#warmsatoru.aao

[warmsatoru]

against all odds [01] | gojo satoru x reader

Every reasonable calculation placed you and Satoru Gojo in separate datasets, never overlapping, never intersecting, moving in different directions without consequence. Reality, however, refused to cooperate. tags: college!au, hockey player!gojo, fluff, angst; more detailed tags to come! :] chapter word count: 1.6k note: omg... an actual series! yay!!! i have too many hyperfixations (heated rivalry, the pitt, academia, rom-com books, satoru) so why not just combine all of them into a fic ? (´ ω `♡)

masterlist [soon!] | next →

The statistical probability of you, a person whose social life was all-nighters at the library with your best friend, interacting with Satoru Gojo was, according to your calculations, zero.

Mathematically, it was impossible.

You occupied the sterile corners of the anatomy labs and the back rows of lecture halls where the air smelled of floor wax and old paper. Satoru, however, lived in a world of campus newspaper headlines and stadium lights. He was the university’s star hockey center, a man who competed with a level of toxic aggression that consistently made the front page of the weekly paper. He was 190cm of unadulterated hubris and radiant white hair, with a reputation for breaking spirits as easily as he broke opponents' defensive lines.

You were only at the athletic gala because your scholarship required community volunteer hours, and it was either this or helping the veterinary students deep-clean the barn. So, this was the unfortunate part of university where you had to put on a dress that felt like a Halloween costume and stand awkwardly behind the guest services table in the corner of the ballroom at the most expensive hotel in the city. But your plan was simple, refined, and completely bulletproof: stay invisible, eat exactly one (1) crab rangoon to justify your existence, and leave the moment the clock hits 11.

This was painfully not your usual environment. You were used to labs where people spoke in lowered voices and argued about data sets, not about who could deadlift more. Your idea of a social gathering involved study rooms, half-empty energy drinks, and the mutual understanding that sweatpants were acceptable attire. Here, you were surrounded by athletes, donors, and people who treated confidence like an infinite resource. You felt conspicuously out of place, like someone had accidentally dropped a lab rat into a locker room and forgotten to retrieve it.

The room was a dizzying blur of perfume, expensive cologne, and the kind of laughter that sounded like it could shatter glass. You kept your head down, adjusting the stack of brochures on your table for the fourth time, when the atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted.

The yelling started near the decorative pool that bordered the ballroom’s glass terrace. It wasn’t the loud, harmless kind of argument, like debating pineapple on pizza. This was the kind of yelling that ended with blocked numbers, setting fire to photo albums, and filing restraining orders that felt undoubtedly justified. Like everyone in the ballroom, your eyes darted to the center of the uproar, where Satoru Gojo stood as if disaster had checked the room, spotted him, and nodded in approval.

Inches from him was his girlfriend, the university’s star athlete in her own freedom, but a campus celebrity in the same way he was; her face splashed across the same banners that celebrated the school’s athletic elite. They were usually the untouchable power couple of the athletic department, but right now, she looked ready to commit a felony, and he looked like he was daring her to do it.

The argument fractured into overlapping voices, hers sharp and fast, his low and maddeningly calm. You could not hear the words, only the cadence of them, the way her hands kept moving while his stayed frustratingly still. Around them, conversations faltered. Laughter thinned out.

Someone near you murmured his name, then hers.

She took a step closer.

So close they could not possibly still be pretending this was private.

For half a second, nothing happened. Not a sound. Not a movement. Just the unbearable tension of a moment stretched too thin, the kind that exists right before a storm hits.

Then it happened.

You saw the exact moment her palm met his cheek, a stinging crack echoing off the high ceilings, followed immediately by the heavy splash of a star athlete hitting water from her push.

You blinked, then Satoru was gone.

In his place stood a woman who looked like she’d just survived a monsoon of her own making. She didn’t wait for him to resurface. She simply turned on her heel and disappeared.

Slowly, the pool's surface rippled.

Satoru surfaced like a disgruntled, incredibly attractive version of Poseidon. He’s dressed for the press portion of the evening in a black and white three-piece suit that probably cost more than your whole tuition. But as he hauled himself out, the white fabric of his dress shirt became devastatingly and thoroughly transparent, clinging to him like a second skin. It stuck to the absurdly broad span of his shoulders and the sculpted lines of a torso that clearly spent four hours a day in a weight room.

It was absurd. An unreasonable amount of muscle. An even more unreasonable amount of water. He wiped his face, pushing his white hair back to reveal eyes that were a dark, icy blue. Beautiful orbs that were currently scanning the room with enough venom to stop a heart. Despite the fact that you’d change your name and flee the country if this ever happened to you, he had the nerve to lean his head back and let out a laugh, a devastating smirk slowly spreading across his lips that made him look less like a victim of a breakup and more like a god who had just decided which mortals to torment first.

