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The Morning Sunbeam Show

summary ;; Running out of plots for The Morning Sunbeam Show, you let your friends dare you into texting a mysterious number written in pink glitter in the library restroom.

Next thing you know, you’re caught in a agonizing love triangle between your suspicious, grumpy new texter and your perpetually annoyed audio engineer, Megumi. Too bad your sociological imagination completely fails to realize that the "phantom" you're romanticizing on the air and the guy staring at you through the studio glass are the exact same person.

pairings ;; nerd!Megumi x reader

genre ;; romcom

w/c ;; 31k

warnings ;; reader is OBLIVIOUS, sunshine x grumpy dynamic, swearing, vape smoking, very easily flustered gumi, wrote it over 2-3 nights so if theres any typos im sorry im sleep deprived

a/n ;; tried to give this ff a 2000s teen movie vibe hope i got it rightt. i just love love megumi i wanna hug him awh. ion really got much to say about this ff only that im so funny i made myself chuckle at some point so i hope i can make you laugh too dear readers

as always, dont forget to subscribe, comment (your feedback is greatly appreciated), reblog and like or wtvr those youtubers say now xx

if you like reading with music on, give this playlist i made specifically for this fanfiction a try! maybe you'd like it

art creds @/thatsallitchief on X ; header @cursed-carmine

like what you see? read more! m.list

You thought university was going to be hard. Heck, even choosing a major had proven to be an agonizingly difficult task for you. High school had been a whirlwind of standard curriculum, but walking into the massive university orientation with a blank registration form had felt like standing at the edge of a cliff. You didn’t want to spend four years staring at lifeless spreadsheets, and you definitely didn't have the stomach for the grueling, clinical world of STEM.

In the end, you had looked to your left, seen the bright, familiar grin of Yuji Itadori, and made your choice.

Yuji had been your classmate all throughout high school—the loud, chaotic athlete who somehow always managed to make everyone smile, no matter how miserable the rainy mornings were. When you both miraculously ended up at the exact same university, it felt like a lifeline. He had scribbled down Sociology on his form because he "just really liked learning about how people tick," and you had immediately followed suit. It turned out to be the best decision you could have made. Studying human behavior, social dynamics, and the chaotic ways communities connected perfectly matched your natural, radiant energy.

Plus, it meant you got a built-in seat partner for every major lecture, someone to share notes with, and an instant connection to the campus social scene, which was exactly how you landed your gig as the bubbly host of the morning radio show at WKJS. And that was also how you met Megumi Fushiguro. The most painfully blunt, caffeine-deprived black hole of pragmatism on the entire campus, who looked at your bright-eyed optimism and decided his official club duty was to rain on your parade.

The heavy studio door muffled the rain outside, but inside the WKJS live room, the atmosphere was frantic. You were furiously sorting through your cue cards, a bright pink highlighter capped firmly between your teeth as you cross-referenced the morning’s messy sports updates with the student union announcements.

Across the soundproof glass, Megumi Fushiguro sat enveloped in the low, ambient glow of his dual monitors, his lip piercing glowing brightly under the digital light. He didn't say a word, but his long, pale fingers moved across the massive mixing board with effortless, clinical precision. He adjusted a slider, checked his digital clock, and held up three fingers through the glass. Three minutes to air.

Through your headphones, his voice crackled to life. A low, gravelly morning rasp that sounded entirely too exhausted for 7:00 AM. "Your mic levels are spiking because you're breathing like you just ran a marathon. Sit down, spit out the marker, and focus."

You pulled the highlighter from your teeth and grinned broadly through the glass window, leaning forward so he could see the sheer mischief in your expression. "Good morning to you too, Fushiguro! Did you sleep under the console again?"

"No," Megumi deadpanned, his eyes never leaving the green audio waveforms dancing across his screen. "I slept for a total of four hours because someone decided to DM me at midnight asking if a whale's heart is actually the size of a Volkswagen Beetle."

"It was a vital question for my morning fun-fact segment!"

"It’s an urban legend. It’s the size of a small car, not a vintage Beetle," he muttered, finally looking up to give you a strict, pointed look. "One minute. Cue the intro track."

You adjusted your headset, your posture straightening instantly as the digital countdown clock on the studio wall hit single digits. Megumi’s hand hovered above the master fader, his posture tense and professional despite his lack of sleep. He gave you a sharp nod, throwing a finger directly at you through the glass pane. You're live.

You smashed the flashing yellow button on your console, and the bubbly, upbeat theme music of The Morning Sunbeam Show flooded the campus airwaves.

"Good morning, Jujutsu University!" you chirped into the microphone, your voice bursting with a level of radiant energy that Megumi clearly found criminal at this hour. "It is a rainy, gray Thursday, but we are leaving the gloom at the door. I’m your host, Y/N and we have a packed hour for you today."

Behind the glass, Megumi rested his chin in his hand, keeping a careful eye on the volume bars as they bounced into the yellow zone. He looked utterly bored, but his fingers remained twitching on the sliders, perfectly balancing your voice against the loud backing track so the listeners wouldn't get deafened.

"First up on the campus radar," you continued, leaning closer to the pop filter on your mic, "the big rivalry rugby game is next Friday! Our Jujutsu Crows are going head-to-head with Kyoto Tech. Now, I’ve been told the team is practicing out on the quad in the pouring rain right now. Honestly, if I were them, I’d just forfeit and stay inside with hot cocoa. But hey, true dedication! Are we going to see a blowout? Personally, I think Yuji from the sociology department is going to carry the entire scrum on his back. Literally. The guy tackles like a literal freight train."

Through your headphones, you heard a faint, localized huff of static. Megumi had briefly flipped his talkback switch just to interject. "It’s a team sport. It takes eight people to form a proper scrum. It’s physically impossible for one person to carry it, even Yuji."

You completely ignored his logic, shooting him a smug look through the glass as you kept rolling. "Anyway! Speaking of heavy lifting, let’s talk about the library elevator. It’s been broken for three whole days. To whoever is in charge of campus maintenance: my calves are crying. I had to walk up four flights of stairs this morning carrying three iced lattes. It was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. It was... pore-ing rain outside, and I was pouring sweat inside."

Silence hung in the studio for exactly one agonizing second.

Then, Megumi calmly reached his hand across the soundboard. Without breaking eye contact with you through the glass, his thumb firmly pressed a gray auxiliary button on his sound pad.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

The dry, synthetic acoustic sound effect of a single cricket echoed sharply through your headphones and directly onto the live campus broadcast.

You gasped, your hand flying to your chest in mock betrayal. "Fushiguro! Did you just cricket-sound me on live radio?!"

Megumi didn't even blink. He just tapped his headset, his face completely expressionless, though his eyes held a glimmer of dark amusement. "The WKJS audio logs require a high standard of humor. That joke was a broadcast violation."

"It was a pun! Puns are a literary art form!" You laughed heartily, leaning into the microphone to address your listeners before he could cut you off again. "Do you hear the absolute tyranny I deal with behind the scenes, guys? My audio engineer has a heart made of cold stone. But don't worry, I won't let him ruin the morning vibe. Let's move on to the real tragedy on campus: we need to talk about the mystery of why the campus cafe ran out of chocolate croissants by 6:30 AM. I watched three separate freshmen nearly dissolve into tears at the register. If you are the person buying them out in bulk for your 8:00 AM lectures, please consider this a formal public plea to share the wealth."

You leaned back, taking a brief breath as you transitioned to your next cue card. "And speaking of morning routines, we’ve got our weekly campus advice column segment up next. Today’s anonymous submission comes from a student who says, 'My roommate insists on playing Gregorian chants at 5:00 AM to 'align their academic aura' before studying. Do I move out, or do I start playing heavy metal back?' Personally, I say fight fire with fire. Go full thrash metal."

A click echoed in your ear. "Or they could just talk to their roommate like a normal person," Megumi muttered through the talkback. "Communication solves things. Passive-aggressive music wars don't."

"Boo, you're no fun, Fushiguro," you retorted smoothly into the mic, making sure the listeners heard your teasing tone. "Our resident audio expert votes for 'sensible conversation,' but what do you guys think? Drop your thoughts in our station request box. We're going to slide into a quick music break to get your blood pumping on this rainy morning. Here is 'Lovefool' to brighten up your Thursday!"

Megumi slammed the slider down, smoothly cutting your mic feed and raising the volume on the track.

The live room went dark-air silent. You pulled off your heavy headphones, a massive, unbothered grin on your face as you looked through the partition. Megumi finally let his rigid shoulders drop, a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk tugging at the absolute corner of his mouth before he quickly wiped it away, grabbing his coffee cup to hide it.

"You're ridiculous," his voice came through the booth monitors, sounding a little less guarded now that they were off the air. "The Gregorian chants segment was entirely uncalled for."

"Hey, it's quality content!" You chuckled, settling back into your chair. You didn't dare leave the studio yet, there were still mid-show announcements to organize, tracklists to cue up for the second half of the broadcast, and a whole hour of club activities ahead before you could finally pack up your things. "Now help me pick the next track, Mr. Music Critic. Do we go with indie pop or give the listeners a rainy-day jazz vibe?"

Megumi rolled his eyes through the glass, leaning back in his swivel chair. "Indie pop. If you play jazz at 7:30 AM on a rainy Thursday, half the campus will drive their cars into a ditch out of sheer melancholy. Keep them awake."

"Spoken like a man who views music purely as a tool for survival," you shot back, spinning your pen between your fingers. You leaned forward, resting your chin on your hands as you stared at him through the glass partition. "You know, Fushiguro, you have a really great radio voice. If you actually opened your mouth for more than ten seconds at a time, you could co-host. You shouldn’t close yourself away in that little tech cave. A little human connection wouldn't kill you."

"Human connection gives me a headache," Megumi replied deadpanned, his long fingers already queueing up the indie pop track. "I’m perfectly content with my waveforms. They don't make terrible puns or demand pastries at dawn."

"You're a fortress, Fushiguro. A cold, unyielding fortress wrapped in an oversized hoodie," you laughed. It was the absolute truth. You two were standard club colleagues, operating in two entirely different social galaxies. You were the campus social butterfly who shared sociology notes with Yuji; he was the reclusive biology nerd who only seemed to tolerate human speech if it came through a XLR microphone cable. But you still made it your personal mission to crack his outer shell at least once a shift.

The track faded out, and Megumi gave you the one-finger countdown cue. You slid your headphones back over your ears, your posture instantly snapping into professional radio-host mode.

"And we are back, Jujutsu University!" you chirped, leaning into the microphone. "If you're just tuning in, you missed a very intense debate about rugby and a tragic lack of chocolate croissants. But right now, it is time for my absolute favorite part of the week: our anonymous Love and Romance Column."

Through the headphones, you heard a faint, pained groan from the tech booth. You threw a bright, teasing wink through the glass at Megumi.

"Our first submission today is a classic," you said, opening a brightly colored envelope. "The listener writes: 'Dear Morning Sunbeam, I’ve had a massive crush on a guy in my macroeconomics lecture all semester. Last week, he asked to borrow my pencil, and when he gave it back, he had chewed on the eraser. Is this a display of animalistic dominance, or does he like me?'"

You burst out laughing, hitting the desk. "Okay, first of all, to our anonymous listener—that is not dominance, that is a severe lack of oral hygiene. Throw the pencil away. But secondly, can we please raise the bar for romance on this campus? Where is the effort? Where is the drama?"

You gestured dramatically with your free hand, completely into the performance. "Call me an absolute hopeless romantic, but I refuse to settle for 'pencil-chewing' as a love language. I want a Disney-worthy love story to tell my future children, okay? I want the dramatic airport chase. I want the accidental umbrella share in the pouring rain. I want to tell my kids, 'Your father stared into my soul and knew we were soulmates from the moment our eyes met across a crowded room.' I don’t want to tell them, 'Well, kids, your dad destroyed a number two Ticonderoga pencil and the rest was history.'"

A sharp click cut into your headphones.

"You're going to give your future kids unrealistic expectations," Megumi’s voice muttered through the talkback channel. "The airport chase is a federal offense, and the umbrella thing just leaves both people half-soaked. Real life isn't a cartoon."

"Do you hear this man?!" you gasped into the microphone, utterly delighted by his predictable cynicism. "My audio engineer, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate romance killer. Fushiguro, have you ever even heard a fairytale?"

"Fairytales usually end with someone being eaten by a wolf or cursed by a spindle," Megumi countered smoothly, his face entirely expressionless through the glass as he monitored the audio levels. "I prefer statistics. The probability of an airport chase resulting in a successful relationship is under two percent."

"You are a black hole of pragmatism," you chuckled, shaking your head into the microphone. "Listeners, ignore the man behind the curtain. Keep dreaming big, keep your erasers un-chewed, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s Sunbeam Show. That is a wrap on our rainy Thursday morning broadcast!" you announced, sliding smoothly into your closing sign-off. "A huge shout-out to everyone heading out to support our Jujutsu Crows next Friday—wear your rain gear, bring your energy, and remember to protect your pencils from the macroeconomics department. I'm leaving you with 'Kingston' to keep the good vibes rolling into your morning lectures. Stay bright, campus!"

You cut your vocal track, sliding the master volume down as the music swelled. The bright red ON AIR sign above the door finally flickered out.

The studio went entirely silent. You tore the heavy headphones off your ears, shaking out your hair with a massive, exhausted sigh, and looked through the glass partition.

Megumi was already shutting down the secondary monitors, his long fingers methodically logging out of the station’s mainframe. He pulled off his own headset, letting it rest around his neck like a collar, and glanced up at you through the soundproof window.

"Forty-eight seconds over your scheduled time," he said, his voice coming through the desktop monitors as he flipped the studio to automation. "You're getting sloppy."

"It's called showmanship, Fushiguro. You can't rush true art," you joked, throwing your cue cards into your bag. You glanced down at the bottom corner of your laptop screen to check the time.

7:57 AM.

Your heart dropped directly into your stomach.

"Oh my god," you gasped, your eyes widening in pure horror. "Oh my god, no."

Through the glass, Megumi paused, his hand hovering over a cable. He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Research Methods in Sociology!" you shrieked, frantically jamming your pink highlighter, loose notebooks, and half-empty coffee cups into your overflowing tote bag. "Professor Kato is giving a pop quiz on data sampling at exactly 8:00 AM! He said if we’re even a second late, he’s locking the door and making us write a ten-page essay on structural functionalism!"

"Then you should probably stop talking and start running," Megumi deadpanned. He didn't look remotely panicked, in fact, there was a faint, deeply unhelpful glint of amusement in his green eyes as he watched you scramble. "The sociology wing is on the complete opposite side of the quad."

"I have three minutes to cross the entire campus in a monsoon!" You threw the strap of your bag over your shoulder, nearly knocking over the empty latte tray in the process. You sprinted to the heavy studio door, ripping it open, before throwing one last desperate look back at the tech booth. "If I die of cardio failure on the steps, Fushiguro, tell Yuji he can have my sociology textbook!"

"I'm not doing that," Megumi's flat voice echoed after you. "Move."

You burst out of the station's basement double-doors and into the hallway, your sneakers squeaking violently against the linoleum as you sprinted toward the stairs. You were officially, completely, and utterly fucked.

And you were, in fact, late.

You skidded to a halt outside the lecture hall at exactly 8:01 AM, lungs burning from the cross-campus sprint, only to find the heavy wooden doors firmly locked. You pulled on the handle. Locked. Solid. Through the narrow glass window, you could see Professor Kato holding up a stack of quiz papers, a deeply chaotic smirk on his face as he tapped his watch.

You were practically doomed. That ten-page essay on structural functionalism was officially out to bite your ass.

Though, to be fair, as you slouched against the hallway wall to catch your breath, you realized that a ten-page essay was probably going to be way easier to finish than a Kato pop quiz you hadn’t even studied for. Silver linings, right?

Still, the morning was officially a disaster. Your calves hurt, your hair was frizzy from the rain, and your emotional stability was hanging by a thread. Sliding down the wall until you were sitting flat on the linoleum floor, you pulled out your phone. It was time to summon the council.

You: miwaaaaa 😭😭😭 rip me literally delete my existence from the simulation rn

Miwa : omfg what happened ?? did fushiguro cricket-sound you again?? i was listening on my way to campus the macroeconomics shade was top tier line ngl

You: no i wish that was the worst part. i got locked out of research methods. kato locked the doors at exactly 8:00 like a menace. i’m cooked. absolutely roasted. i have to write a 10 page essay now i’m actually crying screaming throwing up

Miwa : NOOOO 💀💀 bro kato takes his lock-out rule too seriously it’s unhinged. sending thoughts and prayers fr 🙏

You: i don’t need thoughts and prayers miwa i need liquid serotonin. i am begging for a sweet little caffeine treat before my soul completely leaves my body. if i don’t get a matcha or a sweet latte in the next ten minutes i will dissolve into a puddle.

You: pls tell me u can escape to the campus cafe?? i’ll literally pay for yours too i’m desperate

Miwa : wait omg free coffee?? say less 👀 but wait i’m literally sitting with maki rn in the student union, she’s helping me study (read: yelling at me for formatting my bibliography wrong) can she pull up too??

You: OMFG YES PLS bring maki!! i need her big sister 'stop crying and fight god' energy right now or i won’t survive the rest of Thursday. tell her she can get whatever she wants on my tab 💥

Miwa : bet. maki said she’s down to watch you mourn your GPA. We’re in the library bathroom don’t die yet bestie!! 🏃‍♀️💨

Locking your phone, you let out a dramatic sigh and pushed yourself up from the floor. A date with your besties and a sugar-loaded coffee was exactly the coping mechanism you needed.

You stuffed your phone into your pocket and started heading toward the stairs.

The basement of the university library was where joy went to die. It was dark, smelled faintly of decades-old paper and damp concrete, and the fluorescent lights in the girl's restroom hummed with a low, buzzing vibration that felt like a localized migraine. But right now, it was your makeshift sanctuary.

You leaned heavily against the cold tile of the sink, your tote bag dumped unceremoniously on the floor, while Miwa and Maki stood on either side of you. True to your word, you had brought a massive, extra-sweet iced latte from the library’s mini cafe to act as your liquid serotonin, which you were currently inhaling like oxygen.

"I’m just saying," Miwa said, her voice bouncing echoing off the stall doors as she frantically adjusted her bangs in the mirror, "a ten-page essay is a hate crime. Like, legally, Professor Kato should be put on trial. Who even uses the word structural functionalism in real life? It’s giving medieval torture."

Maki leaned back against the brick wall, her arms crossed tightly over her leather jacket. She looked completely unfazed by the basement's depressing aura. "Kato’s an idiot who just likes watching people panic. But honestly? You ran across the quad for a 7:00 AM radio shift but couldn't make it to class on time. L. Skill issue."

"Maki, please, my calves are literally detached from my body right now," you groaned, taking a loud, desperate sip of your latte. "I was giving the people content. I was pouring my soul into the microphone. Fushiguro literally cricket-sounded me on live air because of a pun. I am a victim of the system."

"Fushiguro is a narc," Maki deadpanned, a sharp smirk cutting across her face. "Next time he does it, just unplug his master console. He’ll lose his mind. It’s hilarious."

Miwa giggled, turning around from the mirror, but as she reached for a paper towel, her eyes caught something on the side of the porcelain sink. She froze. Her jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes went wide with the kind of intense, dramatic focus she usually reserved for anime releases.

"Um... wait," Miwa whispered, pointing a trembling, manicured finger at the wall right next to the automatic soap dispenser. "Guys. Look at this."

You and Maki both leaned in.

There, scrawled aggressively onto the grout in a brilliant, aggressively reflective pink glittery marker, was a phone number. The handwriting was incredibly neat, but the choice of medium was pure chaos. Right above the digits, written in the same blindingly sparkly ink, was a caption that looked like it had been penned by a feral gremlin:

NEED A REALITY CHECK? TEXT THE MOST PESSIMISTIC MAN ON CAMPUS.

(555) 777-nopuh

(Warning: He hates fun. He will ruin your day. Proceed at your own risk.)

