blake kathryn
Doug Jones
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Noah Kahan
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$LAYYYTER
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YOU ARE THE REASON
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Kiana Khansmith
EXPECTATIONS
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@arrozyfrijoles23
Now that I’ve processed it a bit I can talk about it. What have they done to my girl Baela?! Jace died less than a month ago. We didn’t even get one kiss between them and now she makes a move on a man she barely knows? Fuck all the way off. She deserves so much better. I’m so furious at the writers.
Goooo Benito Go!
oh my godddd i'm going to fucking sob, thank GOD
now bring the rest of them home 😭❤️
Be punkrocker, be against ICE‼️
── penalty for intereference 𝜗𝜚˚⋆🏒
you hate him, he loves getting a reaction out of you. he plays competitive hockey, yet you can't hold your own on the ice without faceplanting. how will this little dynamic work out when he finds himself becoming more and more entranced with you, while your animosity for him only increases at the same rate?
^ྀི hockeyplayer!gojo x fem!reader
^ྀི content ; slow burn, one-sided pining for the most part, rivals to lovers, angst, fluff, reader has glasses, nerdy reader, kissing, making out, unrequited love, MOSTLY sfw, the works yk
^ྀི word count ; 11.5k
^ྀི author's note ; sorry for the deviously long break i just finished my exams (i got 101% on my math one yippee🥳 havent gotten the other ones back yet) but ill try to be more consistent on here now that im out of exam season!! also i lowkenuinely forgot for half the plot that reader is supposed to be nerdy so shes just gonna have her random 🧠💡 moments lmaoo. this was inspired from watching my first ever hockey game a few weeks back, hope u guys enjoy!! :)
15 years ago
the first time you met satoru gojo, you were five years old and convinced two things were true:
one: everyone was being too dramatic about hockey, it really was not that cool. two: this new boy was the worst person you had ever encountered in your entire life.
you were sitting crisscross applesauce on the rainbow rug, meticulously lining up your crayons in ROYGBIV order because organization mattered, when a shadow fell over your work.
“why are you doing that?” a voice asked.
the boy looming over you had stupid white hair that stuck up in every direction like he’d been electrocuted, and a nasty grin you could already tell you’d hate. he crouched down without asking, reaching straight for your crayons with his grubby fingers.
“they’re just crayons,” he said, grabbing the blue one and rolling it between his hands. “you’re being weird.”
“they’re in order,” you snapped irritably, snatching it back. “you can’t just touch things that aren’t yours.”
he blinked at you, then laughed. his laugh made something hot and ugly coil in your stomach, begging to explode.
“you’re bossy,” he declared, then reached out to try and grab your glasses, to which you vehemently deflected. “and you have weird glasses.”
your eye twitched in frustration. “you’re very rude.”
“am not!”
“are too.”
he plopped down next to you anyway, sprawling across the rug like personal space was a myth. his sneaker knocked into your perfectly aligned crayons, scattering them everywhere. at that disrespect, something inside you snapped.
“you did that on purpose!” you shouted, scrambling to gather them up.
he watched you with open fascination, realizing with a start that he really, really liked getting a reaction out of you. with his chin propped in his hands, he continues, “wow. you get really mad really fast.”
“and you’re really annoying,” you shot back. “go away.”
“no,” he said cheerfully. “this is my spot now.” he declared, relishing the way you pouted and looked like you wanted to punch him. you would’ve, if the teacher wasn't in the room watching over you two like a hawk.
you glared at him, face burning, heart pounding with the injustice of it all. you’d never met someone so deliberately awful. someone who smiled while ruining things. someone who didn’t care about anyone except himself.
the teacher clapped her hands then. “alright, everyone! line up for recess!” you stood quickly at the excuse to leave this buttface, clutching your crayon box to your chest like a shield.
“finally,” you muttered. “now leave me alone now, i don't wanna play with you.”
he grinned up at you, unfazed. “cool. i don’t like you either, so you can’t play field hockey with us”
“fine,” you said bitterly. “hockey sucks anyway.”
recess didn’t improve things. he deliberately kept tossing the ball your way to make you jealous, and when you’d finally had enough, you picked it up and chucked it directly at his forehead.
clearly the spirit of greg maddux himself had overtaken you, as it only took him a solid three seconds to fully burst into tears and tattle on you, landing you into the principal’s office for ‘violence in the playground.’ snitch.
so from then on solidified your rivalry. you hated him and he hated you, it was as simple as that.
present day
you were going to kill shoko and yuki for bringing you to this godforsaken ice rink.
you take a few steps forward and end up landing on your butt again with a hollow thump, the sound getting lost across the mostly crowded rink. your carefully planned center of mass betrayed you, your knees splayed awkwardly, your glasses slightly askew beneath your helmet. you sat there for a beat too long, cheeks burning, wondering if pretending to be injured would somehow be less humiliating than admitting you simply… couldn’t skate.
then a shadow fell across the ice in front of you.
“you cryin’?”
you looked up.
and up.
and—okay, wow, definitely up.
the guy standing over you was none other than the asshole himself. tall in that unfair, athletic way, broad-shouldered even beneath his hoodie, hockey skates laced haphazardly to the point where you’d expect him to trip just as much as you. his hair was still damp from sweat, ivory locks escaping from beneath his beanie, and the smug look on his face was a pitying grimace.
“well look at that, finally something you’re not a perfect pompous ass at,” he teases
“shut up” you said quickly, then winced because you sounded like a petulant child and you realized you were still flat on your ass. “just leave me alone, asshole,” you mutter, attempting to push yourself up and just falling back down in the same way.
he bursts out laughing and unsurprisingly does not offer to help you up, instead opting to watch you scramble until you reach steady footing on the ice. he and his lackeys always had a knack for pissing you the hell off. you finally manage to grasp the wall and inch towards the exit of the rink, gifting him a withering glare as you waddle back onto dry ground.
“aw, cmon. don't be like that, did i hurt your feelings~?” he snickers, eyes never leaving you for a second, “don't tell me you’re giving up already?”
“are you really always such an asshole?” you spit out venomously.
“naturally,” he replies with a smirk
“figures,” you shoot back, he laughs again, and it pisses you off even more. the smug smile on his face, the way he stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets, watching you struggle, it just made you want to punch him in the mouth. deciding to keep your sanity intact, you opt to turn around and screw this whole skating mission, shoko would probably nag you about it later but that’s better than dealing with this idiot.
“cmon, you cant just leave after making such a dramatic entrance,” he quips, “you’re usually so hardheaded with your whole ‘i don't quit until i die’ aphorism, what’s gotten into you today? you losing your touch already?”
you’re about to shoot something back, until you practically hear a stampede of people coming, hockey boys, fuck. with a groan you quickly duck out of the way as the zoo of college muscleheads find their way to the rink, slapping gojo on the back as they skate in.
gojo looks just as idiotic among them, barking and hollering like this isn't a public rink, one of them shoves past you and practically rams you into the wall, your back hitting the hard concrete with a dull thud.
satoru looks up from them at you, his eyes flash with something you can't name as he approaches you again, and for a second you think he might even dare to help you up, before his face breaks into another grin
“how is it that you even manage to fall off the ice” he chirps, the teammate that had previously pushed you came back over to pull gojo back into the rink. he gave you one last look before turning around and heading back to his teammates, leaving you there on the ground with a bruised ego and a terrible mood.
god, you hate him.
back on the rink, satoru and his friends are all being obnoxiously inconsiderate while skating around, practically claiming the rink and inconveniencing everyone around them, one of his teammates skating backwards bumps into a little boy, and laughs in his face instead of apologizing. satoru could admit, they were assholes, he was well aware, but it was hard to change his rhythm with all his teammates around him being so naturally entitled.
“yo, satoru.” one of them calls out “what were you and four eyes doing before we got here” he teases “ya flirtin’ with the geek or something?”
gojo scoffs “pfft. as if. why would i do that to myself? i actually have some self-respect, believe it or not”
his team laughs around him, and you can’t help but feel your heart sink, yeah you knew he hated you, but the feeling of being disliked so openly by so many people made your skin crawl, with a heavy heart you leave the arena and vow to yourself to never return.
—-
the next day in class satoru couldn’t help but feel like you were ignoring him. i mean yeah, you always do, but today it was more than annoyance, there was a passion in the way you were intentionally avoiding him.
you two are sitting down in your assigned seats, it’s just another boring lecture, notes about force and motion and other stuff he couldn't be bothered to care about. you’re scribbling diligently in your notebook, trying your damndest to block out everything else. and its working, until a voice breaks the comfortable silence.
“hey, four eyes, do you have a pen?” he whispers to you, you grit your teeth, pretending not to have heard him. you have, in fact, heard him, and you happen to have several pens—but you know that giving in to his demands would just be fueling his arrogance.
he narrows his eyes, “did someone shit in your cereal or something?”
you finally flick your gaze up to him, eyes hard with annoyance. “can’t you tell that i'm trying to take notes? find a pen somewhere else. there's plenty of other people in this room with you, why are you bothering me?”
he rolls his eyes, he could damn well just ask someone else for a pen, but he wanted to talk to you, and realizing his little plan wasn’t working irritated him to no end.
“because out of everyone in this room, you’re the most likely to have an extra pen, duh.” he gestures to your desk, littered with pens, pencils, highlighters, and other stationery, “i mean, seriously, you got a whole supply store here. can’t spare one for me?”
“fuck off.”
“never took you as the vulgar type.”
“fuck you.”
“i bet you’d love to”
your face burns instantly, mortified by the implication. the shameless insinuation of his words makes you want to throw the pen he so desires right into his goddamn eye.
his smirk is infuriating. you can feel the eyes of your classmates on you both, you know you’re being baited. you know he’s enjoying this. and for as much as you’d like to think of yourself as stoic and calm, he makes your blood boil.
“fine, you want the pen so bad? here.” you seethe, practically hurling the pen at his face. a surprised laugh bursts from him, and you’re sure the professor is going to kick you both out at any second for the disturbance you two are making.
“wow,” he drawls, slow and mocking as he twirls your stolen pen between his fingers, “didn’t know the brainiac had an arm on her, if your competitive skating career doesn’t work out, you should consider baseball.” he cracks.
you’re bristling, your cheeks hot with anger and embarrassment. it's not just the pen—it’s everything. it’s the years of his constant belittling, the casual way he seems to go out of his way to bother you—only you. the entire thing is laughable, pathetic. but something about it unravels you, and before you can stop it, you feel tears prickling at the corner of your eyes, and it only pisses you off more. you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry, but you’re too angry to control it.
a frustrated snarl escapes you as you press your lips together to stop them from trembling, and you’re blinking rapidly to stop the tears from escaping.
he’s about to make another joke, but when he sees the glassiness blurring your eyes, his expression morphs into something else all at once. of all the years he’s been annoying you, its never been to the point where he made you cry before, you were too strong for that. if anything, you’ve made him cry way more in the past.
“wait,” he says quietly, remorsefully, even, “i—i didn't—"
but you’ve already left, leaving him alone with a guilty chasm forming low in his gut.
—-
the following days, he seems to be slightly more civil around you. when you trip over your shoelace on your way to third period, he doesn't make a snarky comment or laugh in your face with his friends, he simply… glances at you, and then he continues on his way. what is his problem??
and to make matters worse, you’d already broken the promise you swore you’d never break like a week ago.
you said you’d never step foot in a skating rink again—said it to yourself like a vow, carved in stone. and yet here you were, because shoko and yuki had insisted, practically hauling you back with bright smiles and promises of “pleaaase, it’ll be fun this time, we swear.”
fun. right.
as if the universe hadn’t already decided to mock you, the entire hockey team was here again tonight—crowding the ice, loud and careless and already getting on your nerves. all of them were here except one glaring absence, a certain white-haired idiot.
you barely have time to register his absence before a voice cuts through the cold air.
“hey—isn’t that the brainiac satoru’s always talkin’ about?”
a finger points at you. another head turns. then another. heat floods your cheeks as the attention snaps onto you like a spotlight you never asked for. you stare stubbornly down at your skates, willing your legs to move, to glide—anything.
they don’t, of course.
the ice feels slick and hostile beneath you, as if even the ground was plotting your downfall. your body stiff with panic as you inch forward. behind you, their incessant laughter bubbles up, the butt of the joke clearly being your skating skills—or lack thereof.
the two hockey players skate closer. their giggles scrape against your nerves as they circle you like predators.
“it is her,” one of them snorts. “the nerd with the god complex.”
a cocky grin stretches across his face. these are the people satoru spends his time with? birds of a feather, you think bitterly.
“you feelin’ steady there?” the other chortles, fake concern dripping from his voice as you wobble, fingers clutching the dasher board like a lifeline. he eyes your desperate grip, and something ugly flashes behind his eyes.
before you can react, he wrenches your arms away, laughing as he sees how you’ll fare on your own two wobbly legs to skate.
the world tilts.
you yelp as your wrist is torn free, momentum dragging you forward with no control, no brake, no mercy. your eyes squeeze shut just before the ice rushes up to meet you, and you brace for impact.
you hit the floor, hard.
the impact knocks the air from your lungs, pain exploding through your body—especially your wrist, as you crumple. laughter erupts behind you. loud, unrestrained, and vicious.
by the time shoko and yuki finish their fourth lap, they see the hockey players doubled over with laughter in front of your crumpled form. concern splits their faces and they rush forward to help you.
“you fucking asshole!” shoko screams, slamming into one of the boys and shoving him back with all her strength. “are you mentally deranged?! what the hell is wrong with you?!”
yuki doesn’t bother with words. she kicks one of them straight in the shin, the sharp blade of her skate connecting with a sickening precision. he howls, fury twisting his face.
you’re still on the ice, stunned.
something feels wrong. every breath hurts. your hands tremble as you drag yourself toward the wall, teeth clenched as pain radiates through you. before you hear a deep, angry voice coming from the other side of the rink.
“what the fuck is going on here?”
the roar silences everything.
you look up just as someone rapidly glides over— flawlessly, furiously. he stops short when he sees you—hurt, shaking. on the ground, pain written all over you.
he pulls off his helmet. and you can’t help but gasp.
wide, piercing azure eyes lock onto yours.
concern flashes through his face first. then rage.
“what the fuck is going on?” yuki snaps. “you and your dickhead friends are whats going on!” she spits, glaring at him.
satoru doesn’t look at her.
he doesn’t look at anyone—he can’t.
his eyes remain fixed onto you, like he’s hypnotized.
you—hurt, shaking. on the ground.
which one of these fucking assholes did this?
“come on,” he says to his teammates, voice low and precise, thinly veiled rage contained. a shadow cuts across his face. they don’t argue. they know better. “we’re leaving.” he announces, “i trust you two will handle the rest.” he says to shoko and yuki
yet he doesn’t spare shoko or yuki a glance.
your gaze snaps up to meet his—anger crashing into anger, fury burning against fury. for a moment, it’s a silent war, neither of you willing to back down.
then, finally, he does. he can’t meet your loathing gaze any longer.
he turns away, skating off, his grip on his teammates’ arms tight—almost suffocating.
“assholes,” yuki mutters, brushing ice from your clothes as she helps you up.
“i fucking hate hockey players,” shoko adds. “they all think they’re hot shit when all they’ve got is the smell of it.”
a shaky huff of laughter escapes you as you finally make it off the godforsaken ice. but your mind won’t let it go.
you’ve never seen him that angry before. and somehow, if anything, it only makes you hate him more.
—-
the next day, he spots you in the cafeteria. you’re tucked into a forgotten corner, curled over yourself like you’re trying to disappear, surviving on nothing but a cup of black coffee for lunch. the sight twists something uncomfortably tight in his chest.
he hesitates, then tells himself that if he doesn’t do it now, he never will.
he detours to the snack stand, buys the same cheap chocolate bars he’s seen you eat before, fingers tightening around the wrappers as if they might somehow save him. with a slow breath, he crosses the room.
your head is down, resting on your folded arms. you don’t notice him until he speaks.
“um, hey.”
he internally winces, it comes out awkward. smaller than he intended.
you don’t even look up when you coldly answer,
“what do you want?” the venom in your voice makes him flinch.
“i—uh… here?” he clears his throat, then sets the chocolate on the table between you like a rushed offering. like it might patch over everything. yesterday, the years before it, the way his name has always meant good for nothing in your mouth.
but, if anything, it only makes everything worse. anger burns through your chest. this is worse than if he’d just come and started spewing curses at you. this—this was insulting, degrading. you finally lift your head off the table. your eyes are cold and exhausted.
“is this a fucking joke?” you hiss. “which one of your idiot friends dared you to do this?”
you snatch the chocolate with a disgusted expression and toss it at his feet. it clatters uselessly against the tile.
for a split second, the hurt on his face is unmistakable.
“none!” he snaps defensively. “this wasn’t a dare. i just—fuck, i don’t know. they were assholes yesterday.”
“yeah,” you say flatly. “you guys were.” you wrap your hands around your coffee like it’s the only thing keeping you from blowing your lid. “now leave me the hell alone.”
“but—”
“but what?” you finally stand, anger burning through the exhaustion, voice shaking with years of swallowed resentment. “what now, gojo?” you spit his last name with disdain so venomous it makes him flinch, “you’ve been on my ass for years. years. and now you think you can fix it?!” you laugh bitterly. “with a fucking chocolate bar? i know this is just another one of your cruel jokes. you and your hockey friends are all the same. i’m not stupid, okay? i’d never trust you.”
your voice cracks, just barely
“so do us both a favor,” you finish, cold and final, “and leave me the fuck alone. i hate you.” and with that, you storm away, leaving him there with the stupid chocolate bar and his heart at his feet
. . .
—-
he goes home that day and miserably collapses on his bed. which he can say with full confidence does not help at all. he only feels the heavy feeling in his chest grow.
you hated him. hate him, he mentally corrects.
there was no fixing this. his stomach feels queasy and a heavy, looming sadness overtakes him, making his eyelids heavy but his brain alert. he knew it was bad, but never to this point. yeah he’d tease you sometimes, but that was because he craved your attention, and if getting you to be annoyed at him was the way to get it, then so be it.
it was absolute hell. he couldn't even sleep properly.
i would hate myself if i were you too, he mentally reasons. he can’t even blame you for despising his guts. he’d been a huge ass to you your entire life, it's all you know and expect from him. why should he be surprised that you’re not all sunshine and roses around him like you are to everyone else?
but he was a selfish bastard, and he wanted, no—needed to talk to you again, or at least get you to despise him a little less.
—-
he had an important game coming up, and everybody seemed really adamant on reminding him about it every two seconds. too bad he couldnt play. why? his coach maybe sort of benched him for hospitalizing the two morons who shoved you that day at the rink.
worth it, he thinks, jaw tightening at the memory.
but how could he focus on something as trivial as that when you were exactly two meters in front of him, scribbling diligently in your notebook, tongue sticking out of the side of your mouth in concentration.
you don't look at him even once, of course.
he tells himself that’s good. that he deserves it. but still, his eyes linger, on the way your brow furrows when you’re thinking, the way you pause every few seconds to chew on the end of your pen like the ink might supply the answer to your brain.
there’s a faint tension in your shoulders that wasn’t there before. a guardedness. he recognizes it now because he put it there.
his gaze flicks to your wrist again. no cast, no brace, but you disfavor it just enough that it makes his chest ache. he remembers seeing your face twist in pain on the ice, the sickening echo of his teammates laughing over your crumpled form. without realizing, he snaps the pen in his hand that he’s writing with.
he groans at the unnecessary loss of the stationery, his first instinct is to bother you and ask for a spare pen, until he remembers how that played out last time he tried it.
the professor drones on. he doesn’t hear a word. all he can think about is how close you are, yet how carefully you keep your distance from him now, like he’s something volatile.
when the professor finally shuts up and the class shifts into quiet work, a paper slips off your desk, fluttering to the floor by his foot.
you both freeze.
for half a second, you look at him.
it’s brief and guarded, but it’s the first time you’ve acknowledged his existence since the cafeteria. he cant screw this up now, he cant.
he picks the paper up slowly, deliberately, like he’s afraid any sudden movement might send you into another fit of rage. he doesn’t make a joke. doesn’t smirk.
he just sets it back on the edge of your desk, and the quizzical expression on your face makes him want to laugh. has he really been such an asshole to you that the mere concept of him acting decent is surprising to you?
“thanks,” you quietly whisper, and he has to do a double take to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. thanks, thank him? you were thanking him? did you happen to hit your pretty little head on the ice again?
realizing he was gawking at you like a lovesick idiot, he rushes out a quick “no problem,” and gets back to his work. but the thunderous beating of his heart betrays his pretense of nonchalance. god, he thinks, i'm so screwed.
—-
the date of his big game arrives, and true to his word, the coach keeps him off the ice.
satoru tells himself he doesn’t care.
he tells himself that as he laces his skates slower than usual, as he watches his teammates suit up with restless energy, as the weight of the arena buzz settles into his bones without him being part of it. he tells himself it’s fine, he earned this, didn’t he? if it wasnt a punishment for decking his teammates in the face, then it was a punishment for all that he’s done to you.
still, sitting on the bench like a loser feels like a punishment he can’t stomach.
if he’s just going to watch the entire game anyway, he might as well do it from the bleachers instead of pretending he belongs down there. he gets to the bleachers early—too early—and drops into a random seat halfway up, tugging his sweater over his face to block out the lights.
just a nap, he thinks. kill some time.
sleep takes him faster than he expects.
he wakes up to noise, cheering, laughter, the dull roar of a crowd fully alive.
shit, how much did i miss??
he groans quietly and pulls the sweater off his face.
and freezes.
sitting directly next to him, close enough that their shoulders are almost touching, are you, shoko, and yuki.
fuck.
his heart stutters, a sharp, panicked jolt in his chest. he goes completely still, like movement alone might shatter the moment or draw your attention too fast.
you, for your part, have no idea.
when you chose the seats earlier, you barely spared him a glance, just some poor college kid asleep in the bleachers, probably exhausted from the workload, you get it. you didn’t think twice about sitting nearby. why would you?
shoko leans in to say something under her breath, and whatever it is makes you light up, and you laugh.
you laugh so beautifully, he realizes.
it’s not loud. not obnoxious. just genuine, full of joy and warmth.
satoru feels like he’s been punched straight through the chest.
he’s heard you laugh before, sure, but never like this. never without tension coiled beneath it. never without anger aimed somewhere in his direction. the only laughs he’s heard from you directed to him always accompanied a scoff or an insult. for a second, he forgets where he is. forgets the game. forgets the benching.
he just stares.
and then shoko notices.
she follows his gaze, expression flattening instantly. without even looking at you, she jabs a finger in his direction and mutters, “ew.”
you turn around, confused.
and then you see him.
and the change is immediate.
your smile vanishes like it never existed, face closing off as your eyes harden. any trace of warmth drains out of you, replaced with something guarded and sharp. you instinctively shift away, shoulders tensing.
yeah, there it is.
satoru winces. “hey.” he says awkwardly. the word feels inadequate the moment it leaves his mouth.
yuki’s glare snaps to him. “what are you doing here? aren't you supposed to be like, y'know, down there” she gestures to the rink, “like, right now?”
he shrugs, a little stiff. “benched” he mutters, as if its no big deal at all.
“pfft. what could you have done to have gotten benched. aren’t you like.. the player?” shoko asks, amusement heavy in her tone.
“wouldnt you like to know?” he muttered irritably, he came here to watch the game, not get attacked by your friends.
there’s an awkward beat. the crowd erupts again somewhere behind you, but the noise feels distant, muffled by the tension sitting thick between all four of you.
you finally speak. “so then you decided to slum it with the rest of us?” it’s meant to bite. he knows that.
“i can move to a different spot if you want me to,” he says quietly.
that makes you pause.
just for a second.
you don’t respond, turning back toward the rink instead, jaw tight. satoru resists the urge to fill the silence with something stupid, a joke, a quip, something to get a reaction out of you. he’s learning, though slowly, that silence is sometimes the least harmful thing he can offer.
the game continues. minutes pass. then more.
at some point, yuki nudges you and murmurs something about getting snacks. your protests are interrupted when shoko follows, giving satoru one last suspicious look before standing.
they leave, and you stay glued to the spot. the space beside you feels louder without them.
satoru shifts, hands clasped together between his knees. “i really can move,” he offers shyly, “if you want.” a week ago, you would've jumped for joy at the prospect of him offering to leave you alone. but right now? his small tone makes you hesitate.
“no,” you say after a moment. “it’s… fine...” you’d never admit it out loud, but his presence doesn’t feel as suffocating as it used to. ever since that day at the rink, he seemed… different. quieter. more careful with himself. gentler, maybe. he knows you’re just being nice by letting him stay, it doesn't mean anything more, but he nods anyway, visibly relieved you didnt automatically tell him to book it.
a few minutes later, the other team scores a goal.
the crowd erupts, cheers and boos rolling through the bleachers like a wave. you groan instinctively, eyes glued to the ice. you hate the idiot, you really do, but you can’t deny the rest of the team sucks ass without him.
“you guys are getting swept,” you mutter before you can stop yourself.
satoru blinks. then huffs out a breathy laugh, surprised. “yeah… turns out.”
a beat passes.
“coach told me i’m out for the rest of the week,” he says suddenly, like he’s filling a silence that’s grown too heavy to ignore.
you stiffen. “i didn’t ask.” cocky moron, is what you would’ve added if this interaction was normal, but it's anything but.
“i know,” he says quickly. he exhales, shoulders dipping. “i’m not saying it for sympathy. just… saying it.” you don’t respond right away, take a moment to dignify him with a response.
“well, it looks like you aren’t the only one benched,” you say instead, nodding toward the ice. “speaking of. where’s, like, half of your team?” you comment, noticing that idiot 1 and idiot 2 from the rink that day weren’t on the ice—in fact, they weren't even benched, or anywhere in the arena that you could see.
he sucks his teeth, rubbing the back of his neck, already knowing exactly who you mean. “about that… i kind of—um..”
you turn to look at him, “what?”
…
…
oh.
“you didn’t kill them, did you?”
“what?!” he looks genuinely offended. “of course not! i’m not insane.”
you tilt your head, “thats debatable.” the words slip out lighter than you expect. and then, shit, you feel it. a small smile tugs at your lips before you can stop it. it’s barely there, fleeting and unguarded, but it exists. damn this idiot for making you feel so contradicted. damn him for beating up his own teammates in your honour.
satoru goes very, very still.
for a few seconds, he just stares at you like the game, the crowd, the world itself has faded into background noise. is this the first time he’s seen you smile like that? not sharp. not sarcastic. just there, and there for him, of all people??
fuuuck.
if he’d known it only took shutting up and not being an asshole to make you smile like that, he would’ve done it years ago. you catch him staring, and your smile disappears immediately. “why’re you looking at me like that?”
