🖤 @ladykelsi - Tumblr Blog

💗💞🩷🎀🏩 gojo, desperate to let you know about his feelings, starts leaving you notes signed with “s.” and hopes to gain the courage to confess to you on valentine’s day. the problem occurs when you start suspecting suguru of being the one to leave you notes.

contents. gojo x fem reader!! gojo is down BAD. suguru is so done. this is just cutesy stuff. gojo being desperate and in love. also there is a lot of blushing in here IM SORRY PEOPLE WHO CANT BLUSH I CANT EITHER i just find it very cute im sorry :(( light misunderstanding trope, unrequited requited crush. if you know fhe artist pls lemme know so i can credit.

part 1: operation secret admirer.

gojo satoru slumped so deep into the worn-out beanbag of their cramped campus apartment that he was practically being swallowed whole, limbs splayed out in every direction like a discarded marionette. his sunglasses, pushed up and perched precariously on top of silky white hair, caught the dull afternoon light filtering through blinds they never remembered to dust. he stared at the ceiling with the intense, unblinking focus of someone hoping the cracks and water stains might rearrange themselves into something resembling divine intervention.

gojo was many things— like, an almost obnoxious amount of things. he was top of his class in advanced physics, the kind of annoying genius who understood quantum mechanics while the rest of the room was still trying to figure out the syllabus. he was the unofficial mvp of the university’s informal basketball pickup games, all long limbs and effortless agility, drawing cheers and sighs in equal measure.

and he was definitely the guy who could charm his way out of any late assignment with a disarming grin and a lazy wink, leaving professors half-heartedly scolding him while stamping his form with an extension. he was confident, cocky and carried himself like the world was his personal stage.

but when it came to you he was a total disaster. like, a complete, flailing, word-vomiting catastrophe.

many instances of him trying, and failing, to make a decent conversation with you solely because words would literally escape his mind and he would be no better than a vegetable, all empty and useless, and you would give him a sweet smile and turn back to your friend. or when he would ask you to explain the simplest things about the classes and subjects you shared, and you, knowing that satoru was pretty much a genius, would give him a confused look and still go on as he’d record the sound of your voice into his memories. fuck, you were the cutest.

valentine’s day loomed on the calendar like a ticking bomb, just two short weeks away. fourteen days. three hundred and thirty-six hours, give or take, not that he was counting. he was definitely counting. and gojo still hadn’t figured out a single, coherent way to tell you he liked you.

you, with your quiet voice and your literature major brain full of words he only half-understood but wanted to learn. you, who smiled soft and small like you weren’t sure you were allowed to take up space with it. you, who tucked your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating and who, when called on by professors in your shared contemporary poetry elective, went red around the edges and spoke so quietly the people in the back row had to lean in. you, who sat three rows ahead of him every tuesday and thursday, scribbling in that impossibly tiny, perfect handwriting that looked like it belonged in a museum or maybe just pressed between the pages of a very expensive book.

you, who had accidentally slammed into him at the campus coffee shop last semester, sending your iced latte cascading down the pristine white front of his favorite sneakers. he remembered the exact sound of your sharp inhale, the way your eyes went huge and round and horrified, your mouth opening and closing like you were trying to apologize in seventeen different languages at once and couldn’t pick one.

you’d crouched down with napkins, babbling about dry cleaning and replacement costs and oh god i’m so sorry i wasn’t looking and you’d looked up at him with those eyes and gojo satoru, who had never believed in love at first sight or fate or any of that clichéd nonsense, felt something crack open in his chest like an egg.

and he’d been hooked ever since.

pathetic, right? gojo satoru, who dated casually the way other people changed socks, who had never once lost sleep over a crush, who kept his phone contacts full of numbers he’d never call again— reduced to doodling your name in the margins of his notebooks like some lovesick high schooler with a spiral-bound diary and a gel pen collection. he’d caught himself doing it last week during a lecture on postwar japanese poetry. your name, over and over, surrounded by little stars and question marks and, embarrassingly, a few hearts he’d tried to scribble out but only made worse.

“suguruuuu,” he whined, the sound stretching out into multiple syllables as he let himself roll off the beanbag and onto the floor with a loud, dramatic thump. the carpet smelled faintly of instant ramen and the candle suguru had lit once, weeks ago, to try and fix the instant ramen smell before his girl came over. gojo stared up at the water-stained ceiling from this new angle, arms spread wide like he was making a snow angel in the debris of his own emotional crisis. “suguru. hey. suguru. are you listening. sugu—”

“what now, satoru?” geto suguru didn’t even look up from his laptop, fingers still moving steadily across the keyboard. his long black hair was pulled back in its usual low ponytail, sleeves rolled to the elbow, posture perfect. he was irritatingly calm in the face of his best friend’s struggles. “if this is about that group project again, i already told you i’m not doing your part just because you don’t like your assigned poet.”

“it’s worse.” gojo sat up so fast the blood rushed to his head, but he didn’t care. he fixed suguru with his most serious expression, which wasn’t very serious at all but he was trying. “infinitely worse. this is, like, too bad.”

suguru’s fingers finally stilled. he looked up, one dark eyebrow slowly rising. this was the look that said he was bracing himself, the look he’d perfected over years of friendship with someone who once tried to microwave a fork just to see what would happen. “is someone dead?”

“no.”

“injured?”

“no.”

“did you finally get that overdue library fine sorted out?”

“suguru, this is about my heart.” gojo pressed both hands to his chest for emphasis. “my fragile, beating, completely unprepared heart.”

suguru’s eyebrow climbed higher. “your heart.”

