The Oath | royal!gojo x knight!reader | masterpost
In a world bound by oaths and ruled by duty, you were assigned to protect Satoru Gojo, a reckless, arrogant prince whose carelessness is a walking death sentence. As a lady knight, the court expects you to fail. Satoru expects you to be like all the rest: easily charmed, easily broken, and easily forgotten.
But proximity is a dangerous thing. What begins as mutual contempt soon erodes into a forbidden, unspoken devotion that threatens to burn both of your lives to the ground. And when the crown finally forces the truth into the open, bridges will have to burn. Because the true legend was never the throne, it was the devastating price you were both willing to pay for the one thing neither of you was ever allowed: a choice of your own.
pairing: prince/king!gojo x knight!reader
warnings: 18+ (mdni!!), explicit sexual content, afab!reader, fantasy kingdom au, knight!reader, prince/king!gojo, heavy angst, slow burn, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, secret relationship, forbidden love, extreme power imbalance, systemic sexism and internalized misogyny, classism, toxic family dynamics, self-sacrificial reader, emotional repression, graphic depictions of violence, war themes, blood and gore, grief/character death (secondary characters), mutual pining, mutual stubbornness, both are bad at feelings, eventual bittersweet happy ending
more tags to be added!
word count: 30k+ (so far)
masterlist | crossposted on ao3!
fic taglist
Chapter 1 ā± Ū« × ā§ The Weight of the Vow
Chapter 2 ā± Ū« × ā§ A Chasm Wide Between Us
Chapter 3 ā± Ū« × ā§ Where the Hound Kneels
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
āā Dividers from pxrce-lain and seulzitos and pixopix!
Read it for a true fantasy-setting Gojo and Reader focused story!!! I'm a thorough enjoyer of a desperate yet dramatic slow-burn where two people find freedom from cages of their own, and this is perfect!!!
The mission in space was every physics teacher's wet dream. And yet, when you found yourself alone on a spaceship, dread filled your mind. Fortunately, it turned out you werenāt quite alone. As a weird creature youāve met by accident seemed to be quite happy in helping you finish a mission and keep a warm company.
š„ Ż Ėpairing: ź° Alien!Gojo Satoru x Physics teacher!Reader ź±
š„ Ż Ėcontent/warnings: ź° MDNI 18+ : fluff, fluff, fluff : also a bit of angst : mutual masturbation : use of sex toys : happy ending : women in stem, doomed to never being able to touch each other : prepare some tissues : space : aliens : Satoru is a brat in every universe : alien's D : mates and mentions of mating ź±
š„ Ż ĖWC: ź° 15k ź±
š„ Ż Ė notes: This story is based on the movie Project Hail Mary. Shoutout to @indiewritesxoxo whose story The One That Got Away inspired me to write a space-based fanfic!
dividers by @diviniyae
art by daichichirou on tt
"Miss, what's the space like?" a little girl with round frames asked you once during the class.
What's the space like? You wondered for a moment, with similar glasses resting on your nose.
Little models of planets swirled under the ceiling, clashing against each other with warm beams of sunshine curling around their painted bodies. The classroom stilled with silence, heavy and curious, marked by a dozen little eyes glancing up your furrowed forehead.
"Unfathomed," slipped almost in a whisper. But the kids were too young to understand this word, so you tried again. "It's endless, deep, mesmerising, silent, likeā"
"Like a night?" a boy from the first row asked, playing with the wooden spaceship, all the children in the class had just finished painting.
You chuckled, playing with your own little toy, brushing the little silver window with a thumb.
"Much, much quieter," the spaceship landed on your desk, right next to the little, soft ball painted like Earth. Your eyes shimmered as you looked around the class of a dozen munchkins. "What do you hear while sleeping?"
Something began to coil in their little Einstein heads, with soft foreheads furrowed in thought. A flicker of an idea ā a spark, their young minds were yet to discover and nourish throughout their lives.
You watched them with a smile, something warm spreading beneath your chest. Not everyone was born to be a teacher, with the day-to-day tiring work of preparing materials for classes, conducting lessons and checking all the foolish assignments that neither you nor the children liked. The education system truly was a shit hole from the very first steps those young minds took.
"Miss, that's a silly question," a little girl without one front tooth giggled. "We can't hear anything while we're sleeping!"
You hummed softly as you picked up the small earth ball. It yielded gently beneath your fingers, and the woollen toy, crocheted by your mother herself, felt pleasantly soft against your skin.
The bell would ring soon, and the afternoon sun was high in the sky, creeping through the tall, clean windows into the small classroom. Summer break was almost here, and the sweltering heat lingered in the stuffy air, filled with children's coughs and soft breathing.
"Exactly," you said, sitting on the desk and tossing the ball into the air. "That's what space is like. You can't hear anything."
"But what if I close my ears?" another boy said, pressing his hands to them. "I can't hear anything now, miss!" he screamed, setting off a wave of sweet giggles from his classmates.
The small green ball flew his way, and the boy caught it in one hand, scowling. "Hey, miss, that's not fair!"
"That was not, I do admit," you slipped off the desk, walking around the classroom. All small pairs of eyes followed you like puppies. "But you see, in space, there would be no need to cover your ears, because there is no air or matter for sound to travel through. Even when you're sleeping, there's always something out there, right?" Your eyes met a few nodding Einsteins before drifting towards the window. "You can hear the crickets singing under your window and the wind swirling between the leaves. But in space, there's nothing. Simply an empty, endless realm stretching beyond our comprehension."
A few droplets of sweat coiled on your temple, and you quickly brushed them with a thumb. Glasses sat crookedly on your nose, hair slipped away from a pin-up, and so you pushed them behind your ear.
"Miss, the space sounds so scary," the girl with round frames sighed. "I don't want to be an astronaut anymore."
You chuckled, coming to the previous boy and stealing a soft lump of earth from his sticky fingers. "The space may feel lonesome if you're there alone. But now, astronauts usually go in groups." The ball landed back on your desk, brushing gently against the wooden spaceship. "But even if you were alone, I think the view would be worth the night spent in loneliness."
And as it would soon turn out, nothing was worth the years spent alone. On the huge spaceship, with endless darkness spreading across the little window and years spent somewhere doing God knows what.
"The sun is dying," the government envoy had said. "Can you help us save the world?"
She caught you right after one of the classes, with a half-empty cup of instant noodles and cheeks peppered with crimson chilli-oil kisses. She arrived with a tall, muscular man and a printout of the PhD dissertation, placing a copy on your messy desk.
Your forehead crinkled, eyes landed on a neat, Times New Roman formatted title,Ā An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations.
"That's not mine," you mumbled, going back to the cup of noodles. You hadn't eaten anything for a whole day, and your stomach was already pressed against your spine, with hunger twisting your weary mind.
"That's your name, isn't it?" she said, pressing a neatly trimmed nail against the smaller letters beneath the title.
You didn't even spare her a glance and simply shook your head. "No, I think you've mistaken me for someone else."
Both she and the man sighed, rolling two small chairs from the children's desk to sit in front of yours. With eyes fixed on your face, grimacing in ignorance, and a few locks of hair slipping into the cup.
"I'm Yuki," she said, crossing her legs before looking at the man with the dullest, most bleary eyes you have ever seen. "And that's Choso. We're from aā¦ well. Now you only need to know that we work for NASA."
And that meant one thing ā trouble.
Seeing your utmost disinterest, she continued in a warm tone. "Listen, we know your dissertation was a fantastic breakthrough that the supervising committee didn't appreciate. Butā"
"A small correction," you interrupted, with eyes still glued to an almost empty cup. "They did not not appreciate me, but completely failed me. My research was proven wrong, and I spent almost five years chasing something that was never there. So no, it wasn't a breakthrough or anything."
"Her long fingers clenched into a fist, and a tongue nervously filled a creamy cheek. "Listen, in our current world situation, we believe that your research wasn't pointless. The hypothesis that life can exist without waterā"
"Which was ultimately proven that it cannot," slipped in a whisper, gaze still following anything but those two.
"Right," she sighed, staying shockingly patient. "But the thing is, it actually may."
And for the first time in the past five minutes, you finally looked at her. With eyes hidden behind librarian-like glasses, a white shirt neatly pressed against your body, and chilli oil still coating lower lip. You brushed it quickly with a tissue before clearing throat.
"You have five minutes."
But Yuki needed just a second.
"There are someā¦ microbes, the nature of which we aren't yet sure, that are slowly eating the sun. If we don't do something, in thirty years the global temperature will drop enough to kill every life on Earth."
A long, heavy silence stretched between the three of you, though she was the one doing the talking. The man in a suit sat in silence. He was rather handsome, with dark hair falling long down his neck and purplish under-eye bags framing his deep, doe-like eyes.
Feeling your eyes fixed on his face, Choso wriggled in place. "We believe that you are one of the few scientists who can help in research on those microbes."
A deep sigh slipped past your lips as you took off your glasses and closed eyes. A pulsing headache was filling your mind, weighing down an already overstimulated brain. A few short strands of noodles clung to the bottom of the plastic cup, looking up at your weary eyes, pleading to go home.
You finally murmured, throwing the cup into the bin, "I don't see how that's my problem. I'm just a physics teacher, the academic environment pushed me away, and I believe there are many more qualified scientists for this role."
Yuki's forehead furrowed, lips pressed in a line. "Not your problem? The world is dying, and you think it's not your problem?"
You could almost see a grey smoke drifting above her head, eyes shining like two coffee beans. Golden hair brushed against her suit-covered breasts, with a few straight strands sticking to soft cheeks. She appeared magnificently commanding, exuding a dominant aura of someone beyond the law. Even sitting on a small children's chair, you felt goosebumps cover your bare shoulders.
You leaned back in a chair, the hard backrest digging into your spine. "I just don't understand why it should be me. This," you pointed at a three-hundred-page dissertation, "was just a foolish fantasy of my younger self. And trust me, I felt how stupid it was," your eyes fell to your fingers, playing with a soft, earthy ball. "No one treats me like a scientist anymore."
And then, Yuki stood up.
Suddenly, reaching over the desk right to your shirt, before pulling you closer with a single move. Eyes fixed on yours like a deadly viper, and a sweet note of heavy perfumes hit your nostrils.
"Try it," she gritted through her teeth. "Accept my offer till I'm still begging. I don't want things to get messy, but I really need your help on this one."
And so, feeling rather threatened, you nodded swiftly and followed the kind smile that lifted up her lips.
Now, three years later, reflecting on that time, you never felt as happy and alive as you did then. Surrounded by the world's most exceptional scientists, working on alien, new microbes ā the freshest discoveries in current scientific research ā spending days and nights fuelled by bitter coffee, sitting in the labs.
The time didn't matter, as long as you could work on your research. To once again feel like a valuable input to the academic environment and a student from your PhD days, when the world was most beautiful under the microscope and while collecting the newest data.
Your heart raced during the meetings as your fingers carefully noted each idea, each plan that other scientists put forward. The greatest minds in the world, flooding your own with plans and speculations you could've never thought of. Your brain fired multiple times a day, always running, always getting fed with new questions and solutions.
Why is the sun dying?
How can we stop it?
How to produce enough fuel to go all the way right to the sun?
Is that even possible?
But then it was revealed that an alien microbe was composed entirely of water, and your world collapsed. Because it finally confirmed the very point you've been secretly trying to reject for years, proving to you that cells cannot survive without water.
Your heart broke, and a wave of shame washed over your spine. The shame connected to your younger self, foolishly believing in a greatness of discovery no one has ever made. Something worth the international conferences, massive grants, Nobel Prize, and yet, you needed a single, alien cell, something not belonging to the human world, to finally prove those old geezers from your committee right.
The white, big lamp of the lab flickered; darkness spilt over the endless night. Nothing but a faint buzz of mosquitoes filled the lab, hitting the window again, and again, and again. Hungry and relentless, looking at your body hunched over the failed experiment and slightly trembling lip.
You haven't noticed someone else's presence until something cold and wet touched your cheek. Turning the head around, you noticed a can of soda and Choso's pale fingers wrapped around it.
"Thanks," escaped in a whisper, as you took the drink.
He nodded, sitting on the stool right next to you. Your lab partner, who's been through your highs and lows for the past few weeks. The biggest encouragement and life support, always reminding you to eat well and drink something other than a third coffee in a row. He was another government body, Yuki's closest friend, yet ā you liked him.
He felt the most normal here, and thus, your head rested on his shoulder, while hair covered the slightly wet cheeks.
"Are you crying?" he asked quietly.
Your head shook, and a second later, a loud sniff rolled. Choso chuckled, offering a tissue.
"Thank you, Cho," you mumbled, trying to hide the streaming tears behind the wide glasses.
He nodded, waiting for you to calm down a bit. The white lamp buzzed quietly, and the screen of the computer shone bright with your PhD dissertation. The thick letters of the title, with your name written right below.
Three hundred pages of bullshit born from your silly dreams. The Nobel Prize? Dear heavens, you barely deserved to be part of the current team.
"That's not the end of the world, you know?" he said, then pressed his cheek with tongue. "Hm, no. It actually is."
You laughed disgustingly, with a snort slipping out of your nose and another wave of tears streaming down your face. "I'm sorry," slipped almost silently. "I'm sorry, I proved you all wrong."
Choso sighed, looking at your sorry state. He pushed a strand of your hair behind your ear and brushed away a single tear with a soft thumb. "No, you didn't. Now that we know what it's made of, you can think about another solution."
But there isn't another solution,Ā you wanted to say, and instead bit down on your lower lip. The words bubbled in your throat, but a thin thread of hope still pulled at your heart. A faint wish that maybe this discovery wasn't a disaster. That the alien cell, made almost entirely of water, could somehow help with the mission.
That you could still prove yourself as a true scientist.
"Hey," Choso whispered, turning your face towards him. Deep, warm eyes shimmered with kindness as he offered a soft smile and gently pinched your cheek. "You are one of the smartest people I have ever met. I'm sure you can figure this out. Yuki believes in you. I believe in you." Staring into his eyes, you nodded with a pout. He chuckled and opened your soda with a quietĀ hiss. "Alright, let's call it a day and get back to it tomorrow. We still have time."
But the fact was that ā you didn't.
And it was painfully obvious in how Yuki glanced into your lab every few days, asking about progress and results in halting the spread of alien microbes on the sun. Her neatly plucked eyebrows furrowed whenever you shook your head, and a short, stressed sigh escaped her rosy lips.
Try to hurry up, she would usually say, pulling a not-so-comforting smile.
Weeks went by, and everyone's stress increased. Yuki decided to set up a deadly mission, sending a team of astronauts to collect data personally.