An uncomfortable hush fell over the ballroom. The kind where no one was quite sure what the appropriate reaction was to a freshly assaulted, violently baptized, soaking wet, star athlete standing beside a decorative pool.

Then the event coordinator appeared.

She was a small woman with a headset and the strained expression of someone whose night had just been permanently derailed. Her eyes flicked from the pool to the wet hockey god dripping on the newly installed carpet, then on you.

Unfortunately.

“You,” she hissed, already walking toward you.

You straightened on instinct.

“Get him towels. Get him somewhere out of sight. And for the love of God, do not let the press see him like this.”

You opened your mouth to object, to explain that you were not trained for this and that your conflict resolution background maxed out at group projects gone wrong.

But before you could even respond, she was already gone.

You stood there for a full second longer than necessary, heart pounding against your ribs, before turning. Satoru Gojo was still by the pool. Still wet. Still smirking like this was not the worst moment of his life, but a fascinating social experiment.

You remained behind the guest services table, telling yourself very calmly that none of this required you to move. All you had to do was exist. Professionally.

That was when a shadow fell over the table. You looked up.

Satoru Gojo was standing directly in front of you.

Up close, the problem became violently worse. Water dripped steadily from the ends of his hair, darkening the expensive carpet. His white dress shirt clung to him like a personal attack. He smelled faintly of chlorine and something clean and costly you could not afford.

He leaned one forearm on the table, casual. Inconvenient. Entirely too present.

Statistically, this was not survivable.

“Hi,” he said. “Do you guys have towels here perchance?”

Your brain did not respond. You stared at him. Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Or,” he added, glancing down at the badge clipped to your dress and to the brochures on the table, “do I need to fill out a form first?” 

“We don’t” you said. The words came out on autopilot. Soft. Flat. Honest in the way people only were when their brains had fully evacuated the premises.

His eyebrows lifted. “I mean,” you continued, because shutting up had apparently been removed as an option, “we don’t keep towels at guest services. It would be… unsanitary. Also impractical. From a logistics standpoint.” You gestured vaguely at the table, the brochures, the complete absence of linen.

He watched you. Unblinking.

“There’s nothing back here,” you added, quieter now. “If there were, someone would have already taken it away.” There was a pause. You glanced past his shoulder, voice dropping another octave. “Also, you’re dripping on the carpet, and I think that’s… probably very expensive.”

Silence. You felt it immediately. The catastrophic honesty. The point of no return.

“…Right,” he said. Assessing. “So that’s a no.” No smile. No amusement. Just a recalculation. He looked past you, then back at your face.

“Where,” he asked, “do they keep the towels that aren’t meant to be handed out?”

Your stomach dropped. Your brain scrambled for a response that did not involve you breaking protocol or making eye contact for longer than necessary.

"That’s… not information I’m technically supposed to give out,” you said, then, because honesty was a curse, “but they're in the service corridor by the kitchens.”

He just nodded once, already looking past you again, attention snapping toward the edge of the ballroom like he was mapping an exit.

“Right,” he said. And it was not said gently. He straightened, water still dripping from his cuffs, and took one step away from the table. Then he paused.

“You’re coming with me,” he added, not asking.

Your pulse skipped. Your heart plunged. The room seemed to tilt, just enough to make you aware of your own breathing, shallow and too fast, like your body had reached a conclusion your brain had not yet caught up to.

“I didn’t agree to that.”

“You just did,” he said, already stepping around the table. “You know where it is, and I look like this.” He gestured to himself, unapologetic.

You stared at him.

He waited. Unbothered.

“…This is not my job,” you muttered.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You just got hired.”

And somehow, impossibly, you led the way anyway.

author's note: giggling and kicking my feet; hopefully i will be able to update this 2x a week, most only the weekends after my rotation shifts! :] let me know what you think!

[warmsatoru]

against all odds [02] | gojo satoru x reader

Every reasonable calculation placed you and Satoru Gojo in separate datasets, never overlapping, never intersecting, moving in different directions without consequence. Reality, however, refused to cooperate. masterlist [link coming soon!] tags: college!au, hockey player!gojo, fluff, angst chapter word count: 3.3k ← previous | next →

You led Satoru Gojo into the service corridor because you had been told, just earlier that morning, that this hallway existed.

Orientation had taken place in a stuffy, windowless conference room with lukewarm coffee and a laminated map nobody had studied for more than half a minute. A hotel staff member had pointed vaguely at the walls, saying, “Guest-facing areas here, staff-only there,” and moved on. You nodded, scribbled a few notes you weren’t sure would be useful, and hoped you’d never need to use them.

Now here you were.

