Archive of Our Own

The world was ending, and it was gradual.

No one recognized the signs right away, the seconds that extended just slightly longer into the days like the stretching of white clouds into dark rain and thunder. It was an imperceptible gradual buildup that was dangerously close to the brink of release.

People went on with their lives, students went to school and employees went to work or faked sickness or took vacations and countries fought their wars and underneath the skin of it all, a little tumor took bloom.

Second bled into minutes, minutes ticked into lengthening hours. When did the sun start setting so late in March?

And once the turning became noticeable, it was too late.

The earth was slowing down.

It's an ordinary Saturday evening when the TV blares the news.

Satoru is taking up residence on the living room couch and devouring mochi like a starved man, something so starkly normal in their adult lives that when they hear the news, it's hard to believe that something has changed.

"The Slowing," the experts on the screen call it. A scientist pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the cameras clicking as he says, "There is no way of knowing how our world will change after this, what may happen to our planet. However, this trend is real, it is happening, and we suspect it will continue."

They continue with affirmations that are meant to placate the public, reassurances about tracking the data and saying they will find a solution.

The days have grown by a little less than an hour into the night, they end with. We implore that people do not panic.

A bit late for that, Suguru thinks. Hysteria and mob mentality will take over the world as soon as the announcement finishes, or once everyone hears of the news.

He leans against the doorframe, eyes directed out the window. Looking out to the city, it certainly doesn't seem like anything has changed. At six in the evening on a nice March day, the sky is shifting into its stage of rest as streaks of color permeate the clouds.

Nothing looks amiss.

He bets that there are still people who haven't heard the news, people who are on their way home or sleeping or at work who have yet to hear a thing.

Their days have extended by nearly an hour? How peculiar.

It's funny, because Suguru is accustomed to waiting out the night, insomnia burning extra hours of no sleep. Perhaps he did detect the darkness' persistent stretch into humanity with bloodshot eyes on the mornings when the sun should have been out.

If he did notice, then he pushed it to the back of his mind, because insomnia didn't stop the incoming day; his exhaustion couldn't halt the trudge of school and work.

So perhaps he registered it, the way that the sun took a little longer in the mornings to rise, the way that something felt off when he woke up at 11 am on a dreary March morning and the sky was still inked in twilight hues.

But all of it is pushed to the back of his mind when he hears Satoru exclaim with vigor, "The world is ending!" His arms flail dramatically as he shoves himself off the couch.

As Suguru stands still, eyes trained at the scenery outside, his best friend grabs ahold of his arm and starts to tug him away.

"Let's go stockpile the sweets from the stores before they go out."

Suguru blinks a few times, ending his brief out-of-body experience. In its absence, the realization that the world is maybe-possibly ending becomes apparent, like shaking out of a dream he didn't know he was in. Then he smacks Satoru's hand off his arm.

"You ass, we're gonna stockpile things we actually need first."

"But I need sweets!"

"Like hell you do. C'mon, we should go before everyone else starts going manic."

Their lives go as such:

Suguru wakes up in the morning and makes coffee as he always has. He scrolls through his phone while waiting for Satoru, who is very much not a morning person, and when they are both awake and ready for the day he calls Megumi and Tsumiki over from their own apartment 3 doors down to join them for breakfast. Yuuji follows along too, making breakfast for all of them when it’s convenient.

It is normal. It is routine.

Then when the hours of the natural day begin to swell to noticeable degrees, the government takes their next step.

At breakfast, Satoru pulls up a laptop and plays the news live, the network taking them to a mob of reporters in front of officials seated at a glossy polished table.

Under government recommendation, after a series of meetings between congressional leaders across the country and officials around the world, it became advised to remain on the twenty-four-hour clock.

The idea, at first, seems like performing the impossible.

“It won’t work,” Satoru mutters when the announcement finishes and the reporters start bombarding with outstretched microphones and questions. Yuuji nods along, though Megumi maintains an expressionless face. Tsumiki watches along curiously, but says nothing.

The markets require stability, the officials say, We must retain a sense of normality during these changing times.

