Meeting Suguru 's parents, he wonders, might actually be the hardest thing he 's ever done.

Satoru bows when he meets them, uses the politest speech he was taught, and desperately tries not to remember how Suguru murdered them for no reason at all. They pinch his cheeks and call him adorable, laughing about how stiff he is and what they call his 'charm. ' They tell him

'don 't be so formal, honey, '

and,

'we want to hear all about you! '

Satoru smiles, and he plays along, because he wants them to like him so badly it hurts.

He doesn 't miss the way that Suguru stares at him as if he 's alien, and he 's sure somewhere that isn 't in his body that he certainly must look and seem like it, after a year of what Suguru 's experienced of him. Casual and crass, he 's nothing like this perfect, polite thing to use. He feels alien even to himself, floaty and odd, like he 's watching something else pilot his body, like that fake that had stolen Suguru 's. Like he isn 't Satoru at all, but the imitation of him that everyone else wants, but which he can 't seem to be.

'Are you sure this is okay, ' Suguru whispers into his ear that first night, as Satoru clings to him for what isn 't the first time nor what will be the last. He can only nod, voice stuck in his throat when he 's replaced all his words with pleasantries and niceties. It is, it isn 't, he wants to be liked so badly that anything will be okay if he only tries hard enough.

His glass house is shattered the second night in, after one exceptionally awkward day and several experiences he thinks he 's never actually had before, when his stress of being perfect is finally crippled with one finely crafted blow. All told, it happens faster than he thought it would have.

'What do you like to do for fun? ' He 's asked, and it 's probably deeply fucked up when the first thing that comes to his mind is,

'find new and creative ways to die. '

He sits at their dinner table in their cozy, lived in home, and racks his brain for an answer. He sits for so long that the waiting silence turns uncomfortable, and he feels fifteen again, personality-less and a blank canvas waiting to paint himself colorful. All he can think of is death. It 's been almost three months since he 's escaped that hell, and it 's still stolen most of who he is in the missing gouges of his torn up skin, the holes in his thoughts and personality.

'An answer, '

he thinks frantically,

'think of an answer. '

What leaves his lips is a quiet, 'I don 't know. ' He stares down at his half finished dinner plate, the only foods he 's eaten the ones Shoko has beaten into his head as being safe for his stomach, infinity banned in a non-sorcerer house, and doesn 't feel hungry. Shame wells in the pit of it, finally with a name to be remembered after so long spent forgotten.

'...You like to read, ' Suguru quietly offers beside him, nudging his foot under the table. 'And you like to mess up my Pok 'mon games. ' When Satoru looks at him from the corner of his eyes, he catches the smallest quirk of a smile, and thinks of that moment in the dojo.

'And what would you do, if this were a real fight? '

Suguru had said.

'I wouldn 't worry, '

Satoru had answered,

'you 'd be there, wouldn 't you? '

Suguru is here, he realizes. Suguru 's choice is him.

'...I like to hang out with you, ' he says, the timid words gaining a little strength as he finds Suguru 's hand under the table, and from it, the strength to smile, too. He can see it in the faint cursed energy of Getou Emiko and Getou Isamu as they exchange a glance with the same dark eyes Suguru sees from, and within the broken shards of his glass house, he 's as scared as much as he 's terrified as much as he 's okay.

He wants Suguru 's parents to like him, desperately, but he wants them to love him even more, because one day, he wants to marry Suguru like he hadn 't been able to the first time with his parents alive to walk him down the aisle. He wants Megumi and Tsumiki to grow up with grandparents who love them and spoil them rotten. He wants a family, wants it so badly it makes his ribs hurt when he thinks about it for too long, because he 's been so lonely for so much of his life. He wants Suguru 's parents to like him, desperately, but he wants them to love him even more.

'That 's sweet, ' Getou Emiko says as she leans over her elbows on the table. 'What do you two get up to, hm? I bet all sorts of mischief, isn 't that right, Suguru? I think those spray paint cans are still in the shed, you know. '

Beside him, Suguru sputters into a storm of protests as his father laughs, and Satoru blinks, watching as the family around him continues on, despite his blunder, unfathomably welcoming even to his mistakes. Getou Emiko and Getou Isamu pat him on the head when they turn in for the night, telling him they 're happy he 's here, that they 're glad Suguru finally has a friend. They don 't tell him he 's not perfect, or that he could be better, or that he may as well be worthless with the way he 's carrying on.

They smile at him, wish him to have a good rest, and don 't say a word about the way Suguru hovers over him in a way that has nothing friendly about it.

