mooncyb3r

[mooncyb3r]

we were aligned once. ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆

you orbit each other like it’s muscle memory. avoid. glance. pretend. shift just enough not to touch. say nothing loud enough for the air to crack. ∘ ∘₊✧─ nerd satoru x fem reader.

synopsis ༘⋆ they kissed once. it went terribly.

years later, fate—or maybe just an underpaid astrophysics professor—pairs them for a group project that’s supposed to “translate the sky.” so, you’re somehow gonna make a planetarium with someone whose orbit still tugs at your ribs.

she wants to forget him with red solo cups and too-sweet cocktails. he wants to forget her by pretending he doesn’t see her in every hallway. but stars don’t lie, and even fake constellations have a way of pulling you back to what you tried to forget.

tags ༘⋆ modern au, university au, nerdjo, astrophysics major nonsense, fluff with a side of light angst, mutual pinning but make it tragically academic, reader has issues so is mean but has a soft spot, satoru also has issues but buries them under sarcasm and spreadsheets, friends to ??? to please just talk to each other, tension you could cut with a physics textbook, fake planetarium but real feelings, suggestive content (just barely. for now.) ᯓ art by @/almondtofu_boy on x.

◄ previous

𝟐 ༘⋆

───── don't screw this up again.

if it weren’t for the deadline forcing him to learn the art of small talk before the sunrise, satoru would have been thrilled. being asked to “translate the sky” felt like an embrace he’d never known, the warmth of body hugging him... a sensation still foreign to him though. he knew the constellations more intimately than the streets he walked every day. orion’s belt, cassiopeia’s elegant curve, the faint, rippling spine of the milky way—each formation lived inside him.

he didn’t mind silence. he’d spent most of his life curled up inside it, headphones in, textbook open, sky above. if anything, it was people who made him glitch. their noise, their softness; the casual chaos of human interaction.

unfortunately, group projects still existed.

and, you were in his.

brainstorming sessions were hell in small doses. this one had gone on long enough to deserve an afterlife. the whiteboard stayed blank. the ideas stayed vague. you stirred your iced coffee until the ice turned to slush, then stirred it some more. satoru tapped his pen against his knee like he could stop being nervous with one click. frustration orbited the table like a satellite. until the group’s quiet third member finally cleared her throat. “what if we built a planetarium?” suiko ventured, almost apologetically, her secondhand sweater sleeves pulled past her hands

she said it like it wasn’t her idea, like it had been sitting in the corner waiting to be noticed. the room didn’t react, not at first. you tilted your head, one brow arched. your default skepticism—equal parts defense mechanism and aesthetic. satoru blinked once. then again. his lips didn’t move, but his entire face said wait.

not bad.

and that was it. the moment it started. the three of you were building a fake galaxy in a room with no windows. just like that.

you noticed suiko immediately, because of course you did.

not because she was loud or confident. but because she was none of those things, and satoru still seemed to hear her. that was worse. she spoke softly. asked real questions. laughed at things he said without needing to be the one who said them first. and he—awkward, allergic to praise—actually responded. not a lot. but enough.

enough for you to notice.

you weren’t stupid. often drunk or sleep‑deprived, perhaps, but not stupid. you knew how attention worked. you’d been calibrating your own for years—how much to show, how much to flash, how much skin and casual detachment to deploy at any given moment. but suiko didn’t seem to care about any of that. she just showed up, eyes bright and unbothered. it wasn’t full-blown flirting. more like… hopeful proximity. nervous energy. still, you saw the way she laughed when he wasn’t even being funny.

and it lodged somewhere near your chest.

“I don’t care,” you mumbled once around a mouthful of toothpaste, watching yourself in the mirror. Your voice had no weight to it; you spoke out loud without meaning to let it slip. you rinsed, spat, stared. you zoomed out again—suiko adjusting his glasses for him with a laugh, like it wasn’t a loaded move. satoru didn’t flinch. he let it happen. that was what got you, the fact that it was fine.

you sit opposite each other, always. he makes a point of not looking at you. you make a point of pretending not to notice. the first week is mostly composed of what doesn’t happen.

no hellos.

no eye contact.

no mentions of the laundry room.

no acknowledgment of that ugly little past you both refuse to name.

suiko—bless her, curse her—talks enough for all three of you. she fills the space with small anecdotes, movies recommendations, and vaguely flirty questions about code syntax. you zone out while satoru keeps his replies short. but when she laughs at something he says, your stomach knots in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that you skipped breakfast.

at one point, she has to leave to take a call. it’s just you and him, and the sound of her ringtone fading down the hallway. he doesn’t speak. neither do you, and that moment stretches on so long you actually start counting the beats of your own pulse.

the next week is worse.

because now you’re hyperaware. of his glasses. his hands. his shoulders. the way he rolls up his sleeves halfway and taps the eraser end of his pencil against his lower lip when he’s thinking. you remember that lip, even when you wish you didn’t.

monday, you drop your pen and he picks it up before you can. doesn’t hand it to you. just sets it on the table beside your notebook like he’s returning stolen evidence. your fingers don’t even graze.

tuesday, suiko mentions maybe working in the lab next week. “we’ll have more space,” she chirps, and your stomach twists, because you know what that means. longer hours. fewer distractions. no escape. but he cuts the hope with one sharp, muttered "no".

wednesday, he accidentally laughs at a joke you make—something dry and unfunny about a professor’s ancient laptop. he doesn’t mean to. he cuts himself off halfway. his smile dies on impact. but you saw it.

you heard it.

and for the rest of the day, you feel it— like a secret you’re not allowed to touch.

by the time friday comes around, you’re already preparing your emotional armor. you throw your hair up and pull your sleeves over your hands and show up five minutes early, pretending you’re organized, pretending this project is just a another project. 

at first, the three of you tried to be civilized. you made folders, you shared links. you created sub-tasks and spreadsheets and even color-coded the damn calendar.

the shared drive was supposed to be the middle ground. a neutral zone. a place where your awkwardness wouldn’t matter, where your passive-aggressive silence could be ignored, and where suiko could keep sending stickers of her favorite reality tv without judgment.

it lasted three days.

then came the double edits. files overwritten. code snippets copied into the wrong directory. a wiring blueprint you uploaded at 2 a.m. mysteriously vanished by sunrise.

by thursday, you were typing in all caps in the group chat:

WHO CHANGED THE OUTPUT ROUTE—AGAIN—

satoru responded once. just once.

it wasn’t me. if it had been me, it would work.

and like it wasn’t already bad, most of the work got deleted.

you stared at your phone, considered hurling it out the window.

“once again, i’m so sorry,” suiko said, hunched over the table with both hands in her hair like it might ground her guilt. “i left it open, then i got a text, and—i swear, i’ve never run that fast in my life. boom. cat. no more files.”

you didn’t lift your head. just buried your face in your folded arms and slowly slid sideways until you were slouched across half the table, emotionally done.

“how the hell do you even have a cat in your dorm?” you muttered, half exasperated, half too tired to truly care. “pretty sure that’s, like, a direct violation of four different rules.”

“technically she has a cat,”  she rushed out. “it’s my roommate’s. we live just off campus, behind that coffee shop—oh my god, their shortcakes? you have to try them. seriously. we should do study sessions there one day. they’ve got this cozy little—”

and just like that, she was off. talking. spiraling. filling the room with sound the way someone does when they’re afraid of silence. like the three of you weren’t in the middle of a collapsing schedule and a half-broken projector and a lowkey interstellar crisis.

satoru didn’t say anything. just kept adjusting the cables. and you thought, not for the first time:

he’s going to fall in love with her if something, someone doesn’t stop it.

so you decided it was okay to leave the research and information-gathering to suiko, and split the work of coding and building the projectors with him.

the projector buzzes low in the corner, its light casting uneven shadows across the ceiling tiles like a broken constellation. you sit half-curled in your chair, hoodie too warm, throat too dry, the artificial air pressing against your skin like static. the lab is mostly dark except for the sterile glow of monitors and the faint blue flicker of status leds. outside, wind hums through the cracked upper window.

satoru is less than a foot from you. his posture slouched but precise, arms bracketing his laptop like he’s fencing off a territory. he hasn’t said a word in almost an hour—not even when the system crashed and restarted itself with a groan. not even when suiko messaged the group chat a selfie from her bed with the caption:

still dying sorryyy 😔🫠

you hadn’t replied. he hadn’t either.

instead, he types. deliberate, controlled keystrokes. you know the rhythm of it now. tap-tap-pause-scroll. he works like he breathes—quiet, stubborn, and way too fast.

"can you login? forgot my password." you mutter, and he just leans to reach for the keyboard, drowning your nose in his scent, a fresh cologne.

satoru.gojo 12.7&3.141592

"really...? pi?" you blink at him, squinting at the numbers. "damn, you're such a walking cliché." you huff under your breath, biting your lip to prevent your smile to widen. yet, something so small flips in your chest when you see the flush of his cheek.