The door shut behind you, muffling the ballroom noise. The fluorescent lights above hummed, filling the silence. The air smelled like lavender cleaner, bleach, and something vaguely metallic. You walked with purpose because stopping would mean you’d have to talk to Satoru, and that would mean making eye contact.

You knew this hallway the way you knew fire exits in unfamiliar buildings: vaguely, and only because you had to. The knowledge existed somewhere in the back of your mind, you hoped.

“This way,” you said, already heading off.

He followed without question, close enough that you could hear the water still dripping from his sleeves. You became uncomfortably aware of your pace and adjusted it twice in the span of five steps. You slowed, then sped up, then settled on a pace that still didn’t feel quite right.

You were leading. Technically.

The hallway split, and you hesitated for a fraction of a second too long before turning left, trusting muscle memory from the map you had stared at that morning and immediately forgotten.

Behind you, he did not hesitate at all.

Carts lined the walls at irregular intervals. Staff passed in and out of doorways, eyes flicking to him, then to you, then forward again. No one stopped him. No one asked why you were there. The lack of resistance unsettled you more than confrontation would have.

“The linen closet should be around here,” you said.

“Okay,” he replied. Impartial. Patient.

You stopped at the nook. It was empty, except for a crooked sign taped to the wall. Need to restock.

You stared at it like the words might offer an apology.

“They were full earlier,” you said, even though that was untrue. You had passed this spot twice during setup and had not looked inside either time. He leaned back against the wall while you recalculated, water darkening the tile beneath him, entirely unbothered.

You moved again. You took another turn, relying now on proximity to the kitchens rather than certainty. Orientation had mentioned something about that. You were fairly sure. But at the time of the meeting, you’d been more focused on the exam you have scheduled for later this week than on the layout of a hotel you never expected to need.

“The next one’s closer to the janitor’s closet,” you said. “Maybe that’s where they keep extras.”

“Makes sense,” he said.

The second closet was locked. You stopped short. “I don’t have the keys,” you admitted. “Guest services is tier one, and I’m just a volunteer.”

He checked his watch. Not impatient. Just cognizant. Footsteps echoed closer. A gala event guest, eyes lifting, recognition sparking for a split second before politeness won out. Your badge caught the light.

“There’s a supply room by the kitchens,” you said, already walking again. “I would think they keep extra linen there during galas.”

“And that’s where the towels are?” he said.

“Yes,” You nodded.

“Dry ones.”

“Yes.”

He nodded once, satisfied, and followed you as if this was settled.

The supply room door was propped open with a mop bucket.

You stopped just outside it, uncertain whether stepping inside would count as breaking another protocol or merely the continuation of the first. The room smelled faintly of detergent and cardboard, fluorescent lights flickering once, then holding. Inside, a metal shelving unit lined one wall, half stocked with folded white towels. Not neatly. Efficiently. Like someone had planned to come back for the rest and never had. You exhaled before you could stop yourself.

“There,” you said. “That’s-”

He stepped past you.

Not rudely. Not suddenly. Just with quiet resolve, like the room had already been slotted into his internal map. He moved without haste, selecting two towels, then a third, as if assessing a logic you weren’t part of.

You stayed by the door. It felt safer there, like a boundary. You could not conform the situation to anything you understood about your life. You did not talk to people like him. You did not exist near people like him. Your social circle fits into study rooms and shared Google Docs. Your budget did not include custom suits or hotel ballrooms, or private disasters that required discreet towels.

This was a man whose face was printed on banners you passed every day. A name shouted in arenas you avoided. He belonged to a part of campus that functioned on popularity, power, and confidence you’d never had to learn. And yet, here you were, standing guard in a supply room while he dried off like this was a minor inconvenience, and not a public phenomenon with consequences you could already feel forming.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You did not check it.

He pressed one towel to his sleeves first, wringing water into the floor drain with practiced efficiency. Another went to his hair. He didn’t rush. He didn’t look embarrassed. He moved as if this were something he was accustomed to handling privately, without commentary.

Someone laughed in the hallway outside. Your shoulders tensed. He noticed.

“Relax,” he said, not looking at you. “They don’t care.”

You weren’t sure if that was meant to reassure you or dismiss the problem entirely. You checked your watch. 11:14.

“I should be going back,” you said. “My shift technically ended.”

“Mm,” he said, tone noncommittal.

You waited for him to acknowledge that. To put the towels back. To exit the supply room. But he did neither. Instead, he folded one towel slowly, draped another over his shoulder, and glanced at the door you were blocking.

“Give me a minute,” he said. “Then we’ll go.”

We. We? Was he speaking French now?

Your throat tightened. A voice passed close by the door. A pause. The scrape of shoes. Someone lingering, curiosity prickling. You shifted instinctively, adjusting your stance, aware that from this angle it could look like something else entirely.

Your phone vibrated again in your pocket. This time, you couldn’t ignore it.

mina: why are you with the satoru gojo?

