Weirdy

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt

° He is older than Doof (to my knowledge from what i recall P&F lore is really timeline inconsistent). He has to be at LEAST 50 years old given that he is a CRT TV. He's likely closer to 70.

° He is canonically both divorced and also a child of divorce and has a buttfuck load of trauma from both events

° He has fangs.

° He is literally doomed by prophecy. Like the Deltarune version of the Bible straight up says he's supposed to fucking die lmfao.

° He does stupid little autistic ass dances (im autistic and he dances like me)

° He probably has BPD and his abandonment issues are so bad he nearly committed multiple homicide over them

° He canonically shrinks to roughly the size of a soccer ball when he is sad

° His divorced ex is Spamton G. Spamton, another Tumblr Sexyman. They used to be partners and they share leitmotifs. They also have a literal daughter.

° Tenna is the one canonically responsible for cracking the egg of Mettaton in the Deltarune universe.

° He can do a perfect 180 mid-air split.

° He has a pronounced lisp.

° He was so torn up about falling out with his partner that he tore down every poster of them together and keeps his dressing room sealed behind a wall.

° He grows a flower out of the tip of his nose when he's happy.

° He was originally supposed to look more like an Ant and had four arms

° He is CANONICALLY into petplay and begs IN-GAME to be walked on a leash like a dog.

Consider voting Mr. Ant Tenna!

See the list of reasons attached by @ spamtennatruther, as well as the short and sweet list written by me below! Both are recommended viewing should you not know Mr. Tenna!

Some notable reasons to Vote Tenna:

- Handsome Apron wearing older husband who would TOTALLY spoil you rotten!

- Queer Single Father who loves his (infant) daughter to death! You'd be a happy family!

- 15 feet of cuddles and kisses and spinning around with you in the air!

- Service Top or Bottom, he'll be whatever you like! You like roleplaying in bed? He's also a TV Host and professional actor by trade, so you KNOW he's good at it!

Caine fanbase/Caineling Beehive, Thank you for your continued support to keep our gentleman's agreement! This wild and wacky show of ours shall go on, and we will win for Caine in spirit!

We are sorry the rng generator forced us to fight. Now is our time to stand together as sister character fanbases and get Tenna to victory!

If you haven't voted yet, make sure you vote Tenna and spread the word to your hive!

Neutrals, consider taking a look before voting to form an opinion on Mr. Tenna!

We know he's a bit of a newcomer to the competition, so we'd like to allow you the opportunity to get to know him!

Oh, he has a little song for you! Come and take a quick listen!

To the Ants N' Bees, keep biting and buzzing! You're doing incredible!

OKAY ...HERE ARE THE KIND OF UPDATED REFS...

The point being hypocrisy.

Because you lot come and bitch about how there's a lot of smut fics and not enough fluff or angst.

There's a reason. Smut gains traction. It garners engagement. Yeah, "write for yourself" is a pretty thing you can stamp on a writer but at the end of the day they're all humans. We thrive on feedback and interaction, which works best for smut fics.

Again, I'm not saying that every smut fic writer does it for engagement, many enjoy writing that stuff, but a good portion of people do it because it brings them a crowd that actually talks to them about said smut fic. Hell, I've seen and known my mutual writers change their content type to smut works so that people would actually interact with them. I, myself, i have deleted/privated numerous works of mine because no one wants to fucking read it because it isn't smut or smau.

Lately I've also seen y'all talk about how there's not many longfics, and most of it are drabbles or short pwp. I've been on Tumblr for a while, as I've been on ao3. Tumblr wasn't like this early in 2016-17. It used to have it all, OCs, RP blogs, blogging culture, etc. We had longer fics, chaptered fics with really good plot and proofreading, good grammar and everything. It's been in recent times that a sudden spike in such short form content has started. Even now, you can see a stark difference in how people treat a proper full length fic and a smau. The smau gets way more interaction than the fic. All because your attention span is fucked.

"there's not enough angst!!!!" When was the last time you went in and author's inbox to appreciate their angst fics?

"I wanna read smut!!!!!" Yeah but did you comment on the last fluff fic that you liked?

"there's only smut now!!!!" Yeah because y'all refuse to comment or reblog with your thoughts in the tags about writers' non-smut works. When was the last time you went under anon to tell the writer that you liked their work? What is the author gonna write? The content that flops with barely a few notes? Yeah no. It doesn't work like that.

Fluff and non-smut works are and remain the least focused on work in any particular fandom. The fact that Tumblr is called the "smut app" is wild because ao3 is filthier, and has way more smut fics than Tumblr can ever comprehend. Tumblr is named so not because of the quantity but because of the content that gains engagement. Which is smut. Even on ao3, fluff fics are given equal attention and love as compared to the absolute thrashing fluff fics receive on Tumblr. You lot loooove to consume a certain type of content and beg for more and then complain when the author serves you the very same content in hopes of validation. Are we not human or what?

So the next time you feel like bitching about how there's only smut or not enough fluff or angst. Shut the fuck up. Or change your blogging tactics to actually commenting/sending an ask/telling the author that you liked a certain type of work and you'd appreciate it if they wrote more like that. And I'm not saying authors with a huge following or whatever, start with the beginner authors, those who have requests open, those who talk to you, and are actively telling you to interact with them.

The whole "I'm shyyyyy" bullshit does not work because sending an anon ask is not rocket science. And if you can whine about all this, then you can also very easily comment on fics easily.

the dorm is quiet. a single desk lamp casts a warm, honeyed pool of light over the textbooks and stray hoodies, fighting back the deep blue twilight pressing at the window. the pane is cracked open, just an inch, letting in the cool, damp scent of night grass and the distant, muffled sounds of campus life — a faint shout from the quad, the hum of a car engine fading down the hill, all of it softened by distance and height.

you’re curled like in the center of sukuna’s unmade bed, knees drawn tight to your chest, the worn cotton of his sheets smelling faintly of his cologne and cheap laundry detergent. your phone is a glowing rectangle held perilously close to your face.

perilous because you’re smiling a small, private, utterly absorbed smile that tugs at the corners of your mouth without your permission.

perilous because your entire world has narrowed to the glow of the screen, your bottom lip caught gently between your teeth, utterly lost in the text.

across the room, sukuna is half-dressed, rummaging through his gym bag with a frustrated grunt. sweatpants slung low on his hips, his torso bare and still damp from the shower, water droplets catching the lamplight as they trace the fierce lines of his tattoos. he’s searching for his charger, mind on the dying battery of his own phone. he doesn’t even mean to look your way. it’s just a glance, a habitual check to see where you are in his space.

his fingers go still amidst the tangled cords. his eyes, sharp and perpetually assessing, lock onto you. onto the expression you’re wearing—an expression he’s never seen directed at a screen before.

“…what’s that.”

you look like your soul plummets straight through the mattress.

you jolt, fumbling so badly you nearly drop the phone. the screen goes dark with a frantic tap of your thumb, your heart performing a frantic, bruising tango against your ribs. “nothing.”

he turns, the movement is pure predator, a lazy unfurling of tension. that familiar, wicked grin begins its inevitable crawl across his mouth, sharp canines peeking through like he’s already tasted victory and found it sweet.

“you don’t say ‘nothing’ that fast unless it’s something,” he drawls, taking one slow step toward you. then another. “gimme.”

“no.”

he raises one brow, a silent challenge. the single lamp casts dramatic shadows across the planes of his face, making his gaze seem even heavier. “baby.”

you clutch the phone to your chest, as if you could physically absorb it. “it’s stupid. it’s just… stupid.”

“now i really want it.”

he moves faster than you can process. one moment he’s a few feet away; the next, his heat is right beside the bed, his long fingers plucking the device from your grasp with infuriating ease. you gasp, a sound of pure outrage, and lunge for it, but he’s already pulled it back, out of reach. he doesn’t even need the passcode; he simply lifts the phone, directs it at your utterly horrified, flushed face, and the lock screen yields to him. a feature you enabled for convenience now feels like the greatest betrayal.

he looks down as a beat of silence passes. his voice comes out soft and intrigued, “…wow.”

