𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡 - 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐮 𝐠.
part five of make you mine | previous
wc: ~13k | cw: fratjo! angst again ofc, possessive/obsessive tendencies, toxic relationship dynamics, substance abuse references, substance/alcohol use, drug relapse, frat culture, mentions of blood/bleeding, post-abortion grief, explicit sexual language, dark romance vibes, gojo highkey going thru it, music references, dual povs
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
IT’S BEEN DAYS since Thanksgiving break.
Boston had been a much needed pause despite being surrounded by those who are arguably even more suffocating than Gojo ever was, but at least it had muffled the pain for a week.
California, unfortunately, doesn’t do that.
However, you’ve gotten better at functioning through it, though. Or at least you’ve improved upon performing as functional, which is basically the same thing in college.
Thankfully, the bleeding has mostly subsided. It’s nowhere near as horrific as it was in Boston or the kind of blood that made you sit on a disgusting communal bathroom floor and stare at your own thighs like your body was separating from you. Now, it’s just spotting; manageable, insignificant enough to ignore if you change your underwear quickly and don’t look too closely. That sad fact alone almost makes you feel normal again.
So, you begrudgingly go to class, answer when professors call on you for the sake of being a nuisance, laugh when Blair says something she thinks is funny, eat enough that she stops looking at you like she may have to force feed you.
From the outside, you probably look okay, good even—nothing like the girl who had to end her pregnancy and relationship.
But on the inside? You still feel as broken as can be.
And then there’s Gojo. Or, more accurately, the absence of him.
At first, right after the breakup, he wouldn’t let you breathe. There were endless calls, texts, voicemails you refused to listen to, and apologies that came in waves so frantic they were borderline frightening.
i’m sorry
please answer
please
can we talk ?
i love you
i’m sorry
i’m sorry
i’m so fucking sorry
Then, eventually…He just stopped.
He had given up once you turned your phone off before you left. Well, not given up per se, but gave you the distance you wanted.
And though you wanted it, the silence hurts in a way you didn’t expect. It’s not that you wanted him to keep begging, that would be evil of you, but the fact that he understood what your silence meant and for once in his life, actually decided to listen.
That should be relieving, right? He’s starting to respect your wants and needs. Yet, it leaves you with this awful, hollow ache, like the world has gone too still in the wake of where he used to be. Then you make the terrible mistake of checking Instagram three nights after getting back; you had sworn off of it for a temporary period during break, but for some reason accidentally clicked on the app, possibly due to boredom, muscle memory, pure masochism, or some terrible blend of the three.
You go to your profile first—everything looks the same as you left it. 30K+ followers, a few aesthetic posts with pictures taken off a digital camera, a plethora of highlight reels of travels, food, yourself, friends and family and missing throughout all of it, is him. The one post, a single photo of the two of you is gone, though not fully. It’s tucked away safely in your archived posts just in case that maybe does ring true.
But then, you type in Gojo’s user and click on his profile too. Your breath catches in your throat when you realize that you’re also missing.
All his posts with you in them are gone. The little glimpses of you he made sure to include in photo dumps vanished. Even the highlight reel with your initials has disappeared. He cleaned it all out. Archived, hopefully. Deleted, hopefully not. You don’t know, but either way the effect is the same.
It hurts more than you thought it would and more than it should. You stare at his profile for far too long, chest tight, because seeing yourself erased from his feed feels strangely worse than removing him from yours ever did. You had to because you needed distance; you were trying to survive.
But him? The sight of it makes ugly thoughts whisper through you.
Oh…So he really let it go.
Which is irrational, hypocritical even.
You’re the one who ended it, who left, who wished for distance. Yet knowing that he looked at every trace of you and hid it anyway makes your throat burn. Fuck this. You don’t check his profile again after that, you can’t bear to…At least, not until tonight.
Tonight, you’re sitting cross-legged on your twin XL while Blair straightens her hair in the mirror, and your eyes drift toward your phone where the date glows at the top of the screen like a warning.
December 6th. Tomorrow is his birthday.
Then, against your own better judgment, your gaze slides to the small white box sitting on your desk; Blair, watching it all from the reflection, notices immediately, “Don’t start that shit.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked at the box.”
You exhale and lean back on your hands, “It’s not…that serious.”
“The fuck it isn’t,” She turns around, flat iron still in hand, eyebrows raised, “You bought that asshole birthday mochi.”
Your eyes flick back to it. Yeah, she’s right. You did.
Two days ago, without really planning to, you found yourself at that quaint Asian market off campus he once dragged you into because he swore the imported snacks there were better than anything Erewhon could ever pretend to sell. That was the first time he bought you kikufuku—the zunda and cream flavor because he was adamant about it being the best.
You remember rolling your eyes and saying there was no way cream and edamame could ever taste good together. Then you remember the way he looked at you after, unbearably smug, when you took a bite and reluctantly confessed it was actually really good.
So when you saw the same box in the refrigerated case a few days ago, you bought it. Zunda and cream flavor, of course, because some part of you, buried deep enough that you can still lie to yourself about it, has apparently been carrying the possibility all along.
Maybe you’ll see him on his birthday. Maybe he might ask. You might say yes if he does.
Blair sees your face do all of this reminiscing in real time and groans, “Oh my God. You do wanna see him.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Liar.”
You scowl, “I bought him mochi. That’s…harmless.”
“No,” She presses, “That’s fucking worse.”
You grab a pillow and throw it at her, she catches it one-handed, snorting, “You know what your problem is?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You keep acting like feelings don’t count if you don’t say them out loud.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s totally true,” She sets the flat iron down and points at the box, “That’s literally a dessert full of unresolved emotional bullshit.”
Despite yourself, a laugh almost escapes, but your eyes catch the time on your phone and it stops that from happening.
11:47 P.M.
Blair follows your line of sight and narrows her eyes, “Do not.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Mm-hmm.”
You reach for the phone anyway and tell yourself you won’t text him, you’re just looking; just holding it in your hand to stare at the date and time and let the heaviness of it settle in your palm. Somewhere on this campus Satoru Gojo is about to turn twenty-one and despite everything—the blood, grief, damage, and silence, you still know his favorite mochi flavor by heart and maybe want to see him more than you’re willing to admit.
Blair sits beside you on the bed, careful now, like any sudden movement might spook a decision out of you, “You don’t owe him a happy birthday.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe him softness just because you still have some.”
You know that too, but it doesn’t stop you from hovering your thumb over the empty message bar, glaring at the blinking cursor that’s practically waiting for you to make a mistake. Maybe this is one. Definitely, actually.
Though the thing about grief is that it doesn’t always listen to dignity. Sometimes it’s shameful and weak and aggravatingly sentimental. Other times it makes you remember a boy standing in an Asian market aisle holding up a little box of zunda and cream mochi like it was something sacred, telling you with complete seriousness that if you didn’t like it, he’d have to reconsider everything.
You had laughed then.
God, you hate remembering yourself happy.
Blair’s knee presses against yours, “What are you gonna say?”
You swallow, eyes burning for no reason and every reason at once, “Nothing crazy.”
“Good.”
“Just happy birthday.”
“Good,” She repeats, yet she sounds like she knows there’s no such thing as just anything when it comes to him.
The clock changes.
11:58.
Your pulse starts to tick harder. You think of locking the phone, putting it facedown, and letting midnight pass without acknowledging him at all because that would be much smarter, healthier—whatever damn word people use when they’re pretending not to be haunted.
But then you think him alone somewhere, or maybe not alone; most likely surrounded by idiot frat brothers and music and girls, his whole curated college universe of bullshit. And somehow that image hurts too. Because even if he’s surrounded, you know him well enough now to understand that none of it means he isn’t lonely.
11:59.
Blair looks at the phone, then at you, and you type before you can talk yourself out of it.
happy birthday, satoru
Lowercase, simple. No I miss you tucked between the letters, though it’s there anyway; bleeding invisibly through the screen. Your thumb trembles once, Blair inhales, and then the clock flips.
12:00 A.M.
December 7th.
You hit send.
Nothing happens right away; the little blue text bubble sits there delivered, but your stomach drops, “Okay,” Blair says gently, as if she’s talking you down from a ledge, “Phone down.”
