Chapter Text
The metro station bustled with activity as Gojo Satoru, clad in a leather jacket that was brand new but stylishly looked like it had been in a cement mixer, looked over the heads of fellow commuters impatiently. He was scanning the crowd for a familiar face, chewing the inside of his cheek because he was already buzzing with the anticipation of seeing her.
He spotted her a few yards away, Iori Utahime, in her neat school attire, standing slightly impatiently, checking her watch. It made him look down at his careless attire for the pleasure of the juxtaposition. Whatever he was, she seemed the conceptual inverse of him and he liked that. They'd made plans to meet at this station at 5 pm. Gojo had arrived at twenty minutes past the hour. He’d cut it too fine with his time management, he realised, but he knew that she’d get mad enough to pout, but not mad enough to be genuinely upset. He liked it when she pouted — it was so fucking cute. As he approached, he let the passing flashes of other commuters make a fascinator for his vision, drawing out the pleasure of seeing her — the navy-blue skirt, the white button-down blouse, the chic heels. Her black hair fell around her face in soft waves today. It was one of the things about her that seemed out of place for a school teacher. She had too much of it, dark and glossy and coquettishly curled today where it was normally a straight fall like inky rain. She had it half up with a silk bow tying it back, a signature look of hers. He'd probably had a crush on her since the first day he met her, although he hadn’t realised it was a crush until about a year into knowing her. He hadn’t initially realised that his compulsion to force himself into the field of her attention was possibly his pathetic desire to be liked by her.
Utahime turned and saw him coming towards her, and her expression immediately refashioned itself from anxiety into something like a grumpy little cactus.
"You're late," she huffed, placing her hands on her hips and tipping her chin up at him like it was supposed to be intimidating.
"Sorry, sorry," he replied with a sheepish grin, trying to bite back the agreeable prickle that went down the centre of his belly at seeing her outline the curve of her hips in her combative stance.
And yes, she’d pouted — pretty, full pink lips with a fresh lick of gloss on them. It genuinely made him feel like chuckling. Gojo grinned at the little poke of her lower lip and shoved his hands into his pockets, gesturing for them to leave the metro station with a jerk of his head because he might do something reckless if his hands were left free. Utahime hitched her silly handbag over her shoulder, pushing her slender fingers through her bangs to straighten them as the gusts from a ventilator exhaled into her face.
"How was work?" he asked casually.
"Oh, you know, same old," she sighed, navigating around slow walkers as she scurried to keep up with his long strides. “It’s been a long week of hard labour.”
"Ah, I see," he said, although he honestly had no idea what she was talking about.
Up until recently, Gojo didn’t work. He hadn’t really expected to ever, if he was honest, so he really couldn’t be mad about everything tumbling down around him so messily. It seemed very dramatic, truth be told, but in a satisfyingly retributive way. In a way, it was like Gojo had been waiting his whole life for the castle to crumble and when it did, it was narratively satisfying.
Indictments. Embezzlement. Fraud. It was like vocabulary from a stage play about comeuppance.
"What's your plan for the evening?" he asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible, like he didn’t have very clear expectations of how he wanted to spend his time in her company.
Utahime sighed. "I need to study, I have an exam coming up. And I have an online lesson later with a student."
"Oh? Exam?"
"It's for my degree. I have to pass if I want to qualify as a counsellor."
"Oh," he repeated, a little more dejectedly this time.
He’d be so disappointed if he didn’t get to see the flush creep over her cheeks in a dim bar. Gojo was sustained by these small morsels.
“Yeah, I need to upskill,” she murmured, looking determined. “Fortune favours the over-qualified.”
Gojo sighed, grumpy that his plans for the evening were in jeopardy.
“Boring,” he declared. “You already have a degree. I know because I was there with you for four years and it was dull as fuck.”
“I need another one, apparently,” she rolled her eyes. “So that I get paid more.”
“Boo. Hiss,” Gojo deadpanned, giving her words a thumbs down.
"Calm down. I'll still come out with you," she muttered, shaking her head.
"Really?"
"Yes, Gojo. Don't look so pleased,” she sighed. “You didn’t win anything. I said that I was going to come out, so I am.”
"Oh, well, that's good then. It's been a while."
"We literally hung out yesterday."
"You must be confusing me with someone else," he yawned. “Because it feels like I haven’t had my character assassinated in some time.”
"Shut up, Satoru."