When Suguru pulls him up into his bed from the spare futon his parents helped him put in his room for the second night in a row, Satoru finally uncoils in the circle of his arms, and lets himself think that maybe, he won 't fuck up something before he even gets to have it.

Satoru finally unwinds that night. Throughout the next day, he smiles wider, laughs a little louder, starts speaking in a way that sounds like himself. It 's nothing short of absolute relief, and the liveliness that begins to infect his house is almost something like welcomed, after.

Satoru slides into his little family without him noticing. He makes his mom laugh, finds a shared love of terrible television shows with his dad, spends days enamored with all the little things in his life that Suguru himself never thinks much of.

'You got to decorate your own room? ' He asks, a few days in, poking around his bedroom and all the knicknacks he has stashed on shelves and flat surfaces from a childhood full of boredom and self-made adventures.

'Yeah, ' Suguru says, shrugging. 'I picked the paint color and the theme when I was maybe eight. ' It could be much worse. Painted a calm blue, his walls don 't feel suffocatingly bright, and maybe he has too many stuffed animals leftover from when he 'd been a kid and overly attached to them because he 'd had no friends, his bedding and blankets are all soft tones of cool hues that aren 't embarrassing prints of Astro-boy or Naruto.

'...I like it, ' Satoru declares, the soft words matched with a softer smile as he gives the old mobile he never had the heart to get rid of a spin, watching the small stars and moons tethered to it sway where it hangs on his curtain rod.

They don 't spend much time going out into town. The one trip they do make is with his mom, on a yearly quest to find a Christmas cake after the Christmas deadline because they 're cheaper past the holiday. It 's enough for him, when he doesn 't have any friends he wants to visit anymore, or any memories of his hometown he particularly wants to relive. Satoru, though, can 't seem to keep his eyes in one place as they walk around the streets he grew up in, rural compared to the inner city of Tokyo, with its sleepy streets and lazy curses.

'What 's that over there? ' He asks, as they pass the rusting old payphone, and, 'did you go to school there? ' when the middle school comes into view. 'Were you super popular? I bet you were super popular, ' Satoru rambles, chattering away as they walk to the small grocery store, oblivious to how Suguru looks away, unable to help from curving his shoulders in.

Popular, he thinks, and it 's too sour to even snort at.

'Is that a small park? ' Satoru asks, stopping in his tracks and nearly slipping on an icy patch of the sidewalk in his abruptness.

'That 's Chiisai park down there, ' his mom explains, readjusting her purse strap as they pause on the sidewalk. 'Suguru used to love playing there when he was little. '

He shrugs when Satoru turns towards him, a bright thing widening his eyes. Playing might be the wrong word, but he isn 't about to deny how much time he spent there, once. 'It had swings that weren 't rusted, ' he offers, and sees the unspoken desire bloom loud and clear in pretty blue eyes as soft pink lips are bitten in excitement.

He sighs, though the sound is fond. 'Yeah, let 's go sit on the swings, ' he agrees, and catches Satoru 's grin before he 's being shoved in a challenge, listlessly realigning his feet as Satoru bounds down the long slope of the snow-powered hill.

'We 'll just be a minute, ' he starts, the promise familiar as it slips off his tongue, except the words all evaporate when he looks up. '...Mom? ' He asks, brows furrowing down at the look on her face.

It 's 'odd. There 's a sharpness to it, like regret is the thing tightening her lips.

'...Just a thought, ' she says, covering it with a smile quicker than he can study it, and pushes him towards the hill with a hand on his shoulder. 'Go have fun. I 'll meet you back here. ' He stares at her instead of moving, suspicious or brave enough to hold his ground now that he 's been gone for months, and it only takes a few beats of a moment for her to break.

'Oh for the love of- I just thought that you finally looked happy, for once, ' Emiko sighs, falsely put upon as she explains.

'As opposed to? ' He grouses, bristling at the old words when they spark a lance of anxiety down through his ribcage, though it doesn 't have any heat to it. She softens, a melancholic smile reshaping her red lipstick.

'You never looked like you do now back then. ' She pauses, simply watching him for a moment, and Suguru can 't help but draw up, blinking away from the gentle scrutiny when for the first time, that 's all it is. 'Go have fun, Suguru, ' his mother asks, as if there is nothing wrong, as if there is no unfixable problem, and for the first time, there isn 't. So, he nods, and finally slips away.

His heavy footsteps send little cascades of snow down the hill, the material of his thick coat swishing against itself, and he tries not to remember how the sounds of it would change every season he 'd run away to little Chiisai, hiding for hours.