So naturally, you don’t put the phone down. You stare at the message until your eyes begin to blur, waiting for the typing bubble on his end, dreading it, wanting it, hating yourself for wanting it.
Then it appears, almost instantly. Blair sees it and mutters, “Oh, that man was deadass sitting on the text thread.”
You ignore her, unable to answer because after days of silence and utter absence, Satoru Gojo is typing back too fast.
Across campus, Sigma Chi is losing its fucking mind.
The clock hits midnight and the house erupts like the ball just dropped in Times Square instead of it being some rich frat boy douchebag’s twenty-first birthday. Music is blasting so loud the windows in the living room shake as beer cans lift into the air, liquor sloshing over knuckles and onto the floor that the pledges will be bitched at to clean come tomorrow.
“Gojo! Gojo! Gojo!” The chant starts somewhere near the kitchen and spreads fast, stupid, and affectionate in the way frat guys get when they’re drunk enough to mistake yelling for love.
Gojo stands in the center of it all with a red solo cup in his hand, wearing a loose black button-up half undone at the throat, silver chain glinting beneath the collar, but not the one he gave you, of course. No, that one is still sitting on his dresser after you took it off, waiting for the day you’ll wear it again.
He looks perfect, but then again, that’s his job, right?
Inside, though, he feels nothing. Actually, no, he feels too much. Which is arguably worse.
Every cheer hits his skin wrong, every clap on his back makes him want to step out of his own body. There are girls pressed too close, their perfume burns his nostrils because it’s not yours, voices pitched high as they wish him happy birthday like they’re offering themselves up with it.
One of his brothers shoves a shooter into his hand. Another tries to fix his collar. Someone yells something about a “two night bender” and “being twenty-one, baby.”
Baby.
The word makes his jaw flex. He downs the Fireball shooter because it gives his mouth something to do besides wanting to say your name.
“Birthday boy!” Ryan shouts, appearing through the chaos with conviction, “Center. Now.”
Gojo’s brows furrow, “Why?”
“Because we love you.”
“That sounds like a threat, not gonna lie.”
“It is,” He replies with a sly smile.
The room parts almost theatrically, which is typically how it does for him, and then he sees it. One of the pledges is on one knee in front of him like he’s about to propose, except instead of a ring box, he’s holding up a Smirnoff Ice, and the house explodes.
“Oh, fuck off,” Gojo says immediately, but there’s a laugh built into it because that’s what he’s supposed to do here. Laugh, play along, be the guy everyone wants him to be.
“Kneel!”
“Don’t be a fuckin’ pussy!”
Ryan claps him hard on the shoulder, “Tradition, bro. Everyone gets iced on their day.”
Gojo glares at the bottle; cold glass, sticky condensation dripping over the pledge’s fingers. The whole room is watching him, waiting for him to make it fun. Usually, he would. The Gojo they know would drop to one knee with some obscene joke, chug the whole thing, and come up grinning already asking for another. He’d make the moment appear effortless, because that’s what Gojo does. He takes whatever spectacle is handed to him and makes himself the greatest part of it.
But tonight his body feels slow, “Come on!” Someone yells.
He reaches for the bottle and right as he does, his phone buzzes. Once, small, barely anything beneath the roar of the room, yet it stops him in his tracks. Ryan notices first, “Bro?”
Gojo pulls his phone from his pocket, pissed at himself for checking because there are very few names in the world capable of making him look away from an entire room screaming for him. And, the name on his screen just so happens to be one of the very few. It’s yours.
The house disappears after that. The music, the cheers, the alcohol, the girls watching him from the stairs, Ryan’s hand on his shoulder; the whole stupid fucking birthday celebration evaporates.
There is only your name and your message.
happy birthday, satoru
Satoru. Not the name everyone is yelling like they own a piece of him. Just…Satoru. Always Satoru. Never Gojo.
Something moves through his chest so sharply it hurts; his fingers tighten around the phone, screen blurring for half a second and…fuck, no. Hell fucking no. He is not about to get emotional in the middle of Sig Chi with a Smirnoff Ice being held up to him like some cursed object.
Your message is the only thing that matters now anyway. Proof that at exactly midnight, you still thought of him. Ryan leans closer, trying to see, “Who is it?”
Gojo turns the screen away on instinct and that alone says enough. Yeah, everyone is aware of the breakup. It’s impossible to date a girl like you, lose her, and expect the whole university not to notice the crater she left behind. Especially when you’re you—football royalty, too pretty and too wanted for people not to keep tabs on. And especially when he’s him. Sig Chi’s golden boy who is suddenly meaner, quieter, harder to get drunk in a fun way, moping around like someone skinned him and sewn him back together wrong.
They know it was bad. Bad enough that you stopped showing up at the house and that you’ve both disappeared from each other’s Instagram profiles. So of course, people whisper rumors.
He cheated. You cheated. He got bored. Your dad forbade the relationship. He got too possessive and jealous. You were too smart to put up with him.
Yet, nobody knows the real story. They know nothing about the pregnancy and the abortion and the ultrasound folded behind his ID as a means to torture himself. They don’t know that you bled through the end of him, that he begged in an In-N-Out parking lot like a pathetic little boy and still watched you leave.
The only thing people do know is that the breakup was nasty, not that it was a death.
Ryan’s expression changes, “Oh.”
The chants start dying unevenly, “Gojo?”
The pledge is still kneeling, the ice is still waiting, yet Gojo sees none of it. He types back before he loses the moment.
thank you
No. Too simple. He adds more.
thank you. i didn’t think you’d text me
Ugh. No. That’s shit too. He deletes it entirely, and sends the only thing he actually wants to say.
can i see you?
His lungs feel tight as Ryan mumbles under his breath, “Oh, you’re cooked, bro.”
Gojo shoots him a look, but then the typing bubble appears and takes his attention away. Across the room, someone shouts, “Is he seriously texting right now?”
“Yo, chug the shit!”
Gojo doesn’t bother to peer up, your reply coming in.
idk if that’s a good idea
His chest aches so badly he huffs out a laugh. Of course you’d say that, still careful and keeping the knife between you and him where it belongs. He types back.
probably not
Then, after one, whole second.
but i still want to see you
He stares at the thread; the typing bubble appears, vanishes, appears again, and finally—
just for a little
Gojo’s eyes shut for half a second. Just for a little. God, he would take ten seconds if that was all you gave him.
He pockets his phone and steps back. Ryan grabs his arm, “Where the hell you going?”
“Out.”
A few brothers erupt on instinct, “No fucking way.”
“Dude, it’s your birthday.”
“What about the Ice?”
Gojo looks at the pledge still kneeling there, “Give it to Ryan.”
Ryan’s face drops, “The fuck?”
“You heard me.”
The room boos, a brother yells that he’s dead to the brotherhood, but truly, he doesn’t give a damn at this point. His body has already turned toward the front door. Ryan follows him a few steps, voice lower only for him to hear, “You sure about this?”
Gojo pauses with his hand near his keys. No. No, he’s not sure. This is absolutely a terrible idea. Seeing you might rip him open worse. It may give him just enough hope to ruin him all over again. It’ll probably end with him sitting in his Porsche alone afterward, tasting your name in his mouth like the blood that’s been spilled.
Still, he says, “Yeah.”
Ryan studies him for a second, then sighs like he knows there’s no point trying to stop a car already wrapped around a tree, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Gojo bites back a laugh, “Bit late for that,” Then he leaves.
Behind him, the house keeps yelling, music stays pounding, and the birthday nonsense rolls on without him. But for the first time in days, Satoru Gojo feels alive. All because you texted him, remembered, and are willing to give him just a little.
Although, you almost change your mind four separate times on the way downstairs. Once in the hallway, when the elevator takes too long and gives your brain too much space to start thinking rationally. Then in the lobby, when a group of girls stumble in from some party, maybe even Sig Chi, laughing loudly, the smell of perfume and vodka trailing after them, and all it does is make you feel bizarrely exposed. As if somehow everyone can look at you and know exactly where it is you’re going.
You almost change your mind when you push through the front doors of the dorm and the December air pinches your cheeks and lastly, when you spot the Porsche. Parked at the curb, sleek and glowing white in the darkness. The same car that has held various versions of you—angry you, drunk you, happy you, crying you. The you who let him touch and fuck you in ways that made your whole body feel owned and the worst you of all, the one who sat in the passenger seat with an ultrasound who told him it was done.
