nisa

Frustrated, you sat up straight and slammed your palm against the horn. A sharp, futile blare cut through the air. You knew it wouldn’t help, but the inaction was suffocating.

You leaned back again, eyes scanning your surroundings for any empty parking spaces. At this rate, you would have better luck parking out here and making a run for it to the hospital than waiting in the seemingly never ending traffic.

To your annoyance, every square inch of curb was occupied, and the few legal spots left were too far out of reach.

Your hand darted to your phone. Double-tapping the screen, the digital numbers glared back at you: 12:23 PM. Over twenty minutes late. At this rate, the shift would be halfway over before you even crossed the threshold. Defeated, you gripped the steering wheel, trapped in the agonizing limbo of waiting and praying for the traffic to break.

When the traffic finally parted, you didn't waste a second. Your heels clacked sharply against the concrete floor of the parking garage as you hurried toward the towering medical center. The building loomed over you, a monolith of concrete and glass stretching endlessly into the gray sky.

A few yards ahead, another person dashed through the sliding doors, looking just as disheveled—likely another victim of the gridlock. Unlike them, you paused at the entrance, catching your reflection in a small compact mirror. You checked for dark circles, smoothed down a few frantic flyaways, and took a deep, centering breath. Look professional, you reminded yourself, before squaring your shoulders and speed-walking through the entrance.

The automatic glass doors parted with a soft hiss, instantly swallowing the city's noise and replacing it with the sterile hum of a bustling hospital. The air smelled faintly of bleach and rubbing alcohol. The chaotic symphony of squeaking sneakers, muted conversations, and the rhythmic beeping of medical equipment washed over you.

Darting your eyes across the lobby, you spotted the main reception desk and marched over. The woman behind the counter was utterly engrossed in her computer, the blue light reflecting off her sharp features. She didn't even glance up as you stopped in front of her.

You hesitated, clearing your throat. Nothing. The rapid clicking of her keyboard continued uninterrupted, as if you were invisible.

"Excuse me?" you murmured, a flush of embarrassment warming your cheeks as she finally paused. "I'm here as a volunteer."

The receptionist straightened, adjusting the nametag pinned to her crisp uniform. Bora.

She looked you up and down, her lip curling into a critical line as she finally made eye contact. "You're over forty minutes late."

"I know, I'm so sorry. There was a massive—"

"Traffic? Yes, I'm aware," Bora cut in, her voice dripping with ice. "I also know three other volunteers who took the exact same route and managed to arrive on time—if not early." She leaned back in her swivel chair, crossing her arms. Her intense gaze pinned you to the spot, making you look down in sudden shame. Forty minutes? Time had slipped through your fingers faster than you realized.

"I—"

"Listen," Bora interrupted again, "I know you're not getting paid to be here, but if you're just trying to pass the time, the exit is right behind you. The patients here actually need help. We don’t have time to mess around." She pointed a manicured finger toward the glass doors.

A spark of defiance flared beneath your embarrassment. If she cut you off one more time, you might actually take her up on the offer.

"I apologize," you said, forcing your voice to remain steady and uninterrupted. "I am here to help. Trust me, Bora, it won't happen again."

"It better not. Do you even know where you're going?"

"I was told someone would brief me at the front desk," you explained, trying to ignore her blatant hostility.

"Well, since you've wasted half your orientation time, you'll have to figure it out as you go. Name?"

"Y/N," you muttered.

She didn't reply, her fingers flying across the keyboard once more. After a tense moment, she spun her chair around to the printer behind her, impatiently ripping a fresh sheet of paper from the tray.

Spinning back, she thrust the paper into your hands. "Take this to Dr. Han's office to get your supplies. Down that corridor," she gestured vaguely down a long, sterile hallway to her right. "His name is on the door. You can't miss it."

"Am I just delivering prescriptions?" you asked, scanning the list of names.

Bora let out a heavy, irritated sigh. It was crystal clear: she despised you on principle. Sure, you were late, but the sheer attitude felt entirely uncalled for.

"You'll deliver prescriptions, sanitize the rooms, and assist the patients with basic needs," she snapped. "If it's a medical emergency, you call a nurse or a doctor. Got it?"

"Yeah. Thanks." You forced a polite smile, but she only offered a scowl and a dramatic roll of her eyes before turning back to her monitor.

So much for a good first impression.

Walking down the seemingly endless hallway, you studied the document Bora had given you. It contained seven names printed in bold, black ink, each followed by a room number, a diagnosis, and a list of medications. You frowned, trying to pronounce the complex, foreign names of the pills. At least your job was just to deliver them, not mix them.

Realizing you’d lost track of your surroundings, you looked up from the page and began scanning the identical wooden doors lining the corridor. A few doors down, a silver plaque caught your eye: Dr. Han.

You knocked gently. A muffled, calm voice drifted from inside. "Come in."

Pushing the door open, you stepped into a quiet, sunlit office. A man sat behind a mahogany desk, looking surprisingly young—perhaps only a few years older than you. His dark hair was styled back, and a pair of reading glasses rested on top of his head. For a brief second, you caught your breath. Are all the doctors here this attractive?

"May I help you?" he asked, tilting his head with a polite, curious expression.

"Are you Dr. Han?" You stepped further into the room, letting the door click shut behind you. "I'm the new volunteer. Bora sent me down."

Understanding washed over his features, and a warm smile replaced his professional mask. Standing up, he gestured toward the paper in your hand. "Could I see that list, please?"

You handed it over and watched silently as he navigated the room. He moved with a practiced, fluid grace, pulling specific medicine bottles from the heavily stocked shelves without a single moment of hesitation. He clearly knew this inventory like the back of his hand.

Left alone at his desk, curiosity got the better of you. Your eyes drifted across his workspace, skipping past the keyboard and settling on a file folder left open. Attached to the top corner was a photo of two young men, flanked by dense medical jargon. Because of the distance, you had to squint to make out the text.

Park Jimin... and J—

Before you could decipher the second name, the rustle of Dr. Han’s coat signaled his return. You quickly took a step back, heat rising to your face. The last thing you needed was to look nosy on your first day.

Dr. Han set a medium-sized gray tray on the desk, carefully arranging the prescription bottles atop your original sheet of paper so the names remained visible. "It's lightweight enough to hold with one hand if you keep it balanced," he advised kindly. Then, he looked up, his eyes twinkling. "So, what caught you up? You're quite late."

"Oh. Traffic was a nightmare," you replied, offering a sheepish smile and bracing yourself for another lecture.

Instead, Dr. Han let out a soft chuckle and slid back into his office chair. "I take it Bora already gave you the third degree?"

You nodded ruefully, tracing the rim of the plastic tray.

"I apologize for her," he said, rolling his chair a bit closer to his desk. "She can be a handful to deal with."

"It's alright. I get why she's upset. First impressions and all."

"True, but she's probably just extra cranky because you're assigned to 'her boys.'" He rolled his eyes, a hint of playful disdain in his voice.

You blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Don't worry about it," Dr. Han smoothly deflected, picking up a pen. "You should probably get moving before she comes looking for you. Come back and see me when you're finished with the rounds."

Though you were still thoroughly perplexed by what he meant with ‘her boys’, you decided against questioning him again in fear of wasting more time. You instead offered a quick, grateful goodbye and hastily made your way out of his room.

With the heavy gray tray in hand, you let your eyes read over the list of names and their assigned rooms. The first name on the list was Jeon Jeongguk, and as you went further down you recognised a familiar name: Park Jimin. Your stomach did a slight flip. If only you had worn your contacts today, or even brought your glasses with you, maybe you could’ve finished reading whatever was on the Doctor’s note.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over you and you shook your head to rid yourself of the feeling. You weren’t here to pry or be nosy. You were here to help these patients.

