Noob

Cali grabs your hand again, dragging you past the creaky boards and bottles of soda. You’d never been on a yacht before, but you could instantly tell the person who owned this was swarmed with cash. The yacht had two decks, and you were sure there was another floor underneath the hull. Despite the vanity, the speakers were blasting a song that did not speak ‘rich and graceful’. People were lounging around the luxury like they’d been there a thousand times. Someone had smashed a bottle of vodka on the deck. You ambled past the broken glass, keeping up with Cali’s steps. She barely even glanced at the sheer extravagance. It made you wonder how often she’d done stuff like this, to the point where richness is normalized for her.

Socially, college wasn’t going too well. It’s already your third year, and your friends are few in number. You know it’s you. You’re too off-putting, too strange.

Cali’s the only person who’s really stuck with you. Throughout this semester, she’s like a spot of sunshine in your life. You value her friendship, so even though going onto a boat out in the middle of the ocean doesn’t really sound like fun to you, you’ll tolerate it for her.

Someone calls out her name. Cali waves, before she’s dragging you over. He’s tall, good-looking. You spot the watch on his hand. Expensive. He is expensive.

“Didn’t think you’d make it.” The stranger looks at her, his eyes crinkle.

She giggles, flicking her curls over her shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I? Oh—“ She turns to acknowledge you, giving your name. You give a shy smile to the man.

“Nito,” he returns, “Nice to meet you.”

His name sounds familiar.

“Oh, isn’t this your—“

“My dad’s,” he corrects, with a secret smile, “I’m just ‘borrowing’ it for a while.”

You try to smile back, hoping he doesn’t realize you find him pretentious.

“Which he does, all the time.” Cali laughs, before wrapping an arm around your shoulder. “This one’s my plus one. Literally the only reason I was able to pass chemistry last semester.”

“The only thing I did was make you study.” You tell her, but you’re smiling at the praise.

“Yeah, and my major thanks you.” She responds. “Anyway, y’all should get to know-each other. I’m gonna be right back.” She tells you. You immediately panic.

“What, where are you—“

“I gotta’ find Ikail, okay? Don’t worry, you’ll be fine by yourself. People here are super nice.” With that, she turns away, already strutting off, completely abandoning you.

You would have offered to go with her, but you know what she and Ikail were going through. Their ninth breakup, you think? You still weren’t too sure of all the details.

When you turn back to Nito, he’s giving a sympathetic smile.

“First time getting ditched?” He asks.

You glance awat. He laughs.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Cali is the type of person to be everywhere, yknow?”

You did know. Cali is a butterfly, hovering from bush to bush, never quite stopping. She thrives off of the social energy, the vibrancy of humans.

“Yeah,” you agree, “she is.”

It’s silent a little more. Finally, you ask.

“So, do you know how to steer?”

“What?”

“The boat,” you say, “the yacht. Do you know how to…drive it?”

“Oh, nah.” He laughs. “Way too complicated, but don’t worry, the guy up there is a pro.” He points to the cockpit. “We’re gonna be fine when we hit the open waters.”

You blink at him.

“What, seasick?”

“It’s not just that,” you say, looking out in the open water. Pitch black. There was no moon up tonight. “Won’t it be…dangerous, going that far out?”

“Not really.” Nito responds. “I mean, who else would be out there but us?” Nito’s smile is still plastered on his face. You’re starting to feel more and more like a puppy who keeps stumbling over their feet.

“You kinda’ remind me of my dad.” He finally says, “he was always so uptight about going out in the ocean at night. He never liked that the pier was so close to Innsmouth.”

“Innsmouth?” You repeat.

“Yeah, it’s some ghost fishing town, a little ways north of here, I think? Heard of it?”

“I think so?” You say, but it’s doubtful. “It sounds a little familiar.”

“Maybe it’s still on the maps.” He shrugs. “But yeah, my dad hates that place. I mean, it creeps me out, but he’s a little dramatic.” That cracks a tiny smile out of you. He notices.

“What about you?” He asks. “Got family?”

You think for a bit. Your mother was long gone. Your father left before you were even born. Uncles and Aunts appeared sporadically throughout your life.

You had a grandmother, but she wasn’t there anymore.

“No one close.” You respond.

He nods. “I get that.”

You fight the urge to bristle. No, he doesn’t. He lives under his daddy's money, showered with watches and luxuries. He doesn’t get it. None of them do.

You stop. You calm yourself down. You shouldn’t get mad at him, or anyone. Nito may be a little spoiled, but he’s a nice kid. He was sitting here, talking to you, even when he didn’t have to be.

There’s movement. You jolt forward, ever so slightly.You catch yourself on the rails.

Oh, the yacht was moving.

It’s subtle, the only reason you stumbled was because you were already unbalanced. You watch as the gap between the pier and the boat get wider and wider. Water sloshes against the hull. The water is black, blacker then the night sky. An empty, endless, void.

Nito glances down at his phone.

“They missed it.” He tells you, referring to his friends. “Guess they’ll just have to wait until we get back.”

You nod, but you have the strangest feeling that those friends of his were the luckier ones.

𓆝

You still hadn’t found Cali.

After twenty minutes of more stilted conversation, you finally managed to break away from Nito. Rather, he broke away from you. He was called over by a few other people, and you weren’t too keen on following.

Instead, you took your time mapping the yacht, walking over to the desk, investigating. It was bigger than you initially thought. Rather, there were plenty of distractions.

It wasn’t really a yacht. It was more like a mini cruise. It was one of the biggest watercrafts you’ve ever been on. There were two separate floors, each having a deck of their own, minus the cockpit. Truly impressive.

The people. They were everywhere. You suddenly remembered why you were so adverse to parties and clubs. It was so loud. The music boomed and rumbled the deck. Somebody was screaming their head off. It made you want to find Cali even faster, keeping close to someone you’re familiar with might be your only way of getting through this night. Besides, the only reason you’re even here is because of her.

Something catches your eye, distracting your search.

Two people are lounging right by the deck. A girl and a boy, talking secretly to each other. You watch as she stares up at him with a growing smile on her face. He’s getting closer too, slowly leaning over, tucking a loose curl behind her ear.

It’s so intimate. You shouldn’t be looking, but you can’t help yourself. It’s so natural the way they mend with each other.

You can’t understand it. You’ve never experienced anything like that before. Love, relationships, and sexual human contact have always been foreign to you. You couldn’t imagine doing something like that, being vulnerable with someone.

Life was just…existence. You never made many friends, nor did you hang out with very many people. You went to classes, and then you went home. You always felt different compared to other people. And yet, like other humans, you craved that feeling of connection. Somewhere to belong.

You’re swallowing back your envy, letting it sit in the back of your stomach like it always did.

A familiar trickle of laughter catches your attention.

Cali’s giggles filter through the warm air. Her voice sends waves of relief up your spine. You just needed a tiny bit of familiarity right now.

She’s nestled in the middle of a group of people–her friends. They’re all lounging around the deck, chatting amongst each other. She’s sitting on Ikail’s lap, arms loosely curled around his neck.

You feel awkward just lingering there. She hasn’t spotted you yet, but you find the will to cement your heart. Cali insisted on everyone being nice. You trusted her.

“Fuck Simeon.” One of her friends groans. “He’s the type of professor who never gives A’s. Good luck with him, babe.”

Cali is tossing her head back in an exaggerated groan. “Great, I’m screwed then. I don’t know anyone who’s taking him next semester.”

Ikail nudges her shoulders. “Hey, where did your friend go? You two came together, right?”

She shrugs. “No idea. Left Nito with babysitting duty.”

You can feel your heart sink, but you’re willing yourself to ignore it. It was a joke. Friends make jokes, right?

“Dude.” One of her friends chides. “You can’t just bring a newbie in and ditch! That’s like so shitty!” From the way he laughs, you know it isn’t sincere.

“They’ll both be fine…maybe,” Cali says. “I dunno’ I just didn’t wanna leave the poor thing all cooped up in the dorms…sorta’ felt like leaving behind a puppy or something.”

You stop listening after that. You retreat further back into the yacht, ignoring the laughter and Cali’s muted words of “Still stan though!”. You can feel tears well up in the corners of your eyes as you push by the swarming bodies and rumbling music.

It was so loud, everything was too much. You just want quiet.

Somehow, you find your way below deck. People become less and less. Nobody cares about you, ignoring the way your hands are buried into your face, and you think you prefer that. You don’t want anyone to notice you, not as the way you are.

Eventually, you stumble into someplace quiet and dark and dim. You breathe in. You breathe out

As your ever loyal friend, loneliness responds. She creeps up your shoulders, draping across your skin. The tears drip down more freely within the arms of her embrace.

Cali was right. You aren’t anything more than a puppy, mindlessly following at her heels, begging for a crumb of attention to war with the loneliness. If anything, you were a blubbering fish, that keeps following the school, only to realize your fins are too slow to keep up.

You should be grateful she even gave you the time of day. Why were you so upset when all she said was the truth?

You curl up in a ball, your light only a dim artificial flicker. The music upstairs is nothing but a distant rumble. The sounds of the ocean drown it out.

𓆝

When you were younger, you loved the water.

You loved swimming. You loved feeling the cold chill shoot straight up your spine. You’d dive down just enough to feel your ears pop, until your lungs started to burn for air. You loved the animals. You loved the dragonflies zipping about the green cattails. You loved watching the frogs hop hop hop across lily pads. You loved seeing turtle heads bob up and down the current.

You loved the water, but you loved your grandmother more.

Every summer, you would go into the rural countryside to visit her. She was on your maternal side. She was a frail thing. You never once saw her without that wheelchair or the large blanket that covered her legs. She lived alone in that large mansion right by the lake. You never met your grandfather.

You only ever saw her once a year, and yet, she was the only one who could ever bring you out of the water.

“Fish!” You heard her call for you. “Fish! Where are you?”

You peek out from the lake, catching your grandmother’s wheelchair just by the bank. She hadn’t seen you yet. You were young, mischievous. You can feel your heartbeat quicken as you creep close, careful not to let her spot you until you want her to.

“Boo!” You yell, popping up right below her.

She smiles, her face beautifully aged.

You frown. “You weren’t scared.” You huff.

“Why would I be afraid of my little Fish?” She asked. “Come, come. Lunch is almost ready.”

Reluctantly, you stand up from the lake, letting her drape you in the towel she brought before she leads you back inside. She smiles even more at your silent tantrum.

“You remind me of when I was younger.” She tells you, face adorned with adoration.

“Do I?” You ask. She hums.

“I’d like to give you a gift, little Fish.”

You gape, eyes large and wide and excited.

“A gift?” You repeat, wildly looking around her wheelchair. “Where?”

She laughs. “Patience.” She tells you. “Soon. I have a feeling you’ll like it.”

𓆝

You wake up with a start.

You hadn’t even noticed you’d been asleep. How long even were you out for? Hours, judging by the crust you feel in your eyes, the slight drool on your bottom lip.

Remnants of your dream filter in and out. That was really odd. You hadn’t dreamt of your grandmother in months.

But were they dreams or memories?

Something just then catches your attention.

It wasn’t something. Rather, it was the absence of something.

The music was gone.

You couldn’t hear anything. No music, no footsteps, no voices.

You pushed your feet up. Had the yacht returned to the pier again? Had everyone left already? It was far more realistic to assume everyone was passed out drunk. But the silence still confuses you.

You can’t explain it, but the silence is different from anything you’ve ever experienced. Off. It’s more like a pause than an actual absence. Like the calm before the storm.

It’s so dark. It’s the only thought you have as you start to climb back on deck. You can hear the creaking of the wood as the waves crash against the ship.

When you get on deck, the only light you have is the moon. It casts a sickly glow against your skin. Just a couple of hours ago, the yacht was filled with sound and color and light. Now, it’s dark and dim–a ghost town.

But not abandoned.

They were there…just…standing.

You recognized some of their faces. The party goers. Some were Cali’s friends. You even spotted Ikail somewhere in the crowd. They were all crowded around the edge of the deck, just waiting there, facing the water. Still.

You glance at their faces. Nothing. Every emotion was wiped clear. They barely even blinked.

Were they all high? Some type of drug you’d be too much of a coward to take anyway? You can’t look at their faces for too long. Something about it unnerved you. Instead, you hesitantly tapped a girl on her shoulder.

“Hey,” You whisper. “Are…are you okay?”

That’s how you miss it. It’s so quiet. A hum that slowly grows louder and louder.

She doesn’t respond. You shake her, trying to wake her up from her trance.

“Hey.” You try to say as seriously as you can. “Seriously…this isn’t funny.”

The hum reverberates in your ears. You feel like a fly is buzzing right by your face, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t swat it away.

She’s moving then. You watch her take one foot forward, then another.

She falls off the boat.

You barely hear the splash before another one joins her. Then another. The hum is shaking the yacht, almost bursting your eardrums as more and more continue to fall. Instinct is taking over. You reach out to grab clothes and hands and legs all to keep them from just…following. But it does nothing. They slip out of your grip like eels.

You don’t know what’s going on. You can’t understand it, and the hum is making it too hard to even think.

But you recognize Cali’s yellow sundress.

You’re grabbing her arm before you can even think, stopping her from jumping to her death.

“Cali.” You beg your friend, the only person who ever got close enough to betray you. “What the fuck are you doing?”

She hesitates, like she’s snapping out of it. When she turns to you, her eyes are glimmering with tears.

“...Help.” She’s begging, but she’s getting stronger and stronger as the hum continues. You’re losing your grip. “Please help.”

She yanks her hand away and then jumps.

There’s no screaming. You think that’s the worst part. No one is screaming or dying or drowning. There’s just a splash of corpses hitting the water. And then, you’re all alone.

The hum stops. There’s silence again.

You can’t even breathe. You can’t even scream. People just died in front of you and you didn’t do a damn thing. Mass suicide, the word pops in your head, but it doesn’t feel right because Cali’s eyes were glimmering with unshed fear. It was like someone was forcing her body to do that.

You don’t know why you did it. Morbid curiosity. Like watching the remnants of a car crash, seeing the blood splatter all over the pavement, and still not being able to look away. You lean forward, expecting to see bodies drifting on the surface, the dead staring right back at you.

Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing in the pitch black waters. It’s as though the sea had swallowed up every remnant. As though it never happened at all.

You knew better. You knew what happened. You knew what you saw. You knew–

There’s a head. And then, another.

At first, you think some people survived. Your heart leaps in your chest, and you’re about to wave and yell when you stop because you realize they aren’t human.

Human eyes don’t glow like that.

Two purples. Two blues. Both pairs fixed on you.

The hum starts again. You don’t move.

And then they start to screech.

It’s loud and disorienting. You’re fumbling back tripping on your feet, and you move further and further away from the railings. Shelter, it’s the only thing you can think of. You need to find shelter. You need to get away from the sound because you know they’re trying to call you somehow.

You’re ducking below deck, falling over the stairs, and creaking floors as the screeching continues. Another joins in. You’re barreling past empty barricks and into the corner you crept out of. You’re slamming the door shut, locking it behind you because you can swear you hear thumping and scraping as you clamp your hands against your ears.

“Leave me alone.” You beg. “Please, please, please leave me alone.”

Nothing listens. You don’t know whether you fell asleep or passed out.

𓆝

When you open your eyes again, it’s morning.

Sunlight is streaming from the sole window you have. You’d fallen asleep crying. You’d been doing that a lot lately.

You don’t blame yourself. Considering what you just went through, it’s enough that you kept your sanity.

It’s almost mocking how peaceful everything looks the second you step out of your sanctuary and onto the deck. The sun has already risen high into the sky, it must be closer to late morning than early. It’s bright, with the sun shining cheerfully above you, without a care in the world. The sunlight warms your skin. There are barely a few cloudy whisps in the sky. Around you, the sea is friendlier compared to the night before. She moves around like a giggling temptress, but you know better than to trust those waters.

There was no sign of shore in front of you. Behind you. To the left. Or to the right.

You walk until you hit the railings, looking as far as you can. Not even a glimpse of land. You were floating on a boat, in the middle of nowhere.

People had to be looking for you, right? A whole bunch of college kids can’t just disappear without people looking for them. Parents must have already been notified. The Coast Guard must already be trying to track you down.

But even if anyone found you…how could you describe what the hell even happened?

There’s a chirp. You glance down at the water.

A face stares up at you.

It’s not as scary out in the day. You peer down at it, just as it studies you. You only caught a glimpse of it last light, but the details shimmer in the sunlight. Its hair was white, almost translucent, barely contrasting against pale skin. The glimmering blue eyes resembled more like jewels than the glowing monstrosities from last night.

When you search for its counterpart, you spot it almost immediately. It wasn’t trying to hide, but it was lower in the water, purple eyes trained on you. It’s hair was more natural, a deep dyed black that was long, drifting and swirling around like black ink. It’s eyes were sharper, but the jaded amythysts were just as brilliant.

They would look human if it were not for the fins tucked right behind their ears, giving them away immediately. The etherealness is only something inhuman that would carry with it.

The blue-eyed one opens his mouth. That familiar screech you heard last night echoes, but it’s drowned by the vibrance of the day.

You flinch, wary, but you aren’t as frightened.

You figured it out last night, at the same time as they did. Whatever power they used was entirely useless on you.

Rage. You know it’s from your adrenaline, coursing through you, having no way of escaping so it’s sinking into your veins, your lungs, burning your insides.

It’s the only retaliation you have.

You raise one middle finger into the air. You make sure they know you’re speaking to them.

“Fuck you.” You hiss, nothing more than an animal yourself. “Go fuck yourself.”

The purple-eyed one sinks lower into the water.

But the blue-eyed one smiles.

𓆝

The spider startles your grandmother.

It’s not a very big thing. Small and dark, skittering along the floor. It scares her all the more. You catch the last seconds of her attack. The arachnid stood no chance against her foot.

She sighs when it’s nothing but a dark splotch against the floor. You frown.

“Wasn’t that bad?” You ask her.

“Hm?” She tilts her head. You point at the remnants of the spider.

“That,” you say, “wasn’t killing it bad?”

She observes the mark for a bit before shaking her head. “No,” she tells you, “it’s not bad. The spider wasn’t like us. So it’s okay to kill it.”

She smiles, reaching over to grip your shoulder. You can smell her floral perfume.

“Did you feel bad for it?” She asks.

You shake your head. “No.”

You felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She nods. “That’s okay, Fish.”

“You don’t have to feel bad for things that aren’t like us.”

𓆝

Communication is key.

You needed a phone. A pager. A walkie-talkie. Anything that can get you back into contact with the mainland.

The idea of a radio doesn’t even pop up in your mind until you’re ransacking the cabinets below deck.

There are three accessible floors of the yacht. The lower deck, the deck itself, and then the upper deck. That’s where the cockpit was, as well as the controls, and hopefully a radio.

Nito had told you about the cockpit when you first boarded. He tried his best to entertain you, telling you about his dad and other things.

He didn’t seem all that close with his dad. You wonder how his father would feel about his estranged son killing himself.

Nito was pretentious, but he wasn’t a bad person. He didn’t deserve to die. And Cali. In the end, she turned out to be a pretty shitty friend, but she never deserved to die either. Neither did anyone else on this boat of nightmares.

It was those…things. You don’t know what to call them. Mermaids? Sirens? Stuff that was only supposed to exist in mythology. And now, they’re circling you, drifting around like sharks.

