with the usual tilt of his head, he reaches out to run his thumb along the edges of the book spine, he knows you-- everyone knew you, an author who did very little to advertise yourself, but that's why the critics loved you.

you were effortless, somehow aligning your character with you works. you never wrote hope or comfort, you dissected them, made the readers feel like they reached an ending before making them realize there was no ending at all. that the pain continued, but the hope lingers like it's been locked in a room no one could ever escape from.

and suguru likes that.

a grip on his coffee tightening before pulling his baseball cap a tad down-- not that it covered anything. he steals the book even though he’s already read half of it standing there, eyes skimming lines that feel less written and more bled, like you poured down your soul.

you write about isolation like it’s a living thing, about minds folding in on themselves, about the terror of being truly seen-- and the deeper terror of never being seen at all. he reads until his coffee goes cold, until the world narrows to your sentences and the quiet hum of obsession forming something sharp and inevitable inside him.

geto googles you that night. watching panels, and interviews, analyzing photos-- always composed and distant. you answer questions with precision, no wasted movement or warmth offered unnecessarily. you were untouchable, but he loves a game, he always loves a game.

you're careful, ain't ya? just a bit too much. who are you really, [name]?

he quickly pauses a video where you glance down before answering a question about inspiration. a microsecond too long, a crack he finally found. the black haired man smiles, a small tug of lips.

he starts structuring his days around you without meaning to. your readings dictate his evenings, your social media-- though sparse, becomes something he studies like scripture.

you don't post any selfies nor any personal anecdotes. just announcements and quotes from obscure writers who hated themselves a little too much.

you keep yourself clean. is it so no one can figure you out? smart. but lonely.

he attends your next signing. he stands in line with your readers-- people who think they understand you because they underlined a paragraph or cried at the ending. he watches them clutch their books like holy talismans, watches you accept each one with polite detachment.

when it’s his turn, you look up. your eyes are unreadable, and it felt like time slowed down as he feels it then-- that subtle click in his chest. the sensation of being catalogued.

hello, you.

you don’t smile, "name?" you ask.

you're asking me for my name. you looked at me in my eye. you know me now.

"suguru geto," he says, voice gentle, you write it without comment or any further talks. you meant business. but your gaze lingers-- not suspiciously, rather attentively. and geto knew that look very well.

you see me.

you slide the book back to him, your fingers don’t brush his, it was intentional, and he noticed. "thank you for reading," you say. you didn't say enjoy, or for coming. but for reading.

he leaves floating.

from that moment on, the obsession stops pretending to be subtle. he re-reads your work, but now it’s personal. every metaphor becomes a clue. every recurring motives, locked doors, quotes, everything-- all of them feels like a message meant for someone paying close enough attention, for him.

you're talking to me. you just don't know it yet.

geto learns your routines the way he always does, not because he wants to, but because knowing feels like caring. café preferences, how you like your coffee black, your writing hours, the way you sit in public spaces with your back to walls. you don’t trust easily.

he imagines conversations with you where you finally let the mask slip. where you admit that the self-loathing you write isn’t abstract-- that it has a source, that it has a history.

but then again, he tells himself he doesn’t want anything from you. he doesn't want attention from you, not even ownership. just a sense of proximity, a privilege of witnessing you fully, being the one person who doesn’t demand softness from someone carved entirely out of restraint.

so at night, geto suguru lies awake with your book open on his chest, tracing sentences like scars. and he thinks to himself, about how people like you don't need saving, you just need someone who won't look away.

oh, he was convinced. and he has never looked away from anything he loved.

the certainty settles into him quietly, the way rot does-- a slow softening of boundaries he once pretended were intact. suguru tells himself this is different. because you are different.

and because fate has always been on his side, it happens without spectacle.

geto doesn’t approach you again, that would be crude. you are not someone he can stumble into without consequence. your presence alters rooms. people notice who speaks to you, and who is allowed proximity.

'observing' would be quiet difficult so he lets the world do what it always does for people like you, mediate. the email comes first.

a publisher’s mailing list he shouldn’t have access to. a forwarded invitation to a closed literary roundtable with no press. it was an off-the-record discussion moderated by someone who mistakes exclusivity for safety.

it was the kind of space where important people are allowed to pretend they are human again.

geto registers under his real name, he wasn't important, but it's not like people would question him. he sits at the far end of the table when you arrive.

you come in late, as expected. you always do-- timing honed to avoid the crush of introductions, the small talk that drains you before anything meaningful can begin. he knew you.

the room adjusts around you subtly, attention recalibrating as you take your seat without looking at him.

still so careful, he thinks.

the conversation unfolds the way these things always do, they talk about themes and structures and the death of narrative certainty, they gesture at darkness without ever touching it.

all while geto waits. you speak only once, but when you do, the room stills.

it’s an offhand comment-- almost thrown away about narrative responsibility. about how writers often confuse cruelty with honesty, and how restraint is the harder, braver choice.

a few people nod too quickly, suguru doesn’t, and you notice.

it’s barely a shift, your gaze flicks to him for half a second, but it’s enough. he meets your eyes without smiling, not a hint of approval or flattering in his gaze.

it was surprising to you, new even.

after the event geto ends up near the bar, flipping through a copy of a book he has no intention of buying. you’re beside him before either of you registers it fully, both reaching for the same glass of champagne.

your fingers don’t touch, they never do. "sorry," you say automatically, already pulling back, and the black haired man shakes his head. "you were right."

"about honesty?" you pause, a small pull of brow, as he nodded, a charming smile on his face. "you didn’t agree though,” the words aren’t accusatory but geto blinks in surprise, "oh?" he hums, softly.

you study him the way you study everyone, like a problem you won’t solve unless it’s worth the cost. "you didn’t nod," you say. "or perform disagreement."

"i wasn't so sure about what you said before," he clarifies. "but then again, most people use ‘honesty’ as an excuse to be indulgent." you study him for a moment longer than politeness requires.

"most people don’t notice that," you say. geto shrugs. "they notice. they just don’t like what it says about them."

you should leave. he knows that, hell-- even you know that. the calculus of risk ticks visibly behind your eyes and yet you continued.

"what did you think of the book?" you ask. "it wasn’t comforting," he says. "which i appreciated actually. it didn’t offer solutions where none existed."

you raised your brows, "that usually upsets people." he chuckled, shrugging, "i’m not people," geto says gently. there’s a beat, a pause where either of you could push this into something more.

your phone vibrates. a reminder of the world tugging you back into its approved lanes. you check your watch. "well," you say, already turning away, "it was nice meeting you."

geto watches you take three steps, then stop. you turn back, brows furrowed, not in suspicion, but in mild confusion, like a sentence you’re trying to place.

"i think," you say slowly, "i’ve seen you before." and suguru stills.

fuck. has he caught up? does he know i sneaked into this event?

not internally-- never internally, just enough to appear thoughtful. "have you?" "i don’t know," you admit, a small hum, "probably not." another pause.

and in that pause, geto considers a dozen responses, choosing the safest one. "books do that," he says. you hold his gaze for a second longer, as if testing whether that explanation fits. then you nod once.

"yes," you say. "that must be it." and so you leave, just to stop again

"suguru geto, isn't it?” you say, as if testing the name’s weight. "you read closely."

and now, you remember me.

that night, geto doesn’t tell himself it meant anything. he just replays the sound of your voice-- unperformative, like it was the real you, a curious man forced to write his unanswered thoughts.

the way you spoke to him not as an audience member but as an equal participant in silence. it wasn’t intimacy, yet. but it was recognition.

that was the truth of it.

"is it spring already, kuna?" the question came softly from the window seat, ryomen turned. you sat where you always sat whenever the weather changed-- curled against the broad windowsill, knees tucked beneath the oversized shirt. the afternoon light poured over your face in golden ribbons, though you couldn't see them.

you smiled toward the warmth, "c'mon, tell me what it looks like." you said, excited, he clicked his tongue, "it jus' looks like a season." your smile widened, "you're cheating."

"i don't cheat."

"you always cheat."

he stared at you for a long moment. they were twenty-four now. twenty-four, and somehow he'd spent almost two decades doing this. he remembered the first time. he'd been seven years old and furious.

furious because his parents had forced him to attend some neighborhood festival, furious because the food was terrible, furious because other children were loud and stupid and insisted on trying to play with him, god he could go on and onnn.

but furious, most of all, because a little boy had walked directly into him, dropped his candied apple, and apologized to the empty air beside his shoulder.

he'd glared, the summer heat already tolling up to him "are you an idiot?" you had blinked, then smiled, "oh. you're over there." as though you'd merely misplaced him.