Your feet refuse to move for a second, the small paper bag in your hand crinkles when your fingers clench around it. Fuck, this is stupid. This is so fucking stupid.
You should go back upstairs, text him that you changed your mind, crawl into bed beside Blair and let his birthday pass by without his voice, without his blue eyes, and without whatever damage seeing him will do to the place inside you that has started learning how to scab over.
But then the driver’s side door opens and Gojo steps out.
Damn, he looks tired.
Not in that pretty, careless way he sometimes does after partying too hard with his hair mussed and eyes bright and mouth curved like the exhaustion is part of the image. No, this is different and you could think of a few reasons why. He’s solemn underneath the streetlight, white hair falling softer than usual over his forehead, black button-up slightly wrinkled, hands slotted in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do with them.
He sees you and goes completely still, which is honestly worse than if he had smiled. Neither of you says a word as you stand there on the sidewalk with his gift in hand and he stands beside the car looking at you like he’s afraid if he moves, you’ll vanish. Eventually, he swallows the lump in his throat and walks around to open the passenger door. A tiny, stupid ache pulls at your heartstrings. You hate that even now he still does that and hate it more that you still notice.
“Thanks,” You murmur, slipping past him into the seat and the moment you’re inside, the scent of leather and his cologne engulfs you; familiar enough to make your stomach churn.
Armani, a hint of weed clings to the upholstery, and beneath it, just barely, there’s another smell; something sweet. Your perfume.
It’s faint, almost hidden under everything else, but it’s there, sticking to the air in a way that does not belong inside his car unless…unless—you don’t let yourself finish the thought.
Satoru shuts your door gently, acting as if loud noises are suddenly a threat, then walks back around and gets in. The Porsche dips narrowly with his weight and once he closes his door, the heavenly scent of Killian Angels’ Share wafting off you hits him.
Warm on your skin and sweet at your neck; that boozy apple-cinnamon softness tucked into your pulse, real and moving in the seat beside him instead of the fabricated version he bought as a replacement for your absence. His hand tightens around the steering wheel and you catch it. A flex of his fingers followed by a bob of his throat. His gaze stays forward for a second too long because seeing you while smelling you might actually kill him.
Your heart gives one miserable, small kick, “Happy birthday.”
He turns his head then, eyes finding yours, until they drop automatically. He doesn’t mean for them to, or maybe he does. There may just be some sick, hopeful piece of him that still expects to see silver resting against your collarbone—his chain, his claim sitting pretty at the base of your neck like proof you were his. But it isn’t there of course. That chain is back in his lonely frat bedroom that reeks of a piss poor imitation of you.
Instead, a smaller necklace glints against your skin, delicate and simple, your own initial hanging where he used to be. Something in his chest folds in on itself. You didn’t let the hollow spot sit there like a wound he could pretend might still belong to him again someday. No, you filled it with yourself; you’ve reclaimed yourself again. He peers back up before you notice him staring. Too late, perhaps. You shift slightly in the passenger seat as you wait for him to say something—anything.
He can’t even find his voice, fixated on the sight of your initial catching in the night, but soon enough, he responds with, “Thank you.”
Your grip tightens around the bag in your lap and the paper crinkles. You can’t hold onto it anymore. The longer it stays there, the more obvious it becomes; the more it says, I thought of you without you even asking me to. So you raise it, refusing to look directly at him, “...I got you something.”
His gaze falls upon the bag and your face warms instantly, embarrassingly so, “It’s small,” You add, “...And don’t make it weird.”
That almost pulls a smile from him; you shove the bag toward him before you lose your nerve, “It just felt wrong getting you nothing.”
Satoru takes it from you slowly as if the paper hurts to touch. His fingers brush yours for less than a second, but the contact hits both of you hard enough that you pull back quickly. He looks down into the bag, reaches inside, and pulls out the box. Kikufuku mochi. His favorite flavor. Zunda and cream.
The exact one he had been passionate about in that little Asian market weeks ago, carrying the box like it was some national treasure while lecturing you about how most American mochi should be criminalized. His mouth parts, thumb shifting over the edge of the box. His eyes lower, then lift to you again, softer and more devastated than your heart can handle, “You…remembered?”
You look out the windshield rather than looking at him, “You were very dramatic about it.”
His breath leaves him shakily, something too broken to be a laugh, “I was not dramatic.”
“You said American mochi is shit.”
“Cause it is,” The reply comes so fast, so naturally, that for one brief moment the air between you loosens; a tiny flash of normal.
You almost smile. So does he. Then the almost-normalcy passes by just as quickly as it came, and the silence afterward is painful. A painful reminder of what it used to be.
Satoru peers down at the box once more, setting it carefully in the center console, adjusting it twice so it won’t slide when he drives, but as he does so, he can’t help but recall what sat there in that center console the last time you were here with him. Uneaten In-N-Out and an ultrasound picture that’s since been stuffed safely in his wallet.
He snaps himself out of it and puts the car in drive without asking where you want to go, not that you planned on asking anyway. The Porsche pulls away from the curb, smooth and rumbling, USC slipping past in fragments through the tinted glass. A pair of students walk close under one jacket, a guy bikes one-handed with a bag filled with food swinging from his wrist; the campus looks strange at night in December, emptier than usual, as if everyone who belongs somewhere has already gone there, unlike you and Satoru.
For a while, the only sound in the car is the low hum of the engine and the repeated click of the turn signal, neither of you speak once. That’s probably for the best. If either of you open your mouth too soon, the wrong thing will come out.
When the silence grows so thick it is palpable, he reaches for his phone and plugs it into the charger. Apple CarPlay connects and a song starts playing automatically. The opening notes are so faint you almost miss them, but then you hear the voice. It’s…The Neighbourhood?
Your head turns toward the dash, title glowing back at you.
Reflections.
Satoru doesn’t even react, which somehow makes it worse. He knows you love The Neighbourhood. So the question on your mind now is did he put this on because of me? Or has he been listening to it alone?
The second possibility unsettles you more. The idea of your music becoming part of his loneliness feels too intimate, like he took something of yours after you left in order to keep him company. You look out the window before he can clock your expression.
He drives to a quiet overlook tucked just far enough from campus to feel private without being romantic in any deliberate way. There’s no sweeping stars, especially not with this light pollution, and no city lights sparkling either. Just a half-empty lot with a row of dim streetlights, a few parked cars, and Los Angeles stretching dull and enormous beneath the night.
Putting the car in park, The Neighbourhood continues to play softly in the background, and then his eyes drop to the mochi, “Can I open it?”
You hate how cautious his voice is; if you hadn’t known better you would think he was asking for more than dessert. You nod, speaking feels too risky, and he reaches for the box. His fingers are gentle with it, absurdly so. Satoru Gojo, who has never handled anything in his life like it could break unless it was you.
He peels the packaging open and holds the tray between you. The mochi is still cold from sitting in the fridge for the past two days, pale and lightly dusted, “Have one with me?”
“Satoru…”
“Just one,” He presses quietly, “Please.”
Please used to sound different in his mouth—dirtier, needier, hot enough to make you stupid, but tonight it only sounds small. Like he knows that even asking you to have one piece of mochi with him may be asking for too much.
So you take just one and the two of you sit in his Porsche at some lonely little overlook, sharing cold zunda and cream mochi from a plastic tray at midnight on his twenty-first birthday. It would’ve been funny if anything about this still knew how to be funny without hurting afterward.
You take a bite and the soft chew of it, the sweet cream, the hint of nutty-earthiness, all of it makes the moment feel horribly normal. As if you could be any two people—he could be just a boy on his birthday and you could be just a girl who remembered something he loves. It feels nothing like the truth of what you are.
“You were right,” You say after a prolonged silence and he glances over, “This is way better than any American mochi.”
His mouth twitches, “Obviously.”
“Don’t be smug.”
“I’m being incredibly humble, actually.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m grieving and still correct. Let me have this.”
The line slips out too naturally, the air loosening in its wake. A tiny smile threatens your mouth, yet the moment he sees it, something in his face breaks. His half-grin disappears first, then yours does too.
