nick

The buzzer cracks overhead, announcing halftime into the night. You don’t move right away. Instead you let your gaze linger on him as he peels the helmet free completely, shaking out that impossible silver hair so it sticks up in damp spikes.

Sweat gleams across his forehead, catches the lights in tiny prismatic shards, and when he drags the hem of his jersey up to wipe his face the motion pulls the fabric high enough to expose a taut strip of abdomen, delightfully flushed, carved from hours of drills and hits. 

Your breath hitches, your cock gives a helpless twitch against the seam of your jeans. You swallow once, already calculating how long you have to wait before you can slip away and find him.

That’s when she appears.

A cheerleader materialises at his side like she was summoned by the spotlight itself, petite, uniform crisp despite the heat, pom-poms still clutched in one hand while the other offers a glistening water bottle. 

Her smile is practiced, bright, the kind that’s been rehearsed in dorm mirrors. She lays her palm against his bicep, casual, familiar, fingers sliding over his sweat-slicked skin without hesitation. 

Gojo glances down at her, nods once, flashes one of those quick, polite half-smiles that never quite reach his eyes. His attention is already drifting, cerulean gaze sweeping the stands in restless arcs until it snags on you.

The change is instant. His whole face lights up, the kind of smile he saves for when no one else is watching. Your pulse stutters. 

You drop your eyes fast, heat flooding your cheeks, terrified that if you hold his stare too long the entire stadium will see the raw desire carved into your expression. When you risk another glance he’s already shifting his weight, body angling toward the stairs like he means to climb them right now, consequences be damned. 

But she stops him, a small hand pressed flat against his chest plate, pressing the bottle firmly into his grip. He pauses to listen. And then he laughs, head tipping back, eyes squeezing into delighted little crescents as he angles himself towards her, the sound carrying even over the crowds noise.

Something sour coils behind your ribs. Your fingers curl, nails biting into your palms until the sting soothes you. You crack one knuckle, then another, trying to force the ugly bloom of jealousy back down where it belongs.

Secret, you remind yourself. This has to stay secret. You knew this, you accepted this.

You’re still staring when Geto slides onto the bleacher beside you.

He moves with that same lazy, feline like confidence you’ve seen on the field, dark hair spilling over one shoulder as he leans in just enough that the scent of turf, sweat, and faintly sweet Gatorade fills the narrow space between your bodies. His purple eyes meet yours, calm and amused, the corners of his mouth lifting.

“Hey” he says, voice pitched low to cut through the din without shouting. “Don’t think we’ve officially met.”

You flick your gaze down to the field, Gojo still hasn’t noticed yet, head tilted back as he drains the water bottle, throat working while the cheerleader chatters on. You force your attention back to Geto, drag up a smile that feels too tight. “No…” you manage after a beat, the word coming out slower than you mean it to. “We haven’t.”

“Gojo talks about you a lot.” Geto’s tone is warm, almost conspiratorial, like he’s sharing something salacious. Your heart does a stupid, eager flip, a smile forming on your lips. “Says you’re the reason his grades finally stopped tanking.” You wonder if your face fell as fast as your heart did. 

“Oh.” You crack another knuckle, the sound sharp to your own ears. “That’s… good.”

“Yeah.” Geto exhales the word like smoke, leaning a fraction closer. “You know, I think he’s seeing someone.”

Everything in you locks. You hold very still, voice scraping out careful and thin. “Really?”

“Mhm.” He grins now, slow and feline. “He’s been showboating all night. Throwing prettier spirals than usual. Gotta be for someone special.”

You force a small laugh that doesn’t land. “Well… everyone likes him, so…”

The sentence trails into nothing. You drop your eyes to the stack of books at your hip, tracing the curled corner of the top one with your thumbnail as if it was suddenly the most fascinating thing. Geto lets out a soft huff of amusement.

You can’t help it, your gaze drags back to the field, helplessly drawn to him.

Gojo isn’t laughing anymore.

His eyes are locked on you now, the crushed water bottle forgotten in his fist. Water spills over his knuckles in glittering streams that catch the lights and drip onto the turf. The cheerleader has stepped back half a pace, her smile faltering.

A vicious little thread of triumph twists in your chest before you can strangle it. Serves him right, you think, the words bitter and satisfied at once. It’s only the touch of a cool fingertip against your temple that breaks your fixation. You flinch back slightly, shoulders curling, but Geto doesn’t retreat. 

“Is it too hot out here for you?” He asks gently, pushing a lock of hair from your forehead, the strands clinging to the thin layer of perspiration on your skin. You shake your head a little, shoulders lifting a fraction, he arches a perfect brow. “You sure, pretty boy?”

You turn to him, expression shuttered. “Hey.” The word comes out flat, that veneer of civility worn to nothing. “I’m not sure if you’re meaning to flirt with me, or if I’m just reading it wrong, but either way, I’m not interested.”

For one second his face freezes, then, just as fast, he’s laughing, tipping his head so a lock of black hair slides across his cheek. “Cold” he drawls, no real sting in it. “Shot down before I even got started.”

“Sorry” you say again, already distracted as you turn away again, scanning the field for that signature silver hair.

He’s gone.

The space where he stood is empty now. You strain upward, searching the sidelines, the tunnel mouth, the clusters of players…nothing.

Geto leans in one last time, lips brushing the shell of your ear, warm breath sending an involuntary shiver racing down your spine. “See you around” he murmurs, the words barely audible, intimate in a way that makes your skin crawl. His hand ghosts over your shoulder, before he stands and slips away into the crowd.

You scrub at your ear with the heel of your palm, trying to erase the lingering heat of his mouth, the faint damp press of his lips. Down on the field the halftime show is winding down, lights shifting, music swelling again, but all you can feel is the sudden, hollow ache of his absence, and this gnawing feeling that somethings about to break.

… 

The final whistle echoes in your ears, a thin, metallic ring that burrows under your skin like a splinter. The scoreboard screams victory in electric blue and gold, the announcer’s voice booms over the crowd, and somewhere in the center of it all…is Gojo. 

He’s swept up, lifted, carried on the shoulders of teammates who shout his name like a prayer. You should feel something bright, something proud. And you do, in fragments. But your happiness frays at the edges the moment the celebration swallows him whole.

You stand frozen on the bleacher step where you rose without thinking, books clutched against your chest, the strap of your bag cutting into your shoulder. Around you the crowd surges forward, bodies pressing, voices overlapping, someone’s elbow jabbing your ribs, but none of it touches the cold hollow opening in your sternum. 

You need him to look. Just once more. A single glance, quick and secret, the kind he’s given you in crowded hallways or across lecture halls when no one else was paying attention. Something small, something only the two of you would understand. Proof that this win isn’t only his, that some quiet part of it belongs to the nights he spent sprawled across your bed with textbooks forgotten, mouth on your skin, whispering your name.

And he does look.

For one brilliant second his head turns, those eyes that hold the sky find you. The air leaves your lungs in a soft, helpless rush. He sees you. He has to see you. His gaze is cold, devoid of it’s usual warmth when it’s turned on you.

And then it’s gone.

His gaze slides past you, already drawn back to the chaos around him. A teammate slings an arm around his neck, another ruffles his hair hard enough to make him laugh, the sound carrying despite the noise. They close ranks. Shoulders and helmets and jerseys block him from view until there’s nothing left but fleeting flashes of white. 

You feel it, the slow, sick slide of doubt uncoiling in your gut like an ugly serpent. It’s not new, you’ve carried it for months, tucked neatly behind your ribs where it can’t be seen. Every time you caught your reflection next to his in a window or a mirror, your tired eyes, the way you never fill a room the way he does, it unfurls, roars its ugly words into your ear. 

You told yourself it didn’t matter. That he chose you anyway. That the secrecy was temporary, a shield until the timing was right. But now the thoughts rush in unchecked, louder than the noise around you, sharper than the cold seeping through your hoodie.

Is he tired of it? Of sneaking through back stairwells, of texts deleted before anyone can see, of pretending you’re just a tutor? Was it ever more than convenience, a way to blow off steam between practices and parties? An experiment he’s ready to end now that the semesters over and the spotlight burns just for him?

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth, you bite down until you taste blood. Your body locks, knees rigid, fingers white-knuckled around the edges of your books, because you’re afraid that if you move too suddenly, the tears waiting behind your eyes will finally spill and everyone will see. You can’t let them see. Not here, not now.

Before the doubt can harden into something brittle, you turn. You don’t run, not exactly. You move with a singular purpose, head down, shoulders hunched, weaving through the crush of bodies like you belong to the current.

A voice calls out Gojo’s name right beside your ear, so close you flinch. The tears come anyway, hot, blurring, turning the sea of jerseys and faces into smears of blue and grey and white until the whole stadium feels like it’s dissolving around you.

You don’t look back. You can’t. If you look back and he’s still gone, lost in that bright, hungry orbit, you’re not sure what piece of you will crack open and refuse to close again.

The thoughts drowns you. Maybe he was never yours to hold onto in the first place. Maybe you were only ever borrowing his light, and now it’s over. He’s finally ready to take it back.

You step out into the parking lot, the chill biting through your hoodie, and the tears fall freely now while somewhere behind you, the celebration rages on without you, without even noticing you’re gone.

… 

You do the only thing you know how to do when things become too much to take. You ignore it. Bury your head in the sand and drown yourself in work. 

The hours bleed together in the dim cone light of your desk lamp, the only sound the soft scratch of your pen against paper and the sound of your own heart. 

You flip another page, then another, eyes swimming over annotations you’d memorised months ago, tracing the same lines again anyway. You read ahead, past the syllabus and into the optional chapters no professor ever expects you to touch, paragraphs blurring into dense blocks of text that refuse to make sense. 

Anything to keep the quiet from pressing too hard, to keep your mind from straying to him again, to what he might be doing, and who he might be doing it with. 

But your room has never felt so empty.

He used to fill it without trying, you’d gotten so used to him. Sprawled across your narrow bed with his long legs hanging off the end, pretending to scroll through his phone while watching you over the top of the screen with that lazy, half-lidded intensity that made your skin prickle. 

You’d pretend not to notice, nose buried in notes, but every time he shifted, every time he huffed a quiet laugh at something on his feed, the air changed. Somehow warmer, and lighter.

It doesn’t work. You want him, you want him here, with his warm smell, his warm hands, his bright eyes, and even brighter laughter. 

You want him here.

And not the public version, the perfect, untouchable athlete with the easy smiles. No, you want the private Gojo. The one who smells faintly of turf and sweat after practice, whose eyes go soft when he thinks no one else can see. The one whose laughter starts low in his chest and ends up bright, reckless, filling every corner of this cramped space.

You stare down at the words on the paper in-front of you, your pen strokes so hard they’ve almost gone through the paper. You fling the pen across the desk. It clatters off the table and and falls silent on the floor. Your fists come up fast, pressing into your eye sockets until white sparks bloom behind your lids, until the pressure almost drowns out the hollow throb in your chest. 

A sudden, violent bang shatters the quiet, the wood door shuddering on its hinges under the impact. Then another, each more frantic than the last, like someone is trying to kick the door open. 

You rush to the door and  wrench it open with enough force to make the chain rattle, ready to hiss at whoever it is to stop before the neighbours call security, or worse.

The words die the instant you see him.

Gojo stands on your threshold like he’s been carved from the night itself, glowing like the moon itself, a flush high on his cheeks, the colour spreading across the bridge of his nose in a deep, bitten-rose that makes your stomach twist. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, shimmering wet in the weak glow of the porch light, lashes clumped with what could be tears. 

His silver hair stands on end in chaotic tufts, matted at the temples with sweat, or product, or the hands of too many people who wanted a piece of him tonight. His jersey hangs crooked, one shoulder low enough to bare the delicious dip of his collarbone.

“Where were you?” He sniffs, one hand braced on the doorframe. He uses the other to swipe at his nose, the motion quick and embarrassed, like he’s ashamed to be caught crying. “You just… disappeared.”

You drop your gaze to the scuffed floorboards between your feet, knowing that the next thing out of your mouth will be childish and petulant but not having the means to stop it. “You didn’t seem to need me there.”

“What— You were—” He coughs, spluttering a little, dragging that same hand through his hair again, fingers twisting in the strands hard enough to pull.“You were with Geto. Talking. Smiling. He touched your hair, for fuck’s sake.”

The accusations makes something in your chest flare, hot and indignant. “If you must know” you say, each word strained, clipped, cold, “we actually spoke about you. And the second he got too close I shut it down. Hard.” You lift your chin, forcing yourself to meet those glassy blue eyes. “I can’t say the same for you and your little…halftime fan.”

His mouth opens and closes like a guppy fish, you seize on his silence, needling him with your words. 

“Was she more your type?” The question tastes like acid. “I heard all the stories, Satoru. Before me. You didn’t exactly play hard to get back then. She was cute. Really cute. You should’ve got her number. Especially now that you’re apparently—”

His fist meets the wood of your door, cutting your vitriolic monologue off.

Your brain screams at you to apologise, take it back, to not let what you have fracture any further. But the pathetic, aching part of you stays silent. Waiting. Wanting him to deny it. Wanting him to prove you still take up space in his chest the way he takes up every corner of yours. Wanting him to crack open, raw and bleeding, so you can finally see how much of him is still yours.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

The seconds stretch, suffocating you slowly, and the longer it goes on, the more of your heart you feel splinter away. 

You mirror him without thinking, dragging your own hand through your hair, shoving it roughly back from your forehead, the motion exhausted, defeated.

“Go home, Gojo” you sigh, an unbreakable weariness crashing over you in a slow, drowning wave. “I’m… tire—”

His mouth crashes into yours before the word finishes.

Hard. Deep. Wet. 

His hands frame your face, wide palms engulfing your cheeks, thumbs sweeping tenderly over the crests of your cheekbones  even as he presses forward, forcing you back across the threshold. You suck in a gasp just as his lips seal over yours, tasting the tang of beer on his tongue, the salt of his tears, one fat drop slipping free from the corner of his eye to track down his cheek and fall between your joined lips. 

A soft, broken whimper escapes your throat. He drinks it down, pushing you back another step, one hand sliding from your face to splay wide at the small of your back, fingers digging in, as though letting even an inch of space open between you might allow you to slip away for good.

He kicks the door shut with the heel of his foot, the slam reverberating through the thin walls of your apartment. He doesn’t care, doesn’t even flinch. His body is already crowding yours, driving you backward until your spine meets the nearest stretch of wall with a dull thud that knocks the breath from you. 

One thick thigh wedges between yours, pressing up hard against you so that you feel every hard inch of him, the heat of his arousal unmistakable even through layers of fabric. His heart hammers against your chest in frantic counterpoint to your own, a wild, unsteady rhythm that says he’s as terrified as he is desperate.

His hands turn greedy, fingers curling like claws into the soft flesh of your hips, your sides, the backs of your thighs, anywhere he can reach. His mouth is relentless, teeth catching your lower lip on the next kiss, tugging hard enough to sting before soothing it with a slow drag of his tongue. 

You break away just long enough to drag in air, head falling back against the wall with a soft thunk, exposing the line of your throat. He doesn’t hesitate. His lips descend in a hot, open-mouthed path down the column of your neck, biting, not gentle nips, but real bites that bloom into vivid red marks almost instantly, each one a brand he sinks in deeper when you gasp. 

“Don’t you ever say that again” he growls against your skin, voice rough, breath scorching where it fans over your skin. He pauses there, panting, chest heaving against yours. “You’re the only one I want. The only one I think about. Every fucking second.”

Heat floods your veins, thick and dizzying, feeling nothing but the press of his body, the scrape of his teeth, the way his fingers dig in harder as though afraid you’ll dissolve if he eases up even a fraction. But beneath the haze of want, the hurt you’ve been carrying all night claws its way back up, raw, insistent, refusing to be drowned out.

You lift both hands to his face, cradling his jaw, thumbs brushing over the sharp line of his cheekbones until he stills. Forcing him to look at you. His eyes are wild, and glassy with unshed tears, something that makes your heart twist painfully. You search them anyway, needing the truth he can never quite hide, even when every part of him wants to.

“Then why hide us?” The question comes out soft, almost a whisper, your voice trembling despite your best effort to keep it steady. Your gaze flicks between his left eye and his right, watching for the flicker, the crack. “Why keep pretending I’m nothing to you in front of everyone?”

His brows draw together, a deep furrow carving between them. For one agonising second his eyes screw shut, like the question physically hurts. When they open again the blue is fractured, and raw.

“Because…” The word rushes out on a shaky exhale, barely audible. His hands slide to your waist, kneading restlessly, thumbs circling over your ribs in a rhythm that’s meant to ground him as much as it distracts you. “I was scared you’d get hurt.”

You wait, breath caught, letting the silence stretch until he has no choice but to keep going.

“Like you said” he continues, voice cracking on the edges, “before you I had… a reputation. I didn’t want you hearing the stories. Didn’t want people whispering shit about you…about us. Calling you the flavour of the month, or worse. I thought if they got to you, if they made you doubt…” He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I thought you’d run. That I’d lose you before I even really had you. So I hid it. Hid us. For as long as I could.”

His word are devastating. All the ugly fears you’ve been nursing dissolve in a single, breathless rush. Guilt follows fast on their heels, sharp and familiar; your own words echoed back at you, cruel in hindsight.

“Toru” you choke out, your fingers slide into his hair, gripping the silver strands hard enough to make him wince softly. His eyes search yours, wide and vulnerable in a way he rarely allows. “I’d never run from you.”

He sucks in a shuddering breath, those impossible blue eyes flaring brighter.

“I love you” he says, voice breaking on the confession. “I love you, Y/N. I really fucking do.”

The words burn through you, searing the last of the doubt away. Your throat tightens, eyes stinging hot. “I love you too, Toru. So much.”

His mouth finds yours again, a clutch of lips and teeth and tongue that steals what little air you have left. He pulls back just enough, chest brushing yours in ragged rises and falls, eyes fluttering shut as though he’s letting your words sink in. When opens them again, his pupils have almost swallowed the blue, raw with unfiltered desire.

“I won’t stop” he growls low, hands sliding from your waist to the hem of your shirt, fingers teasing the edge, knuckles grazing bare skin. “Once I start I won’t be able to—I’ll—”

“Toru.” Your voice drops into something darker, sultrier, fingers pressing gently but firmly over his lips to quiet him. “I won’t ever tell you to stop.”

His tongue flicks out immediately, sliding between your fingers to lick a slow, lascivious stripe along the pads. His gaze never leaves yours. You shiver hard, teeth sinking into your own lip as heat coils tighter in your belly.

He pushes your hand aside and dives back to your throat, sucking a fresh mark into the skin just below your jaw while his fingers shove your shirt up and over your head in one smooth motion. The fabric catches briefly on your arms, he doesn’t wait, yanking it free and tossing it somewhere behind him.

Your pyjama pants give no real struggle before they surrender, pooling at your ankles when he hooks his thumbs into the waistband and drags them past your hips.

His palm cups you through your boxers, pressing just hard enough to feel the way your cock twitches under the touch. A soft, desperate sound tears from your throat. Your gasps turn ragged, eyes screwing shut as the fever takes hold completely. 

It’s not healthy, this need, this bone-deep certainty that you’d rather stop breathing than stop feeling him, but the thought barely registers before it’s swept away.

“Fuck” he growls against your shoulder, lips trailing fire across your skin. He rests his cheek against you for a heartbeat, breathing you in, eyes lifting to search your face like he’s asking for something he already knows the answer to. “I want you so bad.”

Your lashes flutter open. His sapphire gaze glitters back at you.

“I’m yours” you whisper.

His eyes widen, mouth parting on a silent inhale. Then his arms wrap around you again, crushing you to his chest. 

In one fluid motion he lifts you, hands braced firm under your ass, your legs instinctively locking around his waist, and carries you the last few steps toward the bed.

He lowers you toward the mattress, his mouth brushing your ear in a hot, trembling whisper. “I’m gonna make sure you never doubt us again”.

You’re already sinking back against the pillows, thighs parting in silent invitation as you feel the mattress dip under his weight. You expected him to settle between your legs, to press the hard line of his body flush against yours and chase the friction you both craved, but he didn’t.

Instead he slid lower.

His mouth mapped a slow, deliberate path down the center of your torso, open-mouthed kisses pressed to the fragile skin over your ribs, the dip of your navel, the sharp jut of your hipbone, each one hotter than the last, leaving faint, glistening trails that cooled too quickly in the cool air of your room. 

When he reached the waistband of your boxers his hands found the backs of your thighs, warm palms sliding up until he could hook one leg gently over his shoulder. 

Those cerulean eyes lifted to meet yours, he held you captive while his lips brushed the wet spot darkening the fabric of your boxer. Your cock jerked hard beneath the thin barrier, a helpless twitch that made heat flood your face. He smiled against you, the kind of smile that said he could feel every frantic pulse, and then his teeth caught the elastic.

He peeled your boxers down inch by torturous inch, never breaking eye contact, daring you with every slow drag to reach down and stop him. You didn’t. You couldn’t. 

The waistband dragged over the head of your cock and then lower, freeing you completely, the sudden rush of cool air made you gasp, one hand flying to your mouth to muffle the sound as your length bobbed against your stomach, already leaking at the tip. He helped you pull them off the rest of the way, sending them arcing over his shoulder. 

He licked his lips once, then leaned in and pressed the softest, wettest kiss right to the flushed head of your cock.

Your hips snapped upward before you could think, chasing the heat of his mouth. You forced them back down with a strangled noise, twisting your head to stare at the dull paint on the far wall, because looking at him, at the way his lashes fanned against flushed cheeks, at the way his tongue darted out to taste you, was too much. One slide of those perfect lips around you and you’d be gone, spilling down his throat without warning.

A light tap against your sternum pulled your gaze back down despite yourself.

He was watching you still, eyes half-lidded and wicked, tongue flat and slow as it circled the ruddy crown of your cock, collecting the bead of precum that welled up and swallowing it with a quiet, satisfied hum. The sight punched the air from your lungs.

“Fuck—stop” you yelped, voice cracking, fingers scrabbling at his forehead in a weak attempt to push him away. You couldn’t breathe, not with his breath ghosting hot over sensitive skin, not with the wet heat of his tongue so close it felt like a burn.

He didn’t stop.

Instead he parted his lips and let a thick, deliberate string of spit fall from the tip of his tongue. It landed on the tip of your cock, drawing startled gasp from you, then slid down the underside of your shaft in a slow, glistening trail, over the swell of your balls, then lower still, until it kissed the tight furl of your hole. 

Your spine arched off the mattress like a bowstring pulled tight, every nerve lit up at once.

Then his mouth closed around the head.

Molten heat enveloped you. A wet, velvet suction that dragged a choked gasp from your throat. Your eyes snapped wide, fingers knotting into silver strands hard enough to make him groan around your length. He took you deeper in one smooth glide, tongue flattening along the underside, swirling lazy patterns over the sensitive ridge while his gaze never wavered.

His free hand slid lower, fingertips circling your rim in teasing strokes that made your thighs tremble. Then one finger pressed inside, breaching the resistance with steady pressure until your body yielded and swallowed him to the knuckle.

“Ah—fuck” you hissed, head slamming back against the pillows, hips canting up into the dual assault of his mouth and hand. He worked the finger in and out in shallow thrusts, curling just enough to brush that spot inside you that sent sparks racing up your spine, while his tongue smoothed relentless circles around the head still cradled between his lips.

“How are you—” Your voice fractured on a moan. “How are you so fucking good at this?”

He pulled off with a wet, obscene pop, lips shiny and swollen, hand wrapping around your base to stroke you in long, lazy pulls that kept the slick sounds echoing through the room. “I’m good at everything” he murmured, voice wrecked and smug at once, the words vibrating against your skin.

The rhythm of his hand, the filthy wet glide of spit and precum, the low groans you couldn’t hold back, it all wove together into something overwhelming, dragging you under. Without warning he worked a second finger inside, twisting them together, stretching you open with a thoroughness that bordered on clinical if it weren’t so devastatingly intimate.

“Stop—I’m gonna—” Your legs kicked uselessly, heels digging into the sheets, hands shoving weakly at his head again. “Toru, I’m gonna cum—”

He relented, barely, pulling his fingers free with torturous drag that left you clenching around nothing. He pressed one last filthy kiss to the weeping tip of your cock, tongue flicking out to lap at the slit like he was savouring every drop, before he began the crawl back up your body.

His mouth left marks in its wake, sharp bites that bloomed red across your collarbone, your pecs, the sensitive skin just below your nipple, teeth sinking in deep enough to dimple flesh and hold for a heartbeat before releasing.

When he finally settled over you again, hips slotting between your spread thighs, he braced one forearm beside your head, the other hand sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise.

“You’re shaking” he whispered, his forehead dropping to rest against yours, silver strands falling to curtain your faces from the dim lamplight. “Tell me you still want this. Tell me you’re not gonna disappear on me.”

The question hung there, his cock pressing hot and heavy against your entrance, not pushing in, just resting there like a promise. His eyes searched yours with an intensity that made your chest ache, like he was waiting for the moment you’d pull away and prove every fear he’d confessed right.

“Never” you whispered.

One word. Barely more than breath. But it carried everything, the ache you’d carried home, the doubt that had taunted you. You said it like a vow, like the only truth left that mattered.

And it was enough.

His mouth parted on a soft, shattered exhale. Then he pressed forward, slow at first, careful not to hurt you, the stretch blooming sharp and exquisite as your body yielded around him. 

You should have been used to it by now, to the way he filled you inch by careful inch, but every time felt like the first. The burn, the fullness, the way your walls fluttered helplessly around the thick heat of him. His own breath hitched, his lips fell open, eyes going half-lidded and hazy as his gaze dropped to where you were joined, watching himself disappear inside you like he needed visual proof that this was real, that you were letting him in.

Your hands scrambled across the broad expanse of his shoulders, nails digging into sweat-slick muscle, pulling him down until his mouth crashed into yours. 

Only when he was buried to the hilt, hips flush against yours, cock throbbing deep enough that you swore you could feel it in your throat, did he finally kiss you properly. Messy, devouring, stealing the air from your lungs while he held perfectly still inside you, letting you feel every pulse, every twitch.

You writhed beneath him, legs hooking around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back to drag him impossibly closer. The motion ground him against that spot inside you that made white sparks explode behind your eyelids, electricity racing up your spine. 

He groaned into your mouth, low and broken, then pulled back just enough for a thin string of spit to bridge your lips before his hips snapped back.

No warning.

He drove forward hard, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the small room like a crack of thunder. Your body jolted up the mattress an inch, a startled gasp tore from your throat. He dropped to his elbows, chest smothering yours, weight pinning you in place as he set a ruthless rhythm, deep, punishing strokes that rocked the headboard against the wall in time with your stuttering breaths.

Your eyes slipped shut. Hands slid from his shoulders, down the lean taper of his waist, until your fingers hooked into the firm muscle of his ass. You dug in hard, urging him deeper, faster, chasing the brutal drag of him against every sensitive inch inside you. Your cock was trapped between your bodies, slick tip sliding against the ridges of his abdomen with every thrust, the friction maddening.

“Fuck—yes” you moaned, voice fracturing. “Don’t stop—don’t—”

He growled something incoherent under his breath, then pushed up onto his hands. One palm wrapped around your throat, not tight, just firm enough to make your pulse thunder against his fingers, to make every gasp sharper, every breath a conscious effort. 

You loved this version of him, the one who lost the leash on his control, who let raw want drive him until his jaw clenched so hard you half-expected his teeth to crack.

“Look at me” he rasped, each word punctuated by a particularly vicious snap of his hips. The wet clap of skin meeting skin dragged a high, needy whine from your throat. Your eyes flew open, locking onto his, glittering with something feral and tender all at once.

“Beautiful” he growled, the word scraping raw from his chest.

In one fluid motion he gripped your waist, pulled out with a slick glide that left you clenching around nothing, and flipped you onto your stomach. 

You went bonelessly, pliant from the waves of pleasure already crashing through you, letting him arrange you however he wanted, chest pressed to the sheets, hips yanked high, knees spread wide. A firm slap landed on your ass, pulling a shocked yelp from your lips, before he lined up and sank back inside in one long, smooth thrust.

Deeper.

From this angle he reached places that made your vision blur, cock dragging against your walls with devastating precision, so far in you felt him in your stomach. Your fingers clawed at the sheets, your face pressed into the mattress in a futile attempt to muffle the broken sounds spilling from your mouth.

“Hold on, baby” he chuckled, dark and breathless, before he fucked into you like he was trying to carve himself permanently inside your body.

It was filthy. Debauched. Like you existed in this moment solely for him to take, to use, to wring pleasure from until there was nothing left. And god, you loved it.

“Yes—god, yes—” The words tore free, muffled against cotton, fireworks bursting behind your closed lids, toes curling so hard they cramped. He dipped low, lips finding the nape of your neck, licking, biting, marking, while one hand snaked beneath you to splay wide over your lower stomach.

The pressure hit like a shockwave.

His palm pressed down, feeling the bulge of his own cock moving inside you through the thin wall of your abdomen. The sensation was overwhelming, too much, too intimate, too raw. Your eyes rolled back, a strangled scream caught in your throat as pleasure tipped into exquisite pain.

You turned your head just enough to catch him in the corner of your vision, silver hair falling into his eyes, jaw slack, expression shattered. Any trace of control was gone, he was pure instinct now, hips snapping erratically, chasing his own release while refusing to let you slip away from him.

His other hand wrapped around your cock in messy, off-rhythm strokes that were more desperation than skill, thumb swiping over the leaking tip with every upstroke.

It was enough.

The orgasm ripped through you like thunder, sudden and violent, a full-body convulsion that arched your back and shook your thighs. You cried out, voice cracking, hips bucking wildly enough that you nearly dislodged him. 

Cum spilled hot and thick over his fist, over the sheets, your whole body spasming as wave after wave crashed through you, leaving you trembling and gasping.

