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 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.

Jamil warned everyone that the festival would attract visitors and tourists, and he especially warned Grim and Malleus to be careful not to get lost, but who would have thought you of all people would be the one lost amidst the crowds?

You bite your inner cheek and push yourself to your tippytoes, trying your best once again to spot your friends in the crowds—hoping and seeking to find Malleus’ familiar curved horns, or Cater’s sweet orange locks, or even Grimmy’s blue flames but nothing familiar catches your eyes. After a few more minutes of searching fruitlessly, you decided to seek shelter from the beating sun, fanning yourself with the fabrics of your headpiece.

Truly, the sun really is relentless in the country of the Scalding Sands. It’s different back in Night Raven College where the quiet sunlight would curl through the curtainless windows of Ramshackle, kissing gold on the thin dusts that float in the lobby or when it would bake softly on Grim’s grey fur that had you burying your nose and inhaling the sunburnt scent of it on his belly until your companion starts pushing his paw to your cheek and calling you weird. A pearl of sweat beads down your forehead and you retreat into what seems like a market tucked beneath a shade, away from the grueling heat and boisterous crowds of the bazaar.

You did not have time to worry, not when your eyes chased after the marketplace in wonderment. Splayed across vendor stalls were intricate furniture, golden potteries, carpets. You approached a table, leaning down to run your finger on the ceramics. You must've been distracted, because the next thing you felt was a warm presence by your side and laying a palm on your lower back—straightening you.

“Goodness, didn't your parents teach you to watch over your valuables carefully especially during throngs of festivals?”

You spin your head. Teal was the first thing that catches your eye, then chestnut brown hair that falls beneath the person’s headpiece.

Jamil…? Your mind staggers before you trace your gaze over his features. No, this is not Jamil. He’s wearing teal and blue, and his eyes are nothing like those familiar serpentine ones that belonged to your schoolmate. This person’s eyes are softer, but more tantalizing. Almonds like a feline.

“...Excuse me?” You say between your surprise, and the person beside you glances behind for a mere moment. You watch the way his peacock earring jingle as he turns his head.

“Someone was eyeing that wallet you had in your pockets.” Those rich-colored eyes return to you. “Zahab Market is known for pickpockets, be careful next time.”

You blink once, twice, then realization sinks into you. Your hand immediately pats your wallet, “Oh, thank you for letting me know...”

Instead of a response, the person gazes at you with quiet intensity. His eyes flicker to the curves of your face then down your attire, you try not to flush underneath his avid scrutiny, taking a couple of steps back. “May I help you, is something wrong?”

“You’re…not a local, are you?”

You tilt your head at his question before shaking your head. The handsome stranger hums softly, as if thinking. “So you're a tourist? How odd.”

Your brows furrow, “Yeah I am, why are you asking?”

“I would have recognized a pretty face like yours if you're one of the children from affluent families here in Silk City.”

“What, pretty face—?” Before you can sputter out your sentence, you feel him reach down to pinch the fabric of your attire, gently tugging on it for emphasis. “Silk clothes like these don't come by often, they're expensive and the ones you're wearing now feel like top-quality.” He takes a moment to eye the pattern on your sleeve, running his thumb on it—almost missing the dark pinch in his thick brows.

“This is the first time I've seen an embroidery like this…probably for this year’s Fireworks Festival, but the style is uncannily similar to the Asims.” he looks at you then, his brown eyes almost golden under the light if you stare at it long enough. “...Are you connected with them?”

A honeyed tension pours between the two of you despite the hustle and bustle that flurried around. He’s very sharp, you muse to yourself. And very well-versed, he sounds so cocksure but it’s muted beneath his elegant tone and warm voice…who is this?

You think carefully of how you wanted to answer him, “Kalim Al-Asim is my upperclassman. He invited me to his home city for the Fireworks festival. He allowed me to use these clothes as well. If that's what you're wondering, I didn't steal it.”

“Apologies, I didn't mean to sound accusing but…” The stranger sighs and the tension drops. “That definitely sounds like something he would do alright.”

“Pardon me, do you know Kalim?” You immediately shake your head, “No actually, better question, what's your name?”

The stranger is taken aback by your inquiry, then the softest quirk of his lips as he smiles at you.

“You don't know me.” His tone is more of a statement laced in amusement than a question, and you can see how your words piqued him.

You purse your lips, crossing your arms. “Should I be aware of someone high-handed like you?”

He lifts a brow then, a hearty laugh spilling down his mouth at your accusation. It's weird. Really, really weird because for some reason, you're reacting to his laugh. The way he almost had his shoulders fold over, the sound a mixture of breathy and something rich, it fits the rasp cradle of his tone. When he’s finished, he leans close to you but not close enough to disturb your bubble—or what remains of your tucked dignity.

Playfulness sparks in his eyes, “High-handed, me? I—”

You both tense when you hear voices. From behind you, the familiar cry and wail of Grim reaches your ears as he shouts for you. And in front of you were a series of panicked calls,

“Your highness? Are you here—?”