Suguru thinks there is a certain type of bravery that comes with making such a bold statement as to carry on as usual. They called it clock time, the only solution to keeping the world together.

“What happens when the time stops syncing with the day?" Yuuji asks through a mouthful of pancakes.

"I don't know, but this idea is insane and it's not going to last. And for the sake of the economy? Economic stability is a joke right now. Trying to keep things 'normal' won't happen," Satoru scoffs.

He says that, but it doesn't stop Suguru from putting new batteries into the stupid cuckoo bird clock in their living room and resetting his watches. He takes the stacks of books off his bedroom nightstand table so he can see the alarm clock again, and does the same for Satoru.

They start the new time in sync with the sun, and end the 24-hours with the sun still barely shifting down past the clouds in the horizon.

Returning to work is a chore and exhausting, but Suguru persists because he wants to rely on himself as much as he depends on Satoru. The kids return to school, their spring break ending with the start of clock time.

They adjust.

If the dark eyebags under Megumi’s eyes are any indication, Suguru would say that the adjustment isn’t going phenomenal, but there’s very little any of them can do. Tsumiki reaches out to Suguru about what to do to help Megumi sleep better, but all he can offer are melatonin pills and some packs of lemon balm he’s stocked up on over the years.

It’s not much, but it’s all he has.

Satoru is wrong too, for once.

Because clock time does work. While the transition is difficult, the more the advertisers and government officials push, the more the people start to agree that it is the right move. News articles about the pros and cons of clock time start making their way to headlines; the debates are equal in strength from both sides of the argument at first, but it doesn’t take much for public opinion to make their shift to clock time.

It also leads to a spike in sales of prescription sleeping pills, drugs, anything that could knock someone out. Soothing sleep medicines and chamomile tea run out on shelves, and Suguru submits to buying new black-out blinds for the nights that are white light.

The days get longer, and the clocks do not sync up with the cycle of light and dark. On the few nights aligned with a dark sky, Satoru and the kids try to steal some more hours of sleep.

With each day that passes, it feels a little more like the end.

The worldwide panic about The Slowing took hold in society like a tumor spreading from a source known but unpreventable. Protesters stood on the streets with signs screaming about the end of the world, and the non-believers shouted at the masses, saying it was all a ploy by the government.

Whether or not they believed was irrelevant; regardless of if it was the end or some government ruse, what was happening was impossible to refute.

Was there an explanation for the phenomenon? The brightest minds across the world working together to look for the answer couldn’t even find it. How it would affect the world as a whole, how ecosystems and biospheres would change—the answer was unclear.

The uncertainty of the situation was perhaps what scared people most.

Where would they go? What would they do? It was those questions that remained unanswered as the days got longer and the seconds ticked into minutes into hours. If the government didn’t give them their explanation, then who would?

Tick tick tick.

Religious groups maintained their preachings of a sign from God—that this ending was signaling a chance for redemption. Nihilists shook their heads and accepted their fate for what it was; the meaningless of life didn't make worrying worth the trouble.

Families packed their things and drove away; across country and state lines cars traversed like rows of ants. Grocery stores emptied out as the panic took over.

As if a hunter fired a shot into a meadow, people ran and scurried and scampered away like animals, fearful of what was to come.

It was pointless.

The sky was still blue, the oceans still ebbed and flowed, and the cycle of nature continued. The air did not change in any noticeable manner, and even as the tumor grew and festered and infected the world in which they lived, there was no antidote, no surgery or procedure that could fix the Earth.

"My patients aren't getting better."

Shoko's deadpan voice sounds almost solemn, or maybe frustrated. There's a bitter aftertaste to her statement, an anger coming from years of medical school only to end up here.

Here, a place where she doesn't know if she can do any more good for the world. If illnesses once a week start becoming chronic, if patients who have been on treatments to save their lives start failing to survive, if the battle to heal begins to stagger—then what good is she doing?

Suguru watches as she takes another slow drag of her cigarette, baggy eyes hiding none of her exhaustion.

