Archive of Our Own

“You are in love with someone in this room.” 

Suguru’s prompt bounces through the room like the dancing lights from the TV, a dazzling secret that’s trying to find a way out of their small karaoke room. 

There were no secrets here though. Just four good friends playing a fun game to end the work week. 

Satoru doesn’t think twice. He downs the contents of his glass. It’s no secret, too, that his drink is soda, not beer; but that’s besides the point. The rules only say you have to drink if the prompt is true for you, after all. It doesn’t need to be alcohol. 

He smirks and lets himself watch the others in the room. He first checks on Utahime. Her dainty hand lies dormant on her glass of beer. The lights in the room move teasingly from the glass to her fingers as she impatiently taps on its surface.  

Suguru and Shoko, as expected, both clear their shots without hesitation. 

“What a boring prompt, Geto!” Utahime mutters, crossing her arms over her chest. She gives Suguru an exasperated sigh and Satoru wonders if she even noticed him drink his soda. “That’s obviously just for you and Sho—”

“Feeling left out, Utahime?” Satoru commands her attention back to him. “Don’t be shy. You can drink your beer. I volunteer to receive your affection.”

“I just want to drink beer, Idiot!” she huffs. “Can't we just play a game that doesn’t prevent me from drinking?"  

She looks as if she’s about to shout some more before she finally notices his empty glass. She faces him, a puzzled expression on her face.  

“You drank?” Satoru admires the way her brows furrow, probably thinking of the possible explanations, waiting on his answer.  

“It’s ‘cause I’m in love with someone in this room,” he winks at her, and he's painfully disappointed at the look of horror that dawns on her face. Shoko and Suguru, meanwhile, are both eyeing him from across the table, obviously interested in what he'll say next. But he doesn’t want to give all of them any false hopes, so he takes a deep breath, runs his finger through his hair and proclaims, "myself, of course.”  

Shoko mutters “Idiot,” Suguru looks like he's watching a forced plot twist, and Utahime proclaims the game is over. She doesn’t waste time and proceeds to finally drink in huge and quick gulps. Shoko moves closer to her on their little U-shaped couch and rubs her back imploring her to slow down. 

“You three did this on purpose.” She slams her empty glass on the table and accuses, mostly Shoko, with a pout. 

“It’s really not.” Shoko motions for Suguru, who’s seated on the other end of the couch, to come closer and refill Utahime’s glass with beer. “You did say you wou—” 

“It’s not our fault your life is boring, Utahime.” Satoru cuts Shoko off. He’s seated on the other side of Utahime. The truth is none of the prompts simply applied to her and she was too nice to lie. 

“Says the guy who only drinks soda,” Shoko counters and Utahime laughs a little too loudly for his taste. 

Utahime is flaunting her glass of beer to his face when Suguru suggests their next game. “How about a game of truth or dare, senpai ?” Suguru’s arms are draped across Shoko’s shoulders. “That way you can drink a lot.”

“Let’s do it!” Utahime points her glass toward Suguru and they toast to the idea. 

She drinks from her —second, Satoru notes— glass and Satoru wonders how long it’ll take for her to get drunk tonight. Thankfully, they were in a room, so he didn’t have to worry about any encounters with strangers. Not that it’s anything new. They always rent a karaoke box, firstly for privacy, and secondly, in hopes that karaoke would distract them (Utahime specifically) long enough to avoid getting drunk easily. It never works though.

Basically, the night starts, Utahime vows to not drink, not that any of them believe her. She says that every time they go out. To be fair, she doesn’t drink during the first three hours, not for as long as she’ll sing, something about keeping the voice in tip-top shape. But all that restraint doesn’t matter, because somewhere between the third and fourth hours of the night, the mic is deposited to a corner, and the hum from the TV is relegated to background noise, as they play pointless games and consume their drinks at an increasingly alarming rate. 

Well, they drink. Satoru’s just here to observe. 

They’ve done this enough times for him to do the Math. He knows the pattern, the formula. Shoko’s never been drunk. Suguru gets tipsy at around six glasses. And Utahime? She’s going to be tipsy after four glasses. Six glasses, she’s drunk. Seven, she’s going to be a singing goddess. And eight? He’s never seen her finish an eighth. He hopes he never has to. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she mutters defensively like she’d heard his thoughts. “I won’t get drunk.” 

“You say that every time we drink.” And just like that, they go into their usual banter, a pattern they’re used to. 

“I don’t.”  

“You do.” 

“I don’t.” 

“You do.”

“You don’t even drink.”  

He can’t say anything to that, so he starts something else.

“Truth or dare is a stupid game.” 

“You’re just afraid.”

