𝑬𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚

"Sensitive subject," Sukuna wryly commented, brows furrowed together, thinking about more things you weren't privy too.

"They're pretty horrible people," You admitted. To yourself. To him. Probably the only time you'd ever voiced the sentiment that had gnawed at you throughout your entire life out loud.

"Yeah," He grunted, elbows on the table as he leaned in closer.

"Sorry," You apologized again, out of habit, breaking his state to glance down at the half-finished food in front of you. Your appetite wasn't there anymore.

"For what?" He pressed, and you faltered again. Mouth parted and barely able to piece together your thoughts.

"Talking about me, I guess," You shyly shrugged.

He chuckled, rolling his eyes at you like that was a stupid concept.

"I asked because I want to know more about you, brat."

Sukuna had to be trying to kill you. Attempted murder via showing the faintest sliver of interest in you as a person. What were you supposed to say to that?

How were you supposed to go into work and focus on your job when you'd be busy thinking about the gravel in his voice, the way the condensation from the glass dripped onto his knuckles when you'd replay this moment back in your mind?

One corner of his lips curled up into a crooked smile at how speechless you were, amused by the frozen look of shock on your face.

"Why do you want to?" You inhaled, holding your breath without meaning to.

"Is there a problem with that?" He dodged your question, sidestepping it with ease before taking another bite of his food. Drinking his soda without his eyes straying from yours, dark and intense, demanding your attention.

"N-no," You stammered, caught too off-guard to put your shields back up. "I just-"

You cut yourself off, exhaling hard, struggling to form a sentence that didn't feel foreign.

"You just what?" Sukuna teased, and your lips really clamped shut.

"Can we talk something else?" You murmured, anxiously fiddling with your bracelet. If he was disappointed, you didn't want to see it.

"What if I like the subject?" He challenged.

You were starting to think Sukuna just liked making you squirm, to poke and prod and make you flustered. And you shouldn't, really, if you had any sense, you'd shut it down, but the smallest crush on him had begun to bloom in your heart. Watered by the way he looked at you, how seen you felt when he was around, addicted to finally feeling like a real person rather than a pretty doll to be tossed around.

It was better that he was mean. Better that he mocked and made fun of you.

It was raw, at least. Not sugar-coated and sweet to cover up the poison behind his words.

He rolled his eyes at your silence.

"Fine," He relented. "What do you want to talk about, princess?"

"I dunno," You shrugged, pretending your face hadn't flushed. The nickname that had felt disgusting coming from someone else's mouth made your heart skip a beat when it was from his. "What do friends talk about?"

It wasn't like you had any to know.

"We're not friends," He grunted, and it was a gut punch. Stomach curdling in the aftermath, struck by the certainty in his words. Reminding you that all he'd be at the end of the day was your boss.

"Oh," You swallowed hard.

"Don't lump me in with those idiots you go to school with either," He added, but you were already grabbing your purse, body stuff and jerky as you tried to get yourself to move.

"I'm gonna run to the bathroom," You muttered under your breath, chair already scraping against the linoleum before he could say something else that hurt. You only stopped by the cash register to ask for the check and pay it.

You weren't friends.

Why not save yourself the awkwardness of splitting the check or owing him anything?

"Fuck, I'm hungover," Gojo groaned.

"You're talking too loud," Suguru muttered, pushing the dark shades up his nose and rubbing his own aching forehead as he held open the door to some shitty restaurant his friend insisted on for lunch. Considering both of them had only crawled out of bed half an hour ago, it was more like breakfast.

"Sorry," Gojo grumbled, glancing around the half-empty place. "Do we know that guy?"

Suguru followed his stare over to the corner booth, surprised to see someone he did know. His tattoo artist arguing with a waitress, a tight scowl on his face and an empty plate in front of him. There was a second set of food on the table, but no one was there.

Maybe he got ditched on a date.

The guy was kind of a prick.

Last time he'd gotten a tattoo, Suguru watched him tell a girl one of his other clients came in with to fuck off for trying to get too close to him while he worked.

"He does my tattoos," Suguru grumbled, slipping into a booth on the other end of restaurant, too close to the bathrooms for his liking, but enough that no one coming in would see him and think to start a conversation.

"Still thinking about getting one for graduation?" Gojo casually asked, waving over another waitress to order, his stomach rumbling loud enough to hear across the table.

"Don't know," He shrugged, flipping through the menus already on the table and frowning at the options.

All the things he thought he wanted to do had been derailed by thoughts of you.

Trying to figure out a puzzle that took itself apart every time you revealed something new about yourself.

The you that told him you'd never had a boyfriend before, the you who kissed him like he was worth something, the you who should have thrown a drink in his face for not being there to stand up for you. Just glancing up at him like you felt bad, breaking everything off as if you didn't want to inconvenience him. How smothered he suddenly felt, submerged in panic at the idea of you making an abrupt exit from his life, a pang of something that felt unbearably close to jealousy seeping through at the way you were drowning in that stupid hoodie, the size of another man. Hair soaking wet still, makeup smeared and pretty lips parted apologetically, looking like some small animal someone left out in the rain.

How the fuck could he reconcile that with the you from a few years ago?

You'd been too good for him before. What changed?

"Did you hear who those girls were?" Suguru mumbled after the waitress dropped their drinks back off.

"Not yet," Gojo shrugged, slurping down some neon-colored soda that would probably give him kidney stones.

"She said it was my friends," He frowned. Whoever the fuck had done that to you wouldn't be his friend anymore, that was for sure. But he wanted to know who was safe enough to invite to the aquarium, who would welcome you the way he should've made sure you were welcomed before.

Your words had ingrained themselves into the background of his thoughts. Always on a loop, the way you looked up at him and smiled, how your hand felt in his. The shape of your smile and the scrunch of your nose on the rare occasion you laughed at something.

And as much as he hated to admit it, it was you that was stuck in his head.

"Seriously, Suguru?"

You hadn't even made it five feet from the bathroom. Blood freezing before you even rounded the corner, stopping in place.

"You've only talked about her since last night," Gojo groaned. "She's your girlfriend, man. Just ask her."

"She wouldn't tell me," Suguru grumbled. A funny feeling coiled in your stomach, pulling tight and strangling you.

Were they talking about you?

The thought seemed ridiculous.

"I'll ask around again, but I doubt anyone will admit they stole her clothes," Gojo hummed, and you couldn't see him, but you'd bet he was probably shrugging.

You didn't want to walk past their table.

But you would have to if you wanted to get back to where Sukuna was waiting. Unless you just walked outside and hoped he left his car unlocked.

That would probably be for the best. Texting him that you paid the bill and were waiting for him in his car. Just coming up with some excuse that your stomach hurt or you weren't hungry anymore.

Both were kind of true.

"They'll brag to someone," Suguru murmured. His voice was harsh, more hoarse than usual. Maybe he was hungover.

"A lot of people don't like her." It hurt more to hear it from Gojo. Even if he wasn't saying he didn't like you. Even if it was true. "It's not fair but-"

"I know," Suguru interrupted soberly.

"That's just how it's been," Gojo casually said it, and you were glad that any hope you had crumbled before.

"I know," Suguru repeated, exasperated. You shouldn't be eavesdropping. It wasn't like you'd learn anything you didn't already know. You resolved yourself to cancel the stupid aquarium thing with Suguru. Maybe make up some excuse for it, a paper to turn in or exam to study for.

Getting involved deeper with him just seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Your life was already enough of a wreck without him.

You needed to leave.

Started turning towards the door, taking the first few steps when Gojo's voice made you pause again.

"I mean, you did used to have a crush on her before-"

🍂 Atsumu Miya, twin #1. He’s the first person to start teasing you about things. He loves to mess with you but he’s always looking out for you too. He’s not always the best at comforting people so if you’re ever upset, he’ll do his best to cheer you up instead. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll accept that you’re upset and at least give a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on.

🪾 Osamu Miya, twin #2. Always there for you when you need it. He can tell when somethings wrong and is quick to sit you down and talk it out with him while he makes a snack and some warm hot chocolate to make you feel better, something that’s always worked since you were both young. Forces you to come to all his and Atsumu’s games and makes you take pictures and videos.

🐚 Suna Rintarou, the brother from another mother. You and him were never super close but he still looked over you. When the twins graduated, he took on the job of keeping an eye on you at school. You never really thought of him as anything more but your older brother’s little spy until you were eighteen, a full adult, and your brothers brought up the rules of dating…

🪐 (Y/N) Miya, the coolest sister ever. Your brothers wonder how you’ve become this rowdy but you only learned it from the best. Play fighting, sitting between the two boys while Atsumu cusses Osamu for winning in Mario Cart, listening to them gossip about people from their school. It was known that you’d eventually have to get their attitude. You are just that it girl.

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Left Brain, Right Brain

Chapter 2: Coming Soon!!

Chapter 3: Coming Soon!!

First series ever!!! So excited to get started on this and I think it’ll do a lot to help me grow as writer since I’m still super new to it. I got this trope idea about “being the third younger Miya sibling with a crush on Suna” from semiloml on TikTok!! Everything else are ideas straight from my own brain lol. Follow along with the series and while you’re at it, check out my other works!!

Haikyuu master-list 🎀 main master-list

Behind you, someone coughed—probably trying to hide a laugh.

“And I love it when you stop talking,” you shot back.

His laugh came through the radio, warm and amused. “Someone’s feisty today. Is the coffee in the tower that bad again?”

“Coffee’s fine. It’s the pilot that’s giving me a headache.”

“Mmm. I like it when your voice gets all defensive, beautiful.”

There it was again. Beautiful.

Always beautiful. Never ‘ma’am’ or ‘tower’ or even your call sign like every other normal fucking pilot with a shred of professionalism would do. With Gojo, it was always pretty, or beautiful, or—God help you—honey. Like he was talking to a date he wanted to charm, not calling for airspace clearance on public frequency.

You’d corrected him once early on. “Use proper radio protocol,” you’d said, but all he replied was, “Sorry, Control. Slipped. Won’t happen again, pretty.” 

It had happened again. And again. And again.

You leaned back in your chair, staring up at the ceiling and entertaining the fantasy of reaching through the frequency and strangle him with your headset cord. Instead, your fingers found the stress ball on your desk and squeezed until your knuckles went white.

“You don’t even know what I look like,” you said, frustrated.

“Your voice tells me everything I need to know. And I’m betting you’re even more beautiful than you sound.”

“Is that why you like hearing yourself talk so much? Because your voice tells you how pretty you are?”

He laughed. “Ouch. You’re brutal today, Control. Permission to land before you completely break my poor heart?”

“Flight 447, you’re cleared to land, runway 24L. Wind 240 at 8 knots. Try not to crash while you’re busy thinking about how charming you are.”

“Copy that, beautiful. And for the record? I wasn’t thinking about myself.” His voice dropped lower, not caring at all that he was on public frequency. “I was thinking about you.”

Heat crept up your neck. Around the tower, a few heads turned your way once more—grinning, and you wanted to punch them in the face. 

You were silent for a few seconds and you could basically hear his grin forming on the other end of the line.

“Looks like I’ve got you blushing. Well then, see you on the ground, Control.”

More heat crept up your neck. You yanked off your headset and slammed it down on the desk, resisting the urge to scream into a stack of paperwork. Goddamn it, he made you want to quit your job. Or strangle him. Or both.

You looked out the tower’s window just in time to watch his plane break through the clouds and touch down. A fucking textbook perfect landing. Of course it was. Captain Satoru Gojo was, without question, the most infuriating pilot you’d ever had the displeasure of guiding in. And unfortunately, he was also the best.

It had started a few months ago when he began regularly flying the international routes from Japan to Central Europe—the very same routes you’d specifically requested when you transferred to Haneda. 

The 2 AM flights? The twelve hour shifts from hell? The ones that made most controllers question all their life choices and develop an unhealthy, codependent relationship with the espresso machine? 

You loved them.

These were the long flights where pilots were usually dead tired and just wanted to get home. Communication was professional and efficient. No small talk, no unnecessary chatter, just vectors, altitudes, and a few polite acknowledgments. You could guide a Boeing 777 from Tokyo to Frankfurt with maybe twenty lines of dialogue, max. That was the dream.

These pilots had been airborne for twelve hours or longer—the last thing they wanted was a chatty air traffic controller stretching out their shift with unnecessary conversation. And the last thing you wanted was to listen to their rambling. You loved those quiet and professional pilots—the ones you barely had to talk to, just guide them in and call it a day. Great. Easy work. You loved your job when it was uncomplicated.

While your colleagues dealt with the chaos of domestic flights—tight turnarounds, grumbling pilots, weather complaints, gate drama and all that shit—you got the stern and serious long-distance flyers.

Until Captain Satoru Gojo.

The first time you handled Flight 447’s approach out of Prague, you braced for the usual. Someone who’d been flying for thirteen hours straight and just wanted to land, deplane, and find the nearest bed. What you got instead was a happy voice that sounded like the man had just woken from the greatest nap of his lifetime and could easily fly for another thirteen hours.

“Tokyo Control, Flight 447 requesting descent. And might I say... what a beautiful night it is up here.”

You blinked at your radar screen. It was 2:03 AM. Cloudy skies. Visibility barely above minimum levels. Nothing about it was beautiful.

Most pilots at this hour could barely remember their own call signs. But not Gojo. Gojo sounded wide awake and relaxed—and, unfortunately, talkative. 

God, he talked so much. Always cracking jokes, always so cocky, always dragging out what should’ve been a thirty second exchange into a five minute monologue over the radio.

“Flight 447, descend and maintain flight level 240.”

“Descending to 240. Had to adjust our approach three times tonight because of wind shear. Amazing how much the atmosphere changes in just a few thousand feet. Did you know that—”

“Flight 447, contact Tokyo Aproach on 119.7.”

He sighed. “Copy that, beautiful. Always a pleasure chatting with you.”

It started professional enough—well, as professional as someone could be while constantly calling air traffic control ‘beautiful’—but overtime, he got more and more flirty. Somewhere around the fifth or seventh flight, you guided him in, he stopped sounding like a pilot and started sounding like a man leaving voicemail notes to his girlfriend. 

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

“Did you miss my voice, honey?”

“Until next time, beautiful.”

Maybe it was his personality, as if he simply couldn’t help himself—like he’d physically explode if he didn’t borderline sexual harass his ground crew and was naturally incapable of having a normal conversation. But goddamn, did it annoy you.

He’d never even seen you. Didn’t know your name, wouldn’t recognize your face if you passed him in the terminal. He probably couldn’t even point to the tower from his cockpit window. And yet, every transmission felt like he thought he was on private frequency with you, and not broadcasting on public monitored by half the airspace.

And oh my God, the rambling—the fucking rambling. And, of course, you were his favorite audience.

“You know, Control, I was reading this article about albatrosses during my layover in Warsaw and it got me thinking. Did you know they can fly for years without ever touching ground, like literally sleeping while they fly? Can you imagine? They use these tiny wind gradients over the waves to do that. Makes our fuel consumption look pretty inefficient, doesn’t it?”

You already felt your soul leaving your body.

“Although I bet you could optimize their route better than they can to save even more energy. You’ve got such a lovely voice for giving directions. Very authoritative. I like that—”

Sometimes he’d yap for minutes until you got so annoyed that you’d rip off your headset before he could finish whatever outrageous story he was about to finish and waved at Ijichi to take over. Poor Ijichi—an actual saint and unfortunately still a rookie, so he was your victim—would sigh, slid on his headset and took over the frequency to reply to Gojo’s rambling about birds in a very distinctly male, distinctly unimpressed voice.

“Flight 447, this is Tokyo Control. Please state your current altitude.”

A pause. “Oh. Um. Flight level 380. Sorry—Is the other controller… did she…?”

“Flight 447, maintain current altitude and heading. Contact Approach on 119.7.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Ijichi shoot you a pained look and mouthed, “Your boyfriend’s looking for you” while you pretended to be very busy with paperwork, highlighting the same line of a weather report you’d already read four times.

You’d complained to your supervisor, of course. Marched into Yaga’s office with a list of incidents and timestamps of what you considered to be highly unprofessional behaviour that was interfering with air traffic operations.

Yaga had listened, occasionally nodding, while you explained in detail why Captain Gojo’s voice should be banned from all airspace. When you finished, he’d leaned back in his chair and given you that look—the one supervisors gave when they were about to tell you something you didn’t want to hear.

“Has he ever caused a delay?” Yaga asked.

“Well, no, but—”

“Missed a radio call?”

“No, however—”

“Failed to follow vectors or altitude assignments?”

“That’s not the point—”

“Has he ever said anything explicitly inappropriate? Sexual harassment, offensive language, anything that would violate communications protocols?”

You’d opened your mouth, then closed it. You were fighting a losing battle.

