amavi, perdidi. @admiringlove - Tumblr Blog

schrödinger’s crush: both real and denied until observed.

pairing: gojo satoru x gn!reader

↬ summary: schrödinger's theory states that something can exist in two states at once, until observed. gojo satoru is your lab partner, your opposite, your maybe-something. you've never been kissed, and he's too curious for his own good.

↬ genre: jjk x college au; hot nerd! gojo (physics major, hell yeah); kissing your best friend trope; drama; romance; angst and then fluff; slowburn basically; happy ending i promise but it takes angst to get there.

↬ warnings: DRAMA; profanity; mentions of alcohol and cigarettes; idiots in love; mentions of death; etc.

↬ word count: 20.5k.

↬ note: hi! so this, is my birthday gift for my dearest friend, wen. ily keep shining as bright as you do. you're the nonchalant sexy mom i look up to :3 ALSO ALSO @honeyciders ily thank you for being my pr manager :p

↬ navigation: jjk masterlist.

“Satoru, what was your first kiss like?”

It slips out quieter than you intended. Like a thought spoken aloud instead of a question meant to land. And now, in the thick silence that follows, you can already feel it unraveling. You probably shouldn’t be asking your best friend this. Not your best friend since high school, not your lab partner, not the person who knows how you take your coffee and when you’ve hit your concentration limit in a study session. Not the same person who’s seen you at your most exhausted, your most triumphant, your most ordinary.

But there it is, sitting between you both like static.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. That you’re not asking because you care, not really. You don’t take an interest in his love life. At least, not in the way others do. You know enough. That he’s careless about it. That there’s always someone. That he dabbles in debauchery the same way he dabbles in conversation: effortlessly, with half his attention, with a grin that makes people say yes before they understand what he’s asking. But this question, it’s been sitting with you. Tugging at you. For reasons you’ve too much of a coward to think about.

“What?” he says, finally, looking up from the textbook the two of you have been holed over for the better part of the hour. His voice is light, curious, but there’s a twitch of suspicion at the corner of his mouth. “Why are you asking?”

“Just curious,” you say, with a shrug that hopes to pass for indifferent. “I wanted to know if you've had any genuine relationships or if it's always been like this, y'know? Like the casual tomfoolery you're always doing nowadays.”

He blinks at you, one beat too slow, as if unsure whether to be flattered or offended. Half-offended, maybe, but not seriously. You’ve known each other too long for it to be serious. His eyes drop again to the page in front of him. The diagram on black body radiation is still there, tiny symbols etched like ghosts beneath the scribble of his mechanical pencil, the curve of Planck’s law arcing gently like a body exhaling. His pen taps against it, twice.

Then he huffs. “I don’t know, man. It was kinda sweet? You remember Yuli, right? The girl I was dating in first year of high school? Our first date was at the ice-cream shop and we kissed while I dropped her home. Pretty sweet, right?”

You hum, a neutral sound that tastes like metal in your mouth. This was disappointing—unexpectedly and irrationally so. Not that you’d known what you wanted to hear, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t soft-lit memories and the word sweet. It certainly wasn’t Yuli.

Not after five years. Not after every look you’ve ever tried not to give him.

“Yeah,” you say, quieter. “It’s cute.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second, just turns the page. Then, casually, too casually, he asks, “What about you?”

And your breath catches. Just a little. Just enough.

You think for a moment, squirming in your seat like the question hasn't already carved a pit in your stomach. You scribble something—an equation you don’t care about—because it’s easier than meeting his eyes. Your pen taps too fast. Your handwriting wavers. Beside you, Satoru furrows his brows, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and says with the blunt impatience of someone too used to getting answers, “Hello? I just asked you the same question. Come on, was it that Rin guy you were dating from that other school? Or was it Tobio from Miyagi?”

You don’t say anything. Not yet. You purse your lips, feign focus, pretend the assignment demands more of your attention than it does. But the silence stretches—heavy and long and brittle—and eventually you let out a breath that shakes too much to be casual. Because saying it aloud feels like peeling skin from bone: humiliating, soft, far too revealing. Admitting to Gojo Satoru, of all people, that in your entire twenty-two years of life you’ve never kissed anyone feels pathetic in a way that sours your mouth. He, who’s seen locking lips with a new name every month. He, who laughs too easily, touches too freely, and flirts without meaning it.

You shift again in your chair, uncomfortable in your own body, and this time you feel his gaze slip from the page. Not the textbook—you. He’s looking at you. And you see it happen, real-time, the way the realization spreads across his face like a crack in glass: that smug grin curling at the corner of his lips, lazy and amused and unbearably knowing.

“You’ve never kissed anybody, have you?” he says it softly, like a secret, like it’s something breakable. There’s no cruelty in it, but something worse: something that tastes like pity.

“You know you’re bringing down the reputation of our group, right?”

You snap before the ache can settle, before the shame calcifies. “What, the ‘catch herpes by sucking someone’s throat dry every week’ agenda not enough for you? Excuse me if I’m looking forward to someone I actually like,” you huff, sharp and brittle and playfully defensive. Except it’s not a joke, not really. Not when your chest is tight and there’s something stinging behind your ribs.

Because the truth is: it hurts.

It hurts that you’ve waited. That you’ve hoped. That somewhere, in some soft, stupid part of you, you believed he’d notice. That one day, he’d look at you and see you—not as his friend, not as his partner in labs and late-night study sessions, but as something else. Something more. And now you think he never will.

He pauses. Just for a minute. As if his mouth suddenly goes dry, as if the weight of what you said takes a second to sink in. And then, his face softens, the corners of his mouth tugging down, his voice quieter than you’re used to. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think it meant that much to you.”

You blink, startled. You hadn’t expected him to switch so fast, to drop the teasing like that. For a moment, it feels like you’re seeing something unguarded. Close to sincerity.

But then, as quickly as it came, it shifts. His eyes catch that telltale glint again—the one that always comes just before he says something deeply unhinged or absolutely idiotic. That mischief curling at the edge of his grin. You know it too well. You blink again, more wary this time, and narrow your eyes.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking of, stop. I don’t wanna hear it,” you whisper, already bracing yourself.

He whines, long and dramatic, flopping back into his chair like gravity’s betrayed him. “Come on, I had such a good idea.”

“No.”

“Kiss me,” he says.

And your heart just drops. Like it forgets how to beat altogether. Your mouth goes dry, and you look at him like he’s grown another head. Your jaw is half open, caught somewhere between laughter and horror.

Because what the actual fuck? Was he serious? Was this a joke? Was he completely out of his mind? Were you hearing him right?

“Satoru,” you say, sharp, breath catching halfway in your throat, “Stop joking around and focus on this stupid assignment. I’m not having this conversation with you. It’s not funny.”

“I’m serious,” he says with a shrug, like he hasn’t just thrown your entire equilibrium off its axis. “You haven’t kissed anybody, right? Kiss me. As practice. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

You look at him then—really look at him—and all the air in your lungs seems to thin out, stretching tight against your ribs. “But that’s the thing,” you say, softer now, your voice laced with frustration and something quieter underneath. “It does mean something to me. It might just be a thing you pass off, but it means something to me. I can’t just give you my first kiss and pretend that it doesn’t mean anything.”

He chuckles, a low sound that seems both amused and disbelieving. “You act like you’re giving me your virginity.”

“Stop joking about serious things!”

“I’m not joking!” he whisper-yells, leaning in with the urgency of someone trying not to be overheard in a room you both know is dead silent, save for the rustle of paper and the occasional cough. “I’m being serious. I’m coming over to yours tonight for movie night with everyone else anyway, right? I can just kiss you when no one’s looking. Or stay the night, in case they all leave. Assignment submissions are going on for pretty much everybody right now. I doubt Shoko would stay; her Biochem professor is insane. And Suguru has a painting due tomorrow that I know for sure he isn’t done with.”

You blink, stunned by the calm calculation of his proposal. “Kento has an early Quantitative Economics lecture in the morning before his paper submissions. And Yu has an essay, I think,” you murmur automatically.

“There you have it,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We can finish this assignment right here.”

You don’t say anything after that. Not a protest. Not a sigh. Not even a breath loud enough to count. You just blink, once, slowly; your throat tightens out of its own accord, then your eyes lower to the page. And when he tells you to solve the next part of the problem set, you do. Hands moving on instinct. Heart no longer sure where it belongs.

When you get home with Gojo trailing behind like a particularly smug shadow, you tell him to make himself comfortable while you sort the snacks. He hums, distracted, already toeing off his shoes and tossing his backpack somewhere near the doorway with the kind of carelessness that suggests he’s never once considered where things ought to go.

You busy yourself in the kitchen, opening cabinets, rustling through drawers, pulling out the ready-made popcorn packets you’d bought in bulk during a sale you were too embarrassed to tell anyone about. Behind you, you hear him pad in, light on his feet, and then hop up onto the kitchen counter with the quiet entitlement of someone who’s been here a thousand times before. He doesn’t speak for a while. Just watches you move, eyes flicking from the microwave to your hands to your back.

“I still can’t believe you never told me you haven’t kissed anyone,” he mumbles, voice thoughtfully low, almost like he’s talking more to the room than to you. “That Rin guy was very touchy with you.”

“Yeah, and that’s why he got dumped,” you reply, trying to sound light, but your brain’s already revving into overdrive. You yank the microwave door open and toss the packet in, pressing buttons at random like the noise will drown out your own pulse.

The fridge door creaks open next. You grab a few cold cans—energy drinks, sodas, something vaguely caffeinated—and, without turning, you toss one over your shoulder in Gojo’s general direction.

Because you know he’s staring at the cola can. You can feel it. The guy has an unhealthy emotional attachment to carbonated sugar water and you’ve known him long enough to read his intentions by the sound of his breath.

He catches it without a word, pops it open with a satisfying hiss.

“He always had an arm around you whenever you brought him around,” Satoru says, sipping casually. “Felt awkward to me too. I don’t know why you kept him around for so long. Two months, was it?”

You pause for half a second, not long enough to give yourself away, but enough to feel the weight of it. “Why didn’t you say something back then?” you ask, turning and lining up the cans on the counter, one by one. “If you didn’t like him?”

“I told Suguru,” he says, as if that’s equivalent. He takes another sip. “I hated that guy.”

“Hate is a strong word,” you say softly, not looking at him.

He shrugs. The kind of shrug that says: Yeah, well. So what? And for a moment, the kitchen feels smaller. Like something’s about to happen. But nothing does. Not yet.

The doorbell rings just as you're pretending not to notice the way Gojo is still looking at you from his perch on the kitchen counter. Grateful for the interruption, you turn away from him without another word and open the door to find Shoko and Suguru standing there. Shoko ruffles your hair like she always does, unceremoniously and with affection, while Suguru hands you three steaming boxes of pizza before strolling inside like he owns the place.

“Popcorn smells good,” he says, already making a beeline for the kitchen, where Gojo greets him with some obnoxious noise close to howling.

Kento and Yu arrive not even five minutes later, walking in with the kind of timing that feels orchestrated, like everyone just knows when to show up. Kento’s got a box of neatly wrapped pastries, and Yu’s juggling a plastic bag heavy with beer cans—free, apparently, from the convenience store he works at part-time, where the manager turns a blind eye to the occasional “miscount.”

“The pastries are from the bakery my girlfriend’s at,” Kento says, ever so slightly bashful, handing the box to you. You grin and grab a Danish, murmuring a thank-you with your mouth already half-full, then raise your voice to the group, waving your hand vaguely toward the kitchen. “Come on, help me get the rest of the stuff into the living room.”

Gojo disappears into your bedroom for all of two minutes and reappears with an armful of pillows, which he unceremoniously dumps onto the floor before sprawling out like he’s rehearsing for a mattress ad. Kento and Haibara claim the couch, Shoko slides into the armchair with the elegance of a cat, and you and Suguru settle onto the heap of blankets you’d laid out that morning before classes.

“Can we do a horror movie?” Shoko asks, her voice a little too innocent, which instantly sets off alarms in your brain. You narrow your eyes at her suspiciously, already halfway to a protest.

“It’s my turn to pick this time,” you argue, pointing an accusing finger her way. “You picked last week. Can’t we just watch K-Pop Demon Hunters or something Ghibli? Something light?”

“Absolutely not,” Satoru groans dramatically, already elbow-deep in a bowl of popcorn he has entirely claimed for himself. Without warning, he throws his leg over your lap, like your body is just another pillow. “Let’s watch horror. I vote horror. Shoko, I’m on your side.”