“sukuna, don’t—” you plead, scrambling off the bed, your bare feet hitting the cool floor.

he’s already scrolling, just a little, his lips twitching as he reads. he clears his throat, the sound theatrically loud in the hush. when he speaks again, his voice takes on a faux-serious, narrating tone, dripping with mock gravity.

“what’s this?” he begins, his eyes flicking up to pin you in place, gleaming with devilish amusement. “‘he slid his big hands down her sides to squeeze her—’”

“give it back!” you launch yourself at him, face burning as if scalded, fingers grasping for the phone he holds aloft. he lifts it higher, effortlessly, the muscles in his arm corded and unmoving as you push against him.

he doesn’t stop. his voice drops, becoming a low, purring rumble as he continues, “‘—she moaned, a wanton sound escaping her throat, as he—’”

“oh my god—please, ryo!”

your voice cracks, shrill and small and utterly mortified.

he laughs, and whereas you usually enjoy the low, warm, rolling sound that vibrates through his chest and fills the room, now it only makes you confused and more ashamed, and it’s so unfairly fond it makes your humiliation burn brighter.

“no, no, no, let me finish,” he insists, using his free arm to easily steer you as you try to reach around him. he takes a step forward, then another, backing you gently but inexorably toward the edge of the mattress. “or more like, let her finish—”

“i’m gonna kill myself—”

you give up, hiding your burning face in your hands. you can feel the feverish heat in your cheeks, the frantic gallop of your pulse in your throat. this is it. this is the moment he will never, ever let go. you will die of embarrassment right here, and he will have “here lies my girlfriend, slain by shame” engraved on your tombstone.

the bed dips behind your knees. his free hand—the one not holding your damning phone—settles on your waist. his touch is gentle, a shocking contrast to the playful predator of a moment before.

you peek through the fortress of your fingers.

he’s looking at you, his head tilted slightly. the mocking gleam is gone, replaced by that soft, unreadable expression he reserves for the deep night, for the moments when it’s just the two of you and the world is held at bay. his thumb begins to rub absent, soothing circles into the fabric of your shirt, right against your hip bone.

“…you read this stuff?” he asks, his voice quieter now, softer and merely curious.

you nod once, a tiny, brittle movement.

“sometimes.”

he hums, a low vibration in his throat. his eyes search yours that narrowly avoid his gaze. “with favorite characters?”

your voice is a whisper, barely audible. “yeah.”

“…is there anyone similar to me?”

your eyes snap up to his, wide.

he’s watching you carefully now, just profoundly, intensely curious. and maybe behind the bravado, there’s a flicker of something vulnerable, something laid bare in his own crooked, sideways way.

you hesitate, your heart still hammering, but for a different reason now, and then you nod again.

“…yeah,” you whisper, the confession torn from you. “um. mostly?”

that grin comes back, but it’s different now. softer at the edges, less a weapon and more a genuine, surprised curve of his mouth. “damn,” he says, and there’s a hint of awe in it. “should’ve known.”

he leans down, closing the space between you until his forehead rests gently against yours. his breath fans over your lips.

“so,” he murmurs, his voice a low, intimate rumble that you feel in your bones. “all that blushing over fiction? no one would even know you read dirty books with how shy you are.”

you swallow, your throat tight. “it’s not—it’s just—”

he kisses you before you can finish. it’s slow. unhurried. deeply knowing. a kiss that tastes like shared secrets and promised laughter. when he pulls back, just a fraction, his thumb hooks under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. his eyes are dark, the pupils blown wide, holding a promise that makes your knees weak.

“next time,” he says, each word deliberate, “just tell me what you’re into.”

your breath stutters out of you. “you’re not… mad?”

he scoffs, a soft, breathy sound of pure affection. “why would i be?” the smirk returns, but it’s warm, and possessive. “it’s kinda cute.”

you groan, the sound muffled as you hide your flaming face against the solid warmth of his chest. he laughs again, the vibration soothing against your cheek, and wraps both arms around you, your phone forgotten on the bed beside him. you melt into him, the frantic embarrassment slowly ebbing, replaced by a dazed, warm relief.

“relax,” he mutters into your hair, his lips brushing your temple. “i’ll even help you recreate what you read.”

you squeak, a tiny, embarrassed sound against his skin.

he just holds you tighter, amusement seeping through his tone, “consider it a study session.”

part 2 <- part 3 (final part)

gojo satoru is not stupid.

he tells himself that a lot, actually—usually when he’s avoiding thinking about something difficult, like a complex theorem or the unsettling quiet of his apartment after a party. but this time, the mantra does nothing to calm the frantic, logical part of his brain that is assembling pieces with terrifying, inexorable clarity.

he’s sprawled on his bed, the soft mattress doing nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders. his phone is a heavy weight hovering over his chest, its screen burning the latest message from ghostinthebackrow into his retinas.

ghostinthebackrow: he used a nickname today when he talked to me. i don’t think he even knows my name but that’s alright i guess

he scrolls up, a desperate, sick feeling rising in his throat. the chat history unfolds like a map leading directly to him. his chest tightens, a vise of pure, undiluted suspicion.

he types a reply, deletes it, types again. his fingers, usually so sure, feel clumsy.

sixeyes0607: what’d he say?

ghostinthebackrow: library girl

gojo’s stomach drops, a freefall sensation that leaves him breathless. his thumbs freeze an inch above the screen.

library girl.

because yesterday—just yesterday afternoon, outside the student center, sun dappling through the leaves—he’d tapped your table, his brain a void of white noise, and the only thing that had escaped his locked-down throat aside from a dumb question that he knew the answer to was exactly that.

back row. organic chem. the quiet, focused voice he’d only heard once or twice asking a clarifying question. the shared, suffering schedule. the desperate, hopeful suggestion of the café on west campus.

gojo lets out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a punched-out, disbelieving laugh. he drops his phone onto his sternum and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“oh,” he mutters to the tastefully plain ceiling of his dorm. “oh, no. no, no, no.”

it hits him all at once— a wave, heavy and undeniable, washing over him and leaving everything changed.

it’s you.

the girl with the worn-out hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands. the girl who wouldn’t meet his eyes for more than a fleeting second, but whose notes in class were meticulous and thoughtful. the girl whose name he’d secretly, painstakingly learned by casually scanning the professor’s attendance sheet, pretending a casual indifference that had been a complete lie. the girl who sat in the back and seemed to believe, truly believe, she was invisible.

he’s 99% sure he’s been talking to you this whole time. sharing his stupid fears and his quiet hopes. making pacts. feeling seen in a way he hasn’t in years.

and you have no idea.

the irony is so profound it steals his breath. the campus golden boy, secretly a nervous wreck over the quietest person in the room, who was, in turn, secretly confiding in him about… him.

—

you, meanwhile, are performing olympic-level mental gymnastics in the quiet of your room, logic warring with a dizzying, terrifying hope.

nope.

absolutely not.

that’s the plot of a bad romantic comedy. that’s insane.

you scroll through the chat history again and again, a digital archaeologist desperate to find proof that contradicts the mounting evidence. you read his messages about feeling like a “disaster,” about panicking and saying the wrong thing, about his crush being “adorably shy” and “maddeningly subtle.”

sure, the timing was weird. sure, the café coincidence was a heart-wrenching blow. sure, the way sixeyes0607 talked about his crush, with a kind of reverent, frustrated awe, felt… familiar in a way that made your skin prickle.

but you think gojo satoru doesn’t type like that. gojo satoru, you were certain, would use a thousand emojis and never admit a moment of vulnerability. gojo satoru doesn’t overthink; he acts. gojo satoru doesn’t wait quietly for anyone; people wait for him. gojo satoru doesn’t sound scared of liking someone. the concept is absurd.

you cling to that dissonance like a life raft in a churning sea of what-ifs.

