synopsis — after reading about a book series that mirrored everything you’d loved about a past favourite, you were thrilled to find it in your college library. the copies were old—worn enough to still have checkout cards—but what caught your attention was the same set of initials, G.S., scrawled across nearly every one. the same G.S. who had filled the margins with sharp, thoughtful annotations. you couldn’t stop yourself from thoroughly enjoying the silly little comments written in the margins, leaving your own notes alongside theirs. it wasn’t until much later that you realised G.S. wasn’t some long-gone bookworm. it was none other than the man you had sworn to hate. gojo satoru.
pairing — nerd! satoru x reader
genre — academic rivals to lovers
word count— 32k (oops)
warnings — sexual content (unprotected sex), swearing, mentions of not eating, slight angst.
small playlist i listened to while writing
"You all can come and grab the papers now—do not ask me for any re-evaluations, the mark presented on the paper is your final mark—"
You barely listen. The professor could be reading a grocery list for all you care. Your focus is already on the stack of midterms in his hands, your heart pounding like a drum against your ribs.
The exam had been brutal—200 marks, covering classical mechanics and electromagnetism, some of the toughest material in your Physics II course. Past students had called it a horror show, a midterm designed to crush dreams and expose weaknesses. It was weighted heavily in your final grade, which meant every single mark mattered. The room is filled with a tense hum, a mixture of eager whispers and anxious murmurs. Some students hesitate in their seats, mentally preparing themselves before facing their doom. But you? You don't wait. You weave through the aisles, manoeuvring past people, determined to be one of the first to grab your paper.
And, of course, Gojo is right behind you.
"Jeez, you could at least pretend to be patient," he muses, his tone dripping with amusement as he strolls lazily down the steps, hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie. You roll your eyes. "Not all of us have the luxury of cruising through exams without trying."
"I do try," he says, flashing you a grin. "I try just enough." Before you can shoot back a response, you reach the professor’s desk. Professor Takeda raises an unimpressed brow as he sorts through the papers.
"You two again," he sighs. "Half my life as a professor has been spent watching you bicker."
"Don't be dramatic, sir," Gojo says smoothly, resting an elbow on the desk. "It's only been three years." Takeda shakes his head, muttering something under his breath about headaches before handing you your paper. You grab it without waiting, fingers slightly shaking as you flip it over.
98.
The relief rushes through you instantly, so strong you can’t help the triumphant burst of excitement. "Ninety-eight!" you blurt out, beaming as you hug the paper to your chest. It’s a damn near perfect score, and after all those sleepless nights, all those hours of grinding through problem sets—you earned this. Gojo, still waiting for his turn, glances at you with an expression you can’t quite place. His usual smirk is still there, but there’s something else—something quieter, almost thoughtful, before he smooths it over with his usual easy confidence.
Takeda hands him his paper. Gojo flips it over, barely reacting as he reads the number at the top.
"Ninety-five." Your grin widens.
"You mean I beat you?" You practically bounce on your heels. "Me? The one you said was ‘too uptight’ and needed to ‘relax and accept second place’? Me?"
Gojo exhales through his nose, shaking his head, as he folds his paper out of your sight. "Don't get too cocky," he drawls, shoving the paper under his arm. "It’s just three points."
"Three points above you."
"For now," he corrects smoothly, nudging your shoulder as he moves past you.
It’s been this way since freshman year. You and Gojo had ended up in the same introductory physics course, and from the very first midterm, it was clear: you were the only two truly competing at the top of the class. But while you poured everything into studying—late nights, flashcards, equations scribbled on napkins—Gojo seemed to barely put in the effort. He’d show up late to lectures, half-asleep in sweatpants, glasses slightly skewed, yet somehow still aced every exam. He never took notes, never stressed, never seemed to break a sweat. It drove you insane. Because no matter how hard you tried, how much effort you put in—he was always right there with you. Sometimes ahead, sometimes just behind, but never far enough to ignore.
And worst of all? He made it look easy. By now, the entire physics department knew about your rivalry. Professors expected you to fight over test scores. Study groups would take bets on who would score higher. Even during practical lab sessions, it was always a silent battle—who could get through the calculations faster, who could figure out the trick questions first. You hated him. And now, after years of this, you finally had something over him. A small, almost imperceptible shift in the universe.
You beat Gojo Satoru. As soon as class ends, you’re practically floating out of the lecture hall, midterm still clutched in your hands. The second you step into the cafeteria, your eyes scan the room for your friend, and when you finally spot her at your usual table, you don’t even bother with a greeting. “I got a ninety-eight,” you announce, sliding into the seat across from her with an undeniably smug grin. “And I beat Gojo.”
Her head snaps up from her laptop. “Wait— Gojo Gojo?”
You roll your eyes. “As opposed to what? Some other Gojo in our department?”
“Oh my God, you actually did it?” she gasps, setting her drink down as she stares at you in something close to awe. “I thought that man was unstoppable.”
“Well, turns out he’s not.” You lean back in your chair, stretching your arms above your head. “Guess he finally met his match.” Your friend is still blinking at you in disbelief when a voice cuts in from behind you, slow and amused.
“One good score, and you think you’re the shit.” You freeze. Then, before you can even turn around, Gojo is already there, stepping up behind you like a shadow that refuses to be ignored. You feel the presence of him—tall, lazy, entirely too smug—before you even lift your head to meet his gaze. He’s leaning in just slightly, close enough to loom, his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. That familiar, insufferable smirk is plastered on his face, condescending and infuriatingly amused.
You huff. “Can’t a girl enjoy her victory in peace?”
He tilts his head, that same damned smirk never wavering. “Victory?” he echoes, voice dripping with mockery. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you? One midterm doesn’t erase three years of domination.” You scoff, crossing your arms. “Oh, please. Like you’ve actually dominated me.”
“Oh, you want me to bring out the stats?” Gojo hums, slipping into the seat beside you like he owns the place. He props his elbow on the table, resting his cheek on his palm as he begins, “Physics I final—97 to your 96. Thermodynamics midterm? 95 to your 91. Electromagnetic Fields exam—”
You groan. “Jesus Christ, you memorized all of them?”
“You think I don’t keep track?” He arches a brow, eyes glinting with amusement. “It’s not my fault I have a consistent history of kicking your ass.”
Your friend snorts into her drink. “He kinda has a point—”
You shoot her a glare. Gojo, meanwhile, is clearly having the time of his life. He leans in, that imposing height of his making his presence impossible to ignore, his voice dropping just slightly, almost teasing. “But sure,” he drawls, chin resting in his hand. “Enjoy your one win, (name). I’ll let you have it.”
You grip your cup so tightly the plastic crinkles. “Let me have it?”
“Mmm.” He tilts his head, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Wouldn’t want you to cry when I obliterate you on the final.” Your friend nudges you under the table, mouthing he’s so full of shit, but you barely register it—because the air between you and Gojo is charged in a way that makes your stomach twist. You won’t admit it out loud, but part of you wonders— is this how he always talks to you?
So close, so taunting, like he enjoys watching you bristle. You hate how natural it feels, how effortless the rhythm of your bickering has become. But more than anything, you hate the way your heart stutters when he pushes himself out of his chair, hands still stuffed in his pockets, and grins down at you like he already knows how the next round of this fight is going to end.
“You should really start studying,” he hums, walking backward toward the exit. “You’ll need it.” And with that, he’s gone, leaving you fuming at the table. Your friend watches him go, eyebrows raised. “So, uh,” she says slowly. “Are we sure you guys aren’t flirting?” You glare at her.
“I hate him.” She smirks. “Mhm.” You seethe a little, realising—with a stab of annoyance—that yes, that motherfucker is actually leading right now in terms of grades and rankings. It’s not even about the marks. Okay, maybe it’s a little about the marks. But you’ve always been the smart woman in your course. The one who professors hold up as an example. The one whose name has been printed on merit lists and whose email is always flooded with internship offers and research opportunities. You’ve spent years perfecting your academic standing, earning every achievement through sheer effort and discipline. But for some odd reason, none of it ever seems to matter until you’ve compared it with Gojo Satoru. You glare at his name on the leaderboard, one place ahead of yours. A single midterm shouldn’t be enough to infuriate you, and yet—
Your eye twitches. How the hell did you even get here?
Well.
Actually.
You know how. You just try not to think about it because, frankly, it’s one of the most mortifying moments of your entire academic career.
—
It was the very first week of freshman year, and you were, for lack of a better term, an insufferable know-it-all. Not in a bad way—okay, maybe in a slightly bad way. But it wasn’t your fault that you took your education seriously, or that you actually read ahead in your courses, or that you genuinely cared about learning. If anything, you were doing everyone a service by answering questions when no one else raised their hands. So, on that particular day, when your physics professor asked the class a question about vector components, you barely hesitated before speaking up.
“The perpendicular components of a vector are independent of each other,” you’d answered smoothly, sitting up a little straighter as you prepared to elaborate. “That’s why we can analyse them separately using—”
“Ohhh, wow,” someone cut in, voice dripping with mock wonder. “Look at that. We got a genius in the house.” The interruption had been so unexpected—so audacious—that it completely derailed your train of thought.
And when you turned around, irritated beyond belief, there he was. White hair, round glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, an undeniably punchable smirk tugging at his lips. You had no idea who he was at the time. Just some tall, obnoxious guy slouched lazily in his seat, all limbs and arrogance, tapping a pen idly against his notebook as he stared at you with barely concealed amusement.
Your brows furrowed. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying,” he shrugged, “you must be so fun at parties.” The class chuckled. Your jaw clenched. “Well, someone has to answer when no one else even tries.”
“Right, because we’re all just too stupid to understand vectors,” he drawled, stretching lazily in his seat.
“I didn’t say that,” you shot back.
“Didn’t have to,” he grinned, tapping his temple. “I could feel the superiority radiating from you.” You exhaled sharply through your nose, forcing yourself to turn back around before you said something that would get you in trouble on the first week of class.
“Okay, okay,” your professor cut in, looking thoroughly unbothered by the exchange. “Let’s keep the debating to actual physics concepts.” That should have been the end of it. But then you heard a low tsk from behind you.
“I bet she memorized the textbook cover to cover before the semester even started,” the white-haired menace mused under his breath to his friend with the long, black haired locks, who seemed disinterested in what his friend had to say.
You whipped around. “I did not—”
“Don’t lie, nerd.”
“Excuse me?!” The class chuckled again. And when you shot a glare toward your professor, expecting some kind of reprimand, he just sighed and muttered, “God, I already know you two are going to be a pain in my ass.” From that moment on, it had been war.
Your first set of midterms was when you realized he wasn’t just talk. You walked into class with a 97 on your physics exam, feeling confident—only to glance over and see Gojo slouched in his seat, grinning as he casually flipped his test paper over to show a 99. He made eye contact with you as he tapped his fingers against the big red number. You nearly broke your pen in half.
And so it began.
Every exam, every assignment, every single class discussion became a battleground. You would argue over formulas, nitpick each other’s solutions, and constantly try to one-up the other. You worked your ass off to close the gap, pouring hours into perfecting your work. And Gojo? Gojo barely looked like he was trying. That was what infuriated you the most. He never seemed stressed, never looked exhausted, never talked about pulling all-nighters. He just showed up, half the time looking like he hadn’t even studied, and still somehow stayed ahead. Until now. Until your 98 finally beat his 95. A single win isn’t enough. But damn, does it feel good.
—
You step into the lecture hall, already bracing yourself for the inevitable. Sure enough, Gojo Satoru is exactly where you expect him to be—sprawled out in his usual seat, legs stretched obnoxiously far like he has no concept of personal space. His sunglasses rest on top of his head, keeping his messy white hair from falling into his annoyingly pretty eyes, and the second he spots you, that familiar smirk tugs at his lips. You’re already exhausted.
“You’re early,” you mutter, slipping into your seat and pulling out your laptop.
“And you’re predictable,” he shoots back. “What, do you set an alarm just to make sure you get here before me?”
“You wish.”
“Nah, you wish.”
You pause, narrowing your eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
He shrugs, propping his chin on his hand. “Still got under your skin, though, didn’t it?”
You make a sound of irritation in the back of your throat, ready to tell him exactly where he can shove his smug attitude, but your friend plops into the seat next to you, completely unaware of the storm brewing between you and Gojo. You exhale sharply, forcing yourself to shift gears—there’s something more important than your ongoing war with him. Something much, much more important.
“Okay, so, I found this book series last night,” you begin, your fingers twitching excitedly as you pull out your phone. “I was going through one of those book recommendation guides—you know, the niche ones that aren’t full of the same ten bestsellers—and this one just caught my eye.” Your friend hums in interest, booting up their laptop. “What’s it about?”
You practically buzz with excitement. “So it’s kind of like—ugh, how do I explain it—it’s this really well-written like narrative, mystery, suspense, romance, but with, like, existential themes? And this insane world building? And apparently, no one talks about it because the publisher went under before it got the recognition it deserved, so it’s kind of a hidden gem.” As you speak, Gojo, who had been staring blankly at the front of the room, blinks. That sounds familiar.
“You’re really selling it,” your friend teases.
“Right?! And apparently, it’s super hard to find, but I checked, and our library actually has a few copies.” You tuck your phone away, already feeling a rush of excitement. “I’m gonna borrow the first book after class.” Gojo leans back in his seat, eyes flickering with something unreadable.
Yeah, he thinks. I’ve definitely read that.
He doesn’t say anything, though. Just rests his chin in his palm and listens as you keep gushing. Because now that he thinks about it, he really liked that series too. It had been one of those random books he picked up between classes, half expecting to get bored, but then something about it hooked him. The way it wove together philosophy and adventure, the quiet melancholy lingering in the prose—it was the kind of book that stuck with you. But he never finished it. Midterms had hit, and between exams, research papers, and group projects that made him want to rip his hair out, he just… forgot. He never went back to check out the last few books. He had meant to, but by the time he had free time again, his brain had moved on. And now here you are, unknowingly digging it back up.
His fingers drum idly against the desk, and for some reason, he can’t shake the thought: She’s gonna love it. He steals another glance at you. You’re still talking, eyes bright with excitement, flipping through your phone as you read off little details from the guide you found. The enthusiasm is contagious—he can’t remember the last time he saw you this animated about something that wasn’t academics. Usually, all your energy goes into perfecting equations, arguing with him over points lost on exams, and trying to one-up him in every possible way. This is… different.
And weirdly, he finds himself kind of liking it. Not that he’d ever admit it.
–
So after class finally finishes—thankfully, your professor had been going through a hard topic that he kept droning on and on about, emphasising how likely it was to appear in the final exam—it was enough to sate even Gojo, who, for once, shut up and took notes diligently. You head out at lightning speed, managing a small “see you later” to your friend before disappearing into the hallway. Honestly, ever since the new year of college had started, you’d barely had time to indulge in activities you actually enjoyed.
Sure, you squeezed in a few books here and there when you had the chance, but it was difficult finding ones that hit just the right way—ones with the same kind of engaging plot, the same writing style that kept you hooked. You’d tried, but nothing had stuck with you the way your favorite books used to. It had been frustrating, going through these long periods without anything to read. But this time, you had a feeling it would be different.
Turning a corner, you step into the vast college library, its sheer size never failing to impress you. The high, arched ceilings, the rows upon rows of bookshelves, and the dozens of students scattered across large wooden tables, heads buried in textbooks—it’s an environment that should feel welcoming, yet all it does is remind you how much work you still have waiting for you. You shake that thought away.
Right now, you’re here for one thing.
You glance at your phone, rereading the author’s name one last time before slipping it into your pocket and heading straight for the fiction section. It’s tucked away in one of the quieter corners of the library, past the heavier academic texts, and while it’s not as large as the science or philosophy sections, it still has an impressive selection. The shelves here are a little dustier, the books a little more worn—proof that they don’t get checked out as often as the physics or chemistry textbooks. You trace your fingers lightly along the spines, scanning for the title. When you finally spot it, you feel a flicker of excitement. There it is.
The first book in the series. The cover is simple yet striking, the title embossed in slightly faded silver lettering. You pull it off the shelf carefully, glancing around to see if the rest of the series is there. To your delight, every single book is lined up neatly in order. Some of them look well-loved, the edges softened from use, some even slightly bent, as if they’d been carried around in bags, read and reread countless times.
You flip the book over and read the blurb. Even though you already know the gist of the story from your research, there’s something about reading the official summary that makes your excitement spike. It’s exactly what you’ve been looking for—an underrated but brilliant story, the kind that feels like a hidden gem. Unable to resist, you take the book with you and settle down at one of the smaller, tucked-away tables. You’re a slow reader, someone who likes to absorb every word, letting the imagery settle in your mind before moving on. But the moment you turn to the first page and begin reading, you’re immediately pulled in.
The writing is crisp and immersive, the kind that hooks you effortlessly. Within moments, you’re completely lost in the world of the book, eyes darting across the pages, flipping to the next before you even realize it. The characters are compelling, the descriptions vivid, and the dialogue sharp. You can already tell this is going to be one of those stories that sticks—the kind that lingers in the back of your mind long after you’ve finished. Just as you reach a particularly interesting part, your phone buzzes.
You blink, momentarily disoriented before glancing at the screen. It’s a reminder you set for yourself. Right. You still need to study. A sigh escapes you. As much as you want to keep reading, you know you can’t afford to waste too much time. With some reluctance, you close the book and stand up, making your way toward the borrowing counter. You check it out quickly, securing it in your bag, already planning when you’ll carve out time to read it between your study sessions. It’s something to look forward to, at least. And if you had known just who had been the last person to check it out before you, maybe you wouldn’t be so eager.
–
The ringer from your Pomodoro timer goes off, its sharp chime cutting through the quiet of your dorm room. With a sigh, you drop your pencil onto your open notebook, rolling your shoulders back as you stretch in your seat, feeling the slight stiffness from hours of hunching over your desk. Lazily glancing at the glowing numbers on your laptop screen, a small grin tugs at the corners of your lips.
Four hours of focused work.
Good. You’ve finally finished studying for the night, trudging through a mountain of tricky concepts and endless equations—just enough to ensure you’ll keep up with the next few lectures before the actual final exam looms over you. The weight of the work you’ve put in settles in a satisfying way, a quiet reassurance that you’re keeping up. Yawning, you grab your phone, thumbing through a few unopened texts, sending half-hearted replies where needed.
Your mind is already half-tuned out, already drifting toward what you actually want to do now that your responsibilities are out of the way for the night. Pushing yourself up from your chair, you shuffle toward your bed, sinking into the softness of your mattress with a pleased sigh. And then, with an eager flicker of excitement, you reach for the borrowed library book resting on your side table, fingers running over the slightly worn edges of the cover.
Finally.
Opening it to the page you had left off, you settle deeper into the blankets, eyes scanning the words slowly, absorbing every detail. The prose is effortless, pulling you into the world woven between the lines. The atmosphere is rich, each description vivid and carefully placed, the characters full of depth. There’s a certain feeling you get when a book is just right—something that clicks into place, the rare kind of story that makes the outside world blur at the edges. You don’t rush through it.
You savor every word, taking in the dialogue, the intricate details of the setting, the careful unraveling of the plot. Then, just as you shift slightly, readjusting your grip, a small slip of paper flutters from between the pages. You blink, momentarily pulled from the trance of the story, watching as it lands lightly on your blanket.
Frowning, you reach for it, fingers brushing against the slightly yellowed, aged texture of the paper. It’s rectangular, not quite as thick as a regular bookmark, with neat printed lines running across it in faded ink.
A borrowing card.
You stare at it for a second, a vague memory surfacing. Back during your university orientation in first year, you remember a librarian offhandedly mentioning that some of the older books in the collection still had checkout cards inside them, relics from a time before everything became digitized. But since you’d only ever borrowed course-related books—ones that were constantly replaced with new editions—you’d never actually come across one. Huh.
Your fingers trace the faded lines as you sit up slightly, eyes scanning the list of names scrawled across it—
Except… there are no names. Just one. Or rather, just a set of initials, written neatly in blue ink
G.S.
The date beside it is from a while ago, though not too long. But the strange thing is, it’s the only entry on the entire card. You blink, flipping it over, checking the back. Nothing. So… no one else has borrowed this book? You hesitate, gripping the card a little tighter. You’re supposed to write your name down now, right? That’s how these things work. It’s a log of borrowers. But then—why had this person only written their initials?
A weird feeling stirs in your chest. Not unease, exactly—just something you can’t put a name to. It’s probably nothing. Maybe this book just wasn’t that popular. The only reason you found it was because of some obscure online guide, after all. Maybe no one really checked it out over the years, and the one person who did just didn’t feel like writing their full name.
Shaking your head, you push the thought aside, grabbing a pen from your nightstand. Without thinking too much about it, you write your own name neatly beneath G.S., along with today’s date. Then, you tuck the card back into its place and return to your book, letting yourself sink back into the story. A few more pages in, about a quarter of the way through the book, your eyes catch something that makes your brow furrow.
Are those… scribbles?
Your annoyance flares up immediately. Who the hell desecrates a library book? It’s practically sacrilegious. Your fingers tighten slightly around the spine as you bring the book closer to inspect the crime against literature, fully prepared to be enraged—
Wait.
They’re not just random scribbles. They’re annotations.
Your irritation dims slightly, curiosity piqued as you squint to make out the neat, slightly slanted cursive handwriting running along the margins. Some words are underlined, a few sentences circled, and in a crisp blue ink, a note is scrawled beside a particularly tense conversation between two characters:
“I can just tell he’s gonna be the one dead first. He’s overreacting to everything.”
You blink. Then, despite yourself, a small giggle escapes. Because—okay—whoever wrote this isn’t wrong. You literally thought the same thing just a few moments ago. As much as you love a good, well-written novel, you’ve read enough books in your life to recognise the telltale signs of an early death flag. And this character? He’s practically begging to be taken out of the story. Your amusement lingers as you scan the page again, eyes flitting to more scribbles running alongside the printed words.
"God, she sounds so insufferable."
You smirk a little at that, suppressing a chuckle.
"I like this line—the quote kinda speaks to me."
Your gaze follows the arrow pointing toward a particularly well-crafted piece of dialogue. Huh. You actually like that line too.
"I take the previous statement back—no way did he say that entire motivational monologue just for him to throw his morals aside..."
A small, surprised laugh escapes you. You love when characters do this kind of thing—spend pages waxing poetic about their grand principles, only to completely toss them out the window at the first sign of trouble. It’s frustrating, but also wildly entertaining, and you find yourself nodding unconsciously in agreement.
You shift slightly, adjusting your grip on the book as your initial annoyance starts to morph into something else—something you don’t want to admit is enjoyment. Because as much as you usually hate unnecessary markings in books, these annotations don’t feel disruptive.
They feel… engaging. Like you’re reading with someone. It’s a strange feeling—an unexpected, quiet kind of companionship in the margins of the book. You scan ahead, flipping a few pages forward, wondering if this mystery annotator—G.S., you assume—has left their thoughts scattered throughout the entire book.
Oh. They have. Almost every page has at least something scribbled in the margins. Some annotations are sarcastic, others incredulous. A few are simple observations or predictions about the plot, and some are just random, dramatic reactions that make you snort.
"Oh my GOD, just kiss already!"
You huff out an amused breath, shaking your head.
"He is so painfully oblivious it’s almost impressive."
Honestly, you were thinking the same thing. Before you realize it, you’ve started reading out loud—not the annotations, but the actual book. It’s something you do sometimes when you’re alone, when a scene is particularly well-written or emotional. And now, with G.S.’s thoughts scattered alongside the text, it almost feels like you’re having a conversation with them. Like they’re some ghostly presence in the book, reacting alongside you in real time.
You catch yourself before you say something back to one of the notes.
Which is insane. Because this is just a random person’s handwriting in a library book. And yet—
You exhale through your nose, fingers absentmindedly tracing the edge of the page. You kind of… want to know who they are. Who is G.S.? Because if their annotations are anything to go by, they have the exact same thoughts as you while reading. The same exasperation, the same eye-roll-worthy observations, the same appreciation for the well-crafted lines. And you can’t help but wonder—just who was sitting with this same book in their hands, reading the same words, thinking the same things? It’s an odd, fleeting curiosity, but you push it aside for now, shaking your head as you turn the page.
You settle deeper into your blankets, the book resting comfortably in your hands as you turn the page. The words on the paper blur slightly in the dim light of your bedside lamp, but you don’t mind—you’re too immersed now, drawn into both the story and the unexpected presence of G.S. in the margins. The next chapter begins, and you take a slow breath before diving in, eyes flicking between the printed text and the handwritten notes.
"Oh, I just know this is going to go terribly."
You glance at the line it’s referencing—a scene where the protagonist makes a bold, arguably reckless decision. Yeah, G.S. is probably right. A few more pages pass. The tension in the book rises, and you’re so absorbed that you nearly miss the next annotation.
"There it is. The classic ‘staring at the moon in emotional turmoil’ scene. Authors love this one."
You snort. Okay, but they’re right. You tilt your head, momentarily pausing your reading to stare at the note. It’s a little strange, this dynamic you’ve somehow fallen into with a complete stranger. You feel like you know them, or at least, their reading habits. Their humor. The way they react to the exact same things that pull at your attention. It's unsettling in a way that’s not entirely unpleasant. You flip forward, skimming ahead to see if the notes continue—and they do.
"I KNEW IT. I CALLED IT. HE’S A TRAITOR."
You blink, pausing mid-sentence. Your gaze darts back to the text, where a major plot twist has just been revealed. Your mouth parts slightly, rereading the words to make sure you’re seeing them correctly. Damn. You did not see that coming.
You exhale, a small smirk tugging at your lips. Fine. Point to you, G.S. You keep reading, now almost waiting for the next annotation, like it’s a second voice in your head providing commentary as you go. And when the protagonist makes another questionable decision—
"Why are men in fiction like this?"
—you laugh, shaking your head. It continues like that for pages. Every now and then, G.S. 's notes make you chuckle, or nod in agreement, or roll your eyes because come on, that was an obvious metaphor. And as much as you want to be annoyed by the interruptions, you find yourself… enjoying it. Maybe even liking it. At some point, you shift your position, getting more comfortable against your pillows, completely absorbed. The words feel alive, and not just the printed ones, but the ones scribbled in blue ink alongside them. It’s a conversation you never expected to have—one separated by time, by anonymity, by the unlikelihood of ever knowing who G.S. is. Your fingers brush over the ink of the annotations, slightly faded but still legible. Thinking back to the date listed on the library card from quite a while ago, you wonder if G.S. has even thought about this book since then. Or if they’ve forgotten about it entirely. You stare at the letters for a moment longer before shaking your head, pushing away the odd sensation curling at the back of your mind.
It’s just a book. Just some random person’s annotations. It doesn’t mean anything.
A reminder notification pops up on your phone—one you’d set earlier to keep your study schedule in check. You sigh. Right. You should get some sleep soon. Reluctantly, you close the book, running your fingers over the cover one last time before placing it on your nightstand. You’ll finish it later—between classes, between assignments, between all the little gaps in your schedule where you can steal a moment to read. And maybe, you’ll keep an eye out. Because now, you kind of want to know if G.S. ever came back for this book.
–
By the time your next Physics lecture rolls around, you’ve already finished the first book in the series. It had consumed your nights, pulling you in with its immersive world-building and gripping storyline—but, if you were being honest, the experience had been made infinitely more enjoyable because of the annotations left behind in the margins. The presence of another reader, someone who had walked the same narrative path as you and left breadcrumbs of their thoughts along the way, had made the book feel less like a solitary escape and more like a shared secret. So, naturally, when you stride into class that morning, you’re already prepared to discuss it at length with your friend.
What you aren’t prepared for is Gojo Satoru.
Not that you ever are, really. He has a habit of making his presence known, like some self-appointed force of nature existing solely to get under your skin. And today is no different—he walks past you with an easy, sauntering gait, the kind that’s deliberately slow enough to be obnoxious. There’s a telltale smirk tugging at his lips, the glint of mischief in his strikingly bright eyes as he leans in, as if he’s about to say something insufferable just to throw off your morning. You pretend not to see him.
Your willful ignorance must be obvious because you hear him scoff under his breath as he passes by, but you don’t give him the satisfaction of looking.
Instead, you beeline toward the row where your friend is already seated, setting your bag down with an eager bounce in your step.
“Dude,” you start, flipping open your laptop with a flourish, “remember that book I told you about a few weeks back?” Your friend raises a brow. “The one from that super niche book guide you were raving about?”
“The very same one,” you confirm, barely able to contain your excitement. “I finally finished it, and oh my god, it was so good. The plot? Phenomenal. The pacing? Perfect. But you know what actually made it even better?”
You don’t notice the way Gojo hesitates just as he’s about to settle into the seat behind you. He freezes, fingers hovering above the keyboard of his laptop as his ears zero in on your conversation.
“You found another book to obsess over?” Your friend teases, but you shake your head fervently.
“No, no, listen,” you insist, your voice lowering slightly as you lean in, “someone left annotations in it.”
Satoru’s fingers twitch.
“You mean like, study notes?”
“No! Like, actual thoughts—comments, reactions, opinions. And not just boring analytical stuff, either. They were funny. Snarky. They made fun of the characters at the exact moments I wanted to. It was like reading the book with someone, you know?”
A very distinct, yet invisible, sense of dread creeps into Gojo’s chest.
Oh. Oh, shit. The annotations. He had completely forgotten about those. He had scrawled them in the margins ages ago—mostly on a whim, partly out of boredom, and entirely because he physically could not read a book in silence. If there was one thing Gojo Satoru was incapable of, it was shutting the fuck up, even when he was the only audience for his own commentary. So, naturally, when he had found himself enjoying the book way more than expected, he had started treating it like a private conversation with himself, writing down whatever thoughts came to mind.
He never expected anyone to see them. And now, sitting barely a foot away, he’s listening to you—of all people—excitedly gush about his stupid little scribbles, completely oblivious to the fact that the person you were praising, the one whose humor you found entertaining and whose insights you had agreed with, was him. He schools his expression, keeping his head tilted just enough to appear disinterested. But his ears are wide open.
“Whoever wrote those notes,” you continue, flipping your pen between your fingers, “had some serious opinions. And honestly? I kind of love them. Like, I think we have the same brain.”
Satoru presses his lips together, biting back a grin.
You? Agreeing with him? That was new.
Your friend hums. “So you’re basically having a book club with some anonymous person who read it before you?” You chuckle. “I mean… kinda? It’s weird, but it’s nice in a way. Like, usually when I read, it’s just me and the book. But with the annotations, it’s like there’s this extra layer of interaction. I get to see how someone else processed the story, how they reacted to the same moments I did.”
Satoru knows he should stop listening. He should. But he doesn’t.
Because something about this whole situation—the fact that you, of all people, had unknowingly connected with him through a book—has him equal parts amused and intrigued. You, who always huffed when he teased you. You, who rolled your eyes at his antics, who made a point to ignore him even though he knew you were hyper-aware of his presence.
You had spent nights poring over words he had written in passing. And you had liked them. God, if you knew, you’d probably strangle him on the spot.
“I actually wanna see if this person has read the rest of the series,” you muse, mostly to yourself. “Like, maybe they annotated other books too.”
Satoru exhales through his nose, staring at his laptop screen but not actually registering anything on it. Well. This was going to be interesting.
–
You make your way to the library once again, the first book of the series clutched in your hands, ready to be returned. It feels weird, parting with it. As if you’re saying goodbye to something that had, for the past week, been a quiet companion during your late-night reading sessions. But not to worry, there’s still like five more books in the series. Your steps slow slightly as you approach the return counter, fingers absently reaching into your bag’s open pocket for a pen. Without much thought, you flip open the book and scrawl the date of return onto the inside of the back cover, where the borrowing card is located. Your thumb absentmindedly drags across the faded blue ink of the initials scrawled in the row above where you’ve signed your name.
G.S.
Whoever they were, they had made your reading experience infinitely better with their wry, sarcastic observations and strangely thoughtful insights. It was like reading alongside a particularly sharp-witted friend—one who, frustratingly, was just out of reach. You’re lost in thought, mulling over the mystery of G.S., when you abruptly walk straight into something firm and unmoving. And warm.
Something that smells like sandalwood and fresh linen and something inexplicably, irritatingly familiar.
You barely have time to stagger back before a voice—deep, lazy, and dripping with its usual brand of smugness—drawls, “My, my, pretending to walk around with your nose in a book so people think you’re more studious than you actually are?”
Your stomach sinks. You do not have the patience for this right now.
“Fuck off, Satoru,” you mutter, not even looking at him as you try to sidestep. Predictably, he moves right in front of you again, blocking your path with that insufferable ease of his. Hands in the pockets of his impeccably tailored slacks, sleeves of a stupidly expensive cashmere sweater pushed up to reveal the sharp line of his wrists and veiny forearms, and his ever-present glasses glinting under the dim library lights—he looks as if he owns the place.
His head tilts, white hair falling slightly over his frames as he glances down at the book in your hands. That smile—all teeth and smugness—spreads across his face like he’s caught you in something scandalous.
“Oh? Reading a book that isn’t course-related? Scandalous. What happened, got bored of being a try-hard? Or are you just begging to score lower than me on the final?” He exhales dramatically, shaking his head. “Tsk, tsk. Not that I’d expect you to actually be on my level, but it’s cute that you try—”
You stop listening after that. Normally, you’d throw something equally sharp-tongued back at him, tell him to go get hit by a bus or something equally creative, but you’re too drained to bother. The exhaustion from back-to-back lectures, plus the fact that you haven’t eaten anything substantial today, has dulled the sharp edges of your patience. A dull ache pounds at the base of your skull, and every word out of his mouth makes it throb even harder. Your expression must give away more than you intend because, for a split second, Gojo falters.
It’s quick—barely there. But you see it.
A flicker of something almost resembling concern flashes behind his glasses, like he’s actually noticed how drained you look. The moment is gone before you can process it. His usual smug expression slides right back into place, and you don’t have the energy to care.