“Horror, it is,” Shoko echoes, wiggling her eyebrows like this is some kind of coup. She turns to Suguru next. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care, honestly,” he shrugs, lazily reaching for a beer bottle. But before he can take a sip, Shoko kicks the back of his shoulder with her socked foot. He yelps, nearly drops the drink, mutters something sharp under his breath.

“I vote horror,” he grumbles finally, defeated.

You sigh through your nose theatrically. “Kento,” you whine, turning to him with wide, pleading eyes. “Back me up. Come on.”

He chuckles, folding his arms. “I also think we should watch horror. But it’s hard to pick a good one.”

Before you can protest again, Haibara snatches the remote clean out of your hands with practiced ease. “Give me that,” he says, already flicking through titles. The scrolling is relentless, and then he stops on something with a particularly ominous poster—shadows and teeth and too much blood.

You blink slowly. Resign yourself to fate. Then sigh, grab a slice of pizza and a can of Coke, and lean back against Suguru’s shoulder with a tired exhale. You take a long sip as the opening credits roll. Somewhere beside you, Gojo crunches loudly into a fistful of popcorn, already too invested.

"Something wrong?" Suguru asks a few minutes into the film, his voice tender, like he’s halfway between the story on screen and the imaginary elephant in the room. You’ve shifted off his shoulder now, curled into the cushions beside him, working your way through your second slice of pizza. You glance at him, shake your head.

How were you supposed to tell him that his best friend, and yours, was a complete and utter idiot?

You nurse a beer for the next half hour, lips barely grazing the rim, while Satoru rolls around on the floor like a bored child in a lecture hall. He groans occasionally for no reason, snatches popcorn blindly, sighs dramatically at predictable jump scares. You tune most of it out.

Somewhere into the second half, Shoko starts yawning into her hoodie sleeve, and Gojo’s head has found its way to your lap. Yours, instinctively, has found Suguru’s shoulder again, though neither of you comment on it. His sweater is soft, worn from years of wear, and smells faintly of paint thinner and an apple strudel that he ate earlier.

You feel Satoru’s eyes flick toward you more than once, feel the weight of his gaze even when you don’t meet it. But you’re not sure what it means, or why he keeps doing it.

When the credits roll, you kick him off your lap without ceremony. He groans in protest, rolling over dramatically, one arm flung over his eyes like a fallen soldier. You jitter in your seat, nerves humming low in your limbs. You’d had your eyes closed for half the movie anyway, half out of fear, half because it was easier than thinking.

The others start filtering out not long after. Shoko’s the first to go—she stretches and tosses you a two-fingered salute before disappearing through the door with a long yawn. Kento and Haibara follow soon after, offering hugs, promises of free beer again next Friday, and vaguely chaotic suggestions for next week’s movie night. The house feels noticeably quieter once they’re gone.

Satoru, meanwhile, stays very still on the floor, arms folded across his chest, breathing like someone who thinks he’s successfully faking sleep.

Suguru shrugs his coat on slowly, watching the living room. Or more specifically, Satoru in it.

“He doesn’t wanna go home, does he?” he asks, dry.

“Nope,” you grin, leaning against the wall as he stoops to tie his laces. “He thinks pretending to sleep on my couch will make everyone think he’s actually sleeping.”

Suguru grins, warm and tired, then straightens up and pats your head like he’s done since high school. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I think so, yeah. Why?” you ask, brow furrowed. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging with one shoulder. “You look stressed.”

“Oh!” you exclaim, a little too brightly, voice climbing into a register that surprises even you. Your cheeks flush with embarrassment a beat later. “I forgot to tell you. Satoru and I were doing that paper on Planck’s constant, right? I kept messing up the problems. I just… felt embarrassed with him today. That’s all.”

Suguru watches you for a moment, not quite convinced, and then exhales through his nose. “Why are you embarrassed in front of that idiot, of all people? He embarrasses himself, and us, with most of the choices he makes. This is nothing.”

“I guess you’re right,” you murmur, fiddling with the hem of your sleeve. The fabric itches suddenly, even though it shouldn’t; it’s soft, expensive wool, the kind Satoru gave you last Christmas from a brand you couldn’t pronounce then and still can’t now.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Suguru sighs, the kind of long, tired exhale that says he knows exactly what’s going on but is choosing not to deal with it. Then he glances over his shoulder into the living room and calls out, “Goodnight, Satoru!”

You follow his gaze instinctively, even though there’s no point—Satoru is still very much in fake-sleep mode, limbs sprawled across the floor like a starfish, mouth open just enough to sell the illusion. Suguru looks back at you with a knowing smile, then nods once in farewell and steps outside, letting the door click shut behind him.

You sigh, turn on your heel, and head back toward the living room. “Oi. Stop pretending.”

Satoru sits up immediately, ruffling his hair into a new, artfully messy shape, and pushes his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose like he’s been awake the whole time and you’re the one late to the conversation. “Suguru suspect something?”

“You’re an idiot,” you mutter, rolling your eyes as you walk past him and start picking up the mess. “Help me clean up.”

He groans—an exaggerated, long-suffering whine—but still grabs the stack of greasy pizza boxes and trudges after you toward the kitchen. You carry the popcorn bowls in both hands, and he bumps your elbow gently with his as you walk. Not enough to make you drop anything, just enough to make you huff through your nose.

You rinse the bowls in the sink, the water running warm, while he tosses the cardboard boxes into the trash with a half-hearted slam. Then you let your hands fall to the counter and lean against it, exhausted in that post-company kind of way. Body full of food, limbs heavy, silence ringing just a little too loud now that everyone’s gone.

When you glance up, he’s gone too. You frown, straighten up a bit. “Satoru?” you call, voice cutting softly through the quiet.

“I’m here!” he shouts back from the other room.

You step out of the kitchen, only to find him crouched near the coffee table, lazily collecting beer cans and empty soda bottles, tossing them into a plastic bag with a distinct lack of urgency. Then he’s dusting the crumbs off your couch cushions with both hands, brushing off the fabric like it owes him something.

You stare, lips parted, unsure if you’re touched or just vaguely confused. And then he looks up, catches you watching him.

“I’m stayin’ over the night, right?” he says, like it’s obvious, grinning a little. “Gotta keep the couch clean if I’m sleeping on it.”

“Right,” you mumble, voice half-lost in the shuffle of your own thoughts. “Right, yeah.”

You turn without thinking, retreating to the familiar safety of the kitchen. The fluorescent light hums overhead. Your feet make soft, soundless steps against the tile as you start methodically packing lunch for tomorrow. It’s muscle memory now—slicing bread, spreading peanut butter and jelly, cutting crusts (for Satoru, he prefers his sandwiches without the crust, so somehow, you do too). You and him had already talked about it earlier: lunch in the library, or maybe on that shaded bench near the science building, going over the final draft of your paper on Planck’s constant before submitting it.

You sigh as you press the sandwiches closed, cutting diagonals like always. You don’t even ask anymore; Satoru ends up stealing half your food anyway. So now you just make one for him too. Quietly. Without acknowledgement. Without expecting thanks.

A few minutes pass. Then you hear him again.

He pads back into the kitchen and hops onto the counter like he never left it, legs swinging slightly as you finish sealing the lunchbox and tuck it into the fridge. You hum when your fingers brush against the familiar banana milk tetra packs lined up in the door. You glance back at him over your shoulder.

“Banana milk okay? Or do you want strawberry? I don’t have that though, so you're buying tomorrow.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he rolls his eyes with a dramatic huff and hops off the counter, strides forward like this is all so obvious, like this moment was always meant to happen. And then, wordlessly, he shuts the fridge and pulls you toward him by the hem of your sweater.

You blink. Your breath catches in your throat as your chest bumps into his, your hands instinctively splayed against his shirt. Your heart is thunder, and your mind blanks with the force of it.

“Satoru, wait—”

“Why was your head on Suguru’s shoulder for half the film anyway?” he murmurs, voice low and too close. Your lips part. “What, you tryin’ to make me jealous?”

You look at him, startled, like the idea hadn’t even occurred to you. “Why would I do that?” you whisper, your voice breaking somewhere in the middle. “And besides, I didn’t tell him anything. I think… I think he was onto something, though.”

“He’s always onto something,” Satoru mutters, rolling his eyes again. His hands don’t move, though. They stay gently curled in your sweater. And then, slowly, he steps forward, crowding you until your back hits the cool metal of the fridge door.

You blink again. “Is this it? We’re doing it?”

“You really make it sound like we’re having sex or something,” he mutters, lips quirking. “Chin up, come on. Stop being so uptight. Loosen up.”

“Satoru,” you sigh, softer this time. “Again. This is serious to me.”

“I am being serious,” he says, and now his voice is lower, steadier, less teasing. He dips his head closer, and you can feel the heat of his breath on your skin, feel your cheeks flush and your fingertips burn against the front of his shirt. “Come here. Kiss me. Come on.”

“I don’t know how,” you admit, and your voice is barely above a whisper. Awkward. Hesitant. Embarrassed.

The words themselves are something fragile you’re ashamed to be holding. You look at him, your heart thudding so hard it might bruise your ribs, your lips pressed tight as if they’re the only thing keeping all your panic from spilling out. He watches you, head tilted, expression unreadable for a moment. Then he exhales softly, and in a tone you’ve never quite heard from him before, he asks, “Do you want me to stop?”

It knocks the air right out of you. Because for the first time all evening, he sounds… careful. Like the words matter. Like you matter. And then, somehow, against all logic, you smile. Just a small, helpless thing, because he looks ridiculous—his glasses slightly crooked from where he pushed them up too quickly, his hair an untamed mess. And because he’s being softer now than he’s ever let himself be with you.

Somewhere deep in your chest, you know that if you say no, if you tell him to stop, everything will snap back into place. The elastic band of whatever this is will recoil, and tomorrow he’ll laugh too loudly in lecture, and he’ll nudge you with his knee in the library, and it’ll all feel like tonight never happened.

But you don’t know if you want that. You don’t know if you can.

Because maybe this is all you’ll ever get from him. And as reckless, as humiliating as that should feel, you want it anyway. You want this moment. You want his kiss. You want your first kiss to be Gojo Satoru, who has always, against your will, been the center of your orbit. The love of your life, whether he knows it or not.

You swallow once, and then you shake your head. Softly. “No, Satoru,” you murmur, voice steady despite the tremor in your fingers. “Weirdly, you’ve got me convinced.”

His grin is immediate, incandescent, like a spark catching dry tinder. He can’t help it. Of course, he can’t. “Shit, really?”

“Really,” you say, quieter this time, and it feels like the word costs you something.

Above your head, the yellow lights cast a warm glow, turning everything syrupy, molten. It feels like afterglow, even though nothing’s happened yet. It feels like home. And yes, this is your apartment, but it’s not the walls or the furniture or the scent of laundry detergent that make it feel that way. It’s him. It’s the way his arms are curved around you, loose and certain all at once.

Something about this moment tells you you belong here. Not just in this kitchen, but in the confines of his embrace, in this foolish, irretrievable choice. Like you’ve come too far to break free and run. Like the ruin you’re courting will be worth it.

For now, at least.

He leans in a little tentatively slow, and it breaks you. You giggle. Uncontrollably, helplessly. It bubbles out of you like air rushing to the surface, as if your body’s forgotten how to hold it in. There’s something surreal in it, absurd even, this sudden closeness. The way Gojo Satoru tilts his head toward you like the sun rising slow and golden over a sleeping valley. It feels like you’re seeing light for the first time in years.

He blinks, half-amused, half-curious. “What?” he asks, voice warm and lazy, and honeyed enough to make your knees wobble. You only shake your head, because there’s nothing to explain. You’re not even sure what’s happening. You’re not even sure how he ended up in your kitchen, pulling you into this dreamlike hush of tender grace.

Your heart flutters like a moth against glass. He chuckles too now, like your laughter is contagious, like it opens something in him. He murmurs something under his breath about Professor Yaga’s eternal war on cell phones, and it’s so stupid—so exquisitely him—that it makes you snort, then press a hand to your mouth in disbelief. You’re still laughing when his forehead comes to rest against yours.

And then, quietly husk, his voice comes again like melted sugar with a twist of citrus: “Can I kiss you?”

You nod. Barely. A breath of a movement. You lean in, eyes fluttering halfway closed, the way you’ve seen people do a thousand times on screen. In books. In late-night fanfiction tabs and bookmarked slow-burns. But nothing—not one line of script or shaky camera pan—could’ve prepared you for this.

Because this isn’t fiction. This is real. This is Gojo Satoru, warm and steady in your arms, his breath mingling with yours. This is your first kiss.

