I'm actually crashing out, I had deleted the game a while back cuz I got a bit bored and busy, but I still read fanfics and stuff (cuz you guys write straight up crack that I need in my veins) and I got excited with the Valko news I was literally about to start writing fics again and re-download the game but now I just have depression 🤡
SUMMARY: it's been three years since your betrothal with naoya fell apart, and you haven't spoken to him since. satoru, naturally, decides to meddle, and now you're faced with the unsettling realization that time has done nothing to dull... well, whatever it is the two of you are to one another.
WARNINGS: fem!reader. canon compliant (MCD accordingly, not in this part tho). i took some liberty with 1) zenin clan relationships and 2) cursed energy lore for reader’s technique. naoya is his own warning—he’s gonna give you a lot of whiplash. heavily implied abuse (naobito->naoya). toxic relationship (i stress, toxic relationship, especially in this part LOLLLL, naoya is very possessive and jealous and is an asshole about it). misogyny (obviously). moments of misandry from reader. liberal use of bitch (naoya to reader). asshole 4 asshole (naoya sucks, so does reader—the crux of their relationship is that they’re both so intolerable they can only tolerate each other). as always with my fics, reader has personality & background & cursed technique, she is a sorcerer. reader goes through it during age 20: depression, mood swings, grieving, implied suicide ideation (only one brief line).
SMUT WARNINGS: switch!reader (leaning dom in this smut), switch!naoya (leaning bratty sub in this smut LOL), choking, finger sucking, naoya as always has quite the mouth on him (bitch, slut, etc), unprotected sex.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: PART TWO AT LAST ......... i hope you guys enjoy, this is ages 18-20, and next up is going to be 21 to canon (RIP). Hopefully I'll be able to get it out next Tuesday, but I might have to push it abck a week because I already got a huge assignment for one of my classes </3 The smut kills me because that was NOT the route I was intending to go with this first smut (was supposed to be reader sub-leaning) but ykw naoya is just destined to be a bratty sub i guess LOLLLL JKKKK. I think I should stress here briefly that reader is SUPPOSED to be a mirror of Naoya. She's arrogant & entitled & her brothers have been training her since she was a kid to be a sorcerer after her cursed technique manifested, so she's everything traditional jujutsu society hates in a woman and appreciates in a man, and the whole point is that Naoya is going THROUGH IT having a full blown existential crisis (as a kid, in this part, and it finally culminates in the last part) realizing how attached he is to this woman who is 1) everything he was taught to hate in a woman, but also 2) literally him without a dick. I thought I made that really clear in the first part but maybe I didn't LOL. Also, again here is a post I made about reader’s cursed technique—it’s described in the previous part of the fic as well, but if you’re interested to read! Reblogs and comments always appreciated!!!!
SEE: MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION series masterlist
2011 | READER, AGE 18; NAOYA, AGE 20
Three years pass before you see Naoya again. You think that your father and his explicitly go out of their way to make sure there are no chances for the two of you to interact, because jujutsu society is small—there’s no reason why the two of you should’ve gone so long without seeing each other unless there was outside interference.
Or, well, there’s a second option, but you don’t want to think about that one.
You bring it up to Gojo Satoru one day when the two of you are lounging in the training grounds at your clan’s estate.
“Do you think it’s weird that Naoya and I haven’t bumped into each other once since our fathers broke off the engagement?”
“You’re so rude bringing up other men when you’re here with me,” Satoru complains, tilting his head to the side to look at you. “You tryna make me jealous or something?”
You think the only good thing that came from the end of your arrangement with Naoya is your friendship with Satoru. He became a constant in the years that followed—the only person you could call a friend after you lost whatever it was you had with Zenin Naoya.
At first, he was just there—very loud and very persistent, and very impossible to ignore. He’d taken an interest in you early on, partially because he was bored, partially because he likes anyone who makes the old traditionalists of jujutsu society uncomfortable, and you think mostly because you don’t treat him like he’s untouchable. You correct him when he gets things wrong, insult him when he’s annoying, and you’ve come to realize over the last three years that Satoru is lonely. He doesn’t like being surrounded by people who worship him, and, like you, he seems to be dealing with the loss of someone dear to him. You heard through the grapevine that his closest friend from Jujutsu High turned coat and became a curse user during their third year. He doesn’t talk about it with you, and you don’t ask, but you’re pretty sure it’s part of the reason why he’s so quick to cling to you. He wants to be distracted, and you were the perfect one handed right to him, since both of your clans jumped on the opportunity to try to get the two of you betrothed after your arrangement with Naoya fell apart.
Over time, distraction became friendship and friendship became something more. Love, maybe, but not the kind people write songs about or build futures around. You don’t love Satoru the way your father and the Gojo clan elders want you to love him, and he doesn’t love you that way either. But when the two of you are alone, he lets you be sharp and stubborn and angry without trying to fix you, and you let him be Gojo Satoru, the person, instead of Gojo Satoru, the strongest.
He listens when you complain, even when your complaints circle back to the same names and the same old frustrations. He pushes you to be better and stronger, showing up at your estate to spar with you and your brothers every chance he can get, and he fought tooth and nail for you when the higher-ups tried to spitefully block your petition for Special Grade One last year. When the topic of marriage comes up between your clan and his, he shuts it down immediately, making it clear that he isn’t going to let either of you be forced into a life you didn’t choose. He never talks down to you, never tries to scare you into obedience, and when the whispers started about how you’re difficult and reckless and how the Zenin clan was smart to end the engagement between you and Naoya, he laughs them off like they’re jokes not worth remembering, and somehow, that makes them feel smaller.
And all of this without the need for the threat of mutually assured destruction, you think bitterly, eyes sliding shut when your thoughts, as always, inexplicably draw back to a certain Zenin.
Gojo Satoru is good to you. Really good to you.
And still, despite all of that, Naoya never quite leaves you alone. He always crosses your mind as soon as you let your guard down and your thoughts start to drift. He shows up in the way your body still anticipates certain movements in a sparring match, stepping where someone else would’ve been, correcting habits you learned fighting him and no one else. Sometimes, you can almost hear his voice in your head, harsh and irritated as he complains about your bullshit hacks while the two of you relax at your clan’s estate after a long day of training, and you find your lips curling up into a smile before you remember that the two of you aren’t on speaking terms anymore.
You don’t really talk about him with Satoru either, and Satoru never brings him up. You’re grateful for that. But there are too many nights when you lie awake and wonder how Naoya took the ending of the betrothal. You wonder if he hates you for disappearing—not that it was your choice—or if he was relieved, or if, worse, he simply moved on without sparing you a second thought, and that’s why he hasn’t bothered to talk to you again.
It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, as you always do.
“Oh yeah,” you agree. “Definitely. Is it working?”
“It is,” he agrees solemnly. “I’m so jealous. I should go run to the clan elders and tell them that you’ve shattered my heart beyond repair.”
You laugh, the sound comes easy despite the heaviness in your heart.
Satoru shifts to sit more comfortably. He leans back on his hands, glasses sliding down his nose so he can look at you directly.
“For what it’s worth,” he says casually, “yeah. It’s weird.”
“You think?” you ask quietly, chest tightening just a little.
He shrugs lazily. “Jujutsu society’s not that big,” he says exactly what you’ve been thinking. “You don’t just not run into someone like him for three years unless people are trying very hard. You try texting him? You know we’re in the twenty-first century, right?”
Your gaze lowers. “They don’t go through,” you say quietly. “My texts.”
“Ah,” Satoru replies, voice soft. He doesn’t say what you know he’s thinking—that second option you didn’t want to consider, that there might not be any outside influence, Naoya might be the one avoiding you. But that wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t your decision to end the engagement; it was his clan that made the call. “Well, want me to find out for you?”
You look at him quickly. “Can you?”
Satoru snorts, giving you a too-smug grin. “I’m Gojo Satoru. I can do anything.”
“I don’t want him to know you’re snooping around for me,” you say firmly.
“Relax,” he drawls. “I know how to be discreet.”
You’re not sure Satoru actually knows what that word means, but for the first time since your father broke the news of Zenin Naobito’s decision, something close to hope flutters in your chest.
————————
Satoru keeps his word. Within a week of your conversation with him, you learn that the Zenin clan has been a trainwreck since the engagement fell apart. They’ve been doing their best to keep it under wraps, but once Satoru starts snooping, everything unveils itself quickly. Servants quit without notice, getting as far away from the estate as they possibly can, and Zenin representatives show up to meetings even more high strung than they usually are, one wrong word from snapping. Even the Hei and Kukuru try to keep away from the estate, finding any reason to take on missions.
Naoya’s name comes up again and again, always paired with the same words: volatile, cruel, and out of control.
In the months that follow the dissolution, he becomes unbearable even by Zenin standards. He terrorizes servants over imagined slights, lashes out at cousins and uncles and brothers alike, and humiliates anyone unfortunate enough to be near him when his temper snaps. Satoru claims that even Naobito starts keeping his distance from his youngest son.
Satoru found it hard to believe, because the Naoya he’s always encountered has always been the opposite of these descriptions: arrogant and flippant, never caring about anything enough to bother with an argument, because it’s all beneath him. You believe it though. You can see it, have seen it dozens of times before—Naoya, crueler and more aggressive, burning himself out on spite and fury.
(“No, he’s always been like this,” you say, more to yourself than to Satoru. “He loses control and explodes. Doesn’t care what he brings down with him.”
“I guess,” Satoru agrees. “And losing you—” he pauses, correcting himself, “—losing the engagement with you probably didn’t help then.”)
According to Satoru, the Zenin clan elders try to rein him in at first. Then they try threatening him. Then they try ignoring him. None of it works. Satoru tells you that at one point, they even tried to pacify him by setting up another engagement, thinking he was angry because something was ‘stolen from him,’ but Naoya went off the rails, refusing to even see the girl. No matter what they do, his temper only worsens.
(“I don’t understand why he won’t just fucking talk to me then,” you snap, frustrated. “Why won’t he answer my texts? He’s so fucking stubborn.”
Satoru doesn’t say what you’re both thinking: that the only reason Naoya would be so adamant against speaking to you is that he blames you.)
Two months after Satoru does his snooping and informs you of the Zenin state of affairs, you’re given a mission from the higher-ups to exorcise what’s presumed to be an unregistered Special Grade cursed spirit wreaking havoc in Kagoshima. You’re told that your partner will meet you on-site, no name given, just coordinates and an arrival window, and you accept without much thought
You should’ve realized this was Satoru’s meddling, but you don’t until it’s too late.
————————
“This is fucking ridiculous,” you mutter as you lean against the wall, phone pressed to your ear as you bitch to Satoru. “This guy still isn’t here. The designated meeting time was thirty-five minutes ago. I’m about to go in on my own. I don’t give a damn anymore.”
“What’s that? You’re breaking up, I can’t—” You hear Satoru say on the opposite line, and then something crinkling obnoxiously near the speaker.
“Did you just crinkle a fucking bag of potato chips pretending it’s static?” you demand furiously, but Satoru has already hung up, clearly not wanting to be bothered while he’s ‘on vacation.’ You mutter bitterly, “Douchebag,” and shove your phone back into your pocket, crossing your arms over your chest.
Your gaze flicks up to the clear sky, watching as clouds roll in from the west. You let out a heavy sigh. You’d hoped to be done with this before the summer storm hit; you weren’t trying to be stuck in Kagoshima for the next three days, but since your asshole partner clearly doesn’t care to be on time, you’re definitely not going to be able to get out of the city before it hits. You text Satoru to tell him to make himself useful and book you a hotel room, and you hardly get the chance to read his response: one bed or two? :P before a familiar voice around the corner forces your spine straight and your eyes wide.
“Let’s make one thing clear—I’m not here to babysit some second-rate,” Zenin Naoya snaps from around the corner, voice clipped and impatient. “So, stay out of my way, and don’t slow me down or—”
He rounds the corner mid-sentence, and the rest of the words die in his throat. For a split second, before he registers that it’s you standing in front of him, his expression is contemptuous, locked and loaded, ready to unleash his displeasure onto whichever poor soul has the misfortune of being partnered with him. Then the contempt shifts into surprise, which he is quick to try to smooth out into an apathetic expression.
“... You,” he says flatly.
“Your hair,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself, staring at where familiar black is now replaced with dyed blonde. He’s taller now, shoulders broader, and piercings line his left ear. “Your ear.”
Naoya is…
“What are you doing here?” he asks, voice harsh as he looks down at you, a sneer on his face. “This is a special grade operation.”
… as insufferable as ever
“Huh?” you demand, pushing yourself off the wall to stand straight. He still towers over you, arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Naoya?”
“Zenin to you,” he corrects, lip curling up. You blink, irritation beginning to prick at your chest—maybe something else, too. Zenin, is he serious? “It means exactly what ya think it means. You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get in my way.”
“You’ve gotten dumber since we last saw each other, Naoya,” you say, watching frustration flash through his face when you deliberately use his given name anyway. “Or maybe you just missed the news. We’re the same grade now, and I actually got my promotion on the first try, unlike someone. If I shouldn’t be here, you definitely shouldn’t.”
The jab lands exactly where you want it to. You knew it would. You can see him grinding his teeth as he glares down at you furiously. You don’t know what bothers him more: the idea of you being on equal grounds with him, or the reminder of his failure three years ago. Not even two minutes in his presence, and your blood feels hot, and there’s a dull pressure in the back of your head. You can’t believe that you were actually missing this bastard.
“Oh, I heard,” he drawls, smile sharp in a way that warns you he’s about to say something particularly vile. “Everyone did. Hard not to, when you’ve got Gojo Satoru singing your praises.” His mouth twists. “Funny how fast doors open when you’re on your back for the right man. I should commend you, really. It was a smart move, trading up the way you did. There’s only one rung above me, and ya managed to get your foot right on it once I stopped being useful to you. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Your body moves before your mind even fully registers what it is that he said, driving your fist forward into his face. He dodges, of course, leaning back and appearing at your left side in the split second that Projection Sorcery needs to activate. Naoya underestimates you, as always, and you don’t even need to use your own technique to anticipate where he’s going to appear, kicking your foot out to drive it into his gut the moment he does. He lets out a ‘oof’ as his back slams against the brick wall you’d just been leaning on, and you dart forward to grab his collar, this time successfully putting your fist in his teeth before you yank him down so that he’s eye level with you.
He’s unrepentant as he stares down at you, jaw tight, blood trickling down his chin, and hatred blazing in his eyes.
“Fuck you,” you say, head clouded with rage and heart beating furiously in your chest.
Naoya smiles as though his blood isn’t smeared across his teeth and his lip isn’t split in two. “If I’d known you were so quick to spread your legs, I would’ve done that a long time ago. You don’t interest me anymore now that you’re Gojo Satoru’s sloppy seconds—so, it’s a hard pass. Maybe try with one of my brothers, or a Kamo, if you’re collecting—”
Your grip twists on his collar, and you drive your fist into his face a second time. A third. Almost a fourth, but you stop yourself when you realize he’s not even trying to break free or block the blows. You let out a loud scoff and shove him back again, taking a step away from him as he leans back against the wall and wipes the blood from his face.
“Same vicious beast you were three years ago,” he mutters scornfully. “Did the strongest tame you, or d’ya treat him like this, too?”
“Same douchebag you were three years ago,” you bite back. “The fuck is the matter with you? You jealous or something? Why do you keep bringing up Satoru?”
“Satoru,” he echoes with a bark of laughter.
Your eyebrows shoot upward. “Oh,” you say, the realization hitting hard enough to cut through your anger. You laugh, loud and mocking. “You are jealous.”
He lets out an ugly noise. “Don’t get it twisted. You’re not worth being jealous over.”
“Get over yourself, Naoya,” you scoff furiously. “You don’t get to treat me like shit because you’re jealous over something th—”
“I’m not jealous,” he interrupts, voice rising as he pushes himself up to stand straight. “I don’t care about who you decide to fuck.”
“You’re sure acting like it.”
He steps into your space suddenly, close enough that you can feel the heat rolling off him, the anger vibrating under his skin. “Well, I’m not. I’m not fuckin’ jealous. I’m pissed. You made me look stupid, standing around wondering if you’d come back while you were off playing favored pet to Gojo Satoru.”
Your eye twitches—what is he even talking about?
“That’s not fair,” you say through gritted teeth. “I—”
He laughs in your face. “Fair?” he asks, voice low and mocking. “You vanish without a word, and fair is what you wanna talk about now? That’s rich.”
Your expression twists. “I tried to talk to you, Naoya. You ignored me.”
“Because you made your choice,” he scoffs, turning his back on you. “You don’t get to walk away from someone and expect them to sit there waiting for you. I—”
“I didn’t walk away from you, Naoya,” you tell him, voice rising in frustration. You shove his back when he turns it on you, but there’s no force behind it this time. “The Zenins pulled the plug, not me. Said they had no use for the alliance, and found a better match for you.”
Naoya looks back at you, gold eyes flickering with uncertainty for a moment before they shift into doubt. “Bullshit,” he says coldly, raising his chin to look down at you. “My father told me the truth. Your clan pulled the plug because they saw more use in an alliance with the Gojo clan—you were the one who pushed your father to it.”
You roll your eyes so obnoxiously that Naoya looks like he wants to rip them out of your head.
“You are so fucking stupid, sometimes I doubt you have a single working brain cell in that puny head of yours,” you spit, watching how his expression shifts into outrage at the insult. You press on before he can snap something back. “Your father,” you add sarcastically, chest tight, “known for his honesty and kindness, isn’t he?”
“He wouldn’t lie to me,” Naoya disagrees, jaw tight, nails digging into his palms at his side. “Not about this.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“Because—” he starts to say, and then he shakes his head, looking away. He clicks his tongue sharply as he drags a hand through his hair, smearing blood further across his face and staining his blonde hair. “Doesn’t matter. You’re not my problem anymore. Leave me the fuck alone, let’s just get this done. Stay outta my way.”
You only have the chance to roll your eyes before the ground starts trembling beneath your feet. A distorted pressure rolls through the air, cursed energy surging all around you. You and Naoya straighten instantly, instincts snapping back into place. Your anger and his… well, whatever it is he’s feeling, gets shoved deep down, buried under duty. He glances toward the abandoned building, lips curving up.
“Perfect timing.”
“Technically, you were late,” you mutter, wiping your knuckles against your sleeve, pulse still racing. “Try not to dodge into my foot again.”
The corner of his mouth twitches despite himself. “Don’t get cocky.”
You give him a smug smirk as you shove your hands into your pockets and make your way into the building. He trails behind you, uncharacteristically quiet. The air inside the building is damp and heavy; your stomach twists in disgust when you breathe in and realize you can taste death on your tongue. Broken glass crunches softly beneath your boots, and you squint as you peer into the dark lobby of the building. The cursed energy is thick and disgusting—whatever cursed spirit made this place its home, it's been nesting here for a while.
Naoya comes to stand next to you, close enough that your shoulder brushes his upper arm. He nods his chin over to the right, and you grimace when you see corpses half-melted into the tiled floors. Your expression twists in disgust as you say, “Gross.”
Naoya hums, head tilting to the side as he looks down at you, blonde hair falling in his eyes. “Try to keep up, yeah?”
You scoff, lips instinctively curling up into a smile. “Only one in the world who can.”
————————
Three years apart should have left rust or uncertainty somewhere. Instead, the moment you and Naoya fall back in step, it’s like no time has passed at all. Whatever distance you put between yourselves, all of the hurt you buried beneath anger and pride, your bodies remember everything your minds wanted you to forget.
You don’t have such a lack of self-awareness to deny the fact that you’d been missing Naoya’s presence in your life over the past three years, but you think that you didn’t realize just how much until the two of you were back side-by-side again, bantering and arguing like the two of you are teenagers wandering the gardens of the Zenin estate again.
The cursed spirit doesn’t announce itself right away. At first, it almost feels underwhelming, like the reports might’ve been exaggerating its threat, but the deeper you push into the building, the more the atmosphere becomes heavy and malignant. The air thickens until every breath feels thick and labored, and you’re exchanging looks with Naoya, wondering when it will finally reveal itself.
As always with the two of you, the bickering never really stops, just dips and surges. You’re halfway through mocking his new hair color when the cursed spirit finally makes itself known, lunging out of the shadows straight for his throat.
(“Oh—” you start, too late, watching as Naoya barely dodges an attack from the left, half-tripping over a piece of concrete. You burst into laughter when he gives you a furious look, twisting out of the way as the cursed spirit’s claws rake air instead of flesh. “Whoops.”
“The hell?” he snaps, driving a kick through its torso hard enough to send it skidding back down the hall. “What’s your problem? You said you would watch the left. See, this is why—”
He cuts himself off, giving you a furious look. Your lips curl up.
“Sorry, I was too distracted by the—” You wave your hand around your hair and then motion over to him. “Are you going through, like, a rebellious phase or something? Dye and piercings? Those old fucks must be going crazy.”
Naoya’s eye twitches in irritation. “Are you done, or are you planning to keep yapping while it tears this place apart?”
“I like it,” you say, stepping back as the cursed spirit launches itself at you. “It suits you.”
Naoya pauses and looks at you. He asks, “You think so?” and then promptly gets a claw through his upper bicep because he’s too busy waiting for your response.
“Yeah,” you answer. “How about you focus on the fight instead of compliment fishing, yeah? Wouldn’t wanna mess up the little prince’s pretty face with scars, would we?”
“Fuck you.”)
The fight continues on before you can make a snide comment back. The curse howls, slamming itself into the corridor with renewed violence, and you split without speaking—one left, one right, the opening already accounted for. There’s no hesitation, you move as you’ve always had, and it’s… uncomfortably intimate, considering it highlights just how well the two of you know one another. Combat strips away all the bitterness and old wounds, forcing you to acknowledge what your pride has refused to accept these past three years: you still know him like the back of your hand, and he still knows you the same.
The realization hits you mid-fight, and it nearly costs you your life. Glass explodes along the wall as the cursed spirit shrieks in pain when one of Naoya’s attacks finally lands. You stand there, blinking twice, staring at Naoya after he flawlessly recognized what your plan was without you having to say a word. He spits out a curse when he sees you standing there like an idiot, using his technique to get over to you and push you out of the way before a stray shard rips through your throat.
(“I don’t care if you’re sloppy seconds, by the way,” Naoya tells you as he steadies you a few feet away. You give him a terrible side eye, because is that supposed to be a fucking apology? “I figure I should tell ya now, just in case you get yourself killed. You’re barely keeping up. This is why women shouldn’t—”
“Fuck you, dog,” you cut him off before he can finish, letting him get hit by a stray piece of rubble while he’s outraged, gaping at how you address him. “Apologize properly if you’re going to apologize. On your knees, preferably, with a few tears if you’re feeling generous. Maybe then I’ll consider forgiving you.”
He sneers at you from the ground. His gaze drags over you once, and then he says, “How the hell has your mouth gotten even worse over the last three years? Fuckin’ waste of a woman, you are.”
You let out a scoff, driving your foot into his side when you step over him. He doesn’t apologize, never does, but a week later, a box sits outside the door of your apartment. No sender listed, just a velvet box sitting unassumingly on your doormat. You stand there for a long moment, staring at it suspiciously, but eventually curiosity wins. Inside is a pretty bracelet set with diamonds—one that three years ago, you told him you wanted in passing on one of those lazy Sundays at the Zenin estate. He laughed in your face and told you that hell would freeze over before he drops a hundred million yen on you.
With it is a single note, unsigned:
Don’t read into this.)
The rest of the fight grinds on without much ceremony. The curse is dangerous and violent, but its movements grow frantic and sloppy, while you and Naoya only become quicker and more confident.
The two of you never fought together before the engagement fell apart, but you fought against each other enough to know how the other moves better than your own breathing. You adjust without thinking, already anticipating the path he’ll take before he commits to it, stepping where he needs you to be, leaving openings he can exploit and closing the ones he doesn’t see coming.
Later, once the two of you have parted ways, you think that if anyone else had been sent as your partner, it might not have been such a clean victory. You almost don’t like how easy it was, how natural it felt to move with him again, to trust him without thinking, to let him have your back like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. You don’t like how your body never once questioned whether he’d be where you needed him to be, and you especially don’t like that the feeling seemed to be mutual.
(“Satoru and I aren’t betrothed, you know?” you say suddenly, positioning yourself close to the spirit to give Naoya the chance to deliver a lethal blow. You don’t know why you feel the need to tell him this, but it’s been itching at the back of your head since he made his comments about the two of you. Naoya pauses at your words, and then lets out a frustrated string of curses when it only shrieks at him, coming way too close to slashing your throat when he fails to exorcise it on the first try. The two of you regroup a few feet back, and you say, “You’ve gotten slower. That was embarrassing to watch.”
“Fuck you,” he spits, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Just saying. Three years ago, you would’ve had that. You been slacking off on training ‘cause of all your meltdowns?” you ask with a goading smile. He whirls on you furiously, and you raise your eyebrows innocently.
“How do you even—” he starts to demand, and then pauses, lips curling up into a smug smile. Instantly, you know you’ve made a mistake. “So it was you who sent Gojo Satoru snooping into Zenin affairs. How cute, ya really missed me that much?”
Mortified, you gape at him. “I told him to be discreet!”
“He’s about as discreet as a bomb,” Naoya snorts, pushing back his hair. You click your tongue, rolling your eyes because you knew sending Satoru was a bad idea, but you had faith in him anyway. Naoya’s head lolls to the side so he can look you in the eye, his gaze intense enough to make you pause. “For real?”
“For real, what?”
“You’re not with him.”
“Oh,” you say quietly, swallowing thickly as you look away. “Yeah, for real.”
You think you hear him say good, but the cursed spirit is coming back at the two of you before you can figure out if he actually did.)
When you part ways, it’s quiet and awkward in a way that’s very unlike either of you. There are no insults or snide comments, just a brief, loaded pause as you stare at each other before you turn in opposite directions, pretending that something fundamental didn’t just resurface between the two of you. You almost call after him, almost ask him if he wants to stay over at the hotel room you had Satoru book for you, but you don’t.
That night, he texts you for the first time in three years: you up?
You snort and reply: Wow. Finally unblocked me.
Then you add while he’s still typing: You tryna hit or smth? Why are you texting me so late?
The typing bubbles pop up and disappear several times before he finally responds: there’s something seriously wrong with you. why can’t you ever be normal?
You laugh, rolling onto your back.
Things go back to normal—ish—and a piece of you that you hadn’t realized slid out of place in the three years of separation clicks back in. Sundays aren’t spent at the Zenin estate anymore, because you don’t think you’re allowed back there, but Naoya has an apartment in Osaka that he bought when Naobito pissed him off, so the two of you go there to relax instead. Fridays aren’t spent at your family’s estate, because you think your father would lose his mind if he knew you were back to spending your free time with Zenin Naoya again when he’s trying to get you to marry Gojo Satoru, so you guys go to your apartment instead, sometimes to a park on the outskirts of the city where you can spar until you’re too exhausted to move.
Satoru makes a dry comment one day about how if he’d known getting you back in contact with Zenin Naoya would make you less of a raging bitch, he would’ve done it three years ago. You tell him to go to hell, but he just can’t leave it alone.
(“Seriously, I really don’t know how you do it,” he says one afternoon, distastefully watching Naoya sneer down at some poor attendant of the higher-ups while the three of you await news to bring back to your respective clans. “I mean that sincerely. I deal with him for what, five minutes at a meeting every couple of months, and I’m already considering homicide. You put up with him on a regular basis—enjoy it, even.”
“Don’t be annoying, Satoru.”
“I’m serious, he’s a textbook douchebag. Arrogant, sexist, unpleasant to look at—”
“Unpleasant to look at?” you echo, voice riddled with disbelief. “That’s a lie, and you know it. Also—arrogant? Stones in glass houses, Satoru.”
Satoru pauses, slowly turning to look at you. “So you think he’s attractive, then?” he asks with a slow smile. You shove him hard. He lets you, laughing. “Kidding, kidding. Just saying, if I had to deal with him every day, I’d snap. You, on the other hand, somehow come out of it calmer. Less stabby. It’s deeply unsettling.”
“Screw off, would you?” you complain.
He hums, eyes flicking to your wrist where the bracelet Naoya got you catches the light. His smile turns a little knowing, maybe a little sadder too. “Guess we all got that one person we’ll tolerate more bullshit from than anyone else.”)
You become used to this—you and Naoya, you and Satoru. Things are easy, and you’re happy. You find yourself wishing, a little desperately, that things could stay like this forever.
————————
2012 | READER, AGE 19; NAOYA, AGE 21
You find out quickly that your wish was wildly idealized, because within a year, you realize that Satoru and Naoya only seem to tolerate each other when they’re making your life a living hell.
For the better part of the year, Satoru does his best to avoid ever running into Naoya—for your sake, not his, Satoru tells you, because running into him at clan meetings once every couple of months is already pushing his tolerance threshold. Naoya pretends he couldn’t care less, and when you call him out on it, he throws a hissy fit, but he sulks whenever Satoru’s name comes up, and acts like the world has personally offended him whenever he visits and Satoru isn’t in the room. Sometimes you think he comes to see you in Tokyo just on the off chance of getting to see Satoru, and it seriously makes you roll your eyes.
The problem is that the two of them seem to share a very specific overlap in interests: ruining your dating life.
(“You seriously have a date?” Naoya asks through his teeth as you blow-dry your hair. He’s in Okinawa for the week on a mission, and you have no one else to get an opinion from besides Satoru, who you haven’t been able to get a hold of all day. You thought Naoya would just pick an outfit and tell you to fuck off, but you’ve been getting grilled by him since you called. “With who? Why? What the fuck?”
You glance down at your phone, giving him an annoyed look, because why does he have to say it like that? You put the blowdryer down and cross your arms over your chest. “Yeah, I do. Why the hell do you sound so shocked?”
Naoya doesn’t respond for a moment, lips pinched and eyes unreadable, and then he snaps, “‘cause who the hell would wanna date your ass?” He looks seriously irritated as he adds, “You barely qualify for a woman on a good day.”
“You’re an asshole,” you mutter, more offput by his words than you usually would be. You’ll never admit it out loud, but you’re a bit nervous. You’ve had your fair share of one-night stands, but you’ve never dated before. “Don’t know why I even called you.”
“I’m serious. You dress like a man, you don’t act right, and you sure as hell don’t know how to behave. What, you plannin’ on insulting him ‘til he runs off?” Naoya doubles down, lips pressed together and brows drawn tight.
“Fuck off, Naoya,” you say. “Are you gonna tell me your opinion or what?”
“I’ll tell you my opinion—cancel the date and save yourself the embarrassment.”
“Whatever,” you snap, jaw tight and more hurt than you expected. “Screw you.”
“I’m only tryna help,” Naoya says defensively, unrepentant. “Guys won’t stick around for a woman like you. Will just use you for an easy fuck and then—”
You hang up before he can finish the sentence, burying your face in your hands and letting out a heavy sigh.)
You don’t talk to Naoya for two weeks after that, but he shows up at your apartment Friday night with takeout when you’re already half-drunk, and you give in, because he was right—the guy ghosted you after the second date. You find out much later that the only reason he ghosted you was because Naoya threatened to break both of his arms if he ever came near you again, but in that moment, you’re just bitter and upset and you want to spend the night trying to make yourself feel better because you hate being bitter and upset over a man. And no one’s better than Naoya when it comes to dragging people through the mud, so the two of you spend the whole night lounging in your bed with the guy’s social media pulled up, belittling him for everything from his face to the captions on his photos.
You think, later on, that Naoya was probably hoping one bad experience would lead you to stop seeking out other people, but unfortunately for him, it only made you more determined to get yourself a date.
And so begins eight months of canceled plans and ghosted messages.
You don’t know how Naoya managed to rope Satoru into his schemes, considering Satoru goes out of his way to avoid ever interacting with him, but he did. It all starts small enough that you don’t realize they’re conspiring. A casual mention to Satoru that you’re meeting a non-sorcerer for drinks turns into Satoru accidentally showing up at the same bar—and he is annoying enough that you think he would do something like that on his own. You only start to side-eye him when he starts making ominous comments about how dangerous your job is and how fragile civilians tend to be. He frames it like a joke after. He’ll sling an arm around your shoulders and ask, mock-innocent, if the date went well, as if he didn’t spend the evening subtly implying that getting involved with you comes with a nonnegotiable risk of violent death.
You trust in Satoru’s dislike of Naoya so completely that you don’t suspect his involvement until you’re literally faced with proof of it when the three of you are sent up to Hokkaido to deal with the higher-ups. You walk in on the two of them talking quietly with one another after you step out of the room to call your father. You only catch “—date Friday,” but it’s more than enough for you to realize that they’re talking about you and the plans you made with a sorcerer you met the other day. They immediately step away from one another and pretend they weren’t talking, which pisses you off because do they seriously think you’re that stupid?
(“What was that about?” you ask, putting your phone back in your pocket and crossing your arms over your chest.
“Nothing,” Naoya says, gaze flitting to the side as he turns his head away.
Satoru gives you an easy smile. “Plotting your untimely death. Do you prefer poison or fire?”
“Poison,” you answer flatly, gaze narrowing on Naoya. You ask again, “What was that about?”
Naoya sneers at you. “Why the hell are you looking at me? I told you. It was nothing. We were talkin’ about how his gramps is about to croak, and he’s gonna take over the Gojo clan. Happy?”
His gaze flits away as he speaks. Again.
“Liar,” you accuse, voice rising. Naoya’s attention snaps back toward you, glaring. “You’re lying to me. You always look away when you lie.”
“I do not,” Naoya snaps, furious. “You’re full of shit.”
“You do,” you hiss. “I knew you two were working together. I fucking knew it was suspicious when Satoru started getting involved. You’re conspiring against me to screw up all my dates!”
Naoya barks out a laugh. “Do you even hear yourself?” he scoffs. “Something doesn’t work out, and suddenly it’s everyone else’s fault, yeah? Fuckin’ women and their paranoia. Not everything’s about you.”
“Don’t gaslight me!” you spit.
“Oh, now she’s throwing around the buzz words,” Naoya says with an obnoxious roll of his eyes. “You really think we’re sitting around talking about your sad little love life? Get over yourself.”
He pointedly tries to hold your gaze this time, but halfway through ‘yourself,’ he glances away. His jaw tightens immediately, realizing what he did, and you gape at his audacity, almost too stunned to reply.
“You’re such a fucking douchebag,” you say breathlessly. “Both of you—”
“Don’t group me with him,” Satoru immediately complains, but you ignore him. “It was all his idea.”
Naoya gives Satoru a furious look, but he only whistles and looks away.
“Both of you! Are you kidding me? What’s your fucking problem?” You hate that your voice cracks over the word. Satoru has the decency to look ashamed as he averts his gaze, but Naoya is unrepentant as ever. “I’ve thought for months that—”
You cut yourself off before you can finish that sentence, suddenly far more upset than you are angry. You don’t want to admit to them that you’ve been anxious for months that something is just seriously wrong with you, so you just tighten your jaw and shake your head.
“Fuck you. Both of you. Just leave me the hell alone.”)
Satoru folds instantly after that. He gives you a few days of space before he shows up at your apartment with an obnoxious bouquet of flowers, takeout from your favorite restaurant, and a sheepish smile. He offers to take you on a date himself, just so you can experience one without his or Naoya’s meddling, and you tell him you would rather eat glass, so the two of you spend the night watching shitty romcons instead. The interference stops on his part after that. He still teases you, still raises an eyebrow when you mention seeing someone new, but he values you too much to keep pushing when it’s clearly upsetting you.
Naoya, on the other hand, doubles down. If anything, Satoru stepping back only seems to embolden him. Naoya makes no effort to mask it after your confrontation in Hokkaido, and doesn’t give a damn when you’re upset or angry.
(“You attract weak men,” he says dismissively when you confront him again. “That’s not your fault, but it is my problem.”
“Screw off, Naoya! Stay the fuck out of my business!”)
Two more months pass before you finally snap.
————————
For the first time in four years, you stand outside the Zenin estate, arms crossed over your chest, irritation rolling off you in waves. It’s four in the morning, and the servant working at the gates is caught between a rock and a hard place, because you have not been invited, you’re clearly in an antagonistic mood, and you’re pretty sure Zenin Naobito has forbidden you from entering the estate. You don’t care—you’re about to break the gates down if you’re not let in within the next two minutes.
“Miss—” the poor boy starts to say, and your eye twitches.
“Miss? Did the Zenins stop training their servants how to address people properly? Or are you trying to insult me?” you bark, tongue pressing against the back of your teeth as you try to rein in your temper. It’s not this boy’s fault that Zenin Naoya is a piece of shit who needs his teeth knocked out. “Bring me Naoya now.”
“Sorry, my lady. I meant no disrespect,” the boy splutters, and you can hear his voice dip as he bows, even though you can’t see him. “I’ll send word for Naoya-sama, just—”
“Hah?! What’s going on over here?” Naoya’s irritating voice calls from within the Zenin estate. “Whe—”
“Naoya!” you raise your voice, making sure he knows you’re pissed. “Get out here!”
There’s a long pause, and then the gates to the estate open. Naoya steps out, an annoyed expression on his face, arms crossed over his chest, dressed casually in a black t-shirt and sweats—probably his pajamas. You’re so aggravated that there’s not even a fleeting thought about how he looks good dressed casually.
“The hell is your problem, ya mad cow?” Naoya demands, tipping his head back as he looks down at you. “You know how early it is?”
You don’t speak before you swing, too angry to even bother using your technique. Naoya’s eyes widen briefly as he spits out a curse, dodging backward; your momentum carries you forward, and you go to slam your other fist into his gut. He grabs your wrist before you can make contact, clicking his tongue, irritation flaring. Gravel scatters beneath both of your feet as you lift your leg to drive your heel into his upper thigh.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he snaps, grabbing your ankle to knock you off balance and shoving you hard. Your back hits the outer wall of the estate hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs, and he’s on you in a second, knee shoved between your legs, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand and pressing his forearm against your chest to hold you still. “Enough! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
You struggle against him once, trying to wiggle free, but he’s stronger and faster than you—once he’s got you, he’s got you. Belatedly, you realize you should’ve used your technique, but you stop struggling, jaw tight with frustration.
“Get off me,” you say through your teeth. “You know exactly why I’m here.”
Naoya scoffs and pointedly doesn’t get off of you. “Do I now?”
“Yeah, you do, you mangy fucking mutt,” you spit. His lip curls up in irritation at the insult, but you press on before he can say anything. “I actually liked this guy. I told my father about him, and what do you know? Two days later, he ghosts me and then finally tells me that he can’t keep seeing me because a Zenin dog threatened to kill him if he continued. I’m sick of this shit. What is your fucking problem?”
Naoya’s expression twists, irritated. “That idiot called me a dog?”
Your eye twitches. That’s what he’s concerned about?
“He did, and I broke a glass over his head because only I get to call you a dog, dog,” you snap. Before he can look too satisfied, you continue, “And then I came right here, because what is your deal? It’s been eight months of this bullshit, give it a fucking rest.”
“He was a loser,” he says simply, unrepentant. “Clan’s broke, no technique worth mentioning. Honestly, did ya a favor. You should be thankin’ me instead of acting like a wild animal.”
“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, sharp and incredulous. You twist against the wall again, trying to break free, but Naoya leans in, pressing his arm harder against your chest and using his hips to stop you from wiggling around. You bare your teeth at him in irritation, hating that he’s so much stronger than you; you hate even more that it only seems to make him more smug. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“Course I do,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Someone’s gotta think for you when you don’t. You’ve got terrible taste.”
“No, you don’t, you entitled piece of shit.”
“I do. They’re not worth your time,” he continues. “Why would ya even date losers like him anyway? They’ve all been trash, every single one of ‘em. They don’t know you. Can’t keep up with you. They’ll only slow you down. I’m not watchin’ that, it’ll piss me off.”
What the hell is his problem?
“You sound fucking deranged, Naoya,” you say, teeth grinding so bad that you feel a headache coming on. “Is this how it’s gonna be the rest of our lives? You’re gonna scare off any guy I show interest in?”
“If I gotta.”
What the fuck? You almost want to rip out your hair. You let out another laugh, almost stunned to the point of speechlessness.
“You’re such a bastard. Then who is worth my time? So I can save us both the trouble. You? Is that what this is all about?”
You’re mostly mocking him, hoping to get a rise out of him so that he steps backward and lets out a scoff of disgust at the mere thought of being with you, but Naoya doesn’t respond right away, and suddenly you’re all too aware of the position you’re in—his body pressed against yours, arm against your chest, fingers curled around your wrist. His face is so close to yours that you can see the golden flecks in his eyes, and the way the corners of his mouth pinch at your words, like he isn’t sure how to respond. He stays silent long enough for you to realize what his answer is, and you let out a shaky breath, chest fluttering, suddenly feeling a bit dizzy.
This is not happening right now.
“Let go of me,” you tell him, voice tight, and Naoya’s expression twists, but he lets go of your wrist and lets his arm drop back down to his side, stepping away. “Stop butting into my business, Naoya. We’re not kids anymore. You’re seriously starting to piss me off.”
You don’t get three steps away before he’s reaching out to grab your wrist, forcing you to turn back to him.
“What’s your—” Your lips part in shock when you feel his fingers curl around your throat, grip just stopping short of painful. He yanks you back toward him, and you stumble into his chest, hardly able to regain your footing before he’s tilting your face up toward his. “Naoya—”
You don’t know what you’re about to say. His name comes out too breathy to be a protest, and your pulse spikes, but not with fear. He leans down to press his lips against yours before you can get out your sentence anyway. You let out a surprised noise into his mouth, hands coming up to his wrists, but not to push him away.
Naoya kisses you like he’s starving. It’s rough and unrestrained, all teeth and heat and pent-up frustration. His mouth crashes into yours without any care for gentleness, and his hand stays at your throat, thumb pressing under your jaw to tilt your head exactly where he wants it, forcing the kiss deeper. You taste blood—maybe his, maybe yours—and heat curls low in your stomach.
You should pull back, you think, because you came here to yell at him, and these are dangerous waters that you’re not ready to tread yet, but you don’t move. His other hand comes down to your waist, sliding behind you to your lower back, hauling you closer until there’s no space left between you. Your back is up against the wall again, and his body is pressed into yours, and you feel so dizzy that you might pass out.
You realize belatedly that you’re kissing him back, lashes fluttering shut as your hands slide up to his biceps, nails digging into his skin. He drags his tongue against the roof of your mouth, fingers tightening slightly around your neck, and you let a sinful noise into his mouth. You kiss him until your lungs burn and your vision dots, and even then, you kiss him still, lips sliding messily against his, breath hitching as his hand drops to your thigh to hike your leg around his waist.
You part your lips from his just long enough to take in a sharp, raspy gulp of air to fill your lungs. You breathe out, “I can’t fucking stand you,” and then you press your lips against his again.
Your hands come up to the back of his head, fingers twisting in the dyed blonde, and he lets out a low groan into your mouth, hips instinctively jerking to grind against you. Your head drops back against the wall as his lips slide from yours to your jaw down the column of your throat.
“Ya drive me fuckin’ insane,” he mutters against your skin. “Was only ever me. I’m the only one worth your time, who knows you, can keep up with you. Even Gojo Satoru—he don’t know you like I do.”
“Yeah? How are you so sure about that?” you scoff, biting back a whine when he pointedly bites down over your pulse. “Careful.”
“‘Cause you’re an awful bitch, and you only show how awful you are to me since you know I’m worse,” Naoya laughs harshly against your throat, and you roll your eyes. “Don’t move for… five seconds.”
“What—”
You yelp when you realize he’s activated his technique, staying carefully still because you don’t want to get yourself trapped in one of his stupid frames, and before you know it, your back is flat against his futon, and Naoya’s hovering above you, arms braced on either side of your head.
You squint slightly as a thought passes through your mind, and then you say, “Naoya, we should try that when we’re sent on missions together.”
Naoya blinks. “What?”
“I think I could take advantage of the 24 FPS rule,” you explain, starting to sit up a little as soon as the idea crosses through your head, excited. Naoya stares at you blankly. “Listen, okay? I would know when you’re about to touch me and activate it, right? So what if I could give myself a—”
You let out a noise of complaint when he presses his palm over your mouth to silence you and pushes you back down flat against his futon, an irritated expression on his face. “Something is seriously wrong with ya,” he mutters. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
“Just saying,” you say, muffled against his palm, but you sigh when he presses his lips back to your skin. His palm leaves your mouth just long enough for you to inhale, and he pulls back just enough to let his gaze flick down to watch the way your chest rises sharply beneath him.
“... You’re unbelievable,” he mutters, voice rough, more hoarse than insulting. It doesn’t have the bite it usually does—if you didn’t know better, you’d almost think he sounds fond. He kisses you again, slower this time, mouth moving against yours almost chastely before he kisses your jaw, your cheek, lingering at your throat. “Such a fuckin’ bitch. You were tryna piss me off, weren’t you? Wanted me to snap. How many losers were ya gonna make me chase off?”
“You’re so full of yourself,” you respond, a bit breathless. How did this even happen? You came here to beat the shit out of him, and now—now your breath hitches as Naoya’s hands slide beneath your shirt, warm and soft against your skin, wrapping around your waist, and your back arches slightly into his touch. “I actually liked them, you asshole.”
“Bullshit,” he replies, so confidently that you want to knock the smug smirk right off his face with your fist. “You’ve always wanted me.”
“You need a reality check,” you scoff, hands sliding down to his hips, using your leg as leverage to push him onto his back so you can straddle his waist. His back hits the ground with an oof, and he scowls up at you, but his pupils are blown wide. His hands instinctively find your thighs to flip the two of you back over, but you grab his wrists before he can, leaning over him as you pin them on either side of his head. “I don’t know if I should gag you or just knock your teeth out.”
“Violent beast,” he says instinctively, as though you can’t feel his cock pressing hard against your thigh and his lips aren’t curled up into a smile that’s softer than it is smug. “Sometimes I really doubt you’re actually a woman.”
This is—this is crazy, you think, mind whirling as your hips rock slightly, and Naoya lets out a ragged noise caught between a moan and a gasp.
This is Naoya—this is shitty, insufferable Zenin Naoya, the boy you punched in the face and shoved into the koi pond more times than you can count for being an ass, the one who you bullied into keeping quiet by telling him only a girl would go crying to her father the way he threatened to, the one who used to pull your hair and push you into the dirt whenever the adults weren’t looking. Shitty, insufferable Naoya, who spent years insisting that women had no place in the jujutsu world except as wives, who mocked every ambition you ever voiced like it was a joke he was tired of hearing, who has made your life a living hell the past eight months because he was jealous.
