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prisvvner · 17 days ago

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⋆｡𖦹 °. ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ ʟᴏᴏᴋꜱ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴏɴ ʏᴏᴜ

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝ pairing: satoru gojo x female reader

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝ synopsis: you loved him once. then he ghosted you. now, years later, he's standing on your porch like he never broke your heart. but you still feel everything.

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝ content: 12.5k, romance, heartbreak, mentions of burnout, past love, college sweethearts, angst, hurt, comfort

── ⟢ ·⸝⸝ author's note: this is my little surprise for reaching 100 followers on tumblr! it's sad, fluffy and emotional - enjoy <3

let me know if you guys liked it and i'll publish part two!

masterlist part one part two

The front steps creak beneath your weight as you drop your bag down, the leather thunking against the old wood like punctuation at the end of a sentence you didn’t mean to write.

You pause there, one hand still gripping the rusted railing, as that familiar coastal wind sweeps up the porch—sharp with sea salt, softened by the sweet tang of sunscreen and the heavy perfume of overgrown hydrangeas that bloom like gossip around the gate.

It’s a scent that doesn’t just hang in the air, it wraps around your skin and memory like a silk scarf left behind in someone else’s car. The kind of scent that belongs to a very specific kind of summer.

The house, well, your mother’s infamous beach house, though she always referred to it as “the place”, sits quiet and stubborn as ever, perched at the edge of the dunes like it’s been waiting for you.

It’s aged, but not tired, the way old debutantes age: white shiplap faded gently into a sea-washed gray, powder-blue shutters blinking sleepily in the afternoon light, their paint peeling just enough to feel nostalgic instead of negligent. The porch swing still hangs by its bleached ropes, sagging a little more now, cushion flattened into memory foam by teenage limbs and late-night phone calls you pretended weren’t about boys.

This place smells like sun-warmed wood and old pages and something faintly medicinal that always clung to your mother’s linen drawers. It smells like every version of you that’s ever existed.

Inside, almost nothing’s changed.

The same woven rug sprawls inside the door, too rough against bare feet, too familiar to replace. The same ceramic turtle crouches beside it with his dopey painted smile, chipped on the shell where you dropped him during a tantrum in eighth grade—something about a missed sleepover and your mom saying no in that infuriatingly calm voice that meant it wasn’t up for negotiation.

On the narrow table in the entryway, tucked beside a bowl of half-melted seashell candles, is the same frame. Whitewashed driftwood, corners worn soft, still holding that photo of you from the summer you were ten.

In it, your arms are wrapped around a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, your eyes squinting against the sun, your hair stuck to your forehead. You’d named him Charlie. Begged for him all June. Got your wish in July. Sent him back to the breeder in August when your mother said she “wasn’t made for full-time pets.”

You cried for a week. You still think about him every time you see a dog like that.

But the difference now?

You’re here alone.

Well, alone-ish.

The invitation��or rather, the politely guised suggestion—came from your mother in one of her characteristically breezy, emotionally evasive phone calls.

“Take the house for a bit,” she’d said, her voice full of the crisp detachment of someone who believes that problems can be solved with ocean air and pressed juice.

“To rest,” she’d added, as if rest was a thing you could uncap and pour over your shoulders like after-sun lotion. “You’ve been working too hard. Burning the candle at both ends.”

She’d said it like burnout was an aesthetic choice.

Like peace could be found at the bottom of a wine glass and not in the absence of an email inbox that never sleeps.

You'd said yes because saying no would have involved explaining why you didn’t want to go back. Not just to the house. But to that version of you.

Now you’re here, and the silence inside the house, apart from the slow tick of the wall clock and the distant wheeze of an old ceiling fan, is so complete that your heartbeat feels like an interruption. You drop your keys into the chipped ceramic bowl shaped like a hibiscus flower, its glaze spiderwebbed with age, and toe off your sandals. The floorboards are cool beneath your feet, familiar in their uneven rhythm.

A salty breeze slips through the open screen door and rustles the linen curtains like applause from some distant room you can’t quite access anymore.

And, for one traitorous moment, you let yourself think: Maybe this will be okay.

But then you hear it.

Laughter.

Not the abstract kind that wafts from strangers in the distance. This is close. Immediate. Warm and low, carried on the breeze with too much familiarity to be anonymous.

Your spine stiffens before your brain catches up.

Male. Carefree. Just this side of cocky.

Too familiar.

Your stomach drops like a stone tossed into the tide.

“Oh, no,” you mutter, already moving toward the porch again.

The sun stings your eyes as you step outside, hand lifted to shield your gaze as you squint across the narrow stretch of windblown dune grass and faded wood fencing that separates your property from the one next door. The grass is taller than you remember. The fence shorter. And just past it, right where the wild reeds part near the path to the beach, he’s there.

Of course he is.

Satoru Gojo.

Tall, barefoot, irritatingly relaxed in that way he’s always had, like someone who lives in the sweet spot between the world bending for him and him never needing to ask.

He’s wearing linen pants that hang loose and lived-in on his hips, and a white button-down that looks like it costs more than your rent, open just enough at the collar to hint at sun-kissed skin beneath. His sleeves are rolled up. His hair is windswept, gleaming silver and salt under the late-afternoon sun, and his sunglasses are pushed up into his hair like a crown.

He’s tossing a red squeaky lobster toy in easy arcs for—of course—a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, whose glossy copper coat shines like she’s just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. The dog yips, catches the toy midair, bounds around him like she’s in love with gravity itself.

And then he turns.

Spots you.

Grins like the goddamn sun.

“Hey,” he calls, too casually, as if this were inevitable. “You again.”

You blink. “Me again?”

He jogs the toy once in his hand and lets the spaniel snatch it back with a satisfied squeak. “You’re the one invading my peace.”

“Your peace?” you echo, arms crossing before your chest as your voice lifts into polite disbelief. “Pretty sure this is my family’s house.”

“Pretty sure you didn’t warn me you’d be this cute in sunlight,” he fires back without missing a beat, as if charm were currency and he’d never known debt.

The words hit you in the chest and cheeks at the same time, hot, unwelcome, but not unfamiliar.

Because, of course, you know Gojo.

You’ve known him for years, in the way people who orbit the same social circles do. Family friends of family friends. Weddings. Charity events. He was always the one at the end of the hall with a glass of something expensive and a comment that walked the knife’s edge between outrageous and annoyingly accurate.

You’d known him in sharp glimpses and long summers, too good-looking for his own good, too clever for yours.

The last time you saw him, you’d both been at some rooftop bar in Tokyo, and he’d leaned in close, grinning that maddening grin, and said something like, “If we were ever in the same place for more than five minutes, you’d fall for me.”

You’d rolled your eyes.

And then maybe thought about it later.

Now here he is again. On your porch. In your quiet. With that damn grin.

The dog barks once, its tail a metronome of approval.

You try not to smile.

Fail. A little.

He strolls toward you now, the dog at his heels, both of them moving like this lawn has always belonged to them.

“You’re house-sitting for your mom?” he asks, stopping at the porch steps, one hand braced lazily on the railing like it’s all part of a script he wrote.

You shrug, adjusting your stance like it might steady your pulse. “Something like that. She said the neighborhood was quiet.”

His smirk softens into something almost tender. “Only till I moved in.”

You glance down at his bare feet. His tan. That slouchy, ruinous charm that always feels like a dare.

He looks like the kind of man you only meet once and spend years inventing better versions of.

He looks like he belongs here.

And that’s the problem.

Because Satoru Gojo, the man in question, barefoot in expensive linen and looking like the human embodiment of a smug Instagram filter, is not supposed to belong here.

Not on your mom’s sleepy little cul-de-sac, not this close to your peace and quiet, and definitely not this tanned.

So you fold your arms and tilt your head in that way that usually scares off investment bros and Tinder dates with too much jawline confidence. “Okay, but seriously. What the hell are you doing here?”

His smile twitches. “What, not even a ‘nice to see you’?”

“Not until you explain why you’ve apparated into my beach exile like a preppy cryptid,” you deadpan. “Last I checked, you were the newly crowned corporate overlord of Gojo Holdings, terrorizing boardrooms and interns across Tokyo.”

He snorts. “Overlord?”

“I mean, CEO. But tomato, to-mah-to.”

That earns you a low whistle and a slow, impressed grin. “Oof. That sounded rehearsed.”

“Maybe it was,” you challenge him, arching a brow. “Maybe I practice in the mirror for moments just like this.”

He slips his sunglasses back down over his eyes, probably to shield himself from the nuclear-grade sarcasm. Or from the fact that you’re right.

“Well,” he grins, toeing at the edge of the bottom step. “Contrary to popular belief —and your excellent burn— I do know how to take a break. I took a sabbatical. Temporary, of course.”

You narrow your eyes.

“You don’t take sabbaticals,” you shoot back. “You take conference calls at 2 a.m. and fire people over sushi.”

“Wow,” he says, mock-offended. “Have you been stalking my calendar?”

“Please. If I wanted to stalk someone, I’d pick someone with less ego and more plausible deniability.”