You finally came to a pause in front of Jeongguk's door. It was identical to Dr. Hans—heavy, sterile wood—except this time the words written in bold black ink were his name.

You flip the sheet of paper in the tray over, careful not to drop anything and continue reading over it. Jeongguk’s name was written again, and written beside it the words ‘Eating Disorder’ were written in italics.

Your eyebrows knit together in mild confusion. An eating disorder? You looked back up at the heavy wooden door. For some reason, you had expected the patients in this specific wing to have more... severe, behavioral diagnoses. A standard eating disorder usually meant a specialized medical ward, not a high-security, isolated corridor like this one.

Shaking off the thought, you carefully shifted the tray to one hand, raised your knuckles, and knocked softly. "Jeon Jeongguk? I'm coming in."

When no answer came, you gently twisted the handle and pushed the door open.

The room was surprisingly spacious, but completely devoid of any personal touches. No posters, no books, no color. Just a pristine white bed, a small desk, and a large window overlooking the bleak gray sky outside. Sitting on the edge of the bed was a young man.

The moment the door clicked, he flinched, his head snapping toward you. Your breath caught in your throat. He possessed a striking, ethereal kind of beauty, with wide, glassy doe-eyes and soft, youthful features. He looked incredibly fragile, his knees pulled tightly against his chest as he trembled slightly in his standard white hospital scrubs.

"O-Oh," he breathed, his voice soft, airy, and entirely defenseless. He immediately scrambled off the bed, clutching a small, worn plush bunny to his chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you. Are you... are you new?"

A wave of instant sympathy washed over you, melting away the tension in your shoulders. "Hi, Jeongguk," you said, offering your warmest smile as you stepped inside. "I'm Y/N, the new volunteer. I just brought your medication."

"Y/N," he repeated, testing your name on his lips. A shy, breathless smile bloomed across his face, and his big eyes crinkled at the corners with what looked like pure, innocent adoration. "That's a really pretty name. Thank you for coming. Most people... most people are mean to me here."

"Well, I won't be," you promised softly, setting the tray on the desk and picking up the small plastic cup.

He stepped closer, his movements hesitant, like a frightened animal trying to trust a new hand. He looked down at the pills, a look of profound sadness washing over his handsome features. "They make me take these because they say I'm sick. They say I don't eat enough. But my stomach just hurts all the time because I'm so lonely."

He looked up at you through his long eyelashes, his gaze intense, completely locking onto yours. There was a desperate, magnetic pull in his eyes that made it impossible to look away. "But I feel better now that you're here. You're going to stay with me, right? You won't leave me like the others?"

"I have to finish making my rounds, Jeongguk," you explained gently, reaching out to hand him the cup. "But I can come back and check on you before my shift ends."

"Promise?" he whispered, taking the cup from you. His fingers brushed against yours, warm and completely gentle. He took the medication without a single complaint, offering you another sweet, boyish smile that made it hard to believe he belonged in a place like this.

He seemed so completely normal. So utterly harmless.

"Thank you, Y/N," he murmured softly, sitting back down on his bed and neatly tucking his plush bunny beside him. "I'll be waiting for you to come back."

You offered him a final, reassuring smile, your heart swelling slightly at how remarkably sweet he was. Turning around, you stepped toward the door, completely relieved that your first interaction had gone so smoothly.

Because your back was turned, you didn't see the exact millisecond his boyish smile dropped. You didn't see the warmth evaporate from his face like a cruel illusion, or how his wide, glassy doe-eyes instantly went entirely blank, dead, and empty. You didn't see him silently mouth your name against the plastic cup, his expression morphing into something cold and unrecognizable as he stared fixedly at the space you had just occupied.

You only paused when a sudden, heavy thud rattled from the wall of the adjacent room.

You jumped slightly, your hand freezing on the door handle. You waited a beat, but the corridor outside remained dead silent. Shaking it off as a stray nurse moving heavy equipment next door, you opened the door and stepped back out into the hallway, letting the heavy wood click shut.

You should’ve known something was up when he specifically bought only two first-class tickets to Las Vegas and your flight was at midnight. He’d insisted the two of you sneak out of the Kyoto Jujutsu Tech compound where you’d stayed for the duration of his visit to the Gojo clan, and hadn’t bothered to inform Shoko or Utahime or Yaga.

And so, again, you reiterate firmly and resolutely: none of this is your fault.

Your predicament—standing in a parking lot behind a Denny’s at nine in the night with a small fire going in a trash can nearby—is entirely, absolutely, positively Gojo Satoru’s fault.

“I want a divorce,” you tell him.

“We’ve been married for forty-seven minutes.”

“Forty-seven minutes too long.”

“You’re burning our wedding certificate!” Satoru says. “How are we supposed to file for divorce if there’s no proof we even got married?”

“I’ll figure it out,” you say, poking at the certificate with a stick you found on the ground. The corner of it curls and blackens satisfyingly. “I’m very resourceful.”

“You’re committing a crime is what you’re doing,” he says.

“You committed a crime first.”

“Getting married isn’t a crime—”

“Fraud is.”

Satoru opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again, at a loss for words. This is a rare and precious occurrence—Gojo Satoru, speechless! You would be savouring it more if you weren’t currently a married woman in a Denny’s parking lot in Las Vegas at eleven o’clock in the night.

Satoru had told you it was a vacation. He’d shown up at your room in the Kyoto compound at half-past ten with a bag tucked under his arm and said, simply, “Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving where?” you’d asked.

“Somewhere that isn’t here,” was his cryptic reply.

You’d been in Kyoto for six days. Six days of watching Satoru navigate the Gojo clan and their elders with their careful smiles and careful words. Nearly a week of watching something tight and unhappy lodge itself behind Satoru’s eyes while he pretended, convincingly, that everything was fine. You knew he wasn’t; you’d watched him perfect his act for years, after all.

So, you went. You told yourself it was because you’d never been to Las Vegas. This, at least, is true.

You’d grabbed your bag and followed him out through a side entrance of the compound at nine forty-five, and you didn’t inform any of your friends or superiors. Because of this, your phone has been periodically buzzing in your pocket for the last several hours and you’ve been ignoring it, which is a problem that is also, for the record, Satoru’s fault.

The flight was actually wonderful. First-class seats entailed warm socks and warm food and a window seat, because Satoru had graciously sat by the aisle. When you were flying over the Pacific, he’d fallen asleep with his head tipped back and his sunglasses still on. He looked younger when he was sleeping, you’d thought. More like the version of him you’d met when you were both too young and foolish to understand what being a sorcerer actually meant.

After you landed, Satoru took you to a casino and then to a fancy place for lunch, and then to another two casinos—if he wasn’t careful, he’d turn into a gambling addict soon—and then he took you to a chapel on the Strip with fake flowers zip-tied to the pews and an officiant named Francis who had red hair and smelled like cigarettes and convenience store chewing gum.

Francis had cried a little during the vows, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. Satoru had found this enormously gratifying. You, however, had been in something of a dissociative state.

“It’s not fraud,” Satoru says now, in the parking lot, watching you cremate your marriage certificate. “We did actually get married. Francis witnessed it. There are photos.”

“There are photos?”

“Francis had a camera.”

“What?”

“I think it’s just something he keeps on him professionally.”

You stare at him. He has the grace to look slightly sheepish. His sunglasses are still on. His suit jacket is open, and his tie, which had been done up neatly for the ceremony (clearly he’d planned far enough ahead to wear a nice tie) is now loosened and slightly crooked. The cheap gold ring on his finger—wrong hand; he’d fumbled it in the moment and jammed it on before either of you could correct it—catches the light from the parking lot fluorescents.

