Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You grow up in a bustling district of Keiosu, Tokyo. This means a few things for you.  It means your tastes and interests are as eclectic as the shops and restaurants you grow up around. They range from small occult specialty stores to anime-inspired cafés. Your favourite shop is an occult coffee shop owned by a psychic couple named Mari and Yuko. Mari always gives you free pastries, and Yuko tells your horoscope for free. 

Your district is also notorious for bizarre murders and supernatural occurrences. People go missing often, too. Your next door neighbour, for example, ends up being a serial killer. You aren’t surprised, though. He’s a Scorpio, after all. 

That said, aside from some of the decidedly abnormal parts about Keiosu, you love the place and the people in it. While many cities, especially massive ones like Tokyo, are known to be isolating, solitary places where many live entirely anonymously, you grow up with a strong sense of community. The other people on your floor aside from your serial killer neighbour are all good, normal people and you even become childhood friends with two of them, Shoko and Kei.

OK, so, Shoko is not really normal. Kei, who is a Cancer, is normal, if not a tad too motherly, but he’s a Cancer and you know he can’t help it, especially because you and Shoko and disasters. And Shoko? When you and Kei first meet her, you are convinced that she is a witch. When you were both little, you both would often see her carry half-dead animals back into your apartment building. A day or so later you would both see her releasing the now fully healed creatures back out.

When you both confront her, she tells you that she’s just interested in becoming a doctor. Kei, because he is a Cancer, accepts this explanation without question. You hold your reservations because you’ve seen the state that some of these animals were in, and most animal hospitals would simply put the poor creatures down. 

You learn that Shoko is Aquarius, and soon things start to make sense. You begin to write off her eccentricities as her, well, being an Aquarius. When you first tell her this, she makes a face at you and asks, “Don’t tell me you believe in zodiacs?” 

You nod. 

“Do you believe in blood types, too?” 

You nod again. 

She tries to convince you that it’s all made up, and then stops herself and mutters something you don’t quite catch. 

The three of you end up attending the same elementary school and middle school. High school is where you separate. You and Kei first assume that you would all be testing for the local highschool in your ward, but Shoko tells you both that she will be instead attending a place called Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Kei, though sad at the prospect of not being in the same school as her, is happy for her. You, meanwhile, are convinced that Jujutsu High is a front for a cult. After all, what kind of place has the word “curse” in it? And why would Shoko, who lives in Tokyo, be required to live in the dorms of the school? 

Despite this, you three remain close friends over the years. Kei goes off to culinary school for his baking and pastry diploma, you head to business school, and Shoko goes to get her doctor’s license. After getting her license, Shoko ends up taking a job at Jujutsu High, further adding to your theory that the place is really a cult. 

A couple years after you and Kei graduate, Yuko tells you that she had a vision and would like to sell you the shop. You and Kei become co-owners and convert the shop into a bakery café. You keep its original name, The Witches’ Brew, in honour of the couple. 

Your shop does very well, in part because over the years you become a bit of a coffee snob. Your favourites are Ethiopian Harrar and Sidama coffee beans for their respective sweet citrus and floral notes. You even manage to get some high-quality beans imported from two fair-trade, co-operative farms in Ethiopia. Though it’s costly to get the stuff into Japan, it brings a large number of coffee-lovers to your shop, so it all works out in the end. 

Kei draws in a high number of people to your shop’s through the indulgent pastry case that is replete with breads, custard tarts, swiss rolls, cookies, and cakes. His special cupcakes of the month also always bring in huge crowds. People love cutesy themed treats, it seems. 

You both usually hire a couple of students from the nearby university who work with you both for a couple years before they graduate. There are many graduation photos featuring you and Kei posing like proud parents next to them decorate your small café. 

Right now the students working for you both are Taiki, a first-year dance student, and Naomi, a second-year literature student who is on a lacrosse scholarship.

Taiki, a Leo, can be a bit too much in the mornings, and Naomi, a Pisces, feels entirely too much all the time (and especially so during exam season), but you don’t hold it against them. They’re both good kids and good workers, and between them, you and Kei,  your café runs smoothly. 

Shoko is a regular at your cafe, though she tends to arrive right before you close, and she’s usually drunk. Sometimes she arrives in the morning hungover and needing something to get through the day before she goes to her cult school.

Once in a blue moon she’ll come by, neither drunk or hungover, and will give you and Kei objects that will protect the shop. These objects are usually severed limbs, specifically the palms of what you hope belong to a type of monkey and not a very hairy human. She insists they’ll keep bad energy away. Kei keeps them on his desk in your shared office in the back of the store. He thinks the objects go with the witchy feel of the shop. He still refuses to believe the truth, but you think that with his motherly ways, he’d go into cardiac arrest if he realized that Shoko actually joined a cult under his watch. 

Outside of Shoko, you have three favourite regulars: an old man named Keiji who arrives right when you open to purchase himself and his wife some fresh bread and coffee for breakfast, Sena, the owner of the ramen shop a few shops away that gives you and Kei free ramen in exchange for supplying her and her staff free coffee, and Nanami, a salary man who always stops by at the end of his workday to purchase some bread and the cupcake of the month.

The sight of this tall, stoic man carrying a small black cat cupcake is enough to make you and Kei come to an understanding that you would die for him. You also would die for him because you think he's a Capricorn, and you know he is magical.  You never asked him for his birthday, and keep your interactions very professional, but you know from the way he carries himself that he’s likely a Capricorn. You know he is magical because you're pretty sure he healed Kei's bad shoulder one time. Kei, of course, does not believe you, and when you tell Shoko the story, instead of her usual exasperation, she just looks uncomfortable. 

Once, while Shoko was away for a two-week long work trip, Kei started to develop a pain in his right shoulder. It got so bad that you had to start kneading the bread in the mornings. You tell him to go see a doctor, but his doctor tells him there's nothing physically wrong with him.

When Nanami arrives at the shop, while Kei takes his order the man keeps staring at Kei's shoulder with a torn look on his face. As you go to put his order together, in the corner of your eye you swear there’s a flicker of something over Kei's shoulder as he’s showing Nanami some new cupcakes he's planning on introducing this month. You think the flicker is Nanami's hand, but you aren't sure. When you give Nanami his order, he looks as though he's come to a decision about something.

While you don't know what exactly he did, you know he did something magical because as soon as he leaves, Kei’s shoulder is miraculously healed. 

After this, Nanami doesn’t come back to your café for a while.

Shoko only tells you about her work at Jujutsu High when she comes to your shop right before closing. She's usually very drunk, and what she tells is often a detailed description of her dissection of a cadaver—at least, you hope it is a cadaver, because she never explicitly mentioned the body being, well, donated for science, or even dead. You start to think that maybe Jujutsu High might actually be a front for a murderous cult. You wouldn't put it past Shoko to become a murder doctor, to be honest. She is, after all, an Aquarius. 

