Work Text:
You didn't just wake up one morning and decide to blow your entire life up.
You were just supposed to be an external consultant. A twelve-month contract to be his tech firm's new auditor. Get in. Audit their mess. Get the hell out.
But Satoru Gojo was the Senior Project Manager on your account.
Thirty-two. Wearing a bespoke suit—in hindsight, he definitely financed. And annoyingly, devastatingly charming.
He cornered you by the espresso machine on day five. Smiled that stupid—okay, dangerously gorgeous—smile that made his blue eyes crinkle. Memorized your lunch order. Bought you expensive coffees. Told you he must have been the luckiest guy to ever exist to just take you out on a date. Charmed his way right into your pants before your first invoice even cleared.
So practically you were stupid, he was sly. Moving on.
Almost a year.
That's how long the delusion lasted.
The first three months were great. The rest almost left you bald and in a straightjacket.
Because the shiny veneer rubbed off. Turns out the "untouchable executive" aura was completely manufactured. He spent half his paycheck projecting a God Complex just to hide the fact that he was an exhausting manchild.
The “networking” dinners where he talked over you. The constant Slack pings during movie nights. Treating you less like a girlfriend and more like a highly-functioning accessory. Acting all self-righteous and annoying even if you made more money than him.
The latest of last straws then came as your one-year anniversary gift.
The box was massive. Rectangular in this specific, expectant way. Sitting right in the middle of the living room with a cryptic, romantic note taped to the top.
You stared at it. Your heart actually did a stupid little flutter.
Finally. He listened. You’d been dropping hints for months about this vintage leather travel trunk. The kind that practically screamed we are going to Santorini for our one-year. You thought he was actually paying attention.
You tore the paper.
Your left eye twitched.
Titleist.
Fucking golf clubs.
He walked in ten minutes later. Dropped his briefcase. Wrapped his arms around your waist from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder. Looking at the open box like he’d just cured a disease.
"Do you like 'em, baby?" he purred. "Now you can come to the networking retreats n' look hot on the green while I secure our future."
Looking hot. While he secures his future.
So for the next week, the fucking clubs laughed at you from the corner of the room while you actually plotted how to move on from this ridiculous hellhole of a relationship.
A heavy, titanium reminder that you weren't a partner. You were just a walking prop with boobs—
You had enough of fulfilling his macho corpo alpha male fantasy.
You were constantly tired, agitated, sporting this super specific 1,000-yard my-boyfriend-is-a-massive-narcissist-but-at-least-the-sex-is-good stare. But even a good dick only goes so far.
You had enough of his self-important, stupid speeches while his boss doesn’t even like his atrocious LinkedIn posts. This man had to get properly humbled.
Satoru was sprawled on the sofa. Laptop balanced on his knees, performatively typing on Teams chat. Looking incredibly important. Actively pretending to save the global economy.
You walked out of the bedroom.
"Satoru, I think it's for the better if we break up."
He stopped typing. Looked over his screen at you. Eyes narrowing.
"Baby, what? Did you get your period early?"
Yeah. No. What the fuck.
You snapped. You pointed directly at the golf clubs gathering dust. You laid out the exact, suffocating hypocrisy of him treating you like a doll.
He then rebutted with some questionable corporate, future-this, finance security-that bullshit until it turned into a full-blown screaming match you two shared honestly quite often. His neighbors certainly loved this apartment building feature.
You spun on your heel and marched right back into the bedroom.
He actually left the laptop. Followed you. Leaned against the bedroom doorframe.
He saw you throwing clothes into the suitcase while your face was red with rage. But his narcissism physically prevented him from registering this as a permanent exit.
He crossed his arms.
"Oh, so you're packing?" The patronizing executive voice. God, you hate that voice. You wanted to rip out his vocal cords and feed it to his smug-ass mouth—
"What, going to your parents' place for the weekend? Fine. Cool off. See you on Monday."
Ziiiip.
He followed you into the hallway, the smugness slipping juuust a fraction. "Okay, so are you actually throwing a tantrum right now? I give you everything. My apartment—"
"You give me a goddamn headache daily!"
You spun around and he actually flinched.
"I'm done being your freaking doormat," you snapped, gripping the handle of your suitcase so hard your knuckles went white. "You're thirty-two, Satoru. You're an average project manager, not a god. Get a fucking grip."
His jaw clenched. "You're being completely irrational. You take that back—"
You grabbed your bag. Looked him dead in those stupid, piercing eyes.
"You're just a lucky bastard, Satoru. And I hope your luck finally runs out." A beat. "I genuinely hope the universe curses you n' karma gets you."
He scoffed. Literally scoffed. Like you were a kid playing witch.
But before he could even think of another stupid rebuttal, you violently slammed the front door right in his face.
BAM.
Satoru was just standing there in his empty entryway. Arrogant little scowl perfectly plastered on his face.
Waiting for the elevator ding. Waiting for the inevitable knock when you realized you made another emotional mistake.
Nothing.
He uncrossed his arms. Recrossed them. Looked at the front door like it owed him an explanation.
Fine.
Fine.
You'd be back by Monday. You always — okaay, this was technically the first time you'd actually packed a bag and left, but the energy was still very you'll be back by Monday. He knew you. You ran hot. It simply was the downside of having a hot girlfriend that fucked way too good.
You needed to cool off and eat something and remember that you lived a significantly better life with him in it! And then you'd text him something passive aggressive and he'd respond with something magnanimous and you'd be done with it.
He went to bed.
He woke up Sunday feeling only mildly concerned.
Monday came.
Nothing.
Gone.
And gone you were. You called his firm's HR department. Requested to take the remaining weeks of your external contract 100% remote. Approved.
Booked a flight and noped the fuck out to Santorini. ‘Cause obviously. If that manchild wasn't able to take you you would treat yourself. You needed to clear your head and wash out the memory of the past year with enough wine to kill off a concerning amount of your brain cells.
Waking up at noon. Answering emails from a whitewashed balcony. Type shit.
Turns out dropping two hundred pounds of try-hard finance bro is scientifically proven to clear your skin.
So while you were getting a tan and eating your body weight in fresh seafood, Satoru was busy completely losing his mind.
Not that he'd admit that. Obviously.
In his head the sequence of events was very simple. You had a meltdown. You needed space. You'd come back to his arms, tail between your legs, ready to be reasonable. He was prepared to be very gracious about it.
But there was no text. Zero. The hell?!
He checked his phone. Checked it again. Opened Instagram for completely unrelated reasons and your story was right there at the front of the queue —
Whitewashed walls. Aegean blue. A very full glass of white wine.
Location tag: Oia, Santorini.
He stared at that for a long time.
Santorini.
He knew that word. He'd heard that word. Multiple times. With a very specific energy he had, in retrospect, perhaps not adequately responded to.
He thought about the Titleist box.
He put his phone face down.
The vein in his forehead almost popped.
So you were being petty. Flying to fucking Greece because of one argument. That you caused, by the way. Instead of coming home and apologizing like a good girlfriend. Were you out of your goddamned mind?
He picked his phone back up. Put it down again.
Wait.
...Did he get dumped?
Waaait.
No. Nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.
Satoru Gojo does not get dumped. If anything he does the dumping. No woman had ever said no to him. You were not supposed to say no. Especially not when he already had the whole thing mapped out — his promotion coming through, you being so relieved and happy that one thing leads to another. You know, happy accident happens… You get pregnant, and then naturally, organically, you become his hot-ass little housewife.
Without the official wife title of course. It is too early to commit like that just yet.
The point is. He had a plan. And your little Greece trip was not in it.
He spent the week marinating in it. Stewing. You still had not once texted him. Not once. God gracious, why would you anyways. But that was the bloody problem now, wasn't it.
His pride physically prevented him from picking up the phone first. He was the wronged party here! He was the one owed an apology!
His pride wouldn't let him even try to salvage whatever was left of your relationship. He might have finally understood that you left him. Which — your fucking loss, bitch.
He might have, miiight have, been able to compute getting dumped if he'd done something genuinely unforgivable. Cheating? Whatever. Something with stakes. But you left because you were bored. And over golf clubs.
You left over golf clubs?
Unbelievable.
Up until now Satoru had gotten everything he ever wanted. Well. Almost everything. And you breaking up with him was certainly not something he was prepared to file under things that happened to him.
No one would ever find out you broke his heart. Not his colleagues. Not his friends. Not even his own damn mother.
Ever.
But what would he say if anyone asked. Because it wasn't like your relationship had been a secret. He'd made out with you in the break room. Twice. In front of witnesses. He needed a story n' he needed—
The coffee machine died.
Mid-brew. One flicker and nothing.
He stared at it, jabbed the button three times, unplugged it, counted to ten, plugged it back in.
Nothing.
Shitty brand. He spent fortune on this coffee machine so why the fuck it is not working. Left a mental note to leave a scathing review and went downstairs for coffee.
And that was the same morning Nanami appeared in his doorway asking about you — compliance audit, department timeline, where were you, when were you back. Something like that.
Satoru adjusted his blue light glasses, panicking. What to do. What to do. WHAT TO DO—
Oh.
What if…
He put on the face. The kinda devastatingly sad, grieving-widower face he hadn't planned but found out it came on surprisingly naturally.
Then heavy, suffering sigh.
"She was swept out to sea in Greece," he said. Flat. Tragic. Ridiculous. "Riptide. It was awful, Nanami. A freak accident." A pause loaded with dignified grief. "I'm just trying to stay strong for the project delivery."
Nanami blinked. Filed whatever he was filing and left without another word because what the absolute fuck but also your audit was a pain in the ass anyways so.
And Satoru just heaved by his desk because it worked. It actually fucking worked.
Because here's the thing about Satoru.
He had presence, okay. The kind that made conference rooms go quiet. That made clients trust him with numbers he only half understood at best. That made people nod along to completely insane things he said with total conviction.
So when Satoru was telling Mei Mei from Finance updates about the vicious shark attack he told her a few weeks back. He'd stopped by the lobby vending machine on his way — needed coffee since obviously the machine at home was still dead and the café three blocks away was too subpar for his impeccable taste and Mei Mei had fallen into step beside him, asking about you with this concerned little frown. That she hadn’t seen you in a long time already or whatever.
So he put the coin in. Pressed the button. And while the coil turned and his coffee tipped forward and balanced on the edge—
"She survived," he said, voice dropping into that quiet devastated register that had been working sooo well. "The shark attack. But it was touch and go. She's still recovering. Prolly gon’ leave a nasty scar. But it’s fine, I love her anyway."
Mei Mei's hand flew to her mouth.
His coffee didn't drop.
He hit the glass. Once. Maintaining full eye contact with Mei Mei.
"The doctors are optimistic," he continued.
Hit it again. Nothing.
He rolled up his sleeve. Reached through the bottom slot just to try and —
Clunk.
Arm. Stuck.
"She's — she's showing real strength," he said, the grieving widower energy now doing genuinely heroic work against the backdrop of him being literally physically trapped in a vending machine in the lobby.
Mei Mei was nodding. Eyes almost glistening.
From his desk across the lobby attendant looked up. Looked at Satoru. At the machine. Back at Satoru.
Did not move though. Perhaps if it wasn’t the prick who was too good to even say good morning to him he would call the maintenance guy. But he was too violently underpaid to deal with Satoru right now.
So it took about four minutes. Four full minutes of Satoru delivering tragic updates in a solemn voice while simultaneously working his arm free at an angle that should have required a medical professional.
"Faulty machine," he murmured under his breath when he eventually pried his arm open, Mei Mei nodded sympathetically like this was also somehow your fault.
