Gojou Satoru (
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marlowemuses2025-05-15 12:23 pm
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Everything I got, I got working for me
As she rapped her knuckles against the hotel room door and leaned against the door frame, using her 5'11" height to loom, Satoru felt jubilant with success even though this tour hadn't officially started.
It had taken months of planning already, and Satoru itched with impatience. When she'd first announced a joint tour with Suguru, Satoru already had the plan drafted with her own media team, but they'd mentioned nothing to Suguru's team, only sending over the proposal after Satoru had made an informal teaser announcement about it. She'd half expected that Suguru would refuse the dare and call it out as the prank that it absolutely was (at which point Satoru would be able to make a stink about Suguru being a coward and backing out of an agreement). So she'd been thrilled that Suguru had agreed to the tour.
They'd share the stage--there was simply no other reasonable way to do it. Swapping off songs, providing support vocals, even featuring a few duets. It was a highly unusual arrangement, but that had helped to blow up the publicity around the tour, which had sold out within hours, immediately creating clamor to have more dates added and a social media frenzy of fans thrilled or enraged about the situation.
They'd arrived at the hotel and their first show was tomorrow night, but aside from some agreed-upon arrangements and a set list, negotiated and exchanged through their respective teams, they'd done nothing to prepare for performing together. Satoru wasn't worried about it. She knew every one of Suguru's songs. She'd written the arrangements herself that she'd sent over to propose which ones she wanted to cover with support vocals. Even though she'd never been to any of Suguru's shows, she'd seen recordings of them. As much as Satoru wanted to spend the next three months irritating the shit out of Suguru, she also wanted to uncompromisingly create good music and put on an incredible performance that their fans would be talking about for the rest of their lives. And she knew she could rely on Suguru to do the same.
Finally, though, they'd arrived at the same hotel, and finally Satoru could be face to face again with her best enemy.
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Much like the lack of crawling, the way she retreats to her bed isn't a surprise to Suguru. Most of this is testing what Satoru will do, how she'd react. So far, she seemed to react to Suguru getting in her space and physical touch. Suguru's preferences don't run to force, but it seems like Satoru, in so many ways, is her exception to every rule.
"I slept with—," she says, then stops, and shakes her head with a quirk of her lips. "Never mind." Satoru doesn't need to know anything about her sex life; it's better that she keep this distant, impersonal. Talking would just give into to her goading.
Of everything that happened with the group, losing Satoru's friendship had been the worst. She could have dealt with it if Satoru didn't return her romantic feelings, but leaving the way she did also meant losing her best friend, the person she would have gossiped about that.
She reaches for her robe, and pulls out a pair of black leather gloves. She pulls them on, flexing her fingers in them, and strolls towards the bed. She reaches for Satoru's ankle, slowly curling her fingers around it, and then yanks, just to throw her off-balance. She immediately crawls on the bed, straddling Satoru's hips. She drops her weight on Satoru, ready to wrestle her back down the moment she tries to rise.
"You really should be put over my knee and spanked."
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Satoru’s startled by being tugged like that, but at least she doesn’t go far before Suguru climbs atop her. Satoru doesn’t resist, resting her hands lightly on Suguru’s thighs instead, watching her with wary eyes. “Seems like the wrong position for that,” she points out, but it’s a little more subdued now. Suguru being in her space works for her, because it makes clear that Suguru wants to be there. At any moment she might leave again, walk right out of Satoru’s life, and Satoru can’t bear to chase her if it just means having her pride crushed.
This Suguru seems so different. There hadn’t been any hint of this side of her, and Satoru wonders if this had always been the real Suguru. Maybe her best friend had always been an illusion, and she’d never known Suguru at all.
And now? Satoru’s going to trust herself to this stranger? She doubts herself for allowing this at all. Suguru’s only going to treat her like she’s disposable.
Swallowing hard as she tries to shake off those feelings, Satoru reaches for one of Suguru’s wrists. “Do these have a purpose, or are they just part of the spectacle?”