"Whatever the fuck is happening to this planet is affecting people too. I don't care what the government says, they have to do something about it because my patients are dying and no one is getting better and this seven year old whose broken wrist was supposed to be better by now is still stuck with a broken wrist and—"

She sighs, crushes on the smoked out cigarette on the balcony ashtray, and buries her face in her hands.

It makes for a moment that appears in the paintings of depressed artists who have no outlet.

A woman, distressed, smoke pillowing the atmosphere about her, in the forefront of a beautiful sunset, outstretched much too far into ordinary 11 PM.

It’s the suspension of a canvas that reminds Suguru all at once of the stupid dramas that Satoru binge-watches and the confession scenes that make him want to gag. Clouds sprinkled with specks of light, pale blues highlighted with pink and blending into the glowing orange that has surrounded them for the past hour. Photographers strive for moments such as these, painters use this kind of image to create a world from their imagination.

Bright in the background, dull up front. A woman wearing black and white, a shadowy silhouette about her figure, against the hues of a sky unchanged.

The scene would be prettier if it weren’t for the abnormality of it all; this time dilation that has reshaped their world little by little the past three months.

It's hard to believe they're 27 now.

Shoko has been in residency for a year, having finished her eight years of undergrad and medical school. Since The Slowing started she's been pushed to work durations of hours that strain on her health. There is always something wrong, always something to be called in for; these are the stories Suguru hears through phone calls during late nights where he cannot sleep and she has just been excused for a break.

Pieces of tiny talks and phone calls are what make up most of their interactions these days. The chance she took to come over today was one in a million—her one day off and she's chosen to drag herself and Utahime to his and Satoru's place. It's difficult not to feel pleased, with the four of them back together. Utahime and Satoru stay inside though, both detesting the smoke that Suguru and Shoko revel in.

Now, next to her and talking in person for the first time in ages, Suguru realizes how much he's missed her and the familiar dry wit and blunt attitude that comprises her words. She doesn't play games, not like Satoru does. Suguru can appreciate that about one of his longest friends.

“Everything sucks,” Suguru agrees. She huffs out half a laugh in return, and turns herself around so her back is leaning against the railing.

“True.”

Shoko raises a questioning eyebrow at Suguru. “Anyways, I've talked enough about myself. So how are you? Any closer to confessing your undying love to that idiot?"

He scoffs. "No. Who do you take me for?"

There is safety in transfixing oneself to an unchanging existence. He thrives on the reassurance that it brings, holding onto it like a lifeline.

"I didn't take you for a coward, but I guess I was wrong."

"I'm not you. And Satoru isn't Utahime," he bites back. It's not a lie. He doesn't have any of Shoko's self-assurance, and Satoru is much too coy to accept a confession like Utahime.

Shoko hums in a considerate manner. "I suppose you're right.” She plucks out another cigarette from her purse and offers it to him. He takes it and accepts the lighter she hands over, flicking it on and letting the small flame dance over the end. She speaks again, pointing an unlit cigarette at his face. “Unfortunately for you, you're also in love with an insufferable mess."

The accuracy of her statement scares him perhaps a little more than he would like.

Suguru lets out a breath, welcoming the smoke he exhales to mingle in the space around him. "It’s a work in progress. And I don’t think—"

"If you two are almost done killing your lungs out there, we're gonna watch a movie now!" Satoru interrupts from indoors, redirecting their attention to where Utahime is smacking at him with a pillow.

It sounds like she's scolding him for his movie choices, their muffled shouts at each other just barely passing through the glass of the balcony door.

"You were saying?" Shoko says as she turns her attention back to Suguru.

He shakes his head. "Nevermind. Let's get inside before they come for our heads."

Because Utahime and Satoru won’t stop arguing about a movie, they settle on reruns of FRIENDS, watching episodes that have long since stopped appearing on TV.

When Shoko and Utahime eventually leave, the old grandfather clock in the living room clicks to 12:58 AM. Out the windows, the sunset is still taking its time; beginning a slow, slow descent into the night.