There it is again. That awful glimpse of what this used to be. The two of you in his car, teasing over bullshit, your body remembering what happiness is before your brain kills it. The silence that follows after that is worse than the one in the beginning. Satoru looks down at the open box between you, thumb brushing along the plastic edge.
“The day didn’t feel real until you texted,” He says, eyes lowered, “Everyone was yelling and shoving drinks at me. Ryan was trying to make me chug some dumb shit. People kept saying happy birthday and I just…” His jaw works once, “I didn’t feel anything…but then your name showed up.”
Your heart knocks painfully against your ribs, “Satoru—”
“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad.”
“I know.”
“I mean it,” He swallows hard, hating the fact that he has to clarify at all because he’s given you every reason to doubt each soft thing rolling off his tongue, “I’m not trying to turn it into something,” You look at him then, though he still isn’t looking at you, “I just wanted you to know that it mattered.”
You fix your eyes on the mochi box instead before responding, looking at him is far too dangerous, “I didn’t text you because I wanted to start something.”
“I know.”
“It’s just that…it would’ve been wrong if I hadn’t.”
He nods, taking that in, not pouncing on the words or turning them into proof. Part of him wants to ask then what does that mean? Or you still care, don’t you? But he doesn’t. No, old him would’ve done this. The Gojo that made you scared and ruined what you had would have known exactly how to weaponize some shit to say. This new, heartbroken Gojo just accepts the little you give him without trying to steal the rest.
“Thank you.”
The two words gut you somehow anyway, and you take another bite of your mochi piece in order to keep your mouth occupied. Satoru watches the city through the windshield, one hand loose on his thigh, the other resting too close to the center console. Your hands are close enough that if either of you shifted, your fingers would touch. So neither of you do.
Instead, he awkwardly asks, “How was your break?”
You peek down at the mochi in your hand, thumb brushing over the soft powder on your fingertips, “It was okay.”
Carefully, he says, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Your eyes sting despite yourself, “Boston was cold as hell.”
His mouth almost moves into a smile, “Sounds right.”
“And Sam was annoying.”
“That also sounds right.”
“He called me a bitch at the airport.”
His brows lift faintly, “Nice.”
“Lovingly.”
“Of course.”
A tiny breath crawls up your throat, kind of a laugh but not really. Satoru’s whole face changes for a split second, the sound doing something terrible to him, “My family was…” You trail off, “My family.”
“Yeah?”
You nod, staring at the dash now instead of him, “They could tell something was off,” Satoru goes still, “They didn’t know,” You add quickly, the shift in him too immediate to go unnoticed, “Not everything…but they knew something.”
His fingers flex once against his thigh, the car feeling smaller after that. You keep going after a harsh swallow, “It’s hard being around people who love you when you’re trying to hide the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Satoru looks down, unable to speak right away. You don’t know what expression he makes because you refuse to even look, only hearing the faint scrape of his breath when he whispers, “I’m sorry.”
You close your eyes, “Don’t.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it,” Your voice comes out softer than you wanted, “I didn’t say that so you’d apologize.”
“I know,” He says again, but this time it sounds worse, “I just am.”
You glare at the open mochi box. All you can think about is your old bedroom, Nick staying when everyone else left, the way you cried so hard your ribs ached. You keep that detail to yourself; that part is yours, or maybe Nick’s. Either way, Satoru doesn’t need to know.
“I wasn’t alone,” You say finally, his head lifting slightly, “Blair was there. And Nick was…” Your throat swells, so you stop before you reveal too much, “He was good.”
Satoru’s face changes in the corner of your vision; relief first, then grief right after it, “I’m glad.”
You glance at him, “Are you?”
“Yeah,” It lacks bitterness, that old possessive flare that used to live there, no wounded male pride over someone else getting to be near when he couldn’t, “I’m glad somebody was good to you.”
Your chest constricts as he drags his thumb over his knee, needing to do something with his hand because it might reach for you by mistake, “I hate that you needed it because of me.”
The car turns painfully quiet besides the faint music obliviously humming along, “Satoru…”
“Don’t comfort me,” He says, pleading almost, “Please. I’m not saying it for that,” He stares at his hands like there’s blood on them, “I’m glad Blair was there. I’m glad Nick was there. I’m glad you had people…”
A broken little breath leaves him, “...I just can’t stop thinking that you had to go home and be taken care of cause of what I did to you,” Your eyes burn immediately, he laughs once, but it’s wet and pitiful, “Happy fucking birthday, right?”
“It’s not funny.”
“No,” He agrees, eyes still lowered, “It’s not.”
Another silence settles, this one feeling different than the last. You look at the mochi once more, the sight of his face becoming too much to bear, “How was yours? Your break?”
His mouth twitches lightly. You think he might make up some stupid lie both of you could pretend to believe, but he opts for the ugly truth, “Bad.”
You nod slowly, “Because of me?”
He looks at you then, the answer in his face before he can even say it.
Yes.
Yes, of course.
Yes, every fucking second was terrible because of you.
But, the answer he says is much more honest, “Because of what I did,” Feeling ashamed, he turns away, “You were part of it. Obviously. But it wasn’t just missing you. It was missing you and knowing exactly why you were gone.”
Aware that this was the case, it doesn’t make your heart hurt any less. Unfortunately Satoru can’t stop speaking either. The floodgates have opened and he’s letting it all out, “I kept wanting to call you. Then I’d remember I already did. A fucking million times like some dumbass loser,” His mouth twists, “I kept wanting to apologize, and then I’d think…for what? What apology could you possibly give that can make up for this?”
Your fingers tangle in your lap as you remain silent. He glances at the mochi box, then the windshield, “My room felt wrong. The house felt wrong. Everything fucking smelled wrong.”
You remember the faint sweetness in his car when you got in—your perfume, hiding beneath leather, Armani cologne, and weed. Your body freezes and Satoru notices; his eyes flick to yours for half a second, then away, embarrassment cutting across his countenance so fast you mistake it for anger.
“I know…I know how pathetic that is,” He mutters and shakes his head once, disgusted with himself, “I missed you so fucking badly I started doing shit I can’t even say out loud.”
The confession lies there between you. He won’t specify, no, he’d rather die than admit he bought your exact perfume and sprayed it everywhere, then proceeded to jerk off to old videos of you. When that didn’t help he took it out on those around him and started drawing again, desperate to keep you alive in his room in any way, shape, or form.
Your voice wavers, “Satoru…”
“I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me…I don’t deserve that.”
“I know.”
He looks at you, the honesty in your words catching him off guard. You hold his gaze for a heartbeat, then force yourself to look elsewhere. He breathes out slowly, “Yeah…”
More unbearable silence ensues, but you ask another question, needing somewhere else to put all this hurt, “Are you going home for winter break?”
“Yeah.”
“Japan?”
“Tokyo.”
The reply comes easily, but his face tells a whole different story. You know he loves Tokyo, you know that. He talks about the food like it’s holy, whereas he complains about LA 7-Elevens as if they’re a disgrace to society. He has his best friend Geto there, twenty-one years of history overseas, a whole language that changes the shape of him when he speaks it. So why does he look like that?
“You don’t…seem excited.”
His mouth curves, small and tired, “I like Tokyo…” The curve fades as a few seconds pass, “...I don’t like being home. It’s—” He looks down at the steering wheel, “It’s different there.”
“With your family?” You ask, and he nods, “How?”
For a minute, he doesn't answer, “At USC, everybody wants me loud. At home, everybody wants me quiet,” His thumb grazes over his knee, “Same shit. Different volume.”
You realize it then. The performance of Satoru Gojo. The characters he portrays.
Gojo as noise. Satoru as silence. Both versions wanted for their usefulness, watched under a microscope. And neither of them are free.
“You make it sound like nobody wants you as you are.”
His face changes, barely. He looks into your eyes and in that moment, he appears so young it almost makes you angry. Angry at him, his family, yourself—at the fact that you can still want to reach for him after everything.
“Maybe they don’t know what that is,” His eyes flick away before the sentence can grow too vulnerable, “I didn’t either…not until you,” But he seems to regret it instantly, jaw clenching, “Fuck. I didn’t mean—”
“What did you mean?”
