#frotting

The two of you are surrounded by aggressively pink everything. Pink frilly pillows, all in varying shades from pale blush to deep rose, some with bows, others without. Pink fairy lights, that stupid pink rug you insisted on buying freshman year

Satoru sits cross-legged on your floor, all limbs and carelessness. All six foot three of him looking entirely out of place in your pretty pink room. He’s wearing his faded NASA t-shirt, the one with a hole in the hem that he refuses to throw away, rumpled from a long day of classes and lab work. His grey sweatpants hang dangerously low around his hips, the kind of comfortable clothes he only wore around you. Sweat beads at his brow, and a flush is creeping up his neck that you’re trying very hard not to notice.

He’s been your best friend since you were seven years old, since the day you’d appeared above him, all pink frilly skirts, and tulle that caught in the afternoon light, your hair long and coily, tied with pink satin ribbons, curious eyes studying him intensely. You’d been pulling him into your orbit ever since, and he’d never quite escaped, never wanted to escape.

You’d been inseparable through everything: scraped knees that left matching scars, lost teeth documented in gap-toothed photos, the excruciating awkwardness of middle school, and now college, separated by a mere fifty feet of industrial carpeted hallway. 

Somewhere between then and now, something shifted. Neither of you will name it, neither of you dares, so instead you sit in this sweltering room playing Pokémon because you’d insisted and he agreed without argument (he always agrees when it comes to you), both pretending you don’t notice how his eyes track the bead of sweat that rolls down your collarbone and disappears beneath your tank top, how his gaze keeps catching on your lips wrapped around a cherry popsicle, how the air between you feels heavier than the humidity, charged with fourteen years of careful distance and something dangerously close to want.  

“I'm just saying, Digimon has objectively better world-building,” Gojo argues. His fingers were already moving across the Pokémon game controls with practiced, almost automatic ease. “The Digital World has layers. It’s literally a parallel dimension with its own complex physics system and–”

“Uh-huh,” you hummed from your bed, voice laced with amused indulgence. 

“And yet here you are, playing Pokémon. Again. Funny how that works.”

The popsicle is melting faster than you can eat it. Cherry red drips down your wrist, and you catch it with your tongue before it reaches your elbow–not thinking much of it, not thinking anything at all until you notice Satoru has stopped playing.

“You’re going to get that on your sheets,” he says while looking at anything except your mouth.

“Then I’ll wash them.” You lick the stick clean with devastating casualness. “Use the Pokémon Center before the gym, I’m serious, Satoru, I will not watch you lose to Whitney again.”

“I didn’t lose–”

“You blacked out.”

“A strategic–”

“Satoru.”

A bead of sweat traces the long line of his throat and disappears beneath the collar of his NASA shirt. You watch it go without meaning to. The room is aggressively hot, the kind of hot that makes you aware of your body in ways that feel almost accusatory. 

“Can I have the last one?” you ask, nodding toward the tiny freezer on your desk. The sad personal one that came with the room and fits approximately four things, two of which are currently popsicles.

“You bought them.”

“I know I bought them. I’m being polite.”

He tilts his head at you over the top of the DS, his glasses slightly askew. Something fond moves across his face a half-second before he catches it.

“Sure, sunshine. Knock yourself out.”

Sunshine. He’d started that freshman year, when he’d drunkenly compared you to the sun–bright, loud, the kind of thing that burns you if you get too close. Back then, he’d laughed it off, slurring something about brightness and bad decisions, your shoulder bumping his as you both tipped sideways on someone’s cheap bed. The word had followed him home.

You were the kind of warmth people leaned into without meaning to, the kind that made him forget, sometimes, that he’d ever been cold. That’s the thing about the sun, you don’t notice it was working on you till you were already turned toward it, already dependent, already ruined for the shade. 

You climb off the bed, your tank top riding up. There is a bead of sweat tracking slow and deliberate just below your ribs down toward the waistband of your shorts, and Satoru looks at his game with renewed focus.