It reveals her ignorance, but that doesn’t matter. Satoru wants to know. Is there a reason for the leather gloves?
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She glances down at her hands, moving it away before Satoru can grab her hand. The black leather is lovely against her skin, and she likes the feel of them. They do add to the spectacle of it all.
"I said don't touch. That applies here. And it's some of both They're nice, aren't they?" She reaches up and caresses Satoru's cheek with a gloved finger. "But they aren't my hands, the warmth of my skin. And that's what you want." Not a question. A statement of fact. She's going out on a limb there, but she doesn't think it's wrong. "I'll decide when you've earned that."
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Her hands leave Suguru's thighs, settling on the bed instead, and her face stays turned away. Suguru being in her space felt good, made her feel wanted, but now it's being made painfully clear to her that the physical proximity means nothing. "Right. I'm not touching you, you're not touching me, and this is what makes you call me by my family name, even though we've been unfriendly for years? At this rate I'm surprised I get a name at all. Is this what you're normally like with those girls of yours? Or is this you doing your worst?"
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"After the past few days, you are lucky you get a name. But you'd like being called a brat too much." She trails her hand down, cupping Satoru's chin, and using it to jerk her head back, so she can look down at that beautiful, perfect face. "I'm not going to talk about what I do with other girls." This is possibly her worst, or closer to it than she'd like, because for all that she likes to hurt those girls, she's usually warm about it. Sometimes it takes cruelty to be kind.
She wants Satoru to keep wondering, although now she doesn't know how Satoru would take that. Would she think about it? Would she respond better to knowing that this is Suguru doing something special for her? Years ago, Suguru would have known. But then, Suguru then wouldn't have done any of this.
"Everyone's so indulgent with you. But if you want my touch, you have to earn it. You can start by looking at me when I'm talking to you." She lets go of Satoru's chin, and pats her cheek.
She straightens up, and shifts off Satoru to sit on the edge of the bed. "Come—" she starts, then changes her mind, and grabs Satoru's leg again, attempting to pull her closer.
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Retracting her leg when Suguru reaches for it, Satoru scoots back a little and shakes her head. "No. I want to stop."
She bends her knees up, hugging her arms loosely around them, looking at Suguru like a shy, skittish thing. This is Satoru's fault. She asked for this. But she was a fool to ask for this, and now she just wants ...
She wants the Suguru who took care of her and fixed everything. If she's honest with herself (she hates being honest with herself), that's what she's wanted all along. As if maybe if she kept digging, she'd find that Suguru at the core. As if maybe she could bring that Suguru back, the way she'd brought Suguru back a few times before when she'd left. Before Suguru left for good.
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"It's always what you want, isn't it, Satoru?" And that's felt like their entire relationship. Satoru wanting her attention, and Suguru giving it to her; Suguru fixing things; Suguru waiting for her, only to be forgotten again and again; Suguru listening and comforting her; Suguru's wants ignored, her slowly fracturing heart finally shattering, with no one else to pick up the pieces. "What did you want me to do now? What did you think when you answered the door?"
She turns away from Satoru, unable to look at her like that because she does want to reach out and hold her, offer some comfort and reassure her. It's what she'd do when anyone she played with said they wanted to stop. And even if she doesn't love Satoru, she still cares about her, and that wars with the reality of who she is now. Suguru walks back to the couch, pulling off her gloves and dropping them on the coffee table, then pulls her robe back on, wrapping it around her.
"Do you know why I left?" she asks, pacing back to the bed. She stands at the foot, arms crossed over her chest defensively. "Fuck. Me and my mouth. I'm not going to talk about that."
She can't, not then, when Satoru looks so skittish and small, unlike herself. Or perhaps more like herself than usual; this was Satoru when she was worried and upset and when Suguru would hug her. "Drink some water." There's a bottle on her nightstand, probably lukewarm, left by the housekeepers. She nods to it. "Eat some chocolate." They didn't do anything, so she wouldn't be in the wrong to leave and let Satoru handle her own shit. And yet, there she is, telling her what to do.