“I don’t know,” He admits, sighing deeply, and for some reason that hurts more than if he had given you some perfect response, “I just know it was different with you. And I handled it like shit.”
Not yet wise enough to understand himself, he sits here on his twenty-first birthday, trying to name a wound with tools he doesn’t have.
“I really fucking missed you,” He says suddenly, so sudden your heart stops, “I missed you all the time,” The words scrape out of him, humiliating but honest, “All the time. In class. At the gym. Driving. Standing in my room doing nothing. I’d hear something and think I had to tell you. But then I’d reach for my phone and remember—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, there’s no need to. You can fill in the blank. He’d remember that he couldn’t do that anymore.
“I kept thinking it would fade,” He says, “Like after a few days, my body would remember you were gone, but it never did,” He laughs once under his breath, “Do you know how fucking stupid that feels? To miss somebody and not even be able to miss them cleanly?”
“...What does that mean?”
“It means every time I want you, I remember what wanting you cost.”
Oh. That one stings.
His eyes flick toward you, wet and furious with himself, “And I still want you,” Then looks away immediately, like he has no right to look at you after saying it, “I still want you. I still love you. I still fucking miss you. And none of that makes me less guilty.”
Your eyes burn so sharply you have to blink rapidly. God, this is worse. This is so much worse than him begging. You could reject begging in all its pitifulness, but this? This just hangs in the air, true and useless. And you do the idiotic thing by saying it back, “I missed you too.”
His body draws taut, so you keep going before he can turn the words into hope, “But I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“And I still don’t know what to do with you.”
“I know.”
“And I can’t let missing you make decisions for me.”
He flinches, a small one that he tries to bury too late, and nods, “Okay.”
For some reason, him sitting there and letting the boundary stay intact breaks you more. You half-expected him to be the version of himself you knew how to leave, the one you could shove back. Maybe you even wanted that, honestly. But no. He’s being the person you wished he was weeks ago.
You blink again, but this time the tears come anyway. Satoru sees them and looks away, feeling undeserving to witness it. A miserable chuckle catches in your throat, “This is so stupid.”
His mouth twists sadly, “Yeah.”
“It’s your birthday.”
“Yep.”
“And we’re sitting in your car eating mochi and crying.”
“You’re crying,” He corrects gently.
You shoot him a look through blurred vision, “Don’t start.”
“I’m not.”
“You looked like you were about to.”
“That’s…a lie.”
There it is again—a breath of something normal. So little, yet painful you could hate him for giving it to you. Your lip trembles, stuck somewhere between a laugh and another sob, and his face softens in a way that makes the whole car feel dangerous. Because throughout it all, he’s the boy who can still make you almost laugh while you’re crying in the passenger seat of the car where you broke each other’s hearts. He’s the boy you still love.
Fuck.
The boy you still love.
Which is exactly why you wipe your cheeks and turn away, “I should go back soon.”
His expression falters for a breath, but then he nods, “Yeah,” He says quietly, “Okay.”
Again, all he can answer with is okay and again, it hurts.
The drive back to your dorm is quieter than the drive there. Though, the silence has weight now, packed full of everything neither of you knows how to say without making the night worse. The Neighbourhood keeps playing low through the speakers, A Little Death. You shrink in your seat slightly, knowing that the song has nothing to do with dying.
Satoru keeps both hands on the wheel, it’s the only way he can keep himself from trying to reach for you. He knows better—if his hand moves even an inch, yours might move too, and then this whole fragile little near-peace will become something neither of you can survive.
The mochi box sits closed in the center console, safer now, and when Satoru pulls up outside your dorm, he doesn't kill the engine right away. The Porsche idles at the curb, streetlamp cutting across his face.
Right away, you know you should unbuckle; thank him for the drive, take this puny victory of leaving before either of you ruins this, and go back upstairs to Blair, who is absolutely awake and waiting to interrogate you.
But, like the foolish person you are, you sit there, and so does he. Neither of you looks at each other first, “Thank you for coming.”
You stare blankly at your hands, “Well, it’s your birthday…”
It sounds like an excuse more than an answer. Hell, it probably is one. A flimsy thing to hide behind because saying I wanted to see you would be too honest, and honesty has already done enough damage tonight.
Satoru turns his head, looking at you now, and you can feel it before you even see it. The weight of his gaze—softened, tired, and wanting in a way that doesn’t feel like the old hunger or maybe it does. That’s the problem, really. With him, tenderness and hunger have always come intertwined.
You finally look back and…big mistake. His eyes are too blue in the dark, glassy around the edges, pale lashes lowered like he’s trying to hold himself in place through sheer will alone. His mouth parts as if he’s going to say something, but nothing comes out.
Thank fucking God.
If he says one more sad thing, you might actually crawl out of your own skin.
“I should go,” You whisper.
“Yeah.”
But you still don’t move and that’s when his gaze drops to your lips, only for a second, maybe less, yet it’s long enough to ruin you, “Satoru,” You warn, though it lacks strength.
“I know,” He murmurs, eyes flicking back up to yours, “I’m not doing anything.”
Yeah. He isn’t. He’s just sitting there, hands glued to the wheel, letting you leave if you want to leave. Which, inexplicably, makes you want him more. You hate that so badly your chest aches with it.
Your seatbeat clicks before you remember deciding to unbuckle it. Satoru’s eyes drop to the belt, then back up to your face. This is when you know you really should open the door and go, but you still don’t. Your hand moves seemingly on its own, across the center console, and your fingers find the front of his shirt, curling lightly into the fabric near his chest. His breath catches so quietly you almost miss it.
Then, his hand leaves the steering wheel, slowly, giving you every chance to stop him. His fingers come up to your face, thumb brushing beneath your jaw with a gentleness so careful it makes your insides twist. You close your eyes before his mouth touches yours.
The kiss is soft at first, a wary press of his lips against yours, warm and trembling, like he’s afraid of scaring the moment away—one wrong move and you’ll disappear into your dorm and leave him with nothing but the mochi box and a mouth full of things he didn’t have the balls to say.
You make another big mistake. The mistake of kissing him back…really kissing him back.
Your fingers tighten in his shirt and that cracks the rest of his restraint. You feel his body shift, his breath leaves through his nose and his hand slides from beneath your jaw to the side of your neck. His thumb rests under your chin, tilting you just enough for the kiss to deepen, and God, the second it does, everything comes rushing back.
His mouth opens against yours and the sound he makes is barely there, broken and swallowed, but it sends heat straight through your core. Your free hand comes up without permission, fingers slipping into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and he shivers like the touch burned him.
The kiss turns ravenous for one precarious second. Deep, aching, familiar in a way that makes your blood run like fire in your veins. His lips move over yours like he remembers everything and is trying not to remember too much at the same time. His hand stays at your neck, thumb stroking once beneath your jaw and it’s so gentle it almost feels worse than if he had been reckless.
Reckless is what you know. You can survive reckless. This is so much harder. This is Satoru holding you like he knows he’s already lost the right to.
You hesitantly pull back first, forehead touching his; his breath is uneven against your mouth, though he follows you without even thinking. His lips chase yours, instinctive, starved for more, and your heart stutters because you know if he kisses you again, you’ll let him.
But he stops himself. His brilliant blue eyes open and he sees your face, noticing the line you’re trying to hold with both hands, and stops. The restraint is visible, painful even. His fingers flex once against your neck before he lets it fall away slowly, like it physically hurts him.
“I’m sorry,” He breathes.
You shake your head, still too close to him, “Don’t be.”
He swallows, now the car feels warmer, smaller. Your mouth is tingling and your hand is twisted in his shirt, so you force yourself to let go. The fabric slips from your fingers and rests back against his chest. That tiny loss hurts too.
You look away first, blinking hard, “They’re making you go out later, aren’t they?”
His mouth curves as he sighs, “Unfortunately.”
“Bars?”
“Pregame first,” He says, “Then a club. Apparently they reserved a few sections.”
Your stomach twists in an ugly way that makes your skin prickle beneath your clothes. Club. Sections. Of fucking course.