“I need to return this,” you say flatly. “Get out of my way.”
Instead of stepping aside like a normal person, he falls into step beside you, hands still lazily stuffed in his pockets. “Oh? So now you acknowledge my presence,” he muses, voice light. “What, you didn’t miss me in class today? I even waited for you to roll your eyes at me like you do every morning. Felt almost lonely without it.”
“I genuinely do not care,” you reply without looking at him. He presses a hand to his chest as if wounded. “Ouch. Someone’s moody today. Low blood sugar? On your period? Brain finally given up trying to keep up with mine?”
You don’t dignify that with a response, instead sliding the book into the return pile with a little more force than necessary. Gojo watches, his gaze flickering between you and the book.
“What book were you returning, anyway?” The question is so casual, so offhanded, that you almost don’t clock it as strange. Almost. You narrow your eyes at him. “Didn’t take you for someone interested in my life.”
His lips curl into something unbearably smug. “Oh, I’m not.” He rocks back on his heels, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “I just like knowing what my rival is up to outside of class. You know, studying your weaknesses. Gathering intel. The usual.”
You stare at him. “You are so full of shit.”
“I really am,” he agrees cheerfully. You exhale through your nose, patience wearing thinner by the second. “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere being a general public nuisance?”
“This is me being a general public nuisance.” He grins. “And you’re the lucky victim of the day.”
“God, I hate you.”
“Aww, that’s cute. But you should be honest with yourself,” he says, following you as you make your way toward the exit. “I think you’d miss me if I suddenly disappeared.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You so would.”
“I would thrive in your absence.”
Gojo makes an exaggerated show of wiping away an imaginary tear. “How cruel. And here I was, thinking we had something special.”
You push open the library doors, stepping out into the crisp afternoon air. Finally, freedom. But, of course, Gojo keeps following you.
“…Why are you still here?” you ask, tiredly. He hums. “Dunno. Walking this way.”
“You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“Exactly,” he says, grinning. “A mystery. How exciting.” You consider throwing your bag at him. You settle for walking faster. You quicken your pace, hoping Gojo will get bored and wander off. He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He easily keeps up with you, long legs making it effortless, his stupid grin never fading.
“Walking faster won’t shake me, you know,” he muses, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you enjoy my company.” You don’t bother responding, gripping the strap of your bag tighter and staring straight ahead. He walks backward in front of you, head tilted, watching you with an almost lazy amusement. “So, where are you going? Café? Student lounge? Maybe a secret nerd meeting where you all discuss the best highlighters for maximum efficiency?”
You give him a deadpan look. “Yes, Satoru. That’s exactly what I’m doing. We’re all going to sit in a circle and ritually sharpen our pencils while whispering incantations about final exams.” He gasps dramatically. “I knew it. I bet you have a shrine dedicated to good grades too. And, like, a little altar where you sacrifice people who get higher scores than you—”
“I don’t need to sacrifice anyone,” you cut in, dryly. “Because I get the highest scores.” His grin widens. “Not all of them.”
You bristle, and he knows it. You both know that you and Gojo have been locked in a constant academic battle since the semester started. It’s maddening how often you end up in the top two spots. Even more maddening that he acts like he doesn’t even try. You exhale slowly, trying to focus on literally anything else. “I’m going to get food. Why don’t you go fuck off somewhere, like, I don’t know, ruin someone else’s day?”
“You wound me with such crass language,” he says, clutching his chest like you physically struck him. “I’m just being a good friend.”
“You’re not my friend.”
“Wow.” He sighs dramatically, as if genuinely offended. “All this time we’ve spent together, and you still call us enemies? I’d like to think of us more as… frenemies.”
“I would like to think of us as strangers.”
“And yet,” he says, smirking, “you still talk to me.”
You roll your eyes. “Only because you won’t shut up.”
Gojo shrugs. “Details.”
By now, you’ve reached the campus café. The smell of coffee and freshly baked pastries drifts through the air, making your stomach growl embarrassingly loud. You knew skipping lunch was a bad idea. Gojo hears it, of course.
“Oh?” His eyebrows lift, delighted. “Was that your stomach? Should I be worried? Are you dying of starvation? Is this how our rivalry ends?” You ignore him and step inside. The café is buzzing with students, some hunched over laptops, others chatting over coffee. You head straight for the counter, scanning the menu, debating if you should just get something quick and easy or actually sit down for a meal. Gojo, uninvited, leans casually against the counter beside you.
“Getting a drink too?” he asks, peering over your shoulder.
“Why do you care?”
“Maybe I wanna know what fuels my biggest competition,” he says, tone exaggeratedly thoughtful. “What’s the secret? Triple shot espresso? Pure willpower? The tears of your academic rivals?” You give him a look. “You’re projecting. You probably run on the suffering of others.”
“Obviously,” he says easily. “But I like to mix in a little sugar sometimes. Keeps me balanced and shit.” You’re about to tell him to go bother someone else when the barista glances up. “Next?” You quickly place your order. Just as you’re about to pull out your wallet, Gojo’s voice rings out:
“I’ve got it.”
Your head snaps toward him. “What.”
“I’m paying.” You stare at him, genuinely baffled. “Why?”
He grins. “Because I’m so generous, obviously.” You narrow your eyes. “No, really. What’s the catch?”
He puts a hand over his heart, feigning offense. “You think I’d trick you? I’m hurt.”
“Yes.”
Gojo just laughs and hands his card to the barista before you can argue further. You glare at him. “This better not be some elaborate scheme to hold this over my head later.”
“Oh, it definitely is,” he says cheerfully. “I plan to bring it up all the time.”
“Of course you do.” Your drink– tea to be specific– is ready a moment later. Begrudgingly, you take it, mumbling, “Thanks.” Gojo gasps, eyes wide. “Did you just thank me?” You exhale. “Never mind. I take it back.”
“No, no, it’s too late, you already said it.” He grins. “You like me.”
“I hate you.”
“You adore me.”
“I tolerate you at best.” Gojo sips his drink, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “That’s basically the same thing.” You groan and turn to leave.
Thankfully he doesn’t make the move to follow you this time.
–
Your… somewhat friendly interaction with Sa—No, Gojo—was forgotten by the time the next week rolled around. Not deliberately, of course. But between your physics assignments, math problem sets, and an unrelenting pile of lecture notes to review, your brain had simply discarded the memory. College had a way of pushing everything that wasn’t directly necessary for survival to the furthest corners of your mind. Currently, you were in the library, hunched over a thick textbook, your fingers curled into your hair as you skimmed the same paragraph for what felt like the tenth time. Nothing was sticking.
You groaned, tilting your head back against the chair and letting your gaze drift to the high ceilings of the study space. It was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of pages and the rhythmic clicking of laptop keys. Your physics notes sat in front of you, covered in a desperate sprawl of formulas and diagrams, but the more you stared, the more meaningless the symbols became. You needed a break. Your eyes flickered toward the fiction section.
It wouldn’t hurt to get another book.
A moment later, you were standing in front of the shelves, fingers tracing the spines as you searched for the second book in the series. It didn’t take long to find—it was positioned neatly with the rest of the series, the cover slightly fading due to how long it had probably been there. As you turned to leave, your thumb brushed against the inside cover, where the borrowing card was located.
And there, scrawled in the same faded blue ink as before, were the initials:
G.S.
You paused. Your mystery commentator had been here before you. Again. You traced the letters absentmindedly, your mind flickering back to the first book. Their annotations had been witty, sometimes mocking, but always sharp. You had enjoyed them—more than you expected.
You flipped to the borrowing card. G.S. had checked out this book multiple times. At least three dates next to their initials. A strange feeling settled in your chest. Who were they? You shook your head, pushing the thought aside as you made your way to the borrowing counter. It doesn’t matter. It’s just some random person. Still, as you returned to your study space, setting the book beside your untouched notes, your fingers itched to open it.
You tried—really tried—to focus on physics. For maybe ten minutes. Then, with a sigh, you slid your textbook aside and cracked open the novel. This one picked up right where the last had left off—the protagonist, an ambitious scholar, now forced into an uneasy alliance with a rogue historian, both of them hunting for a long-lost manuscript said to contain the secrets of the universe. Their journey took them through ancient libraries, shadowy alleyways, and grand halls of academia filled with intrigue and suspense that you thoroughly enjoyed.
It wasn’t long before you noticed the annotations.
"What an idiot. Why would you trust someone who literally betrayed you three chapters ago?" You huffed a quiet laugh. It was scrawled in the margins of a tense conversation between the protagonist and the historian, who had indeed been suspiciously untrustworthy.
Another note, a few pages later: "This argument is painfully dumb. If they just communicated, we wouldn’t need three more chapters of tension." You found yourself smiling. Whoever this was, they were blunt, maybe a bit cynical, but entertaining.
Then, another annotation caught your attention—this one different. It was scribbled beside a passage where the protagonist was deciphering an ancient mathematical equation, trying to understand the patterns behind the manuscript’s code. The handwriting was just as casual, but the content—
"This is basically just Fourier analysis but dressed up in fancy old-world academia. If the author actually wanted to be accurate, they’d at least mention waveforms. But nooo, we get poetic nonsense instead."
You blinked. That was… oddly specific. And not the kind of thing your average literature enthusiast would comment on. For a fleeting second, you wondered—
Does G.S. study physics?
The thought was strange, lingering in the back of your mind even as you continued reading. Minutes turned into hours. Slowly, students trickled out of the library. The rustling of papers faded, the soft murmur of whispered conversations disappearing into the silence of the near-empty study space. You didn’t notice.
Not until the overhead lights dimmed slightly, signaling that the library was closing soon. With a sigh, you shut the book, stretching your stiff limbs. Physics could wait a little longer.
–
A few days later, you found yourself in yet another grueling lecture. The classroom was buzzing with low chatter as students filtered in, some sleep-deprived, some over-caffeinated, and most looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. You were somewhere in the middle—tired but functional, flipping through your notes with half-hearted interest as you tried to prepare yourself for another two-hour session of mathematical physics. You adjusted your laptop screen, took a sip of your tea, and just as you settled in, you felt a presence.
A familiar, irritating presence.
“Morning, rival,” Gojo Satoru said cheerfully, dropping into the seat next to you with all the grace of an avalanche. You didn’t even look up. “Go away.”
He tsked. “Is that any way to greet your favorite classmate?”
“You’re not my favorite classmate.” He grinned, propping his chin on one hand.
“Don’t lie. You’d miss me if I wasn’t here to make class interesting.”
You ignored him, resolutely staring at your notes. The professor arrived a moment later, quickly settling into the day’s topic—wave equations and their applications. The discussion meandered through standard examples, Fourier transforms, and the different methods used to break down complex waveforms.
You barely registered the name of the theory—just a fleeting recognition of something familiar—before you were back to jotting down notes. At first, you were focused, diligently taking notes and absorbing the information. For the first thirty minutes, you managed to avoid paying him any attention. You scribbled down notes, underlined important formulas, and even managed to listen without feeling the urge to slam your head into the desk.
But then—of course—Gojo had to open his mouth.
“So, hypothetically,” he mused, voice carrying just enough to be heard by the surrounding students, “if we were to apply this to a broader model, say… nonlinear oscillations, wouldn’t that mean—”
You immediately frowned. He was already trying to sound smarter than he was.
“That’s not how that works,” you cut in before the professor could even acknowledge him. Gojo turned to you, looking far too entertained. “Yeah, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.” You shifted in your seat, twisting to face him fully. “You can’t just apply Fourier analysis wherever you want and expect the results to be useful. Nonlinear oscillations don’t break down the same way because of the introduction of chaotic behavior—”
“Oh, come on,” Gojo scoffed, waving a hand. “It’s not that deep. Sure, chaotic elements make things messier, but that doesn’t mean the framework is useless.”
You let out a sharp breath. “It means the entire assumption of the analysis changes. You can’t approximate a nonlinear system with linear components and expect the results to hold up—”
“You can if you use a perturbative approach,” he countered smoothly.
You almost growled. “A perturbative approach only works when the nonlinear term is small relative to the linear system. If the nonlinearities dominate, your entire model collapses.”
“Not always,” Gojo shot back, shifting in his seat with that insufferable smirk. “It depends on how well you construct the higher-order terms—”
You threw your hands up. “At that point, you might as well scrap Fourier analysis entirely and just use a different decomposition method!” A few students had stopped taking notes. Some were watching out of curiosity; others, out of sheer amusement.
Gojo, completely unbothered, shrugged. “But that wasn’t the question, was it? The point is that Fourier methods can still be useful, even if the system isn’t perfectly linear—”
You gritted your teeth. “Useful doesn’t mean accurate, dumbass.” Gojo gasped dramatically. “Did you just call me a dumbass? Right here? In front of our professor?”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if you stopped saying objectively incorrect things—”
“Oh, please,” he drawled, leaning back in his seat. “You’re just mad because I’m right.”
Your jaw clenched. “You’re not right.”
“I am right.”
“No, you’re—”
A loud cough. You both froze. Slowly, you turned toward the front of the room, where the professor was staring at you both, unamused.
"Would you two care to bring your literary debate outside of my physics class?" You swallowed. Gojo scratched the back of his neck, looking entirely unbothered.
"...No, sir."
"Good," the professor said flatly. "Then kindly stop interrupting the lesson." You resisted the urge to sink into your chair. Gojo, of course, had the audacity to look amused. As the lecture resumed, you shot him a glare.
"This is your fault."
He winked. You swore you were going to strangle him one day. As soon as class ended, you were out of your seat, shoving your laptop into your bag with slightly more force than necessary. Behind you, Gojo was taking his sweet time, stretching like he hadn’t just spent the past two hours actively making your life worse. “Man,” he sighed dramatically. “That was a great discussion, don’t you think? Nothing like a little intellectual sparring to keep the brain sharp—”
You spun around so fast he almost bumped into you. “Discussion?” you repeated incredulously. “That wasn’t a discussion, that was you talking out of your ass like usual.”
Gojo placed a hand over his heart, feigning offense. “Wow. You wound me. You know, I feel like I say that phrase a lot. Would you prefer it if I said thee painfully wrench mine own heart with such careless words–”
You rolled your eyes and stormed out of the lecture hall, weaving through the crowd of students. Of course he followed, long strides easily keeping pace with yours. “I’m just saying,” he continued, completely ignoring your clear irritation, “it’s kind of funny how you always shoot me down but never actually prove me wrong—”
Your jaw clenched. “I do prove you wrong. Every time.”
He smirked. “Do you, though?”
“Yes!” You turned on your heel, walking backward so you could glare at him properly. “Just because you talk like you know everything doesn’t mean you actually do—”
Gojo’s smirk widened. “So you do think I sound smart.” Your eye twitched.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Sounds like that’s what you said.”
“Go kill yourself.”
“Only if you join me, sweets.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Why, you don’t like being called sweets?–”
You groaned, turning back around and quickening your pace. You weren’t going to stand here and let him twist your words into whatever self-indulgent nonsense was brewing in his head. Gojo, naturally, kept up with ease. “You know, it’s weird how you always get so mad at me. Maybe you should work on that anger problem of yours.”
“Oh, I have an anger problem?” You spun around again, narrowing your eyes. “You’re literally the most aggravating person I’ve ever met.”
“Really?” He tilted his head in mock thought. “I dunno, you seem to get pretty riled up over nothing—”
“You are nothing.”
Gojo laughed, the sound bright and infuriatingly genuine. “Damn, that was actually kinda good. You been practicing comebacks in the mirror?”
“Leave me alone, for the love of god, before I strangle you, bastard–”
“Oooh, kinky–.”
Before you could actually commit violence, someone stepped between you. “Alright, enough,” a smooth, tired voice interrupted. You looked up to see Suguru Geto, Gojo’s ever-patient best friend, standing between you with the exasperation of a man who had dealt with this before.
“Satoru,” he said, dragging a hand down his face, “leave her alone.”
Gojo pouted. “But we were bonding.”
“We were not bonding,” you snapped. Suguru gave you a knowing look. “And you,” he sighed, “stop encouraging him.”
You scoffed. “Encouraging him? I—”
A hand suddenly clamped down on your shoulder. You glanced up to see your own friend standing beside you, looking just as exasperated as Suguru. “Come on,” she muttered, tugging you away. “We’re going to lunch before you actually try to kill him.” You didn’t resist, only because the temptation was strong. But as you turned to leave, you caught a glimpse of Gojo flashing that stupid, insufferable grin at you.
You stuck your tongue out at him. Gojo only winked again in response. Why did he keep winking at you? It made you wanna puke. You definitely needed lunch. Maybe something very, very spicy.
–
You're sitting in your dorm again, cross-legged on your bed, laptop open in front of you, but your mind is elsewhere. The textbooks and notes are pushed to the side of your desk, proof that at some point you had every intention of being productive tonight. A third empty cup of tea is perched precariously on your nightstand, and the finished second and third books of the series stacked besides your laptop.
It had been a slow burn, working your way through them between lectures and study sessions, but now, the empty feeling of finishing a book you enjoyed is settling in. Worse yet, it's late at night, which means you can't borrow the fourth book until tomorrow. The thought alone makes you sigh as you shut your laptop and flop back against the pillows.
You flipped open the third book, fingers brushing over the slightly worn borrowing card tucked inside. The neat, slanted initials ‘G.S.’ were there again, written in blue ink. And just like before, the pages had been marked with the same sharp, and sometimes frustratingly perceptive annotations that had made you laugh, scoff, and even—on some particularly well-argued points—begrudgingly nod along. Your mind drifts, replaying some of your favorite annotations from the books.
There was the one where G.S. had written, "Oh, he's totally gonna betray them," followed by a later note that read, "I CALLED IT. WHERE’S MY PRIZE?" That one had made you laugh out loud in the middle of the library, earning a few disapproving stares. Another one of your other favorites from the third book had been an annotation scrawled in the margins of a pivotal scene:
“The irony of this moment is almost painful. She sees herself as the heroine, but the real tragedy is that she’s just another character in someone else’s story.”
You had reread that line about five times before closing the book and staring at the ceiling, feeling somewhat existential. Another annotation had been pure sarcasm:
“Yes, because when faced with adversity, the best solution is always to run directly into danger. Genius.” That one had also made you laugh out loud in one of the study halls located in some part of your university, earning a weird look from the girl across the hall. But the annotation that had really stuck with you—really made you pause—was in the third book, written in response to a section that delved into the intricacies of time and choice:
“If you think about it, this entire dilemma can be broken down into a fundamental question of physics. If time is just another dimension, then isn’t every choice we make just another coordinate on an already-existing map? So is it really ‘free will’ if we’re just tracing a path that’s already there?”
That one had thrown you for a loop. It was the kind of thought that lingered, weaving its way into quiet moments when you least expected it. And, you hated to admit, it made you think—whoever this person was, they were kind of brilliant.You sighed, snapping the book shut. You needed to get the fourth one. Now. But a quick glance at your phone reminded you that it was almost midnight, and the library had closed hours ago. You groaned, letting your head submerge deeper into the pillows. You grabbed your phone, scrolling mindlessly, until your eyes flicked to the messages her friend had sent earlier—recommendations for movies she’d been meaning to watch. You scrolled absentmindedly, not really expecting to find anything interesting, until your thumb hovered over one title:
Whisper of the Heart.
Something about the name tugged at your memory. Wasn’t this the one with the girl who loved books and a mysterious boy who shared them? On a whim, you pressed play. The soft hum of the opening scene filled the quiet of her dorm, and soon, you were drawn in. The gentle storytelling, the warmth of the animation, the way the main character, Shizuku, slowly became obsessed with the name written in all the books she borrowed—
Oh. Oh, shit.
Your face grew hot as you sat up straighter, eyes darting to the books stacked beside you. You weren't doing that. Right?
…Were you? Because if you really thought about it—if you really thought about it—weren’t you kind of doing the same thing? You buried your face in your hands. This is so embarrassing. And yet, as you peeked between her fingers at the screen, you couldn’t help but draw the comparison between Seiji Amasawa and your mysterious, faceless G.S. Seiji had been intriguing, a presence felt long before he actually appeared. Just a name scribbled in books, a person she hadn’t met yet but somehow felt connected to. And wasn’t that exactly what G.S. was?
You groaned, flopping back onto your bed, kicking your feet against the mattress. “I need to stop,” you mumbled into your pillow, but your shoulders shook with barely contained laughter. It was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. You didn’t even know this person. For all you knew, G.S. could be some forty-year-old professor or a girl who just happened to find the same series as you on the niche book guide you were on. And yet, there was this tiny, ridiculous, completely unserious part of you that wanted to believe—
What if it was some guy? A guy with sharp wit, someone who thought deeply about things most people glossed over, someone who liked this series enough to leave behind thoughts for others to find. A guy who— No. Nope. Nope. You were not about to mentally script herself into some shoujo romance anime over marginalia.
But the damage was done. Because now, your brain had latched onto the idea, spinning daydreams faster than you could stop them. Some dramatic, cinematic first meeting. Some passing moment where you’d reach for a book, and a hand—slender fingers, ink-stained maybe—would brush against yours, and you’d look up and—
You shot up again, shaking your head violently. God, this is pathetic. But even as you scolded herself, you couldn’t wipe the stupid little smile off your face. You were allowed to have a little fun, right? Just a tiny bit of harmless romanticising? You collapsed back into the pillows, eyes drifting back to the ceiling as the movie played on. And as Shizuku’s voice echoed through the room, musing about stories, destiny, and the people we stumble upon by chance, you thought—just for a second—Maybe, maybe, you kind of liked this. The idea of it all. The way life sometimes felt like a story waiting to unfold. Maybe it’s silly, maybe it’s unrealistic—but right now, in the quiet of your dorm, with the soft glow of your laptop screen and the remnants of Whisper of the Heart playing in the background, you don’t really care.
–
Satoru Gojo had always been considered a prodigy. A genius. Someone born with an innate brilliance that set him apart from others. It had been that way since he was a child—where other kids had to struggle and study, he breezed through school without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t just academics, either. He was quick-witted, sharp, and effortlessly charming in a way that made people gravitate toward him. But when you grow up with everyone expecting greatness from you, it becomes suffocating.
So he learned to play the fool.
It started as a mask—being overly cheery, always teasing, never taking things too seriously. It was easier that way. No one could see the weight of expectations if he always had a grin on his face. And at some point, the mask became second nature. Satoru Gojo, the carefree, insufferable genius. The only person he could ever drop it around was Suguru. His best friend, the one person who could keep up with him, who understood what it meant to carry something too heavy to put into words. Then, freshman year of university, he saw you.
He had noticed you before—how could he not? You were diligent, meticulous in a way that fascinated him. You always sat at the front of the class, always had color-coded notes, always took everything so seriously. And maybe that was what caught his attention first. You were everything he wasn’t. Where he coasted through life, you worked hard for it. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t quite know how to communicate with someone. So he did what he always did. He teased.
“The perpendicular components of a vector are independent of each other,” you’d answered smoothly, sitting up a little straighter as you prepared to elaborate. “That’s why we can analyse them separately using—”
“Ohhh, wow,” he cut in, voice dripping with mock wonder. “Look at that. We got a genius in the house.” He had meant it playfully. A joke. But the way your expression hardened, the way your eyes flickered with irritation, made something click in his brain. You didn’t like him. And yet, he couldn’t stop teasing you. Even when he knew it annoyed you, even when he knew you hated him. Maybe it was because you challenged him. Maybe it was because, for once, someone didn’t look at him like he was untouchable. Or maybe it was because he liked you.
Not just because you were pretty—though you were, infuriatingly so—but because you were determined. Because you cared about things deeply. Because you fascinated him in a way nothing else did. He found himself watching you more often than he cared to admit. The way you bit your lip when you were concentrating, the way your eyes lit up when you finally understood something, the way you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear when you were nervous when results came out. It was all so... endearing.
And maybe that’s why he finds himself watching you sometimes—when you’re scribbling furiously in your notebook, when you’re biting the end of your pen in deep thought, when you’re rolling your eyes at something he says but still, still responding. He watches, because for the first time, someone makes him want to understand more than just equations and theories. And if the only way to keep your attention was by being your rival, then so be it.
–
The next morning, you had a practical class, a hands-on session designed to reinforce the theory you’d been learning. Since it was held in a laboratory, students were sorted into small groups to share lab tables. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—you weren’t grouped with Satoru, but by some cruel twist of fate, his group was at the same table as yours. The setup was simple: four students per group, two groups per table.
A long, clean expanse of black lab benches stretched across the room, each one covered with neatly arranged equipment: a set of metal ramps, photogates, a timer, and a set of small carts. Today’s experiment was a classic: measuring acceleration using a motion sensor. Each group was supposed to release a cart down a ramp and use the photogates to measure velocity changes over time. Simple, right? Satoru, of course, had already started causing trouble before the experiment even began.
“You know, it’s kinda unfair that I wasn’t put in your group,” he mused, leaning against the lab bench with a smirk. “Would’ve been fun watching you pretend to know more than me.” You didn’t even look up as you adjusted the height of the ramp, focusing on making sure it was aligned properly. “Oh please, Gojo, you would’ve just copied all my calculations and then taken credit for my hard work.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said, feigning offense. “I’d let you take, like, fifty percent of the credit.” Your lab partner snorted beside you, shaking their head as they double-checked the photogate placement. Satoru, undeterred, watched as you bent over to place the cart at the starting position. His group was still setting up, which meant he had time to bother you before he actually had to do any work.
“I bet my group’s results will be more accurate than yours,” he declared. You rolled your eyes, finally sparing him a glance. “You do know accuracy depends on precision and minimising errors, right? Which means—” you motioned to his group, where one of them was currently struggling with the timer, “—your chances of that happening are slim to none.”
Before he could retort, your professor called for everyone’s attention, signalling the start of the experiment. Both of you fell into your respective tasks, measuring, calculating, and recording values with practiced ease. You got so caught up in fine-tuning your results that Satoru didn’t get the chance to throw more taunts your way. That was until, while waiting for your next trial to begin, you turned to your friend beside you, excitement bubbling over.
“Oh my god, I finally watched Whisper of the Heart last night,” you gushed, voice dropping into that high-pitched, dreamy tone reserved for things you were completely obsessed with. Your friend gasped, clutching your arm. “Stop. You did not.”
“I did.”
“DID YOU CRY?”
“OBVIOUSLY.”
Satoru, who had been focused on adjusting his group’s ramp, stilled slightly. He knew that movie. More than that, he could predict exactly why you were talking about it. Casually, he glanced over, pretending to check his photogate readings while shamelessly eavesdropping. Your friend squeezed your arm excitedly. “I told you it was perfect. The vibes, the music, the slow-burn romance. Tell me you loved Seiji.”
“Oh, I loved Seiji,” you sighed, eyes sparkling. “Like, the way he was so ambitious but still so soft? And the way he believed in her? And the fact that he left little signs for her without even realizing how much they’d mean?” You could feel yourself getting lost in the emotions of it, and your friend was right there with you, nodding along enthusiastically. “It was so romantic,” she said dreamily. “The idea of someone quietly believing in you and pushing you forward. It’s just—”
“SO good,” you finished for her, and the two of you squealed quietly before catching yourselves and trying to focus again. Then, almost absentmindedly, you added, “Honestly, I feel like I’m in Whisper of the Heart right now.” Your friend perked up. “How so?”
You nudged her lightly. “Because of G.S.”
Satoru, who had been handling the cart for his next trial, fumbled slightly. Your friend’s eyes widened knowingly. “No way. You mean your G.S.?”
You groaned. “Don’t call him that. But yeah. The whole leaving-annotations-in-the-books thing? And how I keep borrowing them? It’s totally giving Seiji and Shizuku. Like yeah I kinda sound corny right now–”
“Not really honestly, I get it–”
“Exactly! See? I knew I wasn’t crazy. Imagine G.S is like Seiji– scratch that, imagine he’s better, like some sweet, studious, hot book nerd–”
Satoru swallowed, suddenly feeling warm despite the sterile chill of the lab. You thought he was like Seiji? More than that, you thought G.S could perhaps even be better than Seiji? That was—that was something.
“And next week,” you continued, stretching your arms over your head, “after I finish studying, I’m going to borrow the next book.”
Satoru barely heard the rest of the conversation after that. His brain had latched onto one horrifying realisation—
The last four books weren’t annotated. Oh, shit. He hadn’t really expected you to grow this attached to his stupid thoughts scribbled on the edges of the frayed pages, hadn’t expected you to burn through the series so fast. He completely forgot that he didn’t bother annotating the last few books because he had gotten so busy with work. But you had just sat there, eyes sparkling, gushing about his notes like they were some grand romantic mystery. You liked them. You liked his words. Not just the books themselves but the tiny, scribbled thoughts he had left behind. Satoru’s stomach did a weird little flip. It seemed to be doing that a lot every time his nosy ass overheard you talking about his writing.
You really liked his writing. The writing you’d been gushing for about two weeks now. You really found it special. You liked it so much that the thought of continuing the series without it made his chest ache. Because what if you borrowed the next one and found nothing? What if you flipped through the pages, searching for his voice, only to be disappointed? No. No way. That wasn’t happening. Initially he had done it as a way to, y’know, simply yap, maybe desecrate the pages of a book from a library with his oh so superior commentary. But now? He was going to do this for you. Because the way you had talked about Whisper of the Heart—the way your face had gone soft and dreamy, the way your voice had gotten all excited—he wanted that. He wanted to hear you talk about how much you enjoyed the little quips that made their way into his head every time he read something. He wanted to be the reason you spoke like that again. Maybe it was pathetic, but he wanted– really wanted to once again be the reason why your cheeks slightly went pink when your friend called him yours. Even if they were his initials, they were his, and it insinuated he belonged to you, right?
The second class ended, Satoru bolted. There was no time to waste. He had four books to annotate, and he didn’t care if it took him all night. If you wanted G.S., then G.S. was going to be there.
–
Satoru burst into his dorm, heart pounding as he dumped his bag onto the floor. His fingers fumbled with the zipper as he yanked it open, pulling out the four books you were inevitably going to borrow next. He stacked them on his desk, staring at them like they were some kind of urgent mission—because they were. You liked his notes. You liked his notes. That thought alone sent a weird, warm feeling blooming in his chest. He flopped into his chair, running a hand through his hair as he exhaled sharply. This wasn’t just about keeping up the act anymore. It wasn’t about maintaining the mystery of G.S. or feeding into some casual curiosity you had. No, this was about you. About the way your eyes lit up when you talked about the books. The way you had called him—unknowingly, of course—your own Seiji. The way you were so excited to continue the series, fully expecting to find more of his little thoughts nestled between the pages. He wasn’t going to let you down.
Satoru grabbed the first book off the stack and flipped it open, his pen poised over the margins. He scribbled his initials in the borrowing card in the same blue ink that he always used– he always thought the blueness of the ink was much better than any other pen colour out there. Before he started reading, he did this in all the library cards, and made sure that the date corresponded to the previous dates– so you wouldn’t think it was suspicious that the last remaining books were all borrowed on the same day. He then started reading—not just skimming, but really reading, more carefully than he ever had before. Thankfully he did remember the plot of the first three books, so catching up with what was going on wasn’t too hard. Every sentence was weighed, every line considered. What would make you pause? What would make you smile?
When he hit a particularly poetic passage, he underlined it and wrote in the margin: Bet whoever is reading this– I just know this made your heart do that stupid fluttery thing.
He smirked to himself. If only you knew.
A few pages later, he found a scene with the protagonist staring out a train window, deep in thought. The description was vivid, full of melancholic longing. He tapped the pen against his lips before jotting down: Ever feel like this? Just existing, watching life happen? He could already imagine you reading it, tilting your head slightly, considering his words. Would you reply in your head? Would you wonder what kind of person wrote something like that? The thought of it sent a thrill through him, and he leaned in closer, more invested than ever. Hours passed, but he barely noticed. The desk lamp cast a warm glow over the pages as he worked, annotating with a mix of teasing, sincerity, and the occasional cryptic remark just to mess with you. In the fifth book of the series, there was a passage about finding comfort in routine—about how little, familiar things could feel like home. He thought back to all the times during your early morning classes, how you’d bring a steaming thermos filled with a tea of some kind, something to sip on while you reviewed the lecture slides before the professor started the lecture. The half cold tea in that same thermos, he’d seen you nursing it outside the exam hall before a midterm while your eyes furiously scanned your meticulous, colour coded notes. Satoru probably guessed that it was a habit of yours– to have a warm comforting drink while you read– lecture notes, physics textbooks, or fiction.
He hesitated for a second before writing: Hope anyone who ever reads this is reading this with a warm drink. Tea, in my opinion, is the best kind of beverage to drink while reading a book series like this.
Would you pause when you read that? Would you glance around, suddenly hyper-aware that maybe G.S knew you? That someone had been paying attention? Or maybe you’d think he’s just like you? The thought sent a rush of satisfaction through him. By the time he reached the second last book, his hand was cramping, but he didn’t care. He stretched briefly before diving back in. This one had more banter between the characters, something he knew you loved. He played into it, adding sarcastic commentary in the margins. When the heroine had a particularly dramatic internal monologue, he scribbled: Relax, you’re not in a soap opera.
And a few pages later: Actually, never mind, maybe you are.
He could already hear your reaction. The annoyed little huff, the way you’d roll your eyes but secretly love it. You always did have a tendency to refute things first, only to realise you enjoyed them later. He’d sometimes see it in the way when you’d roll your eyes or let out a disapproving noise at Satoru plainly criticising one of the professors under his breath during a lecture– but Satoru’s eyes were sharp, he never missed the smallest twitch of your lips as soon as you’d finished your melodramatics. The last book was the longest, and by then, the city outside his window had gone quiet. His dorm was dim except for the glow of his lamp, and his body was buzzing with a mix of exhaustion and excitement. He was too far in now, too absorbed in the thought of you reading all of this soon. This book had a recurring theme about missed chances—about words left unsaid and moments that could have changed everything if only someone had spoken up. It hit a little too close to home, but he didn’t let himself dwell on that. Instead, he carefully underlined a sentence: Sometimes, we don’t realise what we mean to someone until it’s too late.
