in next, smelling faintly of clean soap and emotional detachment. Her voice was a low murmur, sly and smooth.

“How do you two feel about a wager?”

Larue sat up straighter.

“On what?” Manami asked, eyes sharp with curiosity.

Shoko smiled like a wolf. “On how long it takes them to finally admit shit and make it official.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Larue pressed both hands over his heart like he’d been hit with Cupid’s whole quiver. “You came to the right people.”

“Define ‘admit,’” Manami said, twirling her straw. “Like full confession? Or wake-up-in-the-same-bed-and-wear-matching-couples-patches-the-day-after?”

Shoko arched an eyebrow. “I’ll accept either.”

“Oh this is absolutely on,” Larue said, already pulling out his notes app. “I give it five weeks. Maybe less if someone trips and falls mouth-first onto a mating gland.”

Mei Mei, who had been quietly listening it, it seemed, dropped in her two cents as well. "Put me down for six."

“I say seven,” Manami countered, as if to outbid her, though the smile she sent the woman was all sugar. “Because Suguru’s stubborn and Gojo’s dumb.”

At the sound of a dry chuckle, they turned to Shoko.

She raised her glass. “Noted. Personally, I’m betting on four.”

Larue shook his head. “Only a month for our darling sweetheart to spiral and overthink?”

“That’s cutting it close,” Manami agreed, arching a brow in skepticism.

“Oh, my bad, I wasn’t being clear,” Shoko said, taking a sip to hide the smug curl of her lip. “I meant four months.”

Larue laughed and clinked his glass to hers. “Now, that’s a bet I’ll take.”

“Cheers,” Manami laughed.

And in the space Suguru and Satoru had left behind, gossip bloomed like wildflowers in their wake.

Maybe Suguru would have stayed longer had Satoru, who’d pulled back from an early lunch with him to catch up with sleep, had actually done just that, letting the extended celebration passed as planned.

Instead, Satoru arrived late, of course.

He walked in wearing a hoodie far too comfortable for a bar setting, hair tousled and cheeks still warm from sleep. “Took a fat nap,” he announced, by way of greeting. “Had to rest up before celebrating Suguru’s descent into cronehood.”

“You’re older than me,” Suguru reminded him dryly, but couldn’t quite hide the smile tugging at his mouth.

Satoru’s grin widened. “Irrelevant. My skincare routine renders time meaningless.”

“You use dishsoap at most.”

“Um, excuse you? It’s a bar of soap, actually.”

The laughter came easy after that. Satoru didn’t drink, none of them expected him to, but he clung to a mocktail glass for show and leaned into every story, every laugh, like the quiet fatigue beneath his skin could be held at bay with enough momentum. And for a while, it worked.

But Suguru saw it. The slow drain behind his eyes, even though he liked to put on a brave face at the gym this past week. It still was his first week back and the way he folded inward when no one else was looking didn’t escape Suguru’s eyes. He watched his fingers trace condensation on the glass, and knew this was the tail-end of the curve. His second wind was burning out.

So Suguru stood, tapped his glass with two fingers, and said his goodbyes, apologizing to his friends on the way out, though the table had no trouble staying lively even after his departure.

He counted no more than a handful of seconds outside the bar before he was predictably joined by Satoru.

“You’re so full of-”

“Ready to head home, too?” Suguru interrupted before Satoru could work himself up, then more gently, “Come on. I’ll walk you.”

The streets were quiet and lonely around the edges in typical early February chill. Suguru kept his hands in his coat pockets. Satoru walked with a little less spring in his step, a little more honesty in the rhythm of his stride while the sake Suguru had shared with the rest of the table warmed him from the inside out.

“You know, no one’s gonna buy you’ve got an early morning thing, right?” he said eventually.

Suguru hummed. “Knew you’d catch that.”

“As if anything would get you out of bed before ten on a weekend.”

“Maybe I do expect some visitors. Later.”

Satoru looked sideways at him. “You should invite me over sometime.”

Suguru scoffed, low and dismissive. “It’s not roomy. It’s out of the way. Just not convenient.”

Satoru narrowed his eyes. “That’s bullshit. You just think I won’t be able to handle it if the whole place smells like you.”

Suguru didn’t deny it. He just raised a brow.

“I bet that’s it,” Satoru said, nudging his shoulder against Suguru’s. “I bet you think I’ll get scent drunk again.”

“You did get scent drunk.”

“Yeah, and it was great. ”

Suguru exhaled a laugh. “Don’t even start if you don’t know how to finish it.”

“Loosen the patch,” Satoru said, not teasing this time. “I’ll prove it.”

Suguru considered it. The night was cool, he’d had a drink or two more than he’d usually allow himself in sober company. Not enough to blur lines, but just enough to forget why he’d been toeing them.

“Only if you take yours off first.”

Satoru gasped, scandalized. “You’re scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of me.”

Suguru rolled his eyes. “You’re such a brat.”

“And you’re stalling.”

They stopped walking. They’d just reached Satoru’s apartment complex. No more banter. Just the click of the door as Suguru pulled it open for them to enter the foyer.

Satoru challenged him to a staring contest in the elevator up until Suguru relented. He could see where the edges of the tough guy act were turning just slightly frayed, a touch of exhaustion slipping through, and so, maybe more selfish than honestly concerned with any minor headaches, he sighed and reached up to loosen his patch at the edge, Satoru’s eyes sparking in victorious excitement as he mirrored, lifting his hand, flashing a pale wrist, to peel his own back like a magician revealing a trick.

And then- 

Petrichor, watermint and pear blossom-sweet.

Satoru stepped forward like he couldn’t help it, the lively hue of stolen skies darkening as his pupils flared and his arms extended to reach for Suguru’s shoulders. 

Suguru felt like he’d been struck by lightning from blue skies, his own arms already wrapping around Satoru’s waist to pull him close before the first hit of the scent had fully settled in. With his friend’s face buried in his neck Satoru’s scent, usually bold and ice-slick and biting, had softened at the edges, gone warm like spring rain on sunbaked stone, curling around them like a veil.

Suguru let him press in. Let his hands rest at the small of Satoru’s back, holding him through it as his hair stood on end and body resisted a tremor.

He took a slow, shallow breath, consciously relaxed, dipped his head a little.
“Is it helping?”

A hum. A nod. Satoru didn’t lift his face, just pressed it in deeper.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”

They stood like that for a long moment. Suguru couldn’t hear much beyond Satoru’s breath. Didn’t want to.

Eventually, after what felt like a small eternity, the elevator lurched to a stop and Satoru pulled back, blinking a little slower than usual. He clapped his hands on Suguru’s shoulders, a clear signal for him to let go as well.
“Whew! Okay, maybe you were right this is much easier to deal with when the patches are off for both of us!”

Suguru snorted. “You need me to walk up to the door as well? Looking a little wobbly there.”

“Tch, as if,” Satoru muttered, turning away with a dramatic sigh. “Anyway. Good night.”

“Night,” Suguru said, still a little dazed. Still warm, inside and out.

He walked home alone, scent patch reapplied, wondering the whole time… but no, there could not be a heterosexual excuse for something like this. 

Right?

Maybe something he should think more about when he sobered up properly.

Then again, he found himself a bit side tracked when Mei Mei called him and gave him the date for his upcoming match.

Satoru kept his back straight until the elevator doors whispered closed behind him, and then-

He folded.

Literally pressed his entire lean length against the door to his apartment like he was holding it up with nothing but sheer will and unresolved tension. His pulse banged behind his ribs, his skin prickled, and he let out a breathless, delirious little laugh into the empty hallway.

“Holy shit.”

Being that close to Suguru with their scent patches off was diabolical. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff with wind roaring at his back. A rush of anticipation, of want , without any of the consequences (probably) that came with actual combat.