And still he didn’t stop. His rhythm faltered, hips stuttering, breath coming in harsh pants against your neck—but he kept driving into you, chasing the last fraying edges of his control. 

With one last shuddering snap of his hips he buried himself to the hilt, balls drawn tight against your skin as a low, guttural groan tore from his throat, the kind of sound that vibrated straight up your spine and settled in your chest. 

You felt him pulse inside you, thick and insistent, hot spurts of cum flooding your walls until the sensation tipped from fullness to overwhelming, making your body clench reflexively around him, milking every last drop while broken whimpers spilled from your lips.

He collapsed forward, weight sagging heavy against your back, chest heaving in ragged bursts that fanned damp heat across the nape of your neck..

You shifted, just a small roll of your hips, testing, and drew a sharp, pained groan from him. That was when you registered it, he was still hard, still buried deep, cock twitching with oversensitive aftershocks inside you. A slow, deliberate grind upward made his cum leak out around the base, warm and slick, trickling down your thighs in a lazy trickle.

“Stop” he hissed through clenched teeth, hands clamping down on your hips like iron, trying to still you. But you managed another small, teasing shift anyway, feeling the way he stretched you open again, the drag exquisite even through the sting. He sucked air sharply between his teeth. “Fuck—stop a second, I’m sensitive.”

A wicked little chuckle escaped you before you could swallow it. You did it again, moaning low in your throat as the fullness shifted inside, pressing against every oversensitive inch of your walls.

“No” you whined, pitching your voice deliberately slutty, desperate, peering back over your shoulder to catch the fractured blue of his eyes. “I need you.”

Something in his expression snapped, a visible, visceral reaction, a quick tic at the corner of his eye like a fuse burning through. His hands wrapped around your waist in a bruising grip and yanked you upright, pulling you back onto his lap in one fluid motion.

“You asked for this” he growled against the shell of your ear.

Then his arms hooked under your thighs, folding your legs back against your ribs until your knees nearly kissed your shoulders. 

His hands laced behind your neck, forcing your head down so you had no choice but to watch as the thick length of him disappeared into your body again and again, obscene and hypnotic, your own cock slapping wetly against your stomach with every punishing upward snap of his hips.

A strangled yelp tore from your throat. The angle was brutal, deeper than before, every thrust grinding against that spot inside you until sparks danced behind your eyes. You tried to squirm, to ease the intensity, but his hold was absolute.

“Wait—Toru—” The words fractured into a whine.

His fingers unlocked from behind your neck, allowing your head to slump back against his shoulder. You turned instinctively, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses along the line of his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, anywhere you could reach.

“I saw you with him” he gasped, voice cracking, eyes glassy and distant even as his hips kept driving up into you. “I thought… I thought you were gonna leave me.”

“Ngh—” The sound punched out of you, thunder building in your blood, ready to crack. “Please… Toru…”

“I can’t lose you.” The confession came out ragged, almost a sob, his thrusts turning harder, faster, one hand sliding to your hip to drag you down onto him with every stroke. Your thoughts scattered like ash, your body went limp in his grip, one hand anchored desperately to his waist, feeling the muscles bunch and release beneath your palm.

“You—you won’t” you whimpered, staring up at the ceiling in a daze, pleasure coiling so tight it hurt. “I’m going nowhere… I’ll never leave you… I-I—” The world split open. A white haze swallowed everything as your release crashed through you, back arching violently off his chest, thighs shaking, a broken cry ripping free. “I love you!”

“Shit—” He hissed the word like a prayer, flipping you prone again in one rough motion, pressing you flat into the sheets. He moulded himself to your back, thigh to thigh, chest to spine, lips at your ear, tongue flicking out to wet the skin there in a slow, possessive drag. “Fuck, Y/N… I love you too.”

The words tipped him over. He drove deep one last time and spilled again, hot and pulsing. His hips didn’t stop, he kept rocking into you through the aftershocks, a stream of filthy, broken groans spilling against your neck until, finally, he stilled. 

With a shuddering exhale he pulled free, cum slipping warm and thick from your body as he slumped beside you, half-draped over your back like he couldn’t bear even that small distance.

And suddenly, everything felt right.

His weight anchoring you to the mattress. Warm breath ghosting over your shoulder. Silver strands tickling the nape of your neck. His hands, gentle now, tracing slow, soothing circles into the dip of your lower back.

You turned your head against the sheets, cheek pressed to cotton that now smelled faintly of him. His eyes were closed, lips parted on uneven breaths, cheeks flushed a deeper red than you’d ever seen, the colour bleeding down his throat. You lifted a trembling hand, fingers brushing his cheek, pushing damp strands of hair from his forehead.

His lashes fluttered. Those impossible blue eyes opened, finding you instantly, softening in a way that made your heart clench so hard it stole your breath. The realisation hit you all at once, sharp and sweet and overwhelming. You were madly in love with him. And he, with all his light, and all his fears, and his football field-sized bravado, was madly in love with you.

A hysterical little giggle bubbled up from your chest before you could stop it.

He blinked, happy and bemused at once. “What?”

“I just… love you so much.”

His eyes lit up, like you’d handed him the entire sky. A beautiful, lopsided smile split his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Stop” he whined, suddenly burying his face in the sheets, but not before you caught the fresh pink flush climbing his ears, spreading down his neck in a wave he couldn’t hide.

You chuckled softly, leaning closer until your lips brushed the shell of his ear. “I love you.”

He flinched, a small, helpless sound escaping him.

“I love you.”

“Stop—” The word cracked into laughter, but he couldn’t quite manage it. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against his chest in a tangle of limbs, but you didn’t stop.

“I love you” you whispered again and again, between every kiss pressed to his jaw, his collarbone, the hollow of his throat, until the words blurred into a mantra and his laughter shook the bed beneath you both.

“Shit” he huffed finally, breathless, head dropping back against the pillow, eyes fixed on the ceiling with a soft, contented smile curving his lips. “I love you too. Now stop, before I turn into complete mush.”

“Okay.” You lifted your head just enough to rest your chin on his chest, looking up at him through your lashes. “Love you though.”

He let out a pained groan, all dramatic and theatrical, but the smile never left his face. “Love you too”

You settled your cheek against the steady thump of his heart, arms wrapping around his waist so tightly you weren’t sure you’d ever let him go.

And that's it folks! I hope you enjoyed! Sorry it was so long, got carried away 🤤.

you were broke, yes, but you were free. you had time, a commanding presence, and most of it all, you did not care. that's when he first felt it, a connection, a slight hum in his chest. because he realized that you were everything he wanted to be.

you acted out of impulse with no care, you embraced the consequences and played with luck like it was a toy. and the moment he stepped out the plane? he was right back in your hold once again.

called you once he saw his now burnt out apartment, didn't know why he called you in the first place when he could've called someone else he knew, but you didn't turn him down, instead, you invited him for a drink.

gojo decided then that the day he met you, in the plane, was when his life turned around. with no place to stay, he was stuck with you in the same abandoned house he claimed was haunted.

the more he was perched in your orbit, the more he lingered around, the space he loathed slowly started to fill up-- even when he lost his job, especially when he lost his job. it made him feel reckless, like he had his life in control now.

it was easy for him to follow you around, you were charismatic, and everything about you felt so.. put together despite how much of a mess you are.

the envy coiled into something deeper, his gazes lingered more, his touches fairy like. and when gojo got to know about fight club, the bond you two shared rooted deeply within.

the envy had faded into admiration which now shared a very thin line with obsession. and the first rule you told him in the kitchen, barefoot on cracked tile, was spoken like a joke

"you don’t talk about it, satoru.”

the white haired man laughed, leaning against the counter, watching you carve a bar of soap with a pocketknife like a surgeon, “you sure you aren't takin' me to a cult?” you didn’t answer right away, instead you slid the finished bar across to him.

it was uneven, pink, and smelled aggressively like cheap citrus. he turned it over in his hand. “the place i’m taking you tonight,” you said finally, "you don’t talk about it. you don’t write about it. you don’t even think about it too loud."

he squinted his eyes in confusion, a small click of tongue before he finally replied, "you're fuckin' insane," but he followed you either way.

the building was a carcass of concrete and rust, tucked behind a strip of warehouses like something ashamed of itself.

the air around it buzzed with noise-- filled with laughter too sharp, and the low thud of bodies hitting bodies. gojo felt it in his teeth before he even stepped inside.

the basement smelled like sweat and iron. a circle of men crowded the center, their faces lit with a hunger that made gojo's stomach twist. a punch landed, he heard someone groan and the crowd leaned in like flowers toward sunlight.

you didn’t look at him, you were watching the fight with a focus that bordered on reverence, he didn't like that, he never indulged in fights yet something in his bones buzzed and adrenaline rushed through,

"that’s it?” he asked. “they just.. hit each other?” you grinned. “that’s it.”

god, he should’ve left. he knew he should've.

every rational piece of him screamed to turn around, go back to the haunted house, go back to his hollow apartment, go back to being nobody in designer clothes. this place was animalistic, it stripped the air down to something primitive

but you stepped into the circle when the fight ended and so he stayed.

the crowd shifted for you instinctively, gojo felt the change like pressure in the room. they knew you, not by your name-- he doubted names mattered here, but they knew what you were capable of.

you rolled your shoulders, loose, smiling like this was a party and you were the host.

your opponent was much bigger-- older. as he cracked his knuckles and spat to the side, you looked back at gojo once before the first punch you took snapped your head sideways.

the sound echoed, and gojo's chest tightened, a reflexive jolt of anger he didn’t recognize as his own. you laughed through the blood in your mouth. laughed like this whole thing was a joke, and then you moved.

it wasn’t pretty but it was efficient in a way that felt personal. you hit like you were erasing something. every strike carried a story gojo wasn’t privy to. the crowd roared with each connection, but he couldn’t hear them anymore.

all he saw was you-- alive in a way you never were in daylight, stripped down to intent. when you finally dropped the man, you didn’t celebrate. you just stood there, chest heaving, eyes bright, you looked relieved.

you pointed at the blue eyed man, and the circle turned to him.

his first instinct was to refuse, his second was to run, but underneath both was that hum again-- that same hum from the plane, from the burnt apartment, from every reckless step he’d taken since meeting you.

it pulled him forward and he stepped in.

the man they gave him was lean, twitchy. gojo barely registered his face before the first hit landed. pain bloomed, it was shocking how immediate it was, nevertheless, he hit back and something in him cracked open along with it.

all the quiet resentment, the loneliness he’d lacquered over with expensive furniture, the envy he’d swallowed every time he watched you live without fear-- it surged to the surface and poured into his fists.

he wasn’t graceful by no means, nor was he skilled. but he was furious in a way that felt clean.

when he went down, the concrete kissed his spine and the ceiling spun, he tasted iron and started laughing, he didn’t know why. hands dragged him up. the fight was over and he’d lost.

it didn’t matter. the crowd clapped his shoulder like he’d been baptized. his face throbbed, his ribs screamed. yet he felt.. lighter.

you were in front of him, split lip, eye already darkening. you looked delighted, "well?” you asked with a tilt of your head. the white haired man touched his bleeding nose.

he waited for shame, for regret, even for the creeping horror of what he’d just done.

but none of it came.

“i get it,” he said softly. your grin widened, feral and proud as you threw an arm around his shoulders and dragged him back into the noise, into the sweat and laughter and raw, beating heart of the basement.

that night, limping home beside you, gojo satoru realized something irreversible had settled into him, but the first thing he noticed on the walk back, was that you didn’t ask if he was okay.

most people would’ve-- a normal person would’ve hovered, fussed over the swelling, and apologized for dragging him into something brutal and underground.

but you didn’t even look at his face.

you were humming, lip still split, hands shoved in your pockets, stepping over puddles like you were walking out of a movie theater instead of a basement where he’d just been beaten into clarity.

“your stance was terrible,” you finally said, gojo laughed through the ache in his ribs. “no shit, i got knocked flat.” you hummed in reply-- a silent motion of approval, and he was fine with that.

your house greeted you like a mouth with broken teeth, you kicked your shoes off and tracked blood across the floor without a second thought. gojo followed, dizzy, watching you move through the wreckage of your life with practiced ease.

the place was worse than he remembered. soap molds stacked beside empty bottles, clothes draped over a chair like shed skin, a worn out mattress on the floor.

you tossed him a literal rag, "for your face,” you said. “don't drip the soap too much. customers hate when there's no logo.”

he stared at you. “you’re worried about customer satisfaction right now?” he didn't even bother asking you why you would sell a used soap-- too used to your cheap tricks by now.

“i’m always worried about customer satisfaction,” you replied, dead serious. “that’s capitalism for ya.” you grinned after you said it, blood in your teeth, and he felt that hum again-- louder this time, almost closer to a roar.

you were a disaster, a walking liability. a person held together by impulse and bad decisions and a charisma so sharp it bordered on violent, and he couldn’t-- wouldn't look away.

the fights became a routine, that was the frightening part, not the pain or the bruises blooming like ink under his skin. it was the routine that frightened him.

you’d disappear for hours, come back with cash or nothing, sometimes with a split knuckle, sometimes with a stranger trailing behind you who’d crash on your bed and leave before sunrise.

you lied easily, casually, he caught you once, selling the same bar of soap he used to three different people in the same afternoon,

"you're scamming them,” he said, watching the people shuffle away. you shrugged. “how will they know it's used,”

“that’s not--”

“legal?” you offered. “moral? damn, satoru, relax. they’ll survive. people love being fooled, it makes them feel chosen.” you said it with a pat on his cheek, it was such good conviction he almost believed it.

and perhaps that was your talent. you bent reality around yourself until it felt negotiable. fight club fed that part of you, or maybe it was the other way around.

in the basement, you were gospel. people gravitated to you after fights, hanging on your words like you were preaching salvation instead of chaos.

you remembered names when it benefited you, and forgot them when it didn’t. you could look a man in the eye after breaking his nose and make him feel honored for it.

and gojo-- god, gojo continued to orbit around you, knowing where you came from, how your silly little 'consequences' weren't so silly anymore and that he should be wary of your impulses.

you weren't some quirky guy, and he didn't want to be you.

yet he started skipping interviews, he started ignoring calls, bruises became easier to explain than ambition and every time he stepped into the circle, every time his fist connected with bone,

he felt closer to the version of himself he’d glimpsed the night he met you. the version that didn’t care. the same version that burned instead of rotted.

you saw it happening and did nothing to stop it, you never pushed him too, it was only a matter of time he did. you simply watched him unravel and smiled like you’d predicted it-- because you did.

one night, after a fight that left him shaking, you sat beside him on the basement floor while the crowd thinned. his knuckles were raw, and your shoulder was dislocated-- he could see the wrong angle of it. yet you stayed composed, like it was normal to walk around with a broken arm.

“you’re changing,” you said softly, cracking the knuckles, while giving small nods to every member who passed by you, satoru laughed weakly, "i lost my job. lives with a man who lies for a living, and fight strangers for fun. yeah-- i’d hope so.”

you turned your head, studying him like a specimen, "i didn't mean it that way,” you murmured. “you’re shedding," the word settled in his stomach, and he paused-- shedding? “as in shedding my hair? look man, life's been a roller-coaster, i'm not surpr--” he was cut off by your words.

“no, satoru, you're shedding the part of you that was pretending to be alive.” you smiled, yet held nothing in your eyes, and then, with your good arm, you reached over and pressed your thumb into the bruise forming under his eye, hard.

"Take a walk, they said. Take a long walk off a short pier. But they're dead and I'm not so who's walkin' now? Fuckin' assholes, got what was coming for 'em..."

You feel your nerves fraying. You sit back in the wooden dining chair, half-eaten by lichen, and steadily count the bullets in your spare clips again. Anything to keep the sound of his constant muttering out of your head.

"Oi, hottie, look at me for a bit. If I'm going to die, I want a good view of something God-made before I do."

The chair squawks indignantly as you shoot to your feet, your brow furrowed into a deep sneer. You hook a finger through your belt loop and stare down at him, your gaze raking his bloodied, ragged figure. His close-cropped hair is crusted red with blood, and you had to loop the ropes up to his elbows to ensure he wouldn't chew his way out of them.

"Shut your mouth," you growl. "You're property of the military from this moment until the one where your body gets tossed in the pit. Any sane person would use this time to gain favour with the man whose gun is at your head."

Sukuna stares defiantly up at you despite the dirt caked on his skin and the sharpness of his cheekbones. He leans back against the dirty white wall of what was once a living room. He shuffles against the radiator he's tied to, tugging fruitlessly, and gets comfortable, tucking his boot under his knee. Or as comfortably as he can, given that he's been stabbed in the shoulder and stomach.

He smirks, tilting his head to one side. He licks his cut lip. "Shouldn't frown, hottie. You'll get wrinkles."

You close the gap between you in three quick strides. The back of your hand cuts across his cheek with a loud slap and he jerks, groaning in pain as it reopens several clotted wounds. He spits out a wad of blood.

You kneel in front of him, your heavy, trusty revolver perfectly polished in your curled grasp. You take his jaw in your hand and he winces as you jerk it straight to face you.

Your eyes are dark and unimpressed, sharp and severe. He huffs and stares back challengingly. You say, "Don't test me. The only reason you're still alive is because they want you."

He grins, licking the blood spilling from his split lip. His eyes are half-lidded, glittering with amusement. "Your bosses must have fun up there, deciding who lives and who dies while growing fat in their chairs. What about you – do you like your career prospects, or are you happy with collecting their trash for the rest of your life?"

You click your tongue and shove his face away, standing and looming over him with the silent severity of a K9 not quite chained up. You know your strength. Sukuna wasn't weak, and you wiped the floor with him. Not that it was his fault – looking at you properly, you certainly aren't lacking for food like he is. If the stick up your ass wasn't so tightly wedged, he might consider you a potential ally.

That'd mean he could see you more often. Maybe even watch you use large calibres.

"I'm a sergeant," you snap, "not a janitor. Do you know how dangerous it can be to wrangle people like you? My life would be easier if I could just kill you and bag you like trash."

"People like me?" he parrots. He gestures to himself as best he can with bound hands. "Don't lump me in with the rest. It's an achievement to best me in close quarters. Say – since we're going to be here for a while, why don't you tell me a few stories? If they're any good, I'll share a couple of mine."

You glare at him. "You're too chatty. I'll gag you if I have to."

He smirks, adopting a purposely airy tone. "It's 'cause I've never been held prisoner before. It's rather exciting. What'll you gag me with, babe?"

"For fuck's sake." You spin on your heel to grab your assault rifle. It's sleek, black, and boring. Perfectly military-standard. You check the magazine, sling it over your shoulder, and lift the slick black Rhino revolver from the table. You palm the cylinder, making sure it'll be ready at a moment's notice, and slip it into the holster at your hip. Sukuna watches in unabashed interest.

He whistles lowly. "That's not something you see every day. Pretty thing." He cranes his neck, exhaling as his heavy clothes shift against his bruised ribs. "You're packing up. Where we going?"

"We've stayed here long enough."

It's the only thing you say. Your back is turned but there's an edge to your voice that wasn't there before.

He straightens. "They're not coming."

You glance over, brows twitching into a brief frown. You grab your knife and tuck it into the sheath at the back of your belt. "We'll meet up with them. There's a checkpoint three days from here."

"We could make it in two."

You halt, your open hand hovering over Sukuna's rifle. The blood-red wood shines with loving care. "We'll do it in three."

He scoffs, leaning back against the wall. "Untie me and we'll be faster. What if a pack of clickers gnaw off your shooting arm?"

"All soldiers are taught how to fire with both. I'll make it work." You tighten the straps of your backpack and move towards him, pulling a single thread of rope. The whole knot comes loose from the radiator and Sukuna blinks in surprise at his still-bound hands. You grab his elbow and pull him up, pushing him off you when he staggers into your chest. His rifle is firmly strapped to the side of your bag.

"You can't be serious." He grunts as you push him out of the aged, mouldy apartment and into the damp corridor outside, shoving his backpack into his hands. He shivers as the wet cold pierces through his bones. "You're actually fucking serious."

"I'm never not serious. Now move it, killer."

He rolls his eyes, trudging down the hall. His hands bounce awkwardly in front of him and he bunches his canvas bag in his fists to stop it swinging so deeply. Judging by the scars on your hands and the look in your eyes, you're no stranger to his crime, either. You just happen to be on the right side of the law – whatever the fuck that is, and whatever remains of it.

"This is fucking bullshit," he mutters, watching as you motion him back and peer down the coiling, windowless stairwell. Your flashlight scans the darkness. Somewhere, water drips into a puddle, and the soft plinking is surprisingly peaceful. "You should untie me. I pinky-promise I won't try anything. With sprinkles on top."

"I'm leading you to a trial that almost certainly leads to summary execution." Your voice begins to echo as you push him to move down the steps. In front of you, Sukuna picks his way down, grimacing at the rotting green shine of the walls. "If you don't try anything, I'd worry."

Sukuna skids on a wet step as it crumbles beneath his foot. Your arm shoots out and seizes him by the back of his collar, fist tight and hard against his spine, and he stares down at the dark pit below with a thumping heart. The slab of concrete thuds far below, echoing back up to him.

"Watch your step," you comment, releasing him.

"Is it a rule in the military to be the most callous asshole possible?" he grumbles. "Usually after a near-death experience, people ask 'are you alright?' and fret."

You eye him, exiting the stairwell by shoving the heavy, rusted door with your shoulder. It crunches. You let out a soft exhale. "Why would I? You're walking and talking. Clearly, you aren't hurt."

"It's called manners. Why's the criminal talking about manners to the soldier, huh?"

Abruptly, you grab his injured shoulder and halt. Sukuna is annoyed with how effective it is. He tracks the direction of your attention. A fresh corpse sits slumped against the wall of the foyer.

It wasn't there a day ago.

You unholster your revolver, pushing your rifle back, and approach slowly. Before you get three feet, a pebble smacks the body in the head. You swing back to glare at Sukuna, whose hands are full of concrete chunks.

He meets your eyes and chucks a bigger piece.

The body doesn't move. You crouch beside it, pushing the head to tilt the other way. A dark, dry bullet hole gapes in his temple. A small silenced handgun lies in his open palm, which you collect.

You sigh softly and pat down the body, checking the pockets and boots for anything stashed away. You find a mostly-empty box of ammunition in an inner pocket but nothing else.

"Hey, Eastwood. Look at his arm."

You grab it, turning it over. Arced around his forearm is a crooked, festering bite, the deep marks indicating the loss of a few teeth. You inspect the skin around the wound.

"Probably a day old before he offed himself," you declare, dropping his wrist. "It'd just started to spread. I'd keep an eye out for any runners within a day's walk from here."

"Ah, poor fucker," Sukuna murmurs, stepping over the body. "Being alone's the worst."

"Really?" you say drily. "You were alone when I found you."

"I know."

You trudge out of the building. The concrete paths are warped with bomb craters and thick tree roots. It's not uneven enough to really make it difficult, but it does get tiring having to pick your way around crumbling edges and avoid mud getting between the laces of your combat boots. Behind you, Sukuna shuffles along, his eyes trained on the tall, cracked windows of the surrounding high-rises of the business district.

He remains blissfully silent for the entire trip out of the city. It felt as if he hadn't stopped talking since you found him picking through a crashed military convoy – one of many he'd been said to have attacked. It'd been carrying food supplies, and the scattered bodies of hunters and far-from-home bandits lying next to military personnel could only mean that people were getting desperate. Winter is near, and the snow will soon begin to pack the bears in their dens.

But your peace only lasts so long.

"I could really use my hands right now."

"Why?" you ask tiredly.

Sukuna steps over a fallen log, a patch of moss along the underside prodding at the soft muddy ground. "Well, would you like to hold my dick for me? I have to piss."

"Couldn't have gone earlier?"

"Earlier? Like, what? Before you fucking bit me and tied me up like I was the rabid dog?" The sarcasm in his voice vanishes. "I really need to piss."

You grab him by the shoulder to turn him towards you, gripping his wrists as you untie the complicated knots. Before he can run off, however, your hand tightens. You glare. "I am not afraid to discipline a man with his pants down."

He snorts. "Sir, yes, sir. Now let go. That's my dick-holding hand."

When he finds a suitable tree, you do not, as he expected, give him any sort of privacy. He would even accept five steps away in any direction. Instead, you stand right fucking behind him, so close he can hear the steel click of your assault rifle's barrel when it knocks into his belt.

Eventually, he shakes himself off, tucks himself away, and offers his wrists. You take one look at them and click your tongue, trudging off in the direction you were originally headed in. The trees begin to thicken, and the knobbly, pathetic little bushes fade beneath calf-high grass.

"So," he drawls, several hours into the forest trek. "What do you like to do in your free time?"

You don't respond. You've already spoken to him ten times too many.

"Do they have a functioning gym where you're stationed?" he tries instead, gazing up at the dapples of pale sky behind dark branch lattices. His gaze drops, wandering over the breadth of your shoulders, then further down. He smirks. "Because damn. If all bounty hunters looked like you, everyone'd be doin' crimes left and right to get you to notice 'em."

"Quiet," you mutter. "We might not be alone."

"What does that matter to me? You have all our weapons. If they come, they come, and I'm not throwing myself fist-first into a pack of clickers."

The thick grass ends when you hear the bubbling of a river. Twigs bend and snap under your boots. Without his hands dangling awkwardly in front of him, Sukuna is noticeably quieter than you, stealing through the damp undergrowth like a snake through tall reeds. You have to glance back every so often to make sure he's still there; he notices it.

He smirks, cocking an eyebrow. "What? Like what you see?" His eyes flicker to the ground in front of you and he gestures at a cobweb-covered bush. "Seems you were right. We aren't alone."

A simple small-game trap is laid using the bush as cover. All it consists of is a loop of wire, one end tied tightly around a thin tree trunk. Nobody's checked up on it for a day – leaves cover the bottom part of the snare wire, and the dull grey colour makes it nearly impossible to spot amongst the dappled green-brown undergrowth.

You're almost impressed.

"What happens when we get there?" Sukuna asks, batting some branches out of the way. Gathered raindrops flick onto his shoulder, and he brushes them off. "To your, uh, checkpoint?"

"It's a safehouse. I'll radio the rest of my team," you reply simply, "and find out what the hell's taking them so long. They'll take you to the court for your trial."

He frowns. "What? You're not coming with me?"

You glance back. "Of course not. I have others to bring to justice – murderers and revolutionaries, deserters and spies. If all went well, I would've been rid of you half a day ago, but luck isn't on my side."

He snorts. "'Bring to justice' – sure. You're just killing people. Like me."

"They deserve it," you snap, continuing forward with the rapid measured clip of a lifetime soldier.

"You know, things get messy when everyone believes they only kill those who deserve it," he says coyly. "What if a murderer's only a murderer because she protected her daughter? What if the revolutionary's fighting because you fucks shot his family on the street for running a fever?"

"I don't get into sob stories," you say, shoulders thrown back comfortably. "That's above my pay grade. I do my job. That's it."

Sukuna chuckles, reaching down and grabbing a spike of green sticking out of the grass. He tugs on it as he steps off, and a pale bulbed tuber uproots from the ground. He brushes it off and sticks it into one of his many pockets. "Damn, even empathy's above your pay grade? You're worse than the feral mutts on the street."

In half a second, you slam him against a tree, the bulk of your forearm cutting into his throat. He hisses, gripping your sleeve as if to twist your arm off him, but he stills as the hard barrel of your revolver digs into the stab wound in his gut. You lean in.

"Run your mouth again and I'll sew it up," you growl, your fist tightening in the front of his shirt. "You murdered dozens of people, good people – just kids doing what their parents asked of them. All for what? A handful of canned peaches?" Your expression darkens. "Don't fucking preach to me about morals."

He grins, sharp and sly, and raises his hands in placating surrender. "Hit a sore spot, did I?"

You shove off of him, marching away without a second glance back. He exhales, wincing as he touches his wounded side, and pats his clothes down. He wanders after you.

His lazy voice floats through the trees not long after. "Don't you wonder about that? Wonder what kind of parent flings their child into hordes of infected before they're allowed to come back home?"

"I don't."

"Maybe you should." He looks you up and down. "You look about my age. Are your parents still alive?"

Your grip tightens on the rifle in your hands. He continues, oblivious.

"I had some shitty ones. Was bitter about it for a long while. Got orphaned during Outbreak Day. Best thing they ever did for me was die." He trudges forward, the long grass brushing against his calves. "But then my brother became a dad, and I watched how he treated his fat, useless little drooling baby and realised: good parents throw themselves into the hordes for even a chance to keep their children safe. So, I don't know what propaganda they've been feeding you, but child soldiers like you were aren't, you know, good. Morally."

"Shut up," you mutter. "Shut the fuck up. You're not my therapist."

"Maybe I should be," he snarks. "I keep talking and you keep responding. Did you watch one too many battle buddies get reduced to a clicker's chew toy? Did you run and leave them to die? Do you still hear their screams?"

"You are pushing it," you snarl, spinning on him. "I haven't slept in three fucking days because of you, and it would be oh-so easy to do a little whoopsie and find a bullet in your big fuckin' head!" You jab his forehead and he tilts his head back, staring at the sky for a mocking few seconds. "I'll say you got yourself infected before I found you and had to put you down."

"Yeah, and how'll you get paid, dumbass? The government's not gonna just believe you," he growls. "Can't even trust you with live squad mates. You think you work best as a lone wolf – but you're sent out alone because everyone's fucking afraid of you, isn't it? That's why you clam up. They can't see what you don't let out, right?"

You look fucking livid.

"I'll cut your head off and piss down your neck hole," you hiss, shoving his chest. Still very much injured, he stumbles back several steps. You advance, eyes blazing and lips curled to bare your teeth. Your muscles are coiled like steel rope. "Is that what you want to hear? That I'll hack at your throat with a fire axe not because it's the most efficient thing to do but because I know you fuckin' deserve it? Is that what you fucking want, Sukuna?"

