Valia

Today it is a little sapling planted by a girl named Larose Sallie. She is a singer, pink-cheeked as her name would suggest, golden-haired and green-eyed besides. The two of you are in the same class and you think she despises you a little, despises the ash that sometimes stains your fingertips, finds it ugly and undeserving. She must have been humiliated when her dogwood tree wilted and refused to bloom. She must have been humiliated when she was told by her parents that they would have it killed quickly, quietly, as if it were never there in the first place. 

You picture her in your music class, her high soprano running up and down the notes of the Song of Beauty, the world’s most beloved canticle. Maybe she’s there even now. Maybe she’s looking at your empty seat despondently and wishing you were like the rest of them, a singer who lay amongst flowers and shouted hymns at the breeze. She’s charitable even in her dislike. Everyone is. You are the only one like this match, who cannot stand the sweet peace of Mendasia’s paradise, who searches for completion and waits for the final end most earnestly.

“Oh, my.” A hand plucks the match out of yours before you can press it to the dogwood’s miserable, yellowing leaves. “An arsonist on Mendasia? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I’m not an arsonist,” you snap, whirling around and swiping for the match, which the man keeps decidedly out of your reach. He’s tall, with a beautiful, ageless face — you can’t decide if he is several Amber Eras your elder, or if you both might be in the same class at school. His irises are a dull artemisia, banded with knockout rose, framed with dark lashes that flutter whenever he blinks; he’s not dressed in the pale robes of Mendasia but dark-heeled boots and a long coat, the hair spilling around his shoulders messy, unkempt. He is as unfamiliar as the match he holds, which looks to be at home in his gloved grasp, and when he notices your scowl, he frowns a little, polite, puzzled.

“You’re setting fire to random trees,” he points out, twirling the match for emphasis. “Seems pretty arsonist to me, kid.”

“It’s not a random tree,” you say. “Look at it, it’s not like it has anything left to go on for. Meeting its end is its final chance at purpose and bliss. Give that back.”

He arches a sharp brow at you but does not oblige, not even when you hold your hand out expectantly.

“What are you going to pay me? I’ll accept dinner, I’m a little hungry and I’ve heard a lot about Mendasia’s cheeses—”

“What?” you say, swiping the match from him when he is distracted by his musings, holding the sparkling thing close to your heart. “I’m not paying you!”

He sighs dramatically. “Yeah, alright. So you’re going to kill this little thing, huh?”

“Just so,” you say with an injured sniff, because you are entirely irritated with this lovely man and his strange accusations and his match-stealing ways. 

“Because you think there’s nothing left but the end for it, and you want to witness that very ending. I see, I see,” he says.

“I’m sure it’s odd, but that’s how it is,” you say.

“Not that odd. I’ve met a thousand people like you in my time, obsessed with apocalypse and the Finality. It’s fine. Do as you’d like,” he says, patting you on the shoulder.

“I will,” you say, but now you are not so sure if you want to. You can’t help but wonder what he will think when he sees the orange tongues of your fire as they lap at the sickly brown bark. It doesn’t matter, but for a moment, you waver, and you do wonder if it will disappoint him.

“Good,” he says.

“Good!” you say. The match is heavy in your hand. The ache in you is different now, less acute, sweet on your tongue, hot in your stomach. You don’t know what you want but it’s something. It’s something and it’s close, you are sure of it, but for some reason, you cannot quite put your finger on what it might be, what you might call it.

“Well, I have business to attend to. Someone told me this is the home of Mendasia’s Chief Singer?” he says. You nod mutely, because it’s true, Mrs. Sallie does live here, but she’s Larose Sallie’s mother, and the thought of Larose meeting this man makes you feel ugly and ill. 

For his part, if he notices, he does not say anything beyond calling out a farewell, waving at you over his shoulder, his other arm swinging by his side as he walks away jauntily, humming a song you’ve never heard in all of your years on this planet of music. 

“Wait!” you say, darting forward, your fingers clasping around his loose wrist, your palms so clammy you cannot believe the matchstick in your free hand has not been put out by sweat. “Sir—”

The two of you flinch at the same time; he pulls away from you, but not quickly enough to spare you from the consuming hunger bursting beneath his skin. For a moment you think you are about to die, that you have reached your own — what did he call it? Finality? — but you cannot bring yourself to draw back. You chase it, you embrace it, even as he steps back and the darkness fades from the corners of your vision you reach out for him once more, faintly, fruitlessly. You want to touch him again. You want to see the end of the world that pulses in his veins. You want it, you want it, you want it. 

“What is it?” he says, not unkindly but without his earlier flippance. You swallow, and then you nod towards the spindly tree.

“Do you think it could ever become anything?” you say. He squints, angles his head as he regards the dogwood, and then he shrugs.

“Who knows? But one thing’s for sure,” he says. You lean forward subconsciously, hoping for some great and profound wisdom. “If you burn it down now, it definitely won’t. Boom! The end is the end, kid. You can’t take that kind of thing back.”

Then he really does walk away, gone before you can insist that you’re not a kid, gone before you can ask him his name or what business he has on Mendasia or how he even found the planet, protected by Idrila’s wall as it is. You clench your fist before dropping the match into the dirt, grinding the sole of your shoe into it until it’s muddy and cold. After that, you glance around furtively before pressing your nails into the ground, digging until your knuckles crack and peel and you reach root.

Ripping the sapling out of the ground, you heft it to your heart and take it with you into the woods, where it will be safe from the sun and Larose and her parents alike. You plant it there with your own bleeding fingers and try to imagine it in ten years, in twenty, when it is old and sturdy and flowering. It will be beautiful, you decide. When you come to see it again, it will surely be beautiful, worthy of Mendasia's favor. And maybe that man will come back, too, and you will take him to see it with you and you will tell him you were right, good sir. Most assuredly, you were right. 

“In my life, I have witnessed many ‘Finalities,’ though only three concern you,” you say to the crowd of gathered onlookers. Most of them are Foxian, their pricked ears swiveling around nervously, their tails lashing back and forth at the mention of Finality. Once, you might’ve pitied them, but now you only think to yourself — well, I’m not the one who called you here. You saw my black cloak and asked me yourself, so do not blame me when the answer is not the one you seek.

“The third: the tsunami of Neese, caused by the very people who drowned in it. How tragic, to think your Finality was preventable, avoidable, and yet instead of fleeing you only hastened it. Terminus was there; THEIR impartial gaze looked upon Neese’s end and chronicled it quietly, taking the civilization’s known death as an offering and continuing in THEIR march against time.

“The second: the devouring of your very own Xianzhou Cangcheng.” The Foxians gasp at this, because it is nigh-blasphemous to speak of the great ship’s death. But you are not a guest of the Xianzhou as much as you are a visitor, so you continue undeterred. “The living planet Rahu…there was nothing they could’ve done to prevent it. It wasn’t like Neese. They fought as hard as they could against their Finality, but it was futile, of course. Finality is inevitable.

“And the first, the greatest, the most beautiful ending of all: the fall of the planet of songs, the fall of my home — Mendasia. It was my first encounter with the Finality, with THEIR method, and with the Creed Exequy who embraced me as one of their own. Swallowed by a sun-eater, Mendasia sits in that beast’s stomach even now, for its Finality is a slow one, its ending quiet and long. The death of the planet was the closest I have ever been to—”

“Excuse me,” an authoritative voice interrupts you. It’s a man in a Cloud Knight uniform, stern and sturdy, standing in front of the Foxians as though he can protect them, as though you are anyone who they need protecting from. “Miss, members of the Creed Exequy are not welcome on the Xianzhou, especially not members such as yourself.”

“Members such as myself?” you say, raising a brow. You have known since the Finality of the Cangcheng that the Xianzhou holds no love for the Exequy, but you did not know that there was a special sort of protocol for you.

“Even a child could smell the sickly-sweet stench of Finality that trails after you,” he says, pointing his spear at you. “You are not a witness but a harbinger. Wherever you go, apocalypse follows.”

“I see,” you say. The Foxians are long gone; you wonder if they were meant to trap you, to chase you from this silver ship of fools. “You needn’t fear, sir knight. Terminus’s gaze has not yet fallen upon the Luofu.”

“Leave at once,” he says as if you had not spoken. “We have no desire to witness your disasters, Portent of the End.”

The title is enough to frighten anyone. Portent of the End. To have witnessed enough Finalities that Terminus’s gaze layers upon you until you are steeped in it…the mere thought of an existence like that, a shadow caught on the edge between life and death, scares people more than it ought to. Especially when it is so rare, so frightful to encounter one who is more than a mere worshipper — you cannot blame the Cloud Knight, then, for how he shudders.

“Terminus has turned THEIR attention to a new ending,” you say, drawing your dark cloak around your shoulders and bowing as you know is their custom. “It will not do for me to dwell in this flourishing land, where endings are postponed by cyclical Permanence. I take your farewell in the good spirit I am sure it was intended, and I will not mourn it, for we will all be reunited at the end of things, when the universe is rewritten anew.”

You can sometimes catch traces of the Finality, whispers that foretell those moments when a vast and great existence reaches its end. It is not prophecy as much as it is an awareness of the shifts of the Aeon, who moves for very few incidents. The deaths of planets, of stars, of solar systems and galaxies — so why, then, has a single man caught THEIR interest? Yet as board your ship, the white-gold Plumhawk, you are quite sure that when this man dies, Terminus will watch over him personally, will guide him through apocalypse and into the embrace of THEIR eternity.

La Mancha’s death…approaches. La Mancha’s ending…is near. La Mancha…who hides on the planet of laughter…will soon meet…Finality.

Planarcadia’s landing dock is large, an industrial IPC-sponsored construction made of steel and concrete. It’s manned by mechatrons that beam signals to the Plumhawk’s navigation system, guiding you to land beside a ship that looks like it’s meant for racing, sleek like a bullet but with a long gouge down its side. You hope that’s not evidence of the mechatrons’ handling; the Plumhawk is your pride, and you don’t want its pristine exterior to be so unnecessarily marred.

“Be gentle,” you instruct the mechatron who greets you when you step onto the runway. The mechatron nods and rattles off some pre-recorded speech about how the IPC aims to please all of their associates, although it does lag for a little at the flutter of your cloak, as if you possess some preternatural force which can even frighten a heartless, soulless thing.

Compared to the serenity of the Xianzhou, Planarcadia is a little frightening in its overt muchness. It’s exactly the kind of place a maimed old wolf would go to die, filled with dark crannies shoved between the hustle and bustle where he can curl up and depart peacefully, without witness or woe. But, then, how will you find him? You duck into a kitten-themed cafe and massage your temples, reaching out for the Finality, praying it will guide you to him.

“What d’ya mean, you have to put Arcadia Nuts in the milkshake? The girl said she’s allergic, you maggot-farming shroom-for-brains!”

Your meditation is interrupted by a string of childish almost-cursing, which sounds just as vile as actual swears would when rolled over the man’s lovely twang. His accent is slow and foreign and deep, not Planarcadian in the slightest, and you eye him with a modicum of interest, although you are sure he is not La Mancha. 

“Um, it’s alright, sir,” the young girl at his side says, tugging on the hem of his dark jacket. “I can just have something else, it doesn’t matter…”

“Like Halovians it is!” he snaps. “I’ll get you a gosh-darned milkshake, even if I have to make it myself!”

“Wow,” you say, because the frightened employee has just meekly announced that your Ahaberry smoothie is ready and you have no intentions of letting this man frighten you away from it. “Are you some new kind of mechatron? I didn’t know they were into public justice of the milkshake variety nowadays.”

The cafe is silent, so your first sip of your smoothie is a little obnoxious, but you stare at the silver-bodied man without flinching, continuing to sip as the girl shrinks closer to him and the employee scoots backwards towards the blender.

“I would be entirely surprised if a milkshake with an Arcadia Nut milk base could be made without Arcadia Nuts,” you say, taking one more sip and then handing your smoothie to the girl. “Are you allergic to Ahaberries, too?”

“No, miss,” she says.

“Well, there you go. Come on, cowboy, you owe me a milkshake now,” you say, motioning him towards you, not out of any sympathy for the cafe owners but because, although he is not La Mancha, you recognize the bullet earring dangling from his ear.

“I’m not a gosh-darned mechatron, by the way, and don’t you ever fudgin’ forget it,” he says, but he does come along with you rather gamely, even holding the door open for you like a proper gentleman.

“But you are a Galaxy Ranger,” you say. “And I’d wager you’re here for the same reason I am — La Mancha has made this planet his hiding-hole, and we both, for our own reasons, want to find him.”

“How d’you know that?” he says, his face paling. “The amount of people I had to threaten — I mean, talk to — before I even heard a rumor that he might be here, and you’re telling me you, a random girl, just know?” 

“So it’s true,” you say. “Of course, THEY never lie, but I was a little confused…yet it’s the case. La Mancha is here. What is your business with him?”

“Now why in Lan’s green arm would I tell you?” he says. “What’s your business with him?”

“He’s going to die soon,” you say promptly, carelessly, because this Ranger’s knowledge of it won’t change that outcome any. “I intend to be there for it.”

The cold barrel of a pistol is pressed against your chin before you can blink. He’s definitely a Ranger, no doubt about it; no one else would be so quick, so loyal. His words come out as a growl, his brow furrowed as he jams the metal into your tender flesh. You both are in the middle of a crowded road, but no one even stops, the world milling about around you as you curl your hand over his, holding the gun in place but rendering him unable to shoot, as well.  

“You leave the boss alone, you hear me?” he hissed. Precarious. The situation you’re in is precarious. A slip of your finger, a flare of his temper, and you’ll die. You close your eyes, but try as you might, you cannot sense Terminus. Your existence consists only of the Ranger’s hand and his pistol, both cold, both digging against you, which means that either you are of such little consequence to the universe that Terminus cannot bother to look your way or the Ranger does not mean to kill you just yet. “You even think of killing him and l’ll kill you, you moth-eaten shirtsleeve.”

“I don’t have any quarrel with him,” you say. “I’m not going to kill him.”

“But you know he’s going to die?”

“Yes.”

The Ranger’s hand flexes beneath yours, but he doesn’t move it. He only narrows his eyes and leans impossibly closer to you, close enough that you can smell him, earthy and warm like leather and sandalwood, nothing like the clinical sterility you had expected.

“How?” he says.

“The Finality,” you say. “THEY told me.”

His index finger twitches over the trigger, but across the street, someone shouts in delight, and suddenly you are swarmed by the masses, people raising their phones and recording the two of you.

“Is this a movie scene? Is this one of Director Reca’s new films?” a boy says, shoving a camera in your face, the flash blinding you as he takes close to fifty pictures in quick succession. 

“What now?” you murmur to the Ranger. “I told you the truth. Terminus has shifted; La Mancha’s time has come, and it will draw the gaze of even an Aeon when he falls. Whether you believe me or not, that is the case. If you kill me now, you might also have to kill all of these people, if you even can. Or, we can work together.”

“No, it can’t be Director Reca, he normally makes his main leads attractive!”

“Work together?” he says.

“Hm,” you say. “How shall I put it? You want to find La Mancha, and I also want to find him. On our own, we may not be able to do so. Planarcadia is enormous, after all. But if we work together, we might be able to manage. What becomes of him once we find him can be decided at that time; until then, we can be allies. Do you see?” 

“I do,” he says tersely.

“Do you accept?”

“I do.”

“Then put down your gun, Mr.—?”

“Boothill,” he says, clipping the pistol back to his belt and watching with pursed lips as you rub the sore spot.

“Thank you, Mr. Boothill,” you say as everyone around you claps, clearly assuming him putting down his gun is the climax of your scene. “Now let’s get out of the public eye before we meet people who we have no interest in meeting, and then we can talk more about what this partnership might entail.”

“Good idea,” he says, scanning the streets before grinning, revealing teeth filed into sharp, perfect points. “Y’know how to ride a bike, missy?” 

“What?” you say. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever — put me down this instant!”

He hauls you over his shoulder without any sort of grace, much to the crowd’s delight. You’ve never met anyone so daring, not since you were young and still on Mendasia, an ordinary girl instead of a Creed Exequy, and it’s doubly bewildering because you are not sure how you are meant to react. He is so unaware or so unafraid or both, chuckling to himself as he swings his leg over the seat of a polished motorcycle, setting you behind him and revving the engine.

“What is your problem?” you say, flustered and confused in a way you have never been. 

“Wait, that’s my bike!”

“Muddlefudger,” Boothill says as a man sprints towards you. “Hold on tight, missy, you’re about to get a private lesson!”

The motorcycle takes off, and all you can do is throw your arms around Boothill’s waist before you fly into the streets of Planarcadia. His slippery torso offers little comfort, and although you know, logically, that the Plumhawk goes many times faster in space, that knowledge does nothing to soothe you when you and Boothill are whipping through alleyways hardly even wide enough to accommodate the two of you if you were to attempt to go at them side by side, your surroundings a blur as you speed by.

You’re in a barely-lit part of the city when the engine finally sputters and then gives out fully, the bike keeling over as Boothill hops off and yanks you after him. You rearrange your cloak about you, drawing yourself to your full height, though you do not think he finds it very intimidating based on the way he raises a brow and has the gall to chuckle.

“I have never in my life encountered someone so irreverent,” you say regardless. “Are all of you Galaxy Rangers so reckless and foolhardy? It’s a wonder your La Mancha has lived as long as he has if so!”

“Hey, hey, relax, missy. I got us out of there, didn’t I?” he says. “Aren’t you meant to be a follower of the Finality or something? Thought you were all a bit cuckoo.”

“The Finality, not the Elation. We aren't mindless adrenaline junkies; endings are only of worth when they have meaning,” you say before sighing. Explanations on the theology of the Creed Exequy will be lost on the Ranger, who already looks bored out of his mind. “Whatever. Where are we?”

He mutters something under his breath about how you’re a lot less impressive and a lot more bratty than you first seemed, and then he shrugs. It leaves you in a tough spot because you can’t exactly protest without proving him right, so you settle for glaring at him, though you think that has the same effect as whining would’ve.

“Fork if I know,” he says. “This is my first day here, too, y’know.”

“Your first day and you’re already yelling at service workers and stealing motorcycles,” you muse. “What a first impression you’ve made on this planet, Mr. Boothill.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve made worse in my time,” he says.

“Oh, I believe it.”

“Hilarious.”

“Where shall we go from here?” you say. “You don’t need to be from around Ahatopia to tell that we’re somewhere a little more unscrupulous than Duomension City.”

“Scared?” he says.

“When I have a Galaxy Ranger with me? Hardly,” you deadpan. “Honestly. I’ve witnessed the universe’s greatest disasters unscathed. Do you think a few local gangs are enough to frighten me? I just don’t see the sense in lingering. Unless this is the kind of place La Mancha would frequent?”

“Nah, the boss has honor,” Boothill says. “He wouldn’t be hanging around somewhere like this.”

“Overall we’re at a distinct disadvantage,”  you say. “He’s hiding from us, and ostensibly he knows the planet far better than we do.”

“I feel like you’re about to suggest something I have no interest in,” Boothill says, leaning against the alley wall and taking out a piece of scrap metal, chewing on it as he tilts his head up towards the sky.

“We need to enlist the help of a native Planarcadian,” you say.

“There it is,” he says, rolling his eyes and spitting the metal out, replacing it with a bubblegum-pink lollipop. “No fudgin’ way, missy. I work alone.”

“You’re working with me right now,” you point out.

“Not by choice, and it’s more like I’m keeping an eye on you if anything. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you,” he says.

“Come on, Mr. Boothill, be reasonable. A lone Galaxy Ranger is a sad thing, and the Creed Exequy’s modus operandi has always been bearing witness, not taking direct action. Anyways, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed yet, but there’s a rot taking hold of Planarcadia, a rot which is only further concealing La Mancha’s location from me. Ordinarily I might be able to find him with the power of the Finality alone, but…I don’t know. The path is in a disarray, as if something is blocking my attempts at reaching for it,” you say, frowning with your hand over your heart.

“Maybe it’s Aha. Seems like the kind of thing THEY’d do,” Boothill says, the white stick of his lollipop held between his teeth. “But listen up, missy, ’cause I’ll only say it once: I don’t care about muddlefudgin’ paths and Aeons and all of that beeswax. I just wanna find my boss and get outta here.”

“And the fastest way to do that will be to enlist the help of someone who knows the area and might have a clue where La Mancha could be,” you say.

The two of you are at a standstill for a moment, but you can see in his eyes the exact moment Boothill relents. The corners of his mouth tug downwards, but he nods shortly, sharply.

“Alright, but no IPC,” he says. “It was hard enough for me to sneak on here without them realizing. We’re not going to play right into their hands.”

“That’s fine,” you say. “I have no particular love for the IPC myself. They are useful in their place but generally worthless elsewise.”

“No goons from the Department of Aberration Defense or whatever the horse-hockey they’re called here,” he continues.

“I’m sure they have better things to do,” you agree.

“Actually, you know what? You’re going to make me work with someone? Fine, but I get to pick who it’ll be,” he says.

“Very well, but if I don’t like them, I reserve the right to refuse,” you say.

“How about you reserve the right to go work by yourself, then?” he says.

“Mr. Boothill—”

“Oh, come on, before I change my mind,” he says, kicking the fallen bike aside and stomping off. With a final glance at the sky, you reach out for the power of the Finality once more, a last, pathetic attempt to beg Terminus to guide you. But all you get is those same whispers, which surge with the strength of omen and do little but assure you that you are still somewhat on the right track.

La Mancha’s death…approaches. La Mancha’s ending…is near. La Mancha…who hides on the planet of laughter…will soon meet…Finality.

“Every gang member I’ve interrogated — ahem, politely questioned — has said that this guy’s the best of the best when it comes to dumb-fudge cases like this one,” Boothill says. You both are standing together in front of a publishing company, and you weigh the merits of asking him if there’s something faulty in his coding before deciding his earlier threat about referring to him as a mechatron is probably meant to be heeded. 

“We’re going to ask Imagenae reporters to find La Mancha?” you say.

“Not exactly,” he says. “Apparently the detective’s broke as a busload of baloney, so his agency is inside.”

“Inside,” you repeat dubiously. “Er. Like, inside the publishing company? Are you sure you have the right address?”

“This is where they all said he works,” he says.

“How naive of you to believe them. Have you considered that they might’ve lied?” you say.

“Would you lie to a guy with a gun down your throat?” he says, tapping the pistol resting against his hip for emphasis. 

“I guess you have a point,” you admit. “Lead the way, then.”

You don’t really let him lead the way, though, the two of you walking next to each other, skirting around the little Imagenae who pay you no mind, hunched over their desks and bustling about as they are, speaking in squeaking tones to one another, despairing over debt and unpaid rent and other typical corporate concerns.

True to Boothill’s word, in the very back of the publishing company’s white-painted building is a door, wooden with a bubbly glass window, adorned with a sign that reads Ashen Detective Agency in dark, messy marker. He flashes you a victorious grin and knocks on the door; when no one answers, he huffs and kicks it open.

The Ashen Detective Agency’s headquarters is a single dim storage closet and not much else. There’s crumpled papers and old takeout boxes littering the ground, and in the corner a refrigerator hums merrily, tunelessly. You click your tongue, exchanging glances with Boothill.

“Entirely unprofessional,” you say.

“We’re working on the recommendations of gang members here, missy, dunno why you were expecting a red carpet to be laid out in welcome,” he mutters, but he’s obviously embarrassed. 

“How is he supposed to find a missing person when he can’t even find a trash can?” you say. Before Boothill can retort, someone clears their throat, and from beside the refrigerator, a diminutive shadow shuffles into view. 

“Well, butter my biscuit and call me a banana—”

“I’d rather not.”

“—the Ashen Detective is a monkey!” Boothill exclaims.

“It does appear to be the case, but I’m not so sure,” you say. The monkey clears his throat again and knocks on the refrigerator.

“If the great detective continues to ignore me in an attempt to gain a few more minutes of shut-eye, he will miss out on a pair of incredibly wealthy clients who might pay ten million credits or more!” he declares. 

Almost immediately, the refrigerator door bangs open, a dark-gloved hand clenching the edge as the chill manifests in the form of an icy fog. The monkey chuckles to himself, bowing at you and then stepping aside as a boot-clad leg swings over the side of the fridge, toeing for purchase before meeting ground and straightening, its owner letting out a deep sigh as he stands and gives you both an exasperated look.

“Mr. Ashveil is entirely disappointed to discover that, despite their cosmos-renowned statuses, the duo before him appear to be entirely broke!” the monkey says. “In fact, he wonders if they even have ten credits between the two of them, let alone ten million!”

“What in tarnation?” Boothill says. “I don’t know about her, but I definitely have more than ten credits to my gosh-darn name!”

“You,” you say, your breath hitching in your throat. “I know you.”

“Huh?” Ashveil says, pointing at himself. “Me?”

“I’m sure of it, though I don’t know how,” you say, furrowing your brow. “But we’ve definitely met.”

He’s well-built and handsome in a way that is unforgettable, his every feature so perfectly striking, callous angles and mercury highlights and pen-stroke brows. So why can’t you remember him? Where do you know him from? The answer lurks somewhere deep within you, but it’s like there’s netting thrown over it, veiling it from view, a warning as much as an obstruction.

“I guess it’s probably unimportant if you don’t remember,” he says. “So. Ten million credits for a missing persons case? Easy.”

“How’d you know it’s a missing persons case?” Boothill says.

“My excellent powers of deduction,” Ashveil says with a nod.

“What he does not add is that you also mentioned it when you first entered the room,” the monkey says.

“Mr. N, if you really must continue with these little asides of yours, can you at least paint me in a good light in front of my clients?” Ashveil hisses. “Anyways, let me guess. Looking for an estranged parent?”

“Not exactly,” Boothill says.

“Childhood friend?” he tries.

“You couldn’t be further from the truth,” you say.

“I got it!” he says after a moment of contemplation, clapping his hands together. “Your child!”

“No!”

“It’s my boss,” Boothill says, inching away from you with a sidelong glance, a favor you happily reciprocate.

“Why would you want to find your boss?” Ashveil scoffs. 

“It is important to note that, as of yet, Mr. Ashveil has not recognized either of his clients,” Mr. N says. “Perhaps a clue to jog his memory…the boy is wanted by the IPC, with a bounty of more credits than you can dream of looming over his head.”

“I didn’t know you had a bounty that grand on you,” you say.

“Eh,” Boothill says. “Shot a few bigwigs. You get the picture.”

“Most assuredly,” you say.

“Enough of this,” Boothill says when Ashveil cocks his head and squints at him. Pulling his gun out, he points it at Ashveil; in the back of your mind, you feel like a discussion about this shoot-first, think-later mentality is probably in order, but you file it away for later consideration. “The name’s Boothill, and I’m a Galaxy Ranger. No one’s heard from our leader in years, so I aim to be the first in the organization to chat with him in a good while!”

Ashveil doesn’t even flinch, his gaze dragging over to you, syrupy and nigh-decadent as it washes over you. “What about you, then?”

“I am also here in search of La Mancha,” you say. “Because he is going to die.”

His eyes widen slightly, and then he smiles knowingly.

“Am I to assume you mean to save him?” he says.

“No,” you say, and just for an instant, Boothill and Mr. N and the rest of the world fade away. It’s only you and Ashveil, the question and the answer, something blooming in your chest, an ache you think is called desire, an ache which has been withered and dead since your days on Mendasia, when there was still feeling and sensation to be found in your life. “I only wish to watch.”

“I see,” Ashveil says, and he doesn’t seem quite so daft anymore, his teeth glinting in the flickering lamplight, his irises almost malevolent in their understanding. “So my suspicions were correct. Creed Exequy…yes, even I have heard the stories of those who don the black regalia of Terminus.”

“Will you help us or not?” you say, a little impatiently. “Whatever your price is, I can pay it. I’m told you’re the best Planarcadia has to offer, and with things as they are, you might be our only chance. My only chance.”

“I don’t want money,” he says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do want money, but first, I need you to answer one question for me. If it’s true that La Mancha’s ending approaches, can you guarantee that he will meet his Finality in peace?”

“I cannot,” you say. “That’s not within the scope of my power, detective. Even I am not that strong.”

“Aren’t you?” Ashveil says, and it’s so hypnotic you almost want to say, well…

“What?” Boothill says, yanking you back to reality. “Aren’t you a normal Creed Exequy weirdo? All doom and gloom and Finality and whatnot? You’re freaking me out a bit here, missy. Why does this old fogey think you can guarantee anything?”

“It’s true that the girl follows the Finality,” Mr. N says. “And it’s also true that she is a member of the Creed Exequy. Here, I implore of you to remember that the Xianzhou call this girl the Portent of the End, which is, in effect, their method of referring to—”

The door to the storage closet slams open yet again, and a girl storms in. She’s all pretty and righteous, her golden hair tied back and her green eyes swirling with fury. She shoves past Boothill, who is too surprised to do anything but stumble backwards, and then, for some reason, she slaps a wad of credits in Ashveil’s hand.

“Hey, detective. There’s a new visitor to Planarcadia, and I need you to dig her out. I have a few choice words for her that I’ve been waiting to say for quite a damn while,” she says, her every word a lilting melody, almost like she is singing instead of speaking. It’s a cadence you haven’t heard in so long that a lump swells in your throat unbidden, the aroma of matches and flowering fruit trees invading your nose with nostalgia.

“Woah, there!” Boothill says. “The two of us were here first, if you mind!”

The girl gives him a disdainful look before she glances at you and then does a double take, her jaw dropping before she’s slamming you against the wall, digging her forearm into your neck to pin you in place. Ashveil shouts in surprise, and Mr. N starts explaining who she is, but you tune him out, because you know this girl, and not in that hazy way you know the detective. You know her, you know the betrayal brimming in her eyes, know the tears she threatens to shed, know why her face flushes pinker and pinker with every passing second. 

“Larose,” you say. Her grip is weak, her arms slender and trembling, but you don’t fight to break free. The girl who saved you from Mendasia’s fall, the girl who you then abandoned in turn and never spoke to again…you still remember how she sobbed when the sun-eater swallowed your planet, clinging to you as you watched that apocalypse in faint, muted horror. This anger is the least you owe her. “How did you find me?”

“I’ve been looking for you all of this time,” she says. “There’s so many things I want to say to you. So many things I need to ask.”

“But there’s one that’s more important than the rest,” you guess. “One that you traveled from your home in Penacony to ask me.”

“I just want to know why,” she says. “Mendasia followed the Beauty, so why did you abandon that once it fell? Why did you give everything up to become — to become —”

“An Emanator of Finality,” Mr. N completes for Larose when she breaks off and dissolves into tears. Boothill says something under his breath that sounds like what the fruitcake. “A girl obsessed with endings, who has seen so many that some have begun to wonder if she can even write them herself.”

I . THE DEAL

The only thing you seemed to recall learning in your class was the meaning behind a star collision. Which wasn't good, not with your final exam approaching in two months.

It was an event between two stars that collided with one another, merging, and becoming an even larger and brighter star.

Not very helpful though. 

You’d skim through the notes you took during lessons only to find out that most of them were unfinished 

formulas with no labels and handwriting that belonged in the museum of egypt antiques. 

It was obvious the only choice you had left was to get a tutor. 

The problem was, you’re broke. You were lucky enough to even get into this school, let alone manage to put food on the table when all your money was going towards your tuition. 

There was no pocket money for a ridiculously expensive tutor. 

The advertisements pinned onto the library bulletin board proved your point. Any and every tutor available charged more than 60$ an hour. 

“You've gotta be kidding me..” You sighed, flipping through the pages that overlapped one another, hoping that maybe there was one kind soul who charged less than that. 

A set of hands reached next to you, putting up another paper. 

“Sorry, don’t mind if I just squeeze past ya.” The boy mumbled. You recognized him immediately. Satoru Gojo. Mr. Know it all from your astronomy class who always felt the need to correct the teacher over every tiny mistake, and your childhood friend. 

You haven’t actually spoken since he moved schools after his teachers and parents decided that he was too good to be with the normies. 

His glasses slipped a bit down the bridge of his nose, about to fall off completely if he didn’t reach up in time. 

“Are you interested?” He nodded over to the poster he had just put up. 

‘Star Gazing. October 22nd @ 11 pm ‘ 

He’s always been geeked out over space and the stars. You remembered he’d invite you over to his house for sleepovers just to spend the time explaining the solar system. 

You answered with a shake of your head. “I’m more interested in how I'm going to pay for a tutor.” 

He followed your line of sight, letting out a small hum. 

“For?” 

“Astronomy..” You squeezed out, embarrassed. You wondered what he would think of you, would he question how much you’ve changed since your last meet up? How did you go from extremely smart to barely getting by? 

“Do we share a class? Don’t think I've seen you before.” 

You know you shouldn’t feel this way, I mean, it’s been years. but your heart couldn’t help but sink. Of course he didn’t remember your friendship. 

“Um, I'm not sure.” You settled on saying instead.

Looking back at the star gazing paper, something inside your brain finally clicked after a long time. He was good at astrophysics. 