Beneath it, he wrote: I hope this never applies to y̶o̶u̶ whoever is reading this.
And then– and then he wrote another little thing, but it felt a bit too intimate, a bit too revealing so he neatly crossed it out. His pen hovered over the page for a moment. That was the most honest thing he had written all night. Satoru exhaled, rubbing his eyes before sitting back, staring at the stack of books now filled with his thoughts. He had done it. You wouldn’t get a single blank page. You’d find him in every single one.
–
Satoru strolled across campus with a tote bag slung over his shoulder, weighed down by four thick novels. The books—now thoroughly marked up, pages lined with his messy scrawl—felt heavier than they should have, but maybe that was just him. He’d spent the entire night annotating them, barely stopping to eat, sleep, or think about anything that wasn’t you reading his words. Now, all he had to do was return them before you got to the library. He wasn’t about to let you see him checking them in like some lovesick idiot. He carefully managed to place them back on the shelf after scanning them as ‘unborrowed’. He was a few steps from the library doors when someone rounded the corner, and before he could react—
Bam. The collision wasn’t hard, just enough to jostle him off balance, and he barely had time to reach out and steady you before you could stumble back. “Damn, could at least pretend to watch where you’re going,” he drawled, glancing down at you with a smirk. “Or do you just like running into me?”
You scoffed, adjusting your bag over your shoulder. “Yeah, I totally planned that. Just desperate to bump into you of all people.”
“Oh, come on,” he teased, stepping aside so you could walk past him. “If you wanted an excuse to see me, you could’ve just said so.” You rolled your eyes, clearly unimpressed. “Please. I’m actually on my way to the library, unlike some people who just loiter around.”
His grip on his tote bag tightened for half a second, but he kept his expression easy, unreadable. “Library, huh?”
“Yeah,” you said, brushing a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “I finished this book from a series I’m actually enjoying, so I figured I’d borrow the next one today.” You didn’t even know why you told him that, but you figured it was an improvement from the usual bickering you two always had going on. He hummed, nodding slowly. “Oh, okay. Well…” He took a step back, flashing a lazy grin. “Have fun with that.” You narrowed your eyes at him. “Why do you sound weird?”
“I always sound weird.”
“Yeah, but more than usual.”
Satoru shrugged. “Dunno what you’re talking about.” You stared at him suspiciously for another second before shaking your head. “Whatever.” And with that, you pushed past him, making your way toward the library doors. Satoru watched you go, fighting the smug grin threatening to take over his face. He could already picture it—the way you’d flip through the pages, expecting plain text, only to find the familiar, scrawled handwriting in the margins. He wondered if you’d smile. If you’d talk about it again the way you had in class. He shook his head to himself, finally turning away. Yeah. He was so in trouble.
–
You settled into your usual spot at the campus café, tucking yourself into the corner by the window with the newly borrowed books. Yes, books. Not a book. You figured that if there were just four more books left in the series, you’d just borrow them now, instead of continuing the annoying walk from your dorm or lecture rooms to the library. The familiar scent of aged paper and coffee beans wrapped around you, grounding you in your routine.
With your drink beside you and your phone silenced, you flipped the fourth book open, eager to dive in. You didn’t even bother to check the borrowing card this time, neither had you written your own name in it yet, heart beating a little faster as you childishly hoped that the familiar cursive scrawls were still present in the weathered pages. You had barely made it past the first few pages when your eyes caught something in the margins next to one of the more romantic lines.
Bet whoever is reading this– I just know this made your heart do that stupid fluttery thing. You blinked. Your stomach did an odd little flip, completely unprovoked. Honestly speaking, your heart did that little flip more in regards to the familiar blue handwriting rather than the line on the page. You knew exactly whose handwriting that was.
G.S. had struck again. A slow smile pulled at your lips as you traced the ink with your fingertip. You had gotten so used to these notes, the little jokes, the occasional deep thoughts, that it almost felt like a conversation now. Like you weren’t reading alone, but with someone who understood exactly what you’d linger on, what you’d pause to appreciate. And yet… something about this one felt slightly different. You glanced at the ink again. It looked a little… darker? Not as faded as some of the earlier notes in the series.
You frowned slightly but shook the thought away. Maybe it was just your imagination. You kept reading. A few pages later, the protagonist stared out of a train window, lost in thought. The description was melancholic, vivid, and all too relatable.
Ever feel like this? Just existing, watching life happen? You exhaled sharply through your nose. Yeah, you thought. All the damn time. You tapped your fingers against the table, feeling that same strange connection as before. Whoever G.S. was, they had a way of making their presence known—not just through the words they chose to underline, but in the little thoughts they left behind, the questions they posed, the moments they chose to comment on. It was like they could hear your thoughts before you even formed them, like they knew exactly where your mind would linger on the page.
The sun dipped lower outside the arched windows of the campus café, casting long shadows across the floor as golden light pooled over the tables. The afternoon crowd had begun to thin, students trickling out one by one, their conversations fading into the hum of the espresso machine and the occasional clatter of cups behind the counter. The once-busy space was quieter now, more intimate, like the world had momentarily shrunk down to just you and the book in your hands. You traced the ink of the latest annotation with your thumb, barely skimming the words but feeling them all the same. It was a strange thing—to be so affected by someone you had never even met. Had you met them? The question pressed at the edges of your mind, unspoken yet persistent. The specificity of some of these notes, the way they seemed to know you—it made your stomach flip in a way you weren’t quite sure how to name.
You glanced at the café entrance, as if expecting to see someone standing there, watching you, waiting to see your reaction. But no one lingered. Just the usual stragglers—people buried in their own work, in their own stories. Still, the feeling remained. With a quiet exhale, you pulled your focus back to the page and turned it, sinking further into the book. The story continued, but now, each annotation felt like something more. Like a conversation waiting to happen. And by the time you could hear the cicadas chirping outside, you had successfully finished the fourth book.
–
Your luck today had been astoundingly awful. The first sign was your hair—a complete disaster from the moment you woke up. Brushing it down did nothing. Water made it worse. Mousse? A grave mistake. You finally resorted to tying it up, accepting defeat. Then came the sharp pain on your forehead, a telltale sign of a forming pimple, because of course your skin had decided to betray you too. But the true betrayal came from your kettle, which, after years of faithful service, had chosen this morning to stop working. No tea. No caffeine. No hope. And now? Now, as if the universe hadn’t already tested you enough, you were seated next to Gojo Satoru, his chair pushed obnoxiously close, his long legs stretching out under the desk like he owned the place. His expression was insufferably smug, like he had personally orchestrated all of this just to get under your skin.
Have you ever mentioned that you shared more than one class with Gojo? Sure, you were both in the same physics course, but once again, your luck with picking extra subjects was nothing short of terrible. That’s how you ended up in psychology—a field that couldn’t be further from the world of physics you were so deeply immersed in. You had figured it would be a nice change, to explore a different kind of science.
Unfortunately, a certain white haired freak seemed to share the same thought process.
You exhaled sharply, crossing your arms. “We’re not choosing your dumb topic.” Gojo gasped dramatically, placing a hand over his chest. “Excuse you, my brilliant topic.”
“You want to write about the psychology of humor.”
“Exactly! It’s fascinating.” He grinned. “What makes something funny? Why do people laugh? Why am I so naturally hilarious?” You pinched the bridge of your nose. “We’re in a psychology class, Gojo, not a stand-up workshop.”
“And yet, humor is deeply psychological.” He leaned forward, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Maybe if you had a better sense of humor, you’d agree with me.” You scowled. “I have a perfectly fine sense of humor.”
“Sure you do,” he teased, “in the same way a brick has mobility.” Your jaw clenched. “I’m not doing a research paper on why people laugh.”
“And I’m not doing one on cognitive dissonance,” he shot back, drumming his fingers against the desk. “It’s been done to death.”
“It’s interesting,” you argued. “It actually ties into real-world behavior.”
“So does humor.” You stared him down. He stared right back, his lips curving just slightly, like he was having the time of his life getting you riled up.
A muscle in your jaw twitched. “Rock, paper, scissors?”
Gojo snorted. “What are we, five?” You held out a fist. He sighed, then did the same.
Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. Your scissors to his rock. Your eye twitched. His grin was downright gleeful. “Looks like we’re writing about humor.”
“You are insufferable.”
“I’m a visionary,” he corrected, stretching his arms behind his head. “You’ll thank me when we get a great grade.” You grumbled something under your breath, flipping open your notebook to at least try and plan the assignment. You weren’t about to let him ruin your GPA over jokes. But Gojo wasn’t looking at the notebook. He wasn’t even thinking about the project anymore. His gaze lingered on the way a few wisps of hair had escaped your ponytail, framing your face. He wasn’t used to seeing your hair tied back—it made your features more striking, somehow. It made him notice the little things, like the way your brow creased when you were annoyed, or the way your lips pursed slightly when you were trying really hard not to snap at him. And it was funny. All morning, you’d been looking at him like he was a headache, while he… well. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t kind of enjoying himself. He propped his chin in his palm, watching you jot something down in your notebook.
“You know,” he mused, “for someone who’s so against my topic, you sure do make me laugh a lot.” You shot him a suspicious look. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Gojo smirked. “Just an observation.” You scoffed. “An annoyance is not the same thing as amusement.”
“Tell that to your cognitive dissonance.” You rolled your eyes, but before you could fire back, something distracted you. A shift in the air, a fleeting scent—something clean and warm, like cedar and the lingering spice of cologne. You blinked. You didn’t know why you noticed it now, of all times, but the way he smelled was… oddly pleasant. You shook it off, focusing on your notes again. Only, now you were very aware of other things, too—like the fact that his hand, resting casually on the desk, was a lot bigger than yours. His fingers were long, his knuckles prominent, and his nails were annoyingly well-groomed for someone who clearly put zero effort into most things. You clenched your jaw, forcing yourself to refocus. It’s just Gojo, you told yourself. He’s just being annoying. As usual. I’m probably ovulating or something. Gojo, meanwhile, had caught the way your eyes flickered over to him, how you quickly looked away after.
He tilted his head. “Something on your mind?”
“Yeah,” you muttered, deadpan. “How fast I can finish this project so I don’t have to deal with you.” Gojo chuckled, and despite yourself, you felt the sound of it—low and amused, like he found you far too entertaining. “Oh, sweets,” Gojo drawled, his voice lilting with amusement, “no way in hell am I gonna let you finish this project fast enough to escape me. C’mon, in our three beautiful years of rivalry, you’ve never once tried to get to know me—”
“Let’s just start the project,” you cut him off, already pulling out your stationery and notebook, flipping to a fresh page with more force than necessary. You barely resisted the urge to groan at the topic glaring back at you. Humour. Ugh.
Gojo, of course, noticed immediately. He didn’t even have to try—he just always noticed things. The way your lips pressed into a thin line, how your fingers fidgeted with the cap of your pen, how your shoulders tensed slightly, like you were already resigning yourself to suffering through an assignment you hated. His smirk faded—just a little. And then, before he could think about it too hard, he sighed.
“You know what?” he said, nudging his notebook aside. “Screw it. Let’s do your topic.”
You blinked, pen hovering mid-air. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said, waving a hand. “Cognitive dissonance, weird little psychology experiments, all that jazz. It’s fine.”
Your eyes narrowed. “This feels like a trick.”
“Wow, you think that low of me?,” he said, clutching his chest in mock betrayal. “I am capable of compromise, you know.”
You gave him a flat look. “Since when?”
Gojo rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. Instead, he leaned forward, elbows propped on the desk, watching you with a lazy kind of curiosity.
“Seriously, though. If you hate my topic that much, let’s just do yours. No big deal.”
You stared at him, suspicious. Gojo Satoru? Giving up? It felt wrong.
“Wait,” you said suddenly, narrowing your eyes further. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch,” he insisted, but the way he said it, all breezy and casual, made you even more suspicious.
“… You want me to owe you a favor, don’t you?”
He gasped, scandalised. “Sweets, I would never manipulate you like that.”
You scoffed. “You absolutely would.”
“Okay, yeah, I would,” he admitted easily, grinning. “But this isn’t that.”
You hesitated, drumming your fingers against the notebook. Then, you exhaled, shaking your head. “No. We’ll do humor.”
Now he was the one taken aback. “Huh?”
“I don’t want to hear you complain about how boring cognitive dissonance is for the next two weeks,” you said, scribbling down a rough outline. “And you’re actually interested in humor, so we’ll get it done faster.”
Gojo just stared at you, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
“Hold on. You’re giving in?”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“Oh, I’m definitely making it weird.” His grin was slow, teasing, like he had just won something. “This is, like, a historic moment. I should get it framed.”
“Gojo.”
“I mean, imagine if people knew—”
“Gojo.”
“—that you actually care about my interests? That you—gasp—want to make me happy?” You kicked him under the desk.
“Ow!” He laughed, rubbing his shin. “That was uncalled for.”
“You deserved it.”
“But really,” he said, still grinning, “this is kinda nice.”
You quirked a brow. “What is?”
He shrugged, tilting his head. “Usually, we’re arguing for ourselves. This is the first time we’ve argued over, like, what’s better for the other person.” Your lips parted slightly. You hadn’t thought about it like that. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Then, absurdly, a little laugh slipped out of you. Just a small one, but it was enough to make Gojo’s eyes flicker with amusement. And before you knew it, he was laughing, too. It wasn’t even that funny, but somehow, the realisation of how ridiculous this entire thing had been—bickering for fifteen minutes over who should get their way only to insist on the opposite—had you both quietly shaking with laughter in the middle of the library.
“Okay, okay,” you finally said, breathless. “Let’s get this outline done before we completely fail this class.”
“I’d never fail,” Gojo said, flipping open his notebook. “I’m naturally brilliant.”
“You would if I weren’t here keeping you on track.”
He grinned. “See? You like being my partner.” You rolled your eyes, but as you both started drafting the project together, something about this—about working with him, actually working—felt… nice. And even though he was still Gojo, still distracting, still annoying, still insufferably smug, for once, he didn’t feel like an opponent. He just felt like Satoru. Not Gojo, but Satoru. Of course, the moment things got too productive, he ruined it.
“Y’know,” he mused, leaning back in his chair, “I am gonna make sure our humor project includes at least one joke at your expense.”
You deadpanned. “Then I’m making sure our references include an article on the psychological effects of annoying classmates.”
Gojo gasped. “I would love to read that.”
You smacked his arm with your notebook. And, as usual, he just laughed. You two managed to get a lot of the work done– not just a solid outline of your project, but the finer details too. Gojo suddenly shoved his chair back, standing up so abruptly that you startled. “I need to do something,” he announced, brushing imaginary dust off his clothes. You frowned, confused. “What? Where are you going?”
“Just wait here,” he said, already turning on his heel. Your brows furrowed. “Wait—what? Gojo—”
“Just wait!” he called over his shoulder before disappearing down the hallway. You stared at the empty space where he had been, utterly bewildered. What the hell was that about? For a moment, you debated packing up your stuff and leaving just to be petty, but curiosity got the better of you. Huffing, you tapped your pen against your notebook, drumming your fingers impatiently. Three minutes passed. Then five. Then—
Gojo reappeared, striding back toward your table with an obnoxiously triumphant grin. In one hand, he held two drinks, in the other, a small paper bag. He set them down in front of you like he was presenting some kind of grand prize.
You stared. “... What is this?”
“Snacks,” he said, like it was obvious. “I see that,” you said, eyeing the drinks. One was clearly milk tea—yours, probably—but the other was some sugary monstrosity topped with whipped cream, which was obviously his. “But why?”
“Well, we’ve been working,” he said easily, plopping back into his seat. “Figured we deserved a break.” You blinked, then looked down at the tea again. It smelled… exactly how you usually ordered it.
Suspicion prickled at you. “Did you—did you get this on purpose?”
Gojo took a sip of his own drink, unbothered. “Yeah?”
Your eyes narrowed. “How do you even know what I drink?”
Gojo shrugged. “Dunno. Guess I just noticed that one time when I ended up paying for it.”
You paused. The thought of Gojo Satoru noticing anything about you—remembering how you liked your tea, going out of his way to get it without even asking—made your brain short-circuit for a second. You weren’t sure what to do with that information, so you just focused on unrolling the top of the pastry bag, peering inside. There were two croissants—one chocolate, one plain.
“… Okay, but the pastries?”
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got both.” You squinted at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He smirked. “Sure it does. If you like chocolate, I got it right. If you don’t, more for me.” You stared at him, then at the pastries, then back at him.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered, shaking your head.
“Unbelievably thoughtful?” he supplied.
“Unbelievably annoying.”
Gojo grinned. “That too.” Rolling your eyes, you took the chocolate croissant anyway, breaking off a piece. The tea was still warm when you took a sip, and you hated that it was perfect—hated that Gojo Satoru of all people had somehow memorized exactly how you liked it. He propped his elbow on the table, chin resting in his hand as he watched you. “Y’know, for someone who’s been roasting me for the last five minutes, you seem to be enjoying that a lot.”
You shot him a look. “Don’t push it.” He only laughed, reaching for his own pastry. “No promises.”
–
Over the next week, you and Gojo fell into an oddly stable rhythm. It wasn’t immediate—nothing with Gojo ever was—but slowly, the sharp edges of your interactions dulled. The bickering still happened, but it felt different, less like clashing swords and more like an inside joke neither of you wanted to drop. Your study sessions were always in the same corner of the library, where Gojo insisted on pushing the limits of how far back he could tilt his chair before it inevitably crashed to the floor.
(“Gojo, if you fall and crack your head open, I’m not calling an ambulance.”
“Nah, you totally would.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would, sweets. You like me too much to let me die like that.”)
You’d grumble and go back to your notes, but a traitorous part of you was starting to find his antics almost… endearing. Your actual progress on the project was steady. It surprised you—Gojo might’ve been infuriating, but when he actually focused, he was sharp. He had a way of cutting through useless information, pinpointing the most interesting angle on a subject, making connections you hadn’t considered. Begrudgingly, you kind of understood why he was always neck to neck with you in grades.
(“So, humor as a psychological coping mechanism?”
“Mhm.”
“And you want to include self-deprecating humor as a subsection?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, twirling a pen between his fingers. “It’s like, prime material.”
“You literally never make fun of yourself.”
“I make fun of myself all the time.”
You scoffed. “Oh, really?”
He smirked. “Yeah. I mean, look at me—six-foot-three, gorgeous, built like a god—my life is so hard, y’know?”
You stared at him. “That was not self-deprecating.”
“No?” He shrugged, leaning in slightly, his voice dropping just enough to make your stomach do something weird. “Maybe I just want you to compliment me.”
You threw a balled-up piece of paper at his head.)
There were… moments. Small, fleeting things you didn’t know what to do with. Like the time your pen rolled off the table and he picked it up, spinning it between his fingers before handing it back to you, and you noticed—really noticed—how big his hands were. Or how, sometimes, when he was reading something on your laptop, he’d lean in too close, and you’d catch the faint scent of his cologne—fresh, clean, but with something warm underneath. You ignored these things. Obviously.
But then came the gym. You were only there because you needed to de-stress. The project had been long, your classes demanding, and you just wanted to move your body and clear your head. You weren’t expecting to see him there. At first, you didn’t even realize it was Gojo. You were just filling your water bottle, minding your business, when your gaze flickered to the squat rack and landed on a very tall, very shirtless figure. And then your brain short-circuited. Because it was Gojo.
And Gojo was—
Built.
Like, really built. You had known he was tall. You had known he was in shape. But knowing and seeing were two different things. His usual oversized hoodies and button-ups had hidden the fact that his entire torso was carved like a damn statue. Broad shoulders, lean muscle, a defined chest, abs for days and—
Your gaze dropped lower.
—Happy trail. Something inside you malfunctioned. Because, okay, fine, sure—objectively speaking, Gojo Satoru was attractive. You had always known that. But this? This was different. This was some kind of cruel joke. This was the universe personally handing you a vision of a half-naked Gojo and saying, Hey, enjoy struggling with this one! You were staring. Oh, god, you were staring. You needed to leave. You were about to spin on your heel and get the hell out of there, but that was when he noticed you. His gaze locked onto yours in the mirror, and something slow and amused curled across his lips.
“Yo,” he called, turning around fully now, like he knew exactly what he was doing. You were so close to pretending you hadn’t heard him, but there were only so many places to run. You forced yourself to walk over, as if this was normal, as if your brain hadn’t just imploded from seeing Gojo Satoru shirtless. “You work out?” he asked, wiping sweat off his forehead with a towel, and you hated that even that was distracting.
“Yes, Gojo, I work out,” you said flatly, crossing your arms. He grinned. “Huh. Never would’ve guessed.” You narrowed your eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He just shrugged, all easy confidence and knowing smirks. “You don’t exactly look like the gym type, sweets.”
“Because I don’t look like I can deadlift a hundred kilos?” you shot back.
He tilted his head. “Can you?”
“… No.”
He laughed, tossing the towel over his shoulder. “Then I rest my case.” You scowled. “You’re annoying.”
“And you’re staring,” he quipped, and your breath caught in your throat. Your face heated. “I—I am not.” His smirk deepened. “Sure you aren’t.”
You clenched your jaw, trying to school your expression into something neutral. You refused to let him know he was right. But as you turned on your heel and all but stomped to another part of the gym, you could still feel his gaze on you. And the worst part? You didn’t hate it.
The next day, you almost considered canceling your study session. Not because you were avoiding Gojo. Obviously. You were just busy. Lots of work. Essays. Big academic responsibilities. But you weren’t a coward. (And okay, fine, maybe a tiny part of you was curious to see if things would be normal again. Not that things were weird, but—well. Whatever.) When you arrived at the library, Gojo was already there, feet kicked up on the chair across from him, lazily flipping through his notes.
“Look who decided to show up,” he said without looking up. You dropped your bag onto the table with a little more force than necessary. “Shut up.” He smirked. “Feisty today, huh?” You ignored him, pulling out your laptop. “Did you actually get any work done?”
He held up a single, crumpled page.
You groaned. “Gojo.”
“Hey, hey,” he said, leaning forward, “in my defense, I was busy yesterday.” You knew exactly what he was referencing. You refused to react. Instead, you snatched the page from his hands. “We’re never finishing this at this rate.”
Gojo leaned on his hand, watching you with a lazy smile. “Maybe I just like dragging this out so I can keep seeing you.”
Your fingers twitched around your pen.
He was messing with you. Obviously. That was what he did. But it was getting harder and harder to pretend you didn’t notice the way his gaze lingered sometimes. Or the way your stomach dipped when he said things like that. You cleared your throat, forcing yourself to focus. “We’re getting this done today, whether you like it or not.”
“Bossy,” he murmured, still watching you. You gave him a look. And then you got to work. And as much as you hated to admit it, your study sessions with Gojo had started to feel… comfortable. It was weird. In some ways, nothing had changed—you still bickered, still teased, still rolled your eyes at each other every five minutes. But there was something different underneath it now, something you couldn’t quite name. And you weren’t sure you wanted to. Not yet.
–
The lecture hall was packed, the dull hum of students settling in filling the air as you pulled out your notes. Today’s topic was something about fluid dynamics—not that you were paying too much attention. Mostly because you were tired. And, maybe, because there was a certain someone sitting behind you. You don’t know when or why it had started– maybe it was the fact that you’d, well, always been deprived of male attention (since you were hyper focused on academics instead. Those men won’t bring you scholarships, but your GPA will!), or the fact that you had seen him multiple times in the past weeks without feeling the urge to rip his head off, or maybe you actually were ovulating, you hadn’t checked your cycle on your period tracking app yet but it was likely—
You had been doing your best to ignore it, to ignore him, but Gojo had a way of making his presence known. Even when he wasn’t doing anything, you were now even more hyper aware of him—the occasional shift of his chair, the absentminded tapping of his pen against the desk, the quiet sighs of boredom that you knew were dramatic. And then, just as you were finally starting to concentrate, you felt it. A presence leaning in behind you, the faintest brush of breath against your ear.
“Sweets,” Gojo whispered, his voice low, teasing.
Your whole body went rigid. “What,” you hissed, barely moving your lips, keeping your eyes trained on the professor at the front of the room.
“There’s a fatal flaw in this lecture,” he murmured, his voice laced with amusement. You refused to turn around. “Gojo, I swear—”
“I mean, really,” he continued, like you hadn’t spoken, “how can they expect us to focus on physics when you’re sitting right in front of me?” Your grip on your pen tightened. Your face was definitely heating up. Slowly, finally, you turned your head just enough to glare at him. “Are you seriously flirting with me in the middle of a lecture on fluid dynamics?”
Gojo grinned, chin resting on his palm, looking utterly unrepentant. “I’m not flirting. I’m just… y’know… testing like behaviourism, or whatever.”
You inhaled sharply, willing yourself not to react. Noticing your silence, his smirk grew.
“Or,” he whispered, tilting his head, “is the idea of me flirting with you not so bad?” Your brain short-circuited for half a second. Then you turned back around, focusing very hard on your notes, pretending you hadn’t heard him, pretending your heart wasn’t doing something very annoying in your chest. Behind you, Gojo chuckled softly, and you could feel his smirk.
You hated him. You hated him. Nah, you didn’t. You just… now mildly disliked him.
–
By the time the physics final rolled around, your life had been reduced to a frantic cycle of cramming formulas, flipping through notes, and barely surviving on caffeine. The psychology project with Gojo had taken up way more time than you expected—not just because of the work itself, but because of him. His constant presence, his insufferable teasing, the way he somehow made long study sessions more bearable with his antics. It was irritatingly easy to fall into a rhythm with him, and by the time you’d turned in your joint paper, you were too mentally exhausted to even think about anything else. Which was probably why you forgot about book five. When you finally let yourself have a break, that you found it tucked away in your bag.
The sight of it sent a flicker of guilt through your chest—you’d been so eager to read it, and then you just… hadn’t. You curled up by the window, the campus café bustling quietly in the background, warm drink in hand as you flipped open the book. This one was slightly smaller than the other ones in terms of length– you’d be able to finish it in an hour or so. The familiarity of the prose was comforting, like stepping back into a world you knew well. And then, right beside a passage about finding comfort in the little things—the warmth of a cup of tea, the quiet joy of returning to a familiar book—was an annotation.
Hope anyone who ever reads this is reading this with a warm drink. Tea, in my opinion, is the best kind of beverage to drink while reading a book series like this.
Your breath caught in your throat.
Okay. That was… oddly specific.
A chill—not unpleasant, but strange—crept up your spine. It wasn’t just the words themselves, but the fact that G.S. knew this about you. It was as if they’d noticed your habit of your love of tea. But it was probably a coincidence. I mean, tea is enjoyed by millions of people in the world, right? You exhaled slowly, shaking the feeling off as you flipped a few more pages. The wittiness of the quips grew, and you eagerly read through each one with heightened interest. In about forty five minutes, you had managed to finish the fifth book with ease. Since you had some free time to spare, you started on the second last book.
The first note you came across was pure sarcasm, scrawled beside a particularly dramatic inner monologue from the protagonist.
Relax, you’re not in a soap opera.
And a few pages later: Actually, never mind, maybe you are.
You huffed a quiet laugh, rolling your eyes. The teasing was familiar, familiar enough to imbue a sense of relaxation in you. The annotations drew you in, the ink curling across the margins like whispered thoughts meant just for you. It was easy to imagine G.S. sitting beside you, their presence warm and familiar, flipping through the pages with quiet amusement. Someone who knew exactly which passages would make you pause, who understood the way certain lines lingered in your mind long after you’d read them.
Your fingers traced over the words they had left behind, and for a moment, you let yourself daydream. You imagined meeting them—G.S., whoever they were. The two of you sitting in some hidden corner of a library, books stacked high around you, the world outside fading away. Maybe their voice was soft, thoughtful, the kind that made you want to lean in a little closer. Maybe they smiled when you argued about a particular passage, when you pointed out something they’d written in the margins.
Maybe they would look at you like you were something worth understanding.
The thought sent a strange warmth curling through your chest. It was silly, this little fantasy, but you let yourself indulge in it anyway. And that was when your brain betrayed you.
For a brief, horrifying moment, the faceless idea of G.S. wasn’t faceless anymore. The image of Gojo flashed into your mind, unbidden and unwanted. But it wasn’t just him reading beside you, wasn’t just him scrawling out these notes with his long, annoyingly pretty fingers.
It was him kissing you.
Gojo’s lips brushing against yours, lazy and confident, like it was the most natural thing in the world. His hand sliding up your spine, the heat of him pressing against you, that teasing voice of his murmuring something you wouldn’t quite catch—
Your entire body froze.
No.
No, no, no.
You tried to shake it off, tried to focus on the book in front of you, but the words blurred together, unreadable. Your mind was stuck, caught on the vividness of the thought that had just invaded it.
Gojo.
Not just Gojo sitting across from you, running his mouth like he always did. Not just Gojo tossing a wadded-up paper at your head or poking at the end of your pen when you were trying to write. No—your brain had conjured up something else entirely. Gojo leaning in too close, his breath warm against your lips. The weight of his hand pressing into the small of your back, fingertips splayed across your lower back, your waist, your sides. The slow, unhurried way he would kiss you—because of course he’d be like that, because he was always so damn self-assured. Because he never did anything halfway.
And worse—worse—you could almost hear him. That stupid teasing voice, low and amused, murmuring something between kisses, something only meant for you. Your fingers twitched, and you slammed the book shut.
No. Nope. Not happening.
Your pulse was erratic, your skin burning like you’d been caught doing something you shouldn’t. You blinked rapidly, as if that alone could erase the thought from existence, but the sensation lingered, the imagined heat of him refusing to dissipate. It was just stress. That’s all it was. You were exhausted, overworked, and had spent way too much time in Gojo’s orbit lately. Of course your brain was short-circuiting. You exhaled sharply, forcing yourself to reopen the book. Back to reality. Back to G.S.
Back to anything that wasn’t Gojo Satoru and the absurd, fleeting idea of what kissing him might feel like.
–
Gojo’s deep voice cut through your thoughts, pulling you back into the present as he tapped the end of his pen against the open physics textbook in front of you both.
“And then—are you even listening to me?” You blinked, realizing you’d been zoning out. “Yeah—yeah,” you mumbled, scrambling for something relevant to say. “Professor Takeda can be an ass sometimes, even if he’s awesome at teaching.” Gojo grinned, apparently satisfied with your response, and continued yapping as he absentmindedly worked through some small equations on the paper in front of you both. His handwriting was quick and fluid, annoyingly neat for someone who acted like he never took anything seriously.
You didn’t quite know how it had happened, but after the two of you had finally submitted the psychology project, something between you shifted. It wasn’t spoken aloud, wasn’t even acknowledged outright, but it was there—an unspoken understanding. You still bickered, still argued over trivial things, but there was something else now too. A companionship. A quiet, reluctant camaraderie that neither of you had actively sought out but somehow settled into with surprising ease. And now, you were in the library with him, ironically revising for the upcoming physics final, less than a week away. You weren’t sure when he had become your unofficial study partner, but here he was, scribbling down formulas as he complained about Takeda’s obsession with fluid dynamics.
“You’re still struggling with Bernoulli’s principle?” you teased, shifting your chair slightly to get a better look at his notes.
“Struggling is a strong word,” he said, twirling his pen between his fingers. “I prefer ‘strategically choosing to ignore it until I absolutely have to care.’”
You scoffed, but before you could argue, your eyes landed on the book beside your bag—the sixth book in the series you’d been slowly working through, the second-to-last one before the finale. You had completely forgotten about it. You were pretty sure you had hit the maximum borrowing period, and at this rate, you were lucky the library hadn’t sent you an overdue notice.
“I need to go return this,” you muttered, grabbing the book and standing up.
Gojo glanced at it, tilting his head slightly. “That again?”
You blinked at him. “What?”
“That series,” he clarified, nodding towards the book in your hand. “You’ve been reading it forever. What’s the deal?” You hesitated for a moment, not really sure why you felt the sudden urge to explain, but then the words slipped out before you could stop them.
“I… I don’t know. It’s comforting, I guess,” you admitted. “It’s one of those series that just sticks with you, you know? And it’s not just the story—it’s the annotations.”
Gojo raised an eyebrow. “Annotations?”
You shifted your weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah. Someone else read these books before me, and they wrote all these little notes in the margins. Some of them are funny, some are insightful, some are just straight-up teasing—but they make the whole experience feel… shared, I guess.” For once, Gojo didn’t say anything. He just listened, head tilted, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite decipher.
You coughed, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Anyway, I should go return this.” You turned before he could say anything else and made your way to the library’s return section—only to find the drop-off shelves completely blocked off with construction tape. A small sign informed students that book returns had to be made manually at the front desk. With a sigh, you made your way to the librarian’s desk. She smiled at you as you set the book down.
“Returning this?” she asked, flipping open the cover to check the borrowing card.
“Yeah,” you said, nodding. She hummed, scanning the barcode. “You know, someone else borrowed this whole series a while back.”
No way.
No way, no way, no way.
Is this how you were going to finally find out who the faceless stranger you had grown attached to was? Your heart skipped a beat. You forced yourself to keep your voice casual.
“Oh? Can you recall who?”
She paused, tapping her chin as if trying to recall. “Give me a moment dear. He’s a male…about the same age as you, actually. Well I think he might be the same age as you. Hmm, he was tall, quite tall, had this head of brilliant white hair, and glasses. His eyes were startlingly blue too. I can’t remember his name but you two’d get along, he seemed very interested in these series too!” She chuckled, taking the book from you to store it under one of the accompanying shelves.
Your blood ran cold.
She continued, oblivious to your internal panic. “Had this little keychain on his bag too. It tinkled a lot when he came in to borrow the books.” Your mind flashed back to the small jingling sound of Gojo’s keychain— a digimon one. The one that always made a tiny noise whenever he slung his bag over his shoulder. Oh my god.