His laughter is low, easy. Annoyingly charming. The kind of laugh you can feel in your stomach even when you reallydon’t want to.

But you keep going, like a freight train of petty. “So, let me get this straight. You, walking headline, just happened to show up next door to my mom’s beach house for a little R&R?”

He stretches his arms behind his head, shamelessly. “Not everything’s a conspiracy theory. Sometimes I just like the sound of the ocean.”

You squint at him. “Bullshit.”

His smile flickers, like you’ve hit a nerve. And that’s when he says it, more casual than it should be.

“The board and I had a... let’s say, difference of opinion.”

You raise both eyebrows. “Did this difference involve yelling, threats of legal action, and you dramatically walking out with your sunglasses already on?”

“Maybe,” he grins, smug.

You roll your eyes. “God, you’re exhausting.”

“And yet here you are, talking to me on your porch instead of slamming the door.”

“Tempting,” you mutter.

He grins. “Three-month leave. Unpaid. Voluntary, technically.”

“Voluntary like a hostage situation?”

He shrugs again, but this time it’s looser, weightier. Like something in the space between his shoulder blades has finally cracked under pressure.

“They wanted a figurehead,” he tells you, softer now. “I wanted to rip the mold apart and build something that didn’t suck the soul out of everyone it touched.”

You pause.

Because beneath all the arrogance, there’s the same restless heat you remember. The same streak of recklessness that always ran just under his skin, like lightning waiting for somewhere to strike.

And maybe that’s the part that gets you.

Because if anyone knows what it means to walk away from something that looks perfect on paper, it’s you.

“So,” you continue slowly, arms still folded. “Let me get this straight. You got bored of being Tokyo’s favorite capitalist nightmare and decided to tan in linen pants while throwing lobster squeak toys with a dog that looks like she owns a line of organic shampoos?”

He glances down at the spaniel sitting obediently beside him, tongue lolling.

“Her name’s Miso.”

You blink. “You named your dog after soup.”

“It’s cute and comforting. Like me.”

You stare at him. “You’re not cute.”

He smiles, teeth and trouble. “You used to think I was.”

You try not to react.

You really do.

But the flush crawling up your neck is the kind of betrayal your sarcasm can’t cover.

So instead, you gesture vaguely toward the house. “Right. Well. I came here to be alone, so if you and your soup dog could maybe tone down the charm offensive—”

“Offensive?” he interrupts, mock-wounded. “Is that what we’re calling chemistry now?”

You fix him with your best unimpressed glare. “Pretty sure what we had was called a mistake.”

His gaze lingers on you a beat too long.

And then: “Yeah,” he says quietly. “But it was a good one.”

You don’t answer.

You just turn on your heel and disappear back inside before the porch starts feeling like quicksand.

But even as you shut the door, you swear you can still hear it:

The faint sound of Miso’s squeaky toy.

And the way Gojo Satoru says your name like it’s something that still matters.

By sunset, the house feels too quiet.

You try to make peace with it, pour yourself a glass of whatever your mom left behind (a buttery Chardonnay, of course), pad barefoot across the creaky floorboards, and plant yourself on the porch swing like it doesn’t still have your name carved into the underside in messy, hormonal eighth-grade script.

You swing gently, wine glass resting on your thigh, eyes fixed on the horizon as if the ocean might offer some cosmic answer.

Or at least distract you from the fact that Gojo Satoru is next door, barefoot, tanned, possibly shirtless by now, and allegedly on sabbatical from being the cockiest CEO Tokyo has ever reluctantly admired.

The sky melts into shades of apricot and mauve, the kind of palette you’d kill to capture in oil paint if you still did that. If you still had that version of yourself.

Instead, you sip wine and pretend you don’t notice the shadow moving across the edge of your vision.

You don’t look.

You absolutely don’t look.

You definitely don’t—

“I brought an offering,” says Gojo’s voice, somewhere to your right.

You sigh. Loudly. Dramatically. Like the ghost of a Victorian woman mourning the loss of silence.

“I thought the dog was the offering,” you mutter, still not looking at him.

“Miso is offended. She wants you to know she’s far too good for bartering.”

“I’m honored,” you deadpan, finally turning your head.

He’s holding two beers. One of them is sweating in the golden light, already opened, clearly meant for you.

You eye it suspiciously. “What if I don’t drink beer?”

He lifts a brow. “You drank half a bottle of wine and told the porch swing it ‘wasn’t emotionally available enough.’ I think you’re past pretending to be picky.”

You narrow your eyes. “You were eavesdropping?”

He shrugs. “You were monologuing.”

“… Touché.”

You accept the beer with a grunt, scooting a few inches over on the swing. Not enough to invite him, exactly. Just… making room for the tension to sit somewhere that isn’t in your chest.

But he takes it as an invitation anyway and drops down beside you with a sigh that’s irritatingly content.

You sit like that for a while.

Sipping.

Swinging.

Saying nothing.

The breeze picks up. Somewhere down, a wind chime sings its glassy song. The first stars begin to surface, faint and far away.

And still, he says nothing.

Which, honestly, is worse.

“Gojo,” you start finally, unable to take the silence. “Are you gonna give me the full story, or are you just here to haunt my summer like a shirtless corporate poltergeist?”

He laughs. Quiet, this time.

Then, after a pause: “I was supposed to propose.”

You turn your head so fast it nearly snaps. “To who?”

He grins like he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Relax. No one you’ve met. And it didn’t happen.”

“…What stopped you?”

His smile fades a little. Not completely, just enough to remind you there’s a person under all that charm.

“I got to the dinner,” he says. “Sat down. Ordered the wine. Reached into my jacket pocket for the ring.” A pause. “And realized I couldn’t do it.”

You blink. “You forgot the ring?”

“No.” He looks down at his beer, rolling the bottle between his palms. “I looked across the table and realized I didn’t want to give it to her.”

You stare at him.

Not because he’s being dramatic, but because he’s not.

And suddenly the tan, the linen, the sabbatical? All of it makes sense.

You sigh. “So you torched your engagement and your job in the same week.”

He tips the beer toward you in a mock-toast. “Efficiency.”

You clink bottles. “You’re an idiot.”

“You always said that,” he murmurs, and your stomach gives a little kick.

“Yeah, well.” You look out toward the water again. “Some people grow out of being disasters. Some people double down.”

“And which am I?”

You exhale. “Ask me when the beer’s gone.”

He smiles again, but this time there’s a softness to it. Something quieter. Realer.

The swing creaks as it sways gently beneath you, and Gojo leans back, one arm thrown across the backrest, not touching you, but close enough that your skin buzzes like it’s reading too much into things.

You hate how comfortable it feels. How familiar.

Because the truth is, you’ve always known Gojo Satoru.

Long before he became “the CEO of Gojo Holdings,” before the headlines, before the dog with the ribbon and the tan and the goddamn linen pants.

Back when you were nineteen, and he sat behind you in that painfully boring ethics seminar.

When he made up imaginary text messages to get you both out of class. When he kissed you one night at the vending machine outside your dorm and said, “This is probably a bad idea,” right before doing it again.

When he ghosted you for a year.

When he came back and said, “I wasn’t ready. I might never be.”

When you promised yourself you’d never make that mistake again.

And now here he is.

Not in a bar or a boardroom or some reunion you could easily leave.

But next door.

At sunset.

With beer and that damn dog and a smile you used to believe in.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he murmurs.

You roll your eyes. “You’re imagining things.”

“Probably,” he hums. “But I’m also right.”

You look down at your bottle. The label’s peeling.

“So,” you drag the word. “What happens now?”

He leans back, stretching his legs, gaze lifted to the deepening stars. “I was kind of hoping you’d fall asleep on my shoulder again.”

You choke on your beer.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what happened last time,” he says, casually. “Back in college. Under that awful cherry blossom tree. You fell asleep. I didn’t move for two hours.”

You scowl. “You told me you left because you had a shift.”

“I lied.”

You blink.

He turns to you, his cerulean eyes suddenly bright in the dark, no sunglasses, no smirk.

“Didn’t want to wake you.”

You open your mouth.

Close it.

Open it again.

And then: “You’re still an idiot.”

But you don’t move away.

You stay exactly where you are.

Letting the swing sway.

Letting the ocean breathe.

Letting the past become something more complicated than regret.

And when your head eventually tips sideways, resting—accidentally, definitely not on purpose—against his shoulder, he just exhales.

Soft.

Careful.

And says, “Told you.”

Later, after the swing stops creaking and your beer’s gone warm beside your bare ankle, you say the five words you’ll probably regret until next morning.

“Wanna walk down the beach?”

You say it like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t feel like a pulse between your ribs. Like it’s not 10:47 PM and your heart isn’t behaving like it’s 19 again.

Gojo doesn’t answer with words. Just tilts his head like you’ve said something obvious and rises, barefoot and quiet, offering a hand that you do not take. You walk past him instead, stepping down from the porch with that practiced nonchalance you’ve weaponized since high school.

The sand is cool, still warm in patches where the sun baked it for hours. The moonlight is silver and clean, the air thick with salt and the faint scent of plumeria from someone’s overwatered garden.