"you blind?" he tilted his head, annoyed, "my grandma says i shouldn't answer questions asked so rudely." he'd nearly exploded. you had been six, dressed in some bright colored shirt and talkin ab some bs

you held out the sticky remains of your candied apple, "i'll share." his lips pulled into a nasty snark, "i don't want your disgusting apple."

"oh." you nodded, but smiled again, "that's fine, but could you tell me what the fireworks look like, then?" he remembered staring, the fireworks had begun overhead. people around them oohed and aahed and pretended colored explosions were somehow a profound experience.

he'd intended to walk away. instead, he'd looked up at the red sparks bloomed against the black sky. "they're red." you waited, "and?" he frowned, "i don't know, they're exploding."

you laughed and he remembered looking up again. the red had already disappeared. blue lights unfurled behind it, trailing silver. and for some reason, for some reason he'd heard himself say, "it looks like somebody tore a hole through the sky."

you'd gone still. "a hole?" he hummed, "yeah." he hated that he continued. "the edges are burning blue... and silver pieces keep falling out." you had smiled. "oh," you'd whispered.

and that had been the beginning.

"well?" your voice pulled him back. the apartment hummed quietly around them. outside, the city stretched beneath a pale afternoon sky. he sighed. "you really want to know?"

"always." he crossed the room. you turned your face toward the sound of his footsteps. there were people who thought blindness made someone fragile. idiots.

you had survived a world built for eyes you'd never possessed. you had learned streets by memory, voices by heartbeat, weather by scent. when a sense of yours was reduced, the others overpowered.

but there remained one thing you asked of him. describe it. describe all of it. he leaned against the window. "the trees are blooming, [name]." you waited. he hated that pause, because that meant that it was never enough.

"the petals..." he exhaled sharply. "the petals look like somebody stole pieces of the clouds and put them up together-- soft" your expression softened. "the wind keeps picking them up but they don't really fall."

he watched as a gust scattered blossoms across the street below, "they drift." you hummed, "like snow?" he paused, looking at you, "no." he frowned, "no. snow falls because it's dead." the words escaped before he could stop them.

"the petals..." his voice lowered. "the petals look alive, like they're choosing where to go." outside, thousands of pale blossoms turned through the air. "sometimes they move in circles." his throat tightened unexpectedly.

"and sometimes they pass right by each other." he swallowed. "and sometimes..." he laughed bitterly. "sometimes they spend the whole journey together."

silence overtook the room, "that's beautiful." he looked away, and scoffed, "it's flowers." you shook your head, and turned toward the window, "it's you, kuna"

he hated when you did that, hated when you said things that made his chest feel split open. so he changed the subject. "the sky's ugly though" you grinned, chuckling, "describe it." he closed his eyes. "it's..." he paused.

the sky was blue, just blue. but it was a stupid answer, a worthless one. he opened his eyes again. "the color fades the higher you look." you nodded. "how?"

"as if..." he frowned. "as if the world forgot how to keep painting." a breath of laughter left him, he continued despite himself. "and there are clouds."

"shape?"

"nothing."

"liar."

he glared, "you can't see me doing this shi, but just know that i am glaring at you." a small chuckle left you, "i can hear it, don't worry." he looked again. "one looks like a mountain, [name]."

"one looks like an old man sleeping." you smiled. "last one?" the last cloud stretched long and thin, drifting lazily through endless blue. his chest hurt.

"no there's more.. it looks like.." he stopped. "like what?" he remembered being twelve years old again. he remembered describing autumn leaves because you had cried after another child told you you'd never know what red looked like.

he remembered being fifteen and describing the ocean for four straight hours because you wanted to understand why people fell in love with it.

he remembered being seventeen and describing sunsets until his voice disappeared because you had confessed you were afraid everyone else was seeing a more beautiful world than you ever would.

he remembered promising you.

i'll tell you everything, everything. so you won't miss a single thing.

he looked at the cloud, "it looks like something trying very hard not to disappear." the room became silent. outside, life continued. and when he turned, you were crying.

he froze. "what-- what's wrong?" you laughed through the tears. "nothing." he furrowed his brows, confused "then why are you crying?"

"because..." you wiped your face. "cause it sounds beautiful." he stared, he had spent seventeen years trying to give you a world you could never see.

he had described thunderstorms as orchestras and cities as constellations buried in concrete. he went as far as describing winter mornings that looked like sleeping gods and summer nights that felt endless.

and all this time, he had never considered that perhaps you weren;t borrowing his eyes. perhaps you had been teaching him how to use them. you reached out and he took your hand automatically.

"tell me one more thing." he should have refused. "what is it?" you smiled that same smile you;d worn at six years old. "what do i look like?"

the question struck him harder than any wound he'd ever received. because you'd asked him this every year since they met. every. single. year. as if you believed people changed the way seasons did.

he looked at you. at the afternoon sun tangled in your hair, at the smile you'd somehow carried through a world that had given you every reason to lose it. at the face he had memorized so thoroughly that he feared he'd still see it after death.

and for the first time in twenty-four years, he discovered there were not enough words in the language. his voice, when it came, was rough, "you look like..." he stopped and tried again.

"you look like spring."

with the usual tilt of his head, he reaches out to run his thumb along the edges of the book spine, he knows you-- everyone knew you, an author who did very little to advertise yourself, but that's why the critics loved you.

you were effortless, somehow aligning your character with you works. you never wrote hope or comfort, you dissected them, made the readers feel like they reached an ending before making them realize there was no ending at all. that the pain continued, but the hope lingers like it's been locked in a room no one could ever escape from.

and suguru likes that.

a grip on his coffee tightening before pulling his baseball cap a tad down-- not that it covered anything. he steals the book even though he’s already read half of it standing there, eyes skimming lines that feel less written and more bled, like you poured down your soul.

you write about isolation like it’s a living thing, about minds folding in on themselves, about the terror of being truly seen-- and the deeper terror of never being seen at all. he reads until his coffee goes cold, until the world narrows to your sentences and the quiet hum of obsession forming something sharp and inevitable inside him.

geto googles you that night. watching panels, and interviews, analyzing photos-- always composed and distant. you answer questions with precision, no wasted movement or warmth offered unnecessarily. you were untouchable, but he loves a game, he always loves a game.

you're careful, ain't ya? just a bit too much. who are you really, [name]?

he quickly pauses a video where you glance down before answering a question about inspiration. a microsecond too long, a crack he finally found. the black haired man smiles, a small tug of lips.

he starts structuring his days around you without meaning to. your readings dictate his evenings, your social media-- though sparse, becomes something he studies like scripture.

you don't post any selfies nor any personal anecdotes. just announcements and quotes from obscure writers who hated themselves a little too much.

you keep yourself clean. is it so no one can figure you out? smart. but lonely.

he attends your next signing. he stands in line with your readers-- people who think they understand you because they underlined a paragraph or cried at the ending. he watches them clutch their books like holy talismans, watches you accept each one with polite detachment.

when it’s his turn, you look up. your eyes are unreadable, and it felt like time slowed down as he feels it then-- that subtle click in his chest. the sensation of being catalogued.

hello, you.

you don’t smile, "name?" you ask.

you're asking me for my name. you looked at me in my eye. you know me now.

"suguru geto," he says, voice gentle, you write it without comment or any further talks. you meant business. but your gaze lingers-- not suspiciously, rather attentively. and geto knew that look very well.

you see me.

you slide the book back to him, your fingers don’t brush his, it was intentional, and he noticed. "thank you for reading," you say. you didn't say enjoy, or for coming. but for reading.

he leaves floating.

from that moment on, the obsession stops pretending to be subtle. he re-reads your work, but now it’s personal. every metaphor becomes a clue. every recurring motives, locked doors, quotes, everything-- all of them feels like a message meant for someone paying close enough attention, for him.

you're talking to me. you just don't know it yet.

geto learns your routines the way he always does, not because he wants to, but because knowing feels like caring. café preferences, how you like your coffee black, your writing hours, the way you sit in public spaces with your back to walls. you don’t trust easily.

he imagines conversations with you where you finally let the mask slip. where you admit that the self-loathing you write isn’t abstract-- that it has a source, that it has a history.

but then again, he tells himself he doesn’t want anything from you. he doesn't want attention from you, not even ownership. just a sense of proximity, a privilege of witnessing you fully, being the one person who doesn’t demand softness from someone carved entirely out of restraint.

so at night, geto suguru lies awake with your book open on his chest, tracing sentences like scars. and he thinks to himself, about how people like you don't need saving, you just need someone who won't look away.

oh, he was convinced. and he has never looked away from anything he loved.

the certainty settles into him quietly, the way rot does-- a slow softening of boundaries he once pretended were intact. suguru tells himself this is different. because you are different.

and because fate has always been on his side, it happens without spectacle.

geto doesn’t approach you again, that would be crude. you are not someone he can stumble into without consequence. your presence alters rooms. people notice who speaks to you, and who is allowed proximity.