And he still tastes a little sweet, like the cola he finished an hour ago. Salty, too, from the popcorn he snuck from your bowl when he thought you weren’t looking. And you? You probably taste like garlic and beer and artificial butter. Like a sleepover and a bad decision. You’re embarrassed for half a second, but then the thought dissolves. Because none of it matters. Not the taste, not the awkwardness, not the rush of nerves curling down your spine.

Because the second his mouth touches yours, everything else burns away. It’s not fireworks. It’s not earth-shattering. It’s better.

It’s soft. Deliberate. Like he’s asking for permission even now. Like he’s giving something away. And you realize, dimly, that maybe you are too. Maybe this is how you give your heart to someone—not with a declaration, but with a kiss that lingers longer than you expect, with a breath that leaves your body and doesn’t quite come back the same.

When he pulls away, smiling like he’s just remembered something precious, you almost say it.

I love you, Satoru.

But before the words can rise, he leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead—gentle, unhurried—and then steps back like nothing in the world has changed. As if he hasn’t just rearranged the architecture of your chest.

You’re in your room before you even register the motion. Covers pulled up. Head spinning.

Fifteen seconds. That’s all it had been. But it will stretch across your lifetime, this memory. This quiet, radiant thing.

The weekend slips through your fingers like water. Cold and gone before you’ve had a chance to realize it was ever there. Saturday passes without friction, your submissions clicking into place like puzzle pieces, with the kind of efficiency that makes you wonder if you’ve forgotten something essential. You haven’t. It’s just that your mind has learned how to keep its head down. Sunday unfolds like a soft page, slow and wide; you sleep in far too long, wake to the pale hush of early afternoon, skim your readings half-upright in bed, and by evening, you’re so thoroughly reassembled that you walk into class on Monday like nothing ever happened.

Like you and Gojo Satoru hadn’t kissed in the low, yellow light of your kitchen. Like your lips hadn’t parted for him, and he hadn’t looked at you with an almost reverent look in his eyes.

You settle into the chair beside his like muscle memory. Notebook open. Pen poised. Breath steady. You aim your full attention at Yaga, who’s mid-lecture, droning in the way only a man who’s taught this class for fifteen years can be. He’s speaking now on the history of quantum computing, making vague chalky circles on the board, invoking Seth Lloyd’s proof that quantum computers could simulate quantum systems—no exponential overhead like classical ones had, a vindication of Feynman’s 1982 conjecture. His voice blends with the soft scrape of chalk and the even hum of the centralized AC.

You jot down the essentials. Not too much, just the bones. Dates, names, proofs. A light framework you’ll fill in later.

Then, quietly, something slides across the table. A scrap of ripped, notebook paper. You glance at it, brows drawing together, then flick your gaze back up to check that Yaga is still absorbed in the chalkboard. He is. You unfold it.

You think this divorced old man goes on any dates at all?

The laugh that slips out of you is small and sharp and involuntary. You press your lips together, eyes dropping to the doodle scrawled on the bottom corner: a stick figure Yaga, complete with a lopsided brown goatee and jagged red flames spewing out of his ears. It's juvenile and ugly and absolutely deranged, and you have to dig your nails into your thigh to stop from giggling out loud.

You write back pretty quickly: Focus on the class, dummy. You don't want a piece of chalk thrown at your head again and bruise your cheek for a week.

You nudge the note back. He reads it and smirks without looking at you, like the whole thing is routine.

And it is. That’s the strange part. This rhythm, this familiar give and take, it hasn’t faltered at all. If anything, it’s steadier now. Like a Newton’s Cradle, metal spheres clicking back and forth with perfect, silent precision. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. You kissed, yes, but somehow the momentum hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s accelerated.

And the fire—that inconvenient flicker in your chest—hasn’t gone out. It’s grown.

You can do problem sets in your sleep, calculate uncertainty with your eyes closed. Your head is good at physics. But not at this. Not at him. Not at Satoru.

One more week.

It’s fucking pathetic, really, how you orbit him like you’re a satellite tethered by some invisible gravitational thread, spinning endlessly around a man who never even notices how tightly you cling to the edges of his light. He’s the planet—blazing, buoyant, blue-eyed—and you? You’re just the moon. Small. Reflective. Secondary. And it’s Friday again.

Your apartment is dim and warm with the leftover heat of too many bodies, the windows cracked open to invite in the smallest semblance of night air. Your friends are filing out one by one, shedding jackets, murmuring their goodbyes. Gojo’s already halfway down the hall, his voice echoing faintly in the corridor, shoulders knocking against Geto’s as the two of them stumble together like twin stars tugged by drunken gravity. His laughter is high and glassy from too many shots of the raspberry vodka he’d brought.

Shoko announces she’s staying over, tossing her overnight bag onto your couch without waiting for a response. She’s always like that—assertive in the quietest, most unshakable way. Haibara files out with Nanami, who presses a small white pastry box into your hands with the kind of care that feels like a gesture from an older brother. “Last one,” he says, and you already know what’s inside. The flaky apple strudel from that bakery his girlfriend works at.

“I’ll see you guys soon, yeah?” you call out, stepping into the hallway to wave them off. Kento turns back briefly, eyes lingering, unreadable.

He gives you a slow pat on the head, his hand heavy. “I hope you know I can tell when something is wrong.”

Your expression freezes, like a screen buffering mid-frame. “What?” You blink, caught off guard by how plainly he’s said it. “Where’s this coming from?”

“A good place,” he says, tone bone-dry, as usual. His brows furrow slightly. “And I’m not just here to provide you with baked goods that my girlfriend makes, you know. I give solid advice, too. But only if you ask.”

You blink at him once, then twice, as if trying to process a language you don’t quite understand. There’s a small silence, heavy with something unspoken. Kento watches you with the kind of exhausted fondness one reserves for stray dogs or younger cousins, then finally sighs, dragging the scarf from his coat pocket and winding it around his neck with practiced finality.

“I forget you’re as dense as pound cake, sometimes.” His voice is mild, almost affectionate, before it shifts into that flat, unwavering tone you’ve known since high-school. “Call me when you figure it out yourself. Don’t drown in the alcohol Gojo or Shoko bring. Goodnight.”

You stand in your doorway as he walks toward the elevator, his footsteps growing smaller, his silhouette swallowed by the flickering lights of the hallway. You blink again, involuntarily, as if trying to fix the moment in your mind like a photo you’re not sure you want to keep.

And when the door finally closes behind you with a soft thud, the scent of coffee leads you into the kitchen. Shoko’s already there, leaning over your ceramic duck mug, casually stealing your instant coffee.

“You don’t mind, right?” she asks, without looking up.

“Do I ever?” you mutter, already crossing the space between you, hopping up onto the edge of the counter beside her. Your feet swing gently above the tiles. The mug in her hands steams like a tiny bonfire. She stirs with a chopstick, not even glancing toward the sugar tin or creamer bottle that live in your cabinet.

“No creamer or sugar?” you ask, squinting.

“I need to stay up and cram the metabolism of tyrosine and tryptophan for Monday,” she mutters grimly. “Hell is real and it’s called the third block of biochem.”

You hum in solidarity. Shoko snorts, sips the liquid with no visible flinch, before asking, “You’re probably gonna study for a bit too, huh?”

“I pulled everything I needed earlier,” you continue. “Did it after work so I wouldn’t have to now. On the bus home and before you guys showed up. I’m sort of amazed nobody mugged me, honestly. I was sitting there like an idiot, eating a sandwich and reading up on a shift-scheduling algorithm using Grover’s adaptive search over rota configurations.”

Shoko raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.

“I’m doing a paper on it with Satoru,” you add, trying to sound casual and utterly failing. “So I was studying for it.”

“What’s going on between you two, anyway?” she asks, finally, her voice flat but her brows drawing together with a crease so precise it looks carved. There’s something deliberate about the way she sets her half-empty mug on the countertop, like punctuation. A full stop before the interrogation.

You tilt your head, pretending like you’re puzzled, as if everything has been perfectly mundane. Like your skin doesn't still burn in the places where Satoru touched you last week. Like your mouth hasn’t remembered the shape of his. You make your voice chipper, an octave too high, and ask, “What...what do you mean?”

“I mean,” she drawls the word out, slow as maple syrup, pushing her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose, “the two of you. You’re acting weird. Like, normal-weird, but off. Left-of-center. It's like the music’s still playing, but someone swapped the record without telling us. Everyone can hear it, but no one wants to say it.” She pauses. “Suguru knows. I can tell. He’s being coy about it, which pisses me off. Yu and Kento clocked something, but they just shrugged and let it go. But I won’t. I’m mad that you haven’t told me what it is yet.”

“W–what?” you blink. You can feel the blood rush to your ears like you’re a cartoon character caught red-handed. “But nothing’s going on.”

“Something totally is.” She takes a long sip of her coffee, like it’ll help her brace for your eventual confession. “Did you finally tell him you like him and he rejected you? Is that it? Because if that is it, I swear to god, I will find him and kick him in the balls. With steel-toed boots. I’m not even joking.”

You shake your head with almost comic vigor, hands up defensively, like she’s already winding up for a roundhouse. “No, absolutely not! None of that happened!”

“Then what is it, huh?” she presses. She finishes her coffee in one motion, mug clinking softly on the inside as she tips it back, then turns and rinses it in the sink. The apartment is quiet except for the water and the hum of the old refrigerator. And then, she’s facing you again. Mug in one hand, other reaching for the dishtowel draped behind your back. She wipes your ducky mug without even asking, like it's her version of a comforting gesture, but she’s glaring at you like you’ve personally betrayed her by not already spilling everything.

You gulp. Then sigh.

“We kissed.”

The world stills. For a second, you think she’s going to throw the mug. Instead, she nearly drops it. You flail forward instinctively. “Don’t drop that! Satoru gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday!”

She looks at you like you just confessed to a crime. “What do you mean you kissed?” she practically yells. Her voice rebounds off the kitchen tiles. “When did that happen? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? What is going on?”

Your shoulders are awkwardly hunched toward your ears, as if bracing for impact. You're half-expecting her to sock you in the forehead or smack the back of your head like she used to do when you dropped test tubes in high-school.

When you open your eyes, she’s not wound up or furious. She's just staring at you—unblinking, quiet, like a disappointed older sister who expected more from you and got...this.

You sigh. A long, guilty exhale. “I don’t know,” you mutter, voice half-trapped in your throat. “It was last Friday. We were in the library, working on that Planck’s Constant assignment—the easy one everyone breezed through. I asked him something dumb about his first kiss, and we were joking around, and then... blah blah blah, he offered to be mine, and then when you guys left—”

You rub the back of your neck, sheepish. “—we kissed. Then we went to sleep. Like, actually. He slept on the couch, me in bed. Completely vanilla. Absolutely nothing else happened. And everything’s been... normal. Since.”

She scrunches her nose at you like you’ve just confessed to licking a subway pole. “What do you mean, ‘blah blah blah, everything’s been normal since’?”

You wince. “I mean exactly that. We’ve just... been acting like we always did. He’s normal. I’m normal. We do our assignments, we sit together in class, we argue over stupid shit, like usual. We’re still friends. Nothing’s changed. I expected this.”

Her mouth falls open for a second, then shuts. “Are you absolutely insane?” she hisses, brows lifting like she’s watching a slow-motion car crash. “Do you not have any brain cells left? Suguru’s smarter than you. Even Haibara’s smarter than you.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re literally the most emotionally stunted person in this entire program.”

“And you,” she snaps, “would be failing if Gojo didn’t help you study. Don’t act like being second in the class isn’t completely because of him.”

That lands harder than she probably intends. You feel the words hit your ribs, low and sharp, like a sudden gust of wind knocking the breath out of you. You blink, slow. Your face falls before you can stop it.

She blinks too. Then her mouth tightens into a regretful line, the anger dissolving. “Shit,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

You don’t bother hiding your expression. “Yeah,” you say softly. “You shouldn’t have. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I felt left out,” she says, small and unapologetically pouty now, her eyes glancing toward the floor like she’s ten years old again and got caught cheating at board games. “And... Suguru knows. I think. I overheard Satoru on the phone with him last Sunday.”

Your head jerks. You've immediately forgiven her. “No fucking way.”

She shrugs, like it’s obvious, like it’s not the biggest fucking revelation of the week. “Yes way. Sunday evening. I was walking past his room. He was saying something to Suguru about regretting something or not. I didn't hear all of it, because the door was closed, but—”

Your stomach flips. “No fucking way.”

“Yes way,” she parrots again, rolling her eyes. Then her gaze sharpens, suddenly calculating. Something clicks behind her eyes like the flick of a matchstick. “You free tomorrow night?”

You narrow your eyes. “Second Saturday. No classes. I was planning to sleep in.”