Your grip tightened on the desk. “Right. Thanks.”
Somehow, miraculously, you managed to return the book without your hands shaking. But the moment you turned away, the weight of the realization slammed into you like a tidal wave. Your breath hitched, your vision tunneled slightly, and for a second, you weren’t sure if your legs would carry you back to the table.
Gojo.
Gojo was G.S.
The knowledge settled in your bones with a dizzying clarity, making the library around you feel unreal, like you were wading through a dream you couldn’t wake up from. The notes, the teasing comments, the underlined passages—it had all been him. The same Gojo Satoru who drove you insane with his arrogance, who somehow wormed his way into your study sessions, who made physics revision bearable with his endless chatter. And he had never said a word about it. By the time you reached the table, your emotions were tangled beyond recognition—embarrassment, frustration, something dangerously close to hurt. You dropped into your seat, a little too forcefully, the noise drawing his attention.
Gojo barely glanced up from his notes. “You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
You swallowed, pulse thrumming against your ribs. Your fingers curled into fists against your lap. You felt like you were standing on the edge of something sharp, something that could cut you open if you weren’t careful.
“It’s you,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.
He finally met your gaze, his pen stilling against the page. For a second—just a second—there was nothing but blankness in his expression, as if he truly didn’t understand what you meant. But then, recognition flickered in those bright, unreadable eyes. And slowly, like he had been waiting for this exact moment, he grinned.
“Took you long enough.”
A sharp breath escaped you, like the wind had been knocked from your lungs. Something twisted in your chest. He knew. He had known. You exhaled shakily, trying to hold onto your composure, but your voice wavered when you spoke again. “You—” You swallowed hard. “You knew it was me reading those books, and you just—”
He didn’t deny it. Didn’t even try. You hated the way he was looking at you, like this was funny, like this was just some game he had been playing all along. Like he had been waiting for you to connect the dots, to put the pieces together while he sat back and watched. Something inside you cracked.
“You were just messing with me.” The words came out quiet, but there was something raw beneath them, something unsteady. “That’s what this was, right? Just another one of your games?”
For the first time, his smirk faltered.
“That’s not—”
But you didn’t let him finish.
You stood up too fast, your chair scraping loudly against the floor. A few heads turned, students shooting you mildly annoyed glances, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You felt like the library was closing in around you, like you needed to get out before you drowned under the weight of it all.
“Forget it,” you muttered, voice tight. You grabbed your bag, barely able to look at him. “I’ll see you in class.” And before he could stop you—before he could say something that might make you stay—you turned on your heel and walked out of the library. Your pulse roared in your ears, your face burned with humiliation, and your heart—God, your heart was a tangled, aching mess you weren’t ready to unravel yet.
–
You didn’t talk to Gojo for three days. Not once. Not in class, not in the library, not even in passing. If he was in a group conversation, you found an excuse to leave. If he tried to sit next to you, you conveniently needed to be somewhere else. And if you caught even a glimpse of him from across campus, you turned in the opposite direction before he could call your name. It wasn’t out of pettiness. At least, you didn’t think so.
You were hurt.
The weight of it had settled deep in your chest, a slow, heavy ache that didn’t fade no matter how much you tried to distract yourself. You felt stupid, looking back at all those late nights spent tracing the loops of G.S.’s handwriting, at the way you had let yourself get caught up in the fantasy of someone—someone you thought understood you. Someone who had felt just as deeply about those books as you had. And the whole time, it had been him.
Had he just been laughing at you? Watching you get wrapped up in his words, in him, while he sat back and waited for you to figure it out? Had it all just been some kind of joke? You didn’t know what answer would hurt more. Gojo, however, wasn’t making your avoidance easy.
He noticed, of course. The first day, he seemed ashamed. You saw it in the way he frowned when you brushed past him after class, in the way his gaze lingered when you sat on the opposite end of the library instead of your usual table.
The second day, he got annoyed.
“Are you serious right now?” he had muttered when you blatantly ignored him outside the lecture hall, your fingers tightening around your books as you sped up. By the third day, his frustration had given way to something else—something quieter, something bordering on concern.
He caught your wrist as you passed him in the hallway that morning, his grip loose enough for you to pull away if you wanted.
“Hey,” he murmured, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Are we—?” He hesitated. “Did I—?”
You looked at him then, really looked at him, and for the first time in years, you saw it—uncertainty.
Gojo Satoru was scared. But you weren’t ready to talk. Not yet. So you shook him off and kept walking.
He let you go. For the rest of the day, you tried to pretend like it didn’t feel like a mistake. That night, unable to sleep, you reached for the last book in the series—the one you had borrowed before you found out. You had been meaning to return it. The thought of flipping through those pages again felt wrong after everything that had happened. But something about the weight of it in your hands made you pause. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you curled up in bed and opened to the first page.
And read.
At first, it was mechanical. You skimmed. Skipped paragraphs. Let your eyes pass over the words without really taking them in. But then—somewhere along the way—you found yourself slowing down. The story was familiar, but it felt different now. The annotations were there, just like before. The same small, thoughtful notes in the margins. The same underlined passages, the same occasional sarcastic remark scribbled beside overly dramatic monologues.
And it still felt intimate.
Your chest ached. Gojo’s handwriting had always been a little messy, but now, you could hear his voice in it. The playful quips, the teasing corrections, the occasional rambling thoughts that trailed off mid-sentence. He hadn’t just read these books. He had shared them. With you. But it wasn’t until you reached the end of the book that you froze.
A note, scrawled beneath a passage about missed chances. About how sometimes, you don’t realise what someone means to you until it’s too late.
To whoever is reading this, I… really hope that this never applies to you.
And then, right underneath it, you spot a small sentence. Your eyes narrow as you lean in, catching the faint blue ink beneath the initials G.S., nearly lost beneath the hurried strike-through. It’s messy, almost like he had written it in a rush, then panicked and scratched it out before anyone could see. The ink is slightly smudged, the letters not quite as crisp as they should be. But you can still read it.
Your breath catches. The frustration twisting in your chest falters, cracking under the weight of what you’re seeing. This wasn’t just about G.S. This wasn’t just about some stupid rivalry, some elaborate, long-running inside joke only he was in on. He had liked you.
All along.
The truth of it presses against your ribs, turning your anger into something else—something hot and unbearable and aching. Because of course Gojo Satoru wouldn’t have just let you take that book without noticing. Of course he wouldn’t have just been some faceless mystery behind the initials. He had been right there, all this time. Watching. Waiting. Never saying a damn thing. You press your lips together, gripping the book tighter, torn between wanting to shove it in his stupidly smug face and the overwhelming realization that this—this whole thing—had never been a game to him.
Not really. Your fingers tighten around the edge of the page, heart pounding. You should be mad. You are mad.
But now? Now you don’t know what to do with the way your chest is clenching, your stomach twisting, the words replaying in your head over and over again. He really, really liked you. And he had been too much of an idiot to say it.
It wasn’t just a game. It never had been. Your fingers curled around the edge of the page, heart hammering against your ribs. And in that moment, without a second thought—
You didn’t hesitate.
You barely registered slipping on your shoes, grabbing your jacket, heading across campus toward the dormitories. Your pulse roared in your ears as you climbed the stairs, the weight of the book heavy in your bag. You remembered the way he’d joked about it once—how it was almost too easy to find his dorm because the boys’ rooms were stacked directly above the girls’.
("It’s like fate, babe," he’d drawled, slinging an arm over your shoulders. "You’re literally sleeping right below me."
"Don’t say it like that," you’d deadpanned, shoving him off.
He’d only grinned, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "What? It’s true. If you ever get lonely, just know I’m right there—" he pointed up dramatically "—in room sixty-nine."
You’d groaned at that. "Of course it’s sixty-nine."
"Oh, absolutely." His smirk had been positively insufferable. "The universe practically insisted on it.”)
And now, here you were. Standing in front of his stupid door, his stupid room number glaring at you, mocking you, reminding you of how easily he had wormed his way into your life. You knocked. There was a pause. Then—footsteps. The door cracked open, and Gojo blinked down at you, disheveled, his glasses slightly askew. He was in a hoodie and sweatpants, and for once, he looked genuinely caught off guard.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered sharply. “What if the dean catches you? It’s past curfew.”
You ignored him. “Explain.”
Gojo stared at you. Then, with a sigh, he opened the door wider and let you in. His dorm was surprisingly neat, save for a few open textbooks on his desk. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling before leaning against the edge of his bed.
“You want an explanation?” Gojo muttered, rubbing his temple as if trying to collect his thoughts. His voice was uncharacteristically hoarse, lacking its usual teasing lilt. He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair before meeting your gaze.
“Fine.”
And then—something shifted in his expression. That raw, unguarded look returned, cracking through the facade of the cocky, untouchable Gojo Satoru.
“I liked you this entire time.”
Your breath caught. His words were quiet, but they landed like a stone in your chest, sending ripples through every assumption you had made about the past few months. No—longer than that. Yes, you had gathered from that scribbled annotation that he had liked you, but hearing it was different from reading it. The weight of what he was saying pressed down on you, curling around your ribs, making it hard to breathe. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His gaze flickered away for a second, like he was considering taking it back, like he was still terrified of saying it out loud. But then, with a short breath, he pressed forward.
“I—” He licked his lips, shaking his head slightly. “When I overheard you talking about the books, about G.S., I thought… I don’t know. At first, it was funny.” He let out a weak laugh, but there was no humor in it. “You, of all people, getting caught up in my annotations.”
A pang of hurt flared in your chest at that, but Gojo’s face twisted almost immediately, like he regretted saying it that way.
“I don’t mean it like that,” he murmured. “I just mean—” He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “You always had this way of looking at me, like you had me all figured out. Like you already knew what kind of person I was. And I guess… part of me thought it was funny that I got to be something different in your head for once.”
Your fingers curled at your sides. You weren’t sure how to respond to that, but Gojo wasn’t done. His fingers flexed at his sides, like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. His eyes darted back to you, searching, waiting for you to interrupt, to tell him he was ridiculous. When you didn’t, he exhaled sharply through his nose, like he was bracing himself.
“But it wasn’t just the books,” he admitted, voice quieter now. “It wasn’t just some joke to me.” His lips pressed together for a moment before he continued. “Because the truth is, I—” He hesitated, then finally met your eyes again, his own brimming with something raw and unguarded. “I’ve liked you since freshman year.”
The air between you shifted. Your fingers curled at your sides as his confession settled in. You wanted to say something—anything—but all you could do was stare at him, pulse pounding in your ears.
He let out a breathy chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Long time, huh?” His voice was softer now, tinged with something almost self-conscious. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. But I did. I do.”
Your mouth felt dry. “Since freshman year?”
His lips twitched, like he wasn’t sure if he should smile. “Yeah.”
Your mind reeled. Freshman year. That meant before the rivalry, before the teasing had turned sharp, before you had convinced yourself that he was just some cocky, insufferable show-off who loved to push your buttons. Before you had started believing he only saw you as an opponent to one-up. Gojo sighed, dropping his head back slightly, staring at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at you. “You remember that first day of class?”
You blinked. “Where we had to introduce each other to the class?”
He nodded. “You were wearing that stupid oversized sweater that practically swallowed you, and you kept tugging at the sleeves like you wanted to disappear. I just– at first I thought you were just so cute” His lips quirked slightly at the memory. “And then you opened your mouth when we argued for the first time in class– remember? When you answered that question on vector components and I poked fun at you or something, and when you responded back to me, you had this… fire in you. You wouldn’t let me get a single word in edgewise, like you had something to prove.”
His expression softened, something unbearably fond flickering in his gaze. “And I just remember thinking—shit.”
Your breath hitched.
“I wasn’t supposed to like you,” he murmured, like it was a confession he had never meant to say out loud. “But I did. And when we started arguing all the time, when it turned into this whole thing between us, I thought—fine. If I couldn’t have you the way I wanted, then I’d settle for getting under your skin.” He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “And trust me, I tried to stop thinking about it. About you. But I couldn’t. And then you started borrowing those books, and it was like—” He exhaled sharply, like he didn’t even know how to put it into words. You swallowed hard, heart hammering.
All this time.
Every argument, every smug grin, every lingering glance across the room—he had liked you this entire time.
“But then you kept reading them.” His voice had softened, like he was talking to himself now as much as to you. “You kept flipping through those pages, talking about how much you liked G.S– and god, who am I to deny you when you speak like that? When you speak like that about my thoughts, my feelings, spilled onto the pages of those stupid books? And suddenly, I was waiting for you to borrow the next book. Waiting to see which parts you’d pause on, which annotations you’d react to. Waiting to hear what you’d say about G.S. So I–”
He exhaled slowly, his fingers tightening around the fabric of his hoodie.
“– I borrowed the remaining four books or so. I annotated every last one of them, annotated them so maybe, maybe I’d get to hear that gorgeous voice of yours talking about it in class again. I’d get to see that giddy smile when you’d refer to me as your Seiji Amasawa again. As your G.S. And honestly, it was worth the entirety of the long night I spent, just so I’d see you fucking smile throughout the day and snap less at me because G.S. wrote something that made you think he was similar to you– because in reality, with the way you viewed me– entirely my fault by the way– it would never be possible.” He took a deep breath after saying that.
“And I realised—” He paused, just for a second, like he needed to steady himself. “I liked it. I liked you. Not that I didn’t already like you, but— but I was falling. Like really deep.”
Something inside you twisted painfully. Your lips parted, but you couldn’t force out a response. You had spent the past three days agonizing over the idea that he had been toying with you, that this had all been some elaborate joke, but this—this was different. This was Gojo Satoru, stripped of his usual bravado, laying his feelings bare in a way that felt like it might physically hurt him.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.
Gojo let out a sharp, humorless laugh. He looked away, shaking his head as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Because I’m an idiot?” he said dryly. Then, quieter, “Because I’m Gojo Satoru, and I figured you’d never take me seriously?”
Your chest tightened at that.
Before you could process that, he spoke again.
“I know I was arrogant. I know I still am arrogant,” he muttered, his lips curling bitterly. “I push too hard. I’m too much. I act like I know everything, and maybe I do most of the time, but—” He swallowed thickly. “Those annotations… they were the only time you ever saw me.” His voice had dropped lower now, almost vulnerable, and something about it made your pulse stutter.
“Not the dumbass you argue with in class. Not the rich kid with the perfect grades. Not the guy who has to prove he’s the smartest person in the room.” He let out a slow breath. “Just… me.”
The silence between you stretched, thick and charged.
Gojo’s hands clenched at his sides, his knuckles going white. He looked like he was bracing for impact, like he had just thrown every last piece of himself at your feet and was waiting to see if you’d step on them. Your fingers trembled slightly as you reached for him.
Then—
You stepped forward. Gojo stilled the moment your fingers brushed against his hoodie, his breath catching in his throat. He stood up, towering over you, an unfamiliar glint in his cerulean eyes. You hesitated, your fingertips barely grazing the fabric before curling into it, fisting it lightly like you needed something solid to hold onto. His whole body went tense under your touch, his usual easy confidence absent now, replaced with something far more uncertain—far more vulnerable.
“You really are an idiot,” you whispered, your voice barely more than a breath against the space between you. His lips twitched, like he wanted to smirk, wanted to tease, wanted to be Gojo—but he didn’t. Instead, he just let out a shaky breath. “Yeah?”
You swallowed hard, your fingers tightening against his hoodie. “Yeah.”
The word hung in the air between you, weighty and full of something neither of you had the strength to name. And then—before you could second-guess yourself, before doubt could creep in—you surged up onto your toes and kissed him. Gojo made a startled sound against your lips, his whole body going rigid for half a second, like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. But then—slowly, desperately—he melted into it. His hands found your face, cupping it with a tenderness that made your heart twist. His palms were warm, his grip firm, like he was terrified you’d slip away, like he needed you to know this wasn’t a joke to him. That it had never been. He kissed you like a man making up for lost time—deep, searching, like he had been waiting for this moment far longer than even you had realized. When he tilted his head, his lips pressing more firmly against yours, you felt it—all of it.
Every unspoken word. Every missed chance. Every moment that had teetered on the edge of this but never quite fallen. His fingers slid into your hair, his thumb brushing softly against your cheek, like he was memorising the way you felt beneath him. Your heart was a wild, unsteady thing in your chest, thundering against your ribs as you pressed yourself closer, your hands sliding up from his hoodie to clutch at his shoulders. Gojo let out a quiet, almost desperate sigh against your lips, like he had been holding back for so long that finally getting to kiss you was unraveling him.
And maybe it was.
Because as much as you had spent the past few days convincing yourself that this had all been a game to him, this—the way he was holding you, the way his fingers trembled just slightly against your skin—told a different story. Gojo Satoru didn’t play games with things that mattered. And you—somehow, impossibly—mattered. When you pulled back, slightly breathless, Gojo just stared at you, like he couldn’t quite believe you were real.
Then, slowly, he grinned. “So,” he murmured, his thumb tracing your cheek. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
You rolled your eyes, but you didn’t step away. “Don’t push it.” Gojo laughed, bright and real, before pulling you back into his arms.
“God, do you know how beautiful you fuckin’ are? It drives me insane,” he mutters, his voice low and rough, sending a shiver down your spine. His breath is warm against your lips before he swoops down, capturing your mouth with his own again, his large hands grounding themselves against your waist as if he’s afraid you might slip away.
You giggle against his lips, trying to push him off, but he refuses to budge. “S-Satoru—wait!” Your protest is muffled, barely audible between the kisses he keeps stealing, his lips soft but insistent against yours.
He lets out a quiet, needy sound, almost a whimper, his grip tightening on your hips. “Shut up,” he murmurs breathlessly, squeezing lightly at your waist as if that alone will silence you. “Been waiting to kiss this pretty mouth for sooo fuckin’ long… Let me get my fill, yeah?” You barely have time to respond before his tongue swipes across the seam of your lips, coaxing them open. The second you allow him in, he kisses you deeply—desperately—his tongue sliding against yours, tasting, claiming. The soft little noises you make against him seem to spur him on, his fingers pressing firmly into your sides as he tugs you even closer. His legs bump against the edge of the bed, steadying you between his parted thighs, and the world around you fades, leaving only the two of you tangled up in each other.
A surprised squeak leaves your lips when his thumbs slip just beneath your shirt, brushing against your bare skin. His hands are cold, the contrast against your warmth sending a jolt of electricity through you. He laughs—a quiet, smug chuckle—and then the bastard has the audacity to bite your bottom lip in amusement. “Shh,” he teases, lips brushing against yours. “Don’t wanna get caught sneakin’ into my dorm after hours, do you?”
Before you can even process a response, his hands move to the backs of your thighs, gripping firmly as he lifts you off the ground with ease. A gasp leaves your lips, legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he manoeuvres you to the bed. He turns smoothly, lowering you down onto the mattress before climbing over you, his movements slow, deliberate, eager. And this time, you don’t hesitate. Your hands fist the front of his hoodie, yanking him down in a clumsy rush to kiss him again, your breath mingling with his as your noses bump. His glasses shift slightly from the movement, and with an annoyed huff, he pulls them off, setting them aside carefully before his gaze returns to you—hungry. His mouth is back on yours in an instant, moving with a mixture of urgency and something softer, something deeper. His lips trail from yours to your jaw, to the delicate skin of your neck, to the dip of your collarbone—his hands following the path his lips leave behind, fingers toying with the fabric of your open jacket. He pushes it off your shoulders tentatively, almost testing, waiting for you to stop him.
You don’t.
A pleased hum vibrates against your throat as his confidence grows, his hands sliding over your arms, your waist, memorizing the shape of you beneath him. Your arms wrap around his neck, tugging him impossibly closer, like you could mold yourself against him if you just tried hard enough. The kiss is more than just the heat of the moment. It’s more than just the weeks—months—of built-up tension. It’s the culmination of years of frustration, of stolen glances, of biting words laced with something deeper neither of you had wanted to acknowledge until now.
And maybe, maybe, it’s also the weight of finally realising—fully understanding—that the only person who had ever been able to keep up with you, to challenge you, to drive you absolutely insane, yet make you feel like this… was him. Satoru groans against your skin, nipping at your neck as his hands slip beneath your shirt, his fingers splaying across your waist. But even in the heat of the moment, he’s calculated. His lips map out a path of possessive little marks just below your collarbone—places that can be covered easily. Even now, he’s thinking things through. Your breath hitches when his fingertips skim the skin of your hips again, this time firmer, testing. Your cheeks burn, and the words slip out before you can stop them.
“You can—you can take it off.”
Satoru goes very, very still. You swear you can feel the exact moment he processes what you’ve just said, the exact moment he realizes that you mean it. His hands tighten slightly against you, his breath coming out a little shakier than before. And for once, for once—he doesn’t have some cocky remark ready to go. Because this? This is real. And for the first time, Gojo Satoru doesn’t want to ruin it with a joke. He gently tugs your shirt up and over your head, eyes eyeing the new expanse of skin that has just been made available to him.
“My gorgeous girl…”
He whispers out, before he’s back to lavishing your skin with attention, paying close attention to your breasts, lips lovingly, reverently moving across your skin with gentleness you hadn’t thought possible by him. You don’t know what possesses you, but something suddenly clicks and shyly, you unclasp your bra, leaving your entire upper half bare, making Satoru’s breath hitch. And then, in a moment that takes you completely by surprise, he does something that makes your heart both melt and swell—if that was even possible.
Because instead of his usual teasing, instead of his cocky grin or some flirtatious remark that would make you roll your eyes, Satoru simply looks at you. Really looks at you. His intense blue eyes don’t dart downward like you half-expected, don’t darken with some unchecked hunger. Instead, they stay locked onto yours, unwavering, all traces of playfulness and impulsive need fading away. What replaces them is something quieter—something gentler. A tenderness that makes your breath catch, your chest tighten.
Satoru, who always had a joke ready. Satoru, who always teased and never took anything too seriously. Satoru, who could have had anyone but had spent years bothering you instead—staring at you now like you were something fragile, something precious, something he wasn’t sure he deserved to touch. His throat bobs as he swallows, and then, carefully, softly, he speaks.
“Are you sure you wanna… do this?” His voice is quieter now, laced with something that sounds an awful lot like uncertainty. Like he’s terrified of ruining whatever this is. “I’m not—pressuring you or anything, am I?” His fingers twitch slightly at his sides before he hesitantly lifts a hand, reaching out toward you—not to pull you in, not to take what you’ve offered, but to tuck a few strands of your hair away from your face. His touch is featherlight, barely there, but it sends warmth spreading across your skin.
“I just—” He exhales, gaze flickering between your eyes, searching, as if trying to read your thoughts. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. If me kissing you made you think you needed to… y’know, do anything more—then I’m sorry.” The words leave his lips like a confession, like the idea of you feeling obligated to be with him hurts him. And that—that simple fact—makes something inside you ache. Because Gojo Satoru, for all his arrogance, for all his relentless teasing and larger-than-life presence, was standing before you now with uncertainty in his eyes. Not because he didn’t want this—God, did he want this—but because he needed to be sure that you did too. For a moment, you just stare at him, your heart pounding so hard you can feel it in your fingertips.
Because this isn’t how you thought this moment would go. Not with him—not with Gojo Satoru. You had braced yourself for teasing, for him to say something infuriatingly smug, to grin like he had won some long-fought battle. But instead, he was looking at you with quiet hesitation, with care. With something that felt like love. Your throat tightens.
“Satoru.” His name– his first name, not Gojo– leaves your lips in a breath, barely above a whisper. His hands—so sure and confident only moments ago—remain frozen where they rest against your sides, like he’s afraid that if he moves, you’ll change your mind.
“I want this,” you say, and you make sure there is no room for doubt in your voice. Your fingers curl around the fabric of his hoodie, grounding yourself in the feel of him. “I’m not saying it just because you kissed me, or because I think I have to. I want this.” His lips part slightly, but no words come out. His grip on you tightens just a fraction, like he’s trying to make sure you’re real.
You take a breath, steadying yourself, because you need him to understand—really understand.
“I’ve wanted this for longer than I want to admit,” you confess, a nervous laugh bubbling up in your throat. Your fingers flex where they rest against his chest, feeling the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart beneath your palm. He’s warm, impossibly so, like he’s radiating heat just for you. “And it scares me, Satoru. You scare me.” His brows furrow, the corners of his mouth dipping slightly downward. “Scare you?”
You nod. “Because you make me feel things I don’t know how to deal with. You drive me crazy. You make me want to strangle you half the time, and the other half I—” Your voice catches, and you swallow thickly before continuing. “I want to be near you. I want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.” His hands slowly slide up your sides, not rushing, not pushing—just holding. His thumbs brush against your ribs, barely ghosting under the underside of your chest, but even that light touch sends a shiver up your spine.
“You have to know this isn’t just some impulsive decision for me,” you tell him, voice softer now, filled with something you can’t quite name. “I don’t do things just because they’re convenient, or easy, or expected. I do them because I choose to.” You reach up, cupping his face between your hands, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your palms. His breath stutters when you stroke your thumb over his cheekbone, and for the first time since you’ve known him, he looks completely lost. “I’m choosing you,” you whisper, staring straight into those brilliant blue eyes. “Not because you kissed me. Not because of some annotations in a book. But because I want you, Satoru. I want this.”
A shaky exhale leaves his lips, and for a second, you swear he stops breathing altogether. His grip on you tightens just enough for you to feel it, his fingers pressing into your waist like he’s holding himself back. Then, slowly, so slowly, he leans in, forehead resting against yours. His breath is warm against your lips when he speaks.
“You can’t take that back now, y’know,” he murmurs, his voice low and almost reverent.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
In a flurry of kissing and movement, his hands roamed over your breasts, fingers pressing and kneading with a slow, deliberate touch that sent shivers down your spine. Every brush of his palm left a burning trail in its wake, making you arch into him, craving more—needing more. His lips never left yours for long, only breaking away to breathe, to murmur your name against your mouth like a prayer, before diving back in, desperate to claim every inch of you. Your own hands found their way under his hoodie, fingertips exploring the firm ridges and planes of muscle beneath. He was all taut sinew and warmth, his body solid beneath your touch, the faintest tremble betraying just how much he wanted this too. Heat pooled in your lower belly, a slow and delicious ache, as you pressed your palms flat against his stomach, feeling the way his muscles flexed under your touch.
And then you felt it—the thin trail of hair below his navel, soft against your fingers, leading downward. Your breath hitched at the realisation, a flush creeping up your face as your hands lingered there, tracing along his happy trail. The sensation made him shudder, his breath stuttering for just a moment before he let out a low, breathy chuckle. “You’re teasing,” he murmured against your lips, his voice rougher now, his grip tightening slightly where he held you.
You shook your head, though your fingers betrayed you, still trailing feather-light touches just above the waistband of his sweats. “Just exploring,” you whispered, emboldened by the way he reacted to your touch, the way his muscles tensed as if he was barely holding himself back. His entire body felt heavier now, weighted with desire as he sucked in a slow breath. His fingers twitched against your sides, like he was restraining himself, before he finally gave in.
With one fluid motion, he pulled his hoodie over his head and tossed it aside, leaving his torso bare. The sight of him knocked the air from your lungs. He was beautiful—lean but strong, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths, skin warm and golden in the dim light. The definition of his abs trailed down to his happy trail, disappearing beneath the waistband of his sweats. There was something intoxicating about seeing him like this, vulnerable yet utterly self-assured, the usual cocky glint in his eyes replaced with something softer, something just for you. You traced your fingers lightly over his stomach, watching the way his muscles tensed beneath your touch. His breath came a little heavier, his hands gripping your waist like he was holding onto the last thread of his restraint.
"You're staring," he teased, though his voice was lower now, rough around the edges.
"Maybe," you admitted, dragging your fingertips just a little lower, reveling in the way his breath hitched. His lips curled into a smirk, but there was a heat in his gaze now, something dark and wanting. “Careful,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “I might start thinking you like what you see.”
Your pulse thrummed wildly, heat licking at your skin as you met his eyes.
“I do.”
He gave you a full-blown grin, the kind that made his eyes crinkle at the corners, his canines glinting in the dim light of his dorm room. It was a look you had seen a hundred times before—mischievous, teasing, effortlessly confident—but now, there was something else underneath it. Something softer. Something real. His hands, warm and slightly rough, hesitated at the waistband of your sweats, fingers grazing the fabric as if waiting for permission. His touch sent a shiver down your spine, anticipation coiling tight in your stomach. But despite the heat in his gaze, despite the way his breath was uneven and his chest rose and fell just a little too fast, he didn’t move forward. Not yet.
“Are you sure?” His voice was lower now, quieter, cutting through the thick silence that had settled between you. His usual bravado was nowhere to be seen—no teasing remark, no cocky smirk. Just Satoru, looking at you like you were something delicate, something he wasn’t sure he was allowed to have. Like he was terrified of doing something wrong, of ruining this moment before it could fully begin. You could feel his hesitation in the way his fingers flexed against your waist, could hear it in the way his voice wavered just slightly, as if he was bracing himself for you to change your mind.
It made your heart ache. You reached up, cupping his face gently, your thumb brushing over his cheek. His skin was warm under your touch, and he leaned into it instinctively, like he couldn’t help himself. His breath hitched, just slightly, and you saw the way his lips parted, the way his lashes fluttered when your fingers traced along his jaw.
“Satoru,” you murmured, voice steady despite the way your heart was hammering against your ribs. His eyes flickered to yours—deep, cerulean, searching.
“I’m sure,” you whispered. “I want this. I want you.” For a moment, he didn’t move, like he was letting the words settle, like he needed to make sure he heard you right. And then—
He exhaled, something tight and heavy leaving his chest, and his hands finally gripped your waist properly, fingers digging in just a little, grounding himself in the reality of the moment.
“God,” he muttered, his forehead pressing against yours, his voice almost shaky. “You have no idea how much I fucking love hearing you say that.”
He gently coaxed you out of your sweatpants, hand finding itself atop your underwear, breath hitching at the dampness that was present. Seems like this fueled his ego a little bit too much, because the next thing you knew, the Satoru you knew was back.
“Dang you’re wet as fuck.”
You gave him a pointed look and he faltered, the smirk on his lips morphing into a grin as he ushered out apologies. Your hands clutched the sheets when his fingers began to gently touch you, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as you eyed his hand with need. You couldn’t stay mad with him for long the way his fingers tugged the flimsy material down and began to work his hand between your legs. He grinned, experimentally probing around, ocean eyes half lidded.
“This is where you’re weak, right?” He murmured sensually, fingers finding your sensitive nub, eyes flickering up to watch your reactions, his pretty pink lips parted open in pleasure as he watched you come apart under him. He was precise with his fingers, circling you, teasing, pinching and rubbing, before thrusting in all the right spots, reaching places your own hand was unable to take you. Before long you had to let out muffled whimpers into his big palm that he had slapped gently across your lips; it covered almost the entirety of the lower half of your face– you were a bit loud.
Unable to take it anymore, you finally reached your breaking point, squirming underneath him as you came all over his fingers. Your chest was heaving, rising and falling in rapid succession, your breath coming in short, uneven pants as the aftershocks of pleasure rippled through you. Every nerve in your body felt like it had been set alight, over sensitised and trembling in the lingering warmth of his touch. Your skin was flushed, heat radiating from every inch of you, and the room felt impossibly small, like it was holding the weight of everything that had just passed between you.
Hungry for more, you made quick work of his sweats, sliding them and his boxers down (pokemon boxers but you were too needy to make fun of him for it). Satoru loomed above you, shakily guiding himself to your entrance, pale lashes fluttering as he looked down at you. He was hard– had been hard the moment you two had started kissing, pressing up against you in a needy manner.
“Su–Sure you can take it? Don’t need a break?” He breathed out, referring to the fact that you had practically jumped at the opportunity to take things further right after having an earth shattering orgasm thanks to his lanky fingers.
“So fucking sure– please, Satoru.” You flutter your eyelashes up at him, and he swears he almost comes from the sight. He nods, leaning down to kiss your lips gently, all the while he ushers himself inside you slowly.
Now you knew he had meant you not being able to take it because you might have been tired after your first orgasm, but now it felt more like he was warning you, because he was long, pressing inside of you deliciously. Once he had buried himself to the hilt, he halted in his tracks, giving you time to adjust. His face was screwed in pleasure, likely trying not to give in the urge to move. After a few minutes, when you deemed the feeling of him inside you as highly pleasurable and not the slight uncomfortableness that you initially felt while being split open in two, you murmured out a small “I’m ready,” and that was all it took for Satoru to start moving.
He kept up a slow, steady yet deep pace, his muscular form looming over yours, and for a moment, all you could do was look at him. The dim light of his dorm cast shadows along the sharp lines of his body, emphasizing the taut muscles in his arms, the sculpted contours of his chest, and the way his abdomen flexed with each controlled movement. His skin was flushed, a faint sheen of sweat glistening over his toned physique, catching the light in a way that made your breath hitch. His broad shoulders framed his lean build perfectly, his biceps taut as he braced himself above you, his fingers curling into the sheets as though restraining himself from losing control entirely.
And then there was his face. Messy white hair fell into his eyes, strands sticking to his damp forehead, and his lips—God, his lips—were parted, slightly swollen from kissing you breathless. His sharp jaw clenched subtly, his throat bobbing with a swallow, and when his gaze flickered down to meet yours, you felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.
His usual cocky grin was nowhere to be found. Instead, his expression was intense—raw, focused entirely on you, like nothing else in the world mattered. His impossibly blue eyes, darkened with something deep and consuming, dragged over your face, your body, drinking you in like you were something precious, something his. “Satoru—” you breathed, voice barely more than a whisper, but it was enough to make him groan, his grip on your waist tightening as he dipped down, pressing his forehead against yours.