Except it wasn't like a fight. It was the same kind of hunger, the same adrenaline high, and yet it was… soft. That was the worst part.

No gritted teeth. No bruises. No wild swipe of fists and fury.

Just warm arms around his waist, a hand at the small of his back, Suguru’s voice low and careful in his ear like he was made of something precious and breakable.

Satoru staggered into his apartment, locked the door behind him, and shed his coat in a heap on the floor. He went straight for his bed, tearing off his layers like they were on fire and not just clinging to skin still sparking with something weird and buzzing and new.

He collapsed face-down onto the mattress, rolled once, then shoved his blankets over his head like they might drown out the Thought that had just- It had just-
Something had snuck up on him in the elevator.

It had been quick. Fast enough to deny. Loud enough to recognize.

I want to do that again.

No, not even that tame.

I want him to do that again.

Satoru groaned into the sheets. That wasn’t a normal best friend thought. That wasn’t even a weird joking gym bro best friend thought. That was some other species of feeling entirely and he did not have the vocabulary or moral framework to entertain it properly.

Was this some cycle-adjacent brain static? A lingering biological blip? He’d heard suppressants could sometimes suppress more than cycles and overactive libido along with it. Like his good sense, which he already was quite short of, for example. 

Maybe with his recent head injury his hormones had been through too much and some messed up baser instincts were seeping through the cracks.
Under enough stress weird shit like that could happen at times, according to some reports, and since Satoru had been taking his own medication since he’d presented, there was a non-zero chance something in him was responding now, getting close to another alpha without patches on. Maybe this was normal. Maybe his cycle, though heavily suppressed, was near. That shit could make the most tame alpha turn irrational, even while medicated.
Or maybe-

He walked me home. The fucker.

Suguru had extracted himself from his own birthday party - which had been a whole ordeal to get everyone together for - for the express purpose of walking him home. Like a quiet little knight in a matching coat. Like he’d noticed, somehow, that Satoru was flagging and peeled off from the bar early not because he wanted to leave but because Satoru needed someone to look after him.

He wasn’t even sick anymore. Not really.

But Suguru still looked out for him. Still paid that kind of attention.

Maybe he always had, to some degree.

And the absolute worst part was the tiny, traitorous thrill that idea gave him.

Satoru punched his own pillow. Flopped over. Groaned again.

Why did he like that? If anyone else infantilized him like that he’d return the slight so mercilessly they wouldn’t dare insinuate any weakness on his part ever again.

But instead his brain had decided to loop that thought like some glitching music video in 3D smell-o-vision.

He wasn’t even been able to think in Suguru’s general direction without getting stuck on the soft curve of his mouth, the way the corners had barely lifted when he’d said goodnight like Satoru had cracked a joke, or how warm his hand had felt at Satoru’s back.

He instinctively jumped off that train of thought with a frown as he tossed himself over to his other side, dragging the blankets over himself, then got frustrated with himself for doing so because what? He couldn't think about kissing a homie for a minute without acting stupid about it?

It wasn’t supposed to stick in his head like this. He had doctor’s appointments to come late for. He had meal plans to ignore. He had training regiments to halfass. He had a five-part backlog of shows he needed to pretend he wasn’t catching up on so Suguru wouldn’t shame him into another screentime break.
What he should be thinking about was shaking off the ring rust and getting his head back into the game, not-

Fuck.

Satoru was an adult. He could sort his thoughts. And, hell, maybe it even wasn’t even all that important come morning when he wasn’t so bone tired so he wouldn't be such a fucking weirdo about it.

So he talked himself out of shooting Suguru a message or calling him. Surely he was either just arriving home or getting ready for bed and if he called now....

Well, he probably had other things on his mind right now with his own training back in full swing. Maybe it would be best to wait until they saw each other again.

Maybe it would just resolve itself with a good night’s rest.

It did, in fact, not resolve itself over the short weekend and when Satoru saw him that Monday the thought crowded itself into half-cooked words behind his teeth, getting harder and harder to keep inside when Suguru approached him, bright and early, with a smile on his face.

And then. Then Suguru casually dropped a bomb on him.

“I got a match coming up.”

Boom.

Thought? Gone. Evaporated. Dissolved into a single giddy whoop and the glee of watching his best friend, his partner-in-everything, step back onto the stage.

Excitement surged, pure and perfect, knocking every confused impulse back into its box like they’d never existed. All Satoru wanted then was to see Suguru win. To see him take up space, command it, show everyone what he already knew Suguru was capable of.

So maybe he had been a weirdo about it for two days straight.

Maybe he still stared a little too long when Suguru laughed.

Maybe he couldn't stop wondering what the hell that Thought meant.

But for now?

He had a new goal: Be the loudest damn voice in Suguru’s corner.

With Manami, Larue and Toshihisa finally introduced to him during that outing he certainly got his work cut out for him for sure.

Chapter Text

Comeback - a fighter’s return to competition after a significant layoff, injury, or retirement, often marked by a resurgence in performance.

—

The call had come while Suguru was brushing chalk from his hands and catching his breath between sets, back in the locker room to hydrate. His phone rattled the lockers twice before he picked up.

“Hello, Geto,” purred Mei Mei’s voice through his speaker, as cool and silken as the inside of a high-end coin purse. 

“Mei Mei,” he replied in a matching drawl.

She got right down to business as she did best, announcing, “Your debut fight is secured.”

Suguru had known she wouldn’t call for nothing, but this soon? He paused, flicking sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. “Already? I thought you were squeezing them for a better purse.”

“I did,” Mei Mei assured him. “Consider them squeezed. Like a juicy little yuzu. You’re welcome.”

He could practically hear her examining her nails.

“The date?” he prompted.

“Five weeks,” she said. “Shibuya Hall. It’ll be packed. I expect you to look extremely attractive for the cameras. Do all your little exercises and stick to the mealplan, will you? You need to be the most marketable you’ve ever been.”

When she put it like that, Suguru felt a bit like a dress-up doll, a hint of rebellion rearing its head from its ever-light slumber.
“I’m not gonna be wearing a loincloth, Mei Mei.”

“Shame. There’d be a pretty penny in that, too.”

“I’m hanging up now, Mei Mei. Send me the details.”

He hung up, hearing her soft laughter get cut off and chuckling despite himself.

Suguru supposed that at least the news would distract Satoru from his woes, already exiting the room to find the other alpha before anyone else. He'd been acting especially antsy about his training ban still being in place all weekend, or at least Suguru assumed that was what that had been about, since he’d been too busy keeping his own swarming feelings about the last time they’d seen each other under tight wraps.

But when he approached Satoru to tell him the news, all those worries fell away in the presence of that pure, undisguised joy coming to life on his face like sunshine breaking through the cloudy skies of a dreary winter day.

The tackle hug nearly knocked them both down, but luckily, Suguru had improved enough on his footwork to hold them both steady.

Five weeks of prep might’ve seemed tight for most first-time fighters, but Suguru didn’t carry himself like someone just making a debut. 

This was a return. Reforged stronger than ever before.

His last big fight had been a dimly lit affair, the very air poisoned with jeers and taunts, the kind of place where sweat slicked the floors and the crowd wanted more blood than brilliance. Now? There were spotlights. Cameras. Hushed promises of sponsor deals and entire press kits with his name on them.

His name. Not someone else's.
It had taken time, grit, and stubborn healing. The kind that didn’t just bind bones but rewrote his posture, his presence, the way he stepped into a room.
The only thing about him that hadn't changed was how deeply he wanted this.

And this time, he wasn’t alone.

Satoru’s ban from sparring by order of every medically trained person on payroll persisted, but he still turned up to every practice like a particularly charming parasite.

“You sure I can’t spar?” he whined at Yaga for the third time that morning, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a toddler at a toy store. “I’m very elastic. Like, medically concerningly elastic.”