Don’t, he tells himself. Absolutely do not.

He watches Whitney in 16-bit with the dedication of a monk.

You drop back onto the bed with the last popsicle. Grape this time. You unwrap it without ceremony and sprawl back across the mattress, one arm thrown above your head, utterly unbothered by the heat or the humidity or the fact that Satoru is doing that thing where he’s being very careful about where he looks. 

“So..something happened today,” you say in a tone that means something is coming.

“Hm.”

“Sukuna asked me out.”

The game does not pause. His thumbs keep moving; to any outside observer, absolutely nothing happens in the six seconds it takes him to respond.

“...The one from Beta Theta Alpha.”

Not a question. His voice has gone a fraction flatter, a fraction more careful, in the way it only does when he’s editing himself in real time.

“Thats the one.” You were watching him now; he could feel the weight of your gaze on the side of his face, assessing his reaction.

“Okay.”

Ryomen Sukuna. The name alone made Gojo's jaw clench. He’d seen the guy around campus; he was impossible to miss. Covered in intricate tattoos, always wearing artfully ripped jeans and black leather jackets, riding a motorcycle that rumbled loud enough to wake the dead. He was everything Gojo wasn’t, and that caused insecurity to bloom in his chest.

You watch him harder. “He wants to take me to that Italian place downtown, Giovanna's.”

“Their pasta’s decent.”

“Satoru.”

“It is, I’ve been, the carbonara is–”

“You’re doing the voice.”

He looks up from the DS for the first time. “I don’t have a voice.”

“You absolutely have a voice. It’s the one where you go very flat and informational because you’ve decided not to have feelings about something. You’re doing it right now.”

Something flickers across his face, and he looks back at the screen. “I’m just saying the restaurant is good.”

“You sound like you’re reading from a Yelp review.”

“I'm being supportive.”

“You sound jealous.”

The word lands. His grip on the DS tightens until his knuckles turn white, and he stills for exactly one second. The stillness is its own confession. His thumbs resume moving on the DS with slightly more force than necessary.

“That’s a very large assumption,” he says.

“Is it?”

“I'm not–I don’t–” He stops. His jaw clenches. “Sukuna is a perfectly fine choice for someone who enjoys that type.”

“What type?”

“The.” He gestures vaguely with one hand. “You know the type.”

“The handsome, built, charming type who gets invited to every party type?”

“Yeah, that's the one,” he says with neutrality. 

You are smiling so wide it’s almost mean. You press your lips together in an attempt to contain it and fail. “Satoru, are you seriously jealous?”

“I’m not anything.” He puts the DS down, then picks it back up. “Go on your date. Have a great time. The tiramisu at Giovanna’s is also excellent, by the way, in case that’s relevant.”

“Its not.”

“I’m just saying–”

“Satoru.” You roll onto your stomach and look down at him from the edge of the mattress. He looks up at you from the floor. His ears, you notice, are pink, and not from the heat. “You’re totally jealous.”

“I’m concerned,” he says. “There’s a difference.”

“What are you concerned about?”

A pause.

“Sukuna's GPA,” he says finally.

You bury your face in your pillow and laugh until the pillow is warm from your breath. When you come up for air, Satoru is looking at the middle distance with the expression of a man who has made peace with his circumstances.

“I still haven’t decided if I'm even going,” you say.

He looks at you. “No?”

“No.” You settle your chin back on your palm. “I’m kind of nervous, actually, about the whole thing.”

The tension drains from his posture, replaced by something more familiar. He tilts his head. “You’re nervous.”

“I’ve never actually been kissed,” you say to the popsicle. “Properly. The idea of it happening for the first time with someone I barely know at a restaurant is a little–it feels like a lot of pressure.”

The DS makes a soft, cheerful sound. Satoru pays it no mind.

“Oh,” he says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You went very quiet.”

“I'm processing,” he says. After a moment, more quietly. “You deserve it to be good. The first one.”

