that's just the thing that happens when my—

You had never been particularly talented at behaving like the daughter of a sorcerer family. At fourteen, you were attending school among non-sorcerers. You wore civilian clothes beneath formal robes whenever your mother insisted you attend clan ceremonies, then discarded the silk layers the moment no one important was looking.

You removed pins from your hair before attendants had even finished placing them and avoided demonstrations of your inherited technique; disappearing from receptions before elders could begin discussing your potential. 

Of course your parents complained about your behavior. They called you willful, inattentive, and far too interested in the world beyond jujutsu society. Yet, they allowed it anyway. 

At the time, you believed that meant they accepted you as you were, but your sister knew better. She was three years older and had always possessed the sort of courage that looked like disobedience to adults. 

When attendants pinned your hair too tightly, she loosened it herself. If you wanted to leave a ceremony, she would create distractions. During formal dinners, she whispered impressions of pompous sorcerers you both hated until you had to lower your face to conceal the laughter. 

She smuggled ordinary novels into your room and helped hide your school uniform whenever clan representatives visited. One day, you told her you wanted to attend university in Tokyo and she urged you to go farther. Then the next, you informed her that you might never marry a sorcerer.

“What about you?” You once asked.

She had been seventeen then, stretched across your bed with one foot hanging carelessly over the edge, “What about me?”

“Would you marry one?”

Her mouth twisted, “Not willingly.”

“You could refuse.”

She stared at you for a long moment, until she smiled and reached over to flick your forehead lovingly, “It’s adorable that you still think they ask.”

You hadn’t fully understood what she meant that day, but when the Zen’in men arrived, you finally did. 

You were fifteen when they came to collect her. 

It began with a door striking the wall hard enough to shake dust from the frame. You heard footsteps thunder above you; several pairs descended the staircase too quickly to be noncircumstantial, followed by your sister’s voice resonating through the residence. 

“No! Stop!”

At the sound of her blood-curdling screams, you abandoned the schoolwork spread across your lap. You already knew running inside the family home was improper, but most rules became remarkably unimportant whenever adults were shouting behind closed doors. 

You reached the central corridor as your sister tore herself from your father’s grasp—her wedding robes were unfinished. The outer layer hung loose around her shoulders, one sleeve empty and dragging along the floor. Half her hair had fallen from its pins; a decorative comb lay broken near the stairs. 

She was eighteen years old. Old enough, your parents had mused. Old enough to bring honor to the family by being handed over to a twenty-five year old man she had spent months begging them to not make her marry. 

“Stop behaving like this,” Your father ordered, anger dripping from every syllable. 

“I told you I won’t go!”

“The agreement has been finalized.”

“I don’t care!”

“You will care when your conduct disgraces this entire family.”

Two men bearing the Zen’in crest stood near the entrance. One looked irritated by the delay and the other watched your sister as if determining the easiest way to remove her without damaging the sacred silk she was wearing. 

Your mother stood beside them, absurdly calm, with her hands folded before her, “Please. You are startled because you do not yet understand what marriage requires.”

“I understand,” Your sister cried, tears streaming down her face, ruining whatever makeup had been there. 

“You do not.”

“I understand that you’re giving me to him!”

Your mother’s expression tightened, “You are joining one of the great three clans.”

“I don’t want to join them.”

“You will be the wife of Zen’in Naoya,” Your mother explained like that made any of this better. 

“I don’t want to be his wife!”

There it was. That word…Wife.

Growing up, you knew that wives left their childhood home. They wore white and drank sake beside men selected by their families. Their last names changed, they birthed children, and returned on formal visits carrying gifts from whichever household had absorbed them. 

You didn’t know why any of that required screaming. 

In the midst of her lamenting, your sister caught a glimpse of you standing there and her entire face changed. She twisted away from your father and ran, you barely managed to brace yourself before she collided with you. Her arms wrapped around your waist so tightly it hurt and her breath broke hot against your ear; tears soaked quickly through your collar. 

“I don’t want to go,” She sobbed, hiccupping between words.

“Then don’t,” Though, at fifteen, you naively believed refusal carried weight if spoken clearly enough. You clutched the back of her robes, “Tell them no.”

Her fingers clawed into your clothes, “I did…I told them every day.”

And before you could acknowledge that fact, hands seized her from behind. She screamed your name while you screamed hers. Someone threw an arm around your waist and pulled; you kicked backward, striking a shin so hard that it earned a curse from one of your older brothers. 

Your nails caught in your sister’s sleeve, silk tore beneath your fingers, “Let—Let her go!”

“You are making this worse, (Y/N),” Your father snapped.

“She doesn’t want to go!”

“That is enough.”

But you wouldn’t stop fighting for her, “She said no!”

Your sister’s grip slipped from your shoulders to your arms, and for one desperate, suspended moment, you held only each other’s hands. Adults pulled from both sides, her knuckles turned white from how frantically she hung on, “Listen to me.”

You shook your head, weeping as much as she was. You didn’t want to listen. The only thing you wanted was for your mother to remember that this was her daughter, and for your father to become the sort of man who could notice terror and decide an agreement was only paper.

Your sister looked directly into your eyes, “They will do this to you too.”

The corridor seemed to narrow when she said it, but your father brought you back to the present when his grip grew taut around your waist, “Do not frighten her.”

But your sister ignored him, “You have to leave before they can.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Run.”

The blood seemed to have left your mother’s face, “Stop—”

“Promise me,” Your sister pleaded through broken sobs.

“Why?”

“Just promise me,” She said one last time before one of the Zen’in men pried her fingers from yours. Your sister screamed again in protest, “Don’t let them do this to you!” 

Her hand finally slipped free and they carried her through the entrance while she fought them. She kicked and clawed and yelled your name until the doors closed between you. You tried to follow, but your family restrained you until the car disappeared beyond the gates. Only then did they release you. 

You stood in the courtyard with a torn piece of white silk balled inside your fist. No one explained what your sister had meant by her warnings. Your mother said she had been hysterical. Your father assured you that frightened brides often spoke irrationally. Your older brothers told you to forget whatever nonsense she spewed. 

However, you didn’t forget any of it. You couldn’t. 

You understood marriage after that day—very clearly. 

A wife was someone her family gave away. She could refuse until her voice strained and still be dressed, delivered, and congratulated like nothing ever happened. Though, most notably, a wife was a daughter that everyone agreed to stop protecting. And somewhere beyond the estate walls, your sister was being taken to a man she hated while every adult you ever trusted called it honor. 

You decided that you would never become one.

You would never be a wife.

After that day, your sister returned exactly three months later with her husband. Zen’in Naoya—you recognized him from formal gatherings. Blonde hair, narrow brown eyes, and the permanent countenance of a man who had never been denied anything he wanted. He was seven years older than your sister and part of you wondered what he’d ever have in common with a girl who had turned eighteen just eight days before their wedding. 

At dinner, he answered questions meant for her and she shockingly let him. It frightened you more than it should have. She wore Zen’in colors, her hair was arranged properly, her back remained straight even though she looked tired enough to fold in on herself. 

She had always hated mushrooms too, yet that evening, she ate every one placed in her bowl. You stared openly until she noticed that you were, “What?”

“...You hate those.”

Her chopsticks paused mid-bite, and across the table, Naoya glanced toward her. Your sister swiftly lowered her eyes, “They’re fine.”

“They make you sick.”

“Not anymore.”

Naoya returned to his conversation and she continued eating. Later on, you found her alone beside the garden and both of you stood there in silence until you threw your arms around her. Her entire body went rigid and you felt it happen—she didn’t react that way out of surprise, rather out of fear.

You stepped back immediately, “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then why did you—”

“I’m tired.”

You searched her face then, now up close you could see it. Powder concealed the shadows beneath her eyes and her collar sat higher than she usually wore it despite the summer month. When you reached toward a strand of hair caught under the fabric, she flinched again.

Your hand dropped, “Did he…hurt you?”

Her expression emptied, “He is my husband.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It is the only answer that matters now.”

You remembered the way she had screamed those three months ago, “You still hate him.”

Her gaze darted toward the residence, “Keep your voice down.”

“So you do?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.”

And for a brief second, the sister you knew surfaced. Her mouth trembled as tears brimmed on her lashline, “I hate him…” 

The confession was barely louder than the insects humming throughout the garden. You reached for her again, carefully this time, and she permitted you to hold her, “I’ll help you leave.”

A bitter noise escaped her, “And go where?”

“Anywhere.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

She pulled away from you with worry in her eyes, “You need to listen to what I told you.”

“About running?”

“Lower your voice,” She hissed, still paranoid that someone may overhear. 

“Why? What did you know?”

She looked toward the doors, “Nothing I can tell you.”

“Then tell me something.”

“I already did,” She said, taking both of your hands into hers, “You cannot wait until they come for you.”

Your heart punched against your ribs, “Who?”

“I—” She stopped, hesitant to say more than she already had, “I can’t—”

“Who’s coming?” You pressed, anxiety riddling your bones. 

Right as she was about to tell you, footsteps sounded behind the screen and your sister released you instantly. Naoya appeared at the edge of the veranda, “What are you whispering about?”

“Nothing,” She answered automatically, composure suddenly regained. 

He looked at you, then at her, “Come.”

Your sister obeyed his command without reluctance and before entering the house, she glanced back once. The look in her eyes said it all.

Run.

At this point, you had already attended ordinary school for more than a year. Before your sister’s wedding, school had merely been somewhere you enjoyed going. Afterward, it became an escape route. 

You began researching universities far from your family estate, even checking for opportunities abroad. You learned which schools provided housing and which programs might allow you to support yourself. You started saving money and listened closely whenever classmates discussed regular adulthood—part-time jobs, cramped apartments, exams, careers their parents disliked but couldn’t forbid them from pursuing. 

None of them knew your family name carried any sort of importance, blissfully unaware of jujutsu society. Nobody asked about your inherited technique or speculated about what abilities your children could potentially possess. Instead they worried about grades, university applications, weekend plans and complained about their parents despite the fact that they could choose their own work, homes, and partners. 

Their freedom seemed careless, unfathomable truly. A precious thing that they take for granted. 

Luckily, your parents continued allowing you to attend school and immerse yourself in that world, but you noticed that their tolerance had grown noticeably thinner with age. The closer you crept to adulthood, the more frequently they complained about your absences from ceremonies, your refusal of formal instruction, and the non-sorcerer habits you had accumulated so comfortably. Your mother began calling them embarrassing and your father chastised that you were becoming too attached to a life that was never meant to replace your obligations.

Still, neither of them actually stopped you. They grumbled, lectured, and disapproved, but the school uniform remained in your closet and the gates continued opening whenever you left.

You assumed their growing irritation was simply the usual frustration of parents watching their youngest daughter become increasingly independent. You also figured that your sister’s marriage had frightened them too. Perhaps they regretted what they had done—handing a sweet girl to an abuser. Maybe they decided their youngest daughter would be different.

Unfortunately…you mistook their lack of interference for permission.

The next time your sister returned home, she was pregnant. She had just turned nineteen years old. 

Your mother cried tears of joy and your father opened his most expensive bottle of sake. Your brothers congratulated Naoya, who accepted their praise as though creating the child had required some enormous sacrifice from him. Your sister sat among them with one hand resting on the slight curve of her stomach. 

She looked incredibly ill, but everyone called her radiant. 

You waited until you finally got her alone, “Are you happy?”

Her hand remained over her belly, “Of course.”

“You don’t look happy.”

“I’m tired.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Pregnancy is exhausting.”

You leaned in closer to ask, “Did you want this?”

Her face turned sour, “A child is a blessing.”

“That’s not what—”

“You ask too many questions,” She snapped, cutting you off before you could even say the words. 

You stared at her in disbelief, realizing, with horror, that the girl standing before you was no longer your sister, “...You used to like that about me.”

Her eyes filled before she turned away, “Things change.”

The baby was born before your sister turned twenty. 

A son.

The Zen’in clan rejoiced. 

Your parents spoke of the security motherhood would give her as if the child were a key rather than another lock and when she visited after the birth, she no longer whispered that she hated Naoya. 

She said he provided well, that marriage was difficult for everyone, becoming a mother had helped her understand her responsibilities. You wanted to ask whether understanding was why she still checked the doorway whenever she heard a man’s voice. 

Instead, you held your nephew. He was warm, sleeping, and a little innocent life born into a family so evil. Yet, you loved him immediately. 

That frightened you too. You now understood how a child could make escape feel impossible.

And a year later, you met the boy. A non-sorcerer in your class. 

He was irritating from the day you met him. He talked during lessons, borrowed pens without returning them although he promised he would, and possessed baffling confidence in jokes that were literally never funny. He was stupid too, if you were being honest. But, you liked him anyway. Partly because nothing about him was impressive at all. 

He had no cursed technique, no clan, no elders evaluating whether his bloodline complemented yours. When he looked at you, all he saw was a girl from school who argued with him about his taste in music and refused to laugh at his shitty jokes. 

Then the first time he kissed you, he stopped before your mouths touched, “Is this okay?” The question startled you and he instantly drew back, “Sorry—I should’ve asked before—”

“Yes.”

“What?” 

“Yes, it’s okay.”

He smiled, then he kissed you. There was no agreement made before your birth or witnesses assessing the value of the match. He kissed you because he wanted to and you let him because you wanted to. It was almost painfully simple. 

Over time, the two of you explored further. Hands grasping underneath clothing and breathless kisses interrupted by nervous laughter, discovering that desire could exist without fear curled inside it. 

He would ask and you would answer. Sometimes the answer was no, and whenever it was, he would stop. The first time that happened, you nearly cried. 

He froze, panicked, “D-Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?” He asked, voice unbearably soft. 

“N-Nothing,” You whispered, wiping away a stray tear.

He frowned, “People don’t usually cry over nothing.”

You couldn’t explain that the reason was because he had accepted one quiet refusal more easily than your entire family had accepted months of your sister screaming, so you kissed him again instead. 

That was when you began imagining an apartment in the city. A kitchen with mismatched plates and university and a job you grieved going to every morning, but at least you picked it. Maybe you’d marry him one day, though only if you both chose it. 

You hadn't told him everything about jujutsu society, only that your family was traditional and they expected too much. You didn’t tell him that your sister had once begged you to run before some unnamed, horrible future arrived to collect you too. You planned on telling him eventually, foolishly believing that there was still time. 

And by the time your sister turned twenty-one, she was pregnant again. 

She had become quite skilled at speaking without saying much of anything. 

Apparently, her husband was respectable. Her home was comfortable. Her son was healthy and her pregnancy was progressing well. According to her, she had also learned patience—matured. Though she never said she was happy unless someone asked directly, where she would smile, lie through her teeth, and answer yes as if it hurt to say. 

The girl who had screamed your name while adults ripped you apart now spoke in your mother’s voice; soft, almost broken. 

Maybe your sister still lives inside this stranger somewhere; trapped beneath silk, exhaustion, and rehearsed obedience, but you no longer knew how to reach her. 

However, despite all of this, the worst day came a day before your eighteenth birthday. Your mother asked you to return home immediately after school, so naturally, you assumed there was some sort of family emergency to deal with. 

Your father was there, waiting in the formal receiving room, so were your siblings. Your eldest brother wouldn’t look at you, neither would the other. Your eldest sister sat with her hands folded in her lap and beside her was the sister you had once tried to pry away from Zen’in men; one hand rested over her pregnant stomach. 

The sight of all of them told you that they knew—your parents had discovered your non-sorcerer boyfriend. 

You hesitantly sat down, “If this is about school—”

“It is not,” Your father assured.

“Then what is it?”

Your mother looked almost sympathetic, which both scared and confused you, “There is something we should have discussed with you sooner.”

Your pulse began to race, “What—what happened?”

“Nothing has happened,” Your father said, “An agreement is simply approaching its formal conclusion.”

“What agreement?”

Your sister shut her eyes and your mother inhaled slowly, “...A marriage agreement.”

The room shifted under you at the words. You looked toward the sister who had warned you, but she wouldn’t meet your gaze, “No.”

Your father’s mouth tightened, “You have not yet heard—”

“No.”

“You will conduct yourself appropriately.”

“I’m—I’m not marrying anyone.”

Your mother reached for your hand and you pulled it away, “The agreement was made shortly after your birth.”

After your birth. Before you could speak or walk. Before you knew that wives screamed when families arrived to abduct them.

“With whom?” You asked, though no one answered quickly enough. You looked around the room. 

Your brothers knew. Your sisters knew too. And your parents? They had always fucking known. 

Every person you trusted had watched you naively discuss a future that included university and freedom while carrying this secret between them. 

“With whom?” You asked again, voice rising sharper this time. 

Your father sighed as he straightened his spine, “Gojo Satoru.”

The name struck something loose inside your memory. Sunlight reflected over running water; a garden belonging to the Kamo clan, crowded with adults whose conversations never meant anything to you, especially not at age ten. There was a cat eating pieces of fish from your palm and it had noticed him before you did. 

The cat’s ears lifted, body going rigid as an immense pulse of cursed energy disturbed the afternoon. You had followed its gaze toward the opposite stream to be met with the sight of white hair and eyes so blue that distance had done nothing to dull them. 

You knew who he was automatically. Every child raised within jujutsu society knew Gojo Satoru. Adults spoke his name differently from everyone else’s—quietly, carefully, with the same kind of reverence reserved for gods. His birth had shifted the balance of the world so violently that curses themselves grew stronger in response. 

Still, when you saw him and he saw you, you had not been frightened. You only stared. 

He was supposed to be something beyond human, yet across the water, he looked like a boy your own age standing alone among adults. He watched you with an open curiosity that mirrored your own, and for a breath, you wondered whether he might cross the stream to speak to you. He had started to, but an elder stopped him before he took more than a step. 

Someone called your name soon afterward, and you left without thinking that the encounter held any sort of significance. 

You had seen Gojo Satoru once and then, simply, forgotten him. Or perhaps, you had forgotten that the memory mattered. 

Your eyes scanned slowly across the room now, landing on each member of your family in turn. They had fucking known. When you returned from the Kamo estate and spoke idly about seeing the Six Eyes child beside the stream, they knew why he had been watching you. 

And he had known too. The realization settled coldly inside your gut, “How long?”

Your mother frowned, “How long what?”

“How long has he known?” Everyone remained silent and that alone was answer enough, “...All this time,” You whispered. 

Gojo Satoru had spent years, maybe even his whole life, knowing that you would eventually become his wife whereas you spent those same years believing your life belonged to you. 

The memory turned rancid with the weight of that knowledge. What had once seemed like a harmless moment between two curious children now felt like the first time a future knew nothing about had reached for you. 