It doesn’t matter, none of that matters.

The cockpit is unlocked and left wide open. You already have a feeling about what happened to the guy who was supposed to drive. You don’t think about it. Towards the side, there’s a radio, as well as a steering wheel. You beeline to the controls.

There were so many buttons and levers. When you prodded around for a manual, you couldn’t find it, but you doubted that would help you. You wouldn’t be able to learn this nearly fast enough.

Instead, you linger over the steering wheel. The engine was turned off. Okay. Easy enough. It takes a few minutes, but turning it on was as easy as pressing that red button.

You push. Nothing happens.

You push again.

There’s a blinking light that catches your attention. The gas tank.

“It’s…it’s empty?” You mutter, smashing the button over and over again. “No, no, no, please. No.”

Nothing. You were dead in the water.

Hope was slipping, but it hasn’t escaped you yet. You scramble over to the radio. You’ve heard that radios rely on a different power source compared to the rest of the boat. You switch channel after channel, flipping each lever multiple times before moving onto the next. Dreaded silence awaits you.

You don’t know how long you've been sitting there, mindlessly pushing buttons and levers, hoping to at least hear some static. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. You give up just when hope resembles you: thrown out into the current and left floating away.

Standing there in the cabin room feels like wading in poison, so you leave. You stumble down the stairs, back into the cheerily bright day. It’s almost torture seeing the sun shine so brightly. You hated it. You were trapped on a fancy boat with no one to turn to and no way to get back to shore.

You’ve always been lonely, so you should be used to this.

But this, the sheer fear of isolation. You’ve never felt like this before. You’ve never felt so scared before.

“-Go fuck yourself.”

You don’t expect the voice. It startles you out of your spiraling thoughts. You follow where you heard it coming from. It leads you off the boat. You lean over the railing.

The blue-eyed creature is below you.

“Go fuck yourself.” He repeats.

You stare at him, so perplexed that you don’t even register what he said.

“…you can talk?” You ask.

In response, the creature smiles. His mouth is filled with sharp, pointy teeth.

“You can talk!” He chirps.

Ah, you get it. He was repeating what you were telling him. Like a parrot. He didn’t understand.

If you weren’t on the brink of hysteria, you might have found it hilarious that this was the universe’s way of essentially flipping you off.

Still, that ability of theirs. It was unsettling. He’d only heard you say that phrase once, and he’d repeated it perfectly. That ability to mimic was uncanny. It must be how they lure creatures down into the depths, convincing them that they were one of the same.

But the hum is even more terrifying.

You feel remember Cali’s fear in her eyes when her gaze locked on you. She had died terrified.

These things, whatever they were, had the ability to lure and ensare.

….but for whatever reason, you are spared.

The purple-eyed one is surfacing, floating right beside the other one. Now, it’s two against one. You stare down at them, waiting. They look unflinchingly back.

They couldn’t get you. They can’t climb onto the boat; if they could, they would’ve done so already. You were safe for now.

But you can’t leave. There’s no radio or fuel.

For now, you are at a stalemate with these creatures.

When you observe the purple-eyed one, he looks strangely satisfied.

He knows you won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

𓆝

Escape is impossible, so you play a different game.

You wait.

Again, a group of college kids going missing is bound to attract some attention. The parents, the police, and, eventually, the Coast Guard. People are bound to come looking for you.

You just don’t know if they’ll like the answers.

You still have no idea how you can explain all this. Mass hysteria caused by creatures who weren’t supposed to exist, where only you were left behind?

Why you? You know you’ll get this question. You can already feel it linger on your skin like molten lava, burning your flesh in its ire.

Why you? Why were you the only one left behind? Why were you the only one unaffected? They gnaw at your heart, because you don’t know the answer.

You don’t know why you were spared. You weren’t special of any kind. You were normal.

If anything, you were under normal.

You didn’t have friends. You didn’t have family either. Nobody would miss you if you were to suddenly disappear into the murky depths. No one would mourn you. There wouldn’t even be a funeral.

And yet, you still lived on while countless others, others who had lives of value, were taken. You lived. Even when all you’ve tasted these few years was loneliness, you still wanted to keep living.

You think of Cali’s face. The fear in her eyes. She didn’t deserve that. None of them did.

You try to feel sympathy.

You can’t.

𓆝

Despite the yacht’s size, there aren’t many resources.

There’s alcohol. Lots of it. You aren’t a fan of the sight or the smell and you have half a mind to just toss them overboard. There’s a half-eaten sandwich you have too much pride to consume; there’s also pizza, which you gobble up rather quickly.

Thankfully, there is running water, but considering you are stranded, you don’t know how long that will last. Apart from that, there are a few cans of beans and other non-perishables. There are a few bottles of Coke and Pepsi that remain unopened–saved for a rainy day.

You don’t know how long you’d be stuck out here, so you gather all your items close and hoard them away.

There’s a rather interesting find when you try scoping out the cockpit again. You hadn’t noticed it on your first run, too preoccupied by your desperation for escape. It catches your eye this time, however.

The metal glints in the sunlight. You rotate the crossbow once. Then twice. You test the throttle, lightly tapping on the lever.

You keep it close. Safety on, but you keep it with you.

You know your biggest danger out here isn’t dehydration, nor is it hunger.

The creatures have still not left the yacht.

You rarely peek out, but you can hear them. They want to be heard. You can hear the splashing of fins and hands. There’s clitters and chirps that sound eerily human. There’s also voices. They have this annoying habit of repeating phrases they heard you say. As though they’re trying to pretend they’re human, trying to lure you out of safety.

You don’t get why they bother to stick around. You clearly aren’t an easy meal. Why aren’t they leaving you alone to go find easier prey? Their lure doesn’t work on you.

Or maybe. It isn’t the kill they were eager for. Maybe it’s the hunt itself. The kill was just a sweet reward.

It’s a terrifying thought: an animal replicating something so human.

That’s why you don’t interact with them, despite your safety being so high up. That’s why you don’t mock them any further than you already have.

You don’t want them to be even more motivated to get you.

Still, you don’t expect the things.

The fish is still alive when you notice it. It’s flopping around the deck, its gills opening and closing. You’re confused by it’s appearance because the yacht is feet higher than the waters’ surface. Still, you take pity on the poor thing and toss it overboard.

It’s flung back just a few minutes later. Partially injured.

The cogs are starting to turn. You don’t know what it means, but you want no part in it. You fling the fish back.

The next time the fish returns, it’s dead.

This time, you don’t just toss the fish back overboard. You study it. It’d been killed rather quickly, a single slice across its neck by something sharp. Was this a warning? A foreshadowing of your own fate?

Or is this their way of trying to feed you? Fattening up their prey so they get a hearty meal.

Regardless of the answer, one thing was made very clear: the fish was an offering of some kind.

You cannot accept it.

For the first time in hours, you face them. They’re lingering by the ship, watching your every movement as you hover over the railing. You dangle the fish in the air before you drop it back into the water.

“No,” you say as firmly as you can.

Despite their humanoid structure and nature, you treat them as animals. Dangerous animals. You maintain eye contact, you make slow movements so you don’t instigate them.

“No?” the blue-eyed one repeats. You’ve noticed he’s far more vocal than the other one.

The other one is happier with just watching. Always watching. He’s far more unsettling than his counterpart.

“I don’t want it.” You say, but it comes out as a waver. “So leave me alone.”

He’s not human, but the blue-eyed one is so expressive. You can see the way he purses his lips like he’s thinking, mulling your answer over.

There’s no more fish after that, so you think they get the message.

You’re proven wrong a few hours later.

The first one is pretty innocuous. It’s the splintered remains of a seashell. You’re quick to sweep it up and toss it back but then another keeps coming, and then another, and then another.

The first was a large, spiraled conch shell, aged with green algae. When you toss it back, it’s replaced by a smaller clamshell, pearly white and tinged with a blushed pink. Then another. Then another.

There are other things too. Sea glass of all colors is tossed onto the deck. More fish are tossed up, at one point, so is a whole urchin.

Eventually, they settle on more human-made items.

Waterlogged watches, dead phones with cracked screens. You can just imagine them swimming across the seafloor, snagging anything shiny and firm underneath their grasp.

Some things make you hesitate. The jade comb looked well-loved and coveted. The delicate necklace that made you wonder how it survived thrashing about against the strong current.

“Stop it.” You say, regardless, pushing them off board. The items fall right beside the blue-eyed one. He doesn’t make a move to catch them.

“Don’t want?” He guess.

That’s another thing you don’t like about these creatures. They learn way too fast. You’d only spoken a few sentences to them, and yet they’re already starting to assign meaning to the words. It’d be fascinating if the dread wasn’t pooling in your belly.

He titters when you don’t respond. You’re about to leave when you hear a new voice.

“What want?”

You freeze. It’s the other one. The always silent one. Always watching.

He tilts his head. He doesn’t repeat himself.

“Leave me alone.” You say. It’s barely a whisper.

He doesn’t respond.

When the sun dips below the sea, you can hear their screeching start all over again. You take your refuge from the darkness, descending below deck. You sleep in one of the beds, keeping the crossbow beside you at all times. That’s how your first day at sea ends.

More days pass. You try to establish a routine. You try to feign monotony so your brain can pretend everything is under control. You clean things that don’t need to be cleaned. You read books you have no interest in. There’s a calender in one of the upper cabin’s. You use it to keep track of the days, it’s something you do to keep yourself sane. Sometimes you simply sit up in the cockpit, admiring the way the sun reflects off the calm waves. You search the skies for any sign of rescue.

Sometimes, you find yourself watching them.

You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help it. You promise yourself it’s just a peek, but these creatures have fascinated humanity for centuries, and to see myth turn into reality is something not even your fear can overcome.

They linger around the yacht but the brief seconds they lose their focus on you are the moments you cherish. You’re able to watch them freely, without the wariness of something staring right back.

The black-haired one is longer than the other one. His skin is dark, not like he has more melanin, rather in a way where it looks like stone has touched his skin. It’s a grayish color, adding to his uncanniness. From the brief glimpses of his tail, you can see that it’s slender, more lithe. Like an eel, almost. The way he moves across the water, sending tiny ripples through the waves, careful not to disturb, it’s almost like a snake.

The white-haired one is larger, bulkier. He looks like the moon blessed him. His skin and hair and scales all look like silk–as though you could see right through them, right into his bleeding heart. His white scales glimmer and flare out. He travels through the water as though he wants the whole ocean to see him. You’re reminded of the grace a betta fish has.

But, they have those moments. The more you watch them, the more you see.

You’ll spot them in the water as they gently circle each other, tails and fins turning around and around, both enraptured in a dance only they knew the movements to. It’s so easy to see from the way they look at each other. This was something more than friendship, more than companionship.

Mates. The word etches itself into your mind the more you look onward. Bound together, forever.

In those moments, that same bit of loneliness starts up again, consuming you whole. You never watch the end of their dances. You can’t bring yourself to.

The offerings continue. More shiny things whose value is useless this far out to sea. More shells. More sealife that had the misfortune to come across those creatures.

In one particular instance, a large octopus nearly hits you on the face as it comes crashing onto the deck. You remember screaming so loudly, you must have broken the sound barrier as you shoved it off the deck with a broom, back into the ocean.

You know it was a gift from Blue because of the way he laughed. You had half a mind to jump down there and teach him a lesson, but Purple was already on it. He dunked his mate’s head underwater, scolding him with a chittering hiss.

Blue learned his lesson. No more poor sea life found its way onto your deck after that.

As much as you were reluctant to admit it, you were slowly starting to know these creatures.

Blue was a lot more outgoing. He was a lot more eager to test out your language, trying you lure you to the railings with phrases like “Come here! Come here!” (he must have heard you saying that from the time you tried to coax a seagull). He resembled a puppy with the way his face always seemed to brighten every time you made an appearance. Yes, he was a puppy, if said puppy was larger than you and could kill you within a moment’s notice.

Purple preferred to stay in the background, but he never strayed too far. He was less likely to speak, far more willing to talk in his native tongue, only his mate could understand. He also very rarely interacts with you directly, but you like that he’s willing to berate Blue if he goes too far: whether it’s a gentle tug back and a hiss, or a far more violent brawl.

They fight. They hiss. They bite. It never looks malicious, and it’s more of a correction than anything else. It still scares you, making you scuttle back when they start drawing blood.

These days, the fighting doesn’t seem to be as intense. You often wonder if it’s because of you.

At night, they start the screeching, and you use that as your cue to descend below the deck, ready to sleep the night away. You’re not as scared of it as you once were. At this point, you were starting to differentiate the differences within their sounds. The hum was something they used for prey. But the screech…actually, you still weren’t sure, but it wasn’t for food.

Even though you’re reluctant to admit it, you’re getting used to them. That’s dangerous.

It meant you were lowering your guard, forgetting that these were apex predators.

It happened on the tenth day.

When morning arrived, you went upstairs and saw your usual sights: the deck littered with coins and shells.

As always, you collect each one and throw it back overboard. The yelp makes you peek over. Blue is hovering above the water, gripping his head with his hand. Ah, you must have accidentally hit him.

“Don’t be so close to the boat, then.” You chide him before gesturing to Purple. “Why can’t you act more like your mate?”

Blue gives a saddened trill. He sounds more offended than hurt, if anything.

So far, all the ‘gifts’ have been given by Blue. Purple hasn’t given anything yet, at least from what you can tell. He seems more than content to let his mate toss whatever trash he can find. You’re glad for it; it’s not like you want double the amount of stuff to clean up.

“Don't want, too?” He asks, holding the shell you threw back.

“No.” You say, firm as ever. “I don’t want anything you throw up here.”

He seems to ponder your words.

“No…throw?” You repeat. You glance down at him, wondering if he’s finally starting to get it.

“Yeah.” You agree. “No throw.”

He pushes himself back towards his mate. Blue switches back to his own language, tittering about with Purple. You can’t make out what they’re saying, but Purple doesn’t seem too happy.

You ignore them. You have your own problems to focus on.

It’s been more than a week, and yet no help has arrived. Supplies were getting low. You’re not sure how much longer running water would last. You’re getting desperate enough that you’re half debating on burning the yacht down to send some kind of signal. You’re not a big fan of causing an ecological disaster, but at this point, you’re willing to do anything.

You want to get back home. You want to get back to your boring life. A life where no one cared for you and no one was looking for you.

But why?

Genuinely, what’s waiting for you back on land? You have no friends. No family. You’re a speck of human, lost in a crowd of millions.

You don’t matter there.

But it’s the only thing you ever knew. A bird that has gotten so used to its cage.

You’d do anything to get back because you don’t know what’s waiting on the other side.

You’ll just have to do better, you tell yourself. People think you’re weird, you’ll make them see past that. You’ll make friends. You’ll create lifelong bonds. You’ll be better.

You just want to survive.

Hours pass with that resolve. Something odd is happening below the yacht. Blue has yet to throw anything since his last interaction with you. There’s no chittering or calls for your attention. And yet, they’re still there. Hovering around. Every time you peek over the railings, you catch the two in mid-discussion, faces serious.

You will force yourself to ignore it. You ignore them and the growing pit in your stomach.

𓆝

There are a few times when your grandmother gets quiet. Gone is her cheery persona. She sits by the window, overlooking the lake. You sit right next to her on the floor, leaning up against her wheelchair.

“Why are you so sad?” You ask her one day.

She cracks a smile at that, glancing down at your small figure.

“I’m homesick.” She responds.

You don’t understand that. You glance around at her house, the mansion that was given to her by her late husband, acres and acres of land.

“But we are home.” You insist.

She shakes her head.

“No, Fish.” She tells you. “It’s not home. Home is far away.”

You don’t understand, you peer up at her.

“If you miss home, then why did you come here?”

You think she might berate you for asking that, but she doesn’t. Instead, she laughs.

“Because…I wanted to. I followed him onto the sand. And now…” She trails off, you wait her her to say something more. She doesn’t.

“When I go home, will you come with me?” She suddenly asks.

You smile up at her. There’s no hesitation.

“Yes!” You declare. “When are we going?”

She laughs, pinching your cheek.

“Patience, Fish.” She tells you with adoration. “I’ll go first, but you choose if you want to follow.”

𓆝

You walk up to the sound of metal collapsing.

Your heart’s racing as you bolt upright, wide awake. You’re barely thinking as you shuck off the blankets as you hear another scrap of metal, then another, then another.

You stumble out of the cabin, nearly tripping over your own two feet. Something catches your foot. The crossbow.

You’re grabbing it without a second thought, hoisting it up on your shoulder.

It’s a blood moon tonight. The water, the deck, and the yacht are all bathed in red. The water looks especially violent, thrashing about, hitting the boat in more volatile ways. The sea is angry. She is hungry and vicious.

You think you know what she wants.

Another metallic screech. The lack of light makes it hard to see where it’s coming from. The sound echoes across the water, making it sound like it’s happening in all directions.

Hordes of them. You can almost imagine your tiny boat being surrounded by hordes with sharp teeth and claws, and scales. The delicate metal in the yacht was being flicked away like paper. Your boat, made of cards, instantly collapses underneath you.

You’d be torn apart limb from limb from limb from limb until there’s nothing left.

You can’t check the water, you’re too scared to see if you’re right.

You don’t have to wait long.

A single hand shoots up from the edge. Then another.

And then something massive is hauling itself up.

You can’t hear your heartbeat anymore. You can’t hear the waves. Everything went silent.

Even underneath the dim light of the moon, he is gorgeous. His white hair has been tinged by the red light. His pale skin glimmers. His fins flare out and then retract all over again.

When he smiles, the song of death plays.

“Come here.” He tells you.

Your hands tighten on the crossbow. He’s dragging himself closer.

Realistically, you could outrun him. If your feet hadn’t given up completely, you could have fled down below the deck, locking yourself away.

And yet, you don’t. You can’t.

“Stay back.” You’re telling him, only managing to take one step back, then another.

You feel like you’re in a dream, no matter how far you want to run, you’re movements are bogged down by fog.

“Stay back.” You’re pleading.

“No hurt.” He tells you, words soft and calm.

He’s not listening. He keeps smiling, coming closer and closer. There’s something clutched in his hand.

He’s not listening when you point the crossbow at him with shaky hands.

“Stay back.”

He’s not listening, not until you pull the trigger.

Your hearing comes back. The sounds of the waves, the creaking of the boat.

The dripping of blood, splat splat splat on the deck.

His head tilts downward, angling his head to gaze at the harpoon lodged in his lower belly.

“Ah…” he trails off, looking at it. “...hurt.”

You drop the crossbow. It clatters by your feet. You’ve killed him. The thumping of your heartbeat is right by your ears.

Just as he pulls it out, you collapse onto the floor.

It’s a sickening sound. The flesh clings to it. There’s a hiss, a scrunch on his face, before he’s pulling it out and tossing it to the other side. There’s so much more blood now. It gushes from his belly. The red grows and grows.

Your vision blurs.

You were crying again.

“Stay back, please stay back.” You beg. “Please leave me alone.”

He’s dying, and yet he still follows. Closer and closer. You clamp your eyes shut when something lightly touches your calf, then thigh, then you. Something wet sinks into your shoulder.

You’re sobbing as something wraps its arms around you.

“No, sad.” His voice is unsure around the words. Imperfect. “No? No, sad.”

If this were death, he was kinder than what you thought he’d be. If this were death, he felt warm on your skin. If this were death, his hair tickled your shoulders.