You look at him with fondness in your eyes.

“Yeah,” you say. “That’s the problem.”

The fan turns. August presses its humid, insistent weight against the window glass.

“I could help.”

The words fly out of his mouth before his brain could veto the insanity his mouth was proposing.

He looks in the distance, his jaw works. When he speaks again, it’s slightly faster than usual. “We’ve known eachother for fourteen years. And it’s–from a purely practical standpoint–it would be less uncomfortable to do it with someone you’re already comfortable with, because familiarity reduces the–there's a psychological component that–”

“Satoru.”

“--and it wouldn’t mean anything different than what it already is, it’s just practical.”

“Satoru.”

He stops.

“Yes.”

He blinks at you through his glasses.

Something in the room shifts. He stands up from the floor and sits on the edge of your mattress. The frame sighs. You sit up, your knees almost touching his. Up close like this, you can see the small details: the particular blue of his eyes, the way the string lights catch his lashes, the thin wire of his braces catching the light when his lips part slightly. He pushes his glasses up with one knuckle.

“You don't have to.”

“I know.”

His hand finds your jaw, his thumb resting just beneath your cheekbone.

“You’re sure?” He asks one more time, his thumb unconsciously stroking your cheek. He needed to hear you say it again, needed to be absolutely certain. “We can stop at anytime, just say the word.” Instead of answering, you surge forward, closing the gap between you two. 

When his mouth meets yours, it is soft, tentative, a gentle exploration. You taste the cherry popsicle from earlier, and something else underneath that is just him. You feel the slight, unfamiliar edge of his braces brush against the inside of your lip, careful as he is.

Your hand comes to rest against his chest, right where his heart felt like it would burst out of his chest. He wondered if you could feel it, if you could feel how much this means to him. His fingers slide through your coils, threading through the soft strands, tilting your head just slightly to deepen the kiss.

You make a small sound against his mouth–surprise or pleasure, he couldn't tell. He pulls back slightly, and you whine. “Is this…is this okay?” His voice comes out rough, scraped raw. 

“Yes,” you breathe against his lips. “Don't stop.”

So he doesn’t. 

This time, when he kisses you, there is less hesitation, less uncertainty. He catalogued every detail: the softness of your lips, the way you tasted, the little gasp you made when he changed the angle. He shows you wordlessly how to tilt your head, how to part your lips slightly, how kissing wasn’t just about the contact but the build-up, the breathing, the way your bodies fit together. When his tongue traces the seam of your mouth, asking permission, you gasp slightly, a beautiful breathy sound that would haunt his dreams. 

The kiss deepened, turned languid and exploring, like you had all of the time in the world instead of just this stolen moment. You were a quick learner, matching his rhythm, your fingers curling into his shirt to pull him close, eliminating whatever space remained between the two of you. Without thinking, you swing one leg over his lap, straddling him.

He goes very still.

You settle your weight against him and feel the way his hands, which had been hovering over your waist, finally land. One at the small of your back, one planted at your hip. A soft moan escapes him, and he kisses you a little less carefully than before.

You pull back just enough to breathe. His glasses have fogged at the edges, lightly, like breath on winter glass, and he blinks at you through them with a flustered expression. His hands haven’t moved away from your hips; his thumbs make one small, unconscious circle against your sides through the thin fabric of your tank top.

“Was that–” he starts.

“More practice,” you say.

“I need more.”

This time, he is not careful at all. You feel the wire of his braces when the kiss deepens, a small grounding detail that keeps pulling you back. 

You find the place below his jaw where his pulse is, and press your lips there. He arches into your touch, his whole spine a slow, undone curve, and lets out a small whimper. There is now a small, faint mark below his jaw. Satoru reaches up and touches the spot. His glasses are completely fogged, his ears are the color of your pinkest pillow.

“You,” he says.

“For the date,” you say sweetly. “Practice.”