Shitty, insufferable Naoya who—who always put himself between you and his brothers, or you and his father, or you and anyone the moment he thought things may turn ugly, even though he knew firsthand you could handle yourself, who covered for you whenever you broke decorum, taking the blame with a scowl like it annoyed him more than it ever actually did, who bought you obscenely expensive gifts he swore meant nothing. Shitty, insufferable Naoya who never asks you to be smaller or quieter or more palatable, even when he’s complaining and calling you a beast or a menace or telling you you’re not fit to be a proper wife, who takes every ugly part of you head-on and throws it right back at you, who knows how awful you can be and meets you there every time, never once making you feel like you have to pretend you’re better than you are.
Shitty, insufferable Naoya, who has you straddling his hips with your pulse roaring in your ears and hands tight around his wrists. Shitty, insufferable Naoya, who has made countless snide comments about how a woman’s place is beneath a man and yet is content beneath you, chest heaving, pupils blown wide—he could overpower you and flip the two of you around in a second, but chooses not to. Shitty, insufferable Naoya, who you kiss again, deeper this time, gasping into his mouth when he grinds his hips up against yours.
“I catch you staring at my tits enough to know you know damn well I’m a woman,” you say, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, relishing in the way he lets out a low groan, “but if you really need proof…”
You yank one of his hands to your lower body, sliding both yours and his into the waistband of your pants and pressing his fingers against your damp panties. His lips part, eyes widening, and he breathes out a choked, “Shit.”
You let go of his hand and kiss him again—once, twice, and then you press your nose against his cheek, biting back a whimper when he slips his fingers into your panties, dragging them between your folds before he presses his thumb over your clit, rubbing slow, agonizing circles over that make your thighs tremble.
“You’re fuckin’ drenched,” he says, and you think he means for it to come out mocking, but his voice is way too strained for that. “Fuck, knew ya wanted me, knew—”
He chokes over the fingers you stuff in his mouth before he can finish whatever obnoxious thing he was about to say. He gives you an outraged look, but it's seriously diluted with how he’s busy trying not to gag on your fingers, gold eyes pricking with tears when you press down hard on his tongue.
“You’re much prettier like this, y’know?” you murmur against his skin, kissing down his jaw, “beneath me… silent… almost like a proper wife, aren’t you, Naoya?”
Naoya’s breath hitches around your fingers, eyes widening in shock at your words, and you pause, knowing him well enough to realize there was something about that comment he liked, but before you can say anything, his pride gets the better of him, and he pushes two fingers deep into your cunt. You bite down on his neck to muffle the moan that almost spills out of you, rocking your hips against his hand. You slip your fingers out of his mouth just long enough to kiss him again, rolling his bottom lip between your teeth before you trace your tongue along the inside of his mouth, distracting yourself as his fingers drag against your walls, stretching you out.
“Slut,” he bites out when you finally break your lips from his, breath catching as he pulls his fingers out from inside you, focusing on sliding your pants off instead. You give him a flinty look, but there’s no heat in his eyes or derision laced in the word. He’s frowning slightly, looks unsure of himself for a short second. “Probably don’t even need to prep ya—should be grateful that I am. Ain’t I so generous? How many men have you been with, huh? Tell me.”
You pinch his cheeks between your thumb and forefinger. “And upset the little prince?” you mock. “I think I’ll keep that bit of information to myself. Anyway, I thought I told you that I prefer you silent. Why are you talking to me?”
His lip curls up into an irritated sneer, but before he can say something else to piss you off, you lean down to press your lips against his again, hand slipping behind his head to thread your fingers into his blonde hair. He lets out a soft sigh into your mouth, his hips jerking up once he gets his cock free, and you exhale shakily when you feel his tip slide between your wet folds.
You sink down on his cock, lashes fluttering as his tip bullies deep, deep inside of you. A fleeting thought crosses your mind about how it’s unfair that Naoya can be such a piece of shit and have a nice cock, but before you can even register it, his hands drop to your waist to hold you in place, and he snaps his hips up, ripping the breath right out of your lungs. Your hand immediately drops to his throat, the same way he dragged you in for a kiss earlier, except where he only used it as leverage to pull you in, your grip tightens, cutting off his airflow.
His lips part in shock, eyes wide as he stares up at you, hand leaving your waist to grab your wrist hard. Your lips curl up into an amused smile when you see how his face starts to turn red, and how his nails scrape against your skin. You tell him, “My pace,” and then you let go, watching as his chest heaves as he gasps for air.
“Crazy bitch,” he hisses, voice hoarse, but his pupils are blown wide, and his cock is painfully hard inside you, twitching needily. He pushes himself up into his elbows, still way too smug as he looks up at you, lips wet and swollen, gaze half-lidded. “Go on then. If you’re so confident, show me what ya can do.”
Your lip curls up in irritation. “What part of preferring you silent do you not understand?” you scoff, reaching for the hem of your shirt to pull it over your head. You raise your eyebrows slightly in amusement when you see how his gaze immediately drops to your chest, nostrils flaring as he inhales. “Put your mouth to good use, or I really will gag you.”
Naoya doesn’t even bother with another snide comment, sitting up, one arm slinking around your waist as he mouths at the underside of your jaw, moaning into your skin when you finally begin to rock your hips. You think it’s downright fucking cruel how perfectly Naoya’s cock fills up your cunt—you’ve been with your fair share of men and women over the last two years, but none have left your pussy weeping the way he is. Your head feels hot and heavy, eyes half-rolled back, each bounce of your hips drives his cock deeper inside of you; your nails tear across his shoulders, leaving deep red lines in their wake, and Naoya moans into your skin, breath ragged. He drags his tongue from your neck down to your collarbone, sucking at your clavicle, fingers fisting the ends of your hair to yank your head back before his lips close around one of your nipples, free hand coming up to grope your other tit.
His eyes flick up to focus on your face, and your head lolls to the side so you can catch his gaze, giving him a breathless, lazy smile. “Good boy,” you tell him, and his eyes flash—you can’t tell if it’s with irritation or something else—teeth grazing your nipple, but you pull his hair hard. “Uh-uh, no teeth.”
You hate how quickly you can feel your abdomen tightening. Naoya pulls back just enough to look down, a choked moan ripping from his lips as he watches you bounce on his cock, and you lift your free hand to shove your fingers back into his mouth. His gaze snaps back up toward you, surprised, and you say, “Get them wet, then put your mouth back to work.”
You can see the sneer on his face even with his mouth stuffed, but he does as you ask, tongue swirling around your fingers, slicking them up with his saliva. As soon as you pull your fingers free, you slide your hand between your bodies to rub circles on your clit, and Naoya leans his head back down to seal his lips around your other nipple, arm tightening around your waist to pull you closer to him.
“Ah, fuck,” you gasp, head falling back and eyes rolling slightly up as you twist your hips to switch up the angle, jaw falling slack when it’s enough to hit the spot inside you to make you see stars. “Fuck—ngh, fuck, Naoya—”
Naoya lets out a muffled moan against your chest when you say his name, and you choke when his hips jerk up, stuttering once before he cums deep inside you. You almost wish you weren’t as close to finishing as you are, because you’d kill to hear him whine and whimper as you fuck yourself on his spent cock, but once you feel his cum hot and thick inside you, smearing across your thighs, dripping down his length, you’re letting out a pitched moan of his name, hips stuttering, head tipping back again as you cum on his cock. Naoya lets out a string of curses when he feels your walls tightening around his sensitive cock, body jerking, fingers pressing deep into your skin, and you let out a breathless laugh, running your fingers through his hair.
“If I’d known you were such a decent fuck, I would’ve fucked you ages ago,” you say, tilting his head back with a smug smile to brush your lips against his.
Naoya’s gaze is half-lidded, and he’s uncharacteristically subdued, face leaning into your palm. Your chest aches as he looks up at you, something unusually soft in the golds of his eyes. Dangerous, you think, swallowing thickly—a quick fuck is one thing, whatever this is… Well, you’re not ready to take that step yet.
You slide off his lap, grabbing his black shirt to wipe the cum off your thighs. He doesn’t budge from where he’s sitting on his futon until he catches you moving from the corner of his eye, and then he squints at you, realizing what you’re using his shirt for. You wink at him, and he rolls his eyes.
“Where’d ya learn to fuck like that, huh?” he demands after a few moments, glaring at you.
You push him down to lie on the futon, ignoring the question, and giving him a languid smile, draping an arm across his shoulders, sliding your leg between his. You press your nose into his cheek before sighing and settling against him, feeling far too at ease with his arm tucked around you. You tell him, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly what you think it does.”
————————
Neither of you speaks about what happened that night after the fact. Things stay the same, for the most part, and you prefer it that way. You don’t need or want labels. You and Naoya are just… you and Naoya. You don’t need to talk about things like this—they just are what they are. That’s how the two of you work.
He comes to your place on Fridays, and you train until your muscles give out; the two of you end those days sporting new bruises and bloody lips, and with his head between your thighs. You go to his places on Sundays, and you complain about your father and the higher-ups while he bitches about his own and Zenin clan politics, all the while his fingers or cock are stuffed deep in your cunt.
Sometimes the two of you go to the Zenin estate when he can’t get himself out of whatever obligations he has, and when you point out that you’re pretty sure his father doesn’t want you there, he sneers and shrugs it off. You’re doubtful, at first, but no one stops him when he drags you through the halls like you belong there. Servants and cousins alike avert their eyes when doors close behind you that shouldn’t. You’re a problem they don’t want to deal with, and he’s one they can’t afford to challenge.
(“Who’s gonna stop me?” he says, like it means he can do whatever the hell he wants. “Just come, yeah? I have to spend the whole weekend dealing with those old fucks. Least you can do is warm my cock with your mouth when it’s over.”
You slap him for that, but when he comes back to his bedroom, aggravated and clearly upset over something he refuses to explain, you decide to indulge him.)
You enjoy going to the Zenin estate now. Mostly because you’re not supposed to be there, and nothing pleases you more than watching members of the clan squirm in your presence, knowing that you shouldn’t be walking the estate the way you are, but unable to do a damn thing about it when it’s Naoya who insists on you being there. The place feels smaller than it ever did when you were a kid, stripped of the weight it once held over you. Back then, the estate made your skin crawl. Even when you started to enjoy your visits to Naoya, the Zenins themselves were suffocating, and the knowledge that you were meant to marry into that world only made the walls close in tighter.
Now, it’s different. You walk through the estate without shrinking or having to brace yourself, and Naoya never asks you to behave or pretend now. Where he once obsessed over appearances in front of his father and brothers, he now seems to revel in the trouble of it all—bringing you somewhere forbidden simply because he can, letting you walk at his side as the two of you talk, knowing that all the elders are watching and furious.
He’s the heir; none of his worthless brothers can hope to compete with him for the title anymore. Now that you understand that, you think you get your answer to the question you asked back when you first reunited—it’s not so much a rebellious phase as it is him flaunting the fact that he’s untouchable. He can dye his hair, pierce his ears, bring you around the estate whenever he wants, and nobody can do a damn thing. The rules no longer apply to him and he makes it abundantly clear that he won’t let them apply to you either.
A part of you is concerned, because the Zenins are prideful and they don’t take well to being embarrassed, or defied, or being made to look weak. They don’t forget slights—you know this better than anyone—and you notice the way conversation dies when you pass by and how their eyes linger when you walk with Naoya. You have to remind yourself that Naoya isn’t untouchable, not really, not until his father is dead and the will is read. So, you can’t fully push away the unease, but you tell yourself that Naoya is… well, Naoya. Head of Hei, heir of Zenin, to be Twenty-Seventh Clan Head, and it would take something far more egregious than parading you around the estate for his father to rip away his title at this point.
(“Sometimes I think you only bring me here to use me to piss off your father and the rest of the old assholes in your clan,” you tell him one day, lounging between his legs in the inner courtyard of the Zenin estate as you light a cigarette. Servants and cousins alike pass by the two of you, all casting lingering looks before they rush off to whatever they’re doing, none sticking around long enough to risk Naoya’s ire.
“Stop smoking that shit,” Naoya tells you, and you tip your head back to give him an egregious side eye before taking a long drag of the cigarette. “Bitch,” he mutters, and then adds, “and I do. They hate you.”
“Yeah, I’ve gathered that,” you snort, resting your head back against his abdomen, eyes sliding shut. “Can’t imagine why. I’m perfect.”
“A perfect nightmare, maybe,” Naoya agrees, and you can picture the sharp grin on his face without opening your eyes. His voice is unusually reserved as he adds, “It’s not the only reason, though, no.”
“Oh? Why else, then?” you ask with a hum, lashes fluttering open only when you feel his fingers absently brush through your hair. You barely catch the contemplative expression on his face as he stares down at you before he masks it with an irritated one.
“Why’re you so nosy, woman, damn?” he asks, aggravated, and then tugs your hair like a child.
“Seriously? You’re the one who said something.”)
You also like going to the Zenin estate because of the two little brats who start to hang around you when Naoya’s busy. Maki and Mai, they call themselves—Naoya’s kid cousins, only ten years old, twins. They have the same green hair and the same gold eyes; the only reason you can tell them apart is that Maki has no cursed energy. She’s the bolder of the two, constantly approaching you, curious as to who you are and why you’re at the Zenin estate, considering you’re the walking antithesis of all the traditions the clan values. She interrogates you about how you became a sorcerer, if your clan tried to force you to become a servant, and most importantly, why the hell you spend your time with Naoya. Mai stands with her, more subdued, but just as curious, at least about the latter question. Neither of them likes Naoya, and when you tell them that you barely like him on good days, they both giggle.
(“So then why do you hang out with him all the time?” Maki asks, leaning forward with furrowed brows and a frown. She keeps casting concerned looks back at the door—probably worried her parents are going to show up and find her and Mai talking to you. Nobody in the clan is supposed to acknowledge your presence in the estate. “You say you don’t like him, but I see you smiling with him all the time.”
“Not many people smile around Naoya-sama,” Mai agrees quietly, gaze lowered.
“It’s complicated,” you tell them, because it is.
You don’t know how to describe what it is you feel for Zenin Naoya. You hate his guts some days, but most days, you can’t see a life without him. One minute, you want to make him hurt just to see the way his face twists and gets red with anger, and the next, you’re laughing at something awful he’s said, the sound slipping out before you can stop it. You recognize the cadence of his footsteps and the patterns of his breathing, how his voice sharpens when he’s in public and lowers when he’s alone with you. You understand exactly how cruel he can be, but you also can tell the difference between when he’s posturing and when he means it, the shift in his eyes from when he’s angry to when he’s cornered. You know him better than you know yourself, and he knows you the same—a shared glance between the two of you speaks more than words ever could, and you move together without meaning to, orbiting to the same spaces, never too far apart from one another.
With him, nothing has ever really needed to be explained, because the best and worst parts of you recognize each other instinctively.
Later that evening, you ask Naoya, “Do you believe in soulmates?”
“What corny shit are you about to hit me with, huh?” he complains, tilting his head to the side to look at you and raising his eyebrows. “You better not make me throw up, I just ate.”
You roll your eyes. “Forget it.”
“No, now you have to tell me,” he disagrees, sitting up straight and leaning forward. He gives you a sharp, mocking grin. “You think I’m yours or something? Knew ya loved me.”
“I do,” you say, staring up at the ceiling. “Think you’re mine, that is. I don’t love you.”
“How are you going to call me your soulmate and say you don’t love me in the same breath? That’s fucked up, ya know?” Naoya scowls, but his voice is softer than it usually is, and you can feel him staring at you from across the room.
“I’m being serious,” you tell him. “I’m not talking about sappy romance bullshit. I mean you and me—whatever it is we are—we know each other. Nobody knows us like we know each other. Doesn’t it kind of feel like fate, or something?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says after a moment. Then he adds, “Shit luck that we got stuck with each other, huh?”
You laugh. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”)
You become used to this.
You shouldn’t have.
————————
You don’t usually get involved in Naoya’s issues with his older brothers.
He doesn’t like it when you do, and you don’t want to waste your time arguing with idiots. Luckily, as you all got older and Naoya grew into his role as heir, becoming crueler and less prone to falling for their provocation, they spent less and less time at the Zenin estate. Where Naoya would once rise to their bait, making him look juvenile and unstable, he started letting their words slide past him, watching them with a raised eyebrow or a slow, unimpressed glance. He learned quickly how to make people feel small without ever saying much at all, and he doesn’t need or want you jumping to his defense.
Still, there are some topics that get under his skin more than others.
Namely, his mother, whom you’ve known was a sensitive topic since the two of you were kids. Her name still changes the air in the room. His posture stiffens, mouth flattening into something unreadable, like he’s bracing for a blow that never quite lands the way he expects it to. He never talks about her unless he’s already angry, and even then, it’s all contempt and dismissal, nothing that sounds like grief or longing, but you know him well enough to know it doesn’t mean he’s not upset, so you try not to be as harsh with him those days. You’ve seen how his brothers use it against him—casual mentions, jokes meant to needle, questions asked just loud enough to be overheard. Naoya never reacts the way they want him to, but the tension is always there.
But also, you, and you are infinitely worse. Not because they can use you against him directly, they’ve already learned that gets them nowhere, but because your presence reminds them that he isn’t as isolated as they’d like him to be, and because he’s not isolated, he’s not as easy to antagonize into making mistakes. They make comments about distraction and weakness anyway, but Naoya shuts them down fast with a roll of his eyes and a snide comment about how it “speaks volumes” to their own incompetence that Naoya is still so many leagues above them even with “distraction” and “weakness.”
Once, they tried to get you alone while Naoya was busy with his father. Started badgering you about what makes you stick with Naoya when he’s cruel and arrogant and so clearly doomed to walk down the same path as the men who raised him. You hadn’t risen to it—told them to fuck off and find something better to do than give you a headache, that what you and Naoya had was none of their business and beyond the capacity of their puny brains to comprehend. Naoya had been waiting around the corner, and you realized that they were trying to get you to say something cruel about him while he was within earshot, so they could ruin whatever companionship he had found in you. Their words might not phase him anymore, but yours would. That was the first time you were almost pushed to physical confrontation with them, but Naoya grabbed your arm and told you that the trash wasn’t worth the effort.
This is the second time, and Naoya does not seem as keen on stopping you again.
You stare at the older man, gaze shifting over to a bemused Naoya briefly before you raise your eyebrows dubiously. “You want to spar me? You?” you ask Zenin Naotaka, voice riddled with derision. “Is this some sort of humiliation kink or something? ‘Cause if so, I’m not interested. You’re not my type.”
Of all of Naoya’s brothers, you think this one is your least favorite. Naotaka is sneaky and snide, and he makes it painfully obvious that he doesn’t think Naoya is cut out to be the next clan head. Most of Naoya’s brothers have taken a stpe back over the years as each attempt to make him look unfit was squandered by his lack of reaction, but Naotaka has only doubled down, and that aggravates Naoya more than the attempts themselves.
Naoya snorts, and Naotaka’s eyes flash with irritation, but he masks it with a quick smile and upturned eyes. He says, “No, no. I’m just curious. You know, a lot of rumors were circulating around the estate when you were first promoted—”
“Watch your mouth,” Naoya interrupts, suddenly not as amused when he realizes what Naotaka is about to say. His eyes flick over to you, but he can’t hold your gaze. You barely stop yourself from rolling your eyes—like you don’t already know all of this from him. “Since when does garbage have the right to start asking questions?”
“It’s fine, Naoya,” you say, lips curled up into a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Your gaze shifts over to Naotaka. “I see you didn’t take my advice back then—still gossiping about your betters instead of improving yourself. You wanna spar with me? Then let’s spar—it’s your funeral. Try not to bore me too much, would you?”
Naotaka looks too pleased as he makes his way over to the sandy training grounds, and you stare after him for a moment before taking a step forward. This is a test, you realize, but for who? You or Naoya? You think it has to be Naoya, but how are they trying to use you this time? You can’t figure it out.
Naoya grabs your wrist when you move to follow him.
“You don’t have to entertain his bullshit,” he tells you, expression all twisted. “I can deal with him.”
“I don’t need you fighting my battles,” you tell him, pulling your arm free.
“It’s not your battle,” Naoya says through gritted teeth. “He’s tryin’ to get to me through you.”
Yeah, that’s probably what it is, you agree silently, but how is he planning to do it? He can’t actually think he’s going to beat you in a spar, right? There must be something else going on here, but what is it? Your gaze flicks around, noticing that several of Naoya’s other brothers are also in the area, most of the Kukuru unit, and several of the Hei. Naobito is walking through the inner courtyard with Jinichi and Ogi in the near distance—they’ll probably wander over to watch the commotion.
More eyes than usual, maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary, really.
Whatever, you think. Naoya’s not a dumb kid anymore—well, he’s still dumb, but not in this regard, at least. He already knows that this is some sort of attempt to get him to slip up, he won’t fall for it.
You roll your eyes. “I’ll be fine, Naoya. Or are you really gonna insult me and tell me you’re worried your useless brother will actually beat me?”
Naoya exhales through his nose, giving you a long look before he lets go of your arm. You follow after Naotaka, hopping down off the engawa into the sand.
“Your technique—it has to do with future sight, doesn’t it?” Naotaka asks you curiously as you stand across from him in the training yard. Your lip curls up in irrtitation, and you give Naoya an annoyed look over your shoulder—did he seriously tell his asshole brother? “He didn’t tell me. I was watching the two of you spar a couple of weeks ago. I figured it out from how you were anticipating his attacks.”
“Yeah,” you tell him. “Don’t worry. I won’t use it—don’t need it for this.”
Naotaka lets out a breath caught between a scoff and a laugh, like he doesn’t want to be shocked by how confident you are in yourself, but still is. He gives you a snide smile as he answers, “You might.”
That’s interesting.
You squint at him for a second, gaze flicking back to where Naoya stands at the edge of the engawa, arms folded over his chest, brows furrowed.
Whatever, you think again, focusing back on Naotaka. If he’s got something planned, you’ll figure it out before it matters.
You tilt your head to the side with a lazy smile and say, “Well, c’mon then, ladies first. I’ll give you first move, since I’m so generous.”
You suppose, in Naotaka’s defense, he isn’t weak. In any other clan, he might’ve been considered an elite sorcerer—he’s fast, his strikes are decently strong, and he has good foundational knowledge. But he’s not in any other clan. He is a Zenin, so he is mediocre at best, and subpar at worst, and you are used to sparring the likes of your brothers and Zenin Naoya and Gojo Satoru. You don’t even have to really use your technique to keep ahead of him, hands behind your back as you shift to the side to avoid a blow to the gut, you bend your head down slightly so he goes stumbling when he misses your cheek, and you seriously piss him off when you look back at Naoya to exchange an amused look with him instead of taking him seriously.
“Smug bitch,” Naotaka says through gritted teeth.
Naotaka lunges forward again, this time losing the practiced form of the Kukuru, anger bleeding into his every movement. You let him get close, closer than you have so far, just to let him think he’s finally landed something, and then you sweep his legs out from under him.
It’s quick and unceremonious. Your heel hooks behind his ankle, a sharp twist of your hips knocking his balance clean out from under him. He hits the ground hard, breath ripped from his lungs in a startled grunt. You look down at him and say, “I told you. Didn’t even have to use my technique. Naoya told me you were trash, but you’re even worse than I expected.”
You step over him and look up at Naoya with a smug curve of your lips—told you so, you say without saying anything. He rolls his eyes and turns around, starting to make his way out of the training yard into the inner courtyard, expecting you to follow him.
You sense the cursed energy before you realize what’s happening. You pivot, eyes widening slightly as you activate your technique—you watch as a path visualizes before your eyes. Zenin Naotaka lunges forward again, this time with a cursed tool in hand, and he drives it through your lower spine and twists it.
This is his play? You think, outraged, he’s trying to get Naoya to fuck up by—by killing you? Is he fucking stupid? He must understand that this will have major backlash on the Zenins, he can’t possibly think—no, he’s not trying to kill you, you realize as soon as the thought crosses your mind. He knows you’ll dodge. This is why he asked about your technique; this is why he chose to do it with so many people around. The Zenins will cover it up to avoid political backlash, but Naoya—Naoya will—
Fucker. You don’t have time to think, twisting to the side before he can make contact, the blade slashing through your shirt instead of bone, skimming past you. You grab his wrist and elbow to hold it in place, and then you drive your knee up into his forearm, breaking the bone in two. His blood splatters against your face as the bone snaps upward through his skin.
“Attacking someone from behind only works if you’re fast enough to kill them,” you tell him, trying to sound amused, but your voice is strained. “You really are a loser.”
Naoya will fucking kill him. You need to—
To his credit, he goes in for a second attempt, dropping the cursed tool into his free hand and stabbing upward toward your thigh. You could dodge it, and Naotaka expects you to, but…
You pause. It won’t kill you, and it’ll hurt like a bitch… but it might be good for your father to have some leverage over the Zenins. If you get hurt by a Zenin son, on Zenin property… Well, it’ll look really bad for Naobito, and it’ll be much harder for them to cover it up if you return to your estate with a visible wound. Plus, Naobito and the elders will be more focused on not letting this escalate than whatever Naoya’s apocalyptic reaction is going to be. So, it’ll be good for you and your clan, and for him.
Before you can make a decision, someone grabs his other wrist. You think it’s Naoya, and you brace yourself to stop him from doing something he can’t take back, but your eyes widen slightly when you realize Zenin Naobito is standing at your side instead.
“Worthless boy,” the Zenin clan head says coldly, but his gray eyes are cold with disappointment. Disappointed at the fact that Naotaka would try something so openly and boldly against you, knowing it would have direct consequences for the rest of the clan, or disappointed in the fact that he failed, you’re not sure. Probably both, if you’re being honest. You let out a breath through your nose as Naobito backhands his son hard, sending him sprawling into the dirt. He points at a nearby member of the Hei. “Throw him in the disciplinary pit.”
“Father,” one of Naoya’s other brothers says hesitantly, stepping forward. “His arm—”
“Fuck his arm,” Naoya spits, cutting him off. His face burns red with fury. You turn toward him, shaking your head, but Naoya ignores you. “He just tried to kill—”
“Enough,” Naobito tells Naoya harshly. Naoya’s gold eyes cut over to his father, outraged. “They were sparring. Things got heated, that’s all.”
As you expected, Zenin Ogi chimes in without missing a beat. “Yes, poor form, surely, but this is what happens when you let emotions get the better of you during training. He’ll be properly disciplined.”
“But he—” Naoya insists through his teeth, furious as he looks around to see if anyone will back him. His gaze catches yours, and you shake your head again, signaling him not to continue, and he cuts himself off, furious.
“If you finish that sentence,” Naobito says coldly, “you will join him in the pit.”
Naoya’s jaw tightens, but he looks away, fists so tight at his sides that you’re sure his nails are drawing blood. Naobito turns his attention back to you, gaze flicking over the torn fabric of your shirt, the blood on your face, and the cursed tool lying abandoned on the ground.
“You defended yourself,” he says curtly. Not a question—he’s telling you what happened, getting the story straight so you can’t rush off and claim otherwise. Asshole. He knows you won’t contest it. It’ll be your word versus all of the Zenins, and you can’t afford to give Naoya the chance to take your side. “Training accidents happen, especially when weak sorcerers overestimate themselves.”
“It’s true,” you say, inclining your head slightly with a cool smile. “I’ve become used to sparring with Naoya. I didn’t realize how underwhelming your other sons were in comparison. If that’s all, Zenin-sama.”
You turn to leave, making your way over to Naoya, but you pause when he clears his throat, looking at him over your shoulder.
“I didn’t dismiss you, girl,” he says, an unreadable expression on his face, eyes half-lidded as he looks you over. “You were going to take that second strike, weren’t you?”
You know better than to answer that question, but your silence is an answer in itself. To your surprise, Naobito barks out a loud laugh, tilting his head to the side as though he’s studying you under a new light.
“You’re a useless daughter,” he says firmly, and you barely bite back a scoff as his hand lands on your shoulder, “but I see now why your father indulges you the way he does. You would’ve made the perfect son. You should’ve been born a boy. Smart, with a stronger spine than any of the worthless idiots I have to settle for. What a waste you are.”
You press your tongue to the back of your teeth. “Thank you, Zenin-sama,” you force out as he walks past you without another word or glance.
“Girl,” Naobito says, drawing your attention one last time before he leaves. He doesn’t turn to look at you this time. “Tell your father to tread carefully with the Kamos. He’ll have Zenin support, if he gets to the point of needing it.”
Something dark and foreboding settles in your stomach as you stare at Naobito’s retreating back. You try to shake it off and lift your gaze to Naoya, who looks uncharacteristically subdued as he stares down at the ground—you’re sure he overheard Naobito’s comment about him and his brothers. You make your way over to him, and his eyes finally shift over to you.
You ask quietly, “Wanna go to my place for the weekend?”
His jaw is still tight, but he nods once, reaching out to slide his arm around your waist, guiding you away from the yard without a word. His grip on you is tighter than usual, borderline possessive; usually, you should shove him away and tell him to quit being clingy, but today, you only settle against him, drained from the day's events and deeply unsettled by Naobito’s last comment.
When the two of you are out of sight, Naoya stops walking, only so he can hook a finger under the torn edge of your shirt and tug it forward, hard enough to make his point.
“You were going to let him stab you,” he says, voice low and flat. “Don’t lie to me. You weren’t going to dodge that second attack. Why?”
“To buy my family some leverage over yours,” you say honestly. There’s no reason to lie—Naoya’s not as dumb as you like to tease him, you’re sure he’s probably already put it together. “It wouldn’t have killed me. Only would’ve hurt a bit.”
His lips press into a thin line, and for a second, you think he might snap and say something to piss you off. Instead, he exhales slowly, forcing the anger back down.
“If that blade touched you, I woulda killed him,” he tells you. “I still might if he manages to come out of the disciplinary pit alive. Y’know how messy that’ll be for me?”
You don’t flinch because you’ve heard him say worse for less, and you expected this. In fact, you’re almost surprised by how tame the comment is, but there’s something about the certainty behind his words that makes your hair stand on end. Usually, when Naoya spits out his threats, he’s posturing—this is not posturing. He would’ve killed Naotaka if he’d managed to put that knife into you. He still might just for trying it.
You tell him, “You can’t do that.”
Naoya lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You’ll find that I absolutely can.”
“You can’t, Naoya,” you say, voice strained. “That’s what he wants you to do—”
“Yeah? If that piece of garbage has a suicide wish, I’ll indulge it,” he interrupts, teeth grinding together.
“You can’t kill a Zenin for an outsider,” you say, reaching up to grab his cheeks between your fingers, forcing him to look at you. “Do you know how fucking quickly your father will remove you as heir if you step out of line like that? It’s one thing bringing me around here, but I’m not a Zenin, you can’t kill one of your brothers, not for me, o—”
“You should’ve been,” Naoya cuts you off, furious, ripping his face from your hand. “And I fuckin’ run shit around here now. That old fuck knows better than to mess with my birthright. They don’t get to use you as bait to see how far I’ll go.”
“You cannot cross this line, Naoya,” you hiss as it dawns on you just how serious he is right now. “You’re smarter than this. You know you’re not untouchable until your father is dead and his will is read, so—”
“He tried to kill you,” Naoya says loudly, silencing you immediately. “He tried to do it right in front of me.”
His hand is still hooked in your shirt, knuckles white. Up close, you can see it now—how his temper is stretched thin, the fury wound so tight it’s vibrating beneath his skin. A warm feeling settles in your chest, and to his irritation, your lips curl up into a small smile. You and Naoya hardly know what the word gentle means—you fuck rough, fighting ends in blood and bruises, even your words are sharp and cutting, but you’re gentle with him now as you lift your hands up to cradle his face between them. Instead of yanking away again and scoffing at you, Naoya’s lashes flutter briefly, and he leans slightly into your touch.
“I’m fine,” you tell him. “I had it all under control. He wasn’t going to kill me—he knew I was going to dodge, he asked about my technique before we started sparring. He was just trying to antagonize you into making a mistake you can’t undo, so don’t give him what he wants.”
He exhales deeply through his nose. “I don’t care. Don’t ever do that again. You don’t use yourself like a bargaining chip. That’s fuckin’ sloppy. It’s beneath you.”
You raise a brow, deciding against commenting on the irony of him saying that to you. “It’s sweet how upset you are on my behalf.”
“Tch. Don’t flatter yourself. I’m more pissed he had the audacity to try it right in front of me.” His grip tightens anyway. “Don’t do it again.”
You consider it, and then you say, “I won’t make a habit of it.”
“Not good enough.”
“Best you’re gonna get.”
Naoya rolls his eyes. “You can never make anything easy, can you? Fuckin’ pain in the ass,” he mutters, but the insult is dulled by something dangerously close to fondness. “Move. I’m hungry.”
“Wouldn’t be us if I did,” you tell him with a grin. “Let’s get food on the way there. You pay, since your brother tried to kill me.”
“As if you ever pay for anything, woman.”
————————
2013 | READER, AGE 20; NAOYA, AGE 22
Your clan is massacred by an unregistered special grade cursed spirit in the middle of the night, two days after your twentieth birthday. You’re not at the estate when it happens—you’re partying with Satoru and his friend, Shoko, while your brothers and father are butchered in their sleep, before they even have time to properly understand what’s happening.
The Zenins are the first on the scene, since their estate is closest to your clan’s, but the damage is done, and your family is dead by the time they get there. All they can do is send the Hei after the cursed spirit—Naoya taking the lead on the hunt, driven by blind rage on your behalf, even if you don’t know what’s happened yet. You only know something is wrong when Zenin Ogi shows up at the club you’re at with Satoru and Shoko, telling you that you need to come with him.
The Zenins are uncharacteristically thoughtful in how they deal with the incident. Even Naoya’s asshole brothers are there doing what they can, because the clan can’t stand you, but your father and your brothers were important, politically useful. The betrothal between you and Naoya fell apart, but the alliance between your clans never did—Naobito and your father worked together frequently to push agendas at meetings with the higher-ups, and your friendship with Satoru and the potential betrothal led your father to be bridge between the two clans, working against the Kamos.
By the time you get there, all of the corpses are covered with white blankets, and your brothers’ and father’s remains have been put back together as best they could. Shoko is the first to sober up, immediately rushing to see if there are any survivors who need help—she’s able to save one of your uncles, four of your younger cousins, three of your older cousins, and two attendants. Satoru is the next to sober up, a furious expression crossing his face before he disappears to catch up with the Hei.
You are left alone in the middle of your estate, still drunk, not fully processing what’s happening around you, staring at the familiar wristwatch face down in the dirt near the front steps. It takes a second for you to recognize it as your brother’s. The glass is shattered, the hands stopped at 2:17 a.m., flecked with blood that has already begun to darken. You stare at it dumbly, brain skidding uselessly around the edges of the thought instead of landing on it. Your vision swims. The world tilts. A hand drops hard on your shoulder.
“Pull yourself together, girl. There’s no time for missteps right now,” Zenin Naobito tells you, an unusually grim expression on his face as he looks around the carnage.
“This was the Kamos,” you say, too inebriated to understand the weight of your accusation. Anger eclipses grief, intoxication eclipses rationality. Your voice rises, “This was the Kamos. Our estate was protected by a barrier—cursed spirits, even special grades, they wouldn’t be able to come through unless let in. They would’ve been alerted, they wouldn’t have been asleep. My father invited that old fuck and two other Kamo representatives for tea not even a week ago. They—”
Your vision knocks white, and pain spreads hot and quick through the side of your face. You stumble to the side, knees hitting the bloody grass, stunned as you stare down at the ground, trying to figure out what just happened. You look up, eyes wide. Naobito’s arm is still extended, hand curled into a fist. The surrounding Zenins, still trying to clean up the mess that’s become of your estate, avert their eyes, pretending not to see what just happened.
Did he just backhand you?
“You’re lucky that I’m the only one who heard that, girl,” Naobito tells you, voice cold. “I’ll assume grief loosened your tongue, but if anyone else heard an accusation like that, you wouldn’t be able to take it back. The barrier failed—that happens. Rarely, yes, but it happens. An unregistered special grade explains this well enough for now.”
Your fingers curl into the grass, hands slick with blood that isn’t yours. “But—”
“No,” he interrupts. He grabs your chin and forces your face up, fingers digging into your cheeks. “You will listen. You’re drunk, grieving, and right now, you’re a liability—to your clan, to my clan and to the Gojo clan. If you go around claiming the Kamo clan orchestrated this without evidence, they’ll demand retribution for the insult, and they’ll drag my clan and the Gojos into it. Everything your father has been working for will be destroyed. Is that what you want?”
You exhale, and he lets go of you. Your face drops down again, staring at the grass. The rage drains from you, and you’re left feeling terribly cold and empty. Your fingers are trembling in your lap; you have to forcibly still them against your thighs.
“You said for now,” you say before the Zenin clan head can turn to leave. “You said it explains it well enough for now.”
Naobito scoffs, glancing at you over his shoulder. “If you ever decide to repeat that accusation, make sure you’re sober, and make sure you can prove it, and maybe you’ll have our backing against the Kamos.”
————————
Naoya doesn’t return for… well, you’re not sure how much time has passed, but you haven’t budged from your spot on the ground. You can see the sun over the horizon, and the dawn feels cruel in its insistence on rising when you lost everything in the night. The light catches on the blood-soaked grass, glints off the white sheets, the broken lanterns, and the shattered watch still lying where it fell. The estate looks smaller in daylight; you can almost imagine your brothers arguing with each other as they shove each other into the inner courtyard, heading over to the training grounds.
Your limbs feel heavy and disconnected, as though they belong to someone else. At some point, the alcohol drained from your system, leaving only a hollow ache in your chest and a headache that throbs in the back of your head. You’re painfully aware of every sensation now—the chill in the morning air, the stiffness in your knees, the sticky warmth drying on your hands.
Your gaze lifts when you hear footsteps coming from the main gates, dull eyes landing on the Hei as they return from their hunt. They are covered in the blood of curses, purples and blues and greens, some are sporting wounds, none look accomplished. You know, before any of them says anything, that they were not able to find the curse that did this. Satoru is with them, standing off to the side, jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides. He shifts like he’s about to move toward you, but before he can, Shoko stops him, saying something quietly.
Naoya stands at the head of them, gaze trained on you even as Naobito makes his way over to him. Focusing on him is easier than the carnage around you—the rising sun halos his head, and his gold eyes are filled with an emotion you can’t quite name.
Inexplicably, you want him to leave. You don’t want him to see you like this, on your knees and crippled with grief and uncertainty. The Zenins, the Gojos, representatives of the higher-ups, and Grade One sorcerers from the schools are all here now trying to figure out what happened. They keep looking at you, whispering to one another, some are confused, some are horrified, many are pleased. Your father has been a thorn in the higher-ups’ side for two years now—they’re glad to be rid of him, and they’re just as glad his arrogant, untouchable daughter has been brought to her knees for all of jujutsu society to bear witness. Humiliation curdles low in your stomach, but even that’s not enough to outweigh the numbness spreading through your limbs.
Naoya pushes past his father while he’s mid-sentence, ignoring the sharp call of his name as Naobito tells him to get back over to him. He makes his way over to you, shoulders tense and jaw tight.
Go away, you try to tell him with your eyes, because your lips refuse to cooperate. Just go away.
Fuck you, he replies without replying at all, coming to a stop right in front of you.
His eyes are ablaze as he stares down at you. Up close, you can see the blood splattered on his face and the rage plain in his eyes—not at you, you know him well enough to know that much, but at everything else. The audacity of representatives of the higher-ups to be here when they likely had something to do with this; the nerve of them to stare at you, reveling in your grief. They are humiliating you after they’ve taken everything from you, and just like you couldn’t stand there years ago and watch his family make a spectacle out of him at his lowest, he refuses to stand here and watch the higher-ups do the same to you. His hands are fisted so tightly at his sides that you can see the whiteness of his knuckles and blood drawn and dripping between his fingers.
“Not here,” he tells you. “Get up.”
Only four words.
You get up.
————————
You become clan head that day. It was a position that was never supposed to be yours—there were four brothers before you who should’ve taken it, and they are all dead.
Your clan was never a particularly large one, not like the Kamos or the Zenins, who numbered in the hundreds, but it wasn’t small. A little over a hundred people lived on the estate under your father’s reign as clan head. Two hundred becomes less than fifteen under yours. The estate is too big and too quiet and far too empty. Most of your younger cousins don’t speak. Your surviving uncle had his throat slashed and can’t speak. Your older cousins do their best to help where they can, but one turned to alcohol, another to drugs, and the third spends all of his time on missions trying to find the cursed spirit that butchered everyone.
You are left alone to deal with the fallout.
Politics, funerary rites, ensuring your fourteen-year-old cousin doesn’t succeed in throwing herself into the ravine in the forest outside of the estate, as though you don’t want to do the same most days. You leave the estate before the sun rises, sometimes having to drag along a stubborn and grieving fourteen-year-old who needs to be surveilled 24/7, and you don’t get home until the moon settles high in the sky.
You’re tired, and angry, trapped in a corner, forced to sit across the table with the man who ordered the massacre because you have no proof that he did. One of your younger cousins—the only one who does speak—accuses you of being cold and heartless: you haven’t even cried, she screams at you, what’s wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you? You sit there and let her scream, because it’s better she screams at you than tries to slit her wrists, but the gaping hole in your chest only gets bigger with each passing day.
Satoru tries to distract you. He starts coming to clan head meetings along with his grandfather, where he used to ardently avoid them. He sits next to you and tries to make you smile with snide commentary and mocking remarks, and he succeeds sometimes, but most times, his expression falters when your gaze only lowers down to the table. He tells you, one day, that he thinks he wants to become a teacher at Jujutsu High.
(“For real?” you ask him, after a particularly rough meeting between representatives of the higher-ups, you, his grandfather, Zenin Naobito, and Kamo Norihide. “Why?”
Satoru’s expression twists as he looks back at the room the two of you just left. “It’s all a load of shit, isn’t it?” he replies with a scoff. “All of the politics, all of their traditions. I don’t want the younger generation of sorcerers growing up following them.”
“You make us sound ancient,” you tell him with a dry smile. “Younger generation. I’m only twenty, you asshole.”
He knocks his shoulder against yours. “You know what I mean,” he says, but there’s a pensive expression on his face, like he’s waiting for you to say something.
“I think you should,” you tell him. “I think you’d do well.”
“You think so?” he asks, head tilted up to the night sky. There’s a dubious tone laced in his words, so unlike the Satoru you’ve known for years that it makes you pause. For a man who’s succeeded in everything he’s ever applied himself to, he sounds terribly unsure.
“Yeah, I do,” you say. “I was kind of like your trial run, wasn’t I? You taught and trained me, and I’m perfect.”
Satoru’s lips curve up into a genuine smile. “True.”)
You become closer to his friend, Shoko, too. She stops by the estate frequently to check on your younger cousins, and she’ll sit and drink with you when you get back from meetings early, keeping you company on nights you thought you’d be left alone with your thoughts.
(“She doesn’t mean the things she says to you, you know?” Shoko tells you one night when you’re sitting alone on the engawa with a bottle of gin, staring up at the stars. She sits down next to you, beckoning you to pass over the bottle, and she takes a long swig when you do. “She cries about it as soon as you leave. Feels bad.”
“I know,” you reply. “It’s better that it’s me she takes it out on than one of her brothers. I can deal with it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Shoko tells you after a minute. You can feel her looking at you, but you keep your gaze trained to the sky. “People handle grief differently, y’know? And you’re doing what you have to do to keep things from falling apart.”
You smile faintly, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “I know,” you say again. “Thanks, Shoko.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” Shoko says, leaning back on her hands. “I know you didn’t listen to a word I just said. I don’t like that look in your eyes. Just… don’t lose your way, ‘kay? Me and that idiot Satoru are here. You can rely on us. I don’t wanna see you going down a path that… Ah, never mind. I’m just rambling now. Give me some more gin.”)
And you appreciate them—you do—but they are not who you want nor need when the nights become too dark, and your chest aches with that hollowness you can’t seem to push away. They understand that, too, you think, because they never point out when your mind seems to drift mid-conversation.
You don’t see Naoya for three months after the massacre.
Later, you learn his absence was not of his own volition; Naobito sent him away because he didn’t want his son to fuck up an already volatile political situation. The Zenins had their own agenda to complete after your father’s death; your clan wasn’t part of the big three, but it acted as a bridge between the Zenins and Gojos when they had aligned interests, and it had enough political influence that your father’s death left a vacuum that the Kamos were desperately trying to take advantage of. The Zenins were trying to prevent that by preparing you to fill your father’s shoes before his corpse was cold in the ground. Naobito needed you to be composed, attentive, and above all, present—and he needed Naoya elsewhere, so that he could not be a distraction.
So, he was sent on an extended mission—three months up north in Tohoku to deal with a horde of cursed spirits that developed after an earthquake two months ago. You don’t even get the chance to say goodbye to him before he’s shipped off, and you don’t have time to call or text him throughout the months.
Once a week, you get a: you alive still?
You respond with a: Yeah.
And life continues on.
You force yourself to get used to it. There’s no time for hesitation.
A part of you can’t help but wonder if it’s for the best.
Neither you nor Naoya have ever been gentle people. Empathy doesn’t come easy to either of you, and in the months after the massacre, you’re barely holding the line between rage and grief as it is. Your anger is sharp and directionless. You find yourself losing your temper on people who don’t deserve it, and his temper has always been hair-trigger, quick to turn destructive when it has nowhere to go. You can see how things might’ve gone if he’d stayed. Words meant to hurt, instead of comfort; damage done in moments of exhaustion and fury that no apology could fully undo.
And you think you might not have survived losing him, too.
————————
You’re still awake when an attendant rushes into your office.
It’s four in the morning, and you’ve hardly gotten halfway through the paperwork you need to finish by morning. Your eyes burn, your shoulders ache, and the thought of standing makes you want to scream, but when she says that Zenin-sama is waiting for you at the estate gates, fatigue gives way to a cold, familiar dread. Naobito wouldn’t show up at this time of night unless something had gone catastrophically wrong.
So, you rise, smoothing your sleeves out of habit, and make your way out of the building toward the front gates, mind already racing with possibilities, trying to figure out what’s the next disaster you’ll have to absorb without flinching.
You’re halfway through, “You better have a damn good reason for—” when you realize that it’s not Naobito standing at the front gates.
“Naoya,” you breathe out, his name leaving you before you can stop it. Your hands fall uselessly to your sides, heart thudding painfully slow in your chest. For a split second, you think you might be hallucinating, tired and desperate, seeking out the one person you’ve wanted with you this whole time. “You’re back.”