Two days ago, with her phone pressed firmly to her ear, pinned in place by her raised shoulder, Nobara Kugisaki rolled her eyes so hard she was fairly certain she could see her own brain. She stared into the library basement bathroom mirror, wielding a tube of clear, ultra-reflective lip gloss like a precision instrument. She applied a thick, uncompromising layer to her bottom lip, smacked her lips together with a sharp pop, and let out a furious, echoing huff that bounced off the drab tile walls.

"I am actually going to murder him, Yuji," Nobara hissed into the receiver, her voice bouncing violently off the cold restroom tiles. "No, scratch that. Murder is too clean. I am going to find his precious little noise-canceling headphones, submerge them in a hot vat of nacho cheese, and watch him cry biological tears."

On the other end of the line, the loud, muffled sound of a chip bag crinkling signaled that Yuji Itadori was, as usual, completely relaxed and probably sitting on his sofa in his sweatpants. "Whoa, calm down, Nobara! Who are we assassinating today? Did the cafeteria run out of the spicy ramen again?"

"No, you idiot! It's Fushiguro!" Nobara yelled, dipping the gloss wand back into the tube with venomous intent. "He ditched me! At the library! We have been planning this for a week. He was supposed to help me study for my biology midterm because my current grade is a literal cry for help, and what does he do? He sends me a text message at 6:45 AM—6:45 AM, Yuji!—that literally just says: 'Transmitter calibration error at the station. Can't make it. Read chapter twelve.' Read chapter twelve?! Chapter twelve is sixty pages of microscopic plant anatomy! I don't care about the emotional life of a fern, I need a passing grade!"

"To be fair, Nobara, Megumi said he had to calibrate the WKJS transmitter because of the rain. He told you he had a hard deadline at noon."

"I don't care about his deadlines! My GPA is currently on life support!" Nobara ranted, tossing her lip gloss into her bag and gripping the phone properly. "He sat there, looked me dead in the eye, and said, 'If you can't memorize basic plant anatomy, that's a personal failure.' A personal failure, Yuji! He has the emotional intelligence of a wet cardboard box! I need vengeance. Deep, psychological vengeance."

Yuji let out a loud, sympathetic groan through the speaker, though it was quickly followed by the sound of him loudly crunching on a chip. "Damn, that's cold. But to be fair, Megumi takes that radio station tech stuff like it's a life-or-death mission. If the campus radio goes down, who's gonna play the weird indie pop songs at dawn?"

"I don't care about the radio station, ugh! I care about my GPA!" Nobara snapped, pacing the short distance between the hand dryer and the trash can. "He completely ghosted me for a bunch of audio cables and an oversized mixing board. The absolute audacity of that jerk. He needs to be punished. He needs to suffer the way I am suffering right now looking at these flashcards."

Yuji let out a loud, booming laugh. "Bro, what are you gonna do, fight him? He’ll just hit you with a textbook. The guy practically lives in a cave. You can’t exactly take your revenge on someone who doesn't have a soul. Unless... oh, man, you should totally do what people in those old high school movies do. Go full petty mode. Write his number on a bathroom wall or something. 'For a good time, call Megumi.'"

Yuji burst into loud, wheezing laughter at his own joke, completely missing the dead silence that suddenly fell over the library restroom.

Nobara stopped pacing. Her hand froze on her hip. Slowly, her eyes drifted down to her open makeup bag sitting on the edge of the sink. Peeking out from beneath a pile of brushes was a brand-new, dual-tip, highly permanent pink glittery marker that she had bought yesterday purely because the packaging looked aesthetic.

Slowly, a wicked, absolutely feral grin stretched across her face.

"Yuji," Nobara whispered, her voice dropping into a dangerous, sweet register. "Sometimes, your single brain cell fires at maximum capacity."

"Wait, what? No, Nobara, I was joking! Do not do that, he will actually find out—"

"Shut up, I'm doing it," she interrupted, already digging frantically through her makeup pouch. She slammed her phone down on the porcelain ledge of the sink, putting it on speaker so she could keep Yuji on the line while she worked.

"Yuji, you are an absolute, certified genius," Nobara whispered, unscrewing the cap of the pink glittery marker with a satisfying click. The chemical scent of permanent ink wafted through the air, sparkling under the harsh fluorescent lights. "A 'good time' is too cliché. People will think it's a scam. No, Megumi needs something targeted. Something that will attract the absolute loud, chaotic energy he despises the most."

"Nobara, please, he’s gonna know it was you!" Yuji pleaded through the phone, sounding genuinely terrified for his own safety by association. "He’s gonna find out and he’s gonna lock us both out of the apartment!"

"Let him try," Nobara laughed wickedly. "This is what he gets for being a terrible friend," Nobara muttered, the tip of the pink glittery marker squeaking loudly against the tile as she began to write in her flawless, incredibly neat print. "Let’s see how his pristine, unbothered, academic aura handles a bunch of chaotic freshmen girls."

NEED A REALITY CHECK? TEXT THE MOST PESSIMISTIC MAN ON CAMPUS.

"Nobara, stop! I can literally hear the marker scratching the wall over the phone!" Yuji yelled, his voice cracking in a panic.

"Hold on, I'm customizing his bio," Nobara muttered, as she carefully penned down Megumi's exact ten-digit phone number from memory—because she had dialed it so many times this morning to yell at him. Beneath the numbers, she added a final touch of artistic flair:

(Warning: He hates fun. He will ruin your day. Proceed at your own risk.)

"Nobara, please tell me you aren't actually doing it," Yuji pleaded, though a snort of laughter escaped his nose. "If Megumi finds out, he's going to use his clinical biology knowledge to figure out exactly how to make our lives miserable. We live with the guy!"

"He won't find out because he never sets foot in the girls' bathroom," Nobara cackled, admiring her handiwork as the pink glitter caught the dim, buzzing fluorescent light of the basement. She capped the marker with a satisfying click and threw her head back. "And if he does get bombarded by random, chaotic texts from absolute strangers on this campus? Well, that’s just the universe balancing the scales for my anatomy midterm. Consider yourself marked, Fushiguro."

"You're a monster," Yuji whispered, though there was a hint of awe in his voice. "I’m deleting our call history. If Megumi asks, I was at the gym. I don't know you."

"Coward," Nobara smirked, tossing her bag over her shoulder and walking out of the restroom with her head held high. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy a coffee and find someone else to explain the Krebs cycle to me. Pray for Fushiguro’s inbox, Yuji. It’s about to get very, very bright."

"Oh my god," Miwa gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. "The glitter. It’s artistic philosophy! It’s a literal sign from the universe! Y/N, this is exactly what you were talking about on your show!"

Maki squinted at the handwriting, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses. She let out a sharp, amused hum. "Hold on. I know that handwriting. That's definitely Kugisaki's marker. She bought a whole pack of those glittery abominations this week to ruin Fushiguro’s biology notes." Maki’s smirk widened into something devious.

"No way," Miwa squealed, hopping on her toes and gripping your arm. "A campus pessimist? The universe is literally handing you a script on a silver platter! Y/N, this is it. This is your destiny. I am officially challenging you right now. You have to text it. No, wait, even better. Call it. Call it right now on speaker."

"Are you insane?!" you hissed, trying to pull away from her grip, though you were laughing. "I am a respectable radio host, I am not harassing a random stranger because of bathroom graffiti! What if it’s a professor? What if it’s a serial killer?"

"Coward," Maki baited smoothly, checking her nails. "Where’s that big 'Disney-worthy romance' energy you were just shouting into the microphone twenty minutes ago? 'Oh, I want a dramatic story to tell my children!'" Maki mocked your radio voice perfectly, dropping her tone into a hilarious, airy caricature. "Well, here’s your story. 'Kids, your father was a mysterious basement dweller whose number I stole from a library restroom sink.'"

"Maki, don't encourage her!" you cried, though your hand was already drifting toward your pocket.

"I double-dog dare you," Miwa pleaded, joining her hands together like a shrine maiden. "If you do it, I will format your entire structural functionalism ten-page essay. I will do the APA citations, Y/N. Every single one of them."

You stopped. You stared at Miwa. APA formatting was a literal demon straight from hell. The thought of not having to type out forty different italicized journal titles and hanging indents was tempting enough to make you commit a misdemeanor.

"A text and a call?" you asked, your voice wavering.

"A text first, to bait him, and then a call to see if he answers," Miwa bargained, nodding fiercely. "Come on, it's for the plot! The morning show needs content!"

You looked at the pink glittery marker. You looked at Maki, who was nodding with a wicked grin, and then at Miwa, who was practically vibrating.

With a dramatic sigh, you pulled your phone out of your pocket. "Fine. But if this turns out to be a total creep and I get hacked, you guys are paying for my premium cyber-security software."

You opened your messaging app, typed in the digits exactly as they were written in pink glitter, and took a deep breath. Your thumbs flew across the keyboard, tapping into your inner chaotic energy.

You: good morning, Mr. Pessimist! i hope you have an absolutely terrible, rainy day! ☀️✨

"Sent," you whispered, holding the screen up so they could see the green bubble bubble away into the cellular void.

You stared at the screen. One minute passed. Then two.

"Nothing," you shrugged, a wave of relief washing over you. "No typing bubbles. No read receipts. The pessimist is sleeping in."

"Oh my god, no, call him! Call him before he has time to look at the message!" Miwa squeaked, nudging your shoulder. "Maybe he ignores texts from unknown numbers!"

Before your logical brain could stop you, your thumb hovered over the phone icon and smashed it. You instantly hit the speakerphone button, holding the device out between the three of you like it was a live grenade.

Ring...

The sound echoed sharply against the restroom tiles. You held your breath, your heart hammering against your ribs.

Ring...

"He's gonna reject it," Maki whispered, her eyes glued to the glowing screen. "Nobody answers unknown numbers at eight in the morning unless they're expecting a package."

Ring...

“The mailbox belonging to (555) 777-nopuh is full and cannot accept new messages at this time. Goodbye.”

The mechanical automated voice cut through the speaker, followed by a sharp, monotone beep. The call disconnected automatically, dropping the bathroom right back into the low hum of the fluorescent lights.

Maki let out a loud, snorting laugh, leaning back against the wall. "Wow. A full voicemail box. That is peak antisocial behavior. He really is a pessimist."

"Aw, man!" Miwa pouted, her shoulders slumping. "Total radio silence? That’s so boring! I wanted high drama!"

"Hey, a dare is a dare," you said quickly, shoving your phone safely back into your tote bag before they could convince you to try again. You shot Miwa a triumphant, expectant grin. "I sent the text and I made the call. You still owe me those APA citations, Miwa."

"Fine, fine," Miwa grumbled, though she was already giggling again as she grabbed her coffee. "But if he ever texts you back, you have to read it live on air!"

"Deal," you laughed, completely relieved that the mystery number was a total dead end.

You bundled your things together and headed out of the restroom with your friends, totally unaware that across campus, a very specific, sleep-deprived audio engineer had his phone sitting face-down on a mixing console, entirely muted, with a single unread text notification glowing silently on the screen.

The heavy, soundproof door of the control booth didn't so much open as it despondently groaned, swinging wide to admit a thoroughly depleted Megumi Fushiguro. It was 4:15 in the afternoon. The campus was shrouded in a miserable, relentless drizzle, and Megumi had just survived a grueling, three-hour ecology seminar that had consisted entirely of analyzing spreadsheets on the reproductive cycles of local marsh ferns. His brain felt less like a functioning organ and more like a waterlogged sponge.

He slumped into his favorite squeaky swivel chair, dropping his thick leather binder onto the desk with a heavy, dead-air thud that caused a nearby stack of blank CDs to rattle. The afternoon automation track was currently broadcast-running a mindless, jangly indie-pop song (the exact kind of cheerful, mid-tempo garbage he actively despised before sundown) leaving him in a state of relative, uninterrupted isolation.

Pulling the hood of his oversized black sweatshirt lower over his face, Megumi sank down into his clothes, his dark, messy hair sticking out at chaotic angles. He rubbed his eyes and reached into his front pocket. His phone was practically vibrating with a backlog of unread notifications, almost entirely generated by a highly chaotic group chat containing Yuji and Nobara, a digital wasteland he had kept strictly on permanent mute since the second week of the semester.

However, sitting right at the very top of his lock screen, entirely separate from the group chat madness, was a solitary, glowing notification from an unsaved ten-digit number.

Megumi stared at it, his brow furrowing into a sharp, suspicious V. He unlocked the phone, his thumb tapping the message thread with a clinical sort of caution.

Unknown Number [8:16 AM]: good morning, Mr. Pessimist! i hope you have an absolutely terrible, rainy day! ☀️✨

Megumi froze. He blinked once. He blinked twice. His exhausted brain, still sluggishly processing the linguistic differences between varying species of freshwater moss, began to work through the data points of the text message with the meticulous precision of a forensic scientist.

Item one: "Mr. Pessimist." A highly specific, targeted insult.

Item two: The blinding, hyper-aggressive inclusion of a cartoon sunshine emoji.

Item three: The deliberate, cheerful wish for his morning to be a total disaster.

It took exactly three seconds for the pieces to slide into place. He didn’t even need to cross-reference the digital timestamp, but because he was a data-driven biology major, he checked it anyway. 8:16 AM. That was precisely nineteen minutes after his morning-show host, a girl who was practically a walking, talking sunbeam wrapped in a blur of pastel cardigans and unhinged energy, had bolted out of the studio door in a flurry of absolute panic. She had been shrieking at the top of her lungs about a Kato pop quiz, leaving behind a literal cloud of neon pink highlighter dust, dropped cue cards, and the faint scent of coconut perfume.

Then, his eyes drifted down to a separate missed alert from exactly two minutes after the text. A missed call. No voicemail left, mostly because he had intentionally let his inbox fill up to maximum capacity three semesters ago specifically so people would stop trying to leave him verbal messages.

"Unbelievable," Megumi muttered aloud to the empty, soundproofed room, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.

His silver lip piercing clicked sharply against his bottom teeth as he ran his tongue over the metal stud, a nervous, frustrating habit he only did when his brain was entirely overwhelmed by someone else's nonsense. Which was almost every single minute of the day.

He leaned his head back against the chair, staring at the ceiling tiles as a slow realization washed over him. He didn't need a detective license to map out the logistics of this crime. Nobara had clearly engineered this entire trap. And you—armed with an overwhelming amount of bubbly enthusiasm, a distinct lack of impulse control, and a loud, self-proclaimed yearning for a "Disney-worthy plotline"—had walked straight into the snare.

Megumi rolled his eyes, his tongue flicking out to trace the tiny silver hoop in his lip once more. His thumb automatically hovered over the block button. It was his standard operating procedure. Megumi’s phone was a strictly fortified ecosystem, reserved exclusively for family emergencies, delivery apps, and automated alerts from the biology department's greenhouse thermostat. He did not do anonymous banter. He did not engage with feral behavior.

But right as his thumb was about to press down and send the contact into the digital abyss, he paused.

He remembered the look on your face through the soundproof glass partition just eight hours ago when he had cut off your dramatic fairytale rant with a perfectly timed cricket sound effect. He remembered the absolute, theatrical shock in your eyes, the way you had gasped directly into the microphone, and how you had spent the next three minutes completely roasting his bad attitude to a live listening audience of four hundred bored students.

A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk tugged at the very corner of his mouth, sending a sharp, familiar pull through his lip piercing.

Megumi swiped away from the block option, pulling his hands into the cuffs of his black hoodie. If you were genuinely going to sit in a library basement restroom, stealing numbers in a desperate bid to force some sunshine into a stranger's life, it would be a massive disservice to WKJS quality control standards not to give you exactly what you asked for.

He tapped the text field, his fingers flying across the digital keyboard with sharp, rhythmic, highly aggressive thuds. He didn't use lowercase letters for aesthetic purposes, and he certainly didn't use emojis. He wrote with the stiff, unyielding authority of a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

You: The rain is a vital component of the local ecosystem. Your forced optimism is a hazard to public safety. Do not text this number again.

He stared at the screen for a brief second, ensuring the tone was sufficiently chilling, and hit send.

The text bubble turned green, shooting off into the cellular void. Instantly, Megumi flipped his phone completely face-down on the cold, brushed-metal surface of the mixing soundboard. He reached for his lukewarm, bitter black coffee, took a slow sip, and leaned his head back against the headrest, a small, glint of pure amusement finally breaking through his exhaustion.

The violent, glass-shattering shriek that erupted from the lower bunk of Room 304 was a sound usually reserved for lottery wins, pop star sightings, or a surprise syllabus cancellation.

Yuki Tsukumo didn't even flinch. As a fifth-year senior who had survived three roommate changes, two academic probations, and a brief stint as the rugby club’s unofficial mascot, she had developed a terrifyingly high threshold for drama. She merely held her liquid eyeliner wand perfectly still, drawing a flawless, lethal wing across her eyelid while you rolled frantically across your duvet like a human burrito, clutching your glowing phone to your chest as if it were a live explosive device.

"He replied! Yuki, oh my god, the bathroom phantom actually replied!" you screamed into your pillow, kicking your legs in the air so violently that your pastel blue bedding threatened to swallow you whole. "I’m crying, I’m screaming, I’m literally throwing up. Look at this! Look at the sheer, unadulterated clinical malice dripping from these words!"

Yuki capped her eyeliner with a loud, satisfying click and turned around, leaning her hip against the edge of her cluttered desk. She was already halfway zipped into a dangerously short black leather skirt, her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders in messy, effortless beach waves. She looked down at you with a mixture of seasoned amusement and maternal pity, a slow, knowing smirk spreading across her face.

"Alright, hand over the evidence, corporate radio," Yuki said, extending a manicured hand. "Let’s see what kind of basement-dwelling gremlin we're dealing with."

You scrambled up to a sitting position, your hair a chaotic, static-frizzy halo around your face, and thrust the phone into her face. "Read it out loud. Please. You need to capture the exact cadence of a man who clearly hasn't felt the warmth of the sun since Obama was in office."

Yuki squinted at the screen, clear green text bubble staring back at her. She cleared her throat, dropping her voice into a hilarious, stiff, monotone drone that sounded like a robotic text-to-speech narrator.

"The rain is a vital component of the local ecosystem. Your forced optimism is a hazard to public safety. Do not text this number again."

The room fell silent for a beat before Yuki let out a loud, bark of laughter, tossing your phone back onto the mattress. "Oh, wow. He gave you a peer-reviewed lecture on hydrology, babes. Who writes like this? Is your mysterious campus pessimist a literal Wikipedia article?"

"Right?!" you wailed, collapsing backward onto your giant stuffed frog. "It’s so intense! Look at the punctuation! He used a period at the end of every sentence, Yuki. A period! That is a digital death threat! Normal people use a keyboard smash or at least a passive-aggressive lowercase layout, but this guy? He wrote this text with his spine perfectly straight. I can feel the judgment radiating through the lithium battery."

You stared at the ceiling, suddenly struck by a wave of profound, existential panic. "But wait... what if he’s actually dangerous? What if he’s a deeply troubled biochemistry doctoral student who spends his weekends brewing neurotoxins in the basement labs? Or worse—what if he's just mean? Like, genuinely, aggressively miserable? I’m an agent of joy, Yuki! I wear glitter hair clips and listen to Lana Del Rey while romanticizing the campus bus schedule! If I engage with a man whose aura is a literal thunderstorm, our molecular structures might violently repel each other and cause a localized tear in the space-time continuum."

Yuki snorted, stepping into a pair of towering, platform ankle boots and stamping her feet down to settle her heels. She walked over to the mirror, grabbing a bottle of cherry-scented body spray and dousing herself in a cloud of artificial sweetness.

"First of all, you're doing that thing again where you talk like a dramatic theater major who just discovered coffee," Yuki said, checking her reflection from multiple angles. "Second of all, a localized tear in the space-time continuum is exactly what your tragic little love life needs. Have you seen the guys you usually talk to? Last month you cried over a finance major who thought the word 'facade' was pronounced 'fuh-kade.' The bar is in hell, sweetie."

"He had nice arms!" you defended weakly, burying your face in your hands.

