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tonycries · 3 months

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Go For It, Gojo! - G.S.

Synopsis. You wouldn’t fuck Gojo Satoru even if you were paid… …is what you thought exactly five minutes before you were shoved against the wall of this cramped closet, his face stuffed in your soaked panties.

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, academic rivals to lovers, student president! reader, unprotected sex, banter about physics, cunnilingus, oral sex (male + female), 7 minutes in heaven, college! AU, 69, Satoru is a tease down bad for you (and has a big dick), overstimulation, pet names (sweetheart, hardass), swearing.

Word count. 10.2k

A/N. I really don’t like physics. Art by @_3aem on X.

Life truly has an awful sense of humor - almost as bad as Gojo’s, which you discovered on the first day of Advanced Quantum Physics.

The air charged with nervous energy and the scent of freshly printed syllabi, you quickly snag a seat right at the front row of Professor Yaga’s class.

Ah, you’ll never forget how peaceful those few seconds to yourself after introductions were - before the devil incarnate dramatically swung open those lecture hall doors and plopped himself down right next to you. Late.

“Any closer to Yaga and you’d be fucking his wife, y’know.” a voice hums from beside you, shattering your daydreams of passing this class with flying colors and riding a wave of glory into becoming a Nobel prize-winning physicist.

With a slight scowl, you turn your attention to the source of disturbance - only to meet eyes with (self-proclaimed) campus sweetheart, Satoru Gojo, leaning on his chair with an air of nonchalance. At your silence, he repeats, “I said any closer-”

“I heard what you said.” you snap, irritation flaring at the amused twinkle in his blue eyes and the mirthful grin that spreads across his lips at your reaction. “Doesn’t erase the fact that you’re sitting here too.” you raise a brow.

“Oh me? That’s because I’m already fucking his wife, sweetheart.” he deadpans with a blank expression.

What? The tense silence that follows is deafening - for the first time ever in your life, you were shocked into speechlessness.

A beat passes. One. Two. Before Gojo bursts into hysterics, clutching his stomach. “You- you shoulda seen the look on your face- HAHAHA-” he gets out between uncontrollable laughs. Face burning, you train your eyes forward and will yourself to not glance at the 6’3 mess cackling beside you.

Ugh. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Just think happy thoughts - kittens, quantum mechanics, being valedictorian. Desperately attempting to block out the giggling thorn at your side, you recoil at Professor Yaga’s extremely disapproving look in your direction.

Panicking, and dreams of being his ace student slowly flushing down the drain, you quickly flip through your notes, attempting to catch up to where the lecture had now started.

“Looks like we’re in trouble, partner~” Gojo’s dramatic stage-whisper catches the attention of students around you, them chuckling at your expense.

“Hey, you’re the student president, right? Hey~ Heyyy prez~” As Professor Yaga continues his spiel about the syllabus, you continue to very obviously ignore the incessant comments that spill out of Gojo’s lips, to stifled laughs from his fast-forming entourage.

The harder you tried to focus on Professor Yaga’s words, the louder and more absurd Gojo’s comments became - as if he’d made it his personal mission to enrage you. A sense of impending doom looming over you, you glare at him with a look that could’ve melted steel, hissing out, “Do you ever in your life shut the fuck up?”

Eyes widening in mock innocence, he grins “Oh~ I didn't know our student prez could get so feisty. Maybe I should take notes instead of doodling hearts around your name in my notebook.”

Ears ringing in embarrassment and frustration, and mind a whirlwind of how bad it would really be if you killed Gojo right here, you almost miss Professor Yaga’s question, “Now, would anyone here be able to discuss the interpretations in the debate between the Copenhagen interpretation and the Pilot-Wave theory?”

Teetering on the edge of your seat, you raise your hand, scrambling to salvage whatever is left of your academic reputation. You and- Gojo?

You start at the call of your name from Professor Yaga, “The Copenhagen Interpretation uses Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and emphasizes measurement to state that quantum-level particles can act as both waves and particles. It’s the most widely accepted and pragmatic theory.”

Gojo basically falls out of his seat in eagerness to answer after you.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Gojo.”

You internally groan, ready for whatever bullshit was about to come out of his mouth.

With a deep breath, “Not to be the devil’s advocate but the Pilot-Wave theory makes way more sense practically.”

Professor Yaga raises an intrigued eyebrow at Gojo’s statement, the class collectively holds a breath - as if awaiting the impending academic battlefield.

Gojo, with a cocky grin, plows on, “Think about it. The Pilot-Wave theory suggests that particles have definite positions and paths, unlike the uncertainty principle of the Copenhagen Interpretation. It's like predicting where a ball will land after you throw it, rather than saying it could be anywhere until you look."

Oh? He wasn’t a complete idiot?

Yet, you roll your eyes, “But the Pilot-Wave theory is too fanciful, it brings in too many hidden variables that have their own set of problems. It goes against the measurements and principles of locality!”

Unbothered by the challenge, Gojo leans back further in his chair, “What’s a couple complications? It’s a lot clearer on a microscopic level, none of that weird uncertainty of the Copenhagen Interpretation.”

Irritation running through your veins, you scoff at his condescending tone, “It might seem intuitive, but experiments and observations support the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics.” You’re almost out of your chair at this point, an accusing finger pointed at Gojo. “Despite its weirdness, the Copenhagen Interpretation has proven successful in predicting outcomes.”

“Oh yeah? And it’s also only used by hardasses that just want to shut up and calculate, sweetheart.”

“Big talk for a little bi-”

“OKAY STUDENTS, that’s enough for now. Let’s put a pin in this discussion and move on with the topic.” Professor Yaga, who had been watching the debate with amusement, promptly ends it once you two begin to get overly heated.

The rest of the class, on the edge of their seats and probably hoping for some fists swinging between the academic titans, now sit back in disappointment at the fight cut off early.

You sit back in indignation, fuming at how Gojo had gotten you so worked up. And he was wrong too!

The lecture continues as if you two were never two curse words away from each other’s throats.

But, in the midst of it all, your glare meets blue, sparkling with amusement - a jolt of electricity runs through your body at the glint of recognition of the other’s brilliance. An unspoken yet undeniable competition.

You’ve avoided Gojo like the plague for the past few months since then - which isn’t doing much when said plague follows you around everywhere with incessant calls of “Hey, hardass prez~”. The only time you seek him out being to gloatingly show off the large, red “100” on your tests - to which, unfortunately, he does the same.

It’s stupid. It’s childish. Honestly, sometimes you think he just tries to get under your skin for the hell of it.

But you don’t have the time to think too deeply into that.

Just like you don’t have time for this frat party.