Your stomach dropped. Another buzz followed immediately.

mina: do NOT deny it mina: someone just posted abt it

You stared at the screen, pulse thudding in your ears, the hum of the fluorescent light suddenly too loud. Carefully, you typed back with one hand.

you: i’m not with him. WELL I AM BUT you: ITS A LONG STORY

The reply came before you could lock your phone.

mina: yikes mina: it’s on yik yak mina: they called you girl in the dress with the badge

Your grip tightened. You slid the phone back into your pocket without replying. From across the room, you were suddenly aware of how close he was. He folded the last towel and set it aside, sleeves finally dry enough to stop actively incriminating him.

“All set,” he said. You nodded too quickly.

“Okay,” you said. “Great. Then I- I really need to go back.”

You took one step out toward the hallway, then another, already mentally rehearsing how to exit without being seen. If you timed it right, if you kept your head down, if-

He watched you with mild curiosity. “You’re shaking,” he said.

You froze. 

“I’m not,” you replied immediately, which was a lie. You could feel it in the slight tremor of your hands, the way your fingers curled in on themselves like they were bracing. He tilted his head, studying you the way someone did when a reaction didn’t match the stimulus, not concerned. Just confused.

“You look like you think someone’s about to come arrest you,” he says.

Your mouth opened. Then closed. “I should be at the desk,” you reply instead. “My shift ended a while ago.”

“Okay,” he hums easily. “So go.”

You stared at him.

That was it? No urgency? No sense of risk? No reaction to the fact that your phone had just buzzed twice and your name or photo was likely circulating among people who didn’t know you? He really didn’t seem to care that your moment with him had already been turned into public content.

“You’re not…,” you started, then stopped, because questioning, aren’t you worried? felt ridiculous and also deeply revealing.

He waited.

“…concerned?” you finished weakly.

He blinked once. “About what?”

You let out a breathless laugh that surprised you both. “This,” you said, gesturing vaguely at the hallway, the towels, yourself. “Any of it.”

He pondered that thought for a second. “No,” he said. Truthfully. “It’ll be old news by morning.”

Something inside your chest dropped. Of course it would be. This wasn’t his first spectacle. Or his tenth. Or even his most memorable. He had spent his entire time at the university with eyes on him, with strangers narrating his life in real time, with rumors that flared and died before he even noticed them.

Probably before college, too. The pool, the towels, the disappearing into a supply closet, all the drama was just noise to him. A brief deviation. Something that would be swallowed by the next headline, the next game, the next version of him people already expected. For you, this was the first time, your first unwanted cameo. Your first experience realizing how quickly a narrative could form and how little it cared about the truth.

“Oh,” you said quietly.

He frowned, just slightly, like he could tell you’d reached a conclusion but not which one.

“Yeah,” he said, misunderstanding entirely. “You’re fine.”

You nodded. You were definitely not fine. “I need to go,” you said again, firmer this time.

This time, he steps aside. “Sure,” he said. “Thanks for the towels.”

You didn’t answer. You step further into the hallway, heart still racing, already calculating the damage. 

By the next school week, the incident had already been folded into something else. Someone analyzed the slap, someone else debated the pool, and another turned it into a punchline. Satoru Gojo breaks a personal record at Saturday’s game, and just like that, the narrative moved on, cleanly, efficiently, without you in it.

Your phone fell quiet. Conversations around you drifted back to midterms, coffee orders, and complaints about lab partners. Whatever version of you had briefly escaped your control dissolved quietly into anonymity again. You almost believed that was the end of it. But on Tuesday afternoon, between your anatomy lab and a study session you were running late to, an email notification appeared.

Subject: Follow-Up Regarding Event Conduct

You opened it standing in the hallway, backpack half open, heart stumbling.

The message was formal and careful. It explained that leaving the guest services table during your assigned shift was considered unprofessional conduct. Volunteers were expected to remain at their stations at all times unless explicitly dismissed.

Then came the caveat.

Given the circumstances and the direct instruction from event coordination staff, the situation was deemed outside your control. No further action would be taken. The scholarship office had been cc’d and made aware of the situation.

You read that line twice. You were not in trouble. But someone had noticed. You closed your phone and kept walking, keenly aware that while his scandals burned hot and fast before disappearing entirely, yours had been documented and organized. For him, the night was long over. For you, it had quietly become part of your permanent record.

You arrived at the study session 7 minutes late, which, under normal circumstances, would have warranted at least one comment from Mina about your time management skills. But instead, your best friend looked up the moment you walked in and went completely still.

“Oh my god,” Mina said.

You set your bag down carefully. “Hi.”

She didn’t greet you back. She just stared, expression caught somewhere between concern and disbelief.

“So,” she said slowly, “are you never going to talk about the fact that you escorted Satoru Gojo into a hallway like a secret government handler?”