You walk in silence for a while, just the two of you and Miso—the absurdly fluffy Cavalier—who bounds ahead like she’s scoring a Nancy Meyers soundtrack in real time.

Gojo, to his credit, keeps pace a few steps beside you. Close enough that you feel the warmth of him. Far enough not to press.

“Does she always have that much main character energy?” you finally ask, nodding toward the dog, who’s currently flopping belly-up in a dramatic sprawl of sand and moonlight.

“She’s a Sagittarius.”

You snort. “You did not just say that like it explains everything.”

“It does,” he argues, dead serious. “Loud, dramatic, emotionally reckless with a deep need to be adored?”

You arch a brow. “Sounds familiar.”

He grins. “She and I have the same birthday.”

You blink. “You’re joking.”

“I would never lie about astrology.”

You glance sideways at him, trying not to notice how moonlight makes his jaw look like it belongs in a perfume ad. “You used to lie about everything. Especially anything sentimental.”

“I’ve changed.”

“You say that like I’m supposed to just believe you.”

He’s quiet a beat too long.

And then: “I didn’t come here to make you believe anything.”

You slow a little.

Miso darts into the waves, barking like she’s confronting a personal betrayal. You stop just at the tide line, arms folding reflexively as the ocean brushes near your feet.

Gojo stops beside you.

The breeze lifts his hair. He doesn’t speak again until the waves hush low enough for you to hear the real quiet between you.

“I came because I didn’t know where else to go,” he adds softly.

You don’t look at him. But you hear it. That flicker of real. The chink in the Gojo armor.

“I didn’t want Tokyo,” he continues. “Didn’t want the board. Didn’t want the goddamn apartment that looks like an Apple Store. Didn’t want the calendar reminders for when to sleep.”

You laugh, dry and quiet. “So naturally, you picked the one place I couldn’t avoid you.”

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, seriously.” His voice shifts, lighter, but earnest. “Your mom told me the place would be empty. I ran into her at some ridiculous charity function. She was wearing a scarf made entirely of orchids and told me to ‘come breathe for a while.’ I think she thought I was having a nervous breakdown.”

“…Were you?”

He hesitates. “Not officially.”

You finally glance at him.

He’s not smiling anymore.

You both stand there, ankles damp, the horizon curling into shadow like a secret neither of you wants to name.

And in the moonlight, he’s not the CEO.

He’s not the boy who ghosted you. Not even the idiot who brought a beer as an apology for breaking your heart with silence.

He’s just Satoru.

Hands in his pockets.

Hair blowing in the wind like it’s been waiting to fall apart.

And, god help you, you feel your chest crack open like a badly patched window.

“You could’ve called,” you say, and it’s quieter than you meant it to be.

He nods. “I wanted to. So many times.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

He takes a breath. Then another.

“I didn’t think I’d know how to talk to you without wanting more.”

That hangs between you. Ugly. Beautiful. Honest.

You swallow.

The ocean presses against your feet, then pulls away again, like it, too, doesn’t know how to stay.

Miso flops dramatically into the sand beside you both, exhausted from her own emotional subplots. You reach down and scratch behind her ears, giving yourself something—anything—to do that isn’t fall apart under his eyes.

“So what now?” you murmur.

Gojo steps closer. Just slightly.

“I don’t know.”

You turn to face him fully now. The distance is measured in inches. Heartbeats.

He looks down at you like he wants to memorize something. Not your face, exactly. Something under it.

“I don’t expect anything,” he tells you. “I just— I wanted to be near the version of me who used to be okay. And he only ever showed up around you.”

It hits harder than you want it to. Because you remember that version of him.

You remember the jokes, the pranks, the late nights, the shared earbuds, the way he looked at you like you were something he’d found and couldn’t believe he was allowed to keep.

You remember wanting to believe it.

You remember what it felt like when he left.

“I’m not your sanctuary, Satoru.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not here to fix you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Good.” You exhale, stepping away from him just enough to steady yourself. “Because I don’t trust you.”

He nods, accepting it. No flinch. No charm.

But then: “Do you miss me?”

You laugh. Bitter, brittle. “You’re impossible.”

“I know,” he says again.

And then, softer: “But I missed you. And I’m not leaving yet.”

You watch him.

The breeze shifts again. Your arms are cold.

He shrugs out of his linen button-down, wordless, and drapes it around your shoulders like it’s nothing. Like he’s done it a hundred times before.

He hasn’t.

You don’t give it back.

And you don’t say thank you.

You just start walking again.

And this time, he walks beside you, silent, respectful, annoyingly golden in the moonlight.

Like maybe he understands that some forgiveness isn’t verbal.

It’s just staying. Quietly.

Even when you have every reason to leave.

It's way past your usual sleep time, but you’re back in bed. The heat won’t let you sleep. Even with all the windows thrown open wide, even with the ceiling fan slicing the thick, sticky air into lazy ribbons that barely move, even with one leg kicked out from under the sheet like some sacrificial limb, it’s still too damn hot.

Your skin feels like it’s remembering a sun you never even laid under today, the dampness at your roots clinging to your scalp, and your tank top—useless, threadbare—is doing nothing to keep you cool.

And of course, Satoru Gojo is next door. Not helping. Not even a little. Because it’s not just the weather’s heat making you restless.

It’s the heat of his laugh, that impossible smile, the way his sun-stupid white hair catches the moonlight just right, and that voice—yeah, that same voice that used to make your spine go weak in lecture halls and back stairwells and on that one couch in the library basement you were definitely not supposed to be making out on.

You roll over. The pillow’s no cooler on this side, and the room smells like old salt and clean linen. Your brain, though? Total bitch. It drags you back to that one certain night.

College, sophomore year, late October, when the campus was painted in yellow leaves and the cold bit into your lungs with every breath. You’d just bombed a midterm you were sure you aced—or at least almost aced—and there you were, crying quietly in the hallway outside the economics building. Not the kind of sobs that draw attention, but the kind that shrinks you down so small you feel like you might disappear.

You couldn’t even explain it to your friends without sounding like a total drama queen, so you kept it to yourself.

Then, like a storm you never saw coming, Gojo showed up. White hair slicked back messily with a headband, black hoodie half-zipped, iced coffee in hand as if the cold outside didn’t matter one bit.

And that smile, the one that made girls trip over their own boots.

“You look like you’re about to commit tax fraud,” he greeted you, cocking his head like he was part devil and part angel. “Need an alibi?”

You hadn’t even looked at him. “I need you to go away.”

“Rude,” he huffed, sitting down beside you on the cold stone steps like he owned your emotional meltdown. Your knee brushed his, and suddenly that little physical connection felt like a lifeline.

“You failed something, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t fail it,” you snapped. “I just didn’t ace it, which apparently means I’m now a disappointment to my entire bloodline.”

He handed you his iced coffee without a word, and you took it, trying not to scowl as you sipped the weird lavender oat milk concoction that tasted like dirt and perfume.

“Disgusting,” you muttered.

He grinned. “Right? I get it every week just to remember what regret tastes like.”

You wanted to stay mad, really you did, but he started talking, about his own test, about filling in Scantron bubbles in a pattern that spelled “BOOBS” just to make the TA laugh, about how grades didn’t mean much when you were already the heir to Gojo Holdings and everyone expected you to be brilliant even if you flunked out, about how he hated the pressure to be exceptional.

Maybe it was the softness in his voice.

Maybe it was that he didn’t touch you or try to fix you, didn’t offer some magic solution—he just sat there, warm and solid and obnoxiously kind.

And somehow, you leaned your head onto his shoulder. Just for a minute. Just until your hands stopped shaking.

He shifted slightly so you could rest more comfortably. His hoodie smelled like citrus and laundry detergent, like safety. Like almost.

And then he said it. Quiet. Almost too quiet to register.

“I think I like you too much.”

Your heart stuttered. Because that was the first time he’d said anything real—not a joke, not a flirt, not some outrageous one-liner designed to get a rise. Just honest.

You lifted your head, looked at him, and his eyes were bluer than they had any right to be in that kind of dusk. For one reckless second, you thought maybe, just maybe, you’d kiss him. Maybe you’d let yourself believe in whatever this was between you, even if it came without a label and came with all the complications in the world.

But you didn’t kiss him. You stood up. Told him you had to go. And when you looked back—just once, from across the quad—he was still sitting there, holding your coffee, looking like he’d just lost something he didn’t even know he was trying to keep.

The house creaks softly around you, familiar and steady, and the waves keep folding over themselves outside, slow and patient.

Somewhere next door, Gojo is probably sleeping soundly, that ridiculous dog curled at his feet. You turn over again. This time, the pillow’s cooler—but your heart isn’t.

And that memory pulls you somewhere else.

You remember another afternoon, sticky and overwhelming, the kind of early spring day when the campus feels like a sauna and your brain is too fried to care.

You’d slipped away from back-to-back lectures you barely survived, ducking behind the student union to the vending machine nobody ever used, desperate for a cold, sweet Diet Coke, the one small act of rebellion against the stress and noise.