Yaga had shrugged and pointed out that Gojo never said anything explicitly inappropriate, never caused delays, and had the cleanest safety record of any pilot flying commercial routes in Japan. Zero incidents, zero violations, zero passenger complaints. He was the perfect pilot.

“The guy’s annoying but harmless,” Yaga had said at last, and slid your complaint folder back across his desk.

Harmless. Right.

Harmless if you didn’t count the fact that he was actively driving you insane and making you seriously consider changing careers. Or at least requesting a transfer to cargo flights, where the pilots were too busy dealing with departures every thirty minutes to spend time talking about stupid bird flyting techniques.

But damn it—you worked so hard for this position. You were a certified, professional air traffic controller with five years on the radar and an impeccable safety record. You’d studied for two years to pass the brutal exams, survived months in training simulations and clawed your way up from ground control to tower to approach and finally to the international routes. 

You directed aircraft worth billions of dollars, carrying hundreds of lives, through some of the most complex and congested airspace in Asia. You coordinated with air traffic controllers in twelve different countries, handled language barriers, time zones, techchnical delays, and medical emergencies—all while being always fucking calm and polite. 

Okay, scratch the polite part. But you got the job done, and that’s what mattered. And you were not about to throw it all away because one stupid, obnoxious pilot with an equally stupid, attractive voice was too dense to tell the difference between air traffic control and fucking Tinder.

Okay, forget about the calm part, too.

It didn’t help that your colleagues found the whole thing all too amusing. Your colleague Maki—who handled mostly domestic routes and therefore dealt with normal, professional pilots—had already labelled Gojo your ‘work husband’.

And every time his flight number popped up on the radar, she’d make kissy faces in your direction and sing, “Oh, your boyfriend’s calling,” to which you’d reply “He’s not my boyfriend.” Or worse, she’d lean over your shoulder while he was in the middle of yet another monologue, whispering when you’d finally ask him out. Of course, she knew he’d hear every word on the other end of the radio, prompting him to tease you with, “She’s right. When will you finally ask me?”

“Flight 447, turn left heading 090, descend to flight level 200.”

“Left 090, down to 200. And might I add that you sound particularly lovely today, Control? Did you do something different with your… well, I can’t see your hair, but I bet it looks very pretty.”

Maki would choke on her laughter like a middle schooler watching her crush talk, and you’d have to clench your fists to stop yourself from punching them both.

And it didn’t help that everyone loved him, of course. 

Everyone except you, apparently.

The ground crew basically fought over who got to service his aircraft. You’d see a swarm of orange vests crowding Gate 7 whenever Flight 447 rolled in—like teenage fangirls waiting backstage for their favourite boy band. It was ridiculous.

You’ve seen how the gate agents would always check their hair and straighten their ties. Hana from passenger services bought new lipstick “just in case” she ran into Captain Gojo during a layover. 

Even the janitors—the fucking janitors—somehow developed a sudden obsession with the floor around Gate 7. Mr. Takeshi, who’d been mopping this place since the airport was built, now took his sweet time in that exact area. Like. What the fuck.

It was like the entire airport had developed a collective crush on a man most of them had never even spoken to. All based on stories and the occasional glimpse of him walking through the terminal in his pilot uniform.

You’d never actually seen him. In the months he’d been flying your routes, your shifts always ended right before he arrived—or you were stuck up in the tower when he was on the ground. Like you existed in parallel universes. You guided his plane through the airspace, but never actually crossed paths on the ground.

Everyone said he was stupidly pretty—so damn dreamy and everything. You could’ve looked him up, googled him, stalked the airport intranet. But you didn’t. For all you knew, he was sixty with a beer belly and balding. But unfortunately, he also had an infuriatingly attractive voice over radio communication.

Which only made it worse.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

It was one of those days where everything had gone wrong the moment you’d stepped into the tower. The coffee machine was broken, spitting out something between coffee grounds and mud. Your computer crashed twice during the morning shift, erasing twenty minutes of logged flight data. And to top it off, Ijichi had called in sick, leaving you to handle both international and domestic flights with only Maki as backup—who was currently tied up managing a medical diversion across three different frequencies.

So when Flight 447’s call sign appeared on your radar screen a full twenty minutes ahead of schedule, you felt your eye twitch.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting vectors for approach.”

You glared at the radar. Of course he was early. And of fucking course he was screwing up your carefully timed arrival window. You’d scheduled him between two other flights, and now you had to rearrange everything yet again.

“Flight 447, turn left heading 180, descend and maintain 3,000 feet.”

“Left 180, down to 3,000. You sound tense, Control. Long shift?”

Deep breath. Remember, violence is not an option.

“Just doing my job, 447.”

“Ouch. That’s definitely tension. Let me guess—computer crash? Did someone steal your lunch? Ah wait, I know—the coffee machine spat out mud again, didn’t it?”

You blinked at your screen. How could he possibly—

“Flight 447, maintain current heading and altitude.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. I brought you something from Zurich. Might help improve your mood.”

You paused, finger hovering over the radio button. “You… brought me something?”

“Mhm. You know those famous Swiss chocolatiers? Heard they make the best chocolate in Europe, so I picked some up for you.”

You stared at your screen for a beat, unsure whether to feel weirdly flattered or wildly uncomfortable. Probably both.

“You don’t even know who I am.”

“I know enough,” he said, still annoyingly casual. “I know you prefer late international routes because they’re usually quiet and professional. I know you drink your coffee black, because I’ve heard you complain—more than once—that no one washes out the cream dispenser in the break room, and that it will one day cause a biohazard. Which, judging by your mood today, I’m guessing no one’s done that in a while, so now the good machine’s off to maintenance again, and you’re stuck with that old one that just spits out grounds.”

A pause.

“And I know you stay late to help train the newbies, because I’ve heard your voice in the background on calls. I have to say, you’ve got this calm, patient tone that makes it almost sound like you’re not seconds away from strangling them. It’s kind of adorable, really.”

You sat up straighter. How did he know all that? And more importantly, why had he noticed all that?

You didn’t respond right away, unsure what to respond at all. Then, finally, you clicked your radio.

“Flight 447, turn right heading 240. Contact Approach on 119.7.”

“Wait, that’s it? No ‘thank you’ or ‘wow, you’re so thoughtful for bringing me treats form overseas’? I declared that stuff at customs, you know. It was a whole ordeal.”

Despite your awful morning, your lip twitched. “You declared chocolate at customs?”

“Had to. They were weirdly suspicious about a pilot carrying so much chocolate in his carry-on. I told them it was for someone special, and they got all sentimental and waved me through.”

“You told customs agents I was special?”

“I told them the truth. …Though I may have implied you were my girlfriend to avoid further questioning.”

“You what?”

His laugh crackled through the headset, way too pleased with himself. “Relax, beautiful. Customs agents don’t exactly hang out with air traffic controllers. Your secret identity is safe.”

“Flight 447, I’m transferring you to Approach. Stop inventing fake relationships with me at international borders.”

“So we’re not dating? Huh. That’s news to me.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“Yeah. And your job involves listening to me, technically speaking.”

“My job involves keeping you from colliding with other planes, not entertaining your delusions.”

“See? You care about my safety. Such a good girlfriend, Control.”

You could almost hear the smirk through the static. Across the tower, Maki—finally free from her emergency—was trying desperately to look anywhere but your direction. She was listening too, you realized, her face reddening as she barely held in her laughter.

“Flight 447 switch to Approach now, or I will reroute you to Osaka instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare. You’d miss me too much.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, okay, I’m switching,” he said, still laughing. “I’ll make sure the chocolate gets delivered to your gate. It’s got your name on it. Well… your call sign, anyway. Couldn’t exactly ask for your real name without sounding like a creep. Oh, and there’s a little something extra in the box, too.”

Your finger froze over the transmit button. “What kind of extra?”

“Just a little something. See you on the ground, beautiful.”

The line went silent as he switched to Approach, leaving you staring at your screen with a whole lot of annoyance, curiosity, and something dangerously close to anticipation swirling in your head.

Maki rolled her chair over without missing a beat. “Did he just say he brought you chocolate? From Switzerland?”

“Apparently.”

“And declared you his girlfriend to customs?”

“I hate him.”

“And there’s something extra waiting for you at the gate?”

You gave her a warning look. “Stop that.”

“You realize most guys don’t even text back. And he flew across eleven time zones and smuggled in fancy chocolate for you. Yeah, no one does that unless they’re into you.”

“It’s creepy.”

“Sure,” she said. “So creepy that you’re smiling about it.”

“I’m not smiling.”

“You absolutely are.” She leaned closer. “And you’re totally going to check the gate during your break.”

You turned back to your screen. “I have work to do.”

“Right. Want me to cover for you while you go see what the handsome pilot brought you?”

“I’m not—” 

Your radar lit up. “Tower, this is Flight 892 requesting vectors for approach.” Saved by traffic, or whatever. You put your headset back on, thankful for the distraction, and focused on the radar. 

You were definitely not thinking about Swiss chocolate.

Or whatever extra he brought.

Not even a little.

Okay, maybe a little.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

You waited until Flight 447 was safely out of range and someone else’s problem before making your move. The tower had quieted into its usual evening rhythm—slower, calmer, manageable. Most of the midday traffic was gone. And you? You were definitely just walking to the gate to, you know, get your steps in. Obviously.

“Off to investigate your love offerings?” Maki called as you headed for the elevator.

“Gate operations check,” you tried, but you couldn’t fool her.

The box was sitting right there at the international gate desk—impossible to miss. It was white and elegant, wrapped with a dark green ribbon, and with your controller call sign handwritten on the tag. Hana, the gate agent on duty, lit up the moment she saw you.

“Oh! You’re Control Seven! Captain Gojo dropped that off a few hours ago. He was very specific that it had to go to ‘the controller with the most beautiful voice in aviation.’” She giggled like a schoolgirl. “He’s so romantic.”

You stared at the box. It was bigger than you’d expected with a fancy logo that suggested the box probably cost more than your monthly food budget.

“Did he… say anything else?”

“Just that you’d had a rough day and deserved something sweet.” Hana sighed. “He’s so thoughtful. And his eyes? Like a winter sky.”

Winter sky? My god. You swore everyone around here was losing their goddamn minds over this man. You were so fed up with the collective swooning, you were starting to wonder if you were the only one left immune to his bullshit.

“Right. Well. Thanks.”

Back at your console, you set it down and stared at it as if it were a ticking bomb. Maki appeared at your side, peering over your shoulder.

“Holy shit. Is that from that famous Swiss brand? Do you even know how expensive that place is?”

“It’s just chocolate.”

“Just chocolate?” Maki carefully lifted the lid. Inside, each handmade confection was perfectly nestled in its own spot. “These are, like, forty bucks each. There’s at least thirty pieces in here.”

Ijichi gave a low whistle. “Your pilot boyfriend just dropped twelve hundred dollars on chocolate for you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” But your eyes were still glued to the box, your brain struggling to process the fact that someone had just casually spent more than your rent on Swiss truffles. Someone who’d never even seen your face.

“Oh my God, try one,” Maki said, already plucking out a champagne truffle. “Don’t be shy.”

You picked a dark chocolate filled with salted caramel and bit into it. It was... really good. Incredible, even. Probably the best thing you’d ever tasted. Which, somehow, only made this entire situation worse.

“Girl, you are so lucky,” Maki sighed, popping another piece into her mouth. “A hot pilot who brings you fancy chocolate? Where do I sign up for that kind of harassment?”

“He’s probably not even attractive. I’ve never actually seen him.”

Both Maki and Ijichi froze, their mouths full of chocolate.

“Wait,” Maki said slowly. “You’ve never seen him?”

“Our shifts don’t overlap. I’m always in the tower when his flights come in.”

“Oh my God.” Maki turned to her computer. “I’m looking him up. The airport has photos of all the regular pilots for security, right?”

“Tower, this is Flight 234 requesting vectors for approach,” crackled your headset. 

You grabbed your radio. “Flight 234, turn right heading 090, descend and maintain 4,000 feet.”

You moved quickly back to your station, eyes fixed on the radar screen. Behind you, you could feel Maki and Ijichi staring at you, clearly waiting for you to come back to them to gossip, but you waved them off without turning around. 

As you guided the aircraft in, your hand absently toyed with the ribbon around the box, and that’s when you noticed the ‘something extra’. Tucked beneath the chocolates was a postcard that showed the Swiss alps. You turned the card around.

“For the voice that always guides me home. Thank you for keeping me safe up there.” — S

You shivered.

Out of annoyance. Obviously. Not because of the note. Or the postcard. Or the very stupid, very warm feeling creeping up your neck. Nope. Pure irritation. And maybe a tiny bit of cardiac distress. From rage. Clearly.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

You’d barely slept the night before. Every time you closed your eyes, you’d thought about stupidly expensive Swiss chocolate, that annoyingly sincere note, and the way his voice had softened when he’d called you special. It was infuriating. You were a professional, rational adult, not someone who lost sleep over a cocky pilot with a bedroom voice that was clearly a walking red flag.

Yet here you were at 12:28 PM, exhausted and surviving on your fourth cup of awful Tower coffee because an emergency landing had turned your normal shift into a fourteen hour marathon. A passenger going into labour during a flight from Beijing had caused half the Pacific to be rerouted, and by the time the situation had been handled, the night shift was understaffed and you’d agreed—more or less voluntarily—to stay and help out.

The tower had gone still in the way airports only do at night. Just you and your collegue Kai on shift, and him busy on a separate channel, handling a delayed cargo inbound. Somewhere below, the terminal lights flickered as the cleaning crews did laps. You rested your chin in your palm and tried not to hate everything.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting approach clearance.”

It took your brain a second to catch up. Flight 447. He’d just arrived from Paris. Of course. You took a breath.

“Flight 447, unable to clear for approach at this time. We have outbound traffic. Maintain current altitude and turn left heading 270 for holding.”

“Copy that. Left 270. Long night down there?”

You rubbed your eyes. “Medical emergency earlier. You’ll be in the hold for about an hour.”

“Roger. Hey—did you get the chocolates?"

Despite your exhaustion, you felt heat creep up your neck. Damn him. “Yes. Thank you. They were... unnecessary.”

“But good?”

You exhaled. “Really good.”

“Knew it. You sound tired, Control. How long you been on?”

You checked your watch. “Fourteen hours.”

“You shouldn’t be pulling shifts that long. You always look after everyone else but you’ve got to take care of yourself too, you know.”

You paused, the words hitting you sideways. Maybe it was the fatigue making you soft, or maybe it was the fact that, for once, he didn’t sound like he was trying to get a rise out of you. He sounded genuinely concerned—and it threw you off more than any flirtation ever had. You didn’t even have the energy to fight him on it.

“Someone had to cover.”

“Not at the cost of your own health. You drinking water? Eating real food? And I don’t mean the sandwiches they sell in the vending machines in the gates.”

“I did eat something a few hours ago. I’m okay. We had a pregnant passenger go into labor. Coordinated three hospitals and rerouted six aircraft, then landed them priority.”

“Is she okay?”

“Baby girl, born healthy. I heard from the flight attendant that they’ve named her Sky. It’s kinda cheesy.”

“That’s beautiful.” His voice was soft. “You helped bring a little life into the world tonight.”

“It’s just part of the job.”

“It’s not just your job, you know that,” he said gently. “It’s you being the person people count on when it really matters.”

“I don’t know…”

“You know why I always ask for this route?”

“Because you like to annoy me?”

He laughed quietly. “Because your voice is the best part of my day. Doesn’t matter what went wrong, how difficult the passengers, or how many delays we had to deal with—the moment I hear you on frequency… I know I’m okay. I know I’m home.”

You blinked. Words tangled somewhere between your chest and your mouth, but none made it out. How could they? Not with your heart thudding like it was trying to escape. Not with your lungs suddenly feeling too small. 

It was silent in the tower. Kai was still busy on the other frequency with his cargo flight, leaving you alone with nothing but Gojo’s soft breathing in your headset and the pounding of your pulse. 

You pressed your forehead to your arms on the desk, willing your heart rate to slow. Eventually, quietly, you said, “Why? Why are you being so… like this? You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough. I know you work too hard and care too much. I know you’re calm even when the tower’s on fire. I know you have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, and you use it to keep people safe.”

You could barely breathe.

“You deserve more than what this job takes from you, you know,” he added, almost like an afterthought.

“You’re so stupid,” you whispered, the insult so soft it barely had teeth.

“You’re exhausted. Lie to me tomorrow.” A pause. “You know, the cherry blossoms along the Seine were beautiful in Paris.” His voice grew wistful, and you closed your eyes, letting the sound wash over you in the quiet tower. “I’d love to show you someday.”

“Your girlfriend probably wouldn’t appreciate you taking other women on romantic trips to Paris.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said without hesitation. “I wish you were my girlfriend.”