The catch? They wouldn't return.
While there was enough fuel to reach the star teeming with alien microbes, there wasn't enough to return. Their goal was to collect the microbes, find a way to stop them from consuming the sun, and send all the data back to Earth.
The first time you heard about it, your knees almost buckled. It sounded outrageous, absolutely crazy, and the chance of finding someone mad and healthy enough to meet the requirements perfectly was already impossible.
And as it turned out, you were wrong.
The four astronauts were more than willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good ā to venture into the vast, endless space and perish there, in the company of strangers and eerie silence. To become saviours on a mission that could save the entire world.
Except, there was a risk the mission would fail.
Except, no one knew if they wouldn't lose their lives for nothing.
Because if that happened, if it turned out that all the money and sacrifices the government has invested in it would go to waste, the world would truly descend into shambles.
You stood against it from the very beginning, but You stood against it from the very beginning, but Yuki had already decided. And so there was nothing left to do but help the spaceship travel the twelve light-years towards the only star that was also dying, devoured by an alien microbe.
One hundred and thirteen trillion kilometres.
An unimaginably vast distance a simple mind could not grasp, yet you had to find a way to make it work. To figure out how to gather enough fuel to propel the massive, metal spaceship through every single kilometre.
And after a few weeks of getting yourself filled with coffee and nights spent outside the NASA base, gazing up into the endless darkness, you finally got it.
"The alien microbes possess unimaginable power," you said in one breath, looking like a madwoman. With hair twisted into a messy braid, hands shaking from too much caffeine, eyes glimmering as if possessed by Einstein himself. Your fingers gripped the black marker before drawing another black dot on the whiteboard. "You see, what we can do is allow the engines to feed the alien microbes into a reaction chamber and boil them to the point of natural breeding. This way, the cells will multiply and multiply, allowing us to use them in a much more efficient way," the black marker swooshed all over the board, drawing a crooked picture of the spaceship.
At least thirty pairs of eyes, seated in a conference room at NASA headquarters, stared into it with furrowed yet hopeful gazes. Yuki and Choso, among them, tried to understand the point you were making. The crazy discovery you had made mere hours earlier, before quickly asking for a meeting.
"Our ship doesn't need turbines, generators or heat exchangers, because there's no conventional fuel. It works as a sort of ship driven by light energyā"
"That's impossible," someone among the other scientists interrupted. "You cannot fuel a ship of such dimensions with light alone."
You nodded, whispering like a psycho under your breath, head buzzing with numbers. "Yes, you cannot do it with the sources we have here, on Earth. But," you turned back towards the whiteboard. "Our ship is not like the others, and the microbes allow us to actually use the light force as a fuel. Look, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's third law, we all know it, right?" A few heads nodded in unison. "Well, our ship will emit light in one direction, while Newton's law will push it in the other. I know it used to work only in theory, but with the amount of power packed into a single microbe, we can use it for our good. In short, the alien power goes into the ship, the light comes out, and we can move forward."
A long, heavy silence filled the room as you finished your little drawing. Black lines coated the board, crossing the black dots and twisting around the childishly drawn ship. You pushed your glasses up your nose and tucked a strand of hair back behind your ear.
That was it. Nothing else could've been done on your side. If none of the scientists and governmental bodies believed your crazy plan could work, there was no other way to put the ship on a direct course towards that star.
Yuki sighed and looked around nervously. While people whispered, shook their heads, or took notes, no one offered you a warm nod or made direct eye contact. But it also seemed that no one else had a better idea.
"Are you sure it can work?" "Are you sure it can work?" Yuki asked, a heavy gaze lingering as warmth crept up your cheeks. "It's over a hundred and thirteen trillion kilometres. Are you sure the ship can be fuelled only by this alien microbe?"
Something weighed on your heart. Fear, panic, years spent believing you weren't good enough to become a real scientist. Those snickers from the PhD commission stating your research was useless. The rejections from one scientific conference after another, as no one wanted to accept your proposals.
Days spent on crying and staring at your dissertation, as if looking at it long enough would suddenly make it all worth it.
And then, under the cold light of the conference room, with thirty heads staring at you in blank mimicry, you needed to make a decision.
The one that would soon turn into a weight on your life.
"Yes," finally slipped. Strong and confident, as you corrected glasses slipping off your nose. "I can make it work."
But thenā¦
But then the catastrophe came.
The betrayal.
Yuki apologising with utmost sincerity. Choso sitting quietly in the corner of her office. Three men keeping your body down.
From the moment you saw the space crew, one thought kept lingering in your mind. You dismissed it with a casual "they'll figure it out" wave, ignoring the instinct that indicated something was off ā something that should have been clear from the start.
Why didn't the space crew have the scientist?
And a day before the departure, you finally discovered why.
"I'm sorry, I'm really so so sorry," Yuki said, trying to calm your wriggling body. The man's hands dug deep into your spine, keeping the hands and knees in place, with a cheek pressed to a dirty carpet. "We don't have any choice, and you wouldn't agree if I askedā"
"Of course I wouldn't!" you screamed, trying to bite the soft hand that reached towards you. "It's a fucking suicide! I'm a simple teacher; I can't go to a fucking spaceāah, can you be a bit more gentle?!" But the men's fingers were already wrapping your hands with a thick rope. "Yuki, you can't do it to me!"
The woman didn't say anything. She merely opened her office door and beckoned someone inside. Wearing a white robe and holding a syringe between their fingers.
Your mind raced, breathing became almost impossible, and your throat clenched as you fought the sudden urge to vomit on the carpet. You tried to meet Choso's gaze, but he sat in the corner with his head in his hands, avoiding your gaze since you entered the office.
"Choso," you cried, as the doctor came closer. Long, thin needle shimmered under the office's cold lamp, sending a shiver down your spine. "Choso, l-look at me. You fucking coward, you bastard!" Fat tears rolled down your cheeks as the man sat like a stone figure. "You knew about it from the beginning, right? How could you do this to me?!"
Deep, warm eyes that you spent days gazing into finally looked up. Slightly wet, a bit hazy, while taking in the miserable state you found yourself in. Your glasses slightly crooked, lying a bit away from teary face. A few strands of hair sticking to your cheeks, arms twisted painfully behind back.
His fingers dug into the leather chair, as if trying to force himself to stay back.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn'tā¦ I couldn't bring myself to tell youā¦"
"That I'm going for a fucking suicidal mission?!" you interrupted, still trying to kick the men off your body. "I thought we were friends! I trusted you! And you simply sold me away?"
Yuki shivered, her gaze shifting between coldness and heartbreaking warmth whenever she looked at your writhing body. She slipped her trembling hand into the pocket of her jeans before giving the doctor a small nod.
"N-No," you cried, when the man in white bent down. A sudden, sharp pain washed over your body, tickling the ends of your fingertips. "Please, I d-don't want to, I can'tā¦"
And then, a weariness slowly filled your mind, lulling it into a deep sleep. Your body relaxed, eyes half-closed, as if weighted by the countless sleepless nights you had spent in labs.
The men lifted you up, keeping your head steady, but you didn't feel a thing. Your feet felt funny, light, as if blending into feathers. Some hushed voices started to argue, someone's warm hand brushed your cheek, and a heavy, musky smell filled your nostrils.
And before you lost consciousness, a silent save the earth sneaked into your ear.
š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė
"Amazing," a low sigh slipped past your lips as you watched a massive ship slowly follow yours.
Monstrous, at least twenty times larger than the spaceship you called home for the past three years, which couldn't be contained within the small window you looked through. It appeared incredibly bright, almost as if it were made of glass, yet you couldn't see anything beyond the thick walls.
It's been shadowing you since yesterday, and it has been following you since yesterday, regardless of how long you travelled or howĀ fastĀ you went;Ā it remained rightĀ there. Always in your line of sight from your window, constantly mirroring every move you make.Ā
It wasā¦ fascinating. To say at least.
A little frightening? Sure, as you were alone on a ship, with the crew long gone and drifting silently through the vast emptiness of space.
Bit still ā fascinating. It marked the first time a human saw an object outside Earth. Majestic and otherworldly, it looked somewhat familiar yet vastly different. A faint cosmic glow shimmered on its diamond-like walls, casting short beams through your solitary window, as if attempting to communicate. As if the creature within tried to contact.
Still drifting slowly, you bit down on your lower lip. "Maybe I should stop?" you thought out loud, as another flicker of light hit your window. "What if they'll attack me?"
But at this point, already being alone on an impossible, suicidal mission, it seemed that an alien attack would be the least of your problems. In fact, maybe it would even sweeten your life a bit, and before meeting death, you would still have a chance to make the first human contact with life outside Earth.
"Okay," You took a deep sigh, pulling down the engine handle. "Let's see what you want from me."
Your ship stopped, and the monstrous glassed vehicle followed right away. With your forehead pressed to the window, you waited.
And waited, waited, till ten minutes passed and the ship stood still. Your tongue pressed against the soft cheek as you walked back and forth, awaiting any sign of activity. Yet, the vast galaxy outside remained tranquil, a gentle glow reflecting off the smooth, wall-like surface of the enormous ship. It lacked doors and windows, being just a glassy, shimmering exterior thatā
"Oh no," your throat tightened as it drew closer. And closer, closer, swooshing towards you, something long slowly sliding out of the ship's tall wall. "Oh, that's bad, fuck."
A panic squeezed your heart, thoughts rushed through a tired mind, and there weren't enough cuticles on your nails to bite them all. The window was too small to see the thing clearly, but it seemed to be heading straight towards your ship's door. A long, shining tube swooshed closer and closer until your ship suddenly vibrated, as if gently brushing against a foreign object.
Your fingers fidgeted with the plush fabric of the shirt, while droplets of sweat made your glasses slide down your temple. With unsteady legs, you cautiously moved toward the astronaut's suit and started pulling it over your body. The zipper felt heavy under your touch, and the bubble-shaped helmet was more suffocating than usual. The oxygen backpack almost doubled your load as you headed toward the door, with heavy pounding in your chest.
Your heart was always perfectly healthy, and yet for the first time in your life, you tried to remember all the possible symptoms of a woman's heart attack.
Chest pain, severe shortness of breath, nausea, radiating pain in the neck and jaw, you counted in your mind, marking each and every sign in your current state.
"Fuck, okay," trembling, glove-coated hands squeezed the handle of the massive, metal door, before you pushed it. It opened with a low, soft creek, inviting you into the endless tunnel filled with darkness.
To your surprise, gravity worked here, and thus you dropped heavily onto the hard floor. A soft oh filled the helmet as you lifted the flashlight a bit higher. Something shimmered at the end of the darkness, yet you weren't sure what.
Your steps didn't echo from the thick walls as you slowly approached the entrance to the alien ship. Thoughts clashed painfully in your mind, questions rose one by one as you breathed with a squeezed chest under the weighty kilograms of a spacesuit.
How many of them were there?
What did they look like?
Were they friendly?
How quick and painful would your death be?
Your mind tried to ignore the last one, as the chance of a cardiac arrest before meeting an alien seemed much more likely. Fingers clutched the flashlight tighter, feet moved carefully, one step after another, sticking to the tunnel's crooked surface.
"Hello?" Your voice bounced off the walls, lined with terror. "Whoever you are, I come in peace!"
Oh, what a cheesy line,Ā you thought, biting down on your lower lip.
After a few steps, the glimmering thing came fully into view, and only then did you notice it was a thick glass wall. Or at least something similar to glass, with a hard surface that stopped you from going any further.
Glove-clothed hand touched it, helmet bumped against it, as you tried to light the darkness spilling behind it.
"Hello?" slipped a bit louder, with your fist knocking on the glass. "Anyone there?"
A silence, dull and endless, filled an eerie tunnel. Looking back, you took a note that your spaceship was still there ā safe and sound ā and you let out a deep sigh. It's not as if it would suddenly float away, butā
A heavy thump suddenly shook the tunnel's floor.
Your head snapped back, breath hitched, fingers squeezed with a tremble around the flashlight.
"H-Hello?"
The light reflected off something towering and shimmering, slowly moving toward you in a relaxed, unhurried manner, nearly as tall as the tunnel itself. A bluish halo beamed off the creature's body, filling the dark space with a soft aura.
You stepped back, trying to direct a flickering beam straight at the thing coming your way, but your hand trembled too much. The heart was on the verge of stopping, and dread haunted the mind as it drew closer, revealing its height. At least two and a half metres, brushing the ceiling of the tunnel's crooked walls, filling the narrow space with its wide body.
And when the light caught on their faceā¦ oh.
The pale blue skin shimmered softly under a luminous glow. It appeared unnaturally smooth, soft, and a sudden, foolish wish to brush it with your thumb swirled inside your mind. White, snowy hair touched the handsome forehead, while nearly inhumanly pale-blue eyes gazed down at your spacesuit-covered body. You looked tiny and short in comparison, with a gloved hand once more resting on the glass wall.
The creature was dressed in a white suit, clinging tightly to its body and digging deep into the hard muscles bulging under its skin. Alien's head tilted, knees bent down, and within a second, it found itself on eye-level with you.
White lashes decorating endless, luminous blue fluttered, as if trying to take in the terror twisting your face.
"āāā°ā°ā," a low, manly voice crept past the glass.
Your eyes bulged like two porcelain plates, fingers pressed closer to the wall.
So he was a man.
Well, you could already figure that much based on his looks, but the warm tone slipping under your bubble helmet was evidence enough.
Your mind didn't register the language at first, but when his soft brow travelled up, and lips curled in a smile, you thought that maybe he was awaiting an answer.
"Oh, um," you took a step back, waving your hand clumsily. "Hello."
The creature's head tilted again, and he mimicked your gesture.
You blinked twice, still struggling to believe the situation you're in. "Uh, okay, what now?" you whispered. "I am..." You pointed at your head and said your name clearly and loudly. "What about you?"
"ā¬āā āāā āāāāāā āāāā," the creature said, and a wave of different sounds and tones once again hit your ears.
You sighed, pressing tongue against your cheek. "Right, it's not going to work."
He looked at you, and you looked at him. You, with a slightly furrowed forehead and your mind rushing through all the possible ways to communicate with the alien. He, with lips curled cheekily and pale eyes fixed on your face.
"I wouldn't mind your cooperation, you know?" you mumbled, but he tipped his head left and right, like a curious puppy.
"ā¬āā āāā āāāāāāā āāāā," the same sounds once again slipped past the glass wall.
His head was tipping and tilting, and a second had passed before you finally understood that he wanted to say something.
"What? I don't understand," you said, mimicking his movements.