You offer her water and whatever leftover savoury item there as she tells you about her workday from her spot by the café bar. After completing her meal and story, she passes out on the counter as you clean-up and close up your shop. She’s usually awake when you’re done, and you both leave together afterwards. 

Tonight though, when you finish closing up, she’s still sleeping. 

“Shoko,” you say, nudging her with your broom. Back in when you were teens, you once tried to wake her up from a nap and she put you in a triangle chokehold. You have never taken any chances since then. “Time to go home.” 

“Oh, it’s you, my favourite barista,” Shoko says, words slurring. Usually she’s sobered by the time she wakes up, but not tonight.  She makes grabby hands at you, so you set your broom aside and help her to her feet. “You know, I’m a doctor.” 

“I know,” you say, slinging her arm over your shoulder and walking her towards the door.“I’m ordering you a cab.”

"You know, I got my doctor’s license in two years?” 

“Good for you,” you say, pulling out your phone and opening up a ride-share app.  

“But I cheated,” she says, swaying forwards. You pull her back. “I cheated, did you know that?” 

“OK,” you say, because what is there to say to someone who tells you about their healthcare fraud. You don't even really know what kind of doctor Shoko is, to be honest. 

“This is why I love you guys," she says, caressing your cheek. She uses too much force and ends up slapping you a little instead. "This is why I've got to protect you guys."

"So it is a murder cult," you say.

"Everyone I know there has died or is going to die, that's why you 'n Kei have to stay away from that world, ‘kay?” 

For some reason, this makes you think no back to that one time in your third-year of high school when you saw Shoko walk down the busy streets of Harajuku with two guys. You never quite got a good look at the two guys. You were too focused on Shoko who not only avoided your eye when she spotted you, but actually dragged the guys with her in the opposite direction. You never asked her about it, and she never brought it up the next time you saw her.

The taxi arrives then, and you help her get inside. She's fast asleep again by the time you close the door of the cab. 

You expect her to see her up again the following night, but she doesn’t show. Instead, a man dressed in a really bad Kakashi cosplay arrives. He is very tall and kind of hot—and no, you are not going there. No. Not with someone who cosplays a Naruto character, of all things. Never. Maybe Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure because you like the makeup looks that come with it cosplaying the characters.

“One large iced caramel macchiato with fifteen pumps of vanilla syrup, heavy whipping cream, light ice, and extra caramel drizzle, please,” he says, cheerfully. 

You stare at him for a long moment. He stares back at you. Maybe. You don’t know because he’s wearing blindfolds.

“There’s a Starbucks down the street,” you finally say.

“I know, but I like to shop local,” he says, and he smiles widely at you. “Plus, I’ve heard good things about this place.” 

You sigh and reach for a cup. “Name and roast?” 

“Agumon, and a light roast, please,” he supplies, and you blink because it sounds familiar but you can’t put your finger on it. You think about it as you go to pump the vanilla syrup into his cup.

Keiosu is something of a haven for anime-inspired shops and restaurants, so it isn’t unusual to see customers dressed in cosplay, or for them to to give you the name of a character from a TV show or manga rather than their real ones. You like to think that you know most popular shows and manga, but you can't remember this one. Agumon, is that a Pokémon or something? 

“That was ten pumps,” he pipes up from the register, and you turn to see him watching you intently. Well, you aren’t sure with the blindfolds he has on. You quickly make his teeth-rotting drink and hand it to him along with a paper straw. 

“Thanks,” he says, his smile never wavers as he takes the drink from you. 

“Have a nice day, Agumon,” you say, and he chuckles at that. 

When he leaves, you remember Shoko. You send her a text. 

you: are you alive 

She leaves you on read, which means she's not dead, so start to close up the shop. 

The Kakashi cosplayer comes back a couple days later. Again, it’s nearing closing time and on a day when you are the only one closing. This time he orders a large white mocha with twenty pumps of white chocolate syrup. You stare at him for a long moment, and then silently go to make his drink of death. 

“Greymon, and use a light roast, please,” he adds. You still don’t know what he’s referencing. Pokémon? Yu-Gi-Oh? 

When you hand the drink to him, his face never leaves yours as he rips open ten sugar packets and dumps them, one after the other, into his drink. He takes a clean spoon from your counter and stirs the drink, then covers it with a lid.

He is a monster. He’s a Scorpio, probably. You consider why you haven’t hired more staff. You co-owned the place, did you need to also serve people? Why did you insist on working the evening and night shifts? Wait, is he asking you something?

“What?”

“I said, is that your husband? Or boyfriend?” He’s pointing at the photo of you and Kei posing with one of your former staffers, Aki, at her graduation. She’s a public servant now and sends you and Kei weird mugs from the places she visits. 

“No,” you say, blinking slowly. “He co-owns this place with me.” 

He hums, and takes a sip of the toxic sludge. You feel sorry for the poor coffee beans that were wasted in the making of that affront to humanity. 

He isn’t leaving, so you decide to ask, “Why do you always wear the same cosplay?” 

“What?” 

“Your Kakashi cosplay,” you say, slowly. “With white hair like that, you could be—”

“It’s not cosplay,” he cuts in, his voice deepening a little. Oh, is he annoyed? His annoyed voice kind of sounds deeper. “You think I’m wearing a Kakashi cosplay?” 

“This is Keiosu,” you say, which is answer enough given that across the street from your own shop are two anime-inspired cafés. 

“You think,” he repeats, “that I’m wearing a Kakashi cosplay?” 

“Yes, a bad one,” you add, because your mouth loves the taste of your foot in it, apparently. 

He takes his drink and leaves without another word. You’ve offended him, you think. He doesn’t come back again for a few days. You feel a strange mix of guilt and relief. Mostly relief though because you never want to make him another drink again. 

You’re in the middle of serving Shoko a dark roast when you start to remember who exactly the not-Kakashi cosplayer has been referencing. You picture a yellow, tiny dinosaur that later transforms—no, evolves into a bigger dinosaur with blue stripes and rhinoceros beetle-like skull on its head. But from what series again? 

“Digimon?” Shoko offers, taking a sip of her coffee. 

“Digimon,” you repeat, smacking your hand into your open palm. 

Next to you, Taiki stops refilling the cups and frowns. “Digimon? What’s that?”

You and Shoko share a weary look. You are both officially ancient.

Shoyu, the calico cat that lives in Sena’s ramen shop, wanders into your store a half-hour before closing. Though the cat lives (illegally) in Sena’s ramen shop, he is something of a mascot for your corner of Keiosu. There is an understanding among the shop owners that when he stops by their shop doors, he is offered water and treats, no questions asked, and health codes violations be damned. 

Shoyu sits down in front of your café counter. You crouch down next him to scratch behind his ears. You consider closing a bit early tonight. No one has come in yet, and it didn't seem as though anyone would in the next thirty minutes. 