He loved it when she called him by his first name — this was another morsel. But as he opened his mouth to reply, their stride out of the metro station hit a sudden speed bump. A man with green hair had stopped dead in his tracks in front of them on the landing between two escalators. His eyes were as wide as saucers. There were two girls with him who also jolted to a standstill, making confused half-utterances, like their friend was a puppy on a leash who had stopped abruptly at a fire hydrant.
Gojo almost stumbled over all three of them.
“Erm…sorry…”
The boy with green hair, probably a university student, was staring at him. Gojo had a sudden flash of panic that there was something on his face or perhaps he'd accidentally forgotten to zip his pants after taking a piss. He checked, just in case. Nope. Zipped up and clean.
"Can I help you?"
He had no idea why he was being so polite to this strange guy. He was not usually so charitable. It was probably Utahime’s presence. She tended to elevate his general level of magnanimity, via a process that he could only assume was osmosis.
“Haruki, what gives? We’re gonna miss the—-”
The boy with green hair opened his mouth. Then shut it again. Then he held his hand up, palm out, as if to say, "one second."
“I know you from—” the guy suddenly blurted out, and then stopped short, his eyes widening even further.
Gojo stared and then the penny dropped.
Oh.
Gojo glanced at Utahime, who narrowed her eyes in annoyance at the scene. This was, admittedly, a performance in the same vein as girls staring at him across nightclub dance floors or nudging their friends to look at him on the bus. Gojo had, at one time, considered whether the attention of other people would make Utahime jealous. It seemed to only make her irritable, and so, for the most part, it was more of an inconvenience than it was worth.
But this was slightly different. Gojo wondered whether he could be in for more of this in the future. He’d always been something approaching infamous in his circles all through high school and university, so this didn’t really feel like an uncomfortable mantle to take on.
The guy with the green hair was flushed red as a strawberry. The shaggy green top of his head only enhanced the illusion.
"Can I have a picture?” he squeaked, almost approaching a wheeze.
Technically, Gojo felt like pointing out, you weren’t supposed to get that kind of thing for free. But the guy was so painfully awkward that Gojo actually felt a little sorry for him.
"Oh, uh, okay," Gojo nodded.
"Satoru," Utahime hissed, grabbing his arm, worried.
The guy with the green hair suddenly focused on her and his cheeks flushed an even more florid shade. Gojo almost chuckled, because he kind of liked the idea that this boy would think Utahime was his girlfriend. Or maybe he just thought she was hot — she did look particularly pretty with her hair in waves like that.
“Gimme your phone," Gojo said to the guy, holding his palm out.
The boy scrambled to pull his phone from his pocket and fumbled around with it. His hands were trembling when Gojo took it from him. Gojo titled the phone up quickly, grinning at the back camera, angling it down from on high. He glanced at the screen.
Gojo liked the picture — his grin was rakish, his hair was slightly in his eyes, you could see his dimples. But best of all, you could see Utahime’s slim fingers still wrapped around his bicep, the gold of the ring on her thumb glinting, a sliver of her face which showed one wide brown eye, a pretty ear poking out from her dark hair, the corner of a silk ribbon peeking out the back of her head like a cat’s ear. He kind of wished he could get a copy.
“There you are,” Gojo drawled, shoving the phone back into the shaking hands.
"Th-thank you," the guy said, uncertain he had actually got what he wanted.
Gojo was about to say something else, but the boy turned around and fled, his friends running after him and shouting in confusion.
"What the fuck was that?" Utahime mumbled, her fingers falling away from his arm as they started walking again.
"An admirer," Gojo answered smugly.
"He thought you were someone famous."
"A lot of people think that, Uta," he told her sagely. "I have film star good looks."
Utahime rolled her eyes.
"What do you want to eat?" Gojo tried to change the subject, because they both might as well forget that the incident had occurred at all.
A few months ago, he had wondered if his father’s case would propel him into the limelight. His family was wealthy, but they’d not really been in Society Pages since his mother died. Maybe if his mother had still been alive, they would move in those circles. Either way, it was a saving grace, because no one seemed that interested in him and then the news cycle had ground on. He was past it now, in his mind — his father, his mother, all that messiness. He’d have his trust fund soon and be free of all of that.
He wanted to turn his attention back to the small anticipated pleasures that awaited him in the night ahead. Gojo had suggested dinner first because he was hopeful that she'd have a beer or two, and if he got lucky, she'd have a couple of whiskeys if they hit up a bar afterwards. Utahime had a weakness for beer. He wasn't proud of the fact that he liked all the different ways she got drunk. Even angry drunk Uta was hilarious. She was normally so perfect and composed, and then she had one beer too many and she would come unravelled like a small, dark-haired Tasmanian Devil.