'That isn 't how you use the swings, ' he chides, even though there 's nothing admonishing about the statement. Satoru turns his head, looking down to where he pushes through the dried, withered bushes to reach the swing set. It 's started to rust, either sometime in the time he 'd spent there or the time that he 'd stopped.

'Who said there was a rule for how to use swings? ' Satoru protests, sat on the very top of the metal bars above where the chains rain down, his hair looking as if it could melt into the heavy cloud cover above.

The snow crunches under his feet as he walks towards it, a nostalgia weighing his limbs heavy as he looks around, peering over places he 'd hollowed out for himself to ultimately abandon. It 's tempered slightly with Satoru with him, a sight so out of place in his memory of it that he can 't quite reconcile the two.

'You 'd be surprised how mean kids can be about arbitrary things like that, ' he mutters, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets as the confession is dragged from his lips unwittingly. Satoru hums, and then he 's sliding forwards as if to drop down to the snow from high up on top of the swing set- except he doesn 't fall. He floats, like he 's nothing but one of the snowflakes surrounding them, feet softly greeting the ground when he finally reaches it.

'Not really, ' he murmurs, settling onto one of the swings and looking up expectantly when Suguru doesn 't immediately follow. 'They 're mean about things that aren 't arbitrary, too. '

It takes him a long moment to sit down when surprise halters his movements, confusion and realization tightening his ribs. Satoru doesn 't talk about home, and Suguru doesn 't talk about childhood. They 're similar that way- although, he thinks, maybe more than just that.

So he sits. The swings creak and groan under their weight, and rust stains his hands when he puts them on the old chains.

'I started coming here as a kid, ' he finds himself saying, the words tumbling out in the eerie stillness of the winter whiteness, the silence. 'There 's lots of hiding places, ' he says, staring down at his shoes, 'if you know where to look. '

'I wish I 'd had a place like this, ' Satoru offers. His eyes are fixed on the snowy field in front of them when Suguru looks up, swallowing down the nervous thing in the pit of his stomach.

'You had a sorcerer clan, though, ' he wonders, head tilting in confusion. Satoru turns to look at him again, blue eyes striking against all of the snowy white, and he doesn 't blink as he opens his mouth, not for any of the words that roll off his tongue.

'You can 't outrun what you 're surrounded by, ' he says, and there 's a chilling thing to it, an icy sort of shiver that makes his fingers feel more numb than the cold from the rusty metal chain links ever could.

'....Yeah, ' he mutters, thinking of long days sat in school, of scrubbing cruel words written in marker off of his desk, choosing to wear his hair in a bun so it couldn 't be pulled. 'Who would 've thought being a weirdo wouldn 't work out very well. '

Satoru laughs, a sharp, crisp bark of sound that cuts through the silence like a pick to an icy lakebed. 'Unless you 're

the

weirdo, ' he jokes, eyes crinkling up in mirth. 'Couldn 't get people to worship you, Sugu-chan? ' Satoru teases, and he can 't help the sardonic grin that pulls up his lips, even though he hears the old despair that echoes in the words.

'How would they worship you if they were busy worshiping me? ' He retorts, scooping up a handful of snow to lob at Satoru 's head, snickering as he lurches to the side to avoid it and almost falls off his swing. 'I did you a favor. '

He ducks with a sharp noise when a snowball is hurled at his face in retaliation, and yells an insult that breaks off into aimless noise when he feels the infinitesimal pull of Blue tip him out of his seat and into the snow. He staggers to his feet, shivering, and almost slips again when he takes off after Satoru, the sound of their crunching footfalls loud in the clearing as they run.

It makes breathing feel easier, his shoulders feel lighter. He exhales, and it doesn 't taste like unfathomable monsters he 'd choke down, choke down, choke down, never with any proof to show anyone else.

His mom comes back for them maybe an hour later, a cake box tucked in her arms and two bags of groceries hanging from her elbow. 'Boys! ' She yells, standing at the top of the sloping hill, 'we need to go home to cook dinner! '

They rush to meet her, panting and sodden and exchanging glances from the corners of their eyes at each other, cheeks flushed and giggly. Satoru hauls him back up onto the sidewalk, and Suguru lets him lean into his space as they meander back, no glasses to shield his eyes from the sunlight the overcasted clouds scatter around.

He doesn 't miss his mother 's look as she follows behind them- considering, instead of regretful. A narrowing of her eyes, a slight pursing of her red lips, a vague upturn to their curved corners.