The stranger beside you clicks his tongue, it draws your attention back, watching a thin sheen of annoyance draw over the playfulness that once plagued his expression. Though his face distracts you, you try to also make sense of the situation; Familiarity in his tone when he talks about Kalim, proficient about the expensive silks and styles of the Asims, knowing families of the city, your highness…is he rich too?

But before you can arrive at a perfect conclusion, he turns towards you. “Hey, are you good at running away?”

The sudden question throws you off but you nod your head, “I guess? Why are you asking me that—”

He reaches out his hands towards you, all and every syllable piling on your tongue falls flat. You look at his outstretched hand, then let your eyes crawl up his arm, his teal capelet, neck then at his face where his hardened expression had loosen then into something genuine, something exciting with a hint of ribboned defiance.

“I still haven't answered you and well, I'm in a bit of a bind so we might have to run somewhere else in order for us to talk properly like this, are you in?”

You hesitate a second, and he notices. The mischief that flavored his brown eyes rich had softened into something sweet and ripe.

“Then, do you trust me?” He asked, a slight tilt to his head, his peacock earrings following the movement. You blink at him before laying your palm across his—you feel his callousness against your skin, the deftness of fingers as he curls it around your own and tugs you to your feet. You’re not quite sure what came over you when you took his hand, you should’ve returned to your companions than follow a stranger but seeing the way his smile stretches across his face is really contagious.

Ten minutes later after running through the markets’ corners, ducking into open doors and flying down and up stairs, climbing a ladder—the stranger finally releases your hand and you almost crumple to the floor in heaps of silk clothes and sweat and exhaustion, catching your breath heavily.

You shouldn’t have trusted him. That arrogant and haughty and handsome—no, cease the notion. You fell for his cocky little flattery so easily, Grimmy would be so—

You see his outstretched hand fall over your vision, once you catch your breath you look up at his face.

And instantly your eyes narrow. He doesn’t even look the least bit tired, he was the one that ran expertly through the crowds, tugging you close and hoisting you by the waist through narrow gaps. Just how athletic is he?

“You okay?” He asked, then an apologetic smile flashes on his face seeing you. “Sorry, I went a bit overboard there.”

“You think?” Instead of accepting his hand, you sat down. A momentary silence fills the room, all except for your labored breaths and distant chatters and music, it’s enough to ease the fracas in your heart.

Seconds bleed before you hear fabrics shuffling. Then, bending on one knee he presses something cold on your cheek. You open your eyes and he stretches out a piece of cut fruit on his palm. You catch his eye and he looks at you intently, “I bought some sliced silky melons from Camel Bazaar a few minutes ago as snacks. Here, take it. I’d feel bad if you passed out because of me.”

You take his offer, “How charming of you…”

“Minhaj.”

You intertwine your gaze with his.

“Minhaj, what’s that?”

He smiles, “well uh, just call me that for now.”

You try not to look at him sourly. You told him who you were, accepted his offer to run till your lungs are close to collapsing and he’s giving you a name that’s not even his?

“That’s not your real name, is it?”

He cocks his head over his shoulders, walks over to the edge and pats the space next to him. “Where’s the fun in that? Now come, I still have more fruits I can share with you.”

At this point, you decided not to argue with him. When you settled beside Minhaj, the view before you had stars dancing in your eyes. No wonder why it felt like you were climbing endless flights of stairs, the view before you is enough to span across the bazaar from here, with its colorful roofs and bustling people down below. Palm trees and canal roads and elephants with bits and bobs flurry the streets, making you smile at how beautiful Silk City truly is.

You were too busy looking at the scene and snacking on sliced fruits you almost missed the way Minhaj closely admired you from the corner of your eye, his palms on his cheek.

This time though, you feel your cheeks flushing hot. “Is something on my face?”

“Yeah.” He points at the edge of your lip. “Right there—no, a little bit more…yeah, there.”

You swipe away at the piece and try to fan away your embarrassment, heat furnacing your cheeks in red.

You hear Minhaj chuckle, “you’re a messy eater, huh?”

“Normally no…” you mentally blame Grimmy and his glutinous manners influencing you, but then turn back towards Minhaj and still see him smiling at you.

“Is there still fruit on my face?”

He shakes his head, “no but…” he eats a slice as well, his stare not leaving yours, as if challenging you on something you haven’t quite realized yet.

“Do you know the significance of silky melons in Silk City?”

You thought about it briefly; Jamil had explained about the melons with a story, then it hit you then, his words.

Over time, people started saying that if you shared one of these melons with someone, your friendship or romance would last forever…

Your head whipped to Minhaj so quickly he had to stifle his own laugh at your reactions.

You open your mouth, press your lips close then part it again, flustered. “Are you trying to imply something here?”

“Relax, I was just joking. You’re rather fun to tease, you know.” Minhaj shakes his head, “Besides, I’m your upperclassman too. Just not in the same school as you or Kalim.”

You perk up, “so I'm guessing your family’s also rich like Kalim?”