“like what?” he asks, too fast.
“like i’ve got something on my face.”
at his continued silence, still with that stupid dazed look on his face, you wave a hand in front of him. “stop spacing out every two seconds. helloo?? earth to goj—”
he moves before he can overthink it, carefully, slowly. he reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. the touch is light, barely there, in fact, but it sends a jolt straight through you.
you both freeze. he looks like he wants to shoot himself.
your breath catches as you stare at him, shock flooding your senses. your heart is suddenly a loud, obnoxious, traitorous thing, and the world feels too close.
“satoru,” he says shakily, correcting you. “my name is satoru.”
“don’t,” you swallow. “don’t do that.”
his hand drops immediately. “i’m sorry,” he says quickly, almost panicked. “i shouldn’t have—”
the sincerity in his voice throws you off more than the touch did. you look back toward the rink, cheeks warm. “just… fuck, i don't know.. warn me next time?”
there’s a pause, before a slow smirk curls up his lips.
“next time, huh?” he asks, half-joking
you scoff softly. “don't push it.”
you turn back to admire the players gliding across the ice, movements smooth and effortless, like gravity just… forgot about them. how the hell do they do that so easily? both times you tried your luck on the rink it ended in disaster, you were white-knuckling the wall the entire way through.
satoru notices, he always does.
his gaze flicks to you from the corner of his eye, clocking the way your attention follows the players’ footwork more than the puck itself. the way your head tilts slightly, like you’re mentally mapping their movements.
“i could teach you, y’know,” he offers gently.
he braces himself immediately for the inevitable, waiting for the sharp insults, the speech about independence and how you’d rather die than take lessons from him.
but instead, you blurt out “what?”
he blinks, then laughs, startled and warm. “skating,” he clarifies. “i could teach you how. it didn’t really seem like your forte last time i checked, and god forbid you be bad at anything.”
you scowl defensively. “excuse you. i was ambushed.”
“right,” he hums. “then ill teach you how to hold your own against a future ambush.”
“there won’t be” you quip. “you obliterated the last people that tried it, remember?”
he rolls his eyes and huffs in amusement. “right, whatever”
you hesitate for a moment, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “you’d… actually teach me?”
“yeah,” he says simply. “and there won’t be any of my teammates there, just me”
you glance at him. “and what, so you can personally laugh at me when i eat shit again?”
he grins back. “hey, i did offer to teach you, i deserve some compensation.”
“i don’t trust you, what if you just let me fall for the hell of it,” you accuse, but your voice lacks conviction.
“i know,” he replies. “we can start with that.” a pause stretches between you, filled with the scrape of skates and distant cheers. you watch a player spin cleanly to a stop, effortless, and your mind is made.
“…i don’t want you letting go, at all. not unless i tell you to” you say suddenly.
he looks at you in surprise. “what?”
“if you teach me,” you clarify, eyes still on the ice. “you don’t let go. at all.”
something soft flickers across his face, and he snickers. “deal.”
you finally turn to him. “and if i do fall?”
“i’ll catch you.”
“and if i panic?”
“i’ll slow down.”
“and if i change my mind halfway through and want to quit?”
he smiles, “then ill just tell you to suck it up and remind you of who you are.”
you huff out a laugh. “you’re insane.”
“yeah,” he says easily. “but i’m good at skating, and god knows you need some help in that department.”
you sigh, dramatic. “fine. one lesson.”
his grin spreads wider, boyish and just happy, “one lesson.” he agrees
—-
true to his word, satoru would not let you go, at all. to the point where you almost regret adding that instruction, as he seemed to be taking full advantage of it. hands always either on the small of your back or steadying your shoulders.
teaching you how to skate, satoru quickly discovered, was nothing like teaching peewee players. for one thing, you asked why about everything, he would find it annoying, if you didn't have pretty good questions about things that he actually didn't have all the answers to.
“why do my knees have to be bent?” you groan, gripping the boards with white-knuckled determination. there were so many rules to this thing, even down to how you hold out your arms.
“balance,” satoru explains, skating backward in front of you. smiling smugly about how you eye him in annoyance at his obvious flex, “keeps your center of gravity lower.”
you nod. “so it’s about torque distribution.”
“…uh, sure,” he agrees slowly. “exactly that.”
“and why does pushing at an angle work better than straight back?”
“because physics,” he says confidently.
you squint. “you’re bluffing.”
he laughs. “a little, but no. something about the friction of ice and newton shit.”
“there’s nothing called newton shit.”
“wow, newton never took a shit? maybe we should've studied that instead of his endless laws.”
despite your nerves, you were a fast learner. you moved cautiously, but once you understood how something worked, your body followed. you listened intently, eyes sharp behind your glasses, tongue pointing out in concentration. satoru found himself slowing down, matching your pace without even thinking about it. you look just like how you do in class, he realized, when you’re working to solve a difficult problem or jot down notes.
“okay,” he says after a few minutes. “you have to let go of the boards.”
your head snaps up. “what?! hell no.”
“just for a second.” he groans “you’ve been glued to that thing for the past hour.”
“absolutely not.”
he holds out his hands. “i’ve got you, just trust me, alright?”
you stare at them like they would grow legs. “statistically speaking, trusting you with my survival seems reckless.”
“statistically speaking," he counters, “one hundred percent of people who don’t stop white-knuckling the board are doomed to skate like newborn deer for the rest of their lives.”
you huff and let out a curt, “fine.”
you let go.
immediately, you wobble.
satoru catches your by the elbows, steadying you. “easy, easy. you’re good.”
your hands fly to his hoodie, fingers curling into the fabric. his arms instinctively support your weight by holding up the small of your back. he’s suddenly very aware of how close you are, how he can practically feel your breath fogging slightly in the cold air between them.
“sorry,” you blurt sheepishly.
“it’s okay,” he smiles. “that’s what i’m here for.”
you look up at him, cheeks pink—not just from the cold this time. “you’re… surprisingly not bad at this.”
“at skating?”
“at not making me feel stupid, though i feel really stupid.”
something softens in satoru’s chest. he was on a roll with his firsts these days, first time seeing you smile at him, first time hearing you laugh at one of his jokes, and now first time hearing you compliment him? “no problem,” he says gently. “everyone starts somewhere.”
you nod, then surprise him by pushing off. tentative, shaky, but moving. your eyes light up as you glide across the ice, arms spread out wide to maintain your balance. he’s watching you like you hung the stars.
for a split second, the world tilts, your skates wobble, your arms windmill in a way that’s absolutely undignified, and panic flares hot and immediate in your chest. then the ice carries you around, like it had been waiting for you to trust it.
your eyes go wide. you were moving. actually. moving!
a breath tears out of you, half-laugh, half-gasp, and your arms spread instinctively, palms slicing through the cold air as you focus on not dying. your knees tremble, your balance was questionable at best, but you were upright. gliding. alive in a way you hadn’t been a moment ago.
“i’m doing it!” you exclaim, disbelief threading through every push of your feet, like if you stopped moving it might stop being true.
satoru freezes where he is.
for once, there was no joke locked and loaded on his tongue. no smug commentary. just him, watching you like he’d just witnessed a minor miracle. your huge smile—brilliant and bright and completely unguarded—hit him square in the chest, knocking the air clean out of his lungs.
“yeah,” he says breathlessly, voice cracking just a little despite himself. “you’re doing it. see?”
a grin splits his face wide open, shit-eating and stupid and full of something close to awe. he pushes off after you without thinking.
the sound of skates on ice behind you registers half a second too late.
“hey—!” you squeal, competitiveness flashing through you as you glance back and see him gaining on you far too fast. you bolt. or try to.
your legs move quicker, your laughter bubbles up, breathless and wild, as you skate away with all the grace of a baby giraffe. he laughs too, loud and unrestrained, chasing you easily but not quite catching up, letting the distance stay just close enough to thrill you.
“hey!” he calls. “you can’t run away from your instructor!”
“i absolutely can!” you shoot back, voice high with adrenaline. “this is my victory lap!”
he swears, he wishes—aches—to bottle this moment. to freeze it. to keep the sound of your laugh tucked somewhere safe, where it couldn’t disappear the next time you looked at him with that familiar glare.
then your skate catches.
it’s subtle, barely noticeable, but he sees it instantly—the hitch in your stride, the way your weight tips forward just a hair too far. the joy on your face flickers, fear flashing sharp and sudden in your eyes. time snapped tight.
“shit!” he shouts, already moving.
you pitch forward, hands reaching uselessly for balance, breath knocked from your chest as the fall rushed up to meet you. you brace for the impact that will never come.
strong arms wrap around your waist, momentum carrying both of you forward as he twisted, skidding hard but still keeping his grip on you. you two were hurtling right towards the dasher boards!
in a desperate movement, he quickly maneuvers your bodies so that his back would hit the boards instead of yours. the two of you slide a few feet before crashing against the backboard, you’re pressed flush against his chest. heart slamming against your ribs like it’s trying to escape. for a moment, neither of you speak.
you can feel him everywhere—solid, warm, even through the layers of hockey gear, breath uneven against the side of your head. his grip is firm, protective, almost fierce, like he’s decided the ice itself is an enemy for daring to trip you.
then you burst out laughing, the sound spilling out of you like relief.
“are you okay?!” you breathe. “oh my god. that was insane”
he laughs too, a little breathless, more so stunned. “i'm fine.” he assures you “i'm a hockey player, sweetheart. i'm used to smashing into walls”
the nickname slips out before he could stop it.
you both freeze, you pull away from his chest, looking down at him with eyes almost as wide as his own.
“what’d you just call me?” you gape at him
“n-no, i didnt mean—” he rushes, scrambling to his feet and holding his hands up like you might actually take a swing at him. “i mean, i did mean it, but not like—fuck, i didn’t mean to say it out loud.”
“out loud?” you ask, still gawking at him stupidly
“i—look, okay, that one slipped,” he says, attempting a grin that comes out crooked and nervous instead. “it was an accident. a verbal malfunction.”
“a verbal what?”
“my head hit the backboard,” he counters weakly. “my brain panicked.”
your glare holds for another beat, then wavers. because the thing was.. you weren’t angry? not really. confused, yes. flustered, definitely. there was a strange, traitorous warmth curling low in your stomach that you absolutely did not appreciate.
your ears felt hot, cheeks flushed. “okay, whatever” you say, swallowing. “again.”
and that was that.
you skated. you fell. you laughed. he corrected your stance with gentle hands and quieter words. you argued with him out of habit, then followed his instructions anyway. time dissolved into the rhythm of movement and breath and shared space, the sun slowly setting until it was just the two of you carving lazy circles into the dark ice.
hours passed without either of you noticing.
in fact, it wasn’t until a tired, irritated employee appeared at the edge of the rink, arms crossed and voice echoing sharply across the empty space, that reality finally crashed back in.
“hey! we closed two hours ago! you two gotta go!”
you startled, blinking around like you’d just woken from a dream. satoru laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, apologizing to the poor employee as you both skated off reluctantly. he was glowing, feeling something fragile and new emerge between you two.
—-
biweekly skating lessons started up after that.
your classes ended early on tuesdays and thursdays, and satoru had practice in the mornings, so they’d take the ice in the quiet afternoon lull. you’d sometimes bring him a thermos of tea, and he’d bring extra gloves in case yours got wet. progress came in inches, then feet, then full laps.
you fell less. you laughed more.
“you’ve been smiling at your phone the whole day,” shoko groans curiously, “you’re still not gonna tell me who you’re texting??” to which you simply shake your head.
shoko’s not an idiot, she’s seen how you and satoru have come closer these days, she obviously knows that its him who you’re talking to, but that doesn't make her act any less nosey. she wants to hear it from you that you and satoru are talking. she and yuki have noticed the obvious change in the rivalry between you two. and while they’re suspicious of hockey boys—and, well, boys in general—they were happy as long as you were happy.
they especially knew something was up when you practically dragged them to the upcoming hockey game, they’ve never seen you this passionate about hockey since.. ever? but they had a little inkling of a suspicion that it wasn’t the hockey game you were so desperate to see.
before the game, satoru can barely even tie his skates without feeling the consistent tremble in his hand. while the rest of the guys in the changeroom are prattling on and chirping the other team, satoru feels like he’s losing his mind. did she come? is she blowing me off? was i too forward? she didnt explicitly say she was coming, so will she—
“yo.” one of his teammates, geto suguru, slaps him on the back, shocking him out of his reverie, “you alright man? what’s got your balls in a twist?”
satoru runs a tired hand over his face, “shit, man. i just.. i don't know. i kinda asked.. a girl.. to come watch?” he confesses self-consciously “i don't know if she’ll actually be here though,”
suguru blinks at him a couple times, and then bursts out laughing, practically rolling on the floor
“its not funny man!” satoru practically whines, face heating up “i really want to impress her”
“dude, did you develop amnesia overnight?” suguru challenges, “you’re satoru fuckin’ gojo, our star player. if she’s not impressed tonight, your worst performance will still outdo our best. just breathe, alright man?”
“right, right, yeah! the fuck’s wrong with me?” satoru shakily hypes himself up “ill get on there and dominate, just like i always do.”
“thats the spirit! now come on, we’re gonna start pre-games soon. if we bail on them again coach’s gonna be on our asses”
you’re sitting in the stands next to shoko and yuki. yet you took so long picking out the ‘perfect’ outfit that you three unfortunately arrived late, getting stuck with shitty seats in the back. no matter how hard yuki tried to bargain with the people sitting up closer, nobody wanted to give up their spots—nobody wanted to miss a single part of this game.
by the time the lights dim and the announcer’s voice booms through the rink, your leg is bouncing uncontrollably. shoko notices immediately. she nudges your knee with her own.
“if you shake the bleachers any harder, they’re gonna charge you for structural damage. plus, the people around us are already irked off enough at us because of someone,” she gestures pointedly to yuki, who’s still arguing with people up front about how ‘they’re selfishly taking away the opportunity of a girl to get a good view of her future man on the ice.’
“sorry,” you mutter, though you make no effort to stop. the warmup buzzers go off and you immediately quirk into action, desperately peeking over everyone's heads as if in search of something—or rather, someone.
shoko groans like she’s in physical pain. “oh my god. you’re so hopeless.”
you shoot her a look. “i'm not. you’re being dramatic.”
“am i?” she says flatly. “because last time I checked, you gave yourself a whole sermon about how you’d never look at ice, let alone touch a rink again,” she gestures vaguely at your face and sighs. “see, you’re not even listening to me.”
yuki finally comes back, huffing and puffing about the inconsiderate assholes at the front. “warmups are starting,” she says finally, “if he’s out there, you’re gonna crane your neck so hard you’ll need a brace.”
“i am not—”
the rink erupts into cheers.
and then there he is.
satoru gojo skates onto the ice like he owns it. like the ice was poured there specifically for him. his jersey hangs loose over his shoulders, blue and white stark against the bright rink lights, number 8 printed bold on his back. he glides, effortless, sharp turns cutting clean arcs into the surface, laughing with his teammates as if his heart hasn’t been trying to beat its way out of his ribcage all afternoon as well.
your breath catches, and you hate that it does.
you’ve seen him skate before. plenty of times, in fact. but tonight feels so much more different. tonight, your pulse is loud in your ears, your palms damp despite the cold, your mind caught in a stupid loop of i’m here, i'm actually here.
shoko watches your face soften in real time and sighs. “babe, you’re down so bad.”
“i am not,” you whisper, but it comes out weak, unconvincing—even to you.
down on the ice, satoru circles once, twice—his eyes flick up to the stands every two seconds like a magnet, searching. scanning. his grin falters when he doesn’t immediately find what he’s looking for. the previous doubts creep back in. told you. she didn’t come. why would she? he skates harder, sharper, trying to outrun his thoughts.
then—there.
back row. shitty seats. your familiar figure wedged between two others familiar figures, arms folded tight like you’re holding yourself together.
for a split second, he forgets he’s on the ice, and he nearly wipes out.
suguru yells something unintelligible at him as he stumbles, catching himself at the last second, heart slamming so violently he feels dizzy. his head snaps back up just to make sure he’s not hallucinating.
you’re still there.
you meet his gaze.
and the relief that courses through him is unlike anything he’s ever felt.
you don’t smile, nor wave—of course you don’t. you never make it easy for him. but your eyes widen just a fraction, your shoulders loosening, your posture shifting forward without you even realizing it. as if your body recognizes him before your pride can stop it.
satoru smiles so hard he feels his cheeks ache. it’s not the cocky, shit-eating grin one he gives the crowd. not the arrogant smirk he wears like armor. this one is small. soft. almost shy.
it’s just for you.
your stomach flips traitorously.
the horn sounds. warmups end. players skate off, the rink buzzing with anticipation. as satoru disappears down the tunnel, he sneaks one last look up at you like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t keep checking.
you don’t, of course.
the game starts fast and brutal. the ice cracks with the sound of blades and bodies colliding, the crowd roaring with every pass, every hit. you try to focus on the puck, on the rules, on literally anything, but your eyes always find their way back to that godforsaken #8, even when the idiot’s on the other side of the rink than the puck.
he plays like a man possessed.
aggressive, precise, relentless. he scores the first point of the game in the first period, a clean shot that sends the arena into absolute chaos. you jump up with the crowd before you can stop yourself, heart in your throat, hands clapping hard enough to sting.
shoko stares at you, dumbfounded. “wow.”
you sit back down quickly, cheeks burning. “what now?”
“you cheered.”
your cheeks burn hotter, “yeah, so did literally everyone else.”
“yeah,” yuki says mildly, “but you cheered like that.”
you cross your arms and glare at the ice, refusing to engage. but your eyes keep finding him anyway. the way he moves. the way he checks over his shoulder after big plays, like he’s grounding himself. like he’s looking for proof that this moment is real, that you’re really there, watching only him.
late in the second period, it happens. a hit from the side. it was a nasty move, a clear sign of irritation from the other team that they were getting wiped by a single player.
satoru slams into the boards with a sickening crack. and the crowd gasps as one.
your breath leaves your body.
and you’re on your feet before you realize it, hands gripping the seat in front of you, panic strewn across your face. you heart hammers painfully against your ribs. he doesn’t move for a terrifying second—two—three.
suguru rapidly skates up to his crumpled form and whispers something unintelligible into his ear.
then he pushes up. slow. shaky. the relief hits you so hard your knees nearly give out.
he skates off with help, jaw clenched, clearly rattled but upright. as he passes the bench, his eyes flick up to the stands again—wild this time, searching frantically.
you’re still there, and you are, in fact, not recording his choke with a sick smile on your face like he’d imagined you’d be.
on the contrary, your hands are pressed to your mouth, eyes wide with worry, fear written plainly across your face.
something in his expression changes, his lips quirk up slightly, and he can already feel the pain subside. god, he thinks, you're so cute. he’s back on in no time. they can't keep him benched for too long, after all.
the rest of the game blurs. his team wins by a significant margin, their best ratio of the season. the crowd celebrates. people spill into the aisles, laughing and yelling, slapping backs and chanting names.
you stay seated. your hands won’t stop shaking,your throat is raw from cheering and you feel the sting in your eyes from the cold. it’s perfect, everything is perfect.
shoko squeezes your shoulder gently. “you okay?”
you nod gratefully. “yeah, thanks sho. i just… need a minute.”
when the crowd finally thins, you stand to leave. satoru stands in front of the changeroom, helmet off, hair damp with sweat, a faint bruise already blooming along his jaw. he looks exhausted, yet so exhilarated. for a second, neither of you speak.
you cross your arms, fighting the smile that wants to give you away. “took you long enough, superstar.”
he grins, softer than usual, and leans in just a little. “worth it.”
shoko clears her throat loudly beside you. yuki just smirks.
“we’re gonna go,” shoko says pointedly. “before this turns into something we’ll regret witnessing.”
“text me if he makes you cry, babe” yuki adds sweetly. “i’ll key his car.”
satoru beams. “love your friends.”
they leave you there, alone with him and the hum of the emptying arena. for a second, neither of you says anything. he shifts on his feet, suddenly unsure, suddenly very human.
then you exhale, all the tension pouring out of you at once. “well, you didn't lose, surprisingly.”
he laughs weakly. “oh come on. surely you could be a little more enthusiastic than that? we dominated.”
you roll your eyes, no matter what, he always reverted to his cocky asshole tendencies. “you’re hurt.” you point out
“i’ll live,” he reassures you lightly, then hesitates. softer, “you came.”
you nod, a confused expression on your face. “‘course I did. i said i would, didnt i?”
something warm and fragile settles in his chest. “well, you only said you’d record me choking,” he teases quietly. “how’s that recording turning out?”
“ha ha.” you roll your eyes again. then, noticing his expectant expression, you reluctantly sigh and confess, “you played really well today, good job”
his boyish grin returns in full force, and he takes a deep breath, like that's exactly what he was waiting to hear from you, “yeah?”
“yeah,” you repeat. “though in the future you should really lay off the taunting—”
he laughs, bright and relieved, and before you can finish your sentence, he’s moving.
he cradles your jaw with a gentleness that doesn’t match the way he plays, thumbs resting just beneath your ears like you’re something fragile. your breath stutters, your brain screaming at you to do something—
and then he kisses you.
it’s not rough. it’s soft and almost unsure, like he’s checking whether you’ll pull away. when he realizes that you’re not, he dives back in, even more desperate than before. your eyes flutter shut before you can stop them.
his thumb brushes your cheek, and the last of your resistance crumbles under the weight of how badly you wanted this and refused to admit it to yourself. you kiss him back. grabbing the front of his jersey to ground yourself. he uses one arm to shove open the changeroom door and you both stumble in. finally, some privacy.
his lips desperately find yours again in an instant, almost impatiently. he pushes you up against a locker, one hand cradling your jaw, the other pressing against the metal next to your head.
this kiss is not as gentle, however. there’s no soft easing into it. its rough and possessive, his mouth hungry against yours. he practically pries your lips open with his tongue, and swipes—once, twice, and he doesn't stop.
you’re acutely aware of the hard muscles of his chest pressed against you, the heat radiating off his skin, the way he’s trapping you against the locker with just the weight of his body. everything else had long faded away by now, leaving just the sound of your ragged breaths and his tongue in your mouth.
he kisses you until your head is spinning, until your legs feel weak and your heart is racing. his hand on your jaw moves down to your hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh there. its all too much, and yet you don't want him to stop. you find yourself reaching up, raking your fingers through his damp hair. an involuntary action, fueled only by need. he groans softly into your mouth, the sound only making you more eager to please.
he finally pulls back, breathing heavily, eyes clouded with something intense. he’s still pinning you against the locker, his body close and radiating heat like a furnace. his gaze roams over your face, taking in the flush on your cheeks, the way your lips are parted and slightly swollen. a huge, radiant grin finds its way on his face.
“oh my god. if only y’knew how long i’ve been wanting to do that, you’d put me in a human shredder” he breathes out.
you look back up at the boy in front of you and swallow back a laugh. he looked so flustered. and he was.. blushing? satoru fucking gojo was blushing, all because of you.
“oh satoru,” you mutter, a smile slipping out before you could stop it, “i’d do that regardless,”
“god,” he murmurs, softer now, almost reverent “you’re so cute when you do that..”
“what? threaten to shred you alive?”
“smile,” he cuts in immediately, like he can’t let the moment pass. his thumb brushes your cheek again, soft as a whisper. “that smile. god, i love it when you smile.” his voice drops, sincerity threading through every word. “you’re beautiful no matter what—but especially when you smile.”
and just like that, it’s your turn. heat rushes to your face, impossible to stop. you feel it blooming, betraying you completely. damn him. damn him for saying things like that so casually, so honestly, like he’s not dismantling you piece by piece.
the second he notices the hue to your face, his eyes light up exponentially.
“you’re blushing!” he laughs, delighted, wonder-struck. “oh my god. i never thought i’d see the day!”
“shut up!” you protest, shoving at his chest, “you were being a sap, you can’t blame me!”
“right, right,” he chuckles, hands coming up in surrender. watching you weakly try to push away from him in amusement “always my fault. i’ll take it.”
then he glances at the clock.
the groan he lets out is dramatic and genuinely disappointed. “shit. I gotta go, baby. people out there are probably screaming for my autograph right about now.”
baby.
the word lands harder than the kiss did.
before you can process it, he leans down and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.
by the time you come back to yourself, he’s already pulling away, shooting you one last grin over his shoulder as he hurries out of the locker room. his lips are still swollen. his cheeks are still pink, and his steps are just a little unsteady.
“what an idiot,” you mutter under your breath, but you can’t tell if you’re referring to him, or yourself.
----
epilogue:
you’re sitting so close to the glass that you can feel the air whooshing past you every time a player passes.
the familiar jersey hangs loose on you, sleeves swallowing your hands, fabric still faintly smelling like detergent and something undeniably him. the massive blue and white #8 proudly displayed on your back. you tug at the hem absently, heart thudding in time with the arena music as the crowd roars around you.
you haven’t missed a game since that press conference.
since your huge oaf, satoru gojo, looked straight into a wall of cameras at a post-game interview, grinned like he’d planned out his whole ridiculous speech, and professed his undying love for you. publicly.
his corny ass confession you’re sure he copied off reddit. broadcasted live. you nearly combusted on the spot. so after a ton of bickering and some not so appropriate decisions, you could proudly call the idiot your boyfriend.
and now you’re here. again. and you always would be. today is his tournament finale, and you can feel the restlessness in the air. the other team is good, better than good, actually.
but satoru is on the ice, and he’s terrifyingly good.
he moves like the rink was built for him alone. sharp turns, effortless speed, control so precise it almost looks unfair. he weaves past defenders like they’re traffic cones, not players. weaving around everyone so seamlessly you could swear he has six eyes and not two. the puck remains glued to his stick as if it knows better than to leave him. every time he shoots, the crowd cheers in advance, knowing he doesn't miss.
you don’t realize you’re leaning against the glass until your palm aches from the biting cold.
he shoots again, tying up the score.
the goal horn blares, deafening. the crowd explodes, people jumping to their feet, strangers screaming into the air. you barely hear any of it because satoru throws his head back, laughing, breath fogging the air, and then he looks straight at you. his eyes are full of joy, like he’s perfectly in his element—playing the sport he loves most with the person he loves most watching him.
he points at you. taps two fingers against his lips, then flicks them toward you like one of those trashy rom-coms you two always watch together. you laugh at his antics and mock-gag, which only makes him smile harder.
the other team is raining down on him and they’re raining hard. practically jumping him every time he touches the puck. you understood that he was an annoying ass, and more times than not you wanted to sock him in the face—but they were being a little too violent for your liking.
a member of the other team slams him into the glass, right in front of you with a sickening thud. you flinch back and start yelling at the ref to do his fucking job?? yet satoru—instead of picking a fight with the asshole like he normally would—relaxes on instinct when he sees you fighting for his honour and blows a kiss your way. you roll your eyes but reluctantly your shoulders relax and you smile back.
blood trickles from his lip at one point. he wipes it away with the back of his glove and keeps skating like nothing happened.
final period. final minutes. the score is tied.
the air is electric, thick enough to choke on. you barely blink. shoko grips your wrist without realizing it. yuki mutters curses under her breath like she’s praying.
satoru’s breathing is heavy now, shoulders rising and falling as he lines up for the face-off. he looks exhausted, yet more alive than you’ve seen in a while.
the puck drops, and everything happens too fast and not fast enough all at once.
he steals it—breaks free—one defender, then another. the unanimous voice of the crowd rises as one, sound swelling until it’s almost unbearable. you’re standing without remembering when you stood, fingers digging into your palms, heart in your throat.
he shoots.
the puck hits the net with a sound you’ll never fprget. for half a second, its all silent.
then the arena erupts.
satoru throws his arms up, laughter ripping out of him, teammates crashing into him from every side. their helmets knock together. someone tackles him to the ice. the goal horn screams victory.
your vision blurs.
he finds you again through the chaos—eyes wild, shining, locked onto yours like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. he skates up to where you're sitting and he presses his glove to the glass right in front of you.
you mirror him, palm flat against the barrier separating you.