'observing' would be quiet difficult so he lets the world do what it always does for people like you, mediate. the email comes first.

a publisher’s mailing list he shouldn’t have access to. a forwarded invitation to a closed literary roundtable with no press. it was an off-the-record discussion moderated by someone who mistakes exclusivity for safety.

it was the kind of space where important people are allowed to pretend they are human again.

geto registers under his real name, he wasn't important, but it's not like people would question him. he sits at the far end of the table when you arrive.

you come in late, as expected. you always do-- timing honed to avoid the crush of introductions, the small talk that drains you before anything meaningful can begin. he knew you.

the room adjusts around you subtly, attention recalibrating as you take your seat without looking at him.

still so careful, he thinks.

the conversation unfolds the way these things always do, they talk about themes and structures and the death of narrative certainty, they gesture at darkness without ever touching it.

all while geto waits. you speak only once, but when you do, the room stills.

it’s an offhand comment-- almost thrown away about narrative responsibility. about how writers often confuse cruelty with honesty, and how restraint is the harder, braver choice.

a few people nod too quickly, suguru doesn’t, and you notice.

it’s barely a shift, your gaze flicks to him for half a second, but it’s enough. he meets your eyes without smiling, not a hint of approval or flattering in his gaze.

it was surprising to you, new even.

after the event geto ends up near the bar, flipping through a copy of a book he has no intention of buying. you’re beside him before either of you registers it fully, both reaching for the same glass of champagne.

your fingers don’t touch, they never do. "sorry," you say automatically, already pulling back, and the black haired man shakes his head. "you were right."

"about honesty?" you pause, a small pull of brow, as he nodded, a charming smile on his face. "you didn’t agree though,” the words aren’t accusatory but geto blinks in surprise, "oh?" he hums, softly.

you study him the way you study everyone, like a problem you won’t solve unless it’s worth the cost. "you didn’t nod," you say. "or perform disagreement."

"i wasn't so sure about what you said before," he clarifies. "but then again, most people use ‘honesty’ as an excuse to be indulgent." you study him for a moment longer than politeness requires.

"most people don’t notice that," you say. geto shrugs. "they notice. they just don’t like what it says about them."

you should leave. he knows that, hell-- even you know that. the calculus of risk ticks visibly behind your eyes and yet you continued.

"what did you think of the book?" you ask. "it wasn’t comforting," he says. "which i appreciated actually. it didn’t offer solutions where none existed."

you raised your brows, "that usually upsets people." he chuckled, shrugging, "i’m not people," geto says gently. there’s a beat, a pause where either of you could push this into something more.

your phone vibrates. a reminder of the world tugging you back into its approved lanes. you check your watch. "well," you say, already turning away, "it was nice meeting you."

geto watches you take three steps, then stop. you turn back, brows furrowed, not in suspicion, but in mild confusion, like a sentence you’re trying to place.

"i think," you say slowly, "i’ve seen you before." and suguru stills.

fuck. has he caught up? does he know i sneaked into this event?

not internally-- never internally, just enough to appear thoughtful. "have you?" "i don’t know," you admit, a small hum, "probably not." another pause.

and in that pause, geto considers a dozen responses, choosing the safest one. "books do that," he says. you hold his gaze for a second longer, as if testing whether that explanation fits. then you nod once.

"yes," you say. "that must be it." and so you leave, just to stop again

"suguru geto, isn't it?” you say, as if testing the name’s weight. "you read closely."

and now, you remember me.

that night, geto doesn’t tell himself it meant anything. he just replays the sound of your voice-- unperformative, like it was the real you, a curious man forced to write his unanswered thoughts.

the way you spoke to him not as an audience member but as an equal participant in silence. it wasn’t intimacy, yet. but it was recognition.

"are you.. uhm.. like.. made of copper and tellurium?" he waits painfully long before continuing, "because you’re Cu-Te." and when your thoughts are, tf is ts ho on ab, he scrambles around, mumbling to himself "no-- you know the periodic table? its.. its a chemistry joke aha.. sorry, do you.. do you want me to explain?"

AND HE FUCKING DOES EXPLAIN. like for two FULL minutes. this mf didn't even notice you choking on your coffee.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who decides to "play it cool" by casually sliding into the seat next to you in the library.

except he miscalculates the distance and before he knows it, the chair screeches loud and eventually falls along with the manchild.

but the great gojo satoru does NOOT give up, instead, he whispers while still laid out on the ground,

“i fell for you,” (tht korean heart thingy included) “are you done?” “yes, sorry.”

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who tries to be subtle. you’re prob complaining about being tired and this man, dead serious, will go on

“well, you must be exhausted.. from running through my mind all day,” he blurts.

there’s a pause. a loooong pause.

in his mind, he got you speechless-- which he did, just not for the right reason, and he starts nodding to himself like he’s proud.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who picks the worst possible time-- mid-argument about a group project,

“are you a 90-degree angle? because you’re looking right.”

he got tomatoes thrown at him after that.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who literally practices pickup lines in the mirror. he times them, with different ways of saying it, with different smiles-- deepen his dimples or lazy smirk? (he looks constipated doing it, but he's cute so lets slide it ok? ok.)

he's convinced you'll fall for him if he adjusts his glasses. but when he finally approaches you at the vending machine, all that comes out is,

"doyoubelieveinloveatfirstsight,orshouldiwalkpastagain?” im not kidding u when i say that this man actually turns around to redo it. while he’s halfway through the second attempt is when he trips over someone’s bag AND THEN CONTINUED TO WALK.

you didn't understand what he said, so for you, gojo rapped some bs, walked all the way towards the gates, returned back after falling face first just to hit you with a pose with his hands on his hips.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who thinks the best time to confess he likes you is during a study group. in front of everyone because he read somewhere that confidence is attractive. so when you lean over his shoulder to look at his notes, he freezes, ears red, and says way too loudly,

"if you were a triangle, you’d be acute one." the room goes silent. you blink at him. he immediately adds, softer this time, "i mean… you are. cute. not-- mathematically. i mean, also mathematically, but--"

he doesn’t sleep that night. but he keeps the way you smiled at him stored like a sacred relic.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who pretends the cheesy lines are ironic, but he highlights the ones he thinks would make you laugh specifically. he notices the way you tuck your hair behind your ear. he notices when you’re tired. he notices everything.

"are you.. uhm.. like.. made of copper and tellurium?" he waits painfully long before continuing, "because you’re Cu-Te." and when your thoughts are, tf is ts ho on ab, he scrambles around, mumbling to himself "no-- you know the periodic table? its.. its a chemistry joke aha.. sorry, do you.. do you want me to explain?"

AND HE FUCKING DOES EXPLAIN. like for two FULL minutes. this mf didn't even notice you choking on your coffee.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who decides to "play it cool" by casually sliding into the seat next to you in the library.

except he miscalculates the distance and before he knows it, the chair screeches loud and eventually falls along with the manchild.

but the great gojo satoru does NOOT give up, instead, he whispers while still laid out on the ground,

“i fell for you,” (tht korean heart thingy included) “are you done?” “yes, sorry.”