“That’s it!” you say, snapping your fingers at him. “That’s our proof to file for divorce! Take me back to the wedding chapel, Satoru.”

“No way,” he says. “I’m taking you to dinner first. We need to commemorate our first night of being married.”

“We’re behind a Denny’s,” you point out.

“I know,” Satoru says. “Denny’s is a perfectly acceptable dining establishment, but I meant somewhere nice. There’s a steakhouse on the Strip that has a three-month waitlist.”

“Then we can’t go there.”

“I called ahead.”

You gape at him. “Three months ago?”

“No,” he says. “I called ahead on the plane. You were asleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep for that long—”

“Yeah, you were asleep for, like, four hours. You even snored a little.”

“I did not—that’s not the point! The point is, you planned this. You planned all of it, the chapel, the restaurant, the—” You gesture at the ring on his finger, the ring on yours, the dying fire in the trash can—“everything.”

“Not everything. I didn’t plan for you to burn our wedding certificate in a fit of rage.”

“That’s your fault by proximity.”

“That’s not a legal standard.”

“I’m making it one.”

Satoru smiles, quick and bright. You have a long and storied history of making Gojo Satoru laugh when he isn’t expecting to, and it used to feel like winning something. It still does, if you’re being honest.

“Come on,” Satoru says, nodding towards the street. “Dinner first, Francis later. We can get the photos after and then you can file for divorce. I won’t stop you.”

“You’d better not,” you say.

“I said I won’t.” He holds his hands up, the picture of innocence. “I’m a man of my word.”

“You’re really not.”

“I’m a man of some of my word,” he amends.

The steakhouse is situated on the upper floor of one of the larger casinos on the Strip, lined with dark wood and low, hushed lighting. You are seated by a window. The Strip sprawls below you in every direction, extravagant and relentless, all that light going nowhere at tremendous speed.

“Were you really that confident I’d say yes?” you ask once the menus have been set in front of you.

“I was… hopeful,” Satoru says. It’s not a word you can recall him ever applying to himself before, in all the years you’ve known him; it sounds odd. You pick up your own menu and look at it without reading it.

What you’ve learnt about Satoru and what most people tend to miss is that underneath all the grinning and grandstanding and carelessness, there is someone who wants things very badly and has learned not to show it. You’ve known this for years. You’ve watched him want things, and watched him bury it under layers of grandiosity until it’s almost invisible. Almost.

“The elders have been at it for two years,” he says finally, without looking up from the menu. “The meetings, the candidates. They’re all very suitable women from very respectable families. Good for the clan’s interests.”

“You never told me it’d been going on for that long.”

“Didn’t want to make it a thing.”

“Satoru—”

“It’s fine. It’s just—” He sets the menu down and looks out at the Strip, all that light below. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life performing for someone who sees me as a resource. I do enough of that already. I knew it was going to happen eventually and that they were going to stop asking and start insisting. So. Vegas.”

“Vegas,” you echo.

“You were the obvious answer,” he says matter-of-factly. “You already know what you’re getting into with me. You don’t have any illusions. You—you’re my best friend. There isn’t anyone I’d rather be stuck with.”

“Stuck with,” you repeat. “Incredibly romantic.”

“I said what I said.”

The waiter arrives and Satoru orders for the two of you. You look down at the ring on your finger and think about how it came from the little rotating display by the chapel door, five dollars American. It fits almost perfectly except for being on the wrong hand.

“Er. You fumbled the ring,” you say.

“I was nervous,” he says.

Gojo Satoru, nervous. Gojo Satoru, who treats most of human experience as something happening at a slight remove, who has never, to your knowledge, shown up to anything in his life uncertain of the outcome—nervous!

“Were you,” you say.

“Briefly,” Satoru says, with great dignity. “It passed.”

“Of course.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Of course.”

The fountains in front of the Bellagio are in the middle of their routine, water arcing up in great pale columns against the dark. The light from them moves across the window in slow, repeating patterns. Satoru’s eyes catch the shifting light. You swallow hard.

“We’re not arguing about the divorce, by the way,” you tell him.

“We’ll see.”

“Satoru.”

“We’ll see,” he says again pleasantly. You’re going to say something else, something firm and unambiguous, but he’s already put his cutlery down and is walking out, and you’re already following.

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #2 – BREAKING AND ENTERING.

The supposed 24/7 active wedding chapel has a sign tacked onto the front door when you arrive later, which reads, Under maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience!

“Fuck,” you groan.

“Language,” Satoru says. “Maintenance at midnight. Huh. That’s strange.”

“That’s what I’m focusing on right now, yes, thank you.”

You press your face briefly against the chapel door’s small window. The lights inside are off. Through the glass you can just make out the shape of the pews, the flowers zip-tied to their ends, and the little altar at the front where Francis had stood several hours ago and wept openly into his handkerchief. How are you supposed to get the photographs of your husband—you are using that word provisionally under extreme protest—looking at you like you’re the only fixed point in the room?

“He might live here,” Satoru says.

“Francis?”

“Some of these places have a back apartment for the officiant. We could knock.”

“We’re not knocking on a man’s door at midnight,” you say.

“It’s nearly one.”

“That makes it worse!” You step back from the door and look at the sign again. There’s a narrow alley running along the left side of the chapel, squeezed between the chapel building and the 24-hour tattoo parlour next door. You only notice it because Satoru’s already walking towards it. “What are you doing?”

“Recon,” Satoru says. “Just looking.”

He disappears around the corner. You stand on the pavement with your hands on your hips before deciding to follow him. The alley is cramped and smells stale. There’s a dumpster and a stack of plastic chairs leaning against the chapel wall. Satoru stands with his hands in his pockets, looking upward with his head tilted back.

“No,” you say.

“There’s a window.”

“I see that.”

“It’s open!”

It appears to be a casement window on the chapel’s ground floor, propped out at an angle, about eight feet off the ground and just wide enough for a person to fit through.

“That could be a bathroom window,” you say. “We’d be breaking and entering.”

“The window’s already open,” Satoru says. “Technically we’d just be entering. The photos Francis took are currently somewhere in that chapel developing in a back room, unattended.”

“If we get arrested,” you say, “I’m blaming you entirely.”

“Obviously.”

“I will give a statement to the police and it will contain your full name and a detailed account of everything that’s happened tonight, starting with the chapel and working backwards to Kyoto.”

“Sure. Boost or be boosted?” Satoru asks, turning to the chairs. “I’d say I’ll boost you, but I want it to be on record that I think you’d make a better lookout.”

“I’m not being a lookout.”

“You just said—”

“I’m coming with you.”

He pauses, glancing at you, his expression softening just a little bit. Warm and amused—gone before you can fix it in place.

“Obviously,” he says, smiling, and starts stacking chairs.

The window is, in fact, not a bathroom window. It opens into a small storage room at the back of the chapel, with folding tables against one wall, boxes of artificial flowers stacked against the other, and a mop in a bucket in the corner. Through a door on the far side, you can see the chapel proper. The dripping you can hear means the maintenance situation is a ceiling problem, probably towards the front.

“There’s a whole back operation,” Satoru says, impressed.

“We need to find the darkroom,” you whisper.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because we’re trespassing.”

“Right, yes,” he says, lowering his voice. “The darkroom will need ventilation, so it’s probably towards the back.”

“How do you know anything about darkrooms?” you ask.

“I went through a photography phase in my second year of middle school. It was a whole thing.” He opens the storage room door and peers through into the chapel. “All clear.”

You follow him through. The chapel at night, empty and dim, is a different place entirely from what it was several hours ago. Smaller, somehow. Without Francis and the lights, it’s just a room with cheap flowers and worn carpet.

