Suguru remembered the first time he ever saw a cursed spirit.

As a young boy, he often played in the local park, jumping around and climbing over the metal structures as any normal kid. He'd laugh, scream, trip over his uncoordinated feet as he played with whoever was there at the time. He was never a shy boy, and easily made friends with whoever was in arm's reach.

He was just a normal, happy little boy.

And then his grandmother died.

He didn't see his grandmother often, since she lived out south towards Kagoshima, but he remembered how much she doted on him whenever he and his parents would fly out to visit. Her only grandchild. She adored him.

After her cremation, Suguru was encouraged to partake in the bone-picking ceremony, as per tradition, feeling the brittleness of the bone fragments as he plucked them up with those long, ceremonial wooden chopsticks, dropping them into the porcelain urn set upon the table. In that moment, he couldn't help but feel the descending realization of death falling onto his shoulders.

No, not the notion of death.

A fly head.

It emerged from thin air and gripped his shoulders with gnarled fingers, its distorted face wheezing in his ear as he stared wide-eyed down at the metal table of ash and bone in front of him.

He'd almost knocked the urn over as he scrambled back towards the wall, dropping the chopsticks onto the table, and clawed at his shoulders as a futile attempt to rip the fly head off of him, screaming in terror. It took several adults to bring him out of the room to console him, and he remembered collapsing into his mother's embrace as she knelt down beside him, rubbing his back with a flat palm, stroking through his hair with long fingers as she hushed him and planted tender kisses upon his crown.

Ever since then, he'd been able to see them.

The cursed spirits.

It terrified him.

Suguru was unable to leave the house for several weeks, shutting himself inside his room in the dark as an attempt to blind his vision from the fly head that now haunted him.

But it stared at him with those huge bug eyes, its wings humming in his ears, its mangled body ever-present.

And soon, the terror turned into rage.

He reached out towards the fly head one day, feeling the violent, uncontrollable anger surge through his body, and as he touched it, the creature began to contort, collapsing in on itself until it formed into a fist-sized ball that looked as though ink was swirling inside its core. Suguru held it in his palm, small fingers curled around it, staring at it in shock for a few minutes, before he pulled the drawer to his dresser open and shoved it underneath his socks.

Over the next several weeks, his parents watched as his rage consumed him. He started drawing violent images at first, of the grotesque fly heads that would hover against his bedroom window, of the images of blood and darkness they would bring along with them. The drawings morphed into physical destruction of property, starting with toys he had in his room, then to furniture, the walls, the paper sliding doors.

And finally, he snapped.

Once his parents found him slamming his forehead against the wall, blood splattered against the paint, they knew they had to do something.

And when the therapist offered martial arts as an outlet, recommending a certain religious dojo with connections to a seemingly prestigious academy of sorts, they didn't hesitate to follow through with the suggestion. Anything for their precious boy. Anything to get him to smile again.

Suguru met with a young man who he called Yaga-sensei, and finally, after months and months of terror and unbelievable agony, he at last found something to channel his rage into, finding solace in it. The meditative quality of it. The discipline. The structure. He reveled in it, and in turn, he excelled in it.

Suguru stood in the isolated gym, widening his stance before throwing a heavy punch at a hanging sandbag, tears running down his face as he fisted his hands tight, staring venomously at it with dark eyes as he felt the agony take shape within him once more. He hated this kind of pain, this ache that made him want to rip his own hair out from the roots. It was unbearable.

Haibara was gone. He was dead. And it was the Council's fault.

Hina had understood. She consoled him, hushing him as he sobbed upon her bedside, stroking his hair as he buried his face into the sheets. He couldn't remember the last time he cried that hard. Even Satoru had never seen him cry that hard, not in the three whole years they'd known each other.

He didn't even cry this much when he thought Toji had killed him.

Suguru paused, sweat glistening upon his furrowed brow, the muscles in his arms twitching as the memory invaded his mind like poison.

No. Of course he didn't cry. If anything, the shock stilled the tears and amplified the ache in his chest tenfold. He couldn't cry at the time, not when he had a job to finish. And upon seeing the image of Satoru in that sterile room, surrounded by those clapping cultists garbed in white, with a sheet-draped body dangling from his arms, his mind stalled.

He felt like he was seeing a god, a messiah resurrected from the dead, and he was devastated as he gazed into Satoru's clear blue eyes, clearer than he'd ever seen them before, blighted by this sadness that tugged at his broken heartstrings.

They'd failed.

And Satoru would rise from their failure stronger than ever, leaving Suguru behind in his brilliant wake.