He’s going to be surrounded by bottle girls and frat brothers who are bad influences. Bottles of booze with stupid sparklers and cocaine in the dirty bathrooms. Music will be blaring so loud you can’t even think. Girls in tiny dresses leaning over him to say happy birthday, hands on his shoulder, lips too close to his ear because the bass gives them an excuse.
Girls who don’t know any of it. They don’t know that he was almost a father and that he keeps that grief folded behind his ID.
No, they will look at him and see exactly what everyone sees when they look at him. Pretty, rich, wanted Gojo.
The boy with the hair white like snow and the Porsche to match and the captivating cerulean colored eyes and the kind of mouth girls dream about before they know what it feels like.
Your mouth still knows. Yet tomorrow he’s going to walk into some club with your kiss still lingering on his lips while other girls orbit close enough to smell his cologne.
The thought makes you sick, which is ridiculous, hypocritical again too. You were the one who ended this. So why does some awful, possessive little part of you still want to put your hand over his chest and say no, don’t go?
You hate that the thought makes you sound so much like how he used to.
“Oh,” You say, barely a word.
Satoru glances over as you keep your eyes on your lap, afraid that your face has already betrayed you and that he can see the whole rottenness buried within your body—jealousy, concern, mourning, want, the miserable tiny claim you still carry like a bruise.
He exhales quietly, “I don’t even want to go.”
Hearing that makes you feel better, albeit slightly. But then it makes you feel like shit because relief has no business blooming inside you over that. You don’t get to be relieved that your ex-boyfriend doesn’t want to spend his twenty-first birthday surrounded by girls and liquor and people who aren’t you.
You don’t get to care, you know that, yet you do anyway, “Then don’t.”
The words slip out accidentally, or maybe not accidentally at all. Satoru’s gaze drops to your mouth again, briefly, almost like he can’t help himself, “You know I wouldn’t go if you asked me not to.”
Your heart thumps once, a frantic kick. The sad part is that you believe him. He would absolutely throw away the whole stupid night if you gave him the smallest reason to. He’d let the brothers call him whipped, pathetic, pussy or whatever insult they could conjure after six shots and a fuck ton of bumps. Gojo would sit in this car until sunrise if it meant one hour of you looking at him like this.
Which is exactly why you can’t ask. You already told him missing him can’t make decisions for you, “I’m not asking.”
He bows his head, “Okay.”
Again, that fucking word. Okay. You despise how much restraint sounds like loss when it comes from him.
He looks forward, jaw tight, “I’ll go for a bit. Show my face. Then leave.”
You almost laugh. Yeah, you’ve heard that one before. Plenty of times while you were up sick, pregnant, and scared, “You say that now.”
“I know.”
Well, at least he’s honest. The both of you are no stranger of what this world does to him. The drinks, the noise, the bathroom counters, the lines. Your jealousy folds into fear so quickly it makes you dizzy.
“Satoru,” He turns to you, “Be careful.”
Be careful means too many things. The girls. The drinking. And of course, the worst of them all, the drugs. Mainly you mean, be careful with the version of you that comes out when everyone wants Gojo and nobody cares what happens to Satoru afterward.
He understands every meaning. You can tell by the guilt that crosses his face, brief and unmistakable. And for one second, you think he might promise.
Old Gojo would have. He would have looked you dead in the eye and lied beautifully because he was good at that. He would have said I will, baby with enough conviction to make you want to believe him.
But this version of him gives the cowardly, truthful answer, “I’ll try.”
Your throat tightens and you force a grin like it doesn’t hurt, “Okay.”
And then you open the door before the possessive, grieving thing inside you can ask him to stay or before you forget, for one weak second, that you’re not his girlfriend anymore and he isn’t yours. Even if some ruined part of you still feels like he is.
Cool air rushes into the car as you step out, Satoru watches you from the driver’s seat, but doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t make this harder than it already is. You shut the door gently and stand on the curb, looking at him through the tinted window. You can’t see him clearly, only the pale shape of his hair and the outline of his face turned toward you.
You spin on your heel and walk to the dorm, every step feels like tearing open a scabbed wound. Behind you, Satoru doesn’t drive away until you’re safely inside, you know that without looking back.
Once you are, he breathes out a deep breath and reluctantly drives off. The drive back to Sig Chi takes less than five minutes, but it feels longer. Even with The Neighbourhood still playing low through the speakers, the car is too quiet. Your perfume lingers in the passenger seat, tangled with the ghost of your mouth on his. The mochi sits in the center console, yet the only thing he tastes is you.
Pulling up to the curb outside the house, he isn’t surprised to see that the party is still going. People are on the porch, two brothers pass around a bottle of whiskey back and forth like the entire world isn’t actively rotting. At least, for Gojo it is.
He sits in the driver seat for a few minutes, contemplating even going inside, though he knows he should. He should drink, smile, let Ryan shove another stupid beer can into his hand, have the night become loud enough to make him forget your mouth from his memory. Yeah right, like he ever could.
Eventually, he works up the courage to move, grabbing the mochi box as he does so. The second he steps inside, three different voices shout for him.
“There he is!”
“Birthday boy’s back!”
“Where the fuck did you go?”
Someone jeers from the living room, loud and stupid, “Nah, bro definitely went to see her.”
A few brothers erupt instantly, drunk off the idea of it before he even says anything.
“Ohh, he went to see the ex.”
“Birthday pussy, let’s fucking go.”
“Fuckin’ dog,” One of them laughs, clapping him too hard on the shoulder as he passes, “Left his own party and still got laid.”
Gojo bites his tongue; this is the only version of events that they can understand. He left for you, so he must have fucked you. You must have missed him so much and oh it’s his birthday so you let him talk his way back in between your legs. And now he’s returned, triumphant and smug, body loose with satisfaction, another dirty frat house story for the boys to cheer over.
And yeah, some selfish, greedy part of him would be lying if he pretended the thought didn’t make his body ache. Of course he wanted to fuck you. He always wants you. One kiss had been enough to remind him of that in the cruelest way possible. Your fingers tugging his hair, your mouth opening under his, the soft pull of your hand in his shirt like you still know where to hold him.
His body had reacted immediately, stupidly, like no time passed at all and nothing bad had happened.
But of course, wanting to fuck you isn’t as simple as it used to be. Now, you’re recovering from an abortion, from him, from the damage he had wrapped around you and called love.
So no, it’s nothing like what they think. He didn’t get to fuck you just because you missed him. He didn’t get to crawl back inside you like forgiveness lives there. Honestly, he barely even deserved a kiss at all.
That’s what makes the frat laughter feel so grotesque. They’re cheering for a conquest that never happened, for a version of him that would’ve taken the joke and worn it. Gojo would’ve normally smirked, let them believe it, maybe even add some filthy comment to make himself look better than what he is.
Instead, it makes him sick because nothing about seeing you tonight felt like a win.
Ryan appears from the living room, flushed and drunk, eyes narrowing when he clocks Gojo’s face, “You alright, bro?”
Gojo doesn’t stop walking, “Yeah.”
“That sounded fake as shit.”
“Then why ask?”
Someone behind him calls, “Don’t let him go upstairs, he might start writing love letters.”
Another voice yells, “Nah, let him rest. Man just put in work.”
More laughter ensues and Gojo keeps moving. The words follow him up the stairs, crude and wrong in every possible way. He stands in the middle of his room with the mochi in one hand, your kiss still burning on his mouth like an injury, and shuts his eyes.
Fuck.
He almost wishes you hadn’t kissed him at all.
Before tonight, missing you had become horrible in a way he could recognize. It had a routine, actually. Wake up. Think of you. Hate himself. Go to class. Think of you. Resist the urge to call and text. Hate himself some more. Survive another hour. Another day. Another night. Repeat. Sure, it hurt, but at least it had started to scab. Now, you have torn it open with your mouth.
When Gojo finally moves again, it's to set the mochi all the way back in his mini fridge, behind two bottles of water and a lonely, forgotten Red Bull. Hiding it because if one of his drunk frat brother fucks eats it later, he genuinely may kill them.
Then he sits on the edge of his bed and bows his head, alone on the first hour of his twenty-first birthday, glaring at the floor like it might miraculously split open and swallow him whole. Shit, I wish it would, he thinks.