You took another deep breath, slower this time, but it didn’t help. Your face felt hot, your pulse wouldn’t settle, and worst of all, you couldn’t even pretend it wasn’t happening. What the fuck were you supposed to do with that information? 

Normally you would have hung up by now, would have found some cutting remark to shut down whatever this was becoming. But maybe it was the exhaustion seeping into your bones, or the way his voice had gone so unsual gentle, that made you let it happen—this slow unraveling of the careful distance you’d built between yourself and the voice that had somehow become more important to you than you wanted to admit

“You’re insane.”

“You’re beautiful.”

You pressed your forehead deeper into the crook of your arm, as if you could bury the whole situation under your sleeves. As if he couldn’t still hear every shaky breath of yours over the radio.

“What? No comeback?” he teased. “You really must be tired.”

“I hate how you say stuff like that,” you mumbled into your sleeve, “when you know I’m too tired to fight back.”

“Sounds like good timing, then.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Mhm. I like when you sound all sleepy,” he said, lower now, almost like he was smiling. “It’s really cute.”

“Shouldn’t you be asking if I have a boyfriend or something?”

“Sounds like you want me to ask you.”

“I don’t.” You exhaled slowly, turning your head so your cheek pressed against your arm. “I’m not looking for anything.”

“Good,” he said. “So no boyfriend. Because it would be really awkward for me to take you to Paris if you had one. Boyfriends tend to get weird about that sort of thing.”

A soft laugh escaped before you could stop it. “You don’t even know me. Why are you so persistent?”

It was silent for a while—so long it made your skin itch. You glanced at the console. Still active. But then his voice returned.

“Because for months, your voice has been the only thing that’s felt like home,” he said. “Every flight, every approach, every time you say my call sign... it feels like coming home. And maybe that’s stupid. Maybe I’m just a pilot who’s spent too many nights alone in hotels, wondering what it’d be like to hear you say my name—my real name—just once, but I…”

The tower felt impossibly still around you, save for the sound of his soft breathing in your ear and the heavy press of something strange in your chest.

“Flight 447—”

“Can I ask you something? And you can say no.”

“…What?”

“Do you want to switch to a private frequency?”

You shouldn’t. It was a clear breach of communication policy. You knew that. But the tower was empty, Kai was distracted, and there was something in the way he said it that made you want to say yes so terribly much.

“Frequency 121.9,” you said.

“Copy that. Switching now.”

Your heart thudded. You flipped over to the private channel, palms slightly clammy against the controls, and waited.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 on private frequency.”

“I’m here.”

You could hear the smile in his voice when he answered. “Tell me something about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Doesn’t matter. I just want to listen to your voice.”

You went quiet for a beat, still resting your head on your arms, the headset cord wrapped loosely around your fingers. Your body was heavy with exhaustion, but something warm had started to bloom low in your chest.

“That’s… I don’t know what to say.”

“Start simple. What did you have for breakfast?”

Despite everything, you almost smiled. “Coffee.”

“Just coffee?” He groaned. “That’s terrible for you. You need read food.”

“Says the man who probably only eats airplane food and orders hotel room service.”

“I make great scrambled eggs, actually,” he said, a little smug. “Secret ingredient is a little cream cheese folded in at the end.”

“You cook?”

“Mhmm. And I make the best carbonara.”

“According to who?”

“According to me. And I’m a very reliable source.”

You smiled again. “Very humble, too.”

“Absolutely. So, what about you? What do you do when you’re not busy keeping pilots from crashing into each other?”

You surprised yourself by answering. You told him about the pottery class you barely had time for on weekends, how you were trying to teach yourself guitar but could only play three chords and a more or less decent version of ‘Wonderwall’. You admitted to watch trash reality TV while folding laundry, and how your poor balcony basil plant had died three times and counting despite your best efforts. 

It just... flowed. And it felt good. Comforting, even. 

You found yourself sharing more than you meant to, your voice softer than usual in the quiet of the tower, like the distance between you made it easier to be honest. 

You hadn’t realized until now how much you’d come to like hearing his voice. Not the cocky, smug tone he usually used on open frequency—but this version. Soff and warm in a way that felt almost intimate. Like he actually cared about your answer. Like he actually saw you, even from thirty thousand feet away.

You were quiet for a moment, then asked, “Why did you become a pilot?”

A breath passed. Maybe two.

“I had a little sister. She died when she was twelve—leukemia.” He paused, and you could hear the slight hitch in his breathing. “She was obsessed with those National Geographic documentaries, always making plans about all the places she wanted to see—the Andes in Peru, hiking the Highlands in Scotland, and seeing the Northern Lights in Iceland. She had this whole notebook full of destinations she wanted to visit, with pictures cut out from magazines.”

You didn’t move, afraid even a shift might break the moment.

“She never left Japan. Never even got on a plane. But the day before she died, she made me promise I’d see the world for her. That I’d go to all the places and tell her about them.” Another shaky breath. “So I became a pilot. And every flight, every city, every sunset high above the clouds—she’s with me. I take pictures for her. Collect postcards.” His laugh barely held. “Probably sounds crazy.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy at all.” You sat up straighter in your chair and rolled your sleeves down, suddenly feeling the night air’s chill. “So the postcards from Zurich…”

“I brought one for her, and one for you. I thought... maybe you’d like it too.”

“Flight 447,” you said softly, unsure what else to do with the weight in your chest.

“She would’ve liked you,” he added. “She always said the most important people are the ones who make you feel like home—even when you’re thirty thousand feet in the air, circling your home airport at in the middle of the night because you cannot land.”

You were silent for a while, unable to find words.

“Control? Can I ask you something else?”

“…Yeah.”

“Would you like to go out with me?”

You didn’t say anything at first. Didn’t even breathe at first, hand hovering near the console, but instead of replying, you slowly set your headset down and stood—legs unsteady. You crossed the small space behind your chair, ran a hand through your hair, tried to get your lungs to work again.

You weren’t ready. Not for this. Not for him sounding that sincere. He was still up there, circling in the dark, waiting for something you weren’t sure you could give. You braced your hands on the edge of the desk, heart pounding, and finally lowered yourself back into the chair. Slipped the headset on again.

“I…” you began, but the rest of the sentence never came. Your throat tightened too much.

“You don’t have to answer now. Just think about it, okay?”

Then Kai’s voice cut through your main frequency. “Control Seven, runway’s clear for your holding traffic.”

You switched back to the private frequency, your voice steadier than you felt. 

“Flight 447, you’re cleared for approach, runway 24L. Wind 180 at 5 knots.”

“Roger, cleared for approach runway 24L.”

You hesitated, your finger trembling slightly on the radio button, then softly, “Land safe, Satoru.”

Silence stretched between you, each moment an unbearable weight as you waited for him to speak, with only the soft static of the frequency for company. When his voice finally came back, it was barely above a whisper.

“You’re so unfair, Control. How am I supposed to sleep now that I’ve finally heard you say my name like that?”

Your chest tightened, a fragile tenderness settling in your chest, and you closed your eyes, lost in the sudden intimacy of the moment.

“See you on the ground, Control… and sleep easy tonight.”

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

After that night, everything changed.

What had once been the most frustrating part of your job had quietly become the part you looked forward to most. You told yourself it was just the routine, the familiarity. A comforting voice between the chaos. But when Flight 447’s call sign popped up on your radar, your chest would do that stupid flutter before your brain could stop it. And the professional distance you’d worked so hard to maintain began crumbling piece by fragile piece.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting vectors, and good morning to my favorite controller.”

You didn’t even try to hide your smile anymore. “Good morning, Captain. Turn left heading 180, descend and maintain 4,000.”

“How’s that terrible tower coffee treating you today?”

“Still tastes like mud. But it’s keeping me awake.”

“You really need someone to bring you proper coffee sometime.”

“Flight 447, contact Approach on 119.7.”

“Will do, beautiful. Save me a cup of that mud, will you?”

You caught yourself still smiling after he’d switched frequencies. 

Your colleagues noticed the change immediately. Maki would glance over with that knowing grin the second his call sign blinked onto your screen. Sometimes she didn’t even say anything—just raised her eyebrows and took a dramatically loud sip of her green tea.

Even Ijichi who was usually so quiet and reserved, seemed to soften. Now, he’d offer a small, genuinely happy smile when Satoru’s voice came through the speakers, like a younger brother observing something inevitable unfold.

The conversations with Satoru grew longer, more personal. He’d tell you about the cities he flew to—the morning mist over Prague’s cobblestone streets, the way the late afternoon sunlight painted the Alps during his approach to Munich, the bustling markets in Vienna that smelled like roasted chestnuts and warm strudel.

“There’s this little bakery in Prague,” he said once. “Sells cinnamon sugar spirals on a stick that taste like sugar bread. I picked some up for you and will drop them by your gate when I land, though they might be a bit smushed from the flight, but I swear they’re really good.”

You imagined him standing there, maybe still in his uniform, coffee in one hand and some pastry in the other, sunlight filtering through narrow European streets. You wished you could’ve been there with him.

One Tuesday evening, he came on frequency a few minutes early. “I saw the Northern Lights last night for the first time,” he said, skipping all pretense of small talk. “Over Helsinki. It looked incredible. I took about a hundred photos, even though they don’t do it justice, but… I tried.”

“Your sister would’ve loved that.”

“Yeah. She would have.” His voice grew soft. “I wish you could have seen them too. With me.”

You hadn’t planned on any of this. You didn’t know where it was going. But every word felt a little easier than the last. Like you were building something one flight at a time, stitched together from shared late night conversations, shared silences, and a voice that had somehow made its way under your skin. And you hadn’t even seen his face.

At some point, the flirting had stopped feeling like a game. You weren’t sure when the shift happened, only that it had. One day you were rolling your eyes at his compliments, and the next… you caught yourself smiling before he even switched on the mic.

He’d compliment your voice and your hair he’d never even seen, and you’d toss something sharp right back at his ego. He’d ask about your day like it mattered, and you’d ask how the clouds looked up there in the sky. 

Somewhere between the banter and clearance codes, you stopped resisting the warmth that bloomed in your chest every time he called you beautiful. Stopped pretending it didn’t matter. Stopped pretending you didn’t wait for his call sign, or feel the flutter in your stomach when he said your call sign like it was something he’d been waiting all day to say.

“You sound tired today,” he said one afternoon, somewhere over the East China Sea, his voice laced with concern.

You stifled a yawn. “Double shift. Someone called in sick.”

“That’s the third time this month. You need to take better care of yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“When’s the last time you took a day off? And I mean not just sleeping in because you worked late, but actually doing something for yourself?”

You paused, thought about it, and realized you couldn’t remember.

“That settles it. When I get back from the Zagreb route next week, we’re going somewhere. Somewhere with decent coffee and food that doesn’t come from a vending machine.”

“Is that a request or a demand, Captain?”

“It’s a promise.”

Late night conversations on the private frequency became your favorite kind of bad habit. You told yourself you weren’t abusing the system—you just happened to monitor 121.9 a little more closely on nights when you knew he was in the air.

When the tower thinned out to near silence, leaving only the hum of the monitors, and his overnight flights aligned perfectly with your shifts, you always found a reason to switch channels.

“Can’t sleep up there?” you’d ask when his voice came through the static.

“Autopilot’s handling the boring parts. Thought I’d check on my favorite insomniac instead.”

“I’m not an insomniac,” you’d say, leaning into the console, exhausted but smiling. “I’m working.”

“It’s 3 AM. You should be in bed, curled up with a blanket and binge some Netflix.”

“Someone’s gotta guide the pretty pilots through the night sky.”

He never missed a beat. “Just one pretty pilot in particular, I hope. Otherwise I might get jealous.”

And you let him win these little exchanges. Because the truth was, the static of 121.9 had quietly become where you truly felt yourself. A place where your voice softened, where the walls came down, where you weren’t Control Seven—you were just you. Tired, overcaffeinated, sometimes frustrated with everything—but somehow still able to breathe easier when his voice filled your headset.

You didn’t have a name for what was growing between you—but it was there. Steady. Constant. Cruising at altitude and waiting for the moment one of you was brave enough to land.

Those conversations could last hours—him circling above the Pacific while you guided other aircraft, both of you stealing moments between official duties to talk about everything and nothing. He’d tell you about passengers he’d met, you’d share stories about the quirky new controller in the tower. He’d describe the view from his cockpit, you’d explain what the radar looked like from your perspective.

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we’d met differently?” he asked one night.

“How do you mean?”

“If I wasn’t a pilot, and you weren’t up in a tower. If we just... bumped into each other at a grocery store or something.”

“Would you have still talked my ear off about arctic birds?”

“Probably.” He laughed. “Though I might have started with the weather like a normal person.”

“I don’t think you know how to be normal, Captain.”

You found yourself looking forward to his flights. When Flight 447 appeared on your radar, it was like a switch flipped on inside your chest. And when his route changed and he wasn’t there you caught yourself glancing at the flight board more than necessary. If his flight was delayed by weather or mechanical issues, you’d feel it settle heavy in your chest like stones until his call sign appeared on your screen.

“Miss me?” he’d tease whenever your shifts missed each other and the silence stretched too long.

“You wish.”

“I do, actually. Horribly.”

You rolled your eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. “The frequency’s been blessedly quiet without you. You wouldn’t believe how efficiently I can work without your constant interruptions.”

“Liar. You were bored as hell.”

“Flight 447, I’m transferring you to Approach before your big ego causes your plane to crash.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little to late for that, Control? It’s this big since you said my name that one time.”

You groaned, pressing your palm to your forehead, but you were smiling. Always smiling. And he knew it. You both did. And pretending otherwise had started to feel pointless.

“…I missed you.”

You leaned forward, arms crossed on the edge of your console, and hunched your shoulders, trying to shake off the shiver that traced down your spine at the sound of his voice in your ear.

“Approach is waiting, Captain.”

A few weeks had passed since that first private frequency conversation, and you still hadn’t given him a direct answer about the date. But somewhere between his stories about sunrises over the Himalayas and your chaotic work anecdotes, the question had become less about whether and more about when. Even if you didn’t have the courage to admit it yet.

“So,” he said one Thursday evening, while preparing for approach, “about that date…”

Your heart stuttered in the smallest, stupidest way.

“I know a little café in Shibuya. It’s away from the main tourist spots and makes the best matcha lattes in Tokyo. Perfect place for two hardworking colleagues to grab a coffee.”

“We are colleagues, Flight 447.”

“Colleagues who happen to enjoy each other’s company.”

“Colleagues who work together professionally.”

“Colleagues who talk on private frequencies at 2 AM about the Northern Lights and their horrible exes.” His voice carried that familiar teasing note. “Come on, what’s the worst that could happen? I promise not to talk about aircraft separation minimums the whole time.”

“The worst that could happen is that it gets complicated.”

“It’s already complicated.”

You were quiet for a moment, knowing he was right. You shifted slightly in your chair, fingers idly twirling the cable of your headset.

“Flight 447, contact Approach on 119.7.”

“The café’s called Blue Mountain,” he said before switching. “Saturday afternoon. If you’re free.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Later that night, you lay on your back in the dark, staring at the ceiling of your apartment as the last traces of twilight faded from deep purple to black outside your open window, and replayed every conversation, every laugh, every time he’d called you beautiful.

You were a grown woman. A professional. You managed emergencies, rerouted aircraft in storm systems, made decisions in mere seconds that kept hundreds of people safe every day.

And here you were. Heart in shambles over a man you’d never even seen in person.

It didn’t make sense. Pilots are arrogant. That’s a universal truth you’d learned over the years in air traffic control. They walked through airports like they owned the sky, had egos the size of their aircraft, an attention span of a goldfish when it came to relationships, and probably a different girlfriend in every city.

Satoru was a pilot. 

Therefore, by the sacred logic of the universe, he was a bad idea.

You’d learned that lesson the hard way—given your heart to people who’d seemed so sure, so persistent, so convinced they wanted forever until they didn’t. Until the reality of loving someone flawed and human became too much work, too complicated, too real.

But now here was him—persistent, charming, relentless in his pursuit of something that existed only in radio waves and imagination. All he had was your voice and whatever fantasy he’d constructed around it. And fantasies, no matter how beautiful, eventually shattered when they met reality.

You didn’t know much about him. Not his favorite movie, or if he was the type to do laundry right away or leave it on a chair for three days. You didn’t know who broke his heart last, or what he looked like when he was nervous. You didn’t even know if he wore glasses or if his hair curled when it rained.

For all you knew, he talked like this to every controller on every route. Maybe you were just one more frequency he’d tuned into. A novelty. A nice voice to pass the time.

Yet you knew he brought you gifts from cities you’d never visited. You knew he worried when you worked too many hours. You knew he talked to his dead sister through postcards and photographs, and somehow let you be a part of that grief. You knew the sound of his breathing thirty thousand feet above you, and sometimes wished you could fall asleep to it.