He looks wrecked. Dark circles carve deep shadows beneath his eyes, and blood stains the hem of his hakama, dried and fresh both. There’s a familiar tension in the way he holds himself, like he hasn’t quite come down from a fight yet. You wonder if he came right here from finishing whatever his last mission was up in Tohoku.
His gaze trails across your face, and his lips curve up into a half-smile.
“You look like shit,” he tells you.
Somehow, despite everything, you laugh for the first time in months.
————————
Neither you nor Naoya have ever been gentle people. Empathy doesn’t come easy to either of you, and in the months after the massacre, you’re barely holding the line between rage and grief as it is.
You half expect Naoya to fuck off and leave once he realizes how unstable you are—a part of you wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. You’re not worth the trouble to deal with as you are. But he never does. Even on the really bad days, the ones when your vision is red with rage at the sheer unfairness of your situation, and you’re purposely driving him away because you want to sink alone, he digs his heels in and grits his teeth, letting you scream at him and shove him until your rage drains into exhaustion. Or, more commonly, he gets frustrated and snaps back until it ‘sinks into your thick skull’ that he’s not going anywhere, so you should stop ‘giving him a headache’ with your bitching. He argues with you until you’re too tired to keep fighting and too stubborn to admit he’s right.
It’s not gentle, and it’s not empathetic, but it’s you, and it’s Naoya, and you find comfort in that consistency—in knowing that no matter how badly everything falls apart and reshapes itself around you, that this will remain the same. You can lose a clan, a father, brothers, and a future you thought you understood, but you won’t lose him. Everything else in your life will change, but you two never will.
(“Why don’t you just go?” you demand, scoffing at him and shaking your head as you turn away. “Fuck off, Naoya. We both know you don’t want to be here.”
“What is your problem?” Naoya hisses, jaw tight, hands fisted at his sides. “You think I crossed half the country because I didn’t want to see ya? That I went through three months of hell and rushed back here just to leave ‘cause you’re being a bitch? Newsflash, you’ve been a bitch since the moment we met—nothing’s changed. So quit it with the woe is me, nobody wants me bullshit. Sit down and watch the fuckin’ show with me.”
“It’s not the same.” You whirl on him, raising your voice. “Nothing is the fucking same, Naoya! So go find some girl to get your dick wet and leave me the hell al—”
You let out a muffled noise of complaint when he shoves his hand over your mouth, stopping you from finishing the sentence. You immediately move to elbow him, but he doesn’t even flinch, dragging you over to the couch and all but throwing you down onto it before he takes a seat next to you. You give him an accusing look, but he only scowls at you.
“Unless that’s you offering to wet my dick, I’d stop talking,” he tells you, and then reaches forward to turn on the TV. “I been waiting to watch since I got back. Either be quiet or put your mouth to better use, will you?”
“You’re so disgusting,” you mutter, but you push yourself into a sitting position and pull your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them, losing the will to keep fighting in an instant when he refuses to entertain your anger. “What show is it?”)
Sometimes you’re quieter, and the rage that usually keeps you upright never comes. You’re left with grief sitting heavy in your chest, struggling to even continue breathing, and Naoya doesn’t know what to do with that version of you. The first few times he catches you like that, he does what he always does. He antagonizes. Picks fights. Makes snide comments to try to get you to snap back at him, seeing if he can drag you back into familiar territory where he knows how to operate.
(“Why’re you staring at the garden like that, huh?” he snaps one day, coming up behind you after you had to deal with a long day of meetings with his father. “You’re creeping me out.”
You don’t respond, and you hear him scoff, pacing.
“Seriously? You’re just ignoring me now?”
Your lips part to say something—maybe tell him you’re not in the mood, even trying to muster up the energy to fight with him and tell him to leave you alone, but nothing comes. You let out an inaudible sigh, and your shoulders slump.
“Tch.” You hear him click his tongue, dropping down beside you harder than necessary, knee knocking into yours to get your attention. “Say somethin’.”
“I just want to sleep,” you find yourself saying, voice weaker than you intend for it to be.
Naoya opens his mouth, and you wonder if he’s going to try again to antagonize you with something sharp and dismissive, but he pauses. You feel him looking at you, studying the dull expression on your face, and the way your shoulders are curled inward like you’re trying to make yourself smaller.
All he says is, “Oh,” and settles beside you. Then he adds, “Then sleep,” and, like he can’t help himself, “I’ll tire you out, if ya want?”
You find a small smile curling at your lips despite yourself. “You’re so annoying,” you murmur, gaze lifting up slightly. “The cherry blossoms are in bloom early this year.”
Naoya’s gaze follows yours up to the pink petals. “Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “Good sign, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”)
Naoya doesn’t know how to comfort you. He doesn’t understand grief in the way you’re experiencing it, he can’t understand mourning family when his relationship with his own is as terrible as it is, and he doesn’t know what to do with the crushing sadness that settles in when your anger burns out. He’s used to problems he can hit or insult, so when you go quiet instead of loud, he’s visibly at a loss, irritation and unease written plainly across his face as he searches for something to say and comes up empty.
He struggles to stay in those moments. You can see it in the way his jaw tightens, and how his gaze flicks anywhere but your face. He doesn’t know how to reach you, and it frustrates him, but he forces himself to stay anyway. He shoves a blanket at you and tells you not to get snot everywhere. He sits close enough that your knees brush and pretends not to notice when you lean into him. He puts on some stupid show that he insists is “actually good” when you’re staring off into the distance not doing anything and then, he complains the entire time about the pacing and bad acting. You cry in front of him once when he puts on a movie that hits too close to home, and he short-circuits so badly that it nearly has your eyes drying instantly.
(You feel him staring at you before you even realize that you’re crying. It goes on for at least five minutes before you finally turn to him, annoyed, and ask, “What, Naoya?”
Instead of snapping at you, he blinks and says, “You’re…” and then motions to your face, then to his own, drawing a path from his eye down his cheeks, “um.”
You lift your hand to your face, and you’re mortified when you realize that your cheeks are wet. You rub your face angrily, embarrassed, but you can’t seem to stop the tears from rolling down. “Just ignore it.”
He hesitates, glancing at the screen, back at you, to the screen again. He shifts so that he’s looking forward again, and you try to focus on stopping yourself from crying. You stiffen when you feel him place his arm around your shoulder. It’s awkward and kind of uncomfortable, and when you look at him from the corner of his eye, his face is so twisted that he almost looks like he’s in pain.
Your shoulders shake slightly as you try not to laugh. It’s so… Naoya of him to be uncomfortable with innocent comfort like this, even though the two of you have fucked in just about every way imaginable. Violence and sex and shouting, those he handles just fine, but an arm around your shoulder? Agonizing.
He gives you an offended look when he sees you laughing, and he goes to draw his arm back, but you grab his wrist before he can, pulling it back down around your shoulder and settling into his side, resting your head against his bicep.
“This movie sucks,” you tell him, eyes sliding shut when you feel him tracing absent patterns against your upper arm.
“Yeah, kinda, want me to switch?”
“Yeah.”)
As time passes, you think that you might love Naoya, and just as quickly as the thought crosses your mind, you dismiss it.
Love feels too pedestrian, too clean of a word to describe whatever it is you feel for him, because what you feel isn’t soft or hopeful or anything that someone would associate with that word. There are no butterflies in your stomach when you look at him, and you don’t dream about futures with white dresses and fluffy promises like most people do.
What you feel is ugly and intense, something that digs its fingers deep under your ribs and refuses to let go—the line of love and hatred is never so thin as it is when it comes to the two of you. He doesn’t soften himself around you, doesn’t become kinder or better or easier to be around. If anything, he’s worse—sharper and unapologetically cruel to everyone who isn’t you—and sometimes you wonder if it should drive you away, but it doesn’t, because you always find yourself meeting him there halfway instead. He doesn’t lie to you about who he is and what he’s capable of. He tells you exactly how awful he can be, and he proves it over and over again with the casual certainty of someone who has never been punished for it. It irritates you to no end, and yet, you still find comfort in the fact that nothing ever changes with the two of you. He’ll always choose you in defiance of every rule he was raised with, and you’ll always choose him in spite of everything you know he is.
It doesn’t feel romantic, not like how love is supposed to be. His presence is just something that slots into your life like it was always meant to belong there, and his absence feels wrong in a way you can’t really articulate without sounding dramatic or unhinged. Your lives have entwined so thoroughly that you can’t see yourself living yours without him. The world has proven that it can take everything from you, and it has taken most of what it can—you can imagine losing everything you have left along with it, but you can never imagine losing him.
That’s why love doesn’t fit. Love implies a beginning you can point to and an end you might survive, and the idea that something so vast and all-consuming could be reduced to a word people toss around so easily leaves you deeply unsettled.
(“What would you have done if I had died with them that night?” you ask him one night, voice quiet.
“You wouldn’t have,” Naoya replies immediately, an irritated look crossing his face. “The fuck? Why would you ask me somethin’ like that?”
“Hypothetically, though. If I did. What would you have done?” you press.
Naoya stares at you for a long moment, like you’ve asked him something in a language he doesn’t understand. He looks away, jaw tightening, eyes fixed somewhere past you, like he’s calculating the answer whether he wants to or not.
Finally, he exhales through his nose.
“I would’ve killed whatever did it,” he says flatly, “and everyone involved. Happy now? Are ya gonna let me fuckin’ sleep or d’ya have more dumb questions?”
“What about after?”
Naoya’s mouth opens, then closes again. He looks genuinely lost for a second, like he’s reached the edge of something he’s never had to imagine before. His gaze drifts back up to you, and there’s something helpless that briefly flashes through his eyes that tells you everything you need to know.
He doesn’t end up answering the question, snapping at you to stop saying such stupid shit to him unless you’re trying to piss him off, but he doesn’t have to.
Pride, Prejudice and Bonito Flakes | Osamu Miya x f!reader
6.- Salt on the Rim
previous chapter↩ | m.list here<3
cw. MDNI. atsumu (he needs his own warning). pet names (love, princess). a little suggestive. angstyyy. smoking. cursing. drinking. lemme know if i missed anything<3
wc. 5.7k
an. taglist still open! comments and reblogs are appreciated
"Yer goin'."
Suna blinked, sluggish, staring at Osamu like he'd just sprouted a second head.
The man had gone completely still only after pacing around the house nonstop while he went over how his night had been with the girlies.
What you knew, how you felt, and what you were planning to do.
And he looked biblically insane. Eyes wide, breath puffy—like a pot ready to boil over.
"…What?"
Osamu started pacing again, steps sharp against the floorboards. "Yer goin' to the bar. The one she's takin' Atsumu to."
"Wait—what? You want me to crash her date?"
"Make sure they don't hook up."
Suna blinked once. Twice. "…You hear yourself right now?"
Osamu didn't even look up. "Don't care."
"Samu... What the hell? This can't be about her food anymore, or your dumb rivalry thing," Suna said, half-incredulous, half-concerned. "This is full-on stalking, dude."
"I said I don't care."
Suna dragged a hand down his face. "Then why the hell do I have to go? Why not just tell Atsumu to back off?"
"I did!" Osamu's voice cracked, sharp and desperate. "I told him already. An' every time I say it again, he just leans in harder. Turns it into one o' his sick little games."
The room went quiet except for the sound of Osamu's restless pacing—the soft slap of his socks against the floor, the faint hiss of his breath through clenched teeth.
He looked… haunted.
Suna just watched him, that restless, unhinged energy he had around him. He'd never seen him like this before. This was something else. Something that looked a lot like heartbreak.
He could almost see the storm brewing behind his eyes, the way he couldn't stop pacing, couldn't stop moving, couldn't stop thinking.
All because he couldn't stop seeing your face.
Because Osamu could imagine the face you'd made when you found out about Kita, like he'd pulled the rug from under you. He could imagine the tremor in your voice when you told Suna you felt stupid.
He'd made you feel stupid. And the guilt clawed at his chest.
He'd meant to tell you. Hell, he was going to tell you. He was so close to telling you so many times. But he'd seen you laugh, and for once you weren't glaring at him, and for once you were nice to him, asking for his help, needing him, and he didn't want to ruin that. Didn't want to see that spark of warmth vanish.
So he'd waited.
And waited.
And then Tsumu interrupted right as he was going to come clean.
And now it was too late.
The guilt had been chewing at him ever since, slow and relentless. Because he knew there was no excuse. He could've texted you, told you anyway, but he hadn't.
And now Tsumu.
And with him, underneath the guilt—buried somewhere between the irritation and the regret, there was something worse. Something that burned.
Something like jealousy, bitter and bright.
Because Tsumu, his dumb, loud, golden brother, was about to walk straight into the one place Osamu didn't ever seem to reach: your good graces.
"You're losing it, man," Suna said quietly. "Why do you even care?"
"I just do!"
Suna tilted his head, unreadable. "Because you hate her?"
"I—Yes! I mean—No!"
"Jealous?"
"No!"
"Do you like her?"
"I DON'T KNOW!"
The shout ripped out of him like something torn loose, and the silence that followed rang through the room like glass cracking under pressure.
Osamu stood there, chest heaving, hands limp at his sides. Jaw working as if the right words might show up if he just bit down hard enough.
"I don't know anymore, Sunarin," he said finally, voice rough. And collapsing onto the couch with a heavy exhale, he buried his face in his hands.
"I thought I did. I thought she was just... annoyin'. Fussy. Too proud for her own good. But then I started seeing her, really seeing her, and now I'm just… lost."
He swallowed hard, fingers curling around his hair. "We cooked together and it was—easy. It worked. Like we'd been doin' it our whole lives. I can't stop thinkin' about it. About how she looked when she smiled, about her hands, the way she moves in the kitchen. And now it just—"
He stopped. His throat closed around the rest.
"It fuckin' hurts," he whispered. "And I don't even know why."
Suna sighed. A long, low exhale—the kind that said, yeah, I've been there, man.
"…Alright," he said finally. "I'll go."
Osamu looked up, startled.
"But you better figure your shit out. Fast," Suna added, pointing at him. "For someone who runs a business, you're real bad at self-management."
Osamu didn't argue. He just sat there, eyes empty, chest tight.
Suna sighed for what felt like the millionth time since he'd gotten home and flopped beside him on the couch with a grunt.
"Okay. Imma gentle-parent you for a sec."
Osamu frowned. "What?"
Suna waved a hand. "Shush. Just listen. So, you can't stop thinking about her."
"'Bout her cooking," Osamu corrected.
Suna gave him a deadpan look. "Yeah, sure. About her cooking, about her hands, about her smile—"
He watched, amused, how Osamu's face gained color with every word.
"Oh my god," Suna muttered, half laughing. "You don't even realize how you talk about her, huh? You're so cheesy all the rum Yuzu gave me left my system, dude."
"What's yer point, Sunarin," Osamu grumbled, turning away with pink ears.
"My point is: you can't stop thinking about her, you're jealous of Atsumu—"
"'M not—"
"Say it."
Osamu scowled. "Sunarin—"
"You're jealous of Atsumu," Suna said again, calm, merciless.
Osamu threw his hands up. "Okay! Let's say that!"
Suna crossed his arms, leaning back. "Then congrats! You like her! You want her so bad it's frying your brain, man. Just say it."
Osamu froze, mouth open, but no words came out. His thoughts scattered like loose change on tile.
"I don't—" he started, voice barely above a whisper, then stopped.
Like you?
He didn't like you. He liked your cooking. Your drive. The way you argued with him until your cheeks flushed and your eyes sparked. The way you said his last name when you were pissed like it was both a curse and a dare.
The way you'd rolled your sleeves up in your kitchen that night, hair tied messily, concentration painted across your face like art. The way you'd smiled after listening to the way the Jackals praised the food you'd made together, soft and shy like you didn't know how pretty you looked when you were proud of yourself, the light catching in your eyes—
His pulse thudded.
Oh, fuck.
He liked you. He liked your stubbornness, your fire, the way you challenged him and made him want to be better, sharper, faster. He liked the way you made any quiet kitchen feel loud again.
He loved that.
And realizing it hit him like a knife to the ribs.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath.
Suna's grin stretched slow and satisfied. "There it is."
Osamu groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?"
Suna shrugged. "Apologize. Stop being an ass. Take her out, maybe."
Osamu slumped beside him, heart pounding like it wanted out of his chest. For once, he didn't even try to argue.
Because Suna was right.
He'd rather face ten critics than admit it out loud, but yeah.
He liked you.
And now he didn't know what scared him more: the thought of you hating him forever…
or the thought of wanting you anyway.
The next morning, as the cold spring air bit the inside of his lungs, and his fingers shook as he opened the shutter to his restaurant, anxious to see you, Osamu could feel the difference.
In fact, what he felt first was your murderous aura crawling down his spine the second you stepped out of your car to open your own. None of the polite nods that had quietly become part of your mornings. Not even a jab, a scoff, or a glare. Just your cold, dead eyes fixed straight ahead, the thud of your kitchen shoes against the pavement a little too sharp.
It seemed like nothing had changed—like all the slow, quiet progress between you two these past few weeks had been wiped clean overnight.
It had. And it was his fault.
After a few minutes, he dared to glance your way. Watched from the corner of his eye as you fought with that same damn lock you'd cursed at a hundred times before.
"Thought you were going to change that lock..."
He flinched as soon as the words left his mouth.
Because Why the hell was he even talking? Did he have a death wish?
He was sure you'd kill him.
But you only froze for half a beat, then shoved the lock open with a little too much force. Didn't look at him. Didn't sigh, didn't scowl, didn't anything.
Just pulled the shutter up and disappeared inside.
And for some reason—that silence stung.
It shouldn't have. You'd ignored him plenty before. You used to freeze him out all the time in culinary school—back when you'd both would go days pretending the other didn't exist unless it was to one-up each other. He'd survived it then just fine. He... Didn't care, back then.
Because he didn't... Right?
He leaned against his counter, rubbing his palms over his apron and pretending to check ingredients he didn't remember prepping. But his mind wouldn't quiet.
The noise of the morning dulled around him, replaced by memory.
He remembered those years too vividly. When he'd watch you smiling at other classmates, laughing while you prepped alongside them, eyes bright, alive.
Then the moment he joined the group, that smile would vanish.
You'd go quiet.
And something in his chest had burned every damn time.
He used to call it irritation. Told himself he just didn't like your attitude.
But now, standing there in his empty restaurant, he remembered his clenched fists, the burning underneath his ribs that felt so similar to what he'd felt the day he watched you fumble for words while talking to Kita, or your blushed cheeks when Tsumu had complimented you that night in your kitchen.
Then he realized, again, like a punch to the gut—
It wasn't irritation. It never had been.
Osamu's throat tightened. His chest felt too small for his lungs.
"Oh, shit..." he thought. "Even back then?"
Even. Back. Then?
It was jealousy, Wasn't it?
Raw, gnawing jealousy.
He'd hated that you could make everyone else's world light up while you looked right through him.
He'd wanted that warmth—your warmth—for himself, and he hadn't even known it.
He dragged a hand through his hair, pressing his palm to his forehead. The realization split through all the excuses he'd built over the years, all the little lies he'd told himself to keep from noticing the truth.
Even back then, he'd liked you.
And now, after everything that had happened, it was like realizing too late that he'd been holding a glass heart the whole time—and he'd dropped it himself.
A voice in the back of his head whispered cruelly,
You're too late, idiot.
And maybe that was what scared him most.
Because yeah, he was an idiot.
But was he really too late?
His heart sank a little lower in his chest.
Your restaurant was quiet now—lights dimmed, floor swept, chairs flipped onto tables. The air still smelled faintly of sesame oil and vinegar, but the last customer had left nearly an hour ago. Anko and Yuzu were long gone.
You were alone, locking up—dressed to kill.
Yuzu had shown up to her shift with a curling iron, eye shadows, and a terrifying glint in her eye.
"Just let me handle it," she'd said, and you'd been too emotionally fried from the Kita incident—and hungover—to argue.
Now, with soft waves in your hair, eyeliner sharp enough to draw blood, and your favorite shade of lipstick, you had to admit: you looked dangerously good.
You tugged the iron shutter down with a clatter and turned the key with some difficulty. You reminded yourself—again—to change the locks. They'd been failing since forever, and one of these days that key was gonna snap.
Headlights rolled up the curb.
"Damn," a voice called behind you, bright and lazy. "So this is what's under all the scary chef vibes, huh?"
You turned—and there was Atsumu, leaning out the window of his car, wearing a grin and a shirt he'd probably spent thirty minutes trying to make look effortless.
"Wow," he said, letting out a low whistle as you walked toward him. "Yer lucky I got a strong sense of self, 'cause this dress might make me think ya actually like me."
You rolled your eyes. "Let's go before I change my mind."
His grin widened. "If ya say so, princess."
Then, to your surprise, he actually got out to open the passenger door for you.
What you didn't see—what you couldn't see—was Osamu Miya standing half-hidden in the alley between your buildings, supposedly out for fresh air after the worst dinner rush of his week.
It had been like this all day—something restless and ugly sitting under his skin, buzzing behind his ribs. He'd thrown himself into prep that morning, chopping, stirring, kneading—anything to shut his brain up—but every movement had felt off. Every onigiri had come out wrong.
His own staff had asked him to take a break after the third customer complained.
So he'd gone outside, smoked four cigarettes, half hoped Yuzu would show up too so he could pretend to be casual, half prayed she wouldn't because he didn't want to hear what she'd say.
And now it was the same.
Too many cigarettes, too little air. Pacing circles on the pavement, trying to string together something—anything—that sounded like a plan.
Maybe he could catch you before you left.
Ask you to stay.
To not go.
To just… hear him out.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew he wasn't ready for that.
He was still too afraid of your anger and too tangled up in his own confusion to be coherent.
And then he saw you.
Hair done. Heels. That dress. That damn dress.
It felt... illegal.
For a second, Osamu actually forgot how to breathe. Not in the poetic way. More like in the "I just blacked out for two seconds and forgot my own name" way.
He swallowed hard. His brain was going places it absolutely shouldn't go. His eyes dragged over your figure and the voice in the back of his head muttered, you're going to hell, buddy, but at least you'll be warm.
Then you smiled at something Tsumu said. Tossed your head back, laughing.
And Osamu felt the sound like a damn earthquake under his ribs.
Tsumu's hand brushed the small of your back as he helped you into the car. Just a casual gesture—except Osamu knew his brother. Nothing Tsumu did was casual.
Something in him snapped.
Because suddenly it wasn't a joke anymore.
You were going on a date. With Tsumu. Right now.
He hadn't expected you to actually do it.
He sure as hell hadn't expected you to look like that when you did.
Osamu stood frozen in the shadows, jaw locked so tight his teeth ached. The smoke in his lungs turned sour and heavy just as his pulse hammered in his throat.
He couldn't tell if what he felt was anger, jealousy, regret or all of them at once—but whatever it was, it hollowed him out.
When the sound of Tsumu's car faded down the street, he dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his heel.
Then he turned back into the restaurant without a word.
The izakaya was cozy, dimly lit, and smelled of grilled meat and soy sauce. Red lanterns swayed gently above the entrance. The low hum of laughter and clinking glasses filled the air, soft and alive.
It was no surprise Yuzu would know a place like this. Her recommendations never disappointed.
You slid into the chair across from Atsumu, heels clicking, dress hugging you in all the right ways.
Not that you were trying to impress him, obviously.
Still, Atsumu stared like you'd just walked off a red carpet.
"Damn," he said—again, for probably the fifth time that night. "You really cleaned up nice."
You arched a brow. "Thanks. You're not so bad yourself, Miya-san."
He grinned, pleased. "Atsumu. Just Atsumu, yeah?"
You gave him a polite nod and reached for the sake bottle, grateful for something to do with your hands.
To your surprise, the conversation wasn't painful. In fact—it was fine. Atsumu was charming, talkative, and just self-absorbed enough to be entertaining. He told stories of his day as a pro volleyball player, exaggerated his athletic feats, had a knack for pulling laughter out of awkward silences, and he treated you like you'd been friends for years. You could see how people fell into his rhythm so easily. He had that rare kind of energy that made the world bend toward him.
And yet—
The more he talked, the clearer it became: you two were on different wavelengths. He thrived on noise, chaos, and teasing smiles. You… didn't.
You laughed too—once or twice. But not the kind that echoed in your chest. Not the kind that made your stomach flip like...
Don't go there.
You had decent friend chemistry, but there was no spark, not really. Just the hum of neon, the warmth of sake, and a dull ache that wouldn't leave your chest.
It felt like hanging out with your roommate's chaotic cousin—endearing, but slightly exhausting, and definitely not stimulating in the way that mattered.
Not that it did, obviously. You weren't there to actually have a date.
You told yourself this was fine. This was the plan, after all. You were here to have fun, to shake things up, to prove a point—what point, though? That Osamu didn't matter?
Except he did.
And with every sip of sake, that truth sat heavier on your tongue.
The plan had felt so much simpler when you were drunk, heart bruised and pride burning.
Now, in the loud glow of the izakaya, it just felt... small.
And you couldn't tell if what stung more was how, even with the pain, the betrayal, the pride, you missed the sound of Osamu's voice—
or how much you wanted him to be the one sitting across from you instead.
You swirled the sake in your cup, watching the liquid catch the amber glow of the lanterns.
It should've been relaxing. The food smelled incredible, the chatter around you was low and warm, and Atsumu had been nothing but entertaining.
But your mind kept drifting—to the restaurant, to the morning, to a certain grey-eyed idiot whose voice still echoed in the back of your head.
Atsumu's gaze lingered on you longer than it should've, chin resting on his hand, eyes a little too sharp for someone pretending to be casual.
"Hmm," he hummed, tilting his head. "Not fair."
You blinked, snapping back to reality. "Sorry?"
"You look like you'd rather be somewhere else right now."
The words were teasing—but there was no edge to them, just an easy knowing.
You forced a small laugh, taking another sip. "Sorry. Long day. Just tired, I guess."
Atsumu hummed, slow and thoughtful. "I see."
He didn't press. Didn't need to. He'd seen that look before—the same quiet storm Samu had been carrying when he thought no one was watching.
(Ah, Samu, he thought, amused. You might have a chance after all.)
He smiled then, the sharpness in his gaze softening.
"Alright then," he said, brightening the mood with an easy grin. "Let's order somethin' nice, yeah? I want ya to have a good time, even if you're thinkin' about someone else."
You blinked, nearly choking on your drink. "What?"
"Nothing," he said, grin widening as he winked. "Just trust me, I've got good taste."
You shook your head with a small smile, rolling your eyes despite the faint flush creeping up your neck.
He turned in his seat, scanning the room for a server—and then froze mid-motion, his hand still half-raised.
"…Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me," he muttered.
"What?" you asked, but there was no response.
A slow, incredulous smile crept over his face as he looked at the person sitting near the entrance.
Hands in his pockets, hood half-up, scanning the bar like a man about to commit a felony.
Samu had really done it.
He'd actually sent a chaperone.
And suddenly, this whole night just got ten times more entertaining.
Meanwhile, at the entrance, Suna Rintarou was regretting every life decision that had led him here.
Why was he here again?
Oh, right—because Osamu had somehow convinced him that spying on his brother's date was a reasonable thing to do.
"Make sure they don't hook up," Osamu had said.
Yeah. Great plan. Real airtight.
Suna sighed, slid into the nearest booth, and tried to look casual—like a guy waiting for a friend, not a morally conflicted spy. He ordered something nonalcoholic just to look busy. But the moment he glanced toward the counter, his stomach dropped.
There they were. Sitting on a table.
Atsumu, grinning like he owned the place.
You, smiling politely, looking beautiful, and fiddling with your sake cup like you were counting seconds in your head.
Suna exhaled through his nose.
"This is so stupid," he muttered to himself.
And as if summoned by the gods of chaos themselves, Atsumu's eyes found his.
"…Oh, no."
"Sunarin!"
You flinched.
Suna flinched harder.
His soul left his body, and he sank lower in his seat. But it was no use—Atsumu was already standing, waving one arm like a flag, weaving through tables, grinning ear to ear, and completely forgetting the entire double-agent thing they had going.
(In his defense, he'd forgotten a while ago, and he was a little tipsy anyway.)
Before Suna could escape, Atsumu had a hand on his shoulder. "What're ya doin' here? C'mon, sit with us!"
"Nope, I'm good here," Suna tried, resisting the pull like a cat being dragged to the vet. But Atsumu's grip was firm, and he pushed him all the way back to your table while Suna shook his head, silently mouthing no no no no no as he watched your face get closer and closer like the gates of hell closing in.
"Nah, don't be shy! My treat!" Atsumu said brightly, dropping back into his seat and patting the space beside him.
You blinked between them, trying to connect the dots. "Wait—you two know each other?"
"Know each other? We were teammates in high school!" Atsumu declared, chest puffed with nostalgic pride and rosy cheeks. "This guy's like—my brother from another mother!"
Suna sighed, finally letting himself fall over the booth, avoiding your eyes.
"Atsumu, you're an idiot."
Your eyes widened as the truth hit you.
The betrayal.
"Wait, you're— Is everyone in my fucking life connected to Miya!? I thought you were my friend!"
"I am your friend!" Suna protested, finally looking at you.
"No you're not. You're Osamu's friend."
"He's his roomate, actually," Atsumu offered, ever helpful.
You gasped, scandalized. "His roommate!? You're a spy! Oh, you're so not invited to girls' night anymore."
"But I love girls' night! I'm a girlie!"
"You're not a girlie. You're a traitor. A cold-blooded traitor." You pointed dramatically at him. "Is Atsumu-kun the only honest man here tonight?"
Suna's hurt expression changed to something close to disgust at just how wrong you were about that statement.
Atsumu, eyes closed, nodded solemnly. "Guess I am, love."
Suna elbowed him in the ribs.
You shook your head, gathering your things. "I need a smoke." You stood, pulling your cigarettes from your bag and pointing at Suna again on your way out. "You better tell Anko yourself. And I expect an apology."
Somehow, you weren't even that mad at Suna.
It wasn't like you'd confessed any secret recipes or stuff around him.
And you knew Osamu wasn't that petty—not the kind to steal recipes or sabotage a rival. He wasn't a monster, even if back in culinary school you'd been sure he was.
You'd started to… trust him. To see past the sharp edges and short answers.
And somewhere between all those quiet mornings and short interactions, something softer had started to grow. Something you'd been too scared to name.
Maybe not in the easy, glittering way people talked about these feelings—but in the small way it sneaks in right when you're sure you shouldn't feel it. Makes you ache for something you convinced yourself you shouldn't ache for.
You'd tried to ignore it, tried to tuck it behind pride and rivalry, but now it sat heavy in your chest, twisted up with everything else—confusion, guilt, and this dull, stubborn hope that refused to die.
And now… he'd done this.
Used Suna. Lied about Kita, or at least omitted the truth long enough for it to sting.
How dare he, honestly.
It wasn't even about the spy thing anymore.
Him using Suna as a double agent was petty, sure—but that had been months ago. Somewhere along the way, you'd started to think of Suna as your friend, and you felt the same energy coming from him. That hadn't felt fake.
But it still hurt. And it still made you mad. And it was more about the fact that, while you were letting down your guard around him, he was still plotting against you.
You hugged yourself as the cold night air licked at your bare arms. The dress Yuzu picked suddenly felt like a costume—too shiny, too exposed. You felt stupid for wearing it.
For pretending.
For not even knowing what exactly you were pretending for.
Pretending you were fine? Pretending you didn't love him? Pretending you didn't know this—this... date or whatever it was—could hurt him?
Right... pretending you didn't care still, and that you could hurt him.
Except you couldn't. Not anymore.
You didn't want to, even if he had. Even if your pride screamed in pain, and the anger swelled just like the night before at your place, when glasses of rum and Coke solidified this stupid revenge plan that sobriety now showed you was useless and stupid.
Even if in the past, you probably would've had no problem doing so. Because back then, you were way more convinced of your hate towards Osamu Miya, of your indifference towards him. Of the cold that defined your relationship.
The cruel words he'd said, the sharp satisfaction you'd take in watching him fail, the frustration whenever he wouldn't fall apart the same way you did.
During those years, revenge was a promise, ego disguised as justice, a ritual whispered to the ceiling on your worst sleepless nights.
But now, it felt more like a joke, hurt replacing pride. Like the harmless bark of a toothless dog.
After standing face to face, after the ego was boiled and softened, after maturity and time had made you both into adults, every carefully sharpened word you practiced to yourself in the shower whenever you went over your past fights dulled on your tongue.
The anger was still there—it burned, it begged to be unleashed—but it had nowhere to go.
Because under the anger was that something softer, traitorous, and alive.
It wasn't forgiveness. Not exactly. Not yet.
It was the ache of remembering the sound of his laugh, the way his eyes had once softened, the warmth that had no right to still exist. And that warmth was unbearable. It made vengeance impossible.
So you could do nothing but swallow it—the fury, the pain, the longing—until it tasted like frustration, like self-betrayal.
You couldn't hurt him anymore, even if he had.
The cigarette trembled between your fingers as you exhaled, watching the smoke unravel and vanish into the dark.
The izakaya's door creaked open behind you, then shut again. A warm weight settled across your shoulders—Atsumu's jacket.
"It's chilly out'ere," he said quietly.
"Mhm." You hummed, voice small.
"Look, I'm sorry 'bout what happened in there," he went on, tone gentler than usual. "But don't be too hard on Sunarin. He's as much your friend as Samu's, y'know? Bet it messed with his head, keepin' that from ya. Fakin' and stuff."
"Right…" you sighed. "Well, I'm no better, I guess."
Atsumu tilted his head. "Why's that?"
"I only asked you out to piss your brother off," you admitted, wincing a little. "I'm sorry."
Atsumu just smiled, gentle.
"Heh. Don't be, love. I was kinda doin' the same."
You blinked up at him. "Huh. You're scummy."
"Hey! Weren't ya just callin' me the only honest man here?"
You couldn't help it—you laughed. He laughed, too.
"So this was—what? A social experiment for you?" you said, narrowing your eyes, but smiling all the same.
"More like field research." He lifted a shoulder in an exaggerated shrug. "Wanted to see what kinda woman could make my brother forget how to use his brain."
He studied you for another beat, watching your smile disappear and noticing the sudden small wave of self-pity that followed, hitting him suddenly. Like the selfish need to see that smile again, to bask in its light for a little longer.
"Guess I get it now," he muttered, looking away.
You didn't trust yourself to answer. So you reached for a second cigarette and offered one to him.
He laughed, shaking his head. "No, thank you. I'm a world-class athlete, remember? Gotta keep my lungs pure."
You rolled your eyes. "Right. Forgot you're a regional treasure."
"Damn right," he said with a grin. Then, after a pause: "So tell me somethin', love. Why do ya hate my brother so much you'd put yourself through the absolute pain of goin' on a date with me?"
You huffed out a small laugh, lighting up your cigarette, smoke curling from your lips.
"I don't hate him."
"No?"
"…I used to." You looked at the cigarette between your fingers, the ember bright against the dark. "Back in culinary school. He drove me insane."
Atsumu tilted his head, curiosity flickering in his eyes, you smiled at his expression and tried to choose your words carefully.
"Have you ever had... Bees in your head?" you finally asked, quiet and a little small.
Atsumu blinked. "Bees in my head?"
You grimaced. "Forget it."
"No, no—wait. I wanna know. You've got bees in your head?"
You laughed despite yourself, a weak sound.
"Yeah. They buzz when I cook. When I think something's not right. When the knife's not perfectly aligned or a pan's too close to the edge. I just… can't stop them. And if I do one thing wrong, it spirals. Everything collapses, and I panic big time. It's stupid."
Atsumu's voice softened. "Doesn't sound stupid."
You shrugged, eyes on the pavement. "Osamu didn't have bees. He was just good. Effortless. I'd be sweating over a sauce for hours, second-guessing everything, and he'd stroll in, throw in something insane like… soy sauce and peaches, and somehow it'd taste amazing. I thought he didn't care. That he wasn't even trying."
Atsumu huffed out a small laugh, shaking his head. "Samu would totally fly off the handle if he heard that. Specially coming from you."
"What?" you asked, tilting your head up at him. Atsumu looked up into the night sky with a fond smile.
"You didn't see him after class—heh. He'd come home 'n rage big time, pacing 'round the kitchen, talkin' 'bout how nothin' he made was good enough..." He looked back at you and pointed at himself with a smile. "I was his taste-tester, y'know? Half those 'perfect' combos you saw were born after he put me through three different disasters."
You froze, cigarette halfway to your lips. "…Oh."
Atsumu looked at you sideways, a teasing smile tugging at his mouth. "Yeah. He tried, love. He'd lose sleep. Cry and panic just like the rest of y'all. I didn't even understand why he was puttin' himself through that half the time. I used to fight him over it. Used to tell him he'd be way happier if he just stuck to volleyball."
"How did he take that?"
"He threw a pot at my head. Almost hit me." Atsumu shrugged. "I deserved it. Now I understand how much he loves what he does. I think back then I was just... worried 'bout him, y'know? He was having a really rough time..."
Your eyes stung before you realized they were wet. You took a slow drag of your cigarette, but it tasted bitter now, like guilt burning the back of your throat.
"Aahh... I'm a horrible person, am I not?"
The worst part was realizing that everything you thought you hated about him hadn't even been real in the first place.
He hadn't been lazy. He hadn't been careless. He hadn't been mocking you with his calm—he'd just been trying, in his quiet, stubborn way, the same way you always were.
You'd built this entire wall of resentment around a person who never existed, and now that it was crumbling, you didn't even know who you were angry at anymore. Suddenly, all that anger, all that righteous indignation, all those hours you spent convincing yourself he didn't deserve your respect—it all felt hollow.
Because he'd never been what you decided he was.
Because now you were questioning even where that "hate" came from in the first place.
Maybe you'd hated him out of envy.
Maybe you'd hated him out of pride.
Maybe you'd hated him just to keep yourself safe from what you actually felt.
You didn't know anymore.
You wrapped your arms around yourself, fingers pressing into the soft fabric of Atsumu's jacket.
The thought was unbearable—
that he had hurt you, but you couldn't hurt him back, that you still loved him, and that the version of him you'd built to hate was never real to begin with.
And now, even the little bit of sense the world used to make just... didn't anymore.
Kita, Suna, hate, love, revenge, pride—
it all tangled together until you couldn't tell one feeling from the other.
Atsumu noticed the silence stretch too long, his tone softening as he leaned a little closer.
"…You okay?"
You blinked the tears away, forcing your gaze up to him.
"Could you... take me home, please?"
Atsumu hesitated, the teasing gone from his face.
Then he smiled—small, kind, and gentle as warm honey.
"Sure thing, love."
He adjusted his jacket so it settled properly on your shoulders before heading back inside to grab his keys and tell Suna he'd be back in a bit.
You waited for him outside, smoking in silence.
The night pressed close and quiet, the smoke curling upward until it vanished into the dark.
When he came back out, he took the cigarette from your fingers and stamped it out, the faint hiss echoing before the city swallowed it whole.
⋆⭒˚.⋆ as a waitress, you’re used to strange encounters. this one might just be the strangest
⋆⭒˚.⋆ 2.8k
⋆⭒˚.⋆ mentions of violence, guns, blood
⋆⭒˚.⋆ “ppl who celebrate fictional-” FUCK THAT HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON TODD
the dreaded night shift.
a pain enough as it is. but in gotham city? unpredictable, dangerously so.
you have been working at the diner for a few months now, needing the money because being a struggling art student doesn't exactly keep a roof over your head.
it wasn't the most glamorous job, the clientele ranged from rowdy teenagers to the elderly to low level thugs, but it kept you afloat long enough to continue your studies.
you had only worked the graveyard shift a handful of times, but each time was its own unique experience.
the most recent one you worked was about a week and a half ago, where you heard at least two rounds of gunshots before you saw the batmobile speeding past the restaurant.
another time, a guy was thrown through the front window. no one was hurt, well except for that guy. the diner reopened in a record 4 days time. apparently the owner has a window guy.
so the job was eventful, to say the least
tonight was relatively quiet, not a lot of customers, except for your regular, harold. a nice man in his late 50s, who always only orders a black coffee and a slice of apple pie. but other than him, it hasn't been busy.
the only downside of a somewhat peaceful shift is how excruciatingly slow time seemed to move during that shift. you kept yourself busy with some cleaning until eventually it was time to close up.
you let out a sigh as you finish tidying everything up, moving to lock the front door and putting up the closed sign. the only thing left to do was to take out the trash. which you had to do through the back entrance, through the alley. its the part you hated the most.
you gathered all your stuff before begrudgingly moving to the back. you take off your apron before grabbing the two large garbage bags, you push open the door with your foot and walk as quickly as you can to the large dumpster. you muster all your strength to toss the bags in there, shuddering in disgust after.
you turn to rush back in the diner when you hear it.
a noise, you stop in your tracks.
in a city like gotham, it's never really a question between fight or flight. because the answer is almost always flight. so you book it.
when you're in reach of the door handle, that's when you hear a loud groan, making you freeze again.
flight. flight. your curiosity is not worth this, you chant in your head.
another groan.
fuck.
"hello?" you're an idiot.
"is someone out here?" absolutely stupid.
your question is answered by a hiss in pain. you contemplate your next action. maybe you should look for another job. you let a deep sigh as your feet move before your brain makes the logical decision to go back inside. you follow the sound of the shuffling clothes.
a little past the dumpster you can make out a pair of boots. you move closer and confirm that its the source of the sound. you almost tip toe, before you gasp in surprise.
the red hood.
the red hood slouched against an alleywall, gripping his leg in pain.
"oh fuck." you let out involuntarily. his head shoots up and before you know it you're staring down the barrel of a gun.
"holy shit." you exclaim as your arms come up in surrender, "this is so uncalled for. i just wanted to help."
he eyes you over once, or you assume he is. you can't tell with the helmet. he lets out another hiss as he lowers the gun, though your nerves are not easing up. you hesitate before speaking up, "are you hurt?" you cringe at yourself, "well yes, obviously. but like, are you gonna be okay? or do you need to go to the hospital or anything?"
he shakes his head, "n-no hospital." he coughs out.
you nod, "okay, no hospital. i don't think you can stay here though. cause you look like you're in a lot of pain. unless someone is picking you up."
another shake of his head.
you glance back at the door, huffing out a breath. "i hope i dont regret this." you mutter under your breath, you think he heard you anyway. "can you- uh get up or move at all?" he stares at you. "theres a first aid kit inside, i can help you or at least try."
he doesn't answer.
"i mean i can bring it out here but-" you’re cut off by a loud thunderclap followed by a heavy downpour. you jump in surprise and quickly crouch down. "okay. we need to head inside right now." you tell him before pulling on his arm. he groans as he struggles to his feet, almost falling over before you steady him. you pull his arm over your shoulder to help him walk to the door.
"jesus fucking-" you curse as his weight is rested upon you. "just a little more." you whisper, mostly to yourself. finally, you make it inside, but you lose your footing slightly and feel him slip out of your grasp.
he tries to catch himself on a nearby table but falls to the floor with a groan anyway. you gasp, scrambling to close the door before grabbing a chair and helping him back up. "oh fuck, sorry."
he flops in the chair with a whine, head slumping forward. quickly, you search for the first aid, flipping through the cabinets and drawers.
when you finally spot it, you let out a sigh of relief, you grab it and make your way back to the injured vigilante. "got it. now, where exactly are you hurt?"
he gestures to his thigh. you nod to yourself. you're not quite sure where to start. you kneel down to inspect his thigh. he takes his hand away and you can see how his pants were completely saturated with his blood. you suck in a breath, opening the kit. "i need to get a better look. can i- uh cut your pants?" he nods, "go 'head."
you take the scissors and carefully cut a slit through the material. once you've done so you can see his wound more clearly, "this is a stab wound."
"you don't say." he quips, making you look back up at him quizzically. you ignore him and reach for the gauze and gently put it over his wound and apply slight pressure, making him hiss through his teeth, doubling over in pain as he instinctively put his hand on your arm to steady himself. his face is now very close to yours, you can feel the heat of his skin. he turns to meet your eyes.
you mutter a quick apology. after a minute or two, and changing the gauze, the bleeding seemed to have slowed down.
you reach for your half empty water bottle on the table. you open it pour it over his thigh to clean his wound. after a few passes with a towel, you've managed to somewhat clean his injury.
"okay i dont have anything for stitches so i’m just gonna try wrap and bandage it."
"great."
you're not sure how long it takes you to patch him up, but it feels like you've been here for ages. you're washing your hands when you hear him stir. he hasn't said much to you apart from the occasional comment. you watch as he sits up, reaching for the side of his helmet. you hear a click before he slowly takes it off.
you're met with a head of dark hair, though the front tuft of his hair is white. your brows furrow in intrigue then in confusion as you notice he's wearing a domino mask.
fuck. he's... attractive. you shake the thought from your head. there's no way you're crushing on a vigilante.
you don't say anything but move closer, though you avoid eye contact as you reach down to clean up the first aid kit. you can feel his eyes follow you.
"why are you helping me?"
his voice rings out, making you jump slightly. you turn to face him. "would you rather i let you bleed out in the rain?" you say, softer than you intended.
"either you're really brave or plain stupid." he remarks. your head tilts, "definitely somewhere inbetween." you retort back, pressing your lips inbetween. “also i’m worried you’ll hunt me down now that i know what you look like.” you gesture to his helmet sitting on the table.
his brows tighten in confusion, “you don't know what i look like or who i am.” he grunts.
your lips curl, “okay, i may not know your name or anything but it wouldn't be difficult to pick you out of a lineup. your hair’s a dead giveaway.”
he stays silent, you're worried you've upset him but he bows his head again and lets you continue to treat him.
"you do this often?" red hood asks, gesturing to his injured leg and the bandages in your hand.
"what? treat the wounds of vigilantes? almost exclusively." you can see a slight tug on his lips at your comment. "you seem experienced."
you shrug, "i took a class."
his lips curl upward as he looks at you. "you looked scared before."
"thought you were a rat or like, a murderer." you admit, "murderer is probably worse, right?"
you're shocked as you hear the red hood let out a chuckle, "a rat?"
"hey! have you seen those things? they're humungous. like they're mutated or something. it’s a valid fear, i hate rats."
he shakes his head at you, "yeah fair. i expected you to be a little more freaked out."
"who says i’m not?"
"you hide it well."
"figured you already got stabbed tonight, don't need a sobbing waitress on top of all that."
he breathes out a laugh, "how thoughtful."
it’s quiet for a moment before you decide to speak again. "so the person who stabbed you isn't gonna come looking for you here right?"
