kingkruell

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | PART 2

LOVE LETTERS (AND OTHER TRAGEDIES)

WC: 5.287

SUMMARY - gojo satoru, half-drowned in his hoodie and fully drowning in his own crush, sends the text—something about your handwriting curling its toes and your eyebrows having feelings. you laugh. he panics. you say hi. he short-circuits.

a nerdjo series

listening to side by side - crumb

nerdjo artwork by @/629sora on X

[reblog and comment for next part’s taglist]

part 1 >> part 3

“fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck.”

the words tumble out of gojo satoru’s mouth like a prayer on a loop, low and urgent under his breath as he paces his dorm room like a man possessed. beads of sweat glisten at his hairline, clinging to the white strands plastered against his forehead. the rain taps softly against the half-open window, cool night air sneaking in to brush against his skin, but inside the dim, cramped room, he’s burning.

not from the heat. not from the ramen cup he forgot he made.

from you.

from the text.

oh god. the text.

he stops mid-step, fingers tightening in his hair as he stares blankly at the glow of his phone screen on the bed. it might as well be a live grenade. his heart is a fist in his throat.

this isn’t happening.

there is no way gojo satoru—the guy who barely flinches at project deadlines, who routinely forgets socks are a social expectation, who hasn’t seriously thought about a girl since he discovered how many command-line tools exist—just blew a fuse over a couple of dumb messages.

except he did.

and it wasn’t just some girl. it was you.

fucking y/n.

earlier, it had started out like any other rainy thursday. he was wandering the sociology building like a ghost without purpose, nursing a vending machine coffee that tasted criminally close to battery acid. geto warned him, but did he listen? no. because apparently, he was too busy daydreaming like a loser.

because there you were.

just like that.

half-tired, notebook hugged to your chest, earphones dangling from your hoodie. you didn’t see him, but he saw you. all of you. and for one excruciating second, the world kind of stuttered to a halt. gojo watched the way your eyes narrowed at your phone, the way your brow furrowed in concentration, and he had the stupidest, most uncontrollable thought:

i want to be the reason she looks that focused.

he didn’t even say hi.

he couldn’t. he froze like a total coward, eyes wide behind his glasses, mouth twitching like he was buffering.

you walked right past him.

by the time he got back to his room, he was spiraling. the door slammed behind him, rain-slick hoodie still clinging to his back, shoes kicked off like an afterthought. he didn’t turn on the lights, just let the soft blue wash of his monitor screen and the streetlamp outside guide him. he told himself he was going to work on that media ethics assignment. ha. yeah. right.

instead, his thumb hovered over your name in his contacts.

you were still in there from that one group project. the one where he barely made eye contact with you, too busy sweating bullets anytime you leaned over to check his slides. your name had just sat there since. quiet, unbothered. he’d opened the chat more times than he could count, typing out things like “do you know what the professor meant by—” only to backspace until it was blank again.

but tonight? honestly, gojo doesn’t even know what took over him.

maybe it was the coffee. maybe it was the sound of your voice echoing faintly in his head. maybe he finally just lost his grip on self-preservation.

because he sent it.

he actually sent it.

two messages. innocent in theory. mortifying in execution.

your handwriting’s kind of insane. in a good way. like if emotions could curl their toes

also your eyes do this thing when you’re listening really hard. like your eyebrows lean forward first?? anyway

he stares at them like they’re the last thing he’ll ever see before his soul departs his body.

“why the fuck did i say that?!” he screeches, voice cracking in the quiet of the room.

he throws himself face-first into his pillow, limbs flailing dramatically before curling up like a dying spider. his brain is already drafting his obituary. gojo satoru, 19. died of terminal rizz failure. survived by his equally pathetic browser history and one unopened can of monster energy.

he rolls onto his back, eyes wide as he mentally replays the possible outcomes:

• you think it’s weird and block him.

• you think it’s creepy and report him to the dean.

• you laugh at it with your friends and never make eye contact with him again.

but worst of all?

you don’t respond.

time slows. then stretches. then coils into a painful kind of silence. he stares at the message bubbles until they blur. nothing. not even the “typing…” indicator. his stomach twists. he tries to distract himself with anything—with his assignment, even opens up a github repo to trick his brain into feeling productive, but his fingers hover uselessly over the keys. he can’t write a line. he’s too busy imagining you reading it and cringing. or worse, never reading it at all.

hours pass. he doesn’t change out of his hoodie. doesn’t brush his teeth. he just lies there, eyes flicking to the phone every few minutes like clockwork, until exhaustion finally drags him under.

when he wakes up, it’s nearly 11 pm. his neck hurts, his hair’s a mess, and his laptop fan is still whirring. groggily, he grabs his phone with one eye open. he fumbles it. it clatters to the ground. he groans.

no new notifications.

no response.

he stares at the ceiling, heart sinking with finality.

social suicide complete. mission failed. we’ll get ’em next semester.

gojo satoru has fallen, and he might never recover.

the next media ethics class arrived like a guillotine.

gojo hadn’t slept the night beforec not really. he’d laid in bed, eyes pinned to the ceiling, limbs limp with exhaustion but mind wired with that special brand of self-loathing reserved for people who had just committed social suicide via text message. some obscure tech podcast murmured from his speakers, something about open-source compression algorithms. he wasn’t listening. he just needed noise. white, meaningless noise to drown out the replays of his own message.

the message.

god, the message.

he had scrolled back to it more times than he wanted to admit, rereading it like some deranged literary critic dissecting his own obituary. it had started off almost charming in his mind. quirky, even. a little heartfelt.

but now? now it just read like he had a toe-curling kink for handwriting and eyebrows.

why did he say that?

what the hell were “emotions curling their toes”?

what did that mean?

by morning, he’d convinced himself that the only viable course of action was to change his name, drop out, and rebrand as a goat herder in a remote scandinavian village.

but his stupid academic guilt complex, the same one that wouldn’t let him miss a single assignment deadline, dragged him to class anyway. hoodie half-zipped, bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder, he trudged through the gray, rain-slicked campus like a man marching toward execution.

and now, here he was. standing at the door of the lecture hall like it was the gates of hell.

the room buzzed with the usual ambient noise: chair legs scraped against tile, laptops chimed as they booted up, a small group of students near the front debated whether a tabloid could ever be considered real journalism. fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, casting everything in that cold, slightly too-blue glow that made everyone look vaguely sleep-deprived.

gojo scanned the room once.

and there you were.

you were already seated, halfway through a fresh page in your notebook, your brow slightly furrowed in concentration. your water bottle was propped against your phone, your bag slouched beside your chair like a lazy dog. you looked focused, calm, beautifully unaffected. the exact opposite of how he felt.

and…there it was.

the empty seat beside you.

the seat he always took.

gojo’s breath caught in his throat. his fingers flexed on the strap of his bag.

just sit. it’s fine. just act like nothing happened.

but his feet betrayed him. a cold spike of fear lanced through his chest and propelled him in the opposite direction. his brain screamed “ABORT MISSION, ABORT MISSION!” and he obeyed without hesitation, making a sharp left turn toward the back of the classroom, where he found refuge behind a guy with shoulders the size of a small hatchback.

he dropped into the chair and immediately regretted everything.

his notebook? forgotten. his pen? nowhere in sight. his laptop? dead. of course.

all he had was a buzzing skull and a heart that refused to beat at a normal pace.

class started, but he barely registered the lecture. the professor’s voice was just background noise, a wash of academic syllables about media frameworks and ethical responsibility. gojo stared at a blank corner of the wall and replayed every moment from the past three days like his brain had become a cursed vhs tape.

why didn’t she say anything?

why didn’t she reply?

was it too much?

was it creepy?

a cold sweat crept down the back of his neck.

he caught himself glancing at you once, just once, a flicker of a moment between self-flagellation loops. you didn’t seem upset. or weirded out. you looked… the same.

but maybe that was worse.

when class finally ended, gojo shot up like the room was suddenly underwater and he needed air. he gathered his things with uncharacteristic efficiency, shoving loose pages into his hoodie pocket, slamming his laptop shut even though it hadn’t been on, practically sprinting for the door.

and then—

“hey, gojo.”

he froze.

you said his name like it wasn’t a weapon. soft. casual. friendly, even.

his body seized like someone had unplugged him from reality.

he turned his head toward you, barely.

you were standing by your desk, bag slung over one shoulder, a quiet smile blooming across your lips. your eyes were calm. not mocking, not at all.

huh

his throat cinched tight, like his body had suddenly forgotten how to breathe. he blinked, wide-eyed, caught somewhere between awe and full-on panic—like a deer in headlights with a crush and zero emotional regulation.

and god. why did you have to look like that today?

he’d never seen you wear that skirt before. it hugged your hips just enough to send his brain into a slow, buffering spiral. the way it moved when you walked—soft, swaying, completely unbothered—was unfair. cruel, even. his gaze darted away before he could make it weirder than it already was.

nope. nope nope nope. abort. he was being weird. he was absolutely being weird.

“hi,” he blurted. too fast. too high. the i cracked like glass under pressure.

and then, because his body was a traitor to his entire existence, he bolted.

nearly tripped on someone’s bag. stumbled into the hallway. didn’t stop until he was out of the building and two full blocks away, standing outside a noodle shop he didn’t even like, chest heaving like he’d just outrun a very specific and emotionally perceptive ghost.

he makes his way into the dorms, gojo burst into his dorm room like he was being chased by armed regret.

the door slammed shut behind him with a thud that made his abandoned ramen cup tremble on the desk. his hoodie was half-off, halfway on—he yanked it off like it offended him and threw it across the room. then immediately regretted that, too. what if it was bad hoodie karma? what if the fibers of shame were still on it?

he paced a quick, frantic loop. once. twice. on the third, he tripped over his own backpack and nearly took out the cheap lamp by the bed.

“okay,” he muttered. “okay, okay, okay.”

then, he reached for his phone like a soldier hitting the emergency signal.

group chat

gojo

emergency

gojo

code red

come to my room or i’m deleting myself from the academic system

two minutes later, his door flew open again, this time with the worn-out creak of someone who didn’t even bother knocking.

“every time you say ‘emergency,’ i lose a year off my life,” utahime snapped as she entered, dragging her umbrella with her. “this better not be about your failed protein shake experiment again.”

nanami followed, looking like he’d been dragged there directly from the library. he was holding a book and the disappointment of a man with finals on his mind.

geto came last, coffee in hand, eyes amused already.

gojo flailed toward them like a man going down with the ship.

“she said hi,” he announced.

there was a pause. the silence that followed was not triumphant. it was clinical.

utahime blinked. “and…?”

“and i bolted!” gojo shouted, arms thrown skyward. “like—physically fled the scene! i said ‘hi’ and then literally almost tripped over a backpack trying to escape. i can never show my face in that class again.”

nanami sighed. “you interrupted my reading time for this?”

“you don’t understand,” gojo said, spinning toward him like this was a courtroom drama and nanami was the judge. “i sent her the text. i told her her eyebrows lean forward when she listens and that her handwriting has emotional toes. toes, nanami.”

geto nearly choked on his coffee.

“i didn’t think it could get worse than the eyebrows,” utahime muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“she didn’t respond,” gojo said, collapsing onto the floor like gravity had finally taken him. “it’s been two days. that’s, like, six college years. and then today, in class, she looked normal. like not-murderous. and she said hi. i should’ve just sat down next to her like usual but instead i went full cryptid and sprinted out like a cursed victorian child avoiding eye contact in a hallway.”

geto had officially stopped pretending to sip his coffee. “i’m sorry—emotional toes?”

“curled their toes,” gojo corrected, miserably.

there was a beat of silence. and then, as if summoned by the universe’s sick sense of timing, a sharp ping echoed from gojo’s phone. it lit up beside him on the floor.

all four of them froze.

gojo blinked. “oh no.”

utahime stared. “is that—”

“no,” he whispered.

nanami leaned in slightly. “you gonna check it or just die next to it?”

gojo reached for it like it was a bomb and he didn’t know which wire to cut.

the screen lit up again.

y/n

hi lol sorry for the late response

but lmao the toe thing made me laugh. didn’t know my eyebrows had a personality but i’m honored. also. you’re kinda weird. but like. the good kind??

he reread it. then reread it again. his hand dropped from his mouth.

geto leaned over his shoulder. “damn. she likes weird.”

utahime grinned. “miracles happen.”

gojo’s heart was doing something unnatural. something that felt suspiciously like hope with a caffeine overdose. he rolled onto his back, phone clutched to his chest like it was a lifeline.

“she responded,” he whispered. “she doesn’t hate me. she thinks i’m weird in the good way.”

he stared at the screen for a long moment. then sat up slowly, still dizzy with disbelief.

his fingers hovered over the keyboard

gojo didn’t move for a solid ten seconds. just lay there on the floor, like the world had glitched and he wasn’t sure whether to reboot or ascend.

geto squatted beside him, one brow raised. “is he breathing?”

“hard to say,” utahime said, already rifling through gojo’s snack drawer like she lived there. “he looks like he just saw god. or her instagram story.”

gojo finally inhaled, sharp and sudden, like he’d forgotten that breathing was, in fact, required. “she doesn’t hate me,” he whispered again, like it was a sacred chant. “she laughed. she said i’m weird. but the good kind. the good kind, guys.”

nanami, who’d settled stiffly into the desk chair, sighed and set his book down. “you’re telling me this entire scene,”—he gestured vaguely at the mess of gojo’s body, hoodie, and emotional meltdown—“was over one semi-flirty, eyebrow-themed text and a delayed response?”