—

it’s during the next organic chem lecture that the carefully constructed dam breaks, and everything goes gloriously, terribly wrong.

you’re in your usual back-row seat, the hum of the ac a dull backdrop to yaga’s droning. your phone is hidden in your lap, the forum app open. your heart is a frantic bird against your ribs as you type a reply, giving voice to the core of your fear,

ghostinthebackrow: sometimes i think i built him up so much in my head that the real person could never live up to it. that he’s not even real, just a character i invented to have a crush on.

a long, unfamiliar shadow falls over your screen, cutting off the light from the high windows. a presence solidifies at your back, close enough that you can feel the subtle shift in the air.

“a-ha!”

the sound, low and triumphant, is breathed directly beside your ear. you jerk violently, nearly launching your phone into the aisle. you fumble, catching it with fumbling fingers, your blood turning to ice in your veins.

gojo satoru is standing directly behind your chair, leaning over just enough to see the bright rectangle of your screen clearly. his impossible blue eyes, unhidden by his usual sunglasses, flick with laser focus from the displayed username to the half-typed message, and finally, slowly, too slowly, up to your horrified face.

your world shrinks to the size of a pinprick.

he grins a triumphant grin, it’s a smile that’s shaking, vibrating with a barely-contained, earth-shattering discovery.

“ghostinthebackrow,” he says, his voice a low murmur meant only for you, yet it seems to echo in the sudden silence of your universe. the syllables are deliberate, tasting the words. “back row. huh. should’ve been my first clue.”

you open your mouth. your throat is sealed shut, desiccated. nothing comes out but a faint, pathetic gasp of air.

he straightens to his full, intimidating height, folding his arms across his chest. his head tilts, studying you with the rapt attention of someone who has just solved a puzzle that had been threatening to break him.

“so,” he continues, his tone deceptively light, conversational, though his eyes are blazing with an intensity that pins you to your seat. “either this is the single biggest coincidence on the planet…”

his gaze drops pointedly to your phone, still clutched in your white-knuckled hand, the damning text still on display.

“…or we’ve been texting every day for weeks.”

your heart isn’t beating; it’s trying to batter its way out of your ribcage, a frantic prisoner. the noise of the lecture hall—yaga’s voice, the scratching of pens, ambient chatter—fades into a distant, meaningless buzz.

“i—” you whisper, the word tearing itself from a raw throat. “that’s—no. you’re not—you can’t be—”

and although you had your suspicions just last night, the confirmation doesn’t make it easier. you only feel worse as the shame and embarrassment bloom all over your insides, panicking mind looking for an escape route.

he laughs then, a soft, breathless, almost disbelieving sound. it holds no mockery, only a kind of giddy shock.

“you told me about the café,” he says, taking a half-step closer, his voice dropping even further. “you thought i stood you up. you were hurt.”

your vision blurs at the edges. the memory of that humiliating ache, confessed only to him, crashes over you.

“sixeyes0607,” he adds, and with a theatrical, undeniable flourish, he pulls his own phone from his pocket. a single tap lights up the screen, revealing the familiar, dark-themed layout of the forum, his own username displayed proudly at the top of the open private chat.

the final piece of proof. the world tilts on its axis, reality rearranging itself with a nearly audible snap.

“gotcha,” gojo says, and his voice is suddenly, overwhelmingly gentle. the sharp triumph melts into something else—relief, vulnerability, wonder. “finally.”

a silence stretches between you in the middle of the bustling lecture hall. it’s fragile, electric, humming with the weight of a thousand unsaid words and shared secrets. it’s a silence you’ve built together, digitally, and now it exists palpably in the space between your breath and his.

he speaks up again, quieter, stripped of all pretense and performance, his expression open in a way you’ve never seen,

“…you gonna tell me i imagined all that? or…” he takes a shallow breath, and you see it: the nervousness, the ‘disaster’ he’d always typed about, right there in the slight uncertainty in his eyes. “…can we talk now? for real?”

your hands are trembling so badly you have to clasp them together in your lap. you don’t know whether to cry from the sheer emotional whiplash, scream from the exposure, or simply try to melt into the floor and disappear entirely.

but gojo satoru—the untouchable campus star, your secret digital confidant, the person who made you laugh at 2 am and whose silence you’d misunderstood—is standing right there. he’s looking directly at you, not through you, and his gaze holds a question he’s been asking in fragments for weeks, now finally whole and laid bare.

you’re frozen in your lecture hall seat, a deer caught in the twin blue headlights of his gaze, your entire digital history laid bare between you. he’s saying, “come on,” his voice a low murmur, gentle but implacably firm, and you don’t even realise your body is already following him.

his hand touches your elbow to guide, already steering you out of the row and into the bustling hallway. he moves with hesitance, as if he’s afraid you’ll dematerialize, ghost-like, back into the pixels of the forum if he lets go for even a second.

he doesn’t lead you too far, just back to the grind. it’s warm, loud with the hiss of the espresso machine and the low hum of a dozen conversations. the air smells of over-roasted coffee beans and steamed milk, of cinnamon and damp wool from the ever-present seattle drizzle outside. it’s familiar. it was supposed to be safe, but you can’t help wanting to run away.

he lets you free while he moves to order both of you a drink. you sit at the same small table by the window where you’d watched him while waiting for— well, apparently for him. you tuck your hands under your thighs, pressing your palms hard into the vinyl seat so he won’t see them trembling. you think he still catches it when he plops down across from you.

the silence stretches, thick with everything unsaid. your mouth opens before your mind catches up.

“oh god i think i’m gonna throw up.”

his eyes go wide with worry and confusion and he lifts his hands up in peace, “what the— hey, calm down, not like i’m mad or anything, i swear. just—uh. overwhelmed? in a good way. mostly.”

“you’re the one who ambushed me!” are you hysterical? maybe.

“i said a-ha,” he argues weakly. “that was not an ambush.”

“this is just so embarrassing, you don’t even understand—”

“i kinda do? we went through the same thing.”

well, yes, he was right, but still.

“okay,” you blurt out, the word cracking in the middle. you clear your throat, forcing your eyes to meet his. “okay. i just… i need to say this first. before anything else.”

he stills instantly and you wince, thinking you might have just scared him with that.

you take a shaky breath. “i didn’t know. i swear on everything, i did not know it was you. if i had… if i had even for a second suspected, i never would have said half of that stuff. the things i confessed, the way i talked about you—it was all… if i knew i would’ve… i don’t know, deleted the entire internet. thrown my laptop into the bay. anything.”

he listens, his expression unreadable for a long moment. then, a soft laugh escapes him, more breath than sound. but his eyes, when they meet yours, are too gentle, too understanding, to be teasing.

“i know,” he says, his voice low. “i know you didn’t know. that’s… that’s kind of why it all mattered so much.”

you blink. “what?”

he leans forward slightly, elbows resting on the small table, bridging the space between you. “you were being honest about how you saw me, about everything, because you didn’t think it was me. you thought it was just… some other lonely person in the back of a lecture hall.” he pauses, a faint, self-deprecating twist to his mouth. “it was good to know.”

your throat tightens painfully. you have to look away, down at the ring of condensation his coffee cup has left on the table. it’s hard to look at him when he is so close, when all you’ve been doing has been staring at him from afar. the sun.

“i thought you were untouchable,” you whisper to the formica. “i was just… orbiting from a safe distance. i guess it was easy to admit how much that distance hurt.”

gojo exhales a long, slow, shaky release of breath that seems to carry the weight of his own carefully constructed image. you finally find the courage to lift your eyes to him.