"probably not."
"like 100% not or-"
"he’s not gonna come. trust me."
does that mean he's dead? you decide the less you know the better.
"you work here?" he gestures around the room. you hum, "the outfit give it away? or do i just have that tired waitress look about me?"
"nah, you look great." he pauses, "i mean- you know considering you had to haul my ass all the way inside."
"right."
his eyes dart around the room, his gun is resting on the table, he doesn't even remember putting it there. he sees you eyeing it uncomfortably before quickly putting it away in his thigh holster.
"you always work this late?"
"not always. i actually wasn't supposed to work tonight but the other waitress got mugged last night, so she's a bit banged up. had to take her shift."
you heard him curse under his breath, "did they catch who did it?"
"i dont think so."
hood shook his head, "you need to be more careful. especially if you're alone out this late. or get a better job."
you scoff, "i can't afford to go look for another job. i'm already under a mountain of stress with school and I'm not about to add jobhunting to that load."
red hood stares at you blankly, his lips parting as if he wants to say something but he stays silent for bit. "what are you studying?"
you blink at him, taken aback at his interest. "graphic design. third year."
he hums, eyebrows raising. "so like logos and stuff?" you shrug, "sure, i guess."
while the mask covers a good portion of his face, his eyes pierce through persistently, captivating in a strange way. his gaze is unwavering, almost as if he's studying you, trying to read you. it feels wrong to break eye contact, you're not sure why, but you do anyway.
"you always wanted to do that?"
"not sure. there's a lot I've always wanted to do."
"so why not do it?"
your eyes narrow at him, "because it's gotham. you either gotta be born into it or cheat, lie, and scam your way to the top for opportunities like that."
you see him purse his lips, head tilting toward you. "yeah, i would advise you not to keep the wrong people company.”
"ive lived here my whole life, i stay out of trouble."
"you do realize what you just did tonight, right?" he points to the door. you put your hands up in mock surrender, "you got me there but still, saved your ass."
"hmm, saved is a strong word." he counters, clicking his tongue. your eyes widen, "no, it’s the correct word. who's not bleeding out anymore? exactly.”
you can see him fighting off a smile, hanging his head as he shakes his head in amusement. "so you always wanted to be a waitress?"
"oh definitely. that and saving red hood's smart ass." you retort. "glad i could fulfill one of your wishes then." he says, leaning back in the chair, carefully stretching out his injured leg.
"so you admit i saved you."
"your word against mine, sweetheart."
the nickname jolts something inside you, maybe it's the lack of affection you'd been nursing for the past year, maybe your nerves are still somewhat shaken after everything that's happened tonight.
maybe it's him.
no. this is the red hood, gun wielding, masked vigilante.
"so what's good here?"
his voice snaps you out of your thoughts, your eyebrows pinch together in question. "the diner." he clarifies. "oh. well the coffee is mediocre at best and the food is mostly reheated slop so. very few things that are actually fresh." you say leaning back in your chair, “but i swear by the blueberry pancakes.”
“blueberry pancakes?” he questions with a chuckle. you nod back eagerly, “trust me. best thing on the menu.”
he hums, his eyes refuse to leave you. you look away for a second, still feeling his stare on you.
you clear your throat,
“sounds like the rain’s easing up.” you mutter, drumming your fingers against your thighs. you look back to him once more, eyes widening as you realize, “fuck, do you want something to drink?” you don't wait for his answer, quickly getting up and walking over to the front to grab him a bottle of water.
as you walk back, you're already unscrewing the cap and reaching out to hand it to him. to your surprise you return to an empty room. your eyes widen as you look around the room.
the chair is empty, his helmet on the table is gone too. it’s eerily quiet, like he was never even here.
your head tilts in confusion at the notepad that sits atop your bag. you always left it in your apron, which was on the counter. you go to pick it up. a note, in handwriting you don’t recognize,
thank you.
— r.h.
you heave a sigh, a small smile tugging at your lips.
a week later you're still working at the diner, your normal dayshift.
you still think about your encounter with the red hood, finding yourself keeping an ear out anytime the news was on. sneaking a look at the newspaper headlines every time you pass the news stand on your way to work.
you're not sure why you can't shake him, he's probably already forgotten about you.
you're balancing two plates when you hear the bell, indicating someone has entered the diner. putting the plates down and grabbing the coffee pot, you see someone take a seat at the counter through your peripheral. “i’ll be right with you, sir” you call out to him.
“here you go, harold.” you smile at the man as you refill his coffee. quickly, you walk over to the other side of the counter where your newest customer is sitting. you grab a clean mug and set it down. “what can i get you, sir?” you ask as you pour his coffee, not really looking at him.
“i’ll have the blueberry pancakes.”
you freeze at the voice. your gaze shifts.
his eyes are the first thing you notice, his head is covered by a hoodie but the front of his hair peeks through, confirming your assumptions.
your mouth is slightly agape, staring at the man in front of you. he sees the recognition on your face, a small grin forming on his lips.
you're knocked out of your stupor by the call bell, an order to pick up. you shake your head as if to come back to your senses. he’s still there.
“blueberry pancakes?” your hope your voice didn't come out shaky. he nods, "someone recommended them.”
“well, good choice then.”
“counting on it.”
“will that be all?”
“i think so. for now.”
“okay, i’ll have that right out for you...” you drag it out, head tilting in waiting. he smirks, “jason.”
you can't fight the smile on your lips, “jason.” you repeat.
summary: Being rejected from Metropolis University? Humbling. Your boyfriend of four years dumping you a year later thanks to his dead parents? Even worse. But when your friend tries to get you out of your dorm after two weeks spent bed-rotting and takes you to a photoshoot audition — "Just to try something new!" — you find yourself with a lot of attention you didn't want and a billionaire playboy on your tail.
pairing(s): bruce wayne x reader, (ex) clark kent x childhoodsweetheart!reader
word count: 21.7k (my longest fanfic yet)
warnings: inaccuracies regarding the position of the towns (used this map for reference) and college admissions, if you don't really understand why reader is beware of bruce then you might want to go and read a little sumsum about epstein island (my girl is right not to want anything to do with a billionaire), bruce is so not nonchalant, he's also kinda bi (OF COURSE HE IS HE'S A SLUT!!! AND OF COURSE IT'S WITH HARVEY), no trouple sorry, blood, one (1) gunshot as well as one (1) scott pilgrim reference, bruce and reader trauma bond over their weird exes, merry christmas/please don't call trope, suggestive maybe, swear words, angst and fluff, dick makes an apparition at the end (if there's anything I'm forgetting pls lmk)
author's note: credits to @lovingyoulovinme for the concept, taken from this post! bruce and clark can be imagined as any transposition of their characters, but honestly I tried my best not to think of david corenswet while writing this cuz I'd NEVERRRR let that man go. EVER. english isn't my first language so construcitve criticism is always welcome!!
dividers from @uzmacchiato! <3
You’ve known Clark Kent all your life.
That happens when he’s the only kid in a three-mile radius near the house you were raised in — and that also happens when your mothers have been best friends for more than twenty years. There are pictures of him, barely one year old, sitting on the couch of your parent’s living room while cooing at the pink bundle in your mother’s arms — you. From then on, it’s unusual to see a photo of the two of you not together.
He’s there when you start crawling, clapping his hands in encouragement, a picture showing him smushing his cheek against yours in triumph as you smile with the only two teeth you have. He holds you steady as you take your first steps, a bit wobbly himself, and you both fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter as you crumble down to the floor. He teaches you his name as soon as you start talking, and when he’s over to your farm you end up following him like a lost puppy, chanting ClarkClarkClarkClark! loud enough for your father to take a peek out of the living room to make sure you’re okay.
You’re four when you participate to your first dance recital, grinning wildly while wearing the pinkiest tutu your father could find at the only costume shop Smallville has, and when you get off stage after a choreography only the parents of the kids doing it could enjoy, you find a red-cheeked Clark holding a bouquet of flowers almost bigger than him. Your parents watch with knowing smiles as you squeal and topple him to the ground, smooshing your cheek against his.
“You shouldn’t have, Jon,” your mother whispers to Pa Kent, “I know flowers are getting expensive these days.”
He barely brushes her comment aside, “Oh, shut it, woman, he wanted to. ‘Sides, Eleonor from the flower shop already owed us a favour.” he chuckles quietly, “Why, you tellin’ me it bothers you to see her so happy with her itty-bitty pink tutu and her bouquet?”
By this point, both you and Clark are back on your feet, and you’re jumping around — showing off your flowers to the friends you’ve made in the dance class while dragging Clark along by the hand. The kid is as red as a tomato, shuffling his feet awkwardly as you hold the bouquet like it’s an infant.
Safe to say, you and Clark are thick as thieves growing up: it’s rare to see him around without you and vice versa, aside from school hours — and even then, you’re always together during breaks and such, and given that you take the same school bus and even get down at the same spot there’s never a day where the seat next to you or next to him is empty.
Since the Kent farm and yours aren’t that far away you’re both often found wandering in the fields between your houses, sometimes even bringing your lunch lovingly wrapped in an embroidered cloth by your mum, who — same as Ma Kent — always packs not one but two meals; one for you, one for Clark. Of course, you both take advantage of the situation and always end up eating the whole feast without leaving a single crumb, only to then pass out for usually two or three hours after the ordeal on your little beaten up blanket.
When everybody starts picking on him when he gets glasses — horrendous, thick-lenses ones — you just hold his hand while laying together on the hammock that hangs on two of the trees outside his farm, probably older than Pa Kent himself. “Who cares?” you mumble over his muffled sobs, hugging his side tight. “They all suck anyway. Besides, if they think the glasses look bad on you, maybe it’s their eyes that need fixing.”
You’re nine when you first see him fly. It’s an accident — he thought you were in town with your parents, but opted to stay home instead and went to the Kent farm for a surprise visit — and he doesn’t talk to you for a week, too scared of confrontation. Things slide back in place as soon as Martha understands what happened and gives him a stern talk about friends and secrets; not even an hour later you’re aware of all his history — the meteor shower of ten years ago actually being his space pod entering the atmosphere, him coming from another planet and having freaking superpowers.
You’ve always known Clark was special — always thought that he was one of a kind, a boy too gentle to be like everyone. You just didn’t know that special would have meant from another galaxy.
Not a lot changes by the time you start going to middle and then high school — Clark’s one of the few boys in town that growing up didn’t have a phase or permanently turned into a dickhead. The Kents raised him well, making sure he never disrespected anyone without a good reason to, and even then he’s often too nice to act on it — unless it involves someone other than him. If there’s someone who’s being given trouble at school, he always finds a way to help — even if he himself isn’t really one of the popular kids either.
That’s what you like about Clark. The ability to look bigger than he is if needed to and a heart of gold that would make the nicest man on Earth look pale in comparison.
Of course, it’s not a surprise to anyone when you two start dating — it was just a matter of time, clearly. The only visible change is the hand-holding and kissing; when you tell the Kents, as Martha squeals and jumps up to hug you, Jon just sits there with a confused look on his face while scratching his chin. “You tellin’ me you two weren’t together this whole time?”
Those are definitely the best years of your life, you think one summer evening as you lay on the same battered blanket of ten years ago in the same tulip field with the same boy. It’s just that this time he’s double the size and officially your boyfriend, who holds you tight against his chest while basking in the blazing sun.
“Will you ever take me flying?” you ask, eyes barely open — just what you need to look at him, golden and smiling. He chuckles, “You’d like me to?”
You nod enthusiastically. You’ve rarely ever gotten out of Smallville, aside from school trips and a couple of vacations with your parents, so it’s safe to say that you’ve never even gotten on a plane in your entire life, with the closest airport being in Metropolis. Clark, you guess, is the next best thing you have to a plane.
“Dunno, sweetheart,” he presses a kiss to the crown of your hair, “If Pa saw me fly with you, he’d yell at me to get down and start a long lecture about being seen and the dangers of it. Maybe when they’re out of town, mh?”
You hum, almost half asleep, lulled by his hand gently caressing your back under your shirt and the warmth of the sun. “I’ll hold you to that one.”
But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end — and just two years after that conversation in the field you find yourself in Clark’s room, holding back your tears as you help him pack his things for college. You should be happy for him — he’s been accepted into the Journalism course, which has been his dream for years — but you just can’t shake the thought of him being so far away in the big city while you’re still stuck here for another year.
You like Smallville — you love the farm, the animals and the constant fresh air — but there’s basically nothing there aside from fields and the school. You and Clark have never been so far away from each other for so long — you honestly don’t know how you’ll manage without him around. Sure, you have other friends, but nobody could ever make up for his absence.
And that’s why you’ve been spending the last two weeks tied to his side — helping him get ready for his move and packing old shirts and jeans. You almost burst out in tears when you see him sneaking an old picture of you in a tutu and a bouquet in one of the boxes.
He notices you staring — of course he notices. He’s already noticed how on edge you’ve seemed in these last few months, and if he’s right the dam is about to break in a million pieces right in front of him.
Clark gets up from his place on the floor, wiping his hands on his jeans, “Everything alright?”
You look at him– really look at him. Your lips tremble, tears begin to form in your waterline and judging by the rapid beats of your heartbeat you’re about to have a complete breakdown. Finally, you whimper, “I don’t want you to go,”
The dam breaks. You start ugly crying, full-on sobbing as Clark hugs you and holds you tight against his chest, “No– I mean– I want you to go, it’s– it’s a great opportunity– but I don’t want you to leave me here all alone–” your sobs rattle against his chest and your words are barely understandable, but for someone with super empathy — you’re sure that’s a real thing and an actual true power of his — and super hearing it’s pretty understandable.
His eyes soften. “I wouldn’t leave you here if it was my choice,” he murmurs, “I’d take you with me in a heartbeat, but we’ll have to start somewhere if we want to eventually move out of here together. In a year you’ll finish high school, and until then I’ll still visit constantly.” he smiles sweetly, “You could come to visit me too. Did you know that they just finished building the railway connecting Midvale to Metropolis? How convenient is that?”
His heart breaks even more when you don’t stop crying. His shirt is damp by now, and you are starting to hyperventilate — sobs becoming more drawn and hoarse. “Hey, hey,” he takes your face in his hands, wiping away your tears with his thumbs, “we’ll be okay, alright? Nothing will change. We haven’t been friends for seventeen years only for things to change because of– what, a hundred miles of distance?” he starts peppering your damp cheeks with kisses, managing to get a strained laugh out of you. “I didn’t come all the way here from another galaxy just to forget about you the second I move out of town.”
You’re back in the Kent’s farm two days later to say goodbye to Clark along with some close friends of his, and you cry more than you’d like to admit — but for now it doesn’t matter, because he’s still here and still able to wipe your tears with a gentle hand and dry the dampness on your cheeks with kisses. The real problems will arise when he won’t be able to do that anymore — and it happens soon after: he and Jon get on his truck and start driving towards Metropolis.
You stay seated on the Kent’s porch until Clark’s truck isn’t visible anymore, and Martha gently puts a hand on your shoulder. “Want a slice of pie? Lemon blueberry tart, your favorite. I made it… well, I kind of knew this sadness was coming.” she gives you a tight-lipped smile, teary herself. “I’ll miss him too. But it’s not the end of the world, is it? It’s just a new beginning. Besides, a couple of months and it’ll be Christmas. And you know we always spend Christmas together, hun.”
The next few months are spent between your studies for the admission tests for University and hours-long calls with Clark, who’s enthusiastically adapting to life in the big city as you try not to give away too much that you’re rightfully sulking back at home. Christmas is a nice break from your longing, and you barely spend any time apart from each other, but after that it’s back to square one.
Much to your displeasure, the calls start to become less and less long — and you really don’t want to be the type of girlfriend that stalks her boyfriend’s every step, but you really miss him, and it’s hard staying in Smallville without him when you’ve only known the town with him in it. He’s just starting to make new friends and getting to know the city, and you know that, but you wish you could be there with him instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Spring break comes, and with it your train ticket from Midvale to Metropolis and your hunk of a boyfriend waiting for you at the arrival station. You nearly tackle him to the ground — and that says something, because he played football in high school — and kiss him fervently right here and there, not really caring about being in public. He takes your luggage like the real gentleman he is and tries not to laugh when you take his hand and start skipping like Heidi as he leads the way to his apartment.
It’s definitely the shortest week of your existence — you get to have a preview of the life you’ll have with Clark in Metropolis, but not really the whole thing. You try to forget about how soon you’ll have to be back home as he shows you around and introduces you to his friends, and try to ignore the fact that while you’ve been wallowing in your own pity and having breakdowns weekly he seems to be just fine — peachy, even. As you barely manage to adapt in an environment without him, he’s thriving without you — and you know it’s not specifically because of your absence, but still. It drives you crazy, the way you seem to cling on him for everything as he manages to handle even the most complicated things alone.
The week ends, and you go back home — maybe it’s for the best, you try to reason with yourself. You’re not sure of how much you could go on without going crazy while seeing him being perfectly fine without you as you’re spending every day missing him, and you’re starting to doubt yourself. Maybe he just doesn’t need you as much as you need him, and that hurts, because you’ve spent all your life by his side and don’t really know how to change that.
You still try to put up a brave face when talking to him on the phone, even though you’ve been counting the days that remain until your graduation — and thus Clark’s next visit — and try to hide your anxiety about your college applications. Veterinary Science, you’ve chosen — pretty predictable for a farm girl who was raised around animals, really. Metropolis is your first choice, of course, but what you haven’t really told Clark are the other options — Gotham University, Central City College, and countless others that you don’t really want to mention to him.
Truth is, you’re not sure you’ll be accepted into Met U, and even if you did — you’re still not sure it would be the best option. Clark seems to be holding up the fort just perfectly without you — and since you’ve visited him in Metropolis, you’ve had this horrendous itch that you just aren’t able to actually scratch. Would you be able to create the life he’s having, alone? Are you melancholic just because you’re in Smallville, and to you Smallville has always meant Clark Kent? Would it be the same if you weren’t here but somewhere else, like Gotham?
Graduation day comes and goes, and not even Clark’s presence is able to bring you out of the existential crisis you feel you’re living in — because the thing is, you don’t really know how you would manage in a new city alone. You’ve never explored the idea because you’ve always taken for granted that Clark would’ve been there for you, but seeing the acceptance rate at Met U really gave you a reality check.
You spend the day throwing mostly fake smiles at everyone that congratulates you and going back to frowning at your shoes once they notice Clark at your side, not able to ignore the pit that’s formed in your stomach at the thought of not being accepted at Metropolis University anymore. But why do you really want to go there, anyways? Because there’s Clark? As much as you love him, you don’t want to live your life tied to his side only to then discover you can’t actually function without him.
And when, inevitably, the admission letters come back in, you try to act like you can keep it together — like you’re not nearly combusting at the mere idea of opening them. Clark comes over in the evening and you open them together, hearts thumping and feet tapping nervously against the ground. The first one you open, of course, is from Met U.
Dear miss, this is in regard to your application to the Veterinary Science program at Metropolis University, Delaware; we regret to inform you that…
You don’t even want to read the rest of the letter, immediately dropping it on the table and getting up from your seat to go take a breath of fresh air on the porch — trying to avoid the inevitable nervous breakdown waiting for you if you dare to look into Clark’s eyes. You don’t want to see the disappointment in them — you know he’d never really blame you, but you’ve been waiting for this moment for a whole year, and despite all your doubts you still wanted to be admitted. It’s, honestly, so humbling.
Clark is smart enough to give you a couple of minutes to yourself, coming to sit beside you on the porch when he’s sure you won’t burst out crying as soon as he mentions the subject, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “It’s not the end of the world,” he hushers, pressing a kiss to your temple, “you’ve been accepted to GCU, which is still closer to Metropolis than Smallville. Or– or Star City, too, even if that’s a bit far– whatever makes you happy, I’ll support that.”
You sniffle, rubbing the palm of your hand on your face. “You opened the other letters?”
He chuckles quietly, “Wouldn’t rob you of the experience. X-ray vision, remember?”
A small, broken laugh escapes you. “Oh, you and your outer-world powers.” he shares the laugh with you, the air lightening for just a moment before it goes back to heavy. “I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”
He flinches. “You– oh, sweetheart, no,” you can tell that he’s, for maybe the first time in his life, at a loss for words. “It’s… it’s just a mishap. They happen. It’s not your fault.”
You hide your face in your knees and hug them tight against your chest. “I was already imagining us two happily living together in Metropolis.” you're now imagining yourself not able to live alone without him and ending up all alone in the new city, whatever one it’ll be.
“And it will happen,” he assures you, “just, in… a couple of years. As soon as they let you transfer to Metropolis University.”
Life goes on. You choose to pursue Gotham University, even if your parents are a little worried about the percentage of violent crimes there, and find a little apartment near campus in a complex that’s owned by the School Department and offered to the students for a modest price in one of the relatively safest areas in town. Clark helps you pack and even drives you all the way to Gotham when it’s time for the semester to start, unloading all your things in his truck and carrying them up the stairs to your unit.
That being said, your roommate’s already there when you enter. “Jenna,” she introduces herself, enthusiastically shaking your hand as you let Clark do all the work in the background. She’s got a shirt with the drawing of a bat on and looks already settled in. “Heard you weren’t from around here, so I got you a little welcome present!” she passes you a glittery pink box with a bow on it, smiling excitedly.
You blush, hesitantly accepting the gift, “Oh, there was no need–”
She brushes you off with an easy smile, “Nonsense! Now, open it and tell me if you like it,” she’s buzzing with joy, and Clark curiously joins your side while wiping inexistent sweat from his forehead. You cautiously untie the ribbon, then open the box to reveal the gift, “It’s a…” you’re trying your best not to seem rude, but you’re really confused. “...A weirdly shaped bat?” Clark tries, not unkindly.
Your roommate doesn’t seem too disheartened by the inexistent recognition of her gift. “It’s a Bat-taser!” she says it like there could be no doubt ever about it. “They’re really popular these days. Trust me, you’ll need it.” a fucking taser. Shaped like a bat–
Clark perks up, “Oh, yeah– is it from the guy that goes around dressed like a bat?”
Jenna claps like he’s won the lottery. “Batman, yeah!”
You frown, “I’ve heard of him. Guys playing dress-up are getting really popular these days, aren’t they? Heard about a guy floating around in a horrendous green suit in Star City.” you lower your voice, making sure only Clark can hear you, “You sure he isn’t from your planet?”
“I sure hope not,” he whispers back, “would really taint the whole mysterious thing about being from an unknown planet, you know?”
Bat-taser aside, you find out pretty soon that Jenna’s actually really cool. She was born and raised in Gotham, apparently, and lunged at the idea of moving into a safer area of the city when given the opportunity. “Things are actually crazy around here,” she tells you as soon as Clark leaves — thank God, because the last thing you want is a far-away worried boyfriend that shriekes in fear every time you have to go out. “Got even crazier when Batman started going around. We’ve got so many insane criminals that a whole island’s basically dedicated to them.”
“You mean Arkham,” you recall, slouched on the couch beside her, “so the stories about the asylum are true?”
“Probably even watered down,” she muses, “the city’s had more lockdowns than sunny days these last few years.”
Well, isn’t that exciting. Something tells you that soon, you’ll learn exactly why Bat-tasers are so popular these days.
You adjust to life in Gotham pretty well — to be back home before the sun sets, to use all the locks on the door even if it’s still just noon and never ever leave a single window open. You and Jenna have the disadvantage of the balcony — a tiny little crane that looks onto the street below —, disadvantage, you learn confusedly, because apparently Batman and his friends (aka the lunatics that he follows around in the city) often swing by those and either break the rails (in Batman’s case) or straight up break-in (in the lunatics' case).
Adapting to Gotham is hard — but still easier, you must say, than adapting to a Smallville without Clark. It’s a new city, after all, void of any memories and full of new things, and soon enough you’re too immersed into your studies and the new city to constantly miss your boyfriend's presence.
It’s not that you don’t miss him — you do — it’s just different than in Smallville. It doesn’t feel like something — someone — is constantly missing, and you have enough things on your mind to keep Clark’s absence out of your mind until mid to late evening, when usually one of you calls the other to talk about how things are going.
Jenna helps, too — you find yourself being more close to her than you could ever imagine. It’s more like having a sister rather than a roommate, really. She manages somehow to get you a job at the same animal clinic she works at, and you've discovered more things that people can do in the last few months in Gotham than in your eighteen years of life, and that’s probably where farm life has stunted you.
She offers you your first cigarette — not really a cigarette, she specifies, it’s made out of natural herbs that should taste like strawberry or something like that — and soon enough you purchase two ten-dollar fold-in chairs from Target just for the thrill of sitting in your little hazardy balcony while gossiping about the other students or one of her fifty family members.
“And you?” she asks during a Saturday night in October, spent happily freezing outside while bundled up in a blanket each, “I bet at least one interesting thing happened in your eighteen years spent in your little farm town.”
You think about Clark flying and holding up cows and tractors like they’re berries, “The most interesting thing that can happen in Smallville is a particularly nice harvest. Even though I do recall that the milkman’s wife cheated on him with the mailman a couple of years ago.”
For Christmas, obviously, you go back home. Jenna tells you that she’ll take care of the plants and make sure that nobody dares to break in, even if she’s back to her parents in Chinatown. Clark picks you up at the Metropolis' train station, greeting you with a tight hug and a loving kiss, and you make the two-hour drive to Smallville together, chatting quietly about how the last few months have been. Not surprisingly, even with the distance between you two shortening to eighty-seven miles rather than the hundred from Smallville, you haven’t really had the time to see each other.
Something’s going on with Clark. You’re not really sure what it is, but the look in his eyes troubles you. He looks dazed, almost dull, and he isn’t anything like your usual loverboy Kent is.
“Hey,” you whisper to him on Christmas Eve night, as everyone chatters happily while waiting for midnight to open the presents, “everything alright?”
“Mh?” he looks taken aback. “Oh, yeah, I’m just…” he sighs, slumping his head against your shoulder, “lost in my own thoughts, I think.”
“Well, what about them?”
His brows furrow. “Not sure yet.” he looks up at you, pretty blue eyes shining under the dim light of the living room, “Do you ever think that my powers should be used for good?”
You stay silent for a moment. “I think you’re too kind to use them in any way but for good. Why?”
“I don’t mean ‘helping my parents in the farm’ good,” he nuzzles his nose on your shoulder, leaving a faint kiss there. “I mean, like, ‘helping citizens during a crisis’ good.”
You blink. “You’ve got a heart of gold, Clark Kent,” you hush lovingly, pressing a kiss into his curls, “but as much as I love that about you, I don’t think you should put that burden on your shoulders. If you could, you’d help everyone, but that can’t really be possible. There’ll always be an old lady you couldn’t help walking the street, or a girl you couldn’t save from a mugger.”
His eyes are so soft that they might melt you too. “Why are you telling me this?”
You frown in the most gentle way possible. “Because I’m worried that if you start being like Green Lantern or– or Batman, you’ll never be able to come to terms with the people you weren’t able to help.”
“I still could try to help,” he argues without any spite.
You study his face — oh, your sweet, sweet boy… “Jenna told me stories,” you murmur, “about Batman having to crawl back to his car, bloodied and barely alive, and sometimes even fainting in some God-forgotten alley — saved only because of some good samaritans that helped him get back up on his feet. I… I know that you might feel like you have a mission, Clark, but you have to consider the downsides of it.” you shake your head gently, “I don’t want you to be the man lying half-dead in a dark alley while I wonder why you’re so late to dinner.”
Of course, none of you knows the true extent of Clark’s powers — that happens when someone has to hide them for all of his life. When the winter break comes to an end, you go back to Gotham with Clark like always, but this time the car ride is silent. He drops you off at your apartment, carries your luggage up the stairs and kisses you goodbye like nothing’s wrong — like the air isn’t heavy with something.
Your days go on like always — you listen to your lessons, study, have a half-decent lunch with Jenna, listen to some more lessons, do your shift at the animal clinic and get back home before the sun goes down. The calls with Clark have slightly lessened, and you’d like to think that the blame can be put on the shoulders of the exam season, which — you are sure of it — is kicking both of your asses. Everything continues just fine until April comes.
Clark calls, which by now it’s unusual because it’s always you that calls him. “Hello?” Your reply comes after a few rings, because it’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday and you sure as hell weren’t thinking about getting out of bed before it was time for lunch. Silence meets you on the other end. “I said, hello?”
“Hi,” Clark’s voice is the tiniest squeal, a very unusual thing for him — he’s never insecure about something, and when he is, you talk it out like the responsible people you’d like to think you are.
You sigh softly on the phone, already fighting back sleep, “Hi, baby,” you yawn loudly, “what’s up?”
“I, um…” he stutters for a bit, maybe unsure of where to start. “I’m in town for a couple of commissions. Are you up for a coffee?”
Well, if that doesn’t wake you up, you don’t know what would. “You’re here? In Gotham?”
“Yeah.” you do hear the ever persistent GCPD sirens screech on his end of the line.
“Not that I’m mad about it, but why?”
Another weird silence. “I told you, had a couple of commissions to run.”
It confuses you — what kind of job would Clark have to do in Gotham, and why didn’t he even tell you about it before coming here? — but you just shrug it off, taking for granted that he’ll explain everything about it when you see him. You get ready to meet him downtown quite happily, thinking about maybe a surprise, but nothing could really prepare you for what’s about to come.
“I think we should break up.”
The words ring in your ears. You’ve never pondered about the option of Clark and you breaking up — honestly, you’ve known him for so long that it just wasn’t even a thought in your head. Ever since you were little, you’d dreamed of the day you’d finally be able to marry Clark Kent and have the life you’d always fantasized about with him.
The café he told you to meet him in is nice. Not one of the fancy ones in uptown Gotham, but not even one of the worst ones down in Crime Alley. You’re pretty sure you’d actually be able to enjoy it if it wasn’t for the fact that your boyfriend of four years is dumping you in it and you have no idea why. You can’t even form an actual thought, let alone an intelligent one, so the only thing that escapes your mouth is, “Uh?”
He doesn’t look so comfortable either. It’s your first time getting dumped, but it’s also his first time dumping someone, you guess. “I just think it’s not working anymore between us. That we may need some time to figure things out on our own.” the shock must be written on your face, because he almost flinches. “Don’t look at me like that, please.”
“A cappuccino, an espresso and a croissant,” the waitress pretends not to listen as she brings you guys your order, but you saw her staring earlier. You shake your head in disbelief as soon as she leaves, pinching the bridge of your nose to try to make sense of anything that’s happening right now. “So you mean to tell me that the commission you had to do in Gotham… was to break up with me?”
He grimaces. “Don’t say it like that,”
“How else should I put it?” you hiss, “Clark, we’ve been together for four years — friends for all my existence even before that. You’ve been in my life since I can remember and you want to break up with me with the whole ‘I don’t think it’s working anymore’ bullshit? No, my guy, you’ll have to tell me a lot more than that. What is up with you?”
He presses his lips together for a brief moment, “I managed to get my degree earlier than I expected,” he almost stumbles over his words, “I… it was always my intention, but I didn’t think I’d actually manage to do so in such a brief period of time.”
You blink. “You never told me that.”
“I– I never told anyone, actually.” now he’s actively avoiding your eyes while nervously playing with his fingers, “Clark, it’s not a thing you just casually avoid to mention. You turned a three to four year program into a year and a half course. That’s a big thing. You should’ve told me– I would’ve done my best to support you.”
His eyes are shiny, and it’s not just because of the light hitting them in just the right way. “I’m leaving.”
You blink. “What?”
He gives you a sad smile — and that makes you shudder, because in your entire life you’ve never ever seen Clark Kent smile like that. It’s honestly scary; he’s made for happy smiles, not for sad half-crapped ones. “I’m leaving,” he repeats gently, “I want to find out more about my biological parents — about my home planet. I think I’ve just found a way to do that, and I don’t know exactly for how long I’ll be gone.” he blinks away the tears, “And I can’t leave if I know that I’ve left you behind waiting for me.”
“How long will you be gone?” you almost don’t hear yourself asking — it’s like that’s not even your voice. You have no idea how you still haven’t started crying.
His voice is almost as little as yours. “I don’t know. I’d like to think it could be just a few months, but… something tells me it’ll be years.”
You’re not sure how you get back home, but you somehow do. Jenna is on the couch, eating ice cream for breakfast, and chirps happily when she sees you. “Hey, I was getting worried! How did it go with Prince Charming?" you make it to your room before you throw yourself on the bed and start ugly crying uncontrollably.
You don’t know life without Clark Kent. You’ve been inseparable since forever, and you always thought he’d be one of the only constants in your life — turns out, he had other plans. Yes, it’s true that you wanted to experience life in the big city without him, but that doesn’t mean you wanted him completely out of your life — you just wanted to see how well you’d do. (Ditched for unknown and dead parents, by the way? That has to be a new low.)
Jenna tries her best to boost your morale — even buys you that one Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream that she hates with passion but that you love— but in the end, everything proves to be useless, and you end up going on with your life while trying to pretend that you have it all together.
Class. Study. Lunch. Class. Work. Back at home. Repeat.
Of course, you barely manage to keep it together. Every hour not spent doing the things you have to do is spent in bed contemplating your life and the exact moment where it got real shitty. Somewhere along the first week Ma Kent calls, probably alerted by your mother about the break up, but you really don’t have the heart nor the strength needed to respond to her call. You’re relieved when she avoids calling a second time — probably knowing that you need some space and that she’s not the first person you’d want to hear after something like this — because you don’t really know how you could’ve avoided to reply for a second time while watching her name grace the screen.
Week two passes and things get even worse for you, so much so that you have to call in sick to work thanks to the sore throat that you find yourself with after crying uncontrollably for almost all night every night. You can tell Jenna’s fed up, because even with all her strength, it seems as if she can’t help you at all.
“You know, I once broke up with an italian guy over distance,” she tries to reason, sprawled on your bed as you lie face down as if dead — you have yet to actually explain to her why you and Clark broke up, so she’s still thinking that it was because of all the miles separating you. “He has yet to tell his mother– and it’s been two years. She still sends me a whole box of Italian cheeses for every holiday.” she suddenly perks up, “Maybe I’ll be graced with some of the famous Ma Kent pie one day. I hope she sends a piece for your birthday.”
Your hiccup is muffled by the pillow. “Right, yeah, sorry. Not the best thing to say right now. You don’t need to mourn Ma Kent’s pie too. You’ll do that once you’re ready.”
“I’ll never be ready to mourn Martha’s pie,” you groan. You could get over Clark Kent, but not his mother's pies. Your ma's still friends with her, so you doubt that you’ll never eat it again, but you’ll have no reason to come over to the Kent’s farm as much as you did before.
Two days later, entering the third week post break up, Jenna has had enough — and she barges into your room with a plan. “We’re going out.”
As always, your reply comes out muffled, “Ion wan’ to.”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” she tears off the duvet from your body and takes a hold of your ankles, literally dragging you out of bed as you shriek, “I just said that we are going out!”
She makes sure you dress up decently before dragging you out of the house and into her car, making sure the child lock is on — wouldn’t want you to jump out of the vehicle as she’s driving — before starting the engine. “I signed you up for an audition.”
You look at her, frowning, pretty sure your ears have betrayed you and made you hear wrong. “I’m sorry, what?”
Her smile is so genuine that it would be hard to find the will to smack her. “I signed you up for an audition,” she repeats without any sign of remorse, “you know Flowers n’ Kisses? The shop uptown? They’re looking for new models to renew the brand, make it younger. And you, my dear, with your little sad eyes and red cheeks from all the crying, will be perfect.”
You stare at her, bewildered. “Are you well?”
“What? It’s true that you look your best right after crying!”
“Are you saying I should be sad more often?”
“Of course not! I’m just saying that at least one good thing should come out of this situation — besides, don’t look at me like that, you know you’re already sad all the time. I just think that we should take advantage of your puffy, irritated, cute face. Besides, it’s just to try something new! Who knows, maybe you’ll like the lights of the camera and having to pose and all the pretty dresses they’ll put you in.” you highly doubt that, but you let it go in favour of your remaining sanity.
There’s at least twenty other people at the audition when you arrive to the location — and this is only the three PM slot, Jenna whispers to you conspiratorially — and you raise an eyebrow when you see the other girls there, because they’re gorgeous and you’re starting to wonder if there were any demands for this interview. “Jenna, are you sure there aren’t any requirements for this kind of thing?”
“Oh, there were,” she assures you, “I had to put a couple of your pictures in the form before they gave me a time for your audition. I tried to apply too, but they rejected me.” she sighs dramatically, clinging to your arm, “But if I can’t chase my dream of marrying a ninety-year-old multi-billionaire and living the rest of my life filthy rich, then you might as well follow up for me! And don’t forget about me when you’re going on vacation to Tenerife with your boyfriend’s super expensive and huge yacht…”
“You’re sick,” you mutter, completely fed up, “and not in the good sense. I’m sure there’s people in Arkham down on the worst levels that are much more reasonable than you.” you sigh, feeling the by-now familiar punch to the gut that follows every single thought about him, “I don’t care about yachts. I would’ve been just happy with a little apartment in Metropolis with Clark.”
She groans dramatically, “Oh, please! What was so great about this guy? Was he the genie of the lamp or something? Was he that good in bed?”
You sniffle. “You’re so cruel. He was my everything.”
“He’s a guy! An average one, at best!”
“You take that back–” you’re about to strangle her because Clark Kent is definitely above the average male population but get conveniently stopped by the call of your name. It’s the PR manager, you assume, and he smiles kindly at you when Jenna takes your hand and raises it up like he’s a teacher making a difficult question and you’re a student eager to reply. “Please come with me, this way.”
You find out his name is Roy and he’s better at make up than you are — you stare at his perfect eyeliner with envy as he leads you to a room with a camera set up and a table with other people quietly chatting. You already feel awkward just by standing there, and you’d be lying if you said that you were ready for this thing, so you find yourself thinking about Jenna’s dreams to force yourself to go on. Think about Tenerife and a yacht. Think about Tenerife and a yacht. Think about–
“So, miss,” a redhead at the center of the table smiles at you, leaning her chin on her intertwined fingers, “are you ready to start?”
You'd be lying if you said that you got out of there without feeling stupid. They made you walk into a straight line with music in the background, asked you to pose, took a few pictures and then just started asking questions about your life, saying something about wanting to know the personality of the candidates. You feel so relieved when you walk out that room that suddenly being single doesn’t look as bad as staying ten minutes more in that hell hole.
Jenna doesn’t seem to be too worried about your relief about being out of there. “So?” she asks excitedly, “How did it go?”
“I doubt they’ll call back,” you weren’t that terrible, but you’re sure that much more qualified people auditioned for this thing — and even if they didn’t, you’d seen at least fifteen girls that look like they could rock the style of Flowers n’ Kisses way better than you, “but if they do, I’m not replying. Please don’t make me do that again, like, ever. We don’t need an ancient husband to have a yacht, we can just steal one. Seems way more doable to me.”
Except that they actually call back. And you hadn’t put into the equation the fact that while registering you for the audition, Jenna was smart enough to put her cellphone number in it instead of yours.
“You signed me up for another thing?”
“I had to! They were happy about your audition and wanted to schedule the day for the shoot of the campaign!”
“What campaign–”
“The one for the summer collection! Aw, c’mon, they’ll pay you eight hundred something dollars and give you some free clothes too–”
You want to smash your forehead into the wall — but then again, she wouldn’t let you do that, because your forehead is on your face and your face will be on an ad of some kind. “I wouldn’t risk having a restful sleep if I were you,” you hiss, “because I think that one of these days I’ll become one of the many maniacs that help the violent crimes rate be so high, and rest assured that you’ll be my first victim.”
Jenna doesn’t seem to worry about that, and as it turns out she’s right to be — because on the day pre-established you still make yourself presentable and head to the studios where the photoshoot’s supposed to be at 7 a.m. sharp like requested.
The same PR guy you met at the audition greets you first with a smile and a hand shake, “Roy Chamler,” he introduces himself — you only notice you didn’t know his full name when he says it. You were so nervous at the audition that you barely introduced yourself, let alone asked the name of the other people there. “PR manager and guy in charge of the campaign. Is this your first time participating in something like this?”
You cringe. “Yeah, is it that obvious?”
He shrugs, smiling at you. “I’ve made it work with worse in my hands. You were chosen in the end, weren’t you?”
The day starts with a worryingly high stack of paperwork in need to be signed. “Your contract,” Roy explains, patting it, “the rights for your image and copyright, parties involved, payment times, everything.”
You frown, “Is it normal for employees to sign their contract on the first day of work?”
It’s his time to cringe. “No. It’s just that… the owner of the brand — Mrs Livvie, she was at the audition — is a very demanding woman. She called me a month ago about making the campaign and I have barely a week left to organize the rest. So, please, even if the conditions of this job are weird, please bear with me.”
You sigh. “Alright. Where will the pictures of the shoot be exposed, exactly?”
He cringes even more. “I… it’s all in the contract. You know, before Mrs Livvie, it was her father who thought about the brand. Then it was passed down and she wanted to do a lot of things, but it’s clear that she still doesn’t really know her way around. So, the thing is, it will depend on how much her and the other owners like the shoot.” he tilts his head, “I wouldn’t say more than a couple of posters around town and maybe some internet ads, though.”
You sign the contract while not trying to overthink too much about your face being splattered around the internet, and as soon as Roy gets his hands on the paperwork you’re dragged into a room that positively looks like a spa. A girl gets immediately around to work on your hair as another worries about your nails, and you have to admit that if submitting to this thing meant a free manicure and hairdo you’d have gotten here even earlier than needed to. The make-up is the last thing on the list, right after the clothes, and then you’re ready for the shoot.
The whole ordeal lasts about five hours — five grueling hours, during which you have to change outfit, make up and hairdo one time too many for the day to still be considered relaxing. You go back home with your hair still in the last slickback they gave you, mascara a little smudged from all the times you rubbed your eyes during the train ride, and a bag full of clothes to wear this summer. Roy tells you that the ads should be up somewhere between next week and the one after that, takes your actual phone number and promises to call you if any problem with the campaign emerges.
Meanwhile, you're surprisingly starting to accept the fact that Clark dumped you and probably will never get back with you, that he’s now who-knows-where doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who. Actually, you’re starting to get mad — how dare he not tell you about his plans? For how long was he thinking about just disappearing? You were out there dreaming about a future with him and he just–
“Yo,” oh. Is your mental health that bad that now your dreams are angry about Clark, too? Because you’re in bed, it’s been a little over a week since the shoot and Jenna is shaking you awake. “Yo. You did not tell me the campaign was so serious.”
Still groggy, you barely find the strength to raise your head from the pillow, “Whatcha mean?”
“The billboard,” she hisses, “you didn’t tell me they were going to put your pictures on a billboard.”
That wakes you up instantly. “They what?”
Sure enough, there’s a big ass billboard with a picture of you in a strawberry shirt and a pair of low-rise jeans while subtly smiling at the camera from the side (under the brand’s name and motto, of course) right in the middle of Union Square — literally the most trafficked place in all of Gotham. You’re about to slap yourself in the face because there’s simply no way they actually put a whole billboard of you when they said it was gonna be just a couple of ads online and maybe some posters around town. You suddenly fear what they’ll do with the pictures of you in that one blue tankini.
“Dear God,” you utter in disbelief.
Jenna blinks. “If it reassures you, you do look good. It’s the sad eyes, I think. They give you depth.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face around ever again,” you’re on the verge of tears, “how will I manage to get around on campus again? No, Jenna, I’m finding a house in the Appalachians and hiding there for the rest of my life–”
“But you can’t! This is one picture and you’re really shining in it– why can’t you embrace this? Maybe it’s a good thing! Do you know how much models make–”
“Jenna!” you shriek, “My photo is on a fucking billboard right in front of Wayne Tower! Can’t you understand I just want to bury myself in the ground and die?”
“Well, maybe it’ll make Bruce Wayne fall in love with you as he’s forced to see your face every day.” she jokes, “And then I’ll be able to get my vacation on a yacht–”
“We are not going on vacation with Bruce Wayne,” you hiss, “have you seen one footage of him with any woman? God knows what he puts in their — and his — drink to act like that.”
“I think of him as someone who’s actively drunk all the time without even drinking, and his company is surely not better than him.” she shrugs, “Besides, he’s not that older than you. You would be happier with him rather than with the ninety-year-old billionaire."
You blanch. “I’ll be happy if they both leave me alone.”
They will, unfortunately, not leave you alone, you find out soon. Because thanks to the spike in sales, not even two weeks after the ads are made public the management of Flowers n’ Kisses organises a gala with all of its associates and investors, and you — just like the other models who do runways and are the face of previous campaigns — are contract-bound to participate, because– well. Your face is scattered all over the city while wearing their clothes — it would be weird if you didn’t show up, no?
And guess who is one of the biggest associates of Flowers n’ Kisses? Exactly. Fucking Wayne Industries. Guess your dream of not becoming one of Bruce Wayne’s victims as the latest coming model — not that you would describe yourself as one, but you guess that his definition of model is much more wider than yours — in Gotham may be a little more difficult to achieve, since if they could talk, he would probably try to have one-night stands with walls too.
Roy calls again to arrange for you to get a dress, one from the newest collection that you hadn’t had the chance of trying out, and thankfully he doesn’t seem too mad about the last time you called him — you had insulted him so much about the billboard that you almost discovered new curse words. “You know, I got a few calls about you,” he says, ecstatic, “people love you! I’ve got the list of a few other brands that would like a contract with you–”
You shut the idea before it gets a little too deep into his head. “No. Bye, I have an exam to study for.”
The event’s in some fancy, fancy rented mansion’s ballroom — incredible that they still have those, by the way — and the timing’s just right, because tomorrow morning you have a test, and you’re already mumbling names and descriptions under your breath before they even get you in that evening dress. And about the dress– it’s dark blue, with little embroidered silver stars around your hips, tight where it needs to be and softer as it reaches your legs. They give you a pair of silver kitten heels to match the stars around the dress, and even if they do kill your feet a little, you have to admit that you look good.
Getting out of the room where they dolled you up, you immediately notice another woman at the end of the hallway — probably one of the other models of the brand, hopefully one more experienced than you. She seems to notice you too, and waves a hand up to catch your attention, “Hey! You must be the new girl they told me about,”
She’s stunning, with chocolate skin and honey eyes and a dress that — you guess — is made to be worn right next to yours, because while your gown resembles the night, hers resembles the dawn, with an embroidered red sun on her waist. She offers you her hand, which you shake without any questions, “I’m Kelly,” she introduces herself, “Roy asked me to keep an eye out for you — didn’t want you to feel lost. She knows these types of gatherings can be scary, and I’m happy to help a new recruit out.” Kelly does look a bit older and experienced than you — early thirties, at most, even if she does carry them well.