“Why would I be?” Satoru smirks. “Unlike you, I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m just watching out for you.” 

“As if!” Utahime rolls her eyes. “You only ever watch out for yourself!” 

“Let’s just play,” Shoko stops them, impatient. "Hime, you go first. Truth or dare."  

Utahime chugs the remaining contents of her second glass of beer and smiles, "Truth!" 

“Ah! I have a good question.” Satoru claps his hands. If they were playing this stupid game, he might as well turn it against them, rile them all up. "What did you do when you first found out that Suguru and your darling best friend , Shoko were dating?”  

The effect is immediate and he relishes the sudden uneasiness in the room. Utahime, her eyes down, cheeks already rosy from alcohol, squirms and bites her lip. Suguru’s eyes shift between the two girls. And for the first time that night, Shoko’s fighting to keep any expression from showing on her face.  

“I…"  

“Regretting the game now, aren’t we, Utahime?” He taunts and leans toward her, his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. She doesn't spare him a glance though, instead she turns to Geto. 

"I..." she takes a deep breath, “I hid that lighter you sent Shoko.” 

Suguru's face shows instant recognition, and a sharp intake of breath soon follows.  

"...because I thought you were a bad influence and was encouraging her to smoke." 

It takes a while for Suguru to recover. 

"...it was missing for months?" Suguru asks all of them, in general.

"I didn't know it had an engraving... I almost threw it out." Utahime’s last sentence is almost a whisper. 

For a minute, the lights are the only things that moved in the room.

"You knew?" 

Shoko nods, but doesn’t offer further explanation. 

Satoru, meanwhile, is beyond ready to spill the story and embarrass Utahime further. “You really had no idea, didn’t you?” He mocks her. “Shoko even threatened me to help her look for it. We spent weeks! Or was it mont-” 

“I didn’t know! And I gave it back!” comes Utahime’s frantic reply and he ignores it, ecstatic. 

He addresses Suguru next, “She confessed to Shoko two days after she stealthily returned it.” 

“It was the worst two days of my life!” Utahime turns to Geto as well, “Geto, I’m sorry but you can’t blame me.”  

“I love Shoko so much.” She scoots closer to Shoko and captures her in a hug, all the while shooting glares at Suguru. “If you break her heart, you’ll answer to me.” 

How she manages to be sweet and threatening at the same time is beyond him, but Satoru chooses not to dwell on it. 

“That doesn’t make it any less horrible, Hime.” He shakes his head, chastising her. 

“Nah, I understand, senpai ,” Suguru says. "It's been years anyway, and you did return it…” Satoru can tell he’s sincere, but he sees the glint of mischief in his eyes, “…albeit broken." 

Yup, Suguru couldn’t hold back from teasing her after all. 

"You know, Shoko and I almost broke up because of tha-" 

Utahime lets out something between a squeal and a cry. "I know! I'm sorry!" She buries her face on Shoko’s shoulder.   

"He's messing with you, Hime." Shoko whacks Suguru's shoulder and he laughs. 

"That's mean." Utahime only hugs her tighter. "Your boyfriend is mean." 

“Hey,” Geto’s smile is almost sinister. He’s too amused. “I’m not the one who hid my best friend’s special item.” 

"Yeah, yeah, you're both mean." Satoru ends the conversation and ignores any more protests. “Shoko! Truth or Dare.” 

“Dare.” 

“Don’t smoke again.”  

“Tell them how long you’ve had a crush on me.” 

“Your dares are all bori-” 

“I’ve had a crush on Suguru since the same shirt incident.” Shoko answers quickly and without really looking at anyone. Satoru was about to complain. She effectively stopped him from giving a dare and chose what he thought was the easiest one, but Suguru’s momentary and stunned silence seems to say otherwise. 

Utahime opens her mouth to say something, but Suguru is quick to cut her off.  

“Hit me with a dare.” He's smiling, already recovered, and intent on saving Shoko from any follow-up questions. 

Satoru meets Utahime’s eyes, both feeling left out. A quick moment passes but they just as quickly recover. They could never agree for so long, after all. 

“Call Shoko lov-”  

“- honeybunch for the rest of the night!” 

“Eh? But calling your girlfriend love is so much sweeter-” 

“Utahime, the point is to give the more disgusting option.” Utahime blinks and processes it for a second, but then, to his delight, mouths an oh in understanding .  

Suguru keeps quiet, too amused for someone waiting to be dared. 

“Hime, I thought you loved me.”  

“Sorry, Shoko.” Utahime chuckles and sticks a tongue out at her – a nearly finished with her third glass behavior. To his surprise though, she also has the audacity to wink at Suguru. “It’s a cute nickname and it's my apology gift to Suguru for hiding the lighter.” 