"What do you think?" you ask Shoyu. 

He meows and bumps his head against your hand. 

"That's what I thought," you say, rising to your feet.

You're about to go to the door to flip the sign to close, but then not-Kakashi cosplayer enters. He’s still dressed in all black, but today his blindfolds are replaced by a pair of dark sunglasses and his spiked up hair is worn down. You think you see blue peek out of the sunglasses, and that makes your throat go dry a little. 

You walk over behind the counter to quickly wash your hands before going to take his order. Shoyu meows at him, and he bends down to scratch behind his ears before heading to the register.

“Welcome,” you manage to say. “What can I get you?”

“A large cold cream vanilla cold brew with heavy cream, light ice, and ten pumps of vanilla, five pumps of caramel syrup, five pumps of caramel sauce, five pumps of white mocha, extra cold cream, extra whip cream, and a caramel and chocolate drizzle,” he says in one breath. 

There's absolute silence for a full minute as you stare at him. 

“For Omnimon, and a light roast, please,” he adds, smiling brightly at you.  

“So you’ve evolved,” you say after another long moment of silence. He seems delighted by you finally understanding his Digimon references. You grab a cup and get to work on his order. 

Shoko walks in then, not at all drunk which is a surprise, and frowns when she sees the not-Kakashi cosplayer. Shoyu meows at her and she stoops down for a moment to scratch under his chin before returning her attention to the not-Kakashi cosplayer. 

“Satoru?” she says, blinking. 

“Oh, hey, Shoko,” he says. “You come here, too?” 

“I didn’t realize that you drink coffee,” she says. You want to tell her, no, he absolutely does not drink coffee. You don't say this because you're still working on pumping caramel syrup into his cup. 

In the corner of your eye, you think you see Nanami stopping at your door. You glance over and yes, it’s him. You perk up immediately because you haven’t seen him in so long. Shoyu pads to the door, meowing at him. You almost want to cry at the thought of Nanami meeting Shoyu. But then Nanami looks at the not-Kakashi cosplayer, who is waving happily at him, and Shoko, who is staring at him with her dead eyes, and he makes a speedy u-turn and walks quickly away. 

“I didn’t know Nanami came here, too,” Shoko says, after a moment. 

“How did you think I found this place?” the not-Kakashi cosplayer says. 

You freeze mid-pump. 

Not you, Nanami, you think miserably. Not you, too. 

That night you learn the not-Kakashi cosplayer is named Gojo Satoru. You also learn that he is a teacher at the same murder cult school that Shoko works at, which explains so much.

Shoko arrives one early morning with Gojo in tow. They arrive before you and Kei even have a chance to properly open. You fix Shoko, a dark roast to go, and you make Gojo an abomination to stay. As you pump twenty shots of cherry syrup, you weep for your Ethiopian Sidama beans and consider buying some instant coffee specifically for him. Kei gives you a look that tells you to stop as he makes his way to the back to get started on the bread. Of course Kei would stop you. Not only does Gojo pay for his awful orders, but he tips really well, too. Like a lot. Like so much that it’s starting to concern you a little. 

Shoko takes off with her coffee, eying Gojo suspiciously as she leaves, while Gojo sits happily at the café bar nursing his noxious brew. By the time you've finished your opening duties, he's still hanging by the bar with his nearly finished drink, and Kei is still in the back baking, so you go to the register and watch him sip his drink and wonder about his teeth and how they manage to survive so much sugar. 

“Hey,” you say, squinting at him. “When is your birthday?” 

“December 7th,” he supplies. 

“What time?” you ask, because no, there is no way this man is a Sagittarius. 

“What?” 

“What time were you born?” you ask again. His moon was probably in Scorpio when he was born. 

“Dunno,” he says, shrugging. “Why?”

“You can’t be a Sagittarius,” you say. 

“Is that bad or something?” he asks, leaning forward. 

Old man Keiji walks in there, ready to order his usual two coffees and bread. You got to help him, and a pained smile on your face. Your own star sign is very compatible with Sagittarius, but Gojo simply cannot be one.   

A few days later, Gojo arrives again before you and Kei have a chance to properly open, though this time he's without Shoko. He swings the door open, and shouts out, "I'm here for my daily fix of hugs and kisses!"

You stand by the register, staring at him. At your silence, Gojo raises his hand up in surrender. 

“Alright,” he says, “I guess then I’ll just take a large—” 

You don’t hear his order. You refuse to hear his order. Your ears reject the sounds coming out of the man’s mouth. Taiki, bless his heart, arrives then, and you tell him that you'll be taking an early lunch. You head out the door before he can even ask why you're taking lunch so early in the morning. 

It's still well before the morning rush, so you wander the empty streets of Keiosu and greet the odd shop owner you happen to see outside. A few minutes later, Gojo appears next to you, sipping on the abomination that Taiki probably made for him. 

“I like sweet things,” he says, unprompted. 

You glance at him. “How do you still have teeth." 

He smiles at you and you think maybe he’s got dentures. “You know, Nanami didn’t actually tell me about your shop,” he says, taking another sip of his drink. “Well, not, directly. He’s a bit of a foodie. I follow him on Instagram, and he posts a lot about this café.” 

He pulls out his phone to show you. You are delighted by the fact that Nanami’s account is dedicated to cutesy baked goods, and several of the posts include Kei’s creations. He will lose it when you tell him.

You stare at the page name and force yourself to develop photographic memory so that you can follow it afterwards. 

“You can follow him,” Gojo says, and you think he’s winking at you behind those sunglasses. “I won’t tell him I told you about his account.”

You nearly pull out your phone and do it, but restrain yourself. How hard would it be to memorize the username nmni__0089? Wait, why is he telling you this? 

“I’m helping him out,” he says, and he smiles mischievously. “He’s my kouhai, you know.” 

What the fuck. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone, much less poor, sweet Nanami. Wait, what did he just say before that? 

“Yeah,” he says, nodding to himself. “Shoko told me that you and that baker guy really like him.” 

“No,” you say, because how do you explain to him that you would die for Nanami, but in the same way that you also die for Shoyu, the ramen shop cat?  

“Oh,” he says. “Really?” 

You nod. 

“Well, then, here,” he hands you his phone, and you see the IG search bar is open. “Add yourself.”

You blink.“Why?” 

“Well, you make good coffee,” he says.

As you go to add yourself you want to tell him how would you know? What you drink isn’t coffee. 

Almost as if it's an afterthought, he adds,“You're pretty cute, too." 

You hold out his phone to him, dumbfounded. “Are you flirting with me?” 

“I’m always flirting with you,” he says, leaning in a little too close as he takes his phone back. His blue eyes peer out at you from underneath his sunglasses and you feel something burning in the middle of your chest. You wonder, for a horrifying moment, if it's heartburn from drinking too much coffee.

Later, you realize that adding him is a mistake. His account name is 666eyes. You wonder if he’s added you to his finsta.