Music and alcohol thrumming through your veins, it’s always the same thing. You’d rather be holed up getting ahead of your physics textbook than be here. Yet, you owed a favor to your friend Haibara - and he’d been bugging you to come to this party for weeks now.

You’ll just stay another hour then leave, you sigh.

Zoning out as Haibara plays an overly-intense game of beer pong, you’re startled by an arm around your shoulder. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t our lil’ prez looking like she’d rather peel paint than be here.” The expensive cologne hits you before the realization of who this was. “Drooling over the jocks? I recommend the STEM majors, sweetheart, jocks aren’t that great in bed.”

Quickly shrugging off his arm, you scowl, “Not like STEM majors are any better. And unlike some people, I have goals beyond being the life of the party.”

Decked out in slacks and a slightly too-unbuttoned shirt, Gojo chuckles, “Yeah, like what? Banishing fun?” Cerulean eyes gleaming with mischief, “You gotta let loose for once, sweetheart. Not everything in life is about academics and accolades.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes “Well not like I-” but whatever snarky retort gets caught in your throat as Gojo seizes your hand, effortlessly pulling you onto the dance floor.

Caught off guard, you can do nothing more than sputter in surprise as he leans down to murmur in your ear, above the bass reverberating the walls, “C’mon hardass, sometimes in life, you just gotta- dance!”

Gojo spins you into a dramatic dip, his silver chain brushing your face and his hand on your back burning into your skin.

Your cheeks burn in embarrassment - yeah, embarrassment - as the people around you cheer in amusement at the science department’s biggest rivals navigating the dance floor with surprising chemistry.

This was ridiculous. And yet, music ringing in your ears, you almost crack a smile. Almost. That is until your eye catches Haibara’s surprised ones from the side of the dance floor. Wait - here you were dancing with Gojo.

Gojo pain-in-your-ass Satoru.

Immediately pushing him off with a hand to his chest, you don’t listen to whatever spills out of his mouth as you make your way to Haibara, disappearing with him into the crowd.

“Hey, hey you okay? Wasn’t that the guy you were manifesting would step on Lego with his bare foot?” Haibara’s concerned voice speaks up from wherever you were dragging him through this sprawling frat house.

“Ugh, yeah. Sorry about that, I don’t even- Anyway, how did the beer pong go?” you snap out of your reverie. What happened there? You were almost…enjoying yourself with Gojo Satoru of all people.

Listening to Haibara brag about his dominating beer pong win thankfully took your mind off of your little endeavor with Gojo.

“And then Yuji totally-”

“AH, THERE YOU ARE! Perfect, come join we’re two people short!” your kinda-friend Shoko’s drunken drawl breaks through the conversation. You can barely get a word out as she forcefully drags you two into a dimly lit room against your protests.

The atmosphere heavy with beer and laughter, she plops you two down onto the floor in a neat circle of people before taking her seat beside you. “GREAT! Now we’ve got everyone, we can finally start.”

With a mischievous grin, Shoko declares, “Alrighty, folks! Time for the ol’ classic - we’re playing 7 minutes in heaven!” pulling out an old-fashioned, tattered hat from behind her back, to a collective mix of groans and cheers from the circle.

“Where did you even find that ratty old thing, Shoko?” a sharply handsome man - Geto, you think - chuckles from his seat opposite you. And beside him- your heart stops. Gojo.

A smirk curling his lips and twinkling blue eyes locked on you.

As if on instinct, you move to get up - only to be brought back down by a hand on your wrist. “Nuh-uh, no one’s escaping, c’mon it’ll be fun.” Shoko smirks, beginning to hand out pieces of paper to write down your names.

Apprehension pooling in your stomach, you share a glance with Haibara, who was honestly just happy to be here. Reluctantly, you scrawl down your name, tension building as it drops into the abyss of the hat.

“As our first attempted escapee, I think the prez should go first.” that agitating voice you knew too well speaks up. If looks could kill, Gojo would be six feet under and you’d be dancing all over his grave with a textbook on the Copenhagen Interaction.

To agreeing laughter - and your impending doom - the hat is promptly placed in front of you. God, you knew you should’ve stayed home. With a shaky hand, you delve in, grasping onto a slightly crumpled piece of paper.

Not Gojo. Please not Gojo. Literally anyone but Gojo-

Turning it over.

Satoru Gojo.

You jolt in surprise, rereading the hasty handwriting over and over - as if willing it to change. This must be some kind of sick joke. Eyes meeting Gojo’s, a flash of surprises passes his face before a self-satisfied grin takes over. He looked way too fucking pleased with himself.

“No fucking way.” Shoko mutters as it dawns on the group just who you were paired up with. Cheers and wolf-whistles erupt, filling the room as Satoru stands up extending a hand theatrically towards you. “If her highness the student prez would do me the utmost pleasure of joining me.”

You scoff, jeez it would be a surprise if you two didn’t kill each other in there. “Unless she’s…intimidated?” he bats his long lashes at you mockingly.

Intimidated? Of who? Swatting away Gojo’s hand, you stand up. “Intimidated? Don’t make me laugh.”

He leans down, retorting, “I’ve tried but you don’t seem to know how.”. The room holds their breath, attention squarely on the two of you.

A beat of silence passes as you glare at him. You really could smack his annoyingly pretty face right now, but you shouldn’t - too many witnesses.

“Now now, you two. Save it for the closet.”

Ever the mediator, Geto ushers you two in the direction of the - very cramped - closet tucked into a corner of the room.

Before you know it, the creak of the heavy wooden door rings in your ears as the door closes behind you. The loud click of a lock resonates, plunging you two into darkness.

The muffled sounds of the party seem miles away as you try to focus on your breathing - trying not to let your mind drift to Gojo. You could feel the heat of his body, the ghost of his presence less than a foot away from you.

“So…” you flinch as Gojo’s voice cuts through the deafening silence. “You still alive and breathing after being trapped in a tiny closet with me?”

You huff, desperately wanting to break out of this closet, “Yes, but you probably won’t be if you don’t stay on your side.”

“This closet is barely a closet, there’s no ‘side’, sweetheart. And that’s my leg you’re resting on.”

You immediately scramble to move away from the warmth of Gojo’s leg that you’d been subconsciously leaning yours on. In the chaos, you probably did a bit more damage than solving. “Ah! Wait- watch the crown jewels, hardass.”

You distance yourself as much as possible in the small space, knee burning where it had brushed up against Gojo’s that.

God, you were making a fool of yourself.

“As much as I like forceful women, you better take me out on a date first, sweetheart.” As your eyes adjusted to the dim lighting filtering in through the slight crack of the door, you could make out that signature playful grin.