“Thank God,” you can’t really hide your relief, “I was afraid I had to do all of this alone.”
She giggles, “I remember being this scared too. You’re doing it well, though, from what I have seen — you came out perfect in the pictures, I really couldn’t believe it was your first shoot,”
You feel your face get hotter at her words, “Thanks,” you manage to squeal out as she guides you into the ballroom, where the main event is held, “It’s the sad eyes, I think.” she adds. You’re one more comment about your sad eyes apart from imploding. “I don’t tend to like these events, but usually the food is pretty nice, so that’s a plus. I’d avoid any drink already served if I were you, though,”
Thankfully, you soon find out that you two were put at the same table — great thing for you, because you really don’t want to socialize more than you actually need to. The other people around the table are mostly boring investors and owners of shares, who don’t seem interested in asking anything more than what’s expected in a common conversation — your name, age, what do you do in life. One kind old lady asks you more about university and looks actually interested in hearing you repeat the subject of your exam tomorrow, until you are rudely interrupted by a voice calling out for you just as the dessert is being served.
“Oh, there she is!” you’ve only seen her once, but you do recognize Mrs Livvie from the audition — you did not forget those striking red hair of hers. Beside her, your latest possible obstacle: in all his striking glory, Bruce Wayne. “This is our latest golden girl, miss…” it’s clear that she has forgotten your name, which you kindly suggest to her, “Right! A real sweetheart. Anyways, this is Kelly Th–”
“I know Kelly,” he interrupts her, giving her and your — hopefully — latest friend a kind smile. “I remember her from the runway for the autumn collection.” he turns his gaze to you, “I’ve never met you, though, which is really a shame because you’re stunning. You know, the billboard with one of your photos is right in front of my office, which is the motivation to get on time around the office I just needed.” well, if this isn’t your nightmare come true.
“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Mrs Livvie looks at you, “this is Mr Wayne–”
“Please,” he looks directly at you in a way that would normally have you swooning, but that from him just makes you quite worried. “Just Bruce will go.”
You give him a tight-lipped smile, “Sure.”
“Weird that I have never seen you before,” he continues, “usually models start young, but I’m happy that Nina found you — you’re a real jewel, miss. May I ask why you — or your parents — never thought of putting you out there?”
“Well, I never knew about this talent of mine until now.”
He smiles, chuckling quietly, “Well, you don’t sound like you’re from around here, either, am I right?”
You nod. “Yessir — I’m from Smallville, a little farm town a couple of hundreds of miles from here.” you hope that being the daughter of farmers will scare off a playboy that is known to socialize with rich people. It doesn’t.
“Well, if you ever need anything,” he takes out a business card from his breast pocket with a pen and scribbles something on it, then gives it to you, “please don’t hesitate to call me. I’m at your disposal.”
You don’t reply, getting a weird look from all the people on the table before Mrs Livvie quickly brings his attention elsewhere — hopefully away from you. Kelly looks at you, delighted, “Well, miss girl, that is the offer of a lifetime.”
You snort, looking unamusedly at the private number scribbled on the card. “I doubt I’ll ever use it.”
Summer break comes a lot faster than you’d expected.
You’re not sure it’s a good thing. You still haven’t exactly come to terms with what happened with Clark now almost three months ago and the thought of seeing your parent’s farm draped with pictures of you and him from when you two were kids nauseates you. Besides, you just know that your mother talked to everyone who willing to listen about your newfound talent as a model, even if you only did one shoot. It’s also your first time doing the trip from Gotham to Smallville alone, and you opt to just use the train after seeing the whopping prices for a taxi.
Your father picks you up at the Midvale train station, teary eyed and with arms wide open to hug you. “My baby,” he says trembly, once you are in his arms “oh, it seems like it’s been years since Christmas,”
You laugh tearily. “Oh, trust me, I know.”
The car trip is filled with conversation and love. “Oh– did your mother tell you we adopted a dog?”
You perk up. “Oh, did you, now?”
Your father nods, “Dunno what kind o’ dog he is. All I know is he’s yellow. We found him on the side of the road to the farmer’s market a coupla’ weeks ago and he won’t leave your mother's side since then. We tried to ask around, see if he was someone’s dog — nobody knew anything, so her resolve was just to take him home.” he looks at you, cracking up with laughter. “You wanna know what she called him?”
You grin, loving to see your father so serene. “Do tell me.”
“Batman!” his laughter gets even louder, “Batman, you get it? Said, it’s after the psycho that runs around in a Halloween costume and makes sure that my daughter’s city doesn’t burn down. I really owe him. Have you ever even seen him, or is he just some kind of urban legend?”
You crack up with laughter too, half from hearing him laugh so openly, half for the actual story, “No, no,” you wheeze, “never seen him, but I do know people that have. I just don’t get out late enough for him to be running around yet, I fear.”
It’s with relief that, once you enter the farm, you notice that all the pictures of you and Clark have either disappeared or been replaced. You know your mother’s too much of a sentimentalist to get rid of them, so they’re probably carefully hidden in some drawer — but that doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate her gesture. She hugs you tightly and kisses you on both cheeks before calling out for the dog — which you find out is a golden retriever — to meet you.
The next three weeks are spent helping your parents around the farm and bringing Batman — or, as your mother calls him, Battie — in the fields so that he can run as much as he likes. You gotta admit that you also do it to try to form new memories of the place — because you simply can’t spend the rest of your life brooding as soon as you go back there to visit your parents.
You avoid the old classmates to prevent any questions about Clark. You don’t visit the Kents. You’d like to, but honestly, you are ashamed — ashamed because Martha had called back when you and Clark had just broken up, and yet you never called her back or replied. Or sent a message. Or a postcard. Did you really ghost a nice old lady? Because that has to be some kind of new low.
It’s your mom that tries to get you back to sanity. “Martha and Jon did nothing to you,” she tells you, angered, when you refuse to take the muffins she’s just baked to their farm, “and you are going to say hi to them because they’ve always been nothing but nice to you!”
That’s how you end up at the porch of the Kent’s farm, a tray of still steaming muffins in your hands as you anxiously wait for either of them to answer the door. You almost burst out in tears when it’s Martha that greets you — because, you have to admit, you’ve missed them too. And as she invites you in and calls Jon down to say hi to you too, not mentioning that call you had completely ignored — you thank the universe that at least you didn’t lose them too with Clark.
You return to Gotham feeling shittier than ever, but, hey! At least you got some nice pie while you were in Smallville, since you can’t really say that you and Jenna cook real food when you have to eat. The University’s not back open just yet, so you spend most of your days picking more shifts at work so that people that actually go on vacation can do it without any remorse or trouble.
You’re worrying about getting every animal at the clinic fed when the bell of the door rings out in the waiting room. “I’ll be there in a minute!” you call out, petting a cat and putting him back into his carrier as he meowles happily around the meat stick you just gave him — a good enough treat in exchange to being neutered, you hope.
You exit the backroom and go back to the front desk, “So, how can I help–” your eyebrows raise. “Mr Wayne?”
In all his glory, surely. He’s right in front of you, smiling, hair slicked back and sunglasses hanging from the neckline of his shirt. “I thought I asked you to call me Bruce,” he says, not unkindly.
You try not to grimace. The last thing you wanted for him was to find out where you worked. “Yeah, sorry,” you press your lips into a thin line, “how can I help you?”
“I was thinking about adopting a dog.” this actually surprises you, because you didn’t think billionaires had the time for animals — and even if they did find the time to get them a petsitter, you’d taken for granted that they would buy the fancy breed ones. “I was thinking about getting a german shepherd, I told your friend Kelly at last week’s Prada runway and she suggested coming here since apparently this clinic collaborates with the local shelter.”
“We do,” you nod, “they’re running out of space and we have a decent sized backyard for them to play in and some rooms for the animals to stay in.” you open a drawer on the desk, taking out a folder with all the registered pets, “We mostly have the injured ones that are recovering, but I’m not sure about german shepherds. I do think there’s a mixed one though– there!” you stop at one of the pages and turn the folder for him to see the picture of a dog with brown fur and a star-shaped white patch on his forehead.
“This is Ace– he’s a retired K-9, mixed german shepherd. He’s just two, but was shot during an inspection and has been limping ever since. Nobody in the police department could adopt him, so we took him in. He’s been doing well with the recovery and we’re trying to rehabilitate him to normal as to our best abilities.”
He nods, “Looks like a cute dog. Can I see him?”
You show him the way to the backroom with all the strays, stopping at Ace’s crate. He immediately raises his snout from his paws, tail wagging as he sees you, “Well, this is him,” you sneak a hand between the rails to give him a pet, “one of the nicest dogs we have here — if you want, you could take him on a walk today or when you want. Usually we ask for at least four outings before permitting the adoption — to see if the owner and the pet are compatible, y’know.”
He nods, “So, I can take him out today and then come back in the next few days to later on adopt him?”
You lean your head, “If everything goes well, yes.”
“Perfect– I’d like to take him on a walk right away, then, if possible.”
You get a collar for Ace and a leash for Bruce after getting the dog out of its crate, then put a couple of treats in a little paper bag with some toys. You attach the leash to Ace’s collar and give it to his aspiring owner with the paper bag, “Wait a moment, I’ll tell my coworker that I’m going out and then we can go,”
Mr Wayne perks up, suddenly interested in something else rather than the dog, “You’re coming with us?”
You raise an eyebrow at him, “Of course. The outings before adoption are always supervised.”
You come back after alerting your coworker that you’re going out, then exit the clinic with Bruce — who's handling a definitely too excited Ace — on tow. It’s weird seeing a blue Rolls Royce parked right in front of where you work, as usually the most expensive thing that’s parked there is a FedEx van. “There’s a dog park just around the corner — we often bring customers there for supervised outings.”
Bruce Wayne looks so out of place in such a funny way at the dog park that you barely manage to keep your laugh in; in his Armani tailored coat as Ace, finally without a leash in the dog fence at the park, looks thrilled to play with him, it’s so obvious that he’s never been in this kind of situation. “Are you sure he’s still in rehab?” he squeals, as the dog tackles him to the ground and licks his whole face clean. “He’s– aargh!– definitely in better shape than me!”
Your laugh finally blesses his ears. “That just means he likes you, Mr Wayne! Be nice to him, or he’ll think you’re friendzoning him.”
Ace is a good dog. It’s like he’s got a sixth sense for bad people — he never barks at kind customers, only at the rude ones, so you guess that’s kinda his talent. And since it’s never betrayed you, you admit that maybe — just maybe — Bruce Wayne isn’t that bad of a person as you thought he would be.
He comes back to the clinic for three days in a row, just what he needed to be able to adopt the retired K-9. He always suspiciously shows up during your shifts, with mysteriously not a single paparazzi on sight and always the same Rolls Royce. On the second day he got there with brand new toys — some for Ace, some in donation for the other pets awaiting a loving owner — and a new collar with a bone-shaped metal tag with a bold ACE engraved on it.
Saturday’s the last day of the supervised period, and just as the last three days, you find yourself leaning over the railing of the fence that limitates the unrestrained dog area, watching them play like they’ve known each other for years. It’s a rare connection to see forming with a guard dog — they usually need time to adapt to new people, but apparently Ace didn’t. He took one look at Bruce and thought yeah, I want to munch on his atelier shoes for the rest of my life.
“You know, I think it really was love at first sight,” you tell him as you walk back to the clinic.
Bruce looks at you like for a second he forgot you were talking about his dog. “You really think so?”
You laugh, “Yeah, I mean, have you seen him? He’s wagging his tail like crazy and he met you three days ago. It’s like he knows you’re taking him home today.”
His shoulders deflate a little as he understands that you’re talking about him and Ace. “Yeah, well, I’m happy that he’s happy.”
“Why do you want a dog, by the way?” you realise just now that you hadn’t asked, having taken for granted that he just wanted one for show, but now it’s clear that it isn’t.
He shrugs, “To keep me company. I guess I just want someone other than my butler greeting me at the door when I get home. Besides, I liked playing with him — it’s a win-win: I get to destress about work and he gets to play catch.” he pets Ace’s head as you reach the clinic, “Don’t you, boy?”
You go behind the desk and immediately get to work, preparing the paperwork for the adoption, “So– here, fill out this form and this one. There’s a ten dollar fee on every adoption, but I guess it shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
He chuckles. “I should have a fifty dollar bill in my wallet — you can keep the change.” he coughs a bit as he starts to fill out the paperwork, “You know, I, uh… I didn’t come here just because I wanted a dog. I wanted to talk to you.”
You square him up and down. “Yeah. We talked the last three days.”
“Oh, no, I mean–” he looks honestly embarrassed, “I was… I was wondering why you didn’t call me back after the event.”
You blink — you had completely forgotten about the business card rotting in your bedside drawer with his private number written on it. You must be the first girl that doesn’t call him back after receiving such an opportunity. “Well, you told me to call if I needed anything, and I have yet to be in need of anything.”
“I–” he sighs, “I was hoping I’d see you at the following Flowers n’ Kisses event, but you weren’t there.”
You raise an eyebrow in the politest way you can muster up. “Yeah. It was a lunch on a Monday. I had an exam.” you actually started ghosting Roy as soon as he started suggesting coming to events not included in your contract, but that’s a story for another time.
It seems you aren’t really getting what he’s trying to say, Bruce understands. He takes a deep breath, “What I meant to say is… that I was wondering if you wanted to grab a coffee one of these days.”
You stare at him, bewildered, then point to yourself. “Me?”
He looks even more bewildered than you. “…Yeah. Would… would you like that?”
“I mean, I,” you aren’t really understanding if he’s interested you in a romantic sense — which would be absolute bonkers, by the way — or if the conversations of the last few days just made him want another friend. “Sure. As… as friends, right?”
He winces. “Yeah, of course.” he’s losing count of how many awkward yeahs he’s mumbling. Alfred’s right; he, terrifyingly so, has a crush.
“Wouldn’t, like, paparazzi follow us?” you really don’t want your face splattered all over the news again.
“I honestly doubt it.” he wouldn’t waste his little chance because of a couple of gossip-hungry journalists. “When I don’t want to be noticed I use my butler’s car, so that if anyone passes by they think it’s him around rather than me, and the staff of the places I frequent can be very discreet.” he looks down to Ace, “Besides, could you really say no to seeing this cute face again?”
No, you couldn’t. You do raise an eyebrow, though, “Your butler… owns a Rolls Royce?”
He nods like it’s the most common thing in the world, “Yeah, it was my gift for his fiftieth birthday.”
And that’s how you end up having coffee with Bruce Wayne in some high-end uptown cafè two days later. Then two days later after that. Then, someway, somehow— fucking everyday. And thank God that he’s the one paying, because you doubt you can even afford one of the smallest macarons they have on the menu.
You have to give it to the man — he’s trying really hard to be nice. It’s clear he’s not good at courting — not the kind that doesn’t let him bring a woman into his bed an hour after he met her, at least — but he’s doing that while also doing his best to respect your boundaries.
“I don’t think it’s really a great time for a new relationship as of now for me,” you explain, a little embarrassed, over the first coffee you share. “I just got out of… one of the most important connections I’ll ever have in my entire life.”
Bruce isn’t one to give up easily, and surely not on the first person he’s actually interested in since years. Even if it will take decades — and he’ll be just as happy being just a friend during those — he won’t give up. Even if he has to be just a friend for all eternity — you and your accent really did a number on him.
Just as he promised, no articles come out about you two, even if a couple of curious waiters do ask if you’re that one girl from the billboard in Union Square — much to Bruce’s sincere delight, because it’s probably the first time in his life that he gets overlooked in favour of his date. What’s so special about your ads to overlook a billionaire, you’ll never really understand.
It goes on for months, and before you can really assimilate it, It’s November and it’s been eight months since Clark broke up with you, seven since the terrific Flowers n’ Kisses campaign and four since you started seeing (you’re not sure how to actually describe it, because you’re kinda warming up to him despite everything) Bruce.
You cave in to Kelly’s constant nagging, and finally accept her invitation to go out for dinner, just the two of you, to her favourite Thai restaurant down the street from her apartment — even after almost a year in Gotham, you’re reluctant about going out at night, still a bit scared after Jenna’s horror stories about her outings during the evening.
It’s a fun night — you chit chat about anything and everything and she makes sure you’re updated about the latest rumors going around in the modeling world (apparently, Linda Reynolds is pregnant, and the father is supposedly the son of the sixty-year-old CEO she should be marrying in a few months). You both laugh as a teenager from one of the other tables comes over and asks you if you’re the girl from that one Flowers n' Kisses photoshoot, and you almost forget about the dangers of going out at night as you exit the restaurant because — c’mon, you’re with Kelly, her car’s just a few feet away from you two and she’s Kelly, she just knows how to deal with things. That is, until–
There’s a man. He’s in front of you. He has a gun. You barely even register all that happens next.
She pushes you behind her as he screams to give him all the valuables you have, gun trembling in his hands — is he drunk or just a schizo? — and just as she reaches for her purse — to take out her wallet, she says as she feels around for her taser — he panics and pulls the trigger.
You don’t know when you start screaming, nor register your hands pressing on her bloody shoulder, nor the cashier from the Thai restaurant going out in the street after hearing the shot and calling the police. You barely feel Commissioner Gordon’s hands around your shoulders as he gently pulls you away from Kelly and gets you to his car while two paramedics get a stretcher ready and lift her into the ambulance, nor notice when he pulls a blanket over your shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate into your hands at the police station. “You’re trembling, kid.” you think you started when the man took out the gun, but it could be when he shot Kelly. You’re not sure.
“Can I call anyone?”
You snap out of your trance, looking at Commissioner Gordon with eyes that could only be described as haunted. “Huh?”
He presses his lips into a thin line like he’s been in this situation one too many times. “Can I call anyone?” he asks again, not unkindly. “To come and pick you up and stay with you for the night? It would be better for you not to be alone.”
You blink. “Is Kelly okay?”
Gordon sighs. “The paramedics said she should recover without any trouble. You can go visit her tomorrow, if you want.” he leans forward, putting a gentle hand on your shoulder, “Can I call someone for you?” he asks for the third time.
You sniff — you hadn’t even realized you’d been crying. You can’t call your parents — you know they’d drop everything and come here, but you don’t want them to worry. Jenna’s out of the city for a week, having gone to visit a cousin in Blüdhaven, and terrifyingly so the only person who comes into your mind is Clark Kent– wherever he is, he does know how to fly, and if he wanted to he could just zap here. You manage to scribble his number in the post-it that Gordon hands you, and then he’s off to make the call — only to return defeated ten minutes later.
“I’m sorry, nobody’s replying. Can I call someone else for you or would you like to try to make the call yourself?”
You try to swallow the lump in your throat, “Can I try? With my phone?” Clark’s never ignored your calls. And, sure, you haven’t heard from him in months, but you don’t think he’d actively avoid you — he has to know that you wouldn’t call unless it was strictly necessary. Besides, he’s never turned you down in the time of need.
Gordon nods, “Sure. I think I left your bag in the car, though, so I’ll be right back,”
He brings your purse, and as soon as your phone’s in your hands you press onto Clark’s number and try to reach him. The Commissioner leaves you in his office, probably to try to give you a bit of privacy, and you’re quite thankful he’s not there to witness you start crying as Clark not only doesn’t reply to the first call, but also to the next five you make.
“Clark, I know that maybe you don’t want to hear from me but — could you just please, take up the phone?” you try not to sob as you leave what must be the third message in a row, “I wouldn’t call unless I really needed you and– and I’m trying my best not to sound hysteric but please, just pick up the fucking phone.”
You try and try and try, but lo and behold, it always goes straight to voicemail. Gordon knocks on the door of his office, opening it hesitantly when you don’t reply, “I– it’s been twenty minutes.”
“I,” you huff tearily, slamming your phone on your thigh, “he just won’t reply.”
You don’t want to look Gordon in the eye, because even now you can feel the pity in this voice. “Is there anyone else you can call? If… if there isn't, I could have an agent escort you home,”
“No, I–” you really don’t want to cry in front of him, even if your cheeks are already tear-streaked and your eyes are puffy, “I guess I could call someone else.”
You hadn’t even thought about calling Bruce, having taken for granted that Clark would have replied and knowing about the late hour, but it’s not like you have any other choice. Besides, he did say to call him if you ever needed anything. You dial his phone number and have to hold back a sob as he replies in two rings, voice hoarse, “Hello?”
“Hi, um, I…” you stumble over the words, not managing to hold the tears at bay anymore as your voice breaks. “Hi, Bruce, could you…” a hiccup interrupts you.
“Hey,” his voice is alarmed even if it’s clear that he either just woke up or is hungover from the roughness of his voice, “is everything okay? Did something happen?”
“I…” your throat betrays you again as you let out an embarrassingly loud sob. You hear Bruce’s worried questions on the other side of the line, but you aren’t really able to respond to any of his questions, and Commissioner Gordon holds his hand out for you in a way that says ‘If you want, I can talk to him for you,’. You don’t ask many questions and just pass him the phone.
“Hello, this is Commissioner Gordon from the GCPD…”
Not even twenty minutes later Bruce rushes into the office, accompanied by Gordon, and holds you tight as you rise from your chair and crash into his arms. You’ve never hugged before, but that doesn’t really matter as of now, because he’s rubbing your back and pressing his cheek on the top of your head and suddenly you feel safe. “I was so scared,”
“It’s okay,” he whispers, and something on the back of your mind whispers that it’s not fair to cry to him about your friend getting shot but surviving when he had to watch his parents die when he was just a kid, but he doesn’t say anything. He just holds you tighter, thanking Gordon and leading you to his — his butler’s, technically, as it’s still the blue Rolls Royce he came here with — car. Well, if the media didn’t know you two were seeing each other before, now they probably know, because Gotham’s cops are the most gossip hungry people in the city.
He helps you get into the car as you sniffle, making sure your seatbelt is on before jumping on the driver’s seat and going back to look at you. “Are you okay?”
You nod. “He shot Kelly on the shoulder. Looked crazy, like a schizo maniac on drugs.”
He sighs, a bit disheartened, “I mean, does a schizo maniac need drugs to look crazy?”
“I guess he doesn’t.” a beat passes before he reaches over to your side, opening the glovebox and reaching for wet wipes — the kind you use for babies’ butts. “Here,” he murmurs softly, “you might want to get the blood off your face.”
You didn’t even know you had blood on your face. You look at the picture of the newborn on the wipes pack, puzzled, “Is there anything you might want to tell me?”
He chuckles and starts the car. “I told you this was my butler’s car. He carries a pack of those anywhere.”
You look at yourself in the sun visor mirror, acknowledging the fact that you look like absolute crap and definitely have splatters of blood as well as smudged make up all over your face. “Sorry I made you come all the way here so late,” you mumble, trying to wipe the now dried blood off of your face.
“Nonsense,” he assures, “Commissioner Gordon said it would be best for you not to be alone tonight — would that be okay for you?”
You nod. “Yeah, my place’s a bit cramped but I can sleep on the couch.”
He frowns, “That’s not a problem, I’ll take it. You need a good night’s sleep. We could always go to the Manor if you want.”
You shake your head, “I need a shower and to eat the leftover ice cream in my freezer.”
Bruce smiles the tiniest bit. “Okay. Where to, then?”
You wouldn’t say the apartment’s cluttered, but you weren’t expecting any guests over so it’s a given that it’s not tidy either — if Bruce notices it, he doesn’t mention it, something you’re grateful for. Instead, he puts a hand on your shoulder, smiling softly, “You should go take that shower. Don’t worry, I’ll be right here.”
You take a good look at yourself in the mirror and almost start crying again. You had seen that you were covered in blood, but you also didn’t think it was so much blood — the cardigan your poor mother had hand-stitched for you is awaiting a brilliant future in the trashbin, because there’s no way that the stain will ever wash out.
The water is soothing, even if it takes you a good half-hour to scrub away all the dried blood from your hair and neck — so much so that the skin is left red and sore. It’s your first time witnessing one of the violent crimes Gotham’s so famous for, and you gotta say, it’s even worse than you thought.
You put on an old ratty sweater — that after a year of living together neither you nor Jenna are too sure of who it belongs to anymore — and a pair of cozy sweatpants that are definitely Jenna’s, because you would never buy such a thing as yellow pants with the bat signal print on them.
You exit the bathroom with your damp hair still wrapped in a towel, eyes barely managing to stay open thanks to the aftermath of the shock you had been in. You find Bruce sitting on the sofa, maybe a little too interested in the news broadcast playing on the TV. “And it’s game over for Harvey Dent, also known as Two Face, who was arrested just yesterday by the GCPD thanks to an ambush coordinated by none other than Batman…”
“Wasn’t Dent the district attorney?” you’d lie if you said you were informed about the latest coming criminals of Gotham City. “Man, in Smallville the craziest guy we’ve had was Samuel Comell and that’s just because he ate nothing but corn. We’ve got clinical psychos guiding the law here.” it actually would’ve been Clark if anyone knew he was an alien, but you avoid talking about that. You aim for the refrigerator and take out the ice cream, bringing it and two spoons with you to the couch. “Ice cream?”
Bruce grimaces as he takes one of the spoons, “You couldn’t be more right about madmen in Gotham, but Harvey wasn’t one of them until less than a year ago.”
You raise an eyebrow at his soft tone. “You knew him?”
“We grew up together.” his face falters, “He was my friend– still is.”
You blink. “Man, the universe must be laughing really hard right now, because the boy I grew up with is also kinda weird.” sure, not a mass-murderer type of weird, but a little weird still.
He leans to take a spoonful of ice cream from the tub you’re holding, “What do you mean, kinda weird?”
“Oh, you can’t even imagine,” you can’t even tell him — you swore to Clark that you wouldn’t have told anyone his secret, and you don’t plan on breaking that promise now. “Remember the guy I told you I was trying to get over?”
“It was him?”
“Yeah,” you try to laugh it off, “Clark was… pretty much everything for me. Then he dumped me to, I don’t know, disappear to find himself or something like that.” it’s much more complicated than that, but you can’t just tell him that your ex-boyfriend is an alien — he’d freak.
Bruce’s eyes soften a bit. “Well, it’s always more complicated than that, isn’t it?” this time you can’t exactly handle your emotions well, and sputter as your eyes widen. Did he just read your mind? He laughs, “What? I know a thing or two about relationships. Well, about how they end, at least. You know, uh…” he rubs the back of his neck, “I haven’t really said this to anyone, really, but me and Harvey… let’s say we were more like you and your old friend rather than simple friends.”
You squint, then force the ice cream tub in his hands. “Here. You probably need it more than me.”
He stares at the tub. “It’s been years. I’m sure you need it more than me.”
“Well, my ex hasn’t just been arrested,” your face drops, “for what I know, at least.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow at you. “He really just disappeared?”
You shrug. “Could be in Alaska right now and I wouldn’t know about it.”
The night starts off easy. You finish the ice cream, then put away the towel you had around your hair and get a blanket because it’s getting a bit chilly, then one thing leads to another and suddenly your cheek is resting on his shoulder as Criminal Minds is playing on the TV.
“You know,” you mutter at some point, almost half-asleep and too cozy to muster an actual, coherent thought. “You should be detestable. You’re ugly rich, live in a mansion up on the hill and have a butler that has a car that’s probably worth more than my parent’s farm.” you poke his cheek as he turns his head to look at you properly, his arm going around your shoulder, “And instead, you’re nice — and worst of all, relatable.” you raise a hand to curl a lock of his hair around your finger, and he makes that face that men do when they’re about to kiss you — the blank stare that makes them look dumb in the head. “Now, one evil ex’s down. Do I have to defeat the other six or can we just get this over with?”
His lips slosh over yours with unexplainable easiness, like they’ve wanted nothing but to do this their whole life, and maybe you should feel a little guilty about eating Bruce Wayne’s face in your little beat-down couch, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. It’s the first time your mind finally manages to shut down — to stop worrying about anything and everything, and think about just one thing: Bruce.
Tomorrow, he’ll worry about catching the guy that shot Kelly, he says to himself. Tonight, he worries about you and tries to make sure you’ll be alright. And he does.
You wake up the next morning with an absolute sight — infamous Bruce Wayne, untouchable playboy and known for his one night stands, standing in your small ass kitchen in a pair of hot pink pajamas — the only thing you had that vaguely fit him — trying to cook pancakes. Key word: trying, because you weren’t woken up by the birdies singing outside of the window, but by the smell of burnt food. Badly burnt food.
You come up from behind him, hugging his back, “Have you ever even made pancakes?”
He purses his lips like a kid. “No. What is so terrible about wanting to try?”
You chuckle. “Nothing, nothing,” you tug him down to kiss his cheek, “I just think it’s really funny of you to try to cook when you’ve clearly had problems just with getting the stove on.”
He rolls his eyes, “Okay, okay, I wasn’t that stunted.”
He turns to take a good look at you — and apparently, notices your pants just now. “What’s with you and Batman?” he asks, amused. You shrug, ”More like, what’s with Jenna and Batman. When I tell you she’s obsessed with him, dude. She keeps a med kit in the bathroom just in case he falls on our balcony and we have to stitch him up.”
He shudders. “That does sound a bit manic.”
After a definitely too cheesy breakfast and quickly getting dressed, Bruce accompanies you to the hospital — not before going to the flower shop, of course, to get the biggest bouquet you’ve ever seen and a couple of Get well soon! balloons.
“What?” he asks. You’re not saying anything, but still clearly judging him, “I thought Kelly was your friend. She has to enjoy the flowers, especially since they’re from you.”
“Technically, they’re from your wallet,” you retort. He shrugs, “Same thing.”
Kelly’s still a bit pale, but happy to see you and Bruce. She gives you a look as you apologise for what happened, eyes teary as you remember that she got shot while protecting you. She swats a hand in your way, laugh full of not suggestion but knowledge — absolute certainty. “Honey, if what you two needed to get it on with was me getting shot, I’ll get shot another hundred of times.” she lowers her voice as your face burns red, “Besides, you might want to raise a little that scarf you’ve got — a hickey’s still showing. Just remember me when you’ll go on vacation with his big-ass yacht.”
What is it with your friends and yachts? You really need to make Jenna and Kelly meet — just kidding, you take that back, the consequences of their team up for your psyche would be devastating.
Time passes quickly when you’ve got one exam after another, and suddenly — before you can actually register it — it’s December, you and Bruce have been together for a month and it’s time for the Christmas holidays. While Jenna goes as soon as she can back to her parents in Chinatown, you, of course, need to go back to Smallville — without Bruce, as it’s still too early in the relationship to meet the parents. He doesn’t look too beaten up about it — just before you told him you wanted to go visit your parents, he had suggested a skiing trip in the Alps in an all-paid-for resort. Poor him, having to go on an exclusive resort with all the comforts in the world all alone! How will he manage without you, you wonder? How will he thrive?
(Just kidding, of course. You’re pretty sure it’ll take all of his restraint not to go back to his old playboy ways and try to seduce the first female that approaches him. He’ll be just fine.)
There’s two trains for Metropolis on the 22nd of December: you plan to take the first one, the one that leaves Gotham’s station at 8 a.m. sharp — and so you tell Bruce, who unfortunately has a plane to catch and can’t give you a ride — and of course, you just had to miss it. You wake up twenty minutes too late, and by the time you’re at the station the train has just left.
You go back home to take a nap while waiting for it to be time for the 4 p.m. train, and wake up just two hours later with an emergency broadcast for all Gothamites going off on your phone — God forbid you have a happy holiday in the arms of your loved ones, because the corridor that connects the prison’s main structure to Arkham’s left wing — the one holding captive the major crazed maniacs — has just blown up, and now years and years of captures and police operations have ended up in a massive breakout that will probably pulverize the city in a matter of two days. You’ve never been happier to not be a police officer than now.
The downside is that the whole city’s on lockdown. Commissioner Gordon appears on TV, warning all citizens to remain home unless strictly necessary and inevitable. A quick call to your parents later you’re fuming about your own stupidity while laying on the couch, wondering why you didn’t just wake up earlier — because now you’re condemned to a Christmas and probably New Years all alone, as all trains and planes are canceled to avoid the passengers turning into hostages or worse, victims.
Later that night you receive a call from Bruce, voice unusually rough, who says that he’s grateful that you’re already back at home in Smallville and not in Gotham because, if you hadn’t heard, a massive breakout happened. You really don’t want him to worry, so you lie and tell him that you’re relieved too that you took the 8 a.m. train — that your parents say hi and hang up.
The following days are weird. There’s barely anyone but cops in the streets — you wonder why — and your only interactions with a human are the ones with Nelson, the guy that works at the 7/11 right beside your apartment, and you both try your best to ignore the shotgun he’s keeping behind the counter as he scans your items and wishes you a happy Christmas.
You spend Christmas Eve eating instant noodles and watching the old Harry Potter DVDs that Jenna left behind — Ron’s just been dragged into the Whomping Willow by Sirius when your phone starts ringing.
You pause the movie and frown — because you’ve already heard both your parents and Jenna, who could be the only people calling at such an hour. It could also be Bruce, you guess, but you haven’t heard much from him considering the six hour difference between Gotham and wherever he’s staying in the Switzerland Alps. Except when you take your phone, you see an unknown number on the screen.
“Hello?” you reply tentatively — you really don’t want to be blackmailed by the Penguin or one of his friends on Christmas Eve. No one responds to your hesitant greeting, so you try again, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
You’re about to close the call when you hear it — barely there, the whisper of your name by a voice you know too well. You put the phone back against your ear, eyes already twitching, “Clark?”
“Hey,” his voice is the tiniest you’ve ever heard from him, “I, uh… wanted to know how you were holding up.”
Your hand starts trembling — if in anger or disbelief, you’re not sure. “You know, you’ve got some fucking audacity calling me now,” you manage to keep your voice steady only by some weird miracle, “when just a month ago I called you about twenty times and cried in the voice messages begging for you to come and get me.”
He doesn’t reply, but you can almost see him grimacing. “I… I got busy. I’m sorry about that.”
You pinch the slope of your nose, “Clark, I get it. You need to find yourself and all that but– but I needed you. Like, really needed you. Even if we broke up, I thought you would’ve always been there for me.” a grumble escapes from your throat, “I would’ve always been there for you. But you weren’t there, even with your flying abilities and supersonic speed.”
He sniffles. God, is he crying? “I just… I thought you would’ve been able to handle it alone. I know you’re strong enough to.”
“Well, if I call you at an ungodly hour an ungodly number of times then maybe I’m not able to handle it alone. Where are you, anyways?”
You hear a shuffle on the other end, “Somewhere in the Arctic. Not sure I can exactly tell you where.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure your dead parents would be really offended if you did.”
Ouch. That was a low blow. He says your name as if to try to calm you down, but you shake your head even if he can’t see you, “Why exactly did you call, Clark?”
“I told you, I wanted to see how you were doing–”
“Please, we both know that’s just an excuse you invented right here and now. Why did you call me, Clark?”
Silence meets you on the other end. “I… it’s Christmas. We’ve never spent a Christmas apart.”
You check the hour on your phone, and it’s true — it is Christmas. Has been for only a few minutes, but still. “So what, Clark? It’s not like it was me who decided to break it off between us.”
Another sniffle on his end. “I guess I… I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas.”
You sigh. “Merry Christmas, Clark. I loved you, and I’ll always love you– but I’m trying to get over you, and you need to understand that. I can’t do that if you call me just now after ghosting twenty of my calls and voicemails. I’m sure we’ll find a balance in some years when you get back — maybe even be friends again — but please… don’t call.”
You press the red END CALL button almost as soon as a crash comes from your balcony. You shriek and jump up from the couch, running from your purse and the Bat-taser — finally, his moment to shine. Jenna’s hard earned ten bucks will serve their purpose, maybe. You also eye the metal baseball bat sitting beside the entrance in case you’ll need it, but choose against it in case your opponent is way too strong for you to kick him out.
You try to peek outside and see nothing but darkness. So, you do the only thing you can think of: hold the Bat-taser in front of you like it’s a gun, slowly open the door to the balcony and yell (probably sounding more shrill than you’d intended to): “GoawayorIswearI’llcallthepolice!”
A pained groan comes from the ground, “Please don’t.”
You have to hold onto all the self control you have not to shriek again, “Batman? Is that really you?”
Another pained groan — from the dim light, you notice him holding onto his side and trying to get back up– and also that he crashed one of Jenna’s beloved flower pots while falling here. “The one and only.”
Now, Jenna had told you about him ending up on civilian’s balconies, but you didn’t actually think he did it. You let the taser fall from your hand and rush to his side, helping him up and then inside the apartment. “What the hell, dude? You scared the shit out of me.”
He slips from your grip pretty easily — he’s built like a tank, of course he does — and maybe you should worry about getting him back up to his feet, but rather think about closing the balcony door behind you. “Well, my guy, I sure hope you haven’t dragged one of your nemesis right here in my poor little apartment — because I might just lose it.”
He just groans — again. He must be a real sweet talker. “You don’t happen to have something to stitch me up, do you?”
And that’s how you end up hunched over Batman’s limp body on the tiles of your bathroom floor — you had begged him to at least get there before the living room’s carpet was ruined without any means to salvage it — with an All That You Need If Batman Crashes Through Your Window! medical kit — a wonder that they make these and that Jenna paid a whopping thirty bucks to have it — while watching the shortest video you found on Youtube teaching how to stitch an open wound. Because while you’re a vet student, you still haven’t exactly gotten to this part of the practice just yet.
“It’s scary that you haven’t even flinched since I started sewing your side close,” you murmur — the first thing you say to him after managing to get him laid down decently. You say it just to try to break the ice, feeling kinda pressured by the awkward silence. “Sorry, man, I’ll have to cut your suit open again. You’ve got a nasty cut on your ribs.”
“What’s scary is that you’ve got all these Batman themed things,” he replies curtly. “The Bat-taser? The Bat-signal pants? This… abomination of a medical kit? I didn’t even know they made those.”
You would’ve laughed loudly if you weren’t trying to make the stitches as even as possible. “That’s not on me– that’s on my roommate Jenna. She’s a big fan of yours. I’ll need you to sign her limited edition iridescent Bat-popcorn-bucket before you go, by the way.”
He blinks. “A Bat… what?”
“Bat-popcorn-bucket. It’s iridescent. It makes it look like you’re wearing a rainbow and she keeps it in a display box in her room just in case.”
You take the scissors and cut away some more fabric, only to stop and squint at his abs. Now, don’t they look familiar… “So, Batsy… how are you holding up in these fantastic days of freedom for all the Arkham prisoners?”
He grunts — does this man know how to start a phrase without an animalistic sound? “Just what I needed for Christmas.”
You hum, scanning his abdomen as if to understand how to better close the rib wound while you try to understand if your mind’s playing some trick on you or not. “It was just so nice of them to ruin Christmas for everyone, wasn’t it?”
You dab some hydrogen peroxide on the cut on his ribs, “Don’t you have someone to spend Christmas with, anyway?” his response is kinda quipped, and if your suspicions are true, you might just know why — after all, Bruce does think you’re in Smallville as of now. Who knows what he’s thinking right now.
You decide to test your theory. “Oh, yeah. My boyfriend’s in the bedroom, he was so tired from cooking all day that he just collapsed after dinner.”
His entire body freezes, and as he tries to sit up, you get your answers. “I have to go,” he mumbles hurriedly, “Scarecrow’s still out there–”
You place a firm hand on his chest, smirking as you inch closer to his face. “Huh-huh,” you tut, his eyebrows twisting in confusion, “where do you think you’re going, Bruce? I just started stitching this cut right here, and you’re not getting out of here unless you take a good nap.”
He raises an eyebrow, “I don’t know what you’re talking about–”
“Please,” you push him back onto the floor, “I would recognise these abs anywhere. By the way, the only thing sleeping in the next room is Jenna’s elderly hamster. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t even have the social skills needed to cheat on someone if I wanted to.”
He sighs, then presses a hand to his forehead and decides to drop the act. “What gave me away?”
“I told you,” you tap his abdomen, “those abs don’t lie. Besides, the way you reacted when I told you my boyfriend was in the bedroom sleeping? Whoof, you slipped right into my trap. Now, can I look into your baby blues or will I have to converse all night while looking at those ugly white lenses?”
He rips off his cowl, rising to his elbows — and there he is, your handsome, so-tired looking loverboy. “I’m mad at you, by the way,” he says while glaring in your direction, “you told me you were in Smallville. I thought you were safe, and here you are — do you know how many home invasions I had to stop just these last two days in this area?”
You blanch. “I’d prefer not to, thanks.” but you also raise an eyebrow, because you’re not about to lose an argument to a guy that outed his real identity because of abs and jealousy, “You told me you were in the Alps, by the way. In Switzerland. About… what, four-thousand miles away?”
Bruce sighs, resigned. “I received word of the breakout just as I was flying above the Atlantic.”
You tie the last stitch and cut the excess string, pressing a kiss on the wounded skin. “Well, I lost the 8 a.m. train but was too embarrassed about it to tell you. I guess we’re even.”
You lean down to his level as he holds out an arm to brush your hair off your shoulder, “Oh, sweetheart, we’re always even.” his hand rests on the back of your neck as you two kiss hard, all spit and tongue — so much so that you lose yourself in the moment and press your side a little too hard on his cuts.
He jumps, yelping in pain as you stare bemused. “Oh, so you do feel pain,”
He raises an eyebrow, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Thought you were some kind of robot programmed not to feel soreness for a second.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “I’m still mad at you. You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“Thank goodness then that the guy crashing on my balcony wasn’t one of the Joker’s henchmen, no?” you frown, “Besides, why did you come here? For all you knew I wasn’t home.”
“Well, missy, I wasn’t looking for you,” you feign a gasp of disbelief, “I was hoping to find that horrendous medical kid you told me about.”
You pinch his side — one of the parts not wounded, at least. “You were thinking about breaking in? What are you, a criminal?”
He purses his lips. “I would’ve forced the lock, but I would have repaired it before you got back.”
“Is that how you spend your fortune?” you murmur, defeated. “Fighting bad guys in your free time? That’s a pretty expensive hobby.” you suddenly remember something you had said to Clark — I don’t want you to be the man lying half-dead in a dark alley while I wonder why you’re so late to dinner. Would you look at that — you ended up with the same guy you told your ex to please not be. You’re not even too surprised about it — because sometimes, it does feel like Bruce is faking being dumber than he actually is.
You let him go as soon as the sun peeks out from the horizon with a kiss on the lips and the promise of coming back later in the day, to autograph Jenna’s popcorn bucket, and while he later on keeps his promise, he makes sure to make you another Christmas gift other than the too-expensive necklace he already got you — and somehow manages to get all the criminals back in their cells by the time New Year’s Eve comes around.
The lockdown ends, but all means of transportation are still off-limits thanks to a few well-placed explosions that went off in the last few days. That’s why you’re confused when Bruce tells you to pack a bag and come with him to the Archie Goodwill International Airport. “I mean, Bruce, we should be somewhere opening champagne bottles — not in a completely deserted airport looking for– what exactly are we looking for?”
He chuckles, going for one of the hangars present at the launch track, the number 18 plastered on it. “Have you ever flown on a helicopter?”
You frown, “I’ve never flown like, ever.” you don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s because your ex-boyfriend knew how to fly and you’d always hoped he would be the first one to take you flying.
He takes out a key and opens the sliding door of the hangar — revealing, surprise surprise, a helicopter. “Well, get ready for your first flight, then.”
Flying is much more scary than you would’ve thought — especially because you really don’t know if you should trust Bruce at the wheel. All you know is that you’re holding onto the armrest for your life, hoping that he actually got the licence for flying and didn’t randomly purchase it one day. “Wh– where are we going?” you ask him, trembling, not even managing to look down from the window.
He sends you a look, “Don’t worry, I would never crash the helicopter with you in it. About the place where we’re going, however– it’s a surprise.”
Barely an hour up in the air later you look out the window to see the helicopter landing in a familiar — too familiar — field, with the grass cut weirdly low. “Bruce, are we–?”
“In Smallville? Yeah, we are.”
Your whole face lights up. “No, you didn’t,” you jump on him, kissing everywhere you can reach, “oh, Bruce, thank you, thank you, thank you– mwah! You’re a real sweetheart, I don’t know how I ever managed to think that you were any less of a person than you are–”
Needless to say, your parents are elated to see you — they did know about Bruce’s plan, hence why the grass was cut so short where you landed: they were his accomplices and made sure the soil was decent to land on. You’re so happy when you take a bite out of your mother’s pie that you could cry, and your boyfriend — is he? You still haven’t really talked about labels and such — looks not too far away from tears either.
You spend at least two hours chatting away happily with your parents before Bruce coughs, taking his coat back from the hanger at the entrance. “Well, I think it’s time for me to go.”
Your mother raises an eyebrow, “Oh, but you can’t go! I’ve just put the sweet potatoes in the oven– besides, it’s already dark out there, you seriously wouldn’t want to fly that thing in complete darkness!”
Bruce looks at you, waiting for your approval — well, it was you who said that spending the holidays together at your parents’ was a step a little too big for just a month-long relationship — but you nod, smiling. “You were the one who brought me here, Bruce. C’mon, you gave Alfred the week off– surely you don’t want to be all alone during New Years’ Eve?”
He relents, “Well, if you say so,”
That’s how he ends up staying at your parent’s house against all predictions — and you won’t forget the kiss he gives you when the clock strikes midnight for a long, long time, that’s for sure.
You two spend one week at the farm and another one in the Alps’ resort Bruce had planned to spend Christmas in, spending your time either skiing — tripping over the snow, in your case — or, an activity you appreciate much more, cozied up in the jacuzzi of your private suite. It’s also during this vacation that your relationship gets leaked, but surprisingly — apart from a call from an absolutely fuming Jenna (you had somehow managed to keep the relationship a secret from her) and one from a triumphant Kelly — you take the new wave of publicity suspiciously well.
Because for the first time in months, you’re truly happy.
It’s the summer of the year later when he appears again.
You’re on one of the Wayne's biggest yachts in Tenerife with Bruce, Kelly and Jenna — just as the prophecies predicted!, the latter had shrieked when you’d shared Bruce’s invite with her — sunbathing on the boat’s deck as your friends play mermaids in the water when you notice an unusual silence from the upper deck.
You get up from your sunbed, raising your sunglasses up to your hair as you look for your boyfriend. “Bruce? Honey, is everything alright?”
You find him seated on the plush couch of the lounge room, staring intently at the TV; you hug him from behind, leaving a kiss on his temple, “Did something happen in Gotham?”