He seems to be a big fan of IG live, too. He broadcasts a live video almost every day. You don't watch them for fear of what you might see. You don't know what kind of unhinged person uses IG live when they have a private account with, like, ten people following it. 

After the morning rush, you find you have a lot of downtime with both Taiki and Naomi working the same shift. You decide to tune into one of his live videos. 

“One of my students died,” he says gleefully to the camera. There are three people watching the live video, including you. “But for reasons I can’t share here, he’s back! His classmates are about to find out!”

The camera pans over to a large box. You witness a teenager with pink spiky hair burst out of it. The camera then pans to a dark-haired boy, a girl with orange hair, and incredibly, a panda. They are all in various states of shock and, in the case of the orange-haired girl, anger, as they stare at the pink-haired boy. You stare mostly at the panda, amazed at how the creature is capable of such a range of expressions when you realize there's a panda at the school.

You try to take a screenshot to show Kei, because surely this is enough proof for him that at the bare minimum Shoko's school isn't normal, but then the broadcast abruptly ends.

You decide to DM Gojo. 

you: why does your school have a panda?

666eyes:  For legal reasons, I can’t tell you! 

You try to show Kei the messages as you tell him about the weird broadcast, but he ignores everything you say and instead keeps wiggling his eyebrows at you and commenting, "Wow, so you're DMing the guy now, huh?" 

You end up messaging Gojo a few more times after that, mostly to gather more evidence against the murder cult, but you stop when you catch Kei watching you.

“Who are you messaging?” he asks in a sing-song voice.

You give him the finger. 

When Shoko arrives at your shop at closing, she's surprisingly not drunk again. You offer her a dark roast and ask her if she has antacid tablets, and she pulls a bottle out of her coat pocket in a fashion similar to a shifty individual selling stolen goods from their trench coat.

You tell her you think you might have been developing heartburn because of all the coffee you drink, and she asks you a few questions, like what symptoms you feel and when you started to feel them. You tell her the past few weeks you’ve been feeling burning sensation in the middle of your chest, and the last time it happened was a couple days ago when Gojo ordered The Drink That Shall Not Be Named.

Shoko frowns. “Any other symptoms?” 

You tell her that sometimes your mouth goes dry, or your heart pounds really fast and—

“Let me guess,” Shoko cuts in, “Satoru is usually there, too?”

You frown. Well, now that you think about it, yes. Were you developing a stress-induced illness from having to make so much awful coffee? 

“No,” she tells you, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s not heartburn or anything. Don’t worry.”

You sigh in relief. "Oh, by the way, why did you tell Gojo that Kei and I are interested in Nanami?” 

Shoko shrugs. “To mess with him.” 

“Why?” 

She sighs. “I don’t like him getting near you and Kei.” 

“Is this related to that murder cult of yours?” 

“It’s not—” she stops herself, and sighs again. "I'm just being a little overpro—never mind."

"You sure?" you say. "You can tell me anything, you know." 

"I know," Shoko says, and she smiles a little. "But don't worry, it's fine." 

"OK," you say. "But wait, I still don’t understand how you were messing with Gojo though?” 

“You are a dumbass,” Shoko says, her smile widening. “Never change.” 

“You are calling a—” your phone buzzes, cutting you off. It's a DM from Gojo. 

666eyes: Nanami is out of town and I’m supposed to be taking care of his pet fish, but this and that happened and its tank broke and the fish is dead. Please help me replace both so he won’t notice. 

You blink. Why would he ask you of all people? 

“You should help him,” Shoko tells you, her chin resting in your shoulder as she peers at your phone. You think there’s a look of resignation in her eyes as she looks down at the message.

You frown. "Why?" 

She launches into a very sad story about Nanami and this pet fish of his. You find yourself tearing up because god, this man has gone through so much and you didn’t even know. 

Shoko hands you a tissue.

you: fine 

Gojo sends you a wall of emojis and tells you that he’ll meet you at your shop in twenty minutes. Shoko decides to head home after waiting with you for a little bit. A few minutes after she's left, Gojo waltzes into your shop. When you ask to see the fish he needs to find, he shows you a screenshot of a Google Image search of a small brownish yellow fish with four vertical black stripes and red fins and snout. The search bar above the image reads ugly patterned yellow fish.

"It's called a Tiger Barb," he says when you squint your eyes at him.  

You think maybe he’s lying to you about the whole fish thing, but then again Shoko’s story was just so sad, so profound, you swallow your doubts. Plus, what would he get out of lying about killing poor Nanami’s fish? 

At the first pet shop you visit, you're able to find a tank similar to Nanami's original one, but the store doesn't have the type of fish he had. You’re walking to the pet shop owned by Takeda, a drinking buddy of yours and Kei, when Gojo takes your arm and pulls you to the direction of the old tiny purikura that sits in front of Sena’s ramen shop. 

“I haven’t seen one of these in ages,” he says, and he actually manages to squeeze himself inside the machine. He gestures for you to join him. “C’mon!” 

There isn’t enough space so you end up half-way sitting on his thigh. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer so that the camera can catch you, too. This close, you can smell what you think is his cologne. It's sunny and sweet, and you think it might be bergamot mixed in with something you can’t put your finger on. 

"Smile," he tells you, pulling you from your thoughts. For the first photo he makes a face, then for the second one he puts on a cutesy expression. You join in, and even steal his sunglasses to wear in one photo. 

You laugh when you retrieve the photos. They end up having too many sparkles and rainbows, and in one the two of you are wearing tacky twinkly diamond tiaras. Your breath catches in your photo when you see the photo of you wearing his shades. You, expectedly, look really cool in his sunglasses. But it's him that catches your attention. His eyes are a gorgeous mix of blues that you find yourself getting a little lost in them. You feel that not-heartburn feeling in middle of your chest again, and you tuck the photos into your bag. 

You turn to Gojo and see that he’s staring at you with a grin. You feel your face burn, so you quickly walk past him and avoid his eye.  

“Let’s go,” you say.

When you enter Takeda's pet shop, he also tells you that his shop doesn’t sell Tiger Barb. You almost think that this fish isn’t real when Takeda tells you that you’ll probably be able to find it a specialty pet store about an hour away from here. You're about to turn to tell Gojo good luck because there was no way in hell you’d go anywhere that took an hour by public transit, but he quickly thanks Takeda and steers you out of his store before you can get a word out. 

“It’s fine, I drove here,” he says, leading you, presumably, to his car. When you get to it, he opens the passenger side for you. 

He drives with one hand and you think he kind of looks a little cool, but then as soon as he pulls out of the parking lot, his foot pounds the accelerator there are no longer any thoughts in your head. There are only screams. No, wait, you are actually screaming, not just mentally. You clutch onto the handlebars so tightly that your knuckles turn white. He swerves suddenly, and you nearly topple into him. You grab onto his free hand and hold it like your life depends on it. 