Your irritation simmers beneath the surface. Gojo always knew how to get under your skin.

“Don’t you worry your empty lil’ head, I wouldn’t fuck you even if I was paid.” you bite back.

“Oh yeah?” Gojo leans in slightly, his voice low and teasing. “You sure about that, prez? I’ve been told that I’m irresistible.”

You raise a brow, unimpressed. “Yeah, irresistibly hard to not smack.”

“I always did like ‘em feisty. Makes our little debates all the more interesting.”

“Our debates would be a lot more interesting if you learned to keep that big mouth shut.”

“Oh? C’mon, prez, you love this ‘big mouth’. And you love the challenge. I see the way you look for me every time you answer one of Yaga’s questions, y’know.” Gojo murmurs, gaze piercing into yours.

He leans in closer - now definitely not on his side of the closet. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d call it chemistry. Admit it and I might consider not calling you ‘hardass’ for a whole week.”

“What- That’s just because- I’d rather be called ‘hardass’ for a lifetime than admit to having any chemistry with you. I can’t even tolerate you for seven minutes here.” you sputter at both his proximity and his (absurd) accusations.

“As the student prez, isn’t your entire job to tolerate everyone? You’re a walking contradiction, sweetheart.”

“I am not. You have no effect on me.” you protest, standing firm. In the heat of your argument, you and Gojo have drawn closer to each other. His breath now fanning your face as he hums, voice a seductive tease, “I do, admit it. There’s a part of you that likes our chemistry.”

A defiant spark ignites in your eyes, “I’ll admit no such thing.”

“Then…hit me like I know you want to if you don’t want this.” he whispers, voice breathless. He closes the distance.

Gojo’s lips meet yours.

Soft, they were so soft.

Your heartbeat thundering in surprise, a hand raising to - to what? Smack him away? Eyes fluttering closed, your hand fists his shirt, the other subconsciously finding its way to his cloudy locks. Tugging. Kissing him back.

Satoru kisses you like he’ll never be able to again. Because, he knows - he probably won’t.

Lips searing against yours, his eyes roll to the back of his head at your taste. Sweet - so sweet - just like candy, with a hint of Baileys and everything that he’ll never be able to have.

A strangled groan leaves his throat when you bite down on his lips. Tugging with your teeth. Shit, fuck him and his bigass ego, he wanted to be the one showing off his irresistibility but really it’s the other way around.

Mouth opening to let you in, he drinks in your gasps as he intertwines his tongue with yours. Large hands on your face pulling you impossibly closer to him in this godforsaken closet. It was dizzying - almost as if it hurt to part, drawn by that familiar magnetism that always seems to hang around you.

Lost in the heat of the moment, Satoru’s hands wander the expanse of your body. Groping and squeezing every curve and dip - he doesn’t have enough time. He probably never will.

A hand rests firmly on your hips. Awaiting. Breaking away - just a fraction - he breathes out urgently into your lips, “I need to taste you. Let me taste you. Please.”

“Desperate, huh?”

Your gaze pierces through him, it always does. Immediately after your disoriented nod, he presses a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses along your neck. God, he could do this forever.

You shudder as he hastily bunches your tight dress at your hips, sending blood rushing straight to his cock. Shit, this was not how he expected these 7 minutes to go.

Hurriedly falling to his knees, the pain doesn’t even register when he comes face-to-face with your clothed cunt. Panties already so wet - just for him. Cock twitching carnally, he needed to taste you now.

Tongue flattening across your swollen folds through your underwear, just a slight taste of your wet pussy and Satoru already thinks he might pass out. Ah, so good - of course you taste heavenly.

“Ah! Gojo- more.”

Pulling away, he feels drunk off the whimper of disappointment that escapes your mouth. “Call me Satoru.” he hums, fingers deftly sliding your soaked panties down your legs. His hot breath fanning your entrance has you clenching your thighs together, desperate for any friction.

Mouth watering at this, Satoru curses the darkness inside the closet - can’t even admire your pretty pussy right. You flinch as his face meets your cunt. Shit, this was better than he’d ever imagined on those lonely nights pathetically fucking his fist.

He breathes you in so sinfully, tongue sliding teasingly between your folds in a leisurely rhythm that almost has him forgetting however many minutes you two have left. Frankly, he couldn’t give less of a fuck about it either. Sinful squelches fill the confined space, along with your quiet moans of his name.

“Hngh- S-Satoru. Feel s’good. Faster.”

Ah, it’s really music to his ears. Your voice plays on repeat in his mind. He doesn’t even realize the call from outside until you look down at him, eyes dazed and kiss-bitten lips moving to panickedly mutter, “Satoru, we only have three more minutes.”

Ah, guess he’ll have to take his time in his dreams.

“I only need two.” Satoru purrs, lips ghosting your wet core, voice sending goosebumps down your spine - all the way down to your dripping cunt.

“W-well, stop hngh- running your mouth then.” you retort.

Satoru’s smirk against your plush folds is the last thing you see before he dives nose-deep in your pussy. He doesn’t waste time, tongue dipping in and out of your hole at an unforgiving pace. In and out in and out in and-

“Hah- yes! Satoru jus’ like that!” you hiss out, desperately trying to keep the moans ripping from your throat to a minimum, in fear of the others outside hearing.

Noticing, Satoru snakes a hand up to your mouth - bullying his ringed-fingers in through your swollen lips. His index caresses your tongue, speeding up his movements on your pretty pussy as you gag around him. Moans catch in your throat as you struggle to accommodate him, the pleasure of being stretched from two ends too much.

Satoru only has to take one look - tears clinging to your lashes and drool trickling down the corner of your mouth as you suck on his fingers - before he thinks he might just cum in his pants. Fuck, it was so lewd.

You tighten your grasp on his hair, sure that your knees would give out if it wasn’t for the bruising grip he had on your hips, keeping you firmly on his mouth. Unable to run away.

Shit, for someone so tight-laced, you were so messy on his mouth. He moans as your slick pools in his mouth, dripping down the corners of his lips. The tap! tap! tap! of it hitting the hardwood floor rings deafeningly in his ears.

Ah, so this is why they call it 7 minutes in heaven. Satoru thinks he wouldn’t mind dying if it was in between your legs being suffocated by your cunt.

Your entrance clamps down desperately on his tongue, forcing him to bully it into your snug pussy, fucking you unrelentingly. His nose rubbing against your swollen clit over and over.

At this point, Satoru doesn’t know whether the pulse he feels is that of his heartbeat or your cunt, throbbing and achingly needy for his mouth. His nose stimulates your clit just right, sending shockwaves through your body that have you bucking into him for more.

