It wasn't that Satoshi never touched anyone. People touched him all the time. There were official handshakes, a domineering hand on his shoulder or awful hair ruffle from his father. There were classmates brushing against him in the hall or occasionally reaching out, never even assuming that their touch might be unwanted.
So yes, Satoshi experienced the touch of another person fairly often. Far more often than he generally wanted to be touched, honestly, because most people that did so weren't people he truly wanted to have contact with.
It was just…
How long had it been since he was hugged? Since any contact was more than something brief and fleeting?
Satoshi had memories of being a small child, memories of arms holding him and hands wiping his face, hands holding his hands, and the all-encompassing warmth that came from having another body surrounding his own. They were old memories, faint like a half-remembered dream, but there were enough photos that he knew that they'd happened. He'd had kind, caring touch at some point in his life, and had even sought it out when he was very very small, reaching up and out for comfort without ever having a doubt that it would come.
When had that changed?
Had it been when he realized what being a Hikari meant? Had it been after his mother passed, or after he no longer needed a nanny to watch him? Had there been a clear moment when his father went from giving affection that Satoshi accepted to whatever grudging tolerance lived between them now?
There was something wrong with him, Satoshi thought, as he observed his classmates. Friends bickered and teased, in and out of each other's physical bubbles, touching and being touched like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Did anyone ever notice how they didn't reach out his way? How none of them ever got close that way unless Satoshi found some reason to reach out instead?
It didn't matter.
He didn't need it.
He didn't want it.
Wanting touch was as dangerous as letting his emotions run wild. So he didn't. There was a box in his mind and all the unnecessary things were placed in it, one after another, neatly packed away until he was free to have them without consequence or he died.
Simple.
Satoshi got touch regularly and it didn't mean a thing, didn't make him want anything, not even holding the hand of a pretty girl like Risa who most the boys would have loved to hold hands with. Not holding Niwa's hand in some farce of a play. Not the brush of fingers exchanging papers.
So why did Niwa's hand reaching out to grasp his own, full of calluses and tiny scars, make his chest feel tight?
Why did the caring touch of someone with no obligation to care, with every reason not to, make his skin feel like it was burning, like there was nothing beyond that hand on his arm, his wrist, his hand, fingers on fingers, so over-sensitive Satoshi could cry?
Why, when the touch left him, did some part of him break… and want… to return it?