“You’re kind of crushing my hand,” he says, though he’s smiling widely.

“Shut up,” you wheeze, and squeeze his hand even tighter. You hope it breaks. 

When you finally find and get the fish, you almost make a break for it when you realize you’ll have to return to his car. You’re thinking about the best way to ditch the fish (sorry buddy), when you see Gojo heading to the backseat to get the fish tank.

”Nanami lives ten minutes from here,” he says. “Do you mind the walk?”

You want to throw the fish at him. You instead silently follow him to a very nice-looking condo building. When you arrive at Nanami’s apartment door, when Gojo sets down the tank, instead of finishing for a key, he reaches for the door handle.

“Don’t you have a key?” 

“No,” he says. “We’re breaking in."

Before you can even open your mouth, the door opens, almost as if it wasn't locked in the first place. You blink. Nanami, who you are almost certain is a Capricorn, would not seem the type to just leave his apartment door open like that.

"After you," Gojo says. 

You spend a half-hour setting up the fish tank with Gojo. When you finish, you shut off the lights and you both sit and watch the Tiger Barb swim around in its new home.

Now that you have a chance to properly look at the fish, you see that it has a stern, almost stoic-looking face. You want to cry. It's the perfect fish for Nanami. God, you just want the best for that poor, sweet, stoic man. 

"You crying?" Gojo asks. 

"No," you say, wiping at your eyes. Then you squint at the tank. Something is missing. "We forgot something." 

"No, we didn't."

"I'm pretty sure we did," you say, but you don't know what's missing. The tank looks complete, yet somehow it does not. 

"I'm pretty sure we didn't," he replies, stretching out his long legs in front of him. 

“How would you know? Can you even see under those?”

He sticks his tongue out at you.

“Why are you even wearing them? It’s night.” You crawl over his legs and you push the sunglasses on the top of his head.

Your hand ends up freezing on either side of his face when you catch his eyes. They glitter under the light of the fish tank, and you feel like you're drowning in all the shades of blue. You start to say something, and his eyes flicker down to your lips. He leans in, and you’re not entirely sure what you're waiting for him to do, and you never will know because the sound of something flopping next to you tears both your attentions away from each other. 

It’s the Tiger Barb, who has leapt out of the  tank that you forgot to cover with its lid. 

A few days later, Nanami returns from his week-long mission. He's exhausted and ready to sleep. He's about half-way to his bedroom when he's stopped by the sight of a fish tank in his living room. There's a striped yellow fish inside, and it swims right at the glass to look at him. There’s a long silence as he stares at the fish. He doesn’t know why or how it got here, but somehow he knows Gojo is to blame. 

He decides that this will be something for future Nanami to deal with and continues his walk to his bedroom. 

Chapter Text

Gojo Satoru is a chaotic asshole. This is a known truth. Whenever possible, he will have fun at the expense of everyone around him. That said, the list of people he can mess with grows increasingly smaller as time goes on. Over the years, most people who know him just get acclimatized to his antics. And while there’s always Ijichi, the man’s genuine fear of reprimand makes things less fun. Plus, Principal Yaga thinks he’s the reason why Ijichi is organizing all the sorcerers working under Jujutsu High into a union, so he has to leave him alone for a little while. 

So when Shoko, who seems to have an immunity to his stunts, turns out to have been hiding her civilian childhood friends from him, he can finally, finally set her as a his new target.  The fact that these friends of hers are also the co-owners of the café his favourite kouhai frequents is the cherry on top.

But between taking on Yuuji as a student, there’s not much time for him to get to the café at the same time as Shoko and Nanami, so he decides to just straight up mess with Shoko’s friends first. She'll probably be annoyed to learn that she cannot escape hearing about the great Gojo Satoru, not even even while among her non-sorcerer friends.

He arrives right before you close and when he sees you, he guesses that you’re something of a coffee snob by the way you carry yourself. When he decides on an excessively sweet and complicated order, he’s proven right when you tell him to go to a Starbucks.

He watches as you prepare his order, a look that is a cross between disgust and pensive on your face. It's kind of cute to be honest, and he looks forward to the next time he can bother you. 

He waits for an annoyed text from Shoko to tell him to stop harassing her civilian friends, but no such message comes. He figures he didn’t bother you too much last time, so on his second visit to the café he chooses on an even more annoying order, and delights in the silence it prompts. You go quickly to work, this time more disgusted and a little angry rather than pensive.  

A photo of you and who he assumes to be Shoko’s other civilian friend catches his attention. You both pose with a young girl at a college graduation. He finds himself asking if the two of you are married, or dating, but not before revelling in the horrified look you give him when takes his already too-sweet white mocha and dumps some more sugar into it. He learns that you’re not married to the guy, and he’s about to leave when he notices you are checking him out. Of course you are. He’s Gojo Satoru, after all. He waits for the inevitable compliment and/or request for his phone number (and, hey, he’s feeling generous tonight, maybe he’ll give you Ijichi’s number), but then you ask why he’s cosplaying Kakashi.

He stares at you and repeats what you say because surely what you mean to say is wow, how do you get your hair up like that? It looks so silky and super cool.

You tell him that not only do you think he’s wearing a Kakashi cosplay, but you think it’s a bad one, too. A silence settles over the two of you. Satoru takes his white mocha and leaves the small café with a new mission in mind. Forget messing with Shoko, he’s going to relish in pissing you off, damn it. And if he does this with while wearing his hair worn down and in his sunglasses, well, that’s no one’s concern but his own. 

He learns quickly that you have a weird fixation on Nanami, which is kind of annoying, but also it totally makes sense that you prefer his gloomy kouhai because you probably have questionable taste in men (you did, after all, wrongly assume he was cosplaying Kakashi, like a person with questionable taste would do). But after several conversations with you, he learns that you’re just questionable, period. You ask him strange questions, and you tell him even stranger stories (and, alright, Satoru hasn’t spent a whole lot of time with civilians over the years, but the amount of weird shit you've seen is definitely not normal).   

Somewhere in this game he's started, he decides you’re not as half-bad as he first thinks. He’s less excited at the prospect of making you annoyed or angry, and more interested in getting to know you. He doesn't even realize this until he gets a text from Shoko the day he decides to spend his free morning at your café. 

shoko: hey sicko r u trying to date my friend??

Hell no, he writes back furiously. He throws in a couple 100% emojis to solidify his point. He’s about to write out a full paragraph to explain to Shoko that no, he’d never date someone who, out of all things, thought he was cosplaying Kakashi. Why would he date someone who freaked out when he put a little (OK, a lot) of sugar in their coffee? And, yeah, your reactions were pretty cute, and maybe he was a little charmed by your concern over his teeth and overall health because, wow, it’s been a long, long time that someone actually stopped and said, hey, Satoru, are you OK? Not hey, Satoru, let me kill you. Or hey, Satoru, go kill this guy. It feels nice to be cared about. And you know what? Your theories about Jujutsu High being a front for a murder cult? Not entirely baseless, and a pretty damn good analysis of the place for someone that's a total outsider. In fact, he'd love to hear what oth—oh, well, shit maybe he does actually want to date you. 

shoko: you're a dumbass 

Well, if there’s one that Gojo Satoru excels in aside from, well, everything he sets his mind to, it’s being adaptable. 

