⋆SOFT HUES⋆𐙚

You missed a call from him once. Not on purpose, but you didn't know if you'd actually answer if you had seen it in time. Stared like you could will Satoru to call back, but he didn't. 

If he had, would you have gotten an explanation? 

An invitation? 

You tried not to think about it – or him. 

Only took missions out of the country. Declined all the requests from the higher-ups about returning. Insisted on sticking to handling the lesser curses in countries with next to no sorcerers of their own. Flying from place to place, never settling, never staying. 

His phantom seemed to follow you everywhere you went. Whispers of a white-haired man constantly making their way back to you, finding flowers by the door of your hotel rooms, little gifts and trinkets with no return address. 

You tossed most of them. But on your birthday one year, there was a light blue box left outside your window. A pretty necklace inside – and a note on top. 

Four words. 

I miss you sometimes. 

You hated him. You seethed over the fact that you felt the same. Loathed that some part of you was his – would always be. 

You never even shared a real kiss. Hadn't even done anything more than holding hands once or twice. Maybe that was why his memory never rotted. Why you heard of him massacring people and still pictured the cute boy calling out your name across campus. 

Was he sitting on some throne now? Would he say your name the same? 

Life had a way of changing with or without you there to see it. Taking on a new shape, twisting everyone you used to know into strangers.  

You could wonder all you wanted. You couldn't do anything about it. 

And yeah, even if it had been more than a couple years since you'd actually seen any of them, you automatically answered his call when Suguru’s name flashed across your phone.  

He had always been stronger than you too. Steadier. Able to take on a mantle that had never been meant for him. 

“Urgent,” he said. “For the students,” he muttered. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. 

You should've hesitated. Put together it was a mistake from that alone. 

He was the only one who really mourned Satoru like you did. 

But you listened, biting your lip as he informed you of his current situation – that Satoru had tried to recruit Nanami, had mentioned some scheme, a grand plan that involved the school. He was worried for his students. 

And if Suguru was worried, so were you. 

Really thought, if Satoru wanted, he could turn the entire country into a clean slate. Wipe the page until it was blank. Start over under his terms.  

The only reason he hadn't was probably because he'd be bored if he did. 

No one ever wanted to divulge all the dirty details, but you had heard how much the number of curses had started to dwindle back there – along with the population. 

Still, you hadn't expected what Suguru wanted you to do about it. He'd been hesitant to even ask, exhaling like it hurt to say. 

“Could you join his cult?”

“Excuse me?” 

You were still on the next plane back. 

It was supposed to be simple. Safe. Come back using him as an excuse. Wait for Satoru to make contact after you arrived – and pretend to show interest in his cult, listen to his latest spiel and piece together what he was planning. You'd tell Suguru, he'd stop it, and the most important part was getting the fuck back out before Satoru could take it out on you. 

“Why don't you do it?” You had grumbled on the phone, like you weren't already dragging out your suitcase and shoving your stuff in it.

“One of us will probably end up killing the other.” 

“What makes you think he won't kill me?” You huffed at him. Suguru laughed, like you should already know the answer. 

“Some things don't change.” 

He warned that Satoru would be watching when you landed. That he would know the second you stepped foot back on soil he considered his territory. 

But you didn't think he'd be at the fucking airport waiting for you. Holding up a sign with your name on it, as if his tousled white hair didn't already stick out in the crowd. His sunglasses traded in for a blindfold, not even giving you a hint of those blue eyes you still dreamed of sometimes. 

Smiling at you like you weren't staring frozen at him, unable to take a step when the ghost of your past finally caught up to you. Taller, broader, all grown up. 

Muscles stacked on his previously lanky frame, his jaw even sharper, canines somehow pointier as he waved to you. Half of you had expected him to be all dressed up – wearing something traditional, old-fashioned, a reflection of the new him. Maybe some new version of his uniform. But he was dressed nearly normal – a casual button-down that clung to his arms and chest, dark pants. As if he was waiting for a date. 

But hadn’t you done the same? Stared at your clothes splayed out on your bed and picked out a dress instead of sweats despite being well fucking aware you’d be stuck on a plane for hours in it? Just in case he’d show up? 

He walked over when you couldn't (wouldn't?) – his infinity still active when he wrapped you in a hug. An invisible barrier still separating you after all this time.

“Been a while, huh?” He murmured into your hair. 

He ruffled it, his huge hand still finding excuses to touch you. 

You looked at him, and everything in your chest pulled tight, all those words you practiced on the plane dying in your throat. 

A million times, a thousand nights, you imagined this moment. What you would do if you saw him again. What you would say after so much silence. And it all shriveled up, turned into something so small you couldn't even hold it anymore with just a single stupid smile from him. 

“What are you doing here?” You asked instead, your voice surprisingly hoarse, raw. 

There was a brief second where his sharp jaw clenched, lips pressing in a thin line of disappointment before he recovered. Satoru switched to a pout, leaning in and invading your personal space when you'd never be able to do the same to his. 

“Don't tell me you didn't miss me,” he murmured, an edge underneath it. As if you could hurt him when he hurt you first. He reached out, touched the necklace dangling down from your throat, fingertips brushing against the polished blue gemstone. “You're wearing the necklace I gave you.”

“I'm supposed to meet with Suguru in an hour,” you excused, pulling back from him, glancing around the bustling bodies for some gap to slip through.

You knew he'd chase you. Hell, the plan hinged on him pestering you about joining him instead. But your heart was still pounding when you walked away, waiting for his voice, his steps, his hands. Hyper aware of his stare – even if it was technically hidden under a blindfold. 

He grabbed ahold of the hem of your dress, and you stopped. 

“You didn’t come back for him,” he spoke softly. And for a guy who had thrown his hope for the future away years ago, there was still some in his voice now. 

“I did,” you lied. 

Satoru scoffed, and the bitterness in it left a sour taste in your mouth too. Dripped down your throat and choked you up. It was kind of ridiculous, but your first instinct was to comfort him, grinding your molars to stop yourself from reaching out to touch him. 

“Hear me out,” he murmured, not letting go. “Come see my compound.” 

Compound. 

Of course. Right when the slightest crack in your shield formed, he had to remind you of who he was now. 

What his world was like. 

That he didn't call the dorms his own. Didn't have an apartment like a normal twenty-something year old guy. Didn't even call his former family estate his home. 

He belonged to a compound. A cult. 

You squared your shoulders, stood up straighter as you sucked in a breath. 

“You haven't even said sorry,” you pointed out. You wanted to shout at him. To scream that he left you. Left everything. 

And yeah, this was what you were here for. He was. But it was fucking infuriating that he thought he could just waltz back in with a cute smirk and saccharine words and thought you'd just fall into place beside him. 

“The only thing I'm sorry for is not taking you with me,” he murmured, tilting his head to the side like it would make you believe he could still be sincere. 

“Yeah, right,” you scoffed this time, turning your head away from him. 

You had a feeling that even if Satoru didn't have his six eyes technique, he'd still be able to see through you. 

“One hour,” he repeated, softer this time.

For a few seconds, you contemplated what your answer would have been if you weren't here on a mission. If it had nothing to do with Suguru or students. If it was just you and him.  

“Fine.”

He grabbed your hand – and teleported you there. 

Wrinkling the fabric of reality around him until you were both standing somewhere new. 

You blinked. Knees wobbling and stomach churning as your brain struggled to catch up with what your eyes were seeing. Your suitcase clattered to the ground, and someone was already scrambling to pick it up.

The main entrance hall of some fancy estate, cold, tiled floors sparkling and spotless, a few people pausing from where they were milling about to immediately bow at Satoru’s presence. 

As if he was a god. 

You guessed he was the closest thing on earth to one. 

“Greetings, Master,” one of them murmured, reverent. Just another disciple for someone you used to worship too. 

You could practically hear the capitol M in his tone. 

Satoru didn't even look down.

His eyes were fixed on yours behind his blindfold, like he was searching for approval in them. 

What were you supposed to say? That you liked how he decorated the place? 

“So?” He expectantly asked, holding his arms out. 

He was proud of what he’d done. You were terrified of it. Of this new him. But there was an undercurrent of something darker stirring inside you. One you couldn’t quite pinpoint. Not quite full-throttled anger or nostalgia.

An intense discomfort that burned in your veins when he was this close and you couldn’t pretend he didn’t exist anymore. Forced to acknowledge the facts you’d been running as far as you could from for years. 

Satoru Gojo was not the boy he’d been. Not the one who left you behind. Not the one who you dreamed of a first kiss with. 

Satoru Gojo was a man. One who could commit murder with a single flick of his finger. One who might have his schedules stacked full of slaughtering and stealing. 

Because he was the strongest. 

And everyone else had to fall in line. 

That meant you too. 

“Fifty-nine minutes,” you muttered, as if you meant it. You didn’t know if it was meant to be a trap, if he would actually even take you back to Suguru if you wanted to go, but you weren’t leaving. 

Satoru snagged your hand like it was the most natural thing in the world, fingers interlaced with yours. Some crude imitation of being teenagers again, tugging you down twisting halls even when you struggled to keep up with his long legs. 

“My room’s this way,” he hummed, and your face flushed. Was a sentence really enough to make you blush at the stupid implication? 

“If you think I’m-” You started, but your breath hitched mid-sentence and you stopped yourself. 

“I just have something for you,” Satoru huffed, almost offended at your assumption he was being crude. 

You wanted to point out you really didn’t know each other anymore. That you had no idea what to make of this new him. One wearing a face you used to adore. 

Turned into something cold and sharp, where you weren’t certain if saying the wrong thing might end with your blood splattered on the walls or cut down on the spot regardless of Suguru thinking he might still harbor a sweet spot for you. 

“What is it?” You murmured, but he just grinned again, pink lips curling up as he suddenly pushed open a heavy wooden door. 

You knew it was his room almost immediately. 

Could smell him in the air. His cologne, his shampoo, both still the same. Pretty wallpaper plastered around you, something in soft shades of blue and white that made you think of clouds. Of spring. 

He didn’t have a digimon collection anymore. No photos hanging up or posters lining the open surfaces. But you recognized a few things of a life you both walked away from. A pen you once gifted him sitting on top of the dresser. Dried flowers behind glass that you once collected with your former classmates. The book you had been reading before his last mission. You had left it in your old dorm, but you guessed he had come back for it at some point. 

There was a screen door on the wall opposite of you – the only other exit point that looked like it led out onto a balcony. 

“Satoru,” you said his name, and it nearly killed you. Just getting the syllables out when it felt like someone had stuffed your throat with cotton. 

You never thought it would be this hard. That such simple things would practically rip your heart out of your chest and remind you of the huge goddamn cavity he had carved out of you. 

“I wrote you letters,” he breathed, brushing his thumb over the back of your hand. You had forgotten he was holding it, and now it was suddenly the only thing anchoring you. “A lot. I just, I never got the guts to send them.”

He pulled you forward, pulling open the top left drawer of the dresser – just for it to be stuffed full of thick envelopes. Some were aged, starting to fade and curl around the edges. Others were almost new, the ink still dark and clear. 

You stared at the stacks of them. All sealed. All signed.

His sloppy handwriting addressing every single one to you. 

“Why?” You asked, even though you knew. 

“I was scared you’d hate me,” he honestly answered. 

Him, scared? Of all the things he’d done, of all the things he could do, and still, it was you he was nervous around. 

“Why would you care how I feel?” You heard yourself ask, reaching out to graze your fingertips over the closest envelope. 

You wished you could see through it. Read his mind and the words he hid from you. 

“Because I've been in love with you since I was fourteen,” he casually said, slinging his hands in his pockets like it had always been that simple. 

He couldn't un-say it. You couldn't un-hear it. 

“You shouldn't say that,” you warned, like you weren't right there with him. 

“I thought you wanted the truth,” he challenged. 

You wanted to know whatever the fuck he was planning so you could get out of this country as soon as possible. To drown out this memory with alcohol or cigarettes or anything that would dull this awful ache in your chest. 

“Is that why you wanted me here?” You stiffened, ignoring what he said. “To tell me you love me?” 

You missed the memo where love somehow equated murder. 

“I want you to stay,” he admitted, reaching out to cup your cheek. You almost leaned into it, only stepping back at the last second. His lips turned down in brief disappointment, but he shook it off. “With me. Not Suguru.” 

He still said his name the same. Cheerful, with that constant hint of competition that hadn't died. 

“So you can show me how nice it is when you don't give a shit who lives and who dies?” You dared back, swallowing hard before forcing yourself to continue. “So I can worship you like all those morons out there do?”

He cracked a smile, and you couldn't stand it. Dark tension crackling between you, thick and suffocating, threatening to smother you with just a flash of his pretty canine teeth. 

“I wanna worship you,” he flirted. Satoru was full of shit. But the way he said it had you second-guessing all the boundaries you promised yourself on the way here you wouldn’t cross. “But as long as you’re alive, you’re here, the rest doesn’t really matter to me.” 

He emphasized it, as if he wanted to make sure you understood what he actually meant by that. 

But if he was really so willing to let the rest of the world burn, why had he left you behind to begin with? 

“I don’t believe you,” you muttered. A weak defense. 

“You will,” he replied, plucking out a big stack of letters and holding them out for you to take. 

You reluctantly glanced down at his pale hands, even larger than you remembered, thick veins sticking out as your gaze slowly shifted up to his face. You missed his eyes. Wanted to ask him to take off the blindfold, to let you see him again, but even just the intimacy of taking the letters from him felt like too much.

Like all it would take was breaking the seal to sign your soul over to him. 

But you were still grabbing them from him, holding your breath until it hurt while he exhaled. 

“I set up a room for you next to mine,” he admitted. “If you want to read them now. Or, if you’re hungry, I could order food, or-” 

“I want answers,” you murmured. “Not the princess treatment.” 

“Why can’t I give you both?” 

You both knew why.

The longer you stayed, the harder it would be to leave him.

And still, you ended up letting him show you to a room that had clearly been planned to be yours far fucking longer than a few days. Everything was to your taste. A wallpaper you were pretty sure you’d seen and admired in another country on the rare occasion you went shopping, ornately decorated, items that looked like they had been carefully been picked out with you in mind. Thin curtains floating in the breeze to a sliding door you were pretty sure connected to the same balcony as Satoru’s. 

Someone had left your suitcase sitting in the middle of the room. 

“What if I decide to make a run for it?” You wryly asked, leaning against the door frame as Satoru stood out in the hall. 

He laughed. Time stopped. 

The world revolved around him after all, and all it took was that sound to make another piece of you shatter. 

“If you want to go see Suguru,” he hummed, daring you to actually do it. “I’ll escort you myself.” 

Funny how he didn’t mention anything about letting you go. Or letting you leave. 

 You shut the door in his face. 

Even when you knew he would just stand there waiting on the other side. 

His footsteps faded back in the direction of his room, but they returned before long. And then he slipped another letter under your door. And another. And another. 

You sat in front of it, slowly collecting them with the rest of the ones he already gave you, sorting them into stacks based on how old they looked. He didn’t date them, so you knew there were probably a few out of order. By the time he finished, you stared at all the proof you were left with that you hadn’t left his thoughts either. 

The first one you opened was the oldest. The corner was torn. The ink aged. Hesitation in every letter. 

The sorry you wanted was there. A hundred of them. Asking you for understanding, for acceptance. That he just wanted a world where he didn’t have to be the backbone to it. That he couldn’t stand the idea of seeing your body under a white sheet someday too. 

Of you being the one he lost on a failed mission. 

That all those assholes who carved the rules into stone should be the one suffering the consequences. 

You wondered how much he truly believed that. Or if he had just snapped when he slaughtered those people – and sunk into this idea that he couldn't be redeemed. Convinced himself there wasn't any coming back. 

He was fine being a monster if it meant he would save the rest of you from becoming one. 

That was still who Satoru was. 

You spent an entire night pouring over his words. Questions he never asked you. Confessions he never got the chance for. There were clues, updates sprinkled in the pages. Talks of having to dispose of elders and acquiring sorcerers for his cause. 

But mostly, it was all about you.

You weren't sure if you should be concerned at how the addresses listed were surprisingly accurate to where and when you stayed over the years. Or at how many times he admitted taking a break from his duties to come check on you. Waiting outside hotels and restaurants and watching to make sure you were safe. 

You fell asleep with one still in your hand, curled up on the soft mattress in the middle of reading him casually confiding that he had contemplated breaking into your hotel room to watch you sleep, to remind himself that you were still breathing. 

But even when you saw him the next morning, you couldn't bring yourself to call him on it. 

Couldn't bring yourself to ask to leave either. Just trailing a step or two behind him while he went about his new duties. Which was mostly ignoring his own members, delegating tasks and driving Ijichi crazy. 

Ordering all your old favorite meals for lunch and dinner, dragging your chair right up next to his, sitting with his face propped up in his hands and pestering you about what you'd been doing without him. 

“You sure you don't already know?” You retorted, picking at the food on your plate. 

Satoru laughed, leaning in like you weren't taking a cheap shot at him basically stalking you since you'd been gone. 

“Forgive me for being worried about you,” he hummed, dramatically huffing as his energy enveloped you. Close enough his nose was almost touching yours, his blindfold a little lopsided, still covering his eyes even if it was crooked. 

You reached up, about to fix it, but his infinity was still up – and your hand fell back down. 

“Is that what you want to call it?” You asked, biting down on the inside of your cheek until you could taste blood. 

His lips twitched down into a frown, but he was still quick to recover his casual smile. 

“I tried to forget about you,” he admitted, as if it was a defense. 

You felt an ugly twist in your stomach – a selfish part of your brain thankful that he failed. That he couldn't forget about you either. 

You pushed your plate forward, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as you stood and started towards the door. 

“I think I'm done.”

But two weeks later, you were still there. 

Snooping when you could, eavesdropping on conversations between his cult members discussing everything from birthday plans for him to cleaning schedules. Unable to get more information than the fact they were concerned that he needed to go to the fucking dentist considering his sweets intake. 

Returning back to your bed every evening, still stuck sleeping one room over from him. Staring at the ceiling and listening to him try to talk to you through the wall, calling out your name while you rolled away from him. 

Suguru kept calling. Texting you and asking where you were. If you were with him. 

Nothing that would look suspicious if Satoru stole your phone. 

But you couldn't convince yourself to find an answer when you weren't sure what you were going to do with your time here. 

The weight of Satoru’s stare only got heavier by the day. 

You’d wake up with something by your door. Sometimes breakfast, still warm. Usually candy or clothes. Your favorite was a book he had already annotated, notes and stupid stick figures scribbled in the margins. 

Drawing goofy faces and making dumb jokes like he wasn’t delegating and bossing around his very own minions on the other side of his compound. 

Sometimes, you wondered what his real goal here even was. He hadn’t told you. Not really. Just spoke of vague ideals, of a brighter future, like he wasn’t just doing this because he was bored. Because he didn’t believe in anyone outside of himself. 

He was paving a new path on top of the bodies of weaker men. 

You pulled open the door to the balcony one morning, finding him already leaning against the railing, in a loose hoodie and sweatpants, watching the sun slowly rise above the thick treeline surrounding his compound. 

With that stupid fucking blindfold still on, of course. 

“Are you happy?” You heard yourself ask. Folding your arms across your chest and staring at his broad shoulders.

“Are you?” He returned the question, like your answer would determine his. 

“No,” you muttered. The last time you were actually happy, it had been with him. 

He sucked in a sharp breath, and you watched his jaw lock as he glanced back at you. 

“I should've just taken you with me,” he muttered, but it sounded mostly like he was talking to himself. 

You both had regrets you learned to live with. Yours was loving him. Sometimes you wondered what your world would look like if it had been Suguru or Nanami you had fallen for. Would you be happier? Able to wake up without guilt churning in your stomach and bleeding through all your thoughts? 

“Did you get what you wanted here?” You swallowed hard. 

“You’re all alive,” he shrugged. “You're here.”

You wanted to tell him that you would’ve still been here if he had stayed. He destroyed your life when he wrecked his. 

What did it cost? How many innocents died for your life? 

You knew you should be disgusted. Distraught at his casual callousness. 

But you were just as selfish as him. 

And you couldn't deny how he made your heart flutter even if it was horrible. Well aware of how wrong the heat pooling in your stomach when he gestured for you to join him was, patting the railing of the balcony like he’d been reserving the spot for you. 

“Is that supposed to be enough?” You murmured, scared to look inside yourself and see if it really was. 

“It is for me,” he answered, and it hung in the air like all those other awful truths you'd been denying. 

Your life was worth a million others for him. 

Maybe a better person would've shouted at him for it. Told him it wasn't fair and that you never asked for that. 

But you just stood there and stared out at the pretty landscape below with him. Existed with the knowledge that if he was going to hell, you were probably booking a one-way ticket in the seat beside him. 

Because even if you hadn't committed his crimes, you didn't care that he had. At least, not in the way you should. 

You stood stiff, shivering in the early morning breeze, but Satoru stripped off his hoodie, the shirt underneath riding up to reveal his defined abs underneath, just a hint of his thick white happy trail. 

He pulled it over your head, tugging it down while you shoved your hands through the holes. It was a little awkward, a little stilted. Still getting the hang again of being whatever this was with him. 

You could feel his eyes lingering on you behind the dark fabric, maybe committing the image to his memory. 

“Are you hungry?” He eventually asked, cocking his head to the side.

That was how it went. A charade of him trying his hardest to take care of you while all your painstakingly crafted barriers were dismantled one by one, reminding you how much you still cared for him. 

Even if you were scared of what that meant. 

Sharing meals, watching the sun set, attempting to sneak into his sermons. He tried to keep you out of them – insisting he didn't want you to see that side of him – but you still waited outside the doors to eavesdrop, not that you ever heard much other than a handful of sharp sentences that sounded more serious than anything else you'd ever heard from him.

It was hard to even imagine that cold voice even leaving his mouth, not when the cruelest thing he'd ever said to you was that he thought your favorite movie was boring. 

Sometimes he'd let you tag along to his training, but that was mostly just an excuse to get you underneath him. Pulling off his shirt and claiming it was too hot, ignoring your scoffs with suggestions of you stripping down too. Teasing you into sparring with him so you didn’t get ‘rusty’. As if there was ever a world where you would go against anyone as strong as Satoru – or one where you would ever win against him.

He'd pretend to let you get a few hits in, or give you the upper hand long enough so you'd end up pinning him down. 

That was why you really accepted his stupid scheme. Just for a chance to touch him, for the few fleeting moments he turned his technique off and you could feel his skin again. 

Cling to his warmth with your forearm holding his wrists down, rivulets of sweat dripping down the dips and ridges of his toned chest when he sucked in heavy breaths. 

Judging by the cute blush on his cheeks, it had nothing to do with actual exertion. 

Before you could call him on it, comment on how hard his face was flushed, he flipped you over, catching both of your own wrists in a single massive hand and pressing them into the mat. 

It was unfair how beautiful he was. 

How fast he had your heart racing, pulse pounding in your ears and drowning out the sounds of the rest of the world until it was just you and him intertwined. His knee pressed between your thighs, keeping them spread open. Barely using a fraction of his strength and still rendering you immobile. 

“Nice try,” he murmured, and you were reminded just how much deeper his voice was. Your muscles tensed, glancing down instinctively at the shape of his lips. 

But then he was standing up, holding out his hand for you to use. Pulling you up to your feet too, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind your ear. 

“I need a shower,” you huffed at him, forcing yourself to step away first. 

It was getting harder to every day.

You switched the water to cold back in your bathroom, letting it pelt your skin like it could wash him off of it. 

But you couldn’t even escape him in your sleep. 

Dreaming of his fingers, his face. Of his hands caressing your cheeks, of his lips pressing a line of kisses down your stomach below your belly button, stopping just shy of a sky blue pair of panties. 

His blindfold slipped off – but it wasn’t those eyes you missed so much waiting for you. 

Just darkness. The kind that threatened to suck you into it, drag you in until you were drowning in the swirling depths of it. 

You screamed, or maybe shouted, scratching at his shoulders to pull him off of you, but his body didn’t budge. Not when your nails couldn’t scrape his skin, didn’t get past the invisible barrier of infinity that was pressing down on you. 

But then his head snapped to the side, his brows scrunching together like he heard some sound. You saw a shadow move – and realized it was Suguru, some new manifestation of the guilt that had been gnawing at you for weeks. 

Betrayal burning in his stare, accusation he didn’t get to verbalize because with a single flick of Satoru’s fingers, he burst. 

Blood splattering the walls, bits of him sent flying over every surface as you shrieked. 

But then someone was shaking you awake, sturdy hands on your shoulders, a panicked voice saying your name as you tried to blink and reconcile reality from your nightmare. Satoru was there, begging you to realize it was just him. 

“Sweetheart, you’re fine, it’s okay, I’m here,” he murmured softly, and you crumpled forward. Leaning into his chest, letting him wrap a strong arm around you. Sucking in harsh breaths, straining to get any air in your lungs as you realized there were damp streaks down your cheek. He brushed them away with a free hand before holding your chin to keep your attention on him. “Breathe, baby.” 

You forced yourself to focus on him, on his pretty blue- 

Eyes. 

Satoru had forgotten his blindfold. 

You stopped breathing. Lungs lodged in your throat as you stared at him, feeling like you were really seeing him for the first time in years. Getting lost in the way the moonlight streaming in glimmered in the sea of blue, shining so pretty as they pierced through you. 

No one else ever really made you feel seen like he did. 

Never would. 

There was only one Satoru Gojo – and he was in your bed, wiping away your tears and whispering that he would never let anything happen to you. 

The subject of your dreams and the stuff of your nightmares. 

A little voice in the back of your head told you to scramble away from him, but your body was gravitating towards him, burying your face against his collarbone. Seeking his comfort like it was second nature. 

Curling up by his side, letting him stroke your hair while you sniffled and calmed down, caught up in his voice and his warmth and the idea that some new line has been crossed now that he was letting you see him too. 

When you woke up in the morning, he was still there. Still holding you close, limbs tangled together as he rested his chin on the top of your head. Somehow, he sensed you stirring, his palm pressing flat on the base of your spine to keep you there. 

“Morning,” he murmured, as if it was the hundredth time you'd been in this position. Or rather, as if you had hundreds more to look forward to. 

“Don't you have, like, duties?” You yawned, but you weren't trying to wiggle free. 

“You seem to forget that I make the rules around here,” he wryly chuckled, one of his long fingers tracing a small shape in your skin, edging just underneath your shirt. “We can sleep in.”

“Lazy,” you grumbled under your breath, but your eyes were fluttering shut again, threatening to doze off. 

But Satoru said something he shouldn't. 