And thus both of you were shaking and tilting your heads, going over and over the sameĀ ā¬āā āāā āāāāāāā āāāā,andĀ I don't understand.
His brows furrowed as if irritated, and large hand touched his chest. He took a deep breath ā first and second ā then pointed at his head and finally at yours.
Oh.
"You want me to..." you gestured as if removing the helmet. A quiet chuckle escaped him, and eyes glinted. "But I can't breathe here."
He didn't understand and thus pointed at your head once again. "āāāā āā āāā."
Your head shook. "Whatever you say, I cannot take it off. Because I willā¦" Your hands slipped up to your throat before a wave of trembling convulsions bent your body. It wriggled, shook, before, with a theatrical cough, you fell down the crooked floor.
The creature was staring at you with a furrowed forehead and a gentle flicker of amusement coiling in his spectral eyes.
"Not the best first impression, I know," you muttered, swiftly standing up. "My point is, I can't breathe without it."
But it seemed he either didn't understand or was simply relentless in his pleadings. As the long fingers hit the glass wall, pointing right at your head. Another deep breath slipped past his lips, and he nodded, as if trying to say it was fine. Whatever he filled the tunnel with, you could breathe here.
And thus, the thought of what if slipped quietly into your mind.
What if he was right?
What if he really did fill your half of the tunnel with oxygen?
But what if he was wrong, and the moment the helmet would go off, you would die in inhumane suffering?
Light blue eyes shone with anticipation, lips curled into an encouraging smile, and a finger pressed harder into the glass wall.
You took a deep breath, feeling the droplets of sweat coiling at the nape of your neck. He seemed to be a highly intelligent creature, with the ability to communicate as well as you and a rather comprehensive understanding of the differences between your species. For some reason, trusting him felt almost natural, and the assuring look of his spectral gaze made you drop your head with a sigh.
When fingers hooked on the helmet's edges, your heart was nearing its death. Chest squeezed painfully, eyes closed till the eyelids dug deep into your balls. The sweat was now dripping down your spine, wetting the nape of your neck and shirt that clung to your body under the heavy spacesuit.
"Okay," you whispered, both to yourself and him, and it seemed that he was rather amused by the agony twisting your mind. When he chuckled, your brows furrowed. "Don't laugh. There's a rather big chance this air will burn me from the inside."
And so it happened ā your fingers slowly unclasped the neck ring, allowing the pressurised seal to loosen with a softĀ puf. The bubble helmet was lifted unhurriedly, as if your lungs were still trying to grasp the rest of the oxygen swirling inside it.
With still closed eyes, you took the first breath. And the second, and the third, and then, looking back at the alien, a sweet, loud scoff slipped past your lips, and flushed cheeks.
"āāā, ā āāā°ā ā¬āā," he chuckled, pressing his forehead to the glass wall.
Still in shock, you stepped closer, also touching the warm, crystal surface with your brows. "Sure, whatever you say."
You looked at each other for a while, with beaming smiles and foreheads almost brushing as you leaned in, a rather intimate gesture. It seemed that the first meeting with another species broke down some specific walls for both of you. The curiosity and fascination with one another blurred the lines of proper manners, breaching all the careful first steps you surely should think of.
His eyes flickered, suggesting a new idea had just come to him. He raised a finger and gestured for you to stay put. After your gentle nod, he vanished into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving you alone with your thoughts swirling in your mind.
Five minutes passed, then ten, and as you sat on the crooked floor and took off the heavy spacesuit, he finally came back, with something gripped by his hand.
You looked closer, noticing the collar-like device and a small earplug. He placed it inside his ear while wrapping the collar around the pale neck. A faint, crispy sound filled his side of the tunnel, and milky brows furrowed as he pressed onto the device in his ear.
And then, with a gesture, he asked you to say something.
"Um," your head tilted, and he sat right in front of you, waiting with a soft smile. "You are rather pretty for an alien."
His fingers still pressed the small device, and after a second, cheekiness flickered in his eyes. "Am I, question? You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen."
To say you froze in shock would be an understatement.
Your lips parted, eyebrows nearly touching hairline, as body leaned forward before your hand pressed against the glass wall. You didn't know whether you were more surprised by either his ability to speak your language or the casual compliment that caused your cheeks to heat up.
"You canā¦" You shook your head, barely breathing. "But how is itā¦"
He pointed at his ear. "This device recognises your language," then gestured to his neck. "And connects with this. Whenever I speak in my language, this collar converts it into yours."
A soft ah slipped past your lips, eyes fixed on the thin, crystal band made of a sort of rubber material. Your finger brushed the glass wall, as if trying to feel the device beneath it.
Your brows furrowed when another issue started to bite into your curiosity. "But how do you know my language? How did you build this translator? Our species never made contact."
He sat closer, pressing his forehead to the glass again. At this point, you started to wonder whether it was a sort of typical signal from his species, carrying a special, unknown meaning. And when he beamed with joy, you noticed little white droplets shining faintly, sprinkled around his cheeks. Was this an equivalent of a blush?
"You didn't withĀ us," he pressed a finger to yours, and only then did you see the true, monstrous size of his hand. "But the Reds had been studying you for years."
The redsā¦
"Oh gosh!" A gasp ripped out of your throat as you covered your mouth with a hand. His head tilted. "The Reds, you mean, Martians?"
"Why are you shocked, question?" he asked, carefully eyeing as you quickly stood up and started walking back and forth between the walls.
Your mind pulsed, trying to comprehend everything that had happened over the past hour. The strange spaceship, the first-ever human contact with life beyond Earth, the final confirmation that aliens did, in fact, kidnap people and conduct experiments on them.
"I'm shocked, because humans never made any contact with life outside our planet," you said, biting down on a fingernail. "How long have you known the Reds?"
A low hum slipped past his lips, and smooth, blue forehead creased. "Five hundred years, I say."
"What?!" Your knees buckled as you once again sat in front of him, with hands and forehead and breasts pressed tightly to a glass wall. "Five hundred years? How is that possible? Are your planets close to each other?"
His head shook, but forehead remained wrinkled. "Humans are very underdeveloped."
You chuckled softly, noticing small, adorable language mistakes the translator made here and there. It's still, robotic voice muffled the creature's deep tone, and something squeezed your heart, as you surprisingly discovered that the honeyed warmth of his tone wrapped your mind in a rather pleasing manner.
"Yes, it seems so." Your head turned, with flushed cheeks pressed to the wall. "But till now I had no idea how far behind we are."
He stayed quiet for a moment before tapping gently on the wall. Your eyes slipped back to his, noticing the droplets sprinkled across his face, radiating adorably like flickering stars.
"My name is Satoru," rolled quietly, as the shimmering dust coated his cheeks ever wider. "Your name, question?"
When you said it slowly, he nodded, still tapping on the surface. Right against your pressed hand. "That's a very beautiful name."
"Yours is not bad either."
He hummed, as if in agreement.
Your head grew heavier and heavier, and the warmth was gently trying to coax you into sleep. As you yawned, Satoru's ghostly eyes carefully followed the exhaustion clouding your forehead.
"Are you tired, question?"
His throat bobbed when you giggled. "You don't have to add aĀ questionĀ at the end of each ask, you know?"
You assumed that, because of his grammar rules, he needed to emphasise the difference between normal sentences and inquiries. You've noticed that his language sounded much more melodic than yours, yet it lacked the upward pitch humans use.
"But I am tired, thank you for asking." Looking over your shoulder, you've noticed that your ship was, fortunately, still there. "How about I go to sleep, and we'll get back to our talk in a few hours?"
You slowly stood up and grabbed your heavy spacesuit. Glasses slipped off your nose, and hair stuck to still-warm cheeks, as you lifted up the flashlight andā¦ oh.
It seemed that you missed the sudden sorrow deepening between Satoru's brows. Eyes widened in panic, big palms plastered to the wall with lips just slightly opened, as he looked with a fearful expression at your attempt to move away from the wall. From him.
"Satoruā"
"Can you please sleep here?" His voice trembled, although the translator's robotic tone remained unwavering.
You looked around the tunnel, feeling the crooked ground bending beneath your feet and the dark walls emitting a deep, earthy smell. "I don't think that's a good idea, Satoru." A warm smile lifted your lips as you turned towards your spaceship. "But don't worry, I'll be back. Sleep for a bit, and before you'll notice, I'llā"
"Please," the anxiety filling his shaken voice stabbed right through your heart. "Please let me watch you sleep."
You glanced over your shoulder, seeing him in the same position. With hands pressed against the wall and eyebrows furrowed deeply.
"Watch me sleep?"
He nodded. "Iā¦ I didn't watch my crew sleep. The crew died. Satoru has been alone for the past forty years." Your lips fell open, but he quickly added, as if afraid you'd refuse again. "I watch you sleep, you won't die."
Seeing his face ā filled with anxiety, pure fear, and misery ā you could only smile softly and nod. As the mere thought of this man spending over forty years in space all alone tore your heart apart in the most inhumanely painful way.
"Yes, okay," barely pushed past your lips, before you cleared your throat. "Just let me bring my stuff."
You quickly changed into pyjamas, gathered a few blankets, a pillow and enough water for the night, before going back to the warm tunnel.
And then, as you drew closer to the glassy wall, you noticed a slight change in its shape. As during the five minutes you were gone, Satoru had prepared a special shelf for your body to lie right next to him. With his own feather-like blanket, he lay on his side, waiting for you to slip into the long space and hug him.
You giggled, filling the space with your own things. "That's quite intimate, Satoru."
His body was much taller than the width of the tunnel, and thus, he curled his legs a bit before trying to get even closer to you. "WhatĀ does intimateĀ mean, question?"
With head hitting the soft pillow and blanket covering your body, you turned his way. Nothing but a thick crystal wall kept you away from brushing noses with each other.
"It means that you're trying to be romantic with someone," but then you thought he might also not understand what romantic means. "Hm, it's when you do nice things for a certain person that you wouldn't do for anyone else. For example, make a special bed to be closer to someone."
A soft crease wrinkled his forehead, and the peacefulness of his eyes told you that he was deeply thinking. "I wouldn't do it for anyone other than you."
The sincerity beaming from his eyes was enough to assure you of the innocent truthfulness of his words. So you sighed, nuzzling deep into the pillow, hoping he didn't notice the warmth on your cheeks.
"That's very romantic, you know? Something you would say to your special someone."
"To your mate, question?"
You hummed, softly closing eyes. His presence somehow made your body tingle with a pleasant warmth, allowing the sleep to haunt your mind in a much softer, calmer way. In a way, you didn't feel for a long, long time, spending days in loneliness and a maddening need to feel someone else's warmth again.
You couldn't feel Satoru's heat, yet your heart fluttered fondly as his gaze truly watched you sleep.
"Yes, although humans don't mate."
"Why, question?"
When you giggled ā sweetly, kindly ā droplets coating Satoru's cheeks lighted up. Solely for a second, but it was enough to make him slip closer, and closer, and closer, till the glass wall was digging painfully into his body, and his heart still rushed your way.
You bubbled something under your nose. An answer he could not hear. With your lips falling open and a crystal string of saliva dripping down the soft pillow.
His finger pressed against the glass, as if wishing to brush it away.
And when another five minutes passed, a soft snoring filled your side of the tunnel. Breath calmed down, and body drew closer to his. Trying to curl into his ā big, burning hot, utterly dangerous for yours.
"I watch you sleep," he whispered, brushing the glass with your pressed cheek. "You never die."
š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė
Satoru was much more intelligent than you expected.
It's not that you treated him as beneath you, but the true power of his mind exceeded your expectations.
And as it turned out, he was in the same situation as you ā researching the alien microbes that were also eating his sun. Except that his species discovered the problem forty years before yours, and thus a wave of panic washed over your mind. Because if a creature like Satoru couldn't find the solution to the problem that apparently touched not just Earth but the whole universe, you wouldn't do it either.
One difference between you and Satoru was that, as an engineer, he could actually do things himself. Simply produce them, with all the glassed walls and tiny models of planets made from a strange, gluey substance that rolled off his fingers. He wasn't a scientist like you, so when he heard that you were the "brain" of the crew, his eyes flickered.Ā
"We can work together," he proposed, already considering the path to the only planet not consumed by alien microbes. Since it wasn't infected, it suggested there was something in its atmosphere that enabled it to withstand the lethal bacteria. "You will be the mastermind of the entire operation, I will develop the sources. Also, I have spent forty years here, so I know how to navigate."
His eyes were fixed on creating another little planet, rolling the gluey strings between his pads, moulding them into a ball and waiting until the substance dried into a crystal orb. After a few days, your glassy wall had advanced enough to have a small opening for a shelf where you could exchange little presents.
Although you forgot that Satoru's atmosphere was close to boiling lava in temperature, when your hands accidentally brushed, a nasty, red bump was left on the skin of your thumb.
He put the ball on the shelf and moved his hand away so you could grab it.
"Which planet is it?" you wondered, brushing the crystal surface.
He tsked ā something he learnt from you mere hour ago ā and mumbled. "The earth, of course."
A scoff escaped your lips, and warmth spilt over the heart. "We're not that small."
"I believe you are."
"And we have more greenery."
He wondered, this time building a small spaceship. Your spaceship. "I would like to see it."
Some things have become clearer after spending the past few days in Satoru's presence. His planet was one of the closest to the sun, wrapped in a dense atmosphere that protected its inhabitants from being burned alive. As Satoru said, the days merged with the nights, and it was always rather dark ā hence the pale, almost spectral eyes he and other inhabitants had. There was little to no greenery, and the water system had long been sustained by technologies developed by engineers like him.
"A lot of sand", he once said, and you wondered whether it would look like anything close to the climate of Arab countries.
His head tilted then, and eyes flickered with curiosity. "How do Arab countries look, question?"
You tried to describe the endless desert plains, the crimson sun, the curling droplets of sweat on your neck, and the nights filled with beaming joy as best you could. The feel of warm sand under your feet, sea brushing the skin sweetly and fresh dates melting on your tongue in sugary pleasure.
He listened, with eyes following the curve of your lips and fingers fidgeting with the hem of your shirt.
"I would love to see it," he muttered, poking the glass wall with his finger. "It sounds beautiful."
You giggled, following the pale blue of his skin. Soft and shiny, it reminded you more of a region bitten by cold than of the merciless atmospheric temperature of over two hundred degrees Celsius.
"You're rather pale for someone living right next to the sun."
He scoffed, with fingers still creating the small spaceship. In the meantime, you leaned against the crooked tunnel's wall, with a laptop on your thighs, trying to plan the route towards the only "safe" planet.
"I'm not pale. I'm blue."