If there's one thing you're good at, aside from making a mean cup of coffee, it's compartmentalizing. You file away whatever last night was away in the depths of your mind as you get ready for work. Or, you try to, at least. All it takes is one message from Shoko to send you spiralling again. 

shoko: how was ur date 

you: ????

shoko: w/satoru

shoko: do i need to kill him? 

you: ??????!!!!!!!! 

shoko: oh nvm 

You blink at your phone. In what sick world could setting up a fish tank be considered a date? Well, you did almost k—no, you file it away. You file it all away. You will not think about what did not happen last night. You are so busy not thinking about what did not happen last night that you are thrown for a loop when you arrive at your café and find it filled with zombie-eyed college students hunched over your tables and making, well, honestly you aren’t sure what they are making. There are incomplete lanterns, papers, plans, and glitter all over the place. Why are so many college students here so early in the morning? 

You go to ask Taiki, who is doing a pirouette as he serves a dead-eyed girl a croissant, and he gasps at your question. 

“Boss!” he cries. “Did you really forget?” 

You blink. “Forget what?” 

“The autumn festival,” Naomi says, walking up from behind you. She is wrapped in fairy lights and has puffy eyes. 

Keiosu University (a poor, poor choice in name you think, but then again who could anticipate that this district would become famous for having the highest number of unexplained and unsolved murder cases? Not the founder of the university, that’s who), like many other universities holds an annual student-organized festival each autumn. Student clubs and societies provide entertainment, prepare food, organize sporting events and showcase student work.

Naomi was on the planning committee last year, and back then you and Kei offered up your café as a space for her committee members to prepare for the festival in exchange for free tickets and free testers for Kei’s baking experiments. You question Kei’s logic about using the students as testers because why trust the tastes of people in their early 20’s who are operating on less than two hours of sleep? 

In any case, you completely forget that you agreed to do it again this year, too. 

“I’m the lead for my year’s dance showcase,” Taiki tells you. “You and Kei are coming, right?” 

 “Wouldn’t miss it,” you tell him. 

He beams at you and then springs into a grand jeté, narrowly smacking into a bleary-eyed boy heading the counter to get his coffee. You turn to Naomi and ask what is this year’s theme. 

“It’s a surprise,” she says. “Anyway, make sure to come to my team’s exhibition game, too.” 

“Of course,” you say. “Uh, do you need help getting out of that?” 

Naomi shakes her head, and ambles back to her table, well, more like hobbles. You make your way to the back to find Kei. He’s making, well, you aren’t really sure what it is. It smells good, though. 

“Oh, good, you’re here,” he says, and he hands you a tray of cookies covered with small purple flowers. “Take this out to the kids to try.” 

“What are they?” 

“Cookies, obviously.” 

“I know,” you say, rolling your eyes at him,“but what kind?” 

“I used Red Fife flour, bananas, anise, milk chocolate, and viola flowers.”

It sounds like such a strange mix of ingredients, but you are intrigued. You balance the tray on one hand and use the other to pluck a cookie. It’s chewy, and soft in the middle. The unexpected flour combinations make you reconsider your entire outlook on cookies, to be honest. 

“It’s good,” you tell him. 

“I figured anise and Red Fife flour would work with the banana, chocolate and violas,” he says, beaming at you. “Now, shoo, I’m trying to make oatmeal cookies with blueberries, roasted hazelnuts, cardamom, and, ooh, let's try maple flakes.” 

You grab another cookie for yourself, carrying it between your teeth, and take the tray out to the students. The students swarm you immediately and within seconds you’re left alone with an empty tray of crumbs. Even the cookie in your mouth is gone, which grosses you out more than annoys you. You blink, and set the tray down on the empty counter. 

“You should check your hands to see if you still have all your fingers,” a voice says. You see Gojo seated at the bar counter nursing a pink mug of what you guess is a way too sweet latte. He smiles brightly at you and you feel your heart skip a beat. 

File it away, you think to yourself, and the words are repeated in your mind like a mantra. File it away. File it away. 

“It’s busy,” he says, nodding at the students. 

“They’re preparing for their autumn festival,” you explain. 

“It’s really fun!” Kei emerges from the back with another tray of cookies. Just like moments ago, he, too, is swarmed by the students. They disperse quickly, munching on their cookies as they return to their tables like small, sleep-deprived rats.  “You should come with us, we all go every year!”

“When is it?” Gojo asks, taking a sip of his drink. He makes a face. “Bleh. Needs more sugar.” 

You take the cup away from him before he can dump some sugar packets into it. Feeling annoyed and a little childish, you decide to dump a bunch of salt in it while he chats with Kei. 

“It’s on the 20th and it starts at five,” Kei says. 

“I think I can make it.” 

“Great!” Kei says, and he retreats to the back to make more treats. “Meet us at the shop, it’s not a far walk to the campus from here.” 

“Will do,” Gojo says, saluting him. “Hey, you’re going right?” 

You frown, sliding his drink over to him. “Yeah, why?” 

“Then, I’ll definitely make it,” he says, taking a sip of his drink. He spits it out, the spray of coffee nearly hitting you, and you cackle at the betrayed look he flashes you.

You’re about to tell him that you’ll fix him a new drink, but he lowers his sunglasses and gulps down the entire disgusting sludge of coffee while maintaining intense eye contact with you.  Your mouth goes dry and your face feels like it’s on fire because oh my god, you like a dumbass who drinks salty coffee out of spite. You crouch down and bury your face in your hands.

File it away, file it away, it—oh, who are you kidding? 

“You good?” Gojo heads pokes out from the cafe bar. He’s staring down at you with a goofy, bright grin. 

You inhale, slow and shaky. “Just give me a minute, Gojo.”

“Satoru,” he says.

“Huh?” 

“Call me Satoru,” he says, and then when he says your first name, you end up needing more than a minute to calm down.  

You take your lunch early again, but this time no one tries to question you. Kei, the bastard, has the audacity to wink at you and tell you to take all the time you need. You walk around the quiet streets of Keiosu. There’s a slight crisp quality to the air, a premonition of the cool fall that will descend on the city in a few weeks. You breathe in deeply, hoping the cool air will calm your burning face and racing heart. 

Satoru appears next to you. “You know, that wasn’t very nice of you.” 

“Sorry,” you mumble. 

“You OK?” he asks, glancing at you. 

You say nothing and avoid his eye. 

“You sure? Is something the matter?” he continues, and he holds his hand out to you. “What, you want to hold my hand or something?”