Voice slightly muffled by his fingers, “Fuck- Satoru, keep going. Hngh- I’m gonna cum!”

The way your walls desperately try to fuck his tongue has his cock straining so painfully against his trousers. Satoru increases his abuse on your cunt mercilessly, the harsh pace making you squeal and buck into his face. Your juices are now all over his mouth, gushing around his tongue. In and out in and out in and out-

“Satoru!”

You cum hard - all over Satoru’s pretty face.

Now, Satoru loves when you run your mouth and infuriate him, but he might just love it even more when you’re falling apart and speechless under his touch.

Riding out your high on his features, you can feel yourself quivering around his tongue as he laps up your juices as if it were a delicacy. Deep moans leaving his mouth and vibrating across your soaked cunt, making you jolt at the overstimulation.

Pulling back, Satoru admires your unfocused eyes and bruised lips. “For someone that so fucking despises me, your slutty pussy sure is sucking me in so desperately.” he murmurs, slightly out of breath after what just transpired.

“Sh-shut up.”

Ah, if only he got to see this view more often.

You can’t help but feel the same way. Seeing Satoru fucked out, vibrant eyes half-lidded and blown out, your slick prettily glossing all over his mouth and nose. A small voice in the back of your mind wishes he was more like this and not whatever he is when he’s getting on your nerves.

“ONE MORE MINUTE! Finish up whatever devil’s tango or death match y’all are having in there!”

Those troublesome thoughts are pushed out of your mind as soon as you hear Shoko call from outside.

The bubble is broken. Jumping apart as far as possible in the cramped closet, you press yourself into the closet wall as you two wordlessly rush to make yourselves slightly more presentable. The air, once charged with overflowing tension and sex, now so strained.

Bending down to feel for the panties that Satoru- no, Gojo had thrown god-knows-where, your hands graze his - still slightly wet with your spit. Snatching your hands back as if it burned, you make out Gojo’s figure pocketing something.

…

Your panties??

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” you hiss, face burning at both his actions and the idea of going outside without panties.

“Just think of it as repayment for the fun.” he hums, mirth spilling into his tone. And before you could snap at his antics, Shoko is ripping the door open and looking around the closet for what you can only assume to be missing body parts and blood.

“Aw, man. And here I was thinking Satoru would be six feet under by now.” she groans, walking off disappointedly - for which you were eternally grateful otherwise she’d have seen the few suspicious stains on the floor.

“Remember, you owe me twenty, Shoko.” Geto speaks up from the circle. Were they…betting on whether you and Gojo would kill each other in there?

Finally stepping out of that godforsaken closet, you catch the smirks and raised eyebrows from some of the people from the group.

Meeting Gojo’s eye, a smirk curls around his swollen lip as he swipes a thumb across it. Agonizingly slow. Teasing.

Your cheeks flare, something pooling in your stomach. Ugh, this is why you hate frat parties.

“You alright, man? You look…flushed?” you hear Geto question, pointedly staring at Satoru’s slightly disheveled look.

It was all getting too much - the alcohol in the air, the thumping of the overplayed pop music, and him. You felt so lightheaded. Ripping your gaze from Gojo’s you leave without so much as a goodbye to him, only stopping for a reassuring nod at Haibara. You make a beeline for the exit, dashing out of there and down the winding staircase as fast as you could.

Focused on navigating the packed party, you almost don’t register Gojo rushing after you. Ignoring whatever words were tumbling out of Gojo’s mouth, you silently thank the sorority that had just pulled up - clinging onto him in greeting, making it impossible to follow after you.

The cool night air washes over you as you finally step outside. You sigh in relief as you leave the chaotic sounds of the party - and him - behind.

Impatiently waiting for your friend on the way to pick you up, only two thoughts echo in your mind.

He actually only needed two minutes.

What the fuck?

Meanwhile, back in that heady room, Shoko nudges Suguru, the latter still watching in amusement where Satoru had run after you in the door. “Hm?” he asks, absent-mindedly.

“Why do most of these papers have Satoru’s name?”

---

You pass through the next morning in a daze. The hardest part was probably trying to get dressed without making eye contact with the purple finger marks on your hips that Sato- Gojo had left to remember him by.

You still can’t believe that happened.

It’s alright, it was just a mistake in the heat of the moment - you just have to forget it ever happened, right? But that’s easier said than done when your last class of the day is Advanced Quantum Physics.

Cursing your timetable, you step through the crowded campus. You pull your sweater tighter around yourself, the fabric doing nothing to stop your skin searing where Gojo’s lips had been just last night.

Alright, you just had to get through this one class today. There’s a lot of people in Professor Yaga’s class - it’s not like you’ll necessarily see that bane of your existence-

“Yooo prez, fate just seems to bring us together hmm?”

Gojo almost topples out of his chair, waving in your direction. As your eyes sweep across the room, you can feel your heart sinking. Shit, you really feel like you’re being Punk’d right now.

Cursing whoever was up there for this cruel joke, you make your way to the desk beside Satoru’s - the only empty one.

Slumping down onto the chair with a frustrated huff, you sink into yourself - eyes trained firmly forward and ignoring the playful grin in your peripheral vision.

To your surprise, Gojo doesn’t say a word throughout the lecture. Not a single comment about fucking any professor’s wife - or your cunt. Huh, did last night cause some type of qi deviation or something?

As Professor Yaga drones on about quantum entanglement, you find the words going in one ear and out the other, too focused on wondering what Gojo’s game was.

It’s only towards the end of the lecture, at the introduction of some new assignment that you find yourself finally letting your guard down. Okay, see, it wasn’t too bad. Now time to go back to your apartment and study whatever quantum entanglement was for the next five hours.

“Ah- And remember, the midterm assignment pairings are posted on Canvas.”

What was that?

God, you hated working with other people. It was much more efficient for you to stay in and finish this paper in one sitting.

“So, partner~ My place or yours?”

What?

The bell rings, its metallic chime resonating in your mind almost as loud as Gojo’s words. Signaling the end of class - and probably the end of your sanity.

You wish the ground would swallow you up at this very moment. These days have really not been your days.

---

“Literally what do you bring to the table?”

“Comedic relief and my undeniably good looks.”

“...”

“...and also the case study and background information.”

The air at the stuffy café just off-campus was a mixture of freshly ground coffee and hushed conversations - of course, occasionally disrupted by the chaotic debates that erupted from your little booth.

Not too long ago, as everyone moved to file out of the classroom, you were frozen, glaring at your open laptop so intensely you half-expected it to combust - scrutinizing the neat arrangement of Gojo’s name next to your own over a million times.

Finally sighing in defeat, you nodded in surrender at Gojo - who was whooping in victory. But, you were still adamant on meeting somewhere in public. The last time you two were left alone ended up…interesting.