"That was a joke," you shoot him a glance, seeing the irritated squint of his eyes. "It means that the thing I say is supposed to be funny. You should laugh."
A low, awkward chuckle rolled off his lips, and you couldn't help but burst out laughing. Satoru knew how to express his joy, but it seemed he didn't quite possess the humour you did.
The moment has passed, and a comfortable silence stretched between the two of you. He was mapping the galaxy, while you tried to work out whether your ship still had enough fuel to travel that far. It would take you months to reach that planet, but there seemed to be no other choice. After that mission, the fuel will run out, and you, just as planned, will die here ā somewhere in the embrace of endless space.
A low sigh slipped past your lips, catching Satoru's attention. "Are you tired, question?"
Your head shook, and a few strands of hair fell loosely from a pinup. "I would love to invite you to my ship. There's a room where we can watch movies and stuff. I'm sure I can find something about Egypt."
And soā¦
You've also learned over the past few days that Satoru took everything seriously.
In the most genuine and firm understanding of this word.
Two weeks have passed since your meeting. One morning, as you stood in front of the bathroom mirror, dressed in nothing but panties and a loose shirt while brushing your teeth, a deep, gravelly rumble shook the entire spaceship.
Your heart leapt into your throat, eyes bulged, and you dashed out of the room with wet hair and bare feet. With all the prayers you've learnt as a child repeating in your mind over and over again, as you run towards the entrance of the ship.
Did you somehow get unsealed from the tunnel?
Did something hit the ship and cause the irreparable damage that would cost you your life?
Fuck, didā
But when you finally got into the room connected with an entrance, with toothpaste smeared all over your cheek and glasses falling crookedly off your nose, a low gasp slipped past your lips.
"Satoru?!"
Because the pale-bluish creature himself stood in the middle of your spaceship, locked in aā¦
"And you're in a ball?" Like a hamster, wanted to join, but he probably wouldn't know what a hamster is.
Standing right in front of you, fully upright, with long legs wrapped in a white suit and a muscular back bulging under the stretched material ā he appeared even more monstrous than usual. A creature over two metres tall, looking all over your place with amusement shining in his eyes, his gaze following all your dirty panties spread across the floor.
"Yep, so I won't die in your atmosphere," long fingers knocked the crystal ball, before lips curved in a cheeky smile. "Can I smell it, question? I want to know how your body smells. Put it to the shelā"
A sudden warmth had hit your cheeks, and throat tightened around the remnants of the toothpaste. "Absolutely not! It's very not polite of you to ask such things."
He started walking around in a large ball that barely fit the corridors of your spaceship, its hard walls brushing against each and every machine, piece of furniture, and console on its way. He strolled freely, dropping different comments here and there, while you followed him and picked up all your clothes.
"So dirty," he snapped, pushing a loud scoff from your throat.
"I didn't expect the guests!"
But he ignored you, as your bedroom appeared somewhere within the line of his sight. Blue cheeks shone with crystal droplets, and white, fluffy hair almost stood on end with excitement. Before you could stop him, long legs swiftly moved towards your bedroom, taking in every little, dirty, detail ā more panties, a small mattress, a few books lying scattered all over the floor.
"Is that our nest, question?" He looked around before parking his ball next to your mattress. He sat down, leaning against the floor, and finally shot you a look. "I like it."
With a deep, weariness-filled sigh, you returned to the bathroom, cleaned yourself, and re-entered the bedroom. Soft light reflected off the glistening droplets on his cheeks as he probed the fabric of your panties with his finger. Only then did you realise that the ball, despite being firm, was quite flexible, enabling him to slide his fingers through its surface, which was covered in a sticky, shimmering coating that shielded his skin from the oxygen.
You took the material away from his curious gaze and pushed it back into your bag.
"Satoru, what are you doing here?" slipped rather harshly as you sat down on your bed.
He seemed to be confused by your tone, tilting the fluffy head with a furrow. "Are you mad, question?"
You knew that getting angry with him, while he was still learning to recognise human emotions, was silly. Stupid, even, and you felt as if you were shouting at the poor puppy. Except that this puppy was much taller than you and probably weighed twice your weight.
With a sigh, you fell back on the mattress and covered your face with an arm. "Sorry, I'm not mad. Justā¦ surprised. I didn't expect you would come up my ship."
He tried to roll closer, but the space was too small to allow him any other movements than going back and forth from the entrance to your mattress. So he stayed in place, trying to observe the expression on your face.
"I can't see you like that," he noted.
Another thing you've learnt about his species was how important contact and intimacy are. Not even sexual ones, but rather a simple need to always be with someone. To communicate while looking right into their eyes, to feel their skin on theirs, and to follow the movements of their lips. To feel the presence of another creature next to them, even if the only thing you did was sleep next to each other.
So another sorry slipped past your lips, and you sat again, showing Satoru your face. He slightly lightened up before pressing a hand to the crystal ball.
"You said, and I quote, I would love to invite you to my ship," he noted with utmost seriousness, and you rolled your eyes. "So I came."
Well, he was right. You did say that, and you did wish there were a way to bring him into your ship. Travelling together would be much easier if both of you were on one ship, so amidst the pure chaos and shock he caused, you quite enjoyed the fact that he could live here.
With you.
"Okay," your hand pressed to the ball, filling half of his palm. "But we need to set up some rules first. First, we don't sleep in the same bedroomā"
"But I must watchā"
"Satoru," you interrupted him, seeing the pale eyes slip into the sorrowfulness. "You have excellent hearing and even more excellent sight. I'm sure you can watch me sleep while staying next door." A grim twisted his face, and a low mumble filled his little bubble. Too quiet for the translator to catch, so you chuckled sweetly, seeing his brattiness surface. "Okay. The second rule ā you can't sniff my panties. It's somethingā¦ reserved only for mates."
And, well, if that didn't fire him up ā with eyes suddenly beaming in excitement and droplets twinkling one by one, like a tiny mingling stars. You felt as if you had challenged him, and thus quickly added. "And because we are not mates, you cannot do it. It's too intimate."
"I want to be intimate."
A sudden flush hit your cheeks, and warmth spread beneath your chest. "No, Satoru, you don't understand. It's about sexual intimacy. Something you share whileā¦" saying it out loud felt like giving a biology lesson to elementary school kids. "Matingā¦ with your special someone. When you, well, have sex and stuff. Do you knowā"
He chuckled low, a sly smile lifting his lips. "I know what mating is."
Something in your lower belly bubbled, seeing him like that. Tall and strong, spreading a slightly possessive and dominating aura. With eyes full of bratty cheekiness and something, something, slightly sensual dripping from his voice.
"Well, so you know that we can't do it," You moved back, taking your palm away from the crystal ball. "Let's work on our plan and try to find a way to save the world."
And with a slight dissatisfaction, Satoru finally agreed.
But the next months spent in his presence wereā¦ interesting. To say at least.
Every day brought new surprises, which sometimes ended with your body blushing from head to toes, sometimes him getting shy and flustered, while still trying to keep up the cocky demeanour.
He was nothing less than excellent when it came to engineering and helping with the travel itself, also being an amazing companion for the long, daring journey.
Soon he resigned from constant stay in a ball and filled the interior of your spaceship with long corridors of crystal, making himself at home. Whenever you were ā he was right next. Be it a bedroom, control room, kitchen orā¦
"Satoru!" You quickly covered your breasts with your hands, seeing him walking into the bathroom with the most casual demeanour.
A plate of some weird substance, he was always eating for supper, and a white suit half unzipped, showing off his muscular, blue chest. He leaned against the door, spectral eyes slowly following your naked body. From legs up to hips, staying longer on the gentle swell of your ass and the mould of your pussy, before going up, and up, to the breasts covered by your trembling fingers. "Sweetheart is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen."
"Sweetheart" because he really wished to call you something human pairs use for each other. Even though at least three times a week, you needed to remind him that you, in fact, wereĀ notĀ a pair.
A muffled, surprised scoff escaped your lips. You pointed to the exit with one hand, forgetting it was clutching one of your breasts. When the silky swell smoothly slipped from your grasp, bouncing gently before his eyes, he moved closer, already pushing a finger through the stretching wall.
"Can Iā"
You smacked it, once again showing the exit. "Satoru! You can't walk on me while I'm naked."
"Why, question?" he asked, relentlessly trying to get closer to your body. With a finger poking the wall, that unfortunately couldn't stretch enough to even brush your skin. "Come a bit closer."
Something in your belly bubbled, warmth spread across your chest, and a single, dirty thought of letting him touch you bloomed in your mind. After all, sexual needs and anatomy were among the things all researchers wished to know about foreign species. And because Satoru was of the same, curious kind as youā¦
"It's too early, out!"
His head tilted, and lips curved into a foxy smile. "It's eight in the evening."
"No, I mean, we're not close enough to do such stuff."
He knocked on the crystal wall. "Sweetheart, but I can't get closer."
Oh god.
You sighed, finally letting the other tit bounce softly too. Leaning against the small shelf, you glanced at him with a frown. He, however, looked anywhere but into your eyes. Rude.
"Our relationship is not on that levelā¦" yet. "What you want to do is too intimate. Sexual." And then, a sudden curiosity spiked your mind. "Satoru, how does theā¦ mate thing look like among your species?"
His eyes finally slipped up to yours. "We choose one mate for a whole life."
Well, that was rather clear.
"What about the, you knowā¦" You gestured awkwardly, partially at your still naked body.
"The mating," he finished. But as if feeling the spike in your curiosity, with round eyes ogling his naked chest and slipping shyly towards his hips, he bubbled a low chuckle. "Come closer, and I will show you."
What a brat!
With the last tsk and a dirty look shot his way, you turned back towards the mirror and finished your quick, morning "shower". Even while using rinseless soap and water pouches to clean your body, you still felt Satoru's presence behind you.
Deep blue eyes following the curve of your body, back muscles working beneath the soft skin, and when you bent over to rinse your face, a sudden, sharp breath escaped his throat.
You didn't have to look back to know that he was looking straight at your pussy.
"It's wet," he mumbled, coming closer. And closer, until his finger once again tried to evade the stretching wall, too short to even brush the swell of your ass.
You hummed, trying to hide an embarrassed warmth kissing your neck. "It's a natural lubrication. It usually happens when a woman isā¦" oh fuck it. "Excited."
He seemed charmed, completely bewitched, and some part of you wished the temperature between your bodies wasn't over two hundred degrees Celsius. As the moment Satoru's hands touched your skin, you weren't sure whether calling it the third burn would be enough.
"Why is sweetheart excited, question?"
With your body leaning forward and hands resting on the shelf, you looked back, eyes slightly hazy, wetness dripping down your thigh. A silken droplet swirled down your leg, and Satoru's always oh-so-attentive eyes, of course didn't miss it.
"I want the taste," he mumbled, and only then did you notice a bulge, trying to rip free from beneath the white spacesuit covering his hips.
You took a deep breath, bending yourself lower and lower, till he could clearly see your cunt shining with silky wetness.
"I'm excited," you started, voice dripping with sensuality. "Because of you."
As if awaiting this exact answer, his eyes, for just a second, ripped themselves away from your soft pussy and looked up. To cross with yours ā slightly teary, a bit too warm.
"I want toā"
You turned around, once again leaning against the shelf. A low groan escaped his throat, as he no longer could see your pussy in its fullness. The little pout twisting his lips made you giggle, but a tricky, dirty thought has slipped into your mind.
"How about this?" You took a step, then another, until you stood right in front of him. Much closer than before, but not close enough to let him brush your skin. "I will let you touch me. Watch meā¦" You coughed, feeling this wind of bravery leave your body as quickly as it had come. "Masturbate. And you'll let me do it too."
Satoru's lips fell open, eyes sparkled in excitement. "I thought the intimacy was only for mates. Are we mates then, question?"
"Let's call it friend with benefits."
His eyes narrowed. "We don't do such things with friends."
You scoffed, pushing your hip to the side and biting the inside of your cheek. "Well, we do, so you can either accept it or not."
And seeing that this time his bratty stubbornness wouldn't work, Satoru nodded.
A few minutes later, you found yourself in the most embarrassed, going-straight-to-the-grave position you could imagine. With elbows supporting your body on the bedroom's mattress, legs spread open, and pussy pressed against the crystal wall. The slippery juices coated the surface, making Satoru breathe much, much harder than before. With fingers wrapped around the biggest, most monstrous cock you've ever seen.
You needed a moment to take in the sight that sprang up in front of your eyes after he took off the rest of the suit. Massive, veiny shaft, with a swelled protrusion at his base, probably used while mating. The blue skin was peppered with similar droplets sprinkled on his cheeks, and shimmered faintly whenever he looked down at your cunt.
Small and fluttering, with your hole squeezing around nothing and clit swelled from excitement.
The penetrative gaze of his made you warm up even more. "Satoru, touch me," slipped like an order.
His long finger brushed the crystal wall and pushed ā gently, carefully, till he felt a soft button under his pad and heard a low moan escape your lips.
He dreamed of feeling the gummy structure of your pussy. To roll the clit between his fingers, without any surface protecting his body. To lower himself down and smell, lick, taste the dripping cum that in his mind was sweeter than anything he had ever tried.
And it should be noted that he had quite refined taste buds.
His other hand pumped his massive cock in slow strokes, enjoying the sight spreading in front of him much more than the feeling of his fingers wrapped around the dripping shaft.
"Does it feel good, question?" He asked, hearing another moan fill the small bedroom.
"Y-yeah, ahh, try to make gentle circles," slipped faintly, as you started to roll nipples between your fingers.
His thumb pressed against your clit harder, making your feet curl and legs spread even wider. As if trying to invite his massive cock, that would surely rip you in half.
Maybe the fact that you couldn't touch each other wasn't that bad. Because if he somehow found a way to fuck you with this size, you sure would feel it up in your throat.
And thus you enjoyed the sight spreading in front of your eyes ā his beefy thighs bulging whenever you jolted under his thumb, pearly cum dripping down the blue skin, long fingers squeezing the veiny meat as he still oh-so-carefully rubbed your clit.
"It's getting wetter," he noticed, biting the inside of his cheek. "I want to taste you."
His low voice made your body melt under his fingers, forcing your thighs to spread wider and wider, while chasing the pleasure bubbling in your belly. Your hole fluttered around nothing, and a sheer sight of his cock spun your mind in crazy wish to get yourself stretched around it. To feel every vein scratch your tight walls, till the drenched head would kiss your swelling womb.
"Fuck, wait, I have an idea," you backed out, crawling towards your bag.