“Hey.. I know it might be weird to ask but-“ 

“Sorry, not interested.” He put his hands up. “My girl just broke up with me last week and I'm still going through the um,” He snapped his fingers, trying to think of the word. “The withdrawals from the heartbreak.” 

Your brows furrowed. “Huh?” 

“I know, I couldn't believe it myself. She got upset that I paid more attention to my studies than her which I personally find very dramatic. We're literally in college right? And it’s not my fault that Hubble's law was too sexy.”  

“Uh huh..” You began backing away really slowly. 

You don’t blame the girl. You too would break up with him if he so much as said that a formula was “sexy.” 

“Well, I'm sorry to hear that..” No you weren’t. “But I was going to ask if you could tutor me.” 

“Oh.” 

There goes ego boost. 

Satoru stood there awkwardly, processing your words. “I mean..” He looked back at the bulletin board, grazing at the pages. “These guys not your type?” 

“Not with the way they’re charging me, no.” 

“Fair.” He shrugged. “Well sweetheart,” 

Ew.

“I pity you, so I’ll do the great honor of tutoring ya. Y’know it would look amazing on me. I’ve been trying to get an internship with NASA at the moment. I’m superrrr close-” 

“Wait, so you will tutor me?” You interrupted before he started rambling about whatever he was. 

He adjusted his glasses again, deciding to just put them over his head. He really needed new ones. “Course, the exam is in a few weeks. In that, we can cram the basics and build our way up to the current lesson.” 

It’s been a while since you’ve seen him without his glasses on. 

Ever since he learned how to read, he spent his nights forcing his eyes too much to focus on books. He’d hide under his blankets with a flashlight in his hand which caused him to get horrible eyesight very quickly. 

“Now you've got the whole nerd look to you.” You teased. 

“Oh, shut up!” 

You almost smiled at the memory. You wondered if he remembered.

“Hey but um, I still don’t have enough money to pay you..” You showed him your wallet, a crisp five dollar bill inside. 

Satoru could've sworn a moth flew out as well. He let out a small ‘pfft’ swatting his hand in the air. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m rich enough as it is, I don’t need your pocket money.” He pushed your wallet back to you. “Keep that for a cup of noodles.” 

“How nice of you.” 

“Seriously, no strings attached. Unless you count the string theory I’ll be teaching you later.” 

“The what?” You frowned. God, have you seriously not been paying attention at all these past few months? He reached into his back pocket, pulling out his phone. “Here, type in your phone number. We can meet up at my house every Thursday and Friday. I’ll send you my address later.”

You put in your digits and contact name, maybe that way he can somehow recall something. Anything. 

“There’s more to this, isn't there?” He shook his head at your question. “No no, there has to be. No way would you are agreeing and expect nothing in return. That’s not like y-”  

You cut yourself off. 

Satoru dragged his hand down his face, taking a step closer to shorten the distance you created. “I need you to become my fake girlfriend. Just until my ex decides she wants me back.” 

Your eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“My girl broke up with me a while ago, and I miss her. Like a lot. But she’s not gonna come back to me if I crawl to her.” 

“So..?” 

“So, I know that she will get jealous if she sees me with a nobody like you, no offense.”

“None taken.” Yet you felt your heart sink. A nobody. You feel the insult hit harder than it should have and he takes notice immediately.

"I'm kidding I just.. look I didn't mean it in a bad way it's just.. you're really quiet. I don't think anyone really knows who you are, so she'll be surprised I decided to go for someone that's opposite of her."

“Who even is your ex?”

“Nova James.” 

Your stomach dropped. The Nova James? The sorority girl? The one who has the power to ruin anyone's reputation with a single instagram story? The one that can make your family go bankrupt with her daddy’s company? That Nova James?

“Nova? She’ll start a rumor of me once she finds out we’re ‘dating’!” 

Satoru shook his head, holding your hand to let you down easily. “Oh sweet girl, if I didn’t know who you were a couple minutes ago, I doubt anyone, especially her, knows you either.” 

You began to feel your eye itching to twitch. Seriously, what the hell happened to make him this egoistic. “You’re one to talk. I didn’t even know you and Nova were dating in the first place.” You could see his brows lifting slightly, eyes averting to the ground before he gently pulled away his hand from yours. 

“She didn’t like our relationship being public. Only us and a select few of our friends knew. Well, my friends actually. She’d used to say that it would get in between her and being in a sorority.” 

“But it was a problem when your relationship began getting in the way of your studies?” Your eyes narrowed. 

He went quiet for a bit.

“I really need your help.” His voice came out in a whisper. It was hard to say no to him, it always was. And besides, you needed to pass this class, even if it meant wrapping yourself in something that could blow up in your face any minute. 

“Okay, I’ll do it.” 

A small smile appeared on his thin lips, giving you a nod of gratitude. “Thank you, seriously.” He reached up to the poster paper he had just put up, plucking at one of the tabs before handing it over to you. 

“Come on, let’s start planning this then.” He motioned over to one of the isolated desks. 

You stared down at the piece of paper he had handed you. It was a silent request for you to be there. You followed closely behind, his muscles evident underneath his dress shirt. When did he get those? 

“We can make a contract, like, with rules and stuff.” You suggested. 

“Great idea. Maybe you are smart after all.” He pulled over a chair for you to sit on, placing his bag on the ground as he took a seat himself. At least he was a gentleman in some aspects. You sat down, slipping out a notebook from your bag. 

“Oh, you’re serious.” 

“Very.” 

After flipping over to a blank page, you wrote down ‘fake relationship contract’ “Any rules you’d like to add first before I add mine?”

His head rested on the palm of his hand, putting back on his glasses to read properly. “No real feelings. That’s crucial.” You nodded in agreement. “And definitely, do not tell anyone this is fake. This includes your little friend who’s obsessed with crystals.” 

You paused. 

“So you do know who I am?” A flicker of hope lit up in you.

He bit the inside of his cheek, eyes not leaving the paper between you. “Hard not to. You’ve got great outfits.” 

You could feel your cheeks begin to heat up. “Oh, thanks.” 

“Welcome.” He smiled widely. “Rule three. No intimacy unless it’s public. This includes holding hands, kissing-” 

“Fucking.” 

“No, no, not that.” 

Satoru let out a dramatic sigh. “Worth a shot… Let me see that real quick.” He took the pen from your hands, writing down another rule with his stupidly neat handwriting. 

4. Come to my star gazing hangouts.

You looked back at the piece of paper he gave you, the one he plucked off his poster. “I don’t have to do that..”

“You don’t, but if you want this to be more convincing, I think you should. Nova never came to any of my club shit, so if you start showing up to something she never did.. It should hurt a bit right?” 

“Well, if she never bothered involving herself in things you cared about, is she really worth getting back?” 

The silence was heavy despite being in a library. 

“Oh, it’s sort of my fault..” He quickly came up with a lie. “I never invited her to them so, it’s understandable why she never did.” 

“I find that hard to believe.” Your voice grew quiet.

“If I wanted advice, I would've said so. All I need from you is an extra hand on getting her back. And all you need from me is tutoring.” He scribbled down his signature, sliding it towards you for you to do the same. 

"..Right." 

Satoru noticed the way your face fell. "I'm sorry. I just.. it's hard not to keep loving a girl who you believe you'd spend your life with." 

“No, it’s alright. I understand.” 

Because before he left all those years ago, you believed the same thing. You pictured it so clearly, you two growing old together in a two story house with many pets and kids running around. 

“You do?” 

You nodded, holding the paper close to your face, no thanks to your vision that has been worsening like his. “So, guess it’s official?” 

"It’s official.” He echoed. 

“Great, so when do we start?” 

“Now.”

a/n : hai hai . ok so the fic is finished but ima post it separately !!

And he'd reward you for such attention. With lips that found yours, teeth that scraped the column of your neck, hands that cradled your body as if you were the most fragile doll that would break if he pressed his fingers too hard into your skin.

You'd gasp out and cry so prettily for him as he found solace in your warm walls, forgetting for a moment that he was a weapon to be used and discarded, and instead feeling like a human once again. Like he was somebody worth loving.

Only Suguru had ever made him feel that way before. But now you did too. Made him feel normal as he cried into your neck and muttered out heartachingly sweet poetry off a tongue that was honeyed with your juices. About how even the stars themselves couldn't compare to you.

Sometimes he'd think about Suguru as he made love you, would imagine it was Suguru crying out his name instead of you. He loved you, of course! You were his saving grace, but he couldn't help but miss Sugu.

Little did he know that he wasn't the only one thinking about Suguru Geto.

Because while he was gently making love to you on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, pressing sweet kisses to your neck and finding sanctuary in your arms, Suguru was fucking you into the mattress on Sunday nights and Monday mornings.

Where Satoru was soft, Suguru was angry. Angry at the world, at non-sorcerers, and at Satoru for not coming with him. And you were the perfect outlet to let out all his frustrations.

He'd play nice at first - coming into your house with a sweet kiss and fresh flowers for your kitchen. He'd compliment the food you'd make him and help you wash the dishes. His hands would be deceivingly gentle as he'd tug you back to your room.

But it would end as soon as he'd get you on that bed. Yanking your clothes off and forcing your legs open. He'd nestle right between those plush thighs of yours and eat you out until you were bawling and hiccupping. Tongue lapping at your sweet cunt like you hadn't just fed him, thick fingers abusing your poor hole and bruising your g-spot once again.

You tasted different from Satoru, but just as good. Sometimes Suguru would imagine it was him instead of you. He absolutely adored you, make no doubt. But he also missed having Satoru whimpering and bawling beneath him as he sucked his cock and made him cum again and again until his poor balls were completely empty.

But he loved fucking your tight cunt too. Large hands groping your tits and pinching your nipples as he rammed his angry strawberry-red tip into your cervix as if he was trying to get you pregnant.

Ass up, face down. You'd bawl and sniffle into your pillow as he growled out some of the filthiest phrases known to man that made your pussy drool and clench his thick girth.

You knew what you were doing. two-timing them. Not to use them, of course not. But because you just loved them both so much! Satoru couldn't expect you to give up handsome, hazy-eyed Sugu. And Suguru didn't honestly think that you'd give up your pretty boy Toru and his adorable little pout, did he? No, no, no. To give up one while keeping the other just wouldn't do! So you kept your dirty little secret, loving the two of them separately.

And everything was going according to plan as well. Until... Valentine's Day. That pesky holiday meant for lovers. Both Suguru and Satrou wanted to take you out to a nice restaurant. You panicked. You hadn't thought this far. So with frantic fingers, you cancelled on them last minute.

Profusely apologizing, sending all the hearts and pouty emojis. Sick, you said. Came down with a bug, and now you are horribly ill. So sad, so sorry, and all while telling them not to worry and not to come check on you.

You felt horrible, of course. But you resigned to a night of sitting on the couch with some cheap chocolate and a bottle of champagne while watching romcoms.

But your mistake was thinking that Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo would ever listen. They were brats in their own right, always bickering and pushing back with you until you gave them a good smack across the face, along with a boner. Hell, they were so similar in so many ways.

And that's how you end up with two very confused, very upset, very handsomely dressed boyfriends at your doorstep.

"And just what the hell are you doing here?" Satoru's voice growls out, clutching the white roses and painkillers he had in his hands - baby blues glaring at Suguru over the rims of his circle shades. Suguru only smiled coyly, but there was a subtle irritation in the way he clenched his jaw, gently holding a bouquet of pink tulips and some rather expensive chocolate. "Satoru. I'm here to see my sweet girl." He says smoothly, purple irises shimmering with shades of violet, layered like bruised petals under moonlight.

"Your girl? Please, she's mine." He scoffs out, making Suguru's eye twitch. Damn, did that fucker have to look so goddamn handsome while pissing him off? Suguru shook his head, ravenette tresses becoming slightly messy from the motion. "Yeah? Why am I bruising her tight pussy then?" He taunts back.

"Hey, I fuck her just fine!" Satoru squawks out indignantly, cheeks burning as he quickly jumps to his own defense, pointing an accusing finger at Suguru. "Yeah? Is that why I have her bawling on my tongue after our Sunday dinners?" Suguru purrs out smoothly, licking his lips as if he could still taste you from the last time he ate your sweet cunt.

Satoru's cheeks flushed a darker shade, a lovely crimson shade that caught the curse user's attention. "Yeah, I bet you're real sweet with her, aren't you?" Suguru growls out. "At least I treat her with some respect." Satoru bites back, stepping closer to him. "Oh, I treat her with plenty of respect; that's why I make sure to wring out as many orgasms as I can from her." Suguru taunts, straightening his posture.

"Was it respect when you abandoned us too?" Satoru snaps out, dropping his face closer to Suguru's. The black-haired man can't stop the look of guilt that flashes across his features. "Abandoned? Satoru, I'm doing this, all of this, for you!" He snaps back, voice raising.

Satoru's expression becomes a mixture of anger and anguish. "I don't want you to be the strongest. I want... I want you to be Satoru. Just... just Satoru." Suguru breathes out, features softening as he exhales heavily. "Can't you see that? I don't want you to be a weapon. I want you to be a person." He says softly, reaching for Satoru with his spare hand.

But Satoru jerks back, tears welling in his eyes. "You could have done that without defecting!" He snaps, voice shaking with emotion. "We were lost without you! Do you know how long it took to feel okay without you?" He shouts, voice cracking, as if he were barely holding it together.

They both jump as the front door to your house opens to reveal your figure, the dim light of your house illuminating behind you. "Oh shit..." you mutter softly, hair mussed up and only wearing one of Satoru's shirts that he had left behind.

"Hey princess." Satoru mumbles, sniffling and running a hand through his hair. "Toru, are you okay?" you ask softly, worry etched in your features, biting your lip nervously.

"Fine, fine." He grumbles, looking down. "We should come inside... talk." Suguru says smoothly, making you nod and let them inside and into the space that they had made their second home.

You all sort of awkwardly stand in the kitchen for a moment before Satoru hands you the white roses. "Happy Valentine's day, baby," he says softly. You take them with gentle hands. "Thank you, dearest." You murmur, smelling the roses and blinking back up at him. "They're beautiful," you add on, making him smile weakly. "Just like you." He murmurs, gently tucking a strand of your hair back.

"And... I got you these," Suguru's voice cuts in, and you turn to take the pink tulips from him. "Thank you, sweetheart. They smell amazing." You say gently, making him hum out in response, his gaze briefly trailing you as you move to grab a vase for the flowers.

You mix the flowers; pink tulips and white roses clamor together in the glass vase to make a whole new bouquet. You set it down on your kitchen table, both of the men in your kitchen looking over to see their flowers together.

"I... I do miss you." Satoru says finally, taking off his shades and rubbing his eyes, sighing out like he was utterly exhausted. "It's been hard without you." He mutters, setting his shades aside to blink up at Suguru like a lost puppy.

"Don't look at me like that," Suguru huffs out. Satoru pouts even more somehow, and Suguru sighs out. "I missed you too, Satoru. A lot." He says softly, reaching for his old companion's hand. Satoru tangles his fingers with Suguru's, exhaling with something like relief. "I'm glad." He mutters gently.

"So... are we all getting along again?" You ask tentatively, still unsure if they were upset with you for dating them both behind the others' backs.

The boys look at you, then at each other, and it's like they're talking to each other silently. A dangerous smile curves Satoru's lips and you're swallowing thickly, stepping back a small step. They looked like predators all of a sudden, and you couldn't help but notice how they had dressed up for you.

Satoru had combed his hair for once. A white button-up tucked into a nice pair of blue jeans, a nice watch on his left wrist, and the scent of fresh linen clinging to him. Suguru's hair was neat as ever, luscious tresses spilling over broad shoulders. A black turtleneck with sleeves halfway up his forearms tucked into a snazzy pair of black slacks paired nicely with silver rings and a spritz of sandalwood cologne.

"Look at her, pretty girl's checking us out." Suguru muses out, stepping up behind you to slink his arms around his waist. Satoru chuckles out, baby blue's looking down at you as if he wanted to eat you alive. "You're not really sick... are you?" He asks, and you blush shamefully, shaking your head no and looking away.

"Just... didn't know how to go on a date with both of you without... telling the truth. But I guess it's pointless now." You murmur, pressing your thighs together as Satoru grasps your chin to make you meet his eyes again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... do that... I just didn't want to lose either of you." You mutter out with big doe eyes.

Satoru softens a little, rubbing his thumb soothingly over your jawline. "We know, babygirl. We're not mad." He murmurs softly. Suguru places a kiss behind your ear. "Why don't we show you how much we adore you, hm? Have Valentine's date night here together?" He suggests softly, his greedy hands already slipping under the oversized shirt you were wearing to grab at your plush sides.

"Can we? I really wanted to spend Valentine's Day with you guys." You breathe out. That's all they needed to hear before they were both leading you to your bedroom - hands gentle but their intentions anything but.

You're pushed down on your bed, stared down by your two handsome boyfriends, and you feel heat pool in your core. "I wanna bite her-" Satoru says suddenly, and Suguru chuckles. "Patience. First, the greedy slut needs to be punished for playing games." Suguru says smoothly, making you whine out.

Satoru grins deviously. "And how might we do that, Suguru?" he asks, making the other made smirk back. But he doesn't reply, only grabs Satoru and drags him down into a mouth-crushing kiss, tongue darting into his mouth.

Satoru all but whines into Suguru's mouth, kissing back eagerly. His fingers sink into Suguru's sides, clutching him close like he was afraid Suguru would disappear again. "So desperate." Suguru teases, making the sorcerer growl back.

"I seem to remember a certain slut that enjoyed drinking my cum a little too much when we were younger." He growls, forcing his thumb into Suguru's mouth, opening his jaw, and spitting right into his mouth. The ravenette whines out, swallowing and opening his mouth again for another.

"See?" He says, looking at you. "Desperate slut just like you." He teases before spitting into Suguru's mouth once again. You whine out, wanting attention as well, but you're only given a glare. "Quiet, brat. This is your punishment, remember?" Suguru growls, making you pout.

"This is bullshit," you pout out, crossing your arms and glaring up at the boys, but it lacks any real heat. The boys chuckle at your tantrum. "Oh, but she is cute when she huffs and puffs." Suguru croons to Satoru, making the taller man chuckle.

"Let her throw a tantrum. She'll enjoy the show." He says back, his hand clasping the back of Suguru's neck and squeezing just right, making Suguru hum out. "True. And I need to have you again before we let our little sneak rejoin the fun." He says before smashing his mouth to Satoru's again. The white-haired man responds eagerly, devouring Suguru's mouth, and damn, was Satoru right about enjoying the show.

Heat pools in your core, and you press your thighs together, watching as Suguru's hands sneak down to grab at Satoru's belt buckle, tugging him closer and making the other man groan out.

The jingle of his belt being undone is heard before Suguru steps back to put his hair up and drop to his knees. "Sugu..." Satoru's voice comes out, breathless and pleading. "Don't worry, puppy. I still know how to take care of you." He coos out, batting pretty purple eyes that glittered in the soft lamp light of your bedroom like precious amethysts.

He swiftly tugs down Satoru's nice blue jeans to reveal his Digimon boxers. "Digimon? Really?" Suguru muses out, making you huff a laugh. "He still forces me to rewatch it with him." You giggle out, making him roll his eyes.

"Hey, it's a good show!" Satoru says defensively. "It's not my fault that you two are too uncultured to understand the masterpiece that is Digimon!" He says, making you and Suguru exchange a glance.

"Yes, darling. It's the best anime to ever exist. Now shut up." Suguru demands, shoving his boxers down and taking Satoru into his mouth before Satoru can babble on about his favorite anime once again.

Satoru moans out, baby blues snapping down to the other man that was now sucking him off as if his life depended on it. "F-Fuck, Suguru. S-Slow down, will you?" He sputters out, hips bucking despite his words.

Suguru responds by lodging Satoru's tip in his throat, swallowing around him, esophagus constricting around Satoru's length and making him moan out - one of his hands reaching to grip Suguru's black hair.

You watch the scene, pupils dilating as you feel yourself grow wet. You couldn't help but enjoy the view in front of you. Satoru, red-faced and moaning, hips bucking into Suguru's throat as if he couldn't help it. Meanwhile, Suguru sucks his cock with a ravenous appetite, his own erection straining against the fabric of his black slacks.

"F-uck Sugu, missed you so much. Fuck you for leaving. Traitorous bastard." Satoru moans out, ramming his cock down Suguru's throat, making him choke and gag. "But I could never stay mad at you... too fucking pretty to stay mad at. Love you too much to hate you." Satoru pants, both hands gripping Suguru's skull as he fucks his face.

Suguru whimpers out, as if trying to apologize, but Satoru doesn't let up. "S'okay though. I get why you did it." Satoru breathes out, feeling his orgasm build. "What matters is that you're here now. With us. Where you belong." Satoru says, a possessive growl edging his voice, hips stuttering before finally slamming a final time.

He moans out, spilling his seed down Suguru's throat, who swallows everything eagerly. "Satoru?" You call out softly, worry lightly coloring your voice. "I'm okay, princess." He says, slipping his cock from Suguru's mouth.

Suguru stands and cups his face. "I love you too, Satoru," he murmurs, Satoru tearing up a little. "Hey! What about me?" You say with faux indignation, making the two men huff out a laugh. "We love you too, princess." Satoru says, fully kicking off his pants before undoing his shirt.

You zero in, licking your lips. "Easy, girl," Satoru teased. Suguru starts to unbutton his own shirt. "You look hungry, pretty girl. Need to be fed?" He asks, making you squirm. "Can I, Sugu?" You ask sweetly, pouting and giving him your best doe eyes.

"Such a needy girl." He growls out, finally unbuckling his belt and shoving his slacks and boxers down. "Come on, pretty. Open up." He says, and you happily obey. Jaw slack, tongue lolling out, looking up at Suguru with an expression that makes him groan out with satisfaction.

He threads his fingers through your hair before gripping the strands in a firm grasp, fisting your hair and slipping his cock into your mouth. Your lips wrap around his girth, tongue running alongside the underside of his shaft as you greedily deep-throat him, making Suguru hiss out in pleasure.

Satoru also wastes no time getting to work, dropping to his knees and reaching under his baggy shirt that you're wearing to pry your soaked panties off. "Fuck. She's soaked through already." He groans out, handing your panties to Suguru, who brings them up to his face to sniff them.

You blush, but you can't protest, only moan out around Suguru's cock as Satoru buries his head between your legs, his tongue immediately finding your clit and circling around it.

"Yeah? Feel good, pretty?" Suguru croons, his tone taunting as he smiles down at you cruelly, thrusting his cock further down your throat to make you gag and your eyes water. Suguru's eyes darken, and he thrusts his cock down your throat again.

You whine out as Satoru's slender fingers poke and prod at your entrance before finally slipping inside, stretching you out and thrusting at a teasingly slow pace. They could both be so mean when they wanted to be.

"I think she wants more, Satoru," Suguru says, burying his cock in your throat until your nose brushes up against his happy trail while Satoru curls his fingertips into that sweet spot within your velvet while sucking harshly on your clit.

Your eyes roll back, your cry of ecstasy muffled by Suguru's cock as you cum, hips bucking into Satoru's face while he greedily laps up your juices, a moan leaving his lips as he drinks your sweet nectar.

Suguru pulls his cock back, letting you pant out and keen as Satoru continues to lap at your clit, prolonging your orgasm as long as possible while he fists his cock.

Suguru groans lowly, busting all over your face, cum painting your pretty features. Satoru finally pulls away and you lick Suguru's cum off your lips before Satoru pops up to smear his thumb across your features, cleaning the cum off your face before popping Suguru's cum into his own mouth. You whine out, kissing Satoru as if to steal it back, but he doesn't let you steal it all for yourself.

Instead he gathers it on his tongue to French kiss you, sharing Suguru's cum with you, both of you moaning out again. "Greedy sluts." Suguru growls out.

"Can't help it, Sugu." You whine out with a pout, blinking up at him. "Come on, baby. We ain't done yet." Satoru coos out, picking you up and tossing you up onto your bed. You land on your soft blankets, Satoru already crawling over you and peeling his shirt off of you.

"Satoru, stop hogging her." Suguru scolds, making Satoru whine out like a puppy that just got denied its favorite treat. "No. Share. It's my turn with this pretty pussy." Suguru says, already nudging Satoru out of the way so he can crawl between your legs.

"Still so wet." He purrs, running his thumb over your slit, a whimper leaving your mouth, still sensitive from Satoru eating you out. "And so sensitive. Did Toru eat you out good, sweet girl?" He asks, his tone taunting as he grips the base of his cock and rubs it over your slit.

You whimper and nod your head. "Y-Yes, Sugu. He did." You breathe out, making him grin. "Oh, did he? Then say thank you to Toru. Remember your manners, pretty." He says as he slowly slides his cock into you, making you moan out as you drag your eyes over to Satoru.

"Mm, thank you, Toru, for making me cum." You say to him, moaning out as Suguru buries himself to the hilt inside of your warm walls. "You're so welcome, babygirl." Satoru coos out, leaning forward to drop his lips to yours before trailing kisses down your neck, nipping and biting at the tender flesh, making you squeeze your walls around Suguru.

"Fuck. Always so tight." Suguru hisses out before snapping his hips into yours, making you mewl out. He wastes no time setting a brutal pace within your soft walls, large hands grabbing the backs of your thighs to keep you spread out so he can drill his fat cock into you as meanly as possible.

Satoru is enraptured with how you look. Lips parted to spill the filthiest noises, eyes half-lidded with blown pupils as you watch Suguru fuck into your tight cunt, hands curled into your sheets as you barely manage to ground yourself in reality.

"You look so pretty, baby." He murmurs, crawling closer to press sweet kisses to the swells of your breasts. You whine out, shaky fingers threading in his snowy white tresses, manicured nails (that he paid for, by the way) lightly scraping over his scalp and making him shudder with delight.

He drops his mouth to the side of one of your breasts, nibbling there for a moment, before capturing a bud in his mouth, sucking on it and swirling his tongue around the perky nipple and making you keen out.

"Such a good boy," you coo out, your voice breathless from Suguru's relentless rutting, his mushroom tip kissing that oh-so-lovely spot within your walls that made you keen and wail with utterly sinful pleasure.

Satoru whimpered out, nuzzling closer into your chest like a puppy trying to nurse, a hand reaching up to palm your breast and massage it with his long fingers.

The dual stimulation riddles your body with intense pleasure. Satoru practically nursing at your breast as if he was determined to get something out (don't tell him it's not possible; he might just cry) all while Suguru fucks his thick girth into your pretty pussy with a determination that bordered on feral, as if the world would end if he didn't fuck your tight heat and stuff you full of his cum.

You turn your upper body towards Satoru more, gently detaching him from your now very sensitive bud and guiding him towards the other one. He latches instantly, sucking and rutting against the bed while you comb your fingers through his hair in silent praise.

"You spoil him." Suguru muses, fucking into you harder and making you cry out. "But he's such a good puppy, isn't he?" He chuckles out as he drops a hand to your pussy to roll the pad of his thumb over your slicked-up pearl.

"Suguuuuu!" You whine out his name as he stimulates you further, arching a little in response, your voice a bit warbled from the overwhelming pleasure the boys were inflicting on your gorgeous body.

"Thaaaaat's it, pretty girl. Cum for me. Let it all out." He growls out, slamming his hips into yours, moving his thumb faster over your clit. Your moans become louder and more high-pitched as he drags you closer and closer to an orgasm.

You cry out his name, the band within your body snapping as you cum hard, walls clamping down on his girth as your body convulses. Suguru drops his head to bite your neck harshly, making you mewl out as he slams his cockhead against your cervix to pump hot milky ropes into your tight cunt.

Satoru detaches from your chest, sitting up to make room as Suguru rolls off of you and collapses onto the bed beside you. He's being dramatic, of course; he could easily go several more rounds.

Satoru, however, is already crawling between your legs to look at your nectar and Suguru's cum all mixed together and spilling from your cunt. And before you can stop him, he dives in to eat at your pussy like it's a delicious sweet treat.

"You two taste so good mixed together." He moans out, lapping at your cunt. He licks from your asshole all the way up to your pearl, crawling over your body and swirling the mixture to mix it with his saliva. He grips your jaw, prying your mouth open, and spits the concoction into your mouth.

"Swallow." He commands, and you obey - coating the mixture over your tongue and letting the taste tingle at your taste buds before swallowing it all down your throat. "Good girl." He purrs, stroking your jaw.

"Toruuuu!~" you whine pathetically, making him grin. "Yes, my darling babygirl?" He asks, making you giggle softly for a moment before you're spreading your legs. "Need you inside, baby," you pout out, batting your eyelashes up at him.

He sucks in harshly through his teeth as he watches that messy mixture between your legs ooze out a little more. "You are so evil." He mutters softly, making you giggle again.

"Oh come on now, you're not gonna deprive our sweet girl, now are you?" Suguru croons, his hands grabbing you so that he can settle down behind you, resting you against his chest and grabbing the backs of your thighs with gentle hands - spreading your legs open and out for Satoru.

"Be a good boy and wreck her pretty cunt, puppy." Suguru orders softly, his voice smooth and silky, making Satoru whimper out. "Evil. Both of you." He mutters, his cock throbbing to be buried deep inside your pussy.

"Please, baby?" you whine out, wiggling your feet a little with impatience. Satoru growls out, grabbing the base of his cock to swipe it over your puffy clit. "Fucking slut. Got ate out, fucked, and you still want more." He growls, slamming his cock into you with a single stroke, holding it there, and grinding his angry tip into your cervix.

You moan out, arching in response. "That's it, pretty girl. Take it all." Suguru coos in your ear, pressing a gentle kiss just behind it. Satoru pulls out before driving his hips into you again, quickly setting a brutal pace.

It doesn't take him long to find your g-spot; after fucking you so many times, he knew exactly where it was at. His hands grip your waist, pressing his fingertips in as if he were trying to leave bruises of his fingerprints on your skin.

You wail out with pleasure, still sensitive from your past two orgasms. Tears of pleasure well in your eyes, and Satoru is quick to notice. "You crying?" He asks in that smug tone of his, giving a cocky grin, and you do your best to glare up at him.

"Shut up and fuck me. I'm sensitive after Suguru railed me." You bite back, but this doesn't make Satoru falter a single bit. His grin turns feral, his eyes darken, and he gives a laugh that tells you that you won't be able to walk tomorrow.

"Guess I'll just haveta do something that Suguru didn't then." He purrs out, making you arch more and slamming into you so hard that you saw stars for a moment, and you swore that his cockhead was buried in your fluttering, lovesick heart. "Guess I'll haveta make you squirt, baby." He says in your ear.

You're bawling as he drives into you over and over again. Harder, faster, deeper. It's all too much. But too much is exactly what Satoru wants. You wail and sob, but he doesn't let up.

"What's your color, baby?" Satoru whispers in your ear, your body quivering beneath him, Suguru still holding your legs up. "Mmmm, green! Green, green, green! Fuck, right there! Please don't stop!" You babble out between sobs, feeling a familiar warmth in your gut.

"Yes ma'am." Satoru muses out, dropping a hand to rub his thumb over your clit in fast circles. You cry out louder, making Suguru chuckle behind you. "So loud. But she takes it so well." He says, his tone carrying a teasing lilt.

"Damn right, she does." Satoru groans out, hips stuttering. "Fuck, I'm close. Cum with me, baby." He pants out, cockhead kissing that sweet spot in your velvety walls over and over again, determined to make you fall apart.

And fall apart you do.

You scream out, tears staining your cheeks as you finally cum again. Not just cum, you squirt, just like Satoru wanted, soaking his pelvis and the sheets beneath you. He snarls in approval, crashing his lips to yours as he cums inside you, dumping his hot load into your cunt and mixing it with Suguru's.

The three of you stay still for a moment, whimpering when Suguru gently lowers your legs, keening when Satoru finally pulls out. "Such a pretty mess." He murmurs, staring at your messy cunt.

"Satoru, if you dive back in there, I'm gonna smack the smack the shit outta you," you threaten playfully. He pauses, looking off to the side as if contemplating if it would be worth it or not. "Satoru!" you scold, catching his look and giving him a lighthearted glare.

Satoru and Suguru both laugh out at your half-assed scolding. "Relax, baby. I won't. But we should all take a shower and clean up," Satoru says gently. You groan, head thudding back against Suguru's chest. "You want me to stand? And use my legs and limbs?" you whine out.

Suguru chuckles, stroking your hair. "Well, we could take a bath and clean you up for you. But it would be a tight squeeze." He says softly, and you crack your eyes open and give a tiny little pout up at him, making him huff out a laugh and smirk. "Spoiled." He murmurs affectionately.

"I got it," Satoru says softly, getting up and stretching before walking over to your bathroom to draw the bath and fill up the tub. You stay with Suguru, sighing out softly as his fingers trail over your body and soothe your muscles.

Everything was peaceful in that moment. Satoru came back when the bath was done, and soon Suguru was scooping you up, and you were all squeezed into your tub, sinking into the warm water and relaxing into your boys as they wash you up and murmur praises about how good you were for them.