“yes.”

“the heart belonging to you, who told me last month that romance was ‘a social construct designed to sell mediocre chocolate and overpriced flowers.’”

“i was younger then. dumber. a different person entirely.” gojo waved this away like it was irrelevant, which to him it absolutely was. “valentine’s day is in two weeks. two weeks, suguru. and i need to confess to her. but i need to do it right, like, without looking like the world’s biggest idiot. which is difficult because i am an idiot. i know i’m an idiot. you know i’m an idiot. but she doesn’t know i’m an idiot, or maybe she does, i don’t know, but i need her to think i’m a charming idiot. there’s a difference.”

suguru closed his laptop. the click of it sounded, to gojo’s ears, like the gates of mercy swinging open. “you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“her.” gojo dropped his voice to a whisper, like he was sharing a dream. “you know, the one from poetry. the one who reads before class with her hair falling in her face. the one who uses like six different colored highlighters. the one who—”

“the one you haven’t shut up about since october, yes, i’m aware.” suguru rubbed his temples. “what about her?”

“what if i confess and she laughs?” gojo’s voice cracked on the word ‘laughs’, which was humiliating in on itself. he was twenty years old. his voice should not be cracking. “or worse—what if she doesn’t laugh and just, looks at me and i can’t tell if she’s horrified or confused or both. or what if she thinks i’m pranking her? like that time in chem lab with the fake spider? i put that thing in like five different people’s backpacks, i have a reputation. she probably thinks i’m incapable of sincerity. maybe i am incapable of sincerity. what if i try to be sincere and it comes out sarcastic and she thinks i’m mocking her. what if—”

“satoru.” suguru’s voice cut through the spiral, calm and steady. they’d done this dance before, many times, over many girls and a few guys and that one time with the exchange student from osaka that gojo still refused to talk about. but this was different, suguru could tell. gojo had never, in all the years suguru had known him, looked this genuinely terrified over someone. “just be direct. ask her out. women throw themselves at you.”

“but she’s not like that.” gojo’s voice went soft at the edges, losing its usual theatrical edge. he was picking at a loose thread on the carpet now, not looking up. “she’s like… like a little rabbit. if i go in all guns blazing, she’ll bolt. i’ll blink and she’ll just be gone and i’ll never even get to try.”

suguru was quiet for a moment. then, he shrugged casually, “so don’t go in guns blazing.”

gojo looked up.

“you need subtlety. romance.” suguru leaned back in his chair, considering. “something poetic, since that’s her thing. what’s her major again?”

“literature. contemporary poetry, specifically. she’s always carrying like three books at once and they all have those weird pretentious covers with like, minimalism. and birds.” gojo’s expression was dreamy now, completely unguarded in a way he never was around anyone else. “last week she had a collection of translated neruda and i almost asked her about it but then i realised i only know him from that simpsons episode.”

“dumbass.” suguru snorted. “okay. so start small.”

“what do you mean, small.”

“i mean… hm. you could leave her notes? anonymous. make her curious.” suguru was warming to the idea now, the way he always did when presented with a problem that required strategy. “nothing too intense right away—just observations and compliments. things you’ve noticed about her that she might not think anyone notices. sign them with an initial, keep it mysterious.”

gojo stared at him. his mouth was slightly open. and then, like the sun finally managing to punch through weeks of cloud cover, his face split into a grin so wide and bright it was almost blinding. “suguru. suguru, you beautiful, beautiful bastard. that’s genius.”

“i know.”

“no, like, actual genius. this is why i keep you around.” gojo was already on his feet, pacing, hands flying as he talked. “okay, okay, notes. anonymous notes. what initial though? g. s. is too obvious. what about—”

“just use ‘g’ or ‘s’, there are like a hundred people like that,” suguru said smoothly. “she’ll wonder.”

“perfect. notes from s. mysterious s. she’s going to be dying to know who it is. she’s going to think about it in class and look around like who could it be and i’ll be sitting right there, completely incognito, and she’ll have no idea.” gojo stopped pacing, pointed at suguru. he was practically vibrating with excitement now. “and then, when the time is right, boom. i look her dead in the eye, say something smooth—i don’t know what yet, i’ll workshop it—and she’ll realize it’s been me all along.”

“that’s the plan,” suguru agreed, already turning back to his laptop. “now please let me finish this outline.”

gojo didn’t let him finish the outline. gojo spent the next hour and a half interrogating suguru about exactly what the notes should say, what color paper he should use, whether he should write in print or cursive, whether he should spray them with cologne (suguru vetoed this immediately and firmly), and whether “i think about you approximately 4,763 times per day” was too intense for a first note (suguru suggested he maybe scale it back).

by the time gojo finally retreated to his own room, armed with a fresh pack of stationary he’d ordered for express delivery and a head full of half-formed couplets he was definitely going to google later, suguru was already mentally preparing for the fallout.

gojo’s plans, no matter how well-intentioned, had a tendency to implode spectacularly. but suguru had to admit that he’d never seen his friend like this, so genuinely worried about making someone feel good instead of just trying to win.

suguru looked at the ceiling, the same one gojo had been staring at an hour ago, and let out a long, slow breath. he really hoped it wouldn’t implode. gojo’s heart, it turned out, was actually quite fragile. and suguru wasn’t sure either of them knew what to do with that.