“Fuck,” he muttered, voice rough, strained. “You have no idea how good you look right now. How good you feel right now.” He moved his hands from your waist, his fingers trailing over your skin as he shifted, bracing his forearms on either side of your head. The new position brought him even closer, his body pressing against yours, heat radiating between you as he continued to move within you. His breath was heavy, mingling with yours, and for a moment, it was all-consuming—the feeling of him, the weight of him, the slow, deep rhythm that sent shivers down your spine. When you had imagined being with Satoru like this, you’d thought it would be… different. You had expected teasing, cockiness, maybe even some ridiculous commentary, because that was just who he was. You thought he’d smirk down at you with that usual self-assured gleam in his eyes, crack some joke between kisses, whisper something infuriating just to make you blush. You had even braced yourself for the possibility of him being downright kinky, because he was Gojo Satoru, and he loved pushing limits.
But this? This was something else entirely.
This wasn’t just cocky flirtation or the result of years of pent-up rivalry and tension—this was intimate. It was raw, real, and so incredibly him, stripped of bravado and playfulness, leaving behind only the man in front of you. The one who had been waiting, wanting. The one who had loved you quietly, even when you didn’t know. His movements were deliberate, his touch reverent, his normally mischievous eyes dark with something softer—something deeper. When he leaned down, his lips ghosting over your cheek before pressing to the corner of your mouth, it wasn’t just a kiss—it was a silent confession. A plea. A promise. His fingers threaded through your hair, brushing over your temple, before trailing down to cup your jaw with aching gentleness. “You okay?” he murmured, voice hushed, almost breathless. You swallowed, overwhelmed by the warmth in his voice, the concern laced into every syllable, and you nodded, reaching up to lace your fingers through the soft strands of his hair. “Yeah,” you whispered. “I just… I didn’t expect this.”
A small, knowing smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He tilted his head slightly, pressing another lingering kiss just beneath your jaw, his breath warm against your skin. “Didn’t expect what?”
“For it to feel like this,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “For you to be like this.”
Satoru stilled for half a second before exhaling softly, lowering himself further so his chest was flush against yours. His nose brushed against yours, lips hovering just out of reach, and when he spoke, his voice was almost fragile. “I don’t think you realise how long I’ve wanted you,” he murmured. “It was never just some passing thing, y’know? It was always you.” Your chest tightened, your fingers gripping his hair just a little harder as his words settled deep within you. The air between you felt electric, charged, as if the weight of every unspoken feeling had finally caught up with you both. He kissed you again—slow, deep, purposeful—and you melted into him, your hands roaming over his bare back, nails lightly dragging along his spine. He let out a shaky breath, his forehead pressing against yours as he moved, his body fitting against yours so perfectly that it made your heart ache. There was no rush, no urgency—only the quiet, lingering touches, the shared breaths, the whispered words against flushed skin. It wasn’t just about desire or need anymore. It was about something much more.
And before long, you were coming again, whispered cries of his name leaving your mouth as you tightened around him– and if he had indulged in the feeling a second longer, he would have finished inside. He splattered on your stomach, hissing at the feeling, pale eyes fluttering shut. After a few seconds of basking in the afterglow, he quickly went into his bathroom, grabbing a warm washcloth to wipe your stomach down. Your breath came in quick, unsteady gasps, each inhale failing to steady the trembling in your limbs. A slow burn lingered beneath your skin, every nerve alight with the remnants of his touch. The air felt thick, pressing in around you, charged with everything that had just transpired. Heat clung to you, pooling in the spaces where his hands had been, leaving you adrift in the aftermath.
Your fingers curled into the sheets beneath you, gripping them like an anchor, like you needed something to steady yourself against the dizzying sensation still coursing through your veins. A shuddering breath escaped your lips, and you swore you could still feel the phantom imprint of his hands on your skin, the way they had mapped out every inch of you with a reverence that made your chest ache. Satoru was watching you.
You could feel his gaze—heavy, intense, something unreadable flickering behind those endless blue eyes. His hands hadn’t left your body entirely, his fingertips still resting against your hips, warm and grounding. There was something in his expression that made your breath catch—a mixture of awe and something softer, something tender. Like he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, like he was committing every second of this moment to memory. He swallowed, his own breathing uneven, before he leaned down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder—slow, lingering, like he just needed to feel you. His lips brushed over your skin again, trailing up toward your jaw, soft and unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world.
–
The room was bathed in the dim glow of his bedside lamp, casting long shadows across tangled sheets and discarded clothes. Your body still hummed from the aftermath, warmth pooling in your limbs as you lay half-draped over Satoru, your cheek pressed against his bare chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath your ear, grounding you in a way you hadn’t expected. For a while, neither of you spoke. His fingers idly traced shapes along your spine, the touch featherlight and absentminded, while his other hand rested lazily on your hip, holding you close. You could still feel the heat radiating from his skin, the aftershocks of everything you had just done settling between you in the form of comfortable silence.
It was intimate, more than anything. More than the way he had touched you, more than the way he had moved inside you—this moment, the stillness, the way he exhaled softly like he was content, was what made your chest tighten.
Then, of course, he ruined it.
“So,” he drawled, breaking the peaceful quiet. “Would it be weird if I rated that experience a solid twelve out of ten?” You groaned, weakly smacking his chest, but he only laughed, the vibrations rumbling beneath your palm. “Oh my God, Satoru—”
“I mean, I am the strongest,” he continued, completely undeterred, stretching one arm lazily above his head. “So it makes sense that I’d be great in every department.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
He grinned, tilting his head to peer down at you. His hair was a mess, white strands sticking out in different directions, and his lips were still kiss-bitten, smugness radiating off of him in waves. “Oh, don’t worry, sweets, I’d never joke about my performance in bed—”
You smacked him again, this time harder, and he let out a dramatic oof, clutching his chest like you’d wounded him.
“You were being so sweet just a second ago,” you muttered, pouting as you nestled closer against him. “Why do you have to ruin it?” Satoru chuckled, his arms wrapping securely around you as he pulled the blanket over both of you. “C’mon, you wouldn’t want me any other way.”
You sighed, exasperated, but deep down, you knew he was right. He shifted slightly, rolling onto his side so he could face you properly, one long leg tangling with yours. His hand came up to brush a stray strand of hair from your face, his touch softer than you expected after all his teasing.
“…Was it really okay?” he asked, voice quieter this time. Almost hesitant. Your heart ached at the sincerity laced in his words, the way he was still Satoru, even after everything. Still checking in. Still making sure. You smiled, cupping his face in your hands as you pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “It was perfect.”
A slow, almost shy smile spread across his face, and for a moment, the cockiness was gone, replaced by something softer. Something real.
Then, of course—
“Perfect, huh? So you are saying I’m the best you’ve ever had—”
“GOJO SATORU, I SWEAR TO—”
His laughter rang out through the dorm, loud and unfiltered, and despite yourself, you couldn’t help but laugh too, the warmth of it curling around your heart. The warmth of his body, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the lazy way his fingers traced along your spine—it was all lulling you into the kind of peace you hadn’t felt in a long time. The teasing had settled into something softer, something quieter, and as sleep tugged at the edges of your consciousness, you thought that maybe, just maybe, you could stay like this forever. Satoru shifted beneath you, his hand sliding from your hip to your waist, pulling you just a little closer. His lips brushed your temple, his breath warm as he murmured, “Hey.”
You hummed in response, not quite opening your eyes. His fingers tapped against your skin, hesitant. “Be my girlfriend.”
That woke you up. Your eyes fluttered open, your head lifting slightly to look at him. “Huh?”
He huffed out a soft laugh, like he couldn’t believe he had actually said it. The Satoru everyone else knew was loud, arrogant, untouchable. But right now, he was just a boy with messy white hair and sleep-heavy eyes, holding you close like he was afraid you might slip away.
“I mean,” he continued, clearing his throat, “we’re already doing all this. And I like you. A lot. So…” He exhaled sharply, his thumb brushing over your waist. “Be my girlfriend.” Your heart clenched at the quiet sincerity in his voice, at the way he was looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t just another one of his playful remarks. This was real. A slow smile spread across your lips. “Wow. That was kind of romantic.”
He groaned, tipping his head back against the pillow. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, sweets.” You giggled, shifting to prop yourself up on one elbow, fingers threading through his hair. “You really like me?”
He turned his head back toward you, his eyes—those striking, endless blues—soft in the dim light. “Yeah,” he said simply. “I really do.” Your chest felt too full, your heart racing faster than it should have been after everything you’d already done tonight. But it wasn’t nerves or fear—it was excitement, warmth, the dizzying rush of knowing Satoru Gojo, of all people, wanted you in a way that wasn’t fleeting.
“Okay,” you whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be your girlfriend.” He grinned instantly, arms wrapping around you as he rolled you onto your back, settling half on top of you with a triumphant look. “Took you long enough to say yes,” he teased, but the relief in his voice gave him away.
You laughed, shaking your head. “I hate you.”
“Liar,” he murmured, kissing you again, slow and deep, like he was trying to seal the moment in time. And maybe he was. Maybe you both were.
—
Getting into a relationship with Gojo Satoru was like being swept into a whirlwind—one that was loud, chaotic, and entirely consuming. Everyone around you had the same reaction when they found out: About time.
Shoko had rolled her eyes, exhaling smoke from her cigarette as she smirked. “Honestly, I thought you guys were already dating. You’re both just that disgusting.” Nanami had simply given Gojo a long, knowing look before shaking his head, muttering something under his breath about finally. Even Geto—before everything—had grinned, clapping Satoru on the back and saying, “I was starting to think you’d never get your head out of your ass.”
Satoru, naturally, took it all in stride, tossing an arm around your shoulders and grinning like he’d won the lottery. “What can I say? She couldn’t resist me forever.”
Your life since then had been… a lot. In the best way possible. Because being with Satoru meant being at the center of his world, whether you liked it or not. And he was obsessed with you. Absolutely obsessed. It was the way he always had to be touching you—his hand warm on the small of your back, his fingers playing with yours, his arm slung around your shoulders. It was how he looked at you, like you were the most fascinating thing in existence, eyes always following you, filled with nothing but admiration. It was the teasing—“I get it, babe. I’m super hot, but please let me study for five seconds without you getting distracted by me.”
It was the sweetness—bringing you your favorite snacks when you were stressed, pressing kisses to your temple when he thought you weren’t looking. Intertwining his large hand with yours and placing it in his coat pocket And, well, it was also the other things—
“Satoru, we have a lecture in twenty minutes—”
“Plenty of time, sweetheart. What, you don’t want to study with me?”
“This isn’t studying. You’ve been making out with me for the past ten minutes. And you really do need to stop. What if someone catches you in my dorm?”
“C’mon, I can’t resist you–”
“Sure you can, ‘Toru.”
“But you love me.”
You did. God, you did. And he loved you. He never let you forget it. You’d studied together for your physics final, working hard side by side. Even though Satoru acted like everything came easy to him, he did work for it. And so did you. You spent countless nights pouring over equations, bouncing theories off each other, fighting over who got to use the good highlighters.
And when results day came—
“Oh my God,” you whispered, staring at your score.
100%. Your hands trembled slightly as you clutched the paper, the weight of all those late-night study sessions, the stress, the endless debates with Satoru over formulas and theories—everything culminating in this moment. Pure, unfiltered pride swelled in your chest. Before you could fully process it, a loud whoop filled the air.
“YES! I knew it!”
Suddenly, you were lifted off your feet, spinning in a dizzying circle as Satoru’s wild laughter bubbled over. His strong arms wrapped around you, keeping you pressed to him as he twirled you around the hallway like an overexcited kid.
“My baby’s the smartest person in the world!” he crowed, not caring about the amused stares from your classmates. “Geniuses bow to you! The world kneels before you! Einstein weeps in his grave—”
You were laughing breathlessly by the time he finally set you down, his hands still firm on your waist as he grinned down at you. Your heart swelled at his excitement. “You did well too, right?”
“Pfft, of course.” He flipped his own paper up dramatically, flashing his score.
99%.
“I mean,” he sighed, shaking his head with mock sorrow, “you totally obliterated me, absolutely wrecked my pride, but it’s fine. Matter of fact, I think it was the fact I didn’t revise Bernoulli’s principle enough that resulted in me getting only 99%-”
In another world where he wasn’t your boyfriend, you would've smirked and gloated about beating him, and he would’ve snapped back with something equally smug. But instead, all you felt was pride—pure, unrestrained pride for him. You threw your arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you.” Satoru melted into you, his arms encircling your waist as he hummed into your shoulder. “Mmm, say it again. I like hearing that.” You chuckled, pulling back slightly—just enough to see the sheepish grin creeping onto his face.
“Actually…” he started, rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes glinting with something suspicious. You frowned. “What?” He exhaled dramatically. “You’re probably gonna kill me when you hear this.” Your eyes narrowed. “Satoru.”
“Okay, okay—” He raised his hands in surrender, before leaning in like he was telling you a juicy secret. “Technically, I got a 99 on the midterm.” You blinked. “…What?” He grinned. That smug, trouble-making, up-to-no-good grin. “Buuuut you looked so beautiful when you were all happy about your score, so I lied and said I got 95 last minute.”
Your mouth dropped open. “You—WHAT?!”
Gojo Satoru—the cockiest, most competitive man you knew, the one who never let anyone forget how brilliant he was—had lied about an exam score for you? He burst out laughing at your expression, reaching out to ruffle your hair. “Don’t go feeling all bad about it, sweets. This final weighed more than the midterm, so technically—” he booped your nose, “—you’re better than me.”
You were still reeling, warmth spreading through you as you realised he had lied to see you happy. “You changed your answer for me—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved off your shock, smirking. “I’m the best boyfriend in the world. You can say it out loud, babe.” You rolled your eyes, exasperated, before tugging him down into a kiss.
He instantly responded, his grip on your waist tightening, his lips warm and eager against yours. The teasing faded for just a second, replaced by something softer—something real. When you finally pulled back, he looked way too smug.
“…Still smarter than you, though,” you teased, just to knock him down a peg. Satoru gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. “Oh, you absolutely crushed my heart and then ate it—”
Before you could react, he suddenly straightened, towering over you with a wicked glint in his eye. His large hands slid around your waist, ushering you closer until your bodies were flush against each other. His voice dropped, suddenly deep and velvety, amusement laced with something more sensual. “Guess you’ll just have to make it up to me in bed, huh?”
You groaned, immediately shoving at his chest. “You’re the worst.”
“Your worst.” He waggled his eyebrows, entirely unashamed. You shoved his face away, laughing as he grinned, easily catching one of your wrists in his hand. Instead of saying anything else, he simply lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to your wrist, his lips warm against your skin.
–
Later that night, you were curled up in his dorm, forcing him to watch Whisper of the Heart. He had grumbled and groaned, saying he’d already watched it way back in high school and that he "totally got the whole love and dreams thing," but you still made him sit through it. He spent the first twenty minutes sulking, arms wrapped around you from behind, chin resting on your shoulder like a spoiled cat.
“I’m way better than Seiji,” he huffed after a particularly sweet scene. “Like, a million times better.” You snorted. “Jealous of an anime boy, Satoru?”
“I’m just saying,” he drawled, tightening his arms around you. “If I was in this movie, she wouldn’t even look at him.”
“Uh-huh.” You leaned back against his chest, enjoying the warmth. “Sure, babe.” His fingers absentmindedly toyed with the hem of your sleeve, and for a while, you both watched in silence, the glow of the laptop screen painting soft shadows over the room. Halfway through the movie, you reached into your bag to grab your laptop, but something tumbled out and hit the floor with a soft thud. You blinked at the familiar cover of the last book.
“Oh crap,” you muttered, picking it up. “I forgot to return this.”
Satoru turned his head, eyes narrowing. “Wait…” He plucked the book from your grasp, flipping through the pages with an expression that immediately made you suspicious. “You didn’t return this yet?” You nodded, smiling sheepishly. “Guess I kinda forgot.” His fingers slowed as he reached the back cover, eyes landing on the borrowing log where the name “G.S.” had been scrawled in blue ink.
For a moment, he just stared. His thumb ran over the initials like he was absorbing the weight of them, of what they had meant to you before you knew the truth. His usual teasing expression softened, something almost nostalgic flickering in his eyes. Then, in a slow, deliberate motion, he grabbed a pen from his desk, twirled it between his fingers, and, without saying a word, carefully crossed out “G.S.”
You watched as he replaced it with something else—his full name, written neatly, in the same familiar shade of blue ink in the column beneath the crossed out G.S. He paused, then handed you the pen. Understanding settled between you like an unspoken promise. Without hesitation, you leaned down, pressing the tip to the page to the column under his name, adding your own in smooth, looping letters.
The same date. The same ink. Together.
Satoru stared at it for a long moment, his usual cocky grin nowhere in sight. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his lips, something softer, something fonder. He looked at you with that unreadable, almost reverent gaze—the one that always made your breath catch. And then, with absolutely no warning, he grinned and yanked you straight into his lap.
“Sooo,” he murmured, lips brushing your ear as his arms locked around you. “How does it feel to know you’ve been fantasising about me this whole time?” You groaned, swatting at his arm. “Satoru—”
He just laughed, effortlessly dodging your weak attempts at smacking him. “Nah, nah, don’t try to deny it! I knew you had a crush on me.”
“I did not—”
“G.S.,” he sing-songed, his breath warm against your skin as he nuzzled into your shoulder. “You thought I was some mysterious, tortured genius. Bet you used to daydream about me in class, d’you think I showed up as some mysterious faceless guy in your wet dreams?—” You grabbed a pillow and shoved it into his face. His muffled laughter rang through the room, and when he pulled the pillow away, he was still grinning. He kissed your shoulder, lingering there for a beat longer than necessary.
And this time, you let him gloat.
a/n: summary of this entire fic basically (art creds to su2kuna on 𝕏)
sorry if there are error/grammar mistakes or slight plot issues uni is lowkey gnawing at the folds of my brain and a girl gets sick of reading 32k words over and over again.. but i hope you all enjoyed reading this because i really enjoyed writing it :) huhuhuhu much love
❅ summary refusing to cancel your romantic ski trip after your boyfriend broke up with you just days before the holidays, you decide to go to the remote lodge by yourself. luckily, or unluckily for you, you seem to have caught the attention of another infuriatingly handsome tourist
❅ content mdni!, real world au, FLUFF, comfort, smut, fingering, handjob, pussydrunk satoru, oral (m and f receiving), facefucking, edging, spanking, unprotected p I v sex, aftercare, the tiniest bit of angst, jealousy, confessions, satoru pov, shitty ex cameo, anxious reader, mutual pining, cozy holiday vibes
series masterlist ❅ << previous chapter
finale
wc: 9k
December 31st
3:49am
The empty bed felt too cold and too large underneath you. Your cheeks were still puffy and red from crying, and you nervously picked at your cuticles, a habit you thought you had long grown out of.
It was hard to keep the anxiety at bay. Though… was anxiety even the right word for it? Maybe anticipation would be better. Excitement, even more so.
Because what was making you anxious wasn’t bad at all, for once.
Satoru Gojo.
Your white haired “friend" who had booked a flight to you the minute he heard you cry. Who refused to hang up the call every step of the way – from hastily packing, to requesting a ride to the airport, to arriving there and promptly checking in for the flight that was meant to leave in…
An hour and a half now.
You took a deep breath in. It was the first time in hours you were alone with your thoughts, without Satoru's sugary sweet tone to drown out the loneliness.
You knew he’d call you back as soon as he was past security, but that little voice in the back of your head that told you something would go wrong at any minute? It just wouldn’t leave you alone.
That old, familiar sense of dread that made you believe good things didn’t last.
It suddenly made you realise how that voice was always on mute when you were around him.
And then, right on cue, your phone rang again.
“Toru?” you answered immediately, and though you had promised yourself you'd try not to sound too needy, it was a complete fail.
“Right here, baby” you could practically hear the smug grin in his voice. “On my way to the gate now”
You let out a little laugh you couldn’t help, relief washing all over you. Everything was fine. Even if you had been sitting there for the past ten minutes thinking Satoru would tell you this was all a joke and laugh at how gullible you are.
No…Satoru wasn’t like that.
“Can you stay on the phone until you board?” you asked, lying down on the bed, closing your tired and swollen eyes, finally allowing yourself to relax.
“Of course, beautiful” he replied, no hesitation. “Are you not tired?”
“I'm exhausted” you admitted with a resigned, embarrassed chuckle, rubbing at your temples to relieve the headache the tears had caused you.
You could hear his concern from the little groan that came from the other side of the call.
“You should get some sleep” he suggested, attempting to sound stern.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to” you answered, heart beating too fast for how spent your limbs felt. Everything in his voice pulled you in like you were a moth to a flame, awakened every nerve ending in you.
“Want me to tell you a bedtime story?” he teased.
You smiled at his little suggestion, but it was not fair how his voice alone could make your body react like this. “Go on then” you chuckled, turning to your side so you could get more comfortable, heart hammering too loud.
You heard Satoru hum on the other side, no doubt coming up with something absurd. And when his voice came again, you were amused to see you had not been wrong.
“Once upon a time” he started, sounding utterly ridiculous and theatrical, and you chuckled at the image of all the other sleepy passengers staring at this tall man with far too much energy for four in the morning. “There was a little bunny”
Your involuntary chuckle interrupted him. “Is the bunny you?”
“Of course not” he pouted. “I said little, pay attention sweetheart”
“Ok, sorry” you laughed. “Continue”
“A little bunny, who didn’t know how to ski” he continued solemnly, as if this was some grand fable and not the first thing that had just popped into his mind.
But your cheeks flushed, realising where he was going with this. “Can you blame them?” you pouted, biting into your cheek. "Bunnies aren’t exactly known for skiing"
“No one is blaming the bunny” he explained quickly. “But the bunny blamed itself, you see”
You swallowed, holding your breath. “Yeah?”
“Mmh" he confirmed, and you could hear the robotic voice on the other side informing boarding had started, but Satoru didn’t stop. “The little bunny was a little… shy. But it’s ok, because one day, it met a big, handsome bunny”
“So that’s you?” you laughed, turning on your other side because staying still was too hard.
“Don't interrupt, princess” he complained, speaking louder to cut through the rest of the airport noise. “And the big bunny invited the little bunny to ski. It said it couldn’t, but it tried anyway– almost like someone I know”
“I get it” you rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help your smile.
“And the big bunny was impressed. Because although he was big and handsome and successful–“
“Satoru…” you cut him off with a laugh.
“– he didn’t think he was brave. But he wanted to be, for the little bunny”
Your breathing stopped.
“You think I’m brave?” you asked, barely able to conceal the way your voice was shaking at the edges.
“This is about bunnies, sweetheart” he corrected you, but his own voice sounded too full of emotion for it to be true.
“Right. Sorry” you laughed, brushing away the tears that were threatening to fall. “Did the bunny do it?” you asked, engrossed in this silly story.
Satoru’s voice took a beat longer to come this time. “Yeah" he exhaled eventually.
“And what if… the little bunny doesn’t think they’re worth it, you know?” you asked, shy, picking at your nails again.
“That's okay, because big bunny gave the little bunny a gift” he replied, with that addictive confident tone he always had.
“Was it a necklace?” you teased, hand touching the cold crystal resting on your chest with so much fondness.
“Of course not” he clicked his tongue. "Bunnies don’t wear necklaces"
You snorted, but waited patiently. “What was it then?”
“A mirror” he said. “So little bunny could see it was actually just as big as big bunny”
Your lips curled downwards, trembling embarrassingly. “How long have you been secretly writing this?” you tried to tease, though it came out all broken and whiny.
Satoru smiled into the phone. “Was just off the top of my head” he replied smugly. “Did it make you sleepy?”
“No" you complained. “It's even worse now” you sniffled, rubbing away at your teary eyes again though your lips were smiling.
“Oh” he pouted. “…I can try another one?”
You laughed, shaking your head. “Just get here soon, okay?” you said, hugging your old pillow and trying to imagine it was him.
“I will” he smiled. “I need to go soon, pretty. Make sure you get some sleep and I’ll see you before you even know it, ok?”
Your hands tightened around the pillow, knowing hanging up meant he was coming but also hours of silence.
“I'll try” you sniffled, attempting to sound brave like the bunny from his silly story.
“Promise?” Satoru asked. “Need you nice and awake when I get there”
“Oh yeah?” you chuckled at his cheeky tone. “What did you want to do?” you teased, twirling your hair with a devilish smirk.
“Princess…” he exhaled, shaking his head. “Don't use that tone when I’m about to go” he pleaded, and the anticipation burned hot at your chest once again.
You tried to shake it off, because if your mind went there you definitely wouldn’t be getting any sleep. “You’re boarding now?” you asked.
“Yeah” he confirmed. “I'll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay" you nodded, feeling much more optimistic. “Have a safe flight”
“And you sleep well” he said.
“I will” you promised. “Good night, Toru”
“Good night, princess”
You held the phone to your chest once the call was finished, willing yourself to breathe deep as you pictured him walking along the thin corridor of the aircraft, just like the first time you had ever seen him.
Too tall. Too handsome. Taking up far too much space. Was he wearing those same stupid sunglasses inside again?
You fell asleep with a wide smile plastered on your face, still clutching the phone tight.
2:12pm
You stood inside the crowded, loud airport, looking at the big screen while biting the inside of your cheek, shifting your weight from side to side nervously.
Staring as if it could change what it said up there.
Satoru’s flight was delayed.
Not by long – but he was meant to have landed twenty minutes ago, and every second longer felt like torture.
You pictured him up above, flying among the clouds, so close but still so far. Maybe looking out the window at the world below and wondering if you would be waiting for him down on the ground.
As if you’d ever miss it – in fact, you had been here for two hours already.
Sleep had been brief but restful enough, and when you woke up to the heavy snow falling outside, you thought it better to be early than risk any issues with public transport. Sitting around in your apartment felt impossible anyway.
So you picked a cute, warm outfit, wrapped his white scarf over your neck, made yourself some coffee and was out the door in under thirty minutes, hoping the wind would maybe be favourable and the flight would land early, as if that ever happened.
But no, Satoru was still up there.
You scrunched your nose, crossing your arms in annoyance, staring at the evil screen as if you could will it to just say “landed” already.
And then… it did.
The little red letters changed to green, and you knew Satoru was here.
Here. In your hometown.
For you.
You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry again, but you weren’t quite sure how well you’d be able to hold back when your eyes were already watering.
The loud, overwhelming sounds all around seemed to fade as you made your way to the crowd surrounding the arrivals gate. Cutting past people in a way you would have never done before, but you had to make sure you stood right in the middle of the barrier.
Had to make sure you could see Satoru as soon as that mess of white hair became visible.
Any moment now.
2:29pm
You saw him before he saw you.
After all, how could anyone miss him?
Tall, handsome, bright blue eyes sitting just under snowy white hair, with a pair of dark sunglasses pushed into the strands. Those eyes scoured the room, looking through the crowd, and you felt your heart tug knowing you were the one he was looking for.
You were halfway through putting a hand up in the air when your eyes locked.
And then time stopped.
If there were other people coming out the gate, you didn’t notice. If there were still people around you in the crowd, you payed them no mind. No, your world was narrowed to a bright spotlight on the man you so wanted to see.
And when he looked at you? You could visibly see this breathing stopping, his face softening, his hands relaxing.
And then he was moving.
Too fast, too suddenly, not caring at all about the people he was pushing past.
Past-you would probably have been embarrassed, but present-you was shoving people out of the way with as little care as he was.
And then his arms were on you, your hands were around his handsome face, and your feet were off the ground.
Satoru lifted you up with so much ease it made you giggle, but the sound was quickly muffled by his lips smashing against yours, holding you tight as you held on to his shoulders, completely melting into a long awaited kiss.
People around looked at the two of you with a smile, not that either of you would have noticed. They probably assumed this was a long awaited reunion, two lovers torn apart for weeks or months finally rejoicing in each others embrace.
It was actually just over twenty four hours, you thought with amusement.
Too long.
“You're here” you whispered, pulling away from the kiss to notice how his blue eyes were watering at the edges. All your concern about crying again, and he was the one coming undone first.
But Satoru didn’t seem embarrassed at all by it, and the permission was all you needed for your own eyes to start welling up.
“I am” he smiled, looking at you with a kind of devotion that made your chest warm, blue eyes dancing from yours to your lips to the necklace you wore around your neck.
And then his smile widened even more, if that was even possible.
“Put me down, Toru” you laughed, feet still dangling off the floor.
“Don't want to” he pouted, pressing another soft kiss to your lips.
He convinced you so easily.
Even with all the people watching.
You wrapped your arms around his neck instead, pulling him in like you had to devour him right this second, lips meeting again like you were making up for the lost time.
The two of you simply couldn’t bear to keep your hands off each other. At the airport, on the train ride, walking down the street, even when you were standing right outside the door to your little apartment.
Every step of the way was coloured with soft caresses, his thumb brushing the top of your hand, his fingers interlaced with yours, an arm on your back as he pressed you to his chest on the busy train. That cheese eating grin coming down for a kiss to your cheek, bright blue eyes staring from above like Satoru couldn’t quite believe he was here.
You couldn’t really believe it either.
Even if it looked like a bit too much to the outside world, for the two of you this was restraint.
If you had done what you actually wanted to do to him, you’d have been arrested on the spot.
Which is why as soon as your front door was unlocked, and the two of you were inside, there was absolutely nothing that could stop you.
Not the sad look of the apartment, not your exes letters still scattered on the floor.
The minute that door was closed, Satoru was pining you against the wall, two hands around your waist easily hoisting you up as your legs wrapped around his waist instinctively.
His lips smashes against yours, savouring you with little hums as his body pressed so hard against yours it was like he wanted you two to be molded together.
“This was the hardest train ride ever” he pouted, nails digging under your shirt to feel your warm skin hidden underneath. Satoru still held you steady, brushing his thumb back and forth on your stomach, holding you so tight it might bruise.
“You did well” you praised, smiling against his lips as your own arms pulled him impossibly close, fingers tangling all over his white hair.
“That's my line, sweetheart” he teased, moving his mouth from your lips to your neck as if to prove a point, making you moan deliciously.
Your body arched at the way Satoru bit and sucked at the skin of your tender neck, and he wasted no time, moving his two large palms from your waist to your ass as he continued to press you against the wall, grinding his hips against yours like holding himself back was proving more and more difficult by the second.
“Where’s your room, pretty?” he asked, turning his attention back to your mouth, licking your lower lip lightly before biting into it.
“You want a house tour?” you teased, as if anything could separate you from him right now.
Satoru's hips pressed against yours, making a point of how stiff he was even above layers of clothing. “Mmm, later” he moaned. “I'm gonna fuck you in every room anyway”
You couldn’t help the flush in your cheeks at his words, feeling yourself making a mess all over your underwear before he had even fully touched you. You could only nod your head towards the door at the end of the hall.
Satoru effortlessly spun you around, hooking an arm under your knees and another onto your back as if you weighted nothing, as he carried you away bridal style, so confident like he owned the damn place.
Had you been in a more composed state of mind you might have even teased him for it, but right now the only thing you could think of was how you needed him to walk faster.
Needed him to kick open the door, throw you on your bed and climb on top of you while he got those annoying layers off his skin.
Luckily for you, Satoru did just that, as if he could read your mind.
Before you knew it you were both struggling to remove your clothes, while Satoru kneeled on the bed you had shared with your ex so many times; but if someone even uttered his name right now, your response would have just been who?
There was no one else in the world right now but Satoru Gojo.
Satoru Gojo removing your coat, removing your top, removing your trousers only to reveal another layer of thick thighs to help you survive the cold.
“I hate winter” he pouted, yanking them off in a single movement like the amount of fabric between your two bodies was offensive to him, earning a big laugh out of you.
Soon, you were both free. Satoru – towering above you in nothing but a pair of grey boxers, toned abs and veiny arms all on display for you, stealing your breath away like he always did.
And you – completely bare and unashamed, sprawled out under him, save for your panties and the crystal on your neck.
Satoru smiled down at you, pulling both your legs around his waist, sinking down to kiss you again. Your skin prickled at the touch, at the way his chest squished your breasts against him, how your stomachs pressed together, how his hands explored you up and down until they made their way south.
His fingers trailed the band of your underwear, feeling how wet you already were. “Baby” he whimpered. “Best reception I could have asked for” he grinned, sinking one finger inside you as you held on to his shoulders, face scrunching in pleasure.
The room filled with lewd noises and your desperate moans, Satoru’s heavy breathing punctuating every sound like he was conducting a symphony.
“Fuck I missed you” he groaned.
“I missed you too” you whimpered, nails digging into his shoulders as he added another finger inside you, making your toes curl.
“Nah, baby” Satoru clicked his tongue. “Not talking to you right now” he said playfully, and you lifted your head to follow his gaze, right to where his fingers disappeared inside of you.
You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you, not when Satoru looked so completely drunk on you, hair all wild and pupils dilated, admiring your body like he was fucking hypnotised.
No one had ever made you feel this good about yourself.
You propped yourself up on your elbows, moving one hand to the obvious bulge in his boxers, gripping his thick cock with so much force he startled, eyes suddenly all wide as you began stroking it up and down through the fabric.
“Fuck that feels good, princess” he whimpered, biting at his lower lip as his rhythm faultered.
“Not talking to you right now” you teased, bringing your face closer to his torso, your other hand moving to drag his boxers down, the other continuing to palm him steadily.
Satoru’s lustful smile grew brighter, as he started to scissor and curl his fingers inside of you like this was a competition. It forced you to pause, head falling against his bare stomach as you tried to steady your breathing.
“Feels good, baby?” he teased, doing everything he had learnt would make you see stars.
You scrunched your nose at him, though the redness in your cheek and the way your breath came uneven were proof enough of how he was undoing you.
But you wouldn’t give up that easily.
You finally freed him from his boxers, admiring the way his thick length sprung upwards, already glistening with pre. For all his competitiveness, Satoru watched you with wide anticipating eyes, biting at his lower lip as he struggled to maintain the rhythm himself.
Those aquamarine eyes watched as you pulled out your tongue and slowly licked a wet stripe from the base to the swollen tip of his cock, making sure to keep your eyes on his so you could watch that drunk expression on his face, lips parted and almost drooling.