Once all clean, they carry you back to bed and put a clean pair of panties on you and one of Suguru's hoodies that he had left at your house some time ago before crawling into bed with you to cuddle and binge-watch dumb, cheesy romance films.

You all knew that they'd have to return to their respective circles eventually. Suguru would go back to his cult, Satoru would go back to the strongest, and you... You would wait for them to come back home. You'd get up and go to your job and work your normal, mundane life until one or both decided to visit you again.

You'd always be their sanctuary, their home where they could pretend that the outside world doesn't exist. For in that little house of yours, they were human. And at the end of the day, human was all they ever wanted to be.

Dividers: @cafekitsune @sweethearticism

He looked familiar. His eyes were a deep amethyst, his smile was soft and kind. His dark and shaggy hair was tied behind his head in a small bun, and his ears were adorned with multiple piercings. Although many at Oxford, especially the men, tried to appear as blank as usual, he seemed apt and content with going against the stuffy and old notions. 

You must have seemed confused because the man stuttered as he introduced himself. 

“I’m Suguru,” he restarted, his hand leaving his side as he extended it to shake yours, “I think we had the same English survey course last semester.” 

Your confusion melted away into a wide smile as you shook his hand, his own eyes crinkling around the edges as he grinned back, letting out a breath of relief as you nodded insistently, shaking your head at your own self. 

“Right, right, Suguru! I remember you!” You exclaimed, setting your cup down to the side as you watched him tuck a strand of loose hair behind his ear, “You sat a little bit in front of me, right?” 

His head ducked down momentarily as he chukked, putting his hands in his pants pockets as he nodded. 

“I did,” he chuckled slightly, “Right in the line of fire for when Howard needed to pick on someone.” 

Your lips quirk up slightly as you nod, remembering how the professor you work for now used to terrorize your class and quiz random students on particular syllables and grammatical imperfections in the reading they were supposed to have done. 

The class was small, as were most major-specific courses you were taking. Although you didn’t have many of your friends in the class, you had gotten a good sense of who was in there and who Dr. Howard preferred to pick on. Suguru, for the most part, did the reading and did his work, so he came out unscathed compared to some of the other students. He sat near the front with some of his own friends, and you had talked to him in passing a couple of times when the class as a whole would band together to compare comments on assignments. He was kind, from what you remembered, which is probably why you felt your shoulders growing less tense the more you two talked. 

“That’s her style,” you say, shrugging as you fiddle with your fingers. “It took a while to get used to it,” you admit. Suguru rolls his eyes at your humility, remembering clearly just how much Dr. Howard favored you, but he doesn’t say anything as he lets you continue, “I don’t know if you’ve had Creemer yet, but he’s worse with his cold calls and isn’t half as nice.” 

“I have him right now for rhetoric and grammar,” he said with a sigh, shaking his head in dismay, “He’s…sadistic, I think.”

You giggle, nodding feverishly at the statement as you recall your past couple of classes with the hellish professor, an infamous name for many English majors and someone that you try to avoid at all costs if possible. 

The party, or gathering, as it said on the invitation, drones on in the background as you look around to see if anybody is looking in your direction. Most of the time, you can do what you want, but seeing that Dr. Howard had warned you before tonight that somebody from the department might want to swarm you to ask questions that you most likely didn’t have answers to, had put you on edge. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?” He asked, motioning to the rest of the people with a knowing glint as you politely smile, shrugging your shoulders as your lips press tightly together. Whether it be your shy nature or how you preferred smaller crowds, it must’ve been evident on your face that you weren’t necessarily having the most amount of fun. 

“I am,” you answer, wincing at the way your voice sounded warbled, “I’m trying to make the most of these opportunities, I guess.” 

Suguru’s head dipped in understanding, taking a sip of his drink as he bit the inside of his cheek, leaning in slightly as he lowered his voice. 

“These things drag on for a bit, though, yeah? I’m feeling my fingers prune from how long I’ve held this glass.” 

You let out a sigh of relief, sharing the same sentiment as the two of you share a knowing look. 

“I…I, um, I heard that Howard chose you to research with her, though, right? That’s gotta be pretty cool,” Suguru asked after a beat, bringing you back to the conversation as his head tilted slightly, and you felt heat rush to your cheeks as you swallowed. He seemed kind, not asking the question bitterly as some other people have. 

You nodded again, trying to contain your smile as you leaned against the stone pillar next to you. Letting out a small hum, you swallow again, trying to scope out what sort of place he was coming from. 

“It is,” you answered, biting on the inside of your cheek as you were still reeling from being selected from such a wide pool of applicants and such a rigorous interview process to work on her next paper analyzing More’s work through a modern lens, “It’s…strenous, sometimes, but I’m having a lot of fun working with her,” you fidgeted with your fingers, “So yeah, it’s pretty cool.” You say sheepishly. 

Suguru smiled at your hidden enthusiasm, the tip of his boot nudging something on the ground. He went to usher you to continue before his eye caught something behind your shoulder, his eyebrows shooting upwards in surprise as his smile grew even wider, his hand raising in a wave. 

“Sorry,” he apologetically muttered, and you craned your neck around to see what it was, or rather who it was that Suguru had seen, “I think my friend just arrived.” 

That’s when you felt your breathing stop. 

The bustling group of students and faculty members almost seemed to part theatrically for the man walking towards the two of you, but you couldn’t even blame them. 

He stuck out like a sore thumb, with his icy white hair and strikingly beautiful eyes. His lengthy frame made him nearly a head taller than even the tallest man in the room, and his wide shoulders helped him wade through the bodies as he navigated to his friend. His face seemed stoic, bordering on bored, but you couldn’t help but widen your eyes in shock at seeing the most devastatingly gorgeous man to ever exist. He adjusted his glasses over the bridge of his nose, his lips moving in quiet apologies as he tried to move through the people without bumping into them. 

You suddenly became hyper-aware of the fact that it had been days since you had last had a good night's sleep and that the bags under your eyes were most likely even more evident in the dim lighting of the old hall, and how your sweater was lumpy from being shoved in the back of your closet for so long. You swallow thickly as Suguru quickly excused himself as he stepped away and walked a bit away to hug the stranger, exchanging some words with each other as you stood awkwardly to the side. 

You watched them silently as they talked for a little bit more before Suguru stepped away, his hand on his friend's back as he, for some horrifying reason, seemed to guide him towards where you were stiffly standing as the two of you made eye contact before you became aware of the way your eyeballs felt in your socket and how heavy your tongue was in your mouth. 

When Suguru finally pulled away from the modern-day Adonis, you felt like a creeper and a loner as you wondered whether or not to leave or stand in the corner while they talked, but ever the kind person that he was, Suguru led the man by the back to where the two of you were with a wide smile on his face. 

“Sorry about that,” Suguru abashedly apologized, chuckling deeply as he rubbed the back of his neck, “But this is my friend, Satoru,” he said brightly, pushing the man a little harshly towards you as you stared at him silently.

The man, Satoru, gives you a tight-lipped smile, nodding once in your direction as he looks around, looking uncomfortable and shifty. Suguru rolled his eyes, sighing deeply as he patted his friend's back. 

You grinned back, swallowing the spit in your mouth as you felt him stare at you once he was done looking at the room, your cheeks heating up. You felt his eyes drift over your outfit, at your posture, and the way your hands were clasped tightly together. This stranger assessed the way you swayed slightly, awkwardly, not knowing how to fill the silence as you tapped the tip of your battered shoes on the ground. When he was done, his chin lifted again, his stare lingering on your blinking face as you glanced between him and Suguru, waiting for somebody to say something before you imploded and left with the lingering scent of your vanilla body spray. 

Seeing that he was fine with checking you out, you took the time to do the same. He seemed like one of the generational students of the school, the ones whose parents and grandparents and cousins and siblings all came and went and made something important with their lives. They weren’t hard to detect, especially him, with his steamed jumper and his creased pants. His leather shoes were shining back at you, and though his hair was somewhat messy, it seemed to be classily messy, unlike what you and some other students would call freely messy.

“I force him to come to these things with me,” Suguru explained, but you could barely hear him over the rhythm of heartbeats in your ear as you tried to fly, appreciate the man a few feet in front of you, “Our friend Shoko sometimes comes, but she had things to do tonight.”

The man’s nose wrinkled ever so slightly, his brows drawing tightly together as he glanced at his friend with a look. 

“I had things to do too,” he muttered, his voice deep as you felt your heart stupidly tumble at the sounds. 

Suguru snorted, shaking his head as he shrugged indifferently. 

“Sure,” Suguru replied sarcastically and glanced at you, his brow slightly raised at the way you had gone silent, his lips quirking slightly when he noticed the way you couldn’t stop staring at his friend, not voicing anything as his hand on Satoru’s shoulder loosened, “Just act like you want to be here for twenty minutes, yeah?”

You bit your teeth into your cheek, a finger raising slightly as you pointed to the newcomer's face. 

“I like your glasses,” you said brightly, your smile gentle as you fidget with your own, watching the way his striking eyes moved over to you again, squinting slightly as his hand raised upwards, as if he had forgotten that his glasses were even there, “They frame your face really well.” Your head tilts a little as you try to place something, “Where’d you get them? If, if you don’t mind me asking. Mine is so old and dingy, and the rims are basically glued on, and I’ve only had them for a few years.” 

“Erm, well, thank you,” Satoru says stiffly, not used to the direct attention and compliments, his cheeks slightly dusted with pink as Suguru watches his friend struggle for words, taking the glasses off as he turns them to the side, trying to read the logo, “These are, erm, from Cartier. But I usually wear contacts, anyway.”

You let out a startled laugh, not a stranger to hearing students at this place don expensive items, but this being the first time you’ve seen one of them bashful about it. 

You nod, your smile still there, softer as you take in his slightly awkward nature and let him put the glasses back on before you continue. 

“Contacts are more practical,” you agree, even though you’ve always had a phobia of things touching your eyes and would never wear contacts unless somebody forced you, shrugging as you say, “But I’ve always appreciated the look of glasses.” 

Satoru gnaws on his lips, nodding quietly as Suguru starts talking about his friend's major (biochemistry, you came to find out), and how long they’ve known each other, but you could only feel your stupid feelings when Suguru stayed, his friend included, and talked with you for the rest of the evening. 

That was your sophomore year. 

Nearly two years passed after befriending Suguru alongside his small group. He introduced you to Shoko after that night, swearing up and down that the two of you were destined to be near each other. And we weren’t wrong, not in the slightest. You two girls bonded strangely fast, as if you were twin flames that were being fanned out. Suguru and Satoru seemed to mirror the two of you, but the group functioned as a whole, for the most part. You spent so many nights over at their dorms that you could walk around blindfolded and still find your way to the others with no issue. It was fun, it was what you had dreamt of for so long. It was something that you were fine with, more than content with, ending your university career in a couple of months. 

Well, everything for the most part, you could consider it as such if it wasn’t for your debilitating and soul-crushing feelings for the stranger you met that night. 

It’s been four semesters, and you still don’t think Gojo Satoru has a clue. Which, in all honesty, is for the better. 

Although his stoic nature spares nobody, it feels as though you're always on the worst end of it. With his lingering stares that seem to border on questioning why you were even there whenever he sees you, to the way he grows dim and quiet around you, it feels like you’re actively attempting to hurt yourself the more you fall in love with the little things you hadn’t noticed the day prior.

Even worse, you know deep down that such feelings are most likely, under this sun and every other universe, with most certainty and heavy grief, unrequited. 

But you’re fine keeping it down. 

You were fine until recently.

—

“I’m debating switching majors.” 

Shoko declared from the couch, her legs hanging off the side, knocking occasionally on your shoulders as you crane your neck back on the cushion form where you were seated on the ground to look at her upside down. 

“To what?” 

She shrugged, rubbing at her eyes as she held her neuroanatomy textbook in one hand, her phone in the other as she scrolled through the different majors Oxford offered, as if she wasn’t a semester away from graduating. 

“Film?” She read out, and you snorted, rolling your eyes at the prospect of Shoko going into film, “Hm…maybe art history?” 

“Gave up on the med school dream?” Suguru quips from the other side of the couch, knowing fully that Shoko was just going on another one of her tangents as she shifted slightly to shove him harshly with her socked foot. 

“I’m sure your counselor wouldn’t mind,” you reply, looking at her as she glares, her eyes falling back to her phone as she peers at the screen. She looked boredly a little bit before her eyes flitted upwards slightly, squinting as she read the new notification. 

“Satoru said he’s going to be here in a few minutes,” she muttered, reading the next message, “And that he wants you,” she nudged Suguru with her foot again to motion that it was him that Satoru was referencing in the text, “To move to your bed so that he can do his work on his side of the couch.” 

Suguru peeked up from his doom scrolling to look at Shoko, his eyes narrowed in a glare as he let out a huff of annoyance. 

“His side?” 

Shoko shrugged, her knee knocking on the side of your head as you knock it back, the book you were reading resting in your hands as you listened to Suguru mutter distastefully about how this was his dorm and that Satoru had no right claiming his couch, but you heard him shuffle to his feet nonetheless. 

You tried not to show any peek of interest when the infamous name was called out, but it was hard not to. It had been two grueling years of mulling over your childish crush, yet the sound of his name could still send pulses to your veins that you were sure were minor heart attacks. 

Because it was Gojo Satoru. You wanted to bang your head against the coffee table just hearing it. 

Truth be told, you weren’t a stranger to having crushes. It was normal, it was human. Or at least, that’s what you convinced yourself when you were sprawled out on your bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as you tried not to think about the way his fingers ever so slightly grazed your wrist when he handed you some chopsticks earlier at the restaurant. 

But your crushes came few and far between, and you preferred keeping it that way. Seeing that you were too terrified to ever admit them, and the few, very few times you have, they’ve backfired horrifically, you try not to catch feelings as much as possible. But there was something about Gojo, something beyond reason, that pulled you to him. 

At first, you bargained. You tried convincing yourself that it was just his appearance that was drawing you in, his suave looks that made people’s heads turn whenever he entered a room. But you have seen him at four in the morning with his old band tees (a sight that still made you swoon), with his hair crusted with glitter and his eyes pink with eyeshadow as Shoko attempted to put him in drag. Even then, he was insanely gorgeous, so you knew it had to be beyond that. 

When you had finally accepted that it was a mind-numbing and life-ending crush that you were feeling towards him, you finally gave in and decided to admire the tall brute from afar. It helped that the two of you had gotten somewhat closer over the past two years, but out of everyone in the group, he was the one you talked to the least. In your defense, he didn’t have much to say to anybody, and that was just his nature. He spent most of his time studying and researching, and the other time watching, observant as other people gossiped. It wasn’t his forte, and nobody pushed him. 

So you took in his quietness and his stoicism, appreciated his god-like looks and his overwhelming presence. That was fine. 

What made it even worse was that he was so unattainably perfect in other ways that your crush festered into something that made you scream into your pillows and throw your balls of clothes at the wall as you wallowed in self-pity. 

Everyone at this damned university was intelligent, and you had made amends with them early on. But you loved men who were smart, guys who could actually hold a page down and dissect it and make the most of it. And worst of all, Gojo Satoru was probably the most intellectual person you have ever met, and will ever meet. It seemed like his memory was photographic, his mind working twenty thousand times faster than the regular brain as he computed formulas and equations at speeds that you couldn’t fathom. He made biochemistry seem easy, something that you sometimes felt guilty for not pursuing. And sure, it didn’t help that you were on the other side with your texts about Russian classics and books diving deep into the restoration period, but even Shoko, who could rival Gojo at times, would begrudgingly admit under her breath just how stupidly genius he was. 

Therefore, when you put those things together, his charming looks, his bookish self, his brooding structure, and just everything else, it made him unattainably perfect.

And that’s when you get the man you’ve been hopelessly in love with since the moment you saw him at that wretched party that wasn’t a party. 

So, when Shoko read off his texts, there was good reason why she looked at the top of your head, a knowing look in her eyes as she playfully nudges you again, watching as you threw her a dark glare to just keep it down seeing that she was the only other soul who knew, despite you trying your best to hide it, about your feelings towards her other friend. 

“Did you hear that Toji is graduating a semester late?” Suguru asked, leaning back against his pillows, his long legs strewn along his bed as he chewed on some gum. 

You and Shoko both hummed, not looking up from your respective tasks, having found this information out weeks in advance. 

Suguru groaned in annoyance, his chest vibrating with the noise as you snorted, rolling your eyes as he threw a small pillow at your head. It bounced off the side of your face, but you didn’t look up from the page you were on, too engrossed to hear the door behind you click open and heavy footsteps suddenly thudding through the dorm. 

You shuffled against the couch, your back feeling stiff as you tried to get comfortable, not knowing that the man of your dreams was moving around somewhere behind you as he hung his coat up (vintage leather, something you found out as he grumbled about getting it wet when Shoko and Suguru insisted on walking in the rain once), kicked off his shoes, and slung his bag around as Shoko craned her neck to see what he was doing. 

“Hey,” Shoko called out, and your eyes widened slightly when you heard a familiar voice grunt back a tired greeting, trying not to look as your ears suddenly sharpened to pick up on the sound of him pulling on his sweatshirt as he rounded the couch, standing at the opposite end as he plopped his backpack on the cushions. 

You finally allowed yourself to peek over, your eyes following his figure upwards until they landed on his face, and your fists balled in frustration at how pretty he was even when he was simply existing. 

Gojo sent you a small, tight-lipped and courteous nod, polite and curt as he looked between you and Shoko, glancing back at the bed where Suguru was lying, his fingers barely lifting from his phone as he gave his childhood best friend a lazy three-fingered wave. 

“Why’re you here?” His blunt question was directed at Shoko, something that held no bite but mere wondering as he situated himself on the soft cushions, his large hands feeling around his bag as he opened up the zipper to get his laptop. 

“I thought that it was allowed,” Shoko replied dryly, “Apologies.” 

You chuckle softly, flipping the page, trying not to let his signature cologne distract you from the words in front of you. 

“How was your lab?” Suguru asked, sounding monotone as his thumb swiped on the screen. 

You watched as Gojo gave him a glare, his nose wrinkling, something he often did when he was frustrated but didn't want to ruin his outward appearance, and rubbed at his tired eyes. His hair was messy with goggle indents lining the upper half of his face. 

“An offense to my intelligence,” Gojo grumbled, his face illuminated by the glow of his laptop as he clicked around a little bit, “I can’t believe some people have made it this far.” 

You flipped another page, not fully having read the contents of the last one, but in an attempt to seem indifferent, tried to keep up with your regular reading pace as if anybody was keeping track. 

Watching as he riffles through his bag again, you know, almost like clockwork, what he’s going to pull out. His routine is one that you’ve familiarized yourself with despite your best judgment, and you know that what comes next are his glasses. 

Glasses are normal. You have your own pair that you only wear for lectures and outings, but forgo them for times like this because they sit a little too heavy on your nose. But his glasses are something else. 

They elevate his face ever so slightly, but so much so that it makes you want to keel over and scream. They accentuate his perfect nose with the perfect crook and his freckles that sometimes sit just beneath the frames. He looks even more dashing, if that was even possible, with the way he looks up sometimes, and the lenses make his eyes seem even more blue. 

He took them off for labs and put them somewhere safe. In moments like this, you were reminded of just how truly stunning this man really was. 

Gojo unfolded the two prongs, holding them up to a source of light as his nose wrinkled again. 

Smudges. 

You watch silently as he dives back into the bag, his long fingers searching through his pockets for something you knew you always kept on hand for yourself and deep down, for him. 

After a few seconds of not finding the microfiber cloth that you both silently cherished, you gave in, pulling your own bag towards you as you unzipped the smaller pocket, pulling it out stealthily and motioning for Shoko to hand it to Gojo. 

He took it, his face going so far to relax momentarily as he went to clean the lenses, his head nodding once in quiet appreciation in your direction as you allowed yourself a nod in return. 

Shoko looked at you with a raised brow, and you chose to hide behind your book.

“Was it Lainey?” Suguru asked, looking over at his friend, the name piquing your interest as you cast a quizzical look at Shoko, but she shrugged, watching Gojo as his expression soured. He handed you back your little cloth, muttering a thanks under his breath as his bitter gaze found Suguru, as if he was cursing him silently for bringing up the sensitive subject. 

“What do you think?” He grumbled out, his right eye almost twitching as his fingers stretched out, typing something quickly as Suguru huffed out a laugh, noting how you and Shoko were both confused, and his smile only grew. 

“You didn’t tell them?” Suguru asked, a gleam in his eyes as he shuffled to sit upwards, his back resting on the headboard, “Oh, this is class. Do you two know Lainey? Lainey Andrews?” 

You cast a look at Shoko, your lips pursing as your eyes squinted, trying to recall the familiar name. 

“The ginger?” Shoko asked, her head tilting to the side, her hair falling around her shoulder, “Pixie cut?” 

Suguru nodded, his shoulders raising as your brows furrowed before your mouth slightly fell open when your head bobbed quickly, snapping as you matched the face to the name. 

“Oh, Lainey!” You exclaimed, “She’s really pretty,” you added, remembering her bright green eyes and the spattered freckles that made her look like a painting, “She’s also crazy smart - she’s double majoring in bio and poli sci."

Shoko laughed softly under her breath, giving you a small look because this was somewhat typical of you to know random people, with nearly everyone on campus having had a conversation with you at some point during your four years here. 

Suguru raised a brow, clicking his tongue as he pointed his phone at Gojo, seeming like he was already anticipating one of his sly comments.  

“She’s also just crazy,” Gojo muttered, looking above his laptop, above his wispy lashes at you and then to Shoko, “She spent half of the lab playing with my hair.” 

Your book almost fell out of your hands as Shoko sat up with a barking out a stunned laugh, your hands mirroring each other as they flew to cover your mouths in shock, and Suguru nodded again, his eyes wide as he clicked his tongue. 

Another thing about Gojo? He hated being touched. Despised hugs, only suffered through quick handshakes, and shuddered at the thought of someone touching his face. You’ve seen the way he pulls back whenever someone approaches him with open arms, seen the way he tries to brush people off of him. He can tolerate Suguru and his insistent bear-hugs from time to time, can sometimes allow Shoko to swat a fly away from his face, and for some reason, doesn’t grumble whenever you try to fix his ties before events, but whenever a stranger or someone he isn’t close to attempts to touch him, he grows reclusive for the rest of the day.

“I told her to stop, too,” he adds, his big frame seeming to grow in frustration as he thinks back to it, “It was only after I had to shove her off that she got the hint. I forgot my disinfectant too, so I was just…” he shuddered, his eyes fluttering shut as he shifted uncomfortably, and you watched him let out a restrained exhale as he dropped it and went back to work.

But, after studying him for as long as you have, you know that he probably washed his hands and his face a couple of times after that. You know that he also wouldn’t feel complete without some sanitizing wipes and a good shower, so you do the closest thing to that and fish out a hand sanitizer from your bag, an item that you refused to move around without due to your own cleanly nature, which was ironically something else that you and Gojo silently shared, and passed it to him, knowing that he was probably itching till he was able to shower again.

Your friends sometimes joked that you had a Mary Poppins bag, but it came in handy for times like this. 

Gojo’s ears perked up at the sound of your rumaging, his eyes almost brightening at the sight of the hand sanitizer, and you pinched it between two fingers before throwing it his way, watching as he effortlessly caught it and began spraying his large palms with the lavender scent. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled again, his voice slightly losing the edge it had from before as he passed it back to you, and you smiled, nodding once before you zipped it back up. 

You tried to ignore the way Shoko was staring at you.

“Lucky us that we don’t have labs, huh?” Suguru called out, throwing another tiny pillow in your direction, but this time you dodged it, moving your head down slightly so that it would miss. You huff a bit, looking over at Suguru as he shrugged, winking as he went back to his phone. 

Suguru was another English major, the reason the two of you got familiar in the first place. He liked to say that the two of you balanced out Gojo and Shoko, but you just thought that it pushed you even further down the list of potential people your pathetic crush could be interested in. 

There were a couple of things that you had come to terms with if you were going to crush on him. One was that you had to know in full certainty that nothing was going to come from it. You weren’t going to risk the friendship, no matter how small, by going and confessing and having everything be messy. Two, was that you weren’t going to feel, or at least try not to feel, jealous if he entertained the idea of pursuing something with someone else. And three, was that Gojo Satoru was so incredibly picky when it came to potential partners, that it might be impossible for even the most amazing people to snag a chance. 

“I don’t know,” you mumbled, eyes squinting as you tried to make out what one of the characters was saying, “You didn’t have to do that project with Armie.” 

Suguru hummed, his brow raising as he thought back to your shared class and the project that paired you up with people you didn’t know, Suguru getting the better end of the stick while you were stuck with someone who insisted on plugging the project prompt into a generator. 

“Didn’t you report him?” Satoru asked, his eyes still trained on his work, but the question was now directed to you given the fact that he had sat in on a couple of your tirades in which you would drone on about how the boy was nearly about to graduate and still couldn’t cite sources when he, in one of his brief moments of providing comments, would reiterate to report it to the professor. 

You sank into your spot, giving him a suppressed look, one where your eyes met before you shared a glimpse with Suguru. Your friend rolled his eyes from across the room, shaking his head in annoyance as Satoru looked between the two of you. 

“She said that she didn’t want to ‘be a bitch’,” Suguru said, restating the words as his fingers move up and down in the air, quoting the statement you had said to him moments before you had to present the assignment in front of the class, shushing him as you pushed him away, insisting that even though you had done the entire project on your own, that it wasn’t worth the hassle to make a report with the professor and potentially have someone out for you, “I said otherwise, but she,” Suguru gave you a pointed look, “Said she’d cut my hair if I made it a ‘big deal’.”

Satoru’s eyes lingered on the side of your face, and you purposefully kept your head ducked and the book closer, so close that it was nearly touching your nose, as you tried to shield away their judging eyes in embarrassment. 

“You need to stop caring about what other people think,” Shoko said as she shoved you with her knee, this time just a little bit harder because she knows you and knows what you hide in the fear of making others think something of you that wasn’t good, “I really think your professor would’ve heard your case if you made it.”

You groaned, swatting at her leg with your book as you shuffled away, backing into another corner as you tried to readjust to the new position. 

“Yeah,” Suguru added, resting his phone momentarily on his chest, “I think it would help if you were more selfish.” 

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head at the prospect. 

“I just hate confrontation,” you murmur defensively, gnawing on your bottom lip as you flip a page, “And, plus…you have to give me some credit - at least I told him that he was being frustrating,” you say, pretending to ignore them, your eyes re-reading the same word over and over again until you were confident that they were going to drop this subject, this horse that they’ve beaten multiple times, one that ended with you assuring them that you were going to speak up more until it all looped back again to times like this.

“Speaking of confrontation, did you ever get a refund for that ticket?” 

There was a beat of silence before you let out a frustrated groan when Shoko reminded you of the one task you had forgotten to do in the past couple of days, your head falling to your knees as your palms jammed into your eyes. 

“No, oh my god, you’re so right,” your voice is muffled as you bookmark your page, your fists clenching at your own mistake as your eyes crack open, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot to follow up on that!” 

Shoko chuckled, rolling her eyes as Suguru and Satoru shared a look, them now sharing confusion as you writhe on the floor at the thought of knowing you could’ve saved a couple of bucks had you not forgotten to call up the school of drama help center for accidentally buying an extra ticket to the showing of The Beggar’s Opera. And, seeing that it was Tuesday and just days before the theatre program, one that needed funds, was about to perform, the deadline for your refund was most likely up.

“So does that mean you need me to come with you next Saturday?” Shoko offered, her lips quirking up slightly as your head shot up, nodding quickly as your hands flew to hers, shaking them feverishly. 

“Would you? Would you really?” You ask, and her laughter grows, shoving you off playfully by pushing your forehead back to where you were sitting. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says with a sigh, winking at you before she goes back to her phone, and you settle back in your seat as you gnaw on your lips, thinking back to how on earth you could have possibly messed up so bad when you so usually only buy one ticket for yourself, but you push it aside, thankful that your dearest friend was at least going to make use of it. 

You, Suguru, and Shoko shared a small laugh and went on with the conversation, but you heard a low, deep noise, something only you could hear, as Suguru and Shoko returned to bickering about which major Shoko was best suited for. 

The sound made you glance up briefly, looking over the pages to see Gojo still staring at you, his lashes fluttering before he snapped back to it and went back to doing his work. 

Minutes turned into a few hours, and the room was filled with the occasional story and laughter, but mostly the four of you worked together on different assignments, sometimes looking up as you would recall something from the past couple of days that you were saving to tell them in person. 

It seemed like everything was going smoothly until Suguru got a notification on his phone, his face lighting up as he swiveled out of his bed, jumping onto the floor as he tugged his shoes on, not explaining anything as the three of you glanced up, waiting. 

“My food’s here,” he said over his shoulder, practically gleaming as he cocked his head in Shoko’s direction, “Come down with me, will you? I need some help.” 

You scoff, smiling to yourself as you try to imagine just how much food he had ordered, but careful not to be too loud because you knew he would be sharing it with you all after some choice complaints were heard. 

Shoko grumbles, but obliged, lifting up from the couch as she stretches, nudging you playing with the tip of her foot as she throws a pillow your way, walking towards Suguru as he holds the door open for her, the two of them calling out some brief goodbye as they head down to the lobby.

When the door clicks behind them, you’re suddenly aware of the fact that it’s only you and Satoru left, and you let your stare linger on the wall for a bit before you look away, suddenly sheepish when you catch his glance from his seat on the couch.

He clears his throat, eyes flickering from his screen to the book in your lap, the highlighters strewn around you, sticky notes sticking out from between the pages, and he points a finger at it. 

“What’re you reading?” 

Your brows raise slightly, and your chin ducks down to the book, and you sit up a little straighter as you place a bookmark in the middle of your page you lifting the cover, letting him read the cover as he adjusts his glasses over his eyes. 

“Oh,” he says, his voice holding a lithe of acknowledgement as he slowly sets his laptop to the side, shifting slightly closer, “I’ve read this, I think.” 

Your head tilts a little, lips quirking a little bit at the sides with a small smile as you look back at the cover.

“You’ve read The Norton Anthology, Volume C before?”

His mouth parts, closing it before he gapes at you, and your grin turns into a big smile, waving it away as you shake your head, shrugging at his stammering expression. He’s so cute when caught in a lie. 

“I’m only kidding,” you swear, setting your book down, your knees pulled towards your chest, arms wrapping around your legs, “I’m sure you’ve had to read something like this for one of your previous classes.” 

“You’re bothersome,” he murmurs, but his voice holds no bite as you let out another barking laugh, rolling your eyes as he tries not to smile, “I’m only trying to be polite.” 

You purse your lips together, giving him a questioning look as he shoots you one back. 

“I didn’t know politeness was in your artillery,” you quip, and he scoffs, moving his glasses upwards as he rubs at his tired eyes, resting backwards into the cushions as his legs part, and you try not to let your eyes linger on his thighs. 

“I have a reserve for choice people,” he says, opening his eyes back as he looks back at you, yawning as he moves on, “How was your presentation?” 

Your smile falters for a second as your stare turns questioning, chewing on your lips as it turns into something sweeter, something smitten because he’s asking about the presentation you had mentioned once in passing the last weekend you had hung out, stressing over your slides and sources, and trying to seem nonchalant as you finger traces little patterns on the floor. 

“It was good,” you tell him, trying not to seem too prideful as you murmur, “My professor said it was exactly what he was looking for.” 

His face shifts, no longer annoyed as you try not to appear bashful, but his teeth shine as his rosy cheeks pull upwards as he gives you one of those smiles that makes you feel warm and happy and giddy. 

“Yeah?” He asks, shifting a little bit as he waved his teasingness off, rolling your eyes as you groan, nodding exaggeratedly as you go back to organizing your highlighters and pens, but he seems intent on pushing this: “Didn’t you say it was the hardest assignment of the class?”

You look up at him from above your lashes, trying not to smile again as you shrug indifferently, done with arranging your stationery based on colors as your knees knock together, throwing a pillow his way that he effortlessly catches.

“I mean, everyone told me that it was really, really hard, so-” But you’re cut off by the door swinging open, and the two of you crane your necks around to see Shoko and Suguru arguing over something irrelevant, food nestled in their hands as they close the door behind them with a slam. 

They start telling you two about the delivery fee and the outrageousness that one of the containers had tipped over, but you’re still busy thinking about how Satoru remembered something so trivial, giving them quiet hums as they spread out the food on the small coffee table, and trying to act normal. 

Like you have for the past two years.

—

The week passed as it usually does, with papers, readings, and assignments that needed to be completed at an unmanageable rate. 

You had expected the usual and mundane things, and for the most part, that’s what came your way. Nights spent in each other's rooms as you finish up your work, spliced with moments where you would all talk, days filled with going to lectures and walking around campus till you found a quiet study spot. Things that you could predict and plan for. 

For the most part.