Crazy, stupid, nasty plan slipped into your head, as you took out a mid-size, creamy dildo. With a sucking pad at the end, and a slightly curved head. It wasn't yours, as you somehow found it among the thingsā¦ oh well, does it really matter? It was clean and had been bathed in antiseptic spray multiple times; thus, using it was not disgusting at all.
But when Satoru saw it, his breath hitched. Eyes slipped down to his cock, and forehead furrowed. "Why is it so small, question?"
You chuckled, sticking it to the crystal wall. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that's the average size of a human's dick."
He followed your body as you once again spread your legs open and brushed the silicone cock through your folds a few times. Drenching it all in your juices, and Satoru, since learning the meaning of jealousy, felt something unpleasant bubble in his heart. Because he wished to be the one making your pussy flutter around his head and push it inside, till your sugary walls would clamp around his fat cock.
Your forehead furrowed, eyes glistened from prickling tears as his thumb once again landed on your clit. But this time, the pleasure was twice as intense. With a silicone dick stretching your tight pussy and his finger rubbing you in slow, maddening circles.
"I could make you feel better," he groaned, hearing another pitched moan slip past your lips. "This pathetic thing is now worthy to be inside my sweetheart."
With rising irritation, he pressed your clit harsher. Till a tremble washed over your body and back hit the mattress, as you rolled your cunt to feel the dildo go deeper. But Satoru was right ā his cock would indeed make you feel better.
Your hands slipped up to your breasts, pinching the hard buds and chasing the maddening pleasure bubbling in your lower belly.
A deep frown creased Satoru's forehead, and he gently squeezed your clit. "I can't see your face."
"R-right, sorryāahhh," A cry rolled off your tongue as you once again leaned on your elbows. "Satoru, it feels so good, mhmm."
His cock was more flushed than before, with a cherry tip spilling the heavy, thick droplets all over his hand. He pumped it madly, never once taking his eyes off your lovely face. With pleasure twisting your brows and teary eyes fixed upon his.
"S-Satoru, I, fuck, I'm going to cum," the silicone cock kissed your cervix, smooching it wetly with hefty, gluey cum sipping from your hole.
You tried to imagine getting split open on his cock. Being filled by his cum, with creamy saps stuffing your swelling womb and pumping your belly full. Getting manhandled by his muscular arms and wide back, as he would fold you into a mating press and push into the mattress. Till each and every spring would painfully dig into your spine.
So with a final cry, you came.
With a loud cry, spine arching into the sweetest curve, and a sprinkling of sweetness gushing all over his thumb, although it was a true pity that he couldn't feel it. Your body trembled and lips fell open, seeing a furrow cloud his forehead and fingers tightening around his cock.
And then, an idea slipped quietly into your mind.
"Wait a minute, don't cum yet," you muttered, taking a pair of panties lying on your bed. With a single, dirty move, you rubbed them against your drenched folds, gathering all the creamy cum and honeyed sweetness.
Satoruā¦ dear heavens.
When a flimsy material landed inside the shelf, quite similar to the one he installed in a tunnel, Satoru's fingers snapped forward and snatched it. He brought it closer to his nose, lips, feeling your precious wetness and the rich flavour burst right onto his tongue, as a low, primal groan escaped his throat.
"Mhmm, s-so, ahh, tastes so sweet," a muffled cry was almost incomprehensible with your panties filling his mouth.
The head of his cock pulsed, massive balls constricted whenever his tongue took another lick of your fresh cum and eyesā¦ oh, eyes stayed on you.
On your breasts coated in sheer sweat, thighs still spread open and a little, minx smile twisting your lips. Satoru was sure he could cum only at the sheer sight of your angelic face, and thus, after a few more harsh pumps and muffled cries, he came. Loud and heavy, with creamy ropes shooting all over his glimmering skin and fully emptying everything he has been keeping far too long.
What a waste, you both thought, wishing it landed somewhere far, far sweeter and warmer. Deep inside your womb, preferably.
A moment has passed, with a small bedroom filled with your heavy breaths and shy glances, looking everywhere but at your cum-coated bodies. With a faint cough, you finally closed your thighs and covered yourself with a blanket.
Blooming loveliness crept up your cheeks, and suddenly looking at Satoru required far more courage and calm than it had merely thirty minutes ago.
Before you could ask whether he needed a towel, his low voice spoke first. "Are we mates now, question?"
He said sheepishly, lifting your panties with a finger.
You groaned and fell on a mattress with his chuckle tickling your burning ears.
You didn't want to destroy this moment, even though you knew your mission would end with you dying in space. That he would go back to his planet safely, while you would float and float and float, while eventually dying of hunger.
And so, sharing this sweet moment of intimacy, with warmth spreading beneath your chest, you nodded. "Yes, Satoru. Let's become mates."
š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė
The next few months were filled with nothing but joy.
With movies playing on repeat in the small, cinematic room, Satoru watches each of them with his lips agape. Enjoying the landscapes of Earth, you could project them into a closed space, with a blue sky spreading across the ceiling and tall Scottish plains stretching beneath your feet.
With the golden sand of Thai beaches shimmering in the sun and coconuts falling from the palms, the chirping of birds perched high in the lush trees of the Amazon Forest, and the endless plains of the Sahara Desert.
When you joked that the three pyramids in Giza you were just looking at were believed to have been built by aliens, he only hummed and nodded as if in agreement. A scoff rolled off your tongue, and his head snapped towards you.
"Why are you nodding? Of course they weren't!"
Plush, bluish lips curved in a sly smile. "Is sweetheart sure, question? It looks like something we have on our planet."
An unbelievable shock crossed your face as you stared at him, speechless. "No, you don't!"
"Yes, we do."
"You're fucking with me."
His head tilted. "I thought we can't fuck."
You rolled your eyes, resting your head against his shoulder. Or at least against the crystal surface he was pressed against. "Forget it."
"I can't, my memory is excellent."
And that was indeed true, as Satoru seemed to remember every single thing you said or did over the past few months. The plan you devised to obtain a sample of the planet's atmospheric gas to discover why it was immune to deadly microbes was etched into his mind with meticulous precision.
Truly mesmerising creature he was, especially as he also remembered which buttons to push, to make you cum faster.
What you had also discovered was that Satoru loved to talk about your future.
Particularly during the late nights, when you were curled up under the warm blanket, lying on a mattress in a dimly lit room, with him cuddled up against your side.
He couldn't brush your soft cheek pressed against the wall, but it was fine.
For the look of your lovely face, he watched with warmth blooming in his chest, was enough.
On such nights, when both of you longed for each other's warmth, he enjoyed dreaming. Of you returning with him to his planet, building you a small, private island with oxygen, and fulfilling all your wishes. You teaching the children of his species physics ā as you did on Earth ā and him continuing to serve as the most valued engineer on his planet.
Of you and him living together in a small seaside cottage, spending days loving each other and lying on the soft beach till darkness would spill over the ocean's horizonĀ ā the only his planet had, the one he was ready to fully give into your hands. Having sex all day and night, to which you responded with a sweet, faint giggle, as sleep slowly slipped into your eyes.
"And how would we do it, hm?" you mumbled, pressing against the crystal wall.
A soft furrow haunted your forehead, and he imagined calming it with a gentle roll of his thumb. "The atmosphere of my planet allows us to use a special technique," through the glass wall, he traced the curve of your lips. "It wraps my body in a thin barrier, but I would be able to touch you," soft lips touched to the point where your nose pressed. "And kiss you. And hug you, make love with you, although we wouldn't have children."
You understood why and giggled softly, slowly opening your sleepy eyes to meet the endless, pale blue. "You really want to get even closer, huh?"
It was a joke, and yet a warmth bloomed behind his spectral eyes, forcing your heart to skip a beat. His hand pressed to the part where your chest met the wall, before he leaned his forehead against "yours". "If I could, I would make you live inside me. So nothing in this universe would ever rip us apart."
A faint oh rolled past your lips as you bit on the soft inside of your cheek. "Satoru, I don't know how long your species live, butā¦ I don't have as much time as you think."
A sudden panic swelled behind his eyes, and thumb slipped out of the crystal wall to brush your lower lip. "My best friends have been mates for the past hundred and sixty years. How many can you give me, question?"
Something ripped through your heart. Cut it with painful slashes, till a crease on your forehead deepened. "Not a lot, Satoru. Maybe seventy years?"
His thumb paused, an ache spreading across the vast, pale blue plains. "I've lived three hundred years without you," he said, warm lips pressing into the wrinkle between your "brows". "I won't survive another seventy."
But the endless honeymoon couldn't last long.
For there was a reason why both of you found yourselves in space. Why the mission was tagged as suicidal, and why there wasn't enough fuel to get you back to Earth. And while Satoru's dreams indeed sounded tempting, you knew that it simply wouldn't work out.
For you breathed oxygen, and he needed ammonia gas.
Your body stayed cool at thirty-six degrees Celsius, while his was burning up to over two hundred.
He was three hundred years old ā you twenty-seven.
But he didn't have to know all of that. Over the past twenty-seven years, no one had made you laugh, enjoy, and love life as much as he did. Even if those brief moments of happiness were only meant to last a few months, they were enough.
After the mission, he could go back safely to his home, and youā¦ well.
And you would need to watch him die.
It was truly unpredictable, and none of you could foresee how the situation would turn out. You finally arrived on the planet, prepared to collect the necessary samples of the antidote. You didn't know, however, how dense its atmosphere would be.
How the wind would violently hit your ship, tossing it sharply left and right as you stepped outside in your spacesuit and carried Satoru's sampling device back onto the ship.
He told you to leave it. When you almost fell off the ship, he begged you to come inside. Hit the wall with hands, screamed right into the speaker inside your helmet, pleaded to leave the sample and just come back.
But you simply couldn't do it. Because leaving it here, after Satoru spent decades in space trying to seek the solution, would be simply foolish. Egoistic, and thus, after a few harsh currents, you grabbed the box filled with antidote cells and went back to the ship.
But then, it started spinning. And spinning and spinning, wish wind smacking it in violent currents, and you found it almost impossible to get back onto the normal route. Every single light inside the control room shimmered red. Satoru tried to calm you down, but there was nothing he could truly do from behind the glass wall.
You pushed and flickered every button, every controller, but after one sudden, brutal tug of the ship, your face hit the console.
Eyes filled with red, a nasty crack came from the nose, and the gaze became a bit hazy. You tried to push one last button that would help the ship get away from the planet's strong current, but you were simply too weak. With blood slowly covering your whole face and belts still pinning you to the chair.
Satoru shouted something, but you couldn't hear him clearly. Was it because of the red lamps and an alarm filling the control room? Or maybe because of the sudden sleepiness that blanketed your eyelids?
His fists hit the glass wall, spreading the dull echo around the control room. A soft sweetheart sweetheart sweetheart rolled past his lips, but you simply had no energy to look up. As if you did, the sigh of his trembling, panicked face would rip your heart apart.
His large fists wanted to break through the wall, eyes looked at the blood dripping down your face, body filled with helplessness and desperation, trying everything in his power to get close to you.
With a single finger, you still strained to push that last red button. To get the ship back on track, at least allow Satoru to be safe, and finish the mission that would help save his planet. But your body couldn't handle the gravitational force caused by the spin, which pressed you into the console. The slow crushing of your lungs, mind filling with fogginess, throat crushed beneath the flickering buttons.
So with a soft, almost inaudible I'm sorry, your eyes closed.
A second has passed, a minute, with mind registering the crying alarm andā¦ and a shatter of glass.
A sudden pain washed over your body ā burning and stinging every nerve. Someone lifted you up, carefully, slowly, trying to wrap you in blankets and clothes, anything to keep you from the lethal touch.
Quiet,Ā you'll live, sweetheart will live, sweetheart, sweetheart, keep your eyes open, amid violent waves of coughing and painful moans, filled the corridors of your spaceship. When your eyes opened a little, you saw nothing but thick steam evaporating from something.Ā
Someone.
"Satoru?" slipped out in a whisper as, from beneath the curling steam, a blue, familiar face looked down at you, wet-cheeked. "Satoru, no, y-you'll dieā"
"Shhh, sweetheart, it's okay, it's okay, sweetheart will live," he repeated like a mantra, hugging your wrapped body closer to his.
Fiery skin burned through the thick layers of blankets, leaving burns all over your bloodstained skin. Your body hit something, and before you noticed, an automated medical care robot soon filled your vision. The mechanical arms pressed the oxygen mask to your face before an IV needle slipped beneath the skin of your arm.
"Satoru," you mumbled weakly, trying to find those familiar, pale eyes.
And he was right there, offering you the most painful, heart-tearing sight. Tears ran down his cheeks, white steam curled tortuously from his body, and gaze slowly grew weaker. He could barely breathe, yet still stood right there.
Over your barely warm body, making sure that you would live.
"I watch youā"
"No, S-Satoru," barely pushed through your squeezed throat. With crystal tears swirling in your eyes and fingers trying to push him away from the table. "Go back, p-please, orā"
"No, I watch you sleep." his fingers grabbed the hem of your shirt. "You won't die".
You were too weak to fight him. In too much pain, with your head pounding, skin burning from his touch and anaesthesia slowly kicking in.
And so, with a last look into the eyes your heart laughed for, you fell asleep.
There was no way to tell how much time had passed. How long you stayed under the mechanical clutches of the medical robot.
How long Satoru needed to suffer, to make sure you would be alive.
But when you finally woke up and ripped yourself away from the needles, he wasn't there.
He wasn't in your sight, but something else, something burned, marked the floor. Dark traces of blue dust led further inside the spaceship. Still weak, with the last traces of blood dried on your cheek, you followed them, your heart pounding. And a little grain of foolish hope bloomed inside your heart, fresh tears already swirling in the corners of eyes.
The ship was back on a normal route, carrying you through the galaxy at a slow, peaceful pace.Ā Thanks to Satoru.
The blue dust led you through the control room, down into the basement, kitchen, bathroom, and finally to the bedroom, as if he tried to, for the last time, see every part of the ship. Just to make sure everything was working. That after waking up, you wouldn't have to bother yourself with anything.
And so another wave of crushing sob bubbled in your throat. A pain ripping you open as you entered your shared bedroom and saw him there ā curled on the mattress, the upper part of his body already slipped inside his crystal corridor. As if he didn't have the strength to crawl in fully. Too busy watching you sleep.
"Oh, Satoru," a cry finally escaped your throat, as your knees bent beside his body. "You fool, so stupid, you'reāoh!" A hysterical lament filled the small bedroom as you touched his cold body. "Satoru, how c-could you leave me alone?"
Face, always beaming with so much warmth and joy, lay in dead silence. With your loving, blue eyes closed behind the curtain of white lashes and lips more pale than usual.