They're kicking a volleyball back and forth across the lawn; twilight approaches and the sky is still bright. Five months after The Slowing started, and the cycle of the days meant today the sun was setting at midnight, a result of 34 hours straight of uncontrollable radiating sunlight.

Suguru wonders when this became the norm, going to work at one in the morning underneath the safety of the darkness, sleeping at 10 AM on the days when the sun starts reaching its peak.

Hunkering down in rooms where the curtains were newly outfitted with black-out shades, trapped as they waited for the daylight to pass.

And now it has passed, and so they are outside.

"Yo, Suguru, did you hear? The whales are starting to beach themselves."

Suguru hums, half listening as Satoru rambles about the beaching, how the magnetic fields are fucked up now because the Earth isn't rotating the way it used to, how creatures reliant on the magnetic field for navigation can't find their way anymore. Lost in his thoughts, he passes the volleyball a bit too far to the left, watching as it rolls past Satoru.

It almost feels like a metaphor for his life. He's kicking the wrong kind of ball and aiming too far. He's hoping too hard for something that won't happen, and his shots are all missing the mark.

Satoru says something else, probably grumbling about how bad his pass was. Not that Suguru would know—he's not listening to Satoru, but he's distinctly aware of his presence.

He's half tempted to reach out and say something stupid. Something like how pretty his eyes are, or how he misses the days when they could go anywhere, do anything. He wants to shout about missing their invincibility, their high school and university lives where there was no limit. He wants to scream I love you and I know you love me too. You idiot. You absolute idiot.

None of those statements make their way out of his mouth though, as Satoru makes his way back and kicks the volleyball so it smacks Suguru right in the chest. Instinctively, he makes an "oomph" noise, and lets the ball fall down.

“Bruh, you dumb bitch.”

“I was distracted!” Suguru huffs back, perhaps a bit too petulant.

Satoru shakes his head at him. “Shame on you Suguru, who said you could have your attention on anything other than me?”

It’s a joke, maybe, but Suguru’s heart still sings a familiar tune. My attention is on you, just a you that I’m too scared to approach.

He rolls his eyes and nudges the ball by his feet absentmindedly. “No one said you were the center of the universe.” A lie. “Why are we kicking around a volleyball anyways?”

He tilts his head upwards at the sky, where the darkness is settling in like a blanket on rickety bones. It’s an illusion, of course. The time is not 9 PM, not ten at night. Right now it should be two in the afternoon, a thing of the past.

Wrong ball, wrong day.

“Well I let Megumi and Yuuji borrow the soccer ball the other week, and they never gave it back.”

"Why'd they need a ball?"

"Something about a soccer tournament with their classmates. I tried to ask, but then Megumi shut the door in my face." Without even looking, Suguru knows he's pouting.

Megumi would be the type to do that though. Satoru is his legal guardian in all senses of the word, but he wouldn't lower himself to acknowledge that fact. Suguru can practically imagine how the scene played out: Satoru at Megumi's apartment door, handing the ball over and asking with a lazy curiosity what it's for. The boy would give the most deadpan, basic answer possible and shut the door without elaboration.

And quite frankly, Suguru doesn't blame him. At least the kid's got guts.

"How are they anyways?" He kicks the volleyball back over, on target this time.

It's been a couple weeks since their last breakfast all together, what with the boys going back to school after their temporary break. They meet up for dinner too, but it’s harder now for the schedules to line up.

"You know how Megumi is, all repressed and introverted. At least he's got Yuuji and Nobara! Imagine having to go to school in this Slowing though, sounds awful."

“You’re plenty awful,” Suguru quips back, smothering a laugh at Satoru’s outraged expression.

Satoru shoves his shoulder, pushing him over and onto the ground. “I am NOT awful! You’re the awful one who can’t even kick a ball three meters across some grass.”

“It’s a volleyball,” Suguru replies from where he lies. “They aren’t even meant to be kicked.”

At that, he kicks out at Satoru’s feet and trips him over.

His best friend lands next to him, scowls and complaints all over. Suguru laughs—what else can he do?

Wrong person, wrong time.

So strange, how far he feels even when they're just meters apart.

It was ironic, was it not?