“We wouldn't get to do this if we were just sorcerers,” he mumbled, and your throat went dry. “One of us would have a mission to go to, or students to take care of-”

He was still talking, but you had to bite your lip to stop yourself from commenting that he didn't care if all your old friends had to put up with that instead. 

You had a feeling he'd say it was their choice – like this one was his. 

“Go back to sleep, Satoru,” you softly said, just so you wouldn't have to think about it harder. 

His words were still on your mind a handful of hours later though. 

Lingering under the surface when he convinced you to eat lunch with him outside for once. A picturesque picnic splayed out in the grass of a garden no one seemed to frequent on the condition he took his blindfold off again, surrounded by blooming flowers in shades of white and blue. You supposed he had one of his members set it all up. 

You wondered if they felt like servants – but they were always happy to help him, to do whatever it was he ordered. You could sense traces of cursed energy from most of them, but no one ever dared to speak to you for more than a few short sentences before scurrying away. 

Satoru offered you sandwiches, cut-up fruits on pretty platters, relaxing as he rambled on about something that happened a few months ago. Some silly story about Ijichi attempting to ask for a girl’s number and failing. For a moment, it felt like a date.

“It's nice here,” you accidentally said, just talking out loud as you looked past him at the sprawling grounds. 

“You think so?” He grinned, giddy at your approval. 

“Thanks for letting me stay,” you mumbled, glancing away from him as you sorted out the stuffy feelings clouding your judgment. “For now.”

There was still supposed to be a life waiting for you outside of here. One you had put on hold for this. 

Although, you were starting to consider the chance that your life had been on hold before. How long had it been since you had felt this content? 

You looked back at him, and you couldn't think straight.

When the sun struck him just right, long white lashes fluttering as he tilted his head back, he didn’t feel like Master Gojo. 

He was just Satoru. 

Just the same guy who loved sweets and shitty jokes and sneaking his hand into yours, lacing your fingers together and squeezing while you still pretended your friendship was platonic. The grass swayed in the breeze, his sturdy fingers gracefully plucking a wildflower that managed to sprout and poke out next to the picnic blanket. He leaned over, holding it out for you to take. 

When he caught you staring though, saw the look in your eyes, he grinned, one corner of his mouth crooking higher than the other side as he tucked it behind your ear instead. 

“For my girl,” he murmured softly. 

You should say no. That even if you were here, you weren’t his. 

But it had never really mattered how far away you ran, you had always belonged to him. He’d taken your heart with him – and you’d just been borrowing time without it. 

“Stay with me,” he murmured, his hand cupping your face, thumb drawing a line over your cheek. “Not just for now.”

“I-” You started, but you couldn’t finish. 

“No more missions,” he hummed. “No more blood. No more death.” 

For you, maybe. 

But what about everyone else? 

“Toru,” you whispered. The nickname fell from your lips, and then his were suddenly on yours. Capturing you in a heated kiss, mouth warm and soft as he tried to make up for the years you'd both been missing this. 

You could still taste the strawberries he'd been eating on his tongue. 

Sweet. 

You were kissing a killer. You knew it, but you were still sifting your fingers through his soft hair, still tugging him closer and sucking on his bottom lip. Gasping into his mouth when he laid you flat on the blanket, pushing all the food out of the way so he could have his way with you. 

Slipping his tongue between your lips, dragging it over the ridges of your teeth and exploring your mouth. Sweeping over your canines and moaning into you like he was savoring the moment. 

His hands were all over you. Infinity discarded in favor of your heat, the rest of the world forgotten in heated kisses. Palms dragging over your hips, up your waist and all the way to your breasts. Squeezing and groping and greedily grabbing as much of you as he could. 

Satoru had never been a patient man. 

You broke the kiss first, pulling back to breathlessly blink at him, craning your neck up to glance around the gardens. 

“What if someone-”

“They’ll have to pry me off of you,” he muttered, his mouth moving down your throat. Planting firm kisses down your throat to your chest before pulling your breasts free from the sundress you’d worn for him today.

Gasping at the breeze grazing over your nipples before his warm fingers dragged over them. One corner of his lips curling up in a smirk at the stunned expression on your face.

“Or out of you,” he teased, just to make your breath hitch as he rolled your nipple between two thick digits. 

Satoru had waited years for this – you both had. 

And maybe it was the clouds reflecting in his eyes, the sky or the sun, or the curve of his mouth when he smiled, but you were sick of acting like you didn't want him just as badly as he wanted you. 

“Just kiss me again,” you murmured, tugging him back down. 

And he did. Until you were both running out of air, until your lips felt swollen and bruised, until your head was fuzzy enough with his fevered affection you weren't sure where he started and you ended. Limbs tangled and locked as you slipped a hand underneath his shirt, while his own fingers kept mercilessly teasing your nipples. 

The shame somehow made it hotter. Set a certain warmth underneath your skin, burned brighter with every whine and whimper he stole from you. 

“You were worth the wait,” Satoru whispered conspiratorially, the air surrounding you practically vibrating with his energy. 

He was shoving your dress up, bunching it around your hips and hurrying to peel your underwear down your thighs. A new flicker of embarrassment soared through you at the realization of how exposed you’d be if anyone happened to walk by, but you couldn't bring yourself to care when he was lifting both your thighs up and over his shoulders. 

Planting a kiss on your clit instead, messy, open-mouthed, tongue dragging over the sensitive bud while you let out a fresh cry of his name.

Everything with him was heightened. Teeth scraping over your skin in taunting little sucks. Nipping at you while his thick fingers spread you open, splintered you. You felt every drag against your walls, every twitch and throb as he devoted himself to proving how much he'd been dreaming about you in your absence. 

How much he ached to be in you. 

You pulled at his hair, scraped at his scalp, arching your back off the ground as you tried to stifle your moans.

But every sound you made just spurred him on more, made him pump his fingers in faster, suck on your clit harder. 

Everything inside your chest pulled tight, pressure just continuing to build and mount and twist as he painted pretty patterns over your sensitive bud. Fingers curling inside you as you edged closer, waiting for some relief as you chased the friction. 

“S-S’toru,” you slurred out his name, stumbling over the simple syllables as you squirmed in his hands. 

He pulled off your clit with a filthy pop! before grinning at you. 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” He casually asked, like his lips weren't glossy with your slick and his saliva. 

You couldn't find the words, just weakly whining and trying to buck your hips up, writhing underneath the weight of his body. 

He clicked his tongue though, shaking his head and sending a jolt of electricity down your spine at the sheer intensity of his stare when it settled on your face. 

Freezing on instinct, like some mouse that just realized it was caught in a cat’s paw. 

“Tell me what you want,” he slowly said. Ordered. Commanded.

He wanted you to admit it. 

To shed the shroud of decency you'd been hiding behind. 

“I want you.”

And there was no going back. 

He was tugging down his pants, and your mouth watered at the sight of his cock so swollen and sensitive for you. Slightly curved, thick veins throbbing as pre-cum leaked from the tip. 

He didn't have to say he wanted you back – that was proof enough. 

It didn't matter how much you shouldn't or how awful you were for it, but you were automatically spreading your thighs further, allowing him to angle himself right between your slick folds as you interlaced your fingers with his one free hand. 

He pressed it into the picnic blanket beneath you, squeezing your hand as the first few inches slid in. He didn't bother with a condom – and you couldn't bring yourself to ask him to put one in anyway. 

In a fucked-up way, you wanted to feel him. 

Clinging to the intimacy of it, the closeness in having him stretch you out and stuff you full. Relishing in the way he dragged it against your walls, reveling at being the object of his affection. At being the one on the altar, the only person worth worshipping in a world where almost everyone he met bowed down to him. 

Your fingers pressed into his tendons, the soft grass crunching underneath the combined weight of your bodies beneath the blanket, but all your focus was on Satoru’s face. How intently he was looking at you, holding eye contact with each slow thrust.

Purposely making you writhe, making you wait for him to pick up the pace, wiggling your hips in a weak attempt to drive him in deeper. 

Nothing was ever good enough for a guy like him. 

Satoru didn't just want your confession. He wanted you to beg. Preferably even crawl. 

But you refused, tilting your chin up higher, acting like you were content how it was. Playing the long game with him even now. 

He needed you and you needed him. Nothing either one of you could ever do would change that. The connection was twisted and tangled and terrible – but you wouldn't trade it in for anything else. 

For anyone else. 

Although every second that dragged by, each moment the breeze rustled the leaves and the flowers and the birds overhead chirped, you were reminded of the fact you were out in the open.

His cock nestled into a certain sweet spot, and he felt the way you shuddered at it, grinning as he dragged his tip back over it in infuriating strokes. 

“Sato-”

His hand clamped down over your mouth, muffling your moans as the voices of few of his cult members floated by. Probably on the trail that wrapped around the field, casually chatting about something your fractured brain couldn't process, too distracted by the searing stretch of him splitting you open. 

“Don't want them to hear now, do we, baby?” He murmured in your ear, slowly pulling out just to shove back in. 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, barely managing to stifle your own hiss at the pressure. The heat started to roll around in your stomach, the warmth spreading into the rest of you as he suddenly picked up his excruciating pace. 

From soft and steady strokes to rough ones, ruthlessly rutting into you with one palm over your mouth and another squeezing your own. It wasn’t sloppy, even when it was fast. Every thrust was painstakingly precise, like he knew exactly where to hit to make you whimper. Tears were starting to form in the corner of your eyes, but you couldn’t quite decide if it was from the sheer pleasure – or rather some emotion you weren’t able to shut down. 

Lust or love or lingering heartache all rolled up into one tightly coiled ball of need. 

He grinded into you harder, moving the hand covering your mouth from where it was covering your lips down to the small bud between your thighs. It was aching, demanding his attention, and he was eager to give it. 

Rubbing maddening circles over it, devouring all of your squirms with that stupidly handsome smirk of his. But you could see it in the twitch of his brows, the squint in his eyes, how tightly he was grinding his molars, that he was close too. 

A wet tear rolled down your cheek – and he leaned down to lick it. 

Dragging his tongue over your skin, salt on his tastebuds as he suddenly groaned. And then he was abruptly massaging you faster, practically begging you to cum with just his fingers over your sensitive nerves and his warm breath on your neck when he buried his face against your collarbone. 

You didn’t know which one of you came first. 

So enveloped in him, in his frantic thrusts and his fevered fingers, in the faint kisses being left along the inside of your throat, you were lost in the sudden snapping tension and the weight of the relief. Washed away with the pleasure, wrapped up in it tight, and then he was pulling out at the last second, warm ropes of cum sputtering out on his hand – and some catching on the hem of your shoved-up dress. 

But it didn’t really process. Didn’t stick out in your brain. 

You didn’t know how long you laid there. With him half on you. With the wind on your skin, watching it catch in his hair as his dazzling stare settled contentedly on you. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he softly said. Dragging a thumb over where his cum had started to dry on your skin before grabbing a napkin and starting to clean you up. 

Touching you with a gentleness you were unaccustomed to, a tenderness that no one else would ever be able to match. As if even something as simple as wiping your skin was an act of worship.

It scared you almost more than the sex did. 

You were in too deep. 

The signs had all been there. Big, bold ones practically proclaiming that every step forward was leading you to quick sand. And you still treaded on, disregarded how dangerous it was until you were buried up to your neck in him. 

Someone called his name. 

“Gojo-sama!” A servant was shouting, calling out to him, and he groaned. Fixing your dress first before he shoved his dick back in his pants, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

“I’m late for a meeting,” he admitted. 

“Oh,” you breathed. “Okay.” 

You watched him walk away, stared at how he paused to pop another strawberry in his mouth before striding back towards the path. 

Where were you supposed to go from here? 

What were you supposed to do? 

Your feelings for him didn’t change who he was. And you didn’t even know if you wanted to. 

Could you really just ignore what he did? The things he was going to do? 

You pushed off the blanket, glanced around all the flowers and greenery as you tried to shove down all those questions you couldn’t answer. And in the corner of your vision, peeking behind the basket with more food, there it was. 

Satoru forgot his blindfold. 

You picked it up, felt the soft fabric in your hand as you sighed and stood. 

Satoru probably needed it back. Wobbling on sore legs while you walked the trail back to a side door, following the path through long halls where his residual energy was the strongest. 

It didn’t take long to find him. 

The door was even open. 

He was distracted though, surrounded by a handful of members you’d seen around. Fellow sorcerers, ones you’d pieced together that he recruited over time. Ones that were sick of the system you were all stuck in too. 

Except for one stranger – a man in a stiff suit, one that didn’t fit very well, too long in the wrists, too short on his ankles. His eyes flitted over to you, walking over before anyone else did. 

“You’re the girlfriend, right?” The man smiled, and you numbly nodded. The girlfriend. Was that what you were? “He talks about you a lot.” 

Your heart fluttered, and you were about to ask what he said. 

But then you could feel the sharp shift of energy in the air, already aware Satoru was staring at you before the man next to you did. He turned after a second, looking back at your boyfriend before humbly starting to speak. 

“Greetings, Gojo-sama,” he smiled, bowing down and-

His head wasn’t there anymore. 

Something sticky was on your face, and when you reached up, your fingers grazed over a wet streak on your cheek, pulling it back just to find it stained red. 

You were shaking. Starting to tremble as you stepped back, knees threatening to buckle as familiar footsteps slowly approached. And then Satoru was cleaning your face with his thumb, pulling something out of your hair with a soft scoff. 

“Disgusting fuckin’ monkeys can’t even die right,” Satoru muttered, and it felt like you were gutted. Insides scooped out, left hollow at the sinking realization that this was who he is.

He’d never been a man. 

Never been a mortal. At least not in the way the rest of you were. 

“Don't cry, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice automatically softening into something sweet. 

“You-”

You couldn't say it. Couldn't look down at the body by your feet.

Someone else was scurrying over, already starting to clean up his mess. 

“Thank you, Gojo-Sama,” another voice whispered, and he just waved his hand. As if it was nothing. 

He had said it himself though, hadn’t he? 

The rest didn’t matter. 

“He used to be the principal at one of the other schools,” Satoru was only speaking to you, keeping your attention on him. Offering a justification you hadn’t asked for. “You wanna know how many young sorcerers he assigned to cases they couldn’t handle? How many of us died because of them?”  

You could call him a hypocrite. 

Tell him that there wasn’t really an us when he was the one perched pretty on the top of the food chain. 

But all you did was stare.

Anchor yourself in his presence. It was the only comfort you’d ever really known – even when he was the reason for your distress. 

“Go take a bath,” he murmured, ruffling your hair. “I’ll be there soon.” 

The other members were watching you, waiting for some reaction. You didn’t know if they were expecting your reverence or repulsion. 

Instead, you just left. 

Turning on your heels to walk out, the hole in your chest growing bigger by the second as you replayed the same five seconds over and over again in your head. The man’s voice, the splatter. How calmly Satoru cleaned you – and the cruelty he was capable of. 

You didn’t know why you went to his room instead of yours. 

Why you were searching for solace in the scent of his cologne, in the reminder that he was still a human instead of a monster. 

Looking around all his belongings, his still wrinkled bed, the photo he had hidden of you in the top drawer of his nightstand. Wondering if you were just as fucking awful as him when you found it underneath a brand new box of condoms. 

A folder. The bold letters with the familiar lettering of the school you both called home once. You knew what you should do. What Suguru had been counting on you to do.

Flip it open, sneak photos or skim over every dirty detail of Satoru’s plan. Call him how you had promised to before. 

But you couldn't. 

The idea of selling Satoru out was impossible. A new imaginary and impenetrable barrier stopping you from snagging it and sneaking back to your room. It would be nice if it was real. If you had anything other than your brain to blame for doing the bad thing. 

You had to force yourself to reach out, everything inside you screaming at you that you shouldn't when you picked it up. 

It took only a second to figure out the top sheet inside was a stolen itinerary. Ijichi’s handwriting scribbled at the bottom with a note you struggled to decipher. 

I know you wanted to deal with the higher ups later. However, it appears they bumped up their meeting to discuss putting a bounty on her. 

On you. 

Great. 

More bodies to pile up. 

Satoru had just killed a guy. And if you stepped outside, someone else might kill you. 

You were completely and utterly fucked. Had been from the start. From the first moment you saw Satoru really, when he had stolen your heart with his stupid laugh. 

You flipped through the rest of the pages, each one just another brick dropped in your gut, stacking up on top of each other as you read more. 

He was planning to murder all the higher-ups. One clean sweep. 

Had a whole list of who would inherit what, how things should be run, plans that had been put into motion far before you ever booked your plane ticket. 

But the students would be safe. You would be safe. 

And a little voice had already started to whisper, why should you care then? 

What was so wrong with him taking care of men who sent your fellow sorcerers on suicide missions all the time? 

You shoved the folder back. 

Returned to your room and drew a bath. Locked the door behind you like Satoru would listen to the message you were sending for space. 

To your surprise, outside of knocking and asking to speak to you, he didn’t barge or teleport in. Just called out that he’d be waiting for you when you were ready to talk. 

After you were clean, dressed in an outfit he’d bought for you, you listened through the wall for any sign of him shuffling around. Luckily for you, Ijichi came knocking on his door, distracting him enough that you slipped out of the sliding door to the balcony. Hopping over the railing and rolling onto the dusty grass below where the evening was just starting to blend into night. 

Half-jogging onto the closest trail, this one through heavier trees as your bare feet scraped against the loose gravel. 

You hadn’t really thought about what you were doing. An impulsive decision to get some air, although even out here, none seemed to reach your lungs. 

It was cooler than you expected. A brittle chill sending a shiver down your spine and goosebumps trailing down your arms as you walked down the winding path. 

You gave it five minutes before Satoru showed up. Until he was popping in on the crunching leaves and throwing his arm around your shoulder. You wouldn’t shrug him off this time. Maybe let him pull you in for a hug, let him reassure you that it was fine no matter how far from it every part of this really was. 

Something shuffled ahead, and your head snapped up to the dark outline of someone ahead through the treeline. 

You hesitated. Some deep-rooted instinct freezing you in place as you squinted, tried to discern the swirls of cursed energy when Satoru’s basically drowned everyone else’s out. 

But then you heard your name, and you knew. 

Suguru had come back to search for you. Probably hanging on the outskirts of the property to avoid detection. 

He started jogging, but you didn’t move. Couldn’t get yourself to take so much as a step – although you weren’t sure if you’d go to him or run away. 

What were you supposed to say to him?

That you overheard Satoru’s plans and you wouldn’t sell him out? Make him promises that he’d be safe and the kids wouldn’t get hurt and hope he’d leave without doing anything stupid?

He stopped right in front of you, and it didn’t need to be said for you both to know where you stood. Whose side you were on. 

“Suguru,” you said his name, and he could tell from that alone that he wouldn’t be leaving with what he wanted. 

Dark eyes bore into yours, holding you hostage. His jaw locked, and you loathed how little he was probably thinking of you now. 

You failed. 

“He got to you,” he practically spat out, his voice low and lethal. 

You couldn’t tell him Satoru always had you. 

“You should go.” 

Honestly, whether it was a month or a week ago, you never would have considered that Suguru would be the one between the two who would actually kidnap you. 

Or that it wouldn’t even last longer than half an hour. 

It was a blur, being thrown on one of his curses, arguing with him over the sound of the wind as he brought you somewhere safe. He tied your wrists together when you tried you use your own cursed technique against him, scoffing under his breath and calling you brainwashed for buying into Satoru’s bullshit after you defended him. Trying to convince you to tell him anything other than to stop fucking worrying. 

Two minutes after he landed, in the middle of what looked like nowhere, standing in an empty parking lot and pointing fingers at each other, the world went black. 

You thought you were about to pass out – until you realized someone had just blocked out your view of the world. 

There was a crunching sound, some snickering, and then the loud voices of Satoru and Suguru shouting at each other. Suguru made a strangled sound of surprise, of pain, and you panicked. 

“Stop,” you tried to call out, and Satoru’s presence was suddenly beside you. 

“Hold on,” Satoru grumbled, his voice uncharacteristically cold. “I’m taking you home.” 

“Don’t hurt Suguru,” you softly requested, and he made a disgruntled sound. 

But your wish was still his command. 

And in a second, you were home.

The blindfold fell around your neck, his fingers brushing against your face. You squinted up at him, straining against the ropes around your wrists while he casually sliced them off. You were back in his bedroom – his own sliding door still open, the curtain covering it swaying with the wind.

“Sorry,” Satoru chirped, shrugging his shoulders as your restraints hit the floor. “Worried you might see something else your pretty little brain can’t handle.” 

You tried to scowl at him, but even that fell short when he was looking down at you. 

“I didn’t tell Suguru anything,” you defensively said, lips pushed together in a pout. 

He kneeled down next to you, humming appreciatively. 

“I know,” he purred.

“Then why-” 

“He touched you,” he murmured. 

“He thought he was saving me,” you pointed out.

“Do you want him to save you?” Satoru cocked his head to the side, feigning curiosity when the truth was already hanging in the air. 

“No.” 

That was all he needed to hear. 

He had you pinned against his bed in a handful of seconds. Your clothes half-shredded, barely taking the time to discard his own as he left kiss after kiss across your body. 

“Mine,” he muttered, repeating it under his breath like a mantra. 

His, his, his. 

You couldn’t deny it anymore. 

“Should I start calling you Gojo-Sama too?” You replied back in a soft voice, sifting your fingers through his silky hair as his teeth sank into your bare chest. Possessive. Hungry. 

“Please,” he groaned. Gripping your body like you’d finally declared it as part of his property. 

You were home after all. 

How long had you been drifting from city to city, country to country, running from someone who was waiting for you all along? 

“You know you can call me whatever you want,” he added, about to slip one finger inside just to test how slick you were only to discover you were soaked. 

“Yeah?” You found yourself smiling when he bit back a curse and hurried to line his cock up. "Gojo-Sama."

He let out a filthy moan, finger crooking as he shivered.

You liked his desperation.

You loved him. 

He was flawed, fucked-up, but the feral gleam in his eyes when he clenched his jaw and pushed his cock inside you lit a match inside you no one else would ever be able to reach. 

“Sometimes,” he murmured, half-delirious, drunk on the same desire that left you dizzy. Babbling while the stretch of his dick dragging against you seared. “I used to find your hotels. Lean against the door and try to convince myself to knock. To confess that I was in love with you and beg you to come back with me.” 

“You should've,” you muttered, breath hitching as he buried himself inside of. Letting go of the last shreds of decency. Of morality.

Here he was, openly admitting to stalking you, and the only feeling you found inside yourself was attraction. Adoration.

“W-what?” He stammered, genuine surprise in his hoarse voice. Straining just to keep his thrusts steady, brilliant blue eyes searching your face. 

You dragged your nails back down his back, earning another low moan that bordered on feral at the pain mixing with the hot pleasure. No one else got to do this. 

No one else got him. 

“You could've fucked me,” you continued, whispering softly as you craned up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I would've just thought I was dreaming.” 

Satoru’s eyes rolled back, that pretty lump in his throat bobbing as he tried to contain his coming orgasm. 

“Fuck, sweetheart, you can't just say that,” he hissed, body shaking as you smiled at him.

“I dreamt of you all the time,” you promised, letting go of his shoulders to stroke his hair. He pulled out, like it would stop him from cumming early, his leaking cock resting on your stomach. Throbbing while his stare burned through you.

You were tired of telling yourself you weren’t in love with him. 

Tired of lying. 

You wrapped delicate fingers around his cock, feeling the veins pulsing underneath your fingers before you guided it back inside you. Lips parting as he slowly pushed himself in, struggling and straining to keep himself from snapping. 

“I fantasized about us,” you whispered again, your own breath catching as he suddenly came hard, warm ropes of white spilling inside you before you could cum too. He was already apologizing, hissing out that he hadn’t meant to, promising that he’d make up for it with his mouth until he was hard again. 

You giggled at the idea he'd just be eating his own cum back out, grinning and relaxing as you hooked one of your thighs over his shoulder, glancing down at his cheesy smile at your acceptance. 

Some dreams did come true. 

Your mouth fell open. His did too.

Watching you slowly blink, eyes slowly narrowing into a squint as he panicked and pushed out some frantic explanation, holding his hands up as he tried to make it sound somehow less creepy, “Look, you just never know if the guy you pick already has like, fifty other kids, and what if your baby meets one of them and doesn’t know that they’re siblings and-” 

“You don’t want me to use a sperm donor because you think my hypothetical kid might accidentally fuck their sibling?” 

Okay, wow, that was worse. 

“I’m just saying you wouldn’t have to worry about that sort of stuff with me,” he continued, choking on the lump in his throat before clearing his throat. “You already know I have great genes.” 

And like he wasn’t already shooting himself in the foot just by speaking, he flexed his bicep with a stupid grin on his face, t-shirt straining against his muscles just for you to roll your eyes at him. 

“You’re twenty-eight,” you bluntly said, as if he had ever given a shit about being younger than you before. 

If he was the same age, would you see him differently? 

He had asked himself that too many times to count. Enough that the hurt that it came with had seeped into his bones and started to live there. Weighing him down as he wondered how you would treat him if he met you later, when you were both older, somewhere neutral. 

Would you want him the way he wanted you?

“And?” He whined, pouting as you resisted the urge to shut him down harder. “Doesn’t that mean I have, like, even better sperm?”

“Satoru, you’re gonna meet some gorgeous girl and get married, and then it’s just going to be weird if-” You started, shaking your head dismissively. 

“I’m not,” Satoru cut you off before you could finish coming up with weak excuses, like he’d ever met anyone he thought was half as gorgeous as you.  

You made that cute little face you always did when you wanted to argue with him but couldn’t come up with anything that would make him agree with you. 

“You don’t know that,” you said after a few short moments, leaning in closer, oblivious that the next whiff of your perfume was enough to make him lose what little reason he had left. 

“What if I pinky promise?” 

“That you’ll never have kids with anyone else?” You gawked at him, face scrunching up in confusion. “That’s literally ridiculous. You know I’d never ask you to-” 

“I was going to get a vasectomy in a couple years anyway,” he lied in a panic, shrugging his shoulders as if he didn’t really care when he had literally never cared more about the simple notion of some stranger’s sperm winning out over his. 

“You never mentioned that,” you quietly pouted back, like you were a little upset at the idea he never brought it up. But at least you believed it. 

“If I was even ever going to have one,” He paused, dragging his chair closer to the table to stretch over it and wipe some icing stuck to the corner of your mouth, dredging up something he knew without a doubt was the truth to make up for his bullshit. “I’d want it to be with you anyway.” 

You stared at him, his fingers still grazing against your mouth before he dropped his hand and reclined back in his chair, as if there was even a scrap of his cool left to recover. Shrugging his shoulders as he scrambled for something to say before you could call him an idiot for even suggesting something like that. 