His smile begins small. It grows larger with every passing second, fanged like a snake. He laughs, getting all up in your space, and grabs you by your backpack harness, yanking you down.

"There he is," he chuckles, grip tightening when you try to push away. His grin broadens. "You're no better than me. You, so high and mighty, are no better than a common criminal! A murderer, a freak, a hypocrite – we're exactly the same, you and I. Animals. Petty, selfish animals. What do you say to that? Huh, killer?"

You look like you're about to kill him. For real this time. Your fingers twitch for your gun and Sukuna adjusts his hold on you, tugging you in, goading you like he's paid for it.

You wrench yourself out of his grasp, long strides hastening towards the horizon.

Sukuna exhales softly. He ruffles his hair, heart hammering from all the excitement. "Almost," he grumbles to himself, sauntering along in your wake. He'd found the right buttons to press; he just needs another opportunity.

—

Two long and arduous days later, you duck into a small, vine-covered cabin beneath a radio tower, forcing the door open with your shoulder. A heavy filing cabinet was shoved up against it, which left scratch marks on the floor inside. The small building has steel-shuttered windows and a surprisingly clean set of communication equipment on a table by the far wall.

"Huh. Lefty's winning."

You glance up from brushing your fingers over the knobs and buttons, checking the light layer of dust over everything. Nothing had been touched in the last few days. On the other side of the shack, Sukuna's analysing a hand of playing cards, having picked it up from the square table with two steel chairs next to the mattresses. He tosses them down carelessly and swaggers over to your side. He leans a hip against the table.

"Any gossip over the waves?" he asks, idly fiddling with radio knobs. "Shit looks fancy."

You smack his hand away. "We just got here, give me a minute," you mutter, and Sukuna's a little disappointed in the neutrality in your voice. You haven't risen to his taunts since that time in the forest. Ever the obedient soldier. "Stop bothering me."

"And do what, exactly?" he drawls, gesturing wide to the open room. "This place is spartan. We got cards and cabinets and nothing else."

You ignore him and flick a set of levers, and when nothing turns on, you reach under the table and pull out a notebook from a drawer. Inside are a bunch of scribbled notes – radio logs and activity entries from other soldiers. You toss it next to the boxy radio equipment and lean down, pulling the red-wood hunting rifle from your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. You start for the door.

"Oi."

You turn. Sukuna's staring at the rifle, a tightness in his jaw. You huff, tugging open the heavy door. "It's assurance so you don't run off. Gotta turn on the generator out back. Don't move, killer."

Sukuna glares daggers at the door as it swings closed behind you. If that gun comes back with so much as a scratch...

A few minutes later, the generator rumbles to life, steadily trucking along. A single light above the building's entrance flickers on in the semi-darkness and you sigh in relief. Things looked a little dangerous for a moment when the generator's pull-cord whistled dead and empty on the first few tugs. It is, however, rattlier than expected, and louder. You'll have to watch the perimeter closely tonight.

You shoulder the door open, already slinging off the rifle. Sukuna's sprawled on one of the steel chairs, head resting against the wall with his eyes closed. He sits up at the sound of your entrance.

"Done," you say, flicking the light switch. Above you, the single bulb blinks to life, spearing a cone of yellow light into the darkness. Only half the room is illuminated, but it'll do. "We'll stay here until your escort comes or I get a message telling us otherwise, so get comfortable."

"Yeah, yeah. You know where they keep the fuel?" He jerks his head in the direction of a kerosene camping lamp on the table. "Fuckin' freezing in here."

"That's a lantern, not a heater," you say snidely. "Whatever. Here." You tug open a bottom file cabinet and lift out a red petrol can. You untwist the can and waft it under your nose. "Gimme the lantern."

"Get it yourself. You're not the one with extra holes in the gut."

Unfortunately, you don't offer much of a reaction. You just silently fill the lamp, set it upright, and let the wick gobble up the kerosene before letting it burn. A steady orange light blooms within the glass, throwing elongated shadows across the walls.

You set the lantern in the centre of the table between the two hands of cards, still face-down. "Hungry?"

"What?"

"Are you hungry," you repeat, less of a question this time. "There's a food stash somewhere around here. Go take a look for us. I need time with the radio."

"You trust me with dinner? Bold choice," he chuckles, though he swings his legs, stands, and stretches carefully, shaking out his aching body.

"I don't. That's why you're eating nothing until I'm done with this. I just don't want you breathing down my neck because you're bored."

He shrugs, wandering over to the cabinets and little hideaway nooks and crannies. He kicks open a drawer and begins to search.

He's still got the print of your teeth embedded in his hand, he notices as he rifles around inside. The way you sank your teeth into his meat after he sent you a triumphant grin was what tripped him up. Honestly, you fought more like a beast than a man, opting for a knife over your guns when you first tracked him down. Even when you swung your blade, you only really used it to force him back, to make space, so you could punch him in the mouth, knuckles braced by the knife handle in your fist.

He doesn't think they taught that at child-soldier school. It wasn't strategic. Wasn't quieter or easier. You just seemed to prefer it. He wonders if that's why you are what you are – a dog on a leash, bringing back bones for its master but not allowed to sit by the dining table. You were close enough to be controlled, but not so close as to become a liability.

The low sound of your voice repeating introductions and requests into the radio brings him out of his thoughts. He has two plain silver cans of 'beef stew', if he can believe the labels. Eating real meat would be the one good thing about getting caught – he wonders if they still do last meals for people on death row.

He sets them down next to you and the kerosene lamp. He rests against the edge of the table, folding his arms. "Think it's real beef?"

"Yes. What else would it be? Human? Just don't expect much of it." You flick through channels of static and silence.

"Better than what civvies get. They said soldiers steal their rations – that true?"

"Probably." You drop the radio wire with an exhausted sigh, leaning back in the hard metal chair. You glance up at him, scanning his figure from head to toe. "If civilians in QZs starve, how'd you get so big, huh?"

"Smuggling jobs got me additional ration cards and shit. Blackmail was easy, too. And I've always been naturally handsome and muscular – even the end of the world couldn't take that from me."

You scoff, rolling your eyes. "Another line to stick on your criminal record, then. They'll add another guy to the firing squad to kill you harder."

"For the crime of what? Being painfully good-looking?"

"For coercion, dipshit." You push the nearest can of stew around idly with your finger. "Your fuckin'... smugness ruins your face, anyway."

"Oh, so you think I'm hot when I'm not?" He pulls out a silver vacuum-sealed bag and tears it open with his teeth, shaking it slightly to loosen the food inside. He peers inside and digs around, popping a small dark cube into his mouth.

You glower at him. "You just make shit up when you feel like it, don't you?"

"That wasn't a no. Y'know, you'd be a pretty shit bounty hunter if you let every prisoner get under your skin so easy, but you're still alive, so you can't be shit. I'd say I'm special because of it." He offers the silver bag and shakes it invitingly when you roll your eyes. "Oh, c'mon, take one. You watched me open the damn thing."

"If you think you're special or that I think you're handsome because I threatened to piss down your throat, there's something really fucking wrong with you. What are you even eating?"

"No idea. Someone wrote 'for fun' in big letters on the bag, so it must be something good." He pops another in his mouth and talks with his mouth full. "It's not terrible. Chewy. Kinda sweet, kinda bitter. Like tea leaves. You've had tea, right?"

"I'm not a caveman."

"Uh-huh. Just checking." He shifts, nodding towards the radio. "Any luck?"

"Not an ounce," you mutter, rising to your feet. The chair scrapes against the floor. "I'll try again in the morning. Until then, I'll get the stove going."

You'd been wary of using an open flame near a murderer known for doing whatever necessary to win and survive, but Sukuna seems too preoccupied with the stew to care about killing you. He eats two cans in five minutes, scarfing them down like he hasn't eaten in weeks.

He shoves a chunk of beef into his mouth and moans, head and eyes rolling back briefly. "Holy shit, man. Soldiers get rations like this? On a daily basis? Shouldn't've turned down that enlistment notice. This is heaven in a goddamn can. Jesus."

You watch him quietly, sitting opposite him on the floor. It seems that a good meal makes him talkative – well, more talkative. The small, lit camping stove stands between you, its flickering flames providing some heat in the uninsulated building. Idly, you push some peas around the stew with your spoon.

He continues, spooning carrots and potatoes into his mouth, "Being professional cannon fodder is a joke, but this would make it worth it. They should've told us about the better food instead of going on a useless spiel about 'protecting community' and 'saving the world'. Woulda convinced me in a heartbeat."

Silently, you trace the edge of the can with your fingertip. It's not quite sharp enough to cut.

Swallowing his mouthful of stew, Sukuna wipes his mouth. "So, this safehouse, right – how many people use it?"

"What do you mean?" Your teeth scrape against the spoon.

"As in, how often does the military come by to restock? Are there more?"

You chew slowly. "Couple dozen of 'em across the country, I'd wager. Restocks depend on the location. This particular one doesn't see a lot of traffic, so in practice, it's mine."

"Hm."

"You'll be dead next week. Don't dream about easy food runs."

"I'm not."

"You are. Don't antagonise me."

He sends you an impish grin. "But you're hot when you're angry."

You sigh, shifting to sit more comfortably. You scrape the sides of the can with the spoon. "What does flirting with me do for you?"

"Makes me warm and excited, for one. Secondly, you're embarrassingly easy to rile up. It's fun."

"That's a frivolous thing to want when you're going to die."

"Who said I'm going to die?" He smirks, leaning back against the wall. "Said it yourself – I'm being escorted by others for the other half of the journey. That's plenty of time to make a break for it."

"There'll be four of them."

"So? They're weak." He sneers. "They won't get out the driveway before I kill them."

"I'll just hunt you down again. The upside is that I'll get paid twice to bring back the same guy, so feel free to try it. I'll be happy to knock you out one more time."

"Ah, but now I know you. Know your tricks. It'll be child's play to avoid you."

"If you think I don't know how to adapt, you're delusional," you say flatly.

"Hm, fine. What can I do to convince you to let me go?" He settles down as much as his wounds allow him. "What if I told you I needed those military supplies to help find someone? A kid – my brother's. Dumbass nephew got himself in a bit of a pickle, and he might just die if I don't get to him in time."

"I told you, sob stories don't do anything to me."

Sukuna just chuckles drily, shoving another spoonful into his mouth. After a moment, he sits back and jerks his head towards the mattresses on the floor in the corner of the room. "You gonna get some shut-eye tonight? You're looking rough."

"You think you look any better?"

"My head tells me you'll try not to," he says, pointedly ignoring you, "but my gut says you will."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Everyone needs sleep. You'll knock yourself out, one way or another." He points his spoon at you with a lazy grin. "If I promise not to choke you to death in your sleep, can I get my shit back?"

"And wake up with a bullet in my brain? Hard pass."

He sighs. "Damn. How about if I promise not to kill you at all? Won't lay hands on you, won't shoot you, all of it. Not a single malicious act – towards you, at least. But your soldier mates can fend for themselves."

It's so stupid that you can't help but huff an incredulous laugh. "Do you know how stupid that deal sounds? Oh, I can trust the word of a killer. I'm going to give him a gun."

"And smuggler," Sukuna points out. "I've also got charges for assault and battery, arson, theft, handling stolen goods, and resisting arrest. I have layers beyond plain, you know—" He fires two finger guns at you in quick succession, accompanied by appropriate mouth sounds. "Murder."

"You can't have been very good at any of them if you were caught."

His eyes narrow. "Watch it, hottie. I like you, but don't push it."

You tilt your head. "So it's fine if you insult me, but I can't do it back? Don't dish out what you can't take."

His lips thin into a line.

Suddenly, he grins and slides towards you. You jerk away, hand flying to the gun on your hip. His gaze flickers down to it, eyes coy and flashing red in the low light. He uses his newfound proximity to place his hand on your thigh casually.

"You see, sergeant, it's not so much about the insults as it is about lookin' good in front of you," he begins. "You're something new. Something interesting. Even when I ran a merry band of idiots who hung on my every word, practically worshipped the ground I walked on, nothing beats the feeling of having your attention on little old me."

You stare at him, brow furrowed. "What you're saying... is that you have a crush on me. Am I hearing you right?"

"No, sir." He squeezes your leg. "I'd call it more than a crush – I'm not twelve anymore, you get me?"

"If you're hoping to get out of your trial," you sigh, pushing his hand off, "you'll be sorely disappointed. Will you leave me the fuck alone if I say you were right?"

"I'm always right." He pauses and sits back. "Remind me what about?"

You run a hand down your face, staring into the little camping heater in front of you. "The things you said about the academy. How everyone expects you to kill just to get a seat at the dinner table. Back there, you were rewarded for winning: for coming first, for being the strongest, for enduring the most. So, I made sure I won – every single time. I graduated at fifteen, the youngest that year. After that, it was just easier to turn off my thoughts, become the weapon they wanted. Easier to deal with the hatred that way."

"Hatred?" he asks inquisitively.

"Of my handlers, my parents, the barking dogs at the top who funnelled their shit down to me. It's just how things are, I told myself. If I killed them all, nothing would change except the institution in charge. The Fireflies would love that power vacuum, and since I've hunted and killed a number of their own, they'd never let me live. So I kept my head down and nothing disrupted the status quo." You glance aside at him, reaching for your can of stew. "Until you came prancing along, killing half the soldiers in the district single-handedly."

"But killing those fat cats would feel good," he points out.

"At the cost of dinners like these," you retort, lifting the can. He purses his lips and shrugs, nodding in agreement. What remained of the government was good for one thing, at least.

"Is that really the reason you held back?" he asks. "No special somebody who's the exception to all the horror, no dreams of a better world?"

You scoff, rolling your eyes. "You think people could love someone like me? Said it yourself – I'm a vicious, selfish animal. It keeps me alive but doesn't keep company." You spoon the last of the stew into your mouth. "I'll leave the dreaming to the revolutionaries and the wishful thinkers. I hope they keep going, 'cause without them, I'd be out of a job."

"I wouldn't say you're completely unlovable," Sukuna reasons. "For one, you're a total bombshell. For two, you handle a rifle almost as well as I do."

"'Almost'." You roll your eyes. "I'm sorry, who's the child soldier out of the two of us? I've been training since I could hold a gun."

"Yeah, but you prefer to get up close, don't you?" He brushes his fingers over your knuckles, scars criss-crossing your skin. You tense under his touch. "I get it, you know. Rifles get the job done and there's pride in being able to hit a shot from three hundred yards away. But throwing all your weight behind a single point of your body, feeling their skin split and their blood run down your knuckles... nothing beats it. The anticipation. The exhilaration. It's raw, it's brutal, and we enjoy it. Call me crazy, but when you stabbed me the first time, I leaked a little."

Your brow furrows in confusion. You glance down at his lazy grin. It dawns on you and you shove him away, lip curling in disgust. "Oh, you're fucking kidding me. Not only are you a flirt, you're a freak, too. Just my damn luck."

"Hey, I have feelings." He places his hand over his chest. "Feelings for you, sweetheart."

"You're disgusting," you sigh, shaking your head. This conversation is giving you a headache. "How are your wounds?"

He blinks, taken aback by the change in topic. "What?"

"It's been a couple of days. I should change the bandages. I didn't do all this work just for you to keel over from sepsis."

"You expect us to be stuck here for that long?"

"Sepsis can lead to organ failure in as little as twelve hours," you say nonchalantly. "I also got you in the gut. If I nicked your stomach, acids could leak out and dissolve you from the inside out."

He pulls a face. "Gross."

"Yeah."

"Guessing you got stuff for that sort of thing, then?" Sukuna sighs, stretching his legs out with a wince. He's getting old. The cold makes him ache more than it used to and the extra pockets in him aren't helping. "Should I strip, or would you like to do the honours yourself?"

"You think you're the shit, huh?"

"Of course. I'm real pretty. You should be glad I'm not charging you to see me half-naked."

"No charge for full-nakedness?" you quip.

"Getting to that point is the payment itself." He smirks and rises to his feet, pressing his palm to his side where the bandages hold him together. "Want me to lie down or what? How'd you do this last time when you knocked me out?"

You shrug and gesture towards the mattresses laid on the floor, getting up yourself to rustle around for medical supplies in the cabinets. "Did some pushing, some lifting – the works. You're lighter than you look."

"Yeah, yeah, don't brag, big guy." He peels off his coat, letting it drop to the floor. He's also wearing a sweater, a T-shirt, and a thermal beneath it. For someone who's been alone for at least the last eight months, he's not doing the worst in terms of clothing. He spots you looking and lifts a brow, the corner of his lips twitching up as he tosses his shirt to the floor. "Ha – you're regretting not taking me up on my offer now, aren't you, sarge?"

You scoff, pulling out a backpack filled with needles, bandages, and pill bottles. "Stop flexing, Sukuna. You'll split your stitches. I'm not wasting more meds on you."

"Who cares?" he groans, wincing slightly as he peels bloodied white gauze off his stomach. Quite rudely, you'd split him open below the rib, and he refrains from touching the hot, tender skin. "Just ask your bosses for more. They can grow the penicillin next to the beef."

You place a hand on his bare shoulder, your touch warm and callused, leading him to the mattress. You guide him down and he obliges with a rough exhale, abruptly aware in this quietness that hiking for miles over uneven terrain has done nothing for his body.

You kneel next to him and inspect his figure, silently pushing him down to lie completely on his back rather than propping himself up on an elbow. It's an awfully vulnerable position. You push a rag under his side, then tear open a pack and snap on a pair of latex gloves, which piques Sukuna's interest.

"Damn. They have many of those?"

"Not particularly," you reply, cleaning his wound with antiseptic. He grimaces, stomach flexing involuntarily. When taking a dip in a river the day before, he'd been careful not to plunge the wound into water, but wiping the clotting tugs at the tender torn edges. You sure knew what to do with that knife to make it hurt. "But I'm their golden child, whether they like it or not. I get what I want, and if I don't, I do anyway."

He chuckles, resting a hand over his eyes to block out the lightbulb above him. The loss of sight makes him all the more aware of your hands on his body – not gentle, but not cruel. Just firm. "Ah, a fellow thief."

"I'm not a thief."

"Hey, the five-finger discount always works. If we met earlier, you and I coulda been buddies – you on the inside, me on the outside, you know?"

You press harder than necessary into his stitches, making him grunt in pain. His head snaps up with a glare as you pointedly ignore him, slapping a white patch to his stomach and taping it down. "Ow, bastard! You tryin' to kill me? What happened to my fair trial?"

You grab his jaw and push his head back down against the mattress, hand firm against his throat. You return the glare as you lean closer, your tactical gear rustling on your hips and thighs. "Fucking sit still."

He holds your gaze for a moment longer, then averts it to the wall beside him. He huffs as you pick apart the dressing on his shoulder, washing the wound as best you can and replacing the bandage. With a little luck, he'll survive long enough to meet justice.

You sit back on your heels, running your hand down his chest and stomach briefly to check for damage you might've missed in the dingy light back in the city. He doesn't jerk away from your touch and his bruises seem shallow, but he notices it when your palm hovers over his narrow hips. You can understand why he was drooling over your rations.

You suck in a breath, pulling away and peeling off your gloves. "Alright, killer. Clothes back on before you freeze your cock off."

"You could warm it up for me, sarge."

"Sukuna," you sigh, rubbing your temple.

"Aw, don't be like that," he drawls, sitting up and testing his new bandages. He seems pleased, slanting a smirk at you. He knocks his knuckles against your thigh, walking his fingers up to your chest, and rests his hand on your shoulder. He leans closer, tilting his head. "Think of it as my last meal. You wouldn't refuse a dead man his dying wish, right?"

You stare at his hand on your shoulder with an unreadable expression. You grab it and press your knuckles against his palm, then glide them higher and touch his forehead.

His mouth twitches and he chuckles, a little confused. "You finally realise what a catch I am?"

"You're burning up," you mutter, your frown deepening. "Do you feel different? Cold?"

"Uh, no." He pauses. "Pretty warm, actually. Good heater."

"Any dizziness? Muscle pain?"

"Beyond the extra pockets you gave me? Nope." He flutters his eyelashes at you teasingly. Jerk. "But if I said yes, would you kiss it better?"

"It seems like you have a fever." You cup his cheek, and maybe Sukuna really is sick, because his heart skips way harder than it should. He is supposed to hold all the cards – he's supposed to play with your feelings, not the other way around! "I hope it's not the organ failure kicking in."

He blinks. Your lips are inches from his as you stare into his eyes, steely and unblinking.

"Your pupils are dilated," you declare, turning his face up towards the light. He swallows against your palm. "You're also sweating in the middle of autumn."

"Because you're hot."

"Because you're sick," you correct, squeezing the sides of his jaw to keep him from squirming away. You sigh – of course you'd have to play nurse to a murderer. "Put on your clothes, lie down, and don't move. I need to piss."

Sukuna grunts softly as you push his face away from you, using it as leverage to drive yourself to your feet. He rubs his jaw, wincing slightly, and watches you from the corner of his eye as you unlatch the door and slip outside.

He glances aside. You left your bag.

You left your bag?

There it is – his rifle, deep red wood the colour of cherries. It's just sitting there, strapped to the side of your backpack, the metal sights glinting in the low light.

His fingers twitch. It's only a few metres away. He'd absolutely be able to grab it and be out the door before you return. His fingers twitch.

Shit.

"Think fast."

A small cloth ball smacks you in the shoulder. You flinch but recover just in time to catch the thing.

Blue and red, filled with dry grains. You squeeze it and your lips thin as you lift an eyebrow at Sukuna. "Going through my private drawers, are we?"

He cocks his head. "Didn't see your name on 'em. Also, I found this funny little thing..."

He leans against the wall, legs crossed in front of him, and dangles a skin magazine between his fingers with a smug grin. You click your tongue, holding a hand out expectantly, and beckon with two curled fingers.

"Give it."

"But I just got it," he argues, settling into the mattress and opening it up to the first page, prim and proper like some damp old teacher. "Oh, whoa." He lifts it closer to his face. "This guy's got a huge ass."

"Give it back, Sukuna."

"Oi, oi!" He yanks it out of your reach. "I'm still looking! Sheesh. Sharing is caring. There aren't a whole lot of these left with the pictures still intact." He turns the page and his grin widens. "You know, when you kept shutting me down, I wondered if you just weren't into guys. Shame, I thought, but at least I could look. But now I know I have a chance."

"You still don't. You think you're half as handsome as the men in those pages? Their whole job revolved around being slick and good-looking. Your hair is incredibly choppy."

His smile falls into a scowl as he lifts a hand self-consciously to the back of his head. "Man, low blow... It's hard to cut your own hair without a mirror. Besides," he huffs, flipping the pages purposefully, "body-wise, I basically look like this dude. Judging by the dog-eared corner, you like this, too."

He flips the magazine around to show off a double-page spread of a lean, muscular hunk with tan skin and a sultry, almost lazy expression, eyes half-lidded and one hand resting on the back of his neck. He's pretty and youthful, with sharp cheekbones and plump lips, and Sukuna's fingers are perfectly positioned to cover up the model's cock.

You shrug. "You're bonier. Older. And not as hot."

"Excuse me?" He sputters. "I was the most eligible bachelor in the QZ, I'll have you fucking know! Whatever – take it," he sniffs, carelessly chucking the magazine at you, "I don't want it anyway. He looks like a doll. No hair, no scars. Boring."

You catch it casually and cross the room to tuck it away. "I'm sure you were."

"What, don't believe me?"

"Darlin', anything is sexier than a loud voice and face tattoos."

Sukuna chuckles, shuffling down the mattress and tossing his jacket over his chest. The position alleviates some of the pain. "Call me that again and I'll show you why I'm better than that blond print-out bitch. You won't be disappointed."

"Yeah, sure, killer. Face the wall when you sleep. Don't want you ogling me."

"I'm not sleeping, just resting my eyes," he retorts. "I'm not even tired."

—

Sukuna wakes up in the dark with a jerk, chest heaving. His mind runs with a hundred thoughts, all crashing into each other – where is he? Why's it so hot? When did he close his eyes? – but it's hard to separate them, like his head's a foggy, sticky mess.

He shifts slightly and grimaces at the sweat gathering between his shoulder blades. The cool air makes him shiver, and he swipes a hand over his damp forehead.

At first, he thinks he had a nightmare. It would explain the racing heart, the shortness of breath, the sweat. But he can't remember a thing. Can't remember feeling afraid or helpless.

He tugs at the front of his sticky shirt. He turns to push himself up, maybe take a walk, and freezes.

You lie on the other mattress with an arm thrown over your eyes. You're still wearing your shoes – clearly you didn't mean to fall asleep – and your other hand rests across your stomach, hand loosely wrapped around the knife in your belt.

Your breathing is slow and even, lips parted slightly. Sukuna's gaze drags downward.

Maybe he should have enlisted. Those tactical pants shape your thighs as if you're modelling them. And god – his breath catches – is that a third leg you're fucking packing? Sukuna thinks comparing you to an animal might be truer than he initially thought.

He licks his lips, leaning closer. Sleep still muddles his thoughts, but the broadness of your chest and shoulders looks particularly inviting, and he wonders how those rough, scarred hands would feel on his thighs, his hips, his cock...

Before he knows it, he finds his palm planted on the front of your pants, squeezing, and then he's flat on his back with the serrated edge of a knife pressed against his throat and you on top of him, eyes narrowed.

"Fuck you think you're doin'?" Your voice is low, raspy with sleep, and Sukuna's cock fills with blood. He shifts, trying to lessen the discomfort, but all he manages to do is grind up against you. A soft, gasped sound escapes him.

You glance at his flushed face, then down to where his hands grip your wrists with a flexing force, halfway to stroking, and your eyes widen. You nearly jump off of him, chest rising and falling rapidly.

"What the fuck?" you whisper. "What's up with you?"

"I – ugh, I, uh..." Why isn't his mouth connected to his brain? "Did you – did you fucking poison me?"

"No." Your brow furrows. "I ate exactly what you ate. Except for the..."

You trail off. You stare at each other.

"Oh my god," you say.

"What?" he says sharply, still panting. "'Oh my god' what?"

You laugh in disbelief, placing a hand on your hip and running your hand through your hair. "I've just drugged you."

"You what?" His voice gets embarrassingly high. He struggles to his feet, but his dick is throbbing painfully, and is very visible from where you stand. "What the fuck did you do to me?"

"The – The fuckin' bag. I got it as a gift from another soldier," you explain through chuckles. "Forgot about it entirely. He said it's an aphrodisiac. Some kind of herbal shit."

"Stop laughing," he growls, adjusting his pants, which only makes you laugh harder. It's a low, sharp, mean sound, and Sukuna's glare sharpens. "Stop fucking laughing! This is your fault."

"My fault?" you say incredulously. "You're the one going around putting unknown shit in your mouth! You're like a baby."

"I am not," he scowls, crossing his muscled arms in an effort to look more intimidating, but it loses some of the impact when he's red in the face and sporting a hard-on. "Let me go outside. I'll deal with it."

"Yeah, no way. I left you before because you'd bled out half your bodyweight on the floor and were in no condition to fight me. You're not leaving my sight again."

He snarls. "Fine! Then since it's your fault, you gotta take care of it."

"Oh, fuck off. What do you mean, take care of it? You want a blowie?" you ask sarcastically, mirroring his stance. "It'll wear off in a bit. Just close your eyes and ignore it."

"Ignore it? How? It looks like this," he hisses, gesturing vaguely downwards with a sharp flick of his hands. "Maybe I could 'ignore it' if I had a smaller fucking cock. If I leave it, it's on you if it suffocates and falls off. Besides, you stabbed my left shoulder, and I jerk off with that arm. So again. Your fault."

"I'm sorry, are you hearing yourself?" You step closer, lips curled into a sneer. You jab his chest with a finger. "You go around eating my food, using my supplies, and now you demand that I service you like some fucking whore? I tried to be civil, but it's like you get off on making me angry. So, one more time," you growl, nose-to-nose with him. "Shut the fuck up."

He bares his teeth.

"Make me," he says lowly.

You crush your lips against his. He doesn't even startle – pervert, he was waiting for this – and he grabs your face, keeping your lips against his even when you attempt to pull away. He kisses you like he'll die otherwise, angry and desperate and starved.

You manage to draw in a breath in the gaps between his onslaught. "You've got issues."

"Says the guy who kissed me first," he retorts, and dives in for more. Your arms twist around his waist, pulling him in, and he moans, chuckling throatily as he grinds against your thigh, rubbing short and rough strokes like a dog in heat. He pushes you against the wall with one hand braced near your head. He pants against your cheek, brow knitted and lips parted with pleasure. "Fuck, 'm drippin'. Put your cock in me."

"I don't have—"

"Don't care. You think I mind a little pain?" He offers a smirk, lips kiss-bitten and shining. "Let me see that cock, soldier. Hope it's standing at attention for me."

You roll your eyes and he grins sharply as you unbutton each other's belts and pants. He takes the time to kick off his shoes and jeans while you unstrap the holsters and utility belts wrapped around your thighs and hips. You dump them in a pile next to the mattress, and Sukuna jerks his head towards it.

"Shirt off, too. Wanna see if you look like the models in your skin mag."

You roll your eyes but do it anyway. "I don't."

His eyes light up as you toss the tight-fitted thermal into the pile. He licks his lips. His smile widens. "No. You look better."

He practically throws himself at you as he smashes his lips against yours. He tugs your half-hard cock out of your fly and pulls away from your lips to stare at it, wrapping his thumb and forefinger around it to check the size. He gives it an experimental pump, root to tip, and watches as it hardens under his gaze.

"Must be my lucky day." He lifts his eyes, his black pupils blown unnaturally wide as he nibbles on his wide grin. "Pretty big, stud."

You grunt. "Don't call me that."

"Hey, you're winning between the two of us. This is my consolation prize, stud."