“yeah,” he admits, the word rough. “people think that. they see the loud mouth, the… whatever this is.” he gestures vaguely at himself. a flicker of something vulnerable—frustration, loneliness—passes behind his eyes. then, quieter, so quiet you almost miss it over the café din, “i’m really not.”

your knee starts bouncing under the table, a nervous energy you can’t contain. the confession spills out, fueled by the strange, terrifying safety of this shared truth.

“after the café… i kept thinking i’d imagined the whole connection. that maybe i wanted it to mean something—that you could be him—so badly that my brain just… manufactured the evidence. the timing, the way it all happened… i talked myself out of it because the idea was too terrifying.”

he winces, a genuine pained expression crossing his face. “i didn’t think it was you until later,” he confesses, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “but when you were sitting here and waiting for me— well, not really me, anyway— i wanted to approach you. suguru was yapping about some stupid thing and i was trying to get him to leave, and by the time i looked up, you were gone. otherwise, maybe i would have worked up the courage to talk properly.”

you stare at him, utterly bewildered. “it’s hard to imagine you being nervous about talking to me,” the concept is so absurd it almost breaks the tension.

he shrugs, the motion uncharacteristically sheepish. he won’t meet your eyes, instead focusing on tracing the wood grain of the table. it feels like looking at yourself from a different perspective.

“i’m bad at this stuff. all of it.” he finally looks up, a rueful, raw honesty in his gaze. “when we talked at that forum… it was probably the most genuine i’ve been with anyone in a while. and it was anonymous, so.”

there’s a pause. it’s heavy, laden with weeks of hidden texts and misinterpreted glances, but it’s not uncomfortable. it’s the quiet after the storm, the world washed clean and waiting.

you take a deep, fortifying breath, the scent of coffee grounding you. this is the final leap. the one the forum could never prepare you for.

“i like you a lot,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, but it feels deafening in the space between you. “is that okay?”

his big eyes widen momentarily before softening, a glacier giving way to something warm and deep and achingly vulnerable, his shoulders relaxing as if the weight of the world has been lifted of off them. you can’t help but store the sight into your mind. it’s like all of his feelings are in his eyes, in the slight, awed parting of his lips, on his beautiful face.

“more than okay. i like you too, you know?” he says, his own voice hushed, as if sharing a secret in this very public place. “so much it scared the hell out of me because i didn’t know you. thought it was a stupid crush but i knew it wasn’t.”

the words barely register in your head before you’re already celebrating internally. yes, it was kinda obvious he liked you back since he didn’t run away or anything, but the verbal confirmation still feels like a dream you don’t want to wake up from. everything you’ve been imagining hearing throughout this whole ordeal, although not in these circumstances.

you swallow, forcing yourself to hold his gaze. “but i really liked who i was talking to through the texts too. it’s good to know it was you.” you trail off, the enormity of it stealing your words.

he reaches across the table slowly, giving you every chance to pull away. his fingers stop just short of brushing yours where they’re set on the table. “you talked about feeling invisible, and after i realised, all i wanted to do was find a way to say that, ‘i’ve always seen you.’ but i couldn’t figure out how to do it without sounding like… well, me. the me everyone expects.” a faint, real smile finally touches his lips.

the server finally brought over your drinks, breaking the moment. the simple act of stirring sugar into your cup gave you a minute to breathe, to let the seismic revelations settle into something resembling solid ground. you watched the foam heart distort and melt, a mirror of your own defenses dissolving.

across from you, gojo is uncharacteristically quiet. a faint, pensive frown on his face as he seems to be turning something over in his mind.

“hey,” you say, the word softer than you intended, barely rising above the café’s ambient noise.

his head snaps up, eyes finding yours instantly. “yeah?” there is a careful openness in his expression, as if he was prepared for anything.

you take a shaky sip of your latte, buying a second of courage. “i need to say something else.”

his expression shifts seamlessly from open to solemn. the playful glint vanishes, replaced by a focused intensity that makes your stomach flutter. he nods once, a silent go on. he is giving you the floor, this boy who usually commands every room he enters.

“i think i was… unfair to you,” you start, your gaze dropping to your swirling latte. “i built this whole narrative in my head. everything comes easy to you—grades, friends, attention… life. i convinced myself you operated on a different plane of existence, where things like anxiety or insecurity or… or longing… just didn’t apply.”

you chance a glance up. he is listening, utterly still. “i put you on a pedestal so high i never thought to look for the person actually standing on it. i decided you couldn’t possibly feel the way i do. because how could you ever feel small, or nervous, or unseen?”

you twist the sleeve of your hoodie around your finger, the frayed edge a familiar comfort. “i’m sorry. i was so busy being intimidated, i forgot you might just be a person.”

for a second, he just watches you. then, a smile touches his lips, blooming with a fondness that makes your breath catch.

“hey,” he murmurs, his voice a gentle counterpoint to your rushed confession. “it’s okay.”

you blink, surprised by the lack of deflection or ego. “it… is?”

“people do it all the time, you know?” he continues with a small, resigned shrug. “they see the loud mouth, the last name, the… whatever this is.” he gestures vaguely at himself again, but this time it was tinged with a weariness you’d never noticed before. he met your eyes, his gaze steady and sincere. “you’re just the first one who’s ever actually apologized for it.”

your chest tightens, a pang of guilt and a profound understanding twisting together. you’d been part of the noise, part of the assumption.

he leans closer then, the wooden table creaking softly. he lowers his voice to a conspiratorial murmur meant only for you, the world outside your little bubble fading away. “it’s alright though,” he adds, a new, warm light entering his eyes, “you kinda made up for it by being ridiculously cute.”

your face ignites instantly, heat rushing from your neck to your hairline. “gojo—” you protest, a weak, flustered laugh escaping you.

“i’m serious,” he insists, his own cheeks tinged with a faint, pink flush you’d never seen before. it is such a dreamg sight that you once again promise to remember it forever. “all those overthought sentences and dramatic little things you’d describe. it was adorable. it is adorable.”

you cover your face with your hand, struggling to hide your embarrassment. he looks so pleased with himself you want to hide away. the last of the tension between you, the ghost of the pedestal you’d built, seems to shimmer and evaporate. something new and unspoken settles in its place—lighter, easier, tinged with a giddy, mutual disbelief.

he suddenly stands up, gathering his and your drinks, looks down at you and jerks his head in the direction of the exit.

“wanna get out of here?” he asks, his voice back to its normal volume but still holding that soft, private warmth. “walk a bit?”

you hesitate for only half a second, your heart doing a wild, joyful somersault.

“yeah,” you said, feeling a smile spread across your face. “i’d like that.”

a brilliant, unguarded happiness lights up his entire face, brighter than any smile you’d ever seen. it reaches his eyes, crinkling the corners, and it is entirely, breathtakingly real.

“cool,” he says, a boyish grin tugging at his lips as he leads you toward the door, the bell jingling softly above you. “me too.”

you leave the café together, the little bell above the door chiming a soft, almost ceremonial farewell. no rush. no destination. just the two of you stepping into the quiet hum of the campus in the late afternoon, the sun a muted gold behind a blanket of clouds, the sky soft and pale, holding its breath the same way you are.

for a few minutes, you just walk side by side down the brick path winding toward the main quad. the air is cool, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant rain. you’re close, but not touching, the space between you charged with a new, delicate awareness.

you talk, the words easier now, flowing between the spaces your earlier confessions have cleared.

“so,” you start, glancing at him from the corner of your eye. “does this mean i have to stop calling you sixeyes0607 in my head?”

he laughs, the sound freer and lighter than his usual campus-filling boom. “only if i stop calling you ghost. though,” he adds, his tone softening, “i kinda like it. my ghost. the one who haunted the back row and then my phone.”

your cheeks warm. “i wasn’t haunting you.”