"He thought Europe was a country, Y/N," Yuki countered smoothly, totally unfazed. She picked up a chunky silver chain necklace, fastening it around her neck with practiced ease. "Look at the facts. This bathroom guy didn't block you. If he was a true, clinical psycho who hated fun, he would have hit that little 'block report spam' button faster than you could say 'ecosystem.' But he didn't. He clicked the text box, typed out a three-sentence paragraph using his big-boy words, and hit send. That's not a rejection. That's engagement."

"It felt like a rejection," you mumbled through your fingers.

"It’s a challenge," Yuki corrected, pointing a lip gloss wand at you like a weapon. "He’s practically begging you to poke the bear. Think about the narrative arc! You’re the sunshine-infused morning-show host who treats the campus radio booth like a musical, and he’s the grumpy, rain-loving gargoyle sitting on a porcelain throne in the library basement. It’s peak cinema. It’s 2003 Hilary Duff gold."

She walked over to your bed, grabbing her tiny, uselessly small shoulder bag from the desk and checking for her ID and lip gloss. She looked down at you, her brown eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated.

"Look, I’ve got a pre-game at the Sigma Iota house in ten minutes, and I fully intend to watch three different freshmen try to do a keg stand and fail miserably," Yuki said, throwing her arm around your shoulder and giving you a rough, affectionate squeeze. "I cannot sit here and watch you overthink a text from a guy who probably uses a multi-step skincare routine just to look that brooding. You have a two-hour radio shift tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. What are you gonna talk about? The weather? The cafeteria's dry scrambled eggs?"

She patted your cheek sharply. "No. You are going to text him back something so wildly, unhinged-ly optimistic that his little brain short-circuits. Might as well get some plot for your morning show, babes. If he gets mad, read his texts live on air and let the freshman class roast him."

You blinked up at her, the gears in your brain suddenly shifting from terror to chaotic inspiration. If you played this right... the content would be legendary.

"You're a menace to society, Yuki," you whispered, a slow, dangerous smile finally breaking across your face.

"I'm a super senior," Yuki corrected cheerfully, blowing you a double-kiss as she unlocked the dorm door. "There’s a difference. Don't lock the top deadbolt, I'll probably be stumbling back around two. Happy hunting, Sunshine!"

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving you alone in the quiet dorm room. You looked down at your phone, the green text bubble practically daring you to strike back. You took a deep breath, cracked your knuckles, and let your thumbs fly across the screen, channeling the most hyperactive, unhinged energy you possessed.

You: wow, a biology lesson! 😍 standard rate for private tutoring is $20 an hour, but since you’re so passionate about moss, I’ll let it slide! happy rainy day, Mr. Plant Scientist! may your soil always be moist! 🌱🌧️✨🌈

You hit send with an aggressive snap of your thumb, threw the phone face-down on the bed, and let out a muffled, ecstatic shriek directly into your stuffed frog. The game was officially on.

Not even two minutes later, the lithium battery of your phone vibrated against your mattress with such sudden, aggressive force that it made your stuffed frog jump.

You lunged for it, nearly tumbling out of your lower bunk in the process, your eyes widening as you flipped the screen up. It had been exactly ninety seconds. Ninety seconds for a man who claimed to be "busy" to type out a response.

Mr. Pessimist: First of all, I am a Biology major, not a "plant scientist." Second of all, do not ever use the phrase "may your soil always be moist" in my inbox again. It is ecologically inaccurate and deeply uncomfortable.

You let out a loud, snorting cackle, burying your face in your duvet to stifle the noise so the girls in 305 wouldn't think you were having a medical emergency. He was taking the bait. He was taking the bait so hard he was practically swallowing the fishing rod. The absolute rigidity of his text—the fact that he actually listed points out as "first of all" and "second of all"—was the funniest thing you had ever witnessed in your nineteen years of life.

You cracked your knuckles and rubber your hands together like an evil fly, your thumbs practically vibrating with mischievous energy.

You: omg sorry Mr. Eco-Boy!! 🥺 mbb! i didn't mean to disrespect the dirt! but you didn't deny the private tutoring part... does this mean you're charging me or is the first lesson on marsh ferns free? asking for a friend (the friend is my sociology GPA) 📉🙏

You held the phone directly above your face, watching the screen like a hawk. The response was almost instantaneous. You could practically visualize his thumbs violently smashing into his screen.

Mr. Pessimist: I do not tutor. Especially not people who use declining graph emojis to describe their academic standing. Go to the university library. There is an entire building filled with books that do not require me to clear my notification center every two minutes. And I am entirely confused as to how a random sociology student obtained my personal number in the first place.

You: but the library basement smells like damp concrete and despair!! 😩 plus, some psycho wrote a phone number in pink glitter right next to the soap dispenser in the girls' bathroom. total safety hazard btw. I feel much safer getting my science facts via digital correspondence with a mysterious stranger. 🕵️‍♀️✨

Megumi stared at the screen, a cold sweat suddenly breaking out across the back of his neck.

The library basement. Girls' bathroom. Pink glitter marker.

His tongue violently flicked against his lip piercing. Kugisaki.

The pieces fell into place with agonizing clarity. This was her twisted, highly public retaliation because he had ditched her at the library a few days ago to fix a transmitter calibration error at the campus radio tower. She had literally texted him at 7 AM that morning threatening to stuff his body into a media lab printer, but he figured her rage would burn out after a few days. Instead, she had waited, bided her time, and turned a public restroom wall into a targeted assassination plot.

And of all the people to find her pink glittery handiwork, it had to be the most hyperactive, unhinged girl on the campus.

He let out a slow, irritated breath, shaking his head at his own tragic luck before furiously smashing his thumbs into the keyboard.

Mr. Pessimist: Whoever wrote that number is an illiterate criminal who clearly lacks the cognitive capacity to pass a basic general education requirement. Do not romanticize property damage. Delete this number.

You literally squealed, kicking your legs in the air. He was so mad! He was getting entirely, completely, beautifully worked up over a pink marker. You could practically hear the smoke coming out of his ears through the phone.

You: hey! don't talk about the pink glitter phantom like that! she’s an artist! a matchmaker! a visionary! thanks to her, I have a brand new pen pal to keep me company while my roommate is out doing keg stands at Sigma Iota. 💃🎉

You: anyway, Imma go watch euphoria and probably go to sleep so I don't look like a zombie for my 7:00 AM radio shift tomorrow. wouldn't want my "forced optimism" to ruin the morning airwaves! sweet dreams, Mr. Eco-Boy! don't let the marsh ferns bite! 🌿😴🌙

You waited, your heart fluttering with a weird, bubbly sense of victory. A moment later, the final text of the night popped up. It didn't have a single emoji, and the punctuation was, as expected, devastatingly formal.

Mr. Pessimist: I do not have sweet dreams. I sleep out of biological necessity. Go to sleep.

You smiled warmly, locking your phone and tucking it under your pillow. You couldn't wait to tell Maki and Miwa about your hilarious new text buddy tomorrow.

Meanwhile, back in the studio booth, Megumi slowly tossed his phone face-down on the cold metal surface of the console. He leaned his head back against the headrest, staring blankly at the soundproof glass partition that separated his dark cave from your colorful broadcast desk.

He knew your name. He knew your major. He knew exactly what time you were walking through that door tomorrow morning. And you had absolutely no idea that the "Mr. Eco-Boy" you were so happily ragebaiting was the exact same moody engineer who was going to be mixing your audio feed in less than twelve hours. Tomorrow morning's broadcast was going to be very, very interesting.

The heavy glass door of the WKJS broadcast studio didn't stand a chance against the sheer, caffeinated velocity of your entrance.

You burst into the hallway like a pastel-colored category five hurricane, your chunky platform sneakers squeaking loudly against the freshly buffed linoleum. In one hand, you were precariously balancing a tray holding a massive, extra-sweet iced strawberry matcha latte with a bright pink straw and a dangerously top-heavy cupcake wrapped in crinkling cellophane. In the other, you clutched an overstuffed tote bag bursting with neon sociology notebooks, stray highlighters, and a fuzzy hello kitty keychain that jangled with every single step you took. You were practically vibrating, completely impervious to the unholy, freezing morning drizzle that was currently making the rest of the campus look like a cinematic landscape of pure depression.

By contrast, the master control booth was a tomb.

The studio lights were dimmed to an almost subterranean low, leaving the room illuminated only by the sterile, colorful glow of the dual computer monitors and the green and red LED meters dancing rhythmically on the mixing console. Megumi Fushiguro sat dead center in his favorite squeaky swivel chair, looking like a dark, brooding gargoyle observing his kingdom. The hood of his oversized black sweatshirt was pulled completely up, throwing the top half of his face into shadow, save for the messy tufts of dark hair sticking out at defiant angles. He was wrapped in a dense aura of absolute, sleep-deprived silence, his long fingers wrapped around a single ceramic mug of black coffee that smelled strong enough to strip paint.

As the door clicked open, his silver lip piercing gave a sharp, metallic clink against his teeth. His tongue flicked out to trace the tiny metal hoop (a telltale sign that his internal radar had just detected an oncoming threat to his peace).

You were, by all measurable scientific metrics, a hazard to anyone running on less than eight hours of sleep.

And Megumi Fushiguro was running on exactly three and a half.

"Good morning, WKJS!" you chirped, slamming your massive neon green drink down onto the designated non-technical wooden side table with a loud, plastic clack. You threw yourself into the padded host chair across the glass partition, immediately spinning around in a full 360-degree circle just to shake the early morning chill from your bones. "Fushiguro! You are looking exceptionally gothic today. Is the dark hoodie an aesthetic choice, or are you just mourning the fact that the campus bookstore ran out of those clinical black ink pens you love so much?"

Megumi let out a low, gravelly rasp that sounded less like a human greeting and more like a car engine trying to turn over in a freezing blizzard. He reached out with a long, pale hand, his blunt fingers catching the master volume slider and aggressively shoving it down three decibels to drown out the upbeat indie-pop track currently running on the automation loop.

"Isn't the morning drizzle just absolutely exquisite today, Fushiguro? It’s giving peak independent cinema. It makes the entire campus look like a cinematic montage about a girl discovering her inner purpose while walking past the library."

"It’s seventy-four percent humidity," he muttered, his voice dropping into that smooth, clinical deadpan that always made you want to poke him with a stick just to see if his heart rate would go up. "It creates condensation on the transmitter cables and makes my job harder. There is no magic. Put your headphones on."

"Boo, come on, live a little!" You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the edge of the console, your eyes wide and sparkling with pure, unadulterated gossip energy. You tapped your fingernails against the foam casing of your microphone. "You need to align your chakras, Fushiguro. But honestly? Your terrible attitude actually reminds me exactly of something wild that happened last night. A literal cosmic alignment occurred in my life last night, and as my technical director, you are legally obligated to hear about it."

Megumi’s hand paused, his fingers hovering half an inch above the soundboard’s equalizer knobs. He kept his eyes locked on his computer screen, refusing to look at you through the soundproof glass. "If this is another story about Yuji trying to eat a frozen waffle without thawing it first, I’m cutting your mic before the intro track finishes."

"No! Way better," you gasped, throwing your hands up dramatically, the plastic bangles on your wrist clattering together. "Yesterday, after my horrific sociology lab, Maki, Miwa, and I were in the library restroom. You know, that restroom down by the old periodicals where it smells like damp concrete and academic failure? And someone—an actual genius, a visionary—wrote a phone number in bright pink glitter marker right next to the soap dispenser. A phone number, Fushiguro. And underneath it, the anonymous author had scribbled: 'Call for a terrible time. The most pessimistic man on campus.'"

Behind the glass, Megumi’s hand subtly tightened against the rubber casing of the volume slider. His eyelids fluttered, just for a fraction of a second, before his face reverted back to a perfectly blank, unreadable mask. He didn't look at his phone, which was currently sitting face-down on the metal desk next to his computer tower, but his jaw clenched tight enough that a small muscle ticked near his ear.

"Property damage," Megumi deadpanded through the intercom, his tone intentionally dropping into a flat, dismissive drone. "You texted a random number off a bathroom wall."

"I did! And Fushiguro, I swear to you, he is exactly like you. It’s uncanny," you squealed, leaning closer to the glass partition as if sharing a high-stakes secret. "I sent him a totally harmless, cheerful morning text, and he replied with this intense, three-sentence paragraph about how my optimism is a 'hazard to public safety' and told me to never text him again. He used proper punctuation, Fushiguro! In a text! He listed his complaints as 'first of all' and 'second of all'! I am not exaggerating, this man is an absolute icon of misery."

You leaned forward, your nose practically pressing against the soundproof glass partition as you grinned at him. "He sounds exactly like you!" you shrieked happily, letting out a loud, delighted laugh that bounced off the acoustic foam panels of the booth. "I swear, the second I read it, I gasped. I was like, oh my god, there are two of them. You two are twins separated at birth by a dark cloud. Honestly, if you met this guy, you'd get along so well. You could sit in a dark room together, wear matching black hoodies, drink bitter sludge, and complain about the sunshine. You'd be best friends!"

Megumi stared directly at you through the glass. For a long, agonizingly quiet five seconds, the only sound in the studio was the faint, muffled bass of the indie-pop automation track playing through the master monitors.

Slowly, Megumi's tongue flicked out again, tracing the tiny silver loop in his bottom lip. A very small, dark, and utterly wicked smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, hidden mostly by the shadow of his hood, but his green eyes gleamed with an absolute, terrifying sense of victory. You had no idea. You were sitting there, completely oblivious to the fact that the "bathroom ghost" was currently staring right back at you, controlling your microphone feed.

"Is that so?" Megumi murmured into the talkback mic, his voice dropping into a smooth, dangerously amused cadence. "You think we'd get along."

"Absolutely!" you cheered, reaching for your headphones. "I'm actually gonna talk about him on air today during the seven-fifteen Love and Romance block. Yuki told me I should make the most of the plot!"

Megumi smoothly reached up with both hands, gripping his large, professional studio headphones and sliding them over his ears. He adjusted his microphone levels on the digital screen, his long fingers executing a flawless cue sequence.

"The automation track is ending in thirty seconds," Megumi announced calmly, his finger hovering over the bright red button that would throw your mic line live to the entire campus. His smirk widened just a fraction. "Get your cue cards ready, Sunshine. Let's see how much 'plot' you can actually handle."

The bright red ON AIR light above the soundproof glass partition suddenly snapped to life, casting a stark, crimson glow across the mixing console. Megumi’s hand was steady on the master fader as he smoothly transitioned out of the morning's automation track. Through your headphones, a crisp, electronic chime signaled that the airwaves were officially yours.

You sat up straight, pulling your microphone a fraction of an inch closer to your lips, your face lighting up with that signature, thousand-watt morning-show energy.

"Good morning, campus! It is exactly 7:00 AM on a beautiful, misty Friday, and you are listening to WKJS, the heartbeat of the university," you introed, your voice floating effortlessly through the radio waves, bright enough to wake up even the most miserable students dragging themselves to early lectures. "I hope you’ve got your coffee ready, because we have a chaotic lineup for you today. But first—can we please talk about the absolute champions over at the athletic department? The Jujutsu Crows really rock!"

Behind the glass, Megumi didn't move, but his dark eyes slowly drifted up from his audio levels to look at you.

"Our boys absolutely crushed the regional qualifiers yesterday," you continued enthusiastically, throwing a triumphant fist into the air. "And with that defense line? The Crows are totally gonna win the big game next week. If you see Yuji Itadori on the quad today, make sure to high-five him, because he basically carried that fourth quarter on his back. You’re amazing, Crows!"

Through the glass, Megumi’s finger tapped rhythmically against his ceramic mug. He loved Yuji like a brother, but hearing his teammate's chaotic athletic exploits romanticized as poetry on the morning airwaves made his silver lip piercing click against his teeth in silent amusement.

"Alright, before we get to our main segment this morning, let’s clear out the anonymous university confession box," you said, shuffling a few printed sheets of paper on your desk. "I pulled three submissions from the digital locker this morning, and you guys are truly losing your minds as finals week approaches. Let's look at confession number one: 'To the guy who left a full container of garlic parm fries in the library study lounge on Tuesday... I ate them. I don't know who you are, but the stress of macroeconomics made me do it. I'm sorry.' Wow. Honestly? Valid. Macroeconomics will drive a person to commit petty theft, I support you."

A faint snort echoed faintly through your headphones. Megumi’s talkback mic was muted, but his sheer disbelief at your logic practically bled through the glass partition.

"Confession number two," you laughed, moving to the next slip. 'I accidentally joined a Zoom lecture for a senior-level advanced biochemistry class thinking it was my intro-to-theater elective. I stayed for forty-five minutes because I was too embarrassed to leave, and now I'm pretty sure I know how to synthesize a pesticide.' Please don't do that. We don't need a supervillain origin story on campus."

"And finally, confession number three: 'I have a massive crush on the girl who wears the giant frog backpack in the engineering building, but today I saw her aggressively fighting a vending machine because her Pop-Tarts got stuck. Should I still ask her out?' Um, absolutely yes! A girl who fights for her pastries is a girl with passion. Do it, anonymous listener!"

You set the papers down, taking a quick, ecstatic sip of your iced matcha latte before leaning back into the mic.

"Speaking of sweet treats, if you are walking across the quad right now, you need to stop what you are doing and head directly to the student union plaza. The cooking club has set up a free cupcake stand this morning! I stopped by on my way to the studio, and let me tell you, the strawberry shortcake one is to die for. It has real strawberry compote in the middle, guys. It is literal heaven in a paper cup. Go support them!"

You paused, leaning back to shuffle through your notes, your smile turning distinctly mischievous as you transitioned to the next official segment of your broadcast block.

"Alright, it's seventy-fifteen, which means it’s time to open up our weekly Love and Romance column," you announced, hitting the soundboard button to cue a soft, smooth R&B background track that Megumi immediately adjusted down so it didn't drown out your voice. "Usually, we read advice requests about unrequited campus crushes or bad Tinder dates. And today, we actually have a highly intriguing anonymous submission from a girl who found herself in a very... unconventional situationship."

You cleared your throat, lifting the paper. "Dear WKJS, I think I am developing feelings for a ghost. Long story short, my friends dared me to text a number we found written in the library basement bathroom. The graffiti promised 'the most pessimistic man on campus.' I expected a total dead end, or maybe a prank, but he actually replied. The problem is, he is the most stubborn, dry, and aggressively negative person I have ever encountered. He gets mad at everything I say, hates emojis, and talks like a living textbook. But for some reason, I can't stop thinking about him. He's totally mysterious, but part of me just wants to crack his shell and cheer him up. Am I crazy, or is there something romantic about a man who refuses to smile?"

Behind the glass, Megumi's hand froze mid-air. His posture went completely rigid.

His dark eyes snapped up, staring at the printed paper in your hands, and then slowly drifted up to lock onto your face.

An anonymous submission. You had written a fake advice letter about him, to your own radio show, entirely oblivious to the fact that he was the one running the audio tracking.

"Now, to our anonymous listener—who I totally don't know, but deeply resonate with," you said into the microphone, a huge, teasing grin breaking across your face as you looked directly at Megumi through the glass window, entirely unaware of the cosmic trap you had stepped into. "I don't think you're crazy at all! Honestly, I think the universe threw this bathroom ghost into your life for a reason. Some guys are just built like thunderstorms, you know? They stay cooped up in their dark little caves, hating the sun and complaining about the rain, but deep down, they just need an agent of total joy to disrupt their ecosystem."

Megumi slowly reached over, his long fingers hitting the master talkback button on his console so his low, gravelly voice cut directly into your headphones, overriding the smooth R&B background track.

"The library basement is a public facility, not a match-making service," Megumi deadpanned through the mic line, his tone dropping into a dangerous, quietly amused register. "And your anonymous listener sounds like an absolute menace who doesn't understand boundaries. If a man tells you his soil needs to be dry, you should leave his dirt alone."

You gasped on air, pointing a dramatic finger at him through the glass partition. "Listeners, my technical director is once again siding with the forces of darkness! Fushiguro, you're just projecting because you also hate fun. But I stand by my advice! To our lovely anonymous writer: do not give up on your pessimistic phantom. Keep sending him sunshine emojis. Keep poking the bear. He might act like he wants you to delete his number, but trust me, deep down underneath all that gloomy science logic, he is totally secretly enjoying the attention."