Your sobs and sniffles die down the more you feel him. He’s pushing you further into his chest. Your clothes are getting soaked by the water and his blood. You’re dwarfed by this creature–A creature of fables and legend.

And then, you can hear him. It’s low, deep in his throat. It’s not the hum. It’s not the screech. It’s a song. A song with no words or rhythm, or lyrics.

He sings to you, softly rocking you back and forth in his arms.

You close your eyes, thinking it’s something she would’ve sung.

𓆝

Hardly anyone comes to her funeral.

You stand with waterlilies bunched in your hands, the ones you handpicked from the lake. You’re the only person there, hovering beside the open casket. She hardly had any family left. The ones who could attend had already left. You were the only one who truly stayed behind.

You study her face, lined with graceful wrinkles, evidence that she had lived. Her eyes are closed, as though she were just sleeping. As though if you were to call for her, she would rise up with a smile and a ‘yes, my little Fish?’

She still called you that, even when you were 18, about to head off to university. She never stopped, not until she was forced to.

Your eyes linger up and down her body. Her dress has been moved. It trails up, ever so slightly. You push it down, making sure it hides her ankles.

Maybe you were just imagining it, but the birthmark on her foot…they almost resemble scales.

You never went near the water again after that.

𓆝

You wake up to sunlight dappled on your cheeks.

It’s barely sunrise. You’ve never been up this early. The sky is splashes of orange and red, and pink. The sea is quiet once again. All you can hear is the rolling crashing of waves.

You’d fallen asleep sitting upright. Your back is leaning against a wall. In front of you, your legs are splayed. A familiar tail is wrapped around them. White, shimmering scales.

Iridescent, the answer comes. Iridescent that borders on blue.

There’s a soft trill above you. He’s already awake, jewel eyes open and breathtaking. Do these things even sleep? You weren’t so sure. And yet, you strangely aren't perturbed by the idea that this creature spent the entire night staring at you.

You’ve never seen him up close before. His face is too perfect to ever resemble humanity. There are sharp, angular lines on his face. The fins at the sides of his face flare and contract, and you wonder if it has to do with his breathing.

You should be afraid. You’ve spent days being afraid of them, but a whole night passed with one of these creatures holding you in their arms. And you were so tired of being afraid.

“Hello.” You say.

“Hello,” Blue repeats, ever eager for communication.

When you reach out, you expect him to flinch. Instead, he leans into your touch, melting into your fingers as you trail them down his face. It’s not human skin, there’s something firmer that gives ever so slightly.

He catches your fingers in his own. They’re larger than yours, with claws and webbed at the base. Still, you let him press your hand back into his cheek, keeping you with him.

It’s the least you could do, considering you shot him last night.

How could you forget? With a start, you check his abdomen. There was so much blood last night, there’s no way he could’ve survived that. How was Blue even alive?

There’s nothing. Not even a scar.

Had you imagined it? That can’t be. There’s dried blood all over the deck, and all over your clothes. How could he heal so quickly?

When you glance back up, he’s trilling and purring, entwining your hands in his.

What do you feel like for him? What do you look like to him?

Blue seems to have a realization of his own. His fingers leave your hands, and he reaches behind him. You remember he was holding something when he first came onto the boat. He pulls back your hand and drops something into your palm.

It’s the shell you threw out last night.

“No throw.” Blue tells you rather proudly.

The shell wobbles in your hand for a moment before it clicks.

He thought you meant you wanted him to give it to you personally, not keep tossing it overboard.

That entire night was all over this? You observe the shell. It’s pretty. A delicate piece of artwork crafted by the sea. It wasn’t worth that much pain and blood.

“I could’ve killed you.” You tell him, unsure if he understands or not.

“Want?” He asks. “Keep? Keep?”

You stare at the shell. You don’t know what it means, but you’re sure you’ve been damned already.

“Yes.” You agree. “I’ll keep.”

He chirps, nestling his face into your neck and you wonder when you started to let these creatures touch you so freely.

There’s another trill. You recognize the voice. Blue does too.

He’s giving a call of his own before he slips away from you, back over the railing. You hear him enter the water with a splash.

Still clutching the shell, you peer over the deck.

Both mates are reunited. It’s a heartwarming sight. Blue is eagerly chattering away, most likely telling Purple what happened last night. From the look of Purple’s souring face, you can tell he isn’t liking any of it. He seems more mad than worried, and you wonder if being shot isn’t that big of a deal to these creatures.

Purple catches your gaze just then. You say nothing. Neither does he.

His eyes soften, ever so slightly.

𓆝

There’s a shift in the coming days.

You no longer avoid the creatures. You don’t hide when they pop up in the water. You don’t immediately block them when they try to make conversation with the limited words they knew. There’s an effort on neutrality on your part.

In turn, they stop pretending they were so helpless.

Apparently, they could always get onto the yacht, but they held back for your sake. Now, that you’re less wary of them, oftentimes Blue and Purple have propped themselves on the deck in the mornings, letting their tails dangle off the boat. You let them be, going about your daily routine.

Now that you’re no longer so afraid of them, Purple seems to be a little more open to communicating with you. He tests out your language, but for whatever reason, it sounds foreign when it leaves his lips. You wonder why they sound so different; maybe within their species, there are subspecies.

You share things with them. Just as they tried to give you gifts of the sea, you, too, try to give gifts of yourself.

There isn’t much food, nevertheless food that’s actually enjoyable. You have to make do with the chips and canned vegetables you find in the pantries and closets. It’s your own challenge to make something palatable for yourself.

That particular morning, you settled on a crumbling reimagining of a sandwich. It was edible, but not the most entertaining. The only thing that kept you going was the granola bar you’d found lingering in one of the cabins. You’d saved it at the end for a treat.

A coo comes from your left. You had a guest.

Two, to be exact. Blue and Purple sit side by side, watching you and your meal. You swallow the last bits of the sandwich, feeling the sludge travel down your throat. So dry, you needed water.

But you can’t bring yourself to leave their mesmerizing stares. Their gaze travels to you and then to your granola bar, still wrapped in plastic. It crinkles in your grip.

You wait, and then you think.

“Want to try?”

Purple only tilts his head. Blue leans forward.

Unwrapping the treat, you take out a piece, the smallest you can, before placing it down on a napkin and slowly inching it towards them. Blue is quick to snatch it up. He practically inhales it, you doubt he even had a taste. From his expression, you can glean that he likes it.

Purple watches his mate idly. Not wanting him to be left out, you do the same motions. He retrieves the bar piece, a lot more suspicious about it than Blue had been. You see him tilt it forward, then back.

Blue decides to take matters into his own hands.

He was so quick. You didn’t know what happened until after Blue gobbled it down, looking immensely pleased. Purple’s eyes narrow to slits.

You don’t notice you were laughing until after the two creatures’ heads snapped in your direction.

Your smile dies down. Their gazes are heavy on your skin, you can’t bring yourself to keep looking.

“Sorry.” You mumble.

Purple makes another rumble again, most likely disgruntled that Blue stole his treat. Feeling for him, you break off another piece. You extend it out, forgetting about the boundary.

His hand grabs your wrist.

You freeze. You don’t even think you’re breathing as he turns your hand over. You can feel his claws lightly rake over your skin, but he’s so gentle that it only tickles.

He’s several degrees cooler than you, the difference is so stark that even you can feel it. There’s no human warmth. It makes you wonder what you must feel like to him.

He’s pulling, and your stiff body follows. For a moment, you think he wants to pull you into the water with him, but then his hand slips from yours.

They’re both gone, disappearing back into the sea. You hear a splash, and when you peek over, you can only see remnants of ripples.

There’s another laugh bubbling out of your throat: shaky, nervous, but filled with life.

𓆝

Over time, you notice the differences between the two creatures. Blue is a lot more adventurous compared to his counterpart. Purple is a lot more adverse towards human things, another reason why he must have been so hesitant earlier.

You wonder why he seemed to linger around you then.

You also let them touch you a lot more. Well, it’s not like you let them. Rather, they allowed themselves access to you. Blue would give quick swipes of his hands, scraping them against the pads of your feet before disappearing into the depths below. Purple would be slower, far more aware of your wavering feelings. He’d be slow and gentle when he reached out, clawed fingers brushing against your own, testing the softness of your skin. You get used to it, eventually. You get used to them eventually.

Your fear lessens. You stop assuming the worst whenever they grab your wrists. They’re much akin to people in some ways. Just as predictable and unpredictable.

You still see them as the beings who killed all those humans. Strangely, the more time you spend with them, the less you think about it. As you spend your days here, drifting on an abandoned boat, your ties of humanity slowly melting away in the current, those deaths oddly feel like a spider being crushed by a slipper.

One thing that hadn’t changed was the screech, much to your chagrin. It always started at the exact same time, when the sun would dip into the sea. By now, the noise was more of an annoyance than the terror you once saw it as.

And loud. Terribly, terribly loud.

“Stop.” You tell them on a night when you feel bold enough to peek over the railing. “Just stop.”

Moonlight glitters over skin and scales. At the sound of your voice, their own dispersed into the sea. They both stare up at you with glowing purple and blue eyes.

“Please?” You ask. “I don’t like it.”

Blue looks confused. Purple seems mildly offended.

“No like?” Blue echoes.

You shake your head. They frown, turning to each other before they start their chatter again.

You aren’t an idiot. Clearly, the screech is meaningful to these creatures. Perhaps, if you were more like them, you’d understand. For now, all that noise does is nearly rupture your eardrums.

“Why don’t you sing something else?” You try, in an effort to appease.

They stop again, peering up at you. You watch as a drop of water trails down from Purple’s hairline, following the curve of his cheek.

“The song you sang that night.” You tell Blue. “Maybe, you could sing that?”

He takes a moment, crystal sapphire glimmering against the water.

He starts first. A second later, Purple joins in. Their voices lull and ebb, just like tiny waves pulling and pushing against the shore. You sit down, catching yourself at the railings, letting your feet dangle over the edge.

There’s no adrenaline pumping inside your ears, your breaths are calm and measured. You can appreciate their voices now. It’s ethereal, there’s no other way to explain it. Their voices are captivating that way, enough to make you want to jump into the sea yourself, chase them until you run out of air. Still, you can’t deny how inhuman they sound. The notes hum and vibrate in a way no human could replicate. The song sinks into your bloodstream. You rest your head on your arms, listening to the beauty.

From that night onwards, you sleep outside, on the edge of the boat. Their songs never stop until you’re off into the land of dreams, far far away from them.

𓆝

One day you fall.

You don’t remember what happened. Gravity was all too fast to snatch you from the boat. You land in the icy water with a splash.

You’re frozen. A part of you was screaming to kick and flail and survive. You can swim. You’ve always been a good swimmer.

But terror was all to quick to grasp onto your muscles, keeping you from moving. It’s been ages since you got into the water. Not since she left.

You’re nothing more than a sentient rock, looking up at the surface, seeing the sun slowly disappear from your view, as your vision gets darker and darker. You helplessly sink.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Fingers touch the back of your calves.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Hands on your waist.

Deeper.

Deeper–

And then you’re gasping and coughing as you explode onto the surface. You reach up desperate for anything to grab onto. He obliges, letting you cling onto his figure like a drenched cat.

You cough wildly. He pats your back. His glossy black hair shimmers in the sun. Inky scales keep you afloat.

You stare at the most human part of him–those purple eyes.

“Thank you.” You tell him. He tilts his head.

He should be drowning you. He should be ripping you apart for committing the sin of being human.

Yet he doesn’t. He just stares. His hands continue to hold you, keeping you above the depths.

As of this moment, he’s showing you more humanity than you’ve ever received from members of your own species.

Your eyes are stinging, but it’s not from the salt water.

“Thank you.” You tell him again, and you think he understands, that time.

Just for a moment.

𓆝

Something happened after that day. You sought them out more, the fear waned and waned.

Soon, you’d forgotten why you were so afraid of these boys entirely.

“That reminds me, I can’t keep calling you guys colors anymore, right?”

You were sitting on the edge of the railing, legs dangling off the side. The sun slowly melted into the sea. The sky turned into warm yellows and crisp oranges.

Blue rested his head on your lap. He’d recently figured out that was one of his favorite resting spots. You don’t think you mind. You prefer him using you as a pillow compared to his earlier fascinations with your legs. He was too touchy for your liking, hands drifting further up than you liked. Once, he touched your upper thigh and you were startled enough to kick him right in the head. Purple had gotten a big laugh out of that.

Speaking of, the other one was seated right next to you. You can feel his presence leaned against your shoulder. His mate purrs from his spot on your lap as you card fingers through his hair, mindful of his fins.

“Do you have names?” Weird, usually you ask that before you get to know someone.

You introduce yourself first. Blue repeats it over and over again, as though he wants to etch it into his memory. Purple leans closer into your warmth. Your clothes are thoroughly soaked at this point, but you were starting to care less and less.

They don’t respond in kind. They probably do have names, but you won’t be able to pronounce them. You tilt your head, looking down at the waters below.

“I’ll call you, Satoru.” You say, “And you can be, Suguru.”

They don’t seem to care about their new names one way or another. You don’t really mind. They were more for your sake than for theirs. Satoru merely sinks into your hands, lamenting in the warmth of it. He whistles something at Suguru. It sounds like a taunt.

When you peek over, Suguru’s lips are pulled in an irritated scowl.

With a swipe of his arm, he pushes Satoru off your lap, into the depths below. Satoru flails, but gravity takes him down all the same. He disappears with a splash. You cover your mouth, trying to stifle your laugh.

“What did he say?” You ask.

He shakes his head, ‘You don’t want to know.’ Comes his silent answer.

Below you, Satoru gives a high-pitched chatter, most likely spewing curses and whines at his mate. Suguru ignores them. You follow suit.

The sun dipped further down into the waves. Soon, they’d start singing to you again, just like every night.

This sight would have been unthinkable less than a week ago.

Had it been a week? You’d honestly stopped counting.

You know you should hate them for what they did. They killed your fellow students and left you stranded on a ship with no way of getting to land. Yet, you don’t. It’s not like this boat is any different from your ‘life’ back ‘home’. You were drifting through life, the same as you were here. Nothing changed except for the setting.

And these two…

“Why?” You ask Suguru. “Why me?”

You’ve been asking yourself the same question for the past few weeks, torturing yourself with it.

The amethyst in his eyes shimmers. Ocean water drips down his skin and iridescent scales. His long black hair swirls around him like ink, spilling along his back, onto the deck. He’s one of the prettiest creatures you’ve ever seen.

You know his hands were made for destruction, and yet, he’s so gentle when he picks up your hand, holding it in his own. You can feel his claws scraping your skin. It tickles. He smiles at your laughter, small and secretive.

“One.” He tries his best to make you understand with his limited vocabulary. “One ours.”

You tilt your head. His mouth opens before it snaps shut again. His hands curl into fists, personifying the frustration he must feel. You understand it. Wanting a distraction, you glance around. The pearls scattered along the deck catch your eye.

Satoru had restarted his favorite pastime. Even after you accepted the shell, he still brought various items found from the depths. You keep the bigger ones: the pretty conch shells that you press against your ear, the glistening pearls, the vintage jewelry. It’s a little ironic that you probably have accumulated thousands of dollars right here on the deck, and yet, there is no true value to them at all.

You pluck one of the treasures up– a golden ring— examining it in your grasp.

“Why haven’t you given me anything yet?” You ask with a teasing lilt in your voice, showcasing your find to Suguru.

He observes it, then you. You allow him to take it from your fingers, carefully balancing the valuable in his palm.

“No choose.” He simply says. He hasn’t chosen anything yet. You don’t know how to feel about his confession.

“Home.” He suddenly tells you. You glance up at him.

“What?”

“Home.” He repeats, when he smiles, you can see the fangs hidden under plush lips. The unspoken danger. “Come see?”

“You want me to see your home?”

He nods. “Under…ocean. Come see?”

You send him a look. “I can’t breathe underwater.”

That’s not the only thing that stops you from jumping into the ocean. It’s them. Playing pretend up in the safety of the ship, where you can run away when things get too scary, is one thing. Willingly letting them pull you into the ocean is another. You’ve seen what they can do. You’ve seen how easily beings shaped like you can bow to beings shaped like them, even when you didn’t.

Suguru frowns. “Safe. Home close.” He insists.

There’s a splash from below. Satoru stares up at you with big eyes. Underneath the water, you can see his claws, still at his sides.

They were dangerous.

And yet, the smile on Satoru’s face when you give the tiniest nod melts something inside of you.

𓆝

The water is calm today. It gently licks your feet as you dangle your body over the boat. It’s not as cold as you thought it’d be. It doesn’t help the flipping of your stomach, however. You know you agreed to this, and yet, you feel like you’ve swallowed rocks, and they’re jostling around in your belly.

They’re already below you, lurking about in the water. Suguru’s closer, while Satoru stays a little further away. Their positions make sense in a way, you don’t trust Satoru to not get over-zealous. Suguru, in a way, is a little more careful.

Like he can sense your nervousness, Suguru is lifting one clawed arm up, barely touching your calf, not pulling, simply waiting. You take a minute, bringing yourself together, before you reach out to hold his hand.

And then, you jump.

You close your eyes just before the plunge. The sea engulfs you. You hear the water rush over your head. For a moment, there’s nothing, and then you break into the surface again.

When you open your eyes, Suguru smiles. You can see his fangs, ever so slightly pressed against plush lips. Another reminder that you’ve left your domain, and leapt into theirs.

Your heartbeat quickens when he leans forward. You don’t think it’s just out of fear anymore.

“Okay?” He’s asking, voice pushing and pulling like the waves you’re surrounded in.

You barely give a nod.

“Okay.” You confirm.

His smile gets a tad bit warmer, before scowling. Satoru ruins the moment, invading your space, pushing himself into your shoulder. His weight pushes you deeper into the water before Suguru shoves him off with a hiss.

You laugh when Satoru moves back, head tilted down like he’s a scolded puppy. In some ways, that’s exactly what he was. To comfort him, you reach over, brushing away the wet hair that clings to his forehead. He melts into your touch.

Suguru gives a whistle. When you turn back, he’s sinking lower into the water, showing his back.

‘Ready?’ He silently asks with his eyes.

As an answer, you reach forward, wrapping your arms around his neck, clinging onto his back. He gives a low rumble when you nestle your face into the crook of his neck.

He moves when you’re properly balanced. Much to your relief, he doesn’t dive immediately under the waves. He keeps both his and your heads above the surface, moving forward. Despite your added weight, it doesn’t seem to hamper his speed in the slightest. Somehow, you feel like he’s being slow for your sake.

Satoru circles you two. You follow him with your eyes as he goes round and around. When you peek down, you spot a school of fish swimming down below. Suguru passes them with ease. You’ve always had an affinity for the water, but not even you could travel as fast or as far as they currently are. They move so fast, the waves almost blur around you.

You figure out their destination a few miles in. There’s a large rock formation, jutting out from above the water. Suguru’s speed slows down.

Satoru moves in front of you. He takes a dramatic gulp of air, puffing up his cheeks. You have to smile at how cute he’s being, but you can read his message.

‘Hold your breath.’

You inhale, feeling the air fill your lungs.

And then, you’re descending.

Water and bubbles swirl around you as Suguru leads you deeper and deeper. Cracking your eyes open, you can see the blurry figure of Satoru, drifting deeper and deeper into the depths.