“Satoru said he’s going to some party with Suguru, right?”

Your eyes narrow further. “How do you know about that?”

She grins, wide and mischievous, like a cat who’s found a canary already half-dead. “Because I’m going too. Come with me. Nanami already said no—big surprise—and Haibara’s off doing something noble with that internship of his. It's paid, can you believe it? I wish I was a finance bro, sometimes.”

“I don’t even know whose party it is,” you say, a little offended now.

“Suguru’s rich art history friend,” she shrugs. “Owns one of those cavernous houses with amazing acoustics and too many sculptures. Very mid-century, Tuscan, Los Angeles core. There’ll be alcohol. Definitely people popping edibles. Someone reciting bad beat poetry in the corner. Don’t take edibles or go near those weirdos, but come. Socialize. Make Gojo jealous, if you have to.”

You deadpan. “That’s why you want me to come?”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, yes, that would be funny. But I actually think it’ll be good for you. You’ve made your entire identity about this damn degree and it’s honestly exhausting to witness.”

You sigh, long and slow, the way a dam leaks before it breaks. “Fine.”

And she grins like she’s just won something.

Shoko insists on doing your makeup herself—smudged eyeliner with the precision of someone who hasn’t held a brush since New Year’s and glittery eyeshadow in a shade that would have horrified your mother. She tells you to shut up and sit still, fingers surprisingly gentle as she works the shimmer into the crease of your eyelid with the tip of her pinky. Her brows are furrowed with an intensity usually reserved for exams or sutures. When she finishes, she squints at you like you’re a painting she isn’t sure she’s finished yet, then nods once and says, “Perfect. Hot enough to haunt his dreams.”

You don’t get a chance to argue. She tosses you her huge leather jacket and her car keys, tells you to carry both, then rushes you out the door like you’re late for something. The drive is long—forty minutes out of the city, past streetlights that blur into soft halos and silent neighborhoods with cars lined like dominoes. You scroll through songs absently, the hum of the engine making your eyelids feel heavy. Shoko drives like she does everything: fast, reckless, with a confidence that makes you think she's never been punished for anything in her life.

The house is bizarre. The sort of rich, chaotic architecture you only ever see on TV shows about L.A. divorces or cult leaders. It’s modern, with clean lines, but there’s something deeply Tuscan about it too—terracotta roof tiles, pale stucco walls, a fountain that burbles softly near the entrance like an apology. You stare at it from the sidewalk, lips parted, blinking like it might disappear if you look too long. “Is this a villa or a set piece?” you ask.

Shoko doesn’t answer. She's too busy parallel parking with one hand, rolling her eyes when you ask whether her car’s going to get towed. “Please,” she scoffs, pulling the parking brake with unnecessary flair. “I’ve been here so many times I’m practically on the HOA board. My car’s safer here than it is on campus.”

You trail after her toward the house, clutching the jacket too tightly. She walks in like she owns the place, then greets people with a sugary voice you’ve never heard her use before, one that’s an octave too high and shaped like politeness. You watch her slip through introductions with practiced ease, like she’s done this a hundred times. Geto’s friends, then hers. You smile when prompted. You nod. You say your name like it’s not heavy in your mouth.

Inside, everything smells like expensive candles and cigarettes. Someone’s playing music from a speaker you can’t see—something low and bass-heavy that vibrates in your chest. There are at least three conversations happening around you at once, and yet none of them seem to involve you. Shoko leans in close, her lips brushing your ear as she says, “Drink. Dance. Talk to people. Make him jealous when he sees you.”

You blink. “Until then?”

“Forget he exists,” she says, pulling away with a grin that looks too smug to be friendly. “Seriously. Pretend you’ve never heard of him. Live a little. Let loose. This isn’t Yaga's classroom, babe. Let it rip.”

You don’t know whether to laugh or hide behind a potted plant, so you do neither. You breathe in, try to center yourself in your body, and nod slowly.

Then, after a few minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty; time is difficult to keep track of when there’s bass pulsing through your skin and someone’s spilled cranberry vodka on your shoe. Shoko is gone. One second she’s beside you, the next, swallowed by a house full of strangers and smoke machines, and you’re left to navigate the layout of a home that looks like it belongs to a tech startup founder with a pottery hobby.

You think maybe you’ll head toward the kitchen—at least, where you hope the kitchen is—just to breathe. Just to recalibrate your fucking soul for a minute. Maybe get a drink. Something to hold in your hand so you don’t look so much like you’re loitering in your own skin.

You begin moving through the maze. Push past the humid sea of bodies writhing in the front foyer, all dancing with the intense, out-of-body dedication of people who think this moment will save them. You pass through the living room where someone’s holding a mic and belting out old Mariah Carey and Gaga songs so off-key it should be considered a hate crime, and at least two people are doing something definitely illegal at the coffee table. You don’t look long enough to know.

Another hallway. This one is indubitably worse. Narrow, dark, the air thick with musk and breath and bodily fluids that you don't wanna think about. People pressed up against walls, hands under shirts, hips grinding in slow, desperate syncopation. Someone moans. You force your gaze forward, blinking, your focus sharp as you slice through the crowd like a blade with one singular objective: the kitchen.

And then, finally, you arrive. You don’t even feel your lungs working until you hear the sound of your own exhale. The air shifts. Less sweat, less pheromones. Thank fucking God.

The kitchen island boasts a jumbled bar of bottles—clear, amber, blood-red—most unlabelled or illegibly scrawled in Sharpie. You head toward it like a pilgrim to a shrine. Your hands shake as you pour yourself something, anything. You don’t know what it is, don’t check the bottle. You don’t even care. You just need to feel the burn of something terrible in your throat. Like the rest of the people here. That counts as grounding, right?

And then, a laugh. Almost amused. A chuckle that’s clearly not yours. You turn, blinking in surprise. There’s a guy behind you. Under-cut, pink hair, slightly crooked grin. “You just poured yourself a whole solo cup of Jäger,” he says, eyeing your drink like it personally offends him. “Either you’re suicidal… or you’re suicidal.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” you mutter, trying not to sound pathetic, “And I don’t know what that is.”

He watches you like a scientist might study a rat that’s just discovered electricity. “I’ve never seen you at one of these before.”

“I haven’t been. Well, I have, but not.. you know, this,” you admit. You hum as he steps forward, grabbing a bottle, mixing something that smells suspiciously like a midlife crisis with Diet Coke. You finally take a sip of your own drink.

It’s vile. Foul. Ungodly. Like someone melted a cough drop in a vat of acid. But you keep it in. You’re an adult, yes? You’ve suffered worse.

Your nose scrunches up involuntarily, and the guy beside you laughs. “Yeah, it’s pretty shit. You’re supposed to shoot it cold or mix it with Red Bull. Not exactly a ‘sip and reflect on life’ drink.”

“Thanks for the wisdom,” you say, voice strained, trying to press your lips into a neutral line despite the trauma your tastebuds are experiencing. He grins. “Sukuna.”

“What?”

He shrugs. “That’s my name.”

You narrow your eyes. “No shot. You’re that business guy. The one on the university soccer team.”

“Unfortunately,” he rolls his eyes, swigs from his glass. “God, I hate it. Coach is a petty little bastard. Divorced, childless, and lonely, so he tries to make up for his life’s emptiness by bullying college kids. And don’t get me started on the rest of the team. A bunch of overgrown pussies with victim complexes.”

“Wow,” you blink. “Sounds like paradise.”

He chuckles. “Oh, you have no idea.”

You talk for a while. Longer than expected. And eventually, you’re laughing. Like, really laughing—the kind that leaves your cheeks sore and your stomach tight. Sukuna is magnetic in that weird, unbothered way.

He pulls you back through the chaos, past the moaning hallway, which has only gotten grosser, and into the living room again. He drags you to the karaoke setup where you both perform a spectacularly terrible rendition of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” your voice cracking on the high notes as you swing a strange lemon-flavored beer through the air like it’s a mic. You lean on him, giggling, when a man in a Hawaiian shirt and no shoes slurs his way through a K-pop ballad, his duet partner lost in some other galaxy entirely.

Eventually, your drink runs dry. Your buzz starts to fade. You excuse yourself from the sagging leather couch, tell Sukuna you’re going to grab something else. He gives you a nod, distracted, eyes flicking between you and a girl trying to twerk to a song that absolutely does not require twerking. You smile faintly, then head back toward the kitchen.

And for a moment, just a fleeting, beautiful moment, you feel lighter. There’s something easy in your chest, something unburdened and new, as if for once you’re allowed to just exist without thinking of him. You think: maybe Shoko was right. Maybe ignoring was possible.

But then, it’s like a switch flips. You’re halfway through that disgusting little corridor, the one you tried to block from memory, when you see him.

Satoru. And someone else is there too.

They’re not kissing. Not technically. Not yet. But they’re close. Too close. Her hand on his chest, his breath fanning her forehead—the same way it did to you last week, when his mouth was against yours and everything was spinning in the best possible way. He’s looking at her like that again. The same tilt in his voice, the same smug, knowing smile that makes you want to scream. His lips curled, as if the entire fucking world belongs to him. And maybe it does.

The weight slams back into your chest like a fucking brick. Like a car accident. Like everything you’ve tried to pretend didn’t matter was always lying in wait, just biding its time to gut you again.

And it takes nothing for all the weight you managed to shake loose tonight to return to your shoulders. Heavier this time, and denser. More precise in a way that it digs into your ribs and lungs and heart and mind.

Your hands are trembling as you take a sip—no, a mouthful—of the too-sweet, too-carbonated diet coke, straight from the can, the aluminum still slick with condensation. It tastes like chemicals, like the inside of a dentist’s glove. There’s something almost medicinal about it. You don’t care. You just need something to hold, something to do with your mouth while your heart tries to claw its way out of your fucking flesh.

And then you hear footsteps. The creak of sneakers on old tile. Then an offhanded whistle. You’d recognize that sound anywhere. You smell him before you see him, which feels like a violation in itself. That absurdly expensive cologne he always overapplies, something saccharine and woody and smug. Underneath it, the faint ghost of someone else's too floral perfume, rubbed off onto his coat or collar.

He steps in like a punchline. “Out of everywhere you could’ve been tonight, I had never imagined I’d find you here,” he says, like it’s some great reveal, like he’s walked into a plot twist.

He reaches out, as casually as if you weren’t here, and grabs a bottle of soju from the counter. The last bottle, you notice. Strawberry flavored. Of course, he can’t even drink like a normal person. Everything has to be sweet. You hate him.

You narrow your eyes at him, your voice dry. “What, you think my social life is so dead that I wouldn’t go out and have some fun?”

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t smile. He just rolls his eyes in that slow, arrogant way of his, like it’s some burden to even explain. “No, I just didn’t expect to see you with Ryomen Sukuna, of all people. Seriously, him? You can do better. Come on.”

You scoff. Loudly. Theatrically. Dramatically Shakespearean in the worst way. You hope it echoes.

“Like the girl you were humping in the hallway? Sure,” you mutter, eyes rolling again as you lift the can to your lips.

When you glance back at him, the change on his face is immediate. His whole expression tightens, as if you’d hit him, or worse, told him the truth. His brows draw together. His mouth opens a little too fast. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it’s supposed to mean,” you say, voice soft. Too soft for how heavy the words land. “But sure, go ahead. Act clueless.”

“I’m acting clueless because I am fucking clueless, you idiot,” he snaps, louder now, his voice cutting into the music spilling from the other room. “You were literally all over that fucking pink-haired demon in the living room earlier and I can’t even talk to someone?”

“Talk to whoever you want, Satoru,” you say with a long breath, a tired, disgusted thing, as you push yourself off the edge of the kitchen island. “Leave me out of it. And leave yourself out of dictating my social life.”

He stares at you, unreadable now, and something about that blankness makes it worse and unbearable at the same time. As if he doesn’t understand. As if he won’t even try.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he repeats, and your whole body tenses at the echo, at the loop you’re both caught in.

You don’t answer. You’re already walking away.

“And stop asking me the same fucking question again and again,” you throw over your shoulder, not turning back this time. You walk through the corridor again, that cursed in-between hallway, still reeking of sweat and body spray and shame. You hate this house. You hate the lights that are so dim like they’re unsure whether to illuminate or conceal.

You keep walking, even as your throat tightens, even as your eyes sting—not from tears, not yet, but from the pressure of it all. You feel like screaming, but you don’t. Not here. Not with him behind you.