He doesn 't ask the second time, more concerned with chattering mindlessly with Satoru as they walk, lagging behind him to hide how his eyes slip shut and stay shut to bat away the strain. He feels light, exhausted and at ease, even though he has no friends he wants to visit anymore, or any memories of his hometown he particularly likes to relive.

He has Satoru, who is more than any friend he might have made once, and new memories to have with him. Somehow, it makes his home feel more content, more like home, than it 's been in years.

It gets easy to lose himself in a pattern that forms as the days pass- of falling asleep with Satoru tucked close in the bigger bed of his childhood room, of waking up with his hair being messed with, of spending the morning making breakfast or finding something to watch by playing with the radio signal. Of eventually meandering outside to follow the frozen stream behind his house out into the forest, crystalized and eerily still, Satoru a perfect, missing piece to its stunning colors.

They help make dinner every night, something he didn 't usually used to do but finds oddly relaxing after months of cooking back at the dorms. Satoru 's always at his side and ready to bicker pointlessly over nothing, or rest his head on his shoulder as they work, or lean into his side and smile about something inane he 'd always overlook, before.

He nudges Satoru 's knee under the kotatsu blanket two nights before they have to leave, toasty and calm and full of homemade dinners and recipes he 's missed. He gets one blue eye opening, pale cheek squished into the table top where he 's flopped over the front of it, dozing below the low drone of the news.

'Happy late birthday, ' Suguru says, pushing the last dumpling to his half of the side of the table they share, an old candle stuffed into the center of it- lit with a quick snap of his lighter Satoru hadn 't seen behind his closed eyes.

He watches rosy lips part, blue eyes widening as Satoru sits up and stares down at the dumpling, cooled since dinner and nothing close to a cake, but meaningful regardless.

They hadn 't celebrated his birthday up at the dorms, because when Shoko had wheedled for a date, a party, a gift idea, she 'd only gotten a snappish response and a door shut in their faces. Suguru had let him keep his silence, the terseness, the embittered thing he wouldn 't speak about. If Satoru hadn 't wanted to celebrate, he 'd told himself, then he wouldn 't force him to.

That hadn 't meant, however, that he couldn 't do anything.

'I love you, ' Suguru murmurs, the only gift he can give when Satoru doesn 't want any, and meets stricken blue eyes with the warmest smile he can find to wear.

'You- ' Satoru sputters, the word thinning as he turns away to rub at his eyes. 'I can 't believe you. '

'What, you 're not gonna say it back? ' Suguru teases, leaning into Satoru 's space to set his chin on his shoulder, trailing one hand along their tangled legs to thread their fingers together.

Satoru laughs, a wet thing that sounds happy instead of sour, a smile of his own curling the dimples in his cheeks when he looks back. 'I love you too, ' he whispers, tilting their foreheads together.

Suguru hums, skimming a thumb along the line of his jaw. 'Welcome home, ' he says, pressing a kiss to Satoru 's lips that tastes as sweet as his cherry balm and as important as meaningless, meaningful words spoken in the quiet of a regular evening in a regular home.

His parents bother him about Satoru whenever he 's not in the same room as them for the entire day they pack to leave for the school again.

'You bring him back here, Suguru, '

they tell him,

'he 's too skinny and he 's too shy! '

He nods and placates and promises they 'll come back for summer break, too, both relieved and enamored with the idea that they like him, and that he 's not alone in recognizing the dissonance present in everything Satoru is and does.

'That boy hasn 't had a lot of love in his life, has he? ' His mother murmurs as they zip his suitcase shut, and Suguru stares down at the zipper that 's been on its last leg for years, Shoko 's words ringing in his head, overlapping with Satoru 's shouts.

'Only monsters starve their children. '

'I 'm not a commodity! '

'You 've heard the rumors of how clans treat their children, haven 't you? '

'Welcome home. '

'No, ' he mutters, 'he hasn 't. '

His mother hums, and pats him on the cheek. 'You treat him well, and make sure he treats you just as good, ' she says, and he nods. He 'll miss her, while he 's gone. She 's always had a knack for understanding the things he never says, even if sometimes they 've been the wrong ones in the past.

They wave at the station until the bullet train 's out of sight, bright smiles and a reminder of what Suguru has, and what he wants to become. Satoru stares out the window the longest, watching even after they 're out of sight. Suguru stares at him in turn, and tries to burn his mother 's words into the flesh of his heart.

'I choose you, '

he thinks, and watches the unfamiliarity of being wanted stain Satoru 's face a myriad of new emotions like colored glass. He wants them to become familiar so that, one day, their colors don 't look so foreign on his pretty face.