“That is not–that doesn’t–that is not standard practice.” 

“I’m a thorough student.”

He laughs, breathless, and then kisses you again, and keeps kissing you, the fan overhead turns its useless circles, and it is so hot in this room that the last popsicle has gone to ruin on the nightstand, purple-red and irretrievable. 

When you finally break apart for real, both of you are breathing harder, faces flushed, eyes dark. You two stay close, foreheads touching, neither willing to break contact completely, existing in a bubble with only the two of you. Gojo's thumb traces your bottom lip, swollen from kissing, and your eyes flutter half-closed from the touch. 

“There's more, too, if you want, different kinds of kisses for different situations.” 

“More?” Your eyes opened fully, still wanting

Gojo's breath catches. He should say no, should stop this before it goes any further, but the way you’re looking at him, curious, and eager, and trusting

“Kissing isn’t just about the lips,” he says softly, his voice low and rough with emotion he was barely containing. “It’s about reading the other person. Paying attention to what makes them react, what they like.”

“Show me.” 

Gojo leans in again, but this time, instead of your lips, he presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth. Soft, barely there, a whisper of contact. Then your jaw, then the sensitive spot just below your ear that makes you visibly shudder, and your whole body trembles. 

“See?” He murmurs against your skin. “It’s about learning what makes them react, what makes their breath catch, what makes them make those little sounds.” 

Your hand tightens in his shirt, fisting the fabric, pulling him closer. Your breathing has gone shallow, quick. “And what makes you react?” 

The question catches him completely off guard. “What?”

“This is supposed to be practice, right?” Your voice had taken on a new quality, low, almost sultry. Your eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. “Shouldn’t I learn too? How to do this properly?”

Before his brain catches up, before he can formulate a response, you’re kissing him again. This time, you were experimenting, trying things he’d just shown you, your lips trailing from his mouth to his jaw with increasing confidence. 

Gojo releases a low whimper that comes from deep in his chest. His hands grip your waist, his fingers pressing through the soft skin through the fabric of your top.

You’re so focused on learning, on practicing what he taught you, that you shift even closer without thinking. Your hand slides under his shirt, feeling his heartbeat racing beneath your palm. You press closer, wanting more contact, more warmth, more of this feeling that’s making your head spin

“Is this good?” you ask against his neck, and he shudders hard.

“Y-yeah,” he manages, his voice strained in a way you don't quite register. “Really good

You smile against his skin, pleased with the reaction, and shift even closer. Without thinking, seeking more contact, you end up practically in his lap, one of your thighs pressing between his legs as you lean into him.

Gojo makes a choked sound, and his whole body goes rigid for a moment.

“Did I do something wrong?” you ask, pulling back slightly to look at him.

“No,” he says quickly, too quickly. His face is flushed, his breathing ragged. “No, you’re doing–you’re perfect, please keep going.”

Encouraged, you return to your exploration, kissing his jaw and gently experimenting with your teeth. His hands tighten on your waist almost painfully.

“Tell me what you like,” you murmur against his skin. “I want to learn everything.”

“God,” he breathes, and it sounds almost pained. “You’re killing me.”

You’re too absorbed in the taste of his skin, the way he shivers when you kiss just below his ear, the way his pulse races under your lips when you kiss his neck. You shift to get a better angle, completely oblivious to the way your thigh is now pressed firmly against him, to the way the small movement creates friction he’s desperately trying to ignore.

“Like this?” you ask, kissing the corner of his mouth before capturing his lips again. He kisses back with barely restrained intensity, one hand sliding up to cup the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair almost desperately. The kiss is deeper now, more demanding, and you match his intensity, completely caught up in the sensation.

Your other hand moves to his shoulder for balance as you lean further into him, slowly rocking your hips against him. He gasps against your mouth.

“You’re so good at this,” you murmur between kisses, laser focused on his reactions to your mouth, not noticing the tension in his entire body. “Am I doing it right?”