"and you're a disaster who can't remember shit." he bites back, rolling across the lab on that annoying wheeled stool like he's lived here.

you try to focus on your screen. you scrub through another dusty youtube video titled “DIY home planetarium setup (NO TOOLS? NO PROBLEM!)” as if it might reveal the key to this cursed project. but nothing sticks. not with him beside you, not with this silence. it’s not the comfortable kind, either. it’s the held-breath kind, the we’re not going to talk about it kind.

he’s leaned just slightly forward, the tendons in his hands flexing as he scrolls. his left foot taps sometimes, like he’s working something out in his head, maybe calculating the orbit of some invisible moon. you think he’s doing it to distract himself.

or maybe you’re projecting.

your own screen reflects faintly off the lenses of his glasses. he’s let them slip down the bridge of his nose again. always does that when he’s thinking too hard, he never pushes them up—he just squints through the bottom of the lenses like he’s punishing himself.

you’ve been staring at the same open code window for eight minutes. you haven’t typed a thing.

satoru shifts beside you, clicking through files with the intensity of someone trying to look busy. his jaw keeps tightening, loosening, tightening again. the light from his laptop makes the angles of his face look sharper, colder. he’s the kind of beautiful that doesn’t know what to do with itself—so it hides behind arrogance and avoidance.

his long fingers fumble with the screwdriver, precise even in their awkwardness. he never rushes, never mistreats the disc. there’s something almost reverent in the way he works—focused, silent, completely in his own world. and somehow, that’s the hottest part. there’s something about a guy going quiet and working with his hands.

your foot accidentally brushes his.

you freeze.

he doesn’t move. doesn’t flinch. just lets it stay there—your foot, his, touching barely, like something innocent and excruciating.

you pull away first.

your eyes catch a tiny dent in the metal of the table, just beside where his elbow rests. you stare at it like it matters. like if you look long enough, it might explain how the hell you ended up here again, with him, in this awful, humming room where silence sounds like punishment.

satoru scratches the back of his neck. you tuck your hands between your thighs. someone outside slams a door, distant and abrupt, and both your heads snap up at the same time. for a second, your eyes meet.

for a second too long.

he blinks. you look away first.

the silence folds back in. familiar. dense. not quite peace. not quite war. you could say something. you could ask about the settings. you could crack a joke about the outdated tutorial you’re watching. you could ask him how he knows suiko, why he never texts first, what he thought when he saw you that night in the laundry room with your underwear on the floor. 

you think about how easy it would be to say literally anything. make a joke about the janky projector. comment on suiko’s ridiculous theory. instead, you bite your lip until it hurts. while he rolls up his sleeve and mutters something under his breath—too quiet for you to catch, too loud to ignore.

you drop your head back against the chair and stare at the ceiling. one of the panels is cracked. you didn’t notice that before. or maybe you did, and you’re just noticing it again, because you’ll do anything not to look at him. still, your eyes flick sideways. just once.

he’s typing now. not fast, not productive. just keys tapping like he needs the sound, like noise might hold the silence back a little longer. you breathe through your nose. then again, deeper. you know he can hear you. you know he’s not going to say anything.

and that—that—is what drives you a little bit insane.

you want him to speak first, you want him to care enough to break the rules. but he doesn’t. so you sit there, side by side, drowning under the weight of what neither of you will say. the space between you hums like a live wire.

you scrolled. refreshed. scrolled again. “the script file’s gone.” you mutter, not even surprised to not find any damn thing on this cursed drive. he didn’t even look up. “which one?”

“the one with the automated tilt angle. the one i literally just rewrote.” you sigh quietly.

“then rewrite it again,” he said, too flat to be joking. you inhaled slowly. “you know what? i think the drive is cursed.”

“no,” he muttered, opening his laptop. “the people are.” you watched him pull up a fresh terminal window. start typing, like it was nothing, like this didn’t suck.

you hated how clean his code looked. how fast his hands moved. how he never had to ask twice how a circuit worked. you hated how it reminded you of high school nights when he used to show you how to build things, slowly, kindly, like he was afraid you’d shatter if he moved too fast.

you hated that version of him because it was still in there somewhere—and you didn’t know if he was protecting it, or hiding it from you.

you glance up just as he tilts the screen back, the light casting thin shadows across his face. his fingers are already moving, too fast to be casual, and you can hear the faint click of a fresh terminal window opening.

“what are you doing?” you ask, voice lower than you mean it to be.

he doesn’t look at you. just shrugs, typing. “starting over.”

you blink. “the whole thing?”

“unless you’ve got a secret backup of the one suiko wiped,” he says, dry, like it physically hurts him to care. he knows you don’t, and you don’t bother lying. you exhale, slow and tired, rubbing your palm down your thigh just to give your fingers something to do. “fine. guess i’ll just... stick to it.”

he pauses. just long enough to mean something. then: “you sure you can handle practical work? or do you need another party to recover first?”

your head turns before you can stop it. sharp. direct. that stupid, infuriating glint in his eyes like he’s already bracing for you to bite back.

you don’t.

not yet.

you just smile, tired and flat, “you always get this condescending when you’re running on zero sleep, or am i just special?” 

satoru doesn’t look up right away. just keeps typing, eyes trained on the lines of code like they matter more than your mouth, your voice, your stupid choice of words. but you can tell—by the faint pause in his keystrokes, the way his shoulders stiffen like a rope pulled too tight—he’s heard you. he always does.

“you’re not that special,” he mutters, finally, voice soft and flat as static. “i’m an equal-opportunity asshole.”

“cute,” you say. your tone is light, but your eyes aren’t. “and here i thought you were just emotionally repressed.” that lands. not deep, but sharp, like a paper cut you don’t realize is bleeding until it stings. he stops typing. there’s a blink-long silence where even the hum of the old fan seems to duck out of the way.

“maybe i am,” he says finally, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. “but at least i don’t pretend to forget things i clearly haven’t.”

you flinch. it’s tiny, almost nothing. but he sees it.

“oh, we’re doing that now?” you say, voice tight with something he can’t name. “cool. yeah, okay. let’s dig up the time capsule. want to bring up how i used to eat lunch with you behind the vending machines, too? or how you used to rewrite my entire trig homework ‘just for fun’?”

he leans back, chair creaking. “i wasn’t the one pretending nothing ever happened.”

“no,” you shoot back, “you were just the one staring at my underwear like a fucking creep.”

he snorts—an incredulous, disbelieving sound—but it’s hollow. there’s a bruise under his voice when he says, “you think i wanted that to happen?”

you open your mouth. then close it. the question hangs there, raw and clumsy and real in a way that makes you want to claw at your own skin. you suddenly wish the projector would explode, or the power would cut out again. anything to get out of this moment.

instead, you breathe out slow. “no. i think you wanted it to mean something.”

he goes still. not quiet. still. you see his fingers curl around the edge of the table; tight, pale. “that’s worse,” he says softly. “isn’t it?” 

you don’t answer. you just look at the dent in the table again, and for a second it blurs. like maybe there are things you wish you could forget, too. but neither of you moves. neither of you runs. and that’s the mistake.

he exhales like it hurts. like he’s been holding it in too long. “you didn’t even say anything,” he says, quieter this time. “back then. after the kiss.”

you blink. “are we seriously—?”

“you flinched,” he continues, eyes now fixed on the table. “not from awkwardness—just like it grossed you out. i spent a week wondering if i’d done something wrong. if i’d messed it up so bad you couldn’t even look at me.”

your mouth opens. closes. opens again.

he laughs, soft and bitter. “and then you just… disappeared. you acted like none of it mattered. like it was just a joke.”

“it wasn’t a joke,” you say, and the words come out sharper than you mean. “i just didn’t know what the hell to do with it.”

“yeah? join the club.” he looks at you then, and it’s the first real look he’s given you in weeks—months. maybe years. there’s hurt there. but more than that, there’s weight. like he’s been dragging this behind him so long he forgot it was heavy.

“i wasn’t used to anyone seeing me,” he says. “not really. not like you did.”

you want to say something back—something that will even the scales, or shift the mood, or just stop the shaking of your fingers. but all you can do is swallow. and still, like a fool, you try. “so what, you’re mad i didn’t fall in love with you?”

he flinches. this time, visibly. you regret it instantly.

“no,” he says, voice low. “i’m mad you made it feel like i was stupid for wanting to.”

the silence that follows is different. not cold. not awkward.

just… true.

you both stare at your screens, at the code that no longer means anything, and realize this—whatever it is—isn’t something that can be debugged or rewritten. it’s already running. already live.

and you’re both trapped in the loop.

the knock isn’t really a knock. it’s more like a chaotic thump, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone fumbling with the door handle, then a muffled, slurred curse. satoru’s head snaps up.

another knock. no pause. no rhythm. just... urgency. clumsy, pissed urgency.

he’s halfway through reading a thread on atmospheric lensing effects when it happens. his laptop glows dim on the desk, a half-eaten protein bar beside it, headphones still loosely around his neck. he wasn’t expecting anyone—definitely not at 1:43 a.m.

the second he opens the door, you stumble in like gravity personally offended you. okay, sure, the last few weeks haven’t been that tense. you've been smiling more, and he’s been letting his eyes linger. but barging into his room at ass o’clock? not a little much?

your hair’s tangled, your lipstick is smudged, and your hoodie is falling off one shoulder. eyes glassy. breath hot with something sweet and chemical—vodka? peach schnapps? “where is she?” you demand, slurring around the consonants.

he stares. “who?”

