☆

he gets depressed and pouty when he finds out you have been reassigned to supervise someone else’s mission and left him stuck with ijichi.

the first thing gojo hears when the channel connects is not you.

“agent gojo, this is mission supervisor ijichi. do you copy?”

gojo freezes halfway through checking his weapon—one hand mid-motion, the other holding a sleek black pistol he’d been spinning lazily between his fingers. the spinning stops instantly. the gun goes still. his whole body goes still, like someone just told him the universe ran out of strawberry milk.

slowly, very slowly, he presses the comm in his ear. the voice coming through it is wrong. all wrong.

“say that again.”

“this is ijichi. i’ll be supervising your mission today.”

gojo blinks once. twice. processes the information like it's in a foreign language. then leans back against the concrete pillar of the underground parking structure he’s infiltrating, letting his head thunk softly against the cold stone. the impact sends a dull ache through his skull but he barely registers it.

his excitement— that little spark that usually ignites right before a mission, the one that comes from knowing he’ll hear your voice in his ear, guiding him, grounding him— all but fades away immediately. it drains out of him like water from a cracked cup. irritation takes over, settling into his bones, making his shoulders tense.

“no you’re not.”

a pause. on the other end, ijichi probably blinked too. probably checked his screen to make sure he had the right channel.

“pardon?”

“you’re not my supervisor.” gojo’s voice is flat. not angry, exactly. just... disappointed.

“channels have been reassigned this morning. your usual supervisor is overseeing a different operation.” ijichi’s voice is careful, professional, the way someone might speak to a very large animal they’re not sure is tame.

gojo stares at the ceiling for a few seconds. the concrete above him is stained with decades of exhaust fumes and moisture. there’s a crack running from one corner to the middle, splitting the grey into uneven halves. he follows it with his eyes, tracing its path.

he contemplates throwing himself under the nearest vehicle. a dusty sedan, parked and forgotten, its tires slightly deflated. it looks inviting. anything to escape this reality where your voice isn’t waiting for him.

“no,” he says again, softer this time, as if maybe if he says it quietly enough, reality will rearrange itself to accommodate him.

“agent—”

“put her back.”

“i’m afraid that isn’t possible at the moment.”

he sighs long and dramatically into the mic, the kind of sigh that carries years of theatrical suffering. his head falls back against the concrete pillar, eyes closing behind his sunglasses. the garage is dim and cool, smelling of old oil and damp stone, and none of it matters because your voice isn’t in his ear.

“ijichi.”

“yes.”

“with all due respect.”

“yes?”

“i don’t want you.”

there is a deeply uncomfortable silence on the line.

miles away, in the control room, you rub your temples. ijichi seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown already— which might just be a record for gojo, even by his standards. through the secondary feed, you can see ijichi’s vitals spiking slightly, his breathing pattern going uneven.

because unfortunately, you can hear everything.

your headset is connected to both channels while you coordinate the other mission. it’s standard procedure, just background noise and monitoring. your main screen shows team three’s positions, their biometrics, their extraction timeline. but in your peripheral, in the corner of your consciousness, gojo’s voice cuts through clear as a bell.

and yes, gojo is absolutely refusing to cooperate.

you’re pressing your lips together so hard they’re turning white because if you laugh, everyone will know. your hand hovers over the mute button, but you don’t press it. you tell yourself it’s because you need to monitor for emergencies. you tell yourself a lot of things.

back in the garage, gojo crouches near a parked van. the concrete smells of afternoon rain and tyres, that specific urban dampness that seeps into everything. a single fluorescent light flickers overhead, casting unstable shadows across the concrete. he’s supposed to be moving. he’s not moving. his fingers drum once against his thigh— impatience, boredom, something else he won’t name.

“camera rotation every twelve seconds,” ijichi says carefully, consulting his screen. you can hear the way his voice goes up at the end, like he’s asking instead of telling. like he’s already given up on being taken seriously. “move when the hallway clears.”

gojo doesn’t move.

“…agent gojo?”

he sighs again, long and put-upon. his breath fogs slightly in the cool air. he watches it dissipate.

“this is so weird.”

“what is.”