Gathering every last ounce of strength still boiling in your body, you brought his ball back. In such a tight, ammonia-filled space, the chance of his recovery was much higher.
Opening it was almost impossible, so you cut a hole big enough to, with pain ripping through your muscles and sweat dripping down your spine, somehow push him inside. And then you glued the walls tight, with a prayer dripping off your lips, and your body cuddled into his crystal ball.
"I'll watch you sleep," you whispered, brushing the surface with his pressed cheek. "You won't die."
š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė š„ Ż Ė
The sun spilling through the curtain tickled your cheeks. The chirping of birds made you sigh deeply, and the gentle sea breeze coated your skin with soft kisses. The shoulder, the soft line of the spine, the slightly sweating neck, with a salty fragrance slipping sweetly into your nostrils.
You tried to stretch, waking up your stiff body from a deep slumber, but something locked you in place.
Something heavy and long, curling around your waist and pulling you closer to another stony wall.
Or, maybe you should say, stony chest.
Looking over your shoulder, you've met with a cheeky smile curling your husband's lips and still-sleepy, pale eyes. He pulled you closer, until your head found itself under his chin and your legs entangled with his.
"Good morning," you giggled, turning in his arms. "Did you sleep well?"
Satoru hummed, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. The thin barrier wrapping his body glimmered under the spilling sunlight. After years on his planet, you no longer needed a translator to understand his language. And so you kissed his blue neck, tracing the kisses up, and up, along his jaw and chin, until finally locking your lips with his.
"Apologies, I didn't watch you sleep."
You chuckled, biting gently on his lower lip. "Were you that tired after last night?"
"Mmm," a soft, satisfied hum escaped his throat when you felt something hard poking your belly. "Forgive your husband, he didn't realise he had a tigress and no wife at home."
You chuckled sweetly, forcing his lips to curl in a sly smile.
"Does my wife need anything? Do you want Suguru to lower the temperature?"
Tracing the sharpness of his jaw, up to the curve of his lips, your head shook. "No, it's warm enough. Maybe you can ask him to lower the birds' chirping a bit. I think they're a bit louder than yesterday."
He nodded, pulling you even closer. Till your bodies tangled in one, and a slow, peaceful pounding of his heart beat against your breasts. "Mhm, sure. But let's sleep a bit longer, and then you can jump on me as much as you want, hm?"
So with the last, soft kiss between your brows and heart swelling from feeling the heaviness of your body on his, Satoru allowed you to cuddle into his muscular chest and watch him slowly slip into a deep slumber.
ā.š ź° Inspired by this post from my lovely girl @sweethearticism ź±
ź° After killing Satoru's wife, Kenjaku snatches her dead body in order to trap The Strongest in the Prison Realm. Once trapped, the Prison Realm tries it's best to break Satoru, including, but not limited to, showing him vivid hallucinations of the life he could've had. ź±
š„» Divider : @chrisssiren
į°ā . . . Cw : Angst ā§ hurt no comfort ā§ major character death (kenjaku killed us sry)
There are few things in life that are utterly inescapable.
Death is one of them.
Heartbreak is another.
For Satoru Gojo, both arrived on the same day. Not in the form of his death, no. Though the universe would've been kinder to grace him with that instead.
His blindfold is tight against his frozen skin, though he can't feel it. He can't feel much of anything anymore.
Not the snow melting on his boots, seeping through the surface into his socks, tracking dirt on the bleached floor that's clean of any imperfection.
Not the cold biting into his exposed neck and face, freezing his fingers, making his skin go numb.
Not the draft coming in from behind him as he stands at the threshold of a house, the door half ajar. He thinks he should close it, protect what little heat's left in the room, yet he can't bring himself to move his hands.
Nor can he bring himself to speak, his tongue incapable of uttering a single syllable, his body unable to stop himself from staring at a home that's not his, watching over a scene that's not from his memory, gazing into a face that, for the longest time, used to be his reason for waking up in the morning.
Still is, he supposes. Only difference is he's alive and you aren't.
He thinks he's dying. Or maybe he's already dead and this is heaven. It must be, because you're here.
Or maybe it isn't, because he's here too.
He thinks it might be a dream. Maybe a hallucination. Maybe he's finally snapped and his mind's officially spiraled out of control, trapped itself in a happy endingāone he didn't get, didn't deserve. Whatever it is, he doesn't want it to stop. Doesn't want it to come to an end.
Doesn't want to wake up from this blissful ignorance he's temporarily trapped in. Because waking up would mean you would no longer be in front of him, and Satoru thinks he'd die if that happened.
He isn't afraid of death, not anymore, not since every single person that he's ever held dear has slipped through his fingers like sand through a sift. The fear of deathāor anything that could ever deliver it to someone like himāhas long since been driven out of him, abandoned him to his grief.
Yet the sight in front of him scares him. It terrifies him, rattles the breath in his lungs in a way that nothing has managed to in a long time.
Because the sight that greets him is you. Standing in a sundress, one he's seen you wear countless times and taken off just the same amount. There's an apron around your waist; it says something, though Satoru can't be bothered reading it. Not when your face distracts him, jumbles his thoughts, pauses the air in his throat, prevents it from leaving his trachea.
He thinks you're saying somethingāhe sees your lips part, your mouth moveābut he doesn't hear a single syllable, doesn't focus on the words long enough to register them in his brain. There's cotton clouding his ears, brume fogging up his cerebrum, turning his mind into mush. He can't think, can't muster up a single coherent thought. Can't focus on anything in front of him.
Anything except your face. Your beautiful, beautiful face.
He sees you move towards him, his brain cataloging the movement, though he can't bring himself to focus on that too long eitherāyou capture his attention again.
There's a smudge of flour on your left cheek, and some dusting of it spilled down your apron too, and he knows he's never seen a sweeter sight. Simply because it couldn't possibly existāyou're the sweetest thing his six eyes have ever had the pleasure of perceiving.
You're still speaking, and he thinks he catches the end of your sentence, barely understanding it past the static in his brain.
"-close the door, 'Toru; you're making the entire house cold again after I just lowered the heating." You say with mild annoyance in your voice, though you're smiling still, and he knows you're not really irritated, just teasing.
You say something else too after that, though he doesn't focus long enough to understand that either, his mind instead too busy on diverting all of his attention towards your hand that's rising up in his direction, your fingers slowly threading through his ivory hair and gently shaking out the snow that's settled on top.
The same hands that were wrapped around his throat months ago. Fingers pressing in tight, cutting off his oxygen, leaving grotesque red marks while he did everything but fight back, too distracted by the fact that it was youāeven if it wasn't.
Even if his soul knew it wasn't you despite you, regardless of how much he wanted to believe that it was. Even if the healed stitches on your forehead were a dead giveaway of how it wasn't youānot really, not at all; just your cadaver being steered around like a morbid marionette unbeknownst to himāSatoru still couldn't bring himself to fight back. Still couldn't bring himself to put up a proper defense. Because it was you.
Your voice.
Your face.
Your touch.
Your hands.
The same hands that were currently tenderly running their fingers through his strands and dusting the frost off the shoulders of his uniform.
The same hands that were slowly pulling his blindfold down and gazing into his azure eyes with the utmost affection.
The same hands that were now holding his face and running your thumbs over his cheekbones, the skin underneath your touch rosy from the cold.
He thinks he has a heart attack the moment he feels your soft touch on his faceāwith the way the organ in his chest skips several beats, almost as if it's forgotten how to function, enough for it to be fairly worryingāexcept he couldn't care less about that.
The same hands that had almost taken his life were now treating him with such tenderness that he couldn't decide whether to lean in or flinch back. Couldn't decide whether to bask in the intoxication of the moment or demand the universe a reason for how this was even possible.
And yet, a part of him couldn't bring himself to care about the latter. Couldn't bring himself to care about any of it. Couldn't bring himself to care about the fact that seeing you in front of him shouldn't be fucking possibleānot when you're dead. Not when he saw it happen with his own six eyes, felt your hot blood coat his cold hands when he cradled your dead body as if it were a temple abandoned by its god, his soul bleeding in pain.
Seeing you in front of him shouldn't be fucking possible, and yet here you areāyour hands warm, your smile genuine, your skin no longer pallid but rather healthy, glowing evenāa complete contrast to the last memory he has of you.
"You came home early today, I thought you'd be late again." You say, hands resting on his shoulders, leaning up on your toes to place a kiss on his cheek, your lipgloss leaving an imprint akin to a brand on his soul.
The hollow organ in his chest stumbles in it's performance the moment he feels your lips brush against his skin. It feels like having his soul violently ripped out through his chest again while simultaneously being awarded a place in The Elysian Fields. It's cathartic and lustral and detrimental all at the same time. It feels like dying and being reborn again. It feels like everything and nothing all at once.
"-was baking cupcakes the entire day, but they just wouldn't let me focus. Almost burned a batch, but luckily it didn't look too bad. Well, it's not like I could taste it, it's completely gone by now." You continue speaking, a sweet smile gracing your lips and your eyes gazing up at him with such fondness it makes his chest ache. "Kids. You know how they are."
Your voice fills his ears and the haze in his mind can't move past the saccharine quality of it. That is, until clarity finally forces its way through and those last words finally register after a beat.
...Kids?
..Kids
Kids
The air in his lungs choke as his breath stalls for a full minute. He feels like the world is narrowing in on him from all sides, pressing into his rib cage, tightening around his chest, suffocating him and smothering him in his ambivalence.
It feels like an eternity passes before he can finally conjure up his voice again, his words coming out stuttered and rough, almost as if his throat has been rubbed against sandpaper.
"..K-ids?" He feels his mouth form the words, his tongue spelling out the syllables, and yet he cannot bring himself to move a muscle, his body frozen in place, his senses screaming at him that something is very wrong.
"Our kids. The ones you had with me and tried to do it again last night." You say, moving towards the kitchen again, a slight prep in your step as if his mere presence was enough to uplift your mood. Pink floods your cheeks as a bashful smile graces your lips at your own teasing comment, looking at him almost with hearts in your eyes.
"You're staring at me like I'm making things up." You say, a laugh falling from your glossy lips and a slight furrowing of your eyebrows at the expression on his face. He supposes his face must be going through an entire spectrum of emotionsāgood, bad and uglyāpain and love mixing into one amalgamation of utter horror and inane ecstasy simultaneously.
He parts his lips to speak, but no words leave his mouth. The comprehension of the situation has long since abandoned him, though even he knows he can't ignore the truth behind this ordeal that calls out to him at the back of his mind for much longer.
There's a pair of light footsteps pattering down the hallway, running towards them as fast as those little limbs allow them to. A pair of kidsāa boy and a girlāburst into the room, stumbling in their direction with the most gleeful laughs and the brightest eyes he's ever witnessed.
He sees you walk towards the younger of the two and crouch to scoop the toddler up in your arms, a smile overtaking your features. The boy giggles and for Satoru, it's the sweetest sound he's ever heard.
His heart feels like the glass toy in the boy's hand, with the way he can feel it seconds away from cracking and breaking into a million different pieces. It feels unstable and reckless, knowing it could be shattered any second all over again.
"Making me suffer for all those 9 months in my womb, and you still come out looking like your dad." You say, huffing and nosing the cheek of the boy who looks exactly like him. Same pure white hair, same pale skin, same shocking blue eyes. Except his nose is exactly like yours. And when he gives a toothy grin, Satoru thinks his smile is like yours too.
The girl rounds your legs and runs towards him, her tiny hands coming up to cling to his pants, her infectious joy overflowing in her laugh upon seeing her father. She has his hairāthe same pure whiteābut her features are all yours. Same nose, same cheekbones , same lips, same eyes. Satoru vaguely thinks that he's glad she got your eyes, so that the entire world can continue witnessing the part of you he fell in love with the first.
He sees you step towards him, now standing in front of him, concern slightly etching itself into your features at his prolonged state of silence. And Satoru is never silent, not around you and the kids, the air always full with his dumb jokes and the laughs that they draw from the kids.
"I-" he tries speaking, but the words fail him, air barely making it into his lungs as he's pretty sure he's stopped breathing by now. He sees you standing there, his son cuddled up in your arms, and his daughter clinging to the hem of your dress, both of their eyes filled with happiness, looking at him as if he's the center of their universe. And for them, he is. He's their father after all.
And they're his kids.
His family.
His.
The sight makes something bleed to death inside his chest. Everything in him feels empty, nothing left in his being except for all the love he has for you with no place for it to go now. He feels something warm run down his cheek, dripping down his chin and into his collar. His vision blurs for a second, before he blinks and wills the wetness away.
He tries to capture the sight of you in your sundress, your children standing around youāthe love two people can carry for one another in the purest form possibleāand knows that this could only be possible in heaven, and not the hell he resides in.
He memorizes this instance, wants to store it under lock and key in his mind forever because he knows he'll never be blessed with it again. Knows that everything he's ever wanted, ever longed for, is right in front of him, and yet he can't have it. Can't reach it and steal it and make it his forever.
The sun shines in through the rime covered windows, the frost outside making the glass slightly hazy, and catches in your hair, on the bridge of your nose, the bow of your lips, and the depths of your eyes. He sees it shine on the faces of your children, catching on the grins of both his son and daughter, and feels something shattering inside him completely.
The sight in front of him is like snow.
Beautiful and untouched.
It's everything he could've ever asked for, and everything he'll never have.
A family. A house to grow old in. You to grow old with.
And youāyou're the cut that'll always bleed. The wound that'll never heal. The loss he'll never overcome, and maybe he doesn't want to.
Because grief is remembering. It's holding on. It's not letting go no matter how much the world tells you too.
Because grief never truly goes away, people just learn to live around it. Except his love for you, his grief for you grows everyday with him. Every second of everyday is a reminder of what he's lost, what was taken from him.
The pillowcase on your side of the bed still remains unchanged, even though your scent has long since abandoned it.
Your clothes in the laundry still remain unwashed. It's one of the last real traces of you he has left and he cannot bear to change that. Falling asleep in night clutching your shirt is just routine to him.
The perfume you wore on a dailyāthe one you've been wearing since you were both stupid and seventeen and in loveāstill sits on your dresser. Your scent still lingers on his clothesāa sweet fragrance of honey and vanilla, his favourite scent in the entire worldābecause he bought the entire batch from the store you used to frequent and still sprays it on his clothes everyday, if only to feel closer to you. If only to pretend.
He traces your face in picture frames at night when he can't sleep, imagining it's your visage and not cool glass underneath his touch.
He still carries the ring he planned to propose with in his pocket, staring at it when he's alone, sneaking it out in the quieter moments of the day and imagining what it would look like on your finger. Imagining what you would look like in white.