"You're insufferable," you mutter against his lips. He just chuckles, twisting his wrist expertly and making you groan. He shivers as your hands trail up his shirt, tugging the hem up to the bottom of his ribs. The sight of his wound dressing makes you pause.

"I don't think we should do this," you say doubtfully, eyes flickering over his body. "If you rip your stitches, I don't have enough supplies to redo them all."

"Technically, you'd be the one doing the ripping," he interrupts with a stupid, smug smirk.

You sigh and don't mention it again. You notch yourself against his body, laying your cock on his and pressing them against his stomach with your palm. He moans, his tip dripping with a filthy amount of precome. As he grinds against you, there's eventually enough to slather your cock with it, making it wet and slick.

Distracting you with a kiss, he lowers himself to his knees, perfectly level with your hips. He reaches up for your cock and grins sharply, curling the point of his tongue around your shaft. You let out a shaky breath and he sucks gently on your balls, moans low and husky as he drags a line up the vein and swirls his tongue over your tip. You twist your fingers in his hair and he grunts softly as you tug.

"Got experience with this, have you?" you ask, your voice rough.

"What, jealous you're not my first?" He glances down at the size of your cock in his hand and smirks, licking his lips. "You might as well be, though."

He wraps his lips around you, hollowing his cheeks, and sucks hard. You hiss, hips jerking forward, and he moans as your cock jabs the back of his throat. A few more bobs of his head and then he's taking you down his throat like a champ, slick lips white around your cock as his throat convulses around you. He holds it for a moment before popping off with a sharp gasp, panting harshly with suspiciously shiny eyes.

You scoff a little, stroking his cheek with your thumb, and he bristles, immediately wary. "You cryin'?" you ask, the corner of your lips twitching up. "Am I too big for you, killer?"

"Shut it, I'm working on it," he rasps, grabbing your cock again and swallowing it whole.

With one hand running through his scruffy hair, you let out a low hum, listening to his wet gags as he chokes down your cock determinedly. Saliva drips down your shaft and balls – of course he'd be a messy one – and you twitch in his mouth as his tongue swirls along the underside with each bob of his head.

Sukuna should be disgusted. The tangy and slightly sweet taste of your musk and sweat, the saltiness of your pre – it all feels devastatingly real, a constant reminder that he's sucking off a soldier. Humiliating, really, to be into a cop.

But, hey – at least you're a little messed up in the head, and you have a fat cock. Not like you had much choice in your career, either, with the whole child-soldier thing. His morals are safe.

You grab his hair and pull him all the way down on your cock, making him gag and drool. His fist falters around his length. You keep him there, lazily grinding your cock into his mouth as he jolts and twitches, instinct telling him to pull away despite his nails digging into your thighs to keep you buried in his throat. The wet sounds his throat makes when you pump your hips have you throbbing thick and hard, and his lips stretch white around your shaft, pressed against your base.

"Fuck," you hiss. "Gonna come."

He moans huskily as you pull out and slap your cock against his forehead, his tongue peeking out to lap at your balls.

"Give it to me," he demands, wrapping a fist around his length. He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, eyes half-lidded as he licks the shaft teasingly, grinning as you jerk yourself off, pre dripping down your tip. "Fuck yes, baby, come on me—"

He moans sharply as you yank on his hair, keeping him still as ropes of come splatter across his cheeks and forehead. He squeezes his dick as you grunt above him, your thick cock filling his vision as you paint his face with white. He closes his eyes, lips parted, and twists his wrist in time with each pulse of come that warms his skin. Your grip loosens as you stroke yourself through your high.

His body is so warm – he can feel his heartbeat pounding against the inside of his skull and through his dick. He licks his lips, savouring the taste, and runs a hand down his face. He smears his come-slick palm against your shaft, batting your hand away so he can do it himself. You roll your eyes with a huff and he just grins up at you, working your cock greedily and licking the slit.

"Didn't know someone like you would ever get on your knees for someone," you grunt, stomach flexing with muscle in front of him. You press your palm against the wall for balance.

"A man's gotta have hobbies," he says slyly. "I'm just very particular about who I do it for. Lucky for you, you've got a pretty face and a fat fucking cock. Hard combo to find these days."

You click your tongue. "I can't stand you."

"Don't care. This dick was made for me."

Your tip leaks and he roughly drags his tongue up the veins, lips wrapping around the tip and tongue dipping into the slit. Before he pulls away, he presses a long, almost romantic kiss to your glans, his thumb smoothing over the curve.

"Ever fucked a criminal before?" he murmurs, voice low and gloating. He turns around, reaching back for your cock, and you find yourself already half-hard when he teases it against his puckered hole. He doesn't seem too bothered by his wounds – either you're a better medic than you thought, or the aphrodisiac is also a natural painkiller.

"Shut up," you mutter with finality. He gazes back at you with a smug grin and half-lidded eyes as he spreads his legs and arches his spine, taunting you with his tight, firm ass as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Your lips meet over his shoulder, hot and heavy, and he rasps out a moan as your nails scrape over his scalp.

You tap the head of your cock against his hole with a wet smack and he spreads his ass with one hand. He pants as his cock twitches against his scarred stomach; a large horizontal one stretches from one side of his ribs to the other, shiny and feathered. It almost looks like a big, grinning mouth.

"Are you sure you don't need to be—"

He grabs your hip and slams down onto you. You hiss as his eyes roll back, most of your length sliding inside him with relative ease. Your creamy cock makes the job easy.

"Aw, fuck," he drawls breathlessly, a dirty grin spreading across his lips. "Holy fuck. You're huge."

"Still hoping to sweet-talk your way out of a trial?"

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Fuckin' hell, just take the damn compliment."

Dragging you closer, he captures your lips with his, his too-sharp canines nicking your lower lip. You grunt, hips jolting forward, and Sukuna groans as a few more inches sink into him.

"Bit of a masochist, are ya?" he chuckles, running his thumb over the blood beading along your lip. You watch as he brings his bloodied finger to his mouth and licks it off, eyes trained on you all the while.

Your expression twists. "That's disgusting."

"Your prick's betrayin' you," he lilts, awfully smug for someone pinned against the wall. "I can feel it twitching."

He lets out a pained grunt as you slam into him, your hips meeting his ass with a sharp slap. He balls his hands into fists, resting his forehead on his arm against the wall, and gasps, hot walls fluttering around you as he accommodates your size.

"Oh, fuck, I knew you had it in you," he groans, chuckling through panted breaths. His eyes roll back as you thrust slow and deep into him, letting him feel every single inch. "Mm, just like that, stud. Harder."

"Fuck's sake, shut the hell up already. You'll make me soft."

"You could put your gun in my mouth," he offers with a grin too casual for his words. "But I might nut early if you do that. Jus' saying."

He's a fucking menace.

Obviously, you have no choice but to bend him over and fuck him so hard his face turns red with exertion. The hand around his throat probably helps with that, too.

He's tight. The ache of the stretch burns deliciously, and he has to consciously relax every muscle in his body just to take you in to the hilt. Maybe bigger isn't better.

No. Wait. What is he thinking? Of course he likes it big. He would ask himself what drugs he's on that turn him into a wimp, but it's clearly whatever shit you fed him that's making him this way.

Sweat drips down his brow. His body burns from the inside out, and the heat of your cock sliding against his walls has him hissing in pleasure. He reaches back, fumbling slightly before he finds your hip and grips it. His fingers dimple your skin as he pulls you into him, groaning as you brace a hand against the wall by his head and lean over him, your chest pressed to his back.

You exhale a soft curse under your breath, a low, husky rasp. Arousal thickens your voice like honey. Everything you do, everywhere you touch, has his core aching for more. Even when you reach down and slap his firm ass – something he doesn't usually tolerate – he can only moan in response, eyes sliding shut as he thumps his head weakly against his forearm.

Drawled, breathy groans escape his lips with every harsh thrust. He jolts as your dick brushes that spot inside him that whites out his vision, and the way his cock throbs and leaks down his shaft because of it would be humiliating if he had any shred of dignity left.

"Was that it?" you murmur, groping his ass roughly and spreading his cheek to press in deeper. His hips stutter as you grind your hips against his ass, sweat slick between your bodies. "That the place?"

"Yes! Fuck, yes, keep poundin' my hole like that, shit—" He swallows thickly and nods, reaching down to grip his throbbing cock. It's so hot it almost burns his palm. He grasps it tightly, pumping shallowly in time with your thrusts, and he widens his legs. "Fuck, bitch me out, yeah, jus' like that—"

Your lips brush his ear. "Got a filthy mouth on you."

He laughs breathlessly through moans. "Mmh, yeah? 'M I makin' you blush?"

He groans sharply as you sink in just that little bit deeper and press firmly against his battered prostate, his muscles spasming as you yank his hips onto your cock and wrench his orgasm from him early.

He shouts out, lean muscles flexing, and his abruptly-tightened hole drags you over the edge as well. You grunt as your nails dig into his waist, leaving crescents in his scarred skin, and his hole feels like a cunt with the way it pulses and clenches around you, eager to milk you dry.

After a moment, a muscle in your jaw working as you swallow your groans, you lean away slightly, grip loosening on his hip – until his hand shoots out and seizes your wrist.

He yanks. "Fuck yeah – get back here. I'm not done."

You glare. He just smirks in response.

"What?" he drawls, chest heaving. "One and done, are you? Thought a guy like you would be harder to break."

"I gave you what you wanted. Now let go of me."

Sukuna clicks his tongue, deftly slipping off your cock and turning around in one smooth movement. Your eyes narrow – maybe you fixed him up a bit too well. He tugs your wrist, making you plant it against the wall by his head and close the distance. A filthy smear of thick white liquid drips down the wall, and looking down tells you he truly isn't done yet. He hooks his leg over your hip and his smirk widens when you automatically move to hold it up. He wraps a warm palm over your nape and pulls you in until you can count his lashes.

"What I wanted," he pants, "was to finish. As you can see, I'm far from tired. So – fuck me, soldier. That's an order."

Your lip curls in a snarl. "Don't tell me what to do, killer."

"I like telling you what to do. It makes me feel warm inside." He reaches between your bodies and grabs your cock, aiming it at his hole. He teases his entrance, your cock slick and velvety, heavy with blood. "Or is that just your come?"

His half-lidded eyes snap open as you force your entire length inside him in one unrelenting thrust. He grunts, gripping your shoulders, and his hole convulses around you, struggling to adapt to the sudden intrusion.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he groans, panting hard as his cock twitches against his stomach and forms a pool of pre on his sweat-slick skin. His grip tightens on your shoulders. "Hah, that's more like it! Shit—!"

Briefly, his head tips back as your cock knocks the thoughts out of his skull. His pupils are massive, eating up the honey-gold of his irises.

"Be quieter," you snap, your cock moulding his insides to fit you. "The walls aren't soundproof. If something overhears—"

He grabs your jaw and pulls your mouth into his, swallowing the string of curse words that fall easily from your tongue.

His lips are surprisingly soft and warm, though firm in the same way the rest of him is. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and you can feel him smirk as you stop struggling in his iron grip and give in to his desires. You grind into him punishingly and his dick aches with fire-fed arousal, dripping like a tap. Your nails cut into the meat of his thick thigh, every dip and curve of his muscles flexing against your palm, and he pushes his tongue between your teeth.

A big part of you instinctively wants to bite down on the intrusion. Your jaw locks, ready, but his tongue slides against yours, wet and hot, and it feels… good. Disgustingly good.

So you let him keep his tongue. For now. He presses harder, kissing you so hard you swear your lips will bruise in the morning, and he moans as you drop a hand to wrap around his cock.

"Don't sweat the small stuff. Stop thinking about what's outside and focus on what's inside. You into me, soldier?" he groans, smirking as he dives in for another harsh kiss. "That why you're touchin' me? Told ya I'd prove I'm better than your pin-up boys."

"No, I want this over with," you growl, shoving him roughly against the wall just for the pleasure of hearing him grunt. Your callused palm slides against the veins of his cock, the tip a dark, angry red and leaking profusely with every tug of your wrist. "Fuckin' traumatising experience, this is."

He hisses, more taunting than anything. His smile is sharp. "Big words, sarge. Still doesn't explain how your prick's still hard, though."

"I really will shoot you," you mutter, to which he just laughs and kisses you again.

It's a clash of teeth and tongue, more animal than man. Your hips slap against his ass, and your grip on his waist slips slightly from the sweat gathering along his hips. His face is flushed from his cheeks to his temples, his lips swollen and shining, and he lets loose a constant string of low moans as you fuck your come back into him. A white frothy ring forms around the base of your cock, and his brow furrows as he bucks his hips into the hole of your hand.

"Fuck," he grunts, Adam's apple bobbling. "Fuck, 'm close. Gonna come."

You let out a noncommittal hum, not changing your pace one bit – it pisses him off a little. He hikes his leg higher around your waist, his heel digging roughly into the back of your thigh, and clamp his hole punishingly around your shaft. You hiss his name like a curse as his cock explodes all over your hand and his flexing stomach, thick threads of white spurting across your knuckles and even up to the bottom of his chest. He gasps, his hole oh-so tight and hot, and it's as if he reached into your guts and pulled your high out himself.

Sukuna yanks you closer, head tilting to kiss you easier, and his body shudders with the remnant shockwaves of his peak. He rides it out with you, his hips moving shallowly as you press him into the wall as if you want to merge him with it. A bead of sweat glides down his temple.

Here you are, panting, balls-deep in the serial mass-murderer you're supposed to be bringing in to meet justice. Said mass-murderer grins up at you blissfully, eyes sliding shut as his head rolls back, and you find yourself being horrifyingly gentle when you pull out and set down his leg.

To make up for it, you punch him right on one of the white bandage squares taped to his stomach.

His whole body folds. His expression flashes from smug arrogance into white-hot pain, and he grips his side.

"Ugh, fuck!"

"Quit whining, it was barely a jab," you say indifferently, turning away and pulling your belt closed. As you tuck yourself away, those broad shoulders facing your least-favourite criminal, he grimaces and claws his way back up the wall into a wobbly mimicry of a man standing. He blinks away the stars floating in and out of his vision.

"God damn," he breathes, rolling his injured shoulder as much as pain will let him. "You're… You're such a piece of shit."

"Just because I fucked you doesn't mean I'm on your side. That was a reminder of where we stand."

Once he recovers, he pushes off the wall with a barely-noticeable limp. He knows from the tingling in his legs that he'll be feeling it for days after. His chest heaves, and you watch as a drop of sweat trickles down the split of his chest. He doesn't shy away from the cold of the room, so he's likely still under the effects of whatever herbal concoction you'd accidentally drugged him with – a situation you still take no responsibility over, as he was the one who'd emptied an unlabelled bag straight into his mouth without a single thought.

He must really think he's immortal, to care so little about what he's ingesting.

You stride over, grabbing him by the nape of the neck and turning his face up, your grip firm on his jaw. He licks his lips as you inspect him closely and shine a flashlight in one eye, then the other.

His pupils shrink. Better than before.

"You'll be fine," you mutter, pushing his face away and clicking off the flashlight. You slip it into your pocket. "Probably just need a couple of hours. Now go back to bed."

He has the audacity to latch onto your wrist. "Aw, c'mon," he drawls, his grip unyielding despite his lazy posture. His words are surprisingly steady despite his heaving chest. "You'll fuck me and dump me aside just like that?"

"Just like that," you affirm flatly.

"At least tell me I was a good fuck."

You look him up and down. "You were a good fuck," you admit, making a victorious smirk crawl across his face. "But I still don't enjoy your presence."

He shrugs his one good shoulder as he slowly bends down to pick his clothes up off the floor. Putting them on takes twice as long, and a twinge of annoyance pings the back of his mind. "I'll take it. Baby steps." His eyes follow you as you cross the room and pull something out of your backpack. He finally manages to thread his legs into his jeans. "What're you doing?"

In response, you shake a white box and pop open the top, revealing two rows of cigarettes.

Holy shit. There must be a dozen or more in that box. His instincts chase to tally them up, see how big of a score he could sell them for – but when he glances up, there's a hint of a smirk on your face, and it's clear you're not going to enable his smuggling habits.

You pluck one out of the box and stick it between your lips, reaching into another pocket in your pants and pulling out a lighter. The small flame flickers to life with a soft click, and you cup the flame while the embers begin to burn bright orange-white. You take a drag and pocket the lighter, eyeing Sukuna as he slowly, painfully slowly, pulls his shirt over his head.

"Want one, killer?"

"You think I smoke?"

Silently, you take another drag, puffing smoke rings into the air.

He holds out a hand and beckons.

You step forward and hand him a stick. Plain white, unbranded. Military standard, boring as ever, but functional. Some fat cat up top must have a bad nicotine addiction, because there's no way a factory out there is rolling cigarettes just for someone like you.

When he places it between his lips and reaches out expectantly for the lighter, he almost jerks back on instinct when you lean in. You halt with the lit stick between your lips, lifting a brow, and he eases up slightly.

You touch the end of your cigarette to his, reaching out to cup the back of his head and keep him steady. Your faces are inches apart, and the new heat between you feels easy and familiar. In complete silence, you light his cigarette, only pulling away once the end glows brighter than anything else in the room.

He tugs the white stick out from between his lips, a smirk curling at their corners. "Smooth. Didn't know you had it in you, soldier."

"It's an efficient use of lighter fluid," you reply diplomatically, smoke curling from your lips like a dragon.

"Was it efficient to waste a whole cigarette on me?"

You lean against the table that holds the half-played cards and you cross your arms. You look at him for a long while, heavy gaze raking his figure.

You can still feel his skin under your fingertips, the roughness of his calluses and the smoothness of scar tissue from knife wounds. You can still feel his breath against your cheek, the weight of him in your arms, and hear his moans in your ear.

“Alright, nerd” he sighed, the word soft around the edges. “Teach.”

The nickname made your eye twitch. You felt a ripple move through you, irritation first, then something quieter, a flicker of want that had no business being there at all. 

You pressed your lips together, schooled your expression into one of exasperation and slid the first worksheet across the table without comment, pushing your glasses higher on the bridge of your nose with a finger.

Your pulse was steady, mostly. You had spent two semesters learning how to keep it that way in his presence, how to hide even a flicker of interest.

But as he leaned forward to pull the paper closer, the sleeve of his jacket brushed the back of your hand, just the slightest graze of fabric against your skin, and for a moment you struggled to control your reaction to that accidental contact. 

Your breath caught, something you hid behind a cough, eyes skirting off him, off the way his lashes dipped when he actually bothered to read the first problem.

You exhaled slowly through your nose, trying to steady yourself.

This, you thought, with something close to resignation, was going to be difficult.

Not because he was incapable, you knew he wasn’t, you had seen him solve problems in his head faster than most people could write them down… when he cared to try. 

No, the difficulty would lay in the slow, inevitable erosion of your own defences, every careless brush of contact, every lazy grin he may toss your way, as though testing how long you could pretend indifference, every time those too-blue eyes lingered a half-second longer than necessary.

You had spent so long convincing yourself the crush was harmless, contained, private baggage you could carry around without consequence.

Sitting across from him now, watching the faint crease form between his brows as he frowned down at the worksheet, you understood, unequivocally, that your baggage would, soon, no longer be private.

---

The first few sessions were a practise in low-grade frustration. 

Gojo arrived each time with the same carelessness, white hair tousled beneath the ever-present cap, the faint scent of cedar and citrus that trailed after him. 

He doodled in the margins of every worksheet you handed him, lanky stick figures mid-dunk, occasionally a tiny version of himself wearing sunglasses and giving a thumbs-up. 

When you tried to redirect his attention he would glance up, blue eyes lazy and amused, and ask you to repeat yourself, sometimes up to three times, before finally admitting with a sheepish half-grin that he hadn’t been listening at all.

You told yourself it was bearable because it was temporary. A finite number of hours, a very clear endpoint, just enough hours to scrape a passing grade so he can keep his spot on the steam, and enough time for Professor Yaga to sign off on the extra credit you greatly needed. 

You kept your voice even, your explanations simply, your gaze fixed on the page between you rather than on the way his fingers toyed with the cap of a highlighter or the way his mouth curled down on one side when didn’t understand something.

But even for you, concentration was a fragile thing. 

Every time he leaned forward to peer at a problem, the collar of his shirt shifted and you caught the clean line of his throat, the dip of his collarbone.

Every time he huffed in genuine confusion and raked a hand through his hair, pushing the cap back, you felt the pull to look longer, to let your eyes linger on the way his lashes cast shadows against his cheeks when he frowned. 

You hated how your very body betrayed you, heartbeat steady one moment, in turmoil the next, while he remained blissfully unaware of the effects he had on you. 

Then something shifted.

It happened on an ordinary Tuesday evening when your patience was already worn thin. The library was quieter than usual, the usual clusters of students thinned by impending midterms, leaving only the soft rustle of pages and the distant clack of someone typing. 

You had arrived early again, worksheets laid out, the clock on your phone ticking past the agreed start time by fifteen minutes, then twenty. 

You were halfway through gathering your things, notebook snapped shut, a half scribbled note telling him not to bother turning up anymore, when the doors parted and he walked in.

Not the usual swagger. No easy grin thrown over his shoulder at whoever had held the door for him.

His shoulders were rounded, steps almost dragging. The bright blue of his eyes looked muted beneath heavier shadows than you had ever seen there, lids low, the usual spark dimmed. 

He moved like someone carrying more weight than his frame could carry.

You froze halfway out of your chair, palms braced on the tabletop, breath catching at the sight of him. Worry gnawed in your stomach, unwelcome and unasked for. You sat back down without conscious decision, the chair creaking faintly under you.

He dropped into the seat beside you rather than across, closer than he had ever chosen to sit before, and said nothing. Just looked at you with those tired eyes, head tilted slightly in silent request for you to begin.

Your hands flexed against the wood, gaze darting between his face and the neat stack of problems you had prepared.

“Um… do you like tea?”

The question came out small, shy. You squeezed your thumb tightly in your fist, hoping the brief pain would steady the sudden thrum beneath your ribs.

He blinked slowly, confusion creasing the space between his brows. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” You nodded once, and stood before the impulse could second-guess itself. Your wallet was already in your hand, fingers closing around it in your backpack. “Wait here. Don't move.”

You were moving before he could respond, slipping between the tables, breaking into a jog the moment the heavy library doors closed behind you. 

The night air outside was cooler than you expected, sharp against your cheeks. You knew the coffee cart tucked into the alcove near the science building, the one that stayed open later than the rest, the barista who recognised your face and your usual order. 

You spotted the warm glow of its fairy lights from a distance and felt a small, ridiculous rush of relief.

The barista was already wiping down the small counter when you reached him, breathless.

“Is it possible to get a coffee real quick?”

He glanced up, smiled the smile of someone who had seen you in every kind of hurry, and was already reaching for the large cup you always took.

“A cappuccino” you added, “and a chamomile tea. Please.”

He nodded, turned to the machine. Steam hissed, milk frothed, the small sounds oddly comforting in the empty quad.

You kept glancing back toward the library doors, half expecting to see Gojo slipping out, disappearing into the night, the whole errand rendered pointless. But the path remained empty.

You rushed back carefully, balancing the paper carrier, the warmth of the cups seeping through the cardboard. 

At the entrance you paused, drawing several slow breaths until your heartbeat steadied, until the flush on your face could be blamed on the cold. 

Only then did you push inside.

The library had dimmed further, more tables empty, overhead lights switched off in entire sections so that pools of warm desk-lamp light felt oddly private.

Gojo was exactly where you had left him. Though now he was hunched forward, cheek pressed to the tabletop, cap half off, white lashes resting against the high curve of his cheekbones. 

In the soft glow he looked younger, more fragile than the campus god ever allowed himself to appear.

You stopped beside him, the carrier bending slightly in your grip, taking a moment to stare at him with impunity.

The faint crease still between his brows even in sleep, the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, the way his fingers had curled loosely near his face.

“Hey” you force yourself to whisper after a long moment.

Your hand hovered above his shoulder, uncertain. Touching him felt invasive, crossing a line you had spent weeks fortifying. You hesitated, breath held, then gave the lightest tap with two fingertips. 

The contact sparked through you, sharp and bright, a quick throb of adrenaline that made your heart stutter.

“Gojo.”

You hissed his name, glancing around, a few remaining students lifted their heads, and you offered small, apologetic smiles before lowering yourself into the chair beside him.

You tapped again, softer this time. He stirred, a low groan slipping out as those impossible eyes fluttered open.

The cap slipped fully off. He caught it mid-fall, long fingers raking through his hair before tugging it back into place with practiced ease.

You nudged the chamomile toward him. “Tea.” 

He blinked at the cup, slow to process, then wrapped one large hand around the plastic lid. “Chamomile” you added unnecessarily.

“Oh. Thanks.” His voice was rough, softened by exhaustion. He flicked the lid open, took a careful sip, and hummed, a small, involuntary sound that made you feel more than you should.

You watched the way his lids drooped with each blink, longer each time.

“You should go home” you said quietly after a minute. “You look tired. You won’t retain anything anyway.”

“But—”

“Seriously. You look five minutes away from a coma.” You took a swig of your own coffee, the bitterness soothing, and began gathering your things, worksheets sliding into your bag, pens dropped into their case. “Go home. Get some sleep, okay? We can catch up another day”

He watched you for a long beat, eyes flicking across your face.

“Thanks, dude” he murmured, and the sincerity in it, the absence of teasing, made something in your chest flutter.

Then his gaze drifted higher, settling on your forehead. Pale fingers lifted, reached out. You flinched instinctively, a small backward tilt of your head.

He didn’t falter, only continued the motion more slowly, brushing a single bead of sweat from your brow with the pad of his thumb. He rubbed it between his fingers, studying it with faint amusement.

“You shouldn’t have rushed” he said, voice low, the corner of his mouth curving.

“I didn’t.” The denial came too fast, too sharp. His smirk widened.

You looked away, back to your cup, fingers tightening around the paper. “Go home, Gojo.”

He didn’t move right away. Just sat there, tea cradled between his palms, watching you with an expression you didn’t feel like reading too much into.

Then he shifted.

The movement was small, a slight lean to one side so he could fish his phone from the pocket of his jacket. The device looked almost comical in his hand, dwarfed by the span of his fingers as he woke the screen with a thumb. 

Light flared briefly across his face, sharpening the tired angles of it, and you felt the instinctive urge to look away again before he caught you staring.

He didn’t speak, just held the phone out across the narrow space between you, screen already open to the contacts page, cursor blinking patiently in the name field. 

When you hesitated, he just murmured a quick “Number”.

It was a quiet demand, but it somehow carried more weight because it lacked everything you had come to expect from him.

You blinked anyway. “Why?”

“Because.” He tilted his head down so that the brim of his cap shadowed the worst of the exhaustion in his eyes, but not enough to hide the faint, stubborn glimmer that remained, blue on blue, bright even when everything else about him had dimmed.

You reached out before you could talk yourself out of it, taking care not to brush his fingers.

The device was still warm from his pocket, the metal edge carrying the faint trace of his body heat, and you hated how aware you were of that small fact. 

You typed quickly, name first, then the digits you knew by heart, then slid the phone back across the table rather than risk handing it to him directly.

He lifted it with two fingers, and brought it close to glance at the screen. A small sound escaped him, not quite a laugh, more of a satisfied huff. Then the phone disappeared into his pocket again.

You busied yourself again, zipping your bag, stacking the empty coffee carrier on top of it, anything to keep from looking at him for too long. But you could feel the shift in the air between you, subtle as a change in barometric pressure.

He exhaled through his nose, a slow, deliberate sound, and finally pushed himself upright. The chair creaked faintly under the movement.

“Text you tomorrow” he murmured, voice so low it barely carried, then he smiled again. “If I’m not dead.”

You huffed a small, involuntary laugh despite yourself. “Don’t die. Yaga would kill me for letting his star player flunk.”

Then he stood, jacket sliding into place over his shoulders. He paused beside your chair long enough that you could smell the chamomile on his breath when he spoke.

“Thanks. For the tea. For… this.” His hand gestured vaguely, toward the table, the empty library, you.

You nodded once, unsure what to say.

He lingered another second, as though waiting for something, then turned and walked toward the doors. His steps were slow but steadier than when he’d arrived, the slump in his shoulders less pronounced.

You watched him go, watched the way the dim corridor light swallowed him whole, until the heavy doors closed behind him with a soft, final thud.

Only then did you let out the breath you had been holding.

But when you finally stood to leave, the chair he had pulled close still bore the faint warmth of his body, and you found yourself hesitating before pushing it back into place, some small, private reluctance to erase the evidence that he had been there, that close, that real.

You told yourself it was nothing.

You were getting no better at lying to yourself.

…

After that night, something in the rhythm between you changed. Quietly, without announcement, the way seasons turn when you’re not looking directly at the trees.

He began arriving on time.

Not early, never that. Gojo Satoru would never surrender the small theatre of making an entrance. 

But the clock hands no longer crept past the hour while you sat alone with your open books. He would appear through the library doors at the appointed minute or within a breath of it, white hair catching the overhead light, blue eyes glittering.

He always dropped his bag beside the chair he now preferred, the one beside yours rather than across.

He stopped scrolling on his phone during sessions. The device stayed face-down on the table, screen dark, and even when his fingers itched toward it out of old habit, he would catch himself, flex his fingers once, and return them to the worksheet instead. 

You noticed this because you noticed everything about him, the way his knee no longer bounced restlessly beneath the table, the way he angled his body toward you when you spoke, the faint crease that appeared between his brows when he was actually trying to follow something rather than letting it all slide past him.

Then came the moment that changed you a little more than you were prepared to admit.

You were walking him through a concept he had failed to grasp for weeks, something about implicit differentiation, and you watched the precise instant understanding clicked behind his eyes. 

Those impossible blues widened fractionally, pupils flaring as the pieces clicked together. He leaned forward without thinking, elbows on the table, close enough that you could see the individual streaks of colour in his eyes.