You stood there fumbling with your wallet, savoring the brief quiet, when Satoru appeared again, like some magnetic force you could never escape. He was leaning casually against the wall, his silver hair catching the light like a challenge. He didn’t say anything at first, just watched you with that maddening grin, like he knew a secret you hadn’t figured out yet. You tried to keep your cool, telling yourself he was just being irritating as usual, but before you could move, he reached out and caught your wrist, his fingers warm and steady.

“I don’t do casual,” he said, voice low and serious, flipping your stomach like a rollercoaster. “Not with you.”

And then, without waiting for a reply, he leaned in and kissed you, soft, urgent, like he was trying to make up for lost time or prove something neither of you had the words for. It wasn’t rushed or careless. It was the kind of kiss that pulled the ground out from under you, left you dizzy and breathless in the quiet space behind that vending machine, surrounded by the hum of campus chatter and the faded smell of old books from the nearby library. His hand tightened on your wrist just enough to hold you there, grounded in a moment that felt impossibly fragile and fiercely real.

When he finally pulled away, his eyes locked on yours with a seriousness that made your chest ache, and all you could do was stand there, heart racing, wondering if you’d crossed some invisible line. Or if maybe this was the beginning of something you never dared hope for.

Still lying in the quiet dark of your mother’s beach house bedroom, the faint hum of cicadas outside mixing with the restless rhythm of the waves, the memory curls inside you like a bittersweet ache.

It wasn’t just the kiss itself, but everything it meant and everything you weren’t ready to admit: the way he saw you, like you mattered more than you’d ever allowed yourself to believe, and the way it shook the careful walls you’d built around your heart.

And maybe you thought that would be it. A moment, a lapse, a crack in the surface of whatever strange thing had always simmered between you. But it wasn’t.

Because it kept happening.

You didn’t mean to let it. Or maybe you did, and you just told yourself you didn’t, because wanting something too badly had always felt like weakness.

But after that kiss behind the vending machine, something shifted. Not loud, not obvious, just a subtle reorientation of gravity.

Suddenly, he was always near.

Always looking at you like he knew your next breath before you did. He’d brush your hand when you passed each other in the library stacks. He’d find you in crowded hallways and murmur something stupid and sharp against your ear, and your whole body would hum like you were standing too close to an open flame. He’d catch your gaze across lecture halls like the two of you were sharing a joke no one else could hear, and you’d roll your eyes, but your cheeks would burn and you’d know he saw it.

And then, more kisses. Behind closed doors, in shadowed corners, in places no one should ever have seen but never did—like the universe was conspiring to keep your secret safe.

Once, in the quiet hallway behind the fine arts building, you kissed him with your back pressed to the peeling paint of an old classroom door, his hands cupping your jaw like he thought you might disappear if he let go.

Another time, it was on the rooftop of the science wing, right before a thunderstorm, with the sky crackling above you and the wind tangling your hair and his laugh caught in your throat when he pulled you in by the belt loops of your jeans and said, “This is probably a bad idea,” right before doing it anyway. You kissed until it started to rain, warm and sharp, and you didn’t care if anyone saw.

But no one ever did. Because that was the rule. Unspoken but ironclad.

It was always behind something. Beneath something. Never in daylight. Never in public. Never where it could mean anything more than stolen time and bruised lips and breathless laughter shared between ghosts of who you were supposed to be.

And you told yourself it was fine. That you were fine. That it didn’t hurt to keep him like this—half-kept, half-hidden, like a flame cupped in your hands just to keep it from going out.

But something in him had already begun to fray.

You saw it in the way his jokes came slower. In the way his silences stretched longer. In the way he looked at you, sometimes, like he was trying to memorize you... or forget you. You couldn’t tell which.

And then one day, he just… wasn’t there.

You’d texted him. Nothing. Called. No answer. You even went to that vending machine spot—waited there, like a fool, like a hopeful, desperate idiot with a Diet Coke sweating in her palm and a thousand things unsaid crammed between her ribs.

He didn’t show. Not that day. Not the next. Not any day after.

He was gone. Clean and total, like a knife had been taken to your memory of him and carved out the present tense.

Gojo disappeared like he’d never been real at all.

A year passed.

Twelve long months where every piece of him you’d carried, his voice, his grin, the way he said your name when no one else could hear, turned into something sour and unfinished inside you. You told yourself you were over it. That people leave. That people grow up. That whatever you had wasn’t real. Couldn’t have been. Because real things don’t vanish. Real people don’t ghost you like that.

But on nights like this, when the air clings to your skin like memory, and the ceiling fan’s doing nothing but reminding you how still everything is, and the sea keeps sighing outside like it knows exactly what you lost… you think of him. Not like a wound. Not even like a wish.

More like a fact. A truth. A secret still burning beneath everything you never said.

You shift again, eyes shut tight. You can’t tell if it’s the heat or your own heartbeat keeping you awake, but your chest feels tight with something that wants to rise. Not tears. Not even anger. Just the ache of a door that was never closed properly.

And outside, he is somewhere next door. Probably asleep.

Like nothing ever happened.

The morning arrives like it’s apologizing for the night.

Soft sunlight spills over the faded deck wood, pooling at your bare feet. It’s cooler than it was a few hours ago—still warm, still summer, but not the oppressive, feverish heat of midnight. The breeze off the ocean is lazy and salt-sweet, threading through your hair as you sit cross-legged in one of the old wicker chairs your mom refuses to throw out. The cushion underneath you is lumpy and a little sun-bleached, but you’ve staked it as your territory for the upcoming weeks. Yours. Sanctuary.

You take a slow bite of your avocado toast, which you’ve baked in the oven like a fancy little gremlin because no one told you not to be dramatic with breakfast. It’s got lemon zest, chili flakes, and a smattering of crumbled feta because apparently the ocean air has turned you into someone who garnishes things before noon. You even dusted a little paprika on top. Paprika. Like you’re on a cooking show. Like the past isn’t still hanging around your collar like a too-heavy necklace.

Your book is cracked open on your lap, a battered paperback you’ve already read twice but picked up again anyway, because it’s safe. Predictable. It doesn’t kiss you behind vending machines or vanish for a year. It doesn’t have blue eyes or a laugh that can gut you with a single syllable. It’s just paper. And ink. And peace.

You manage to read the same paragraph four times without absorbing any of it.

Because he’s still next door.

You haven’t seen him yet, but you know he’s there. The silence is suspicious. Too quiet for someone like Satoru Gojo, who’s made an entire personality out of being un-ignorable. He’s probably still asleep. Or maybe he’s gone for a run, like he used to do in college when his brain wouldn’t shut up.

You remember him showing up to your 8 a.m. stats class in running shorts and sunglasses, still sweating, bragging about beating his own time and then promptly falling asleep during a lecture on chi-squared distributions.

You hated how much you noticed him back then.

You hate that you still do.

You shake it off—mentally swat at the thought like it’s a mosquito—and turn your face toward the sun instead, letting it paint you in warmth. The sound of the waves is steady and hypnotic, that slow, hush-hush rhythm you grew up with. It’s supposed to calm you down. Ground you. Remind you that the ocean doesn’t care about boys who leave or memories that won’t stay quiet.

You tell yourself you’re going to swim soon. Really swim. Maybe float. Maybe dunk your whole head under until you come up clean. Like a baptism, but angrier.

You’ve already got your swimsuit on under your sleep shirt. The good one, the black one with the high waist and dramatic scoop back that makes you feel like you’re starring in a moody indie film called Girl, Unraveling. You plan on walking down the beach barefoot with your sunglasses on and not looking at the house next door even once.

You're fine. You are so fine it’s practically suspicious.

And maybe if you keep saying that, you’ll start to believe it.

Your phone buzzes next to your plate, lighting up once. Just a calendar reminder. You ignore it. There’s nowhere you have to be. No one expecting you to perform productivity or pretend you’re thriving. This whole week is supposed to be about rest. Real rest. Deep rest. Nervous system reset kind of rest.

But rest is hard when ghosts keep knocking on your ribs.

You close the book, give up on pretending you’re reading. Pull your knees to your chest and let the breeze kiss the backs of your legs.

The day is quiet.

The toast is perfect.

The waves keep whispering things you don’t want to name.

And somewhere, inevitably, Gojo is going to step out onto his porch.

And you’re going to have to figure out how to look him in the face without showing every single thing he used to make you feel.

The towel is scratchy. The kind you only find in a beach house linen closet that hasn’t been updated since the early 2000s—sun-bleached, vaguely sand-scented, and questionably clean. But you sling it over your shoulder anyway, because you’re already committed. You’ve made the internal announcement: I am going swimming now. And even if the water is freezing or the tide’s moody or Gojo decides to do something annoying like exist within visual range again, you’re going.

The house is quiet as you walk back through it barefoot. You pause in the kitchen long enough to rinse your coffee glass and leave it in the sink, pretending that a clean counter will give your brain the illusion of control. Then you push through the back screen door, towel in hand, sunglasses perched on your head.

The beach path is narrow, overgrown in that charmingly neglected way that makes every step feel like you’re entering a liminal zone between your overthinking and whatever the sea might offer instead. Sea oats sway on either side. The sand is already warm. And with each crunching footfall, the cottage and the porch and the phantom of Gojo drift a little further behind you.