“you absolutely were,” he insists, bumping his shoulder gently against yours. “i’m trying to listen to yaga drone on about alkynes, and i’m just thinking, ‘i wonder what she’d say about this.’ and then later, i log on and actually find out. with my other identity.”

the admission is so disarmingly honest it steals your breath. you walk in comfortable silence for another moment, the only sounds the crunch of gravel underfoot and the distant chatter of other students.

as you walk, your arms swing gently at your sides. every few steps, your pinkies come within a millimeter of touching. almost. a magnetic pull, a question hanging in the space between skin and skin.

gojo glances down at the narrowing gap once. then again, his gaze lingering. on the next swing, his pinky brushes against yours.

a spark, simple and electric, shoots straight up your arm. you both fall silent mid-sentence. he doesn’t pull away, instead, he gently, deliberately, rubs the side of his pinky against yours. a shy, searching gesture, as if testing the boundaries, asking a silent question.

your heart thunders against your ribs, a wild drum, and before you can overthink it—before your old anxieties can whisper that this is too much, too fast—you shift your hand just so and hook your pinky firmly around his.

he freezes mid-step.

for one terrifying second, you think you’ve misread everything, but then, slowly, as if handling something infinitely precious, his hand turns; his fingers slide carefully between yours, his palm meeting yours in a warm, secure fit. his grip tightens immediately, a silent affirmation.

when you dare to look up at him, gojo’s smile breaks across his face like a sunrise. it’s wide, unguarded and impossibly soft, erasing any trace of his usual cocky grin. it’s a smile just for you, born from a shared secret and a clasped hand.

“wow,” he breathes, the word filled with awe. he lifts your joined hands slightly, looking from them to your face. “hi.”

you laugh, the sound nervous and breathless with joy. “hi.”

he stops walking completely then, under the skeletal branches of a giant oak tree, its last few golden leaves clinging on. so do you.

he turns to face you fully, still holding your hand. he looks down at you, his blue eyes clear and focused, as if every confusing piece of the world has finally clicked into a perfect, sensible place.

“can i—” he starts, his voice husky. he stops himself, shaking his head with a small, disbelieving smile. “no. i’m gonna do this right.”

he takes a small step closer, his free hand coming up to gently cup your cheek, his thumb stroking a tender arc just below your eye. his touch is warm, slightly hesitant, and utterly reverent.

“is this okay?” he whispers, his breath a soft cloud in the cool air.

you can only nod, your voice lost in the swell of emotion in your chest. anticipation of this moment makes you tremble from inside out. he leans in slowly, giving you every chance to pull away. his eyes flutter shut a moment before his lips meet yours.

the kiss is gentle and unhurried. it isn’t a demand or a conquest; it’s a question answered, a conversation finished. it tastes like coffee and the promise of rain, and it feels like relief—the sweet, stunning relief of a truth finally spoken aloud. it feels, impossibly, like finally coming home to a place you didn’t know you’d been missing.

when he pulls back, it’s only by a breath. he rests his forehead against yours, his eyes still closed, a sigh of pure contentment escaping him. you can feel his smile against your skin.

“so,” he murmurs, his thumb now brushing gently over the knuckles of the hand he still holds, “i guess we don’t need the forum anymore?”

you smile, nuzzling your nose lightly against his. “maybe not for confession sessions,” you whisper. “but maybe just to brag a little. about our crushes.”

he laughs, a soft, joyful sound that vibrates through you. he squeezes your hand, then brings it up to press a light, lingering kiss to your fingertips.

“yeah,” gojo says, his eyes opening to meet yours, bright with a happiness so real it’s almost fragile. “i can do that, certainly.”

+ bonus

sixeyes0607: turned out my crush likes me back!!

ghostinthebackrow: really? mine apparently does too

you look up at gojo from over your phone screen with a small grin only to find him already looking at you, blue eyes full of adoration peeking from above his own phone.

an. kinda dialogue heavy. now that i think about it i should have written more about gojo’s perspective but well ill do better next time ig. thank you all for reading!!

part 1 -> part 2

chatting with sixeyes0607 at forum becomes a habit.

you tell yourself it’s temporary; just a weird digital crutch until the embarrassment of facing gojo fades, but the forum tab stays open on your browser. you refresh it in the three-minute lull between classes, the glow casting a soft light on your face in your dark dorm before bed, your eyes flicking to it during lectures when your notes blur into incomprehensible swirls. it becomes a ritual, a tiny pocket of understood chaos.

it doesn’t really bother you that you don’t know his name or why the weird nickname(though yours is no better, at least its factual), you don’t know where he studies and what he likes. you are not sure you want to ruin the magic of your anonymity and bonding over your unattainable crushes. regardless, sixeyes0607 is always there. his replies appear like clockwork, a digital heartbeat, a comfort.

sixeyes0607: did you survive today?

ghostinthebackrow: barely. i avoided the area he exists in.

sixeyes0607: valid strategy.

ghostinthebackrow: what about you?

there’s a pause longer than usual. the little typing… indicator appears, disappears, reappears.

sixeyes0607: uh. i tried again. saw them in the library.

your stomach flips, a strange mixture of dread and vicarious thrill.

ghostinthebackrow: and?? don’t leave me in suspense.

sixeyes0607: said something stupid. laughed too loud. she smiled though.

sixeyes0607: a little one. cute tho

you picture his crush—faceless, distant, perfect in your imagination. you feel happy for him, feel glad that he’s braver than you are.

ghostinthebackrow: a smile is good.

sixeyes0607: yeah. felt like winning a medal.

you type before your internal censor can engage, the words flowing straight from the vulnerable core of you to the screen.

ghostinthebackrow: i wish he’d smile at me.

on the other side of campus, gojo stares at that sentence longer than he should. he’s in his dorm, half-dressed after practice, a water bottle forgotten in his hand. the words echo in the silent room. he knows exactly what you mean.

—

your second attempt happens by accident, which is the only way it could have happened at all.

you’re buried in the cacophonous quiet of the main library, digging through the black hole of your bag for a specific highlighter. in your haste, your elbow knocks a thick sociology textbook off the edge of the table. it lands with a soft but definitive thud at someone else’s feet.

long legs, clad in expensive, slightly distressed jeans. familiar white sneakers, impossibly clean.

before you can even gasp an apology, he’s bending down. gojo picks up the book, his fingers brushing the cover. he doesn’t hand it back immediately. instead, he glances at the title, a faint, unreadable expression flickering across his face before he extends it toward you.

“you dropped this,” he says. his voice is lower here, softened by the library hush.

your brain, the traitorous organ, fully short-circuits. all pre-rehearsed sentences evaporate.

“oh—thanks. sorry,” you manage, your voice a breathy whisper. you take the book, your fingers briefly grazing his. a static shock, real or imagined, jolts up your arm.

he doesn’t move away immediately. he watches you for a second, his head tilted slightly. he’s closer than he was at the vending machines. quieter. more present.

“…you’re in my chem lecture, right? with professor yaga?” he asks, as if confirming a hypothesis.

your heart stutters, trips over itself. he knows. he’s noticed you.

“yeah?” you say, the word coming out as a shocked exhale. you clear your throat. “i mean—yes. monday and wednesday at ten.”

he smiles then—not the wide, dazzling, crowd-pleasing grin. this one is smaller, softer at the edges. it looks thoughtful, like he’s concentrating on getting it right. it reaches his eyes, making them crinkle in a way that feels devastatingly genuine.

“cool,” he says, the single word imbued with a weight that the library air seems to hold.

and then, like a spell breaking, someone calls his name from across the periodicals section. the moment snaps, a thread pulled too tight. the easy tension in his shoulders returns, the public persona sliding back into place like a mask.