"Oh, uh, I'm not fussed," she murmured.
Gojo scoffed. Utahime was very fussed, actually. She always had something to say about the restaurants he chose. He had learnt pretty early on that trying to impress her with fancy fine dining would yield counterproductive results.
"Let's get pizza," he decided, turning the corner and taking off running down the street before she could hum in indecision. "A quick slice before we meet the others."
"Gojo, wait!" she huffed, following him and wobbling on the pavement as she tried to keep up with him bolting down the street.
“Mmm! Pizza! Breakfast of champions!” he yelled back down the street to her as he broke into a run. “Supper of kings!”
“Fine!” she yelled back. “Just stop running, I’m in heels!”
He stopped abruptly and she collided with his back, cursing floridly. They found the small pizza restaurant that Gojo had in mind and ducked inside.
"It's packed in here," he mused, scanning the room. "Must be good."
"You can't trust the food from any place with no seats," Utahime muttered.
"Well, there are a few at the counter," he replied, looking around. "And you can pretty much always trust pizza. It smells so fucking good."
He looked down at her when she didn’t have a retort, and was amused to see her standing in a sort of daze, looking at the menu on the wall, her gaze sliding up and down it slowly. She had a habit of doing this when she was trying to choose — stalled action.
"What do you want?"
"Mmmm...can’t decide," she mused.
"Good choice," he hummed sarcastically, reaching into his pocket for his phone because they’d probably be here for a while and he ought to let the others know that they’d be late.
“They all sound really good,” she said defensively.
“Get more than one,” Gojo shrugged.
“Unnecessary largesse.”
Gojo rolled his eyes.
“My treat.”
Utahime looked at him askance.
"Go and sit," he ordered her, giving her a little nudge. “Before someone takes the last few remaining seats in this place.”
He was going to order for her because it would save a bit of time, but he was also going to pay because she was perennially impoverished. It was kind of ridiculous that she’d been broke most of the time that he’d known her and yet had never stopped grinding, while Gojo had been broke for a period of about three days before he sold his car and made a daring plan.
"Hi, how can I help?" the server greeted him, pulling his notepad out.
"Hey, please can I have a large pepperoni pizza, a large Meat Lovers pizza and an espresso," he said, turning to look over his shoulder and point at the counter where Utahime had put her little handbag on the seat to save it for him. “And a beer in a takeaway coffee cup.”
"Of course," the server said, scribbling.
“And I tip you extra…like, a stupid amount if you just ignore any changes she makes to her order? She’s indecisive and I’m hungry.”
The server nodded, smiling tightly.
“Sure.”
Gojo looked back over his shoulder at Utahime. She was looking down at her phone, her long, slender fingers wrapped around it. She had very pretty hands — they were small and delicate. He’d noticed them first, that day in the library. On her thumb, she wore a man’s gold signet ring with the outline of a bee stamped onto the bezel — her father’s.
Gojo really kind of wished he had that photograph from the metro — her hands around his bicep, pale against the leather of his jacket.
The little crush that he had on her had just sort of…happened. There was no fanfare, no thunderclap, no lightning strike. It just had come to be, like noticing a painting on the wall and realising it had always been in that space and the wall would be blank without it. Gojo traced the lineage of his warm feelings right back to the moment he’d seen her in the university library. She'd had her head buried in a book, chewing a pen like a spaniel with a stick, with both of her hands holding on to the hardcover for dear life. She looked like a ham actor pantomiming reading, and Gojo had half expected to find her hiding her phone in the pages like a naughty schoolgirl. He’d stopped at her desk, curious to see what she was doing amiss. Her hair had fallen in her eyes as her gaze had snapped up. To his amusement, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was actually reading. Gojo had stood there, watching her with a stupid grin on his face because she looked so goofy. He could remember thinking that he should have gone, because her expression had come down like a storm cloud immediately, and he had known instinctively that he would have to work harder than normal to make this girl smile.
He thought she had been pretending but she was actually reading — that was a constant theme. Iori Utahime was authentic. The real deal.