That was possibly why he wanted to cross the stream—because he already believed you belonged to him. Now? He has probably been waiting ever since, eagerly counting down the days until your eighteenth birthday since it meant your refusal would cease to matter. 

Your mother continued speaking, “You should understand what an extraordinary honor this is.”

You laughed, an ugly, broken noise, “An honor?”

“You will become the wife of Gojo Satoru,” Your eldest sister added, “There is no more prestigious match.”

“Then you marry him.”

Her countenance sharpened, “I am already married.”

“Oh, maybe he can have two wives,” You sneered, eyes narrowed, “Powerful men seem permitted whatever they want.”

“That is enough,” Your father warned. 

Your pregnant sister finally spoke, “You should be grateful.”

You turned toward her; she bore Zen’in colors and her stomach was rounded under the silk, “Grateful?”

“He is the Honored One.”

You rolled your eyes, “Then you marry him.”

Something flickered across her face, “I would.”

“Wonderful. Tell them.”

Her mouth flattened, “Unfortunately, they want you.”

You stared at her. Out of everyone present, she was the one person you expected to understand, “You told me to run.”

Her eyes shifted toward your parents, “You were fifteen.”

“You were screaming.”

“I did not understand what was expected of me.”

“You understood enough to warn me.”

“Do not compare the situations.”

“Why not?” Your voice rose, “Naoya was the Zen’in heir. Everyone called you fortunate too.”

“My husband has provided for me.”

“I don’t believe that bullshit,” You seethed angrily, unable to stop yourself.

Appalled by your foul language, your sister’s face hardened, “You know nothing about marriage.”

You shrugged, “I know that you used to hate him.”

“I grew up.”

“You’re only twenty-one.”

“And you are still a child,” The words struck you to the core because they sounded exactly like your mother. 

You looked at her stomach, then toward the small toddler sleeping against an attending beyond the open doors, “Is that what growing up means?”

Her hand moved protectively over the curvature of her belly, “Be careful—”

“Having children until there’s nowhere left to fucking run?”

Before you could even blink, her hand struck you right across the face; the sound cracked through the room and your cheek burned. For one second, your sister looked more shocked at herself than you felt. Her hand remained suspended in the air between you until she lowered it gently. 

You saw it in her expression, right there flickering in her eyes—Naoya. Living inside the reflex. 

Your frustration nearly fizzled out within the grief, “They broke you…”

Her face changed, then went back to what it was, “No. I accepted my life.”

“Because they gave you no other one.”

“That is enough!” Your father thundered. 

You stood up so quickly that the low table shifted as your vision began to blur. Your mother followed your movements and forced a small smile onto her face, “Listen to your sister—you should be grateful. We allowed you freedoms most girls in your position would never receive.”

Yeah, because none of it mattered. 

They let you attend school with non-sorcerers because no diploma could void the contract made before you learned to walk. They permitted city outings since every road would still lead back to the same estate. They tolerated your clothing, friends, absences from ceremonies, and plans that you would someday leave this world because they knew your rebellion had an expiration date. 

Your parents never needed to break your wild spirit…marriage would do it for them. 

Your mother stepped closer, spouting more bullshit as if it could ever convince you to want this, “Gojo-sama is near your age. This is not the same as your sister’s marriage.”

“He’s the strongest.”

“Yes,” Your father said, mistaking your horror for uncertainty, “You will be protected beyond measure.”

Your sister had been promised protection too. Naoya had required the Zen’in name to do whatever he wanted behind closed doors. Whenever your sister returned exhausted, bruised, or carrying another child she never wanted, the adults lowered their voices and called it duty. 

Gojo Satoru requires no one. 

Who could punish the strongest? Who would enter his rooms if you screamed? Who would tell him to stop if he decided your refusal was childish? 

Nobody. 

Instead they would dress you in white, place your hand in his, and leave you alone with a man the entire world had already agreed could do as he pleased. 

He could close the door, then walk through your technique as if it were nothing but a mere nuisance; hold you down without a single ounce of effort. He could decide that marriage made your body his and that your fear was simply disobedience that your parents should’ve corrected years ago. 

And afterward, when healers examined you for signs of conception, everyone would celebrate because you have served your role to the Gojo clan. If you returned pregnant and docile, they would say you had settled too. 

Your mother’s voice softened, “You have heard stories.”

“Everyone has.”

“Gojo Satoru is not some common criminal.”

Neither was Naoya. He was an honored son of the Zen’in clan—a sorcerer. But those words never protected your sister from him. They only protected him from consequences.

“What happens when I tell him no?”

The room fell silent, your father’s jaw ticked, “You will learn that marriage requires compromise.”

Right. Compromise. When violation turns into duty as long as the man wears a wedding ring.

Your sister looked away from you and that was when you started to cry; the tears came hot and furious, “I don’t want him!”

“You are frightened by stories,” Your mother noted.

“No—I’m scared because no one can stop him!”

“He has no reason to harm you.”

You hiccuped between sobs, “He—He doesn’t need a reason.”

Your father struck his palm against the table, “You will stop speaking of your future husband as though he is some rabid animal!”

You almost laughed at the sentiment. They could discuss your body, fertility, and potential children, but imagining what the man receiving all of it might do made you indecent, “I don’t want to marry him…”

“The agreement cannot be dissolved because you are upset.”

“I’m not upset!”

It was a ridiculous lie. You were terrified, however, anger was easier to carry.

Your father kept going on, speaking of obligation, alliances, protection and the children your union might create; you only heard fragments, each word divided your body among strangers. 

In that moment, you imagined Gojo sitting in a distant estate while elders described you to him. Perhaps they discussed your appearance, or they warned him that you were difficult and assured him that marriage would fix it. Maybe he wondered what you would look like under those silk wedding robes. What if he spent eighteen years anticipating the day he could finally exercise the rights men like Naoya believed a husband possessed?

You didn’t know him, which only meant that there was no limit to the horrors you could imagine marrying someone who could never be stopped.

Your mother informed you that you would meet him tomorrow afternoon, on the day of your birthday, and that the wedding would occur soon after. 

There was no time to run anymore. No time to explain the news to your boyfriend or become anything except the wife your family had decided you’d be before you learned your own name.

Gojo Satoru had spent years waiting to have you; and before you ever saw him again, you had already pictured his hands, his power, and the locked room in which nobody would care if you told him no. 

It took less than a minute for you to hate him.

He was four years old when they first told him. 

That morning, four children from one of the major jujutsu families had been brought to the estate with their parents. Satoru had noticed them through the open doors of the room where his attendant was attempting to dress him. 

They were playing in the courtyard. A faded leather ball traveled clumsily between their hands, sometimes striking the ground before reaching its intended target. Each mistake sent the children into peals of laughter; one boy tripped over the hem of his robes and collapsed onto the grass, and the others laughed so loudly that even Satoru smiled. 

He had never seen a game played that way. His games came arranged on polished boards, their pieces set in perfect lines by servants who bowed and left before he could ask them to sit down and play with him. His instructors called training play because it kept him more compliant, though nobody laughed when he made mistakes. 

Satoru slipped free of the sleeve his attendant was fastening and crossed the room before she could stop him, “Gojo-sama!”

He ignored her, of course, and the children didn’t notice him at first. He stood beneath the veranda and watched the ball pass from one pair of hands to another. The smallest girl missed it. It bounced once, rolled through the grass, and came to rest beside his foot. 

Satoru bent down and picked it up. Yet, when the girl looked toward him, her smile vanished, and one by one, the others followed her gaze. The courtyard that was once filled with giggles, fell dead silent. 

Satoru held the ball against his stomach, “...Can I play?”

The children just stared at him, in what could only be described as horror. They were close to his age, each one maybe only a few years older. Old enough that their family had already taught them what his white hair and blue eyes meant. 

The eldest boy hastily lowered himself into a bow, the others copied him just as quickly, “Gojo-sama.”

Satoru frowned as he threw the ball toward them. It traveled slowly enough that the boy could have caught it without any effort, but instead, he flinched. The ball struck the grass beside his knee. 

His mother hurried forward and pulled him backward by the shoulder, “Forgive him, Gojo-sama.”

“He didn’t do anything.”

“No, of course not.”

The boy kept his head lowered, Satoru looked at the ball lying between them, “You’re supposed to throw it back.”

The child glanced toward his mother and she gave the smallest shake of her head, “I’m sorry, Gojo-sama.”

“For what?”

No one answered, simply because they were afraid of him. Satoru had understood fear before he understood most things. He saw it whenever unfamiliar servants approached him, felt it in the cautious hands that dressed him and in the way adults watched his moods. It was the reason nobody touched him without permission, even when he did something minor like scrape his knee. The reason instructors praised him too eagerly and visitors bowed without ever looking into his eyes. 

But…he hadn’t expected fear to appear so strange on another child’s face. 

He left the ball in the grass and retreated inside; his attendant knelt beside the discarded layers of his clothing, her mouth drawn into a thin line, “You must not run away while you are being dressed.”

Satoru crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, “They wouldn’t play with me.”

“That is not why they were brought here.”

His disappointment gave way to curiosity, “Then why are they here?”

“Their parents have business with the clan.”

Satoru peeked through the doorway again, the children had moved to the opposite side of the courtyard—they were no longer playing. The ball remained where he had left it, “Are they all brothers and sisters?”

“Yes.”

“All four of them?”

His attendant guided him back before the mirror and lifted the miniature haori over his shoulders, “There is another.”

Satoru met her gaze in the glass, “Another one?”

“Their youngest sister. She was born several months after you.”

His eyes flickered back to the courtyard, as though the missing girl might suddenly appear among them if he looked hard enough, “Why didn’t she come?”

“Her parents decided she was too young for the visit.”

He huffed, “I’m young.”

“Yes, but you live here.”

That seemed unfair, although Satoru couldn’t yet explain why. His attendant smoothed the fabric over his shoulders before continuing, “When you are both grown, she will become your wife.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded, “What’s a…wife?” 

“Someone who joins her life to yours.”

“Like a friend?” He beamed.

“Not precisely.”

“But…she’ll live here?”

“Yes.”

His attention shifted to the corridor reflected behind him. The estate was never empty—servants moved quietly through its halls, instructors arrived each morning, elders occupied meeting rooms and discussed him through its paper thin walls. 

There were always people around him, but there was almost never anyone with him. 

Satoru learned early that there were different ways to keep a person close. Affection was one of them, though he had little experience with it. Necessity was another. 

He might have been lonely, but at least he was needed somewhere. The clan needed his eyes, his technique, his strength to restore order to the world. The elders needed him to grow into exactly what had been promised at birth. No one ever needed him for any other reason than that—being Satoru just wasn’t good enough. 

But being needed at all was better than nothing. 

“Will she live here every day?”

“That is generally what marriage entails.”

“Will she eat with me?”

“When circumstances allow.”

“Will she leave after dinner?”

His attendant paused, “No.”

“After lessons?”

“She will not be your instructor.”

“I know,” He shifted beneath her hands, “...But everyone leaves after lessons.”

For once, she didn’t reprimand him for moving, “She will live here, Gojo-sama. This will become her home as well.”

His face turned radiant, “Then she can be my friend!”

“She will be your wife,” She corrected.

At four years old, Satoru saw no meaningful difference between the two, “Can she come now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You are both much too young.”

“We’re old enough to play,” He argued uselessly. 

“That is not the purpose of the arrangement.”

Confused, he tilted his head, “What’s the purpose?”

“You will understand when you are older.”

He frowned at the mirror. The appropriate time. When you are older. When circumstances allow.

Adults had an endless supply of phrases that meant they were finished speaking, “How old?”

“Eighteen,” She answered. 

Eighteen? Eighteen was, like…forever. 

It sounded impossible, really. Larger than any age he could properly imagine himself becoming. 

He glanced toward the abandoned ball outside, “But I need her before then,” He whined.

His attendant’s hands stilled briefly against his shoulders, then she resumed smoothing the fabric, “You will learn patience.”

Satoru did not want patience. He wanted someone to throw the ball back. 

“Does she like games?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Does she like sweets?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Does she have eyes like mine?”

“No.”

“What does she look like?”

“You will see for yourself when the proper time arrives.”

He was quiet for several seconds, until softly saying, “Will she be scared of me?”

The attendant looked at his reflection, “You are Gojo Satoru.”

That wasn’t an answer, but Satoru had already begun learning that people often used his name in place of one. Also, being Gojo Satoru was the exact problem. 

“Will she like me?”

This time, the woman smiled. It was the careful, reverent smile adults gave him when he demonstrated a new technique, not the careless, fun one the children outside had shared before he killed it by entering the courtyard. 

“You possess the Six Eyes and Limitless. Any family would be honored to offer you their daughter.”

Satoru lowered his eyes to his hands. Again, she didn’t answer his question. 

When Satoru was six, a boy named Shinji had called him by his name. It was the first time that anybody had, and it happened by accident. 

Shinji belonged to another family and had arrived at the estate with his grandfather. He didn’t recognize Satoru at first, somehow. Satoru had escaped his attendants for the billionth time and abandoned the formal layers that normally announced his rank before he entered a room. 

They found a cicada shell beneath the veranda and Shinji dared him to put it inside one of the servants’ sandals…Satoru did, and they crouched behind a column and waited, both of them pressing their hands over their mouths to smother their giggles. 

“Satoru,” Shinji whispered when footsteps approached, “She’s coming.”

No one had ever said his name that way. Without a title, without fear, as though it belonged simply to him. 

The servant found them before she reached her sandal and by evening, Shinji’s grandfather had learned what happened. The next morning, Shinji knelt before Satoru in the reception hall, small hands trembling against the floor. 

“Good morning, Gojo-sama.”

Satoru stared at him, “Yesterday you called me Satoru.”

Shinji’s face lost what little color it had, “I apologize.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I showed improper familiarity.”

“We were playing.”

Shinji looked over at his grandfather standing behind him, bowing lower, “I am sorry, Gojo-sama.”

Satoru never asked Shinji to play again, and that same night, Satoru asked an attendant whether his future wife would be permitted to call him by his name. 

“In private,” She said, “If you allow it.”

“Of course I’ll allow it,” He smiled sheepishly, “…I want her to call me by my name.”

She gave him an odd look, as if permission were something precious he should consider withholding, and Satoru went to sleep comforted by the knowledge that somewhere beyond the estate walls, there was one girl who would someday be allowed to call him Satoru without apologizing afterward. 

And her family visited the Gojo estate again the following Spring. Satoru knew before anyone told him. 

The household changed when important guests were expected. Flower arrangements appeared in rooms no one otherwise used. Servants whispered over seating orders and his lessons ended early so he could be bathed, dressed, and reminded not to interrupt the adults. 

When he heard her family name, he endured the preparations without complaint. He sat beside an elder in her formal reception room and watched the visitors enter—her father came first, her mother followed, followed by the same four children Satoru remembered from the courtyard when he was four. The eldest boy, the small girl who had missed the ball. The other two who bowed after she did. 

Satoru’s gaze moved to the doorway behind them, but no one else entered. He counted them again.

One, two, three, four, five, six, and…six.

There should be seven. 

“Where is she?”

The room quieted, one of the elders beside him set down his teacup. Her mother smiled, though unease tightened the corners of her mouth, “She was not feeling well this morning.”

“Oh no,” He gasped with worry, “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing serious,” She assured with that same grin. 

Relief washed over him then. Good, my frie—my wife is okay. But disappointment quickly followed, “Then why didn’t she come?”

“Satoru,” The elder grumbled his name in warning, though of course, he ignored it. 

“Can I see her next time?”

“You will be formally introduced when you are both older,” The elder responded.

“But she’s supposed to be here.”

“Her presence was not required.”

Satoru blinked at him, “Then why is everyone else here?”

Her eldest sister lowered her eyes, perhaps to hide a smile. The elder’s mouth tightened. 

Satoru had asked for two rabbit shaped manjū that morning. One for himself and one for the girl he thought would sit beside him tonight. 

He didn’t know what sweets she liked or whether she liked them at all, but the ears had looked cute and he wanted to do something nice for her. He wound up eating his own while her family settled into the room and left hers beside his. 

By the time her family departed, the soft white dough had begun to dry, a thin crack splitting one of the rabbit’s ears. 

Satoru carried it back to his room anyway. 

Years passed through the same cycle of lessons, ceremonies, and cautiously supervised encounters. Children visited the estate—some stared at him from behind their parents, some cried when those impossible blue eyes settled on them for too long, others repeated rumors they had heard before realizing he was close enough to listen. 

They said the Six Eyes could see through walls. That he knew when people lied. That he had been born without crying. When he was three he destroyed a training room. Touching him without permission could get an entire family expelled from the jujutsu world.

Most of it was untrue, but it didn’t matter. When Satoru entered courtyards, games stopped. If he approached a group, conversations disappeared. Children bowed and adults watched, nobody forgot what he was long enough to discover who he might have been. 

And he became good at pretending not to notice. 

His future wife’s family appeared often to the point where Satoru had learned every one of her siblings by sight. He knew which brother laughed too loudly, which sister favored pale pink, which sibling rolled her eyes whenever the Zen’in clan was mentioned. He knew the order in which they usually entered a room and every time their crest appeared, he searched behind them. Mother, father, brothers, sisters…but no her. 

At seven, she remained home to study. At eight, she was said to be ill. At nine, an elder complained that her parents indulged her dislike of formal gatherings. 

“She is willful,” The man said over dinner.

Satoru paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, “What does willful mean?”

“It means she has little respect for instruction.”

“She doesn’t listen?”

“Rarely, from what I am told.”

Satoru thought about the children who stopped laughing when he came near, “Maybe she doesn’t like the people speaking.”

The elder’s gaze sharpened, “She will need to abandon that attitude before joining this clan.”

Satoru looked down to hide his smile…Willful. 

It was the first thing he learned about her that sounded like it belonged to a person. Not another report about her health, the strength of her cursed energy, or the inherited technique that had appeared in her family for the first time in generations like him. 

She simply disliked being told what to do…So did he. 

Maybe we’ll get along just fine, he thought. 

And Satoru was ten years old when he finally saw her. 

Her family had come to a summer gathering at an estate belonging to the Kamo clan. He searched the arriving procession automatically, despite knowing better—not her. It’s never her.

The gathering dragged into the afternoon. Adults discussed alliances inside painted rooms while children sat nearby and were expected to absorb traditions no one explained. The other children kept a respectful distance from Satoru, still scared of him, especially now that he’s growing older. 

Satoru lasted about thirty minutes before leaving, nobody cared to stop him immediately because by age ten, most people had learned that physically obstructing Gojo Satoru created more difficulty than it prevented. He wandered beyond the central gardens, following the sound of running water. 