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who tries to be subtle. you’re prob complaining about being tired and this man, dead serious, will go on

“well, you must be exhausted.. from running through my mind all day,” he blurts.

there’s a pause. a loooong pause.

in his mind, he got you speechless-- which he did, just not for the right reason, and he starts nodding to himself like he’s proud.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who picks the worst possible time-- mid-argument about a group project,

“are you a 90-degree angle? because you’re looking right.”

he got tomatoes thrown at him after that.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who literally practices pickup lines in the mirror. he times them, with different ways of saying it, with different smiles-- deepen his dimples or lazy smirk? (he looks constipated doing it, but he's cute so lets slide it ok? ok.)

he's convinced you'll fall for him if he adjusts his glasses. but when he finally approaches you at the vending machine, all that comes out is,

"doyoubelieveinloveatfirstsight,orshouldiwalkpastagain?” im not kidding u when i say that this man actually turns around to redo it. while he’s halfway through the second attempt is when he trips over someone’s bag AND THEN CONTINUED TO WALK.

you didn't understand what he said, so for you, gojo rapped some bs, walked all the way towards the gates, returned back after falling face first just to hit you with a pose with his hands on his hips.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who thinks the best time to confess he likes you is during a study group. in front of everyone because he read somewhere that confidence is attractive. so when you lean over his shoulder to look at his notes, he freezes, ears red, and says way too loudly,

"if you were a triangle, you’d be acute one." the room goes silent. you blink at him. he immediately adds, softer this time, "i mean… you are. cute. not-- mathematically. i mean, also mathematically, but--"

he doesn’t sleep that night. but he keeps the way you smiled at him stored like a sacred relic.

ಎ ⎯⎯ ✉️

nerd 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 who pretends the cheesy lines are ironic, but he highlights the ones he thinks would make you laugh specifically. he notices the way you tuck your hair behind your ear. he notices when you’re tired. he notices everything.

from their very first introduction, he disliked your eyes. too attentive, he thought. you watched him with the kind of suspicion most people never afforded him, as if you smelled the rot under the polish.

it wasn’t overt-- you never accused, never voiced your thoughts aloud. but hannibal was a man who noticed the smallest hesitation, the faintest tightening at the corners of a mouth. you doubted him. he saw it and he catalogued it.

that alone was reason enough to kill you.

his first plan had been clean, simple. a moment alone, an accident contrived, another name added to the list of tragedies that shadowed will graham’s life. no one would question it. you were no one of consequence-- not to the bureau, not to the world. but you were a consequence to will. and that was why hannibal stayed his hand.

for every time he watched you laugh with will, for every moment you drew that fragile, fractured man away from his own darkness, hannibal’s distaste grew. it was not jealousy-- no, hannibal did not lower himself to something so human. rather, it was insult, interference. you touched something that hannibal had claimed, if not in body, then in spirit.

and yet, the more he observed, the more he found his irritation tempering into something else. your doubts about him were clumsy but persistent, like a child pressing at a locked door.

you asked questions that no one else asked, stared too long at the wrong times. he had not killed you immediately, and now he wondered if it was because some part of him wanted to see how far you might go.

obsession is often mistaken for interest, and interest mistaken for affection but hannibal knew better, he knew what he felt for you was neither. you were an anomaly. an unexpected thread in the tapestry of will graham’s unraveling mind. and hannibal did not tolerate loose threads-- he studied them, pulled them, until the whole cloth came apart.

hannibal lecter began to watch you more closely. and in that watching, he began to hate you less. which, for hannibal, was far more dangerous.

he invited you into his office once. a courtesy, or so it seemed. will had canceled their appointment, exhaustion, perhaps, or avoidance. and you had offered to come in his stead, carrying notes he’d written in his uneven scrawl. hannibal might have refused, but curiosity overcame him, hence the hesitant invitation.

you stepped into the room, careful, your stern gaze moving over the bookshelves, the artifacts, the paintings that lined his walls. few visitors noticed the weight of his curation. fewer still looked unsettled by it, you were one of them.

“you’ve made this place feel..” you searched for the word, eyes flicking briefly to him, “timeless. like it doesn’t belong in this century.”

hannibal’s lips curved into the faintest smile. “thank you. i take great care in crafting an environment that puts my patients at ease.”

your brow lifted, skeptical. “does it?”

“does it not?”

“not for me,” you said simply,

lowering yourself onto the chair across from his desk. hannibal folded his hands and studied you, the way one might study an unexpected move on a chessboard. most people lied in these moments, smoothing over their discomfort with politeness but you offered your truth instead, unflinching, as though daring him to contest it.

“you carry a certain.. suspicion,” hannibal remarked after a pause, earning a shrug from you. “i carry suspicion of most people.”

“understandable, given the company you keep,” he said smoothly. “will does not invite many close to him. and those he does invite.. often pay a price.”

your gaze sharpened at that, like a blade catching light. “you speak as if you know how this will end.” hannibal let silence stretch between them, enjoying the tension it wrought. then, delicately, "perhaps i do.”

you did not look away, you never did with him and this intrigued him most. most people flinched under his gaze, but you met it, even when it unsettled you. especially when it unsettled you. “will trusts you,” you said finally, leaning back. “that’s the only reason i’m here.”

“and you do not?”

your lips pressed into a line. for a moment, hannibal thought you might finally voice the doubt that hovered behind your eyes. but then you answered, “i don’t know yet.”

that answer seemed to please him.

a clean slate, not trust nor rejection, but a middle ground ripe for cultivation. "i admire your honesty. it is.. refreshing." you glanced at him, expression unreadable. “i don’t think you’d admire it if i told you everything.” you took a sharp breath, crossing your legs, "people see the version of you you let them see. perfect office. perfect manners. perfect taste. that much perfection usually means something’s missing, don't you think so?”

hannibal’s smile deepened, though his eyes did not warm. “and what do you think is missing?” you met his gaze head-on, despite the unease prickling at your skin. “haven’t decided that yet.”

that answer earned a smirk. most people would have tried to flatter, or brush their doubts aside. you let your breathe in the open air, bold yet unarguably, dangerous.

he poured two glasses of wine, his movements precise, deliberate. he set one before you before taking a seat before you, noticing your hesitation, eyes fixed as you lifted it, though you did not drink.

“will is fragile,” hannibal said quietly. “he wears it like a second skin. people who draw too close to him tend to suffer for it.” you arched a brow. “you've been bringing that topic up, is that a warning?”

“a truth.”

“and you? do you draw close to him.. or do you watch him suffer?”

hannibal paused mid-sip. it was a sharp question, sharper than he had expected and his smile returned, faint and unreadable. “i draw close,” he said at last. “but suffering is part of closeness, isn’t it?”

your fingers tapped against the stem of your glass, restless. he watched you carefully-- the way you sat in his presence but refused to relax into it. most prey tried to look comfortable, even when afraid. you didn’t bother with the performance.

and that, he finally decided, was what made you so fascinating.

you hadn’t touched your wine. hannibal noted that first-- the restraint, the small rebellion. most people surrendered under the weight of his hospitality, desperate to appear polite. you didn’t.

“you care for will deeply,” hannibal began, as if stating a fact instead of asking. your chin lifted. “he’s my friend.”

“friendship,” hannibal mused, “is such a curious thing. a fragile bond, built on trust. and yet, will does not trust easily. why do you think he allows you so close?”

you frowned slightly. “you’d have to ask him that.”

“but i am asking you.”

hannibal’s gaze pinned you, patient and unyielding. he wanted to hear your theory-- not because he needed it, but because the act of reaching for it would reveal you. you folded your arms tighter.

“maybe because i don’t push,” you said finally. “people want things from him all the time. answers, insight, pieces of himself he doesn’t want to give. i don’t do that.”

“mm.” hannibal tilted his head, considering. “and yet here you are, speaking to me about him.” you hesitated. that was the trap, wasn’t it? your eyes flicked down to the untouched wine. “only because he asked me to bring something over.”

“but you stayed,” hannibal countered softly. “and i wonder why." your pulse flickered in your throat. he saw it-- the smallest betrayals of the body never escaped him. you were unsettled, but not afraid. not yet.

“maybe i wanted to see for myself,” you admitted, finally raising your eyes to meet his. “will talks about you sometimes. i wanted to understand why.”

“and what do you understand now?”

you didn’t answer immediately. your gaze searched him, lingering on the mask he wore so well. then, with startling honesty, "you’re too perfect. that’s what i understand. and it bothers me.”

for a long moment, hannibal was silent. he simply looked at you, the faintest smile curving his mouth. most people’s suspicions bored him. yours, however, thrilled him, excited him even. you pointed out what most missed, and gosh.. he was enchanted.