Through your headphones, you heard the distinct, sharp sound of Megumi's silver piercing clicking against his teeth over the open monitor. He leaned back in his swivel chair, a slow, wicked, and entirely private smirk pulling at his lips as he looked at your bright, completely clueless face.

"Alright, before we completely dive into the psychological analysis of our mysterious, rain-loving bathroom ghost," you said, leaning back into the microphone with a bright chuckle, "let’s look at the second letter in the Love and Romance inbox this morning. Because, campus, the drama is absolutely flowing in the Greek system this week. This one is titled: 'Help, I accidentally consumed the forbidden fruit.'"

Behind the glass, Megumi rolled his eyes, his long fingers resting loosely on the audio faders as he prepared himself for the inevitable onslaught of classic student union chaos.

You adjusted your headset, clearing your throat to give the letter the proper, dramatic reading it deserved.

"The anonymous writer writes: 'Dear WKJS, I am currently hiding under my duvet eating dry cereal because I am freaking out. Last night, I went to the Sigma Iota mixer. I was fully planning on just drinking lukewarm jungle juice and judging everyone's outfits, but then I got into a three-hour debate about the cinematic integrity of Shrek 2 with the Vice President of the fraternity. One thing led to another, we ended up on the balcony, and... we totally made out. Like, heavily. For twenty minutes.'"

You gasped directly into the microphone, adding a theatrical hand to your chest. "First of all, Shrek 2 is a cinematic masterpiece, so the tension is completely understandable. But let's continue. 'The problem is, he’s the Vice President of Sigma Iota. He is six-foot-three, has a literal mane of white hair, wears expensive sunglasses indoors at night, and his entire personality is based on the fact that he's a genius who doesn't have to study. I don't even know if I actually like him or if his sheer, blinding audacity just short-circuited my brain cells. Now he’s texting me asking if I want to grab expensive pastries and talk about 'our infinite vibe.' Am I legally required to change my name and transfer to a different university, or do I actually have to go on a date with a guy who unironically refers to himself as 'The Strongest'?'"

You burst out laughing, dropping the paper onto your desk and looking straight through the soundproof glass partition at Megumi, hoping to catch even a sliver of a reaction.

"Okay, anonymous writer," you giggled into the mic, "first of all, do not transfer schools yet. Pastries are a high-stakes environment, but wow. Making out with the VP of Sigma Iota over a DreamWorks sequel? That is a very specific type of campus crisis."

Behind the glass, Megumi’s his entire soul seemed to momentarily leave his body.

His hand clamped down on the edge of the mixing soundboard, his knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white. His head snapped up, his dark eyes wide with a mixture of profound horror, absolute disgust, and deep, existential exhaustion.

He knew that white hair.

It was Gojo Satoru. His absolute nightmare of an upperclassman, the chaotic president-adjacent menace who lived to make Megumi's life miserable.

Megumi aggressively slammed his hand down on the talkback button, his low, gravelly voice cutting into your headphones with the force of a tectonic shift. It was completely stripped of his usual clinical detachment. He sounded like a man who had just witnessed a crime against humanity.

"Tell her to run," Megumi commanded into your ears, his voice deadpan but vibrating with pure, unadulterated urgency. "Tell her to block the number, delete her social media, change her identity, and move to a different continent. Immediately."

"Fushiguro, stop being so dramatic!" you chastised him on air, throwing your hands up and giggling at his intense reaction. "He sounds gorgeous! A tall, white-haired fraternity VP who likes Shrek 2 and buys expensive sweets? That's literally a romance novel trope!"

"It's a psychological horror film," Megumi countered smoothly, his teeth practically grinding against his lip piercing as he forced his voice back into a flat, monotone drone. "My professional medical advice to the listener is to burn the clothes she wore to that mixer, file a restraining order for her own sanity, and stay at least five hundred feet away from anyone who unironically uses the word 'infinite' to describe a conversation about an ogre. He is an apex predator of pure, concentrated annoying energy."

"Do not listen to him, campus!" you shrieked happily, pointing a finger at the glass window, completely oblivious to his deep personal trauma. "He is a cynical robot who doesn't believe in the magic of a chaotic mistake! To our anonymous listener: go on the pastry date. Let him pay for a fifty-dollar croissant. If he tries to explain the physics of his 'infinite vibe,' then you can climb out of the bakery bathroom window and run for your life. Live a little! Embrace the plot!"

Through the monitors, you heard Megumi let out a long, defeated, deeply pained sigh. The auditory equivalent of a man watching his life flash before his eyes. He checked the master digital clock on his screen, his long fingers smoothly gripping the commercial break fader, eager to cut your mic before Gojo somehow heard the broadcast.

"We're cutting to a four-minute music block before I lose my mind," Megumi announced into your ears, his eyes locking onto yours through the partition with a look of pure, protective exhaustion. The silver stud in his lip caught the neon light, gleaming as he gave you one final, warning look. "Take a sip of your liquid sugar, Y/N. Your microphone is going cold."

The bright red ON AIR light finally died, plunging the studio back into the calm, muted blue glow of the digital monitors. Through your headphones, the upbeat opening chords of a Lana Del Rey track began to play, signaling that the campus was officially listening to the music block and your microphone was safely dead.

You immediately ripped the headphones off your ears, letting them drop around your neck, and practically vaulted over your broadcast desk. You lunged toward the double-paned soundproof glass, pressing your hands and your nose directly against the smooth pane like an overexcited golden retriever puppy watching a closed door.

"Fushiguro! Flip the intercom back on! Flip it on right now!" you demanded, your muffled voice vibrating through the glass until Megumi, with a slow, agonizingly deliberate sigh, reached over and tapped the talkback switch.

"I can hear you fine without you smudging the glass, Y/N," his gravelly voice echoed into the empty studio room. He was leaning back in his squeaky swivel chair, his large black hoodie swallowing most of his frame, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Did you hear her letter? Did you hear my analysis?" you giddily squealed, completely ignoring his grumpy posture. You bounced on the balls of your feet, your lavender knit sweater slipping further off your shoulder. "I am literally a romantic genius. I gave her the absolute best advice. If the bathroom phantom was listening right now—which, oh my god, what if he is? What if he has a 7:00 AM lab and he had WKJS playing in the background while he was dissecting a frog or whatever it is you science nerds do?!?—he is probably completely melting inside. He’s probably realizing his cold, clinical exterior is no match for me!"

Megumi stared at you through the glass. The sheer, blinding irony of the situation was almost enough to make him crack a smile, but he forced his features to remain completely flat, entirely unreadable. He reached into his front pocket, his long fingers wrapping around his phone, which was still sitting face-down. He didn't pick it up, but his thumb brushed the edge of the casing.

"First of all he isn't melting," Megumi deadpanned, his voice cutting through the intercom with a chilling, clinical certainty. " Second of all, nobody dissects frogs at seven in the morning, but if he is, he's listening to a low-frequency ambient drone track to keep his brain from bleeding, not your morning show. And he definitely isn't realizing anything other than the fact that you have an alarming amount of free time."

"Ugh, you are a literal black hole of joy!" you groaned, sliding dramatically down the glass until your chin was resting on the ledge. "You have no sense of whimsy. None! I bet you he was listening. And honestly? I hope he's shaking in his little boots. I want him to know that his forced pessimism is no match for me. I am going to break him, Megumi. By the end of this semester, I’m going to make that man text me a smiley face emoji if it’s the last thing I do." His jaw clenched, a tiny muscle feathering near his ear as he realized you were genuinely planning a secondary text message attack. He looked down at the mixing console, his fingers drumming a quiet, tense beat against the brushed metal.

"Don't text him," Megumi muttered, his tone dropping into a slightly sharper, more authoritative register. "You're on the clock. You need to focus on the next broadcast log, not harassing random engineering students."

"He's a Biology major, Fushiguro, get it right!" you corrected triumphantly, throwing your hands in the air. "And it's not harassment, it's destiny! I can feel it in my bones. By the end of this semester, I’m going to make that grumpy bathroom ghost smile. It is my official university mission."

Through the glass, Megumi let out a low, rough huff of air that was dangerously close to a laugh, though he successfully masked it by taking a slow, deep sip of his lukewarm black coffee. He looked up at you through the rim of his mug, his eyes gleaming with a wicked, deeply private amusement that you completely misread as pure annoyance.

"Good luck with that, Sunshine," Megumi murmured into the talkback mic, a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk finally tugging at his silver hoop. "The music track has two minutes left. Sit down and put your headphones back on before I lock you out of the feed."

The bright red ON AIR light flashed back to life, and the upbeat commercial jingle vanished from your headphones, replaced by the soft, ambient lo-fi track Megumi had cued up for the background.

You sat up straight, flashing a wide, bright grin at the empty studio room as if the entire campus could see you.

"And we are back, WKJS!" you cheered into the microphone, tossing a quick, triumphant look through the glass at Megumi. He was sitting back in his chair, his oversized black hoodie pulled low, his face completely masked in his usual brooding indifference. "You’re listening to the morning rush, and we are closing out our Love and Romance block with a prompt I put out a couple of weeks ago. I asked you guys to submit your absolute, undisputed, 100% ideal perfect date. And let me tell you, the student body is a wild mix of hopeless romantics and people who clearly need to touch grass."

You giggled, shuffling the printed slips of paper on your desk. Behind the glass, Megumi took a slow, casual sip of his coffee.

"Let's look at response number one," you read enthusiastically. "'My perfect date is getting a twenty-piece chicken nugget bucket, driving to the highest point of the campus parking garage at midnight, and screaming lyrics to Taylor Swift until the campus security guards chase us away.' Honestly? Iconic. A classic freshman bonding experience. Ten out of ten."

"Response number two," you moved to the next slip, grinning. "'An all-expense-paid trip to Paris where he proposes under the Eiffel Tower while a violinist plays in the background.' Okay, a bit cliché, but we love a traditionalist! Shoot your shots, guys."

Then, you pulled the final slip from the bottom of the pile. As your eyes scanned the stark, typed text, your voice suddenly faltered. You blinked, staring at the paper. The formatting was noticeably different from the others. There were no exclamation points. No slang. It was written with the absolute, unyielding structural rigidity of a legal document.

You pulled the mic a little closer, your tone shifting from hyperactive to completely captivated.

"Okay, wow. Listen to this one, campus," you murmured into the microphone. "'A perfect date doesn't require performance or forced social expectations. It would involve a quiet, overcast afternoon. A completely empty botanical conservatory or greenhouse during the off-hours, specifically during a light drizzle so the sound of rain hits the glass roof. No small talk. Just walking through the tropical fern exhibits in silence, followed by two black coffees from a local café that doesn't play acoustic pop music. Then, returning home to read separate books on opposite ends of the same couch without feeling the need to fill the silence.'"

The studio fell completely quiet for a beat, save for the soft lo-fi beat.

You gasped dramatically, your eyes flying wide as you slapped a hand over your heart. You bolted upright in your swivel chair, pointing a trembling, ecstatic finger directly at your microphone.

"Oh my god," you shrieked happily, your voice vibrating through the campus airwaves. "Campus! Are you hearing this?! Look at the data! Overcast afternoon? Botanical greenhouse? Tropical ferns?! Two black coffees?! It’s him! It is literally him! Whoever submitted this two weeks ago... OMG, he's the bathroom ghost!"

Behind the double-paned soundproof glass, Megumi Fushiguro violently choked on his black coffee.

A harsh, ragged cough erupted from his throat as he slammed his mug down onto the desk, spilling a dark puddle across the brushed-metal soundboard. His entire face went completely rigid with horror, a dark, furious blush instantly rushing up his neck and burning into the tips of his ears. His tongue frantically flicked out, his silver lip piercing clicking violently against his teeth as his brain completely short-circuited.

He had entirely forgotten about that. Three weeks ago, during a brutal, five-hour midnight automation shift where he was dying of pure boredom, he had pettily cleared out the station's digital inbox and filled out your stupid romance prompt under a burner IP address just to prove that "perfect dates" were scientifically inefficient.

And now, you were reading it live to four hundred students.

"I am not kidding, listeners!" you squealed into the mic, completely oblivious to the absolute medical emergency happening three feet away from you in the tech booth. "The syntax is identical! The sheer, unadulterated hostility toward acoustic pop music?! The obsession with ferns?! It’s a genetic match! The bathroom phantom actually submitted his soul to my inbox weeks before I even found his number! He’s a regular listener! He's a tsundere!"

Megumi aggressively slammed his hand down on the master intercom button, his low, gravelly voice cutting into your headphones like a razor blade, completely stripping away his usual calm demeanor.

"It's a generic submission," Megumi growled into your ears, his eyes wide and wild as he glared at you through the glass. "Greenhouses are common university facilities. Plenty of people drink black coffee. You are experiencing confirmation bias. Turn off your microphone."

"Never! The truth must be broadcasted!" you yelled back, turning your face directly to the glass, laughing so hard tears were pricking your eyes. "Look at my technical director, campus! He's absolutely furious on behalf of the ghost! Fushiguro, admit it! You know I'm right! My bathroom phantom is a secret romantic who wants to read books on a couch in total silence! It's the ultimate plot twist!"

Megumi didn't say another word. His teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached. With a sharp, decisive flick of his wrist, he grabbed the master fader and violently shoved it down to zero, cutting your microphone line completely dead in the middle of your triumphant rant.

He hit a button, throwing the station into an immediate, un-scheduled five-minute commercial block for a local textbook buyback program.

He ripped his heavy studio headphones off his ears, tossing them onto the console with a loud clack, and leaned his head back against his headrest, staring at the ceiling tiles as he tried to stop his face from burning. His hand drifted to his pocket, his fingers tightly clamping around his phone.

Through the glass, you were laughing hysterically, giving him a double-thumbs up and mouthing the words 'He's a romantic!'

Megumi closed his eyes, his tongue slowly tracing his silver piercing in pure, defeated ragebait. He was going to absolutely destroy Nobara for putting his number on the wall.

The heavy soundproof door to the tech booth creaked open with a soft, pneumatic hiss. You stepped into Megumi’s darkened sanctuary, the soft neon blues and greens of the audio meters casting long, colorful shadows across the cramped space. The air in here was different. Cooler, smelling faintly of heated electronics, his cologne, and the rich, bitter scent of his spilled dark roast.

Megumi was still slumped back in his high-backed swivel chair, his long legs stretched out under the desk, his hands shoved so deep into the front pocket of his charcoal hoodie that the fabric was pulled taut. His head was tilted back against the headrest, his dark, unruly spikes framing a face that was currently radiating enough heat to melt winter frost. The flush had spread from the tips of his ears all the way down to his collarbone, turning his usually pale skin a violent, brilliant shade of crimson.

You didn't say a word at first. You just walked over, your chunky lavender sweater swishing softly against your jeans, a small, incredibly tender smile playing on your lips.

Before he could even register your movement, you leaned over his chair. With a gentle, deliberate motion, you took your half-empty iced matcha latte—condensation dripping down the plastic cup like morning dew, and pressed the freezing-cold plastic directly against his left cheek.

Megumi flinched violently, a low, strangled gasp catching in his throat as his eyes flew wide. He looked up at you, his pupils dilated in pure, unadulterated panic.

"Wh—what are you—!?" he stammered, his voice cracking slightly on the first syllable. He tried to pull away, but the back of his chair blocked his escape, leaving him completely trapped between the cold plastic of your cup and the overwhelming, coconut-scented proximity of your smile.

"Shh, hold still," you murmured softly, your voice dropping its high-energy radio cadence for a tone that was sweet, quiet, and incredibly grounding. You adjusted the cup, letting the icy condensation soothe the burning heat of his skin. "Your face is literally smoking, Fushiguro. I'm performing emergency medical intervention. If your brain overheats, who's going to mix my audio feed for the eight o'clock block?"

"I—I am not overheating," he lied through his teeth, though the sheer velocity of his stutter betrayed him completely. He reached up, his long, pale fingers wrapping around your wrist to gently push the cup away, but his grip was entirely devoid of its usual firm authority. His hand was trembling, just a fraction, his warm skin contrasting sharply with your cold wrist. "It's just—the ventilation in here is terrible. The equipment generates too much thermal—thermal output. It’s a mechanical issue."

"Uh-huh. A mechanical issue," you teased gently, not pulling your hand away. Instead, you leaned a little closer, your eyes crinkling at the corners as you looked down at him. "Is that why your lip piercing is practically vibrating, Mr. Technical Director? You look like you just got caught stealing from the student union vault."

Megumi’s tongue darted out, a desperate, frantic reflex as it clicked sharply against the silver hoop in his bottom lip. He swallowed hard, his green eyes darting everywhere but your face—tracking the digital clock, the volume sliders, the smudge on the glass partition—absolutely anywhere to avoid the soft, affectionate gaze you were leveling at him.

"The—the submission," he began, his voice dropping into a hurried, defensive tumble of words. "The submission you read... it wasn't—I mean, it’s not what you think. It was three weeks ago. I was... it was a statistical analysis. I was bored. Yuji and Kugisaki wouldn't stop talking about some brainless reality dating show in the lounge, and I wanted to prove a point. I wanted to create a baseline for an objectively efficient, low-stimulation environment to demonstrate that modern romantic constructs are—are fundamentally flawed and over-marketed."

He took a sharp, shallow breath, his knuckles turning white where they still loosely held your wrist.

"It wasn't... I didn't write it because I was yearning or whatever unhinged word you’re going to use on the air. It was a joke. A scientific joke. The fact that your 'bathroom ghost' writes similarly is just a—a statistical anomaly. A coincidence. A highly irritating, statistically improbable coincidence."

You let out a soft, melodic laugh that seemed to echo beautifully in the cramped booth. Slowly, you set the matcha cup down on a clean corner of the desk, freeing your hand so you could gently pat his shoulder.

"Megumi," you said softly, using his first name for the first time all morning.

The sound of it made him freeze entirely. His head snapped toward you, his eyes wide and vulnerable, the defensive rambling instantly dying in his throat.

"It’s okay," you whispered, leaning in just enough that your oversized sleeve brushed against the fabric of his hoodie. "You don't have to explain it away. Honestly? It was the most beautiful thing I’ve read all week. Whoever wrote it—whether it’s some random guy or a grumpy, brilliant audio engineer who secretly likes quiet greenhouses—has a really lovely soul. There's nothing inefficient about wanting to read books on a couch with someone in total silence. It’s actually really sweet."

Megumi stared up at you, his breath hitching. The sheer, unshielded sincerity in your eyes was far more dangerous than any of your high-energy ragebait. The flush on his cheeks deepened, if that was even biologically possible, burning a furious dark pink as his defenses completely crumbled into dust. He looked entirely defenseless, sitting there under his dark hood, his lips parted slightly, utterly speechless.

"Now," you said, giving his shoulder one last, affectionate squeeze before straightening up and pointing toward the master console. "The textbook buyback commercial has exactly forty seconds left. Clean up your spilled coffee, Mr. Scientist. We have a show to finish."

You spun around and walked back through the soundproof door, your lavender sweater swirling around you as you slipped back into your broadcast chair and put your headphones back on.

Behind the glass, Megumi sat frozen for five full seconds. Slowly, he lifted a hand, his long fingers pressing against the cheek where your cold cup had just been, feeling the lingering coolness against his burning skin. He looked out at you, watching you arrange your notes with a bright, happy hum, totally unaware that youhad just completely conquered the most pessimistic man on campus without even trying.

Your free heaven. Your sanctuary. The only forty-eight hours of the week where you were legally, spiritually allowed to turn your brain into absolute mush, ignore your sociology reading, and completely forget about the giant workload currently sprinting after your ass for next week.

Was. A. Total. DISASTER.

At exactly 11:47 PM on Saturday night, you were happily tucked into your lower bunk, halfway through a bag of sour gummy worms and deep into a mindless TikTok scroll, when your phone violently vibrated against your mattress.