How people have always demanded for more time, from God, from life, from the world around them.

They want more time during their day to finish work, more time to hang out with friends, more time to spend with their loved ones.

More more more.

And then humanity was given more, stretching out their days into multiple, prolonging the inevitables.

So why, pray tell, was humanity so mad?

Was it because time was not freezing to their liking? The planet gave them what they asked for, and they were unrelenting in their resentment of the change. The world could not say anything to that, nor could it reverse what has already been set in motion.

Was The Slowing the end? Or merely the beginning of something unknown?

The End. The end of a story does not mean the world is gone, simply that the tale has come to a conclusion. The end of a life does not mean that they are forgotten, if they were loved in their living days, then the memory of them persists.

The Slowing was not merely a means to an end. No, it was the start of a new era.

People have started moving out of their city.

The number of tenants in their building has gone down by over half, and it raises the price of their rent by nearly double.

Thank God for Satoru's stupidly large savings account and all the money he nicked from the Gojo family main accounts. And whatever mystery career Satoru has taken up pays well too, keeping both their apartment and the kids paid for.

Their lives like this, now, aren't bad. It could be worse, Suguru realizes. He will not complain about how this clock time is messing with his preexisting poor sleep habits. The juxtaposition between a bright day outside and the clocks indoors reading 10 PM fucks with his mind in ways he didn’t know would happen.

It's ironic, because he used to be tired all the time during the day when he had no time to sleep, and then during the night he couldn't get a wink. He would’ve thought the misalignment between time and sun cycles would be convenient for fixing the dilemma, but no. It just makes it worse, if anything.

So when Satoru first poses the question on a Saturday morning, a little more than an hour after they both wake up, he's too out of it to hear clearly.

"Repeat that again?"

“I asked, what if we ran away too?”

Suguru rubs at his bleary eyes. “What?”

“Realistically, society is going to shit, right? So why don’t we just…leave?”

“What about your job?” Not that Suguru even knows what his job is; he never bothered asking and Satoru never bothered sharing, despite all their years of living together. He just knows it’s something classified, some government-issued thing.

He shrugs. “It’s something I can work on wherever I go.”

“Okay.” The ease with which Suguru can agree with him is absurd. “But where?”

Where would they even go? There were the sun-time colonies, groups of people who lived by the cycle of the 36-hour day, following sunrise and sundown instead of clock time.

But even they had their problems. Breaking off with society to pursue a lifestyle that synced with the sun came with consequences. Articles and news outlets showed how the newly dubbed "real-timers" had their homes burned down and graffitied by the rest of their neighborhood. It was the reason why they needed to make new colonies, so they could live in peace.

Plus, no matter where they went, it would not stop the effect of The Slowing.

Suguru says all of this, and Satoru just scrunches up his face and scowls in return. “It was just an idea, you don’t have to analyze it so deeply.”

“That’s like half my job, overthinking so you don't have to think at all.” If Suguru’s words sound a little bitter, he finds he doesn’t have the heart to care.

Suguru clears the table and goes to his room. His alarm clock says 11 AM, but it’s dark out and he’s tired for the first time in days. With aching eyes, he begs for sleep to come as he lies down.

Something must be going right in his life for once because when he wakes up two hours later, his head is clearer than before. He's not quite refreshed, but it's enough of an improvement for him to face Satoru again with a reasonable reaction.

“I was half-joking,” Satoru mumbles when Suguru finally exits his bedroom. "It wasn't serious."

Suguru knows that his friend’s admittance of it being a “joke” is his attempt at an apology. It's not a great one, but he'll take it because there's no way Satoru would say sorry otherwise.

“Oh?”

Satoru is sprawled on the couch, sighing at the ceiling with his long legs stretched out. “You’re right, there’s nowhere to go. And if we left, we’d have to take Tsumiki and Megumi. And if we have to take Megumi, then Yuuji will want to come too, and if Yuuji comes along then Nobara has to join to complete their little trio, and that’s just too many people for a trip.”

“That would literally be six people.”