“i love you, baby,” he whispers, knowing you won’t be able to hear him over the roar of the crowd.
“i love you more, satoru.” you whisper back, just by instinct.
a/n ; okay the last scene is lowk giving the two aliens touching heads and holding hands but it’s okay we ballin😭❤️🩹❤️🩹 hope u guys enjoyed love yaa😸🤍
taglist^^ @postresfresitas @softtashoney @dreamydaredevil
I hope that within 5-10 years every ice "agent" in jail
Fr tho
mood recently
BLUE CHRISTMAS . . .
pairing. satoru gojo x reader (fanart by 28cg_ on x!)
synopsis. it’s christmas. you’re alone again after pulling away from the only people who’ve made you feel seen. you’ve never belonged. why would it be different with them? gojo surprises you by showing up at your door anyway. (wc 7k)
warnings/tags. hurt/comfort, angst, allusion to depression, social anxiety, loneliness, self isolation, & abandonment issues (pls don’t read if any of these might trigger you!), eventual fluff, pet names, comfort kisses, use of y/n in just one scene, gojo is the best boy and shoko and suguru are the best friends :(
꒰ ✉︎ ꒱ i’m sorry for dropping this angst for christmas (my first angst fic too?!) BUT we’re all good bc there’s comfort! right?? please enjoy! bc i may have or may not have sobbed multiple times writing this + this is a backstory for gojo x shy!reader ehhe. i’ll be getting more into their history before i continue writing smut with them so it all hits a little sweeter <3
another christmas alone.
only this time, it was entirely your fault.
you had met the most wonderful people this year: shoko, suguru, and satoru. as friends, they all fit together in a way that felt effortless, as if they’d been carved from the same place and just found each other.
when they took you in, their conversations flowed on as they always had. their inside jokes slipped past you, memories you weren’t part of surfacing without warning.
of course, they never shut you out—no, not once. never on purpose. they were all too kind for that. but sometimes knowing that fact made you feel even worse. it was as if they were constantly making space you hadn’t earned.
you laughed when you were supposed to, showed up when invited and told yourself that was enough. but every time they looked at you with that warmth and curiosity, something in your chest twisted.
kindness that unguarded had to be intentional. and if it was? then it had to be pity.
their texts started early that morning.
shoko greeting you with “merry chistmas!!” then asking what time you’d be over for the christmas party.
an hour passed. when you didn’t answer, suguru’s concern slipped through—gentle at first, then heavier when you still hadn’t shown up like you’d promised the day before.
satoru followed, loud and insistent, demanding you get over there already because he was “dying to see you.”
you sincerely doubted that last bit.
your phone buzzed again and again until your hands started to shake and sweat—and then you just muted their contacts altogether because answering meant stepping back into space you were already afraid of taking up.
you imagined them sitting together, warm, laughing, wondering why you weren’t there… but not wondering for too long.
they must’ve been relieved when you didn’t reply. one less obligation. less pity. more fun. less faking now that they didn’t have to go out of their way to include you.
so you stayed quiet like you always did.
it wasn’t like you contributed much anyway. they wouldn’t miss you—you were sure of that.
you knew you were boring. you knew you were painfully awkward. every word felt wrong the second you considered saying it. you’d been this way for all you’ve known.
all your friends came into your life the same way. they noticed you because you were alone and because they felt bad for you at first. they stayed just long enough to make you hope, then left when the silence became uncomfortable—when you were somehow too much and too little at the same time.
“no wonder she doesn’t have any friends. she’s so boring!”
“right? she doesn’t even try!”
that’s what they’d all say.
you got used to it.
conversations always seemed to stall when you spoke. every bumbling word felt like something you had to apologize for. you felt like you were taking up air meant for someone louder, easier, and more interesting.
with the three of them, you were always hyperaware of yourself. well, scratch that—you were hyperaware with everyone.
you laughed a second too late, every time. one-on-one conversations stretched thin, filled with pauses you didn’t know how to fix. silence settled in your chest and stayed there, heavy and accusing.
shoko and suguru could sit together without speaking and they still felt comfortable. when the same happened to you, it was like a dead weight and as if something had gone wrong and it was all your fault.
satoru tried the hardest to pull you in—too bright, too loud, always reaching. it felt even more wrong, as if he was overcompensating, smoothing over the rough edges you couldn’t hide.
the thing was, nobody had ever tried this hard before. no friends, no supposed friend group. the most they’d let you do was tag along like a lost puppy. smile politely. blend in just enough to not be a nuisance until you were.
but that never happened with them. not yet.
shoko asked you about the little things—your favorite books, what music you liked, the way you liked to spend a lazy afternoon.
suguru remembered every answer and brought it up later, as if your words mattered, as if they had weight.
satoru teased you relentlessly, yes, but he also asked, really asked, what you thought, what you wanted, noticed what made you laugh—really laugh. not just for show, but because he wanted to know.
they were curious about you. maybe out of genuine care.
so that was why you knew it would hurt so much more when they’d eventually leave you like everyone else always did.
and that was why you stayed in bed all christmas day, cocooned in blankets.
the world outside your apartment and even outside your room felt too loud and too full of happy people who didn’t understand how much effort it took just to breathe.
you only got up once, drawn by the rumble of your empty stomach. the kitchen was cold, at your feet, even in fuzzy socks—an early christmas present satoru got you, their blue color that reminded you of his eyes. they mocked you now.
even the act of making tea felt like climbing a mountain.
you moved on autopilot, filling a mug, heating water, staring blankly at the counter as if it might answer all the questions swirling in your head.
the quiet felt accusing. it always did when you were alone. every shadow seemed to whisper that maybe this was exactly where you belonged.
alone. forgotten. left behind.
the tea steamed in your hands, warm and meaningless, while your phone lay ignored on the table.
you wanted to tell yourself it was okay. that hiding like you always did was easier and that retreating under blankets, pretending the world had forgotten you was safer.
if you expected nothing there was nothing to loose.
you set the mug down untouched. it’s steam curled up and vanished into the cold air, like all the warmth in the world that couldn’t reach you. your hands trembled slightly, and for a moment you just stared at the mug, wishing it could carry your burdens.
finally, you give up.
you trudge back to your room and crawl beneath the blankets, pulling them over your head like they might muffle everything you’re feeling. you curl into yourself, arms tight around your middle, jaw clenched so hard it aches. you tell yourself not to cry. just breathe. just don’t.
your eyes burn. your throat closes up.
one tear slips, traitorous, soaking into your pillow before you can wipe it away. you swallow hard, trying to force it down, but your chest aches and a quiet sound escapes you.
then another tear follows. and another.
after that, there’s no stopping it.
the tears come silent, pressed into fabric, shaking out of you like something you’ve been holding hostage all day. they spill freely, hot and relentless, streaking your cheeks, blurring everything. your breathing turns uneven, chest heaving as if it can’t quite remember how to work, shoulders trembling with the effort of keeping it quiet.
you cry until it hurts—until your ribs ache, until your throat feels raw and scraped bare, until the hiccups rip through you in soft, humiliating bursts.
there’s nobody to comfort you. not now. not ever.
the blankets twist around your body, heavy and useless, offering nothing but warmth without comfort. your room stays still—dark and indifferent, watching you fall apart.
when the tears slow eventually, thinning into shaky breaths, your body sags in on itself. emptied out and exhausted.
your eyes throb, swollen and sore, lashes clumped together with dried tears. the last broken cry slips from your chest, barely more than a breath.
sleep takes you then—not gentle, not kind—but restless and thin, pulling you under while the ache still lingers in your bones.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
you hadn’t even remembered falling asleep but banging on your door jolts you awake.
panic hits you immediately. the knocks are impatient. almost angry…? for a split second, your half asleep mind spirals.
were you about to be robbed?
your heart slams against your ribs as you scramble upright, sheets tangling around your legs. you reach for your phone, fingers shaking, only to remember you had left it on the kitchen table.
the banging comes again, louder this time, rattling the door in its frame. you swallow hard.
clutching your blanket around your shoulders like armor, you slip out of your room on shaky feet, every step careful, silent.
you grab your phone just as the knocking turns more frantic.
then a voice cuts through it—urgent, rough around the edges, painfully familiar.
“y/n? i’m really fucking worried now. open the door please! i swear to—”
your breathing stills just as he cuts himself off.
it’s satoru.
softer now stripped of all his loud confidence, “please y/n… open the door.”
the way he says your name, like he’s been pacing and trying not to panic, makes your heart twist. the teasing lilt you know so well is gone. the bravado is gone. it’s just worry. real, naked worry.
you stand there frozen, blanket clutched tight, blinking against the sting building behind your eyes, throat closing up.
he came.
he actually came.
nevertheless, panic swarms you all over again. what were you supposed to do? would he be angry? were the others with him? god—you were a mess. your hair tangled with sleep, eyes swollen, face still tight from crying. you couldn’t let anyone see you like this. you couldn’t let him see you like this.
every instinct screams at you to disappear back under the covers and pretend none of this is happening.
but you can’t. he’s right outside your door.
you’re stuck there, suspended between panic and disbelief, feet rooted to the floor.
but then his voice breaks through again—sharper now, threaded with something dangerously close to desperation.
“c’mon— y/n? please. open the door. i need to know if you’re okay… i- i’ll break it down if i have to!”
you flinch.
before fear can talk you out of it you’re moving.
your hands shake so badly as you fumble with the lock, breath coming in shallow, uneven pulls. the door swings open just a crack, and for one terrifying second, you don’t know if you’re ready to meet his eyes.
but there he is.
satoru’s hand is mid knock and he almost stumbles forward when the door opens.
his usual grin is nowhere to be found. instead, there’s worry carved into every line of his face, raw and unguarded—and it hits you harder than anything else tonight.
he exhales your name the second he sees you, relief flooding his voice like it’s been trapped there.
“are you okay?”
the simple question catches you so off guard. it’s not a where where you? or why have you been ignoring us?
he’s asking if you’re okay.
your throat tightens painfully. you can’t answer. you can’t make yourself look at him.
he says your name again, softer this time, almost a plea, but the sound barely reaches you over the storm building in your chest.
everything caves in at once—every wall you put up. every breath you forced to stay steady.
before you can stop it, the dam breaks.
and when it does? his arms are around you.
they’re warm and solid, making your body collapse into him like instinct.
he holds you like he’s afraid to let go, like he’s anchoring you in place when you’re falling apart. his palm cups the back of your head, careful, reverent, like you’re something fragile and worth protecting.
the real sobs that have been clawing at your chest finally spill free.
satoru doesn’t even even pull away or flinch. if anything he settles closer like this is what he was made for.
he murmurs your name again and again, letting you cry it out against him. you cling to him, face buried in his chest, shoulders trembling so hard they ache.
your hair is damp where tears have soaked through, breath hitching in uneven pulls. the scent of him—clean soap, warmth, him—fills your lungs, grounding in a way nothing else has been all day.
for the first time, the crushing weight on your chest eases. just a little. maybe more.
his hand moves through your hair in slow, soothing circles, patient and unhurried. then his fingers catch the edge of the blanket you’re still clutching uselessly between you, and without another word, he tugs it higher around your shoulders. snug and protective.
the gesture is so gentle—so considerate—that your breath stutters all over again.
the words repeat like a mantra, quiet but insistent, making your chest ache. “it’s okay, baby,” he murmurs. “it’s okay… i’ve got you. you’re not alone. you’re not alone, okay?”
the word baby lands like a shock straight to your chest.
nobody had ever called you that. nobody had called you that in a way that felt like this—care and tenderness instead of something you had to earn. your fingers curl tighter in his shirt, knuckles whitening as if your body is afraid that if you let go, even a little, he’ll vanish.
a broken sound tears out of your throat, sharper than the sobs before it, like something inside you has finally split open. your face presses harder into his chest, tears soaking through as your body trembles.
you want to stop—you really do, it’s embarrassing to be like this in front of him, but each sob is pulled from somewhere deep and bruised, all your fear spilling out at once.
you’d been so sure—so sure—that being held like this was never meant for you.
but now… satoru is giving it to you.
his arms tighten, firm and grounding when your knees threaten to buckle, keeping you upright because he won’t let you collapse completely. one hand stays cradled at the back of your head while the other rubs slow, reassuring circles into your back.
“hey,” he murmurs, voice thick now, like he feels it too. “it’s okay. you don’t have to hold back anymore. cry if you need to. i’m right here.”
you gasp, trying to speak, but all that comes out is a choked, broken sound—your words dissolving into sobs as soon as they reach your throat. you shake your head against his chest like you’re arguing and trying to deny everything spilling out of you.
when you sob against him again, you don’t feel so alone doing it.
he still doesn’t let go, only holding you closer, resting his cheek against the top of your head, breathing slow and deliberately until your body starts to follow his lead.
“i’m not going anywhere,” he whispers, a promise meant only for you. “not tonight. okay?”
your chest still hurts. the tears still come. but somewhere between the steady thump of his heart and the quiet certainty in his voice, the pain shifts—no longer sharp, just heavy. something you can carry.
you nod against him.
the next thing you know, satoru is lifting you effortlessly into his arms. he carries you across the room like you’re the most fragile thing in the world.
your apartment feels too big and too empty as he walks, but the space between the two of you feels impossibly small. impossibly safe.
he sits down on the couch without letting you go, keeping you tucked against his chest, your arms still looped around his waist. his hand never leaves the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair like they belong there.
you can feel his warmth seeping into you.
he hums softly under his breath, repeating those reassurances that wrap around you like a warm hug.
“i’ve got you,” he murmurs again, “you don’t have to be brave right now. not for anyone. just be here with me.”
and you try to do just that.
you let the tears fall, let yourself shudder against him, let yourself finally rest against someone who refuses to let you crumble alone.
you’ve never felt so seen—so heard without even saying a word.
slowly but surely, the cries eventually fade, replacing themselves with slow, heavy breathing.
he shifts slightly, cradling you closer, and you feel the gentle press of his chin atop your heat. he waits, patient, giving you a long moment to breathe.
when you’ve calmed down more he speaks, breaking the quiet.
“hi, pretty girl… can i see you?”
your chest tightens at his words. your brain scrambles. pretty? me?
it hits you all at once how big this is for you and your face heats like fire. you feel your cheeks burn, your lips parting, unsure what to say. flustered, vulnerable, and entirely unguarded, you nod slightly, still buried against his chest.
his fingers tilts your chin up gently, the other hand brushing your damp hair from your face.
your eyes meet his blue ones that you adore so much and he smiles. it makes your chest ache in a new way. not with pain, but with the strange, overwhelming relief of being noticed.
“there you are,” he whispers, almost to himself.
you blink, still caught somewhere between disbelief and a growing warmth. he leans in just slightly, close enough that you can feel his warm breath without pressure, close enough that you know he’s not going anywhere.
his thumb brushes along your cheek, tracing the damp tracks of your tears, and a shiver runs through you. not from fear or from the cold, from the way he’s holding you making you feel safe.
“it’s okay,” he says again, softer this time, “you don’t have to hide. not from me. not ever.”
you swallow the lump in your throat.
when you finally talk, your voice is hoarse.
“thank you,” you whisper, the words barely making it past your lips.
it feels small compared to everything he’s done—showing up, holding you, staying—but it’s all you can offer. your fingers curl into his shirt again, not quite ready to let go, your heart fluttering in a way that feels dangerous.
he exhales softly, something warm and fond in the sound, and dips his forehead to rest against yours. “hey,” he murmurs, gentle, “you don’t have to thank me for anything. i actually should’ve come much earlier…”
“huh?” you murmur.
your chest tightens with something tender and aching. you’ve always felt it for him, even before today. his presence made everything feel a little lighter, a little safer. you’d told yourself it was nothing. but right now, wrapped up in his arms, it feels impossible to deny.
he pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes soft, unguarded in a way you don’t see often. one of his hands stays firm at your waist, grounding, now like he’s afraid you might slip away if he lets go.
“yeah,” he says quietly. “i was so worried when you didn’t answer us. i kept hoping you’d show up…”
“i should’ve noticed sooner… you’ve been trying so hard to be okay, and i let you do it alone.” his thumb brushes absentmindedly over your side, slow and soothing. “that’s on me. i’m sorry…”
your chest tightens further with the overwhelming weight of being seen. you know now that he doesn't pity you. he cares enough for you to regret missing the signs.
you shake your head quickly, instinctively. “i didn’t want to bother anyone,” you admit, voice small. “especially you.”
his brows knit together, and for the first time there’s something fierce under the softness. “you could never bother me,” he says immediately, like it’s obvious. like it’s always been obvious. “i just… i thought you knew that.”
your heart stutters. you swallow, eyes dropping to his chest, suddenly shy. “i didn’t,” you confess.
there’s a beat of silence. not awkward—heavy. meaningful.
then he tilts his head, smiling faintly, something vulnerable flickering across his face. “guess i should be clearer, then.”
you think—oh. maybe he’s going to say something else. maybe he’s just close because he always is.
but then his lips brush your cheek.
it’s so light you almost miss it.
but how could you?
you freeze instantly, breath catching sharp in your chest, eyes widening in pure surprise. before your mind can catch up, he presses another kiss just beneath your eye—right where your tears had fallen. then another, careful and unhurried, like he’s testing something fragile.
your heart stumbles violently. he’s not teasing. not rushing. he’s kissing your face—like it means something. like you mean something.
“satoru—” you breathe, startled, his name slipping out on instinct alone.
he pauses instantly, forehead resting against yours again, thumb still warm against your cheek.
he searches your face. “is this okay?”
you nod before you can think, cheeks burning, pulse racing, still stunned.
“mhm,” you whisper.
something soft breaks across his face at that—relief, affection, something dangerously sincere. he presses one last kiss to your cheek, lingering just a second longer this time, like he’s memorizing the feeling of you here, alive and real in his arms.
“i’ve always wanted to do that,” he admits quietly.
your chest tightens, breath shallow. you don’t know what to say. you’d never imagined this—not really. never let yourself believe he’d want to kiss you like this. but now, held gently, kissed so carefully, you realize how long you’ve been aching for it too.
he doesn’t push. doesn’t take more.
“merry christmas,” he says with a small, almost shy smile.
you let out a breathless, disbelieving huff of a laugh.
“merry christmas,” you echo, just as softly.
his smile widens at that, eyes crinkling in a way that makes your stomach flutter. he squeezes you just a little tighter, like he’s grounding himself too, like this means as much to him as it does to you.
and then he’s pulling something out of this pocket.
“i have this for you.”
your heart stutters. “wait- you didn’t have to—”
“I know,” he says gently. “but i wanted to.”
he opens his palm, revealing a small box. your hands shake as you take it.
when you lift the lid, your breath catches in a gasp.
inside is a necklace. it’s so delicate and it’s in the jewelry color you always wear. the small charm makes your chest ache instantly. it’s a tiny origami crane.
he remembered. he really remembered.
weeks ago, you’d mentioned in passing, how much you loved origami—how a single crane could hold a wish, a hope, or a secret meaning. it hadn’t even been a full conversation. you’d never imagined he was really listening—let alone care enough to turn it into something like this.
“you remembered?” you whisper.
he shrugs, almost shy, a small grin tugging at his lips. “of course i did.” then, softer, “it reminded me of you.”
your eyes sting. again. you laugh softly, pressing the tiny crane to your chest like like it might hold every little ache and joy you’ve been carrying. no one had ever paid attention like this—not enough to remember, not enough to choose something that spoke to you.
“can i?” he asks, already reaching.
you nod. he inches closer, fingers brushing your hair aside as he fastens it around your neck. his touch lingers at the nape for half a second too long.
when he pulls back, his gaze softens. “it looks perfect on you,” he says quietly.
your heart feels like it might burst.
“wait,” you blurt suddenly, panic and courage colliding. “i- i have something for you too.”
his brows lift in surprise. “yeah?”
you pull away reluctantly and hurry to your room, heart racing. the gift had been tucked away in your closet for weeks—a stupid, impulsive thing you bought because it made you think of him immediately. you never thought you’d actually get the chance to give it to him.
you come back clutching it behind your back, suddenly painfully shy. “it’s not… i mean, it’s kind of silly,” you mumble, holding it out.
he blinks when he sees it—then a smile envelops his entire face.
it’s a plushie of a white cat with blue eyes. soft and ridiculous.
he takes it from you carefully, eyes flicking from the plushie to you, a slow smile spreading across his face.
you stumble over your words to fill the gap, “it’s… it’s stupid, i mean—i just saw it and it reminded me of you and i didn’t think i’d ever actually get the chance to give it to you—”
instead of replying, he’s tugging you onto his lap.
instead, he’s tugging you gently onto his lap.
the soft plushie gets tucked between you, pressed to his chest as his arms come around you, laughter bubbling out of him like he can’t help it.
“oh my god,” he laughs softly, voice fond and warm, “you’re so cute.”
then he leans in—and suddenly his lips are on your face again.
“it’s perfect, baby,” he murmurs into your hair, squeezing the plushie again like he needs to make the point stick.
the kisses start soft. then teasing. then faster, lighter—pressed everywhere without warning. your cheeks, your temples, the tip of your nose. he laughs between them, breath warm against your skin, eyes bright and sparkling like he’s having the time of his life.
your hands clutch at his shirt, breath going shallow as you whine in embarrassment, but he doesn’t let you go. he cradles you easily, the plushie snug between you while his arms hold you close.
“i’m so happy,” he says, smiling in a dopey way that makes your chest ache—and makes you want to kiss him back properly, except you can barely think straight. his forehead rests against yours, close enough that you can feel his breath. “i’m so happy you’re here… and that you got me this little thing…”
all you can do is laugh, breathless, cheeks burning, head spinning from the way he’s holding you, kissing you, making you feel.
you manage a small, breathless laugh, voice trembling. “you really like it, huh?”
he looks down at the plushie, then back at you, eyes sparkling. “like it? i love it,” he says, squeezing it gently before glancing at you again, smile wide and unrestrained. “thank you for thinking of me.”
your cheeks burn hotter, heart hammering. “i… i should be the one saying that…” you murmur, fingers fidgeting.
he laughs softly, a warm, light sound that makes your stomach flutter, then leans in and presses a quick kiss to your forehead and you can’t help but laugh and squirm a little on his lap, trying to catch your breath.
and the way he looks at you after that—soft, fond, unmistakably pleased—makes your chest feel too full.
you feel like you’re the grinch and your heart has grown three sizes.
he’s still smiling at you like that—soft, pleased, a little stunned—when something beyond you catches his eye.
the laughter in his chest slows. his gaze drifts past your shoulder, toward the window.
“…wait,” he says, squinting slightly.
you follow his line of sight just as his eyes widen, excitement lighting up his face all at once.
“wait—look!”
thick snowflakes are falling outside.
his whole demeanor changes instantly—like a switch has flipped. he practically bounces in place, and you knew he actually would’ve if your weren’t sitting on his lap. he grips you just a little tighter in his excitement.
“it’s christmas snow! actual christmas snow! do you see this?!”
you laugh, covering your mouth with your hands, gaze stuck between the window and him. “it’s beautiful.”
you don’t know which is better.
he looks back at you, eyes sparkling. there’s something boyish and unfiltered about him this way that makes you feel the same.
“hey,” he says suddenly, leaning closer like he’s about to share a secret. “have you ever made a snow angel?”
you shake your head slowly. “no… my parents never let me. they were always worried i’d get sick.”
his expression shifts instantly—mock offense, dramatic disbelief.
“no way!” he groans. “that’s unacceptable. today, we make snow angels. non-negotiable.”
before you can even respond, he’s already moving—hands on your waist, lifting you easily off his lap and tugging you toward the door. you stumble after him, laughing, heart racing.
“wait—wait!” you protest, breathless. “i need to get dressed first!”
he freezes mid-step, blinks, then laughs at himself. “oh my god—yeah. okay. wow. what am i doing?” he steps back, holding his hands up dramatically. “bundle up. i’ll wait. promise.”
the way he says it—easy, unhurried, like he truly had nowhere else to be even when he had been so excited—makes something in you soften even more.
you retreat into your room, heart still pounding, movements a little clumsy from leftover adrenaline and excitement. you pull on your jacket quickly, then a knit hat, gloves, and a scarf. just as you’re about to head back out, you pause. you hadn’t seen satoru bring anything with him except a jacket.
without really thinking, you grab an extra scarf and another pair of gloves, folding them over your arm before leaving the room.
when you step back out, he looks up from where he’s waiting by the door. his eyes flick over you—and then down.
“…aww,” he grins, pointing. “those are the socks i got you.”
you glance down, suddenly aware of the fuzzy fabric peeking out beneath your pants. your face warms. “oh. yeah,” you admit quietly. “i wore them all day.”
something in his expression shifts, fond and gentle all at once. he grins in his boyish way, “i like that,”
you hold out the extra gloves and scarf, shy. “i… grabbed these for you. just in case. i didn’t have an extra hat though…”
his eyebrows lift, surprised—and then he smiles wider. “you’re really sweet, you know that?”
“says you,” you mumble, ducking your head.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
outside, the cold hits you immediately. thick flakes drift down like the world has softened just for christmas. there had already been snow on the ground from last week, but now a fresh layer was settling over everything making it all untouched.
satoru drops down first, landing flat on his back with a dramatic oof.