“Back room’s through here,” Satoru says softly; he’s already at the door behind the altar. You cross the chapel quickly, not looking at the pews or the aisle, not doing anything so foolish as standing in the dark and sentimentalising about a five-dollar ring and a laminated vow card.

The back room is small and smells sharply of chemicals—developer and fixer, mostly. There’s a red safelight along the wall that Francis has left running, bathing everything in a dim glow. A long workbench runs along one wall, and on it, clipped to a line strung above the bench, are your photographs.

Four of them, hanging in a row, damp and gleaming slightly under the monochromatic light. Even from across the room, you can make out the chapel and the altar. Neither of you says anything for a moment, until Satoru walks to the bench and stands in front of the photographs. You make your way and stand beside him.

The first one is mid-ceremony. You’re both facing Francis, and you can see Satoru in profile—head tilted, shoulders set. The second one is the ring exchange; you can see immediately why it’s blurry. You’d both been laughing, actually, you remember that now, because Satoru had fumbled the ring and said something under his breath, and you’d bitten down on a laugh and not entirely succeeded. Francis had captured exactly that, the two of you with your heads slightly bent towards each other.

In the third one, Francis had asked you to face each other for a photo, and while you’re looking at the camera, Satoru’s looking at you. You look—Francis had said surprised, and yes, there is that, but there’s also something else, something you would rather not name.

Satoru is looking at you the way he was looking at you in the chapel, the way he’s been looking at you in these odd unguarded moments all evening.

“We look like idiots,” Satoru says.

“Francis was right,” you say. “We both look surprised.”

“Were you?” he asks.

“Yes. Were you?”

“No,” he says, then adds quietly, “Maybe. About—about other things.”

In the fourth photograph, you are outside the chapel, looking at the ring on your hand, and Satoru is looking at you looking at the ring. Francis had captured the angle so cleanly that you can see Satoru’s full expression, soft in a way his face almost never is in front of other people, private. You realise you’re holding your breath.

“We should take them,” Satoru says.

“We can’t just take them,” you say. “They’re developing.”

“They look pretty developed to me.”

“Satoru, they’re damp—”

“They’ll dry.” He’s already carefully unclipping the first photograph from the line. “Francis has the negatives. He can print more.”

“You don’t know that Francis has the negatives, and besides, we’re stealing from him.”

“We’re borrowing from Francis.” Satoru holds the first photograph carefully by its edge and looks at it in the red light before setting it down on the workbench. “Hand me something to put these in. There should be a folder or an envelope on the bench somewhere.”

There’s a paper envelope at the end of the bench, brown and flat. You pick it up and hold it open. Satoru slides the photographs in one by one.

“We need to leave Francis a note,” you say, “and money. For the printing. For—everything.”

“How much do you think midnight darkroom theft runs these days?”

“What?”

“I’m asking genuinely.”

“A lot,” you say. “Leave a lot.”

You find a notepad on the workbench next to a jar of pens. Francis, you write. We’re sorry for the unauthorised visit. We needed the photos tonight, so please print yourself copies. Enclosed is payment for the developing, the breaking-in, the trouble, and your time. Thank you for everything. It was a beautiful ceremony.

You fold the note and put it on the workbench. Satoru takes his wallet out, removes a quantity of cash that makes your eyebrows go up, and weighs it down with the jar of pens.

You go back through the chapel and through the storage room and back out the window into the alley. Satoru drops down behind you and lands easily on the ground. The night air is warm, and the Strip is still brightly lit not thirty feet away. You hold the envelope against your chest. The photographs inside are still slightly damp.

“For the record,” you say, “this is also your fault.”

“The chapel was closed,” Satoru says reasonably. “I didn’t plan that part. Plus, we have the photos, so. Seems like it worked out.”

You look at him with his loosened tie and ruffled hair and think, He’s going to be completely insufferable about this for years. You are going to have to hear about the Vegas chapel break-in for the rest of your natural life and possibly longer.

“Come on,” you say. “You said the hotel’s three blocks away.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #3 – VANDALISM.

There is only one bed. It’s not, on its own, an unusual situation. You’ve shared sleeping arrangements with Satoru before—field missions and overnight calls that left two sorcerers and one room. You’d use a pillow wall, most of the time.

The difference is that you are currently married to him.

“You booked a room with one bed?” you ask.

“They may have assumed, given that I made the reservation under a recently married couple’s names, that we would want,” Satoru says, gesturing at the bed, “the one bed.”

The bed in question is enormous, dressed in white linen and piled with decorative pillows. There’s a bowl of strawberries on the bedside table. The whole room smells faintly of roses.

“Did you request the honeymoon setup?” you say.

“The woman on the phone seemed very enthusiastic about it.”

“That’s not an answer!” You look around the room, hands on your hips. “Well, there’s a couch. You can use that.”

It’s one of those small, decorative couches present in hotel rooms to fill a corner, hold throw pillows, and look tasteful in photographs, but not to sleep on.

“I’m not going to sleep on it, but noted,” Satoru says, striding towards the minibar, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over the back of the chair by the window. “Whiskey or gin?”

“Whiskey,” you say. “We can put a pillow wall down the middle.”

“We’re married,” he says, crossing the room with two small bottles. He sits down on the other side of the bed. “It seems a bit prudish.”

You take the whiskey from him and twist the cap off. Satoru has his own bottle balanced between both hands, still unopened, and he’s looking out the window at the city below. You’ve spent enough years watching him, but it doesn’t seem to change anything; the flutter in your heart remains the same, as does the contentment you feel in your chest.

“I want to see them again,” you announce.

Satoru looks at you. “The photos?”

You reach for the envelope on the nightstand and slide the pictures out carefully, holding them by the edges. They’re drying, stiffening slightly. You hold them in your lap and he leans in slightly.

“You should’ve warned me,” you say quietly.

“About which part?”

“All of it.” You tap the third photograph’s edge, gently. “This.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “If I’d warned you, you’d have said no.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you,” he says, not unkindly. “You’d have thought about it too long and decided it was too complicated, and then you’d have spent months being strange about it, and then we’d have gone back to normal, and—” He stops, turning the bottle in his hands. “…I didn’t want to go back to normal.”

“It’s still a bad idea,” you mumble.

“Probably,” he agrees. His hand shifts on the duvet between you, the tip of his little finger coming to rest against the back of yours. “Hasn’t stopped being true, though. Whatever it is. You know what I mean.”

You do. That’s the problem: you’ve always known what he means, even when he’s being deliberately oblique about it. You’ve known him too long and too well for any of it to not make sense anymore. Which means, you understand now, that you’ve also known you’re in love with him for longer than you thought.

You look at the fourth photograph—Satoru, standing outside the chapel, watching you look at the ring on your hand.

“You could’ve just said something,” you tell him. “At any point. Like a normal person.”

“I took you to Las Vegas and married you,” he says. “That’s me saying something directly.”

His hand turns over and covers yours, warm and assuaging, and whatever reservations you’d been carefully maintaining for years simply crumble.

You close the remaining distance. Satoru’s free hand comes up to your face before you’ve fully moved, which means he was thinking about it too—has been thinking about it, probably, for longer than tonight, longer than Vegas—and he’s kissing you.

He kisses you decisively. There’s a certainty to it that shouldn’t surprise you—this is Satoru, who does nothing halfway—but it does, a little. But what surprises you more is how easy it is. How it doesn’t feel like a change in anything so much as a long-overdue acknowledgement of something that’s been there all along.

When you pull back, his forehead drops to yours. His sunglasses are still pushed up on his head, and you reach up and take them off without asking. He lets you.

“Hi,” Satoru says.