Another thing that your little group would occasionally do was meet up at the end of the week at one of the pubs around campus, most of them serving mediocre food and somewhat better drinks, and offer you all a time to reconvene after a usually stressful couple of days. 

The pub was small and quaint, but you enjoyed the warmth and laughter that muddled together to make the ambiance somewhat private. Either Suguru or Shoko would arrive there early and try to secure the usual spot at the booth near the end of the establishment, seeing that either of them didn’t have classes on Fridays, while the other three would meet up outside of Satoru’s biophysical chemistry class and walk there together.   

Which is why you found yourself back on that Friday, sitting next to Shoko, settling into your seat as she clambered in after you. Suguru almost pushes Satoru in, impatient to sit down and get back to talking, and you watch as the white-haired man sits in front of you, his hands clasped together as he stares at the wood-grain of the table. 

“How were classes?” Shoko finally asks, looking between you and Satoru as she takes a sip from her drink. 

You sigh, shrugging as your fingers play with the bottom of your cup, the condensation slipping down as you rub at your tired eyes. 

“Fine, I guess,” you say, drinking some water as you wipe at the corner of your lips, “My professor could’ve ended the class, like, twenty minutes earlier than he did.” 

She nods solemnly, patting your thigh in solidarity as she passes the bowl of crisps towards you, nudging you to take one to help settle your stomach after having back-to-back classes, knowing how hangry it made you.  

“Is this the professor who needs you to see a classical play?” Suguru asked, taking some of the snack as his arms crossed on top of the table, leaning in slightly as you licked some of the salt from your lips, nodding. 

“Yeah,” you heave another sigh, elbowing Shoko as you continue, “Which is why I’m seeing Beggar’s Opera next week. I mean, the theatre program did a couple of Shakespeare ones earlier this semester, but…ugh, I just can’t watch another performance of Romeo and Juliet.” You murmur with a groan, resting your chin on the palm of your hand as Suguru hums in agreement. 

“You don’t like Shakespeare?”

Your eyes shift over to the man in front of you who asked the question. 

Your brows furrow slightly in the middle, lips pulling into a small pout as you shake your head, playing with the ring of water your drink had left as you itch your nose, trying not to focus too hard on the pretty pink color on Gojo’s cheeks because of the slightly toasty feel of the room. 

“I do,” you say slugishly, “It’s just that when the only work of his that tends to be popular isn’t The Tempest, I get a little annoyed.” 

Suguru snorts, shaking his head as his fingers wag at you. 

“That’s not even nearly his best stuff,” he argues, and you roll your eyes, your head tilting badly in annoyance after knowing what this was going to lead to, “I can’t believe you still think that it outweighs Richard II.” 

Satoru and Shoko’s eyes bounce between you and your ink-haired friend. 

“I’d rather die on the hill of petty magic versus royal family drama,” You quip back, your brow slightly raised. 

Suguru huffed, shaking his head in dismay as he lightly shoved your foot underneath the table, a small smile on both your faces. 

“Is Tempest the one with the shipwreck?” Gojo asks, his head tilting slightly as his glasses lean on his nose bridge. You nod, grinning at the fact that someone in the group was able to identify such a classic piece of literary work. 

You open your mouth to agree, but Suguru beats you to it. 

“How do you know that?” He glances sideways at his friend, his brow raised in slight shock as Shoko snorts. 

Gojo shrugs, his elbows resting on the table as the fabric of his sweater tightens around his arms, making him look delectable and otherworldly. You have to tear your eyes away from it before it becomes too noticeable. 

“We went to the same secondary school,” Gojo argues, saying it as if it were the most obvious explanation in the world, “I paid attention…clearly more than others,” he adds under his breath, causing you to drop your hand to your mouth to hide the satisfied grin from when Suguru deflated in slight embarrassment. 

“Oh, speaking of blast from the past,” Shoko shuffles, looking at her phone screen as if suddenly remembering something, “Vi’s coming back for break.” 

You watch as Gojo and Suguru stop their silent bickering by messing with each other's stuff as they look up to Shoko. Suguru’s thin brow shoots upwards, his mouth turning into a surprised line as Gojo stares blankly, an unreadable expression on his face as you poke Shoko’s thigh, shaking your head in confusion. 

“Who?” You murmur, your eyes squinting as Shoko looks at you, her mouth slightly dropping as she also remembers that you didn’t grow up with them. 

“Vivienne March,” Suguru explains, beating someone once again to explain something because he could never hold onto a piece of information for longer than three seconds if he knows that somebody in his vicinity doesn’t know it, “She went to school with us for, what? Five, six years?” He looks between Gojo and Shoko, and they both nod, Shoko unlocking her phone as she goes to pull up the girl's instagram to show you what she looks like, “She’s his ex,” he murmurs as if secretly, pointing at his friend next to him as you feel something in your gut shift, but he clearly doesn’t tell because he leaves that point entirely. 

“But I thought she preferred to stay in America till her spring semester was over?” He asks, confused, waiting for you to be done looking, as he waits for Shoko to explain it. 

You take her phone gingerly, looking at the girl's account as you carefully click through her posts. You’re greeted with an aesthetic array of photos, some of her friends, some of her cat, and pretty pictures of old brick buildings and fall trees. But your eyebrows slowly move up your face when you see her. 

Your thumb swipes through each post as you see her stunning hair framing her face in freshly done curls, her eyes striking and delicate as she wanders around a bookstore. Her outfits are always perfectly curated, and her makeup delicately done to accentuate her already natural beauty in a way that makes a part of you, something you tried to bury and starve, twist with envy at the effortlessness of her perfection. 

“Guess she had a change of heart this year,” Shoko says, taking her phone back from your outstretched hand, turning it off as she placed it face down on the table, “She texted me this morning saying that she was ‘gonna be here for December and some of January and that she wanted to catch up.” 

“You would like her,” Suguru directs his attention back at you, his words matching the genuine smile on his face, “She’s super bright and bubbly. And she’s so funny. Oh, and she's, like, insanely smart. She graduated from Cambridge when she was nineteen, and she’s doing grad school at Harvard.” 

“Hmm, yeah,” Shoko hums, “I mean, she almost came here if she didn’t get the call from Harvard,” she nudges you with her shoulder, “But I don’t know how much he,” she points her eyes to Satoru, watching the way his mouth slightly parts at being called out, “Would’ve appreciated that, though.” 

He scoffs, his tongue poking at his cheek as he leans in slightly, his arms crossing the table as Suguru snickers. 

“I have no issue with Vivienne,” he argues, his brows pulling into a cute little frown, “She was just…”

“What?” Suguru juts in, Shoko scoffing a laugh next to you as Gojo only peers at him from the side of his eyes, “Madly in love with you? Was going to pick Oxford to be with you? And you were…what, days away from breaking up with her when she came sobbing to us that you have the emotional intelligence of a rock?”

Your eyes widen slightly, looking over at Shoko for confirmation, one she returns with a faint grin. Despite the sunken feeling in your heart, one that you often get whenever you are reminded of the fact that, unfortunately, literally everyone is also in love with Gojo Satoru, you have to control your face not to giggle at the statement. 

Gojo makes a noise deep in his throat, the tips of his ears slightly pink from the added attention. 

You swallow as you try to grapple with all this information. But, as always, the conversation moves on and you push everything back as you find yourself smiling once again, listening to how Suguru animatedly tells the story of how he bombed one of his essays because he forgot which citation format to use, and you try to not make it obvious how you’d peek over at Shoko now and then and see who it was that she was stalking, probably some girl from her class that she was plotting on. 

The music lolls on in the background, the pub getting more packed with students and tired workers, and you find yourself content with listening to your friends tell you about their week, taking small sips from your straw as you grin and laugh as poke Shoko’s thigh whenever a cute guy, devastatingly never as cute as Gojo, walks by the table, and she, gripping your knee whenever a girl her type flashes her a look from over their shoulders. 

“I think I’m wanted somewhere else at the moment,” she whispers, leaning closer to your ear as you follow her line of sight to a girl sitting at the bar, her long blonde hair thrown over her shoulder as she steals the occasional glance at your friend, “I’ll be back.” 

You giggle, pushing at her to go as she swats your hand away playfully, sending you a wink as you send one back, watching her go as Suguru and Gojo watch silently, sending each other knowing looks before Shoko disappears behind the other booths. 

“Well, if she’s going, might as well take this time to piss,” Suguru states, putting his hands on the wood as he hoists himself up, sending a cheeky little smile as he imitates Shoko’s sashay, “Don’t wait up.” 

You roll your eyes, trying not to watch him leave as if to draw out the silence that will inevitably follow, seeing that it’s just you and Gojo remaining. Your fingers play with your empty glass as you glance back to him, sending him a small smile as you feel chagrin already seeping into your veins.

He clears his throat, his eyes darting from your face to your arms, his tongue poking his cheek as he swallows. You wonder how much he’s dreading the awkward silence that has the possibility of ensuing.

“Water?” 

Your eyes squint at the sudden question, looking down to the long finger he has pointed at your glass, and you look back up at him, wondering if he was stating the obvious or if your feelings for him had made you delirious and unable to compute anything that comes out of his mouth. 

“Do you want some more water?” He explains, and you feel your cheeks heat again at your blunder, “I’m going up there to get a refill anyway.”

You nod gratefully, swallowing your feelings down as you glance up at him, handing him your empty glass with ice sloshing around as your smile wobbles. 

“I’d appreciate it, thank you,” your voice dips slightly as you grin stupidly the longer you look at his long lashes and his pink lips, somewhat glad that he was getting away so you could less opportunities to screw up, and you watch as his beautifully large hand wraps around the glass like it was nothing, sending you a small nod as he crouches slightly so that the overhanging light wouldn’t hit his head on the way out. 

Leaving you alone, you pull out your phone, also thankful to have a little moment to yourself as you quickly try to catch up on the notifications you had gotten in the past couple of hours, as the noise around you mixes, adding a comforting ambience as you lean against the old walls, your head leaning against your fist. 

You were so engrossed in your own little bubble that you didn’t notice the figure hovering near the other end of the table, only noticing the man when you looked to the side, thinking that either Suguru or Gojo was back, only for your eyes to widen in shock and surprise to be greeted with an unfamiliar face. 

Letting out a small noise, adjacent to an audible gulp, you sit up straighter, looking bashfully at him as you turn your phone off, taking in his slender frame and the rectangular-framed glasses that sit wonkily on his nose as he fidgets nervously with the hem of his lumpy sweater. Ironically, having everything that Gojo has but wearing it so drastically differently that you have to snap yourself out of the comparison. 

The boy's hair is slightly parted, light blonde, and his eyes framed with what seemed like brown lashes. His cheeks are dusted with light freckles, and his smile is lopsided as he scratches the back of his neck. 

Cute in a schoolish way, you think.

“H-hi,” his voice is high, squeaking and wobbly as he leans on the booth, not knowing what to do with his arms as he uses the back of his hand to push his glasses upwards, “Hi, I just…” 

Your head tilts slightly, curiosity filling your eyes as you give him a gentle smile, waiting patiently for him to find his words. 

“I’m Kento,” he stammers after a second, scratching behind his ears as a red flush settles over his high cheeks, “I’m sitting over there,” he points to a table behind him, and your neck cranes to see a group of boys his age all staring at his back, “And I just thought-” 

He opens his mouth to say something else, but pauses, his gaze drifting to something, or rather someone, coming his way, and you’re too focused on the way sweat dots at his hairline or the way he fidgets with the hem of his sweater to even notice the full glass of water sliding in front of you from the other side of the booth. 

Your back straightens as your head whips to the side, eyes widening when you realize that Satoru had returned, his one drink nestled in his hand as his stare bounces between you and, who you evidently had just discovered, Kento. 

Blue eyes flicker over your face, a moment's decision faltering in his mind as he slithers into not his original seat in front of you, but next to you, his large frame taking up half of your side of the both as your brows furrow in confusion, lips pulling into a tote as your eyes squint at the way he hunkers in like it was normal. 

Is he okay? You try not to have your heart burst out of your chest and flip flop around on the table like a fish out of water at being in such proximity to Satoru, but you don’t even have time to think about that as the rest of your mind falters, trying to make sense of this behavior. 

One of his beefy arms unravels from his side as it stretches above your head, resting atop the cushioned seats as he sighs deeply through his nose, taking a sip of his drink as if he hadn’t interrupted anything, and his chin turns over to the boy, waiting. 

Kento stammers, even worse than before, as he pushes back his spiky hair with a hand, looking between you and Satoru as you blink slowly, not really knowing what to do, awkwardly lingering in your seat as you wonder if anybody’s going to talk.

“Everything alright?” Satoru asks finally, his voice slightly lower than usual, somewhat taunting but hard to tell, seeing that his face was blank, thick as it almost bounces off Kento’s skull, his cheeks turning into a bright pink as you lets out a small exhale of air, something resembling a shocked laugh at the strange and sudden shift in his behavior. 

“I, uh, I,” Kento’s voice wobbles as he seizes up Satoru’s size and his overall presence, a strange look of shock and even awe as you gnaw on the inside of your cheek, not fully knowing what was going on as Kento’s head dips in embarrassment, “I’m sorry…I didn’t know, uh, that you, you were…yeah…sorry…”

His arm raises in a small wave, quickly turning on his heels, the back of his neck almost red as you blink rapidly, letting out a small huff of air as your neck almost snaps towards the man next to you, stammering as you try to find your words. 

Satoru looks at you, taking another sip. 

“What?” 

You scoff, eyes nearly bulging out of your head as you stumble over a slew of words. 

“What? W-what do you mean what?” You let out a bewildered laugh, looking across the pub at the boy and his group of friends that almost seem to be comforting him, their hands on his shoulders as he profusely shakes his head, “What the hell was that for?”

His white brows pinch in the middle, as if he doesn't understand your startlement, as if you were the one being crazy.

But you weren’t being crazy. Not in the slightest. 

You brushed it off the first time Satoru scared off a guy who was talking to you. You thought it was strange, sure, how in the middle of your lively conversation of John Milton and Paradise Lost that he wandered from the other side of the room, suddenly attached to your side, his height towering over the other guy as he quieted down and scurried away. You just chalked it up to him being bored, despite how annoyed you were. 

The second time, a guy was seconds away from putting his phone in your number when Satoru’s voice rang in your ears, and you watched, horrified, as he peered down at the guy's cracked phone screen, scoffing at the fact that he was listening to some stupid band he disapproved of. 

Then there was the time when you were at this same pub, getting some drinks for Shoko, waiting at the counter, flirting with the guy next to you when Satoru found his way back to you, as if pulled by a magnet, and asked the guy if he always chose to talk to girls he didn’t know with a fresh hickey on his neck. (That one you weren’t mad at, more so embarrassed).

But it’s happened countless times. At the pub, at gatherings, at galas he’s invited you to as his plus one because he said nobody else could make it, at the library when he came a little too early and a guy from your class was sitting next to you, at the cafe, and at the small party he threw last year.

And if you weren’t so in love with him, you’d be madder than you were. You knew he was just being a protective and caring friend, not wanting you to get hurt, but you knew you’d have to start moving on from this debilitating crush, and he wasn’t making it any easier.

“I just asked him if everything was alright,” he explained, his tone bordering on bored as he pulls out his phone, checking the time as he angles his body slightly to look at you better, and you're somewhat aware of the fact that his arm is still somewhere above your head, “He’s the one that scurried away.” 

Your mouth drops open, your palms jamming into your eye sockets as your head hits the table, banging it a couple times as you try to pull away from him, slightly angered, slightly, and very, ever so slightly, internally flustered at something you definitely should be flustered over.

“You…you scared him away!” Your voice is muffled as you groan, not caring much as you shoot him an angry and bitter look.

Satoru’s lashes flutter slightly, his pink lips pulling into a confused line as you shove his knee with your own, realizing that you were, in fact, not joking and were seriously considering the idea of giving that blubbering mess a chance.

“Are you - are you serious?” His thumb jabs in the general direction of where he had gone, “Him?”

You roll your eyes, chest heaving with a sigh as your forehead continues to rest on the cool tabletop, the tip of your nose rubbing against the varnish as you groan.

Deep down, you know that this crush of yours is fruitless and useless. It’s never going to get anywhere, and the only thing it can offer you is more hurt and rejection. You know that you are so far from his type and out of your league that he’d never see you as more than a friend, if that, but you continued to have it because it lit a fire inside of you that you sadistically enjoyed. 

That being said, you would prefer, at some point, to have a romantic moment, even if fleeting, and having the man you’ve been in love with for two years chase away the only guy who’s had the balls to come up to you made you irrationally annoyed for some reason that you didn’t fully understand. 

“He…he seemed nice,” you argue, your eyes closing shut as your hand shifts, and you rest your cheek on the back of it, your back bent at an angle as you look up at him from your position on the table, “And he was cute-” 

Gojo cuts you off with a startled laugh, a disbelieving one as his eyebrows shoot upwards, showing more than the five emotions you usually see him with as genuine shock laces his features, and it only spurs on that angry fire inside of you as you press. 

“What? What? He was cute!” Your head lifts quickly from its spot on the table as your body shifts to look at him even better than before, trying not to notice the cute wrinkle of his nose or the frosty irises of his eyes that are looking so intently at you that it could knock the air out of your lungs if you stare long enough, “And I…I don’t know, I think he wanted to talk to me!” 

Gojo snorts, his arm tightening around the cushion behind you, his hand dangling off the end, his fingers dangerously close to the side of your ear as you swallow thickly. 

“Well, of course, he wanted to talk to you,” his other hand pushes his glasses upwards, the veins on the back of his hand evident, “ I just can’t believe that he’s someone you’d want to entertain.”

You stutter, hurt flashing across your face as it pulls into sour bewilderment.

You’ve barely talked to Satoru for more than a couple of minutes at a time about classes or projects or annoying classmates, and you can’t believe your luck that the first conversation between the two of you that stemmed outside of those points is about this.

“What, what’s that supposed to mean?” Your voice dips slightly, embarrassed, as his own expression slightly shifts at your tone.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly not expecting this to blow up in his face as it did, and he sighs, retreating to his old, composed self as he explains himself. 

“Look, I have him in a couple of my classes,” he starts again, lips pulling into a thin line as he looks over his shoulder to Kento and then glances back to you, “He shows up late and never does his work and always asks to most ridiculous questions,” Satoru adds and you try not to have your lips quirk at the sudden revelation, not wanting to give in and let your foolish feeling stake the wheel and guide you to forgiving him, but it’s not use as he continues, “I just figured that…someone like that isn’t someone good for you. Even if he did just want to talk.” 

Your mouth dries up, and you try not to let your head burst and remind yourself that he’s thinking about this from a friend's perspective, something kind and caring and companionly, but not in the way you would want from your crush, but Satoru is still waiting on your response so instead you swallow everything down and your lips tote, avoiding eye contact as you attempt to seem indifferent despite your outburst. 

“How ridiculous are his questions?” You finally ask, peeking over at him from where your gaze had been training on the ice in your water, and you swear you see a flicker of surprise take over his gorgeous features, as though you were going crazy with the way his blankness faded momentarily and gave way to a little smile. 

He sighs, this time lighter, his hand behind you shifting ever so slightly to push at the back of your head, gingerly but in a teasing way as you try not to smile a giddy smile, one that doesn’t reflect the fact that you couldn’t really care about the guy who had come up to talk to you when Satoru cared enough because he didn’t think he was good enough for you to talk to. 

“Even more ridiculous than asking if adding ice to rice would help it steam up more than if you used water,” he says, picking up his drink as he nurses it over his mouth, fighting back a smug grin at the way you sputter, pushing him roughly as your cheeks heat up again for bringing up one of your late-night queries. 

“Fine, fine, fine, I’ll give you this one!” You rub at your eyes, shoulders hunched, “But you have to stop scaring off every single guy that tries to talk to me! He could be a normal guy who’s going to come up, and you’re going to disapprove of him just because he wears mismatched socks or only writes in pen!” 

Satoru snorted indifferently, proving your point that he didn’t seem to care. 

“Writing solely in pen is psychotic behavior,” he grumbled to himself, recalling the time one of his classmates had the gall to ask you for your number before he quickly shut it down, inserting himself in the middle of the conversation until the guy gave up and left. 

You groan, head dropping back onto the table as you tap it lightly, a quiet thud reverberating in your tiny corner of the room. 

“One of these days you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that the reason you shut people down is different from the reasons I shut people down.” You say, moving your arms upward so that you could set your cheek on it, looking at the empty seats in front of you instead of the man you’ve had a crush on, sputters. 

“What do you mean?” His voice drops a little bit, and you angle your head to look up at him, brows pinching in the middle as you let out a little laugh, something sardonic as you shake your head to yourself. 

“You…” you pause, stopping, sighing to yourself as you try to control your words before you say something you’ll regret, “You have like…perfect people coming up to you. And if you choose to reject them, that’s up to you, I get it. But last week you turned a girl down because she said that Star Wars was a waste of money,” the two of you share small laugh because you can recall just how red he got, embarrassed but peeved when somebody just offended his entire lifeline, but you continue, “It…it’s just,” you press your lips together as something in your chest clenched, “I don’t really have that luxury. I don’t have perfect guys coming up to me with little quirks, you know? There’s always something wrong with them, even if I don’t see it then. Like they don’t show up to dates or they make fun of my major, or just…only want to sleep with me, and then when they find out I don’t want that, they leave. And any of the sane ones that have small issues, you’re always there to shoot them down!” 

You stop, taking in a deep breath as you try to regulate your emotions, refusing to look at him right now as you let some pent-up feelings loose, just grateful that he hasn’t left and decided to let you figure this out on your own. 

“Look,” you glance at him, giving him a small smile, “I’m thankful that you care. Really, I am. But…but I just want to experience something…with someone, y’know? At least once when I’m still in university. I’m almost twenty-one, and I haven’t even had my first kiss!” Despite how embarrassing it is, it slips out, and your chees heat up as you hurry on with your ramble, “And if it has to be with something who asks stupid questions or says my name wrong on the first attempt or doesn’t know what my favorite color is, I guess I’m just gonna have to bite the bullet and take that risk. I,” you look away, back to focusing on the leather cushions in front of you as you gnaw on your lip, “I don’t really have any other option.”

Giving it a moment, you let your shoulders sink, going back to playing with the straw wrapper in front of you as you debate whether it would be better to just throw yourself out the window or risk saying something else that you’d stay awake the next couple of nights pinching yourself over.

You heard him inhale exaggeratingly, the arm behind you moving a little downwards in order to hook one of his fingers around the collar of your sweater, trying to grab your attention. You tilt your chin sideways, lips pursed, and attempt not to let his overwhelming presences budge how bitter you were feeling for some reason. 

“I think,” he sighed again, gnawing on his bottom lip as he tried to formulate his thoughts, the overhead lamp casting a soft orange light over his face and it made your pitiful stomach churn with desperate want, “I think that if you’re too pessimistic.” 

That get’s a dry laugh from you, and you roll your eyes at his statement. Before he’s able to say anything, he gets interrupted by Suguru rounding the corner, sliding into his seat with a wide grin, one that falls when he sees his friend has changed the seating arrangement. 

“Why’d you move?” 

Satoru paused, tearing his eyes away from the side of your face as he glanced at his friend, his fingers moving upwards as you tried not to look at him and make anything obvious. You hope he doesn’t bring up Kento and your little meltdown, but he seems to read your mind. 

“You were bothering me too much,” he mutters, and Suguru lets out a startled scoff, throwing the hair tie around his wrist at him as Sator just flings it to the side. Suguru doesn’t push, though, and starts telling the two of you that he was held up at the bathroom entrances because a couple was having a ‘lover's spat’, his words not yours, and he just had to hear it before he left.

The rest of the night continued as it usually does. 

If you could consider the uneven rhythm of your heart as normal. 

—

Another week had passed, another seven days of agonizingly slow school work and duties. 

It seemed like the days would flicker away at a snail-like pace until it got you to the one day of the week that you actually wished wouldn’t arrive, and would force you to stalk around the limited space of your dorm room as you think about what to wear to the theatre production that’s taking place in thirty minutes. 

Your hand was on your hip, feet tapping against the floor as you looked at the two outfits you had hung on your dresser, lips pursed as your eyes moved back and forth between the one that would go better with those pair of kitten heels you thrifted with Shoko, or the dres that you rarely get to wear. 

It took a couple more seconds of deciding, but you ultimately picked the more comfortable option, knowing that the university theater was always freezing, especially in October, and that a cute sweater was probably the better choice.

Thankfully, this gave you some more time to fix your hair and touch up your makeup, humming along to the music as your eye kept wandering down to your phone and then to your door, squinting as you turned it over, confused as to what was taking Shoko so long. 

Instantly, your eyes widen at the plethora of messages you have from Shoko, a telltale sign that something was seriously wrong, given the fact that she never sent more than two messages at once. 

shoko: pick up

shoko: girl ur literally always on ur phone wya

shoko: pls pls pls pick up 

shoko: ur making me beg rn pls can u call me back 

shoko: pls 

You don’t have time to send her one of your stupid stickers, your fingers fumbling around as you look at the five missed calls you have from her, shaking your head in dismay at how it was possible to leave your phone alone for twenty minutes and come back to this. 

It doesn’t take more than a ring before she answers on the other line. 

“Are you okay?” Your voice cuts through immediately, rushed and worried, your legs bouncing as you hear some people talking in the background, and you can hear the way Shoko snaps at them to hush so that she can hear you better. 

“Hi, yeah, no, no I’m fine - hey can you guys just,” she calls out again, hey annoyance dripping form her tone, some shuffling happening over the line as she moves somewhere where the noise is less, “Hey, hi, sorry for the noise,” she starts again and you just hum, eyebrows still pinches together in worry as you wait for her to continue, “I’m really sorry for spamming you, but I have some news.” 

The worry on your face melts as you lean back in your seat. 

“Yeah…?” you ask, but already predicting what it was that she was stressing out over telling you, but she lets out another exhale, and you could imagine her nodding wherever it was that she was at. 

“I’m so sorry but I’m at work right now and,” some clattering happens in the background, the kitchen in great hustle for the Saturday evening rush it usually has at the restaurant she waitresses for, “God, Tommy just screwed everything up with our shifts and I thought he had written me as off for tonight but he wrote me as off for next Saturday and I wasn’t able to fine somebody to-” 

You laugh softly, cutting off her rambling. 

“‘Ko, babe, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you stress, leaning in slightly as you hear some silverware being unloaded, “It’s so okay, your job is so much more important than-” 

“No, you’re more important than this - believe me,” she cuts you off this time, and you can see her standing hunched in the corner, gnawing on her fingernails in stress, “And I promised you I’d come with you and I can’t, and now I…I feel horrible.” 

A smile creeps onto your lips, and you shake your head. 

“It’s fine,” you stress, chuckling at her incoherent rambles, “I promise. The play’s going to be lengthy anyway, might as well take the time to make some money while you’re at it.” 

You hear nothing except the kitchen roaring in the background for a few seconds before she sighs, clicking her tongue as she hums softly. 

“You sure?” 

“I’m sure,” you tell her, hearing her chuckle softly over the phone, the disappointment evident in her voice, and you didn’t want to push her over the edge despite the small flicker of disappointment of having to go alone, “I promise you’re not gonna be missing anything.” 

“Look, I know it’s not the same, but I was with Suguru when I found out, and he’s said that he could-” 

This time, she’s cut off, but not by you. 

A knock sounds over your door. 

You sigh, smiling at your friend as you slowly rise, “You guys are so sweet, but you should’ve told him I’d be fine. Really, I usually do these things by myself anyway.” 

She groans at your antics, somebody calling her name from the back as she tells them that she’s almost done. 

“Shit, I have to go, but promise me you’ll tell me about how tonight goes, yeah?” She sounds hurried, and you make a few steps towards your door as you snort, rolling your eyes as you unlock the brass knob, shaking your head at the thought. 

“Tell you about what? Oh, like how Suguru has a horrific attention span and can’t…” You swing the door wide open, but you trail off as your mouth hangs slightly, not greeted by your black-haired and eyebrow-pierced friend, 

But Satoru. 

Shoko seems to have picked up on your silence as meaning that you finally understood what she was talking about, and you can barely register her sing-songy bye as she leaves, the phone in your hand lying limp as Satoru’s brow raises skeptically at your dumbfounded expression.

Damn you, Shoko Ieiri. 

“Hi,” you say breathlessly, almost stupidly, as your hand falls from behind the door to your side, tilting your head a bit as Satoru just stares, hands in his pockets, and you shake back to reality, laughing apologetically as your neck prickles, “Sorry, I…I was just expecting someone else.”

His brow arches even more, and you huff out a laugh. 

“Shoko just said that Suguru was coming,” you explain, stepping back from the entranceway as his mouth parts slightly. 

“Right,” he nods, his hair falling gracefully in his face as you churn in your spit at the magnificent sight of him in his denim jeans and the navy sweater he was in, “I hope it’s okay that I came. Suguru couldn’t make it.”

You blink, wanting to say that you were so okay with him, but you swallow that done as you shake your head, waving his statement away. 

“This is…this is fine,” You stammer to say, your smile wobbly. You hope that he can’t pick up on the way that your eyes are roaming over the way his button-up sits comfortably on his broad chest, or the way his glasses look on the bridge of his nose, “I, uh, I just have to do my mascara, so give me like,” you look at the clock behind you. Your eyes bulge at the fact that you have only five minutes left, “Two seconds and I’ll be done.”

He nods, his head tilting slightly to the side as he looks at your face and his eyes travel down your outfit. His hand raises, a finger pointed at your sweater. 

“Nice sweater,” he says, something teetering on teasing, and you look down, suddenly realizing that it’s the sweater he had given you last year for your birthday, the one that you had seen months prior after walking past a vintage store and exclaimed how much you liked it, only to be stumped by the price. 

Your confusion melts into a wide smile, your head still poking out from outside your door as you survey the material, not noticing the way his eyes soften just a smidge at your flighty reaction. 

“Oh - right, thank you again for getting it!” You say cheerfully, an entire evening or perfection and romance already forming in your head as you try not to appear too excited, pointing back to your room as you duck away, “I’ll, uh, I’ll be back, then!”

Satoru nods, giving you a small smile as you shut the door behind you, your back hitting it as you give yourself a moment to reciprocate, curse Shoko and her blasted antics, and calm your heartbeat down long enough. 

This was so fine, you tried to tell yourself, 

Everything was going to be fine. 

—-

The lobby of the Oxford theater was unusually packed, and you even voiced your surprise when Satoru led you in, your eyes wide as you took in all the students, some looking at the programs, others waiting in line for the bathroom. 

“Damn,” you mutter, squeezing past someone as Satoru follows behind you, “I didn’t think it was going to be this busy.” 

The walk here had been…fine. You had talked for most of it, which you had predicted, and with the few times Satoru would interject and give some comments on the stories you told him about your week, you feel like you told five times that amount of embarrassing and lame jokes, shutting yourself up once after wincing at how terrible it was. Satoru cracked a small smile, though, a pitiful one, most likely to keep you from shutting up the entire night. 

It’s strange, just how different you act around him. In attempts to make yourself seem cooler and interesting, you wind up embarrassing yourself even more. You could have sworn that you never acted like this with Shoko or Suguru, or literally anybody else, even your old crushes, but when it came to Satoru, you seemed to lose the sense of normalcy you had come to know. 

But you don’t have time to worry about that, now trying to put your attention on wondering how many of the students here are from that stupid class you’re taking right now, and even looking in the sea of bodies confirms that answer when you see some familiar faces. The concession stand in the corner, the one run by the theater department to raise some extra funds, seems to be swarmed, and your stomach grumbles instantly at the smell of buttered popcorn that wafts through the air. 

“Where’re our seats?” He’s standing by you now, and you have to crane your neck slightly to look at him. You sift through your tote, pulling out your wallet and opening it to reveal the tickets tucked inside, and hand one to him while keeping the other for yourself. 

“Row H,” you read out loud, “You’re seat 18, and I’m 19.” 

He nods, pocketing it before he looks back out into the lobby, his eyes focusing on the wide double doors that led you into the theater, watching the ticket taker check the people’s tickets before looking back at the concessions, remembering how much you were raving on your walk here about how good the snacks were. 

“Do you still want some…?” He juts his chin towards the hand-made sign that reads Beggars Snacks! 

“Hm?” You look back at the table, and you let out a small laugh, “Oh, yeah, right,” you look through your wallet again, putting your ticket there for safekeeping as you glance back up at his gorgeous face, “Yeah, I’ll be back. You can go find your seat, if you want.” 

Satoru opens his mouth and then shuts it, glancing at you and then the doors, and his shoulder straightens slightly. 

“Right, well….right,” he murmurs, looking a little torn, his voice drowning out by the roar of sound around you two, but you’re able to make out the low grumble of his after being near him for so long, “I’ll…I’ll see you in a few.” 

You smile again, giving him two thumbs up as you turn on your heel, your hands clenching in frustration at how utterly inhuman you seem to act around him, somehow making it seem like it was your first day on this planet. 