“Damn” he said, voice pitched low. “You’re actually good at this.”

The praise landed as designed, stripped of bravado. Not the cocky smirk he flashed, not the lazy drawl he used to deflect. This was something genuine, a flicker of delight that made his mouth curve in a way you had never had directed at you before.

Heat crawled up your neck and into your cheeks. You schooled your expression into the familiar deadpan mask, the one that had carried you safely through two semesters.

“That’s… literally my job” you answered, voice flatter than you felt.

He laughed, a sound that seemed to settle into the space between your bodies. “Nah. You’re patient. Most people would’ve told me to fuck off by now.”

You let the corner of your mouth twitch, just barely. “I thought about it” you mused.

His laughter deepened, and the sound tugged at something low in your chest. You dipped your head to hide the flush that refused to retreat, pretending to study the next problem while your pulse betrayed you.

“Maybe you should have” he said, and the words came out like a purr, a velvety tease. He leaned in as he spoke, closing the already narrow distance until the air between you filled with the scent of him, sugar from the candy he’d been sucking on when he arrived, the clean warmth that always seemed to radiate from him.

Too close. Far too close.

Your eyes lifted before you could stop them. His face filled your vision, the high curve of his cheekbones, the faint shadow beneath his eyes, the slow part of his lips as he watched you watch him.

Your gaze snagged on his mouth, so pink and soft-looking, and your breath caught, loud enough in the quiet that you were sure he heard it.

Panic flared, alarm bells ringing in your head. You lurched backward, chair legs screeching against the carpet in protest.

“Move back” you barked, the words snapping out harder than you’d intended. Embarrassment and frustration knotted together in your throat. “You’re too close.”

He laughed again, delighted at your reaction, and the sound only made the heat in your face burn hotter. 

He enjoyed this, you realised with a sinking clarity. He enjoyed the way he could pluck at the right strings and watch the reaction ripple across your carefully constructed composure. You hated how easily he did it. And you hated even more that part of you didn’t entirely hate it.

“Oh, come on, cutie.”

Your entire body stiffened, heart slamming against your ribs so hard you felt it in your fingertips.

You didn’t know what to do with your face, your hands, the sudden roaring in your ears. His foot nudged yours beneath the table, just once.

When you didn’t pull away he did it again, firmer this time, then leaned down until his face dipped into your line of sight, blue eyes bright and mercilessly amused.

He studied your face for a moment before he whispered “Cute”.

You shot out of the chair so fast your shoulder nearly clipped his chin. He jerked back, eyes widening, but the delight in them only grew. You felt exposed, like every careful layer you had built had been peeled back in a single careless moment.

“Need a book” you managed, voice strained, almost squeaking at the edges.

He waved a hand in lazy, theatrical sweep, that cocky grin sliding back into place like it had never left. “Go on then.”

So you fled.

The stacks swallowed you gratefully, tall shelves folding around you like a shield. You pressed your back to the cool metal of a bookcase, breath coming in shallow bursts, palms flat against the spines as though they could save you. 

Your hands trembled.

But worse, far worse, was your cock, traitorously hard beneath the fabric of your jeans, aching in a way that made your stomach twist with shame and desire in equal measure.

You closed your eyes and willed it away. Forced slow breaths through your nose, held them for four, released them for six. Tried to summon the familiar armour of detachment, the calm logic that had always carried you through exams, through late nights, through every careful year of your life.

It didn’t work.

Images kept rising unbidden, the curve of his mouth, the warmth of his breath, the way his foot had nudged yours. You could still smell the candy on him, taste the ghost of sugar in the air he’d left behind.

Your mind conjured worse things, his hands on your hips, that same teasing whisper against your ear, the low sound he might make if you ever let yourself imagine him wanting you back.

You pressed the palm of your hand against your mouth, willing the images to stop, willing your body to behave, willing the frantic thump of your heart to quiet.

It didn’t.

You stayed hidden among the books until your breathing steadied, until the hardness eased enough that walking back wouldn’t be a ritual of humiliation, until you could force your expression into something resembling calm neutrality.

---

After five long weeks the evenings had begun to blur into one another, late hours spent hunched over textbooks under the same tired amber glow of desk lamps, the library emptying around you until the only sounds left were the soft turn of pages, the low hum of the ventilation, and the occasional creak of a chair when one of you shifted. 

You had spent every one of those sessions trying to keep your feelings locked behind the same mask of professionalism, voice steady when you corrected his work, eyes fixed on the equations rather than the line of his jaw, the way his fingers sometimes lingered on the edge of a page as though reluctant to let go. 

He had spent those same weeks testing the edges of that mask, brushing too close when he pointed at a problem, letting his knee rest against yours for a second longer than necessary, dropping casual nicknames that made your thoughts blank for a moment.

Tonight the textbook lay open between you, pages creased from overuse. You were both leaning in to trace the same line of work when he spoke.

“Why do you always look at me like that?”

The question was soft, almost casual, but it felt like a knife finding the gap between your armour plating. You froze. The words on the page swam, ink bleeding into meaningless shapes. You forced yourself to breathe, to keep your voice level when you answered.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to figure out if I’m gonna bite or not.”

Your heart slammed against the inside of your ribs, hard enough that you were sure he could feel the tremor through the table.

Your breath turned shallow, unsteady, your eyes darted around the dim reading room, empty seats, a single student far at the opposite end with headphones on, the security desk unmanned for the last hour. No witnesses. No escape.

“I don’t—”

“You do.” He leaned closer, elbows planted on the tabletop, voice dropping to something low and intimate. “You’ve been looking at me like that since day one.”

You wanted the conversation to end there, wanted the neat, safe boundaries you had drawn around yourself to hold firm, wanted the perfect, impenetrable act of indifference to remain intact. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” His grin unfurled slowly, dangerous in its patience. “Do you like me?”

Your mouth went dry. The question hung between you, so simple, yet too enormous to manage.

You couldn’t find the breath to answer. He was staring at you the way he sometimes stared at a problem he had finally cracked, focused, certain, and quietly triumphant. His knee knocked against yours beneath the table.

“Go on” he murmured. “Tell me.”

You couldn’t.

Instead you seized the only deflection left. “You know you’re failing because you don’t focus” you whispered. “You’re just trying to distract me.”

He laughed under his breath, a soft, knowing sound. “Maybe. Or maybe I just needed the right kind of motivation.”

Then his hand moved, long fingers reaching across the narrow space between you, closing gently around your wrist. He tugged, not hard, but steadily drawing you forward until your body folded towards his, pen clattering to the wood. 

His scent rushed in, and rational thought scattered like papers in the wind.

“Gojo—”

“Satoru” he corrected, voice smooth. His thumb brushed over the frantic pulse at your wrist, as though he were reading your heartbeat instead of waiting for the right words. “Say it.”

You swallowed, throat tight, the syllable almost painful. “Satoru.”

His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing the bright blue like night does the sky. A smirk, one you’d never seen before, curved at his mouth. “Good boy.”

Everything inside you fractured at once, want, panic, shame, need, all rushing to the surface so fast you couldn’t separate them.

Your body jolted, instinctive flight response firing, like your soul were clawing for distance even as your feet stayed rooted. He held you still, pressing your wrist down against the tabletop, palm warm and unyielding.

“Trying to run again?” His head cocked, breath brushing your temple, stirring the short strands of hair there. “That’s not something a good boy does.”

“Stop” you whispered, voice ragged. You glanced around again, acutely aware of the public space, of how close you were, how if you turned your head even a fraction your lips would graze his. “Stop this.”

“You really want me to stop?”

You hesitated. Just a heartbeat. Long enough to glance up through your lashes, lips trembling, long enough for him to see the truth you couldn’t bury. “I don’t want to be part of your game.”

His grip slackened.

You seized the opening and wrenched your hand free, the sudden absence of his touch almost as jarring as its presence had been. 

You needed space, before you folded entirely, before you became nothing more than another ego boost for the campus’s golden boy. 

You slipped from the chair, shoulder brushing his as you moved past him toward the stacks, desperate for the familiar shelter of your hiding place among the older journals, where the air smelled of dust and forgotten stories more beautiful than anything you could ever have.

You managed two steps.

Then his hand closed around your wrist again, firmer this time, long fingers encircling with quiet authority. 

He didn’t speak, he simply pulled you with him, deeper into the library, past the last of the occupied tables, past the reach of the security cameras, into the back stacks where the oldest bound volumes sat untouched, spines faded and silent.

The moment the shadows swallowed you both he turned, pressing you back against the bookshelf with the same controlled force he used on the court.

His frame caged you in, broad shoulders blocking the faint light from the distant lamps, leaving you haloed only by the dim glow that filtered between shelves. 

Your hands flew up instinctively, palms flattening against his chest to push, to create even a sliver of distance, but the heat of him bled through the thin fabric of his hoodie.

Your head tipped back against the books, spines digging into your scalp. Breath came in heavy, uneven pulls. Your mind raced, searching for equations, for logic, for any sequence of steps that might solve this, might let you slip away clean. 

Nothing came. This wasn’t calculus. This wasn’t theory. This was flesh and blood and the glowing enigma of the man in front of you, close enough that you could feel the rise and fall of his chest against your own.

He didn’t speak at first. Just watched you, eyes dark, searching, patient in a way that felt almost cruel. One hand stayed braced beside your head against the shelf, the other lifted slowly, fingertips brushing the side of your jaw, tilting your face up so you had nowhere left to hide.

“You keep…running” he murmured, voice low enough that it vibrated through your chest. “But you never actually leave.”

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

His thumb traced the edge of your lower lip, pressing into the gap below the plush. “So tell me again” he said, leaning in until his mouth hovered a breath from yours. “You really want me to stop?”

The question hung there, and in the silence that followed you felt the last of your defences crack wide open, not with a dramatic shatter, but with the slow, inevitable give of something that had been strained too long.

You didn’t answer.

Instead you closed the distance yourself, small, trembling and terrified, and pressed your mouth to his.

It was barely a kiss at first. Just a hesitant, uncertain, brush of your lips, more question than declaration. 

But he answered instantly, hand sliding to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, pulling you deeper into him with a low sound that vibrated against your lips. 

Your world narrowed to the heat of his mouth, the press of his body pinning you to the shelves, the way he kissed like he had been waiting weeks for permission and now intended to claim every second of it.

It turned messy, fast.

Teeth grazed, tongues met in a hungry, uncoordinated rush. You tried to mirror him, tried to give back some fraction of the fire he was pouring into you, but everything you did felt clumsy and inadequate.

Your hands fisted in the front of his hoodie, knuckles brushing the hard plane of his chest, and still you were certain you couldn’t possibly be affecting him the way he was affecting you. 

Your pulse roared in your ears, knees threatening to give, every nerve lit up and singing.

He drew back, breath tangled in the narrow space between you. You chased the taste of him instinctively, already addicted, already past caring whether the wanting might ruin you.

“You’ve been killing me” he muttered against your mouth, voice frayed at the edges. You blinked through the haze, struggling to focus on his words. “Sitting there all smart and pretty, acting like you don’t want me to bend you over the table.”

The sentence was like a mirror held up to your darkest, most shameful thoughts. Heat flooded your face.

You couldn’t deny it, couldn’t even pretend. So you did what you always did when cornered, deflect. Your fingers tightened in the fabric of his hoodie. “You’re the one who—mmph—”

He swallowed the rest with another kiss, deeper, more insistent. His hips rolled forward in the same motion, letting you feel the hard length of him pressed against your thigh. 

He caught your bottom lip between his teeth, tugging gently, sucking the plush skin into his mouth before releasing it with a soft, wet pop.

“Been thinking about this for weeks” he admitted, the confession ragged. “Every time you looked at me with those eyes… fuck.”

He eased back just far enough to see you properly. Flushed, lips swollen and glistening, breathing hard enough that your chest rose and fell against his. You were already wrecked, and he knew it.

“Sit” he said, nodding toward the narrow strip of carpet between his feet and the bookshelf.

You obeyed without thought, folding yourself down until your knees met the floor, back braced against the lower shelves, completely caged by the long lines of his body and the silent rack of books.

The position left you looking up at him like someone staring into the heart of something holy and terrifying all at once.

His hands moved to his jeans, button popping free, zipper rasping down in the quiet. You held your breath as the dark fabric of his boxers came into view, the slow reveal feeling almost ceremonial, like curtains parting on a stage you’d only ever watched from the shadows.

He peeled them back with the same teasing patience, freeing himself inch by inch.

Thick, flushed a deep red, the tip already glistening with a heavy bead of pre-cum that slid slowly down the length of him. Your mouth went dry at the sight, pulse throbbing between your legs.

You had done this before, once…badly. 

A fumbling encounter where the other guy had thrust into your mouth suddenly, too deep, leaving you choking and almost puking on him. 

But you remembered enough to try to summon technique from the fragments of porn you’d watched in secret.

No teeth, don’t choke, hollow your cheeks, use your tongue.

“You’re staring at it like a science project” he said, voice strained with a mix of amusement and desire. A large hand cupped your chin, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. 

“I just… don’t want to mess up” you whispered, looking up at him with a raw honesty. Your whole body was trembling now, feeling so small and helpless under the weight of his gaze.

“As long as it’s you” he murmured, “there’s no way to mess it up.”

He extended his hand. “Give me your hand”

You slipped your palm into his without hesitation. He guided it slowly to his cock, letting your fingers close around the hot, heavy length.

The skin was soft but rigid, hot and pulsating. The moment your grip settled on him he let out a low, strained groan, face tipping back toward the ceiling, throat working.

“Just…stroke me for a bit” he said, voice breathy, fraying. “Yeah… just like that.”

You moved once, slow and experimental, watching, transfixed, as his jaw clenched around a swallowed moan. 

Colour rose high on his cheeks, eyes screwed shut. You stroked again, bolder now, letting your thumb drag deliberately over the slick slit the way you knew felt good on yourself. His hips jerked forward, a shudder running through him.

Emboldened, you leaned in, gathering saliva in your mouth and letting it fall in a slow, deliberate string onto the flushed head. 

He nearly yelped at the sudden wet heat, head snapping down to watch your lips hover mere inches away.

You spread the slickness with your hand, gliding up and down his length until the sound of it, wet and obscene, filled the narrow space between you.

“Shit” he gasped, hips rocking into your fist as you quickened the pace.

You couldn’t wait any longer. Hand still working him, you leaned forward and sealed your lips around the tip.

He bit down on the back of his own hand to muffle the sound that tried to tear out of him. You glanced up through your lashes and hummed in quiet delight at the sight, the usually unflappable Satoru Gojo coming undone from something as simple as your mouth on him.

You took him deeper, slow bobs of your head, tongue swirling around the head, dipping into the slit, then flattening along the underside. Your own cock throbbed painfully in your pants, you shifted your hips, trying to ease the ache, but it only sharpened the need. 

Your free hand worked the base, stroking what your mouth couldn’t reach, lips and tongue worshipping the rest in careful, dragging strokes.

A warm palm settled on the crown of your head, fingers sliding into your hair, as if grounding himself. His hips stuttered forward, the tip nudged the back of your throat.

You fought the instinct to gag, swallowing hard around him, blinking rapidly to clear the reflexive tears. Air came in short, desperate pulls through your nose.

“Shit—shitshit—” His voice was wrecked, fingers flexing and releasing in your hair like he couldn’t decide whether to pull you closer or hold you still. “I’m gonna cum.”

You hummed around him in answer, eyes lifting to meet his. The moment your gaze locked, a shocked, almost disbelieving smirk curved his mouth.

“You want it?” he breathed.

You nodded as best you could with him filling your mouth, eager and shameless.

That small assent seemed to break something in him. He groaned, hips rocking forward in shallow, helpless thrusts, not rough, not cruel, just desperate, like he couldn’t stop himself anymore. “Fuck—I’m gonna—”

The first pulse hit your tongue, hot and thick. You swallowed instinctively, taking him deeper so the rest slid down your throat. 

You fought the urge to choke, swallowing again and again as the salty flood continued. His hand clamped over the back of your head, holding you there, so even if you’d wanted to pull away, you couldn’t.

You kept your tongue moving, stroking gently along the underside until the last tremor faded and the pulsing eased.

When he finally let you go, you pulled off with a wet, rasping gasp, bracing your hands on your knees, staring blindly down at the carpet while you tried to drag air into lungs that felt too small.

Your lips tingled, jaw ached, throat burned faintly, but beneath it all was a strange satisfaction.

Satoru was still breathing hard above you, one hand braced against the shelf for balance, the other carding through his own hair as though trying bring himself back to reality. When you finally looked up, his eyes were soft, wide and stunned and impossibly tender.

He tucked himself away and crouched slowly, bringing himself down to your level again, thumb brushing the corner of your swollen lips.

“You…” He exhaled, half-laugh, half-disbelief. “You’re gonna kill me.”

You laughed, a soft, breathless sound that cracked in the middle, dragging the back of your hand across your mouth to wipe away the glistening mix of spit and come that still clung to your lips and chin.

The taste of him lingered, coating your tongue even as you tried to swallow it down. Satoru stayed crouched in front of you for a long moment, his hand resting lightly at the curve where your neck met your shoulder.

His thumb traced a slow, absent arc over your pulse point, feeling the frantic flutter there, and then his gaze drifted lower.

To the obvious, straining tent in your pants.

Heat rushed to your face. You moved instinctively to cover yourself, one hand dropping to your lap as though you could hide the evidence of how badly you wanted him, but he caught your wrist before you could make contact. His fingers closed around it gently, a single brow arching in quiet amusement.

“I have an idea” he whispered.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the small study table you’d claimed earlier. “I’ll be a second.”

He stood in one fluid motion, leaving you kneeling there on the carpet, legs weak and heart hammering. You rose slowly after him, smoothing your shirt down with shaking hands, tugging the hem of your hoodie lower in a futile attempt to look less like someone who had just dropped to his knees for the campus golden boy in the back stacks of the library.

The thought sent a giddy, reckless thrill curling through your stomach, equal parts terror and delight.

He returned quickly, arms full of your neatly stacked books, your bag slung over one shoulder, his own backpack dangling from the other hand.

You helped him arrange everything on the table the way it had been before, textbooks aligned, notebook open to the last worked problem, highlighters fanned out in their usual chromatic order, your fingers moving on autopilot while his eyes kept flicking to you, watching the careful precision with which you restored order to the chaos he had so easily brought.

“Right” he said once everything was in place.

He stepped up behind you, close enough that the warmth of his chest pressed against your back and sent a full-body shudder racing down your spine.

You felt his breath against the nape of your neck, then his hands slid around your waist from behind, until his fingers found the button of your pants. A soft pop, and the zipper followed, rasping down in the near-silent library.

“Easy, cutie" he hummed against your ear when you startled, voice low and coaxing.

His head settled on your shoulder, chin resting there so he could look down the length of your body as his fingers dipped beneath the waistband of your boxers.

The touch was warm and sure. You bit down hard on your lip to stifle the whine that wanted to escape, anticipation twisting sharp and bright in your gut.

Finally his hand closed around you, long fingers wrapping firm and hot, and gave one lazy, dragging stroke inside the confines of your boxers. Your knees nearly buckled. Your back peeled away from his chest as you hunched forward slightly, eyes squeezing shut against the sudden rush of sensation.

“I still need to pass” he whispered, sinful hand stroking you again. A pathetic whimper slipped past your lips before you could catch it. He turned his head, lips brushing the sensitive skin beneath your ear. “And I think I’d focus better… inside you, hmm.”

Your head whipped around so fast you nearly cracked your neck. Eyes wide, breath caught, you stared at him, searching for the joke, the tease, the moment he’d laugh and take it back.

But his expression was almost innocent, head tilted, blue eyes steady and dark with want.

The hand not currently driving you to the edge gently pushed your boxers and pants lower, past the crease of your ass, leaving your cock exposed and throbbing in the open air. He leaned in again, chin digging into your shoulder so he could see properly.

“Cute” he whispered.

You wanted to sink through the floor. Instead you stayed trapped, caught in the slow-spinning web he had woven around you without you ever noticing the threads.

“Come on.”

He stepped back, dropping into the chair at the small table with a casual grace that belied everything that had just happened.

He patted his thighs once, smiling, open and inviting, utterly unafraid. You glanced around wildly, fear of discovery clawing at the edges of your mind, but the library was a ghost town at this hour. No footsteps. No voices.

Desire won.

You hobbled over, legs unsteady, hesitating only a heartbeat before lowering yourself carefully into his lap.

Your palms braced on the tabletop as you settled, weight distributing slowly until you were seated fully against him. The moment you did, his arms slid around your waist, broad palms settling on your hips and kneading softly.

“Breathe, cutie” he teased, words ghosting across your ear, nose nudging the sensitive spot just behind it.

“I’m nervous” you hissed, glancing pointedly toward the shadowed aisles.

He laughed, the vibration rolled from his chest into yours, making your cock twitch against the fabric still bunched around your thighs.

His palms began to wander, sliding beneath the hem of your shirt, smoothing over the bare skin of your stomach, then higher. One index finger flicked across your nipple once, deliberate and light.

“It’s fine” he murmured, leaning closer. “I’ve never seen anyone come back here.” His voice dropped even lower. “I’ve heard it’s haunted.”

“Shut up” you groaned, half-laugh, half-desperation.

You were aching, painfully hard, exposed and vulnerable, and every teasing word only wound the tension tighter. You wanted him to hurry, to stop talking and just do whatever he had planned before you lost your mind entirely.

“Hey.” Two fingers appeared in front of your lips. “Suck these. I know how good you are with your mouth.”

You had the sudden, overwhelming urge to bite him, but instead you parted your lips and let him slide the digits inside.

You sucked gently at first, then harder, tongue swirling around them, coating them in spit until they glistened.

He moved them slowly in your mouth, shallow thrusts that made heat pool low in your belly.

You could feel his eyes on you, watching the way his fingers disappeared between your lips, watching the hollow of your cheeks, and behind you he was hardening again, thick and insistent against your ass.

He spread his thighs a little wider, forcing your legs to part further, then gave your waist a soft, encouraging tap.

You let his fingers slip free with a small, wet gasp.

He held them up between you, splitting them apart to watch the way your spit strung between the digits, thin and glistening. Satisfied, he lowered his hand behind you, dragging the slick fingertips across the sensitive skin of your ass until they notched against your rim.

He paused there, applying only the lightest pressure, just waiting.

You swallowed, the sound loud in the silence. But you didn’t pull away. Didn’t stand. Didn’t run.

His fingers began to press in, slow and careful, one knuckle at a time.

The stretch was strange. Intimate, unfamiliar, not quite pleasure yet but not pain either. You sucked in a sharp breath.

His other hand settled on your stomach, steadying you, grounding you, while his head rested against your shoulder.

Small, helpless noises slipped out of you as he worked deeper, drawing his fingers out only to push them further on the next stroke.

By the time they were fully inside you were trembling, pre-cum leaking steadily from your cock in embarrassing beads that dripped onto your pants.

You shifted once, instinctively, and his fingertips brushed something inside you that made your stomach clench, sparks flare behind your eyes, and a strained moan rip from your lips.

“Ah—ah” he chided softly, the hand on your stomach sliding up to cover your mouth, muffling any further sound. “Do you want to be caught?”

You shook your head frantically, breath shuddering through your nose.

“Then stay quiet” he whispered, easing his palm away.

He began moving his fingers again, slow deliberate slides in and out, letting you feel every ridge, every inch. You pressed your own hand over your mouth, eyelids fluttering as the warm coil in your belly tightened and spread.

You leaned forward onto the table, back arching slightly, head dropping as you tried to focus.

For a moment the library itself dissolved, the risk, the exposure, the books, all gone, until there was only the slow drag of his fingers and the building heat.

“Faster” you whispered, hips trying to roll in small, helpless circles.

A breathy laugh answered you. His free hand clamped onto your waist, holding you still.

“No” he rasped. “I want something else.”

There was a rustle of fabric behind you, the soft sound of his zipper again. A warm palm smoothed down the length of your spine, pressing you a little further forward against the table until your chest brushed the open textbook. Then another hand slipped beneath your face, hovering just below your mouth.

“Spit, cutie.”

You blinked at the open palm hovering beneath your mouth, confusion flickering through the haze for half a second before the insistent little wiggle of his fingers made the request unmistakable. 

Heat crawled up your neck again, sharper this time, more embarrassed than before, but you gathered saliva on your tongue anyway and let it fall in a careful, quiet drop onto his waiting skin.

Full-on spitting felt too crude, even here in the shadowed back corner where no one would see. 

He gave a low, amused chuckle that vibrated against your back, the sound soft enough to stay between the two of you.

His fingers slipped free from your body with a slow drag that made you clench around nothing, a small, involuntary whimper catching in your throat. 

Then his hand withdrew entirely, and the next sound was unmistakable.

The wet, slick glide of your spit being smeared along his length. The obscene noise filled the narrow space between your bodies, making your stomach tighten and your cock twitch against the open air.

You felt him shift behind you, urging your hips up with one steadying hand while the other guided himself.

“Are you ready?” he rasped against your ear.

You nodded once, quick, jerky, because you were sure your voice had abandoned you entirely.

You bit down hard on your lower lip, eyes fixed on the looming ranks of books in front of you. 

The blunt, warm head of him pressed against your rim, steady pressure that made your thighs begin to tremble almost immediately. You tried to hold yourself aloft, muscles straining, but the effort only made the anticipation sharper.

“Let me, baby” he murmured, both hands settling on your hips now, firm, grounding. He took your weight easily, lowering you inch by careful inch, pausing whenever your breath hitched too sharply or your body clenched too tight around the intrusion. 

Every pause came with a soft exhale against your neck, every resumed descent accompanied by a low, strained sound from deep in his throat. 

By the time he was seated fully inside you, deep enough that you could feel the heat of him pressed flush against your ass, the coil in your belly had wound so tight it hurt.

Your body spasmed around him involuntarily, walls fluttering and squeezing, and he groaned into the fabric of your hoodie, the sound muffled but raw. 

His grip on your hips turned bruising, fingers digging in as though he needed the purchase to keep himself from moving too soon. His breaths came in heavy, uneven pants against the side of your neck, stirring the fine hairs there.

You waited for the snap of his hips, for the rhythm you had imagined, fast, desperate, overwhelming. 

Instead he stilled completely. His arms slid from your hips to wrap around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest until there was no space left between you. 

His chin settled on your shoulder, cheek pressed to yours, and you could have sworn you felt the low, contented rumble in his throat, almost a purr. His cock throbbed inside you, slow, insistent pulses that made your own length leak steadily onto the front of your pants, darkening the fabric in small, milky patches.

“What are you doing?” you hissed, turning your head just enough to glare at him from the corner of your eye.

“Fuck” he breathed against your neck, voice wrecked. “You feel… so good, shit”

“Then move!”

“Not yet.” You clenched around him without meaning to, a pure reflex, and he cursed under his breath, hips twitching upward in a tiny, helpless jerk that nudged the head of his cock against that spot inside you again. Stars burst behind your eyelids. “I just wanna stay like this for a moment.”

You were dumbfounded. You didn’t have much experience, but you were reasonably certain sex involved motion, friction, rhythm, something.

None of the videos you had watched had featured this, just sitting, stuffed full, trembling, while the person inside you simply… existed.

The pressure was immense. Your body kept trying to push him out even as it moulded itself around him, walls pulsing and fluttering in helpless little waves. He felt enormous, thick enough to force you open, long enough to press against places you hadn’t known could feel like this. 

The thought alone made you clench again, another bead of pre-cum slipping free.

You whimpered, the sound small and broken. “Satoru—”

“I know, baby.” He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of your jaw. “I know. Just wanna feel you for a minute. Been thinking about this for… some time.”

His hands slid beneath your shirt, warm palms smoothing over your sides, fingers brushing along your ribs as though he were counting them. 

Minutes dragged by in agonising slowness, him buried to the hilt, both of you shaking with the effort of holding still. Every tiny shift of weight made you both gasp, every involuntary flutter of your walls drew a ragged breath from him. 

Eventually the stillness became unbearable. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, frustration and need twisting together until you couldn’t tell them apart.

“Toru—” His name tore out of you, raw and pleading. “Please. I need you—please, it hurts—move—”

He exhaled shakily against your neck, then began to rock, just the smallest movement, barely an inch in and out. Enough to tease the sensitive rim, enough to graze that spot inside you over and over without ever giving you the depth you craved. It was torture.

“You’re so tight” he whispered, voice fraying. “So perfect. Knew you’d take me so well.”

You bit your lip harder, trying to trap the moans that wanted to spill out.

He noticed. “Don’t hold back. No one’s coming back here.”

The permission shattered what little restraint you had left. A broken, needy sound escaped you, and he rewarded it by grinding deeper, slow, deliberate circles that pressed him right against that spot until your vision whited out for a second.

“Gonna fill you up” he promised, the words rough and wrecked. “Gonna make sure you know who you belong to.”

His hands returned to your hips, lifting you just enough that he could thrust upward, steady, controlled rolls that drove him deep each time. 

You braced your palms on the table, fingers splaying across the open textbook, fighting to stay quiet even as the pleasure built to something blinding. His rhythm quickened, shallow at first, then harder, faster, until the chair creaked faintly beneath you both.

One of his hands wrapped around your cock, stroking in perfect time with his hips, thumb dragging over the slick head on every upstroke. 

The dual sensation snapped that burning coil inside you. 

A startled yelp tore from your throat as you came, shaking, clenching hard around him, pleasure crashing through you in white-hot waves. Cum splashed across his knuckles as he continued to stroke you through it, dripping down his fingers and onto your pants.

Your brain blanked, body going lax and trembling in his lap, but you could still feel him, still feel the desperate snap of his hips, the way he chased his own release inside your spasming heat.

He followed moments later.

