My true sanctuary ~ satosugu

2. 𝘼 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮

A piece of glass shoved deep in his flesh.

He didn't even realize he'd stopped walking until the stranger was pulling him back to the crash site.
"What? " The rest of the phrase joined the small hours' breeze, floating in the air, far from suguru's reach.
The stranger then lifted his previously down motorcycle, inclining it towards the ground with its small metal support.
"Sit."
Suguru didn't want to.
He wanted to run, come home, ask his parents for help. Staring at the glass stuck in his palm, however, he realized he didn't have this option. His parents would be disgusted. Disgusted by their son. The son who comes home at 2:00 in the morning with an alcohol bottle shoved into his skin. If he let them down, he'd be letting God down.
Suguru could not disappoint God.
He sat down and reflected on his current situation as the boy opened a compartment attached to the side of his bike. When he got up, he was carrying some items in his arms.
Bandages, antiseptic and sterile gauze.

"Lend me your hand, raven mane?"

The whitehead kept calling him that and suguru didn't understand the use of the diminutive.
He was clearly shorter than the other, if he was "raven mane" the boy should be "frosted locks".
The other boy grabbed his hand before he could offer it.
"Will it hurt?"
It was the first coherent sentence that came from suguru in that whole conversation. The boy smiled, looking pleased with the development.
"Yeah." By impulse, the long-haired tried to remove his hand from the grip of the other. To no avail. "So, while I take care of this holey hand of yours, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?"
At that moment, in the midst of so much pain and despair, suguru almost laughed.
A loud laugh, the one that bothers everyone around you, the one that leaves you with tears in your eyes and entirely flushed, not able to breathe for a long time. It was a ridiculous and terrifying situation. He was sitting on a questionable teenager's bike at the height of the night with a bottle of alcohol stuck in his palm. It was simply surreal.suguru felt that, maybe, it was all just a dream. Not exactly a nightmare in its pure nature,
but a slightly dystopian dream.

"About me?"

"Yeah, your name, for example." The whitehead head moved his gaze from suguru's hand to his
eyes. "Or do you prefer raven mane?"
The way the boy was talking was exotic. Suguru thought he was too informal, too calm.
"Suguru." Answered almost without realizing it, correcting himself as soon as he noticed the informality the name gave to their relationship. "-suguru geto . Call me suguru geto "
The whitehead had already turned his attention back to the other's hand, measuring how much gauze he'd need. Still, suguru, staring at him, was able to notice a smile forming in the mouth of the unknown boy.
"Too long." He grimaced in forced disappointment. "I'm sorry, raven mane."
The whitehead laughed.
Suguru did not know if he understood the hilarity, if he didn't, or if, by chance, he himself was the joke. He knew only that the boy found his own speech quite comical, still laughing as he cut the bandage using his teeth.
Resisting the urge to rebuke him for the act, suguru turned his gaze to the streets.

Your body is a temple, a divine temple that must be treated with respect, for it was He who gave you this flesh to sustain your soul as you pass through the stage of life on Earth.

But suguru couldn't interfere with the other's decisions.
He was afraid that, in praying for him, God would judge them related in some way. Of course He was omnipotent and present, but under the possibility that this level of proximity was enough for suguru to be associated with the whitehead, he would avoid him.
Suguru should not associate with those lost in God's way.
But maybe he was getting ahead of himself.
Maybe the boy was a good man, there at that time, by chance. Gentle enough to help suguru  with his bruise even if he only wanted to go home after a tiring day of hard work.
Suguru didn't quite believe that.
The Moon, once so bright, appeared to be matte, and suguru felt that God had stopped supervising him.
Have I let you down, Sir?

"I'm seventeen."

He should reflect on his mistakes and apologize to God, but he was distressed, he needed a distraction, and the whitehead boy was his best, and only, option at the time.
He didn't receive a verbal response, but by the expression on the whitehead face, suguru assumed he was listening.
"I've lived in yotsuya since I was born.But due to my father's job we moves to Tokyo. I don't like it here."
Opening up was not the right option,  suguru did not know why such need had arisen. It was rare that he expressed his opinions, perhaps the discomfort and shock made him more expressive than normal.
Feeling the other's eyes on him again, he turned his face to the faulty traffic light on his left.
The pain of whatever the whitehead was doing in his hand increased rapidly.
A warm chuckle broke through the cold breeze of the night.

"Noted."

The long-haired forcibly coughed, he didn't know quite how to respond.
He didn't even know if he was supposed to.
"My favorite color is black and white, yes I do like monotonous colors which won't distract me from my own duty . I have a dog and my purpose in this world is to serve God as best as I can."
In the middle of the sentence, suguru felt the glass being pulled from his skin. The pain narrowly didn't get him to give up the DIY operation. It didn't matter. What kind of devotee would he be if he couldn't take a tiny bit of pain like that? Jesus had suffered much more for suguru's sins.

"I did think you looked like an actual angel."
Nausea.
Suguru wasn't an angel, he wasn't even worthy enough to be called a disciple.
Angel ? It was disrespectful to God. Abandoning his previous ideology, he began to beg forgiveness for the sins of the whitehead at his side; only the most recent, of which he was aware, and in which he could end up mentioned in the reports up there.
The whitehead continue ,
"Your dog," began, grabbing suguru's attention again, "what's its name?"
"Hanami." the whitehead arched his eyebrows, encouraging the other to continue.

"Oh, okay. "

"He... He's a good friend. The best I could have, the greatest companion I've ever had my whole life. I'll never be able to thank him enough for everything he does for me. Not in a way he'd understand, at least."

"Done."

Suguru turned his eyes to the other boy's little medical demonstration.
His hand was bandaged and the whitehead head had put the bloody bottom of the bottle next to him,
on the badly paved street of a suburban neighborhood in a dirty corner of Tokyo.
At some point, without suguru noticing, the pain had ceased.
Noting the boy's surprise, the stranger inched his face close and, a few centimeters from suguru, started speaking again,
"The dog was the only thing that could distract you, not even I could!" He approached a little more, minimally shaking his head, without ever letting the plastered smile on his face fade.
"If you weren't so handsome I would've been really hurt, rave- oh suguru san or maybe suguru."
Without a word, suguru pulled his face away with desperation, barely managing to stay on the motorcycle. In the absence of the other's mint breath directly on his face, suguru felt his mind clear and frowned, closing his uninjured hand in a fist.
"I appreciate the help." He said, between short and accelerated breaths, turning his back towards the whitehead. "Goodbye."
He expected the other to complain, yes, but not to sit on his bike and, with the deafening engine cutting through the reasonably mute air, honk, and look at suguru with certain
incitement.

"Want a ride, suguru?"
The tone. It was a challenge.
It was childish and ridiculous. Maybe even offensive to the divine forces, but suguru couldn't lose.
He needed to prove his courage. He had to be the best at everything.
To be God's favorite, his father had taught him, you must work for it.
He stared at the whitehead
"I want a helmet."
Clearly, that wasn't the expected answer. With wide eyes — briefly, before returning to his usual expression of tranquility—the boy laughed, incredulous.
Then, still smiling, he reached out to suguru, offering the helmet he wore when he nearly ran over the raven mere minutes ago.

-

A/N : i was listening to no.1 party anthem while writing this and it made me so upset Idk for what reason haha