Yaga didn’t even flinch. “You’re three months out from a brain rattle and a spine that crumpled like goddamn origami. Go back to Utahime or I’ll fix you to the yoga wall with resistance bands.”

Utahime made a strangled noise from across the mat, like she’d rather Satoru challenge him on that threat than suffer through one more class with the champ.

Satoru pouted. But he did obey. Mostly. He drifted around the gym like a ghost in sweats, soaking up everyone else’s drills, oohing and aahing and clapping at beginners like he was the collective team mom hype squad all rolled into one person.
More than once, Suguru caught him sitting criss-cross at the edge of the mats during warm-ups, surrounded by tiny trainees in mismatched gear like he was holding court.

And despite Suguru not having had a class with them for a long time now, the younglings were still imprinted on him like ducklings.
“Geto-san, did you see my backward roll?”

Satoru, without missing a beat, yelled from across the room, “I taught him that!”

“No you didn’t,” muttered Haibara.

“Yes I did! Through osmosis!”

Suguru’s lips twitched, the tight coil of focus in his shoulders unraveling just a touch.

This was how it was supposed to be. The rhythm of training. Relentless, punishing, yes, but threaded through with color. With life. With noise.

That rhythm, that almost-ritualistic repetition of drills and recovery and coaching sessions, got interrupted in full force a week later.

The first sign of disaster was a pile of boxes at the front desk. Haibara had nearly slipped on a heart-shaped box someone had chucked in through the mail slot right into the entrance area. Suguru had only just come in through the staff’s back door after his morning jog with Satoru, but when he saw the crowds waiting outside through the front facing windows it dawned on him.

It was the fourteenth of February. Valentine’s Day.

They might have just dodged a bullet, choosing that exact morning for the first run out in the brisk air since Satoru’s return.

Between them and the mob was Riko, manning the front desk like a war general, by eight in the morning already looking ready to declare open rebellion. She slapped a pile of parcels down as Suguru stepped up, her expression long-suffering.

“Another eight for you,” she told him. “And twelve for him.”

“Gimme,” Satoru said eagerly, sliding in beside Suguru, “gimme, gimme, gimme.”
He dragged the armful of packages close like he was raking in poker chips after a big bluff paid off, taking in a deep breath.
“Ahhh, you smell that? That’s the smell of admiration, baby.”

“Smells like a health hazard,” Shoko chuckled as she joined them, leaning against the counter wearing a face mask. She’d just been out of commission for a week dealing with her cycle, so it helped filter out smells offensive for her still sensitive nose. Not that it would be especially helpful while pushed down to her chin.

“It’s called class, Shoko,” Satoru said, already starting to sort through the pile for chocolatey goods. “You should try it sometime.”

“You wouldn’t know class if it sent you a love letter.”

“It did!” Satoru cackled, waving a glittery envelope. “And also chocolates. Which, incidentally, I will be eating for lunch.”

Suguru was only just thawing out of his speechlessness.
“These are all for us? Do I really have to claim these?”

Riko scrunched her nose in distaste, looking like she might throw one of the teddies at Satoru for how noisily he was ripping open his treasure.
“You don’t have to eat them,” Riko said dryly, “but if you leave them here I will start giving them to the high schoolers just to get rid of all this mess."

Satoru gasped. “Treason!”

“There’s about a boatload more in the back. We tried screening it but some of the fans are clever little bastards and marked it ‘training gear.’ So now it’s just… this. You want ‘em so bad? You can open them too."

“Gladly,” Satoru returned with a huge grin like she had just made his entire day. He started toward the two towering monuments of chocolate, fake flowers and rose scented stationery in the back, then stopped short, looking critically between them, then back at Suguru, where he was still leaning against the counter next to Shoko, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“I’m not helping.”

Satoru looked affronted, but quickly pivoted to look at their resident receptionist instead, pointing an accusatory finger at the parcel towers.
“Riko, what’s this about? You’re messing with me, right? Why’s his bigger?”

That had Suguru raise a brow. “Is it, now?”
Until just then, Suguru had only thought about how impractical it would be to take all of this back to his place, but that reaction, the greedy glint in Satoru’s eyes like a dragon coveting the gold of a different hoard, was giving birth to a new idea.

“I sorted them by how they’re addressed, don’t get me involved unless you’re finding non-laced chocolate in there to share,” Riko scoffed, not even paying them any further mind as Satoru’s jaw fell, going to her reliable senior for shelter.
“Shoko, can I take five? I know my shift just started but I need a break.”

The doctor didn’t even check her watch, wrapping her arm around the younger alpha girl's shoulder in comfort.
“Sure, let’s get some coffee.”

Suguru snickered, approaching the towers. Satoru was glaring at him, as if he personally had orchestrated this upheaval of fan favoritism. But Suguru found the boxes were truly addressed to him, not just re-routed fan mail meant for the both of them.

He paused to read a few cards. Just curiosity. Definitely not to see if anyone’d actually written something thoughtful. And if he caught Satoru watching with a pouty glare? Well. That was just a fun little bonus.

It surprised him, really, how many there were. He found his name neatly written on boxes of truffles and glossy red tins. Most from fans, or sponsors trying to angle for attention - undoubtedly due to Mei Mei’s work. But some… he squinted at a card written in pen, not printed, and couldn’t help smiling.

“Don’t look so smug,” Satoru grouched beside him, already popping a strawberry dipped in white chocolate into his mouth. “It’s disgusting how much chocolate you’ve got.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, well, I deserve more,” Satoru said, gesturing grandly, coming in hot and ready with all kinds of arguments to swindle Suguru out of his sweets, “I’ve been through so much. And besides, isn’t it inconsiderate? You’re on a diet, meanwhile Im the one in recovery, in dire need of charging my drained batteries! And you don’t even like sweets that much anyway! Look, this one’s labeled to you but they don’t even know you don’t like white chocolate, so I’d be doing you a favor by taking it off your hands.”

“I do like sweets,” Suguru said, eyeing the labels. “Dark chocolate is quite nice, but I also might sample the rest, since they’re gifts from my dear fans.”

“Oh, come on,” he whined, reaching for Suguru’s sleeve like a raccoon, tugging him around as Suguru let himself get swayed, acting unconcerned as a tall tree in a mountain breeze.

“What do you want,” Suguru asked, not looking up.

Satoru stopped his shaking, sidled even closer s if to whisper an exclusive deal to Suguru only while possessively holding onto a box shaped like a cat paw from Suguru’s pile. “Trade you. The bitter stuff for your milk chocolate.”

“I like milk chocolate. On occassion.”

“You don’t like this milk chocolate. Besides, most of this will go bad before you get to eat it.”

“That’s true,” Suguru said after a beat, taking the box, turning it over consideringly. “This one has orange zest. I’d have to get at least a cookies and cream Pocky pack in return.”

“BLEGH.”

“Right. Then I’ll be keeping it.”

“You’re a tyrant,” Satoru said, trying to snatch a box from Suguru’s pile, his wrist easily caught without Suguru stopping his perusal of goods. “Ughhh. At least give me the dipped strawberries. Those won’t keep.”

Suguru arched a brow, only letting go once Satoru stopped looking so much like he was going to start for the next parcel.
“Fine, you’re right that I won’t be eating any of this anytime soon,” he said slowly. “But what are you giving me in return?”

“How about… the joy of being my close good friend and bestest sparring partner?”

Suguru stared Satoru down flatly while his close good friend and bestest sparring partner made a show of batting his huge, blue eyes at him like his lashes were fluffy cherub wings.

Suguru tilted his head, eyes narrowed in mock deliberation.
“I could just share with the whole gym,” he mused aloud. “And all my close good friends.”

Satoru looked personally betrayed. “You wouldn’t.”

“Utahime likes chocolate,” he said mildly. “Shoko, too.”

“Bullshit.”