He added the mudslide the very next week. Told Suguru while they were on lunch break — you'd been evacuated after the shark, caught in it on the way to the recovery facility, now in a full body cast at a Swiss clinic in Zurich, world class team, very optimistic prognosis.
Suguru looked at him over the rim of his mug.
"Riight," he said finally. The voice of a man who just doesn't have the mental capacity to dissect this.
Satoru rode the elevator up feeling pretty good about how that landed actually and then the elevator stopped.
Between four and five with a soft mechanical sigh and a complete loss of all momentum.
He pressed the button.
Nothing.
He pressed every button. Door open. Door close. Lobby. Emergency. The emergency one made a noise that went nowhere. Until the pressing turned into smashing and the smashing into kicking because he was pissed and he had a fucking important meeting happening within a few minutes—
An hour later.
Tie getting progressively looser and hair getting almost plucked out of his scalp. Nothing to do but stand there and stare at himself while the slowly mounting suspicion that the universe was trying to communicate something crept up the back of his neck.
He did not entertain it. Absolute bullshit anyways. He was naturally lucky, a slight unlucky streak was naturally bound to happen from time to time to balance out the universe or whatever. He heard it in some podcast you were listening to one day on your way to the office.
First ten minutes: someone's definitely coming. Let him just doomscroll— Oh shit, his phone’s dead.
Next twenty: building maintenance failure. He was taking this up formally with management.
Last twenty-three: just. Standing there. Staring at his own reflection in the mirrored doors.
He looked fine. Completely fine.
Fine.
Doors finally opened. Fifth floor. Suguru standing right there, coffee in hand, taking in the full sight.
"Faulty elevator," Satoru said.
"Obviously," Suguru answered.
He told Yaga about the lion in month two. Sat across from his boss's desk apologizing for messing up the deadline the day before, before going on with his lies.
Yaga went very still in the specific way Yaga went still when he was deciding whether something required direct intervention.
"A lion," Yaga said.
"She was with her personal nurse on a trip in ZOO to lift her broken spirit," Satoru said. "I’m already filing a lawsuit against the negligence of the ZOO staff and all. My poor darling."
Yaga just picked up his coffee and threw him out.
One day, Satoru was feeling that all his little storytimes so far had gone reasonably well, sat down, opened his laptop, pulled up the Q4 projections and was mid-sentence explaining regional variance to two of his interns when —
Flap. Flap. Flap.
The pigeon flew in like it had his name on its calendar.
It made a beeline straight for him.
He ducked. Just enough while the pigeon banked hard overhead, clipped the corner of his lamp —
Craash.
— swooped back around, knocked his entire coffee mug clean off the desk on the way past then landed. Right on top of his head.
Satoru froze. Both hands hovering mid-air.
The two interns staring at him with the expressions of people who tried their hardest not to die from laughing in front of their stuffy boss.
The pigeon shifted its weight.
Satoru's eye twitched.
It stayed up there for what felt like a very long time and was probably eleven seconds. Then it launched off his head — taking a considerable amount of his hair with it — swooped once more around the office like a victory lap and flew back out the window it came in.
He smoothed his hair down in the silence of the room. Looked back at his laptop.
"Any questions on the projections?"
It was Shoko who first made him sweat.
Around month four. Some vendor meeting downtown, the two of them sharing a cab back there, Shoko with her vape stopped in the middle of discussing who's gon’ start their presentation.
"So," she said, not looking up from her phone. "How's she doing."
Not a question. More like. A tap on the glass.
Satoru adjusted his tie.
"Still recovering," he said. The grieving widower register coming on automatically by now like a reflex. "The Swiss facility is—"
"Right, the Swiss thing." Shoko scrolled something. "Suguru said mudslide. But Nanami told me riptide." A pause. "Which was it? I’m just confused about the timeline."
Satoru opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Outside the cab window the traffic was moving slow and gray and completely unhelpful and then —
There.
A purple Scion. Boxy. Slightly dented. Puttering along in the next lane like it had been sent specifically.
"She got run over," Satoru said.
Shoko looked up from her phone for the first time.
"...By a car."
"Some crappy purple Scion." He tried to discreetly cover the window. "On top of everything else. It was — it was a very difficult few months."
Shoko looked at Satoru. Then back at her phone.
"Soo," her voice was completely flat. "Riptide. Mudslide… And a car accident?"
"She's very unlucky. Poor thing."
"Apparently."
She took a long drag of her vape, while the cap driver just glared at both of them. Satoru stared straight ahead. The Scion puttered away into traffic and was gone.
The same evening he was in the office parking garage ready to leave.
Engine running. He looked down. There was a lip balm. Yours.
The specific one you always had — strawberry something, he'd complained about the smell once and you'd used it more aggressively after that just to annoy him. But he secretly loved it. Rolling back and forth against the console like it had been doing that for months. Because it had been doing that for months.
He put the car in reverse. He was still looking at it.
The concrete pillar had been there since the garage was built. Painted yellow. Reflective tape. Objectively very hard to miss.
CRRrrrunch.
The sound that came out of Satoru’s mouth was not a word. Not even a sound. Just — something, concerning.
He got out. Walked around to the rear bumper. The scrape ran clean across the panel of his precious midnight blue M5. The garage was empty. Nobody saw. He blamed the parking garage.
Faulty architecture.
Who the fuck even assigned him this particular parking spot anyways? Back office’s gon’ hear about this.
Got back in. And drove home while dialing his mechanic.
So if we get the full picture straight. Just for the record. You gave him three weeks in the beginning.
Three weeks of long earned vacation in Greece and keeping your phone screen up. Just. You know. In case.
You weren't waiting. You were just. Available. If he happened to grow a single functioning brain cell and pick up the phone and say the word sorry like an adult human being.
But instead he texted once in the middle of the night like a petulant child.
I expect you to be home by next week. It’s the annual golf tournament with the other firm. Remember?
You stared at that for approximately four seconds.
Then you blocked him. On everything. Instagram. iMessages. WhatsApp. LinkedIn. You went fully, completely, surgically dark.
He sent you one remindful message went to take a piss and then suddenly your profile was just—
He stared at that for a long time.
Blocked.
He put his phone down. Picked it back up. Checked again like the answer was going to change.
Profile unavailable.
You had actually blocked him. On purpose. With intention. Like he was some random unhinged ex and not the man you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with.
The nerve.
The absolute unmitigated nerve.
So there were months of nothing. No way to track where you were or what you were doing or whether you were okay or whether you were thriving or whether you'd thought about him even once.
Just silence.
And the silence was so much worse than the stories had been. Because at least the stories gave him something to be furious about. Something to point at and say look at the audacity.
And on top of it all there was that weird aching thing in his chest that had been there since the coffee machine died and kept getting worse and worse.
Heartburn. Stress. Too much coffee. Whatever.
He was fine.
By month five the Swiss facility had apparently also treated you for injuries sustained in a cement mixer incident.
And six months came by, his sanity slowly slipping away while you apparently near died fifty different ridiculous ways…?
So when Suguru waltzed into his office on Monday morning, brows knitted together and looking around like he got lost, Satoru thought the guy had accidentally smoked a rolled cig mixed with weed again.
It was genuinely a good morning for Satoru. He wasn't even thinking about you that much! His precious BMW beast had finally been repaired, so wonderful start to a new week honestly.
"Mate, I know this is going to sound insane, but I just saw your girlfriend walk in?"
"Huh?"
Suguru's expression was hard to read. Somewhere between genuinely concerned and trying very hard not to be the one responsible for what was ‘bout to happen.
"I genuinely thought it was the ketamine but then I saw her talking with Shoko ‘n—"
Satoru didn't even let the poor man finish his thought when he bolted out of his office.
Well. Reasonably. Demurely. Because Senior Project Managers don't run in their own buildings! It's beneath them.
He just walked. Very fast. With enormous purpose. Down the corridor toward the glass-walled meeting room where Suguru had pointed—
He stopped dead.
There you were.
Standing by the meeting room table like you'd never left. Laptop open. Coffee in hand. Talking to Shoko who was leaning against the doorframe looking like Christmas had come early.
You looked—
Well, he couldn't even finish that thought.
You looked incredible. Rested. Glowing with that specific glow he hadn't seen in the last six months of your relationship and had apparently fully recovered somewhere between Santorini and blocking his number.
Your hair was different. Something about the way you were standing was different.
You were laughing at something Shoko had just said.
Sure, it was a slightly nervous laugh. Uncomfortable. Because Shoko was just in the middle of telling you exactly what kind of shitshow your ex had been spawning about you for the past six months.
Mauled by a lion? Bitten by a shark?
What?
Satoru's blood ran cold.
He stood in the corridor with eight different things happening in his chest simultaneously and none of them had names he was prepared to use right now.
His face was going red — from rage or embarrassment? Both probably.
Jaw clenched so hard his teeth hurt. He finally, reluctantly, understood that he had massively fucked up. But also — why the fuck were you here of all places? Did you not have the basic decency to, like, never set foot in his office building again?
Not that you came here on purpose. The auditor who replaced you after your contract expired had done a colossally shitty job and got fired after just five months. Long story short — they contacted your firm, your firm assigned you since you were the chief auditor on the account the year prior, n' thus here you were. Simple as that.
You could feel the uncomfortable heat at the back of your head like someone burning holes through it. So you turned around — only to find Satoru seething in the corridor.
Lol.
You gave him exactly zero emotion. Slowly blinked. Turned back to Shoko.
Needless to say, Satoru wanted to scream. Half a year of no contact and you couldn't even have the decency to say hello? Wave? Something?!
You had been planning on popping into his office actually. Say hi, ask how he'd been, the normal thing you do with an ex you parted with on decent terms. But that idea got absolutely scrapped the second Shoko told you that you'd apparently fallen into a cement mixer and got run over by a Scion.
…Did Satoru take up creative writing? When did he have time to come up with shit like this?
But before he could even scrape his dignity off the ugly corporate carpet — not that he lost it — the unhinged bomb he'd been curating for the past half a year went off.
The office was suddenly a minefield.
Word met word, and the information about you being here and looking entirely unmauled by any lion spread through the building like the food poisoning last summer from the deli ham in the cafeteria sandwich. You remember that one. Half the company called in sick.
Same energy, just slightly less vomiting.
Because here's the thing about lying to an entire company for six months — telling ten different people ten different tragic stories about the same person — eventually the lies start to unravel. And the outcome is going to be very loud, very fast n' very, very public. Especially when the subject is suddenly very much alive, very fine and standing right there.
Mei Mei, who'd almost cried when she heard about the vicious shark attack, was now by the elevator wearing a very different expression entirely. Nanami stood by the printer with the look of a man doing very quiet, very damning math. Even Yaga had apparently emerged from his office — which he never did voluntarily — just to peek through the doorframe, look at you for a long moment n' go back in without a word.
By lunch the sixth floor knew. By three PM the company Teams chat was in complete chaos.
Satoru really tried to be reasonable about it. Trying to ignore the weird stares he was getting from his coworkers and contemplating whether the mass HR email about dealing with pathological liars in the workplace was somehow meant for him specifically.
Or rather…. Okay, no. His ego physically prevented him from possessing any normal self-awareness whatsoever. But good try, honestly.
He gave it a full week. Seven entire days of watching you walk past his office n' sit in meetings n' exist in his building like you hadn't just detonated his entire six-month corporate mythology. And looking so criminally good doing it.
Oh how he wanted you to walk into his office, lock the door and just bend you over—
He genuinely thought he was being generous. Giving you space. Figured you were just embarrassed about the whole, you know, having to explain to the bullpen why you weren't actually in a full-body cast in Zurich thing.
So he decided to be a good boyfriend. A gooder boyfriend, if you will. Show you exactly what you walked away from.