“How would that help anyone?” you ask, and try to slap his hand away, but somehow miss. You frown and stop walking and he does the same. You reach over to slap his still outstretched hand, but again, you miss. You reach over and grab his wrist, but your hand misses his entirely. 

He reaches over and interlaces his fingers through yours. Your face feels even hotter than before. You ignore his teasing grin and stare down at your joined hands questioningly. He has absurdly large hands, you realize. With his height and hands, he should definitely have considered a career in professional basketball, but that’s beside the point. It should not be possible for you to miss smacking away a hand that is this large. 

You stare up at him. “How did you do that?” 

He widens his grin and pulls you forward. "You ever hear of Achilles and the tortoise?” 

You balk at him when he launches into an in-depth explanation of some Greek philosopher’s paradox. When he starts talking about limits and proofs you check out of the conversation entirely, opting to stare ahead and think about what you’ll have for dinner tonight. You left out some chicken to defrost, didn’t you? Maybe you’ll make karaage and—oh, you’ve arrived back at your café. Wait, he’s looking at you expectantly. Did he just ask you something? 

He shakes his head, chuckling. “I said, what are you doing tomorrow?”

Tomorrow is your day off, you remember. Huh. You didn’t really have anything planned, now that you think about it. 

“Great!” he says. “Let’s watch a movie.” 

You blink. Is he asking you out?  

“Sure,” you say. “Send me the details.” 

"OK," he says, and he tugs your hand towards him and then turns it over to press a kiss to the centre of your palm. “See you tomorrow.” 

Your entire body feels like it’s on fire. You stand, unmoving, as you watch him disappear down the road. When you’re able to move again, you turn to face the café door and see Kei, Taiki, and Naomi stacked over each other watching you with interest. Actually, now that you’ve glanced at the café windows, everyone, including all the dead-eyed students, are watching you. You make a U-turn and try to make a break for it, but you slam right into Shoko. The door of your cafe swings open and you hear Kei shout to Shoko to hold you down and not let you get away. 

You receive unsolicited advice from Kei (“wear something warm, it’s going to be cold tomorrow”), Shoko (“he’s kind of unhinged, so make sure you bring pepper spray and don't be afraid to go for the eyes”), Taiki (“make sure you’ve thoroughly researched him online, you don’t want to realize he’s actually a serial killer on your third date—trust me, it’s the worst”), and even Naomi (“make sure that he's not married first”). 

Satoru definitely did not ask you out, you realize as you arrive at the theatre lobby to see him chatting with the pink-haired student of his that allegedly died. What is the kid’s name again? Yuuta, or something? You walk over to them, feeling as though your outfit is wasted for the occasion. Why on earth would he bring his student to the movies—oh, wait. You consider something. 

“Is this your son?” you ask. 

Satoru says yes at the same time as the boy says no. He turns to Satoru, teary-eyed. “You think of me as a son, sensei?” 

Satoru smiles and pats the boy’s head. 

You wince a little at the bright and pure aura emanating from the child. He is too good for this world. You make a small ask to the universe to keep him safe. 

“Hey, kid,” you say. You pull out your card and tell him he can come to your café and order free coffee and treats anytime.  

“What? Really?” His eyes sparkle. “Thank you so much, um…” 

Oh, right, you should probably offer your name before you offer a random teen free food and drinks, especially at a place in Keiosu. Wait, this poor, sweet child didn't even bat an eye at the location of your café. He's probably not from Tokyo (residents from the city that live outside Keiosu have, like, have five spots they'd risk traffic, bodily harm and death for, and you're always humbled when they include your café in this list). You make a second ask to the universe to keep him safe. He will definitely need it. 

“Thank you,” the boy says again. Then he looks between you and Satoru. His face contorts in horror suddenly. “Is this...a date? Gojo-sensei, did I just interrupt your date?” 

Satoru says yes before you can say no. Huh. Well, it looks like it is a date after all. Yuuji, red-faced, rambles an incoherent apology and runs out of the theatre at top speed. You blink at the cloud of dust that he’s left behind. Satoru takes your hand, and leads you to the ticket machine.

“That was probably a mistake, you know,” he says. “Yuji eats for two.”

Oh, god, is Yuji pregnant or something? You shake your head sadly. Though your country has one of the world's lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the world, it could still do so much better in the realm of teaching its youth safe s—

“Why are you laughing?” you ask Satoru, but he just offers you a smile as leads you towards the concession stand. He buys way too many candies.

During the movie, you learn he's the type of person to not only make comments throughout it, but the he actually spoils the film's major plot twist right before it happens, much to the annoyance of you and the people seated around you.

After the film is over, he offers to drive you home, but you strongly suggest walking (the theatre, thankfully, is a twenty minute walk from your place).

As you walk hand-in-hand, you glance at him as he tells you his thoughts on the movie's main character. You realize then that hasn’t worn the blindfolds or his hair up since you first asked if he was cosplaying Kakashi. When you tell him this, he turns away from you, pouting cutely. 

“It’s not a Kakashi cosplay,” he mutters bitterly. 

You laugh and continue chatting idly about the movie, and then, out of nowhere, he asks you what your thoughts are on shamans. 

“Like shamans shamans,” you say, wiggling your free hand and thinking about your café’s previous owners, Mari and Yuko. “Or like Shaman King shamans?” 

“Shaman King shamans?” 

“What, you’ve never read Shaman King?” 

You end arguing over which manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump back in the 1990s was the best (you would say Shaman King, but the character Chocolove McConnell always left a bad taste in your mouth with his racist character design and name, so you settle on Hunter x Hunter). You’re in the middle of defending your choice when you arrive at the door of your place.  

“Oh, well,” you say, turning to face him. “I guess this is goodnight, huh?” 

"Guess so," he says, and he leans down so close to your face that you think he's going to kiss you, but he doesn’t. He tells you goodnight, his breath tickling against your face. You keep expecting him to kiss you, and he doesn’t, but also, why do you keep waiting for him to make a move? As he starts to lean away from you, you cup his face, and pull him back down.

“Look, you drink really bad coffee, like disgustingly bad,” you find yourself saying, and oh well, no going back now. “No one should consume that much sugar, and I’m really worried about your overall health, to be honest. Please make sure you see a doctor, or at least see Shoko.”

His mouth forms an ‘o’, but you continue what is quickly becoming a rant about all the grievances you have against the man, and holy shit there is a lot you have to say. 

“I’m sorry that I thought you were in a really bad Kakashi cosplay, but also, you can’t walk around this district in a blindfold and your hair stuck up like that and not think that people won’t think you’re Kakashi,” you say. “Also, we need to talk about personal space, because you don’t seem to know what that is with, well, anyone, and every time you lean in way too close I think, does this guy want to kiss me, or what? Because look, I’ve been wanting to kiss you and your overly glossed lips since we built that stupid fish tank and—hey, did Nanami like it, by the way? I hope so, god, what a wholesome man.