But this wasn’t real. Whatever this was—chemistry, attraction, some strange radio wave Stockholm syndrome—it couldn’t be real. Real relationships required proximity, shared experiences, mundane Tuesday mornings and arguments over who left the bathroom light on. Not conversations between approach vectors and weather reports in the middle of the night.

He’d never seen you laugh until your sides hurt, never witnessed you cry out of frustration. He didn’t know that you were shy in crowds, that you overthought everything, that you had trust issues wrapped around your heart like scar tissue.

This was in between. A connection built in the air, not on the ground. And you were being smart by saying no. You were being practical. Responsible. You were doing what made sense.

But why did the idea of never knowing the warmth of his hand in yours make your chest ache like you were already grieving something that hadn’t even had the chance to exist?

You rolled onto your side, pulled the covers up higher, and pressed your face into the pillow.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

It was one of those graveyard shifts where the world felt like it had gone still. Most of the world was asleep, save for you, a few stray cargo flights, and the quiet static of Flight 447 holding steady somewhere over the ocean. And him. Always him.

You were back on private frequency. What began, as it always did, with talk of altitudes and airspeed, soon shifted to stories of cities and people he’d met in Dublin and that little bakery he’d found in Budapest, that he’s sure of you’d love.

And then he told you about his ex-girlfriend who’d left him because she couldn’t handle the distance, the loneliness of hotel rooms. He spoke of his parents, who’d always expected him to run the family’s company, and how they still didn’t understand why he’d chosen to spend his life in the sky.

You found yourself sharing more than you probably should, as you always did in these hushed moments—your failed engagement to a man who’d wanted you to quit air traffic control because it was ‘too stressful’, your complicated relationship with your mother, and how sometimes, even now, it still felt like your worth came with conditions.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” you said softly after confessing how you’d chosen this career partly to prove you could handle something your ex-fiancé thought was too difficult for you.

“I'm glad you told me,” Satoru’s voice was soft through the headset. And despite the exhaustion, your chest gave that familiar, traitorous flutter. “I love listening to your voice, especially when you’re being honest about things that matter.”

“Satoru…” you said, without thinking—his name slipping out in a whisper that carried more weight than it should have.

“Say that again.”

“Your name?”

“Yes,” he breathed, the single word aching. “Please.”

You hesitated. Not because you didn't want to—but because speaking it aloud meant acknowledging the weight it carried.

“Satoru,” you said again, slower this time. His name felt warm on your tongue, like something meant to be spoken softly, like a confession wrapped in a name.

On the other end of the line, silence stretched long enough to make your heart stutter.

“Satoru?” you asked. “Are you there?”

“I’m here. I was just… thinking.”

“About what?”

A beat.

“About how much I want to kiss you right now.”

Your breath caught so fast it hurt. Heat flooded your face and you pulled your headset off for a moment, pressing your palms against your burning cheeks.

You stood for a second, pacing a few slow steps behind your chair, trying to shake it off, to convince yourself you hadn’t heard what you just heard. But your heart wouldn’t stop racing, a wild bird trapped in your ribs, like your body was reacting to something your mind hadn’t even begun to process, let alone given permission for.

Because part of you had desperately wanted to hear those words. And part of you didn’t know what the hell to do with them now that they were real. You stared at the headset in your lap, hesitating. Wanting. Dreading.

After a few seconds, you slipped the headset back on.

“Did I scare you with that?”

“No,” you said quietly. “It’s… it’s fine.”

“I mean it, you know. I really do want to kiss you.”

“This is insane. We’ve never even met.”

“It doesn’t feel that way to me. Feels like I’ve known you forever.”

His words settled deep, heavier than the silence that followed. Something about them felt like a confession hanging between earth and sky, between personal and professional, between safe and what if.

“Satoru…”

“I know how you take your coffee. I know how you sound when you’re tired, and what makes you laugh when you’re trying not to. I know you bite your lip when you’re concentrating—because I can hear it in your voice. And I know you put everyone else ahead of yourself even when you shouldn’t. I know enough to care. And enough to want more.” A pause. “What else do I need to know?”

“What I look like, for starters.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

“No, because it’s your voice I think about at night. That’s what drew me in. The rest… it never mattered.”

You sat there, heartbeat loud in your ears, not sure how to breathe, let alone how to respond.

“Say something,” he whispered. “Please.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll have coffee with me. Say you’ll give me a chance to see the woman I’ve fallen for.”

Your breath caught again. “Fallen for?” you repeated, like maybe saying it aloud would help you believe it.

“Yes. Completely, hopelessly fallen for.”

Your hands lifted—without thinking, almost desperate—and pressed against the headset like you could pull his voice closer—pull him closer. Part of you wanted him to say it again. Needed to hear it, to make sure it was real. And another part wished he hadn’t said it at all. Because now it was alive between you. Irrevocable.

“I…” You stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I have to—” You panicked and switched back to the main frequency. “Ijichi? Can you take over Flight 447 for me? I need to step out for a second.”

“Everything okay?” Ijichi’s voice sounded concerned.

“Yeah,” you said. “Just need a bathroom break.”

You yanked the headset off and fled to the small restroom down the hall, slammed the lock shut, and leaned back against the door as if afraid his words might follow you in.

You turned on the faucet, splashing cold water onto your face. Droplets clung to your lashes and slid down your neck. Still, the heat in your skin wouldn’t go away, chest rising and falling too fast.

What is happening? 

He couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t just… fall for your voice. That wasn’t how this worked. That wasn’t how any of this worked. You hadn’t even met him. You didn’t know what his laugh looked like when it reached his eyes. He didn’t know how you looked when you weren’t exhausted. And yet—

Yet here you were, breathless in a dim airport bathroom in the middle of the night, heart racing like you were the one who’d made the confession.

This is insane. He is a pilot. Probably talks like this to every other control tower from Berlin to Bangkok. But why—God, why—did you want to kiss him back so badly?

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

You took a week off without telling him.

It was cruel—you knew that. But you needed time. Time to breathe. Time to think. Time to stop feeling like you were going to fly apart every time you heard his voice. But distance didn’t feel like space. It felt like ache.

You spent most of that week alone in your apartment, curled into corners of yourself you hadn’t visited in years. You rearranged your bookshelves. Watered your plants twice in one day. Cleaned your windows until they gleamed like they haven’t in years. 

And still, none of it helped. You ended up lying on your back in your bed, just… thinking. Wondering if he was worried. If he noticed the silence. If he regretted saying what he did.

You replayed the conversation endlessly, like a scratched record stuck on the moment his voice had dropped, tender and fragile with something like a confession. 

Completely, hopelessly fallen for. 

You could still hear it. Still feel the way your lungs had stuttered.

You hadn’t meant to fall for him. But you had.

Maybe it started the moment he told you that your voice felt like coming home to him. Or maybe it was the first time he opened up about his sister, the way his voice caught halfway through the sentence, like he was still learning how to hold that grief in his mouth. Or maybe it was even before that, when he brought you chocolate from Zurich and called you special to customs agents he’d never meet again.

You wanted to kiss him then. You want to kiss him now. And that terrified you more than anything. Not because it wasn’t real, but because you’d wanted it to be real for so long without even realizing. But wanting and admitting were two different things. 

So instead, you wrapped yourself in quiet and waited for the ache to fade. It didn’t. You thought it would. You thought time would create space, and space would give you clarity. But it didn’t, and the ache only grew stronger.

By day three, you caught yourself checking the flight tracking apps, wondering if he was flying the skies above you, if his voice was somewhere out there asking another controller for vectors. If he’d call them ‘beautiful’ too.

By day four, you were questioning whether radio silence was mature or just cowardly, and by day five, you were actively pacing your apartment, cursing yourself for disappearing and cursing him for making you feel this way in equal measures.

You heard the familiar drone of an aircraft passing overhead through your open window and stopped your pacing instantly, tilting your head toward the sound as it grew louder, then began to fade.

Was that him? His flight cutting through the darkness with some other controller guiding him home? Someone else’s voice in his headset? The thought made you sick.

Your phone buzzed against the kitchen counter. A text from Maki. “Your pilot boyfriend keeps asking where you are.”

You stared at the message for a long time. Not because you didn’t care, but because you didn’t know what to say. Because how could you possibly say I miss him without it sounding like you were already halfway in love. And maybe you were.

****

You returned on day six. Not because you were ready, or because the questions had answers, or your chest had stopped aching when his name passed through your thoughts, but because Tokyo’s sky was falling apart and there was no more time left to hide.

The call came at 3:42 AM—all available controllers needed immediately. Level four emergency.

You barely had time to pull on your uniform, hair still damp from the shower, as you rushed past stranded passengers sleeping on benches and gate agents with phones pressed to both ears, while overhead an urgent announcement looped in four languages. 

A massive weather front had swept across the Pacific, turning Tokyo’s airspace into chaos. Delayed flights, emergency diversions, aircraft running low on fuel circling in holding patterns, waiting for safe corridors to open. But when you reached your workstation, you stopped.

Flowers. 

A small, beautiful arrangement of white roses and baby’s breath in a clear glass vase.

“He sends them every day,” Maki said, appearing beside you with a stack of weather reports. “Asks if someone can place them on your desk. In case you come back.”

You couldn’t speak, only stared at the petals, watching one tremble in the air conditioning draft. Something fragile inside your chest pulled taut. 

Six days. 

He’d been sending flowers to an empty chair for six days.

“You okay?” Maki asked.

“I’m good,” you managed, swallowing hard. “I need to—” But there was no time. 

“Tower, this is Flight 892, requesting immediate vectors around weather cell bearing 270.”

For the next three hours, there was no room left for feelings. You were too busy handling all the alternate airport requests, fuel emergencies, and missed approaches that required immediate rerouting.

“Flight 315, turn right heading 180, descend to 8,000. Moderate turbulence ahead, advise caution.”

“Flight 726, negative climb, maintain 12,000. Traffic conflict. Standby for alternate routing.”

Every call you answered felt like a life being tossed into your hands. You held on tight. You didn’t shake. At least, not on the outside. 

A sudden, blinding flash from outside momentarily bleached the room, then plunged it back into deeper shadow as rain lashed heavily against the tower’s windows.

And then, between the tangle of signals and storm interference, a call sign you knew like your own name lit up your screen. 

Flight 447.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting vectors through weather, and—” He paused—like he’d caught the shaky breath you hadn’t meant to let slip through. “Control, is that you?”

It shouldn’t have undone you like that. But it did. Your knees went weak under your console. Relief flooded through you at the sound of his voice, alive and safe. Your throat tightened around a dozen things you wanted to say, but there was no time.

“Flight 447, turn left heading 090, descend to 6,000. There’s a gap in the storm cell at your two o’clock.”

“Roger, left 090, down to 6,000.” A beat. “It’s good to hear your voice again.”

You wanted to respond, to explain, to apologize for disappearing like a coward, but four other aircraft were calling for attention at the same time and the storm was intensifying still.

“Flight 447, be advised, severe turbulence ahead. Recommend immediate deviation right, heading 130.”

“Negative, we’re already committed to this approach. We’ll ride it—”

Then nothing. The radio snapped to static, then went silent.

You stood up so fast your chair rolled backward and bumped into the console behind you. One hand clutched the headset tighter to your ear, the other braced against your desk.

“Flight 447, come in.”

No response.

“Satoru, do you copy?”

Still nothing. Only white noise.

Lightning split the sky outside, followed by a deep, rattling roar of thunder that vibrated through the control room. But all you could hear was the terrifying silence where his voice should’ve been.

Your hand trembled as you keyed the mic. “Flight 447, please respond.”

Then, finally, cutting through the noise, “Control. I’m here. Lost comms for a moment there.”

You sank back into your chair like your legs had stopped working, the adrenaline suddenly too much to hold. You rested your forearms on the edge of the console, hands trembling slightly as you leaned in, pressing your forehead against them, trying to steady the frantic beat of your heart against your ribs. 

“What’s with the silence now,” he whispered softly. “Were you worried about me, love?”

Love.

He’d never said that before. Beautiful, gorgeous, honey—but never this. Not like that. Not so soft and tender, like you’d been his love for so long that saying it was simply acknowledging what already existed, what had been waiting patiently in his chest for the right moment to slip free. And never had you been so stupidly, helplessly happy to hear a single word.

He is alive. He is safe. And he’d called you love.

“Flight 447, confirm you’re okay.” 

“We’re fine. Bumpy ride, but nothing we can’t handle.”

Neither of you said anything for a moment.

“I’ve missed you.”

Your throat tightened. Six days of silence. Six days of waiting, wondering, and avoiding the thing you were most afraid to admit. Six days of white roses waiting for your return, and here he was, relieved to hear your voide again like you were something precious he’d thought he’d lost. 

As if your absence had mattered. 

As if he’d missed you the way you’d missed him.

“Thank you,” you said. “For the flowers.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Just… don’t go quiet on me again, okay? It’s hard to feel like I’m coming home when you’re not the one guiding me there.”

You closed your eyes, the ache blooming hot behind your ribs. Coming home. How could he say things like that so easily? How could he make you feel like you were drowning and flying at the same time with just a handful of words spoken through radio static?

And the worst part was how easily he said it—like you really were his home, his anchor point in all that vast sky. Like this thing between you wasn’t just something imagined, but something real enough to miss, something worth coming back to.

“I won’t,” you said, barely above a whisper.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

And you meant it. Whatever had made you run, whatever fear had driven you to take that week off—it felt so stupidly irrelevant compared to the relief of knowing he was safe. Of knowing somewhere above the clouds, he’d been looking for your voice.

“See you on the ground, beautiful.”

And then the line went silent.

Your eyes stayed locked on his radar symbol, unwilling to look away, tracking his descent as if your gaze alone could guide him safely down. Your eyes drifted to the flowers beside your console, your chest tight with guilt because you’d been too much of a coward to face what you felt for him. 

What was holding you back when he was right there? Wanting you, missing you enough to notice your absence, calling you love so tenderly. What was so terrifying about someone who made you feel like the most important voice in his sky?

He missed you. Wanted you. And you missed him like the sky misses his stars in daylight. Now he was descending through storm clouds, almost within reach, and you still didn’t know how to say any of it.

You watched his altitude drop.

8,000 feet. 

6,000.

4,000.

Each number bringing him closer to solid ground—closer to you.

Then another violent gust tore across the runway. A sharp gasp cut through the tower, everyone suddenly stood and looked out the windows as Flight 447 broke through the storm clouds, lurching violently sideways. The plane’s wings tilted at a sickening angle, fighting against the crosswind as it dropped like a stone before catching itself.

Your heart flatlined.

“Maki, can you cover for me?” you asked, voice tight, already moving.

She looked away from the window. “What? Yeah, but—” 

You were gone. Down the tower stairs, past security who barely glanced at your badge, through the restricted access door and straight into the teeth of the storm. Didn’t matter that you were soaking wet or that this was completely against protocol. All you knew was you had to see him.

Rain hit you immediately like ice, instantly soaking through your uniform, but you didn’t slow. Across the runway, Flight 447 was coming in hard. You watched it slam onto the wet asphalt—one heavy bounce, then another, the aircraft struggling to find purchase on the waterlogged asphalt before finally coming to a halt with a loud screech of brakes.

Not a crash. But rough enough to stop your breathing.

You ran faster, shoes splashing through puddles as emergency crews rushed past you toward the plane. The aircraft had stopped crooked on the runway, passenger stairs already being rolled into position as ground crew in bright orange vests hurried around the scene.

 It was stupid, so stupid. You didn’t even know what he looked like. But then—

You saw him. For the first time in your life.

He stepped out of the cockpit door, tall and undeniably handsome even amidst the chaos. His hair was drenched form the rain, plastered back from his forehead, his pilot’s uniform soaked and wrinkled. He was looking around slowly, searching through the crowd with a furrowed brow and eyes the exact impossible blue you’d somehow always known they’d be. And then—

And then his gaze found yours. And everything stopped. No thunder. No wind. No roar of engines or shouts from the crew.

Your eyes met across the storm, and the world fell away. You had never seen this man before, but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like remembering. There was no question, no doubt, no moment of uncertainty—you knew it was him the same way you knew your own heartbeat.

The voice you’d fallen for belonged to this man, this beautiful and insufferable pilot who was staring at you like he’d just found something he’d been searching for his entire life. 

And now he’d found you.

You ran toward him through the chaos, feet splashing through more puddles, rain streaming down your face. He moved toward you too, taking the metal steps down from the plane two at a time, his hand sliding along the wet railing. 

You met in the middle of the runway, both out of breath, both drenched to the bone. Rain clung to his white lashes as he stared at you—those impossible blue eyes you’d imagined a hundred times now real, locked on your face like you were the only thing in the world. And yes, they were just as blue as a winter sky. Up close, he was somehow even more beautiful than you’d let yourself believe.