Cicadas screamed from the trees; the air smelled of wet earth and the rain threatening from beyond the hills. That’s when he found her near the outer wall. 

She was crouched beside a narrow stream with the hem of her formal clothes gathered carelessly in one hand. Several ornamental hairpins lay scattered in the grass. A stray cat watched the piece of fish held between her fingers. 

Satoru stopped. He had seen one portrait; a stiff, joyless image sent to the Gojo estate alongside a report about her health and the development of her technique. In it, she sat perfectly straight, hands folded in her lap. The girl beside the stream looked nothing like it. 

Her hair had begun falling loose around her face and there was dirt on one knee. She spoke softly to the cat, bargaining with it as though it may answer. 

Satoru knew immediately; his Six Eyes confirmed what instinct already had.

This is her…my wife.

He stepped from the path and the cat’s ears flicked toward him. She looked up, their eyes meeting. Though she didn’t flinch or bow, and for one suspended moment, she simply looked at him with open curiosity. 

Satoru’s heart gave a strange pathetic little leap, only to be disrupted by a hand closing around his shoulder, “Gojo-sama.”

He looked back at the elder behind him, “I’m going to speak to her.”

“No.”

The answer came so fast that irritation flashed through him, “But she’s right there.”

“You will meet at the appropriate time.”

“You always say that,” He sighed with exasperation. 

“Because you continue asking.”

Satoru looked at her again, she had since returned her attention to the cat, unaware that the argument even concerned her, “She’s supposed to be my wife.”

“When you are both of age.”

“I only want to say hello,” He said softly. 

“There is no purpose in encouraging familiarity now.”

No purpose. 

Everyone spoke as if she occupied half his future, yet knowing her apparently served no purpose. Satoru couldn’t understand how both things could be true. 

“What if she wants to meet me?”

“Her family understands the arrangement.”

“But—”

“You are expected inside,” He gritted through teeth, the grip on his shoulder tightened. 

Satoru allowed himself to be guided away, but he looked back once. Someone had called her name, and she collected the pins from the grass and rose, the stray cat following at her heels. She glanced in Satoru’s direction again before disappearing beyond the wall.

He would remember it for years, meanwhile she would not. 

But by thirteen, Satoru understood that a wife was not simply a friend who lived with you. 

He learned that from the way the elders laughed when he once asked whether she would accompany him during an extended stay at another estate, “You continue to speak as though your intended bride has been selected as a playmate.”

Heat climbed unpleasantly into his face, “I-I didn’t say that.”

“You will have attendants for company.”

“Attendants aren’t company,” Satoru complained, rolling his eyes.

The elder’s expression turned impatient, “Your marriage has obligations greater than companionship.”

Satoru said nothing else, knowing enough by then to know what the man meant. 

A wife shared his household. Stood beside him at ceremonies. Carried his name. Entered his bed and produced children who continued his bloodline. 

Friendship was not part of the contract, neither was affection. So he stopped speaking about her as if she might become his friend, though the need beneath the word didn’t disappear. It merely grew harder to name. 

He wanted someone who didn’t require an appointment before entering his rooms. Someone who remained after the lesson, meal, or ceremony concluded. Someone who might recognize the difference between his public smile and the real one. Someone who called him by his name and knew him long enough that being the strongest sorcerer alive might eventually become the least interesting thing about him. 

He understood now that marriage promised none of those things, but it might permit them. That possibility was enough to keep him waiting for her. 

And at age fifteen, he was aware as to why the match between him and her had been made. 

The Six Eyes and Limitless, her inherited technique. The chance of combining two bloodlines so rare that the jujutsu world might never produce their equal again. 

He now also understood why knowing her before marriage served no practical purpose to the elders. They never chose him a companion—they had selected the mother of his future children. The knowledge of that embarrassed him, only because some foolish part of him had spent years believing her arrival might end the silence. 

He stopped asking about her then, but he didn’t stop listening. If the elders complained that she had skipped another ceremony, he paid attention. When someone mentioned her request to study among non-sorcerers, he remembered. After they called her difficult, obstinate, ungrateful, and dishonorable he collected each word. 

They were scraps, but scraps of her were all he had. He wondered whether she still fed stray cats or if she even remembered seeing him. Had she received his portrait and kept it like he kept hers? Did she ever ask questions about him? 

He assumed she knew, she had to know, considering the arrangement had shaped his entire life. Surely, somewhere beyond the Gojo estate, adults had explained the same future to her. Surely, she had been told that one day she would come live beside him. 

Sometimes, when the estate became especially lonely, Satoru imagined that she was waiting too. Perhaps she sat through dull ceremonies and thought about him. Maybe her siblings frightened her with stories about his eyes. She might have wondered whether he would be kind or exactly the type of person everyone has made him out to be. 

Perhaps, she hoped, as he did, that whatever else marriage demanded of them, they might at least become less lonely together. 

The thought comforted him way more than it should have. 

And soon enough, Satoru turned eighteen approximately four months before she did. 

The preparations began immediately. Rooms in the eastern wing were emptied, new screens were commissioned. Attendants discussed public ceremonies, household roles, and how quickly the clan might expect an heir. 

Satoru listened until he could no longer bear it, “She won’t stay in the eastern wing.”

That silenced the room, an elder raised his eyes from the plethora of papers spread across the table, “Those rooms traditionally belong to the clan head’s wife.”

“They’re dark,” Satoru argued. 

“They are private.”

“They’re depressing.”

A line appeared between the elder’s brows, “Where do you propose?”

“The rooms beside the south garden.”

“They are close to your chambers.”

Satoru’s expression remained neutral, “Yes.”

No one dared challenge him. He selected rooms that caught the morning light, ordered the heavy screens replaced, reduced the number of attendants assigned to her before she had even arrived. When a gardener recommended removing the old plum tree outside her veranda, Satoru refused. He didn’t know if she liked plum blossoms, but he did know that she disliked ceremonies and slipped away when nobody was looking. So perhaps, she would need somewhere beautiful to escape. 

The rooms connected to his by a single interior door. He stood before it once after the workers left, his hand resting against the wood. As a child, he believed a wife was a friend who could not be sent home, but at eighteen, he knew better. 

She might dislike him, or worse, hate him. This door might stay locked forever. She may fulfill every public duty while speaking to him only when necessary like everyone else. 

Marriage guaranteed proximity—it did not guarantee closeness despite how badly he wanted it. 

Still, someone would live beyond that door. There would be a woman’s footsteps he’d learn. One who remained after dinner because the estate belonged to her too. A wife who would eventually, and hopefully, know him well enough to choose his company when she was not required to. 

He had learned not to ask for more than possibility. 

Two days before her eighteenth birthday, the rings arrived. Satoru dismissed the craftsmen and remained in the receiving room with one of the elders. 

His own ring was black, broad and simple. Hers was smaller, engraved along the inside with the crests of both families; he turned it between his fingers. 

For nearly fourteen years, he had been told to wait. Not yet. Not now. When you are older. 

He was older now. Soon there would be no reason to keep her and I apart. 

He could finally ask the questions no report had ever cared to ask. 

What do you like?

What makes you laugh?

Do you hate formal dinners as much as I do?

Did the stories about me frighten you?

Are you lonely too?

And perhaps, if he were fortunate, she would ask something about him in return. 

“Do you think she’ll be happy here?” Satoru asked.

The elder looked faintly amused, “She will be the wife of the head of the Gojo clan. What greater honor could her family request?”

Satoru traced the edge of her ring, “That wasn’t what I asked.”

“She will understand her responsibilities.”

Responsibilities. Always responsibilities. 

Satoru looked toward the open doors leading to the south garden. The plum tree stirred in the evening breeze, its branches casting restless shadows across the veranda. After a moment, he asked the smaller question—the one that has lived inside him since the day her four frightened siblings had fallen silent when he asked to play. 

“...Do you think she’ll like me?”

The elder smirked with complete confidence, “You are Gojo Satoru. You possess the Six Eyes and Limitless. You are the strongest sorcerer born in centuries.”

Satoru lowered his eyes to the ring resting in his palm. Fourteen years have passed and the answer to that question has remained the same. 

They spoke of his eyes, his power, his name. Everything that made him valuable and nothing that might make another person genuinely like him. 

“I think I’ll like her,” Satoru admitted quietly, “From what little I know.”

The elder gave a low chuckle, “I am certain you will,” Satoru glanced up, “She has grown into a remarkably beautiful young woman. Pretty face, nice figure, healthy body. Your children should be exceptional.”

Satoru’s fingers clenched around the ring, “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No?” The elder appeared entertained by that, “Then perhaps you are still more naive than I thought.”

“I said I think I’ll like her.”

“And I said you will. She is beautiful, young, and soon to be yours.”

The phrasing made something unpleasant turn in Satoru’s stomach, “She isn’t a possession.”

“Not yet.” 

The elder said it casually, as if Satoru had objected only because the wedding had not yet taken place. As if a few more days would transform a living girl into something owned. He looked back down at the ring. 

“Her temperament is unfortunate, however,” The elder added, “Disobedient, stubborn—far too accustomed to being free.”

“I already knew she was willful,” Satoru mentioned.

“And you find that charming now.”

Satoru shrugged one shoulder, “I don’t think it sounds particularly bad.”

The elder scoffed, “You may feel differently once you are responsible for correcting it.”

Satoru’s thumb stilled against the silver, “I don’t want to correct her.”

The man laughed outright then—that same laugh the elders once used when Satoru spoke of his future wife as though she might become his friend, “You do not even know what to do with a woman.”

Warmth crept up Satoru’s neck, “I know…enough.”

“No you do not,” The elder’s gaze passed over him, openly dismissive despite the power contained beneath his skin, “You are a little boy trapped inside a man’s body.”

Satoru’s jaw tightened. They had never allowed him to be a little boy and it seemed especially cruel to mock him now for not knowing how to become a man. 

“They should have brought you to the concubines years ago,” The elder complained, “At least then you might avoid humiliating yourself on your wedding night.”

“I’m not worried about that,” He assured, shaking his head.

“You should be. Your bride has been allowed an extraordinary amount of freedom. Girls like her often resist at first.”

“Resist what?” Satoru’s voice left him sharply. 

“The marriage. Consummation. Pregnancy. Whatever duty happens to offend their delicate sensibilities,” He lifted his tea and took an unhurried sip, “It rarely lasts.”

“Why?”

The elder grinned over the rim of his cup, “Because eventually they understand that resistance changes nothing.”

Satoru glared at him, “And if she doesn’t?”

“She will.”

“How do you know?”

“They always do,” He said with certainty, “Marriage corrects most women, and children correct the rest.”

A coldness settled within Satoru’s ribs, “Correct them how?”

“Once a woman carries her husband’s child, she has something greater than herself to consider. Rebellion becomes inconvenient. Leaving becomes unthinkable,” The elder set his cup down, “Give her an heir quickly and whatever spirit her family had failed to discipline will cease to be a problem.”

Satoru’s pulse jumped in his neck as the elder added, “Her older sister was the same way. She was nearly unruly when the Zen’in match was first arranged.”

“Naoya,” Satoru said flatly.

“Yes—she screamed, cried, refused meals, embarrassed her family for months,” A faint smile touched the man’s mouth, “Then Naoya gave her a child and now she is settled—dutiful. Pregnant again, from what I hear.”

Something hot and ugly flowed through Satoru’s blood. He had disliked Zen’in Naoya for as long as he could remember. The arrogance, the way he spoke about women, the obvious pleasure he took in humiliating anyone he considered beneath him. The mere thought of becoming anything like him made Satoru sick.

“I’m not Naoya,” He seethed. 

“No,” The elder chuckled, “You are stronger.”

The words were intended as praise, but they felt more like a threat. 

Satoru didn’t want a wife who had been frightened into submission. He didn’t want a child used as a lock upon a door, nor did he want to strip away every unruly part of her until she became quiet enough for the clan to call her dutiful. 

Most of all, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with becoming the kind of man Zen’in Naoya already was. 

From the moment Satoru was born, people had recoiled from him. Children abandoned their games when he approached. Servants watched his hands. Adults bowed instead of looking him in the eye. His strength had ensured that he was needed everywhere in this world, but wanted seemingly nowhere. 

He didn’t want his wife to fear him too. He wanted her—perhaps selfishly, more than he had any right to want a person he barely knew, but he wanted her happy even more. 

And after an entire life spent surrounded by people and accompanied by none of them, Satoru would rather remain lonely forever than hurt the one person he had spent fourteen long years waiting for. 

But in two days, he would finally meet her. 

What he didn’t know was that everything she witnessed had taught her to hate men exactly like him. 

Leon Kennedy is standing at the coffee machine, arms crossed, waiting for the machine to finish humming and hissing and start spitting out his frothy caffeine. Peter hasn’t noticed yet, his back to the rest of the cafeteria, still absorbed in talking at you like you haven’t tuned him out, like you haven’t been dropping heavy hints that he should go away, like you’re not about to snap and just tell him to fuck off. He’s lucky you’re a professional.

Leon’s head turns a fraction. You don’t know if it’s because he can feel your eyes on him or if he’s tuning into Radio Peter; maybe both. When he makes eye contact with you it feels like a goddamn life raft. He can probably see it on your face.

He flicks his gaze towards Peter, raises his eyebrows. Is this guy bothering you?

You widen your eyes. Like you wouldn’t fucking believe.

He tips his head, gaze strong; good to intervene?

You nod once, short, relieved. Peter’s finally realizing that you’re silently communicating with someone else and turns.

Leon, coffee in hand, is heading for your table. Peter backpedals like he’s dodging a moving train. Leon throws him nothing but a sidelong glance and a vague apology before putting his hand on the back of the chair across from you, urgent.

“Hey. Did you get my message?”

“Yeah, I’m working on it,” you say, pulling your laptop closer to yourself, harried.

Peter’s staring – at Leon’s height, his arms, his gun – and you have to ignore him or you’re going to break character.

“It’s high priority,” Leon’s telling you.

“I know, I was just –“

Peter mumbles something that sounds like ‘uh, later. See you. Up’ and backs away before turning tail, heading for the elevators. At the last second, he banks left and takes the stairs two at a time instead.

You both watch him go. Leon turns back to you.

“You’re quick,” he says.

You drop your shoulders, head loose on your neck.

“God,” you say. “Guy can’t fucking read a room.”

“Could’ve just told him to fuck off.”

“I thought about it.”

He raises his eyebrows, a silent question.

“I’m too polite.”

“Then it continues.”

“Not if I get slippery.”

His eyes narrow and you play your last sentence back. You shut your eyes for an extended beat.

“Work-appropriately,” you clarify. He sips his coffee.

“Sounds like a lot of extra work.”

It is. He’s right. You’ve already been plotting evasive maneuvers and pinning secluded spaces in a back corner of your mind. It’s sapping bandwidth.

And it’s not fucking normal, is it.

You just don’t know what kind of personality Peter will reveal if you shut him down entirely. The cold-shoulder day was a reprieve, but it was also noticeably… hostile. You’re unwilling to explore deeper waters, there. Civility, however taxing – is safe.

Leon’s watching you.

“There’s always HR.”

Well. Maybe Peter should have stayed, taken some notes on reading people.

You wave it off.

“He’s just… annoying.”

Maybe Leon believes you. He extends his hand across the table.

“Leon Kennedy,” he says. You shake his hand, his palm warm and rough, his grip firm.

“I know,” you say, and give him your name in return. “Thanks for the assist.”

His face softens into something that isn’t a smile but isn’t not a smile. It’s understated, self-assured, and very handsome.

“Enjoy the quiet.”

There’s nothing understated about the way he walks away. You catch yourself doing taffy eyes, transfixed by his broad shoulders, the bulk of his arms, and – well. The way his hips move make it difficult NOT to fixate. On all that.

Jesus christ.

You force your eyes down to your laptop, ears a little pink.

You’ve just met Leon Kennedy. You don’t know it yet, but it’s the first domino.

Incoming Call Sherry Birkin

-> Answer “Hey. I’m on my way in.”

“Just thought you might like to know… someone in legal is searching your name in the databases. Extensively.”

Leon glances at the center console screen, Sherry’s speakerphone call counting up the seconds.

“Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know. Log-in is one… Peter Dotson?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Leon says, easing the Porsche to a stop, traffic brakelights tinting him red. “Got his mug?”

“Sending.”

Leon’s phone buzzes and he scoops it from the cupholder, thumbing open the message. It’s a badge photo from a company ID.

“Oh.”

“Recognize him?”

“Yeah.”

When you hear the short knock on your cube wall, you’re sure it’s Peter. It’s always Peter. You shut your eyes, take a breath, and turn in your office chair.

It’s not Peter.

“Leon!”

Something crashes in the cube next door.

“Hey,” Leon says. “Coffee?”

You double-take, hesitant, reaching unconsciously towards your open laptop with an email half-composed in the foreground, a document half-read in the background, and several deadlines on your calendar.

“I’m, uh…”

You can’t look away from his face. His eyes are intense, like he’s laser-engraving a message on the back of your skull.

I need to talk to you. Now.

“Yeah, sure. One second.”

You save the email as a draft, shut the laptop and grab your phone. Leon holds the door for you to exit the cube farm into the main foyer.

You don’t see him make deliberate, razor-edged eye contact with Peter, who is standing, red-faced, in his cube.

The entire back wall of the cafeteria is plate-glass, looking out over a dewy, short lawn and a paved walkway that follows a copper creek overhung by gently swaying trees. It’s still early enough that the sun hasn’t entirely cut the fog that ghosts the water.

Coffee in hand, Leon winds between the tables in the main cafeteria. It’s moderately busy, commuters hunched over their hashbrowns and sausage, laptops open to multitask. No one pays your little two-person train much mind, aside from the occasional double-take at Leon, but it’s immediately followed by a ducked head.

He doesn’t even have the gun on him today.

Leon leads you into one of the cafeteria conference rooms at the back, branched off of the main space, sharing the plate-glass wall. It’s far from private – there's no door, just a half-wall of more glass – but it’s tucked back and it’s quiet. You sit at the furthest end of the long table, glancing out at the sunbeams streaming through the trees.

It looks serene.

You’re not fucking feeling it.

“Why’d you pull me out, agent?”

The chairs roll; Leon brings his up to the table and opens the lid of his coffee cup.

“Your favorite neighbor was… researching me this morning,” he says.

You raise your eyebrows, chuffing a laugh, but the humor quickly fades. A little googling wouldn’t ping a DSO agent’s radar. It definitely wouldn’t be noteworthy enough to then come tell you about it.