“You’re still wearing your sunglasses indoors at midnight,” you chide.

“I said hi.”

“Hi,” you say.

He smiles; it reaches his eyes. “So,” he starts.

“Do not say ‘I told you so.’”

“I wasn’t going to. Probably.”

“Insufferable,” you say, and kiss him again, which is both a rebuke and a surrender but mostly just because you want to. He makes a sound against your mouth that might be a laugh, and his arms come around you properly this time.

The decorative pillows go first. There are seven of them, and they go in ones and twos without either of you paying much attention—one knocked off when his arm comes around you properly, two more when you shift closer, the rest sliding off the edge in a soft succession of thuds. One of the small whiskey bottles, empty now, rolls off the mattress and lands on the carpet. You don’t notice any of it; you’re somewhat preoccupied by Satoru taking your face in his hands and tilting it and kissing you until you forget what you were arguing about.

You suspect that he’s thought about this for a long time, the same way you have.

“You’re thinking,” Satoru says against your mouth.

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can tell. You get this little—” He pulls back just enough to look at you, and traces something between your brows with one finger. “Here.”

You stare at him. “I hate that you know that.”

“No, you don’t,” he says. He’s right, and you hate that too, so you tell him so by pulling him back down by the front of his shirt.

He lets you tug at him willingly—more than willingly, with an enthusiasm that sends you back against the pillows and makes you laugh, briefly, before his mouth finds your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, and the laugh turns into a gasp. His hands are at your waist, warm through the fabric.

His tie joins the pillows on the floor; you get the knot loose while he’s working on the matter of your buttons. His shirt is untucked and you run your hands on his waist, his ribs, the warm plane of his stomach. Satoru groans against the side of your neck, and you shiver. He tosses your shirt aside, too, and his eyes darken when his gaze lands on your chest. He takes his time with your nipples, rolling them around with his thumbs, before taking one of them in his mouth.

He moves lower, pressing kisses to the underside of your breasts, moving down to your navel. When he reaches the waistband of your jeans, he looks up, pupils blown wide and asks, “May I?”

“Yes, yes, please.” You nod frantically, helping him pull your jeans and panties off when he unbuttons it. You’re already wet and needy.

“You’re so beautiful,” Satoru says, gazing up at you before littering kisses on your inner thighs, so close to where you want him. 

“Satoru, please,” you say. “I need you.”

He blows on your wet core, making you shiver. “Need me to what?”

“I need you to, hah, just—”

Satoru latches onto your clit, sucking and swirling his tongue around the bud. You moan, your hands flying to his hair and gripping the silver-white strands. He alternates between quick flicks and long, broad strokes, keeping your folds spread apart with two fingers while his other hand traces patterns along the underside of your thigh.

“Fuck, fuck—” You curse when his tongue moves in a circle right around your clenching hole. Satoru doesn’t stop. If anything, the sound of your voice breaking, the way you curse his name, only spurs him on. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you. He’s always known how to push your buttons. But this is different; this isn’t a playful tease during a mission.

He dives back in, his tongue flattening out to lap at you with broad, wet strokes that cover everything from your clit down to your opening. You arch your back, your hips lifting off the mattress instinctively, trying to press yourself harder against his mouth.

“Satoru… please, I’m—”

“You’re what?” he mumbles against your skin. He doesn’t wait for an answer, sliding two fingers deep inside you. You let out a strangled cry, your toes curling. His fingers are thick and warm, and he curls them, hooking them upward to find that sensitive spot that makes your vision blur. His thumb remains locked into your clit, rubbing circles on the engorged bud.

The sensation is overwhelming. It’s too much and yet not nearly enough. You can feel the tension building in your lower belly, a tight, simmering coil that winds tighter and tighter with every second.

“Right there,” you moan, your fingers knotting into his hair. “Right there, Satoru, don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

Your breath comes out in short, jagged gasps, your chest heaving. Just as you are about to orgasm, Satoru stops. He doesn’t just slow down; he pulls his fingers out of you with a sudden, wet pop and removes his mouth from your heat entirely. You freeze, your eyes snapping open. “Satoru, what the hell—”

He’s hovering over you, braced on his elbows, his hair messy and falling over his forehead. A slow, smug smile spreads across his lips, though his breathing is just as heavy as yours.

“Not yet,” he whispers.

“I hate you,” you groan, your hips twitching involuntarily, searching for the friction he just stole from you. “I actually hate you so much.”

“Liars don’t get to come,” Satoru teases, though his hand reaches down to gently stroke the skin of your inner thigh. 

He shifts, moving upward to kiss you. He tastes like you, and you moan into his mouth, before he pulls away just an inch, his gaze dropping to your drenched core. “I want to feel you,” he murmurs. “I want to feel how tight you are around me.”

Satoru slides backward, just enough to strip off his trousers and underwear in one hurried motion. His cock springs out, thick and flushed. Your mouth waters simply looking at it, while he pumps it once, twice, thumb circling the tip. He doesn’t lie back down. Instead, he sits up, leaning his back against the headboard of the enormous bed, his legs spread wide. He reaches out, grabbing your waist with those large, strong hands and pulling you forward until you are hovering over him.

“Ride me?” he asks.

The need for friction, for fullness, for him overrides any lingering frustration. You shift your weight, guiding his cock to your entrance. As you slowly lower yourself down, the feeling of his cock filling you, stretching you open, sends a fresh wave of pleasure through you. You let out a long, shuddering moan as you sink down completely, inch by inch, your pelvis flushing against his. Satoru lets out a choked sound, his head hitting the headboard with a thud, his eyes screwing shut.

“Fuck,” he moans. “You’re—you’re so tight. I can’t—”

“Shut up,” you whisper, though there’s no heat in it.

You begin to move, a slow, grinding rotation of your hips. You watch his face—the way his jaw clenches and his nostrils flare, the way he looks at you with warmth and wonder. You quicken your movements, bouncing on his cock. Satoru’s hands move from your waist to your hips, fingers digging into your skin, helping you ride him. He thrusts upwards, tilting his hips and dragging his cock against your walls.

“Look at me,” he groans. You look down, your eyes locking onto his. “I love you,” he says.

You feel the coil in your belly snap. Your orgasm washes over you as you clench around his cock, milking him. Satoru moans, his back arching off the bed as he thrusts upwards one last time. “I’m going to come,” he says. “Let me—”

You slide off his cock and he comes, his release spurting onto his stomach, a little bit on your thighs. You collapse against his chest. He wraps his arms around you tightly, pulling you into the crook of his neck.

For a long time, neither of you speaks. Eventually, Satoru shifts slightly, kissing the top of your head.

“So,” he whispers. “Shower?”

You lift your head slightly, looking at him with tired, happy eyes. “Already?” you say with faux innocence. “I thought you’d want to fuck me on that stupid couch first.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #4 – EMBEZZLEMENT.

Hopefully Satoru didn’t mind you swiping his credit card from his wallet while he was fast asleep, one arm thrown over his face while the other was stretched out beside him. You’d wriggled out of his grasp carefully, pressing a gentle, barely-there kiss to the tip of his nose, before digging through his jacket’s pockets for his wallet and pulling out his black card.

It’s for a good purpose, you console yourself, hurrying through the streets of Las Vegas with a jewellery shop’s location pulled up on your phone. 

Las Vegas in the early morning is a different city entirely from the one that had swallowed you whole last night. It’s not quiet, exactly—it’s never quiet, you suspect—but it’s quieter, the frenetic energy of the Strip mellowed into something slower. The crowds have thinned, at least.

You walk with your hands in your pockets, Satoru’s black card tucked safely between two fingers. The morning air is warm and dry, and the sky above the glow of the Strip is beginning to lighten from black to the deep bruised blue that comes just before dawn.