—

the first note was a triumph.

gojo had spent approximately forty-seven minutes agonizing over it, which was forty-six minutes longer than he'd ever spent on anything romantic in his entire life. he'd gone through three different types of paper— too formal, too basic, too aggressively scented because apparently some of his stationary had been sitting next to an old candle— before settling on a simple pink sticky note.

his usual script was messy, impatient, the letters slanting forward like they were trying to escape the page. but for this? for you? he'd slowed down and shaped each character with the kind of care he usually reserved for, well, nothing.

your quiet laugh in class today made my whole week. can’t stop thinking about it. - s.

suguru had said not to go too intense and this felt like the right balance— specific enough that you'd know it was real, vague enough that you'd have to wonder. gojo read it seventeen times, folded it into a neat square, and tucked it into his palm where his sweaty fingers could clutch it like a talisman.

the delivery itself required a level of stealth gojo didn't know he possessed. lecture break. you'd gotten up to refill your water bottle— he knew this because he'd been tracking your movements with the focus of a nature documentarian observing a particularly skittish woodland creature— and you'd left your bag on the floor beside your chair, unzipped like always. an invitation, almost. a sign from the universe that this was meant to be.

he slipped out of his seat, crossed the three rows between you in what felt like slow motion. his heart was slamming against his ribs so hard he was genuinely worried other people could hear it. his hands, usually so steady, were shaking. gojo satoru, who had never been nervous a day in his life, who approached everything with the unshakable confidence of someone who'd never truly failed at anything, was trembling over a pink sticky note.

he dropped it in your bag quickly, then he returned to his seat, dropped his head into his hands, and spent the next three minutes trying to remember how to breathe properly.

you came back, sat down, didn't notice anything amiss.

gojo spent the rest of the break staring at the back of your head with such intense concentration that he was genuinely surprised your hair didn't catch fire.

eventually, the class resumed. the professor launched into a lecture on syllabic meter in traditional japanese poetry versus free verse—whatever, honestly, who gives a fuck— gojo heard approximately none of it. he was too busy watching you, watching the way you idly reached into your bag for a highlighter and paused. felt around. pulled out something small and pink.

your head tilted, a tiny furrow appearing between your brows as you unfolded the note.

gojo forgot to breathe.

he watched your eyes move across the words— once, twice—and then watched the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen happen in real time.

the blush started at your neck, crept up your throat, flooded your cheeks in a wash of rose pink so perfect it should have been illegal. you bit your lip, which only made it worse. your mouth was doing this almost-smile you were clearly trying to suppress, and your eyes darted around the room like you expected to catch someone watching.

you were looking for him. you didn't know it was him, but you were looking.

gojo slumped lower in his chair, pulled his sunglasses down from his forehead to cover his eyes, and tried very hard not to scream. victory. complete, total, absolute victory.

you tucked the note into your jacket pocket, the one right over your heart, like it was something precious, something worth keeping, and for the rest of the lecture you were visibly distracted. you checked the note twice more before class ended. your leg bounced under the desk. you chewed on the end of your pen and stared into the middle distance with that tiny secret smile still hovering at the corners of your mouth.

gojo felt like he was going to ascend directly into heaven.

score one for satoru.

he told suguru everything that night, sprawled across the couch while their takeout ramen went cold on the coffee table. the color of the note, the angle of his approach, the exact sequence of expressions that had crossed your face. he reenacted your furtive glance-around-the-room with such dramatic flair that he nearly rolled off the couch cushions.

“she was flustered, man,” he said, his voice gone reverent and breathless. “like, blushing like a tomato. the cutest tomato. i didn’t know tomatoes could be cute but she was. she’s revolutionized my entire understanding of tomatoes.”

suguru chuckled, low and fond, twirling cold noodles around his chopsticks. “don’t screw it up.”

“screw it up? me? i’m literally incapable of screwing up.” he paused. “what if i screw it up.”

“you won’t.”

“but what if i do.”

“satoru.”

“okay. okay. i won’t. i’m not going to. the note was perfect. she liked the note. she put the note in her pocket, suguru. her chest pocket. that’s basically, like, the human equivalent of a treasure chest. i’m in the treasure chest.”

suguru just shook his head, but he was smiling. gojo counted that as a win too.

…note two came three days later, timed for maximum impact.

he’d done his research. or, more accurately, he’d done three days of very casual, very not-obvious stalking that definitely didn’t count as stalking because it was romantic and suguru said it was fine as long as he didn’t follow you home or something. he’d learned your schedule through careful observation and one innocuous question to the poetry professor about whether there was a shared class calendar available. there wasn’t. but he’d gotten what he needed anyway.

thursdays. you worked the evening shift at the campus library, reshelving returns and manning the front desk when the student staff was short. thursdays, 4 to 8 pm. he’d borrowed a book from the section you always restocked first— a slim volume of translated contemporary poetry he’d grabbed at random, the cover tastefully minimal with a single bird silhouetted against fog. he’d checked it out properly and everything. he was committing to the bit.

the note went inside the front cover, positioned so it would flutter out the moment you opened the book. cream paper this time, slightly textured, because pink felt too repetitive and he wanted you to know that s was paying attention. that s noticed things. that s put thought into these details in a way that was definitely not obsessive and completely normal.

saw you recommending that novel to the freshman. your passion for stories is captivating. wish i could learn more from you. - s.

he lingered in the stacks afterward, pretending to browse manga he’d already read three times. his heart was doing that aggressive thing again, his palms were sweating. he was pretty sure he’d been staring at the same volume of attack on titan for twelve minutes without processing a single word.

eventually, though, you found it.