“So right,” he manages, voice strangled. “You’re–ah–you’re a really fast learner.”

Pleased, you kiss him harder, your hand sliding from his shoulder to cup his face, thumb brushing along his cheekbone. You’re completely absorbed in his reactions: the way he gasps when you bite his lower lip gently, the way his breathing stutters when you kiss along his jaw, the way he makes soft sounds when you return to his mouth,

You shift again, trying to get even closer, and suddenly his whole body goes taut. His grip on you becomes almost bruising, and he makes a sound against your mouth that's somewhere between a whimper and your name.

“Satoru?” You pull back slightly, concerned. “Are you ok? You’re shaking.”

His eyes are closed, jaw clenched, breathing hard. “I’m–” he starts, then cuts off with another strained sound. “I’m sorry, I can’t–”

His hips jerk upward involuntarily, pressing against your thigh, and suddenly his whole body shudders. His head falls back against your pillows, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open in a silent gasp. You can feel him trembling beneath you, his hands gripping your waist like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

It takes you a moment to understand what just happened. 

“Oh,” you breathe, eyes widening. “Did you just–”

“I'm sorry,” he says immediately, face flushing bright red, unable to meet your eyes. “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t supposed to–I tried to hold back, it’s just–” He covers his face with his hands. “Oh god, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.”

You shift again, getting more comfortable, and that’s when you feel it—he’s hard again and pressing against your thigh through his sweatpants.

You freeze.

Ohh.

Gojo immediately tries to pull back, his face flushing bright red. “I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to—“

You’re still on top of him, and when he tries to shift away, you chase him.

You’re both breathing hard, faces flushed, and suddenly you’re very aware of how close you are. How your leg is pressed between his, how his hands are still on your waist.

There’s a moment of silence.

“Does it hurt?” you ask, genuinely curious. “I’ve heard guys say it can be uncomfortable if…”

“It’s fine,” he says quickly. “I’ll—I need a minute. Maybe think about physics, statistics, or something.”

You bite your lip, considering. “Or…”

“Or?” His voice has gone very quiet.

“You could show me more,” you say. Your face is hot, and you can’t quite meet his eyes. “If you want.”

“If I want?” He sounds strangled. “Do you have any idea how much I–” He cuts himself off, takes a breath. “Are you sure? Because we don't have to do anything else. This is already way more than–”

You kiss him, cutting off his rambling.

When you pull back, you look at him directly. “Im sure. Show me?”

“Ok. If you want to stop at any point–”

“I know,” you assure him. “I trust you.”

Those three words seem to undo something in him. His grip on your waist tightens, and he kisses you again, with no restraint.

“Can I…Can I show you something? You don’t have to do anything, just…let me show you how it feels?”

“Ok,” you whisper.

One of his hands slides from your waist to your hip, guiding you to shift your position. Instead of your leg between his, he positions you so you’re straddling one of his thighs.

“Like this,” he says softly. “You can control everything. If it’s too much, just stop.”

You’re not sure what he means until he gently encourages your hips to move, just slightly, rocking against his thigh. The pressure, the friction, even through your clothes, it makes you gasp.

“Oh,” you breathe.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Feel good?”

You nod, unable to form words, and experimentally rock your hips again. The sensation is overwhelming, and you make a small sound that makes his grip on you tighten.

“Thats it,” he encourages softly. “Just like that. Whatever feels good.”

You find a rhythm, still kissing him between gasps, your hands clutching at his shoulders for balance. He guides your movements with his hands on your hips, but lets you set the pace, lets you control everything.

“Satoru,” you breathe against his mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, pressing kisses to your jaw, your neck, anywhere he can reach. “So perfect. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” 

You become aware of the hard length pressing against your other leg, of the way his hips occasionally shift seeking friction he's not getting.

“Does it hurt?” you ask again, your movements stuttering.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says. “This is about you. Just–ah–just keep doing what feels good.”