Suguru lunged at the sandbag before him with a roar, spiraling into a flurry of punches and kicks, the impacts so forceful the vinyl burst and split open, sending a thick trail of sand to spill from the puncture.

Suguru stood back, the sweat upon his face making his hair cling to his skin. He unclasped the fingerless glove from his hand and swiped his fingers over his head, smoothing out his hair. Hissing for breath through clenched teeth, he undid the other glove before reaching up and over his back, tugging the oversized shirt over his head, revealing a back of hard, rippling muscle, and discarded everything onto a bench to the side.

At least training still helped him clear his mind a bit.

A prickle of a familiar energy made his ears twitch, and Suguru didn't bother to look up as he scoffed and addressed the sudden presence.

"Back so soon?" Suguru said grimly.

A mass of white hair and vivid blue eyes teetered at the edge of his vision as he went over to the broom and dustpan at the far wall. Suguru snatched them up before returning back to the broken sandbag to clean it up.

"I'd hate to be whoever you're imagining that punching bag to be," Satoru said with an air of jest. "Those fists are deadly."

"And don't you forget it," Suguru huffed, reaching up to unclasp the sandbag from the mount.

There was a beat of silence as Suguru grunted with the weight of the bag falling onto his shoulder. He brought it over to the side of the gym, tossing it down. The custodians would come and retrieve it later. The issue was asking Yaga-sensei for another one.

"That's gotta be—what—the third one this year?" Satoru drawled.

"What do you want, Satoru?" Suguru hissed.

The two boys stood there, Suguru clenching his fists tight at his sides, the sweat on his torso glistening under the low light that spilled in from the half-closed shutters.

Satoru let out a sigh.

"I wanted to come see if you were okay," the white-haired boy said. "I know you have a soft spot for the younger ones."

Suguru tensed his jaw, grinding his molars as he stared unblinking down at the floor in front of him.

"Did you exorcize it?" He asked simply.

"Yes," Satoru whispered.

"Then the job is done," Suguru growled. "Haibara can rest easy now."

Satoru bit his lip, his stare unyielding as he bore those cursed blue eyes into his being. Suguru hated it. He hated how weak those eyes made him feel. The Six Eyes. The Limitless that lay beyond them. It made him sick to his stomach, like a stone plunging into the depths of a frigid lake, drowning, drowning as the darkness enveloped him and swallowed him whole.

"But are you okay, Suguru?"

He felt his whole body stiffen, and his legs locking as he heard the sound of footsteps approach him from behind, slowly.

"Why does it matter?" Suguru said, barely audible. "Did it ever matter?"

The footsteps paused.

"Of course it does," Satoru replied, his voice closer now. "Suguru, have you even been eating—?"

"Why are you asking now, of all times?" Suguru spat, whirling around so that he faced his friend. They were only a few feet apart now, and he locked eyes with him, the rage that was all too familiar to him roiling in his chest. "After all the shit we went through, after a full year has passed since Riko-chan died, why the fuck are you asking me that now?"

A sparkle of shock flickered in Satoru's gaze. They quivered slightly, searching Suguru's eyes for something. Suguru felt his chest tighten, something dropping to the pit of his stomach as the next words tumbled out from Satoru's lips.

"There was just...never enough time." He said simply.

Suguru's dark eyes widened, stunned only for a brief second, before they narrowed disdainfully and clouded over with a scorn that could kill.

He scoffed, his lip twitching up in disgust as he pried his eyes away from the boy in front of him and forced his legs to move. He brushed past him coldly, striding towards the bench where all of his belongings sat. He collected them in his arms, tugging his shirt back over his head, and made his way towards the door.

"Suguru!" Satoru called after him.

Suguru paused mid-step, pressing out a seething breath from his lungs.

"We're best friends," Satoru said quietly. "I thought we were best friends."

Suguru swallowed a lump that rose painfully into the back of his throat, rotating and squaring his shoulders as he huffed again.

"Yeah," he said. "I thought so too."

☾

The moon was hauntingly beautiful that night. It was chipping away now, no longer full, and its glow seemed a bit weaker than it had been before. Still, its silvery light draped over the courtyard as Suguru sat on a stone bench, cloaking everything in its ghostly veil. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, the filter crushed haphazardly, the red embers eating away at the paper and tobacco as it inched closer towards his skin.

Dead eyes stared down at the gravel, sallow and vacant, misted by the silver smoke that danced and twisted before them.

A pair of footsteps approached him, and a small pair of shoes appeared in his line of sight, the hem of a white gown fluttering softly in the breeze.

Dark eyes flickered up, and widened as they fell upon the figure of a young woman.

"Hina-chan..." Suguru's voice was faint, breaking a little as he gazed upon her.

