To love Suguru was the most beautiful peace Satoru had ever known. To kill him was the jujutsu world’s greatest relief, and his own unmatched tragedy. And to see his corpse once more was the most horrific confusion he ever felt.
In the years spent apart, subsisting off of stories of his true love’s horrific actions, Satoru had nearly given up all hope. The Suguru he had known had died silently alone. All that remained was the skeleton of the man he loved. At nights it was easy to imagine that nothing about Suguru had stayed the same, not the way he spoke or laughed, not the way he smiled with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. And it was that imagined version hat made the distance bearable.
So to see him, flying down as if he were some falling angel destined for hell, was the real moment of truth. Unfortunately for Satoru, not much had really changed. Even if the worst that spewed from his mouth were vile and disgusting, they came from the mouth of the same man he had loved. His eyes were still beautifully dark and shining, his laughter pierced through Satoru’s stomach and twisted his heart. Even as he laid dying, it was still the same Suguru, stubborn and smiling, the same glint in his eyes that had made Satoru fall in love with him all those years ago.
Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to spot the fake. While everything else remained the same, the intruder to his lover’s corpse had not been able to capture his eyes. No matter how accurate the cursed energy was, the body, the face, the tone of his voice—the fake’s eyes were a muted darkness. No, that was not Suguru, Satoru knew that in every molecule of his being. Even at his very darkest, Suguru had still had light behind his eyes. Even as he slaughtered nonshamans and espoused his fanatical, genocidal beliefs, his eyes had never changed.
Even after it all, after loss and death and the horrors of a puppeteered corpse, Satoru knew and loved Suguru better than anyone else had.
And perhaps idly, perhaps foolishly, Satoru waited his time in the prison realm wondering if he would ever get to see those eyes again, either in this life or the world beyond.