“you know who.” you stagger one step forward, finger jabbing the air somewhere vaguely over his shoulder. “suiko. miss i-sleep-in-highlighter. i saw her text you. you were gonna work tonight.”

satoru doesn’t answer at first. just closes the door behind you, slow, like if he does it too fast, you might explode. “she’s not here.”

you frown. “liar.”

“i’m not lying,” he says, sharper now. “she’s at her place. she sent the files two hours ago.”

but you’re not listening. you’ve already pushed past him, like you own the room—like your drunken paranoia is a free pass. you glance around, as if suiko’s hiding behind a pile of textbooks or tucked under the blanket beside his laptop. when you see nothing, you spin back around. wobbly. arms crossed like you’re trying to hold your own body together.

“i didn’t come here ‘cause i’m jealous,” you mumble.

he exhales hard. “god. you’re drunk.”

“no—shit, sherlock.” and now it’s clear—too clear—just how wasted you are. the glaze in your eyes. the way your balance shifts like you’re standing on a boat. the red at the corners of your eyes from holding in tears too long. or maybe they already fell and dried.

satoru’s jaw tightens. “get out.”

you blink, confused. “what?” you whisper, lips so dry that wetting them does nothing anymore.

“i said get out. come back when you’re not swimming in vodka.”

you freeze. and for a second, the haze cracks. a flicker of real pain flicks through your face. “wow,” you say, voice low. “okay.”

he crosses his arms. “i don’t do drunk people. i don’t babysit. i’m not that guy.”

“of course not,” you mutter, eyes glassy. “you’re the guy who shuts down and reads alone instead.”

“yeah, well, that guy didn’t invite you here.”

you nod, like that hurt less than it did. “fine.”

you start for the door, but your knee knocks into the edge of his desk and you half-collapse, catching yourself on the chair. one heel slips off your foot and clatters under the radiator. “shit—sorry,” you breathe. “god, everything’s fucking spinning.”

he doesn’t say anything at first. then, with a soft groan of exhaustion that sounds like it was dragged up from some deep, miserable place, he moves toward you. “sit down,” he says, no softness in the words, but his hand hovers near your arm, steadying.

you sink onto the bed instead, legs folding messily beneath you.

“god,” he mutters again, raking a hand through his hair. “you smell like a distillery.” 

you laugh, too loud. “thanks. my dad would be proud.”

he doesn’t move. “… what?”

you look up at him. eyes watery. but your smile doesn’t match. “i said he’d be proud. drunk girls are, like, his thing.”

satoru blinks, but he's smart, enough to understand what's hidden behind the laughs. “what the hell does that mean?”

you wave it off. “it means i inherited the talent. not the charm.” there’s a pause. a long one. the kind that makes rooms feel smaller.

he watches you, carefully now. “your dad drank?”

“drank?” you snort. “still does. i’m pretty sure he thinks whiskey counts as hydration.”

satoru shifts, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. “did he—?”

“no. god, no. not like that.” you lean back, one palm pressed to your forehead. “just… mean drunk. disappearing drunk. promises and apologies and then poof, nothing.” you’re slurring again. less sharp now, like you’re winding down. he stands there for a second. just breathing, then quietly moves toward the bed.

“lie down.” he murmured half exasperated.

you look up at him. “huh?”

“because you’re two minutes from vomiting on my floor and i really like this rug.”

you smile, but it’s crooked. “you always were such a romantic.”

he doesn’t answer. just reaches for your wrist—lightly, not forceful—and guides you sideways until you’re lying back against his bed. it smells like clean laundry and something unplaceable. him, maybe. your head sinks into the pillow. you close your eyes. he pulls the hoodie over your knees, hesitantly, then gently drapes the edge of his spare blanket over your shoulders. “i hate seeing people like this,” he mutters, more to himself than to you.

“like what?”

“wrecked,” he says. “not in control. like they’re… not themselves.”

you crack one eye open. “you talking about me? or someone else?”

he looks at you then. quiet. something unreadable flickering through him.

“both.”

he stands again, crosses the room with those long, lean legs, and sinks into the desk chair. he opens his laptop, trying to pretend you didn’t just confess your daddy issues for the first time in front of him—like it hadn’t come out coated in rust and pain. but you’re still watching, half-drunk, half-asleep. still wrecking him, without even trying.

the silence stretches again— soft this time. not biting, not angry. just still.

you shift under the blanket, nose brushing the pillowcase, lips slightly parted. he can’t tell if you’re drifting off or just thinking. then, softly—barely louder than the hum of his pc fan—you speak.

“i was awful to you.” he looks up. your eyes stay closed. you’re talking to the ceiling, or maybe to yourself. “in high school,” you continue. “i mean, like—i was awful.” he doesn’t say anything. just closes the lid of his laptop, the click of plastic loud in the quiet. you sniff once. “you were kind. i remember that. you were so... stupidly kind. like, you’d wait for me after class, even when i was late. or you’d lend me your notes even though i never returned them. you’d explain stuff twice, three times, like it didn’t bother you.”

“i remember,” he says quietly, eyes drifting off his screen.

“and i—” you falter. “god. i treated you like some backup plan. or worse, like a placeholder.” your fingers curl in the blanket, twisting the fabric like it’s the only thing tethering you to the room. “i thought i could just... float through it all. you liked me, and i liked that you liked me. it made me feel seen. special. but i didn’t—know what to do with it.” you open your eyes.

he’s still in the chair, hands folded in his lap. watching you. carefully. like you’re a problem he doesn’t want to solve yet. “i ghosted you,” you whisper. “not because i wanted to hurt you. i just... didn’t know how to be anything good for you.”

a long pause. then:

“you still don’t,” he says. not cruel. just true.

you nod. “yeah.” silence again. then, slowly, you whisper again like peeling back something delicate. “but even back then... even now, i think—” you swallow. “i think a part of me really did love you.”

satoru blinks.

“i don’t know if it’s love love,” you go on quickly. “i don’t know what that means. i’ve never gotten it right. i ruin things, i use people, i flirt when i’m scared and push people away when they’re too close, and i pretend like nothing gets to me because that’s easier than saying, hey, i have abandonment issues and a broken relationship with physical affection—”

you stop. catch your breath. the tears don’t fall, but they burn behind your eyes.

“but you were never just a crush. never just a joke. and i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry.”

satoru doesn’t move for a long time. then he stands, his movement steady, measured. you tense, feeling your throat dry again not sure why. he walks to the edge of the bed and crouches. just enough to be level with you. not looming. just there.

he reaches out slow, almost deliberate, and brushes a strand of hair from your face.

“don’t say this just because you’re drunk,” he murmurs.

“i’m saying it because i’m tired,” you breathe. “drunk just made it louder.” he studies you a second longer, then nods. once. not forgiveness, not yet. but something close enough to keep you from breaking. he rises, walks back to the chair, and turns the light down to its lowest setting.

“sleep,” he says, like he didn’t just tuck your hair behind your ear with fingers that lingered too long. you don’t have the energy to argue, because finally, for once, you don’t feel like running.

the room is quiet, except for the soft, inconsistent rhythm of your breath. satoru sits in the chair, elbow propped against the desk, chin resting on a fist. he hasn’t moved in fifty two minutes. not since the light dimmed and your eyes finally closed. he should get up, should probably move. should stretch or shower or... something, anything.

instead, he watches you.

god, he hates how easy it is to fall into that old habit.

your face is tilted toward the wall, mouth parted slightly, one hand curled against his pillow like you belong there. your makeup’s mostly gone, your hoodie sleeve bunched at your elbow. you look younger. not fragile, just real in a way that makes his throat hurt.

he tells himself he’s not still in love with you. that whatever he felt—feels—is probably just nostalgia dressed up like a crush. a muscle memory.

but then you say shit like that. shit like: “i think a part of me really did love you.”

and it lands like a knife right under his ribs. not because he believes you. because he wants to. that’s the worst part. not the years you ignored him, not the ghosting, not the hallway glances or the fake-casual texts that led nowhere.

no, the worst part is that some traitorous, stupid part of him still thinks that maybe this time it’ll be different.

he remembers high school satoru—nerdy, awkward, hopeful in ways he now finds embarrassing. the boy who used to write your initials in the margins of his notebook. the one who practiced kisses on his palm. the one who thought if she just gave me a chance, i’d never stop showing her what it means to be safe.

and you did give him a chance. for like… a minute. then you vanished. and he’d hated himself for letting it matter so much.

he shifts, jaw tight. he wants to believe you mean what you said. wants to believe the sorry was real. that the little piece of “maybe love” wasn’t just a drunk-girl performance. but he’s not naïve anymore. he knows how fast people can say one thing and mean another.

especially you.

and still, here you are. sleeping in his bed, soft limbs against softer blankets. wearing your damage like he wears his loneliness—quiet and constant and hard to blame.

he closes his eyes.

doesn’t sleep.

its been hours and he’d stopped checking the time, the warmth in the air had faded. the steam curls lazily from the chipped mug in his hand. satoru stands by the small counter, bathed in the pale orange haze of the stove light, sipping tea like it’s medicine for ghosts. the dorm is still. outside, wind scrapes against the window like it’s trying to get in. inside, everything’s quiet, except for the occasional rustle of sheets behind him.

he doesn’t look back.

he doesn’t want to see you there, tucked into his bed like something that might disappear if he watches too long. instead, he breathes in the steam. lets the warmth bite his tongue, lets the quiet stretch.

then—

a rustle.

the creak of the mattress.

bare feet on the tile.