“you are an unusual person,” hannibal said at last. his voice was calm, but his mind was sharpening its knives. “but i get it, will is drawn to unusual creatures. he collects them, much like he collects his dogs.”

your jaw tightened. “i’m not one of his dogs.”

“no,” hannibal agreed softly. “you are not.” he leaned back, fingers steepled. already, he was rethinking his first impulse to kill you. there was something far more entertaining in letting you live. for now.

...

it did not happen all at once. hannibal never rushed a design. he laid it piece by piece, subtle strokes on a canvas only he could see. with you, it began with patience. where will pushed you away in silence, hannibal opened the door.

he listened and he received. he made himself the stillness you craved when will’s storms threatened to consume you.

at first, you told yourself it was temporary-- that you were only coming to him because will was too fragile, or too tired. but repetition breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds trust.

each visit, you lingered longer. each confession, you left behind a little more of your resistance. and hannibal? oh he took his chances.

he fed it carefully. a word of reassurance here, a nod of validation there. he never argued, never chastised, never left you feeling unheard. he offered the illusion that he could solve every problem you carried to him, that his hands were capable of mending what will’s could not touch. and slowly, you began to believe it.

the shift was imperceptible to you, but hannibal saw it clearly. he measured it in gestures, in body language, in the smallest of choices.

the first time, you had refused his wine. your suspicion had kept the glass untouched, your lips pressed firm against your doubt. but later, months later, when he poured again, you lifted it. you sipped.

it was nothing to you, a simple act of politeness. but to hannibal, it was revelation. in that one sip, you had crossed the invisible line between mistrust and surrender. not surrender of will, not yet, but surrender of caution.

you had placed something of yourself in his hands, and you did not even know it. hannibal savored that moment more than the wine itself.

you had once been a nuisance, a stray he considered culling from will’s orbit. now, you were something far more valuable, proof that even suspicion could be reshaped into reliance, that even the wary could learn to lean.

and in that trust, hannibal found the first sweet taste of his obsession. the irritation was gone. in its place, something far more dangerous had taken root.

...

he invites you to dinner. not at will’s house, not somewhere public, but at his own table, in his dining room, where every detail has been chosen to soothe, to entice. you tell yourself it is curiosity, that you want to understand him, to see him beyond will’s stories.

you arrive carrying a vintage wine as a small gift out of habit, but he waves it away with a polite smile. “there's no need of that,” he says. “your presence is enough.”

the table is immaculate. candles flicker, soft light spilling over polished silver and fine china. he gestures for you to sit. he moves with the ease of someone accustomed to control, and you cannot help but notice how natural it feels to follow him, to wait for his direction.

he serves the meal with deliberate grace. the aroma is intoxicating, familiar, almost domestic. your stomach tightens-- you are hungry, but there is an edge to your hunger now, a tension you do not fully understand.

you taste the first bite. warmth spreads through your chest, comfort laced with an unfamiliar thrill. he watches you closely, assessing, his gaze neither harsh nor indulgent.

and when you swallow, you sip the wine he poured. this time, you do not hesitate. this time, it is not just politeness-- it is trust, fragile and profound, that you place entirely in his hands without realizing what you are doing.

the meal continues, effortlessly intimate. the flavor lingers, subtle. you think of someone you once knew, now gone, but you push the thought aside. he guides the conversation, the mood, the rhythm. you relax into it, unaware of what you have eaten, unaware of the danger that shadows every sip and bite.

you lean closer without realizing it. you linger longer than you intended. every gesture, every small glance, pulls you further into his orbit. by the end of the night, you feel a quiet certainty, a dependence you cannot name. he can hold the world in a way you cannot, and he has made you feel safe within it.

...

it begins quietly, like all of his moves. you are tired, your thoughts heavy, will’s calls gone unanswered more often than not. hannibal knows this. he has built it. each session, each dinner, each small kindness has been a stone laid carefully between you and the world until only a narrow path leads back-- and that path runs through him.

he calls you one evening, not to invite you but to warn you. his voice is low, urgent, but still calm. he tells you there are people who might harm you, that your name has been spoken in rooms you should not be connected to. he doesn’t say who. he doesn’t need to.

fear rushes in like cold water, and hannibal was a man who knew how to dance with fear. he tells you to come to him. “it’s safer here.”

you do.

his home is dimly lit, warm, like always. the smell of something rich on the stove. but tonight there is no table laid out, no music. he sits you down instead, pours you wine-- a darker, heavier red than before and waits until you drink. and you do drink. no hesitation now.

he begins to speak softly, explaining things about will, about cases, about threats. his words are smooth, clean, but under them there is a current, you are not safe anywhere but here. you are not understood anywhere but here.

then the risk, a confession, half‑truth and half‑lie. he tells you he has intervened on your behalf. that someone who meant to hurt you will not be able to anymore. he doesn’t tell you how. he lets your imagination build it for him.

the shock is real. the fear is real. but stronger still is the relief. your heart pounds and then steadies under his gaze. you realize-- or you think you realize, that he is the only one willing to do what it takes for you.

when he reaches across the space between you, his hand brushes yours, not a caress but an anchor. and you let it stay.

by the time the night is over, your world has shifted. will’s number sits ignored on your phone. the wine sits empty. hannibal’s voice fills the quiet in your head where doubt used to live.

his final move was not a threat, not a demand. it was a gift-- fear removed, safety given. it was also a cage you stepped into on your own.

you don’t even see the door close behind you.

not even how he watches you across the room as you sleep on his couch, wine‑stained glass still on the table. your breathing is steady now, the tension drained from your body. you are here because you chose to be-- or at least, you believe you did.

he moves with his usual precision, straightening a book on the desk, closing a drawer with a soft click. the kitchen still smells faintly of the meal he made for you. everything in the room carries his signature, even you.

he studies you the way a composer studies a finished piece, not with sentiment, but with satisfaction. you were a variable once, a potential threat. you are no longer any of those things.

you are his creation now-- a living portrait of trust, fear, and dependence, framed by his careful hands. the risk he took tonight was not in saving you, but in revealing just enough of himself for you to step willingly into his world.

you shift in your sleep, and he smiles faintly, a shadow of warmth without heat.

hannibal is not in love with you.

hannibal is in control of you.

and in the silence of his house, with the door shut and locked, he knows that the game is over.

freshly twenty years old. lean and sunburnt, with pale sea-salt curls constantly falling onto his sharp blue eyes. a scar split through his eyebrow, pale against skin, and another crossed the corner of his mouth.

he spoke rarely, and when he did, it was through rough hands moving faster than most men could think. the crew learned his language eventually. gojo moved through the ship like he belonged to the ocean more than the deck beneath him, felt vibrations through wood before anyone else sensed danger.

and you first saw him on a moonless night. lingering beneath the ship like a shadow beneath candlelight, crystal eyes following the silhouette leaning over the railing.

for you, sailors were easy creatures to lure.

they were lonely, greedy men. men who mistook beauty for mercy. you had drowned hundreds, sometimes gently, sometimes not. but this one-- the white haired man didn’t react when you sang.

the melody rose through black water, soft as silk. usually, by the first verse, sailors would already be stumbling toward the edge with glassy eyes and parted lips.

but this boy remained still, and your song curled around him uselessly. no widened pupils, nor turns of head-- it infuriated you. only the steady movement of his fingers against the railing as he stared into the sea.

you narrowed your eyes. impossible.

you had long dark hair drifting around you like spilled ink, tangled with pearls and bits of gold chains taken from the drowned men and women alike. your tail shimmered deep blue beneath moonlight, scales sharp as blades near the fin.

beautiful, terrifyingly beautiful.

you surfaced silently beside the ship, only your eyes visible above water. the boy looked down, and instead of fear, curiosity swirled beneath his pure blue eyes, as if he’d discovered a star fallen into the ocean.

at first, he thinks, someone fell overboard. so he grabs a rope instinctively, but then the figure doesn’t call for help, doesn’t splash. it just watches him. and the longer he stares, the more wrong it becomes.

hair floating despite no current, eyes unblinking, a face too perfect in a way humans aren’t, and beneath the water-- something massive shifting.

and instead of backing away immediately, curiosity overrides survival instinct for one fatal second.

you stared. humans never looked at you like that. they looked hungry, sometimes enchanted, perhaps with a hidden terrified soul. but never curious and so you sang louder.

nothing.

the boy tilted his head slightly, confused by your expression now. then he tapped two fingers against his own ear and shook his head once. understanding struck you like lightning. deaf.