“The dark kind, at least,” Suguru amended. “And I’ve seen Yaga enjoy a good cookie or two on occasion.”

“I give you something you’ll actually like,” Satoru said, gesturing with a half-eaten chocolate-dipped marshmallow from a crinkly bag clutched to his chest, already melting. “You know, like, fancy shit. None of this bargain bin stuff. You want that?”

Hah. As if Suguru would trust him not to eat himself sick on the Valentine’s chocolates now, then get himself even more for White Day too, and forget their trade. But ah, that gave him an idea as well…
Suguru smiled, sweet and smug and just a little evil. “Alright, sure. But store-bought is for cowards.”

Satoru squinted. “You’re being greedy.”

“You’re eating my chocolate.”

“…Touché,” Satoru muttered, “But I want the teddy bear too.”

Suguru regarded the ridiculous little thing, no more than a keychain dangling from the top of one of the bags. He took it down, weighing the plush teddy bear in one hand. It was deep brown with stitched paws and amber glass eyes catching the light, soft and gaudy in equal measure.
Then handed it over. “For the amount of sugar you’re hoarding, I expect quality.”

“You wound me,” Satoru said, cradling the bear like a newborn. “You know I don’t half-ass anything.”

“And yet here you are, skipping mobility drills.”

“And here you are, choking down protein bars and sadness while I’m thriving. My priorities are clearly in order,” Satoru added, already digging into another box for a heart shaped candy to pop between nougat smeared lips. “But don’t worry, I’ll save you a truffle. Maybe.”

“You’re too generous,” Suguru deadpanned, unsure if he wanted to pick Satoru up by the scruff and make him wash his face, or give in to the irrational urge to wipe at his lips himself.

“I know,” Satoru returned, and honestly, Suguru thought as he watched him flounce away toward the staff rooms already yelling for Ijichi to bring the car around for his ill-gotten treats to get loaded up, he didn’t really mind the sugarstorm Satoru brought with him. Not when he’d conned his way into getting handmade White Day chocolates from him, starting to sound more and more worth the eventual stomachache.

Suguru’s days were full of drills, his body shaped by rote and repetition and hours under Coach Yaga’s unyielding attention. He spent more time in the ring than out of it some days.
But with afternoons like this one, the sugar rush chaos, the bickering over chocolates and teddy bears, he found himself looking forward to something even beyond the thrill of a brightly-lit stage.

Even if Satoru would almost definitely poison them with smugness.
Maybe especially then.

After that, Suguru trained like more than just someone with something to prove. He trained like someone with something to look forward to. His spars with the elite roster were the blade against the whetstone, the click of puzzle pieces sliding into place. It was about showing the shape of his craft, about letting the world see what he already knew: he was good. Damn good.

He’d been in life-or-death fights since he was a teenager, faced opponents of every stripe, and the ring held no true fear for him. And yet…

Standing in the spotlight again, the real deal, not some shady place in the forgotten edges of the undercity, carried a pulse of nostalgia that felt startlingly like the distant throb of high school days. And new, too, because this time, it wasn’t something his control of his scent and dominant biology would help him with. 

It was his fists, his discipline, his hard-earned muscle that would speak for him.

And he welcomed the weight of eyes on him. He wanted them to know his name.

Just like that, the weeks passed, not in a blur but a kaleidoscope of precious learning opportunities and flashes of support lighting his way to the stage.
Yaga, miraculously, kept Satoru occupied, though by this point Suguru was suspecting the old man was guarding his back by keeping him from getting socked by an overeager champion back in the ring just before his debut. 

But it was Suguru Yaga warned not to start extracurricular activities. As if it was Suguru’s fault that “extracurricular” for the two of them involved trying to beat the shit out of each other in private until one of them gave up.
He only contributed half the effort here.

Anyway, the advice was appreciated, but unnecessary. Him and Satoru had already agreed on getting back into nightly spars only after Suguru’s fight was over and done with.

It was one more thing to look forward to, past the impending spectacle.

Fight week didn’t creep in, it hit like a wave. One moment Suguru was confirming sponsorship details with Mei Mei, and the next, he was standing in the center of the mat beneath gym lights that felt hotter than usual, breath fogging in the cool of early morning training.

He moved like someone who’d been doing this for years, because he had.
Certainty thrummed in his blood, shook his breath. This time wasn’t about surviving it. This time was about arriving.
He wasn’t climbing some ladder. He was planting his flag.

Yaga kept a close eye on him during drills. “Don’t let the rhythm get away from you,” the coach barked one morning, arms crossed, stopwatch in hand. “You’re not sparring with ghosts in there. Every movement needs purpose. Keep your eyes on who’s in front of you.”

Suguru nodded, towel slung around his neck, sweat curling along his jaw. “Ghosts don’t hit back, huh?”

“You’d be surprised,” Nanami muttered dryly, passing him a bottle of water and a sheet of notes. As the previous technical advisor to the former champ, Nanami had been nothing short of clinical in helping break down Suguru’s opponent. Well. What they knew of him.

Because the truth was, no one had seen him train in years.
No one had shared usable footage, because, through rumored nebulous connections any videos featuring him in fights tended to get taken down within mere moments.
No newby would even drop his name. His nickname was muttered like a jinx because, well, fighters were a superstitious lot.

The man existed only whispers.
He’s dangerous. He’s creepy. If he takes interest in you, he’s gonna cull you before you get the chance to rise. 

It didn’t scare him, all familiar enough talk to Suguru to just rise his hopes for a good match. He’d lived among the elite of elite fighters, underground and official, for years now. 

But he had to admit his opponent had a strange gravity. 

That silence around him? That was no accident.

The final week rolled in with the tension of a bowstring drawn taut. Suguru’s muscles remembered the routines, his body carrying the motion and strain like a second skin. Early mornings bled into long evenings. Meal plans were calculated to the gram. Weight cut sucked, but it was manageable. He thought about those White Day chocolates whenever Satoru sucked on a leftover candy, the sickly sweet scent clinging to the man never failing to lift his mood.

For now, all Suguru could do was keep pushing, keep prepping, and walk into that ring knowing he had something to prove.

Not to the world.

To himself.

To the man waiting for him beneath those lights.

To the one sitting in the front row, probably already heckling the ref before the bell even rang.

Three days until his fight.

Suguru wiped a damp towel over his face and slumped onto the nearest bench, phone buzzing in his locker like an eager wasp.

He scrolled through messages while he caught his breath:

Miguel:
My guy!
Sending good vibes from the motherland.
I’ll stream the fight even if the connection’s shit. Don’t get punched in the face too much.

Manami:
Ok, I’m splitting the tickets between me, Mei Mei, Larue and Toshihisa.
Rest up well before your fight!
Get that beauty sleep, handsome. 😘

Larue:
sticker of a boxing glove punching a smiley face
don’t make me come up there and save your cute butt, darling!💖🍑💖

Toshihisa:
Kill ‘em, king. 🥊

Suguru snorted softly. A warmth bloomed beneath his ribs at the thought of his friends waiting in the crowd for him.

Then he lowered the phone and found Satoru dropping down beside him, water bottle in hand, sweat-tousled and practically vibrating with leftover energy despite being benched from sparring.

Satoru leaned in, grin shark-bright. “Hey, Su-gu-ru~”

“Mm.” Suguru raised a brow at the plastic bag dangling from Satoru’s hand. “What’s that?”

Satoru pulled it open with a flourish. Inside rested a bento box, lacquer glinting deep red and black, so pristine and vaguely familiar that Suguru blinked at it.

It hit him a moment later. “Wait… isn’t that my bento box?”
He’d been looking for that.

Satoru puffed out his chest. “It is! I made you lunch. Because I know how much cutting weight sucks. And because you left your box at my place when you were babysitting my plague-ridden ass and uh, well, I kinda forgot to return it. But hey, I made up for it!”