But first he got you flowers. Because that was the essential romantic gesture, right? A very large bouquet. Tasteful— okay no it was not tasteful, it was enormous. Required its own postal code honestly. But the sentiment was clear n' “we’re not gonna beat around the bush” kinda note.
Glad to see you back. Date tonight? —S
On top of it, the courier got the floor wrong. Because of course Satoru wasn't going to deliver it himself. Even if he was just two floors down from you.
So the bouquet toured the entire building first — about a third of the company read the note — and by the time it navigated through the door of the Finance meeting you were in, you just looked at it. Opened the note. Tsked and handed it to Mei Mei. Went back to work.
RIP.
Satoru stalked his phone for hours waiting for you to send, like, a big fat ass thanks or just the fat ass. He was never against nudes as a form of apology.
Nothing.
Alas. He pivoted.
Thus the Show-Off era begun. He didn't corner you — Satoru was stupid but not that stupid, especially with his reputation already bleeding out.
He just. Performed. Suddenly always just. There. Everywhere. Leaning against breakroom doorframes looking violently tailored. Saying something impressively competent loud enough for you to hear. Trying to make very aggressive and inappropriate unblinking eye contact.
Dropping your hyper-specific artisanal coffee on your desk without a note — or the cronut, remember the cronut? You two tried it once and you didn't like it but he did? Anyway, on your desk. Expecting you to swoon.
You on the other hand treated him like office furniture. Flat "thanks" and back to the laptop.
Because indifference for a manchild like Satoru was waaay worse than anger. Anger means emotion. Indifference was just a massive middle finger to his stupidly gorgeous face.
Which is exactly when the universe cleared its throat considerably louder.
He paced in the breakroom on a call, back and forth until —
Crack.
Splooosh.
Water cooler violently ruptured. Tidal wave right over the $400 suede loafers.
Swept to sea.
Or the time he was walking to his car and a stray tabby launched itself specifically at his ankle and clawed straight for the crown jewels.
Hiss.
…Mauled by a lion?
He brushed it off. Just a weird week. He's still the golden boy. Right?
But what happens when you're spending ninety percent of your brainpower trying to decode someone's blank face and ten percent actually working?
What happens to the logistics project? Aka eleven months of his life? His literal golden ticket to the Senior Director promotion he'd been eyeing for two years?
He was too busy drafting "mandatory check-in" emails just to legally force you into a room with him. So the entirety of the project sat fucking untouched. Gathering dust in his Excel sheets while he stood on street corners being a very diligent, very dedicated project manager — which is absolutely what he was doing checking your blocked IG profile from a burner account he did not make specifically for this purpose.
A beat-up purple Scion hit a pothole.
Splaash.
Thick. Brown. Sludgy street water. And right over his suit.
Mudslide?
...Wait. Is that the same Scion for all those months back? Nah. Can't be.
Unless…
And that's when the paranoia set in. Just slightly. Was something trying to tell him something? Or someone?
The thick egomaniacal armor finally cracking.
Completely unaware he also lowkey scheduled his own career execution for Wednesday afternoon.
Satoru was up front. Laser pointer in hand. Fourteen slides deep into the Q4 logistics deployment.
Actively performing for you. Look at the man you walked away from. He even took his sweet time this morning with his manly skincare routine!
Slide fifteen.
You uncrossed your legs. You put away your pen and leaning back you crossed your arms instead.
You were looking at him like a forensic accountant at a crime scene. Because what kind of mental gymnastics had gone into putting this together. It couldn't even be called proper finances. Did he actively try to get himself demoted?
"Satoru." Your voice sounded completely level, eyes squinting at the screen, genuinely trying to locate the missing equity. "The variance data on this slide doesn't match the budget on slide nine. There's a fifteen percent discrepancy. Where is it?"
Satoru's brain halted completely. God, when did his name sound so heavenly on your tongue?
He hadn't prepped it. Of course he hadn't prepped it. He'd spent the last few months creatively lying for sport and throwing himself a one-man pity party.
He tried the smile. The devastating, million-watt thing.
"Well, synergistically speaking, the projections are fluid—"
"Synergy doesn't balance a ledger." Cold. Clinical. Get the fuck out with the corpo jargon. "Is the data missing or did you just not prep it?"
The entire room physically recoiled.
People had been tiptoeing around you two since your infamous return. Quietly sympathetic. Sending unsolicited links like "life after a narcissistic partner, it's not over" to your Teams inbox.
But you actively going after his work? That was new.
You genuinely didn't care about his professional disasters. Back when you were together Satoru wasn't great at numbers but it wasn't this bad. You'd started to genuinely wonder if he'd seriously hit his head during those six months. It would explain the lion, at least.
But right now. Slaaughter time, baby.
His charisma bounced off the walls and died on the carpet. He just stood there. Mouth slightly open. Ready to shout, or cry, or both.
At the head of the table Yaga set his coffee down.
And since Yaga had been deeply tired of Satoru lately, he let him stand there completely stripped bare for a few agonizing seconds.
"Gojo," Yaga finally cleared his throat. "Stay after the meeting. Just a quick word."
Usually that meant praise. Inside jokes about the board directors. Golden boy shit he was usually used to.
But oh boy, not today.
Yaga quietly, politely, brutally severed his head off and patted him on the shoulder while doing it.
"You're distracted. I understand, all of this must be hard on you… It is indeed hard on us. But I’ve decided. I'm pulling the project. Finish your open tasks. Geto takes over on Monday."
Eleven months of work.
Whoosh.
Promotion.
Whooshed away too.
And you didn’t even look apologetic? The fuck? Can you be, like, less ungrateful?
He spent the rest of that week finishing the handover. Walking out of the office with zero dignity left to his name. Sending the entire project to his best friend.
Suguru even texted twice. He left both on read. He was technically dead to him now. The project can get orphaned for what all he cared about now. Ungrateful, perfectionist clowns this company, for real.
He sat in his office between uploads like a very angry, very expensive ghost. Too proud to go home. Too humiliated to talk to anyone. The bullpen gossip washing past his glass walls like white noise — drama so good people apparently forgot to complain about politics.
Then he saw you on Friday. Walking toward the subway. Panic spiked. Opportunity arose. And on Friday evening? When he needs comforting? The universe gotta love him with these openings.
He jogged toward you. Wind wrecking his hair. Stepped directly into your path on the pavement.
"Okay." Chest heaving. "I'm offering a truce."
The audacity.
"You don't even have to apologize," he said rapidly. Trying to mask the desperation like it's a business proposition. "You had your fun in the past six months. I get it, independent era or whatever. But this silent treatment is exhausting. So just— tell me what to do n' I'll do it. Let's reopen this."
Drowning man negotiating with the ocean.
You just looked at him.
"You told people I fell out of an airplane, Satoru."
His jaw tightened. What was the point of bringing that up right now. He said some things. Insignificant things. Didn't matter.
The wounded ego threw hands anyway. Bared its teeth. Just to gain the upper hand. Always the upper hand—
"That was a coping mechanism!" He raised his voice over the traffic. "And what about you? You walked away from one fight, ghosted me n' then audited me in front of Yaga to get even! Your little stunt cost me my promotion!"
Delusional it was painful.
Okay — you did feel slightly bad. What happened in that meeting room wasn't intentional. You just did your job. The thing about you — you were never lenient as it only bred more problems and more overtime. Due diligence was due diligence.
But whatever residual ache was left in your chest evaporated the second Shoko told you yesterday that you'd apparently been also fried from excessive suntanning while you were away.
Every single day you found out a new way you were supposed to die, each one more unhinged and more sad than the last. You were almost starting to believe that underneath all the tantrum, this manchild had actually missed you.
Almost. Just as far as his ego and emotional constipation let him.
"I didn't cost you the project, Satoru." Ice cold. "Your shoddy math did. I only did my job. And you apparently didn't do yours."
His face went red. It was doing that a lot lately.
“What the fuck?!”
"For Christ's sake. Take some accountability for once in your life and leave me alone. Have a nice weekend."
You two just shared a deadly glare and you stepped around him to walk down the subway stairs.
He stood frozen on the pavement. Dry-cleaning slip crumpled in his fist. Completely out of things to say — which was genuinely new for him. He always had something. Even if it was something fundamentally deranged, he'd say it just to have the last word. People usually stopped engaging before he did.
His heart hammered. He briefly considered following you and immediately clocked that carrying you over his shoulder would almost certainly involve police.
Flap. Flap. Flap.
Splaat.
Mid-thought, the sudden dive-bomb arrived. Right shoulder. Sniper shot shit.
He looked up — the bird was still hovering in the air like it had done it on purpose and Satoru was almost certain it was the same pigeon that had nested in his ripped-out hair months ago.
"You gotta be kidding me."
He tried to swat it away and only made it worse, smearing it further down his arm in what was, objectively, becoming a piece of abstract modern art. Satoru always did have an eye for aesthetics. Slightly stinky though — not even the ungodly amount of Dior Sauvage he sprays on every single morning couldn’t cover it up.
His left eye twitched. It did that a lot lately too.
His sanity, meanwhile, was slowly but steadily dancing itself to death somewhere in an east-side nightclub. Or that's what it felt like anyway. Or like in his head, but it’s the metaphor, duh.
He started quietly side-eyeing water coolers. Flinching at pigeons. Avoiding the curb. For no specific reason. Just. In case. The world was full of dangers and he was an important project manager!
You'd started dodging him like the flu on the subway during flu season and he was too proud to admit it was working. If strength were measured in superiority complex, Satoru would be a super soldier. But Colonel! a problem! ‘cause even super soldiers malfunction eventually.
Suddenly he was looking forward to just laying down n' doomscrolling for the rest of his days. No performative finance bro evenings — no getting shitfaced in pretentious overpriced bars downtown, no spending two hours playing padel shirtless having alpha-offs with his sparring partners. Lowkey just white-knucling the days away until he was back home.
He unlocked his apartment door.
Stepping inside —
Squish.
Freezing, dirty apartment water right over his loafers.
So apparently a water pipe burst open during the day and his living room ceiling was just. Weeping.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The woven rug that cost an actual fortune? Ruined. The velvet sofa? A small island in a dark lake. And in the corner, half-submerged in the slop—
The Titleist golf clubs.
Riptiiiiide.
The universe was honestly poetic. But that's just between us, okay?
Satoru just. Looked— Well, it wasn't sadness exactly — this man didn't really know what sadness was — but it looked like the fight had finally, quietly left his face. The ego couldn't even find a baseline to scream from.
His knees buckled. He slid right down the doorframe.
Splash.
Sitting in two inches of dirty water, hand pressed hard against his chest because it actually, physically hurt to breathe.
Long story short, he packed a hotel bag. Called the contractor all while trying to convince himself all of this shit was just character development.
The insurance company was absolutely delighted to hear from him.
By the next Friday evening he was standing by the corporate lobby windows.
Battered. Tired. Ready to get blackout drunk and violently dissociate through the entire weekend.
Suit slightly rumpled from the hotel closet. Running his thumb over his cracked phone screen. Oh yes! He dropped it down a flight of stairs on Tuesday, just fell and kept falling, falling and falling…
He was waiting for Shoko. She'd caught him by the elevators earlier, told him he looked like he was about to walk into traffic, and announced she wasn't leaving until he'd had at least five beers. He had nobody else to talk to anyway.
Ding.
Elevator doors opened.
Shoko was still upstairs making out with Suguru in his office apparently.
You stepped out instead.
Silk slip dress under a tailored blazer. Hair perfect. It was always perfect — why was it never this perfect when you were with him? You wore those ugly messy ponytails constantly back then. He couldn't remember the last time you'd done your hair for him.
Devastating.