Miwa: Y/N I AM SO SORRY OH MY GOD PLEASE DONT HATE ME 😭😭😭😭😭

Miwa: my laptop just did the blue screen of death. full on Error 404. everything is gone. I couldn't finish ur ten-page sociology research essay. 📉💔

Miwa: I know the rough draft is due Monday morning at 8 AM. I am soooo sorry, I'll treat you to all-you-can-eat sushi next weekend when my allowance comes in I swear!!! 🍣🙏😭

You stared at the screen, a sour gummy worm dangling limply from your mouth. The universe hadn't just rained on your parade, it had flooded the entire stadium, struck the bleachers with lightning, and drowned the mascot. Ten pages. On a Saturday night. From scratch. Due in less than thirty-six hours.

Exactly twenty minutes later, you were trudging across the pitch-black campus quad like a literal zombie, wrapped in a giant blanket scarf that made you look like a disgruntled burrito, your laptop shoved into your tote bag, and your teeth chattering against the brisk 1:00 AM air. Your only saving grace was that the university library basement was technically open twenty-four hours for exam season.

You pushed through the heavy glass doors of the library, the sterile, blinding fluorescent lights stinging your sleep-deprived eyes. The main floors were dead quiet, but as you descended the concrete stairs into the notorious basement (the very same basement where the pink glitter graffiti lived) the smell of damp concrete, old microfiche, and academic despair hit you like a physical wall.

You scanned the cavernous room, looking for an empty cubicle with a working outlet. The place was practically a graveyard of exhausted students sleeping face-down on open textbooks. But then, your eyes locked onto a secluded table tucked away in the back corner, right beneath a humming ventilation shaft.

Sitting there, surrounded by a fortress of massive, leather-bound science textbooks and a stack of colorful cue cards, was Megumi Fushiguro.

He wasn't wearing his usual armor of a dark, oversized hoodie today. Instead, he was wearing a heavy, cable-knit navy blue sweater that fit him entirely too well, emphasizing the broad slope of his shoulders. But what truly made your fried brain halt mid-thought were his sleeves. He had them rolled up tightly to his elbows, exposing his forearms.

You stood frozen for a fraction of a second, your laptop bag heavy in your hand, as your eyes locked onto the sharp line of his wrists, the faint, prominent blueprint of veins tracing down his pale skin, and the lean, functional muscle moving under his skin as he wrote.

Holy hell, you thought, a sudden, traitorous spike of heat hitting your cheeks despite the freezing library air. Since when did the grumpy audio engineer have arms that were so.. hot?

He looked incredibly, devastatingly attractive, his long fingers furiously scribbling notes in a legal pad with a clinical black ink pen, his silver lip piercing clicking sharply against his teeth as he muttered something to himself. A tall, completely empty thermos of black coffee sat beside his laptop.

"Fushiguro?" you whispered loudly, stumbling over to his table like a ghost.

Megumi’s pen instantly froze mid-line. He didn't blink. For a second, he looked like he was praying to whatever deity ruled over the Biology department to make you a sleep-deprived hallucination. Slowly, his head turned, his green eyes locking onto your disheveled, blanket-wrapped form.

His tongue darted out, tracing the silver hoop in his bottom lip as a look of profound, exhausted disbelief washed over his face.

"It is one o'clock on a Sunday morning," Megumi deadpanded, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that perfectly matched the quiet of the basement. "Why are you here? Are you doing a midnight broadcast I wasn't informed about?"

"My life is over, Megumi," you whined softly, collapsing into the plastic chair right across from him and dumping your tote bag onto the desk with a heavy, metallic thud. You tried very hard to focus on his face and not on the flex of his forearm as he shifted his books to make room for you. "Miwa's laptop blew up. Error 404. My sociology draft—the one she offered to do if i comply to her bet, mind you—is completely gone into the digital void. I have to rewrite ten pages by Monday or my GPA is going to bury itself deeper than this basement."

Megumi stared at you, his eyes tracking the way you buried your face in your hands. A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch of amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth, though he quickly masked it by picking up a cue card.

"That is unfortunate," he murmured, his tone dropping back into his usual clinical, monotone drone. "But this is a quiet study zone. Some of us are actually trying to utilize our biological necessity for memory retention."

"What are you even doing here anyway?" you pouted, peeking through your fingers at his massive stack of notes, your eyes accidentally lingering on his rolled-up sleeves again. "It's the weekend! You're supposed to be sleeping out of biological necessity, remember? Not sitting under a vent looking like a..." You caught yourself before you said a model, clearing your throat quickly. "...like a nerd."

Megumi’s ears turned a very faint, sudden shade of pink, clearly a lingering reflex from your morning stunt on the air the other day, but he cleared his throat aggressively, tapping his pen against the desk.

"Professor Okamoto announced a surprise flash quiz for advanced plant taxonomy on Monday morning," he muttered, his fingers tightly spinning the pen. "The curriculum covers forty-two different species of local marsh ferns and their root structures. I am currently on species twenty-eight. I don't have time for your sociology crisis."

You froze. Your hands slowly dropped from your face.

Marsh ferns.

You stared at him, your brain, though completely fried by exhaustion, suddenly flashing back to the anonymous text message from 'Mr. Pessimist' currently sitting in your phone inbox. '...does this mean the first lesson on marsh ferns is free?'

A wild, dangerous spark of energy instantly reignited in your chest, completely overriding your sudden crush on his forearms. You leaned far across the table, your eyes narrowing as a massive, teasing, and intensely playful grin broke across your face.

"Marsh ferns, huh?" you whispered, your voice dripping with sudden, heavy suspicion. "Wow, Fushiguro. That is a very specific type of plant. You know... my bathroom ghost friend also happens to be a massive, text-peer-reviewing expert on marsh ferns. What a crazy, random, terrifyingly weird coincidence."

Behind the library table, Megumi went entirely, violently still.

The black ink pen slipped from his long fingers, landing with a loud clack against his legal pad and rolling directly into his empty coffee thermos. The rich crimson flush that had barely started in his ears suddenly exploded, rushing down his neck, coloring his throat, and burning straight into his cheeks.

"Co... coincidence," he stammered, his low, gravelly voice cracking on the first syllable. He aggressively reached for his textbook, violently flipping a page over to hide his face, though he was gripping the paper so hard he was nearly tearing the cellulose fibers. "It's a foundational botanical category. Anyone taking a general science elective knows about—about hydrophytic vegetation. It’s a completely standard—"

"Oh my god," you gasped, your voice cutting through his panicked rambling like a buzzsaw. You didn't just lean across the table, you practically crawled onto it, your blanket scarf trailing over his neatly stacked cue cards. Your eyes were wide, glittering with a mixture of absolute shock and pure, unadulterated comedic victory. "Fushiguro. Look at me. Look at my eyes."

Megumi stubbornly stared at a diagram of a Matteuccia struthiopteris as if it held the secrets to the universe, his forearms flexing tightly as he braced his hands against the table. "I am studying."

"You are blushing!" you shrieked in a manic whisper, pointing a triumphant finger at his bright red ears. "You're doing the exact same tomato-face routine you did in the studio on Friday morning! Fushiguro, do you... wait. Do you know who the bathroom ghost is?! Is it one of your sports friends? Is it Yuji? Did Yuji write his number in the girls' bathroom as a joke?!"

Megumi let out a sharp, strangled sound that was half-gasp, half-wheeze. He closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping in a mix of profound existential defeat and intense relief that you were still, somehow, completely missing the final piece of the puzzle. You thought he was hiding a friend's secret, not his own.

"No," Megumi choked out, his voice dropping into a tight, desperate whisper as he finally looked up at you. His face was still entirely flushed, a stark contrast to his dark navy sweater. "It’s not Itadori. He’s too dumb for that. And I am not a tomato, what are you, five? The ventilation shaft is blowing air directly onto my chair. Sit down before the librarian bans us from the basement."

"I am onto you, Fushiguro," you narrowed your eyes, finally sliding back into your plastic chair, though your face was still split by a massive, teasing grin. "You are protecting the identity of the Pessimistic Phantom. But that’s fine. I’ll just get the truth out of him myself."

You aggressively pulled your laptop out of your tote bag, slamming it onto the desk, and then fished your phone out of your sweater pocket. Your brain was entirely fried, your limbs felt like lead, and the looming terror of a ten-page sociology paper was finally starting to crash back down on your shoulders.

You unlocked your screen, entirely ignoring Megumi’s wide, panicked eyes tracking your every movement across the table.

You clicked open your text thread with Mr. Pessimist. You hadn't texted him since Thursday night, but right now, at 1:15 AM on a Sunday morning, you were desperate, sleep-deprived, and looking for any possible outlet to project your academic misery.

Underneath the table, hidden by the dark wooden ledge, Megumi’s hand flew to the pocket of his jeans. His fingers tightly clamped around his phone as he felt it give a sudden, sharp, rhythmic vibration against his thigh.

Across the table, your thumbs were flying across the keyboard, your bottom lip pouting out in a universal sign of absolute defeat.

You: MR. ECO-BOY 😭😭😭😭 PLS HELP ME THE UNIVERSE HATES ME!!! my friend's laptop pulled an Error 404 and blew up my entire ten-pagesociology essay. 📉💔 I am currently rotting in the library basement at 1 AM trying to rewrite it from scratch. It's so cold here and the concrete smells like tears. 😭 drop some fern wisdom on me to stop me from throwing my computer into a marsh lake pls and thx 🙏🌿⛈️

You hit send with a heavy, dramatic sigh, tossing your phone face-up next to your mousepad. "There. Let's see if the phantom has any sympathy for a dying sociology major."

Megumi slowly let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since Friday. He kept his eyes locked firmly on your face, watching you open up a blank Word document with an expression of pure, tragic exhaustion.

Slowly, carefully, he slid his phone out of his pocket beneath the table, keeping it hidden in his lap. The screen glowed bright against his navy sweater, illuminating your wall of emojis.

A very small, entirely private, and devastatingly soft smirk finally broke through his embarrassed flush. He cleared his throat, his long fingers silently tapping out a response with clinical, rapid precision.

A second later, your phone buzzed on the table. You blinked, diving for it.

Mr. Pessimist: First of all, throwing electronics into a marsh lake is an environmental felony. Second of all, sociology is a logical discipline; stop treating it like a tragedy. Open your textbook, outline the primary structural-functionalist theories first, and stop using the crying emoji. It is inefficient.

You let out a loud, sudden snort-giggle, instantly burying your face in your blanket scarf to muffle the sound. "Oh my god, he replied already! He is so mean, I love him."

Megumi calmly slipped his phone back into his pocket, rolled his sleeves up a fraction higher, and picked up his black ink pen, his dark eyes gleaming with pure, hidden victory.

"I told you to stop romanticizing property damage," Megumi murmured dryly, leaning over his legal pad.

For the next two hours, the back corner of the library basement became a war zone of academic panic, rapid-fire typing, and utter psychological warfare.

You were in peak, unhinged, sleep-deprived yapping mode. You couldn't help it. Whenever the dense sociology theories started blurring into a chaotic mess of structural functionalism and class struggle, your brain automatically sought a dopamine release. And unfortunately for Megumi, he was the only physical target within a five-foot radius.

"Fushiguro," you whispered intensely, leaning so far across the table your nose was practically hovering over his taxonomy cue cards. "Hypothetically. In a utopian society, if the bourgeoisie controls the means of production, but the proletariat collectively decides to only produce those strawberry shortcake cupcakes from the cooking club... is that technically a Marxist revolution or is it just a vibe-based collective behavior?"

Megumi’s pen didn't stop, but the muscle in his jaw clenched so hard the silver loop of his lip piercing pulled completely taut.

"That is a fundamental misunderstanding of historical materialism, and it's called a fantasy," he deadpanded into his legal pad, his rolled-up sleeves flexing as he aggressively underlined the word Pteridophyte. "Please type your essay. You’ve been on page three for forty minutes."

"Ugh, you have no sociological imagination," you pouted, dropping heavily back into your plastic chair.

Naturally, your immediate reflex was to seek a second opinion. You snatched your phone, your thumbs flying across the screen to complain to your favorite digital sounding board.

You: Mr. Eco-Boy, riddle me this. if Marx was right about alienation, why can’t the working class just collectively organize a strike until the university subsidizes free pastry production?? my audio engineer friend says it's a fantasy but he has zero understanding of social solidarity. defend me.

Beneath the wooden table, Megumi felt his thigh vibrate for the fourteenth time since midnight. He let out a long, slow, suffering breath through his nose. Keeping his eyes strictly fixed on his textbook, his left hand slipped into his lap, his long fingers blindly but flawlessly navigating his keyboard with the memory of a man who spent too much time texting under desks.

Your phone buzzed instantly.

Mr. Pessimist: Your audio engineer is entirely correct and possesses a functional grasp of institutional stability. A pastry-based strike would collapse under the weight of its own structural inefficiency within forty-eight hours. Stop trying to weaponize conflict theory for baked goods and finish your draft.

You gasped out loud, a sharp, undignified squawk escaping your throat. "Oh my god! Fushiguro, listen to this! The bathroom ghost just read me to absolute filth. He used the phrase 'structural inefficiency of a pastry-based strike.' He is literally so attractive when he's being completely condescending. I think I’m growing a massive psychological dependency on his irritation."

Megumi violently choked on his own saliva. He coughed sharply into his fist, his face instantly re-igniting into that deep crimson.

"Don't... don't say things like that in a public library," he muttered hoarsely, his ears burning hot under his dark hair. He frantically grabbed his empty coffee thermos, pretending to drink from it just to hide the lower half of his face. "It's... it’s unhinged."

"It's not unhinged, it's a dynamic!" you defended, completely missing his panic as you stared at your blank Word document. "Okay, wait. Fushiguro. Serious sociology question. What is the actual difference between Émile Durkheim’s concept of anomie and Karl Marx’s theory of alienation? Explain it to me like I am a very small, very tired golden retriever."

Megumi set his thermos down with a controlled thud. He slowly looked up, his eyes fixed on your disheveled form. Despite his burning cheeks, his analytical brain took over. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on the desk, the rolled-up sleeves bunching slightly.

"Anomie is Durkheim's term for a state of normlessness: when society's collective consciousness breaks down and individuals lose their moral compass," he explained, his gravelly voice dropping into a low, surprisingly clear, and authoritative murmur. "Alienation is Marx's concept of being structurally separated from your humanity, your work, and your peers due to the exploitative nature of capitalism. One is a psychological disconnect caused by a lack of social regulation; the other is a material consequence of class division. Do you understand?"

You stared at him, completely dazed. Not because of the sociology, but because his low voice combined with the sharp, lean lines of his arms was doing high-voltage damage to your ability to think.

"Wow," you whispered, blinking slowly. "You're... really good at that. Are you secretly a social sciences minor?"

"No," Megumi muttered, his gaze instantly dropping back to his notes as a faint pink tint dusted his nose. "I just know how to read a textbook."

"Amazing," you cheered, already diving back for your phone. "Let's see if Mr. Textbook online can match your explanation."

You: hey phantom, explain anomie vs alienation right now. my audio guy just gave a shockingly hot explanation of Durkheim and I need to see if you can top his alpha-male biology energy.

Under the table, Megumi’s entire body went completely rigid.

Shockingly hot explanation? Alpha-male biology energy?!

His phone felt like it was melting a hole directly through his jeans. He stared at his legal pad, his eyes wide, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. His tongue darted out, his silver lip piercing clicking frantically against his teeth. He felt completely trapped in a matrix of his own design.

With trembling, highly agitated fingers, he furiously typed back a response beneath the ledge, his jaw clenched tight enough to break.

Your phone buzzed. You unlocked it, expecting his usual dry paragraphs, but this time, the text was dangerously short.

Mr. Pessimist: Delete the word 'hot' from your vocabulary immediately. Classical sociological theory is a rigid academic discipline, not a performance. If your audio engineer is distracting you from your academic obligations, tell him to put his hoodie back on and shut up.

You let out a loud, ecstatic burst of laughter, burying your face in your blanket scarf to keep from getting kicked out by the night janitor.

"Fushiguro! Oh my god!" you wheezed, shaking his shoulder with pure delight. "He's jealous! The bathroom ghost is literally jealous of your sociology explanation! He told me to tell you to put your hoodie back on and shut up!"

Megumi slowly pulled his shoulder away from your hand, slumping down into his chair until his chin practically touched his collar. He stared at his plant taxonomy cards, his face a complete, catastrophic masterpiece of pure embarrassment and hidden, desperate victory.

"He's literally so into me, it's actually getting historical," you whispered aggressively, holding your phone screen right in front of Megumi’s face. "Look at the punctuation, Fushiguro! Look at the lack of emojis! That is the digital equivalent of a man stomping his foot because another guy explained social solidarity better than him. He is totally, deeply, biologically in love with me."

Megumi, who had been trying to read a single line about the root systems of marsh ferns for the last four minutes, slowly closed his eyes.

The fabric of his sweater stretched tight across his shoulders as he leaned back into his plastic chair, his forearms resting flat on the table. The brilliant crimson color that had just started to fade from his neck came roaring back with a vengeance, turning his ears a violent, burning shade of pink that extended all the way to his jawline.

"You are completely, clinically delusional," he deadpanned, his gravelly voice dropping an octave as he tried to stabilize his breathing. He refused to look at the phone screen you were waving in his face. "You have spent the last two hours analyzing a ten-page sociology paper on a Sunday morning, and your brain is clearly experiencing a severe dopamine deficit. You are fabricating a romantic narrative out of standard, aggressive text syntax."

"I am a literal communications major, Fushiguro, I read between the lines for a living!" you protested, throwing your hands in the air and shaking your head. "A guy doesn't tell a girl to make another guy put his hoodie back on unless he's physically experiencing the green-eyed monster of jealousy. He wants to be the only one explaining Émile Durkheim to me in a basement! It's so obvious!"

Megumi let out a sharp, choked sound that was half-gasp, half-sigh, his knuckles turning entirely white against his desk blotter.

"H-He does not want to explain Durkheim to you," Megumi stammered, his usual cool, clinical composure entirely fracturing as his voice cracked on the final syllable. He violently grabbed his black ink pen, his fingers slipping against the plastic casing because his hands were suddenly entirely too warm. "The—the user on the other end of that number is simply trying to keep you on task. There is zero biological or psychological data supporting the theory that an anonymous person typing full sentences in a text thread is... is experiencing romantic longing."

"Oh, please! You’re just defending him because you’re both members of the No-Fun-Allowed Club," you teased, leaning your chin back onto your palms, your eyes twinkling as you watched him fumble with his cue cards. "Admit it, Megumi. If a girl texted you telling you that some other guy had 'alpha-male biology energy,' wouldn't you feel a little threatened?"

Megumi froze.

His dark eyes slowly drifted up from his taxonomy cards, locking onto yours through his messy black hair. The sheer, unadulterated panic in his expression was so intense it was almost comical, his lip piercing clicking three times in rapid succession as his brain desperately tried to process the fact that you were asking him how he felt about himself.

"I—I wouldn't care," he lied through his teeth, his voice a tight, strangled murmur as he looked away, his chest rising and falling in sharp, flustered breaths. "Because I... because the entire concept of 'alpha-male energy' is a pseudoscientific myth used by people who don't understand basic zoological dynamics. And you... you need to stop yapping and type page four before I manually shut your laptop screen."

"Fine, fine! Hater," you laughed happily, entirely satisfied with how easily you could rattle the school's most stoic technician. You picked up your phone to type one final, devastating blow to your phantom crush.

You: fine, I won't call him hot anymore since it hurts your feelings 🙄 but for the record, his navy sweater makes his arms look incredibly attractive and you're just mad you're cooped up in your little cave while I'm down here living a romance novel. suffer in silence, phantom! 💅✨

By 3 AM, the library basement had emptied out completely, leaving only the steady, low hum of the ventilation shaft and the frantic, rhythmic tapping of your fingers against your keyboard. You were officially on page eight of your sociology paper, but your eyelids felt like lead weights, and a deep, chilly exhaustion had settled into your bones.

The library's aggressive late-night AC was blasting directly over your head, making you shiver beneath your clothes.

