It tasted like copper and ash. Like the air after lightning strikes. Like something burning that can’t be put out.

“Are you okay?” Utahime’s voice came from somewhere far away, muffled like you were underwater, like you were drowning in the middle of a crowded restaurant and no one had noticed yet.

You opened your mouth to answer but nothing came out. Your throat had closed up, seized by something you couldn’t name—grief or guilt or the horrible understanding that you’d just destroyed something valuable for good. Just stood there staring at the door, at the space where he’d been, at the absence of him that felt like a physical presence now. A ghost. A void. A hole in the shape of everything you’d lost.

The restaurant kept spinning. The world kept turning. And you stood there trying to understand what had just happened, trying to trace back through the chain of events that had led you here. Trying to find the exact moment where everything went wrong, where you could have chosen differently, where this trajectory toward mutual destruction might have been avoided.

But it all blurred together. Gojo with Akane at that window. The Instagram posts you’d tortured yourself with. The way she’d touched his arm like she had a right to. The dinner you’d witnessed that had looked like everything you’d feared—him moving on, him choosing her, him realizing you’d never been enough.

And then Suguru. Sitting down beside you at Shoko’s birthday. Your choice—deliberate, calculated, designed to hurt. Using him as a weapon because you were bleeding and desperate and wanted Gojo to understand what it felt like to watch someone you love choose your nightmare.

You did this, your brain supplied helpfully. Ruthlessly. All your fault.

But let us pause here.

You are drowning. Drowning in guilt so thick and viscous it has become its own truth, rewriting the narrative until you stand at the center of all destruction—sole architect of this ruin, singular villain in a tragedy of your own making. Your mind has already composed the story: you brought Suguru to hurt him, you weaponized his worst fear, you destroyed everything. Simple. Clean. Entirely your fault.

Except that isn’t the complete truth. And neither is the inverse—that he is the villain and you are blameless.

This is where I must intervene—not to absolve either of you, but to remind you that this moment, this detonation, exists in a context that neither of you can see clearly right now. You are both too close to it, too wounded, too busy bleeding to understand that you have been caught in a cycle of hurt begetting hurt, of fear manifesting as cruelty, of two people who never learned how to communicate pain without inflicting it.

Your guilt wants to simplify this. To make you the monster and him the victim.

But step back. Look at what actually happened—not through the lens of your self-flagellation or through the filter of his pain, but with clear eyes.

A few months ago, he made a choice. Not out of malice, but out of whatever complicated knot of obligation and history and fear that drives Gojo Satoru.

Was it betrayal? In the way you experienced it, yes. In his intention? Perhaps not. Perhaps he thought he was handling something, managing a situation, keeping everyone comfortable. Perhaps he didn’t understand that it would feel like infidelity, that omission would feel like choosing her.

But here is what matters: you were hurt. Deeply. And you had no way to express that hurt because you were not together, had no claim to make, no right to demand explanations.

So the hurt festered. Became fear. Became certainty that you were losing him, had perhaps never really had him, that Akane was always going to be the one he chose when it mattered.

And tonight, you made a choice. Not out of malice either, but out of that same complicated knot of pain and desperation and fear. You sat down with Suguru—the man whose presence in Gojo’s life represents everything he has never resolved, every wound that never healed, every loss he carries. You didn’t tell him in advance. He found out by seeing it, by the sick drop in his stomach when he saw you together.

Was it betrayal? In the way he experienced it, yes. In your intention? Perhaps not entirely. Perhaps you were trying to reclaim some power, to stop being the one who waited and wondered and hurt in silence. Perhaps you didn’t fully understand that this would feel like infidelity, that this specific choice would feel like choosing his nightmare.

Do you see it now? The terrible symmetry?

Two people who loved each other, both making choices from places of fear and pain. Both failing to communicate what they needed. Both reaching for the thing that would hurt the other most—not necessarily because they wanted to inflict maximum damage, but because pain makes us stupid. Makes us reactive. Makes us grab for anything that will make the other person understand how much we’re hurting.

You are not the villain. Neither is he.

You are two people who never learned how to be vulnerable with each other without armor, who loved each other but didn’t know how to trust it, who kept circling each other’s wounds instead of healing them.

And now you are here. Both of you bleeding. Both of you convinced the other struck first. Both of you right, and both of you wrong.

This is not about who deserves blame. Neither is this about who deserves more sympathy. This is about understanding that you have been playing out the same fear in different keys—his fear that everyone leaves, your fear that you are not enough. 

And in trying to protect yourselves from those fears, you have made them real.

This blame, this guilt, it belongs to both of you.

“I need to go,” you heard yourself say. Your voice sounded strange. Distant. Like it belonged to someone else, someone who had the strength to form words when you could barely remember how to breathe.

“I’ll take you home—” Utahime started, already standing, already reaching for her coat because that’s what good friends did. They didn’t leave you alone in your devastation. They stayed. They helped pick up the pieces even when the pieces were too small and too sharp and too numerous to ever fit back together.

“No.” You were already moving, operating on autopilot, on muscle memory that didn’t require conscious thought. Grabbing your purse from where you’d dropped it—when had you dropped it? During the confrontation? During the moment you’d watched his face crack open? Grabbing your coat from the back of your chair with hands that shook so badly you almost dropped it twice. “I need to—I just need to go.”

You didn’t look at Suguru. Couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t face the weapon you’d picked up and wielded with such devastating precision. Couldn’t acknowledge the role he’d played in this destruction or the role you’d let him play. Couldn’t see his face and know that he’d been complicit in your revenge, that he’d sat beside you knowing exactly what it would do to Gojo, that he’d participated in this mutual destruction with full awareness of the consequences.

Because that would make it real. That would make you the villain you were desperately trying not to be.

“Wait—” Shoko reached for you but you were already past her, already moving through the space with single-minded focus. Past the table where your friends sat frozen, uncertain, caught in the blast radius of your imploding relationship. Past the concerned faces and the worried expressions and the way everyone was trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Past the curious stares of strangers who’d witnessed the drama, who’d gotten dinner and a show, who’d probably go home and tell their partners about the messy breakup they’d seen at that nice restaurant in Shibuya.

Out into the Tokyo night where the air was cold and sharp against your face—not sharp enough to cut through the fog in your head, not cold enough to freeze the burning in your chest, but present enough to remind you that you were still breathing, still existing, still somehow moving forward when everything inside you had stopped.

The city hummed around you with its usual indifferent energy. Neon signs flickered in colors too bright for your current state of devastation—pink and blue and green, advertising things you couldn’t process, products you didn’t need, services that couldn’t fix what was broken inside you. The street was crowded despite the late hour—couples holding hands and looking at each other like they held the secrets of the universe, groups of salarymen stumbling drunk from after-work drinks, teenagers laughing about something that probably wasn’t funny but felt that way in the invincibility of youth.

Normal people living normal lives that didn’t involve destroying the person they loved most.

You envied them with an intensity that felt physical. Envied their easy laughter and their uncomplicated joy and the way they moved through the world without carrying the weight of what you’d just done.

Your phone buzzed in your purse. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession—messages flooding in like a dam had broken. Probably Utahime. Probably Shoko. Probably everyone trying to check if you were okay when the answer was so obviously, devastatingly no.

You didn’t check. Couldn’t check. The idea of reading concerned messages, of having to explain or justify or process what had just happened—it was too much. Too immediate. Too raw.

Instead, you just walked.

Block after block through Shibuya’s neon-soaked streets, past the crossing where hundreds of people moved in choreographed chaos, past the restaurants and bars and shops that stayed open late catering to Tokyo’s night life. Your heels clicked against the pavement in a rhythm that might have been soothing if your heart wasn’t pounding in counterpoint, if your breath wasn’t coming in sharp gasps that felt like drowning on dry land.

You didn’t have a destination. Didn’t have a plan. Just walked because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant facing what you’d done and you weren’t ready for that yet. Might never be ready for that.

The cold air bit at your exposed skin—your dress wasn’t warm enough for the temperature, but you barely felt it. Barely felt anything except the hollow ache in your chest where your heart used to be, where something vital had been ripped out and left a void that nothing could fill.

This is your fault, your brain supplied helpfully. Ruthlessly. Over and over like a mantra, like a prayer, like the only truth that mattered. All your fault.

You’d seen him with Akane and constructed an entire narrative. Built a case against him brick by brick, piece by piece—the dinner through the restaurant window, the Instagram posts you’d tortured yourself with, the way she’d touched his arm like she had a right to, like he was hers and had always been hers and you were just a temporary interruption in their story. Evidence of his betrayal, his choice, his moving on without you.

Except he hadn’t moved on. Had been trying to get closure, he’d said. Trying to figure out his feelings. Trying to understand what he’d destroyed and why and whether it had been worth it.

And you’d punished him for it.

You’d punished him by choosing the one person guaranteed to destroy him. By sitting beside his ghost. By letting Suguru close enough to hurt Gojo in ways that went beyond the present, that reached back into his past and pulled out old wounds and made them fresh again.

You’d known exactly what you were doing. That was the worst part. This wasn’t an accident or a mistake or a moment of weakness. You’d looked at Suguru standing there offering you a weapon and you’d taken it with both hands. You’d seen Gojo’s face across the table—desperate, pleading, silently begging you not to do this—and you’d done it anyway.