you were shelving returns, your cart parked at the end of the aisle, and you pulled the slim poetry volume from the stack with efficient, practiced hands. the note fluttered out. you caught it and unfolded it with shaking fingers.

your eyes widened, a soft gasp escaping you, barely audible even in the relative quiet of the library. that shy, beautiful smile, the one that was trying so hard to stay hidden and failing completely the other day, appeared again. your fingertips traced the words. once, twice, as if you were memorizing them by touch.

you slipped the note into your apron pocket. the same pocket, he noticed. the one closest to your heart.

you glanced over your shoulder, scanning the aisles, searching for a face to match the initial. gojo ducked behind a shelf so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash, pressing his spine against the cold wood and holding his breath. his heart was going to kill him, fuck, it was going to burst right out of his chest and flop around on the library carpet like a dying fish and you would find it and know everything and he was not ready for that yet.

he waited until your cart moved to the next aisle before he peeled himself off the shelf and practically fled the library.

you were flustered all shift. he knew because he circled back twenty minutes later— for research purposes, purely for research— and watched from behind a display of new arrivals as you shelved books with distracted hands, pausing every few minutes to touch your pocket. to press your palm flat against the paper inside and to smile at nothing in particular.

pure gold. absolute, undiluted, one hundred percent pure gold.

he floated home that night, feet barely touching the pavement, texting suguru a string of heart-eyes emojis so long it fractured into three separate messages. suguru replied with a single eye-roll emoji, which gojo chose to interpret as enthusiastic support.

“she’s so cute, god,” he announced the moment suguru walked through the door from his TA gig. he was upside down on the couch, legs draped over the backrest, phone balanced on his stomach. “suguru, she kept touching the note like it was magic. like i’d written her a spell instead of, you know, some nice words.”

“nice words, huh?” suguru set down his bag, eyeing him warily, but there was something soft underneath it. something that looked almost like hope. “just don’t overdo it. valentine’s day is next week. you need to either escalate or reveal.”

“patience, grasshopper.” gojo tossed the cushion aside, already reaching for his phone to start brainstorming note three. “you can’t rush art. this is a delicate process. we’re building anticipation. we’re establishing narrative tension. we’re—”

“you’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”

“—crafting a love story for the ages. now shh, i need to concentrate. do you think ‘your hair smells so good and also i want to marry you’ is too weird or the right amount of weird?”

suguru stared at him for a long, long moment. then he walked to his room and closed the door.

gojo took that as a maybe.

part 2: valentine's catastrophe (and chaos)

the notes kept coming, each one a tiny arrow straight to gojo's ego, which was already dangerously inflated to begin with. by the end of the second week, he'd left eight of them scattered through your life like breadcrumbs leading directly to his stupid, hopeful heart.

eight notes. eight perfect little moments of watching you react.

note number two had been slipped into the sketchbook you always carried to your open studio sessions on wednesdays. gojo had done reconnaissance— casually asked around, discovered your art minor, your preferred medium (charcoal, apparently, which he'd had to google), your habit of leaving your supplies unattended while you went to rinse your brushes. easy access. he'd written it on a piece of textured cream paper this time, something that felt artistic, and folded it into the exact page you'd been working on last week.

that smile of yours? weapon of mass distraction. - s.

he'd watched from the doorway of the studio, pretending to be on his phone, as you returned to your seat and found it. your hand had flown to your mouth. your cheeks had gone that perfect shade of rose again, and you'd looked around the room with those wide, searching eyes, and gojo had to physically restrain himself from doing a victory lap around the entire fine arts building.

note number three found its way onto your locker, held in place by a tiny piece of tape he'd borrowed from the campus library desk when the librarian wasn't looking. he'd waited until you were in class— he knew your schedule now, duh, had memorized it like exam material— and stuck it there with shaking hands, heart pounding at the sheer audacity of doing something so unlike him.

there is no better way to describe you other than: you're art. - s.

you'd found it between second and third period. he'd positioned himself at a bench across the quad, sunglasses on, pretending to read a textbook that was definitely upside down. you'd stopped in front of your locker, spotted the note, and hid your beautiful smile behind your hand. it didn't work. you'd looked around, he'd ducked behind his book, and then you'd carefully, so carefully, peeled the note off and tucked it into the pages of the poetry anthology you always carried.

note number four was probably his favorite, if he was allowed to have favorites, which he definitely was because he was the one writing them.

he'd followed you to your usual café— the one with the good matcha and the terrible lighting and the cat-shaped napkin dispensers on every table. you'd sat in your usual corner, ordered your usual drink, pulled out your usual book. gojo had ordered an iced coffee he didn't want(too bitter) and sat three tables away, watching over the rim of his sunglasses as you read, occasionally looking up with that soft, distant expression you got when you were thinking about something in the text.

when you'd gone up to order a second drink, as you were clearly settling in for a long study session, he'd made his move. quick, efficient, heart trying to escape through his throat. he'd written the note on a napkin from the dispenser at your table, tucked it under the sugar packet where you'd definitely see it, and retreated to his seat just as you were coming back with your cup.

he heard you humming today. made my heart skip a beat. - s.

you'd sat down. reached for the sugar. paused. picked up the napkin. and then—and this was the part gojo replayed in his head approximately eight hundred times that night—you'd laughed. a real laugh, not the quiet one he'd mentioned in the first note, but something brighter, surprised, delighted. you'd clapped your hand over your mouth immediately afterward, but it was too late. he'd heard it, he'd literally catalogued it! he'd added it to the growing collection of your sounds that lived in his brain rent-free.