“okay! like this,” he announces, already spreading his arms and legs wide against the snow as if he was demonstrating something very serious.
you hesitate for half a second—just long enough for the cold to feel real—before lowering yourself down beside him. you sit, then lie back, the snow immediately seeping through your coat, cold enough to pull a sharp gasp from your chest before it turns into laughter. you start moving your arms and legs, copying him, the rhythm awkward at first.
“you’re doing it!” he says, turning his head toward you, grin bright and uncontained. “your first snow angel!”
you turn toward him too, cheeks flushed both from the cold and from him. snow clings to your lashes, almost like you’re trying to match his naturally white ones. “i can’t believe i’ve never done this before,” you admit, breath fogging the air.
“well, it only matters you’re doing it now!” he grins, stretching his arms wider, deliberately exaggerating his movements. “and you gotta commit,” he says. “bigger wings. like this.”
“that’s not fair! my arms aren’t as long as yours!”
you try to follow, laughing harder now—and then your glove slips, accidentally flinging snow straight into his hair.
he freezes.
dramatically, he gasps. “hey! was that an attack?!”
you sit up immediately, laughing so hard your sides ache. “i didn’t mean to!”
“oh, it’s on!” he says, already scooping up a handful of snow. he lobs it at you with zero aim, the clump falling apart midair and barely dusting your sleeve.
“that doesn’t even count!” you tease, scrambling to your feet.
your boots crunch loudly against the snow. he chases after you, laughing, long strides intentionally slowing just enough for you to stay ahead. you can tell he’s letting you win—and it makes you giggle even more.
but then your foot slips.
before you can panic, he’s there, catching you around the waist. the two of you tumble down together in a messy heap, snow puffing up around you as you land.
you end up tangled together, his arm braced beside your head, your hands gripping his jacket. for a moment, neither of you move.
your faces are close, too close—breaths fogging the space between you as the laughter fades into something quieter. you feel so warm inside despite the cold snow biting at you.
the world feels still, like it’s waiting for the two of you.
snow keeps drifting down lazily, catching in his bright hair and melting against his pinkened cheeks.
you’re suddenly aware of how close you are—too close to pretend this is still just an accident—but neither of you pull away.
you huff the way your stomach is fluttering with a soft laugh, eyes flicking up to his hair. “you’re matching the snow.”
he pouts immediately, exaggerated and offended, and it makes you want to kiss it right off his face.
“rude.”
you shake your head quickly, flustered, fingers tightening in his jacket. “no- i meant like- in a good way. you’re like a real snow angel.”
he blinks. once. then again. the tips of his ears turn pink almost instantly.
“…hey,” he mutters, suddenly looking anywhere but at you. “that’s not fair.”
“huh?”
“you can’t just say things like that,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, flustered.
“oh…”
when he finally looks back at you, there’s something nervous and earnest there, something softer than you’ve ever seen.
his gaze slips down to your lips.
it’s almost like he can’t seem to help it. he exhales slowly, steadying himself.
you gulp.
the realization hits you all at once—what’s about to happen. what you want to happen. your hands tighten in his jacket, knuckles brushing the fabric as your heart stumbles, caught somewhere between nerves and longing.
was this how your first kiss is going to happen?
he wets his lips without thinking, then looks at your own. really looks.
“i… can i…?” he murmurs, voice low, almost breaking.
you nod, barely able to breathe. “mhm….”
he leans in slowly, like he’s afraid of breaking the moment. each inch feels deliberate and suspended, the space between you stretching thin with anticipation. you don’t pull away. not even a little. and your lips part on instinct.
he notices. his breath catches, eyes flicking to your mouth before lifting to meet yours again, searching, making sure you’re still with him.
the world narrows.
he closes the distance carefully. the brush of his nose against yours sends a quiet spark through you, your pulse roaring in your ears as the last sliver of space lingers—just long enough to feel unbearable.
then it’s gone.
his lips meet yours… soft as a promise. warmth blooms instantly like fireworks, chasing away the cold that clings to your skin.
his hand stays at your jaw, thumb tracing slow arcs that make your breath hitch against him.
you register distantly that his gloves are gone, that his skin is warm against yours despite the cold somehow, but the thought drifts away before it can settle.
your fingers are already knotted in his jacket, unsure and clumsy, so you cling harder, grounding yourself in the familiar weight of him, the fabric wrinkling beneath your grip.
he notices. the kiss lingers as if he’s reassuring you without words. he doesn’t rush you, only leaning in just a touch more.
you feel the curve of a smile against your lips before it fades into something deeper.
the kiss deepens and you exhale into him without meaning to, and he hums low in his chest, pleased. like he’d been waiting for that.
the sound sends a small shiver through you and your grip tightens again, knuckles brushing the warmth of his chest beneath the layers.
his thumb stills at your jaw when you finally pull back a fraction, just enough to breathe, your foreheads resting together.
you breaths fog between you, uneven, and he lets out a soft laugh under his breath, something shy and disbelieving.
“wow,” he murmurs, like he’s afraid to break the spell.
you look at him in awe, as if you’re seeing him for the first time but somehow have always known him. his white lashes are dusted with snow, cheeks flushed pink, blue eyes soft and a little stunned like he can’t quite believe this is real either.
for a second, you forget everything else. the pain you’d felt for your whole life? he’s taking it away, little by little until there’s just him, this close, breathing the same air as you.
your lips still tingle where they had met his so intimately, warmth blooming low in your chest, spreading slow and sweet.
“…hi,” you whisper. you don’t know what else to say. the word is barely there, more breath than sound.
his mouth curves into a small, crooked smile, shy in a way you’ve never seen before. “hi pretty girl,” he echoes, quieter, like he’s matching you on purpose.
he leans his forehead against yours again and your fingers relax just a little in his jacket. not because you’re ready to let go—only because you don’t feel like you have to hold on so tightly anymore.
snow keeps falling around you, soft and steady, and for once, it feels like the world got something right.
but then a startled gasp breaks the quiet.
“ugh—! you guys are alive!”
the sound makes both of you jump. you and satoru jerk upright at the same time, scrambling out of your tangled sprawl in the snow, hearts leaping into your throats as you turn toward the voice.
shoko stands a few steps away, one hand pressed to her chest like she’s catching her breath, the other already pointing accusingly at satoru. suguru lingers beside her, calmer, but his posture eases the second he sees you both.
“we’ve been worried sick,” shoko says, relief tumbling out on top of her irritation. “satoru, you said you were just checking on her and then you disappear without letting us know she’s fine! no texts, no calls, nothing!”
satoru winces, rubbing the back of his neck. “oh… sorry about that.”
but then she stops.
actually looks at the two of you.
at how close you’re still sitting despite jumping apart. at the way his knee is almost touching yours, his arm hovering awkwardly like he’s not sure where to put it now. at your embarrassed face, snow clinging to your lashes, hands still half curled like they’d only just let go of his jacket.
“…wait,” she says slowly.
her eyes widen. “oh my gosh. you two—?”
your face heats instantly. “we—”
satoru lets out a small, caught laugh. “uhh…”
there’s a beat of silence—then shoko’s expression flips completely. her mouth drops open, then curls into a grin so wide it’s almost blinding.
“are you serious?” she whispers, delighted. “is this happening right now?”
suguru exhales, something like a chuckle slipping free. “uh huh. it was about time,” he says, easy and knowing.
shoko lets out a sound that’s simply delighted, and before either of you can react, she drops straight down into the snow, arms flinging wide around both of you.
“oh my god,” she laughs, pressing her cold cheek against yours. “i’m actually going to cry. this is so overdue.”
you freeze for a moment, flustered by how close she’s pressed against you. an unrestrained giggle escapes your lips and satoru groans, trying to push her the two of you.
“okay! okay, shoko! get off!”
“what? i’m celebrating!” she protests, holding on tighter. “i’ve been waiting forever for this moment!”
satoru huffs, mock exasperated, gently trying to pry her off. “hey! hands off my girl, jeez! she’s mine!”
my girl.
you laugh through your blush, squirming a little as shoko giggles, clearly unbothered by satoru’s mock jealousy.
from the side, suguru stands with his arms crossed, snow crunching under his boots as he watches, outwardly begrudging, but the faintest crease of a smile betrays him.
“unbelievable,” he mutters, voice dry, and then, with a resigned huff, he kneels down and lets himself join the tangle of limbs on the snow.
he rests his weight next to you and whispers, “glad you’re okay.”
your bashful ‘thank you’ is swallowed by shoko squealing as she wiggles happily between you and satoru.“this is a christmas miracle!” she laughs, pressing her cheek closer to yours and tightening her grip. “i’ve been waiting forever for this!”
satoru groans, exasperated but laughing at the same time. “shoko! seriously! you’re going to crush us!”
you can’t stop the laugh that escapes you, breathless and shaky, cheeks warm, heart hammering. over shoko’s shoulder, your eyes meet satoru’s—bright, steady, and impossibly blue. for a moment, the rest of the world disappears and even shoko’s excited giggles fade into the background.
his hands reach out to intertwine with yours behind shoko’s back and your fingers tighten instinctively around him when they meet.
suguru sits nearby, looking like he’s enduring the chaos, but that small invisible smile is always there to show he’s truly happy too.
snow drifts down around you, soft and quiet, and everything feels right—tangled in the snow, pressed together, hearts still racing from laughter and relief, you realize why this moment will linger in your memory.
and somehow, in the midst of it all, your world had changed to a different kind of blue than the one you’d known before.
now, it was only the blue of his eyes that mattered.
masterlist | series masterlist
jjk perm taglist @certifiablyunstable @pink127 @nnaa-bba @nadiiraax (get added here) + shy!series taglist @gg-trini
♡. ⤷ 🖇️ ꒰ before you interact! ꒱ .ᐟ
• ⸺ first of all, i'm an adult writing for other adults. i've noticed there are a lot of minors here, and that's totally okay, i was a teenager once too, i get it. i don't mind minors interacting with me or my work, i won't be rude to you or block you. i can't control what you read. but understand that some types of content might not be suitable for your age and could affect you negatively. smut often presents very, very unrealistic aspects of sexual relationships, and that can be harmful to you, especially if you're still learning about sex, intimacy and boundaries. it's important to approach that type of content with critical thinking and awareness.
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♡. ⤷ 🖇️ ꒰ requesting infos/rules! ꒱ .ᐟ
• ⸺ i only write for fem!reader, both nsfw and sfw. my requests are always open, but keep in mind that i have a job and i'm in grad school so i might not reply quickly. i currently only write for dc but that can change. and, guys, please, i don't write for underage characters, i don't feel comfortable doing that. even aging them up, it's still weird for me as a grown adult.
♡. please be kind to me, i'll always be kind to you.
NO. rape, dubcon, underaged characters, gore.
"you cheated on me!" backfired, ft. satoru g.
Satoru Gojo is not happy.
No. He’s frowning, brows furrowed, arms crossed, lips pursed into a pout so dramatic it could win an Oscar. His Six Eyes are locked on your peacefully sleeping face, like you personally betrayed him, which, according to his dream, you did.
You, meanwhile, are blissfully unaware. Snoring softly. Probably dreaming about something cute. Or, if Satoru’s dream is to be believed, some other man.
“Unbelievable.” He mutters, glaring at you. “I spoil you, I love you, and you go and do that?”
You stir, mumbling something incoherent.
He squints accusingly. “Oh, so you can talk in your sleep too. Who is he, huh?”
Your eyes flutter half open at the noise, hair a mess. “...Huh?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me!” He says, pointing an accusatory finger. “You cheated!”
Your brain takes a full five seconds to process that. “...What?”
“I saw you! You were talking to another man!”
You blink at him. “Satoru,” you say slowly, “were you dreaming?”
He hesitates. “...Maybe. But that’s not the point!”
“Oh no, it’s definitely the point.” You say, sitting up now, squinting. “You were dreaming of a man while I’m right here?”
His mouth drops open. “Wait, what? No, I-”
“YOU were dreaming of a man...” Your eyes widen dramatically, as if the realisation just hit you like a truck. “Satoru... are you... gay?”
“What?! No!”
“You don’t want me anymore, is that it? You’re dreaming about men now? Was it-” You gasp loudly “- was it Suguru? I knew it! I knew you had something for him-!” You snap your fingers.
He looks personally attacked. “WHAT?! No, baby, he’s my friend!”
“Oh my god.” You whisper, lips quivering. “You wanna go be his boyfriend and leave me all alone, don’t you?”
He scrambles, eyes wide as he moves to cradle your face reasuringly. “No no no, baby, I would never! I love you. Only you. Please, believe me-”
You stare at him for a long, dramatic second. Then you smile as sweet as an angel, dropping the act. “Oh okay, baby. I believe you. Goodnight.”
You flop back down, tug the blanket up, and close your eyes like nothing happened.
Satoru exhales out a sigh. “Thank god.” He mumbles, relieved to have made it out of that alive, before settling back beside you. “Goodnight, baby.”
The corner of your mouth quirks up just slightly. A few seconds of silence. Then:
“…Wait a second.”
You burst out laughing.
“yeah i read a lot!”
“oh awesome! What books do you read?”
DESIDERIUM.
there’s a ghost haunting your apartment. he’s beautiful, and lonely, and you should have known better than to fall in love with him. alternatively, an investigation into the haunting of apartment 4B.
details: ghost!gojo satoru x fem!reader. 25.1k words. romance, angst, smut, hurt/comfort, frenemies to lovers, ghost/supernatural!au. profanity, masturbation, mentions of deaths, hauntings, somnophilia, implied voyeurism, toxic relationship, etc. note: art by _3aem on x. thank you to @jeonwiixard for beta reading. happy spooky season!
desiderium (n.) – a strong longing or yearning, particularly for something that has been lost or once possessed.
You knew something was deeply, ostensibly wrong with your apartment when the kettle began floating in mid-air.
“Okay,” you said. “That’s insane.”
“Rude,” came a voice behind you.
You spun around so fast, your hip collided with the counter, sending a sharp jolt of pain through your side. The kettle remained suspended exactly where it had been—three feet above your stovetop, steam curling from its pout.
Behind you stood a man.
He was tall—absurdly so—with hair the colour of fresh snow and eyes that looked like they’d stolen every shade of blue from the sky and crystallised them behind his lashes. He wore what appeared to be traditional Japanese clothing, though the fabric moved wrong, rippling like water even though there was no breeze in your kitchen. Everything about him had a strange translucence to it, as if he’d been painted onto reality with watercolours that hadn’t quite dried.
You could see the outline of your refrigerator through his torso.
“You’re a ghost,” you said.
“And you’re staring,” he replied. “I mean, I get it. I’m devastatingly handsome even in death, but it’s still a little uncomfortable.”
Your eye twitched. Out of all the responses you’d expected from your first encounter with the supernatural—terror, existential dread, perhaps a mild panic attack—annoyance hadn’t made the list. Yet here you were, irritated at a dead man’s ego.
“You’re making my kettle float,” you said.
“I’m making your kettle boil,” he corrected. “You’re welcome, by the way. You looked like you needed tea. Or whiskey. Probably whiskey, actually, but I can’t manifest alcohol. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
The kettle drifted gently back down to the stovetop with barely a sound. You stared at it, then at him, then back at the kettle, trying to reconcile the absurdity of your current reality with the fact that you still had a presentation due Monday morning and absolutely no mental bandwidth for a supernatural roommate.
“This is a prank,” you decided. “Someone’s messing with me. There are holograms now, right? Very advanced holograms?”
“Holograms can’t do this.”
He reached out—or seemed to reach out—and suddenly, every cabinet in your kitchen flew open simultaneously. Mugs rattled, plates clinked, and a container of pasta you’d forgotten about tumbled out and scattered across the floor in a cascade of dried penne.
“Stop that!” You lurched forward, hands outstretched uselessly. “This place isn’t cheap. I don’t have the security deposit to cover damages!”
The cabinets slammed shut in unison. The ghost—because that’s what he was, you were being forced to accept this now—looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“See? Definitely not a hologram.” He drifted closer, and you noticed that his feet didn’t quite touch the ground. “Name’s Gojo Satoru. Well, was Gojo Satoru. Still am, I suppose. Death is weird about the technicalities of identity.”
“I don’t care about the technicalities of your identity,” you said, voice climbing an octave. “I care about the fact that there’s a dead person in my apartment. How are you here? Why are you here? Is this—am I dying? Oh, God, am I dead too?”
You grabbed your wrist, feeling for a pulse. It was there, hammering against your fingertips.
“Relax, you’re fine. Very much alive. You’ve got this whole living-person energy that’s kind of overwhelming.” Satoru waved a hand dismissively, the motion trailing faint afterimages. “As for why I’m here… that’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“Bossy.” But he was smiling, or something close to it. “I’ve been here for a while. This apartment, specifically. I’m what you might call anchored to it. Can’t leave, can’t move on, can’t even check out the apartment next door, which sucks, because their TV is definitely better than yours.”
You resisted the urge to throw something at him, mostly because you weren’t sure if objects could even hit ghosts and you didn’t want to break your own belongings to find out. “How long is a while?”
He shrugged. “Time’s weird when you’re dead. Could be months. Could be years. Could be decades, honestly. I stopped keeping track after the last tenant moved out screaming about demons.”
“Of course they did,” you muttered. “Of course I’m living in a haunted apartment. This is what I get for choosing the place with the lowest rent.”
“I’m not that bad as a roommate,” the ghost protested. “I’m quiet—well, usually. I don’t eat your food, I don’t hog your bathroom, and I’ve gotten very good at not accidentally possessing your electronics. Only fried your microwave twice this month.”
“That was you?” You’d thought that was faulty wiring. You’d nearly called an electrician.
“Could’ve been worse. The last person who lived here went through four laptops.”
You pressed your palms against your eyes, willing this to be a stress dream brought on by too much overtime and too little sleep. When you opened them, Satoru was still there, hovering near your kitchen table with an expectant expression.
“Okay,” you said slowly. “Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say you’re actually a ghost and not a hallucination brought on by a carbon monoxide leak—”
“Your detectors work fine. I checked.”
“—why are you showing yourself to me now? If you’ve been here a while, you could’ve stayed hidden. Why appear?”
Something shifted in his expression, a flicker of something almost vulnerable before his smile returned, sharper than before. “You noticed me.”
“What?”
“The other tenants, they sensed something was off. Got creeped out, moved out. But you—” He gestured at you with both hands, as if you were evidence in an argument only he understood. “You noticed. Little things at first. Items moving when you were sure you’d left them somewhere else. Cold spots that didn’t make sense. That one time you could’ve sworn someone was standing in your bedroom doorway at 3 A.M.”
You had definitely thought that. You’d convinced yourself it was too much caffeine and exhaustion. “So… what? You’re lonely?”
His expression did something complicated. “Maybe. Being dead is boring. Being dead and trapped in a one-bedroom apartment is excruciating. Do you know how many times I’ve reorganised your bookshelf just to have something to do?”
“That was you?” you said again. You’d thought you were going crazy, finding your books rearranged by colour one day, by height the next, and once, bizarrely, in alphabetical order by the protagonist’s name. “I have a system!”
“You call that a system?”
You glared at each other—or you glared at him, at least. He looked delighted, like you’d just given him the most entertainment he’d had in years. Which, you supposed, you probably had.
The kettle began to whistle.
“Your water’s ready,” Satoru said pleasantly. “Tea’s in the cabinet to your left, second shelf. The green tin, not the blue one. The blue one’s been expired for six months.”
“How do you—never mind.” You didn’t want to know how closely he’d been watching you. You grabbed a mug—your favourite one, with the chipped handle—and reached for the green tin, finding it exactly where he’d said.
As you poured the water, watching the tea leaves unfurl in the heat, a thought occurred to you.
“If you’ve been here the whole time,” you said, not looking at him, “does that mean you’ve been… watching? Like, all the time?”
“I give you privacy in the bathroom,” he said quickly. “And I phase out when you’re changing. I’m dead, not a creep.”
“How reassuring.”
“I thought so.”
It turned out that having a ghost for a roommate was mildly annoying at best and perfectly irritating at worst.
For instance, Satoru had a habit of walking through your body whenever he wanted your attention—which, given his personality, was pretty much all the time.
The first time it happened, you’d been sitting on your couch, laptop balanced on your knees, trying to finish the presentation due the next week. You were deep in concentration, adjusting a graph that refused to look professional no matter what you did to it, when suddenly everything went cold.
Not cold like stepping into air conditioning. Cold like being plunged into arctic water. Cold like your bones had turned to ice and your blood had forgotten how to circulate. It lasted maybe two seconds—two endless, horrible seconds where you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but exist in that awful crystalline emptiness.
Then warmth rushed back in, and you gasped, nearly dropping your laptop.
“Oops,” came Satoru’s voice from behind the couch. “Sorry. Still not great at gauging the whole personal space thing.”
You twisted around to glare at him. He had the decency to look somewhat apologetic, though the effect was ruined by the fact that he was upside down, hovering with his head where his feet should be and his hair defying all laws of physics by still falling upward.
“What,” you said through chattering teeth, “was that?”
“I walked through you.” He rotated slowly until he was right-side up again. “It’s faster than going around, and I thought you couldn’t feel it. Could you feel it?”
“Could I—yes, I could feel it! It was like being flash-frozen from the inside out!”
“Huh,” Satoru said, drifting closer. “That’s new. Most people just get a little shiver. You must be sensitive.”
“Sensitive to being violated by a ghost, apparently,” you said.
“Violated is a strong word—”
“You walked through my internal organs!”
“Technically, I walked through the space your internal organs occupy. It’s different.”
You pressed your hands over your face, counting slowly to ten. Your laptop had gone to sleep, the screen dark and mercifully free of that awful graph. Small blessings.
“Please,” you said, voice muffled by your palms. “Please just go around me like a normal person.”
“I’m dead.”
“Like a normal ghost, then.”
“That’s no fun, though.” But he sounded almost chastened, which you were learning was the closest Satoru got to actual remorse. “Fine. I’ll try to remember. No promises, though. Habits are hard to break, even in death.”
That should have been the end of it. It wasn’t.
Because Satoru, as it turned out, had the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel and the boundary awareness of a poorly trained puppy. He’d go hours respecting your space, drifting around the apartment doing whatever ghosts did when they weren’t bothering you—reorganising things, apparently, or staring out the window at a world he could no longer touch—and then suddenly he’d forget, and you’d be mid-sentence on a work call when that terrible cold would slice through you.
“Sorry,” you’d gasp to your confused coworker. “Sorry, I just—temperature spike. The AC’s broken. What were you saying about the reports?”
Or you’d be cooking dinner, knife in hand, cutting vegetables, when he’d pass through and you’d freeze up, the blade stopping centimetres from your finger.
“Satoru!”
“I said sorry!”
“You could’ve made me cut myself!”
It became a routine, this dance of irritation. You’d snap at him, he’d apologise with varying levels of sincerity, and then exactly three days later he’d forget again and do it all over.
But the walking-through-you thing wasn’t even the worst part.
No, the worst part was that Satoru was bored. Existentially, devastatingly bored. And a bored Satoru was a menace. You discovered this exactly one week ago into your cohabitation when you came home from work to find every single item in your apartment moved exactly five inches to the left.
Everything.
Your couch. Your coffee table. Your bookshelf. The TV. Your bed. Your nightstand. Even the posters on your wall had been shifted, leaving little rectangles of less-faded paint where they used to hang. It was subtle enough that at first you just felt vaguely unsettled, like something was wrong but you couldn’t figure out what. Then you tried to set your keys down on the console table by the door and missed completely because it wasn’t where your muscle memory expected it to be.
“Satoru!”
He materialised in front of you, grinning. “You noticed! I wasn’t sure you would. Most people aren’t that spatially aware.”
“Why?” You couldn’t even muster proper anger, just exhausted bewilderment. “Why would you do this?”
“I was bored. Also, I wanted to see if you’d notice. Also, it’s funny.”
“It’s not funny! It’s—it’s—” You gestured helplessly at your displaced apartment. “Do you know how long it’s going to take to move everything back?”
His grin widened. “Approximately four hours, give or take. Less if you don’t care about the posters being level.”
“You’re going to help me,” you said.
“I’m a ghost. I can move things, but it takes a lot of energy. I’ll probably dissipate halfway through and then you’ll be stuck doing it alone.”
“You moved everything yourself!”
“Over the course of six hours. You were at work,” he said. “I had to take breaks. Being dead is exhausting.”
You stared at him. He stared back, utterly unrepentant.
“I hate you,” you said.
“No, you don’t,” he said.
The terrible thing was: he was right. You didn’t. You should—any reasonable person would—but somehow over the past week, Satoru had become less like an unwanted supernatural infestation and more like an irritating fixture of your daily life. Like a radiator that clanked at odd hours or a neighbour who played music too loud. Annoying, yes. Hate-worthy? Not really.
You spent the evening moving furniture back, muttering under your breath while Satoru helped.
“A little more to the right. No, your other right. There, perfect. Actually, wait, it looked better before—okay, okay, don’t throw the pillow at me, it’ll just go through my face and hit the wall.”
By the time you finished, it was past midnight and your back ached and you’d discovered approximately seventeen muscles you didn’t know you had. You collapsed onto your couch—now back in its proper position—and closed your eyes.
“You’re mad at me,” Satoru observed. He was sitting beside you, or giving the impression of sitting, his translucent form settled into the cushions without actually touching them.
“I’m tired,” you mumbled.
“You’re mad and tired.”
You opened one eye to look at him. In the darkness of your apartment, he seemed to glow faintly, like moonlight given form. His expression was hard to read, something between playful and uncertain.
“Why did you really do it?” you asked.
Satoru was quiet for a long moment. Outside, you could hear the city—cars passing, someone’s music thumping bass through the walls, the distant wail of a siren. All the sounds of life continuing, indifferent to either of you.
“I wanted to see if you’d leave,” he said finally.
You sat up straighter. “What?”
“Everyone leaves. They get creeped out or frustrated or they decide I’m not worth the discount on rent.” He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his gaze fixed on the ghost of his own hands, translucent and unreal. “I thought if I did something really annoying, you’d leave now and get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
“That’s the stupidest logic I’ve ever heard,” you said.
“I’m dead. My brain doesn’t work properly anymore.”
“Your brain works fine, you’re just an idiot.” You leaned back against the couch, studying his profile. Even in death, even translucent and impossible, he was strikingly handsome. It was almost unfair. “I’m not leaving, Satoru.”
He turned to look at you then, his blue eyes wide. They caught the faint light from the street outside, turning them almost luminous. “You’re not?”
“No. I signed a lease, remember? And despite your best efforts to drive me insane, I actually kind of like this place.” You paused, then added quietly, “Besides, you’re not as bad as you think you are.”