His arms locked around your waist, pulling you down flush against him as he ground up hard, burying himself as deep as he could go. A low, broken groan vibrated against your neck, muffled into your skin as he spilled inside you, hot, pulsing, filling you until you could feel every throb. 

His hips stuttered, then stilled, holding you there while the aftershocks rolled through both of you.

For a long minute neither of you moved.

His breathing gradually slowed against your shoulder. His hands gentled, stroking up and down your sides in soothing passes. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, rasping.

“You okay?”

You managed a small, shaky nod, too overwhelmed to form words just yet.

He pressed a kiss to the side of your neck, lingering there. “Good boy.”

You whined involuntarily at the praise, the sound slipping out before you could catch it, even as the sharp edges of reality began to seep back in. 

The library’s quiet hum returned, the drone of the HVAC, the faint rustle of pages from some distant corner, the knowledge that you had just cum in the back stacks with the campus’s most untouchable golden boy buried inside you. 

Your thighs trembled as he helped you lift your hips, his softening cock slipping free with a slow, slick drag that pulled matching gasps from both of you. The sudden emptiness ached in a way that felt almost obscene.

Before you could step away, before you could even think about standing on legs that still felt like jello, his arms wrapped around you again, drawing you back down onto his lap. 

Your back settled against his chest, his heartbeat thudding against your spine. His arms encircled your waist, one hand splaying wide across your stomach, the other resting just beneath your ribs, holding you close enough that you could feel every rise and fall of his breathing.

“Hey” he whispered suddenly.

The teasing lilt was gone. His voice had dropped into something quieter, more serious, almost careful. His nose pressed to the side of your neck, lips brushing the skin there as he spoke.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen like this.”

Your breath stilled. Your heart seemed to slump, sinking to the bottom of your chest. “What do you mean?”

“Fuck.” He buried his face deeper against your neck, words muffled into the crook where shoulder met throat. “I wanted to take you out on a date first.”

The confession landed soft, almost sheepish. Your heart lurched, soured for half a second with the fear that he regretted it, then soaring again in the next heartbeat. The whiplash of emotion was so sudden, so dizzying, that a helpless giggle bubbled up in your throat.

“A date?” you teased, turning your head just enough that your cheek brushed his forehead. He nodded against you, a small, pathetic whine escaping him.

“I’m such a himbo.”

You laughed, the sound cracking open in the quiet. Nerves, post-coital euphoria and sheer disbelief swirled together until you felt almost giddy, lightheaded. “Himbo?”

“I really wanted to take things slow” he mumbled, voice muffled and childish. “But then you kissed me and…” Another whine, softer this time. You could almost picture him kicking his feet beneath the table if he weren’t holding you so tightly.

Your laughter came again, quieter now, and you brought a hand up to cover your mouth as though the sound might carry too far. 

“Maybe you’re the himbo” he whispered accusatorially against your skin, and the words coaxed another giggle out of you, bright and helpless.

Your head was swimming, disbelief threading through a warm, steady affection, excitement flickering beneath it all like sparks. 

“Satoru” you said, still smiling despite yourself, “you’re rambling.”

“I’m nervous.”

“That’s new.”

He laughed then, a little self-conscious, and let more of his weight rest against your back, his chin settling more firmly on your shoulder. “I’m being serious. I wanted you to take me seriously.”

You let the words settle between you, let the quiet stretch while you actually considered them. 

You pictured what it might be like, seeing him outside the library, outside the role of failing student and reluctant tutor. Coffee somewhere off-campus, his hand brushing yours without the excuse of a worksheet. Walking together across the quad, his arm slung around your shoulders. Late nights that didn’t end with him leaving. 

The thought didn’t make you anxious. It didn’t feel uncomfortable or impossible. It felt… right. Like something you had wanted without ever letting yourself imagine it.

“I do take you seriously” you said, keeping your voice steady, serious. “I mean it. I—I like you, Toru. I have for some time. I—”

“Me too!” The words burst out of him, almost too loud for the library’s hush. His arms tightened around you, squeezing the air from your lungs in a rush. “I’ve liked you for a while. You’re the only reason I even bothered coming to these sessions. I looked forward to every moment I was here.”

You felt the confession settle into your bones. His grip loosened just enough that you could breathe again, but he didn’t let go. 

One hand slid up to cradle your cheek, turning you gently so he could see your expression. His thumb brushed the corner of your mouth, tracing the shape of it, as though memorising the way you looked right then. Flushed, lips still swollen, eyes wide and soft.

“I’m not good at this” he admitted quietly. “The slow part. The… not jumping in headfirst part. But I…want to try. With you. If you’ll let me.”

You searched his face, those impossible nebula blue eyes, unguarded for once, the faint flush still lingering high on his cheekbones, and found nothing but sincerity beneath the usual bravado.

“Okay” you whispered, nodding your head just slightly.

His brows lifted fractionally. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” A small, shaky smile curved your lips. “Let’s… try.”

Relief washed across his features, he leaned in, pressing a kiss to your temple, then another to the corner of your eye, then finally to your mouth. A slow, lingering, achingly tender press of his lips. When he pulled back, his forehead pressed against yours.

“I’m taking you out tomorrow” he said, voice low and certain. “Proper date. Dinner. Movie. Whatever you want. No library tables. No rushing. Just… us.”

You laughed softly, the sound muffled against his lips. “Tomorrow sounds good.”

He kissed you again, briefer this time, but no less earnest, then helped you stand on unsteady legs. 

Your pants were still half-down, he fixed them with careful hands, tucking you back in, zipping and buttoning with the same gentleness he had used moments earlier. He took his jacket and wrapped it round your waist, hiding some of the more…questionable stains. 

You did the same for him, fingers lingering on the waistband of his jeans, and when you were both presentable again, clothes straightened, hair finger-combed into place, he took your hand.

“Come on” he murmured, lacing your fingers together. “Let’s get out of here before the night staff starts doing rounds.”

You gathered your things in silence, slinging bags over shoulders, books tucked under arms. He never let go of your hand, not when you turned off the desk lamp, not when you walked together through the dim aisles, not when you stepped out into the cool night air.

The quad was empty, streetlights casting long shadows across the grass. He squeezed your hand once, then lifted it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

“Tomorrow” he said again, softer this time.

You nodded, heart still racing, but steady now in a way it hadn’t been before.

“Tomorrow.”

I really hope whoever requested this enjoyed, sorry it took so long!

Please don't steal, reproduce, feed into AI, or repost without my consent.

You don’t consider yourself a weak man.

No one does, actually. You have your reputation among jujutsu society, and it isn’t that of a weak man, not by a longshot. You’re a clan leader, a warrior. Weakness isn’t part of your identity. Vulnerability? Sure, when the time is right. Weakness? Never.

That’s what you tell yourself. You keep your pride close to your chest, lest he snatches it right from your hands.

No, generally speaking, you aren’t weak at all, but—

“Oh my God, yours looks so good, gimme.”

Satoru has a way of bringing it out of you.

“Back off.” You try to keep your voice firm, but it’s already a struggle. “It’s mine. You’ve had yours already.”

You’re trying hard not to look at him. You know if you do, you’ll cave immediately.

Satoru isn’t one to give up so easily, though. And he isn’t one to play fair, either.

“C’mon,” he whines, resting his chin on your shoulder, “just a bite, I promise. I just wanna have a taste!”

“Fine. You know what? Fine.” You cut off a tiny piece of fondant with your spoon and push it in his general direction. “Here.”

Don’t look at him, don’t look at him, don’t look at him.

Slowly, Satoru pulls away. You feel his stare in the side of your head. Don’t look at him.

“Wow. So you just don’t love me anymore, huh? Wow. I came out here to spend some time with my beloved even though I’m exhausted, and you’re making me drink, and I don’t even like alcohol, and now you won’t even share your dessert with me, the love of your life—”

As he whines, his grip on your bicep tightens. This, more than his yapping, is what’s most effective to sway you, and he is well aware of it. He talks your ear off to create some white noise, but the real focus is there.

“—anyway, I think I deserve it, don’t you?”

You tell yourself it’s because this really isn’t his scene. Satoru only ever goes out with his coworkers to spend time with them, not because he enjoys drinking or even because he likes going out. It’s fine if you indulge him. It’s fine if you let him steal your entire chocolate fondant right from your plate, without even trying to protest.

He came to dinner for you, so it’s fine to indulge him. That’s all it is.

“Fine,” you huff. “You can have it, baby.” He lets out a cheer of victory and digs in immediately.

It totally isn’t because of the little rosy tint on his cheeks. Or his big, bright, shimmering eyes, that catch the light just right. Or even the slightest little pout he was sending your way to make you cave. You’re not weak to him. You gave him your fondant because you wanted to.

That’s what you tell yourself. But both he and you know the truth.

And honestly, it isn’t your fault! He’s just… he’s…

Yeah, no. You have no excuse.

In your defense, you have a long history of indulging him, one that started on your very first meeting.

He was just six years old, and you were barely nine. Sitting beside his lord father with his hands folded elegantly in his lap, face completely blank in a cold, haughty mask. A meeting between clans, not your first, but definitely his.

You couldn’t stop staring at him. He looked like a doll, that was your first thought back then. Soft-looking hair. Big, shimmering blue eyes. Chubby, rosy cheeks. Dewy soft skin.

Lifeless.

You couldn’t bear to see a kid so pretty look so sad. So when he slipped away with a yawn, you asked to be dismissed, and went after him. You’d hidden chocolate bars in your yukata sleeves for later. You’d planned on enjoying them back at your clan’s estate, but sharing couldn’t hurt, could it?

He didn’t react, when you sat near him on the engawa, in a small patch of delightfully warm sunlight. Silently, you handed him the chocolate bar. He took it without even looking at you. Took his time savoring it, his cheeks flushed in delight.

Then, when he was finished, he held out his hand expectantly. Tilted his head to look up at you, and you were hit with the full force of that bright, piercing gaze.

Big blue eyes shimmering under the sunlight. Lips set in an adorable pout.

“I know you have more,” he said. “Gimme.”

How exactly were you supposed to say no?

You didn’t say no. You gave him every single one you had. And he graciously accepted to share the last one with you.

That was your first meeting. You were doomed from the start.

You’d thought that weakness would disappear as you grew older together. Surely, he wouldn’t be cute as a man the way he was as a boy. You’d learn to hold your ground.

Your heart had other plans.

You fell for him, hard. And to make matters worse? He felt the same.

You should’ve known things would only go downhill from there.

He knows all about the soft spot you have for him, and he takes advantage of it at every turn. Like right now. Shamelessly stealing your dessert after he all but inhaled his own, all because he’s craving more sugar and he knows you’d never say no.

You really need to learn how to say no.

Satoru makes quick work of your fondant, licking the spoon and his lips to make sure not a single crumb remains. He’d lick the plate if you weren’t there to scold him for it.

“Yeah, that was nice,” he says with a sigh, slumping back in his chair. “Good choice, sweets.”

You want to cuss him out. “Yeah? I bet it was great.” Your voice is oh so bitter. “Would’ve loved to have a taste, baby. You know, since it was my dessert.”

Satoru rolls his eyes, wrapping his arms around your bicep again, chin once more resting on your shoulder.

“It was the least you could do, honestly,” he retorts, huffing. “We could be home right now, having amazing sex—”

“Keep your voice down—”

“—but instead, you dragged me here to watch Nanami and Shoko get wasted.” Another huff. “Besides, if you really wanted to eat that, you should’ve just said no. You should grow a backbone, babe.”

It hurts because it’s true. You still want to cuss him out. In fact, you’re turning your head, opening your mouth to do so, but Satoru moves swiftly. He pushes himself closer, lips close to your ear.

“But if you want a taste that bad, I can give you one.”

You turn to face him. His face is the picture of innocence, eyes twinkling, brows slightly raised, lips pushed into that annoying pout. But you’re not fooled. There’s hunger in his gaze, too. Like you’re the next dessert he wants to devour. You don’t hate the idea.

You’re not a weak man by any means, but Satoru knows how to bring it out of you.

“You’re the worst, you know that?” you pant against his lips, squeezing his waist roughly.

He tastes sweet. The fondant you almost had is right there, on his tongue, and you think there’s no better way to get that taste.

His hand squeezes your shoulder, and in response you push against him harder, effectively trapping him against the concrete wall shielding you from the street. His arms tighten around your neck, lips moving against yours fervently.

“Liar,” he retorts, just as breathless. “You love me. You love me and you’d do anything for me.”

It hurts because it’s true, and you push your tongue in his mouth to shut him up. He lets out a small, startled sound, and it only serves to fuel you.

Greedily, Satoru wraps a leg around your thigh, trying to get leverage to roll his hips into yours. At that rate, you might genuinely fuck him right there in this dirty alleyway.

The friction is delicious against your bulge, and you can’t help but match his rhythm, grinding against him like a horny teenager. He bites your lip and you tug his hair in retaliation, a groan spilling from his throat.

This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Not exactly the most dignified way to have sex.

You grip his hips and still his movements, earning a whine of frustration.

“No, come on, it was just getting interesting, you jerk—”

“How about we go home, huh? So I can enjoy you properly.”

Now that catches his attention.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “yeah, let’s do that.”

Needless to say, he gets what he wants from you. He was right. You need to grow a backbone.

.

It’s rare to see your beloved look so peaceful.

The sun is shining. Birds are chirping. It’s pleasantly warm under the bedsheets. By all accounts, this morning is nothing less than beautiful.

It’s all made better by the sight of Satoru, sleeping serenely beside you.

Skin glowing under the gentle sun. Soft breaths hitting your cheek. It’s the first time in weeks that he gets to sleep in, and you’re overjoyed that you get to be there.

You’ve been admiring him for, what, maybe half an hour? Maybe more? You’re not sure. You’re not sure you care.

Eventually, a restlessness settles in your bones. You should get up. Get started on breakfast. Maybe even bring it to him in bed, he’d love that. Do his laundry so he gets to rest some more. That’s a good plan.

With your mind made up, you shift to get out of bed. The cool air hits your leg, and you almost abort the mission. Satoru’s right there, and he’s warm.

No. Nope. Come on. Breakfast.

Your leg peeks from under the blanket again. You push up to your elbow, grab the covers to throw them off your body—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

You freeze. You’d hoped you wouldn’t wake him, you were being careful, moving slowly and gently. Now he’s up, and judging by his scrunched-up face, he is not happy.

He looks adorable like this. Frowning, eyes still heavy with sleep. You coo at him, brushing your knuckles against his cheek. “Breakfast, baby. I’ll bring it to you here, okay?”

Once again, you move to leave the bed. You don’t even get to straighten up. Satoru crawls on top of you, pinning you down with his weight. His arms snake around your waist. His lips tickle your neck.

He doesn’t even dignify you with a response, as if it’s a given that you’ll simply surrender to his will. You can’t even find it in yourself to blame him: you’ve never, ever done anything to make him believe otherwise.

But you’re strong. You have a plan, and you intend to stick to it. He’ll thank you later.

So, as gently as you can, you roll to the side, deposit him on the bed, and snatch his arms from around your waist to free yourself.

Your feet are so close to the floor — almost there. You move to leave a tender kiss on his forehead.

And you make the same mistake you always make. You glance at his face.

His features are twisted into an absolutely outraged pout, like you’ve just insulted him in the absolute worse way you could ever have. Like you’ve just told him he was nothing more than a warm body, a hole to fuck. You suppose that’s exactly how he’s taking this. His brows are furrowed over his slightly widened eyes, an almost wounded look in the baby blues.

And your shaky resolve crumbles entirely.

You feel cruel. You feel like the world’s cruelest man, and you must be, abandoning your beloved like that. Like he’s a dirty sock so old you can’t get rid of the stench, so you decide to throw it away.

Quick. Fix it.

“I’m gonna make breakfast, baby,” you coo, stroking his hair. “Yeah? We can have breakfast in bed.”

He simply stares, his face falling. Unimpressed, or maybe he’s just half-asleep still?

Until he speaks. His face changes again, a brow raised, mouth curled in an almost disgusted manner. “Uh, no?”

Like he can’t believe you’d do him the insult of suggesting such a thing. Because, of course, breakfast in bed includes making breakfast, and making breakfast includes you leaving him.

You sigh, closing your eyes, and he seizes the opportunity. He grabs you by the back of the neck and pulls you down again.

“Satoru, stop—”

“Nuh-uh.”

“—baby, please, I have stuff to do—”

“I don’t think so.”

He wraps his limbs around you like a particularly vicious octopus. His face is buried in your neck again. A part of you is almost offended by how confident he is that you’ll just give in.

The other part of you? It gives in.

You run your hands up and down his back, caressing softly and earning a hum of delight. In return, Satoru’s hand pats your chest. You feel his body relax on top of yours, his breath slow and soften. His eyes close once more. There’s a small smile on his lips.

Your heart leaps.

Breakfast can wait. You’ve already achieved your goal anyways.

.

You don’t spend a lot of time at Jujutsu Tech. Usually, it’s less than an hour, once a week. To drop off your recent mission reports, get some new assignments, fresh report sheets, and then back to work.

You rarely get to play the loving partner part with Satoru. Usually, when you’re there, he’s out on a mission, or teaching, or avoiding his responsibilities and buying an obscene amount of sweets and pastries.

Today, though, you walk into the office you two share, returning from admin with your new assignments for the week, and he’s there. Sitting on your desk, with his jacket draped over the back of your chair and your jacket on his shoulders. The sight is so endearing you fear you might melt into a puddle.

You almost do, but a sharp instinct snaps you out of it. This is Satoru. With his Six Eyes and his frankly excellent perception of cursed energy, there’s no way he didn’t see you coming.

This is a set-up. He wants something from you.

So when he saunters up to you, slipping his arms through the sleeves of your jacket and around your shoulders, you don’t pull away from his affection, but you don’t return it either.

“Hi, baby,” he all but purrs, kissing and nuzzling your cheek affectionately.

“Hi, Satoru,” you respond soberly. You won’t fall for his tricks. Not this time. You’re strong.

He keeps up with the affection for another moment, but quickly he realizes you’re not reciprocating and pushes himself away. With his hands curled around your shoulders, he frowns, eyebrows visibly furrowing under the blindfold.

“What, no kiss? No sweetie, no honey, no angel? Do you just hate me?”

You won’t bother with pretending you’ve been fooled. You won’t fall for his tricks. “What do you need, Satoru?”

He gasps. Puts a hand on his chest in indignation. “Excuse me? Are you suggesting I only came to see you for my own benefit?”

You cock a brow. “…Yes.”

He has nothing to say to that. He just stares, mouth pressed into a thin line. He’s been found out, and quickly too.

But he’s nothing if not determined.

“What I need is some loving from my baby, but I guess that’s just too much to ask for.”

He steps back, turns away the slightest bit—

Your arms wrap around his waist and you pull him back against your chest, kissing his nape. You’re weak.

He smiles, snuggling into your hold.

“See, that’s more like it.”

You pinch his side. “Watch your tone, will you?” Not even a hint of bite in your voice.

His hand cradles your jaw, and his lips find yours. This time, you reciprocate, the kiss lazy, languid. You feel so much better now that your arms aren’t empty.

He pulls away, brushing the tip of his nose against yours. “Missed ya.”

“You saw me this morning.”

“I’m expressing my undying love, jeez—"

You kiss him again, just to shut him up. It works. For a moment.

For a minute, he simply enjoys your embrace. Quiet in a way he only ever gets when it’s just the two of you. Basking in your warmth, the strength of your arms around him. Then, he speaks.

“Alright, let’s go home!”

Already he’s moving, your arm hugged to his chest as he tries to tug you out of the office. And again your instincts flare. He’s been suspicious. There’s something in that office that he doesn’t want you to see.

Naturally, you first think he damaged something, so you plant your feet to the ground and resist his strength, eyes raking over your desk.

“Baby, what are you doing,” he whines. “Let’s go already.”

Don’t fold. Don’t fold. This is a trap.

It wouldn’t be the first time he breaks something in the office and flees the crime scene. There’s a sizable dent on the side of your desk to attest to that. So what is it? What did he do this time?

He tugs on your arm harder. “Y/N, come on, move!”

You can’t find actual damage near your space, so you turn to his—

He moves in front of you, hiding his desk from your eyes. Ah. His blindfold is pushed up into his hair, leaving his lethal eyes uncovered. A cheap, dirty trick, almost guaranteed to make you cave. His eyes shimmering, his rosy, slightly swollen lips pushed into a pout.

You’re close to folding, but in his eagerness to get his way, he’s also revealed the source of his need for his early escape.

“What’s the hold-up, huh?” He huffs, brows furrowing slightly, his expression now impatient and needy. Jerk. You’ll kiss him.

“Satoru.”

Your low tone makes him perk up. He knows he’s been found out, so now he’s gonna pull all the stops to get out of this situation.

Brace yourself. Don’t fold.

He pushes himself against you, wrapping his arms around your neck again. Chest to chest, lips so close to yours you can feel his breath. You try hard not to look at them, but his eyes are a problem, too. Too wide. Too blue.

He hums, still maintaining the pretense of innocence.

“Satoru,” you say again. “What’s on your desk?”

He shrugs a shoulder, as if he’s completely clueless and has no idea what you’re talking about.

“Satoru.” You’re trying to sound stern. Trying. This isn’t working. You have absolutely no hold on him.

“Dunno what you’re talking about, baby. Can we go home now?” He pushes his hips against yours teasingly. Brushes the tip of his nose against yours again— fucker. He knows you’re weak for that. “We have so much better things to do, don’t ya think? Hm?”

Don’t fold. Don’t fold. Do not fold.

Gently, you grab his waist and step around him, despite his best efforts to stop you.

And it’s right there, on his desk: a high stack of papers, no doubt waiting to be completed by your partner. And judging by the sheer size, it’s been waiting a while.

You turn to him, eyes burning. “When was the last time you did your paperwork, exactly?”

He smiles. Shrugs and pokes his tongue out. “No clue.”

“Satoru—”

“Ugh, spare me, will you?” He steps away and rolls his eyes, waving a careless hand. Like you’re in the wrong here, somehow. “Why would I do that when there’s Ijichi to take care of it?”

That poor guy is gonna have an aneurysm.

“Satoru. You are not dumping all that on Ijichi.”

Satoru, the poster child of bratty behavior, has the audacity to cross his arms and sigh. “So what, you want me to do it?”

“It’s your paperwork, Satoru! Yes, you’re gonna do it.”

He turns his head away with a huff. “Nah. No way. Why would I do that? It’s boring, and tedious, and I might get a headache.”

“Enough.” You make your way to his desk and grab the stack of papers. Wow, it’s a lot. “I’m bringing that home and you’ll do it tonight.”

And he has the gall to gasp, shaken to the core. Like you’ve done something truly heinous. “What?!”

You let out a sharp sigh. It’s like getting a toddler to eat their veggies.

You turn, determined to hold your ground. Really, you’ve been over this more than once with him. You’ve had to help him catch up with his mission reports often enough.

Your eyes land on his face. Rookie.

His face is downturned. Arms crossed, eyes slightly averted. And, oh, have his lips always looked so pink?

And he drops the bomb.

“Sorry for wanting to spend time with you instead of doing some stupid paperwork, I guess.”

No. No, this is a ploy, a ruse, a maneuver to get you to do his bidding.

And, like a fool, you’re falling for it. You can’t even bring yourself to be angry. Something visceral snarls in your chest, at the sight of his face. It looks horribly wrong, fix it, fix it, fix it.

You give up. You’ll be the fool if that’s what he wants.

“Baby,” you murmur and set the papers aside, wrapping your arms around his waist. He settles in your embrace, hands braced on your chest, face buried in your neck. You feel the curve of his smile against your skin. Smug bastard. He’s not even trying to hide it.

He’s so pleased with himself, it’s like the satisfaction is radiating from him. You look down to what you can see of his face.

His eyes are squeezed shut, pushed into half moons by his rosy cheeks with how wide he’s grinning. So serene, so childishly happy that his scheme was successful. How could you ever be angry with him? You never stood a chance.

You kiss his cheek, and he hums, delighted that’s he’s won. “Alright,” you coo. “Let’s go home.”

You swear there’s a spring to his step, when you both make your way to the car. The paperwork sits untouched and abandoned on his desk.

.

Satoru thinks he might lose his mind.

Patience has never been his strongest suit, and you are well-aware of it. You know him like the back of your hand. You know that he likes his eggs poached more than sunny side up; that he always needs at least thirty minutes of lounging in bed before starting his day; that he handles heat badly and prefers lighter clothing, even when it gets colder.

You know that he hates waiting.

And, yeah, maybe it is rich coming from him, CEO of being late. He’s usually alright with it when people make him wait, even if he’ll complain about it to their face, for the simple pleasure of annoying them.

But you? You should know better.

He checks his phone again. The time switches from 18:29 to 18:30 right before his eyes. You said 18:00 sharp, emphasis on the sharp. He’s officially been waiting for thirty minutes, and that is just unacceptable.

This is such a nice day, too. Warm, with a cool breeze keeping the temperature at a reasonable level. Birds chirping, clouds gently drifting by, all that good stuff that you love. You should be here, with him. Ideally, buried inside him to the hilt, but he’d settle for a cute, wholesome date, too.

He’s enjoying neither, because you’re not here, and yeah, he’s definitely losing it.

He checks his phone. It’s probably been another twenty minutes, at least!

18:31.

Ugh, come on!

It’s been days since you last saw each other. Days! He feels unhinged, unraveled. His jaw aches in the evening, because he spends his days gritting his teeth. Any longer without you and he’ll start bouncing off the walls, clawing at the floorboards like a dog.

Any longer and he’ll start begging for your presence.

Honestly, it’s like you don’t even look at him lately. All you do is work. And because he is who he is, all he does is work, too. It’s a miracle if he gets to spend a couple of hours in the same room as you. He barely has time to think of you.

He misses you. Misses you like a limb.

He’s so exhausted that he misses you even when you’re right in front of him. He isn’t even allowed to enjoy the moments he gets with his beloved, too worried by how fast time flies. And before he can catch his breath, the moment is over. Nothing could ever make him wish he were anyone else— nothing but this. This horrible, mind-numbing lack of time.

And now you have the audacity to let your clan elders gnaw on that precious time. Time that he took in his already packed schedule to spend with you, time that was meant to be spent together.

Unbelievable. Oh, he will not let you hear the end of this.

He’s ready to give up and call you, but a splash of energy catches his attention from the corner of his Six Eyes. Getting closer, fast.

He can’t help but grin. Finally, finally.

He waits until you’re just behind the shoji door. With an overly exasperated groan, Satoru flops down onto his back, feet swinging off the engawa.

“What a jerk,” he mutters angrily, toying with the bandages covering his eyes. “I don’t deserve this. Asshole. Jerkface.”

“I know you’re not talking about me.”

Your voice sends shivers down his spine. That irritated edge he can hear? Music to his ears. He covers up the smirk that was blooming behind an exaggerated pout.

“Wow,” he drawls. “Finally remembered you’re not single, did you? Had fun at your little meeting?”

He knows you didn’t. The whole point of those meetings is to slowly suck your soul out through your nostrils. That’s why all the elders are dry and lifeless. Duh. The question is rhetorical, just the beginning of your punishment.

He hears the dull sound of fabric hitting the ground. You probably dropped your haori. Not enough clothes on the floor, but it’s a start.

“You know I didn’t.” And there’s your reply. Yeah, yeah, he knows, he’s been to enough of those meetings to know. “You’ve been to enough of those meetings to know.” You can be so predictable sometimes.

“Maybe if you hadn’t ditched me to go to the meeting, you would’ve had a better time.” He can hear the childish petulance in his own voice. Can’t be bothered to tame it, to try and hide it even the slightest bit. You deserve all that you’re getting. “I mean, I’m just saying. Maybe an afternoon with your boyfriend would’ve been more fun, but hey, who knows? Definitely not you.”

You stay quiet for a second. Two. Three. “Satoru, if you’re only here to make me feel bad, we can cut the evening short right now. I have a rematch in half an hour anyways.”

Now that is unacceptable. Actually, it’s beyond unacceptable, practically a criminal offense. “Are you joking?” He hisses, pushing himself up. “So what, I should just fuck off and die?”

You seem pissed. And tired. Maybe he should cool it. Just a bit.

“You think I want to spend my already limited free time with them, instead of you?” You retort. Your back is to him. Starving him of the sight of your face. Why?

Look at me, he wants to scream. Don’t deny me, don’t push me away.

“I’d love nothing more than to stay here and snuggle,” you continue. This time you just sound sad. He feels a pinch in his chest. You don’t finish the thought. You don’t have to. He knows exactly what you want to say.

Duties that you can’t escape. Either of you.

“Ditch them,” he demands. Fuck ‘em. With an annoyed huff, he stands from the floor and moves to drop on the bed gracelessly. “C’mon, babe, you’re really gonna spend the night with them when I’m right here?”

Finally, you turn to look at him. He takes a deep breath, feeling his lungs fill with air properly for the first time since you last saw each other. Yes, yes, exactly. That’s all he wants, all he needs, just keep looking at him like that.

Your eyes travel from his face, down the length of his body, down his slender, model legs and back up. The mood shift in you is so obvious to him, who’s gobbling up even the tiniest details that you offer him.

You’re opening up. You’re letting him in.

Yes, yes, yes. Come on.

“’S been so long since you’ve fucked me,” he drawls. “At this rate, I might forget what you feel like.”

Your eye twitches, but you’re not a man of ego. No, if he wants you to give in, he needs to bait. Then, you can punish him for all the bratty little comments.

“We barely see each other lately. You haven’t even kissed me yet.”

Hook.

He sees your face soften. You shift to face him. “I know, baby, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

Ooh, look at you, offering the line yourself. “Yeah?” He masks the glee in his voice, replacing it with a pathetic longing that he knows you’re weak for. His hand tugs at the bandage covering his eyes, unwinding it and dropping it to the floor near the bed. A cheap, dirty trick, but he really wants to get his way. Your gaze meets his, and he knows he’s got you. “When are you ever gonna do that?”