You winced. “That is not what happened.”

“It is exactly what happened,” she said. “From several angles.”

You exhaled. “I already told you what happened.”

“Yes,” she said. “Briefly. I need more details.”

“I was working,” you said. “There were towels. That’s the story.” You pulled out your notes and opened your laptop with unnecessary focus. “It was a volunteer-related logistical issue.”

She leaned across the table. “You disappeared with him.”

“I walked him,” you corrected. “To towels.”

“To towels,” she repeated. “Privately.”

“It was a supply room.”

Her eyes widened. “Worse.”

“You don’t even dissect the cadavers with this much focus,” you said.

She smiled. “Cadavers don’t come dripping out of pools in designer suits.”

You sighed. “I got an email.” That caught her attention.

“What kind of email?”

You slid your phone across the table without saying a word. She read it quickly, eyebrows rising.

“They sent this to your scholarship office, too?” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you’re calm?”

“I’m trying to be,” you said. “It’s documented, but I’m fine, my scholarship is still fine.”

She looked at you for a long moment, then shook her head. “You are experiencing stress like a person who just barely avoided losing hundreds of dollars for her tuition,” she said. “Meanwhile, the rest of campus thinks you’re having a meet-cute.”

You stared at her. “Please don’t call it that.”

“I’m just saying,” she said. “To you, this was an incident. To him, it was a regular night. To everyone else, it’s gossip.”

You rubbed your temples. “He doesn’t even remember me.”

She snorted. “He would absolutely remember you.”

You looked up. “Why would he?”

“Because you didn’t care,” she said immediately. “And because you told him he was dripping on expensive carpet.”

You closed your laptop. “I need you to stop.”

She softened, just slightly. “I know you hate this,” she said. “But if this is really nothing, then nothing will happen.”

You wanted to believe her. You glanced at your notes, then at the diagram you were supposed to help her review. She already moved on, flipping her notebook open.

You cleared your throat. “Okay,” you said. “Let’s start with the brachial plexus.”

By Wednesday, things had fallen back into their usual rhythm. Anatomy at nine. Same seat next to Mina. Same half-listened lecture as you flipped between slides and notes, already thinking two steps ahead to what you still needed to review.

The room filled gradually, the way it always did. Familiar clusters forming, people sliding into habitual seats. Someone laughed near the aisle. Someone dropped their bag.

But then you noticed him, only because other students noticed him first. A subtle shift in attention rippling through the rows near the front. You looked up, expecting a commotion, but saw Satoru Gojo settling into a seat a few rows down. He was talking easily with his friends, one arm moving to casually throw over the back of his chair, like he’d been there all along.

You had passed this spot in your vision a dozen times this semester without actually seeing it. He’d been filed away somewhere else, categorized as distant, a campus fixture that existed in banners and noise but not here. He looked ordinary in this setting. A plain dark hoodie, no last name stitched across his back, notebook open. He leaned toward whoever was speaking to him. Here, he was just a student. Hockey, the drama, and the attention all came later.

You leaned an inch closer to Mina. “Since when was Satoru Gojo in this class?”

She didn’t look at you. “Since always.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s been sitting over there since the start of the semester and you’ve just never noticed.”

You frowned, glancing back down at your notes. “Why is he even taking anatomy?”

“Sports med major,” she whispered. “Pretty sure.”

“Of course he is.”

Mina finally turned to you, eyes wide. “You really had him mentally filed under fictional, didn’t you?”

You picked up your pen with more force than necessary. “I had him filed under not my business.”

She smiled. “Not anymore.”

You looked at him again, a huge mistake.

His gaze crossed yours briefly, nothing deliberate about it, just a coincidence guided by circumstance. He looked away immediately, attention returning to the board. Your pulse jumped. The sudden understanding that he had always been part of this room, and you had simply never accounted for him.

The lecture went on. People settled. Anatomy resumed. You tried to pretend this adjustment hadn’t cost you more focus than it should have.

After that, it became impossible not to notice him.

Before, he had existed as background noise. A face on banners you walked past without looking up, a name that drifted through conversations you did not participate in. Something flat and distant, safely theoretical. Now he occupied the same spaces you did. He laughed at jokes you half overheard, leaned against walls you waited near. Now he wasn’t just a name on the campus newspaper or a picture on a banner, and it was getting way harder to ignore.

It was unsettling in a way you did not have vocabulary for.

You and Mina took the long way to the printers, wordlessly agreeing to stretch out the walk as long as possible to delay the stack of assignments waiting for you both at your usual table at the campus library.

The anatomy tutoring table sat where it always did, planted dead center of the collaborative floor, the exact table number your professor mentioned every lecture when she reminded everyone that Yuki, the TA, was a resource. You’d memorized the phrasing without ever needing to use it.