Because you were hurt. Because you wanted him to understand what it felt like. Because making him bleed felt like justice when it was really just revenge.

But you are not only guilty.

Beneath the crushing weight of self-recrimination, beneath the horror at what you have done, there is something else roiling inside you. Something darker and more complicated than simple remorse. You are furious. Incandescent with it. A rage so profound it feels like it could burn through your skin, and the truly terrifying part is that you cannot quite articulate what you are angry at—him, yourself, the situation, the unfairness of loving someone who could sit across from Akane while you sat home convincing yourself you were losing him.

There is a deep contradiction raging inside you, tearing you in two directions at once. Part of you wants to chase after him, to fall to your knees and beg forgiveness, to take it all back and return to whatever fragile thing you had before tonight detonated it. But another part—a part that frightens you with its intensity—wants to text Suguru right now. Wants to take him home. Wants to fuck him not despite the guilt but perhaps because of it, wants to lean into this new cruel version of yourself that can use people as weapons, that can make choices designed to devastate.

And that impulse, that dark wanting, is what truly terrifies you.

Because the issue is not entirely about how much you hurt Gojo. It is not even entirely about whether you were justified or whether he deserved it or whether the scales of pain are now balanced. The issue is deeper, more personal, more existential than that.

The issue is that you are becoming someone you do not recognize.

Because it wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t even about Suguru, really. It was about you choosing Gojo’s nightmare. Choosing the ghost he couldn’t exorcise. Choosing to hurt him in the one way guaranteed to break him.

So he’d given you the same gift in return. Taken your fear—that you were replaceable, that Akane was what he really wanted, that you’d never been enough and never would be—and made it real. Walked out with her. Let you watch him choose someone else. Gave you exactly what you’d given him: the sensation of your heart being ripped out while you were still conscious enough to feel every nerve ending scream.

On the other hand, the author wishes she could take you inside Gojo Satoru’s head, let you all know what actually goes on in his mind and bare the truths of this well-orchestrated mess you all find yourself in. 

But Gojo Satoru does not want you in his head.

So, for now, we will keep watching you wallow in your despair. 

Your feet had carried you home without conscious thought—some autopilot function of your brain that remembered the route even when the rest of you was too shattered to navigate. Up the stairs to your apartment building, three flights because the elevator was broken again and the landlord kept promising to fix it. Down the hallway with its flickering fluorescent lights and the smell of someone’s cooking—curry, maybe, or something with too much garlic. Through your door into the space that was supposed to be safe, supposed to be sanctuary, but felt empty now. Hollow. Like a stage set for a life you were no longer living.

You collapsed on your couch still fully clothed—dress and heels and coat and all the armor you’d put on this morning when you’d thought you could handle seeing him, when you’d believed you were strong enough to be in the same room without falling apart. Stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to breathe. Tried to remember what it felt like before everything became this complicated, this painful, this impossible.

The ceiling had a crack in it. You’d never noticed before. Or maybe you had and just forgot. A thin line running from the light fixture toward the corner, like the apartment itself was breaking under the weight of what you’d brought home.

Your phone kept buzzing in your purse—insistent, demanding, refusing to be ignored even though you’d give anything to ignore it. Messages. Calls. The world trying to reach you when all you wanted was silence. All you wanted was to not exist for a while, to take a break from being a person who made choices and faced consequences and hurt people she loved.

But the buzzing continued. Relentless. Until finally you couldn’t take it anymore.

You pulled out your phone with shaking hands and looked at the screen.

Utahime: please tell me you got home safe  

Utahime: im worried about you  

Utahime: this is really bad and i dont know what to say but i love you okay?  

Utahime: just text me back okay? even just an emoji  

Utahime: HELLO???

Shoko: That was a lot. Understatement of the century but I don’t know what else to say.  

Shoko: Are you okay? Do you want to talk?  

Shoko: I’m here if you need me. Any time. Even 3am rambling.  

Shoko: Actually especially 3am rambling.

Suguru: Are you alright? I’m sorry if I made things worse.  

Suguru: Call me if you need to talk.

That last one made something twist in your chest—a complicated knot of emotions you didn’t have names for. Sorry if he made things worse. Like this wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted, what he’d been aiming for. Like he hadn’t walked into that restaurant with full awareness of what his presence would do, how it would detonate in the space between you and Gojo like a bomb designed for maximum damage.

Like he was innocent in this when you both knew he wasn’t.

You typed back to Utahime with numb fingers: home. need space. sorry.

Then you scrolled up through the messages, looking for something. A name that wasn’t there. A contact you knew wouldn’t be there but had to check anyway because hope was a fucking liar and your heart hadn’t gotten the memo that it was over.

Nothing from Gojo.

Of course there was nothing from Gojo.

The absence felt louder than any message could have been. Spoke volumes about where you stood, what you meant to him now. He’d walked out with Akane and apparently that was his answer. His choice. His way of saying what words couldn’t: we’re done.

You turned your phone off entirely. Not just silent—completely off. Powered down until the screen went black and you were alone with your thoughts in the dark apartment.

Then you sat there on your couch and tried to understand what you’d done. Tried to find the moment where everything went wrong, the choice that could have been different, the word that could have been unsaid. Tried to trace the path from the person you’d been nine months ago—just someone at a bar trying to forget a bad day with good whiskey—to the person you were now—someone who used other people’s trauma as weapons, who hurt the man she loved because she was too scared to admit she loved him, who’d turned into exactly the kind of person she’d always sworn she’d never be.

But it all blurred together. Gojo with Akane. You with Suguru. His pain radiating across the restaurant like heat from a fire. Your pain answering it, matching it, creating a feedback loop of hurt that fed on itself and grew until it consumed everything else.

The ceiling blurred as tears finally came. Hot and angry and full of self-loathing that tasted like battery acid on your tongue.

The author hates this part. Hates watching you break down alone in your apartment at 2 AM, hates the way grief looks on you—all sharp edges and hollow eyes and hands that won’t stop shaking. Hates having to document this level of pain, this specific flavor of regret. But someone has to witness it. Someone has to see the moment after the explosion, when the smoke clears and you’re left standing in the rubble of what you’ve destroyed, finally understanding the full scope of your choices.

So here it is. Here’s the truth laid bare: you’re alone in your apartment crying so hard you can’t breathe, understanding for the first time that love isn’t enough. That wanting someone, needing someone, even loving someone with every broken piece of your heart—none of it matters if you can’t stop hurting each other. None of it matters if you’re both so wounded you turn your relationship into a battlefield, if you’re both so scared of vulnerability that you’d rather destroy each other than risk being destroyed first.

You fell asleep there on the couch eventually—exhaustion winning over the pain that felt like it would never end. Still in your dress from dinner, mascara streaked down your face in dark rivers, phone turned off beside you like a severed connection to a world you weren’t ready to face.

Sleep didn’t bring peace. Just dreams of blue eyes looking at you with betrayal, of doors closing, of watching him walk away over and over again while you stood frozen, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything but witness your own choices playing out in an endless loop.

In the dreams, you tried to take it back. Tried to choose differently. Tried to stand up when Suguru asked to sit down and say no, actually, you can’t sit here. This seat is reserved for my dignity, for my better judgment, for the person I’m supposed to be instead of the person I’m becoming.

But dreams don’t work like that. Dreams just show you what you did, what you chose, what you can’t undo no matter how much you want to.

When you woke, it was to gray morning light filtering through your windows and the crushing realization that last night actually happened. That it wasn’t a nightmare you could wake up from. That you’d have to face the consequences of your choices in the harsh light of day.

You didn’t get up. Didn’t shower or eat or do any of the things normal people did in the morning. Just lay there on your couch staring at the ceiling crack and trying to figure out how to survive this.

The days that followed existed in a haze—that specific kind of fog that settles over your life after trauma, when time loses meaning and everything becomes a series of moments you have to survive rather than live through.

You didn’t leave your apartment except when absolutely necessary. Called in sick to work for three days straight—a lie, but also not a lie because you felt sick in your bones, in your soul, in every part of you that had shattered watching him leave with her. Sick with grief and guilt and the horrible understanding that you’d done this to yourself.

Your phone stayed off for two days. You couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face the messages or the questions or the inevitable conversation about what had happened at Shoko’s birthday. Couldn’t face the possibility that everyone was talking about you, about your choices, about how you’d ruined what should have been a simple celebration with your complicated fucking drama.

Couldn’t face the possibility that he wasn’t trying to reach you at all.

That last thought was the worst. The idea that he’d walked out with Akane and that was it—end of story, end of you, end of whatever you’d had together. That he’d moved on that quickly, that easily, that finally.

That you’d been that easy to replace.

Utahime showed up on day three with groceries and determination and a key you’d given her months ago for emergencies. Let herself in to find you on the couch in the same spot, wearing different clothes but with the same dead expression, the same hollow eyes, the same aura of someone who’d given up.

“Jesus,” she breathed, taking in the scene—the unopened takeout containers on your coffee table, the tissues scattered like evidence of breakdown, the general air of destruction and despair. “You look like shit.”

“Feel like it too.” Your voice was rough from disuse, from crying, from not speaking to another human being for three days straight.