“I could even pay for it,” he grinned like this was some grand gesture instead of him desperately clinging onto this chance. He didn't like to just throw money at problems – but he'd throw his entire dignity in the trash can if it meant when you were waddling around pregnant in six months, that it would be his baby you were carrying. “What else are best friends for?” 

Personally, he’d prefer to add father of your child (and future husband) to his resume, but he was used to accepting whatever you offered. 

“Satoru,” you said his name slowly, sounding out the syllables so he could hear the hint of scolding in them. But you didn't dismiss him. 

He smiled at you, and it was just as easy as it had always been. Comfortable. Cozy.

“It's not a big deal,” Satoru shrugged. “I want what you want.”

Even if it meant pulling down his pants and jerking off in a cup a few weeks later after you admitted that maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to have the hottest guy you knew contribute his sperm to create the cutest child ever – not that you worded it exactly like that. He guessed his promise of paying all the bills may have also helped sway your decision. 

The whole thing was sorta scary, waiting and hoping for updates from there about egg retrieval and embryo viability, feeling like a loser checking his phone two hundred times a day when he wasn’t with you and showing up at your place with meals, trying to pick out foods that were good for someone doing IVF. 

You always let him in, even if you hummed and huffed that he didn’t have to do it. 

Satoru clung to claiming that he just wanted to be supportive.

Carrying you back to your bed after you crashed on the couch, tucking you under the blankets and cleaning up the dinner, stuffing the styrofoam boxes down in the trash can while he cursed himself for not just coming clean about his feelings fifteen fucking years ago. 

Sometimes he wasn’t sure you even saw him as a man. Didn’t realize he wasn’t the awkward, lanky preteen or scrawny kid he used to be despite the fact he’d been taller than you for over half your lives now. 

You didn’t even blink when you woke up to him sleeping with no shirt on your couch, the blanket deliberately draped at his hips to show off his sculpted abs, just yawning and walking past him, already showered and fully dressed, applying lip gloss as you scrolled on your phone. 

“Just lock the door after you leave,” you hummed, dropping your phone back in your purse and picking up your shoes before returning back to the couch to sit on top of his calves so you could slip them on.

A few years ago, he might have pretended to groan, to tease you for being on him, but now he just felt utterly hopeless at how hard he was savoring the connection, the weight of you on him even when it was totally platonic. Blinking sleepily and staring at your side profile as you bent over to slide your shoes on, preemptively picturing where you both might be in nine months. Would he be helping you get them on then? Putting his hand on your stomach and feeling his baby kick underneath your skin?

“Where are you going?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes before he propped himself up on his elbows. 

“Today’s the day,” you casually said, and after a painfully long pause, it clicked. 

“Like, the day?” He gawked, adrenaline overwriting the exhaustion at the thought that you could be coming back home with his babies implanted inside you. 

“We don’t know if it will take,” you muttered. The cocky half of him wanted to remind you that the doctors had said that his sperm was high quality, tempted to turn it into a joke and break the tension, make some childish offer. But he held it in, reached out to brush his fingers against your arm. 

“How many are they implanting?” He asked, tracing a faint little heart over your skin you didn’t seem to notice. 

“Just one,” you answered with a little sigh, biting your lip to hide the hint of a smile curling up and betraying the hint of excitement under the surface you were trying not to feel. “A girl.”

And then you were standing back up, readjusting your purse over your shoulder as you searched it for your keys, despite the fact they were sitting on your kitchen counter instead. 

“Can I come?” He asked, wiping his sweaty palms on his slacks as you puckered your lips together, shuffling on your feet. Was it so fucking wrong to want to be in the room at least when he got you pregnant? 

“It’s not like-” 

“I could drive you,” Satoru offered, hyperaware of how hopelessly desperate his own voice sounded. “I have the day off anyway.” 

He didn’t, but he’d call out sick if he had to, fake a coughing fit and convince Ijichi to push back all his meetings or come in at absurd hours to catch up on stuff if he had to.

Satoru didn’t want to miss a single appointment. Didn’t want to let you do it alone – no matter how strong he knew you were. You never needed him. But he needed you. 

Craved being the guy you depended on. Trusted to help take care of you. 

You glanced back at him, tilting your head to the side with that cute little sigh of yours you always made right before you caved in. 

“Fine.”ᘏ⑅ᘏ

“Do you think she’ll like it?” 

For a man who was only supposed to be a sperm donor, Satoru Gojo was acting far more like a father. 

Your best friend standing outside your front door with shopping bags of baby stuff, stumbling through your threshold with that stupidly charming cheeky smile. And when he realized he was about to be scolded, he started dramatically sniffing the air as he peeked past you to see what you were cooking, eagerly changing the subject before you could comment on what he brought, “Whatcha making?” 

“How many different outfits do you think she needs?” You rolled your eyes as you eyed him suspiciously, sighing as you shut the door behind him. Satoru just laughed, already piling up everything on your coffee table as you self-consciously tried to pull down your t-shirt from where it was sticking to the swell of your stomach, threatening to ride up and show off your growing baby bump. Only five months in and barely fitting into any of your old stuff anymore, despite how many prenatal yoga classes you attended or midnight cravings you ignored. 

He looked as perfect as he always did. White hair tousled and the sleeves of his button-up rolled up on his forearms, veins sticking out as he glanced up at you with those irritatingly sparkly blue eyes. God, you couldn’t remember a single time you’d seen him look bad. 

Even when you were younger, you couldn't escape the effect he seemed to have on everyone else. It didn't help that your family worked for his, that you got a front row seat to watch him get everything he ever wanted. Hyper aware of all the differences in his life than yours, what world he'd been born into that you just happened to occupy. Only able to stare from the sidelines, the bottom row of the bleachers, pointedly aware that he occupied a certain position above everyone else. 

You’d grown up glaring as your other friends fawned over him, strangers approaching him in public to shove their numbers at him or shyly flirt while he smiled at the affection he was showered with. It wasn’t his fault. You didn’t even hold it against him, not when over time, you’d found yourself increasingly, um, fond of him.

 But you couldn’t just ignore who he was when it trickled down to every aspect of your own life. 

All the guys you started seeing never lasted long. 

Either assholes who cheated on you or dickheads who dumped you, both always citing how little they could stand Satoru, just insecure, you supposed, unable to tolerate your best friend and his sometimes annoying antics. He had a bad habit of showing up right when you were about to go on dates, swinging by late at night or bringing presents just because. 

You tried to explain that it was just how he was. Satoru had spent his entire life being spoiled and sheltered. Spoiling you in return was one of the few ways he knew how to show affection. And when he could drop a few bands a day without noticing so much as a tiny dent in his bank account, it wasn't like money or gifts meant anything to him. 

And here you were now, feeling like you were taking advantage of it anyway, single and pregnant while your best friend bought your (his?) baby teething toys and the most expensive car seat stroller combos, helping turn your spare bedroom into a nursery on the weekends while you reminded him (and yourself) over and over again that you didn’t expect him to do any of it. 

Satoru didn't just blur the lines. 

He buried them. 

Took a shovel and tossed so much sand over it that it was impossible to tell where they originally were. And after the first embryo was successfully implanted, once you went to the first scan and saw the tiny little blob that would be your baby, you seemed to be making meals for three instead of two most days when the man who helped make it insisted on coming over after he got off work nearly every evening.

Sometimes, he'd arrive with takeout or groceries, but he never showed up empty handed. 

“How's our, um, this little princess doing?” Satoru grinned after he corrected himself, walking over to squat down in front of you, tapping your stomach like he was trying to wake her up. 

“She keeps kicking,” you murmured, biting your lip as his palm abruptly pressed flat as if he was hoping to experience it for himself. His hand was warm through your thin shirt, his thumb subtly dragging a small semi-circle as you continued, “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” 

“Lay down,” he muttered, just as a faint flutter stirred in your stomach, the sensation of your baby moving around still alien and strange as you watched the slow smile spread up on his face as he felt it too. “I’ll finish cooking.” 

“You suck-” 

Satoru pressed one long finger against your lips before you could argue with him, shaking his head as he scoffed, “I’ve been taking classes.” 

“When?” You pouted, a hand on your hip as you racked your brain for when he’d even have the opportunity when you practically had to shoo him out of your place half the time. 

“Every other Tuesday,” he retorted – and then he was gently trying to guide you over to your couch, not stopping until you were sitting down and he was putting the remote in your hand. 

Begrudgingly flipping through boring movies, readjusting a pillow behind your back before you gave up and started sorting through the bags of stuff he brought with him. 

Blue dresses. Pink bows. Extra diapers and wipes. Swaddles. 

A two-pack of onesies featuring the words MOMMY’S ANGEL and DADDY’S PRINCESS embroidered across the chest. 

A small voice in your head rationally suggested that you should set some better boundaries. Tell him you weren’t going to put her in that second one when he was supposed to be more like a…rich uncle? Family friend? 

Well, something other than daddy. 

But some awful part of you sort of liked it.

Liked how much his attention was devoted to you, how you couldn’t exactly ever feel lonely when he was always around, always willing to step into whatever box he thought you needed from him. He didn’t complain. Never groaned or gritted his teeth and acted like you were too much. Always able to make you laugh and smile, holding your hair back when you were nauseous and holding your bags for you in public. 

Even if all of it was only platonic. 

You weren’t stupid enough to think his interest in you was romantic. 

He could pick anyone. Go out and come home with a girlfriend in two hours if he wanted to.

Satoru was simply excited to share this with you, at the idea of a little infant that might have his hair or his eyes, his ego probably ballooning and bigger than ever because you chose him to have it with. 

The one thing you could never afford was letting yourself have a crush on him.

Especially when his care right now was temporary. 

It would probably fade after your baby was born, once she was crying and crawling and required more than just trinkets and toys to thrive. You didn’t think he’d disappear. But he would move on, focus on his work or his other friends, return to his more spontaneous visits as he resumed his role as your best friend rather than baby daddy.

Which was fine. 

Completely, totally, fine. 

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Satoru hummed, handing you a warm bowl before clearing off a space on the coffee table for you to put it before rushing back to grab napkins and a drink for you to go with it. You stared at him. Struggling to ignore how sturdy his frame was, how handsome, how steady he’d turned out as he hurried around, casually rummaging through your cabinets to pick out a glass while he acted like he was perfectly at home here when his own place was probably three times bigger, your heart thumping a little too loud for your own comfort as you caught a glimpse of that cute crinkle by his eyes when he turned his head.

You loved him. 

As a friend. 

You were content to raise your daughter by yourself, made the decision to have her because you knew you could. 

But maybe you could enjoy his attention while you had it. 

Hold onto how things were before he got bored. 

And whatever this fluttering in your stomach was, the one that you couldn’t blame on the baby in there, it would pass.

ᘏ⑅ᘏ

Satoru only realized the depth of his own stupidity when he was realized just how fucking hard it was to stay best friends watching you waddle around swollen and seven months pregnant with his baby. Barefoot with powdered sugar dusting your fingertips, one hand casually resting on your stomach and leaving a print on your loose pajama shirt while you baked your favorite dessert, babbling about how badly you were craving it in between complaining about how much your back was aching. 

He’d known his pining was pathetic from an early age. 

Forced to acknowledge it post-puberty when you started going on dates and he had to resist the temptation to punch a wall and tell you that no one was good enough for you. Discomfort and anger crawling under his skin at the idea of you giving anyone else who obviously didn’t deserve you any of the time that should be his. 

And now, despite the (lack of) wisdom age had added, he was still just stuck staring at you with an open mouth like a moron as you glanced back at him, glowing no matter how much you complained about how awful you thought you looked. 

His pants had never been fucking tighter around you. 

Boner carefully concealed with one of your throw pillows, long legs stretched out on your couch as he pretended to scroll on his phone. 

Every day only seemed to get harder too. More of a struggle to shove down his feelings when you started to rely on him more. Leaning against his shoulder, holding onto his forearm, your fingers skimming over his skin as you started to casually cling to him the same way he always hung onto you. Asking him for massages, laying your head on his lap, playing with his hair when you walked by him. Your stare had started to stick to him more, catching you watching him when you thought he wasn't looking. 

Satoru had spent years dreaming of this easy domesticity with you. 

Walking through your door to find you already making a meal big enough to share, baking or singing to yourself, peeking out and smiling at him without even being surprised. Expecting to see him there. 

And still, he only ever got to sleep on the couch. 

Didn't get to hug you or hold your hand or kiss you at the end of the night. 

He wanted to invite you back to his place, see if you’d spend it with him if he changed up this new normal, but he was scared that you’d decline. That he’d fuck up this tightrope he was walking before he made it to the other side. 

Um, and maybe because he’d turned one of his own extra rooms from storage to a pretty, pink nursery too. Just in case you asked him to babysit, or uh, wanted any extra help with her. 

But there was a subtle edge to your behavior, your softness sometimes switching abruptly, going cold or sharp when least expected it, suddenly getting short with him when he got a little too close. Hormones, maybe? 

It wasn’t like he could ask without receiving a lecture that he shouldn’t blame your feelings on your hormones just because they didn’t match whatever he thought they should. 

“You’re quiet tonight,” you commented with a huff, turning on the timer on the microwave after you shut the stove. 

“Jus’ thinking,” he hummed, trying to avoid the urge to spill out his dirty secret. 

“About?” You tilted your head to the side, almost bumping into the baby swing he built last weekend as you walked back over to him, starting to bend over to try and lift one of his legs instead of just sitting on him like you used to. 

He patted his thighs, as if you would actually take him up on it, just to earn a dramatic hand on your hip, pouting hard. 

“You’re really making a pregnant lady stand?” You muttered dryly, jutting your bottom lip out further.

“There’s a perfectly good seat right here,” he teased, grinning as his hand reached out, leaning forward, about to gently graze against your waist when- 

You started crying.  

Big tears welling up in your eyes before he could so much as blink, your brows knitting together in frustration as your own fingers rushed to wipe them away. 

His mouth fell open, words automatically spilling out, “Sorry, I’ll move, I-”

“You’re an asshole,” you hissed, breath hitching as you started to turn away from him, and he was shoving himself up off the couch, hurrying to spin you around by your wrist only for you to yank your arm away from him. 

“What did I do?” He gawked, blinking hard and fast, panic seizing in his chest as he desperately tried to search your face for any sign. 

“You keep acting like-” You stopped yourself, just vaguely gesturing up-and-down at his body before you scoffed and buried your face in your hands. “I’m such a fucking idiot for thinking that this was a good idea.” 

“You’re not an idiot,” he argued, pulling your hand down so he could wipe away your tears himself. Dragging his thumb under your eyes and cupping your cheeks to force you to look at him. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

“We need, like, boundaries, or-”

“Boundaries?” 

Okay, sure, boundaries were normal, needed even, in most relationships. But he’d be lying if he said the idea of you putting up walls and pushing him away with new rules didn’t make him want to vomit. 

“You keep treating me like I’m your girlfriend,” you said, eyes wide and wavering as you barely managed to meet his stare. “Like, this means something more-” 

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?” 

He knew he shouldn’t have said it the moment he heard how it sounded out loud. Heard the sharp inhale you sucked in, how shattered it came out. “Stop-” 

“You mean everything to me,” he blurted out before you could break his heart, ready to beg, to barter, to do whatever he had to just so you would see it. 

“Don't say that,” you whispered, shaking your head as you tried to take a step back. “Not when you don't mean it.”

“I do,” he huffed, holding onto you as he again attempted to stop you from pulling away, from severing this connection. And somewhere in his panic, his body purged all the words his mind had been shoving down for so long. “Fuck, sweetheart, I love you. I've loved you my entire life and I will for the rest of it. I'll be anything you want me to be, shit, just don't shut me out.” 

“You love me,” you repeated, like it was ridiculous. 

“I love you,” he said it again anyway, his voice dropping low.

“You-” You stopped yourself, starting to breathe fast through your nose, biting your bottom lip before you continued, “If you're just trying to make me feel better-”

“Do you seriously think I'd say it and risk ruining us just because you're crying?” He asked, wiping away another stray tear from your soft cheek, managing to sound appropriately serious for the first time in his life. 

You swallowed hard, like you were suffocating on the truth now that it was out there. Fingers balled up by your side, fists shaking as you fought the reality Satoru had dropped on you. 

“I don't expect you to tell me that you love me too, just, fuck, just don't walk away from me, okay-” 

And before he could finish begging, you were grabbing the collar of his shirt to pull him down, his mouth still open when yours connected with it. 

You kissed him, soft, unsure, like you weren't certain or confident that this was the right decision. But you didn't stop even if part of you thought you'd regret it later. 

His own hands failed him, his brain freezing the second if processed the fact you were actually kissing him, stuck completely still as you soft lips lightly started to suck on his bottom one, his breath stolen and his heart straining to accept how fucking sweet this felt. 

But then your fingers went loose, started to let go of his shirt, and he snapped out of it. Tethering his hands in your hair, deepening the kiss before you could pull away and he'd have to hear that you changed your mind. That he lost his only chance. 

Satoru tried to show you with his lips. 

Tongue dancing across your bottom lip for entry, dragging over the ridges of your teeth, exploring your mouth and memorizing how it felt. Saved it in case he'd never be able to savor the experience again. 

And when a cute little moan slipped out as his chest pressed against yours, as your bodies connected, your baby bump pressed against his stomach and your free hand draped over his shoulder, he knew his boner was back. 

“Mmph, Sato-” you murmured when you finally pulled away for air. He was desperately trying to suck in the quickest breath he could just to kiss you again.

The most he managed was a few quick pecks pressed to the corner of your mouth before your palm pressed flat against his chest. 

“We should talk about it,” you reasonably said, despite how inclined he was to throw reason out the window and carry you back to your bed. 

“Do you want me?” He asked, sucking in a short breath, leaning down so his nose was nuzzling against yours. 

“I do,” you answered, your voice strained and tight as you reluctantly looked up at him, studying the shape of his lips. And maybe it was because he’d spent an entire life wrapped around your finger, building and molding himself to be the sort of man you wanted, that you needed, he knew what thoughts were swirling around in your head before you said any of them. “I’m just scared.”

Hearing it out loud still scared the shit out of him though. 

Knowing how close he was to having you – and how easy it would be to fuck it all up. 

“What can I do to show you just how serious I am?” He murmured, leaning in, lightly grazing his lips against your mouth again. 

You closed your eyes, held onto his shirt and let yourself melt into his chest. 

This kiss didn't last long though, not when the timer on the microwave suddenly blared out. 

“I, um, should check on that,” you muttered, and it was incredibly hard to let you go. To watch you slip from his hold again and walk back into your kitchen, some intangible thread tugging him towards you, unable to stay more than a few steps away from you while you opened the oven and sighed before you added a few more minutes on the timer. 

But you didn’t come back, didn’t speak up immediately. 

You were staring at your distorted reflection in the microwave, like you were silently attempting to convince yourself of something. 

Maybe to turn him down. 

Say that you were both always going to be better off as friends.

“Tell me what to do,” Satoru begged. 

“I don’t know,” you blanched. 

“Anything,” he started. “I swear, I’ll-”

“Shouldn't we take this slow?” You hesitantly asked before he could offer to put up a billboard professing his love or get down on his knees to propose, clinging onto the counter tight enough he could see the clear outline of the bones and tendons in your knuckles. 

“You're having my baby,” he pointed out, and you just pouted at him. 

“I know,” you muttered, mulling over how you wanted to word your concern. “But what if you're only doing this because of that?”

“Sweetheart,” Satoru started, a fresh pang of panic shooting straight through his chest. “I would want you whether or not the baby was mine or someone else's. I've loved you for so fucking long-”

“It's hard for me to accept that,” you admitted, rubbing the back of your neck. “I don't understand why you would pick me. You could have-”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted. You occupy all my thoughts,” he breathed, his throat constricting as he did his best to confess. “Your glare. Your laugh. The way you defend me even when I'm a dick. How you indulge me even when I don't deserve it. Every morning, every night, every stupid meeting I get stuck in and when I'm in the shower. I've spent my whole life waiting for you to see me standing here and hoping for you.”

Another big tear welled up in your pretty eyes, one you quickly blinked away as your stare shined up at him. 

“Can you wait a little longer?” You asked, as if he wouldn't wait another ten, twenty, thirty fucking years holding onto this. 

“Of course,” he whispered. 

As long as you needed. 

He’d just hope it was a sooner rather than later thing. 

You wiped your cheeks, recollecting yourself before checking the oven again, pressing your lips together in a thin line as you put some mitts on and opened it to pull out the baking tray before reaching up to shut off the timer.

Satoru ended up where he always did. 

Stretched out in the corner of your couch, arm thrown around the back and pretending to pay attention to what was on TV instead of watching you in the corner of his vision. But this time, you snuggled up a little closer after you sat a plate down in front of him.

Curled up enough that your thighs were firmly pressing against each other, and slowly, his hand drifted down to cup your stomach. Just under the skin, feeling the faint flutter of his daughter kicking, or readjusting in there. Growing to hopefully be more like you than him, even if she would get stuck with half his DNA. 

“You’re warm,” you softly said, as if that was your excuse to melt into him more.

“Will you still let me spend the night?” He pouted, lips parting only for you to push a warm treat against them to shut him up. 

“On the couch?” You asked, watching him chew, chocolate probably smeared across his mouth before you asked something he only ever dreamed about. “Or in bed?” 

ᘏ⑅ᘏ

Satoru never stopped staying the night. 

And despite the fact he’d technically gotten you pregnant, you still had yet to have sex with him. But instead of him walking in hungry for your cooking, he was starving for you. Thighs hooked over his shoulders while he dragged his tongue up across your pussy, greedily lapping you up like it was his new favorite meal. 

You liked the way he kissed you when you woke up, his strong arms slung around your body, his soft mouth dotting your face like it was his favorite thing in the world. You loved the way he looked at you when he left for work, the warmth that seemed to radiate and wrap around you when he leaned down to caress your cheek and tell you that he’d call you at lunch. 

Somewhere along the way though, or more precisely around week thirty-eight, you started spending the night at his place instead, getting stretched out on his long fingers in his silk sheets instead of your cotton ones. 

You spent almost an hour chewing him out for the nursery he’d already set up there, dismissing his excuses because you both were well aware of the reasons why. 

He didn’t want to just be the donor. 

He wanted to be your baby’s dad. 

And when it came time to actually have your daughter, when your water broke a couple days past your due date and he rushed you to the hospital, you were the one to tell the nurses that was exactly what he was instead of playing pretend and ignoring what was right in front of your face. 

Letting him wipe the sweat from your brow and hold the cup of water to your lips, nearly breaking his hand by holding it so hard when it came time to push, hours of labor culminating in a little baby with your favorite set of blue eyes. 

She had your hair though, and he tried to say your smile too, peeling off his shirt right there in the room and ready to do skin-to-skin with her the second you said he could. 

If you hadn’t figured out you were completely and totally fucking in love with him, you knew the second you saw him cradling her to his chest, the gleam in his stare and the reverence in his trembling fingers brushing across her chubby cheeks. 

He had looked up at you with that lopsided smile, pride and adoration present in every line etched in his face. 

“I feel like the luckiest guy in the world,” he grinned.

And just a couple months of being with him had made you see how lucky you’d always been to have him. 

To have her. 

Even though you were pretty sure she inherited her dad’s personality. 

Specifically the loud and clingy parts. 

Always needing one of you to be carrying her, crying when you tried to leave her in the crib, refusing to be bottlefed half-the-time even when you were just feeding her what you pumped. Her crystalline stare welling up with fat tears if you dared to put her down on a soft mat for tummy time, lazily hitting her tiny feet against the ground instead of trying to roll or crawl.

All that baby proofing Satoru had spent hours on pretty much useless so far when she'd barely been outside of your arms or the baby carrier he proudly walked around with her in. He even started working from home once his paternity leave ran out, taking meetings with her still in the carrier, chatting with people on the phone or on video calls, something about the sound of his voice and the way he bounced her, always seeming to lull her to sleep. 

You had unofficially moved in with him, although you let him handle all the packing and unloading, rooms conveniently already set up like he'd always been holding that space for you, closet half-vacant until all your clothes were hung up by his. 

Boyfriend, best friend, husband, no title really needed to tag onto whatever it was the two of you shared. 

It was bigger than that. 

You were his now. 

And you didn’t want to deny it anymore. 

Besides, you'd done some laundry a couple days ago and found a ring box underneath his boxers in the sock drawer, so you supposed it would have a label soon anyway. 

If you were going to spend the rest of your life loving someone, it was always going to be him. 

You were an idiot for not seeing it sooner. 

But he never made you feel like one. 

He kissed you good night like it was the most natural thing in the world, half-draped across your body and skimming his fingers over your face before he curled up next to you in the dim bedroom, blankets tangled around your bodies. 

Falling asleep came fast when it was in his arms, but you'd begun to have one, or, uh, two problems when you woke up at four in the morning with a massive ache in your chest. 

In his quest to be the best father (and future husband), he'd taken over night feedings to make sure you slept, but despite his sweetness, your body wasn't on the same page. Or rather, schedule. 

Missing her night feedings had left you engorged. 

Tits swollen and milk stuck in the ducts, the usually soft flesh practically hard under the stretched skin, painful when you sat up and realized you had started to soak through your bra and shirt. You tried to peel both off of you, wincing at the wetness as your finger fumbled for the pump you left by the nightstand in the dark only to knock it off instead. 

“Sweetheart?” Satoru groggily spoke up, a big hand reaching out, half-patting your stomach in his sleepy state.

But then he was already shutting his eyes again, yawning and humming as he drifted back to sleep, your lips pressing together in a frustrated line as you swung your legs off the bed and bent over to grab the pump. 

Although, it wasn’t really much use when your ducts were too fucking clogged for anything other than a painfully slow drip to come out, the ache just getting worse as you begrudgingly switched on the lamp by your bed and bathed the room in warm yellow light as you put the pump back. 

“Satoru,” you whined, rolling over in bed and lightly shaking the pretty man drooling on the pillow next to you. He almost immediately stirred for real this time, sitting up and blinking before wiping the spit from the corner of his mouth, grunting as he got up, the low sound only making your thighs tense and press together. 

“Mm, baby?” He yawned as he stretched, running his fingers through his hair as his baby-food-stained sweatshirt rode up to show a sliver of his toned abs. 

“When did you feed her?” You half-whispered as his tired eyes shifted to his phone on the other side of him, briefly turning it on with a sigh. 

“Like, an hour ago?” He answered, blinking a couple times as his eyes returned to you – and then practically bulged out of his head at the realization your boobs were out. 

Mouth falling open in a pretty ‘o’, drool probably pooling inside it as he stared at how heavy they were hanging, tongue uselessly trying to form a coherent follow-up and some strangled sound escaping instead. 