“Yeah,” he agrees, watching your face journey.

“Why the hell?”

“I don’t think he appreciated the improv theater yesterday,” Leon says, ripping open two sugar packets and dumping them into his coffee. “You called him annoying. What kind of annoying?”

“He just… talks. A lot. Shit I don’t care about. Shit I don’t need to know about.”

“Like what?”

“He’s a gossip,” you say, then tip your head, conceding. “Well, everyone is. But he’s… I don’t know. A dirty-laundry gossip. Like to an extreme. I don’t know where he’s hearing half that shit.”

“About coworkers.”

“Yeah.”

“How often are they men?”

You narrow your eyes.

“That matters?”

“Maybe. When did he ask you out?”

You sharpen on him, wary.

“I never told anyone about that.”

“Lucky guess,” Leon says dryly, pressing stray sugar granules from the tabletop into his fingerprint. “Did the trashing other men get worse after you turned him down?”

You sit back, heavy.

“Fuck.”

Leon looks at you from under his brow, dusting sugar off onto the floor.

“I’m serious about HR.”

You’re stupid. You’re really, really thick. You should not have needed someone else to point this out. Of course Peter didn't take no as gospel. He’s tenacious. Like a barnacle.

“I don’t have any proof.”

“Do you feel safe?”

You huff out a humorless laugh. “No.”

He dips his head. There you go.

“What if HR just… talks to him? Makes him retake the SH module and calls that dusted?”

“Unlikely. He’s also abusing access and slandering coworkers.”

“But that’s shit I can’t prove! What if he claims that I’m just trying to slander him?”

“Reports are anonymous.”

You shake your head, bitter.

“He’d know.”

Leon’s quiet for long enough that you glance over from picking at the lid of your coffee cup.

“You’re afraid of him,” he says, perceptively. You look away again, taking a deep breath.

“When I turned him down,” you tell him, resigned. “He spent the entire next day ignoring me. It was nice that he shut up, but. It was… off.”

“Off?”

“Like he was… mad. Not humbled, or embarrassed. Like I owed him, and I’d denied him. Part of me kept expecting a ‘see you in court’.”

Leon raises his eyebrows, wry.

“Good to know the psych eval’s watertight,” he says, and pulls his phone from his pocket. He sets it on the conference table, head-to-head with yours, and pulls up his home screen. You follow his lead. Your phone displays both ripple together, popping up contact cards.

Leon Kennedy just gave you his number.

“Bet you twenty he’ll have something to say about me,” he says, pocketing his phone. “You good to go back?”

No. “Eventually.”

He sets his hand on the table, waits for you to meet his eyes.

“Retaliation gets him fired if the initial report doesn’t,” he tells you. “You just get the ball rolling; he can kick it into his own face. Yeah?”

You nod, but not too hard. You might throw up.

“Alright. Keep me posted.”

You barely watch him go, this time.

You sit alone at the back of the empty conference room, staring hollowly out at the creek until your untouched coffee is stone cold.

—

Guess I owe you 20

Leon How many puppies have I kicked?

The incident in DC??

Incoming Call Leon Kennedy

You immediately swipe to answer.

“Tell me he’s full of shit.”

For a moment, it’s just the crackle of the open line. Then,

“I can’t.”

You sit up, gripping the phone tighter than the arm of your sofa.

“Are you fucking serious? The president?”

“He… he wasn’t. Anymore.”

You’re glad he called. Those four words sound like a thousand. You sag back under the weight of them.

“Sorry.”

“I’ve dealt with it,” Leon says, another thousand words in four. “Is that all he dug up?”

“That was his smoking gun.”

“And are you scared off?”

“Why, you wanna ask me to coffee again?”

“What, step on Peter’s toes?”

“God. Shut up.”

He laughs, just a short vocal huff.

“You reported him?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Hey, Leon?”

“Mm.”

“Thanks.”

Five Days Later

Leon Status report.

Home sick

Leon You haven’t called in.

No voice

Leon No email, either. Two days.

why would you knwo that. Are you stalking me

Incoming Call Leon Kennedy

-> Decline

I told you i can’t talk

Incoming Facetime Call Leon Kennedy

-> Decline

i’m fine

Leon Then pick up.

Incoming Facetime Call Leon Kennedy

Missed Facetime Call

trying to nap

Contacts -> Leon Kennedy -> Edit

Agent Creep Not convinced, Peter.

Your phone clatters onto a hardwood floor, the screen fracturing into a dense spiderweb of fine cracks.

“You’re gonna want to see this.”

Sherry’s tone is foreboding. A file drops in, loading slowly. Leon’s thumb hovers, waiting.

“This was among the files deleted before turning his laptop back in to I.T.,” Sherry continues. “Unfortunately, he forgot the Cloud backup.”

The file name is innocuous.

Doc2.doc -> Downloaded

“Brace yourself,” Sherry says.

— My little mouse, the game has begun. Your blatant rejection stung, but now I see it for what it is: a challenge. Nothing worth having ever comes easy, and my darling, I know you’re worth having. You will come to see that we are bound by destiny, and as much as you run, little mouse, it is only because you aren’t ready. Don’t worry; I am patient. I’ll bring you around. —

“Bad fucking start,” Leon says.

“It gets worse.”

There’s one paragraph per business day over the last month-and-some-change, all dated. Leon scrolls through entry after entry, skimming.

— You changed your perfume, today. I notice these things about you. I can map where you’ve been, scenting the air for the lingering hints of you, my sweet flower. Your new scent is powerful, spicy, sultry. How am I to concentrate when you tease me with such heat? — I have to find a way to reel you in. Your discussion with Mark today about “what makes Luke warm” was abhorrently inappropriate; it made my blood boil to hear. Why do you flirt so brazenly with other men when you know I’m right here? Is this part of your game? You truly test my patience, little mouse. But no matter: I’ll soon turn your attention away. You’ll learn that the only man worthy of your consideration is me. — You appreciated the cupcake I stole for you, today. There was a birthday in IT; Jake, that one with the blue eyes and dimples that you were batting your eyes at ten days ago. No matter. He doesn’t get to see you the way that I do – legs tucked under you, soft feet bare, shoes kicked off to the side. You make such a pretty picture when you relax like that. Only around me. — Dearheart, you cut your hair. Did you know this would upset me? I’ve dreamed of tangling my fingers in your soft trusses, winding them around my hand, pulling your head back to keep you submissive. Good that you’re experimenting now, I suppose. When you’re my wife you’ll keep it long, as is proper. —

“Sherry,” Leon says, and there’s an edge to it.

“I know,” Sherry says, heavy. “Page 18, second entry.”

Leon scrubs through the page numbers.

— Little mouse, I cannot abide. When did you meet that agent??? Why would you have cause to consort with such rough company??? We work legal; what recourse does he seek? I must discourage this acquaintanceship; Agent Kennedy is dangerous, my sweet. I have to find a way to prove it to you before it’s too late. —

“Rich,” Leon mutters. He scrolls to the bottom of the document. It’s not much further.

The final entries are short, hurried, jarring.

— that agent is a snake in your ear. i knwo he told you to do this. he’ll devour you. i have to save you from his maw — i understand now. what games you play. i’m not intimidated by the obstacles you set between us; i know you’re waiting for me to prove myself a man. heard. i’m coming to get you, my angel. our heaven awaits. —

“Fuck.”

Leon kicks his car door open and steps out onto the street.

The screen of your phone is so cracked, Peter can’t get the Slide to Power Off to track. He’s crouched under the overhang of his kitchen island, hands shaking, the floor dented where your phone had struck. He’d thrown it, foolish, in a flash of utter panic.

Kennedy knows.

No, he's bluffing. He can't know.

He can.

Fuck, Peter knew he should have shut your phone down the minute he had it. Damn the siren call of your camera roll, your Notes, your music; damn his thirst to know you.

The doorbell rings, simultaneous with a Person at Your Door chime from Peter's phone on the couch. He yelps and cracks his head on the kitchen island, your phone clattering to the floor again. He leaves it, leaping for his own phone, and ducks between the couch and the coffee table, heart pounding.

The doorbell camera takes a second to load.

Something’s wrong.

The live feed is mostly black with jagged light around the edges, shifting in confusing pixels. There’s something all over the lens.

The doorbell rings again; longer, impatient. Peter’s hands are clammy, shaking so hard he misses the two-way talk button on the first two tries.

“What do you want?”

Good. He sounds gruff and curt, definitely not nervous.

“Delivery,” the bored voice responds. It’s a man, but it’s not familiar.

“Just leave it on the porch.”

“Needs a signature.”

“What is it?”

“How should I know?”

“Wipe off the camera and show me.”

There’s a pause. “It’s bird shit, dude.”

“So get a tissue.”

“Look, guy, they’re timing me on this,” the voice says, sounding like a royally annoyed and underpaid delivery driver, and nothing more… sinister. “Signature or I walk with it.”

Peter approaches the door, wishing he had side windows to gauge a silhouette. He keeps the chain in place and opens the door, peering out.

At Leon Kennedy.

“Signature accepted,” Leon says in his normal voice. It echoes through Peter’s phone.

There’s a loud puff of compressed air, a horrible pain in Peter’s chest, and then the door kicks open and throws your ex-cubemate back, the snapped door chain scattering broken links across the floor.

The door slams shut.

Gasping like a beached fish, on his back on the floor, Peter presses his hand to the wet spot on his chest. He expects red, thick and dark and dripping. He sees blue.

“Wh-what?”

Peter looks up, right down the barrel of a gun, completely steady at the end of Agent Kennedy’s arm.

“Where is she.”

Kennedy’s wearing gloves. Fuck. Holy shit. He’s wearing gloves and he’s in Peter’s house and he’s pointing a gun at him and he knows.

“Wh-who? What the hell is this?” Peter’s voice isn’t gruff and curt anymore. It’s just a squeak.

Leon shoots him in the knee, another blue paintball that matches the burst mess in the middle of his shirt, that matches the gunk obscuring his doorbell camera. Peter howls, clutching at his knee, and Leon shakes the paintball gun, tossing it aside with a loud clatter.

“Damn, out of paint,” he says, and draws the real gun from his hip, aiming it at Peter’s head. “How ‘bout you keep playing dumb.”

“You can’t! You can’t!” Peter’s shrieking, shielding his face with his arms, cowering while trying to crawl away backwards. Leon barely has to move his arm to keep his aim. It’s pathetic.

“Tell me where she is.”

“Who!”

Leon shoots the floor next to Peter’s head; he screams and pisses himself.

The gun is silenced. Peter's neighbors aren't even gonna know to call the cops.

“Keep pushing your fucking luck.”

“Storage! Storage!”

“Where.”

“Public! Public Storage on 12th!”

“Unit.”

“414!”

“Keys.”

Peter’s hyperventilating, curled into a ball on the floor. Leon kicks his foot.

“KEYS!”

“Car! Car cupholder!”

Leon bends and grips Peter’s skull, cracking it on the floor. Peter falls limp, unconscious.

“Too fucking good for you,” Leon growls. He glances quickly around the living room, towards the open kitchen, spotting your phone lying facedown on the ground. He swipes it up, noting the ruined screen, and pockets it. Peter’s car keys are hanging by the door to the garage; Leon takes them and doesn’t return.

Unit 414 is a 10 x 15 concrete storage cell with an orange corrugated roll-up door. It rattles loud while Leon wrestles the padlock open; the door catches in its tracks halfway and Leon growls in frustration, shoving up under it. It slams open; the clatter echoes throughout the storage block, but no one else is out here.

He clicks on his flashlight.

It’s silent.

The unit isn’t empty; there are boxes piled inside, along with a pair of skis tipped over sideways, a dirty towel, a broken bookshelf demonstrating how the walls aren’t quite straight, a spill of magazines, a chipped ashtray.

It looks like a normal, innocent storage unit from out here.

Leon moves the flashlight, watching the shadows. The boxes don’t reach all the way to the back wall.

He calls your name.

Silence.

He steps into the unit. There’s a pathway through the boxes, the dusty concrete shushing under the soles of his shoes. He leads with the flashlight beam, leaning to see beyond the box walls.

It’s the edge of a naked mattress he sees first, shoved into the back corner, lying on the cold floor.

And then it’s your foot, your leg, you – and everything hits fast forward.

“Shit.”

You’re lying unconscious, in your work clothes, but wrong. Your blouse is cut in an upside-down triangle at the front, still tucked into your slacks at the back; it exposes your bare stomach, the bottom of your bra. Your slacks are unbuttoned and unzipped, flayed open, but not pulled down. Your underwear hasn’t been altered or shifted… but.

Bile rises at the back of Leon’s throat. Dried white stains stripe your bare stomach, clip the cotton of your waistband.

In his ear, Sherry speaks up.

“Leon? What are you seeing?”

He’s carefully turning your face where he can see it, tapping your cheek, saying your name. You’re not responding. He yanks his glove off with his teeth, pressing his fingers to your neck.

“I found her,” he says, hoarse. He lifts one of your eyelids, watches how your pupil responds to the flashlight. “I need cops and EMTs, Sherry.”

“Sending to your coordinates,” she confirms, tight. “Leon, how bad.”

There are zipties around your wrists, bound to the wall above your head; he cuts the restraint and brings your arms down slowly. He kneels up to tear off his coat, movements furious, jerky.

“You’d better send the cops to that bastard's house, too,” he bites out. “Or I'm going back for him myself.”

“Is she stable?”

Leon covers you gently with his coat.

“Yeah.”

He brushes your hair back. Your streak of silvers catch the cold light of the flashlight beam, as does the bruise on your forehead.

Leon has to steady himself against the back wall, clenching his jaw hard and breathing deliberately.

“Fuck.”

He should have reacted faster. He should’ve checked in with you the instant you didn't show.

He should’ve foregone the paintballs.

When the ambulance wails into the storage block, throwing flickering red and white shadows against the back wall, Leon breaks from his thousand-yard stare at the boxes in front of him. Under the coat, his bare hand rests over your wrist, one finger pad pressed to your beating pulse point.

It’s slow, but you’re alive.

You’re alive, and he’s got you.

“How did he know your address?”

You shake your head, picking at the side of your finger. You dig in a little too hard and wince; blood wells from the torn hangnail. You press your thumb over it.

“Followed me home? Hacked the IRS databases? Nothing would surprise me,” you say.

The officer notes this down with a cheap Bic pen in a little flip notebook.

“Where were you when he grabbed you?”

“My garage. It’s at the back of the house, off an alley. He ducked in under the closing garage door, which made it open again. That’s when I noticed him.”

More notes. She’s writing while you’re still talking. You lift your thumb from the side of your finger; blood beads up and you wipe it away, pressing the pad of your thumb back over it.

Your hands are shaking. You have your teeth clenched down so they don't chatter.

“Did he say anything to you? Can you recall?”

“He called me a little mouse,” you say, disgusted. “Something like ‘you can stop running, little mouse. I have you’.”

In the chair next to the hospital bed, Leon drops his head. His elbows are resting on his knees, his fingers threaded together.

“What happened next?” The officer flips to a new page. She wouldn’t have to, if it wasn’t such a tiny notepad. Pockets come bigger these days.

“I screamed ‘help’ and tried to run. He was already too close. He slammed me against the door to the yard and clamped something over my mouth, and then I don’t remember.”

“We’re working on collecting security doorbell footage from neighbors to help fill in the gaps.”

“I don’t think anyone has cameras in that alley. It’s no-man’s-land back there. Run by opossums and raccoons.”

The officer doesn’t note down that comment.

“Do you remember anything else?”

You wish you couldn’t.

You can still feel the zipties, plastic digging into your wrists. You can feel the cold, the concrete walls, his weight on your legs so you can't kick, the bite of a needle. You can still hear his disgusting voice, persistent like a mold stain on your brain.

Your blood’s rising.

“I remember he’s a fucking coward,” you spit. “A fucking piece of shit freak. He kept talking about transitions, shared life, perfect mates. I remember he pumped me full of sedatives and said it was because I was ‘too full of spark and didn’t yet know how to temper my flame’.”

You can tell Leon’s looking up at the heart monitor. It’s silent, but you’re sure the number’s climbing. Your heart is galloping, your breathing quickened, but it’s not out of fear.

You’re not afraid of Peter anymore. You’re too fucking angry.

The officer’s noticing the monitor, too. She closes her notebook and stands from the plastic chair, tucking it out of the way.

“Thank you for your answers. I know this isn’t easy,” she says, and hands you a card between middle and forefinger. “In case you need to reach us. But we’ll be in touch.”

You take the card, forgetting the hangnail situation. Your thumb leaves a small red stain, engraved with your fingerprint, on the thick paper.

“I’m, uh… I’m leaving town,” you tell the officer. “Staying with family for a while.”

“Good,” she approves, nodding. “I’ll make a note of it.”

She nods to Leon; he nods back. Then she’s gone, and it’s quiet.

You’re toying with the hem of the hospital blanket. They gave you a scrub top instead of your altered shirt, and the sleeves aren’t long enough to cover your wrists. The thin, dark bruising is too loud, even in your peripheral vision.

Your nose starts stinging; you turn your face away from Leon, your vision blurring.

The first tears feel impossibly hot searing down your cheeks.

“Hey.” Leon stands, touching your shoulder.

It breaks you.

You hunch forward, hiding your face behind your hand as you sob, like Leon won’t notice if he can’t see your eyes. He moves his hand to your upper back.

What he says next is ridiculous.

“I am so sorry.” It’s the tone. The ownership. The guilt.

You shake your head, because that’s unacceptable. This is not his fault, and he got you out. But words aren’t really happening for you right now, so you just turn and press your forehead to his chest. If he doesn’t read it as the exoneration it is, at the very least he’ll understand it’s forgiveness.

His arms come around you, light and easily shrugged off if you don’t want it. But it’s exactly what you do want, so you put your arms around him and hold on tight. It’s a relief when he matches you, his embrace strong and steady.

He doesn't let go until your sobs smooth out.

Unfortunately, that's almost immediate. It’s maybe the nicest hug you’ve had in years.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Do you have a ride?”

You nod, wiping at your face. He glances around the room and moves a box of tissues onto your lap.

“Got a friend taking me,” you say. Your face feels swollen and your head’s starting to hurt. There’s a cup of water on the bedside table; you drain it and set the empty cup next to your brand new phone, plugged in and charging. Leon's looking at it.

“Phone number the same?”

“I.T. says it’s all been transferred.”

He nods. “Good.”

Leon Tell me when you’re home safe.

Okay, mom

—

Home safe

Leon Roger.

Aaand you’ve already forgotten my name

—

Leon Blame the concussions.

I think you need a new job

=================

Leon Sitrep?