Without entirely thinking through your sleep-deprived actions, you grabbed the trailing edge of your massive, oversized blanket scarf. With a loose, uncoordinated swing of your arm, you blindly draped half of the heavy wool fabric directly over Megumi’s right shoulder. Who, mind you, moved seats to be next to you almost an hour ago just to help you write the fifth page of your essay.

Megumi’s black ink pen hovered millimeters above his legal pad. His entire body went completely, violently rigid under the shared wool.

Slowly, his head turned, his eyes wide with a mixture of sheer panic and disbelief as he looked down at the soft fabric connecting the two of you. You didn't even notice his existential crisis. You just naturally slumped sideways, sliding half an inch closer until your shoulder was resting flush against his.

"Fushiguro, I'm freezing," you mumbled sleepily into your keyboard, your voice a faint, pathetic whine. "Don't move. You are legally a public utility right now. Your biological thermal energy belongs to the social sciences department."

Megumi let out a tight, strangled breath through his nose. His jaw clenched so hard his silver lip piercing pressed flat against his skin, but (to your absolute shock) he didn't pull away. He didn't drop the blanket. Instead, he let out a long, defeated sigh, his shoulder subtly dropping to match your height as his body heat began bleeding straight through his sweater and into your side.

He looked devastatingly attractive like this, completely swallowed by the cozy contrast of your scarf against his dark wool, his rolled-up sleeves taut as he forced his fingers to start writing again.

To keep yourself from completely passing out on your keyboard, you snatched your phone from the desk, hiding it beneath the ledge of the table. A manic, exhausted smirk broke across your face as you pulled up your thread with Mr. Pessimist.

You: hey phantom, update from the trenches 🫠 I am currently sharing a blanket with my audio guy because the library AC is trying to murder me. his shoulder is warm asf and he's letting me use him as a human space heater. you're seriously missing out on prime cuddling hours, Mr. Eco-Boy! 💅🔥🛌

Directly next to you, beneath the exact same shared blanket, you felt Megumi’s entire frame go absolutely, terrifyingly still.

His chest stopped moving. He stared blindly at his taxonomy notes, his heart hammering so violently against his ribs you were worried he was going to experience spontaneous cardiac arrest. The blush on his face went past tomato and straight into a catastrophic, full-body crimson.

Slowly, carefully, his left hand slipped into his lap beneath the wooden table ledge. His long fingers were practically trembling as he unlocked his screen, your text lighting up his face-down phone.

His teeth ground together. His tongue darted out, his silver piercing clicking twice in rapid succession against his teeth as he furiously typed out a response, his thumb slamming into the virtual keyboard with pure, flustered aggression.

A second later, your phone gave a violent rattle in your hand. You eagerly tapped the notification.

Mr. Pessimist: Focus on your structural functionalism and stop treating your technical assistant like an HVAC system. It is highly inappropriate, inefficient, and your sociology draft is still incomplete. Put your phone away before he throws you into the marsh lake himself.

You let out a loud, ecstatic burst of laughter, completely forgetting where you were as you buried your face directly into the heavy wool of Megumi’s shoulder to muffle the sound.

"Fushiguro! Oh my god, he's losing his mind!" you wheezed into his sleeve, your shoulders shaking with pure delight. "He just told me to stop treating you like an HVAC system! He is literally so pressed! I am breaking him, I swear to god I am breaking him!"

Megumi slowly closed his eyes, leaning his head back into the wooden divider of the cubicle as a helpless, deeply embarrassed, and completely captivated smile finally broke through his flush. He let his shoulder sink a little deeper into yours, keeping the blanket tucked securely around both of you.

"Just type page nine, Sunshine," he whispered hoarsely into the quiet basement, his gravelly voice vibrating beautifully right against your ear. "Before the phantom tracks your IP address and deletes your entire document."

You finished your essay in two hours. Well... "finished" was a heavy, highly generous word for the literary crime you had just committed.

You had only managed to drag your brain through eight agonizing pages of dense sociological jargon. By 3:15 AM, your cognitive functions had completely evaporated, leaving you staring blankly at a blinking cursor while your head violently nodded with sleep. The last two pages of that monstrous draft remained to be typed on your laptop by none other than Megumi himself. While you had completely passed out, snoring softly against the expensive wool of his right shoulder and leaving a tiny, embarrassing patch of condensation on his sleeve, his long, pale fingers had aggressively slammed out your entire conclusion paragraph and meticulously formatted your bibliography according to APA 7th edition guidelines.

Now, hours later, you were finally back in your own dorm. Under the heavy, beating warmth of the water droplets hitting your skin in the shower, you let out a massive, soul-cleansing sigh. The hot steam swirled around the tiny bathroom stall, melting away the residual chill of the library basement, the smell of concrete, and the lingering phantom panic of an overdue assignment.

You leaned your forehead against the wet tile wall, letting the water slick your hair back. Even through the hazy cloud of exhaustion, your mind kept drifting. Not to Karl Marx, and certainly not to Émile Durkheim. Instead, your thoughts were hopelessly trapped in a loop between two things: the surprisingly heavy, solid warmth of Megumi’s shoulder under that navy sweater, and the utter, hilarious absurdity of your anonymous text crush.

You stepped out of the stall, wrapping yourself in a plush towel and wiping a clear circle into the steamed-up bathroom mirror. Your brain still felt like a half-melted bowl of gelatin, but your body was finally restored to a normal, human temperature.

When you picked up your phone from the sink counter, you expected to see a string of frantic, caps-lock texts from Miwa to send her something so you dont lose your streaks on TikTok.

Instead, there was a single, solitary notification sitting on your lock screen. Sent exactly seven minutes ago.

Your heart did a ridiculous, sleep-deprived flip. Mr. Pessimist had texted you first.

Mr. Pessimist: Are you still alive, or did the structural functionalism finally claim your consciousness.

You burst out laughing, hopping on one foot as you frantically typed back a response while trying to balance your towel.

You: PHANTOM!!! OMG YOU CARE ABOUT ME 🥹😭❤️ yes, I survived! well, mostly. I passed out on page eight and my sweet, angelic, saint of an audio engineer literally typed the last two pages of my sociology essay for me while I snored on his shoulder like a gargoyle. I am officially a free woman! 🕊️✨

Deep in the quiet of his ownroom, Megumi was currently sitting on the edge of his bed, a fresh damp towel slung over his wet, spiky black hair. He was staring at his phone screen, his jaw clenching so hard the silver loop of his lip piercing pulled completely flat against his skin.

Sweet, angelic, saint.

His ears flared a violent, instant shade of crimson. He aggressively grabbed a pillow, shoving it against his face as he let out a muffled, embarrassed groan into the fabric. He had spent forty-five minutes fixing your margins while you drooled onto his favorite sweater.

He pulled the pillow away, his long, pale fingers flying across his keyboard with absolute, indignant fury.

Mr. Pessimist: He is not a saint. He is an enabler of chronic academic negligence. Allowing you to sleep while he performs your labor undermines the entire concept of personal accountability. Also, snoring on someone's shoulder is biologically unhygienic.

You snorted so loud you nearly dropped your phone into the sink. You hopped onto your bed, completely abandoning your hair-drying routine to lean against your pillows, your face split by a massive, teasing grin.

You: awww, is someone experiencing a little bit of class struggle over my social solidarity with the audio guy?? 😉 dynamically speaking, he chose to help me! It was a collective behavior based on mutual affection. plus, his shoulder was comfortable. don't be mad just because you weren't there to type my conclusion paragraph about Marx! 💅

Megumi stared at the words mutual affection.

His brain completely short-circuited. His tongue violently flicked out, his silver lip piercing clicking frantically against his bottom teeth as his heart began to drum a high-voltage rhythm against his ribs. He threw himself backward onto his mattress, staring at his ceiling tiles in pure torment.

He was losing his mind. He was actively arguing with a girl about himself, and he was somehow losing the debate to his own shadow identity.

With a sharp, flustered scowl, he typed back.

Mr. Pessimist: I assure you, no one is experiencing 'class struggle' over a campus radio technician. If he typed your conclusion about Marx, he likely did it out of a desperate desire for silence, not affection. Karl Marx would find your dependency on a human space heater deeply antithetical to the proletarian work ethic.

You: oh my god, did you just use historical materialism to roast my flirting style?? 😭😂 I am literally obsessed with you. you are so intensely dry, it’s a medical marvel. let me guess, your perfect date involves us sitting in total silence while you read me the terms and conditions of a software update?

Megumi froze on his bed.

His eyes went wide, his knuckles turning stark white against the casing of his phone. His mind instantly flashed back to his anonymous "perfect date" submission that you had read live on air—the one about a quiet, overcast greenhouse, two black coffees, and reading separate books on opposite ends of a couch in total silence.

You were so terrifyingly close to the truth it was giving him cardiac arrhythmia.

He forced his trembling fingers to reply, his jaw locked tight.

Mr. Pessimist: A software update manual provides structural clarity and logical consistency. It is infinitely more valuable than your current wave of sleep-deprived delusions. Go to sleep. Your communication skills are deteriorating.

You: never! I am fueled by hot shower steam and the knowledge that I have successfully rattled the most stubborn phantom on campus 😌 fine, I’ll sleep. but only if you admit that my audio guy's navy blue sweater is objectively high-tier fashion.

Megumi buried his burning face entirely in his hands, his chest rising and falling in sharp, defeated breaths. He looked down at his phone one last time, a helpless, devastatingly soft smile finally breaking through his intense flush.

Mr. Pessimist: The sweater is standard insulation. It possesses zero aesthetic value. Delete my number and close your eyes.

You stared at his last text, your thumbs hovering over the keyboard. The momentary silence of your room was suddenly too loud, and the absolute absurdity of your weekend—coupled with the looming horror of Monday's schedule—just completely burst the floodgates of your internal commentary.

You weren't necessarily sad. You were just in peak, unadulterated venting mode. You hopped onto your stomach, propping your chin up with a pillow as your fingers went into absolute overdrive, turning into a literal machine of digital yap.

You: lol i lied

You: no but like seriously, my brain is a smoothie right now i cant sleep. like, I LOVE the radio show, it’s literally my favorite part of the day and getting to play chaotic music and read ridiculous anonymous gossip is keeping me alive, but holy hell, the schedule is a hate crime against my sleep cycle!! 💀 then I look at my syllabus and it's like 'read 50 pages of French literature by Tuesday' and I'm like... do I even know French? is France even real? I’m just trying to make it to July so I can get a part-time job at Hot Topic and spend my entire paycheck on clothes and Miniso plushies.

When his phone vibrated with a paragraph long enough to require a scroll bar, he sat right back up, the damp towel slipping off his head completely. He read through your frantic stream of consciousness, a faint, genuinely amused twitch hitting the corner of his mouth at the sudden mention of a retail job at Hot Topic.

Mr. Pessimist: Hot Topic? You? The literal embodiment of a My Little Pony character, working in a dark, alternative clothing store? Yeah, funny.

You: EXCUSE ME?! I have range!! I can be edgy and emo! I can wear combat boots! I literally listen to Deftones, I told you this!

Mr. Pessimist: You wore a giant blanket scarf to the library and snored like a cartoon character on a technician's shoulder. If you walked into a retail floor playing industrial techno, you would pass out from the sensory overload within four minutes. Stick to the radio booth, Sunshine. The aesthetic contrast would break the corporate matrix.

You: wow. the absolute disrespect. I’m telling Fushiguro you bullied me. he actually supports my corporate retail dreams! (probably because he wants me out of his booth, but still).

Mr. Pessimist: First of all, France is unfortunately real, and ignoring your literature syllabus will only compound your data backlog by week twelve. Second of all, your schedule is chaotic because you refuse to compartmentalize. You treat the radio station like an amusement park instead of a structured shift. If you streamlined your prep time, you wouldn't be writing essays at 3 AM.

You rolled over onto your back, holding the phone above your face, letting out a dramatic groan.

You: ugh, there you go again with the 'logic' and the 'structure'!! 🙄 some of us run on vibes and aesthetic fulfillment, okay?! like, my dream life is literally just wandering through an empty botanical greenhouse in the rain, drinking black coffee, and listening to Portishead or Lana Del Rey on repeat while I pretend to be a tragic main character. I don't want to streamline! I want to look at tropical ferns and romanticize my exhaustion!

Megumi’s thumb froze completely over the screen.

His entire body went rigid. His eyes stared at the words botanical greenhouse, black coffee, and tropical ferns. You were literally quoting his own anonymous submission back to him, weaponizing his exact ideal scenario as your definition of "vibes," entirely unaware that he was the one who had written it.

He threw a hand over his face, letting out a ragged, flustered breath into his palm before he forced himself to type, desperate to deflect the conversation away from his own burning skin.

Mr. Pessimist: Romanticizing burnout is statistically inefficient. But... if you actually want a baseline for that specific environment, the university conservatory on the south quad is completely empty on Thursday afternoons during the internal maintenance shift. The automated misting systems simulate rain if you timing it correctly. Not that I look at that data for personal reasons. It’s just an ecological observation.

You blinked at the screen, your eyes widening in surprise.

You: wait... Mr. Eco-Boy, is that a hidden soft spot I spy?? 👀 do you secretly go to the greenhouse to hide from the world too? what does a certified pessimist even do to unwind? let me guess, you count the root structures of marsh ferns for fun?

Megumi stared at the text. He let out a slow, quiet breath, his shoulders finally relaxing as he leaned back against his headboard. In the dark security of his room, away from the glass booth and the glaring ON AIR light, a rare, incredibly soft vulnerability took over his fingers.

Mr. Pessimist: I don't count roots for fun. But... if the noise on campus gets too loud, I usually just put on heavy headphones, block out the audio frequencies, and read standard fiction. Specifically detective mysteries. There’s a predictable structure to them. A problem is presented, clues are gathered, and the chaos is eventually resolved by logic. It's quiet. And it doesn't require small talk.

You: wow, detective mysteries? that is actually so cute, oh my god. you’re like a grumpy old man trapped in a college student's phone. you know, you remind me SO much of my audio guy, Fushiguro. he’s also super clinical, hates small talk, wears dark colors, and has this exact same hyper-logical, protective-but-grumpy energy. It’s crazy, I swear you guys would either be best friends or you'd fight to the death.

Megumi slowly buried his face entirely in his left hand, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, completely defeated sigh. The sheer, unadulterated, astronomical level of your obliviousness was genuinely impressive. It was a biological miracle that you could read a campus radio script but completely fail to connect a line of direct descriptions.

He looked down at his screen one last time, a helpless, genuinely captivated smile breaking through his intense flush as his thumb tapped out his final line.

Mr. Pessimist: Your audio engineer sounds like he has an immense amount of patience. Go to sleep, Sunshine. Your observational data is compromised.

You giggled, tossing your phone onto the mattress and curling up under your blankets. "He really is a tsundere," you whispered happily to your pillow, completely convinced you had just made a great digital friend, entirely unaware that the "patient audio engineer" was currently staring at his ceiling three buildings away, wondering how on earth he was going to look you in the eye on Wednesday morning.

The first half of the following week passed by in a complete blur. You were so exhausted after the semi-all-nighter you pulled on Sunday that you ended up sleeping in and skipping half your courses on Monday. On Tuesday, you skipped your shift at WKJS and let Inumaki take your place instead. It was probably hilarious for the campus to hear, considering he had lost a bet to Yuji and was forced to speak exclusively in onigiri ingredients for the entire semester. Funnily enough, you had to skip the broadcast because you were stuck tutoring Yuji—a nearly impossible task, since he kept having actual laughing crashouts just from hearing "Tuna," "Mayo," and "Bonito Flakes" delivered in a monotone, angry voice instead of your usual cheerful tone.

But today was Wednesday, and you were finally back on your radio shift to host The Morning Sunbeam Show once again.

The familiar smell of stale, industrial coffee and heated electronics hit you the second you pushed open the heavy, soundproof door of the WKJS broadcast studio. It was 7:42 AM, and the pale morning sun was just starting to cut through the high windows of the media building. You felt a million times more human than you had on Sunday night, your hair freshly washed, your skin thriving, and a massive, extra-large neon pink drink clutched in your hand like a weapon of mass destruction.

You dropped your tote bag onto the spare plastic chair and stepped up to the massive glass partition that separated the main studio booth from the technical control room.

He didn't look up immediately when the door clicked shut, but you noticed his entire frame went instantly, subtly rigid the moment your shadow hit the glass. He was wearing an oversized charcoal gray hoodie today, the hood pulled up low over his messy black hair, effectively shielding his profile from view. But your eyes, naturally traitorous, immediately darted down to his arms. He had his sleeves pulled tightly back up to his elbows again, exposing the lean, functional muscle of his forearms as his fingers deftly flew across the soundboard dials, adjusting the master levels for the morning feed.

A sharp, lingering memory of sleeping face-down on that exact right shoulder (snoring like a pig against his heavy navy blue wool) hit your brain with a sudden, unexpected spike of heat.

"Fushiguro!" you beamed, stepping up to the glass and tapping your long fingernails against the pane. "The star of the social sciences department! The man, the myth, the absolute savior of my GPA!"

Megumi’s hand paused over a slider. He slowly raised his head, his green eyes locking onto yours through his messy fringe. The moment he met your gaze, a brilliant, aggressive crimson flush crawled rapidly up his throat, coloring his jawline and burning straight into the tips of his ears. His tongue darted out, his silver lip piercing clicking twice in rapid, frantic succession against his teeth as he reached over and hit the master intercom button.

"Don't call me that," his low, gravelly voice crackled over your studio headset, sounding entirely too deep and raspy for an early Wednesday morning. He deliberately looked down at his monitor, trying to hide the fact that his face was currently radiating enough heat to melt ice. "And don't tap on the glass."

"Oh, please, you love my dramatic entrances," you giggled, sliding into your swivel chair and pulling the heavy broadcast microphone toward your face. You adjusted your headset, taking a long, satisfied sip of your sweet drink. "Seriously though, thank you for Sunday night. Miwa told me yesterday that you formatting my bibliography in alphabetical order was a 'testament to true human devotion.' I didn't even realize I fell asleep until I woke up with my face stuck to your laptop spacebar."

Megumi closed his eyes, his knuckles turning stark white against the edge of the mixing board as he vividly recalled the forty-five minutes he spent frozen in his chair, trying not to breathe too loudly so he didn’t wake you up, while you drooled onto his sweater sleeve.

"You were snoring," he deadpanded over the line, his tone dropping back into his defense-mechanism clinical monotone. "It was completely disrupting my ability to memorize the vascular structures of local ferns. I only finished the last two pages of your paper so you would stop making that ungodly choking noise in a quiet study zone."

"Wow. Absolute lies and slander," you gasped, clutching your chest in mock offense. "I snore like a delicate princess, thank you very much. Anyway, guess what? I texted the bathroom ghost guy about you writing my conclusion paragraph while I slept."

Behind the glass, Megumi’s entire body went into sudden, catastrophic cardiac arrest. His pen literally slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the soundboard and rolling under a mass of patch cables. He scrambled to grab it, his face turning an even deeper, darker shade of scarlet as he frantically tried to keep his composure.

"You... you did what?" he choked out, his voice cracking slightly before he cleared his throat aggressively.

"Yeah! I told him you were a sweet, angelic saint," you laughed, leaning back in your chair and spinning around happily. "And oh my god, Megumi, he went completely feral. He was so incredibly jealous of you. He literally told me that your sweater possessed 'zero aesthetic value' and that you only helped me out of a desperate desire for silence. He's so transparently in love with me, it’s actually hilarious. He hates that another guy has alpha-male ecology energy."

Under the shadow of his dark gray hood, Megumi buried his burning face entirely in his left palm, his long fingers pressing hard against his temples as he let out a long, silent, suffering groan. He was actively listening to you describe his own frantic, late-night, under-the-blanket text messages, entirely unaware that the "jealous phantom" and the "angelic audio engineer" were the exact same person.

"He is... he is not jealous," Megumi muttered hoarsely into his palm, his voice straining as he forced his hand back down to the soundboard. "The individual on the other end of that number is simply stating objective reality. You are entirely, pathologically delusional. Your observational data is completely corrupted by sleep deprivation."