“Then you do that and I’ll take care of the rest of the theoretical analysis and evaluation. Okay, sounds good, Gojo.” you deadpan, rubbing the sides of your forehead in frustration.

“Ouch, no Satoru?”

Ignoring his comment, you promptly slam your laptop closed, gathering your things with a determined sigh. Ready to escape the stifling atmosphere of the cafe. “So you do that and put it on the doc, and I’ll do the same with my parts. See ya.”

That’s when you feel a large hand covering yours - the same one from- “Hey there now, hardass, stay a little longer - gotta make sure you don’t slander quantum entanglement in our essay the same way you do with the Pilot-Wave theory.” Gojo interrupts your intrusive train of thought.

“What? Unlike you, I don’t slander any scientific theories. Although, I do think the idea of entangled particles jumping around like you do is hardly the hallmark of a stable scientific theory.” you retort, face burning but setting down your bag nonetheless.

Resting his face on his hands, he grins at you. “Oh yeah? I think stability is overrated, prez. Quantum entanglement challenges you because it’s a realm where your precious stability crumbles in the face of non-local correlations.”

God, was he glad he begged on his knees to Yaga to pair you two together. He was having way too much fun with this.

“Just because particles can communicate faster than you can comprehend doesn't mean we should abandon reason.” you raise a brow.

“Well, I think you should just embrace the uncertainty, sweetheart. Life is a game of chance, just like quantum entanglement.”

“Oh, really?” you drone out, sarcastically.

“Yeah, think about it. For instance, I never thought I’d still be alive and breathing after last night. But here I am.” at your stunned silence, he continues. “I for sure thought you’d have the coffin ready as soon as I kissed y-”

You panickedly place your hands over his mouth to shut him up, those blue eyes twinkle in amusement. “When I said you had a big mouth I really wasn’t lying, huh.”

Slowly removing your hands once it seemed like Gojo wouldn’t spill your endeavors in this family-friendly cafe, you sigh, “Okay- We’ll get some shit done today, alright. But this is the last time I’m meeting with you for this.”

“Mhm~ You got it, prez.”

It was not the last time you met with Gojo for this.

Nor was it the second-last.

Or the third-last.

Each and every time you two worked together on the assignment, you’d spend more time bickering about anything ranging from what you’d learned in Professor Yaga’s class that day to whether the old lady who frequented the café was a part of the mafia.

“I’m telling you, she handles those knitting needles like they’re a weapon.”

“Mhm and she sips her Earl Grey like she’s plotting espionage. Now, get to work before I use my teaspoon as a weapon.”

“I’d rather investigate her than this damn Qiskit simulation.”

“Sure, Gojo. I’ll add her to our list of groundbreaking research projects.”

“Don’t come crying to me when I rub it in your face once we see her on the news as a mafia queenpin, prez.”

You’re pretty sure the café employees have a love-hate relationship with you and Gojo - too lively to be one of their favorite regulars, but arguments too amusing to kick you two out.

And as for your relationship with Gojo…well. It’s not as if you can’t go 7 minutes without being somewhat civil, and yet that’s exactly the issue, isn’t it?

After what had happened that night, it feels as if there’s something charging the air whenever you two are together.

You chalk it up to just lingering tension, but that still doesn’t explain the way Gojo’s eyes hold a warm twinkle whenever he looks at you - gaze a little too warm than you’d expect a rival to have. But it’s fine, you just have to ace this assignment and then this strange dynamic can go back to normal.

It’s only towards the end of your assignment that you realize how wrong you really were.

---

Out of breath and darting across campus towards where you knew Gojo was waiting, you half-wish you joined the track team instead of the student government. Damn student reps, can’t keep proper archives.

As much as you got a kick out of getting on Gojo’s nerves, you hated to keep anyone waiting.

“Ah! Prez! Was heartbroken thinking you’d stood me up, y’know?” Satoru calls once he spots you bolting towards him on that dimly-lit pathway. Wow, maybe you should’ve joined the track team.

You trip. Ah, maybe not.

Feet automatically hastening your way, he catches you. Well, more like you fall into his arms.

“Just in time, huh?” he chuckles, thankful for the sun dipping below the horizon - otherwise you’d surely have caught the rosy flush tinting his cheeks. Arms wrapped around your waist and supporting your waist, Satoru almost coos at the surprised look gracing your face. You always did something to his heart.

Hastily distancing himself from you once you stand on your own, he rambles - anything to drown out the banging of his heart against his chest. “So, I’m assuming you were out there doing all your president-ly duties?”

“Ah! Yes, I’m so sorry, the meeting ran overtime and-”

Listening to you rant, Satoru thinks that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here - bickering with you. He’s only snapped out his reverie at your disappointed groan. Oh, what was this? He didn’t even realize his feet had carried him to the little café already.

Ripping his eyes from you, he turns to what moping at. A sign with red writing is plastered over the very locked café entrance - Sorry! Staff training today, hope to see you tomorrow!

“Seems like everyone’s got meetings today.” he hears you grumble. Satoru knows it isn’t right, but his heart leaps slightly at the chance to get to know you outside of that familiar cafe.

You, meanwhile, felt tension - and something else - pooling in your stomach. Shit, if the sanctuary of your café is no longer available…

“Well, we could just go home and finish off the paper by ourselves. It’s only the last bit anyway.” you suggest, voice slightly shaky at the idea and anticipation of actually being alone with Gojo after so long.

“But Suguru’s such a loud snorer, I’d never get any work done.” Gojo whines. Well, there goes that plan.

“The library?”

“I hear it’s haunted this time of year.” he answers right away.

“Ghosts are seasonal?” you ask absent-mindedly, too focused on weighing between the need to finish this assignment today and the uncertainty of what would happen between you and Gojo.

A tense silence fills the slowly darkening street as you go through all your options. Finally, watching the long shadows casted now, you sigh. “Fine. We’ll go to my place.” you mutter out.

“Would you get angry if I celebrated right now?”

“Maybe.”

The walk to your apartment is bathed in the soft orange glow of the setting sun. It was almost peaceful - if it weren’t for Gojo’s excited chattering about god-knows-what.

Your mind was running a million miles a minute. Was something like last time going to happen? Were you a lecher for expecting it? Why didn’t you mind the thought as much as you think you should?

You risk a glance at Satoru, who was in the middle of a passionate speech about how ketchup was a valid condiment on pasta. Soft sunlight paints his hair an amber hue, casting warm shadows that bring out his pretty features, eyes sparkling with passion and mischief. He was beautiful.

Wait. Beautiful?