Peeking over your shoulder, you watch as he leaves towards the entrance of the theater, and you duck your head down as you find your way to the large line leading up to the snacks. Coming here for the past four years has taught you to go for the popcorn, pass on the homemade cookies, and snatch up the little boxes of candy if they have them. 

Checking your phone as you wait idly, you text Shoko a slew of messages cursing her and her entire bloodline for blindsiding you like this, hoping she sees them after her grueling shift and only feels worse about leaving you like this. 

Keep a tab of the line as it slowly moves, you eye the clock, knowing that the show was going to start soon. It seems to dwindle a bit, as some people in front of you and behind you give and leave, deciding it wasn’t worth it, and after scrolling through your feed a little bit more, you find yourself next in line. 

Glancing through the snacks, your stomach protests louder, ravenous after a day fueled on granola bars, a pathetic excuse of a yogurt bowl, and some crisps you had lying around, until you feel your hopes and dreams plummet when you see a small sign at the edge of the table that says only cash. 

Fucking bullshit, you think angrily, whipping your wallet out again as you rifle through the confines, who still uses only cash? What medieval system was this? They accepted cards last time, this is entirely-

And you could complain petulantly in your head as much as you want, but your face falls as you search through for the third time, coming to the consensus that you didn’t have a lick of cash on you. The person in front of you is almost done, but your shoulders sag as you begrudgingly step away, shaking your head in dismay as you make your way to the theater entrance, flashing your ticket to the ticket taker as he lets you in with a wide smile. 

The ushers point you towards aisle H, and you patiently dispute the hate still inside of you, burning. Waiting as those in front of you find their seats, and it doesn’t take long before you’re able to see a pop of hair standing high amongst the rest of the people in the audience. 

You move past a couple of people talking as you move closer, almost skidding when you stop instantly, realizing that Satoru was, in fact, not alone. 

From this angle, you could see the girl standing in front of him, a wide grin on her face as she laughs at something he says. Your eyes go to his face, your posture falling even more when you see the little quirk of his lips, a sign that he wasn’t necessarily hating the conversation, and the loss of the popcorn feels pointless now as your stomach churns for another reason. 

It was selfish to think that you were the only person who liked Satoru, but it didn’t hurt any less when you were confronted with this fact at least once a week. You knew you couldn’t expect anything from this stupid crush, a theorem forming inside your head that you continued to fall for Gojo Satoru just because you liked the sting of knowing you had no shot with him, and seeing other girls and their gleeful smiles at the fact that you probably had a chance is what maybe hurt the most. 

You weren’t ever angry at these girls, understanding them completely, even admiring the way they could flirt so effortlessly, and treated you kindly whenever you were near, but it singed a part inside of you that liked to act that you were in this small fictional bubble that you dreamt of whenever he looked your way. 

Like he was right now. 

Standing awkwardly to the side, at the end of the row, you sway idly in your spot, looking at the two of them and then around, wondering when the lights were going to start dimming and notify you of when the show was about to start. 

You hear your name being called, a familiar cluster of syllables from his throat, and you look away from the painting on the wall to the side as you see Satoru throwing up a hand, trying to grab your attention. 

When he sees you finally looking his way, he turns back to the girl, saying a few more words as she nods, her smile still soft as she glances at you, a strange look on her face as she sends you another smile, and you can’t help but return it despite the sinking feeling in your gut. 

She leaves through the other end, and you mutter a few apologies as you finally make your way down to where he was standing, ducking your head down sheepishly as you fidget with the strap of your tote. 

“Hey,” you say meekly, your cheeks heating as you finally get to him, “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” 

One of his hands waved, shaking his head as he looked back to where the girl had retreated with her friends. 

“You weren’t interrupting,” he tells you, and your brows furrow slightly because that was a white lie if you’ve ver heard one, “I knew her from my lab,” he he says, scratching the back of his neck as his eyes trace of your face, falling to your empty arms as they squint, the conversation with the girl suddenly feeling his head as he points, “Where’s your popcorn?”

The past couple of moments seem to flee too as you wring your hands awkwardly together, shooting him a tight smile as you try to appear indifferent. 

“Oh, they didn’t take card,” you mumble bitterly, “And I forgot my wads of cash back in my dorm, so,” you shrug, laughing it off as you point to the seats, “But it’s fine, I…erm, wasn’t really feeling it anyway,” a lie, since that was all you could talk about, but you push past him as you sit down, setting your tote on your lap as you look at him, waiting for him to do the same.

Satoru peeks at you, his lips pressed into a thin line as he swallows, not doing anything to sit down as one of your brows moves upwards, confused about the mental turmoil that he was going through, which made him reluctant to sit. 

“Everything okay?” You ask slowly, shifting your legs, wondering if he was tight for room, but he just nods, tongue poking through his rosy lips as he glances back towards the double doors as he briefly nods. 

“I need to use the bathroom,” he mutters, and you nod, lips pursing in understanding as you look over your shoulders, watching as more people start taking their seats.

“Okay,” you sit back a little bit, your finger pointing behind you to where the bathrooms were, “Well, you, you should probably go, like, now. I think the shows going to start,” you say with a light chuckle and check your phone, realizing that there were only five minutes left till the lights turned off, “In a little bit.”

Satoru just nods again, saying spoke few words before he turns to leave, murmuring apologies to the people sitting down as his long legs knock their knees, and you watch him leave the aisle and go before you turn your attention back to the stage, taking the time to admire the props and the set design, trying to think back to the original story and see if it lines up with how you remembering it starting. 

When the overhead lights start flickering, and Satoru isn’t back yet, you churn in your seat, looking over your shoulder every couple of seconds, hoping that he doesn’t have to navigate back in the dark. 

You send him a small text saying that it was almost going to be lights out when you see his figure in the corner of your eye, watch as he nears your row with his arms full, and you squint, trying to see through the dimness to see what it was that he was holding. 

The closer he gets, the more you’re able to see, and it’s only until he’s lowering himself to sit down that you make out the popcorn bag in one hand, and some boxes of sweets in the other. 

He says nothing as he shoves the popcorn into your hand, settling in as he looks around the seat, trying to move the armrests up only to see that they’re stuck in place, completely oblivious to your wide-eyed stare as he lets out a big sigh, resting back as his legs spread out a little bit. He opens a box of Maltesers, adjusting his glasses as he looks at the stage. 

“Want some?” He finally says, his voice low as he pushes the red box towards you, and your cheeks are almost on fire as you glance at the paper bag of popcorn in his outstretched hand. 

“I…” you blink, holding onto the popcorn so that it doesn’t spill, “Here.” You dumbly give him the bag back, assuming that he had only given it to you so that he could sit down more comfortably. 

Only now does he tear his eyes away from the stage, tuning out the voice over the announcements, the regular message of turning off your phones and staying quiet, as his elbow pushes your arm back to your seat. 

“Can’t have corn,” he says bluntly, looking over at your startled expression, “It’s yours.” 

It’s yours.

Here’s another moment you're going to mull over before another minuscule thing he does happens again, and you spend the next months thinking about that.  

“Are you sure?” You whisper, already pulling your phone out to Venmo him for it, but Satoru can already tell what you're about to do as he flicks it away, as if it was repulsive to him, and you don’t have any time to argue because the curtains pull outwards and reveal the actors.

You drag a hand over your face, trying not to look over at him anymore as you begrudgingly accept the kind token, trying to relax in your seat as the show begins, a tentative finger plucking out a popcorn as you bring it to your mouth, hoping that the only person who can what the blood roaring in your ears is you. 

—

Nearly a quarter in, and you start to realize just how bad an idea this was. 

The play itself was great. The actors were delivering their performance in a manner that felt reminiscent ot the campy nature of the original text, and some people in the audience were keeling over with laughter in certain parts. 

You found yourself with a wide smile throughout most of it, recalling some of the bits and others jogging your memory, but you were thoroughly enjoying it nonetheless. The issue was, the person next to you seemed to be despising it. 

The rare couple of times you peeked over to see his reaction to a couple of things, you noticed his jaw clenched, sitting straight and uptight as his eyes never left the stage. He barely mustered up a smile during the funny portions, looking utterly depleted during the serious bits, and his hands were clasped together, fingers interwoven as he sighed, unamused. 

Every time somebody would do something weird, you’d glance his way and would still see the same stone-cold expression on his face. You were aware that the play itself was over exaggerated and strange at times, but that was the whole appeal of it in the first place. But at times, you tried to view it through the lens of someone who didn’t go in-depth into literature and read the nuances of somebody like Satoru, who would rather spend their free time studying and working on their mountain of assignments, not something like this, and you felt your chest getting heavier and heavier with each second. 

When it neared intermission, you could’ve sworn you had nearly melted in your seat, your popcorn done as you glanced over at Satoru when the lights finally turned back on, people around you standing up to leave or stretch. 

A beat of silence passes before you clear your throat, mustering up a wobbly grin as you jab a thumb to the curtains. 

“Funny, huh?” 

Satoru blinks, as if coming back to, and you debate if he had been half asleep. The thought makes you sink even deeper in embarrassment. 

“It’s, uh,” he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back as he swallowed thickly, “It’s…interesting. I haven’t really seen anything like it before.” 

You pause, chew on the side of your lip, rubbing at your eyes as you try to think of anything else to say. You’ve spent time with him alone, sure, but never in a situation where it felt like you had to defend yourself, your background, the whole reason why you were here in the first place, like you are now. 

People bustle around the two of you, and he sits up a little straighter, pushing his shoulders back as his neck cracks a bit. 

“It’s raunchy and… theatrical,” you try to explain, attempting to seem unconcerned as you fold the paper bag up and set it neatly on the ground, making a mental note to pick it up before you leave. “But I think it’s really interesting given the period it was written and how vulgar, everything is, and the characters are all super unlikable, which you don’t really see in these kinds of productions, and, well, it’s supposed to be funny and…fun, I guess,” your voice dies down, your lips almost chewed raw as you wait for a reaction, a facade of interest, a pitiful acknowledgement to what felt like your livelihood, but he just nods. 

You suck in a deep breath, gaze darting around the theater as you try to look at anything else.

Noticing your sudden silence, his eyes leave the stage for a moment as they rake over your expression, see the way your lips pull into a small, worried line, the crease between your brows, something that appeared whenever you were stressed or confused. His face seemed to melt to mirror yours. 

“Is there a reason why they keep calling the daughter a slut?” He finally asks, and your eyes dart back to him, and your cheeks puff, blinking slowly as you nod, embarrassed for some reason as you stammer to find words. 

“It’s, erm, well, it’s in the original material, but,” your words mesh together as you try to call back on the research paper you did for this piece, your mind blanking as your cheeks heat, “But I think they keep it in because it’s supposed to be a demonstration of the degradation of women and the differentiation between men who also exhibit premarital interest in the sex…and it’s not supposed to be funny but they repeat it a lot, so you kind of become numb to the meaning of the word...” Your rambling quiets near the end as you shoot him another tense smile, wringing your hands together as your lips tremble, looking away as a last resort to save your dignity. 

After spending two years with him, you’ve become familiar with his routine and what he expects from his day-to-day life. What some describe as the prodigal son, Gojo Satoru, if not with friends, is usually found in the back of the library, in his dorm, or somewhere quiet with papers strewn in front of him, with his laptop out, typing away. He sometimes goes to benefits and galas, some to attend because of his parents, others because of his biochemistry path, but his time isn’t usually spent at the theater watching vulgar plays. 

That’s what you did.

And of course, you didn’t come here weekly. You had to be here for that godforsaken Literature in English class. But this was a part of you, this play, this environment, these exaggerated dialogues are what you spent your time obsessing over. The history and the meaning, and the importance of English literature and writings are your life, and having someone next to you, watching a personification of it live, felt like inviting them into a piece of your mind, even if they wouldn’t view it as such. 

But to you, you who liked to overcomplicate and read into things, saw it as such, and your heart was thumping erratically when you realized that Satoru probably saw this, you, as equally insane for enjoying something like this. 

And you hated how much the thought made you spiral, made you think of yourself less than when there was a possibility that this wasn’t what Satoru was thinking at all, but the slight chance, the small probability, is what stirred the trepidation in you. 

“Are you enjoying it?” 

His question brings you out of your mental fever, and you bite your cheek, wondering what the right answer would be. He’s watching you, waiting, and you exhale shakily, smiling poorly as you swallow back some bile.

“I, I am,” you say finally, “It’s just…I did this huge essay on this last year, and I’ve been looking for a rendition of it, but there’s only this old movie that’s so far been made, so…seeing this live is pretty cool.” 

He nods, looking at your stalled expression as you keep your eyes trained on the curtains, not wanting to show your internal thoughts on your ever-so expressive face, and he tries to keep his slight confusion at bay for your suddenly reserved self. 

As you try to feign indifference by going on your phone, you can watch him from the corner of your eyes, look around, and uncharacteristically fidget in his seat as he debates doing the same as you or talking some more, which, at the moment, you don’t appear content to do. But the more you try to ignore him, the more it seems like your body has a physical reaction to it, protesting your desire to keep to yourself. 

“Did you do anything fun today?” You ask, putting your phone down as you scratch at the inside of your wrist. He blinks, looking a little quizzically at you before he clears his throat. 

“Well, Suguru had set me up for a double date,” he explains, and you feel your chest tighten a little bit, “But…eh,” he shrugs, “I wasn’t really feeling it,” he drags a hand over his face, “If only he knew where I’d end up instead, huh?” He nudges your elbow with his, a teasing grin on his face, but blood roars in your ears upon hearing his words. 

Gods, the man who despised dates and unaccounted occasions and strange meetings would rather take that over this.

You let out a little puff of air, trying to give him a smile as you feel sweat dot on the back of your neck, your palms clammy as you wring your hands together, looking down at your shoes as you try to bite back the lump in your throat.

He’d rather be anywhere else than here, your mind blares, the unspoken words ringing in the small expanse of your heart.

There’s a strange gurgle in your stomach, one that shifts sharply, and you wince. This is definitely not a part of your internal trade, and you hope that when you shift to place a hand on it to try and calm it down. You turn your phone off, pocketing it in your tote, and the sudden movement makes you jerk in pain. You sit back up, hoping that he won't notice. 

But, of course, he does. 

He angles his body towards you, brows cinched as your eyes twitch barely. 

“Are you okay?” His voice his deep, tinged with worry, his head leaning towards you just a bit so that you can feel his minty breath fan across your warm cheek. 

You wave him off, shooting him a horrifically terrible smile as you shift, your head tilting to the side as your stomach makes another alien noise. 

“Yeah,” you mutter, almost like a question because even you don’t know if you’re alright, “Yeah, I just think it’s the popcorn on an empty stomach.” But even that explanation made no sense. It seems like your stomach is churning even more with each passing second, and you really wish that he couldn’t tell that every moment is a testament to your battle for control of your own body.

“Do you want some water?” He asks, looking over his shoulder to the doors, remembering that the concession stand was also selling bottled drinks, “I’ll get some-” 

But your hand shoots out, gripping the fabric of his sleeve as you tug on it, shaking your head as you attempt to situate yourself back in your seat, your act going well besides the slight crack in your face at a particularly painful jab. 

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m fine,” the lights flicker again above you, and you’re somewhat grateful for them, grateful hat you can’t see the obvious fear on his face at the prospect of you being sick near his very hygienic self, “The shows starting, anyway, so just,” your voice dips a little as you try to contain a groan, “Just stay.” 

He goes to protest, but your hold on him is strangely tight for someone so riddled with pain, and his mouth parts to say something, but the glare you shoot him nearly shuts him up. 

“Please,” you mutter, the embarrassment from several things thick in your voice as you wince, your eyes melting into something pleading as the applause begins, and his face falls for a second, but you look away, weakly clapping along with everybody else. 

You feel tears prickly in your eyes. 

And you hope he can’t see the shining gloss when you try to blink them back. 

—

When the show ends, you’re nearly debilitated with the pain in your abdomen, and the mortification from having watched Macheath’s other wife battle it out with Polly alongside Satoru. They mix into a terrible combination, one that forces you to come back into consciousness in the middle of the theater, the bright overhead lights nearly sending you into a psychosis. 

There must have been something horrifically wrong with either the popcorn or the butter they put on it, because, despite your blurry view, you can see a few people in the audience huddled up in their seats the same way as you, despite the play ending. 

Satoru cleans up next to you, taking his boxes of candy and your strewn popcorn bag, and sits back up to look at you nervously.

“Are…are you sure you’re okay?” His gentle tone is one that you barely register as your hands grip onto the armrest. You can barely even muster up a hum, giving him a shaky thumbs up as your stomach gurgles again, this time, audibly. 

You try to stand, but your knees wobble, and you grip onto the back of the seat as your head sways. You can feel his grip on your elbow, nearly knocking over some people's bottles beside him from how fast he stands up, and your clammy face looks upward at him, swearing that he looks like an angel with the light framing his hair.

“I,” you clamp your mouth shut, swallowing thickly as you wince, taking a few seconds before you start again, “I have to use the loo.” The declaration comes out as a whisper, an ashamed one, and you can’t look him in the face, even if his nods insistently, an arm of his wrapping around the expanse of your back as he tries to steady you

“There’s one near the concessions,” he tells you, his voice strangely considerate and temperate, head leaning down to get closer to your ear so that you could hear him better, “Do you think you can make it?”

You feel like a child, but you only nod, neck and face flaring up in embarrassment as you allow him to guide you through the aisle of people, not looking anybody in the eyes as you make it out, your legs shaking slightly. If it weren’t for him, you’re sure you would’ve toppled down in pain by now.

The walk out of the theater becomes a blur, letting him guide you towards the bathrooms with one of your hands wrapped tightly around your stomach, as if it would ease the pain, and you feel the two of you come to a stop as you stand next to the ladies' door. 

His arm around you falls, and you miss its warmth. He looks crossed with different emotions as you use the wall to hold yourself up, wobbling towards the bathroom as you shoot a look over your shoulder. 

“Thanks,” you whisper, your eyes widening and then shutting instantly at how much it hurts your head, “I’ll…I’ll be back.” The words slur in your mouth, and you don’t give him any time to react before you leave through the wooden door and book it to a stall. 

The moments that follow afterwards are what you’d expect from a case of bad butter. 

You kneel on the floor, heaving everything up, trying to be as quiet as possible so the girls in the stalls around you can’t hear, but it’s not a process that you’re particularly fond of and can feel your will to continue weakening as you leave back on the wall, your head in yours hands as you hear the toilet automatically flush. 

At least getting it out of your system seems to have made the painful throbs dull down to an annoying little jab, but you feel like the bulk of the damage has already been done. Satoru was sweet enough that he’d try to never bring this up again, but you knew you’d have to live with the humiliation of this evening for a couple of months before you did something else that would top it. 

You let your head tilt back and heave a gulp of air, palms jamming into your eyes as you attempt to swallow, your mouth too dry to produce any saliva. If Shoko were here, she’d at least try to make you laugh about the ridiculousness of it all. But it’s just you and Satoru, and you don’t know if you can even look at him for the next week after tonight.

Giving yourself a little more time to calm down, you heave yourself up from your position on the floor, careful not to touch the ground, and pluck your bag off the hook, miraculously throwing it on before you hunched, so as it wouldn’t touch anything too icky. 

You wash and scrub your hands, feeling dirty and still a little sick as you splash some water on your face, hoping the cool water will help snap you back. The girls around you talk, some drying their hands, others touching up their makeup in the mirror. One of the girls next to you watches you through your reflection, her face pale and strands of hair wet as she splashes some water onto her face. 

“Popcorn?” She asks, and your eyes find hers through the mirror, blinking slowly as your hands grip the counter. 

“Yeah,” you take a deep inhale of air, sharing a small smile with her as you turn off the faucet, “Do you want some hand sanitizer?” You offer, going to reach into your tote, but she waves it off, giving you a kind smile as she continues to wash her hands, probably feeling just as bad as you were. 

Giving her a small nod as you go to the paper towel dispenser, you reach around for your phone, opening it up as you quickly send a text to Shoko to update her on where you were, nothing too long, just to be safe, and tap the tip of your shoe on the ground, debating what to do next. 

You could go see Satoru, probably waiting outside, and awkwardly explain that you should probably walk back, seeing how his germaphobic personality might not mesh with the fact that you had basically deposited your entire day in the theater washroom. You could also try to sneak away and hope that he was standing somewhere that granted you the option of stealth, but you quickly shook that off, quickly understanding how pathetic and childish it was.

After another moment of thought, you ball up the towel and throw it away, pushing the door open with your shoulder as you enter back into the lobby, the business having died down just a bit, and look around bravely for the man. 

Spotting the pop of white near the end of the room, you take a few steps forward before you halt, stopping near a wall that offered you a little bit of insight as to what he was doing as you peeked around the corner. 

2 - 0, you think sunkenly, watching the way Satoru talks to another girl, his broad shoulders shielding her from where you originally were, and that familiar ache enters your chest as you play with the hem of your sweater.

You could be sadistic when it came to your unrequited feelings; that much you had made peace with. But the universe was horrifically masochistic for the situations it thrust you into. 

His face is a little more stiff than before, but still polite and kind as he cranes his neck to look at the girl. Her hair is pulled into a sleek bun, one that you always envied with how clean and precise some girls were able to make theirs, and watched how her hand lingered on his arm, something you could never get away with without his face falling into contained disgust. 

It’s unfair to think this way of this stranger, you remind yourself, after all, if you had the guts, you’d try to make a move on him too. 

So, in another moment of decision-making, you get your phone out again, trying to contain the little tremble in your lips as you start drafting a message to him. It’s for the best, you try to reason, telling him that you were too sick and didn’t want to give him what you had. You send another message, saying that you were going to make your way back to your dorm and that you hope he had fun, thanking him as much as you could without sounding pathetic for how much he did this evening and for coming. 

You also sent him the venmo transfer for the popcorn you were going to make earlier for good measure. 

Where you were presented you an easy way to slip out of the building, one of the exits a little bit behind you, as you rubbed at your tired eyes, wrapping your arms around your torso as you prepared for the cold gusts of wind that were going to hit you the moment you stepped out. 

People around you were talking in muted voices, laughter ringing around your ears as you ducked your head down, hoping that this time by yourself could give you some moments of peace, even though you knew that being alone with your onslaught of thoughts was going to do the exact opposite.

This campus was always bustling on a Saturday night, so you never felt too alone as you made your way away from the theater, pulling out your headphones as you geared up your phone to listen to some music before you heard a muffled shout from behind you. 

Brows furrowing and your eyes slightly shifted in confusion, you, along with some other students around you, looked to see what the sound was. 

To your utter horror and stupefaction, you watch as Satoru whips his head around, as if he were looking for something, or rather someone. 

You stand like a deer in headlights, hands raised mid-way to your ears to put your headphones in them as you see him check his phone and then look up again, not caring that other people were looking at him strangely as he runs a worried hand down his face, typing something furiously fast as he looks around again. 

Finally, it seems like he found what he was looking for when your eyes lock, and he sends you an ice-cold, deathly glare, one that made you glance around as if it were someone behind you more deserving of such a look, but before you can do anything, he’s jogging over to where you were frozen in place. 

The closer he gets, the more you can see the agitation and vexation in his microexpressions, things you’ve taken pride in before in reading, now not so much because you were on the receiving end of them. 

When he comes to a halt, phone still in hand, his chest rises and falls a little fast, as if he were out of breath, and he runs another frustrated hand through his white locks as he pushes them back.

Your mouth gapes, and you suddenly remember that you were supposed to be “deathly ill” according to the text you had sent him, and try to make your breathing seem more labored, your posture more haggard, but that doesn't work as he eyes you like he knows.

“Where the hell are you going?” He snaps, and you wince slightly at his tone, and he reels, shooting you an apologetic look despite the fire burning inside of him from the way you’ve been acting this night.

“Back…back to my place,” you whisper, voice hoarse, and he hears it instantly, expression melting as he takes the time to really dissect the way your eyes are slightly bloodshot, your lips chapped, your lashes clumped with tears, and he takes a small step back, taking in a deep breath.

“No, I, shit,” he stammers, restarting, “Are you…” His voice comes out as thick and low, and you almost feel it in your bones as he pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to calm his nerves as he gives you a tilted look, “Are you okay?” 

This time, he’s not asking because you were exhibiting signs of ailment, but because you had been acting like you were strangers since the moment you saw him tonight. Because your behavior was so off and unlike you, he was struggling to understand if there was something beneath the surface, something that had happened that he wasn’t aware of, that was fueling this shift. 

Your eyes seem to waver as you try not to look at him, attempting a nonchalant shrug that is anything but, as you think of how to lower your voice to a deeper register to appear more sick than you really are.

“I feel sick,” you mutter, coughing feigningly as you pull on the straps of your tote upwards, as you clear your throat, trying not to feel the weight of the looks other people were giving the two of you.

A single brow of his raises, one that you know is detecting bullshit as you rub at your nose.

“I’m sure,” he finally murmurs, rolling his eyes at the obvious statement, “I think the entire lobby heard you throwing up your small intestine.” That statement alone almost makes you keel over in shame, humiliation, embarrassment, and disgrace, but he continues, “But…are you…okay? You’ve been…off…the entire night.” 

And you know you can’t sidestep this landmine because you know how weird you’ve been acting this evening, knowing that your attempts to make things better have only backfired, and the past couple of hours come screaming back at you, and for some stupid, depressing reason, cause a sting of tears to prick behind your eyes. 

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth as your head falls slightly, your stomach still aching, your pride and confidence bruised, and you can still smell the lingering perfume of the girl he had been talking to, another reminder that you probably didn’t smell like that perfume you had spritzed on so long ago.

“I’m okay,” you murmur, looking at the cracks on the ground, your voice shaking and wobbling and so clearly not true that you tilt your head back up to see his reaction, your face crumpling into a little wet laugh when he seems completely unmoved. Upon hearing your little giggle, his anger fades a bit, but is quickly replaced with another emotion when he hears you sniffle. 

“Look, you-” he looks down at his phone to reread the text you had sent him, and his confusion seems to grow even more when he reads another notification, “Did you Venmo me?” 

You nod again, weakly, and when you look up at him, you see him fighting back a startled laugh, the quiver on his face making your lips pull up into a wobbly smile, your own emotions turning into something strange as you watch him shake his head in dismay, running a stressed hand through his hair. 

“Did something happen today?” He asks, not taunting, never taunting, but something you can’t place as you weakly not, a sheen over your eyes as you tug at your sleeves. 

“…no,” you whisper, but the two of you know it’s far from the truth because even you can’t hide the way your lips tremble and your hands shake slightly. 

He presses his lips together tightly, his jaw ticking as he takes in your sunken form, something he’s never seen before, and chews on his cheek, thinking. 

Sighing deeply, he pockets his phone, not able to look at your texts anymore because they made him too nauseous, and moves to be closer to you. 

“Come on,” he says after a moment's silence, “Let’s go.”

You peek over at him, your brows furrowing slightly as you huff out a breath of air, trying to contain your tears as you sniffle again. Your bottom lip trembles slightly, and your stomach still has a lingering ache, but there’s something else that’s causing you to be like this, and you don’t like whatever it is. 

He’s waiting, his elbow budging yours, and so you heave a sigh, rubbing at your cheeks as you nudge him back slowly. 

“Thank you, ‘Toru,” you murmur, and he pauses, his tongue caught between his teeth because you rarely call him by that nickname, rarely use it unless you really mean it, “For everything. And I’m sorry,” you peek over at him from above your lashes, looking back at the ground at your shoe so you couldn’t see his reaction, “I didn’t mean to spoil your evening like this-” But before you can say anything more he raises a hurried hand, cutting you off. 

“You didn’t spoil my evening, love,” he says quickly, his tone soft and teetering on worried, the little title slipping out of his mouth like it was natural, and if you weren’t feeling like a pile of shit, you might have fixated on it more, his eyes roaming your anxious face.

But you insistently nod, your lips pressed together as if you were trying your hardest not to let out a pitiful cry in front of him.

“I-I did,” you voice cracks, and you rub at your eyes as some treacherous tears escape, and if only you could truly see the way he looks like he was breaking seeing you like this, “With you getting the popcorn and then me getting sick and then the s-stupid show,” and he winces because he knows you were enjoying the play, could hear your twinkling laugh and he hates it whenever you feel the need to shut down the things you like because you’re worried other people will judge you for doing so, “And…and I wish you had told Shoko o-or me about your date, I would have totally understood,” you try for a smile, your words choked and wobbly and if only you knew what you were doing as you ramble, “I’m just…I’m really sorry for everything." You finish with a quivering chuckle, your heart shaking like a leaf as you finally meet his eyes, hoping he can’t see the little shake in your breathing when you finally do.

He breathes in deeply, and you can hear the gears in his head turning. But you nudge his side again, wanting to leave it at that. You can feel his eyes burning into the side of your face, but you don’t want to look. 

And you’re grateful that to some extent, he understands that, even if not fully. He murmurs a gentle come on, his hand gingerly wrapping around your arm as he tugs to next to him, his warmth enveloping you as he leads the way.

—

As much as you insist, the one thing he doesn’t seem to budge on is taking you back to your dorm. 

You pleaded with him, begged him not to get him sick, but he wouldn’t listen. It’s almost as if he steered you towards his building, a hand hovering over your back as he led you inside and up the elevator and to his room before you could even have the ability to ditch and run away. 

“If you’re going to talk, fine, but don’t think I’m insane enough to leave you alone right now.” 

That alone could have sent you into a psychosis if you weren’t so worried about puking all over his bed. 

With the way his germophobic and clean tendencies forbade him from going to public restrooms, you’re stunned that he’s even standing near you with everything that has happened this night. He even lent you his old band shirt and trousers from when he was going through a phase. 

It was a blur as you spun around his room, rifling through his drawers for towels and soap and things he thought you might want to use in the shower. You stood awkwardly at the foot of his bed, not sitting down on the mattress because you knew how he felt about outside clothes on his sheets, and you said nothing as he handed everything to you, shooting you a shaky smile, one that was tense because you figured he was most likely worried about you staining or ruining one of his clean things. You don’t say anything as he suddenly ducks, his knees hitting the floor as he starts undoing the laces to your shoes, mumbling something about how you bending over might not be the best for your stomach.

He was lucky enough to be in one of the newer buildings, meaning that he had a personal washroom, so he just led you to it and let you know to use the shower and to call out to him if you needed anything. He even had an extra pack of toothbrushes and boxers that he hadn’t touched that he set aside for you. 

You watched as he shut the door, the water roaring behind you as it began to heat up, and you silently stripped, neatly folding your clothes as you set them to the side. You took a tentative step inside his very clean shower, letting the steaming water hit you as you stood there for a couple of minutes, reflecting. 

Washing your face, scrubbing roughly at the makeup and the evening away, you feel some salty tears bite at your cheek, and you don’t even know why you’re crying right now. Well, in all honesty, you do, and that’s probably what hurts the most.

You’ve never cried over Gojo Satoru before. You’ve never felt like it was so depressingly lost where you’d need to use these muscles and these feelings that you reserve for truly important things, but it felt like tonight was a confirmation and closure all in one. It felt like you slowly came to your senses, realized that despite your wishes, it was fruitless. You just weren’t the kind of girl that he could cherish, at least, not in the way you wanted him to, and you knew it would be selfish of you to ruin any chance another girl could have of him being hers. 

It took you a little longer than expected, but you feel like you were slowly gaining consciousness, the reality at hand as you turned the water off, patting yourself dry with the soft towel he had provided you. 

You move carefully, brushing your teeth, pulling on the clothes he left you, as you assess yourself in the fogged-up mirror. Your eyes are a little puffy, but you can just tell him from earlier. Your voice is croaky, but you’ll just bite your words back tonight until you can go back to your place in the morning and start distancing yourself from him until your feelings are choked out. It’s time you began moving on, anyway. 

Braving the other side, you take a deep breath before you carefully open the door, peeking around the corner until you see him sitting on the corner of his bed, furiously typing away until he hears the creak, looking up from across the room as you sheepishly smile. 

He quickly puts his phone away, standing to his feet as he rubs his hands, not knowing what to do as he buffers. 

“Was, erm, was everything good?” He motions to the bathroom, and you quickly nod, walking away as the steam from behind wraps around you, your body adjusting to the shift in temperature as your eyes stray to the couch in the corner, pillows and blankets set up in a makeshift bed. 

“It was great, thank you,” you say gently, “I’m sorry, again-” But he holds a hand up, cutting you off as he insistently shakes his head. 

“Really, it was nothing,” he stresses, his cheeks dusted pink, his glasses discarded on his desk. 

You nod again, embarrassed, and smile stiffly, pointing to the couch as you make your way over. 

“Thanks for this, too,” you say, but he seems to awkwardly shuffle, his hands behind his back, looking like he wants to say something, and your brow slightly quirks at his odd reaction. 

“That’s…that’s for me,” he explains, moving away from his lofted bed as he shows you the changed sheets and the new pillow case covers, what he must have been doing in the time it took for you to shower, “You can sleep here.” He pats the mattress, and you let out a disbelieving chuckle, shaking your head as you move closer to the couch, feeling like the worst person in the world. 