“one text?” gojo sat up like he’d been resurrected. “that was a piece of my soul, nanami. that was vulnerability. that was toe metaphors. you can’t just come back from that.”

utahime tossed a protein bar at his head. “well, she did. so now what? you gonna text her back or keep twitching like a victorian orphan with a quill?”

gojo clutched the protein bar like it was a holy artifact. “what do i even say?”

geto settled onto the bed, propping himself up with a pillow that had definitely not been washed in months. “you want honesty or strategy?”

“both,” gojo said.

“okay,” geto shrugged. “be honest, but like…strategically honest. no more body part metaphors. maybe just… ask her something. keep the convo going. be normal.”

“define ‘normal,’” gojo said.

nanami raised an eyebrow. “something you are fundamentally incapable of.”

utahime snorted. “just tell her you’re glad she replied. maybe make a joke. and do not overthink the punctuation.”

gojo scrambled upright, gripping his phone with the reverence of a man about to disarm a bomb.

“i can do this,” he muttered. “this is fine. we’re just talking. humans talk. this is a normal college interaction. i’m not falling apart over a girl who annotates her readings with pink highlighters and wears golden hoop earrings and—”

“gojo,” geto cut in, amused. “focus.”

“right, right.” he stared at the screen like it was staring back. then started typing.

gojo

honored to be the weird good kind.

also didn’t know i outed your eyebrow microexpressions but now i feel weirdly responsible for them

should i apologize or apply for naming rights?

he hovered over the send button. his thumb trembled.

“send it,” utahime said.

“don’t look at me while i do it,” gojo muttered.

“no promises,” geto grinned.

and with a deep breath—he hit send.

the message whooshed off into the void. gojo launched himself backward onto the bed, covering his face with a pillow, muffling a noise that might’ve been a scream or a wheeze. hard to tell.

“you’re ridiculous,” utahime said, chewing through the protein bar like it owed her money.

“and yet somehow,” geto added, “this is the most effort i’ve seen you put into anything that wasn’t a debate about anime endings or multithreaded processing.”

gojo peeked out from under the pillow, hair sticking in every direction. “is it always like this?” he asked. “liking someone?”

nanami stood, dusted off his jeans, and picked up his book like this detour into emotional chaos had already stretched too long.

“no,” he said, “sometimes it’s worse.”

utahime rolled her eyes, but her smirk softened. “you’ll live. probably.”

geto slung an arm over gojo’s shoulder before standing. “just tell us if she responds with another poetic breakdown of your social awkwardness.”

and in the silence that followed, broken only by the sound of crinkling wrappers and someone’s spotify lo-fi playlist looping in the background, gojo felt something strange.

she laughed, he thought. she read it and laughed.

either way, he’d take it.

so….you hadn’t meant to say hi.

or rather, you hadn’t expected it to feel like dropping a match into a very dry field. it was a small word, casually thrown over your shoulder as you zipped your bag, the kind of thing you said to people in passing, people who shared a table in a group project once, people you vaguely recognized. and yet when it hit gojo satoru, he reacted like you’d lobbed a brick at his chest.

you saw him before class even started—gojo, hair an absolute mess as usual, strands defiantly curling and sticking up like they had their own agenda. he looked jittery, the kind of nervous energy that made his limbs twitch just a little too much, like he was trying to run a thousand thoughts through his brain all at once and none of them had a pause button.

as usual, you shifted you bag, nudged your books aside, making room for him in the seat beside uou. It’s a routine by now, kind of like a silent pact: he slides in, maybe fiddles with his hoodie zipper, and we settle into the lecture. It’s a small gesture, but it’s one that’s grown familiar, comforting even.

but today was different, because he suddenly pivoted to sit somewhere further back. and after class, after you said that simple “hi,” you barely caught the way his shoulders jerked up, stiff as glass, or how his eyes, all wide and electric behind his glasses, flicked to you like he was still buffering. he looked… trapped. like you’d cornered him with your voice alone. and then, as if driven by some internal crisis too large for the moment, he took off.

not just turned and walked. no. he fled.

stumbled past chairs and bags with the coordination of a baby deer in combat boots, muttered something that could’ve been a farewell or a final wish, and practically careened out of the classroom.

you watched him go, your lips quirking into a quiet smile, half in disbelief, half in curiosity. then you packed up the rest of your things and left the room without ceremony. the hallway buzzed with student chatter and wet sneakers, but your mind lingered elsewhere.

okay. what the fuck was that?

oh. oh. the text.

the thing is, his message had made you laugh.

you’d gotten it just after a dizzying study session in the library. you hadn’t expected it. hadn’t even remembered he still had your number. you’d stared at his name for a moment, blinking.

and then you’d read it.

gojo

your handwriting’s kind of insane. in a good way. like if emotions could curl their toes

also your eyes do this thing when you’re listening really hard. like your eyebrows lean forward first?? anyway

it was so stupidly specific. so weird. and oddly tender.

you hadn’t responded right away. not out of malice or even confusion (maybe a little), but mostly because you’d been tired. it had been a long week, and his message was oddly placed in a timeline of academic chaos and grocery lists and crumpled notes you kept forgetting to rewrite. you meant to get back to it, but the day swallowed you whole.

when you did reply, it was while walking home in the rain, phone screen spotted with droplets and your fingers half-numb. you sent the message with a casual smile at your phone, thumbs moving instinctively.

hi lol sorry for the late response

but lmao the toe thing made me laugh. didn’t know my eyebrows had a personality but i’m honored. also. you’re kinda weird. but like. the good kind??

you hadn’t really expected anything from it. certainly not for it to mean anything.

but watching him today…panic in his retreat, the split-second way he’d looked at you, like you’d turned gravity on its head… you started to realize something.

gojo satoru was unraveling.

and apparently, you were the reason.

by the time you returned to your dorm, the rain had stopped. the air smelled like wet pavement and cheap shampoo. you dropped your bag by the door and collapsed into the cushions with your phone still in your hand.

it buzzed.

gojo

honored to be the weird good kind.

also didn’t know i outed your eyebrow microexpressions but now i feel weirdly responsible for them

should i apologize or apply for naming rights?

you exhaled slowly. the corners of your mouth lifted again.

there was something charming about him. not the polished kind of charming that knew it was charming, but the kind that stumbled, full of good intentions and poorly timed exits. it was the sort of charm that didn’t ask for anything. it just… flailed. loudly. like with…glitter.

you didn’t know what to make of it yet. you didn’t have to.

still, you typed back.

y/n

if you apply for naming rights, i expect royalties

also: who gave you the right to be this observant?? do you have a side hobby in eyebrow analytics or smth

you hesitated before sending it, thumb hovering, then tapped send anyway.

across the room, your laptop blinked with a reminder about an overdue article analysis. you ignored it. your eyes were still on the screen.

typing…

the indicator blinked, then vanished. then blinked again. and vanished.

you smiled and tucked the phone beneath your thigh.

.

.

the next day came quietly.

your morning routine was the same: lukewarm tea and a podcast you barely listened to while brushing your teeth. you didn’t check your phone first thing, only that he was there when you walked into the café on campus. alone. hoodie on, glasses pushed to the top of his head, typing furiously into a laptop with crumbs of what looked like a chocolate croissant decorating the table like confetti.

you paused. you could have walked right by. you nearly did.

but something in you itched.

you walked over and pulled the chair across from him, sat down like you’d done it before. his hands froze mid-keystroke. slowly, almost comically, his head lifted.

his eyes widened. mouth parted. you could practically see the full-body crash happening behind his expression.

“i didn’t know we were doing surprise interrogations now,” he said, blinking. “do i need a lawyer?”

“no,” you said, shrugging. “just wanted to see if you were real.”

he stared for a moment longer, then sat back. there was an odd quiet to him now, like he didn’t trust the calm.

“you read the text.”

“i did.”

“and you still chose to sit here.”

“i did.”

gojo let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped since the jurassic era.

you smiled, took a sip of your drink, and tilted your head.

“so,” you said. “what’s your next move, eyebrow analyst?”

he grinned sheepishly, the kind of grin that had probably ruined better men than him.

“i was thinking…” he said, adjusting his glasses, “let me redeem myself with something drinkable. on me.”

and you said…yes.

he blinked like he hadn’t expected that outcome. like he’d offered as a joke, a throwaway line to cover the shaky scaffolding of his nerves. but you said yes anyway, and in that moment, gojo satoru sat a little straighter. just barely. like the air in his lungs had shifted from carbon dioxide to something less fatal.

he stood too fast, nearly knocked over his laptop, and spent the next five seconds wrestling with a tangled charger and a crumpled receipt he insisted on stuffing into his back pocket.

the table between you was still cluttered with the remnants of class: his half-shut laptop, your barely touched drink, the waxy paper wrapper from a croissant he must’ve inhaled before you arrived. after awkwardly standing in front of the cashier ordering your drink, he came back with a warm cup of coffee as he simultaneously fumbled to make space, shifting things around as if arranging a fragile ecosystem. a pen rolled to the floor. he chased it.

“wasn’t sure you’d actually… say yes,” he said, finally settling. his hands hadn’t figured out where they belonged. one hovered near his cup, the other curled against his knee.

you wrapped both palms around the warmth of your coffee. “i wasn’t sure you were actually asking.”

he laughed—short, surprised. “honestly, i wasn’t either.”

outside, the rain had tapered off into a low mist, brushing against the fogged windowpanes. inside, the café remained its usual brand of sleepy academic clutter. warm lights. old speakers playing jazz covers of songs that didn’t need them. the hum of someone’s study playlist bleeding from cheap headphones. the barista, predictably, didn’t glance your way.

“i think i owe you an apology,” he said after a beat. “for the text.”

you looked at him over the rim of your cup. “why? you didn’t say anything mean. just… strange.”

he winced, grinning despite himself. “god. yeah. the eyebrow bit.”

“and the toes,” you added.

“please. i’m trying to repress that part.”

you shrugged. “i laughed.”

he looked up at that, gaze catching yours. his eyes—blue, always blue, but dimmed now with a soft touch—searched your face like it mattered.

“you did?”

you nodded. “not in the way you probably hoped. but it wasn’t a bad thing.”

he blinked slowly. “i’ll take not-bad.”

your fingers traced the curve of your mug. his thumb tapped once, twice, against the side of his.

he didn’t meet your eyes. at least not fully. his loud, unruly, sometimes unbearable confidence in a classroom setting had dulled at the edges. definitely not gone, but contained.

“i noticed you,” he said suddenly.

something behind your ribs pulled taut. you tried not to react as you tilted your head to the side, a small smile etched onto your skin.

he rubbed the back of his neck. “way before the message. just—thought you should know.”

you weren’t sure what to do with that. he’d said it too gently to be performative. too soon to be meaningful.

“i didn’t notice you,” you said after a moment…your eyes wandering around, thinking. you weren’t even trying to land a jab, just being honest—especially with how vulnerable gojo looks right now, it felt right to keep it real. “not really. not until the project. even then, you didn’t say much.”

“was trying not to combust,” he murmured.

you laughed, quiet and involuntary. he looked up at that, eyes flicking to yours like he was surprised by the sound. his mouth curved into a grin.

eventually, he leaned forward, arms crossed on the table.

“i don’t know if i’m someone you’d notice,” he said, barely audible. “but i think i’d regret it if i didn’t at least try to talk to you. without the metaphors this time.”

your gaze softened, just slightly.

“do you always try like this?” you asked.

his laugh was short. almost embarrassed. “only when it feels like it matters.”

to your own surprise, you stayed longer. probably longer than you should. he stayed on his side of the table, close enough to hear your voice when you finally began to speak again. not about eyebrows. not about feelings. just… things. the weather. the professor’s terrible slides. a book you pretended to like last semester.

when you finally glanced at your phone, the time hit you like a cold splash of water. your next class started in ten minutes.

“shit,” you muttered under your breath.

gojo tilted his head slightly. “what’s up?”

you were already reaching for your things, half-distracted, trying to cram your notebook back into your bag without making a mess of it. “class,” you said quickly. “i’m gonna be late.”

he blinked, as if he hadn’t quite realized how long you’d been sitting there.

you stood, adjusting your strap and smoothing the edge of your sleeve, already half-turned toward the door. “sorry. i’ll see you next class.”

“right,” he said.

you took a step.

“i’ll text you,” he added, a little too fast. like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud until it already was.

you paused for a split second, but didn’t turn around.

“okay,” you said over your shoulder.

and then you left.

and just like that, you had him wrapped around your fingers.

god. he was so fucked.

[kingkruell]

sire... sire please... your fics are so good...but i am Begging you to use readmores. its so hard to look thru your works when it takes five years to scroll through each post

hi nonny! i’ll work on it 😭😭 i’m so sorry i haven’t really gone through organizing my page since i’ve been caught up w college rn. i will soon. thanku for the suggestion !!

[kingkruell]

istg the week before finals is the worst…whats w the sudden barrage of assignment bro let me breath 😭😭

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | GOJO SATORU

A NERDJO SERIES . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

SYNOPSIS he wasn’t supposed to stay past week three. but now he’s showing up early, quoting lectures he barely pretends to listen to, and watching the way you underline your notes like it means something. somewhere between shared worksheets, side-eyes, and scribbled margins—gojo satoru starts falling for the girl by the window. and maybe, just maybe, she starts noticing him too.