You opened your mouth, then closed it again, suddenly at a complete loss for words. “Would you like to go out with me?” you finally managed, having to raise your voice over the wind and rain.

Satoru blinked, his hair plastered against his forehead. A slow, handsome smile spread across his face.

“Yeah,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “I’d really like that.”

And then he was moving, one hand sliding around your waist while the other came up to cradle your face, thumb brushing away raindrops—or maybe tears, you couldn’t tell anymore. He pulled you closer, bridging the last inches like he’d been waiting forever to do it.

When he kissed you, it was like coming home after being lost for years. Desperate and tender, months of longing finally given form. His lips were impossibly soft against yours, warm despite the cold rain, and you could taste the storm on his mouth, feel the way his breath caught when you kissed him back.

Rain poured around you as you finally, finally kissed the voice that had become your everything.

When you broke apart, both breathless, he rested his forehead against yours. His hands trembled slightly where they held you, like he still couldn’t believe this was real.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

Then he was kissing you again, deeper this time, pouring months of missed chances and sleepless nights into the space between your lips. His grip tightened on your waist. Without breaking the kiss, he lifted from the ground and spun once, twice, in the pouring rain like you weighed nothing at all.

Storm clouds churned overhead and emergency crews moved around you, but it felt like you were the only two people in the world—suspended in this perfect moment between earth and sky and the the feeling of finally being found.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

A few weeks later.

“Careful with that,” Satoru warned as you briefly touched a panel of switches, his hand catching your wrist gently. “Unless you want to explain to the airline why we accidentally activated the emergency slides in the hangar.”

You were perched in the captain’s seat of his Boeing 777, legs tucked beneath you as you took in the array of countless instruments, screens, and controls that made up his office thirty thousand feet above the ground. The cockpit was smaller than you’d imagined, more intimate, every surface covered with buttons and displays that somehow made sense to him.

“You actually understand all of this?”

“Each and every switch, gauge, and warning light.” He leaned over you from where he stood beside the captain’s seat, his chest brushing your shoulder as he pointed to different instruments. “See this? It’s the primary flight display—shows our altitude, airspeed, heading. That’s the navigation display, weather radar here…”

You could smell his cologne, feel the warmth of his body as he leaned in closer to point out the next display. You loved watching him like this—the way he lit up when talking about his aircraft, completely absorbed in every detail with that endearing kinda nerdy side of his. But being this close to him made it hard to focus on anything he was saying when all you could think about was the way his voice rumbled low near your ear.

“And this,” he continued, reaching around you to tap a small screen, his arm caging you in against the seat, “shows exactly how beautiful my air traffic controller looks in my chair.”

You turned to find his face inches from yours. His sky blue eyes caught the gentle light like glass, impossibly clear, and for a second, you forgot how to breathe.

“That’s not what that screen shows.”

“No? Then why can’t I look away from it?”

“You’re stupid.” But you were smiling, tilting your head back against the headrest to maintain eye contact. “Show me something else.”

“Demanding little controller.” His fingers trailed along the overhead panel, flipping switches as he spoke. “These control cabin pressure, air conditioning, electrical systems…”

You sank deeper into the chair, letting his soothing voice wash over you.

“These are the autopilot controls.” His hand moved again. “This button engages the system—basically tells the plane to fly itself according to the flight plan we’ve programmed.” His finger moved to another switch. “This one controls altitude hold, and this manages our heading.”

“But here’s the most important thing.” Satoru reached toward a small compartment near the instrument panel and pulled out a photo of the two of you from that stormy night—completely drenched, kissing in the rain. It was blurry as hell and underexposed, and absolutely perfect.

“I still can’t believe Hana managed to get this shot,” you said, taking it from him. “She really thought ‘Oh, what a perfect time for a picture’ while there was literally an emergency evacuation going on.”

Satoru laughed. “But aren’t you gald she took it?”

“We look absolutely stupid.” 

Your hair was plastered to your face, his uniform wrinkled and soaked, but you both looked happy. Really happy.

“You look perfect,” he said, leaning closer. “And you were so cute when you had that total meltdown thinking something happened to me.”

“I did not have a meltdown—”

“You ran across an active runway. In a storm.” He traced the edge of the photo with his finger, smiling. “My professional, composed controller lost her cool because she was worried about her pilot.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I’m just saying—” He leaned back against the instrument panel, clearly enjoying this. “For someone who spent months pretending to hate my guts, you certainly changed your mind when you thought I might be hurt.”

“I was worried about you.”

His smile softened. “You didn’t have to.” He paused, then reached out, gently cupping your face. “No matter how rough the storm or the landing, I’m never really lost—not when I know you’re there. You always guide me home safely.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Stupidly in love, yeah,” he murmured—and then he kissed you.

What started soft and slow quickly turned heated. You pulled him closer by his tie, and he braced his hand against the seat beside your head, his tongue sliding against yours as his mouth pressed hungrily to yours.

“Controller,” Satoru said between kisses, his voice already rough. “What exactly are you starting here?”

“I’m not starting anything,” you said, even though your fingers were already working his tie loose.

“Clearly.”

You rose from the chair and tugged gently at his loosened tie and he followed without resistance. With a gentle push to his chest, you guided him down into the captain’s seat. He let himself fall back into it, eyes locked on yours. Without a word, you climbed into his lap, straddling him. His hands found your waist immediately, pulling you close as his mouth met yours again like he couldn’t stand another second apart.

“My break’s over in fifteen,” you murmured against his lips. “And the plane’s grounded for another hour. No one should be around.”

He pulled back just enough to give you a look. “Wait… did you check the maintenance schedule before coming here?”

“Maybe.”

“God,” he groaned against your mouth, his hands gliding up your back. “Do you even know what you do to me?”

“I’m just making efficient use of our time, Captain,” you whispered, rolling your hips slightly and feeling him tense beneath you. “Isn’t that what good air traffic control is about? Proper scheduling and all that?”

His laugh came out breathless, strained. “Pretty sure this isn’t in any manual I’ve read.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to improvise.” You threaded your fingers through his white hair and pulled him closer. “You’re good at handling unexpected situations, aren’t you?”

Whatever he was about to say dissolved as he caught your lips again, urgency building in the small space between your bodies. One hand slipped beneath your shirt, warm fingers tracing the curve of your lower back, while the other gripped your thigh possessively.

You started undoing the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers, impatience bleeding into every movement. Fabric slipped from his shoulders as you pushed it off. You pressed your hands against his bare chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heartbeat under your palms and traced slowly down over his abs, earning a rough groan of his against your lips.

“Why do I get the feeling this was your plan all along?” 

Satoru tugged at your shirt, easing it off your shoulders as his lips trailed along your collarbone, then down to the strap of your bra, pushing it aside to press kisses to the skin beneath.

“Says the man undressing me in his cockpit,” you managed, though your voice caught when his mouth found your neck and sucked lightly.

“I can’t believe you let me ramble about navigation systems for ten minutes straight when this was your plan.”

“You’re cute when you’re being all professional and nerdy.”

“You’re terrible.” 

His hands gripped your hips, pulling you closer until you could feel him hard and pressing through his uniform. A soft sound escaped your lips before you could stop it, and his mouth crashed back onto yours, like he was trying to steal every moan before it left your lips.

“Careful. Don’t want us getting caught, right?”

You barely heard him. Your hands dropped to his belt, leather unfastening fast. It didn’t take long to push aside everything that wasn’t necessary. You were both nothing if not efficient, after all. And the last threads of restraint snapped as Satoru’s hands slid up your bare thighs, fingers hooking beneath your underwear and pulling it aside.

His head tipped back against the seat, breath catching as you moved against him. “Fuck,” he whispered, hands gripping your waist and pulling you closer as you found your rhythm together. His mouth on yours again, swallowing the soft sounds neither of you could hold back.

Surrounded by the controls and countless displays, the cockpit windows slowly fogging from your heated breathing, you couldn’t help but think about how it all started. This was where it began—thirty thousand feet above the world, suspended between earth and sky in the place where his voice had first found yours. From that very first radio call, from the moment he’d called you beautiful, it had always been leading here. 

As if inevitable.

Now, with your hands mapping his skin and your name falling from his lips in soft moans, it felt like coming full circle. From air traffic control to this. From ‘Flight 447’ to ‘Satoru.’ From guiding him home to finally being home.

And that felt pretty damn good.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝

Six months later.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting permission to land and take my gorgeous girlfriend out for dinner tonight,” came the voice you loved through your headset, smooth as always despite the late hour.

You rolled your eyes, though you smiled. “Flight 447, you do realize the entire tower can hear you, right?”

“Even better. Let them all know how lucky I am.”

Around the control tower, your colleagues had long since stopped pretending to be annoyed by Satoru’s radio flirtations. Maki still teased you about how cute you both sounded over the frequency, and even Ijichi had gotten used to the intimate banter without blushing like a teenage boy who’d accidentally walked into a lingerie store.

The gifts never stopped coming. From Vilnius, he’d brought a handwritten pierogi recipe from an elderly woman he’d chatted with during his layover—and it was surprisingly good when he made it for you on the weekend. He did not lie when he told you he’s a good cook. 

From Faro came a hand painted pot for the basil plant you’d surely kill again, but it didn’t matter as he’d secretly replace it in the middle of the night so you’d think you’d finally managed to keep a plant alive and see your happy smile. Seville brought oranges he’d handpicked from the city gardens, and Barcelona brought a gorgeous Picasso art book.

And, of course, every trip came with two postcards. One for you, and one for his sister. You’d started framing the ones meant for her and hanging them throughout his apartment for him.

“You know you don’t have to bring me something from every city,” you’d told him after he’d brought more expensive chocolate from Zurich.

“Let me spoil my girl,” he’d replied simply, watching you take a bite. “Besides, all you see is that boring tower all day. You deserve a little treat.”

The radio banter had only gotten worse—or better, depending on your perspective.

“Tower, Flight 447 requesting vectors to your heart.”

“Flight 447 keep it professional or I’m diverting you to Osaka.”

“Oof. Brutal. But if you send me to Osaka, you’ll never see what I brought you from Rome.”

Your colleagues had started keeping a list of his most ridiculous radio calls. ‘Flight 447 requesting visual on the prettiest controller in the hemisphere’ was Maki’s current favorite, while Ijichi still cringed about the time Satoru had asked for ‘Requesting altitude adjustment because I just fell for you—again.’

Yeah. It was absolutely cheesy.

Moving in together happened gradually, then all at once. Your clothes moved to his closet, your coffee mugs replaced all of his ugly ones in the kitchen, and suddenly your shift schedule was magnetted to his refrigerator beside his flight rotations. One day, you realized you were planning your lives around each other without ever having had the conversation.

“Your apartment’s bigger,” you’d pointed out, when you finally made it official.

“Yours has the better balcony. But mine’s closer to the airport.”

“So, your place then. But I’m bringing my good coffee maker.”

“And won’t let me see that adorable little wince you do at my terrible coffee in the morning? You’re heartless.”

But the real adjustment wasn’t space or schedules. It was learning each other’s bodies with the same intensity you’d spent months learning each other’s voices. After all, with falling in love through radio static, there was a lot of missed physical intimacy to make up for.

Some weekends you didn’t even make it out of your shared apartment, too consumed with discovering each other all over again. Your back hit the mattress with a soft thud, sheets warm beneath you as he settled over you, pressing kisses to your jaw, your neck, your collarbone like he couldn’t decide where to focus first.

“I used to fantazise about this,” he murmured between kisses.

“About what?”

“This.” His voice dropped lower, lips bruising your throat. “What you’d sound like when you weren’t trying so hard to be professional… imagining the sounds you’re making now, how you’d moan my name with that pretty voice of yours.”

You pulled him closer, lips finding his again, his tongue hot against yours.

 “Yeah?”

He smiled against your mouth. “You have no idea how many nights I imagined the taste of your skin. How many times I lay awake wondering if your thighs would shake when I fucked you hard enough.”

Your breath stuttered, hands gripping his shoulders like they were the only steady thing left. “Good thing we’ve got time now to find out.”

“Yeah. And I plan on making up for all of it,” he whispered—just before his fingers slipped between your thighs, and you forgot how to speak altogether.

And you did make up for lost time. Learning that he was somehow even more affectionate and thorough in person than over the radio. 

In the quiet of your bedroom, with the curtains drawn and the world hushed beyond the walls, you discovered each other slowly.  

How he always shivered when you traced patterns across his abs. How you had a small scar just below your ribcage from a childhood fall that he found with his lips, kissing along your skin until you arched beneath him. How your body tensed and then melted completely when his mouth worked between your legs, drawing sounds from you that made him groan against your skin.

You learned the weight of his arm draped over you, holding you close when he was moving from behind, and how soothing it felt when his fingers traced lazy patterns on your shoulder until sleep claimed you both. Discovered that lazy morning sex, followed by his surprisingly good scrambled eggs, was the perfect way to start any day.

You spent hours like this, days even, learning the language of each other’s bodies with a thoroughness that left no inch unexplored and no fantasy unfulfilled.

“You know,” he said one evening, pulling you into his lap while you tried to review approach procedures on the couch, “I spent so many nights wondering what it would be like to touch you while you worked.”

“And now?”

“Now I get to find out what happens when I do this—” His lips found that sensitive spot on your neck, making you gasp and completely forget what you’d been reading. “While you’re trying to be all professional.”

“That’s unfair.”

“That’s what makes it fun.”

The night everything changed started like any other. Weather delays had backed up traffic for hours, leaving Satoru circling above the Pacific in a holding pattern while you worked through the endless stream of aircraft. It was past midnight, the tower hushed and dim, when you finally switched to private frequency.

“Bored up there, Captain?”

“Never bored when I’m talking to you. Though I was thinking…”

“Dangerous pastime for you.”

“We’re both stuck here for the next few hours. You, managing this beautiful chaos from your tower. Me, alone with the stars at thirty thousand feet.” His voice carried that familiar warmth that always made something flutter in your chest. “Feels like the perfect date to me.”

You ended up talking for three hours, switching between official vectors and private topics, guiding other aircraft while Satoru described the city lights below and the way clouds shimmered like winter frost in the moonlight.

“Strange how this all started, don’t you think?” you mused during a quiet moment. “Two voices falling for each other over radio frequency.”

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“No. It’s just… kind of crazy, isn’t it? All of this.”

He was silent for a beat. When he spoke again, his voice was different—nervous, almost fragile.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Will you marry me?”

Your heart stopped.

“I know it’s not how this is supposed to go. I know it’s not normal. But then again, nothing about us has been. I’m thirty thousand feet in the air, you’re down there keeping the world together, and all I can think about is how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Time stretched thin in the control room as you struggled to process what he’d just asked, your heart thundering so loud you were sure he could hear it through the frequency.

“Yes,” you whispered, the word barely more than a breath as you leaned forward, elbows braced against the console. Your hands trembled as you pressed them to your face, overwhelmed by the rush of joy and disbelief.

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’ll marry you.”

He let out a heavy breath. “God, I love you. You just made me the happiest man alive. I swear, if I could pull down every star from up here and give them to you, I would.”

You blinked back tears, smiling. “Just come home safe, you idiot.”

“Always,” he said, and his voice had never sounded more sure. “Your voice guides me home, remember? It always has.”

You thought you’d mapped every corner of him after six months of living together—every habit, every sleepy morning routine, every sound he makes when he cums.

But then came the private jet revelation over scrambled eggs on a random Friday morning.

You’d known he came from money—the expensive gifts, the way he never seemed to stress about finances and had this really fancy apartment—but you hadn’t grasped the scale until he casually mentioned his father’s company owned a fleet of corporate aircraft.

“I was thinking we should take some time off and explore the world a little,” he said, like offering to fly you around the world was the same as suggesting takeout for dinner. “We could take one of the jets.”

“Wait wait wait… you have access to a private jet?”

“Technically, I have access to several.”

Your spoon slipped out of your hand and landed in your eggs.

The first time he took you somewhere—a long weekend in Kyoto for cherry blossom season—you finally understood why he’d fallen in love with flying. 

Up there, suspended between heaven and earth, everything felt different. The world spread out below like a map, cities reduced to scattered lights and rivers threading silver through green landscapes. You watched his hands move over the controls, the same hands that traced gentle patterns on your skin at night, now guiding you both through layers of cloud and sky.

“So this is what you see every day?” you asked, staring out at clouds that looked close enough to touch.

“This is what I used to see.” He glanced over at you. “Now I only see you.”

It started with short weekend trips, then longer stays overseas when both your schedules allowed it. He took you everywhere you wanted to go.

Venice, he bought you both gelato and told you stories about the Murano glass blowers. Barcelona, where you got lost in Gaudi’s wild architecture and found tiny tapas bars nestled in medieval alleyways. And Iceland, where the Northern Lights painted the sky green and purple while you kissed in a natural hot spring—finally experiencing all the places he’d described to you over radio waves. But now you experienced them together.