And by the time he sleeps, it could barely be defined as such. He drifts in and out, caught in miserable scraps of memory. Rain taps against the window before he even opens his eyes, soft at first, then harder. A steady December downpour, rare for Los Angeles but fitting for what day it is.
Gojo lies there in his bed, listening to the soothing sound of rainfall, staring at the ceiling. His phone is already full of messages. Girls he hardly remembers, a couple of guys from class, frat brothers. He scrolls past all of them and opens yours.
happy birthday, satoru
That’s the only one that feels real. He rereads it until the words start to blur, then locks his phone and throws an arm over his eyes. He should probably get up. Shower. Go to class. Be normal in some capacity. Skipping class would feel too obviously pathetic and Gojo has always hated being pathetic in public more than he hates almost anything. So he goes.
Mentally though, he is nowhere near the USC campus. He sits in his Microeconomics lecture with his phone facedown on the desk, laptop untouched, rain ticking against the tall windows in the back of the room. Someone beside him wishes him happy birthday and he smiles automatically; beautiful, yet empty.
“Thanks.”
A girl two rows down turns around before the class starts, “Happy birthday, Gojo.”
“Appreciate it.”
The professor starts talking soon after and Gojo hears none of it. The only thing he can think about is your mouth and your necklace—your initial where his chain used to be. That should make him proud of you, there’s definitely a part of him that is, but another part of him feels like he’s choking on glass.
When he leaves class, the rain has gotten worse. Harsher, colder, bouncing off pavement and turning every walkway into a slick, ugly mirror. People speedwalk under jackets and umbrellas, shrieking as cars splash through puddles. LA students are dramatic about rain in a way that would’ve been funny if Gojo had any humor left in him.
Everywhere he goes, someone says happy birthday, and every single one feels hollow after yours.
At nine o’clock that same night, Sig Chi is alive again. The rain pounds against the windows while the house overheats from too many bodies packed inside. Music shakes the walls, bottles crowd every flat surface. Gojo dresses for his role, understanding the assignment. Black designer jeans, grey button-up open slightly at the throat, silver chain sitting on his collarbone.
His white hair is styled messily, he’s sprayed Tom Ford cologne on every pulse point instead of Armani, wears his AP watch with the diamond bezel that catches the light every time he moves his wrist. Everything loud, bright, and expensive enough to remind everyone who he is supposed to be.
He looks perfect, but he feels nowhere near it.
“Bro,” Ryan says when he sees him, already holding a bottle by the neck, “There he is.”
Someone whistles, “AP is mad tuff, bro.”
“Section’s about to go fucking crazy.”
“Hella bad bitches too,” Another brother adds, grinning as he throws an arm around Gojo’s shoulders, “You’re gonna be swimming in pussy tonight, birthday boy.”
The room laughs and Gojo flashes a faux smile, “Yeah.”
It’s convincing enough for drunk people, but Ryan’s eyes narrow anyway because for all of his flaws, he’s not completely stupid. He notices that the laugh doesn’t reach Gojo’s eyes, “You okay?”
“Fantastic.”
“Lie better.”
Gojo takes the vodka bottle from his hand, drinking straight from it, “That better?”
“No.”
But then a brother yells for both of them and the moment vanishes into the noise. They’re led upstairs into a room, where lines of coke are being cut on a glass coffee table. Gojo sees them before anyone even offers.
No, he thinks immediately, do not fucking do it.
His fingers tighten at his sides, reminiscing the moment he flushed all his shit down the toilet—pills and powder, feeling lonely and furious and half-sick with shame, staring back at the drugs like they could stare back, because he knew. He knew what that shit made him. What it cost him. And he told himself he’d sworn off of it.
“Birthday boy,” A brother drawls, already drunk and slurring. His smile is too wide as he holds a rolled bill toward him, “First line of the night is for you.”
The room turns to watch him now, which is always how it goes. He looks at the white line and thinks of your face when you told him to “be careful”. The taste of your mouth on his. Your initial where he used to be. The mochi you got him because you still thought of him when he didn’t deserve it.
Fuck, it makes him sick. Not the thing that made you lose her.
He almost steps back when he recognizes it. Coke never did bring him any good. So, say no. Push the bill back. Laugh it off like you usually do. Drink more instead. Leave this goddamn room.
One night. It’s only been one night since you warned him to be careful. And he answered with a bullshit, I’ll try.
Yeah. Sure. Try.
His mouth goes dry, someone chuckles again and says, “Bro, don’t pussy out on us.”
And something ugly inside Gojo folds as if it’s tired of standing. He takes the bill and the rational part of him makes one last futile attempt—don’t.
He bends anyway, closes one nostril, and the line disappears. Nothing happens at first, but then the burn hits bitterly through his nose and down the back of his throat, familiar and shameful.
His eyes begin to water, his heart kicks quicker, the room around him snaps brighter at the edges. Every sound too close, his skin too tight over his bones underneath it.
And instantly, before the high can even pretend to be relief, the thought comes.
Really, Satoru? His hand braces on the table as he glares at the empty space where the cocaine used to be. You couldn’t listen to her?
The shame crashes so fast it almost knocks the breath out of him. Because for one stupid, humiliating second in the car, with your lips close and your voice telling him those words, he had wanted to be careful for you. Wanted it badly enough to believe that wanting might count, but of course it doesn’t. Wanting means shit if you have zero discipline.
And Gojo still stands there, in a room full of people who don't know what he lost, choosing the thing that helped make him lose it.
“Another?” His brother asks.
No. The voice in his head pleads. Stop.
You already did it. Don’t make it worse.
Don’t become this again.
He hates that voice, hates it because it sounds like you. The version of you he invented in his conscience. The one that used to look at him with disappointed eyes and never screamed because she was too tired. The girl who already knows he failed before he even tells her.
His throat swells as he heaves out a breath. Fuck that. I can’t listen to it all night.
“Yeah,” He murmurs, “Another.”
And he snorts a second line, then a third; they do nothing to help him feel better, but at least they get the voice in his head to shut the fuck up.
By eleven, he is drunk and high like everyone wants him to be; drunk and high enough to fake their idea of Gojo that no longer exists in reality.
They Uber to the club in West Hollywood and the ride is pure chaos that never fully registers to him. Rain hammers the roof, people chant his name; Ryan is half-laughing, half-yelling at a brother to not spill tequila in the car and fuck up his Uber rating.
Gojo just smiles out the window, his reflection staring back at him from the dark glass, handsome and vacant. He barely recognizes himself.
At the club entrance, the sidewalk is crowded with bodies and slick with rainwater. Music spills from inside every time the door opens, bass thudding into the wet street. Then the bouncer asks to see his ID.
Behind him, his brothers erupt like this is the pinnacle of human achievement. Ryan grabs both his shoulders and shakes him once, laughing too loudly. People start chanting again.
“Gojo! Gojo! Gojo!”
The name feels like it belongs to everyone except him, yet he laughs because that’s what Gojo is supposed to do. He opens his wallet and immediately freezes at what he sees.
The folded edge of the ultrasound tucked safely behind his ID. A small, thin sliver of gray and white. And the noise around him doesn’t fade, no, it grows louder.
Ryan laughing, cars hissing through rain, girls squealing, the bouncer saying something he misses, and in the middle of all that life, stuffed behind the proof that he is finally old enough to drink legally, is the closest thing he has to a grave.
His thumb stills against the leather. The ultrasound also brings up the memory of you. Your shaking hands, your face turned away in the passenger seat, your body carrying something both of you were too young and wrecked and terrified to love properly before it was gone.
Mine, he had thought then. Out of possession, but wonder too. Terror. A future nipping at his heels.
Maybe the baby would have had your eyes. The maybe hurts worse than certainty ever could.
Maybe your eyes. Maybe his hair. Maybe your smile. Maybe his nose. Maybe some tiny, impossible combination of both of you that never got to become a person.
No face. No laugh. No first birthday. No teeny hand wrapped around his finger. No you in his passenger seat, annoyed and beautiful, telling him to stop driving like a jackass because there’s a baby in the backseat. No appointment where he pretended not to cry. No anything.
Only this. A folded gray edge in his wallet. A dead future pressed behind his license while everyone screams for him to start living.
“Bro,” Ryan calls, snapping him out of it, “ID.”