“later,” he murmurs, more to you than to the caller, and then he’s gone, weaving through the stacks toward the noise.

you sit there for five full minutes, the sociology textbook open on your lap to a random page. you don’t read a single word. you just watch the spot where he stood and feel your hands tremble with the residual energy of a celestial near-miss.

that night, you log on with a new kind of urgency, eager to tell your anonymous friend about what happened.

ghostinthebackrow: update: he talked to me.

sixeyes0607: NO WAY

ghostinthebackrow: it was an accident. i dropped a book. he picked it up and then started talking.

sixeyes0607: that’s huge bro

ghostinthebackrow: like. two sentences. but still.

you hesitate, biting your lip, then add the most crucial data point. you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it through the whole day.

ghostinthebackrow: he smiled.

on gojo’s screen, your words feel heavier than they should. he’s replaying the library moment for the twentieth time, and now he’s reading your perspective of it and doesn’t even know it. the duality is maddening and exhilarating.

sixeyes0607: see? told you silence doesn’t mean rejection.

you smile, a warmth spreading through your chest that has nothing to do with your room’s temperature.

you don’t see him type and delete three different replies.

he backspaces furiously, feeling like an idiot. finally, he settles on something safer, something that aches with the truth he can’t yet voice.

sixeyes0607: you deserve that smile, y’know.

… his next attempt is, by his own later assessment, a disaster of epic proportions.

he spots you outside the student center. you’re sitting alone at a small, round table under a tree, headphones in, a notebook open. you’re biting the end of your pen, lost in thought. his friends, suguru and shoko, are a few feet away, debating where to get lunch, loud and annoying in the way he usually relishes. today, he ignores them.

his feet carry him over before his panic can catch up. he taps the table twice with his knuckles.

you look up, pulling one headphone away, startled. your eyes widen slightly. “oh. hi.”

“hey,” he says, and suddenly he’s hyper-aware of everything: how tall he is looming over the table, how his shadow falls across your notes, the fact that he can’t remember what he planned to say. “uh. we talked at the library.”

you blink. “that’s right.”

he opens his mouth. the plan was something clever, something about the book, or chemistry, or the weather. a smooth segue. what comes out is nothing. just air. his mind is a perfect, blank, blue screen.

his face heats. he can feel the tips of his ears burning, a telltale sign he hopes you don’t notice. he breaks eye contact, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture so uncharacteristically nervous it would shock his friends.

“i—uh. never mind,” he mutters, the words stumbling over each other. “sorry. bye.”

he turns and walks away, not back to his friends, but just away, leaving you sitting there in stunned silence. he can’t believe he acted so stupidly around you. he can barely shut up around girls he doesn’t even like!

—

later, curled up in bed with your laptop balanced on your knees, you try to process the whirlwind. gojo looked… nervous? confused? scared? it’s weird how his usually confident and cocky nature subdued for whatever reason. maybe you did weird him out with your reaction the other day.

ghostinthebackrow: okay. i think i’m confusing him.

sixeyes0607: how so?

ghostinthebackrow: he keeps acting weird around me.

sixeyes0607: weird how?

ghostinthebackrow: quiet. awkward. like he wants to say something but doesn’t. he’s usually so loud and talkative. is it me?

there’s a long pause. too long. you watch the cursor blink in the reply box, imagining him thinking.

sixeyes0607: …yeah. that sounds familiar.

ghostinthebackrow: really? your crush does that too?

sixeyes0607: oh no. i do that. turns out when you actually care, all that confidence goes straight out the window. leaves you standing there with a dumb look on your face and a heart trying to beat its way out of your chest.

you read the message twice. then a third time. you hug your pillow tighter, pressing it against the sudden, overwhelming ache in your chest. it’s a soft ache, threaded through with filaments of a hope so fragile you’re afraid to name it.

ghostinthebackrow: so maybe um

ghostinthebackrow: maybe our crushes aren’t these untouchable, perfect entities. maybe they’re just… people. with their own stupid, malfunctioning software.

on the other side of the screen, in the quiet of his room, gojo exhales a slow, shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding. he stares at the ceiling, the words painting a new, terrifying, wonderful possibility across the blank white surface.

sixeyes0607: maybe they’re just scared too.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

it isn’t completely insane that a stranger on the internet knows the exact, fluttery rhythm your heart adopts when you walk past a certain section of campus, or the way your stomach knots into a tight, anxious fist twenty minutes before a shared lecture. it’s not weird that his username is the first thing you look for the second you open the clunky forum, your breath hitching slightly until you see the last active: 5 minutes ago tag beside his name.

sixeyes0607: what lecture you suffering through today?

ghostinthebackrow: organic chem. back row. as always.

sixeyes0607: is the air is thinner up there? i know the view of everyone’s impending doom is clearer.

you pause, your pen hovering over your notebook. a coincidence had been nudging at the back of your mind for days, small details aligning.

ghostinthebackrow: wait

ghostinthebackrow: you said your crush is in your chem class. and you’re always joking about hating yaga’s pop quizzes

sixeyes0607: …

ghostinthebackrow: professor yaga. that’s my organic chem professor.

a longer pause.

sixeyes0607: yeah.

ghostinthebackrow: so… same college? tokyo metropolitan?

sixeyes0607: yeah. big one though. thousands of people. odds are astronomically slim we’d ever actually cross paths before we finish it.

your heart does a weird little skip, a tripping beat against your ribs. it felt both impossibly intimate and safely distant.

ghostinthebackrow: still funny.

sixeyes0607: funny or fate 👀

you roll your eyes at the screen, a small, unbidden smile touching your lips despite the swarm of butterflies in your stomach.

—

it happens halfway through the wednesday lecture. yaga is droning on about stereochemistry, and your phone buzzes discreetly in your hoodie pocket. a new notification.

sixeyes0607: bet you five imaginary dollars he’s going to draw that molecule wrong again. look at the angle of that bond. criminal.

you stifle a laugh, glancing up from your screen to look at the whiteboard. as you do, your eyes catch on a figure a row ahead and several seats to the left. white hair, impossibly bright even under the fluorescent lights. broad shoulders slouched in a posture of elegant boredom. gojo satoru.

and in his hand, angled away from the professor’s line of sight, his phone screen is brightly illuminated, unmistakably so. the dark, low-contrast theme. the slightly outdated, text-heavy layout. it’s not a social media feed. it’s a forum thread.

your breath catches in your throat, sharp and cold. the air in the lecture hall suddenly feels too thick.

no. you tell yourself, forcefully. people use forums. there are millions of them. coincidence exists. you’re projecting, your brain rotting from sleep deprivation and romantic delusion, trying to force two separate worlds to collide because you secretly want them to.

still— your fingers, trembling slightly, hover over your own phone’s keyboard.

ghostinthebackrow: do you ever text during class?

three dots appear almost instantly. in your periphery, you see gojo’s thumb move.

sixeyes0607: constantly. it’s the only way to survive. why?

your throat goes dry. you watch as gojo reads a message, his head dipping slightly, a faint, private smile touching his lips before he starts typing a reply.

you don’t answer. you just stare at the back of his head, the world narrowing to the space between his phone and yours.

—

sixeyes0607: hey. this might be completely insane.

ghostinthebackrow: we’re already talking to internet strangers about our heart palpitations. we left ‘sane’ behind weeks ago.

sixeyes0607: true. okay. wanna meet?

your heart slams against your sternum, a single, violent thud that echoes in your ears. you reread the three words.

ghostinthebackrow: like. in real life?

sixeyes0607: yeah. just coffee. campus café. neutral territory. no pressure.

you stare at the screen, your pulse a frantic drumbeat in your wrists.

the offer was a trap door, an escape hatch. it should have been comforting. instead, it made it terrifyingly real. you swallow, your mouth parchment-dry. god, were you really meeting with a person you could have been passing every day in the college campus?

ghostinthebackrow: okay.

sixeyes0607: tomorrow. 4 pm. the grind, on west campus.

ghostinthebackrow: okay

ghostinthebackrow: see ya

you put your phone face down on your pillow as if it had burned you, then immediately buried your face in your hands, a silent scream of pure, undiluted panic trapped in your chest.