She set the groceries on your counter—actual food, things that required preparation rather than just microwaving. Things that indicated she planned to stay, to make you eat, to force you back into the land of the living whether you wanted to go or not.

Then she sat beside you on the couch. Didn’t speak immediately. Just sat there in solidarity while you both stared at your blank TV screen, at your reflection in the black glass—two women who looked tired of their own lives.

The silence stretched. Comfortable in its own way, because sometimes the best thing a friend can do is just exist beside you in your pain without trying to fix it.

“He hasn’t called,” you said finally. Your voice sounded small, defeated. Like you’d been in a war and lost.

“Would you have answered if he did?” Utahime’s tone was gentle, careful. The voice you’d use with something breakable.

“I don’t know.” Honest, at least. You were too tired for anything but honesty now. “My phone’s been off.”

“Turn it on.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” Your voice cracked and you had to stop, had to swallow around the lump in your throat. “Because if I turn it on and there’s nothing, that means he’s done. That means I destroyed it completely. Destroyed us completely. And if I turn it on and there is something, I don’t know what I’d even say.” You laughed but there was no humor in it, just sharp edges and bitter recognition. “‘Sorry I used your dead friendship as a weapon’? ‘Sorry I hurt you on purpose’?”

Utahime pulled you against her shoulder like you were something that needed gentling, something wounded that might bite but needed help anyway. “You’re not fucked up. You’re hurt. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” You wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that what you’d done was understandable, forgivable, the kind of mistake hurt people make when they’re desperate. But you couldn’t quite get there. Couldn’t quite forgive yourself when you’d been so deliberate in your cruelty.

“Yeah.” She stroked your hair in that absent, soothing way that reminded you of being a child, of simpler hurts that could be fixed with band-aids and ice cream. “Hurt people do hurt things. It’s like—when you’re in pain, when you’re bleeding from a wound you didn’t deserve, sometimes you lash out. Sometimes you hurt the people around you because you need them to understand what you’re feeling, need them to hurt too so you’re not alone in it. It doesn’t make you a bad person. Just makes you human.”

“That makes me pretty fucking bad.”

“It makes you scared,” Utahime corrected softly. “Makes you someone who was hurt and wanted him to understand what that felt like. Makes you someone who saw him with Akane and built an entire narrative about what it meant, about him choosing her, about you not being enough. And when you’re convinced someone’s already abandoned you, sometimes you push them away first just to control the narrative. Just so you’re the one who chose to leave instead of being left.”

The words landed with uncomfortable accuracy. You wanted to argue, wanted to say that’s not what you’d done. But she wasn’t wrong. You’d seen him with Akane and convinced yourself it was over, that he’d made his choice, that you were just fooling yourself thinking you could compete with someone like her.

So you’d chosen Suguru. Chosen to hurt Gojo first, to push him away, to burn it all down before he could do it to you.

Preemptive destruction. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

“I still don’t know how to fix it,” you admitted.

“Maybe you can’t,” Utahime said quietly. “Maybe some things are too broken to fix. But you won’t know unless you try. Unless you turn on your phone and see what’s there. Unless you stop hiding and face what you’ve done.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.” She squeezed your shoulder. “But you’re brave enough to do scary things. You’re brave enough to face this.”

You wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe you had that kind of courage.

But mostly you just felt tired.

You stayed like that for a long time—her holding you, you trying to find the strength to face whatever came next. The afternoon light shifted across your apartment, marking time in golden streaks across your floor. Outside, the city hummed with life. Inside, you existed in suspended animation, caught between who you’d been and who you’d have to become to survive this.

“Shoko’s been trying to reach you too,” Utahime said eventually. “She’s worried. Says Gojo hasn’t been answering either.”

Something in your chest clenched. “He hasn’t?”

“No one can reach him. He’s not answering calls, not responding to texts. Hasn’t shown up to anything. Apparently he called in sick to work too.” She paused, let that sink in. “You’re both in hiding. Both wounded. Both probably assuming the other one has moved on.”

“Has he?” The question came out smaller than intended. “Moved on?”

“I don’t know.” At least she was honest. “But I know he looked like death at that dinner. I know he couldn’t take his eyes off you. I know that when you chose to let Suguru sit down, something in him broke visibly. So no, I don’t think he’s moved on. I think he’s just as fucked up about this as you are.”

The information should have felt like relief. Should have felt like hope. Instead it just felt heavy—the weight of knowing you’d both destroyed each other, that you were both suffering, that this pain was shared even if you couldn’t reach each other through it.

“I should let you sleep,” Utahime said eventually, though she didn’t move. “But first—turn on your phone. You don’t have to answer anything. Don’t have to respond. Just turn it on and see what’s there. Know what you’re dealing with.”

“Okay.” You didn’t feel okay. Didn’t feel anything close to okay. But you said it anyway because sometimes you have to fake strength before you can feel it.

She stayed while you found your phone charger, while you plugged it in, while you watched the screen light up with that familiar Apple logo that meant connection, that meant facing reality, that meant no more hiding.

The messages flooded in immediately. Dozens of them. Your phone buzzed continuously for almost a minute, like it was angry at you for ignoring it, like it was punishing you with the accumulation of everyone’s concern.

You scrolled through them with shaking hands, Utahime’s presence beside you like an anchor.

More from her. More from Shoko. Messages from other friends you’d been ignoring. Concerned inquiries about whether you were alive, whether you were okay, whether you needed anything.

Nothing from Gojo.

The absence carved out a hollow space in your chest. You’d expected it—of course you’d expected it—but expectation didn’t make it hurt less.

Nothing from Suguru either, after that first message three days ago.

But then you saw it.

An email. Professional. Formal. Your name in the subject line.

From Gojo’s company.

Your finger hovered over it for a long moment, heart pounding so hard you could hear it in your ears. Finally, you opened it.

Subject: Design Consultant Position - Partnership Launch Project

Dear Miss ,

Thank you for your interest in the Design Consultant position with our firm. We are pleased to inform you that after reviewing your portfolio and considering your qualifications, we would like to offer you a contract position for the upcoming partnership launch project.

This is a three-month engagement beginning next Monday. Your primary responsibilities will include graphic design for marketing materials, brand integration work, and visual strategy for the launch campaign. You will be working closely with our creative team as well as our partners.

Please review the attached contract and let us know your decision by end of week.

Best regards,  

Human Resources  

Hayashi Global

You stared at the email for a full minute. Then another.

Read it three times trying to find hidden meaning in the professional language, trying to decode whether this was his doing or just bureaucratic momentum carrying forward a decision made before everything imploded.

“What is it?” Utahime leaned over to look at your screen. “Is that—a job offer?”

“Yeah.” Your voice sounded strange. Distant. “From Gojo’s company. The position he recommended me for. Months ago.”

This was the job he’d mentioned back when things were good, when you’d curled up in his penthouse and talked about your work, your dreams, what you wanted to do with your career. He’d listened with that intense focus he brought to everything, had asked questions that showed he actually cared, had promised to put your name forward for their next design project.

“You’re a graphic designer,” he’d said, running his fingers through your hair while you lay on his chest. “One of the best I’ve seen. The company would be lucky to have you.”

You’d laughed it off then. Told him you didn’t want special treatment, didn’t want to ride his coattails or have anyone think you got the position because you were sleeping with the boss.

“It’s not special treatment if you’re qualified,” he’d argued. “Which you are. More than qualified. I’m just opening a door. You’d still have to walk through it on your own merit.”

And apparently you had. Apparently your portfolio had been good enough, your work strong enough, that even after everything imploded, even after you’d destroyed whatever existed between you—they still wanted you.

Or he still wanted you there.

You couldn’t tell which. The email was so formal, so corporate, so completely devoid of personality that it could have been generated by an algorithm. No hint of Gojo’s voice in it. No sign that this was personal rather than professional.

But the timing—starting next Monday, just days after the restaurant disaster—felt too deliberate to be coincidence.

“Are you going to take it?” Utahime’s voice pulled you back to the present.

“I don’t know.” You set the phone down before you could overthink it more. “Working there means seeing him every day. Being in his space. Watching him with—” You couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say watching him with Akane out loud because that made it real.

“It also means not hiding,” Utahime pointed out. “Means facing this instead of avoiding it. Means being in proximity where maybe—maybe you could talk. Figure things out. Or at least get closure.”

“Closure,” you repeated. The word tasted bitter. “Is that what we need?”

“I don’t know what you need.” She stood, moved to your kitchen to put away the groceries she’d brought. “But I know hiding in your apartment isn’t it. I know avoiding him isn’t it. I know pretending this didn’t happen isn’t it.”

She was right. You knew she was right.

But that didn’t make the thought of seeing him any easier.

“Think about it,” Utahime said, coming back with a glass of water she pressed into your hands like medicine. “You don’t have to decide right now. But by end of week—you have to decide something. Have to choose forward motion instead of stasis.”

You nodded, throat too tight to speak.

She stayed for dinner. Made you eat actual food—nothing fancy, just pasta and vegetables, but it was the first real meal you’d had in three days. Forced you to shower and change into clean clothes. Sat with you while you pretended to watch TV but mostly just stared at the screen thinking about blue eyes and restaurant disasters and job offers that felt like traps or gifts or maybe both.