the pirate was fucking deaf.

for the first time in nearly three centuries, you laughed. after that, you followed the ship constantly, fascination, you first made yourself believe, he was a pirate after all, eventually he would fall too.

ever since, gojo began noticing strange things.

fish gathered near the vessel in impossible numbers, storms bent away from their route. once, he glanced overboard and caught pale silver eyes beneath the waves before vanishing water swallowed them whole. he knew it was you, and so he started waiting for you at night.

every evening after the crew slept, he drifted toward the railing with a lantern in hand, and every evening, you appeared. sometimes only your eyes surfaced, sometimes your entire figure rose from the sea like something sculpted from moonlight. the first real conversation between you two happened without sound.

the white haired pirate sat cross-legged at the edge of the deck while you floated beside the ship. he pointed toward himself, then signed carefully. gojo satoru.

you watched his hands, brows furrowing, how were you supposed to know sign language? then you touched your chest, "[name]," you said aloud. he couldn’t hear it.

but he watched the shape of your mouth carefully and repeated it softly, "[name]." something strange flickered across your face.

sailors had screamed your name before, but ever spoken it gently.

weeks passed, then months, then the sea became their strange little world. gojo taught you signs, and at first, you mocked them. god, there were too many movements-- too human.

but eventually you began using them anyway, awkwardly at first. idiot, gojo signed one night after you splashed freezing water directly into his face. you grinned wickedly, idiot, you copied back incorrectly, accidentally calling him a fish instead.

he laughed so hard he nearly fell overboard, the soundless laugh shook his shoulders violently, and you stared at him longer than necessary. you realized then that you had become addicted to expressions you could never hear.

but humans and sirens were not creatures built for peace.

the captain discovered you eventually.

captain yaga was a cruel skinny man with gold teeth and a permanent smell of rum soaked into his skin. he’d noticed gojo disappearing nightly, noticed the calm waters where storms should’ve destroyed them.

and then he saw you.

beautiful enough to start wars, but valuable enough to end them, "there’s fortune in that creature," he told the crew, "sirens fetch kingdoms!" he grinned so wickedly that gojo understood immediately from their faces alone.

panic exploded through him, he signed furiously, NO. but sailors were already loading harpoons. that night, you surfaced, with no hesitation, trusting your soul, your voice with a pirate.

and found iron chains waiting. the harpoon struck through your shoulder before you could dive. blood spread black through seawater, your scream tore across the ocean. and though satoru couldn’t hear it, he saw it.

saw the agony twisting your face, the terror replacing the fury as chains dragged you toward the ship. something inside him snapped. sailors shouted and guns were fired while waves slammed against wood.

gojo moved through it like a storm given human shape. a knife buried into one sailor’s shoulder, another collapsed after smashing into the mast. captain yaga grabbed gojo by the throat and snarled something vicious.

satoru only saw his mouth moving, then he drove a blade between the captain’s ribs. once, twice, until he couldn't count anymore, until the man stopped moving. the ocean erupted violently around the ship, because sirens did not forgive cruelty.

you ripped free from the chains with blood-covered claws. waves rose monstrously high, swallowing screaming sailors whole, the ship cracked apart beneath the fury of the sea itself. and through all the destruction, you only looked at gojo. standing alone amid ruin, bleeding.

by dawn, nothing remained of the ship except wreckage drifting across endless water. the deaf pirate floated on a broken piece of mast, barely conscious. the sea beneath him glowed faintly blue. then you emerged.

in daylight, you looked less terrifying, your once sharp eyes were round around the edges, the fangs now smaller, your wound had already begun healing.

and when your eyes met his blue ones, for a long moment neither moved. then gojo lifted trembling hands. you came back. you stared at the signs carefully. you answered in imperfect movements.

that was the truth of it.

"is it spring already, kuna?" the question came softly from the window seat, ryomen turned. you sat where you always sat whenever the weather changed-- curled against the broad windowsill, knees tucked beneath the oversized shirt. the afternoon light poured over your face in golden ribbons, though you couldn't see them.

you smiled toward the warmth, "c'mon, tell me what it looks like." you said, excited, he clicked his tongue, "it jus' looks like a season." your smile widened, "you're cheating."

"i don't cheat."

"you always cheat."

he stared at you for a long moment. they were twenty-four now. twenty-four, and somehow he'd spent almost two decades doing this. he remembered the first time. he'd been seven years old and furious.

furious because his parents had forced him to attend some neighborhood festival, furious because the food was terrible, furious because other children were loud and stupid and insisted on trying to play with him, god he could go on and onnn.

but furious, most of all, because a little boy had walked directly into him, dropped his candied apple, and apologized to the empty air beside his shoulder.

he'd glared, the summer heat already tolling up to him "are you an idiot?" you had blinked, then smiled, "oh. you're over there." as though you'd merely misplaced him.

"you blind?" he tilted his head, annoyed, "my grandma says i shouldn't answer questions asked so rudely." he'd nearly exploded. you had been six, dressed in some bright colored shirt and talkin ab some bs

you held out the sticky remains of your candied apple, "i'll share." his lips pulled into a nasty snark, "i don't want your disgusting apple."

"oh." you nodded, but smiled again, "that's fine, but could you tell me what the fireworks look like, then?" he remembered staring, the fireworks had begun overhead. people around them oohed and aahed and pretended colored explosions were somehow a profound experience.

he'd intended to walk away. instead, he'd looked up at the red sparks bloomed against the black sky. "they're red." you waited, "and?" he frowned, "i don't know, they're exploding."

you laughed and he remembered looking up again. the red had already disappeared. blue lights unfurled behind it, trailing silver. and for some reason, for some reason he'd heard himself say, "it looks like somebody tore a hole through the sky."

you'd gone still. "a hole?" he hummed, "yeah." he hated that he continued. "the edges are burning blue... and silver pieces keep falling out." you had smiled. "oh," you'd whispered.

and that had been the beginning.

"well?" your voice pulled him back. the apartment hummed quietly around them. outside, the city stretched beneath a pale afternoon sky. he sighed. "you really want to know?"

"always." he crossed the room. you turned your face toward the sound of his footsteps. there were people who thought blindness made someone fragile. idiots.

you had survived a world built for eyes you'd never possessed. you had learned streets by memory, voices by heartbeat, weather by scent. when a sense of yours was reduced, the others overpowered.

but there remained one thing you asked of him. describe it. describe all of it. he leaned against the window. "the trees are blooming, [name]." you waited. he hated that pause, because that meant that it was never enough.

"the petals..." he exhaled sharply. "the petals look like somebody stole pieces of the clouds and put them up together-- soft" your expression softened. "the wind keeps picking them up but they don't really fall."

he watched as a gust scattered blossoms across the street below, "they drift." you hummed, "like snow?" he paused, looking at you, "no." he frowned, "no. snow falls because it's dead." the words escaped before he could stop them.

"the petals..." his voice lowered. "the petals look alive, like they're choosing where to go." outside, thousands of pale blossoms turned through the air. "sometimes they move in circles." his throat tightened unexpectedly.

"and sometimes they pass right by each other." he swallowed. "and sometimes..." he laughed bitterly. "sometimes they spend the whole journey together."

silence overtook the room, "that's beautiful." he looked away, and scoffed, "it's flowers." you shook your head, and turned toward the window, "it's you, kuna"

he hated when you did that, hated when you said things that made his chest feel split open. so he changed the subject. "the sky's ugly though" you grinned, chuckling, "describe it." he closed his eyes. "it's..." he paused.

the sky was blue, just blue. but it was a stupid answer, a worthless one. he opened his eyes again. "the color fades the higher you look." you nodded. "how?"

"as if..." he frowned. "as if the world forgot how to keep painting." a breath of laughter left him, he continued despite himself. "and there are clouds."

"shape?"

"nothing."

"liar."

he glared, "you can't see me doing this shi, but just know that i am glaring at you." a small chuckle left you, "i can hear it, don't worry." he looked again. "one looks like a mountain, [name]."

"one looks like an old man sleeping." you smiled. "last one?" the last cloud stretched long and thin, drifting lazily through endless blue. his chest hurt.