“I walked through your organs.”
“Multiple times, yes.”
That startled a laugh out of him, sudden and bright. The sound filled your apartment like light, and for a moment you could almost forget he was dead.
“You’re weird,” he said, but he was smiling. “Most people would’ve called an exorcist by now.”
“I looked into it. They’re expensive.” You weren’t sure why you said what you said next, but it came out anyway, honest and unplanned: “And I think you’ve been alone long enough, don’t you?”
His smile faltered, replaced by something that made him look suddenly, devastatingly young. You wondered how old he’d been when he died. You wondered if you’d ever be brave enough to ask.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I really have.”
You fell asleep on the couch that night, too exhausted to make it to your bed. When you woke up in the morning, there was a blanket draped over you that you definitely hadn’t gotten yourself, and the apartment was quiet except for the sound of Satoru humming something off-key in the kitchen.
You smiled despite yourself.
On your way back home from work the next day, you decided to stop by the library. You weren’t sure if they had any books on real-life encounters with ghosts or spirits and whatnot, but whatever sparse information you’d found online had made Satoru dissolve into peals of laughter, so you figured that whatever you’d read on all those forums and discussion pages was nothing more than codswallop.
“Salt circles?” he’d wheezed, nearly flickering out of visibility from the force of his amusement. “You think salt would stop me? I’m not a slug!”
“The internet said—”
“The internet is written by people who’ve clearly never met a real ghost. Trust me, if salt worked, I’d have been banished decades ago. Your kitchen has sodium chloride everywhere.”
So: the library. Old-fashioned, tactile, and hopefully more reliable than AGhostSuckedMyTits69’s forum post about how to communicate with spirits using a Ouija board made from pizza boxes.
The building was one of those beautiful old structures that the city had somehow forgotten to demolish, all warm wood and high ceilings and the particular smell of aging paper that you’d loved since childhood. You nodded at the librarian—a woman with silver hair and reading glasses on a beaded chain—and made your way to the back, where the more esoteric collections lived.
Paranormal Studies was wedged between Philosophy and Religious History, a narrow section that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Dust motes swirled in the amber light from the window, and the books themselves had that particular shabby dignity of volumes that had been well-loved once and then forgotten.
You ran your fingers along the spines, reading titles: The Complete Guide to Hauntings, Spectral Phenomena: A Scientific Approach, Between Worlds: Understanding the Dead. That last one looked promising. You pulled it out, flipped through the pages and found yourself face-to-face with grainy photographs that made no sense whatsoever.
“Useless,” you muttered.
“Excuse me?”
You nearly dropped the book. The librarian had appeared beside you.
“Sorry,” you said quickly. “Just, ah, doing some research.”
Her gaze dropped to the book in your hands, then back to your face. Something shifted in her expression, a flicker of understanding that made you deeply uncomfortable. “Ah. Personal experience, or academic interest?”
“I—” You hesitated. What were you supposed to say? Actually, my dead roommate keeps walking through my internal organs and I’d like to understand why it feels like being flash-frozen? “Personal. Sort of.”
The librarian nodded slowly. “Follow me. The books in this section are mostly rubbish—ghost hunters and paranormal investigators writing sensationalist nonsense for money. What you want is in the archive.”
“The archive?”
“We keep the serious texts separate. Too valuable for general circulation, and—” she gave you a knowing look—“most people who come looking for ghost books want entertainment, not truth.”
You followed her through a door marked STAFF ONLY, down a narrow corridor that smelled of furniture polish, and into a small room that was little more than a large closet. Shelves lined every wall, packed with books that looked genuinely old—leather bindings, gilt edges, the kind of volumes you’d expect to see behind glass in a museum.
“Here.” She pulled down a slim book with a dark green cover, the title embossed in fading gold: The Resonant Soul: Understanding Supernatural Sensitivity. “Start with this. Chapter three in particular. And this one—” She pulled down another book, larger, bound in burgundy cloth. “Interactions Between the Living and the Dead: A Comprehensive Study. Chapter seven.”
You took them carefully. “Thank you.”
“Word of advice?” The librarian’s eyes were kind but serious. “If you’re dealing with something real, be careful. The dead aren’t always what they seem, and not all of them have good intentions.”
Your mind flashed to Satoru—his easy grin, his terrible pranks. “I think I’ll be okay.”
“If you say so,” she said, but she was smiling. “You have two weeks. Don’t break the spines.”
It was only when you turned around, the books clutched to your chest, that you realised the librarian had the same translucent shimmer as Satoru. You blinked, and she was gone.
You spread the books across your kitchen table as soon as you got home, Satoru materialising almost immediately beside you.
“What’s all this?” He peered at the covers, reading upside down.
“These,” you said, opening The Resonant Soul with careful fingers, “are actual research books. From the library’s archive. Which means they’re probably not complete nonsense like everything online.”
“The internet thing still isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
He huffed but settled in beside you, watching as you flipped through the pages. You skimmed through paragraphs on spectral theory and ectoplasmic manifestation until you found chapter three: Supernatural Sensitivity in Living Humans.
Satoru leaned in, his shoulder passing slightly through yours—you suppressed a shiver—to read along with you.
It has long been observed, the text began, that certain individuals display a heightened sensitivity to supernatural phenomena. These individuals, whom we shall term “Resonants,” possess an unusual permeability between their physical form and the spiritual plane. While all humans exist simultaneously in both realms to some degree, Resonants occupy a unique threshold position – neither fully anchored to the physical world nor able to access the spiritual, but suspended between both states.
The primary indicator of Resonant sensitivity is the individual’s physical response to spiritual contact. Where non-sensitive humans may experience minor temperature fluctuations or vague unease when encountering spectral entities, Resonants report intense sensations: extreme cold, the feeling of being submerged in ice water, temporary paralysis, or in rare cases, brief moments of actually perceiving the boundary between life and death.
Your hand stilled on the page. “That’s exactly what it feels like, when you walk through me.”
Satoru was very quiet.
You continued reading: This sensitivity appears to be innate rather than learned, though it may remain dormant until the individual encounters a sufficiently powerful spiritual entity. Resonants often report having “always felt different” or experienced unexplained phenomena throughout their lives – objects moving without cause, sensing presences in empty rooms, or vivid dreams of deceased individuals.
A memory surfaced: you were seven years old, insisting to your parents that there was a woman in your bedroom who sang to you at night. They’d dismissed it as nightmares, an overactive imagination. The singing had stopped eventually, or you’d learned to ignore it.
“Huh,” you said faintly.
“You’re one of them,” Satoru said. “A Resonant. That’s why you can see me so clearly.”
“You are really here. Just… differently.”
“You know what I mean.”
You turned the page, finding more text: The relationship between Resonants and spectral entities is symbiotic in nature. The Resonant’s sensitivity allows them to perceive and interact with the dead more fully than ordinary humans, while the spectral entity gains a stronger anchor to the physical world through the Resonant’s awareness. This connection can strengthen over time, particularly if the Resonant and the entity develop emotional bonds.
“Emotional bonds,” you repeated. “So the more time we spend together…”
“The stronger the connection gets. Yeah.” Satoru had drifted back slightly, putting space between you. “That’s probably why touching you—going through you—feels so intense for you. Your whole being is reacting to mine because you’re sensitive enough to feel the actual transition between states. The living and the dead occupying the same space.”
You sat back, processing. The book lay open between you, its pages yellowed and fragile, containing knowledge that suddenly made your entire existence make more sense. All those times you’d felt watched, felt presences, felt like reality was slightly transparent—it hadn’t been your imagination.
“Does it say anything about…” You hesitated. “About whether it’s dangerous? Being a Resonant?”
Satoru reached over, careful not to touch you this time, and flipped forward a few pages. His finger hovered over a paragraph.
While Resonant sensitivity is not inherently harmful, practitioners should be aware of potential risks. Prolonged exposure to spiritual entities can result in the Resonant becoming “unmoored,” i.e. losing their firm connection to the physical world in favour of existing in the threshold state. Signs of unmooring include: difficulty focusing on physical tasks, feeling disconnected from one’s body, seeing spirits everywhere rather than selectively, and in extreme cases, accidental astral projection.
“That’s not terrifying at all,” you said weakly.
“It probably won’t happen,” Satoru said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “I mean, I’m just one ghost. It’s not like you’re hanging out in a cemetery surrounded by hundreds of spirits.”
“Just one very annoying ghost who keeps walking through my organs.”
“I said I’d try to stop!”
“Try being the operative word.” You pulled the second book closer—Interactions Between the Living and the Dead—and found chapter seven: Physical and Emotional Manifestations of Spiritual Contact.
This book was even more technical, filled with diagrams of energy fields and charts documenting temperature changes during hauntings. But buried in the middle of the chapter was a section that immediately caught your eye: On the Phenomenon of Bilateral Awareness.
In rare cases, you read silently, Satoru reading over your shoulder, both the living Resonant and the spectral entity report experiencing sensations from the other party during moments of intersection. The Resonant feels the cold void of death; the entity, conversely, experiences a sudden influx of warmth and vitality – a brief, visceral reminder of what it felt like to be alive. For entities who have been deceased for extended periods, this sensation can be overwhelming, even addictive.
You turned to look at Satoru. He was staring at the page, his expression unreadable.
“When you walk through me,” you said slowly, “you feel something too, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Outside, the sun was setting, painting your kitchen in shades of amber and rose. In that light, he looked almost solid, almost real, almost heartbreakingly alive.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I feel… warm. Like standing in sunlight. Like remembering what it was like to have a heartbeat.” His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “It’s the only time I feel anything real anymore.”
“Satoru—”
“That’s why I keep doing it, even after you told me to stop. I know it’s selfish. I know it hurts you. But for those two seconds, I get to remember what it was like to be human.” He still wasn’t looking at you. “Pretty pathetic, right?”
“No,” you said firmly. “It’s not pathetic. It’s—it’s lonely.”
He laughed, but it was hollow. “Yeah. That too.”
You looked down at the books spread across your table, all this accumulated knowledge about the dead and the sensitive and the strange space between existence and absence. Somewhere in those pages was probably a warning about getting too attached to ghosts, about the danger of letting the dead anchor themselves to you.
You decided not to look for it.
“Okay,” you said. “New rule. If you need to—if you need to feel that, feel alive for a second—just ask first. Don’t just ambush me when I’m holding sharp objects or on work calls.”
Satoru’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “You’re… you’re okay with it?”
“I didn’t say it was pleasant. But I understand now. And I’m not going to deny you the only thing that makes you feel human just because it’s uncomfortable for me.” You managed a smile. “Just… warn me. So I can sit down first. And maybe not be eating soup.”
“The soup incident was one time—”
“I had to change my entire shirt, Satoru.”
“In my defense, I didn’t know you’d flail like that.”
You threw a pen at him. It sailed through his head and clattered against the wall behind him. “Worth a try,” you muttered.
But Satoru was smiling now, really smiling, and something about it made your apartment feel warmer. Less like a haunted space and more like a home that just happened to have an unusual occupant.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak, and turned back to the books. There was still so much to learn, so much to understand about this strange new reality you’d found yourself in. But for now, with the sunset painting everything gold and a ghost smiling at you like you’d just given him the world, you thought maybe it’d be okay.
Sometimes, you wondered what Satoru was like when he was alive.
Objectively speaking, there was no doubt that Satoru was, for lack of a better word, hot.
It felt ridiculous to think about—shallow, even—but you couldn’t help it. The man was devastatingly attractive in a way that transcended the minor inconvenience of him being deceased. You’d caught yourself staring more than once, watching the way light moved through him, the way his hair defied gravity even in death, the sharp line of his jaw and the impossible blue of his eyes.
He’d been beautiful alive. You were certain of it.
The thought occurred to you on a lazy Sunday afternoon, three months into your cohabitation. You were sprawled on your couch with a book you weren’t really reading, and Satoru was hovering near the window, staring out at the street below with an expression you couldn’t quite decipher. Melancholy, maybe. Or just boredom.
The sunlight was doing that thing again—hitting him at just the right angle so he looked almost solid, almost real. You could see the elegant slope of his shoulders, the lean muscle that was still somehow visible despite his translucence, the way his traditional clothing draped over a frame that must have been impressive when it was corporeal.
“You’re staring,” Satoru said without turning around.
You didn’t even have it in you to be embarrassed. “Does being transparent mean you can see out the back of your head? Besides, I’m curious.”
“About?”
“What you were like. Before.” You set your book aside, giving up the pretense of reading. “You never talk about it. About your life, I mean.”
His shoulders tensed. “Not much to talk about.”
“Everyone has something to talk about. You didn’t just spring into existence as a ghost.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Satoru.”
He sighed, the sound more like wind through leaves than actual breath, and finally turned to face you. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because you’re here. Because you’re part of my life now, weird as that sounds.” You pulled your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. “And because sometimes you get this look on your face like you’re somewhere else entirely, and I wonder where you go.”
For a long moment, he just looked at you. Then, slowly, he drifted over to the couch, settling into the space beside you with that carefulness he’d learned—close, but not touching. Never touching unless he asked first.
“I was twenty-eight,” he said quietly. “When I died.”
So young, you thought, and asked, “How long ago?”
“I don’t know exactly. Time is weird when you’re dead—I think I mentioned that.” He tilted his head back, staring at your ceiling. “But based on some things I’ve seen through the window, the way the city’s changed… maybe sixty years? Seventy?”
Sixty years of being trapped in this apartment. Sixty years of watching the world move on without him. The thought was nauseating.
“Do you remember what happened? How you…?”
“Died?” he supplied. “Yeah, I remember.”
He was quiet for so long you thought he might not continue. You didn’t push.
“I was a sorcerer,” Satoru said finally.
You blinked. “A what?”
“A jujutsu sorcerer. Someone who dealt with curses—malevolent spirits born from negative human emotions,” he said, matter-of-factly, like he was describing a perfectly normal profession. “I was good at it. Really good. The best, actually.”
“Modest,” you said.
“It’s not bragging if it’s true. I was the strongest. Everyone said so. I could see things other people couldn’t, do things that should have been impossible. I had power that…” He trailed off, something dark crossing his expression. “Doesn’t matter now. Power doesn’t mean much when you’re dead.”
You chewed on your lip. Sorcerers, curses; it should’ve sounded insane, but after everything you’d learned about Resonants and spectral sensitivity, after living with a ghost for more than a few weeks, it was almost disappointingly logical.
“Is that why you’re stuck here?” you said. “Something to do with… jujutsu?”
“Probably,” Satoru said. “I don’t know the details. One moment I was fighting something—I don’t even remember what anymore, isn’t that stupid? I died and I can’t even remember what killed me—and the next moment I was here, in this apartment, and I couldn’t leave. I tried everything. Every technique I know, every bit of cursed energy I could muster. Nothing worked.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, because what else could you say?
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault I died in the middle of some random building that eventually became an apartment. Want to know the worst part?”
You nodded.
“I was supposed to be untouchable. Literally—I had this technique called Infinity. It meant nothing could reach me unless I let it. I was invincible,” he said bitterly. “Guess I wasn’t as invincible as I thought.”
The pieces started coming together. The way he walked through things instead of around them; the casual disregard for physical space. He’d spent his life being untouchable, and now he was a ghost who couldn’t touch anything even if he wanted to.
“Is that why you…” You gestured vaguely. “The walking-through-people thing. Because you’re used to nothing being able to touch you anyway?”
“Maybe. Probably,” Satoru said. “Everything about being alive was about boundaries. What I could touch, what could touch me, maintaining Infinity so nothing ever reached me. And now there are no boundaries because I’m not really here. It’s ironic.”
You thought about what you’d read in the library books, about bilateral awareness and how he felt warmth when he passed through you—a reminder of being alive, of being touchable and real. “You miss it,” you said. “Being touched. Being real.”
“Every second of every day,” he said. “You don’t realise how much of being human is about contact until you can’t do it anymore. Shaking hands. Hugging someone. Feeling the sun on your skin or the rain in your hair. Even stupid things like stubbing your toe or burning your tongue on hot coffee. I’d take any of it back if I could.”
“What were you like? When you were alive?”
He considered the question. “Annoying. Arrogant. Too powerful for my own good and aware of it. But I cared. About people, and about protecting them, even if I had a terrible way of showing it. I was a teacher, actually; I had students I was training. I wonder what happened to them. If they missed me when I died, or they were just relieved their irritating mentor was gone.”
“I’m sure they missed you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” you agreed. “But I kind of know you, and annoying as you are, you’re kind of impossible not to miss.”
His eyes widened, surprise flashing across his face. For a moment, he looked heartbreakingly young—not the cocky, untouchable sorcerer he’d described, but just a twenty-eight-year-old man who’d died too soon and spent sixty years alone.
“I had white hair even when I was alive,” he said abruptly, desperate to change the subject. “In case you were wondering. It’s not a ghost thing, it was genetic. I was born with it.”
“I wasn’t wondering,” you said, smiling. “But thank you for that information.”
“And I was tall. Taller than this, actually—I think death compressed me a bit. I used to be one-ninety centimetres.”
“You’re still tall.”
“But not as tall as I was!” He was grinning now, that familiar cockiness sliding back into place. “I had to duck through doorways and everything.”
“Well, now you can walk straight through them,” you pointed out.
“Women loved me. Men, too. I was very popular.”
“And modest. Don’t forget modest.”
“That, too,” Satoru said, shifting and angling himself to face you more fully. The melancholy had faded from his expression, replaced by something lighter, something more like the Satoru you’d gotten used to. “I liked sweet things. Candy, cake, anything with sugar. I drove my students crazy because I’d eat their snacks.”
“Some things never change,” you said. “I’ve noticed my cookies disappearing.”
“I can’t even eat them! I just like moving them around to mess with you.”
“You’re the worst.”
“The worst,” he agreed cheerfully. “You would have hated me if you’d met me when I was alive.”
You observed him again. Satoru sat—well, hovered—at the edge of your couch, knees apart, elbows braced loosely on them like some echo of a living man’s posture. He’d gotten good at imitating the little gestures of the living. You wondered if it was a habit from his former life, or a way of making himself feel human again.
“You think I would’ve hated you?” you said.
He gave you a sly half-smile. “Most people did. At first. I had this… reputation. Too much power, too much ego. People love to build you up and then wait for you to fall.”
“Maybe,” you said, hugging your knees tighter. “But people can also be wrong.”
“You’re a strange one, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
He leaned back against the couch as though it were solid. His hand hovered near your knee, just close enough to make the hairs on your arm prickle. You’d both learned this careful choreography over the past weeks—always almost, never quite.
“What about you?” he asked suddenly. “What were you like before all this?”
“Before all this?”
“Before me,” he clarified.
You thought about it: waking up alone, commuting to work, cooking simple meals in silence. “Normal,” you said. “I was normal. I went to work, came home, read books, and watched TV. Sometimes I went out with friends. It wasn’t exciting.”
“And now?”
“And now…” you said. “Now my life’s a little less normal. And a lot less lonely.”
“Lonely,” Satoru echoed. “Yeah. That makes two of us.”
You found yourself staring at his hands—long fingers, elegant, the kind of hands that must have been deft with weapons or chalk or whatever tools sorcerers used. You imagined what they’d feel like if they were real: warm, maybe a little rough at the fingertips. The thought made your stomach twist.
He noticed you looking. Of course he did; he always noticed. “You’re staring again,” he said.
You swallowed. “Do you ever—do you ever wish you could—”
“Touch you?”
Heat rushed up your neck. “I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did.” He was smiling faintly now. “And yeah. I do.”
Your heart was doing something complicated in your chest, and you couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“I think about it,” Satoru continued, his voice softer now, almost contemplative. “What it would be like, if I could.” His gaze traveled over you—not leering, but curious. “I watch you sometimes. The way you move through the world, so solid and real. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you’re concentrating. How you bite your lip when you’re thinking.”
“Satoru—”
“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” he said quickly. “I just… I can’t help noticing. You’re alive in a way I can’t be anymore, and it’s—it’s intoxicating. Being near you. Watching you exist.”
You should have felt creeped out, should have been disturbed by the confession. Instead, warmth pooled low in your belly, and you found yourself wondering what those phantom hands would feel like trailing across your skin, even if the touch would be ice-cold.
“If you could,” you heard yourself say. “Touch me, I mean—how would you do it?”
His eyes darkened, the blue deepening to something almost midnight. “You really want to know?”
You nodded, not trusting your voice.
Satoru shifted closer, still not touching, but near enough that you could feel the cold emanating from him like snow. The temperature drop made goosebumps rise on your arms, made you hyperaware of every nerve ending.
“I’d start slow,” he said. “Your face, maybe. I’d want to know if your skin is as soft as it looks.” His finger hovered a breath away from your cheek. “I’d trace your cheekbone, right here. Down to your jaw.”
“Your neck,” he continued, his hand drifting lower, mapping the air above your throat. “I’d want to feel your pulse. I bet it’s racing right now, isn’t it?”
It was. Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could see it, even without touch.
“I’d be gentle,” Satoru murmured. “I’d explore. Learn you. Your collarbone—” his hand traced the line of it through the air—“your shoulders. I’d want to know if you’re ticklish here—” he gestured to the curve where your neck met your shoulder—“or if you’d shiver.”
You were shivering now, and not from the cold.
“I’d take my time,” he said. “I’ve got nothing but time, after all. I’d memorise every inch of you. Every mole, every scar, every place that made you gasp or sigh. I’d learn what you liked, what made you lean into my touch or pull away. I’d be patient. I’d be thorough.”
“Satoru,” you breathed, his name coming out shakier than you’d intended.
“Your hands,” he said, his voice rougher now. “I think about them constantly.” His fingers aligned with yours, hovering just above, and you stared at the space between—so small, so vast. “I’d start with your fingertips. Trace each one. Learn their shape. Then your palm. I’d want to know if you’d curl your fingers around mine. If you’d hold on or let go.”
“I’d hold on,” you whispered without thinking.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d want to touch you everywhere,” he continued. “Not just—not just sexual, though God knows I think about that too. But everything. I’d want to hold your hand while we watched TV. Rest my hand on your shoulder when I’m reading over it. Brush your hair back from your face. All those casual, thoughtless touches that people take for granted. I’d want all of them.”
“What else do you think about?” you asked.
He studied you for a long moment, something unreadable in his expression. “Are you sure you want to know?”
You nodded.
“Your lips,” he said simply. “I think about what they’d feel like, if they’re as soft as they look. If you’d let me kiss you. If you’d kiss me back or push me away. I think about it more than I should. What you’d taste like, how you’d sound.”
Heat flooded your face, your chest, pooling between your legs. This was insane. He was dead. This couldn’t go anywhere.
“I think about your body,” Satoru continued. “The curve of your waist, your hips. I watch you move around the apartment and I—I’m dead, but apparently that doesn’t kill desire. If anything, it makes it worse, because I can look but never touch. I can want but never have.”
“What do you want?” you asked.
“Everything. I want to touch you until you forget I’m a ghost. I want to kiss you until you’re breathless. I want—I want things I have no right to want from you.”
“What if I want them too?” you said.
Satoru went very still. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s cruel,” he said, and there was real pain in his voice now. “It’s torture to want something this badly and know I can never have it.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, but you didn’t look away.
“Don’t be sorry.” He drifted closer again, and the cold intensified, making you shiver. “Just tell me to stop. Tell me to stop talking about this. Tell me it’s creepy and wrong and—”
“It’s not.”
“It should be.”
“But it’s not.” You held his gaze, feeling reckless and desperate. “I think about it too. About what it would be like if you could touch me. If we could—”
“If we could what?” His voice was rough, almost demanding.
“Be together. Really together. Not just—” You gestured helplessly. “This.”
Satoru closed his eyes, his expression twisting into something between agony and longing. “You’re killing me. Again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologising.” He opened his eyes, and they were blazing. “If I could touch you right now—if I were real and solid and alive—I’d pull you into my lap. I’d kiss you until neither of us could think. I’d touch you everywhere you’d let me, learn every sound you make, every way to make you fall apart. I’d make you come on my fingers, my tongue, my cock. I’d do it over and over until you forgot anyone else existed.”
Your breath left you in a rush. Heat was coursing through you, pooling between your thighs. You were wet, you realised distantly. Actually wet from nothing but his words and the intent behind them.
“I’d worship you,” he continued, relentless now. “Every inch. I’d kiss your neck, your breasts, your stomach. I’d spread your legs and taste you until you were shaking. I’d memorise what made you gasp, what made you moan, what made you beg. And then I’d give you everything you begged for.”
“Satoru—”
“I’d want to know what you sound like when you come. I think about it all the time. When you’re in the shower, when you’re in bed, when you’re just sitting here reading. I think about all the ways I’d touch you if I could. All the ways I’d make you feel good.
“Sometimes, when you’re sleeping, I lie down next to you. Not touching, just… there. And I pretend. I pretend I can feel your warmth, that I could reach out and pull you close. I pretend I could wake you up with kisses and touch you until you were wet and ready for me, and I could slide into you and make you mine in every way that matters.”
“Jesus,” you breathed.
“I know it’s wrong. I know I shouldn’t think these things, shouldn’t want them. But I do. I want you so badly it physically hurts, which shouldn’t even be possible because I don’t have a physical body anymore, but somehow you make me ache anyway.”
“I wish you were real,” you whispered. “I wish you were real and solid and warm and alive. I wish I could—”
“What?” He leaned in, as close as he dared without touching. “What do you wish?”
“I wish I could feel your hands on me. Your mouth. I wish—” Your voice broke. “I wish we could have this. Really have this. Not just wanting from a distance.”
Satoru’s expression crumpled. “Me too.”
You didn’t know who moved first—maybe both of you, maybe neither. But suddenly he was right there, his face inches from yours, the cold radiating off him was almost painful. You could see every detail of him: the impossible blue of his eyes, the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his mouth. He was beautiful and untouchable and you wanted him.
“If I could kiss you right now,” he said, “I would. I’d kiss you until you were ruined for anyone else.”
“I already am,” you admitted. “No one else could ever—”
He made a sound low in his throat, something between a groan and a curse. “Don’t. Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“It makes me want to do things I can’t. It makes me wish I could walk through you right now, just to feel that warmth, even if it hurts you.”
“Then do it,” you said recklessly. “Walk through me. I can take it.”
“No.”
“Satoru—”
“No.” His voice was firm. “Not like this. It would just be another way of torturing ourselves.”
He pulled back, and the loss of even his phantom presence felt like a physical ache. You watched as he drifted away, putting distance between you, reestablishing the careful boundaries you’d both shattered with words alone.
“I need—I need to go. Think. Process. Something,” he said.
“Okay,” you managed.