He still buys flowers for youāalways lilies because they were your favourite, and leaves then on the counter in a vase the exact way you used to, just so he can pretend that you aren't dead, just gone. That you will come back, even if he knows you won't.
So as he gazes into your face, into the eyes he fell in love with, and sees it reflected back in the faces of his children, he feels time stop along with his heart. Feels his soul grow weary in dolour, in the knowledge that he can never, ever have this.
Never, ever have you again.
You're as beautiful as the day he lost you. As beautiful as the day your blood coated his hands. As beautiful as they day you wrapped your fingers around his throat. And he would've gladly died looking into the eyes he loved.
Your eyes
They say love is the most violent act, and perhaps they are right. Because his love for you is both tender and reverent, and your love for him was the exact thing needed to bring the Jujutsu world down to it's knees.
You arrived as his executioner, long after you had already passed, his six eyes telling him it's you yet his soul well aware that it wasn't. And at that instance his resolve hadn't been strong enough to overpower his sheer love for you.
Because whether you came as his lover or his executioner, he would receive you either way. Would let you put your hands around his throat and squeeze. Would let you ask for his life and hand it to you on a platter.
In some ways, both Geto and you clawed holes in his being when you both left. What he had with Geto was different to what he had with you, yet those jagged edges and gaping craters in his soul hurt the same.
It's those cratersāthat love for you that he harboured in the deepest recesses of his soulāthat became his one greatest weakness, exploited to trap him and seal him away and wreck havoc on Japan.
His love for you has been the most twisted curse of all.
And yet, he doesn't want to part with the scene in front of him, fully well understanding by now that it's nothing more than another one of the prison realm's ways of trying to break him, trying to get him to commit suicide while he's still inside.
Out of all the tactics the realm has employed, this by far, has to be the cruelest of them allātargeting exactly the part of him that never fails to bring him to his knees. He knows he has to resist the torture, yet he cannot bear the thought of you with his kids fading into a mirage.
He cannot bear the thought of letting you and the kids he could've had with youāif only fate hadn't been so cruelāout of his sight, even if it kills him in the end.
The memory of you lived in him to bring him pain. You're the missing piece of his soul that will always break his heart because he'll never stop loving you. Once, you were the light of his life, the home he used to return to at the end of every day.
Now, you're a wound that will forever keep hurting. A mutilation that will always keep bleeding his soul dry. Just another ploy used against him to bring the strongest down to his knees.
To Be Devoured (Cursed Spirit! Satoru Gojo x Reader)
Pairing: Satoru Gojo x Reader
Warnings: Grief, Major Character Death, Came Back Wrong
Summary: In the weeks following your husbandās death, you find yourself haunted by more than just grief.
Taglist: @gentlyflowing @pickledsoda
AO3
Imagine yourself after Satoru Gojo's death.
It was a loss too big for words. For you and for the Jujutsu world at large.
(At least that's what they told you. These new higher-ups whose faces might as well have been carved from stone and whose eyes knew nothing of loss. You found that you could not give a damn about the Jujutsu world. All it ever did was take from him.)
(And now it has taken from you.)
(A husband. A future.)
(A body to bury.)
They hadn't even given you that. The opportunity to see his face one last time, to push his hair out of his eyes, and finally, quietly tell him goodbye. Instead, you had been given an urn, marked with his name in elegant, sweeping calligraphy.
(Did they even know that Satoru preferred to sign things with a drawing of his face? Did they know he preferred to use kaomojis? You could just picture him, puffing out his cheeks and pouting over the injustice. You could picture squeezing his face until he laughed, light and carefree.)
Shoko Ieri's voice broke you out of your thoughts. Brought you back from past to the unforgiving present, where you would never hear his laugh again.
"His body wasn'tā¦in a fit state for viewing," she said. "We proceeded directly with cremation."
Her voice was toneless, hammered flat, and her eyes skittered away from yours like spiders.
Then, softer, as if she was apologizing for something. "He wouldn't have wanted you to see him like that."
She gestured towards the urn, cradled in your arms like a newborn.
"Thisā¦this is better."
You wondered for whom. Certainly not you.
Imagine yourself after Satoru Gojo's death, and the way your grief has become too big for tears. Instead, it followed you around like a ghost, marking all the places your husband should be, but wasn't.
Here was the kitchen island where he used to place your cup of coffee every morning. Satoru had always been the last to sleep and the first to wake, and by the time you rose, he would already have a cup of coffee prepared for you.
Just one.
He would refuse to make one for himself, insisting instead on stealing small sips from your mug. Always on the same spot where your lips have touched, sharing indirect kisses before the two of you have even brushed your teeth. Until, laughing, you would push him off.
Imagine yourself after Satoru Gojo's death, and the way you feel as if you will never laugh again.
Imagine this: two weeks after your husband's death you woke, exhausted and grief-logged, to find a cup of coffee waiting for you on the kitchen island.
You froze.
Had someone been in here?
Shoko, perhaps, or Kentoā
(He was dead, too.)
Or perhaps one of his students, in some misguided bid to cheer you up.
Maybe it had been Megumi, who was dealing with his own grief. You remembered, with a flash of hot guilt, that you had yet to visit him. Satoru wouldn't have wanted that, you chided yourself. He would have wanted you to see his kids.
He would have wanted you to be strong.
(But you weren't strong. That had always been him. And now, in his absence, you were not quite sure what you were meant to be.)
One of these days, you promised yourself. One of these you days, when your grief no longer felt so heavy that it threatened to flatten you. One of these you will visit his kids and you will smile.
You stared at the cup again, contemplating.
Perhaps it had been Yuji Itadori, Satoru's favorite, though he would claim he had no favorites. The one who always played along with his pranks, who would laugh whenever he got a little too rough. Itadori always had a special connection with your husband, who walked through the world as if he was handling glass.
So, perhaps Itadori, you thought. It must be Itadori.
You picked up the mug. It was cool to the touch, the coffee long since gron cold. The handle had broken off two years ago, from another one of Satoru's antics.
(You wondered, briefly then, if the memories of him would ever stop haunting you. If there would be a day when you would touch something and not be reminded of him.)
He had promised to buy you a new one.
He never did.
And now, he never would.
You lifted the mug to your lips and drank to the last drop.
Imagine this: it was Megumi Fushiguro who approaches you first.
A month after your husband's death, Megumi showed up at your door, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed to the ground. You were horribly, painfully aware of the shadows your eyes, so dark they looked like bruises, your unwashed hair, the clothes that you had slept in for two (three, four?) days now.
"I came to check in on you," he said in a low voice. "Ichiji says that he hasn't seen you in a while."
"I'm fine," you answered quickly.
Perhaps, a bit too quickly judging by the way his brows drew together. You have said it so many times that it was almost automatic now.
Megumi didnāt respond. Instead, his eyes were fixed at a point just above your shoulder, never quite looking at your face.
He was looking, you realized, at the state of disarray behind you. The dirty clothes strewn about on the floor, the wrinkled pile of laundry that was more than a week old because you didn't have the energy to fold them, the piles of takeout containers, leftovers rotting inside their styrofoam shells.
Satoru would have despaired, seeing you like that.
But that was the point, wasn't it?
He wasn't there.
Not anymore.
The silence streched on between the two of you. Neither you or Megumi had ever been good with words. You had always relied on Satoru to bridge the gap, with an awful joke or some ridiculous game he wanted to play. You wondered if Megumi felt it too, the way his words lay heavy inside his throat, unspoken. He had always been too quiet, even as a child.
Then, stiffly, he said, "I thought that a walk might be goodā¦for both of us."
You stared at him. You hadn't been sleeping well for days now, your hair hung around your face in greasy strands. There was a stain on your shirt.
But Megumi was here, and he was trying. And God help you, you knew that Satoru would have wanted you to try, too.
So you nodded, followed after him without changing. And as you did, you could have sworn you felt a little push on the small of your back as you left the house.
The two of you didn't talk as you walk, and already you could feel the effects of your confinement. Your legs were already beginning to burn, sweat trickling down your back. Megumi kept his eyes straight ahead, still refusing to look at you, but you had a feeling he was slowing his pace so you could keep up.
"Megumi," you panted. "Why did you invite me out?"
He paused just outside of a park. You remembered this place, if only just barely. Your memories of it were hazy, as if looking through a fog: you and Satoru used to take Megumi and his sister there. You sat down on the bench without asking. This one had the perfect view of the playground. Satoru had always said that keeping an eye on them wasn't necessary. Megumi had always been too serious, even at six years old, preferring to look after his sister instead of playing with the other kids.
But there were no children here now. It looked strangely sad, lonely in the way abandoned places were lonely.
Like the house now, like you. An aching emptiness where joy once was.
"Do you remember this park?" Megumi asked as he took to a seat next to you.
You were confused, then try for a smile. You could almost feel the muscles in your face creak in protest, everything inside you turned to rust.
"I'm grieving, not senile," you said. "Satoru and I used to take you and your sister here.ā
You glanced at the monkey bars, where the children would have competitions on who could get to the furthest rung. And you remembered, with a sudden wave of heartache, that Satoru would always insist on joining. Always winning, every time.
And then he'd buy them ice cream. Especially when one of them started crying.
But now the metal rungs were broken, twisted and pointed up at the sky like reaching fingers. Beside it was a crater where the slide used to be. You blinked, and through the haze of blunted emotions, you felt a blip of surprise. Had a storm moved through Tokyo? In your state, a hurricane could have torn the roof off the Gojo compound and you wouldn't have noticed.
"Whatā¦happened here?"
Megumi sighed. "Several curses manifested here three days ago. Strong ones. Sent several kids to the hospital. It took Yuji, Nobara, and me to exorcise them."
He gazed at the ruined structures, silent again. You wondered why he was telling you this. You were a non-sorcerer, could barely even see the haziest figures of curses.
And now, your one greatest link to the Jujutsu world was gone.
Megumi continued, "There's been an uptick in curses lately. I was wondering if you'd noticed."
When you shook your head, Megumi added," We found two other on the street corner where you andā¦where you live."
With a painful little twist that you realized that he had been about to say you and Satoru. But now, the the house was yours and yours alone. And it was too big and too empty and you couldn't imagine it being a home ever again.
You could already feel the conversation slipping away from you. Ever since Satoruās death, things had taken on a fleeting quality, like a dream that was already fading the moment you wake. Unremembered and unimportant. But this was Megumi speaking, and Satoru would have wanted you to care. So you forced yourself to remember what you knew about curses: how their presence would sometimes leave people feeling ill, a malaise hanging over them like a dark cloud. But you had felt like that ever since you opened the door and had been given an urn instead of your husband. You had the suspicion that you will feel this way forever.
Silently, you shook your head.
"Nothing out ofā¦"
You swallowed. You had been out of the say was nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, with Satoru dead, how could anything be ordinary ever again?
You were suddenly struck with the thought that this was your ordinary now. This yawning absence where he used to be. Your heart rose in your throat and lay there, as heavy as a stone. This was how it always started: a crying jag so awful and so bitter that you would not stop for hours. Had you been in the comfort of your own homeāhouseāyou would have given into it. Cried until all of the tears had been wrung from you like a wet rag. There was a bitter sort of relief in it, to be able to do something with all this grief instead of holding it inside you.
But you weren't in your bedroom or your bathroom or the kitchen or any of the hundred little places where the reality of your loss would swamp you over you like a wave.
You were with Megumi.
And Satoru would have wanted you to put him first.
So again, you just shook your head. You didn't trust yourself to speak.
Megumi sighed and leaned back. He tried to smile at you, but it looked more like a grimace.
"I'm glad. That'sā¦well, that's the last thing you need."
"It's the last thing you need, too," you said softly. "You're grieving, too."
He does something odd, then. He leaned his head against your shoulder. He has grown so tall now that he has to crane his neck to do it, but it was a comforting weight. And you remembered how Satoru used to wrap himself around you, long limbs wrapping around you like a vine.
It made you smileāa real one this timeāthinking that perhaps there would still be something left of him.
"I'm notā¦I'm not him," Megumi said quietly. "But I'll make sure that none of these curses will hurt you."
"Thank you," you said softly.
Imagine this: as the hours stretched into days into weeks, you found that you didn't need Megumi's protection.
It wasn't because you had grown strongāGod no, you barely had any sort of cursed energy yourselfābut because you found that curses seemed to avoid you.
You could just barely see their hazy forms, at a corner store where a murder happened, at a school, at a sharp turn in a street corner where cars would often crush themselves against each other. Dark and twisted, sometimes crawling on all fours, skittering away from you like bugs before a light.
You had asked Megumi about this several times, wondering if he had set one of his shikigami after you, but he had only looked at you in confusion and shook his head.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion then, that was making you see things. Perhaps the curses were nothing more than shadows dancing, your eyes gone too dry from all the nights you spent crying.
Perhaps, you would always feel like this now.
Perhaps this has become your ordinary.
And you would have gone on thinking that, if not for the gas station.
Imagine this: it was a silly thing, not knowing how to pump your own gas. Satoru had never let you do it on your own, when he had been alive.
(The thought cut through you like a knife. The sharp sting of loss.)
He always had Ichiji or someone else do it for you. Sometimes he would do it himself, always with such a magnanimous air, as if it was a great sacrifice. Always, it made you laugh.
And now, in the middle of the night, you found yourself at a gas station. Quite unsure about what to do.
At first you were alone, in your pajamas, shivering in the cold night air.
And then you weren't.
You had thought, initially, that it was just an old man. He was certainly dressed like one: white shirt that hung too loosely on his frame, worn cotton pants. You thought that he looked a little bit like you: rumpled and tired, gotten out of bed at midnight just so he could escape his thoughts.
That should've been the end of it.
But it wasn't.
Imagine this: it began with a muttering sound, like the chittering of insects. A single word, whispered over and over underneath someone's breath until, out of sheer curiousity, you strained to hear it.
Hungry.
Hungry.
And then, faster. More desperate. A maddening rhythm.
And when the old man turned to face you, you realized that it was not an old man at all.
It was a hideous thing, its shirt left unbottoned to display its stomach, horribly distended, like a corpse left to rot in the water. Its neck was inhumanly long, and so thin that its head dangled onto its shoulder like a broken branch. But worst of all was its face: its mouth gaped open in an endless scream. Its eyes rolled madly in their sockets like. You must have made a noise, because in the next moment, those horrible eyes found you.
And for once, they held still.
It smiled without teeth, and you could see the dark hole of its endless throat. Some distant part of you wondered if it swallowed its prey whole like a snake, if its belly still contained living human beings trying to claw their way out.