"no there's more.. it looks like.." he stopped. "like what?" he remembered being twelve years old again. he remembered describing autumn leaves because you had cried after another child told you you'd never know what red looked like.

he remembered being fifteen and describing the ocean for four straight hours because you wanted to understand why people fell in love with it.

he remembered being seventeen and describing sunsets until his voice disappeared because you had confessed you were afraid everyone else was seeing a more beautiful world than you ever would.

he remembered promising you.

i'll tell you everything, everything. so you won't miss a single thing.

he looked at the cloud, "it looks like something trying very hard not to disappear." the room became silent. outside, life continued. and when he turned, you were crying.

he froze. "what-- what's wrong?" you laughed through the tears. "nothing." he furrowed his brows, confused "then why are you crying?"

"because..." you wiped your face. "cause it sounds beautiful." he stared, he had spent seventeen years trying to give you a world you could never see.

he had described thunderstorms as orchestras and cities as constellations buried in concrete. he went as far as describing winter mornings that looked like sleeping gods and summer nights that felt endless.

and all this time, he had never considered that perhaps you weren;t borrowing his eyes. perhaps you had been teaching him how to use them. you reached out and he took your hand automatically.

"tell me one more thing." he should have refused. "what is it?" you smiled that same smile you;d worn at six years old. "what do i look like?"

the question struck him harder than any wound he'd ever received. because you'd asked him this every year since they met. every. single. year. as if you believed people changed the way seasons did.

he looked at you. at the afternoon sun tangled in your hair, at the smile you'd somehow carried through a world that had given you every reason to lose it. at the face he had memorized so thoroughly that he feared he'd still see it after death.

and for the first time in twenty-four years, he discovered there were not enough words in the language. his voice, when it came, was rough, "you look like..." he stopped and tried again.

"you look like spring."

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.

that was the truth of it.

"is it spring already, kuna?" the question came softly from the window seat, ryomen turned. you sat where you always sat whenever the weather changed-- curled against the broad windowsill, knees tucked beneath the oversized shirt. the afternoon light poured over your face in golden ribbons, though you couldn't see them.

you smiled toward the warmth, "c'mon, tell me what it looks like." you said, excited, he clicked his tongue, "it jus' looks like a season." your smile widened, "you're cheating."

"i don't cheat."

"you always cheat."

he stared at you for a long moment. they were twenty-four now. twenty-four, and somehow he'd spent almost two decades doing this. he remembered the first time. he'd been seven years old and furious.

furious because his parents had forced him to attend some neighborhood festival, furious because the food was terrible, furious because other children were loud and stupid and insisted on trying to play with him, god he could go on and onnn.

but furious, most of all, because a little boy had walked directly into him, dropped his candied apple, and apologized to the empty air beside his shoulder.

he'd glared, the summer heat already tolling up to him "are you an idiot?" you had blinked, then smiled, "oh. you're over there." as though you'd merely misplaced him.

"you blind?" he tilted his head, annoyed, "my grandma says i shouldn't answer questions asked so rudely." he'd nearly exploded. you had been six, dressed in some bright colored shirt and talkin ab some bs

you held out the sticky remains of your candied apple, "i'll share." his lips pulled into a nasty snark, "i don't want your disgusting apple."

"oh." you nodded, but smiled again, "that's fine, but could you tell me what the fireworks look like, then?" he remembered staring, the fireworks had begun overhead. people around them oohed and aahed and pretended colored explosions were somehow a profound experience.

he'd intended to walk away. instead, he'd looked up at the red sparks bloomed against the black sky. "they're red." you waited, "and?" he frowned, "i don't know, they're exploding."

you laughed and he remembered looking up again. the red had already disappeared. blue lights unfurled behind it, trailing silver. and for some reason, for some reason he'd heard himself say, "it looks like somebody tore a hole through the sky."

you'd gone still. "a hole?" he hummed, "yeah." he hated that he continued. "the edges are burning blue... and silver pieces keep falling out." you had smiled. "oh," you'd whispered.

and that had been the beginning.

"well?" your voice pulled him back. the apartment hummed quietly around them. outside, the city stretched beneath a pale afternoon sky. he sighed. "you really want to know?"

"always." he crossed the room. you turned your face toward the sound of his footsteps. there were people who thought blindness made someone fragile. idiots.

you had survived a world built for eyes you'd never possessed. you had learned streets by memory, voices by heartbeat, weather by scent. when a sense of yours was reduced, the others overpowered.

but there remained one thing you asked of him. describe it. describe all of it. he leaned against the window. "the trees are blooming, [name]." you waited. he hated that pause, because that meant that it was never enough.

"the petals..." he exhaled sharply. "the petals look like somebody stole pieces of the clouds and put them up together-- soft" your expression softened. "the wind keeps picking them up but they don't really fall."

he watched as a gust scattered blossoms across the street below, "they drift." you hummed, "like snow?" he paused, looking at you, "no." he frowned, "no. snow falls because it's dead." the words escaped before he could stop them.

"the petals..." his voice lowered. "the petals look alive, like they're choosing where to go." outside, thousands of pale blossoms turned through the air. "sometimes they move in circles." his throat tightened unexpectedly.

"and sometimes they pass right by each other." he swallowed. "and sometimes..." he laughed bitterly. "sometimes they spend the whole journey together."

silence overtook the room, "that's beautiful." he looked away, and scoffed, "it's flowers." you shook your head, and turned toward the window, "it's you, kuna"

he hated when you did that, hated when you said things that made his chest feel split open. so he changed the subject. "the sky's ugly though" you grinned, chuckling, "describe it." he closed his eyes. "it's..." he paused.

the sky was blue, just blue. but it was a stupid answer, a worthless one. he opened his eyes again. "the color fades the higher you look." you nodded. "how?"

"as if..." he frowned. "as if the world forgot how to keep painting." a breath of laughter left him, he continued despite himself. "and there are clouds."

"shape?"

"nothing."

"liar."

he glared, "you can't see me doing this shi, but just know that i am glaring at you." a small chuckle left you, "i can hear it, don't worry." he looked again. "one looks like a mountain, [name]."

"one looks like an old man sleeping." you smiled. "last one?" the last cloud stretched long and thin, drifting lazily through endless blue. his chest hurt.

"no there's more.. it looks like.." he stopped. "like what?" he remembered being twelve years old again. he remembered describing autumn leaves because you had cried after another child told you you'd never know what red looked like.

he remembered being fifteen and describing the ocean for four straight hours because you wanted to understand why people fell in love with it.

he remembered being seventeen and describing sunsets until his voice disappeared because you had confessed you were afraid everyone else was seeing a more beautiful world than you ever would.

he remembered promising you.

i'll tell you everything, everything. so you won't miss a single thing.

he looked at the cloud, "it looks like something trying very hard not to disappear." the room became silent. outside, life continued. and when he turned, you were crying.

he froze. "what-- what's wrong?" you laughed through the tears. "nothing." he furrowed his brows, confused "then why are you crying?"

"because..." you wiped your face. "cause it sounds beautiful." he stared, he had spent seventeen years trying to give you a world you could never see.

he had described thunderstorms as orchestras and cities as constellations buried in concrete. he went as far as describing winter mornings that looked like sleeping gods and summer nights that felt endless.

and all this time, he had never considered that perhaps you weren;t borrowing his eyes. perhaps you had been teaching him how to use them. you reached out and he took your hand automatically.

"tell me one more thing." he should have refused. "what is it?" you smiled that same smile you;d worn at six years old. "what do i look like?"

the question struck him harder than any wound he'd ever received. because you'd asked him this every year since they met. every. single. year. as if you believed people changed the way seasons did.

he looked at you. at the afternoon sun tangled in your hair, at the smile you'd somehow carried through a world that had given you every reason to lose it. at the face he had memorized so thoroughly that he feared he'd still see it after death.

and for the first time in twenty-four years, he discovered there were not enough words in the language. his voice, when it came, was rough, "you look like..." he stopped and tried again.

"you look like spring."

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who softened only when you wrapped your arms around his waist at red lights. he never admitted it, but he slowed down when you were on the bike. only for you.

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who adopted a dog on impulse just for you. you insisted that it had the "saddest puppy eyes ever.” sukuna pretended he didn’t care, made excuses of how it would scratch his seats and chew on his boots. but when the dog refused to sleep unless it was between the two of you, he never complained.

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who’d wake up early to walk the dog while you slept in, who’d roll his eyes when you bought toys, who secretly took photos of you playing with the dog on his phone, please believe him when he says he'll disown the dog if you let him

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who chuckled when you’d scold him about speed constantly. swatting his arm at red lights while telling him that one day you’d leave him if he kept racing like that. he would smirk, "you won’t.”