“Soon,” you reply with a squeeze of his calf. Gentle. Affectionate. Tender. You are just the perfect man.

“How about right now?” With a light tug to your obi belt, your yukata falls open.

And sinker.

You rise from the floor to crawl on the bed. His heart thumps painfully against his ribs. Yeah, yeah, let’s go, come on. He backs away, perfectly playing his role of the fleeing prey, until his head hits the headboard, and you seize your chance to get on top of him, hands firmly planted on either side of his head.

You tilt your head, studying him. He can see his own reflection in your dark, dark eyes, and wow, it’s no wonder you want to fuck him into next week so bad. He’d want to fuck himself too.

“Yeah. You know what?” You purr, leaning closer. “I think I will. Fuck ‘em.”

He grins. “That’s the sp—”

Your mouth is on his before he can finish the sentence, a rough kiss that he barely expects. He wraps an arm around your neck, the other around your shoulders, trying to tug you down, but you refuse him. He whines into the kiss, digging his fingers into your flesh. Hard, rough, pure muscle, god, just take me!

You pull away to kiss the corner of his lips, his cheek, the soft underside of his jaw, down to his throat, your favorite spot. Already he feels lightheaded, heart pumping ruthlessly, he’s so easy, too easy.

“I want you so bad,” you rasp against his throat, and woah, okay, starting off real strong there.

His heart throbs. His dick, too.

“Nhh, what are you waiting for, then?”

He nuzzles against your temple, hooking a leg around yours to grind roughly against you. You’re hard as a rock under your yukata.

He can’t hold back a chuckle. “Is that a knife in your pocket or are you just—” He yelps when you bite, straight into the tender flesh of his throat. “Ow, was that really necessary?”

You lower yourself against him, finally, jeez, and claim his mouth again.

“You talk too much,” you pant against his lips.

“’Cause you’re not even doing anything,” Satoru retorts without missing a beat. “Gotta fill the awkward silence somehow.”

You punish him with another bite, on his jaw this time. Softer, like one was your limit. His obi comes undone with an expert tug of your hand, and you caress his navel with your fingertips. Starving him, still.

Impatient, he grabs your wrist and pushes your hand flat against his stomach, pulling closer with his leg, his hand tugging your yukata down your back. You pinch him in retaliation, and he flinches violently.

“Mean.” He never misses an opportunity to whine and pout. “Weren’t you supposed to make it up to me?”

You huff out a chuckle. “What, you waited for days, but five more minutes is a death sentence to you?”

“Exactly!” He slaps your shoulder and slides his hand down your chest to grasp your shaft. The hiss you let out is beyond satisfying. You’re not riled up enough, he needs you feral like a dog, he needs to be bent over and— “You made me wait days, so get to it. Never heard of ‘happy wife, happy life’?”

You roll your eyes, but you reach out to open the nightstand drawer all the same. Your hand comes back with a bottle of lube.

Oh, now we’re talking.

You sit back on your haunches to open the lube, and Satoru has to make an actual, conscious effort to keep from drooling. He swears his thighs are trembling. How is he meant to be calm when you’re right there, sitting between his legs, looking like you want to eat him alive?

He could die.

With a groan, he lies back, stroking his cock teasingly. He barely gets two pumps in before you smack his wrist with your free hand. He lets go, with a loud, frustrated whine.

“Not getting any younger here,” he complains. “Could’ve gotten myself off three times with how inefficient you are.”

You plop yourself down beside him, leaning on your elbow. “Soggy, pathetic little orgasms they would’ve been, darling.”

Satoru can’t help the outraged gasp he lets out. “Excuse me, I— angh…” Your hand’s slipped between his thighs, your middle finger circling his rim. “Let me finish my sentences, asshole.”

“Like I said,” you tease, slicking up his puffy hole, “you talk too much. Can you blame me for doing what I can to stop you?”

“Uh, yes?”

You laugh at that. God, you are so hot when you laugh, it’s unfair.

He rises on his elbows and ghosts his lips over yours, baiting you once more. You bite easily, light little pecks that make his heart flutter. Sneakily, he wiggles his hips, trying to get your finger in him.

“You’re not slick, you know,” you murmur, keeping your fingers frustratingly out.

“And whose fault is that?” Satoru retorts, head falling back with a moan as your finger pushes inside just barely, only to pull out immediately. His stomach tenses, he clamps his thighs over your wrist to keep you trapped. “Fucker.”

He’s getting sick of the phantom touch, and quickly. Alright then. You asked for it.

“Baby,” he breathes, looking up at you with pleading baby blues. “C’mon, I just wanna feel you…”

You inhale sharply, oh, this is too easy, and push your finger in. Slowly, gently, because you don’t feel like tearing his asshole apart. You’re just nice like that. Satoru rewards you with an open mouth kiss, letting you slip your tongue in his mouth, while his hips grind against your hand.

For a moment, a blissful moment, all he hears is the sound of your lips smacking together, your panting intertwining with his moans of pleasure, the slick sound of your finger lubing his hole up. Warmth blooms in his stomach, in his chest— more, more, he needs more, now.

“Give me your cock,” he pants, “come on, I’m ready, don’t make me wait.”

You don’t listen to him. Instead, you slide in another finger, and he clenches his jaw, brows knitting. Denying him— you’re so good at that. His head falls back as he pants, hips rocking in time with your thrusting, and you bend down to lick and tease at the sensitive skin of his throat.

Satoru’s losing it, though, and quickly. Your fingers are too big, too thick, too precise in their movements for him to resist. Heat coils in his stomach, his body tightens further with every stroke, he’s getting close, too close—

“Y/N, wait,” he whines, voice high and almost squeaky. You slow immediately, face leaving the crook of his neck. “Hold on, I…”

“You don’t wanna come?” You purr. Your movements haven’t stopped completely, and Satoru can’t keep in his high, breathy moans. “I just wanna make you feel good, baby. Don’t you want that?”

“Fuck you,” he hisses. He reaches up, tangles his hand in your hair, tugs hard.

You pull your fingers out of him entirely, and he groans in frustration at the emptiness, the cold. He digs his nails into your skin, and if you weren’t too far from him he’d bite.

“No need to throw a tantrum, sweets.”

“You know what I want,” Satoru whines, “come on, pretty please?”

You lean down and press your lips to his. A placating kiss, meant to stall. You let him nip and bite, let him ravage your mouth and distantly, he feels your hand brush against his inner thigh. Then, you maneuver yourself between his legs again, bending them at the knee to bracket your hips. Your cock rests against heavy against him, throbbing, leaking pre all over the place like it can tell it’s about to be inside him. You need him just as bad, so stop stalling, stop denying him—

“Deep breath for me?” You say against his lips.

He obeys. Takes a deeeep inhale, and—

You push inside him in one smooth motion, and he swallows back an obscene moan, just for the pleasure of hearing the borderline pornographic sound you let out in his ear.

“Fuck,” you pant. The satisfaction that fills him feels almost as good as your cock. C’mon, go wild. “Fuck, Satoru. Good? You feeling good?”

He would answer, he would, but he just feels so full, it’s like you’ve ripped his voice from him.

“Uh-huh.” He nods, head tilted back, mouth wide open, eyes scrunched close—

You pull out almost completely and push back in, smooth and soft and gentle. “You look so fucking good right now, baby,” you pant, settling into the rhythm.

“Yeah, I b-bet I do,” he says right back.

You lean down to push closer to him, your thrusting switching to a lazy grind into him. He turns his head, looking for your lips, and you kiss him eagerly, tongue stroking his like your shaft is massaging his insides. And it feels good, so good, so fucking good he can feel his brain melt into goo and leak out through his ears, but still he needs more. Harder. Meaner.

And you know that. This is just the warm-up.

You’re still taking your sweet fucking time though, stroking against his walls, listening to each of his moans greedily. He wants to curse you out, almost does, but he’s beyond helpless when you’re inside him like this. All he can do is moan, soft and high, lips parted like he wants you in there, too.

That gives you an idea. You lean up on one hand, the other gripping his thigh, never once breaking your thrusting.

“Show me your tongue,” your order.

And he obeys, because what else is he supposed to do? He pushes his mouth wide, pink tongue lolling out.

He sees you gather spit, and his hole flutters around you, betraying his excitement. You let the spit fall past your lips and onto his tongue, but just as he’s about to swallow, you grasp his jaw tight, stilling him.

He whines in frustration, kicking his leg petulantly, but you deny him still.

“Stay right there,” you murmur, and lean down to lick at his tongue. It turns into a harsh kiss, biting at each other’s lips with wet groans filling up the room.

You lean back and pull his leg up, onto your shoulder, and he knows he’s about to get what he needs.

“Baby,” he whines, just for the sake of it. His hips twitch, and you allow it, until he’s practically fucking himself on you, back curved gracefully, throat exposed with his heartbeat fluttering under the soft skin.

It isn’t long until you take the lead again. You grasp his wrist and yank his arm from under him, and he lets out a dramatic yelp as he falls flat on his back.

“I’ve got you,” you purr. “I’ve got you, my Satoru.”

His cock jumps. Easy bitch that he is.

You kiss his palm, tender and sweet. Then, you guide it up to the headboard.

“Hold on.”

He clutches the wood, thighs quivering. “You gonna fuck me now?” He can’t help but taunt, biting his smiling lips. “Or do I have to wait another two years?”

You don’t dignify him with a verbal response— instead you clutch his thighs, pull out fully and slam back into him. The pace you set is deep, harsh, each hit ripping a moan from him almost against his will. The entire fucking bed rocks with your movements.

And Satoru takes it, all that you’re offering, pleasure building in stomach with every slap of your hips against his ass. Fuck, he’s gonna be so sore tomorrow.

“You sound so sweet, baby,” you purr, caressing the soft skin of his thigh. “Is it— hah, is it everything you wanted?”

Blindly, he reaches up with one hand, the other clutching the headboard so tightly he almost hears the wood groaning. You grab his wrist and pin it near his head, bending over him and folding him in half like origami, his knee to his chest and fuck—

“Unh, Y/N, fuck!”

“What, am I not doing it right?" You quip. Satoru glances up, and the borderline ravenous look on your face makes his insides twist, his hole clench around you. You hiss, lips twisting into a snarl, and your hand leaves his wrist and wraps around his throat. Satoru lets out a strangled, high-pitched whimper as you squeeze his windpipe. “Yeah,” you say through a laugh, “thought so. You feeling good, sweetheart? I bet you fucking do, yeah, when was the last time you were so loud? Come on, baby, take it, have your fill.”

Nothing coherent leaves his mouth after that, nothing except your name and moans that only keep getting louder and louder, each snap of your hips scrambling his brain further. Your pre mixed with the lube sticks to his inner thighs, your hips, your balls, slick sounds replacing the slap of your skin against his.

You’re giving so much, so quickly, after days of withdrawal it feels like he’s drowning in the pleasure, drowning in the scent of your sweat and your moans and the way you say his name so sweetly still, even when you’re fucking him like you’re actually trying to break something— it’s so much, it’s too much, too fast, it’s exactly what he needed.

You’ve given up on talking him through it, as always when you’re getting close. Your thrusting is growing more frantic, falling out of rhythm, and before he knows it he comes hard, back arching off the bed like a pornstar.

“Ah— baby, fuck!”

His come splashes on his stomach, his hips, mixing with your pre and almost frothing with the friction. The groan you let out as he tightens is sinful, god he needs to hear more of those, he needs—

He hears two loud snaps in quick succession and suddenly you gasp, covering his body as the bed literally falls apart underneath you.

And for a hot second, Satoru is stunned, panting, and horribly confused. The mind-blowing orgasm doesn’t help him gather his wits, and for a moment he wonders if he even heard correctly. Maybe he’s hallucinating? Like, you were fucking hard, but not that hard, were you?

Oh shit, maybe you were.

You’re panting harshly above him, face and neck and chest all deliciously red, the veins in your neck bulging with effort. You lean up, eyes raking over him.

“You okay? Baby, you okay?”

You sound so worried, it’s honestly sweet. But all Satoru can think about is that you fucked him so hard you broke the bed.

He laughs. High and loud and bordering on full blown cackling. He can’t lie, that’s impressive. His leg falls off your shoulder, limp and heavy.

“You broke the bed—” he lets out through wheezing, “holy shit babe, you actually broke the bed!”

You roll your eyes, pushing your hair out of your face. “Was that a lifelong dream of yours or something? It can’t be that funny.”

Oh, but it is. It really is that funny. It takes a second, but Satoru calms down, while you’re looking around helplessly like the furniture can still be saved somehow. Like you’re still looking for the culprit.

All while still inside him, hard and throbbing. And no cum of yours filling him up.

He leans up on his elbows. “Wait, Y/N, you didn’t come?”

“We really have a bigger problem right now—”

“The only big problem is your cock right now, babe,” Satoru cuts in cheekily, sitting up on your lap. He swipes two fingers in his come and smears it on your balls, fondling them while he’s at it. You hiss.

“Satoru…”

“No, really, why are those still full, huh?”

You grab his wrist to still him. “Satoru, the bed—”

“—is fucked anyway,” he finishes for you. “C’mon,” he pleads. “Who cares about that? You have more important things to focus on right now. Come in me.”

To really drive the point home, he leans in to kiss at your neck, under your jaw, and wriggles his hips teasingly.

“Come on,” he pushes. “Baby, come on, I want it so bad…”

You push to lay him down, and his heart kickstarts again. You’re so easy, too easy. He loves you, loves you, loves you.

You press your lips to his and push into him with slow thrusts, keeping the pace mild but deep. Sweat drips down your jaw to your neck and Satoru leans up to lick at it, moaning in your ear.

“So good,” he whimpers, hole wet with your pre, squelching obscenely. You grip his thighs tight, rocking your hips into him.

Overstimulation sneaks up on him with each brush of your mushroom tip on his prostate, pushing his moans into throaty, high sounds. It’s quieter, this time, less frantic, yet somehow no less animal. Not with your lips stretched into a snarl as you bite at his neck, his shoulder.

He comes before you, again, his dick spurting to the best of its ability, his come almost see-through. His entire body tightens around you and his cry of your name pushes you over the edge and finally, fuck, finally warmth floods his insides as you spill in him, pushing your hips against his like you get any deeper than you already are.

He doesn’t move; neither do you. For a few seconds, you both simply lay there, panting as you come down, skin glistening with sweat and come. You catch his lips in a slow, unhurried kiss, claiming his mouth the way you know he loves.

It takes a while before you get yourself up and moving again, and in Satoru’s eyes it’s still unacceptable. Leaving him in this emotionally vulnerable time? You’re the absolute worst.

When you dare to pull out of him, your come dripping out of his abused hole, he growls in frustration.

“Come back,” he demands.

You pat his thigh affectionately. “In a second, darling.”

“No, now.”

He kicks his leg petulantly, but you don’t relent. You move away, and Satoru groans, hiding his eyes with his arm. “Asshole,” he mutters.

You return in under a minute, but even that was too long for him. He needs to be in your arms now, immediately. He needs your warmth.

Gentle hands lift his leg onto your shoulders. You swipe a wet cloth over his skin, both cleaning and soothing him. A sigh of contentment escapes him, against his will.

When he uncovers his eyes, the smile you’re giving is so gentle, so loving that his heart squeezes.

“Happy?” you ask, fingers running up and down his leg.

Satoru nods, delightfully exhausted. “I love you,” he blurts out.

You kiss his ankle. “I love you.”

Your phone vibrates on the nightstand, stealing your attention from him.

“Fuck,” you breathe when you peek at the notifications. “The elders are harassing me.”

Right. Your rematch.

Satoru chuckles. “Ditch them,” he demands. “Stay with me.”

You stay silent for a second.

“You know what?” You say after what feels like forever. “Yeah. I will.”

A satisfied smile stretches Satoru’s lips.

You need to grow a backbone.

The Zurich tunnel was a concrete wind tunnel that smelled like damp equipment and floor cleaner. It was the kind of place that amplified every noise, making the post-game headache behind your eyes pulse with every distant shout from the fans still hanging around the stands. You stood there with your gear bag heavy on your shoulder, leaning your weight against the cold wall. You were just waiting for the Japanese media swarm to clear out so you could get to the bus without being shoved aside by a cameraman.

Then you heard him.

Satoru Gojo had a laugh that was built for stadiums. It was loud and effortless. He rounded the corner with a dozen reporters trailing him, his jersey draped over his shoulders. He looked pristine. You felt like you’d been through a rock tumbler. Your jersey was damp with sweat, and your hair was a flattened mess from the helmet.

He saw you and detoured away from the microphones, ignoring a reporter mid-question. He stepped into your space, stopping just short of actually touching you. He smelled like mint and the sharp, metallic scent of the rink. Up close, he was tall enough that you had to lock your neck back just to keep him in view.

"Great game, Miller," he said. He flashed a grin that was all teeth.

"My name isn't Miller," you said. You kept your voice flat. You weren't going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, even if your pulse was jumping in your throat.

"Right. Close enough." He leaned a hand against the wall next to your head, pinning you in place. "You were fast out there today. A little desperate on that last break, but fast."

"I was playing hockey. You were putting on a show," you replied. You could feel the heat radiating off him. It was a physical weight in the cramped hallway. "There’s a difference between a teammate and a mascot, Gojo."

The grin on his face didn't disappear, but it got sharper. He leaned in closer, his blue eyes scanning your face. He was looking at the sweat on your forehead and the way your jaw was locked. He was looking for a crack. He looked at you like you were a puzzle he’d already solved but wanted to take apart anyway.

"Is that what we're calling it?" he asked. He spoke softly, his voice dropping below the noise of the reporters ten feet away. "I thought I was just winning. You should try it sometime. It might help with that miserable look you've got going on."

"Move your hand, Gojo. My bus is leaving."

"Let it leave," he murmured.

He didn't move. He stayed there for several seconds, long enough for the silence to turn heavy and weird. You could see the individual spikes of his white hair and the way his pupils didn't even flinch under the bright fluorescent lights. It wasn't Sparks. It was static. It was the feeling of a thorn in your side that had been there since the first time your names appeared on the same scouting reports. You hated how everyone compared you to him. You hated that he seemed to know exactly how much that bothered you.

Then, just as quickly, he pulled away and snapped his fingers. He turned back to the cameras without a backward glance, leaving you standing in the hum of the tunnel with your skin crawling. He was already laughing at another question before you could even get your breath back.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The training facility gym was tucked into the basement of the arena, a windowless box that smelled of industrial rubber and the heavy, metallic scent of iron. You were four sets into a back routine, trying to work out the knot that had settled in your neck after the tunnel incident. Every time you pulled the bar, the friction of your shirt against your skin felt like an irritant. You were focused on the rhythmic clanging of the plates, trying to drown out the fact that your team’s loss was the only thing on the morning news.

The door swung open, hitting the rubber stopper with a dull thud. Gojo didn't just walk in; he took up the entire doorway. He was with Suguru Geto, both of them dressed in black training gear that looked like it had never seen a drop of sweat. Gojo was tossing a medicine ball into the air with a casual, annoying ease. He didn't look at you, but he parked himself at the squat rack directly in your line of sight.

You focused on the mirror, watching your own form, but his reflection kept drifting into the frame. He was leaning back against the rack now, watching you with a look that wasn't quite a smirk but wasn't friendly either.

"I've noticed some guys lift like they’re trying to punish the equipment," Gojo said. He wasn't looking at you, but his voice carried perfectly over the gym’s playlist. "Too much ego in the grip. It’s a miracle they don’t snap a wrist before they even hit the ice."

You dropped your dumbbells. The noise echoed off the concrete walls, sharp and final. You grabbed your water bottle and wiped your face with a towel, staring at him through the glass.

"And some people talk because they’re afraid of what happens if it gets quiet," you said.

Gojo finally turned his head. He let the medicine ball drop and walked over. He stopped a few feet away, his eyes dragging over your shoulders with a clinical interest that made your skin itch.

"I'm just offering an observation," he said. "You're stiff. Your shoulders are up around your ears. You play the same way you lift, like you’re waiting for a car crash."

"I play with discipline. You wouldn't know what that looks like."

"Discipline is a boring word for being scared," Gojo countered. He stepped closer, dropping his voice so it stayed between the two of you. "You’re so worried about making a mistake that you're missing the actual game. I saw it yesterday. You had the lane, but you passed it off because you didn't want the weight of the miss."

"I played the smart move," you snapped. Your hands were balled into fists at your sides.

"You played the safe move," he corrected. He reached out, his hand stopping just short of the collar of your shirt. "Safe doesn't win tournaments. Safe just gets you a seat on the bus home."

You stepped back, breaking the proximity. The heat in your face had nothing to do with the workout. "Stay out of my head, Gojo. And stay away from my rack."

He laughed, a sharp sound that felt too loud for the basement. "I'm already in your head. I've been there since Zurich. Just admit it."

You didn't give him an answer. You turned and walked toward the showers, but you could feel the weight of his gaze on your back the entire way.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The communal shower was a cavernous, tiled box that echoed with the heavy spray of water and the distant shouting of players further down the hall. Steam hung thick in the air, blurring the edges of the room into a grey haze. You stood under one of the corner heads, eyes closed, letting the hot needles of water hit the tension in your shoulders.

The rhythmic sound of footsteps on wet tile approached. A shower turned on two stalls over. You didn't have to open your eyes to know the silhouette.

You reached for the soap, blinking through the water, and your gaze inadvertently drifted. Gojo was standing with his back to the wall, head tilted back as he let the water wash over his face. He wasn't trying to hide anything. He never did.

Your breath hitched. You’d spent your life in locker rooms around athletes, but this was a different league entirely. Even flaccid, he was huge.  It was hanging with a weight that made your own stomach do a strange, tight flip.

You looked away quickly, staring at the grout between the tiles until your eyes burned. You felt a sudden, sharp spike of heat that had nothing to do with the steam. It was an intrusive, vivid thought of exactly how that would feel, and it made your throat go dry.

Gojo didn't say a word. He didn't even look at you. He just went through the motions of showering with a casual, bored grace, as if he wasn't currently making every other man in the facility look like an afterthought.

The silence followed you back into the locker room. It was that heavy, pressurised quiet that happens when two people are thinking about the same thing but refuse to acknowledge it. You sat on your bench, eyes fixed on your gym bag, tugging on your socks with trembling fingers.

Gojo was across from you, pulling a grey hoodie over his head. He didn't look like the stadium-filling star right now. He just looked like a guy in a locker room. He leaned over to lace his sneakers, the fabric of his sweatpants straining against his legs.

He sat back up, catching your eye for the first time since the showers. The smirk wasn't there. Instead, there was a look of quiet, pointed observation. He knew you’d looked. He definitely knew.

"My hotel has a private lounge on the penthouse floor," Gojo said. His voice was casual, but the volume was low enough that it didn't travel past the row of lockers. "They serve the good Scotch. Not the watered-down shit they give the teams in the common area."

You stopped mid-motion, your hand resting on the zipper of your bag. You didn't look up. "I'm not a big drinker, Gojo."

"It's not about the drink," he replied. He stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He took a step closer, stopping just short of your knees. "I’m staying at the Grand—room 402. Come over after the media briefing. Or don't. But stop looking at me like you’ve got something to say and just come say it."

He didn't wait for an answer. He walked out, the heavy door swinging shut behind him. You sat there in the sudden silence, the image of him in the shower burned into the back of your eyelids.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The walk to the Grand was long enough for the cold air to settle into your bones, but not long enough to talk yourself out of it. You stood outside Room 402, staring at the brass numbers. Your brain told you to turn around and get back to your own hotel before this turned into something you couldn't undo, but your hand was already knocking.

Gojo opened the door almost instantly. He’d ditched the hoodie and was just in a black t-shirt and those grey sweatpants. The room behind him was a massive suite that looked out over the city lights, but the only thing you focused on was the way he looked at you.

He didn't say hello. He just stepped back to let you in.

"You actually showed up," he said, closing the door. The click of the lock was loud in the quiet room.

"I wanted the scotch," you said, though the lie felt thin the second it left your mouth.

"Sure you did." Gojo didn't move toward the bar. He just stayed by the door, watching you stand in the middle of the room with your jacket still on. "You’ve been looking at me for weeks. In the gym, the hallways, the showers. You've got this look on your face like you want to swing at me or crawl under my skin. Which one is it tonight?"

"You're full of yourself," you said, but your voice lacked any real bite.

Gojo crossed the room. He didn't stop until he was right in your space, forcing you to look up. He smelled like that same sharp mint and expensive soap from the locker room. He reached out, his thumb catching the edge of your jaw, tilting your head back.

"Then do something about it," he said.

You reached out and shoved him back a step, but only so you could grab the front of his shirt and haul him down.

The first time your mouths hit, it was messy. There was no grace to it, just a lot of built-up frustration finally snapping. Gojo made a low, rough sound in the back of his throat and crowded you backwards until your heels hit the edge of the sofa. He didn't let up, his tongue pushing past your lips, tasting like the gin he’d been drinking.

His hands came up to frame your face, his fingers tangling in your hair to hold you still as he tilted your head to get a deeper angle. You gripped his waist, pulling him as close as the layers of your clothes would allow. Every time you tried to pull back for air, he followed you, his mouth staying glued to yours.

You heard the sound of heavy breathing and the rustle of fabric as you tried to get a better grip on him. Gojo’s hands drifted down, his palms flat against your back, pressing you flush against his chest. You could feel the heat coming off him, and lower down, the heavy, hard weight of him pressing against your thigh. Having it that close, knowing what was under those sweatpants, made your head swim.

He broke the kiss long enough to trail his mouth down your neck, his teeth grazing your skin just above the collar of your shirt. You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, your head falling back against the cushions.

"The bed," he rasped against your skin.

"Now," you said.

He didn't let go of you as he led the way, his hand locked firmly around yours. The clothes were gone before you even hit the mattress, a mess of discarded shirts and kicked-off shoes left on the floor.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The sun hit the white hotel sheets with a brightness that made your eyes sting. You woke up with the weight of Gojo’s arm draped heavily across your chest, his skin hot even in the air-conditioned room. For a minute, you just lay there, staring at the expensive crown moulding on the ceiling and trying to piece together the last few hours.

The bed was a mess, but you were both still in your underwear. There were no discarded condoms, no lingering ache of having been taken. Just the heavy, sugar-sweet smell of spilt scotch on the nightstand and the hazy memory of a make-out session that had been so intense it felt like a physical bruising. You had stayed up until four in the morning, mouths raw, eventually passing out mid-sentence while Gojo was trying to explain why he hated the Swiss team's defensive structure.

Gojo stirred, shifting his weight and pulling his arm back. He didn't do the awkward morning-after flinch. He just opened his eyes, blinked at the ceiling, and reached for his phone.

"You're late for your team meeting," he said. His voice was thick and raspy with sleep, but the smugness was already back in place.

"I know," you muttered, sitting up and rubbing your face. Your head was pounding from the alcohol and the lack of sleep.

You felt his eyes on your back. The room felt smaller now that you were both awake. You looked over your shoulder and saw him watching you, his white hair a chaotic mess against the pillow. He looked soft for about three seconds before he smirked.

"Don't look so worried," he said, propping himself up on an elbow. "We didn't actually do the deed. You just fell asleep on me while I was getting to the good part of my story. It was a little insulting, honestly."

"I was drunk, Gojo."

"You were exhausted." He hopped out of bed, completely unbothered by his lack of clothes. He headed for the bathroom, his stride easy and confident. "But don't worry. I won't tell your coach you were busy failing to keep up with me."

You winced at the jab. It was a joke, a way to reset the board. By making it about the rivalry again, he was giving you both an out. If he treated it like a comedy of errors, it didn't have to be a secret. It didn't have to be anything real. You got dressed in the silence, listening to the water of the shower start to run.

You left the room before he came back out. The hallway of the Grand was quiet and smelled like expensive lilies, a sharp contrast to the way your skin still felt like it was humming with the static of his touch. You had a game in six hours, and all you could think about was the way he’d looked at you right before you fell asleep—like he was waiting for you to say something that wasn't a joke.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The door clicked shut, and the lock turned with a heavy metallic thud. The sound was deafening in the small space. You were standing between two rows of tall shelving units packed with team bags and industrial-sized boxes of tape. The only light came from a single, buzzing bulb overhead that made the dust motes dance in the air.

"You're avoiding me," Gojo said. He didn't move from the door. He was still in his practice gear, the black compression shirt damp and clinging to the muscle of his chest.

"I'm busy," you said, your voice sounding thin even to your own ears. You reached for a crate of pucks, but your hands were shaking.

"You're hiding." He moved toward you, his skates gone but his presence still taking up every inch of the room. He didn't stop until he was chest-to-chest with you, pinning you against the metal shelving. The scent of him—salt, ice, and that sharp mint—filled your head. "You left the hotel before I even woke up. No word. Just ran away like I’d done something wrong."

"We didn't do anything," you snapped, looking up at him. "We got drunk and made out. It wasn't a big deal."

"It felt like a big deal to me." He reached out, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck. His palm was hot, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw. He leaned in, his breath hitting your lips. "Or maybe you're just scared of what happens when we aren't drunk."

You grabbed his wrists to push him away, but the contact only made it worse. You felt the static from the tunnel, the gym, and the showers all converge into one point of heat. You didn't push. You pulled.

The kiss was frantic. It was a mess of teeth and tongue, an outlet for a month of suppressed irritation. Gojo groaned, a deep, vibrating sound that you felt in your own throat. He hiked your hips up, shoving you onto the edge of a heavy wooden crate. The wood bit into your thighs, but you didn't care. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him flush against you.

He broke the kiss to trail his mouth down to your neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin over your pulse point. "I haven't been able to think about anything else since the showers," he rasped.

His hands were everywhere—under your shirt, gripping your thighs, fumbling with the button of your pants. He worked them down with a single-minded focus, his breathing coming in jagged stabs. When he finally had you exposed to the cool air of the room, he didn't hesitate. He dropped to his knees on the thin rubber floor mat.