He takes the remote and raises the volume, turning to look at you with a puzzled face. “Not exactly in Gotham.”
Looking up at the screen, you frown when you see the broadcaster. “DPN? Isn’t that the Daily Planet News channel?”
“And things apparently just keep getting weirder in Metropolis, because after scarce apparitions and helping for some minor crimes the man that the citizens have lovingly dubbed as ‘Superman’ has just shown the public what he’s really capable of by preventing a building from falling onto the passers-by after an explosion cut the structure in half…”
Your heart skips a beat, and suddenly you begin to wonder what you must have done wrong in your life to end up not only with a vigilante boyfriend, but also a vigilante ex-boyfriend. You have to hold back not to slap your forehead in disbelief — really, Clark, and the glasses should be your mask? It’s the stupidest disguise you’ve ever seen, and you have no idea how no one connected Clark Kent — just starting his career as a reporter in the Daily Planet — and Superman — just starting his career as… you don’t know what he’s trying to be.
You seem to have a magnet for too good-hearted guys, apparently. Bruce presses a kiss on your cheek, “I’ll worry about it when we get back. Don’t think too much about it, okay?”
You’re not ready to tell him your ex-boyfriend is the guy saving old ladies from having to carry their groceries alone — that would be a conversation for almost six months later, when the Justice League is formed — so you just smile at him and pretend to your best abilities that you don’t know anything.
The first time you see Clark Kent again after that morning at the cafè is five years after the start of his crusade as Superman.
He’s one of the six reporters who were granted permission to be inside of Wayne Manor during the engagement party, briefly interviewing anyone he can talk to and taking notes of everything he thinks valuable on his little notepad.
You? You’re the one who’s getting engaged.
You’re wearing a silky white dress that fits you like a glove as you stand next to Bruce, talking to some WE associates, Dick patiently waiting for the conversation to end as he stays glued to your side, hugging your waist and pressing his cheek into your hip as you gently run your hands through his hair. Clark is expecting a one-of-a-kind rock on your ring finger, but is instead surprised with a simple white pearl adorned with two smaller ones on its sides — he did hear something about Bruce proposing with his mother’s ring, now that he thinks about it.
Lois’ gone off to interview Lucius Fox when you notice him standing awkwardly to the side, scrambling with his notebook and looking around. You excuse yourself from the conversation, giving a little smile to Bruce, nudging Dick with a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to come and meet an old friend of mine, bubba?” he nods, eager to please, and lets your waist go in favour of your hand.
You approach Clark with the confidence of someone who doesn’t hold any grudges when they should. “Hi, Clark,” you greet him like you two are old friends that meet again — and even if you technically are, you’re also so much more than that. You hold out your hand — again, like you were just good old friends catching up — and he has to force himself to shake it instead of tackling you into a hug. “Have you seen my parents? I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you– it’s been a while.”
You nudge Dick from behind you, gently holding him by the shoulders in front of you, “Dick, this is Clark, the old friend I was telling you about. Clark, this is Dick, my son.”
As the child holds out a hand and excitedly says “Hullo!”, Clark tries not to think about how weird it is that he’s still trying to figure out his life while you just have a whole ass kid — adopted, but still. It’s clear how much you have taken into the role of mother. “Hi, Dick,” he says as kindly as possible, not really believing that the Robin who beats up criminals during the night beside the fearsome Batman is the same kid who hides behind his mother during formal events.
Said kid raises his eyebrows in curiosity, looking up at you, “What kind of friends are you, anyways?” he asks, knowing all too well about your distaste for reporters and journalists alike.
“The kind that goes way back,” you reply easily with a chuckle, “me and Clark grew up together, bubba.”
“Oooh,” he ushers, “does that mean you also know nana and gramps?”
Guessing that he’s talking about your parents, Clark chuckles a bit before nodding, “That I do, champ.”
“Aren’t they the coolest people you know?” Dick rambles excitedly, “last time gramps took me a ride on his tractor and it was so fun! Besides, they have this dog–” he turns to look at you, “Batman’s here, isn’t he?”
Clark’s eyebrows shoot up to his airline. He knew the kid was talkative, but he didn’t think he would be able to out Bruce like that. You laugh, “Yeah, I think I saw him earlier somewhere in the garden with Ace. It’s a miracle the both of them still have their tuxedo collars.” you then look at your old flame, a playful smirk on your face, “Don’t worry, Batman’s my parents' golden retriever.”
“Ooh,” he sighs in relief, “for a moment there I wondered why Gotham’s most famous vigilante was playing with Bruce Wayne’s dog, and how exactly to phrase it in my article,” a terribly awkward silence follows.
You shift your gaze to Dick, “Hey, Dickie, why don’t you–”
“Hello! Good evening!” a man with blazing red hair and a whole lot of freckles on his face runs up to the two of you, nudging Clark with an elbow as if clearly saying, please please pleaseeeee introduce me. He’s one of the reporters, you notice, with the press pass and a Canon slung over his neck. He kinda looks like a kid in a candy shop — eyes shining with excitement and almost jumping up and down on his feet.
Clark sighs, “This is Jimmy Olsen, one of my coworkers from the Daily Planet,”
The guy grins and holds out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” his fingers are a bit sweaty, “I’m a great fan.”
You have to bite the inside of your cheek to avoid bursting out in laughter, “Oh, I’m flattered,”
“May I take a picture of the two of you?” it’s clear it was what he had wanted to ask since he saw you and Dick talking to Clark. You look at your son, and he grins up at you with glee. You smile, “Of course,”
You lower yourself a bit and cross your arms over his chest while pressing your chin to the top of his head, smiling widely — and you don’t doubt that he’s smiling with all he’s got too, hands holding your forearms, showing the window his last canine that fell out left. Jimmy snaps a little more than one pictures, but gets interrupted by a voice from behind you, “I hope you aren’t hogging the missus too much, boys,”
It’s Bruce — of course it is, he’s been staring since you got out of that conversation twenty minutes ago — and he slings an arm around your waist as you rise from your position. Jimmy sits up straighter like his drill sergeant just entered the room — you’re surprised he doesn’t do the salute. “Sir,” he starts, “it is an honor–”
“Clark,” Bruce casually shakes the man’s hand, to his coworker’s utter disbelief. Technically, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne don’t know each other, but it’s another story for Batman and Superman. “A pleasure to meet you — this pretty girl right here told me a lot of stories about the two of you growing up together."
Jimmy’s mouth falls open. His gaze turns to his coworker with an accusation that could only be described as treacherous. Clark smiles awkwardly, “Yeah, well–”
“You’re a photographer, aren’t you?” the Brucie Wayne persona isn’t trained to hold his attention on just one person at once, so he immediately switches his charming smile to Jimmy, “Why don’t you take a few photos of us? We’re a real nice picture to see,” he draws you closer to him by the waist, “Especially my soon-to-be wife.”
Jimmy doesn’t let him repeat that, snapping a couple — more like a dozen — of pictures of Bruce holding you close to him while his other hand is as occupied as yours, sitting on Dick’s shoulder as he stands between the two of you, grinning ear to ear.
“So, Clark,” you start when Jimmy stops snapping pictures, eyeing the other reporter from the Daily Planet — was it Lane? — from the other side of the room, “is that your girlfriend? You two looked pretty close earlier.”
It’s meant to be a friendly remark, said with nothing but a happy tone, but Clark almost chokes on his saliva. “Oh, I mean–”
You raise an eyebrow, “Please,” you laugh out, “Don’t tell me she’s just a friend, because I’d be nearly as devastated as she would.”
He huffs with a little smile. “I’m… working on it.”
You smirk. “That’s a good thing. Bruce here has got something for you that could help in your romantic quest.” you nudge your fianceè with your elbow as Dick snickers, “Don’t you, honey?”
He grumbles, looking with a frown at Clark — it’s not that their relationship isn’t good, it’s just that… he wasn’t really the happiest with your decision. “I do, actually,” he takes out an envelope and passes it to Clark with gritted teeth. “I’m… delighted… to invite you to our wedding.”
“As a friend, and with the possibility to bring a plus one,” you add, hand squeezing Bruce’s bicep, “not as press– there won’t be any, by the way.” you roll your eyes towards your boyfriend, “He’ll insist on making you sign an NDA, but I’m sure that you wouldn’t write anything about it nonetheless.”
He blushes deep red, “Oh, no, no, I would never–”
“Clark.” you giggle as you interrupt him, “It was a joke. Nobody’s going to make you sign an NDA,”
“Yet,” Bruce grumbles.
You ignore him. “It was a joke between friends,” you aren’t implying anything in your words — you’re sincere. After all these years, that’s what you see Clark as, and it would be sad not having him or his family at the wedding. You’ve already sent the invites to the Kents: only Clark was missing.
You hold your hand out to him, hopeful. “We are friends, aren’t we?”
I loved you, and I’ll always love you– but I’m trying to get over you, and you need to understand that. I can’t do that if you call me just now after ghosting twenty of my calls and voicemails. I’m sure we’ll find a balance in some years when you get back — maybe even be friends again — but please… don’t call.
He takes your hand and shakes it with a soft smile. “Friends.”
if you've managed to read all the way down here, congratulations! have some memes:
in another life, i would make you stay a gojo satoru (fix it) fic
pairing ⸺ reincarnated!gojo x reincarnated!reader
summary ⸺ you are a sorcerer, married to your husband who bears the burden of being the strongest. firsthand, you watch the love of your life fall apart, the world burdening him until, finally, he dies at the hand of sukuna. as you watch him through the broadcast, you blankly volunteer to be next and you die, praying to whatever merciful god out there that, in another life, you and satoru get the happy ending you both deserved—
until you wake up from your dream, gasping. why the hell was your dream so vivid? you were some sort of magician? with a smoking HOT husband? and why the fuck does the guy that's ten minutes late to the first day of lectures look EXACTLY like him?
warnings ⸺ eventual smut fluff and angst (the holy trinity of aashi longfics), hurt/comfort, reincarnation fic, basically you and gojo have a miserable life in canon and get reincarnated into a modern au where i fix everything and give you the romcom you deserve, canon typical violence, jjk manga spoilers, mentions of blood and injury, major character death, fem reader implied
a/n i'll see u at the end :3
December 23, 2018.
“How do you feel?”
The both of you lay, side by side on the grass as you stared into the sky. The only sounds that surrounded you were the occasional rustle of leaves, the hum of the late afternoon cicadas, and the soft, almost inaudible rise and fall of your breathing.
The stars were really bright that day.
The sounds of nature were even more tangible in the absence of traffic. After the culling games had roped in both non-sorcerers and sorcerers alike, no one went out, so the roads were all virtually empty.
Satoru frowns thoughtfully, in a way that makes his nose scrunch up. His fingers play through your hair absentmindedly as he comes up with a response. With the way he’s thinking, your heart aches to tell him that you want his honest feelings, his doubts and fears, not some fake image he perpetually paints on for the rest of the world. You temper the urge.
“Fighting Megumi is gonna be…weird,” he says finally, with a sigh. “I’m just glad the real pain in the asses are out of the way.”
You remember the day he had come back from killing the higher ups. There was still blood matting his face and hair, dried and flaking. His eyes had long lost their light, and when you had got him alone in your shared room, grabbed a washcloth to wash his face. While you made sure none of the blood was still there, he had asked: Did I do the right thing?
It had taken three face towels to clean it all. The others had gotten soaked too quickly.
He continues. “I’ve been walking toward changing the system for so long, I forgot how to want anything past it.”
You tilt your head to look at him. His eyes are on the sky, as if trying to memorize every cloud.
“You can still want things,” you murmur. “Even now.”
What is left unsaid from you is, You can run away with me.
It’s a pipe dream at best. He was born with the shackle of the six eyes, born in the prison called The Strongest. Running away from it all was as possible as it was for Sisyphus to escape the burden of rolling the rock forever.
At your words, he huffs out a laugh and turns his head just slightly, eyes meeting yours. The blue of them is softer in this light, dusk and gold turning them the color of worn glass. “I do,” he says. “I want a stupid house with a stupid yard and a dumb dog who only listens to you.”
You laugh, blinking against the sudden sting in your eyes. “The dog would accidentally eat your god-awful heap of chocolates and drop dead.”
“Okay, then maybe not a dog then,” he accedes. “I could do with a cat. Just don’t confiscate my chocolates.”
Your voice is a bit stuffy when you reply with, “I would never.”
“Good,” His smile is crooked now, warm. “If I had all the chocolates and the cakes you bake for the rest of my life, I would die a happy man.”
“You already have those, Satoru,” you laugh wetly.
“Yeah, but I want grocery lists and laundry days and boring Tuesday nights. Not endless mission reports. God, I’m definitely not going to miss the paperwork,” he groans, and his tone would sound petulant to anyone else; to you, it’s a reminder of how he’s been worked to the bone.
You roll closer to him, forehead brushing against his temple. “We’ll have all of it.”
There’s a beat of silence. The wind rustles through the trees again. He closes his eyes and breathes it in, like he’s trying to make a home of it. You can’t help but look at his serene face and think,
I love you.
It goes unsaid.
Then, “You’ll wait for me?” he asks, almost like a joke.
You turn to him, gaze softening as it lingers on the line of his jaw, the sweep of his lashes, the eyes you’ve loved in a thousand different lights. He’s so beautiful it aches—like something out of a dream or a poem scribbled by a lonely poet on a dirty street, staring up at a beauty wistfully peering out of a window of a high tower.
“Always.”
December 24, 2018.
He looks like he’s watching the sky again.
You are staring down at the shape of him broadcasted through Mei Mei’s crows. The ground is soaked, and the sky doesn’t seem to know whether to rain or just stay gray. His eyes are open.
But you know better. And still, you wait.
Around you, there’s chaos. Your students, in disbelief, are talking loudly but it’s as if everyone around you is talking underwater, none of their words comprehensible. You feel someone shake you, but you’re still staring.
His eyes aren’t closed, but he looks peaceful.
The air thrums with cursed energy, of people in utter shock, and with fear so thick it could choke.
But all you can think about is a stupid patch of wildflowers blooming in your yard. They would’ve been his favorite color—blue, like his eyes when he was teasing you. Like his eyes when he told you he wanted a dumb dog and boring Tuesday nights.
You were going to plant them for him every spring.
You were going to make him cakes every time he forgot his own birthday.
You were going to grow old together.
Instead, you’ll be the one laying flowers on his grave. Alone.
“I’ll go,” you say.
It’s too quiet. Someone protests. You don’t even hear who.
“I said I’ll go.”
You’re already stepping forward. The fight is miles away but it doesn’t matter—you’ll find it. You’ll find Sukuna. You’ll follow the stench of blood and ruin until it leads you to him.
You know your death is imminent, but there is nothing left to want anymore. Because a future without Satoru is no future at all.
As you make your way through Shinjuku rapidly, you can’t help but think of Yuji—his eyes wide and boyish, despite everything—as he shoved a flyer into your hand and told you to try that ramen shop with him once this was all over.
You remember Megumi’s ginger candies, the ones you had to keep hidden or Gojo would eat them all in one go. They’re still sitting in a dish by the kitchen window.
You remember Shoko’s voice when she said, “Just come back alive, okay?”
You remember Nanami, and Utahime, and Nobara. You remember every stupid, beautiful person you’ve ever loved.
You love them, but love doesn’t always save you; instead, it makes you walk straight into the fire.
Your life had begun when Satoru had saved you from that lonely, dark prison you were forced into; you remember how you had thought that he was akin to a glowing deity, descended from heaven to be your savior. A discarded animal like you, made to believe you were human again by this savior.
So it feels right, in a terrible, sacred way, that your life should end with him, too.
When you finally spot Sukuna, you put up a good fight, but anyone who watches you knows you are resolved, have accepted your fate and prefer death. You don’t scream or cry when it happens; you stare at his face when your body is cleaved into spilling your blood like an endless dam.
You just think: I kept my promise.
I waited.
Then, as you feel everything growing darker and darker, there’s only one thought left, just a silent prayer to whatever god that might still be out there:
Let us try again.
Please—let us try again.
…
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
You wake up from your dream, gasping.
The noise your alarm makes is an unfriendly wake-up call; in your furious effort to locate your phone—which has found itself nestled in your messy blankets—you notice your roommate, Maki, blearily shifting. You madly search to minimize the yelling you’re going to get from her later in the day (you’re already cooked by this point), until silence blankets the room once more.
It’s only until your phone is silenced that you register how fast your heart is beating. Then, when you trudge over to the personal bathroom you and Maki share and flick the light switch, you see that tears had flowed down your cheeks in your sleep.
What a weird fucking dream.
One to have on your first day of classes for the semester, too. You squint at your reflection, the fluorescent light doing your sleep-addled eyes no favors as you grudgingly get ready, brushing your teeth and washing your face and all that. You don’t know why it was so vivid.
From the dredges of your mind, you first recall the flashing light beams and carnal violence in the destruction of the city, and then you. Were you some kind of magician? It was kind of like…Winx Club, but you weren’t a cunty fairy in cute clothes. Something about sorcerers, so maybe Harry Potter? Hunter X Hunter?
You spit out the frothy mix of your saliva and the mouth freshener. So ridiculous. You couldn’t even blame stress for the weird fanfiction at this point—classes haven’t even started.
Memories of the dream ebb and flow as you try hard to remember what else had occurred as you wipe your face. Gazing upon the white of the moisturizer you’re dabbing on your skin, a flash of white suddenly resurfaces.
Gojo.
A violent feeling overcomes your chest at the name, and you think you’re having a heart attack with the way it clenches like you’re almost about to weep in longing of a beloved. You gasp, cupping the left side of your chest as you try to lower your heart rate.
What hurts most of all is the searing pain, like a spiral of thinly corded string has branded itself on your ring finger. In your rush to look up in the mirror to see what could be hurting you, you don’t notice the red glow it forms. What you see in the see in your reflection surprises you: you’re crying again.
Tears have fully started streaming down your face with the pain, carving wet valleys on your cheeks as they went. After your heart rate slows down, you frown while looking down at your hands. Why were they shaking?
You repeat the name numerous times in your brain, each time causing you to physically tweak. Gojo, Gojo, Gojo, and then resurfaces Satoru, Satoru, Satoru—
It’s after the tenth time you repeat his name that your body seems to calm itself down and get accustomed to whatever emotional shock that coursed through your name after you mentioned his name. His name originally came up because you remember the main person in your dream: the white-haired man. He was the reason you decided to confront that…three armed man? Or did he have four arms? Regardless, you basically offed yourself after he died because you loved him, or something. With the way your body seems to physically shake at the sheer thought of his name, as if the utter image of longing, love may not have been enough to describe what you felt.
Realizing that you’ve drifted off at reminiscing sleepily, you start, as if suddenly animated. You pat your skin, setting in the final step of your skincare routine. Then, you click on your phone screen to check the time.
And notice immediately that you are going to be late.
Then ensues you scrambling to your room, putting on your clothes, tripping on the floor in the process, getting a sleepy glare from Maki that has doubly certified that you are getting a scolding, and then finally making it out the door. The somewhat cool fall weather hits your face as you walk on the pavement, checking your clock repeatedly to ensure it hasn’t hit 9am yet.
When you make it into the lecture, you realize that it is packed. There aren’t many seats—it is a gen ed class after all, something on some ancient history, and you notice two empty seats, side-by-side, tucked away in the corner of the lecture room. You have to carefully maneuver yourself down the seats.
Navigating the maze of limbs and backpacks, you mumble a series of "excuse me’s" and "coming through’s" until you squeeze past two guys—a stern-looking blond with glasses that scream "salaryman thirst trap" and a loud brunet beside him. Reaching your target, you slide into the seat that leaves an empty one between you and the blond. You’re very pleased about the extra breathing room.
Maybe today won’t be so bad after all.
You prepare your supplies to take notes on the first (of many) syllabus reviews to come. In the meantime, you’re privy to hearing the mumble and grumble of people around you; it’s only when a throat clears itself at the head of the class do you see a man—probably the professor of this class, Yaga—who has the slides already up. Ancient East Asian History is branded on the big white screen in bolded, black Arial font. Clearly, graphic design was not his passion.
His voice projects through the mic and is fairly deep and resonant, so it’s clear to everyone, despite the number of people in the room, that class is starting. As expected, the next slide is titled “What is Ancient East Asian History?”
“Let’s delve deeper into what I mean by East Asian. Asia is a subcontinent that’s home to a diverse set of cultures, and even so in East Asia…”
As Yaga speaks, time ebbs and flows around you. The monotonous sounds of papers flipping, pens scratching on paper, and the clicking of keyboards surrounds you. You can’t help but think the fluorescent lights, harsh and white, had to be designed to keep students from falling asleep, because their intensity paints the lecture hall in this weird lighting. The mood created by it is something akin to the filter horror movies perpetually have on—vivid, but cold and dark. Like when you’ve been up for too long to the point that you don’t know if it’s night, or morning, because it’s still dark out. Then, dawn breaks, the sun enveloping the sky in its warmth.
Suddenly, the heavy set of doors that serve as your lecture hall’s entrance open loudly—louder than someone who is sheepishly entering late. Instead of the usual indifference reserved for a fellow student who had slept in, the room ripples with murmurs and giggles, shattering the silence that had settled—save for Yaga’s lecturing.
You don’t look at first. You look at Yaga, who is pinching the bridge of his nose as he mutters, “In Japanese culture, punctuality is a form of respect—something we are clearly still learning.”
You don’t turn. You don’t need to. But, like a current pulling you under, your gaze follows the crowd’s. And you see him.
Gojo.
Suddenly, your heart clenches violently, and you can only help but gasp hoarsely and shut your eyes. If you didn't, streams of tears would flow down your face once more. You couldn’t help but swear internally; you had thought you had conditioned yourself to be stable at the mention of his name.
But, almost as if it’s subconscious, you wrench your eyes open, desperate to view the boy. You’d assume something apologetic, maybe. Rushed. Someone with their hood up, mumbling an excuse as they shuffle into the shadows of the back row. But this—
This is someone who walks like he knows the sound of his own footsteps matters. His ivory hair is tussled, like he had just rolled out of your dream. He looks a bit younger than he did when you had seen him, but his eyes are the same unmistakable brilliant, cerulean color.
Now, he’s making his way down the stairs, skipping every third one with his long legs. Something leaves his lips, and it’s something humorous—depending on how girls and guys around him laugh, a shared sense of adoration in their eyes. You can only help but watch as he comes closer and closer to you, and you remember belatedly that the seat next to you is the only empty one in the whole lecture hall.
Yaga huffs and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in barely concealed annoyance. “Nice of you to join us, Gojo.”
Gojo lifts a hand in a lazy wave. “Yaga, you ever tried finding parking on this campus?” The lecture erupts in barely muted half-sleepy giggles.
It’s only when a particularly loud high five he receives—by the brunet in your row—that you break out of your reverie and turn to your laptop, flustered. Any attempt to act nonchalant would be funny as if the thing that’s wrong with you—that invisible thing—hasn’t been rippling violently inside your gut the moment you laid eyes on him. Like your body has just been handed proof. Like a wound cracking open in slow motion.
He’s approaching, long legs trying to get through the sheer amount of people to where the empty seat next to you was, and when he’s there, right next to you, you shouldn’t look up.
But you do.
When your eyes meet his, something ancient and awful coils in your throat. A shiver, not of fear, but of recognition so buried it aches.
Pearly teeth and bright blue eyes glistening. A breathless, “Hi.”
And the invisible string, that had spiraled and corkscrewed itself into the jumble it was, pulls—until it is straight and wrung tight. You don’t know this boy. You’ve never seen him before.
So why does it feel like your heart just remembered how to break?
Your throat is dry, but you manage out a “Good morning.”
You turn back to your desk, your fingers quivering. By your side, he’s moving and rummaging through the contents of his backpack quite noisily, one that can be heard throughout the lecture hall if one were to tune out Yaga’s droning. In curiosity of seeing what was taking him so damn long to find, you turn your head slightly, and notice the heaps of wrappers—all pastel colored and bright, like candy and dessert wrappers—that his backpack is almost suffocated with. Then, he pulls out his laptop, opens it, and resumes the game of Run 3 he had paused beforehand.
Respectfully, what the fuck.
As if sensing your stare, he turns to you until meeting your eyes; you were caught. Like a deer caught in headlights, you helplessly stare back at him, heat creeping up your neck, and his gaze leaves your eyes to look at your lips, which you were biting.
Then, he leans in slightly—you also inching yourself back because why is he getting so close and why is your heart beating so fast—and whispers, “Do I know you?”
You’ve never seen him outside of the weird dream you had, and it would’ve been weird to admit that you’ve dreamed about him. “No, I don’t think you do,” you whisper back, voice hoarse.
His lips quirk in response, but, to your dismay, he doesn’t retract. His brows furrow while he stares at your face, as if deep in thought, and nods, flirtatiously saying, “Makes sense. I feel like I wouldn’t have forgotten you if I had met you.”
Despite the cheesy line, heat creeps up your neck, and you can’t help but bitterly look down at your desk after giving him a quiet, “No, I don’t we have. I’m sorry.” If he flirted with a stranger like this, dream you must’ve had a really hard time as his wife. Shameless.
And thus the lecture runs its course. Throughout, you’re tense, the heat of his presence never letting you relax. You feel every movement of his fingers, his forearms, as he played his games or typed miscellaneous things that you didn’t see because you were physically forcing yourself to stare at the lecture slides, back ramrod straight.
It’s only until his leg starts shaking that you start feeling…weird. His reaction is completely normal; you don’t blame him, because Yaga’s been going over the syllabus’ section of projects and how you can’t change project partners for over thirty minutes. But it’s the fact that a steady wave of nausea is building up inside you, until a sharp piercing sensation overwhelms your head.
Then, a vision.
It’s hazy, as if projected on cloudy water. A shaking leg, clad in what seems like uniform pants, underneath a small wooden desk. Then, a hand reaches out to yours, grasping it firmly, and you feel a weird sense of nausea once more. However, it’s not the same feeling you’ve been feeling since your dream—instead, it’s a stomach upturning feeling of being teleported somewhere.
A bed.
It’s a small one, in a room that resembles a dorm. The hand grasping yours isn’t simply grabbing your hand; it’s now trailing up your sock-covered ankle, up your calves, and then under your skirt—
The murky vision gets even murkier until you can’t register anything anymore. Then, you suddenly return, the fluorescent lights being the first thing you register after the weird deja-vu-memory thing. The feelings you felt from the vision linger, including overwhelming feelings of euphoria, lust, and sheer happiness that bloom in your heart warmly, like a flower in fresh spring.
You’re so distraught from the complicated jumble of feelings that have thrusted themselves upon you that you don’t hear Yaga say his concluding words. It’s the jarring, obnoxious screech! of the chair next to you—Gojo’s—that you jump to your senses and realize half of the students have left.
Thus, you hurriedly pack your things and book it the fuck out of there because you would rather die than be the last person to leave class, lest Yaga think you were staying behind to talk to him. You’ve had more than your fill of East Asian Studies today.
Maybe it’s best if you avoid Gojo, lest you slip up. The dream—and the weird reactions your body seems to be having in his presence—are too…peculiar. If something happened, you wouldn’t know how to recover.
In your haste, you don’t realize you’ve left something behind, nor did you hear the “Wait! You forgot….this” that Gojo had called out to you, staring at the object in his hand—and your retreating back—with a complicated expression.
next. the aftermath (soon!)
a/n short chapter, but this series is going to contain a mixture of: a lot of crack and fluff, yearning (as always, yall know me), and debilitating angst ("who did this to you??" oh i loved writing the angst) and crazy reunion sex. comment down below to be added to the taglist!!
to be clear, unless otherwise indicated, reader is getting these moments from the past as "migraines" / flashes / dreams.
summary : you and satoru have always been something—never labeled, never defined. from jujutsu high to stolen rooftop kisses, your dynamic is a mess of healing hands, half-confessions, and his infuriating habit of getting hurt just to keep your attention.
but when the weight of loss and pride tears you apart, you walk away—until fate (and a tiny, pink-backpack-wearing menace) drags you back into his orbit six years later.
tags –> canon divergence au, fluff, angst, humor, hurt/comfort, unlabeled relationship, grovelling satoru, secret child trope, reunions, miscommunications, second chances, happy ending for my own sanity
series masterlist. | other works here. | next.
you and satoru gojo have always been something.
it’s just never been labeled.
from the moment you met at jujutsu high, he’s been a persistent force in your life—loud, overbearing, impossible to ignore. he pokes and prods, worms his way under your skin, grinning all the while like he knows exactly what he’s doing. and maybe he does. because despite your best efforts, despite the way you roll your eyes when he drapes himself over you or tugs at your sleeves like a child craving attention, you never really push him away.
it’s not just him, though.
because when he gets himself banged up on missions—when he returns with blood crusted at the edges of his uniform, bruises forming along his jaw, the scent of battle clinging to his skin—you’re always the first to reach for him. your hands glow with soft, golden light, the warmth of your cursed energy threading into his wounds, coaxing his body to knit itself back together. petals flicker at your fingertips, dissolving into faint sparks of vitality as you work, the remnants of your technique blooming in the air between you.
“you’re reckless!” you snap one evening, pressing your palm firmly against his shoulder where a deep gash is slowly knitting itself back together under your touch. his uniform is torn, the edges stiff with dried blood, and you can feel the way his muscles twitch beneath your fingers, still tense from the battle. “you always do this. you push yourself too far, like you think you’re invincible—”
“well,” satoru interrupts, flashing a toothy grin, his glasses pushed up just enough to reveal the brilliant blue of his eyes, “i kind of am.”
his voice is light, teasing, but you can feel the way he’s watching you—closely, carefully, like he’s waiting for something. the smirk he wears is easy, practiced, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, not when he’s tilting his head just slightly to the side, pressing into your touch like it’s the only thing anchoring him. and you hate that it works, that even now, even with blood still drying against his skin, he makes you want to soften. you press your fingers harder against his wound instead, ignoring the way he winces.
“not funny,” suguru chimes in from across the room, his voice steady, edged with something like exasperation. he’s lounging on the couch, flipping through a magazine like he’s only half-listening, but you know better—he’s watching, just like you are, waiting for satoru to take this seriously. “she’s right, you know. if you keep acting like you can’t get hurt, one day you will.”
“oh, come on,” satoru groans, tilting his head back against your lap dramatically, the weight of him pressing against your legs. his hair, messy from the fight, falls over his forehead in uneven strands, white against the deep red of his uniform. “not you too.”
shoko, sitting cross-legged on the floor, exhales a slow stream of smoke from her cigarette, her eyes lidded with fatigue. “they’re not wrong,” she mutters, flicking her gaze toward you. there’s something knowing in the way she looks at you, something amused. “you’re enabling him, you know.”
you scoff, fingers glowing faintly as the last of his wound seals shut beneath your touch. the golden light of your cursed technique flickers briefly, petals of energy curling along his skin before fading. “i am not enabling him,” you argue, shaking your head. “i’m keeping him alive.”
“see?” satoru grins, nudging your thigh with the back of his hand, the warmth of his skin bleeding through the fabric of your pants. “she cares about me.”
shoko scoffs. “no one’s arguing that.”
suguru finally glances up, closing his magazine with a quiet thud, something unreadable in his expression. “just don’t let him drag you down with him.”
your fingers still against satoru’s skin for just a fraction of a second, your breath catching in your throat before you shake your head, forcing yourself to keep moving. “as if.”
but suguru just hums, unconvinced.
and maybe he has a point.
because this is your dynamic: you take care of satoru, and he lets you. you worry, and he pretends there’s nothing to worry about. he teases, you scold, he grins, you sigh. and beneath it all, something quiet lingers, something neither of you are willing to name.
and if he lets himself get wounded just once, just enough for you to heal him—if he lets a single well-timed hit slip past his defenses, allows an enemy to believe, for the briefest moment, that they’ve bested him—well. that’s his secret.
it’s calculated, precise, a game only he knows he’s playing. he times it perfectly, choosing the kind of wound that won’t alarm you too much, won’t make you furious enough to see through him. a shallow cut here, a bruised rib there—just enough to warrant your hands on him, to feel the warmth of your cursed energy bloom against his skin. because no one touches him like you do. no one else can.
you’re careful with him, always, even when you’re mad—especially when you’re mad. your fingers press firmly against his skin, your lips pressed together in concentration, a deep furrow between your brows that he finds himself staring at more often than he should. your cursed energy hums through him, soothing in a way nothing else ever is, wrapping around him like petals caught in the wind—delicate, fleeting, something he wants to hold in his hands but knows will slip through his fingers if he grips too tightly.
so he watches you, through half-lidded eyes, through lashes that are a little too long and glasses that slip just slightly down the bridge of his nose. he commits the moment to memory—the feel of you, the way you hover so close but never quite meet his gaze, like looking at him too long will make you realize something you don’t want to. he wants you to realize it. he wants you to notice the way his breathing slows under your touch, the way he always finds a reason to lean just a little closer.
but you never do. or maybe you just pretend not to.
so he lets himself get hurt, just enough. lets himself have this, just for a little while longer. because if a single wound is the price for your hands on him, for the way you fuss and scold and heal him all the same, then—well. that’s a price he’s more than willing to pay.
but then, one summer night, something shifts.
it’s late—too late to be sneaking around campus, but that’s never stopped him before. the air is thick with the lingering warmth of the day, cicadas humming lazily in the distance. the two of you are perched on the roof of the dorms, your legs dangling over the edge, the wind stirring your hair as you watch the city lights flicker beyond the trees. it’s peaceful, or at least it should be, but satoru is shifting beside you, too fidgety, too present, like he’s itching to say something but hasn’t quite figured out how.
“so.” he nudges you with his elbow, his sunglasses pushed up into his hair, silver strands catching in the glow of the moon. his eyes, unshielded, are startlingly bright even in the dim light, a vivid cerulean that traps every flicker of movement like a kaleidoscope. “you like anyone?”
you glance at him, raising an eyebrow, unimpressed. “what?”
he grins, but there’s something a little too deliberate about it, the corner of his mouth curling just so. “you know. anyone in particular? anyone special?”
it’s meant to be casual. lighthearted. but there’s something just beneath the surface, something careful and quiet in the way he’s looking at you. his fingers tap idly against his knee, his posture loose, but you can feel the tension coiled just beneath his skin, like he’s holding his breath.
you hum, pretending to think, tilting your head slightly. “maybe.”
his grin widens, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “yeah?”
“yeah.” you tap your fingers against the edge of the rooftop, the faintest flicker of cursed energy sparking at your touch, like an afterthought. the air shifts, charged with something unspoken, something weightier than the teasing banter you’re used to. “he’s a pain in the ass, though.”
“must be a great guy.” his voice is light, but there’s an edge to it, something strained and expectant.
“oh, he is.” you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, watching the way his jaw tenses just slightly. his lips part like he wants to say something, but no words come. “except he never shuts up.”
“rude.” he gasps, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offense, his other hand bracing against the rooftop beside you. he’s closer now, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him, the faint brush of his knee against yours. “i am a fantastic listener.”
you snort. “sure, satoru.”
but he’s still watching you, still leaning just a little too close, his breath feather-light against your skin. the glow of the city lights flickers in his eyes, catching on the sharp angles of his face, softening the usual mischief in his expression into something quieter, something almost careful. his lips part like he wants to say something, but he hesitates, tongue flicking out to wet them before he closes his mouth again. his fingers twitch against the rooftop, curling and uncurling like he’s resisting the urge to reach for you, like the only thing keeping him still is the weight of whatever he’s holding back.
and then, just as you’re about to look away—
“you know,” he says, voice softer now, like he’s testing the weight of his own words, “if you did like me, i wouldn’t mind.”
your breath catches, the warmth of the night suddenly pressing too close, thick and stifling against your skin. cicadas drone in the distance, but the sound barely registers, drowned out by the rushing in your ears, the quickening of your pulse. the wind stirs your hair, cool against the heat creeping up your neck, but it does nothing to ground you when he’s right there, close enough that you can see the way his lashes flutter, the way his throat bobs as he swallows. the moment stretches, fragile and precarious, balanced on the edge of something neither of you can quite name.
he shrugs, tilting his head like it doesn’t mean anything, like he hasn’t just shifted the entire atmosphere between you. “i think we’d be good together.” the words are light, almost offhand, but his fingers betray him again, tightening into fists against his knees before forcing themselves to relax. his lips twitch at the corners, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk—something caught between expectation and defense, bracing himself for whatever comes next. the confidence in his voice doesn’t match the way his body betrays him, and it hits you then—he’s nervous.
your heartbeat quickens, hammering against your ribs, the weight of his words settling into your chest with something sharp and dizzying. you swallow, throat suddenly dry, fingers pressing against the rooftop like you need something to hold onto. “is that so?” your voice is steadier than you expect, but there’s something uncertain about the way it lingers between you, something questioning, something hopeful.
“yeah.” his gaze doesn’t waver, doesn’t drop, doesn’t shift away like he’s waiting for you to call his bluff. he leans in, just barely, just enough for his knee to brush yours, for his breath to ghost against your cheek, for the air between you to thin into nothing. “it is.”
he’s waiting. you could push him away, laugh it off like you always do. you could pretend this is just another one of his games.or—
you let the moment stretch, your fingers tightening in your lap, cursed energy sparking faintly against your skin. the world narrows, the sound of the cicadas fading, the city lights blurring at the edges of your vision. and then, before you can second-guess yourself, before you can let yourself hesitate, you lean in, pressing your lips to his.
he makes a small sound of surprise—quickly swallowed by the way he cups your face, the way he kisses you like he’s been waiting forever. his hand slips to the nape of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair, his touch warm and sure. he leans into you, pressing closer, like he wants to drown in the moment, like he wants to lose himself in you.
and maybe he does.
because the next thing you know, he’s pulling you into his lap, arms wrapping around your waist, his grip possessive in a way that makes your breath hitch. his infinity is off, the faint hum of his technique gone, and it’s only then that you realize—he wants this. wants to feel you, every point of contact, every shiver that runs through you as he presses open-mouthed kisses to your jaw, your throat, your collarbone.
“satoru.” you murmur, fingers curling against his chest.
he exhales a shaky laugh, his forehead resting against yours. “just let me have this.” he whispers, and for once, there’s no teasing lilt to his voice. no cocky bravado. just quiet, aching sincerity.
the night stretches on, the cicadas singing their endless summer song, and somewhere between the tangled sheets and the soft, breathless laughter, you think—maybe he’s been waiting for you, too.
after that night, everything changes.
not all at once—at first, it’s subtle. the way satoru lingers a little too long when he passes you in the hallways, his fingers ghosting against your wrist before he pulls away like it never happened. the way he leans in when you speak, as if he needs to hear every single word, as if your voice is something he can’t go without. the way his gaze finds you in a crowded room, even when you’re not looking back, even when you pretend you don’t feel it burning into your skin.
but then, it happens again.
it happens when he grabs your wrist after training, dragging you away before you can protest, his grip loose but insistent. “come on, let’s go. training is boring, and it’s not like you need it—you already have a god-given talent. or, well, a you-given talent, i guess.” he flashes that insufferable grin, the one that makes it impossible to say no, the one that makes it feel like you’re the only one who matters. his thumb brushes over the inside of your wrist before he lets go, like he’s reluctant to lose the contact. like he’s testing a boundary neither of you are willing to acknowledge.
it happens when he shoves a half-melted ice cream into your hands, his own already half-eaten, a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. “i got your favorite,” he says, like it’s nothing, like he didn’t memorize the exact flavor you picked out the last time. and when you reach out with your thumb, swiping the chocolate away, his mouth closes over your finger without hesitation—lips warm, tongue flickering against your skin, blue eyes watching your reaction like he’s waiting for you to flinch.
but you don’t.
it happens when you end up pressed against the side of a vending machine, his hands braced on either side of you, his breath warm against your cheek. the fluorescent lights flicker, his sunglasses slipping just low enough for you to see his eyes—half-lidded, unreadable, something unspoken resting just behind them. he tilts his head, his lips brushing against yours, not quite a kiss, but close enough that it feels like one. and when you let out a slow, shaky breath, his fingers skim against your waist, trailing up the fabric of your uniform, just light enough to make you shiver.
it happens when he sneaks into your dorm after curfew, flopping onto your bed like he owns it, his hair messy from the wind, the scent of the night still clinging to his clothes. “move over,” he complains, but he’s already pressing against your side, already hooking his chin over your shoulder, already making himself at home in your space like he belongs there. and when you sigh, when you give in, he grins against your skin, his hand slipping beneath the hem of your shirt like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
and then, it just keeps happening.
but it also happens in other ways.
like when you fall asleep in class, forehead pressed against your arm, and you wake up to find his jacket draped over your shoulders, the faintest trace of his scent lingering in the fabric. you don’t mention it, don’t thank him, but the next time he dozes off, you tug your scarf loose and wrap it around his neck, watching the way his lips twitch in something like satisfaction even in sleep.
or when he holds his umbrella over your head instead of his own when it rains, his hair dripping wet, grinning like an idiot when you call him stupid. “what? i have my own built-in defense system,” he teases, tapping his temple like he’s making a point. but he doesn’t turn infinity on, not once, even when the water beads against his skin, soaking through his shirt. even when you huff and tug him under the umbrella properly, even when he bumps his shoulder against yours and murmurs, “see? you do care.”
or when he shoves a handful of candies into your pocket, grinning when you shoot him a confused look. “i know you like these.” he says, voice light, offhanded, like it isn’t something he noticed just from watching you. later, you find a small sticky note tucked between them, a doodle of himself with his tongue sticking out, with tiny scribbled words beneath: for when you miss me. you will.
it’s not a relationship, not exactly. neither of you say anything about it, neither of you try to define it. but there’s a shift between you now, something thick and heavy in the air, something that settles in the pit of your stomach whenever he looks at you like that.
like he’s waiting for you to stop him.
like he knows you won’t.
and when it happens again—when his lips finally, finally press against yours, when his weight settles over you, pinning you down in a way that makes your breath hitch—there’s no hesitation. there’s no teasing remark, no cocky grin, just the warmth of his hands on your skin, just the quiet hum of satisfaction when you pull him closer. he doesn’t turn infinity on, doesn’t keep any distance between you, lets himself feel you completely, like some lovesick idiot. like he wants to remember exactly how this moment feels, how you feel.
shoko notices first.
it’s not even subtle—the way she leans back against the school’s rooftop railing, cigarette dangling from her lips, eyes half-lidded in amusement as she watches you fuss over satoru’s scraped knuckles. he’s practically melting under your touch, his head tilting slightly as if he’s trying to press more into your palm without making it obvious. you’re focused, brows drawn together, lips pursed in mild annoyance at his carelessness, but your hands are gentle, fingers skimming over his skin with practiced ease. his long legs are stretched out in front of him, his glasses perched low on his nose, letting you see the way his bright blue eyes soften when they flicker up to meet yours.
“so, are you two, like… a thing?” shoko asks, lazily exhaling a puff of smoke, watching the way satoru’s mouth twitches at the question.
“no,” you say immediately, your voice firm, but at the same time, satoru hums, “hmm, maybe?”
your head snaps toward him, brows raising in disbelief, while he merely grins like he expected this reaction. his free hand comes up to push his sunglasses up properly, but the motion is slow, languid, like he’s trying to keep his grin hidden behind his palm. shoko lets out a snort, flicking the ash off the tip of her cigarette, unimpressed.
“yeah, okay.”
suguru is quieter about it, but he doesn’t need to say anything. it’s in the way his gaze lingers when satoru drapes himself over you, in the way his lips twitch like he’s holding back a knowing smile whenever you roll your eyes but don’t push satoru away. when satoru unceremoniously drops himself onto your lap one afternoon, long limbs sprawling across the bench, suguru doesn’t comment. he just looks at you, looks at the way your fingers absently thread through satoru’s hair, the way his lashes flutter at the contact, and he knows.
“you’re really serious about her, huh?” suguru muses one evening, when it’s just the two of them on the rooftop, the sky bleeding into shades of deep purple and burnt orange.
satoru scoffs, stuffing his hands into his pockets, but there’s no real bite to it. “what’s that supposed to mean?”
suguru only shrugs, turning his gaze toward the horizon, the wind ruffling his dark hair. “nothing. just wondering.”
but if there’s one thing about suguru, it’s that he doesn’t wonder about things unless he already knows the answer.
still, life goes on. there are missions, there are late-night walks, there are stupid jokes and stolen glances and moments where the world feels like it’s standing still, like it will always be this way. satoru still rests his chin on your shoulder when he’s bored, still tugs on your sleeve when he wants your attention, still lets his infinity down when you touch him. suguru still watches with quiet amusement, still nudges satoru’s foot under the table when he gets too obvious, still exchanges glances with shoko that say this idiot is hopeless. everything feels steady, like nothing could possibly go wrong.
until it does.
until riko amanai dies. until satoru comes back from that mission looking—different.
his presence is still overwhelming, still too much, but there’s something sharp underneath it now, something cold that wasn’t there before. his shoulders are broader, his stance heavier, his hands looser at his sides, like he’s more aware of their power now. he’s grinning, like always, like nothing’s changed, but it doesn’t reach his eyes—not really. the endless blue of them looks deeper now, like a well with no bottom, like something in him has caved in and been swallowed whole. he’s stronger, untouchable, but suddenly, it feels like he’s farther away than he’s ever been.
and worse than that—suguru is slipping.
you feel it before you fully understand it. the way his voice is quieter, the way his patience wears thinner, the way he sighs more often, rubbing a hand over his face like he’s tired in a way that sleep won’t fix. his words become sharper, his glances more distant, and when you reach for him—when you try to hold onto whatever is still left—he only offers you a fleeting smile, a ghost of what it used to be.
one day, you watch satoru and suguru stand side by side, just like always—just like they always have. satoru is saying something, something cocky and arrogant and so typically him, but suguru doesn’t bite back the way he used to. he just listens, nods absently, something unreadable flickering in his expression. and for the first time, it feels like there’s a canyon between them, a chasm that wasn’t there before, widening with every passing second.
you don’t know it yet, but things will never be the same again.
one year passes.
twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days—each one dragging by in a haze, dissolving into the next like watercolors bleeding together. sometimes, satoru forgets where he is, what day it is, what he was supposed to be doing before his mind wandered again. everything feels muted, muffled, like he’s watching the world through a fogged-up window. time keeps moving, but nothing feels real.
suguru is gone.
satoru barely blinks when it happens. it should feel like something—something bigger, something louder, something that shakes the world the way it shakes his chest. but all he does is sit there, in the quiet aftermath of his best friend’s defection, listening to yaga’s words like they’re coming from underwater. the room is too small, too tight, pressing against the edges of his skin, and yet he’s weightless, floating in some vast nothingness where things don’t really matter. his fingers twitch, restless, aching for something to crush between them, but what’s the point? if he destroys the walls, the floor, the entire goddamn building, it won’t bring suguru back. it won’t change a thing.
he doesn’t remember leaving the room, but suddenly he’s outside, staring at the sky. it’s clear, painfully so, stars scattered across the darkness like someone thought to mock him with how vast it is. the wind tugs at his uniform, cool against his too-warm skin, and still, he doesn’t feel anything. it doesn’t make sense. none of it does. suguru wouldn’t leave. suguru is—was—his other half, the one who understood him in ways no one else could. he has you, he has shoko—but it’s not the same. it will never be the same. satoru is the strongest. the strongest doesn’t lose things.
except now he has. and no matter how tightly he grips the edges of his own world, everything still slips through his fingers.
you find him there, quiet for once, his head tilted back as he watches the stars. the moonlight catches on his white hair, turning it almost silver, his sunglasses hanging loosely between his fingers. you don’t say anything right away, just stand beside him, close enough that your shoulder almost brushes his. he’s grateful for that, the silent understanding, the way you don’t push him to talk when he doesn’t want to. but it’s you—you—and eventually, your voice cuts through the thick, choking air.