“I need you,” you admitted just as another droplet of milk leaked out, starting to roll down your breast – but before it could make it more than an inch, Satoru was there, wrapping his lips around your areola and starting to suck before you could even get another sentence out. 

He pulled you closer, an arm slipping around your lower back, pulling you in as his tongue dragged over your hardened nipple, his other hand already reaching up to squeeze your other tit, groaning at how it felt under his palm. 

You gasped, a surprising surge of electricity racing down your spine as heat you hadn’t expected bubbled up to simmer in your core. Technically, you’d been cleared for sex, like, six weeks ago, but you’d been a little anxious about him seeing your postpartum body. 

Not sure if his feelings would be swayed after you carried his baby, if the stretchmarks or soft plush of your stomach would put him off. 

But the ravenous gleam in his eyes, the frenzied way his fingers kept fumbling to make sure you couldn’t slip away, you didn’t think anyone had ever wanted you as badly as he did right now. 

And before you could fully process it, your back was hitting the bed, pinned between his heavy body and his firm mattress, the sheets crinkling underneath you as he greedily drank. 

He looked delirious. 

Okay, probably a little bit sleep deprived from being in night feeding duty half the time, but he was drunk on you, letting out a lewd moan as he sucked hard on the hardened bud, desperately kneading into the other one with those thick fingers of his while something hard and huge dug into your thigh. 

Fuck.  

Why the hell was he that big? 

The size of him was on your mind as he switched breasts, eagerly slurping as he squeezed, trying to break up the clog with his thick fingers, pressing in and working into the skin, forcing more milk out as he tried to drain you. 

“Shit, angel,” he moaned, barely pulling away to glance up at you, the blue in his eyes swallowed up by his pupils as milk dribbled down the corner of his mouth. “You’re so sweet.” 

“S-Satoru,” you stammered, relief washing over you as he went back to drinking and managed to clear out at least one of the ducts, eyelashes fluttering as his tongue toyed with your still overly sensitive nipple. Your fingers were shaking as you tangled them in his hair, trying to guide him back to the other one, hyperaware of how sticky your skin was, some of the milk definitely leaking down onto the bed and getting on his shirt as he continued without a pause. 

“S’not fair,” he whined, fingers digging in again as he practically rutted his cock against your thigh. Hips rolling down to grind against you, his muscled thighs flexing with every rock of them. “How come she gets to drink this all the time and I don’t?”

“You can’t be serious,” you gasped, tugging at his roots to pry him back just to find that fucked-out look on his face, everything relaxed as he jutted out his bottom lips like he was willing to beg for more if he had to. 

“This is my new favorite drink,” he insisted, and before you could sputter out another protest, he was latched on again, relieving your other breast with that pretty mouth of his, massaging it until you were both moaning, your head falling back against the pillow as you gave in.

Gave it all up for him. 

Finding yourself arching your own back up off the bed, squirming and shuddering as he went to work on it, teeth skimming and scraping until your nipples were sore, swallowing your milk until your breasts almost felt empty – but you knew they’d fill back up sooner or later. Sooner, if he kept sucking on them like that as if he could telepathically communicate to them to make more. 

And even when they were nearly drained, he was running his tongue over your chest, cleaning you up like he was a goddamn cat. Taste buds dragging over your skin, running his fingered over your peaked nipples now, a surprised squeak pulled from you that made you both pause for a second, his blue eyes wide when they immediately locked onto your face.

Neither of you said anything. 

But his cock twitched, and a funny pulse shot down to your clit, and your mouth was opening to ask him something you’d been craving more than you could confess. 

“Do you want to fuck me?” You breathed, awkward, tense. 

Terrified he’d say no, no matter how irrational it was. 

But Satoru just smiled, climbing completely on top of you and caging you back in to caress your cheek, “God, you have no idea just how long I’ve been waiting for-” 

Your mouth crashed against his before he could even finish his sentence, your own impatience catching you by surprise, lips fitting so nicely in between his, and you wondered why it had taken you so long to take what was always yours. 

You could taste yourself on him, the faintly sweet milk on his breath, although it was a little weird mixed with the leftover mint from him brushing his teeth. He didn’t seem to mind though, eagerly shoving his tongue in your mouth, the now-damp fabric of his shirt pressed against your chest. 

One of you would definitely need to throw a load into the washing machine after this, strip the sheets down and change them after the mess you were making. 

But you couldn’t help but slip your hand down, sneaking underneath the band of his sweatpants and inside his boxers to feel his swollen tip, collecting the thick pre-cum already there and sliding it down his dick. 

Veins pulsing against your palm, your fingers delicately wrapping around his girth and starting to stroke as he made some guttural groan that made your stomach feel funny. Pure want searing through you, desire you weren’t used to handling or holding back now dealt to you in spades. 

Maybe it was because some small voice was trying to suggest that you were about to have sex with Satoru, a sliver of you thrilled at the idea of him needing you too. 

“F-fuck,” he whimpered, and it was probably the prettiest sound you ever heard. “M’gonna cum if you keep doing that.” 

“You’re not even in me,” you teased him. He growled at that, and before you could even giggle, he was pulling your hand back out of his pants, firm fingers gripping your wrist and pinning it above your head before you could make him snap. 

And then his other hand was suddenly helping spread your thighs further apart, easily able to move the thin fabric of your cotton shorts and lacy panties aside so he could shove two fingers inside your pussy to see how soaked you were. 

“Baby,” he immediately hummed the second his fingers swirled inside, one corner of his mouth curling up almost condescendingly while you huffed back at him. “I wasn’t even in you.” 

Dick. 

But it was hard to be hurt by him mocking you back when he was sliding his actual dick inside you barely thirty seconds later, the rest of your clothes and his quickly discarded so he could do what you'd both been dreaming about, his eyes scrunching shut as he slowly took it inch by inch. Savoring the stretch, the way his hands trembled as he touched you, his breathing heavy and uneven as he felt your walls squeeze around him. You might’ve complained at how long it was taking if you weren’t also having a hard time holding yourself together. 

Studying all those details of his face you’d fallen for, the shape his soft lips made when his features were all twisted up in pleasure, how his long lashes fluttered as he whispered your name like a prayer. 

Sure, you had sex before. Weren’t exactly a virgin by any means. 

But nothing was like this. 

No one was like him. 

Satoru was treating you like some alter he was born to worship at. Every movement deliberate, sucking in a sharp breath as he pushed through, filling you up until his cock was nestled against your womb, the pressure mind-melting as he tried to focus on your own body reacting to him. 

“I-is it too much?” He asked, like he wasn’t straining, his voice thin and airy. “Tell me if anything hurts.” 

Still concerned for you, still worried he might wound you. 

You nodded, heart thrumming wildly as his cock throbbed and all your sore muscles tensed around him. Hesitantly opening your mouth to reassure him, “I’m good. This is good.” 

Fantastic, actually, but his ego didn’t need that much of a boost. 

Satoru still lit up like you’d told him it was the best you ever had. 

“Thank fucking god,” he murmured, his head falling down so he could nuzzle his nose against your neck. Peppering your throat with kisses as he started thrusting, almost delicate at first, but quickly picking up the pace once he was confident he wouldn’t completely break you with his cock. 

Driving himself in faster, harder, both hands now holding up your hips, angle himself deep enough you could feel himself re-molding you to him. You were out-of-practice, and you could tell he was too, but his sloppiness was made up for with how eager he was, how earnestly his mouth and his fingers and his cock worked to make you feel good. 

“I love you,” he babbled, breathing hard and heavy into your collarbone, your breasts still leaking a little bit of milk onto his chest that he didn’t seem to notice. “I, oh fuck, I love you so much.” 

You were nodding, tracing your fingers over his broad back, his defined shoulder blades, holding onto him as your walls tried to squeeze and clamp down on him. The sex felt different, all your nerves suddenly more sensitive, everything burning and starving for more. 

“I-I love you too,” you gasped, an invisible weight lifted off your chest hearing the words leave your mouth. 

He made a noise that was probably loud enough to wake anyone else in the building, both of you freezing as your heads snapped back towards the door to see if it woke up your daughter down the hall. 

But then his thumb darted to your clit, rushing to make rough circles, his chest heaving with fast breaths as he tried to make sure this wouldn’t end without him making you cum. 

“My pretty girl, fuck,” he purred, sucking a spot he’d already nipped at above your tendon, the jolt it sent through you dragging you embarrassingly close to climax when it was combined with the patterns he was painting over your needy bud. The friction was intense, feeding something deep in your chest you hadn't realized was hollow before. 

Comforted by him coaxing you, crumbling bit by bit into his hand as his cock continued pumping inside you. 

“Always been your girl,” you half-whispered back, toes curling hard as your body tensed up again, lips staying parted as he pulled you right to the precipice. 

“Mine forever then?” Satoru asked, sounding ruined. 

“Forever,” you promised without really thinking, breath itching in your throat as his cock abruptly stalled, still buried deep. 

You were pretty sure he came first, but before you could open your eyes or get another word out, his thumb twitched and pressed down mid-motion and you were seeing stars right as he groaned and snapped his hips down. Too occupied with the pleasure rolling through your almost limp limbs, your nails scratching down his back as warm spurts of cum started coating your walls, leaking down your legs. 

“Shit, fuck, please tell me you came,” he hissed, his own eyes shut, sweaty strands of hair hanging down and sticking to his forehead as you stared at his glossy lips. 

“Mhm,” you murmured, blinking as he finally peeked his eyes open and took in the full sight of you. Breasts still sticky and swollen, his cum dripping down your thighs, bite marks probably staining your throat. 

“Will you marry me?” He bluntly asked, and you could only roll your eyes and laugh at him. 

“Ask me again later,” you muttered, sighing at the state of yourself and wondering if a late night shower would wake a sleeping baby. 

You guessed it didn't matter when her soft cry cut through the brief silence, both of you exhaling at the same time. 

“I'll get dressed and go get her,” Satoru preemptively offered, climbing off of you with a small yawn. You watched him pad barefoot over to the dresser, biting your lips as he pulled fresh boxers back on and rummaged through the other drawers for pajamas. 

“Um, Satoru?” You hesitantly spoke up as a thought nagged at you. 

“Yeah, baby?” 

“I'm not on birth control.”

reblogs + comments are always greatly appreciated <3

For a fire bubbled in his loins, heart, throat, and the feeling of your plush, silky body beneath his fingers was driving him absolutely mad. His gaze slipped down to your chin, neck, and breast, sitting calmly under the flimsy, pinkish dress, and with a gentle squint of his eyes, he could see a hard areola of your nipples.

"My Goddess, your d-dress, I t-think…" he whispered, looking around the table.

However, other Gods and nymphs were already used to this odd couple, who appeared to nurture their love through a different, yet satisfying, desire to dominate and be dominated. Whenever a young couple attended the feasts, Lord Hades often seemed on the verge of collapse, while Goddess Aphrodite watched her husband with a sly smile. 

Such a peculiar couple, indeed, but after some time, the other deities became accustomed to it. 

Although a few of them, be they Gods or demigods, looked at Lord Hades with jealousy bubbling in their chests. As none of them could comprehend the spell this slightly miserable man must have put on a beauty like you. 

Didn’t understand what you saw in those puppy eyes and that gaze that always yearned to watch the smile curving your lips. His shadow, broad and tall, followed the flowery steps left beneath your feet with obedience – fingers always wrapped around yours, dark robes brushing the flimsy silk of your pinkish dress. He looked quite unmanly in demeanour, with raven hair spilling down his neck and pale skin that looked rather womanly. 

But what they didn’t understand most was how deeply in love with him you truly seemed to be. Living most of the time in the Underworld, as if indifferent to the constant darkness spilling over the cold land and the grim souls wandering aimlessly through the deep forests. 

The Styx smelt of death, and the beastly dog embodied everything you always hated – brutality, destruction, loyalty.

Tying you down always seemed impossible – as Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and even mortal lover Adonis were in awe of your devotion to Lord Hades himself. A figure of a completely different mind and demeanour, and yet the only one deserving of your cheerful spirit and arms wrapped lovingly around his neck. 

"They’re staring again," Choso whispered, beads of sweat coiling on his neck. Your hard nipples brushed against his chest, and your hips wriggled on his lap. "Please, c-can you stop–"

"Let them stare then," you hummed, pressing yourself closer to his tensed body. "You have no idea how jealous they are, my God."

Choso, unfortunately, knew. As he was always watching you, noticing all those needy, painful looks from other Gods sent your way. With lust coiling behind their eyes, fingers itching to brush the misty material of your robes, hearts pounding with a virgin bat upon seeing the completely indifferent flutter of your lashes. Irises cold as ice, stripped of any cheekiness and sensuality you always used to surround yourself with. 

And thus, other Gods could only gaze upon you with dreamy eyes, remembering the days when Goddess Aphrodite was more than welcome to treat every man on the mountain like her dog. 

But now, this grace fell only upon Lord Hades. 

You took a sip of pomegranate juice, letting it bloom in your chest with a pleasant warmth. A slight dizziness washed over you, and you nuzzled into Choso’s chest, leaving the God tense and sweating. With slightly drunk eyes that still looked at you the same way they had those years ago – with pure devotion, love, maybe a bit of obsession. 

Before you could tease your husband again, someone pulled up a chair beside you and plumped down with a low chuckle.

"My Lord, one might think your face is twisted in pain," Satoru chipped in, taking a big sip of wine. The short tunic barely covered his chest, and a laurel wreath sat slightly crooked on his fluffy white hair. "Shall you take some fresh air?"

Choso coughed, pulling you closer to his chest. A smile tugged at your lips as his muscular arms wrapped around your waist a little tighter.

Such a possessive little minx.

"I’m feeling quite well, just… a bit drunk," Choso muttered, as he simply couldn’t confess that the moment you would slip down from his hips, the loose, black robes would bulge with a big, drenched spot. 

Satoru’s gaze flicked between your sly smile and Choso’s puppy eyes before he took another sip. His usually pale face flushed with grape warmth, as long fingers tapped the table. 

"Come on, say it," your head tilted.

Satoru’s eyes glimmered, and lips curled into a soft pout. "How did you know I wanted something?"

"How couldn’t I? We’re almost like siblings."

A sharp grimace slashes his handsome face as the relationship between you two could be described in much, much better terms. Best friends, ex-lovers, family… siblings were… well. Some Gods enjoyed it, but not you two.

Satoru was one of your few ex-lovers who truly liked and respected Choso.

Did he enjoy making fun of his constantly sheepish demeanour? Sure. 

But his actions were never driven by jealousy, and thus you appreciated that he knew how to behave himself around your husband. 

And Choso, who long before your meeting used to slip into your temple and, like the pervert he truly was, watch you and Satoru fuck – also couldn’t quite be against him. In fact, he may have felt a slight gratitude that the God of Light, Sun and Music had pointed at him at a similar feast those years ago.

"How’s your prince doing?" you asked, lips curving into a lovely smile that tugged at both men’s hearts. "My doves suddenly stopped returning from their spy missions."

Satoru’s head tilted, eyes glimmering with mischief. His fingers gripped the golden cup a little tighter as he leaned towards you and Choso. 

"The prince recently got himself a fierce tiger, you see," he cleared his throat, coming closer and closer until the three of you were locked in a secret whispering circle. "My Goddess, do you remember when we talked about those…" Blue eyes twinkled like little stars. "Fertility pills?"

Both you and Choso froze.

Satoru tried to, but wasn’t fast enough to add please don’t laugh, and loud, melodic laughter curled like a serpent around the ears of the nearest deities. Their curious eyes slipped your way, taking in the Lady Aphrodite, hysterical with tears, Lord Hades, with ears constantly flushed, and Apollo squinting at the Goddess. 

A moment passed before you finally managed to wipe away your tears and look into Satoru’s eyes without bursting into laughter. 

"Truly a viper woman you are, my Goddess," he murmured, and you noticed a rosy kiss smooching his cheeks.

"So which one of you wants to get pregnant?" You asked, leaning your head against Choso’s shoulder. "I guess you, since the prince wouldn’t think of such a thing."

Satoru tsked, taking another sip of a wine. "Of course, me," he seemed almost offended by your question. "His birthday is coming up, so–"

"So you want to get pregnant?"

"That’s right," Satoru glimmered, yet warmth and kindness shone in his gaze. Blue eyes dropped to the crystal ring on his finger, shining faintly in the pale moonlight. "I thought I wouldn’t mind seeing a little him cradled in my arms."

And those words… stirred something in your heart. Some thoughts slipped into your dizzy yet conscious mind, and they wouldn’t leave until the end of the feast. The voices sounded almost distant, like ocean waves closing you off behind curling salt, completely separating you from the other deities. 

Satoru and Choso chatted casually, sometimes slipping a few questions your way. But your mind and soul seemed elsewhere. Eyes fixed on the softness of your belly, with Choso’s big hand resting on it.

And so you began to wonder how it would look a bit… fuller. Plumper, with a sweet swell bulging beneath your misty robes, your husband’s palm rubbing gently against the skin protecting your dear child. 

Your heart fluttered, already imagining the little pale child strolling through the dark fields of the Underworld and playing in the warm water of your beaches. With, maybe, hopefully, the same deep, chestnut eyes as your husband and the same gentleness you wished it would inherit. 

Only a few days had passed since you had noticed a sudden change in your body. The sudden tenderness of breasts, the plumpness of your skin, eyes shining with a tender love, much softer and kinder than usual. Hand subconsciously slipping down to your belly, and a sudden spark of divine creation weighing your heart. 

This morning, while enjoying the rays of sunlight in your temple on Olympus, your nymphs began to watch you more closely. Your naked body, dipped in crystal-clear water, hair wet and clinging to glowing cheeks, breasts a little swollen, hips seeming plumper. A hand resting gently on your still-flat belly, yet they seemed to know. They noticed.

"My Goddess," one of them chirped, swimming a little closer. With eyes fixed on your relaxed face, she brushed away a few strands. "The sisters had noticed that you might be…" Her head tilted, and her gaze slipped down to your belly. "It seems you’re with child."

A sweet giggle slipped from your lips, and the nymph flushed with fever. The other birdies joined her, gathering around you like a group of ducks.

"Is that true then? Goddess, are you with Lord Hades’s child?"

A warm smile curved your lips, and you nodded, prompting another wave of their shrieks and gasps. Their little hands, one by one, touched your belly, as if trying to feel the child who yet possessed neither mind nor form. But the gentleness of their touch made your heart flutter, and you watched them, smiling at the happiness brimming in their flushed cheeks. 

"Does Lord Hades know then?"

Your head shook. "Not yet. I will tell him soon," because you knew your husband would be on the verge of tears and fainting, so you needed to break the news somewhere in the safety of your temples. 

And so, on the same evening, as you were returning to your temple after the feast, excitement coiled in your belly. Choso, slightly drunk, with a cherry flush coating his face, wrapped his fingers around yours as you walked back to your main temple.

You would usually stay in the Underworld, where Choso almost daily needed to indulge himself in matters of the dead and death. You didn’t mind living there with him, for you knew how hard your husband tried to make you feel at home.

With the constant darkness of his temple shining with the warm, pinkish candles brought from yours, and walls draped in pearly cushions. The bath was replaced with the jade tub, with dried roses hanging loose from the marble ceiling. Withered flowers wrapped around the grimy columns, and the garden Choso wished to bloom for you was filled with nothing but beautifully parched flowers and the single pomegranate tree.

He tried to make jewellery specially for you, and so while strolling by his side, your eyes slipped down to the bracelets made of black roses.

The nature withered under his touch, yet his heart yearned to show his dearest goddess the utmost love and devotion. And so you soon exchanged the golden earrings for the two pomegranate-shaped ones, and the heavy necklace was replaced with a thin chain ending in a crimson key. 

To the gates of Underworld and to my heart, he whispered back then.

As for Choso, he rarely left his domain. You tried to make your temples always feel like a second home to him, yet he simply couldn’t stand the company of all your nymphs, always playing in the waters of the open baths and along the nearby beaches. 

He, though, loved the fresh, flowery smell that filled the marble walls and even more enjoyed the fragrance of your skin. Much more intense, sweeter, fogging his mind in the utmost sensual way, till soon after passing the doorstep of your temple, he could only go down to his knees and eat your pussy with a loud cry as you were still standing. With one thigh hooked over his shoulder and fingers pulling his hair, to keep yourself steady.

It’s because you smell so intense, my Goddess, he always mewled, with nose and chin and cheeks wet of your dripping juices.

And so Choso loved to fuck you in your temple. The scent of you was much, much stronger here than in the Underworld, and he took utmost pleasure in letting himself be spiked by your aphrodisiac taste.

This night was no different.

The moment his slightly drunk body stepped through the creamy columns of your domain, he glued himself to you almost at once. His lips met yours in a loving yet desperate kiss, his body already prickling with heat bubbling under the skin as he felt himself grow warmer. And warmer, and warmer, till his fingertips started to tingle from the sizzling heat and a hefty moan slipped into your throat.

"F-Fuck, my Goddess, I’ve been hard this whole time," he muttered, walking you further into the temple until you hit one of the pinkish sofas. 

The moonlight spilt through the terrace, and the salt mixed with the sweetness coming from your body. Waves crashed gently against the nearest beach, bouncing off the marble walls, mingling with your giggles.

"Were you, now? Let’s skip the appetiser and go to the main course then," fell slyly, as you spread thighs wide open, inviting his massive body in.

Muscular back, almost fully shielding you from the moonlight’s curious gaze, hips already glued to yours. Soft thighs wrapped around him, drawing him closer until the clothed bulge brushed against your dripping cunt.

"I’m not wearing any panties, my God," you whispered into Choso’s ear, gently biting his earlobe. 

Chestnut eyes met yours, and lips curled into a soft smile. "I don’t remember the last time you wore them, my Goddess."

Laughter bubbled in your throat, and he smiled too, peppering your chin, cheeks, lips with soft kisses, until finally slipping down your body. With nose brushing the crook of your neck, teeth grazing hard nipples, fully visible through the misty robes and going down to the softness of your belly. 

You moaned, spreading your thighs even wider, already wet and desperate to feel his lips curving around the swollen clit. 

"If you hadn’t stolen all of them, maybe I’d still have something to wear," fell with a cheeky giggle, and Choso looked up from between your thighs, already maddened by fever.

"It’s b-because your pussy always smells so good, my love," he muttered shyly, following your slowly rising body.

Breasts finally slipped from beneath the robes, offering him a delicious view of your honeyed aureolas glistening with his saliva.

"It’s because you are a pervert, my dear husband," your head tilted as you brushed raven locks from his forehead and leaned on your elbows.

His face was millimetres from your drenched cunt, and the sheer honeyed fragrance coming from your folds made Choso’s head spin. You noticed the wave of his hips brushing against the sofa and possessed eyes looking up at you with utmost devotion.

"How about we start with the dessert then?" he murmured, his wet tongue took a hefty lick of your slick. Nose deep between the folds, forehead creased, and eyes fixed on your face twisted in pleasure. 

"Cho–ah!" you cried, rolling your hips against his plastered tongue. 

The muscle burned the folds of your pussy, slurping, drinking, swindling with the swollen clit. Lips curled around the little bud, sucking on it gently till another moan spilt from your throat. Your breasts bounced with each roll of yours, and Choso’s fingers slipped up to squeeze the fat of your tit. 

He moaned as if he were the one receiving constant pleasure, and slurped the creamy essence dripping from his chin. Droplets of cum fell onto the sofa, and he quickly licked the soft cushion clean, as if afraid to waste any of the sweet ambrosia.

Something in your belly bubbled as you watched his creased forehead and sticking-out tongue, sipping your juices as they pooled under your hips. With lips trying to suck out every drop of your cum soaking into the sofa, till you needed to push him back with a foot.

"Your pussy is somewhere else, my dear husband," you sighed, as his fingers rolled the sensitive nipple. "Don’t act like a dog and stop licking the sofa or chewing on my panties." With a gentle wave, you moved your cunt closer to his lips. "You have a real thing right in front of you."

But Choso was already gone, and despite your feet pressed against his cheek, he couldn’t resist kissing your ankle and calf before slipping back down to the warmth that made his face flush, allowing himself to nuzzle into the wetness of your pussy. 

"So sweet, fuck, a-always so fucking sweet," he moaned, feeling your sticky cum drip down his throat. Coat the tongue in sheer, shiny glaze till each bud remembered the exact taste of your cunt. "Push out a bit more, p-please. Give me–ahhh–give me a bit more baby, let me get drunk on your cum."

Your belly tensed, walls squeezed around his tongue, till more of the milky, sticky cum dripped into his feasting mouth. When one finger slipped in, your head fell back, and your thighs squeezed around his head. But his lips started to trace up, and up, through the mould of your cunt, soft belly, up to naked breasts. 

It seemed that Choso didn’t notice the change in your body, sucking on an overly sensitive bud with a melting satisfaction washing over your spine. The pain mixed with pleasure, as his teeth grazed the bud and finger curled inside your weeping pussy.

"Cho, be gentler, I’m a bit sensitive," you mewled, brushing the dark locks sticking to his flushed cheeks.

His eyes lifted up to meet yours. "Why? Did something happen?"

You bit your lower lip, with the answer already on the tip of your tongue. However, another sound escaped as Choso’s moan reached the rim of your nipples. He stimulated you from every angle possible – lips around the swollen bud, one hand's fingers playing with the other, while his other hand pumped your pussy with, now, two fingers.

"Actually–ahhh," your finger brushed his hair, pulling him away from your breasts. Long string of saliva connected his pussydrunk face with your hardened bud, chestnut irises mingling in the shapes of two hearts. "I wanted to say that–"

But before the secret could be finally spilt, something, someone, destroyed this precious moment.

"Lord Hades, Lady Aphrodite, I’m s-sorry for the disturbance, but…"

A shaking voice filled your temple, and within a second, Choso sobered up and covered your naked body with his. The dark, heavy robes blanketed you up to your neck, his muscular chest pressed against yours, as he turned towards the child standing at the entrance to your temple.

You didn’t mind being seen naked, as many believers sculpted statues of your body draped only in soaked robes. Most male deities on Olympus had been captivated by the soft touch of your thighs, and your daily attire revealed almost everything, leaving little to the imagination.

Yet, your always-so-calm husband hated sharing what was his. The very idea of someone else worshipping you as he did made him furious.

And so with a slightly tightened jaw and eyes beaming with a deathly gaze, a harsh, "What?" fell past his lips.

You giggled at seeing him all agitated, with a single vein pulsing on his handsome forehead. 

But the nymph who stood mere metres from you, unfortunately, couldn’t share the happiness. She fiddled with the hem of her robe, eyes avoiding the God of the Dead's heavy gaze. So you lifted yourself up, peeking over the sofa’s back with dishevelled hair and a trace of Choso’s saliva coating your lips. 

