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mossmurdock · 5 months

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Wishing In the Rain (the sun is my shooting star)

ao3

summary: Satoru finds himself in the corners of a bookstore by complete chance, entranced with its very endearing owner and their love for the rain. The bleak and gloomy weather gains a new meaning through time, and along with that comes the not so subtle change in Satoru's feelings towards the owner themselves.

tags: very brief appearance of kugisaki and fushiguro and itadori, rain, the reader and their jewelry, gender neutral reader, bookstores, implied sexual content, reader owns said bookstore btw, denial of feelings, its one sided though because satoru is an idiot, alternate universe-cannon divergence, i made him a bit softer than i intended in this, but idc i think he should be loved, not beta read, fluff

notes: i wrote this almost two years ago now! unbelievable :o but it still has such a special place in my heart since i wrote it during a pretty difficult time and i wanted to finally share it with yall on here!!

EVERYTHING led back to the night Satoru had mistakenly fallen asleep at your apartment. The tiny trail of breadcrumbs that was his stale conflict deliciously pointed to it. And Satoru followed it like a famished, foolish fowl. A fool, really. He was at the scene of the crime laminating evidence.

He had met you at a bookstore of all places: silent, still, and sobering. The complete opposite of where Satoru would usually meet the people he would eventually decide on following home or vice versa.

It is rainy and he suddenly decides on pretending to need shelter.

You were shelving books in the isle he happened to be sitting in for at least two hours by then. All the way in the back of the store, slowly pushing your cart, slowly inching closer to his end of the narrow and dusty hallway. Satoru had been sitting against a wall with a window over him, the gray sky spraying itself on your extending arms. You would face the cart, select a book, brush soot off of its cover the best you could, push it into the shelf (with your thumb, index, and middle finger), and then push the cart again to start all over. Sometimes you would need to crouch to lower shelves, grimacing anytime you needed to. There was a small curse on your shoulder that would press its small finger into the side of your neck anytime you did.

Satoru cannot remember exactly what it was he had been reading, but you spoke to him about it once reaching the end of his hall with your creaky cart. Quietly, you whispered to him that it was a good pick, praising him for his selection. And while doing so you were slyly reaching into the back of the gray cart, placing a similar volume near him.

“I noticed it covered a lot more,” you said.

Between page twenty-four and twenty-five of the book was your number scribbled on the back of a bookmark. He notices it just as you are turning a corner, the curse on your shoulder suddenly gone (he pretends to not notice his hand waving it away).

Satoru had pocketed the set of digits before cashing in and exiting the small nook of a store, which maybe was his first real mistake. Satoru never called, so why had he kept the number in the first place?

Instead he showed up at the same store, the same day; only this time it was much later and the rain had gotten time to make itself heavier than before.

You fell into him in front of the bookstore doors unexpectedly, with quick hands and even quicker lips. You fit into his chest too perfectly for someone he barely knew the name of.

Satoru’s jacket is on the floor of your bedroom and he is pretty sure that dreaded bookmark is burning a hole through the fabric.

He at least was able to save himself by leaving as fast as he could, making sure to grab everything that was his and not leaving even a trace of himself behind.

For some reason he finds himself back in front of that bookstore only a week later. A bookmark he does not plan on using (he folds the ears of his pages) still very much in his left pocket.

“You’re back?” you ask.

“Of course I am. Plus, it is still raining. I needed shelter.” Satoru seriously should not be here, because you string him along into thinking that he could have ‘stayed for breakfast if he had wanted’ and that there would be a ‘next time’.

You tell him to save your number into his phone.

“How do you know I haven’t yet?” he asks.

You look at him up and down, still working with your hands: multitasking in a blur Satoru for some reason is hardly able to catch.

“You don’t seem like the type.”

There’s a book you leave on the counter when you leave to what Satoru safely presumes is the back of the store.

It's titled ‘Souhaiter’. And in between the same pages as the first time, a bookmark tells him to meet you at a bar he has only ever been to once before.

Satoru shows up late and with his jaw aching. You do not mind that he does not drink as much as you do.