He turns to look at the view before him, “Something like that. I’ll tell you who I am though, or what my real name is when we meet again. So for now…”

His arm lays flat beside your thigh and he leans in close again, tapping a sliced fruit to your lips and grinning,

“Keep our first little meeting a secret till I see you again, yeah?”

You hold the fruit, watching as the warmth on his skin brushes your fingertips when he pulls away. You frown, “you’re rather sure we would meet again. I’m not from the Scalding Sands, so who knows when I'll ever have the chance to come back and see you if ever.”

Minhaj simply smiles at you, brown eyes crinkling in the corners. “The melons mean something, and well, we’ll just have to see.”

The promise floats between the two of you until you both finish the melons and bid each other farewell, he immediately spins around before your friends could catch a glimpse of him. The festival continues and you’re half disappointed you don’t see the familiar teal amongst the crowd during the Fireworks festival, and eventually you’d forgotten about the whimsical encounter with the playful stranger from the Scalding Sands, returning back to Night Raven College and its usual stubborn students and history classes and magic concepts and whiny Grimmy and life-altering overblot encounters.

That is until the Inter-school tournament between Night Raven and Royal sword came.

Ace was pressing down and poking at your still evident bed head and you try to swat his hand away from your hair. You feel Grim plop on your lap and shushing you all as they announced the one’s competing from the Royal Sword Academy,

Receiving the Radiant light of the true princess’ wisdom, Dunasmina Dorm!

You’ve huffed and wrapped your arms around Grim as he huddled close to your touch getting comfy, unknowingly furrowing your brows at the dorm being announced. After all, that color teal seemed rather familiar to you but you can’t quite put a finger on it yet…

“Minajael Tealrajah everyone!” The announcer cries and for a moment, the hum and roar of the studio goes dead silent.

The familiar teal, that smug smile, those rich brown eyes, dark hair…

“Minhaj?”

Grim cranes his head up to look at you quizzically, “huh? Whaddya say? Minja wha—hmph!”

Grim’s question ends in a choke and sputter as you accidentally squeezed him tight to your chest, the realization and familiarity of the player competing clicking in your brain.

That carefree boy from Silk City’s markets Minhaj is a Royal Sword Academy student, but not only that but a prince?!

Yuu actually first met Minajael all the way back during the Fireworks Festival, when the group went on the trip with the Scarabia duo... It wouldn't be completely out of the question, given the set-up. Kalim's family is hosting, so it would make sense for them to invite their relatives. And why wouldn't the royals of the country show up to the event?

Minajael is stated to sneak out of the palace multiple times, causing a stir in the media in the process. What if he just so happened to be in his commoner's disguise at the same time NRC students were visiting with Kalim and Jamil??? You know, this one:

What better time would there be to explore outside of the palace than during a festival, when people from all over Twisted Wonderland are visiting and the local businesses are at their busiest? There would be so much to see and to experience!

And maybe--just maybe--Minajael bumps into Yuu (somehow separated from the NRC group, probably lost?) while he's out and about? Perhaps he's even trying to escape guards that are looking for him, and Yuu helps him out like how Aladdin helped Jasmine escape the angry merchant. Or maybe he plays the role of Aladdin? Yuu could get into some kind of misunderstanding with a merchant and BAM suddenly there’s Minajael, come to rescue them and talk them out of it.

Then they could run off together and have fun, reenact a lot of those romantic Aladdin-Jasmine moments from the movie. Minajael tossing Yuu an apple, offering a flower he picked, evading capture hand-in-hand, vaulting across rooftops Yuu accidentally stumbles and falls right into his arms, and more. Maybe they'd even open up to one another about their personal problems. Minajael feels "trapped" (in his princely obligations), and Yuu feels "trapped" too (in a strange new world). When they part ways, he's left feeling like he's made a genuine friend, a real connection.

It kinda fits for Yuu since they’re pushed by the narrative as someone who can connect with others. They feel like an Aladdin too, since they’re impoverished and live in a run-down building for most of the school year, but generally come off as a good person.

And then when Minajael comes to RSA for the interscholastic competition, he recognizes Yuu so he's automatically hitting it off with them www Yuu may not remember him, so he'd play coy and skirt around it, not wanting to outright tell them where they may have met before. Bruh, he invites them on a magic carpet ride and encourages them to hold onto him if they're scared of heights 💀

faibfuayyaeipafeib BUT IMAGINE JAMIL (whom Minajael plays against in Relic Labyrinth) SEEING THIS AND JUST. COMING IN TO BREAK THEM MAPART UNDER THE GUISE OF "it's not proper for a prince to mingle with us common folk"???? He'd even address Minajael as a prince to subtly get under his skin (fully knowing that Minajael dislikes being referred to that way). Maybe Jamil would also scold Yuu as well, either for "befriending the enemy" or "behaving so casually" with royalty.

So Jamil manages to successfully chase of Minajael for now--but right before the prince leaves, he gives a little wave and a wink, asking you to please watch his match veeery carefully. He'll show you how cool he can be!