Maybe if he’d known right away that the stupid things he said to make her try to throw things at his head were simply because of his schoolboy crush, he wouldn’t have allowed their friendship to take so deep a root. By the time he realised how he felt, they were disastrously beyond the border of platonic rationality. And there had been her string of sensible boyfriends muddying the waters. Gojo had waited too long to know himself, and now he was disastrously aware of every nuance she could offer. Or maybe it was because he knew her so well that he had developed this little crush in the first place. She was stubborn and argumentative. She was also beautiful, and intelligent, and funny, and brave, and kind. Fuck, she was sexy too. That was the worst of it — she knew how alluring she could be. If she were just some bookish prude with a temper, it would be bad enough. But the fact that he’d seen her lower her lashes at someone she liked, a little bite of her lower lip for flirtation, a tilt of her chin and a low-cut dress — her sensuality could be quite obvious. Sometimes, when she was drunk, she’d say something scandalous that made Gojo’s fucking year. A few months ago he had nearly fallen off his chair when Utahime, drunk as a lord, had contributed to the already loopy conversation about oral sex that she had a particular weakness for a man who’d eat her pussy in the morning. Best way to wake up, she had asserted, while Gojo nearly went into a spasm of scandalised delight.
He’d missed that train. And, quite possibly, Utahime had never looked at him in that way to begin with. Now, the stakes were too high to risk it — he was all too aware of the cautionary tale that was what had happened between Shoko and Suguru. Utahime would also probably slap him if he even tried to confess that he had a soft spot for her. Besides, it was manageable. A little crush. You could feed a small hunger on little morsels.
Gojo paid and moved to sit next to her.
"Did you get me something?"
"Of course. You'll like it."
“You sure?”
“Of course. In this regard, I am overqualified.”
She smiled at him, quite unexpectedly, and it created that satisfactory little prickle all the way down the centre line of his belly.
Fuck. If she looked at him through her lashes, he wondered if he’d survive.
The pizza came, and he was pleased to see the server was as efficient as promised, and had brought the right thing before Utahime could hum and haw about her order.
"Eat," he commanded her.
"I don't even like pepperoni," she pouted, but picked up a slice.
"How did you ever get to the ripe old age of twenty-eight without processed meats propping up your immune system?"
"Shut up," she muttered, munching.
He watched her take a bite and was happy to see her make a noise of appreciation. She looked up and caught him staring, smiling.
"What?" she asked suspiciously.
"I just like watching you eat," he teased, winking salaciously. “Moan for me again?”
She made a face.
“Pervert.”
Gojo smirked and started eating his slice.
“Just recently, Uta, I’ve developed a particular appreciation for perverts,” he told her sagely.
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“They really drive innovation,” he shrugged, before pointing at the slice she had put down again. “Eat.”
They ate in companionable silence for a little while and he was satisfied that they would both be pleasantly full by the time they arrived at the bar. He liked drunk Utahime, but drunk and hungry Utahime was another beast entirely.
"So, why were you late today?" she asked, swallowing delicately.
Gojo nearly froze with the last slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. He wanted to point out that he hadn't really been that late, but admittedly, he had cut it a bit fine if traffic had been worse. He had been shooting content that he hadn't uploaded yet.
"Uhhh...got held up," he answered, taking a large bite.
"Did you get a job at last?"
Gojo grinned, licking sauce off his lower lip, remembering how he opened his eyes to the cyclops of his camera, cum on his chest, not twenty minutes before he had met her at the metro.
"In a manner of speaking,” he answered with a shrug.
Utahime watched him warily, wiping her fingertips with a napkin. Damn, he kind of wished she’d lick her pretty fingers one by one. Maybe he was a pervert.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, grinning gamely.
"You're being shifty."
"I'm never shifty,” he sniffed, mock-offended. “I’m forthright to a fault.”
"Are you sure you're okay for money?" she asked, her brow furrowing slightly, her genuine, terse concern cutting through his bullshit.
"I'm fine," he reassured her. "It's called Generational Privilege. Cultural Capital et cetera."
She shook her head, urging him to be serious with her steady gaze.
"Gojo, your dad's case is still—"
"I am still pretty well off, it turns out." he grinned even as he interrupted her. "Relatively speaking. I just don't live in a super fancy apartment anymore and I’m probably never going to own multiple vintage cars."
"Gojo, if you need—"
"Uta, I'm not poor. I promise. It's a lifestyle adjustment for now, sure, but I'm fine."
"Okay."