By the time Monday finally limps its way into existence, Satoru is avoiding you like you're contagious. Worse than that, like your presence itself is radioactive. In class, when Professor Yaga announces the semester-long project for Quantum Physics, all your lab partner and best friend (?), Gojo Satoru, does is clear his throat. It's loud and sharp and artificial, like he wants you to hear it. Then he turns his face toward the window like it's a spotlight, and ignores you for the entire sixty-minute lecture.

When class ends, he bolts. Just gathers his notebook, slings his bag over his shoulder, and walks out as if someone lit a fuse under his seat. You watch his back disappear through the crowd of students, and something in your chest coils so tight you can hardly breathe.

You curse under your breath and jam your things into your bag with the grace of a toddler mid-tantrum. Then you chase him down the corridor, like some lovesick idiot in a campus rom-com. It's pathetic, you know that. You're aware of how this must look—your shoes slapping the linoleum, your bag bouncing, your voice rising.

"So what, you're just gonna ignore me now?" you call out, loud enough that people turn.

He doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t even slow down. Barely flicks a glance in your direction. His silence is pointed. You scoff, footsteps faster now, catching up to him. “Satoru, you can act like a child when it’s not about our grades. We need to get started on this tonight or we’re going to fall behind. It’s going to take at least two weeks for the two of us to—”

“I’m busy,” he says, sharp, voice flat.

Your eyes narrow. “What thing could be more important than—”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he interrupts, voice suddenly sugarcoated, but thick with venom. His words are polished and mean like a knife dressed in silk. “Just a date. With that girl you were so jealous of. Start the stupid project without me. I’m sure you won’t get far anyway.”

It lands like a slap. And still, you’re dumb enough to flinch.

“You’re such an asshole,” you hiss, voice pitching up as your pulse rises. “And so fucking emotionally stunted. I wasn’t jealous, you absolute buffoon!”

“Sure you weren’t,” he says, with a careless shrug that might as well be a slap in the face. Then he turns the corner.

And there she is. Of course.

She’s standing maybe thirty feet away, backlit by the building’s glass doors, scrolling through her phone like she isn’t the metaphorical guillotine that’s about to drop on your entire day. When she looks up and sees him, she smiles. He waves. She waves back. And then, together, they walk through the glass doors like some perfect ending to a scene you didn’t audition for.

You stand there. You don’t chase after him this time. You don’t yell. You don’t cry. Not exactly.

But your throat tightens like something small and cruel has lodged itself inside it, and your eyes sting—just a little. Barely. Just enough to make you blink more than once. Just enough to make you taste salt when there’s no wind. Just enough to remind you what it feels like to be invisible to the person who, until recently, made you feel like you were the whole damn world.

By the time you stumble through your front door that evening, the group chat is already a frenzy, the little notification bubble swollen and urgent as if it’s been holding its breath all day, waiting for you. You kick the door shut behind you, sighing into the quiet of your apartment as you fling your bag onto the floor with graceless precision, then let yourself collapse into the couch like a corpse washing up onto shore—limbs heavy, mind slightly waterlogged.

For a moment you just lie there, the phone still silent on the coffee table. You reach for it reluctantly, dragging it toward you as if it might bite, and finally check the screen. You hadn’t picked it up since before work, and it’s clear your absence has not gone unnoticed.

The first thing you see is Satoru’s handle—satoru :3—his message loud and smug even in its brevity:

congrats nanamin >:))) when r u giving us a treat?

Then Shoko, predictably, with her two cents, which reads more like an itinerary:

i vote for that fancy korean place downtown!! their bbq AND alcohol is top notch ;)

And then Nanami himself, already sighing through the screen:

I quite literally just landed the internship. I'm the one who is going to do all the labor and you idiots want me to treat you to alcohol and meat at a fancy restaurant? Downright disgraceful.

Haibara, naturally, cannot resist throwing gasoline on the fire:

YES I TOO CAST MY VOTE FOR KOREAN BBQ AND ALCOHOL!!!!

Suguru’s text chimes in like a cat’s stretch:

i lowk agree, i fw this

You blink at your phone, scrolling up just enough to see what started this celebratory dogpile. There, nestled among the chaos, is a screenshot—Nanami’s e-mail, clinical and unembellished except for the big truth in the center: he’s been offered an internship. A paid internship at one of the biggest financial firms. You let out a small, involuntary gasp, the kind that escapes before you can dress it up in words.

Your thumbs move before you can overthink it:

congrats on the internship, ken! i also want food and alcohol >:)

A pause. Then his dry, surgical response:

Oh.

You grin into the screen, that small private smile you’d never admit is for him, before setting the phone facedown on the coffee table again. The couch seems to sink further under you as you slouch into it, every muscle unravelling in the most decadent kind of laziness. And then, as if remembering something unpleasant, you let out a long, guttural groan, the kind meant for no one’s ears but your own.

Friday comes faster than you can blink. And Satoru’s right, you can’t do the project alone. Not that he’s made any attempt to prove otherwise. He’s a complete twat. Disappears the second class ends, vanishes before you can catch him, spends his evenings out with a rotating cast of strangers while you’re left wrestling quantum gravity equations that make your head ache.

You hate him for it. Or, worse, you don’t. Not at all.

You lock your apartment door with a resignation that feels bone-deep. Shoko’s text pings your phone—something about how you’re making her freeze outside while she waits, even though she's in her car. Nanami’s finally cashing in on that promise to treat everyone: the Korean barbecue place with the good alcohol.

Tonight calls for armor. Black trousers, a dressy top, nothing too try-hard. Shoko, too busy shadowing her professor in an operating room earlier, hasn’t had the chance to critique your choices. You step out into the cool air to find her leaning against the car.

“Look at you,” she whistles as you come down the stairs. “Cleaning up nice on your own? Without me? Criminal.”

“I was braced for an insult,” you mumble, sliding into the passenger seat. “Poked myself in the eye three times doing eyeliner.”

“Well, you’ve got that smudgy, tragic emo character thing going,” she says, handing you a small bottle filled with something sharp-smelling. “Pre-game?”

“Shoko, we’re going to eat food and celebrate someone’s employment. What is wrong with you?” You roll your eyes and take it anyway. “And you’re driving. No drinking for you.”

“I’ll behave,” she says, starting the car. “That was for you. Anyway, what’s the deal with Gojo? Still in your mutual cold war?”

“It’s not even that,” you groan. “He ignores me so thoroughly he doesn’t even do the project work. I’m drowning in tensor fields while he’s out living his best life.”

“In short, an asshole,” she concludes, turning the wheel. You nod, sinking back into your seat, letting her half-serious jabs—about you looking like you belong in an emo knockoff Radiohead band, about your eyeliner mishap—pull you out of the spiral, if only a little.

In about fifteen minutes, Shoko pulls into the lot and slides the gearshift into park, the engine’s low hum dying away. She doesn’t even wait for the last click of the ignition before she’s tossing her keys in your direction, so you’re left fumbling to catch them and shove them into the depths of the bag you’d slung over your shoulder.

You follow her inside, the smell of grilled meat and something sweet already curling through the air, thick enough that you can almost taste the char. Your shoes click softly against the tiled floor, and there’s a low swell of chatter all around you. Warm, full of laughter and the easy comfort of people already deep into their first drink.

But the moment your eyes adjust to the light and you really see the table, your stomach sinks. There’s no room. Well, there’s technically room. Exactly two seats left.

Shoko doesn’t even hesitate; she threads her way to the far side and slips into the chair beside Suguru like it’s the only possible choice, her coat already sliding off the back of the seat in one smooth motion. And that means—inevitably, unavoidably—you are left with the other chair. The one beside Gojo Satoru. Your current sworn enemy and ex-best friend, who also happens to be the man you've been in love with since you met him.

You stand there for a fraction too long, smiling in a way that feels brittle, cursing her entire lineage in your head—mother, father, grandparents, great-grandparents, all the way back to whatever primitive ancestor first decided to crawl out of the sea and make bad decisions.

There’s no dignified way to do it, so you lower yourself into the seat with all the resignation of someone stepping into a cold bath, your knees brushing his under the table almost immediately. You keep your gaze fixed on the water glass in front of you, fingers curling around it like a lifeline, and take a long drink you don’t particularly need.

You can hear him shift beside you—too close, always too close—and you don’t have to look to know he’s noticed. You keep your eyes on the condensation slipping down the glass, pretending you have not, in fact, been maneuvered into this exact position like a pawn on a chessboard.

The table is a chaos of small plates and open bottles, a battlefield of sesame oil dishes and stainless-steel chopsticks. The grill in the center hisses, fat spitting onto the metal, the air thick with char and smoke. Suguru, still studying the laminated menu as if there’s a hidden page no one else has been shown, waves the waiter over and calmly lists another six dishes.

Haibara nods along like a conspirator, eyes round with anticipation. “We should get more of the sweet soy-marinated ribs,” he says, glancing at you for support. “And the kimchi pancakes. And—”

“Done,” Suguru says, cutting him off with a flick of his pen across the order slip, before handing it to the waiter.

You’re midway through a lettuce wrap when Gojo leans back in his seat, his arm slipping along the backrest of your chair like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He tips his chin toward the bottle of strawberry soju between you.

“Alright, question,” he says, the tone not curious at all, but premeditated, the same way a man might ask if anyone has heard of a harmless little card trick before pulling out a deck that’s already rigged. “Who here is brave enough for a drinking game?”

Nanami doesn’t even look up from his plate. “No.”

Shoko, though, doesn’t hesitate. She drops her chopsticks onto her plate with a clink. “Yes.”

Gojo’s grin widens.

“See, that’s the attitude. The rest of you,” His eyes sweep over Nanami, Suguru, Haibara, and finally you, “will regret saying no in about three minutes, so you might as well save yourselves the shame.”

Nanami exhales through his nose, already looking resigned. “What’s the game?”

Gojo sits forward, eyes bright behind his glasses. “It’s called ‘Bunny Bunny.’”

“God,” Nanami mutters.

Gojo ignores him, already uncapping the soju. “Here’s how it works. We sit in a circle—”

“We’re already in a circle,” Shoko says dryly, pouring herself a soju shot.

“Exactly,” Gojo says. “Now, the person whose turn it is does the ‘bunny ears’ gesture—like this—” He puts his hands on top of his head, index and middle fingers up, smiling with unhinged cheer. “—and says ‘Bunny bunny.’ The people on either side have to immediately do this—” He points sideways at an imaginary neighbor, fingers curled like little paws, “—and say ‘Teki teki teki’ really fast. Then it moves to whoever got pointed at, and they go again. If you hesitate, you drink. If you point the wrong way, you drink. If you don’t say it fast enough…” He fills your shot glass. “You drink.”

“That’s idiotic,” Nanami says flatly.

“It’s fun,” Gojo corrects, his smile sharpening. “Also, new rule, if anyone forgets the rules, they finish their drink.”

“That’s the same as ‘hesitate,’” you point out.

“Exactly,” he says.

Shoko is already practicing her “teki teki” under her breath, testing how fast she can get her tongue around the syllables. Haibara looks delighted, like a child who’s just learned he’s allowed dessert before dinner. Suguru is still distracted by the arrival of a steaming pot of kimchi stew, but he nods when Gojo calls his name.

“First round,” Gojo announces, raising his glass. “We go clockwise. I’ll start.”

It’s over in seconds, Gojo slaps the bunny ears on his head and calls “Bunny bunny” at you before you’ve even swallowed your last bite. You panic, point left instead of right, and stammer out something that might be “teki teki” but sounds suspiciously like “tiki tiki.”

“Drink,” Gojo says, with the satisfied tone of a man winning a bet no one else agreed to.

Shoko, when her turn comes, is lightning-fast, her “teki teki” sharp and perfect. You can’t tell if it’s genuine skill or some quiet sleight of hand. She never hesitates. She never points wrong. And somehow, everyone else keeps missing when she’s in play.

By the third round, your glass is already warm in your hand, and Gojo’s grin has gone foxlike. Suguru and Haibara are trying to play and grill meat at the same time, which leads to Yu getting caught mid-turn while flipping a piece of pork belly, earning a drink penalty. Nanami loses once, then deliberately opts out, nursing his beer in silence.

Shoko still hasn’t drunk a drop. Even though she’s practically the full-time alcoholic of the group.

And then time passed in that easy, slippery way it always does in the middle of drinking games. The table growing rowdier, the shuffling of seats clumsy, the clink of glasses constant. The food half-forgotten, left to char against the hot iron while someone lost another round. You were losing more than you were eating, the strawberry-sweet aftertaste of flavored soju coating your tongue, the sharp warmth pooling heavy in your stomach.