CONTENT nerd!gojo satoru x classmate! reader, female reader, informatics student gojo x journalism student reader, university!au, non-sorcerers, slow-burn, slice of life, gojo being soft, love-struck gojo, campus and classrooms settings, awkward crushes, emotional intimacy, fluff, friends-to-something more, unspoken attraction, smut.

A/N this blog will be updated regularly along with new parts. a trigger warning at some ill-attempt on humor as well as (perhaps) an inaccurate usage of coding or journalistic terms.

listening to la lune - king krule

see i was raised to the moon just to hold a gaze with a view across the other side it won't be long till you're inside till you're inside my heart to be with you, such a view to be elevated to you

[nerdjo artwork by su2kuna on twitter]

comment to be added to taglist! first part (intro) will be published very soon and reblogs are very much appreciated <3

— and you'll see the details between the margins

PART 1 the space between lines [int.] ⊹₊ ⋆

PART 2 coming soon...

PART 3 coming soon..

PART 4 coming soon..

PART 5 coming soon..

and more to come.

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | PART 1: INTRODUCTION

THE SPACE BETWEEN LINES

WC: 3.029

a nerdjo series

listening to the boy - the smashing pumpkins

[please comment down below if you know the artist for the nerdjo art, all credits to them]

taglist: @sylusonlylove @bakugouswaif @n1vi @arthrizzia

<3 kindly reblog and comment to be added on the taglist for the next part!

gojo satoru doesn’t belong in this class.

he knows it the second he steps into room 4b-21—ten minutes late, naturally. the fluorescent lights buzz overhead like they’re annoyed with him, the ac is set to arctic, and his iced coffee is already half melted by the time he shoulders the door open with the kind of carelessness that only comes from doing things too often without consequence.

he isn’t supposed to be here. media ethics, of all things. a filler elective he picked in a blur of last-minute registration panic, he thought the title sounded dramatic. maybe something about wartime propaganda or political psy-ops. instead, it’s all discussion boards and debates about journalistic framing. he should be bored.

his eye scans the room. empty seat. you.

you’re just there, pen between your fingers, the glow from the window softening the edges of your face as you tilt your head, reading over something like it matters. you’ve got that look about you; focused, unbothered, maybe a little skeptical. he blinks once, as if that might help. then, without thinking too hard, he slides into the empty seat beside you.

“hey,” he says, like he’s always sat there, like you’ve been in this together and not like he just transferred into the class two weeks late because he “forgot to register.”

you glance at him. sideways, unimpressed. 

“you in journalism?”

“god, no,” he replies, almost offended. “i’m in theoretical computer science.”

your eyebrow arches. “so why are you in media ethics?”

he shrugs. “thought it’d be about cults or propaganda or something. it’s not.”

it’s really not.

still, he stays.

that’s the problem.

because satoru’s the kind of guy you expect to vanish after week three. the one with the untamable hair, the anime stickers, the half-zipped hoodie over a shirt that probably says something stupid like “404: motivation not found.” the guy with a laptop full of code windows and two tabs open to reddit. he doesn’t belong here. not in this room, not beside you.

but then he starts showing up early. sometimes earlier than you.

he reads the articles. not always thoroughly, but enough. he doesn’t speak often in class, but when he does, it’s sharp and strangely lucid. once, he compared legacy journalism to a failed open-world game release. the professor paused. then wrote it down.

you don’t think much of it at first. he’s just another guy with too much brain and not enough filter.

but he notices things.

or, he doesn’t, not really. not in the beginning. you’re part of the ambient noise of the class to him: the scribble of pens, the shuffle of laptops, the soft chime of someone’s phone not quite silenced. until you say something about editorial bias in conflict zones. no warning, just words delivered with this clipped cadence of someone who knows what they’re talking about.

he’s halfway through fidgeting with his airpod case when you speak, and by the time you finish, his fingers are still.

and then he realizes—he hasn’t written a single note.

“huh,” he says under his breath, not really to anyone.

the next time he sees you, he notices your handwriting. it’s kind of a mess. tight, slanted, like it’s always mid-sprint. but when you’re really focused, it straightens out. neat. clear. he catches himself watching the shift, like it’s some kind of code he could learn to read.

he doesn’t tell anyone about you. not at first.

but one day, over lunch with geto on the grass behind the comp-sci building, he’s halfway through a takoyaki and staring at nothing when geto asks, “you like that class?”geto leans over during their late lunch in the quad, picking limp rice from his bowl with tired chopsticks.

satoru shrugs, mouth full of takoyaki. “it’s fine. good lighting.”

suguru eyes him. “you stayed the whole hour. that’s new.”

satoru chews. looks away.

he doesn’t say your name. doesn’t mention the way your earphones are always tangled or how you tilt your head when you’re thinking, like you’re listening to a voice only you can hear. he doesn’t mention how sometimes, when you smile to yourself at something you’re reading, it throws him completely off balance.

instead, he just keeps showing up.

and you start noticing. maybe. he likes to think you did.

like when he accidentally ends up in your seat, technically unassigned, but everyone knows classroom territory is sacred, and you don’t move your bag. like when he murmurs commentary during a documentary screening and you roll your eyes, but don’t tell him to shut up. like when you ask if he did the reading, not to challenge him, but just because you’re... curious.

he had, actually.

“skimmed it,” he lies.

“you quoted it last class,” you say, barely looking up.

he shifts in his chair. “did i?”

you hum, keep typing. he watches your fingers fly across the keys and wonders—not for the first time—what it is you’re writing. you hum. keep typing. your laptop has a cracked sticker on it that says ‘support local journalist’, he doesn’t know whether you’re being earnest, or maybe it’s just ironic. he doesn’t know yet. later that week, he sends a message in the group chat with nanami and utahime.

satoru [10:49 pm] what font says “i’m not flirting i just think your brain is hot”

nanami [10:55 pm]                       .

utahime [11:00 pm] is this about the girl in your ethics class

satoru has left the chat

yeah, it starts to bother him.

not with a bang, not with some spectacular implosion of routine. satoru’s life doesn’t work like that. he’s calibrated, habitual. if something’s wrong, it shows up in data: a late submission, a missed semicolon, a glitch in a simulation. but this? this is quiet. this is slow. it settles like a bug in his system that doesn't crash anything outright, but keeps making things slightly off.

it lives in the silence between your questions, in the little pauses where he finds himself watching your hands rather than answering. it lingers in the rhythm of your pen clicking against your notebook when you're thinking, like punctuation to the air between your thoughts. it’s in the way his code starts to blur after hours at his desk, because some part of his brain keeps returning—rebooting, replaying—something you said two days ago in a tone that shouldn’t matter but somehow does.

he doesn’t even know what it is, not exactly. just that it’s inconvenient.

satoru doesn’t do crushes. he crushes deadlines. he crushes bot matches at 3 a.m., fingers flying, screens casting their ghostly light across his room. he crushes ice into his coffee like it owes him rent.

but this?

this is... what?

he tries to analyze it the only way he knows how: through logic. he builds a mental chart, starts labeling behaviors like they're lines of code in need of debugging.

emotional spike when subject speaks: moderate

unprompted recall of subject’s prior comments: high

involuntary proximity-seeking: very high (potential red flag?)

increased engagement with previously irrelevant topics: off the charts

it’s a pattern. familiar, almost. he’s seen it in his ai simulations. character attachment markers, relational drift patterns. but the thing about simulations is that you can reset them. you can scrub the memory, rerun the code.

you’re not a simulation.

you’re not data.

and that makes this—whatever this is—unquantifiable. unstable. real.

he googles how to tell if you like someone at 1:12 a.m. and instantly regrets it. but he keeps scrolling anyway, curled into his hoodie, blinking under the cool burn of the monitor. the listicles are unhelpful. so are reddit threads. half of them contradict each other.

his heart doesn’t race. that’s not how it feels. it's more like... the world slows down when you're near. like your presence drags a cursor across his attention span and highlights everything he didn’t think to notice before. this is different, right?

he closes the tab.

he’s not in love.

you just have this cadence when you speak. a sort of precision, like you’re choosing words by feel. it loops in his brain like a clean line of code. efficient. elegant.

he finds himself remembering things you’ve said for no reason. little throwaway observations. a quote from an article you were writing. a joke about the vending machines in the journalism building. things that should fade into the background, but don’t.

and the worst part? he’s started reading your articles.

he doesn’t even like journalism. he used to scoff at it; too many feelings, too little structure. but now, he reads them at night, scrolling with a concentration he usually reserves for research papers and rare dev blogs. and when he gets to the end of one, there’s this strange ache in his chest, like the absence of your voice on the page leaves something unfinished.

then he hears your name. maybe from the professor, said in passing with the kind of casual fondness that suggests you've answered every discussion prompt with too much insight and not enough hesitation. maybe from the attendance sheet, called out and answered with that familiar cadence of yours: low, even, like you’re measuring syllables with your breath.

either way, it lodges itself in his head. loops like a line of unused dialogue in a game he hasn’t unlocked yet.

after class, he walks out with shoko. she’s not in the class—just passing through, loitering near the bike racks with a cigarette dangling from her lips and her hoodie pulled halfway over her face.

satoru scrolls aimlessly on his phone, thumb moving, screen static.

“you’re quieter than usual,” she says, exhaling smoke into the sharp winter air.

“huh?” he looks up, a little too quickly. “no, i’m not.”

shoko squints, amused. “you watching that girl the whole time?”

he flinches.

“what girl?”

she laughs. doesn’t answer. just flicks ash onto the pavement and says, “thought so.”

it gets worse when you start talking to him like you've known him for years.

“hey,” you say one morning, sliding into the seat next to him two minutes before lecture. your jacket’s damp from the mist, and your fingers are cold as they brush the edge of his notebook by accident. you don’t look at him. “your tea smells sad.”

he blinks. glances down at his drink. “…it’s honey milk jasmine.”

“exactly,” you mutter, opening your laptop. and he doesn't know why that makes his chest feel too warm.

after that, it spirals.

you bump elbows when reaching for shared worksheets. you roll your eyes when he mutters commentary during in-class documentaries, but you don’t tell him to stop. sometimes—only sometimes—you ask his opinion on a topic. just a simple, “what do you think?” or, “would you quote that?” and it shouldn’t mean anything. it probably doesn’t. but it makes his hands feel clumsy and his thoughts slow, like someone tilted the world just enough to make him stumble.

he doesn’t know when it started, exactly—the shift. the way your presence makes the air feel different. charged. softer. like the light hangs a little differently when you’re near, like even the shadows pause to trace the shape of your face.

he watches you when you speak, catches the way your mouth curves on certain vowels, the quiet determination in your hands when you gesture mid-sentence. the way your hair always falls a little undone, like it refuses to obey neatness. like it’s alive with the same restless energy you carry in your eyes.

one friday night, the dorm is half-asleep. the halls hum with fluorescent fatigue and leftover noise from weekend plans. satoru, geto, and nanami are holed up in the corner of the common room, buried in the skeleton of their semester project: cables, printouts, energy drinks, three laptops overheating in synchrony.

satoru is supposed to be debugging a simulation script. instead, his screen flashes an error message he’s read twenty times without understanding. the cursor blinks at him, smug.

geto doesn’t look up. “you haven’t typed anything.”

satoru stretches, hoping it looks nonchalant. “thinking.”

nanami frowns. “you’ve been on the same line for half an hour.”

geto finally glances over—and smirks. “why is the student blog open?”

satoru slams the tab shut so fast it clicks. “i was researching.”

“researching what,” geto says, deadpan. “your feelings?”

satoru throws a pocky stick at his head. “shut up.”

too late. nanami exhales, long-suffering. “so it’s the girl from your ethics class.”

“what—no,” satoru says. way too fast. “i just—i like her writing.”

geto raises an eyebrow. “sure.”

a pause. the low hum of the heater. the quiet clicking of nanami’s keyboard.

“…i like her handwriting,” satoru says, softer this time, like he can’t stop himself.

both heads turn toward him.

“it’s weird,” he continues, eyes fixed on a water stain on the ceiling.

“it’s all cramped and slanted, like she’s racing against her own brain. but when she writes something she really cares about—like in class, during a heated discussion or something—it straightens out. like the thought pulls her posture up. like the words stop running and start standing still.”

a beat of silence.

then geto, almost reluctant: “okay, that’s actually… kind of beautiful.”

satoru shrugs. rubs the back of his neck.

“you’re gone,” nanami mutters. “this is pathetic.”

“shut up.”

“you’re writing poetry about her penmanship.”

“i said shut up.”

“tell her,” geto says.

satoru sits up straight. “what? no.”

“why not?”

“she thinks i’m dumb,” he mumbles. “or just loud. or annoying.”

“you’re literally top of our major.”

“yeah, but she’s—” satoru gestures helplessly. “journalism. she talks like every sentence is a thesis. like she’s narrating her own memoir. and i’m just… me.”

a quiet moment.

then he adds, a little softer, “she once said mmorpg guild politics reminded her of inter-office media sabotage.”

geto blinks. “what?”

“like, hierarchy. gossip. power plays. she had this whole theory about it. i thought it was insane but… she wasn’t wrong.”

nanami downs the rest of his coffee. “you’re in love with her.”

“oh my god,” satoru groans. “i’m not.”

“you absolutely are.”

“shut up.”

“no, seriously,” geto grins. “tell her. worst-case scenario, she writes a scathing editorial about it.”

“actually,” nanami says, “worst-case scenario, she corrects your grammar.”