And slowly, Satoru laxes. This is something he is more used to. The subtle tipsiness of movement, music that's a little too loud, and the flirtatiousness of two knees brushing underneath a table.

You down a drink and leave the stool, still half laughing from something funny he said. You tell him you are going to the bathroom by leaning into him, neon lights bouncing off the whites of your teeth.

You don't come back.

At first Satoru is worried he somehow missed some sort of lead you were putting down, having missed a hot moment that he convinced himself is what he showed up for in the first place. But he does not find you there when he goes looking.

Satoru officially ends his night with his phone up to his ear, a set of familiarized numbers flashing on the screen. He tells himself he did not remember your phone number by heart. It was absolutely an accident, he might even be ringing the wrong number. By the third ring he feels relieved that he might be right.

But then you pick up and it feels like his stomach drops.

“Hey! Leave a message after the beep!” You laugh, it tells Satoru that this is not an automated voice message. There is that subtle unevenness tilted between your breaths that he felt next to his ear only a half hour ago.

“I’m kidding—obviously—”

Another voice cuts in, much more slurred than yours. “Look it’s raining!”

You hush them, still laughing. “How’s it going, whoever you are?”

“It’s Satoru. Gojo Satoru.” He does not know why he repeats himself.

“Oh!” It’s the first time he hears you startled. “Satoru!” It’s the first time you say his first name.

“Oh,” he repeats. He repeats and does it over, he will do it over. The straying thought makes his stomach flip again, it makes him forget about the rain pelting onto his hair.

“I totally bailed on you…” you sigh.

“You did. After inviting me. That’s never—”

“The Gojo Satoru has never been stood up?” you interrupt.

“Obviously not.”

“Well I’m not glad to be the first, just for the record. I was really looking forward to you.”

A pause.

“You called though,” you say cheekily. “Didn’t think you had it in you. Think you could save it? Or are the Gojo Satoru’s contacts completely filled?”

He contemplates, finds himself smiling and wonders if there’s a drink in his hand. But the smile isn’t tipped at all, it is set and leveled.

“I don’t know…I might need to make some room.” He sucks a breath through his teeth, as if this was very difficult. In a way, this very much was.

He pretends to ‘make room’ by making electronic noises and random ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’. It makes you giggle.

“Oh!” Satoru exclaims.

“Oh,” you repeat. You repeat, and he hopes you do it over.

“As it turns out, there is room! Fitting you in right this second.”

You let out a feigned sigh of relief, and after your performance you add: “You’ll call me?”

Satoru finds himself saying yes before he can even realize he’s actually saving your contact information instead of pretending to do so. The screen of his phone is wet.

You slam him against a wall much like the first time. With your hand to his chest and the other snaking its way up to his shoulder. Satoru this time has to painfully deal with the harder edges of the bookshelf behind him, it jostles, stories threaten to spill out above him. He debates turning on his infinity, instinct telling him a book might fall straight onto his head; but the hand that had been on his shoulder has already made it to his waist and he would want nothing to stop the feeling. And at the same time, your head tilts into his neck.

There’s something about your lips that matches this place. Something about being timeless and the permanence of ink.

Words can be fleeting though, and you’re off of him right as things seem to be getting started.

“I really don’t appreciate the teasing.” Satoru pouts.

You smile. “Not teasing. Just making up for the bar thing.”

“That hardly felt like enough compensation.”

“Compensation for what?” You scoff, already back at the register as if you had not been unraveling him seconds ago.

“My feelings.” He expresses sadly.

Exasperated, you plant your elbows on the register desk and look at him pointedly.

“Don’t you have some meeting? I don’t want to ruin the small amount of professionalism you’ve somehow managed to gather.”

Satoru gasps, “I’ll have you know I’m very professional on a day to day basis.”

“Sure. Remind me when blindfolds started being professional?” you ask.

“This is an aesthetic choice—one that you very much said I pulled off just an hour ago,” he reminds. You wave him off.

“And besides.” He leans into your space. “the rain hasn’t stopped yet.”