Suguru tried very hard, and obviously failed immediately, to suppress the pleased warmth curling through his chest. “So you just… decided to cook?”

“Well,” Satoru said, eyes twinkling, “also because I wanted to hear my rice cooker say ‘Autobots, roll out!’ when it finished.”

Suguru let out a ragged little laugh, shaking his head. “I’d be touched, if I weren’t so sure you did this solely for that rice cooker.”

Satoru gave him a wounded look. “Hey. I also did it because I knew you’d appreciate my culinary prowess. Pre-view of the awesome chocolate extravaganza to come, if you will!”

Suguru chuckled and cracked open the box to reveal neatly arranged compartments of glossy rice, grilled chicken strips with black sesame, rolled omelet slices so even they could have been measured with a ruler, tiny mounds of sautéed spinach, and sweet simmered lotus root.
He stared for a second too long, then cleared his throat, his snarky remark sliding right back down with a gulp of pooling saliva at the mere sight.
“This looks… really good.”

“And totally diet-compliant! Carb conscious and all.” Satoru beamed, practically full-body wagging like a dog. “Try it! Tell me I’m the best.”

Suguru didn’t hesitate. He dug his chopsticks into the chicken and let the taste unfurl over his tongue. Perfectly seasoned, tender. He paused to savor it, barely resisting the urge to stuff his mouth with another bite before conceding, “Okay. You’re the best.”

Satoru preened, shoulders straightening in triumph. “Hell yeah. Praise me more.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Push what? My genius?”

Suguru picked at another piece, then side-eyed Satoru, who was just… sitting there, watching him eat. It wasn’t like he was self-conscious about it, but, well, Satoru near food he wasn’t inhaling at inhuman speed? Now, that was rare.
“Did you… pack one for yourself?”

“Nah. I ate earlier. Suuuuper full right now.”

“Liar. You’re a bottomless pit.”

“That may be true, but-”

He considered the generous size of the bento, then how many more youth classes were left for Satoru to oversee with a grumbling tummy. Sometimes even he recognized he was too noble of heart, but then again, if it was between sharing a few bites of his food and potentially later watching Haibara getting bullied into giving up part of his lunch to the resident black hole...
“Here,” he said, like it came easy, “want some?”

Satoru’s face lit up like sunrise. Then, immediately, it pulled into a suspicious frown, clouds darkening the bright blue skies. “Seriously? Don’t tell me you don’t like this.”

“It’s amazing, but I ate something just earlier,” Suguru sighed, nudging the box closer. “Which bite do you want?”

“Oh, okay,” Satoru said, quickly overcoming his conflicted feelings. “Chicken, please~”
Then he simply opened his mouth, leaning forward with eyes half-lidded, looking every bit the spoiled princess alpha.

“Unbelievable,” Suguru muttered, rolling his eyes even as he carefully picked up a piece of chicken and fed it to him.

Satoru made a pleased hum around the mouthful. “Mmf. Good. Feed me more.”

Before Suguru could retort, Utahime rounded the corner, stopped short, and made a face like she’d walked in on a crime scene.

“Oh. No,” she groaned, already turning around, muttering, “Disgusting. I’m telling Yaga. I’m telling Yaga. In the workplace.”

Satoru cackled, leaning closer and talking around another bite. “What’s her problem?”

Suguru pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. “Your entire existence, probably.”

Satoru just grinned, lips glossy with sauce. “Well, she’s gonna have to live with it. Now let’s have some of that tamagoyaki. I really outdid myself on that one!”

The day before the fight, Suguru didn’t even make it inside the gym.

He had just rounded the corner, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, headphones halfway in, when a too-familiar figure stepped directly into his path like a silver-blond roadblock in a puffer vest.
“Sorry, Suguru. You’re not allowed in today.”

Suguru blinked. Then frowned. “I have drills.”

“Correction. You had drills,” Satoru grinned, already turning him around by the shoulders. “Today’s been stolen by the Fun Police. Which is me, not Deputy Utahime. We actually have like, opposite jobs. I’m here to enforce the fun!”

“You can’t be for real.”

“I can, if I say it with confidence.”

Suguru dug his heels in. “Yaga’s going to have my head if I skip.”

“Actually,” Satoru said cheerfully, dragging him further away from the gym with no regard for pedestrian traffic, “Yaga said, and I quote, ‘If I see that kid touch one more punching bag, I’m going to nail his feet to the floor and make him meditate for eight hours straight.’ So, yeah. This is doctor’s orders. Okay, well, Shoko didn’t actually give a statement. Coach’s orders, then. My orders.”

He tried to wriggle out of Satoru’s grip, though not with his usual conviction. “I don’t like being babysat.”

“Wrong,” Satoru said. “You love being pampered. You’re just emotionally repressed about it.”

So they went. Suguru didn’t quite agree to it, but he also didn’t really resist. He let himself be steered down the sunlit street, grumbling mostly for form’s sake, until the rhythm of the walk lulled him into something quieter. The brisk chill in the air helped. The streets were loud in a pleasant way. Laughter from a group of students, the sharp hiss of a passing bus, wind tousling the trees just enough to whisper. 

These past weeks Suguru had spent so much time inside the gym he’d sort of become blind to the thawing outside world around until flanked by the most lively person enthusiastically pointing out the most inane things finding significance under his regard.

Satoru bought them drinks at a stand by the park, one scalding black tea with lemon for Suguru, one cup of molten sugar masquerading as coffee for himself. They found a bench that caught the sun just right and sat there a while, shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching through the thick buffer of their jackets, but close enough that Suguru could feel the warmth seeping through the layers right down to his bones.

“Anxious?” Satoru asked eventually, blowing at the foam of his drink like a kid playing with a bubble bath. Too cute.

“No,” Suguru said, then, after a pause, “yes.”

Satoru didn’t laugh. Just hummed. “Good. Means you’re not cocky.”

“I am cocky.”

“Okay, well, you’re not wrong to be.”

They talked about nothing. About how the park pigeons had declared war on the crows again. About Shoko’s ongoing mission to bully Utahime into trying edibles, medicinal of course, on her next off-day and what disaster and hangover that would bring. About Haibara’s accidental viral video and how Nanami would never recover from being forced into TikTok fame.

Suguru let himself laugh. Really laugh. The kind that didn’t feel like it had to be measured in grams and weighed against what it might cost.
He didn’t know if it helped exactly. He was still keyed-up, still sharp and buzzed under the surface like live wire, but… It softened the edges.
Took the sting out of waiting.

And most of all, he felt Satoru next to him. Warm and solid and steadying.
Not just loud or blinding, not magnetic the way he could be when he turned his presence on like a switch. But here. Pressed into the world beside Suguru’s own presence like they belonged on the same axis.

The tea was good. The air was crisp. The weight of tomorrow hadn’t vanished, but it wasn’t crushing him either.

Suguru thought, as the sun lit Satoru’s hair like a halo, that maybe this was what it felt like to be held together.

The locker room before a match had that particular hush to it, like the air itself was holding its breath.

Most everyone was already in the stands. The music thumping through the stadium walls was muffled now, like some distant heartbeat. All the calls and cheers and lights, they were waiting for him. But Suguru just sat there, lacing his gloves like he had all the time in the world.

Satoru knocked once on the open frame before stepping in anyway. He’d already been buzzing around his friend all day, but he’d had made a little errand run just before the real show started.

“Guess who survived the merchandise line and brought you a souvenir?” he announced.

Suguru looked up, unamused. “If it’s a glow stick with your face on it, I’ll choke you with it.”

“Okay, with a glow stick? Kinda curious how you’d manage that. But no, no, even better,” Satoru grinned, holding up a wristband with Suguru’s personalized sponsorship logo on it. “Limited edition. Imagine that, straight from the first official Geto Suguru merch batch on the market!”