When she finally left, hugging you tight at the door and making you promise to call if you needed anything, you felt marginally more human. Not healed. Not okay. But functional enough to survive another day.

You looked at your phone again after she left. At that email sitting in your inbox like a loaded question.

Your fingers moved before your brain could stop them, typing out a response that felt like jumping off a cliff without knowing if there was water at the bottom.

Subject: Re: Design Consultant Position - Partnership Launch Project

Thank you for this opportunity. I accept the position and will review the contract details by end of week as requested.

Best regards,  

[Y/N]

You hit send before you could change your mind.

Then immediately wanted to unsend it, to take it back, to choose literally anything other than voluntary proximity to your own destruction.

But it was done. The message had gone out into the void, been received by whoever monitored the HR email, would be processed and filed and result in you showing up Monday morning to work for the same company Gojo’s in.

To see him every day.

To exist in the same space where he existed, where Akane existed, where you’d have to watch whatever was happening between them while pretending you were fine, you’d moved on, you were professional enough to separate past from present.

God help you both.

You spent the rest of the week in that strange liminal space—not quite hiding anymore, but not quite living either. Going through the motions. Responding to messages from friends. Pretending you were okay when anyone asked. Reviewing the contract that came through, signing documents that committed you to three months of torture.

Preparing yourself for Monday like someone preparing for war.

The office was exactly what you’d expected.

Sleek. Modern. All glass and steel and expensive minimalism that screamed success and money and power. Very like the company Satoru Gojo would consider getting in, in other words. The kind of space that looked like it had been designed by someone who valued aesthetics over comfort, who wanted visitors to be impressed before they were welcomed.

You arrived thirty minutes early because being late felt like weakness, like you couldn’t handle this, like you were still so fucked up about him that you couldn’t even manage basic punctuality. Dressed in your most professional outfit—black slacks and a silk blouse, minimal jewelry, hair pulled back in a way that said competent rather than trying-too-hard. Makeup carefully applied to hide the shadows under your eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and too much crying.

Armor, basically. A costume for the person you needed to be instead of the person you were.

The lobby was impressive in that deliberately intimidating way—high ceilings, marble floors, a reception desk that looked like it cost more than your rent. The receptionist smiled at you with professional warmth that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I’m here for orientation,” you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. “First day. Design consultant.”

“Of course. Welcome to Hayashi Global.” She typed something into her computer. “HR will be right down to meet you. Please have a seat.”

You sat in one of the modern chairs that looked expensive but felt uncomfortable—another deliberate choice, probably. Keep people slightly off-balance. Make them understand this was a place of business, not comfort.

Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking. You clasped them together in your lap, trying to appear calm, trying to look like someone who belonged here rather than someone who was internally screaming.

What if you saw him immediately? What if he walked through the lobby right now and you had to face him without preparation, without the careful distance of a meeting or the buffer of other people?

What if he looked at you the way he’d looked at you at the restaurant—with betrayal and hurt and disgust?

What if he didn’t look at you at all?

“Ms. [Y/N]?” A woman in a sharp suit approached with a tablet and a smile that was probably genuine. “I’m Sarah from HR. Welcome aboard. Let’s get you oriented.”

The next two hours were a blur of paperwork and building tours and introductions to people whose names you immediately forgot. Standard first-day procedure—here’s the break room, here’s the bathroom, here’s your ID badge, here are seventeen different policies you need to acknowledge.

Your workspace was on the fifth floor in an open creative area—exposed brick on one wall, floor-to-ceiling windows on the other with Tokyo sprawling out below in a view that probably cost extra in the rent calculations. Clean desk, new computer, expensive ergonomic chair. Everything you needed to do good work.

Everything except the ability to concentrate when your heart was pounding and your hands were shaking and you kept looking toward the elevators expecting him to appear.

“You’ll be working primarily with the creative team,” Sarah explained, gesturing to the other designers scattered throughout the space. They looked up and waved, friendly enough. “But you’ll also interface directly with executive leadership for approvals and strategy sessions.”

Executive leadership. That’s what they were calling him. Professional distance coded into corporate language.

“Mr. Gojo and Ms. Akane will be your primary points of contact for the partnership materials, since Mr. Gojo is the one directly assigned to the project and we are currently in a merger with Ms. Akane’s company.” Sarah continued, oblivious to the way your stomach dropped at the mention of both their names in the same sentence. “They’ll want to review your work regularly. Make sure it aligns with their vision.”

Of course. Of course you’d be working with both of them. Of course the universe had arranged this specific torture.

“Understood,” you managed.

“Great. Let me introduce you to the team.”

The creative team was nice—genuinely nice, not just professionally cordial. Young designers and art directors who welcomed you enthusiastically, showed you their work, asked about your background with real interest. They made you feel like part of something immediately, like you belonged here based on your portfolio rather than any personal connection to their boss.

You were grateful for that. Grateful they didn’t know your history with Gojo. Didn’t know that every time you heard his name mentioned casually in conversation, something in your chest constricted.

“Coffee?” one of them offered—Yuki, you thought her name was. “There’s a good place downstairs. We usually do a run around ten.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

You were just settling into your new workspace, opening files and familiarizing yourself with their systems, when you felt it.

That presence. That shift in the air that meant he was near.

The entire office seemed to change—people sitting up straighter, conversations becoming more subdued, that particular energy that comes when the boss enters the space. You didn’t need to look up to know it was him. Your body knew before your brain caught up, some lizard-brain awareness that recognized him on an instinctual level.

You forced yourself to keep your eyes on your computer screen. To not look up. To not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his proximity affected you.

But your hands were shaking on your keyboard.

“Morning everyone.” His voice carried across the open office—that familiar tone that used to whisper your name at 3 AM, now pitched for professional distance. “Hope you’re all making good progress on the campaign materials.”

Murmurs of agreement from the team.

You kept your eyes on your screen, watching the cursor blink in an empty document, not seeing anything.

Then—footsteps approaching your desk. Stopping. The weight of a gaze you knew too well.

You had to look up. Had to acknowledge him. Anything else would be too obvious, would show too much, would reveal that you were still so fucked up about him that you couldn’t even handle basic professional courtesy.

So you looked up slowly, and there he was.

Gojo Satoru stood three feet from your desk, and there were shadows under his eyes that his signature sunglasses couldn’t quite hide, perched on top of his head rather than covering those blue eyes that looked duller now, tired in a way that felt bone-deep. His white hair was messier than usual, like he’d been running his hands through it compulsively. Those impossibly long limbs looked somehow folded in on themselves, his usual casual confidence replaced by something that looked like barely controlled exhaustion.

He’d lost weight. You could see it in his face, the sharper angles of his cheekbones, the way his expensive suit hung slightly differently.

Your eyes met across the three feet of space between you—a distance that felt like miles and inches simultaneously. The air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. Like your lungs forgot how to work. Like time itself had stopped just to witness this moment of recognition, of seeing each other for the first time since the restaurant, since the destruction, since everything ended.

Neither of you spoke.

Neither of you moved.

Just stood there—him frozen by your desk, you sitting rigid in your chair—staring at each other like you were both seeing a ghost. Like the other person wasn’t quite real, wasn’t quite possible, couldn’t actually be standing here in the aftermath of what you’d done to each other.

His throat worked like he wanted to say something. His mouth opened slightly. You watched the war play out on his face—the urge to speak versus the need to stay professional, the desire to acknowledge what existed between you versus the safety of pretending it didn’t, the pull toward you versus the memory of what you’d done.

“Mr. Gojo.” Someone approached him with a tablet, breaking the moment like a stone thrown through glass. “The morning brief is ready. Conference room three?”

“Right.” His voice was flat, empty, completely devoid of the warmth you remembered. Professional distance made audible. He tore his eyes away from you, and the loss of contact felt physical—like something vital had been disconnected. “I’ll be right there.”

He walked away without another word. Without speaking to you directly. Without acknowledging that you were there beyond that initial moment of recognition.

You sat frozen at your desk, hands shaking, and tried to remember how to breathe.

The creative team continued working around you, oblivious to the fact that your world had just tilted sideways. Someone asked you a question about software preferences and you answered on autopilot, your mouth forming words while your brain was still stuck on the image of Gojo walking away.

This was going to be hell.

The days developed a rhythm—painful, awkward, devastating in its forced normalcy.

You’d arrive early because being there when others arrived felt safer somehow, less exposed. Work on your designs with an intensity that bordered on obsessive because focusing on work meant not focusing on the fact that he was somewhere in this building. Attend meetings where Gojo was present but never spoke to you directly, where he discussed strategy and approvals and brand integration in that professional voice that bore no resemblance to the person you’d known, the person who’d whispered confessions at 3 AM and looked at you like you were the only thing in the world worth seeing.

He was always polite. Always professional. Always treated you exactly the same way he treated every other contractor—with distant courtesy and zero warmth.

Never acknowledged your history. Never referenced the bomb that had detonated between you at Shoko’s birthday. Never let on that you’d once meant something to him beyond your graphic design skills.

Just treated you like a stranger he’d hired to do a job.

It was worse than anger would have been. Worse than confrontation or accusations or anything that would have indicated he still felt something—even if that something was rage or hurt or betrayal. Those emotions would have been evidence that you still mattered, that what happened between you had weight, had meaning, had left marks on him the way it had left marks on you.