Tonight, it was crowded.

Yuki stood behind the table, animated and bright, explaining with her whole upper body with enthusiasm alone that could close knowledge gaps. She laughed easily, brushing past someone’s shoulder as she leaned in, hair falling forward in a way that felt practiced. You caught it without judgment.

Unfortunately for you, one of the people occupying the table was Satoru Gojo. He sat at the edge of the table, anatomy book open in front of him, chin propped on his hand. Up close, in fluorescent lighting that did no one favors, he was still irritatingly striking. His face did that unfair thing where it looked relaxed and attentive at the same time, like interest came easily to him. You could see why Yuki was a little giddy. He had the kind of presence that made people want to be interesting back.

You keep walking, but as you pass, his gaze lifts. Just enough to register you. Then he turned back to Yuki.

“So,” he said casually, “who doesn’t come here?”

Yuki paused, a smile flickering before she laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Like,” he continued, tapping the edge of the page, “Are they avoiding this, or do they genuinely not need it?”

Something in your chest tightened. Yuki smiled wider, clearly enjoying the question. “Usually the second,” she said. “They already know what they’re doing.”

You kept walking.

The question stayed with you longer than it should have. Not because it was pointed, or clever, or even particularly insightful, but because it felt like he asked it with a goal. As if he wasn’t looking for an answer so much as trying to place something. Or someone.

Mina waited until you were several steps past the table before speaking.

“She is being aggressively flirty,” she murmured.

You didn’t look back. “She’s tutoring.”

Mina snorted. “She’s explaining anatomy like it’s a first date.”

You exhaled through your nose, grateful for the distraction, and focused on the printers ahead. Behind you, Yuki laughed again, a little louder than necessary. Whatever he’d been trying to figure out, you told yourself, it wasn’t your problem. Still though, the question echoed, uncomfortably specific for something not meant to include you at all.

author's note: ANOTHA ONE because last chapter was short & boring kinda (totally not bc i have no interest in doing any homework rn) ALSO! im starting a taglist for this series! let me know if you want to be added! ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡ taglist: @superstaargirl

[warmsatoru]

against all odds [03] | gojo satoru x reader

Every reasonable calculation placed you and Satoru Gojo in separate datasets, never overlapping, never intersecting, moving in different directions without consequence. Reality, however, refused to cooperate. masterlist [link coming soon!] tags: college!au, hockey player!gojo, fluff, angst chapter word count: 2.3k ← previous | next →

The email doesn’t seem important when you first open it.

It’s the same institutional format you’ve learned to skim without thinking too hard about: a halfhearted subject line, an overly polite greeting, paragraphs designed to sound informational while committing to nothing emotionally. You read it standing in the hallway outside Mina’s anatomy lab section, backpack sliding down one shoulder, already mentally rearranging your evening to fit in another review session for an upcoming exam.

You scroll past the first paragraph, then slow down. A name catches in your periphery, not a person’s name, but a foundation’s name you recognize instantly. You stop walking, step aside near the windows, and reread the message more carefully, the way you do when something feels too wild to be a coincidence.

The language was calculated... Your scholarship program partners with select donor organizations, and as part of your award renewal, recipients are required to complete service hours aligned with donor interests. Your placement, selected based on your academic background, is meant to support your professional development while strengthening community engagement. You already know where this is going before you reach the header.

Department: Athletics Program: Men’s Hockey Role: Player Safety & Injury Prevention Research Assistant

Your stomach doesn’t drop. Instead, it tightens, like a string pulled merely enough to remind you it’s there. You lean back against the wall and keep reading. The duties are listed in the following order: observational analysis, data logging, trend identification, and report synthesis, with no direct player medical care. Sprinkled with flexible scheduling that anticipates your academic workload as if someone has already accounted for how little room you have to spare.

At the bottom, one line seals it.

This placement fulfills all remaining volunteer hours requirements to graduate.

Of course it does. You lock your phone and stare across the hallway at a bulletin board layered with outdated flyers and club announcements, all overlapping until none of them mean anything on their own. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you register the elegance of it: money moves quietly, labor follows, and opportunity is framed as generosity instead of a strategy.

You don’t think of him right away. Not his face, not the ice, not the banner you’ve learned to look past on your way to class. You think of a last name you’ve seen before, on your scholarship renewal letters you received a little after your college acceptance offer, on formal acknowledgments, all tied to assurances that your education is supported. You think of the gala, of donors moving easily through the space as if it belonged to them, of how effortless it all had seemed from the outside.

You accept the placement without hesitation, not because it interests you, and not because it’s fitting, but because this is what the last few years have taught you to do. You have learned which battles are loud and which ones are quietly unwinnable, and this feels like the latter. There was just no way; refusing would cost you more than it would protect you. There was also no way to say no that doesn’t ripple outward into meetings, raised eyebrows, and that familiar tightening in your chest that comes from being perceived as foolish rather than deserving.