"Am not!" you shot back, sticking your tongue out at him through the glass. "He's totally obsessed. But hey, speaking of the phantom... he actually gave me some really good advice about my workload. He told me to stop looking at the whole semester and just focus on tomorrow. He’s surprisingly sweet beneath all that grumpy, cynical armor. It’s crazy how much he reminds me of you."

Megumi froze, his eyes widening in panic as he stared at you through the glass partition. For a split second, his heart stopped beating entirely. Did she know? Did she finally connect the dots?

"W-What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you both have that exact same hyper-logical, protective-but-grumpy energy," you explained cheerily, completely oblivious to the near-fatal stroke you were causing him. "Like, he told me he likes to hide away from the world with heavy headphones and read detective mysteries because they have a predictable structure. And I just thought, wow, that is the most Fushiguro thing I have ever heard in my life. It’s so cute. You guys should totally be roommates."

Megumi slowly let his forehead drop directly onto the hard, plastic edge of the soundboard with a muted thud. He just stayed there, his messy black hair sprawling over the audio dials, his shoulders shaking slightly in a mix of profound existential exhaustion and intense, agonizing embarrassment.

"Fushiguro? Are you okay?" you asked, leaning closer to the glass, your eyebrows knitting together in concern. "Did the marsh ferns finally take over your brain?"

Megumi slowly lifted his head, his face a total masterpiece of crimson flustered energy as he reached over and pointed a long, trembling finger at the digital clock on his monitor.

"It is exactly 7:59 AM," he whispered hoarsely over the line, his silver lip piercing clicking one final time against his teeth as he gripped the master audio fader. "Put your headphones on, Sunshine. Your intro cue is coming up in ten seconds. Shut up and do your job."

You grinned, sliding your headset into place just as the bright red ON AIR sign flared to life over the thick glass partition, instantly cutting the private feed between your headset and Megumi’s control console. You leaned into the heavy, foam-tipped broadcast microphone, your face automatically splitting into the bright, high-energy grin that had made your morning slot a campus staple.

"Good morning, Jujutsu University!" you chimed, your voice echoing crisply across the campus airwaves, flowing into crowded dorm rooms, commuter cars, and the headphones of sleep-deprived students dragging their feet across the quad. "Welcome back to The Morning Sunbeam Show on WKJS. I know, I know—your favorite chaotic communications major was totally missing in action on Tuesday morning. I apologize for abandoning you all to the wolves, but the academic sirens caught up to me, and I had to pull a severe, multi-hour sociology emergency."

Behind the glass, Megumi didn't move, but his eyes were wide, fixed entirely on his master audio levels as he braced himself for whatever unhinged commentary was about to fly out of your mouth.

"Now, I heard rumors that my replacement on Tuesday absolute crushed it," you continued, leaning back in your swivel chair and spinning slightly from side to side. "Shoutout to Toge Inumaki from the linguistics department for stepping into the booth on short notice! I haven’t had a chance to listen to the archived tape yet, but considering he’s still honoring that legendary, high-stakes bet he lost to Yuji Itadori, I can only assume the entire two-hour broadcast was delivered exclusively in onigiri ingredients. Honestly? I think the station manager should totally let me bring him back as a permanent co-host. Imagine the dynamic! I do eighty percent of the yapping, and Toge just hits the soundboard with a perfectly timed, highly aggressive 'Spicy Tuna' or 'Bonito Flakes'. It’s a flawless radio formula. It’s performance art, really."

Through the clear pane of the partition, you saw Megumi let out a long, slow, highly visible breath through his nose. He reached up and aggressively adjusted the hood of his dark charcoal sweatshirt, tugging it down even further over his brow to block out the sight of your cheerful, oblivious face.

"Speaking of surviving the week," you yapped smoothly, transitioning into your local campus news block, "if you are currently walking past the student union building and your eyes are practically glued shut from exhaustion, you need to detour directly to the campus café immediately. They just rolled out their new seasonal menu today, and oh my god, guys, it is an absolute game-changer. I am currently holding a drink that has single-handedly restored my legal right to exist. I would have never, ever known in my entire life how incredible strawberry syrup tastes when it's mixed directly into a classic Red Bull, but the barista looked me dead in the eye and told me to trust the vision. It sounds like a total cardiac event in a plastic cup, but it tastes like liquid lightning and childhood nostalgia. Go buy one right now. Tell them the Sunbeam sent you."

You paused to take a dramatic, loud sip of your drink through the straw, letting the wet, plastic crunch of the ice echo slightly over the high-frequency microphone. Megumi’s left eyebrow twitched violently behind his fringe. His finger hovered over the master compression slider, his silver lip piercing clicking twice against his teeth as he manually dialed down the audio spikes caused by your aggressive hydration.

"And finally, for our morning community announcement board," you said, dropping your voice into a conspiratorial, deeply intense whisper. "I have a very special, very urgent favor to ask on behalf of one of our campus legends. Shoko Ieiri—yes, the Shoko Ieiri, the brilliant pre-med major senior who basically runs the university health clinic like a military operation—personally cornered me in the science pavilion yesterday afternoon. She is currently looking for a brave, resilient soul to step up and volunteer for her upcoming Anatomy Practicum this Friday afternoon."

You leaned so close to the mic your lips were practically brushing the pop filter.

"Now, guys, please don’t be afraid," you cooed into the airwaves, throwing a dramatic, wide-eyed look toward the technical booth. "Shoko wanted me to explicitly remind everyone that she is totally gentle, highly professional, and she absolutely promise she won't actually cut you up. Well... mostly. She just needs a living, breathing canvas to demonstrate advanced skeletal alignment and nerve-pathway tracking. So, if you’re a freshman looking for extra credit, or if you just want to spend two hours being intensely studied by a very attractive senior who smells like menthol cigarettes and Love Spell, drop a line to the WKJS text board and I will personally hand-deliver your name to her clipboard."

Behind the glass, Megumi’s head snapped up so fast a stray lock of black hair fell directly into his eyes. His mind scrambled through the implications of what you had just broadcasted to the entire student body. Shoko Ieiri was notorious across the entire science department for her terrifyingly cold, clinical efficiency, and the fact that you were actively recruiting unsuspecting freshmen for her anatomical gauntlet was nothing short of a public safety hazard.

Megumi aggressively slammed his index finger onto the master intercom button, overriding the internal booth channel so his low, gravelly voice cut directly into your headset separate from the live transmission.

"Do not encourage people to sign up for Ieiri's practicum," he ordered in a tight, desperate whisper. "She spent three hours last week trying to convince me to let her map the reflex arc in my shoulder blades using an acoustic diagnostic hammer. She is a menace to the general student population. Stop using the university airwaves to facilitate medical experiments, Sunshine."

You didn't even break character. Without pausing your live broadcast, you simply turned your head toward the glass, flashing Megumi a brilliant, devastatingly playful wink that caused his voice to die instantly in his throat.

"Alright, Jujutsu U, it is exactly 8:15 AM, which means it’s time for your absolute favorite block of the morning," you cooed into the microphone, your voice dripping with dramatic flair. "Welcome back to The Echo Chamber, the only place on campus where you can drop your darkest confessions, your most chaotic roommate complaints, completely safe from the judgment of the student court. And wow, the text board has been absolutely cooking while I was away. Fushiguro, hit me with that soft, late-night acoustic background track, please. Let's set the mood."

Behind the glass, Megumi didn't even look up, but his long, pale fingers slid a master fader up with effortless precision. A low, moody, atmospheric indie track began to filter softly under your vocal track. You noticed, with a small smirk, that it sounded suspiciously like a slowed-down instrumental version of a Lana Del Rey song.

"Perfect. Our technician knows exactly how to cater to my main-character syndrome," you teased over the airwaves. You picked up the first printout from the digital text board dashboard.

"Alright, Submission Number One," you read, leaning into the mic. "'To the girl in my 9:00 AM macroeconomics lecture who wears the neon pink headphones and brings a literal head of iceberg lettuce to class to eat like an apple: I don’t know whether to report you to the culinary board or ask you to marry me. Please look my way. I’m the guy three rows down wearing the green tracksuit.' Okay, track-suit boy, first of all, that is a terrifying level of fiber intake for a Tuesday morning, but I respect the grind. Lettuce girl, if you're listening, he likes your crunch."

Through the glass, you saw Megumi’s right shoulder twitch. He was staring intensely at his monitor, but the faint, pink tint dusting the bridge of his nose told you he was paying absolute attention.

"Submission Number Two is a roommate grievance," you continued, sliding to the next page. "'If my roommate does not stop practicing his throat-singing at 2:00 AM in our tiny, unventilated quad dorm, I am going to report him to the domestic disturbance hotline. You are not a nomadic monk, Ryota. You are a business major from Jujutsu University. Stop vibrating the drywall.' Wow. Clear, concise, and full of structural conflict. Karl Marx would have a field day with the class tension in that room."

You let out a bright, melodic laugh, taking another massive sip of your strawberry-Red Bull concoction.

"Oh, this next one is a call-out post. Submission Number Three: 'Can whoever left a cursed image of an anime-styled Shrek printed in full color inside the physica 204 textbook in the library please come forward? I opened to the chapter on thermodynamics looking for the formula for entropy and was met with "Ogres have layers, and so does the cosmic decay of the universe." I had to leave the room.'"

You slapped your desk, the sound echoing lightly over the airwaves. "See?! Physics is a tragedy! I’ve been saying this for weeks! Shoutout to the Shrek anarchist, you are doing the lord's work."

"Submission Number Four: 'To the guy who dropped a fully loaded, extra-cheese burrito directly onto the stairs of the library basement on Monday morning and just stared at it for three minutes before whispering "systemic oppression" and walking away... are you okay? Do you need a hug or a new economic model?'"

Behind the glass, Megumi’s head subtly twitched. A faint, nearly imperceptible crack formed in his stoic expression, his jaw clenching as he tried to suppress a highly uncharacteristic snort.

"Honestly, burrito guy, I feel you," you laughed, shaking your head. "In a capitalist society, losing a five-layer burrito to gravity is the ultimate form of alienation from the product of your labor. I pass the sociological vibe check on that one."

Your eyes instinctively went to search for Megumi’s, but from the corner of your eye, all you could see was half of his face bathed in the digital glow of his phone.

"Wait, wait, wait. JU, hold the phone. Mr. Realist has just entered the chat again. Listen to this," you cooed, your voice dropping into that intensely low, teasing whisper. "Submission Number Five: 'To the Sunbeam host. If your "alpha-male ecology technician" actually possessed any survival instincts, he would have locked the booth door and muting your feed the moment you recommended mixing carbonated taurine with synthetic fruit syrup. Furthermore, Karl Marx did not write about burritos. Go to your 10:00 AM lecture. Signed, A Realist.'"

You threw your hands up in the air, spinning your swivel chair around a full 360 degrees before locking your eyes directly onto the control room pane.

"HE IS SO MAD!" you yelled into the live microphone, completely ecstatic. "JU, the bathroom ghost is literally tracking my academic schedule! He knows I have a 10:00 AM lecture! And did you hear how he dragged you, Fushiguro? He said you have no survival instincts! He is so threatened by the fact that you formatted my APA bibliography! He’s basically writing a whole manifesto against you at this point!"

Under the deep shadow of his charcoal hood, Megumi Fushiguro now looked like a man who was actively experiencing a full-system meltdown. He didn’t expect you’d read his submission so fast. He lunged forward, slamming his palm onto the intercom button to cut into your private headset feed, his gravelly voice coming through in a tight, flustered, and completely desperate hiss.

"I am—I am not threatened by a fictional phantom," he stammered, his usual cool composure entirely fracturing as his voice cracked on the word fictional. He glared at you through the glass, his eyes wide. "And the user is completely right. Your understanding of conflict theory is a disaster, your drink is a biological hazard, and you are going to be late for French literature. Shut up and play the music track before I manually pull the breaker to this entire wing of the building."

You just winked at him through the glass, blowing a dramatic kiss toward the control panel as you leaned back into the mic for a quick transition.

"You heard him, JU! The tech director is getting grumpy, which means it’s time to head into a brief commercial and music break to let him recalibrate his temper. Don't go anywhere, because right after this, we’re diving deep into the Love and Romance column! Here’s a little Lana Del Rey to feed your main-character cravings. See you on the flip side!"

You hit the master track cue on your console, and the smooth, heavy trip-hop beats finally flooded the campus airwaves, safely taking you off the live feed. You pulled your headphones down around your neck, letting out a satisfied breath, and reached for your strawberry Red Bull to take another blissful sip.

Beneath the ledger of the control board, Megumi’s hands were practically trembling as he furiously unlocked his screen, a brand new notification lighting up his interface. His teeth ground together so hard his silver piercing clicked twice against his incisors. He had a tight, flustered scowl carved into his features as his thumb flew across the virtual keyboard with absolute, aggressive speed, desperate to get the last word in before your mic went hot again.

A second later, the phone in your hand gave a violent, aggressive rattle. You eagerly tapped the screen, a massive smirk spreading across your face.

Mr. Pessimist: If you mention the bathroom ghost on air one more time, I am personally going to delete your entire Spotify automation playlist and replace it with standard static white noise for the rest of the broadcast. Drink water. This is your final warning.

The break was around ten minutes long. Ten minutes where Megumi was absolutely certain you would walk right up to the glass partition, tap on the pane like an annoying parakeet, and yap his ear off about your stupid little mysterious text crush.

But you didn't. You didn't even stand up.

Instead, you just sat there in your swivel chair, rocking back and forth to the trip-hop beat with your knees pulled up to your chest, your phone held inches from your face.

And then, his phone blew up.

It violently rattled against the plastic surface of the soundboard, a rapid-fire artillery strike of notifications that had the screen flashing like a strobe light in his face. Megumi froze, his long fingers hovering over the master track volume as he slowly lowered his gaze to the screen.

You: PHANTOM!!!!!!! 💥

You: OMG YOU’RE LISTENING TO ME FOR REAL?! like you actually have your ears tuned to my frequency right now?! 🥺

You: wait wait wait hold on... if you're listening to the live broadcast feed... does that mean you think my voice sounds cute over the radio waves? 🎤

You: be honest!!! do I sound like a delicate, comforting morning sunbeam or do I sound like a sleep-deprived gremlin who drank too much battery acid?

You: also I literally just successfully dragged the physics department live on air!! pls praise me!!! tell me I did a good job or I will order another strawberry Red Bull right now I swear to god I’ll do it 🍓🥤💀

Deep in the safety of the control booth, Megumi Fushiguro looked like a man who had just been hit by a flashbang. His jaw clenched so hard the silver loop of his lip piercing pulled completely flat, and his tongue flicked out, clicking frantic, uneven rhythms against his bottom teeth.

He was actively experiencing a full-blown psychological crisis. He raised his eyes, staring through the glass partition at you. You were grinning like a maniac, your thumbs hovering over your screen, waiting for his reply.

He violently grabbed his phone, his long, pale fingers flying across the keyboard with absolute, trembling, indignant fury.

Mr. Pessimist: Your voice does not sound 'cute.' It registers at a decibel level that is actively threatening the structural integrity of the studio’s condenser microphones. You sound like a hyperactive bird that has bypassed its natural survival instincts.

Mr. Pessimist: And I will absolutely not praise you for weaponizing a Shrek meme to defame the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy is the inevitable decay of the universe, not a punchline for your mid-morning comedy routine.

You snorted so loud you had to cover your mouth with both hands to keep from choking on your drink. You instantly started typing back, your eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated mischief.

You: awww, look at you using big science words to hide the fact that you love me! 🥰 negative reinforcement is a classic sign of emotional deflection, Mr. Realist! but fine, if my voice isn't cute, then why does my audio guy Fushiguro always turn my headset volume up so high? checkmate, phantom. he clearly appreciates my acoustic aesthetic.

Megumi stared at the screen, his brain completely short-circuiting.

He was actively losing a debate against himself, and the sheer, astronomical level of your obliviousness was genuinely starting to feel like a targeted psychological experiment. His knuckles turned stark white against his phone case as he forced his trembling thumbs to reply.

Mr. Pessimist: Your audio engineer turns your volume up because your microphone technique is a disaster and you keep drifting away from the pop filter to drink your synthetic poison. It is a matter of technical calibration, not personal affection. If he could legally mute you for the entire hour, I assure you he would.

You: lies!! Fushiguro is a tsundere saint, he would never mute me! 😤 speaking of him, he’s currently staring at his phone looking like he’s trying to solve a complex math equation with his forehead. you guys are literally the exact same brand of grumpy.

Megumi slowly let his hand drop to his lap, letting out a long, shaky, completely defeated sigh. He looked through the glass, watching you happily take another sip of your red-tinted drink, totally content with the chaos you had just caused.

He looked at the digital clock on his monitor. 8:24 AM. The ten-minute break was officially over.

With a flustered scowl, he shoved his phone into his pocket, reached forward, and aggressively flicked the master intercom switch back on.

"Track ending in five seconds, Sunshine," his low, gravelly voice crackled into your headset, sounding incredibly raspy and heavy. He deliberately kept his eyes glued to the audio levels, refusing to look at you as his silver piercing clicked one final time. "Put your headphones back on and stop harassing anonymous users. Your mic is going hot."

The heavy, atmospheric beats of the Lana Del Rey track faded out right on cue, the transition seamless as Megumi’s long fingers glided over the control deck. Above the glass, the red ON AIR light pulsed with renewed intensity. You slid your headphones back over your ears, flashing one last victorious grin at the control booth before leaning smoothly into the microphone, your voice instantly dropping into a velvety, late-morning cadence.

"Welcome back, campus, you are listening to WKJS," you purred into the mic, leaning in close to activate the full, rich depth of the studio's proximity effect. "The music break is over, which means it’s time to dive straight into our Wednesday exclusive: The Love and Romance Column. This is the segment where we dissect the absolute battlefield that is the campus dating pool. And trust me, looking at the dashboard right now, some of you are fighting for your absolute lives out there."

"Let’s kick things off with a fresh anonymous submission that just slid into the queue," you said, your eyebrows shot up instantly. "Oh... oh, wow. This one is a tragedy in three acts. Listen to this, JU."

You leaned forward, your tone turning deeply theatrical as you began to read.

"'To the Sunbeam host, please read this so I can feel some semblance of closure. Last night, I finally went on a first date with my crush from the chemistry department. He suggested we go to that upscale, traditional ramen spot downtown. Everything was fine until he tried to show off by using the ultra-spicy black garlic chili oil. Within two minutes, his eyes started watering so badly he couldn't see. He tried to wipe his face, but he forgot he had chili oil on his fingers, so he accidentally maced himself at the table.'"

You paused, letting out a breathless, horrified gasp into the microphone. Behind the partition, you caught the exact moment Megumi’s right shoulder twitched. He was staring at his monitor, but his lips were pressed into a razor-thin line, his entire frame vibrating with the effort of holding back a massive, uncharacteristic laugh.

"But wait! It gets so much worse," you continued, your voice rising in comedic disbelief. "'He started panicking, stood up too fast, and blindly knocked a full bowl of hot tonkotsu broth directly into my lap. I screamed, the waiter slipped on the spilled oil, and the manager had to bring out the restaurant's first-aid kit to flush my date's eyes with whole milk while I sat there smelling like pork bones and defeat. We rode the subway back in total silence. He was crying from the chemical burns, and I was covered in dairy and noodle grease. Do I give him a second chance?'"

You slapped your palm against the desk, the sound echoing crisply over the airwaves.

"JU, I am begging you, do NOT give him a second chance!" you shrieked, laughing so hard you had to pull back from the pop filter. "Macing yourself with chili oil is one thing, but a tonkotsu bath on the first date? That is a fundamental breach of cosmic alignment. Your entire aura is compromised! You can't come back from a milk-flushing incident!"

You spun your swivel chair around, pointing your finger directly at the glass partition to pull your technician into the line of fire.

"Let’s get a male perspective on this. Fushiguro, I’m turning your mic on," you announced mischievously, flicking the master toggle to connect the control room line directly to the live broadcast. "Tell the campus: if a guy blindly dumps a bowl of soup on his date because he maced himself, is his romantic data permanently corrupted, or is there a path to redemption?"