“I couldn’t,” you stress, but he’s already moving closer to you, looking like he wants to move you away from the cushions, “I’ve already imposed enough. I’ll sleep here. It’s fine, really, I like couches.”

He opens his mouth and closes it, lips pressed into a thin line. 

“You haven’t imposed,” he finally says, as if that’s all he took away from your rambles, and you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you wave aside his polite nature and hold your hands up. 

“If I sleep on your bed after everything, I’m never going to be able to look you in the eyes again, okay?” You put it bluntly, “So I’ll take the couch, and you’ll take your bed, and it’ll be fine. Okay?” 

His tongue darts out, blinking rapidly as if he’s assessing his different options, and he looks at you, to the couch, and then to the bed. He seems like he’s torn, but he figures that the next best thing is to ignore this completely, shaking his head to himself as he moves around you to the cupboards behind your body, shuffling around until he finds what he needs.

“I’m going to wash up,” he mutters, glancing briefly at you as he pulls in his towel to his chest, his new pair of clothes, and you feel your chest tighten at the sudden dismissiveness in his tone, ad if he’s given up with you, and he makes his way to the separate room, “Make yourself comfortable.” He calls over his shoulder before he shuts the door behind him, and you give it a few seconds before you wince, falling back down onto the couch as you pull a pillow to your chest and allow yourself some time to relax before he comes back. 

You allow yourself some time to look around, appreciating his tidy room and the mess-free atmosphere. You can smell the lingering scent of bergamot, and you see the warmer on his desk, a candle right under it. The wall that his desk is parallel to is littered with postcards and retro movie posters (mostly Star Wars and Star Trek). There are some polaroids he has pinned up, some with Suguru and Shoko from their years in secondary school, some photos he had taken himself with his camera. His bookshelf, which is nearly leaning over with how heavy it is, is at the end of the couch, and you shift to get a better look at the books he has on his shelf. 

You’re so rarely in here, especially by yourself, so you peek around, hearing the water still running, and lift from the cushions, your eyes squinting as you move closer, trying to make out the names on the spines, your curiosity getting the better of you. 

Most of the shelves are full of textbooks from previous courses he had taken; therefore, most of them are science-related. Your eyes shift across the spines, seeing some books about botany and a couple about astronomy and astrophysics, a specific interest of his despite specializing in biochemistry. Notes are jammed into the empty spaces, and you make out his cursive on some of them, smiling despite yourself when you pull some of them out, making out his quick scribble from when he was either in class or studying. 

The bookshelf itself is insanely tall for no reason, tall enough that you’re sure Suguru or even Satoru, in his sprawling height, would struggle reaching to top, so you have to go onto your toes, stretching your calves as you tilt your head upwards to look at some of the higher shelves, pulling some books out by placing a finger on the top of the spine, careful not to disrupt anything as you let yourself get lost in the names. 

Suddenly, in the midst of all the chemistry and biology and Latin names, something familiar catches your eye, a book that was resting on its side on the highest shelf, and you struggle but can wedge yourself up on the edge of the couch to reach it.

The Count of Monte Cristo.

Your eyes widen in spite of your heavy emotions riddling your mind, and you turn it around, reading which edition and publisher it was as you scour through the pages, seeing his little citations in blue ink in the margins. You flip through the pages, each one highlighted and marked for different reasons, similar to the way you read through a book, and you close it shut, feeling like you were somehow intruding on something private as you set it back down in its initial place on the shelf until something else caught your attention. 

Familiar titles and authors all paint the top level of his bookshelf, books that have nothing to do with his major or classes or even remotely with something you think he might enjoy reading, and you almost fall as you try to get closer. 

A small box at the edge of the shelf piques your interest, and your lips catch between your teeth as you put all of your focus on this task, your nimble fingers moving closer, plucking it from its spot as you hold it gingerly in the palm of your hand, looking back to the bathroom as you hear the pipes groan as he turns the water off, an alarming sound, one that meant that you didn't have a lot of time left.

The box itself is also familiar, this one for more reasons than most, because you remember this box; you gave it to him for his previous birthday. amongst other little trinkets, finding it at a flea market, and thinking he could make some use of it. The wooden grain and the carvings on it were delicate, and your hold is even more careful as you unlock the little latch, the top lifting open as you peer inside. 

Your eyes adjust to the sight, something you weren’t necessarily expecting, as what you can only describe as junk littered the inside of it. A ticket stub from a movie he had seen, a dried leaf, candy wrappers, spare coins. You huff a little in disappointment, your nosey nature quelled by the contents within as you rifle around a little more, knowing you should stop and sit down and act like you saw nothing when you feel a glossy texture beneath your fingertips. 

Gently, you pinch it between your pointer finger and thumb, pulling it out from beneath all rubble as you hold it closer to your face, your breath catching in your throat. 

It’s a polaroid of the two of you.

You remember the night well, a couple of months ago, during the summer. The four of you and a couple of mutual friends had rented a car and had gone up to a cabin, one of the many properties Satoru’s family owned, and had spent the weekend there. Suguru had insisted on setting up a fire and eating around it, and you had huddled up next to Shoko as the night got colder. You remember the voices and the laughs and the squeals as some of the friends, people you didn’t know that well, began chasing each other, and you and Shoko watched, amused. You remember how one of the boys had been carrying a jug of water, one meant for inside, when somebody bumped into him, and he tripped, and the water came falling on you. You remember letting out a small laugh, shocked and forgiving as you assured the stranger that it was okay, shivering, nonetheless, as Shoko laughed uncontrollably. 

But above all, you remember how Satoru hurried over from wherever he was, his stare worried that you were hurt, everything shifting when he saw the playful glint in your eyes, the fireplace illuminating your features in red, yellow and orange hues as you shrugged his worries off, his hands on your elbows, steadying you as Suguru took a photo of the moment, of your head thrown back in a laugh and his eyebrows pulled into an anxious line while his lips pulled into a gentle smile, the stars twinkling in the background as he steadied you to your feet. 

You distantly recall hearing the click and asking Suguru about the photo, but hearing him say something along the lines of the lighting being too dark, but clearly that was a lie because you were holding the small photo in your hand, staring at it with no problem.

Before you can spend more time thinking about his junk box and what the hell this photo was doing in it, you heard some shuffling on the other side of the bathroom, the door clicking open as you scramble to put the box back, nearly tripping as you jump down, going back to where you were seated on the couch in a flash, appearing to look nonchalant as he stepped out. 

You don’t let your eyes linger too long on the way his shirt stretched tightly across his chest, or the way that the water has caused the fabric to slightly stick to his arms. He shakes his hair into a towel, ringlets of water falling as he pushes his hair back. You also try not to fawn too much over his mismatched pajamas, or how his trousers have prints of lightsabers in different colors all over them. 

“Hey,” he calls out gruffly, rubbing at the back of his neck as he tosses his towel into the hamper, his feet padding over to his desk as he checks the clock and then his phone for any notifications. He sighs, and your throat is dry, heart hammering in your chest as you realize a grave mistake. 

In your haste to put everything back, the careful clutch you had on the photo had appeared nonexistent, and you had, for some reason, made the blunder of still holding the photograph of the two of you resting in the palm of your hand. 

His back is still to you, and you swallow thickly, shuffling across the couch as you try to deposit it onto one of the nearer shelfs, hoping that if he were to see it he would think it had mistakenly fallen out or something less drastic, but his ears turn towards your movement, looking over his broad shoulders at the way you scramble to dispose of the film. 

“What are…?” His eyes pierce yours, and you sheepishly snap around to look at him, your hand going behind you as you shake your head, acting confused as his head tilts to the side, jumping from your seat at the edge of the cushion to your leg, angled towards his bookshelf. 

“I was just looking at your books,” you quickly state, trying to cover your ass as lips purse together to give you a knowing look, a white brow rising so high that it disappears in his hairline, one calling you out on your obvious bullshit. 

“Hm,” he hums, taking a step closer to you, his skin still glowing from the shower as he makes his way to where you were sitting, towering over you as his arms cross deliciously across his chest, “Then what do you have behind you?” 

You feign innocence, blinking as you shake your head, acting dumb as you shrug. 

“I,” you scoff, leaning back into one of the pillows as you shrug, “I don’t have anything behind me.”

“Right,” he drawls out, his voice slightly deeper, intimidatingly so as he crouches down a little until his face is to face with you, his fingers moving to poke at your arms, twisting at an odd angle to hide behind your back, “Then you wouldn’t mind if I gave you some medicine, yeah? Something that requires both hands?” 

Damn him. 

You shake your head, swallowing as you shoot him a shaking smile. 

“Not at all,” you stress, shifting uncomfortable as he nods, his eyes raking over your face one last time as he moves to his desk, pulling a drawer out, his medicine drawer, you deduce, and watch as he pulls out a bottle that seems to promise helping with stomach aches, and he turns it over, reading the label until he seems satisfied. 

He strolls back to where you’re seated, holding the medicine bottle out towards you as he patiently waits. 

You shoot him a fake smile, biting back annoyance as you shift awkwardly, wringing out a hand from underneath your body, the one that’s not holding onto the photograph, as you take the bottle from his outstretched hands. You stare at it, realizing that he’s waiting for you to open it, and if it wasn’t for the unimpressed look on his face, you’d almost wager that he was amused.

“Something wrong?” He asks, fully knowing the answer, and you shoot him a glare. 

“No,” you bite back, your other hand moving slowly, careful not to crumble or tear the film as you place it under your thigh, showing him both of your hands as you twist the cap of the medicine bottle off, “See?”

He nods, still unbelieving of your little tactic, as he takes the bottle away from you. You watch as he moves to set it down on the table, assessing the situation as he moves down in one swift motion, not giving you any time to understand what was going on as he loops one hands under your knees, another across your back as he lifts you up and over his shoulders like you genuinely weighed nothing more than a sack of flour and you screamed in horror at the rudeness of everything. 

“Freak!” You shout, your face looking at his muscular back as he chuckles, not seeing anything yet as you try to kick his face, “This is so degrading, put me down!” You scream, horrified and mortified as he pinches your calf that was near his chest. 

“Stop squirming,” he chides, but his voice is anything but chiding as he swivels around, your body jerking sideways as your head drops, motion sickness from already feeling a little off from earlier tonight, and you weakly punch his back, groaning.

“I’m going to puke all over you,” you threaten, but he just chuckles, shaking his head as he pretends to drop you, only to catch you last minute, his chest shaking with the sound, and you go to snap at him again,

 But you feel it, hear it the moment he sees the polaroid you had taken. 

He goes tense, his grip on you tightening a little bit out of shock, and he’s suddenly silent. You wince, turning around, hoping he could take the hint and set you down, and he finally does, carefully setting you on the ground as he bends, picking up the photograph from where it had fallen onto the floor, and staring blankly at it. 

Your hands clench, chest tightening as his eyes flicker from it to you, his face unreadable as his jaw clenches slightly. 

Nobody speaks for a moment, the room suddenly as tense as it was when you first entered, and you watch as he puts the photograph face down on a random shelf, turning back to you as he sighs deeply. 

“Were you…Were you going through my things?” 

The question shakes you, and your mouth parts as you clamp it shut. 

“N-no,” you finally say, “Well, no, not really, but I guess…I don’t…I was,” your head drops to your hands in mortification as you motion weakly to the bookshelf, “I was only looking at your books.” You mutter weakly, not even able to look at him as you keep your stare trained on the books and their titles. 

“I didn’t mean to see it, but…” You trail off, thousands of emotions racing through you as you try to deny it in your mind, sadness from before, anger with yourself, and suddenly feel vexation towards him for no particular reason as your eyes snap to his, “God, why do you care? It’s just a photo! I didn’t…I didn’t mean to look, but I saw that thing I gave you, and I had thought you would’ve tossed it away by now, and I just wanted to see what you’d keep in there and…yeah, fuck, okay, I looked! I’m sorry, okay? But…I mean, you keep it as a junk box anyway, it’s not like it’s…like it’s an heirloom!” You’re trying to ration and reason and trying to justify your clearly immoral actions as you ramble again, a terrible trait of yours, as he just takes it, takes your anger and your slew of words and your hurt as you feel your eyes water for no reason again as you hug your arms to yourself. 

He says nothing for another moment, his eyes dark and piercing. 

And then he moves. 

His arm reaches upwards, up to the shelf, up behind your head to where the box was resting on the top shelf, and he slowly brings his hand down, your heart in your throat as he nearly throws the lid open, beginning to pull everything out one by one.

“This,” he’s holding the ticket stub, “This is from tonight.”

Your hands instantly drop to your sides as the anger fades and utter confusion floods your senses. 

…huh?

You had just looked at the box; how did you not notice? But you look closer at it, the date and the row and seat number nearly the same as the ticket stub you had thrown away after leaving the theater in a hurry, and your eyes flee up towards him, his chest heaving as he continues. 

“This is from when we went to the beach,” he pulls out a chipped seashell, and you recognize the pattern instantly, remembering the one time the four of you had gone to the shoreline, a seashell you had picked up and thought was interesting, showing it to him before Shoko called you away, but you don’t have any time to compute that as he pulls out the next time. 

“This is from the candy you gave me during a study session we had,” he pulls out a wrinkled wrapper, “This is the hair tie you left at my place and forgot,” he has a simple black elastic band sitting in the palm of his hand, but he could very much so be holding your pittering pattering heart the more he continues, his voice quivering slightly, and you’ve never heard him ramble like this, ramble like you.

“This is the leaf that was stuck in my hair that you pulled out,” he admits quietly, holding up the dried leaf from the time you had been walking next to him in the fall, the trees shaking in the wind, giggling at his white hair littered with the colorful leaves, “These are the coins you gave me because I didn’t have any change,” he’s holding up the spare sterlings you had lent him when he wanted some ice cream but forgot his card at home, and your eyes move up and down, a strange thumping sound in your ears because you feel like you’re about to faint, and he slows to a stop, his cheeks flushed and his hands shaking as his hand fills with all of the things you have given him over the past two years, things that a normal person would have thrown away or used or given back. 

“This…” his lips tremble as he shuts them for a second, looking unlike the person you’ve begun to know so deeply as his fingers wrap around something, pulling out a neatly folded white napkin, unused, as he takes in a steadying breath, “This is the, erm, the napkin you lent me. From the night we first met.”

The box is empty now, but the room fills with moments in time, moments that you would cherish in the deepest parts of your mind before you went to bed, and pretended like they were fleeting and didn't matter so that you could face him bravely the next time you saw him. Moments that you thought he treated like normal moments in time that would pass and would never be remembered again, moments that you didn’t think he would…hold onto.

Not the way you did.

“It’s not…junk,” he admits thickly, “For me it’s not.”

He stops, taking in a deep breath as he pushes his hair away from his face, carefully putting everything back in the box, including the photograph, as he sets it down, turning back to face your stunned expression. 

“Look, have you ever seen me without my glasses?” 

You blink. Realizing that he’s waiting on you to answer, you blank before shaking your head slowly, and he nods. 

“Right, right, well, I used to wear contacts. All the time. Ask Suguru o-or Shoko but…ever since you said that you like the way glasses look, I…I don’t know, I kept wearing them, hoping you’d…” he trails off, his cheeks completely red, the tips of his ears a bright pink as he ducks his head down, scratching his nape sheepishly, whispering, “Hoping you’d maybe say it again.”

Your eyes go wide, and you blink owlishly, swearing you look fish-adjacent with the way you can only give him this look on repeat as he takes your silence as an okay for him to go on a rare nervous tangent of his own.

“When I was little, my grandfather taught me how to tie his tie. He said that I should learn how to do it by myself so that I wouldn't need any help when I grow up.”

You don’t say anything, and he doesn’t get angry at your silence, but simply offers you a small, worried smile. 

“I’ve gotten pretty good at it,” he confesses with a farce laugh, something empty and shaky, "But you always ask to tie them, and…I always let you. You’re the only person I feel comfortable with; the only person who it doesn’t feel like,” he shivered, wincing slightly as if his skin was prickling at the thought of other people touching him the way you do, “The only person who can touch me and I feel…okay.”

“I have a shelf of all the books you’ve talked about,” he persists, motioning upwards, and you slowly look around to where The Count of Monte Cristo was sitting, along with all the other books you’ve raved about in the past, thinking he’d only listen and give you kind comments, not knowing that he had gone home and sat down and read them all afterwards, “I stopped drinking whenever we go out together because you said you don’t really like the smell of alcohol on people’s breaths. I…” he rakes his hand through his hair again, a nervous fidget of his as he looks pleadingly at you, “I have my spot on Suguru’s couch because your spot is right next to it.”

“And our friends tell me that I’m not crazy, that…that I might have a chance,” he motions a shaking hand between the two of you, and you allow yourself this time to blink again, “But, I don’t know,” his head ducks as he chokes back some tears, and your eyes widen even more, your eyebrows up in your hair at this point because you’ve been rendered speechless, “It’s like any time I try to get closer to you, you leave or immediately want to be anywhere else or seem uncomfortable and I don’t want you to feel that way, especially because of me.” 

When he looks up, his eyes are glassy, looking like a stormy ocean, and you feel tears prickle at yours, your breath lodged in your throat as you try to pinch yourself, swearing that you were in some vision, but this is real, and he’s not stopping, saying the words you’ve only dreamt of. 

“I know I’m not really…the kind of person that you’d usually go for,” he explains, his voice dim, “I’m not good with literary nuances or dissecting medieval texts. I can’t read the way you read, and I’m not good with understanding people the way you do, but…I want to be. I want to be that, I want to be good for you.”

Your mouth is wide open as you gape at him, trying to make sense of the words that you could only imagine as you stared silently at him saying to you, saying them to you here. The two of you don’t say much for a second, your eyes blinking rapidly as your mind travels faster than the speed of sound, and you realize that he’s not lying or trying to make you laugh. He’s not confessing his love for another girl, but instead clutching his chest because it felt like your silence was leading up to a personal rejection, and you can barely muster up any actual words as you surge towards him, stopping his rambling as your arms wrap around his neck, knees knocking against his as your lips slam against his. 

Your heart plummets as you feel him still, his arms still at his sides as his eyes widen in shock, and you feel like you’ve completely screwed things up, going to step away before his hands shoot upwards, wrapping around your waist and legs as he hoists you up, his lips moving against yours hungrily. 

“You’re so…so stupid,” you mutter in between breaths, his lips parting yours, soft and gentle and fast and desperate as they chase the way you taste, wanting to savor the plushness of yours as you mewl at the way his fingers dig into your soft skin, moving you effortlessly towards his bed as the two of you smile against each other, laughing in the air as your back hits the mattress. He fidgets with his glasses, pushing them up with his middle finger, coming a little loose after everything. 

“Yeah?” He murmurs, happy, giddy, his eyes bright and alive and electric as he nips at your bottom lip, his own shining with spit as he ducks down again, pressing kisses to your face, and you feel lightheaded, “Tell me how I’m stupid, baby.” 

You groan, lightly hitting his chest as he chuckles lightly, his kisses moving to your cheek, across your nose, as your smile turns bright enough to power the sun for the rest of eternity if it were to die in this very moment.

“I,” you huff, your chest burning and your hands tangled in his hair, fisting his shirt as you bring him in impossibly closer, “I’ve had this…debilitating crush on you ever since I saw you,” you admit quietly, and he pauses, his sunset dusted cheeks turning into a wide grin as he huffs out a laugh and push his face away from your as you turn away in discomfiture, “And I’ve done everything to get you to notice me. I’ve embarrassed myself like, twenty times a day, hoping you’d look my way.” 

Satoru raises a slender brow, and you have the urge to pull him down by the collar, pressing your lips to his as he happily obliges, his tongue poking out to tease yours as he turns to an even bigger taunting menace as he pulls away. 

“I can’t stop looking at you,” he mumbles shyly, ducking down as he kisses your throat, and you shift slightly to give him more access, your breath catching in your lungs as his kisses turn into him sucking in a patch of skin, licking it over when he’s satisfied it’s going to mark. “I could barely focus on the play tonight because I kept looking over.” 

You let out a giggle, curling his soft strands of hair around your finger as he glances up to see your smile, pressing a chaste kiss as if he wanted to taste the way your unabashed happiness felt.

“And I try to sound smarter whenever you’re around,” you admit, and he snorts against the skin of your cheek again, enjoying how plush and soft it was, biting it as you squeal, but it was never hard enough to hurt, just experimental, and he laughs, “And you never even acknowledged the number of times I’d bring up a science-y article I had spent the entire night analyzing just for you to ask me about my stupid book report.” You pout, and he attempts to kiss it off of you, his hands roaming the exposed skin of your waist and stomach, hot against your cold self, and he rolls his eyes. 

“That’s only because I was having tiny aneurysms whenever you’d do that,” he reasons, his face morphing into something sweet and gentle and something so entirely new and…yours that you wish you could take a picture of it, “And I wanted you to know that I remembered the things you told me.” 

You throw a hand over your face, not wanting him to see the gleefulness on your face, but he just wrings your hands away, slotting his long legs in between yours as he lets out another joyous laugh.

“Come on,” he insists, nudging his nose against your jaw, “How else am I stupid?”

You let out an exaggerated groan, biting your lip as you try to think through your muddled thoughts. 

“You…you…you kept only the ridiculous things I gave you!” You argue, and he moves upwards slightly, giving you a pointed look, as if you were offending his lifeline or treasures, “I’ve given so many things and…” But you trail off, feeling his large hand gently wrap around your face, turning it to the side so you could see his room from his point of view. 

“Look closely,” he softly urges, and your eyes trail across the walls, the shelves, the tabletops, “This room is full of you.”

And he’s right. 

The postcards he has up are the ones you gave the three of them from the time you had gone to Paris with your family over the summer, picking out individual ones you thought each of them would like. Vintage telescopes and microscopes you imagined him enjoying, but never enough to actually put them up. The music box that plays the theme of A New Hope, a simple melody from his favorite movie that you had also gotten for his birthday, sits on his bedside table. The books you had found on sale about plant biology, a little thing you thought he might like, rest on top of his bookshelf. 

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth, and he chuckles at your quiet reaction, dipping down to kiss you again, wanting to nudge those sounds from you, even if he has to take them like this.

“Is this why you’d scare off any guy who came up to me?” You ask, but you already know the answer, just wanting to see the look on his face as he groaned, pinching your side as you giggle at his antics. 

“I thought I was being so obvious,” he murmured against your lips, his tongue roaming through your mouth as you part it slightly for him, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling, a string of spit connecting the two of you as he pulls away, “Everyone could see how badly I wanted you.” 

You shrug, feeling sluggish from his movements. 

“I didn’t,” you argue faintly, and he looks up, white lashes fluttering as he grins, kissing the tip of your nose as he smiles. 

“Guess I didn’t either,” he whispers teasingly, “Guess we’re both stupid for that.” 

You go to fight back, but you let out an embarrassing moan at the way his hands travel across your stomach, pushing your shirt upwards slightly as your back arches upwards to chase the feeling.  His hands are large and travel expertly across your body, as if he’s mapped out the small things that make you squirm and the things you itch for, as if he’s spent the past two years studying you instead of his dusty textbooks, and the thought alone makes you shake with anticipation. 

“Can’t believe I waited this long,” he murmurs against the skin of your stomach, kissing the plain of it as you shake with an uncontrollable giggle, “Why didn’t you say anything, hm? Did you like tormenting me like this?”

The question makes you stop.

Suddenly, everything from before comes rushing back. 

It seems like it sets off alarm bells in your head, as if you had been functioning through a rose-tinted fog for the past couple of minutes, and suddenly reality hits you because…you haven’t told him for a reason. The months and months of pining after him weren’t just because you liked torturing yourself, but because of your frankly very real fears of rejection for more reasons than one. 

After a second, you huff, hands clenching by your sides as you feel a surge of feelings, deep ones that you’ve choked on and tried to hide, and he notices the instant way you tense up, stopping his movements as he glances upwards at you. 

“Do you want to stop?” He asks gently, tugging the hem of your (his) shirt back down to cover your stomach, and you let out a delicate laugh, a pensive look on your face as you chew worriedly on your face. 

Sighing, you rub a hand down your face, sitting upright with your back resting on his headboard, and turn to look back at his desk, feeling the weight of his stare more than before as heat licks at your cheeks. 

“What about…what about the others?”

The question rings through the room, bouncing off the walls, and his brows furrow in slight confusion as you still refuse to tear your eyes away from his desk, your hands resting in your lap, and he moves slowly, his large hands encompassing yours, unraveling your fingers, alleviating the tension you didn’t know was building. 

“What others?” Satoru asks after a moment, unjudgmentally, tenderly, and caring, patient as you huff out another shaky laugh, shrugging your shoulders as they fall in a heavy drop, your chest rattling with the emotions you had been trying to kill off from the past two years.

You chew on the inside of your cheek, feel his fingers against yours, and your gaze flickers to his before going back to focusing on something to the side. 

“This is gonna sound stupid,” you preface, but his thumb presses into the palm of your hand, a small sign that he wasn’t going to judge anything that came out of your mouth because he just showed you that he kept the first napkin you had ever given him. 

“But…” you drop your head into your hands, your voice muffled as you continue, “I see the girls that come up to you. O-or your ex. Vi…right?” You peek up, and his eyes are slightly squinted, nodding slowly, as if he wants you to make your point before he says something, “And they’re just so…ugh, I don’t know…perfect? Like, they seem perfect for you. Either they’re stunning, or they’re in your major, or they’re both, or just…so different, and I feel like I’m…not…that.” 

He blinks slowly, piecing this together with the fact that he asked you why you hadn’t spoken up sooner, and his lips tug upwards in a little grin, one that makes you want to roll your eyes if not for the storm brewing inside of you, and he tugs you closer, one of his hands wrapping around your waist as he drops his head onto your chest. 

“I think you’ve got it backwards,” he says against you, his voice vibrating off of you, and you feel it shake you to your core, his hand moving up and down the expanse of your back as you hand unconsciously move upwards, back to his soft white locks, “Because none of those girls could measure up to my perfect girl.”

You stop, glad he can’t see the large smile on your face as you head falls backwards, thumping against the wood as your chest swells with joy, and when he looks up, his goofy grin could match yours, and you push him away by the cheek, but he just moves, kissing the palm of your hand as you laugh softly.

“You’re so stupid,” you repeat, but he knows you’re only masking the giddiness you feel as he nods against your hand, his eyes shimmering and bright as he sits up a little straighter, nearly encompassing you with his body as he leans closer, his nose nudging yours as the two of you smile against each other's lips. 

“You’ve got that right,” he whispers in the small space of air between you, “I’m such a fool for you.” 

You decide then that you don’t give him any more time to talk or say something else that could turn your insides to mush, so you tug him down by his neck, his lips curling upwards as they press against yours. 

He seems like he’s experimenting with kissing you, as if he knows you’re learning in real time, and has no qualms taking it slow. He lets you take the lead when you want, lets you dart your tongue out slightly, and opens his mouth to welcome you in. When you get a little shyer, he takes the initiative, hands roaming around your hips, pulling you into his lap as you mewl him again. When he could tell you needed some air, he’d pull away, kissing the corners of your lips, your cheeks that he loved so much, the edge of your brows that would pull into the cutest furrows whenever you were confused, and cherished you the way he’d been aching for ever since he saw you at that stupid English department banquet. 

You chase the feeling of his skin on yours, the way his fingers feel when they trace your features, the way his hands run up your arms, the way his palm cups your jaw. Your hands seem to have a mind of their own, his as well, as they drop down to the drawstring of his trousers, running up the smooth and hard skin of his abs, feeling greedy as you run a finger down his delicious v-line. You feel him shuddering beneath you, and you grin evilly, your mouth water as you untie his pants, your fingers running over the white tufts of hair of his happy trail, and your shuffle around a little bit to help him as he tugs up the hem of his old band shirt that you donned, and you almost let out a whine when they suddenly stop, lashes fluttering open to see what he was going to do next. 

His forehead drops onto yours, one of his arms pulling you closer to his chest, the other still cradling your face, and you see the way his face has gone pink, a light hue that you rarely see him in. 

“Just so you know, this, em, this isn’t how I wanted things to go.” 

You let out a stark laugh, your hands pressing against his as your fingers curl around his hair, tilting your head slightly to the side. 

“Yeah? How were things supposed to go?” You ask, trying not to sound too selfishly drunk on him as he shrugs, his lips pressing together as he divulges you in his own fantasies, things he’d only think about when it was the two of you together and he’d be wanting to confess his undying love for you while you’d be rambling on about John Milton or another one of your other favorite authors.

He looks shy, and you want to bite him, watching him gather up some of the courage you had kissed away as he takes one of your hands away from his arms, playing with your fingers as he pushes some of his tousled hair away from his face.

“Well, I was planning on telling you how crazy I am about you after this whole day I had planned out,” he starts, scratching the back of his neck as he turns a little red, “I had, erm, bought tickets to the museum you’ve been wanting to go to,” he says, his eyes flickering from your face to the side as his head drops, and you nudge it back up as he chuckles, “The one displaying the original copies of those old books you like so much.” 

He swallows, taking a deep breath, and then continues. 

“And I wanted it to just be us, nobody else. I would have obviously read up on all the authors on exhibit, so I wouldn’t look like a total idiot when, or if, you had come, and I’d spend the entire time sweating and hoping you couldn’t see.” You giggle, and he squeezes your hand, rubbing his thumb up and down the back of it in a soothing gesture. Your eyes drop, urging him gently to continue because you feel like you’re in a dream, and if he stops, you’re going to wake up from it. 

“Afterwards, I’d take you to this restaurant I’ve heard is good,” he grins boyishly, tongue poking in between his lips, “And when we were done, I’d walk you back to your place and…tell you that I liked you then.” 

You can’t stop smiling, and he can’t stop either. 

“Just…just that you liked me?” you tease, humming as he shifts a little, his arms wrapping around your waist, “Not to be…selfish, or anything, but I feel like this way was so much more romantic with your little box of trinkets and your rambling.” He groans, pinching you lightly as you snicker, but he ultimately shakes his head, smoothing over the place he pinched with his soothing touch.

“No, no,” he mutters, his face determined, as if he was recounting everything he had planned to say, “I’d tell you how much I liked the way you look when you start talking about your day,” his thumb brushes across your cheek, running across the soft hair of your brows, “And how much I like the way you care about everything you do and everybody around you. I’d tell you that I really like it when you tell me about the book you just finished, and how much I admire your kind heart. I’d tell you that I…I like how wonderfully weird you are, and how I wish I could be half as interesting as you are on a regular day. I would have told you how you’re always the first person I look for when I enter a room. And…” his shoulders rise and drop as he pulls you impossibly closer, “I would have really hoped that Suguru and Shoko were right about this because I’d be…a little embarrassed if not.”

You hum, pretending to think as you twirl his white strands around your pointer finger even though you feel like you’re on fire and you can’t breathe and everything feels like it’s burning in the best way possible, try not to freak out because the guy you’ve been in love with basically just admitted the most amazing things to you, so you take a steadying breath, your head tilting as you smile.

“And what if I didn’t want you to stop?” You feel heat blossom across your lungs when you hear his breathing hitch, “After…after you’d do all of that?” 

He nods, surveying his different options as his blue eyes turn into a slightly different shade, as if they were dependent upon his emotions, and his hands turn a little heavier as they roam across your stomach, up across the skin of your ribcage, and they stop right under your bra. 

“Hmm, well, I would’ve have asked you what you wanted to happen next,” his smile is wicked as his face drops down to your neck, leaving wet kisses until he ends up at your collarbone, right at the neck of your shirt as you nearly whine, feeling his teeth scrape just barely over the soft skin, “What is it you want, baby? What else would you want me to do?”

Your breathing stutters, and you arch your back a little, letting his nimble fingers fiddle with the clasp of your bra, giving you enough time to turn him down, but you don’t; you want, no, need, for him to continue. 

“I,” your breath lodges in your throat when he opens the clasps, helping you tug the straps down until your old ratty bra, the comfortable one that you were sure wouldn’t matter being worn tonight because you never imagined something like this happening, but he doesn’t care, setting it to the side as he wait patiently, menacingly, for you to find your words, “I’d probably ask you to…to come up.” 

He groans lightly, a mix between a guttural moan and a laugh. 

“Yeah?” It’s not so much a question, but a confirmation as you nod, shivering when his hands move back upwards, your chest heaving as you feel his nimble and long fingers cup your tits, his fingers running over your nipples as your head falls to his shoulders, “Then what? What would I have done after I came up?” 

You go down, you want to say tauntingly, but don’t have the willpower as his thumb flicks over a nipple, and you whine. 