“Hey isn’t this your apartment building or is walking past it a pre-entrance ritual?”

Ah. Whoops.

You snap out of those ridiculous notions, gathering whatever dignity you have left to walk back to the apartment complex you’d left in the dust while wrapped up in your thoughts.

“Oooo, didn’t take you for much of a decorator, hardass.” Gojo comments, flitting about your cozy apartment to look at all the little knick-knacks and pictures

“Did you really think I lived in some sterile lab?” you retort. Gojo’s almost-endearing curiosity amuses you enough to let go of the electricity thrumming through your body at having him so close. In your home.

“Well, I expected more beakers and fewer fairy lights, sweetheart.”

You roll your eyes, pretending to be offended. “Believe it or not, Gojo, hardasses can have a sense of style, too.”

He continues his exploration, stopping in front of a photo on the wall. “Who’s this model?” he grins, pointing at a picture of you in stuffy formal attire at some conference.

You sigh, knowing exactly which photo he's referring to. “That, Gojo, is me at a conference presenting a groundbreaking research paper.”

“Groundbreaking, huh? Is that what they call it these days?” he hums, arching an eyebrow playfully.

“Yes, and six feet under is what they’ll be calling you if you don’t get your ass here and finish this paper.”

“...yes, prez.”

Writing the conclusion and inserting citations is always the fun part. If you could write an essay on whatever you want, it would be only conclusions and citations, you think.

After a few hours of working on your paper, apparently Gojo does not feel the same way.

“Fuck Noodletools. All my homies hate Noodletools.”

“This is why you only have two friends, Gojo.”

“Hey! I’m a very likable person, y’know.”

“...”

He sets his laptop down leaning closer to you over where he was seated opposite you on the coffee table, clearly bored of citations for the time being. “Also, aren’t we friends, sweetheart? Technically I have three.”

You raise a brow, this was the first time Satoru had ever addressed the strange dynamic you two had. “Are we?” you ask, genuinely.

A deafening silence envelopes your living room. This was the first time you’d seen such a serious expression take over Gojo’s face as he answers, voice even, “I’m not sure.”

The atmosphere thickens with a charged tension, the weight of Gojo’s words lingering in the room. A spark flickers in his eyes. You feel like you could almost get whiplash from the contrast between the heated banter to where you two were now. Was it always so hot in this room?

You let out a strained laugh, attempting to diffuse the seriousness and go back to a trivial territory you were more familiar with. “I never thought the great Gojo Satoru would be uncertain about something.” Your eyes flicker unwillingly from his intense gaze to his worry-bitten lips.

The mischief returning to his gleaming eyes, he smirks “Uncertainty can be thrilling, don't you think, sweetheart?”

You don’t even know what to say to that - and you don’t have to. Because before you can respond, Gojo swiftly leans over the coffee table - catching your lips in a sudden, electrifying kiss.

Time stands still. A shiver runs down your spine as you realize that you didn’t want to push him away. At all. In fact, you grab a fistful of his soft locks, pulling him impossibly deeper into the kiss.

Pulling away mere millimeters, Gojo’s hot breath fanning your mouth as he whispers, “Told you the uncertainty is thrilling, sweetheart.”

“Shut up and kiss me.” you grumble, irritated because his lips ghosting yours was not enough.

Before you know it, Gojo has you pinned against the plush couch. His lips finding your, the kiss deepening as he yearns for that desperate connection - as if each breath depends on smothering you with dizzying kisses.

The room seems to shrink, right now only filled with the heated exchange of breaths and the feeling of Satoru’s lips searing into yours.

You think he tastes like caramel and uncertainty - yet, this time, you fall into the unknown with open arms. Wrapping your legs around his toned waist, your arms around his broad shoulders - bringing him to you so close you’d think the laws of physics were taking a coffee break.

It almost hurt.

The intensity of the moment only growing, the atmosphere in your homey apartment crackles with a tension that you knew in the back of your mind had been building for so long - ever since that party.

Your heartbeat echoes in your ears. You knew this would happen.

And a part of you needed it to.

His fingers trace a path along your jawline, leaving a trail of heat - you shudder, craving for more.

“Gojo, I want you.” you breathe out, words muffled by Satoru sucking sinfully on your lips.

He pulls away slightly, delicate strings of saliva still connecting him to you. Every fiber of his being resisting to part.

“Don’t call me that.” he purrs out, the intensity of his half-lidded stare sending a jolt straight down to your heated core. “It’s Satoru when we’re fucking, remember?”

Looking into his sultry eyes, for the first time ever you decide to heed what Satoru says. “S-Satoru, please.” you whimper, hips bucking up to meet his own. You can feel the large outline of his achingly hard cock straining against those stupidly overpriced trousers, pussy quivering in anticipation.

Now, there have been three times in his life that Satoru thinks he has died and gone to heaven. The first being when he discovered that the ramen joint by his dorm also had free Wi-Fi. Second, that first day in Advanced Quantum Physics when you snapped at him told him to shut the fuck up.

And finally, right now, as he’s got you needy and squirming underneath him - such pretty gasps of his name leaving your kiss-bitten lips.

God, navigating quantum physics is a walk in the park in comparison to what you put his heart through.

“Hmm, never in my life thought I’d see his view, sweetheart.” he whispers lowly into your ear, delighting in the goosebumps that erupt along your alluring body. How did he get so lucky?

Hastily pulling down your shorts, his mouth waters at your wet panties. Another prize for him, hm? Throwing them along with your panties to god-knows-where, Satoru drinks in the sight of your bare pussy - a privilege that he didn’t get in that godforsaken closet.

Ah, so ready and dripping for him already. Your slick glistens out of your heated entrance as you clench around nothing. “Aww, they’ve faded.” he whines, heart lurching at the lack of his marks from last time.

It’s alright, he can just make more.

Not one to waste time, with a bruising grip holding your hips steady, Satoru grinds his painfully hard cock into your needy cunt, savoring the pretty mewls that leave your mouth. The way your swollen pussy quivers against him makes him throw his head back, seeing stars already.

Nipping along your neck, leaving marks he knows you’ll have to cover up tomorrow. “Sit on m’face,” he murmurs into your skin.

“W-what?”

Pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses along the valley of your breasts, Satoru breathes you in. Fuck, he prefers the smell of your skin to any scent in the world. “Sit- on- my- face.” he repeats, words punctuated with erotic kisses to your hardened nipples, tongue flicking them through the fabric of your clothes.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, y’know?” you gasp. Yet, still shifting on that cramped couch. Why do you two always fuck in the most inconvenient places?

Satoru’s legs hang off the end of your couch as he lays on his back, you’d almost find the position funny - if it weren’t for you straddling his head.