Megumi’s head snapped up so fast his hood almost fell back completely. His dark eyes widened in pure ambush panic as the live feed connected to his desk mic. His tongue darted out, his silver lip piercing clicking three times in a frantic, rapid-fire rhythm against his teeth before he forced himself to lean into his microphone, his gravelly voice sounding incredibly tight and raspy over the airwaves.

"The technical data suggests a total system failure," Megumi muttered, his tone dropping back into its clinical, deadpan monotone as he tried to survive being put on the spot. "Showing off with high-scoville capsaicin oil indicates a severe lack of risk assessment. However... dropping the broth was an involuntary kinetic reaction to temporary blindness. It wasn't malicious intent; it was a structural accident. If he pays for the dry cleaning, the liability is technically cleared."

"Wow! Spoken like a true, cold-hearted biology major!" you cheered into the mic, completely delighted by his rigid response. "You heard it here first, JU! Our resident tech director says it’s a matter of financial liability, not emotional trauma! Personally, I think the guy needs to change his identity and transfer to a different university."

Through the clear pane, you could see the tips of Megumi’s ears flaring a violent, uncontrollable shade of crimson. He aggressively slammed his hand onto his console, manually overriding the station controls to cut his own live mic feed before you could torture him any further.

You chuckled, turning back to the glowing screen of the text board dashboard. "Alright, let's see what else we've got in the queue before we transition to our next music block. The submissions are rolling in fast now..."

You clicked on the latest entry, your eyes rapidly scanning the text. Mid-sentence, the words caught in your throat. Your voice completely dropped its professional radio modulation, shifting into a high-pitched, genuine squeak of sheer shock.

"Oh... wait a minute. Hold on. This next one is highly personal," you blurted out, leaning so close to the mic that the audio levels threatened to peak. "'To the Sunbeam host from a fellow night-owl in the library basement. I need the insider information for the sake of the campus rumor mill. Are you and your audio engineer secretly together? Because I definitely saw the two of you in the back study lounge at like 2:00 AM on Sunday morning, and you were completely passed out on his shoulder while he was literally typing on your laptop with one hand and using his other hand to carefully shield your face from the glare of the monitor. It was disgustingly domestic. Please confirm or deny, the public needs answers.'"

Static silence.

The air in the radio booth felt like it had suddenly been vacuum-sealed. For a second, the only sound over the airwaves was the soft, rhythmic looping of the lo-fi jazz track.

Behind the glass partition, Megumi turned into an actual, physical statue. His eyes were stretched incredibly wide, staring at the digital readout of the text board on his own monitor in catastrophic horror. The crimson flush that had been hovering on the tips of his ears violently exploded down his neck, coloring his entire throat a deep, burning shade of scarlet. His knuckles turned stark, skeletal white as he literally gripped the entire edge of the mixing console to keep his hands from shaking.

But as the initial, blinding panic began to recede, a strange, quiet shift occurred beneath the shadow of his charcoal hood.

Megumi looked away from the monitor and let his eyes drift over to you. Through the glass, he watched the flustered, bright pink tint warming up your own cheeks, the way your fingers nervously twirled the cord of your headset, and the small, breathless laugh escaping your lips. The words disgustingly domestic echoed in his head.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the rigid tension in his jaw began to melt. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips, hidden away in the dark security of the control room. His heart, which had been hammering against his ribs in terror, suddenly shifted into a different, warmer rhythm. The thought of it—the actual, public reality of people looking at the two of them and seeing a couple, of the campus gossiping about him belonging to you and you belonging to him—didn't make him angry. In fact, it sent a strange, possessive thrill straight down his spine. He liked it. He liked the thought of the rumor spreading. He liked that someone had noticed how carefully he had shielded your eyes from the light.

"Oh my god," you laughed breathlessly into the microphone, shaking your head rapidly. "JU, the library basement has eyes! I am officially being perceived! But to answer the anonymous commenter—no, absolutely not! Fushiguro and I are definitely not together. He was literally just keeping me from failing sociology because my brain had evaporated into mush. It wasn't 'domestic' at all, you guys."

Megumi’s small smile lingered, his eyes softening as he waited for you to inevitably call him a grumpy space heater or a tsundere.

"Besides," you continued cheerily, leaning into the microphone with a dramatic, exaggerated sigh that made your voice sound incredibly dreamy over the airwaves. "I can't go breaking my audio guy's heart like that, but more importantly, my allegiance is already pledged elsewhere. I've already told you guys, I have a massive, catastrophic crush on the bathroom ghost text guy. He's moody, he's mysterious, he reads detective novels, and he actually understands my need to romanticize life in a rainy greenhouse. Fushiguro is great, but the phantom has my entire heart right now."

In an instant, the faint, warm smile on Megumi’s face completely faltered.

The color didn't leave his cheeks, but the warmth vanished, replaced by a sudden, heavy ache that settled deep into his chest. He sat entirely still behind the soundboard, his fingers dropping away from the volume sliders. He stared through the glass partition at your bright, animated face as you continued to laugh off the submission, entirely oblivious to the absolute wreckage you had just caused.

A cold, sharp realization washed over him, suffocating the brief spark of happiness he had felt just seconds prior.

The bathroom ghost.

You liked the phantom. You liked the anonymous, faceless, text-bubble entity who sent structured advice at 3:00 AM. You liked the stylized, filtered version of a guy who hid behind a screen name because he was too cowardly to be a man and actually tell you how he felt.

Megumi’s eyes darkened, a profound, quiet insecurity clawing at his throat. What if she only likes the thought of him? he thought bitterly, his chest tightening as he watched you take another sip of your strawberry drink. What if she only likes the romanticized, mysterious concept of the phantom, but doesn't actually like him as a whole?

If he came out from behind the glass right now—if he showed you his phone, if he confessed that the cynical, hyper-logical realist who monitored her sleep schedule was the exact same person sitting behind the mixing board—would you still look at him with that same starry-eyed affection? Or would the illusion break? Would you realize that the "mysterious, cute detective-novel reader" was just Megumi Fushiguro, the quiet, unapproachable science major who couldn't even hold a normal conversation with you without hiding behind a technical manual?

"Matter of fact, I'll call him right now! Let's uncover the truth together, JU!"

The words left your mouth like a live grenade dropped directly onto the studio console.

Behind the glass partition, his entire soul practically left his physical body. In a split second of absolute survival-instinct panic, he completely abandoned his cool, unbothered tech-director posture. He lunged forward in his swivel chair, crossing his forearms violently in front of his chest to form a giant, frantic X.

"No! No!" his lips moved aggressively, mouthing the words through the thick pane of glass, his face morphing into a desperate, pale mask of terror. He shook his head so hard his messy black fringe flew wildly across his eyes.

But you weren't even looking at him. You were already entirely lost in the absolute sauce of your own live-radio bit. Your thumb aggressively tapped the screen of your phone, bringing up the contact for Mr. Pessimist and hitting the call button, holding it directly up to the heavy broadcast microphone so the entire campus could hear the line ringing.

Ring...

Megumi scrambled backward, his chair rolling violently against the plastic mat as his hand dived into the pocket of his dark charcoal hoodie. His fingers clamped around his device, desperately trying to find the silent switch, but his palms were sweating so badly he lost his grip.

And then, it happened.

From the other side of the glass partition, cutting right through the soft lo-fi background loop, a distinct, muffled sound began to echo. It wasn't just a generic vibration. It was a very specific, atmospheric, and highly recognizable bassline—the unmistakable, slowed-down intro of "West Coast" by Lana Del Rey. Your favorite song. The exact track you had requested for your thematic character playlist.

The muffled music was vibrating directly from inside Megumi's pocket.

Your brain short-circuited. Your hand froze, holding your phone against the microphone as your head slowly, stiffly turned toward the control room. Your eyes locked onto Megumi.

He was standing up now, his frame completely rigid beneath his oversized sweatshirt. The crimson flush on his face had vanished, replaced by a stark, breathless pallor. His green eyes stared back at you through the glass, wide and entirely trapped, like a deer caught in high-beam headlights.

Before you could even process the mathematical impossibility of what your ears were hearing, Megumi’s hand slammed down onto the master console.

Click.

With a single, violent motion, he threw the master kill-switch. The red ON AIR light above the glass instantly died, plunging the booth into an abrupt, dead silence. Your microphone cut out entirely, rendering the broadcast dead to the entire campus.

Without a single word. Without even looking back at you, Megumi spun on his heel. He yanked his phone out of his pocket to kill the ringing, shoved the heavy, soundproof door of the technical room open, and practically bolted out into the hallway. The heavy door slammed shut behind him with a muted, echoing thud, leaving you sitting entirely alone in the silent booth, your phone still pressed to your ear, your jaw practically resting on the desk as the pieces of the puzzle began to violently collide inside your head.

The dead silence of the soundproof booth finally snapped you out of your trance. The heavy, crackling static of West Coast had faded out minutes ago, but you had been sitting there, paralyzed, watching the audio levels flatline into a dull, green glow on the digital monitor.

The realization hit you like a physical blow. You ripped the heavy studio headphones off your ears, throwing them onto the mixing console with a loud, plastic clack that echoed in the empty studio. You grabbed your canvas tote bag from the floor, shoved your notebook inside, and snagged your half-empty, lukewarm strawberry Red Bull from the desk.

You threw the heavy, sound-insulated door open and bolted out of the station.

The media building was dead at this hour, illuminated only by the sterile hum of overhead fluorescent lights. You didn’t wait for the elevator. This was an important matter. You took the stairs, flying down the three flights of concrete and steel, your sneakers slamming violently against the scuffed linoleum steps. Every echo felt like a ticking clock.

You burst through the heavy glass doors of the campus conservatory, trading the crisp morning air for a completely different atmosphere. The air inside the biology department’s greenhouse was immediately thick, heavy with the humid warmth of a simulated rainforest and the rich, intoxicating scent of wet soil, peat moss, and blooming tropical flora.

After the frantic sprint across the quad, your breath came in uneven, shallow huffs. You slowed your pace, your sneakers making a soft, rhythmic squish-snap against the wet brick pathway that snaked through the greenery.

You began your search, moving deliberately through the dense foliage.

At first, it was just an endless wall of green. You walked past towering fiddle-leaf figs and massive Monstera deliciosa plants whose perforated leaves threw intricate, jagged shadows across the walkway. The light filtering through the high, condensation-fogged glass ceiling was soft and muted, casting a hazy, dreamlike glow over everything.

You kept your eyes peeled, scanning the narrow aisles. You checked the succulent section, where rows of terracotta pots held neat, geometric cacti, but found it empty. You walked past the hanging orchids, their vibrant pink and white petals brushing against your shoulder, but there was no sign of a spiky-haired audio engineer. The only sound was the steady, rhythmic drip... drip... drip of an automated misting system somewhere in the ceiling, and the distant, muffled patter of the morning rain outside.

But you knew his habits. You had a sociological imagination, and more importantly, you had the text logs.

You made a sharp turn toward the very back of the conservatory—the restricted biology research wing. As you neared the section labeled Pteridophytes, the air grew noticeably cooler and more shadowed. The vibrant tropical flowers gave way to dense, ancient-looking clusters of prehistoric ferns and damp rock walls covered in thick green moss.

And then, you spotted him.

Tucked away on a weathered wooden bench in the furthest, most shadowed corner of the aisle, sat Megumi. His wide frame was hunched over, his elbows resting heavily on his knees as he stared blankly at the brick floor. He had his oversized charcoal gray hoodie pulled entirely up, the fabric shadowing his face, but you could see the rigid, stressed line of his jaw from ten feet away.

He looked completely wrecked, his posture radiating a raw, frantic tension that completely contradicted his usual cool, unbothered demeanor.

As you took a quiet step closer, you noticed a faint, sweet cloud of blue-raspberry-scented vapor curling out from beneath his hood, dissipating slowly into the humid air of the greenhouse. Held tightly in his long, pale fingers was a sleek, royal blue vape. He took a short, sharp drag, his chest expanding under the fleece before he let out a long, shaky exhale, watching the smoke drift up toward the glass ceiling. His tongue darted out, his silver lip piercing clicking twice against his teeth, a frantic, anxious, metallic rhythm that echoed softly in the quiet conservatory.

You planted your feet firmly on the brick pathway, took a deep breath, and finally let it rip.

"Fushiguro!" you yelled, your voice exploding through the humid silence and echoing sharply off the high glass panels. "Megumi Fushiguro, you absolute coward!"

Megumi violently jumped a foot off the wooden bench, his dark eyes snapping to yours panic. Your sudden shout caught him right mid-inhale, and his entire system instantly short-circuited.

He hacked, chest heaving beneath his oversized charcoal fleece as he violently choked on the sweet smoke. He coughed rapidly into his elbow, his face instantly turning a catastrophic, high-voltage shade of crimson that had absolutely nothing to do with the lack of oxygen and everything to do with the fact that he had been thoroughly cornered.

"What—" he wheezed, his gravelly voice sounding incredibly raspy, strained, and completely stripped of his usual clinical composure. He frantically waved a long, pale hand through the air to disperse the sweet-smelling cloud, looking like a teenager caught smoking behind a cafeteria. "What are you doing here?! I told you—I texted you to go to your lecture!"

"Oh, shut up about my lecture schedule, ghost boy!" you marched right up the brick pathway, stopping a mere foot away from the bench and pointing your half-empty strawberry Red Bull directly at his face like a weapon. "The jig is up, Fushiguro! Or should I say... Mr. Pessimist? Mr. Realist? Mr. ECO-BOY?!"

Megumi froze, his hand tightly clamping around th blue vape as if he could somehow make it invisible. The crimson flush on his neck violently deepened, scorching all the way to the tips of his

ears.

"I don't... I don't know what you're talking about," he stammered, his eyes darting frantically to the surrounding ferns as if calculating whether he could structurally fit through a gap in the botany shelving to escape. "You're hallucinating. The synthetic fruit syrup and carbonated taurine have finally caused a localized neurological collapse in your brain."

"Oh, really?" you countered, leaning down into his personal space, your eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated triumph. "So it’s just a massive, localized cosmic coincidence that when I called the anonymous text number, the exact, slowed-down intro of West Coast started blasting directly out of your hoodie pocket? A track I explicitly requested for a playlist? A track you literally looped on the studio monitors like half an houe ago?!"

Megumi looked like a man who was actively wishing for a stray meteor to breach the greenhouse’s glass roof and crush him on the spot.

"It's a... it's a very common alternative track," he muttered hoarsely, his jaw clenching so hard the silver loop of his piercing pulled completely flat. He shoved the blue vape deep into his pocket and pulled his charcoal hood even lower, desperately trying to hide his burning face from your intense scrutiny.

"You are a terrible liar for someone who reads so many detective novels!" you shrieked happily, letting out a loud, breathless laugh that echoed off the high glass panels. "You literally typed out the words 'basic sense of human decency' to me on air! You yelled at me through the intercom about the laws of thermodynamics! You've been monitoring my sleep schedule, formatting my APA bibliographies, and dragging the entire physics department just to cope with the fact that I praised Megumi Fushiguro live on the airwaves!"

You stepped even closer, a massive, teasing smirk carving its way onto your face. "You were jealous of yourself, Megumi! You were writing hate mail to your own audio engineering desk!"

"I was not jealous of myself!" he exploded, his voice cracking slightly on the word myself as his entire stoic defense mechanism completely shattered into a million pieces. He stared up at you from the bench, his eyes wide, completely defenseless, and radiating pure, agonizing embarrassment. "I was trying to prevent you from making a total fool of yourself on a public broadcast! And your APA formatting was an structural abomination, it was giving me a migraine just looking at the document!"

"Aaaaand there it is!" you cheered, clapping your hands together in total victory. "The phantom has officially spoken! Admission of guilt achieved! I mean, it all makes total sense now! I’m a literal genius. A sociological detective! I knew it all along, Megumi. I completely knew!"

Megumi let out a low, suffering groan, burying his burning face in his hands as he slouched further back onto the weathered wooden bench. "You did not know. You literally called me a tsundere saint on air three minutes before trying to dox a phantom."

"Details, details!" you waved your hand dismissively, your voice bouncing off the glass panes of the greenhouse as you began to pace the narrow brick walkway, fully entering peak yapping mode. "The point is, the narrative arc is flawless. Like, think about the subconscious cosmic signaling! My brain clearly recognized your specific brand of hyper-logical hostility through the screen. You're always sitting there behind the glass looking like a moody detective from a film noir, drinking your bitter black coffee and judging my life choices. I should’ve connected the dots weeks ago when you knew my exact class schedule! Wait, does this mean you actually think my radio voice is cute? You totally bypassed the question in your texts, Fushiguro! You dodged it! You’re basically my guardian angel, except instead of wings, you have a terrible attitude, a severe nicotine dependency, and a silver lip piercing that clicks every time you perceive an structural error in my life—"

"Sunshine, please—" Megumi muttered hoarsely, his knuckles turning white as he grabbed the edge of the bench, trying to cut through the absolute avalanche of words.

"—and the fact that you changed your ringtone to fucking Lana Del Rey?! Oh my god, you are so deeply, irrevocably down bad for me! You’ve been hiding behind a text board this entire time because you’re a giant, grumpy tsundere who couldn't handle me telling the university that you're boyfriend material! Like, you could have just told me you liked the strawberry Red Bulls, you didn't have to call them a biological hazard live on air, though I guess that's just your way of showing affection, which is honestly kind of adorable in a tragic, hyper-logical sort of way—"

"Shut up," he muttered, but you didn't even tap the brakes.

"—and if you think for one second that I'm going to let you live this down, you are deeply mistaken, ghost boy! I am going to bring this up during every single mid-morning broadcast from now until graduation. I'm going to dedicate an entire segment to how my boyfriend flirted with me by copy-pasting a Wikipedia article about rain just to see your ears turn red, and then I'm going to—"

Megumi reached his absolute, psychological breaking point.

Before another syllable could escape your lips, his hand shot out from his pocket, his long, pale fingers gently but firmly wrapping around the back of your neck to pull you down. He lunged upward off the wooden bench, his movement fluid and desperate, and effectively silenced you by pressing his lips squarely against yours.

Your entire brain experienced a catastrophic, total system blackout. Your eyes widened in pure shock before fluttering shut, your hands instinctively clutching at the thick, charcoal fleece of his hoodie.

The kiss was sharp, breathless, and incredibly intense, capturing your mouth right in the middle of a syllable. The metal loop of his silver lip piercing was cool against your lips, a sharp, electric contrast to the absolute, burning heat of his mouth that sent a dizzying jolt straight down your spine. It wasn’t a tentative, hesitant brush, but a firm, possessive, and thoroughly desperate override of your entire vocal system, tasting faintly of sweet blue raspberry and lingering Red Bull.

Your tote bag slipped from your shoulder, hitting the brick floor with a soft thud, and your fingers completely lost their grip on the strawberry energy drink, the plastic can clattering into the soil of a nearby fern pot. Your whole world narrowed down to the tight, heavy grip of his hand cupping your jaw and the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart against his ribs. It was a kiss heavy with weeks of unsaid words, frantic midnight texts, and the quiet tension that had been building behind the studio glass. For a glorious, suspended moment, the entire biology wing faded away, leaving only the heat of him and the rhythmic, soft drip... drip... drip of the greenhouse misting system.

When he finally pulled back, it was only by a fraction of an inch. His breath came in short, ragged huffs against your lips, his chest rising and falling violently beneath his oversized charcoal fleece.

He didn't let go of your jaw. His green, intense eyes stared straight down into yours, completely wild and heavy with a mix of raw affection and total, agonizing embarrassment. The crimson flush on his neck had traveled all the way up his cheekbones, but his gaze didn't waver.

"You talk too much," Megumi muttered, his gravelly voice incredibly low, raspy, and completely breathless against your skin. He let his thumb stroke your cheekbone one last time before slowly dropping his hand, a faint, exhausted but fiercely genuine smirk finally tugging at the corner of his lips. "Shut up, Sunshine."

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