She came in, annoyed and angry, with the intent of bossing Satoru around a bit, probably getting around to making good on that promise to spank her, and then leave. And now she feels torn about fucking aftercare. "All these rules I'm breaking," she mutters, pressing a thumb to her forehead, trying to soothe the rising headache. "For someone who doesn't even know what they want." She drops her hand, and turns around, heading for the door.
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"I won't bite you again," Satoru mumbles, still curled into herself and skittish. "I get the lesson." Possibly not the lesson Suguru had intended, especially when Satoru has so little idea what Suguru has said to her just now. But she's certainly learned a few lessons tonight, and all of them hurt. She feels raw and empty, painfully aware that she's been deluding herself.
She drops her head against her knees to hide her face, waiting for Suguru to just leave.
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"Sit up, properly," she says, using the same tone she had reserved for Satoru all those years ago. A little forceful, still kind, the tone that had gotten Satoru to listen to her. "Drink this. I'm not leaving until you drink half of it."
It's stupid of her. So stupid. But this entire tour has been stupid of her. Satoru had left her no room to back out without looking weak, and Suguru had believed she was capable of standing on a stage with the woman she once loved. And everything since then has been stupid of her.
"I didn't say don't bite, I said don't touch me. I don't like it." She likes it too much; she's always liked it too much. That's the problem. Could she tolerate it for now? Sure, especially for the sake of the tour. But it's the aftermath she worries about, when Satoru's attention has suddenly shifted and they're no longer touring, no longer seeing each other. "Don't put words in my mouth."
There's a mini fridge in the room, and they're usually stocked with candy, so she hunts down some M&Ms for Satoru, returning a moment later with the one bag she found. "Eat these, too."
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Shifting to sit cross-legged so that she can set the water bottle against her thigh and accept the candy, Satoru puts one of the candies in her mouth and bites down on it. "I won't touch you, then," she says, eyes on the bag of candy rather than looking up at Suguru. "I don't want ... that. You being mean like that. I just wanted your attention."
She puts another piece of candy in her mouth. Crunches it between her teeth. "No. Not you. Not your attention. I wanted my Suguru back. Deluding myself that she ever existed."
Deep sigh. She opens the water bottle again and knocks it back, chugging a few deep gulps so that about half of it is gone. There. Condition met. "Just go."
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But Suguru wasn't that person anymore, was she? She'd left, in such a blaze that her former groupmates hated her, that Satoru didn't want her now, just the illusion of who she had been once. No longer Satoru's Suguru, just a cold bitch. Which had partially been her intent, driving that wedge further between them.
She turns around again, chin high and shoulders back, and marches out of the room. She lets the door close behind her, resisting the urge to slam it. Once it closes, she slums against it, sinking to the floor in a mimicry of Satoru's position earlier. She rests her forehead on her drawn up knees, carefully breathing in and out, letting the tension drain out of her.
Suguru sits there for a few minutes (ten) before picking herself up off the floor and walking back down the hall to the bank of elevators.
The next night is their final performance in that venue, which means they'll both be on buses after that, and Suguru won't be able to go find Satoru down a maze of halls. It'll be better that way, she reassures herself, as she reaches her room, and washes her face. She drapes her robe over a chair, reaching into the pockets for her gloves, and cursing herself when she realizes she forgot them.
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How can that Suguru just be ... gone?
There's a disconnect there, something which itches at Satoru's mind. Her Suguru. Breakup. Bad Suguru.
She's separated these things in her head, making Suguru into two separate people rather than a before and after. The rest of the group had all assumed, like Satoru had said, that Suguru had been this bitchy person all along, and the earlier sweetness had been an act. It was the only thing that made sense, if the awful things she said were what she really thought. (What if they weren't?)
But Satoru had known in her heart that it wasn't true that her Suguru wasn't real. Of course her Suguru had been real.
So, unable to conflate the disconnect between these two truths, that her Suguru was real and that the bitchy Suguru was real, Satoru had created a belief that they were two separate people. Like dissociative identity disorder, two Sugurus within one body, and if she'd kept up nagging Suguru then she'd find her way through to the real one within.