The air left his lungs completely. His body just. Moved. One step forward—
Then the revolving doors spun.
A man walked in. Impeccably dressed. Easy, unbothered confidence. Something that screamed rich, successful and soon to bag your hot ex, loser.
Wait. Doesn’t Satoru know him? He looked kinda familiar… Interesting.
You saw him. Your face did the thing. That soft, uncomplicated smile. The one Satoru thought he owned. The man shook your hand and guided you out toward an idling black car outside.
Satoru stood paralyzed. The thing in his chest wasn't an ache anymore— It was a full emergency siren. Blaring. He was genuinely dizzy.
YOU HAD THE AUDACITY TO GO ON A DATE. WHILE HIS LIFE WAS FALLING APART. HE DIDN'T EVEN GIVE YOU VERBAL PERMISSION TO MOVE ON.
Hell nah.
Shoko materialized beside him on cue with this stupid, cryptid half-smirk of a woman who knew exactly what just happened, who it happened to, and why. She looked at his pale, frantic, completely shattered face.
Her hand came out. Palm up.
Eyes still fixed on the empty street, hand shaking slightly, Satoru reached into his wallet and slapped a hundred into her palm.
He knew she knew. And he needed her knowing to become his knowing too. Shoko always knew everything about everyone and he didn't have the mental capacity, the time, or the emotional stability to extract it any other way this time.
"L'Effervescence," she said quietly. "The new Michelin star place. Reservation was for six.”
Did she mention it's a client dinner? I don't think so…
You literally complained to her about it by the office fruit bowl this morning. Boring, mandatory corporate client review. You openly prayed the food would be worth the overtime at least.
Let him ruin his own life.
Satoru might have literally sprinted out of the office lobby but he didn't just barge into the restaurant. That was too romantic movie even for him.
He stood outside the window first. In the drizzle. Like a creep. Now, that was more on brand for him honestly.
The grand sweeping romantic comeback speech he'd been rehearsing in the Uber felt instantly hollow the second he was actually standing outside it. The kind of hollow where one micro-stutter and he'd look like a full on stalker. It needed polish. But his brain was completely wiped of every grand romance vocabulary word he'd absorbed from three seasons of Love Island.
So he went to the dive bar next door. Just to recalibrate. One drink. Get the confidence back online. Remind himself who he is n' how this ends.
One Long Island Iced Tea.
Because of course. Thirty-two years old, drinking college-freshman blackout juice on a Friday night to work up the nerve to talk to his ex.
Fine.
Two Long Island Iced Teas.
He straightened his jacket. Took a breath and walked into the restaurant.
Sensory overload immediately. Michelin-star clinking glasses. Dim lighting. Waiters in literal tuxedos. The speech that sounded perfect in the dive bar bathroom was already running slightly glitchy.
…Was it "I'm not leaving without you" or was it "you're not leaving without me?"
Loading. Loading. load—
He was still scanning the room for you, ignoring the poor maître d' in the most aggressively rude way possible.
Then someone waved at him from across the room.
He squinted. A familiar face. Where did he know—
Wait. That's the guy from the lobby!
Satoru strode over. Completely confused about why your date was waving him over specifically but going anyway. Because hey. An opening was an opening. If this man wanted to actively embarrass himself, then be his guest.
You were mid-sentence. Explaining the Q1 fiscal strategy over an entreé.
You turned around curious who your client was waving toward your table—
Oh.
You have got to be kidding me.
But you decided to give him the rope.
Because some tiny, morbidly curious part of you that had been watching him unravel for a month wanted to see it.
What would actually come out of him now? Did losing everything finally crack something real open? Was he actually here to drop the act n' be a human being for once? Maybe he will finally do some grand romantic gesture that might make you reconsider?
He reached the table. Chest puffed. Ready for the alpha-male showdown.
The client stood up. His hand out.
"Gojo! Long time no see!"
Satoru froze. Three seconds of him narrowing his eyes before it clicked— It was the guy who beat him on the back nine at the retreat last year! The LinkedIn guy who liked every single one of his posts.
"Holy shit— yeah! Dude, how are you—"
Smack.
Full corporate handshake reunion. Two finance bros doing the aggressive shoulder-pat thing directly over your head. Then the client lowered his voice. Did the solemn head tilt.
"Mate, I heard the news. Through the grapevine. About your girl."
Satoru’s spine went completely rigid.
"The desert accident," the client continued, shaking his head. "The quicksand. Just brutal. Is she still in Zurich?"
Satoru did not look at you. He physically couldn’t look at you.
He shook his head. His eyes even went glassy.
His entire psyche went through some kind of Winx transformation and the widower persona kicked in on autopilot. Give this man a BAFTA fr.
"Yeah," he murmured. "It's. It's a day-by-day process."
You took a slow sip of your wine.
Fascinating.
He was actually doing it. He was doubling down. And right in front of your fucking sea bass.
The client sighed n' patted Satoru's shoulder again. "Well, she's lucky to have you pulling for her. You're the MVP, man."
Then he turned n' gestured across the table at you with the pleasant completely oblivious energy of a man making a polite business introduction.
"Actually— do you two know each other?"
Satoru's brain shorted out.
He'd backed himself into a corner. But nothing this project manager couldn't pivot out of. Nothing.
He looked at you. Looked at the client. And looked back at you.
The one Long Island Iced Tea— Okay, the two Long Island Iced Teas took the wheel n' were about to lose their driving license.
"This is her," Satoru whispered.
The man blinked, eyebrows furrowed. "Uhh, sorry?"
"My girlfriend." The grieving widower voice dialed to eleven and a half. "She wandered off from the facility," he tapped his temple. Solemn. Tragic. "The trauma from the cement mixer left her in a fugue state. Amnesia. She doesn't remember who I am."
...Are you fucking kidding me? Amnesia?!
A few jaws dropped. Your poor client stared at you with absolute unfiltered horror and pity.
And Satoru was suddenly doing two completely different performances at the exact same time.
Yes, he was spinning your client into complete nonsensical oblivion. But he was also staring directly at you with the most undignified, desperate, unblinking eye contact known to man.
Telepathically screaming: Play along. This is my grand gesture. I came here for you. Just roll with it.
"It's been soo hard," Satoru doubled down. His voice actually fucking cracking. "Just watching her live her life. Without me. Working this corporate job like nothing happened."
Then he leaned in placing both hands on the crisp white tablecloth and looked directly into your eyes.
"But I think she knows deep down. Don't you?"
Him n' approximately four nearby nosy diners waiting for a medical miracle.
And in this moment you realized you were giving your shitty ex way too much grace. Tolerating all the shit he was saying about you left and right. Tolerating his unhinged behaviour ever since you came back.
Telling yourself he'd eventually clock it — realize, move on, grow up, something. That one day he'd walk into a room and actually see you instead of whatever role he'd written for you in his head.
But here he was.
And he wasn't here to apologize to you. He wasn't here to see you.
He was still just performing. Still directing his own little movie where he is the tragic hero and you are the prop, the plot device. Now with amnesia too?
He learned absolutely nothing. Not one damn single thing.
And whatever was left of your patience evaporated quietly into the champagne beurre blanc.
You set your wine glass down and stood up.
Satoru’s eyes widened just a fraction. The spark in them lighting back up. He actually thought it worked. He thought you're about to play along. Fall into his arms. Weep into his lapels.
Oh, Gojo.
SMAACK.
Now ladies and gents, this was the echoing shatter of an ego finally hitting rock bottom.
The sound cut through the entire dining room like a gunshot. The restaurant went completely silent. You could hear a napkin drop.
Satoru's head snapped sideways. Hand coming up slowly to his jaw.
You smoothed your blazer and turned to the client who looked like he either thought he was next or had just witnessed the most entertaining work dinner of his entire career.
"I apologize for the interruption," you said completely calmly, it was lowkey scary.
"I need to handle a personnel issue. Please, enjoy the appetizer. We'll resume the fiscal breakdown shortly."
Fiscal breakdown.
…What?
Did the pain actually make him hallucinate or did he hear that right?
Why would you discuss fiscal breakdown on a— Wait. Was this— Is this a work dinner?
You looked back at Satoru.
His eyes found yours. Bewildered. Hurt. Angry. Surprised and everything else.
And for the very first time in soo long, the performance was gone. The stupid smirk was gone. The upturned nose wasn't so high up anymore.
All of it was replaced by something so raw and panicked it actually made him look his age.
"Outside." Your voice was icier than ice. "Now."
You walked out. Composed. He followed. Not so composed. Obviously.
You two stood outside on the exact spot he'd been peering through the window just forty minutes ago.
Satoru obviously couldn't read a hypothetical room to save his life so he led with the slap. Because of course he did. Safest ground for his ego — you had done something wrong, he could point at it.
"You slapped me! What the hell?! In front of a room full of people!"
You didn’t apologize, because why the fuck would you anyway. You looked at him with the specific ticking patience of a woman who had approximately three minutes to spare before she lost a lucrative business venture.
"You told my client I have amnesia. Right in front of me.”
Full stop.
He pushed back. Jaw tight. "I came here for you. Doesn't that mean something? I've been trying—"
You cut him off.
“You’ve been trying what exactly, Satoru?” Your voice was really clinical. Naming each “romantic” gesture he was trying to sweep you off your feet with. “The ugly, corny bouquet of the specific flowers I don’t even like? The meetings you forced me to attend? Or the coffee on my desk every morning like I owed you gratitude for it? Showing up to my important work dinner with an amnesia pick up line?”
He opened his mouth.
"Those aren't grand gestures, Satoru. It's unhinged stalker behavior, n' you're lucky I haven't reported you."
His defensiveness faltered completely. Because you weren't wrong. He somehow knew you weren't wrong. And the slap must have hit hard because the God Complex hadn't fully rebooted yet.
He went quieter. The slick register dropping out into something much more unguarded.
"I didn't know what else to do."
His eyes were on his shoes. It sounded almost real. Almost like something that didn't entirely sound like him.
But his pride is a stubborn bitch and it twitched. Couldn't stay quiet for more than five minutes apparently. The framing slipped right back into possession.
"You just left. You didn't give me a chance to—"
"To what?" you said. Damn girl, you really weren’t letting him finish anything he was trying to say, were you? Good job. "Fix it? The same way you fixed the anniversary gift?"
The fucking golf clubs. Landing right there on the wet pavement between you.
Alas, you pivoted. Because the point wasn't just the unhinged post-breakup behaviour — the entire thesis was the relationship itself. The real thing. The thing you were now paying weekly therapy bills for.
"I didn't leave over golf clubs, Satoru." A beat. "I left because I was exhausted. Borderline depressed. Because every single thing with you was a performance. Dates. Dinners. Conversations. The entire relationship. I was just another thing you were winning at."
He stared at you. Something in his expression that looked almost apologetic.
"You memorized my lunch order on day five. Yet you still didn't know I wanted to go to Santorini for example."
Knife right between his ribs. Because he deserved it. Because he paid attention only to the things that made him look good. Not the things that mattered to you. And if he did, he never showed it.
Suddenly there was deafening silence. Just the sound of the downtown street going about its business, completely indifferent to the two of you.
"I didn't know how to—" He stopped. Started again. Quieter. Almost to himself. "I just. Didn't want you to leave."
He bit his lips as if stopping himself again, or not knowing how to continue.
“I missed having you.”
Boom.
Wow.
You went perfectly still. Your heart dropped. Because it was close. Genuinely, terrifyingly close. He was right there. But still miles away from the actual point.
"Having me," you repeated. Not cruel. Just true. And it hurt. You genuinely loved him and he loved having you.
"Not me, Satoru. That's the difference,” you didn't even sound offended, you just scoffed.