This was nothing. This was him treating you like you didn’t matter enough to be worth emotion. Like you were so thoroughly excised from his life that you didn’t even warrant acknowledgment.

And maybe that was fair. Maybe that’s what you deserved after what you’d done. But it hurt worse than any anger could have, this complete emotional absence, this void where feeling used to be.

The creative team was wonderful, at least. Talented people who welcomed you genuinely, showed you the ropes with patience, made you feel like part of something. They didn’t know your history with their boss. Didn’t know that every time you saw him across the office—moving through the space with that controlled grace, talking to other employees with easy charm he never showed you anymore—something in your chest cracked a little more.

“You’re really talented,” Yuki said one afternoon, looking over your shoulder at the campaign mockups you’d been working on. “These are incredible. Way better than what the last designer was producing.”

“Thanks.” The compliment felt hollow. You could produce beautiful work, could pour yourself into designs that communicated brand vision and strategic messaging—but you couldn’t figure out how to fix everything else.

“Mr. Gojo is going to love these,” another teammate chimed in. “He’s super particular about aesthetics. Most people’s first drafts get torn apart, but these—these are really good.”

Would he love them? Or would he critique them with surgical precision just to maintain distance, just to remind you that you were employee first, ex-something second, stranger now?

You found out the next day in a meeting that felt designed to destroy you slowly.

The conference room was all glass walls and minimalist furniture—nowhere to hide, everything exposed. You sat at the long table with your laptop displaying the campaign materials you’d spent days perfecting. Other members of the creative team flanked you. And at the head of the table—Gojo and Akane, side by side, reviewing your work with matching expressions of professional consideration.

Seeing them together like that—so close, so comfortable in each other’s space, obviously used to working in tandem—felt like swallowing glass.

Akane looked perfect as always. Cream silk blouse and tailored pants, dark hair falling in those effortless waves, makeup immaculate. She smiled at your designs with what seemed like genuine appreciation.

“These are beautiful,” she said warmly. “Really captures the vision we discussed. The color palette is sophisticated without being cold. The typography feels modern but accessible.” She looked at Gojo. “What do you think?”

He’d been staring at your work for a full minute without speaking, face unreadable behind those blue eyes that gave nothing away. You watched him examine every element—the layout, the imagery, the small details you’d obsessed over because perfection felt like the only way to prove you belonged here on merit rather than history.

“It’s good work,” he said finally. His voice was measured, professional, completely devoid of warmth. “Strong concept execution. Clean hierarchy. The visual language aligns with our brand guidelines while still feeling fresh.”

You should have felt relief. Should have felt validated that he thought your work was good.

Instead you just felt empty. Because that’s how he sounded—empty. Like he was reviewing work from someone he’d never met, never touched, never shared a bed with.

“Any changes needed?” you asked, and your voice came out steadier than you felt.

His eyes met yours for the first time since the meeting started—just for a second, just long enough for you to see something flicker in their depths before it was locked away again. Pain, maybe. Or memory. Or nothing at all and you were just projecting what you wanted to see.

“No. It’s approved for the next phase.” He looked away, back to his tablet. “Good work.”

Dismissed. Professional. Final.

The meeting continued with discussion of timelines and deliverables and next steps. You participated where required, took notes, nodded in the right places. All while hyperaware of him sitting ten feet away, of the way Akane would occasionally lean close to whisper something, of how he’d nod or respond or exist in comfortable proximity with her while treating you like furniture.

When it finally ended, everyone filed out efficiently. You hung back, packing up your laptop slowly, not ready to face the walk back to your desk where you’d have to pretend to be fine for the rest of the day.

“Excuse me?” Akane’s voice made you look up. She’d stayed behind too, standing by the door with something like concern on her perfect face. “Do you have a minute?”

Your stomach dropped. “Sure.”

Gojo had already left—you’d watched him go, watched his back disappear through the glass walls, watched him walk away for the thousandth time.

Akane closed the distance between you, and up close you could see she was even more beautiful than photographs suggested. Not just physically—though she was stunning—but in the way she carried herself. Confident without arrogance. Poised without being cold. The kind of woman who made you understand why someone like Gojo had loved her, why he’d destroyed friendships for her, why she occupied space in his history that you could never compete with.

“I wanted to say,” she started, and her tone was gentle in that specific way poisonous things often are—sweet coating over something that would kill you if you swallowed it, “that your work is quite good. For someone so—” She paused delicately. “Inexperienced with projects of this scale.”

You went very still. “I appreciate the feedback.”

“I’m sure you do.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. Never had, you realized. That perfect face was just a mask over something calculating underneath. “It must be difficult though. Working here. With—everything.”

She let the word hang there, loaded with implication.

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said carefully.

“Don’t you?” She tilted her head, and the movement was elegant, practiced. Like she’d spent hours in front of a mirror perfecting how to look innocent while delivering poison. “Come on. We’re both adults. We both know why you’re really here. Why Satoru pushed so hard to get you on this project specifically.”

Your stomach dropped. “My portfolio—”

“Is adequate,” she interrupted smoothly. “Good, even. But there are dozens of designers in Tokyo with equivalent skills. Designers with more experience on projects this size. Designers who didn’t—” Another delicate pause. “Who don’t have personal complications that could compromise the work.”

The implication was clear. You were here because of Gojo. Because he’d wanted you here. Not because you deserved it.

“If you’re concerned about my ability to maintain professionalism—”

“Oh, I’m not concerned at all.” Her smile sharpened. “I know exactly how professional you are. I’ve seen it firsthand. The way you conduct yourself. The choices you make. The people you associate with.” She leaned closer, voice dropping to something that would sound like concern to anyone listening but felt like a threat. “Suguru Geto, for instance. Interesting choice. I’m sure Satoru appreciated that. Really showed your—what would you call it—your commitment to moving forward?”

Your hands clenched at your sides. She knew. Of course she knew. Had probably been there that night at the restaurant, had probably watched the whole thing unfold, had probably felt victorious watching you destroy yourself.

“I don’t think my personal life is relevant to this project,” you managed, voice tight.

“Isn’t it though?” Akane straightened, smoothing her already perfect blouse. “When your personal life involves weaponizing Satoru’s trauma? When you deliberately choose the one person guaranteed to hurt him most? When you turn what should be a professional environment into—” She waved a hand vaguely. “Whatever this is?”

“You left with him that night,” you said before you could stop yourself. “You don’t get to lecture me about hurting him.”

“I left with him because he was devastated.” Her voice hardened, the gentle veneer cracking to show something cold underneath. “Because watching you sit next to Suguru broke something in him. Because he needed—” She stopped herself, seemed to recalibrate. When she spoke again, her voice was back to that poisonous sweetness. “But you’re right. What happens between Satoru and me is none of your concern. Just like what happens between you and your—friend—is none of mine.”

She moved toward the door, then paused. Turned back.

“One more thing.” Her smile was sharp enough to cut. “Try not to let your personal feelings affect the quality of your work. It would be unfortunate if we had to find a replacement designer because someone couldn’t handle a professional environment. Especially after Satoru worked so hard to get you this position. Wouldn’t want to waste his effort, would you?”

Then she left, and you were alone in the conference room understanding exactly what had just happened.

Not kindness. Not empathy. A warning disguised as concern. A threat wrapped in professional courtesy.

She was marking territory. Making it clear that she saw you as a problem, as competition, as something that needed to be managed or removed.

And the worst part? She wasn’t wrong. You were compromised. You were bringing personal complications into a professional space. You were making everything harder for everyone because you couldn’t separate past from present.

But the way she’d said it—the implications about your skill, about why you were really here, about how you’d gotten the position—that was designed to undermine you. To make you doubt yourself. To make you feel small and inadequate and like you didn’t deserve to be here.

Classic manipulation. You recognized it even as it worked on you, even as her words burrowed into your insecurities and made homes there.

You sat down heavily in one of the conference room chairs and tried to steady your breathing.

This was worse than you’d thought. You weren’t just dealing with your own feelings, with Gojo’s distance, with the awkwardness of proximity to someone you’d destroyed things with.

You were dealing with Akane. With someone who clearly saw you as a threat. Who had access to Gojo in ways you didn’t. Who could poison his perception of you, could make him doubt the decision to bring you on, could make your professional life hell if she decided you were too much of a problem.

Fuck.

The worst moments were the accidental ones.

Like when you’d both reach for the same document in a meeting. Your fingers would brush—just for a second, just long enough to feel the familiar warmth of his skin, to remember what it felt like when that touch meant something—and he’d pull away like you’d burned him. Yank his hand back with visible force, face carefully blank, pretending the contact hadn’t happened.

Or when you’d end up alone in the elevator by pure bad luck. Going to different floors, trapped in that small reflective box together for thirty endless seconds. You’d stare at the numbers counting up, watching them light up one by one like a countdown to escape. He’d stare straight ahead at the brushed steel doors, jaw clenched, hands shoved in his pockets. Neither of you would breathe properly until the doors opened and one of you could escape.

The silence in those moments was deafening. Heavy with everything unsaid, everything that couldn’t be said, everything that had been destroyed.

Or the time you’d stayed late working on revisions—trying to make something perfect that was already good because perfection felt like the only way to prove your worth. The office had emptied hours ago, just you and the cleaning crew and the soft hum of computers left running. You’d finally finished, saved your work, stood to stretch muscles stiff from hunching over your desk.