“come inside, satoru.”
he exhales sharply through his nose, shaking his head. “not yet.”
you hesitate, then sigh, your fingers brushing over his sleeve. it’s light, barely there, but he still feels it. you’re real. that’s something, at least.
“you can’t keep doing this.”
he doesn’t know what you mean—staring at the sky? ignoring everything? pretending suguru didn’t leave?—but he just laughs, a short, hollow sound, and grins at you like none of this matters. like he isn’t crumbling under the weight of something he refuses to name. “doing what?”
you don’t smile back.
you don’t say anything at all.
but your fingers tighten against his sleeve, just for a second, just enough for him to feel the warmth of you before you step away.
and he can’t—he won’t—let that happen.
before you can take another step, his fingers close around your wrist, pulling you back toward him. it’s not gentle, but it’s not rough either—just firm, desperate in a way he won’t let himself acknowledge. you stumble slightly, your palm landing against his chest, and he doesn’t let you move away.
“don’t,” he says, barely above a whisper. his voice is raw, frayed at the edges, like he’s holding something back. his fingers tighten, his grip the only thing grounding him. “not yet.”
your eyes search his, looking for something, anything, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to give you. he only knows that he needs you to stay.
“satoru…” your voice wavers, and he hates it—hates that you sound like you pity him, hates that you might see him for what he really is. but you don’t pull away.
his free hand lifts to your face, brushing against your cheek, barely there, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he holds too tightly. you don’t. you stay.
and then you’re kissing him. or maybe he’s kissing you. it doesn’t matter—he just knows that your lips are warm, that your hands clutch at his jacket, that he’s losing himself in the way you breathe against his mouth. it’s messy, uncoordinated, more about needing than anything else. he doesn’t care.
he just wants.
it doesn’t take long before he’s pushing you inside, backing you into his room, his grip never loosening. you let him. maybe you need this too. maybe you need something real just as much as he does.
it’s not love. not really. it’s a desperate, clumsy attempt to hold onto something—each other, maybe, or just the pieces of a world that’s slipping through both of your fingers. it’s the press of his body against yours, the way his hands shake against your skin, the way neither of you speak because there’s nothing left to say.
when it’s over, you stay, your fingers tracing idle patterns against his skin. his arms are loose around you, his breathing slow, almost steady. but he’s not asleep. he won’t sleep. not tonight.
his grip tightens just slightly, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go. it’s unhealthy. he knows it. you do too. but neither of you move.
not yet.
a month later, you come to him late at night, standing in his doorway like you’re already bracing for a fight. your arms are crossed tight over your chest, fingers gripping at the fabric of your sleeves, like you need something to hold on to. your weight shifts from one foot to the other, hesitant, uncertain, like you’re not sure if you should even be here. but your eyes—your eyes are worried. tired. heavy with something he can’t quite name yet, but it makes his stomach twist all the same.
“satoru, we need to talk.”
he groans, throwing himself back onto his bed like a petulant child, limbs sprawled carelessly across the sheets. his uniform jacket is crumpled beneath him, the collar tugging awkwardly at his neck, but he doesn’t bother fixing it. instead, he throws an arm over his eyes, sighing dramatically. “ugh, if this is about me skipping out on yaga’s stupid lectures again—”
“it’s not about that.”
your voice is clipped, firm in a way that makes his fingers twitch where they rest against his forehead. something in your tone makes him hesitate, but he doesn’t sit up just yet, doesn’t acknowledge the way his stomach knots at the sharp edge of it. instead, he props himself up on one elbow just enough to grin at you, lopsided and careless, blue eyes glinting in the dim light of his room. “then what? are you finally confessing your undying love for me?”
you exhale sharply through your nose, pressing your lips together so tightly they pale at the edges. your jaw tightens—not in frustration, but in restraint, like you’re biting back words you can’t afford to say. for the first time since you walked in, your gaze flickers away, dipping down toward the floor, then back up again. “satoru.”
his smirk falters.
it’s barely noticeable, the shift so subtle that most people wouldn’t catch it—but you’re not most people, and you always notice. he covers it up with a roll of his shoulders, a quick raking of fingers through his hair, but he can’t stop the way his chest tightens, the way something uneasy coils deep in his gut.
he doesn’t like it.
you take a breath, shoulders rising and falling with it, like you’re steadying yourself. your stance shifts, one foot moving slightly behind the other, like you need an escape route, just in case. “i—”
“’cause i mean, it’s pretty obvious.” he barrels right over whatever you were about to say, voice light, teasing—too quick. he leans back against the pillows, arms crossed behind his head, a lazy grin stretching across his lips. “can’t blame you, really. i am incredibly handsome. the strongest, too—”
“satoru, this is serious.”
your voice cuts through his like a knife.
his grin twitches, faltering at the edges, but he doesn’t let it fall completely. instead, he groans, sitting up in one fluid motion, his frustration bleeding through in the way he rakes a hand through his hair. his bangs fall messily over his forehead, but he doesn’t push them back this time. “yeah, yeah, everything is serious with you lately.” his words come out sharper than he intends, but he doesn’t stop. “you know, you used to be fun. we used to be fun. now all you do is worry, and nag, and—”
you flinch.
it’s small. barely a twitch of your fingers, a quick inhale, a tightening of your shoulders. but he sees it, and the moment he does, regret clenches in his throat.
too late.
your fingers curl in on themselves, your nails pressing into your palms. your expression remains composed, but he sees the cracks forming—the slight tremble in your exhale, the way your shoulders stiffen as if bracing for impact. “satoru, i need to tell you something.”
his pulse kicks up.
it’s barely noticeable, the way his fingers tighten around the fabric of his pants, but you’re not most people, and you always notice. there’s something about the way you say it—something final, something that makes his skin prickle with the kind of unease he can’t shake.
he doesn’t let you.
“what? that i’m reckless? that i’m changing?” he cuts in, sharp and bitter, words laced with something dangerously close to something real. something he doesn’t want to name. “yeah, i’ve heard it all before.”
“satoru—”
“what do you want me to do, huh?” his voice rises, frustration twisting into something uglier, something more desperate. “cry about it?”
a long, heavy pause.
your face shifts—something breaking, something splintering right in front of him, and he hates it. your gaze flickers downward, away from his, away from the conversation entirely. your fingers curl tighter, drifting to your stomach, barely grazing the fabric of your shirt like—
he doesn’t get the chance to figure it out. because whatever it is, whatever you were going to say, it dies before it can even reach him.
you exhale, slow and measured. your fingers curl deeper into your sleeves, knuckles turning white, tension wound so tight in your shoulders that it hurts. there’s something unreadable in your expression, something quiet and distant, and for the first time in a long time, satoru doesn’t know what you’re thinking. the uncertainty makes his skin itch, makes his stomach turn. and then, finally—
“nevermind. i’m leaving.”
he scoffs, an ugly, humorless sound, sharp and bitter in the stillness between you. his lips curl, not in a grin, but in something twisted, something that doesn’t reach his eyes. “yeah, right.”
but you don’t roll your eyes. you don’t laugh. you don’t give him the reaction he’s expecting, the easy back-and-forth that makes it all feel normal. you just look at him—long and quiet and sad, your fingers still trembling where they clutch your sleeves.
“i’m serious.”
his chest feels tight, like he’s breathing in smoke, like his ribs are about to crack under the weight of something he refuses to name. the words don’t settle right in his ears, don’t make sense in his head, don’t belong in your mouth. you don’t leave. not him. not this.
but then you say it—you tell him you can’t do this anymore, that you’re leaving jujutsu society, that you can’t watch him become someone he’s not. your voice is steady, but there’s something fragile in it, something raw at the edges, like you’re trying to convince yourself just as much as him. you say it like a choice, like something you’ve decided on, but all he can hear is that you’re leaving him.
and it makes him panic.
so he does what he always does when he panics—he lashes out.
“fine, go then.” his voice is venomous, cutting, every syllable sharpened into a weapon. he means for it to hurt. he needs it to hurt. “if you really think i’m so hopeless, just leave like he did.”
the second it’s out of his mouth, he wants to take it back.
because you freeze. because something inside you cracks, visible in the way your breath hitches, in the way your fingers curl into your palm like you need to hold something, anything, just to keep yourself together.
your mouth opens—then closes.
whatever words were lingering on your tongue, whatever truth you had been about to give him, they wither before they can take shape. they don’t belong here, not after what he’s said. not when he’s already decided to throw you into the same abyss as him. the realization settles in your chest like something sharp, something splintered, pressing against your ribs.
he doesn’t deserve to know. he doesn’t even want to know. so you just nod, slow and deliberate, as if committing this moment to memory—his face twisted with something between anger and regret, his fingers curled so tightly into the fabric of his pants that his knuckles go white. something hollow settles in your gaze, something distant, something final.
then you turn around.
and you walk away.
but just before you cross the threshold, just before the distance between you stretches into something permanent, you pause. your hand lingers on the doorframe, fingers splayed against the wood, as if you’re waiting—waiting for him to stop you, to say anything that might make this easier, to give you even the smallest reason to stay.
he doesn’t.
so you exhale, steady and soft, and when you finally speak, your voice is barely above a whisper. “i hope it’s worth it, satoru.”
he doesn’t ask what is ‘it’—his pride, his stubbornness, his refusal to let you in—because he knows. he knows. then you leave, and he watches you go, convinced you’ll come back.
(you don’t.)
six years pass him by, and it’s safe to say that it wasn’t worth it.
he never says it out loud—never lets the words leave his lips, never even lets himself think them too long—but the truth lingers, settling deep in his bones like a slow, creeping ache. he feels it in the way silence stretches too long in his apartment, in the way he still catches himself pausing at the door, expecting to hear your voice. it’s in the way his fingers twitch, like they still remember the shape of your wrist in his grasp, the way his bed feels too big now, empty in a way that nothing else quite fills. he tells himself it doesn’t matter. that he doesn’t care.
(he does.)
at first, he’s bitter. you left him. you gave up on him. just like he did.
the thought twists, ugly and sharp, digging into the tender parts of him that he refuses to acknowledge. he doesn’t dwell on it. won’t. he has better things to do, more important things—missions, responsibilities, a world that won’t stop turning just because he wants it to. so he throws himself into work, into being the strongest, into playing the role that everyone expects of him. if he keeps moving, if he keeps winning, maybe—maybe—he won’t have to think about what he lost.
but then the quiet comes.
it always does.
he can hold it off for a while, can drown it out in the noise of battle, the weight of duty, the voices of the students he’s taken under his wing. but eventually, when the dust settles and the world slows, when it’s just him and the empty space where you used to be, the silence seeps in, heavy and suffocating. it presses against his ribs, sits in the hollow of his chest, winds around his throat like something clawing for a home. and in those moments, there’s no ignoring it.
he dreams about you.
sometimes, they’re good. warm. the kind that make him wake up reaching for something that isn’t there. he dreams of your laughter—light and careless, curling around the edges of his mind like something precious. he dreams of your touch—the way you used to smooth your hands over his shoulders when you thought he wasn’t paying attention, the way your fingers would toy with the hem of his uniform absentmindedly, like you didn’t even realize you were doing it. he dreams of the way you used to look at him, with something so soft in your eyes, something he never knew how to name.
but other times, the dreams aren’t good.
sometimes you’re standing at the door, gaze unreadable, voice soft as you whisper, “i hope it’s worth it.” sometimes you’re walking away, and no matter how fast he moves, how desperately he reaches, he can’t catch up. sometimes you turn back, but there’s nothing left in your expression, like you’ve already disappeared, like you were never really there. and sometimes—sometimes, you don’t look back at all.
he thinks about looking for you. about dropping everything and scouring the world until he finds you, because if anyone can, it’s him.
but if you wanted to be found, you wouldn’t have left.
so he lets you go. or at least, he tries to. he tells himself it’s for the best, convinces himself that this—this missing, this hollow ache, this unbearable emptiness—is just another thing he has to live with.
at least he pretends to.
and satoru seeing you again in what supposed to be an another monotone day clearly doesn't help his already pathetic facade.
he wasn't expecting to see you again, he dreamt about it often, that much is true but not like this.
not in the middle of a crowded mall, washed in artificial light, where the air smells faintly of buttered popcorn and overpriced coffee. not with the hum of idle chatter pressing in from all sides, footsteps tapping against the polished tiles, distant laughter ringing from a store playing a song he doesn’t recognize. not standing in front of a shelf filled with pastel notebooks and gel pens, head tilted in quiet contemplation as you skim the label of a glittery-covered planner. not looking so much like you that it knocks the breath from his lungs, like he’s been punched in the gut by the weight of time itself.
six years apart, and yet, seeing you now—nothing has changed.
your fingers still tap absently against the book’s spine, your brow still creases just slightly in thought, your weight still shifts from one foot to the other in that familiar, absentminded sway. it's the same little habits he used to watch from across a classroom, half-listening to you scold him for never taking notes, grinning when you’d huff in exasperation, muttering something about how even if you copied mine, you’d still flunk the test, gojo. it’s muscle memory now, the way he leans forward ever so slightly, the way his lips part to call your name before he even realizes it.
for a split second, he forgets the passage of time, forgets that you aren’t seventeen anymore, that he isn’t either, that the six-year gap between then and now has swallowed whole everything that was once soft between you.
somewhere between one breath and the next, his feet move on their own. he doesn’t remember closing the distance, but suddenly he’s there—standing right beside you, close enough to see the way the artificial lighting catches on the curve of your lashes, close enough that his pulse trips over itself in something stupidly close to nerves.
“woah,” he blurts out before he can stop himself, because he’s never been good at thinking before speaking, never been good at silence. his voice comes out rougher than he means, cracking on something fragile, so he leans into bravado, tilting his head with a grin like this doesn’t feel like the start of something dangerous. “didn’t take you for the cute little stationery type.”
you freeze.
not in an obvious way. it’s a flicker, a split-second hesitation, just the faintest shift in your shoulders, the way your fingers still against the spine of the planner. it’s long enough that something in his chest tightens, long enough that he wonders if you might run.
then, finally, you turn to him.
and satoru, for all his power, for all his foresight, for all his years of learning how to predict and anticipate—he’s completely unprepared.
your face is the same. but not really. the softness he remembers is still there, but refined, tempered into something quieter, something heavier. time has carved something sharper into the delicate lines of your features, something weary, something distant, something closed. and when your eyes meet his, something ugly churns in his gut at how unfamiliar it feels, how your gaze doesn’t hold him the way it used to—how it skims over him like he’s anyone else.
and then you open your mouth.
your lips part, hesitation flickering in your gaze, the faintest shift of your brows betraying something unreadable—something he isn’t sure he wants to name. for a moment, your throat bobs like you might say something else, something more, but then your expression settles into something carefully neutral. practiced. distant.
“gojo.”
not satoru. never satoru.
his stomach twists, and for a brief second, he hates himself for expecting anything different. of course, it would be gojo. of course, you would opt tl say his last name like it belonged to a stranger, disregard his first name like it was just a word, just a title—like you hadn’t once whispered it into his skin, like it hadn’t once meant home.
he exhales sharply, a smirk curling at the edges of his mouth, though it feels stiff, foreign, like it doesn't quite fit on his face anymore. his hands shove into his pockets, his shoulders rolling with a forced ease, but the tension lingers, settling somewhere in his spine.
“so,” he drawls, playing it easy, playing it light, playing it like the years between you never happened, “you a teacher now? or just hoarding sparkly pens?”
there’s a flicker of something—amusement, maybe, or the ghost of it—passing through your expression. fleeting. barely there. but he catches it, latches onto it like a dying man gasping for air, like proof that maybe, just maybe, he isn’t the only one drowning in this moment.
and then you exhale, a quiet huff—not quite a laugh, but close enough that something in his chest clenches, tight and aching.
“it’s not for me.”
not for you.
his fingers twitch before he can stop them, the urge to reach out settling deep in his bones like an instinct he thought he’d long buried. his six eyes, ever-perceptive, drink you in without permission, tracing every minute detail, cataloging every shift in your stance. the way your shoulders hover between tension and ease, the way your weight subtly shifts as if you’re fighting the impulse to move—toward him or away, he can’t tell. but it’s your hands that betray you the most, your thumb brushing absently against your palm, slow and methodical, a grounding habit, a tell he never got the chance to memorize.
and yet, for all the little details his sight clings to, it’s the absence of something that twists like a knife beneath his ribs.
the faint indentation on your finger. a whisper of what once was—or maybe what never came to be. a ring should have been there. but it isn’t.
hope is a sickness, and it spreads fast, coiling through him like wildfire, igniting something reckless, something desperate. before he can stop himself, before he can think—before he can remind himself that hope has never done him any favors—the words slip out, raw and unfiltered as he stepped closer. “then who—”
but you do something he doesn’t expect. you step back. not much. just an inch.
but it’s enough.
enough to silence him, to lodge something cold and sharp in the hollow of his chest. enough to remind him that time is not a wound that can be rewound, that the six years between you are filled with things he was never there to witness. enough to remind him that no matter how tightly he might want to cling to the past, you have already let it go.
your expression doesn’t falter, doesn’t crack, but there’s something in the way your lashes lower just slightly, in the way your lips press together, careful and deliberate. restraint, or maybe consideration—like you’re choosing your words with more care than he deserves.
“it was nice seeing you, gojo.”
was. past tense. final.
his stomach twists, his throat constricts. he hates how easily you say it, how effortlessly you close the door between you.
you turn to leave. his whole body locks up. he should let you go. if he were a better man, he would let you go.
but he’s never been a good man, has he? never been selfless, never been someone who could bear to lose something precious to him—not again, not again, not again—
“wait,” he blurts out, reaching for you—
but in the corner of his vision, something shifts.
small. deliberate.
he doesn’t see it.
doesn’t see the way a tiny figure leans forward from behind a display shelf, chin tilted up in blatant curiosity, eyes sharp and calculating. doesn’t see the way her fingers tighten around the straps of her pink, glittery backpack like she’s bracing herself for something—like she’s trying to piece together the scene before her with the unrelenting scrutiny of someone who refuses to be left out.
she isn’t hesitant. she isn’t uncertain.
she watches.
studies.
eyes flicking between you and him, her expression shifting through something unreadable—thoughtful, shrewd, maybe even the slightest bit unimpressed, like she’s already decided she doesn’t like what she’s seeing.
he doesn’t see her.
doesn’t see the way she plants her feet, stance wide like she’s ready to charge forward and insert herself into the conversation the way only a child with too much confidence can. doesn’t see the way her tiny mouth presses into a firm, stubborn line, the way her nose scrunches in concentration, the way her little fingers drum against her arm as if waiting for the right moment to interrupt.
because right now, for the first time in six years, he finally saw you again. he only sees you.
he can only see you.
satoru doesn’t breathe.
not at first.
not when you disappear from sight, not when the absence of your presence leaves behind something gaping, something cold, something he doesn’t have the words to name. six years. six years of nothing, of static, of moving forward because what else was there to do but move? and now—now you were here, now you were leaving again, and if he doesn’t do something, doesn’t say something—
before he can even take a step, before he can even exhale—a tiny, pointed presence looms at his side.
looming shouldn’t be a word that applies to a child. but here she is. cornering him.
when he finally registers her, she’s already staring up at him, blue eyes sharp, head tilted in deep, almost theatrical thought. her posture is relaxed, but not in the way a child’s should be—no fidgeting, no nervous glances, no uncertainty. instead, there is something deliberate in the way she plants her feet, how she clasps her hands neatly in front of her, how she breathes so evenly it’s like she’s assessing him.
the soft scent of vanilla clings to the air around her, mixed with something delicate, maybe peach-scented lotion. her sneakers—pink and white with sparkly laces—are pristine, barely creasing as she shifts her weight. her cardigan, worn off her shoulders like a fashion statement, matches the ribbons in her hair, and her ruffled socks peek out from beneath the hem of a dress that isn't a princess dress but might as well be with how carefully chosen it looks—pale pink with embroidered flowers, soft and dainty.
but the most striking thing about her, above all, is that she is him. down to the way her lips purse in contemplation.
she blinks. once. twice. assessing.
and then, with all the grace of a tiny, self-proclaimed noble who has just encountered a most peculiar sight, she tilts her chin up and announces—“ugh. you’re taller than i thought.”
satoru blinks down at the little diva frowning up at him, her brows furrowing like he’s already failed some unspoken test.
she is… dazzling.
for all the wrong reasons.
because that is his nose. those are his eyes.
the slope of them, the sharp, fox-like tilt—so much like his own that it knocks the air from his lungs. it’s all there in the way her gaze flickers between calculation and feigned indifference, in the way her lips purse in mild dissatisfaction, in the way she shifts her weight onto one foot, expectant. her presence is something deliberate, something intended, as if she is waiting for him to notice her. but that’s ridiculous, right? right?
his throat bobs, dry. he clears it anyway.
satoru barely catches himself before he lets out a laugh—sharp, surprised, incredulous. instead, he exhales through his nose, slow and careful, before slipping his sunglasses off and hooking them onto his collar. the world is suddenly too bright without them, but he needs to see her properly. he lowers himself to one knee, eye level with the little diva who stands before him, hands on her hips like she owns the entire shopping district.
“uh.” he cocks his head, scanning her face for any sign of hesitation. none. not a single crack in that unshakable confidence. “hey, kiddo? are you, uh… lost?”
the reaction is instantaneous.
she gasps—loud, dramatic, affronted.
both hands fly to her chest as though he’s just accused her of something heinous, scandalized horror flashing across her tiny face. her perfectly arched brows shoot up beneath the sharp cut of her bangs, pink lips parting with the kind of exaggerated disbelief that could only be described as theatrical. she takes a step back, but not like she’s retreating—no, she makes it look intentional, like a leading lady on stage setting up the perfect moment of tension.
“excuuuse me?” she demands, her tiny chin tilting higher, voice dripping with the kind of indignation only the truly self-assured can muster. her hands, small but precise in their movement, land imperiously on her hips. “do i look like a peasant who gets lost?”
satoru blinks.
for once, his mouth moves faster than his brain, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense. he opens his lips, closes them, then opens them again, fingers twitching slightly at his sides. “uh—”
“i have an impeccable sense of direction,” she continues, not even sparing him a glance as she flicks her hair over her shoulder, her tiny fingers adjusting an imaginary crown. her eyes shut briefly—dramatic, self-important, as if recalling some great tragedy. “unlike mommy, who keeps walking the wrong way even with google maps.”
he startles.
it’s subtle, a twitch in his fingertips, a shift in his stance—so minor most wouldn’t even notice. but he does. he notices everything. the way her voice rounds out just slightly as she says mommy, the sharp, confident edge softening into something softer, something practiced. it’s natural, the way she says it, habitual, like it belongs to her in a way no other word does. there is no hesitation, no awkwardness, no resentment—only warmth.
only fondness.
or maybe he’s imagining things.
he’s still trying to process it when—
“anyway.” she rolls her eyes, slow and deliberate, like she’s giving him the benefit of the doubt and immediately regretting it. her voice is lighter now, offhanded, but the unimpressed arch of her brow makes it clear: he is wasting her time.
“let’s get back to business.”
his brows furrow. “business?”
“yes, business.” she plants a tiny hand on her hip like she’s about to announce the world’s next big fashion trend. her stance is commanding, legs slightly apart, the picture of confidence despite being barely three feet tall. “keep up.”
satoru isn’t sure what to expect, but it definitely isn’t this.
because the way she looks at him—no, studies him—is unnerving. there’s nothing idle about it, nothing remotely innocent. her gaze is razor-sharp as it sweeps from his feet to his head, dissecting every detail like she’s mapping out a blueprint only she understands.
the pristine uniform. the tall frame. the striking, almost unnatural contrast of white hair and blue eyes.
he's been stared at his whole life, but never like this—never like he's the one being judged. the gaze on him is unwavering, sharp, dissecting him piece by piece as if stripping him down to something more raw, more human. then, as if arriving at some profound conclusion, she lifts her tiny chin and flips her bangs with a small, decisive nod.
“you have white hair.”
her lashes lower slightly, a subtle shift in expression that tightens something in his chest.
“you have blue eyes.”
satoru’s pulse stutters.
before he can process the shift in atmosphere, she clasps her hands together, fingers lacing neatly over her chest. the movement is fluid, graceful, too composed for a child so young. it reminds him of a practiced performer, someone who understands the weight of gestures, of theatrics.
then, with the finality of a verdict, she nods again.
“i guess you’ll do.”
…do what now?
he stares, momentarily incapable of thought.
there is something deeply unsettling about being scrutinized by someone who barely reaches his waist. yet, there is an undeniable weight to the moment, a strange sort of gravity pressing against him. he can feel it—his own energy mirrored back at him, sharp and self-assured, too knowing for a child so young.
his lips part, but he isn’t even sure what he wants to ask.
the answer comes before he can find the question.
“so,” she announces, as if stating the obvious, “i need you to pretend to be my dad.”
satoru chokes.
the cough rattles his ribs, sharp and sudden, like his own body is rejecting the reality of what he just heard. he presses the back of his hand against his mouth, shoulders tensing, but it does little to stifle the noise. his throat burns with the effort, and yet, the words still echo in his mind, rearranging themselves into something even more absurd.
he drags his palm down his face. “come again?”
the menace—no, the tiny, immaculately dressed con artist—squints at him.
“are you hard of hearing?” she enunciates, slow and patient, like she’s explaining a simple concept to a particularly dense student. her small hands settle on her hips, fingers tapping in silent judgment, and the stance is so eerily familiar that it sends a ripple of unease down his spine. her chin tilts up, her expression unwavering—like she’s used to being the one in control of conversations, and the thought alone is terrifying. “i said, i need you to pretend to be my dad for a father’s day event at school.”
something in his stomach lurches.
his brain can’t keep up. the words don’t fit, don’t make sense, don’t align with anything logical. she says them with such ease, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, but for him, it’s the equivalent of a meteor crashing into his reality.
his throat is suddenly dry. “that’s… uh…”
“obviously, i don’t have one. and you were talking to mommy earlier, so you must be one of her friends.” she shrugs, breezy, nonchalant, as if she’s discussing the weather.
but it is a big deal.
a very big deal.
his heart is pounding so fast he might actually pass out.
“mommy always comes with me, and i guess she’s cool and all,” she continues, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. the movement is casual, self-assured—the same unconscious confidence he had as a child. satoru watches, helpless, as she flicks the curl over her shoulder with a tiny sigh, her expression morphing into something contemplative. “but i pity her, y’know?”
his throat tightens.
“pity.” he repeats, blankly.
“yeah, like.” she exhales, weight shifting onto one foot, lashes fluttering like she’s the protagonist of a soap opera. “all the other kids have dads, and she’s stuck with me all the time.”
his breath catches.
she sighs again, deeply, dramatically, as if she’s making some grand sacrifice. her lower lip juts out ever so slightly, just enough to look a little more pitiful, like she’s spent time perfecting this exact expression. “so, i figured i’d do something selfless and find a dad for the day.”
satoru swallows, something thick and unnameable clogging his throat. “that’s… very generous of you.”
she preens. “i know, right?”
and then—she leans in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“but don’t tell mommy,” she warns, expression shifting in an instant. her eyes are dead serious, her tiny fingers curling into the fabric of her dress as if to physically hold the secret in place. “she’d get mad.”
his stomach drops.
the weight of her words slams into him with the force of a truck, hollowing out his insides. his pulse roars in his ears, loud enough to drown out the hum of the store’s overhead music, the chatter of passing customers, the clatter of shopping baskets. he feels it somewhere deep in his chest, a sensation not unlike free-falling—because of all the ways this day could’ve gone, this was never in the realm of possibility.
“mad?” he echoes, voice suddenly hoarse, the word barely scraping past the dryness in his throat.
“mhm.” she nods sagely, lowering her voice even further, like she’s sharing classified information. her tiny fingers tighten around the straps of her pink backpack, knuckles pressing into the glittery fabric as she leans in just a fraction more. her expression is thoughtful, brows furrowing slightly, as if she’s considering something heavier than a child her age should. “i think she still misses my real dad.”
satoru stops breathing.
his chest tightens, a sharp, unbearable squeeze, as if his ribs have turned into a vice, crushing him from the inside out. the world around him dulls, the chatter of passing shoppers fading into static, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing like a swarm of unseen locusts. the air in his lungs turns thick and heavy, refusing to move—because everything, everything, is falling into place so fast he can barely keep up.
the kid stationeries you were browsing, the set of pastel pens you picked up only to set them back down, like you were debating whether to buy them. the pink, glittery backpack in her hands, the same shade of obnoxious bubblegum pink he once claimed to hate, but now realizes he would buy in a heartbeat, no questions asked. the way she looks just like him—the sharp slant of her nose, the high curve of her cheekbones, the impossibly bright blue eyes that reflect his own like a taunt. even the way she stands, weight shifted slightly to one hip, tiny hands confidently gripping the straps of the backpack—like she already owns the space she stands in, like the world itself is just a little too small for her.
holy shit.
“anyway.” she huffs, as if he’s the one wasting her time, her small mouth curving into a pout of mild exasperation. she adjusts the straps of the backpack in her arms, shifting its weight against her chest, fingers drumming impatiently against the sequined fabric. she tilts her chin up ever so slightly, radiating a confidence that shouldn't belong to someone so tiny. “it’s on friday, 9:00 a.m., at kikyo kindergarten.”
he blinks, the words sluggish as they filter through his brain, like a broken radio signal cutting in and out. “what?”
“the event, duh.” she frowns, unimpressed, tilting her head with all the attitude of someone who cannot believe they have to repeat themselves. her lips press into a thin line, tiny shoulders rising as she takes a slow breath, like she’s summoning every ounce of patience she has to deal with an absolute idiot. “weren’t you listening?”
his mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, but nothing coherent comes out. “uh—”
“you better be there.” she declares, arms crossing over her chest, voice firm and unwavering, the kind of voice that does not take no for an answer. her stance shifts as she leans in closer, an almost imperceptible movement, but one that carries all the weight of an unspoken challenge—daring him to refuse, daring him to disappoint her. there is something unreadable in her gaze, something old and knowing, something far too perceptive for a child her age. “or else.”
his pulse jumps. “…or else?”
she meets his gaze head-on, unflinching, as if she already knows she has him backed into a corner. her small fingers tap against her arm, considering, calculating—then, her lips curl into a smile that is nothing short of mischievous.
“or else, i’ll tell mommy you tried to kidnap me.”
his soul leaves his body. “WHAT—”
“bye now!” she beams, the picture of innocence, her entire face transforming in real time, as if she didn’t just completely dismantle his entire world in the span of a conversation.
in real time, satoru watches his own child scam him.
his tiny daughter—his menace of a child—spins on her heel, dropping the entire conversation like it never happened. she prances away, light on her feet, twirling slightly as she rounds the aisle you disappeared into, her little frame swallowed by the shelves.
her voice, when she speaks, is a melody, high and sweet and utterly deceiving. “mommy! look! this is the backpack i want!”
satoru can only stay there. staring.
his breath is shallow, like his lungs have forgotten how to function, like his entire body is refusing to move, to react, to process what just happened. the world feels too sharp, too clear, yet somehow far away, like he’s watching himself from outside his own skin. the fluorescent lights above hum too loudly, the colors of the store seem too vivid, and the ground beneath his feet feels like it's seconds away from giving out.
his daughter just found him before he ever found her.
his hands feel cold. his mouth is dry. his brain, usually a relentless, unyielding machine, capable of dissecting complex battle strategies in seconds, is blank. utterly, hopelessly blank.
she’s real. she exists. she is his.
and she just walked away like it was nothing. like she didn’t just turn his world upside down. like she didn’t just unknowingly rip open a part of him that he didn’t even realize had been closed off.
satoru exhales, slow and shaky, dragging a hand down his face. it doesn’t help. he blinks rapidly, trying to reboot his system, but all he can hear is the echo of her tiny voice—matter-of-fact, unimpressed, brimming with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was doing.
he comes to terms with something horrifying.
his menace of a child just blackmailed him. she didn’t ask. she demanded. she set her terms, delivered her threat, and walked away like a goddamn professional.
the absolute audacity.
the sheer talent.
his chest swells, something warm and bright bubbling beneath the overwhelming shock. his lips twitch, his vision goes a little blurry, and then—a slow, unhinged grin spreads across his face.
he has never been more proud.
“holy shit,” he breathes, blinking rapidly, his pulse still hammering in his ears. then, after a long moment of processing the absolute scam he just walked into, he straightens, grips the nearest shelf for support, and mutters under his breath;
“she so gets that from me.”
a/n: any normal person would be horrified finding out they missed out years in their child's life but he's not any normal person sigh he's so silly
tag list: @akeisryna @funicidals @coffeeluvr96 @wolywolymoley @ineednanami @luv3nti @nikilig @linaaeatsfamilies
‼️Caleb x reader x Sylus. Reader not MC. University AU. Modern AU. Angst angst angst!
Everyone knows Caleb is in love with MC. Everyone. Including you. But that does not stop him from flirting with you, teasing you, keeping you close. And it definitely does not stop you from falling for him—even when you know you’re just a stand-in, a place holder.
“Had you paid a little more attention, you would’ve known I hated the thunder too.”
word count = 5.2k
i appreciate all likes, comments, reblogs, and asks. i may not reply to all of them, but i want you to know that i reread them over and over 🥺
part 1 | masterlist | part 4
The choir of rain showering down envelops your whole world. Holding yourself close, you hug yourself away from the constant roar of the thunders.
You did not notice the man watching— his gaze lingering on the drenched rag of a person curled up on the roadside.
Another roar tears through the sky, clawing at your chest, sending tremors down your spine. With each shallow breath, you silently pray for the nightmare to be over, to wake up under warm covers in the safety of your own room.
He probably saw the state you’re in—the haziness in your unfocused eyes and the way you blink, once, twice, sluggish and distant. A sigh leaves his lips as he kneels down to your level. With one gloved hand holding his helmet, the other lightly flicks your forehead.
The flick is light—too light for the weight crushing your chest, yet enough to tether you back to reality and bring some focus back into your gaze.
You slowly raise your gaze, meeting his crimson orbs. Unwavering. Sharp. Studying.
His lips twitch—not quite a smirk, not quite concern.
“You look like hell,” he states as he tilts his head, studying you like you’re an amusing puzzle.
You don’t answer. You can’t. Your lips tremble, but no words form.
Sylus exhales, slow and deliberate—not quite a sigh, but something close.
“Can you get up?”
Silence. Only the sound of the rain, the low hum of the storm, and the quiver of your breath fill the air.
He clicks his tongue, running a hand through his drenched silver locks before shaking off the excess water. Then, without a word, he drops his helmet onto your head, fingers swift and practiced as he secures the strap beneath you chin
The sudden weight startles you. But before you can react, you’re lifted.
A sharp gasp catches in your throat as his arms hook effortlessly around you, pulling you up from the cold ground and onto the sleek leather seat.
He swings his leg over the bike, boots steady against the pavement. The engine purrs beneath you, low and commanding.
“Hold tight.”
The words are simple. A command. A warning.
Your hands instinctively clutch his waist, gripping the fabric of his jacket. The sudden yank pushes you flush against him.
But through the turmoil of it all—through the howling wind, the biting cold, the chaos swallowing the whole world as you ride through the roads a little too fast—beneath your fingers, beneath the soaked fabric,
he’s warm.
The contrast is sharp. The world untamed, screaming, tearing everything apart. The situation rushes past you, too quick, too unreal.
Through it all, you—fractured, weightless, drowning— hold onto him— steady, unshaken—like he’s the only rope tying you to reality.
•
“What’s your room number?” he asks as the bike comes to a stop and the deep rumble of the engine fades.
By the time you’ve returned to the resort, the campfire is long gone—reduced to nothing but damp coals and the ghost of laughter lingering in the air.
People scattered, rushed towards shelter, their hurried footsteps splashed against puddles. The storm has chased everyone indoors.
Except for you and him.
You’re still clutching onto him, fingers curled around the fabric of his jacket. The lingering warmth of his body beneath your touch feels foreign.
“Well?” Sylus’s voice cuts through the silence.
You blink, realizing you haven’t answered.
Your lips part, allowing a light whisper to leave your lips.
“409.”
Without a word, he starts walking.
Perhaps it’s because you did not want to be left alone in the darkness of the night again, or perhaps it was because the sudden loss of warmth prompted your body to move on its own.
You trail behind him through the dimly lit halls, the faint hum of electricity buzzing through the silence. Water drips from your clothes, leaving a trail behind as you shiver against the cold air-conditioned corridor.
You steal a glance at him. Sylus walks ahead, hands shoved into his pockets, completely unfazed. As if he didn’t just find you curled up on the side of the road, as if you’re not drenched and shaking beside him.
The two of you stop in front of your door.
You fumble for the key card, fingers trembling slightly, though you’re not sure if it’s from the cold or from everything that’s happened tonight.
“Shh, don’t be scared.”
Soft coos seep through the door.
“I’m here, pipsqueak. I’m here.”
Soft giggles follow the gentle whispers.
“You’ve always stayed with me on days like these, holding me just like this whenever there were thunders.” Her voice is small and fragile—like something meant to be cherished, protected.
Your fingers hover the doorknob, frozen in place.
The storm rages on, harmonizing with the soft giggles on the other side of the door.
You stood there paralyzed, your mind too tired to register whatever it is that your heart is going through.
Sylus leans against the doorframe, watching you hesitate. Waiting.
“So? You gonna go in, or are we just standing here all night?” He finally asks, voice low and edged with amusement.
Your lack of response earns slow exhale from him.
Before you can fall any deeper, before you can drown in the ache clawing at your chest—he moves.
His hand wraps around your wrist, firm and unyielding.
You flinch, eyes finally snapping to him.
He doesn’t say anything—just turns, walking, dragging you with him.
Away from the door. Away from them.
“Sylus—“ Your voice is barely above a whisper, but he doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t loosen his grip.
And deep down, you were glad he didn’t.
You let the warmth of his hand anchor you, let the storm swallow everything else, and let the laughter behind the doorframe fade into nothing.
•
Sylus doesn’t stop walking until you’re deep inside the quiet halls of the resort, the sound of rain and thunder fading into the background.
His grip finally loosens as he stops in front of a door.
Without looking at you, he pulls out his key card and swipes it. The lock clicks open.
“Get in.” His voice is flat, low—an order, not a request.
You linger by the doorway, water pooling beneath your feet.
Sylus exhales sharply for the nth time that night, raking a hand through damp silver strands, sending droplets scattering to the floor. Then, without warning, he grabs a towel from the bed and throws it at you.
It smacks against your chest, snapping you out of your daze.
“Shower.”
You blink up at him. His crimson eyes don’t waver.
His jaw ticks. Another sigh, this one slower, controlled.
More is tossed at you.
A shirt. A pair of sweatpants. His clothes.
They land in your arms, warm, freshly laundered, carrying the faintest trace of him—clean, sharp, and something unplaceable.
Your fingers tighten around the fabric.
“You’re soaked. You’ll get sick.”
It’s not concern. It’s a fact. A simple statement.
When you still don’t move, he clicks his tongue, tone dipping into something dangerously close to impatience.
“Either you go shower, or I’ll throw you in there myself.”
That finally makes your feet move.
You clutch the clothes tighter against your chest and step past him, disappearing into the bathroom.
The door clicks shut behind you.
And only then do you finally exhale.
The warmth of the shower does little to soothe the tightness in your chest, but at the very least, it washes away the lingering cold from the rain, the exhaustion clinging to your skin like a second layer.
When you finally step out, damp hair sticking to your neck, Sylus is exactly where you left him—leaning against the dresser, one knee bent, a towel draped over his head. His silver hair peeks through, darkened by water, stray strands clinging to his forehead. He’s slow with his movements, lazy almost, dragging the towel through his hair before ruffling it out with one hand.
For the first time, you actually look at him. Not just a passing glance, not a flicker of acknowledgement,—but really look.
At the way the dim light carves shadows along his jawline—the cut of his jawline, the slight furrow in his brow, the way droplets trail down his collarbone before vanishing beneath the black tank clinging to his build—damp and unforgiving, outlining lean muscle and sharp edges.
There’s something effortlessly sharp about him, something dangerous in the way he simply carries his frame.
A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips as his gaze flickers up, sweeping over you. Unbothered. Knowing. Like he’s caught you staring.
“Like what you see?” his voice drips with lazy amusement.
You blink, heat creeping up your neck before you compose your features.
“What is there to like?”
His smirk deepens, crimson eyes flickering with something teasing.
“You really are a shortcake.” He smugs as his gaze roams your body. “Looks like my clothes are trying to swallow you whole.”
You glance down. The oversized shirt hangs loosely off your shoulders, the hem brushing against your knees. The sweatpants are cinched at the waist, tied hastily to keep them from slipping.
You scoff, rolling your eyes. “It’s not my fault you’re built like a damn tree.”
Sylus snorts, shaking his head as he runs the towel over his hair one last time before tossing it onto the chair. “Move.”
He brushes past you, the scent of clean linen and faint sandalwood trailing behind him. The door clicks shut a second later, leaving you alone in the room.
For a moment, you simply stand there, staring at the empty space he left behind.
Then, with a slow, heavy breath, you make your way to the bed. The mattress dips beneath your weight, soft and warm—a stark contrast to the cold pavement you were curled up on just hours ago.
You sink into it, pulling the blankets over yourself, letting your body finally rest.
But sleep never comes.
Even as exhaustion tugs at your limbs, your mind refuses to quiet.
The storm still lingers beyond the windows, faint rumbles reverberating through the walls. Every moment from tonight replays, over and over again—
The laughter at the campfire.
Caleb’s dismissive jokes.
Caleb’s warmth, his head rested on your lap as the sun sets.
His voice, gentle, whispered—“I’m here, pipsqueak. I’m here.”
And the way the line cut before you could even finish your cry for help.
Your grip on the blanket tightens.
It’s pathetic. How much this hurts. How much he still has a hold on you, even when you know better.
You force yourself to listen to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom, gripping into your own palm like doing so could lull you to sleep.
The blanket feels too heavy. The air, too thick.
You shift onto your side, curling in on yourself, trying to focus on something—anything—other than the ache sitting heavy in your chest.
The shower stops, and a moment later, the bathroom door opens.
Sylus steps out, towel draped around his neck, silver hair still damp, a few strands clinging to his skin. The scent of clean linen and something sharp, something distinctly him, fills the space.
He says nothing, nor does he acknowledge you.
Instead, he crosses the room in that effortless, unhurried way of his, tossing the towel onto a nearby chair before grabbing something from his bag.
You watch from the corner of your eye as he settles into the chair beside the bed, flipping the book open like he’s done this a thousand times before.
Like you’re not lying there, curled up in his clothes, drowning in the silence between you.
Like this is just another one of his quiet nights.
The pages turn, slow and steady, the faint rustle of paper weaving into the distant cries of thunder.
Still, the way the thunder rumbles through the sky, rolling and crackling so close, makes your body tense on instinct. You will your breathing to steady, to calm. But your hands won’t stop trembling.
It’s stupid. You know it’s stupid.
The sudden change from the steady rhythm of pages turning to the faint tap of his fingers against his phone screen causes your brows to furrow in curiosity. You crack an eye open just enough to see him searching something up. His expression remains as impassive as ever, his crimson gaze flicking across the screen, scanning whatever article he’s pulled up.
Then—without warning—he gets up, grabs your blanket, and yanks it off you.
“H-Hey—!” You barely have time to react before he moves, fast and measured, rolling you over onto the bedspread like you weigh nothing.
“What the hell are you—“
He ignores you. Ignores your flailing arms, ignores your indignant protests, and swiftly tugs the blanket around you, tucking you in so tight you can barely move.
You blink, completely stunned. You stare up at him, utterly dumbfounded, as he looks down at you with a face that is, somehow, completely unbothered.
“What the fuck is this?”
Sylus simply plops back down into his chair, cool as ever.
“It’s what they say helps cats with anxiety attacks.” He gestures vaguely towards his phone. “Something about mimicking the feeling of safety.”
Silence. You blink at him.
Once.
Twice.
His lips twitch—just slightly. “You’re welcome.”
You stare at him in disbelief.
“What kind of dumb—this isn’t even—“ You wiggle, struggling against the tight wrap of the blanket. “Sylus, let me out.”
“No.
“Sylus.”
“They say chin scratches can also help calm cats down,” he smirks. “Would you want that too, kitten?”
You open your mouth to retort, but another loud crack of thunder cuts through the room. Your breath hitches before you can stop it.
Silence engulfs the room once more.
He flips to another page in his book.
“Do you hate it that much?” his eyes never leaving the words in front of him. “The thunders.”
You squeeze your eyes shut, hating the way your hands still tremble against the blanket.
“No.”
Sylus hums, the sound low, almost skeptical. He flips another page.
“Convincing. Really.”
You would never admit it, but the tight wrap of blanket around you created a protective barrier between you and the world.
Or perhaps it is the steady rhythm of his breathing. The calm, unshaken presence beside you.
Your eyelids grow heavier.
The storm still lingers outside.
But here, in this quiet space, it’s bearable.
And before you realize it—the world turns dark.
•
Your eyes shoot open.
The room is steeped in deep blue, the quiet hum of dawn settling over the world. The storm has long passed, leaving behind only the faint scent of rain lingering in the air.
You instinctively look around, your pulse quickening as the memories of last night rush in like a relentless wave.