The water is visible now—gray-blue and glinting, restless under the morning sun. A breeze kicks up, salt-sticky and wild, threading through your hair like it remembers you from years ago.

You step onto the sand proper, skin already prickling with heat, and drop your towel into the dune grass. The beach is empty. Perfectly, graciously empty. No joggers, no couples with floppy hats and matching towels, no loud teens blaring a Bluetooth speaker. Just you, the sound of the surf, and the soft hiss of the wind dragging across the shore.

You breathe.

You strip off your shorts and shirt. You walk straight into the water.

It’s cold. Shocking. Glorious.

You gasp when it hits your thighs, and again when it crests your hips, and by the time you dive under—clean, deep, all in—it’s like the heat has finally been silenced. Like your body has been reset, chilled into awareness.

You float for a while. Let the salt cradle you. Let the sun turn you into nothing more than a shape among the waves. For one blessed minute, there’s no memory, no heartbreak, no Gojo. Just ocean.

But of course, it doesn’t last.

You’re swimming back to shore, hair slicked, breath even, when you see movement. A tall figure, walking down the same beach path you just came from. Shirtless again. Of course. Towel slung around his neck. A pair of goddamn aviators catching the sun like a personal spotlight.

Gojo.

You nearly laugh. Of course he’d follow. Not intentionally, probably. But it’s like he has some cosmic radar for where you don’t want him to be.

You haul yourself out of the water and try not to look like a woman who’s just been ambushed by a memory in real time. You walk slowly, deliberately. Grab your towel and shake the sand off with practiced aggression. Pretend like this is all just a casual, regular morning, nothing strange to see here, no ghosts from college strolling barefoot into your peace.

But he sees you.

And waves again.

Closer this time.

“Water good?” he calls out, voice lazy and cheerful like he isn’t detonating your nervous system with every word.

You squint at him from behind your sunglasses. “Cold enough to shut my brain up. You should try it sometime.”

He grins. “Tempting.”

And just like that, he’s standing a few feet away, his eyes scanning the waves like he’s debating whether to join you. Or maybe like he already has, in some other memory you’re trying very hard not to revisit while mostly naked and dripping saltwater.

You raise an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who needs someone else to go in first.”

“Nah,” he says, dropping his towel on the sand beside yours. “I’m more of a reckless dive kind of guy.”

And then he walks straight into the water.

You blink. Stand there, dumbfounded, while he dives in without a single flinch, resurfacing with a laugh and a shake of his head that sends water flying in every direction.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, wrapping your towel around your waist. “Of course he’s graceful when wet.”

You sit down in the sand, heart doing that annoying thing again. Watching him out there in the surf, hair slicked back, sun bouncing off his shoulders like a cinematic filter—it's hard not to feel the old ache. The old longing.

You wish you could pretend none of it mattered. That he’s just a neighbor. Just another idiot man with too much confidence and not enough sunscreen. But the truth is, he’s not. He’s Satoru. He’s your ghost. And now he’s right here, shaking the water from his eyes like he didn’t once disappear from your life for a year and ruined everything you two had with nothing but silence and shadows in his place.

He shakes the water from his hair like a dog—messy, gleaming, careless—and drops into the sand next to you with all the elegance of a man who has never once worried about being wanted. There’s salt crusting his lashes. Sunlight glinting off the long, lean length of him like a challenge.

And he’s too close.

Not touching you, but close enough that the hairs on your arm lift. Close enough that you can smell the ocean on his skin, bright and clean and sharp, like the memory of that night in the stairwell when everything changed and nothing was said outright.

You pull your towel tighter around your waist, like it’ll guard you from things that are already inside you. You don’t look at him. Not really.

“So?” he says, tilting his head, voice low and too amused. “You gonna just sit there wrapped like a little beach burrito, or are you coming back in?”

You shoot him a sideways glance. “Wow, compelling pitch. Truly irresistible.”

He grins. The full thing. Teeth and dimples and that damn light in his eyes like he already knows your answer.

“I’m serious,” he laughs. “Come back in.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t stay long enough,” he says, his voice softening, just slightly. “You always do that. Dip your toes in and run the minute it feels good.”

Your stomach flips.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

His grin falters for a second. You watch it—how quickly the confidence cracks, then reassembles. How fast he recovers, like a reflex honed by years of not getting hurt unless he decides it’s time.

He stands, brushing sand from his palms, and offers you a hand.

“I’m not trying to win anything,” he says. “I just want you to come back in the water. It’s better with you there.”

You look at his hand.

You think about what it means, to take it. To step back into something you barely survived the first time. To pretend, even for a minute, that the past can be rewritten just by swimming next to someone you once loved more than your own good sense.

You swallow. The breeze picks up. The waves crash and pull like they know your name.

“Last time I followed you,” you add slowly, eyes on the horizon, “you vanished.”

He’s quiet for a beat too long.

“I know,” he says. “And I’m not asking you to forget that.”

Another pause.

“Just… come back in. You don’t have to stay. You don’t have to talk. Just—come float next to me like old times. Let the water shut everything up for a while.”

You’re not sure if it’s a request or an apology. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s nothing.

But his hand stays out.

Open.

Waiting.

And God help you, you miss the weightlessness.

So you take it.

The second your fingers brush his, there’s that jolt again—like static, like déjà vu, like every bad decision you’ve ever made wrapped in sea salt and nostalgia. His hand is warm, steady, too steady, and the way he curls his fingers around yours feels almost reverent, like he knows exactly how badly he’s fucked up but is still hoping you might let him try again anyway.

You let him pull you up.

Your towel drops to the sand. The sun’s higher now, hotter. Your swimsuit clings to your skin in places you don’t want to think too hard about. But he doesn’t ogle or smirk or make some cheeky comment that would let you brush this off like it’s nothing.

No, Satoru just walks beside you—silent, barefoot, careful—as you both head toward the water.

The shoreline glitters ahead, all shimmer and motion. Your feet sink into the warm, soft sand. The waves are small this morning, gentle. The tide is coming in slow and steady, like it’s trying to lull you into some false sense of security.

And maybe it’s working.

When the water reaches your ankles, you hesitate.

He doesn’t.

He walks a few steps farther in, glances back at you with that same maddening softness he always wore like armor whenever he let his guard down. “You okay?”

“No,” you say flatly. “I’m just trying to decide if this is an elaborate setup to drown me.”

He laughs. It’s short, real, and laced with something that almost sounds like regret.

“You’d see it coming,” he hums. “You always did.”

Still, he waits.

You take another step forward. The water slides up to your calves, cool and bracing. You inhale. Exhale. Tell yourself it’s just the ocean, just a swim, just a familiar body in a familiar place, nothing more. But the ache in your chest suggests otherwise.

You wade in until you’re waist-deep. He’s already further out, floating, arms stretched behind him like he has all the time in the world. Like this isn’t weird. Like you didn’t just spend half the night reliving how he disappeared on you and ruined the only thing you weren’t brave enough to name when it mattered.

You float too.

You don’t say anything.

For a long time, the only sounds are the rise and fall of the waves, the distant call of a gull overhead, and the occasional splash as one of you shifts just enough to stay buoyant.

You don’t look at him, but you feel him.

He’s always been like this. Loud in crowds, quiet in water. And somehow, it still makes you want to scream.

You drift closer without meaning to. The current does what it wants, and maybe you’re just tired of resisting it.

“Why are you really here?” you ask, finally, voice low and calm, like you’re not about to start something you might not be able to finish.

He hums.

“Because I’m tired,” he says after a while. “And Tokyo’s loud. And I couldn’t stop thinking about this place.”

“This place,” you echo.

He turns, just enough for his eyes to find yours. That blue is still dangerous. Still ridiculous. Still yours, somehow, in ways you don’t understand.

“And you,” he adds softly. “I kept thinking about you.”

You go still in the water.

The waves rock you both like the universe’s worst lullaby.

“You don’t get to just come back and say that.”

“I know,” he says. “But I’m saying it anyway.”

And there it is.

No excuses. No charm. Just the raw nerve of it. Like a cut that never healed right.

You look away. Let the sun blur your vision. Let the salt sting your throat.

And you float. Right there beside him. Not answering. Not leaving. Not ready to forgive, but too tired to fight the tide anymore.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. Probably that fluffy little gremlin of his.

The water laps against your collarbones.

His presence hums next to you like an old radio station just barely out of tune.

And you think, maybe. Maybe there’s still something worth salvaging.

But not today.

Today, you just float.

It’s been a few days since the swim.

Gojo’s been hovering ever since. Like some glorified ghost with a tan and a terrible sense of timing. Not pushing exactly, just… lingering.

Appearing near your porch when you bring your coffee out. Asking if you want anything from the grocery store. Holding open the screen door when you’re bringing in the laundry like he’s the world’s most persistent Labrador retriever.

You ignore him, mostly.

Except for the times you don’t.

Because for all your muttering and biting sarcasm and arms-crossed body language, your walls are thinner than they used to be. Or maybe it’s the summer heat melting them down, drip by reluctant drip.