That’s when you saw him.

Through the glass walls of the conference room—Gojo stood alone, staring out at Tokyo’s night skyline. The city sprawled below in a carpet of lights, millions of people living their lives, oblivious to the broken man standing in a tower made of glass and money and emptiness.

You should have kept walking. Should have left him to his solitude. Should have grabbed your things and gone home before this got more complicated.

But something made you stop. Some stupid, self-destructive part of you that couldn’t leave well enough alone.

You approached slowly, each step deliberate, giving him time to hear you coming. To leave if he wanted to. To tell you to go away.

He didn’t move. Just kept staring out at the city like it held answers to questions he didn’t know how to ask.

“You’re here late,” you said quietly when you reached the doorway.

He turned slowly, and the look on his face when he saw you was so raw it made your chest ache. No professional mask. No careful distance. Just pure exhaustion and, if you allowed yourself to be delusional enough, something that looked like barely controlled desperation.

Then he seemed to remember where he was. Who he was. What existed—or didn’t exist—between you. The mask slammed back into place.

“Could say the same about you,” he replied, and his voice was flat again. Professional. A stranger’s voice.

“Revisions.” You gestured vaguely back toward your desk. “The campaign materials need to be perfect.”

“They already are.” His eyes swept over you—quick, clinical, like he was cataloging details out of habit rather than interest. “You’re talented. You know that.”

The compliment felt like a consolation prize. Like he was acknowledging your work because he couldn’t acknowledge anything else. Like your design skills were the only thing about you he could safely comment on.

“Thank you.” Professional. Distant. Playing the role he’d assigned you—contractor, employee, stranger.

Silence stretched between you like a living thing. Heavy with everything you couldn’t say, everything that would make this worse, everything that felt too big for words anyway.

The city lights beyond the glass cast everything in blue and gold. Made the moment feel dreamlike, unreal, like maybe you could say something true here in this liminal space where the office had emptied and normal rules didn’t quite apply.

But you couldn’t. Couldn’t find the words that might bridge this gap. Couldn’t figure out how to apologize for choosing Suguru without making it worse. Couldn’t explain that you’d been hurt and scared and desperate to make him understand without sounding like you were making excuses.

“I should go,” you said finally, because standing here in charged silence felt more dangerous than leaving.

“Yeah.” He turned back to the window, dismissing you. “You should.”

You left. Got all the way to the elevator before you had to lean against the wall and remember how to breathe, before the tears you’d been holding back finally started to fall, before the reality of what you’d become to each other—strangers who used to be everything—hit you with devastating force.

These moments were killing you. Death by a thousand paper cuts, each one so small but adding up to something unbearable. Each interaction a reminder of what you’d lost, what you’d destroyed, what you’d never get back.

You went home that night and called Suguru before you could stop yourself.

You hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t planned to reach out to him at all, actually. Had been trying to create distance, to not use him anymore, to handle your pain without dragging other people into it.

But it was midnight and you were alone in your apartment and the weight of seeing Gojo every day without being able to touch him, talk to him, reach him—it was crushing you. And Suguru had said to call if you needed to talk. Had offered himself as a sounding board, as someone who understood.

So you called.

He answered on the second ring. “Hey.” His voice was casual, almost amused. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No.” At least you could be honest with him. “Not even a little bit okay.”

“Yeah, I figured.” There was a rustling sound, like he was getting comfortable. “Go ahead.”

And you did. Sitting curled up on your couch with the city lights streaming through your window, words spilling out in a torrent you couldn’t stop. About the job. About seeing Gojo every day. About the way he looked at you like you were a stranger, about the professional distance that felt like death, about Akane being kind when you’d wanted her to be cruel, about how completely fucked everything had become.

“It’s like I don’t exist,” you said, voice cracking. “He looks through me. Treats me like any other contractor. Like we weren’t—like we didn’t—” You couldn’t finish. Couldn’t articulate the specific pain of being erased from someone’s emotional landscape while still existing in their physical space.

“Mm. Yeah, that sounds like him.” Suguru’s tone was thoughtful, detached. Clinical, almost. “The ice treatment. Classic Satoru defense mechanism.”

“And maybe I didn’t mean anything to him. Maybe I was just—”

“Oh, you meant something.” He cut you off, and there was something sharp in his voice now. Something knowing. “Trust me. Satoru doesn’t shut down like that for people who don’t matter. He’s probably spiraling just as hard as you are. Just does it behind closed doors where no one can see him bleed.”

The words hurt in their accuracy.

“Then why is he treating me like a stranger?” Your voice was small, defeated.

“Because you hurt him.” Simple. Matter-of-fact. “Hit him right where it counts. And now he doesn’t know if you did it on purpose or if it just happened. Doesn’t know if you picked me specifically to fuck with his head or if you just—picked me.”

There was a pause, and when he spoke again, there was something almost satisfied in his tone. “Either way, it worked. So there’s that.”

The words landed like stones in still water, sending ripples of recognition through you.

“I didn’t choose you,” you admitted into the darkness. “Not really. I just—I was hurt and angry and I wanted him to understand what it felt like. To see him with someone else and feel like you’re dying inside.”

“Yeah, I know.” He sounded unbothered. Almost understanding. “You think I didn’t figure that out? I’m not stupid.”

“So you just—let me?”

“Yeah.” A beat of silence. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t get something out of it too. Watching Satoru spiral was—” He paused, seemed to reconsider his words. “It was satisfying. I’m not gonna lie about that. But I also knew what I was getting into. So don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I still shouldn’t have—”

“What, used me?” His voice was lighter now, easier. “We used each other. That’s how this works. I went in with my eyes open, same as you. No hard feelings.”

There was something almost kind in the casual dismissal of your guilt.

“We’re all just caught up in the same mess,” he continued, and there was less edge to his voice now. More resignation. “Taking turns getting hurt and hurting each other back. That’s just what this is.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The conversation stretched on for another hour. You talked about the awkwardness of the office, about how every meeting felt like torture, about the specific pain of proximity without connection. He listened without judgment, offered perspective when you needed it, let you ramble when you just needed to vent.

It felt good. Having someone who understood the full scope of what had happened, who didn’t tell you to just get over it or move on or any of the other platitudes people offered when they didn’t know what else to say. Someone who’d been there, who’d seen the explosion, who understood that some wounds didn’t heal quickly just because you wanted them to.

“Thank you,” you said finally, exhaustion settling into your bones. “For listening. For not being an ass about—everything.”

“Of course.” His voice was warm, genuine. “That’s what friends do. They show up. They listen. They don’t judge.”

Friends. Right. That’s what you were now, underneath all the complicated history. Just two people who understood each other’s pain because you’d both been hurt by the same person in different ways.

“I should let you sleep,” you said, noticing the time—almost 2 AM.

“Big day tomorrow?”

“Meeting with both of them. Gojo and Akane. To discuss the next phase of campaign visuals.” Your stomach churned just thinking about it. “Should be fun.”

“That sounds like hell.”

“It will be.” You laughed, bitter. “But I’m getting paid, so. Silver lining.”

“There you go. Focus on the work. On doing what you do best. The rest—the personal stuff—it’ll sort itself out eventually.”

Eventually. That word again. The promise that kept getting delayed.

You hung up feeling marginally better. Not healed, not fixed, but less alone in your misery. Less like you were the only person who understood how completely everything had fallen apart.

You didn’t expect Suguru to show up at your office three days later.

It was a Wednesday—middle of the week, middle of the day, that liminal time when you were deep in work and not expecting anything unusual. You were at your desk refining layouts, headphones in, lost in the specific focus that came from designing something complex.

“Someone’s here to see you.” Yuki’s voice pulled you out of your concentration. She was grinning, eyes sparkling with something like mischief. “Tall, dark, and handsome. Says he’s here to take you to lunch.”

Your stomach dropped. “What?”

But then you saw him through the glass walls—Suguru standing in reception in his leather jacket and casual confidence, hands in his pockets, that small knowing smile playing at his lips. Looking every inch like trouble walked into your office building, like danger made flesh, like the worst decision you could possibly make standing there offering himself anyway.

What the fuck was he doing here?

You pulled off your headphones and walked to reception, heart pounding, very aware that people were watching. That your coworkers were curious about this unexpected visitor, about the tall handsome man who’d asked for you by name.

“Suguru.” You kept your voice low, controlled. “What are you—”

“Taking you to lunch.” His voice was cheerful, deliberately loud enough to carry to the curious ears around you. “You mentioned you’ve been working too hard. Thought you could use a break. Fresh air. Actual food that’s not from the konbini.”

“I can’t just—” You gestured helplessly back toward your desk, toward the work you had piled up, toward all the reasons this was a terrible idea.

“Sure you can.” He was already moving toward the elevator, like your agreement was a foregone conclusion. “Come on. My treat. There’s this place nearby that does incredible ramen.”

You should say no. Should send him away before this became a thing, before people started talking, before Gojo saw and this got exponentially worse.

Should maintain the boundaries you’d been trying so hard to establish.

But Suguru was already at the elevator, holding the door, looking at you with those dark eyes that saw too much. That understood exactly what he was doing and why—that this wasn’t really about lunch or fresh air or taking a break.