… the grind smells like over-roasted espresso beans and damp wool from the afternoon rain. you push the door open, the bell jingling with obnoxious cheer, and your heart plummets straight through the floor.

gojo is there too, for some reason.

he’s sitting at a small table by the rain-streaked window, sunlight struggling through the clouds to glint in his messy white hair. his sunglasses are hooked into the collar of his jacket. he has his phone in his hand, staring at it intently. his leg is bouncing a rapid, anxious rhythm under the table.

no. your brain short-circuits, throwing up static. coincidence. just a cosmic joke. he’s meeting someone else. he’s everywhere, that’s the point, he’s always everywhere, he’s the sun.

you can’t breathe. you mechanically move to the farthest corner, sliding into a chair at a table wedged between a bookshelf and a large potted fern. fifteen minutes, you bargain with yourself, your hands cold and clammy. fifteen minutes and then you’ll leave.

ten minutes pass. each one an eternity. you sneak a glance over the top of your phone.

gojo checks his watch. then his phone. he types something, frowns, deletes it. his thumb hovers, tapping a restless pattern against the case. you think he’s waiting. he’s waiting for someone.

stop it. you’re imagining things. he’s probably texting a friend to meet him for a late lunch.

twenty minutes past four. your hope, a fragile little bird, feels its wings grow leaden. you check your own phone. no new messages from sixeyes0607. nothing.

then, the bell above the door chimes again.

geto suguru walks in, shaking rainwater from his dark hair. he scans the room, spots gojo, and makes a beeline for him, sliding into the seat across from him with the easy familiarity of a lifelong friend. gojo looks up, and you see his face—the anxious tension melts into something else: exasperated affection. he groans, shoves his phone away dismissively, and starts talking, hands waving in animated explanation.

that’s it.

the ache in your chest is sharp, a clean slice of humiliation. of course. of course gojo satoru wasn’t waiting for you. he was waiting for his friend. you were a fool, weaving fantasies out of pixelated conversations and coincidental seating charts.

you stand up so quickly your chair scrapes the floor. you don’t look back as you weave through the tables and push out into the cool, damp air, the cafe’s warmth clinging to you like a taunt.

you text sixeyes0607 when you’ve calmed a bit, as soon as you’re far away from the cafe and closer to your dorm room, the rain misting your heated face.

ghostinthebackrow: you could’ve just told me you’d be busy or something.

the reply comes before you can even pocket your phone, vibrating against your palm.

sixeyes0607: i was there!! i waited!! are you kidding

a bitter laugh escapes you, swallowed by the drizzle.

ghostinthebackrow: sure.

sixeyes0607: i was!! for twenty minutes. then my friend showed up uninvited and i couldn’t get rid of him.

your breath stutters. the image of geto sliding into that seat flashes again.

ghostinthebackrow: it’s whatever. forget it.

the three dots appear. they dance for a long moment. then they disappear. no reply comes.

you don’t wait. you go home. you take a shower so hot it stings your skin, as if you could scrub away the embarrassment. you crawl into bed, the forum app a glaring icon on your phone screen. you don’t open it. for the first time in weeks, you let the chat lie silent.

—

the next morning, you wake with a thought so fully formed and terrifying it rockets you upright, your blanket pooling around your waist.

same college.

same lecture halls.

same obscure, dying forum.

same café, same time.

gojo, constantly on his phone during classes he shares with you.

the way gojo had frozen, speechless, when you’d approached him—twice.

no. it was impossible. a narrative constructed by a desperate, lonely mind. gojo satoru was the campus sovereign, a creature of effortless light and noise. sixeyes0607 was your shadowy confidant, all dry wit and vulnerable, hidden sweetness. they were opposites. they couldn’t overlap.

your phone buzzes on the nightstand. a new notification lights up the screen. you stare at it, your heart pounding a frantic, ragged rhythm against your ribs. for the first time since that very first reply popped up weeks ago, you don’t open it.

you’re too afraid.

because the theory solidifying in your head is a truth too terrifying to speak aloud: a truth that would shatter either your new friendship or your fragile hope.

and even worse—you’re deeply, desperately scared it might be true.

part 1 -> part 2

gojo satoru is the kind of guy the universe seems built around.

it’s not just that he’s wealthy or smart, though he’s both. it’s that he moves through the university’s ecosystem with the innate authority of a natural predator at the top of the food chain. the main quad’s sunlight hits his perpetually tousled white hair just so.

lecture halls feel more animated when he’s in them, professors indulging his tangents with amused sighs because his insights, when he bothers to offer them, are razor-sharp. his laugh is a seismic event—a loud, unfiltered boom that echoes down the linoleum-tiled hallways, making people turn and smile even if they don’t know him. girls (and plenty of guys) orbit him like it’s gravity, a constellation drawn to a brilliant, chaotic sun.

he is brilliant and you can’t help but watch him from afar.

you, on the other hand, are a satellite of a much smaller, quieter planet. your orbit consists of the back row of the lecture hall (seat by the window if you’re early), the isolated carrel on the third floor of the library that smells faintly of old paper and dust, and your single dorm room. your glasses barely leave your face, acting as a shield from the pressure of society and standards, and your hoodies help you disappear into the crowd.

you rehearse sentences in your head for group discussions — clever points, witty observations —but by the time you’ve polished them to perfection, someone has already said it all or the conversation has already moved on.

your crush on gojo satoru is a silent, screaming epic written in your private journal, so painfully obvious to you that you’re convinced it must be visible from space, a neon sign blinking idiot over your head whenever he’s within a fifty-foot radius. it started with him holding the door for you, not even looking at you whilst doing it it; his attention on his best friend, laughing at some inside joke you’ll never understand.

it’s this conviction that leads you to 2:03 am on a tuesday, curled in a tight ball on your narrow bed, the blue light of your laptop the only illumination. you’re on a forum called crushconfessions.net, a relic of the early 2000s that you found in a desperate, sleep-deprived google search. the interface is clunky, the banners are pixelated, and it feels blessedly anonymous.

title: how do you approach someone way out of your league without embarrassing yourself forever?

body: he’s like the most perfect guy, has tons of friends and tons of charisma. i’ve had whole conversations with him in my head for months, but in reality, i think i’ve maybe made accidental eye contact twice. i just want to say something that doesn’t make me sound like a malfunctioning robot. is there a guide? a manual? emergency procedures? help pls

you hit post, feeling a fresh wave of foolishness. you expect nothing and an couple of hours later you get one a “don’t bother” and a “lol gl with that.” and asking what he looks like.

another reply pops up barely five minutes later.

sixeyes0607: yeah… same problem. except mine’s like the exact opposite. i think she has no idea i exist. feels like staring at the moon, you know?

you blink, your sleepiness evaporating. you wonder if the person is from your college or somewhere else, and if it has the same unintentional hierarchy that has been building around you ever since your first year, the chain that has you being at the end of it.

either way you, you hide under your blanket and bite on your thumbnail.

ghostinthebackrow: mine’s popular, like he’s basically the sun, not the moon.

sixeyes0607: oh. yeah. we’re doomed. a celestial crisis.

for some reason, a small, real laugh escapes you, muffled by your blanket. you keep talking. the thread becomes a rapid-fire exchange in the quiet night.

you confess how his confidence seems like a superpower, how his effortless existence feels like a personal critique of your own careful, cramped one. you type, i think i’d short-circuit if he just said my name. like, just acknowledged i’m a human being in his vicinity.

sixeyes0607 is funny in a dry, self-deprecating way. he complains about being emotionally clumsy, about using jokes as a deflection shield. i panic when it matters, he admits. say the stupidest thing. my friends tell me i’m a disaster. he calls his crush “maddeningly subtle” and “deceptively strong,” and says the thought of actually talking to them makes his hands feel stupid.

it’s the strangest comfort. here is someone who seems to live in the dazzling, social stratosphere you imagine gojo inhabiting, yet feels just as lost and terrified as you do.

after an hour of this, a new message appears.

sixeyes0607: okay. pact.

ghostinthebackrow: what kind of pact?

sixeyes0607: tomorrow. we both try. just once. we talk to them. even if it’s stupid. even if it’s just “hey, can i borrow a pen?” or “this lecture is boring.”

ghostinthebackrow: what if i throw up?

sixeyes0607: then u threw up bravely. i’ll do it too. we report back here tomorrow night. no backing out.

your heart kicks against your ribs, a trapped bird. this is insane. but the anonymity of it, the shared desperation, makes it feel possible. like having a parachute buddy even if you’re jumping from different planes.

ghostinthebackrow: fine. pact.