“This doesn’t—I don’t regret saying any of that,” Satoru said. “But I need you to know that I don’t expect anything. This isn’t—you don’t owe me anything just because I want you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if you want me to stop—if this is too much or too weird or if you need me to just be your annoying ghost roommate and nothing else—tell me. I’ll do it. I’ll go back to just moving your furniture and stealing your cookies and pretending I don’t spend every moment aware of you.”
“I don’t want that,” you said.
“What do you want?”
You looked at him, this impossible, beautiful, dead man. “I don’t know. But not that.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. We’ll figure it out. Somehow.”
Then he was gone, flickering out of visibility like a lightbulb switching off, leaving you alone on the couch with your racing heart and trembling hands. The conversation had crossed so many lines, shattered so many boundaries. You should probably have felt ashamed or disturbed or something other than this desperate, aching want.But you didn’t. You just wanted him.
That night, after Satoru had disappeared to whatever corner of the apartment he retreated to when he needed space, you lay in your bed staring at the ceiling.
You couldn’t stop thinking about his hands.
Those long, elegant fingers that had once been solid and real. The way he’d mapped the air above your skin, describing exactly how he’d touch you if he could. The raw want in his voice when he’d told you all the things he wanted to do to you. Your body felt overheated despite the cool air, hyperaware of every point where your clothes touched your skin, every pulse point, every nerve ending crying out for touch.
This was stupid. He was a ghost. Dead. Impossible.
You tried to resist at first. You rolled onto your side, pulled the covers up to your chin, squeezed your eyes shut and tried to think about anything else. Work. Your boss’ toupee. That book you’d been meaning to finish. Anything but the way Satoru’s voice had dropped when he’d told you he wanted to taste you, the hunger in his eyes when you’d admitted you wanted him too.
But it was useless. Your skin felt too tight, too hot. Every time you shifted, the friction of your thighs pressing together sent sparks of need shooting through you. Your nipples were hard, aching, sensitive against the soft cotton of your sleep shirt. And between your legs—you were wet. Actually wet from nothing but words and wanting and the impossible fantasy of a dead man’s touch.
You lasted maybe ten minutes before you gave in.
Your hand drifted down your stomach slowly, hesitantly, fingers trembling slightly as you slipped them beneath the waistband of your sleep shorts. You thought about Satoru’s voice, low and rough with wanting. I’d start slow. Your face, maybe.
The first touch of your fingers against your clit made you gasp softly. You were already wet—had been since his confession on the couch, since he’d told you all the ways he wanted to touch you, taste you, make you his. Your fingers slid easily through your folds, and you bit your lip at the sensation.
I’d trace your cheekbone, down to your jaw. Your neck.
You touched yourself slowly, teasingly, the way you imagined he would: circling your clit with light pressure, then dipping lower to feel how wet you were before returning to that sensitive bundle of nerves. Patient. Thorough.
You imagined those phantom hands on you—cold at first, then maybe warming from your body heat. Would they feel like ice water or winter wind? Would the sensation make you shiver or burn? You pictured his fingers replacing yours, longer and more elegant, exploring you with that intense curiosity he brought to everything. Your heart was racing now, your breath coming shorter as you touched yourself. You pictured Satoru above you, his blue eyes dark with desire, his hands skating over your skin.
Your free hand moved to push your shirt up, baring your breasts to the cool air. You palmed one, rolling the nipple between your fingers, and imagined it was his hand. His mouth.
I’d touch you everywhere.
Lower, you thought desperately. Touch me lower.
You increased the pressure on your clit, circling faster now, and your hips lifted slightly off the bed. Your thighs fell open wider, shameless, and you wished desperately that he could see you like this, that he could watch you come apart thinking about him.
Maybe he could. Maybe he was somewhere in the apartment right now, aware of you in that uncanny way he sometimes was. The thought should’ve embarrassed you, but instead it sent a thrill of heat through you, made you move your fingers faster.
I’d want to know what you sound like when you come. I think about it all the time.
“Satoru,” you breathed into the darkness, testing how his name felt on your lips like this. It came out breathy, wanting, and you said it again, louder this time. “Satoru.”
You imagined his voice responding, that cocky confidence tempered with wonder. That’s it. Let me hear you. Let me know what I do to you. Say my name like that when you come.
You slipped a finger inside yourself, then another, and the stretch felt good but not enough. You wanted more, wanted him; wanted those long fingers curling inside you, finding that spot that made you see stars. You thrust your fingers in and out, angling them, searching.
I’d make you come on my fingers, my tongue, my cock. I’d do it over and over again.
“Oh, God,” you whimpered, your thumb finding your clit while your fingers worked inside you. You thought about what he’d said—that he’d taste you until you were shaking. You imagined him between your thighs, that beautiful face buried against you, his tongue doing what his fingers couldn’t. Would he be eager or methodical? Would he tease you or devour you? You imagined him looking up at you, those blue eyes meeting yours while he licked and sucked, watching your reactions.
I’d spread your legs and taste you until you were shaking. I’d memorise what made you gasp, what made you moan, what made you beg.
Your fingers moved faster, more desperate now. You were close, so close, but you wanted to draw this out, wanted to live in this fantasy a little longer. You slowed your movements, edging yourself, imagining Satoru doing the same—bringing you right to the brink, and then pulling back, making you beg for it.
“Please,” you whispered to the empty room, and then louder, “Please, Satoru.”
You imagined him responding: Please what? Tell me what you want. I want to hear you say it.
“Touch me,” you gasped, your fingers speeding up again despite your attempts to slow down. “Make me come. Please, I need—”
You curved your fingers inside yourself, finally finding that perfect spot, and the pleasure that shot through you made your back arch off the bed. You pressed down on your clit harder, circling frantically now, chasing the orgasm that was building, building—
I’d worship you. Every inch. I’d kiss your neck, your breasts, your stomach.
“Yes,” you moaned, not caring anymore if you were too loud, if he could hear you, if the whole building could hear you. “Yes, please, Satoru, please—”
You thought of Satoru above you, somehow solid and real, sliding into you with one perfect thrust, and that was what finally sent you over the edge. You came hard, crying out his name, your whole body tensing and shaking. Your fingers worked yourself through it, drawing out every pulse of pleasure, every aftershock.
But it wasn’t enough. Even as you were still trembling from the first orgasm, you knew it wasn’t enough. You needed more. Needed to imagine more. You didn’t remove your fingers, just kept touching yourself, oversensitive now but uncaring. You thought about what else he’d said, all those explicit promises.
I think about it all the time. When you’re in the shower, when you’re in bed, when you’re just sitting here reading.
You imagined him in the shower with you, the water running over both your bodies. His hands—real and solid in this fantasy—would soap you up, sliding over every curve. You imagined his mouth on your neck, your shoulders; his cock hard against your stomach, insistent. You imagined turning in his arms, kissing him desperately, water streaming over you both; imagined him lifting you, pressing you against the tile wall, your legs wrapping around your waist. The first press of him at your entrance, thick and perfect, and then the slide as he filled you completely.
Your fingers moved faster inside you, and you used your other hand to circle your clit, building towards a second orgasm already.
Sometimes, when you’re sleeping, I lie down next to you. Not touching, just… there. And I pretend.
You imagined waking up to him touching you; his hand sliding between your legs, finding you wet and ready even in sleep; his voice in your ear: Shh, it’s just me. Let me make you feel good; his fingers working you open slowly, patiently, until you were writhing and begging for more.
I’d slide inside you and make you mine in every way that matters.
You imagined him fucking you slowly at first, letting you feel every inch, every ridge. Then faster, harder, his hips snapping against yours with a desperation that matched your own. You imagined the sounds—skin on skin, your moans, his groans, the filthy wet sounds of him moving inside you.
I want you so badly it physically hurts.
“I want you too,” you gasped to the empty room, to the ghost who might be listening. “I want you so fucking badly, Satoru. I wish—I wish you were here. I wish you were real. I wish—”
Your second orgasm hit you even harder than the first, stealing your breath, making your vision go white. You came with his name on your lips again, your body arching, your fingers buried deep inside your cunt while your other hand worked your clit frantically.
This time, you imagined him coming too, his face contorted in pleasure, his voice rough as he moaned your name. You imagined the warmth of him spilling inside you, the weight of him collapsing onto you, both of you breathless and shaking and complete. The fantasy was so vivid, so real, that for a moment you could almost feel it—the phantom weight of him, the ghost of his touch. Your body shuddered through the aftershocks, and tears pricked at your eyes because it wasn’t real. It would never be real.
When you finally stopped moving, you lay there gasping, your body covered in sweat, your heart pounding. Your hand was still between your legs, fingers still inside you, but you were too exhausted to move. Two orgasms, and you still wanted more. It was insatiable, this need. Impossible to satisfy when the object of your desire was literally untouchable.
You pulled your fingers out slowly, wincing at the oversensitivity, and brought your hand up to look at it in the dim light. Your fingers were slick, glistening with evidence of your arousal, your wanting. You thought about what Satoru had said—that he wanted to taste you. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you brought your fingers to your mouth, licking them clean and tasting yourself. You imagined it was his tongue, his mouth, his absolute focus on learning every part of you.
“Fuck,” you whispered to the ceiling, to the ghost who was probably watching, judging, wanting just as desperately as you were.
For a long moment, you lay there, catching your breath and feeling the flush of embarrassment creep up your neck. You’d just gotten yourself off twice thinking about your dead roommate. You’d moaned his name loud enough for your neighbours to hear, and had begged him, even though he wasn’t there, even though he couldn’t give you what you needed.
That was… probably not healthy. Definitely not normal. But God, it had felt so good. Better than anything had in years.
You finally pulled yourself together enough to sit up. Your legs were shaky, your body hypersensitive, and when you stood to go clean yourself up, you had to brace yourself against the nightstand. Your sleep shorts were soaked through, and your sheets would definitely need washing.
In the bathroom, you cleaned yourself up with trembling hands, washing your face and trying not to meet your own eyes in the mirror. When you did finally look, your pupils were blown wide, your lips swollen from biting them. You looked thoroughly fucked, even though no one had actually touched you.
You changed into fresh underwear and a clean sleep shirt, then stood in your bedroom doorway, looking at the rumpled bed. Your body felt heavy now, satisfied in a way that was both fulfilling and deeply unsatisfied because it had been your hand, not his. It would always be your hand, because he couldn’t touch you, couldn’t make good on any of those promises his words had painted.
You wondered if he knew. If he’d been aware of you, could feel the echoes of your pleasure somehow through whatever connection you shared as Resonant and ghost. The books had said the connection could strengthen over time, that emotional bonds made the barrier between the living and dead more permeable.
Did he feel it when you came thinking of him? Did he know his name had been on your lips, gasped out and moaned? Did he hear you begging for him, even knowing he couldn’t answer? The thought was mortifying and thrilling in equal measure.
You climbed back into bed, too exhausted to change the sheets tonight, and burrowed under the covers. Your body felt languid now, but your mind was still racing, replaying every word of your conversation. You wanted him, and the worst part was knowing he wanted you, too, but that nothing could ever come of it. He was dead. Intangible. A ghost who could watch but never touch, want but never have.
It was cruel, really, to have met someone who understood you, who made you laugh and drove you crazy and somehow felt more real than anyone you’d been with when they were actually alive.
“This is so fucked up,” you whispered to the empty room.
Somewhere in the apartment, you felt more than heard a ripple of pleasure. Not quite laughter, not quite agreement, but acknowledgement. He was there. He’d probably been there the whole time, had probably heard every sound you made, every time you’d moaned his name.
Tomorrow, you’d look him in the eye and pretend your heart wasn’t racing, pretend you hadn’t touched yourself while imagining his hands, his mouth, his cock. You’d drink your coffee and go to work and come home to his teasing and pranks, and you’d both carefully avoid talking about what had happened on the couch and what had happened on your bed.
Sleep didn’t come easily. When it finally did, you dreamed of cold hands that somehow burned, of blue eyes that saw through you in every sense, of a voice that promised impossible things in the dark. You dreamed of being touched everywhere, of being known completely, of being ruined so thoroughly for anyone else that even death couldn’t separate you.
You woke to sunlight streaming through your window. When you opened your eyes, Satoru was there, hovering near the window as he often did in the morning, looking out at the city coming to life. But his shoulders were tense, his posture rigid in a way that was unusual for him.
He turned when he heard you stir, and the look in his eyes told you everything you needed to know. He’d known. He’d been there. He’d heard you moaning his name, begging for him, coming apart thinking about him.
“Morning,” he said, his voice carefully neutral but rougher than usual, strained.
“Morning,” you replied, your voice still gravelly with sleep and the memory of crying out his name.
“I saw four ghosts on the subway today, and one at the convenience store,” you said, setting down your bag and the stack of new library books on the kitchen table. “Also, the librarian gave me these books next. Did you know she was dead, too?”
Satoru materialised beside you so quickly it made you jump. “What?”
“The librarian. She’s a ghost. Has been for—I don’t know, she didn’t say. But she’s been running that archive for decades, apparently. She said most people can’t tell, but she knew I could see her properly,” you said, pulling off your coat. “Anyway, the subway ghosts were interesting. One of them was reading a newspaper from 1985. Another one kept trying to warn people about the closing doors, but obviously no one could hear him except me.”
“Stop.” Satoru’s voice was sharp, and when you looked at him, his expression was tense. “Stop talking like this is normal.”
You blinked. “What?”
“Four ghosts on the subway. One at the store. The librarian.” He drifted closer, his form flickering with agitation. “You couldn’t see any of them three months ago, which is how long you’ve known me. Maybe you would have gotten a vague impression, a chill, but not full visibility. Not enough to know what they’re doing or what they’re wearing or what year their newspaper is from.”
“Well, I’m a Resonant,” you said slowly. “The books said—”
“I know what the books said. I read them too,” he interrupted. “They said prolonged exposure to spiritual entities can result in becoming unmoored. They said you’d start seeing spirits everywhere instead of selectively.”
Your stomach dropped. “I’m fine.”
“You’re seeing ghosts everywhere. That’s literally the first warning sign.”
“It’s not everywhere. Just—more than before.” You set your coat down slowly, watching him pace. “Satoru, what’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy that I can see them. That I’m getting better at this whole Resonant thing.”
“Better at it?” He stopped pacing, turning to face you. “You’re not getting better at it. You’re getting lost in it. There’s a difference.”
“I’m not lost. I’m standing right here, alive—”
“For now,” he said defeatedly. “But what about next week? Next month? What happens when you can’t tell the difference anymore between the living and the dead? When you’re so far into the threshold that you can’t find your way back?”
You stared at him, your heart pounding. “That won’t happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m being careful,” you said.
“Are you?” Satoru’s voice was quieter now. “Because from where I’m standing—or hovering, whatever—it looks like you’re diving headfirst into the spiritual plane without any regard for what it might cost you.”
“That’s not fair,” you protested. “I’m researching. Learning. The librarian has been helping me understand—”
“The dead librarian,” he said. “You’re taking advice about staying connected to life from someone who’s been dead for decades. Do you see the irony there?”
You bit your lip, frustrated. “What do you want me to do, Satoru? Ignore it? Pretend I can’t see what I see? I’m a Resonant. This is part of who I am now.”
“It doesn’t have to be all of who you are,” he said, and there was something almost pleading in his voice. “You have a life. A job, friends. A whole world of living, breathing people who aren’t trapped between states of existence. Don’t throw that away.”
“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m just—” You stopped, not sure how to finish that sentence. What were you doing? Learning? Growing? Or was he right? Were you losing yourself to this strange new ability, this connection to the dead that seemed to grow stronger every day?
You looked down at the books on the table. Three of them this time, each one thicker than the last. Advanced Resonant Techniques. Bridging the Divide: Physical Manifestation of Spiritual Entities. The Corporeal Threshold: A Resonant’s Guide. That last one made your heart skip a beat.
“What are these?” Satoru had drifted closer, reading the titles over your shoulder. His voice had gone flat. “Physical manifestation? Corporeal threshold?”
“The librarian said these might be useful,” you said carefully. “Given our… situation.”
“Our situation,” he repeated. “You mean the situation where I’m dead and you’re alive and there’s an insurmountable barrier between us?”
“It might not be insurmountable,” you said, pulling the burgundy book towards you, the one titled Bridging the Divide. “According to the librarian, Resonants with strong enough connections to specific entities can sometimes—”
“No.” His voice was hard, final.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I know enough. You’re talking about making me corporeal, aren’t you? Temporarily solid?” When you didn’t answer immediately, Satoru laughed, but there was no humour in it. “That’s what this is about. That’s why you’ve been pushing yourself further into the threshold, seeing more ghosts, spending more time in that archive. You’re trying to figure out how to touch me.”
Your silence was answer enough.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? For you, I mean. What it would cost?”
“I’m willing to—”
“I’m not. I’m not willing to let you risk yourself like that. Not for this. Not for me.”
“Don’t I get a say in what risks I take?” you said.
“Not when those risks involve you potentially losing your grip on life itself!” His form was flickering more rapidly now, agitation making him less stable. “Do you understand what you’re proposing? You’re talking about pulling me into the physical world, which means you’d have to step deeper into the spiritual one. You’d have to open yourself up completely, make yourself even more permeable to the dead. And every time you did it, every time you made me solid, you’d be taking another step away from life.”
“The book says—”
“I don’t care what the book says!” He was shouting now, something you’d never heard him do. “I don’t care if it’s possible or safe or whatever the dead librarian told you. I won’t let you do it.”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me!”
“And you don’t get to throw your life away because of some misguided idea that we can be together!” He stopped, his voice breaking on the last word. “Is that what this is about? Last week? What we talked about, what we—what you did?”
Heat flooded your face. “I don’t—”
“I heard you,” he said quietly. “That night. I was there. I heard you say my name, heard you—I’ve been trying not to think about it because it’s torture. But if that’s what’s driving this, if you’re trying to find a way to make that real, to actually touch me—please don’t. Please. I can’t be the reason you lose yourself.”
“You’re not. This isn’t just about that. It’s about everything. It’s about wanting to hold your hand. To hug you when you’re sad. To—” You stopped, blinking back tears. “I just want to touch you, Satoru. Just once. Is that so wrong?”
“When it might cost you everything? Yes.” His voice was firm, but his eyes were gentle. “I want it, too. You have no idea how much I want it. But not like this.”
You picked up the burgundy book, opening it to the page you’d marked earlier. “Just listen. Please. It’s not as dangerous as you think.”
“I doubt that.”
“The process,” you read aloud, “requires a deep harmonic resonance between Resonant and entity. The Resonant must open themselves fully to the spiritual plane, creating a bridge through which the entity can temporarily manifest in physical form. The duration depends on the strength of the connection and the Resonant’s ability to maintain their anchor to the living world.
“The first manifestation is the most dangerous, as the Resonant must learn to balance between worlds. However, with practice and proper preparation, the process becomes safer and can be maintained for increasing durations.”
“With practice,” Satoru said. “So you’d have to do it multiple times, each time risking that you might not find your way back.”
“There are safety measures. The book describes—”
“I don’t care.” Satoru drifted between you and the book, forcing you to look at him. “I don’t care what safety measures exist. I don’t care how many times you practice. One time is too many if there’s even a chance you could get lost in the threshold.”
“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” you demanded, your brows knitting into an irritated frown.
“Because I love you!”
The words exploded into the space between you, silver bells tinkling in the sudden stillness. You froze. Satoru looked stricken, like he couldn’t believe he’d said it out loud.
“I love you,” he repeated, quieter this time. “I’ve loved you probably since the third week you lived here, when you didn’t run screaming and you started leaving cookies out even though I can’t eat them. And I definitely loved you when you let me keep walking through you just so I could feel warm for a second, even though it hurt you. And I absolutely loved you when you said my name in the dark, like it was the only word that mattered.”
You could only stare at him while he continued, the words pouring out like some growing chasm had widened deep enough inside his chest for him to finally let it all out.
“I love you, and because I love you, I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you risk everything for the selfish fantasy of being able to touch me. Because if something happened to you—if you got lost in the threshold, if you became unmoored, if you died—I would spend the rest of eternity knowing it was my fault. Knowing I was the reason you lost your life.”
“Satoru—”
“I’ve already died once,” he said. “I can handle being dead. I’ve had sixty years to get used to it. But I cannot handle being the reason you die. I can’t. So please, please don’t ask me to.”
Tears were streaming down your face now, and you didn’t bother wiping them away. “I love you, too,” you whispered. “That’s why I want to try. That’s why I’m willing to risk it.”
“Then love me enough to stay alive,” Satoru said, his hands raising as though he wanted to wipe away your tears before remembering it was a futile endeavour. “Love me enough to stay in the world where you belong, where you have a future and possibilities and a whole life ahead of you.”
“What kind of life is it if I can never touch you?” you said.
“A living one,” he said, “which is more than I can offer you.”
You looked down at the book in your hands, at the careful diagrams showing how to bridge the divide, how to make the impossible possible. You’d been so excited when the librarian had shown you this section; you’d spent hours reading and rereading, planning how you’d bring it up to Satoru. You’d imagined his face when you told him there was a way, that you could make him solid, that you could finally touch him the way you’d both been desperately wanting.
You hadn’t imagined this. His fear. His refusal. “I need time,” you said. “To think about this.”
“Take all the time you need,” Satoru said. “But my answer isn’t going to change. I won’t let you do this.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I can leave.”
Your head snapped up. “What?”
“If you try this—if you attempt to manifest me corporeally—I’ll leave. I’ll figure out how to move on, break whatever’s keeping me tethered to this place, and I’ll go. I won’t be party to your destruction, even indirectly.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not.” His eyes were steady, serious. “I’ll spend eternity as a ghost before I let myself be the reason you throw your life away.”
He meant it. You could see it in every line of his translucent form, in the set of his jaw, in the pain in his eyes. He would rather leave and condemn himself to whatever came after this liminal existence than watch you risk yourself for him.
“That’s not fair,” you said, your voice small.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not. But neither is asking me to stand by while you potentially kill yourself.”
You sank into one of your kitchen chairs, suddenly exhausted. The books sat on the table between you, full of answers that now felt more like condemnations. You’d thought you were being clever, resourceful. You’d thought you were finding a solution to an impossible problem. You hadn’t considered that Satoru might not want the solution if it meant risking you.
“I just want to touch you,” you said again. “Just once. I want to know what your hand feels like in mine. I want to hug you. I want to kiss you. I want—”
“I know.” Satoru drifted down beside you, not quite sitting but giving the impression of it. “I want all of that too. So badly it makes me ache,” he said, an echo of his words last week, “which shouldn’t be possible because I’m dead and the dead don’t ache, but somehow you make me feel it anyway.”
“Then why—”
“Because wanting something doesn’t make it right. I’ve learnt that the hard way, with my best friend, and—” He stopped and looked at you, and there was such tenderness in his gaze that it made your heart hurt. “Because I’d rather spend forever wanting you from a distance than have one moment of touching you if it meant losing you entirely.”
You wiped at your tears angrily. “This isn’t fair. None of this is fair.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s really not.”
You sat there together: alive and dead, wanting and aching, lover and beloved, separated by an unbridgeable divide that you’d thought you’d found a way across. The books mocked you with their presence, their promises of possibilities now bitter in your mouth.
“The librarian said most Resonants who attempt corporeal manifestation are successful,” you said quietly. “The risks are manageable if you’re careful.”
“Most isn’t all.”
“Nothing in life is guaranteed, Satoru. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I could have an aneurysm. I could—”
“But you’re not actively choosing those things,” he cut in. “This is different. This is you deliberately stepping into danger.”
“For you. For us!”
“There is no us,” he said. “Not in the way you want. I’m a ghost, you’re alive, and that’s just… that’s how it is.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” you pleaded.
“Yes,” he said firmly, “it does. Because the alternative is you risking everything, and I won’t allow it.”
You wanted to argue more. Wanted to pull out the books and show him all the careful notations you’d made, all the safety protocols, all the evidence that this could work. But you were so tired. Tired of wanting. Tired of the constant ache of being near him but never able to touch. Tired of lying in bed at night and touching yourself while imagining his hands, knowing it would never be real.
“I need you to leave,” you said. “Just for tonight. I need to think.”
Satoru looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll be around. Somewhere.”
That night, you curled into the sheets and sobbed yourself to sleep.
It wasn’t the quiet, dignified crying you’d done before—those careful tears shed in the shower or into your pillow when you thought Satoru might be nearby. This was ugly, desperate weeping that tore from your chest like something vital being ripped out. Your whole body shook with it, face pressed into your pillow, hands fisted in the sheets so hard your knuckles went white.
You cried because he loved you, and you cried because you loved him, and you cried because love should have been enough, but it wasn’t, would never be enough to bridge the gap between life and death.
You cried because you’d been so close. Those books on your kitchen table represented hope, possibility, a solution to the unsolvable problem of wanting someone you could never touch. The librarian had looked at you with such understanding when she’d handed them over, her ghostly form flickering in the archive’s dim light.
“It’s rare,” she’d said, “for a Resonant and an entity to develop this kind of bond. But when it happens, when the connection is strong enough… well, let’s just say there are ways to make the impossible a little less so.”
You’d been so excited. You’d practically run home, the books weighing down your bag but your heart feeling lighter than it had in weeks. You’d imagined Satoru’s reaction—surprise, maybe, then cautious hope, and finally that brilliant smile that made him look so alive you could almost forget he wasn’t.
Instead, you’d gotten fear. Rejection. An ultimatum.
I’ll leave, he’d said, and you believed him. Believed that he would rather tear himself away from this place, from you, than watch you risk yourself for him. The thought of him gone—truly gone, not just invisible but absent—made your chest constrict with panic. But the thought of never touching him, of spending the rest of your life wanting something that would always be just out of reach, was its own kind of death.
You rolled onto your back, staring at the ceiling through blurred vision. The apartment felt emptier than usual. Satoru had said he’d be around, but you couldn’t sense that familiar cold that meant he was near. He’d actually left, given you the space you’d asked for.
How had this become your life? Three months ago, you’d been normal. Boring. You’d come home to an empty apartment and hadn’t minded because you’d never known that there could be something more. Someone more. You’d been content with your books and your job and your small, predictable existence.
Then Satoru had appeared—literally—and everything had changed. He’d made you laugh. He’d reorganised your bookshelf and stolen your cookies and walked through your organs and somehow, impossibly, you’d fallen in love with him. And he’d loved you back. He’d said it. Three words that should have been everything, but instead felt like a curse, because what good was love when you couldn’t even hold hands? When the closest you could get to intimacy was him passing through your body and both of you pretending it was enough?
Fresh tears spilled down your temples, pooling in your ears. You pressed the heels of your palms against your eyes, trying to physically push the tears back in, but they kept coming.