“Your sister would have loved this,” you said Reykjavik, wrapped in his arms under the dancing aurora.

“She would have loved you,” he replied, pulling you closer in the warm water. “She always said the best adventures were the ones you shared with someone who made you feel at home.”

“Remember when you used to tell me about this place?” you asked one evening in Prague, watching him order those cinnamon sugar spirals from the same bakery he’d told you about months ago over the radio.

He handed you the warm pastry with a smile. “I remember wishing you were here when I first tried it. I used to imagine what you’d say about the cobblestones, or if you’d laugh at my terrible pronunciation when I tried to order something local.”

You took a bite, sugar melting on your tongue. “And now?”

“Now I get to see your face when you taste it for the first time.” He pulled you close, the golden hour painting everything warm around you. “Now I get to hold your hand instead of describing how the sunset looks over the Charles Bridge. I don’t have to imagine anymore.”

Each trip revealed new layers of him—and new ways to make up for all those months of being just voices to each other. 

Somewhere over the Atlantic, you learned just how good he was at multitasking—okay, autopilot might have helped—his hands tangled in your hair, mouth on yours, while the stars streaked past the windows. Long afternoons in Parisian hotel rooms, rain drumming against the windows while you learned exactly how sensitive he gets when overstimulated. Sunset on private beaches in Thailand, where he discovered the sweet sounds you make when he uses three fingers instead of two. 

“I used to get hard just from hearing your voice,” he admitted one night in Santorini, pushing in deep while the Aegean sparkled below your terrace.

“Just from my voice?”

“Especially when you’d get that stern controller tone. ‘Flight 447, maintain current heading.’” His breath caught as you clenched around him, fingers finding yours and intertwining where he pressed them into the mattress. “You have no idea what that did to me.”

“Show me what it did to you.”

He did, thoroughly and repeatedly, until you understood exactly how much he’d wanted you during all those professional exchanges.

The wedding happened a year later, simple and perfect in a garden overlooking Tokyo Bay. Satoru insisted on writing his own vows, and when the moment came, he pulled out a piece of paper that looked suspiciously like a flight plan. 

He promised to pull down the stars for you if you ever wanted them, and you vowed to always be his voice guiding him home.

Years passed like this.

At some point, your story was known by everyone at the airport. Everyone was swooning over the perfect love story of two people who fell in love over their voices alone.

But the best parts were always the quiet moments. Morning coffee in your shared kitchen while he planned routes and you reviewed approach procedures. Afternoons when he’d surprise you at the tower with flowers and terrible jokes that made you ground and your colleagues laugh. Evenings curled up together planning the next adventure, his pilot charts spread across the coffee table next to approach manuals and takeout containers.

“Where to next?”

“Anywhere you want,” was always his answer. “As long as we’re flying together.”

And through it all, some things remained beautifully constant—the flutter in your  stomach when his call sign appeared on your screen, his voice calling from the sky, yours answering from the tower, and the way he still brought you something from every city.

“Tower, this is Flight 447 requesting permission to kiss my beautiful wife once I land. And yes, I know this is a public frequency, and yes—I want everyone to hear it.”

“Flight 447, you’re the worst.”

His laugh crackled through the radio. “I love you,” he said, still completely, hopelessly in love.

And every time he landed, every time you watched his plane touch down safely on the runway, that same warmth bloomed in your chest, just like it had from the very first day. Because no matter how many flights he took, how many cities he visited, how many years passed—he always came back to you.

After all, your voice had been the one calling him home from the very beginning.

The End

masterlist + support my writing + ao3

author's note — wait ! before you go ! if you enjoyed this story, i’d be forever grateful if you’d consider gifting me a few minutes of your time to participate in a research survey for my master’s thesis in psychology (if you haven't already) <3

here's the link.

it’s completely anonymous, but just a heads-up: the survey touches on nightmares and emotional wellbeing, so it may be sensitive for some. please feel free to stop at any point if it doesn’t feel right for you.

thank you for flying with insufferable pilot gojo airlines ! please make sure your heart is in the upright position before disembarking. hope this brought you as much joy to read as it brought me to write hehe. somehow i love this idea so much of pilot gojo being completely smitten over a voice alone :')) <3

and sorry that this got unexpectedly horny at the end, my apologies lol. until next time, this is your author signing off. safe travels !

ps: if you want to get notifications for future updates, you can join my taglist here.

tags — @fayuki @starmapz @starlightanyaaa @sxnkuna @cocomanga  

@nanamis-baker @rosso-seta @sugurbo @chiyokoemilia @janbannan  

@bloopsstuff @snowsilver2000 @ihearttoru @momoewn @yokosandesu  

@90s-belladonna @fairygardenprincesss @juneslove21 @glenkiller338 @gojossugarcandy  

@wiserion @moucheslove @nanasukii28 @sugucultfollower @leuriss  

@raendarkfaerie @yeiena @rainthensun @yvesdoee @amayaaaxx  

@cristy-101 @bnbaochauuu @markliving @strawberryswtchblaxe @whytfisgojosohot  

@bloodandnix @zanayaswrld @noble-17 @soapyaya @ethereal-moonlit  

@beaniesayshi @etsuniiru @candyluvsboba @iglb12 @doobybopbop  

@kamuihz @katsukiseyebrows @ezrazra @kalulakunundrum @torusbbg  

You paused, noticing your best friend wasn’t meeting your eyes. You placed your empty cup on the table. “Sorry. Was that too much? I’ll probably be embarrassed about this tomorrow morning when I don’t have alcohol in my system to give me courage.” 

He coughed, then stood up and grabbed your cups to take them to the kitchen. He could feel your eyes following his every movement, as if he would disappear if you weren’t staring at him. 

“I need another drink so I don’t remember this tomorrow.” You mumbled, standing up to follow him into the kitchen. He blocked your path when you went to reach for the fridge. 

He tsked, cornering you against the counter when you stepped back. “I will not have you puking in my bathroom again for mixing alcohol. Back to the couch, I’ll bring you water in a moment.”

You pouted again. Suna’s eyes darted down to your lips, holding back the urge to capture your jutted out bottom lip between his teeth. He quickly looked back into your eyes and took a step back, physically putting distance between the two of you before he did something that would damage your friendship. 

He released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in once you headed back into the living room, thankfully listening to him for once in your life. He followed shortly after with water for you. 

“Have you been with a lot of girls?” 

He chuckled. “Are you slut shaming me, now?”

You playfully slapped his arm. “Have you been able to make them come with your fingers alone?” You countered. 

He sighed. You wouldn’t just drop it. “Not every woman is the same.” 

You dramatically fell sideways on the couch after downing your water, your head landing on his thigh as you started to sober up. “My pussy is defective.” 

He choked on air this time. He wasn’t even sure he heard you right until he noticed you were glaring at him. 

“You’re not defective, love.” His hands found your hair and he started running his fingers through it. 

You scoffed. “How would you know?” 

The words were on the tip of his tongue. His fingers twitched with the need to slip in your sweats and make you come just so you would shut up about it. Instead he bit his tongue and kept playing with your hair, fingertips massaging your scalp as you hummed softly at the feeling. Perhaps if he kept the gentle touch long enough, you would eventually fall asleep. 

“What if you help me?” 

Or not. 

His eyes darted down to you. You turned to lay on your back so you could meet his eyes. You seemed just as surprised as he was by your own words. His hand fell on his lap, suddenly aware of your lack of bra when his gaze was inevitably drawn to your hardened nipples nearly visible through the white shirt you were wearing. 

He watched your face fall and he realized in his mental panic he hadn’t said anything at all. 

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He blurted out.

But you both know that you did. You devoured the take out he ordered earlier and drank the water he gave you. Your deepening frown was clue enough that you were not drunk. 

“Sorry, again.” You said as you sat up, but he grabbed your wrist before you could go far. 

He sighed. What could go wrong? This is just to help you, he tried to defend himself in his mind. He was being a good best friend. Tomorrow he would wake up and pretend it was just a dream– a dream that he just knew he would fist his cock to every time he remembered the sound of your pretty moans and how your fingers look like stuffed in your cunt. 

“I’ll help you. Guide you, I mean. I can guide you, so you can make yourself come.”

Your lips parted and your thighs pressed together. He held back the urge to touch you. This was for you, not for him. 

It was a blur, from the moment you let out a breathy yes to when you fell back on his bed naked. Your legs were spread, held open by his hands on your knees when you tried to close them. His eyes were on your face despite the temptation to just stare down at your glistening folds. 

“Just do what you would usually do. Pretend I’m not here.”

How could you pretend your hot best friend was not kneeling down between your legs, fully clothed while you were completely exposed? You closed your eyes, but you could still see him as clearly as if they were still open. Your hands reached between your thighs, collecting your wetness in your fingertips before you started circling your clit. He hummed. 

“You’re an impatient little thing, aren’t you?” Suna murmured, grabbing your wrists and moving your hands up to your tits. “Touch them, grope them, toy with your nipples. Tease yourself until you feel your pussy dripping on my bed.” 

Your eyes were still closed, your mind wandering into dangerous territory. Your fingers circled your areola, your nipples puckering as you moved to cup your breasts instead and gently squeezed. The action had your back slightly arching off the bed. 

“That’s it, what a good girl.” Suna’s hands went back to your knees, this time rubbing soothing circles on your skin. 

You suddenly regretted asking Suna for help. You were almost sure his voice was the one making you clench around nothing, not the way your thumbs finally brushed over your nipples. A soft moan tumbled out of your lips. 

Suna looked down between your legs, then darted his eyes to your hands. “Feels good, doll?”

You nodded almost immediately. “Feels so good, Rin.”

Fuck. If you kept saying his name like that, he really was going to come in his pants like a pathetic teenager. He swallowed, his grip almost imperceptibly tightening on your knees. 

He let out a deep, albeit a bit forced chuckle. He was about to beg you to let him put his mouth on you. You would let him, he knew you would, which is why he held back. 

You pinched your nipples between your fingers, then let go to prop yourself on an elbow and reach for the hem of his shirt. “Take it off.” You asked in a soft whisper, your hand going between your legs when he obliged without much protest. He grabbed your wrist when he noticed you trying to slip a finger inside. 

“Did I say you could do that?” He snapped, his tone making you look up into his eyes. His pupils were blown wide, barely visible in his half lidded gaze. “You want it to feel good, right?”

You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth as you slowly nodded. Suna bit back a groan. 

“You wanna be my good girl, don’t you?” He murmured, his hands moving to the underside of your thighs, keeping your legs spread as he laid down on his stomach. His face was so close, you felt his breath hitting your skin before his lips pressed against your knee, then your inner thigh. 

“Wanna be your good girl, Rin.” 

He smirked. “Yeah?” He breathed against your skin, fingers digging into your thighs. “Touch that clit for me, baby. You wanted to make yourself come, didn’t you?” 

You obliged, your fingers finding the sensitive nub and started to rub it in circles. Your head fell back against the pillow, your eyes fluttered shut again as your fingers quickened. You started to feel the familiar burn of an orgasm.

It was still so out of your grasp, your fingers itching to slide lower, to feel something inside you, but you didn’t want to lose this feeling. You didn’t want to risk Suna grabbing your wrist and pulling your hand away again. 

“Rin,” You moaned softly, your free hand moving to grab your tit, fingers toying with your nipple. So close, so fucking close. 

Suna pressed his forehead to your leg, his hips pressing down against the mattress. “Gonna come, baby?” He nearly panted as he sat up on his knees again. 

“Only if you do too.” 

He nearly did right then and there. Your voice was breathy, growing a pitch higher as your hips bucked up. His name left your lips again and he wasted no time hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants and lowering them along with his underwear. 

“Finger this pretty pussy for me, doll. Wanna watch you clench around your fingers when you come.” His fingers wrapped around his cock, a low whine bubbling up his throat. “I’m not gonna last.” He admitted, cheeks flushed a deep red as he stroked his dick in time with your fingers. 

You propped yourself up on your elbow again, a whimper falling from your lips at the sight of your best friend fucking his fist between your legs. Your palm pressed against your clit as you curled your fingers against the spongy spot inside you. 

You came with his name on your lips, your fingers slipping out to rub your clit instead to milk your orgasm. Suna followed shortly after, gripping your thigh so tightly you were sure there would be bruises on your skin in the morning, his seed spurting out onto your pussy lips and your fingers. Your eyes rolled back at the warmth, your cunt clenching hard when you slipped your cum coated fingers inside you. 

Suna nearly came again at the sight. You could get yourself off without your toys, after all. You just needed your best friend to help you. 

“Boo,” she said, more in greeting than to startle.

Suna, of course, didn't flinch. It was impossible to sneak up on Suna.

As expected, he was slouching over the kitchen table, scrolling through TikTok. His hoodie swallowed his frame despite the broadness of his shoulders. His hood was pulled up, allowing only a few stray stands of chestnut hair to peek under the fabric.

He looked like a real night-dweller.

"Sup," he greeted. Then glanced up when she brushed a hand lightly over his shoulder in passing. "Finished reading?"

She gave him a soft hum in confirmation as she made her way to the cupboard, rummaging through the rows of tea boxes. There were far too many. Most opened and half-used, but that was part of the fun. She lifted one teabag to her nose, then another, weighing them like little mood testers.

“Fancied a bev,” she said, half to herself. "You want one?"

She heard the creak of the chair behind her, followed by a strained grunt as Suna stretched his arms.

"Go on, then," he sighed, followed by the gentle creak of him resettling in his chair. "What're you making?"

She hummed, still considering. “Dunno yet. Probably a tea, but I haven't made my mind up. Not feeling floral but not feeling minty either."

He let out a quiet huff that could qualify as a chuckle.

She was rambling, as she often did. But one thing about Suna is that he never made her little musings feel silly. If anything, he embraced them—encouraged them like he enjoyed it.

“High stakes," he joked.

“Always,” she said solemnly.

After more deliberation than strictly necessary, she plucked a green tea for herself and another blend for him—something mellow she knew he wouldn’t complain about. She dropped them into their mugs and popped the kettle on.

“I've decided on green,” she declared.

Suna mock-gasped. “Green tea at night is crazy work.”

She snorted, leaning back against the counter as the water began to boil. He wasn't wrong, but eh—a bit of caffeine after midnight never hurt anybody. They were Uni students after all.

“I know,” she sighed. “What a lunatic."

Suna played along. “Can’t take this girl anywhere.”

She spluttered a laugh, about to retort something equally as millennial when the kettle clicked off behind her. She spun around and poured the water slowly, letting the tea steep, watching the colours swirl like lazy clouds.

She handed Suna his mug and slid into the chair across from him, cradling her mug between both palms, letting the warmth seep into her fingers.

“How’s your assignment coming along?" She asked with a careful sip. "You said it was due soon, right? What's it on?”

Suna set his phone down and slumped his cheek into his palm. “Mhmm. I’m doing it on dark triad traits in romantic relationships.”

(Y/n) blinked owlishly. “Dark what?”

Suna went on with the diligence and calm of a true psych student. “It's stuff like narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy. I’m writing about how those traits show up in relationships. You know—manipulation, emotional detachment... that kind of thing.”

She let out a long breath. “Jesus.”

“It’s not all serial killer-y,” he added, stretching his legs under the table. “Basically, it's a study about people who don’t realize they’re being emotionally coercive. Micro-manipulations. Strategic affection. Withholding. Playing victim.”

Her spine tingled.

Suna looked eerily relaxed in contrast. “You’d be surprised how common it is.”

She stared at him, eyes slightly wide. “You psych students are kinda scary.”

He huffed a laugh. “We get that a lot."

“Do you ever notice yourself doing any of those things?" (Y/n) blurted. "Y’know… emotionally manipulating people and stuff?”

He gave her a dry look over the rim of his mug. “I don't think so. But if I did, I wouldn't tell you, would I? Kinda defeats the purpose of manipulation."

"Or—or you're just saying that and you're actually manipulating me right now as we speak." She tapped the side of her skull. "Reverse psychology."

Suna's indifference was well-practiced, mug halfway to his lips. “Maybe I am." Sip. "You’d never know.”

(Y/n) stared at him, waiting for a twitch of a smirk, a glint of mischief. He said things like that often—cryptic, close to the bone, half-truths dressed as jokes. And most people never knew what to make of them. She supposed that's what made them click.

He liked being unreadable. It gave him control over what parts of himself people were allowed to see. A wall of dry humour, deflection, and unnerving calm.

But Suna wasn’t cruel. He never had been.

He might’ve kept people at arm’s length, but he wasn’t cold. And certainly not manipulative—not in the way he was teasing about. Not in the way that hurt people.

“You can’t fool me,” she said lightly.

She could've sworn a muscle feathered in his jaw. A flicker of hesitation, like maybe he was going to say something. Or like he was thinking something he shouldn’t. It passed so quickly she must've imagined it.