“kill me,” satoru mutters into his hands.

for you, it begins with a message you don’t expect.

thursday, just after six, you’re halfway through a walk back from the library, one earphone in, your other hand balancing a lukewarm americano and a half-folded notebook crammed with interview notes. your phone buzzes in your pocket at the crosswalk, and when you check it, there it is—his name.

gojo satoru [6:28 pm] your handwriting’s kind of insane. in a good way. like if emotions could curl their toes

gojo satoru [6:31 pm} also your eyes do this thing when you're listening really hard. like your eyebrows lean forward first?? anyway

you stare at the screen. then at the sender. then back at the screen.

“what…” you chuckled, brows stil furrowing.

you stop walking. weird. the phrasing is so… him. the kind of message that wasn’t written so much as spilled. and of course, the compliment is… unexpected. not unwelcome, but oddly specific. precise in a way that feels more like observation than flattery. 

you blink once. then again. then let out a laugh under your breath. he’s the guy who always sits beside you in media ethics—his seat habitually taken before you even arrive. he’s the one whose backpack is always unzipped, half his notebooks spilling out like paper confetti, whose hair looks perpetually mussed from leaning over three monitors at once. apparently, he’s some comp-sci genius, top of his major, apparently.

he’s an acquaintance. a classmate. the two of you share the same demographic footnote in your university’s directory but nothing more. your conversations barely crack three lines before they dissolve into polite nods and the gentle tap of keys. once, you joked about the vending machine coffee being “ethically problematic,” and he quipped back that even corporate exploitation has a kernel of truth. you smiled and returned to your notes; he returned to his hidden commentary in the margins of his notebook. that was the sum of it.

he got your number from that group project, probably. the one where he did three people’s worth of work in one nigh because half ot the group had ghosted you bot that time, and he insisted he could finish off the rest of the job. only that then he forgot to attach the final report until ten minutes before the deadline. he cracked a few jokes over the shared google doc. you corrected his grammar once. he said “rude” and added a semicolon with theatrical flair.

yet now, suspended between his casual compliment and the question of what it means, you realize how little you actually know him. not the way you know the soft clack of your favorite pen, or the comforting weight of your notebook when it lies open on your lap. you don’t know if he’s the kind of person who guards secrets behind that easy grin, or the kind who shares half-spoken thoughts like breadcrumbs, trusting that someone is paying attention. you don’t know whether he values precision or spontaneity. 

you don’t know why you’re even thinking about this. you shrug your shoulders.

you don’t respond. not because you’re ignoring him, but because you genuinely don’t know what to say. like seriously, what does one respond with to a message like that? that night, in bed, with your laptop still open to a blank document and the hum of a podcast low in the background, you tap on his message again. you read it under dim light, curled on your side, wondering what compelled him to notice something so small. you thought for a moment: my handwriting is nice. a little cramped, maybe, but controlled. readable. you write with the same discipline you speak with: measured, intentional, clean lines. you don’t show your drafts unless they’re ready.

but your eyebrows?

you squint at your phone. what a stupid thing to notice. what a weird, wonderful, too-much sort of observation.

…and weirdly enough, it stays with you longer than you expect.

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | PART 1: INTRODUCTION

THE SPACE BETWEEN LINES

WC: 3.029

a nerdjo series

listening to the boy - the smashing pumpkins

[please comment down below if you know the artist for the nerdjo art, all credits to them]

taglist: @sylusonlylove @bakugouswaif @n1vi @arthrizzia

<3 kindly reblog and comment to be added on the taglist for the next part!

gojo satoru doesn’t belong in this class.

he knows it the second he steps into room 4b-21—ten minutes late, naturally. the fluorescent lights buzz overhead like they’re annoyed with him, the ac is set to arctic, and his iced coffee is already half melted by the time he shoulders the door open with the kind of carelessness that only comes from doing things too often without consequence.

he isn’t supposed to be here. media ethics, of all things. a filler elective he picked in a blur of last-minute registration panic, he thought the title sounded dramatic. maybe something about wartime propaganda or political psy-ops. instead, it’s all discussion boards and debates about journalistic framing. he should be bored.

his eye scans the room. empty seat. you.

you’re just there, pen between your fingers, the glow from the window softening the edges of your face as you tilt your head, reading over something like it matters. you’ve got that look about you; focused, unbothered, maybe a little skeptical. he blinks once, as if that might help. then, without thinking too hard, he slides into the empty seat beside you.

“hey,” he says, like he’s always sat there, like you’ve been in this together and not like he just transferred into the class two weeks late because he “forgot to register.”

you glance at him. sideways, unimpressed. 

“you in journalism?”

“god, no,” he replies, almost offended. “i’m in theoretical computer science.”

your eyebrow arches. “so why are you in media ethics?”

he shrugs. “thought it’d be about cults or propaganda or something. it’s not.”

it’s really not.

still, he stays.

that’s the problem.

because satoru’s the kind of guy you expect to vanish after week three. the one with the untamable hair, the anime stickers, the half-zipped hoodie over a shirt that probably says something stupid like “404: motivation not found.” the guy with a laptop full of code windows and two tabs open to reddit. he doesn’t belong here. not in this room, not beside you.

but then he starts showing up early. sometimes earlier than you.

he reads the articles. not always thoroughly, but enough. he doesn’t speak often in class, but when he does, it’s sharp and strangely lucid. once, he compared legacy journalism to a failed open-world game release. the professor paused. then wrote it down.

you don’t think much of it at first. he’s just another guy with too much brain and not enough filter.

but he notices things.

or, he doesn’t, not really. not in the beginning. you’re part of the ambient noise of the class to him: the scribble of pens, the shuffle of laptops, the soft chime of someone’s phone not quite silenced. until you say something about editorial bias in conflict zones. no warning, just words delivered with this clipped cadence of someone who knows what they’re talking about.

he’s halfway through fidgeting with his airpod case when you speak, and by the time you finish, his fingers are still.

and then he realizes—he hasn’t written a single note.

“huh,” he says under his breath, not really to anyone.

the next time he sees you, he notices your handwriting. it’s kind of a mess. tight, slanted, like it’s always mid-sprint. but when you’re really focused, it straightens out. neat. clear. he catches himself watching the shift, like it’s some kind of code he could learn to read.

he doesn’t tell anyone about you. not at first.

but one day, over lunch with geto on the grass behind the comp-sci building, he’s halfway through a takoyaki and staring at nothing when geto asks, “you like that class?”geto leans over during their late lunch in the quad, picking limp rice from his bowl with tired chopsticks.

satoru shrugs, mouth full of takoyaki. “it’s fine. good lighting.”

suguru eyes him. “you stayed the whole hour. that’s new.”

satoru chews. looks away.

he doesn’t say your name. doesn’t mention the way your earphones are always tangled or how you tilt your head when you’re thinking, like you’re listening to a voice only you can hear. he doesn’t mention how sometimes, when you smile to yourself at something you’re reading, it throws him completely off balance.

instead, he just keeps showing up.

and you start noticing. maybe. he likes to think you did.

like when he accidentally ends up in your seat, technically unassigned, but everyone knows classroom territory is sacred, and you don’t move your bag. like when he murmurs commentary during a documentary screening and you roll your eyes, but don’t tell him to shut up. like when you ask if he did the reading, not to challenge him, but just because you’re... curious.

he had, actually.

“skimmed it,” he lies.

“you quoted it last class,” you say, barely looking up.

he shifts in his chair. “did i?”

you hum, keep typing. he watches your fingers fly across the keys and wonders—not for the first time—what it is you’re writing. you hum. keep typing. your laptop has a cracked sticker on it that says ‘support local journalist’, he doesn’t know whether you’re being earnest, or maybe it’s just ironic. he doesn’t know yet. later that week, he sends a message in the group chat with nanami and utahime.

satoru [10:49 pm] what font says “i’m not flirting i just think your brain is hot”

nanami [10:55 pm]                       .

utahime [11:00 pm] is this about the girl in your ethics class

satoru has left the chat

yeah, it starts to bother him.

not with a bang, not with some spectacular implosion of routine. satoru’s life doesn’t work like that. he’s calibrated, habitual. if something’s wrong, it shows up in data: a late submission, a missed semicolon, a glitch in a simulation. but this? this is quiet. this is slow. it settles like a bug in his system that doesn't crash anything outright, but keeps making things slightly off.

it lives in the silence between your questions, in the little pauses where he finds himself watching your hands rather than answering. it lingers in the rhythm of your pen clicking against your notebook when you're thinking, like punctuation to the air between your thoughts. it’s in the way his code starts to blur after hours at his desk, because some part of his brain keeps returning—rebooting, replaying—something you said two days ago in a tone that shouldn’t matter but somehow does.

he doesn’t even know what it is, not exactly. just that it’s inconvenient.

satoru doesn’t do crushes. he crushes deadlines. he crushes bot matches at 3 a.m., fingers flying, screens casting their ghostly light across his room. he crushes ice into his coffee like it owes him rent.

but this?

this is... what?

he tries to analyze it the only way he knows how: through logic. he builds a mental chart, starts labeling behaviors like they're lines of code in need of debugging.

emotional spike when subject speaks: moderate

unprompted recall of subject’s prior comments: high

involuntary proximity-seeking: very high (potential red flag?)

increased engagement with previously irrelevant topics: off the charts

it’s a pattern. familiar, almost. he’s seen it in his ai simulations. character attachment markers, relational drift patterns. but the thing about simulations is that you can reset them. you can scrub the memory, rerun the code.

you’re not a simulation.

you’re not data.

and that makes this—whatever this is—unquantifiable. unstable. real.

he googles how to tell if you like someone at 1:12 a.m. and instantly regrets it. but he keeps scrolling anyway, curled into his hoodie, blinking under the cool burn of the monitor. the listicles are unhelpful. so are reddit threads. half of them contradict each other.

his heart doesn’t race. that’s not how it feels. it's more like... the world slows down when you're near. like your presence drags a cursor across his attention span and highlights everything he didn’t think to notice before. this is different, right?

he closes the tab.

he’s not in love.

you just have this cadence when you speak. a sort of precision, like you’re choosing words by feel. it loops in his brain like a clean line of code. efficient. elegant.

he finds himself remembering things you’ve said for no reason. little throwaway observations. a quote from an article you were writing. a joke about the vending machines in the journalism building. things that should fade into the background, but don’t.

and the worst part? he’s started reading your articles.

he doesn’t even like journalism. he used to scoff at it; too many feelings, too little structure. but now, he reads them at night, scrolling with a concentration he usually reserves for research papers and rare dev blogs. and when he gets to the end of one, there’s this strange ache in his chest, like the absence of your voice on the page leaves something unfinished.

then he hears your name. maybe from the professor, said in passing with the kind of casual fondness that suggests you've answered every discussion prompt with too much insight and not enough hesitation. maybe from the attendance sheet, called out and answered with that familiar cadence of yours: low, even, like you’re measuring syllables with your breath.

either way, it lodges itself in his head. loops like a line of unused dialogue in a game he hasn’t unlocked yet.

after class, he walks out with shoko. she’s not in the class—just passing through, loitering near the bike racks with a cigarette dangling from her lips and her hoodie pulled halfway over her face.

satoru scrolls aimlessly on his phone, thumb moving, screen static.

“you’re quieter than usual,” she says, exhaling smoke into the sharp winter air.

“huh?” he looks up, a little too quickly. “no, i’m not.”

shoko squints, amused. “you watching that girl the whole time?”

he flinches.

“what girl?”

she laughs. doesn’t answer. just flicks ash onto the pavement and says, “thought so.”

it gets worse when you start talking to him like you've known him for years.

“hey,” you say one morning, sliding into the seat next to him two minutes before lecture. your jacket’s damp from the mist, and your fingers are cold as they brush the edge of his notebook by accident. you don’t look at him. “your tea smells sad.”

he blinks. glances down at his drink. “…it’s honey milk jasmine.”

“exactly,” you mutter, opening your laptop. and he doesn't know why that makes his chest feel too warm.

after that, it spirals.

you bump elbows when reaching for shared worksheets. you roll your eyes when he mutters commentary during in-class documentaries, but you don’t tell him to stop. sometimes—only sometimes—you ask his opinion on a topic. just a simple, “what do you think?” or, “would you quote that?” and it shouldn’t mean anything. it probably doesn’t. but it makes his hands feel clumsy and his thoughts slow, like someone tilted the world just enough to make him stumble.

he doesn’t know when it started, exactly—the shift. the way your presence makes the air feel different. charged. softer. like the light hangs a little differently when you’re near, like even the shadows pause to trace the shape of your face.

he watches you when you speak, catches the way your mouth curves on certain vowels, the quiet determination in your hands when you gesture mid-sentence. the way your hair always falls a little undone, like it refuses to obey neatness. like it’s alive with the same restless energy you carry in your eyes.

one friday night, the dorm is half-asleep. the halls hum with fluorescent fatigue and leftover noise from weekend plans. satoru, geto, and nanami are holed up in the corner of the common room, buried in the skeleton of their semester project: cables, printouts, energy drinks, three laptops overheating in synchrony.

satoru is supposed to be debugging a simulation script. instead, his screen flashes an error message he’s read twenty times without understanding. the cursor blinks at him, smug.

geto doesn’t look up. “you haven’t typed anything.”

satoru stretches, hoping it looks nonchalant. “thinking.”

nanami frowns. “you’ve been on the same line for half an hour.”

geto finally glances over—and smirks. “why is the student blog open?”

satoru slams the tab shut so fast it clicks. “i was researching.”