“And you got a whole wristband in support? How generous.”

Alright, zesty. Maybe for now Satoru would keep to himself how he’d only sent Ijichi to get one of everything before leaving the rest for new fans to purchase, then. Tch.

He crossed the room and dropped down onto the bench beside him. Suguru’s gloves were secure. His stance was relaxed. His jaw, though… tight. He watched Suguru open his perfectly tied gloves back up, redoing them.

Satoru bumped his knee into Suguru’s. “Everyone already came through?”

Suguru nodded. “The whole roster.”

“Even Utahime?”

“Brought oranges.”

“She would bring oranges.”

They sat in silence for a beat. Not awkward, just heavy with something unspoken.

Satoru had known this moment would come. He just hadn’t expected his own heart to be thudding like a second clock in his chest.

“I was gonna tell you not to let your guard down,” he started, then grimaced. “But, like, what kind of advice is that for you, of all people? You invented vigilance.”

Suguru’s lips twitched. “Right? Not your style, either.”

“I was recycling, alright? It’s called being environmentally conscious.”

Suguru huffed, shifted, resting his arms across his knees, leaning in just slightly.

“But really,” Satoru said, quieter now, fishing out some wraps from his hoodie pocket, stopping Suguru from redoing them again and just reaching to do it with the ones Suguru had returned to him after his return from Kyoto. Before his own title match.

A good luck charm, maybe.
Though Satoru knew luck would have nothing to do with it when Suguru claimed his place in the big leagues tonight.

Suguru held very still, letting him wrap his knuckles, one hand, then the other, with care. He didn’t fuss with his gloves again after that, just flexed his fingers once before sending him a look of gratitude.

“Don’t forget to have fun out there,” Satoru told him, the only advice he could think of actually sounding relevant in a moment like this, for someone who already had everything else down pat like Suguru did.
“You’re allowed to enjoy it, y’know? It’s your debut. Big lights. Big noise. Big deal. You trained like hell, you made it here… breathe it in when you walk out there.”

Suguru blinked at him. Then, slowly, chuckled under his breath. “I was expecting something more dramatic. Maybe a warning about mystery opponents and hidden knives.”

Satoru scoffed. “You know all that already. And if I say it, you’ll just tune me out.”

He reached out and bumped a fist lightly to Suguru’s chest, right over his sternum.

“I’m right there with you, alright?” he said. “Well, okay, a row back actually, so I don’t steal your thunder. You deserve all of it. The lights. The roar. The legacy. All of it. ”

Suguru looked at him then, really looked. And something unspoken passed between them. Familiar, ancient, and terrifyingly new.

For half a breath, Satoru felt reminded of a late-night goodbye after the world's longest elevator ride, or at least what had felt like an eternity to him. A moment that had lingered in his mind all this time like cotton candy, sweet and sticky, even still.

Then the call came.

Suguru’s name, rising above the speaker system, echoed like a ritual. Suguru stood. Rolled his shoulders. Walked toward the entrance with his usual grace, and something just a bit more than that.

Satoru watched him go, hands stuffed in his pockets to hide the tremble in his fingertips.

And then Suguru stepped into the light.

His back straight. His chin high. He watched that smile rising in the overhead screen, dazzling, devastating, flashing bright in the camera flashes like it had always belonged there.

Satoru grinned, heart full as he followed him out with a cap pulled over his too-recognizable hair to not steal the lamp-light from the one deserving it the most tonight.

It was all his.

“Go get ‘em, Superstar,” he whispered.

The crowd was already humming like an overcharged hive when Satoru made his way out into the stands. He spotted the familiar shapes of his gym crew in the front rows reserved for friends, family and VIPs. Mei Mei’s hair shone like a silvery beacon near the ringside bench, already holding court with the press, a predatory grin on her face as she was likely already milking this hype for all it was worth. Larue’s hulking figure was easy to spot, waving wildly like he hadn’t seen Satoru in years, and Manami grinning like she was born to gossip.

But just before he reached them-

“Ehhh, Megumi, you brought your dad to watch too?”

Satoru’s smile froze.

Toji Fushiguro stood with his arms crossed and the air of a man who had never been impressed a day in his life. Megumi, next to him, matched the expression like a generational curse.

“Watching the floor get wiped with this guy again? Wouldn’t miss it,” Toji said, flicking his eyes over the arena like it owed him money.

Satoru tilted his head. “Eh? With Suguru? Listen up, you got it wrong-”

“Better not,” Toji interrupted, flashing what looked suspiciously like a betting slip . And not even the nice kind. The kind that said under the table, possibly underworld-adjacent. Mei Mei, perched like a vulture two rows over, caught his eye and winked.

Goddamn it. She’d absolutely endorsed this.

But then a strange little memory fluttered loose, like a dust-covered feather in the back of his mind. A moment from what felt like years ago, way before Satoru even first talked to Suguru. Back before he’d become aware it was a name worth knowing.

A man picking up his kid from practice, grumbling about a last-minute upset that had ruined his odds. “Of all the times for that Geto guy to flip the tables like that. Cost me a decent payout.”

That was how he’d first heard the name. A complaint tossed casually from a man who’d never cared who he bet on. Just whether they’d win.

And here he was again.

“Well,” Satoru said, letting his smile stretch a little too sweet, “maybe guys who don’t get in the ring themselves shouldn’t run their mouths on who’s going to win. Enjoy losing your money again.”

Megumi sighed like he’d just watched both his parents argue at a PTA meeting.

Satoru patted his head cheerfully.

Then he spun on his heel and skipped off before Toji could get another word in, beelining toward the far more tolerable energy of Larue and Manami. He ruffled a few youth division heads on the way. Yuuji, Junpei, Toge and Panda, hard skip on Nobara who looked more likely to bite his head off than allow her hair to be messed with, and, ahhh, maybe one more skip on Maki too… same energy with those girls. Nanami gave him a long-suffering look after dodging an attempted ruffle, Haibara laughing good naturedly through it… Ah, all as it should be.

Then he dropped into the seat saved for him between Manami and Larue, stealing popcorn with zero remorse, grinning cheekily when the woman batted at his arm without really intending harm. With nails like that she certainly could’ve caused some, if she wanted to.

Toshihisa was seated a little further down, nodding solemnly to the ringside where Yaga stood like a slab of concrete next to Shoko, who gave Satoru a lazy thumbs-up in return.

He pulled his hoodie up and slouched down, already ducking camera line-of-sight, mouthing a dramatic don’t perceive me to Larue who chuckled, murmuring something saucy about not making such an adorable spectacle of himself, then. Suguru’s friends were so fun.

The lights dimmed.

The announcer’s voice boomed through the arena.

“In the Blue Corner - GETO SUGURU!”

Satoru’s heart stuttered as the cheers began. A rolling wave of noise rose from the crowd, and Satoru joined it, hands cupped around his mouth, yelling something wordless and proud.

Then-

“And in the Red Corner-!”

The name that followed hit like a thunderclap.

“KAMO NORITOSHI!”

But that wasn’t how he was known in the scene. Not really. Not to the ones who whispered stories in the darker corners of the fight world. Not to those who’d seen what he did to up-and-comers with techniques they thought made them special.

To them, he had another name.

Kenjaku, the man who made a career culling the bright ones before their light could spread too far.

Satoru sat up straight. No more slouching. No more pretending not to be watching.

Because Suguru was walking into the ring. And his challenger was following from red.

Chapter Text

Zombie -  a fighter who appears hurt or dazed but continues to fight relentlessly, showing incredible toughness and resilience.

—

Under the lights the roar of the crowd swelled like a tide crashing against the ring, but inside it there was just them, two fighters coming towards each other beneath the buzz of white-hot spotlights.

Suguru stepped forward with grace practiced and innate, bare chested, shoulders relaxed, chin level, the picture of calm as the ref motioned them toward center.