every time he left a note, he found a way to watch. across the quad, through the library stacks, pretending to study at a nearby table, lurking in doorways like the world's most obvious secret admirer. he was not subtle. he knew he was not subtle. but somehow, miraculously, you never noticed him. you were too busy blushing, too busy smiling, too busy showing the notes to your friends with that excited, wondering expression that made his chest feel too full.

and your reactions? pure gold. absolute cinema. better than anything he could have scripted.

your shy smiles— the ones you'd been giving the world since he first noticed you— had transformed into full-on grins that you'd try to hide behind your hand, behind your hair, behind whatever book you happened to be holding. it never worked. the joy leaked out around the edges, visible in the crinkle of your eyes, the way your shoulders lifted, the tiny bounce in your step when you thought no one was watching.

once, he caught you showing a note to your friend in the art lounge. he'd been "coincidentally" walking past— he'd waited outside for twenty minutes for this coincidence to occur —and through the window he'd seen you pull out the collection of them, spread them on the table like evidence, your hands moving excitedly as you talked.

"who do you think 's' is?" you'd asked, and even through the glass, even from this distance, he could see the genuine curiosity in your face.

you looked so happy, so intrigued. so completely, utterly unaware that the idiot responsible was currently pressing himself against a wall outside to avoid being seen, grinning so hard his face hurt.

gojo floated through classes on cloud nine after that. he aced a quiz he hadn't studied for because the universe was clearly on his side. he helped an old lady carry her groceries and felt genuinely good about it. he even did his share of the dishes without being asked or yelled at, which made suguru check his forehead for fever.

"you're gonna get caught," suguru warned him for the fifth time, watching gojo practice his signature on a scrap of paper. the final note, the big reveal. he'd been working on it for days.

"worth it," gojo said without looking up, adjusting the loop of the s in his name. "totally, completely, absolutely worth it."

"you're not even trying to be subtle anymore."

"subtlety is for people who have something to hide. i have something to share. there's a difference." gojo held up the note, examining his handwriting with the critical eye of an art connoisseur. "this is the one, suguru. she's going to read this and her heart is going to explode with romance and then i'm going to walk in and she's going to realize it's been me all along and we're going to live happily ever after and you're going to be the best man at our wedding."

"you haven't even spoken to her yet."

"i've spoken to her! i said 'excuse me' that one time in the coffee shop. we have a history." gojo waved this away. "the point is, this is happening. valentine's day. tomorrow. i'm ready."

suguru looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable in his expression. "and if it doesn't go the way you're planning?"

gojo's pen paused. "what do you mean?"

"i mean, what if she's not into you? what if she's been enjoying the mystery and the reality is disappointing?" suguru's voice was gentle, because he knew he was poking at something soft. "you've built this up a lot in your head. just... be prepared for any response. okay?"

gojo was quiet for a beat, but after a second, he grinned, bright and blinding, the armor sliding back into place. "she's going to love it. she's going to love me. i'm lovable, suguru. statistically, it's very likely."

suguru didn't push. he just nodded, clapped gojo on the shoulder, and went back to his own work. but the worry stayed in his eyes, tucked away behind his usual calm.

… valentine's day dawned crisp and sunny, the kind of perfect february morning that made everything feel possible. the sky was that particular shade of blue that only happened in early spring, the air carried the faint smell of something blooming, and gojo satoru woke up feeling like the main character in a rom-com. which, in his mind, he absolutely was.

he stood in front of his closet for forty-five minutes, trying on and discarding approximately seventeen outfit combinations. too casual. too formal. too try-hard. too whatever the opposite of try-hard was. he finally settled on something that looked effortless even though it had taken genuine effort: black jeans that fit him well, a simple white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, his favorite sunglasses perched on his head. he looked as approachable as always, plenty charming and handsome enough for it to get to his head.

the final note was a masterpiece. he'd written it on proper stationary this time, pastel blue-colored with a slight texture, and folded it into an envelope with your name on it in his neatest handwriting. inside, the words he'd rehearsed a hundred times and a place and time.

all he had to do was get the note into your poetry class folder— the shared folder you and suguru used for group assignments, which was admittedly a little risky but also kinda clever— and then intercept you after class for the big reveal. you'd open the folder. you'd find the note. you'd read it. and then he'd be there, leaning against the doorframe, sunglasses pushed up, smile in place, ready to say the line he'd been practicing in the mirror for three days.

all this time, it was me, sweetheart. (or maybe not sweetheart, yet? though you definitely are a sweetheart, the prettiest girl ever— okay, shut the fuck up, satoru.)

you'd melt, obviously. there was no other possible outcome.

gojo skipped his morning lecture to plant it. the humanities building was quiet at this hour, most students still in bed or nursing hangovers or actually attending their classes like responsible people. he slipped into the classroom where your shared poetry elective met on tuesdays and thursdays, found the shelf where the class kept their shared materials, and located the folder with your name and suguru's name on the tab.

his heart was hammering. his hands were shaking.

he slid the envelope inside, positioned it so you'd see it immediately when you opened the folder and stepped back to admire his work. the culmination of two weeks of careful planning and romantic genius.