You’re lying in bed; it’s well past noon. You know this. You don’t care.

You open the camera and take a picture without moving.

Leon Cryptic.

Current view.

Leon You’ve been raptured?

You huff through your nose, opening the camera again and tipping it down to catch the top of the wall along with the blank white ceiling this time.

Leon That's a bold choice.

The wall color of your childhood bedroom is retina-scalding bright and saturated. You last painted it when you were 16.

Everyone's a critic

=================

Leon Status report.

You open the camera again. It’s more honest than texting ‘fine’. More informative than saying ‘breathing’.

Leon Did you shrink?

What?

Leon That bowl’s enormous.

Homemade soup by the gallon. That’s how you know it’s serious

It’s enough chicken soup to feed a small army, cradled in your lap on the sofa. Weighing down your lap on the sofa.

Leon Don’t fall in.

=================

Leon Hey.

Hi

Leon What, no picture?

You pull up the camera. You catch your brother side-eyeing you.

“Gross. What’s that smile about?”

“Nothing. Don’t move.”

“I don’t consent,” he says casually.

“It’s not your face.”

“My armpit is part of 'I'.”

“Me,” you correct absently. “Me armpit is part of I.”

Leon What the hell am I looking at?

My brother’s sweater

Leon The glove?

He’s dying my hair

Leon What color?

That’s proprietary information

Leon I have clearance.

Come back with a warrant

He doesn’t reply, so you tuck your phone back under your leg. Three minutes later, it buzzes against the wooden seat and your brother makes a louder, mimicking noise of annoyance while fitting a shower cap over your thick, sticky hair.

Leon didn’t respond in text. He sent a picture.

It’s a picture of a post-it note stuck to a desk, three words written on it in Sharpie. It makes you fucking laugh.

WARRANT What color

You’ll never catch me alive copper

Leon Shit, we got a runner.

You almost smack your head on the counter with the way the laughter whips out of you. You manage to take a picture of the color name on the gunked dye bottle and send it.

You’ll Never Catch Me Alive Copper

Leon Well aren't we smug.

=================

Leon Got an update on douchenozzle.

Do I want to hear it?

Leon Maybe. He’s in the hospital.

What??

Leon Yeah. Heard he was trying to ‘make friends’ inside.

TRULY how did he pass the psych eval

Leon Your guess is as good as mine.

=================

I’m braving bioweapons, Agent Kennedy

Leon What?

You snap a picture and send it through.

Leon Shit. Looks like a close call.

It's a mess at the back of your parents' fridge; a horrible, sloppy, moldy sludge, forgotten for weeks. Months?

You’re not sure how no one smelled it until now.

We’ll remember them for what they were, not what they’ve become.

Leon And what the hell were they?

Snacking peppers

Leon RIP

=================

Leon Looks like you have a new neighbor.

A picture drops in; it’s a name plate on a cube wall.

A name plate with a man’s name. Fucking fantastic.

A Thomas, not a Tom

Leon You wouldn’t like him when he’s Tom.

Have you seen him?

Leon Not yet. He starts tomorrow.

Any intel at all?

Leon Only speculation.

Hit me

Leon Boomer. Sweater vests. Former smoker. Replaced cravings with carrots. Raw.

Counter: Zoomer. Zero neckties. Hobby coder building dupe of the Pentagon Pizza Tracker called the Hexagon Hotwing Tracer

Leon Counter counter: Octogenarian. Trace of mothballs. Denture glue unreliable.

Counter counter counter: tank engine

=================

Leon Hey, you.

Hold on, getting stabbed

Leon That’s not reassuring.

“You mind if I take a picture? You’d be in it.”

The tattoo artist doesn’t even look up, bent low over your stomach and hyperfocused on the line they’re drawing.

“Go for it.”

You take a picture from an angle that hides your bared skin but clearly shows the tattoo machine.

Leon More reassuring.

You got any ink?

Leon Yeah.

Ok lemme guess. Leg

Leon No.

Shoulderblade

Leon Warmer.

Tramp stamp

Leon No comment.

Wait

Leon

Are you serious

Leon That’s proprietary information.

I was KIDDING

Leon Where’s yours?

Don’t change the subject

Leon I didn’t.

Say more right now!

Leon More.

You're the worst

=================

Leon What does this look like to you?

Did you leave that??

Leon I don’t sweat in Rorschach.

You pull up the image Leon sent, zooming in. It’s the bench of a weight machine, marked by an oddly symmetrical sweat pattern.

Looks like a damn Journey album

Leon Not Motorhead?

Ugh. You’re SUCH a gym bro

For a minute, no response. Then a screenshot from a music app drops into the text stream.

You collapse into hysterics.

Tip Toe Thru’ the Tulips with Me - Tiny Tim

PLEASE

Leon What?

If you workout to that I think they put you on a LIST

=================

It’s staring at you.

It’s over your therapist’s shoulder, bug-eyed and gangly, and your eye keeps returning to it. Like if you lose visual it’ll strike.

Before you leave, you ask if you can take a picture.

Leon What the fuck is that?

A giraffe? Long neck, dead giveaway

Leon I’m sure I’ve had to shoot something like that before.

It’s the demon on my therapist’s shoulder

Leon That’s in your therapist’s office??

I think her daughter made it

Leon Is it supposed to soothe your anxieties or replace them?

—

Are you up

You don’t expect an answer. It’s one in the fucking morning; you feel bad for reaching out. It took you fifteen minutes of warring with yourself to even send the text.

The three dots appear at the bottom of the screen and your heart lifts.

Leon Fast asleep.

Can I call you

Incoming Call Leon Kennedy

“You okay?”

“I can’t stop hearing him.”

“Talk to me.”

“I thought I…” you trail off, your throat closing up. You put your hand over your eyes, feeling the familiar sting in your nose. You wish it was less familiar.

“Hey. Shit’s not linear,” he tells you, and it’s not his gentle tone, it’s his normal speaking cadence. “Probably just got stirred up today. It’ll settle.”

“But I was okay,” you whisper. Tears burn their way down the sides of your face, silent.

“You are okay,” he says, certain. “Except for that fucking giraffe.”

You laugh, sniffing, cuffing away your tears. You’re not going to let Peter win. He doesn’t deserve the brain space.

“What’re you doing up?”

“Folding laundry.”

“I bet you aren’t.”

You hear the crisp snap of fabric whipped in the background.

“Weird thing to lie about,” Leon says.

“Weird thing to be doing at one in the morning.”

“Sleeping is predictable,” he says. “Can’t have that.”

“I’ve actually never wanted anything more.”

"Mm. You need a bedtime story?”

“What, you gonna read me clothing labels?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Once upon a time, 100% cotton. Machine wash warm, tumble dry low. Do not bleach.”

“It was a dark and stormy night, outer shell 100% nylon, lining 100% polyester. Spot clean only.”

He laughs, just a warm rumble in your ear.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he says. “100% latex.”

The laugh hits you like a punch – a gasp that turns into something deeper, from the belly. It shakes through you, building, unrelenting, until the air’s pressed from your lungs, until your stomach hurts.

“Jesus christ, Leon,” you wheeze, wiping at your eyes.

“That would be linen.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Passing out is also sleeping,” he says, a verbal shrug.

“But what if he gets me?”

“Who?”

“Dickens in a catsuit.”

“…Your therapist is gonna garotte me, huh.”

=================

The shelf cloud rolling in over your parents’ house looks straight out of the movie Independence Day. The sky behind it is glowing – light refracting off of a hail core.

You’re scrambling to help your dad protect the car in the driveway with an extremely Pinterest-DIY hail shield; it’s just a bunch of cheap pool noodles duct taped together. You’re tossing a skein of rope back and forth to each other – over the car, under the car – tying the thing down.

You both stand back.

It looks like the car has court at noon but the circus at one. The pool-noodle shield looks like giant powdered wig. For clowns.

The wind is picking up, whipping at your clothes, tearing green leaves off of the trees, blowing bits of trash down the street. You raise your phone and snap a picture of the sky.

Well, it’s been nice knowing you

Leon Shit.

Fat raindrops start hitting the pavement, leaving coin-sized polka dots. You run for the cover of the house, shepherded by your dad. The door is no sooner closed than the haunting wail of the tornado sirens start, accentuated by your parents’ weather radio screaming the same alert from upstairs.

It’s nothing new. You grew up in the Midwest. This is just a basement kind of afternoon.

Tornado sirens

Leon Deep shit.

They call me a hipster I’m so underground

Leon The nerve, to make me read that.

Don’t block me I might need help

Leon You’re beyond help.

=================

The sun is barely up and you’re already bleeding.

“Shit.” You brush sidewalk grit away from your skinned knee, flex your leg experimentally. It stings, but it’s not terrible.

At least no one saw you trip. You’re on a dozy residential street, curtains and blinds lining the windows like so many eyelids closed. Someone’s automatic sprinkler system is hissing quietly three doors down, the only noise beside the waking birdsong.

You take out your phone.

Leon What happened?

Thought I'd take up running. I think it’s going well so far

Leon The key is to use your feet, not your knees.

Ha fucking ha

Leon Should I call for evac?

Nah I'll just drag my sorry ass home

Leon How far a drag we talking?

Quarter mile?

Leon Oh. Going well almost immediately, then.

I was looping BACK

=================

Leon Hey. I’m going dark for a few days.

Damn. They’re making you do your job again?

Leon Pretty fucking backwards, huh.

—

Be careful

Leon Me? Always.

Tell me when you’re home safe

Leon Wilco.

=================

GRAFFITI

It’s spraypainted in big bubbly blue letters on the brick wall of a public park restroom, an “OMG” and “WOW” smaller accent words added on in yellow. It makes you laugh.

Your phone is raised, camera open, before you remember that Leon’s gone offline.

Your phone lowers with the subtle sag of your shoulders.

You rally and take the picture anyway. You can always send it when he’s back.

Because he's coming back. He'll be fine.

=================

You’re draining your battery with how much you’re checking your phone.

You’re being ridiculous, you know you are.

That doesn’t make you stop.

=================

Leon Home safe.

Thank god, I was getting bored

You're so relieved you're lying on the floor about it.

Are you okay

A photo drops in. It’s Leon’s arm in a bright white cast. One of his nails is bruised black.

Fuck. Guess not

Leon Been better, been worse.

Are you getting people to sign it

Leon Yeah with PINs and bank passwords.

Like you need that, Mr Drives-a-Porsche

Leon Are you signing?

I only do art

Leon Alright.

Leon As long as it’s not that fucking giraffe.

Put some respect on his name

Leon It has a name?

I didn’t tell you?

Leon No.

Extended Stamos

Leon I don’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t it.

=================

Leon Hey. There’s an opening in DSO reception.

You’d trust me to be people-facing??

Leon You don’t bite.

Right, just the barking

Leon Won’t be a cube farm.

Is there a posting?

Leon I heard they want it up by EOD. I can send it your way.

Ok yeah

Thanks Leon

=================

What’s your email address

Leon Signing me up for questionable newsletters?

Forwarding some info

The email address shows up as a blue underlined link. You press your thumb over it to copy.

Sent

The three dots appear, then drop out.

You wait.

The dots reappear quickly.

Leon I’ll be there to pick you up.

You smile.

Ok. I’ll let you know if the arrival time changes

Leon Roger.

=================

On terra firma

Leon Welcome back.

Baggage carousel 5

Leon Headed there now.

Not even off the plane yet

Leon I’ll walk slow?

Your leg is bouncing impatiently. The plane is still taxiing into the gate, taking its sweet time. The cabin sounds like an arcade with all the pings and beeps and buzzes and jingles from other passengers letting loved ones know they’ve arrived.

Your phone buzzes in your hand. It’s the family group chat responding; you open the thread.

A text banner appears at the top of the screen.

Leon It’s a ghost town down here.

The fuck happened to walking slow?

Leon In my defense, it was right there.

You can’t stop smiling.

—

Your heart rate picks up the second you’ve set foot in the airport proper.

It keeps climbing as you join the growing stream of other passengers, headed for the escalators down to baggage claim.

Your heart's hammering as you’re looking off towards the baggage carousels, the escalator carrying you down – but he’s not over there.

He’s much closer.

He’s at the bottom of the escalator, watching you.

When you lock eyes, it’s like a firework goes off in your chest.

“Hey, you.”

He meets you with one arm open, easy, inviting. His other is in a sling; he holds it out of the way.

The first time you hugged him, you were sitting up in a hospital bed. Standing like this, your chin rests comfortably on his shoulder without needing tiptoes, the fold of your arms hitting at his high waist, just before he broadens.

You fit perfectly together.

He wraps his good arm around you and gently bumps his head against yours.

Your heart settles.

“Okay flight?” He takes your carry-on and shoulders it, unprompted. You part the sides of the sling to peer in at his cast.

“What’d you use, invisible ink?”

“Security reasons.”

“I’m using Sharpie.”

“There’s one in my pocket,” he says. “Congrats on the new job.”

You smile, walking side by side towards baggage carousel 5.

“Thanks. Heard some guy put in a good word.”

He smirks, looking over at you.

“You didn’t need it.”

There’s a small gift bag sitting on your keyboard when you roll up to DSO reception. You expect a book of sticky tabs, some mini highlighters, maybe a stress ball or some chocolates as a welcome from the team.

You pull out a tiny glass giraffe. Its face is a little wretched.

There’s a folded index card in with it.

Extended Stamos is a hard name to beat, but you’ve overcome worse. - LSK

“Oh! Do you collect them? My niece collects elephants,” your new coworker says, booting up her laptop. She had introduced herself as Tish, and you like her already.

“I guess I do now.”

“Me, I just collect cat hair,” she says ruefully, brushing the front of her cardigan. Her ID badge comes unclipped and skids under your chair. “Oh.”

“Got it.”

The desk phone starts ringing; Tish tucks it between shoulder and ear to answer, mouthing thank you when you hand her badge back. She indicates the front desk behind you with a little tip of her head.

You turn to find Leon standing there.

“Good morning, Agent Kennedy.”

“Hey, new face.” There’s humor around his eyes.

Tish hangs up her call and rolls over.

“Kennedy, don’t tell me you need a temp badge again.”

Oh, you really like her already. Leon catches you biting the insides of your cheeks and he rolls his eyes.

“Just saying hi, Tish.”

“Okay, good. Now shoo. She’s got training to do.”

—

Leon Iron fist, that one.

Stop texting me. She’ll confiscate my phone

Leon Training over lunch?

Nope

Leon Booked.

—

Leon is the giraffe uranium glass

Leon No.

Leon Why?

I think he’s fritzing the company laptop

Leon Not him. I got him from a very reliable mysterious stranger.

Cool, so he’s just haunted

Leon Have you named him yet?

Yeah

Stratos Ferris

Leon Well, fuck. I think you did it.

Two Weeks Later

You’re laughing; you can’t fucking stop.

“Don’t, don’t, you’re getting it in your hair!”

Leon grimaces, looking at the back of his good hand. The sweat on his forehead diluted the bird poop and it’s a thin, even smear of marbled green and white on his skin, both forehead and hand.

And in his hair.

“I can’t… fucking believe…” You’re clutching your stomach, wheezing, hanging off of his arm. The sling is gone but the cast doesn’t come off for another two weeks; your Sharpie art is worn and faded, but it fits the vibe.

You’d drawn barbed wire winding around the whole thing.

“It’s already drying,” Leon says, scrunching his forehead. He walks off the main running path and picks a weedy plant with smooth leaves; it just adds more green to his forehead, the leaves immediately bruising and wilting under his fingers as he scrubs.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

You’re gonna pass out. You’re gonna pass out or piss yourself, or both. You have to pull it together.

“Sit, sit down.”

You point him to the nearest bench, standing from your crouch and wiping at your streaming eyes. You pull your shirt off over your head and go to use it to wipe his skin, but he stops your hand.

“Not your shirt.”

“Because we can use yours,” you say, sarcastic. He’d left it at the car, before you’d even started the run.

And yeah, he has a tramp stamp. You’ve been looking at it for the last two miles as you fell behind.

Out of bird shit trajectory. You’re not gonna rub it in. The point is to scrape it off.

“Let’s just go back to the car,” he says.

“You really wanna run another five miles with bird shit on your forehead?”

He just looks back at you, shuts his mouth softly.

“Didn’t think so,” you say. “Hold still.”

His gaze lowers as you focus on scraping the mess off his forehead. You feel his fingers touch the middle of your stomach, right under the hem of your sports bra.

“Never saw your ink,” he says.

It’s a dagger in sharp black linework. The point ends right above your navel.

You remember the pain of the tattoo needles, permanently staining your skin.

You remember what the tattoo replaces, too. Stains that washed off, even if they didn’t feel like they did.

Stains that you have an easier time forgetting nowadays.

“You like it?”

Leon runs the pad of his thumb from the hilt down the length of the blade.

“Yeah.”

Despite the hot day, there are goosebumps on your skin. And it’s just registered how close you’re standing.

Between his legs.

He looks up at you, forehead clean. His grey eyes are stark in the daylight; you can see the freckles and striations of his irises, crisp and clear.

He’s studying you, too. When he speaks, it’s quiet. Private.

“What happens if I kiss you?”

Your stomach flips over. Your eyes fall to his mouth, and you answer just as softly.

“Why don’t you find out?”

The first touch of his lips is soft, chaste, lingering. It fizzes through you.

He watches your eyes open again, his own half-lidded. He hasn’t pulled back very far.

“Yeah?”

You drop your shirt on the bench, threading your fingers into the hair at the back of his head, tipping his face and kissing him deeper. His good hand slides onto your hip, coming to rest on the bare skin of your lower back.

You break for air and he diverts easily, laying kisses along your jaw. Your hand clenches in his hair.

“Leon. Are you gonna get in trouble for kissing your receptionist?”

“You’re not mine,” he says.

You pull back to look at him. His lips are pinker, spit-slick and shiny. You fit your thumb in the cleft of his bristly chin.

“No, I think I am,” you murmur.

He dips his head, kissing the pad of your thumb, eyes on yours.

“Two way street,” he says against your skin. You pull lightly at his bottom lip, your stomach full of butterflies.

“I think you should take me home.”

His pupils flex, his fingertips pressing into the skin of your back.

His hand drops away.

“Fuck.”

“What? Five miles?”

“Five miles,” he agrees.

“Do you need some motivation?” You tuck your thumb under the band of your sports bra, pushing it up half an inch. He shields his eyes.

“That's gonna make it harder to run.”

Abrupt, you swipe your abandoned shirt off the bench and take off running down the path. You throw a villainous cackle over your shoulder.

“You’ll never catch me alive, copper!”