The jewellery shop is three blocks from the hotel, according to your phone. It’s a small, well-lit place that stays open through the night, catering to those Las Vegas visitors who find themselves in need of jewellery at unusual hours, which you now understand is a larger demographic than you’d previously considered.

You walk and think about the rings. The ones currently on your fingers are not adequate. They’re soft metal, the gold already slightly scuffed from one night of existence, and they’ll tarnish in a week. You’d noticed this morning, while Satoru was still asleep: the way your rings sat a little loose, the way it had already lost some of its shine. It’s more of a placeholder than anything else.

The thought of replacing them had arrived while you’d lain in Satoru’s arms, listening to him breathe and looking at the ring.

You aren’t scared, though you’d expected to be. You’d expected to wake up this morning with the full weight of what’s happened landing on you like a dropped beam, and to spend the subsequent hours dealing with the considerable wreckage of your own panic. It seemed like a reasonable response to having been married to your best friend in Las Vegas by a crying man named Francis and then having the matter become rather more settled than a marriage certificate alone would suggest.

But when you’d woken up with Satoru’s arm around you and the photographs on the nightstand, what you’d felt was something almost irritatingly simple: you’d felt like yourself.

The jewellery shop is small and bright, jewellery arranged in lit display cases along the walls, a pudgy man behind the counter. He looks up when you come in, takes in the look of you—your clothes from last night, slightly slept-in, your hair not fully combed—and nods pleasantly.

“Morning,” he says. “What are you looking for?”

“Wedding rings,” you say. “Two of them, please. Something that’ll last for a long time.”

He nods again. “Do you know the other person’s size?”

You think about Satoru’s hands—the ring sliding onto his finger in the chapel, his hand covering yours on the duvet last night, the warmth of his arm around this morning. “I can estimate,” you say.

He shows you to a case along the left wall. The rings inside are simple, for the most part—plain bands in gold and silver and white gold, some with small details, most without. You find two plain bands in white gold, clean-lined and unornamented, substantial enough to last. 

“These,” you tell the man behind the counter.

He nods. You produce Satoru’s black card and spend a figure that makes you wince slightly but not reconsider, because the point isn’t the cost and you’re sure Satoru will agree with you about this when he wakes up and finds both you and his credit card gone. You leave the ship with the rings in a small white box and stand on the pavement outside for a moment in the warming air.

You pull your phone out and type in the search bar, Chapel of Eternal Love, and punch in the number attached. 

“Hello, Chapel of Eternal Love, Francis speaking—”

“Francis,” you say, smiling. “I have a favour to ask.”

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, ITEM #5 – MARRIAGE.

Francis, it turns out, is delighted. He’d gone quiet for a moment when you explained what you were asking, and then said, Give me an hour, and hung up before you could confirm the details. 

You make your way back to the hotel with your ring box in your pocket and the morning brightening steadily around you. The casino lobbies you pass are still going—slot machines, a scattering of determined gamblers, staff moving between stations—but the Strip itself is relatively peaceful, the night’s crowd entirely dissolved and the day’s not yet arrived. You have the pavement to yourself. It’s a strange and pleasant feeling, Las Vegas in the interstitial hour.

Satoru is awake when you get back, sitting up in bed with his hair in complete disarray and the duvet bunched around his waist. When you open the door he looks at you blankly.

“Morning,” you say.

“My credit card,” he says.

“Is fine.” You cross the room and hold it out. He takes it without looking at it, still watching you. “I needed it for a purchase.”

“What kind of purchase requires you to leave the hotel room at—” he glances at the clock on the nightstand—“six forty-seven in the morning?”

“The important kind.” You sit down on the edge of the bed and take the white box out of your pocket, setting it on the duvet between you.

Satoru picks the box up and opens it, and doesn’t say anything at all, which is the loudest thing Gojo Satoru can do. “You stole my credit card,” he says finally, “to buy us wedding rings.”

“I borrowed it,” you say. “To replace the ones we got from a spinning display rack for five dollars each.”

“I liked those rings.”

“They were tarnishing,” you say. “There’s more, by the way.”

You tell him about Francis. He looks surprised at first, and then warm, so utterly warm when he tugs you closer to him and kisses you again, and again, and once more for good measure. Satoru closes the ring box and holds it in both hands, the way he’d held the whiskey bottle last night before he’d covered your hand with his. 

“I thought you wanted a divorce last night, and now you’ve stolen my credit card and called Francis.”

“Yep.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The morning light filters through the curtains and he looks extraordinarily, unfairly beautiful, even just woken up.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” Satoru sets the ring box on the nightstand, next to the photographs. “Okay.”

Francis has decorated the chapel when you arrive. You’re not entirely sure when he found the time—it’s been barely two hours since your phone call—but the maintenance issue has apparently been resolved, because the lights are on when you arrive. The door is unlocked; when you step inside you find that Francis has replaced the zip-tied artificial flowers on the pews with fresh ones, white and small. There are candles lit along the windowsills. The worn carpet, in the warm light, looks less worn somehow, or perhaps you’re simply disposed to see it differently today.

Francis himself is standing at the altar in a clean shirt, his red hair combed and his camera in his hands. “You came back,” he says.

“We came back,” you confirm.

Francis looks at the two of you—Satoru in a fresh shirt with his tie done up neatly again, you in the best thing you could assemble from your bag on short notice—and grins. “The rings, did you—”

You produce the white box.

“Right,” Francis says. “Right, yes. Let’s—shall we?”

Here is what you think about, standing at the altar of the Chapel of Eternal Love for the second time in less than twenty-four hours:

You think about the first time, yesterday, and how you’d stood here in something close to a dissociative state, your brain running through the situation at high speed. You think about the parking lot behind the Denny’s and the small fire in the trash can. You’d meant it when you said you wanted a divorce, though you realise now that you were frightened of what being married to your best friend entailed.

Satoru had let you burn it, too. He hadn’t argued because he’d known you’d come around. Not from arrogance, but because he knew you, the same way you knew him, all the way down to the things you didn’t say aloud.

You think about the darkroom, the four photographs drying on the line in the red light. Climbing back out through the chapel window into the warm Las Vegas night and holding the envelope against your chest, the photographs still damp inside it. You think about the rings in the spinning display by the door—you can still see them from where you’re standing, the little rack with the remaining rings. They were the beginning, it turns out.

You turn to look back at Satoru. He’s smiling at you.

Francis clears his throat gently. “Shall we begin?”

The vows are the same ones from the laminated card. Francis offers alternatives—he has a small binder with options—but Satoru shrugs, so you use the same ones. When Francis gets to the rings you open the white box yourself. You take Satoru’s ring out and hold it; he holds out his right hand out of habit before catching himself and switching to his left, and you both laugh helplessly. Francis gulps and pulls out his handkerchief. You put the ring on the correct hand this time.

Satoru takes yours from the box and looks up at you—there’s that expression, the one from the photographs, the one you have a name for now. He slides the ring onto the correct finger and holds your hand for a moment after.

Francis is fully crying now. He dabs at his eyes without embarrassment and beams at the two of you over his handkerchief with radiant approval.

“I’ve never had anyone come back,” he tells you. “In twelve years, you’re the first.”

“We forgot something the first time,” you say.

Francis tucks his handkerchief away and straightens up. Smiling, he announces, “You may now kiss,” and so you do.

The obsidian pin in your hair feels heavy, a silent promise tucked against your scalp. One quick strike to the base of the skull while he laughs at Zuko’s dry wit, and the Order’s century-long nightmare would be over. Maybe you could land a few hits on the Fire Lord in the process. Two for the price of one.

“He’s remarkable, isn't he?”