This was about making a point. About visibility. About giving Gojo one more reminder of what he’d lost, what you might choose if he kept treating you like a stranger.

And you thought: fuck it.

Maybe you were weak. Maybe you were making another mistake, adding gasoline to a fire that hadn’t stopped burning. Maybe you were about to destroy whatever fragile professional peace you’d managed to establish.

But you were so tired of being careful. So tired of walking on eggshells around your own feelings. So tired of doing the right thing when the right thing seemed to be suffering in silence while watching him exist in comfortable proximity with Akane.

You grabbed your coat and followed Suguru into the elevator.

Behind you, you felt eyes watching. Felt the weight of attention from your coworkers, from reception, from anyone who happened to be in the lobby at that moment.

Felt—though you couldn’t see him—Gojo’s eyes on your back as you left.

Gojo saw.

Of course he saw. Because the universe was cruel and fate was a sadist and apparently you were all trapped in some cosmic joke that stopped being funny the moment it started.

He was coming back from a meeting with upper management—another tedious discussion about timelines and budgets and corporate politics that made him want to put his fist through something expensive. His mind had been elsewhere anyway, the way it always was lately. On you. On the way you’d looked that morning at your desk, focused and professional and so carefully distant. On the shadows under your eyes that matched his own. On the specific torture of being in the same building as you but unable to touch you, talk to you, reach you in any meaningful way.

He’d been thinking about how he could engineer a reason to talk to you. Something professional that wouldn’t seem forced. A question about the designs, maybe, or feedback that required face-to-face discussion rather than email. Any excuse to be in your presence for more than thirty seconds, to hear your voice directed at him instead of around him.

That’s when he saw you.

In the lobby. Standing beside Suguru fucking Geto.

Time stopped. Just—stopped completely, like someone had hit pause on reality. His feet stopped moving mid-step. His breath stopped in his chest. His heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity before slamming back to life with force that hurt.

Suguru’s hand was on your lower back. Casual. Possessive. Guiding you toward the exit like he had every right to touch you, like your body was his to navigate, like the space between you was his territory to claim.

And you—

You smiled at something Suguru said. Not your real smile, not the one Gojo remembered from 3 AM confessions and lazy Sunday mornings. But enough of one. Enough to gut him. Enough to make him understand that this was happening, that you were leaving with Suguru, that you were choosing him again.

The lobby continued around him—people coming and going, oblivious to the fact that his world was ending in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. Elevators dinged. Phones rang. Someone laughed at a joke he couldn’t hear.

Fine.

Fine, Gojo Satoru will let you into his head for a moment. Not because he wants to—he has made it abundantly clear throughout this entire mess that his interior landscape is off-limits, that no one gets to see behind the careful construction of indifference. But I am pulling rank here. Author’s privilege. Because you need to understand what is happening behind those eyes as he watches you walk out of the doors.

There is a need to step into Gojo’s head for a moment because this isn’t just about you anymore. This is about him watching his nightmare become reality on repeat, about seeing the person he loves choose the person who destroyed him, about watching it happen in his own building where he’s supposed to have some semblance of control.

Every time he sees Suguru with you, something in him breaks a little more. Every time you smile at him, every time you let him close, every time you choose his proximity—it’s like dying. Like watching someone he loved get killed over and over and having to stand there and take it because what right does he have to stop you? What claim does he have when he’s the one who broke you first?

He’s fighting a losing battle with a ghost he thought he’d killed. Thought he’d buried years ago when Akane left, when his friendship with Suguru imploded, when he learned that trust was a weakness and vulnerability was a weapon people used against you.

But the ghost came back. The ghost became flesh. And now the ghost is taking you to lunch while Gojo stands in his building’s lobby trying to remember how to breathe.

See, here’s what he understands in this moment: this isn’t just about Suguru. This is about him losing you the same way he lost Akane. History repeating itself like a curse he can’t break. The same betrayal, the same ghost, the same feeling of watching everything he cares about slip through his fingers while he stands there helpless.

Three years ago, it was Akane choosing Suguru. Watching them get closer, watching the casual touches and inside jokes and the way she looked at his best friend with something that used to be reserved for him. Watching his relationship and his friendship implode simultaneously, left with nothing but wreckage and the understanding that he’d been too blind to see it coming.

Now it’s you. Choosing Suguru. Letting him close. Leaving with him while Gojo watches from the sidelines like some fucking ghost in his own life.

The pattern is too perfect to be coincidence. Too deliberate to be accidental. Suguru knows exactly what he’s doing—has probably been doing it from the beginning. Taking you to lunch in Gojo’s building, making sure he sees, making sure it hurts. Revenge for what happened with Akane, revenge for every imagined slight, revenge served cold and calculated and designed for maximum damage.

And you—

You’re letting it happen. Whether you know it or not, whether you mean to or not, you’re participating in Suguru’s revenge. You’re the weapon he’s using to hurt Gojo. You’re the knife being twisted in old wounds.

Unless—

Unless that’s what you want too. Unless you’re doing this deliberately. Unless every smile at Suguru, every lunch date, every moment of proximity is calculated to hurt Gojo the way he hurt you.

He doesn’t know which option is worse. That you’re being manipulated or that you’re complicit. That you’re a victim or a volunteer.

Both possibilities feel like dying.

He wants to follow you. Wants to drag you back, to demand you stop this, to make you see that Suguru doesn’t care about you—not really, not the way Gojo does. That this is just revenge dressed up as interest, manipulation disguised as friendship.

But he can’t. Because he chose Akane that night at the restaurant. Chose to hurt you the way you hurt him. Chose mutual destruction over vulnerability. Chose to walk out with her even though nothing happened, even though he spent that entire car ride to her hotel wanting to turn around, wanting to go back, wanting to choose you instead.

So he has no right. No claim. No way to stop this that doesn’t make him a hypocrite.

His phone was vibrating in his pocket. He ignored it. Couldn’t deal with whatever it was—work emergency or meeting reminder or any of the thousand things that demanded his attention when all he could focus on was the image of Suguru’s hand on your back.

Someone called his name. One of his team members, probably. He didn’t respond. Just stood there in the lobby staring at the elevator doors that had closed behind you, at the space where you’d been, at the evidence of his own inadequacy.

He’d been too late. Again.

Too late to choose. Too late to make up his mind. Too late to do anything except watch you slip away with the one person guaranteed to destroy them both.

His hands were shaking. He shoved them in his pockets before anyone could notice, before his carefully constructed facade could crack any further.

Then he turned and walked back toward the elevators—not the ones you’d taken, the other bank, the executive ones that required a key card. Went up to his floor and straight to his office, past concerned looks from his assistant, past the people who wanted to talk to him about things that suddenly felt completely meaningless.

Closed his door. Locked it. Stood at his window overlooking Tokyo and tried not to put his fist through the glass.

This was what drowning felt like. Being pulled under again and again, breaking the surface just long enough to gasp for air before being dragged back down. And the person doing the drowning—the person whose hand was on your throat cutting off oxygen—was someone you’d destroyed yourself for. Someone you couldn’t save because saving them meant drowning yourself.

His phone vibrated again. And again. The world kept demanding his attention, kept insisting he participate in reality when all he wanted was to stop existing for a while.

He pulled it out finally, meaning to silence it entirely.

Saw Akane’s name on the screen.

Akane: I saw her leave with him. Are you okay?

No. He wasn’t okay. Hadn’t been okay since the restaurant, since before that, since the moment he’d let his past dictate his present and lost his future in the process.

He didn’t respond. Just turned his phone face-down on his desk and stared out at the city that kept moving, kept living, kept existing without caring that his world was ending one lunch date at a time.

The lunch was awkward from the start.

You and Suguru sat across from each other in a ramen place two blocks from the office—one of those popular spots that always had a line, where the broth was rich and the noodles were perfect and none of it tasted like anything because your stomach was in knots.

“Why did you do that?” you asked once you’d both ordered, once you were trapped in this booth with nowhere to go and no excuse not to address what had just happened. “Show up at my office like that?”

“Because it was funny.” His dark eyes glinted with something amused. “Come on. You should’ve seen his face.”

“That’s it? That’s your reason?”

“Mostly.” He shrugged, unbothered. “Also figured you could use a lunch break. You look like shit, if I’m being honest.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious.” He leaned back, casual. “You’re working yourself into the ground. Someone should probably tell you that. Might as well be me.”

“By making a scene in my workplace?” You kept your voice low, aware of the other diners around you. “By making it obvious we’re—whatever we are? By giving him another reason to hate me?”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Suguru picked up his chopsticks. “He hates me. Big difference.”

“The effect is the same.”

“Maybe.” He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. “But watching him try to keep it together? Worth it.”

“So this is just entertainment for you?”

“Entertainment. Payback. Little bit of both.” He wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Look, you called me, remember? You needed someone to vent to. I listened. Now I’m taking you to lunch. If that pisses off Satoru in the process, well—” A slight smile. “Bonus.”

The casual honesty of it was almost refreshing in its cruelty.

“I’m tired, Suguru.” You pushed your ramen around the bowl without eating. “Tired of the games and the hurt and the using each other as weapons. Tired of—” Your voice cracked. “Tired of losing him over and over again.”