"game on," he whispered to the empty classroom, and absolutely nobody was there to witness the dorky little dance he did on his way out.

now all he had to do was wait.

three hours until your class started. three hours until you found the note. three hours until everything changed.

gojo spent those three hours in a state of escalating nervous energy, texting suguru approximately forty-seven times with updates on his emotional state ranging from "i'm fine this is fine" to "what if she says no what if she already has a boyfriend" to "suguru why aren't you answering me are you dead if you're dead who's going to be my best man" to "okay class starts in ten minutes i'm going in wish me luck".

suguru's response, when it finally came, was characteristically brief: shut the fuck up.

gojo pocketed his phone, took a deep breath, and made his way toward the humanities building.

toward whatever happened next.

—

poetry class dragged for you, but in the best way possible. the minutes ticked by slowly because you were counting them, because your brain was elsewhere, because for the past two weeks, tuesdays and thursdays had become something you actually looked forward to instead of just another obligation on your schedule.

it was all because of the notes.

the mysterious "s" notes that had started appearing in your life like little gifts from the universe, folded into your things with such care, such attention, such perfect understanding of exactly what would make your heart stutter.

they'd begun right after you and suguru had bonded over haikus last month— that moment in class when the professor had asked for volunteers to share their attempts at the traditional form, and you'd both looked at each other with identical expressions of please don't make me do this, and somehow that shared terror had cracked into laughter, into light conversation, into a small friendship that made the class infinitely better.

sharing the class with suguru made sense, you'd told yourself. he was easy to talk to, calm in a way that balanced out your nervous energy, always ready with some insightful observation about the readings that made you see them differently. he had that quiet smile, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes, and he never seemed to mind when you rambled about a poem you loved or asked him to explain a concept you hadn't quite grasped.

the notes mostly seemed like they where him. the timing and the location and your shared schedule.

that was the thing you couldn't stop thinking about. the handwriting wasn't his— you'd seen enough of suguru's scrawled notes passed across the table at the library to know he wrote like a doctor with somewhere better to be— but the content was poetic and sweet and observant in a way that made you feel seen, really seen, not just noticed.

whoever "s" was, they paid attention to the small things: your laugh, your blush, the way you hummed when you thought no one was listening. they never pushed, never asked for anything, just left these little affirmations tucked into your life like secrets.

your stomach had been doing this thing lately, fluttering and swooping. and the butterflies, god, the kind of butterflies you'd read about in novels but never really believed in until now. every time you thought about the notes your insides turned into something warm and liquid and terrifying.

because whoever "s" was, they saw you, they saw all the awkward edges and quiet quirks, and they liked it. they liked you.

class ended eventually, the professor's voice fading into the background as students began packing up, chairs scraping against floor, the usual end-of-lecture chaos. you were slower than everyone else, distracted, your eyes already scanning the shelf where the shared folder lived.

an envelope, your name written on the front in handwriting you'd memorized by now, even though you'd only seen it on seven previous notes. this one was different though— proper stationery instead of sticky notes or napkins, something that felt significant, important.

your hands trembled slightly as you pulled it out, as you opened it, as your eyes found the words inside.

every note, every smile i caused: it's because i'm crazy about you. meet me by the oak tree after class? —s.

your breath caught in your throat. today. he wanted to meet today. right now, probably, since class had just ended and the oak tree was only a five-minute walk across the quad. your heart was pounding so hard you could hear it in your ears, feel it in your temples, in your throat, in your fingertips where they clutched the paper like it might disappear.

okay. you could do this. you could walk to the oak tree and find out who "s" was and—

and if it was suguru, you'd have to let him down gently.

the thought made something twist in your chest, uncomfortable and guilty. you liked the notes. you liked the attention, the validation, the feeling of being seen. but the person you'd been thinking about lately, the one who made your pulse skip for reasons you couldn't quite explain, the one who'd been orbiting your life like some kind of beautiful disaster… that wasn't suguru.

that was the tall one. the one with the sunglasses perpetually perched on his head, even indoors, even on cloudy days. the one with the white hair that looked deliberately messy but probably took actual effort to achieve. the one who laughed too loud in public spaces and made terrible jokes and seemed to exist in a permanent state of chaotic energy that you found yourself strangely, inexplicably drawn to.

gojo satoru.

you didn't even know him, not really. you'd exchanged approximately five words with him in your entire life, most of them apologies for the coffee incident that had stained his sneakers forever. but ever since that day, you'd been noticing him everywhere. in the quad. at the library. at your café, of all places, sitting three tables away with an iced coffee he barely touched, his sunglasses doing nothing to hide the fact that he kept looking in your direction.

you'd caught him watching you during poetry class, too. multiple times. you'd pretend to be absorbed in your notes, but you could feel his gaze on the back of your neck, warm and heavy, and whenever you'd risk a glance over your shoulder, he'd be looking away too fast, a flush creeping up the back of his neck that he probably thought you couldn't see.

it was confusing, it was annoying, and it was also, against all logic and reason, completely endearing.

so if suguru was "s"— and it made sense, it really did, the timing and the sensitivity and the way he always seemed to know when you were having a bad day— you'd have to tell him the truth, gently and kindly. you'd have to explain that you valued his little friendship too much, that you hoped this wouldn't change things, that the notes were beautiful but your heart was already leaning in a different direction.

toward someone who was probably going to break it, if you were being honest with yourself. someone who flirted with everything that moved and would never look twice at someone like you. (except he did, don’t give up, reader-chan!!)

but still, your heart wanted what it wanted.

you spotted suguru across the room, gathering his books with his usual unhurried grace, long hair falling over his shoulder as he bent to pick up a pen he'd dropped. now or never. you had to know.