Tilting her head, she rested her cheek in her palm, her gaze turning fond. “When you graduate, are you gonna psychoanalyse me too?”

He hummed. “I might already have.”

Her brow quirked at that. “For real?"

“Mmhm.” A pause. Then, like he was biting back a grin—“Want me to diagnose your situationship with Atsumu, or is that too much of a sensitive topic?”

She gave a scandalised gasp and swatted the air between them, grinning through her embarrassment. “That's mean!"

He chuckled. "Sorry, sorry."

She huffed and let the moment settle. Then, after a beat, her voice came out almost wistful.

“Dr. Suna, huh? Imagine that. Can't believe little aloof Rintarou's gonna become a doctor.”

He snorted. “That's if I graduate."

“You will," she said with certainty. “But what about volleyball? You're still gonna prioritise that, right?"

Suna nodded, tapping a thumb against his mug. “Yeah. Psych’s just the backup plan.”

“After this assignment, I’ve got a paper on emotional suppression to finish up. A whole lotta jargon, basically. Cognitive avoidance strategies and whatever."

A whole lotta jargon, indeed.

“I’m going to politely nod and pretend I understood everything you just said," she mused. Then she did just that—gave a gentle, thoughtful nod.

Suna huffed through his nose. “It's not as complicated as it sounds."

"Then you must just be using big words to show off."

"You got me," he shrugged. He glanced down at his mug, gave it a small swirl, then looked back up at her. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, just a little.

“And what about you, Miss Author?” He jutted his chin in her direction. “Written any novels yet?”

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. “That’s not how my course works. We don’t actually write books or anything.”

“I’m surprised,” he said, eyes gleaming. “With all that smut you read.”

She gasped.

How dare he.

He was talking about that damn romantasy book she was reading a few days ago.

“It’s not even that smutty,” she defended, partly already resigned.

She would never win this argument.

“It’s actually really plot-heavy!" She continued anyway. "Talks about war, trauma, sacrifice—serious stuff! Not that you guys ever believe me.”

Indeed, the teasing had been merciless ever since Atsumu caught her reading it in the kitchen, then dramatically read a passage aloud to further stretch her humiliation. The twins wouldn't stop bringing it up. Suna was quieter about his judgment, but he still gave her that look every time she pulled it out in public.

Thankfully, tonight, he showed mercy.

He masked a yawn into his shoulder as he said: “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” she muttered, glaring.

He snickered.

Then, veering the conversation back to their previous topic: "Anyway. Writing's going fine. Kind of. I spent, like, three hours rewriting a single paragraph today.”

Suna's eyebrows rose. She shook her head before he could ask.

“Don’t. The plot’s there, I think. But I keep second-guessing everything I write. I'm not quite happy with it yet."

"You want me to proof read it?"

She took that into consideration. Psychology involved a lot of writing, and she'd read Suna's essays before. He was as articulate as any psych major. Always pertinent and acute.

Maybe she should have him proof read.

“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “Lemme finish up a first draft, then I'll send it to you—if that's okay.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Thanks, Dr. Suna.”

He raised his mug in lazy salute. “Anytime, Miss Author.”

(Y/n) huffed a laugh through her nose, bringing her tea to her lips. It had started to cool, the steam and conversation fading in tandem.

She let herself settle into the quiet. Let her gaze drift the way one does when the night is late and the body begins to slow. Her eyes moved without much direction, skimming the edge of the table, the tiny scuff on the cupboard door, the soft dip in Suna’s hoodie where it folded at his chest.

Then, without meaning to, her eyes fell to his hands.

He was still holding his mug, fingers curled loosely around the ceramic. His rings caught the faint kitchen light—the slim silver band on his index, the slightly thicker one wrapped around his middle. He never took them off, not even when they got ready for bed earlier.

He hadn’t planned on sleeping soon then, she realised. Not if the rings were still on.

Something about the sight made her stomach dip.

Déjà vu.

That had been the catalyst, hadn't it? The way she’d stared at his hands that night. On New Year’s. The way her cheeks had burned at the thought of them on her skin. The way he’d noticed and showed her, exactly what it felt like.

Heat bloomed in her face before she could stop it.

She looked away sharply, and took a long sip of tea she definitely didn’t need. Her brain scrambled for something to say, anything to think about. But when she peeked over the rim of her mug, she found Suna already looking at her.

“This feels familiar,” he teased.

(Y/n) froze, then cleared her throat, dragging her eyes toward the window like she hadn’t heard him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His voice sounded all too knowing. “Uh-huh. You don’t?”

“Nope. Not a clue,” she said, doe-eyed and innocent as she took a long, obnoxious slurp of her drink. “Must be confusing me with someone else.”

Suna mirrored her without hesitation, elbows on the table, mug in hand, lips curving as he sipped. “Nah. I don’t think so.” He leaned back just slightly. “I distinctly remember.”

One word stood out from his sentence. “Distinctly, hmm?”

“Hmm?" he echoed playfully. “What? Did you think I’d forget?”

“I mean…” she hesitated, trailing a finger along the rim of her mug. “Maybe not forget. But I didn’t think you’d distinctly remember."

Suna gave a little shrug. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time.”

Her lips immediately twitched upward. “Oh?” But Suna leaned forward just enough to burst her bubble.

“So did you if I remember correctly.”

That earned him a withering look.

Somehow, she had a feeling he'd led her right into that one. Now she was remembering it all far too vividly—the way his fingers had felt, his lips on hers, the way she’d gasped his name and dug her nails into his skin.

He grinned at her embarrassment with that impish, self-satisfied look he wore so well, and tilted his head like he was watching something delightful unfold.

“Still gets to you after all these years?” he cooed. “That’s adorable.”

She groaned and waved him off. Any attempts at schooling him were whisked away by the flustered grin that had settled on her face.

"Yeah, well. We can’t all be as nonchalant as you.”

“No.” He said coolly. “It’d be boring if you were.”

"You like that I’m ‘chalant’?”

“Uh-huh. Means I don’t need to try so hard since you'll do all the yapping for me.” His words weren't unkind, but she scoffed at him anyway.

"So basically you like me because it’s convenient?”

That earned a flicker of something softer in his eyes. He shook his head slowly, like she’d missed the point. “No. I just like hearing you talk.”

She didn't even try to hide the warm, cheesy smile blooming on her face. Compliments from Suna always hit harder than they should.

"That's sweet."

He let out a quiet, almost wry huff—like her affection had landed a little clumsily. For a second, she thought he might roll his eyes or say something to undercut it, but was pleasantly surprised when he simply smiled into his mug instead.

(Y/n) let out a quiet sigh, pondering. “Can’t believe the twins know now.”

He set his mug down with a clink. “You brought it up.”

“I know, I know.” She waved a hand as if batting away her own impulsive decision.

“What made you tell 'em anyway?” The look he gave her was more curious than accusatory.

She paused. Considered it.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “Just wanted to see their reaction, I guess.”

“You mean Atsumu’s reaction.”

She shot him a look, narrowing her eyes into a playful glare, lips twisting into a mock sneer. He smirked, utterly unrepentant, one brow raised like he’d been waiting for her to admit it.

Okay, so maybe she did want to bait Atsumu.

Besides, she'd kept this secret hidden for years. It was bound to come out eventually. She just happened to describe the memory with just enough detail to keep him reeling.

Petty, yes. A little sadistic? Also yes. But he was a grown man. He'd get over it. It didn't seem to bother Suna, either.

“Do you mind that they know?”

He shrugged. “Nah.” Then paused, chuckling to himself—a sound easy and fond. She figured he was probably remembering the conversation again. “Can’t believe you had the balls to tell ’em. Did you see Atsumu’s face?”

(Y/n) snorted, instantly picturing it—the mix of confusion and barely-contained emotion twisting across his features. Like he didn’t know what exactly he should be feeling.

“Yeah,” she said through a giggle. “He looked pretty… perplexed.”

Suna leaned back slightly in his chair with an air of mischief. “You think he would’ve handled it better if it had been Osamu?”

Her eyes went wide. “Absolutely not,” she said, shaking her head. “He would’ve lost his goddamn mind.”

She thought that would’ve made him laugh. And for a moment, he looked tempted to. But his gaze drifted—unfocused. Gone just the tiniest bit faraway.

She wondered if it was for the same reason as her. If he found himself replaying the memory from time to time.

What did he make of it?

She had never mustered up the courage to ask him.

She found herself watching the way his thumb swept over his mug again, absent and rhythmic.

That night had been quiet, too.

Mostly.

She shifted, glancing down at her tea, at the way her fingers curled around it. “Hey…” she said softly.

Suna looked up.

“Do you…” She hesitated. Then blinked through it, smiled a little to herself. “Do you still think about that night? Sometimes?”

Her tone suggested that she meant it in a positive light. That if he thought about it, it wasn't in regret, but out of reminiscence.

She dipped her gaze.

She felt a bit presumptuous for asking. A bit awkward for bringing it up after so many years. But it had just slipped out—soft and curious and maybe a little self-conscious. Because sometimes she wondered if it had mattered only to her. If, unlike her, he’d moved on the second it ended.

When she lifted her eyes again, her doubts had already began to fade.

“Yeah,” he said, looking a little amused. “I do."

(Y/n) flushed. It was her own fault for asking. But just because she expected an answer didn’t mean she was ready for how it landed.

So he thought about it too...

Her heart gave a traitorous flutter.

“Sometimes,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

And then, curiously—he looked away.

Suna, who had always been big on eye contact. Who could hold a stare without a flinch. He wasn't shy, surely. But (y/n) wondered if it perhaps something close...

The thought made her feel giddy in a way she wasn’t used to. Like maybe she hadn’t been the only one feeling a little exposed after all.

To say a weight had been lifted off her chest felt silly, but that's how she felt. Kind of like when something's stuck in your shoe, and you ignore it for ages because stopping to fix it seems like too much effort. Until you finally do, and realise just how uncomfortable it was the whole time.

"Me too," she murmured. Then, echoing his words from earlier: "Sometimes."

Funny how a few words could do that—clear the air. How years of something unspoken could soften with a single, quiet admission.

Easy silence settled over them. Occasionally filled in with light chatter—nothing important.

Eventually, Suna let out a yawn, muffled into the back of his hand. “Alright,” he said, pushing his chair back with a soft scrape. “I’m off.”

(Y/n) nodded, draining the dregs of her tea. “Okay.”

He stood slowly, stretching his arms overhead, and for some reason, she rose too. She stepped toward him without thinking. Not because the moment called for it. But simply because she felt like it.

Her arms slipped around him in a gentle hug.

Suna didn’t hesitate. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head. She warmed at the feeling of his lips on the crown of her head, her eyes slipping shut like she could fall asleep there. He smelled nice—like warmth and stillness all at once.

She felt Suna shift slightly, one hand adjusting at her back. For a moment, she thought he would pull away. But instead, it felt like he was angling his head.

Curious, she copied him.

Standing in the doorway, faintly backlit by the light spilling out of the kitchen, was Atsumu.

Her expression lit up instantly. “Oh, hey ’Tsum.”

He looked a little surprised. Not tense. Just tired, maybe. A little rumpled from sleep, as though he'd been tossing and turning in his sheets. She couldn’t quite read his expression.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” she asked, still half-tucked into Suna’s hoodie.

“Too hot upstairs,” he replied, voice easy, but his smile was a little strained.

The way he stood there, lingering in the doorway like the kitchen was suddenly too full, made her self-conscious. She thought of stepping back from the hug, hands still hovering at Suna’s waist—but he beat her to it.

He let out a small yawn and rolled his shoulders. “I’m gonna sleep.”

She nodded, offering a small smile. “Night night, Rin.”

He hardly spared her a glance as he moved past her, bidding her a quiet goodnight.

She watched as he retreated from the kitchen, and for a second, she could've sworn she saw him cast Atsumu a look. Not dirty—too brief for that. But pointed enough in its subtly that it made her tense.

(Y/n) refrained from rolling her eyes, already having a pretty good idea of what was really bothering Atsumu tonight. His silence had nothing to do with the heat.

She braced herself for the inevitable conversation.

Atsumu’s a simple guy. Or at least he used to be.

He liked winning. Liked things that made sense. Set, spike, score. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, move on when shit doesn’t go your way. Easy. Predictable.

But lately—lately, his brain wouldn’t shut up. He’d lie in bed thinking about things that didn’t matter. Things that shouldn’t matter.

It was funny because before meeting (y/n), or more specifically, before moving in with (y/n), he never overthought. He saw things for what they were. Didn't overcomplicated things that weren't worth his time. And things were rarely worth his time.

(Y/n) wasn't one of those things.

And tonight was one of those nights where sleep felt impossible.

He kept thinking about that damn conversation. Kept replaying the way (y/n) and Suna looked at each other like they were having a mind-to-mind conversation Atsumu wasn't privy to.

He hated it.

Hated that he was even thinking about it.

Hated that he cared.

Feelings were dumb. Complicated. Slippery little bastards that refused to stay where they were supposed to. And no matter how many times he told himself it was none of his business, the thought still looped like a broken record.

Atsumu lay in bed, one arm slung over his forehead, staring at the ceiling with eyes much too wide for the hour. His window was cracked open, letting in a breeze that did jack shit to cool the restless heat under his skin.

The sheets were twisted around his legs, clinging to his bare chest. His pillow felt lumpy. And honestly? He felt overstimulated. The sound of traffic whirled in the distance, and from the hallway came the softest rustle. Probably Suna heading to the kitchen. Or maybe it was (y/n), grabbing water before bed.

The thought made his jaw tighten.

There it was again—his heart and brain teaming up to make him spiral. Why couldn't he stop thinking about that stupid conversation from earlier tonight? It wasn't even that deep. And yet... here he was.

He could still picture it perfectly—Suna in his usual spot in the armchair. 'Samu on one end of the couch, Atsumu on the other. (Y/n) sat snugly between them, eyes fixed on the corny rom-com playing on the TV, trying not to smile as she told them about that New Year’s Eve.

Like it was no big deal.

Like she hadn’t just said something that knocked the wind out of him.

“I've kissed Rin before," she'd said.

"She's leaving out the best part," Suna added.

Prick.

Well. Not really. Atsumu couldn't blame him for it.

"We didn't get that far."

What did that even mean?

They didn’t have actually sex—sure. Fine. Whatever. He got that. He wasn't stupid. And yeah—so what they almost had sex. No big deal. He could live with that. He could accept that.

…Sort of.

But almost left a lot of room.

Almost was intimate.

Almost was hands under clothes and mouths on each other's neck.

Almost meant something happened.

And it's not that he wanted to know exactly what.

But why?

Why hadn't they gone all the way?

And more importantly—would she do it again?

All questions he knew he shouldn't ask.

They were private, and certainly none of his business. But the urge to confront her was overwhelming.

He’d said nothing at the time. Donned a mask of indifference that he knew wasn't fooling anyone.

Not that he was trying to fool anyone.

He just genuinely didn't know what the fuck to say to that.

Congratulations? Or condolences—since they didn't go through with it.

He didn't want to seem eager at the time by bombarding them with questions—but maybe he should have.

Because now he was alone, left with this thoughts?

It was eating at him.

Because if anyone knew how close (y/n) and Suna were, it was him.

He spent all of high school with them, and now they lived together.

He knew the way they talked. Moved. Read each other like damn books. The way they could sit in silence and still have full conversations with a single look. The private little jokes. The comfort. The history.

Like sun and moon. Earth and wind. Hot and cold.

Never one without the other.

Always there for each other.

Despite what (y/n) said—the way she'd tried to play it off as teenage recklessness and curiosity—Atsumu knew better. That night they almost hooked up wasn’t some random accident.

It was inevitable.

Question was—was it really just a fling? Or were feelings involved?

And if there were... Did they still fester?

Suddenly, all her little interactions with Suna felt like red flags waving in his face.

Atsumu turned over with a groan, burying his face into the pillow.

He tried not to picture it. He really fucking did. But his brain didn’t know how to simply let things go.

It painted it in detail.

Her on Suna’s bed. Flushed. Lips kiss-swollen. That sleepy, vulnerable look she always got when her guard was down.

Her fingers in Suna’s hair. Her breath catching. Her thighs parting. Her voice whispering—

No.

Fuck.

He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, chest rising too fast.

It shouldn’t bother him.

He told himself that a hundred times.

(Y/n) wasn’t his girlfriend. They weren’t dating. Hell—half the time they were just barely toeing the line between friends and whatever the hell it was they were now.

But it still burned.

What did Suna make of that night?

Suna, who kept his cool no matter what. Who probably knew exactly what Atsumu was thinking and never said a word.

What did it all mean to him?

To make him feel even more insane, nobody seemed fazed at all.

They'd finished the movie and started another one like nothing had been said. Like it was barely even a lore drop in the first place. Just some harmless bit of trivia from her past.