“researching what,” geto says, deadpan. “your feelings?”

satoru throws a pocky stick at his head. “shut up.”

too late. nanami exhales, long-suffering. “so it’s the girl from your ethics class.”

“what—no,” satoru says. way too fast. “i just—i like her writing.”

geto raises an eyebrow. “sure.”

a pause. the low hum of the heater. the quiet clicking of nanami’s keyboard.

“…i like her handwriting,” satoru says, softer this time, like he can’t stop himself.

both heads turn toward him.

“it’s weird,” he continues, eyes fixed on a water stain on the ceiling.

“it’s all cramped and slanted, like she’s racing against her own brain. but when she writes something she really cares about—like in class, during a heated discussion or something—it straightens out. like the thought pulls her posture up. like the words stop running and start standing still.”

a beat of silence.

then geto, almost reluctant: “okay, that’s actually… kind of beautiful.”

satoru shrugs. rubs the back of his neck.

“you’re gone,” nanami mutters. “this is pathetic.”

“shut up.”

“you’re writing poetry about her penmanship.”

“i said shut up.”

“tell her,” geto says.

satoru sits up straight. “what? no.”

“why not?”

“she thinks i’m dumb,” he mumbles. “or just loud. or annoying.”

“you’re literally top of our major.”

“yeah, but she’s—” satoru gestures helplessly. “journalism. she talks like every sentence is a thesis. like she’s narrating her own memoir. and i’m just… me.”

a quiet moment.

then he adds, a little softer, “she once said mmorpg guild politics reminded her of inter-office media sabotage.”

geto blinks. “what?”

“like, hierarchy. gossip. power plays. she had this whole theory about it. i thought it was insane but… she wasn’t wrong.”

nanami downs the rest of his coffee. “you’re in love with her.”

“oh my god,” satoru groans. “i’m not.”

“you absolutely are.”

“shut up.”

“no, seriously,” geto grins. “tell her. worst-case scenario, she writes a scathing editorial about it.”

“actually,” nanami says, “worst-case scenario, she corrects your grammar.”

“kill me,” satoru mutters into his hands.

for you, it begins with a message you don’t expect.

thursday, just after six, you’re halfway through a walk back from the library, one earphone in, your other hand balancing a lukewarm americano and a half-folded notebook crammed with interview notes. your phone buzzes in your pocket at the crosswalk, and when you check it, there it is—his name.

gojo satoru [6:28 pm] your handwriting’s kind of insane. in a good way. like if emotions could curl their toes

gojo satoru [6:31 pm} also your eyes do this thing when you're listening really hard. like your eyebrows lean forward first?? anyway

you stare at the screen. then at the sender. then back at the screen.

“what…” you chuckled, brows stil furrowing.

you stop walking. weird. the phrasing is so… him. the kind of message that wasn’t written so much as spilled. and of course, the compliment is… unexpected. not unwelcome, but oddly specific. precise in a way that feels more like observation than flattery. 

you blink once. then again. then let out a laugh under your breath. he’s the guy who always sits beside you in media ethics—his seat habitually taken before you even arrive. he’s the one whose backpack is always unzipped, half his notebooks spilling out like paper confetti, whose hair looks perpetually mussed from leaning over three monitors at once. apparently, he’s some comp-sci genius, top of his major, apparently.

he’s an acquaintance. a classmate. the two of you share the same demographic footnote in your university’s directory but nothing more. your conversations barely crack three lines before they dissolve into polite nods and the gentle tap of keys. once, you joked about the vending machine coffee being “ethically problematic,” and he quipped back that even corporate exploitation has a kernel of truth. you smiled and returned to your notes; he returned to his hidden commentary in the margins of his notebook. that was the sum of it.

he got your number from that group project, probably. the one where he did three people’s worth of work in one nigh because half ot the group had ghosted you bot that time, and he insisted he could finish off the rest of the job. only that then he forgot to attach the final report until ten minutes before the deadline. he cracked a few jokes over the shared google doc. you corrected his grammar once. he said “rude” and added a semicolon with theatrical flair.

yet now, suspended between his casual compliment and the question of what it means, you realize how little you actually know him. not the way you know the soft clack of your favorite pen, or the comforting weight of your notebook when it lies open on your lap. you don’t know if he’s the kind of person who guards secrets behind that easy grin, or the kind who shares half-spoken thoughts like breadcrumbs, trusting that someone is paying attention. you don’t know whether he values precision or spontaneity. 

you don’t know why you’re even thinking about this. you shrug your shoulders.

you don’t respond. not because you’re ignoring him, but because you genuinely don’t know what to say. like seriously, what does one respond with to a message like that? that night, in bed, with your laptop still open to a blank document and the hum of a podcast low in the background, you tap on his message again. you read it under dim light, curled on your side, wondering what compelled him to notice something so small. you thought for a moment: my handwriting is nice. a little cramped, maybe, but controlled. readable. you write with the same discipline you speak with: measured, intentional, clean lines. you don’t show your drafts unless they’re ready.

but your eyebrows?

you squint at your phone. what a stupid thing to notice. what a weird, wonderful, too-much sort of observation.

…and weirdly enough, it stays with you longer than you expect.

[kingkruell]

Every single time someone kudos or leaves sweet comments on one of my silly lil stories. 🥹 I will never not be flattered or surprised. 😅

[kingkruell]

THINGS I DO INSTEAD OF TELLING YOU I LIKE YOU: A MEMOIR BY CHOSO KAMO

✦ choso, who… realized he liked you without understanding that’s what it was

it starts subtly. painfully slowly.

he just… notices you. not in the polite way he notices most people, but in the way where you linger. where you start showing up in parts of his day without warning.

he doesn’t even realize how often he thinks about the sound of your laugh until he catches himself smiling at nothing on the train home.

you sit beside him and the air changes. gentler. softer. like the world around you gets filtered through warm light, just because you’re there.

and he chalks it up to comfort. you’re just… calming. familiar. someone good to be around.

"she makes me feel calm. that’s rare."

but then one day, you touch his arm. barely, just to get his attention, and he freezes. his heart does something completely unnatural. his thoughts scatter like leaves in a storm. then, he stares at his sleeve like it burned him.

oh. oh no. oh shit. i like her.

✦ choso, who… starts practicing what he wants to say to you in his head (and still fumbles it anyway)

he rehearses conversations like they’re sparring matches. in his room. while brushing his teeth. walking home with his hoodie up, mouthing the words to himself like a weirdo.

“just ask if she’s eaten. just say it normal. don’t make it weird.”

and then he sees you. and your smile catches him so off guard that his whole mental script dissolves. so instead of saying the perfectly phrased thing he practiced ten times, he mumbles:

“um... your jacket’s... strong?”

you blink. he wants to walk into traffic.

he goes home and mentally edits that conversation for hours. then replays the imaginary version of it where he was charming and smooth, even though he absolutely wasn’t.

it’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to you. it’s that he wants every word to land right. and that pressure? yeah. he crumbles under it.

✦ choso, who… accidentally memorizes way too much about you

he’s not doing it on purpose. he swears. it just happens. because everything about you sticks. the way you frown when your drink’s too sweet. the song you hum when you think no one’s listening. that you can’t stand people who block the hallway and walk slow.

these things live in his brain like facts he didn’t ask to know but now feels protective over.

he adjusts to you without even realizing it. starts carrying tissues because you always forget. brings an extra drink when you’re meeting up, just in case. picks the side of the sidewalk with shade, because you said sun glare gives you a headache.

you once teased him, “what are you, psychic?” he just shrugged and said, “i pay attention.” but the real answer is: “i care. too much. probably too much.”

✦ choso, who… gives you odd but strangely thoughtful little gifts

you find a smooth black stone on your desk, cool to the touch and palm-sized. he shrugs when you ask.

“it grounds energy. you seemed stressed last week.”

a little pack of ghost bandaids appears in your bag the day after you trip and scuff your hand.

“for your battle wounds.”

a tiny dried flower, pressed carefully between wax paper, tucked into the corner of your notebook.

“no reason. it just reminded me of you.”

he gives like he breathes. without expecting anything in return. he just wants to be someone who makes your day a little softer.

someone you can count on.

someone you think about when you hold a stone in your hand and wonder who’s looking out for you.

✦ choso, who… short-circuits from the tiniest touch—but secretly craves it

you graze his knuckles while handing over your pen and he short-circuits like a fried outlet. his ears turn red. he drops the pen. the moment replays in his head like a slideshow with emotional damage.

you once picked lint off his hoodie, and stood completely still for five minutes after. not because he was confused. but because he didn’t trust his legs to work properly.

but god. he wants it. he wants to be near you in ways he barely understands. he imagines what it’d be like if he didn’t freeze up—if he could just reach for your hand and not be terrified. if you leaned on his shoulder and he didn’t have to pretend to be calm.

because underneath all the awkwardness, there’s a part of him that aches to be close to you. that wants to tuck you in with small comforts. brush your hair behind your ear. hold your hand in the quiet of a crowded train.

he just… doesn’t know if he’s allowed to want that. not yet.

you weren’t supposed to be caught in the rain.

you were just walking back from the corner store, he was walking back from the train station, and somehow you both ended up ducking under the same awning at the same time, clutching damp jackets and blinking through the downpour.

“you heading home?” he asked, voice soft like the rain hadn’t startled him at all.

you held up your tote bag, which sagged with the weight of groceries. “was. not anymore.”

he glanced at the sky. “this doesn’t look like it’s stopping.”

“you don’t say.”

so there you were, half-huddled under a sad excuse for an umbrella, feet soaked, laughing as you both ducked into the only open laundromat within three blocks.

choso, trailing a step behind, looked as if he’d walked through the entire rainstorm out of spite. his hoodie clung to him like a second skin, and his hair—tied messily at the nape of his neck — dripped onto the collar.

that’s how you both ended up at the closest open laundromat, twenty minutes later, damp and vaguely winded, watching the only working dryer spin your soaked clothes in slow, hypnotic circles.

choso sat beside you on the too-cold plastic bench, hoodie sleeves pushed up, ankles crossed, hair still dripping a little onto his shoulder. you were swaddled in a sweatshirt he’d offered without a word, your tote bag abandoned on the floor beside your feet.

“this is so cursed,” you grinned as you kicked off your shoes

he gave a soft huff that maybe meant agreement. or maybe meant i’d let every sock i own get soaked if it meant you’d keep smiling like that.

you smiled, watching him out of the corner of your eye. “you always this chatty?”

a small sound left him — almost a laugh. almost.

he blinked like you’d flicked a light on too suddenly, then glanced away. the faintest twitch of a smile played at his mouth. “this is me being chatty.”

you snorted, elbow brushing against his. “scary.”

he let out a quiet breath through his nose — almost a laugh.

some time passed. the machines around you churned softly, and the rain kept tapping against the windows. when you looked up again, he was holding something out to you.

a warm can of milk tea.

you blinked. “when did you get that?”

“vending machine by the door,” he said, eyes on the can. “figured you’d want something warm.”

you took it, surprised. the heat seeped into your hands fast. “you remembered my drink?”

“you always pick it,” he said simply. “even in summer.”

you glanced at his hand. same can. “you got the same one.”

“so you wouldn’t feel weird.”

your fingers brushed when you reached for it. this time, neither of you flinched.

you looked over at him, amused. “you’re weirdly prepared for someone who got caught in the rain.”

he stared down at the tiles. “i wasn’t.” a pause. “i just… saw you cross the street. thought you looked cold.”

your brow lifted. “so you followed me to the laundromat?”

his eyes widened slightly. “not like that. i just… you looked like you needed somewhere warm. and i—”

“hey,” you cut in, smiling as you bumped your knee gently into his. “i’m kidding.”

he exhaled, shoulders relaxing just enough to notice. his hands were still firm around the can.

you sat in the quiet hum for a few more beats, steam rising from the vents and the scent of softener lingering in the air. then you said, “you always like this?”

his eyes flicked to yours. “like what?”

“quiet. fidgety. weirdly sweet.”

he hesitated, then gave the tiniest shrug. “no.” a breath. “only with you.”

[kingkruell]

first part is published, go check it out!

MARGINALIA | GOJO SATORU

A NERDJO SERIES . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

SYNOPSIS he wasn’t supposed to stay past week three. but now he’s showing up early, quoting lectures he barely pretends to listen to, and watching the way you underline your notes like it means something. somewhere between shared worksheets, side-eyes, and scribbled margins—gojo satoru starts falling for the girl by the window. and maybe, just maybe, she starts noticing him too.

CONTENT nerd!gojo satoru x classmate! reader, female reader, informatics student gojo x journalism student reader, university!au, non-sorcerers, slow-burn, slice of life, gojo being soft, love-struck gojo, campus and classrooms settings, awkward crushes, emotional intimacy, fluff, friends-to-something more, unspoken attraction, smut.

A/N this blog will be updated regularly along with new parts. a trigger warning at some ill-attempt on humor as well as (perhaps) an inaccurate usage of coding or journalistic terms.

listening to la lune - king krule

see i was raised to the moon just to hold a gaze with a view across the other side it won't be long till you're inside till you're inside my heart to be with you, such a view to be elevated to you

[nerdjo artwork by su2kuna on twitter]

comment to be added to taglist! first part (intro) will be published very soon and reblogs are very much appreciated <3

— and you'll see the details between the margins

PART 1 the space between lines [int.] ⊹₊ ⋆

PART 2 coming soon...

PART 3 coming soon..