“'toru?” her voice is thick with sleep, softer than anything has the right to be.

...did you just call him 'toru?

he turns, slow, surprise written across his face. you're barely awake—eyes heavy-lidded, face flushed, your hoodie still sliding off one shoulder, revealing just enough skin to make his eyes linger. you sway slightly, then lean against the counter beside him like you're not entirely sure you're standing.

“you should be asleep,” he whispers eventually, forcing his voice to stay quiet. you blinked at him, unfocused. “was.” you mumble as your head drops to his shoulder without warning. the weight of it makes his breath catch. you smell like sleep and peach liquor and something sweeter than both. “i’m sorry,” you mumble, barely audible. “still sorry.”

he stiffens. “i know,” he says, without real warmth.

you wrap your arms around his waist, fast but loose, and rest your forehead against his collarbone. he doesn’t stop you. not at first.

then—your lips brush his neck. not really a kiss. just the idea of one. a whisper of warmth, barely there. but it freezes him. his hand grips the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turn white. “…hey,” he whispers, softer, voice low but somehow breathy. too careful.

you murmur something he doesn’t catch. another apology. or maybe just his name. your hands are still on him, mapping the plane of his warm back while his tea sits forgotten on the counter, cooling.

“don’t do this,” he says softly, tilting his head back, away from your mouth. “not like this.”

you blink up at him. eyes wet. lips parted.

“i didn’t mean—”

“i know,” he cuts in—sharp, but not faster than the pulse in his cock, a twitch that betrays him. “i know.” he draws a breath like it hurts to take it in slow. his cock is hot, straining unapologetically against the fabric of his sweatpants, already swollen, already aching—so aware of you it’s almost painful. he’s throbbing, not just with want but with the effort of holding back. his whole spine feels like it’s strung tight around it.

“just… don’t screw up our first time again,” he says, and his voice cracks, just slightly, on again.

you blink. “our...?”

“if we’re gonna try,” he says, steady now, “we’re not doing it like some rerun of a high school mess. you don’t kiss me drunk and forget it by morning. you don’t wake up and wish you hadn’t.”

you go quiet. so quiet, he swears he can hear the blood rushing to his throbbing lower part—tight heat pooling where he's already straining, flushed and pulsing with every breath you don’t take. then, you mumble softly like you’re afraid of the answer: “what if i don’t wish i hadn’t?”

he exhales. then, with the last of the carefulness still left in his coiled muscles, he gently guides your arms away from his body and reaches for the blanket draped over the back of the chair. he drapes it around your shoulders, a sort of  peace treaty. “go back to bed,” he murmurs. “before i stop knowing better.”

and you do.

but not before your fingers brush his, just barely, and neither of you pulls away.

[mooncyb3r]

we were aligned once. ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆

you orbit each other like it’s muscle memory. avoid. glance. pretend. shift just enough not to touch. say nothing loud enough for the air to crack. ∘ ∘₊✧─ nerd satoru x fem reader.

synopsis ༘⋆ they kissed once. it went terribly.

years later, fate—or maybe just an underpaid astrophysics professor—pairs them for a group project that’s supposed to “translate the sky.” so, you’re somehow gonna make a planetarium with someone whose orbit still tugs at your ribs.

she wants to forget him with red solo cups and too-sweet cocktails. he wants to forget her by pretending he doesn’t see her in every hallway. but stars don’t lie, and even fake constellations have a way of pulling you back to what you tried to forget.

tags ༘⋆ modern au, university au, nerdjo, astrophysics major nonsense, fluff with a side of light angst, mutual pinning but make it tragically academic, reader has issues so is mean but has a soft spot, satoru also has issues but buries them under sarcasm and spreadsheets, friends to ??? to please just talk to each other, tension you could cut with a physics textbook, fake planetarium but real feelings, suggestive content (just barely. for now.) ᯓ art by @/almondtofu_boy on x.

◄ previous

𝟐 ༘⋆

───── don't screw this up again.

if it weren’t for the deadline forcing him to learn the art of small talk before the sunrise, satoru would have been thrilled. being asked to “translate the sky” felt like an embrace he’d never known, the warmth of body hugging him... a sensation still foreign to him though. he knew the constellations more intimately than the streets he walked every day. orion’s belt, cassiopeia’s elegant curve, the faint, rippling spine of the milky way—each formation lived inside him.

he didn’t mind silence. he’d spent most of his life curled up inside it, headphones in, textbook open, sky above. if anything, it was people who made him glitch. their noise, their softness; the casual chaos of human interaction.

unfortunately, group projects still existed.

and, you were in his.

brainstorming sessions were hell in small doses. this one had gone on long enough to deserve an afterlife. the whiteboard stayed blank. the ideas stayed vague. you stirred your iced coffee until the ice turned to slush, then stirred it some more. satoru tapped his pen against his knee like he could stop being nervous with one click. frustration orbited the table like a satellite. until the group’s quiet third member finally cleared her throat. “what if we built a planetarium?” suiko ventured, almost apologetically, her secondhand sweater sleeves pulled past her hands

she said it like it wasn’t her idea, like it had been sitting in the corner waiting to be noticed. the room didn’t react, not at first. you tilted your head, one brow arched. your default skepticism—equal parts defense mechanism and aesthetic. satoru blinked once. then again. his lips didn’t move, but his entire face said wait.

not bad.

and that was it. the moment it started. the three of you were building a fake galaxy in a room with no windows. just like that.

you noticed suiko immediately, because of course you did.

not because she was loud or confident. but because she was none of those things, and satoru still seemed to hear her. that was worse. she spoke softly. asked real questions. laughed at things he said without needing to be the one who said them first. and he—awkward, allergic to praise—actually responded. not a lot. but enough.

enough for you to notice.

you weren’t stupid. often drunk or sleep‑deprived, perhaps, but not stupid. you knew how attention worked. you’d been calibrating your own for years—how much to show, how much to flash, how much skin and casual detachment to deploy at any given moment. but suiko didn’t seem to care about any of that. she just showed up, eyes bright and unbothered. it wasn’t full-blown flirting. more like… hopeful proximity. nervous energy. still, you saw the way she laughed when he wasn’t even being funny.

and it lodged somewhere near your chest.

“I don’t care,” you mumbled once around a mouthful of toothpaste, watching yourself in the mirror. Your voice had no weight to it; you spoke out loud without meaning to let it slip. you rinsed, spat, stared. you zoomed out again—suiko adjusting his glasses for him with a laugh, like it wasn’t a loaded move. satoru didn’t flinch. he let it happen. that was what got you, the fact that it was fine.

you sit opposite each other, always. he makes a point of not looking at you. you make a point of pretending not to notice. the first week is mostly composed of what doesn’t happen.

no hellos.

no eye contact.

no mentions of the laundry room.

no acknowledgment of that ugly little past you both refuse to name.

suiko—bless her, curse her—talks enough for all three of you. she fills the space with small anecdotes, movies recommendations, and vaguely flirty questions about code syntax. you zone out while satoru keeps his replies short. but when she laughs at something he says, your stomach knots in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that you skipped breakfast.

at one point, she has to leave to take a call. it’s just you and him, and the sound of her ringtone fading down the hallway. he doesn’t speak. neither do you, and that moment stretches on so long you actually start counting the beats of your own pulse.

the next week is worse.

because now you’re hyperaware. of his glasses. his hands. his shoulders. the way he rolls up his sleeves halfway and taps the eraser end of his pencil against his lower lip when he’s thinking. you remember that lip, even when you wish you didn’t.

monday, you drop your pen and he picks it up before you can. doesn’t hand it to you. just sets it on the table beside your notebook like he’s returning stolen evidence. your fingers don’t even graze.

tuesday, suiko mentions maybe working in the lab next week. “we’ll have more space,” she chirps, and your stomach twists, because you know what that means. longer hours. fewer distractions. no escape. but he cuts the hope with one sharp, muttered "no".

wednesday, he accidentally laughs at a joke you make—something dry and unfunny about a professor’s ancient laptop. he doesn’t mean to. he cuts himself off halfway. his smile dies on impact. but you saw it.

you heard it.

and for the rest of the day, you feel it— like a secret you’re not allowed to touch.

by the time friday comes around, you’re already preparing your emotional armor. you throw your hair up and pull your sleeves over your hands and show up five minutes early, pretending you’re organized, pretending this project is just a another project. 

at first, the three of you tried to be civilized. you made folders, you shared links. you created sub-tasks and spreadsheets and even color-coded the damn calendar.

the shared drive was supposed to be the middle ground. a neutral zone. a place where your awkwardness wouldn’t matter, where your passive-aggressive silence could be ignored, and where suiko could keep sending stickers of her favorite reality tv without judgment.

it lasted three days.

then came the double edits. files overwritten. code snippets copied into the wrong directory. a wiring blueprint you uploaded at 2 a.m. mysteriously vanished by sunrise.

by thursday, you were typing in all caps in the group chat:

WHO CHANGED THE OUTPUT ROUTE—AGAIN—

satoru responded once. just once.

it wasn’t me. if it had been me, it would work.

and like it wasn’t already bad, most of the work got deleted.

you stared at your phone, considered hurling it out the window.