Maybe it’s the way he’s been quiet lately, gentler than you remember. No slick one-liners, no dramatic flourishes. Just him, trying. Like he’s got something to prove this time and he knows he doesn’t get another shot.

So when he ambles up the steps one morning, barefoot in cutoffs and a faded t-shirt that says I Heart Accounting (a lie if you’ve ever seen one), holding an iced tea in one hand and a flyer in the other, you already know you’re going to say yes before he even opens his mouth.

“There’s a festival down at the docks,” he smiles at you, brandishing the flyer like it’s an ancient scroll. “You love dumb seasonal crap. There’s a Ferris wheel.”

You narrow your eyes over the rim of your mug. “I don’t love dumb seasonal crap. I tolerate it.”

He tilts his head. “You tolerated that haunted hayride in college so hard you screamed directly into my ear.”

“That was a man with a chainsaw, Satoru.”

“It was a weed whacker.”

“It was still loud.”

He grins. But not in that way he used to, the look-at-me, heartbreaker grin. This one’s quieter. Tentative. Hopeful, maybe. Like he knows he doesn’t deserve this and is still asking anyway.

“Sooooo?” he asks. “One afternoon. We don’t have to stay long. You can mock everything. I’ll buy you cotton candy.”

You sigh.

The porch creaks beneath your bare feet. The heat’s already climbing. You can hear cicadas starting up in the trees like they’re daring you to stay inside all day.

And maybe you’re tired of being angry. Or maybe you’re just bored.

“Fine,” you mutter. “But I’m not sitting through a puppet show or anything weirdly nostalgic.”

He lights up like you’ve handed him a small sun. “Noted. No puppets. Just vibes.”

And before you can change your mind, he’s already skipping down the steps like a kid who just got asked to prom.

The docks are warm and bustling by late afternoon, the air thick with the smell of sea salt, fried dough, and sunscreen. Everything’s sticky and bright and full of motion. Colorful paper lanterns swaying in the breeze, little kids with dripping popsicles, old couples holding hands like they invented the concept.

And Gojo, next to you in sunglasses and flip-flops, is trying very hard not to look like a golden retriever who’s just been let off leash.

“You want one?” he asks, already halfway to a stand selling some kind of sparkling lemonade in pastel plastic cups.

You shrug. “Sure. Why not. I’m already sweating through my bra, might as well hydrate.”

He hands you a drink a few minutes later, plus a bag of sugar-dusted mochi for no reason other than the fact he remembered you used to like it. Then he gets himself a spiral-cut fried potato drenched in something horrifyingly orange and starts humming like this is the best day of his life.

You side-eye him. “You gonna eat every weird thing you see?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you used to be lactose intolerant?”

“Still am.”

You stare.

He pops a cheesy slice into his mouth anyway. “Worth it.”

It’s absurd. It’s nostalgic. And it shouldn’t be this easy, falling into old rhythms, letting the breeze mess up your hair while he wipes powdered sugar off your cheek like it’s normal. But it is. And that’s the dangerous part.

Because the more he makes you laugh, the more he buys you sweets without thinking, the more he smiles like that—genuine, unguarded, like the boy you met before all the bullshit—the harder it is to keep the distance.

You try anyway. You shove your hands in your pockets and keep your comments sharp and your tone neutral. But you know he sees through it. You always knew.

When the sun starts its slow descent behind the water, he nudges you gently.

“Ferris wheel?”

You glance toward the towering old thing at the edge of the dock, half-lit and creaking in the wind like it’s got secrets to tell.

“I’m not sharing a car with you if you’re gonna start monologuing about life and fate and missed opportunities,” you threaten him half-jockingly..

“I would never,” he claims, looking scandalized. “I’ll be chill. I’ll be a man of few words.”

You give him a long, skeptical look.

“Fine,” he amends. “Fewer words.”

You sigh and start walking toward it anyway, because he’s already bought the tickets and you’re a sucker for a skyline view, and maybe, just maybe, you’re tired of pretending you’re still mad just to protect yourself.

You climb into the seat next to him.

The wheel lurches.

The wind picks up.

And as you rise above the docks—sugar-sticky, sun-flushed, and one stupid heartbeat away from forgiving him a little—you pretend you don’t notice the way his pinky bumps yours on the worn bench between you.

Just like you pretend not to want it to happen again.

The Ferris wheel creaks as it carries you both higher, the metal groaning in that charming, slightly-threatening way old carnival rides always do.

Below you, the festival shrinks: kids screaming gleefully near the ring toss, some teenager failing miserably at whack-a-mole, the cotton candy stand glowing pink like a beacon for sugar addicts.

Beside you, Gojo is suspiciously quiet.

Which… is not a good sign.

You side-eye him. He’s leaning back with his arms draped casually along the back of the seat, sunglasses perched on top of his hair, eyes fixed on the view like he’s contemplating the meaning of life. Or how to bring up something stupid in the most dramatic way possible.

“I swear to god,” you mutter, “if you pull out a metaphor about life being a Ferris wheel—”

“I wasn’t going to,” he says, mock-affronted. “But now that you mention it…”

You elbow him.

He laughs. The kind that starts soft and warm, from somewhere behind his ribs. It echoes in the space between you like a familiar melody, one you forgot you knew the words to.

The ride halts briefly at the top, and for a second, the world goes still. The sea stretches endlessly before you, sun bleeding gold into the waves, the air heavy with that warm, end-of-summer hush. Below, the lights of the festival blink into life one by one, as if the night itself is remembering how to glow.

Gojo exhales. “I used to dream about this, you know.”

You don’t answer. You just stare ahead, hands gripping the edge of the seat.

He shifts slightly, turning to face you more fully. “Not this ride, exactly. But this— us. Talking again. You letting me be near you. I thought about it a lot.”

Your stomach twists.

It’s not fair, how easily he can throw your heart back into the past with a single sentence. How part of you still aches with the silence he left behind. The year of unanswered messages. Of trying to forget the feeling of his lips on yours, the weight of his laugh in your bones.

“You shouldn’t have disappeared,” you whisper quietly.

His face falls. Not dramatically. Just a slight softening, a flicker of real guilt that makes him look more like the boy you used to love than the man who ghosted you.

“I know,” he starts. “I was— messed up. Scared, honestly. I thought I was doing the right thing. That staying away would… help you. Let you move on.”

You turn to him, eyes hard. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I know,” he says again, softer. “I know. I thought I was being noble or whatever, but really I was just being a coward. I didn’t know how to face everything I ruined. I’m sorry.”

The Ferris wheel lurches downward again. You don’t speak, don’t move. Just sit there with your jaw clenched and your heart thudding like it doesn’t know what to believe.

“I think about you all the time,” he admits. “Not in a romantic movie kind of way—okay, sometimes in a romantic movie kind of way—but mostly just… everything reminds me of you. Still. After all this time.”

You look at him.

And there he is.

Not the memory of him. Not the ghost. Just Gojo—sun-kissed and flawed and trying.

And maybe you should say something scathing. Maybe you should tell him he doesn’t get to waltz back into your life with fried potatoes and Ferris wheels and expect forgiveness.

But instead, you say nothing.

Because the ride is almost at the bottom now. Because your heart is still processing. Because some part of you, however bruised and sarcastic and self-protective, never really stopped missing him.

The gondola bumps to a halt. The gate swings open.

He climbs out first, then turns and holds his hand out to you.

You hesitate.

Then—reluctantly—you take it.

His fingers wrap around yours like he never forgot the shape of your hand.

And for the rest of the evening, he doesn’t let go.

But it makes you remember the last time you saw him.

Not counting yesterday. Not counting the awkward, sea-slick moments at the beach or the way he stood a little too close by the goldfish scooping booth like he didn’t want to risk drifting away again.

No. really saw him.

It was two years ago, on that rooftop in Shinjuku, above the noise and neon, the kind of warm November night that tricked you into forgetting winter was coming.

Shoko had turned twenty-five and hosted the kind of party that felt curated for people who had their shit together, artfully messy hair, thrifted blazers, rolled cigarettes and half-finished PhDs. You hadn’t wanted to go, but she’d texted you six times, guilt-tripped you once, and eventually sent an Uber to your apartment with a bottle of wine in the backseat and a sticky note that said “Don’t make me regret inviting you.”

And you’d thought—fine. One drink. Smile politely. Leave before midnight.

But then he was there.

In a stupid linen shirt, half unbuttoned like he lived on some cursed Riviera, drink in one hand and that too-white hair falling into his eyes. Like he hadn’t disappeared. Like he hadn’t blown a hole through you and called it mercy.

You remember standing near the edge of the roof with a glass of flat champagne, talking to some guy who kept saying “conceptually” like it was punctuation, when you felt the shift in the air behind you. Like heat. Or gravity.

And you knew. Before you turned around, you knew.

He leaned against the railing next to you, too casual, like this wasn’t the first time you’d seen each other since everything had gone sideways.

“Hey, stranger,” he said.

You didn’t smile. Didn’t give him anything.

Just a flat, “You’re late.”

He grinned. “Traffic.”