You tell yourself that you don’t need to like where the money comes from in order to use it well. You know that education has always been transactional long before you came, and opting out on principle would be a luxury you were never offered in the first place. You think about how carefully you’ve built your life, how every class, every hour logged, every choice has been arranged to keep you here, moving forward without drawing too much attention. Walking away from something this structurally beneficial would mean admitting that you believed control was yours to begin with. You have spent years navigating spaces that were not built for you, learning how to stand in them without taking up room, how to do what you’re asked without becoming a complete outcast.

So you do accept the placement because you know how to do this kind of work, you’re used to it, and you know you can act like you fit in without being completely absorbed.

Mina finds you ten minutes later, marching out of the lab with her notebook tucked under her arm and her ponytail already half undone. She spots you immediately, still by the windows, still not moving. She approaches you in the way she does when she knows something’s wrong but doesn’t want to alarm you.

“Hey,” she says, bumping her shoulder lightly into yours.

You hum in response, eyes still on the bulletin board. Mina follows your gaze for a second, then looks back at you instead. You’re holding your phone too tightly, she notices. You always do that when you’re debating whether something is worth saying out loud. She waits.

Eventually, she sighs. “You’re doing the thing,” she says.

“The thing?” you ask, stalling.

“That quiet thing. The one where you’ve already decided something, and you’re trying to see if you can live with it without telling me or anyone about it.”

You swallow. Mina doesn’t rush you. She just leans back against the wall beside you, close enough to be company without pressuring you to talk.

“Is this about that email?” she asks.

You hesitate. “Mina,” you start, then stop. You exhale slowly, like you’re bracing before stepping into ice-cold water. “I have to volunteer for the hockey team.”

Her brows knit together. “Volunteer how?”

“Player safety research. Injury prevention. It’s… simple. It’ll count for my hours.”

She processes that for half a second, then tilts her head, confused. “Okay. That’s annoying, but not catastrophic. Why do you look like someone just rearranged your organs then?”

You almost laugh.

You glance down at your phone, then back up at her. “Because the donors of my scholarship,” you say carefully, “are from the hockey program.”

Mina goes still. “Wait,” she says.

“Yes.” You say, like you already knew what she was going to ask.

Her mouth opens, closes. “Like his parents?”

You nod once. It isn’t a secret. It never really was. The Gojo name has lived in the margins of your life for years now: on renewal emails, on official letterheads, folded into that mandatory semester thank-you message you send with careful gratitude and even more cautious distance. You’ve never met them, never shaken their hands or sat across from them at a dinner you couldn’t afford to decline. The connection has always stayed administrative; you were thankful for that. 

And until recently, you’d let it stay that way.

It was easy, before, to ignore their names. Donors existed as concepts, not people, and funding was attached to programs, not faces. You never had to conjoin the idea of them with him, never had to let one seep into the other, because there had never been a reason to. Satoru Gojo’s parents might have been funding your education and more in the last few years, but that didn’t require you to be best friends with him. You never talked to him; you never had a reason to. There was nothing to connect except on paper, and you’d been cautious like that on purpose. You were careful not to look too closely, careful not to wonder what closeness would feel like, careful not to imagine the form of obligation if it ever grew teeth.

But being careful was never enough.

You’re not angry at him. Not exactly. You’re angry at the ease of it, the way he moves through spaces so easily. The way his last name opens doors that you enter quietly, making sure no one notices how hard you worked to get there. You wonder what it feels like to grow up inside that kind of security. To not need to calculate outcomes before speaking.

And you hate that part of you that is curious. Mina watches you carefully. “Hey.”

You blink, returning to the hallway. “You’re allowed to resent it,” she says.

That almost makes you smile. “I don’t resent him,” you say.

“Okay,” she replies. “You resent the system then.”

That sounds more accurate.

The first time you step into the athletic wing with the temporary badge clipped to your sweater, you tell yourself it’s just logistics. Orientation is procedural, after all, and you’re only here to finalize forms and get a tour of the arena.

The building smells faintly of polished floors and cold air carried in from the rink. A row of display cases lines the hallway walls, jerseys in glass frames, trophies reflecting fluorescent light, donation plaques engraved with names that repeat often enough to feel permanent. You don’t slow down long enough to read them, but you don’t need to; you’ve already memorized one name in particular.

You sign where the volunteer manager tells you, accept a clipboard, and nod at her every so often while she walks you around the arena. Through the wide interior windows, you can see the edge of the rink. Players move across the ice in blurred arcs, the sound of skates cutting sharp lines beneath low music playing over the speakers.