Now, hurting and a little scared, Satoru's instinct was to protect herself by letting go of her belief in that old Suguru. Hadn't Shoko and Nanami told her for years that she should?
But a part of her resisted. She had to protect her Suguru, and also it didn't make sense. Maybe Satoru wasn't good with understanding people, but that wasn't how people worked. She hadn't misunderstood Suguru that deeply. She hadn't been devoted to just a performance that Suguru was putting on. No. She knew her Suguru.
Her Suguru. Breakup. Bad Suguru.
Something had happened. Something bad. Something Satoru had missed entirely.
And then Suguru had run. That was why she was still behaving like a hurt, spooked animal. Something had hurt her. Bad Suguru was the act. Fierce and biting, with those little flashes of vulnerability underneath.
Satoru got up and dressed in lounge clothes, some soft flowing pants and a wrap top. She picked up Suguru's abandoned gloves and stepped into a pair of flats, making her way down to Suguru's room and rapping at the door.
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It's too soon to write a song about how this encounter with Satoru made her feel, especially since she hasn't even sorted out her feelings, but she can throw herself into her performances. Satoru is, at least, professional. Mostly. They can manage on the stage, even if it won't match the same playful energy of the first night.
It's surprising when she hears the knock at her door. It's too familiar to be anyone but Satoru. Despite her misgivings, Suguru climbs out of bed.
"Satoru," she says, opening the door. It's late, and Suguru isn't about to have a conversation in the hall, despite everything between them, so she opens the door wider, and gestures her inside.
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"So what happened?"
Satoru bends her legs up partway, not the same defensive stance as before but lazier now. There's still some wariness in her, but she's regained some of her confidence. She lets her question hang for just a moment as she settles, leaving the moment for Suguru to try and figure out if she means just now or something more in general.
"You asked me if I knew why you left." And then Suguru had immediately regretted asking it, stating that she wasn't going to talk about it. But she's let Satoru into the room already, so there's no getting her out now. "Clearly, I don't. So?" She gestures a hand at Suguru to prompt her to start talking.
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The question puzzles her, until she clarifies, and Suguru rolls her eyes, pressing her thumb to her forehead again.
"You're really going to ask that?" It doesn't surprise her, but she has said she wasn't going to talk about that, and it's slightly dumbfounding that Satoru, of all people, doesn't remember. Doesn't know. Didn't know?
"Haibara died, Satoru," she reminds her friend. Voice flat, distant, with her arms wrapped around her stomach. "Pretty awful drug overdose. Remember?" It had shaken Suguru to her core, and the entire reason she'd gotten away from the drugs she had been doing, the drinking, the smoking. She doesn't mention it, but there has been a fear there for her, that she would be next.
It wasn't the entire reason she'd left but it had been the push she needed to break off everything in such an ugly way.
"It was all fake. Stupid. They dressed us up in stupid, slutty outfits and sent us out to shake our asses on stage to some shitty pop music with lyrics about teasing boys and some girl power nonsense. It was exhausting. And then Haibara died. Why wouldn't I leave?"
There has been things between that, of course; Suguru wanting out before that, but Satoru dragged off by sponsors and movies and boys and everything else.
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Satoru had been bored by the mediocre music, too, but she'd been happy with her life and her friends, with the attention and glamor.
"But when you asked me that earlier, if I knew why you'd left, there was the implication that there was something else, too. Something I didn't know or hadn't put together. Something that could cause an entire personality change. Because you did a pretty good job convincing us that you'd just bottled up all that bitchiness and hate for years, and yet there's this part of me that never gave up on the idea that my Suguru was real, too. You managed to make me doubt it earlier, but no. I don't think I'm wrong. There was something else."
Satoru folds her arms over her chest, ready to be stubborn. "So? What happened?"
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She slips the robe on, turning back to Satoru, lounging on her bed.