“Eh, you’d, uh, I’d, we, would probably end up on…on my bed and I’d probably be wearing something cuter than this,” you try to say indifferently, and he rolls his eyes because you could be wearing faux feathers glued to the entirety of your body and he’d still think you were the most beautiful woman to ever exist, “And I’d probably be a little more confident telling you what I,” you gulp audibly, your cheeks heating up, “What I want, seeing that you wouldn’t have just seen me at my virtual lowest hours earlier.” And he chuckles, and it feels right, feels like this was meant to happen as his hands fall from your breasts, trailing down your stomach as you shuffle a little, moving to lie back on his pillow as he shuffles to, situating his body in between your thighs, waiting for your next command. 

Satoru’s grin turns soft, like he knows what it is you want, but needs to hear you say it for him to feel okay doing the thing that’s setting him alight. His hand moves, taking yours into his again and intertwining his fingers between yours.

“… what do you want, love?” His voice is thick, and it settles deep in your bones as your head falls, squeezing his fingers as you sheepishly mutter something, and he barely hears you, nudging you to say it a little louder as you groan in embarrassment, an arm flying over your face as your head falls back, not able to look him in the eyes as you timidly whisper;

“For you, like…to do stuff,” you murmur so quietly you think that your lips barely even moved, “To…to eat me out or….or whatever.” 

When he says nothing for a moment, you peek between your fingers and see his cheeks flushed, a shit-eating grin on his face as he sets his chin down on your stomach, his glasses crooked as his brow arched. He moves, gingerly tugs your arm away from your face, and sits down by your side as he presses a chaste kiss to your stomach. 

“Yeah….yeah, I think I can ‘eat you out or whatever’,” he says, and you groan ever louder, flicking his forehead as he chuckles, taking your words as the sign to go, go, go, his fingers moving excruciatingly slow as they start to tug the waistband of your pants and boxers (his, again), down, looking up at you for a little assistance, and you lift your hips, allowing him to slide them down fully. 

You blink, relaxing that you’re completely bare right now, but he doesn't give you any time to be self-conscious as his pupils seem to blow up with lust, hungrily eating up the way your pussy is glistening with want and need, his cheeks a fiery red as his chest moves in a large exhale, like the air had been knocked from him. 

His hand raises upwards to take his glasses off, but you make a sudden movement, as if your body was functioning on autopilot, when your hands wrap around his wrist, stopping him from doing anything else. 

“Don’t,” your voice is barely above a whisper, “K-keep them on.” 

His white lashes flutter slightly, and he gives you one of his boyish smiles that you love so much, his teeth shining as he presses his lips to the inside of your wrist, nodding slowly as he pushes his glasses back on. 

“If I knew that waiting so long for you to tell me that you liked my glasses would have been when I’m about to do this, I think I could have waited another couple of years more.” He says honestly, dropping himself down between your thighs, and your eyes flutter shut, head falling back on the pillow as you feel his warm hands slowly move up and up and up, parting you ever so slightly so he could situate himself better between them. 

Your mouth parts when you feel his fingers move on the outside of your lips, collecting the slick, and you hold back a wanton moan, your hands flying up to his hair, tugging him closer. You watch as he pushes his glasses up by using his shoulder to move the frames up, and when his lips suddenly latch onto your clit you actually think you’ve gone insane.

His tongue darts out, moaning like a whore when he finally gets to taste your saccharine taste, his eyes rolling back as he parts your lips, the sound greedy as he moves a thumb to circle your clit, moving down to run his tongue selfishly up and down your pussy for his own pleasure, needing to feel you or else he was going to go mad. 

“You taste,” his voice is muffled as he pants against your cunt, using a finger to move up and down the slit, “You taste sweet,” he said it like he was startled, like he had spent hours and hours studying female anatomy and how to pleasure a girl and what to do, but never could have expected this unexpected turn, to taste you and realize that you were sweeter and more delicious than any candy he’s ever eaten before, “Why do you taste so…so sweet?” 

You would laugh if you weren’t so turned on, saying some jumbled-up words as he ducks down again, your fingers digging into his scalp as his thumb goes a little faster on your swollen nub, his long pointer finger rubbing at the outside of your pussy, getting ready to push it in. 

When he finally does, your walls instantly clamp down on it, and you moan, not expecting the stretch, and he gives you some time to adjust. It’s not like you’re a prude, you’ve at least attempted this before, but your fingers aren’t like Gojo Satoru’s, and you feel like you could come just from this. 

“Feeling good, baby?” He questions, and you hurriedly nod, hearing him chuckle.

“Yeah,” you stutter out, your teeth clenched as you feel his finger start to move out, and then your mouth falls open as he starts to slowly pump it in and out of you, a mind-bending pace that has you clenching around him, “Feels good.” 

He nods, taking it as confirmation to keep going, and he switches between a finger and his tongue, darting them inside of you. He keeps his pressure on your clit, and you grow impossibly wetter when he leans down to lay a cute little kiss on it, his glasses slowly fogging up.

Gojo Satoru eats you out like you’re his last meal, like he’s been living like Tantalus for his twenty years alive, and finally, the fruit tree doesn’t move from his grasp, and he’s able to divulge like the greedy and sinful man he always has been.

Sometimes the hand that’s occupying your clit moves upwards, pulling his old shirt up and over the expanse of your torso to see your supple skin shake beneath his large palms, and he cups your tits, groaning like a slut when he feels your nipples pebble, and he pinches them between his pointer finger and thumb, twisting a little to feel you squeal, and he grins, softening his touch as he smooths it over, moving back down to your nub as if nothing happened. 

You watch from hooded eyes, watch the way his eyes close, like he’s savoring your taste. You see the way he slowly ruts into the mattress, like he was getting off to this, and the thought itself makes you gush even more. 

When he’s satisfied that you’ve adjusted to his one finger, he decides to slip another one in, and the size alone makes you whine, the stretch something that causes tears to dart in the corner of your eyes in delicious pain. 

“Hmm,” you moan, one of your hands fisting the sheets, the other tangled in his white hair as you guide him up and down, and you can swear you feel him smiling against you, as if your reactions were a symphony to his ears, “It’s not like I really have a metric but…you’re good at this.” 

Satoru chuckles, looking up at you, and the sight knocks the air out of your lungs. His cheeks are flushed, wet in the dim lighting of the room, his glasses crooked, and his hair a mess, but he looks positively radiant as his smile flashes bright. 

“I hope I am,” his voice is lower than you’ve ever heard it, and it vibrates against your pussy, “I’ve been studying.”

Despite feeling lightheaded, his statement chased you to come to your senses a bit, sitting up on your elbows as you looked at him through furrowed brows. 

“Studying?” You parrot, and he nods eagerly, his thumb putting pressure on your sensitive and swollen clit as your mouth falls open in a silent moan, barely able to keep your eyes open as he explains. 

“Mhm,” he hums, his nose, the beautiful nose that you want to kiss all over, rubs expertly on the hood of your clit as he presses chaste, sloppy kisses to your cunt, “I read all these posts and books and papers about what the best way to eat a girl out,” his voice is hoarse, licking up and down your syrupy inner walls, his two fingers never stopping their relentless pace as something deep in your stomach begins to build up, “Brushed up on some….anatomy and the sorts.”

You let out a breathless laugh. 

Because of course he had. 

“You,” your mouth clamps shut when he hits the spongy part deep inside of you that makes your toes curl, your lashes fluttering against your hot cheeks, and you can’t talk correctly but make the attempt to, barely above a whisper as you mutter, “Y-you’re insane.” 

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t deny it as his thumb swirls in figure eight patterns on your clit, his pointer and middle fingers curling upwards, and you can’t really find it in yourself to chide him when he’s making you feel heavenly. 

You feel like you’re unraveling at his skillful hands, and it definitely doesn’t help that whenever you have the guts to open your eyes you’re met with the view of Satoru loosing himself in your cunt, as with each second that passed, he was going just as crazy as you were, and it felt like that familiar feeling of an orgasm building, but unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.

It’s almost like he knows, because he seems to go faster, switching between licking and his fingers, and your grip on him tightens, and he moans, welcoming the sting.

“Come on,” he presses, urging, needing you to finish around him, to taste your relief on his tongue, “Come on, baby, I know you wanna come.”

You nod, sweat dotting your forehead, your chest heaving up and down with labored breaths, that knot inside of you tightening as your thighs clamp down around his head, your walls pulsing around his fingers.

It gradually builds, but that feeling suddenly snaps, and you jolt, your back arching, moving into him, his fingers never stopping, his thumb and lips on your clit, suctioning in a perfect way that sends you over the edge. You clench tightly around him, creaming, spasming as you gush, your eyes rolling back in your head as you let out the quietest but sweetest moan, and when you feel your orgasms slow to a dull pulse, you fall back onto his mattress, limp as he doesn’t stop instantly. 

Instead, he lets his fingers slow down carefully, as if you’d get immediate withdrawal from the feeling of having him inside of you. He kisses your clit once, then twice, and pulls away, connected by a string of spit, slick and your cum, and when you finally have the energy to wring your eyes open, the sight of him wrecked form eating you out makes you even more wet.

You take a few moments to catch your breath, your chest heaving up and down, your hand falling away from his soft locks as it sprawls across your stomach, and you stare helplessly at the ceiling. 

Blinking owlishly, you awkwardly scootch upwards until you’re resting on the back of the headboard, and you watch as he brings his fingers up to his mouth, grinning coyly as he moans at the taste of you, and if you could, you’d pinch him, but you just weakly push him with your foot, looking away abashedly. 

“Nasty,” you whisper hoarsely, your voice gone, and he coos, crawling towards you, bringing his face towards yours as he nudges his nose with yours, and you’re weak, giving in as he hungrily presses his wet lips to yours. 

You can taste yourself on him, and you mewl, feeling his tongue in your mouth, licking inside of you, wanting you to enjoy what he just enjoyed, and your shaking hands grip around his neck. He pulls away a little bit, biting your bottom lip before kissing it, and he rubs a loving thumb across your cheek, his eyes turning gentle as he peers at you through those ocean eyes through those stunning glasses you adore so much.

You don’t trust your voice, so instead you let your hands unravel from his nape, moving upwards towards the expensive frames, straightening them on his nose, making sure they rest correctly on his pink ears, and he watches silently, reverently, as you push him back gently by the chin, making sure that they looked right on the bridge of his nose.

“Hmm, looks better,” you whisper affectionately, kissing the tip of his nose like you’ve always wanted, and that seems to push him over the edge, quickly wrapping his arms around your midsection as he pulls you closer to him, falling back on the bed as he tugs you into his chest, his head resting in the crook of your neck. 

At that moment, you feel it, and your eyes blink rapidly from their hazy state as his hard-on pressed against your thigh.

“Hey,” you murmur, poking his side, but he doesn’t seem like budging, his overwhelming heat and size covering you, his thick arms not moving from caging you to him, and you can’t even wrangle free, “‘Toru, what about you?” 

He doesn’t even lift his head, just hums against the skin of your neck, his lips busy leaving hickeys all over it, ones you’re going to deeply regret in the morning but can’t seem to care right now except for the boner you’re sure is deeply uncomfortable. 

“What about me?” He dreamily replies, his voice barely audible, and you roll your eyes. From this angle, you can see the way his shirt is riding up, his abs on display, the veins leading downward prominent, and his trail of white hair is calling your name. 

You wedge your hand in between your bodies as you press against his cock, the movement causing him to yelp and shudder, whimpering against you as you snicker, sure that now he’s going to give you some more undivided attention.

He sits up a little bit, resting his head on his fist, his elbow on his pillow as he peers down at you, his brow slightly cocked, not looking impressed with being tormented like this after treating you so kindly by giving you the best orgasm of your life.

“Not nice,” he reprimands warmly, poking your side as you yelp, his finger much more sturdy than yours, “You’re not really supposed to grab dicks like that, y’know?”

Your cheeks heat at his choice words, and you shrug, feigning innocence as you bring his hand to yours, admiring the large size a syou play with his fingers, feeling more touchy than usual, and you’re ever so glad that he lets you.

“I’m just saying,” you mumble, flashing him a look that sends a nonexistent punch to his gut, the blood rushing south because you look ethereal like this, “Don’t you want me to…return to favor? Tit for tat?” 

He chuckles, his thumb moving across your eyebrow, soothing the furrow as it moves down to rub against your cheek. 

“We can do tat later,” he uses your terminology and you giggle, your lips pulling into a bright smile because you’re sitting in a post-orgasm afterglow with your crush, and that stupid theorem you had stressed over doesn’t even matter anymore because the impossible outcome is happening right now and you don’t bother with looking normal because you’re feeling anything but, “I still have a date I need to take you out on.” 

You try not to gush like an idiot, your head falling into his sturdy chest, and his hand moves up and down your back, tracing stars and circles and hearts and writing his name, as if he wanted everyone to see the invisible ink that’s bleeding from his fingertips into you.

His finger hooks around your jaw, tilting your head upwards so he can see you better. 

“You wanna date me?” You ask breathlessly with dizzingly joy, the question holding no weight because the two of you already know the answer, but he indulges you, his head falling to yours, forehead against yours, glasses sitting perfectly on his perfect face that’s pressing against your perfect one. 

“I want to be yours,” he murmurs, vulnerability thick in his voice as your lashes flutter, “So, yeah, I want to date you.” 

You giggle again, and you lift your head a little to slot your lips against his plush ones. 

"sorry, kong. we'll chat another time?"

"no, you won't. go away shiu." satoru quipped, the black haired man just waves with a chuckle and moves on. he knew drunk gojo wasn't to be taken to heart, after all.

good riddance, he thought. everyone knew you were his, so why wasn't shiu getting that?

he sighed, but deep down he hated that part of himself. the obsessive part that wants to pull you away while knowing full well he's never once made any sort of claim on you. he doesn't get to play guard dog when he himself is the one who's taught everyone he's nothing more but a temporary play thing for others to use.

he knows it's pathetic, but still, he couldn't help but cling to you. it was just second nature to him at this point.

once shiu's gone, you exhale curtly. this always happened. despite your and satoru's relationship being nothing more than a tight friendship, he always got disgustingly possessive when you gave your attention to others, especially men, and especially at parties.

you sigh, then pry his other lanky arm off you with a big huff, fuck, he was heavy.

“you’re being ridiculous, satoru,” you groan, yelling over the music even though he's loud enough for the both of you, “i was only asking him how his studies were going.”

“don’t care,” satoru mumbles with his cheek pressed to your smaller shoulder. “don’t like him.”

“you don’t like anyone who talks to me.”

“mhm.”

you groan softly, this has happened so many times it’s become expected at these kinds of things. you reach for his collar and tug it, steering him away from the kitchen before he can latch back on to shiu who was now talking to maki.

“come on,” you roll your eyes. “you’re piss faced.”

he laughs boisterously, a stark change from the pout he was wearing a few seconds ago. “only a bit.”

“you’re literally swaying.”

“and? i sway when i'm sober.”

you can be bothered arguing with this meat head. instead, you turn toward the stairs and brace for impact because right on cue, his hand slides into yours and he pulls you up them.

“satoru,” you hiss, but he’s already halfway up, pulling you along behind him.

“i want to go to my room,” he says bluntly. “it's too fucking loud down there.”

he keeps a tight hold of your hand all the way up the spiral stairs with his thumb brushing your knuckles over and over, a nervous little tic he did when he got overwhelmed.

people smile and shout at the both of you as you walk pass, you think you can make out sukuna yelling his name, but he ignores all of them with a scoff like the dismissive drunk he is.

the moment you’re inside his room he shuts the door with his foot and leans back against it, still holding your hand.

this is always the part that makes your heart go all soft.

satoru looked so much gentler when he was inebriated like this. physically he’s still got that massive muscular upper body, still takes up all of your personal space and all, but he seems so fragile. like he’s set down the flashy go getter version of himself everyone else sees and picked up the one he only lets you have.

“sit,” he says dragging you toward his bed.

you smile at his slightly slurred speech and sit, he drops down beside you with his long lanky knees bumping yours. he immediately scoots closer until his leg presses against your own. his hand itch's until it's touching yours, your wrist, then your fingers, lacing them together.

he was always a little touchy when drunk.

“you okay?” you ask.

“yeah,” he says with a smile, then, “you’re really good.”

you laugh and lean back on your free hand. “that wasn’t the question, silly.”

he shrugs, flopping back onto the mattress and dragging you with him so you’re both propped up against his bashed up and faded wooden headboard. he loops his strong arm under your back and around your waist, pulling you closer to his body. okay, maybe a lot touchy.

you and satoru had a special kind of thing going on.

in freshman he spotted you from across the way at a mixer, he clocked you from the other side of the room and decided, for reasons he never really explained, that you were his person now.

he stole your cup, replaced it with a fresh one, and talked your ear off until you forgot what being nervous actually felt like, he seemed like a suave man on the outside, but this guy poured straight chronically online brainrot humour into your brain for like, two hours straight?.

by the end of the night you were sitting on the curb together, sharing fries he'd door dashed to the frat laughing like you’d known each other forever.

from then on, it was just a thing. you studied together, even though he never actually studied and mostly complained. you slept over, even though you both had comfy beds of your own.

you knew his school schedule, his little moods, the signs that meant he needed to leave a party early and unwind somewhere else. he knew when you were lying about being fine and when you needed him to just sit there and not try to fix anything.

people joked about you two all the time.

geto once asked why you didn’t just date already. satoru laughed far too loud and said that’d 'ruin absolutely everything'. you giggled too, telling yourself it was better like this, that you liked having him without the risk of romantic intimacy.

but like everything, the truth always came out.

one night where the both of you were almost blackout drunk, he took you upstairs after throwing his guts up into the toilet. you laughed at him and he flipped you off back, cleaning up then pulling you into his room like a rag doll.

he held you in the middle of the floor after you'd both toppled over, and he admitted everything to you through very crappy, slurred speech.

he told you how much he loved you, how badly he wanted you all to himself, how no one else could do it for him. you admitted the same, you told him how much you needed him in your life and how you felt more loved with him that anyone else.

you kissed, it was gross and quick but it happened. your feelings were out in the open.

for that night, at least.

morning came and the previous confession felt like small tiny fragments in both of your minds, you just couldn't remember any of it fully.

you went about your little friendship like nothing had changed. from what was left in your brains, you had a semi-clear thought on it all.

oh shit, maybe she/he likes me back?

sometimes, late at night, you’d lie next to him while he talked about nothing, sometimes you thought you caught drawls of that night in how he went quiet when you mentioned another guy, or when his hand squeezed yours that little bit tighter. but then he’d joke it away, or pull back, or remind you with a grin that you were his best friend.

so you stayed quiet, and so did he.

because being close to him like this felt better than not having him at all, loving him quietly was safer than risking losing him.

you didn’t know he was doing the exact same thing, from the other side of that line, telling himself over and over that you deserved better than him and that wanting you meant destroying his favourite thing in the world, your friendship.

now, your eyes drag over his pretty face as he stares up at the celling, letting out a long sigh that smelt like hard solo.

then he starts talking.

“god, this theme sucked actual nut sacks." he announces. “it was so bad, y/n. tell them to never do it again.”

you snort. “hm? weren't you the one hyping it up last week.”

“can you be quiet? i was lying. why are you lying to me?" he was making no sense.

“i feel like that's not... a proper answer?” you shake your head like you yourself were letting it go, he wasn't sober enough to be answering things correctly.

“rude.” he turns his head to look at you. “everyone looks stupid.”

“you’re wearing bright red board shorts and no shirt."

“yeah,” he says seriously. “so fucking stupid.”

you glance at the discarded lifeguard whistle on his desk, the red plastic stark against the silky oak. “you look fine, toru.”

“nah.” he shakes his head, hair flopping into his eyes. “everyone’s dressed like baywatch rejects. i hate it.”

“you hate fun.”

“i love fun.” he squeezes your waist as to prove his point. “this just isn’t fun fun.”

“yeah? what’s fun fun then?”

his face turns and he's suddenly looking happier. gosh, these drunken mood swings.. “like... a onesie party.”

you laugh and sit a bit closer. “of course.”

“like animals,” he adds, gaining conversational momentum. “or dinosaurs. geto would be a gorilla. choso would be like, a wolf or some shit.”

“yeah? what would you be?”

he breathes out an answer before you can even finish your sentence. “a bunny.”

“oh wow, no you would not.”

“i absolutely would. i'd buy ears and everything.” he whines with a forlorn expression, oh we're sad now? perfect.

you picture it and bite your lip to keep from smiling too hard, but he notices.

“see,” he says, now smug (you seriously couldn't keep up). “way better than 'surfer sluts'.”

you look at his shorts, then back at him. “at least the name was semi-creative?”

“tch, only thing creative 'bout it.”

he rambles on, complaining about the trashy pitbull music, about how someone spilled a drink on his nice new grey decarbra's, about how the freshmen are hella annoying this year. his hands wonder as he talks, sometimes he's squeezing your fingers, sometimes drifting to your hip, sometimes tracing the line of your knee cap? he's doing it absentmindedly so you guess it was fine.

you two chat about how shitty the party was for a good half hour, circling back to old gossip and relationship dramas, laughing and spit balling for ages. you'd never tell him but you loved these moments, where he'd laugh and talk to you like you'd known him since he was born, rather than just a few years ago.

he always looked at you like you were the most precious thing in the universe, whether you'd be out on long drives in his fancy car, or over at your dorm making really crappy cupcakes, he'd always gaze at you so lovingly. the bond between two best friends, am i right? you pushed away the thought of his lips on yours.

he sobers up a tad so the conversation is semi coherent on his end.

eventually, he circles the topic back you like he always does.

“so, you talk to shiu a lot,” he says quickly, darting his eyes back and forth from your face to gage your reaction.

“you know i talk to everyone,” you reply.

“yeah, but like.. you talk to him a lot.”

you smile at his badly hidden jealousy, “he’s in my stats class, satoru. nothing more.”

“still.”

you roll your eyes. “i asked how his studies were going. that’s it.”

he hums but it sounds very unconvinced.

“you get so weird about this,” you add. “it’s not that serious, i promise.”

he shifts closer again and his forehead drops to your shoulder. “i just don’t like when guys look at you.”

“they’re going to look at me.”

“i know.” his voice drops. “i hate it.”

you bump his knee with yours. “that’s a you problem, toru.”

“rude,” he repeats, but there’s no real malice in it.

you blurt out quickly, regretting it as soon as it pours out, "you're the only guy i'm this into, satoru, don't worry." fuck why did i say that?!

gojo's heartbeat is now thumping. she means that... in a friend way, right? of course. of course she did. no biggie...

he bites his lip as his hand goes all shake dragging up and down your arms.

you sit in silence for a bit as he and you both process, listening to the muffled frank ocean seeping through the floor boards. his thumb keeps tracing your knuckles, slower than before like he’s losing steam, getting sleepy.

to satoru, his room feels so much safer because no one’s looking at him like they want to eat him alive. not in here, with you. there's no one staring, waiting for him to be alone so they can make a move. sure, he's into it, but sometimes he jsut wants this, with you.

this is the version of him that he loves, sitting. talking. hands brushing without it being a big deal.

he wonders, not for the first time, why this version never feels like it’s allowed to want things. to want things like you.

the silence is comforting, but you make the mistake of opening your mouth. you promise you were only trying to lighten the mood, and/or distract from your almost confession earlier.

“c'mon,” you say lightly, not really thinking, “you should be thriving tonight, not sulking up here in your room. i mean, this theme was basically made for you.”

he lifts his head. “uh? what’s that supposed to mean?”

you shrug. “you know, surfer sluts. pretty fitting, no?"

you don't realise, but he goes stiff at your throw away comment, his fingers pause their ministrations on yours, his grip loosening until your fingers slide apart. he sits up straighter, and his body naturally moves away. his blue gaze dropping to the floor.

he’s heard it all before. much worse than this. louder than this. laughed off in locker rooms and kitchens and group chats.

'he's a slut.'

'a manwhore.'

'gojo’s just being gojo.'

he knows deep down he's built it, with every hook up being another brick. it was easier than being the guy who wanted one girl and didn’t know how to ask without ruining everything.

but fuck, he doesn’t want you to see him like that. that’s the fucked part. he doesn’t mind anyone else thinking it. just not you.

“oh,” he says.

you tilt your head, smiling. “oh, what?”

“nothing.”

you watch as his face turns into a distant blunt pull, you can't tell if he's still going through his drunken emotional switch ups or what.

“hey,” you say. “hey, i was joking.”

“yeah,” he mutters. “i know.”

he doesn’t look at you. oh shit.

without him pressed against you, the room suddenly inflates ten fold, when did it get so cold? the space between your bodies is small but very prominent, like a missing piece to a puzzle you'd spent hours putting together.

“toru?” you try again.

he scratches at his neck, a nervous habit you’ve seen a hundred times but never really questioned. “it’s fine.”

it’s clearly not, but you don’t push. you’ve learned when to stop.

he swings his legs off the bed and leans forward, elbows on his knees. the chatter downstairs seeps up, laughter and shouting coming through the walls. he stares at nothing, his mouth moving like he’s chewing on words he doesn’t want to swallow.

“everyone thinks that,” he says eventually, “so you’re not wrong.”

you frown, then fling your own legs off of the couch and hug into his side. “hm? thinks what?”

“that i’m just… that.”

oh.. you wince to yourself and drag a hand up and down his arm for comfort, “hey.. i didn’t mean it like that.”

“i know.” he huffs a laugh lacking all the humour it usually had. “doesn’t really matter how you meant it.”

he looks down at you, “it’s true.”

you don't know how to answer, because you know it's true, too. you didn't mean to be rash, but he was a slut. this guy averaged two girls a week and bragged to almost everyone about it, why was he getting angsty now? his constant rotation was the main reason you hadn't brought up your feeling for him since that night. who sleeps with that many chicks if they really did like someone for real?

he keeps going, words pouring now that the dam’s cracked.

“i mean, look at me,” he says, gesturing at himself. “everyone here’s fucked me or wants to. it’s kind of my thing now, not that i totally mind, it's just.. not all i am.”

“i don't think that's all you are, okay? you're my bestfriend, satoru. i know you better than that.” you're trying so hard to save this sinking ship.

'bestfriend..' he echoed in his mind, a solemn smile playing at his mouth, he wanted to be so, so much more than that.

"yeah, i know you don't think that.” he shrugs, smiling softer. “you're the only opinion i really care about, anyways.”

you tap his wrist for his hand again and he lets you intertwine your fingers. his heart blips, you don't normally initiate this type of intimacy, it was always him grabbing for your hand.

"of course satoru, don't worry,” you say.

he wants to say something else but whatever it was stays lodged behind his smile, any sadness he had was long gone, he was now hyper fixated on your hand.

"i know you wanna tell me something else."

“yeah but.. forget it,” he says almost too happily.

you squeeze his hand. “c'monn, tell me.”

he shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes again. “it’s stupid.”

“you’re stupid,” you say gently.

stupidly in love with you..

~

satoru stretches and lets out a deep, throaty groan. he somehow didn't have a hangover this morning, that was surprising.

he yawns and rolls over to bury his face into the pillow, his head feels packed with cotton and gravel, but it's not necessarily throbbing.

he's halfway through another groanish yawn when he realises the blankets that are pulled over his chest, when did they get there?

he stares at the ceiling, frowning. his comforter is pulled up to his chest with the corners tucked around his shoulders in a fashion he never ever does himself because he’s lazy and tall and always hangs off the bed. someone even kicked his shoes into place on his shoe rack.

you, of course it was you.

your face floats right to the front of his mind clear as day. your pretty little laugh, your hand in his, the precious way you were looking at him when he knocked out, you looked so beautiful.

he had morning wood and the thought of you was only making it pulsate harder. you were so kind to him, you'd always been there as an anchor, no matter what. he'd crash at your place when he felt like it, he'd squeeze into bed with you and hold you against his body.

shit, your body.. he presses his boner into the bed and groans, draging a heavy hand down his face.

“fuck.”

he's loved you for years, every girl he's ever fucked was a distraction. a distraction from the fact he never felt good enough to have you, all of you, all to himself. he hated it.

he catalogs the evidence like it’s a horrible case against him and his promiscuous ways. the kind words you'd always spewed, the way you can leave him without it feeling like you're really gone..

he racks his brain for every girl who’s woken up here and slipped out before he got to learn their last names. how none of them ever did this. how none of them stayed this gentle with him.

he tells himself thats gotta mean something.

then, he reminds himself that wanting something doesn’t mean he deserves it..

as he's having a deep, 'i love my bestfriend but i'm too much of a whore to deserve her, what the fuck do i do?' crisis for the fiftieth time this month, the door slams open.

“rise and shine, whore,” sukuna bellows, stepping into the room blowing a fat cloud of sweet vapor straight into the air. “get the fuck up. house looks like a dump.”

satoru squints at him. “i hate you.”

“yeah, yeah.” sukuna hits the vape again. “come clean. you threw up in the downstairs sink.”

“that wasn’t me.”

“it was absolutely you.”

satoru rolls onto his side and curls in on himself dramatically. “fuck off.”

sukuna snorts. “get up and mop you insufferable asshole.”

he waits until the door slams shut again before forcing himself to sit up. he scratches at his neck, then glances down at himself, he's still shirtless and in these ridiculous shorts. he grabs his geek bar off the side table and takes a hit, then throws it aside and sniffs.

he grabs a pair of grey sweats off the floor along with boxers from his draw, he strips, poses nakedly in the mirror for a good ten seconds, and pulls them on, not bothering with a shirt. he comes down the stairs barefoot, every step reminding him of how much of a lightweight he is. he makes it to the bottom and, holy fuck, the house was a mess.

empty cups are everywhere, bottles spilt into the carpet, peoples sweaty clothes strewn all over the place, what a palace.

choso is sweeping loads of trash into a big rubbish bag on the floor, nanami is wiping down the counters with a pissed off look, sukuna and toji are flipping the couch back over.

geto spots him before everyone else, "there he is,” he smiles, clapping a hand on satoru’s shoulder. “you okay?”

“no.”

geto grins. “heard you were real fucked up last night.”

satoru sighs. “don’t.”

he grabs a rubbish bag and starts scooping cups off the floor, his mind keep floating back to you, over and over again. he can still feel your hand in his, he can still see the way you'd hugged into his side when he got all quiet.

that’s the last thing he remembers before everything goes black is you.

he clears his throat. “hey.”

no one looks up.

“hey,” he tries again, louder. “did anyone see y/n leave last night?”

ino looks up like hes been waiting for a question like that, “why,” he asks. “you forget where you put her?”

satoru shoots him a look. “shut up.”

“i think she left kinda early,” nanami says without looking up. “before two.”

satoru’s chest loosens just a bit. “yeah?”

“yeah,” nanami continues. “she walked out with-"

toji stood up from kneeling besides the couch,

“shiu,” he says casually, cracking open a beer he had in hand. “she went home with shiu.”

the room goes quiet for exactly a second.

satoru stops and the trash bag slips from his fingers.

“what,” he says.

toji shrugs. “saw them out front walking to his car. sure looked cozy.”

he feels his heart beat thump, his head starts to throb and his eyes feel like they want to water and spill.

“that’s not-" he laughs weakly. “that’s not funny.”

toji takes a sip. “wasn’t joking.”

geto raises an eyebrow, watching satoru a little too closely. “you sure, man?”

toji nods. “yep.”

it feels like someone socked him in his mouth, his ears ring, the house feels claustrophobic, suddenly everything's very wrong.

you wouldn’t.

would you?..

he thinks about the way you held his hand, the way you tucked him in, all 6"4 of him, the way you told him he was 'the only guys you were this into.'. maybe that never happened ? maybe it indeed was just a figure of his imagination.. fuck, maybe his whorish lifestyle had finally scared you off..

he breathes in deep. if you did sleep with him, satoru doesn’t get to be hurt. he’s the guy who taught you this was normal, that this was so right and casual.

if you chose someone else, all that means is you learned the rules from watching him doing it over and over and over again.

his chest tightens and he laughs again. “ha. wow. okay.”

ino bursts out laughing. “are you deadass?”

sukuna snorts. “c'mon bro, you hook up with mad girls. don't be pressed when she does the same.”

geto covers his mouth, he wants to laugh but he knows he shouldn't. “that’s rough, but sukuna's right, satoru.”

gojo wipes a hand down his face quickly, blaming the hangover. “yeah. hilarious.”

“guess surfer sluts really was her thing,” toji adds, smirking.

that one lands.

satoru bends down and picks up the rubbish bag again with his eyes fixed to the floor, “i’m gonna go take the trash out.”

"okay, bro."

~

now, in your defence, while you did go home with shiu, you didn't sleep with him.

you couldn't, not when you were this deep under the satoru spell.

"thanks for letting me crash here, i didn't want to disturb gojo's sleep. oh, and yuki brought higuruma over last night. didn't wanna be up until 4 listening to them fuck."

you're half dressed under the covers, wiping your eyes as he come in with a cup of coffee.

"i got you, don't worry." he smiles from the door of his room, he let you take his luxurious bed while he slept on the equally as nice couch. shiu was surprisingly rich for a collage kid, maybe all that 'sketchy shit' as satoru liked to put it, was really selling.

he brings the cup down onto the table besides your bed and flicks your nose, "just remember your promise, gotta do that last section of the assignment for me, payment for my generosity."