The voice of a fellow Earth Kingdom delegate startles you, but you don't let your expression flicker. You maintain the serene, practiced mask that you’d been taught.

“Remarkable,” you agree, your voice smooth as silk as you look over at them. “It’s hard to believe so much power is contained in one person.”

“And so much kindness,” the delegate sighs. “We are lucky he returned to us.”

Lucky. You feel a familiar, cold bitterness rise in your throat. Was it 'luck' that left your mother’s body burnt to a crisp in the mud? Was it 'luck' that forced you to learn the anatomy of a human body before you learned how to dance?

Humming, you return your gaze back to the Avatar, and to your astonishment his curious eyes are already settled on you. His lips are curled into that all too familiar, sickeningly friendly smile of his that you yearn to smack right off of his face. He doesn’t look away, until a slightly shorter man dressed in the blue robes of the Southern Water tribe says something that takes his attention away from you. If your memory serves you right, his name must be Sokka. Another one of the fools in the Avatar’s circle.

You suppress the urge to roll your eyes as the Avatar takes his position at the centre of the room, a broad smile remaining on his face.

“Welcome, everybody! I have gathered you all here today to discuss the creation of a new city,” he lets his gaze roam the hall, his eyes bright with a fervor that seems to settle on every person individually.

“What is the purpose of this city?” a voice calls from the crowd.

“Well, it’s supposed to represent a place where the Four Nations are no longer separate,” he explains. “A place where people are just... people. Not Earth Kingdom subjects or Fire Nation citizens or Water Tribe people. I believe it will help us further restore the peace that we’ve lost after past events.”

The crowd murmurs amongst themselves, some nodding in agreement whilst others still weren’t fully convinced.

The Fire Lord steps up beside him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. “After everything that has happened, this will be good for us. The Fire nation is in full support of Avatar Aang’s plan.”

With their Lord's approval, the small group of Fire Nation diplomats quiets down. Their murmuring stops, though the scowls don't leave their faces.

Aang offers a final, humble bow to the room before hopping down from the dais. He moves with an irritating fluidity, weaving through the crowd like a breeze. He doesn’t walk like a man who ended a war, he walks like a child at a festival. He stops to greet the Northern Water Tribe elders with a respectful dip of his head and shares a brief, boisterous laugh with Sokka, who is already gesturing wildly toward a map of the proposed docks.

Then, his path shifts. He is heading toward the Earth Kingdom delegation. Toward you.

Your hand twitches instinctively, a phantom reach for the obsidian pin, but you force your fingers to remain interlaced within your silk sleeves.

"Honored guests," Aang says as he approaches, his voice bright and clear. He bows deeply to your group. "It’s good to see Ba Sing Se so well represented. But I noticed King Kuei’s seat is empty. Is he feeling alright? I was looking forward to showing him the sketches for the central plaza."

The elder delegate beside you bows in return, his voice trembling slightly with the weight of the Avatar’s presence. "The Earth King sends his sincerest apologies, Avatar Aang. He was waylaid by matters of state regarding the restoration of the agrarian zones. He has entrusted us to speak on his behalf."

"I understand," Aang says, his expression softening into genuine empathy. "The work of rebuilding never really stops, does it?"

His gray eyes, vast and unnervingly observant, scan the faces of the delegates. He acknowledges each one by name—men and women who have spent decades in the shadows of the Upper Ring, now preening under the gaze of a boy who wasn't even awake for the war they survived.

Then, his gaze lands on you. The recognition he held for the others vanishes, replaced by a flicker of curiosity. He realizes you are the only variable he doesn't recognize.

He steps closer, stepping into the private space usually reserved for peers.

"I don't think we’ve met," he says, tilting his head slightly. That sickeningly friendly smile returns, though up close, you can see the exhaustion tucked into the corners of his eyes. "I’m Aang. And you are?"

The silence stretches for a second too long. You feel the weight of the obsidian pin pressing against your skull. You could kill him right now, but when you turn your head and notice all eyes on you, you shove the wicked thought far back into your head.

“I’m Y/N,” you force your lips to curl upwards as you offer a shallow, perfectly executed bow. “It is actually my first time here.”

“Really?” his eyes seem to brighten up further, for a reason you cannot place. You nod with a grimace. “What’s your opinion on Republic City then?”

Your eyebrows furrow at the name. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Ah, yes… I mean it’s not final. Just an idea,” his eyes roam across your face, seeming to catch onto the way your nose wrinkled at the name. “Don’t you like it?”

“The name's nice. I’m just,” you pause, looking up at his hopeful and curious expression. Why was he seeking your approval? It was a gift you would never grant him. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. People aren’t that accepting — not yet at least.”

The silence that follows your words is heavy, thick enough to choke the diplomats standing nearby. To tell the Avatar—the bridge between worlds—that his vision of harmony is flawed isn't just rude; in this room, it's practically heresy. You can feel the elder delegate beside you vibrating with pure terror.

But Aang doesn't summon a whirlwind. He doesn't even raise his voice.

He takes a half-step closer, his gray eyes searching yours with a piercing intensity.

"The world has been at war for a hundred years, Y/N," he says softly, his voice carrying a weight that belies his young face. "I know people are hurt. I know they're angry. That’s exactly why I think we need this. If we keep staying behind our own walls, the fear will never go away."

He folds his arms into his sleeves, mirroring your own composed posture, though his energy is warm where yours is ice.

"You say they aren't accepting yet,'" he repeats your words, turning them over like a puzzle. "So, in your mind, what comes first? Do we wait for the hearts of every person in the Four Nations to change before we build a place for them?"

Maybe you had overstepped. You take a slow, steady breath, smoothing the metaphorical wrinkles in your composure until you are once again the picture of Earth Kingdom grace.

"Forgive me, Avatar," you say, your voice returning to that silky, practiced tone. You offer a small, apologetic tilt of your head. "I didn't mean to—”

He holds up a hand, a gentle, reassuring smile returning to his face. “No, please don’t apologise. You may speak freely. I value your opinion just as much as anyone else’s.”

You blink in surprise. “Okay. It is simply that in the Earth Kingdom, we are taught that a foundation must be perfectly level before the house is built. If the ground is still shifting from the tremors of the past... the house might fall."

"I don't have a better idea," you continue softly, your eyes downcast in a show of feigned humility. "I only worry that justice is a heavy stone to move. If people feel it has been forgotten in the rush for peace, they may find their own ways to seek it. I would hate to see your beautiful vision compromised by those who aren't as... forgiving as you are."

Aang’s hand, which had been hovering in the air, slowly drops to his side. He looks at you for a long moment, his brow furrowed. He can tell you’ve retreated behind a wall, but your words have clearly left a mark.

"I see," he says, his voice quieter now. The playful energy from before has vanished, replaced by a somber weight. He offers you a small, grateful nod.

"I appreciate your honesty, Y/N. Truly. Most people just tell me what they think the Avatar wants to hear. It’s refreshing to meet someone who cares so much about the stability of the future."

He lingers there for a heartbeat, his gray eyes searching yours as if looking for the person who spoke so sharply just moments ago.

"I hope I can prove to you that this city can be a foundation for justice, too," he says. "Maybe we can talk more about what that 'level ground' looks like later tonight? At the banquet?"

The invitation is a double-edged sword. It’s the perfect opportunity to get him alone, away from the prying eyes of the Fire Lord and the Water Tribe warrior. But it also means more time under his unnerving, intuitive gaze.

"It would be an honor, Avatar," you reply, your voice a perfect, polite lie.

The obsidian pin in your hair feels heavy, a silent promise tucked against your scalp. One quick strike to the base of the skull while he laughs at Zuko’s dry wit, and the Order’s century-long nightmare would be over. Maybe you could land a few hits on the Fire Lord in the process. Two for the price of one.