His hot breath on your wet cunt sends waves of electricity though your entire body as you hover over his mouth. Your needy pussy right above where his mouth is, hesitating. Your slick oozes slowly through your swollen folds - drip! drip! drip! onto his awaiting tongue, brows furrowing and eyes rolling to the back of his head at your sweet juices.

“Mhm, and I hope that you’ll be the death of me.” he hums, tongue savoring your taste.

It’s the last thing said before Satoru surges forward, plunging mouth-first into your heated cunt.

Despite not being on a time crunch this time, Satoru doesn’t waste a moment teasing - he already has you splayed out and aching for him, what more could he want?

He bullies his tongue into your snug cunt, pushing past the first ring of muscle. You twitch around him, sweet moans spilling incessantly from your mouth. “Ah! Hngh- Satoru! Fuck s’good.”

Your sounds of pleasure going straight to his dick, he bucks into your hands. Ah, more. He needs your touch more.

The feeling of your plush walls clamping down on him only spurs him on further, fucking you at a ruthless pace. One hand gropes across your body, resting a thumb on your clit that rubs tight circles, making you grind down further into his mouth.

“Your pussy is so honest, sweetheart. She wants me so badly.” he murmurs, voice sending vibrations that make you let out a loud moan which he suspects your neighbors would be complaining about.

You were so perfect for him, Satoru thinks he might go insane.

You were definitely going insane.

Satoru shows no mercy, his abuse on your dripping cunt only speeding up at every buck of your hips into his tongue. It felt so fucking good.

Closing your eyes, his pressure on your core has you seeing spots behind your vision. You could feel the curl of his signature smirk against your folds as your pussy tries sucking him back in at every thrust. Too good to let him go. “Knew you loved this ‘big mouth’, hardass.” he murmurs.

Shit, you can’t be the only one acting so needy like this.

“What’re you doing, sweetheart?” Satoru drawls, voice muffled by your cunt as he feels the breeze of his lower abdomen hitting the heady air of your living room.

“Payback.” is all you mutter out as you fumble his trousers down his long legs. Curse these gyms. Curse squats. Why did he have to be so perfectly sculpted? An Adonis in his true form.

You can feel the saliva pooling in your mouth as his boxers come into view - rock-hard cock straining painfully against it A patch of pre-cum pools at his head - he wanted you just as badly as you wanted him. Hands shaky from the way Satoru’s incessant tongue was fucking into you, you shuffle his boxers down.

Satoru’s painfully hard erection springs out, hitting his lower abs. Fuck- how the hell were you supposed to take him? Life was really unfortunate - water was wet, and Gojo Satoru has a huge dick.

“S-sweetheart, you don’t have to-” he murmurs against your swollen pussy.

From all your times shutting up Gojo Satoru, this one might just be your favorite.

His words catch desperately in his throat as you spit out a pool of saliva onto Satoru’s furiously flushed head. A low hiss leaving him as you teasingly lick his sensitive slit.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Satoru attaches his lips with yours once more. He groans lowly into you, the stimulation making you yelp in surprise.

“So, it’s like that, huh?”

Satoru doesn’t have the time to ponder your words before you take in as much of his length as you can in one go. “Ah! Hah- Oh fuck, prez. Always knew you were a forceful woman.”

You moan at the slightly salty taste of his precum. Gagging around him, drool drips down the corner of your mouth as you try to take him in inch by fucking inch. It was so fucking messy.

Diving nose-deep in your cunt once again, Satoru continues the merciless pace of his tongue once more. Both your muffled moans fill the heated room, lost in the pleasure and the heat of the moment.

Shit, you knew by the way your walls clenched down on his tongue that you weren’t gonna last long. And judging by the urgent twitching of Satoru’s cock - he wasn’t going to either.

He fucks up his throbbing erection into your mouth, your eyes watering as his tip hits the back of your throat. Ropes of spit and precum decorate your lips. Even the staunch part of you that never backs down for anyone cheers at being so used. It’s so fucking debauched.

Your hand moves down to massage his heavy balls, tugging and pulling at a rhythm that matches the rapid ministrations of his thumb on your swollen clit.

Mind spinning and pleasure dizzyingly overwhelming as you both lean closer and closer to your highs. With a final mewl around his thick cock, your juices are gushing all around Satoru’s mouth.

Your mind blanks as you cum, the only things registering being the tingles of your oversensitive pussy as Satoru rides you through your high on his tongue and the taste of Satoru as he cums in hot spurts in your mouth. Salty, with a hint of sweet - the flavor making your pussy twitch.

Fucking his seed into you, your mouth milks his cock. His cum dribbling down the corner of your mouth, all thoughts of dirtying your couch go out your brain when you hear the fucked out whines at the back of Satoru’s throat.

Fuck a refractory period, you wanted to hear that more.

You remove yourself from him with a lewd pop! Cum flowing smoothly down your throat, you lock eyes with Satoru over your shoulder. His jaw drops, pupils blown lustfully as your tongue sticks out - showing the way you’ve swallowed every single drop of his seed.

“Now, Satoru. I need you to fuck me with yours cock just as you did with your tongue.” your words still strained from your orgasm.

Wordlessly, Satoru nods, eyes shining - still reeling from the sinful sight of your bruised lips glossy with his cum - his cum that you swallowed as if it was a delicacy.

Meanwhile you were thinking that you should fuck Satoru more if it meant you got him to shut up and be pretty more often.

Slightly more clear-headed now, just as lustful.

Your couch creaks in protest as you shift positions to face Satoru once more. He seizes your lips in a passionate kiss, mouth attacking yours with a desperation for your essence.

Your head spins as you taste yourselves on each other, words tumbling out of your mouth in the haze, “Satoru, bed- now.”

But when has he not challenged you?

“Mhm, anything you say, prez.” he whispers raspily against your lips, still-hard cock teasingly dragging along your swollen folds.

“Satoru.”

“Fuck yes. Say m’name, sweetheart.” he groans out, throwing his head back against the armrest. Your slick pools all over Satoru’s thick head, dripping sensually down his length to where he gripped tightly at the base.

Swollen lips dropping into a small “oh”, he slides a ringed hand up his member, spreading your juices. Cock twitching carnally at the way your pussy was leaking all over him, he grits out, “Need to feel you around my cock now, sweetheart.”

So he does.

Thick head pressing into your tight entrance, a low growl leaves his throat at how sinfully tight you were. Fuck, he could just about pass out right now.

“S’tight, sweetheart. So good.” he fucks up into you in shallow, uncontrollable movements of his hips - impatience quickly waning. You yelp at each thrust, walls burning with the stretch of Satoru’s thick head.