Those half lidded, intoxicated eyes kept watching you as you took your time, licking his length and around his balls, driving him insane with how slow you moved. And when you finally closed your lips over his tip, Satoru threw his head back with a low, guttural groan, as everything else in him stilled.
It was an ethereal sight, to see Satoru Gojo come so completely undone by what you did to him.
So you sucked harder, moving a hand to assist you in stroking him up and down as he wrapped one on your hair, finally releasing his fingers from inside you because focusing on anything else right now was impossible.
“Li–like that” he moaned out, exhaling deeply, moving his hips like he wanted nothing more than to fuck your throat deeper. But you were the one setting the pace, and Satoru was just eagerly accepting everything you gave him.
Just like he had learnt you, you had done the same to him. You noticed the way his fingers pulled your hair when you hit a sensitive spot, the way his hips buckled forward when you sucked harder, how he held his breath when you took him further down your throat.
You felt so powerful, pleasing him like that, listening to his groans and moans like it was music to your ears.
Your pace quickened, swallowing until his thick length was down your throat, doing your best to breathe in through your nose though the sensation was uncomfortable. Your face was a mess of spit and tears but you didn’t care, not when you were making him sound like that.
In the past you would have been ashamed to let someone see you like this, but with Satoru? All of that was out the window.
“F-fuck, baby, I’m gonna–“ he tried to warn, but the way his hips kept moving faster and faster indicated he didn’t want to stop at all.
But then, you did.
Pulled him out of your mouth with a wet pop, looking up as his expression went from ecstasy to surprise to the needy little pout you so wanted to see. His chest heaved up and down, trying to catch his breath, when his two thick hands opened your thighs and he sank down into you with no warning.
Satoru knew what you were doing, and if there was one thing that man was, was competitive.
His tongue immediately flattened against your clit as he sank two fingers inside you again, barely giving you time to regain composure as the heat flowed to the top of your head and the pleasure made you feel almost high.
“So mean to me” he was groaning against you, making out with your pussy while fingering you stupid, hands gripping your thighs to hold you open while you twitched and moaned underneath him.
“T-toru” you gasped, pulling his white hair to further sink him into you. “I'm sorry–"
His blue eyes watched you from below, seeing the way your lips had curved into a evil little smirk as he opened one of his own. “I don’t think you are, princess” he teased, flicking his tongue over your sensitive bud. “Making me punish you” he tutted, removing his hands from inside you just as you were about to hit your peak, turning your body around with far too much ease.
Your bare stomach hit the bed, as you looked over your shoulder to find him staring at you, placing kisses all over your lower back and the curves of your ass, admiring your body.
And then a firm hand fell downwards, smacking you with force and leaving his hand there to soothe the red skin. Your hips buckled, a sharp gasp leaving your lips.
“Too much, baby?” Satoru checked in, lips brushing the shell of your ear while he kissed the side of your face, thick erection pressing against your back.
“N-no” you smiled. “I like it” you looked up at him, biting your lip.
Satoru’s grin grew wider, palm coming downwards to smack against you again, and this time he tilted your face up so he could drink your moans with a kiss. “You're so nasty today, princess” he teased, rubbing his cock on you. “Miss me that much?”
“I did” you admitted, no shame or timidness. “Missed you so fucking much”
Satoru looked shocked at your unabashed confession, holding his breath as he slowly turned you around, bringing his hands to cup your cheeks. “Yeah?” he asked, so soft and small it was like he wasn’t just spanking your ass moments ago.
You nodded, brushing your nose against his and circling your legs over his hips. “I'm so happy you’re here”
Satoru couldn’t quite find the words at that moment. There was a lot he could have said, from rushed confessions to whole passionate soliloquies, but his mouth didn’t work, couldn’t work, not when you were here, underneath him again.
Looking so fucking beautiful and voicing all the words he always wanted to hear come out of your lips.
Satoru needed to be one with you right now.
So he lined himself against you, waiting for your smile that indicated you were comfortable, happy, the little dig of your heel on his thigh as he began to push inside you. His head fell forwards to rest above your forehead, and you both moaned together as he made you feel so full.
“You feel so good” he couldn’t help but whimper, and you clenched instinctively, allowing him in.
“Don't stop” you breathed out, as if he ever would.
Satoru started moving slowly, giving you time to adjust to him, rejoicing in the way you stretched to let him in. Out of all the feelings in his heart right now, the one that stood out was relief – so relieved that you had called him, that he was here, that he had you again.
You moaned out his name, and Satoru was lost in it, his pace growing quicker and quicker and fucking unrelenting. He had never felt this way before, the way he just had to be close to you, inside of you, how he wanted to break you in half and kiss every inch of your body after so that you felt safe in his arms.
He loved how you clenched around him, greedily milking him, making Satoru need to use all his self restraint to not spill all he had deep inside you right now. But he just couldn’t let it be over so soon.
If he could choose, he’d be inside you forever.
“T-toru” you cried out, biting your lip, tears falling from your lashes as he kissed each one away, keeping up the brutal pace though he looked at you with so much soft affection.
“You close, pretty?” he panted, interlacing his fingers with yours and pining them above your head, completely in control.
You nodded, biting your kiss swollen lips and shutting your overwhelmed eyes tight, but that only made him press into you with more force.
“Open your eyes, beautiful” he cooed, kissing your face again. “I want to look at you”
So you did as he asked, blinking them up to find him hovering just inches off you, handsome blue eyes the only thing you could focus on.
“Good girl” he praised, opening that bright smile. “Taking it so well”
Your moans grew louder and louder and Satoru released one hand to find your clit again, determined to have you reach your peak first even after the way you had teased him earlier.
He rubbed and pinched the bundle of nerves, rolling it around as your body started shaking underneath him. “I–I’m–“ you whimpered, but no sound came out.
Your mouth hung open into a silent scream, body arching as Satoru continued to thrust into you faster, admiring the way your face contorted when you were so lost in pleasure.
Pleasure he gave you.
It was too fucking much, and soon he was spilling all the way inside you, meeting your lips again so your moans could mix as you both tried to catch your breath.
You came down from your high into his warm embrace, his soft lips kissing the sweat away from your face. “So beautiful” he cooed, kissing your forehead, your cheek, your jaw.
Your little apartment felt so warm right now.
Satoru carefully pulled out from you, throwing himself to your side so he could pull you into his chest, cradling you like something precious while smoothing down your hair.
“I missed you” he whispered, rubbing a hand up and down your arm, calming your shaking form.
“It's only been a day” you tried to tease, but your heart was too full and your body too tired. You nuzzled your head into his chest, thin white hair tickling your cheek as you felt so at home, finally.
“Too long” he complained, kissing the top of your head. His hand continued their careful path all around you, soothing your sensitive skin, until it found the red spot he left on your ass. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, a little anxious, carefully rubbing the tender skin.
“It’s ok” you smiled, thinking back at your own unbashfulness, shocked at how honest you were.
But Satoru was not satisfied. He pulled himself away slowly, making sure to settle you down comfortably on the bed before disappearing through the door. He came back a second later, carrying a towel on one hand, and a bag of peas on the other.
“Toru…?” you rose a brow at him.
“I got you, princess” he nodded, climbing back to rest next to you, placing the two on top of your red skin.
The cold came as a shock at first, but you couldn’t deny it helped the irritated skin.
“Aftercare" he announced proudly, holding the ice in place while you smiled into the pillow he had placed under your head.
“You're cute” you smiled.
“I care” he corrected, and you could see in his tone there was an almost sadness at how surprising this was to you.
He could probably guess from your reactions every time that you were not used to being cared for like this, and Satoru would never admit how much it hurt to think that. He almost wanted to make up for all the other shitty experiences you’ve had.
And he would make sure you got nothing but softness from now on.
He held the ice in place, using his other hand to gently stroke your hair, allowing your tired body to hum in delight as you finally relaxed.
“So what’s the plan for today?” he asked eventually.
You turned your head lazily at him, surprised at all the energy he still had. “Do you want to watch the fireworks?” you asked, already knowing the answer.
“Of course” he replied enthusiastically. “Got any good places around here?”
“There's a hill” you suggested, trying to think of any places that could be worthy of him in your shitty town. “It's got a nice view"
“Perfect" he beamed.
You felt your chest warm at how excited he was. Maybe Satoru’s optimism was beginning to rub off on you.
7:23pm
You and Satoru finally managed to make your way out of the bedroom, after hours of making up for lost time, so to speak. The soft aftercare turned into sweet kisses, which turned into more rolling in bed together, to then deciding a shower was needed, which turned into more making out under the hot water, but now you were both clean and satisfied and maybe a little too tired.
Satoru insisted you wore one of his shirts, all wrinkly from how hastily it had been thrown into his bag, but you accepted gratefully. He only wore a pair of grey sweatpants, and when you complained about the cold, his suggestion was you both should just stay as close as possible to mediate it.
Sounded like a reasonable plan to you.
“You've got a nice place” he announced, fingers interlaced with yours as you finally showed him around the apartment properly.
“You think so?” you asked, a little shy, but happier than you could say that he approved of your little space.
“I know so” he nodded. “What’s all this?” Satoru asked then, picking up one of the letters from the floor and turning it around in his hand.
You sighed, already expecting this moment to come, since they were literally scattered all over the floor. “They’re from my ex” you explained sheepishly.
“You serious?” his mouth hung open.
“Yeah" you confirmed, hating how shocked he looked.
“Is he trying to win you back?” Satoru asked, throwing the letter down so he could turn and face you fully, bringing you into his chest.
“I don’t know” you admitted, leaning into his warmth. “I haven’t opened all of them”
“You haven’t?” he asked, and you could tell curiosity was eating at him.
“No" you shook your head. “I opened one, and it wasn’t very…nice”
“Fuck” he hissed, tightening his hold on you. “What an asshole”
“He is” you let out a dry laugh.
“Do you want me to get rid of them?” he asked, and that genuinely made your chest unclench with relief.
“Would you?” you turned to face him, resting your chin on his chest and staring upwards at the impossibly tall man.
“Baby" he cupped your cheek. “Of course”
“I'd really appreciate it” you smiled.
“Then I must” he nodded, leaning down to press a little kiss to the tip of your nose.
“Thank you, Toru” your cheeks flushed, warm all over. “I'll go get ready for tonight, if you want to…you know”
“Of course, princess” he said. “I got you”
Satoru watched you disappear back into your room, standing awkwardly around your living room with hands in his pockets so he could resist the urge to open each one of those letters and tell this guy to fuck off.
He didn’t consider himself to be a particularly jealous person, but the thought of this guy who treated you so poorly thinking he still had a chance with you?
That drove him absolutely crazy.
Satoru started gathering the letters and fixing them into a neat pile. How many had this idiot even sent? He couldn’t possibly think they would actually convince you to go back to him, not after everything, right?
This man was delusional if he thought he would ever have another shot with his g–
Satoru stopped himself at the thought, shaking his head. You weren’t really his just yet, he reminded himself.
That thought wasn't exactly comfortable either.
So he turned his attention back to the letters, to the pile of words your ex forcefully shoved into your life.
He hated him. He had never hated someone he had never met like this, but if Satoru ever came across him, he fantasised about putting him in his place, making him so scared he’d never bother you again.
Wouldn’t he know – opportunity presented itself in unexpected ways.
The door bell rung, noise immediately startling him as he narrowed his eyes at the door, placing the letters on the floor next to his feet.
He opened it to find another man standing outside it.
Satoru was immediately relieved to see the guy was at least not attractive, well, not compared to him, of course. Yellow hair, medium build, looking far too smug for his average looks. Did you seriously spend four years with this guy?
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked immediately, and his voice managed to annoy Satoru even more.
“You're the one knocking on my girlfriends door” Satoru said, smile far too easy for the clear condescension in his tone, leaning half naked by the door frame with so much confidence the other man had no reason to not believe him.
“Girlfriend?” the man hissed, trying to look past Satoru to find you where he expected you to be.
“Did you not hear me?” Satoru asked, taking a step closer to hide his view of the inside of the apartment.
“She’s my girlfriend” he growled.
Yeah. He hated him.
“Ohhh" Satoru murmured, cocking his head and eyeing him up and down. “So you’re the loser she told me about”
The man’s face got all red, looking like he was about to explode. “Fuck did you just say?”
“Are you the–“ Gojo started saying, enunciating every vowel before the other man interrupted.
“I heard you, asshole” he snarled. “Where is she?”
Satoru bent at the hips, hinging his body forward to better meet the man’s height, smiling dangerously at him. “I can take a message” he said.
The boy took an instinctive step back, swallowing hard. “Tell her I need to see her”
Satoru’s face turned darker in a second. “What for?” he asked.
“She…um” the man hesitated, clearly feeling the way the temperature seemed to drop.
And then Satoru straightened up again, exhaling with a disappointed expression. “I think we’re done here” he announced.
“Wait–“ the man startled.
“You ever go near her again” Satoru interrupted. “You deal with me. Got it?” he completed with a smile, far too wide for how threatening his voice was.
The man grimaced, taking another step backwards, not daring utter any words.
“Oh, and–“ Satouru started. “Take these with you” he kicked the pile of letters.
And closed the door without a second look.
Satoru took a deep breath, proud of himself, trying to shake the way this man irked him. And also that annoying, lingering jealousy from knowing you had been his, once.
He couldn’t quite shake how much he hated the thought of you being anyone else’s.
But you weren’t his, or anyone’s, you were your own person, and he loved that about you, if anything, he wanted to be yours, and–
“Toru?”
As if to snap him out of this spiral, your voice came like a sweet melody from the hallway.
“Hi, baby” Satoru smiled, his real smile this time, not threatening or condescending but completely undone by you. He turned around to find you looking beautiful, so much so he feared he’d never be able to properly put it into words.
“Wow" was all he managed to say, awestruck, all thoughts of anyone else immediately gone.
“You like it?” You asked sheepishly, turning around so he could admire your outfit.
“I love it” he corrected, placing a kiss to your cheek. “Where are you taking me, then?”
8: 31pm
The first stop on this tour of your hometown was the little Italian restaurant a couple blocks away. It was one of the few options you really liked, and though you were worried it wouldn't quite compare to anything you two had tried at the hotels many expensive restaurants, Satoru was enthralled the whole time.
He announced he loved every plate as they came, savouring each one and humming in approval in a way that made you believe him. But it wasn’t just the taste that he enjoyed – it was getting a glimpse of what your life was like.
Being invited into your world, little by little.
And he did enjoy the food, it wasn’t a performance at all.
Even if he had been constantly distracted by your gorgeous face across from him, and the glint of aquamarine resting above your heart.
“What's the next stop, princess?” he asked eagerly, offering you his arm after paying the bill in full.
Next, you took him for a walk along the high street.
It wasn’t huge or exactly special, but the snowfall did make for a nice landscape, especially with Satoru there and walking arm in arm with you.
“I like it here, you know” he smiled, cocking his head to you to check your reaction.
“Really?” you asked in a relieved tone. “You can stay as long as you like, you know” you looked at the ground then, trying your best to sound like it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Though it obviously was.
“Yeah? Are you formally inviting me, princess?” Satoru asked, leaning down towards you.
“Well, if you want to” you shrugged. “If it’s not an issue with work, or–“
“It's not an issue” he reassured.
Satoru said it so fast it took you a second to realise he was actually agreeing to stay.
Wanted to, even.
“Must be nice” you teased, a little jealous of how easy a decision like this came to him.
“It is” he agreed. “Wait, here–“ Satoru suddenly stopped, brushing some snow that was starting to gather all over your hair as you stood still, letting him comb his fingers through your strands to let go of the white snowflakes.
“Was I starting to look like you?” you laughed.
You didn’t quite understand what made him blush so much when you said that, and Satoru would never tell you about the image that flashed through his head – someone who looked like you but with his white hair, and it was enough to make his heart skip a beat.
He shook the image away – it was far too early for that, he reprimanded himself. But the heat in his chest completely caught him off guard.
“So where are we going?” he asked, changing the subject, turning around so you couldn’t see how red the tips of his ears were.
10:01pm
The world was engulfed in darkness by the time you and Satoru made it up the steep hill, following the path through the tall trees in the local park, all the way up to the snow covered summit.
It was nothing compared to the mountains of the ski resort where you had met, but it wasn’t too shabby either.
Snow now completely covered the grassy ground, making it harder to walk, but you were already used to leaning on Satoru for this, the tall man somehow always so majestic even in this weather.
“You were right” he said, taking a look at the street lights far below, as other families and couples all gathered around, waiting for the fireworks just like you were. “It's beautiful up here”
“I'm glad you think so” you squeezed his hand. “Not as nice as the mountain though, is it?”
“Not as nice as the bunny slope, no” he grinned, looking down at you. “That was really a good trip, wasn’t it?”
“My favourite” you agreed. “Not that I travel much”
“Maybe we could change that” he suggested, with an irresistible smile.
“I don’t know” you scrunched your nose. “I could barely afford that one. Had to sell my exe’s playstation to afford to extend it, actually” you laughed at the memory.
Satoru turned to you with a delighted expression. “You sold his playstation?”
“Yeah, was going to be his Christmas gift” you laughed, and you were so relieved you were able to laugh about it now.
Satoru threw his head back in an amused laugh. “Well done, princess” he said. “He deserved it”
You smiled at him. “He did” you nodded. “You'd hate him, you know”
“I already do” he confirmed, and when you looked at him between furrowed brows, Satoru rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. “He, uh, came by the apartment earlier”
“Really?” you asked with wide eyes.
“Yeah" he confirmed. “I don’t think he’ll be bothering you anymore”
Satoru had been worried about your reaction, anxious for not having told you sooner, but your smile made it all fine again. “Did you scare away my evil ex, Toru?” you teased.
“I did” he nodded with the proudest smirk. “You're welcome”
“My saviour” you smiled, planting a kiss to his cheek.
He selfishly turned his face around to catch your lips in a little kiss, earning a soft giggle out of you. How the two of you had come so far in so little time you couldn’t quite explain, it was like just the other day you were scowling at anything he said and rolling your eyes while walking away.
Things had moved fast, but it felt so right. Inevitable.
Like you were always meant to be right here.
“Any new years resolutions, princess?” Satoru asked.
You paused, considering. This was a tradition you never really took part in – every year, always expecting the same outcome, so why bother hoping? But something was different now. “I think I want to put myself out there more” you announced. “Be more adventurous”
“You're off to a great start” he smiled, and you knew it was true.
“What about you?” you asked.
“I guess the same” he cocked his head. “Maybe hit the gym more”
You laughed. “As if you need to”
Satoru pouted. “Isn't that what you’re supposed to say every year?”
“Maybe that’s why you look like that, then” you mused, nodding your head up and down the length of his body.
“Well" he rose a teasing eyebrow at you. “If it keeps you looking at me like that, I’ll go every day”
His hand circled around your waist, pulling you close as your cheeks flushed. “I'd look at you like this even if you didn’t go to the gym” you admitted, because it was true.
Even though you were not complaining about his physique at all.
But something quite close to surprise flashed across Satoru's face.
“That's–" Satoru caught himself off guard, completely taken aback by what you just said. “That's very kind, princess”
“Why you so shy all of a sudden?” you nudged him with your shoulder.
"No reason” he smiled, and this time it was that practiced, confident one you were so good at spotting.
“Come on” you pouted up at him, like you actually wanted to listen.
Satoru exhaled, but relented. “Sometimes I feel like people don’t really see me” he admitted, voice small, looking far ahead. “But you do"
He turned to you then, blue eyes as bright as the moon above, smiling a genuine smile again, if not a little shy. “I feel the same” you admitted, placing your arms just over his shoulders as he relaxed into your touch, fingers playing with his messy white hair.
Satoru grinned, coming down to brush his nose against yours. “I don’t know how you do it” he murmured.
Your reply was leaning forwards, finding his lips. For what felt like the hundredth time today alone, you didn’t care about anyone else looking, or how he may perceive you for the constant affection. Something told you he very much liked it.
It was the way his gloves tightened around your waist, the way his lips parted instantly. Satoru Gojo couldn’t care less about what anyone else had to say.
The world was narrowed down to the two of you, to the taste of your tongues warming up your frosty lips, two bodies entangled as one like it had been fate.
Inevitable.
Satoru pulled away, staring at you between long snowy eyelashes, so tender and so soft, in a way you never could have dared dream someone could look at you like.
“Want to build a snow man while we wait?” he suggested, and you nodded with a laugh.
There were still a few minutes to go before midnight, so you two got to work. Creating a sort of unfortunate looking abnormality of a snowman, laughing every step of the way, taking pictures together to add to the many more you’d hopefully take in the coming days.
Waiting for the moment the crowd got denser and you had to shift your eyes to the sky, waiting for the show of colours to signal it was a new year, full of so many new possibilities.
11:59pm
Once the time finally came, you both stood with the rest of the crowd, eyes towards the darkness above, expectantly. And then, Satoru shifted, too quick – hands on your shoulders, looking a little too nervous.
“Can I say something?” he asked suddenly.
Your eyes widened. “The fireworks–“
“I'm sorry I didn’t say anything earlier” he interrupted. “I should have told you the first day I met you”
“Told me what?” you felt your cheeks warm against the cold winter air.
A crowd of people stared far ahead at the sky, eagerly lost in anticipation for the bright colours to be cast against the sky.
But you could only look at the bright blue eyes right in front of to you.
“I've never felt this way before” he blurted out, shy, but holding the eye contact even if both your hearts beat so loud they drummed over the crowd. “You're so…gods, you’re everything”
You reached a gloved hand to hold his, and he eagerly accepted.
“I feel the same, Toru” you smiled.
The crowd next to you started their eager countdown.
Ten.
“I’m really glad” he smiled.
Nine.
“Because I really don’t want this to end” he continued. “And I know its soon"
Eight.
“But I was thinking…” he cut himself off.
Seven.
“Thinking what?” you blinked at him, wanting to hear the words before they were completely drawn out by the loud bangs and cheering.
Six.
Satoru took a deep breath, one glove coming up to touch the side of your cheek. You could so easily get lost in that smile.
Five.
“You're so beautiful, you know?” he whispered, getting just a little closer.
Four.
Satoru took a deep breath in, but you held yours.
Three.
“Do you want to… be my girlfriend? Officially?” he asked then, too tentatively.
Two.
You thought the fireworks had started, but it turned out it was just your hammering heart.
Satoru stared at you expectantly, vulnerable, as you tried to find the words to say yes to the thing you tried to keep as far from your head as possible, never thinking it was a real possibility.
One.
Satoru looked so nervous, but when you opened your bright smile, he couldn’t help his.
“Of course” you said.
Happy New Year the crowd chanted, but you barely heard them, eyes locked on the handsome tourist in front of you.
Your boyfriend.
Your boyfriends hands around your waist, cupping your cheek, brushing your hair away. Your boyfriends lips on yours, joining in on a midnight tradition you hoped would repeat for the years to come.
Satoru tasted sweet, just like he had that first time, and the next, and the next, and the next. How many times had you two kissed in the short span of time you’ve known each other, and how did it never feel like it was enough?
Before you knew what was happening, you were being lifted off the floor again, feet dangling over the snow covered ground as Satoru lifted you up to his height, never breaking the kiss for a second, bringing you closer to the colourful sky all around you.
Explosions of purple, pink, blue, yellow. But none could match the explosion happening inside your chest right now.
“Happy new year” Satoru said to your lips, holding on to you tight, the fabric of the thick coats you wore annoyingly getting in the way of you feeling all of him.
“Happy new year” you replied back, only then realising you were crying.
Satoru smiled, placing you down gently so he could pat the tears away softly, and then he stepped beside you to hold your back to his chest, leaning his chin on the top of your head so you could both watch the sky together.
“Kinda like the Aurora, isn’t it?” he said, lost in memories, holding your waist tight.
You laughed, tilting your chin to look at him. “A little”
“I really wanted to kiss you that night, you know?” he admitted.
“Why didn’t you?” you said back, far too bold, leaning completely against his chest.
“You hated me, remember?” he teased.
You laughed. “I remember” you confirmed, closing a gloved hand over his.
His head shifted to place a kiss to the side of your face, white hair tickling your skin as he traced little pecks all over.
“Guess I should look at a place around here, huh?” he mused.
Your eyes opened wide. “You want to move here?”
“Of course” he pouted. “Unless you only want to meet in foreign hotels, which can be arranged, but–“
“You're ridiculous” you laughed. “I don’t even like it here"
“Why don’t you come live with me then?” he suggested, brushing your hair away.
You enjoyed the fantasy, but you knew reality wasn’t that kind. “It's not that easy, you know”
“I know” he muttered. “We'll figure it out” he promised.
“Yeah" you smiled. “I know we will”
“We've got forever after all” he teased.
Your heart beat fast as you took a shaky breath in, pressing against him so close your bodies almost molded together.
You’d figure it out, you knew. You two had so far.
Forever, Satoru Gojo had promised.
For the first time in your life, you were looking forward to that.
❅ a/n well friends...here we are! im so emotional about finishing this story, both because it was so special and healing for me to write, but also because the reception from you guys was so kind and beautiful and I really want to thank all of you for coming on this journey with me! I worked on this for months before announcing it and to have it be met with so much love was honestly overwhelming in the best way. im so excited to read your final thoughts <3 happy holidays!
pairing: florist!bucky barnes x baker!reader | 5.2k words
warnings: literally none. this is the softest palette cleanser you’ll ever see on this page
summary: you thought the constant stream of poinsettias from the flower shop next door were for your bakery’s window display—free seasonal décor courtesy of your charming neighbor. vut when your best friend forces you to read the tiny envelopes tucked into the leaves, you discover every last one is a confession. from bucky. the man you’ve been trying (and failing) not to fall for.
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The first poinsettia shows up on a Tuesday.
You’re elbow-deep in gingerbread dough behind the counter, Christmas playlist humming through the bakery speakers, when the bell over your door jingles. You call out a distracted, “Be right with you!” and keep kneading, trying not to think about the fact that you’re already two catering orders behind and the display case looks like it’s been pillaged by sugar gremlins.
“Delivery for… Sugar Street Bakery,” a voice says.
You glance up, breathless. A kid in a red beanie is standing at the counter, cheeks pink from the cold, hugging a square foil-wrapped pot to his chest. Bright red petals spill over the sides, dark green leaves glossy and perfect.
A poinsettia.
“For me?” you ask, wiping your hands on your apron.
The kid shrugs. “It says your bakery, so. From Bloom & Buck, next door.” He jerks his chin in the direction of the flower shop. “Guy with the long hair told me not to drop it, like, fifty times.”
You try not to smile too hard. “That sounds like him.”
James Buchanan Barnes—Bucky to every old lady in a five-block radius—owns the flower shop next to your bakery. He opened Bloom & Buck a year before you took over Sugar Street. You’ve spent the last two years trading early-morning hellos, borrowed cups of sugar, and the occasional shared lunch in the alley out back when your breaks overlap. You know he likes his coffee black, sings off-key to Motown when he’s cleaning buckets, and always hangs a wreath on your door before you can get around to ordering one.
You also know you have a massive crush on him and absolutely no time to do anything about it.
You step around the counter. The poinsettia is lush and symmetrical, the bracts a perfect, velvety red. There’s a tiny envelope stuck into the soil on one of those little plastic card holders, printed with your bakery’s name.
Your chest squeezes. Of course he’d send something festive.
“Wow,” you murmur. “Tell Bucky I said thank you?”
The kid salutes with two fingers. “Sure thing.” Then he’s gone, bell jingling behind him.
You carry the poinsettia carefully to the front window. The old building has wide sills that collect dust and crumbs; you swipe them clean with your sleeve and set the plant in the corner, turning it until the best side faces the street. It looks like it belongs there, glowing against the frost-rimmed glass, a little beacon of holiday cheer.
You notice the envelope again and pluck it free. It’s one of those floral shop cards, small and cream with a delicate border. Probably something like Happy Holidays or Thanks for being a great neighbor.
You really should get back to the dough.
You tuck the card back into the soil. You’ll read it later, you tell yourself. After the gingerbread. After the sugar cookies. After you wrestle the temperamental oven into baking the peppermint brownies evenly for once.
By closing time, your feet ache, you’ve got powdered sugar in your hair, and the little envelope is completely forgotten.
The second poinsettia shows up two days later.
You’re sliding trays of cinnamon rolls into the display case, warmth blooming in your face from the ovens, when the bell jingles again.
“Special delivery for my favorite sugar dealer,” a familiar voice calls.
You straighten so fast you nearly slam your head on the glass. “Bucky.”
He’s standing by the counter, cradling another poinsettia like it’s made of spun glass. He’s got his hair pulled back in a messy bun at the nape of his neck, a knit beanie shoved over his ears. There’s a smudge of green on his cheekbone—pollen, or maybe leaf dust—that somehow just makes him more unfairly attractive.
“Hey, doll,” he says, mouth quirking. “Brought you something.”
You wipe your hands again, like there’s somehow a world where you greet him without flour on your fingers. “You didn’t have to. The first one was already way too much.”
He shrugs, stepping closer. The plant between you smells faintly of damp soil and something clean and green underneath the bakery’s sugar fog. “Window looked a little lonely on the other side. Thought I’d give it a friend.”
“That’s what the gingerbread men are for,” you tease.
“They keep losing their heads,” he counters, eyes flicking toward the display case. “Seems like they’ve got bigger problems.”
You huff a laugh, heat pricking your cheeks that has nothing to do with the ovens. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Compliment accepted.”
He carries the new poinsettia to the window like he’s staging an exhibit, setting it a few inches from the first. His fingers gentle the leaves apart, nudging the pot until both plants line up in a perfect crimson duo.
There’s another tiny envelope in this one. You clock it, the white paper tucked among the red bracts.
“Are these… like a promotion?” you ask, leaning your hip against the counter. “Cross-branding for Christmas? Because we can totally put a little ‘Courtesy of Bloom & Buck’ sign in the window if you want. Or I can pay you for them. Seriously, Bucky, I know these aren’t cheap.”
He glances over his shoulder, something quick and unreadable flashing across his face. “Yeah,” he says after a beat. “Something like that.”
Your stomach does a little flip, but before you can parse it, a customer bustles in behind him, shaking snow off her scarf and demanding six dozen iced sugar cookies by Saturday.
By the time you look back at the window, Bucky is gone.
The little envelope winks up at you and you think, again, I’ll read it later.
You do not, in fact, read it later.
It becomes a thing.
Every few days, another poinsettia appears—sometimes delivered by the red-beanie kid, sometimes carried in by Bucky himself, sometimes inexplicably already sitting in your window when you arrive, condensation fogging the glass behind them.
Your sill turns into a mini forest of red and green. Customers gush over them, noses pressed to the glass while they debate between peppermint bark and cranberry crumble bars. You answer questions about care like you’re the one who knows how not to kill plants that aren’t made of sugar and butter.
You text Bucky midafternoon one day when you’re particularly buried in dough.
you: okay poinsettia king. people keep asking how i haven’t murdered the window yet. i’m sending them all to you.
bucky: they’re in good hands
bucky: besides i check on them every night
You stare at that last line for a second, a weird flutter in your chest.
you: you break into my bakery to water my plants??
bucky: breaking in is a serious accusation, doll
bucky: i have a key
Right. The key in the back hallway, on the hook between your two doors, for emergencies or shared deliveries. Rational. Boring. Safe.
It doesn’t explain why your heart is pounding.
you: still sounds like breaking in
bucky: guess you’ll have to arrest me
bucky: officer
Heat creeps up your neck. You send back a bakery-themed gif and then force yourself to go back to piping snowflakes onto sugar cookies, telling yourself it’s just banter. Bucky flirts with everyone. That’s his thing. Flower guy charm, built into the job description.
You ignore the tiny envelopes tucked into each pot like it’s part of the packaging, the way a pastry box comes with string. You’re busy. You’re tired. You’ll read them when you have five minutes alone that aren’t immediately filled with sleep.
Somehow, those five minutes never come.
The day everything changes, it’s snowing.
Not the sprinkling you’ve had the last week, but proper, thick flakes, the kind that muffle the city noise and turn the streetlights into glowing halos. Business has slowed to a trickle. People come in with pink cheeks, buy hot chocolate and a cookie or two, then hurry back into the swirling white. You find yourself watching the snow more than the batter.
It’s late afternoon when your best friend barges in.
“You’re a criminal,” she announces, shaking snow into your already-messy entryway. “An actual criminal. I should report you to someone.”
You blink at her from behind the espresso machine. “Hi to you too?”
She stomps her boots, then slides behind the counter like she owns the place, stealing a sip of your hot chocolate before you can protest. “I just came from Bucky’s. Do you know what he looks like out there? Like a sexy Christmas lumberjack in an apron.”
“You think everyone looks like a sexy Christmas lumberjack,” you mutter, cheeks warming.
“Incorrect. I think everyone looks like a mess. Bucky looks like a very specific, very sinful mess, and you”—she pokes your shoulder—“are committing a felony by not doing anything about it.”
“I’m busy,” you protest weakly, gesturing around. “Also, that’s a dramatic overstatement.”
She ignores you, wandering toward the window. “Holy shit, the poinsettias multiplied.”
“I know. I told him he doesn’t have to keep sending them, but he’s… persistent.” You try to sound casual. “I think it’s, like, a marketing thing.”
“Uh-huh,” she says.
You go back to fussing with the hot chocolate machine. “We’re doing that charity display next week, remember? He probably wants to make sure his stuff is front and center. Which is totally fine. It helps both of us, actually, and—”
“Oh my God.”
Something in her voice makes you look up.
She’s crouched by the window, peering at one of the poinsettias like it’s revealed state secrets. Her fingers pluck the tiny envelope card free. She flips it open, then whips around to gape at you.
“What?” you ask, unease crawling up your spine. “What?”
“You haven’t read these?” she demands, waving the card.
“I’ve been busy,” you say, defensive now. “Holiday rush? My oven hates me? Yesterday I had a lady cry because we ran out of yule logs? Why are you looking at me like that?”