"suguru?"

your voice came out smaller than you intended, barely above a whisper, and you felt the familiar heat already creeping up your neck, flooding your cheeks. you approached his desk like you were walking toward an execution, the envelope clutched in your hands like evidence.

he looked up, and there it was— that warm surprise in his expression, the slight lift of his eyebrows, the way his mouth curved into something gentle and questioning. "hey, everything okay?"

no. yes. you didn't know. you fidgeted with the envelope, unable to meet his eyes, words tumbling out before you could stop them.

"the notes. the ones signed 's'. i think—i mean, are they from you? it's valentine's, and this one..." you held it out, mortified, determined, your hand shaking slightly. "i just need to know. because if they are, i need to tell you something, and i don't want to hurt your feelings but i also don't want to lead you on, and—"

suguru blinked. once. twice. and then his eyes went wide in a way you'd never seen before, something between realization and alarm flickering across his usually composed features.

"notes?" he said slowly. "wait—"

he stopped, looked at the envelope in your hand. looked at your face, suffering matching his own face flushed and anxious. looked toward the door, where you realized distantly that someone was standing, someone tall with white hair and sunglasses pushed up and an expression on his face that you couldn't quite read from here.

suguru looked back at you. opened his mouth, then closed it.

and then he did something you'd never seen him do before—

geto suguru, calmest person you'd ever met, put his face in his hands and started laughing.

—

gojo lurked outside the lecture hall like the world's most obvious secret agent, which is to say he was doing a terrible job of being subtle about it. he was bouncing on his heels, shifting his weight from foot to foot, hands shoved deep in his pockets to stop himself from doing something insane like pacing or screaming or both. his sunglasses were firmly in place because they were his armor, his shield, the only thing standing between the world and the absolute mess of emotions currently ricocheting around inside his chest.

any minute now. any minute now you'd emerge from that classroom, having found his note, having read his words, having realized that the mysterious "s" had been right there all along. you'd look around with those wide eyes, searching for whoever had left you that envelope, and he'd be here, waiting, ready to deliver the line he'd practiced in the mirror approximately eight thousand times.

all this time, it was me.

you'd probably swoon. people swooned around him all the time, statistically it was very likely.

he checked his phone. checked the door. checked his phone again. bounced on his heels some more. a few people walking past gave him weird looks, but that was fine. he was used to weird looks.

the door opened.

gojo straightened immediately, heart launching into his throat, as he failed to hide—

you stepped out of the classroom with geto. his geto, his roommate, his best friend, the voice of reason who had helped him plan this whole stupid scheme in the first place. you were walking close together, too close, your head tilted up toward him, your mouth moving animatedly. and in your hand, clutched like something precious, his envelope.

gojo's stomach dropped through the floor, through the ground, through the earth's core and out the other side.

no.

no no no no no.

this was not happening. this could not be happening. he was dreaming. he had to be dreaming. any second now he'd wake up in his beanbag chair with suguru yelling at him to do the dishes and this would all have been a terrible nightmare.

he didn't wake up.

suguru was shaking his head at whatever you were saying, his expression doing that thing it did when he was very fond of someone. and you were smiling. shyly, sweetly, that soft smile gojo had been cataloguing for months, the one that made his chest hurt in the best way. you were gesturing with your free hand, the envelope waving slightly with the movement, and you looked so hopeful, so earnest, so—

suguru's hand came up, rested on your arm, gently and comfortingly.

or flirty?

gojo's brain, which had already vacated the premises, officially short-circuited.

the realization hit like a truck: you thinks it's suguru. of course you thinks it's him. poetry class—you shared it, you'd bonded over haikus or whatever, suguru had mentioned that—suguru had those in spades, the long hair, the calm demeanor, the way he looked at people like he could see right through them. the perfect "s." suguru, not satoru. his roommate, not him, the idiot currently having a crisis outside the lecture hall.

and now you were confessing? on valentine's day? to his best friend? with the note satoru wrote still in your hands?

panic clawed up gojo's throat, sharp and immediate, stealing his breath. he couldn't—he wouldn't—not like this. not after two weeks of perfect notes and your smile and the way you'd tucked each one into your pocket like treasure. not after he'd spent forty-five minutes picking out stationery and another hour practicing his handwriting and another three days rehearsing a single line.

not after he'd fallen for you so hard and so completely that he couldn't remember what his life had looked like before you stumbled into it, literally, iced coffee and wide eyes and apologies tumbling from your lips.

his legs started moving before his brain caught up.

he burst between you and suguru like a, slightly out of breath, definitely out of his mind, grabbing your wrist lightly, enough to stop whatever was happening.

"they were from me!"

the words came out louder than intended, echoing slightly in the open space. several heads turned. a couple of passing students stopped walking to stare. gojo didn't care, his sunglasses had slid crooked on his face, revealing one wild blue eye, the other still hidden behind smudged lens. he took them off, hissing at the pain briefly, before shoving them into his pocket and continuing.

"the notes," he gasped, because he was still out of breath from sprinting, because his heart was trying to escape through his throat, because you were looking at him with an expression he couldn't read and it was terrifying. "the 's'—all me! not suguru!"

you froze, your body going still as a statue. your eyes, those beautiful eyes he'd been dreaming about for months, went impossibly wide. the envelope crinkled in your grip.

"w-what?" your voice came out tiny, disbelieving. "gojo?"

suguru stepped back, both hands behind his back, and he was smirking, that he absolute menace. he was smirking like he'd known this would happen all along, like he'd been waiting for this exact moment.