"What is it, sweetie?"

"My Goddess, my God, something horrible happened!" She cried, looking back and forth between you and Choso with rising panic. "Cerberus had been kidnapped!"

That day marked the start of an unsettling nemesis that appeared to trouble your days. While Choso swiftly returned to the Underworld, you remained on the mountain to gather more information about the sudden tragedy. 

And when he came back an hour later, tears streaming down his cheeks, you knew that Cerberus had indeed disappeared. Your heart swelled with pain as your husband’s crushed face nuzzled into the softness of your breast. He wept for half the night, letting your gentle touch coil his shattered nerves.

You knew how much Choso loved his dearest dog, having raised him since Cerberus was only a few months old. With all three heads a bit too heavy for the small body, he lay on Choso’s laps day and night, purring under his gentle petting. 

The only friend, family, accompanying him through the last few years, long before you joined his side.

And so you spent days trying to find the culprit, until all the signs led you to a silly little nymph living far down in the depths of Mount Olympus. The poor birdie who foolishly challenged Zeus’s demigod son and pulled all the deities into her mess.

It seemed that the kidnapping of Cerberus was one of the quests given to the relentless man who was ready to challenge the Lord of the Underworld himself to win the heart of his most dearest nymph. 

To challenge you, known to be oh, much worse than the God of the Dead himself. His ferocious wife, ready to turn the world upside down at the sight of her husband’s heartbreaking tears. Tears that were not caused by her!

Something pulled at your heart when you saw the sad face of the poor nymph. Her body kneeling before you, lower lip trembling, as she mumbled apologies in a messy stream of thoughts. 

And because Cerberus returned safely after a few days, you could only sigh and give the child a gentle scolding. 

Life regained its peace, and your husband’s gentle tears no longer dampened your skin each night. Instead, you smiled as he nestled into Cerberus’s soft fur, hugging the beast with almost tearful apologies. They looked like a father and son, with three large heads attempting to embrace Choso’s chest as your husband gently scratched each of them. 

To guarantee Cerberus's eternal safety, Choso enlisted a small, wandering ghost as his companion. You both knew Yuji well, as he often visited your temple to gaze up at the most beautiful goddess and softly touch her misty robes. The child of no parents or relatives, buried with a coin by his only mortal friend and sent to the clutches of the Underworld far too early.

Choso felt a sort of brotherly warmth towards him, and thus he allowed the poor, agitated soul to lurk in Cerberus’s cave whenever the child felt bored. That’s why you both decided to keep Yuji by your side and let him take care of your family beast while you or Choso were outside the domain. 

And when you thought that another chance to break the news would soon come… someone else did instead. 

Someone you should eliminate the first time you hear of her attempt to coax your husband into marriage. A viper, a sweet birdie getting on your nerves more than anyone else, the small goddess whose disappearance would not influence the world at all.

And so one afternoon, while napping peacefully in your temple, with the ocean’s breeze caressing your sun-kissed cheeks, a shadow suddenly fell over your naked body, dipped in a pool.

Your eyes opened to your husband’s furrowed face and a grimace that could only mean one thing – he knew.

"I don’t need a reprimand," you murmured, closing your eyes again. "She deserved it."

Choso sighed, squatting right next to you. Pale fingers brushed away locks of your hair, eyes never straying from your slyly curved lips. "I don’t see why Persephone deserved to be turned into stone by Medusa."

You giggled, remembering your wicked chit-chat with a gorgon friend. "She annoyed me and tried to force her way into the Underworld, so I gave her a lesson."

Choso hummed as he sat by the pool. His long legs dipped into the crystal-clear water, and you found yourself between them. Fingers dug into his muscular thighs, your cheek pressed sweetly against his big hand. His thumb brushed your lower lip, and you gave it a gentle kiss, feeling a shudder run through his spine. 

"What did she do to make you angry, my Goddess?"

Your lips curled around his finger, sucking it gently as a sheen coated his skin. Fingers squeezed his thighs, then parted them a little further, and further, giving you a better view of a small, wet patch glistening on his robes. 

You whispered, "She wanted to take what’s mine," as you began rolling up his tunic. Revealing his pale thighs, strong hips, and a thick, trembling shaft pressed to his abdomen. Pearls of cum already coated the long cock, and a cheeky smile played on your lips as you saw Choso’s flushed face. "My most beloved husband."

A shuddered breath escaped his throat when your lovely face leaned closer towards his fatness. Plush lips slightly parted, as you wetted them with a tongue. As if ready to devour him whole. 

"But s-she knows we’re m-maried," he barely choked out, already feeling the sweetness of your body curling around his senses. "Why would she–"

You giggled, giving his pulsing, red head a fist, kitty lick. His fingers grabbed the pool’s edge, hips slightly rolling closer to the warmth of your mouth. 

"She’s been in love with you a long, long time, my God. Unfortunately, I snatched you quickly enough from her drilling clutches." Your soft fingers grabbed his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze. Hot, sweet breath hit his leaking tip, and he jolted once again. "So she descended today to the Underworld with a wishful thinking of meeting with you." Warm tongue licked his fat shaft from the base up to the head, leaving a drenched trail burning through his skin. "But instead, she met with me."

Choso cried when your lips finally curled around his mushroom tip. Sucking gently on the pearly droplets of cum, before pressing the head to the softness of your cheek.

His fingers gently brushed through your hair, allowing him to get a better view of your plumped cheeks and eyes mingling like two hearts. The beautiful curve of your brows bent into a sultry gaze, as you took him a bit deeper. The saliva dripped down his shaft, and his lips fell open, seeing your attempt to take his cock fully down your throat.

As you pulled away with a heavy breath, a long strand of crystal-clear saliva stretched from your swollen lips to his burning tip. Choso almost lost his mind.

Your fingers pumped his cock in fast yet gentle strokes, cheeks pressing wetly to the side of the burning shaft. You licked one of the bulging veins, and he needed to do everything in his might not to pull you out from this pool and fuck raw on the marble stones of your temple. 

"My Goddess, y-you could just cast her out," he cried, rocking his hips to bring himself closer to the wetness of your mouth. "You’re the Queen of the Underworld. Why won’t you–"

"I started the Trojan War just for the pure amusement, my God." A foxy smile tugged at your lips. "Why cast her out if I play with her for a while? At least all the other deities will remember who you belong to."

His chestnut eyes went glassy as warmth bubbled in his abdomen. Another moan slipped past his lips as you took him back in, rolling the globular tip with soft strokes of your tongue. 

"My Goddess, you truly are s-such an evil w-woman."

Your minx eyes clashed with his teary gaze, fingers digging painfully into his thighs. His hips began to roll faster and faster, chasing the pleasure tingling his spine, though Lord Hades truly needed only a single glance from you to cum, his back arching into a delicious bend.

The warm, salty liquid spilt deeply into your throat, while Choso’s soft moan echoed off the crystalline pool’s water. His fingers gently pressed into your hair, guiding you further down his shaft until the drenched head reached the back of your throat. The milky droplets slid down your tongue, leaving a glossy, salty sheen on your cheeks.

You pulled back, only to be immediately drawn back towards his lips. The kiss felt needy, almost desperate, yet left a loving aftertaste on your skin. 

You smiled before whispering, "Isn’t it why you love me, my God?" right into his lips. 

Finally lifting yourself out of the pool, you straddled his hips. The dark robes slipped completely off his body, letting you press both palms to his naked, muscular chest. 

Wet, throbbing pussy was right above his slowly hardening cock, and Choso could already feel heat dripping down his shaft.

He nodded as you brushed away a single tear running down his cheek. With a flush rising to his face, he shyly admitted, "It is."

Because the truth was that nothing made Choso lose his mind more than the devilish side of yours. This cheekiness that always bloomed on your cheeks, a cruel gaze snapping towards your foe, a mind plagued by the most trickster punishments one could imagine, just to give your pampered self a bit more fun. 

And as embarrassing and unkind as it was to admit, upon hearing the tragic news of Persephone’s punishment, Choso felt a heat bubbling in his belly. This pride was ripping his heart, cherry flush climbing up his neck at the sheer thought of his most beloved wife being such a cruel minx.

His heart-shaped eyes took in the beauty of your face, fingers gripping the plush of your hips. "You’re always full of surprises, my Goddess–mhmm," he moaned, feeling your pussy roll against his cock.

Fluttering hole catching on his flushed tip, the honeyed juices already dripping down his shaft, drenching it in the sticky glaze. You bit down on a lower lip, already imagining his monstrous size moulding your cunt with a sweet, ripping pleasure.

Your head tilted, as the it’s time thought slipped into your mind.

You’ve been waiting far too long, and the excitement mixed with anticipation already bubbled within your heart. 

"I have one more surprise for you, my God," you whispered, finally feeling his reddened tip push into the warmth of your pussy. "But promise me not to faint when you hear it."

Choso’s doe eyes bulged, brows slightly furrowed as he felt the tight grip of your walls. The pulsing heat wrapping around his ready-to-burst cock, as you sank yourself lower, and lower, with wet hips held by his big palms, and perked nipples plastered to his chest.

"I promise," he mumbled, giving your exposed neck a sweet lick. "Tell me, my Goddess. What surprise do you have for your dearest husband?"

You moaned, feeling the tip's curve brush against your swollen G-spot. "You always wanted a big family, right, Cho?" he hummed, nuzzling the spot beneath your chin. "Well, it looks like the first little god is already on its way."

And then… he pulled back. 

Suddenly, with a breath knocked out of his lungs and fingers gripping your hips a bit tighter. 

His eyes fixed on the loveliness of your face, the divine halo clinging to you in beaming gold. The heat radiating from your body melted him at your touch, and the walls pulsing around his shaft only deepened the sudden dizziness that plagued his mind.

"My God," you giggled, seeing the mix of maddening pleasure and concern twisting his face. "Are you ok– mmm!" 

Before you could even finish, a warm sensation spilt deep inside your womb. A creamy essence clung to your insides, coating the walls with heavy, thick ropes of cum. Until your lower belly bulged under his feverish tip, leaving you feeling stuffed and full.

"My God, did you just cum?" A giggle rippled past your lips, followed by the soft oh.

Choso’s lips clashed with yours, muscular arms swiftly changed your positions, till you softly hit the marble floor. 

"F-Fuck, my Goddess," he moaned, kissing you nastily, messily, with tears dripping down his cheeks. Cock still buried deep inside you, but hard and ready to stuff you with another wave of cum. "We’re going to have a child? A baby? Fuck, y-you’re going to be a mommy?"

And with a soft nod of your head, Choso completely snapped.

His palms hooked you under your thighs, pushing into a mating press. Gentle enough not to squeeze your belly, yet deep to allow him to give you a sharp, hearty push. With a fat shaft sliding inside the clamping walls of your pussy and a pitched moan slipping past your lips. 

"My mommy, fuck–mmm–my sweet, beautiful m-mommy," he mumbled, peppering your cheeks, nose, and forehead with kisses, wetting your skin with tears of joy. "I’m so happy, m-my Goddess. I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby."

The brutal thrusts of his hips didn’t match the softness spilling from his lips, and so you could do nothing but push out another sob. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer, and closer, till his nipples brushed against yours, and hips stayed buried deep within the sweetness of your walls. 

One of his fingers slipped down to press against your swollen clit and roll it gently, ripping another moan from your throat.

"My Goddess, I’ll be so good to you, mhmmm, I’ll take care of you both," he whispered, nuzzling into your neck. "I can’t wait to see you all plump and round, to d-drink your milk–ahh, it’s going to be so sweet."

"Cho, mhmm, you’re such a pretty crier, baby," a mewl spilt from your parted lips, droplets of silver already dripping down your chin. He quickly pulled up, licking the skin clean. "Are you that happy to be a daddy?" 

He continued to pump you hard, with hips hitting yours in a nasty squelching and a pulsing cock pushing the warm cum back into your cunt. Cramming the smoothing liquid into your womb, although you were already stuffed heavy and full.

A faint yes yes yes, s-so happy, slipped past his lips, with his fingers rolling the swollen clit even harsher. Your back bent in a delicious arch, eyes crossed upon feeling the familiar warmth already bubbling in your lower belly. 

The pleasure washing over your spine was maddening, far more intense than before, and you began to wonder how pleasurable sex would be in the months ahead of pregnancy. With your round belly fully obscuring the view of your tight cunt and breasts overflowing with milk. 

And it seemed that Choso wondered too, as his lips curled around one of your perked nipples, sucking it with a miserable mew. 

"Cho, I’m, fuck, I’m going to cum," you moaned, tugging on his hair. "Baby, fuck fuck fuck, come on, make your mommy cum."

And as Choso was far too weak for your pleadings, with a last intense flicker of your clit and a crying send tremble down your sensitive breasts, finally stilled.

The throbbing tip pressed against your womb, pumping it with another wave of creaminess. Your moan echoed off the marble columns of the temple before you finally squirted all over his fingers and abdomen, splashing the sweetest nectar onto the floor until you had to stop Choso from pulling away and licking it up. 

Your gazes met, his eyes still slightly wet, taking in the bewitching loveliness of your face. His heart swelled with affection, deep love and devotion spilling past the walls of his heated muscle. You could feel it beating against your chest, sending tremors down your spine, and so you lifted your fingers, brushing his cheek gently. 

"Surprise, my God," you muttered, pulling him into a soft kiss. "Shall we think of some names, hm?"

His warm cum spilt from your pussy, pooling beneath the hips. With short thrusts, he pushed it deeper, till a soft crease appeared between your brows.

He nuzzled into your hand, as another wave of tears filled his reddened eyes. You giggled, brushing them away. "My crybaby of a husband, I’m glad you at least didn’t faint."

"I almost did, but your pussy was too warm," he mumbled, pushing a snort from your throat. "I want to name her Harmonia."

Your head tilted. "Her? Harmonia?"

"Mhm," Choso nodded, then lowered himself to lie on your breasts. "I know it’s going to be a girl. The most beautiful in the world," he muttered, then lifted his eyes to meet your squinted gaze. "Without counting her mum, of course."

You hummed, brushing the hair sticking to his damp forehead. "And what about the boy?"

Choso thought for a moment, settling himself on your plush breasts. "Eros." You snorted again, and this time his chestnut eyes narrowed in offence. "Why? I think it would suit a future God of Love."

"The God of Love? Oh my, husband, you’re already thinking too far ahead."

But Choso shook his head, wrapping his arms around you tighter. Sniffing the sweet fragrance of your body, enjoying the sun kissing his pale, naked back. Calm settled over his mind, and as his eyes closed, a little sigh slipped past your lips at the peacefulness of your husband’s handsome forehead.

The most beautiful God in the whole pantheon.

"My Goddess, the child born from our affection could only become a divine being of love. But who they are doesn’t really matter…" he murmured, his cheek pressed gently against your breasts as his voice grew sleepy. The birds chirped in the trees above, while the salty air from the nearby ocean tingled his senses. "As long as they carry your eyes."

And so, with a sweet tune of your voice and fingers brushing through his hair, Lord Hades slipped into a deep slumber.

With ear plastered to your body, already awaiting the melody of not one, but two of his hearts.

©liahcharms all rights reserved. Do not copy, plagiarise, feed AI, translate or modify my works.

No more Hades fics, we need to leave this man alone! But I hope you enjoyed the fic, because I love Aphrodite x Hades sooo much ugh!

"Satoru is dead," Shoko says, her voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking the words any louder would shatter the fragile reality you were clinging to.

“W-What?”

You blink at her, your mind struggling to process the information. Did you mishear?

The usually unflappable Shoko is visibly shaken, eyes red-rimmed and filled with sorrow.

"It was Sukuna," she continues, voice cracking. "The battle... it was too much, even for him."

Your heart felt like it had been ripped from your chest. Satoru Gojo, your closest friend and the man you had secretly loved for years, was gone. Memories of him flash before your eyes—his brilliant smile, his teasing remarks, the way he always seemed to be there when you needed him.

"No," you whisper, shaking your head in denial. "No, that can't be true."

Shoko reaches out, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she murmurs, her own voice breaking. "I know how much he meant to you."

Her words break the dam inside you, and you feel the tears begin to stream down your cheeks.

Your knees buckle as you slump against the wall, the cool surface a stark contrast to the burning pain inside you. Your grief wraps around you like a vice, squeezing the air from your lungs, leaving you gasping.

“He was... he was everything," your voice trembles. "I never told him, Shoko. I never told him how I felt."

Shoko's hand squeezes yours, offering what little comfort she can.

"He knew, y/n. Satoru always knew. He was just waiting for you to be ready."

The thought brings a fresh wave of tears, carving a river of sorrow down your face.

How could he have known?

For years, you had hidden your feelings—you had been so careful, so afraid of ruining the friendship that meant the world to you.

The pain of your regret is a sharp, gnawing ache in your chest.

How many times had you almost told him? How many moments had you let slip by, too afraid of what his reaction might be?

And now, it was too late.

He was gone, and you were left with a heart full of unspoken words and unfulfilled dreams.

Days pass in a fog. You go through the motions, but the world has lost its meaning, its color, its light. Without Satoru, everything feels hollow.

Every corner of the school is a memory of him—a reminder of what you’ve lost you. The training grounds where you would spar with him, the library where you shared quiet moments of study, even the halls where his laughter once rang out, bright and infectious. Pieces of him are everywhere, each one a dagger to your heart.

The weight of your sorrow presses down on you, and you seek solace in the school's ancient library—hoping to find a distraction, something to numb the pain.

Drowning in grief, your eyes fall upon a dusty, leather-bound book on a nearby shelf. The title catches your eye: "Chronomancy: The Art of Time Travel."

What if you could go back?

What if you could see Satoru one last time—tell him what you've always been too afraid to say?

Or perhaps, change the future?

The thought is intoxicating, a flicker of hope in your darkness.

Desperation fuels you as you delve into the book, your hands trembling as you turn the pages. The instructions are complex, but your mind is sharp, honed by years of sorcery and study. The book speaks of an ancient relic, used in tandem with cursed energy.

You vaguely remember the old stories, the legends of such a relic hidden deep within the archives of Jujutsu High, said to be from a bygone era, a powerful artifact capable of altering the very fabric of time.

You know it's risky, dangerous even—time travel was absolutely forbidden, but the pain of your unspoken love and your need to see Satoru drives you forward.

With renewed determination, you make your way to the restricted archives, a labyrinth of ancient texts and forgotten artifacts deep within the bowels of Jujutsu High. The air grows cooler and musty as you descend, the weight of history pressing down on you.

Searching through the dimly lit corridors, your hands brush over countless relics and tomes, each one whispering secrets of a long-forgotten past. Finally, you find it—the relic described in the book. It’s a small, ornate device, deceptively simple in appearance but thrumming with a powerful, ancient energy.

Carefully, you take the relic and make your way back to your room. The instructions in the book replay in your mind as you prepare the ritual. Every detail has to be perfect—there’s no room for error.

As you channel your cursed energy into the device, chanting the incantation, the air around you starts to hum and vibrate. The relic glows brighter and brighter, the light almost blinding until suddenly, the world around you dissolves into a kaleidoscope of colors and sensations—you feel yourself being pulled through time.

When the light fades and the world comes back into focus, you find yourself standing in your bedroom yet again.

Did it work?

Without a thought, you instantly run, sprinting to Satoru’s home. The familiar path is a blur as you push your body to its limits, your heart pounding with a mixture of hope and desperation. You reach his door, breathless and trembling, and knock frantically.

The door swings open, and there he is, eyes lighten up with surprise and a hint of confusion as he sees you.

"Y/n? What are you doing here?"

Seeing him, standing there alive and well, almost undoes you. Your legs feel weak, and your eyes well up with tears of relief. Without any thought, you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him towards you, crashing your lips against his with a desperate fervor.

His eyes widen in shock for a moment, but then he starts to melt into the kiss, returning your passion with his own. A soft moan escapes as his arms instinctively wrap around your waist, pulling you closer while his lips move hungrily against yours.

He guides you backwards into his house, closing the door behind you as he leans you against it, returning the kiss like a man starved of touch, of you, for years. His fingers grip the fabric of your clothes, pulling you closer.

You feel his heartbeat against your chest, a steady rhythm that grounds you in the reality of his presence. Every touch, every movement, is a reassurance that he's here, alive, and with you.

"I… missed you… so much," you mutter between breaths, a fragile confession between each fervent kiss.

Satoru’s grip tightens, his hands move to cradle your face, a touch gentle yet urgent. He lets out a soft hum and reluctantly pulls away from your lips, quirking a brow with a crooked grin.

"That was unexpected. Missed me? Y/n, we saw each other earlier today."

You shake your head, tears flowing freely now.

"No, you don't understand. I missed you... so much."

His grin fades as he notices the depth of your sorrow—concern etched in his features as his gaze softens, eyes searching you with confusion and worry. He gently wipes away a tear with his thumb.

"Why are you crying?"

With a shaky breath you struggle to find the words. The weight of everything you know and everything you've felt threatens to overwhelm you. But now, in this moment, you don't want to burden him with the truth.

Not yet.

Shaking your head, you manage to whisper—

"Later... please, just let me savor you right now."

Understanding dawns in his eyes, and he nods slowly, pulling you closer once more. His touch is tender, his embrace warm and reassuring. Leaning in, he presses a soft kiss to your forehead, then to each of your tear-streaked cheeks, as if trying to kiss away your pain.

"Okay," he murmurs against your skin. "I'm here. Not going anywhere."

Satoru's lips find yours again, and this time, the kiss is slower, more deliberate. He pours all his feelings into it—his reassurance, his comfort, his unspoken promises. As you lose yourself in the kiss, your hands move to his hair, tangling in the soft strands as you pull him even closer, not wanting to let go.

The kiss deepens, a mingling of desperation and relief—his hands slide from your face to your waist, pulling you closer, before traveling down to your legs. With effortless strength, he lifts you off the ground, your legs instinctively wrapping around his hips.

For a moment, everything is perfect. The pain, the sorrow, the regret—all of it is swept away in the embrace of the man you love.

Between breaths, you manage to whisper again, "I missed you," each word filled with all the longing and desperation you've held inside.

Satoru responds not with words but with action. His kiss grows more fervent, his grip on you tightening as he presses your hips down on his. Your core is met with the growing pressure of his erection, causing you to mewl into his mouth.

He swallows your sounds as his kiss grows more intense, more needy, his tongue continuing to explore your mouth, tasting, claiming. You roll your hips against him, causing a low groan to rumble from his chest. His hips instinctively buckle from the friction and he presses you further against the door.

Breaking the kiss, his lips slowly make their way down your neck. He murmurs your name against your skin as his hips grind up against yours, sending a shiver through you as his fingers leave a trail of warmth in their wake, exploring every inch of your body.

With a gentle urgency, his hands find the buttons of your shirt, deft fingers undoing them one by one. As the fabric parts under his touch, his lips follow, leaving a trail of heated kisses down your exposed frame, tongue and teeth marking you with gentle nips.

As his lips find the curve of your breast, he gently bites down on it, causing a soft gasp to escape from your mouth.

“Satoru,” his name escapes you breathily as a ripple of pleasure courses through you, pooling straight between your legs.

Satoru's response is a low, guttural sound that vibrates against your skin. His hand comes up to cup your breast, his thumb stroking over your nipple as he continues to grind against you.

"I want you," he murmurs, voice hoarse with an aching need, coming out as both a statement and a request.

You meet his gaze, your breath hitching at the intensity of his desire.

"I'm yours to take," you whisper. "Take me, Satoru. I'm yours."

The words seem to ignite something deep within him—eyes darkening with a mixture of passion and determination. He immediately captures your lips in a fierce, demanding kiss.

With a swift and almost forceful movement, he lifts you from the door, keeping your legs wrapped around his waist as he carries you to the bedroom, opening it with a nudge of his foot. His body presses against yours and he pins your wrists above your head, lowering you onto the mattress with eager vehemence.

The sensation of being held in place, of being at his mercy, sends a shiver of anticipation through you—feeling the heat between your legs intensify.

His eyes lock onto yours between loose tousles of his snowy hair, a silent question and an unspoken promise in their depths. The outline of his erection is evident through his taut clothing, a physical manifestation of his aching desire that burns for you. The heat of his body sears into you as he settles between your legs.

"I've wanted you for so long," he murmurs, voice low and ragged. "I can't get you out of my head."

He rocks his hips gently against yours as his hands move from your wrists, tracing a path down your arms. He reaches the hem of your shirt and guides it off your shoulders.

His hands then slide beneath your back, lifting you slightly as he unclasps your bra, discarding it to the side. The cool air against your bare skin is quickly replaced by the warmth of his mouth.

You gasp and writhe beneath him as his tongue grazes over your sensitive peak. Each flick of his tongue, each gentle suck, sends waves of pleasure coursing through you as his hips continue their slow, deliberate rhythm, rolling against your core and creating a delicious friction through the layers of clothing that still separate you.

You arch your back in pleasure, and with a groan, Satoru allows himself to sink deeper into the sensation of your breasts against his mouth. Every lick, every suck has him growing harder, his member straining against his pants.

“Fuck..” he mutters, pulling away from your chest just long enough to tear off his own shirt and discard it carelessly.

He leans down to lavish attention on your other breast, his free hand hooking into the waistband of your pants, slowly sliding them down your legs.

Once you remain only in your underwear, he abandons your breasts momentarily, trailing kisses down your stomach. As he reaches the apex of your thighs, he pauses, looking up at you with a gaze so intense it makes your breath hitch—a raw need that sends a shiver of excitement throughout you.

"Satoru," you moan, your voice a plea and a promise, urging him on. "Please."

He holds your gaze for a moment, searching for any hesitation. Finding none, he moves his hand across the fabric of your panties, his fingers moving in slow, deliberate circles around your clothed core. The friction is maddening, each touch making your body hum in pleasure.

"Tell me what you want," he whispers, voice a husky murmur.

"I want you," you reply, voice trembling with need. "I need you, Satoru."

His eyes darken further at your words, a low groan escaping his lips as he slides your panties down your legs, discarding them with the rest of your clothes. The sensation of the cool air against your exposed skin is quickly replaced by the heat of his breath as he leans in closer.

He takes a moment to savor the sight before him, your body laid out beneath him like an offering. Then, without warning, his tongue slips between your wet folds, lapping at your juices in long, languid strokes.

Satoru groans in approval of your taste, the sound vibrating against your heated flesh as he delves deeper. His hands part your thighs, holding you open as his tongue explores every crevice and fold, sending shockwaves of pleasure through you. The intensity of his ministrations has your hands fisting the sheets, your back arching as you struggle to remain grounded under his relentless assault.