Out of instinct, you tighten your hold onto Suguru, hoping you aren’t choking him. He doesn’t seem to mind one way or another. You can feel one of his clawed hands find their way to your forearm, holding you in place. It’s an act of comfort, but you don’t feel it the way he intends.

You can hold your breath for a while, but you can already feel your lungs about to burst. The need for air is starting to burn, a demand that’s screaming from your lungs and heart and cells.

Just before you think you’re about to pass out, you surface.

You collapse against wet rock, greedily taking in the air. It still smells like salt and sea. Maybe a little fresher. You must be inside the rock formation, you slowly realize. It was some type of underwater cave.

Not completely underwater, however. There’s a ray of light coming from above. When you look up, there’s a hole right on the ceiling that might have been 30 or so feet above your head.

Along the shore, there’s algae that curbs against the sharp rocks. It wasn’t natural, they had been placed there.

You sit against the wet rock, letting the sun warm your skin. In front of you, the two creatures linger. Always watching.

“Like?” Satoru prods after a while.

You nod. Yeah, you do. It was nice compared to the boat, the stiff metal and wood. Here, you can feel the waves against your feet, the sun filtering through the ceiling. It’s like a mini beach.

“It’s pretty,” you say, “thank you.”

Suguru swims forward at your compliment, extremely pleased. You can practically see him preening, and you huff out a laugh. After a while, they resemble nothing more than peacocks. You close your eyes, leaning back on your hands. Despite being thoroughly soaked, you feel warm.

You can hear them shifting closer and closer. When you open your eyes, Satoru’s in front of you.

Glittering jewel eyes. The brightest blue, almost like you’re staring up at a cloudless sky. The fins on either side of his face were flattened. A bead of water trails down his neck. You watch as it travels along flawless skin.

“Pretty.” Satoru echoes.

You nod, looking down at the crystal-clear water lingering right by your knees. “It’s all really pretty.” Your eyes flick up, looking at his iridescent scales and fins.

“You’re pretty too.” You tell him.

Satoru’s always been the more adventurous out of the two. He pushed forward with no fear. He’s a conqueror, trekking to places you would never dare go to. You know him well enough now to know that he’s impulsive and unpredictable.

Even knowing all that, you couldn’t have ever imagined how warm his lips were.

Despite his strength, his claws, his monstrousness, Satoru is so gentle. His kiss is featherlight, barely touching, as though he’s afraid you’d break if he got any closer. Maybe he’s right to be worried, because you find yourself melting, despite the thudding of your heartbeat. You can hear it loud within your chest, and you wonder if he can hear it too.

He pulls away, and you lean back against the warm rock, regaining your ability to breathe.

“Pretty.” He tells you, eyes glittering with honesty. “Pretty pretty.”

“I…” Your voice feels so far away. “I don’t understand.”

But you do. You always have. You think you just need to hear it.

“Choose you.” Satoru starts, words foreign on his inhuman tongue. “See you. Give gifts. Sing song…choose you.”

You think back to those pearls and shells scattered across the deck, shimmering with whites and soft, blushy pinks. You can still hear the song they sing those nights underneath the gibbous Moon, the way their voices echoed far into the stars, rippled across the ocean, carried by the salt-singed wind.

“Want you.” Satoru continues, eyes glistening with a celestial beauty you could barely even fathom. “Want you as…”

Mate. The word comes suddenly into your brain. It came from some part of you that was hidden away for years and years, shriveled away by the land and the dry shore.

Your eyes tilt over to Suguru. He has yet to speak, and he still won’t. Instead, he’s reaching over, gently pulling you back into the water. You follow, feeling the water ripple around you.

You’re handed over to Satoru. He takes you with a purr, pulling you alongside him. His movements are so graceful, it soothes the racing of your heartbeat. You feel the rhythm that hums through the water. It takes you a moment to recognize his movements. You saw it a couple of times before, back when they were nothing more than beasts, back when you thought they were nothing like you.

It’s that dance. The one you saw Satoru and Suguru do all those times before.

Satoru weaves you around the water, and you, helpless, entranced, bewitched, trail after every dip and turn he does. It feels like hours, but it might have only been a few minutes. Time stops, and seconds are stagnant.

You can feel Suguru’s presence looming behind you. You feel whispers of his breath flickering over your wet skin. There’s a ghost of hands barely touching your being.

He stops when the water feels like air against your skin, right at the center of the cavern. Below the surface, your feet kick at the water, instinctively trying to reach the sand. Satoru’s arms are secured at your sides, like you’d dissolve into the sea if he dared to loosen his grip. His scales shimmer against the sunbeams. You can’t look away from his brilliant, crystal blue eyes.

“Want you,” Satoru repeats.

Something breaks deep inside of you. A feeling that’s foreign to you starts to bloom.

“Why?”

You’ve asked Suguru this question once, once, when you were high above the ocean and feeling the salty sea blow against your skin. He couldn’t give you a proper answer, not one you could be satisfied with. Why was it you they kept circling around? Why was it you who received such precious gifts? Why you?

Suguru is right behind you, and he leans into your weight. You can hear him sigh into your skin.

Satoru smiles. You can see those fangs again. Lifetimes ago, they would have terrified you, but in this warm cave, underneath the shining light of the sun–

“One of us.” His confession is raw and true. “Ours.”

It’s been a while since you’ve felt like this before. The feeling of belonging. You couldn’t find an inkling of it, not when thousands and millions of your kind surrounded you.

But in this cave, just the two of them are enough to make you finally feel human again.

You don’t know who moves first, but it doesn’t matter. Satoru’s lips are plush and soft; you can taste flickers of ocean waves. He tastes like heaven, something about his presence makes your mind drift up into the clouds, aimless, like a velella dipped in royal blue drifting along the waves.

“One of us.” Suguru echoes, and his voice clicks something into place deep inside of you. When you break away from Satoru’s urging lips, you feel like you can breathe for the first time in decades, like the air isn’t choking you dry anymore. You can feel it then, a tiny piece of Satoru was nestling inside you, keeping you afloat. Something he gave to you, and you accepted.

‘One of us.’ Both of their voices bubble and simmer into your soul.

You don’t realize you’re back on the shore until you feel the rocks underneath your thighs. They’re smooth, and you soon discover they’re lined with soft moss. It was handmade with comfort kept in mind.

You can’t linger on it. Not when you can feel Suguru’s lips on your collarbone, tracing your skin with his razor-sharp teeth. You’re still underneath him, growing limp against his soft hold. You melt at the way they handle you. Always so gentle. They touch you like you’re made of fragile seashells, inches away from breaking. The tiny piece Satoru gave you blooms at their touch.

You let yourself fall in the trance they put you in, your body goes limp in their hold as claws rake over your flimsy clothes, eager to take them off. You gasp when Suguru grasps onto your waist, squeezing. Your back arches, giving Satoru the perfect opportunity to nestle his face into your neck, breathing in your scent.

You freeze when he goes lower, and then lower.

You glance down at him. Pretty blue eyes stare up. He looks almost innocent like this, nestling his face into your cleavage, as though he were oblivious to his own actions. It makes you want to laugh.

You suck on your bottom lip. His gaze follows it—something hot coils in your belly.

‘One of them.’ They promised you.

You slowly peel off your wet shirt. Satoru watches each movement keenly. Suguru is silent behind you. You feel like you’re being hunted, even though you’ve already been caught and it’s too late for an escape.

They’ve always been fascinated by your clothes. Your damp bra is just as captivating. Satoru runs his fingers through the cloth, his claws catching on the patterned threads. You wonder if he can hear your heartbeat thudding in your chest. Blood is pumping through your ears.

Satoru pulls down your bra ever so slightly, fingers graze over your nipple. You shiver under his touch.

“Pretty.” He tells you. “Pretty pretty.”

You feel your face grow hot, and you break eye contact. Like a predator, Satoru leaps onto you, meshing his lips with yours once again. He kneads at your tits, squeezing hard enough that he draws whines and simpers from your mouth. He drinks them all, enjoying his feast.

You don’t realize Suguru’s moved until he’s touching your feet, feeling up the skin of your calves. By this time, you’re barely clothed, just as naked as those two are. The only thing that keeps your dignity intact is your thin shorts. For now.

Suguru’s hands are cool against your thighs, just like the rest of him. It’s only when you’re guiding him along with your shorts, slipping them down your legs, that you remember how different he is to you. He seems to share the feeling because he delicately takes one of your legs, wrapping his fingers around your heel. Suguru watches in quiet fascination as your leg extends and bends until he’s able to wrap it around his shoulder. Your heel hooks behind his back.

You’re wet. Not just from your trip, but from the way Satoru touched you and kissed you–from the way Suguru keeps staring. You two are so different. For a moment, you wonder if women of his species even look the way you do. You wonder if he’s stopping because you look odd to him–if he’s changing his mind.

You’re pulling back, close to pushing him away, but Suguru is having none of it. He attaches to your pussy with his mouth and begins to consume.

It’s already too much. His tongue is long and dextrous, and he’s already digging his way through your gummy walls, eager to suck you dry. You throw your head back, leaning against Satoru for support as Suguru continues to eat you out. Satoru grasps your waist, squeezing the skin. He chirps something foreign to Suguru, the latter sends him a smug glance. It was something obnoxious about you but you can’t care less when Suguru manages to find your clit with a curious lick.

You can’t hide your reactions. You writhe and shudder underneath his touch. You’re grasping onto Suguru’s hair, knotting it into your fists. He barely seems to mind, leaning into your touch with a mouth-watering purr.

You come with an unfiltered scream as your orgasm pulses through you. You’re arching into Satoru, feeling the pleasure roll over your stomach and tits. Suguru isn’t stopping, not at just one. The moment you come down from your high, slipping down to Earth, he’s grabbing your thighs, pulling you back to him, pushing deeper.

He only let’s go when your screams die down to mewls. You watch in exhaustion as rises from his spot between your legs. Satoru catches him mid-way, clashing his lips and teeth with Suguru.

He’s tasting you through his mate, the thought makes your pussy wet all over again. Satoru loves it, he grins down at you with a shiny mouth. He doesn’t say anything, but you can hear his thoughts.

“Shut up.” You tell him. He coos.

They’re switching positions again. You watch, propped up on the mossy floor as Satoru lines himself up between your legs. He licks his lips and you spot his sharp white fangs. Your hole clenches on nothing as he shifts further towards you.

You spot it then, right below his abdomen.

It almost looks alive as it slowly emerges from the slit. It’s long and thick–far thicker than Suguru’s tongue–a flushed pink and completely inhuman. It doesn’t feel human either–far cooler than your heated skin.

You’re too far gone. You need it. You need it as deep it can go inside of you.

Satoru doesn’t need much prompting, fisting his dick in one hand he buries it inside of you, inch by inch.

It’s excruciatingly good. You writhe and wiggle against him, and when Satoru stills you with a firm grasp on your wrist, you fall against Suguru’s shoulder, panting and moaning.

“Easy.” You tell him, breathless, when Satoru gets too excited. “Go easy.”

Satoru only heeds your warning when Suguru punctuates it with a warning hiss. He’s a lot slower after that.

You can tell it’s torture to be gentle, yet he tries anyway. His eyes have narrowed, and he’s tensing his jaw in concentration. You can feel his cock bury itself further inside of you. You’re wet enough to take it all in one motion, but he’s careful of you and your body. You love it when they do that–treat you like you’re made from gentle glass, even when they aren’t used to holding back.

Eventually, Satoru bottoms out as his hips meet yours. You and him gasp for air. He rests his head against your shoulder, kissing your sweaty skin. It takes a moment to get used to his cock. It’s so much cooler than the rest of you. You can’t imagine what your pussy must feel like to him. You must be burning, like a furnace. It must hurt.

But, Satoru always struck you as a masochist.

“Good, good pretty.” Satoru tells you with a breathless voice, trying to convey his feelings as well as he can with his stilted voice. You nod along, understanding in some strange way.

He takes a moment like that, just staying.

And then, he starts to move.

Slowly, at first. He rocks his hips back and forth, as though he’s practicing the movements. It’s almost embarrassing how needy your body is–your pussy trying to suck his dick right back inside. Then, he’s going faster. Then faster.

And then he’s practically humping you like a dog than a fish.

You relish in it, rocking against his movements, wrapping your legs around his waist, keeping him from going too far. Out of sheer desperation, you dig your nails into his back, sure you’re drawing blood. Satoru takes it in stride, fucking into you even faster.

Suguru, never one to be left out, explores your skin. He licks down your collarbone and chest until he reaches your tits. It’s almost instinct when he sucks on your nipple, swirling his tongue around your areola.

You can’t hold off. It’s all so much. And it turns so much worse when Suguru reaches over between you and Satoru to rub your clit.

Your orgasm is inevitable and yet it still takes you by surprise. It fizzes over your body, forcing you to arch your back as you spasm on his cock. Satoru follows the same fate moments later when he gives a garbled moan and something warm fills your battered pussy.

You three lay like that, catching your breaths, not at all eager to move. Eventually, you regain your ability to think again. Satoru’s dick slips from your pussy, leaving behind his cum mixed in with yours.

Lips meet your collarbone. Another is at the base of your neck. Slowly, they work their way up and down your body, relishing you with gentle and much-needed affection. You allow them, melting into their touches as they kiss away whatever bruises and scratches they left on you.

Claws lightly graze your cheek.

“Ok?” Suguru asks, quiet and soft.

“Ok.” You whisper back.

You smile, and when he returns it, you feel full again. But when you lean in to kiss him, Suguru pulls away.

Your smile disappears. His own is softer, this time. He leans forward, careful to miss your lips, placing a chaste kiss on your cheek. His damp forehead meets your own.

“No choose.” He tells you again, just like that moment from when you were both up on the ship, but this time you understand.

They chose you, but you hadn’t chosen them, yet.

You were still lingering by the shore–refusing to jump in. You enjoyed the waves push and pull themselves towards you, gently kissing your toes, but you did not follow.

You couldn’t give the sand up. You were still human. Satoru could accept that, which is why that piece of him still rests inside you. Suguru couldn’t.

You can have Satoru because Satoru is okay with just having pieces of you. He’d gladly keep any crumb you left behind for him before you once again disappear into a world he cannot reach.

But Suguru couldn’t bear to touch you if he couldn’t have every part of you as his own. He’d much rather have your memory flicker away into water than share you with the land.

Despite the name you gave Satoru, you understand Suguru more. You don’t think you could bear that either. You could have one or the other, but they can’t have you.

Your silence makes them wane. Satoru coos, pushing for a reaction. You can feel Suguru at your shoulder. Always watching.

“Take me back.”

Satoru’s face falls. You can’t look at either of them.

“Please take me back.”

You can feel them looking at each other. It makes you feel worse.

Suguru nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck.

“Okay.” He acquiesces.

You asked and they agreed, and yet, they gave you a few more seconds to stay, lingering in the waters of paradise.

𓆝

You asked for a bit more time.

Suguru agreed. Satoru just stared, and you were starting to wonder if it was truly possible to have it all.

They’re still around. You see remnants of their fins disappearing into the water. At night, you can hear the distant melancholy of their song. You don’t sleep outside these nights. It’s colder now.

There’s a clock somewhere slowly ticking to zero. Time is running out. You don’t know how you can tell. Maybe it’s another thing Satoru left with you.

You don’t know a single thing you have left on the shore. You don’t have friends, and you’re being delusional if you think you can make any. You don’t have family, you don’t have ambitions, or any goals. You just go through life because it’s the only think you’ve ever known.

Satoru and Suguru are electric. They fill you with something you’ve never experienced before. You finally feel part of something.

But they’ve killed people. Humans, like you.

You look at your hands. They look normal, but something is brimming just beneath your fingertips.

Were you ever human?

You don’t know. You don’t know anything about anything anymore, and it’s killing you.

You wished she were here.

The boat rocks, jolting you out of your thoughts. You peek out the window. The sun was long gone, and the moon was rising. You wait to hear their song, seeping into the night, calling for you.

Minutes pass. Hours.

There’s nothing. There’s just you drifting along the current.

𓆝

It’d been a while since you’ve dreamed of the lakehouse and the pond.

Everything is just as you remembered. Sunlight reflected over the surface, glittering like diamonds and stars. Deep-green lilies bobbed up and down. Dragonflies flitted back and forth along the shore. The sun warmed your skin.

She was there too, but there’s something different about her. The lines around her eyes and mouth were softer. Her skin looked smoother. Her eyes were bright with young mischief. Instead of being in that wheelchair you used to despise so much, she stares at you from the water.

“Fish?” She tilts her head.

“You’re so beautiful.” That's all you can say.

She laughs, high-pitched and girlish. You love hearing it. She’s so different, but you know it’s her. It can’t be anyone else.

“Did you like my gifts?” She prods, retreating from the water to sit on the banks.

Your heart flutters. “Were you the one who sent those two?”

She doesn’t answer. You don’t need her to. You draw closer, reaching out to touch her cheek. She’s several degrees cooler than you; your hand must feel like a furnace to her, yet she melts into your touch, letting you feel her cheek, nose, and forehead.

“Are you home?” You ask.

She nods.

“Did you miss me?” She asks.

Your eyes sting. “More than anything.”

She’s still smiling–still so beautiful. Even as the glamour starts to fade, when skin turns into scales, blunt teeth turn into fangs, you never once stopped thinking about her beauty.

“Are you coming home, then?”

You pull back slightly.

“I can’t.” You tell her. “I’m still human.”

She laughs. “Are you?”

You stay silent. She grabs your arm, mindful of her claws, careful not to pierce your skin.

“I understand, Fish.” She tells you kindly. “It’s hard to be sure of anything.” She places something into your palm.

“But it’s even harder to be alone.”

You stare at the pearls: blue and purple.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

She tilts her head and smiles until she shows teeth, before she sinks further and further into the pond.

The last thing you see of her is her iridescent scales disappearing into the depths.

𓆝

The sky is a violent swirl of grays and blues. Thunder dangerously rumbles over the horizon. The ocean was growing tired of waiting.

You step onto the deck. The smell of rain is heavy in the air. Angry clouds obscure the sun.

Despite your decision being made hours ago, you can still feel the anxiety building up in your heart. You’re still scared.

And yet, today, the fear of the unknown is nothing compared to the fear of going back to obscurity.

Neither of the creatures appears. Even the tiny piece Satoru left within you remained silent today. And yet, your heart flutters when you spot something on the deck. A tiny seashell.

It’s not from Satoru. You cement your decision when you curl it into your fist in acceptance.

You take one last breath of air, and then you jump.

You hit the ice-cold water. You squeeze your eyes shut as you sink deeper into the depths.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Fingers touch the back of your calves.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Hands on your waist.

Deeper.

Deeper.

Lips on your mouth.

Something locks in place deep inside of you–

And then you breathe.

𓆝

After weeks of searching, they finally find it.

It was the strangest thing. Every day, the coast guard searched and searched the waters for a lost yacht filled with young adults. They used sonar and top-of-the-line machinery. At one point, even a plane was used, soaring overhead to see if they could spot the vessel from the skies.

Nothing for weeks.

And one day, out of nowhere, a ‘ghost ship’ was reported.

When the retrieval team got on deck, there was nothing. They found no struggle, no panic, no bodies. It’s as if everyone vanished into thin air.

Someone stayed behind longer than the others.