For a beat, Leon just watches you go, a quiet, fond smirk on his face.

Then he gets up, and he runs.

Down the path, your swept-up shriek turns into defeated laughter, echoing back down to the empty bench.

The dominoes fell, and fell again, and from where you're standing? You think you got lucky.

On AO3

Creepy incel coworker Peter is FULLY based on a Reddit story that I heard read on Smosh that had me crawling out of my SKIN; a real guy kept a real journal about a real coworker that was, somehow, worse than what I wrote here. I apologize to any real Peter Dotsons out there I tried to choose a name that didn’t belong to any real guys with Wikipedia articles 😶

Thanks for giving this one a read! Let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist when I post these fics 💚

"We want you to steal a cursed tool from the Gojo estate."

At the familiar deadpan voice behind you, the suave, flirty smile on your face freezes. You turn your head slowly, your hand tightening around a bottle of whiskey and a woman's empty glass. The woman in front of you – dark-haired, smoky-eyed, an absolute bombshell in a tight navy dress and heels sharp enough to kill – simply raises an eyebrow, less than pleased at the sudden interruption.

"Pass. I am currently indisposed," you drawl, and the woman's pink lips curve up into a satisfied smile. She leans closer to you across the bar, trailing stiletto nails up your hand and under your folded white sleeves.

Behind you, your boss stands in a pristine white suit, mouth twisting with its usual scowl when it comes to dealing with you. While you are constantly employee-of-the-month in terms of the prizes you ferry back to him, you are less than ideal in every other aspect. Lazy, arrogant, and flirtatious towards anything with a pretty face, you are everything except reliable. Conditioned by your good looks, perfectly-suited cursed technique, and staggering ability to never get caught, you have become something of a local star in your boss' underground bar. Everyone wanted a piece of you, and you welcomed it with open arms.

"This request is different," he reveals. "The payout's more than your last four customers combined."

That gets your attention – and the attention of everyone in hearing radius. Everyone's looking at you now.

The woman you were chatting up leans closer, switching her crossed legs. "More than the last four?" she whispers to you, and you tilt your head towards her. "That's, what, twenty million yen – at least?"

"You're the one who's good with numbers, honey," you reply. With a casual motion, you pour her whiskey on the rocks, and her fingers brush yours as you slide the glass over the countertop. "Mm... Stealin' from the Gojo clan. Not sure how much I want to risk fucking god himself noticing me where I shouldn't be."

"Aw, baby," she trails her fingers over your hand, lifting her glass and smirking behind it, "you scared?"

"Healthily, I think."

"Maybe slightly more than necessary," she teases.

"That blue-eyed bitch can spot a rat twitch from across the city," a patron shouts, probably one too many drinks in. Your other bartender, however, looks completely checked out of her job, probably nursing her own hangover. The man slams his beer down, making it slosh. "Don't fuckin' take it, buddy! You're our best guy – 'thout you, what'll the rest of us schmucks do? Scrape by, stealing wallets and watches? Pah!"

"Agreed," another patron chimes in, lifting her fruity cocktail. "The other Big Families are a walk in the park compared to the Gojo clan. You can't rely on its head being elsewhere for a set amount of time, nor can you fight your way out if you get caught – and you will be caught, it's Gojo fucking Satoru. Anyone who accepts is downright suicidal."

You hum, bobbing your head from side to side indecisively. "Oh, but twenty million yen... that number's absurd. Who'd even have that kinda cash lyin' around? You sure this ain't a trap, boss?"

"It came from a verified client. They've always been generous and the money is clean. It's real."

You whistle lowly. "Twenty million... for some hokey little toy? I can't say I'm not interested."

"No!"

"Baby, I was joking. You're not serious."

"C'mon, man, you'll fuckin' die!"

"You all shut it!" you bark, though there's no real heat behind it. The woman with the cocktail gives you the finger. "Listen, I came from goddamn nothing. If someone says my life is worth twenty million yen, even a loss is a gain. I've already made it far above my station." You turn to face your boss and toss your towel onto the counter, giving him a firm nod and a sharp smile. "Alright, big man. Walk me through it."

—

When you warp onto the high walls of the Gojo estate, it is disturbingly silent. The Zen'ins and Kamos had servants for every little thing, constantly working throughout the night even if it was just to fix the caulking or patch a scratched shoji door. Here, however, the only movement is the wind through the lantern-dotted engawas and the only sound is the trees rustling gently over the eaves.

Dressed in tight, dark tactical gear that's more fashion than function, you jump short distances by warping through space, an utterly silent pop of cursed energy splitting the air itself whenever you land. Even as you venture deeper into the estate, closer to the personal quarters of the clan's esteemed head, the grounds remain conspicuously, suspiciously empty.

Along the outer rings of the family home, you felt the cursed energy signatures of dozens of servants and unimportant clan members, huddled together and tense as bricks inside buildings. With each warp, you leave more and more of them behind, until the inner circle is completely deserted, a ghost town lit with swaying paper lanterns. Completely deserted...

Except for one.

You find the slender figure of the Gojo clan head resting against the edge of his desk, wearing dress slacks and a crisp white shirt even at midnight. The scene is like something straight out of a noir movie. The only light is from a tall lamp in the far corner of the room behind the desk, draping everything in a soft golden glow – the panels of the lamp cast sharp shadows that stretch across the ceiling. There's a prism in his hands, casually tossed from hand to hand and spun between his thin fingers. It's a twenty-sided icosahedron, bright white, with spikes on every vertex gilded brassy-gold.

It's the exact cursed tool you had been sent to retrieve, and it is sitting in Gojo Satoru's palms.

He tosses it into the air and catches it. Spins it like a basketball. He tilts his head in your direction – not enough to look, just enough for his voice to carry. "Took you long enough."

His voice is high, airy, careless. Playful.

"I call it being fashionably late." You step through his open doors and shut it behind you, your smirk widening as you rake your gaze appreciatively over his figure. Broad shoulders, tiny waist, legs that go on for miles. Now all that's missing is a pretty face – but, to your disappointment, he wears that infamous blindfold.

You lean against the solid wood doorframe. His quarters are built differently to the rest of the estate – here, the wood is darker, the walls heavier, the shoji doors patterned with gilded paint. It looks regal, distinguished, and completely, utterly boring.

"So," you chuckle, voice thick with amusement and a dark, drawling accent that no high-born descendant should ever like to hear. It speaks of common roots with a criminal twang. "You're my mysterious benefactor. What a strange turn of events this is, hm?"

"Not strange at all, really." Satoru stops playing with the cursed tool, turning around for the first time and setting the prism in the centre of the desk. "You're YN, right? You break into the other Families' warehouses, bedrooms – even their bathrooms, so I've heard. But never mine. Why is that?"

"Oh, you can call me whatever you like, pretty." You smile with an edge like a blade. "I never got paid for anything Gojo-related. Don't take it personally, sweetheart. You bought me for twenty million yen a few days ago and I accepted within ten minutes of hearing the offer. Not my fault nobody's brave enough to even ask about what you might have squirrelled away in this place."

You cross your arms over your chest, the black long-sleeve making your arms look huge. Same thing with those tactical pants and your thighs. His eyes are obscured by his blindfold, but by the way you snicker and lean back against the wall with a smug grin, something else must be showing.

"So, sweetheart, what was your plan? To let me steal that little toy and give it back to you later? I'm all for the easy money, don't get me wrong, but this just feels a little..." You waver a gloved hand mid-air. "You feel me?"

Satoru shrugs with an unreadable smile, idly pushing the cursed tool back and forth with the tip of his finger. "Word along the grapevine is that LN YN is handsome and debonair, with a strong moral compass. You don't kill anyone. The 'gentleman thief' made real."

You get the impression that he's watching your every move in razor-sharp clarity. His attention is almost suffocating, even through the blindfold. He tracks you like a wolf tracks a deer, every step you take measured and catalogued with a tiny twitch of his head.

You tilt your head and chuckle. "No, no. Ain't a gentleman, sir. I don't even think I have a birth certificate. And I certainly steal for myself, rather than for the thrill or with a Robin-Hood flair. Money makes the world go 'round, you know? Still..." You push off the wall and approach him with a lazy, cat-silent swagger. You hook your thumbs into your belt when you're directly next to him – on his side of the desk. "I like the rest of what you said. Now that you've seen me in the flesh, do I measure up to your dreams, Gojo Satoru?"

"Never said I believed what they said. Just that your reputation precedes you." He stiffens slightly at your proximity. He hadn't expected you to cross the implied boundary of the desk with such ease – now you are just a few inches away, smiling crookedly at him with a glint in your eye that promises trouble.

"You don't seem particularly worried about how you, as a curse user, are standing right next to me," he says, black blindfold giving nothing away. "You're not concerned about how I know your real name, either."

"Curse user, schmurse user. I like taking things that aren't mine – I'd be doing the same thing regardless of which side of the political world I was on. If all I want is money, they give it far more generously than your side does, and without all the bureaucratic nonsense. Neither do they care for my history, which tends to be a bit of a job-stopper in polite society. " You wave a dismissive hand. "Anyway, I like it when you say my name – sounds much better coming from a mouth like that." Your smile widens as your eyes trail down his slender throat and his exposed, pale collarbone. "Mm. Closer up, you're a pretty little thing, aren't you? I could just eat you up."

His cheeks flush pink. He crosses his arms over his chest – protection, you realise with a grin. The golden light shimmers and bends around his figure, so it's not like you could genuinely do anything to him, but you realise with delight that you've made him self-conscious. What a brag this will be!

You decide to push a little more.

"Need a hand with something, clan leader? My skillset goes beyond petty theft, but I'm sure you already know that," you purr, playfully leaning closer. You reach out, as if to touch his waist, but all you do is roll the cursed tool beside him back and forth, spinning it like a top. "I would be a wonderful trophy husband – dashing, clever, appropriately egotistical. Plus, I'm great with kids. If you need an heir at your big age, I could help with that, too."

Satoru's mouth twitches – up, almost. "You steal kids?"

"Only if the kid commissions it. But that's only happened once." You pluck the white prism off the desk and inspect it casually, noting all the glowing runes etched into each bone-white face. You've never seen them before. "Now, if I take this, will you resist? My actions will change depending on your answer, so choose wisely, pretty."

His smile takes on a cocky edge. "What, you wanna fight me? You'll lose, you know."

"Maybe," you reply, tracing one of the runes. Your sharp gaze notices the way Satoru immediately shifts, as if jolted but playing it cool. "But not many can say they've seen Gojo Satoru fight and live to tell the tale."

"Who said you'd live?"

"Well, you've commissioned me in particular several times, according to my boss. You've never met me at any of the locations except this one, which, incidentally, is the one you've paid the most for." You step closer and continue:

"I don't think you want to intercept me or bring me in, or you'd have done that somewhere more... low-key, where I'd be both more likely to accept and less likely to suspect foul play. Showin' up in your estate's personal wing, offering me a number I can't refuse... Well, I feel a proposition incoming. One that is, perhaps..." You press your hand against the desk near his hip, twirling the cursed tool in your other hand and brushing the strange, glowing runes. He shifts his weight and his knuckles tense. "Related less to my professional expertise, and more to something personal."

You lift your gaze from the prism to his obscured features, a sharp smile spreading across your features. "Am I right, Satoru?"

He stares back at you, unreadable. You press harder against the runes, making them glow brighter, and you watch, fascinated, as he stiffens visibly, catching himself on the edge of the desk before his legs give out.

"Maybe you should take a seat, sweetheart. You don't look too good." You reach out, and you are absolutely delighted when your fingers touch the smooth cotton blend of his high-quality dress shirt. With a pointed shove, he collapses into the chair, jumping slightly as you slam your boot down on the seat in the space between his thighs. His legs jolt apart and he lifts his head quickly.

Your smile widens into something wicked. You lean down, bracing against your knee. "Wanna tell me what this cursed tool does, baby? You seem... very sensitive."

He stays silent, his chest rising and falling shallowly. His lower lip pushes out into a pink pout. "Don't call me 'baby'."

"Why not? Not your style?"

"You call everyone that." He pauses regretfully, then, as your amusement grows and reveals itself in your smile.

"Oh?" you say lowly, squeezing the prism and adjusting your boot closer until the steel toe presses against his crotch. He jerks and grabs your ankle, grip tightening as you lean down and intrude on his space. Your gaze flickers down to his parted lips. "Now… how do you know that, sweetheart?"

He swallows. You hum.

"Has someone been watching me?" you lilt. "What a surprise. The untouchable golden boy has a dark secret. The strongest of our time, the peak of sorcery... dabbles in stalking."

His teeth grit together. "It's not stalking," he argues. "I was – I was watching your whole group of curse users. Reconnaissance."

"Oh, I'm not one to laugh, so don't get so defensive. You can call it what it is without lying. A man's gotta have hobbies." You take his chin in your hand, lifting his face. His pronounced Adam's apple bobs, and you gently press your thumb against it, feeling it shift. "Reconnaissance... for the man who could erase half of Tokyo with a yawn. Sweetheart, you're not subtle at all."

Your grip tightens and you tug him closer until your lips nearly touch. You know where his eyes are – you can see his brow furrowing under the blindfold. You stare into the deep black cloth with half-lidded eyes and a lazy smirk.

"You want me, don't you?" you whisper, shifting your boot to dig into the front of his slacks. He sucks in a breath and your hand moves to the back of his head, stroking the short shaven hairs of his white undercut. His hair is silky. "You orchestrated all this over months, gave millions of yen to the criminals you're supposed to eradicate, all to get my attention... Maybe I should have worked at a host club," you tease, sliding your fingers through his cloud-white hair. "Pity I'm too set in my ways to change professions now."

You lift your other hand, and his luxury silver watch gleams in it, unlatched. The mechanisms within are silent, and the face is a deep, opulent emerald green. It's the sort of watch that's styled like a bracelet, with a rectangular face in line with the edge of the band and an understated logo. Only rich-rich people wear this sort of thing – most, when buying a high-end watch, want to show it off as a high-end watch, not let it vanish into their silhouettes.

You lick your lips. You just love it when wealthy people become infatuated with you.

You tuck the watch into your pocket and Satoru doesn't even fight. He noticed, of course, as a press on the edge of his mind, but he couldn't tear his gaze from your face to even acknowledge it consciously.

His head spins. You're looking at him. You're finally looking at him.

His tongue feels clumsy in his mouth. "You don't need to work. Steal. I can... I can sponsor you."

"Hm?"

"If you only align yourself with curse users for the money," he repeats, "I can sponsor you if you work with us. Pay you more. As much as you want."

"Really? As much as I want...?" You trail off, and your eyes gleam wickedly. You don't stay quiet for long. "Thirty million yen instead of twenty. Then I'll think about it."

"Done," he replies instantly, and you reward him with a firmer press of your boot. He gasps, hips jerking. "Mmh—"

You chuckle and rock the toe of your boot against his clothed cock, leaning back slightly. "Good boy."

Satoru's grip tightens on your ankle – not pulling, just holding. His face flushes dark at the pet name, his lips parting, and he slides his hand up your calf, clutching your trousers. "Yes, fuck," he whispers, and it descends into a pathetic, whining keen as you step harder on his visible bulge, his knuckles going white. "Yeah..."

Oh, how adorable. The cutie has a thing for praise.

It's also hilarious. This guy is the one all your co-workers are deathly afraid of? The one you were afraid of? He's just a man. A man with a strange, misplaced obsession over little old you.

You feel like laughing, so you do. It's sharp, mocking. He looks up at you, teeth sinking into his lower lip, and you remove your foot from the chair, standing in front of him with folded arms. He sucks in a sharp breath when you relieve the friction on his cock.

"No, wait," he gasps, digging the heel of his palm into his bulge to mimic your boot. "I was—"

 "What, close? Already? I didn't know Gojo Satoru was so fuckin' easy. Go on, then," you chuckle. "Take your cock out. Let me see if it's even worth my shoe."

Biting his lip hard, he fumbles with his belt, slipping his hand in his fly and wrapping his fingers around himself. He's stiff as rock, arousal and desire creating a wet spot inside his underwear, and he pauses with a sudden clarity of his actions, hesitantly glancing up. What is he doing...?

You just arch a brow at him. "Well? I don't have all night."

Biting his lip, he pulls himself out with a sharp breath as the cool air hits his hot skin. His loose fist bobs instinctively up and down his length.

He's slender here, too, though decently long, and his length is a sweet, dusky pink. The vein on the underside is the most visible, but he's otherwise quite smooth. His white curls are neatly trimmed, and as he tugs his dress shirt out of his waistband, you catch sight of a lovely white happy trail disappearing under the hem of his shirt.

"Ah," you purr, dropping your arms and grabbing the back of his chair, leaning down to inspect him. You're close enough that he can count your eyelashes, the press of your presence against his own like a physical, radiating heat. He's sharply aware of every move he makes. "How pretty. You're just so pretty, Satoru."

He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood. His cock trembles, a thick white bead bubbling at his slit and sliding down the underside. "Th-Thank you..."

And he's awkward. You laugh aloud again. His throat bobs. You reach up and clamp the edge of your glove between your teeth, tugging it off and tossing it onto the desk. You wrap your bare hand around his cock, your palm rougher than his, and he nearly knees you in the back of the leg with how hard he jolts.

"Easy, tiger," you murmur, beginning to stroke him slowly. His hand falls away and you take over, sliding teasingly from base to tip and back again. He gasps, sounding winded. "There we go. Like that, sweetheart?"

He bobs his head, gripping the edges of the chair. You rest a knee on the outer edge of the seat and he reaches automatically for it, hand gliding up your thigh and twisting in the tactical straps wrapped around your leg. These straps actually have a function – they hold up the sheath to a dagger, also clipped to your belt to spread the weight.

Is he trying to ground himself? Cute. You lean in and press your lips against his, relishing the sharp gasp he lets out as your lips meet. He grips your thigh tighter.

His hips jerk as you nip his lower lip, hard enough to snatch an involuntary noise out of his throat. You soothe over the spot with your tongue and push it between his teeth, smiling as he willingly lets you in with a wrecked moan. Your tongues slide together, wet and dirty. Your lips smack. He leans up into you, chasing you.

"Ever gonna tell me what this cursed tool is?" you murmur, pulling back slightly to glance down at his cock in your hand. It twitches under your attention, already slick and dripping. "I'd love to know how it makes you so... responsive to my touch."

He swallows, tongue darting out over his pink pout. His chest rises and falls quickly, and you can see the furrow of his brows in the shadows of his blindfold. "Why'd you stop...?"

"C'mon, tell me. I can keep a secret." You peck his lips. "I'll keep moving if you tell me."