She strides behind the counter, thrusts the card into your flour-dusted hands. “Read.”
You glance down. The card is small, your bakery name printed in neat script at the top—Bloom & Buck’s stationary, you realize. Underneath, in Bucky’s messy, looping handwriting, are four words.
For the girl next door,
who always smells like sugar.
Your heart stops.
It’s… sweet. Cheesy, even. You swallow, mouth dry. “It’s just, like… branding. Sugar Street Bakery, girl next door, smells like sugar, they all do, that’s the point—”
“Uh-huh.” She’s already snatched another card from another plant, ripping it open. “Let’s see what the second marketing slogan says.”
“Maybe don’t—”
“For the baker who feeds the neighborhood,” she reads aloud, “and the florist who’s starving for her attention.”
Your brain bluescreens.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” you whisper.
She grins like the devil. “Oh, this is good. This is so much better than I imagined.”
Panic surges. You grab the card. It’s real. The ink smudges a little under your thumb, like he wrote it in a hurry.
“Nope,” you say, voice a little too high. “Nope, absolutely not, this is—there’s no way these are—”
She’s already moving, raiding the entire sill, pulling out envelope after envelope. Some are crammed deep between leaves, some half-visible. She piles them on the counter like evidence.
“Read,” she orders. “Or I will. Loudly. Maybe into the street with a megaphone.”
You stare at the small stack. Your heartbeat is so loud it’s making you dizzy.
The bell over the door jingles. Bucky’s voice carries in with the cold air.
“Hey, doll, you got a sec? I brought—”
He stops halfway to the counter.
You freeze. Your friend, for once, has the decency to look mildly abashed.
The three of you stare at each other. The stack of opened envelopes sits between you like a small, incriminating mountain.
“Oh,” Bucky says.
His voice is different. Less easy drawl, more… oh God.
“Hi,” you say weakly. You wish the floor would open and swallow you whole. “Um. We were just…”
“Reading,” your friend supplies helpfully. “Your very subtle marketing materials.”
Bucky’s Adam’s apple bobs. The tips of his ears are pink—not from the cold anymore, you realize. “Right. Those.”
You can’t look at him. You can’t not look at him. His jaw flexes, his hand tightening briefly on the door handle like he’s considering a tactical retreat.
Your friend clears her throat. “Well, this has been deeply satisfying, but I suddenly remembered I have to go… uh… stand somewhere else.”
“Traitor,” you hiss under your breath.
She leans in, stage-whispers, “Read them,” into your ear, then escapes in a swirl of wool and snowflakes.
The bell jingles, then it’s just you, Bucky, the hum of the fridge, and the stack of tiny cards.
You pick one up because doing nothing feels worse. Your hands shake.
For the woman whose laugh blooms louder than my shop on Valentine’s Day.
Your throat tightens. You grab another, swallowing hard.
For the baker who dusts her nose with powdered sugar and doesn’t know it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Bucky,” you croak.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely.
You look up. His eyes are dark, lashes tipped with melted snow, jaw tight. His hands are shoved into his coat pockets like he’s afraid of what they’ll do if he lets them hang loose.
“These are…” You search for a word that isn’t you wrote love notes and I ignored them. “Not marketing slogans.”
He huffs out a weak laugh. “No. No, they’re not.”
You stare down at the cards. There are more. So many more. You shuffle them, the words blurring.
For the girl whose smile makes the lights on this street look dim.
For the woman who keeps me up at night wondering if she knows I’d cross a blizzard for her hot chocolate.
For the neighbor I thought would read these the first day and hasn’t, which is either the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me or the funniest.
You choke on a startled laugh at that last one. “You—why didn’t you say anything?”
Bucky shifts his weight. Snowflakes cling to his coat, melting into darker spots. “Kinda hard to bring up, doll. ‘Hey, did you get my very smooth romantic plant confessions?’ Not exactly cool.”
“I thought they were for my window display,” you burst out. “Like, for the bakery. For customers. I didn’t know they were… me things.”
He looks at the sill, then back at you. “You didn’t read a single one?”
“I was going to,” you say defensively, then wince. “Eventually. We’ve been so busy and I’d tell myself I’d read them after I cleaned up, and then I’d pass out on my couch, and then another one would show up and I’d just… put it in the window.”
He presses his lips together, like he’s fighting a smile or something else. “So my grand romantic gesture turned into an accidental seasonal merch drop.”
“I am an idiot,” you groan, dropping your head into your hands. Flour dusts the backs of your fingers, streaks across your cheeks when you drag your hands down. “Bucky, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you—this, any of this—I just thought…”
“That I was drumming up business.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Can’t blame you. I mean, I was kinda doing that too. If people come to look at my plants and accidentally buy your pecan pie, that’s a win as far as I’m concerned.”
“This is not funny,” you protest, even as a laugh bubbles up.
“A little funny,” he says, mouth twitching.
You meet his gaze. There’s humor there, yeah, but something else, too. Something softer. Something that makes your stomach swoop.
“How many are there?” you ask quietly, fingers skimming the stack.
He exhales, a white puff between you. “Uh. One for each plant.”
You glance at the sill. There are eleven poinsettias lining it now, in various sizes and shades of red and creamy white. Eleven plants. Eleven tiny confessions you didn’t know were yours to read.
Your chest feels tight.
“Why poinsettias?” you ask.
He looks down at his boots, then up again. “They’re stubborn,” he says finally. “People think they’re delicate, but they hang on. All winter if you let ‘em. And they remember.” His fingers curl in his pockets. “You treat ‘em right, they’ll come back next year. Stronger.”
There’s something raw about the way he says it. You swallow.
“Also,” he adds, a little sheepish, “they’re pretty. And they match your apron.”
You glance down at your red-spattered apron, then back up, a breathless laugh escaping. “That’s your criteria? Matches my apron?”
“And your cheeks,” he says lightly.
Your face goes hot. You’re pretty sure the poinsettias have competition now.
Silence stretches between you, thick with things unsaid.
“So…” you manage. “These little notes. They’re all… love confessions?”
His jaw ticks. For all his easy charm, you’ve seen him nervous exactly twice: when the city inspector came by to check his shop, and right now.
“Yeah,” he says. “Guess they are.”
Your heart does something ridiculous. “For… me.”
“Unless there’s another gorgeous baker on this street who smells like vanilla and works herself half to death,” he says softly. “Yeah. For you.”
Your eyes sting.
You liked him before this. You liked his crooked smile and his flower trivia and the way he’d lean in your doorway at the end of the day, trading stories about nightmare customers and suppliers who lied about delivery times. You liked the way he’d show up with a single rose when he heard you’d had a bad week, or a bunch of daisies “just because” on a Tuesday that had nothing special about it.
But this? This is a different kind of liking. This is your chest flipping inside out, your bones suddenly too small for your heart.
“How long?” you ask, voice small. “How long have you… liked me?”
He huffs a laugh that sounds more self-conscious than anything you’ve heard from him. “Since you came over my first Valentine’s Day and helped me wrap bouquets until midnight when my staff bailed.” His gaze drops to your hands, then back to your face. “You had glitter in your hair and you refused to let me pay you and you kept stealing the chocolate from the gift baskets. I was a goner.”
“That was two years ago,” you whisper.
He nods, eyes steady. “Yeah.”
Your head spins. “And you never said anything?”
“Wasn’t exactly a secret,” he mutters, half under his breath.
You think of the way he always saves you the first wreath of the season, of how he shows up with your coffee order before you’ve unlocked the door, of the handwritten notes you’ve been obliviously watering.
“Maybe not for you,” you murmur.
He smiles, small and lopsided. “I didn’t want to make things weird. You’re my neighbor. My friend. You work too hard. You don’t need your florist creeping you out with… feelings.”
“Bucky,” you say, startled. “You could never creep me out.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure right now I’m creeping myself out.”
You laugh, breathless. The sound is shaky, but real. “I’m just… I’m processing.”
“Take your time,” he says softly. “I’ve had two years, you can have at least two minutes.”
You stare at him. At the way the snow melting on his shoulders darkens the fabric. At the vein that jumps in his throat when he swallows. At the way his eyes—blue, deep as a winter sky—watch you like he’s braced for impact.
“Read one more,” he says suddenly.
You blink. “What?”
“Pick the one from today.” He nods toward the line of plants. “I brought a new one in this morning. Before you opened. It’s the one with the little gold bow.”
You glance at the sill. The last poinsettia on the right has a small gold ribbon tied around the pot, just above the foil. Your stomach flips again.
You walk over on autopilot, fingers numb. The envelope is tucked deep, almost hidden under the red bracts. You pull it free, the stationary smooth against your flour-rough skin.
You open it.
For the woman I’m terrified to ask out,
because if she says no, this street goes dark.
Your chest caves in.
You turn. He’s closer than before, like he stepped in without realizing it. Snowmelt drips from the edge of his beanie onto his cheek. His lashes flutter once, like he’s bracing for you to laugh.
You don’t laugh.
You cross the space between you, the card still in your hand. Your heart is pounding so hard you can feel it in your fingertips.
“James,” you say, and his eyes flick up, startled.
No one calls him that. Not customers. Not nosy neighbors. Not even your friend, who insists his name is “Flirty Flower Guy.”
His throat works. “Yeah?”
You hold up the card, voice shaking. “You’re terrified?”
He huffs out a breath, humorless. “Have you met you? You’re… you.” His gaze flicks over your face like it’s memorizing. “You could do better than some guy who talks to plants for a living.”
Your indignation punches through the panic. “Hey. You do a lot more than talk to plants.”
“Oh yeah?” His mouth hints at a smile. “Name three things.”
“You know how to make my shop smell like a pine forest without giving anyone allergies,” you say immediately. “You fixed my leaky sink last month when the plumber bailed. And you bring me coffee exactly the way I like it without ever asking me to write it down.”
He stares at you, something open and raw bleeding through his eyes.
“Also,” you add, a little recklessly, “you write stupidly sweet notes to a girl too frazzled to notice, and you keep giving her plants even when she doesn’t read them. That seems… kind of important.”
He lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been stuck in his chest for a long time.
“So,” he says, slow, careful, “if I… if I asked you—properly—sometime that isn’t smack in the middle of your shift, with frosting on your apron and a line of hungry people behind you…” His gaze flicks around the empty shop. “Which you don’t have right now, by the way…”
You laugh, nerves trying to crawl out of your skin.
“…if I asked you if you wanted to maybe go somewhere that isn’t this block,” he finishes, “would you… say no?”
Your heart feels like it’s sitting in your mouth.
You look at him. Really look. At the man who’s spent two winters making your life easier, who knows the exact number of marshmallows you like in your hot chocolate. At the man who’s lined your windowsill with red and green promises and been quietly hoping you’d see him.
You think about the way your stomach flips when he leans in your doorway. About the fact that you’ve imagined what his hand would feel like in yours more times than you’d admit. About how just reading his messy handwriting makes your knees weak.
“I think,” you say slowly, “I might throw a cupcake at you for not asking sooner.”
His eyes go wide. “Is… is that a yes?”
You step closer. Close enough to see the exact shade of his irises. Close enough to smell the faint mix of pine and soil clinging to his coat.
“That’s a yes,” you whisper.
His smile breaks over his face like sunrise.
“Yeah?” he breathes.
“Yeah.” You swallow, nerves and excitement tangling. “But I have one condition.”
He would give you the moon right now, you can see it in the set of his shoulders. “Anything.”
“You say it out loud,” you say. “You ask me. Properly. No floral cards to hide behind.”
He huffs a laugh, some of the tension bleeding out of his jaw. “Bossy.”
“Accurate.”
He takes a breath, like he’s centering himself. Stands a little straighter.
“Okay.” He clears his throat. “Will you… go out with me, doll? Dinner. Or ice skating, if you wanna laugh at me falling on my ass. Or we can just walk around and look at Christmas lights while I try very hard not to beg you to hold my hand.”
You don’t realize you’re smiling until your cheeks ache.
“Yes,” you say. “I’d love to.”
Relief floods his features, so strong you could almost feel it from across the room. He laughs, disbelieving, and for a second he just stands there, like his body hasn’t gotten the message yet.
Then he moves.
He steps closer in one smooth stride, one hand lifting like he’s going to touch your arm and then hesitating. “Can I…?”
You nod before he finishes. “Yeah.”
His fingers brush your cheek, warm and careful. He swipes a thumb over a streak of flour, eyes flicking to your mouth.
“If I’d known all I had to do was guilt-trip your best friend into coming in here and forcing you to read my stuff, I’d have done it months ago,” he murmurs.
“I am going to kill her,” you mutter, but it comes out breathless.
His gaze drops to your lips again. “Can I…?”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but you know what he’s asking this time.
“Yes,” you whisper.
His mouth meets yours like an exhale.
He tastes like mint and winter air, like the chocolate chips you know he steals when he thinks you’re not looking. His lips are warm, moving over yours slow at first, testing, then firmer when you sigh and lean in. One of his hands slides into your hair, the other dropping to your hip, fingers resting lightly, like he’s giving you plenty of room to pull back if you want.
You very much do not want.
You tilt your head, chasing him, and he makes a quiet sound in his throat that sends a shiver down your spine. His thumb strokes your jaw, his nose nudging yours in a clumsy little bump that makes you both smile into the kiss.
The bell over the door jingles.
You jump back, cheeks flaming. An elderly man in a flat cap peers in, then does a double-take.
“Oh,” he says, loudly delighted. “About time.”
“Hi, Mr. Kline,” you squeak.
He shuffles toward the display case, pretending he didn’t just see you devouring your neighbor. “Don’t mind me. Just here for my usual. And maybe one of those chocolate tarts.” He squints. “And you—” he points a trembling finger at Bucky “—you remember what I told you about poinsettias, son?”
Bucky clears his throat, ears bright red. “Uh, keep ‘em away from drafts?”
“Water ‘em when the soil’s dry,” Mr. Kline says. “And don’t wait too long to repot ‘em when they outgrow where they are.”
He winks at you.
You’re pretty sure that’s not actually about plants.
Bucky’s hand brushes yours as you ring up Mr. Kline’s order. Your fingers twist together, tentative then sure.
They all call it before you do.
Your morning regulars, who start “accidentally” leaving tips for the “flower fund.” The red-beanie kid, who delivers an order with the note “for my favorite couple” scrawled in Sharpie across the box. Even your friend, who sends you a text that just says I TOLD YOU SO in all caps, followed by seventeen poinsettia emojis.
You and Bucky try to play it cool. You fail spectacularly.
He brings you coffee every morning now, lingering in your doorway a little longer. You catch him staring at you through the front windows when he thinks you’re not looking, his expression soft and disbelieving.
You start ending your nights not collapsed on the couch, but in the alley between your shops, sharing leftover pastries and leftover roses. Sometimes you sit on upside-down crates, knees touching. Sometimes you lean against the brick wall, his shoulder warm against yours.
He kisses you in the alley one night when the snow is falling so thick it feels like you’re in a snow globe. You’re both half-frozen, breath puffing between you, but his hands are warm on your waist, his nose pink, his smile pressed against your mouth.
“You realize,” you murmur, “you have to keep up the poinsettias now.”
He groans. “You’re gonna bankrupt me, doll.”
“You started it,” you point out.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes bright despite the cold. “I know.”
On Christmas Eve, your bakery stays open late. People stream in for last-minute pies and emergency cookie platters, hands full of shopping bags, cheeks flushed. The poinsettias in your window are huge now, leaves lush and bracts still glowing red.
You’re closing up around eleven when someone knocks on the door.
You look up to see Bucky on the other side, bundled in his coat and scarf, a plant cradled in his arms.
“Please tell me that isn’t another poinsettia,” you say as you unlock the door.
He grins as he steps inside. “Relax. I brought reinforcements.”
It’s not a poinsettia. It’s a small evergreen tree in a pot, maybe three feet tall, decorated with tiny gingerbread-shaped ornaments and little paper flowers.
“You made it,” you breathe.
He shrugs, suddenly shy. “Figured your apartment might need a tree. One that won’t make a mess when you inevitably drop frosting on it.”
Your chest swells.
“You’re ridiculous,” you whisper.
“Compliment accepted,” he says, echoing your words from that second poinsettia delivery.
You lean up and kiss him before he can say anything else. He sets the tree down only after a second, like his hands can’t quite decide which is more important.
When you break apart, breathless, you notice there’s a tiny envelope tucked into the soil at the base of the tree.
“You’re incorrigible,” you say, but you’re already reaching for it.
“I know,” he says. “Read it this time, yeah?”
You smile, running your thumb over the flap, then open it.
For the woman who thought my poinsettias were for her window, when really, they were always for her heart.
Your eyes sting.
“You heading somewhere with that?” he asks gently, nodding toward the card.
“Yeah,” you say, stepping into his space again. “Straight to my favorites.”
He laughs softly. “Favorites, huh?”
You nod. “Right next to the one about crossing a blizzard for my hot chocolate.”
He groans. “I knew that one was too much.”
“It was perfect,” you say. “They all were.”
His expression shifts, something deep and quiet settling there. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you whisper. “They just… took me a minute to get to.”
His hand finds yours, fingers lacing. “I can wait,” he says simply. “Told you. I’m stubborn like that.”
You glance over his shoulder at the window. At the line of red and green that’s become part of your December, at the plants you water every morning now with a kind of reverence.
“Good,” you say. “Because I was thinking… this thing? With us?” You squeeze his fingers. “I want it to last longer than poinsettia season.”
His mouth curves slowly. “Careful, doll. Sounds like you’re making me a promise.”
You look back at him. At the man who turned your sill into a garden of confessions, who kept sending pieces of his heart even when you weren’t ready to read them.
“Yeah,” you say. “I think I am.”
Outside, snow swirls under the streetlights, the world quiet and soft. Inside, in the warmth of the bakery, surrounded by sugar and flowers and the lingering scent of cinnamon, Bucky leans in and seals your poinsettia promises with a kiss.
When a blizzard traps Bucky Barnes, your dad’s longtime Army friend at your home, nostalgia turns into a dangerous spark. As tension builds and secrets surface, one stormy night blurs the line between protector and temptation.
dad’s bestfriend!bucky barnes x f!reader
word count : 7,3k
warnings 18+ : explicit age-gap (18–22 / 106) dad’s-best-friend trope, sneaking around the house, risk of getting caught, multiple creampies, rough-to-tender sex, filthy praise, cockwarming, voyeurism, uprotected sex, heavy dirty talk, guilt, semi-public teasing, oral sex (f recieving), handjob, face riding, teasing
author’s note : my brain’s been absolute mush lately over dbf!bucky barnes so… here you go lmao. hope it doesn’t suck <333
The sun is a goddamn animal today, pressing down on the backyard like it wants to lick every inch of exposed skin. Neon bikinis flash around the pool, shrieks and splashes everywhere, but you’re burning up for a completely different reason. Eighteen. Legal. And yet you feel like you’re sneaking contraband just by breathing.
You drift away from the chaos, Mom’s fussing over candles, Dad’s yelling about “medium-rare, not charcoal, people!” and tell yourself you’re just finding shade. Liar.
You hear him before you see him: the soft thud of sneakers on gravel, the low exhale of someone who’s been running hard. Bucky Barnes, late as always, strolling up the driveway like he owns summer itself.
Gray joggers soaked dark at the thighs, white tank plastered to his chest, metal arm catching sunlight like liquid sin. He nods at your parents, cracks open a beer with his teeth, who even does that? and you duck behind the fence before those blue eyes can find you.
Stupid heart, racing like you’re fifteen again.
Then he disappears around the corner, heading for the old jungle gym nobody’s touched in years. You follow like a moth, quiet, barefoot on the hot grass, until you’re crouched behind the wooden slats, peeking through a knothole like a perv.
And holy fuck.
He’s peeled the tank off and hooked it over the swing chain. Bare torso gleaming, dog tags swinging between his pecs, he grips the bar with both hands and starts pulling himself up. Slow. Dirty-slow. Every rep is a flex, a ripple, a quiet grunt that slides straight between your legs and parks there.
Up. Veins popping.
Down. Abs clenching.
Up again. Sweat rolling down the center of his chest, tracing the line that disappears beneath the waistband riding way too low.
You’re wet. You are actually, shamefully wet in your brand-new red bikini bottoms just from watching your dad’s best friend do pull-ups like porn was invented for him.
You shift, thighs pressing together, and the wood creaks.
He freezes mid-air, chin over the bar, muscles locked. Turns his head just enough to catch your reflection in the shed window. Busted.
For three whole heartbeats he just hangs there, staring at you staring at him, chest heaving, sweat dripping off his jaw. Then he drops, silent, lethal, lands in a crouch, and straightens up like a predator who just scented prey.
He doesn’t grab the shirt. He walks straight to the fence, slow, shirtless, dog tags clinking, until he’s right on the other side of the slats. Close enough you can smell heat and salt and whatever cologne he wore before the pull ups turned it filthy.
“Enjoyin’ the show, birthday girl?” Voice low, rough, amused. Brooklyn dragged over gravel and sex.
Your mouth is sand. “Just… checking you’re not breaking my old swing set, Uncle Buck.”
The nickname comes out shaky, half tease, half plea. His eyes darken, pupils blowing wide.
He braces his forearms on the top of the fence, leaning in until you can see the bead of sweat sliding down his temple. “That ‘uncle’ shit ain’t gonna work much longer, sweetheart.”
His gaze drags down, slow, deliberate, over your flushed face, the swell of your chest under the thin red triangles, the way you’re squeezing your thighs together like that’ll hide what he’s doing to you. “You’re eighteen now. All grown.” The last two words come out almost pained.
Your breath hitches. Audible. Embarrassing.
He smirks, soft and dangerous. “Better get back to your party before I do somethin’ your daddy’ll shoot me for.”
He pushes off the fence, grabs his tank, and slings it over one shoulder without putting it on. Walks away like he didn’t just leave you wrecked and dripping behind a childhood jungle gym.
You stay there a second longer, hand pressed between your legs just to stop the ache, cheeks on fire, pulse hammering in every filthy place.
It’s nothing, you lie to yourself as you finally stumble back to the pool. Just a stupid, fleeting spark.
If only I’d known how deep that pull went, you think now, years later, the memory still taunting you like his smirk in the sun.
The old house smells exactly the same: lemon polish, Dad’s aftershave, and the faint ghost of cinnamon from Mom’s candles. The hallway light flickers once when you drag your duffel over the threshold, wallpaper curling like it’s trying to whisper every filthy thing this place has seen.
Early winter. A few weeks before the blizzard that will finally rip the hinges off everything.
You’re twenty-two and your body is a live wire: hips fuller, thighs thick from squats that leave you trembling, embarrassingly wet in the gym mirror; tits high and heavy under the thinnest cropped hoodie you own, nipples already peaked because you knew he was coming.
Your hair is damp from the cold, loose waves brushing the bare strip of skin above your waistband every time you move. You smell like vanilla and the faint bite of your own arousal riding under it, because you’ve been thinking about this all damn day.
The doorbell is a gunshot.
You open it and Bucky is violence in a leather jacket. Snowflakes melt in his dark hair, stubble glittering with them like crushed diamonds. His jacket is unzipped just enough for you to see the black thermal clinging to his chest, damp at the collar from the wind. Cold air rolls off him, but his body heat slams into you anyway, gun oil, pine, sweat, something darker that makes your mouth water.
He looks at your dad first, polite, but his eyes snap to you like magnets. “Hey, kid.”
The hug is illegal.
Metal arm low on your spine, flesh hand sliding under the hem of your hoodie, palm flat against naked skin, thumb stroking once, slow, deliberate, right above the waistband of your leggings. You feel the calluses, the heat, the microscopic ridges dragging across your flesh. Your nipples tighten so hard it hurts. You press closer on instinct, tits crushed to his chest, inhaling him until your lungs burn. Your hips rock forward a fraction and you feel him: thick, half-hard already, trapped against your stomach. His fingers flex, digging in for one greedy second before he remembers where he is and lets go.
Dad claps him on the shoulder. The spell fractures, but the ache stays.
Dinner is foreplay disguised as spaghetti.
You sit across from him and the table is too small. Your knee finds the rough denim of his thigh instantly. You leave it there. He lets you. When you slide your foot up his calf, slow, teasing the seam of his jeans, his fork stops moving. You watch his throat work, watch the muscle in his jaw jump. He retaliates by spreading his legs wider, trapping your ankle between both of his, pressing the hard line of his shin against your inner thigh until the pressure kisses your clit through thin fabric. You have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from moaning into your pasta.
Every time he lifts his beer, the cords in his forearm flex. You imagine licking the sweat from the hollow of his throat. You imagine his stubble scraping the inside of your thigh. You imagine his metal fingers spreading you open.
You’re soaked. Actually soaked. You can feel it when you shift, slick coating the gusset of your panties, thighs sliding together under the table like a secret.
Dad starts snoring on the couch before the credits roll on his fishing show.
The living room shrinks to the two of you and the low crackle of the fireplace. You pull out the photo album like a loaded gun. Flip to the diaper picture and watch his pupils blow wide.
“Handful even then,” he mutters, voice gravel scraped raw.
You move closer until your thigh burns against his, skin on skin where your leggings rode up. The heat rolling off him is obscene. You can smell yourself on the air now, sweet, sharp, desperate, and you wonder if he can too.
His vibranium hand rests on the cushion between you, close enough that the faint hum vibrates up your leg. You drag one finger across the back of his metal hand, just a whisper, and the plates shift under your touch like a shiver. His breath stutters.
“Gets lonely out there,” you say, barely above a whisper. “No one waiting when you come home bloody.”
His eyes flick to yours, haunted, hungry. “Gets real quiet.”
You lean in until your lips almost brush his ear. “College boys talk big, Buck. But they’ve never made me wet just sitting across a dinner table.”
The growl that rumbles out of him is animal. His flesh hand lifts, slow enough to stop, but you don’t move. Knuckles graze your forearm, trace the inside of your elbow, thumb stroking the thin skin there like he’s memorizing the pulse hammering under it. Goosebumps explode down your arms. Your nipples are so hard they ache against the hoodie, and you know he can see them. You want him to see them.
You tilt your face up. One inch. Half an inch. Your bottom lip brushes the stubble along his jaw and you feel the shudder all the way to your cunt.
“We can’t,” he rasps against your mouth, but his hand slides to the nape of your neck, thumb pressing just under your hairline, metal fingers curling around your thigh now, cold, perfect, possessive.
Dad snorts in his sleep like a fucking air-raid siren.
Bucky jerks back, chair legs screeching. He’s on his feet in a heartbeat, chest heaving, eyes black with want and fury at himself.
“I gotta go.”
You walk him to the door on legs that don’t feel like yours. At the threshold you can’t resist. “Night, Uncle Buck.”
He turns, crowds you against the doorframe without touching, leather creaking, voice so low it scrapes your bones.
“Drop the uncle, sweetheart. Doesn’t fit anymore. And you fuckin’ know it.”
Then he’s gone, cold air flooding in, snowflakes melting on the floor where his boots stood.
You lock the door, lean back against it, and drag in a breath that still tastes like him.
Upstairs you don’t bother with the light. Hoodie hits the floor, leggings shoved down, panties soaked through and clinging. You fall back on the bed and spread your thighs wide, two fingers sliding through the mess he made of you without even trying. You’re swollen, dripping, clit throbbing so hard it hurts. You fuck yourself slow at first, then frantic, imagining him.
You come so hard your back arches off the mattress, his name a broken sob against your pillow, thighs shaking, slick coating your fingers and running down to the sheets.
Downstairs, the house creaks like it’s holding its breath.
The cracks are spider-webbing.
And you both know exactly how loud it’s going to be when the whole thing finally shatters.
The snow doesn’t fall. It attacks.
It slams sideways against the windshield in wet, heavy sheets, each flake the size of a quarter, exploding against the glass like tiny fists. The wipers groan, fighting, losing.
Bucky’s world narrows to the faint red glow of his taillights reflecting back at him and the low growl of the engine. Cold seeps through the door seals, sneaks under his collar, but it does nothing to cool the heat already crawling under his skin. His truck rattled along the salted pavement, wipers beating a steady rhythm as he called your dad on speaker.
“Hey, man. How about one last beer before these roads turn to shit? Storm's moving in quick.”
Your dad's voice crackled through, warm but edged with that parental worry he never shook. “Yeah, come on by. But if it gets bad, pull in the driveway. No heroics tonight, Barnes. You're not invincible.”
Bucky snorted, glancing at the darkening sky. “Speak for yourself. Be there in ten.”
He shouldn’t be driving toward you. He knows it. But the words slip out of his mouth before his brain catches up.
The porch light is a blurred gold halo when he finally skids into the driveway. He kills the engine and sits there a second, breath fogging, watching snow pile on the hood like the storm’s trying to bury him alive for what he’s about to walk into.
He knocks hard. Metal knuckles on wood. Once. Twice.
You open the door and the heat rolls out like a living thing: woodsmoke, cinnamon, your skin.
You’re barefoot, legs bare, wearing the tiniest black sleep shorts he’s ever seen, cotton so worn it’s almost see-through, riding high enough that the lower curve of your ass peeks out every time you shift your weight.
The oversized tee is his old Army one, the hem brushing mid-thigh, neck stretched so it slips off one shoulder and shows the delicate line of your collarbone. No bra. Your nipples are tight, dark shadows under thin gray fabric, and the cold blast that follows him in makes them pull even tighter. You smell like warm vanilla, dryer sheets, and the faint, unmistakable musk of a woman who’s already aching.
He steps inside and the door shuts out the howl. Snow melts off his jacket in fat drops, hitting the mat with soft plops. His boots are soaked; water squelches between his toes. You toss him a towel and he catches it against his chest, the terry cloth rough against his chilled skin. He drags it over his face, through his hair, and water streams down his neck, under the collar of the henley that’s glued to every ridge of muscle like it was painted on.
Your dad saves him for exactly forty-seven minutes.
You watch him sway a little as he pushes up from the armchair, the empty glass still dangling from his fingers. The fire crackles low behind him, painting long shadows across the worn rug.
“Alright… I’m done,” he mutters, voice thick with whiskey and exhaustion. He sets the glass on the mantel with a soft clink, rubs a rough hand over his face, and turns toward the stairs.
Each step is heavier than the last. The old wood groans under his feet as he climbs, slow and deliberate, shoulders sagging like the long week is finally winning. You hear the hallway floorboards creak once… twice… then the bedroom door clicks shut.
Silence settles, thick and golden in the firelight.
You count to ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Nothing. No footsteps. No grumbling. Just the soft pop of burning pine and the low tick of the clock above the mantel.
He’s out cold upstairs, sprawled across the bed still in his flannel and jeans, mouth open, snoring before his head even hits the pillow.
The TV spits red warnings: BLIZZARD WARNING. 30-40 INCHES. WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES.
The room shrinks until it’s just firelight licking over your skin, the crackle of logs, the wind screaming like it wants in to watch.
You pull the blanket over both of you and it’s a lie you both pretend to believe. Your bare thigh slides against the wet denim of his jeans, skin on cold fabric, then skin on skin when he shifts and the denim rides higher. His body heat is insane: radiating through the henley, through the blanket, into your bones. You can feel the thump of his pulse in his thigh where it presses against yours.
He stretches his flesh arm along the back of the couch. His fingertips brush the slope of your bare shoulder, just a graze, but the tiny hairs on your neck stand up like they’ve been electrocuted. His metal hand rests on his own thigh, plates shifting with a faint, hungry whir every time you breathe.
“Stuck with me ’til morning,” he says, voice scraped raw, whiskey and snow and restraint. “Hope that ain’t a problem, kid.”
Your answer is barely air. “Only if you snore louder than Dad.”
But your nipples are diamonds against his old shirt and your thighs are pressed so tight together he can probably smell how wet you are.
You stand and the blanket falls away like a confession. The shorts ride higher when you walk; he gets a heartbeat-long flash of the soft crease where thigh meets ass before you disappear into the kitchen. He follows because his body is no longer taking orders from his brain.
The fridge light paints you gold and obscene. You bend for a beer and the fabric pulls tight, seam disappearing between your cheeks, cotton going dark where you’ve soaked through. He’s behind you before he can stop himself, metal arm caging left, flesh right, chest to your back. The henley is cold and wet against your bare shoulders; his belt buckle bites into the small of your back.
He doesn’t mean to grind forward. His hips do it anyway.
You feel him instantly: thick, brutally hard, trapped behind soaked denim, pressing right into the cleft of your ass like he’s already imagining splitting you open. A shudder rolls through him so violent the plates in his metal arm click. His breath is scalding against your ear, stubble scraping the shell.
“Grew up nice, didn’t ya?” The words tear out of him, wrecked. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, look at you.”
You push back, slow, filthy roll of your hips, dragging a broken sound from his throat that he swallows too late. The ridge of his cock slides between your cheeks through two pathetic layers of fabric and you both feel how soaked you are, cotton clinging, slick coating the inside of your thighs.
His flesh hand hovers over your hip, trembling. Metal fingers curl against the counter so hard the granite creaks. He can smell you, sweet, sharp, flooding his lungs like oxygen he doesn’t deserve.
You turn in the trap of his arms and it’s worse.
Your tits brush his chest, nipples dragging across wet fabric, and the friction makes you gasp, soft, open, right against his mouth. Your lips are swollen from biting them all night. Your eyes are black with want.
He cups your jaw with his flesh hand, thumb dragging over your bottom lip, spreading it, pressing just inside so he feels your tongue flick hot and wet against the pad of his thumb and his cock jerks so hard his vision tunnels.
He groans, low, animal, forehead dropping to yours. “Tell me to stop.”
You don’t.
You arch into him instead, tits crushing against his chest, hips rolling so the seam of your shorts rides your clit and you whimper, tiny, desperate sound that spears straight through him.
The guilt hits like a bullet between the eyes.
He jerks back, hands up, palms open like he’s surrendering to a firing squad. Chest heaving, lips wet from almost kissing you, eyes feral.