“once again, i’m so sorry,” suiko said, hunched over the table with both hands in her hair like it might ground her guilt. “i left it open, then i got a text, and—i swear, i’ve never run that fast in my life. boom. cat. no more files.”

you didn’t lift your head. just buried your face in your folded arms and slowly slid sideways until you were slouched across half the table, emotionally done.

“how the hell do you even have a cat in your dorm?” you muttered, half exasperated, half too tired to truly care. “pretty sure that’s, like, a direct violation of four different rules.”

“technically she has a cat,”  she rushed out. “it’s my roommate’s. we live just off campus, behind that coffee shop—oh my god, their shortcakes? you have to try them. seriously. we should do study sessions there one day. they’ve got this cozy little—”

and just like that, she was off. talking. spiraling. filling the room with sound the way someone does when they’re afraid of silence. like the three of you weren’t in the middle of a collapsing schedule and a half-broken projector and a lowkey interstellar crisis.

satoru didn’t say anything. just kept adjusting the cables. and you thought, not for the first time:

he’s going to fall in love with her if something, someone doesn’t stop it.

so you decided it was okay to leave the research and information-gathering to suiko, and split the work of coding and building the projectors with him.

the projector buzzes low in the corner, its light casting uneven shadows across the ceiling tiles like a broken constellation. you sit half-curled in your chair, hoodie too warm, throat too dry, the artificial air pressing against your skin like static. the lab is mostly dark except for the sterile glow of monitors and the faint blue flicker of status leds. outside, wind hums through the cracked upper window.

satoru is less than a foot from you. his posture slouched but precise, arms bracketing his laptop like he’s fencing off a territory. he hasn’t said a word in almost an hour—not even when the system crashed and restarted itself with a groan. not even when suiko messaged the group chat a selfie from her bed with the caption:

still dying sorryyy 😔🫠

you hadn’t replied. he hadn’t either.

instead, he types. deliberate, controlled keystrokes. you know the rhythm of it now. tap-tap-pause-scroll. he works like he breathes—quiet, stubborn, and way too fast.

"can you login? forgot my password." you mutter, and he just leans to reach for the keyboard, drowning your nose in his scent, a fresh cologne.

satoru.gojo 12.7&3.141592

"really...? pi?" you blink at him, squinting at the numbers. "damn, you're such a walking cliché." you huff under your breath, biting your lip to prevent your smile to widen. yet, something so small flips in your chest when you see the flush of his cheek.

"and you're a disaster who can't remember shit." he bites back, rolling across the lab on that annoying wheeled stool like he's lived here.

you try to focus on your screen. you scrub through another dusty youtube video titled “DIY home planetarium setup (NO TOOLS? NO PROBLEM!)” as if it might reveal the key to this cursed project. but nothing sticks. not with him beside you, not with this silence. it’s not the comfortable kind, either. it’s the held-breath kind, the we’re not going to talk about it kind.

he’s leaned just slightly forward, the tendons in his hands flexing as he scrolls. his left foot taps sometimes, like he’s working something out in his head, maybe calculating the orbit of some invisible moon. you think he’s doing it to distract himself.

or maybe you’re projecting.

your own screen reflects faintly off the lenses of his glasses. he’s let them slip down the bridge of his nose again. always does that when he’s thinking too hard, he never pushes them up—he just squints through the bottom of the lenses like he’s punishing himself.

you’ve been staring at the same open code window for eight minutes. you haven’t typed a thing.

satoru shifts beside you, clicking through files with the intensity of someone trying to look busy. his jaw keeps tightening, loosening, tightening again. the light from his laptop makes the angles of his face look sharper, colder. he’s the kind of beautiful that doesn’t know what to do with itself—so it hides behind arrogance and avoidance.

his long fingers fumble with the screwdriver, precise even in their awkwardness. he never rushes, never mistreats the disc. there’s something almost reverent in the way he works—focused, silent, completely in his own world. and somehow, that’s the hottest part. there’s something about a guy going quiet and working with his hands.

your foot accidentally brushes his.

you freeze.

he doesn’t move. doesn’t flinch. just lets it stay there—your foot, his, touching barely, like something innocent and excruciating.

you pull away first.

your eyes catch a tiny dent in the metal of the table, just beside where his elbow rests. you stare at it like it matters. like if you look long enough, it might explain how the hell you ended up here again, with him, in this awful, humming room where silence sounds like punishment.

satoru scratches the back of his neck. you tuck your hands between your thighs. someone outside slams a door, distant and abrupt, and both your heads snap up at the same time. for a second, your eyes meet.

for a second too long.

he blinks. you look away first.

the silence folds back in. familiar. dense. not quite peace. not quite war. you could say something. you could ask about the settings. you could crack a joke about the outdated tutorial you’re watching. you could ask him how he knows suiko, why he never texts first, what he thought when he saw you that night in the laundry room with your underwear on the floor. 

you think about how easy it would be to say literally anything. make a joke about the janky projector. comment on suiko’s ridiculous theory. instead, you bite your lip until it hurts. while he rolls up his sleeve and mutters something under his breath—too quiet for you to catch, too loud to ignore.

you drop your head back against the chair and stare at the ceiling. one of the panels is cracked. you didn’t notice that before. or maybe you did, and you’re just noticing it again, because you’ll do anything not to look at him. still, your eyes flick sideways. just once.

he’s typing now. not fast, not productive. just keys tapping like he needs the sound, like noise might hold the silence back a little longer. you breathe through your nose. then again, deeper. you know he can hear you. you know he’s not going to say anything.

and that—that—is what drives you a little bit insane.

you want him to speak first, you want him to care enough to break the rules. but he doesn’t. so you sit there, side by side, drowning under the weight of what neither of you will say. the space between you hums like a live wire.

you scrolled. refreshed. scrolled again. “the script file’s gone.” you mutter, not even surprised to not find any damn thing on this cursed drive. he didn’t even look up. “which one?”

“the one with the automated tilt angle. the one i literally just rewrote.” you sigh quietly.

“then rewrite it again,” he said, too flat to be joking. you inhaled slowly. “you know what? i think the drive is cursed.”

“no,” he muttered, opening his laptop. “the people are.” you watched him pull up a fresh terminal window. start typing, like it was nothing, like this didn’t suck.

you hated how clean his code looked. how fast his hands moved. how he never had to ask twice how a circuit worked. you hated how it reminded you of high school nights when he used to show you how to build things, slowly, kindly, like he was afraid you’d shatter if he moved too fast.

you hated that version of him because it was still in there somewhere—and you didn’t know if he was protecting it, or hiding it from you.

you glance up just as he tilts the screen back, the light casting thin shadows across his face. his fingers are already moving, too fast to be casual, and you can hear the faint click of a fresh terminal window opening.

“what are you doing?” you ask, voice lower than you mean it to be.

he doesn’t look at you. just shrugs, typing. “starting over.”

you blink. “the whole thing?”

“unless you’ve got a secret backup of the one suiko wiped,” he says, dry, like it physically hurts him to care. he knows you don’t, and you don’t bother lying. you exhale, slow and tired, rubbing your palm down your thigh just to give your fingers something to do. “fine. guess i’ll just... stick to it.”

he pauses. just long enough to mean something. then: “you sure you can handle practical work? or do you need another party to recover first?”

your head turns before you can stop it. sharp. direct. that stupid, infuriating glint in his eyes like he’s already bracing for you to bite back.

you don’t.

not yet.

you just smile, tired and flat, “you always get this condescending when you’re running on zero sleep, or am i just special?” 

satoru doesn’t look up right away. just keeps typing, eyes trained on the lines of code like they matter more than your mouth, your voice, your stupid choice of words. but you can tell—by the faint pause in his keystrokes, the way his shoulders stiffen like a rope pulled too tight—he’s heard you. he always does.

“you’re not that special,” he mutters, finally, voice soft and flat as static. “i’m an equal-opportunity asshole.”

“cute,” you say. your tone is light, but your eyes aren’t. “and here i thought you were just emotionally repressed.” that lands. not deep, but sharp, like a paper cut you don’t realize is bleeding until it stings. he stops typing. there’s a blink-long silence where even the hum of the old fan seems to duck out of the way.

“maybe i am,” he says finally, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. “but at least i don’t pretend to forget things i clearly haven’t.”

you flinch. it’s tiny, almost nothing. but he sees it.

“oh, we’re doing that now?” you say, voice tight with something he can’t name. “cool. yeah, okay. let’s dig up the time capsule. want to bring up how i used to eat lunch with you behind the vending machines, too? or how you used to rewrite my entire trig homework ‘just for fun’?”

he leans back, chair creaking. “i wasn’t the one pretending nothing ever happened.”

“no,” you shoot back, “you were just the one staring at my underwear like a fucking creep.”

he snorts—an incredulous, disbelieving sound—but it’s hollow. there’s a bruise under his voice when he says, “you think i wanted that to happen?”

you open your mouth. then close it. the question hangs there, raw and clumsy and real in a way that makes you want to claw at your own skin. you suddenly wish the projector would explode, or the power would cut out again. anything to get out of this moment.

instead, you breathe out slow. “no. i think you wanted it to mean something.”

he goes still. not quiet. still. you see his fingers curl around the edge of the table; tight, pale. “that’s worse,” he says softly. “isn’t it?” 

you don’t answer. you just look at the dent in the table again, and for a second it blurs. like maybe there are things you wish you could forget, too. but neither of you moves. neither of you runs. and that’s the mistake.

he exhales like it hurts. like he’s been holding it in too long. “you didn’t even say anything,” he says, quieter this time. “back then. after the kiss.”

you blink. “are we seriously—?”