Kamo Noritoshi did the same, his movements clipped and clinical. Every line of his frame screamed discipline, polish, and the weight of infamy carried proudly. He came toward Suguru not with the kind of threat learned to exude in a gutter or a street gym. This was the legacy kind. The kind that came with old names, high stakes, and a chip balanced precisely on one shoulder. He just liked a change of scenery in his playing field.

They met in the middle.

Suguru offered a polite nod first. “I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said, voice smooth but low enough the mic not too far from them didn’t catch it.

“Likewise,” the older man replied with a nod of his head in acknowledgement. “I’ve been interested in your technique for some time now.”
His tone dipped just enough to draw curiosity. For a sense of foreboding unease to set in.
“A shame there’s so little official footage to study.”

Suguru raised a brow, interest sharpened. Not unsettled by the comment, by the knowledge that Kenjaku had done his homework, but not taking it laying down either.
“It seems we share that trait,” he replied without a hitch, giving a small bow entirely devoid of the respect that should come with the gesture. Not that the cameras would see anything but a well-mannered junior.
“I’m looking forward to receiving some guidance from such an experienced fighter such as yourself for my debut. Not many veterans are satisfied with staying in these ranks for this long.”

Though Kenjaku’s smile didn’t move, the edged humility didn’t go unnoticed, returned with a backhanded comment in turn.
“Coming from Gojo Satoru’s shadow, I’ll take that as high praise.”

Suguru tilted his head, just slightly.
His own smile widened. Pleasant, practiced. Razor-thin.
He didn’t like the way the other man said that, wanted to scrub Satoru’s name from that mouth like Kenjaku was dirtying it by merely speaking it.
“Mnh,” he hummed, “He’s the one to watch if you’re hungry for lessons.”

“Oh, I plan to. He is the goal, isn’t he?” Kenjaku continued, tone light but deliberate. “And from the outside, it looks to me like the way in is through you.”

That earned the first crack in Suguru’s expression. Not a laugh, not quite a scoff, but something half-way between.

He leaned in just enough for the cameras to catch the movement. Subtle and slow, a deliberate draw of attention.

“There’s no in to Satoru,” he murmured, smile going steel-edged. “But since you went through the trouble of coming out of hiding for this, I’ll be happy to put a stop to your delusions right away.”

Was it possessive, territorial alpha bullshit? Yes. Perhaps it came reflexively with stepping into the ring for Suguru, or perhaps it was purely because he’d habitually skipped his suppressants, just to grant him an edge on the day of the fight, but his words clearly hit the mark as in that heartbeat before the ref signaled them apart, it was Kenjaku who forced down a snarl behind a nasty smile.

Not quite a flinch, but close enough, something in his expression or stance having taken the veteran off-guard enough to show such a visceral reaction.

The cameras zoomed in, crowd on the edges of their seats, breath caught in chests.

The ref raised his hand.

The bell rang.

And round one began.

Satoru had the best seat in the house. Not because it was the front row, though it was, but because it was his. He’d had it picked since Mei Mei first dropped the matchup name like a coin in a wishing well. And now that the lights were trained on the ring, with the announcer’s voice still echoing out into the crowd, Satoru watched Suguru step forward into his debut.

Every breath in the arena seemed to catch, the hype train led by Kyoto's most notorious revenue huntress having worked like a charm in drawing in crowds hungry for a spectacle.

Opposite Suguru, Kenjaku stood tall. Dark hair, calculating eyes. Calm. Unassuming in the way a loaded bear trap might be. You wouldn’t sense the danger until its teeth were already clamped around your ankle.

They hadn’t spoken loud enough for the mics to catch, but Satoru didn’t need to hear what was said. He could read Suguru’s posture like his favorite book. The initial ease, the polite smile, then the sharp set to his shoulders. Whatever that Kenjaku guy had said, it landed. But not the way he had probably hoped for. Not in a way that would end well for him.

The bell rang. And the tension broke like a surface cracking under heat.

Suguru stepped back, just one quiet slide of his foot. Not retreating. Not evading but waiting. Reading.

Kenjaku wouldn't be baited so easily.

They circled, a slow orbit of two suns both pretending to be moons, trying to lure the other into lunging first. Two fighters used to controlling the tempo, used to coaxing the opponent into mistakes. For a second, it almost looked like nothing would happen.

Then Kenjaku struck out first.

Satoru’s brows lifted immediately-

Sure, it was basically just a classic opening feint that disguised a low line kick meant to push balance and test guard without real risk. Anyone could do that. But the way Kenjaku moved, like someone that liked to play with his food, pretending at a meek opener, but packing hidden punch if the opponent underestimated it, was what made it all painfully familiar in its execution.

Suguru blocked it like he’d seen it in a mirror. Because he had. That was Suguru’s move.

“Ohh,” Satoru breathed, low and amused. “Is that what we’re doing?”

Within moments it became obvious to Satoru what the rest of the audience might still be piercing together slowly as more and more moves were exchanged - Kenjaku’s specialty wasn’t some flashy high-risk style. It was getting in his opponents head.
He studied, borrowed, parroted, and all that fluidly enough to make it hard to tell where his opponent ended and he began. It was a neat little trick. Infuriating, if you weren’t ready for it. But that wasn’t all it was. He interspersed borrowed technique with jabs of his own, nasty and just shy of getting flagged as underhanded maybe, to break the rhythm and take his opponent by surprise.

Satoru leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Because he saw it already. Suguru was read.

Yet, for now, he played along. Blocked. Dodged. Connected and got tagged in return without either side really winning any points. He let Kenjaku wear his own borrowed style like a suit half a size too small. They weren’t the same, Suguru and Kenjaku, different builds, different age, different appearance of course, but on the surface, for just a moment, they moved the same. Ghost-echoes in the ring. A dance of doppelgängers.

It was hard to read at first. Even Satoru felt his teeth grit, just slightly, watching Suguru shift and pivot, adjusting as Kenjaku reached for every familiar move. Every faint.

Kenjaku had experience on him. Not in years. Suguru had years. But in obscurity.
Kenjaku rarely stepped into the ring himself. He advised first and foremost but when he took personal interest in a fighter he studied them, stole the pieces of their techniques he saw as most useful, most interesting, and culled them before he disappeared again. No one knew what all he had in his pocket and thus he preferred not to fight on too public a stage.

The fact that Suguru had drawn him out now was testament to his unique versatility as a fighter.

A match-up like this could never stay tame for long.

He was right, of course.
Satoru might’ve been the only one in the arena who saw that gleam of danger light up in Suguru’s eyes before the move, because he himself had been on the receiving end of it once before. Just a flicker of shark’s teeth, an apex predator sensing blood in the water.

Then Suguru struck.

Not with a move Kenjaku had copied before but something fresh, curving at a sharp angle and coming down harder than expected. A counterattack designed not to hurt, but to pierce the rhythm. Though hurt, it did.

Kenjaku reeled. Not down. Not done. But rattled.

The crowd responded instantly and Satoru felt himself grin so hard his cheeks hurt.

The bell clanged a heartbeat later- the end of the round saving Kenjaku’s ass, giving him time to retreat for a breather. Suguru stepped back, chest rising, eyes bright.

That’s right, Satoru thought, breath catching, brimming with pride. There he is.

And now, with a second round to come and Suguru not falling for cheap tricks?

Now the real fight started.

The moment the bell rang for the end of round one, the tension dipped, not vanished, but thinned, like a taut string let just barely slack. Suguru returned to his corner, expression unreadable from a distance, but Satoru saw the brightness behind his eyes, the bite in the set of his jaw as Shoko hung back and Yaga shared insights with him. He probably already knew, but he nodded along.

He wasn’t just here to win. He was here to prove something.

"Did you see him,” he muttered, in awe, “he’s so good.”