"mm, wouldn't dream of leaving you without proper compensation." you laugh, taking the cup and sipping gently.

he looks from one of your eyes to the other like he's appreciating your presence, then quickly looks away and spins around.

"gotta make a few runs this morning, leave whenever you feel like it, yeah?" he throws over his shoulder.

you give him a thumbs up and he nods, waving while walking out.

the morning scuffles along, you eventually pull yourself out of his beautiful bed and get dressed into whatever clothing you could find that'd fit you in his draws. there were a few women's camis aswell as sweat pants in here, oh no, did he have a girlfriend?

as if being summoned by the universe, who else but shoko walks into the house, with her own key, no less.

she locks eyes with you for a second then smiles and waves like she couldn't care less.

"sh-shoko? what the fuck?"

"hey, y/n. is shiu still here?" she was so calm you just had to pry.

"why? are you two a thing? god, i promise this isn't what it looks like, i was just at a party and he offered to-"

"hush, i don't give a shit if you fucked him, girl. he's not my man."

phew... wait- not phew! you guys didn't even do anything!

you explain to her what went down, and she, in turn, told you why she was there. turns out she and shiu were hooking up on the dl, but she only felt for him physically, so you weren't a bother to her. "yeah, we fuck and he gives me drugs, pretty sweet deal. would recommend."

"yeah, i'm so good, thanks."

after that semi-akward interaction you gathered your stuff and got the hell out of there.

shiu's place was just off campus so the walk back to your own apartment wasn't far. like you did every morning after a party, you tried to give satoru a call. only, after the third ring, the line went dead.

satoru was finishing up the last little chores around the frat when he got your call, he stared at his phone as it rung on the kitchen bench, your name in cute heart emojis flashing on the screen.

he declined.

the last thing he wanted right now was to talk to you after shiu had been apparently digging in you. no way.

"yeesh, that's harsh, man." choso commented from his spot sitting at the breakfast bar.

"it's nothing, just busy right now." satoru tries his best to sound nonchalant but it's obvious he's still very much annoyed.

"oh yeah? you stop training when she calls you, man. you're never 'too busy.'" choso makes air quotes around that last part.

satoru sighs and chucks the last of the solo cups in the recycling bin, then takes off back up the stairs.

he shuts his door far harder than he needs to and falls onto his bed.

shiu.

the name keeps coming back, no matter how hard he tries to shove it away.

he tells himself he has no right to feel like this, none. he fucks around constantly, hell, it’s practically his brand. he’s built this whole thing around being easy, wanted and available. so why does the idea of you choosing someone else make his chest feel so disgusting?

you’re your own person. you always have been. he’s never tried to cage you, never tried to tell you what to do or who to see. that’s not him and he prides himself on that.

still.

you’re supposed to be his person.

not like that, he tells himself. not in a gross way he gets to possess but in the way you always end up together. the way you fall asleep next to him without it meaning anything and somehow meaning everything at the same time.

he massages the bridge of his nose with both hands.

get over it.

get over it.

get over it.

god, he just can't. instead, he unlocks his phone and stares at your pretty contact photo, the stupid nickname. his thumb taps call before he can talk himself out of it.

it barely rings twice before you're answering all giddy.

“toru!” your voice is so bright. “oh my god, i was just about to try you again. are you hung over?”

he feels pain coil up in his tummy.

“no,” he says flatly.

on your end, you're taken back by his bluntness “oh! uh, okay.”

he winces internally at your dejected response but doesn’t soften the blow. if he does, he’ll crack, and he can’t afford that right now.

“what’s up?” you ask, still trying.

“nothing,” he replies. “just busy.”

your heart clips like it'd been hooked onto a fishing hook.

“…hey, uh, are you.. are you mad at me?”

he scoffs sharply. “why would i be mad at you.”

your voice dips. “i don’t know. you’re being kinda blunt, i guess.”

he laughs curtly. “i’m allowed to be blunt.”

“not like this,” you say quietly. “you’re never like this with me.”

that hits him in his throat. he pretends to ignore it when in reality it throws his heart for a loop, "what do you want,” he asks, it's so clipped.

you go silent for a second, clearly recalibrating. “i was wondering if you wanted to hang out later? maybe get food or something. i can come over.”

normally he’d say yes without thinking. normally he’d already be planning how fast he could ditch whatever else he had lined up.

today, though, his jealousy makes the decision for him.

“can’t,” he says. “i’ve got a girl coming over.”

the line goes very quiet.

“…oh,” you say.

gosh, he can picture your face. the sweet little drop in your eyes you try to hide. the way you probably nodded even though he can’t see you.

there’s a mean, awful part of him that hopes it stings. not because he wants to hurt you, but because he wants proof that he matters the way you matter to him.

the rest of him despises that part. hates that when things feel out of control he reaches for the only thing that’s ever numbed really it.

he doesn’t want the girl coming over. he wants you. he always does. but wanting you feels so dangerously hard in a way fucking his feelings out never does.

“right,” you add. “that's okay.”

he should stop. he should backtrack and admit to what he really wants, he wants to talk to you about shiu, why you did it when you know he hated him, why you'd sleep with that fucker of all people, get some sort of closure. instead, he keeps going, so cruel and careless.

“yeah,” he says. “don’t really feel like cancelling either. kinda want good company.”

that’s a lie. he feels like shit. but he wants it to sting, shit, he hates that he wants that.

you swallow audibly. “okay. well. have fun then.”

“always do,” he replies, too fast.

the silence is horribly awkward.

“…i know you said you're fine, but really, toru, are you good?” you ask, one last attempt.

he exhales through his nose. “yeah. don’t bother coming over tonight, okay?”

there it is. the line he knows will hit you deep.

your voice wobbles a little, “i wasn’t.”

“good,” he says. “talk later.”

and before you can respond, he hangs up.

the second the call ends, regret slams into him full force.

“fuck,” he grumbles, slamming the phone onto the bed.

he presses his palms into his eyes and groans. what the hell was that? why did he do that?

you didn’t deserve that. he’s supposed to be your best friend, not... not whatever that was.

he tells himself he’s doing you some sort of fucked up a favor. that pushing you away now is kinder than letting you see how messy he actually is when he cares.

it sounds noble until he admits the truth. he ran because staying would’ve meant being honest with you.

he sits there for ages, replaying your tone over and over until it makes him feel nauseous.

he hates this. hates how jealous he feels. hates that he can’t say anything about it without blowing everything up. hates that he took it out on you because he doesn’t know how to handle it like a normal person.

his phone vibrates, instead of checking the notification he unlocks it, opens a different app, scrolls, and sends a message he knows he’ll definitely regret later.

gojo: come over

her reply is quicker than he'd thought it be.

xxx xxx xxx: omw ;)

he drops the phone and leans back, staring at the ceiling. this is what he does. when things get too much, he drowns them out. replaces one feeling with another until it’s all numb enough to ignore.

a knock sounds at his door twenty minutes later.

he doesn’t give himself time to think it over, he opens it, steps aside, and lets the girl in. she smiles at him, then she reaches for his arm like it's her god given right.

the door clicks shut behind them.

and even as he kisses her, his mind betrays him, flashing back to your voice on the phone, so sweet, so soft and hurt.

he squeezes his eyes shut and pushes it away.

anything to not feel like this.

~

now, the party a few days later is so much worse.

the theme is white out so the crowd looks like a sea of seagulls packed into this seats living room.

you're clad in a pretty little white dress with big white heels and matching accessories, pretty basic yet still jaw dropping.

you're walking past the tv when satoru comes into view, today, not only was his hair white, but his entire outfit was too.

he’s across the room near the kitchen island, leaning back against the counter with a drink in his hand and two girls pressed in real close. one of them is laughing like a hyena at something charming he said, her fingers hooked into the waistband of his jeans like she’s testing how far she can go. the other is touching his arm, tracing up his strong bicep.

he's too busy with them, he doesn't even spare you a fleeting glance.

you try not to look, you really, really do. but it’s just so difficult when that used to be your spot. when that used to be you next to him, stealing sips of his drink, talking shit about everyone else at the party like you were above it all together.

you frown, the conversations you and satoru had lately have been few and far between. he's dry as hell, and suddenly busy every time you ask to hang out.

you keep telling yourself it’s fine, it's all good. people grow apart all the time, it's collage! maybe he’s bored of being your friend. maybe you leaned too hard on a friendship that wasn’t meant to last.. and while you tell yourself it's fine, your chest twists and ticks and throbs with pain.

you step toward a couch where choso, shoko and geto are lounging around, all three of them clock your mood the second you flop beside them.

“hey, you good?” geto asks, passing you a drink.

you shake your head. “i’m okay.”

choso gives you a look. he's not gonna push but he'd like to. “you wanna sit here with us?”

“yeah,” you say quietly. “that’d be nice.”

you sit between them with your legs tucked up, watching the party happen around you like it’s something you’re not really part of anymore. your eyes keep flocking back to satoru like some sort of pathetic magnet.

you loved satoru's company. he was your favourite person on earth, you'd spend every second with him if you could, now he was pushing you away? you'd of at least liked a conversation about it. maybe a warning.

hes getting loud talking like he's the only person worth listening to in the entire room, patting girls on the ass and leaning in close to their necks to hear them properly.

every time he laughs or slings his arm around their shoulders, you feel your heart crack.

you miss him. god, you miss him so bad. not whatever this was.

choso nudges your knee gently. “c'mon, you don’t have to stay if it’s not fun.”

you shake your head again. “i don’t wanna be alone.”

he nods like he understands that more than you realise.

time drags on and an hour passes. then another. you try talking to other people, but it feels so wrong. your attention keeps snapping back to satoru.

he’s still backed against the kitchen island with a drink he hasn’t touched like, forty minutes, he's pretending bf to laugh at those girls terrible jokes, letting them sleaze all over him.

normally he’d lean into the gag. he'd flirt back and say something stupidly charming and let the night dissolve into a forgettable hook up.

but tonight it just feels so weird.

the girl on his left moves in with her mouth near his ear, saying something he pretends not to clock. her breath fans over his skin and his stomach churns, not with excitement but with this dull guilt that keeps scratching his lungs raw.

he looks at their faces and feels a light sense of absence.

he thinks about how easy it would be to disappear upstairs with one of them. how everyone would nod like yeah, that tracks. just gojo being gojo, and the thought makes him want to rip out of his own skin.

he didn’t want this shit tonight. he didn’t want these grabby hands all over him. he’s so tired of being wanted in the most bare minimum way.

he wanted you here.

eventually, after you'd stared holes through the back of satorus head, choso leans down to your ear. “you wanna go upstairs for a bit? i’m gonna smoke.”

you stumble over your words. “oh, i uh, i don’t smoke.”

“i know,” he says quickly. “you don’t have to. just… sit with me. i don’t really wanna be alone either.”

good, you really needed an escape right now.

“okay,” you say. “yeah. i’ll go with you.”

you stand together, weaving through the crowd toward the stairs. you can tell people are staring but you don’t look over your shoulder.

choso leads the way up, your shoulders brushing as he pulls out a pre roll with a smile.

across the room, satoru is midway through a sentence when he spots you. he wants to smile, its his reflex when he catches sight of you, but then he remembers he doesn’t get to do that right now, and the happy pull of his lips dies before it ever reaches his face.

you’re walking up the stairs with choso, close enough that your arms are touching. you’re leaning in to hear what he’s saying, head close to his mouth in a way satoru hasn’t had in days.

his put on smirk falls immediately.

“hey,” one of the girls says, pulling on his arm. “you listening?”

he pulls his wrist free without looking at her. “yeah. go get a drink or something.”

she frowns. “what?”

“look, just go,” he snaps.

both girls scatter away, muttering throw away curses but he really doesn’t care. he’s stalking over to where geto and shoko are now sitting with bottles to their lips.

“great,” he says bitterly, sitting down hard onto the couch. “first she’s fucking shiu and now my best friend? perfect.”

geto thinks for a second. “...what?”

shoko squints at him. “what are you talking about?"

satoru laughs bitterly, “don’t play dumb. i just saw them.”

geto follows his eyes to the stairs and sees you and choso disappearing around the corner. he sighs. “they’re going up to smoke.”

satoru scoffs. “yeah. sure, she doesn't smoke.”

“no,” shoko cuts in, annoyed. “actually sure. choso asked if she’d sit with him.”

satoru’s face drops into a deeper scowl, “since when does she hang out with him like that."

“since always?” geto replies. “they’re friends you just hog her, normally.”

satoru shakes his head. “this is bullshit.”

shoko sets her drink down with a dissatisfied groan. “you don’t get to act like this.”

he snaps his head toward her. “like what.”

“like you own her,” she says flatly. “you don’t.”

geto nods. “man, you’ve been pushing her away all week.”

“because she doesn’t want me,” satoru fires back. “she made that pretty clear.”

shoko raises an eyebrow. “did she now.”

“she went home with shiu.”

shoko’s face twists. “oh my god.”

geto leans forward. “that’s what this is about? you're ditching your best friend because she wanted to get her pussy ate?”

“what- no-,” satoru says. “you make it sound like-" he stop himself from spewing words he doesn't really mean. "it's just the fact she knows i hate that guy. that and everything else..."

shoko exhales sharply. “she didn’t fuck him.”

satoru freezes. “what.”

“she didn’t sleep with him,” shoko repeats. “she stayed the night because she didn’t wanna wake you up at the last function.”

the wave of relief that flows through him is euphoric, but it's followed closely by guilt. because despite everything you still chose him in the quiet ways. and he’d repaid that by pushing you as far away as possible.

geto turns to shoko. “oh, are you serious?"

“dead serious,” she says. “i walked in that morning. she was fully dressed and half asleep. they didn’t do shit.”

satoru feels like the floor drops out from under him and his heart is smudged into the wood.

“she told me herself,” shoko adds. “she was worried about you that morning, too. wanted to go over straight away and see if you were hung over.”

he's taken back by the revelation, satoru feels like he can't breathe.

geto runs a hand through his hair. “man…”

“also,” shoko continues, clearly not done, “she’s been really upset. you know that, right?”

satoru stares at the stairs. your face flashes in his mind. the way your voice sounded on the phone. so hurt.

“i'm gonna be honest, you’ve been acting like an asshole,” geto says gently. “and she’s been taking it like a champ. i'd of socked you in the jaw by now."

the music seems to disappear into the depths of his mind as he reels.

you didn’t fuck shiu.

you weren't up there sleeping with choso.

god, he thinks about the way he spoke to you. the way he brushed you off so calloused, the way he said he had a girl coming over and didn't brush her off for you, like he'd always done.

his stomach drops.

“oh fuck,” he whispers.

shoko watches him closely. “you're a real asshole, you know.”

he swallows. “fuck, i know.”

geto snorts.

satoru rubs a hand down his face, standing abruptly. “i need air.”

he takes off, on his way past he stops at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at them.

for the first time in days, he doesn’t feel angry.

he feels scared, typical gojo reading too deep into things and reacting rashly. he really needed to work on that.

~

"i don't know cho... this is the first time something like this has happened. i feel like he hates me or something... i just don't know what i did."

choso, bless his heart, had been listening to you pour your heart out about gojo for the past half an hour, blowing smoke out his open window. that last part caused his zooted brain to form a coherent thought.

"it's probably because you fucked shiu." he announces in uneven tones, he was more than a little gone.

you stare at choso like he’s just spoken another language.

“uhm?” you quiz.

his head falls to look at you from his spot by the window, he’s so relaxed he looks like gravity might forget about him any second now.

“yeah,” he nods, very sure of himself. “that’s gotta be it. gojo’s dramatic like that.”

your stomach drops, not in guilt, but in pure disbelief.

“i didn’t fuck shiu,” you say with a bitter taste in your mouth.

choso's neck rolls and he rubs his face, “…huh?”

“i didn’t sleep with him,” you repeat, “nothing happened. i crashed at his because i didn’t wanna wake satoru up and yuki had a guy over our place."

he processes this slowly with his face scrunching, the thought is buffering.

“okay,” he says after awhile, “but you went home with him.”

“yes,” you snap. “but that’s not the same thing.”

he hums, then shrugs. “dunno, sounds the same.”

you were gonna punch this loser.

“oh my god,” you mutter. “i have to go.”

“go where?” choso asks genuinely curious.

“i have to tell satoru,” you say grabbing your phone. “not because i did anything wrong, because i didn’t. but because he thinks i slept with someone he hates.”

choso sighs again. “you know you’re allowed to sleep with people.”

“i know that,” you say quickly. “this isn’t about that. it’s about him thinking i did it behind his back with someone he clearly can’t stand.”

choso nods like this makes sense to him, even though it absolutely does not. “okay.”

you pause at the door. “can you not tell anyone else?”

he raises two fingers in a salute. “your secret is safe with me.”

you don’t trust that for a second, but you’re already shutting his door.

you bolt down the stairs two at a time looking over the crowd. the stupid partys still bumping. you look for his pretty white hair, for his broad shoulders, but with everyone wearing the same color it became impossible.

you groan and head for the couch you left shoko and geto at.

“where’s satoru,” you breathe.

“uh. outside, i think.” geto responds surprised.

“yeah,” shoko adds. “went out front. needed air, apparently.”

you nod and make your way to the front door, the coolness of the night sweeps over your face and you notice a very tall man almost instantly.

he’s leaning against the lamp post across the street with his phone in one hand and his vape in the other.

he only vapes when he’s stressed.

stepping closer, you clock just how small this moment feels and how big it could blow up and become if you say the wrong thing.

“toru,” you say softly.

he looks up.

the second his eyes land on you, he feels his heart pulse.

“can we.. can we talk?” you ask.

he doesn’t answer, he gives you the most longing stare you'd ever seen. then, he steps forward and pulls you into his arms.

hard.

his biceps wrap around you so tight, his scrunched up face presses into your hair, his grip is stable and you want to cry at how passionate this feels.

he breathes out a shaky, “i’m sorry.”

you wrap your arms around his waist and squeeze him back.

“i’m so sorry,” he repeats. “i was a dick. i shouldn’t have been so rude. i should’ve talked to you, communication and all that shit.”

you move back to look up at him. “hey. hey, it’s okay.”

he shakes his head. “no, it’s not. i acted like a stuck up cunt. i thought you slept with shiu and i just… i lost my mind.”

you sigh. “i didn’t. i swear. nothing happened. i should of told you that.”

he nods quickly. “i know. shoko told me. i just… god. i’m sorry i made you feel so shit.”

you reach up and rub your thumb under his eye. a sweet gesture you’ve done a hundred times before. “i’m sorry you got that impression.”

he leans into your touch for half a second before catching himself. “i had no right to be mad even if you had slept with someone. i know that.”

you nod. “yeah. you didn’t. but i get it's because you thought i did it behind you back, especially with someone you really hate."

a beautiful, silent moment exists between you two before you step back, forcing a small smile. “are we all good?”

he lets out a weak laugh. “yeah, you're so good.”

“that wasn't the question, silly.” you add, gently.

after that, you'd both agreed to ditch this lame party and stay at yours for the night. yuki was at higuruma's, so the place was all yours.

at your apartment, you both shower separately then change into comfy sleep clothes. his essentials hoodie ends up on you without either of you talking about it. when you come back into your room, he’s flopped onto your bed with his big arms spread, staring at the ceiling.

“c’mere,” he says, patting the space beside him.

you smile and crawl in next to him, turning onto your side so your head rests against his chest. he adjusts automatically, one arm coming around you, fingers threading through your hair in slow, relaxing strokes.

it feels like safe, blissful warmth. like coming home.

you lie there in silence for a while, listening to his breathing even out.

then he speaks again.

“hey, uhm.. sorry for blowing you off for a chick, the other day, by the way.”

you lift your head. “huh?”

he grimaces. “i lowkey didn’t even have plans. i invited her over after i hung up. just wanted a distraction.”

your chest does a confusing little blip.

“would’ve liked to see you instead,” he adds quietly.

your heart aches and swells at the same time. you press your face back into his chest, “it’s fine.” laughs at your adorably muffled voice, then sighs. “i shouldn’t have done that.”

you shrug. “you’re allowed to see people.”

he hums. “yeah.”

you hesitate, then say it anyway. “i don’t care about the girls you hook up with. doesn't really effect our friendship, right?”

the words feel so distasteful and strange, but you push through.

he smiles a forlorn smile. "right.”

he pulls you a little closer, brushing his lips against your temple in an almost kiss. he threads a piece of your hair through his fingers like a coiled ribbon, feeling the individual stand's texture against the pads of his fingers. this was his therapy, the soothing lull of you, with him.

he can feel your soft breathing slow down as you knock out, the way you always do when you know you can trust him to stay with you.

and god, that trust truly destroys the last bit of careless arrogance he carried in him.

because just hours ago he was so sure you’d replaced him. that you’d looked at someone else and chosen them.

but you no, didn’t.

you never did that.

every girl he’s ever dragged into his bed flashes through his mind in quick, ugly snapshots like those old black and white movies.

they've got faces he can't remember, voices that sounds distorted and wrong, and their bodies look like every other persons. it's surreal.

he tells himself, not for the first time, that he never meant for it to get this bad. it all started as some quick fun. then it became a boarder line addiction, one he desperately wanted to break.. he feels sick at how it turned into something people expected from him, something he leaned into because it meant no one would ever ask him for more.

no one except you.

you wriggle around adorably in your sleep, your knee hitting his thigh, and it smacks him all over again how easy it would be to lose this bliss. how close he came. how close he kinda still is.

he’s been hiding behind it for so long. the flirting. the girls. the persona. acting like he doesn’t care.

but lying here with you? knowing you didn’t do anything wrong, knowing he almost burned the best thing in his life because he couldn’t get over his own shit, something in him finally snaps into place.

he doesn’t want to be that guy anymore.

he wants to be someone you can choose without any hesitation. someone who doesn’t make you doubt where you stand. someone who doesn’t reach for distractions the second things feel too hard for him to handle alone.

i’m gonna fix this, he thinks.

he’s not stupid enough to think it’ll be easy. habits don’t disappear overnight. insecurity doesn’t vanish just because he wants it to. but he can stop hiding behind other people. he can stop pretending he’s fine with the left over crumbs when what he wants is everything.

he wants to earn you.

not with big gestures or revolting drunk confessions he can’t really back up, but by showing up differently to what hes been doing. by choosing you the way you’ve always chosen him.

he was gonna stop. he couldn't be labeled a good for nothing playboy anymore,

~

"so bro, did you figure shit out with your girl?"

"what, you mean y/n? yeah, man. that's all sorted."

gojo was back at the frat the next day after a very messy, long night of staring at your sleeping face, (and fighting to overwhelming urge to kiss your pretty nose.) he was chatting it up with toji who had heard about the drama through shoko.

"just curious, are you two like.. a friend with bennies kinda situation? or what." he asks, shaking his banana protein powder violently in it's can to break apart the clumps.

satoru starts drumming his fingers against the kitchen bench, trying to sound nonchalant. "nah, man. she's just my friend. i've got other girls for that shit." he winces at that douchey response... hm, if he wanted to stop the slut allegations he needed to work on how he talked to guys like toji.

"yeah, and she's just fine with that?"

"i dunno, bro."

toji shakes his head and chuckles, then geto interrupts from the couch.

"ever think of like, oh, i don't know. telling her you're into her?"

gojo lets out a fake groan like he's sick of the question, not like he's obsessed over that very idea for around a year now. "can you two lay off? i'll tell her eventually."

"yeah right. you're gonna waste away your life fucking hoe's you don't even like, and she's gonna get a guy hitched. like shiu." sukuna chimes in from the stairs. fuck, was everyone coming down to clock his shit?

"fuck off with the shiu shit, they didn't do anything."

"yet."

he was seriously about to throw hands.

the chaos is interrupted when nanami walks through the large front door holding a piece of paper.

"i just got the theme for the next function." he says, holding it in the air. "it's that stupid white lies thing we did last year in june, remember that?"

oh, they remembered. everyone in white or coloured shirts with sharpie on the front spelling out a little white lie about each person. so much drama came from that, it was insane.

satoru faintly remembers sukuna's shirt saying, 'i'm not cheating on my girl.' and getting his wallet set on fire not long after said girl got to the party.

"sweet, that's easy to set up." toji commented. all satoru was thinking was how you were the first person he had to invite, his hand itching for his phone.

he smiles at your response and pockets his phone, his mind reeling with what he was gonna write on his shirt, as he taps a finger to his chin, the most big brain, amazing thought pops into his head.

god, i'm so suave.

his promise to himself was about to become really real after this party, he just hoped it didn't all go downhill..

you on the other hand, you were contemplating whether or not what you had planned for your shirt was too much. the instant you'd read his text about the theme, the idea immediately popped into your head.

being brave enough to actually go through with it? that was another story..

~

11pm saturday, the frat.

okay, you're really nervous now. you stand outside for way longer than necessary, your jumper covers the secret writing on your shirt, you can't embarrass yourself, yet.

you take a deep breath and walk into the familiar house you'd crashed at so many times.

it's still early, so only the people actually in the frat are there so far. you walk through slowly and the first one you clock is sukuna.

he’s got a beer in one hand (already? smh.), his white shirt is stretched across his muscly chest with thick black letters that read, i hate milfs.

you snort before you can stop yourself.

toji’s near the tv wiring up the music, his shirt says, i’m not a felon.

these guys weren't real, what the fuck.

shoko’s leaned against the counter nearby, one of those big chunky choofs in her hand. her shirt reads, i’m not addicted to nic.

you love her.

you pull out your phone and shoot satoru a text letting him know you've made it, you barely have time to lock your screen before arms wrap around you from behind.

big, hard, comforting arms.

gojo buries his face into the side of your neck, "there you are,” he says, pleased. “you smell good.”

the blush that covers your cheeks is embarrassing. “well, hi to you too.”

he pulls off and beams down at you, although, you can't help but see a slight hint of nerves in his eyes.

“missed you,” he laughs.

before you can overthink that, you notice that his shirt is covered by a loose flannel, hanging open but covering the writing on his chest.

he notices your eyes flick down and smirks. “don’t look yet.”

you scoff. “oh, so you’re hiding yours too.”

“maybe,” he says. “what about you?”

you tug at the strings of your jumper. “mhm.”

his eyes narrow playfully. “suspicious.”

"you love it."

he grins. “yeah. i do.”

he’s tugging you along by the hand, weaving you through the house toward the kitchen the next second.

“come onn,” he says. “it’s still early. let's pregame before it gets all sweaty and gross.”

the kitchen is devoid of people, satoru hops up onto the counter, then contemplates ad corrects himself.

“wait,” he says. “no. you sit.”

before you can argue, he lifts you and plops you on the bench, your face feels hot but you blame it on the lack of air flow.. or the way he’s standing way too close.

he pours you a drink keeping in mind you’re not trying to get wrecked tonight, then puts it beside you.

“there ya go, sweets,” he says.

“perfect.”

you sip, then notice his fingers tapping against the counter like a drum, oh yeah, he's definitely nervous.

you tilt your head, flashing him that gorgeous smile that always made him weak in the knees. "so.”

he looks at you. “so.”

you smile. “what’s your shirt say?”

...

his laugh is strangled and just a little too loud. “oh, uh. straight to the point, huh.”

“you know it."

he rubs the back of his neck. “it’s stupid.”

“uh huh.”

“and you’re gonna laugh.”

“probably.”

he squints at you. “you go first.”

you shake your head. “nope.”

“c’mon,” he whines. “you’re way braver than me.”

you giggle, heart doing that annoying thing again. “mm, absolutely not.”

he rolls his eyes, then comes up with a compromise.

“okay,” he says. “same time, then.”

you pause. “uhm?.”

“we'll both reveal it at the same time,” he continues. “y'know, like one, two, three.”

you stare at him. “c'mon.”

“you're so lame, pleasee,” he plead.

you roll your eyes. “okay, okay, fine.”

he grins, wide and oh so nervous. “really?”

“yeah,” you say, with your fingers are already curling into the fabric of your jumper. “on three.”

he nods. “okay.”

the moment stretches. neither of you moves.

“you count,” he says.

you swallow and nervously laugh. “one.”

his fingers fall into the edge of his flannel.

“two.”

your hands slide to the hem of your jumper.

“three.”

both of your fabrics lift.

his flannel drops open as you tug your jumper over your head, both of you frozen for a good minute as the truth finally, finally stares back at you.

i’m not in love with my best friend.

on both shirts.

identical. same handwriting style.

you stare at his chest.

he stares at yours.

then you both lose it.

you're both toppled over laughing at how ridiculous this was.

“no fucking way,” he gasps.

you wipe your eye, “are you kidding me.”

he steps closer, closing the space until he’s right between your knees, caging you in gently. his smile softens as he looks down at your shirt.

“wow,” he murmurs.

you feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with fabric.

“guess we both lied,” you say quietly.

“guess so.”

his hands caress your face ever so slowly, like he’s giving you time to slap him off but you don’t.

you stare up at him with big, wide eyes. he smiles and inches toward until your noses touch.

he leans in, “can i?” he asks, quietly.

you nod smiling harder than you ever had before. “yeah.”

then, he kisses you.

it’s soft and warm, nothing like that sloppy drunk one you both pretend you forgot.

you kiss him back deeper, your fingers drift through his hair pulling him closer, and the sound he makes against your mouth is almost whiney, wrecked.

the bliss is interrupted by someone yelling from behind you.

“about fucking time,” sukuna bellows.

you break apart laughing again, foreheads still touching. satoru groans and drops his head to your shoulder.

“i’m killing him,” he mutters.

he hops you off the counter, taking your hand. “we’re leaving.”

“where.”

“my room. like, now. these assholes are not ruining my moment.”

you follow him up the stairs both of you grinning like idiots. he's pulling you softly but quick enough the moment isn't lost.

his door closes behind you. the room is dim, only lit by the lamp on his desk, nice and moody.

he doesn’t rush you and he doesn’t pounce like he did with other women. no. he reaches out and tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear, “hi,” he says, dumb and fond.

you smile. “hi.”

satoru literally can't fight this urge any longer, he pulls you into his chest and wraps his arms fully around your body. your cheek presses to his chest, right over his heart, and it’s beating oh so fast. one of his hands slides up to cradle the back of your head with his fingers threading through your hair, stroking slowly.

“i’ve wanted this for so long,” he says into your hair. “like, embarrassingly long.”

you laugh softly. “yeah?”

“yeah,” he says. “i just didn’t think i was, like, allowed to? if that makes sense”

you look up at him with a confused smile. “why wouldn’t you be?”

he swallows. his eyes flick away, then back. “because i’m kind of an asshole, if you couldn't tell.”

you knew what he meant. the women, his not so shiny reputation, his arrogance.

“you're not the only one, i didn’t say anything either.” you rub the side of his face.

he smiles into you hand, “why?”

you stop. then take a breath and decide to be brave. “because you sleep with everyone. and i thought if you wanted me, you would’ve... i don't know, stopped.”

ouch, but deserved.

“fuck,” he says quietly. “i hated that you saw me like that.”

“i mean,” you shrug weakly. “it’s kind of hard not to.”

he laughs. “yeah. fair.”

he presses his forehead to yours. “that shit was never about wanting other people, y/n. it was about not knowing what to do with wanting you.”

your head just went really fuzzy at his poetic expression.

“i made a promise to myself,” he continues. “after i realised i was gonna lose you if i didn’t get my shit together. i’m done with it. all of it. i don’t wanna be that guy anymore.”

you search his face, looking for the joke, but he's dead serious.

“i didn’t think i deserved you,” he admits. “so i kept proving myself right.”

for a moment, neither of you speak. then you reach for his hand and hook your pinky around his.

“okay,” you say. “then let’s just… talk. no more of this back and forth.”

“pinky promise.” he smiles and seals it, then leans in and kisses you again. he pulls back for a second then begins to pepper your face in sweet little pecks, making you giggle at the ticking movement.

“i’ve wanted to do this,” he says between kisses, grinning like he can’t stop himself. “just whenever. whenever i felt like it.”

you laugh, hands in his hair now, tugging him back down. “you’re so silly.”

you end up tangled on his bed, just talking. his legs are weaved through yours as he kisses your face occasionally. you tell him you'd been feeling for the past, what, two years? you tell him how the women always made you jealous, how you'd wish it were you he wanted. he spills his guts just as much. he tells you how they never meant anything, how he knew he had a problem and he was working on it, for you.

three hours of straight yap fly by.

he eventually goes really quiet and clears his throat out. “hey.”

“hmm?”

“would you wanna,” he hesitates, suddenly adorably shy, “go on an actual date with me? like. flowers. dinner. me trying really, really hard.”

you smile so hard your cheeks hurt. “yeah. i would.”

his grin is blinding, him and his stupidly perfect teeth.

“holy shit,” he laughs, pulling you close again. “i got the girl.”

you smile, then drift off wrapped up in each other, both of you finally feeling secure in your feelings for one another.

"night, toru."

"good night, sweetheart."

A/N: i'll be writing some spicy/dating headcanons for this fic !!

n e ways like and reblog my shit twin 🤞🏼