PART 4 coming soon..

PART 5 coming soon..

and more to come.

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | PART 1: INTRODUCTION

THE SPACE BETWEEN LINES

WC: 3.029

a nerdjo series

listening to the boy - the smashing pumpkins

[please comment down below if you know the artist for the nerdjo art, all credits to them]

taglist: @sylusonlylove @bakugouswaif @n1vi @arthrizzia

<3 kindly reblog and comment to be added on the taglist for the next part!

part 2

gojo satoru doesn’t belong in this class.

he knows it the second he steps into room 4b-21—ten minutes late, naturally. the fluorescent lights buzz overhead like they’re annoyed with him, the ac is set to arctic, and his iced coffee is already half melted by the time he shoulders the door open with the kind of carelessness that only comes from doing things too often without consequence.

he isn’t supposed to be here. media ethics, of all things. a filler elective he picked in a blur of last-minute registration panic, he thought the title sounded dramatic. maybe something about wartime propaganda or political psy-ops. instead, it’s all discussion boards and debates about journalistic framing. he should be bored.

his eye scans the room. empty seat. you.

you’re just there, pen between your fingers, the glow from the window softening the edges of your face as you tilt your head, reading over something like it matters. you’ve got that look about you; focused, unbothered, maybe a little skeptical. he blinks once, as if that might help. then, without thinking too hard, he slides into the empty seat beside you.

“hey,” he says, like he’s always sat there, like you’ve been in this together and not like he just transferred into the class two weeks late because he “forgot to register.”

you glance at him. sideways, unimpressed. 

“you in journalism?”

“god, no,” he replies, almost offended. “i’m in theoretical computer science.”

your eyebrow arches. “so why are you in media ethics?”

he shrugs. “thought it’d be about cults or propaganda or something. it’s not.”

it’s really not.

still, he stays.

that’s the problem.

because satoru’s the kind of guy you expect to vanish after week three. the one with the untamable hair, the anime stickers, the half-zipped hoodie over a shirt that probably says something stupid like “404: motivation not found.” the guy with a laptop full of code windows and two tabs open to reddit. he doesn’t belong here. not in this room, not beside you.

but then he starts showing up early. sometimes earlier than you.

he reads the articles. not always thoroughly, but enough. he doesn’t speak often in class, but when he does, it’s sharp and strangely lucid. once, he compared legacy journalism to a failed open-world game release. the professor paused. then wrote it down.

you don’t think much of it at first. he’s just another guy with too much brain and not enough filter.

but he notices things.

or, he doesn’t, not really. not in the beginning. you’re part of the ambient noise of the class to him: the scribble of pens, the shuffle of laptops, the soft chime of someone’s phone not quite silenced. until you say something about editorial bias in conflict zones. no warning, just words delivered with this clipped cadence of someone who knows what they’re talking about.

he’s halfway through fidgeting with his airpod case when you speak, and by the time you finish, his fingers are still.

and then he realizes—he hasn’t written a single note.

“huh,” he says under his breath, not really to anyone.

the next time he sees you, he notices your handwriting. it’s kind of a mess. tight, slanted, like it’s always mid-sprint. but when you’re really focused, it straightens out. neat. clear. he catches himself watching the shift, like it’s some kind of code he could learn to read.

he doesn’t tell anyone about you. not at first.

but one day, over lunch with geto on the grass behind the comp-sci building, he’s halfway through a takoyaki and staring at nothing when geto asks, “you like that class?”geto leans over during their late lunch in the quad, picking limp rice from his bowl with tired chopsticks.

satoru shrugs, mouth full of takoyaki. “it’s fine. good lighting.”

suguru eyes him. “you stayed the whole hour. that’s new.”

satoru chews. looks away.

he doesn’t say your name. doesn’t mention the way your earphones are always tangled or how you tilt your head when you’re thinking, like you’re listening to a voice only you can hear. he doesn’t mention how sometimes, when you smile to yourself at something you’re reading, it throws him completely off balance.

instead, he just keeps showing up.

and you start noticing. maybe. he likes to think you did.

like when he accidentally ends up in your seat, technically unassigned, but everyone knows classroom territory is sacred, and you don’t move your bag. like when he murmurs commentary during a documentary screening and you roll your eyes, but don’t tell him to shut up. like when you ask if he did the reading, not to challenge him, but just because you’re... curious.

he had, actually.

“skimmed it,” he lies.

“you quoted it last class,” you say, barely looking up.

he shifts in his chair. “did i?”

you hum, keep typing. he watches your fingers fly across the keys and wonders—not for the first time—what it is you’re writing. you hum. keep typing. your laptop has a cracked sticker on it that says ‘support local journalist’, he doesn’t know whether you’re being earnest, or maybe it’s just ironic. he doesn’t know yet. later that week, he sends a message in the group chat with nanami and utahime.

satoru [10:49 pm] what font says “i’m not flirting i just think your brain is hot”

nanami [10:55 pm]                       .

utahime [11:00 pm] is this about the girl in your ethics class

satoru has left the chat

yeah, it starts to bother him.

not with a bang, not with some spectacular implosion of routine. satoru’s life doesn’t work like that. he’s calibrated, habitual. if something’s wrong, it shows up in data: a late submission, a missed semicolon, a glitch in a simulation. but this? this is quiet. this is slow. it settles like a bug in his system that doesn't crash anything outright, but keeps making things slightly off.

it lives in the silence between your questions, in the little pauses where he finds himself watching your hands rather than answering. it lingers in the rhythm of your pen clicking against your notebook when you're thinking, like punctuation to the air between your thoughts. it’s in the way his code starts to blur after hours at his desk, because some part of his brain keeps returning—rebooting, replaying—something you said two days ago in a tone that shouldn’t matter but somehow does.

he doesn’t even know what it is, not exactly. just that it’s inconvenient.

satoru doesn’t do crushes. he crushes deadlines. he crushes bot matches at 3 a.m., fingers flying, screens casting their ghostly light across his room. he crushes ice into his coffee like it owes him rent.

but this?

this is... what?

he tries to analyze it the only way he knows how: through logic. he builds a mental chart, starts labeling behaviors like they're lines of code in need of debugging.

emotional spike when subject speaks: moderate

unprompted recall of subject’s prior comments: high

involuntary proximity-seeking: very high (potential red flag?)

increased engagement with previously irrelevant topics: off the charts

it’s a pattern. familiar, almost. he’s seen it in his ai simulations. character attachment markers, relational drift patterns. but the thing about simulations is that you can reset them. you can scrub the memory, rerun the code.

you’re not a simulation.

you’re not data.

and that makes this—whatever this is—unquantifiable. unstable. real.

he googles how to tell if you like someone at 1:12 a.m. and instantly regrets it. but he keeps scrolling anyway, curled into his hoodie, blinking under the cool burn of the monitor. the listicles are unhelpful. so are reddit threads. half of them contradict each other.

his heart doesn’t race. that’s not how it feels. it's more like... the world slows down when you're near. like your presence drags a cursor across his attention span and highlights everything he didn’t think to notice before. this is different, right?

he closes the tab.

he’s not in love.

you just have this cadence when you speak. a sort of precision, like you’re choosing words by feel. it loops in his brain like a clean line of code. efficient. elegant.

he finds himself remembering things you’ve said for no reason. little throwaway observations. a quote from an article you were writing. a joke about the vending machines in the journalism building. things that should fade into the background, but don’t.

and the worst part? he’s started reading your articles.

he doesn’t even like journalism. he used to scoff at it; too many feelings, too little structure. but now, he reads them at night, scrolling with a concentration he usually reserves for research papers and rare dev blogs. and when he gets to the end of one, there’s this strange ache in his chest, like the absence of your voice on the page leaves something unfinished.

then he hears your name. maybe from the professor, said in passing with the kind of casual fondness that suggests you've answered every discussion prompt with too much insight and not enough hesitation. maybe from the attendance sheet, called out and answered with that familiar cadence of yours: low, even, like you’re measuring syllables with your breath.

either way, it lodges itself in his head. loops like a line of unused dialogue in a game he hasn’t unlocked yet.

after class, he walks out with shoko. she’s not in the class—just passing through, loitering near the bike racks with a cigarette dangling from her lips and her hoodie pulled halfway over her face.

satoru scrolls aimlessly on his phone, thumb moving, screen static.

“you’re quieter than usual,” she says, exhaling smoke into the sharp winter air.

“huh?” he looks up, a little too quickly. “no, i’m not.”

shoko squints, amused. “you watching that girl the whole time?”

he flinches.

“what girl?”

she laughs. doesn’t answer. just flicks ash onto the pavement and says, “thought so.”

it gets worse when you start talking to him like you've known him for years.

“hey,” you say one morning, sliding into the seat next to him two minutes before lecture. your jacket’s damp from the mist, and your fingers are cold as they brush the edge of his notebook by accident. you don’t look at him. “your tea smells sad.”

he blinks. glances down at his drink. “…it’s honey milk jasmine.”

“exactly,” you mutter, opening your laptop. and he doesn't know why that makes his chest feel too warm.

after that, it spirals.

you bump elbows when reaching for shared worksheets. you roll your eyes when he mutters commentary during in-class documentaries, but you don’t tell him to stop. sometimes—only sometimes—you ask his opinion on a topic. just a simple, “what do you think?” or, “would you quote that?” and it shouldn’t mean anything. it probably doesn’t. but it makes his hands feel clumsy and his thoughts slow, like someone tilted the world just enough to make him stumble.

he doesn’t know when it started, exactly—the shift. the way your presence makes the air feel different. charged. softer. like the light hangs a little differently when you’re near, like even the shadows pause to trace the shape of your face.

he watches you when you speak, catches the way your mouth curves on certain vowels, the quiet determination in your hands when you gesture mid-sentence. the way your hair always falls a little undone, like it refuses to obey neatness. like it’s alive with the same restless energy you carry in your eyes.

one friday night, the dorm is half-asleep. the halls hum with fluorescent fatigue and leftover noise from weekend plans. satoru, geto, and nanami are holed up in the corner of the common room, buried in the skeleton of their semester project: cables, printouts, energy drinks, three laptops overheating in synchrony.

satoru is supposed to be debugging a simulation script. instead, his screen flashes an error message he’s read twenty times without understanding. the cursor blinks at him, smug.

geto doesn’t look up. “you haven’t typed anything.”

satoru stretches, hoping it looks nonchalant. “thinking.”

nanami frowns. “you’ve been on the same line for half an hour.”

geto finally glances over—and smirks. “why is the student blog open?”

satoru slams the tab shut so fast it clicks. “i was researching.”

“researching what,” geto says, deadpan. “your feelings?”

satoru throws a pocky stick at his head. “shut up.”

too late. nanami exhales, long-suffering. “so it’s the girl from your ethics class.”

“what—no,” satoru says. way too fast. “i just—i like her writing.”

geto raises an eyebrow. “sure.”

a pause. the low hum of the heater. the quiet clicking of nanami’s keyboard.

“…i like her handwriting,” satoru says, softer this time, like he can’t stop himself.

both heads turn toward him.

“it’s weird,” he continues, eyes fixed on a water stain on the ceiling.

“it’s all cramped and slanted, like she’s racing against her own brain. but when she writes something she really cares about—like in class, during a heated discussion or something—it straightens out. like the thought pulls her posture up. like the words stop running and start standing still.”

a beat of silence.

then geto, almost reluctant: “okay, that’s actually… kind of beautiful.”

satoru shrugs. rubs the back of his neck.

“you’re gone,” nanami mutters. “this is pathetic.”

“shut up.”

“you’re writing poetry about her penmanship.”

“i said shut up.”

“tell her,” geto says.

satoru sits up straight. “what? no.”

“why not?”

“she thinks i’m dumb,” he mumbles. “or just loud. or annoying.”

“you’re literally top of our major.”

“yeah, but she’s—” satoru gestures helplessly. “journalism. she talks like every sentence is a thesis. like she’s narrating her own memoir. and i’m just… me.”

a quiet moment.

then he adds, a little softer, “she once said mmorpg guild politics reminded her of inter-office media sabotage.”

geto blinks. “what?”

“like, hierarchy. gossip. power plays. she had this whole theory about it. i thought it was insane but… she wasn’t wrong.”

nanami downs the rest of his coffee. “you’re in love with her.”

“oh my god,” satoru groans. “i’m not.”

“you absolutely are.”

“shut up.”

“no, seriously,” geto grins. “tell her. worst-case scenario, she writes a scathing editorial about it.”

“actually,” nanami says, “worst-case scenario, she corrects your grammar.”

“kill me,” satoru mutters into his hands.

for you, it begins with a message you don’t expect.

thursday, just after six, you’re halfway through a walk back from the library, one earphone in, your other hand balancing a lukewarm americano and a half-folded notebook crammed with interview notes. your phone buzzes in your pocket at the crosswalk, and when you check it, there it is—his name.

gojo satoru [6:28 pm] your handwriting’s kind of insane. in a good way. like if emotions could curl their toes

gojo satoru [6:31 pm} also your eyes do this thing when you're listening really hard. like your eyebrows lean forward first?? anyway

you stare at the screen. then at the sender. then back at the screen.