You thought about the books, about the careful diagrams showing energy flows and resonance patterns. You thought about the chapter on anchoring techniques that promised you could maintain your connection to life while temporarily pulling an entity into corporeal form. The librarian had made it sound manageable. Difficult, yes, but possible for someone with your level of sensitivity.
“The first manifestation is always the hardest,” she’d explained, her translucent fingers trailing over the text. “You’ll need to open yourself completely to the spiritual plane, create a bridge of energy between his existence and yours. It will feel like drowning and flying at the same time. Like every cell in your body is being pulled in two different directions. But if you can hold steady, maintain your anchor, he’ll solidify. Just for a little while.”
“How long?”
“That depends on your strength. Minutes, maybe. An hour if you’re very skilled. The connection will strain you, drain you, but it won’t harm you. Not if you know when to let go.”
Satoru had focused on the dangers, on the warnings about becoming unmoored, about losing yourself in the threshold. But those were risks for people who went too far, who kept pushing past their limits. You’d be careful. You’d set boundaries. You’d—
But what if he’s right? A small voice whispered in your head. What if you’re not as careful as you think? What if you get lost?
You’d been seeing more ghosts. That was undeniable. The four on the subway hadn’t even fazed you—you’d simply noted their presence and moved on, like they were just other passengers. The one at the convenience store had been rearranging bottles on a shelf, so lost in the repetitive motion he’d been doing for decades that he didn’t even notice you watching. And there was the librarian, of course, managing her archive like death was just a minor inconvenience to her work.
None of it had scared you. None of it had seemed dangerous. It had just felt… normal. Natural. Like you were finally seeing the world as it really was, in all its layered complexity.
But wasn’t that exactly what the books had warned about? That slow slide into accepting the dead as easily as the living, until you couldn’t tell which world you belonged to anymore?
You thought about your coworker, who’d asked you yesterday if you were feeling okay. “You seem distracted,” she’d said. “Like you’re looking at something the rest of us can’t see.”
Because you had been. There had been a ghost in the conference room—an old man in a suit from the 1960s, attending a meeting that had ended decades ago. He’d been so solid to you, so present, that you’d almost asked him a question before remembering he wasn’t actually alive.
How long before you did forget? How long before the dead became more real to you than the living?
A sob caught in your throat. You were so tired. Tired of thinking, tired of crying, tired of wanting something you couldn’t have. Your body felt heavy, exhausted from emotion, and your head throbbed from crying. But you couldn’t seem to stop. Every time you thought you’d cried yourself out, a fresh wave would hit. You cried for Satoru, trapped for sixty years in this apartment, unable to touch or taste or feel anything. You cried for yourself, falling in love with someone who could never truly be yours. You cried for the future you’d imagined but could never have—growing old together, building a life, all those mundane intimacies that people took for granted.
You’d never hold his hand while watching TV. Never feel his arms around you when you were sad. Never wake up to him beside you, solid and warm and real. Never kiss him in the morning or fight over dinner plans or do any of the thousand small things that made up a relationship.
Unless you tried. Unless you took the risk.
Your hand crept out from under the covers, reaching towards the empty space beside you. You imagined Satoru there, lying next to you like he sometimes did when he thought you were asleep. You imagined reaching out and finding him solid under your touch, his sharp intake of breath, the wonder in his eyes as you finally, finally made contact.
What would his hand feel like? His skin? Would he be warm or still carry the cold of death? Would he feel real, or would there be something indefinably wrong about the sensation, a reminder that this was borrowed solidity, temporary and incomplete?
You wanted to know. God, you wanted to know so badly, it was like a physical ache in your chest. But he’d begged you not to try, had threatened to leave if you did.
That was the cruelest part of all: that even if you were willing to risk yourself, you couldn’t risk losing him. He’d made himself the deterrent, the reason you couldn’t move forward. Because as much as you wanted to touch him, you wanted him in your life more. Even if he was intangible, even if you could never hold him, his presence had become necessary to you. Vital. The thought of him gone, of coming home to a truly empty apartment, of never hearing his laugh or his terrible jokes again—that was worse than never touching him.
He knew that. The bastard knew that, and he’d used it against you.
Fresh anger flared through your grief, hot and bright. How dare he make that choice for you? How dare he decide what risks you were allowed to take with your own life? You were an adult. You’d read the books. You understood the dangers, and you’d been willing to accept them for the chance—just the chance—of one moment of real connection.
But he’d taken that choice away.
“I hate you,” you whispered to the empty room.
The crying tapered off eventually, leaving you hollow and numb. Your throat was raw, your eyes swollen, your head pounding. You felt wrung out, as though all the emotion had been physically extracted from you, leaving nothing but an exhausted shell. You thought about getting up, getting water, taking some painkillers for the headache and washing your face, but moving seemed impossible.
So you simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift as cars passed outside. The city hummed with life all around you—people going about their evenings, living their normal lives, probably taking for granted the ability to touch the people they loved. You’d been one of them three months ago. You’d never realised how lucky you were.
Somewhere in the apartment, you thought you felt something. Not quite a presence, but an awareness. A cold spot in the air, a shift in the atmosphere. Satoru, probably, drawn to your distress but respecting your request for space, hovering somewhere nearby, unable to comfort you, maybe crying himself if ghosts could cry. The thought made something in your chest crack all over again.
“I love you,” you whispered into the darkness. “I love you and I hate you and I don’t know what to do.”
There was no response. Eventually, exhaustion won out. Your eyes slipped closed, your breathing evened out, and you drifted into an uneasy sleep. Your dreams were confused, fragmented things—reaching for hands that disappeared before you could grasp them, walking through crowds where you couldn’t tell who was alive and who was dead, drowning in cold water that felt like Satoru’s presence.
You woke sometime in the early morning, the sky outside just beginning to lighten from black to grey. Your pillow was damp with tears and possibly drool, your hair stuck to your face, and your body ached. But you were calmer now. Numb, maybe, but calm.
You rolled over and found him there.
Satoru was hovering beside your bed, his form more translucent than usual in the pre-dawn light. He looked tired—if ghosts could look tired. His eyes were gaunt, his posture slumped in a way you’d never seen before.
“Hi,” he said softly when your eyes met.
“Hi,” you croaked back, your voice rough from crying.
“I’m sorry. I know you said you needed space, but I—” He stopped, looking away. “I couldn’t stand it. Hearing you cry like that and not being able to do anything. Not being able to hold you or comfort you or make it better.”
“It’s okay,” you said, even though it wasn’t.
“It’s not.” He drifted closer, still maintaining that careful distance. “I hurt you. I know I did. And I hate myself for it, but I’d do it again because I—I can’t lose you. I can’t. You’re the only good thing that’s happened to me in sixty years, and the thought of you getting hurt because of me, of you disappearing into the threshold because you were trying to touch me—I can’t bear it.”
You looked at him—this impossible, beautiful, frustrating man who loved you enough to push you away. “I know,” you whispered. “I know, and I hate it, but I know.”
“So what do we do?” Satoru asked helplessly. “How do we… how do we live like this?”
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I really don’t know.”
Two weeks passed in uneasy tension. You tried to go back to normal—or whatever counted as normal when you lived with a ghost you were in love with. You went to work, came home, cooked dinner that only you could eat. Satoru hovered nearby, making his usual jokes, moving your things around to annoy you. On the surface, everything seemed fine.
But underneath, something was fracturing.
You were seeing more ghosts. Not just occasionally, but constantly. Every subway ride revealed at least a dozen. The coffee shop on your corner had three: a woman from the 1920s eternally waiting for someone who would never arrive, a teenager who’d died in the ‘80s still trying to use a payphone that had been removed twenty years ago, and an old man who sat at the same table every day reading a newspaper that never changed the date.
You’d started recognising some of them. The businessman on the fifth floor of your office building who paced the same hallway over and over. The little girl in the park who pushed an empty swing. The couple in your apartment building’s lobby who walked through the doors every evening at six, dressed for a party that had ended fifty years ago. They were becoming familiar. Comfortable, even. More real to you than some of your living coworkers.
“You’re doing it again,” Satoru said one evening. You were sitting on the couch, ostensibly watching TV, but your eyes had drifted to the corner where a ghost—a woman in a nurse’s uniform from the 1950s—was standing, staring at nothing.
“Doing what?” you asked, blinking back to focus.
“Seeing something I can’t see.” He drifted between you and the corner, forcing you to look at him. “There’s someone there, isn’t there?”
You nodded. “A nurse. She’s just… standing there.”
“Can you see me as clearly as you see her?”
The question caught you off guard. You looked at him properly. “No,” you admitted quietly. “You’re… you’re more translucent than she is. She looks almost solid.”
Satoru’s expression went carefully blank. “How long has this been happening?”
“I don’t know. A few days? A week?” You rubbed your eyes tiredly. “It’s hard to tell anymore. They’re just… everywhere. All the time.”
“You’re getting worse,” Satoru said, his form flickering. “You know that, right? This is exactly what the books warned about.”
“I’m fine,” you said automatically, but even you didn’t believe it anymore.
“You’re not fine. You’re losing your grip on the living world.” He moved closer, and you noticed for the first time that you had to concentrate to see him clearly. When had that started? “When’s the last time you called one of your friends?”
You tried to remember. “I don’t—”
“When’s the last time you had a full conversation with someone at work that wasn’t absolutely necessary?”
“I talk to people—”
“When’s the last time you ate a meal without forgetting halfway through because you were watching a ghost?”
You opened your mouth to answer and realised you couldn’t. Last night’s dinner was still sitting in the kitchen, half-eaten and cold because you’d gotten distracted by the ghost couple in the lobby arguing about whether to stay or go.
“I’m managing,” you said weakly.
“You’re disappearing.” His voice cracked. “You’re slipping away from life, and I can’t stop it, and it’s killing me. Again.”
The nurse in the corner turned and walked through the wall. You watched her go, and it took physical effort to drag your attention back to Satoru.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” you admitted. “I don’t know how to unsee them. They’re just there, and they’re getting clearer while everything else is getting… hazier.”
“The living world is getting hazier,” Satoru said. “That’s the problem. You’re already halfway into the threshold, and you haven’t even tried the manifestation yet.”
You hadn’t touched the books since that night. They sat on your kitchen table where you’d left them, gathering dust, a constant reminder of the choice you’d made—or hadn’t made. The choice that was slowly being made for you anyway as you drifted further away from life.
“What if—” You stopped, afraid to say it.
“What if what?”
“What if we tried it?” The words came out in a rush. “Just once. Just to see if it works. If I’m already unmooring anyway, at least—at least I’d get something from it. At least I’d get to touch you, just once, before I—”
“Before you disappear completely?” Satoru’s voice was harsh. “That’s your argument? That you’re already dying so you might as well accelerate the process?”
“That’s not what I—”
“That’s exactly what you mean.” He was flickering rapidly now, his form unstable with emotion. “You think I haven’t noticed? You think I don’t see you fading? I saw you through the window yesterday, when you walked through a living person on the street because you didn’t realise they were there. You didn’t even notice. You just kept walking.”
You had done that. You’d walked right through a jogger on the footpath, and for a moment you’d felt that familiar cold, and you’d thought it was just another ghost before you’d realised what you’d done. The jogger had shivered and looked around, confused, and you’d hurried away before they could see you.
“I thought that was impossible,” you said quietly. “The books said the living can’t pass through each other.”
“The living can’t. But you’re not fully living anymore, are you? You’re stuck in the threshold. You’re becoming like me.”
“So what do I do?” Your voice came out small, scared. “How do I stop it?”
“I don’t know. The books—”
“The books say that once the process starts, it’s hard to reverse. That the only way to re-anchor yourself to life is through intense connection to living things. Relationships. Physical touch. Engagement with the world. All the things I can’t have because the person I want to connect with is dead.”
Satoru flinched like you’d hit him. “That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair!” You were standing now, though you didn’t remember getting up. “I’m losing myself either way! If I try the manifestation, maybe I get lost in the threshold. If I don’t try it, I drift anyway, because I’m so focused on you, on the dead, that I can’t maintain my connection to life. Either way, I lose. At least if I try, I get something. One moment of touching you. One moment of real connection before I—”
Satoru was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was defeated. “You’re really that far gone?”
“I walked through a person, Satoru. I see dead people more clearly than I see you. I forgot to eat dinner three times this week because I was watching ghosts. I—” You inhaled, shuddering. “I’m scared. I’m so scared, and I don’t know how to fix this, and the only thing I want is you.”
He closed his eyes, his form shimmering like water. “One try,” he said finally.
“What?”
“One try. We attempt the manifestation once. Just once,” he said, opening his eyes. “If it works, maybe—maybe the physical connection will re-anchor you. Maybe touching something real, even temporarily, will remind your body what it’s like to be alive. Maybe it’ll pull you back from the edge.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we stop. Completely. No more books, no more research. We figure out another way to anchor you to life, even if it means—” He stopped, jaw clenching. “Even if it means you need to distance yourself from me. Date someone living. Build a life that doesn’t revolve around a ghost.”
The thought made you want to vomit, but you nodded. “Okay.”
“And if you start to slip—if you feel yourself getting lost in the threshold—you pull back immediately. I don’t care if we’re mid-manifestation, I don’t care if we only get five seconds. If you feel yourself losing your grip on life, you let go. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Say it like you mean it,” he demanded. “Promise me that your life is more important than touching me.”
Your face was wet; you realised, belatedly, that you were crying. “I promise that my life is more important than touching you.”
He nodded slowly, looking like every word pained him. “When?”
“I need to prepare. The books say there are anchoring rituals, grounding techniques. Things I need to do to make sure I can find my way back.” You wiped at your tears with shaking hands. “Give me three days. Three days to set everything up properly.”
“Three days,” he agreed. “And then—”
“And then we try,” you said. “One try. Just once.”
“Just once,” he echoed, but there was something in his voice that said he didn’t believe it would be enough. That once you’d touched him, once you’d felt something real after weeks of drifting in this grey half-world, you’d want more. That stopping after one time would be impossible.
Maybe he was right. Maybe you were already too far gone, too desperate for connection, too in love with a dead man to save yourself. But you had to try; you had to know what it felt like to hold his hand, to feel his lips against yours, to have one moment of absolute certainty that this was real, that he was real, that you weren’t just slowly going insane in an empty apartment.
You took time off work for the next three days—told them you had the flu, which wasn’t entirely a lie. You felt sick, feverish almost, your body existing in a strange liminal space between here and there. You could feel yourself loosening, your grip on physical reality weakening with every passing hour.
The books became your bible. You read and reread the chapters on corporeal manifestation until you had them memorised. The process was complex, requiring precise control of your Resonant abilities and careful management of the energy flow between worlds.
First, you needed anchors: physical objects tied to your living self, things that would keep you tethered to reality even as you opened yourself to the spiritual plane. You chose carefully. Your mother’s necklace, worn so often it carried the warmth of life. A photo of you and your friends from last year, everyone smiling and solid and alive. Your apartment key, mundane but yours, a symbol of your place in the physical world.
You arranged them in a circle in your bedroom, following the diagrams in the book. Each object was placed with intention, charged with your living energy. They would serve as breadcrumbs, a path back to yourself if you started to drift too far.
Next, the grounding exercises. You practiced them obsessively—meditation techniques that focused on physical sensations, on the weight of your body, the rhythm of your breath, the beating of your heart. You needed to be acutely aware of your own vitality so you’d notice if it started to slip away.
Satoru watched you prepare with growing anxiety. He hovered nearby constantly, asking questions, double-checking your work, looking for any excuse to call the whole thing off.
“Are you sure about the placement of that anchor?” he’d ask. “The book says it should be north-facing.”
“It is north-facing.”
“What if the north wall isn’t actually north? What if the apartment’s orientation is off?”
“Satoru.”
“I’m just saying, maybe we should get a compass. Or wait until the summer solstice when the sun—”
“We’re not waiting until summer.” You looked up from the book you were rereading. “We’re doing this tomorrow night, like we agreed.”
He fell silent, his form flickering with nervous energy. You’d never seen him this agitated, not even during your fight. He was terrified, you realised. Not of the manifestation itself, but of what it might cost you.
“I keep thinking about what you said,” he confessed that evening. You were lying in bed while he hovered above it, maintaining his usual careful distance. “About losing yourself either way.”
“Satoru—”
“No, let me finish.” He turned to look at you, and even through his translucence, you could see the pain in his eyes. “If this doesn’t work, I want you to promise me something else.”
“What?”
“That you’ll leave. Move out of this apartment, cut all ties to me, surround yourself with living people until you remember how to be alive. Promise me that you’ll choose life over me. Every time. No matter what.”
You wanted to argue. “I’ll try,” you said instead. “That’s all I can promise.”
He nodded, accepting it because he had no other choice. “I love you,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens tomorrow, I need you to know that. I love you more than I thought I could love anything after death. You brought me back to life in every way that matters, and I’m so grateful for that, even if—even if this is where it ends.”
“It’s not ending,” you said fiercely. “Tomorrow, I’m going to touch you. I’m going to hold your hand and hug you and maybe kiss you, and it’s going to work. It’s going to anchor me back to reality because you’ll be real, finally, and that will be enough. It has to be enough.”
“Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “It has to be.”
You stood in your bedroom, surrounded by your carefully placed anchors, the books open to the relevant pages, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. Satoru was there, of course. He’d been there all day, unable to settle, flickering in and out of visibility.
“Last chance to back out,” he said.
“I’m not backing out.” Your hands were shaking as you lit the candles you’d placed around the circle. The books said they weren’t strictly necessary, but they helped with focus, creating a boundary between worlds. “Are you backing out?”
“I should,” he admitted. “Every instinct I have—or had, or whatever—is telling me this is a terrible idea. I should stop you, physically prevent you somehow even though I’m incorporeal. But—”
“But?”
“But I want to touch you, too. So badly I’d risk almost anything.” He drifted closer. “Just not you. I’m not willing to risk you.”
“Good think it’s not your choice, then.” You took a deep breath. The grounding exercises kicked in automatically—awareness of your body, your breath, your heartbeat. You were alive. Solid. Real. You needed to remember that, hold onto it, even as you opened yourself to the other side.
“Okay,” you said. “I’m starting.”
You sat down in the centre of the circle, crossing your legs, placing your hands palm-up on your knees. The position was meant to be open, receptive. You needed to be a conduit, a bridge between the living world and the spiritual plane.
Satoru moved to stand—hover—in front of you, just outside the circle. “What do I do?”
“Just… be ready. When I open the bridge, you’ll feel it. It’ll be like a pull, the books said. Like something tugging you towards solidity. Follow that feeling. Let yourself be drawn through.”
“And if something goes wrong?”
“Then I pull back, like I promised.” You met his eyes. “Trust me?”
“With everything I was and am and will be,” he said.
You closed your eyes, taking one more grounding breath, and began.
The technique was called “harmonic resonance,” and it required you to attune yourself to Satoru’s specific spiritual frequency. You’d been doing it unconsciously since you met him—that’s what the connection between Resonant and entity was—but now you needed to do it deliberately, completely, opening yourself so fully to his presence that there was no separation between where you ended and where he began.
You reached out with that sixth sense you’d developed, that awareness of the spiritual plane. Immediately, you were overwhelmed. Ghosts everywhere—in the building, on the street, throughout the city. Thousands of them, maybe millions, all clamouring for attention, all visible to you now that you’d opened yourself.
No, you thought firmly. Not them. Him. Only him.
You focused, narrowing your awareness, filtering out the noise until there was only one presence, one signature that felt like cold winter air and summer lightning and coming home.
Satoru.
You found him, locked onto him, and pulled.
The sensation was indescribable. Like diving into deep water and flying at the same time. Like every cell in your body was vibrating at a different frequency. Like you were being stretched impossibly thin, spread across two worlds at once. You felt yourself start to drift. The physical world grew distant—you could barely feel the floor beneath you, barely hear the sounds of traffic outside. Everything was fading into grey except for Satoru’s presence, which turned bright and cold and absolutely clear.
Anchor, you remembered desperately. The anchors. Hold on.
You grabbed for them mentally—the necklace, the photo, the key. They were lifelines, threads of connection to your living self. You wrapped yourself in them, let them remind you: heartbeat, breath, body. You were alive. You were here. You were—
Something shifted. The energy flowing through you changed direction. Instead of just pulling yourself towards the spiritual plane, you were pulling something back. Something cold and bright and desperately yearning. Satoru.
You felt him being drawn through the bridge you’d created, felt him solidifying as he moved from pure spirit to temporary corporeal form. It was working. It was actually working.
“Open your eyes,” you heard him say, and his voice sounded different. Fuller.
You opened your eyes.
Satoru stood before you, and for the first time since you’d met him, he wasn’t translucent. He was solid. Real. His white hair caught the candlelight, casting shadows across his face. His eyes were the same impossible blue, but now they had depth, dimension, life. He was looking at his hands like he’d never seen them before, turning them over in wonder, watching the way they caught the light, the way they moved in the air instead of through it.
“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “I can—I’m—” He looked at you, and his expression was pure awe. “I’m solid.”
You tried to stand, but your legs were shaking. The effort of maintaining the bridge was enormous—you could feel it draining you, pulling at your energy, your life force. But it was worth it. God, it was worth it just to see him like this.
“How long can you hold it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Ten minutes? Maybe less.” Already you could feel the strain. “We should—”
“Yeah,” he said, understanding immediately.
He stepped forward into the circle, and for a moment you both just stared at each other. After months of wanting, of never being able to touch, he was finally, impossibly real.
Satoru reached out first.
His hand extended towards you, trembling slightly, and you lifted yours to meet it. Then his fingers touched yours, and the world stopped.
Warm. He was warm. Not cold like you’d expected, but genuinely warm, alive, real. His skin against yours felt like sunlight, like coming home, like every good thing you’d ever wanted condensed into a single point of contact.
“Oh,” you breathed, and then you were crying, tears streaming down your face because it was real. He was real. You could feel him, solid and present and absolutely there. Satoru made a broken sound and pulled you into his arms. He was warm everywhere he touched you—his arms around your waist, his chest against yours, his face buried in your hair. You could feel his breath against your neck, feel his heartbeat—no, wait, that was yours, or maybe both, you couldn’t tell where you ended and he began.
“You’re real,” you sobbed into his shoulder. “You’re really real.”
“I’m real,” he confirmed. “I’m here. I’m—God, you feel amazing. You feel like everything.”
You pulled back just enough to look at his face, to see the tears tracking down his cheeks, to marvel at the way his expression moved, the way his eyes reflected the candlelight, the way they gleamed in the dark.
“Can I—” you started, but he was already leaning in.
The kiss was gentle at first. A soft press of his lips, testing, exploring. His mouth was warm against yours, and you made a small sound of surprise and joy that he swallowed. Then his hand came up to cup your face, his thumb stroking your cheek, and he deepened the kiss.
You’d imagined this so many times, late at night, touching yourself, fantasising about what his lips would feel like, how he’d taste. But nothing could have prepared you for the reality. He kissed like he’d been starving for it, like you were oxygen and he’d been drowning. His other hand tangled in your hair, pulling you closer, and you went willingly, pressing against him, trying to eliminate every molecule of space between you. When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard.
“Wow,” you managed.
“Yeah.” His voice was rough. “That was—”
“Amazing.”
“I was going to say life-changing, but amazing works.” He rested his forehead against yours, his hands still cradling your face. “Thank you. Thank you for this, for—”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes going wide.
“What?” you asked, but then you felt it. The drain. The pull. The bridge was straining, requiring more and more energy to maintain. You could feel yourself weakening, feel your grip on physical reality starting to slip. The anchors were calling to you, but their voices were getting fainter.
“You need to let go,” Satoru said urgently. “Now. You’re fading.”
“Not yet. Just a little longer—”
“No.” His hands tightened on your face, forcing you to look at him. “You promised. If you started to slip, you’d pull back. You promised me.”
“Just one more minute—”
“You’re losing your anchor!” Satoru’s form was already starting to flicker, translucence creeping back in around the edges. “I can feel it. You’re letting go of life. Stop. Now.”
He was right. You could feel it—the seductive pull of the threshold, the temptation to just let go, to drift further into the spiritual plane where everything was easier, where Satoru could stay solid, where you wouldn’t have to constantly choose between worlds. It would be so easy. Just stop fighting. Stop holding onto the anchors. Let yourself slip all the way through the bridge until you were on the other side with him, until you didn’t have to worry about being alive anymore.
“Don’t you dare,” Satoru said, reading your thoughts in your expression. “Don’t you fucking dare give up. You promised me. Life first. Always life first.”
“I don’t want to let go,” you whispered. “Please.”
“I know. I don’t either. But you have to.” His hands were gentle on your face, even as his voice was desperate. “Please, sweetheart. Please don’t make me watch you die. Please choose life. Choose yourself.”
The endearment broke something in you. You’d never heard him call you that before—never heard him use any term of affection beyond your name. It felt precious. “Okay,” you said. “Okay.”
You reached for the anchors. They blazed bright in your awareness, lifelines back to the physical world. You grabbed hold of them, let them pull you back from the edge, and with enormous effort, you closed the bridge. The sensation was like slamming into a wall. One moment you were stretched between worlds, and the next you were compressed entirely into your physical body. Your body that was exhausted, drained, barely functional.
You collapsed.
Satoru tried to catch you, but his form was already fading back into translucence, his hands passing through you instead of supporting you. You hit the floor hard, gasping, every cell in your body screaming with exhaustion.
“Are you okay?” Satoru was hovering over you, fully incorporeal again, his voice panicked. “Please be okay. Please—”
“I’m fine,” you grit out. “Just… tired.”
“You’re shaking,” he said.
You were. Your whole body was trembling with exertion, your muscles weak as water. But you were alive. The anchors hummed around you, keeping you tethered, reminding you who you were.
“We did it,” you said, and despite everything—the exhaustion, the pain, the knowledge that it was over—you smiled. “We touched. We kissed. It worked.”
“It worked,” Satoru agreed, but he didn’t sound happy. He sounded terrified. “And you almost didn’t come back.”
“But I did.” You tried to sit up, failed, and settled for just lying on your bedroom floor. “I came back. I’m here.”
“This time,” he said quietly. “You came back this time.”
You both knew what he meant. You’d gotten too close to the edge. Another minute—maybe even another thirty seconds—and you might not have had the strength to pull yourself back. The anchors might not have been enough against the seductive pull of existing in a world where Satoru was solid and real and touchable.
“One try,” you reminded him. “We agreed. Just once.”
“Yeah.” He was silent for a moment. “Was it enough?”
You thought about his warmth. His kiss. The absolute rightness of being held by him. The way he’d looked at you with those bright, living eyes.