You could smell the citrusy cologne he still wore, the same one from college. Could see the faint scar on his knuckle from that dumb night he’d tried to open a wine bottle with a screwdriver. Everything in you screamed to walk away. To spit venom. To not let him see he still lived in your bloodstream like a bad tattoo.

But instead, you drank your champagne.

He watched you for a long time. Then, without warning, he remarked, “If we were ever in the same place for more than five minutes, you’d fall for me.”

And you’d laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it wasn’t. Because of all the things he could’ve said—sorry, I fucked up, you didn’t deserve that—he chose a line that sounded like it came out of a half-written screenplay.

You hissed, “You don’t get to joke about that.”

And he said, too softly, “It wasn’t a joke.”

And that was worse.

Because there was no fight. No closure. No grand monologue. Just those quiet words, and the dull roar of traffic below, and the terrible weight of knowing he still thought he had a place in your life. That maybe part of you—traitorous, exhausted, aching—wasn’t sure he didn’t.

You left before midnight. Didn’t say goodbye.

And you hadn’t seen him again. Not until this summer.

Not until this stupid beach town, this stupid house, this stupid festival.

Now, as you walk beside him through the fairground crowd, his hand brushing yours every so often like it’s an accident, that memory keeps tugging at you.

Because maybe he was right.

Maybe five minutes was all it would ever take.

And maybe that’s what scares you most.

The night air is heavy with salt and the faint scent of fried festival sweets, the laughter from the dock still echoing somewhere behind you as you and Satoru walk the short path back toward the house. The moon is low, casting long shadows across the sand, and everything feels a little too quiet now. Like the world is holding its breath.

You stop at the front steps, key in hand, a polite smile tightening your mouth. “Thanks for tonight,” you say softly, eyes flicking toward the porch light, trying not to think about the hundred things fluttering under your skin. “It was… good.”

“Hey,” he calls, just as you’re about to climb the stairs. His hand finds yours—not forcefully, not even tightly, just enough to stop you. His palm is warm, grounding. “What’s wrong?”

You turn slowly, mouth already half-open with some deflection, some easy line to brush it off—but then you see his face.

And you freeze.

His eyes are softer than you’ve ever seen them, stripped of their usual brilliance, of the arrogant shine they wore like armor. There’s nothing clever in his expression. No mask. Just quiet concern and a kind of quiet ache you don’t trust, because you’ve seen him turn it off before. But now it’s looking at you like it wants the truth. Like it could handle it.

Something buckles in your chest.

You try to swallow it, to tuck it all back down, but it’s too late. It’s already happening.

The words burst out like a dam breaking.

“I can’t—” Your voice cracks. “You can’t just show up like this. You can’t take me to a stupid festival and buy me strawberry mochi and laugh like we didn’t—like nothing ever—”

Your hands shake. Your throat tightens. “You broke me, Satoru.”

He flinches.

You keep going, unable to stop now, unable to breathe around the weight that’s been sitting on your chest for years.

“You kissed me like I meant something. Over and over again. In stairwells, behind the vending machine, outside my dorm—like it was a secret we were both protecting. You said things. I said things. And then you just—left. No goodbye. No message. Nothing. You disappeared like none of it mattered.”

Tears are sliding down your cheeks now, hot and humiliating. You swipe at them angrily, but they just keep coming.

“I waited for you. I checked my phone for months. I told myself you’d call, that something must’ve happened, that maybe I just misunderstood what we were. But you didn’t. You just left.”

His eyes are wide, glassy. His breath caught in his throat. “I didn’t know,” he says hoarsely. “I didn’t know you—”

“Loved you?” you snap. “No, of course not. Because I didn’t even know it myself. Not until after. Not until it was too late.”

He reaches for you, eyes shining with something raw and unsteady, like he’s barely holding himself together.

“I never stopped loving you,” he whispers, voice trembling. “I tried to. God, I tried to. My parents—they wanted me to propose to someone else. Someone safe. Someone good for business. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t even put the ring on her hand because I knew—” He swallows hard, like the words are knives. “—because it should’ve been you.”

The porch light casts a soft glow over both of you now, and for a moment, all you can hear is your own breathing, your own grief trembling through every inch of you.

“It’s always been you,” he says.

And that’s what does it.

You break.

Your sobs come hard and fast, and you cover your face, but he’s already stepping forward, arms pulling you in like he’s afraid you’ll slip away again. You press your face into his chest, and he holds you—really holds you—for the first time in what feels like forever. His hand cradles the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair, while the other wraps around your waist, anchoring you.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, over and over, into your hair, into your skin. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, not ready to forgive, not ready to forget, but his arms are warm, and his voice is steady, and something inside you is melting, softening, despite the ache. Despite the history.

He pulls back slightly, just enough to see your face, his hand trembling at your cheek. His thumb brushes away a tear, and you look at him through your lashes, eyes red and rimmed, mouth parted.

Then he kisses you.

It’s not showy or sharp like you remember. It’s slow. Careful. Like he’s asking permission with every movement, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he pushes too far.

And for a second you let yourself kiss him back.

Your mouth finds his, familiar and foreign all at once, and the kiss deepens, his hand tightening at your waist as yours tangle in the collar of his shirt. You melt into him, breath catching, knees weak, heart aching.

It’s everything you remember and everything you forgot.

It’s almost enough to believe in again.

Almost.

His lips move against yours with a tenderness that both soothes and ignites every nerve ending. The world around you, the porch, the night, the distant hum of the festival, fades into nothing but the rhythm of his breath mingling with yours.

You cling to him, desperate to hold onto this fragile moment, even as the walls you built around your heart tremble beneath his touch. His hands trace the curve of your back, pulling you closer, as if to erase the years lost, the silence, the pain.

When he finally parts from your lips, his forehead rests against yours, breath uneven.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits softly, voice rough with emotion.

You close your eyes, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I’ve missed you too,” you whisper.

But even as you say it, a part of you fears what comes next. The questions left unasked, the promises broken, the scars neither of you have fully healed.

Gojo’s gaze searches yours, vulnerability flickering there like a flame.

“Let me make it right,” he pleads. “Not with words, but with time. With everything I have.”

Your heart wavers, torn between hope and caution.

Finally, you nod, a shaky but real start. “Okay.”

He smiles—bright, genuine, full of relief—and pulls you into another kiss, softer this time, full of unspoken apologies and tentative beginnings.

Tonight, beneath the stars and with the sea breeze wrapping around you both, there is a chance. A chance to rewrite the story that was left hanging for so long.

And maybe, just maybe, that chance will be enough.

goddd, i wrote this in one go after i watched a tiktok that reminded me so much of gojo :') it's bittersweet

✧･ﾟwritten by @prisvvner ⊹ dividers by @bernardsbendystraws ⛓️ do NOT repost, steal, translate, or claim as your own. 🖤 reblogs are love — theft is not.

#satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #gojo x reader #gojo x you #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #satoru gojo #gojo #seasons of you - s.g.

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digitald0rk · 4 months ago

Text

I WANT SOMEONE BADLY

pairing — mark grayson x gn! hero reader. [ implied childhood friends ]

synopsis — after a hard [ immature laughing ] night of fighting crime, you take mark back to yours to spend some extra time with him, one of your closest friends. he is a yearner, through and through. [ end his misery pls 🙏🏻 ]

warnings — mentions of healing from nail biting / picking, mark and you paint each other's nails, he helps with your skincare, crazy pining, like two suggestive paras nothing too freaky though!

w.c — 2.2 k.

a/n — YES IT'S A JEFF BUCKLEY REFERENCE THE TITLE I MEAN :D I WANNA WRITE SMMM BUT i have two exams back to back and then my boards after them in like two weeks 💔💔 im cooked. ALSO HAPPY EID MUBARAK TO ALL THOSE WHO CELEBRATE ^_^ we getting rich this year gang 🤑🤑🤑 ALSO TYSM FOR 400 FOLLOWERS! luv you all mwah <3

taglist — @vm4879bb-blog @hihowyoudoin00 @fairii-majii @hepdeerness [ lemme know if you wanna be added! ]

“m- invincible,” your little slip up makes him chuckle, “pretty sure no one's gonna hear you on top of the highest rooftop in the city, but okay.” he teases you so he doesn't end up staring at you like you're the only person in the world.

“you can never be too sure,” you huff, playfully shoving him a bit followed by a fond eye roll when he pretends like you've punched his guts out or something, dramatically groaning and all.

“i was just wondering if you wanna come over? i barely have time to spend with you when i’m not being a superhero,” you start, slightly hesitant.

“ooh sleepover?”

“i mean if you want, sure.” you smile, happy to be spending time with him outside of beating people up.

stop smiling at him, please. he's already a lovesick fool, don't do this to him.