“WELL! Four too many. I just want it to be us,” Satoru complains, like the child he is. Suguru wonders if the man realizes the implications of what he's saying. Just us. What Suguru wouldn't give for Satoru to truly mean those words is few and far between.

“I’m sure if we left Megumi behind he wouldn’t mind,” Suguru points out, pushing aside his thoughts.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Their apartment door clicks closed (funny how neither of them heard it open) and Megumi stands in their doorway, bent over as he removes his shoes.

Satoru gapes at the newcomer. “When did you get here? And you don’t even say hi to your elders?”

“I'm not acknowledging you as an elder because you act more like a child than me, and I’m the fifteen-year-old here,” Megumi retorts. He sets a bag of takeout on the table and goes to the kitchen with another bag of things in hand. “Yuuji wanted me to bring some groceries over, since you guys had no real food the other day.”

Suguru follows him into the kitchen and helps him with putting the stuff away. "You could've let us know and we would have gone to get groceries ourselves," he remarks as he tucks the milk into the door shelf of the fridge. "Thank you though."

Megumi rolls his eyes. "You two barely function as individuals, much less responsible adults. Get your pining out of the way and maybe I'll consider trusting the two of you to keep yourselves alive."

"Brat."

"You're stupider than him if you think he doesn't share your feelings," Megumi continues in a lowered voice. "He's infuriating and annoying and difficult to talk to and you know him differently than I do, but even I can see that he loves you. What's stopping you?"

Shoving a bag of carrots into the fridge, Suguru sighs. "It's not about whether this whole thing is unrequited. It's about the balance of it."

"Friends for over a decade and you're worried about the balance?" Megumi hisses. Then he throws his hands into the arm dramatically. "You two are actually the worst. I'm leaving, figure this out by yourself. Bye."

He shuffles out of the small kitchen and says something that Suguru can't hear clearly from where he stands, and by the time Suguru finishes putting everything away into the fridge and pantry shelves, the kid is gone.

"Yo, Satoru. Did he say something to you?"

"Hm?" Satoru glances up at him from where he's watching a movie about fighting robots. "Megumi? Uh. No, not at all."

He averts his eyes just as quickly, and Suguru frowns at the blatant lie.

He tries again. "You sure?"

Satoru nods distractedly, unfocused eyes glued to the screen. "He didn't tell me anything."

Okay, fine then.

He has to drop it. It's practically maddening, not knowing, but Suguru can't let himself push too far.

The tension simmers like asphalt on a hot summer's day, and Suguru decides, not for the first time, to be the bigger person and cool it down by changing the subject.

"Huh. Alright, what's happening in the movie then?"

Another late twilight, and Satoru falls asleep to whatever show they have playing on screen.

Suguru is awake though, which is nothing new. It’s the hours such as these where his brain goes on overdrive, every little detail and piece of information a spark keeping him from sleep.

He watches Satoru's chest rise and fall, a steady rhythm so unlike the pattern of the world they live in.

We could've been something, couldn't we?

The truth of it is this: they've been doing the dance for years now. When he confessed in junior year, Satoru laughed at him. It did not stop them from spending the night of homecoming together—where instead of being at the party, they decided to scale an abandoned building to the rooftop and drink beers.

The laugh was not quite a rejection, not even a confirmation. But it happened and it still poked and prodded Suguru uncomfortably until he forgot about confessing altogether, because fuck Gojo Satoru and his holier-than-thou attitude.

So Suguru buries his feelings and moves on. He tries to move on.

But even then—they end their junior year with a group road trip together with Shoko and Utahime. While the girls stay in the cheap hotel room they had booked, Suguru and Satoru drive out to a meadow and lie on top of the car roof, staring up at the stars.

Suguru can recall in blurry hindsight the way that Satoru looked, sparkling faintly under the light of the sky and aglow with the thousands of suns and ancient deities gracing their night.

He had to bite back the words. Suguru was not a poet, still isn’t a poet, but when it comes to Satoru, the words spin together in his mind all too easily.