“your voice isn’t right.”

he imagines ijichi, alone in his control room, looks like he regrets his entire career choice. the fluorescent lights probably buzz there too. his shoulders are likely hunched up around his ears, his glasses fogged slightly from the stress-sweat that’s definitely beading on his forehead. ijichi probably has a coffee mug somewhere, half-empty and cold, with some motivational slogan about teamwork that mocks him now.

that sight—pathetic as it is—isn’t as appealing as the thoughts and images of you that keep slipping into his head instead. you in your chair, probably. the way your voice goes soft when you’re tired. the tiny breath you take before saying his name. he shakes his head sharply, trying to dislodge the distraction.

“my voice?” ijichi’s voice cracks slightly on the second word.

“yeah.” gojo tilts his head like he’s actually trying to analyze the sound. “too nervous.”

“nervous.”

“and you breathe weirdly.”

there is a horrified pause. ijichi checks his own breathing unconsciously, fails to stop the shakiness. on the feed, you can see his hand pressed to his chest, the rise and fall too quick, too uneven.

“i do not breathe weirdly.”

“you do compared to her.” gojo’s voice softens almost imperceptibly on the last word.

“compared to—”

gojo cuts in, rolling his eyes even though no one can see. the motion is habit now, reflexive when he thinks about you and all the ways he can’t have what he wants.

“control?”

the word comes out softer than usual, like he expects you to answer. he’s reaching for something familiar in the dark and finding empty air.

you don’t answer.

because you’re busy coordinating a much more dangerous field team across the city, and you have a job to do. your fingers are flying across three different keyboards, eyes darting between twelve camera feeds, earpiece buzzing with updates from agents who actually need you right now. there’s smoke somewhere in the building they’re infiltrating—contained, but still—and someone’s heartbeat monitor is spiking, and you’re calculating evacuation routes while simultaneously tracking two separate extraction teams.

because you can’t just drop everything every time he says your name.

no matter how much some small, stupid part of you wants to.

no matter how his voice sounded when he said it—control—like he was reaching for something familiar in the dark and finding empty air.

so ijichi clears his throat, straightening his tie even though no one can see. his forehead is slightly sweaty. he’s been doing this job for twelve years and he’s still not used to gojo.

“the hallway is clear.”

gojo finally moves, but he’s grumbling the whole time.

twenty minutes into the mission, ijichi realizes something terrible. gojo is technically following instructions.

but he’s doing it with the energy of a cat being forced into a bath. or a very tall toddler being told he can’t have dessert. every move is perfect— silent footsteps, precise timing, textbook technique. every angle precise. every objective met.

but the commentary never stops.

“she would’ve told me about that guard sooner.”

“i told you immediately.”

“yeah but the timing was different.” gojo pauses to check a corner, head tilting like he’s listening for something only he can hear. “she would’ve said it, like, half a second earlier. you know? so i’d have more time to—” he gestures vaguely with one hand, “—be cool about it.”

“the timing was optimal.”

“mm. disagree.”

ijichi checks his notes frantically, looking for something, anything, that might explain this.

“based on what.”

gojo hops over a railing— elegant, effortless. he lands silently on the other side, crouching for just a moment before straightening up.

“i don’t know. vibes or whatever.”

ijichi nearly disconnects the headset. he can hear his own heartbeat now, thumping uncomfortably in his ears. he’s pretty sure that’s not good for someone in his position. and his age. he’s thirty. he has a wife who keeps telling him to switch to a desk job with less stress. he’s starting to think she might have a point.

—

in the other control room across the building, you’re trying very hard not to laugh, because you can hear him.

you know you shouldn’t be listening.

but the system keeps his channel open in your peripheral feed, a little green light blinking in the corner of your main screen. and every few seconds, despite yourself, despite the chaos of your own mission, your eyes flick to it.

and unfortunately, you know exactly what he’s doing.

gojo is pouting.

you’ve never seen him pout— not in person— but you’ve heard it in his voice enough times to map the expression perfectly. the way his lips would push out slightly, soft and petulant. the way his eyebrows would draw together, not in real frustration but in that performative way he does when he’s pretending to be wronged. the way he’d slump just a little, shoulders curving inward, like a disappointed golden retriever who can’t understand why you won’t throw the ball.

you press your fingers to your mouth, hiding a smile that’s trying very hard to escape.

the other mission is going fine. the smoke is under control. the heartbeat monitor is stabilizing. the extraction teams are on schedule.

you’re definitely not distracted.