“what…” you chuckled, brows stil furrowing.

you stop walking. weird. the phrasing is so… him. the kind of message that wasn’t written so much as spilled. and of course, the compliment is… unexpected. not unwelcome, but oddly specific. precise in a way that feels more like observation than flattery. 

you blink once. then again. then let out a laugh under your breath. he’s the guy who always sits beside you in media ethics—his seat habitually taken before you even arrive. he’s the one whose backpack is always unzipped, half his notebooks spilling out like paper confetti, whose hair looks perpetually mussed from leaning over three monitors at once. apparently, he’s some comp-sci genius, top of his major, apparently.

he’s an acquaintance. a classmate. the two of you share the same demographic footnote in your university’s directory but nothing more. your conversations barely crack three lines before they dissolve into polite nods and the gentle tap of keys. once, you joked about the vending machine coffee being “ethically problematic,” and he quipped back that even corporate exploitation has a kernel of truth. you smiled and returned to your notes; he returned to his hidden commentary in the margins of his notebook. that was the sum of it.

he got your number from that group project, probably. the one where he did three people’s worth of work in one nigh because half ot the group had ghosted you bot that time, and he insisted he could finish off the rest of the job. only that then he forgot to attach the final report until ten minutes before the deadline. he cracked a few jokes over the shared google doc. you corrected his grammar once. he said “rude” and added a semicolon with theatrical flair.

yet now, suspended between his casual compliment and the question of what it means, you realize how little you actually know him. not the way you know the soft clack of your favorite pen, or the comforting weight of your notebook when it lies open on your lap. you don’t know if he’s the kind of person who guards secrets behind that easy grin, or the kind who shares half-spoken thoughts like breadcrumbs, trusting that someone is paying attention. you don’t know whether he values precision or spontaneity. 

you don’t know why you’re even thinking about this. you shrug your shoulders.

you don’t respond. not because you’re ignoring him, but because you genuinely don’t know what to say. like seriously, what does one respond with to a message like that? that night, in bed, with your laptop still open to a blank document and the hum of a podcast low in the background, you tap on his message again. you read it under dim light, curled on your side, wondering what compelled him to notice something so small. you thought for a moment: my handwriting is nice. a little cramped, maybe, but controlled. readable. you write with the same discipline you speak with: measured, intentional, clean lines. you don’t show your drafts unless they’re ready.

but your eyebrows?

you squint at your phone. what a stupid thing to notice. what a weird, wonderful, too-much sort of observation.

…and weirdly enough, it stays with you longer than you expect.

[kingkruell]

first part of marginalia (nerdjo series) will be out this weekend, been busy with uni hehe. stay tuned!! <3

[kingkruell]

THREE NIGHTS AND FOREVER | GOJO SATORU

SYNOPSIS - three nights in tokyo. a stranger with rain in his hair and a crooked smile. shared umbrellas, bad jazz, pancakes at midnight. and now, sometimes, when it rains—you still think of him.

CONTENT - gojo satoru x reader, reminiscent of before sunrise, brief encounters, strangers-to-something more, melancholic, fluff, angst.

WORD COUNT - 4.550

A/N this is purely self-indulgent. not really satisfied with how the writing turned out but this is quite literally my way of coping with something similiar, probably the same, that happened to me lol (HELP ME. i am yearning, i need him back).

listening to surrender - suicide

01 —

the first night, it was a mistake—or rather, a coincidence. you hadn’t meant to bump into him on the quiet side street just as the rain started to pour, your umbrella uselessly tucked in your bag. he looked down at you, almost bemused, the rain dripping from his stark white hair. then, with a little tilt of his head and a crooked grin, he offered to share his umbrella.

and that was how it began. 

the thing about being in a foreign city is that it’s exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. the air felt different, dense with the most unfamiliar scents. tokyo loomed around you, towering buildings draped in lights and adorned with billboards in a language you couldn’t quite grasp. the sounds too, were unfamiliar, snippets of conversations in rapid japanese mingling with the distant hum of traffic. faces passed by, each one a stranger, and you couldn’t help but feel like a tiny, misplaced puzzle piece in this sprawling metropolis. you had to remind yourself—this was what you wanted. you’d spent months dreaming of this, convincing yourself (and your parents) that you needed this break, that you wanted to see more than just the streets of your hometown. 

still, it was daunting. the sheer size of the city made you feel small. you clutched your phone a little tighter, the map open, your location marked with a blue dot that felt so isolated among the dense web of streets.

thankfully, you weren’t alone. the thought of traveling on a budget, navigating public transportation, and eating at hole-in-the-wall restaurants all by yourself would’ve been too intimidating. you and your friend had spent weeks planning the trip, pinning places to visit, calculating train fares, and mapping out hostels. you had watched countless travel vlogs, trying to absorb every piece of advice, but nothing could really prepare you for stepping onto tokyo’s streets for the first time.

the morning you landed was a blur of heavy eyelids and aching muscles from the long-haul flight. you navigated the airport in a half-dazed state, shuffling through customs and baggage claim, your friend grumbling about needing coffee. once you reached the hotel—a compact room with twin beds squeezed together and a narrow window overlooking the street below—you didn’t bother to unpack, just dropped your suitcase, splashed water on your face, and tried to shake off the fatigue. the city was waiting and you couldn’t sit still. 

so, despite it all, the excitement was enough to get you propelling out the door and into the bustling streets of the city. you walked through the nearby neighborhoods, narrow street lined with vending machines, an old record shop tucked between modern boutiques, a shrine hidden behind an iron gate. you stopped at a convenience store like it meant something, and maybe it did, because you were miles and miles away from home, and even the mundane felt important here. the fluorescent lights flickered as you picked up a canned coffee, examining the unfamiliar labels before tossing it into your basket just for the novelty of it.

you took pictures of everything: the uneven cobblestoned path, the gnarled trees casting long shadows, the sky shifting from soft orange to deep indigo. 

by the time you and your friend made your way back to the hotel, the sky had deepened into a rich navy, dotted with scattered stars just barely visible through the city lights. 

your friend trudged in behind you, barely managing to kick off her shoes before flopping onto the bed face-first. you raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe.

“that’s it? you’re tapping out already?” you teased, trying not to sound too disappointed.

hhe mumbled something into the pillow that sounded vaguely like “comatose” and then turned her head just enough to give you a halfhearted glare. “we’ve been walking for hours. my feet hate me.”

you laughed softly, tossing your jacket onto the other bed. “i did warn you about the long walks.”

she groaned, rolling onto her back and waving a dismissive hand in your direction. “yeah, yeah. worth it, though. but seriously, i’m done for the night. Wake me up if you find somewhere to eat.”

you looked at her, sprawled out with one arm draped over her eyes, and you knew she wasn’t moving anytime soon.

“you sure?” you asked, keeping your voice low.

she just hummed in response, already halfway to sleep. you watched her for a moment, considering. maybe you should just stay too, let the tiredness catch up. but then you glanced out the window, catching a glimpse of the neon signs flickering on the next building over.

grabbing your phone and jacket, you moved quietly to the door. iI’ll just go for a walk,” you whispered, more to yourself than to her.

she didn’t respond, already breathing softly in that deep, dreamless way. you couldn’t help but smile, pulling the door shut gently behind you.

stepping back outside, the air was cooler now, brushing past your cheeks as you walked, your steps echoing softly on the pavement. Tokyo at night was different—a bit calmer, but still pulsing with life. you passed late-night eateries with their warm glow, groups of friends spilling out into the street, laughter bubbling over.

you hadn’t noticed the clouds rolling in until the first raindrop hit your cheek. you stopped, looking up just in time to feel a few more drops dot your face. within seconds, the drizzle turned into a full downpour.

"fucking hell." you cursed under your breath, rummaging through your bag, but of course, your umbrella was neatly folded between the notebook and paperbags you carried out of habit–useless at the bottom. you were contemplating whether to make a run for the nearby convenience store when a shadow fell over you.

“didn’t bring one, huh?”

you turned, blinking the rain from your lashes, and found yourself staring up at a tall figure holding an obnoxiously bright, polka-dotted umbrella over both your heads. His hair was stark white, drenched from where it peeked out from under the umbrella, and his eyes—pale, crystalline blue—crinkled with amusement.

“uh—” was all you managed to get out, and he chuckled, the sound low and almost teasing.

“figured you’d need some rescuing,” he said, his tone breezy as if he did this all the time, saving strangers caught in the rain.

you swallowed your embarrassment and managed a small smile. “i, um… yeah. I wasn’t expecting it to rain.”

he tilted his head, considering you. “tourist?”

“is it that obvious?” you asked, more sheepish than you intended.

he hummed, a smirk tugging at his lips. “a little. you’re lucky i was around. you’d have been soaked.”

you glanced at his own wet hair pointedly. “you don’t look much better.

“he gave a dramatic, exaggerated sigh. “yeah, well, the hero always gets a bit messy, right?”

you couldn’t help but laugh at that, tension easing out of your shoulders. the rain kept falling, steady and relentless, but you didn’t feel rushed to move. he just stood there, holding the umbrella as if time didn’t matter.

“i'm satoru,” he introduced, leaning closer so his voice didn’t have to rise over the rain.

“i”m y/n.”

“y/n” he repeats, as if testing how it sounds on his tongue

“where were you headed?” he asked, glancing around as if he could read your thoughts from the streets themselves.

“nowhere, really,” you admitted. “Just… walking.”

he nodded, “best kind of walking,” he said. 

the city around you glistened under the rain—reflections of red traffic lights stretching like ribbons across the wet pavement, the hiss of tires, the hum of a vending machine trying to outlast the drizzle. You weren’t sure why you stayed there under his umbrella, or why he made no motion to leave. but something about him—his ease, his presence—made the silence feel less lonely. satoru shifted slightly, tilting the umbrella more toward you. you noticed he was getting wet, his shirt clinging just slightly at the shoulder. you opened your mouth to say something, to suggest maybe he should be more under the cover too, but he beat you to it.

“let me guess,” he said, grinning, “you packed the umbrella, but it’s at the very bottom of your bag. under, like, three novels and at least one completely useless souvenir.”

you squinted at him. “close enough. how did you know that?”

“because you look like someone who overthinks what to pack, then forgets the important stuff.”

You feigned offense, but laughed again. “okay, that’s… disturbingly accurate.”

he shot you a proud look, and for a moment, he looked younger—boyish, carefree. not like someone who should be wandering Tokyo in the rain rescuing lost tourists. you wondered where he came from. what he did. why he was here.

“come on,” he said suddenly. “there’s a 24-hour café down this street that sells pancakes the size of your face. warm drinks. bad jazz”

you raised an eyebrow. “and you’re inviting me to get pancakes... with a complete stranger?”

“i’m offering you shelter, nourishment, and potentially life-altering conversation,” he said solemnly. “some might say I’m a guardian angel.”

you snorted. “some might say you’re a guy with a ridiculous umbrella trying to lure a girl into a café.”

his grin widened. “and yet you’re still standing here.”

you were.

you hesitated. He was a stranger. you didn’t even know his last name.

you didn’t quite know why, but maybe it was the way he spoke, half-mocking but never unkind, or the way his eyes didn’t try to look through you, just at you, like you were interesting just for existing. maybe it was the way tokyo looked with him beside you, less like a place to get lost in, more like somewhere you were meant to be.

“okay,” you said, surprising yourself. 

the café was just as he promised, quiet, glowing softly with yellow light, a bell chiming as you stepped inside.iInside was mall, with steamed-up windows and soft yellow lighting. it smelled like coffee and something sweet, and the jazz was, indeed, bad. some ti   trumpet over a scratchy speaker, but it worked. the warmth hugged your skin, chasing away the chill. Satoru shook the rain from his umbrella like a dog, nearly whacking a decorative plant by the door, and you laughed again, your hand covering your mouth too late to hide how easy it was to enjoy this.

he ordered pancakes and hot chocolate for you both, without asking. you didn’t mind. He sat across from you like he belonged there, like you’d done this before—like this was just one of many rainy nights you’d find yourselves tangled up in each other’s company.

he leaned back, his arms spread comfortably along the back of the booth, his legs stretching out beneath the table. he looked relaxed in a way you weren’t used to seeing in strangers. like he wasn’t trying. like he never did.

you wrapped your fingers around the ceramic. It was hotter than expected, and comforting. outside, the rain blurred the city into a watercolor, and you took a sip.

“so, what brought you here?” he asked. his tone was casual, but his eyes were too focused for it to be small talk.

you hesitated, then answered honestly. “restlessness, I guess. I needed to be somewhere else for a while.” he nodded like he understood. “the city’s good for that. It doesn’t care who you are. It just lets you be.”

you hummed as your fingers nervously tap on the ceramic glass holding the hot chocolate, “what about you?” you asked. “are you from here?

”something like that.” he didn’t elaborate. 

he looked out the window for a moment. “more or less. i come and go.”

with that, you let it rest. some things didn’t need to be unpacked right away. Instead, you talked about little things; your favorite convenience store snacks, the weirdest souvenirs you’d seen, the way tokyo felt like it belonged to a different world at night. he told you about a bakery that only opened after midnight, and a cat that lived near the train station who hated everyone except him. you didn’t know what was real and what was embellished, but you liked listening. you asked lighter things. favorite food. best childhood memory. the last movie that made him cry.

“the wind rises,’” he admitted. “don’t tell anyone. gotta protect the cool guy reputation“

you laughed. "i won’t. as long as you don’t tell anyone I cried at a toothpaste commercial once.” 