"Hey, Geto-kun," she replied, a gentle smile adorning those soft, soft lips.

"What are you doing here? It's cold," he said.

Hina only giggled.

"That's why I have a jacket, dummy."

Suguru's eyes flickered down to her shoulders, where he saw a thick fleece jacket secured over her figure. He blinked once.

"Oh," he said. "Right."

There was a pause between them, and then Hina spoke once more.

"Can I sit?" She asked politely.

Suguru's eyelids fluttered in surprise, astonished at his rudeness.

"Of course," he said, scrambling to scoot over to the side. He rushed to kill his cigarette, throwing it onto the floor and driving his sole into the nub.

"Don't worry about it," Hina chuckled, taking the seat next to him. She held out her hand, the corner of her lip tugged up ever so slightly. "Could I bum one off of you?"

Suguru stared at her in surprise.

"You smoke?" Of course she did. She wouldn't have asked if she didn't. Suguru punched himself across the face mentally as he felt his cheeks grow hot.

Another chime of laughter spilled past her lips.

"It's been a while, but I've been dying for one since you and Ieiri-san started smoking out the window in my room."

Suguru flushed deeper.

"Oh," he said again. "S-sorry about that."

Hina only rolled her eyes.

"Just give me a cigarette, you idiot."

Suguru cracked the smallest of smiles, reaching into his pocket to grab his almost-empty box of cigarettes, pulling one out to hand over to Hina, and then another to place between his lips. He exchanged the box for a lighter, and he flicked the thing alive and held it out towards the girl. Hina crushed the ball of menthol between her teeth just once, expertly, before leaning in to light the other end. Suguru followed in suit, taking a deep inhale as he stowed the lighter back into his pocket, and let out a heaving sigh as a plume of smoke spilled from his lips.

"Did Shoko give you the OK to leave the room?" Suguru asked after another beat of silence.

Hina pressed a breath of smoke out to dissipate into the night, closing her eyes as she felt the nicotine grow hazy in her mind.

"Fresh air," she said as she gestured towards the cigarette in her fingers, teasing.

Suguru raised a disapproving eyebrow.

"You shouldn't be smoking then."

"I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself," Hina scoffed.

Suguru let out a low chuckle, taking another drag from his cigarette as he stared at it with a lingering, thoughtful gaze.

"So I've been told," he murmured.

It was still early autumn, but some of the leaves were already turning a light golden color, just barely at the edges, bleeding into the green that would eventually yield to the bright red of late season before snapping off the branches. Suguru stared up at the foliage, peeking into the night sky beyond, the stars blinking and glittering like specks of fairy dust. There was nothing but wind caressing his cheeks, the bite of bitter smoke leaching across his tongue, and it stilled his heart as the events of today seeped away from his mind—if only momentarily.

"I'm going to protect you," Suguru said before he could even realize the words that tumbled from his mouth. His gaze remained upon the sky above, but he heard Hina gasp in a small breath from beside him.

"What?" she breathed.

"This is going to sound really weird," Suguru continued, his mind fuzzy from chain smoking, steadying his voice as it rumbled from his chest. "But you remind me of someone I used to know. Someone I failed to protect. The Council that oversees everything in our sorcerer society wants you dead because of the incident at your apartment complex, but I'm not gonna let that happen."

Suguru flickered his eyes down towards Hina, who stared up at him in gaping disbelief. He cracked a sad smile.

"I won't let you die. I swear it upon my life as a sorcerer."

Hina's round eyes remained that way for a moment, before something clouded over them and her lips mimicked his, turning down into a small, knowing smile.

"You have no idea," she murmured, "how heavy of a promise that is, Geto-kun."

His gaze was relentless as it bore into hers, a fire igniting a life back into those cold, dead eyes that hung from his face just moments ago.

"I don't care," he hissed. "I'm strong. Stronger than most. And I'll protect you."

Suguru watched as Hina blinked, dropping her eyes down to her feet as she paused before bringing her fingers back up to her lips to pull another plume of smoke from her cigarette. When she released it, the smoke seemed to melt into the chilled autumn air, bleeding into the blue-tinged moonlight that haunted the courtyard, casting long shadows as it climbed higher into the night sky. She flicked the growing clump of ashes off of the tip of her cigarette, the embers sputtering and dying in the air before they even had the chance to brush against the frigid ground.

And then he heard her let out a single, breathless sigh, a heave that lowered her shoulders and craned her neck forward, seeming to harbor all of the sorrows and suffering in her fragmented soul. 

A ghost of a smile crept up onto her lips.

"Okay," she whispered.

. • ° ✰ ° • .

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