They can see evidence of it all around. Half-eaten chips and cans of unopened food littered the area. A used harpoon was left abandoned. The calendar on the captain’s deck was crossed out with the same marker. 17 days. This survivor had stayed behind for nearly two weeks.

He stood from his chair, nearly knocking over a stack of textbooks in his haste to shake your hand. His hand, when you took it, was surprisingly warm and soft, though his grip was a little too tight, and you couldn't help but notice how he towered over you even with his slightly hunched posture. 

Up close, you found yourself noticing things you'd somehow missed during all those lectures — like the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow of his stubble, or the way his hand swallowed yours whole. Even the sweater vest he wore (which should have been insanely uncool) somehow worked for him in a way you couldn't quite explain.

"So… where do you want to start?"

And just like that, it began. Twice a week, tutoring sessions, afternoons that slowly evolved into something neither of you could quite solve for. Because here's what Satoru's calculations hadn't accounted for — the way you'd scrunch your nose when concentrating,  the sudden brightness of your smile when you finally understood a concept, or how your perfume would make it impossible to focus on derivatives.

And your variables? They never included the endearing way he'd push his glasses up when flustered, how his eyes would light up when explaining complex theories, or the fact that beneath that nerdy shell lurked a wickedly sharp sense of humor. 

But perhaps some equations weren't meant to be solved. Perhaps they're meant to be experienced, one tutoring session at a time.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

"Okay, explain to me again why I can't just try random numbers until something works?" You were sprawled across the library table, exhausted after hours of studying. Your head ached from staring at equations for so long, textbooks and papers strewn about in complete chaos.

Satoru rubbed his own tired eyes behind his glasses, but his voice remained patient as ever. Even after spending the entire afternoon explaining the same concepts, he hadn't shown a single sign of frustration. "Because that's not how calculus works. You need to understand the underlying principles—"

"But the underlying principles hate me." You dropped your head onto your textbook with a groan. "Can't we just agree that whoever invented all this shit was a sadist and call it a day?"

"Newton invented calculus," he said, then immediately regretted it when he saw your expression. "Though, uh, Leibniz developed it independently around the same time, which actually led to a controversy in the mathematical community—"

"Satoru," you cut him off, but there was fondness in your voice. "You're doing the thing again."

"What thing?" He pushed his glasses up.

"Your nerdy thing where you get all excited about math history." You sat up, propping your chin on your hand. "It's cute, but it's not helping me understand why this limit doesn't exist."

He nearly dropped his pencil. Had you just called him cute? No, you'd called his nerdy rambling cute. There was a difference. Probably. He'd have to analyze that later.

"Right, um, the limit." He cleared his throat, trying to remember how to form coherent sentences. "Think of it like a cheerleading routine."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Just... bear with me." He sketched a quick graph. "When you're doing a flip, there's a point where you're neither going up nor coming down, right? That's kind of like this limit—it's approaching a point where the function isn't quite doing either thing."

"Did you just... learn cheerleading terms to explain calculus to me?"

Heat crept up his neck. "I may have watched some videos. For educational purposes."

"That's..." you trailed off, looking at him with an expression he couldn't quite calculate. "That's actually really sweet."

"Oh... uhm, I'm just trying to be a good tutor," he said, but his heart was doing something strange, something he'd never felt before. It definitely defied all known laws of physics.

"Well, Mr. Good Tutor," you leaned closer, and he caught another whiff of your perfume, "explain it to me again. Using more cheer analogies."

And so he did, drawing parallels between derivatives and tumbling passes, using formations to explain functions, and somehow, the math started making sense. By the end of the session, you'd not only grasped the concept but had also taught him the proper terms for various stunts. A fair trade, he thought, even if the librarian had shushed you both multiple times.

As you packed up your books, you paused, twirling your pencil in a way that completely distracted him from his thoughts. "Hey, we have a big game this Friday. Against State. I'll be cheering, obviously."

"Oh." He began cleaning his glasses, a nervous habit you'd come to find oddly endearing. "That's... good luck?"

"I'm inviting you, dummy." You rolled your eyes, but your smile was warm. "You should come watch. See how the other half lives."

"The other half meaning...?"

You gave him a look. "People who don't spend their Friday nights solving equations for fun."

"I... um..." A faint blush rose on his cheeks as he fumbled with his glasses. "I've never really been to a game before."

"Then it's time you finally have the full college experience." You shouldered your bag, then leaned down to write something on his notebook. "Here's my number. So you can text me when you get there. I'll make sure to wave at you during our halftime routine."

Before he could manage a response that wasn't completely pathetic, you were gone in a swish of pleated skirt and floral perfume, leaving him staring at your phone number like it was a problem set from the deepest reaches of abstract algebra.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

Satoru spent the next three days debating whether or not to text you, writing and rewriting messages that never got sent. What was the protocol here? Was there a specific formula for how long to wait? Should he reference tutoring to keep it professional? 

In the end, you'd asked someone in his physics course for his number and texted him first,

You: Hope you're still planning to come to the game tomorrow! Look for me in the front of the formation.

He stared at his phone for so long his screen went dark. Then, taking a deep breath, he typed:

Satoru: Should I bring my textbook to study during halftime?

Your response was immediate: NO omg spare me! No books allowed! Just come watch me flip through the air.

Satoru: I'll try to come. Is there a dress code?

You: Great! Promise I'll make it worth your while & No dress code. But if you ask me, I'd say wear something blue. It suits your eyes.

Suits my eyes? he thought, a strange warmth spreading through him as he starred at the text. He’d never considered his eyes particularly noteworthy. They were just…blue. Nothing like yours, which were…well, yours were something else entirely. He couldn't quite describe them, but they were captivating, drawing him in like an infinite decimal, endlessly fascinating and impossible to fully comprehend. His own eyes, by comparison, felt plain, almost…functional.

Stop. He was overthinking this. It was just a game. He was just going to watch you cheer. That was all.

And that's how Satoru found himself standing in front of his mirror on Friday night, wearing the only casual clothes he owned — dark jeans and a blue button-down his sister had forced him to buy. Though he kept his favorite sweater vest over it. He'd even attempted to style his usually messy white hair, but it still fell in his eyes no matter what he did.

Walking into the packed stadium felt like stepping into another world. He had never been to a college game before — his weekends usually involved physics journals and quiet library corners, not roaring crowds and marching bands.

He found a seat near the front, as your text had instructed, and immediately spotted you warming up with the rest of the team. The energy you brought to math was nothing compared to this. Your movements were precise, athletic, stunning. Your uniform shimmered under the stadium lights and your smile could have lit up the entire campus.

When the game began, he tried to follow the action on the field, he really did. But his eyes kept gravitating towards you, leading your squad through each cheer. He found himself analyzing the physics of your movements — the perfect parabolic arc of your jumps, the calculated precision of each flip, the way you seemed to defy gravity itself when thrown into the air.

But it was during halftime that his brain truly short-circuited. Your squad took the field for their main routine, and there you were, front and center, exactly as promised. He watched in awe as you were lifted into complicated formations, your movements so graceful they made his carefully ordered world tilt on its axis. When you pulled off a series of flips that seemed to defy gravity, he actually found himself calculating the rotational velocity in his head, just to make sense of how you'd done it.

You spotted him in the crowd during one sequence, flashing him a smile that made him forget every equation he'd ever memorized from his mental hard drive. Your eyes met his just before you were launched into another stunt, and he swore his heart momentarily flatlined, a zero on the number line of his existence, until you landed safely.

Even from the bleachers, he could see how the effort brought a lovely pink blush to your cheeks, and yet you made it all look so effortless. You were radiant, breathtaking in a way that no mathematical formula could ever quantify. And in that moment, watching you shine in your element, Satoru realized he was in serious trouble. 

After the routine, you broke away from your squad and made your way up to where he sat. Your face was still flushed, loose strands of hair clinging to your neck, and even slightly out of breath, you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"So?" you asked, dropping onto the bench beside him. "How'd I do? Any notes on my rotational mechanics, professor?" Your attempt at a teasing smile turned into a slight wince as you rolled your shoulder.

"Are you okay?" His hands hover uncertainly near your shoulder.

"Just a bit sore. That last lift was..." You rolled your shoulder again, grimacing.

Without thinking, Satoru shrugged off his sweater vest and draped it over your shoulders. "You'll catch a cold." He noticed how the cooling sweat had left your arms covered in goosebumps. His vest was ridiculously large on you, but something about seeing you wrapped in his clothes made his heart do strange things in his chest.

"My hero." You smiled tiredly and pulled the vest tighter around you. It smelled like him, like clean laundry and whatever subtly pleasant cologne he wore. "But you didn't answer my question. What did you think?"

"I think you broke all known laws of physics out there. Your trajectory during that last flip sequence was..." He caught himself rambling on about angles and momentum and quickly changed course. "You were amazing."

You leaned your head against his shoulder, the simple gesture making his breath catch. "Thanks for coming. It's nice to see a familiar face in the crowd."

"You have plenty of people watching you," he said , hesitantly letting his arm settle around your shoulders when you shivered slightly. "The whole stadium was cheering for you."

"Yeah, but..." you paused, and he could feel your smile against his shoulder. "Somehow, seeing your face out there made me the happiest. Especially since I know this isn't really your scene."

"I'm glad I came," he said. "Though I did bring flash cards, just in case."

Your laugh was warm against his neck. "Of course you did, you giant nerd." There was unmistakable affection in your voice that made his pulse quicken.

"Someone has to keep your GPA up." He was proud that his voice remained steady, even as you snuggled closer into his side.

"Mmm, about that..." You stifled a yawn. "I might need extra help with derivatives next week."

"Of course." Satoru tried to ignore how right it felt to have you leaning against him. "Same time as always."

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

The following week, something had shifted between you. Maybe it was because he'd seen you in your element, or because you were still wearing his sweater vest (which you'd "forgotten" to return), but the usual study room felt different somehow. Warmer. More intimate.

You'd chosen to sit closer to him than usual, close enough that your arm brushed his whenever you reached for your calculator all while the light, floral scent of your shampoo kept pulling his focus away from the equations.

"So, if we take the derivative here…" he began, but lost his train of thought when you leaned closer to see what he was writing, your ponytail brushing against his shoulder.

"Like this?" You picked up your pencil to attempt the problem, your free hand absently playing with the sleeve of his sweater vest you wore. 

He had to clear his throat before speaking. "Almost. Here, let me show you." His hand covered yours as he guided your pencil through the correct steps, and he couldn't help but notice how soft your skin was, or how neither of you pulled away even after the equation was solved.

"You're a really good teacher, you know?" you said quietly, your hand still beneath his. "I actually understand this stuff now." 

The proud smile you gave him made his heart flutter in his chest. Somehow, making you understand calculus felt more significant than any academic achievement he'd ever earned.

"You know," you said, finally pulling your hand away from his to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, "you help me so much with all this. I feel like I should do something for you in return."

His glasses fogged up slightly as he rushed to respond. "Oh! No, you don't have to—I mean, this is... I enjoy—"

"Come on, there must be something." You turned in your chair to face him. "Oh! Do you need help meeting someone? Like, dating-wise?"

Satoru nearly chocked on air. "What?"

"Yeah! I mean, I could introduce you to someone! Actually, Sarah from my squad was just saying how smart guys are totally her type—"

"I'm not—" he started, then stopped, his cheeks flushing. "That is…I'm already…there's someone I…"

"Oh? Tell me! Who's the lucky girl?" You tried to keep your voice light and cheerful even as something heavy settled in your chest. You weren't sure why the thought of Satoru being interested in someone made your stomach twist so uncomfortably. After all, it made sense — he was brilliant, kind, and underneath those sweater vests and thick glasses, he was actually really handsome. Of course he'd have feelings for someone.

"It's... complicated. She's way out of my league. Popular, athletic, beautiful..." He trailed off, adjusting his glasses.

"Satoru Gojo," you said, poking his arm, ignoring the way your heart seemed to sink with each word he spoke about this mystery girl, "are you holding out on me? Come on, spill! Who is she? Maybe I can help—" Even as you offered, you realized you really, really didn't want to help him get together with anyone else.

"We should probably get back to derivatives," he cut in quickly, his face now completely red. "Don't you have a exam next week?"

"Right. Yeah. The exam." You turned back to your textbook, trying to focus on the equations that suddenly seemed blurry. 

You found yourself stealing glances at him as he explained the next problem, wondering about this girl who had caught his attention. Was she in one of his advanced physics classes? Someone who could actually understand all the complex theories he got so excited about? The thought made your chest ache, like a bruise blooming beneath your ribs.

Satoru seemed equally distracted. His usually clear explanations were interrupted by nervous pauses whenever your hands accidentally brushed. He kept adjusting his glasses, and somehow managed to knock over his pencil three times in the span of five minutes.

"Sorry," he mumbled after the third time, both of you reaching for the pencil at the same time and quickly pulling back when your fingers touched. "I'm not usually this... I mean, I should be more..."

"It's okay." You smiled, even though your heart felt heavy. "We all have off days. Even brilliant tutors."

He looked at you then, really looked at you, and in his blue eyes, you saw a question hanging in the air between you. For a moment, it seemed like he might voice it, but then he quickly looked away, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Maybe we should call it a day." You needed to get out of there, needed space to process why knowing he liked someone hurt so much. "I think my brain is full of derivatives anyway."

"Oh. Yes. Of course." Was it your imagination, or did he sound disappointed? "Same time next week?"

"Yeah," you managed, slinging your bag over your shoulder. You were still wearing his sweater vest, you realized. "Oh, I should give this back—"

"Keep it," he said quickly, then immediately looked like he regretted speaking. "I mean, if you want to. For studying. It might help with... derivatives."

"Derivatives. Right." You hugged the vest closer. "Well, thanks for today." You hesitated at the door, fingers playing nervously with the soft fabric of the vest. "Oh, um... we have another game next Friday. Against Eastern. If you're not too busy, maybe you could come? You don't have to, obviously, but it was nice having you there last time."

"I'll be there." And those simple words made you feel lighter than air.

"Great," you said. "And good luck with... you know. Your crush and everything." 

You hurried out before he could respond, missing the way he watched you leave with a longing expression, or how he whispered "You have no idea" to the empty study room.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

The next Friday came quickly, and true to his word, Satoru was there in the same spot as last time, his blue eyes following your every movement. The game was going well, the energy in the stadium electric, and your squad was nailing every routine.

Then came the halftime show.

Everything started perfectly — the music, the formations, the stunts all flowing together just as practiced. You caught Satoru's eye just before your final sequence, his presence somehow both calming and exciting at the same time. But then something went wrong.

Your base thrower put too much power into the toss. You felt it the moment you left his hands. Too much height, too much force. Your trained body tried to adjust in the air, but the angle was off. Instead of landing cleanly in the waiting arms of your teammates, you came down awkwardly, taking most of the impact on your left side.

The crowd gasped. You bounced up immediately, muscle memory and pride making you finish the routine with a smile, even as pain shot through your shoulder and hip. Your squad mates shot you concerned looks, but you waved them off.

But as soon as the music ended and the crowd's attention returned to the game, you felt the full effect of the fall. Your vision swam slightly, and your left arm didn't want to move quite right. Still, you maintained your smile, not wanting to worry anyone.

After the game, you tried to slip away unnoticed, your shoulder still hurting from the bad landing, when Jake — your base thrower — cornered you near the locker rooms.

"Hey, wait up!" Jake had been trying to get your attention for weeks, his throws getting more aggressive as if he wanted to prove something. "You okay? That last stunt was pretty intense."

"I'm fine," you said curtly, taking a step back. "Though maybe next time try not to throw me into orbit?"

He moved closer, using his height to crowd your space. "Come on, don't be like that. I was just trying to make you look good out there. You know I'd never hurt you on purpose." His voice dropped lower as he leaned in. "Maybe I could make it up to you? There's a party at my place tonight..."

"I said I'm fine." You tried to step around him, but he blocked your path with his arm against the wall. "Jake, back off."

"Why are you being so cold? Everyone knows you're the best flyer on the squad, I was just trying to show that off. Besides," his eyes narrowed slightly, "I've seen how you've been spending time with that nerdy tutor. What's his deal anyway?"

"That's none of your—"

"Is there a problem here?"

Satoru's voice cut through the scene, surprisingly firm for someone who usually stumbled over casual greetings. He stepped between you and Jake, and for the first time, you realized just how physically imposing Satoru actually was. His usual oversized sweaters and shy demeanor had always made him seem smaller somehow, but standing next to Jake, you could see that Satoru was actually taller, his shoulders just as broad. Something about the way he positioned himself — protective, solid, unmovable — made your heart race.

"This is none of your business," Jake snapped, but you noticed how he took a small step back, clearly reassessing the situation now that he was face-to-face with someone who matched him physically.

"When you throw my friend at dangerous velocities and then proceed to intimidate her?" Satoru's voice was cold in a way you'd never heard before. "That makes it my business."

"Your friend?" Jake scoffed. "Since when does a nerd like you—"

"Back. Off." Each word was precise, and though Satoru's voice remained quiet, there was steel beneath the softness. He shifted slightly, making sure you were completely shielded behind him.

Something in his tone must have registered because Jake finally stepped back, holding up his hands. "Whatever, man. Didn't realize she had a bodyguard." He shot you one last look before walking away. "See you at practice."

The moment Jake was gone, Satoru turned to you, his stern expression melting into concern. "Are you okay? That landing looked bad, and now this... Do you need to report him? I can go with you to—"

"I'm okay," you said. "Just sore. And annoyed. Jake's been... difficult lately."

"He shouldn't have thrown you like that. The angle was completely wrong and the force way too much. I calculated the trajectory and it was at least thirty percent more power than necessary for—" He caught himself rambling and adjusted his glasses. "Sorry. I just... I was worried."

You couldn't help but smile at how quickly he'd switched from intimidating protector back to your adorably nervous tutor. It was also…endearing. And it did something strange to your insides, a fluttery sensation, like a thousand tiny butterflies had suddenly taken flight in your stomach. It was a feeling you couldn't quite name, but it made you want to lean closer to him, to thank him, to…something. You weren't sure what.

"Don't apologize. It's cute when you get all mathematical about things. And... thank you. For stepping in like that."

He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly flustered by your praise. "Um, are you... hungry?"

You smiled. "Starving, actually."

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

You and Satoru headed to the diner around the corner from the stadium, a cozy, retro place you loved — all chrome and neon, red vinyl booths, and a jukebox humming in the corner. You slid into a booth while Satoru ordered milkshakes and burgers for both of you, and somehow you weren't surprised that he remembered your favorite flavor from that one time you'd mentioned it during a study session weeks ago.

You talked about everything. Silly stories, your cheerleading, his lab accidents and he even revealed that he rock climbed in his spare time, which, you realized, explained a lot. You found yourself laughing more than you had in ages, and every time you made him laugh in return, that warm feeling in your chest grew stronger. 

Before you knew it, two hours had passed, your milkshakes long empty and the burgers nothing but crumbs. The diner had mostly emptied out, the neon lights outside casting colorful shadows across your table.

"Is that what you want to do?" you said as your eyes fell on the physics textbook peeking out of Satoru's bag while you stole one of his remaining fries, "After college, I mean? Something with physics?"