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who thought there was time. there’s always time, until there isn’t. just one second of asphalt, and a mistake that wasn’t even his. and everything goes wrong when your name leaves his mouth before the impact.

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who woke up to an overwhelming silence. the hospital room smelled sterile and his body felt wrong. bruised ribs, fractured shoulder, stitches across his tattooed skin that you used to trace with your fingers.

biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who didn’t ask about the bike or him, but about you. and when the answer didn’t come the way he needed it to, something in him stopped moving. not his body-- his life.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who never touched a motorcycle again. the garage stayed locked, as your helmet gathered dust. his friends tried cheering him up, brought new models, said he could ride again, said it wasn’t his fault and that he was still the best rider they knew. he shut himself out.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who noticed how the dog waited by the door for days and whined at the sound of engines outside, who slept on your side of the bed like it expected you to return.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who after that day, if he ever drove a car-- and that itself was rare, he drove painfully slow. so slow people honked at him, that it irritated everyone. but he didn’t care, speed had taken something from him and he wasn’t bargaining with it again.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 whos hands tremble whenever he's in a car, he checks mirrors obsessively and stopped long before intersections. reminding himself that speed wasn’t freedom anymore, that the wind, the road stole you from him.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who met a woman years later, she wasn’t you, but she had your laugh, perhaps he imagined it. but she tucked her hair behind her ear the same way you did when you were shy, liked the same roadside tea stalls, even the habit of biting your nails when nervous.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who starts recreating things without realizing it. he takes her to the same restaurants you loved, orders her drink the way you used to have it and walks her along the same park path you two first shared your kiss. shows her the dog’s favorite spot under the big tree, the one that you managed to find.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who calls her by your name once. it slips out quiet, like an reflex when he saw her in the kitchen, brewing coffee for him. because that used to be you. the silence afterward is suffocating. she asks who that is but he doesn’t answer immediately. the truth is worse than a lie.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who imagined it was you. when she smiled at him across the table, he imagined your eyes. when she complained about traffic, he imagined you nudging him and saying, “see? this is why i prefer walking.” when she held his hand, he closed his eyes for half a second too long, and in that half second, it was you, always you.

ex-biker!𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 who goes through the pictures he took of you, and ultimately hits the rock-bottom. because no matter what happens, he would still find himself apologizing to the ghost of you.

freshly twenty years old. lean and sunburnt, with pale sea-salt curls constantly falling onto his sharp blue eyes. a scar split through his eyebrow, pale against skin, and another crossed the corner of his mouth.

he spoke rarely, and when he did, it was through rough hands moving faster than most men could think. the crew learned his language eventually. gojo moved through the ship like he belonged to the ocean more than the deck beneath him, felt vibrations through wood before anyone else sensed danger.

and you first saw him on a moonless night. lingering beneath the ship like a shadow beneath candlelight, crystal eyes following the silhouette leaning over the railing.

for you, sailors were easy creatures to lure.

they were lonely, greedy men. men who mistook beauty for mercy. you had drowned hundreds, sometimes gently, sometimes not. but this one-- the white haired man didn’t react when you sang.

the melody rose through black water, soft as silk. usually, by the first verse, sailors would already be stumbling toward the edge with glassy eyes and parted lips.

but this boy remained still, and your song curled around him uselessly. no widened pupils, nor turns of head-- it infuriated you. only the steady movement of his fingers against the railing as he stared into the sea.

you narrowed your eyes. impossible.

you had long dark hair drifting around you like spilled ink, tangled with pearls and bits of gold chains taken from the drowned men and women alike. your tail shimmered deep blue beneath moonlight, scales sharp as blades near the fin.

beautiful, terrifyingly beautiful.

you surfaced silently beside the ship, only your eyes visible above water. the boy looked down, and instead of fear, curiosity swirled beneath his pure blue eyes, as if he’d discovered a star fallen into the ocean.

at first, he thinks, someone fell overboard. so he grabs a rope instinctively, but then the figure doesn’t call for help, doesn’t splash. it just watches him. and the longer he stares, the more wrong it becomes.

hair floating despite no current, eyes unblinking, a face too perfect in a way humans aren’t, and beneath the water-- something massive shifting.

and instead of backing away immediately, curiosity overrides survival instinct for one fatal second.

you stared. humans never looked at you like that. they looked hungry, sometimes enchanted, perhaps with a hidden terrified soul. but never curious and so you sang louder.

nothing.

the boy tilted his head slightly, confused by your expression now. then he tapped two fingers against his own ear and shook his head once. understanding struck you like lightning. deaf.

the pirate was fucking deaf.

for the first time in nearly three centuries, you laughed. after that, you followed the ship constantly, fascination, you first made yourself believe, he was a pirate after all, eventually he would fall too.

ever since, gojo began noticing strange things.

fish gathered near the vessel in impossible numbers, storms bent away from their route. once, he glanced overboard and caught pale silver eyes beneath the waves before vanishing water swallowed them whole. he knew it was you, and so he started waiting for you at night.

every evening after the crew slept, he drifted toward the railing with a lantern in hand, and every evening, you appeared. sometimes only your eyes surfaced, sometimes your entire figure rose from the sea like something sculpted from moonlight. the first real conversation between you two happened without sound.

the white haired pirate sat cross-legged at the edge of the deck while you floated beside the ship. he pointed toward himself, then signed carefully. gojo satoru.

you watched his hands, brows furrowing, how were you supposed to know sign language? then you touched your chest, "[name]," you said aloud. he couldn’t hear it.

but he watched the shape of your mouth carefully and repeated it softly, "[name]." something strange flickered across your face.

sailors had screamed your name before, but ever spoken it gently.

weeks passed, then months, then the sea became their strange little world. gojo taught you signs, and at first, you mocked them. god, there were too many movements-- too human.

but eventually you began using them anyway, awkwardly at first. idiot, gojo signed one night after you splashed freezing water directly into his face. you grinned wickedly, idiot, you copied back incorrectly, accidentally calling him a fish instead.

he laughed so hard he nearly fell overboard, the soundless laugh shook his shoulders violently, and you stared at him longer than necessary. you realized then that you had become addicted to expressions you could never hear.

but humans and sirens were not creatures built for peace.

the captain discovered you eventually.

captain yaga was a cruel skinny man with gold teeth and a permanent smell of rum soaked into his skin. he’d noticed gojo disappearing nightly, noticed the calm waters where storms should’ve destroyed them.

and then he saw you.

beautiful enough to start wars, but valuable enough to end them, "there’s fortune in that creature," he told the crew, "sirens fetch kingdoms!" he grinned so wickedly that gojo understood immediately from their faces alone.

panic exploded through him, he signed furiously, NO. but sailors were already loading harpoons. that night, you surfaced, with no hesitation, trusting your soul, your voice with a pirate.

and found iron chains waiting. the harpoon struck through your shoulder before you could dive. blood spread black through seawater, your scream tore across the ocean. and though satoru couldn’t hear it, he saw it.

saw the agony twisting your face, the terror replacing the fury as chains dragged you toward the ship. something inside him snapped. sailors shouted and guns were fired while waves slammed against wood.

gojo moved through it like a storm given human shape. a knife buried into one sailor’s shoulder, another collapsed after smashing into the mast. captain yaga grabbed gojo by the throat and snarled something vicious.

satoru only saw his mouth moving, then he drove a blade between the captain’s ribs. once, twice, until he couldn't count anymore, until the man stopped moving. the ocean erupted violently around the ship, because sirens did not forgive cruelty.

you ripped free from the chains with blood-covered claws. waves rose monstrously high, swallowing screaming sailors whole, the ship cracked apart beneath the fury of the sea itself. and through all the destruction, you only looked at gojo. standing alone amid ruin, bleeding.

by dawn, nothing remained of the ship except wreckage drifting across endless water. the deaf pirate floated on a broken piece of mast, barely conscious. the sea beneath him glowed faintly blue. then you emerged.

in daylight, you looked less terrifying, your once sharp eyes were round around the edges, the fangs now smaller, your wound had already begun healing.

and when your eyes met his blue ones, for a long moment neither moved. then gojo lifted trembling hands. you came back. you stared at the signs carefully. you answered in imperfect movements.