He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Because you were right. And somewhere underneath the suits n' the lies n' the lip balm still rolling around in his car, he knew you were right. Yet he just didn't have the vocabulary to argue with it or agree with it or do a single useful thing with it.
You stepped to the curb n' raised your hand. A cab pulled up immediately. The universe had excellent comedic timing when it wanted to. Especially in the past few weeks.
"Goodnight, Satoru." You nodded toward the car.
He didn't move. He wanted to reach for you but he knew he couldn't. Just stood there staring at you like you'd pulled the oxygen clean out of his lungs.
There was no time for theatrics and quite frankly you were done with him. For tonight and perhaps for good. Because he just explained and confirmed that he didn't love you for you. Or maybe he did but was just too dense to fully realize it.
You walked back into the restaurant because you were an adult and a responsible professional and no ex was hijacking your career.
The cab driver yelled something annoyed because Satoru was still rooted to concrete and peeled away.
A beat-up purple Scion drove past. Hit the massive puddle right at the edge of the curb.
Splash.
Again.
...Was this still the same Scion? He glanced at the license plate. It seemed somehow familiar.
Though he did not flinch nor did examine it further. He just stared at the restaurant door praying for you to walk out or perhaps prayed for you to not walk out. Dripping with dirty oily street water.
Having me. Not me.
The words doing their quiet lethal work in the silence.
You spent the entire weekend bracing for the retaliation.
Checking the peephole. Even if you'd moved places months ago and he shouldn't technically know where you lived, you wouldn't be surprised if he somehow found out. Waiting for the frantic texts. The unhinged emails. The mariachi band of narcissism.
But nothing? Huh.
Because while you were sleeping peacefully, Satoru was sitting in a sterile hotel room. The Long Island Iced Teas had long worn off but the headache was still blooming. Staring at the ceiling while the fight played on a loop in his head.
His God Complex tried to reboot. Looked for an excuse. A loophole to still be the winner. But no project management algorithm ran positively. Only always a big fat syntax error.
For the first time in his thirty-two years of existence, he realized he might have actually been the villain.
Shocking, right? Revolutionary concept. Ground-breaking stuff.
On Monday morning the universe decided to do one final sweep. Gotta check if the ego was actually dead.
He walked into the lobby running on exactly little to none sleep. Swiped his employee badge at the turnstile.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Red light. Denied.
The security guard — a guy Satoru usually completely ignored — pointed a pen at him. "Gonna have to ask you to stand in the visitor line at the back, sir. System glitch."
The old Satoru would have thrown a fit. Threatened someone's job. Called the building manager.
This Satoru looked at the red light. Sighed. Walked to the back of the line behind three nervous interns n' a delivery guy.
Uh, is this actually our Satoru? …guys?
Or the time he was signing a logistics form when his ungodly expensive fountain pen just. Exploded.
Sploosh. Or whatever fucking sound fountain pens make when they detonate.
Midnight blue ink. All over his hands. His cuffs. The desk. The form.
He looked at his stained hands like — yeah, okay, that tracks. Walked to the restroom. Washed his hands. Or, like, tried to. The ink stayed for another four days.
Or the afternoon he was bedrotting — which had somehow become his favourite pastime.
What happened to the upcoming Hyrox? The fitness influencer arc?
He was watching something on Netflix when he accidentally waterbombed his laptop. No amount of rice was fixing that one. It was also the brand new MacBook Pro.
Well, It WAS the brand new MacBook Pro.
Alas. The karmic debt had been paid and the interest rate was his ego.
Which was incredibly convenient timing, because Yaga summoned him immediately after.
Satoru walked into the office expecting a reprimand about the messed-up project again. Fucking whatever. But instead, Satoru literally broke out in a cold sweat when Yaga dropped the guillotine.
Stated the dreadful facts. Straight out of a corpo horror movie for a guy like him. And alongside Yaga? The freaking HR department head.
Oh, fuck.
“Satoru, this is awkward," Yaga started. "Well, it can't be ignored any further, and I was just too lenient towards you if I'm being honest. You know what’s up, man. The entire company knows you lied about her. She told me not to make a big deal out of it, but ‘dis morning I got a call from her employer. Her other client complained about some incident Friday evening involving her ex? I believe you know what I'm talking about. Which means I no longer can ignore this… issue."
Yaga leaned forward.
"You faked the medical history of an external auditor. You are actively creating a hostile work environment. Do your due diligence and clean up this mess by Friday. Otherwise getting fired will be the least of your problems.”
And thus, this was the last payment. Since when are the last ones the biggest ones?
So began the Apology Tour. The ultimate ego-shattering Walk of Shame.
Satoru Gojo, the untouchable golden boy, manually dismantling his own myth, his own pride, and his entire persona all in one care package, because HR made him apologize for all the other shit his terrible behavior caused.
The HR case against him was thicc, plump, and fat. His luck might have finally worked in his favor this time, otherwise I think he would have been fired on the spot.
Needless to say it was the most humiliating week of his life.
And perhaps if he showed up, karma would love him again. And you included.
But nah. We are hitting a timeskip. ‘Cause for an entire month, literally nothing happened.
Because Satoru assumed the classic rom-com rules applied. He figured if he just put his head down, did the work and stopped being a public menace, you'd eventually notice his good behavior. You would soften. You would stroll into his office and say I see you're trying and you two would dramatically kiss in the rain.
He took six flights of stairs to avoid you. He pivoted out of breakrooms. He gave you a wide berth.
He waited for you to come to him.
You didn't.
Damn you, Ryan Gosling.
He was DEAD to you. Literally.
You felt like a literal deity.
Eight hours of sleep every night. Impeccable posture. Strutting through that office watching him press himself against hallway walls to give you space. Life was once again beautiful when no manchild was trying to be the loudest one in the room. The birds were chirping, the money clinking, skin shining and manchildren crying in corners.
Look at that. You finally trained him.
You were high on your own supply. Thriving. Completely unbothered. Thinking the relationship was finally, mercifully behind both of you. That you'd both silently agreed to act like it never happened. You were free.
While Satoru had the ‘having me, not me’ playing on a loop. In his ears. Behind his eyes. On his skin. Everywhere. Every waking hour since that fight on the curb.
And he might have been truly broken, because after weeks he thought that, aye captain, he might have fucked up beyond repair.
By week four he finally understood that just not being a problem wasn't going to win you back. He had to give up or actually try. Quietly. Without being loud. Without being him.
So he decided to test the waters.
Hey, the whole company already thought he was a jerk. Might as well push his luck. What could he lose? His job? He'd already lost his girl n' his dignity.
So one morning, there was a small, unassuming paper bag sitting on your keyboard.
A box of the specific herbal tea you used to hoard in his pantry. Three bags of the exact brand of cheap, artificial sour gummies you strictly ate when examining tax deferrals.
And a pastry. From a tiny mom-and-pop bakery on the complete opposite side of town.
It screamed: I noticed the chaotic, real parts of you. But also, hey look, trying not to be pretentious while being performative.
He was standing by the printer. Holding a stack of papers. Watching you. Quietly. Expectantly.
You looked at the bag. Looked at him. Held deadpan, unblinking eye contact across the room.
You picked up the pastry. Moved your hand over your wastebasket. Because Satoru didn't calculate one important variable: you weren't interested in making amends or entertaining his courting tactics, even if they were weirdly different from his usual style, and fuck off, man.
Thud.
Dropped it right in the trash.
Satoru physically wilted. His shoulders actually dropped an inch.
You sat down, opened your laptop and started typing. Not a single drop of remorse. Watching him suffer was giving you a massive ego trip. You were acting exactly like the toxic prick you dumped and you were enjoying every single second of it.
Like you two had undergone some deeply questionable personality swap straight out of a terrible early 2000s movie — but with a toxic twist.
Who would have thought being this obnoxious would feel so good.
You would nod in understanding if your ego wouldn't prevent you from being compassionate. The irony of it all.
Chef’s kiss.
Or one afternoon when you were walking toward the breakroom to get some water.
You heard voices, so you stopped outside the doorframe.
Satoru n' Nanami.
"I just... I don't know what to do," Satoru was saying. "My pride couldn't take the hit. She dumped me n' it scrambled my brain so badly I made it all up because I couldn't admit she didn't want me." A heavy sigh. "I'm just a massive jerk, Nanami."
Nanami stirred his coffee. "Yes. You are."
"I know. I just... I don't know how to fix it when she won't even look at me. It hurts, you know? Knowing I hurt her so much."
He was finally saying it. The actual truth. No performance. No audience. Just him and Nanami and a breakroom that smelled like instant noodles.
Most people would melt right there. Or like, people in rom-coms would. Walk in. Forgive him. Epic corporate romantic reunion. Workplace second-chances romance you find in the clearance section in bookstores or whatever.
Not you, though. The devil somehow corrupted the angel on your shoulder, and both of them were currently laughing in this really evil, highly morally questionable manner, making you do the same.
You leaned your shoulder against the doorframe.
Fweee-ooo.
You whistled.
Satoru whipped around. His eyes went wide. His bruised ego practically bleeding all over the breakroom linoleum and staining his cheek faint pink.
…Since he looked so cute blushing? Both the angel and the devil slapped you across each respective cheek. You just enjoyed seeing him this pathetic. Am I right?
So you smirked. Your pride absorbing the tragic energy from him like some cartoonishly evil mushroom parasite.
"Wow," you said, voice dripping with cold amusement. "Didn't know you had that kind of vocabulary installed."
You didn't wait for him to respond. Nanami awkwardly stared at the floor.
You just pushed off the doorframe, turned on your heel, n' walked back to your desk.
Leaving him completely, utterly leveled.
Now, who was creating a hostile work environment, girl? This isn't like you. Wake up, bruh.
Satoru was at what you would call rock bottom.
Sure, the pigeon had declared a ceasefire and the purple Scion had vanished from the streets, but the real terror was coming from inside the house: his own conscience.
That, and the fact that every single one of his subtle, weirdly sweet peace offerings was getting ruthlessly rejected by you.
And okay, quite frankly, your ego was starting to physically suffocate the entire office too. People were suddenly starting to understand exactly why you two even dated in the first place.
A match made in absolute, toxic hell.
Your pride inflated like Nvidia stock after 2022. And Satoru was starting to get seriously pissed.
Like, what more did he have to fucking do? He had literally gone through ego death three separate times in the past month. He had this weird spiritual awakening. He finally stepped outside his own body, looked at his own actions, and asked, Wait, have I been a massive dick this entire time?
But listen. You can kill a man, but you can never completely extract the narcissism out of his body. He still thought he was in the game. Unless you were actively married with three kids, Gojo believed he had a chance.
Plus, his karmic debt was officially paid off. His apartment finally got fixed, after about three separate calls from his contractor pushing it back.
Yaga promised him the lead on another big project very soon. He even got pulled over for mild speeding on Tuesday and didn't even get a ticket!
Except, his "brilliant" mind was completely running out of ideas to charm you. He had tried almost everything he could think of. He genuinely considered bringing the damn golf clubs to the office and performatively throwing them out the sixth-floor window into oncoming traffic right in front of you, just to prove, Hey! I finally get the point, okay?!
But to no avail. Even Shoko wanted to slap you. And Shoko lives for office drama. When you first came back, she literally damned her remote work days to come into the office specifically to savor Satoru’s downfall in high definition.
But now? Even she was looking at you like, Okay, wrap it up, Satan.
The corporate lobby was an absolute sea of people. A stampede of tailored suits, briefcases, and weekend plans all surging toward the revolving doors.
Satoru was in the middle of the crowd, his patience and his feelings stretched so thin they were practically translucent. He was at the absolute end of his rope. Frustrated, exhausted, and mentally hyping himself up for a massive Hail Mary.