Youre thinking about it now. About how he's been so focused on your pleasure, on teaching you, on making you feel good. About how he's clearly affected but trying to ignore it. Your hand slides down his chest, tentative, questioning. 

He catches your wrist gently. “You don’t have to–”

“I want to. If that's ok? I want…I want to make you feel good too.”

His eyes close for a moment, and when they open, they’re dark with want. “Are you sure?”

“Show me,” you echo, repeating his earlier words.

He guides your hand down, pressing it over the wet spot on his sweatpants. Even through the fabric, you can feel the heat of him, the hardness, the way he pulses underneath your touch.

“Just…” he takes a shaky breath. “Just touch me however feels natural.”

You experiment, pressing, rubbing through the fabric. His hips jerk up into your hand, and he makes a sound that goes straight through you. 

“Like that?” You ask.

“Yeah,” he gasps. “Just like that. You can—if you want—you can use more pressure.”

You do, and his head falls back against your pillows, eyes closed, lips parted.

“Should I…” you fumble with the drawstring of his sweatpants, and he helps you, guiding your hand inside, showing you how to touch him properly.

He’s hot and hard in your hand; you can still feel the sticky cum from earlier, and when you stroke experimentally, he groans.

“Is this ok?” You ask.

“More than ok,” he manages. “You’re—God, you’re perfect.”

You find a rhythm, learning what makes his gasp, what makes his hips thrust into your hand. Somehow you end up shifting again, positioned so you can rock against each other, his thigh between your legs, your hand on him, mouth meeting in increasingly desperate kisses.

“I’m close,” he warns after a few minutes, his voice strained. “You should probably—I don’t want to make a mess—“

“I don’t care,” you say. “I want to see.”

Those words seem to be his undoing because he spills in your hand, and the sight of it, combined with the friction against your own body, pushes you over the edge too.

You come with a gasp, trembling against him, and he holds you through it, whispering praise and encouragement.

You’re still processing, still sitting on his lap, feeling the warmth and dampness still evident through his sweatpants where you’re pressed against him, and then you catch sight of yourself in the darkened TV screen across the room. Your tank top is twisted, your hair is worse than it has ever been, and your lips are bare.

Completely bare.

The carefully applied lip liner, the gloss, the combination that took you twenty minutes to perfect–all of it gone, kissed away, smeared all over his face and neck.

“Oh no,” you say, touching your lips. “My lip combo.”

He drops his hands, following your gaze, and despite his obvious embarrassment, he lets out a breathless laugh. “Your lip combo?”

“I spent so long on it,” you whine, “It’s completely gone.”

“Yeah, well.” He's smiling despite the flush still coloring his cheeks. “That tends to happen with kissing.”

He looks at your lips a beat longer than necessary. He pushes his glasses up, and then, without being directed, locates your makeup bag on the desk. He comes back, sits in front of you, and rummages through the bag with quiet competence.

“That’s not the right shade,” you say.

“Hold still.” 

He is extraordinarily careful. He cups your jaw with one hand, and his tongue sits between his teeth, and his brows pull together. He executes your combo the same way he does with his lab work: like precision matters, like there is a right way to do this, and he intends to find it, like you are worth that kind of attention.

His braces catch the light when he tilts his head to inspect his work. He nods, small and satisfied. The mark below his jaw is right there, and you stare at it shamelessly. 

Satoru is sweet like a toothache you can’t locate–the kind that hurts beautifully, the kind that you keep pressing with your tongue even when you know better. 

Outside, August continues doing what August does. Sunlight pools golden against the windows, cicadas humming somewhere unseen, the air heavy. The fan turns uselessly, the heat lingers anyway, the popsicle continues to drip sticky sweetness onto your desk.

Neither of you notices anymore.

ac/ banner creds: art by ruu_sugu on twt, banner by @muerdida

A/N: I yearn for winter to be over, which led me to write this fic. This is super self-indulgent, so please ignore that, but TYSM for reading<3