"Yeah, I'm hoping to get into the quantum physics program. They only accept a few students each year, but their research on quantum entanglement is insane. They're working on this project with superconductors that could change how we think about wave function collapse. And their particle accelerator facility is one of the best in the country, so I really hope to..." he trailed off, suddenly looking shy. "Sorry, I'm probably boring you."

"No, not at all!" You found yourself genuinely interested in the way his whole face brightened when talking about physics. "It's nice seeing someone who knows exactly what they want."

"What about you?" he asked softly, pushing another fry your way. "Any plans?"

You sighed, slumping back in the booth. "Honestly? I have no idea. Something that doesn't involve math, that's for sure." You tried to laugh it off. "Maybe communications? Or business? I just... sometimes it feels like everyone else has it all figured out."

"You're actually better at math than you think. You just approach problems differently. More creatively. Like how you connected those derivatives to your cheer routines last week? That was smart."

You felt your face warm at his words and fidgeted with your straw wrapper. "You're just saying that because you're my tutor."

"I'm saying it because it's true." The firmness in his voice made you look up. His blue eyes met yours with an intensity that made you feel truly seen. "And whatever you choose to do, you'll be amazing at it. You're brilliant in ways that can't be measured by math."

Something in your chest squeezed at his words, at how completely sincere he sounded. No one had ever looked at you quite like that before, like they could see past the cheerleader uniform to something more. You opened your mouth to respond, but found yourself at a loss for words. Seeming to sense your nervousness, Satoru cleared his throat and changed the subject. "So, um... about earlier. Does that happen often? With Jake, I mean?"

You let out a heavy sigh. "Jake's been... persistent. We went on one date last semester. Probably the worst decision I've ever made. He spent the whole time talking about himself and got angry when I wouldn't kiss him goodnight." You stirred your melting milkshake absently. "Ever since then, he's been acting like he has some kind of claim on me. Using our stunts to show off, getting too close during practice."

"Has he hurt you before? During practice?"

"Not exactly, but..." you hesitated. "Sometimes the way he throws me feels more like he's trying to prove something than actually do the routine right. Like today."

"You should report him. What he's doing isn't safe. If he's letting his personal feelings affect—" Satoru's hands tightened around his milkshake glass. "Sorry, I just... I don't like the idea of him putting you at risk."

You paused at the sudden intensity of his words, and somehow they made your heart melt like ice cream on a summer day. "You're so sweet," you said quietly.

"I'm just worried," he replied, then quickly added, "As your tutor, I mean. Can't have my student getting injured."

"Right. As my tutor," you echoed, trying to ignore the strange ache at his words. "Of course."

The walk back to your dorm was quiet but comfortable, the night air cool against your skin. Satoru walked close enough that your arms occasionally brushed, sending little sparks through you each time. You found yourself walking slower than necessary, trying to stretch out these last few moments with him. When you reached your building, you turned to face him, suddenly nervous. 

"Thanks for everything tonight. The rescue, the dinner, just... everything."

"Anytime," he said softly, the streetlight catching his blue eyes, making them seem impossibly bright beneath his white lashes.

Before you could overthink it, you rose on your tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. His skin was warm under your lips, and you could feel him freeze at the contact. When you pulled back, his face was completely red, one hand touching the spot where you'd kissed him like he couldn't quite believe it had happened. His glasses were slightly fogged up, and something about how adorably flustered he looked made you brave.

"Can I ask you something?" The words tumbled out before you could stop them. "Have you... I mean, do you have much experience? With girls?" You immediately wanted to die of embarrassment. "Sorry, that's so personal, you don't have to—"

"No!" he blurted, then winced at how loud that came out. "I mean, not really. I've been... focused on academics mostly. And girls don't usually..." he trailed off, adjusting his glasses in that nervous way of his. "Why do you ask?"

Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could hear it. "Can I..." You swallowed hard, gathering every bit of strength you had. "Would it be okay if I kissed you?"

His eyes widened behind his glasses, lips parting in surprise. For a moment, he seemed to be running calculations in his head, processing your words like data input. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

Rising on your tiptoes again, you gently pressed your lips to his. He was completely still at first, seemingly frozen in shock, and for a terrifying moment you thought you'd made a horrible mistake. But then his hand came up to cup your face, surprisingly steady for someone who'd been so nervous moments before, and suddenly he was kissing you back.

And oh — for someone with "not really" any experience, he kissed like he'd been thinking about this for ages. His other hand slid to your waist, pulling you closer as he deepened the kiss with a confidence that made your knees weak. Your hands fisted in his sweater vest as his thumb stroked your cheek, and you couldn't help the small sound that escaped when he gently caught your lower lip between his.

When you finally pulled apart, you were both breathing hard. His glasses were completely fogged up now, but you could still see the intensity in his eyes behind them. He hadn't moved away completely, his hand still cupping your face, your bodies close enough that you could feel the slight trembling in his breathing as you tried to process how your adorably awkward tutor had just given you the best kiss of your life. 

"See you at our next tutoring session?" His thumb brushed your cheek one last time before he slowly pulled back.

You could only manage a nod, your mind still fuzzy from the kiss. As you watched him walk away, occasionally glancing back at you with that sweet, slightly dazed smile, you realized math had suddenly become your favorite subject.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

You'd been staring at the same equation for ten minutes now, but none of the numbers made sense. How could they, when all you could think about was that kiss from the other night? The way Satoru's hand had felt on your face, how confidently he'd pulled you closer, the soft brush of his thumb against your cheek—

"Are you okay? You seem distracted."

His voice snapped you back to reality. You were in your usual study room, but everything felt different now. The space seemed smaller somehow, more crowded. The fact that it was unusually warm for spring didn't help. Satoru had rolled up the sleeves of his button-down to his elbows, his sweater vest abandoned over the back of his chair. You'd never realized how distracting forearms could be until now.

"I'm fine!" you said too quickly, forcing your eyes back to your textbook. "Just... struggling with this problem."

"Here, let me show you." He leaned closer and reached for your pencil, his hand brushing yours in the process. You both froze at the contact, the air between you growing thick with unspoken thoughts.

"Sorry," he murmured, but didn't move away. This close, you could see the faint freckles dusting his cheeks and nose, how his blue eyes darted briefly to your lips before returning to the textbook.  

You weren't sure who was actually more distracted. You, who couldn't stop thinking about that kiss, or him, who kept adjusting his glasses and clearing his throat whenever your hands accidentally touched. The usual comfortable silence of your study sessions had turned electric, charged with everything neither of you were saying.

"Maybe we should take a break," you suggested, your voice coming out slightly breathless when he reached across you to grab an eraser, his arm brushing your shoulder.

"Right. Yeah. Good idea." He leaned back in his chair, both of you falling quiet. You could practically see him thinking, the way he always did before solving a complex problem, while your own thoughts kept drifting back to that kiss, to how surprisingly confident he'd been—

"About the other night—" you both started at the same time, then laughed nervously.

"You go first," he said, adjusting his glasses.

You took a deep breath. "I liked it." Your face felt hot, but you forced yourself to continue. "I mean the kiss. It was good. Like, really good. Which kind of surprised me because you said you didn't have much experience, and I was wondering..."

"If I lied?" He gave a small, self-ironic laugh. "No, I meant what I said. I haven't... I mean, there haven't been many girls. Actually," he cleared his throat, looking everywhere but at you, "there haven't been any. Girls, I mean. Before."

Your eyes widened. "Wait, was that your first kiss?"

"No! I mean… I've kissed a few girls before, but nothing serious. I was always too focused on academics to really... pursue anything."

Pursue anything? What did that even mean? Your mind was already racing with thoughts of how much you wanted to pursue everything with him. The study room suddenly felt too small, too warm. You stood up abruptly, needing to move, to do something with this nervous energy coursing through you.

After pacing a few steps, you turned back to him. "Would you... want to kiss me again?" The words came out in a rush, and you immediately wanted to take them back when you saw his stunned expression. "Sorry, that was probably too forward. If you don't want to, that's totally okay, I just thought—"

Your rambling stopped as Satoru stood and walked to the door behind you. He turned the lock with a soft click that made your breath catch. When he turned back to you, there was that confidence again, the kind that made you weak in the knees.

And then you were against the bookshelf, his hands cupping your face as his mouth found yours. This kiss was different from your first — more urgent, less hesitant. One of his hands slid into your hair, the other dropped to your waist, pulling you closer as he deepened the kiss.

You gasped against his lips, your hands gripping his shirt as he kissed you like he'd been thinking about this all day — which, based on how distracted you'd both been during studying, he probably had.

He pressed your back further against the bookshelf, the force of his kiss sending several books tumbling to the floor. Neither of you paid any attention. You were too focused on his hand tightening in your hair, the surprising strength of his grip on your waist.

Then, without warning, his hands slid down to your thighs, and he lifted you effortlessly. You gasped in surprise. All those times you’d wondered about the strength of his broad shoulders hidden beneath his sweater vests… turns out you hadn't been imagining things. He carried you to the study table, setting you gently on the edge. 

You wrapped your legs around his waist instinctively as he stepped between them, one of his hands bracing on the table beside you while the other cupped your face. His kiss deepened, his tongue tracing your lips before slipping inside. "Is this okay?" he murmured against your mouth, always thoughtful even in moments like this.

You nodded, pulling him closer by his shirt. "More than okay."

"Would you want me to—I mean… can I... try something?" 

Try? What does he want to try? Your pulse quickened and you simply nodded, not trusting your voice, already breathless from how he said 'try' like you were his favorite research subject.

His lips found yours again as he gently pressed you back against the table, your math notes scattering forgotten to the floor. His mouth moved to your neck, drawing a soft gasp from you while one hand traced down your side with surprising confidence, his body fitting perfectly between your legs. And you began to wonder, for someone who claimed to be inexperienced, Satoru seemed to know exactly what he was doing — and if this was him being inexperienced, heaven help you when he gained some confidence.

His mouth then traveled lower and lower, lifting one of your legs up over his shoulder so that he could kiss down your inner thighs and your last coherent thought, before his lips were on you, was that some lessons were definitely best learned outside textbooks.

Everything that followed were barely contained curses and moans as Satoru pushed two fingers inside, pressing deep and slow while his tongue worked on you. It wasn't long before you came, you back arched, pressing closer to him as you reached your climax, your thighs involuntarily closing around his head. But he was quick to react, grabbing your thighs and spreading them apart, his tongue still on you, drawing out every last shudder of your orgasm until you thought you couldn't take it anymore, your fingers tightening in his hair, not sure if you wanted him closer or to pull him off you.

It took you a few moments to come back to reality. Your breathing heavy, body still trembling as you tried to process what just happened. Your brilliant, sweet, cute, nerdy math tutor had just made you cum on that table in the study room of your college in a matter of minutes — and it was better than any long sex you'd ever had with anyone else.

Satoru slowly eased his fingers out of you and kissed your thighs again, as if he couldn't get enough of you. You didn't say anything for a long time, so he must have been getting nervous, because then he asked, "Was that... okay?"

You pushed yourself up on your elbows to look at him. He adjusted his glasses, which were clearly covered with something liquid you were sure came from you, in that adorably nervous way of his.

"Okay?" You let out a breathless laugh. "How are you so... I mean, where did you learn to...?"

"I'm good at… studying."

You were silent.

"Hah?"

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

The days following your tutoring session in the study room felt like walking through a dream. Neither of you had explicitly talked about what happened — what it meant, what you were to each other now. Your study sessions continued like always, like he hadn’t made you cum on this precise table with his mouth just a few days before. So much for being inexperienced.

Satoru remained surprisingly composed, if a bit more touchy than before. His hand lingered on your lower back when he leaned in to check your work, his fingers brushing strands of hair behind your ear when you concentrated. You caught him watching you with that intense blue gaze more often, though he'd quickly look away and adjust his glasses when you met his eyes.

You figured he was waiting until after your upcoming exam, not wanting to distract you more than he already did. Though honestly, how were you supposed to focus on math when all you could think about was his hands, his mouth, the way he'd— okay, let's not go there.

At least cheerleading practice had gotten better. Jake had done a complete 180° shift in behavior. No more aggressive throws, no more hovering around after practice, not even the usual suggestive comments. It was almost unsettling how quickly he'd backed off, though you weren't about to question the peace.

It was during one of your regular study sessions, while you were working through practice problems for your upcoming exam, that Satoru finally brought it up.

"How has Jake been lately?"

"Oh, uhm… actually, really good. Well, not good exactly, more like... absent?" You tapped your own pencil against your textbook thoughtfully. "He barely speaks to me anymore, which is weird considering how persistent he was before. It's like someone scared him off or..." You paused, the pieces suddenly clicking together. "Satoru, did you say something to him?"

He pushed his glasses up, a tell you'd learned meant he was either nervous or hiding something. "We may have had a conversation."

"A conversation," you repeated flatly.

"About physics." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Specifically about force, momentum, and the potential consequences of their misuse."

"Satoru!"

"What?" He finally looked up at you, and there was that flash of confidence again, the kind that made your heart flutter. "I simply explained some basic principles. Like how someone with my understanding of applied physics could theoretically calculate exactly how much force it would take to—"

"You threatened him with physics?" You weren't sure whether to be horrified or impressed.

"It was more like an educational discussion." His blue eyes met yours, surprisingly serious. "I don't like seeing people I care about being put in dangerous situations."

Your heart stuttered at his words. People he cared about. That was... something. Maybe not a definition of what you were to each other, but definitely something.

"So," you said, trying to keep your voice steady despite your racing pulse, "you care about me?"

His hand stilled on the page. For a moment, he just looked at you, and the intensity in his gaze made you forget how to breathe. "Didn't what happened in this room last week make that fairly obvious?"

Heat rushed to your face at the memory. "We haven't really talked about that."

"No," he agreed softly. "We haven't."

The air between you grew thick with longing. Your practice problems lay forgotten as you both gravitated closer, drawn together like opposing charges in one of his physics equations.

"I wanted to wait," he admitted. "Until after your exam. I didn't want to..." He swallowed hard as you shifted closer. "To distract you."

"You're always distracting," you whispered, close enough now to see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes. "With your stupid glasses and your physics metaphors and the way you explain math like it's poetry."

His hand came up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheek in that way that made you melt. "We should probably talk about this properly."

"Probably," you agreed, already leaning in.

"After your exam," he murmured against your lips.

"After my exam," you echoed, and then his mouth was on yours, and for a while, neither of you did much talking at all.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

You almost floated through the library's quiet halls, clutching your exam results to your chest. The paper was slightly crumpled from how many times you'd unfolded and refolded it, just to make sure the grade was real. Third highest in the course. You. In maths. It felt surreal.

The library was nearly empty, everyone else either at the game or starting their weekend celebrations. You should have been there too, in your uniform leading cheers, but your shoulder still hurt slightly from that bad landing last week. As much as you hated missing a game, the forced rest had given you extra time to study, which clearly paid off.

Besides, you knew exactly where to find him — the same spot where he always studied on Friday nights, tucked away in the far corner between the physics and mathematics sections.

Sure enough, there he was, surrounded by his usual fortress of textbooks. His white hair caught the warm light from the desk lamp, falling into his eyes as he bent over what looked like quantum mechanics homework. He hadn't noticed you yet, and for a moment you just watched him, feeling your heart swell with affection for this brilliant, ridiculous man who had somehow made you understand derivatives.

"Guess who got an A?" you announced, dropping into the chair across from him.

Satoru's head snapped up, his blue eyes widening behind his glasses. "You got your results?"

You slid the paper across to him, unable to contain your smile. "Third highest in the course. Can you believe it?"

He scanned the paper, and the pride that bloomed across his face made your chest tight. "I can absolutely believe it." His smile was soft, genuine. "You worked so hard for this."

"I had a pretty amazing tutor," you said. "Thank you. For believing I could do this even when I didn't."

"You did all the work. I just helped you see what was already there." But as he spoke, you noticed something in his expression — a tightness around his eyes, the slight slump of his shoulders. Now that your excitement was settling, you could see his exhaustion.

"Are you okay? You look... stressed."

He let out a long breath, running his hand through his already messy white hair. "That obvious, huh?" He gestured to the complex equations covering his notebook. "I've been working on this quantum mechanics assignment. There's this one problem that's just..." He trailed off, frustration evident in his voice.

"Wait, something the great Satoru Gojo can't solve?" you teased gently, but your smile faded when you saw the genuine worry in his eyes. "How long have you been working on this?"

"Since..." He glanced at his watch and winced. "Before sunrise?"

You looked at the dark windows, realizing the sun had long since set. "You've been here all day?"

"Had to get it right." He stifled a yawn. "It's an important assignment and I just can't seem to get it right."

"You need a break."

"But I'm so close, I can feel it. If I just—" His words cut off as you disappeared under the table. He looked down, eyes widening behind his glasses as you crawl under the table to his side and settled between his legs.

"What are you..." His voice caught as your hands slid up his thighs. "Someone could—"

"The library's empty." Your fingers were already working on his belt. "And you need to relax."

"This is a terrible idea," he said, but his breathing had already grown uneven.

"Then tell me to stop." You looked up at him through your lashes, enjoying how his pupils dilated. Instead of answering, his hand slid into your hair, and you took that as permission to help him forget about quantum mechanics for a while.

His breath hitched as you undid the button of his pants, the zipper sliding down with a soft hiss. His cock was bigger than you'd thought, and your eyes widened slightly as you took in the sight, your fingers tracing the length, feeling his veins beneath your touch. Why is it always the quiet guys with the biggest cocks? 

You moved slowly at first, wanting to give him the full experience if this was to be his first blowjob ever, your breath ghosting over him before you finally took him into your mouth. You started with just the tip, your tongue swirling around it, tasting his precum, before licking along the sensitive underside of his shaft, and then sealing your lips around him.

"Oh god, that's... that's—fuck it’s so good." His head tilted back, eyes closing, his voice strained with the effort of keeping quiet. 

His hand tightened in your hair, not pushing but holding, gently guiding your movements. With his other hand, he gripped his math notes on the table, the pages crinkling under his tight grasp as if they were his last hold on sanity.

You took him deep and Satoru swore he could see stars. His moans became more urgent, less restrained. "Yes, just like that, oh fuck, feels so good." His words broken by throaty moans that he tried to muffle with his free hand pressed against his mouth. "You're going to make me—oh god, so close." 

His thighs tensed under your hands, his breathing becoming ragged. You could feel every shudder, every twitch of his body. "I'm gonna— I'm—" His words cut off as his orgasm hit, his body tensing, his hand holding your head firmly but gently as he spilled into your mouth, his cum hot against your tongue. "Oh fuck, oh fuck," he gasped, a series of curses tumbling from his lips and amidst the swearing, you swear you caught a fragment of a mathematical theorem, though you might have misheard.

Afterwards, his body trembled, his breathing heavy and uneven, his grip on your hair loosening as he slumped back in his chair, completely spent. "God, that was... fuck, that was amazing."

"Still thinking about that assignment?" you asked innocently,  emerging from under the desk to find him looking like a mess, with his face flushed, glasses askew, and his white hair a bit damp around his forehead as he tried to regain his breathing.

"I... I can't even remember my own name right now." He pulled you into his lap for a kiss. His thumb traced your cheek as he kissed you gently, making your heart flutter in your chest.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡♡ ⋆｡°✩

A few weeks later, your head rested comfortably in Satoru's lap as you watched him read through his graded quantum mechanics assignment. Warm sunshine filtered through cherry blossoms above, casting dappled shadows across your shared blanket beneath the old tree on a lazy spring afternoon on campus. A gentle breeze carried the scent of fresh grass and early flowers, ruffling his white hair as he studied the papers held above you.