"Oh my god, Satoru..." you gasp, your voice a breathless plea as you arch into him deeper, relishing in every skillful flick of his tongue. Each stroke, each swirl, drives you closer to the edge, the pleasure building to an almost unbearable peak.

He works with a practiced precision, knowing exactly how to push you to the brink and pull you back, teasing you with the promise of release—alternating between gentle, teasing licks and deep, intense strokes.

Your hands move from the sheets to his hair, tangling in the soft strands as you hold him close, your body trembling with force as you chase your release.

Feeling your impending orgasm building, Satoru pulls away from your quivering folds, causing you to groan. He locks eyes with you as he slowly drags his tongue from your swollen clit to your dripping entrance, a grin upon his lips.

He can see your resolve cracking, your composure slipping away as you teeter on the edge of bliss. He relishes watching your face contort with pleasure as you writhe beneath him, desperate to climax.

His movements are deliberate, torturous even, each lick and suck designed to prolong your pleasure. He can taste your arousal, your desperation, and it only fuels his own hunger.

His grip is firm and possessive as he tightens his hold on your thighs, devouring every part of your womanhood. The sound of his groans, the feeling of his tongue against you, it's all too much. The tension within you coils tighter and tighter.

You gasp as he slides two fingers inside you, feeling your walls clench around him as he curls them upwards, seeking that spot that would send you over the edge.

"Satoru, please..." you beg, your voice a desperate whisper. "I can't... I'm so close..."

He suddenly pulls away, his lips and chin glistening with your arousal, causing a whine to escape your lips. The sudden loss of contact leaving you aching.

He looks up at you, a wicked glint in his eyes as his lips curl into a grin.

"Not yet," he murmurs, voice low and seductive. "Want to feel you cum around me."

He moves back up your body, his lips capturing yours in a searing kiss, allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue. With a groan of pure need, his hands move with a purpose as he reaches for the button of his pants.

Rising to his knees, his eyes lock with yours as he sheds the last of his clothes, freeing his throbbing cock from the confines. It springs forth, thick and rigid, the tip glistening with precum.

You watch as he gives it a few slow strokes before settling back between your legs, his erection pressing against your core, tip brushing between the folds that are coated in your essence. The teasing sensation sends another wave of desire through you.

Slowly, deliberately, he pushes forward, sheathing himself inch by tantalizing inch inside you. A low growl escapes him as he feels your warmth enveloping him, your walls squeezing him delightfully. You gasp, your back arching, your body welcoming his with a need that borders on desperation.

He pauses once fully immersed, giving you a moment to adjust to his size as he revels in the feeling of your inner muscles clenching his length. Then, with a slow, sensual thrust, he begins to move, withdrawing until just the head remains before plunging back in to the hilt.

“Ah, fuck,” he breathes out, his hips snapping forward with more urgency, his head falling back as he loses himself in the sensation. The sight of him, eyes closed in bliss, his mouth slightly open as he gasps for breath, is almost enough to send you over the edge.

The pace he sets is slow and deliberate at first, each thrust deep and measured, allowing you to feel every inch of him. The friction, the heat, it all combines to create a symphony of pleasure that has you gasping and moaning his name. Your hands move to grip his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin as you cling to him, body moving in perfect harmony with his.

"Satoru," you moan, voice trembling with need and desire. "More, please..."

He responds with a growl, his movements becoming more urgent—thrusting harder and faster as his hands move to grip your hips, anchoring you to the bed as he fucks you with a raw, primal energy. The slap of skin against skin fills the room, punctuated by your moans and his growls of pleasure.

His name escapes your lips in breathless moans, each sound driving him further, pushing him to give you everything you need.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty like this, feel so good,” he groans, his voice rough with passion. “So tight, so perfect.”

He leans down, capturing your lips in a searing kiss, tongue mimicking the rhythm of his thrusts. Your hands move from his shoulders to his back, your nails raking down his flesh as you cling to him.

Your body responds instinctively, your hips lifting to meet his, your legs wrapping around his waist to pull him closer. The deeper angle sends jolts of pleasure through you, each thrust hitting just the right spot. The heat between you builds, the pressure mounting with every movement.

"Satoru," you gasp, your voice a mix of pleasure and urgency. "Don't stop... please..."

His response is a deep, guttural moan, his hips snapping forward with renewed intensity. The sensation of him filling you so completely, kissing your cervix with each thrust—the way his body moves against yours, it's all-consuming. The pleasure builds to an almost unbearable peak, your body arching into his as you chase your release.

He feels the change in you, the way your body tightens around him, and it drives him to push harder, to give you everything. "Cum for me, princess," he murmurs against your lips, his voice a rough whisper. "I want to feel you cum around me."

His words create a tension within you, coiling tighter and tighter. With each powerful thrust, you feel yourself getting closer and closer, the pleasure building to an almost unbearable peak.

"Satoru... I... I'm going to..." you moan, your voice trembling with the force of your impending climax.

"That's it," he growls, his hips snapping forward in powerful thrusts. "Be a good girl and let go. Cum for me."

His command is the final push you need. With a cry of his name, you shatter, the pleasure washing over you in profound, overwhelming waves as your inner muscles clench around him, coating him with your essence.

Feeling your climax hit, Satoru's own control snaps like a brittle twig, sending him spiraling into blissful release. With a guttural roar, he spills himself deep inside you, hips jerking violently as his hot seed fills you, painting your insides white. He keeps thrusting, prolonging your orgasm and milking his own, his cock twitching as he empties himself completely dry.

Suddenly drained and spent, Satoru collapses atop you; his chest rising and falling against your own as he buries himself into the crook of your neck. The weight and warmth of his body against yours is comforting, grounding you in the aftermath of your shared passion. Not wanting to dislodge himself just yet, he drapes one arm across your stomach, holding you close, while his other hand gently caresses your cheek, his fingers brushing lightly over your skin.

You look into his eyes, now softened with a deep satisfaction and affection. The intensity of the moment lingers between you, a silent acknowledgment of the connection you've always shared but never fully expressed.

"I love you," you whisper, your voice barely audible but filled with all the emotion you've held inside. The words you've desperately been wanting to say for years now finally roll off your tongue, carrying with them the weight of your unspoken feelings. Each word is a release, a freeing of the heart that has longed for this moment.

Satoru's eyes widen slightly at your confession, and then a tender, loving smile spreads across his face. He presses a soft kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering there as if to seal the promise of his affection.

"I love you too," he murmurs against your skin, his voice a low, comforting rumble. "I always have." The sincerity in his words resonates through you, filling the spaces that have long been empty with warmth and joy.

He shifts slightly, allowing you to nestle more comfortably against him. The rhythm of his breathing begins to slow, his body relaxing into a state of contented fatigue. You match his breaths, finding a perfect synchronicity that lulls you into a sense of peace.

In this moment, everything is perfect. You are his, and he is yours, and together, you can face whatever comes next.

Maybe, just maybe, this future will be different.

You can only hope.

Your eyes roll back down.

“Mhm.”

"And it was such a good question.”

You turn a page. "Really?”

“Yup.” He’s draped over the corner of your desk now, like gravity has wronged him, whining. “It was such a thoughtful… personal… deeply relevant… extremely genius level getting-to-know-you tier question that—”

You scowl. "—Satoru, enough. Just do your job."

It lands harder than expected. The sigh he lets out is deeply, theatrically offended. And when you glance up again, he’s sprawled over that same corner of your desk you made the mistake of clearing for him on day one because you’d thought, foolishly, that giving him a designated surface might contain him.

It had not.

Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.

Snowy white hair falls against his brow, sleeves rolled to his elbows; looking far too expensive and far too comfortable for someone whose official title is intern. His coffee is sweating beside your open planner — the one with a date next week circled in red: WEDDING, scrawled across the margin in your own handwriting. The condensation trails towards a stack of vendor invoices and—

…

Wait.

Are those the same vendor invoices you asked him to file yesterday?

Fucking great.

“Oh, c’monnn,” he grumbles, blinking at you over the rim of those absurdly expensive sunglasses he insists on wearing indoors. “One question. Just a tiiiiny one. It’s completely harmless. Humor me, yeah?”

You narrow your eyes.

“Satoru, you’ve been trying to ask one question for the last four months.”

“Yeah,” he says. “And you’ve been dodging it for four months. Imagine that.”

Technically… four months and four days. But who’s counting?

With an exhausted groan, your eyes fall shut, pinching the bridge of your nose. Noise drifts in from the hall — the elevator, the printer, a phone trilling somewhere nearby.  But when you look up again, it all seems to fall away.

He’s gone strangely still. The smug grin hasn’t disappeared, but it’s softened at the edges, hooked at one corner with his head tilted slightly. And those eyes…

Oh.

That’s — no. You’ve seen his eyes before. Obviously. Four months of them. But right now, with the morning light doing something cruel and unhelpful behind him, they catch in a way that makes you forget you were mid-thought. The kind of blue that doesn’t ask if you’re looking. It already knows.

Which means of course, you look away first. “Fine.” Your hand drops as you mutter. “One question. But if it’s stupid, I’m sending you back to HR.”

It’s not much of a threat. It’s his last day, after all, and for reasons you still don’t fully understand, Satoru has always seemed oddly immune to consequences — which, frankly, feels statistically improbable given the amount of shit he’s managed to pull in the few months of being here.

“One question?” his grin sharpens. You point your pen at him. “Don’t make me regret this.” Yet his pleased chuckle is already making you. “Awhh… look at you. Finally yielding.” His pen twirls between his fingers, nodding with false solemnity. “Okay. So, here’s the thing… throughout these four months working beside you, I’ve seen a lot—"

“—that’s not a question.” You deadpan.

But ignoring you, he reclines back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head.

“Liiiike… I’ve seen the exact face you make when Mei-Mei emails you,” he smirks. “Even noticed you work through lunch more than you should. And I’ve noticed that little line right here—” he gestures vaguely between his own brows “—every time the budget goes sideways.”

Lips parting, you blink.

…why is he so observant?!

For someone who acts like he doesn’t give a shit, he’s strangely attentive.

You clear your throat, huffing. “Okay… what’s your point?” Your hands straighten a stack of papers that doesn’t need straightening. “Is there a question in here somewhere, or are you just reciting my habits back to me for fun?”

His grin is far too pleased. “Relax. I’m getting there.” And leaning forward, his voice drops, like he’s unraveling a conspiracy. “I just find it interesting how you answer work calls before the second ring. Every damn day. Doesn’t matter who it is.” His head tilts with a smug grin. “But for whatever reason, for the past month, your personal phone’s been ringing off the hook, and you never pick up. Not once.”

Heat creeps up your neck. Not because he’s wrong — but because he’s right. And he said it like it was nothing. Like noticing the pattern of your avoidance was just something that happened to him between stamps.

Oh.

Way too observant.

Shit. He couldn't have settled on what's your favorite color!? Or, what superpower would you have!? No. Of course he had to go for the fucking jugular.

His eyes drop to the planner lying open beneath the invoices. The circled date: WEDDING. And his grin sharpens. “Ohoho… I get it now,” he whistles, leaning back in his chair and kicking one leg over the other. “What’d your fiancé do to screw up this bad? Is the wedding off?”

Your head jerks up. “F-Fiancé?!” And he rolls his eyes with a scoff, still grinning. “Knew it. God, he must be really in the doghouse. Or maybe he’s just clingy as hell to be calling that much.”

You blink.

Okay. Nevermind. He’s wrong. That is not even remotely what’s happening. The most committed relationship you’ve had is the one with your coffee machine. And yet… part of it feels almost cosmically cruel.

Because somehow, this is the second time in a month that someone had looked at the scattered pieces of your life and decided a man must be hiding inside them. Except the first time, you never even got the chance to correct it.

After all… how do you tell your mother she’s wrong?

Last month, you still answered her phone calls.

Not because you expected anything different. But because somewhere between the second ring and the third, there’s this gap — this stupid, paper-thin gap — where you still believe she might ask how you’re doing and actually wait for the answer.

Some habits taste like smoke. Some burn like liquor. But yours, unfortunately, had always looked a lot like hope.

Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.

“Oh—uh, hi mom!”

Your phone was wedged between your ear and shoulder while you stepped out of your car, juggling your purse and what was left of your sanity. You were already behind schedule, and your mother was calling — which meant the day had already made its intentions very clear.

“What’s up?” the door slammed shut with your hip. “I’m actually about to—”

“—Trish sent the venue photos,” she blurted, launching into a conversation like always.

Blinking, you shook the bitterness away. Striding toward the towering glass of Gojo Corporation. “That’s—yeah, that’s great,” you muttered, badge in hand as you pushed through the front doors. “But I’m actually heading into work right now? So—”

“—It’s such a beautiful venue,” she ignored you. “Very traditional, very grand. But you know the Zenin family—they never do anything small.” And as she sighed in awe, you resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

The rational part of your brain told you to let this go to voicemail. But the rational part of your brain has never once won this fight. Because…

Hope is a terrible habit you’ve never been able to kick.

"Mom, I'm sure it's lovely, really… but I'm kind of—um, excuse me…" you pivoted around a man in the bustling lobby with a sigh. “Sorry. I’m literally walking into the building right now? But maybe we can revisit this later and—"

"—have you booked your flight yet?"

Your mouth flattened.

Clearly, your half of this conversation is optional.

“No… not yet,” you mumbled, as patiently as you could manage, jabbing the up button harder than necessary. “It’s been a crazy ass week so I haven’t had a chance to, but—”

“—every week is a crazy week for you.” The huff she let out sounded almost offended by the inconvenience of your life. “Why can’t you just book it now while we’re talking? I mean, it literally takes five minutes.”

A miracle, really, that your blood pressure isn’t a medical emergency.

Every week is a crazy week?

Yeah. No shit.

Two managers resigned last quarter. Another got escorted out by security. And their work didn’t disappear. No. It landed on your desk. Because that’s how it goes. That’s how it’s always gone. Group projects. Internships. End-of-quarter disasters no one else wanted to touch. If something needed fixing, it found its way to you.

You’re the one people relied on.

Just… never the one people chose.

“Mother. I’m at work,” you said, stepping into the elevator as the doors slid open, dropping your voice as you stabbed at floor fifteen. “Look—I’m about to walk into an eight a.m. meeting. But I’ll book it tonight, promise.”

“…eight a.m.?” she repeated slowly, before letting out a small, unbothered laugh. “Oh! Right. It’s eight p.m. here. Silly me. I keep forgetting.”

…

Keep forgetting?

She keeps forgetting that she’s ten thousand miles away? Forgetting that twenty years ago she abandoned you in another country to live abroad in Japan—handing you to your grandparents like a detail she'd get back to later?

How convenient that she forgot that.

The elevator slid shut, and you watched the numbers tick upward. “Um. Yeah…” you managed, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice. “Anyways. I’ll book it tonight. After work. Okay?”

"Okay, okay. Sure. Sounds good. But are you bringing anyone?”

Squeezing the strap of your bag, you swallowed the lump in your throat. This again? The last thing you needed was to walk into your shitty eight a.m. meeting looking emotional.

No thanks.

“I… uh…” you cleared your throat. “I um—actually—haven’t decided yet. But anyways, I gotta go, so—”

“Waitwatiwait. Haven’t decided? Does that mean… you actually found someone?!”

Her voice pitched up so fast it almost startled you, and your mouth dropped so low it could’ve hit floor one.

Shit.

“I-I—I didn’t say—"

“—oh, thank God. This is incredible!!” she squealed. “We’ve been so worried. I mean—Trish is younger than you and she figured it out,” her tongue clicked. “People have been asking questions, you know. Your aunt Sara keeps bringing it up every time I see her and—”

“—Mom, I—"

“—It’s about time,” The laugh she let out was relieved, like a problem in her life had finally begun resolving itself. “You can’t keep putting love on hold forever, because men aren’t going to wait around forever. You’re already twenty-six—not getting any younger, dear.”

Love?!

Who has time for that?

And why the fuck is twenty-six the age a woman expires?!

“What’s his name?” she pressed, practically beaming through the phone. “What does he do? Is he from there, or—oh, is he Japanese? Your father would love that, he always said—”

And she was off.

Spinning an entire man out of thin air. An entire future, really. Building him in real time from a tiny slip up you had because you were too tired and cornered and desperate enough to answer the phone in the first place. And you stood there, letting her. Because interrupting her has never once worked in the history of your life.

“—actually, never mind,” she chirped a moment later, as if she was being considerate now. “You have work. I’ll call tomorrow and you can tell me everything, yes? Okay, bye-bye honey—”

Click!

And just like that, the elevator went quiet. You were left staring at your reflection in the metal doors, phone pressed to your ear, listening to the silence where your mother’s voice had been.

‘We’ve been so worried.’

…

If they were so worried… why had you spent most of your life learning to take care of yourself? And yet, the second there might be a man, suddenly you’re worth getting excited about?

Funny how that works.

Scoffing, you lowered the phone, shoving it into your bag just as the elevator chimed open. Itadori Yuji’s head snapped up behind the reception desk.

“Morning, boss,” he waved, radiating sunshine as you walked towards the conference room. “Kento’s asking if you’re still good for the budget review at eight… or if I should just tell him to panic.”

Your smile softened, burying the sting. “Yes… I’ll be right there.” And as you stepped through the polished glass doors, you played the role you’d always played.

The reliable one. Twenty-six years old, with two master’s degrees, a career at one of the most competitive corporations in the world, and a team of seven that would quietly fall apart without you.

But…

None of that glitters quite like a diamond ring, does it?

“Oi,” Satoru frowns. “You’re makin’ that face again.”

“Huh?”

Blinking out of your spiral, your eyes trace back to the man across from you. His chin is resting in his palm, those impossibly blue eyes fixed on you with a quiet stillness that makes something in your chest trip over itself — like a lock turning in a door you didn’t know was closed.

“Oh.” You clear your throat, forcing the pen back into motion. “…what face?”

“The one you make when something’s wrong,” he says quietly, gaze unmoving. “When you’re upset and trying to act like you’re not.”

For a second — one terrible, unguarded second — you don’t have a single thing to hide behind. It’s just him, looking at you like your well-being is something he’s been keeping track of in a column you didn’t even know existed.

But then the sarcasm kicks in, right on time. "Wow," you say, forcing your hands back to the papers in front of you. "So… now you read faces?"

“Mm... nah. Just yours, sweetheart.”

And that grin — god, that fucking grin — hooks at one corner like he knows exactly what just detonated inside your chest. You don’t acknowledge it. Acknowledging things have consequences, and consequences with this man are not something you can afford.

"…that’s highly inappropriate," you mutter, shoving it down. "Let’s maybe redirect some of that insight toward the invoices, yeah?"

“Sorry, sorry.” He leans back, hands up like he’s the picture of innocence. “Wouldn’t wanna start shit with your dear future husband.” His grin goes sharp as he twirls his sunglasses between two fingers. “Though, wow. Tough look for him. Whatever he did, he clearly fucked up bad.”

Why does he sound… bitter?

No. You must be imagining it. This is Satoru. Satoru, who treats everything like a joke until proven otherwise. Satoru, who doesn’t care enough about anything to sound bitter over a man who may or may not exist.

You scoff. "You’re making some wildly stupid assumptions right now…"

He perks up at that. "Oh?" With his grin hooking higher, almost hopeful. "Wait. So, there’s no fiancé, then?"

Your lips purse.

What does he care? He’s not your mother.

“I wish you’d be this interested in your actual job,” you sigh, arms crossing. “Those invoices have been sitting there all week.”

“Uh-huh.” He tips his head. “And yet somehow, I noticed you still didn’t answer me.”

You frown.

What the fuck are you supposed to say!?

Oh. Um. Actually, Satoru, there is no fiancé. That’s the problem, actually! My mother invented him the other morning and I haven't worked up the nerve to call her back.

Yeah. No. You'd rather die at this desk.

“Maybe because it’s none of your business.”

“But I—”

“Drop it.”

He stares at you for a beat, then he flops back in the chair with a dramatic huff, long legs kicking out in front of him, mouth dragging into a sulky pout.

“Well, damn,” he grumbles, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, rolling his eyes. “No wonder you’re single if this is how you shut people down…”

The second the words leave his mouth, he blinks. His gaze flicks up to yours like he hears it too late — like he realizes, all at once, how shitty that sounded.And it only feels worse the moment he sees your face.

God.

Of all the places to hit.

“Oho… wow. Okay. This?” you say with a thin, self-deprecating laugh, chair scraping as you shove back from your seat. “Yeah. This is exactly why I shouldn’t have let you ask, Satoru.” You reach for your planner, your purse, anything to do with your hands besides let them shake.

He straightens, watching you scramble. “Whoa. Wait. I—"

“—because you don’t know when to stop!” The words come out louder than you mean, blinking at the sting behind your eyes. “You just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you get what you want. Well good. I hope you’re happy.”

Before you can turn away, he’s on his feet. “Wait—” And the moment his hand catches yours, you freeze, breath snagging.

His voice is quieter now. His grip is firm yet gentle, and the air between you shifts, while something warm and uneasy twists low in your chest. The kind of feeling that makes you want to lean in and run in the same breath.

Though your eyes stay down. “Satoru… let go.”

“I didn’t…” he starts, then stops, gaze flicking to where his fingers still circle your wrist — before climbing back to your face, slower this time. “I’m… sorry. I just—” His mouth tightens. “I see how hard you work, okay? I see it. And every time that phone rings, you get this look on your face like it’s already ruined your day before you even touch it. And…” His brows pinch. “Fuck. I dunno why, but it pisses me off!”

Your gaze hesitantly drags to his, and the look in his eyes is softer than they have any right to be — all that blue, stripped of its usual sharpness, turned careful. Like he’s stepping toward something breakable and knows it. Like… if he asked once more, something in you might actually give.

“Satoru…” your breath hitches. “I-I—"

“Oh, finally.”

Shoko’s voice trails in, and your head snaps up so fast your neck almost goes with it. She’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, coffee in hand — looking like a woman who arrived exactly on time for something she's been expecting all week.

Her gaze flicks down to where he’s holding you, and the corner of her mouth twitches.

"Sooo… not to interrupt whatever this is," she says, taking a sip, "but Kento's one eye-twitch away from a medical event. He needs you to sign off on the variance line before he starts reconciling his own will and—"

You're already jerking your hand back. "Yup—coming!" And as you step away, heat floods your face, but you don't look back. Not once. Not even when you feel him still standing there, watching you go.

Because looking back would mean acknowledging that something just shifted. And you are not — not — doing that today.

Unlike those invoices, perhaps some things are better left… unfinished.

You’re gone in a blur of heels, nerves, and professional self-preservation, leaving Shoko trailing behind and Satoru staring at the empty doorway like maybe the conversation might wander back through it.

It doesn’t.

And it’s not long before his mouth is pulling into a slow, petulant pout—just before he flops back in the chair with all the elegance of a man personally betrayed by the universe.

Un-fucking-believable.

He’d almost had you! After four months and four days of being stonewalled, redirected, and professionally shut down, you’d finally looked like you might give him something. A crack. A sliver. And then Kento had to ruin it with his stupid reconciliation sheet, his stupid earnest face, and his stupidly impeccable timing.

…

He could fire Kento.

Should he fire Kento?

As tempting as that thought is, Satoru settles for glaring at the empty doorway a second longer before dragging a hand down his face and raking it back through his hair. There’s no point. This performance will end soon. Because by this time tomorrow, he’ll be on a flight back to Tokyo. Where he can resume the slow, agonizing process of preparing to inherit a company he didn't actually give a shit about.

'Grow up, Satoru.'

'Apply yourself, Satoru.'

'You have no idea what it takes to run something like this, Satoru.'

Right. Because apparently, the heir to a multinational corporation needed to learn humility. Alphabetize files. Sit in a cubicle. Fetch coffee like some goddamn spreadsheet slut with a trust fund and nowhere to put it.

Four years of business school, two years shadowing his father; and yet, this is what they had for him?!

He scoffs. And when his gaze drops to the wreckage of your desk, he’s pulling the stack of vendor invoices toward him with a sigh that sounds put-upon even to his own ears. You’ve been nagging him about filing them for the better part of the week and… the least he can do is clear one thing before he goes.

The stamp thuds against the first page. Then the next. Then the next. And with muscle memory taking over, his face goes blank in the way it always does when boredom finally wins. It’s mindless shit. Still, he’s used to it. So naturally, when the phone on your desk buzzes, he doesn’t think twice; snatching it up, tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he reaches for the next invoice.

It’s probably another budget nuisance. Or Mei. Or one of the other thousand little crises that seem magnetically drawn to your extension.

“Yo,” another stamp echoes. “Satoru speaking.”

There’s a sharp inhale. “…who?”

His brow lifts. “Uh… Satoru?” Another thud of ink slams against the paper and he huffs, annoyed. “What do y’need?”

The line goes quiet for a beat too long. Before the woman on the other end finally murmurs, “Satoru…” Sighing in awe. “What a lovely name. Is that Japanese?”

"Uh… yeah?” he snorts, flipping to the next page. “I mean. Last I checked.”

“Mm… I thought so!” She giggles. And her voice pitches like she's just unwrapped a present she didn't know she was getting. “So… Satoru. Why exactly are you the one answering her phone, hm?”

…

Why the hell does this woman sound so invested? And why is she asking questions that should be obvious?

Frowning down at the invoice, he stamps it harder.

“Because it rang?” He says it like it’s obvious. “And uh—sorry, but. Maybe because I’ve been with her for months, so… why the hell wouldn’t I?”

"Months?!” A soft gasp crackles, far too delighted. “You've—you've been with her for months?!"

"Mmm… four months and four days, technically."

He’s been her intern for that long.

That’s the question, right?

"—technically?!" she squeals, like the word personally seduced her. "Ohmygoodness—oh, this is perfect. Four months and four days—that is so specific.”

He blinks. But she doesn’t give him time to process.

“Look at you Mr. Devoted. Keeping track. I was starting to worry she’d never find someone like you. Every time I asked it's like pulling teeth. But I knew there had to be someone. I told her father—I said, there is a man, I can feel it.”

Pausing mid-stamp, the words slowly begin to catch up. Satoru straightens.

"…sorry. Who is thi—"

“—everyone is so excited to meet you at Trish’s wedding. I already reserved your seat and—"

Her voice keeps going… and going… and going. He pulls the phone away slowly as her voice echoes on the receiver, staring down at the phone in hand to see:

📞 Mom

Oh.

Oh, shit.

This is not your work phone. Your work phone is currently sitting at its dock twelve inches to his left. And it dawns on him that he accidentally just spent the last sixty seconds answering your personal phone like an absolute jackass and—

"Uh…” he backpedals. “Wait. I—"

"I told Sara, I said, we have to meet him and—”

"Stop. I-I really think—"

“—Satoru, what are you doing?’