You try to steady yourself as Satoru’s thrusts get deeper and deeper, nails digging harshly into his muscled shoulders. In the midst of it all you still manage to impatiently slur out, “I-if you’re gonna fuck me then hah- fuck me like you mean it, Satoru.”

Oh, that did it.

Your words make the last bit of sanity Satoru had left snap.

In a swift movement, he sheaths his throbbing erection in your wet cunt completely. A gasp gets caught in his throat at the way your walls were clamping down on him in surprise.

He looks up at you, eyes half-lidded and a dangerously predatory glint in them that sends shivers down your spine. “Fuck me like I mean it, huh? You’re quite bossy, y’know that, prez?”

Before you can retort - and probably dig your grave deeper - he stands up in one fluid motion, your legs around his waist and cock still buried deep in your snug pussy. You moan at the change in angle, his tip now kissing your cervix so deliciously painfully. Shit, you feel so full.

Hands moving down to grope your ass firmly and support your weight, he grins lowly in your ear, “You’re lucky I love that part of you.”

The wall is cold as Satoru shoves your back against it. his body making the air leave your lungs as he presses into yours, ramming into you at a merciless pace. Your tight cunt clenches so tightly around him, as if to prevent him from leaving.

Each thrust into your warm core has his eyes rolling to the back of his head, brows furrowing in ecstasy. His lips capture yours once again in a rough dance that matches the cadence of his hips.

You mewl against his mouth at the feeling of his heavy balls stinging your skin as they smack your ass. The power behind each harsh thrust has you bouncing against the wall, legs pulling tighter around his toned waist to bully his cock impossibly deeper in you.

“Where- fuck! Where’s the bed?” he moans breathlessly against your lips, voice sounding as if each thrust of his pulsing cock into your plush walls sends him spiraling deeper into insanity.

“Down- down the hallway. Hngh- fuck, Satoru!” you not far behind.

Your mind is foggy, barely even registering as Satoru moves blindly towards your bedroom with powerful strides - not yet pulling out of you.

He doesn’t get very far before he’s got you sprawled over your bedroom floor, your carpet digging into you as his cock slams into your abused cunt with that feral pace he loves so much. Not even making it to the bed.

“Ah! Hah- Satoru, what happened to the bed?” you sputter out in-between uncontrollable moans.

“Too far. Hngh- need you now.” he answers around your breasts, teasing and tweaking your sensitive nipples.

“Wh-who’s irresistible now?” you manage to smirk, relishing in the huff of laughter that escapes him. Even now, you always did manage to one-up him.

“Mhm, you’ve always been irresistible, sweetheart.” he mutters, moving to press a chaste kiss against your forehead, not sure whether the words were even meant for you to hear.

And you know it’s just pussy-drunk talk, but right now you can’t help the way your cheeks heat up, heartbeat ringing in your ears.

Not sure how to respond to that, you pull him closer to you, allowing him to bury his burning face in the crook of your neck. Maybe right now neither of you needed to speak, your bodies doing enough talking as Satoru continues his relentless cadence.

Your hips bucking up to meet his, you whimper in pleasure and overstimulation into the heady room as Satoru moves down a hand to draw rough, little circles over and over your throbbing clit. It was all too much. “S-Satoru.”

“Me too, my sweetheart. Me too.” is all he gasps out, teeth digging into your neck at the pleasure overwhelming his sensitive cock. Satoru’s tight balls twitch as they smack your ass, cock glistening with cum and slick. He sees stars behind his eyes - or maybe those were tears at the overstimulation. He really doesn’t know anymore.

Head spinning and thoughts racing with only Satoru Satoru Satoru, you’re very much in the same state.

“Satoru?” you whine out, tears clinging to your lashes.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

You pull him into an intense kiss, pussy clamping down on him desperately as his lips brand yours - it sends you both over the edge.

Satoru thinks he sees heaven as he cums, and you were probably an angel.

Hot ropes of his thick cum paint your walls white, cunt quivering around him as you both ride out your climaxes together. A creamy ring forms around his base as he fucks his seed into you desperately, marking you so obviously as his. All thoughts of Plan B run out of your mind at the overstimulated whimpers leaving Satoru’s ruby lips.

His dick twitches inside you as his unforgiving thrusts slow down to shallow grinds of his hips, nothing more than to keep his cum inside of you as your highs bate.

Body collapsing onto yours, careful to not crush you with his weight, Satoru pulls you closer to him. And despite everything that happened this evening, he thinks that this might be what makes his ears burn red the most. Your body so vulnerably connected with his own. Just the two of you in this quiet world.

The silence feels intimate and fragile. Brain still hazy from your orgasms, you don’t think you’ve ever quite looked at your bedroom ceiling from his angle.

Strangely enough, Satoru’s warm weight on you feels comforting. Neither of you speak now. Nor do you speak when Satoru carries you to bed, searching through your clothes for a washcloth he can wipe you clean with.

It’s only when he lingers at the foot of your bed - uncertain - that the silence is broken. “Get in, stupid.” you scoff, opening the covers invitingly.

Of course, an elated smile overtaking his face, Satoru jumps in your bed with enough force to send you both bouncing. It was childish. It was so ridiculous. It had you barking out a surprised laugh at his antics.

In your joy, you don’t even realize that Satoru has stopped moving - frozen, smile slipping off his face and staring at you with an unknown spark in his eyes.

“What?” you question, feeling strangely self-conscious.

White locks tousling as he shakes his head, he breathes, “It’s the first time I’ve made you laugh.” The words hang in the delicate atmosphere, tension so thick you think it could snap any moment.

You hide your face in your hands, palms clammy. “You- you make me sound like some sort of evil witch.” you stammer out, embarrassment pooling in your gut. The tension in the air dissipates, yet the intensity in Satoru’s gaze remains.

Satoru understands, smiling blindingly. He pulls your naked body to his, wrapping his arms tenderly around your waist as you both bury into the covers. “Well, more of a hardass than an evil witch.”

“Satoru?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“You still have to finish your citations.”

A/N. Can be read as a standalone BUT part 2 planned for next longfic Sunday!

Plagiarism not authorized.

#gojo x reader #gojo smut #gojo x you #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen #gojo satoru #tonywrites

14K notes · View notes

forlix · 3 months

Text

𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you.

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere.

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?”

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to hit his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall. Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation.

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath.

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you.

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle.

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly.

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.”

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade.

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment.

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes.

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting.

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything your schedule allows.

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything.

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation.

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights.

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead.

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?”

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass.

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know?

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago.

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek.

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes.

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration.

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off.

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?”

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will.

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back.

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

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