His glasses caught the sunlight, making his blue eyes look like summer sky caught in glass. Your own textbook lay forgotten beside you on the blanket. You were more interested in watching Satoru and the slight smile that played on his lips.

"So?" you finally asked, reaching up to poke his cheek. "How did you do?"

He looked down at you. "Perfect score." He tilted the paper so you could see the bold A marked in red at the top. 

"I knew you could do it!" you exclaimed, reaching up to cup his cheek. "My brilliant quantum genius." You sat up, turning to face him properly, your knees brushing his thighs on the blanket. "I am so proud of you. But I didn't expect less from my tutor."

He leaned into your touch, a slight blush coloring his cheeks. "Speaking of tutoring, have you checked your final grade for the semester?"

You had, actually — multiple times, still not quite believing it. "A solid A. Turns out I'm not so bad at maths."

"You were always good at it," he said softly, brushing a fallen petal from your shoulder. "You just needed someone to help you see it differently." He paused, adjusting his glasses in that endearingly nervous way of his, the lenses catching the golden afternoon light. "Though I have to admit, I'm a little sad our tutoring sessions are over."

"Who says they have to be?" You leaned into him. His arms immediately wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer. "I'm taking Advanced Calculus next semester."

His eyebrows shot up. "Voluntarily?"

"Well," you played with the collar of his sweater vest, "I heard the TA for that class is really cute. Bit of a nerd, but in a hot way. Plus, I have it on good authority that he's dating this amazing cheerleader…"

"Is he now?" His hands tightened on your waist. "Sounds like a lucky guy."

"Oh, he is." You leaned in to press a soft kiss to his cheek. "Though not as lucky as she is."

He caught your chin and tilted your face up to his. "I love you," he said simply, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he hadn't just made your heart stop with those three words.

"I love you too," you whispered back, and when he kissed you, it was sweet and warm like the spring sunshine itself, perfect and precious as the moment suspended around you, there beneath the trees where your love had grown from equations into something far more beautiful.

You intertwined your fingers with his, loving how perfectly they fit together, and couldn't help but smile at how perfectly everything had worked out. Who would have thought that one failing grade in maths would lead to this? To finding love in derivatives and fun in mathematics, to discovering that the quiet genius in the back of class would become your everything?

But then again, maybe it was all just simple math: one struggling student plus one brilliant tutor, multiplied by countless study sessions, divided by shy laughter and hesitant kisses, equals a love story that even mathematics couldn't complicate.

And that was an equation you were more than happy to solve.

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author's note — thank you so much for reading !! to be honest, i've been feeling pretty stuck lately with my longer series, doubting my writing and wondering if i'd lost my spark or so. but i think this story is quite cute and i had so much fun writing it. there's just something so sweet about those library crushes, and falling in love between the pages of textbooks. hope you enjoyed it too !

for more stories check out my masterlist. your support means the world to me. until next time, lots of love & happy early valentine's day <3

ps: if you want to get notifications for future updates, you can join my taglist here !

tags — @fayuki @starmapz @snowsilver2000 @starlightanyaaa @sxnkuna

@cocomanga @nanamis-baker @rosso-seta @sugurbo @janbannan

@bloopsstuff @ihearttoru @momoewn @yokosandesu @90s-belladonna

@fairygardenprincesss @juneslove21 @glenkiller338 @gojossugarcandy

Your “boss”, for lack of a better term, only scowls harder, the wrinkles forming near his eyes etching deeper in his skin. “Well, you’d best find a way to make it work. You’re taking this job. That’s final.” You scoff. Maybe you should recommend he see someone… “No. There’s no way. I’m not doing this.” You stand, grabbing your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. “Get someone else to go on your suicide mission.” You take a couple strides toward the door before two very large men move to block your path. 

“Not so fast,” your boss calls. You pause, eyeing up your competition. You could definitely take them if you needed to. You sense only a very faint amount of cursed energy coming from each of them– not even enough to make you blink– but something in your boss’s tone makes you turn back. 

“Yes?” You cross your arms over your chest, fingering a blade hidden in your breast pocket. 

He fiddles around in his pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up right there in his office. You don’t try to hide the way your nose scrunches up. “You want to do this job.” 

Your eyes narrow. Something tells you you’re not going to like what comes next. “And why’s that?” 

He takes a long puff, letting the smoke flowing out of his lungs with a slow exhale. “Because otherwise that little brother of yours is gonna be…” he pauses to give you a smile that makes your stomach churn. “Hmm… a lot smaller, shall we say? Maybe in several limb sized pieces?”

You think your heart stops. Time halts as ice runs through your veins. Nobody knows about your brother. At least, they didn’t. 

Your boss’s smile grows even wider. In all your time as an assassin, you’ve never wanted to kill someone more. But you know you can’t. Just an attempt on his life will end your brother’s. 

“Don’t worry. He’s all tucked away and safe at home where you left him.” Just a tiny piece of your heart thaws with relief. “But try to run with him, or run yourself, and he won’t be safe much longer.” Your pulse pounds so viciously you’re sure everyone can hear. A bead of sweat rolls down your neck. “Now, will you accept the assignment?” 

Your jaw clenches. He got you. In all these years of working for him you’ve been careful, meticulous about hiding every piece of your personal life to avoid situations just like this. But he still got you. He got you. 

“Yes,” you breathe. You have no choice. You will either kill Satoru Gojo or you will die trying. 

“Good,” is all he says, and then you’re being escorted out of the office wondering where the hell you went wrong. 

~

It’s been three weeks since that fateful meeting with your boss. True to his word, your brother has remained unharmed, but you see his lackeys lurking around every corner. Neither you nor your brother are truly safe and you never will be again unless you can pull this off and then put together some plan to escape your boss’s clutches. 

You’ll fail. You know you will. The thought eats you up inside with every waking moment. 

You’ve done your best to learn every possible piece of information about Satoru Gojo in the past two weeks. You know you can’t tail him closely– he’d pick up on your cursed energy and notice your incessant presence, so you’ve had to study from a distance with only minimal moments of proximity. You know where he works, who he works with, what restaurants, bars, and clubs he frequents and what days of the week he tends to visit. You know what his order is at his favorite ramen restaurant, where he lives, what time he wakes up. Hell, you know what fucking brand of dish soap he uses. He lives a surprisingly… predictable lifestyle. He makes no attempt to switch up his schedule or cover his tracks. In any other situation he’d be every assassin’s dream, but this is Satoru Gojo and Satoru Gojo doesn’t need to worry about assassins– assassins need to worry about him.

It took you the first week to come up with a plan. You had no clue how you were going to get close to him, much less kill him, and his infinity technique was going to prove particularly problematic. How were you supposed to kill him when you couldn’t even touch him? You had to get him in a situation in which he would willingly let his guard down for you. 

You’d been on the subway when it hit you. Sex. You’d get him to have sex with you. If you could get him to take you home, he’d have to turn infinity off for at least a short time. That would be your time to strike. 

You’d spent the next two weeks primping yourself. You’d bought the most expensive dress you’d ever owned, got a mani-pedi, whitened your teeth, and spent a small fortune on makeup. Considering your circumstances, you thought your plan was quite a good one. You knew when he’d go out to the bar with his friends, which bar he’d go to, how long he’d stay, how he’d get a taxi home. You also knew when you’d arrive, how long you’d stay, and how you’d get a taxi with him– everything planned perfectly to best catch his attention. But for all your planning, there was still one thing you didn’t know. What kind of woman did Satoru Gojo go for? Someone submissive? Teasing? Aggressive? Playful? In all your time tracking him you’d never seen him take somebody home. It struck you as… odd. He was Satoru Gojo, renowned for his power, wealth, and good looks– surely he had women falling at his feet. Maybe he was just a little more… selective. If that was the case you’d have to be even quicker on your feet when you finally met him. And that time is now. 

You’re in your bathroom, checking your makeup one last time before heading out the door. Your brother sleeps soundly in the room down the hall, safe for the time being. You’ve contacted a friend, one who is at least willing to try to get him out if– when– you fail. You doubt it will be enough.

You make your way to his room. A quick peek inside reveals he’s snuggled up with a plushie elephant that he carries around like they’re attached at the hip. You creep inside, a sad smile on your lips. This may very well be the last time you see him. You brush a stray lock of hair from his eyes and press a kiss to the crown of his head. With one last whispered ‘I love you’, you’re out the door. If you linger, you won’t be able to go– and you have to. For him. 

The streets of Tokyo are cold tonight, like the weather knows what you’re about to attempt, like it’s preparing for death, for failure. For your failure.

The club you arrive at is upscale, and one where you’ve already tipped off the bouncer to let you bypass the line. You hear a few groans from the people behind you as you saunter straight inside. 

You’re conscious of every little move from the second you step inside. At any moment, he could see you and it could make or break your entire plan.

You press your shoulders back. You have a plan– stick to it. 

You make your way over to the bar, weaving your way between groups of people who are somewhere between giggling a little too loudly and tripping over their own feet. 

You find a free space at the bar and lean up onto your elbows, your eyes screening the bartenders. You smile when you see a familiar face. 

“Hey, Dean,” you call.

He turns and the sight of his friendly green eyes sets you a little more at ease. 

“Oh, shit. Hey!” He slings a towel over his shoulder and comes to stand across from you. “You’re back,” he says. You nod and smile softly. Ever since you’d determined this would be the place you’d been coming periodically, chatting up the bartenders. The last thing you needed was to stand around in a corner alone with seemingly no friends. That wouldn’t attract anyone, much less Satoru Gojo. 

Out of all the bartenders, Dean was your favorite– and you’d been oh so happy to learn that his schedule put him on every Friday night. 

“Yeah. Long day at work.” 

A smile pulls at his lips, but there’s a hint of sympathy in his eyes. “The usual, then?” 

You nod solemnly. “That’d be great. Thanks.” 

You watch him prepare the drink for you, feeling a little bad that it’s all a lie. There’s no bad day at work, you didn’t just happen to come in here one day and strike up a conversation with him. All of this is premeditated, planned, and it feels… lonely. It feels lonely to know that on what is probably your last night on earth you are surrounded by people who only think they know you. 

“So, anything new happening?” Dean drops your drink in front of you and you have a feeling it’s filled with a little more vodka than he’s supposed to put in there. 

Your eyes shift around the bar as subtly as you can manage. As much as you want to seem like you fit in, you also need to find Gojo. It’s a fine balance. 

You shrug. “Yeah, I guess I just feel like a lot of things are going to be changing for me pretty soon.” 

His brows pull together and the look he gives you is one of genuine interest and concern. It makes your heart wrench. “How so?” 

You swallow. “Dunno. Just… everything.”

There’s a moment of silence and then the tapping of a finger on your glass. “Damn, girl. Drink up. You need it.” 

You can’t help but smile. You have a feeling that Dean would have been a good friend of yours in another life. 

You take his advice, though, and bring your drink to your lips and force a smile. You can’t be moping– not tonight. 

The next twenty minutes are spent with Dean. Even when he’s making other drinks he’s still chatting with you, still being a good… friend. You dread leaving your little haven at the bar. The time is coming when you’ll have to seek out your target.

You’re shocked when it’s the other way around. 

“Hey, gorgeous.” There’s a light brush on your shoulder and you turn. It takes all you have to keep your features schooled and calm. Satoru fucking Gojo just tapped your shoulder. 

Nothing prepared you for how handsome he is up close. All those days of research, of tracking and tailing– none of it does the real thing justice. Even with those stupid sunglasses inside… he’s fucking beautiful. “I’ll pay for all of your drinks tonight if you let me skip this hideous line,” he whines. 

You give yourself no more than a second to recover. You school your features into a smirk. You glance at Dean with an ‘is this okay?’ look. He just smiles and shrugs. 

You turn back to Gojo, bracing yourself this time for the beauty you’re about to face. You meet his gaze and know you could get lost in it. “Be my guest.” 

His smile nearly blinds you and his dimples nearly make you pass out. Still, you keep your cool. 

“Yesssss!” He looks like a puppy just offered a bone. 

He spills his drink order to Dean and it’s far more than could possibly be just for him. He’s here with his friends, then. Probably the blonde man who always looks too tired to be here and the girl with the brown hair who always seems like she’s just along for the ride. 

You bite your lip to hide a laugh when he orders himself two strawberry daiquiris. Somehow you still catch his attention. 

“What?” he pouts. You can’t help but feel a small stirring of surprise in your gut. He’s far more… relaxed than you’d expected him to be. He’s almost… childish? 

You press your lips together and shake your head. You’ve reached the point where your research can’t take you any further. From this point on, it’s up to you to discover what Satoru Gojo likes in a woman. 

You debate how to answer. Play coy? Tease him? Stay silent? Any option could be as correct as the next. You didn’t know where to start… so maybe you’d just start by being yourself. 

“Just, um… not the order I was expecting,” you laugh. It’s halfway genuine. With the way he’s acting, it’s hard to remember that he’s the most powerful man alive. 

His pout only intensifies. “Well, what’s your order?” 

His question is answered when Dean sets another cosmopolitan in front of you. You laugh. “Never said I was judging, just that it wasn’t what I expected.” 

Another smile tugs at his lips and something stirs in your gut that you try your very hardest to ignore. This was a job. There was no room for actually enjoying it. This man was probably going to kill you later, in a matter of hours. 

There’s a beat of silence, and then a slight shift in his demeanor. He leans closer and you see a twitch of his lips. Your heart jumps. 

“You’re a sorcerer,” he says. 

You hold back an exhale of relief. You thought he might be onto you. If he is, he’s choosing not to reveal it yet. 

You nod and take what you hope is a casual sip of your drink. “And you’re Satoru Gojo.” 

A brow arches high enough for you to see it over his sunglasses. “You know who I am?” 

You force a chuckle, smirking despite the pounding of your heart. “Who doesn’t?” 

You’d decided long ago to tell him that you knew exactly who he was. It would seem more suspicious for a fellow sorcerer to have no idea what the Satoru Gojo looked like. 

He flashes you a smile full of white and stupidly fucking perfect teeth. “That’s true, heh.” You press your lips together to avoid a smile. Not too humble, then… 

“So, what’s your technique” 

You shoot him a glance that questions his sanity. Asking a sorcerer what their technique is… is personal. It’s not information you give out to a rando at the bar– even if it is Satoru Gojo.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” You take another sip of your drink, trying your hardest to remain somewhere on the border or interested and casual. 

“Bet I could find out.” 

That makes you turn fully, angling your body toward his. “Oh yeah? You challenging me to a fight?” You smirk and shake your head. “I’ll pass.” 

He pouts again, but you see a hint of a smile peeking through. “Aw, come on. That’s no fun…” 

You chuckle and take another sip of your drink. You’re not sure you’re sipping just for appearances anymore. You think you probably just need a little liquid courage to see this thing through. “Sorry. I value my life.” 

You watch as he slides his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, just enough for you to get a glimpse of what’s behind. You nearly choke again and this time you don’t manage to hide your nervous swallow when he smirks. 

“You’re so sure you’d lose?” His voice is teasing now and you hate that it’s actually having an effect on you. Job, job, job, just a job… 

You clear your throat. “I like to think I’m not stupid enough to think that I could win.” 

His eyes are blue– so fucking blue– and you feel like he’s seeing straight into your soul. Can he see? Can he see your filthy intentions? Your plotting? The rottenness of what you’re going to do? “What if I promise to take it real easy on you?” 

Your drink is forgotten now. You’re lost in what he’s saying– in him. “No thanks.” Your voice is growing lower and you feel like there’s some magnet forcing you to lean into him, to seek his warmth. 

“So you like it rough, then.” The trance is broken and your blood runs hot. Holy shit. This man is flirting with you and you hardly even had to try. He's trying to take you home. Little does he know, you’re a sure thing. 

You watch as he throws back the rest of his strawberry daiquiri with a pleased “ahhh” at the end. When he turns back to you his eyes have a certain spark in them that makes your thighs press together. “You wanna dance with me?” 

Fuck. This is going too well to be real. But you’re not about to pass up a good deal. 

“What about your friends?” you ask and eye the several untouched drinks still left on the bar. It’s risky– giving him an out, but you can’t seem too eager.

He follows your gaze only to bounce his eyes straight back to you. “I’m sure they’ll get a look at ya and understand.” 

The smirk he’s giving you is making electricity shoot straight between your legs. Damn. You really wish you didn’t have to kill him– or at least try to. 

When he extends his hand you only hesitate for a second. Your heart leaps when you feel his skin on yours, knowing he’s let infinity down. He pulls you onto the dancefloor and it’s not long before he’s running his hands all over you– groping your ass, pinching your thighs, nipping at your neck. Pretty soon the dancefloor evolves to a dark corner of the club with his lips on yours and goddamn he’s a good kisser. You’ve got your fingers in his hair and his hand way too close to your boobs when he whispers those fateful words– “let’s get out of here.”

You can only hide your swallow and nod before he’s pulling you through the crowd, leaving the club behind. He hauls you both into the backseat of a taxi and the door’s barely closed before he’s all over you again. You think you hear the taxi driver mutter something about ‘staining the seats’ but you’re too far gone to give a shit. 

Fuck, he feels good. He’s kisses you like he’s starved and your lips are the fountain of fucking life, like he’s never felt something so good and now he can’t get enough. And, god, he’s handsy. You’re forever grateful to your past self for discreetly hiding your blade in your bra– he would have felt a holster on your thigh at least ten times over by now. 

He groans when you arrive at what you know is his apartment building, though you don’t let on that you recognize the place in the slightest. The look on his face makes you think he’s feeling actual physical pain at the prospect of having to peel away from you for even a second. Nonetheless, he tosses a wad of cash at the taxi driver and pulls you straight inside.

He can’t even wait for the elevator to come, groping your waist right there in the lobby and then when the elevator finally does come, shoving you up against the metal wall a licking stripe across your collarbone. 

You can’t deny how nice it feels to be so desperately… wanted. Never once has a man made you feel this way– so consumed by him, him, him. Once again you curse the universe that you’re here with a mission other than getting laid. 

You find yourself giggling when he pulls you out of the elevator and presses his palm to a fucking scanner to get into his apartment. You try to pull yourself together, but when he laughs with you, you can’t help but melt into him a little more.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind you, he’s got you up against another wall with your legs wrapped around his waist and his face buried in your neck. His sunglasses are long gone and you pull at his shirt, popping the buttons straight off the fabric until you slide the shirt down his shoulders and onto the floor.

“That was Versace,” he whines. 

You plaster your lips to his. “I don’t care.” All he does is chuckle. 

“So gorgeous…” he breathes and your head slumps back against the wall, giving him better access to the soft skin of your neck. Any minute now. Any minute he’s going to start stripping your clothes off and you’re going to have to let this charade crumble. You don’t want to. He’s practically worshiping you. It’s perfect, it’s amazing, and you don’t want it to end. 

His fingers dig into the flesh of your ass and suddenly you’re moving again– moving, moving, moving until your back is bouncing against the softness of a mattress and you’re fucking giggling again like a lovesick idiot. Maybe you’d had a few too many sips of those cosmopolitans. 

He’s smiling as he crawls over you and the sight makes your heart flutter with both lust and terror. Lust because he’s so fucking beautiful and terror because you know that any moment now you’re going to attempt to end that beauty forever. 