And then Satoru turned to him and he whispered something that sounded a little too much like a word they never said with seriousness. It’s a little moment that flies by with a speed that Suguru cannot process; he freezes up and Satoru laughs it away like he was joking, deflecting any attempt of Suguru to ask what he meant.

(It’s hard to tell, remembering it now, but Suguru could swear his best friend looked hurt for the briefest of seconds before he covered it up with a laugh. But he wouldn’t know—Satoru has always been the stronger, the smarter, the better between the two. Vulnerability is not a word in his vocabulary.)

And so it was lost, another step in this twisted dance that spins them together and tears them apart.

Apart is when it’s scariest.

Maybe Suguru tries too hard to move on, because the distance in their steps increases dramatically senior year. It's then when Satoru starts to go a little too far, a little too quickly, and Suguru just watches him; watches as the metaphorical meters between them grow and grow until Satoru is gone.

He goes to a prestigious university miles away, and leaves Suguru with the rest. They were once the best, together. And just like that, they aren’t.

Satoru came back though, a voice reminds him.

He does return. Three years later with a Bachelor’s under his belt, two wards aged nine and ten, and an early graduation sending him careening back into Suguru’s life as if he never left. His best friend, back again without so much as an explanation.

If that’s how they would play it, then that’s how they would play it. Suguru never brings up his leaving, never talks about how the years where his efforts to move on failed because his thoughts always cycled back to Satoru.

That's when Suguru comes to terms with it:

His best friend will never stop running away, and he will never stop chasing after him.

Thus it holds them in place, this conundrum that is Icarus soaring to the sun because he wants a taste of the sky. Unlike Icarus though, Suguru is scared to get too close. He's already brushed its heat once, after all.

“Hey, why’re you still up?”

Suguru practically jumps at the sound of Satoru’s groggy voice amidst the silence. His friend sits up next to him, stretching out his arms and shoulders with a low groan. Suguru flinches at the images his mind jumps to when he hears the noise.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he replies, aiming for a nonchalant tone of voice.

Satoru snorts. “Okay, give me a little more to work with, won’t ya?” He props himself up with a hand against the couch, and leans in a bit closer to Suguru. “What’s wrong with you these days?”

These days?

He’s been pondering the question of what they are, what they could be, the potentials and impossibilities for the past ten years.

“Nothing you have to worry about.”

“I’d believe you, but you look like you just swallowed the sourest lemon in existence.” Satoru nudges his head against Suguru’s stiff shoulder. “Share your thoughts with the peanut gallery.”

Despite himself, Suguru lets out a laugh. “Peanut gallery? You? Never thought you’d lower yourself to a comparison to peanuts.”

“There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you, Suguru.” The quiet admittance of it makes the words echo stronger than they would’ve otherwise.

“Are you lying to me?” he asks, in lieu of a real response. His eyes meet Satoru's, and he realizes the bright blue is much closer than he expected.

When did their proximity become so close?

Satoru's eyes flash under the light of the room, a little galaxy of anticipation that beckons at Suguru, telling him to hurry up.

Hurry up and what? He has remained at a distance for so long, and if given the choice between tipping over the edge to a land unknown or remaining stagnant, there’s a part of him that’d much rather choose the latter.

But what about the part that wants to make the jump?

Change is scary; it’s nerve-wracking and confusing because there’s no way of knowing what’s next.

Goosebumps erupt on his arms as the breeze from the screen door sifts into the room; the warmth from Satoru’s closeness dispels them immediately.

The Slowing might be withering away at the magnetic field of the Earth, but it has done nothing to decay the force between them.

Satoru tastes like the stupid artificial strawberry of the candies he keeps hidden in an emergency stash in the cabinet above the sink. He's not really a good kisser—and Suguru suspects he himself isn't much better either.

It doesn't matter.

Something in his chest is constricting—like he's about to give out. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s strange. He should be happy and ecstatic so what is up with this—

They break apart, and Satoru is eyeing him with a scrutinizing look, brows furrowed.