Past, Atsumu told himself. It had happened years ago.

It hadn't fazed his brother.

Hadn’t fazed Suna—though with him it was always hard to tell.

And if it fazed (y/n), she did a damn good job hiding it.

She didn’t bring it up again. Didn’t elaborate. Just breezed through the evening with that soft, effortless calm she always had. Like it meant nothing. Like it hadn’t stayed buried under Atsumu’s skin like a splinter—sharp and raw and impossible to ignore.

He hated that he wanted to ask about it. Hated that his pride wouldn't let him.

Until now. Where his brain was loud and his impulses louder.

He'd heard someone go downstairs earlier. With a bit of luck, it was (y/n). And if tonight was the right time, she'd still be down there— blissfully unaware of question burning hot on his tongue.

With a decisive inhale, Atsumu tossed the covers off himself and grabbed a t-shirt before padding downstairs through the dark. Enough fucking around. He turned the corner and—

There.

From the base of the stairs he could already see the light pouring from the kitchen. Somebody was in there. Hopefully (y/n). He strode across the living room with a unreasonable tightness in his chest and paused.

She was there—which was great, he supposed.

Only she wasn't alone.

And was currently hugging her best friend.

Suna noticed him first.

"Didn't think you'd still be up."

Lie. Suna was a night owl. What Atsumu had meant to say was I didn't expect you to be in the kitchen (with her), but he couldn't say that without sounding like a bitter motherfucker.

Suna hummed something non committal as (y/n) spun around, finally noticing his presence.

"Oh, hey 'Tsum." The genuine fondness in her voice made it impossible for him not to smile back. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"Nah. Too hot upstairs."

She pulled away from the hug at last, but all Atsumu could focus on was the way her hands were still loosely hanging off his waist. Probably a subconscious thing, but still. The urge to yank either of them back to a more comfortable distance was too tempting.

Not to mention how Suna just... let her.

After knowing them for so long, Atsumu had started to notice these kinds of things. The way they gravitated toward each other. The casual touches. How (y/n) always seemed to initiate them: quick hugs, a hand on his arm, her head on his shoulder—but Suna never pushed her away.

Part of Atsumu wondered if all best friends were like this. Maybe it was normal. Maybe he was just overreacting. Or maybe it only bothered him because (y/n) was a girl. And Suna wasn’t.

Probably. He couldn’t imagine getting pissy over (y/n) being touchy with another girl. That wouldn’t mean anything.

Then again... the man she was hugging wasn't just anyone.

It was Suna. The same Suna who had her moaning his name that one night on New Year's Eve and—

"I'm gonna sleep," Suna said with a yawn. (Y/n) nodded and quietly bid him goodnight, her tone far more relaxed than Atsumu's as he too, muttered a quick 'g'night'.

When Suna stepped back from the hug, Atsumu could’ve sworn he saw his hand brush against hers. Maybe it was nothing. Could've been a trick of the light. Maybe he was seeing things again—wanting to see things.

His chest constricted. He swallowed. Felt stupid all over again.

Suna’s eyes met his briefly on the way out. He probably didn't mean anything by it, but Atsumu couldn't help but feel like they'd just had a silent conversation of their own. A glance that said he knew. Whether that was something to be concerned about, he didn't let on.

But Atsumu said nothing. Just stood there as Suna slinked past him without a word, suddenly unsure of where to put all the heat curling under his skin.

And then it was just the two of them.

(Y/n) leaned against the kitchen table, arms crossed loosely, hip cocked just slightly to the side.

Atsumu walked over to the fridge. Pulled open the door.

He didn’t even want anything—wasn’t thirsty, wasn’t hungry—but he couldn’t just stand there. He felt pathetic enough already. His shoulders and jaw tense from his brief interaction with Suna. He needed a distraction. For now, a water bottle would do. Maybe it would help cool his head.

“You okay?”

He could feel her eyes on his back. “Yeah.”

He took a swig. Let the coolness run down his throat. The chill of the water didn’t cool the prickle crawling up his spine.

She was still looking at him. He could tell without even turning.

If only his poker face was as good as Suna’s.

He shut the fridge with his hip and said, “Why’re ya starin’ at me, sweetheart?” The words came out smooth. His best impression of unfazed. He even added a lazy half-grin as he finally turned to face her.

Her lack of reaction was jarring.

No quips, no smile, not even an eyeroll.

Instead, she looked at him with that strange sort of gentleness she reserved for when she knew something hurt. A look so paradoxical in its softness that cut through him like a blade.

“Is it about earlier?”

Lie. Lie. Fake it till you make it.

“What do you mean?”

“Atsumu.” His name—just his name—landed like a full stop. No room to wriggle. No space to run. No excuses.

She had that tone again. The one that made people listen. The one that turned heads in rooms even when she wasn’t trying.

“I saw the way you looked at Rin on the way out,” she added. He hoped his face didn't betray how much her noticing rattled him. “It’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

His mouth opened, but no words came. Now what?

It was ironic. He’d come down here to talk to her. Only he expected to broach the subject in his own way. He was supposed to lead the dance. But now she’d cut right to the chase and he suddenly felt stripped bare. Cornered.

Thing is, she wasn’t even trying to trap him. She wasn’t that type of person. She just saw through him, like she always did. A habit so nasty and blessed at the same time it made him feel like glass. Transparent. Easily shaped under the right kind of heat. But just as easily shattered if she ever dared to press too hard.

He looked away, jaw ticking. Twisted the cap back onto the bottle just to keep his hands moving. “Botherin’s a strong word,” he said finally. “S’more like… curious.”

If she caught the piss-poor attempt at his indifference, she didn't make it obvious. Didn’t call him out on the dodge. Didn’t tease. Didn’t scoff. Just waited—patient as a saint. “Curious about what, exactly?”

Her voice wasn’t unkind. Just open. Like she was actually willing to have this conversation.

He scratched his jaw, hesitating with the words caught somewhere in his throat. He couldn't keep this up. The longer he drew this out, the more awkward it'd become.

Ask her, said a small part of his brain. Just make it sound casual.

“That night with Suna," he gritted. “What exactly happened?”

(Y/n) blinked, not from surprise.

“Oh.”

Oh, indeed.

Why on God's green earth did he phrase it like that?!

'What exactly happened', sounded like he wanted details.

Like he wanted her to describe the night.

A grating feeling clawed his chest—shame, probably—but (y/n) went on before he could dwell on it.

"Well, it's like I said. We kissed and we got a little carried away and...yeah. That's it."

He thought about how to proceed. Maybe he could still make this work.

“Right, but…” he bit back his frustration. Words were never his forte. In this moment, he hated himself for it. “When ya say 'carried away' was it because—"

She cut him off before he could finish.

“Tsumu.”

Heat crept up his neck.

"What? I just mean—"

(Y/n) looked like she was about to laugh.

"Why are you so curious?" She asked. "Don't tell me that's what's been keeping you up tonight."

Her smile was like kindling to the heat already rising in his chest—crawling up his neck, his ears.

He should've just stayed in bed.

"No, no..."

(Y/n) giggled.

Oh, who was he kidding?

"Fine. So what, it might have been on my mind."

She crossed her arms, smiling coyly. Her eyebrow rose expectantly.

He quickly clarified. "But not for the reason yer thinkin'! It's not like I wanna know exactly what happened that night... I mean—I've thought about it. But it's none of my business, and I ain't some kinda creep—"

"Wait, wait, wait—pause, Tsumu." His rambling was cut short. A small blessing, he realised. Because he truly had no idea where his speech would've gone had she let him continue.

"Since I know you secretly wanna know, but are too embarrassed to ask me—I'll tell you what happened that night."

A brief pause. Then: "I won't tell you exactly what we did, but I can tell you what we didn't do, if that helps."

...

Huh.

Well—that's not really what he came down here to ask.

It ran deeper than just hearing the details of their almost-hook-up. But he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious about it. And since she was offering...

He crossed his arms as he leaned against the counter. (Y/n) mirrored him across the room, her back against the opposite surface, shifting a little as if she was getting ready to tell a story.

"We didn't have sex," she started firmly.

"Uh-huh".

"He didn't go down on me."

Nod.

"I didn't go down on him."

Another nod—this time, biting back a smirk.

He let the words sink in… until his brows drew together.

"Wait, so what did he actually do?"

This time, (y/n) looked embarrassed.

Atsumu cocked a brow, waiting.

She dropped her gaze to his hands.

Seconds passed.

His fingers twitched as it hit him.

"Is that all??"

A blush swept across her face, making Atsumu's grow amused in response.

God—how cute was she, looking flustered over something as plain as a little finger action?

Her expression grew indignant as his grin broadened.

"What do you mean, 'is that all'?! It was a big deal to me, okay!"

He couldn’t help himself. “Was it yer first time?”

The question seemed to have caught her off guard.

"So what if it was?" She grumbled, her lips jutting into the most adorable pout. And Lord help him—it took an unhealthy amount of self-restraint not to cross the room and kiss her dumb.

"So how come ya stopped? Sunarin not meet yer standards?"

"Sunarin met more than my standards."

The frown on her face bugged him more than it should have.

Of course she was going to defend him. They were childhood best friends. Like night and day, his brain echoed.

The fact that she’d almost given her first time to him was a sour reminder of their closeness. Not to mention, an opening for him to actually get the answers he looked for.

"Did'ja not want it to happen?"

He half expected her to snap at him. To shut it down the conversation right then and there.

But she didn’t.

She just tilted her head slightly, brows drawing together in thought. Even hummed a little, as if replaying the memory.

“...Yes,” she said slowly. “But also, no.”

Atsumu stared.

That's not exactly the answer he was waiting for. Hell—he didn't even know what answer he was waiting for. But it sure as hell wasn't that.

Vague. She was being far too vague.

(Y/n) sighed, as if reading his thoughts.

“It’s complicated, Tsumu. I did want it. We’d known each other for years, and I trusted him. But then—” she paused, her voice dipping softer—“I dunno. Maybe I just wasn't ready."

The silence that followed said there was more to that story. More weight than she was letting on.

He watched as she drifted over to the sink, two empty mugs in hand.

“I felt bad for Rin though. At least I did back then.”

She began rinsing out the mugs. Atsumu frowned, not quite following. “He didn't get much out of it. If it weren’t for me, he’d have gone through with it.”

She turned away just in time to miss the involuntary clench in his jaw.

Atsumu exhaled slowly as something hot and bitter flared low in his gut. Not rage. But something definitely petty.

Of course Suna would’ve gone through with it.

He was a guy. They were alone. And (y/n)’s skin would’ve been warm beneath his hands, her voice a breathy hush in the dark—

He cut the thought off with a sharp breath through his nose. Tried to master it. Shove it down.

He couldn’t be mad at Suna.

They were eighteen. Teenagers.

And if Atsumu'd had a childhood best friend like her—someone pretty and kind who laughed at all his jokes—he probably would’ve done the same.

And it wasn’t like Suna forced anything, either. He stopped when she did. Respected the line. He’d done everything right.

Still, that flicker stayed.

He was in Hyogo at the time. With his parents. With 'Samu.

Not with a cute childhood sweetheart.

Not with (y/n).

But what if the circumstances had been different?

He allowed himself to wonder—just for a second—what might’ve happened if they’d switched places. If it had been him beside her on New Year’s Eve. If she’d have let him explore her like that. Or if the only reason she ever let it happen was because it was Suna.

He stomped the thought down.

No.

It wasn’t his memory.

And it wasn't fair to assume. Wasn't fair to get so riled up about something so important to her. He'd said so much already. Probably crossed a boundary or two that would most definitely eat at him later.

But (y/n) was kind enough to talk about it anyway. Because she knew it was bothering him. Because (y/n) was sweet and treated him with so much damn care he didn't know what to do with it all.

Pathetic, his brain hissed.

He was still lost in his own head when (y/n) let out a giggle. The sound rousing him back to the present, as soft and lovely as a wind chime stirred by a summer breeze.

“Atsumuu,” she sang. "You're zoning out."

His eyes snapped to her.

She was drying her hands, watching him with a half-smile—amused and fond. "You okay, Tsum?"

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Just thinkin'."

“Still about me and Rin?” Her tone turned gently reproachful. “That’s a bit…”

Weird, she was probably about to say.

If only she knew the images that had been clawing through his brain all night.

A pang of guilt shot through him.

"Sorry."

Sorry for acting weird. Sorry for prying. Sorry for making you uncomfortable. Sorry for being lame.

She waved him off, as if shooing away his thoughts.

“You’re alright. I get it. You just learned some juicy gossip and wanted the details." She flashed him a grin. "I won’t shame you for it.”

He clenched his jaw.

That wasn't it. That wasn't even why he came here.

He came here to talk about feelings. Not gossip like he was one of her girl friends.

And yet... despite that, he felt something in his chest unclench at her words. Like he could breathe again. Like he could act normal and not beat himself up as much as he wanted to.

He returned her smile with a lopsided one of his own. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

(Y/n) turned toward the dish rack, stretching for a plate. “Might as well finish the washing up while I’m here.”

Atsumu watched as she rose onto her toes, brows drawn in mild frustration as she tried to slide the plate onto the top shelf.

Reaching around her with ease, he grabbed the plate and slid it into the cupboard. His chest brushed lightly against her back, lips curving into a smirk.

She gave him a look over her shoulder. “Show-off.”

“S'just genetics."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the drying rack for another dish, and he stayed there, leaned lazily against the counter beside her. Close enough to feel the warmth of her arm every time she moved.

He let the moment settle. Let it feel… easy.

He sucked in a breath. Now would be the idea time.

He spoke before he could talk himself out of it.

“If Suna made a move on ya now..." He started, voice carefully neutral. "Would ya do it again?"

A few seconds went by. Though for Atsumu, they might as well have been hours.

He hated this. The silence between words. The pause. The short instant in which the urge to take everything back was devastating.

(Y/n) let out a spluttered laugh like she couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

“No way! Are you mad? We’re just friends!” she said with a grin. “Plus, I doubt Rin would ever even consider it. Don't be silly."

She laughed again, like the idea was absurd. Her amusement flickered through the air like sunlight.

Had he been a fool for worrying, after all?

“Was just askin’," he shrugged. "And ya can't be sure. Men are unpredictable."

“True. But I know Rin."

“Bet ya thought that too, until he kissed ya."

He felt a flicker of satisfaction as she bristled at his words. There was no denying that.

"That's not the point," she chided, bumping him with her elbow. “I mean, it’s Rin. He’s practically like a…” She trailed off.

Atsumu caught the pause. Felt it like a twitch behind his ribs.

“…brother,” she finished.

Ah.

That explained the pause.

Atsumu raised his brows, already smiling.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart,” he drawled, “but siblings don’t usually…”

He lifted a hand to make a slow curling motion with his fingers.

Her eyes widened as she caught the gesture.

"Stop that!" She gasped, smacking his hand away. A blush bloomed across her cheeks.

He grinned, triumphant.

“Just sayin’.”

“Well, obviously,” she huffed, trying to appear serious. “But you know what I mean. We don’t see each other like that.”

She turned back to the dishes with a final shake of her head, a flustered smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

He was tempted to leave it at that. His main concern had been snuffed out—(y/n) and Suna were ancient history.

But a lingering curiosity remained.

"So... back then—it was all just for fun? No feelings involved?"

He could've sworn her movements slowed for a moment, her hands halting mid-wipe on a plate. The act felt a lot like he'd just stepped on a landmine, or perhaps like he'd just placed one down.

Meanwhile, (y/n) appeared to be thinking how to navigate around it.

"Something like that."

Something about the way she said it made his stomach twist.

She sounded... bittersweet.

Atsumu figured there must be a reason why she was dodging the question. And for someone as vocal about her feelings as (y/n), it must be something significant. Something perhaps too raw to tell.

Suddenly, everything began falling into place.

She was the one who’d stopped it that night.

She was the one who’d said it didn’t feel right.

Perhaps now he understood why.

It wasn’t just nerves. Or timing. Or being eighteen and reckless.

It was because she’d felt more than she was given. Because while one of them had been acting on love, the other had just been acting on desire.

She’d been in love with Suna.

And Suna hadn’t loved her back.

The thought sat heavy in his chest. Not because he blamed either of them—but because it explained so much. Why she was so sure nothing would ever happen again. Why she said they were just friends now and really, truly meant it.

Atsumu didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to reach out. Say something comforting. But what could he say that wouldn’t sound shallow? What could he offer that wouldn’t feel like salt?

For a while, he simply let the silence be. Let it stretch for a while as she quietly worked through her chores.

Then, softly, he pushed off the counter.

“…Wanna hand with the rest of the dishes?”

She looked up, blinking. Her eyes met his and softened—grateful for the pivot, maybe.

“Sure,” she said, smiling faintly as she passed him a dish towel. “You dry.”

The quiet turned companionable again.