Near the bench, a cluster of hockey sticks rests against the boards. Expensive-looking in a way you can’t quite quantify. Carbon fiber? Custom curve? Some branding you’ve only ever seen online. You estimate the cost automatically, three hundred? Four?. You calculate how many of your textbooks would be covered, how many weeks of groceries you wouldn’t have to worry about.

You hate that your brain does this. And you hate, quietly, that part of you wonders what it would feel like not to.

You look away before the thought can take place. A door to the rink swings open briefly, letting in a rush of colder air and sharper sound. A few players skate off, helmets tucked under their arms, laughing about something you can’t hear. You don’t recognize him immediately; without the suit and the water and the spotlight, he blends in better than you expect.

Satoru turns slightly, his profile catching the light, and you (unfortunately) realize you’ve already memorized the shape of his shoulders. Pale strands of his bright white hair curling slightly at the edges, his jaw looks sharper in the rink lighting, mouth set in concentration instead of that easy half-smile you’re used to seeing.

Satoru slows near the boards, one hand adjusting the tape at the base of his stick. His posture is easy, unhurried, the kind of ease that comes from repetition and belonging. Someone says his name, and he responds without fully turning his attention to finishing what he started.

Someone calls his name again, louder this time. He straightens, gives a distracted acknowledgment, and sets the stick upright against the boards before pushing off in your direction.

You don’t immediately understand why he’s skating closer until you hear the volunteer manager beside you clear her throat. “That’s Coach Yaga,” she murmurs, gesturing toward a man stepping down from the viewing platform. “I’ll introduce you.”

You nod, shifting your clipboard under your arm, posture aligning automatically into something professional and neutral. Coach Yaga reaches you first, offering a firm handshake and a glance at your badge. “Research support?” he reads. “You’re the injury-prevention student?”

“Yes, sir,” you reply. “I’ll be logging impact patterns and recovery time.”

“Good,” he says. “We need more data people. Too many opinions around here.”

He half-turns toward the ice. “Satoru,” he calls.

The sound of skates carving closer answers before the name does.

You don’t look immediately. Your pulse gives a brief, irritating shift, not fast enough to panic but noticeable all the same. You adjust your stance without meaning to, squaring yourself like you’re about to be evaluated.

When you do, Satoru is stepping off the ice with measured ease, helmet tucked under his arm, hair damp at the edges. Up close, the cold clings to him, clean air and something sharper beneath it.

“Yeah?” he says to his coach, not to you.

“This is our new research assistant,” Coach Yaga explains. “She’ll be tracking player safety metrics this semester.”

There’s the smallest beat of silence. Satoru’s gaze shifts from his coach to you, then briefly to the badge at your collarbone before returning to your face. 

“Oh,” he says, almost to himself. “We’re doing hockey now?”

The phrasing is casual, but there’s awareness laced in it, awareness of the gala, of anatomy lectures, of you stepping into his territory.

“It’s another volunteer requirement,” you reply.

“Right.” His mouth tilts slightly, not a smile, not quite neutral either. “You’re going to be rating how hard we fall?”

“Something like that.”

The corner of his mouth moves a fraction more at that. He taps the end of his stick once against the rubber matting near his feet, the sound dull and contained.

Coach Yaga claps him once on the shoulder. “Try not to break anything this year.”

“No promises,” Satoru replies without missing a beat. Then he looks back at you, just briefly. “Let me know if I’m skewing your data,” he says.

It lands somewhere between dry humor and an actual offer, but before you can decide which, a teammate calls him back into the rink, he pushes off again, sliding seamlessly back into motion, conversation already shifting away from you.

Coach Yaga turns back to you. “You’ll get used to them,” he says. “They think they’re invincible.”

You nod, eyes following the blur of white across the ice. The sound of skates settles into the background, steady and rhythmic, like something that was always meant to continue whether you were standing here or not. The only difference now is that you are.

You don’t pretend you don’t see it. The angles of his face, the confidence in the way he stands, the quiet pull he carries without effort. You react the same way other girls do, and you’re not scared to admit that you’re not above that. But it feels wrong, almost irresponsible. Not because he’s unattainable, but because his parents’ foundation signs the letters that literally keep you here. You can’t afford to want more. Not when wanting the wrong thing could cost you everything you’ve built.

author's note: i did not expect to progress this plot to be about structural power but this was the plot outline i found most interesting! so sorry for the slower updates week 5 of the semester was rough...... taglist: @superstaargirl @rcveriees @astraxa-xx @hobbybound @hydramickaelson @themythicalone

[warmsatoru]

I love your hockey gojo au!!!!! I rlly want to see what happens with themmm. Thanks for being such ans amazing writer. I’m always blushing and giggling

thank you!!! i’m closer to being content with the plot line for it & i hope to post a new chapter soon >.< i’ve just had back to back exams but trust i will prevail soon