“He’s remarkable, isn't he?”

The voice of a fellow Earth Kingdom delegate startles you, but you don't let your expression flicker. You maintain the serene, practiced mask that you’d been taught.

“Remarkable,” you agree, your voice smooth as silk as you look over at them. “It’s hard to believe so much power is contained in one person.”

“And so much kindness,” the delegate sighs. “We are lucky he returned to us.”

Lucky. You feel a familiar, cold bitterness rise in your throat. Was it 'luck' that left your mother’s body burnt to a crisp in the mud? Was it 'luck' that forced you to learn the anatomy of a human body before you learned how to dance?

Humming, you return your gaze back to the Avatar, and to your astonishment his curious eyes are already settled on you. His lips are curled into that all too familiar, sickeningly friendly smile of his that you yearn to smack right off of his face. He doesn’t look away, until a slightly shorter man dressed in the blue robes of the Southern Water tribe says something that takes his attention away from you. If your memory serves you right, his name must be Sokka. Another one of the fools in the Avatar’s circle.

You suppress the urge to roll your eyes as the Avatar takes his position at the centre of the room, a broad smile remaining on his face.

“Welcome, everybody! I have gathered you all here today to discuss the creation of a new city,” he lets his gaze roam the hall, his eyes bright with a fervor that seems to settle on every person individually.

“What is the purpose of this city?” a voice calls from the crowd.

“Well, it’s supposed to represent a place where the Four Nations are no longer separate,” he explains. “A place where people are just... people. Not Earth Kingdom subjects or Fire Nation citizens or Water Tribe people. I believe it will help us further restore the peace that we’ve lost after past events.”

The crowd murmurs amongst themselves, some nodding in agreement whilst others still weren’t fully convinced.

The Fire Lord steps up beside him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. “After everything that has happened, this will be good for us. The Fire nation is in full support of Avatar Aang’s plan.”

With their Lord's approval, the small group of Fire Nation diplomats quiets down. Their murmuring stops, though the scowls don't leave their faces.

Aang offers a final, humble bow to the room before hopping down from the dais. He moves with an irritating fluidity, weaving through the crowd like a breeze. He doesn’t walk like a man who ended a war, he walks like a child at a festival. He stops to greet the Northern Water Tribe elders with a respectful dip of his head and shares a brief, boisterous laugh with Sokka, who is already gesturing wildly toward a map of the proposed docks.

Then, his path shifts. He is heading toward the Earth Kingdom delegation. Toward you.

Your hand twitches instinctively, a phantom reach for the obsidian pin, but you force your fingers to remain interlaced within your silk sleeves.

"Honored guests," Aang says as he approaches, his voice bright and clear. He bows deeply to your group. "It’s good to see Ba Sing Se so well represented. But I noticed King Kuei’s seat is empty. Is he feeling alright? I was looking forward to showing him the sketches for the central plaza."

The elder delegate beside you bows in return, his voice trembling slightly with the weight of the Avatar’s presence. "The Earth King sends his sincerest apologies, Avatar Aang. He was waylaid by matters of state regarding the restoration of the agrarian zones. He has entrusted us to speak on his behalf."

"I understand," Aang says, his expression softening into genuine empathy. "The work of rebuilding never really stops, does it?"

His gray eyes, vast and unnervingly observant, scan the faces of the delegates. He acknowledges each one by name—men and women who have spent decades in the shadows of the Upper Ring, now preening under the gaze of a boy who wasn't even awake for the war they survived.

Then, his gaze lands on you. The recognition he held for the others vanishes, replaced by a flicker of curiosity. He realizes you are the only variable he doesn't recognize.

He steps closer, stepping into the private space usually reserved for peers.

"I don't think we’ve met," he says, tilting his head slightly. That sickeningly friendly smile returns, though up close, you can see the exhaustion tucked into the corners of his eyes. "I’m Aang. And you are?"

The silence stretches for a second too long. You feel the weight of the obsidian pin pressing against your skull. You could kill him right now, but when you turn your head and notice all eyes on you, you shove the wicked thought far back into your head.

“I’m Y/N,” you force your lips to curl upwards as you offer a shallow, perfectly executed bow. “It is actually my first time here.”

“Really?” his eyes seem to brighten up further, for a reason you cannot place. You nod with a grimace. “What’s your opinion on Republic City then?”

Your eyebrows furrow at the name. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Ah, yes… I mean it’s not final. Just an idea,” his eyes roam across your face, seeming to catch onto the way your nose wrinkled at the name. “Don’t you like it?”

“The name's nice. I’m just,” you pause, looking up at his hopeful and curious expression. Why was he seeking your approval? It was a gift you would never grant him. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea. People aren’t that accepting — not yet at least.”

The silence that follows your words is heavy, thick enough to choke the diplomats standing nearby. To tell the Avatar—the bridge between worlds—that his vision of harmony is flawed isn't just rude; in this room, it's practically heresy. You can feel the elder delegate beside you vibrating with pure terror.

But Aang doesn't summon a whirlwind. He doesn't even raise his voice.

He takes a half-step closer, his gray eyes searching yours with a piercing intensity.

"The world has been at war for a hundred years, Y/N," he says softly, his voice carrying a weight that belies his young face. "I know people are hurt. I know they're angry. That’s exactly why I think we need this. If we keep staying behind our own walls, the fear will never go away."

He folds his arms into his sleeves, mirroring your own composed posture, though his energy is warm where yours is ice.

"You say they aren't accepting yet,'" he repeats your words, turning them over like a puzzle. "So, in your mind, what comes first? Do we wait for the hearts of every person in the Four Nations to change before we build a place for them?"

Maybe you had overstepped. You take a slow, steady breath, smoothing the metaphorical wrinkles in your composure until you are once again the picture of Earth Kingdom grace.

"Forgive me, Avatar," you say, your voice returning to that silky, practiced tone. You offer a small, apologetic tilt of your head. "I didn't mean to—”

He holds up a hand, a gentle, reassuring smile returning to his face. “No, please don’t apologise. You may speak freely. I value your opinion just as much as anyone else’s.”

You blink in surprise. “Okay. It is simply that in the Earth Kingdom, we are taught that a foundation must be perfectly level before the house is built. If the ground is still shifting from the tremors of the past... the house might fall."

"I don't have a better idea," you continue softly, your eyes downcast in a show of feigned humility. "I only worry that justice is a heavy stone to move. If people feel it has been forgotten in the rush for peace, they may find their own ways to seek it. I would hate to see your beautiful vision compromised by those who aren't as... forgiving as you are."

Aang’s hand, which had been hovering in the air, slowly drops to his side. He looks at you for a long moment, his brow furrowed. He can tell you’ve retreated behind a wall, but your words have clearly left a mark.

"I see," he says, his voice quieter now. The playful energy from before has vanished, replaced by a somber weight. He offers you a small, grateful nod.

"I appreciate your honesty, Y/N. Truly. Most people just tell me what they think the Avatar wants to hear. It’s refreshing to meet someone who cares so much about the stability of the future."

He lingers there for a heartbeat, his gray eyes searching yours as if looking for the person who spoke so sharply just moments ago.

"I hope I can prove to you that this city can be a foundation for justice, too," he says. "Maybe we can talk more about what that 'level ground' looks like later tonight? At the banquet?"

The invitation is a double-edged sword. It’s the perfect opportunity to get him alone, away from the prying eyes of the Fire Lord and the Water Tribe warrior. But it also means more time under his unnerving, intuitive gaze.

"It would be an honor, Avatar," you reply, your voice a perfect, polite lie.