“yeah, i’m down!” he says, mentally scolding himself for sounding a little too excited, getting up he stretches a little, “let's go.”

you two fly together to your house, laughing at some stupid thing you saw, a meme or some other ridiculous thing — he wants to record your laugh and play it again and again, although his mind at night does just that so maybe there's no use of it.

he's laughing with you but his heart is beating like a drum, thank god your powers don't include super hearing or he's sure the super loud thump thump of his heart — which belongs to you and only you be concerning,

he catches a whiff of your perfume, the one you always wear — wait your hair smells different, is that a new conditioner? or shampoo? it smells nice, awfully nice. he takes a deep breath. get it together mark.

he has to maintain a little distance before he ends up doing something stupid like burying his face in your hair and kissing your head.

soon enough he finds you two on the balcony of your house, you slide open the window to your room, leaving it open for him to follow you in.

his palms feel sweaty, he's been here countless times. you two have even slept on the same bed twice. yes, you both were like ten but still!

he takes another deep breath, he steps into your room, you're nowhere to be seen. he hesitantly sits on your bed and of course it smells like you. this isn't good, his heart is going to give out.

he's toying around with your little black cat plushie when he hears the bathroom door unlock, eyes darting to your figure coming out, you've changed into your favorite comfortable pajamas.

he's going to die.

the soft material stretches over the curves and dips of your body in a way that has him gripping the plushie a little too hard.

“you're gonna suffocate him,” you joke, your voice snaps him out of it and he relaxes his grip on the soft back plushie.

flopping down onto the bed with a tired groan you prop yourself up on your elbow to face him.

the atmosphere is unusually tense, or well at least to mark. the soft flutter of your eyelashes and the way your shirt sightly rides up, revealing a slither of your soft skin has him acting like a victorian man seeing an ankle for the first time.

“heard you actually got a good grade for once in chemistry.”

he huffs, nodding with a smile, “believe me, i’m just as surprised as you are.”

the tension breaks and you two fall into easy conversation, like always. he can't keep the smile off of his face when you pull out some seance dog issue to read together and it ends up in him explaining some villain’s origin story to you.

“yeah, so honestly it's not his fault-”

“i think his biggest crime is his new outfit” he laughs at your comment.

your body would occasionally brush against his. sometimes your knees bumping or elbow nudging him when you tease him about something, he wishes he could hold you and shower you with all the affection, give you everything he has.

“i’ve been trying to grow out my nails,” you put your palm flat against the sheets, showing him your progress so far, he knows you've been trying to break the habit of picking and biting your nails. he takes your hand in his without thinking, his thumb tracing over your long nails, “looks good,” a proud smile stretching across his lips.

“thanks, I've been meaning to paint them-”

“can i paint them?” mark blurts out, he honestly just wants to hold your hand for as long as you'll let him.

you jokingly make a show of pretending to think before nodding, “sure.”

you get out of bed, opening your closet to take out a small box of all the nail polishes and other supplies you own, he excitedly looks through the box, pulling out a pretty blue shade, giddy at the thought of his suit’s main color matching with your nails.

he helps you settle your hand on a small towel so your bed sheet doesn't get stained, he uncaps the small bottle, getting to work, he'd grumble a little when he messes up, his teeth slightly dig into his bottom lip as he focuses on painting your nails and every time his hand would make contact with yours — even the slightest bit of contact leaves him longing for more.

he listens to you speak about something that happened at school last wednesday, his heart rate would pick up everytime you'd say his name in that pretty voice of yours.

he looks so proud himself when he finishes painting all the nails on your right hand, gently blowing on them so they'd dry faster, you playfully join him, blowing on your now blue nails, your breaths mingle and oh boy he's holding himself back from kissing your knuckles and telling you how beautiful you are.

you examine his painting skills, watching him put nail polish on your left hand’s nails.

he works in comfortable silence, using the crumpled up ball of tissue to wipe off any excess blue liquid that is around your nails.

“you're actually good at this, makes me wonder if you've ever painted someone else's nails before,” you mutter, his eyes dart up to hold your gaze for a moment, he'd hold it for longer but he knows it'll unravel him, it'd just end up with him pouring out his feelings — baring his heart to you.

“nope, it's actually my first time,” he admits, putting the cap back on and once again blowing at your nails, he sneaks in a small brush of his thumb against your knuckles as he helps your hand up — which is just an excuse to touch you, he folds the small towel and puts it back in your small box of nail supplies.

“do you like them?” he asks.

“yeah, looks really pretty. thanks mark,” you flash him a happy smile and he's over the moon.

“yeah, real pretty,” he whispers, except he's not only talking about your nails, he's talking about you — all of you.

the moonlight along with the dim fairy lights of your room make you look like a literal angel, he swears he can see the wings and halo.

“let me return the favor?” you ask, if only you knew he'd give you the world if you let him, he doesn't even have to think before he's nodding, a dumb lovesick smile makes it's way onto his face as he lets you maneuver his hand around and paint his nails a pretty blue — the same shade he picked for your nails.

meaning you two are matching, he finds that adorable. he also finds you adorable and wants to just bite your cheek, just a little nibble. he shakes his head slightly as if he's shaking the thought away which works, not really.

“look we're matching!” you put your hand besides his, your long nails matching his in the same blue shade. “yeah we are,” he softly mutters, wanting to lace your fingers through his but ultimately holds himself back.

he feels sad when you pull your hands away once you're done painting his nails — he would hold your hand for eternity if you let him.

he feels the tension again, his eyes lingering a second too long on your figure as you put the supplies back in your closet, with your back turned to him he can only think about one thing, you — your waist and how he'd love to grab it while he presses needy kisses all over your neck, sucking and biting, leaving marks, he wonders how you'd whisper his name when his touch gets a little rough and demanding, squeezing and groping all he can reach-

woah there, can't afford a boner here mark, calm down.

he wants to kiss every inch of your body and worship you, he wants — no, he needs to.

he shifts a bit under the sheets when a familiar feeling starts to settle in his gut, waiting for you to come back to bed. although he's almost sure it'll only increase the intensity of the heat he's feeling.

you crawl back into bed, shifting around to find a comfortable position. thankfully, your stupid jokes ease his nerves a bit. he finds himself leaning closer to you, drawn to you like a moth to a flame, so here you two are almost pressed against each other, lying side by side as you two watch tiktoks on your phone, wrapped in your balnket.

“why is your whole fyp brainrot?” he'd complain and then end up laughing, although he insisted it wasn't funny.

a few more giggles and shared laughter later, he realizes just how close you two are to each other, he'd barely have to move to kiss those pretty lips of yours, would you taste like that slushie you two shared earlier? he wants to find out, he really wants to.

a small yawn escapes your lips and he swears he falls in love over again.

“tired?” he asks softly, as if speaking a little too loud would ruin the tranquility of it all.

“mhm.”

“i'm not letting you watch tiktoks till 3am, come on, let's get you to sleep hm?”

he takes your phone away, his fingers brushing against yours, the contact making his heart skip a beat.

“i still have to do,” another yawn, “my skincare,” you mutter, desperately trying to keep your eyes open.

he sheepishly offers to do it for you, he quickly gets out of bed the second you tell him what you need and where your skincare products are because if he stays this close to your sleepy form a second longer he'll end up kissing your forehead and saying those eight letters he's been meaning to say for years.

he brushes your hair out of your face, helping you with your skincare. he rubs the sweet smelling moisturizer into your skin gently, first your hands, he smiles when he sees his nails matching yours, he's never going to shut up about this moment.

then he helps you apply it to your face, taking his sweet time savoring the feeling of your skin underneath his fingertips, his rough calloused hands working skillfully.

“mark?”

“hm?”

“thank you, seriously you're the best.”

he's going to scream, he's glad your eyes are closed shut or otherwise he's sure you'd be able to spot the flush that adorns his cheeks.

then comes the serum, and finally the cherry flavored lip balm. you pucker your lips and glide the tube across your lips, coating them in a shiny slightly sticky layer.

great, you just made them more kissable. he's going to crash out.

you innocently offer him some, he can't say no to you, even you should know this by now.

his heart picks up again when you apply your lip balm to his slightly dry lips, going back and forth a couple times for good measure, his lips now shiny.

and then the realization hits him — he just indirectly kissed you. his heart might as well just beat out of his chest with the way it's pounding so hard against his ribs, like a drum.

his self control is hanging on by a thread, you tuck yourself and him in bed, sleepily mumbling, “goodnight mark,” you sound so sweet, his name on your tongue — sweeter than honey, it’s enough to drive him crazy.

and as your eyes close to get some much needed rest, he mumbles back, “goodnight.”

once he's sure you're fully asleep, he adds, “goodnight my angel,” stroking your head gently, reverently.

he presses a small kiss to your forehead, maybe, just maybe one day, he'll tell you how his heart aches for you, how it longs to hold you and be held in your loving arms — his love for you is consuming, his heart overflowing with it, he's sure if you cut open his chest, your name would be seen engraved on his heart and he wouldn't have it any other way, he will always love you.

even if you don't.

but he prays everyday that you do.

#ㅤㅤ✶ㅤ digitald0rk's library !#idk why but i imagine mark hearing cecil in his head like “lock tf in” LMAO #lowkey self indulgent because im a chronic nail biter / picker #invincible #invincible x reader #invincible x you #mark grayson #invincible fanfic #mark grayson x reader #mark grayson x you #invincible fluff #mark grayson fanfic

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