“you flinched,” he continues, eyes now fixed on the table. “not from awkwardness—just like it grossed you out. i spent a week wondering if i’d done something wrong. if i’d messed it up so bad you couldn’t even look at me.”

your mouth opens. closes. opens again.

he laughs, soft and bitter. “and then you just… disappeared. you acted like none of it mattered. like it was just a joke.”

“it wasn’t a joke,” you say, and the words come out sharper than you mean. “i just didn’t know what the hell to do with it.”

“yeah? join the club.” he looks at you then, and it’s the first real look he’s given you in weeks—months. maybe years. there’s hurt there. but more than that, there’s weight. like he’s been dragging this behind him so long he forgot it was heavy.

“i wasn’t used to anyone seeing me,” he says. “not really. not like you did.”

you want to say something back—something that will even the scales, or shift the mood, or just stop the shaking of your fingers. but all you can do is swallow. and still, like a fool, you try. “so what, you’re mad i didn’t fall in love with you?”

he flinches. this time, visibly. you regret it instantly.

“no,” he says, voice low. “i’m mad you made it feel like i was stupid for wanting to.”

the silence that follows is different. not cold. not awkward.

just… true.

you both stare at your screens, at the code that no longer means anything, and realize this—whatever it is—isn’t something that can be debugged or rewritten. it’s already running. already live.

and you’re both trapped in the loop.

the knock isn’t really a knock. it’s more like a chaotic thump, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone fumbling with the door handle, then a muffled, slurred curse. satoru’s head snaps up.

another knock. no pause. no rhythm. just... urgency. clumsy, pissed urgency.

he’s halfway through reading a thread on atmospheric lensing effects when it happens. his laptop glows dim on the desk, a half-eaten protein bar beside it, headphones still loosely around his neck. he wasn’t expecting anyone—definitely not at 1:43 a.m.

the second he opens the door, you stumble in like gravity personally offended you. okay, sure, the last few weeks haven’t been that tense. you've been smiling more, and he’s been letting his eyes linger. but barging into his room at ass o’clock? not a little much?

your hair’s tangled, your lipstick is smudged, and your hoodie is falling off one shoulder. eyes glassy. breath hot with something sweet and chemical—vodka? peach schnapps? “where is she?” you demand, slurring around the consonants.

he stares. “who?”

“you know who.” you stagger one step forward, finger jabbing the air somewhere vaguely over his shoulder. “suiko. miss i-sleep-in-highlighter. i saw her text you. you were gonna work tonight.”

satoru doesn’t answer at first. just closes the door behind you, slow, like if he does it too fast, you might explode. “she’s not here.”

you frown. “liar.”

“i’m not lying,” he says, sharper now. “she’s at her place. she sent the files two hours ago.”

but you’re not listening. you’ve already pushed past him, like you own the room—like your drunken paranoia is a free pass. you glance around, as if suiko’s hiding behind a pile of textbooks or tucked under the blanket beside his laptop. when you see nothing, you spin back around. wobbly. arms crossed like you’re trying to hold your own body together.

“i didn’t come here ‘cause i’m jealous,” you mumble.

he exhales hard. “god. you’re drunk.”

“no—shit, sherlock.” and now it’s clear—too clear—just how wasted you are. the glaze in your eyes. the way your balance shifts like you’re standing on a boat. the red at the corners of your eyes from holding in tears too long. or maybe they already fell and dried.

satoru’s jaw tightens. “get out.”

you blink, confused. “what?” you whisper, lips so dry that wetting them does nothing anymore.

“i said get out. come back when you’re not swimming in vodka.”

you freeze. and for a second, the haze cracks. a flicker of real pain flicks through your face. “wow,” you say, voice low. “okay.”

he crosses his arms. “i don’t do drunk people. i don’t babysit. i’m not that guy.”

“of course not,” you mutter, eyes glassy. “you’re the guy who shuts down and reads alone instead.”

“yeah, well, that guy didn’t invite you here.”

you nod, like that hurt less than it did. “fine.”

you start for the door, but your knee knocks into the edge of his desk and you half-collapse, catching yourself on the chair. one heel slips off your foot and clatters under the radiator. “shit—sorry,” you breathe. “god, everything’s fucking spinning.”

he doesn’t say anything at first. then, with a soft groan of exhaustion that sounds like it was dragged up from some deep, miserable place, he moves toward you. “sit down,” he says, no softness in the words, but his hand hovers near your arm, steadying.

you sink onto the bed instead, legs folding messily beneath you.

“god,” he mutters again, raking a hand through his hair. “you smell like a distillery.” 

you laugh, too loud. “thanks. my dad would be proud.”

he doesn’t move. “… what?”

you look up at him. eyes watery. but your smile doesn’t match. “i said he’d be proud. drunk girls are, like, his thing.”

satoru blinks, but he's smart, enough to understand what's hidden behind the laughs. “what the hell does that mean?”

you wave it off. “it means i inherited the talent. not the charm.” there’s a pause. a long one. the kind that makes rooms feel smaller.

he watches you, carefully now. “your dad drank?”

“drank?” you snort. “still does. i’m pretty sure he thinks whiskey counts as hydration.”

satoru shifts, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. “did he—?”

“no. god, no. not like that.” you lean back, one palm pressed to your forehead. “just… mean drunk. disappearing drunk. promises and apologies and then poof, nothing.” you’re slurring again. less sharp now, like you’re winding down. he stands there for a second. just breathing, then quietly moves toward the bed.

“lie down.” he murmured half exasperated.

you look up at him. “huh?”

“because you’re two minutes from vomiting on my floor and i really like this rug.”

you smile, but it’s crooked. “you always were such a romantic.”

he doesn’t answer. just reaches for your wrist—lightly, not forceful—and guides you sideways until you’re lying back against his bed. it smells like clean laundry and something unplaceable. him, maybe. your head sinks into the pillow. you close your eyes. he pulls the hoodie over your knees, hesitantly, then gently drapes the edge of his spare blanket over your shoulders. “i hate seeing people like this,” he mutters, more to himself than to you.

“like what?”

“wrecked,” he says. “not in control. like they’re… not themselves.”

you crack one eye open. “you talking about me? or someone else?”

he looks at you then. quiet. something unreadable flickering through him.

“both.”

he stands again, crosses the room with those long, lean legs, and sinks into the desk chair. he opens his laptop, trying to pretend you didn’t just confess your daddy issues for the first time in front of him—like it hadn’t come out coated in rust and pain. but you’re still watching, half-drunk, half-asleep. still wrecking him, without even trying.

the silence stretches again— soft this time. not biting, not angry. just still.

you shift under the blanket, nose brushing the pillowcase, lips slightly parted. he can’t tell if you’re drifting off or just thinking. then, softly—barely louder than the hum of his pc fan—you speak.

“i was awful to you.” he looks up. your eyes stay closed. you’re talking to the ceiling, or maybe to yourself. “in high school,” you continue. “i mean, like—i was awful.” he doesn’t say anything. just closes the lid of his laptop, the click of plastic loud in the quiet. you sniff once. “you were kind. i remember that. you were so... stupidly kind. like, you’d wait for me after class, even when i was late. or you’d lend me your notes even though i never returned them. you’d explain stuff twice, three times, like it didn’t bother you.”

“i remember,” he says quietly, eyes drifting off his screen.

“and i—” you falter. “god. i treated you like some backup plan. or worse, like a placeholder.” your fingers curl in the blanket, twisting the fabric like it’s the only thing tethering you to the room. “i thought i could just... float through it all. you liked me, and i liked that you liked me. it made me feel seen. special. but i didn’t—know what to do with it.” you open your eyes.

he’s still in the chair, hands folded in his lap. watching you. carefully. like you’re a problem he doesn’t want to solve yet. “i ghosted you,” you whisper. “not because i wanted to hurt you. i just... didn’t know how to be anything good for you.”

a long pause. then:

“you still don’t,” he says. not cruel. just true.

you nod. “yeah.” silence again. then, slowly, you whisper again like peeling back something delicate. “but even back then... even now, i think—” you swallow. “i think a part of me really did love you.”

satoru blinks.

“i don’t know if it’s love love,” you go on quickly. “i don’t know what that means. i’ve never gotten it right. i ruin things, i use people, i flirt when i’m scared and push people away when they’re too close, and i pretend like nothing gets to me because that’s easier than saying, hey, i have abandonment issues and a broken relationship with physical affection—”

you stop. catch your breath. the tears don’t fall, but they burn behind your eyes.

“but you were never just a crush. never just a joke. and i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry.”

satoru doesn’t move for a long time. then he stands, his movement steady, measured. you tense, feeling your throat dry again not sure why. he walks to the edge of the bed and crouches. just enough to be level with you. not looming. just there.

he reaches out slow, almost deliberate, and brushes a strand of hair from your face.

“don’t say this just because you’re drunk,” he murmurs.