Manami’s mouth quirked. “We know.”

“Mh-hm, he's looking gorgeous up there,” Larue drawled from Satoru’s left. “If he keeps his guard that tight, I don’t see how he loses. Confidence looks good on him.”

Satoru couldn't agree more, but he was distracted by Manami on his other side, clicking her tongue and flipping a page back in the notes she was taking. Yes, taking notes. Physically. With a pen and notebook, as if she were about to write a midterm paper on the match.

“That first strike Suguru landed,” she said, eyes scanning like a machine, “wasn’t one I’ve seen in his previous fights. The movement was faster, tighter entry angle. Like he was trading punch for reach.”

Satoru leaned back, smug settling into his bones like it had always lived there. “Yeah, probably picked that one up fighting me.”

“Oh?” Manami arched a brow. “That explains the hiccup in Kenjaku’s rhythm. Suguru’s older moves? Complex, but not impossible to map if you’ve seen him underground. That bastard’s clearly done his homework. But this-” she tapped the edge of her page, “-this he wouldn’t have expected.”

Toshihisa, quieter as always, added from behind them, “You trained a lot together, huh? Kenjaku's gotta adjust to how Suguru’s learned to deal with you now. That’s gonna be a bitch to catch up to.”

Satoru’s grin sharpened.
He hadn’t quite realized it at first, not consciously, but now that they said it, he could see it in the angles of Kenjaku’s stance, the moments he leaned just slightly off-center, the sudden burst-jabs instead of wide arcs that wouldn’t connect to Suguru, trained to deal with someone with shorter reach. Kenjaku’s imitation was a flawless copy-paste of how Suguru had fought when he’d entered the gym. Now, though, his moves were sharper, faster, adjusted to keep up with Satoru and his admittedly freakishly long limbs.

Suguru was disrupting Kenjaku’s mimicry with unpredictability.

He was serving him a taste of his own poison, countering replication with evolution, studied technique with growth. He wasn’t beating Kenjaku at his game, but by introducing a second, wilder variable. One Suguru knew intimately, had trained against in every spar since they were partners.

Larue gave a mock sigh, watching Suguru take a sip of water between rounds. “Can’t believe we all agreed to be in love with the same terrifying man.”

Satoru blinked, head turning just slightly like he hadn’t heard right.

Manami, elbow on the armrest, rested her chin in her palm and murmured, “I mean, how could you not?”

Even Toshihisa behind them gave a shrug. “He’s pretty hot.”

Satoru made a strangled sound in the back of his throat he turned into a laugh, not having seen the conversation taking such a sharp turn coming at all.
“Whoa, okay, hey now, let’s all calm down. Let’s not objectify the guy. He’s already fighting hard enough up there.”

It was one thing when he joked about these things, but he hadn’t expected all of Suguru’s friends to jump onto their thing unprompted. Or did Suguru just talk like this with anyone-?

“Why?” Larue teased, throwing a sly glance sideways. “Jealous?”

“Me?” Satoru scoffed, grinning, even as something under his skin sparked like struck flint. “Please. I’m just saying if there’s gonna be a sign-up sheet, I should be at the top.”

Manami’s brows arched, amused. “Oh? How come? We’ve got seniority here, you know.”

“You may have known him longer, but I’ve been in the trenches with him,” Satoru claimed, jabbing a finger toward the ring. “Sparring with him, getting bruised by him for his promotion, hell, if that doesn’t earn me some kind of cookie points-”

“Sounds like Stockholm syndrome,” Larue muttered.

“We call it team bonding. But that’s only half of it.”

Luckily, before he could blab any more, Toshihisa leaned forward, crossing his arms on top of Satoru’s seat, tilting his head. “So… you calling dibs?”

Satoru opened his mouth to deny it, but only got as far as, “Well -” before realizing he didn’t really know where to take that sentence from there, trailing off into a huff, laughing a bit at himself as he rubbed the back of his neck, that weird, giddy little flutter zipping through his chest again.

It was just a joke. They were all just joking.

…Probably.

Manami didn’t help. She smiled sweetly. “So if you were calling dibs…”

“I’d do it out of principle,” Satoru said quickly, chin lifting, regaining his footing. Joking. Definitely. “You can’t all have him. Someone has to keep his ego in check.”

“He does let it get to his head if you compliment him too much,” Larue agreed, nodding his head slowly in consideration.

Toshihisa hummed thoughtfully. “But also tends to retreat into his own head if he thinks he’s not being appreciated enough.”

“Exactly,” Satoru said, pointing double-fingerguns at them, latching onto the thread like a life raft. “I’m basically doing a public service here! Emotional support and tactical feedback. Which works out perfectly, since we’re already best friends-”

“That so?” Manami asked mildly, looking at him now with a gaze just a little too direct to be casual. “Well. If you are gonna lay claim to anything, make sure you treat it like something you wouldn’t want to lose.”

Satoru blinked.

“…I mean, duh?” he said after a pause, then ruined the joking vibe with a too serious, “That’s how I’ve always treated him.”

The silence and raised brows that followed confirmed what Satoru only realized a beat too late. That such things really were just too sappy to say out loud.
Especially at an MMA match, casually talking and getting to know the friends of the guy he had a kind of unorthodox alpha bond going on with.

He nearly opened his big mouth again to add context, more likely to make it sound worse, but then Larue snorted softly, gaze flicking to Manami, then to Toshihisa, and back. A silent exchange, quirked eyebrows and amusement traded like poker chips across the row.

Satoru narrowed his eyes. “Why do I feel like you guys are having a conversation I’m not invited to?”

“Oh, Gojo,” Manami said sweetly. “Because we are and you’re the subject of the conversation.”

He narrowed his eyes further. “That’s worse.”

Being put in a defensive position Satoru had about a hundred things to say about that, but then the lights above flickered, one long pulse, and the jokes slipped into silence. Heads turned forward, shoulders straightened.

The bell was coming.

And Suguru, center of all of it, the jokes, the affection, the unspoken tension, stepped out into the ring again, into the light, where his tarnished mirror waited to meet him.

Satoru leaned forward, the conversation pushed to the back of his mind at once, giddy nerves thrumming again.

Except, perhaps, for the newly found possessiveness he found when he looked at Suguru and thought, oh yeah, dibs on that, perhaps a bit more seriously than he would admit aloud.

Suguru stepped forward, not fast, not showy. Just precise. Poised.

Across from him, Kenjaku matched his pace, adjusted to his stance. And as their gazes locked, Suguru saw it.

Not himself, not quite, but a ghost of who he’d been, once. Down in the old underground pits, when a win was worth more than a reputation and the weight of each fight stacked on his ribs like bricks. Kenjaku had his own moves but reacted like he’d studied him, not the man he was now, but the boy he’d clawed forward from on bloodied mats and spite.

Expecting those sharp, hungry strikes, closing the distance in preparation for a hook Suguru hadn’t used in months, because it was too cruel, too certain. Because it had cost him more than it had ever given.

Suguru sidestepped a straight and returned a light check to the ribs, felt it connect cleanly. Standing opposite his distorted replica he saw clearly now, how he had been made up of all edges and venom, trying to win before anyone could dig in and take something from him. Before he’d learned that surviving and living weren’t the same. 

How prideful he’d been.

Kenjaku was preying on that pride, on Suguru's conceitedness, trying to lure him into old thought patterns but instead found himself faced with a different beast altogether as he was forced to stagger back a half-step with a grunt after a hard hook had clipping his temple. He smiled, not pleasantly for once.

Suguru smiled back, sweet as syrup.

The match could probably have ended in round two, yet he didn't go for the kill shot. Didn't chase a knockout.

He drew it out.
Feints. Pressure. Strike and retreat. He let Kenjaku know he could, that he was choosing not to. That the fight wasn’t survival. It was sport.