—

the next day, your entire body feels like it’s tuned to a low, constant hum of anxiety. you wear the hoodie anyway — it’s your armor. you see gojo between your morning sociology and chemistry classes. he’s a spectacle as always, holding court by the vending machines in the student union, a trio of attractive people hanging on his every word. he throws his head back, laughing at something, and the sound wraps around you, tying your stomach into knots.

just a pen. just ask about the reading. anything.

your brain screams abort, abort, abort, but your feet, remembering the digital pact, the promise to a stranger, carry you forward. the small crowd around him parts as you approach, not because you’re intimidating, but because your movement is so hesitant and direct it creates a path. you stop a few feet away, your mouth dry.

“hey. um. gojo?”

the effect is instantaneous. the chatter around him dies. he turns, those impossible, too-blue eyes landing on you. and for one split second, a fragment of a moment that etches itself into your memory, the unflappable, eternally amused gojo satoru is gone. in his place is a boy who looks… utterly startled. shocked, even. his eyes widen, his perfect mouth drops open slightly, and he just… stares. he says nothing.

you wince, although unsure if it showed up kn your face, and the silence stretches for a lifetime, about three seconds in reality. panic, hot and corrosive, floods your veins. you’ve done it. you’ve broken the universe. you’ve approached a star and found it frozen. you’ve saved a pact with a stranger on the internet but at what cost?

“sorry,” you blurt, the word tripping over itself. “i—I just wanted to ask about the kant assignment. but it’s fine. i can—I’ll just… ask someone else.”

you’re already backing away, your face a furnace of humiliation. you’ve officially achieved weirded him out forever. you’re a cautionary tale. you don’t look back, but as you flee, you hear his voice, uncharacteristically quiet, cut through the muffled sounds of the union.

“wait—”

but you’re gone, dissolving into the flow of students, wishing you could teleport directly into your bed.

—

that night, after you fall onto your mattress as a boneless heap of mortification and stay there through the whole day, you open the forum like it’s a confessional, your only source of absolution.

ghostinthebackrow: i think i messed up. catastrophic system failure.

your comrade responds within a minute of you sending your message.

sixeyes0607: no way. what happened? did he laugh?

ghostinthebackrow: no, worse. he looked… horrified. like i was a ghost or something. i said his name and he just stared. i’ve never seen him speechless. i think i broke him with how weird i was?

sixeyes0607: oh.

ghostinthebackrow: ‘oh’? that’s it? your ‘oh’ is filling me with dread.

sixeyes0607: if it helps. my crush talked to me today too.

a new, different kind of anxiety sparks in you. you’d been so wrapped in your own disaster you’d almost forgotten his side of the pact. now you could forget about one of the most embarrassing experiences in your life in hopes of hearing about his disastrous experience or maybe a lucky one.

ghostinthebackrow: and? how did it go for the emotionally clumsy disaster?

sixeyes0607: i was so happy i forgot how to speak.

you stare at the message, your own humiliation momentarily paused.

ghostinthebackrow: what do you mean?

sixeyes0607: like. genuinely. brain empty. no clever lines, no stupid jokes. just… static. they said my name, and i short-circuited. i just stood there like an idiot while they walked away. probably think i’m a mute now. or an alien.

your chest softens, a strange empathy unfurling. the image is so vivid, so contrary to the confident persona you’d imagined for your forum ally.

ghostinthebackrow: so it seems we both failed. good to know we are not alone.

sixeyes0607: yeah. the system overloaded, unfortunately. they looked so cute tho ugh

you smile, a small, weary thing, at your dim laptop screen. it feels like sharing a bruise. you type back, celestial crises, huh? maybe we’re just two black holes of idiocy.

sixeyes0607: the most powerful forces in the universe. get some sleep, loser.

—

you are blissfully unaware that somewhere on the other side of campus, in a surprisingly tidy dorm room that belongs to the last person anyone would expect to be tidy, gojo satoru is lying flat on his back on his soft bedding.

his phone is clutched to his chest, screen dark. he’s been staring at the ceiling for an hour, replaying the scene on a loop.

you. walking up to him. in your grey hoodie, your eyes nervous but determined. saying his name so softly and shyly. it had stolen the air from his lungs, scrambled every synapse in his famously brilliant brain. he’d seen you every day for months, the quiet shadow in the back, the thoughtful scribbler, the person whose laugh during a funny movie clip in class was a sound he’d tried to hear again. he’d built entire hypothetical conversations with you in his head.

and when you finally appeared, the reality was so much better and more terrifying that his vocal cords had simply… deserted him. he saw the panic flood your face, saw you misinterpret his stunned silence as horror, and by the time his brain rebooted enough to say “wait—” you were already a retreating figure in a crowd he suddenly hated.

he groans, dragging his hands over his face. “smooth, satoru. real smooth.”

frustrated, he rolls over and unlocks his phone, seeking a distraction from his own failure. muscle memory takes him to the clunky forum. he opens his chat with ghostinthebackrow.

seeing their new messages makes his chest ache with a fresh, weird empathy. they’d been brave. they’d done the pact. and their crush had apparently reacted just as badly as he had. maybe worse.

he types his reassurance, a smile touching his lips at their dramatics, then, on a whim of shared, miserable solidarity, he confesses his own disaster. i was so happy i forgot how to speak.

it’s the truest thing he’s typed all night. he hits send, feeling strangely exposed.

the reply comes: so it seems we both failed. good to know we are not alone.

he reads it twice. a warmth, soft and unfamiliar, spreads through him. this stranger, this fellow disaster, is trying to comfort him. after their own terrible day.

he means it for both of them—for ghost, and for you, the quiet force who had paralyzed him today. the parallel is almost funny. two crushing failures, two silent responders. the universe has a weird sense of humor.

he’d created the sixeyes0607 account on a whim, bored and weirdly fascinated by the earnestness of this old site. he’d found ghost’s post by chance, the description of a crush so out-of-league it felt achingly familiar. it was comforting to know, in this anonymous space, that he could be the one who was nervous, who was overthinking without being judged head on. it was a relief to not be gojo satoru for a while.

he types a new message to ghost, then deletes it. he does this three times. the emotionally clumsy disaster, indeed. finally, he settles on one: get some sleep, loser.

he hovers over send. he is, actually, the loser in this scenario because his anonymous comrade had been far more courageous than him. he, on the other hand, had frozen in his spot and ruined a great opening created by you.

he thinks about tomorrow. he will find you again. he’ll apologize for freezing, will say your actual name, will ask about kant, the weather, anything. he will not let you slip back into the periphery.

and he thinks about ghost, his anonymous comrade-in-arms. maybe they’ll try again, too. he hopes they do.

for now, he stares at the two identities on his screen: the forum chat with ghostinthebackrow, and the contact in his phone he’s too nervous to text—you. a number he got from the class group chat with all the materials and stuff. two separate mysteries. two silent, powerful gravities pulling at him.

he smiles, alone in his room, and drifts into sleep just as on the other side if the campus, you close your laptop and get pulled into the daze along with him.