“No. Fuck. No.” His voice cracks clean in half. “He’s upstairs asleep. I was at your kindergarten graduation. I taught you how to ride a bike. I can’t-”
The words taste like rust and ash, but he forces them out anyway, backing up until his spine slams into the opposite counter, metal fingers digging into his back like punishment.
You’re trembling, thighs clenched, lips parted and glistening, the air thick with the scent of your arousal and the snow melting off his skin.
“Go to bed,” he says, voice shredded. “Please, baby. Before I do something I’ll never forgive myself for.”
You stand there a second longer, chest rising and falling, looking like every sin he’s never let himself have.
Then you nod once, grab a water instead of the beer, and walk away, hips swaying like a threat, bare feet silent on the cold tile.
He stays in the dark kitchen long after your door clicks shut upstairs, forehead pressed to the freezer door, breath fogging the stainless steel, cock throbbing so hard it hurts to breathe.
Outside, the storm screams like it knows exactly what almost happened.
Inside, he’s louder.
And the guilt is a living thing clawing at his ribs, but underneath it, hotter, hungrier, is the truth:
He’s not sure he’s strong enough to stop it next time.
The storm was a monster, wind howling like it wanted to tear the house apart, snow piling against the windows in thick, unforgiving drifts. Midnight had come and gone, the power flickering once or twice but holding steady, for now.
Downstairs, the fire had died to embers, and your dad was dead to the world, snoring upstairs through the chaos. You couldn't sleep, though. Not after that kitchen standoff, Bucky's body pinning you against the counter, his breath hot on your neck, guilt and want warring in his eyes. The pull was too strong, raw and insistent, like the storm itself had trapped more than just the roads.
You slip into the bathroom because your body is on fire and the only thing that might put it out is scalding water. You leave the door unlocked because you’re a liar who’s praying.
The shower is already a furnace when you step in. Steam billows, thick and white, swallowing the mirror, turning the air into soup. You strip bare and let the water hit like punishment, needle-hot, pounding your shoulders, your breasts, running in burning rivers down your stomach. It does nothing for the ache between your legs. If anything, it makes it worse.
You brace one hand on the tile, head falling forward, and let the other slide down your body. You trace the curve of your waist, the swell of your hip, the soft place low on your belly that still remembers the press of his belt buckle.
Your fingers dip lower, parting slick folds, and you bite your lip to keep quiet when you find yourself drenched, swollen, pulsing. You circle your clit once, twice, thighs trembling, and the image behind your eyes is always him: the way his jaw clenched in the kitchen, the tremor in his metal fingers when they hovered an inch from your skin, the raw guilt in his voice when he said we can’t.
You’re so lost in it you don’t hear the soft creak of the door.
Bucky steps in and the world tilts.
He thought the room was empty. He freezes with one hand still on the knob, steam curling around him like cigarette smoke. His eyes go wide, then black, pupils swallowing every trace of blue.
You, naked, water cascading over every inch of you, skin flushed pink from heat, nipples tight and beaded, one hand braced on the wall, the other buried between your thighs.
Guilt slams into him so hard his knees almost buckle.
He sees two versions of you at once: the chubby-legged toddler he used to bounce on his knee while your dad laughed about diaper explosions, and the woman in front of him now, grown, soft and strong and dripping and looking at him like she’s starving.
His cock jerks hard against his sweatpants, a wet spot spreading instantly. He should back out. He should apologise, slam the door, go sleep in the fucking snow.
Instead he whispers, voice gravel and ruin, “Door wasn’t locked, sweetheart.”
You spin, heart exploding, hands flying up to cover yourself, but too late. You see the obscene tent in his sweats, the way his breath catches, the way his metal hand curls into a fist like he’s trying to crush the want.
“Buck, shit, get out-”
He doesn’t move. His throat works. “I thought… you were upstairs.”
But his eyes betray him. They drag down your body, slow, helpless, drinking in water-slick skin, the curve of your waist, the tremble in your thighs. The diaper memory hits him like a bullet, tiny you giggling while he wiped ice-cream off your chin, and the shame is acid in his throat.
You see it. You see all of it.
And instead of screaming, you let your arms fall.
You let him look.
A reckless, wicked smirk curves your mouth. “Save water, old man?” you murmur, voice trembling with nerves and power. “Shower with a friend?”
The growl that tears out of him is broken.
He steps in, shuts the door, and the lock clicks like a starting gun.
“Old man, huh?” His voice cracks on the last word. “Keep pushin’, baby. See what happens.”
He peels his shirt off in one violent motion, muscles rippling under steam and old scars. Sweatpants follow, kicked aside, and he’s bare, thick, flushed, veins standing out like the ones you’ve dreamt about for years. The head of his cock is slick with precome, bobbing heavy between you.
He steps under the spray and the water turns his hair black, sends rivers down his chest, over the dog tags that clink softly. He stops an inch away, hands hovering, flesh and metal trembling.
“Fuck…” he breathes, the word tearing out like a confession, eyes locked on yours, stormy, shattered, raw with a torment that claws at his throat.
“You’ve… you’ve grown up, doll. You’re a woman now. Christ, not that little kid anymore, not my best friend’s baby girl. How the hell am I supposed to fight this when you look at me like that?”
The confession sounds like it’s being ripped out of his chest.
His hands finally land on your hips, reverent, shaking, thumbs tracing the dip of your waist like he’s reading braille. Metal fingers press cool against the small of your back and you arch into the contrast, gasping.
He pulls you flush against him.
His cock brands your belly, hot, velvet-hard, pulsing. You feel his heart hammering against your breasts.
“Then treat me like one,” you whisper, voice cracking with the weight of it.
He makes a wounded sound and drops his forehead to yours.
“Shouldn’t be doin’ this,” he rasps, voice cracking like glass under pressure, his forehead pressed to yours as if the weight of it might crush him.
“Your dad’s right upstairs, trustin’ me to look out for you like always. He’d fuckin’ kill me for this, for touchin’ you, for wantin’ you like I do. And God help me baby, I’d let him. I’d go down swingin’ if it meant one more minute gettin’ to see you like this.”
But his hips roll forward anyway, seeking friction, sliding his length along your stomach. You wrap your fingers around him, slow, firm, and he jerks in your grip, a broken groan vibrating against your lips.
“Christ, the way you touch me…” His voice splinters. “Like you know exactly what you do to me.”
You stroke him root to tip, twisting gently at the head, watching his face contort with pleasure and agony.
“Your dad’s gonna bury me for this,” he chokes out, but he’s thrusting into your fist now, metal arm tightening around your waist like he’s scared you’ll vanish.
You pull his mouth to yours.
The kiss is messy, starving, years of almost collapsing into teeth and tongue and shared breath. His flesh hand slides up your side, thumb brushing the underside of your breast, not quite claiming, just worshipping the fact that he’s allowed to touch.
You pump him faster, slick with water and precome, and he breaks the kiss to bury his face in your neck, biting down gently, muffling the sounds he can’t hold back.
“Fuck… gonna make me lose it-”
He spins you gently this time, back to his chest, metal arm banding under your breasts, holding you like something precious. His other hand slips between your thighs, fingers finding you soaked, circling your clit with devastating precision.
You moan, head falling back against his shoulder, hips rocking shamelessly into his touch.
“That’s it,” he whispers, voice cracking with awe and guilt and love. “Take what you need, baby. I’ve got you.”
The intimacy of it, his voice, the way he’s shaking with restraint and devotion, undoes you.
You come with a muffled cry against his neck, thighs clenching around his hand, waves crashing so strong your vision sparks white. He follows seconds later, groaning your name like it hurts, spilling hot over your lower back, hips jerking helplessly as the water washes it away.
You sag together, panting, water cooling around you.
He turns off the faucet with a trembling hand. Steam lingers like a confession.
He wraps you in a towel, hands gentle now, reverent, drying your shoulders, your arms, your breasts, like he’s terrified he’ll break you, like he can’t believe he gets to touch you at all.
You lean into him, towel loose around your hips, and whisper, soft, taunting, loving:
“Admit it. You’ve thought about this since the pull-ups. That day behind the fence.”
He stills, towel knotted at his waist, water dripping from his lashes. His hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek, eyes dark with truth and shame and something that won’t quit.
“Every damn mission,” he whispers, voice raw. “Every night I couldn’t sleep. Thought about you grown, thought about you wantin’ me back. Kept me sane.”
He presses his forehead to yours, breath shaking. “This… this is better than any fantasy. And it’s gonna destroy me. But fuck if I care right now.”
You kiss him, slow, soft, tasting the guilt he’s drowning in and the love he can’t hide.
“Take me to bed,” you breathe against his mouth.“Please, Bucky, we’re not done. I need you inside me, need you to wreck me until I can’t think straight.”
He lifts you like you weigh nothing, arms shaking not from effort but from the weight of what he’s just done, and carries you out of the steam like a man walking straight into the fire he’s always known was waiting.
He carries you naked down the dark hallway, water still dripping from his hair, from your skin, leaving cold little trails on the hardwood that make you shiver against his chest. His metal arm is locked under your thighs, vibranium plates humming faintly against the backs of your knees; his flesh hand cradles your spine like you’re spun glass. Every footstep is deliberate, trying not to let the floorboards scream and wake the house.
The guest-room door shuts with the softest click. He turns the lock so slowly the mechanism barely breathes.
Moonlight through frost-laced windows turns the whole room blue-white. Snow-light. It catches on the sweat still clinging to his collarbones, on the dog tags resting between his pecs, on the wet ends of his hair.
He lowers you to the bed like he’s laying down something sacred. The comforter is cool against your overheated back; the sheets smell like cedar and the faint gun-oil that always clings to him. You sink into it and he just stares, chest heaving, lips parted, eyes glassy with something between worship and terror.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, doll…” His voice is shredded velvet. “Look at you. Spread out on my bed like every filthy dream I never let myself finish.”
You try for a bratty little smirk, want to tease him about finally growing a pair, but the words die when he drops to his knees at the edge of the mattress and spreads your thighs with his shoulders.
The first touch of his mouth is soft, almost chaste, just his lips brushing the crease where thigh meets hip, stubble scraping tender skin, breath scalding. You feel it everywhere.
“You okay, baby?” he murmurs, looking up the length of your body, blue eyes dark and worried even while his cock jerks against the sheets. “Tell me if it’s too much. Tell me anything. Always.”
You nod, throat too tight for words, and he rewards you by dragging his tongue up your center in one slow, filthy stripe that ends with the flat of it pressed hard against your clit.
Your back bows off the bed.
“That’s it, baby,” he growls low against your slick heat, the rumble of his voice making your thighs tremble. “Spread those gorgeous legs wider for me, sweetheart… don’t get shy on me now.”
His tongue drags slow and deliberate up your center again, just to watch you jerk, then he pulls back barely an inch, hot breath ghosting over you as he smirks.
“Uh-uh. Wider. Show me how desperate my pretty little thing is to have her pussy devoured. Go on… beg me with those thighs, baby. Let me see just how soaked you are for my mouth.”
He eats you like it’s the only thing he was ever put on earth to do. Slow, thorough, obscene. Long licks, soft sucks, the gentle scrape of teeth. His tongue fucks deep inside you, curling, retreating, curling again, while his nose grinds your clit in perfect, maddening circles. Metal fingers slide in beside his tongue, two thick vibranium digits curling up to stroke that spot that makes your vision spark white.
He feels you tighten, hears that broken little gasp that means you’re right there, and he stops. Just lifts his mouth an inch, lets the cool air hit your dripping cunt while you whine and try to chase him.
“Mmm-no, baby,” he murmurs, lips brushing the sensitive crease where thigh meets pussy, voice velvet-rough. “Not yet. I’m nowhere near done playing.”
He drags his tongue in one slow, lazy stripe that deliberately misses your clit, then chuckles when your hips buck in frustration.
“Aw, listen to that needy sound. You’re fucking soaked, aren’t you? Dripping down my chin and still begging for more.” He nips the soft skin of your inner thigh, soothing it with a kiss. “Greedy girl. I could live between these legs for days… lick you open nice and slow until you’re crying for mercy.”
Another feather-light flick, gone before you can grind against it.
“Hours, sweetheart,” he promises, voice dark and filthy as he spreads you wider with his thumbs, blowing a cool breath over your throbbing clit just to watch you shudder. “I’m gonna keep you shaking on the edge ‘til you forget your own name. Only thing you’ll remember is how to beg me to let you come.”
When you finally come it’s with his name torn out of your throat and muffled against the pillow, thighs clamped so tight around his head you’re scared you’ll hurt him. He just moans like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him, licking you through it until you’re sobbing from overstimulation.
He crawls up your body, kissing every inch, murmuring praise like a litany.
“Good girl. So fuckin’ good for me. Taste yourself on my tongue, baby, go on.”
He kisses you deep, filthy, letting you lick into his mouth and taste how wet you made him.
Then he sinks into you from behind in one long, slow glide that punches the air from your lungs. You feel every inch, every thick vein, every throb, the flared head dragging along your walls until he bottoms out and you both groan like dying men, raw and desperate.
He stills, buried to the hilt, forehead pressed hot and sweaty between your shoulder blades, metal hand sliding under you to lace tight with yours on the mattress, vibranium cool against your fingers.
“Fuck… baby,” he rasps, voice cracked wide open, forehead pressed to yours while his breath stutters against your lips. “You good? Please… tell me you’re good.”
His hands are shaking, thumbs stroking gentle little circles like he’s trying to soothe both of you. He pulls back just enough to search your eyes, wide and glassy with something that looks a lot like fear.
“I’ve got you, okay? I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice trembling harder than his body. “Just… breathe with me, sweetheart. Tell me if it’s too much. I’ll stop, I swear I’ll stop, I just-”
He cuts himself off with a shaky exhale when you clench around him involuntarily, a broken groan ripping out of his chest. His eyes squeeze shut for a second like he’s in pain.
“God, you feel so fucking perfect I’m scared I’m gonna lose it,” he confesses, raw and quiet, pressing his face into your neck. “Need to hear you say it, baby. Need to know you’re with me… that you can take me. Please.”
You shove your hips back hard, slamming yourself onto him with a filthy, wet sound that makes his breath hitch.
“Please,” you sob, voice shredded, forehead pressed to the sheets as you fuck yourself on his cock in frantic little jerks. “Please, bucky, I need it so bad-”
Every desperate push back forces him deeper, your ass slapping against his hips, greedy and shameless. You can’t stop; you’re shaking, dripping, clenching around him like you’re trying to pull him in and never let go.
“Fuck, fuck, I can take it,” you cry out, reaching one hand back to claw at his thigh, dragging him closer. “I’m so full and it’s still not enough, please move, please ruin me, I’m begging you-”
Your whole body jolts with every backward thrust you give yourself, thighs trembling, back arched so deep it hurts, tears soaking the pillow as you choke on another broken moan.
“I’m so close already,” you confess in a rush, voice cracking open. “I’m right there and you’re not even moving, I’ll die if you don’t move, please, I’ll be so good for you, I swear, just, fuck, please-”
He does.
Slow, deep rolls of his hips at first, dragging out until just the tip kisses your entrance, then slamming back in until his hips meet your ass with a wet, filthy slap that echoes in the quiet room. Every thrust nudges your clit against his heavy balls, the pressure perfect, relentless, building that burn low in your belly until you’re trembling.
His mouth never leaves your skin, lips and teeth and tongue worshiping every inch he can reach.
“Listen to you,” he growls against your spine, teeth grazing the sensitive spot between your shoulder blades. “Hear how fuckin’ wet you are for me? That’s all you, baby. All for me. My perfect girl takin’ every inch like you were born for it, like this pussy was made to be wrapped around my cock.”
You whimper, fingers squeezing his metal ones hard enough that the plates whir faintly.
“That’s it,” he praises, voice rough with awe and hunger. “Squeeze me just like that. Fuck, you’re so tight, so hot- gonna ruin me, baby. You’re ruinin’ me, and I’d let you do it every goddamn day.”
He flips you suddenly, needing your face, needing to see you take him. Missionary now, your legs thrown over his shoulders, folding you nearly in half, cock hitting so deep you feel him in your throat with every brutal thrust, the angle making you sob.
“Look at me,” he pants, sweat dripping from his brow onto your chest, eyes locked on yours like you’re the only thing in the universe, like he’s memorizing every flicker across your face. “Wanna see those pretty eyes when you come around my cock again. Wanna watch my girl fall apart on me. You’re so fuckin’ beautiful like this, baby- so gorgeous takin’ me deep.”
“Bucky-” you sob, nails digging into his back, leaving red trails down scarred skin.
“Yeah, say my name,” he groans, hips snapping harder, faster, the headboard starting to thump against the wall. “Love hearin’ my name in that sweet voice while I’m buried inside you. You’re takin’ me so good. So fuckin’ good. Never felt anything like this pussy- never gonna want anything else. You’re it for me, baby. You’re everything.”
Against the wall next, your back scraping painted drywall, his metal arm hooked under your ass, holding all your weight like it’s nothing while his flesh hand braces beside your head. He thrusts up into you slow and filthy, grinding on every stroke, the head of his cock dragging over that spot that makes you see stars, makes your toes curl.
“Legs okay, baby?” he whispers, voice ragged and trembling with restraint, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Tell me if they’re shaking too hard… I’ve got you, I’ll hold you up, always.”
You whimper, nodding frantically, and he groans at the way you clench around him in response.
“That’s it… fuck, just like that,” he praises, low and reverent, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder blade. “Wrap those pretty thighs tighter around me, yeah, perfect. God, look at you, taking me so fucking deep, so greedy and gorgeous.”
His hand slips down to lace with yours, squeezing gently as he rolls his hips in that slow, grinding rhythm that makes you sob.
“You’re doing so good, sweetheart,” he breathes, voice cracking with awe. “So perfect for me. My beautiful girl, glowing, trembling, letting me all the way in like you were made for this, made for me. I’ve never felt anything as safe as I do right now, buried inside you. You’re everything, baby. Every fucking thing.”
You barely manage to get the words out between broken gasps, voice shaky and wrecked as you push against him just to feel him throb inside you.
“Thought… thought you were gonna wreck me, old man-” you rasp, trying for bratty, but it comes out breathless, trembling, more plea than taunt.
He freezes for half a heartbeat, buried to the hilt, then lets out the lowest, darkest chuckle you’ve ever heard. It vibrates straight through your spine.
“Callin’ me old man again, huh?” he murmurs, voice velvet and dangerous, one hand sliding up your sweat-slick back to fist gently in your hair. He tugs your head back just enough for you to feel it, lips brushing the shell of your ear.
“Careful what you ask for, baby.”
Then he pulls out slow, agonizingly slow, until you’re empty and whining, and slams back in with one brutal thrust that punches the air from your lungs.
“That wrecking enough for you, princess?” he growls, setting a punishing rhythm, hips snapping hard enough to jolt your whole body up the bed. “Or should this old man really ruin that pretty little pussy till you can’t walk tomorrow?”
Another deep, filthy stroke, grinding against that spot that makes you see stars.
“Go ahead,” he taunts, breathless but merciless, “keep talking shit. I’ve got all night to teach you manners, sweetheart.”
On the floor because the bed is too far and he can’t wait another second, him flat on his back, you’re straddling his face, knees burning against the hardwood, thighs trembling so hard they’re practically vibrating around his ears. His big hands are locked on your ass, fingers digging in possessively, spreading you open and dragging you down until his mouth seals over your cunt like he’s starving.
“Use me, sweetheart,” he groans into you, voice muffled, wrecked, tongue fucking deep and greedy. “Please, fuck my face. I need your taste in my throat for days.”
His nose grinds against your clit with every roll of your hips, perfect, relentless pressure, while his metal fingers slip lower, cool and slick, gathering the mess dripping out of you and teasing your empty, fluttering hole like he’s thinking about sliding them in later.
You hesitate, thighs shaking harder, a little scared of how fast it’s building, how loud you already are, and he feels it instantly. His grip softens, thumbs stroking soothing circles over the dimples of your ass.
“Hey, hey, baby, look at me,” he rasps, pulling back just enough that his breath fans hot over your swollen clit. His eyes are blown black, glassy with want and something achingly tender. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Nothing bad’s gonna happen, I swear.”
He presses the softest kiss to your clit, then another, coaxing.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful like this,” he whispers, voice cracking. “Drippin’ all over my face, shaking for me… my perfect girl. Could stay right here forever.”
His hands slide up to guide your hips again, gentle but insistent, rocking you down onto his waiting tongue.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he begs, raw and desperate. “Ride me. Grind that pretty pussy on my mouth, use me however you need. I want it. Want you to fall apart and soak me. Please, baby… let me have it. I’m dying for it.”
Bent over the dresser, mirror fogged from your breath, his chest plastered to your back, eyes locked in the reflection, sweat-slick skin sliding together.
“Look how gorgeous you are takin’ me,” he rasps, voice hoarse from hours of praise, hips snapping hard and fast now, animal, relentless, the dresser rattling with every thrust. “Look at you. My girl. Mine. Say it.”
“Yours,” you sob, nails scrabbling for purchase on the wood, tears pricking your eyes from how good it hurts, how deep he is.
“That’s right,” he snarls, one hand sliding up to wrap gently around your throat, thumb stroking your pulse like he’s counting your heartbeats. “All mine. Takin’ my cock like a fuckin’ dream. Never gonna get enough of you, doll. Never. You’re perfect, so fuckin’ perfect, squeezin’ me, cryin’ for me, lettin’ me ruin you. My beautiful girl.”
He finishes inside you the first time with your name broken on his lips, hips stuttering, metal fingers laced so tight with yours the plates leave faint crescents in your skin. He stays buried, forehead against your spine, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you,” like the words are being ripped out of his soul, voice shaking with the weight of it.
The second time is slow, face-to-face, moonlight painting silver stripes across your bodies. He’s crying a little, you realize, tears mixing with sweat when he kisses you, thrusts deep and deliberate, eyes never leaving yours.
“You’re everything,” he chokes on every thrust, voice raw and reverent. “Everything I never thought I’d get to have. My perfect, beautiful girl. Love how you feel around me, love how you look at me, love every fuckin’ sound you make. You’re ruin’ me, baby, and I’d let you do it a thousand times. You’re mine, my heart, my girl, my everything.”
When he comes again he buries his face in your neck, whole body shaking, spilling deep with a sound like it hurts how good it feels, whispering your name over and over like a prayer.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes against your skin, voice raw, holding you close like he’ll never let go. “So fuckin’ perfect I don’t deserve you. But I’m keepin’ you anyway.”
Finally, 4:07 am, he collapses beside you, metal arm draped cool across your stomach, flesh hand tangled in your hair, both of you slick with sweat and each other.
“Tomorrow he’s gonna kill me,” he whispers, voice raw, wrecked, happy. A pause. “Worth it.”
You smile into his chest, fingers tracing the raised skin of an old scar, voice soft and sleepy and absolutely certain:
“Then make it worth it again before sunrise.”
He exhales like a man who’s been holding his breath for decades, pulls you tighter, and starts all over again.
He rearranges you like you’re made of silk and sin.
Big, careful hands slide under your thighs, lifting your top leg higher, draping it back over his hip so you’re completely open to him. He’s still buried deep, thick, half-hard, and slick with both of you, but now he can spoon you flush against his chest, metal arm curled under your neck and breasts like a cradle, flesh arm wrapped low across your hips, fingers splayed wide over the soft swell of your lower belly so he can feel himself inside you every time he breathes.
“Stay right here, baby,” he whispers, lips brushing the shell of your ear, voice cracked open with exhaustion and wonder. “Gonna keep my cock nice and warm inside this perfect little pussy while you fall asleep, yeah? Gonna keep you full of me all night.”
He rocks, slow, syrupy, barely a thrust, more like a heartbeat. Just enough to remind your body he’s there, stretching you, owning you, loving you.
You make a sleepy, needy sound and push back against him, trying to get closer even though there’s no space left. He groans, low and wrecked, hips stuttering for a second before he forces himself still.
“Shhh, shh, I’ve got you,” he soothes, pressing open-mouthed kisses along your shoulder, your neck, the spot behind your ear that makes you melt. “Greedy girl. Already took three loads outta me tonight and you still want more, huh?”
His metal hand slides up, cupping your breast, thumb rolling your nipple slow and gentle, like he’s petting you to sleep. Flesh hand slips lower, two fingers spreading your folds so he can feel where he’s splitting you open, feel the slick mess leaking out around his cock every time he gives that tiny, sleepy thrust.
“Fuck, listen to that,” he breathes, voice filthy and adoring. “Hear how wet my baby is? That’s me inside you. That’s us. Never gonna pull out, sweetheart. Gonna stay right here, keep you plugged and dripping and mine.”
You whimper, half-asleep, hips rolling back on instinct, chasing the gentle pressure. He hushes you closer, metal arm tightening just enough that the cool plates press deliciously against your nipples.
“Easy, pretty girl,” he croons, lips against your pulse. “Let me take care of you. Let me love on this sweet pussy till you pass out on my cock. You’ve been so good for me, taken everything I gave you, still clenchin’ around me like you can’t get enough.”
Another slow, lazy glide in and out, just an inch, just enough to make you sigh and flutter around him. He moans softly, like it’s the best thing he’s ever felt.
“That’s it… fuck, that’s perfect. Just like that. Fall asleep on me, baby. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you full. Dream about me stretchin’ you open, yeah?”
Your body goes liquid, melting back into him, head lolling against his metal bicep. The last thing you feel is his mouth pressing soft, endless kisses to your shoulder, your neck, your hair, and the gentle, steady throb of him inside you, like a second heartbeat.
“Aww, listen to you,” he whispers, voice thick with sleepy, possessive love when your breathing finally evens out. “My sweet girl, falling asleep with my cock buried to the hilt. Never lettin’ you go. Never.”
His own eyes flutter shut, arms locking tighter, metal fingers laced with yours over your belly, keeping you pinned exactly where he wants you.
Outside, the storm screams itself hoarse. Inside, the only sound is the soft, wet pulse of two bodies refusing to separate, and the quiet, reverent whisper he breathes into your hair just before he drifts off.
“Love you so fuckin’ much it hurts, baby. Sleep tight. I’ve got you.”
And you both slip under, still joined, still dripping, wrapped in steel and skin and the kind of filthy, desperate tenderness that only comes after everything has already burned down.
The kitchen smells like bacon, burnt coffee, and the kind of tension that could power a small city.
Dad’s at the stove, spatula in hand, humming “Fortunate Son” like he’s in a different decade entirely. You’re perched on a stool in Bucky’s stolen shirt, legs swinging, trying to look like a normal daughter who definitely did not spend the night tangled up with her dad’s best friend.
Bucky is shirtless, because of course, leaning against the counter with his “World’s Okayest Sergeant” mug, pretending to read the cereal box while his eyes keep darting to you like he’s checking you’re still real.
Dad flips a strip of bacon with flair. “So, Buck. That guest bed treat you alright? I peeked in around six to see if the power had come back on. You were dead to the world, man. Didn’t even twitch.”
You and Bucky both freeze solid.
Your coffee mug stops halfway to your mouth. Bucky’s metal hand tightens on his mug so hard you hear the ceramic creak.
Because at six am, you were definitely in that guest bed. Wrapped around Bucky like a koala, one of his thighs between yours, his metal arm locked around your waist, your face buried in his neck, both of you dead asleep and very, very naked under the tangled sheets.
You thank every god you don’t believe in that Dad only saw Bucky’s side of the bed. That the blanket was pulled high enough. That you were on the inside, hidden against the wall. That Bucky sleeps like a damn statue when he finally crashes.
Bucky recovers first, voice suspiciously calm. “Yeah… uh, slept like a rock. Deep. Real deep.”
You nearly choke on air. “Yeah, Dad. He was out cold. Didn’t move an inch all night.”
Bucky’s eyes narrow at you over the rim of his mug. “Funny. I seem to remember someone doing a whole lot of moving.”
Dad turns, eyebrow raised. “What was that?”
Bucky shrugs, smooth as gravel. “Nothin’. Just said the bed was surprisingly comfortable.”
You hide your grin behind your mug. Bucky’s foot finds your ankle under the counter and gives it a light kick. You kick back, harder. He pinches your calf with his toes. Game on.
Dad sets down plates with a clatter. “You two are weirdly chipper for people who almost turned into popsicles.”
You and Bucky answer at the exact same time. “Adrenaline.” “Good cardio.”
Dead silence.
Dad blinks slowly, like he’s buffering. You both sip coffee like it’s the last drink on death row.
Dad finally shrugs and sits. “Whatever. Eat before it gets cold.”
Bucky slides into the seat next to you, thigh pressing yours like it’s an accident. It’s not. You “accidentally” elbow him reaching for the salt. He steals two pieces of your bacon. You flick a tiny piece of eggshell onto his plate.
Bucky mutters under his breath, “Real mature, trouble.”
You whisper back, “Says the guy who begged ‘please, doll, don’t stop’ at three in the morning.”
He inhales bacon wrong and starts coughing. Dad reaches over and thumps his back. “Easy there, pal. Chew.”
You pat Bucky’s back with way too much enthusiasm. “There ya go, old man. Small bites.”
Bucky glares through watering eyes, mouth twitching like he’s two seconds from laughing or strangling you. “Keep it up. See what happens when your dad leaves for five seconds.”
You grin. “Promises, promises.”
Dad, chewing thoughtfully, waves his fork in a circle. “You know, you two are actin’ weird. Like… weird-weird. Like you’re speakin’ in code or somethin’. And Buck, where the hell is your shirt?”
Bucky freezes mid-chew. You freeze mid-sip. You both glance at your chest at the same time.
You recover first, sweet as pie. “Laundry mix-up?”
Bucky nods way too fast. “Yeah. Mine shrank. She borrowed it. Charity.”
Dad squints harder. “It’s three sizes too big on her.”
You chime in, “Fashion, Dad. Oversized is in.”
Bucky adds, “Very trendy.”
Dad stares for a long beat, then shrugs. “Kids these days. And old men pretending to be kids.”
Under the table, Bucky’s foot slides up your calf again, slow and deliberate. You retaliate by pressing your bare foot right against the inside of his thigh, inching dangerously close to territory that would get you both grounded for life.
His hand clamps down on your ankle like a vice. He mouths, “Behave.”
You mouth back, “Make me.”
Dad looks up. “You two are awfully quiet again. Everything okay?”
You and Bucky answer in perfect unison, “Yep!”
Dad eyes you both like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing, then shrugs and goes back to his eggs.
Bucky leans in, voice barely a breath. “You’re lucky your dad’s here, or I’d have you bent over this counter before the bacon grease cooled.”
You grin, all teeth. “Big talk for a guy who begged so pretty last night.”
His metal fingers tighten on your ankle, just enough pressure to promise payback. You wiggle your toes against his inner thigh in victory.
Dad stands up, plate in hand. “Alright, I’m gonna go fight the driveway before the next wave hits. You two want anything from the garage?”
You answer quickly, “We’re good!”
Bucky echoes, “Real good.”
Dad pauses at the door, gives you one last suspicious look. “You sure? You’re both actin’ like you drank Red Bull instead of coffee.”
Bucky shrugs. “Just the bacon high.”
Dad mutters something about “weirdos” and heads out.
The second the back door shuts, Bucky’s on his feet, crowding you against the counter, hands braced on either side of your hips.
“You,” he growls, nose brushing yours, “are a goddamn menace.”
You tilt your chin, smirking. “And you’re a terrible liar. ‘Best sleep in years’? Please.”
He huffs a laugh, forehead dropping to yours. “Fine. Worst sleep of my life. Couldn’t stop thinking about how you sound when-”
You slap a hand over his mouth. “Dad’s literally thirty feet away!”
He licks your palm. You yank it back with a squeak.
“Animal,” you hiss.
He grins, all teeth. “You weren’t complaining last night.”
You shove his chest. He doesn’t budge. “Go put a shirt on before Dad thinks we’re running a nudist colony.”
He leans in, voice low and rough. “I’d put a shirt on, but someone’s wearing my favorite one. And looks way better in it than I ever did.”
You roll your eyes, but your cheeks are on fire. “Flattery won’t save you when Dad notices the hickey on my-”
He kisses you quick and dirty to shut you up, then pulls back just as fast.
“Gotta go before I do something stupid,” he mutters, adjusting himself with zero subtlety. “Like bend you over this counter and give your old man a heart attack.”
You pat his cheek. “Poor baby. Blue balls again?”
He groans, backing toward the door. “You’re evil.”
“Text me when you get home safe, Grandpa.”
He points a metal finger at you. “Keep that shirt. And lock your window next time there’s a storm. I’m not asking twice.”
You grin, sweet as poison. “Who says there’ll be a next time?”
He pauses at the door, eyes dark. “Keep telling yourself that, trouble.”
Then he’s gone, boots crunching through snow.
Dad yells from the driveway, “Buck! You forgot your damn shirt again!”
You look down at the stolen tee, hug it to yourself, and yell back, “Finders keepers, dad!”
Dad’s muffled grumble floats in: “You kids are so weird…”
You sip your coffee, grinning like an idiot, already counting down to the next blizzard.
Because yeah. There’s definitely gonna be a next time.
sometimes i think about how makima paired angel devil up with aki because she knew he'd had a human lover and a soft spot for humanity so if anyone would be able to motivate him and break through his indifference it would be aki, who's already starting to see the humanity in devils through his relationships with power and denji and refuses to let anyone else die on his watch. and tbh i don't think she suffered enough
love that xie lian canonically gets jealous like he was so sullen and gloomy every time hua cheng brought up his special someone and he literally threw himself in front of hua cheng’s sweaty shirtless torso cause the idea of someone else seeing even an inch of his man half-naked had him stressed as hell ... i truly feel that xie lian is the possessive one cause while we all know hua cheng is protective and will hold a centuries-long grudge, i feel like he would never dare to lay claim to xl whereas xl is like mine mine mine, this ghost is mine!!! and if someone else touches him i'll throw up and dig a hole to die in!!
titsay
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
areudirty