Impossibly closer. You smell like fresh earth, like tea leaves and dust.

It is a forgettable and slow Sunday: the store is void of its usual customers, and pink stained sunlight lazes its way inside the building.

You cling to his shirt to bring him closer to you, chest to chest and breath to breath. Tugging on his lip just enough for it to hurt him. Just enough for him to let out a sound.

When Satoru reaches the Jujutsu higher ups, he is late and ruined by you.

One of them mentions the rainy season: small talk he does not care for; but it brings a wicked grin to his face.

“Why aren’t you wet?” you ask Satoru.

“What?” He chuckles through a mouthful of chocolate croissant, still warm. “That hardly seems like an appropriate question to be asking in public—but hey, if you’re into that—”

This is not a date, Satoru should know as much simply because he has repeated it both aloud and to himself at least hundreds of times since the morning has started. The problem is that it feels like it is; him buying you breakfast, his arm around your shoulders (to keep you warm, he jokes), you moving to hold his hand because you just cannot help being that bold (to keep you warm, you say), him giving said hand up because he for once cannot think of doing anything else. And because his hesitance would have only made you laugh at him without the slightest drop of malic to it.

This ‘not date’ is being held in the largest bakery Satoru has ever been in before. It was walking distance from your house, barely 5 minutes away. The only problem was that it had started drizzling again and the two of you had only just gotten out of the shower. The sky was also very bleak, too foggy for it to actually seem like early morning.

Turns out it was barely any problem at all. You liked the rain, and for Satoru, it obviously did not matter in the slightest.

Turns out it is a problem though, because Satoru has just walked through rain and barely has a drop of precipitation on him; his hair, while it should be at least a little frizzy from the humidity, still lays perfectly. And you have finally noticed said detail.

“That’s not what I meant.” You wipe crumbs from the corner of your mouth. “You’re completely dry.”

“Guess your umbrella wasn’t as broken as you thought.” He gives you a winning smile, but it only makes you squint your eyes at him suspiciously. The bar stool’s coolness is barely hitting his back, but he watches the raindrops racing down the bakery window reflect off of your face: just as cool and gray as the seat; and it gives him the same shiver up his spine that the cold chair is meant to.

“Are you…water resistant?” you ask him genuinely. It makes him burst out into laughter, the sound of the rain hitting the roof claps along with him in his amusement.

“What?” He chokes. “You just saw me in the shower.”

You shrug, “To be fair, I was focusing on other things at the moment.”

Satoru hums at that. “For someone who says they aren’t a morning person, you were pretty eager—”

“I’ll stop you right there.” You interrupt him, taking another bite of your food and another sip from your drink. Both have probably chilled by now.

“When did I mention to you that I wasn’t a morning person? Are you stalking me or something?”

No. Satoru was not a stalker, contrary to his friend’s beliefs (Nanami).

But what everyone did know was that he was observant.

When he came to see you this morning you opened the door with too many hearts on your sleeves. Your store is an hour or so from opening and a transit bus away, yet you are still wearing pajamas. You look freshly out of bed: bleary eyes and awkward posture. One side of your cheeks has the markings of a blanket and pillow on it, your arm hands by its side limply, the other drops from the doorknob only to rub at your sore face.

Your voice is hoarse and soft, like a crushed plum; and you are too tired to notice him blatantly fawning over you, or the way he hastily kissed your cheek before walking in. A gesture much too soft to be shared with a hook up.

But Satoru can barely call you that now. Not with a pastry he just bought you sitting comfortably in your stomach and his coat hanging heavily over your shoulders.

He says, “No. You just looked like shit this morning.” You punch him on the shoulder before moving to check the gold watch on your wrist. It is old and thin, he had first thought it was broken when he had seen it on your nightstand that first night.

“Man, I’ve really got to open.” You grab your drink and drop from the stool.

“I should go. Thanks for everything.”

You do not kiss him goodbye or even squeeze his hand as a farewell. You do something much much worse.

You whisper to him, “Come by again later tonight.” And you leave without taking your broken umbrella with you.