"What if this is it, Satoru? What if I am this cold bitch, who doesn't give a fuck?" She's not, and never has been, and that's the problem here. If she was that hateful, cold bitch, she could have walked away a lot easier. She wouldn't be here. "I'm a damn good actress, I could have convinced you that this mythical "your Suguru" was something that existed. And do you hear the absurdity of that? Your Suguru? Was that all I was?"
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"Wasn't I your Satoru?" she asks, genuinely perplexed. There's no point in defining what she means by her claim to Suguru if that part isn't understood first. No point in debating the logical fallacies in Suguru's other questions. Whatever claim she had on Suguru, she'd always assumed it was reciprocal.
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Which sounds incredibly petty of her to say, now that she's said it aloud. Satoru had been a rising star, and Suguru wanting her around more often could read like jealousy, or neediness, or other little things. Suguru had needed her just to be there and demanding her attention and her time would have taken Satoru away from the fame. And eventually, she'd stopped asking, because Suguru hated to be needy or a burden, and that's what it was increasingly become. Or so it felt.
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Not that Suguru's wrong, just that Satoru doesn't remember things the same way, and doesn't remember enough of any specific situation that might apply.
"I thought I was yours, but then you threw me away. And I'm the one who's clearly missing pieces of this story, so if you say I wasn't, then I guess I gotta believe you. The way I remember it, I did what you told me and I came when I was called."
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"Do you think... what, I threw you away on purpose? Because I was bored? Because I was a hateful bitch? A coward?" Something raw and vulnerable crosses her face again, and she feels like the 17 year old Suguru again, just after she'd left. "Satoru, one of us had already died. Do you think they were going to stop at that?"
The drugs were free-flowing, even after Haibara's overdose, their grief was going to be monetized and exploited, their rebellions curtailed.
"I had to leave. It wasn't because I hated you, but I couldn't stay. I was crashing out, and I realized no one was going to be around to pick me up. All I could do was protect myself." Did that make her a coward? Some sort of terrible person? She looks away, tired, and rubs her eyes. "You wouldn't come with me, but I couldn't even protect you there, so what was the point?"
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"Why didn't you tell me any of that?" Satoru asks, confused as to why Suguru couldn't have just said as much back then. But at least she's starting to get enough of the real story to confirm her new theory, that her Suguru was real and bitchy Suguru was an act. She reaches out her arms, an open invitation for a hug if Suguru wants to climb into her embrace, but not really expecting that she will.
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"I'm going to sleep," she says, pushing back the blankets and climbing beneath them. It's not her preferred side of the bed, but it doesn't really matter. She does grab one of the pillows from the side of the bed Satoru is lounging on, and adds it to her pile of pillows. "Do whatever."
She doesn't expect to get to sleep with Satoru there, but it's something. A protest. She lays down, back to Satoru, only to sit back up a few seconds later.
"Really, Satoru? 'Why didn't you tell me?' You're going to ask that after everything I just said? When could I have told you?" She was the one who took care of the group, the one who got labeled the "mom" of the group, and none of the actual adults they dealt with had been trustworthy. Satoru wasn't around. And besides, she'd reached out about leaving plenty of times, and it never went anywhere.
She wants to throw a tantrum, but that feels insanely ridiculous even to her, so she awkwardly pulls off her robe, tosses it aside, and curls back up, pulling the blanket all the way up to her chin.
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Shifting onto her side, on top of the blankets, Satoru nestles up behind her, arm draped over Suguru's waist and face nuzzled into Suguru's hair. Maybe she'll get cold, but she doesn't think Suguru would tolerate her getting under the blankets, and doesn't want to risk getting thrown out.
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Five minutes, though. That's what she's telling herself.
And then she breaks. A little. Satoru doesn't seem to be going to anywhere, clinging to her back, and if Suguru is going to sleep, she wants to be comfortable.
"If you're going to stay, at least get under the blankets. And take off your bra, you don't need to sleep in it, and I don't want to jab your underwire with my elbow if I move around."
Satoru is, of course, free to leave, but somehow Suguru doesn't think she's going to do that.
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