(you’re a little distracted.)

your earpiece crackles with an update from team three. you respond automatically, professionally, your voice steady and calm. no one would ever guess that half your brain is currently two miles away, imagining a grown man in a tailored black suit making a face like a child who was told no more candy.

the green light blinks.

gojo says something else— you can’t quite catch it, just the warm murmur of his voice through the background channel— and ijichi makes a sound like a dying whale.

you bite your lip so hard it hurts.

definitely not distracted.

—

the mission finishes smoothly anyway, of course it does.

gojo is still gojo— ridiculous, impossible, annoyingly perfect at his job. the target is secured, the building is clear (every corridor checked, every shadow empty). extraction is clean (no alarms, no witnesses, no evidence he was ever there except for a single white hair caught on a door frame that no one will ever find).

ijichi lets out the biggest sigh of his life. it rattles through the headset like a small earthquake, like the weight of the past forty minutes finally collapsing his lungs. his shoulders slump in his chair. his glasses have fogged up twice. he’s pretty sure he needs a vacation. and maybe therapy.

“mission complete,” he says, and his voice cracks slightly on the second word.

“cool.” gojo’s response is flat.

“good work, agent gojo.”

“thanks.”

silence stretches. ijichi checks his screens, his readouts, his ever-dimming hope for a normal career. the silence becomes uncomfortable, unbearable.

“is there anything else.”

on the other end of the line, gojo is leaning against the extraction van. it’s a sleek black thing, nondescript, parked in the shadows of an abandoned loading bay. he’s got his arms crossed over his chest, ankles crossed too, making himself comfortable like he plans to be here a while.

his head is tilted back, staring at the night sky through the gap in the concrete ceiling above— a narrow strip of darkness dotted with faint stars the city lights can’t quite erase. city lights reflect off his sunglasses in soft orange smears, and if anyone were watching they might think he looks contemplative. peaceful, even.

he’s not peaceful. he’s annoyed.

“yeah.”

ijichi braces himself. you can hear him gulp through the mic— a dry, nervous sound that echoes in the silence.

“what?”

“put my mission supervisor back.”

ijichi glances at his secondary monitor, where your channel is still active, green, still very much occupied with the other team.

“she’s still supervising the other mission.”

“then i’ll wait.”

“you cannot simply—”

“watch me.” and he does wait.

…two hours later, you finally disconnect from the other mission.

two hours of gojo sitting in that van, occasionally checking his phone, occasionally humming tunelessly to himself. two hours of ijichi occasionally clearing his throat and asking if he’s still there, to which gojo always answers “yep” with the patience of someone who has decided this is simply how things are now. two hours of the extraction team pretending not to notice their most difficult agent just… sitting there. waiting. for you.

everyone in the control room is packing up, stretching, grabbing their things. someone yawns. someone else complains about the coffee. keyboards click into standby, chairs roll back, the fluorescent lights hum their tired song.

you reach for the headset you use for gojo.

you hesitate for a moment, because you already know what mood he’s going to be in. you’ve been hearing it building all night through the background channel, like watching storm clouds gather from far away.

after a couple of minutes to yourself, you connect.

“agent gojo.”

there is immediate movement on the other end; fast, he sat up the second he heard you, like he was waiting in the dark, holding his breath, counting the seconds until your voice came back.

“…angel?”

“yes.”

“where were you.”

you blink at the console.

“supervising team three.”

“for three hours?”

“yes.”

he doesn’t respond immediately, but you can hear him breathing, the faint background noise of wherever he is— wind, maybe, or distant traffic.

“you gave my mission to ijichi.”

there it is, something suspiciously close to sulking in his tone, something that sounds almost like a child asking why you forgot to pick them up. you can hear it in the way his voice drops just slightly at the end, in the little breath he takes like he’s waiting for you to explain yourself, to make it better.