His head snaps up at the sound of your voice, mouth dropping as he sees you standing at the doorway, eyes wide in horror.

Oh, fuck.

“Who is on the other end of that phone,” you hiss.

He winces, pulling the phone from his ear like it’s toxic — and you’re snatching it right out of his hand. He lets you have it without a fight, sinking back into the chair like he’s trying to physically dissociate from the situation he’s just created while you press the phone to your ear.

“And I mean…” she rambles. “I certainly was never one to wait around at twenty-six, believe me. But—"

"Mom."

"Oh! Honey!” She gasps. “Oh, my goodness, hi—I was just having the loveliest chat with—"

"I'm at work. Gotta go."

"—okay! I can't wait to meet Satoru, he—"

Click!

The phone sits in your hand like evidence.

And Satoru — to his credit — has the decency to look like a man standing in the blast radius of his own stupidity. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Like he’s rehearsing an apology in a language he hasn’t learned yet.

You stare at him.

He stares at you.

And somewhere ten thousand miles away, your mother is already calling your aunt Sara.

“Sooo… funny story…”

“—what did you do?!”

Satoru flinched, and now, the tears were already rolling down your cheeks — hot, fast, completely unauthorized. Not the kind you could disguise as allergies or blame on the air conditioning. No. The ugly kind.

Great. Fucking great.

You were standing in the middle of your own office, in the building where you work, crying in front of your intern. And Satoru felt the weight of it all at once. In the last four months, he had seen you in every flavor of workplace misery there was. Pissed off, stressed out, one spreadsheet away from actual murder.

But cry?

Never.

And this had his fingerprints all over it.

"Shit," he breathed, panic flashing across his face. "I—fuck. Okay. Please don't—I can fix this. I can—"

"Fix this?" A splintered laugh ripped out of you, and you hated how thin it was. "Fix what, Satoru? You just confirmed a boyfriend to my mother, a boyfriend that doesn't exist—and she is, at this very moment, probably already—"

Another break in your voice cracked, and you squeezed your eyes shut, pressing your hand to your forehead hard like you could hold the tears in by sheer force. But it only made it worse, because now you could feel the wetness on your own face, the heat of it under your palm, and the mortification landed like a second wave.

God. How fucking humiliating.

"Hey, hey—it's okay,” his voice softened. “We'll just… call her back. Right? Tell her it was a misunderstanding. Easy."

“Easy?” you scoffed, the word coming out strangled. “Y-You don’t understand my mother, Satoru,” you managed, voice gone thin as thread. God, you sounded like a child. “If she thinks something is true, then it’s true. That’s it. That’s—there’s no correcting her, there’s no walking it back, she’s already told my aunt Sara by now and Sara’s told Trish and—oh, fuck—”

Another sob tumbled out, and your fingers dug harder into your temple.

God. Stop it.

Stop it stop it stop it.

Think.

Think logically. You're good at this. You solve problems for a living.

But every time you tried to grab onto a thought, it slipped — replaced by the echo of your mother's voice, high and delighted. The happiest she'd sounded talking to you in years. Maybe ever.

…what look will she give you when you show up alone?

"I can’t," you whispered, and the word came out waterlogged. "I-I'm supposed to get on a plane to Japan in a week and—do what? Tell them there's no one? Tell them I'm still—"

Single.

The word sat in your mouth like a stone. You didn’t realize you’d gone silent until the silence itself started ringing — your sniffling, the hum of fluorescent lights, the muffled life of the office continuing beyond the door like yours wasn’t actively coming apart at the seams.

And through all of it, you could feel Satoru looking at you. His stillness; holding you with an expression you'd never seen on him before and couldn't categorize if you tried.

"Um…” he looked down, scratching the back of his neck. “Soooo... the wedding's in Japan?"

You blinked. “What?” And as you wiped your face with the back of your hand, his gazed tentatively flicked back up. “The wedding…” he repeated, voice careful. “It’s in Japan?”

"Yes." Your brow furrowed, not understanding. "Why?"

He didn't answer right away. Just looked down at the floor for a second, jaw shifting, like he was turning something over in his head — something he hadn't fully assembled yet but could already feel the shape of.

"Huh… okay."

Okay what?

You watched his expression change in real time — from guilt to calculation to something else. "Right then!" He said, clapping his hands once, bright and sudden. "No biggie. I'll just go with you."

No biggie?

Your mouth dropped.

That wasn’t even an option, was it?

…is he crazy?

“You’re kidding,” your laugh was awkward and breathless. His eyes rolled with a smug grin. “Sweetheart, c’mon,” and he was gesturing between the two of you like the answer was sitting there in plain sight and you were the only person in the room committed to not seeing it. "Your family thinks you're bringing someone? Cool." A hand pressed to his chest with theatrical solemnity. "I'm someone."

You stared at him. Genuinely stared.

Oh. He wasn’t kidding.

Yup. He’s crazy.

"You are not 'someone,' Satoru. You are my intern."

“Yeah. For like… another six hours?"

He checked his watch with a shrug, and your lips flattened.

"…that is not the point."

“Mm… feels a little like the point."

He smirked, but it faded faster than usual, dimming at the edges as his blue eyes hesitated on yours. Something shifted in his posture; the performance pulling back, like a tide going out. "Um… look…" He pushed off the desk, stepping closer. "It’s really no hassle." He said, hands sliding into his pockets. "I already have a flight scheduled. My family's in Tokyo. And I was going back after this internship anyway, so… this just moves my timeline back a little."

He was shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal. Like he wasn’t agreeing to fly across the world with you and walk straight into the disaster that was your family.

…

His family’s in Japan too?

You barely knew anything about him. He kept his life sealed off with the same practiced deflection you kept yours — jokes in place of answers, charm in place of honesty. You never bothered to ask, because asking meant caring and that was a door you never intended to walk through with anyone.

But…

"Just… let me come with you. I’ll be your boyfriend for the weekend. For the wedding. For… whatever you need,” he said. And this time, when he stepped closer, there was no grin to hide behind. "I can be useful. I caused this. So… let me fix it."

Heat creeped up your neck, and you scoffed, weakly.

"Okay… but you can't fix my mother."

"No…” he murmured, tilting his head. His hand came up and brushed a tear trailing down your cheek with a careful gentleness. “But… I can make sure you don't have to walk in there alone?"

Your breath hitched, and when your eyes finally lifted, the morning light was being cruel again — catching in that impossible blue and turning it soft. Like stained glass dipped in sunlight. Like something holy made dangerous by the simple fact that it was looking straight at you.

“Mhn. So, do I get the job, boss lady? Because that look you’re giving me…” a slow smirk curls up the corner of his mouth. “Very encouraging for my boyfriend résumé, by the way. Might get addicted to it and wanna make it a full-time gig.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, looking away too fast to be convincing.“That was not a look. I was just—” You grimace. “…never mind.”

He’s chuckling as you brush past him. And his words are what scared you the most. Which was bad. Very, very bad. Because your mother was one problem. Japan was another. But Satoru looking at you like that?

Shit…

That felt like the kind of complication that didn’t stay neatly contained. And you knew better than anyone. Nothing about Satoru had ever suggested he could be contained.

a/n: hehe. this has been fun to work on! i am excited to share the next part. clearly i love these fake dating/fake marriage tropes aha 🙂‍↕️ bc this is like... what—my third time doing it? soooo i tried to change things up and make it feel less standard/generic :) but anyways, like i said pt 2 will be out in a week, pls lmk if you wanna be tagged 💖

You nodded, tears streaming down your puffy face, which he licked up, “Please, keep going; ruin me.”

His ears perked up at this, hips coming to a still and cock throbbing hot and hard in the depths of your irresistable little cunt.

“You want me to ruin you?” he grinned devilishly, white hair struck by moonbeams. He pinned you by your hands to the grass, squashing to death an innocent daisy, with a forcefulness that delighted your foulest desires.

Satoru leaned down, lips brushing the shell of your ear, “Have I ignited all the sinful wants and needs of your dirty little soul?” he purred in a sultry rasp, inch by inch burying his cock to the hilt yet not fucking you how you wanted, “Or is this thine flesh that wants for me to ruin it?” he breathed, kissing at the most sensitive spot below your ear.

“My soul, my flesh, what difference does it make?” you stressed, growing frustrated, ache in your womb calling out to him. You squirmed your legs about him, trying to encourage him to move but he did not budge. “Have me here, devour me, until there’s nothing but bones.” you made plea.

His heart began to beat harder, frantically, until you could feel the pulse in his wrist against yours, even feel it rushing in his thumping cock.

“Ha-ha... as you wish... then I’ll savor every moment of ruining you.” he drew back his hips, and met yours again with a swooping thrust that caused you to writhe on the forest floor and cry out in pleasure. He began fucking into you harder, harder, like a beast—taking you there in the soft grass in the pale moonlight, holding your hand tightly all the way through, murmuring praise up your neck all the while.

“That’s it, that’s it, my little nymph... cum for me, enjoy my cock... let me see you unveiled.” he encouraged, cock beating harder into you until his balls slapped harshly against the curve of your ass.

Dress gathered and bunched, breasts bouncing freely and nearly spilling out your stiff bodice. He watched them intently, how they shook right in front of his sweat-slicked face, as he hunched over to keep driving his cock into you with the determination to make you cum.

And then you did; gushing all over him with a cry that sounded deliciously animalistic to him, coating his length with your sticky slippery juices, legs coiling around his slender waist tightly.

He kept going.

"Oh, how breathtaking you look when you let go for me... but now it’s my turn, isn’t it? Keep clinging to me like th-that... and I’ll give you everything I have, every last drop of m-my seed will be yours to claim,” he panted, hips stuttering as he continued fucking your sensitive pussy through the aftershocks of orgasm. “My love, my love...” he feathered affectionately.

He spilled his seed into you violently, crying at the crook of your neck from the sheer pleasure of it, tainting you completely—mind, body, soul, all mingling with his own.

Belonging to each other.

Just flesh on flesh, raw and impure, freshly tainted.

The moon stared down pitifully at your sweaty states as you and Satoru reclaimed your breaths.

The daisy beneath your hand had been crushed through its final agonies.

Butterflies frantically fluttered about.

Trees quivered with anxiety.

Clouds in the sky, shrouded the moon, as if it were nature’s last attempt to conceal the lover’s from the piercing gaze of heaven.

But it was too late.

The stars knew, and began whispering.

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

“We can’t be together, we can’t.” you wrenched your wrist from his grasp.

“Please.” he made plea.

“If they find out, you will be doomed for eternity.” you reasoned.

“And I,” he rushed towards you, hand daggering at his chest, “I am willing to be, for you.”

You collapsed to the forest floor, dress billowing out as a sob shook the air. There, on the grass you had came upon under him just seven moons ago, you wept.

“Why was I such a fool! I should have known it was you, the one who would trick me, befall me!” your voice shuddered violently.

“My love, my love, I’m sorry,” he muttered softly, coming to wipe your tears in haste, “I was going to tell you that night we met, but I just couldn’t.”

“And look what it costs us now!—we’ve burrowed this deep into each other’s souls, what if heaven has noticed! How they’ll rip you apart, Satoru. And I, I will be alone again.”

“But we’re here now.” he emphasized, desperately seeking your hands and grasping them with all the gentleness of his being. “Please, please, let’s enjoy each other while we can. There will never be another love like ours in the universe.”

“Eternity of punishment—” you began, babbling through tears, but he did not listen.

“—is a small price to pay for you.”

No, he did not listen.

And that was the day the whispers of the stars met the ears of merciless gods.

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

Wailing; that’s all that punctured the burnt night air.

Nails splintered, blood gushing, as he clawed up the mountainside—for you, his stolen lover, high up amongst sinister gods—gods like monsters. They cackled down at his futile attempts to ascend the mountain leading to the peaks of heaven.

Glowing, divine golds and silken-faced, perched upon clouds, there sat and watched the chosen souls who claimed their salvation in lands promised to them long ago in scriptures.

“My love, my love!” rung the hoarse cries of a raw throat.

Grit, bloody burning fingertips, scraping up the rocks. A face once vividly handsome and kissable was now dirtied and unrecognizeable with pain ripping apart his features.

Satoru knew it couldn’t last. He knew you’d return to your rightful place, and he’d serve his sentence on this barren wasteland alone for the rest of time—a punishment for loving the nymph he was warned not to touch.

Humanity burned away, left behind was just smoldering embers and empty apocalyptic skies—like a sickness bred across the once lush lands and ravaged all that made earth beautiful.

He wailed, and wailed louder every time his advancement up the mountain ended in a destined tumble back down to the base—

“Nooo, please!” cried Satoru, fractured voice reaching a crescendo. “My love, my love!—please, I beg of you, w-wait for me. I’ll find away up!”

But he could not find a way up the mountain.

Those cries, he heightened them, because he knew they’d be his only success at meeting you.

And you caught his cries in your locket, kept them and let them hurt you, because they were the last feelings he could send to you—so you saved and cherished them.

“Look at him,” sneered one of the cruel gods with eyes like molten gold, “The foolish little traitor thinks he’ll make it up the mountain.”

“He’s strong, he’s making it up too far for my comfort.” worried another.

“Toss another rock down his way, let’s make this a little more entertaining.” shrilled a disgustingly gluttonous one.

It drove you mad, it twisted your entrails to hear them gather for his punishment like it was a spectacle.

“Stop it! Stop it! You can’t do this to him! You can’t!” you cried, shaking at their lean arms, but they did not budge.

“Have you any say in this?—you knew the punishment he’d meet, yet you enjoyed him anyways. Sit and suffer in silence, puny little nymph.”

In agony, you writhed, as cold hands forced you to sit in a chair dedicated to you and only you—perched at the peak of the mountain, teetering over the edge and oh how you wished it would slip and send you rushing towards him. But they kept you there, imprisoned, to watch as Satoru tried and tried again each time with waning strength and stripped dignity, to meet you.

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

You let him.

Yes, you let him steal you out of the promise of plush heavens—oh how could you not? Rouged fingertips, fingers so pale and nimble, plucked you from the clouds like forbidden fruit and you smiled all the while, curling into his embrace.

That divine day, when moons and stars cautioned against it with all their heart, you let the banished god steal you out your rightful seat.

ㅤ

ㅤ

ㅤ

Now it grew more impossible with each failed attempt to ascend the mountain, but heaven continued to gleam seemingly brighter in his foggy vision. He could hardly make out where you were, but felt your soul cry out until—silence.

You had gone. Where, he didn’t know.

He wept, and wept, knowing that all he could do was decay there in the nothingness, rot rot rot with loneliness and go mad with slowly paling memories.

The crispness of your face in your mind eroded over time.

Days, turned months, a year; he slowly forgot everything about you.

A year became two, three, infinity—and one day he could no longer recall a single feature of your face, long forgot the thrill he felt in his chest at your arrival, mind wiped clean of any memory that you ever existed.

There was a day he forgot your smile,

and a day he forgot your voice,

a day he last heard your laughter echo about his mind,

and a day his lips no longer remembered your sweet breath upon them,

eroding, slowly, with cruel hands of time,

and the gods laughed above.

All that he thought he’d never forget about you, he forgot.

The fallen god wasted at the base of the mountain, a vacant pair of blue eyes fixed on nothing in particular.

Only the agony of absence thumping weakly now in his chest served as reminder that once, somewhere, sometime he loved—and was beloved.

You wept, you wept, and for infinity cast clouds upon earth, the tears never ceasing,

crying in agony for your lover.

Up, up, up, the water rose until land flooded, and soon, your tears claimed his still body.

The god who once robbed heaven, was never to be known again.

ㅤAN────I’ve always been intrigued by Greek mythology, and my favorites included prometheus. That story in particular haunted me as a child, and I spent a long time contemplating his punishment (that is, his liver being ripped out every day for eternity, him being immortal). Other stories I love are Aphrodite and the girdle, that it made even Zeus go crazy always made me giggle and I thought one day I wanted to be as irresistable as Aphrodite in that girdle. Then of course there’s also Daphne and Apollo—which partially inspired this dynamic, the whole god and nymph thing. I love nymphs. If I were rich, I’d buy a chateau and have a room painted with nymphs spanning the entire room and I’d have it look out over a fountain.

You should’ve known something was up when he specifically bought only two first-class tickets to Las Vegas and your flight was at midnight. He’d insisted the two of you sneak out of the Kyoto Jujutsu Tech compound where you’d stayed for the duration of his visit to the Gojo clan, and hadn’t bothered to inform Shoko or Utahime or Yaga.

And so, again, you reiterate firmly and resolutely: none of this is your fault.

Your predicament—standing in a parking lot behind a Denny’s at nine in the night with a small fire going in a trash can nearby—is entirely, absolutely, positively Gojo Satoru’s fault.

“I want a divorce,” you tell him.

“We’ve been married for forty-seven minutes.”

“Forty-seven minutes too long.”

“You’re burning our wedding certificate!” Satoru says. “How are we supposed to file for divorce if there’s no proof we even got married?”

“I’ll figure it out,” you say, poking at the certificate with a stick you found on the ground. The corner of it curls and blackens satisfyingly. “I’m very resourceful.”

“You’re committing a crime is what you’re doing,” he says.

“You committed a crime first.”

“Getting married isn’t a crime—”

“Fraud is.”

Satoru opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again, at a loss for words. This is a rare and precious occurrence—Gojo Satoru, speechless! You would be savouring it more if you weren’t currently a married woman in a Denny’s parking lot in Las Vegas at eleven o’clock in the night.

Satoru had told you it was a vacation. He’d shown up at your room in the Kyoto compound at half-past ten with a bag tucked under his arm and said, simply, “Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving where?” you’d asked.

“Somewhere that isn’t here,” was his cryptic reply.

You’d been in Kyoto for six days. Six days of watching Satoru navigate the Gojo clan and their elders with their careful smiles and careful words. Nearly a week of watching something tight and unhappy lodge itself behind Satoru’s eyes while he pretended, convincingly, that everything was fine. You knew he wasn’t; you’d watched him perfect his act for years, after all.

So, you went. You told yourself it was because you’d never been to Las Vegas. This, at least, is true.

You’d grabbed your bag and followed him out through a side entrance of the compound at nine forty-five, and you didn’t inform any of your friends or superiors. Because of this, your phone has been periodically buzzing in your pocket for the last several hours and you’ve been ignoring it, which is a problem that is also, for the record, Satoru’s fault.

The flight was actually wonderful. First-class seats entailed warm socks and warm food and a window seat, because Satoru had graciously sat by the aisle. When you were flying over the Pacific, he’d fallen asleep with his head tipped back and his sunglasses still on. He looked younger when he was sleeping, you’d thought. More like the version of him you’d met when you were both too young and foolish to understand what being a sorcerer actually meant.

After you landed, Satoru took you to a casino and then to a fancy place for lunch, and then to another two casinos—if he wasn’t careful, he’d turn into a gambling addict soon—and then he took you to a chapel on the Strip with fake flowers zip-tied to the pews and an officiant named Francis who had red hair and smelled like cigarettes and convenience store chewing gum.

Francis had cried a little during the vows, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. Satoru had found this enormously gratifying. You, however, had been in something of a dissociative state.

“It’s not fraud,” Satoru says now, in the parking lot, watching you cremate your marriage certificate. “We did actually get married. Francis witnessed it. There are photos.”

“There are photos?”

“Francis had a camera.”

“What?”

“I think it’s just something he keeps on him professionally.”

You stare at him. He has the grace to look slightly sheepish. His sunglasses are still on. His suit jacket is open, and his tie, which had been done up neatly for the ceremony (clearly he’d planned far enough ahead to wear a nice tie) is now loosened and slightly crooked. The cheap gold ring on his finger—wrong hand; he’d fumbled it in the moment and jammed it on before either of you could correct it—catches the light from the parking lot fluorescents.

“That’s it!” you say, snapping your fingers at him. “That’s our proof to file for divorce! Take me back to the wedding chapel, Satoru.”

“No way,” he says. “I’m taking you to dinner first. We need to commemorate our first night of being married.”

“We’re behind a Denny’s,” you point out.

“I know,” Satoru says. “Denny’s is a perfectly acceptable dining establishment, but I meant somewhere nice. There’s a steakhouse on the Strip that has a three-month waitlist.”

“Then we can’t go there.”

“I called ahead.”

You gape at him. “Three months ago?”

“No,” he says. “I called ahead on the plane. You were asleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep for that long—”

“Yeah, you were asleep for, like, four hours. You even snored a little.”

“I did not—that’s not the point! The point is, you planned this. You planned all of it, the chapel, the restaurant, the—” You gesture at the ring on his finger, the ring on yours, the dying fire in the trash can—“everything.”

“Not everything. I didn’t plan for you to burn our wedding certificate in a fit of rage.”

“That’s your fault by proximity.”

“That’s not a legal standard.”

“I’m making it one.”

Satoru smiles, quick and bright. You have a long and storied history of making Gojo Satoru laugh when he isn’t expecting to, and it used to feel like winning something. It still does, if you’re being honest.

“Come on,” Satoru says, nodding towards the street. “Dinner first, Francis later. We can get the photos after and then you can file for divorce. I won’t stop you.”

“You’d better not,” you say.

“I said I won’t.” He holds his hands up, the picture of innocence. “I’m a man of my word.”

“You’re really not.”

“I’m a man of some of my word,” he amends.

The steakhouse is situated on the upper floor of one of the larger casinos on the Strip, lined with dark wood and low, hushed lighting. You are seated by a window. The Strip sprawls below you in every direction, extravagant and relentless, all that light going nowhere at tremendous speed.

“Were you really that confident I’d say yes?” you ask once the menus have been set in front of you.

“I was… hopeful,” Satoru says. It’s not a word you can recall him ever applying to himself before, in all the years you’ve known him; it sounds odd. You pick up your own menu and look at it without reading it.

What you’ve learnt about Satoru and what most people tend to miss is that underneath all the grinning and grandstanding and carelessness, there is someone who wants things very badly and has learned not to show it. You’ve known this for years. You’ve watched him want things, and watched him bury it under layers of grandiosity until it’s almost invisible. Almost.

“The elders have been at it for two years,” he says finally, without looking up from the menu. “The meetings, the candidates. They’re all very suitable women from very respectable families. Good for the clan’s interests.”

“You never told me it’d been going on for that long.”

“Didn’t want to make it a thing.”

“Satoru—”

“It’s fine. It’s just—” He sets the menu down and looks out at the Strip, all that light below. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life performing for someone who sees me as a resource. I do enough of that already. I knew it was going to happen eventually and that they were going to stop asking and start insisting. So. Vegas.”

“Vegas,” you echo.

“You were the obvious answer,” he says matter-of-factly. “You already know what you’re getting into with me. You don’t have any illusions. You—you’re my best friend. There isn’t anyone I’d rather be stuck with.”

“Stuck with,” you repeat. “Incredibly romantic.”

“I said what I said.”

The waiter arrives and Satoru orders for the two of you. You look down at the ring on your finger and think about how it came from the little rotating display by the chapel door, five dollars American. It fits almost perfectly except for being on the wrong hand.

“Er. You fumbled the ring,” you say.

“I was nervous,” he says.

Gojo Satoru, nervous. Gojo Satoru, who treats most of human experience as something happening at a slight remove, who has never, to your knowledge, shown up to anything in his life uncertain of the outcome—nervous!

“Were you,” you say.

“Briefly,” Satoru says, with great dignity. “It passed.”

“Of course.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Of course.”

The fountains in front of the Bellagio are in the middle of their routine, water arcing up in great pale columns against the dark. The light from them moves across the window in slow, repeating patterns. Satoru’s eyes catch the shifting light. You swallow hard.

“We’re not arguing about the divorce, by the way,” you tell him.

“We’ll see.”

“Satoru.”

“We’ll see,” he says again pleasantly. You’re going to say something else, something firm and unambiguous, but he’s already put his cutlery down and is walking out, and you’re already following.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #2 – BREAKING AND ENTERING.

The supposed 24/7 active wedding chapel has a sign tacked onto the front door when you arrive later, which reads, Under maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience!

“Fuck,” you groan.

“Language,” Satoru says. “Maintenance at midnight. Huh. That’s strange.”

“That’s what I’m focusing on right now, yes, thank you.”

You press your face briefly against the chapel door’s small window. The lights inside are off. Through the glass you can just make out the shape of the pews, the flowers zip-tied to their ends, and the little altar at the front where Francis had stood several hours ago and wept openly into his handkerchief. How are you supposed to get the photographs of your husband—you are using that word provisionally under extreme protest—looking at you like you’re the only fixed point in the room?

“He might live here,” Satoru says.

“Francis?”

“Some of these places have a back apartment for the officiant. We could knock.”

“We’re not knocking on a man’s door at midnight,” you say.

“It’s nearly one.”

“That makes it worse!” You step back from the door and look at the sign again. There’s a narrow alley running along the left side of the chapel, squeezed between the chapel building and the 24-hour tattoo parlour next door. You only notice it because Satoru’s already walking towards it. “What are you doing?”

“Recon,” Satoru says. “Just looking.”

He disappears around the corner. You stand on the pavement with your hands on your hips before deciding to follow him. The alley is cramped and smells stale. There’s a dumpster and a stack of plastic chairs leaning against the chapel wall. Satoru stands with his hands in his pockets, looking upward with his head tilted back.

“No,” you say.

“There’s a window.”

“I see that.”

“It’s open!”

It appears to be a casement window on the chapel’s ground floor, propped out at an angle, about eight feet off the ground and just wide enough for a person to fit through.

“That could be a bathroom window,” you say. “We’d be breaking and entering.”

“The window’s already open,” Satoru says. “Technically we’d just be entering. The photos Francis took are currently somewhere in that chapel developing in a back room, unattended.”

“If we get arrested,” you say, “I’m blaming you entirely.”

“Obviously.”

“I will give a statement to the police and it will contain your full name and a detailed account of everything that’s happened tonight, starting with the chapel and working backwards to Kyoto.”

“Sure. Boost or be boosted?” Satoru asks, turning to the chairs. “I’d say I’ll boost you, but I want it to be on record that I think you’d make a better lookout.”

“I’m not being a lookout.”

“You just said—”

“I’m coming with you.”

He pauses, glancing at you, his expression softening just a little bit. Warm and amused—gone before you can fix it in place.

“Obviously,” he says, smiling, and starts stacking chairs.

The window is, in fact, not a bathroom window. It opens into a small storage room at the back of the chapel, with folding tables against one wall, boxes of artificial flowers stacked against the other, and a mop in a bucket in the corner. Through a door on the far side, you can see the chapel proper. The dripping you can hear means the maintenance situation is a ceiling problem, probably towards the front.