"took you long enough, satoru."

gojo ignored him, because you were still looking at him with those wide eyes, still holding his note, still close enough that he could see the way your pulse fluttered at your throat, the way your lips had parted slightly in surprise.

"please don't tell me you like suguru." the words tumbled out in a frantic rush, unstoppable now that he'd started. "i saw you two talking, and the note, and it's valentine's day, and you were holding my envelope, and—oh god, you were gonna confess to him, weren't you? after all my hard work? i did it all because i like you! like, like you. a lot. don't pick him!"

you were staring at him through the absolute, complete, terrifying silence. suguru was watching with barely concealed amusement. somewhere in the background, a bird chirped, completely oblivious to the fact that gojo satoru was currently having a full emotional breakdown in the middle of the quad.

a few seconds later, you started laughing. soft at first, barely there, like you weren't sure you were allowed to let it out. but then it grew, bubbled up from somewhere genuine, your hand coming up to cover your mouth even as your eyes crinkled at the corners. it cut straight through gojo's panic like sunlight through clouds, although he wasn’t sure what you were laughing at.

"no, gojo." your voice was muffled behind your hand, but he heard it. heard every syllable. "i thought it was suguru because of poetry class. but i wasn't confessing." you lowered your hand, and your smile, full and warm and directed at him, made his knees feel weird. "i was gonna reject him."

gojo blinked. processed. failed to process. tried again.

"reject... him?"

"yeah." you held his gaze, even though your voice got more vulnerable. "the notes were really sweet, and whoever wrote them obviously put a lot of thought into them. but..." you swallowed. "my heart was already kinda taken. by someone else."

someone else.

not suguru. someone else.

gojo's brain, which had been through quite enough today thank you very much, struggled to catch up. someone else meant—it couldn't mean—was it possible—

your fingers reached for his hand.

the one still hovering near your wrist, gentle and tentative. you laced them together, soft and warm, and gojo forgot how to breathe. your palm against his, your fingers slotting between his fingers, your skin, warm and real and actually touching him.

you stretched up on tiptoes.

time slowed, the hall faded, the staring students disappeared. suguru ceased to exist. there was only you, rising up, your face coming closer to his, your breath warm against his cheek as your lips brushed his skin.

a quick, feather-light kiss. barely there and yet absolutely, completely earth-shattering.

gojo's world tilted on its axis.

heat flooded his face, rushed through his entire body, turned his bones to jelly and his brain to static. his knees actually wobbled. gojo satoru, who had never been weak in his life, who had never been at a loss for words or composure or confidence, felt his legs turn to liquid beneath him.

she kissed me.

the thought echoed through his skull, bounced around, refused to settle.

she kissed ME.

stars burst behind his eyes. like in cartoons, like in movies, like in all the ridiculous romantic comedies he pretended to hate but secretly loved. his grip on your hand tightened instinctively, the only thing keeping him upright and keeping him from floating away entirely on a cloud of pure, undiluted joy.

a dopey grin spread across his face.

"you... you like me?" his voice cracked on the last word. "like, me?"

you nodded, and then you were hiding half your smile against his shoulder, your face pressed into the fabric of his shirt like you were embarrassed, like you hadn't just turned his entire world inside out with three seconds of contact.

"yeah, satoru." your voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he heard it. "all this time."

satoru. you'd said satoru. his name, in your voice, with that shy smile hiding against his shoulder. gojo—satoru—felt like he might actually explode.

suguru cleared his throat, loud and pointed. "you two are disgustingly cute. i'm out."

satoru barely registered the wave, barely noticed his best friend disappearing into the crowd. all his attention was on you, on the way you felt against him, on the way your hand was still tangled with his, on the way his cheek was still tingling where your lips had been.

he pulled you closer, like he'd been waiting his whole life to hold you and hadn't known it until this exact moment.

valentine's day was saved, no, better than saved. it was perfect. better than any plan he could have made, any note he could have written, any line he could have rehearsed. because you liked him back.

"so," he managed, voice still slightly wrecked but improving, "does this mean you'll still meet me at that place by the oak tree? because i had this whole thing planned, you know. romantic. candles, maybe. i don't actually know if they allow candles on campus, i didn't check, but i was gonna figure something out."

you laughed against his shoulder, and the vibration of it traveled through his entire body, settled somewhere warm in his chest.

"i'll meet you anywhere, satoru."

"and you'll have dinner with me?"

"yes."

"and maybe let me hold your hand again? because this is—" he squeezed your fingers gently, marveling at them, "—really nice. like, really really nice. top five hand-holding experiences of my life, easily."

you pulled back just enough to look at him and your smile made his heart stutter.

"only top five?"

"okay, top one. definitely top one. the only one, actually. i've never held hands with anyone before. that was a lie. but this one is the best one, i can already tell."

you rolled your eyes, but you were still smiling, still holding his hand, still standing close enough that he could count your eyelashes if he wanted to, which he kind of did, actually.

"you're ridiculous."

"and now i’m yours," he countered, and then immediately flushed because that was cheesy, that was so cheesy, what was wrong with him—

but you ducked your head again in that way that made his chest ache, and he knew he’d said something right.

"yeah," you whispered. "you are."

and standing there in the middle of the quad, surrounded by curious stares and the distant sounds of campus life, with valentine's day sunlight warming his shoulders and your hand in his and your laughter still lingering in the air between you—

gojo satoru decided this was the best day of his entire life.

so far, anyway. he had a feeling it was only going to get better from here.

Trending Blogs

Last Seen Blogs

🖤