He gulps, gnawing his lower lip as you press your thumb into his leaky slit. "I-It's, um..."

Hesitantly, he reaches up and yanks the mouth of his shirt open, unbuttoning it down the centre. He pulls it apart and stares up at you, his lips bitten and parted.

Seared into his chest is a circular sigil. Strange ancient kanji line the inside, three layers of them, and each old-fashioned stroke glows with a supernatural golden light. They're written in the sort of calligraphy you'd see in museum pieces where the dynasty gets progressively more and more 'artistic' until the ink strokes resemble black rivers more than anything else.

You stare at the characters etched into him, fascinated, as the glow ebbs and flows with his breaths.

Below the markings, he's lean – muscular the way a dancer is, a gymnast. Strength in motion, the kind that never stops until it meets an equal and opposite force. You trace the character for 'heaven' with a finger and his breath hitches violently, his cock jolting in your fist.

"Oh, you're naughty," you whisper, playful and dangerous all at once. "Emotion enhancer, huh? The Prism. I looked it up some three years ago when it still belonged to the Kamo clan. It's meant for manipulation, good for politics the same way poisons are. You, though... you're using it wrong."

"I-It's not wrong if it doesn't come with a stated purpose—"

You grab his cheeks, yanking his head to look at you and not the floor. Your eyes trace his pretty features, a smile spreading uncontrollably across your face. "You're using it to make yourself fuckin' horny. Ha! Its creator must be rolling in the grave right now – to think their magnum opus of political control is being used to overload your brain with pleasure." You shake him slightly by the jaw, fingers digging in until his lips are forced into a cute fishy pout. "Slut."

He whimpers.

Honest-to-god, he whimpers.

"Oh?" You coo, endeared. "You like it when I'm mean to you, sweetheart? How sweet..."

Your cock twitches in your pants. You lean back, palming your bulge, and Satoru tries to follow you. You shift, straddling him on the chair while standing. He slides his hands up your thighs, staring up at you, watching your every move.

He hooks a finger into your belt loops. "Hnn..."

You chuckle. "Yes? What do you want, sweet thing?"

He exhales harshly, reaching down to stroke his throbbing cock. His head rests against your stomach. His body twitches. "I want... I-It's not fair that I'm undressed and you're not."

"Fair? Hey, you lured me here with the promise of lifechanging money. That's not fair. Why should I be nice to you in return?"

He swallows, another finger hooking into your belt and tugging ineffectually. "C'mon, 'm paying you..."

"So I should do everything you say because you're desperate enough to pay me for my body?" You continue to lazily palm yourself, and Satoru gasps as you twist your hand in his hair and pull him forward into it. His fingers stutter up your body, gripping your hips. He strokes himself faster, to your amusement.

"No, I just—"

"If you want me to do something, beg for it." You pet his hair. "Maybe I'll go easy on you."

Gulping, burning with equal parts shame and desire, Satoru opens his mouth. He squeezes his length in his fist. "Please. Please let me see you. I-I'll suck your cock if you let me," he whispers. "Please."

Fuck, it's a thrill to have Gojo Satoru actively begging for you. He's a far cry from the untouchable god everyone makes him out to be. He actually seems more touch-starved than anything – he leans heavily into your palm as you stroke his hair, gripping your leg to keep you close. His pout is pink and glossy, often trapped between his teeth, and his cheeks redden when you look at him, even more visible on him than any other person.

Man. You've always been a sucker for pretty criers. You have a gut feeling Gojo Satoru is one of them.

"Alright," you agree, kind. "Go on, sweetheart."

His hands shoot up and he fumbles with your belt and tugs open your fly. His throat bobs roughly as he glances up at you, his palm pressed against the heat of your bulge. You offer an encouraging nod and his teeth sink into his lower lip as he reaches in and fishes you out.

His face is so close it almost smacks him in the cheek. He stares at it for a long moment – lips parted, throat bobbing repeatedly. Carefully, reverently, he wraps his fingers around your base, his other hand around his own.

His head spins. You're bigger. Heavier.

"Does it measure up to your fantasies, Satoru?" you ask, smirking. He nods, small and embarrassed, and you pet his hair before gripping it tight, tugging his head to slide your cock under his blindfold. He gasps, whimpering softly as your cock glides back and forth against his cheekbone, pinned by the blindfold.

"H-Hey...!" he stutters, voice pitching higher. "F-Fuck, oh, shit – mmh..."

"Got a dirty mouth on you." You drag his face towards you, your fat cockhead dripping into his pristine white hair as it pops out the top of his blindfold. You hold him there for a moment, letting him squirm and gasp at the heft and heat of you pressed firmly to his skin, before pulling back and reaching down, tapping your tip against his parted lips. "Open."

Obediently, he opens up. You feel him tense as you push your thick cock into his warm, wet mouth, filling all the space from behind his teeth to the back of his throat – he gags slightly when it brushes his uvula, but he quickly swallows to suppress the reflex, choking more of you down. You groan lowly at the feeling of his throat closing around you, letting him bob his head at his own pace.

His soft tongue swirls around your length, and saliva gathers in his mouth as he moans and squirms in the chair. He sits in this chair when his clan's elders come in to ask things of him or update him on family politics. But now, after three months of learning your name and... and monitoring you at a distance, he finally has you, and he's sucking you off in the same chair where he is formally petitioned for aid like some king.

A shudder runs through him. The thought bounces around in his head. He's sucking off a thief – he's touching himself while being used by a criminal. He nearly comes early.

He pops off with a wet slurp and a shaky exhale. Before you can say a word, he slides off the chair and kneels at your feet, grabbing your cock and opening his mouth to take it in again. You stop him with a slight tug of his hair.

"Aw, cute – I like your initiative. But if you're not going to sit in your fancy chair..." You step around him and drop into it as if it's a throne, a gleeful smile stretching across your face. You settle down and curl a finger in the air, beckoning. "Hm. Comfy."

His cheeks darken and he shuffles between your thighs, reaching for your glistening length, and lowers his head.

His lips, warm and soft, envelope your dick with more urgency. He savours the taste, masking the pause with needing time to adjust, and the salt of your skin tastes even better than he could have imagined. You're warm and hard and real and the joy almost makes him delirious.

He licks your shaft from base to tip and swallows it down again, two-thirds of your cock disappearing in one smooth motion. You groan in pleasure and tilt your head back, combing your fingers through his hair and widening your legs. Greedily, he takes advantage of the extra room to shift closer, bobbing his head and determinedly choking down your cock.

The sound is loud in his large room, though muffled by the woven tatami mats and natural wood that make up the larger part of it. In a more modern room of a similar size and layout, the hard surfaces would only make his sounds clearer.

You keep yourself relatively quiet just to hear Satoru's breathy noises whenever he lifts his head and rests your thick tip behind his lips. One of his hands is curled in your open fly, and the other shallowly strokes the base of your cock which he cannot fit. His pink tongue curls around your tip, sliding along the leaking slit with a wanton moan.

Shit, you never want to forget a sight like this.

"Hold still, sweetheart." You reach into a pouch strapped to your chest and pull out your phone, smirking as you unlock it and swipe to the camera app. You lift it. "Smile, pretty."

To your immense amusement, he does – he pops off your tip and presses your length to his cheek with a flushed, shaky grin, pink tongue peeking out.

The camera flashes.

You let out a low whistle as you lower your phone onto the desk, a smirk on your lips. "Worthy of a lockscreen, I think."

He lets out a sharp, shaky moan at the idea your fellow curse users might take a cursory glance at your phone and see him like this. He wraps his lips around your tip again. He balls his fists in your pants and bobs his head faster, deeper, desperately. One hand disappears between his legs, and you laugh at him as he jerks himself off like something piteous.

But you are nothing if not magnanimous.

You shift your leg between his thighs, slotting your boot under his weeping cock. He pops off with a stuttered breath, squeezing your ankle.

"Hump it," you order, voice low with husky amusement. "Don't touch yourself."

Muscles taut with desire, the restraint to hold himself back, Satoru gingerly shuffles closer, pressing his tip to the smooth leather of your shoe. It glides back and forth, the leather smooth and cold, and he lets out a trembling noise as his cock drags against the laces, catching and pulling. Shamelessly, he watches his pre drip into the rough cords, soaking into them. Unless you swap your laces you'll be carrying him around everywhere you go.

That thought makes him so fucking horny he gets dizzy. The markings on his chest gleam cruelly.

He rocks his hips messily against your combat boots, quick and needy. His moans hum on his tongue, making you groan at the vibration. In response, his sounds only pitch higher, more frequently, as if getting off on your unabashed groans alone.

You comb your fingers through his hair and pull him down firmly, swiftly, to the base of your cock. His bottom lip presses against your hot, heavy balls as he gags wetly, choking slightly. His shoulders tremble as his nails sink into your thighs, shoving his hips forward against your rough laces.

Your head tips back with a low, pleased rumble, slightly breathier than the previous ones. You shift, legs widening an inch, and your fingers tighten in his hair as his hot, tight throat convulses around you each time he swallows you down. Saliva drips from the corner of his lips, stretched white around your length.

He's basically limp when you grip his hair with both hands and begin to fuck his throat, one hand curled around the back of his neck.

His blush disappears under his blindfold. That thing is such a pain... You can't even tell where he's looking. You want to be able to look him in the eyes while he unravels.

Hey, aren't you're the best damn thief in the country? You always take what you want. This should be no different.

You tuck a finger beneath his blindfold and pull.

His hands fly up a second too late.

His eyes are blue – as blue as they say, though speckled with silver when the light catches just right on his thick white lashes. They are also slightly red and puffy, and his blush goes all the way up to his temples – the colour makes his eyes stand even more from proximity alone.

He covers his face with square yet slender hands, a loud whimper vibrating up and out of his chest. He's still got your cock in his mouth and you hiss in pleasure, dick throbbing hotly as he grips your hand holding his blindfold. You can feel him trembling in shock, his palms warm and soft.

"Aw, don't want me to look?" you coo sweetly, and he just moans. "You gonna cry, pretty thing?"

He shakes his head as well as he can with your fat tip stuffed in his mouth. His tongue presses against the underside, licking and tracing your veins with his tongue. Discreetly, he hooks his finger over the top of his blindfold and tries to slip it back down.

You grab his wrist. "Trying to distract me? You know, I'm disappointed you even thought that would work. What's so scary about showing me that pretty face, hm? Or are you just shy?"

He sniffles, pressing his hand lower over his eyes. Your brows shoot up and the laughter that escapes you is loud and mean. He curls into himself.

"Shit! Are you actually crying?"

He can't say anything with your cock in his mouth, and you feel him shuffle closer to your leg, rubbing against your boot with renewed vigour. Every stroke is long and lingers against its peak. It's desperate, and you can feel his hips jolting short and shallow like he's trembling. You can't help but coo at him as you twist your hands back into his hair.

"C'mon, sweetheart. I'll fuck you properly if you let me see your face." You lean closer to his ear, lips curved into a mischievous smile, and pet his hair like a puppy. "I'll make you come as many times as you want, however you want."

His hips jerk against your leg. A hitched breath, a staggered pause.

He lowers his hands.

It takes your breath away. His face flushes an even darker shade of red, and his eyes are glassy with unshed tears. He fists your pants tightly, his soft little moans travelling up your cock and settling in your lower stomach.

"Oh, Satoru."

What a fucking view. He blinks up at you, trembling, trying to make himself look small, and his eyes widen slightly as you twitch in his mouth and pull him all the way to the base of your cock in one sudden, ruthless motion.

His eyelashes flutter and the whites of his eyes show as he chokes on your cock, gagging and twitching as he nuzzles slightly deeper into the front of your pants, trying to fit more in even when there's very little left. Eager thing.

You begin to fuck his face again – or use him to fuck yourself, more like. You drag him back and forth, hands twisted firmly in his hair, and his moans grow louder, more desperate, as saliva drips from the corner of his stretched-white lips and sweat gathers at his temples and the small of his back. Your touch is electrifying, your low groans and muttered praise only serving as a positive feedback loop that makes him need more, more, more.

He struggles to think. Your cock just fills his throat so well, as if you're made for him! How can you be more perfect? You couldn't if you tried.

His saliva drips down your hot, thick cock and soaks into your clothes. He's so wet. He can't control it anymore. He can't control anything anymore.

You twitch in his mouth. "Gonna come, baby," you husk, voice low and rumbly. It's rougher than your usual syrupy purr, perhaps closer to your real voice, and Satoru's heart and cock throb so hard it hurts. "You're going to swallow it all."

He nods fervently, leaning in, relaxing his jaw even more. His dick is soaked in his own pre, and another spurt spatters your laces as you thrust up into his mouth. You grunt, sharp and hungry, and Satoru feels you twitch as you stuff his throat with your fat cock one last time.

Hot come bursts down his gullet. He lets out a loud, high-pitched moan, almost a cry, that's cut short as he works on gulping it down, gasping between each swallow. His throat convulses greedily, sucking you down, and his nails dig painfully into your thighs. You pull him close, his nose brushing against your stomach, and the tears finally begin to roll down his cheeks.

He's shaking so hard you can feel his tremors in your own bones. The markings on his chest glow in central, rapidly-pulsing patterns. His thighs clamp around your calf, grinding messily.

When you finally exhale, leaning back, Satoru stays put with your cock between his lips. He swallows, bobbing his head dazedly, and thick white come trickles from the corner of his slick mouth, glazing his lips with it. Tears track down his high, aristocratic cheekbones.

With a wicked smile, you pick up your phone again. You whistle and snap your fingers, and like clockwork, Satoru's glossy eyes trail up to the dark eye of the phone.

You don't have to say anything. He does it all himself, even lifting his hand in a shaky peace sign in a motion that seems thoughtless, automatic. Probably his go-to pose in front of a camera.

The camera flashes. He suckles on your cock slowly.

You look at the picture with a laugh, turning it around to show him with a smirk. "Shit, you look like a fuckin' slut, Gojo Satoru."

His hair is a mess, bangs pinned back by his blindfold. His face is deep pink, eyes dazed and pupils blown so wide there's only a sliver of blue left ringing them. There are tears on his cheeks and creamy come smeared on his lips – lips wrapped tight around a thick cock that looks pornographically big when contrasted against his fine, pretty features.

And the peace sign... Fucking hell. Satoru whimpers softly.

You pat your thigh lazily, turning away to lock your phone and pop it back into its little pouch. You don't even look at him when you speak, careless and casually cruel. "Pants off, then come here."

He obeys as if he was waiting for your order. He scrambles to shimmy out of his dress slacks and sit in your lap. After making sure your phone is secure, you finally raise your gaze to Satoru, who actually quivers when your eyes meet his. It makes you smile.

"Look at you," you murmur almost affectionately, reaching down to wrap your fingers around his cock. He jolts with a whimper. It's swollen and rubbed raw and red, almost painfully so, and coated in sticky warmth. You tilt your head with a growing smirk and pull him closer as you lean forward to look over his shoulder at your boot, almost hugging him. 

Your boot is covered in come. The black leather gleams under the light, streaked with milky white. Your eyes gleam when you pull back to laugh in his flushed face. The sudden proximity of your bodies, the lack of space between them, had his head spinning, the indulgent scent of your cologne invading his brain. He presses his nose into your neck, gasping breaths inhaling your scent of leather oil and rich, almost chocolatey cologne. 

You tug his hair playfully, making him moan. "You came from sucking me off, huh? Shit, you're even more pathetic than I thought! You can't get much lower than paying your enemy to spend time with you, but somehow, you managed to do it. Aren't you embarrassed, Satoru? Aren't you going to apologise for ruining my shoes like a fucking whore?"

He makes a choked sound like he's about to cry. You pull his hair warningly and he gasps sharply, pressing his hot face into the crook of your neck.

"'M sorry," he whines, voice high and shuddery, "I'm sorry! C-Couldn't help it, jus' felt too good—"

You slap him across the thigh with a sound like a gunshot. He flinches and moans your name. "Did I ask for excuses?"

"No," he blubbers, grinding his cock pathetically against yours. It leaks so much. "No, 'm sorry, 'm sorry..."

"Good," you praise, and Satoru shivers, fingers curling in your shirt. "Want me to make you feel even better?"

His eyes widen. He nods hard, swallowing and leaning closer as if to kiss you again. You indulge him, meeting him halfway, and he lets out a happy little moan that's so cute you almost squish his cheeks. You satisfy yourself with squeezing two handfuls of his smooth, firm ass.

You slide a hand lower, your middle finger gliding against his rim. You feel him clench around nothing as you circle his hole, letting him whine into your mouth as you tease him lazily.

He pulls back with a sharp gasp as your fingertip dips past his rim. Your finger pushes into him, slick with his own come, and he arches his back and presses down against your body, trying to get that perfect arch to get your fingers against that sensitive bundle of nerves.

Knowing what he's doing takes away much of the secrecy, though. You pull back when he arches, follow him when he grinds against you, and it isn't long before he dissolves into pitiful whines that go straight into your ear.

"No, no, c'mon, please," he whimpers, trembling when your stroke the markings glowing on his chest. Each line is hotter than the rest of him, as if heat had split him open along every brush stroke and oozed from him. It was so raw, so beautifully vulnerable. You like this version of Satoru a lot more.

You hum. "Why should I listen to you? Convince me."

He bites the inside of his cheek to mask his growing frustration. His dick is so hard it arcs up towards his stomach, drooling from the tip with every beat of his heart. Every time your thumb brushes his rim, it twitches.

"You need to s-stretch me for your cock," he whispers, the words foreign in his mouth and so sweetly humiliating. "You're too big. You need to... You need to prep me so you can fuck me as hard as you want. Please put your fingers in me. I won't come, I promise, sir, I won't – o-oh..."

His voice falls abruptly off a cliff as two fingers slide into his ass. His eyes roll back as they curl and push into him, stroking his hot, gummy walls experimentally. He clamps around them, hips jerking, trying to fuck himself on them.

You grin, sleazy. "'Sir'? Oh, I like the sound of that. I'm not usually important enough to have a title like that."

You like it. You like it. Satoru files it away in the hot mush of his brain for later. For now, he tries to concentrate on not bursting early. It's easier said than done when you begin to grind against him, pushing your cocks together until his drooling tip leaks against yours, wet strings of pre joining his to yours.

He's so much wetter than you – not for your lack of arousal, but anything even close to normal pales in comparison to whatever he's going through. He's trembling on just two of your fingers, and when you add a third, he nearly sobs. His lower lip quivers and he gnaws on it to focus on the pain and not the pleasure of the burn, the stretch. You kiss his tears away and his head spins with syrupy desire.