“it was a routine operation,” you say calmly, because it’s true and you have protocols and you can’t just assign yourself to him every time, no matter how much some small, stupid part of you wants to. your fingers trace idle patterns on the edge of the console while you speak, a nervous habit you’ve never been able to break. “ijichi is perfectly qualified.”

gojo makes a quiet noise that sounds extremely unconvinced. it’s almost a whine, petulant and soft, the kind of sound you’d expect from someone pouting on a couch with their arms crossed. you’ve never seen him do it but you can picture it perfectly— lower lip pushed out just slightly, eyebrows drawn together, sunglasses probably pushed up into his hair so he can stare at the ceiling dramatically.

“his breathing is weird.”

you blink at the console. the screen casts a soft blue glow across your hands, illuminating the faint scars on your knuckles from old training accidents.

“that’s not a professional assessment.” you counter calmly, but there’s a warmth creeping into your voice that you can’t quite suppress. behind your monitor, in the privacy of your empty control room, your lips twitch.

“it distracted me.”

“you completed the mission flawlessly.”

“barely.”

you lean back in your chair, the old leather creaking softly. it’s a familiar sound, comforting in its consistency— the same creak that’s accompanied hundreds of late nights, hundreds of missions, hundreds of conversations with him. you’re fighting a smile and you’re losing, deciding to indulge him just this once. your free hand comes up to brush a strand of hair behind your ear, tucking it away as you settle deeper into the worn cushion.

“satoru.”

the line goes very still.

the playful tension in his breathing shifts, sharpens, like he’s holding himself perfectly motionless just to hear you better. you’ve noticed this before— how he goes quiet when you use his name, how the teasing seems to bank itself like embers waiting to be fanned.

“yes, angel?”

the nickname makes your stomach flip every single time, delivered in that honey-slow drawl he knows you hate (you don’t hate it). you can hear the grin in his voice, lazy and warm, like he’s sprawled across that safehouse couch with one arm behind his head, completely at ease now that you’re finally talking to him.

“you finished seventeen minutes early.”

“still.”

you sigh softly, leaning your cheek on your palm. your elbow rests on the armrest, your eyes drift to the corner of your screen where his vitals still glow steady and green.

“are you actually upset about this?”

you ask it softly, genuinely curious now. because you like to think you know him— know the masks he wears, the performances he gives. but sometimes, in these quiet moments when the mission is over and it’s just the two of you in the dark, you catch glimpses of something real underneath.

you wait patiently for his answer.

you don’t push; you’ve learned that with him, sometimes you just have to let the silence breathe. let it stretch and fill with all the things he won’t say unless you give him space. the seconds tick by on your console, each one feeling heavier than the last, and you find yourself holding your own breath without meaning to.

“maybe.”

you stare at the monitor. his vitals are steady—pulse 72, respiration normal— but something in the way the numbers don’t change makes you wonder if he’s gone still too. his location ping shows he’s at the safehouse, probably sprawled across that worn leather couch in the corner, taking up too much space like it’s his personal mission. you’ve seen enough footage from safehouse cams during extractions to know how he sits— long legs stretched out, one arm thrown over the back, head tilted just so like the world is his living room and he’s simply waiting for entertainment to arrive.

“why?”

“because i only like when you’re with me.”

the words hang between you, suspended in the distance that separates your bunker from his safehouse, your fluorescent lights from his city darkness. he doesn’t even seem to realize how easily he said it. how it made your chest do something complicated and dangerous, because he is just so earnest.

you swallow once. your throat feels tight.

“i’m assigned to multiple teams.”

“i know.”

“you aren’t my only responsibility.”

“i know.”

“then why—”

“because it’s different.” his voice dips slightly, losing its usual theatrical lilt. “when you’re on the channel.”

your fingers tighten on the console. the plastic is warm from hours of use, slightly tacky under your palms. the room hums quietly around you— fans cooling servers, the distant click of someone else’s keyboard three rows over. you should let this go. you should end the conversation here, cleanly.

“different how?”

he hesitates. you hear it in the pause, in the way his breath catches just slightly before he speaks.