And you leave out the door with his coat.

Part of him thinks it is because you forgot you were wearing it and because the pouring has ceased; but the other part knows it is because the suggestion is the complete opposite of a goodbye.

And because you will need to see him to return the coat.

And because he will be reminded to buy you a new umbrella.

Satoru is beginning to become very fond of the rain.

The water ricochets from the roof of your apartment any time he is over and it begins to pour, which is more often than not. Placed on the top of the apartment building, it is the same as his luxurious home, top floor and closest to the sky; yet less empty and filled with more than just the echo of his own voice. Here, he feels full and soft, your own breath filling the already comfortable silence.

You look pretty underneath him.

You look pretty with him, He thinks.

Satoru falls gently onto your chest, wrapping his arms around your waist tightly.

He has run out of excuses to see you comfortably, and it is all the weather’s fault. He damns the clear sky for days.

Satoru damns it to hell; all of its annoyingly crystal blue and streaky pure white clouds. This has been the longest dry spell in weeks and the sudden heat has forced him to self-reflect. It has forced him to think of you more outside of when he was allowed to. The atmosphere of it all is uncomfortable: his blindfold barely sits coolly on his face anymore, curse blood no longer washes off of him easily, the smell of wet concrete is replaced by the hot stench of asphalt.

The hands of others are too clammy, too balmy, too blistering in all the wrong ways. He misses the brisk feeling of your fingernails on his skin.

It has been two weeks since Satoru has seen you. Two weeks since he has walked even a mile near your store, your home, that bar, or the bakery. Two weeks since he has bought himself a new phone on the excuse that the other model was old, and not because his prior had a contact on it he was too much of a coward to delete.

The lack of air conditioning in his apartment has been ignored for two weeks as well, and when he wakes up with the sheets sticking to him for the millionth time, he decides it is time to buy a new one.

He should have known they would have been sold out in most places. The city has fallen into an air conditioning shortage crisis that he very much does not appreciate after walking into the fourth store of the day. After the familiar welcome song of the glass sliding doors, Satoru’s legs extend their way to the electronics section as fast as they are able to.

Through his darkly tinted glasses, he scans for anything that would provide him with some sort of fresh air. His hand collides with another.

Satoru wonders if you feel the pressure of his infinity holding up before he realizes it is you. If you had felt the physical manifestation of walls breaking down.

“Satoru?” You look up at him while still bent down as he is. He imagines the situation looks a little ridiculous to any outsider: two pedestrians stuck in their crouched places in an isle and staring at each other in subtle shock. His hand sits still next to yours.

It is covered in gold rings, cold to the touch, and your wrist hangs with a dainty bracelet attached to it. Against his ankle, he can feel the breeze of your long, flowy skirt brush against him.

“Sorry, who are you?” He plays dumb.

If it were any other person he’s sure he would have gotten a slap to the face at the comment, but you almost burst out in laughter. Casually, you reach up to his face and pluck the glasses from his face as you stand to your full height. Satoru finds himself following you.

Staring at his bare face, you smile at his eyes.

“It is you!” You twirl the specs in your hand as he tries and purposefully fails at retrieving them from you.

“It would have been funny if it wasn’t though, right?”

No, it wouldn’t have been. Satoru’s face actually almost falls at the thought of you speaking so charmily with someone else.

“More like awkward.” You chuckle easily, it's refreshing, like iced tea.

“Where have you been?” you ask. “Felt like the heat made you disappear or something.”

And of course you had noticed, Satoru thinks, as you pull the glasses to your own face and slip them on. They don’t flatter you at all.

“Can’t a man be busy?” He doesn’t mean to sound so snappy, but you’re too patient.

When you look up at him again, he can only see the way your eyebrows raise at his response to your question.

Your head turns at the sound of someone else walking into the convenience store, Satoru’s does as well. While his neck stretches to the front of the store he watches your hand snatch up the small air conditioner in the corner of his eye.