Okay, he thought, adjusting his pristine white shirt. This weekend. I am going to think of something final. Something massive.
He desperately needed you to just acknowledge him. He had spent a month doing all this quiet, un-Satoru-like good behavior n' you hadn't given him a single crumb. Not a text, not a look, not even a freaking sigh. And as we already established, this man hated silence more than anything else on earth.
The quiet was a literal medieval torture device shit for him.
It was genuinely, clinically, destroying him.
Then, he saw you.
You were standing right near the turnstiles, trapped in a soul-crushing conversation with some Finance Karen who was loudly complaining about quarter-end spreadsheet formulas.
Satoru's heart completely hijacked his brain. He had to reach you. Right now.
He didn't think. He just started speed-walking—
Crash.
He collided violently with a terrified, overworked marketing intern.
A massive, venti-sized, aggressively green vanilla matcha sugary sweet latte exploded like a neon grenade directly over his chest.
Sploosh.
Thick, sticky, lukewarm green sludge dripped down his crisp white shirt, instantly soaking through the fabric and pooling over his Italian leather shoes.
The universe, apparently, had one last invoice outstanding.
The intern looked like they were ready to drop dead on the spot and write their last will and testament.
Satoru just sighed. Literally on a verge of tears, because this was the last fucking straw.
You had stopped talking to Finance Karen. You looked at the green disaster standing in the middle of the lobby, gave him a slow completely unbothered blink, and then you just. Turned on your heel. Started walking away.
Whatever that was, you felt like it would soon involve you, and it somehow didn't match up with the Friday evening plans you'd originally had in mind.
Your mouth twitched. Just slightly. Not quite a smile but in the neighbourhood of one. Because of course it did — you were enjoying being the villain in his story.
That was it. The absolute final breaking point.
Not this weekend. Not another weekend. Not one more day of the silence n' the distance n' watching you walk away like he was something you'd already filed n' moved on from.
No.
He didn't care about his shirt. He didn't care about his shoes. He didn't care about the, like, million people watching.
He surged forward, completely ignoring the green sludge, and voluntarily dropped straight onto his knees right in front of you.
Thud.
Right there on the fake corporate marble.
You stopped dead in your tracks. Satoru looked up at you from the floor, his blue eyes entirely feral and desperate.
He brought his sticky, matcha-covered hands up together, pressing his palms flat against each other in a literal begging prayer motion.
"Please!" he pleaded, his voice echoing loudly off the high glass ceilings. "Just hear me out. Give me one more chance to explain myself. Just... please. The silence is killing me."
Hail Marying right there, right now.
Your carefully curated, flawlessly maintained bad bitch persona immediately vaporized. Reduced to absolute atoms under the excruciating weight of the very public, very catastrophic secondhand embarrassment.
Your eyes went wide.
You looked around the lobby. At the audience that had assembled with the specific silent enthusiasm of people who had been waiting for this exact moment for years.
Something moved through your face.
Oh, hell the fuck nah.
For the first time in your sweet life you experienced a fight and flight response simultaneously.
Heart rate hitting like 160. Great Zone 2 training if you ask me.
"Satoru, get up," you hissed through your teeth, your face burning a violent shade of crimson.
"Not until you listen to me—"
"Shut up!"
Before he could utter another pathetic, career-ending syllable, you lunged forward, grabbed him firmly by his matcha-soaked silk tie, and yanked him to his feet.
You dragged him across the lobby toward the stairwell that led to the parking garage.
He stumbled after you. The tie doing the work of a leash n' him moving with the specific cooperative energy of a man who had absolutely no leverage n' knew it.
Down the stairs. Through the door. Into the garage.
You were already opening your mouth — the speech loading, the full clinical precision of a woman who had been saving things up — when you clocked the car.
His car.
Satoru clocked where you were heading n' unlocked it.
Beep-beep.
You marched him straight to the driver's side, yanked the door open, and literally hauled his sticky body inside, shoving him behind the wheel.
Blinded by absolute red-hot murderous rage, you sprinted around the front of the car. Ripped the passenger door open, climbed inside and violently slammed it shut behind you, ready to completely dismantle whatever was left of his sanity in private.
"You are out of your goddamn fucking mind!" you screamed, pointing a finger directly at his face.
He didn't know if these were his last seconds on earth or if he was just a lucky motherfucker. But hey, a game is a game.
"In the lobby?! In front of the entire fucking firm?! Are you actively trying to ruin our—"
Wait a damn minute.
You blinked. Your voice cut out.
You looked at the dashboard. You looked out the heavily tinted passenger window.
You take the subway.
Click.
Before your brain could even process the muscle memory mistake you had just made, Satoru — ever the opportunist — engaged the central locking.
‘Cause as I said, a game is a game. And he was willing to finish this Hail Mary with a freaking touchdown. He had literally nothing else to lose now.
He didn't give you a single second to grab the door handle. He slammed his foot down on the gas.
"You can't be fucking serious!" you shrieked. "Did you just kidnap me?! Stop the car right now, Satoru! I swear to god, if you don't stop this car—"
"I prefer extended conversation."
The M5 was already moving by the time your brain caught up.
You were screaming. He was driving. The threats escalating in direct proportion to how completely unbothered he was acting.
"This is illegal, Satoru! You are actively committing a felony!"
"Probably," he said, checking his blind spot and merging aggressively into the fast lane.
"I'm calling the police!" you shrieked, slapping your hands against the dashboard.
"Phone's in your bag in the backseat."
"I will roll down this window and scream for help!"
"You're already screaming."
You were. You hadn't noticed. You lowered the volume approximately four percent.
But you realized, with increasing, adrenaline-spiked horror, that he was genuinely not stopping this car.
"You cannot just kidnap me because you felt like it—"
"I didn't feel like it," he said. Eyes on the road. Voice completely level in the infuriating way it got when he'd made a decision and was done negotiating. "I had to."
"You HAD to."
"Yes."
"You HAD to kidnap me. You gotta be kidding me."
And that fucker had the audacity to chuckle. CHUCKLE.
"I will end you—"
"End me? Guess fucking what, I ALREADY ended myself. If you haven't fucking noticed!"
So you pivoted. Because if you couldn't stop the car, you were going to verbally dismantle the driver. The speech that had been compiling in your brain since you returned came out like a machine gun.
"You are a psychopath! All the shit you've done and now kidnapping me?!"
"What else was I supposed to fucking do? You wouldn't listen to me!" he yelled over the engine, knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"You did all the shit, then tried to make amends with the worst gestures known to mankind, and then after I had to physically slap you to wake you the fuck up — you started leaving me quiet little offerings like I was some kind of corporate woodland spirit you were trying to trap!"
All the pent-up, repressed energy he had been holding onto for so long completely exploded.
"You just LEFT!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "You packed a bag n' flew to fucking Santorini! Half your stuff is still in my bathroom! You never told me it was officially over! You just blocked me and disappeared! I didn't know where I stood!"
You laughed. A completely manic, unhinged sound.
"OH, you didn't know where you stood?! You knew exactly where you stood when I was apparently dead in a shark's stomach! Or being mauled by a lion! Or falling into a cement mixer! Or drying up in a desert! You TOLD PEOPLE I WAS DEAD, SATORU!"
Silence.
The volume in the car suddenly dropped.
Satoru glanced at you. Chest heaving. The green matcha drying into a crust on his collar.
Then — because he was Satoru Gojo and he physically couldn't help himself, but mostly because it was actually true:
"So you DO care." Almost a laugh. Like you'd just handed him a golden ticket. "You kept track. Even while you were walking around that office with your tan n' your upturned little nose like you're oh sooo far above me. Like I'm some piece of trash you get to play with just because you were pissed at me."
You opened your mouth to eviscerate him.
"And you enjoyed it," he interrupted, looking dead ahead at the traffic. "Keeping receipts while throwing out every single gift. Every single time. Don't tell me you didn't."
You snapped your mouth shut.
The silence was deafening.
Because he was right. And you both knew it.
But admitting defeat was not in your vocabulary either. The argument immediately spiked right back to a ten. The speedometer was doing something highly concerning.
"SATORU, PULL OVER RIGHT NOW—"
"ADMIT YOU ENJOYED IT—"
"YOU'RE AN ARROGANT PRICK WHO CAN'T ADMIT LOSS!" you screamed at the top of your lungs.
SCREEEECH.
Full brake slam.
The tires howled against the asphalt. The seatbelts violently locked, jerking both of you forward as the car halted right in the middle of the fast lane.
The city was suddenly loud outside the stopped car.
Satoru turned his entire body toward you. Breathing hard. Matcha drying dead center on his chest. His blue eyes completely dark n' feral. Forehead vein almost popping.
"But I'm YOUR arrogant prick," he panted, his voice a low gravelly snarl. "And you're just as fucking stubborn n' can't admit when it's enough. Who else would put up with this bitchy behavior anyway?"
“Wha—"
Something rolled in the center console cupholder from the impact.
Clack.
You looked down.
Lip balm. Strawberry. Yours.
It was still in his car. The one you remember him secretly loving. ‘Cause it was very sweet and wanted you to kiss him with it every morning before work so he could savour the kiss longer like that.
You looked up at him.
He was already looking at you. Breathing hard. Knuckles still white on the wheel. Looking at you like you were the only coordinates his internal compass had ever pointed at and he was absolutely furious about it.
Scared.
Turned on.
Yearning.
And god help you, you missed him so fucking much.
All of it hitting simultaneously.
"You absolute narcissistic motherfucke—"
You grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him.
He kissed you back immediately. Like he'd been ready for exactly this and hadn't been sure it was ever coming. His hands finding your face before you'd even processed that you'd moved.
It was messy. Desperate. It tasted like months of repressed toxic obsession and the strawberry lip balm — because of course you had another one.
Satoru hummed into the kiss, brow furrowing as he licked the sweet taste off your lower lip.
Someone behind you leaned on the horn.
Honk Honk, bitches.
His hands were tangled in your hair, pulling you across the console as you whimpered, clutching the steering wheel so you wouldn't fall over. The back of your head was pleasantly tingling and you got the same butterflies in your belly like the very first time he’d ever kissed you.
HONK. HOOOONK.
He physically peeled himself away. The restraint of a man who absolutely did not want to stop but was operating a vehicle during rush hour traffic and suddenly had some remaining instinct for self-preservation.
He swallowed hard. Pupils completely blown. Blindly reached down to shift the gear and hit the gas.
You slumped back into the passenger seat.
Slightly dazed.
Flushed.
You could feel the remaining lip balm smeared literally down your chin. You stared out the window, desperately trying to recalibrate.
Okay. New plan. You let this happen. You MIGHT give him another chance. You needed a clearer head. Away from him. Away from—
"Okay," you breathed out. "Take me home. My new address is—"
"No."
You blinked. Looked at him.
"...Excuse me?"
"No."
"Satoru."
"No."
"Take. Me. Home."
"No."
You stared at him. He was looking straight at the road. Completely calm. The fury gone. The desperation gone.
And just your luck, his long forgotten God Complex had officially rebooted. V2 effectively deployed. And he was absolutely not entertaining alternatives.
"You literally just kissed me," he said. His tone was perfectly, patronizingly reasonable. "HOW can I take you home after that?"
"That was a reflex—that doesn't mean—"
"No."
"No what—"
"Just no," he said again. Preemptively. Shutting it down.
The argument never fully stopped after that. It just evolved. Morphed from screaming about the kidnapping into this weird bickering that was half fight and half foreplay and you weren't entirely sure where one ended and the other began.