“i don’t know, angel.”

he lets out another quiet breath. you can almost see him shrugging, one-shouldered, trying to play it cool but failing— the way his free hand probably runs through his hair, the way he’s staring at nothing and everything while he talks to you.

“i just like it.”

you feel yourself melt just a little. enough that you have to close your eyes for a second and remind yourself where you are, who you are, what this is supposed to be. then you return to professionalism. the only safe place left.

“your mission briefing is tomorrow morning.”

“are you supervising it too?” he asks immediately.

the corners of your mouth turn up before you can stop them, and you’re suddenly grateful no one’s in your section of the control room, that the cameras don’t point this way, that this small moment of weakness belongs only to you and the darkness and the sound of his breathing in your ear.

“yes, satoru.”

“good.”

the relief in his voice is immediate and palpable, like sunshine breaking through clouds after a storm. it does something to you, that sound. something you refuse to examine too closely.

so you do what you always do when things get too real.

you poke at him instead.

“satoru.”

“yeah?”

“you behaved unprofessionally with ijichi.”

“…he started it.”

“he did not.”

“his voice did.”

you pinch the bridge of your nose. you’re definitely smiling now, wider than before, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. you hope no one’s watching. especially not ijichi, who probably still hasn’t recovered from this morning.

“apologize to him tomorrow, please.”

he makes a small growly sound. you can picture him crossing his arms over his chest with a pout. “fine, but only if you promise something.”

“that depends.”

“don’t give my channel away again.”

you shouldn’t indulge that, you know that.

you’re the supervisor. he’s the field agent. there are rules. protocols. distance. boundaries you’ve spent years carefully constructing. but still—

“i’ll try not to.”

the line goes quiet. then you hear him laugh softly, satisfied and warm.

“see?”

“see what.”

“you like me more too.”

you immediately reach to disconnect the channel.

“goodnight, agent gojo.”

“angel—”

connection terminated. in the quiet control room, you stare at the blank console. your heart is still beating a little too fast because unfortunately, he might not be completely wrong.

—

the next morning, ijichi receives a very strange visit. gojo finds him in the break room, grabs his shoulders, looks him dead in the eyes, and says,

“i’m sorry your breathing is weird. it’s not your fault.”

then he walks away.

ijichi stands there for a full minute, holding his coffee, questioning every life choice that led him here.

when he tells you about it later, you laugh so hard you have to mute your mic.

based on this request ۶ৎ

ex-husband kento who you divorced over 5 months ago, left you with the house, the cat, and his heart. it was hard to let go of a once 7 year relationship, but when every conversation began as mundane words filled with bare concern and pretension left sour-tasting arguments in their wake, you knew it wasn't working.

ex-husband kento who now woke up with an empty side of his bed and coldness, unpressed shirts and lopsided ties. what used to be his escape from you and the redundant marriage you both nurtured, had now become the escape from his own sullen life to see you instead. it was ironic, and kento felt a tinge of humour from it.

ex-husband kento who continued to go to work without fail after the papers were finalised, expected you to take a few days off and recuperate because he knew the divorce was hitting you hard, found his breath-hitched at the sight of you laughing and joking with your co-workers as though you hadn't changed your facebook status from 'married' to 'single' last night. he checked.

ex-husband kento who's teeth gritted and jaw clenched when shiu in finance gave you a shameless look up and down at the new skirt you adorned, lace trim and all. you looked unaware, but he knew you knew, you just didn't mind it because you didn't have a husband to go home to anymore.

ex-husband kento who had been emailed about a new supervisor that was joining the office later that day, someone who had a law background and was high in the ranks. he couldn't care less, but found a reason to when he heard you and utahime gossiping about him at the water cooler, picking up on 'he's supposed to be like, crazy hot' and 'you don't say?'. the latter being from you.

ex-husband kento who heard thundering footsteps as the elevator opened, his eyes drifted above his computer screen to find a man clad in a black suit, adjusting his tie with ebony hair and dreary dark circles with bone structure that was incomparable. all eyes turned to him as he sauntered to the supervisor's office with an air about him that screamed luxury and elegance.

Young-mi-ah! (Happy)