“There’s a whole back operation,” Satoru says, impressed.

“We need to find the darkroom,” you whisper.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because we’re trespassing.”

“Right, yes,” he says, lowering his voice. “The darkroom will need ventilation, so it’s probably towards the back.”

“How do you know anything about darkrooms?” you ask.

“I went through a photography phase in my second year of middle school. It was a whole thing.” He opens the storage room door and peers through into the chapel. “All clear.”

You follow him through. The chapel at night, empty and dim, is a different place entirely from what it was several hours ago. Smaller, somehow. Without Francis and the lights, it’s just a room with cheap flowers and worn carpet.

“Back room’s through here,” Satoru says softly; he’s already at the door behind the altar. You cross the chapel quickly, not looking at the pews or the aisle, not doing anything so foolish as standing in the dark and sentimentalising about a five-dollar ring and a laminated vow card.

The back room is small and smells sharply of chemicals—developer and fixer, mostly. There’s a red safelight along the wall that Francis has left running, bathing everything in a dim glow. A long workbench runs along one wall, and on it, clipped to a line strung above the bench, are your photographs.

Four of them, hanging in a row, damp and gleaming slightly under the monochromatic light. Even from across the room, you can make out the chapel and the altar. Neither of you says anything for a moment, until Satoru walks to the bench and stands in front of the photographs. You make your way and stand beside him.

The first one is mid-ceremony. You’re both facing Francis, and you can see Satoru in profile—head tilted, shoulders set. The second one is the ring exchange; you can see immediately why it’s blurry. You’d both been laughing, actually, you remember that now, because Satoru had fumbled the ring and said something under his breath, and you’d bitten down on a laugh and not entirely succeeded. Francis had captured exactly that, the two of you with your heads slightly bent towards each other.

In the third one, Francis had asked you to face each other for a photo, and while you’re looking at the camera, Satoru’s looking at you. You look—Francis had said surprised, and yes, there is that, but there’s also something else, something you would rather not name.

Satoru is looking at you the way he was looking at you in the chapel, the way he’s been looking at you in these odd unguarded moments all evening.

“We look like idiots,” Satoru says.

“Francis was right,” you say. “We both look surprised.”

“Were you?” he asks.

“Yes. Were you?”

“No,” he says, then adds quietly, “Maybe. About—about other things.”

In the fourth photograph, you are outside the chapel, looking at the ring on your hand, and Satoru is looking at you looking at the ring. Francis had captured the angle so cleanly that you can see Satoru’s full expression, soft in a way his face almost never is in front of other people, private. You realise you’re holding your breath.

“We should take them,” Satoru says.

“We can’t just take them,” you say. “They’re developing.”

“They look pretty developed to me.”

“Satoru, they’re damp—”

“They’ll dry.” He’s already carefully unclipping the first photograph from the line. “Francis has the negatives. He can print more.”

“You don’t know that Francis has the negatives, and besides, we’re stealing from him.”

“We’re borrowing from Francis.” Satoru holds the first photograph carefully by its edge and looks at it in the red light before setting it down on the workbench. “Hand me something to put these in. There should be a folder or an envelope on the bench somewhere.”

There’s a paper envelope at the end of the bench, brown and flat. You pick it up and hold it open. Satoru slides the photographs in one by one.

“We need to leave Francis a note,” you say, “and money. For the printing. For—everything.”

“How much do you think midnight darkroom theft runs these days?”

“What?”

“I’m asking genuinely.”

“A lot,” you say. “Leave a lot.”

You find a notepad on the workbench next to a jar of pens. Francis, you write. We’re sorry for the unauthorised visit. We needed the photos tonight, so please print yourself copies. Enclosed is payment for the developing, the breaking-in, the trouble, and your time. Thank you for everything. It was a beautiful ceremony.

You fold the note and put it on the workbench. Satoru takes his wallet out, removes a quantity of cash that makes your eyebrows go up, and weighs it down with the jar of pens.

You go back through the chapel and through the storage room and back out the window into the alley. Satoru drops down behind you and lands easily on the ground. The night air is warm, and the Strip is still brightly lit not thirty feet away. You hold the envelope against your chest. The photographs inside are still slightly damp.

“For the record,” you say, “this is also your fault.”

“The chapel was closed,” Satoru says reasonably. “I didn’t plan that part. Plus, we have the photos, so. Seems like it worked out.”

You look at him with his loosened tie and ruffled hair and think, He’s going to be completely insufferable about this for years. You are going to have to hear about the Vegas chapel break-in for the rest of your natural life and possibly longer.

“Come on,” you say. “You said the hotel’s three blocks away.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #3 – VANDALISM.

There is only one bed. It’s not, on its own, an unusual situation. You’ve shared sleeping arrangements with Satoru before—field missions and overnight calls that left two sorcerers and one room. You’d use a pillow wall, most of the time.

The difference is that you are currently married to him.

“You booked a room with one bed?” you ask.

“They may have assumed, given that I made the reservation under a recently married couple’s names, that we would want,” Satoru says, gesturing at the bed, “the one bed.”

The bed in question is enormous, dressed in white linen and piled with decorative pillows. There’s a bowl of strawberries on the bedside table. The whole room smells faintly of roses.

“Did you request the honeymoon setup?” you say.

“The woman on the phone seemed very enthusiastic about it.”

“That’s not an answer!” You look around the room, hands on your hips. “Well, there’s a couch. You can use that.”

It’s one of those small, decorative couches present in hotel rooms to fill a corner, hold throw pillows, and look tasteful in photographs, but not to sleep on.

“I’m not going to sleep on it, but noted,” Satoru says, striding towards the minibar, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over the back of the chair by the window. “Whiskey or gin?”

“Whiskey,” you say. “We can put a pillow wall down the middle.”

“We’re married,” he says, crossing the room with two small bottles. He sits down on the other side of the bed. “It seems a bit prudish.”

You take the whiskey from him and twist the cap off. Satoru has his own bottle balanced between both hands, still unopened, and he’s looking out the window at the city below. You’ve spent enough years watching him, but it doesn’t seem to change anything; the flutter in your heart remains the same, as does the contentment you feel in your chest.

“I want to see them again,” you announce.

Satoru looks at you. “The photos?”

You reach for the envelope on the nightstand and slide the pictures out carefully, holding them by the edges. They’re drying, stiffening slightly. You hold them in your lap and he leans in slightly.

“You should’ve warned me,” you say quietly.

“About which part?”

“All of it.” You tap the third photograph’s edge, gently. “This.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “If I’d warned you, you’d have said no.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you,” he says, not unkindly. “You’d have thought about it too long and decided it was too complicated, and then you’d have spent months being strange about it, and then we’d have gone back to normal, and—” He stops, turning the bottle in his hands. “…I didn’t want to go back to normal.”

“It’s still a bad idea,” you mumble.

“Probably,” he agrees. His hand shifts on the duvet between you, the tip of his little finger coming to rest against the back of yours. “Hasn’t stopped being true, though. Whatever it is. You know what I mean.”

You do. That’s the problem: you’ve always known what he means, even when he’s being deliberately oblique about it. You’ve known him too long and too well for any of it to not make sense anymore. Which means, you understand now, that you’ve also known you’re in love with him for longer than you thought.

You look at the fourth photograph—Satoru, standing outside the chapel, watching you look at the ring on your hand.

“You could’ve just said something,” you tell him. “At any point. Like a normal person.”

“I took you to Las Vegas and married you,” he says. “That’s me saying something directly.”

His hand turns over and covers yours, warm and assuaging, and whatever reservations you’d been carefully maintaining for years simply crumble.

You close the remaining distance. Satoru’s free hand comes up to your face before you’ve fully moved, which means he was thinking about it too—has been thinking about it, probably, for longer than tonight, longer than Vegas—and he’s kissing you.

He kisses you decisively. There’s a certainty to it that shouldn’t surprise you—this is Satoru, who does nothing halfway—but it does, a little. But what surprises you more is how easy it is. How it doesn’t feel like a change in anything so much as a long-overdue acknowledgement of something that’s been there all along.

When you pull back, his forehead drops to yours. His sunglasses are still pushed up on his head, and you reach up and take them off without asking. He lets you.

“Hi,” Satoru says.

“You’re still wearing your sunglasses indoors at midnight,” you chide.

“I said hi.”

“Hi,” you say.

He smiles; it reaches his eyes. “So,” he starts.

“Do not say ‘I told you so.’”

“I wasn’t going to. Probably.”

“Insufferable,” you say, and kiss him again, which is both a rebuke and a surrender but mostly just because you want to. He makes a sound against your mouth that might be a laugh, and his arms come around you properly this time.

The decorative pillows go first. There are seven of them, and they go in ones and twos without either of you paying much attention—one knocked off when his arm comes around you properly, two more when you shift closer, the rest sliding off the edge in a soft succession of thuds. One of the small whiskey bottles, empty now, rolls off the mattress and lands on the carpet. You don’t notice any of it; you’re somewhat preoccupied by Satoru taking your face in his hands and tilting it and kissing you until you forget what you were arguing about.

You suspect that he’s thought about this for a long time, the same way you have.

“You’re thinking,” Satoru says against your mouth.

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can tell. You get this little—” He pulls back just enough to look at you, and traces something between your brows with one finger. “Here.”

You stare at him. “I hate that you know that.”

“No, you don’t,” he says. He’s right, and you hate that too, so you tell him so by pulling him back down by the front of his shirt.

He lets you tug at him willingly—more than willingly, with an enthusiasm that sends you back against the pillows and makes you laugh, briefly, before his mouth finds your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, and the laugh turns into a gasp. His hands are at your waist, warm through the fabric.

His tie joins the pillows on the floor; you get the knot loose while he’s working on the matter of your buttons. His shirt is untucked and you run your hands on his waist, his ribs, the warm plane of his stomach. Satoru groans against the side of your neck, and you shiver. He tosses your shirt aside, too, and his eyes darken when his gaze lands on your chest. He takes his time with your nipples, rolling them around with his thumbs, before taking one of them in his mouth.

He moves lower, pressing kisses to the underside of your breasts, moving down to your navel. When he reaches the waistband of your jeans, he looks up, pupils blown wide and asks, “May I?”

“Yes, yes, please.” You nod frantically, helping him pull your jeans and panties off when he unbuttons it. You’re already wet and needy.

“You’re so beautiful,” Satoru says, gazing up at you before littering kisses on your inner thighs, so close to where you want him. 

“Satoru, please,” you say. “I need you.”

He blows on your wet core, making you shiver. “Need me to what?”

“I need you to, hah, just—”

Satoru latches onto your clit, sucking and swirling his tongue around the bud. You moan, your hands flying to his hair and gripping the silver-white strands. He alternates between quick flicks and long, broad strokes, keeping your folds spread apart with two fingers while his other hand traces patterns along the underside of your thigh.

“Fuck, fuck—” You curse when his tongue moves in a circle right around your clenching hole. Satoru doesn’t stop. If anything, the sound of your voice breaking, the way you curse his name, only spurs him on. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you. He’s always known how to push your buttons. But this is different; this isn’t a playful tease during a mission.

He dives back in, his tongue flattening out to lap at you with broad, wet strokes that cover everything from your clit down to your opening. You arch your back, your hips lifting off the mattress instinctively, trying to press yourself harder against his mouth.

“Satoru… please, I’m—”

“You’re what?” he mumbles against your skin. He doesn’t wait for an answer, sliding two fingers deep inside you. You let out a strangled cry, your toes curling. His fingers are thick and warm, and he curls them, hooking them upward to find that sensitive spot that makes your vision blur. His thumb remains locked into your clit, rubbing circles on the engorged bud.

The sensation is overwhelming. It’s too much and yet not nearly enough. You can feel the tension building in your lower belly, a tight, simmering coil that winds tighter and tighter with every second.

“Right there,” you moan, your fingers knotting into his hair. “Right there, Satoru, don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

Your breath comes out in short, jagged gasps, your chest heaving. Just as you are about to orgasm, Satoru stops. He doesn’t just slow down; he pulls his fingers out of you with a sudden, wet pop and removes his mouth from your heat entirely. You freeze, your eyes snapping open. “Satoru, what the hell—”

He’s hovering over you, braced on his elbows, his hair messy and falling over his forehead. A slow, smug smile spreads across his lips, though his breathing is just as heavy as yours.

“Not yet,” he whispers.

“I hate you,” you groan, your hips twitching involuntarily, searching for the friction he just stole from you. “I actually hate you so much.”

“Liars don’t get to come,” Satoru teases, though his hand reaches down to gently stroke the skin of your inner thigh. 

He shifts, moving upward to kiss you. He tastes like you, and you moan into his mouth, before he pulls away just an inch, his gaze dropping to your drenched core. “I want to feel you,” he murmurs. “I want to feel how tight you are around me.”

Satoru slides backward, just enough to strip off his trousers and underwear in one hurried motion. His cock springs out, thick and flushed. Your mouth waters simply looking at it, while he pumps it once, twice, thumb circling the tip. He doesn’t lie back down. Instead, he sits up, leaning his back against the headboard of the enormous bed, his legs spread wide. He reaches out, grabbing your waist with those large, strong hands and pulling you forward until you are hovering over him.

“Ride me?” he asks.

The need for friction, for fullness, for him overrides any lingering frustration. You shift your weight, guiding his cock to your entrance. As you slowly lower yourself down, the feeling of his cock filling you, stretching you open, sends a fresh wave of pleasure through you. You let out a long, shuddering moan as you sink down completely, inch by inch, your pelvis flushing against his. Satoru lets out a choked sound, his head hitting the headboard with a thud, his eyes screwing shut.

“Fuck,” he moans. “You’re—you’re so tight. I can’t—”

“Shut up,” you whisper, though there’s no heat in it.

You begin to move, a slow, grinding rotation of your hips. You watch his face—the way his jaw clenches and his nostrils flare, the way he looks at you with warmth and wonder. You quicken your movements, bouncing on his cock. Satoru’s hands move from your waist to your hips, fingers digging into your skin, helping you ride him. He thrusts upwards, tilting his hips and dragging his cock against your walls.

“Look at me,” he groans. You look down, your eyes locking onto his. “I love you,” he says.

You feel the coil in your belly snap. Your orgasm washes over you as you clench around his cock, milking him. Satoru moans, his back arching off the bed as he thrusts upwards one last time. “I’m going to come,” he says. “Let me—”

You slide off his cock and he comes, his release spurting onto his stomach, a little bit on your thighs. You collapse against his chest. He wraps his arms around you tightly, pulling you into the crook of his neck.

For a long time, neither of you speaks. Eventually, Satoru shifts slightly, kissing the top of your head.

“So,” he whispers. “Shower?”

You lift your head slightly, looking at him with tired, happy eyes. “Already?” you say with faux innocence. “I thought you’d want to fuck me on that stupid couch first.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #4 – EMBEZZLEMENT.

Hopefully Satoru didn’t mind you swiping his credit card from his wallet while he was fast asleep, one arm thrown over his face while the other was stretched out beside him. You’d wriggled out of his grasp carefully, pressing a gentle, barely-there kiss to the tip of his nose, before digging through his jacket’s pockets for his wallet and pulling out his black card.

It’s for a good purpose, you console yourself, hurrying through the streets of Las Vegas with a jewellery shop’s location pulled up on your phone. 

Las Vegas in the early morning is a different city entirely from the one that had swallowed you whole last night. It’s not quiet, exactly—it’s never quiet, you suspect—but it’s quieter, the frenetic energy of the Strip mellowed into something slower. The crowds have thinned, at least.

You walk with your hands in your pockets, Satoru’s black card tucked safely between two fingers. The morning air is warm and dry, and the sky above the glow of the Strip is beginning to lighten from black to the deep bruised blue that comes just before dawn.

The jewellery shop is three blocks from the hotel, according to your phone. It’s a small, well-lit place that stays open through the night, catering to those Las Vegas visitors who find themselves in need of jewellery at unusual hours, which you now understand is a larger demographic than you’d previously considered.

You walk and think about the rings. The ones currently on your fingers are not adequate. They’re soft metal, the gold already slightly scuffed from one night of existence, and they’ll tarnish in a week. You’d noticed this morning, while Satoru was still asleep: the way your rings sat a little loose, the way it had already lost some of its shine. It’s more of a placeholder than anything else.

The thought of replacing them had arrived while you’d lain in Satoru’s arms, listening to him breathe and looking at the ring.

You aren’t scared, though you’d expected to be. You’d expected to wake up this morning with the full weight of what’s happened landing on you like a dropped beam, and to spend the subsequent hours dealing with the considerable wreckage of your own panic. It seemed like a reasonable response to having been married to your best friend in Las Vegas by a crying man named Francis and then having the matter become rather more settled than a marriage certificate alone would suggest.

But when you’d woken up with Satoru’s arm around you and the photographs on the nightstand, what you’d felt was something almost irritatingly simple: you’d felt like yourself.

The jewellery shop is small and bright, jewellery arranged in lit display cases along the walls, a pudgy man behind the counter. He looks up when you come in, takes in the look of you—your clothes from last night, slightly slept-in, your hair not fully combed—and nods pleasantly.

“Morning,” he says. “What are you looking for?”

“Wedding rings,” you say. “Two of them, please. Something that’ll last for a long time.”

He nods again. “Do you know the other person’s size?”

You think about Satoru’s hands—the ring sliding onto his finger in the chapel, his hand covering yours on the duvet last night, the warmth of his arm around this morning. “I can estimate,” you say.

He shows you to a case along the left wall. The rings inside are simple, for the most part—plain bands in gold and silver and white gold, some with small details, most without. You find two plain bands in white gold, clean-lined and unornamented, substantial enough to last. 

“These,” you tell the man behind the counter.

He nods. You produce Satoru’s black card and spend a figure that makes you wince slightly but not reconsider, because the point isn’t the cost and you’re sure Satoru will agree with you about this when he wakes up and finds both you and his credit card gone. You leave the ship with the rings in a small white box and stand on the pavement outside for a moment in the warming air.

You pull your phone out and type in the search bar, Chapel of Eternal Love, and punch in the number attached. 

“Hello, Chapel of Eternal Love, Francis speaking—”

“Francis,” you say, smiling. “I have a favour to ask.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #5 – MARRIAGE.

Francis, it turns out, is delighted. He’d gone quiet for a moment when you explained what you were asking, and then said, Give me an hour, and hung up before you could confirm the details. 

You make your way back to the hotel with your ring box in your pocket and the morning brightening steadily around you. The casino lobbies you pass are still going—slot machines, a scattering of determined gamblers, staff moving between stations—but the Strip itself is relatively peaceful, the night’s crowd entirely dissolved and the day’s not yet arrived. You have the pavement to yourself. It’s a strange and pleasant feeling, Las Vegas in the interstitial hour.

Satoru is awake when you get back, sitting up in bed with his hair in complete disarray and the duvet bunched around his waist. When you open the door he looks at you blankly.

“Morning,” you say.

“My credit card,” he says.

“Is fine.” You cross the room and hold it out. He takes it without looking at it, still watching you. “I needed it for a purchase.”

“What kind of purchase requires you to leave the hotel room at—” he glances at the clock on the nightstand—“six forty-seven in the morning?”

“The important kind.” You sit down on the edge of the bed and take the white box out of your pocket, setting it on the duvet between you.

Satoru picks the box up and opens it, and doesn’t say anything at all, which is the loudest thing Gojo Satoru can do. “You stole my credit card,” he says finally, “to buy us wedding rings.”

“I borrowed it,” you say. “To replace the ones we got from a spinning display rack for five dollars each.”

“I liked those rings.”

“They were tarnishing,” you say. “There’s more, by the way.”

You tell him about Francis. He looks surprised at first, and then warm, so utterly warm when he tugs you closer to him and kisses you again, and again, and once more for good measure. Satoru closes the ring box and holds it in both hands, the way he’d held the whiskey bottle last night before he’d covered your hand with his. 

“I thought you wanted a divorce last night, and now you’ve stolen my credit card and called Francis.”

“Yep.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The morning light filters through the curtains and he looks extraordinarily, unfairly beautiful, even just woken up.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” Satoru sets the ring box on the nightstand, next to the photographs. “Okay.”

Francis has decorated the chapel when you arrive. You’re not entirely sure when he found the time—it’s been barely two hours since your phone call—but the maintenance issue has apparently been resolved, because the lights are on when you arrive. The door is unlocked; when you step inside you find that Francis has replaced the zip-tied artificial flowers on the pews with fresh ones, white and small. There are candles lit along the windowsills. The worn carpet, in the warm light, looks less worn somehow, or perhaps you’re simply disposed to see it differently today.

Francis himself is standing at the altar in a clean shirt, his red hair combed and his camera in his hands. “You came back,” he says.

“We came back,” you confirm.

Francis looks at the two of you—Satoru in a fresh shirt with his tie done up neatly again, you in the best thing you could assemble from your bag on short notice—and grins. “The rings, did you—”

You produce the white box.

“Right,” Francis says. “Right, yes. Let’s—shall we?”

Here is what you think about, standing at the altar of the Chapel of Eternal Love for the second time in less than twenty-four hours:

You think about the first time, yesterday, and how you’d stood here in something close to a dissociative state, your brain running through the situation at high speed. You think about the parking lot behind the Denny’s and the small fire in the trash can. You’d meant it when you said you wanted a divorce, though you realise now that you were frightened of what being married to your best friend entailed.

Satoru had let you burn it, too. He hadn’t argued because he’d known you’d come around. Not from arrogance, but because he knew you, the same way you knew him, all the way down to the things you didn’t say aloud.

You think about the darkroom, the four photographs drying on the line in the red light. Climbing back out through the chapel window into the warm Las Vegas night and holding the envelope against your chest, the photographs still damp inside it. You think about the rings in the spinning display by the door—you can still see them from where you’re standing, the little rack with the remaining rings. They were the beginning, it turns out.

You turn to look back at Satoru. He’s smiling at you.

Francis clears his throat gently. “Shall we begin?”

The vows are the same ones from the laminated card. Francis offers alternatives—he has a small binder with options—but Satoru shrugs, so you use the same ones. When Francis gets to the rings you open the white box yourself. You take Satoru’s ring out and hold it; he holds out his right hand out of habit before catching himself and switching to his left, and you both laugh helplessly. Francis gulps and pulls out his handkerchief. You put the ring on the correct hand this time.

Satoru takes yours from the box and looks up at you—there’s that expression, the one from the photographs, the one you have a name for now. He slides the ring onto the correct finger and holds your hand for a moment after.

Francis is fully crying now. He dabs at his eyes without embarrassment and beams at the two of you over his handkerchief with radiant approval.

“I’ve never had anyone come back,” he tells you. “In twelve years, you’re the first.”

“We forgot something the first time,” you say.

Francis tucks his handkerchief away and straightens up. Smiling, he announces, “You may now kiss,” and so you do.

He lets out a huff of a laugh then looks down at you with a lazy smirk. His chest’s rising and falling in a steady rhythm that mocks your ragged gasps. You’re throwing your entire weight into him, and it barely registers as a nuisance.

“Baby are you serious? A sumo wrestler? That’s harsh, I’m definitely more aerodynamic than that.” he murmurs, playfully whilst continuing to watch you struggle against his solid frame with a look of secret amusement. “C’mon. Put your back into it, I’m barely even trying y’know?”

He sounds too pleased with himself. Your brows pinch together, jaw tightening as your teeth grind in contained irritation. This was your idea, but your competitive streak is now insisting this was, in fact, a bad idea. Frankly, it’s the tone you can’t stand, speaks like he’s graciously humoring a toddler. You want to hurt him. Or, failing that, at least remind him that gravity is supposed to apply to him, too.

So, you move. You hook your arms around him, your legs following suit as you try to wrench the momentum and roll him. For a split second, he shifts—and there is hope—then his hand, massive and quick, snaps around your ankles mid-air and hope is fleeting.

He forces your legs up and back, folding you like a pretzel until your heels are practically tucked behind your ears. It’s a position you’ve been put in many times, but not outside of the bedroom. It makes your skin crawl with heat. You’re exposed, crotch pressed into his. Your tight athletic shorts cling to your puffy folds and offer zero protection from the pressure of him.

“Okay, Satoru, what the fuck?” you choke out, blood rushing to your head.

“Shit reflex,” he laughs, sending a vibration through your trapped body. His crystalline eyes are dark, tracing the way you’re pinned underneath him. “My bad, baby.”

“You’re a dick. Let go.”

Naturally, he ignores you entirely and does the opposite with an infuriating grin that has him looking way too attractive for someone being this much of a prick.

“How about in a couple seconds, hm?”, His grip on you tightens and he hitches his hips forward, growing cock rubbing right against your clothed-cunt, “She feels soft. Haven’t rubbed up on her like this in a while, miss it.”

You look up and his white hair’s disheveled from and there’s a deep flush on the tips of his ears. He’s so pretty. It sucks how that face lets him get away with being such a degenerate.

“Fine,” you breathe out, the word caught in your throat. “Just make it quick. My legs are gonna cramp if you keep me locked like this.”

You don’t need to tell him twice ‘cuz he’s already humping into your pussy like an animal in heat. His sweats are thick, but they do nothing to hide the rock-hard length of him. Each time he drives his hips home, he’s grazing your clit through the dampening layers. He’s got your pretty pussy leaking like a broken faucet—slick patch spreading on the fabric. Each blunt shove against your folds drags a broken, messy string of moans out of you that you can't even try to swallow.

“Shit, feels so good,” he groans into your ear, body getting heavier, slumping on top of you, “we…fuck—we should play fight more often. Yeah? How’s that sound?”

He presses his mouth against yours, tasting like fruity flavored gum and sweets. You’re swallowing his moans, your own breath hitching as he keeps up his bruising pace. Then one final, harsh shove and he goes rigid. His eyes go semi-wide, pupils blown out and unfocused, fixed on nothing as his brain shorts out. Before you realize there’s already a heavy dampness flooding the space between you, white stringy liquid soaking through the fabric of his sweats and bleeding right into your own clothes.

He doesn't move for a long minute, his face buried in the crook of your neck. Then, slowly, he lifts his head and lets out a long exhale, his chests heaving and his signature smirk replaced by a look of daze.

"Well," he rasps, a lazy, lopsided grin slowly pulling at his mouth. "Think I’ll give you the win on that one. Though, you're a mess, babe. Completely soaked."

He pulls back just an inch, cartoonishly blue eyes tracking the damp mess of your shorts, "Pretty sure you're gonna need a shower to get all that off you.” He pauses, smiling at you cat-like, “Want to go see if I can fit in there with you? I promise to help with the hard-to-reach spots."

+ another dry humping post act shocked. ty sichee 4 proofreading @ouist