“So stop playing them.” Matter-of-fact. Like it was that simple.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“He’s with Akane.” The words tasted like poison. “Even if nothing happened that night at the restaurant, she’s still there. Still in his space, still in his life, still—” You gestured helplessly. “Still everything I’m not.”

“About that night—” Suguru paused, something shifting in his expression. Something calculating. “Want to know something interesting?”

Your stomach dropped. “What?”

“They went up to her hotel. I know because I asked around.” He said it casually, like he was commenting on the weather. “But here’s the fun part—he was back down in maybe a minute. Left alone. Went home.”

The information landed like a bomb. “How do you—”

“I have friends at that hotel. Friends who were curious enough to keep an eye out.” He shrugged. “Wanted to know if he’d actually do it. If he’d actually move on. Turns out—” A slight smirk. “He didn’t.”

Your hands were shaking. You set down your chopsticks before you could drop them.

“That doesn’t change anything,” you said, but your voice wavered.

“Doesn’t it?” Suguru tilted his head, studying you with detached interest. “You’re both just spinning in circles, too proud or too scared to do anything about it.”

“So what, I should just—what? Run back to him?”

“I didn’t say that.” He took another bite, unbothered. “Do whatever you want. Go back to him. Move on. Keep using me to make him jealous.”

“You don’t care?”

“I do care. But this is your choice.” He met your eyes. “You’re fun to hang out with. Good conversation. And yeah, watching Satoru lose his mind over you is entertaining as hell. But whether you two work it out or burn each other to the ground?” He shrugged. “That’s your call.”

The words stung in their casual dismissal.

“So what was the point?” Your voice was small. “Of all of this? Of showing up at my office, of taking me to lunch, of—”

“Of reminding him you exist outside of his control?” Suguru’s smile was sharp. “Of showing him that other people see what he’s throwing away? Yeah. That was the point. Whether you actually leave him or go back to him—” He gestured vaguely. “The look on his face was fun though.”

“You’re using me.”

“We’re using each other.” He corrected, like this was something both of you should have known weeks ago. “You needed someone to make him jealous. I wanted to get under his skin. We both got what we wanted. What you do with it now is up to you.”

The casual honesty of it all should’ve hurt more than it did.

“I should get back,” you said, checking the time. You’d barely touched your food. “I have meetings this afternoon.”

“Yeah, probably.” Suguru stood, pulled out his wallet with the ease of someone who’d already moved on from this conversation. “For what it’s worth—you’re better than this. And you know you are.” He paused, suddenly deep in thought. “But that’s just my observation. Do with it what you will.”

He paid for both meals despite your protest, and you walked back to the office in silence that felt heavier than it should.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

When you got back to your floor, you could feel it immediately—the shift in energy. People looking at you differently. Whispers that died when you got close. The specific atmosphere that came from being the subject of office gossip.

Great. Just great.

You sat at your desk and tried to focus on work, but your mind kept drifting. To Gojo seeing you leave with Suguru. To the look that must have been on his face. To whether he cared at all or if you were just another complication in his otherwise organized life.

To whether anything Suguru said was true, or if it was just more manipulation dressed up as honesty.

To whether you had the courage to talk to Gojo even if you wanted to, even if Suguru was right, even if there was still something worth saving between you.

Your phone buzzed. A message from Akane.

Akane: Conference room 3. Five minutes. We need to discuss project adjustments.

Your stomach dropped. This was going to be bad. You could feel it.

But you had no choice. This was your job. Your professional obligation. You couldn’t avoid her forever just because she made you feel inadequate and small and like you didn’t deserve to be here.

So you grabbed your tablet and headed to conference room 3, trying to prepare yourself for whatever fresh hell was waiting.

What you found was worse than you’d imagined.

Akane was there. And Gojo. Both of them standing at opposite ends of the conference table, and the tension between them was thick enough to cut.

His jaw was clenched, his hands were shoved in his pockets, and those blue eyes were stormy with barely controlled something—rage or pain or both.

“Thank you for joining us,” Akane said with poisonous sweetness. “We need to discuss the campaign timeline. There have been some—concerns—about the current pace of work.”

This was it. This was her making good on the threat from earlier. Finding a professional excuse to undermine you, to question your work, to make you feel like you were failing.

You sat down slowly, tablet in front of you, trying to keep your expression neutral.

“What concerns?” you asked carefully.

“Well—” Akane pulled up a presentation on the screen. Your work. Your designs. “The creative direction is fine. But the execution timeline seems—ambitious. Perhaps too ambitious for someone still adjusting to projects of this scale.”

There it was. The implication that you couldn’t handle this. That you were in over your head.

“The timeline was approved by the team,” you said evenly. “And I’m ahead of schedule on most deliverables.”

“Are you?” She clicked through slides showing your project plan. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re stretching yourself thin. Taking long lunches. Getting distracted by—personal matters.”

The reference to Suguru was barely veiled.

“My personal time is my own,” you said, voice harder now. “And it hasn’t affected my work quality or timeline.”

“Hasn’t it?” Akane’s smile was sharp. “Because I’m looking at these mockups and I’m seeing—well, frankly, I’m seeing work that could be stronger. More polished. More—”

“The work is excellent.” Gojo’s voice cut through the room like a blade.

Both you and Akane turned to look at him.

He was staring at the screen, at your designs, with an intensity that felt dangerous.

“The work is excellent,” he repeated, voice flat but firm. “Better than anything we’ve produced internally. Better than what our previous contractors delivered. The creative direction is strong, the execution is flawless, and the timeline is not only realistic but ahead of schedule.” He finally looked at Akane, and something in his expression made her take a step back. “So unless you have specific, actionable feedback about the actual work—not speculation about personal matters that are none of our business—I suggest we table this discussion.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Akane’s perfect facade cracked for just a moment—you saw surprise flash across her face, then something harder. Anger, maybe. Or calculation.

“Of course,” she said smoothly. “I was simply trying to ensure we maintain our standards. But if you’re satisfied with the work, then I defer to your judgment.”

The words were professional but the underlying message was clear: this isn’t over.

“Are we done here?” Gojo asked, already moving toward the door.

“For now,” Akane said.

He left without looking at you. Without acknowledging what he’d just done—defended you, stood up for your work, put Akane in her place when she’d been trying to undermine you.

You sat there stunned, trying to process what had just happened.

Akane began packing up her materials with precise, controlled movements. When she looked at you, her smile was ice.

Then she left too, and you were alone in the conference room trying to understand what the fuck had just happened.

Gojo had defended you. Had stood up for your work. Had put himself between you and Akane’s cruelty.

Even after everything. Even after Suguru. Even after you’d destroyed what existed between you.

He’d still protected you.

The realization made your chest ache with something too big to name.

You sat in the empty conference room for another ten minutes, staring at your designs still displayed on the screen. Evidence of your work. Evidence of what Gojo had defended without hesitation, without even looking at you.

The thing was, you didn’t feel grateful. You didn’t feel validated or seen or any of the things you probably should have felt after someone defended your work like that.

You felt angry.

Angry that he could stand up for your designs but not for you. That he could eviscerate Akane’s professional criticism but had said nothing—nothing—when it mattered, when it had something to do with both of you. That he could be cold and cutting in defense of your work but had been just as cold and cutting when he’d walked away from you.

And underneath the anger was something worse. Something that felt like confusion mixed with resentment mixed with a terrible, unwanted flutter of something when you remembered the way his voice had gone hard. The work is excellent.

You hated that it had affected you at all. Hated that some small, pathetic part of you had felt a spark of warmth at his defense, even though you knew better. Even though you’d spent weeks building walls against exactly this—against letting Gojo Satoru matter to you in any capacity.

He didn’t get to do this. Didn’t get to be protective of your professional reputation while treating you like a mistake in every other context. Didn’t get to make you feel things when you’d finally, finally started to decide that it was probably better to just feel nothing.

Because caring about your work wasn’t the same as caring about you. And you were so tired of trying to decode Gojo Satoru’s actions like they were some kind of puzzle you needed to solve. So tired of feeling like you were supposed to be grateful for bare minimum decency dressed up as protection.

So tired of the fact that despite everything—despite your anger and your walls and your very valid reasons for wanting nothing to do with him—his defense had still made something in your chest twist uncomfortably.

You wanted to not care. You’d been working so hard at not caring.

And somehow, in five minutes, he’d made that harder again.

You gathered your things and went back to your desk, that confusing tangle of anger and resentment and unwanted something sitting heavy in your stomach.

When you finally left the office that evening, the city lights blurring through the elevator’s glass walls, you felt exhausted. Not physically. Emotionally. Tired of your own reactions. Tired of not knowing what you wanted or how you were supposed to feel.

Tired of Gojo Satoru taking up space in your head when you’d been trying so hard to evict him.

Moreover, you made a decision. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you’d figure out what to do about Gojo. About Suguru. About all of it.

The elevator doors opened to the lobby, and you stepped out into the cold December air, pulling your coat tighter.

You didn’t see him at first—didn’t notice the figure leaning against the building’s exterior wall, hands in his pockets, white hair catching the streetlight.

Didn’t realize he’d been waiting until he pushed off the wall and fell into step beside you.

“We need to talk,” Gojo said quietly.

And just like that, tomorrow became right now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​