Haibara was gone, absolutely gone, red-faced and smiling at nothing, slumped against Suguru who was somehow winning, still sharp and calm and unshaken. Shoko, infuriatingly, hadn’t taken a single honest drink, slipping through loopholes in the rules just to take a shot, skipping rounds, somehow cheating, though no one could quite catch her at it. Eventually she began drinking anyway, as if she were the one who had been losing all along, lifting her glass as if in some private mockery of the rest of you.

You could feel yourself fading, the pleasant buzz of alcohol beginning to tip into haze, the line between warmth and heat starting to blur. You were just about to excuse yourself, to opt out before the night pressed too far, when you felt it—his knee, knocking against yours under the table. Not accidental, not soft, but hard.

You hiss, leaning sideways toward him, voice low. “What are you doing? That hurts.”

He only smiles faintly, without apology, leaning close enough that his breath smells of liquor and grilled meat. “Come on, don’t be a sore loser. I’ll drop you home later. Keep playing.” He says it casually, almost sweetly, as if everything between the two of you is unchanged, as if you’ve never noticed the absence of him these past days, as if things have not shifted in ways you cannot ignore.

The strawberry taste curdles suddenly, bitter on your tongue. A heat that is not the alcohol creeps up your neck, your cheeks. Something feels awfully, unbearably wrong, and with the fog in your head tightening its grip, you cannot stop yourself.

“What is your problem?” you demand, voice sharper than you intend, but steady enough.

He blinks, confused, caught. “What?”

“First, you avoid me like the plague,” you say, the words tumbling out with all the weight you’ve carried for a while. “You don’t sit with me in the library to do the quantum physics project. Instead, you go around on dates with different people every day. Then you make out with someone at that dumb party. And now, you’re acting as if everything is alright? Unlike you, I know my limits.”

The table goes silent. Forks and chopsticks pause midair. Suguru looks up from his glass, Haibara blinks slow and slack, Shoko raises an eyebrow with clinical interest. Nanami looks concerned. Really concerned.

But you cannot look at any of them. You can only look at him. Satoru’s face, the faint flush across his high cheekbones, his wide mouth pressed flat into a line. His eyes—the impossible blue of sky, with flecks of light in them like stars trapped in daylight—fixed on you with startled sharpness.

He blinks once. Then again, slower. “Can we not do this here?”

The words ignite something in you, stoking the bitter fire at the back of your throat. “Oh, so when I wanted to talk to you that day, you avoided me. I’m just supposed to wait until you’re ready to dictate how this goes?” Your voice rises, just a little, just enough that the nearby table glances over.

He grits his teeth, the careful edge in his voice barely containing something rougher beneath. “Can we not air out all our dirty laundry in front of our friends?”

“Oh no,” Shoko interrupts, her tone laced with lazy delight. She clicks her tongue, propping her chin in her palm, watching you both as if this were a play staged for her amusement. “By all means, continue. This is highly entertaining. And I say that after being in an operating room today.”

The words land heavy. You freeze, the weight of the table’s attention finally cutting through the haze. Your own voice echoing back at you in your mind. And suddenly you cannot bear it.

You reach for your bag with fumbling hands, standing. “Shoko, take a cab home. I’m not giving you your keys back till tomorrow when you’re sober.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Suguru blurts, startled, setting down his tiny glass of soju with an uncharacteristic clink.

You nod, moving quickly, unwilling to look back at Satoru. “You guys continue on without me. I’m not feeling too well.”

“Are you sure?” Nanami asks, steady as always, his brows drawn together with a hint of concern. “I’ll call you a cab. Sit here till then.”

“It’s fine.” You shake him off, forcing a small smile that feels stiff on your lips. “Good night, guys.”

A mixture of tired, and inebriated “good nights” and “take cares” echo through the table, and then you are gone, the sound of your friends’ voices swelling back into noise behind you, the door swinging shut, the night air outside too cool, too clear after the heavy smoke and warmth of the restaurant.

You try to calm down, you really do. You tell yourself to breathe, to count to four, to inhale deeply and let it out slowly, but none of it works. Your body has already betrayed you. Your breath comes in these quick, shallow bursts that scrape at your throat. Your heart is thrumming against your ribs so violently you think, absurdly, that it must be visible through your shirt. There’s adrenaline rushing through you as if you’ve been running, as if you’ve been fleeing some danger you cannot name, and your hands are trembling as though they belong to someone else entirely. You imagine your pupils are blown wide, black swallowing color, and you hate that he might notice.

You fumble in your bag for your phone, fingers slippery, uncooperative. When you finally tug it free, you open the app with hands that won’t stop shaking, the blue-white light harsh against your eyes. You press through the motions quickly, desperately, like if you can just summon a car—any car—you can escape this moment, this night, this unbearable pressure in your chest.

And then you hear it. A voice cutting through the dark like it’s been carved for you alone. Your name, spoken desperately, as if the act of saying it might tether you back. You freeze. Slowly, against your own better judgment, you turn.

Satoru.

“I’m sorr—”

“Satoru, I really don’t wanna hear it, okay?” The words fall out before you can even think, an exhausted sigh riding underneath them. “Leave me alone. That’s all you’ve been doing these days, anyway.”

He looks stricken, the line of his mouth twisting, brows furrowing so sharply it looks almost drawn. “I’m here to apologize,” he says, and the sincerity in it makes your stomach twist. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” you answer, voice flat, nodding once as if that should end it. “And I’m sure you regret everything. So just—just let me be, okay? I’ll do the project on my own, too. You don’t have to tie yourself down to me anymore. Find a new lab partner—that girl I’m so jealous of, maybe—or do it on your own, for all I care, but just… leave me alone, okay?”

His breath catches, his words climbing higher, thinner, almost breaking. “I’m trying to fix things. Can’t you see that?”

You shake your head, the sharpness creeping into your own voice now. “What are you trying to fix? Our friendship? Because it’s broken beyond repair now. You should have never kissed me when you knew you’d regret it later. And you really shouldn’t have acted like a total manchild afterward, because all it did was make me feel like absolute shit.”

He takes a step closer, and his voice, when it comes, is stripped down, all defenses gone. “You think I regret kissing you?” His tone is low, almost fragile, and it breaks against you, softer than you can stand.

You don’t answer. You can’t. The silence between you swells, heavy, unforgiving. You stare down at the pavement, at your shoes, at anything that isn’t him. Because if you look—if you really look—you’ll see it: the way he appears wounded, gutted, like you’ve just driven a knife through him. You’ll see how beautiful he still is, impossibly so, with that raw openness that only makes you hurt more. And worse, you’ll remember him as he once was, the boy you loved long before you ever knew what it meant to love anyone.

The sharp honk of a car rips through the moment, startling you both. Your cab. The one you begged for. The one that’s come to deliver you away from him.

Your throat feels tight as you force the words out. “Good night, Satoru,” you murmur, low, and you walk toward the car without looking back.

You wake with a hangover so punishing it feels personal. Your head pounds with an insistent rhythm, too loud for the silence of the room, too sharp for the softness of the pillow you press your face into. Your stomach twists with the kind of sour nausea that makes you wonder if you’ll ever drink again.

Even the room feels claustrophobic, air heavy with the smell of stale alcohol and the faint sweetness of shampoo clinging to your hair. And outside, because the universe has a cruel sense of humor, it’s raining. Not the delicate kind of rain that makes the streets glisten and feels cinematic, but the thick, gray kind that weighs down the sky and drags everything with it, including your mood.

Your phone begins its campaign against your peace almost immediately. It rings when you brush your teeth, rattling impatiently on the counter. It rings again when you sit down with a mug of coffee, bitter on your tongue, the heat doing nothing to untangle the knot in your chest. It rings while you drag a brush through your hair, while you stand in the doorway of the bathroom debating whether you actually have the strength to shower. Always the same vibration, over and over, like the universe refusing to let you ignore it.

You finally pick it up, thumb fumbling against the screen, and the sight that greets you makes you groan aloud. Fifty-three unread texts from Shoko. Two from Suguru. Twenty-seven missed calls, all Shoko again. A sick sort of dread pools in you—not just because she’s relentless, but because you can barely stand the thought of human contact right now. After last night, after Satoru, after everything—you want silence. Isolation. You want the world to stop knocking at your door.

Still, you call her back. You barely get her name out before she shrieks through the line, “My keys!”

“Yeah,” you mumble, already tugging at your shirt, pulling it over your head and tossing it across the bathroom, where it lands in a miserable heap in the laundry basket. Your voice feels rough, unused, brittle. “I think I put it in my bag yesterday. Can’t remember shit after the seventh soju shot. I think.” You don’t add: can’t remember the exact moment the night began to blur, can’t remember how his face kept appearing in the blur anyway, Satoru’s voice replaying in the corners of your mind even when you wanted so desperately to shut it out.

“Can you come by that restaurant?” Shoko asks, tone clipped, urgent. “Like right now?”

“Why?” you groan, leaning against the bathroom sink, the porcelain cool against your bare hip. “Can’t I give it to you later?”

“No,” she snaps, clicking her tongue the way she does when she’s losing patience. “Because I’m going back home for the night. My mom called. And Suguru’s taking care of this cat I brought home a few days ago while I’m gone. Bring my keys, I’ll see you there.”

“I’ll shower and then leave—”

“Leave right now, or I’ll throw a shoe at your head,” she cuts in, voice dropping low, dangerous. You don’t have to see her to picture it: her teeth gritted, her jaw locked tight, her hand probably gripping her phone as though it’s your neck.

You sigh, the sound long and weary, giving in because it’s easier than fighting. Then you end the call.

You don’t change. The thought of pulling on new clothes feels monumental and somewhat of a Sisyphean task. You remain in your pajamas: Hello Kitty pants, pink bows dulled from too many washes, and a black T-shirt with a cat’s face printed on it. You grab Shoko’s car keys from your bag, your phone, screen still lit with unread messages, and you book yourself a cab. The app flashes a price at you. Not too expensive. Manageable.

And as you wait, you feel the sour churn of last night still lingering—the image of Satoru’s face, the sound of his voice breaking on words you refused to believe, the way you’d left him standing there like some wet, wounded kitten. The memory claws at the back of your mind, making the hangover feel heavier, the rain louder, the world more unbearable.

When you get there, Shoko is waiting in the parking lot, planted beside her car as if she’s been there for hours, the kind of stillness only she can pull off. One hand is balancing the umbrella, the other braced against her hip, her narrow frame bent into an attitude of unbothered irritation. She looks like she’s judging you—no, like she’s studying you the way a cat does a half-dead mouse it hasn’t decided whether to play with or finish off. Her eyes track your every step, and you feel embarrassingly small under her gaze, half-running, one hand held over your head even though the rain is too thick for that gesture to matter. Your hair is plastered against your face within seconds, your clothes cling uncomfortably to your skin. It’s no use. You’re soaked.

You toss the keys at her like you can’t get rid of them fast enough, and she, of course, catches them midair with barely a flicker of movement. Curse her and her reflexes, Shoko never misses. With an easy twist, she unlocks the car, sighs, then jerks her chin at you.

“Get in, loser.”

You pause, half-grinning despite the pounding in your skull. “You’re dropping me home?”

She smirks like you’ve said something stupid. “No. I’m kidnapping you to mine. Come meet my new cat. I’ll make Suguru book you a cab later.”

The suggestion makes you balk. You groan as you slide into the passenger seat. “But won’t that be expensive—”

“Just get in.” Her hand presses against your back briefly, shoving you toward the seat, and then she circles the hood of the car with a kind of grace that’s all muscle memory. She folds the umbrella, throws it in the back, and settles herself into the driver’s seat. The car roars awake and you buckle in automatically.

“Shoko, I have a hangover,” you whine, voice thick, still raw from too much soju and shouting over the bar’s music last night. The inside of your mouth feels coated in something sour, and you regret every word you can’t remember saying.

“There’s vitamins in the center console,” she says, not looking at you, voice flat as ever. “And coconut water at mine. Suguru’s making noodle soup, I think. You might as well stay over for the day.”

“Shoko, I feel like shit.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, groaning. “And I keep thinking about what I said yesterday—”

“To Satoru?” She doesn’t let you finish. She cuts in cleanly, as if she’d been waiting for you to circle around to that. Her tone is brisk, indifferent, though her eyes flick briefly to you at the red light. “Yeah, he’s probably a mess. No texts, no calls since last night. He left right after you did. I got more drunk, Nanami dragged Yu home, and Suguru came over to mine. Honestly, I should just have him move in. He cleans up, cooks for me. Perfect roommate. If you buy him art supplies, he’s basically a servant.”

You groan again, pressing your head against the cool window. “Shoko, come on, I probably stink.”