You gesturing wildly. Him infuriatingly calm. You getting more frustrated because he was calm. Him occasionally throwing out a smug comment that set you off again. You firing back with something that made his jaw clench and his hands grip the leather steering wheel slightly tighter.
The city scrolled past the tinted windows. The traffic thinned.
He turned the wheel and the M5 descended into the underground parking garage of his building.
The security barrier lifted. The city disappeared. Just cold concrete, fluorescent overhead lights and the rumbling sound of the engine echoing off the walls.
He pulled into his spot. Put the car in park.
You opened your mouth — the argument still fully loaded, still ready to fire—
He turned and kissed you.
It wasn't rushed this time.
Both of your dignities currently MIA, you somehow stumbled out of the car first. Fully determined to talk this out. Like adults. With important things to discuss. Calmly. Clinically. Without screaming or throwing heavy objects.
Even if your eyes trailed down to his groin approximately every ten seconds. Damn you and your unfairly good dick game.
Satoru appeared on your side, his arms snaking around your waist.
You swatted his hands away. "We're talking first."
"Obviously," he said, and immediately his fingers tried to interlace with yours.
Swat.
For fuck’s sake, he tried again. The man was committed.
You walked toward the elevator bank, staying slightly ahead of him. He followed close behind, only because you had explicitly told him to stay approximately four inches back without trying to fuse your atoms together.
You pushed through the heavy glass doors into the main building lobby.
“Miss?!”
It was an undignified shriek from the night attendant, who clearly couldn't believe his eyes. "You're— you're walking."
You stopped dead in your tracks. "...Yes?"
"Mr. Gojo said you were in a full-body cast! That you broke every single bone in your body during this freak mountain-climbing accident."
You slowly, methodically turned to look at Satoru.
Oh, here we fucking go again. Mountain climbing?
Satoru had suddenly located a highly specific, fascinating speck of dust on the marble floor and was currently examining it with intense, academic interest.
"He said that to you." A beat. "When?"
“Well, five months ago? When I hadn't seen you come home for a long time. I was worried, miss! Mr. Gojo was devastated! I'm glad you made such a miraculous recovery!”
Satoru was still looking at the floor. His ears had achieved a shade of crimson that was genuinely medically concerning. He now certainly knew that his past self had literally just cockblocked his present self. But, yeah, it was fun while it lasted.
You turned back to the attendant and deployed the sweetest, warmest smile you had used in months.
"Don't worry," you promised cheerfully. "I'm fine. But let's pray Mr. Gojo won't end up in a full-body cast himself anytime soon."
The attendant nodded once. In that solemn way where he didn't know exactly what was happening, but was glad Gojo was about to get properly humbled.
You two finally stepped into the elevator. Satoru was so flushed from embarrassment he might have spontaneously combusted. Suddenly, he realized how profoundly stupid it was to walk around lying your face off to a million different people. It has consequences. ‘Cause, duh.
You were looking straight ahead at the closed doors. Arms crossed. The specific posture of a woman exercising a truly heroic amount of restraint.
The silence was immediate. Suffocating. Shaped like the longest elevator ride of Satoru’s life.
“Satoru. You told the lobby attendant?”
Satoru stared at the floor numbers ticking up on the digital display above the door. He shrugged. Because what could he possibly say at this very moment anyway?
You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose.
Ding.
Thank fucking god. Satoru was getting war flashbacks even before the actual war happened.
He unlocked the door to his apartment.
You stepped in already talking—the conversation fully loaded, about fifty things queued up, starting with the lobby attendant n' working backward through the restaurant n' the amnesia n’ getting run over by a car n’ drowning in a hot tub, n' probably ending somewhere around the golf clubs if you had enough breath left—
But suddenly the world spun. He turned you around and kissed you against the front door.
You completely folded. The very adult arguments evaporated into the Dior Sauvage and the desperate, suffocating way he was pressing into you. You slid your hands up his matcha lattéd chest, tangling your fingers in his tie to pull him closer.
And your blazer miraculously evaporated too. From your shoulders to somewhere near the shoe rack — you weren't entirely sure. You were slightly preoccupied with the fact that his mouth was doing something to your jaw that was making coherent thought structurally unsound.
"I mean it, we need to—" you gasped as he backed you along the wall toward the living room.
"Yes," he agreed, not stopping though.
His hands finding every place they could finally reach again. The rest of the undried matcha comprehensively, democratically redistributed across both of you by this point.
Your neck. His chest. Your upper arms where he'd grabbed you.
The dry cleaner is gonna have a field day.
“Satoru, I'm serious.”
“Soo serious, baby,” he agreed, against your collarbone.
You slapped his shoulders trying to unsuction him from your tingling skin. But, lord have mercy, how good it felt to have him like this again.
“Let. Me. Go. We gotta talk.”
“Do we now?” he murmured directly against your ear. His voice dropping into that register that should piss you off.
You grabbed his shoulders this time, desperately trying to keep your knees from buckling.
"...Later," you breathed.
"Later," he repeated. Like it was already settled. I mean it already was. You couldn't peel yourself away from him even if he eventually agreed.
He kissed you again, dragging you alongside the wall, both of you trying to locate the damn light switch.
You opened your eyes, catching the faint reflection of the moonlight against the walls.
You pulled back slightly, blinking.
"Wait. Are these walls a different color?"
Satoru let out a sound that was half-groan, half-whine. "Don't."
"Is this Architectural Bone?" you asked, genuinely distracted. Because why the fuck was the white paint so cool-toned suddenly? You remembered it being a Washed Linen kinda color. Nice warm white. Not ugly ass Architectural Bone.
“No? I don't know? Doesn't fucking matter—"
And even if it DID matter, Satoru swore to god if you didn't just shut up and lay down on his bed he would become a very very angry man. Any fucking wall color can go to hell. White paint is white paint anyway.
So he just shoved you past the opened bedroom door. And shoved you again once he stepped behind the threshold.
Click.
He kicked the door shut behind you.
He dropped you to your feet for exactly two seconds. Just long enough for the absolute frantic impatience to take over.
He didn't even bother unbuttoning the rest of his sticky shirt — which at some point your fingers had started unbuttoning on the way here. He ripped it open the rest of the way, shrugging it off his shoulders and tossing it away.
He immediately went for his belt buckle. While he fumbled with the clasp, you grabbed the hem of your dress, and pulled it over your head alongside your bra, so you were standing there in practically nothing.
And that was it. Satoru's brain completely short-circuited.
Boobs. Your boobs. Holy shit.
His pants could go to hell — he had to touch you now. Bro was losing precious seconds every single time his hands weren't on you.
He gripped your hips, walked you backward until the back of your knees hit the mattress, and pushed you down into the sheets.
He immediately crawled right over you, caging you in. Half-naked and feeling like an absolute god.
He leaned down, a filthy triumphant smirk spreading across his face, and actually, unironically opened his mouth to drop a very diabolical line.
"Daddy's ho—"
He didn't even get to finish the vowel.
Before the cringe could even fully materialize, your muscle memory kicked in. You grabbed his forearm, planted your foot, used his own heavy forward momentum entirely against him, and violently launched him sideways.
Thuud.
Satoru lost his center of gravity, flopped flat onto his back on the mattress, bouncing against the springs.
He blinked at the ceiling, completely stunned.
"What the hell?!" he wheezed, the air knocked cleanly out of his lungs.
"Judo," you said calmly. "Tuesday and Thursday nights for the last five months. Great for core strength.”
And apparently also great for shutting up obnoxious finance bros.
You swung your leg over, firmly straddling his hips. Reached sideways — core-strengthening your way over — to grab the tie he'd thrown on the edge of the bed.
Now, you had an idea.
You yanked his arms above his head and looped the silk tightly around his wrists, securing them to the spindles of the headboard.
Satoru stared up at you. Literally panicking.
"What are you doing?!" he demanded, pulling his arms experimentally. The silk held firm.
And look. Satoru was never against experimenting, roleplaying, or switching the power dynamics. But he just wanted to fuck you senseless and just get the pleasantries over with.
Too frustrated and too horny to entertain games. And even if he very much welcomed having your boobs literally in his face as you fumbled with the knot, he preferably wanted you tied up, if anything. Not himself.
You sat up straight, smoothing your hair.
"I said we are talking first." A beat. "And since you have a problem with telling the truth, you're staying right there until I get it out of you."
Now, fuck him ‘cause you also started rolling your hips against his clothed lap. Slow. Deliberate. You were bare, soft, and warm, tracing your fingernails lightly down his chest.
Absolute. Maddening. Torture.
He tried to buck his hips into yours but the tailored pants and your weight restricted his movement. He started to squirm, completely desperate, his tied wrists pulling hard against the headboard.
"Baby, take ‘em off," he whined, his voice thick and strained.
You raised an eyebrow. "Take what off? You seemed to be in such a rush to be a Daddy, I thought you had the logistics handled."
"I can't take it," he groaned, dropping his head back against the mattress. "Take the pants off. I'm begging you. I'll do whatever you want."
He just whined. And whined. And whined. And don't get me wrong — this sight was sinfully satisfying — but it didn't really scratch the itch you had for how you wanted to bury his ego ten feet under.
"Admit it," you whispered, leaning down so your lips hovered just a fraction of an inch over his. "Admit exactly how miserable you were."
"I was actually fine—"
So you ground down harder. Slower. Watching him squirm.
"Now were you?"
Oh, this man wasn't walking out of this bedroom the same. You were about to wreck his worldview and his dick.
He kept pulling at the silk tie with zero dignity and approximately zero shame about the lack of it.
"Please. Just take the fucking pants off. Pleease."
You considered the verbal approach for approximately two more seconds.
Yeah. No.
"I still don't think you deserve that, Satoru. Liar liar, pants on fire."
He went red with rage and opened his mouth to argue— ‘Cause tf? Are ya’ll 12? Where the hell did that come from?
But you were done arguing. You swiftly shut him up by lunging forward and sitting on his face.
You took hold of the headboard. He looked up at you with wide eyes.
You smirked.
Miss Girl, you reeeally thought you had the structural upper hand here.
"So." Trying to sound clinical. Professional. Like your central nervous system wasn't currently melting into a puddle. "Are you going to finally admit your entire God Complex is just a cover-up for the fact that you're completely obsessed with me?"
Tsk, tsk, tsk. You might as well have handed Satoru the second golden ticket of this evening because the fucker didn't waste any time. He just dived in. Like a man starving. ‘Cause he fundamentally refused to lose an argument. Even with his mouth full.
He didn't stop. He just—
Hummmmmed.
Right against your clit.
"Mmm, baby... yeah. Whatever you say."
Muffled. Wet. Still dripping with that exact patronizing tone everyone else hated. You included. Well. Sort of.
And the smirk of yours? Gone. Deleted. Instantly transformed into a blissful ‘O’ n' the most angelic-sounding whimper Satoru swore you had ever let out.
Embarrassing. Moving on.
But you were committed to the bit. The independent era was not going down without a fight. Grip tightened. Brain desperately trying to reboot.
"And—" hips involuntarily rolling down on his tongue. "And the... stunt you had been pulling?"
He didn't even pause. Just adjusted his angle. Flicked his tongue exactly where it would cause maximum structural damage. Licking into you like you were a Michelin star soup.
"A brilliant pivot... strategically speaking it worked out in the end."
Eyes rolled back. Spine arched to oblivion.
You tried. You really did. You had a whole PowerPoint of his sins queued up in your head and ready to go.
"Did you... did you actually... ah, fuck—"
English? Deleted. Hotel? Trivago.
He latched on. Sucking with this filthy agonizingly perfect rhythm. You hated how good he was at this. You hated that you'd been missing out on this for eight entire months.
Wait, what?