“Anyway, you're giving me way too many mixed signals, like, sure you took me to a movie, but also what kind of person takes someone out to see a movie only to spoil said movie while they’re watching it? It’s not right, I deserved to find out myself that the baby was the killer, and by the way, why did you bring your student with you—” 

“I didn’t, he just happened to also be there,” Satoru gently cuts in. 

“Oh, okay,” you say. “Anyway, the point is that I really want to kiss you—can I kiss you?”  

He laughs softly, and you lean in and brush your nose against his, and pause. He presses his soft and warm lips to yours. The kiss is sweet and gentle, and you feel him smiling against your lips. 

You pull back and smile back at him. “Goodnight, Satoru.” 

You meet Shoko for coffee and a walk through the park nearby her murder cult school. The trees are starting to change colours, and the two of you take a seat on a bench in front of a ginkgo tree.

Throughout your walk, you realize that there are three teenagers stalking you. Or maybe they’re stalking Shoko. You glance at the bush a few feet away and you see tufts of black and pink hair poking out. There’s a whispered hiss, something like, “Fushiguro, duck down some more or they’ll see us!” 

Fushiguro, you think, is the one who answers back, “I don’t care.”

“Guys,” you think it’s Itadori whisper-shouting this, “shut up, or they’ll hear us!” 

You glance back at Shoko. “Me, or you?” 

She takes a sip of her dark roast. “You.” 

You frown. “Why?” 

“You tell me,” Shoko says. “How was your date with Satoru?” 

“See!” Itadori shouts. Then, in a marginally lower volume, he continues, “I told you Gojo-sensei has a—”

“Itadori, you idiot, they’ll hear us!” 

“You’re the one who’s shouting, Kugisaki!” 

“You realize that you’re both screaming, right?” 

“Shut up, Fushiguro!” 

“Yeah, shut up, Fushiguro!” 

"I'll do you one better, I'll leave." 

"Wait—grab him! Kugisaki, grab him!" 

These poor, dumb, sweet children. You make another request to the universe to protect them. 

The timing of the festival is perfect. Fall is in full swing, bringing with it cold air, brilliant leaves, and plush, gold sunsets. You and Kei are kept busy by the rush of customers buying out the release of your café’s seasonal menu. Both your desserts and coffees feature autumn flavours like roasted chestnuts, persimmons, and sweet potato. When you’ve finally closed shop for the day, you go to your shared office with Kei to change into the cozy sweater you brought for tonight, and you grab the flowers you and Kei bought for Taiki and Naomi. When you head back into the café, you find it empty. You cradle the flowers under one arm and check your phone. You get a text message from Kei telling that he’s gone ahead with Shoko and to have fun at the festival (but not too much fun). 

“You ready to go?” 

You nearly drop your phone and flowers on the floor at the sound of Satoru’s voice. You’re pretty sure Kei locked the café, so the sight of him by the doorway is a surprise.

“Yeah,” you say, when you regain your composure. “How...did you get in?” 

He winks at you, and then extends a hand for you to take. “For me? You shouldn’t have.” 

“I didn’t,” you say. “They're for Taiki and Naomi.” 

"You want me to carry them for you?"

"I'm good," you say. "But thank you." 

Taiki and Naomi’s campus is a short walk from your café. The festival is held in the campus courtyard, where there is an outdoor stage set-up and tents filled with food, games, and students eager to talk about their term projects and thesis. All the trees in the space are lit up with hundreds of fairy lights, dousing everything in a warm, orange glow. 

Naomi finds you both quickly. “So, what do you think of the theme?” 

You blink. There’s a theme? You turn to Satoru, but he looks just as confused as you are. You are about to ask Naomi what the theme is, but then you see the telltale signs of a freakout and quickly tell her that the theme is lovely and perfect. You hand Naomi her flowers, and she sighs in visible relief because apparently some people didn't get the theme. She reminds you to check out her exhibition game later before taking off.  

You both watch Taiki’s showcase next. You are incredibly confused as to what you’re supposed to be watching. The dancing is lovely, and Taiki is a shining star, but neither you nor Satoru can settle on what the plot is about. You think it’s about a love triangle involving a princess and two two warriors. He thinks it’s a tragic love story about a girl and a fisherman. You text Shoko and Kei to ask them.

shoko: what's that foreign shit with the swan and the lake called again? wasn't it that? 

kei: That was NOT Swan Lake! That was definitely Romeo and Juliet!  

You find Taiki among the cluster of students being congratulated, and hand him his flowers. 

“So,” he says. “What did you think of my class’ rendition of the Nutcracker?” 

Satoru frowns. “That was—”  

“That was great,” you cut in. “Really great.” 

Later, once you’ve watched Naomi's very violent game of lacrosse (after you witness Naomi stomp on a girl's head, you make a mental note to ask her what time she was born because you need to know what her moon sign is), you and Satoru grab some chestnut mochi and find a relatively empty spot in the courtyard next to a tree decorated in fairy lights. The lights cast down a blushing glow on you both as you eat. When you're finished, you stay seated, chatting idly about the festival, about Taiki's showcase and Naomi's game.

Your conversation twists and turns to other topics, and you're in the middle of telling him what his moon sign means when he takes his sunglasses off. You stop mid-speech, too lost in what seems to every possible shade of blue you see in his eyes. You only notice him drawing nearer to you when you feel his lips brush against yours. You lean into him and your lips meet properly in a gentle kiss. His hand comes up to your waist, pulling you in even closer, and you find yourself melting into the deepening kiss. Your fingers tangle into his soft hair, and his tongue slips into your mouth, hungry and consuming. He tastes so sweet it makes your stomach flip. 

You pull back and your tongue swipes over your lips. He watches the action before leaning in, his mouth brushing against your ear as he asks if you want to come home with him. You agree, but midway into the walk to his car, you realize that going to his place entails being in his car with him driving it, so you quickly suggest your own place since it's within walking distance. You realize that this might make you appear too overexcited to be alone with him, but if that meant you weren't dealing with his driving, you were fine with it. 

The next morning you wake up wrapped in Satoru's arms, his face nuzzling into your neck and his hair tickling your nose. 

“Mornin’,” you yawn. “What time is it?” 

“Early,” he says, as he detangles from you. “Want me to make us some coffee?” 

You nod, and try to kiss his cheek, but end up landing on the corner of his mouth. He chuckles, and follows your lips into a slow, sweet kiss. You pull back to yawn again. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says, pressing a kiss to your temple.

As he leaves, you settle back down on your pillow and start to drift back to sleep when a sudden, horrifying realization dawns on you. You jerk awake, eyes snapping wide open. He said he was going to make coffee. 

You bolt out of bed, nearly tripping over your feet, as you run to the kitchen.

“Wait, Satoru, no!”