“Then shower at mine,” she says, almost yawning. “Who cares? You can’t be alone right now. You’ll spiral. I know you. I know your dumb brain.”

“My brain isn’t dumb.”

“Emotionally, your brain has the same capacity as a block of wood.”

“Okay, first of all—”

“No.” She doesn’t let you finish, her patience thinner than the cigarette she’s already itching to light. She flips open the center console with one hand, fishes out a bottle without looking, and tosses it at you like she’s pitching in gym class. You fumble uselessly, the vitamins bouncing against your chest and tumbling into your lap.

Then she rolls down her window with one flick of the switch, shakes out a cigarette from the pack, and fits it between her lips. The rain drizzles in through the small opening, cold droplets spraying against your wrist.

“You don’t mind, right?” she asks, but it’s not really a question.

“Not really.” You shrug, shifting the pill bottle between your fingers. “I might as well have one too.”

Her lighter clicks, flaring in the dull grey of the storm. The cigarette glows faintly, and her voice comes out low, muffled around the filter. “You know smoking kills, right?”

You give her a look, your brow raised in disbelief. “Yeah. And I might as well kill myself.”

“You’re both idiots,” Shoko mutters, exhaling a stream of smoke out the cracked window. The drizzle has thinned into a half-hearted mist, tapping against the glass in lazy rhythms. Her voice is flat, but her words land sharp. “Uselessly stupid. Clueless, the pair of you.” She takes another drag, then tips her head toward you. “Just admit it already. You’re hopelessly in love with him.”

“If I admit it,” you murmur, twisting the cap off the vitamin bottle in your lap, “it becomes real. And I don’t want it to.” Two tablets rattle into your palm. You reach for the water bottle she always keeps wedged between the seats, unscrewing the cap like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world, though your pulse is anything but steady.

“What’s so bad about your feelings?”

You laugh under your breath, bitter, small. “What’s bad is that they’re for him.” You pop the vitamins into your mouth, swallow them down with a swig of water, then stare out the window, where the streetlights smear through the wet glass. “Letting him know will ruin me.”

Shoko gives you an unimpressed look, smoke curling from her lips. “He’d still be your friend, stupid. Satoru’s a menace, sure, but he isn’t cruel.”

“It’s not that.” You shake your head hard, as if you can dislodge the ache from your chest. “If he doesn’t feel the same—which he doesn’t—it’ll kill me. It already is killing me.”

For a moment she doesn’t answer. Just a slow inhale, then the rasp of smoke leaving her lungs. She huffs, turns her face toward the window, and says nothing at all.

The rain lets up just as Shoko pulls into her apartment’s lot, fine mist trailing across the windshield, the last drops spitting from the sky, as if even the weather has grown tired of your whining. The wipers drag once more, squeaking against the glass, before she kills the engine and glances at you.

“Come on. Don’t make me drag you,” she mutters, tugging her umbrella from the backseat. She doesn’t even open it when she steps out; it’s stopped, the air damp and cool, smelling of wet earth and rain-battered asphalt. You follow, dragging your feet, clutching your phone like it might be the last tether to your own space.

The climb up the stairwell feels endless, the smell of old cigarettes and disinfectant rising from the carpet. Shoko doesn’t bother with small talk; she just fishes her keys from her coat pocket, and the silence between you feels comfortably thick, filled with what she said in the car—hopelessly in love. Like it lingers in the air, impossible to swat away.

By the time she fits the key into the lock, you hear it—a soft, insistent mewl. The door cracks open an inch, and the sound grows louder, almost urgent. Then, before the door is even halfway open, a blur of black and white fur streaks through the gap and launches itself at Shoko’s shins.

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, bending slightly to scoop the tiny body up. The kitten fits easily in her hands, all sharp paws and clumsy energy, batting at the cigarette box still sticking out of her pocket. Shoko scratches behind its ear with one blunt nail, face softening almost imperceptibly. “You’ve got no patience, huh?”

The rest of the door swings open fully, and behind it, Suguru. Barefoot, hair tied back, sleeves pushed up, the smell of broth and scallions floating past him into the hallway. His gaze flicks over the two of you, then down to the kitten twisting in Shoko’s arms, before he shifts to the side to let you both in.

“She’s been crying for you since you left to go run errands,” he says, voice calm, before he looks over at you, “Hey.”

Shoko snorts, brushing past him into the apartment. “Yeah, well. She’ll live.”

You step in last, the door clicking shut behind you, and suddenly the space feels small, the kitten’s squeaky protests, and the quiet domesticity of it all—the soup simmering, Suguru’s calm presence, Shoko’s mess of shoes and ashtrays scattered near the entryway.

It feels almost too warm.

“Hangover?” Suguru asks after Shoko sets the kitten down on a lopsided pile of blankets near the wall, its makeshift bed tucked into the corner like an afterthought. She disappears into the bathroom without waiting for a reply, the sound of running water echoing a moment later.

You nod, voice low. “Yeah. Took some vitamins in the car.”

“She told me to make you lunch,” he says, tilting his head toward the bathroom door, his expression dry but amused. “So come on. Cat’s not gonna stay put for long.”

You glance toward the bundle of fur, its eyes half-lidded, paws twitching as if in a dream. “She’s cute,” you murmur. “When did Shoko get her?”

“Couple days ago. Didn’t mention it till last night. Wants me to look after it while she’s at her mom’s place. Her dad’s sick, I think.” He moves toward the kitchen without looking back, hands already busy with the pot simmering on the stove.

You follow, leaning your hip against the counter, watching the steam curl upward in lazy spirals. “Soup smells good.”

“Yeah?” His smile is soft, private. He dips a spoon into the broth, lifts it carefully, and holds it out toward you. “Here. Tell me if it needs more salt.”

You hesitate for the smallest fraction of a second, then part your lips, letting the warmth spill across your tongue. The broth tastes rich, comforting, but you swallow before answering. “Just a bit more. Not too much.”

He hums, tipping his head in agreement, reaching for the salt. And then, in a flash of movement, the kitten streaks into the kitchen like a bullet, its tiny pink claws catching fabric as it scales the back of his dark crew neck. Within seconds it has claimed his shoulder, tail swishing proudly.

“See?” he grins, turning his face toward you, the little creature perched like a triumphant parrot. “Told you she wouldn’t stay put.”

“She’s adorable,” you coo, reaching out to stroke her tiny head, your fingers brushing against the curve of his shoulder as you do. “What’d Shoko name her?”

“She’s thinking of something artistic. But I say we should go with something darker. Diabolical.” His grin widens, teeth flashing. “How about Poland? What do you think?”

You blink at him slowly before bursting into laughter. “Poland? Are you serious?”

“Completely,” he says without hesitation. “Look at her. If she grew a proper mustache, instead of just a small black patch near her nose, she’d annex multiple countries, if you get the gist.” With one hand he lifts the kitten from his shoulder and deposits her gently into your arms.

You cradle her against your chest, the small body warm, vibrating faintly with a purr. You press your cheek to her fur, still smiling. “She’s a baby. She could never.”

“Don’t underestimate her just because she’s a white cat with big, pretty green eyes and a mini mustache. I have scratches up my arms that tell another story,” Suguru says, rolling his eyes with theatrical disgust. The kitten dangles limply in your arms, purring, blinking up at you as if she knows full well she’s been slandered. He gestures vaguely toward the living room. “Can you grab my sketchbook? Soup just needs a few more minutes to boil. I’ll work on my drawing until then.”

“Yeah, sure,” you say, loyal in the way you always are with him. The kitten presses herself more firmly against your chest, claws kneading through the fabric of your shirt as you head into the living room.

Suguru’s infamous sketchbook lies facedown on the sofa, the cover slightly bent, his pencils and black pens scattered across the coffee table in a mess that is so unlike his usual precision. You bend to pick it up. Instinct makes you flip it open—curiosity before manners—and then your breath stops.

It’s movie night. The one where Gojo kissed you after everyone else had left. But Suguru hasn’t drawn that. Not exactly.

It’s you, rendered with a precision and softness that feels almost indecent, leaning against Suguru’s shoulder the way you had that evening. Around you are the others—Nanami, Yu, Shoko—but the eye goes immediately to Gojo.

Gojo, staring. At you. At your head resting on Suguru’s shoulder. His face caught in that fractured moment between disdain and desire, jealousy written into the corners of his mouth, his eyes betrayed by something almost tender.

“Suguru—”

“Oh.” His voice comes from behind you, flat, almost bored, but too carefully so. You whirl around to find him there, wiping his hands absently on a dish towel. “Yeah. I thought you knew that he liked you. He was practically vibrating with jealousy that day.”

“What?” you blurt, stupidly. The word falls out of you like a stone dropping into water. You stare down at the sketchbook still open in your hands, then back at him. “Are you serious, or is this one of your terrible jokes?”

“Have you ever known me to joke about things like this?” He arches a brow, steps forward, and effortlessly plucks Poland from your arms. She mewls as if echoing the ridiculousness of your disbelief.

The bathroom door creaks open and Shoko walks out, towel slung over her shoulders, damp strands of hair curling against her cheeks. She takes one look at your expression, then at Suguru, then the sketchbook in your grip. “What’s going on?”

“Wait, did you know Satoru liked me back?” you demand, finger jabbing at her accusingly, then at the sketchbook, the gesture wild, uncoordinated, fueled by panic. “Is that why you were talking all that crap about guilt and feelings in the car?”

Shoko stares at you as though you’ve asked whether water is wet. She points to her forehead, deadpan, and turns to Suguru. “Does it say ‘stupid fucking idiot’ up here?”

He shakes his head gravely, though there’s the glint of amusement on his mouth.

“Why else do you think I said it, genius?” Shoko adds, eyes narrowing.

“Why couldn’t you just say he liked me back, like a normal person, in normal words?” you explode. Your voice cracks in the middle, humiliatingly shrill, and you wince at yourself even as the words echo through the room.

Shoko shrugs, expression flat, careless. “Why should I? That’s for you to find out and for him to tell you. Why do I have to do extra work?”

Frustration rises in you like steam. You snatch a throw-pillow from the sofa and hurl it at her. She catches it without looking, reflexes effortlessly infuriating.

You whirl back to Suguru. “Is your scooter downstairs?”

“What do you mean, ‘is his scooter downstairs’?” Shoko’s voice jumps an octave, incredulous.

You ignore her, staring at Suguru with a desperation that must look almost deranged. “Suguru, give me your keys.”

“But you don’t know how to drive—”

“You told me once that it’s like a bicycle, right?” Your tone is clipped, urgent, edged with a kind of wild insistence. “Come on. Just let me go.”

“You don’t even have a license—”

“I’ll pay the fine if I get stopped by a cop,” your voice sharp, hands clenched into a fist. “Please. Let me have this.”

For a moment he only looks at you, the kitten nestled in one arm, his dark eyes unreadable. Then he sighs. With his free hand, he fishes into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out his keys, tossing them lightly toward you.

You fumble them, nearly drop them, but manage to hold on. The keys feel heavier than they should in your palm.

“I owe you big time,” you breathe, already moving toward the front door, heart in your throat.

“What if you crash the scooter?” Shoko calls after you.

You spin around long enough to glare at her. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

She raises her eyebrows. “At least you’re self-aware enough to know you’re somewhat of one.”

“I hate you,” you throw over your shoulder, fumbling with your shoes, hands shaking. “Suguru, thank you! I owe you art supplies—expensive ones!”

You slam the door behind you.

Inside, silence lingers for a beat. Then Shoko looks at Suguru. He’s grinning, highly pleased.

“Score,” he says, in a sing-song voice, meeting her gaze.

Poland mews in his arms, completely indifferent.

This feels like the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done, and that’s saying something, considering the long catalogue of reckless choices you’ve stacked up until now. But this one, this is different. This one feels like a decision you might not walk away from.

You know the route by heart, etched into you after all the times you’ve been dragged to Satoru’s. He lives about ten minutes from Shoko’s flat, two neighborhoods away, in a tall, high-rise building that looks like it’s made of glass, and an elevator that never quite works right. Sixth floor.

The rain begins again just as you turn onto the street, as if the sky has been waiting for the exact moment you set the scooter in motion. Not a drizzle—never that—but a downpour that slaps the pavement, turns the air heavy, blinds you in sheets. Within seconds, you’re soaked. Suguru’s black helmet is too big, the strap biting into your jaw, water leaking down the back of your neck until it crawls down your spine like cold fingers.

You grip the handlebars so tightly your knuckles ache, clutching them like they’re the only fragile rope tethering you to safety. The scooter hums and trembles beneath you, every bump of the road rattling through your bones. You hold your breath as if letting it go might unravel you, as if the entire balance of this desperate flight depends on the rhythm of your lungs.