The chair beside the bed is empty. The book he was reading is gone.
He isn’t here.
A strange feeling settles in your chest—one you don’t have the energy to name.
You push yourself up, the oversized fabric of his clothes slipping loosely around your frame.
Right. You need to go.
Sliding off the bed, you grab your things, moving as quietly as possible. The last thing you need is anyone seeing you sneaking out of a room that isn’t yours.
The hallways are eerily silent, save for the distant rustle of the ocean breeze slipping through an open window. You slip into your own room unnoticed, the door clicking shut behind you.
MC is still asleep, curled beneath the blankets, her breathing slow and steady.
You exhale, body weighed down with exhaustion as you strip out of Sylus’s clothes, replacing them with your own. The fabric is warm, familiar.
Sliding your phone onto the charger, you finally crawl into bed, slipping under the covers beside MC.
She stirs slightly, shifting at the dip in the mattress, but doesn’t wake.
The silence stretches, the soft rhythm of her breathing lulling you into something close to peace.
You close your eyes.
•
You’re jolted awake by MC’s sudden exclaim.
“Oh my god, Yn!”
Your eyes snap open, the soft haze of sleep vanishing in an instant. MC is hovering over you, her phone clutched tightly in one hand, her brows furrowed in concern.
“Where the hell were you last night?!” she demands, voice a mix of worry and exasperation. “I called you like, a million times! I was this close to going out and looking for you—” She pauses, eyes narrowing slightly. “But, you know… how I am with thunders.”
You blink, mind sluggish, body too drained to react.
MC huffs, shoving her phone in your face. “Seriously, Yn. I was worried sick!”
You squint at the screen, barely making out the endless stream of missed calls and texts before you sigh, rubbing a hand down your face.
“Sorry,” you mumble. “I—”
What are you even supposed to say?
That you got caught in the rain? That you collapsed on the side of the road? That Sylus found you?
That you spent the night in his room?
Your throat tightens.
MC sighs, finally pulling back. “I swear, you’re gonna give me a heart attack one day.” Her expression softens, the frustration fading into something quieter. “You okay?”
The concern in her voice makes your chest ache.
You force a small smile. “Yeah. Just… tired.”
MC watches you for a moment before nodding. “Alright. But don’t ever do that again, okay? If something’s wrong, you tell me.”
You nod, though you don’t say anything.
She plops back onto the bed, stretching her arms over her head. “Anyway, we have a long-ass day ahead of us. Let’s get moving before they start filming without us.”
You hum in agreement, pushing yourself up despite the weight still clinging to your limbs.
The moment your feet touch the floor, a faint dizziness creeps in, but you shake it off.
Today is going to be long. You just have to get through it.
MC chatters away as she gets ready, pulling out outfits and rummaging through her bag. She seems to have let go of last night’s worries, and for that, you’re grateful. You don’t have the energy to explain anything right now.
By the time you both leave the room, the sun has fully risen, painting the sky in warm golds and soft blues. The air is fresh, carrying the lingering scent of rain, but the storm from last night feels like a distant memory—like something only you remember.
When you arrive at the set, the atmosphere is already buzzing with energy. Crew members are setting up, actors are going over their lines, and the director is barking out instructions.
MC quickly joins the main cast, slipping into her role with ease, leaving you to find your own place among the side characters.
“Action!”
The day begins.
It’s hectic—far more chaotic than yesterday. Since most of the key scenes are scheduled to be filmed today, there’s barely a moment to breathe between takes.
You go through your role automatically, delivering lines, hitting your marks, going where you’re needed.
And yet, through the commotion, you can feel him.
“Action!”
You can see him in the crowd, practicing and discussing his lines.
You can see him placing his hand on MC’s head, telling her it’s okay she messed up her part.
“Action!”
Every now and then, between takes, you can see the way his eyes land on you, a certain look that you can’t quite place your finger on.
And every now and then, during any short break he can muster, you can see the way he tries to approach you.
But the simple thought of him makes you sick to your stomach.
“Yn—”
You slip away.
“Where were y—”
Someone calls you over before he can finish.
“Why didn’t you pick—”
Another take is called, forcing him back into position.
Every conversation dies before it can even begin, and you make no effort to change that.
You don’t want to face him yet.
You can’t.
“Action!”
Fortunately, the day is kind enough to be relentless, dragging you from scene to scene, making it easier to ignore the weight of his gaze, the questions lingering between you.
But as the hours pass, the sun burns hotter, the air grows heavier, and a dull ache creeps into your skull.
It’s subtle at first, just a faint throbbing behind your eyes.
“Action!”
Your limbs feel heavier, your head foggy, the world tilting ever so slightly.
You swallow, forcing yourself to focus.
It’s nothing. Just exhaustion. Just the heat. Just the fact that you spent last night soaking wet in the cold for hours.
“Action!”
You push through.
A hand reaches for yours.
“Hey—are you oka—“
“I’m fine, Caleb.” You snap, finally turning to face him, snatching your touch away from his.
You look over his shoulder to find MC waving for him.
“MC’s looking for you,” you state, turning away just as quickly.
“You don’t look—“
The set sweeps him away once more.
The heat is unbearable. It sticks to your skin, clings to your lungs, burrows into your skull with a relentless pulse. Every sound around you—voices, instructions, the scuffling of feet on set—blurs into a distant hum.
“Action!”
You should sit down. You should stop.
But you don’t.
You push through, following the motions, forcing your body to move despite the dull, throbbing ache radiating from your temple.
The sun beats down harder.
Your limbs feel heavy. Your vision swims.
Something is wrong.
“Act—“
A sudden shift—the ground tilts beneath you.
The world spirals. Your stomach churns—everything is slipping too fast.
And then—a firm grip catches your wrist.
Through the haze, crimson eyes lock onto yours, sharp and assessing.
You don’t understand how, don’t understand why— but subtly, nearly imperceptibly—the sharpness in his eyes narrows, just slightly.
His grip tightens.
“It’s not called a dance if there’s no one to catch you when you dip,” a teasing smirk crawls up his face.
You narrow your eyes, a frown following closely.
“Let me go,” you demand, pulling your hand from his. To your dismay, he does not budge.
Sylus hums, tilting his head slightly, his crimson eyes flickering with amusement.
“Let you go?” He scoffs lightly. “Sweetheart, you nearly face-planted in front of half the set. If it weren’t for me, you’d be eating sand right now.”
A flush of heat creeps up your neck—whether from frustration or fever, you don’t know.
“But it did look like you were throwing yourself into my arms just now…”
Your jaw tightens. “I wasn’t—“
“You were.” He grins, lazy and insufferable, before tapping his temple. “Don’t worry, I’ll be generous and let you blame it on heat exhaustion. But next time, try asking before you faint dramatically into my arms, yeah?”
A scoff pushes past your lips, hot and irritated. “I didn’t—“
He cuts you off again, eyes narrowing in mock thought. “Actually, should I be offended? You didn’t even call my name. Isn’t that what damsels in distress do?”
He shifts his grip to hook an arm securely around your waist, pulling you closer as your knees wobble.
You slap at his arm. “I can stand just fine.“
“Sure.” He drawls the word out, clearly not convinced. “If by ‘just fine’ you mean ‘barely upright and just one second away from proving me right.’”
Your glare sharpens, pushing his body away from you. However, your body betrays you as your knees struggle to find balance, causing you to lean just slightly into his hold.
Sylus smirks.
“You love proving me right, don’t you?”
You groan. “Just let me go, Sylus.”
Before he can answer, another presence looms in.
“Yn.“
The teasing weight of Sylus’s words vanishes in an instant.
You tense.
The air shifts—sharp, tight, suffocating.
Sylus’s smirk doesn’t falter, but the amusement in his eyes dims, replaced with something much more calculating.
“I’ll take it from here.”
Caleb takes a step forward, his expression unreadable—but his tone isn’t.
“Let go.”
A muscle in Sylus’s jaw twitches as his gaze sweeps over Caleb, the amusement curling at his lips deepening.
“That’s funny,” he muses, low and almost thoughtful.
Caleb’s eyes darken. “I said, let go.”
Sylus tilts his head slightly, gaze dipping back to you.
“Mm.” His voice drops lower, amusement flickering at the edges. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
The tension snaps tight between them—like a drawn blade, waiting to be swung.
You exhale sharply, yanking your wrist away from Sylus. Caleb’s presence itself is enough to push you off the edge, adding the tension between the two and your head splitting in half definitely does not help.
“I’m fine. I can walk. You two have scenes to film—go do that instead of hovering over me,” you mutter, your glare shifting between them.
Neither of them move.
You sigh, rubbing your temples. “Seriously. I just need some rest. Go.”
Sylus studies you for a beat longer, then— with an infuriating smirk, he raises both his hands in a mock display of surrender.
“Whatever you say, kitten.”
He steps back, turning without another word. But, even if you’ve just known him for a few days, you’re well too accustomed to that glint in his eyes. He’s entertained—like he just witnessed something far more amusing than it should be.
You roll your eyes, turning to leave—only to find Caleb following closely behind.
You stop in your tracks.
“Caleb.”
“You’re sick,” he states simply, as if that explains everything.
You let out an exhausted sigh. “I just need a nap. The sun’s too hot. You have a job to do. Go.”
“I’ll take you to your room.”
You groan. “I don’t need you to—“
“Yn.”
Something in the way he says your name—low, quiet, edged with something almost like a puppy left alone—makes your breath hitch.
You swallow, annoyance and fatigue surfacing your expression.
“Fine. Do whatever you want.”
You start walking. Caleb falls into step beside you, silent. The set bustles behind you, voices and movement filling the space. But between you and Caleb, the silence is louder.
The walk back is slow. The ground beneath you feels unsteady, your legs sluggish with exhaustion. The day had been merciless—your body drained from the heat, the lingering weight of last night clawing at your bones.
“I didn’t,” you murmur.
“You almost did.”
You finally reach your door, the cool AC left running inside brushes away a part of your exhaustion.
The door clicks shut behind you. You turn to face him, arms crossed.
“Alright. You walked me back. You can go now.”
Caleb doesn’t move. Instead, he leans against the doorframe, hands shoved into his pockets. “Kicking me out already?” he says with his usual playful tone, a grin plastered on his face.
“Out.”
Caleb sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I just—why didn’t you say anything? You looked like you were about to collapse back there.” He slowly approaches you, placing one hand on your forehead and another on his. “You’re burning up.”
A deep frown crawls up your face, annoyance filling your senses. You swat his hand away, taking an unsteady step backwards.
“Get out, Caleb, I want to be alone.”
His eyes widen ever so slightly, taken aback by your response. A soft chuckle slips past his lips—one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Okay, okay, I’ll leave. Right after I tuck you in.”
You let out a sharp breath, exasperated, but too drained to argue. Caleb takes a step closer, reaching for the blanket, but you snatch it before he can.
“Caleb—“
“You didn’t answer my calls.” The shift is almost imperceptible. His voice is steady, but there is an edge to it—like he is holding something back. His jaw is tense, something unreadable flashing behind his violet eyes.
Your breath catches for half a second and you grip on the blanket tightens, but you school your expression. “My phone was dead.”
“Where were you last night?” His voice is still too calm. Too measured.
You exhale, pinching the bridge of your nose, exhaustion pressing into your skull. “Caleb—“
“Do you know how long I spent looking for you?” his tone is lighter than it should be, laced with something almost amused—but his eyes, his stance, the slight clench of jaw betray him. “I ran through the rain like a desperate idiot, calling for your name like a lunatic, only for you to act like I don’t exist the next day?”
His voice isn’t desperate. It’s frustrated.
You don’t know what to say to that. Instead, you let out a dry laugh, shaking your head.
“Yeah? That worried? Sure, Caleb. Sure,” you pause. “Do you expect me to be grateful?” sarcasm drips from your words.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” his eyes narrow.
“No? Then what are you saying?” You cross your arms, a bitter laugh slipping past your lips. “Because I remember calling you. I remember my hands shaking so bad I almost dropped my phone. I remember hearing your voice and thinking, ‘finally.’” Your throat tightens. “And then I remember you cutting the line.”
Caleb stares at you, his expression unreadable.
“I was in the middle of god knows where, drenched like a drowning dog, kneeled down on the road next to some fucking dumpster,” you continue, voice shaking despite yourself. “But it wasn’t a great time. You were busy.” A humorless laugh leaves your quivering lips.
His jaws ticks.
“You know how MC is with thunders,” he says, voice quieter now. Almost defensive. “But as soon as she fell asleep— I didn’t think—“
“Exactly.” Your words are barely above a whisper. “You didn’t think. Had you paid a little more attention, you would’ve known I hated the thunder too.”
Something in his face shifts. His breath catches. For the first time since you met him, he looks like he miscalculated.
The silence is thick, suffocating. His gaze lock onto yours, searching—for what you weren’t sure.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, looking away. His hand grips the doorknob, knuckles paling slightly.
His voice is quieter when he speaks again. “I didn’t know.”
A bitter smile tugs at your lips. “Yeah. You didn’t.”
He remains there for a second longer, a shadow of something you can’t quite place flickering behind his eyes. You inhale sharply, steadying yourself, pressing a hand against your temple as a dull ache throbs inside your head.
“I’m very—very—tired,” you continue, voice barely above a breath. “So just… let me rest, Caleb.”
His jaws tightens. He shifts his weight, like he wants to say something—like there’s something sitting heavy on his tongue—but in the end, he exhales through his nose, slow and steady,
His voice, when he finally speaks, is quiet. Strained.
“…Get some rest, then.”
His fingers twitch at his sides. He slowly place his hand on your head, ruffling it softly—the way that has always brought butterflies to your stomach. His violet eyes flicker, scanning you—your unsteady stance, the way you press against your temple, the exhaustion settling deep in your features. Something flashes behind his gaze. But just as quickly, it’s gone.
He takes a step back. Then another.
He tilts his head slightly, studying you one last time—not with amusement, not with his usual lazy charm or playfulness, but with something much quieter. Much heavier.
“Try not to sleep through dinner, shortcake.” His usual grin flickers at the edges, forced, strained, before turning his heel.
➵ summary. gojo satoru was a slytherin through and through—cunning, clever, and infuriatingly charming, with a reputation as both a prodigy and a troublemaker. you, a gryffindor prefect, couldn't be more different—fearless, fiercely principled, and far too stubborn to let someone like him get under your skin. or so you thought. by day, the two of you bicker and clash, bound only by your shared duty, but by night, within the room of requirement, you're partners in something far greater—a secret operation known as the marauders, granting the whispered wishes of hogwarts students.
➵ warnings. gojo being gojo; mentions of unforgivable curses; mentions of strangling someone (gojo); mentions of injury; slytherins being called anarchists; snape; mentions of hexing a cat (i think that counts as animal cruelty but idk for sure); profanity; slight timeline inaccuracy bc i like professor fig so i kept him in the fic w the others; etc.
➵ genre. wizarding world au; academic rivals to lovers; enemies to lovers; angst; fluff; adventure; etc.
➵ word count. 6.6k.
➵ author's note. so so excited to introduce you guys to mischief managed! big thanks to @gojofile for proofreading. have fun reading, and i hope slytherin prefect gojo warms your hearts <3 also also, taglist is still open!
➵ navigation. masterlist, next.
Gojo Satoru.
The mere mention of his name was enough to stir an unpleasant bitterness in your mouth—like biting into a sour Acid Pop, sharp and unforgiving. He leaned casually against one of the stone pillars near the corridor leading to the Great Hall, his posture so relaxed it was almost infuriating. You, however, stood at the top of the steps leading down to the bustling crowd of prefects below, arms crossed tightly over your chest, waiting. It was the sort of wait that carried the weight of years—years of dealing with him, with this. You had, like the others, arrived promptly, but unlike them, you had been watching the clock tick away in growing frustration, the minutes wasted under the strain of his absence.
With every second that passed, the sour taste in your mouth grew. You were no stranger to his arrogance, no stranger to the fact that Gojo Satoru never seemed to care about anyone else’s time but his own. How predictable, how utterly insufferable. He had this remarkable ability to ruin an entire evening simply by being late, the kind of late that stretched from a few minutes into an eternity. The others, however, had long since forgiven his transgressions, accepting the lack of discipline as some sort of unavoidable part of his charm.
You didn’t share that sentiment.
He walked up to the group then, casually slipping past the other prefects who all, unsurprisingly, seemed more than willing to let his tardiness slide. His lips curled into that infuriatingly charming, carefree smile, and the first few apologies that spilled from his mouth were as hollow as they were insincere. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking entirely too pleased with himself. If there was one thing you had to give him credit for, it was his ability to navigate the world with a confidence so blinding it nearly rendered everyone around him incapable of holding a grudge.
Except, of course, for you.
You could feel the weight of your own gaze burning into his back as he spoke. He was an impossible contradiction—infuriating, selfish, and absurdly arrogant, and yet, undeniably captivating. Even with all his faults, there was something magnetic about him. Those piercing blue eyes of his, so impossibly bright, and the soft curve of his lips, perpetually tipped upwards in a self-assured grin, had a power over people that you could not quite ignore. You’d seen it yourself—the way his presence could make entire groups of students lose their composure, how even the toughest of professors faltered under his gaze.
But not you.
You couldn’t care less for his entrancing gaze, nor for the way his words slipped from his lips like honey, perfectly crafted to disarm and beguile. His blue eyes, though striking, could not erase the irritable taste of his disregard. And his smile? It only made your stomach churn. You had learned long ago to keep your distance, to shield yourself from the charms that so effortlessly ensnared the rest. You were no fool.
"Alright, round up," calls the Head Girl, her voice slicing through the hum of conversation like a well-aimed hex. You sigh, already weary, and stand as she begins to rattle off the night’s patrol assignments. Your fingers toyed absently with the sleeve of your robe while you listened, half-attentive, until the sound of his name snapped you into focus.
Your gaze found him instinctively, as if drawn by some unseen force you hated to acknowledge. He was leaning back against the wall, all easy confidence, that maddening smirk tugging at his lips. Those pink lips, which were far too perfect for a boy who never seemed to put in any effort at all.
“[L/N], you’re with Gojo. Astronomy Tower and the North Wing.”
You exhaled sharply, the sound almost lost in the shuffle of murmurs and groans from the other prefects. Of course. Of course. You could practically feel his satisfaction radiating across the room without even looking at him. But you couldn’t resist. Your eyes flicked back to his, catching the faint tilt of his head, the knowing gleam in his irises. That smirk had only grown wider, as though he knew exactly how much this would infuriate you.
He always did.
You brushed past him on your way out, your shoulder caught the edge of his robe in a deliberate slight. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch, only watched you with that insufferable grin as though you amused him beyond words. You ignored him—pointedly, completely. He wasn’t worth your breath tonight.
There was too much at stake. You had an hour of patrol to endure before you could finally collapse into bed, and an early Potions lesson tomorrow morning with Snape waiting to shred your dignity into pieces. Snape adored Gojo, of course. He always found reasons to praise him, whether for his technique or his "sharp mind," as if the boy ever cared about rules or discipline. You, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky.
You could still feel the sting from the first day back, the dull thud of Snape’s heavy Potions tome cracking against the back of your skull because you’d dared to yawn during his lecture. Gojo, meanwhile, had been sprawled at the back of the class, sound asleep, the faint rise and fall of his chest utterly unbothered. Snape hadn’t said a word to him. Not one.
As you stepped out of the eastern wing and into the cool, open air, the castle loomed behind you, its shadow stretching long and dark across the grounds. Your footsteps echoed faintly against the cobblestones, their rhythm unsteady, almost reluctant. You yawned, stifling the sound with the back of your hand, though the ache of it lingered in your jaw. It had been a day—a week, really. The first week of your sixth year at Hogwarts, and already it felt like you’d lived through months.
The Astronomy Tower rose ahead, its silhouette sharp against the star-flecked sky. The air was crisp, biting against your skin as you fought to keep your eyes open. Another yawn threatened to escape, but you forced it down.
“A little tired, are we?”
His voice cut through the quiet, smooth and sharp, his steps falling in perfect cadence with yours. The click of his boots on the stone floor reminded you of a metronome, steady and deliberate, as if the universe itself aligned to his whims. You didn’t look back, didn’t even bother to reply. A hum escaped your lips instead, low and dismissive, but you knew it wouldn’t deter him.
“You know,” he continued, unperturbed, “I didn’t see you at dinner tonight, Fawkes Junior.”
The nickname landed with its usual weight, heavy but familiar, like a coat you’d grown used to wearing despite its ill fit. It wasn’t the “Fawkes” that bothered you anymore—not after you’d finally experienced the beauty of the bird last year. The phoenix was a marvel, even more luminous than you’d imagined, its plumage shimmering with an otherworldly glow. No, it was the “Junior” that still irked you, the diminutive edge of it, the implication that you were less than.
You remembered that moment in Dumbledore’s office, the phoenix rising from its ashes with a blaze of light so blinding it had brought tears to your eyes. Dumbledore had watched you closely, the faintest smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he recited the same words he’d spoken countless times before. A phoenix, he’d told you, could carry the heaviest of burdens, its tears more potent than any potion. He’d winked then, a gesture that felt both knowing and unnervingly intimate. You’d laughed it off, of course. What else could you do?
Shaking the thought from your mind, you replied curtly, “I was in the library. Something about Quidditch. McGonagall wanted me to look over the first-years’ picks.”
“Ah.” His voice curled around the word, drawn out and laden with that peculiar tone he used when he wanted to draw people in. You hated that tone, the way it made you feel like a moth fluttering dangerously close to a flame. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to up my game, then. Can’t let you Gryffindors get too comfortable. The House Cup is ours this year.”
You glanced at him then, just long enough to catch the glint of mischief in his eyes, the faint tilt of his lips. “You and I both know we won last year fair and square,” you said, your voice tinged with accusation. “Not that you didn’t try to hex our Seeker into food poisoning before the match.”
He laughed, a low, melodic sound that set your teeth on edge. “And you caught me. Hexed me right back, if I recall.”
“It was deserved.”
“I’m still the best Seeker Hogwarts has seen in our generation,” he said, his tone mockingly self-assured.
You arched a brow as you ascended the final steps to the Astronomy Tower. His claim was, unfortunately, true, but you’d never admit it—not to him, not to anyone. Instead, you let silence answer for you, the faintest quirk of your lips the only acknowledgment of his words.
The door to the tower creaked open, the chill of the night air spilling over your skin. He stepped ahead, turning to face you with that same infuriating grin, as if he’d already won whatever battle was brewing between you.
It was the first week of September, and the air already carried a bite to it—sharp and unwelcome for the Quidditch players who would soon be out on the pitch. You pulled your cloak a little tighter around yourself, biting back the impulse to complain about the chill, but it slipped out anyway. "Bloody hell," you muttered under your breath, though the frustration wasn’t entirely with the weather. "Not that I mind it, really. I quite like it. It’s just—"
"—going to be a bummer while we’re playing Quidditch," he finished for you, his voice light, teasing, like always. You didn’t even look at him when you said it, but you knew he'd be grinning that absurd grin of his, the one that seemed capable of disarming entire rooms with nothing more than a flash of teeth.
"Right. And you try to find a new way to cheat. Again," you added, rolling your eyes at the inevitable.
He chuckled, a low, amused sound that seemed to vibrate through the very air between you. "I say we stay here for the hour," he proposed, his tone one that would’ve convinced anyone else in the world. But not you. "Not like anyone gives a damn. Nobody’s going to be out in the North Wing at this time, except for us. Not when the dungeons lead directly to the Room—"
You could feel the weight of his words, could almost see the exact way his eyes would be sparkling with the promise of mischief, the way his mind was already working out the logistics of evading anyone who might ruin his latest scheme. He was clever, yes—brilliant, even. But it was always something else. That glint in his eye, that knowing smirk, the feeling like there was more behind every word and every movement. He was a bloody narcissist, but you could admit it: he made it look like an art.
You shook your head, muttering a small "Shut up," with a stern tone, eyes fixed ahead, refusing to even glance in his direction. As you brushed past him, your shoulder nudged his as a small warning, the smallest of touches, but enough to tell him that you weren’t in the mood for whatever else was about to come out of his mouth.
"You’re such a bore," he muttered, his voice dripping with mockery as he rolled his eyes. You huffed, the sound escaping you before you could fully hold it in, and made your way toward one of the arches. The cool wind rushed against your face, teasing the strands of hair that had escaped your ponytail, and you felt a warmth rise to your cheeks. The Black Lake stretched before you, vast and murky, the Forbidden Forest just beyond it, a dark, intimidating blur. The rustle of leaves whispered to you on the breeze, and the air itself smelled fresh, clean. It was almost peaceful—if not for his insufferable presence.
"I'm only doing what's asked of me, Gojo," you said, voice cutting through the silence between you. Your eyes flicked to him, and you almost wished you hadn’t. He was leaning casually against the stone, an impossibly carefree smile curling at the corners of his mouth. "If you can’t do your job, maybe you shouldn’t be a prefect. You’re not fit for it anyway."
"I know," he said, his tone suddenly so dramatically solemn it made you want to roll your eyes in return. "I’m only fit to be the most marvelous person at this school, unfortunately. Everyone else is... well, they’re just ordinary, and that bothers me. Except for you. And Suguru. Maybe Shoko." His gaze flickered to you, challenging you to disagree, but you remained silent, too exhausted to indulge him.
"I thought I was a bore," you said, raising an eyebrow as you turned to face him, arms folded loosely across your chest. He chuckled low, the sound rich and almost taunting.
"Oh yes," he agreed easily, “You are a bore. You're sort of filthy, too, really. I get this weird, uncomfortable feeling whenever I see you—like a cockroach."
You didn’t have to look at him to know the grin that must have spread across his face at his own words. You could feel it in the tone of his voice, could practically see the smugness radiating from him. You twisted away, sharply, walking back toward the stone staircase that led down. “This cockroach,” you muttered, “will hex you to fall out of the tower to your death.”
"Ah, threatening me again," he said, a laugh in his voice as he followed, always too close behind. "You really should be careful. I wouldn’t want to be the one to give you an excuse to use that hex."
"Come along," you snapped, the patience draining from you. "I suggest we finish our patrol soon so I can actually get some sleep."
"And I," he replied without missing a beat, his voice light, "shall nap in Snape’s class tomorrow. We’re learning about the Blood-Replenishing Serum anyway. I did it last year—privately, of course. I’ll probably just wait until we actually have to brew it to pay attention."
"Self-absorbed prick," you muttered under your breath, but he heard it, as always. His grin widened, as if he had just received the highest form of praise, and his eyes sparkled with mock admiration.
"Pitiful nag," he retorted, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He didn’t even have to try to sound smug. It was just part of who he was. And the worst part was, you couldn’t help but be aware of how much it irked you. And, somehow, how much you... didn’t mind it at all.
The next morning, Snape’s voice droned on like a monotonous hum, the same lecture about the Blood-Replenishing Serum that Satoru had so carelessly mentioned the night before. You sighed quietly, your quill scraping against the parchment as your thoughts drifted, mind half on the lesson and half on the weight of exhaustion pressing down on you. Every so often, you glanced up, only to see Gojo doing exactly what he'd said he would do: napping.
His head was cradled in his arms, the silky white strands of hair fanning out around him like some sort of halo, and his chest rose and fell with each slow, rhythmic breath. You scoffed under your breath. Typical.
Turning your attention back to Snape, you could feel the tension build in the pit of your stomach. The silence in the room lingered longer than usual, and when his eyes met yours, it hit you like a punch to the gut.
Shit.
"[L/N], would you care to enlighten us?" Snape's voice was smooth, deliberate. "What exactly seems to be distracting you from this crucial lesson in the very field you have expressed an interest in pursuing upon graduation? Do you or do you not want to go to St. Mungo’s?"
You blinked, the weight of the question settling over you as you rose from your seat. There was no use in pretending; he saw right through you, as usual. "Sorry, sir," you mumbled, staring down at your notes with a sudden sense of urgency.
He didn't buy it. You could feel his presence looming over you as he approached your desk, the air thick with expectation. "Without consulting your notes," he said coldly, his eyes narrowing, "name five ingredients required to make this serum work effectively. Without fail."
Your stomach twisted, but you met his gaze. The whispers of your classmates buzzed at the edges of your hearing, but they didn’t matter. You had been listening—despite the exhaustion weighing heavily on you—and now it was time to prove it.
"Powdered unicorn horn, sir," you said, voice steady, making sure to pause, "for its restorative and revitalizing properties. Knotgrass. Ginseng Root. Phoenix feathers. And Essence of Dittany."
There was a long pause, his gaze unrelenting, studying you like a hawk eyeing its prey. For a moment, you thought your heart might beat out of your chest. Then, finally, he let out a low hum, almost as if he were impressed but refused to let it show.
Without another word, he turned, striding back to the front of the room, leaving a tense silence in his wake. You slowly exhaled, unaware that you’d been holding your breath. The weight on your shoulders lifted slightly, and you sank back into your seat, your quill still hovering over the paper.
You turned your head, drawn by the weight of his gaze. Gojo Satoru watched you, his expression unreadable, a kind of casual indifference that masked something deeper, something you couldn’t name. He didn’t look away, not at first, just met your eyes for a long, deliberate moment before letting his head slump down again, a silent punctuation to whatever this unspoken exchange had been. You rolled your eyes and forced your attention back to the lesson, willing your pulse to even out.
By the time you emerged from the classroom, booksack slung over one shoulder, he was waiting, as though he had planned it all along. He fell into step beside you, grinning the grin that always made you question why the universe bothered with him at all.
“Looks like you’ve been brushing up on Potions,” he said breezily. “I might actually have competition now.”
“You’re not all that great, Gojo,” you replied, voice flat with practiced disinterest. You waved a quick goodbye to Utahime and Nanami, your friends already slipping into the tide of students heading toward their next class.
“Besides,” you continued, “don’t you have Suguru to bother?”
He groaned theatrically. “Him and Shoko don’t have Potions with us first period this year. Absolute tragedy. If Suguru did, I wouldn’t have to spend every lecture napping.”
“You’re insufferable,” you said, scoffing. “How can you even—”
“Ask me anything,” he interrupted, hands tucked casually in his robe pockets, his tone too smug for someone talking about Potions theory. “Anything we learned today. Go on.”
You stared at him, wishing—for perhaps the hundredth time—that there weren’t rules against strangling your classmates. The image of your hands wrapped around his neck, his perfect jawline slackening, his too-blue eyes dimming, was fleeting but satisfying. Instead, you sighed, letting the moment pass.
“You’re a bastard,” you said, shaking your head. “I don’t have time for this. We’ve got Defense Against the Dark Arts now, and unlike you, I actually care about passing.”
“Ah, DADA. Another subject you just happen to excel at,” he drawled, his voice laced with mock admiration.
“I excel because I work for it, not because I’ve got daddy’s money and a legacy to coast on.”
“Convenient how you keep forgetting I’m better than you at everything,” he said, the grin widening.
“Not everything.”
“Oh, right. Because you’re the dueling queen now. We both remember what happened to that poor third-year's cat last year,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“And yet, I’ve beaten you. Twice.” You smirked, savoring the memory of those duels. “I am Head of the Dueling Club, remember?”
“Because you’re unbearable?”
“No. Because I’m better.”
“You still can’t get the Patron—”
“Gojo Satoru and [L/N] [Y/N].”
The voice was sharp and clipped, and you both turned as one. Professor McGonagall stood in the corridor, her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line.
“I trust,” she began, striding toward you with the air of someone who had better things to do than reprimand wayward students, “the two of you are maintaining decorum this year.”
You winced, the memory flaring sharp and uncomfortably vivid. Last year, an argument between you and Gojo had spiraled into chaos in the courtyard. Wands raised, tempers hot, and spells flying—until yours, a hex meant for Gojo, ricocheted off a stray shield charm and struck someone’s cat instead. The poor creature froze mid-leap, rigid and unblinking, to the horror of its owner and the delight of a small crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle. McGonagall had arrived moments later, her reprimand as swift and merciless as her counter-curse. The scolding had burned itself into your memory, along with the mortifying sight of the cat limping off, thoroughly unimpressed. You'd received detention for the first time that year.
“Yes, Professor,” you said, your voice meek in comparison to how you’d spoken to Gojo moments earlier. “We were just heading to class.”
“Good.” Her sharp gaze flicked to Gojo, who suddenly seemed far less amused. “And I trust Mr. Gojo hasn’t been neglecting his responsibilities. If I find you late for your rounds again tonight, you’ll no longer be in contention for Captaincy of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Madam Hooch and Professor Snape will see to that. Do I make myself clear?”
Gojo swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, his voice devoid of its usual bravado.
You couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped you, quickly masked behind your Potions textbook. His humiliation was rare, and you intended to savor every moment of it.
As you walked away from the corridor and towards DADA, your smile only widens. This year might just turn out to be more interesting than the last after all.
When you entered the Great Hall for dinner that night, you spotted Gojo immediately. He’s at the Slytherin table, a loose sprawl of limbs, his laughter a little too loud, his hair catching the light like spun silver. You glanced away before he hooked you in, too. It's a small, bitter truth: you would have liked to sit with Shoko tonight. But she was at the Slytherin table, and the social architecture of Hogwarts had always been unkind to cross-house friendships.
You settled instead next to Utahime, who is demolishing her plate with a ferocity that suggests starvation, and across from Nanami, who has arranged his roasted parsnips into orderly lines. You helped yourself to a pasty and let the quiet chaos of dinner roll around you.
“Do you have rounds tonight?” Nanami asks. His voice is steady, his gaze as deliberate as his movements. Everything about him measured, careful. A newly minted Prefect, he wore the title like it was a chore he knew he’d never be allowed to set down.
“No,” you said, reaching for another pasty. “Iori might.”
Both of you turned to Utahime, who paused her assault on a piece of roast lamb long enough to let out an exhausted sigh. “Of course I do,” she said. “I have rounds, I have Quidditch, I have first-years practically dangling off me like flobberworms. Did you know McGonagall’s been having me run drills with Itadori? That kid’s a menace. Eleven years old and flying like he was born with a broom in his hand. Eleven! At that age, I could barely manage not to knock myself out midair.”
“You got scouted at the end of first year,” you pointed out, narrowing your eyes at her.
“Because I broke half the bones in my body trying to,” she shot back, grabbing what looks like a slice of shepherd’s pie—or maybe baked potatoes. It was hard to tell anymore, the table a patchwork of dishes, all melting into each other. “Itadori didn’t even have to try. Just showed up and decided to be brilliant. No learning curve. No effort. Nothing.” She shakes her head as if personally offended. “I hate people like that.”
Nanami nodded solemnly, as if Itadori’s existence were a philosophical tragedy. You scarfed down a Yorkshire pudding, barely tasted it, and pushed your plate aside.
“Going somewhere?” Utahime asked, raising an eyebrow. “You were eating like you had somewhere to be.”
“Snape,” you lied smoothly, leaning back in your seat. “I had some errands from today’s class.”
She snorted. “I heard what happened today. Good luck trying to appease that sourpuss.”
You laughed, the sound light, harmless. It was an easy lie, so practiced that it slipped off your tongue without weight. Let her think it was Snape. Let her think it was anything but the truth.
The truth, as you glanced toward the Slytherin table, was waiting. Shoko caught your eye first, and you gave her a small wave and an exaggerated grin that she returned. She turned back to something Suguru was saying, and then, just for a moment, Gojo’s gaze found yours.
It was quick—imperceptible to anyone else, but it was there. A look. A nod. That was all it took.
He stood, his departure casual enough to be an afterthought, though you knew better. You watched him slip through the Great Hall doors, his frame momentarily silhouetted against the darkened corridor before he was gone.
You reached for dessert—chocolate gateau, custard—but left the ice cream untouched. No time tonight.
Something, or someone, awaited you. Both, perhaps.
“I’m heading up,” you murmured, pushing back your chair. “I’ll see you at breakfast, yeah?”
Utahime barely glanced up. Nanami nodded, distracted. No one questioned it. Why would they? You gathered your things and stood, your resolve quiet but purposeful.
The lie had been effortless. The truth, however, was already starting to make its demands.
You stood, smoothing the creases of your robes with deliberate care, before slipping quietly out of the Great Hall. The buzz of conversation receded behind you, replaced by the low hum of torchlight flickering against stone walls. You moved quickly but not hurriedly, your eyes darting to the shadows, tracking movement that wasn’t there. You were certain the white-haired idiot had taken the quickest route—through Professor Fig’s classroom, perhaps ducking into the dungeons if he had been feeling bold. Typical Gojo, always choosing chaos and convenience in equal measure. You, of course, were left with the scenic route.
A sigh escaped your lips, soft as a feather, as you veered left down a quieter corridor. It was second nature by now, mapping out where Filch would be at this hour. Filch was predictable. His blasted cat, however, was not.
Rounding the corner, you stopped short. Mrs. Norris. The yellow-eyed menace herself. She sat planted in the middle of the corridor like a gargoyle come to life, her tail flicking languidly against the flagstone floor. Those unnervingly bulbous eyes fixated on you, unblinking, as though she had been expecting you all along.
You froze, your hand instinctively twitching toward your pocket—not for your wand, no, but for something far more effective. You had learned her ways, after all. It had taken a few unfortunate encounters, a near-miss with Filch, and a fair bit of trial and error, but you had cracked her code.
Fish pie. Trout. Even a sliver of smoked salmon would do. You had kept a stash since fourth year, just for occasions like this. Slowly, deliberately, you pulled a neatly wrapped morsel from your pocket and held it out. Her ears perked up, and for the briefest moment, you swore her sharp features softened. She approached, silent as a ghost, her eyes darting from you to the bribe.
You crouched, placing the offering on the stone. She sniffed once, twice, then devoured it with alarming efficiency. Satisfied, she gave you a look that felt almost approving, before slinking away into the shadows.
You exhaled, a small smirk tugging at your lips as you straightened up. Mrs. Norris might have been Filch’s enforcer, but even she had her price. You glanced down the corridor, the way clear now, and continued on your path. What awaited you at the end of this journey—well, that was a secret you intended to keep.
The Hospital Wing loomed just ahead, its faintly glowing windows casting soft squares of light onto the cold stone floor. You kept close to the shadows, your footsteps light as a whisper, your gaze flicking toward the open door. Madam Pomfrey was nowhere in sight, but you knew better than to trust the stillness. She had an uncanny way of appearing precisely when students would have preferred her not to.
Your hand brushed the cool banister of the staircase as you ascended, the air shifting subtly, growing cooler and quieter with every step. The torches along the corridor flickered faintly, their light wavering as if uncertain whether to welcome or warn you. You glanced back once, twice, the hush of the castle wrapping itself around you like a cloak. You were close now. Close enough to feel the familiar pull in your chest, an inexplicable certainty that drew you forward.
The corridor narrowed, the stones beneath your feet vibrating faintly, like the heartbeat of the castle itself. You reached out, your fingers grazing the smooth curve of a pillar, and paused. The walls ahead began to shift. Slowly, subtly, they rippled like water disturbed by a single drop. Then, as if answering an unspoken request, the stones crackled and ground against each other, carving themselves into something new.
The outline of a door emerged, its edges glowing faintly before darkening into a deep, obsidian black. The transformation was seamless, almost elegant in its inevitability. A smile tugged at your lips, small and triumphant. The Room always answered, but the spectacle never failed to enchant.
You pressed your palm against the cool surface of the door, letting it ground you for a moment. The world felt impossibly quiet now, the weight of secrecy pressing against your ribs. One more glance over your shoulder, a final check to ensure you were alone. The corridor was empty, the castle asleep in its ancient stillness.
With a deep breath, you pushed the door open. It glided inward without resistance, revealing the familiar expanse beyond.
The Room of Requirement greeted you with its usual, maddening perfection. The cavernous ceiling stretched high above, shrouded in shadow, while bookshelves lined the walls in neat, endless rows. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm glow over the cozy seating arranged nearby. Round tables dotted the space, their surfaces scattered with parchment and ink. On the far side, a collection of training dummies stood silently, their worn surfaces gleaming faintly in the firelight. The space was vast and intimate all at once, a sanctuary conjured just for you.
But then your eyes landed on him.
Standing near the corner, his white hair catching the golden light like a beacon, was Gojo Satoru. He leans against a bookshelf with his usual infuriating ease, a smirk playing across his lips. His eyes, those unnervingly sharp blues, found yours immediately, and for a moment, you swore he’d been waiting here all along.
“Welcome back, Fawkes Junior,” he drawled, his voice breaking the spell of the room, his smirk deepening as he took in your expression. “You’re late.”
“No matter.” You shrugged, brushing past him and making your way to the sprawling pinboard that dominated the far wall. Tacked to it were parchment scraps and intricately scrawled maps of the castle, the grounds, even the surrounding Forbidden Forest. The parchment looked well-used, edges curling and stained with ink spills and hurried fingers. Across the room, a long table was strewn with yet more parchment, quills, and ink bottles. A small lantern burned low at its center, casting flickering shadows across the walls. Gojo had, at least, taken the liberty of setting up the space for that night’s work. Small mercies.
You shrugged your robe off, tossing it carelessly over a chair as you approached the table. “Let’s get started. How many requests so far?”
“Four,” Gojo replied, lounging lazily against the table with that infuriating grin of his. He tapped his finger against a short list he'd scribbled onto a scrap of parchment. “All from different drop points. I checked the rest last night, after rounds. Nothing new since.”
You leaned over the table, your eyes scanning the list. One particular entry caught your attention—a hastily written note, its ink smudged and nearly illegible. You tapped it with your finger. “Is this one from Reynard Willis? That new fifth-year transfer from Ilvermorny?”
Gojo smirked, his white hair catching the light in a way that made you want to throttle him. “The very same. Apparently, he was in desperate need of a Time-Turner. Got himself into some… personal entanglements he’d like to sort out.”
You let out a sharp laugh. “A Time-Turner? Is he insane? How does he even know about us?”
“Word gets around,” Gojo said with a shrug, though his grin widened. “Shall we indulge him?”
“Absolutely not,” you said firmly, shaking your head. “From what I’ve heard, he’s the type to lose his own wand, let alone keep something like that safe. No. Too risky. Reject it and take up this one instead.” You pointed to another request, this one penned in neat, precise handwriting. “Partridge Locks, seventh year. Wants her Charms grades adjusted from a pop quiz. Harmless enough. We won’t even have to touch her professors’ files—just a quick charm on the grade book.”
“Boring,” Gojo groaned. “Though you’re right. Getting caught stealing Time-Turners from McGonagall’s office would be catastrophic. You’re lucky you already have one. You get to parade around with something so precious while I—”
“I use it to attend all my classes,” you interrupted, rolling your eyes. “History of Magic and Ancient Runes are scheduled at the same time this year, and I wasn’t about to choose between them. Believe me, it’s hardly glamorous.”
“Still not fair,” he muttered, pouting. “Alright, fine. I’ll handle Locks. If I time it right, I can slip into Flitwick’s classroom through the dungeons.” He leaned over the map, tracing a path from the Hospital Wing to the Astronomy Tower. “Exit here, loop back toward the Great Hall, and no one will even notice.”
You crossed your arms, a smirk tugging at your lips. “Is there one for me? These other two seem simple enough. What’s this one about sneaking a love potion into the Ravenclaw Tower?” You plucked the parchment from the pile, scanning it. “Ooh, to Higuruma? Interesting. That could be fun. Though he’s clever—he probably wouldn’t drink it.”
Gojo snorted, leaning back in his chair. “Clever? Please. He’s a Prefect, not a genius. You could slip it into his breakfast tomorrow morning, and he’d down it without a second thought. Besides,” he added with a dramatic wave of his hand, “I hate sneaking into the Ravenclaw Tower. Riddles to get inside? Who has the patience for that?”
You laughed, a quiet, mischievous sound that echoed softly in the dim room. “Fine. I’ll take care of it. But if he figures it out, I’m blaming you.”
“No one even knows who the Marauders are,” he said, leaning back in his chair with an air of smug satisfaction. “For all they know, we could be an underground organization—some shadowy network pulling strings behind the scenes. It’s kind of brilliant if you think about it. Nobody suspects it’s just two bored students who stumbled across the Room of Requirement and thought it’d be fun to enchant parts of the castle to take requests.”
His grin widened, and you hated how infuriatingly infectious it was. “Come on, Fawkes, loosen up a little.”
“Loosen up?” You shot him a pointed look, then crossed your arms, leaning against the table. “You almost revealed to the entire Potions corridor that we can conjure Patronuses. Patronuses, Gojo. Do you even comprehend how much trouble we’d be in if McGonagall overheard? Let alone Snape. Although, knowing him, he’d probably let you off the hook and come after me instead. I’d be expelled before you could blink.”
You shuddered at the thought, and he snorted. “You’re such a goody-two-shoes. It’s honestly painful.”
“And yet, somehow, I still don’t know what your Patronus is,” you grumbled, narrowing your eyes at him. “The one thing I’m actually curious about, and you keep it locked up like some great clan secret.”
“It was all part of the mystery,” he said, his lips curling into that insufferable smirk. “Anyway, I’ve been working on something. A little… project. Something that might help us out.”
“What kind of project?” you asked, one brow arching.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He clicked his tongue, wagging a finger at you. “You think I’m just going to tell you? Please. You’ll see it when it’s done. Next week, maybe. Until then, you’ll just have to suffer in suspense.”
You rolled your eyes, exhaling dramatically. “I hate you, you know that?”
He grinned, all teeth and mischief, as though he’d won some unspoken game. You grabbed another parchment from the pile on the table and scanned it, a frown tugging at your lips. “Take this one, too,” you said, sliding it toward him. “A Quidditch request. Someone—oh, of course, it’s a Slytherin—wants us to hex a Bludger for next week’s Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw match. Anarchists, the lot of you. Just want to watch the world burn.”
He laughed, the sound reverberating off the high stone walls. “What can I say? Chaos is entertaining.”
You dropped into the chair where your robe was slung, your posture dissolving into a practiced slouch. “This year better be fun,” you muttered, your voice edged with a hint of boredom. “These requests have been so dull. Remember last year, when someone asked us to enchant everyone’s quills during the O.W.L.s? Now that was creative. I want more of that. Something… exciting.”
Gojo leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his gaze gleaming with intrigue. “Patience, Fawkes. You never know what the castle might throw our way.”
You sighed, letting your head tilt back against the chair, the flickering torchlight casting strange, restless shadows across the room. Despite the monotony of the tasks before you, there was an undeniable thrill in the secrecy, the subterfuge, the strange magic that bound you and Gojo to the whispers of the castle.
And somewhere, deep down, you knew this was only the beginning.