Gojo blinks and the sidewalk comes back wrong. Bright, loud, too full of people who have no clue of what he’s holding. Carefully, so carefully, he pulls the license free.
Because touching the ultrasound feels dangerous; like if his finger grazes against the paper long enough, he might take it out right there. He might unfold it in front of the bouncer, under the neon, with all of Sigma Chi watching, and say—look.
Look at what I lost.
Look at what I fucking did.
Look at who should still be here.
But of course he doesn’t. He just hands over the ID; the bouncer checks it, glances at him, and gives it back, “Happy birthday, man.”
Satoru grins, but there is not an ounce of happiness in it, “Thanks.”
The guys cheer again as he steps inside; the night ruined before it even started. Seeing the ultrasound didn’t sober him up. Instead, it makes him want to be worse.
Unfortunately, or maybe mercifully, the section is perfect. Tons of bottles, tons of girls, sparklers with the dumbass signs, phones recording, brothers yelling. Someone shoves a drink into his hand before he even sits down. A girl touches his bicep and says, “Happy birthday, Gojo,” like she has any right to the name.
He drinks more since everyone is watching and he doesn’t want to feel any of it. The club swallows him whole because the alternative is standing still long enough to feel the full weight of the folded paper in his wallet.
But the ultrasound follows him anyway. So do you. So does the baby. So does the quiet, private thought that keeps surfacing beneath every beat of the music.
I’m sorry.
Not to one person, but to both.
To the baby who should still be here and the girl who should have been beside him tonight.
The life that was gone before he ever learned how to love anything gently.
A girl in a silver dress sits beside Gojo too close, her thigh touches his and her perfume disgusts him because it isn’t yours. He shifts away on instinct, she giggles like she thinks he’s teasing, but he’s not.
Another girl leans over him to pour champagne into his mouth while his brothers cheer. The bottle tips, gold liquor spilling cold over his tongue, down his chin, onto the open collar of his shirt. Club lights catch on his AP watch when he lifts a hand to wipe it away.
The whole section fucking loves it. Though, Gojo wants to crawl out of his fucking body.
Every hand feels wrong. Every girl feels wrong. Every yell makes him lonelier. The section isn’t a celebration. It’s a parody of a life he can’t get back into.
At some point in the night, he ends up in the bathroom or maybe a side hallway, he’s too fucked up to really know. All he processes is a brother holding a baggie between two fingers and saying something he can’t hear.
He does more coke. Bumps off keys. Then drinks again.
His heart starts racing too fast, frenzied thumps against his ribs. His skin feels scorching hot beneath the cotton of his shirt. The club tips slightly when he moves, not enough to scare him, no, he’d need a lot more than that, but just enough to make everything feel less real.
Good. Less real is the goal.
He doesn’t want to feel the birthday or your mouth or the baby folded behind his ID.
Yet, despite the drugs and alcohol, he fails at not feeling all three.
Sometime after 1 A.M., he steps outside for air, telling no one. Ryan is turned away, arguing with someone about the bill or fetching more bottles, and Gojo slips out like he has been waiting for this chance.
Outside the club, West Hollywood is still pouring. At first, he stands under the awning with the smokers and the girls waiting for Ubers, rain splashing against the curb hard enough to mist his sneakers.
He inhales once, but it isn’t enough. So he steps past the awning, letting the rain hit him. It soaks through his hair first, collapsing the careful styling until white strands cling to his forehead and lashes. Then his shirt, cotton sticking to his chest. His jeans become heavy, his sneakers darken after dampening. The AP watch on his wrist catches streetlight through rainwater, absurdly expensive and useless.
For the first time all night, he feels something real. Basking in it until he’s been standing there for too long. His phone buzzes.
ryan: where tf did yo go
ryan: brooo
ryan: dont be doing sum weird shit rn
Another text, another brother. More noise trying to follow him outside. Gojo ignores all of it and orders an Uber, waiting in the rain instead of going back in.
He’s completely drenched by the time the car arrives and the driver glances at him in the rearview mirror, wondering if he should cancel the ride, but Gojo slides into the backseat before he can even decide.
The drive is dead silent save for the rain and the squeaky windshield wipers. His clothes cling cold to his hot skin, wet hair dripping onto his collar. And in all of that, he feels the folded ultrasound in his wallet like a bruise. The performance is finally fucking over.
When he gets back to Sig Chi, the house is still partying downstairs, but Gojo avoids all of it. He heads straight upstairs, shuts his bedroom door, and stands there in soaked designer clothes, shivering once.
He should probably change. The shirt is stuck to his skin, his jeans are disgustingly heavy, his socks are drenched. Water drips from his hair onto the floor and his watch is still on, glittering faintly against his wrist like the most ridiculous proof in the world that money can’t save you from being miserable.
Shower, maybe. Sleep after. But no, what does he do?
He opens the mini fridge. The mochi is still there, hidden in the back where no drunk asshole could find it. Gojo takes the box out and sits on the edge of his bed. The dampness from his clothes sinks into the sheets, yet he doesn’t care. Discomfort feels appropriate—rightfully earned, even.
The mochi box opens with a soft plastic sound, zunda and cream, your gift; and eats one slowly. Then he thinks of how he imagined his twenty-first a month ago.
A month ago, he imagined ending the night with you in his bed. Under him and around him. His hands in your hair, your thighs locked around his waist, his mouth against your neck while he fucked you so deep you couldn’t think about anything else except his name.
He imagined getting greedy with it, too. Starting his birthday with you, ending his birthday with you. Keeping you on his cock until the sun came up because turning twenty-one meant nothing in comparison to you.
And maybe, if he’s being honest in the ugliest, most deranged part of his own mind, he imagined his hand spread across your belly too.
Right where the baby should’ve been.
Right where, a month ago, the baby was.
That horrible fact guts him so brutally he stops chewing.
God, he was so fucking stupid.
He had confused love with permanence. He wanted something that was his and real, reaching for it with both hands closed around its throat, only to lose it anyway.
His hand trembles as he reaches for his wallet. The ultrasound slides free and he holds it in one hand while the mochi sits open beside him.
Downstairs, a brother shouts his name again, muffled through the floor.
Gojo.
Gojo.
Gojo.
Upstairs, Satoru cries quietly in wet clothes.
Tears roll hot down his face while his heart beats too fast from the coke and the alcohol and everything he is too ruined to define. His phone lies open beside him, still on your thread.
happy birthday, satoru
He stares at it until the letters all jumble together. Then he types.
come over
Deletes it.
i need you
Deletes that too.
please
He deletes that one so fast his thumb almost slips, and looks back down at the mochi, then the ultrasound, then your message. His own reflection is faint in the black edge of the phone screen; wet hair, red eyes, shirt soaked by the rain, the world’s prettiest fucking disaster sitting alone on his bed while the party below celebrates a man who doesn’t exist.
Finally, he types the only thing he feels about this shitty night.
none of this meant anything without you
He sends it and is immediately regretful. For a second, he thinks he might genuinely be sick. He glances at the ultrasound shaking in his hand, tears flowing.
Satoru Gojo gets twenty-one birthdays.
The baby never even got one.
He presses the heel of his hand to his mouth, but the sound comes out anyway. Soft, broken, pathetic, and barely human.
“I’m sorry.”
tags: @hdudz @litchiberry @anothergojostan @dawgd4wg @sin-tax-errotic @anonymous123sm @flwr0r4 @hauntedbyink @sabbrriiinnaa @kazukuro @cvpidcvlture @mxtenten @kimorauo @yanagisprettygf @jungkookswifeeeeeee @chickennn-soupp @valberryboos @seonaw @luvleyliaxx @kitty-yaps @the-fandom-menace-1221 @heartyhe4rt @abigaiili @existingishardd @cupidslie @d1onysusdevotee227 @dvarlinggg @secretsofchance @angieunknown @superstaargirl @14pxa @pnkoo @fangirlingbookworm1 @modifiedmonster @lilac-witch @breskvq @painfullyicywitness @kingjuliancypher @emonaculate @outpostsworld @mauritianbaddie @s0ngofthebaddest @throatgoatgojo @champagnesunshinee @mindspolluted @r3m1nd3dd @voidst4r @fudogh @oyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoyaoya @ihateexistence