It spoke again, Hungry.
You screamed.
It took one step toward you, grinning madly. Spittle frothed over its lips like a rabid dog. Its thin chest heaved in excitement.
It reached out toward you.
And stopped.
Its fingers twisted unnaturally as it struggled to touch you, never quite reaching, as if it had hit an invisible wall. So close like this, you could see that its nails were cracked and bloodied, the flesh underneath black with necrosis.
Your breath caught in your throat.
You had only seen something like that once.
But then, something pushed back. The wall between you and the curse yawned wider, and its fingers were forced backward. Further and further until they bent, like the curled legs of dying spiders. Its mouth worked furiously, opening and closing without sound. As if it was trying to scream, but couldn't quite remember how.
Then its bones snapped. With such violence that the blackened tips of its fingers burst like rotten fruit. The air was filled with the stench of decay, as something that wasn't blood sprayed all over its shirt, the floor. You gagged, stomach heaving.
And it kept going. Oh God, it kept going.
Whatever force that was pushing back at it curled its arm backward until its bones were crushedāpulverizedāthe sound like rolling gravel. Backwards and backwards until the shattered remains reached its elbow, a mass of pulsing flesh and powdered bone.
Blackened tears streamed from its eyes like oil.
It was hurting.
Whatever was doing this was toying with it.
"Stop it," you whispered, your throat raw. "Stop it."
The air grew still for a few seconds, as if the world had somehow held its breath.
And then, it listened.
Something pressed downward onto the curseāyou saw the way its face twisted, the skull fracturing as if under an immense weightāthen it exploded. Crushed from above by something unseeable, bile and blood and bits of flesh flying outwards, yet not a singleāneither flesh nor bile nor boneāstruck you. Your clothes remained perfectly pristine.
You stood there for several seconds, staring at the crater where the curse once stood. Whatever had crushed it had done so with such force that bits of flesh were embedded into the cracks in the concrete.
And then, you doubled over and vomited on your shoes.
Imagine this: after Satoru Gojo's death, you are beginning to think that you are being haunted by more than just grief.
The coffee mugs come every morning now, despite you having the locks changed multiple times. There were fingerprints in mirrors you haven't touched, the mark of someone's palm smeared across the glass patio door.
Megumi came around to warn you several more times, seemingly worried, warning you about powerful curses. But you never felt threatened by them, not since your encounter at the gas station.
Whenever you left the house, something would flutter at the edges of your vision, like the wings of a bird in flight. But it was never quite there when you turn. You could almost hear your husbandās laugh, whenever you stood at the doorway in helpless frustration.
Your dreams were haunted by his eyes, and there weren't two or four or even six.
There were hundreds, if not thousands. All staring at you with an intensity that seemed to burn your skin.
Sometimes you would wake up screaming.
Imagine this: three months after your husband's death, you found yourself at your limit.
The dreams and the coffee and the handprints left on glass windows as if someone had been watching you from the outside. It all had the air of a game. A sick and twisted game that was driving you insane. The kind of game he would play, the ones that made you suspect that there was something more underneath the smiling, playful veneer he always showed. Something darker. Something hungry. You thought of your husband, who used to tease and taunt you until you either laughed or yelled at him.
(Imagine this: you thought for just a second, what a sweet relief it would be: to be devoured instead of being left alone to grieve)
In the morning, the mug was there to greet you. The way it had every day for the past month.
But instead of drinking it, you pour it down the drain, and when something fluttered at the edges of your vision, like the wings of a startled bird, you ignored it.
(You used to do this, too. Ignore whatever things he did until he broke and apologized.)
(Satoru always did love attention.)
You set the empty mug down on the counter, and turned to the kitchen. When you spoke, it had the air of a challenge. Perhaps you were only talking to empty air or perhaps you were talking to something else.
"Satoru."
Nothing moved. But in that silence, you felt the same sensation as you did at the gas station. Like time had stopped, like the world was holding its breath. His name sounded brittle when you said it, as if it could shatter at any moment and cut you at its jagged edges. Three months after his death, it was hard to feel anything but grief. It was hard to hope, harder still to separate that hope from delusion.
But you were tired and sleep-deprived and every night you went to bed, all you could see were those eyes, staring at you.
You thought to the old man at the gasoline station. Something had killed him. Something powerful. Megumi had told you that when curses died, they dissolved into dust. But this one had been crushed so violently that bits of flesh had been crushed into the stones.
Something had done that. And whatever it was, it hated.
You thought of your husband, who used to laugh as if he didn't have a care in the world. Who used to tease and taunt and joke with you until you laughed like that too.
You thought of fingerprints smeared across glass surfaces.
You thought of the eyes in your dreams, staring, hungry.
You thought about how sweet it would be, to be devoured instead of being left alone to grieve.
"Satoru," you said. "I need to know if it's you. I needā¦I need you to stop hiding from me, my loveā"
No answer.
You thought of the nights when his teasing went too far, and you had to lock yourself in the bedroom to get away from him.
"And if you don'tā" Your voice wavered, then cracked at the edges like glass.
"Megumi told me about an abandoned hospital. It's near where we liveā¦where I live. He said that curses were manifesting in them. He told me so that I wouldn't go near it. But if you don'tā¦you don't show yourself, I'm going to that hospital and seeā"
The mug on the counter rattles, then it shot backward like a bullet fired from a gun, hitting the mirror behind it with a splintering crash. Shards of glass sprayed everywhere, yet none of them hit you.
You stared at the mirror, the pulverized remains of the mug, chest heaving and cold sweat trickling down your face. Never, not even in your worst fights, had Satoru ever done anything like that. You couldn't even imagine him doing something like that.
(But then, you couldn't imagine him destroying that curse in the gas station. Not with such violence, such wanton cruelty.)
And for one, frightening, heartbreaking second, you wondered if it really was your Satoru. If, perhaps, you were stuck instead with a curse who only looked like him, and longing did the rest. You thought of the eyes in your dreams, as clear and blue as a summer sky.
But then you thought to yoursef: you would know them anywhere. Three months could not erase a lifetime of intimacy, and you knew your husband's face better than you did your own.
You knew this, too: Satoru would never hurt you.
Trembling, you walked to the wreckage to inspect it. It was a full length mirror, and it had been struck with such force that only a single shard remained attached to the frame. In it, you could see a sliver of your face. Sweat ran down your face like tears. A single eye, the pupil so wide that it looked like a black hole.
And something behind you. The barest hint of a figure, like smoke in the shape of a person.
You looked over your shoulder, but nothing was there.
No one but you.
You glanced at the mirror again, heart hammering painfully against your ribs. No, something was definitely there. It had the same hazy quality of curses. Satoru had told you that regular humans couldn't see them, except perhaps at the point of death. There were a few just like you, who could just barely see the ghostly impressions of them, like colors in a faded paintingābut they were usually dismissed as fake psychics or charlatons.
Your fingers reached out, trembling, to touch the mirror. Cradled the figure in the palm of your hand, the way you used to cradle him in your arms.
And you felt a longing so profound that it felt more like hunger, and you leaned forward just so you could see every inch of him. When your breath fogged against the smooth surface of the grass, you let out a strangled cry.
"No!"
You hastily wiped at it with the edge of your sleeve, wantingāno needingāto see him again. And in your haste, the jagged edge slices clean through your palm. It was so sudden that at first, all you felt was heat. Blood welled up from the cut.
The air in the room grew heavier, the figure in the mirror shimmered, like smoke from a bonfire disturbed by a sudden wind. It struggled to retain its shape. Injuries always held a strange sort of fascination with Satoru. He never got them, not even a paper cut or the barest hint of a bruise. And he would always react with alarm whenever you got one.
"Satoruā¦" you croaked.
When you turned around, this time you could see him. Not just his reflection, but him.
Satoru.
Your husband, who you lost three months ago. Who left your arms as a bright and warm and smiling man and had come back to you as an urn. Death had changed him, perhaps in the way it changed all humans.
(Your husband, who you lost three months ago. Who left your arms as a bright and warm and smiling man and has come back to you a horror.)
He had always been tall, but while in life he had made himself smallāeasily fitting into a room without commanding itāin death, his presence was almost suffocating. He wore the same outfit he did when he left: traditional robes, as white as freshly fallen snow. When you had first seen him in them, you couldn't help but think of prisoners on death row wearing the same color, the fabric carefully, deliberately folded right over left. They were blindfolded, too. So they wouldn't try to run as they were led to the noose.
White, you had thought, had always been for the dead.
When you had told him this, Satoru smiled at you and pulled his blindfold off. That way, he had joked, he could see death coming.
(And did he? Did your husband who never failed to make you smile, who always told terrible jokes, who wore white on the day he died, see his death coming?)
(Was it terrible?)
(Did it hurt?)
As your gaze traveled further down, a small sound escaped your throat. The sound of a songbird caught in a trap, a desperate, broken little trill. It was the sound someone made as their last hope dies.
(Yes, you thought. It did hurt. Your husband, who never failed to make you smile, who always told terrible jokes, who wore white on the day he died, had suffered.)
There were tears on his clothes, gaping and terrible. One across his torso, and another across his arm. Underneath them, the flesh had been so hastily stitched together that you could see where the black threads had come loose, where the wounds still gaped and bled sluggishly. Oh, they had treated your husband like a doll whose limbs had come loose, hastily shoving parts back together so he could be toyed with once again.
(If it had been you, you would have labored over each stitch, would have used a needle so small that he wouldn't have felt it going in. If it had been you, he would have been treated with care.)
What was it that Shoko Ieri had said?
His body wasn't in a fit state for viewing. We proceeded directly with cremation.
"Oh, love," you said in a voice like heartbreak. "What did they do to you?"
To both of you?
Instead of the blindfold you had grown used to, he was wearing bandages. Wrapped so tightly around his head that, had he been alive, it would have hurt. You imagined the eyes behind them, shut forever.
A chilling thought entered your mind, so horrible that your stomach churned in disgust: perhaps they had taken those too. Perhaps, behind the bandages, there were only empty sockets.
After all, they had taken everything else.
A noise rose from your throat, a high-pitched whine, like something wounded. And Satoruāor the ghost of himāstarted, as if to catch you.
You saw them then.
His eyes.
Oh God, his eyes.
They were not on his face, but instead they were floating above him. Orbiting him like planets. Blue eyes, vibrant as a summer sky. Others, gone milky and blind, as if plucked from a corpse.
(Did they take those too?)
A few of them held still, looking at you with an intensity that was so familiar that it made you want to weep.
You thought of the curse at the gas station.
You should have been frightened. You should have screamed.
Instead you thought of Satoru. You thought of his eyes. Soft with love as he looked down at you on your wedding day. Heavy-lidded and hazy with pleasure. Narrowed into a smile, just beginning to crinkle at the edges, the beginnings of laugh lines that he would never age into.
A thousand different eyes, and you know them all.
(A thought, so terrible that it made you want to vomit: did they take those, too?)
It rang inside your head like an echo.
When you reached out to touch him, your fingers were trembling.
They hadn't even given you a body to bury, the opportunity to see his face one last time, to brush his hair out of his eyes and whisper goodbye.
And now he was here, he was here. And it was both a miracle and a monstrosity.
Was he a curse now? Or a spirit? Some sort of vengeful ghost that crawled out of its graveāurnābecause the world hadn't grieved enough or sacrificed enough or mourned enough at his passing?
(The thought wormed its way into your head, hot and traitorous: they would deserve it, if he had come back as a horror, bitter and vengeful. They had starved him in life, he should get to feast on them after death.)
(And you thought again: it was better to be devoured, than to be left alone to grief. Unlike the rest of them, you would welcome it.)
You felt something cold against you, and you looked down to find your palm cradled in both of his. His skin was ice-cold. And yet, the sensation made you smile. Even in death, he still found ways to look after you.
"Does it bother you?" You asked.
He made a gesture then, a quick dismissive jerk of the head. And it was so him that it made you laugh. You hadn't laughed in so long that you were surprised you could still do it, that it hadn't rusted inside you like everything else.
He always made it so, so easy to be happy.
"You don't have to act tough, you know," you said, and in your voice, you could hear the barest hint of teasing.
You didn't think you had it in you to be ever playful again. But here you were. Laughing, joking. And God, it was so sweet you felt like weeping.
"I can bandage it, if you want," you continued.
Satoru always had made a big deal when it came to your injuries. Pretending to screech and faint. And yet, there always had been some sincerity in his dramatics. A discomfort with being confronted with your mortality.
An irony then, that it was him who had died first.
A drop of blood falls to the floor, staining the carpet below, and the multitude of eyes follow it. And the figure in front of you shimmered, like a sigh, like an intake of breath. You thought again of the creature at the gas station, its voice like the endless chittering of insects.
Hungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungry.
Your mouth went dry at the realization
But while the creature had only inspired fear in you, the kind reserved for lightning storms and broken bits of glass and creatures with sharp teeth, looking at Satoru, tenderness welled up in you like tears.
This man, who had been sewn together carelessly like a child's toy, who had not even been given the decency of a body to bury, who had never failed to make you laugh, who held your palm in his upturned hands was starving.
Those eyes.
They looked at you with need.
And yet, he wouldn't take from you what wasn't freely given.
And it was so him, so Satoru, that you almost laughed again. It was such a small thing, you thought. Just a little bit of blood. You blinked as the form shimmered again, as fluid as smoke rising from an incense stick. And thenā
"Oh."
He had bent at the waist, your palm still held in his, as if delivering a kiss. And he drank so slowly, so carefully that you barely even felt it.
And this time, you were sure that it was not just a hallucination, some illusion of grief. Your mind, however broken, could never conjure a sensation as cruel as this: his lips, now cold, once again touching your skin. When he straightened up, his figure had grown solid, more there. When you reached out to him, you could almost feel the warmth of him against your fingertips.
"You can take more," you said hoarsely. "If you want."
To see him, you would have given everything you have. You would bleed your veins dry until they ran as clear as glass, you would wring yourself until there was nothing left.
(It was such a small thing. Just a little bit of blood.)
But again, that achingly familiar gesture. The jerk of his head, as if dismissing his own needs.
No more. It seemed to say. Not from you. Not today.
Your breathing stuttered to a halt, and then, you laughed. And the sound was horrible and broken. Your husband, who had never failed to make you smile, who wore white on the day he died, who had been put back together like a child's least favorite toy was hungry. And he would not take more from you. Not today, at least.
(It was such a small thing. Just a little bit of blood.)
Your husband, who had starved in life, but would not starve in death.
You would make sure of it.
After all: it was better to be devoured, than to be left alone to grief.
And unlike the rest of them, you would welcome it.