“No, but it has to be,” you admitted. Because the alternative was losing yourself completely. And as much as you loved him, as much as you wanted to touch him again, you’d made a promise. Life first. Always life first, even when life meant never touching him again. You lay there on your bedroom floor, surrounded by your anchors and dying candles and the ghost of the man you loved, and you knew: you’d have to learn to live with wanting. You’d have to find a way to be satisfied with almost, with nearly, with the ghost of touch instead of the touch itself.
It would have to be enough. It had to be.
Satoru stubbed his toe on the kitchen table’s leg. The sound—a solid thunk followed by a very creative string of cursing—made you look up from your breakfast three days later. You’d been staring at your coffee, trying to gather the energy to drink it, still exhausted from the manifestation. Your body felt heavy, drained, like you’d run a marathon and then immediately tried to run another one.
“Ow, fuck,” Satoru hissed, hopping on one foot. “That—wait.” He stopped mid-hop, staring down at the table leg. Then he looked at his foot. Then back at the table. Then at you, his eyes going wide. “I just—” He reached out tentatively and touched the table. His hand didn’t pass through; it rested solidly on the wooden surface. “I’m touching it.”
You sat up straighter, your heart beginning to pound. “What?”
“I’m touching it. The table, I’m—” He pressed down harder, testing, and the table stayed solid under his palm. “This isn’t—I’m not corporeal. You’re not doing the bridge thing, right?”
“No.” You weren’t. You’d been too exhausted to even think about attempting another manifestation, too focused on just trying to stay grounded in the physical reality. “I’m not doing anything.”
Satoru’s gaze snapped to you, and there was fear in his eyes now. “Come here.”
“What—”
“Come here. Please. I need to—just come here.”
You stood on shaking legs and crossed the small distance between you. Satoru held out his hand, palm up, and you stared at it. In the morning light, he looked the same as always—translucent, not quite there. But he’d touched the table. He’d stubbed his toe, which meant he’d made physical contact with something solid.
“Touch me,” he said.
“Satoru, I don’t think…”
“Please.”
You reached out, your hand trembling, expecting your fingers to pass through his like they always did. But the moment before contact, you saw his hand was solid; really, truly solid, and your fingers were about to— They touched. The sensation was immediate and shocking: warmth, texture, the gentle resistance of skin against skin. His hand was real under yours, and you could feel the faint tremor in his fingers, the slight calluses on his palm.
“Oh, my God,” you breathed.
Satoru’s hand closed around yours, gripping tight, and you felt it. You felt the pressure, the warmth, the realness of him. His eyes were wide, terrified and wondering at once. “This shouldn’t be possible,” he said. “I’m not corporeal. You didn’t do the bridge. This shouldn’t—”
“Maybe it’s lingering effects?” You couldn’t stop staring at your joined hands. “From the manifestation? Maybe some of the corporeality stuck?”
“That’s not how it works. The books said—” He stopped, his grip tightening. “Unless you’re slipping. Unless you’re so far into the spiritual plane now that you can touch ghosts like they’re solid.”
You jerked your hand back—or tried to. Satoru held firm. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t pull away. Let me—” He lifted his other hand slowly and touched your face, his palm cupping your cheek. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes,” you said.
“Does it feel different than when I manifested?”
You thought about it. Three days ago, during the manifestation, his touch had felt warm, alive, almost feverishly so. This felt… similar, but not quite the same. Still warm, still solid, but there was something else. A faint coldness underneath, like touching someone who’d just come indoors from the snow outside.
“It’s similar,” you said slowly, “but not exactly the same. You’re… colder. Not as vital.”
“But still solid.”
“Still solid,” you confirmed. You both stood there in your kitchen, hands joined, his palm against your face. The manifestation was supposed to be temporary, a one-time thing. But here he was, three days later, able to touch physical objects. Able to touch you.
“We need to check something,” Satoru said. He released you and walked over to the window, reaching out and pressing his hand against the glass. Solid. His palm didn’t pass through. He tried the wall, the kitchen counter, your refrigerator. Everything he touched, he could feel. The apartment that had been a prison of things he could see but never touch was suddenly, impossibly, tangible.
“This isn’t lingering effects,” you said, your stomach sinking. “Lingering effects would fade. This is—”
“Getting stronger,” Satoru finished. He turned to look at you, and his expression was grave. “Every minute that passes, I feel more solid. More real. Which means either I’m somehow becoming corporeal permanently, or—”
“Or I’m falling completely into the spiritual plane.” You swallowed hard. “That’s why I can touch you. Not because you’re becoming real, but because I’m becoming less real.”
“We need the books,” Satoru said.
Twenty minutes later, you were surrounded by open volumes, searching frantically for any mention of sustained contact between Resonants and entities. Most of the texts focused on temporary manifestation or on the dangers of becoming unmoored, but none of them described this—this strange middle ground where touch was possible without active manifestation.
“Here,” Satoru said, jabbing his finger at a passage in The Corporeal Threshold. “Listen to this: ‘In rare cases, when the bond between Resonant and entity reaches a critical threshold of intimacy and the Resonant has significantly loosened their grip on physical reality, a phenomenon known as Equilibrium may occur.’”
“Equilibrium?” You leaned over his shoulder to read.
Equilibrium is characterised by the Resonant and entity existing in a shared state between the physical and spiritual planes. Neither fully incorporeal nor fully corporeal, both parties become tangible to each other while appearing unchanged to outside observers. The Resonant maintains enough connection to physical reality to remain alive and functional in the living world, while the entity gains enough corporeality to interact with the Resonant directly.
However, Equilibrium is an inherently unstable state. The Resonant exists perpetually on the threshold, neither fully alive nor dead, neither fully here nor there. While this allows for sustained contact with the entity, it comes with significant risks. The Resonant may experience difficulty maintaining relationships with the living, may continue to see and interact with other spirits, and may find themselves increasingly disconnected from the physical world. Additionally, the duration of Equilibrium is unknown – it may last days, weeks, years, or may suddenly collapse, forcing the Resonant fully into one plane or the other.
“So basically,” Satoru said, “you’re stuck between two worlds. You’ve become stable enough that you’re not immediately fading away, but unstable enough that you might still slip. And we have no idea how long this will last or what will end it.”
“But we can touch,” you said. “We can touch each other, and it’s not just for ten minutes. It’s—it might be permanent. Or at least long-term.”
“At the cost of you being trapped in the threshold.” He ran his hands through his hair, the gesture so familiar but now different because you could see the way his fingers actually moved through the strands. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. You’ve sacrificed your place in the living world for this.”
“I haven’t sacrificed anything,” you argued. “The book says I maintain enough connection to remain alive and functional. I can still live my life, I just—”
“Just exist half in the world of the dead,” he finished. “Just see ghosts everywhere. Just slowly lose touch with everything that makes you human.”
“But I get to touch you.” You reached out and took his hand again, marveling at the simple miracle of it. “Satoru, I get to hold your hand. Don’t you understand how incredible that is?”
“I understand that you’ve paid a terrible price for it,” he said, but he didn’t pull his hand away. If anything, his grip tightened. “I understand that you’re trapped now in this halfway state because of me.”
“Not because of you.” You squeezed his hand. “Not because of you.”
He looked at you for a long moment, his expression a complicated mix of love and guilt and wonder. Then he pulled you into his arms, and you went willingly, pressing yourself against him, feeling the solid warmth of his body against yours. “This is insane,” he murmured into your hair. “This whole situation is completely insane.”
“I know.”
“We should be trying to reverse it. To pull you back fully into the living world.”
“Probably.”
“But I don’t want to,” he said, his arms tightening around you. “I’ve spent three days thinking I’d never get to hold you again, and now I can, and I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to be noble about this. I just want to be selfish.”
“Then be selfish. We both get to be selfish for a little while. We’ve earned it,” you said. You stood there in your living room, holding each other, and for the first time in months, you felt something like peace. Yes, you were trapped between worlds. Yes, you were unmoored, unstable, existing in a state that the books called dangerous and unprecedented. But you could touch him. Could feel his arms around you, his breath against your hair, his heartbeat—wait.
“Satoru,” you said slowly, pulling back to look at him. “Do you have a heartbeat?”
He frowned, pressing a hand to his own chest. “I don’t—I shouldn’t. I’m dead.”
You placed your palm over his heart, feeling for the rhythm you’d thought you sensed. There—faint, slower than a living person’s should be, but definitely there. A steady thump-thump-thump against your palm.
“You do,” you breathed. “You have a heartbeat.”
He covered your hand with his, pressing it harder against his chest. “That’s not possible.”
The days that followed had a dreamlike quantity. You learned to navigate your new existence—this strange Equilibrium state where you were alive enough to work and eat and function, but dead enough to see ghosts everywhere and touch the one that mattered most. Your coworkers noticed something was different, but they couldn’t identify what. You seemed distracted, distant, but not in a concerning way. Just… elsewhere.
They weren’t wrong. You were elsewhere, existing partly in their world and partly in another, and increasingly, that other world felt more real. But the ability to touch Satoru made everything worth it.
The first morning you woke up and reached out sleepily, forgetting for a moment that things had changed, your hand landed on something solid and warm. Satoru, who’d been hovering—lying?—beside you, made a soft sound of surprise.
“Hi,” he said, his voice rough with something like sleep, though ghosts didn’t sleep.
“Hi,” you replied, your fingers curling into the fabric of his clothing. “You’re real.”
“I’m really real,” he agreed, and pulled you closer. You’d spend the next hours just touching him, learning the landscape of his body through your fingertips—the slope of his shoulders, the hollow of his throat, the sharp line of his jaw. He let you explore, his eyes half-closed, something like bliss on his face every time you discovered something new.
“Your hair,” you’d mumbled, running your fingers through the white strands. “It’s soft.”
“Is it? I don’t remember.” His eyes had opened then, bright and blue. “I don’t remember what most things feel like. It’s been so long.”
So you’d touched him more, dedicated yourself to reminding him of physical sensation. The curve of his ear, which made him shiver; the ticklish spot on his ribs that made him laugh with actual, surprised laughter; the calluses on his palms that spoke of a life spent training, fighting, being something more than a ghost.
Now that Satoru could touch you, making coffee in the morning meant he could wrap his arms around you from behind, his chin resting on your shoulder, his hands covering yours as you worked. You’d lean back into him, and he’d say, “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Counting. You keep counting my heartbeats.”
You were. Your fingers would find their way to his wrist or his throat or his chest, seeking out that impossible rhythm. “Can you blame me? You’re not supposed to have a heartbeat.”
“And you’re not supposed to be able to touch ghosts. I think we’ve established that normal rules don’t apply to us.”
Cooking dinner became a shared activity. He couldn’t eat—that hadn’t changed—but he could help. He could chop vegetables with his solid hands, stir pots, taste things by pressing close and kissing you after you’d tasted them yourself.
“That’s not how taste works,” you’d laughed when he’d tried it the first time.
“I’m a ghost in Equilibrium with a Resonant. I’ll take what I can get,” he’d replied, and kissed you again, slower this time, and you’d forgotten about dinner entirely.
The kissing had become frequent. Urgent, sometimes, like you were both still afraid this would be taken away. Sweet, other times, just the gentle press of lips because you could. Because after months of wanting and weeks of denying yourselves, you’d found this impossible middle ground where touch was real and constant and yours.
One evening, you were curled together on the couch, your legs tangled with his, his fingers playing with your hair. The TV was on but neither of you were watching it. “I need to tell you something,” Satoru said quietly.
You tilted your head to look at him. “What?”
“I’m scared.” His hand stilled in your hair. “I’m terrified, actually, that this will end. I keep thinking that you’ll wake up one day and I won’t be solid anymore, or that the Equilibrium will collapse and you’ll either be pulled fully into death or pushed fully into life, and either way I’ll lose you.”
“Satoru—”
“Let me finish.” His fingers resumed their gentle movement. “But I’m also happier than I’ve been in sixty years. Maybe happier than I ever was alive, because being alive meant always being alone, always being untouchable, always maintaining that distance. And now I have you, and I can hold you, and even though I’m dead and you’re barely alive and we’re existing in this impossible state that could collapse at any moment—I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it.”
Your throat felt tight. “I don’t regret it either.”
“Even though you’re trapped? Even though you’ve given up a normal life?”
“Normal was lonely,” you said, and he kissed your forehead.
But the Equilibrium wasn’t perfect. You noticed the changes slowly: the way living people seemed to blur at the edges sometimes, while ghosts stayed sharp and clear; the way conversations with coworkers felt like they were happening through water, distant and muffled. You’d lose track of time, staring at nothing—or not nothing, at the spirits that crowded every corner of the city—and forget where you were supposed to be.
Your coworker pulled you aside one afternoon. “Are you okay? You seem… I don’t know. Distant.”
“I’m fine,” you said automatically.
“It’s just—you walked past me three times today and didn’t see me. And yesterday you were having a conversation with someone in the break room, but when I came in, there was no one there.”
“I was on the phone,” you lied.
“Your phone was in your pocket.” Their eyes were concerned. “Look, if something’s going on—if you need help—”
“I’m fine,” you repeated. “Just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
That part was true, at least. You did sleep, but your dreams were strange now, full of ghosts and shadows and the constant sensation of being pulled in two directions. Sometimes you’d wake up gasping, unsure if you were alive or dead, and only Satoru’s presence beside you would remind you that you were something in between.
The ghost librarian noticed, too. You’d gone back to the archive, looking for more information about Equilibrium, and she’d taken one look at you and shaken her head. “You did it,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
“We’re in Equilibrium now,” you said. “I can touch him.”
“And how’s that working out for you?” She gestured at the books around you. “Finding everything you need? Or are you looking for a way back?”
“I’m looking for information about how to stabilise it.”
“Stabilise it.” She laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Dear, you can’t stabilise Equilibrium. It’s inherently unstable. The books tell you that. You’re existing in a state that shouldn’t be possible, held together by nothing but desperation. Eventually, something will give.”
“Then I’ll make sure nothing gives,” you said stubbornly.
She looked at you pityingly. “You’re already more ghost than human. You know that, don’t you? You’re here, in my archive, reading my books, and you barely register as alive anymore. To other spirits, you look like one of us. You’re fading.”
“But I’m not dead.”
“Not yet,” she said. “But you’re not really alive either.”
That night, you lay in bed with Satoru, his arms around you, his chest rising and falling in an approximation of breathing that he didn’t technically need but did anyway because it made him feel more human.
“The librarian thinks I’m fading,” you said into the darkness.
His arms tightened. “Are you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” You pressed closer to him, seeking his warmth. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
“But we have this now. Isn’t that enough?”
“Is it?” His voice was quiet, careful. “Is this enough for you? Existing half in death, losing touch with your old life, spending all your time with ghosts?”
You thought about it: your coworker’s concerned face, the way you’d forgotten to call your mother for three weeks. But you’d also stood on the subway platform yesterday and seriously considered whether that ghost from the 1950s looked more solid than the living woman standing next to him.
“I don’t know,” you said. “But I do know I don’t want to go back to how it was before.”
“Even if staying like this means losing yourself completely?”
“Would that be so bad? Being a ghost, I mean. Being like you. At least then we’d be in the same world.”
Satoru went very still. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. If I fully cross over—if I die or become a full ghost or whatever—then we’d be equal. We’d both be dead. We could be together forever without worrying about Equilibrium collapsing or me fading or any of it.”
“And you’d be dead,” Satoru said harshly. “You’d give up everything—your future, your life, any chance at growing old or having experiences or being human—just to be with me?”
“Yes,” you said. “In a heartbeat.”
He pulled away from you then, sitting up, and even in the darkness you could see the distress on his face. “That’s not love. That’s—I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.”
“How can you say that?” You sat up too, facing him. “I love you. I want to be with you. Forever! How is that not love?”
“Because love doesn’t ask you to die for it!” he shouted. “Love doesn’t demand you give up your humanity, your future, your life! Love wants you to live and be happy and have everything good that the world has to offer!”
“The world doesn’t offer me you,” you shot back. “Not unless I’m willing to exist like this, in this halfway state where I’m neither alive nor dead. And if that’s not enough, if the Equilibrium collapses and I have to choose between being fully alive without being able to touch you or fully dead where I can, then I choose death!”
“Well, I don’t choose that for you! I don’t choose you dying. I don’t choose you giving up your life. I’d rather go back to never touching you, to spending another sixty years alone, than watch you throw away your humanity for me!”
“That’s not your choice to make!”
“And it’s not yours to make either! You’re not thinking clearly,” he said. “You’re so deep in the threshold now that you can’t see how wrong this is. You’re willing to die—to actually die—just to touch me forever, and that’s not healthy. That’s not love. That’s obsession. That’s—”
“That’s what you did to me!” The words exploded out of you. “You told me you’d rather spend eternity as a ghost than watch me risk myself. You threatened to leave if I tried the manifestation. You’ve been willing to sacrifice your own happiness, your own desire to be touched, for my safety. How is this any different?”
“Because I’m already dead!” His voice broke. “I’m already gone! I lost my chance at life sixty years ago! But you—you still have time. You still have possibilities. You could still walk away from this, find someone living, and build a real life with a real future. You could still be happy without me.”
“I don’t want to be happy without you,” you said, and you were crying now, tears streaming down your face. “I want you. Dead, alive, corporeal, incorporeal, I don’t care. I just want you.”
He stared at you, this impossible man who’d died too young and loved you too much, and then he pulled you back into his arms. You went willingly, pressing your tear-stained face against his chest, feeling his arms wrap around you. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. “There has to be a way.”
You wanted to believe him, but as you lay down on your bed, feeling his not-quite-alive heartbeat against your cheek, you couldn’t shake the feeling that the librarian was right. Equilibrium was unstable, and, eventually, something would have to give.
In the end, it happened on a Tuesday when Satoru asked you to do something silly, stupid: he asked you to dance with him in the kitchen, and when he kissed you, soft and sweet and tender, you screamed against his mouth.
CASE FILE #2847: APARTMENT 4B.
An Investigation by the Metropolitan Paranormal Research Society.
Published in the Journal of Unexplained Phenomena, Volume 34, Issue 7.
ABSTRACT
Over the past eighteen months, apartment 4B at 847 Seventh Street has become the subject of intense paranormal interest following the disappearance of its sole occupant and subsequent reports of aggressive haunting activity. This case presents several unique features that distinguish it from typical residential hauntings, including predictable temporal patterns of manifestation, dual entity presence, and an unusual level of emotional resonance that has resulted in complete tenant turnover within the first year of documented activity.
BACKGROUND
The apartment in question is a modest one-bedroom unit in a building constructed in 1950 and converted into an apartment in 1972. Historical records indicate sporadic reports of “cold spots” and “unsettling feelings” dating back to the building’s construction, though these were generally dismissed as typical of older architecture. The current manifestations began in October 20XX, following the unexplained disappearance of the apartment’s tenant, [REDACTED], age XX.
Ms. [REDACTED] was reported missing by her employer after she failed to appear for work and could not be reached by phone. A welfare check revealed her apartment was undisturbed – personal effects in place, no signs of struggle or forced entry. Her keys, wallet, and phone were found on the kitchen table. Security footage showed her entering the building at approximately 3:47 P.M. on the day of her disappearance but never leaving. She simply vanished.
The investigation into her disappearance remains open. No body has been recovered. No evidence of foul play was discovered. She exists now only in missing person databases and the memories of those who knew her.
PRIMARY MANIFESTATION: THE SCREAMING
The most consistent and disturbing phenomenon reported by all subsequent tenants is what has come to be known as “the nightly screaming.” Without fail, every evening at approximately 6:23 P.M., the apartment is filled with the sound of a woman screaming in extreme agony. Multiple tenants have described it identically:
“It starts as a gasp, like someone struggling to breathe. Then it builds into this horrible wailing sound—not like someone being murdered, but like someone dying from the inside out. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard. It goes on for minutes, sometimes ten or fifteen, and you can hear her trying to form words but can’t. The screaming gets thinner as it goes on, like she’s fading away. And then it just… stops.” — Tenant #3, resided 6 weeks
“I thought someone was being tortured in my living room. I called the police three times in the first week. They’d show up, find nothing, look at me like I was crazy. But I heard it every single night. And the worst part? I could feel her pain. Like it was radiating through the walls. Whatever happened to her, it wasn’t quick.” — Tenant #5, resided 11 days
“My girlfriend lasted exactly one night. She heard the screaming and refused to ever come back. I tried to tough it out for the cheap rent, but after two weeks I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d lie in bed every evening at 6:20, knowing it was coming, and the anticipation was almost worse than the sound itself. You can’t unhear something like that. It gets into your head.” — Tenant #7, resided 14 days
Acoustic analysis has been attempted multiple times. Recording equipment placed in the apartment captures the screams clearly, ruling out mass auditory hallucination. However, the recordings cannot be enhanced or analysed – the sound registers simultaneously too loud and too quiet, existing at frequencies that shouldn’t be possible for the human voice. The timing of the screams never varies. Several researchers have theorised this may represent the exact moment of Ms. [REDACTED]’s death – or transformation, depending on which theory one subscribes to.
SECONDARY MANIFESTATION: THE WHITE-HAIRED MAN
The second most commonly reported phenomenon is the appearance of a male entity, described consistently across all witness accounts.
Tall (estimated 6’2” or taller)
White or silver hair
Appears to be in his late twenties
Wearing what multiple witnesses described as “old-fashioned Japanese clothing”
Translucent, clearly non-corporeal
Most often seen standing at the living room window, particularly at sunrise
“I’d wake up early for work, come into the living room, and there he’d be. Just standing at the window, staring out at the city like he was waiting for something. He never acknowledged me. Never moved. Just stood there until the sun was fully up, and then he’d fade away. After a few days, I started feeling sorry for him. He looked so sad.” — Tenant #4, resided 23 days
Historical research into the building’s past has uncovered sporadic reports of a similar figure dating back to the 1950s, suggesting this entity may have been present long before Ms. [REDACTED]’s disappearance. What makes this manifestation particularly unusual is the entity’s consistent behaviour. Most ghosts, if one believes such things, are erratic – appearing and disappearing at random, behaving unpredictably. This entity follows a pattern: standing by the window at sunrise, approximately 6:00-6:45 A.M. He has never been reported as threatening or even interactive. He simply exists.
Some tenants reported feeling an overwhelming sense of melancholy when in his presence. Others described a strange compulsion to speak to him, though he never responded. One tenant claimed she said good morning to him every day for a week before realising he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – acknowledge her.
TERTIARY MANIFESTATION: THE DANCERS
Perhaps the most haunting reports come from those who have witnessed what investigators have termed “the dancing phenomenon.” This occurs less frequently than the primary manifestations, perhaps once or twice a week, always in the early evening hours between 5:00 and 6:00 P.M.
“I came home from work and heard music playing. Old music, like from the ‘40s or ‘50s. I opened the door and saw them—two figures, translucent, dancing in my kitchen. Slow dancing, barely moving, just swaying back and forth. One of them was the white-haired man. The other was a woman. She looked… God, she looked so happy. And so sad at the same time. They were completely absorbed in each other, like nothing else in the world existed. I watched for maybe a minute before they faded away, but I could still feel them there, somehow. I just couldn’t see them anymore.” — Tenant #8, resided 19 days
“It was the most beautiful and terrible thing I’ve ever seen. They were clearly in love—you could see it in the way they held each other, the way they moved together. But there was something desperate about it too. Like they were dancing because it was all they had left. I started crying watching them, and I don’t even know why. I moved out the next day. I couldn’t stay in a place that made me feel that sad.” — Tenant #11, resided 4 days
The woman in these accounts has never been positively identified, though several witnesses have noted she resembled photographs of Ms. [REDACTED]. If this is indeed her spirit, it suggests she did not leave her apartment after all – merely transitioned from one form of existence to another.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AND ANOMALIES
Beyond witness testimony, the apartment exhibits several measurable anomalies:
Temperature fluctuations: The apartment maintains an average temperature 8-12 degrees below surrounding units, regardless of heating settings
Electromagnetic anomalies: EMF readers consistently spike between 6:00-7:00 P.M.
Photographic evidence: Multiple tenants have captured orbs, shadows, and in three cases, distinct translucent figures on film
Time distortion: Several tenants reported losing hours while in the apartment, entering at one time and emerging to find much more time had passed than they’d experienced
One particularly disturbing report came from Tenant #6, who claimed to have woken in the middle of the night to find both entities standing at the foot of her bed, holding hands, watching her sleep. She moved out that same night, leaving most of her possessions behind.
ATTEMPTED INTERVENTIONS
The landlord, desperate to rent the apartment after sixteen failed tenancies, has attempted various solutions:
Three separate cleansings by religious authorities (Catholic priest, Buddhist monk, non-denominational spiritual healer): No effect
Electromagnetic dampening equipment: No effect
Complete renovation of the apartment: No effect; manifestations continued unchanged
Attempted exorcism: The presiding priest reporting feeling “overwhelming sadness” and refused to complete the ritual, stating the entities “didn’t want to leave and shouldn’t be forced to”
One particularly controversial attempt involved a medium who claimed to make contact with the female entity. According to her account, the spirit communicated that she was “exactly where she wanted to be” and had “no regrets.” The medium emerged from the session visibly shaken and refused to discuss details beyond that statement.
CURRENT STATUS
As of this publication, apartment 4B remains vacant. The landlord has ceased attempts to rent it, instead listing the property for sale – with full disclosure of the paranormal activity, as required by law following the Johnson vs. Riverside Realty precedent. There have been no offers. The screaming continued every night at 6:23 P.M. The white-haired man still watches the sunrise. And sometimes, if you stand outside the building in the early evening, you can hear music playing from the fourth floor, and if you look up at the window, you might catch a glimpse of two figures swaying together in the fading light.
CONCLUSION
Case #2847 represents one of the most well-documented and consistent hauntings in the city’s history. The predictability of the manifestations, combined with the emotional resonance reported by witnesses, suggests a level of consciousness and intention rare in paranormal phenomena.
Ms. [REDACTED] was officially declared dead in absentia in March 20XY. Her family held a memorial service, though no body was ever recovered for burial. Friends describe her as kind, quiet, and someone who kept to herself but loved deeply when she let people in. Her mother, in a statement to the police, said her daughter had seemed “different” in the months before her disappearance – distant, distracted, but also somehow happier than she’d been in years.
The question remains: Is this a haunting in the traditional sense, or something else? Are these entities trapped, or have they chosen to stay? Is this a tragedy or a love story? Perhaps it’s both.
—End Report—
Editor’s Note: This case remains under active observation. Readers with additional information are encouraged to contact the Metropolitan Paranormal Research Society. The author wishes to note that despite extensive research and multiple site visits, she will not be conducting any further in-person investigations of this location. Some places, she maintains, should be left undisturbed.
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