“deal.”

the rain had stopped by the time he walked you back to the hotel. the streets were slick, shining like glass, catching every amber streetlight in pools beneath your feet. mist clung low, softening the edges of everything—cars, buildings, even the distant clatter of closing cafés. it felt like the city was exhaling.

you walked in silence for a while. not awkward, not heavy. just full. like neither of you wanted to break whatever spell the night had spun around you.

he didn’t offer his arm, but your hands brushed once, then again, until your fingers found each other without thinking. his hand was warm. steady. you held on like you’d been doing it for years.

the hotel came into view too soon.

outside the door, you turned to him.

“this is me,” you said, like it wasn’t obvious.

he nodded. “i know.”

neither of you moved.

you wanted to say something. about the night. about how strange and lucky it felt.

“i’m glad we met” he said. quietly. honestly.

you swallowed the knot in your throat and nodded. “me too.”

“goodnight,” he said.

“goodnight,” you echoed.

he turned and walked back with his hands in his pockets, head down. you watched him until the fog swallowed him whole. and then you went inside, heart pacing ahead of you like it already knew what this night would mean.

and even then, even as sleep finally pulled at you—you could still feel the shape of his hand in yours.

02 —

you didn’t expect to meet him again, but there he was. 

he was waiting in front of the steps to the hotel. he stood there like he’d always been meant to stand under that awning. this time, he held two convenience store drinks and a bag that smelled suspiciously like fried food.

“ I have brought offerings,” he said, holding out a piece of curry bread.

you raised a brow. “what if I hadn’t come?” you asked, accepting the bread he offered without question.

he looked mock-affronted. "then I’d have to eat  two breads and drink two disgusting convenience store coffees.”

tonight, he led you toward the quieter streets by the river. the city softened there—lights dimmer, footsteps slower. You walked in companionable silence for a while, sharing stories in between bites,

“so,” he asked, once the city faded to river sounds, “what did you want to be when you were a kid?”

you smiled. “an astronaut. I used to read random astronomy books in the back of the class in primary”

he laughed. “that’s adorable. i wanted to be a superhero“

“and now?”

he paused. “not now. just want a soft kind of life.”

you wanted to ask what he meant, but something about his expression made you pause and that honesty, the honesty startled you. he hadn’t said much about himself, not directly. but every answer carried a weight. Like he’d lived too much.

he bought you another canned coffee before the walk back, despite your protests.

“i like taking care of people,” he said, half-joking. “don’t get used to it.”

you were already starting to.

and just like the night before, satoru walked you back to the hotel. You lingered near the front steps hesitantly. the lights from the lobby painted his profile in amber as he turned to you, eyes thoughtful, lips parting like he wanted to say something.

“hey,” he said, almost like he was changing his mind as he spoke. “wanna meet again? tomorrow night. yoyogi park?”

you blinked, “yoyogi park?”

“It’s nice at night,” he said. “quiet. there’s a little bench under the trees that no one ever sits on. it’s kind of mine.”

you tilted your head. “and you’re inviting me into your secret territory?”

he gave a faint grin. “only because you’re special.”

you looked at him for a beat too long, searching his face. there was something about the way he stood there—unguarded for once, a little shy in a way you hadn’t expected.

“okay,” you said quietly. “i’ll be there.”

“ten?”

“ten.”

03 —

the park was nearly deserted. only the faint rustle of leaves in the dark and the occasional distant bark of a dog accompanied your footsteps. the moonlight draped over everything in silver, and streetlamps cast halos of soft orange on the path.

he was there first. sitting on the edge of a fountain, head tilted back to watch the sky like it might offer an answer. he didn’t move when he saw you,just gave a lazy wave without looking away.

you sat beside him, close but not touching. The air between you was cooler tonight, filled with something unspoken.

“stars are clearer tonight,” he murmured. “tokyo doesn’t give many of them.”

you followed his gaze. “they’re still there. just hidden, i think.”

“yeah,” he said, and you weren’t sure he was talking about the stars anymore.

you stayed like that for a while. he asked about your childhood. you asked about his travels. slowly, the details began to paint a picture. He’d been everywhere and nowhere at once. teaching, he said. but not the kind you imagined. he spoke of students with reverence, but there was always something behind it.

“there’s risk in what I do,” he admitted. “but I chose it. doesn’t make it any easier.”

You turned to him. “why tell me?”

he was quiet for a beat. “because you listened. ”

the wind stirred. you tucked your hands into your coat.

“i didn’t expect to meet anyone like you here,” you said.

his gaze dropped to you, and for the first time, he looked genuinely unsure.

“i don’t know what I can offer. i'm leaving here tomrrow.”

“i know.” His voice was soft. you swallowed, heart ticking a little faster. “then don’t promise anything. just be here. tonight.”

he looked at you like he wanted to memorize you. then, slowly, he leaned in.

the kiss was soft. hesitant. his hand came up to cradle your face, fingers brushing your cheek like he couldn’t believe you were real. it wasn’t rushed—it wasn’t about urgency or passion. it was the kind of kiss that asked, Is this okay? and gave you the chance to say yes without words.

when he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. you could feel his breath.

“this doesn’t last,” he whispered.

“i know.”

“but it’s real.”

you nodded. “it is.”

you exchanged numbers. and for a while, you talked. voice notes. random photos. one-line jokes. you told him about the barista at your regular café who misspelled your name three days in a row. he told you about a crow that stole his entire sandwich. 

there were nights you fell asleep with his voice still echoing in your ear, a half-finished voice message paused on your screen. other times, he'd call when you least expected it, his voice bright even when he was clearly exhausted.

did you eat yet?

text me when you get home.

it didn’t matter that it was two a.m. on his end. He called anyway. He never said why, but you didn’t need him to. the warmth behind his voice was answer enough.

you learned the rhythm of his days, or the ones he allowed you to see. sometimes, he vanished for twelve, fourteen hours. yhen he’d return with a blurry photo of a skyline or a vending machine or a cat on a motorbike.

still alive, he'd caption. barely.

you got used to waiting. But never too long.

until one day, he just stopped replying.

you’d sent a photo of your dinner, captioned You’d hate this, because it was drenched in mayonnaise and he had strong opinions about condiments.

no reply.

you checked the message again the next morning. still delivered. still unread.

the next day. still nothing.

you waited a week before trying again. a soft message. a half-hearted joke. a photo of your cat looking unimpressed by your playlist.

then the check sign beside the message, as you had realized, only showed one. it wasn’t delivered. 

blocked.

you stared at the screen. closed the app. opened it again. tried from your laptop, in case it was a glitch.

but it wasn’t.

you didn’t cry. not right away, at least,

you sat on your bed, the last voice note still sitting there, unopened. his last words were something dumb and sweet, something about seeing a dog wearing shoes and thinking of you. the screen stared back, blank and final, and for a while, you just sat there in disbelief.

you told yourself it was fine. you barely knew him. three nights. Some messages. a few hours of shared breath. that was all. hell, he was a stranger. you told yourself all this in the mirror.

but then days passed, and the habit didn’t fade. your fingers still hovered over your phone when you were walking home. you still found yourself typing his name into the search bar, knowing you wouldn’t find anything. you still opened the messages, scrolling up slowly, watching the screen load his jokes, his questions, the little audio clips where his voice was soft and tired but always there.

and then one night, somewhere between one a.m. and a glass of wine too many, it cracked.

you started rereading your replies. the way you’d laughed in text. the pictures you’d sent him: your coffee, the bookstore cat, a sunset that reminded you of that last night in tokyo. you remembered what it felt like to sit across from him. how light your body felt when he was near. how safe.

and slowly, the logic of it all dissipated.

he was a stranger, yes. but he had seen you—really seen you—in a way no one else had for a long time. and you had let him. willingly. easily.

that was when it started to hurt. sharp, slow, and deep. like a bruise blooming in your chest.

you didn’t delete the messages. you couldn’t. so you did the only thing you could do.

you stopped looking at it.

you taught yourself to stop waiting.

or at least, you tried.

....AND REPEAT

It was 11:03 p.m. when your phone buzzed.

you were curled up on the couch, an old hoodie draped over your knees, the television screen paused on something you weren’t really watching. outside, the night hummed quietly, the kind of silence only small towns knew. You hadn’t been expecting anything—least of all a message from a number that had been long deleted but never quite forgotten. it has been exactly a year, the exact same month, may.

a message.

just a photo.

you blinked, stared, breath stalling somewhere in your chest.

the bookstore. your bookstore.

the one on the corner of your street, where the green awning had faded in the sun and the sleepy white cat had made the windowsill its permanent throne. the light was on, casting a soft yellow pool onto the sidewalk. the street was empty, silent. familiar in a way that made your heart ache.

you stared at the photo for a full minute, maybe longer. It felt like memory and dream and disbelief all at once. your fingers hovered above the keyboard.

then you typed,

where are you?

his reply came seconds later,

outside. want to walk?

your heart kicked into a pace that was at once wild and steady.

you slipped on your shoes, barely remembered to grab your keys, and stepped out.

when you turned to the street, he was there.

leaning casually against the lamppost across from the bookstore. hands deep in his coat pockets. that same ridiculous umbrella—the bright polka-dotted one—looped lazily over his wrist. His hair was longer now, tied back messily, and he wore glasses tonight. But his face—the sharp line of his jaw, the quiet curve of his mouth, and those eyes, impossibly pale even in the dark—hadn’t changed.

for a beat, you just stood there. watching. trying to understand.

“hey,” he said.

that was all.

and somehow, that was enough.

you didn’t ask why. you didn’t ask where he’d been, or why he’d disappeared, or why it had to be like this. because some questions—when they finally get their moment—don’t feel like questions anymore.

instead, you walked.

for three nights, he stayed.

you showed him you.

the river path where you used to run when you needed to breathe. the noodle stall tucked between two faded buildings, where the old man behind the counter still remembered your favorite order. yhe tiny bookstore where you’d once spent hours reading poetry in the aisle. the hill behind your childhood home where the city lights blinked in the distance like stars trying to reach the earth.

he didn’t speak much the first night. but he listened—really listened. like the space between your words mattered. like he’d missed even the silence of you.

you talked, eventually. about life after tokyo. about how it had felt like waking up from a dream you didn’t want to end. you told him how your job kept you tired but steady, how sometimes you still walked late at night hoping for something to stir in the air. you told him how you tried to forget. tried not to check your phone at two in the morning. failed.

he told you about the places he’d been. the people he couldn’t name. the nights that bled into days. the weight. the solitude. how there were moments he wanted to reach out—more than he could count—but didn’t.

“i wanted to protect you from it,” he said on the third night.

you sat side by side by the lake just outside town, the water catching the light in soft shimmers, your shoulders brushing with every breath.

“from what?” you asked, even though you knew.

“from me.”

you turned to him. really looked at him. there were new shadows around his eyes. new lines drawn into his expression. but there was still a softness, buried under the weight. a familiar one.

“you didn't have to come” you said quietly.

“i know."

“but you’re here.”

“i wanted you to know i came back.”

you reached for his hand. found it already reaching for yours.

the kiss wasn’t dramatic. It was just… soft. familiar. the kind of kiss that belongs to memory but lives in the present. his lips were cold from the night, but his hand was warm where it held your jaw, thumb brushing slow and careful. you kissed like people who knew it wouldn’t last, but still couldn’t help needing it.

when he pulled back, he pressed his forehead to yours. breathed you in.

“thank you,” he whispered.

“for what?”

“for making it real again.”

then he left before dawn.

you didn’t ask him to stay. you stood on your porch and watched him walk away, the polka-dotted umbrella swinging gently in his hand. you didn’t cry. not this time.

some stories loop. not perfectly. not endlessly. but enough.

maybe for now.

[kingkruell]

ts how I feel about him he's just a cutie patootie

Not my image! ౨ৎ ⋆｡˚

[kingkruell]

When tumblr refreshes itself and the fic I was reading fucking disappears forever 💔

I’ve been searching for a smau I was reading for three days 😔

[kingkruell]

i’m pretty delusional to be putting my all when i only have like 20 something followers and barely gaining traction…THIS IS ALL FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME.

[kingkruell]

MARGINALIA | GOJO SATORU

A NERDJO SERIES . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

SYNOPSIS he wasn’t supposed to stay past week three. but now he’s showing up early, quoting lectures he barely pretends to listen to, and watching the way you underline your notes like it means something. somewhere between shared worksheets, side-eyes, and scribbled margins—gojo satoru starts falling for the girl by the window. and maybe, just maybe, she starts noticing him too.

CONTENT nerd!gojo satoru x classmate! reader, female reader, informatics student gojo x journalism student reader, university!au, non-sorcerers, slow-burn, slice of life, gojo being soft, love-struck gojo, campus and classrooms settings, awkward crushes, emotional intimacy, fluff, friends-to-something more, unspoken attraction, smut.

A/N this blog will be updated regularly along with new parts. a trigger warning at some ill-attempt on humor as well as (perhaps) an inaccurate usage of coding or journalistic terms.

listening to la lune - king krule

see i was raised to the moon just to hold a gaze with a view across the other side it won't be long till you're inside till you're inside my heart to be with you, such a view to be elevated to you

[nerdjo artwork by su2kuna on twitter]

comment to be added to taglist! first part (intro) will be published very soon and reblogs are very much appreciated <3

— and you'll see the details between the margins

PART 1 the space between lines [int.] ⊹₊ ⋆

PART 2 love letters (and other tragedies) ⊹₊ ⋆

PART 3 coming soon..

PART 4 coming soon..

PART 5 coming soon..

and more to come.

[kingkruell]

writing a nerdjo one shot is not for the weak. if it turns out that i’m just randomly spewing out coding and journalism terms that don’t quite makes sense…allow me…i am trying 😭😭😭