“i’m saying it because i’m tired,” you breathe. “drunk just made it louder.” he studies you a second longer, then nods. once. not forgiveness, not yet. but something close enough to keep you from breaking. he rises, walks back to the chair, and turns the light down to its lowest setting.

“sleep,” he says, like he didn’t just tuck your hair behind your ear with fingers that lingered too long. you don’t have the energy to argue, because finally, for once, you don’t feel like running.

the room is quiet, except for the soft, inconsistent rhythm of your breath. satoru sits in the chair, elbow propped against the desk, chin resting on a fist. he hasn’t moved in fifty two minutes. not since the light dimmed and your eyes finally closed. he should get up, should probably move. should stretch or shower or... something, anything.

instead, he watches you.

god, he hates how easy it is to fall into that old habit.

your face is tilted toward the wall, mouth parted slightly, one hand curled against his pillow like you belong there. your makeup’s mostly gone, your hoodie sleeve bunched at your elbow. you look younger. not fragile, just real in a way that makes his throat hurt.

he tells himself he’s not still in love with you. that whatever he felt—feels—is probably just nostalgia dressed up like a crush. a muscle memory.

but then you say shit like that. shit like: “i think a part of me really did love you.”

and it lands like a knife right under his ribs. not because he believes you. because he wants to. that’s the worst part. not the years you ignored him, not the ghosting, not the hallway glances or the fake-casual texts that led nowhere.

no, the worst part is that some traitorous, stupid part of him still thinks that maybe this time it’ll be different.

he remembers high school satoru—nerdy, awkward, hopeful in ways he now finds embarrassing. the boy who used to write your initials in the margins of his notebook. the one who practiced kisses on his palm. the one who thought if she just gave me a chance, i’d never stop showing her what it means to be safe.

and you did give him a chance. for like… a minute. then you vanished. and he’d hated himself for letting it matter so much.

he shifts, jaw tight. he wants to believe you mean what you said. wants to believe the sorry was real. that the little piece of “maybe love” wasn’t just a drunk-girl performance. but he’s not naïve anymore. he knows how fast people can say one thing and mean another.

especially you.

and still, here you are. sleeping in his bed, soft limbs against softer blankets. wearing your damage like he wears his loneliness—quiet and constant and hard to blame.

he closes his eyes.

doesn’t sleep.

its been hours and he’d stopped checking the time, the warmth in the air had faded. the steam curls lazily from the chipped mug in his hand. satoru stands by the small counter, bathed in the pale orange haze of the stove light, sipping tea like it’s medicine for ghosts. the dorm is still. outside, wind scrapes against the window like it’s trying to get in. inside, everything’s quiet, except for the occasional rustle of sheets behind him.

he doesn’t look back.

he doesn’t want to see you there, tucked into his bed like something that might disappear if he watches too long. instead, he breathes in the steam. lets the warmth bite his tongue, lets the quiet stretch.

then—

a rustle.

the creak of the mattress.

bare feet on the tile.

“'toru?” her voice is thick with sleep, softer than anything has the right to be.

...did you just call him 'toru?

he turns, slow, surprise written across his face. you're barely awake—eyes heavy-lidded, face flushed, your hoodie still sliding off one shoulder, revealing just enough skin to make his eyes linger. you sway slightly, then lean against the counter beside him like you're not entirely sure you're standing.

“you should be asleep,” he whispers eventually, forcing his voice to stay quiet. you blinked at him, unfocused. “was.” you mumble as your head drops to his shoulder without warning. the weight of it makes his breath catch. you smell like sleep and peach liquor and something sweeter than both. “i’m sorry,” you mumble, barely audible. “still sorry.”

he stiffens. “i know,” he says, without real warmth.

you wrap your arms around his waist, fast but loose, and rest your forehead against his collarbone. he doesn’t stop you. not at first.

then—your lips brush his neck. not really a kiss. just the idea of one. a whisper of warmth, barely there. but it freezes him. his hand grips the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turn white. “…hey,” he whispers, softer, voice low but somehow breathy. too careful.

you murmur something he doesn’t catch. another apology. or maybe just his name. your hands are still on him, mapping the plane of his warm back while his tea sits forgotten on the counter, cooling.

“don’t do this,” he says softly, tilting his head back, away from your mouth. “not like this.”

you blink up at him. eyes wet. lips parted.

“i didn’t mean—”

“i know,” he cuts in—sharp, but not faster than the pulse in his cock, a twitch that betrays him. “i know.” he draws a breath like it hurts to take it in slow. his cock is hot, straining unapologetically against the fabric of his sweatpants, already swollen, already aching—so aware of you it’s almost painful. he’s throbbing, not just with want but with the effort of holding back. his whole spine feels like it’s strung tight around it.

“just… don’t screw up our first time again,” he says, and his voice cracks, just slightly, on again.

you blink. “our...?”

“if we’re gonna try,” he says, steady now, “we’re not doing it like some rerun of a high school mess. you don’t kiss me drunk and forget it by morning. you don’t wake up and wish you hadn’t.”

you go quiet. so quiet, he swears he can hear the blood rushing to his throbbing lower part—tight heat pooling where he's already straining, flushed and pulsing with every breath you don’t take. then, you mumble softly like you’re afraid of the answer: “what if i don’t wish i hadn’t?”

he exhales. then, with the last of the carefulness still left in his coiled muscles, he gently guides your arms away from his body and reaches for the blanket draped over the back of the chair. he drapes it around your shoulders, a sort of  peace treaty. “go back to bed,” he murmurs. “before i stop knowing better.”

and you do.

but not before your fingers brush his, just barely, and neither of you pulls away.

[mooncyb3r]

we were aligned once. ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆

you orbit each other like it’s muscle memory. avoid. glance. pretend. shift just enough not to touch. say nothing loud enough for the air to crack. ∘ ∘₊✧─ nerd satoru x fem reader.

synopsis ༘⋆ they kissed once. it went terribly.

years later, fate—or maybe just an underpaid astrophysics professor—pairs them for a group project that’s supposed to “translate the sky.” so, you’re somehow gonna make a planetarium with someone whose orbit still tugs at your ribs.

she wants to forget him with red solo cups and too-sweet cocktails. he wants to forget her by pretending he doesn’t see her in every hallway. but stars don’t lie, and even fake constellations have a way of pulling you back to what you tried to forget.

tags ༘⋆ modern au, university au, nerdjo, astrophysics major nonsense, fluff with a side of light angst, mutual pinning but make it tragically academic, reader has issues so is mean but has a soft spot, satoru also has issues but buries them under sarcasm and spreadsheets, friends to ??? to please just talk to each other, tension you could cut with a physics textbook, fake planetarium but real feelings, suggestive content (just barely. for now.) ᯓ art by @/almondtofu_boy on x.

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𝟏 ༘⋆

───── if awkward was a gravitational constant.

2:07 a.m. on a monday that still feels like sunday if you refuse to look at the clock. the campus is hibernating: windows black, corridors flooded in emergency‑light jaundice, air tasting faintly of cheap ramen, burnt coffee, and printer‑paper dust. the kind of hour that makes nostalgia feel like a good investment; when your brain is so pudding‑soft it’d let memories linger and sink in your head.

satoru squints at the page, his fingers carding through his white‑silver hair, messy tufts falling, as though the notes might confess their secrets if he glares hard enough— slowly, painstakingly, his mind begins its familiar crawl back into the spiral. right now, he's finally getting how utterly insane those symbols and letters would appear to some poor, unwitting passerby. not that he cares, of course. he’s just... submerged again. one thumb scrolls his phone. 2:08 a.m. his weekend officially evaporated, sacrificed to rescuing a fratboy who can’t spell 'thanks', let alone say it.

the silence stretches taut around the soft hum of the wind and the faint click of satoru’s phone keypad. the screen flickers in and out, its harsh light the only color in a room tinged with blues and blacks. the said room looks like a war zone: books and half-empty cups litter the floor, notes scribbled on scraps of paper and torn-off notebook pages. his laptop lies half-buried under a blanket, still logged into the guy's online homework portal, and a small tower of empty energy‑drink cans teetering on his bedside table, long overdue for the trash. if the flirting doesn’t wreck his heart, the caffeine will.