"More," he croaks, gasping shakily as you pump your fingers in and out of him steadily. His hole squelches. "Please, more, more, gimme more so I can fit your cock inside me already," he nearly cries, fists bunching in the leather holster across your chest. He wiggles his hips messily against your thick cock, smacking them together. "I want it, I need it, please—"

"Yeah? How bad?" you tease in a low, husky voice, moaning as he slides his cock between your balls. It's delightfully filthy, and his tip spurts threateningly as you slap his pale thigh. "Answer me, slut."

"So bad!" he hiccups, body shaking as you tease your pinky finger against his tight hole. He pushes desperately against your knuckles. "I want it so bad, I want your cock, I want you – I've wanted it for months, please, I can't control it anymore, jus' need you to fuck me already," he moans, and his breath hitches violently as you press the first joint of your pinky inside him. He buries his face in your shoulder, hips rocking against you. It's like once he's started talking, he can't stop. "Yes, yes, yes, stretch me open for your cock, I-I'll make you come, you can come inside, i-if you want! Please, oh, fuck, y-you're stretching me...!" he gasps, hips jolting as you press four fingers inside him, curling and uncurling. Your fingers scrape his sensitive walls.

"You're so chatty," you chuckle, pressing your fingers in deep. He lets out a choked moan as you avoid that swollen button inside him that makes him come apart. His cock is throbbing hard, and you don't want him coming just yet. "And you talk like you're in a bad porno. You don't sleep around much, do you?"

Satoru whimpers. He doesn't respond, which is just as much of an answer as words would be.

You work him open steadily, though your hand quickens in the middle of your next sentence and leaves him gasping for air as his hole squelches loudly in the open bedroom. "That's okay – you must be a busy man, right? Not a lot of time to spend looking for connection." You curl your fingers, your palm slapping his skin with each gunshot-rapid pump of your wrist. He shoves his face into your neck, arms tightening around you.

You kiss his cheek absently, curling a hand in his hair. "That's the reason you're mixing business with pleasure, isn't it? You can't mingle with non-sorcerers 'cause of your Six Eyes. 'Babe, why do you wear sunglasses inside? Why do you wear a blindfold?' And that's not even mentioning exorcisms and your day job. 'If you're rich, you must have a good job, what do you do? Oh, it's old money? What's the family business, what's their name so I can google them, how'd they strike it rich?' If you can't answer all that, you'll just look like a yakuza with sensory deprivation and exhibitionist kinks."

He can't keep up with your words plus the hot sensation of your fingers pumping in and out of him. He moans.

"Funny that you chose me out of all people," you muse, relishing in the way he claws at your clothes like a desperate little puppy. "You could have your pick of sorcerers… yet you've decided the one you'll have is the criminal. Tsk-tsk-tsk. Naughty little thing."

"'S not my fault," he whines, hips jerking up with a stutter. He shifts higher on his knees and his hand flies to the nape of your neck as you dip your head and kiss his pink-flushed chest. You chuckle against his skin and run the flat of your tongue over his hardened nipple. His grip tightens. "Wait, n-not there—!"

You trace part of the sigil carved into his chest with your hot tongue. He drops his hips sharply and turns his face into his forearm as he bites down on it, muffling the cry that shakes through his frame. His body aches with a marrow-deep need, and he blinks back stinging tears. His chest heaves, every exhale punctuated by a breathy, pathetic noise.

You pull away from his nipple with a soft pop, licking your lips. You trail kisses up his collarbone and neck, ending up underneath his ear and making him shiver and lean into your embrace. He holds you close, cradling your head against his neck to keep you kissing right there. His skin tingles, and the harsh scrape of your teeth so close to his jugular vein turns his thoughts into static.

He barely reacts when you stand and lay him instead on his desk, pushing folders and unsigned reports aside. He parts his thighs and stares dazedly up at you as you lean down to kiss him – he props himself up on an elbow and wraps his legs around your waist, hooking his ankles over your ass. He whimpers, head tipping back, as you press your thick tip against his puckered hole.

"Please," he gasps against your lips, leaning up to chase your lips whenever you part for breath. His breathing is heavy, growing uneven when you tease his entrance with your tip – you never push in deep enough for it to pop past his rim, and his wet cock throbs with need, jerking against his stomach. "Please, I need it, sir, need it so bad, fuck me—"

In one firm motion, you slide your cock all the way inside him. Your balls press against his ass with a soft smack.

His lashes flutter. His lips part. His legs lock tightly around your hips.

His whole body jolts – once, twice, and then the first sound escapes him. It's tiny, broken – more of a hiccup than anything else. He buries his face in your shoulder.

He comes.

From the simple act of pushing your cock into him, he comes. You support the arch of his back, cooing condescendingly over him as his cock jerks and splatters thick ropes of white over his stomach, dripping down his sides in thick rivulets. It soaks into his white happy trail and he can barely speak, every inch of his brain imprinted with nothing but pleasure. It's like it's being carved into him.

"Oh my god," he whimpers, breathless as he presses his hand to his mouth. His legs tighten around you as you start to move, his leaky half-hard cock flopping onto his stomach. You flick the tip and his teeth nearly bite straight through his lip. "God! Fuck!"

"You can cry if you like," you chuckle, fucking him lazily. You shift your hands to rest on his hips, hiking his thighs higher whenever they slip. "I won't tell anyone. Promise."

The pictures are more damning than whispers that Gojo Satoru might cry during sex. Without proof it just sounds like jealousy or petty rumours, because why on earth would the big, strong, capable Gojo clan head cry at all? He's blessed.

Fuck, he can't imagine everyone's faces if they ever saw those photos. Him on his knees, happily sucking the dick of the criminal he's supposed to bring to justice. 'Justice' for curse users usually takes the form of immediate death, and Satoru is distraught at the idea that a cock like yours would go away just because you stole the elders' toys once or twice... a day.

Staring into your eyes, looking at those perfect kissable lips curved into a smirk, he promises himself that this is just to satiate his curiosity – and his need. One and done. With the addition of his little Prism, this single event could, theoretically, satisfy him for the next ten years – his memory's damn near perfect, so the mere recall of it would be like reliving a porno he starred in. Great!

Less great, however, is the fact that you're fucking him so deep that it's melting his brain, and he can't exactly remember something if there's nothing to put the memory in. He struggles to retain it all, the overstimulation even worse for someone like him. He's panting hard, clutching your shoulders, as you angle your hips and drag your cock against his prostate.

He makes an inhuman noise and his arm buckles under him. He slumps against his desk, arms swinging wide, scrambling for grip – and an ornate porcelain pen cup – probably a gift from some event he can't be bothered remembering – tips off the edge and shatters with a sound that cracks the sex-thick air like a whip. You cock plunges into him and he squeezes the edge of his desk, knuckles white as your thighs smack rhythmically against his ass.

"Why'd you go and do that, huh?" you pout, dragging your hands down his chest and stomach, caressing him. You run your hands down his thighs and hook them smoothly over your elbows, leaning forward. He moans sharply as you press into him at the new angle. "What a mess you've made."

You run a finger through the creamy glaze splattering his stomach. His cock jumps.

"Guess it just means I'm doing a good job, then," you hum, and he nods emphatically, his head feeling heavy and dumb. He whines, sniffling, as his body begins to feel the burn. When you glance down, leaning back, his rim is puffy and red, thoroughly fucked open. If he wasn't able to heal himself, he'd be walking funny for days.

"Feels good," he gasps, "feels so good..."

You look delighted. You lean down and kiss him deeply, and his moans grow louder, like wounded little whines, when you nibble a trail of hickeys down the side of his neck. His nails scratch stinging lines into your back as you grind your hips into him, letting him feel the entire length of you filling him up.

"Doing so well for me, sweetheart," you murmur as your cock twitches inside him, pressing against his slick, gummy walls. "Yeah, just relax. If you wanted pleasure, I can give you that."

Suddenly, Satoru's head lifts and he tries to prop himself up on an elbow, pushing at your chest. He tries to speak, but all that escapes are gasped little moans.

A knock at the door.

"Gojo-sama? Do you need anything?"

A servant. They must have heard the cup shatter.

Satoru nearly bites through his lip. He presses a shaking hand to his mouth, pushing more insistently at your chest, but you do not give – you slow your movements into something torturous, leaning down to whisper in his ear.

"Answer them, baby."

His brow furrows in adorable dissatisfaction at the petname – what he considers your 'default', if you will. He opens his mouth to refuse, but you knock his voice from his lungs and he instead lets out a tiny, swallowed squeak, legs tightening briefly before trying to get you to pull out.

He swallows roughly, nails digging into your skin as he meets your amused gaze, his face burning with heat.

"I'm fine," he calls back, his voice breathy but otherwise shockingly steady. "You can leave."

You lower your head back to his throat, pleased by his farce. You kiss along his jaw, beginning to move your hips again. His breath stutters in your ear.

"Are you certain...? I thought I heard something break."

You grab him by the waist and turn him over, bending him over the desk. He stares back at you, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked, as you slip your cock back in with a silent exhale. Relishing in each tight, silky stroke, you fuck into his ass slowly, making him slap a hand over his mouth and his grip turn white-knuckled on the edge of his big desk.

Another knock. "Gojo-sama?"

You pick up the pace, huffing softly as you press your palm to the small of his back – his pale, flushed skin shines with sweat. Life is so unfair – you would love to lick it off him, but you can't if you want to remain buried in his hot, tight hole.

"D-Don't worry about it!" he bites out, blue eyes fluttering shut when you kiss the nape of his damp neck. His thighs quiver as you use your body and press him into the wood, your dick sinking deep into his eager hole with a soft squelch. "I'll clean it up. Just go!"

You grab his wrists and pin them beside his head, making his eyes widen further. He shakes his head fervently, unable to swallow his sharp gasps each time your cock kisses his swollen prostate. He presses his thighs together and squirms, bucking back onto your cock. You chuckle quietly into the crook of his neck, nipping dark bruises into the thin skin.

"I can send for someone to clear it for you. Such a menial task does not befit you."

Tightening your grip on his wrists, you slam your cock in with a startling wet plap of skin-on-skin. You press him into the desk and he lets out a choked gasp, eyes rolling back as his knees buckle – he tries to catch himself but only manages to push himself deeper on your cock. His heart pounds like a war drum as his weak knees knock together with your thrusts, all too rough and hard when someone is right by the door.

Oh, god. Oh, god.

The floorboards creak as if they're stepping forward to open the door. Satoru flails slightly, hands groping for purchase – he only manages to make you bite his shoulder in punishment. He whimpers through kiss-swollen, pressed-together lips.

"Don't come in!" he shouts, panicked. "I – I have a migraine! Just leave."

"Gojo-sama—"

"Now!"

A pause, then hurried footsteps receding down the hall. As soon as they turn the corner at the end of the hall, Satoru lets out a cry and jolts forward, releasing a string of pained, relieved moans as copious amounts of come splatters the desk below him. His moans turn high and whiny as you pick up the pace, fucking him hard enough to shove his dick into the hard desk surface and smearing his spend all over himself.

"Y-You asshole," he sobs out as his bliss peaks, trembling as his eyes well up. He sniffles, hair bouncing with every thrust. "Oh, oh, oh – no, stop, 's too muh-much...!"

"The view from up here says it's not enough," you tease, and he moans in distress. "You did so well, sweetheart. Such a good boy f'me... so good at being pretty and quiet, hm?"

The praise goes straight to his dick. It spurts again, one thick distinct rope of white, and he starts to sniffle, quivering every time your cock bullies his prostate, your thick tip punching it relentlessly.

He can barely moan, let alone think. Your hot, velvety balls press against his skin, and he feels them twitch as you grind against the curve of his ass.

"C-Can't breathe," he whimpers, his cock drooling a puddle onto his desk. "'S too big – oh fuck, oh, fuck—! Sir!"

"What, am I gonna fuck you to death?" you laugh, groaning as he tightens around you. You grab the meat of his ass, slapping it cruelly, and curl a fist in his white hair to yank his head back. You wrap your hand around his bared throat, making his body arch prettily against you, his ass pressing higher. "Think you can come again?"

"No," he cries. "Ah, ah... Too much..."

You kiss him over his shoulder. His white lashes flutter as you pound him into the desk, his ass rippling obscenely. His back is a broad, flushed, sweat-slick canvas, defined muscles flexing beneath the skin. Blank – for now, you think, amused.

You slide your hand up his throat, gripping his jaw, forcing his spine to arch further. Every time your cock slams into him, his cock leaks and his glowing markings pulsate so deep it burns in his marrow. His moans are constant, breathy, hiccupped.

"I think you've got one more in you, sweetheart," you murmur as you lean down, voice rough with lust. His hand grasps blindly at your hip, nails digging into you. "I want you to come for me."

"I can't," he moans, creamy pale thighs shaking with every jolt of white-hot bliss you send up his spine. "'M done, nnh, I can't anymore—!"

"Aw. Your pretty little cock's running empty? You can do one more. Just one more," You pout and reach down to grab it, making him sob as you tighten your fist and begin to stroke it – up and down, up and down. He's a mess of precome and his creamy spend, splattered on his tummy and the grand desk below him. Tears glitter along his lashes as you pump his throbbing dick and fuck him deep at the same time, leaving him nowhere to run to escape. Forward into your fist, backwards onto your cock, and your warm lips on his. He squirms helplessly, the muscles of his defined back rippling with the effort to keep himself up.

His lips are swollen and sticky like a summer dream. He makes even this debauchery look pretty. When your finger slides down his slick slit and presses into the hole, he starts to cry.

It's not loud, like you'd expected. His shoulders shake as he gasps and moans your name, greedily pushing back onto your length and whining through his tears when his skin meets yours with a filthy obscene clapping. He's cute – trying to muffle his sobs, pressing his hand to his mouth as he blinks glassily up at you, brows furrowed in the sweetest little teary expression. You shift your hips and ram into his slick hole, and the way his slender fingers slip and part over his pink lips is something straight out of an art gallery. Tears run down his blazing cheeks.

You smirk. You were right. He is a pretty crier.

When your pace grows heavier, hungrier, he realises through a distant haze that you're close. His hole is raw and achy, so deliciously sensitive, and you groan against his skin, dipping your head to bruise the shape of your teeth into his red-flushed neck. The pleasure is pain, and the pain is pleasure. He sniffles weakly, punched-out little gasps and moans all that he can manage as the feeling engraves and buries itself directly across his snap-firing neurons.

His voice is slurred. "Mmgh – c-c'mming—"

He jolts against you as he spurts over your palm, fucking the wet hole of your fist. He's messy, greedy, dizzy, and you whisper husky praise into his ears that soothes the white-hot burn of overstimulation behind his teary eyes.

Those blue eyes roll back as you slam him into the table, letting out ragged groans that carve themselves a home in his consciousness. His arms buckle, and his fine wood desk is cold against his fiery cheek. Your panting is hot and sharp against his ear. He won't be forgetting these any time soon.

With a sharp, heavy succession of thrusts, he feels you pour inside him, thick and creamy and searing-hot. He can barely whimper before you pull out abruptly and spurt thick ropes over his ass and back, fisting your cock with the hand dirtied with his come. His puffy, abused hole winks up at you, his hips weakly canted up to display the stretch of him. A thin line of white dribbles from his rim, and he grips the edge of his desk to keep himself from collapsing as his knees give out without your hands to keep his hips up.

A wide, blissed-out smile stretches across Satoru's flushed, tear-streaked pretty face. Loose, lazy moans slip from his silky pink lips with every spurt of your cock across his ass and back, claiming him as yours. His chest heaves, his expression almost giddy as he lays his head on the cool wood, his body aching adoringly with the remnants of your affection.

He hears you rustle around behind him, fixing up your clothes. He lies there, spent, shaking, trying to remember how his tongue works in his mouth. He presses a trembling hand to his chest and smears the pine-soot ink off his chest, breaking the seal – with just a few rubs, the circle breaks and its entire molten-gold appearance sputters and flickers out like a snuffed candle. What remains is simple black ink, the sort used for calligraphy, painted onto his toned torso in the shape of each circle and rune.

"Fuck," he whispers hoarsely, every gasping inhale making his muscles tense. "Holy fuck…"

"Was it?" you tease, pressing yourself over the line of his body. You curl your fingers in his hair, tugging his head up to roll back against your shoulder, and Satoru's eyes glitter as you extend your phone in front of you. You kiss him deeply, making him let out a ragged moan as his tongue runs along the line of your teeth, and the phone camera lets out a cheerful snap. You let the kiss linger for a moment longer before you pull away, lips smacking with a wet, pornographic sound.

"You're just perfect, aren't you?" you whisper with a growing, fascinated smile, admiring him. He lets out a raspy laugh and kisses you again with a lovesick smile, reaching out to personally take a burst shot of photos on your phone.

"For posterity," he whispers, stroking your cheek. You kiss his neck with a chuckle and he lets you slide out of his grasp, his raised hand falling gently to the desk with a soft thump. He watches through half-lidded eyes as you fix your harness and slide your gloves back on, and you step into his blind spot, passing over his other side.

"Wait."

You pause a few steps away with the Prism in hand, almost perfectly composed except for your untucked shirt and kissed lips. "Yes, sweetheart?"

He pushes himself up, lazily draped over his desk. "Where are you taking that?"

You flash him a sharp smile. "Out. Quick vacation never hurt anything." You tap it gently with your knuckles. "I still have a contract to fulfill. It needs to travel from the Gojo estate into the hands of my client… and I do so love a personal hand-off." You wink and step backwards away from him, tossing the Prism over your shoulder and not bothering to catch it. A large violet portal opens up directly behind you on the floor and swallows it whole, vanishing with a soft burbling murmur.

You offer a lazy two-fingered salute, continuing to walk backwards until the heel of your boot tips over the abrupt ledge of the portal. "So don't worry, darling. I'll be seeing you around far sooner than you think."

With that, you tip backwards into your portal, and you vanish from sight with nary a whisper. The portal closes without so much as a ripple of cursed energy, and Satoru is left alone and naked in his quarters, another man's seed dripping from his hole and down the curve of his ass. Lazily, he sinks his teeth into his lower lip as he pulls his phone out of a drawer, turning it on to see a red dot residing in a downtown area of Tokyo, blinking slowly.

A soft, breathy laugh echoes in the traditional room. His eyes gleam with a silvered infatuation, his lashes fluttering as he presses the nail of his thumb against his rosy, kiss-swollen lower lip in a caricature of shyness. "Yes," he murmurs, his tender gaze sharpening into something like obsession as the dot blips four blocks over to a bar and restaurant street in a single pulse. "You will be."