A lump forms in your throat and you try unsuccessfully to swallow it. You have to do this, have to try. There’s no other way, no other option. Not for you.

Your thoughts must not have been as perfectly concealed as you’d thought because he quirks a brow. “Something goin’ on up here?” His lips slide across your temple in a touch that feels far too tender for a hookup. “Don’t worry, baby. It’ll fit.” He snickers at his own joke before burying himself in your neck. His hand slides down your side, pressing you up into him until you can feel every curve and cut of his muscles. 

You bite your lip. You’ve already slipped enough for him to notice your nerves– you can’t let it happen again. You have to do it soon. Now. As soon as you see an opportunity you have to strike. You have to. 

You arch up into him, scratching your fingers down his back, trying to seem as invested in the moment as you can. He gets greedier, leaving open-mouthed kiss down your neck, across your collarbone. You nearly freeze up when he kisses low into the valley of your breasts– as low as your dress allows. Then he moves over your clothes, kissing down your stomach as his hands rub your thighs. 

Now. Now, while he’s not looking.

You slide a hand into his hair and another up to your chest, trying to play it off like you’re touching yourself. You sneak your fingers into your bra, feeling the cool metal of your blade glide across your thumb. Now. 

You fist your fingers in his hair, holding his head down as best you can while you arc the blade toward his neck. Just one good hit, please… 

You think you’re going to strike true– you’re so close– and then a firm hand wraps around your wrist, stalling your attack just as it was about to land. 

Fuck. 

He doesn’t look up right away, but you hear him sigh, feel his hot breath fanning over your thighs and stomach. When he finally does look up it’s with the eyes of a teacher who’s disappointed his student didn’t do their homework. 

“Come on now, baby. I was really hoping you’d forget about all this and we could just have a good night together…” He’s pouting, whining, like a child who’s been told he can’t have dessert before dinner. Your shock stills you long enough that he easily maneuvers the blade from your hand, throwing it with a thwack into the wall to his right. It lands perfectly. 

This is it. You’re going to die now. But not without a fight. 

You spring up from the bed, kicking him a couple times in the process. You’ve missed your only chance. Now, if there’s even the slightest chance of escape, you have to take it. 

You bare feet hit the carpet. No time to find your shoes. You dart for the door and hear him groan behind you. For a second you think you might actually make it, but you should know better. 

He appears in front of you, straight out of fucking thin air, and his pout has transformed into something a little more sinister. “Come on, gorgeous. Let’s talk it out, yeah?” 

You take a shaky step back, but you know it’s no use. He’s got you. It’s over. 

You swallow and lift your chin– you at least want to die with a little dignity. “Just make it quick. Please.” 

He sighs again and slides his hands in his fucking pockets, like this is just a stroll down the street. He stalks toward you, forcing you back until you’re pressed up against another wall. This motherfucker really likes walls. 

His pout shifts to a smirk that borders far too closely on a grin. “Oh, no. I’ve always had a thing for taking it slow.” 

You nearly snort. He certainly hadn’t had a thing for taking it slow just a minute ago. His arms cage you and your world grows infinitely smaller until it’s just him and those blue-ass eyes staring you down. Some distant part of you thinks you might not mind if it’s the last thing you ever see. 

“Damn, I really thought you might give it up and just let me fuck you,” his pout returns. “So disappointing…” he sighs. 

Your lips part. “You knew?” 

That lights his face up like a Christmas tree. “Sensed you tailing me these past few weeks. Started on theeeee– 21st, no?” 

Fuck. You’d been so careful. You’d only tailed him in public spaces, where your energy would be more diluted by the crowds. You’d stayed far enough away that he should only have caught mere glimpses of you, even suppressed your energy. He should not have been able to sense you. But he was Satoru Gojo– things people were not supposed to be able to do came easily to him. 

But you have one thing on him. 

“The 18th,” you whisper. “Started on the 18th.”

There’s a beat of silence and then his smile is growing wider, wider, wider, until it’s practically blinding you. “Well, shit,” he laughs. “You’re pretty good.” 

You let a tiny smile slip through your terror. “I try.” 

His eyes travel up and down your body, his pout slipping away to a frown. “What to do with you… hmm…” You lift your chin, taking shallow little breaths through your nose. You’re looking death in the face, but you’d never thought it would be so beautiful. He sighs. “I guess I could let you go.” 

You freeze. He notices. 

He quirks a brow, another smirk sliding across his lips. “What? Didn’t think that was an option?” You stay silent. No way he’ll let you go. It’s a bluff. A cruel trick. “It’s not like you could try again, gorgeous. I know your energy now and what you look like. Sorry, but your chance is gone.” That was fine by you. Your breaths come a little heavier, hope pulsing in your veins. “But–” shit. “Letting you go is so… boring. Especially after where we left off, yeah?” 

Your jaw drops. “You cannot seriously be suggesting that we–” 

He cuts you off with a kiss, one that makes your toes curl in the carpet and your stomach clench in anticipation. 

“Oh, yes I am,” he chuckles. You feel his hand sliding down your hip, cool and calculating. “I know you weren’t faking the whole thing, gorgeous. Nobody makes out like that when they’re faking it.” You feel your cheeks heat. “And nobody gets this wet-” his fingers snake beneath your skirt, pressing to the wet patch on your panties. “When they’re faking it.” You gasp and reach out, hands clasping onto his shoulders for support. He only chuckles. “No worries, gorgeous. No need for any more faking tonight. I’ll make sure it’s all real.” 

Somehow you’ve got your legs wrapped around his waist again and you’re headed to the bedroom– again. It’s like a replay– a redo. 

“Let’s keep it less killy this time, yeah?” 

Your back hits the mattress, your body bouncing lightly on its softness before he’s crawling after you. It’s simultaneously the best and worst deja vu you’ve ever experienced. 

His hands slide down your body again, fingertips hooking beneath the hem of your skirt and shimmying it up your thighs until your panties are on full display. 

“Shit,” you breathe. He’s moving so fast, like he’s desperate to go further, to get his greedy hands all over your bare skin. 

You can’t say you blame him. You feel the same.

His thumbs hook under the fabric of your panties and you know it’s over for you. You can feel his warm breath skating across your thighs, feel the calluses on his hands scraping against your skin. You reach a hand down, tangling it in his hair, and you nearly faint when he smirks and looks up at you with those blue fucking eyes. 

“I think I’ve seen this film before, sweetheart.” He tilts his head, resting his cheek on the plush of your thigh. “No more knives hiding anywhere, yeah?” 

You clench your jaw, trying to control your pounding heart. You can’t believe you’re doing this. Why are you doing this? You wish you had a better answer than he’s beautiful and sexy and just a glance at him makes you want to rip his clothes off and climb him like a tree. 

“Silent, hm? Guess I’ll just have to check myself…” 

He’s pressing up the hem up your skirt, more, more, more, until he’s pulling your dress straight up over your arms and running his hands down your bare sides. 

“None there…” His fingers cup your breast and you gasp, unable to contain your shock and the jolt that just rushed through you. He traces the outline of your bra. “You had the last one in here, no?” Your chest heaves under his touch, pressing the flesh of your breast up into his fingers. He smirks. “Best check again.” You feel an arm slide beneath you back and then your bra loosens before it’s completely gone. 

There’s a beat of silence, of admiration. He gazes down on you and you see his snark falter for just a moment, replaced by a sparkle in his eyes. It makes your skin heat. His fingers brush the swell of your breasts, thumb trailing down over a nipple. You arch and gasp again. 

“Fuck. Quit teasing so much.” 

He chuckles and the sound washes over you until it settles in your bones. “Sush. I’m not done checking for weapons yet.” 

You scowl but before you can even move to open your mouth he’s sliding your panties down your legs, hooking them around your ankles and tossing them somewhere on the floor.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips and you watch him settle himself down between your thighs, eyes never once leaving your center. “Don’t see any knives here, either, but maybe I should double-check…” he breathes. 

He hooks your legs over his shoulders and you shudder, your breaths shaky. Fuck. You were supposed to kill him tonight but if he keeps going like this you’ll be the one deceased. 

He meets your eyes when he takes the first long lick along your folds. You swear he’s smirking.

Your head rolls back and a pathetic sounding groan slips past your lips. You hadn’t realized how much he’d worked you up. Just the slightest touch feels like heaven.

His tongue nudges at your clits and your legs clench, tightening around his head. He laughs into your cunt and his warm breath skates up and over your tummy. Your fingernails scrape his scalp.

“I think you like this, gorgeous.” 

Each word sends little puffs of air against your folds. It’s driving you crazy. You stare down at him, letting a smirk pull at your lips. Your eyes dart over his mouth, wet with your slick, and you don’t fail to notice the way he’s struggling to hold your gaze, eyes flickering back down to your cunt every second. Your smirk grows. “I think you’re liking this, too.” 

He licks another stripe, from you pulsing hole to your throbbing clit, and this time he’s the one groaning. “Damn right I am.”

He eats you out like he kisses you– like a starved man, like he’ll die if he stops for just one second, like he can’t live without your juices on his tongue. 

You whine and bury both hands in his hair, tugging desperately when his lips wrap around you clit and suck. It’s so much, too much, and yet it’s just right. 

Your hips buck and squirm, but he’s got his fingers pressed deep into your flesh, holding you down to take whatever he gives. You think you see heaven when he slides two fingers into your walls, curling them into that gummy spot that has an unbearable heat building deep inside you. 

“S-Satoru-” you stutter and you hear him moan and mutter into your cunt like he’s unwilling to leave it for even a second.

“Fuck, yes. Say my name, sweetheart.” Who are you to deny him? You whisper, whine, and whimper his name with every thrust of his fingers, every lick of his tongue. It’s delicious. Every so often he swaps his mouth and hand, thrusting his tongue as deep inside you as he can while his fingers rub dangerous little circles on your clit. Whenever things get a little too filthy he laps his tongue across your entire cunt and along your inner thighs, cleaning up every stray drop. You don’t know how much longer you can last under such a complete and total assault. 

“S-Satoru, ‘m gonna-” He licks a thick stripe through your folds that makes your sentence end in a whine, his lips settling to suckle on your clit again.

God, it’s messy. It’s fucking disgusting. His whole chin is covered in spit and slick– and you love it. “Cum for me, baby,” he breathes. 

You don’t need to hear much more. You let the heat inside you release with a whine, thighs trembling on his shoulders. Your walls pulse and throb around his fingers, sucking him in and never wanting him to leave. His tongue continues to rub lazy circles around your clit, working you through your high and making it last so long you think you might pass out.

Warmth spreads from the top of your head to the tips of your toes and your muscles tense and clench with each pulsing throb. You swear to god you see fucking stars.

It seems to go on forever, leaving you limp and shaking when the last waves finally slip away. 

He presses a final kiss to your clit, one that makes your hips jolt from the overstimulation before he’s lifting himself up. “Wow. That looked like a big one,” he chuckles. He runs a soothing hand along your thigh and you don’t even have the energy to give him some sort of snarky reply. There’s hardly even a pause before something shifts in his eyes. “Let’s see if we can get one that’s even bigger, yeah?” 

Before you can even process what he’s said you feel strong hands slide under your thighs, pressing them tightly to your chest as he settles himself close to you

You grasp at the sheets, hearing the clinking of a belt buckle and then the familiar pitch of a zipper being undone. 

“Fuck,” you mutter. He’s big. Long and pretty and with a perfectly flushed tip. Your eyes are rolling back just thinking about having him inside you.

A strong hand smooths along your thighs, folding you in a way that feels more vulnerable and exposing than anything you’ve ever done before. He pauses for a beat, just staring down at you silently.

“Gorgeous,” he finally mutters, and something in your heart squeezes. His hand grips your hip firmly, holding you in place and you gasp when you feel him prodding at your entrance. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. Big bad assassin turned simpering little bitch over some good Gojo dick. 

“Just relaxxxxx, baby.” His hand rubs soothing little circles into your side and it’s so divinely distracting that it catches you by surprise when he starts pushing into you. You gasp and he only chuckles. Asshole. 

He’s big– really big – and the stretch is somehow both painful and perfect. You groan into the air, struggling to take him. Every inch feels like it must be the last, but then there’s more. Your walls clench around him on instinct, trying to force him out. 

“Fuck, baby. What did I say about relaxing?” You hiss when his hand skates down your tummy to rub messy circles on your clit. The relief is instant and you moan when you feel him slide in a little further. “There we go. Good girl.” 

He continues feeding his dick into you, inch by inch, until his hips finally press to yours and you think you can feel him in your fucking throat. You hear him exhale, like it’s a relief to finally be fully inside you, like he’s been waiting for ages. 

You expect him to not hold back, to let himself go and pound into you relentlessly, but he doesn’t. He only leans down closer to you, settling in when he starts a pace of slow, sensual thrusts. His brows pinch, his eyes hardened in concentration.

“Ah, fuck. You’re so tight.” 

You want to shoot something back at him, but you’re hardly remembering to breathe with how deep he’s sliding into you. Instead, you just end up holding him tighter, your eyes fluttering shut. 

Lips dust across your cheeks, just below your lashes. “Keep your eyes open, gorgeous. Wanna see you.” 

You blink, thinking that it’s a notion that feels a little too intimate for a hookup. Regardless, you do as he wants, opening your eyes and holding his gaze.

A smile splits his lips and he presses his forehead to yours, picking up the pace of his thrusts. It’s not long before the sound of skin on skin fills the room and you’re both panting. His breath skates across your skin, hot and heavy, hitching with the groans and whines that spill from his chest. You can’t help but pull him closer, raking your nails down his back hard enough to leave marks. The action makes him emit a noise you can only describe as a desperate whimper. “Fuck, baby. Yes.” 

His lips press to yours in a kiss that’s all desperation and teeth and tongue. You kiss him back with equal intensity, your body rocking with each heavy thrust. He’s pounding into you now, frantic for more, more, more of you. You want him to take it, take all of you. 

A familiar heat pinches in your stomach and you know it won’t be long before he’s pushing you to another release. His dick drags in and out of you, prodding at the gummy spot inside you with every thrust and brushing so deliciously against your cervix that you can’t stop the moans spilling from your lips. It has you seeing stars again, has you clawing at him and panting into his mouth. 

“Satoru… harder,” you breathe. You need more– more of everything, of him. 

He groans. “You got it, gorgeous.” 

His hips slam into you and it’s so perfect that you can’t help but whimper beneath him. It only gets worse when you feel his fingers on your clit again, hand pressed between your bodies. “Cum on my dick, baby.” Your eyes roll back, that coil inside you rolling tighter. You feel his muscles tensing and shaking above you and you know he’s close, too. “Where do you want it?” he asks, and from the pinched look on his face you can tell exactly where he wants it. You know you’re an idiot for feeling the same. 

“Inside,” you breathe. He groans so loudly it rattles in your ears.

“That’s my girl,” he says, but it’s nearly a whisper with how strained it is. His hand continues at your clit, rubbing perfect little circles that make your legs tremble where they’re pressed against your chest. Your jaw hangs open, but you don’t dare close your eyes. Satoru is still holding your gaze intently, desperately, like he needs to see you. The thought throws you over the edge.

You cry his name, clawing at his shoulder and shaking like a leaf as you feel yourself gush and pulse all over his dick. For the second time that evening you feel the heat inside you swell and burst, washing through you in waves that nearly consume you whole. It’s a struggle to hold his eyes, to not let them roll back into your skull and give into the pure ecstasy of your high– especially when he’s cumming, too. You can hear him moaning in your ear, feel him twitching inside you, feel his hot cum coating your walls and there’s just so fucking much of it. You swear he cums for a minute straight before he slumps down onto you, burying his face in your neck as you pant. 

You’re shaking and so is he, breaths heaving in and out. Reality slowly starts to seep back in, even with his dick still softening inside you and his cum leaking down your thighs. 

You tried to kill him. You failed. You had sex. Now what? Would he really let you go like he’d said he would? You wanted to believe it, but life hadn’t taught you to be that trusting. You should move, untangle yourself from him and escape before he has time to change his mind. 

“You assassins are always thinking so hard,” He mumbles into the curve of your neck. “Maybe you should try to relax for once.”

You swallow when you feel him pressing his lips to your throat, trailing up to your jaw. It’s… tender, gentle, and it feels so nice. You can’t help the way you melt into the touch a bit. You feel him smile into your skin. “There we go.”

His hand settles on your waist, rubbing soothing little circles that send a jolt of urgency up your spine. No. You’re enjoying this– being close to him, laying here with him, breathing him in. That’s not what this is supposed to be. 

You tense again, shifting to get away from him, but he only sighs and presses his weight onto you. 

“Come on, gorgeous. No need to leave so soon. Just stay for a bit, yeah?” He nibbles at your jaw, but it doesn’t work this time. You have to go. You’ve failed your mission. You don’t know what that means for your brother. You’d never thought this would have an ending besides your death. 

“I have to go,” you mutter, pushing at his chest. 

He chuckles, but you don’t miss the strain and… hurt? “Got something more important than trying to kill me?” 

You clench your teeth, trying once again to shove him away. “Yes, actually.” 

He finally pulls back to meet your gaze, brows slightly pinched. “Like what?” 

You push in earnest now, anger and panic rising in your gut. You have to go, have to check on your brother, have to figure out what you’re going to do. “That’s really none of your business,” you seethe. 

You go for another shove, but strong hands clasp around your wrists, pinning them to the bed. His expression has gone flat now, serious. “Actually, I think it’s completely my business. You going to report your failure? Should I expect another assassin soon?”

You scowl, tugging at his grasp and trying to free yourself. “Yeah, probably. He’s an insufferable idiot. I told him it wouldn’t work and it didn’t, but I don’t doubt he’ll send another.” 

His face cracks, his brows pulling together again. “If you knew it wouldn’t work then why’d you take the job?” 

You struggle again, less angry and more desperate now. “Because he’s got my fucking brother at gunpoint and I’ve got to figure out how the fuck I’m going to save him!” you shout.

There’s silence for a long moment– a long, uncomfortable beat of it– and then his expression softens into something… tender. It sends a chill up your spine. Satoru Gojo was never supposed to be tender with you, and that’s all he’s been. 

“I’ll save him,” he says. Your heart jumps and his grip on your wrists loosens, allowing you to slip free. 

“What?” you breathe. He sits back, allowing you to prop yourself up into a slightly less vulnerable position. 

He exhales slowly, but you don’t miss the way his hand settles on your bare thigh, a comforting weight. “I’ll save your brother and then I’ll take care of your boss.” A smirk creeps across his lips. “What? Don’t think I can do it?”

You stare blankly, lips parted. There’s no doubt he can do it, but that’s not the question swirling in your mind. 

“Why would you help me?” You’d tried to kill the man. You couldn’t make heads or tails of a reason why he’d go out of his way to help you. 

He chuckles. “Well, in case you didn’t know, I’m a hero of sorts.” You have to fight not to roll your eyes. “And… there’s something I want from you.” 

There it is– the catch. He wants something. You have no idea what you could possibly have to give him, but you’re willing for it to be just about anything. You narrow your eyes. “What?” 

He grins, but you can see the glint of mischief in his gaze. His hand slides further up your thigh, up your side, over your shoulder, until it rests at the nape of your neck and his face is only inches from your own. “What’s your number, gorgeous?”

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