She didn't sound convinced, but Gojo wasn't sure how else to reassure her. He could tell her about his account, but maybe he would stop doing it before she needed to know about it. He had a trust fund from his grandmother that was waiting in the wings for him to turn twenty-five. Not long now. Truth be told, he hadn’t even expected to be still doing the cam work by now. The fact was, it was easy and it was fun. And it felt good, obviously. He was also making a ridiculous amount of money considering he mainly just jerked off in the comfort of his own home. He’d probably be doing that anyway. Last week, someone just asked to watch him shower and maintain eye contact and that had made him a tidy little sum.
Gojo could see her watching him out of the corner of his eye.
"I don't want to have to pick up your sorry ass next month when your landlord throws you out," she warned him.
Gojo smiled, thinking about how the cheerful lighting in her little flat would probably be amazing to film in.
"Aw! We could be roomies," he grinned. "Riches to rags story."
"Rags? Fuck you," she mused, flipping him off.
"If you're lucky."
She rolled her eyes.
"Spare me."
Gojo laughed, narrowing his eyes playfully at her, because bantering with her always created a little friction in his blood, a satisfactory kindling of something rubbing the other way, pleasantly turning something over to its opposite side.
"You have pizza sauce on your chin," he told her, smiling teasingly, too joyful for decency.
"What? No, I don't!" she protested, dabbing at her chin with a napkin.
"It's alright, it's cute," he told her cheekily. “Cross your eyes and moan again? Really gets me going.”
Her cheeks were pink as she swiped the napkin across her face again.
"I wish you'd stop saying stuff like that so fucking loud," she mumbled. “People can hear you.”
Gojo shrugged, picking up his espresso and swallowing it down in one shot.
“People,” Gojo divulged sagely, “like to be titillated.”
Utahimed sipped her beer, looking at him with dry amusement over the rim of the cup.
“Oh yeah? When did you become such an authority on what people like?”
"Market research," he said with a grin.
"You're disgusting."
"Mmmm, not according to popular opinion. Only you think that, you freak." Gojo stood, pulling a couple of notes from his wallet and leaving them on the table. "Come on, time for the pub."
“I’m still drinking,” she pointed out.
“That’s why I got it in a takeaway cup,” he rolled his eyes.
He offered her his hand, waggling it impatiently until she took it and let him pull off her the tall stool at the counter and onto her feet. Her skirt rode up a little in the slide — so accidentally sexy with her bangs in her eyes. Her hand was so tiny and warm and soft that he considered just using it to drag her along.
Best not to, though, because he knew you could choke on too big a mouthful when trying to feed a small hunger.
What had happened with Shoko and Suguru should caution him against gluttony.
"Let's go then," he told her, putting a little bit of distance between them and dropping her hand. "The night is young and we've probably kept Shoko waiting and she's going to blame me, not you."
"Alright, alright," she mumbled, grabbing her handbag.
He was still grinning as they stepped outside and back onto the street. The air was cool and fresh, and the city was just getting started.
"Do you want my jacket?" he asked.
She smiled, rolling her eyes.
"It's not that cold."
Gojo pulled a face, holding out his hands.
"Don't come crying to me when you're cold."
"I won't. I’ll go crying to Shoko."
They walked together, her little heels clicking on the pavement and mingling with the sound of the traffic around them and the thrum of the city. It was nice — walking with her, not having to say anything, not having to worry about it.
He liked this.
He was thinking about her in other ways now, watching the breeze of traffic lift her hair. But now was not the time to be indulging those thoughts. When he got home he'd reply the little morsels, roll them around in the fingers of his mind and make them into a small food, a gentle diet. And then he knew he'd probably go live with those thoughts of her knocking against the sides of his brain. He'd slide his sunglasses down to hide his eyes, grin lazily at the slow eye of the camera and he'd touch himself. He could already hear the little bubble-pop of a comment in the live chat, the chime of a tip.
"What are you smiling about?" she asked him, glancing over her shoulder.
"You'll find out eventually," he said, smirking at her, his tongue pushing at his lower lip.
She looked away quickly, hitching her handbag further up her arm.
"Don't say creepy shit like that."
Gojo smiled.
"Yes, ma'am."
She looked like she wanted to slap him, her pert little nose wrinkling and her brow furrowing.
"Walk a bit faster or Shoko's gonna lose it," she huffed.
The night was young, and for now, his belly was full. He had a different small feast for later, a manageable portion. Utahime's heels clicked on the pavement beside him as they hurried to meet his friends. It was true — he liked her more than he should. He had a system now to metabolise the way that he liked her into something else.
Bubble-pop comment.
Money-chime.