Your heart is thunder in your ears. Louder than any engine, or the pitter-patter of the rain. Each beat ricochets, echoing in your ribs. You think if anyone could cut you open right now, they’d see it thrashing inside, like an animal desperate to escape.

The rain glues your clothes to you. Your black t-shirt, your ridiculous Hello Kitty pajama pants; what had been soft cotton indoors is now plastered to your skin, heavy and clammy and quite literally, a sensory nightmare. You imagine how you must look—half-drowned, cartoon-print legs hugging this rattling little scooter through a storm. If Satoru could see you now, he’d point and laugh, like he always does when you’re at your most serious.

And yet, thank whatever force in the universe is watching, that driving a Vespa scooter is easier than it has any right to be. Compared to everything else you’ve ever had to do, it’s almost simple. Hands steady, weight leaning slightly forward, balance sharp. The mechanics are nothing. It’s everything else—the urgency, the need to reach him, the screaming insistence in your chest—that makes it feel like a miracle you’re still moving at all.

You slam to a halt in front of his building, the tires shrieking against wet pavement. The scooter shudders beneath you like it, too, is desperate to collapse. The watchman—an older man with thinning hair and a half-folded newspaper—looks up from his post, eyes widening at the spectacle you make: drenched, helmet askew, cartoon pajama pants plastered to your thighs. His stare lingers, caught somewhere between disbelief and concern.

You force a laugh, the kind that comes out too sharp, brittle. “Could you, uh, watch this for me?” you ask, gesturing to the scooter like it isn’t the most ridiculous request in the world. You don’t wait for his answer. You’re already running, sneakers squelching, squealing too loudly against the lobby’s tile floor. Each step leaves a dark trail of rainwater behind you, proof of your reckless arrival.

The elevator mockingly announces itself from the eighth floor, its little red numbers descending at a pace far too slow. You groan, chest heaving, already impatient with the thought of waiting. You take the stairs instead.

By the time you drag yourself up to the sixth floor, your lungs are aflame. Your hair sticks to your temples, sweat mixing with rain, and your breaths tear out of you ragged and animal-like. But you don’t hesitate. You jab at the doorbell, finger pressing hard, as though sheer force could transmit the fire in your chest to the man inside.

You ring with purpose. With fury. With smoke practically pouring from your ears, your nose, your skin. With a rage so bright you could kill him for making you come here like this, and with a want so consuming that you might just kiss him afterward, out of spite, out of need.

The door swings open. And there he is—hair mussed like he’d just rolled out of bed, a slice of toast clamped lazily between his teeth. His eyes land on you, widen instantly, and in that split second, you feel the sharp clash of your emotions crash against the sight of him: the impulse to scream, to throttle him, and the equal, unbearable pull to close the space and press yourself against him anyway.

And somehow, impossibly, he still looks like the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen. Even now, when he shouldn’t—when everything between you feels fractured, aching, stretched so thin you think it might split—he still manages to look pretty. Unfairly so. His face is infuriatingly steady, his lashes lowering then lifting again.

You don’t blink. You don’t look away. Your chest is still rising and falling too quickly, breath shallow, and all you can think is that you want to hurt him back. The words slip out before you can stop them.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you blurt, voice raw and trembling. “Fuck you. I hate you so much.”

For a second, he doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches in the narrow room, sticky and unbearable. He doesn’t even flinch, not at first. Then you see it. His shoulders stiffening almost imperceptibly, his hand twitching against his thigh. A flinch, even if he tries to swallow it down.

“Get inside before you catch a cold,” Satoru says finally, quiet, the words sounding strangely gentle for all their awkwardness. But you can hear the crack in them, the attempt to hold something steady when it’s already splintering.

You step in, dripping water onto the entryway floor, and pull off your squeaky shoes, leaving them by the door with a clumsy kick. Your lungs are burning, every inhale heavier than the last, and you let out a jagged exhale.

He starts to speak again—his mouth opens, you hear the beginnings of your name—but you cut him off, sharp, the demand ripping out of you before you can think better of it.

“No. Absolutely not. I go first. Me. Shut up and listen.”

He falters, caught off guard, and then slowly, reluctantly, nods. There’s a faint, boyish guilt flickering across his features. His lips press together, open, then close again as he seems to chew down whatever instinct he has to interrupt. His eyes track away from you, and he moves instead, wordlessly, toward the coffee table, setting down the half-eaten toast he’s still holding, on a porcelain plate with careful precision, as though the act of placing it might just anchor him. Then he looks back at you.

“Go on.”

“I made it impossibly clear to you,” you say, voice rising, chest heaving with every word. Your fists clench hard at your sides, nails biting crescents into your palms. “That I was serious about my first kiss. That it wasn’t just some stupid joke to me. But you? You treated it like it was nothing. Like it was a game.”

His lips part. A sound, a word almost, threatens to slip through.

“But—”

“I’m not done.” Your voice is sharp enough to slice through him. You hold his gaze with unblinking ferocity. “You’ll wait for me to finish. Then you can say whatever you want to me.”

There’s a visible swallow in his throat, the tendons shifting as he drags it down. He sighs heavily, a small breath that feels too fragile to belong to him. “Do you… want a towel or something until then?”

The sheer absurdity makes you groan, dragging your hand to your face, pinching the bridge of your nose. “No, Satoru, for fuck’s sake, just let me speak.”

Your hand drops, and you stare at him, the words boiling out of you again.

“After you kissed me, you acted like nothing happened. Like everything was the same.” Your brows knit tight. “Satoru, how could you do that? I was over there, wracking my brain, thinking everything would change. That we would change. And you just… you acted like this was normal. Like it meant nothing.”

His gaze flickers downward, his voice almost inaudible when he finally answers. “I didn’t want to lose you. I’m sorry. I should’ve handled it better.”

“No,” you retort, sharp, breath catching in your throat. “What you should’ve done was tell me you liked me from the beginning. Then I wouldn’t have had to go through absolute shit. Do you even know how much it hurt me to see you at that party?”

“I only spoke to that girl because I saw you with Sukuna,” he says quickly, almost defensively. His voice softens, guilt creeping in at the edges. “It was a shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry.”

“But you acted like an asshole afterward, too,” you snap, the memory cutting fresh. Your voice spikes, almost shrill with disbelief. “Seriously, how am I supposed to do a semester-long Quantum Physics project by myself? And then you—God, you had the nerve to go on dates with her. How could you just throw it in my face like that? What would you have done if I did that to you with Sukuna?”

He blinks, his face unreadable, before he pushes to his feet. His silence stings more than if he’d shouted back. You watch him through the blur of your own anger, hurt lodged so deep in your chest it almost feels physical, like something breaking apart inside you. He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he moves to the side closet, pulling out a towel.

You stand frozen as he walks back toward you. Your skin prickles, your breath catching when he reaches out, wrapping the towel around your dripping shoulders with an almost unbearable tenderness.

“I don’t think I can make up for what I did,” he murmurs, low and heavy, “even if I apologize a thousand times. But you’re right. I like you. So much that it hurts. So much that I’d ruin myself if I lost you.”

“You can’t make up for anything like that,” you whisper, shaking your head. Your throat tightens. The words are thin, trembling. “What’s worse is that I don’t find myself hating you. Not one bit. Not at all.”

He blinks, startled, his head tilting almost childishly to the side. There’s something fragile in his expression now, raw, vulnerable. His voice is tinged with both anticipation and desperation when he asks, softly, “What do you mean?”

You draw in a breath, your fingers twisting into the towel he’s wrapped around you. The words come out hushed, barely above the silence of the room.

“Satoru,” you whisper. “I like you, too.”

And for a moment, the world freezes. Neither of you move. His eyes widen, blue and startled, and he stares at you like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing. You clutch the towel tighter around yourself, your lips pressed in a small pout, trying to steady the racing beat of your heart. He lowers his head slightly, eyes never leaving yours. His voice comes out in the quietest, most uncertain whisper.

“Can you… say it again?”

“Satoru,” you breathe, steady this time, the words like a confession you’ve been holding for far too long. “I like you. More than ‘like,’ actually.”

The sound he makes isn’t quite a laugh, isn’t quite a sigh. His chest deflates, like he’s been holding himself taut for years, and now finally lets go. His voice is trembling, shaky, and relieved.

“Holy shit.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” you say, your eyes widening almost reflexively, as if the words are a shield you’ve pulled up at the very last second. “Nothing’s changing. Not yet. Not until I decide I can forgive you—because that still hasn’t happened.”

Two weeks slip by before you even realize it.

The project is already halfway done, though that’s mostly Satoru’s fault. He’d gotten guilty, worked on chunks of it alone, then turned up to class smug and pretending like he hadn’t. Now the two of you spend afternoons smoothing it all together, side by side. Sometimes you argue. Sometimes you laugh. And somehow, you no longer feel like you’re bracing yourself every time he opens his mouth.

Suguru, of course, takes all the credit for this fragile peace. He stretches out on Shoko’s couch, telling her, and anyone else who will listen, that if it weren’t for him, you and Satoru would still be spitting fire.

“You’re welcome,” he grins when you roll your eyes at him, balancing a bag of sketchbooks and pencils you’d bought him as thanks for the scooter. He flips through them with a pleased hum, cocky as ever. “My generosity is contagious,” he’d say, before quietly grinning and whispering a “thank you”.

Shoko just shakes her head, but she doesn’t hide the little smile. She’s already floated the idea of him moving in with her soon, and Suguru doesn’t bother hiding his satisfaction. He’d make the perfect roommate, according to her—cooking, cleaning, keeping plants alive, helping with the cat. He plays it up, too, bowing dramatically when she mentions it, as if he’s gracing her with a gift.

Friday night means movie night. A ritual. Satoru is the first to arrive. He never knocks properly—three lazy taps, then he’s inside, his damp hair pushed back, sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder. He kisses the top of your head as he passes, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and crouches down beside you on the floor to help pour chips into bowls. His hands brush against yours once, twice, and he doesn’t move them away quickly enough.

“These are going to be gone in five minutes,” he murmurs, stealing one, and you swat him halfheartedly. It feels dangerously easy, the rhythm of him next to you. You can’t help but ache for more.

Shoko arrives next, juggling bags and a carrier for Poland, her cat. Poland makes herself instantly at home, leaping onto the couch and curling into the very center cushion like she owns it. Suguru strolls in behind her with two cases of beer under his arms, already bickering with her about who picked the movie last time.

Not long after, Kento and Haibara tumble in with trays of pastries and paper bags of snacks. Kento sets everything on the coffee table with practiced neatness and pats your head, while Haibara’s already reaching for the remote. Soon the apartment is alive with overlapping voices, the scent of butter and sugar drifting through the air, warmth curling in the corners of the room.

By the time everyone settles, Poland is purring loud enough to drown out Haibara and Suguru’s arguing over what to watch. Shoko wants a thriller, Kento suggests something serious, Haibara pleads for comedy, Suguru waves his hand like a king granting mercy and says he’ll watch anything, though he clearly wants horror.

You say, almost tentatively, half expecting it to be brushed off like usual, “What about a Ghibli movie?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Satoru—so quickly, so decisively—chimes in: “Yes. That. Exactly that. Great idea.”

You narrow your eyes at him, suspicion curling into the edges of your smile. “I still haven’t forgiven you.”

“Aw, come on!” He leans back into the cushions, clutching his chest as if mortally wounded, before tipping sideways, straight into your lap.

You squeak, half-heartedly shoving at his shoulder, but he only grins up at you, smug, sprawling there like he’s claimed the spot. His hair brushes your fingers, the curve of his cheek an inch from your palm, and though you mutter about him being heavy, you don’t actually push him away.

The room dissolves into laughter, into easy bickering, into the crinkle of chip bags and the soft pop of a bottle cap. Shoko is already curled in the armchair with her drink, Suguru stretched long and on the floor next to her. Kento and Haibara argue over trailers, sitting criss-cross on the floor, their voices overlapping. Poland yawns from the side of the couch, tail flicking lazily before she settles again.

And you, caught between the weight of Satoru against you and the glow of lamplight spilling golden over everyone’s faces, let it all sink in. The warmth of sugared pastries on the table, the sound of your friends’ voices, the ordinary comfort of being here, together. For a moment it feels like the world outside can’t touch you, as if this—this couch, this laughter, this boy shamelessly using you as a pillow—is what forever is supposed to feel like.

a/n. poland is a real cat based off of a very close irl friend's cat (yes. the cat has a mustache and looks like yk who). and its actual name is something way more heinous (and will def get me cancelled so i'm not including it).

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

amavi, perdidi.