2:09 a.m. and the page is still winning. every derivative taunts him like a captcha he can’t crack. satoru drags a palm over his eyes, feels the grease of sixteen straight hours sitting on a chair. the frat boy’s pdf blinks in a background tab, waiting for him to approve an answer key that could’ve been solved by... any person who actually listens, or so he thought. he leans back, chair squealing, spine popping like bubble wrap.

he sniffs the collar of his hoodie— a habit, among all his other weird little quirks he’s sure no one ever noticed, or cared enough to, and immediately regrets it. "fuck." he grumbles. right. laundry.

the hamper in his closet is nagging him, a mountain of crumpled t-shirts and mismatched socks, each layer a reminder of a week lost to chaos, and above it all, a single t‑shirt featuring a mecha series cancelled after episode three. tomorrow’s lecture is at eight, and there’s no way he’s arriving to class in that crusty shirt, reeking of desperation.

laundry it is.

the dorm corridor chills his ankles the second he steps out. he hugs his overflowing basket like his life depends on it, phone clenched between teeth, and shuffles past the doors, quiet, his footsteps light.

the laundry room squats at the end of the hall, a lime‑green door nobody paints because nobody admits it exists. he shoulders it open, a small sigh leaving the soft plush of his lips, and his nose is immediately attacked by the cheap detergent scent trying to disguise the ghost of ten million sweaty freshmen.

the hum of machines is louder than it should be at this hour. that, or satoru is just hyper-aware of existing. he dumps his laundry without ceremony— colors and whites, socks and boxers, social dignity— into the nearest washer. buttons beep, water rushes. one less problem.

that’s when he notices it. not the humming, not the flickering light above machine 4 that’s been threatening to die since someone decided their thrifted shoes could survive a spin cycle. no, it’s subtler. movement, behind one of the industrial dryers, a shift of shadow.

the scent of fabric softener that isn’t his. but he knows this scent, he knows this slightly soft perfume that accidentally clinged to his bedsheets once, and somehow still haunted his teenage dreams. the image is still vivid, how could it not be when he replayed it every single damn night, looping endlessly in his head. the day you came to his house for a group project, a soft smile on your lips like you belonged right there, in the middle of stacked books and lowkey expensive figurines. it felt right, that time when you didn’t judge him. and then—

panties hit the floor. not his, obviously. red panties patterned with tiny snowmen.

he freezes. the panties stare up at him like a bloodstain.

then, slowly, like a horror movie reveal but somehow more humiliating, you round the corner. hoodie loose, sleeves shoved up, hair tied like you gave up halfway through, face lit by the glow of your phone, unreadable expression masked under blue light and detachment.

you.

the girl he’s only seen grow up, glow up from afar. laughing too loud with your friends outside the dorms. leaning against walls like you own gravity. always sipping something— coffee, boba, matcha, maybe even wine once, he swears— and never alone. satoru had quietly decided you became one of those people. not cruel, not loud, but charming in a way that suggested you never had to apologize for either.

—you look up. and there it is.

that flicker. that ugly, quiet flicker of memory recognition that hits like a punch under the ribs. not hello. not even you? or wow, it's been forever. just that one second where your face twitches wrong, just something sharp and momentary in your eyes, like your brain hiccups over his face before shoving the memory back into the box labeled 'don’t touch that shit'. but the damage is done, and satoru— basket of laundry in hand, hoodie stretched out, eyes rimmed in exhaustion— sees it. that one twitch too long. that microscopic pause. it’s enough.

you don’t say anything. just look. not shocked. not warm. just... aware. your gaze drags over him like an x-ray. a worn‑thin white tee ghosting beneath his navy hoodie. the overstuffed laundry basket. the boxers dangerously close to falling out. the smell of cheap detergent that never left him. but for thirty seconds in his life, he felt alive, he felt seen, someone looked at him—not because he corrected the professor for the fifth time, or because he muttered quantum theories under his breath in the library, or because his laugh was too loud in the middle of an otherwise silent lecture hall.

then down to the floor. red cotton against white tiles. your panties.

you don’t flinch, you refuse to show him that for a split second, you wished the floor would crack open and swallow you whole. you're probably too drunk from the party to have a proper reaction, but tomorrow morning? your pillow will muffles your groans, maybe your tears if you don't go to sleep right now, when you'll remember what you just dropped. you bend to grab them like you’re tying your shoe. like the room didn’t just shift tectonically. satoru doesn’t move, just try to rationalize his thoughts.

his eyes trace the way your fingers close around the lace—steady, practiced, detached. like it’s just laundry. like he’s just anyone. but it’s not, and he’s not, and the sharp silence between you stretches thin and ugly. maybe it’s just the tequila burning in your veins, flushing your cheeks and numbing any real reaction, you straighten slowly, meeting his gaze with that same tired defiance you wore in the hallway after finals week senior year. the last time he saw you, really saw you, before you vanished behind rumors and flings and that ice-cold indifference you wear now like a designer jacket.

he remembers it all too well. the way you used to lean in too close when you whispered in his ear. the way you'd hum under your breath when you read his books you didn’t understand a shit about. the way you'd twist a strand of hair when you were lying.

he remembers wednesday lunches in the back corner of the library, half eaten sandwiches, half breathless whispered secrets, when you says things like “i memorize what people love so i can become it.” and he says things like “i stay busy so i dont have time to notice how lonely i really am.”. the bus rides where your arms would touch and neither of you would move, pretending that sharing music through earphones somehow justified your shoulders touching. he remembers you in his room, asking if it was okay to take off your shoes, like you'd ever needed permission to be there. and he remembers the kiss.

god, the kiss. that awful kiss that haunted him.

teeth clinking, nerves unraveling. a disaster in slow motion. he leaned in like he was solving a math problem, hesitant, overthinking every angle, because until that moment, his only experience had been with 2d girls and clumsy googling desperate questions like ‘is eye contact really that important?’. you met him halfway and flinched mid-contact, when you felt the hard bulge under your thigh. it was messy. it was short. but it was unforgettable, in the worst possible way.

the silence hangs heavy. not peaceful, not charged. just there, like a fog neither of you wants to move through.

“god—dammit,” you mutter under your breath, ignoring the heat creeping up your neck, fingers clenching around your tote bag, at least your clothes no longer reek of a mix of cheap whiskey, cold smoke, and regret still warm from only a few hours ago. why on earth had you let some random guy finish between your thighs when you barely even liked him?

“uh— yeah, it’s—,” but before he could even align his tongue with his thoughts, and try to come up with something, anything that would make it less awkward, or one of the biting remarks he saves for the rare moments you share words, you’re past the door, and he's staring at the lime-green door, too stunned to speak. silly him, he almost forgot, pretending the other doesn’t exist is what you two do best.

but that night, he does think of you, wondering how the stars lead you both to whatever was between you. he imagines how the sigh you left would feel against his collarbone, swears your panties must smell like peaches—sweet with a hint of sweat—and knows his brain would short-circuit if he saw them hugging the curve of your ass. not that he’d ever admit it.

you fucking hate it.

your eyes dart sideways, just a flick, but for the first time in months you let them stay on him. he isn’t the scrawny boy you grew up with anymore; you didn’t notice until fate made you drop your christmas‑print panties—from the clearance rack, 100 % cotton, promised comfort—right at his feet.

you hate how breathtaking he’s become, how a careless, tousled sort of beauty has always clung to him. you hate that you noticed and still chose to ignore it, until the moment you realized he now stands taller than you and his hair steals the light in a way that makes you question everything einstein ever said about wave‑particle duality.

you hate that he's a walking contradiction: the way he is at once dishevelled and meticulous. his glasses are forever clouded with fingerprints, his lecture notes tattooed with coffee stains—yet his cherished graphing calculator rides everywhere in a spotless hard‑shell case like a relic. he won’t write with anything but that immaculate 1 mm needle‑tip pen, and when most of his work happens on his laptop, the screen luminosity set so low it looks secret, like anyone would steal the python code he uses to sketch nebulae. no one gives a damn what’s on his screen, even though he sits in the front row where anyone could easily see it.

well, that’s only half true. you give enough of a damn to notice how he lights up over galaxies—especially barred spirals. his weirdness isn’t creepy; it’s the kind that makes him do something silly and then flash that stupid, boyish grin. girls look at him, but he never looks back, and when he does, his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. he’s trained himself to stay closed off—no flirting, no relationships—because somewhere along the line he decided he isn’t worth the trouble. ever since you ghosted him just to see if he’d chase you, because you needed attention, the kind of attention it was easy for you to have, he’s treated love like a hypothesis he can’t prove: maybe biology or a chemical reaction, maybe social noise, but definitely not something he needs.

satoru has a theory. two, to be more precise.

first: the universe hates him. the universe he’s so curious about and admires despises him, no matter how much effort he puts into understanding it. the universe still hates him.

second: once you have one awkward situation with someone, they start popping up at every inconvenient moment. notice a face once and, somehow, it’s suddenly everywhere—passing you in the halls, chuckling softly in the lab, and settling beside you for the next group project.

“alright, future nobel laureates, wake up.” the professor starts, his tone lowkey sarcastic but passionate in that professor-who-lives-for-stars way. he clicks to the next slide. a single word appears: 'project.' bold. menacing.

“yes, i said it. the group project. don’t groan — you signed up for astrophysics, not solitaire.” the slide changes again. a starry sky fades in — orion, bright and clean. a few students sit straighter.

“here’s the deal: you’ll form groups of three. your mission is to translate the sky.” he pauses. a few brows furrow. “you can explore star formation, simulate a galaxy, recreate the cosmic microwave background in interpretive dance — i don’t care, as long as it’s clear, creative, and scientifically sound. this is about making the abstract tangible. give me something i can feel in my ribs.” he lets that sink in. clicks again — slide reads: 'due in four weeks.'

“you’ve got four weeks. presentations will be live. no reading off notes. impress me. or at least make me cry a little.”

then, casually, with the tiniest smirk: “bonus points if you make me look up during it.”

you got partnered up with satoru. you're fucking working on a group project with satoru gojo.

when he hears his name read alongside yours and another girl’s, he freezes. he hates working with others, too much of a perfectionist over small details he knows drive people crazy, and his social skills are so poor it’s worrying. but now he actually has to work with you.

see? he’s not that much of a conspiracy theorist after all; the universe really does hate him.