"What's up?" His best friend asks, as if their careful teetering balance didn't just shatter over with a kiss. Satoru scoots a bit and leans back against the couch. "You're overthinking something. I can tell. You have that, like. Scrunch in your forehead, the one that you get when you used to study for exams and you didn't know what the topic was about and—”

The backdrop of the lamp in the corner of the room lights him up, briefly, and Suguru stares and stares because he doesn’t know what else to do but watch as his best friend of years talks and talks.

How does one put up with this? If it were anyone else with Satoru’s level of personality he doubts he’d be so willing to listen in this manner.

But it’s Satoru, a treacherous little voice whispers. It’s always been him, hasn’t it?

Ah, right. Gojo Satoru. The one whom his life orbits around. No wonder; the constricting feeling was love.

The Earth is slowing down, second by second every day, and so is this moment. Satoru rambles, and Suguru listens, and he realizes this: nothing has tipped over, no balance has shifted or broken or capsized.

They are Satoru and Suguru, the duo that ruined Utahime and Shoko's high school days with bad pranks and group chats. The ultimate duo, arguing with teachers because they were smart and unafraid to show it. They are best friends; have been best friends since they first met and Suguru decided to hit his pretty boy face for being awfully pretentious.

How many years has it been since then?

They are best friends but they're also a little more, and have always been a little more.

There was always a little more in the way Satoru hovered around him the first time he ended up in the hospital for fracturing his collarbone while skateboarding, always a little more in the way Suguru knows exactly what Satoru's favorite sweets are and which days to buy them.

A little more in the way they share a table when they eat and it's the most natural feeling in the world, sitting across from him and laughing their heads off together. They never dated other people, never brought anyone home late to spend the night. Why would they, when they have each other?

The way they share a home. It's theirs. It's always been—the earnings that Suguru made from his part time job coupled with Satoru's family money bought them this apartment.

Maybe Suguru’s been looking at this wrong the whole time.

If only Shoko could see them now. She’d call them both stupid and gross and then leave with a proud smile on her face.

Suguru knows now—or maybe he's always known and it just never clicked—but he knows now that there was never any reason to worry.

Why realign when it's always been the two of them against the world?

"Satoru."

His best friend stops mid-sentence. "Yes?"

"You're an idiot." The words spill out without thinking, and Suguru doesn't regret it a bit.

He earns a slap on the head for it.

"I'm just worried about you! Gee, you'd think I'd get a thank you or something for gracing you with my patience but nooo you're calling me an idiot mmph—"

Suguru discovers that kissing shuts up Satoru much easier than anything else ever has.

Their mouths press together with a newfound ease; instincts guiding what can't be seen through closed eyes. Satoru nips at his bottom lip and Suguru breaks away, laughing.

Then he leans their foreheads together, and rests a hand so it's cradling Satoru's face.

"I hope you meant it," Suguru says quietly.

"Meant what?"

"What you said back then. Junior year summer trip—that night."

Satoru smiles then. It's a small, genuine thing that makes Suguru's heart ache. "Obviously I meant it, dumbass. I'd do anything for you. Anything at all. You're my one and only."

And the possibilities hurt to think about, all the ways it could go wrong, but the truth here and now is this:

He loves Satoru, and he doesn't need it to be said aloud to know it's reciprocated.

One and only sounds plenty great, Suguru muses.

Closing his eyes, he whispers, "You're my one and only too."

The Slowing has not yet stopped. It’s difficult now, distinguishing which is worse: the weeks of light or the weeks where the freezing darkness takes over. No one knows what the world will be like in the upcoming years, no one dares to hope it will become better.

That does not stop Suguru from thinking of better days, from lying awake and drifting to memories where the times were normal and 24 hours equaled a full day. To the days when the windows, their balcony, were still open and not shuttered closed with thick steel to prevent radiation from seeping in.

It's strange that he once lived a life so timeless, taking mundane days for granted as he regretted over chances untaken.

He's taken his chances now though. The important ones—the ones that lead him to the moments where he’s begun to think, what is life without risk?

The Earth is still slowing but he's already left the untouchable perch where everything feels stagnant and lost.

Stand with your lover on the ending Earth, they have said.

Stand with your one and only to face its ending, Suguru will say instead.