Beeeep. Frontal lobe flatlined.
The ‘I hate him with all my heart’ persona experiencing catastrophic technical difficulties. Interrogation officially over. Lost completely in the sauce.
Totally oblivious to the fact that he was just. Quietly. Wiggling his wrists.
Okay so. You were a genius auditor. But you were not a Boy Scout. You tied a colossally shit knot. Like, a really bad one. In your defense you were horny, desperate and angry — you thought you could fake it till you made it.
But Satoru's brain worked terrifyingly well under pressure. One twist to the left, one twist to the right and he knew he'd be out in no time. He just used his weaponized tongue to distract you while playing a solo escape room with his hands. And winning.
Warm. Large. Wrapping around your bare thighs.
Wait.
Hands? Weren't those tied?
Whooosh. Thrown flat onto your back. You gasped. Trying to catch up on the new zip code.
You looked soo good like this. Satoru's dick literally jumped against the pants — the seam felt like it was trying to split him open. How he wanted to just push himself inside you. But. Why just win the argument when you can obliterate your opponent's sanity first?
He crawled right back down between your legs.
"Satoru—"
Nuh-uh. He just shoved the entirety of his tongue inside you, drinking your wetness out while he abused your clit with his thumb. And holy cunnilingus have mercy — he hit the spot inside while pressing from the outside simultaneously.
A hundred Santorinis couldn't compare to the twinkling stars behind your eyes as you came apart completely around his pretty face.
RIP to your dignity. Gone too soon.
He licked you off his lips and scrambled at his waist. Practically tearing the fabric from his legs. Suit pants prison: abolished.
Free. Finally fucking free.
He crawled up your body. This time without any cringe-ass remark — he'd learned the hard way. Gripped your hips and pushed you gently toward the edge of the mattress. Your head fell backward off the bed.
Blood rushed immediately to your head. Your neck arched, completely exposed n' vulnerable that he couldn't help himself and just suuuck on the spot where you would have to be damned if you could cover it tomorrow morning.
Biting. Claiming the pulse point while you're still trembling.
Asshole.
Satoru pulled back just enough to look at you upside down. His blue eyes pitch black.
Gripped your face and forced you to look at him. He wanted the receipts too.
"Aight. You got your confession," he rasped. Hovering right at your entrance, length twitching, smearing the precum all over himself.
"Now you're going to give me mine." A beat. "Admit it. Tell me exactly how miserable you were."
Your pride still standing. Barely. You might have lost the war but you hadn't lost the fight yet.
"I was... thriving. I bought soo many new plants—"
He nudged forward. Just a fraction. To prove a point.
You gasped violently, what the fuck, feeling like you were falling headfirst, his laugh somewhere above you, your nails digging into his shoulders to hold on.
"Liar liar, pants on fire," he mocked. "Tell me the truth. Tell me you hated every second of it. Tell me you compared every single guy to me n' hated them for it. How your little vacation was boring as hell without me there?"
You squeezed your eyes shut. Stubbornness evaporating. Pride packing its bags and heading back to Santorini. Without you, because the fuck, bitch?
"I hated them all. They were boring. They didn't..."
"They didn't what, baby?"
"They weren't you." Practically sobbing. Ego officially buried ten feet under the newly installed floorboards. The problem is, it was fucking yours. Now, c’mon. How could you mess up the script—
"And Santorini?"
"Was boring without you too." The words came out like they physically hurt. That’s why they came out so tight, it was embarrassing to admit. "I was miserable. I wanted to kill you n' I wanted you the entire time."
Satoru exhaled. Long and slow. Because he felt the same and hearing it out loud was something else entirely.
His ego currently expanding at a rate that defied the laws of physics. Fed. Stroked to absolute perfection.
"Good girl."
And finally. Mercifully. He drove his hips forward. Buried himself in you completely. Because his dick needed stroking too.
And boy, was it uncomfortable. Or mind-bending. Actually, you couldn't tell if the dizziness came from currently having all your blood in your head, or if not having Satoru's dick inside of you for so long meant your body forgot how to accommodate his wood. He was violently making room for himself.
"Were you also doing some pelvic yoga? You're so fucking ti—"
Lmao. What.
"Just shut the fuck up already!"
You shouted as you tried your hardest not to get railed clean off the bed.
Look. Gravity is gravity. You try getting fucked while your brain is marinating in blood. Cinematic for exactly ten seconds before it becomes a massive bio-mechanical hazard.
Satoru apparently agreed.
Without missing a single agonizing thrust, he reached under your arms and dragged you straight back up to the center of the mattress. Hooked your legs over his shoulders and folded you like a campfire chair. Your boobs getting squished under the weight of your own thighs while Satoru salivated over the entire image.
Fuck, how he missed this.
Leverage? Acquired. Dignity? Still missing. Hotel? Trivago. Again? Yes. ‘Cause I'm a phrase repeater, so what.
It was sweet romantic lovemaking.
Just kidding. It immediately became a direct horizontal continuation of the screaming match in his BMW. Just with more bodily fluids, kissing and marking. You were both going to end up covered in bruises and love marks and HR was going to have questions on Monday.
Toxically soulmating even mid-act. Because both of you could fucking multitask and never shut the fuck up.
"You are a manipulative, narcissistic prick." Digging half-moons into his back. You wanted to sound intimidating. You really did.
But Satoru did not take insults lying down. He weaponized his dick game.
He slowed down. To this agonizing, deliberate, spiteful grind. Hitting the exact spot that made your soul leave your body.
Your breath hitched mid-insult.
Completely n' legally unfair that his personality belonged in a dumpster but his physical capabilities belonged in an art gallery. Your mouth was fighting him but your body was utterly, completely folding. Well, it already was folded, but again it is the metaphor of it all.
"And you made me a laughingstock for weeks!" Entirely unapologetic. Breathless. One arm flying around your throat and squeezing just enough to take the air and the attitude out of you.
"I wouldn't do it if you didn't lie about me!" you managed, completely out of breath, gripping his wrist. Aye, it was not the time to be unnecessarily kinky but Satoru never gets the memo about anything, does he.
He hit the spot again. You let out a sound you'd pay money to delete from his memory. Your eyes going half-lidded, walls starting to flutter around him — n' then the spiteful slow grind just. Snapped.
He was pissed, but he had your best interest in mind, okay. Since you were so busy arguing he had to do the work for both of you. Not because he was also close and let's say the interior walls of the apartment won't soon be the only thing freshly painted white.
He lost his own control. Because you felt too good. Because eight months is a long fucking time.
"I did it because I couldn't take not having you by my side!" Panting. Desperate. "Tell me I'm yours. Say it."
"NO! YOU say it first!"
Satoru literally paused. A microsecond. Just long enough to process the absolute unmitigated audacity.
And girl, I don’t know how to say this… But you were currently folded in half. Getting choked out and railed into the mattress. And you were counter-offering?
And yes, technically both of you knew the respective answer, because otherwise you wouldn't get yourselves into this peculiar situation. But hearing it would give y'all the upper hand. And understand, that was the issue.
He let out this sound. Half-laugh, half-feral growl.
"Stubborn fucking brat," he rasped.
He stopped playing fair.
Shifted his grip. Pulled your hips flush against his. And went absolutely, terrifyingly feral.
“You fucking egomaniac.”
Back n' forth. Forth n' back. And every other different direction. Both egos completely unyielding. Treating sex like a hostile corporate takeover.
But eight months dry can last just as long.
You broke. He broke. The entire space-time continuum broke.
Someone call the referees from the Tour de France because we have a photo finish.
Messy. Devastating. You screaming, nails carving trenches into his back, squeezing around him so hard it triggered him instantly. That deep guttural groan. His teeth buried in the crook of your neck as he emptied into you.
And then?
Well. Normal couples usually cuddle. Whisper sweet nothings. Bask in the afterglow.
Not you two.
You were both gasping for air. Lungs burning. He collapsed heavily on top of you, crushing you into the wrecked sheets as he let go of your legs.
You shoved weakly at his sticky chest. Barely any strength left.
"You came first," you wheezed. Chest heaving. "I felt it. I won."
Satoru lifted his head. Sweat dripping from his nose. Looking absolutely, structurally wrecked, but personally offended.
"No fucking way." Panting. Glaring down at you. "I felt you squeezing the shit out of me. You came first. I won."
"You literally whined."
"I grunted. It's a biological response."
"Satoru, you came before me. Take the L."
"I held out for eight months and twenty minutes." His voice cracking slightly. "You lasted like ten seconds once I got back between your legs. Shut up."
"Narcissist."
"Liar."
You just stared at each other. Sweaty. Bruised. Still physically connected. Arguing about orgasm logistics like it was a quarterly earnings report.
And then. You both just... deflated.
Energy reserves at zero. Ego war paused due to lack of stamina. Stalemate— But both of you swore once the blood redistributed, you'd make the other regret it.
He dropped his heavy head back onto your chest. You let your arms fall onto the mattress.
Silence.
Just the sound of your heartbeats n' heavy breathing echoing in the empty room. The ceiling slowly stopped spinning.
He rolled you both over. You turned your head, chin resting against his sweaty shoulder. Blinking past the remaining stars in your vision. Looking into the corner of the room.
Slumped against the Architectural Bone drywall.
The Titleist golf bag.
But this time it somehow didn't sour your mood. Though this time they weren't the pristine titanium in a pink golf bag laughing back at you. Now they were warped. Water-stained. Rusted? Perhaps. Dull as hell. And absolutely pathetic.
"Satoru." Eyebrows furrowing. "Are those the fucking golf clubs?"
He went completely still.
Dropped his head back against the mattress and sighed. Here you go again, bruh. Arrogance suddenly evaporated.
"The contractor must have shoved them in here," he mumbled. Turning his head.
Huh.
“Contractor? What? What are you talking about? Does it have to do with the wall colors too?”
Satoru groaned again, mashed his face into the wrecked sheets, and thus he explained everything. How with all the lies the universe seemed to actively punish him. And that it was getting so bad until he got the apartment flooded alongside how he apparently made a mortal enemy out of a pigeon.
But he then paused for a brief moment. Expression actually soft. Raw even. "I'm sorry. About the clubs. About… everything actually. I was a dick."
A genuine apology. A real, actual moment of accountability. Did the lights in his head finally switch on?
But Satoru Gojo’s accountability has a battery life of exactly five seconds.
He lifted his head and looked you dead in the eyes.
"But you're the true villain here," he stated. Entirely serious. "You dumbed me and it messed with me so bad I literally had to invent all of... that to cope. You made me do that. So it's also your fault."
Staring at him you just laughed. Genuine, completely helpless laugh for once. Because this man can actually be funny when he wants to, but also, what the hell, lol. But you know what? What the hell, sure. His lack of chill and inability to cope was actually kinda cute.
You wouldn't want a healthy, normal man anyway.
He just watched you. And that ugly, feral anger completely, finally dissolved. Oh, how stupid he was for not treating you right the first time around.
He leaned down. Pressed his forehead against yours. Brushed his nose against your cheek.
"I'm yours, by the way," he mumbled quietly against your jaw. With zero hesitation. Fully cementing his own ego death right into the Architectural Bone drywall. "Just so we're clear. So now YOU say it."
You smiled. Kissed him back. “Obviously.”
Now since the great war of egos was over, he wasn't just having you anymore. He was finally, completely yours. And you were his. But you weren’t saying that out loud just yet. You WILL make this man sweat for it. Just like he deserves.
And maybe, just maybe, this time around, actually giving you the official wife title didn't sound so intimidating to him anymore.
He let out a slow, contented breath, his eyes fluttering shut.
"Hey, Satoru."
"Mm."
"What if I wanna try out the golf thing for real?"