“Anyway,” Your voice makes his neck crane back to its original place. “I’m heading back to the store, I don’t want to leave it alone too long with my new employees.” You sigh.

“You hired people?”

“Yeah. I needed more help around after the rainy season ended, business has been spiking recently.” There’s a proud tilt on your lips.

“You’re free to come with, you know? I drove here, I could give you a ride.”

Satoru doesn’t really know what else to do besides watching you pay for the fan he was going to buy and sitting in the passenger seat of your car.

“I’m back!” you exclaim lightly into your store. There’s a new bell attached to the front of your door that chimes, it sounds better than the old one.

Two voices overlap each other as you make your way to the cashier and Satoru follows with his hands in his pockets. You set down the plastic bag on the old wooden counter. He notices a new register having been placed ever since he had last visited.

“Boss!”

“Please tell me you at least found a fan.”

Three figures make their way from the back: the new employees you had quickly told Satoru the names of in the car. They all pause for a second when he meets their eyes.

“Who’s this?” Nobara asks.

You look over to Satoru, as if having forgotten he was standing there all together. “Just a friend. Introduce yourself, Satoru.”

Before he can, the one with black hair: Megumi, speaks up. “I know you.” The boy says accusingly. “You always ordered the worst coffees at my last job, they were a pain to make,” he grits out.

Satoru smiles sweetly. “Always feels great to be remembered.”

It makes the other only scowl further, while Yuji looks between the two of them.

“You’re too handsome to just be a friend. Was that some sick way of rejecting him just now?” Nobara says bluntly. It makes you laugh.

You change the subject by patting the plastic bag still in front of you, the thud of the cardboard box catching the attention of all of them.

“You three set this up for me, ok? I’m going to stock what you guys weren’t able to with Satoru.”

A string of affirmations make their way through the room as Satoru and you leave to the back.

The back of the store seems to be the same as it was the first time he had exchanged books with you. That same window is there, you are pushing the same loud gray cart, and most importantly: Satoru is still not quite sure how he has ended up here.

The only difference is the sun, the lack of pitter pattering rain. Dust is highlighted by the strong dusk, he can see the copper shadows of your arm as you line book after book into its shelves. The sound of hard covers rubbing against each other meets his ears just as fast as the words that leave your lips.

“You do know you can come see me when it isn’t raining, right?”

Another book is shelved, arm extended, fingers curving around a spine.

“I—”

“Because it really is funny how I’ve only ever seen you while the weather’s shit.”

Your rings blink at him through rays, they twinkle.

“I thought you loved the rain.” Satoru leans into the bookshelf you’re working and catches your eye.

You scoff at him, you're finding this very funny, like Satoru is missing out on a big joke.

"Of course I do."

“Then what’s the problem?”

“It’s just—” You put away the last novel and then move to push the cart behind you: resting your forearms on it while leaning just the slightest bit away from him. You are standing at an angle Satoru is happily willing to lean into even more, almost caging you in.

You whisper, “I think I’d like seeing you in the sun.”

You pause. “I think your hair would look even nicer—your eyes too, if that wasn’t already obvious—and I have this feeling you like popsicles more than ice cream. Which is great, because there’s this popsicle stand not too far from here but they’re only ever open during the summer—when it isn’t raining.”

Stunned, Satoru pushes the word through his throat. “You think?”

“I know.” A little louder than the last, more conviction.

There’s a light in your eyes that grows as the cart that has been holding your weight begins to roll away from all of the pressure. Your arms lose their support behind them, making you trip trying to catch yourself while falling backwards. Satoru’s infinity subsides, like storm clouds parting away. He reaches an arm around your waist just in time to catch you.

He is breathless. And not because of your beauty, or because of the near fall; but because you are laughing.

He does not know what else to do but kiss the stars from your lips, to laugh an apology into you, to stamp a promise of another night falling asleep next to you.

Satoru wants to watch the sun rise with you this time.

#i cannot believe how much i think about this fic still #im still so proud of it and that used to happen very rarely #anyway enjoy my lovelies! i hope yall like it!#moss writes #jjk x reader #satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader

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