You gripped the edges of the crate so hard the wood splattered into your palms. Looking down, you saw the crown of his white hair between your knees. The sight of him—the most famous player in the league, the man everyone wanted to be or be with—kneeling on a dirty floor for you made your head spin.

He took you into his mouth with a slow, deliberate suction that made your back arch. He didn't rush. He used his tongue to trace the length of you, his eyes flicking up to watch your face. He wanted to see you break. He wanted to see the moment you stopped being the "boring wall" and started being a mess for him.

"Gojo," you breathed, your fingers tangling in his hair. You were past the point of worrying about the thin walls or the janitor in the hall.

He hummed against you, the vibration sending a jolt straight to your gut. He picked up the pace, his hand wrapping around the base of you to steady the friction. It was intense and overwhelming. Every time you thought you were about to reach the edge, he slowed down, teasing the sensation until you were practically begging him to finish it.

He swallowed you deep, his throat working as he pushed you over the limit. Your world narrowed down to the feeling of his mouth and the frantic beat of your own heart. When you finally came, you let out a strangled sound, your head falling back against the jerseys hanging on the rack behind you.

Gojo didn't pull away immediately. He stayed there for a moment, holding you, before he slowly sat back on his heels. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his blue eyes dark and blown wide with his own heat. He looked at you with a look that wasn't smug for once. It was hungry.

He stood up, his breath still heavy. He didn't help you with your pants. He just watched you adjust yourself, his gaze lingering on the flush of your skin.

"See?" he said, his voice finally regaining that sharp, playful edge. "Everything is better when you stop overthinking it."

He turned and slipped out the door before you could even find your voice, leaving you in the quiet, dusty dark of the storage room.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The Gala was one of those high-stakes social traps where everyone pretended to be friends while checking for weaknesses. You stayed near the bar, the gin in your glass doing nothing to dull the sharp edge of your nerves. Across the room, Gojo was doing exactly what he was built for: dominating the space. He was leaning against a marble pillar, looking effortless in a tuxedo that probably cost more than your first car. He was deep in conversation with a blonde from the Swiss delegation, her hand resting on his forearm as she laughed at something he’d whispered.

You watched him. You watched the way he didn't pull back, the way he tilted his head toward her with that focused, intense charm he usually reserved for a puck. It shouldn't have mattered. You weren't his. But seeing him act like a free agent while your skin was still buzzing from the equipment room made your blood boil.

"He's a lot to look at, isn't he?"

You turned to find Elena standing next to you. She was a reporter you’d known for a couple of seasons. She was attractive and always easy to talk to. You’d gone out with women your whole life; it was familiar territory. It was safe.

"He's a headache," you muttered, offering her a tired smile.

"Come on," she leaned in, her perfume a soft, floral scent. "The music is terrible, and the drinks are worse. Let's go somewhere we can actually hear ourselves think."

You looked back at Gojo one last time. He caught your eye over the blonde's shoulder, his expression shifting into something cold and unreadable. Out of pure, jagged spite, you finished your drink and followed Elena out.

Her hotel room was a few floors up. The transition felt natural; the dimming lights, the soft click of the door, the way she pulled you toward her. This was what you knew. You’d been with girls since high school; you knew the rhythm, the expectations, the way it was supposed to feel.

When she pushed your jacket off and leaned in to kiss you, you leaned into it. You wanted to feel that familiar spark, that easy comfort of being with a woman. But as her hands moved over your chest, something was off. You weren't disgusted—you liked Elena, and she was doing everything right—but your brain was somewhere else.

It was like watching a movie with the sound turned off. You felt the physical contact, but the electricity was missing. Every time you closed your eyes, you didn't see her. You saw the flash of white hair in a dark storage room. You felt the ghost of a much larger, heavier hand on your neck. You tried to focus, tried to stay in the moment with her, but the more you tried, the more clinical it felt.

You pulled back, breathing hard, your heart hammering for all the wrong reasons.

"I... I can't," you whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Elena, I’m sorry. I think I’ve just had too much to drink."

"It's okay," she said, sounding more confused than hurt. "It happens. Long tournament, right?"

"Yeah. Long tournament."

You got out of there as fast as you could without making a scene. By the time you reached your floor, the frustration was a physical weight in your chest. You’d spent your whole life knowing who you were, and in one week, some arrogant Japanese superstar had dismantled all of it.

You rounded the corner to your room and stopped dead. Gojo was leaning against your door, his tie pulled loose and hanging around his neck like a noose. He looked like he’d been waiting for a fight.

"You took your sweet time," he said, his voice a low, dangerous rasp.

"Get away from my door, Gojo." You fumbled for your key card, your hands shaking with a mix of adrenaline and shame.

"The reporter? Seriously?" He stepped into your space, his shadow looming over you. "I didn't think you were that desperate for a distraction. Was it worth it? Did she give you that 'discipline' you’re always bragging about?"

"It’s none of your business who I spend my time with," you snapped, finally getting the door to click.

He didn't let you close it. He shoved his way inside, forcing you to back up into the dark room. "It becomes my business when you’re out there making a fool of yourself just to get a rise out of me."

"I wasn't trying to get a rise out of you! I was trying to have a normal night with a normal person! Something you wouldn't understand!"

"Normal?" Gojo laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. He slammed the door shut behind him. "You think you can just go back to that? After the locker room? After the storage wing? You’re lying to yourself."

"I’m not lying about anything! I’ve always been with women, Gojo. This—whatever this is with you—it’s the mistake. It’s the outlier."

"Is that what we're calling it?" He grabbed the front of your shirt, his grip tight enough to choke. "A mistake? You looked at me in that shower like I was the only thing in the world, and now you’re going to pretend you’d rather be with some girl who doesn't even know your middle name?"

"At least she respects me! At least she doesn't treat me like a trophy she can win and then ignore!"

"I don't ignore you," he hissed, his face inches from yours. "I can't stop looking at you. That’s the problem. And it’s eating you alive that you feel the same way."

"I hate you," you whispered, though your grip on his forearms was tightening, pulling him closer.

"Good," he muttered, his eyes dark with a mix of fury and hunger. "Keep hating me. Just don't you dare go looking for a replacement again."

Neither of you mentioned the truth. Neither of you mentioned that you were terrified. You just stood there in the dark, the "no feelings" rule in absolute tatters on the floor.

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The semi-final against Canada was a mess. You were watching from the bench when Gojo took a hit that made the whole arena go quiet. He didn't just bounce off the boards this time. He hit the wood at a bad angle and stayed down, clutching his side. It took two trainers to help him off the ice, and for the rest of the game, the stadium felt weirdly empty without him peacocking around the blue line.

An hour after the final whistle, the arena was mostly dead. The cleaning crews were working way up in the stands, but the hallways downstairs were silent and smelled like floor cleaner. You found him in the back medical room, a tiny space that was basically just a closet with a padded table.

Gojo was sitting there with his shirt off, a huge pack of ice taped to his ribs. He wasn't on his phone, and he wasn't surrounded by reporters. He was just staring at a crack in the floor tiles.

"You're missing the press conference," you said. You stayed by the door, leaning your shoulder against the frame.

He didn't look up. "Suguru is doing it. He’s better at the corporate talk anyway."

His voice was flat. The usual energy was gone, and without it, he looked exhausted. The bright overhead lights showed every bruise and every scratch from the game. He looked less like a superstar and more like a guy who had just been through a car wreck.

"Trainer says it’s a hairline fracture," he said, finally glancing at you. His eyes were tired. "I’m playing the final, though. I’ll just get them to numb me up."

"That’s a bad idea. You’ll be slow. You won't be able to rotate your torso for a shot."

"I have to play." He reached for a water bottle and winced as he moved. He took a sip and then just stared at the label. "If I'm not out there winning, I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. People don't care about Satoru. They care about the guy who puts up four points a night. If I can't do that, I'm just a tall guy with a loud mouth."

You didn't try to comfort him with some cheesy line about how he was more than just a player. You knew as well as he did that in this sport, your value was usually tied to the scoreboard. You walked over and sat on a low stool a few feet away. You didn't touch him or try to be sentimental. You just sat there in the quiet.

"I don't really know who I am when the game stops," he said. He said it casually, like he was talking about a boring movie he'd seen. "Everything gets too quiet. I think that’s why I act the way I do. If I stop moving and making noise, I feel like I might just disappear."

You looked down at your shoes. "The noise is a lot of work, Gojo."

"Yeah," he whispered. "It is."

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. You stayed there for a long time. You didn't talk, and you didn't move. It wasn't some big romantic moment. It was just two people sitting in a cold room, hiding from the expectations waiting for them outside the door. For the first time, the wall between you didn't feel like a competition. It just felt like a place to rest.

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After the night in the medical room, the silence between you changed. It wasn't the competitive silence from before; it was heavy and awkward. You realised that seeing him look that human made it impossible to keep going the way you were. If you didn't stop now, the "no feelings" rule was going to collapse, and you weren't ready for what was on the other side of that.

You told him it was over on the bus back to the hotel. You didn't make a scene. You just leaned over the back of the seat and told him the equipment room was the end of it. Gojo didn't even look at you. He just kept his headphones on and nodded once, his jaw tight.

That lasted exactly six days.

It was the longest week of your life. Every time you were on the ice together, the tension was thick enough to choke on. He didn't make jokes anymore. He played with a jagged, mean energy, taking runs at people during practice and ignoring your existence entirely. You were just as bad, over-committing to hits and spending your nights staring at the ceiling of your hotel room, your body feeling restless and high-strung.

It snapped the night before the gold medal game.

You were in the hotel gym at 11:00 PM, trying to exhaust yourself on the cable machine so you could finally sleep. The door opened, and Gojo walked in. He wasn't wearing his gym gear. He was still in his suit from the team dinner, his tie gone and his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest.

You didn't look at him. You just kept pulling the weights, the metal clanking rhythmically.

"Stop," he said. His voice was low and rough.

"I'm working out, Gojo. Leave."

He didn't leave. He walked over and grabbed the cable, forcing the weights down with a loud crash. You spun around to shove him, but he caught your wrists. He pinned them against the machine, his body slamming into yours. He smelled like heavy cologne and the scotch he’d clearly been drinking.

"A week," he hissed, his face inches from yours. "You think you can just turn it off? You think I’m just some drill you can finish and move on from?"

"I said we were done. It was getting messy."

"It was already messy!" He let go of your wrists only to grab the back of your head, his fingers digging into your hair. "You think I don't see you looking at me? You’re practically vibrating every time I walk into the room."

He shoved you back against the equipment and kissed you. It was nothing like the first time. This was angry. It was desperate and rough, a release of all the static from the last six days. You didn't fight him. You pulled him in, your hands clawing at the expensive fabric of his shirt, needing the contact just as much as he did.

He didn't lead you to a bed. He pushed you down onto one of the weight benches in the corner of the gym, away from the door. He was frantic, his hands shaking as he worked your pants down. He didn't wait. He dropped to his knees, his white hair a stark contrast to the dark floor, and took you into his mouth.

It wasn't the slow, teasing pace from the storage room. He was focused, his tongue and throat working with a desperate intensity that had you gasping, your fingers digging into his shoulders. You looked down at him, seeing the way his eyes were shut tight, his brow furrowed like he was in pain. It felt like he was trying to vent a week's worth of frustration out on you.

When you couldn't take the friction anymore, you pulled him up by the shoulders. You didn't want to just watch; you needed to feel him. You kicked your pants off and reached for the waistband of his trousers, tugging them down past his hips.

He was already hard, heavy and leaking, and the second you were skin-to-skin, the air seemed to leave the room. You gripped him, your hands slick, and pulled him flush against you. The feeling of him rubbing against you—frotting with a frantic, rhythmic heat—was almost too much to handle.

Gojo let out a low, broken sound against your neck, his weight pressing you down into the vinyl of the bench. It was raw and blunt. There was no finesse to it, just two bodies trying to grind the tension out of each other. You wrapped your leg around his waist to pull him closer, your heart hammering against your ribs as the friction built toward something white-hot.

You both came at the same time, a messy, shuddering release that left you both gasping for air in the dark gym. Gojo stayed slumped over you for a long minute, his forehead resting on your shoulder, his breath hot against your skin.

He pulled away slowly, the silence in the room feeling heavier than before. He didn't help you up. He just stood there, breathing hard, looking down at you with an expression that was almost a challenge.

"Still done?" he asked, his voice shaking.

You didn't answer. You just started reaching for your clothes, your hands trembling. The rule hadn't changed, but the stakes had. You weren't just sleeping together anymore; you were destroying each other.

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The gold medal game was brutal. You were playing the game of your life, logging heavy minutes because your team needed you to shut down the Japanese offence. Japan was leading 2-1 in the third period, and the energy in the arena was vibrating.

Gojo was stuck on the bench. He was dressed in his full gear, but his helmet was off, and he had a heavy coat draped over his shoulders to keep his core warm. He looked miserable. Every time you laid a hard hit on one of his teammates or cleared the puck, the camera found him. They wanted to see the frustrated star.

The incident happened during a puck battle along the boards. You took a heavy elbow to the ribs—the same spot Gojo had injured days prior—, and you went down for a second, gasping for air. You weren't badly hurt, but the wind was knocked out of you, and you stayed on one knee to catch your breath.

The Jumbotron didn't show the replay of the foul. It cut straight to the Japanese bench.

Gojo wasn't just watching; he was standing up, his hands white-knuckled as he gripped the top of the acrylic glass. He’d pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, and his eyes were wide, fixed on you with a raw, terrifying intensity. He looked like he was about to climb over the partition. There was no smirk, no arrogance, just a frantic sort of hunger as he tracked your movement.

The feed stayed on him for five long seconds. The entire stadium saw the mask slip. The commentators went silent for a beat before trying to pivot back to the play, but the damage was done.

By the time the final buzzer rang and Japan secured the 3-1 win, the clip was the only thing anyone was talking about.

The press conference was a disaster. You sat at the table with your silver medal around your neck, feeling the weight of the loss and the headache from the game. Gojo sat three chairs down, looking perfectly composed in his team jacket, but he wouldn't look in your direction.

"Gojo-san," a reporter asked, "your reaction to the hit on the opposing defenseman has gone viral. It looked very... personal. Would you care to explain your relationship with him?"

Gojo didn't hesitate. He gave a sharp, practised laugh. "I was just checking the officiating. It was a missed call, and I hate seeing a good game ruined by bad refs. I want to beat my rivals on the ice, not see them get handed free passes because they dived. There's nothing personal about wanting a fair game."

It was a cold, effective lie.

Then they turned to you. "And you? Did you notice the concern from the Japanese captain?"

"I was busy playing a game," you said. Your voice was flat and tired. "I don't watch the bench. People see what they want to see, but there’s no story here. We’re rivals. That’s the beginning and the end of it."

You felt Gojo’s hand tighten on his water bottle. The denial felt like a physical blow to the chest. You had both just stood in front of the world and called the only real thing in your lives a hallucination.

When the cameras finally cut, you stood up and walked out. You didn't wait for him. You didn't want to see the lie in his eyes anymore.

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The parking garage was a place that smelled like dust and melting ice. The celebration from the Japanese locker room was a distant, muffled throb several floors up. Gojo was leaning against a support pillar near the team bus, his gold medal tucked inside his jacket like it was something he was ashamed of.

"You're a coward," you said. You didn't raise your voice. In the empty garage, the words carried perfectly, flat and cold.

Gojo didn't move. He kept his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. "I just saved your career and mine. You should be happy we still have jobs tomorrow."

"I'm not talking about the press conference. I'm talking about the way you live." You walked closer, stopping just outside his reach. "You spend every second of your life performing. You hide behind that plastic charm and the jokes because you're terrified. You think if you stop smiling for one minute, people will see that you’re actually just a hollow person who doesn't know how to exist without a crowd."

Gojo finally looked up. His eyes weren't bright or playful. They were dark, reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights above. "And you're any better? You spend all your time pretending you're some stoic wall that nothing can touch. You act like you don't care about anything, so you never have to risk losing. It's a pathetic way to live."

"At least I'm honest about who I am," you replied. "I don't need a script to get through a conversation."

"You aren't honest," Gojo said, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. He stepped into your space, his height looming over you. "You're just scared. You’d rather feel nothing than admit that I’m the only thing that’s made you feel alive in years. You’re using me as a distraction from your own boring life."

"I'm not using you. I was trying to find something real."

Gojo let out a short, bitter laugh. "There is nothing real here. You’re just another person who wants a piece of the 'Satoru Gojo' show, and I was stupid enough to think you were different. You’re just a fan with a jersey, and I'm bored of playing with you."

The air in the garage felt like it turned to glass. It was the kind of thing you couldn't take back. It wasn't a joke or a jab. It was a dismissal.

You looked at him for a long beat, waiting for the smirk or the punchline that would soften the blow. It never came. He just stared at you, his jaw tight, his eyes cold and distant.

"Fine," you said. Your voice was steady, which surprised you. "Enjoy the show, Gojo."

You turned and walked toward the exit. You didn't run. You just kept a deliberate pace, the sound of your boots on the concrete the only noise in the space. You didn't look back to see if he was watching. You just left him there, standing in the shadows of the pillar with his gold medal and his lies.

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The flight home was a ten-hour vacuum. You sat in the middle of your teammates, the silver medal heavy in your bag, listening to them talk about the next season. You didn't join in. You just looked out the window at the clouds and felt the physical weight of the distance growing between you and Tokyo.

The silence that followed wasn't a relief. It was pressure.

You went back to your domestic league. You showed up to practice, you hit the weight room, and you played your minutes. You were perfect on paper. You didn't take penalties, and you didn't miss assignments. Your coach called it "professionalism," but your teammates stopped joking with you in the locker room. You were a ghost in a jersey. You did your job, went home to a quiet apartment, and stared at your phone until the screen timed out.

Gojo’s name still popped up in your feed. You couldn't avoid it.

He was spiralling, though the media called it "unpredictable brilliance." He was taking dangerous risks on the ice, getting into fights with refs, and blowing off mandatory team events. There was a photo of him leaving a club at 4:00 AM, looking haggard and sharp, his hair a mess and his sunglasses crooked. He looked like he was trying to burn himself out from the inside.

You drafted a dozen texts. Are you okay? That was a low blow. I'm sorry. You never sent them. You would type a sentence, look at the blinking cursor, and realise there was no way to bridge the gap without breaking the silence you’d both built. You deleted every draft.

He never called. He never texted. There were no "missed you" notes or cryptic social media posts. There was just a total, crushing absence. You slept on one side of the bed. You stopped buying the mint tea he liked.

The months didn't make it easier. Time didn't heal the argument in the parking garage; it just let the words sink in until they felt like part of your bones. You weren't a fan with a jersey, and he wasn't just a performer, but you were both too proud to be the first one to admit that the lie had hurt.

By the time the rosters for the next international meet were announced, you felt like you’d aged a decade. You saw his name on the Japanese list. You saw your own on yours.

The prospect of seeing him again didn't feel like a reunion. It felt like a collision you couldn't avoid.

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The hotel in Prague was a labyrinth of limestone and heavy carpets. It was the kind of place that felt too old and too quiet for a bunch of hockey players. You saw the Japanese team bus pull up while you were standing at the lobby window. You didn't wait around to see him get off. You went straight to your room, shut the door, and sat on the edge of the bed until the sun went down.

The first time you actually ran into him was at the morning skate the next day. You were coming off the ice; he was heading on. Usually, this was when he’d lean over the rail and say something to get under your skin.

This time, he stopped three feet away. He looked tired. Not the kind of tired that comes from a long flight, but a deep, structural exhaustion that seemed to have settled into his shoulders. He didn't have his usual designer glasses on. He just looked at you, and for the first time, he didn't have a comeback ready.

"You changed your hair," he said. His voice was scratchy and thin.

"You look like hell, Gojo," you replied. You didn't mean it as an insult. It was just a fact.

"Yeah." He shifted his weight, his skates scraping against the rubber matting. "I haven't been sleeping much. The noise in Tokyo is loud this time of year."

It was a clumsy conversation. It was restrained and careful, like you were both walking on ice that was way too thin to hold your weight. There was no heat in it, just a dull, aching awkwardness that made your chest tight. He lingered for a second longer than he needed to, then turned and skated onto the ice without another word.

That night, you didn't even have to wonder if he’d show up. You left the door unlocked.

When he walked in, he didn't turn on the lights. He just kicked his shoes off and moved toward the bed in the shadows. There was no bravado. No arrogant comments about how much you’d missed him. He just sat down beside you and stayed there for a long time, the only sound in the room being the distant hum of the city outside.

When you finally moved in together, it was slow. It was the quietest it had ever been. There was no frantic tearing at clothes or bruised skin. It was just skin on skin, a slow, deliberate exploration that felt more like a confession than a hookup. You stayed close, your hands moving over the familiar lines of his back, feeling the way his heart was thudding against your own.

You frotted against him, the heat between you building in a slow, steady climb. It wasn't about the release this time. It was about the fact that he was actually there, his weight heavy and real against you. When he finally came, he didn't make a sound. He just buried his face in the crook of your neck and held on until his breathing levelled out.

Afterwards, the room stayed dark. Gojo didn't get up to find his clothes. He didn't make a joke about your hotel room or ask if you were still "bored" with him. He just lay there on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes, silent.

That was the terrifying part. The jokes were his armour. They were how he kept the world at a distance. Without them, he was just a man lying in a dark room with nothing to hide behind. The silence stretched out, heavy and suffocating, and for the first time, you realised that the game was truly over.

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The practice rink was scheduled for maintenance at 3:00 AM. The overhead lights were dimmed to a low, orange hum, casting long shadows across the fresh sheet of ice. You were sitting on the player bench, your skates laced but your jersey left in the locker room. The cold was steady, the kind that got under your skin and stayed there.

You heard the heavy thud of the door, then the rhythmic scrape of blades on the rubber matting. Gojo didn't get on the ice. He sat down on the same bench, three feet away from you. He was wearing his team tracksuit, his hands tucked into his sleeves to stay warm.

"I can't play tomorrow if I don't get this out of my head," he said. He wasn't looking at you. He was staring at the goal crease on the far end of the rink.

"Then say it," you replied.

He let out a breath that puffed into a white cloud in the freezing air. "I've spent my whole life making sure everything I did was for the win. Every person I talked to, every girl I went home with, every interview. It was all just fuel for the image. It was easy because none of it was real."

He finally turned his head. His eyes were tired, stripped of the performative spark that usually defined him. "I'm scared. If I keep this up with you, it’s going to cost me the only thing I know how to be. I’m scared I’ll lose the version of Satoru Gojo that everyone wants, and I don’t know who’s left underneath that."

You looked at the ice, the smooth surface reflecting the dim light like a mirror. "It already cost me, Gojo. I haven't been the same player since that parking garage in Japan. I've been a ghost on the ice. I lost the peace I had when I was just a defenseman doing a job."

"I know," he whispered.

"We aren't the same people we were in Zurich," you said. "The 'rivalry' was a lie we told ourselves so we could keep touching each other. But the lie is dead now. We killed it at the press conference."

Gojo leaned back against the hard plastic of the bench. He didn't offer a promise. He didn't tell you he would change or that everything would be fine once the tournament was over. He didn't say he loved you, and you didn't say it back. Those words were too heavy for a cold bench in an empty rink.

"I don't know what happens next," he admitted. "I don't have a script for this. I don't know if we can even do this without ruining our careers."

"Neither do I," you said.

For the first time in months, the air didn't feel like it was about to snap. There was no performance, no ego, and no jagged edges. Just two people sitting in a cold, dark building, admitting they were lost. It was the most honest conversation you’d ever had, and it felt more permanent than any of the secrets you’d kept before.

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The hotel room was quiet when you returned, the only sound being the low hum of the heater fighting the Prague chill outside the window. There was no frantic fumbling for the key card this time. No slamming each other against the door out of spite or adrenaline. You walked in, and Gojo followed, closing the door softly behind him. The lock clicked, but it didn't feel like a barrier anymore; it felt like a boundary.

Gojo sat on the edge of the bed and just watched you. The light from the bedside lamp was a warm, dull yellow that caught the frayed edges of his hoodie. He looked like a man who had finally run out of things to say. When you moved toward him, it wasn't an impulse driven by a bad game or a bruised ego. It was a choice. You stood between his knees, and he rested his forehead against your stomach, his hands curling loosely around your waist. He took a long, shaky breath, the kind that sounded like he was finally letting go of a weight he’d been carrying since Japan.

He started undressing you with a slow focus. His fingers were steady, unbuttoning your shirt one by one, his eyes following the movement of his own hands. There was no performance for a hidden camera, no mask of the "greatest player in the world" to maintain. When it was his turn, you helped him out of his layers, feeling the solid, heavy muscle of his shoulders under your palms. He had a faint scar near his collarbone you hadn’t noticed before, and a few fading bruises on his ribs. He was just a guy.

He leaned over to the nightstand, pulling a small tube of lubricant from his travel kit. He didn't make a joke about it or try to deflect the intimacy with a smirk. He didn't try to be "cool." He just looked at you, a silent question in his eyes, and you nodded.

You lie back against the sheets, the fabric cool against your skin. Gojo moved between your legs, his weight a grounding, physical presence. He was patient. He used his fingers first, coated in the slick gel, moving with a careful, rhythmic pressure. He wasn't trying to get to the finish line; he was just making sure you were comfortable. He watched your face, his thumb occasionally brushing over your hip bone, waiting for your breath to hitch or your muscles to relax before he moved deeper. It was clinical in its care, but deeply human in its tenderness.

When he finally lined himself up, he paused. He stayed there for a beat, his forehead resting against yours, his white hair tickling your skin. The air between you smelled like hotel soap and the faint, metallic scent of the ice rink that always seemed to cling to your skin.

"Okay?" he whispered. His voice was low, stripped of all its usual theatrics.

"Yeah," you breathed out, your hands finding the back of his neck. "I'm okay."

He pushed inside slowly. It was a heavy, overwhelming sensation, a fullness that made the rest of the world feel like it was disappearing into the background. You gripped his shoulders, your knuckles white, but it wasn't out of pain. It was just the sheer reality of him finally being there, without the rivalry, without the lies. Gojo didn't rush. He stayed still for a long moment, letting your body adjust to the weight of him, his eyes fixed on yours with an intensity that felt more exposing than being naked.

When he started to move, it was with a deep, steady pace. There was no frantic friction, just a quiet, shared heat. Every thrust was a slow climb that felt like it was pulling something out of your chest. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him in closer, wanting to close every millimetre of space left. It felt like a conversation you’d been trying to have for months—one where you finally didn't have to keep your guard up.

Gojo's composure eventually started to break. His breathing turned into jagged, uneven gasps, and he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his grip on your hips tightening. He wasn't the "sun”, or a "god”, or a "superstar." He was just a man who was terrified of being alone, clinging to the only person who actually knew the difference.

The release wasn't an explosion; it was a slow collapse. You both came in the quiet, your gasps muffled against each other’s skin. Gojo didn't pull away immediately. He stayed buried inside you, his head tucked against your shoulder, his chest rising and falling in time with yours as his heart rate eventually slowed down. He felt heavy, warm, and real.

The silence that followed wasn't scary anymore. It was just a shared space. No one was running for the door. No one was reaching for a drink or a distraction. You just lay there in the dim light, two people who had finally stopped playing a game they couldn't win.

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The morning sun in Prague was weak, filtering through the heavy hotel curtains in dusty slats of grey light. Gojo didn't leave in the middle of the night. When you woke up, he was still there, taking up more than his fair share of the bed, his face smashed into a pillow. Without the gel in his hair or the glasses on his face, he just looked like a person—one who happened to be a world-class athlete with a very loud mouth.

You sat at the small hotel desk, nursing a lukewarm coffee and watching the city wake up. You heard the bedsheets rustle.

"You're thinking too loud," he muttered, his voice thick with sleep. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, the blankets pooling at his waist.

"I'm thinking about the flight schedules," you said. "And the fact that my coach is going to kill me if I’m late for the bus."

Gojo stayed quiet for a second. He looked at his hands, then back at you. The bravado was still missing, but he didn't look scared anymore. He looked resolved. "My season ends in three weeks. I have a gap before the summer camps start. I could... fly out. It’s a long trip, but I’ve got the miles."

It wasn't a grand romantic gesture. It was a logistical nightmare. Different leagues, different continents, two massive reputations that would eventually collide again under the glare of a Jumbotron. It was going to be complicated, invasive, and probably a little bit miserable when the media eventually found out.

"It's going to be a mess, Satoru," you said, leaning back in the chair.

He stood up, stretching until his joints popped, and walked over to you. He didn't lean over you with that predatory smirk from Zurich. He just rested a hand on the back of your chair, his thumb brushing against your shoulder.

"Yeah," he admitted, a small, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "It's going to be a disaster. But I'm bored with playing it safe. Aren't you?"

You looked up at him and felt a strange, quiet sense of relief. The weight of the silver medal, the gold medal, and the lies didn't feel so heavy anymore. "I've been bored for a long time."

An hour later, you were standing in the lobby, gear bags at your feet. The Japanese team was boarding their bus out front, and a crowd of fans already gathered behind the barricades. Gojo was standing by the glass doors, adjusting his dark glasses, the "superstar" mask sliding back into place as he prepared to face the cameras.

He caught your eye across the busy room. He didn't wink. He didn't blow a kiss. He just waited until you walked toward the exit, passing him one last time.

"Watch your step," he said, his voice low and smooth, a soft echo of the very first time he’d stopped you in that tunnel.

You stopped, looking at him over your shoulder. You didn't roll your eyes this time. You just gave him a faint, steady nod.

"Try not to get in my way, Gojo."

He let out a short, real laugh—the kind that didn't care about the acoustics—and watched you walk out into the light.

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