Memories Of An Old Friend (satosugu)

Chapter 5

Do you wanna talk maybe?

Ever since Gojo had seen the news in the early morning, when the world stood on the threshold of day and night, he had known no peace. At that time, he had been at the academy, running his laps in the night.

Now, at a more normal time in the morning, he was sitting in Shoko's infirmary. Fortunately, it was empty at the moment, but that didn't mean that Shoko had nothing to do. Satoru knew that she had much better things to do than listen to him talk about how terrible his love life was.

He had already read the message on his phone about 50 times by now. Running his eyes over the letters again and again to be sure of what he had read.

Suguru had asked him if they wanted to meet. He had even let Shoko read the message to confirm that the Sorcerer wasn't crazy and desperately imagining things.

"I would go if I were you," Shoko said, scribbling away in her notes.

Satoru didn't really know what Shoko was researching, but he also knew that the other was happy not to be talking about work for a change. The two of them were already working enough in their own ways to have to talk about it.

"For what? To be rejected again? No thanks. Perhaps it's not even Suguru, but some higher-ups who have stolen his phone and want to catch me," Satoru blabbered to himself and managed to get Shoko to snort in amusement.

"Oh please. You two would never last long without each other." Shoko turned away from her work and turned to the taller one, "I think you should go and listen to what he has to say"

Satoru chewed his lips, one of the many habits he had developed over the years. For a minute or so, he stared at the blank white wall of the hospital room. He thought about the past weeks and how bewildered Suguru had seemed during his confession.

Perhaps this was his chance, the end of their tragic dance. All he had to do was get ready to go out onto the dance floor one last time, to take Suguru's hand in his one last time. It depended on how well they harmonized whether this would be a gentle or painful ending.

Whether one of them, or both of them, would fall. Or perhaps they would simply and gently end their dance with the music, coming to a halt more and more slowly and skillfully on their healed feet.

"You're right," Satoru said jerkily and jumped up from his chair, causing Shoko to flinch in shock not far from him, "Thanks, Shoko!"

"You're welcome," muttered the doctor.

Just before Satoru could leave the hospital room, however, Shoko held him back.

"Wait," she waited until he turned his head back towards her before she continued, "If you decide to leave, I wouldn't blame you."

Satoru and Shoko had often talked about how they could have stopped Suguru. Back then, those thousands of conversations at night when neither of them could sleep had only been full of grief and regret. For feelings that otherwise had no place in their heavy hearts.

With this new situation, the topic of conversation hadn't come up often, but they both knew that the other had often thought about it.

This time, a gentle smile appeared on Satoru's face. Full of love and affection for his long-time girlfriend. And at the same time his heart ached, he was about to take her away, but he knew she didn't want him to.

"Thank you, Shoko," and on his way out he called after her at the top of his voice, " Love you, don't work too much!"

With that, the doctor stayed behind in her empty hospital room and Gojo walked through the academy while typing furiously on his phone. It took him a while to squeeze out a halfway decent answer.