Suguru’s response is to throw a celebratory fist in the air.

Between the two of them, Shoko shrugs (obviously fake) and makes a move to refill her glass but Suguru stops her.

“I’ll do it for you, honeybunch. ”  

The three of them snicker at the face Shoko makes before she downs all the beer her honeybunch had just given her. 

“Your turn, Satoru,” Shoko says with bloodlust as she places her glass on the table, “Truth or Dare?” 

“Dare,” he says back, a smirk plastered on his lips. He’s ready for a challenge. 

“Ah! Call me senpai for the rest of the night!”  

“Too easy,” Shoko immediately counters, “Call her love for the rest of the night.”  

“It is sweet after all to call someone’s girlfriend love ,” Suguru says, winking at Utahime, and consequently earning a look of approval from Shoko. 

“Traitors!” Utahime spits fire, instantly distancing herself from Shoko and Suguru on the couch. She had scooted far enough from them to be closer to Satoru, but he notes, still not enough to actually touch him.

"How could you?” She implores Geto. “After all the support I've given you!" 

"Sorry, senpai ." Geto mocks a pout. "But you know my loyalties lie with my honeybunch ." 

His last statement ceremoniously earns him a smack on the shoulder from Shoko. He chuckles and greets her fist with his palms, but instead of pushing it away, he envelops her fist with his and holds it in place. The two share a smile and Satoru again feels a tad bit out of place and thinks—   

"Don't you dare, Gojo!" Utahime’s sharp tone brings him back, again, like a mind-reader. What is it with her timing?  

"Sure, love." He winks at her, convinced to provide a better wink than Suguru’s. “Want a kiss to go with it?” 

This earns him a hard smack on the ribs. For a moment, he considers catching her hands before it hits, but he realizes Suguru and Shoko were watching. And they aren’t the same as Suguru and Shoko, so why would they even need to mirror them? 

Satoru isn’t sure if he’s happy about that fact. 

The night drags on and the second bout of truth or dare is calmer… well, a little. Utahime is a full three glasses in. Satoru doesn’t really need to count to know, her speech has started to slur, her ribbon is lopsided, the right sleeve of her black shirt has started to slip from her shoulder. Next to Shoko who is composed as ever in her dark gray sweater, Utahime’s a hot mess.  

This next round, they decide to take things slow and ask a question each.  

“Hime, what’s the best date you’ve ever been to?” Shoko asks. She’s helping Suguru roll up the sleeves of his white polo, the only indication he’s starting to feel the alcohol. 

“Hanegi Park!”  

Satoru spits his drink.  

“Classy as ever, Satoru.” Shoko gives him a side-eye before she turns to Utahime, obviously interested. “The campus guy? The one who took you out for your birthday? To Ume Matsuri?”  

The lights seem to move a little faster.  

Utahime nods and drinks her beer. She then blesses them with a very dazzling and very drunk smile. Right, the glass she just finished is her fourth. No wonder she’s starting to spout… nonsense. Satoru doesn’t say anything.

 “But didn’t you say it wasn’t exactly a date...” 

 “Ah!” She sends a finger gun at no one in particular. “That’s also true.”  

Then she blows a raspberry and immediately shakes her head, as if erasing a thought away. “That’s right! It’s not a date at all! We just hung out!”  

“You always say that.” Shoko’s interest dissipates and she refills Utahime’s glass. “If I meet this campus guy, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Which campus is he from anyway?” 

Suguru meets Satoru’s eyes. Unlike Shoko, who was focused on Utahime, he has taken note of Satoru’s unusual silence and thinks more of his earlier reaction. He doesn’t get to ask any questions though because Satoru quickly excuses himself to go to the restroom.  

Some of the lights from the room follow him outside, it dances on the wall right across him. He shuts the door and it promptly stops. Well , he takes a deep breath, now that he’s away from all that, he starts his no-destination walk around the karaoke compound at a deliberately slow pace. 

Campus guy, couldn’t she think of a better nickname? At least when he tells Geto about him being out, it’s always a random different girl. If he’d said he was going out on all those dates with that campus girl (not that they were dates), Geto, and naturally, Shoko, would instantly sniff them out. Campus guy. Lame. 

He thinks back on Hanegi Park. What was his excuse that time? 

"Utahime, what are you even worried about? It’s your birthday, why don’t you enjoy the day instead.”

“But they’ll — ”

“Besides, the results are obvious. My students will come out on top 'cause I'm the better teacher."

"I don't have time for this, Gojo."

"Yeah. You don't. 'Cause I actually need your help with something instead."

There was always some excuse,—

“You’re waiting for the competition to end, right?”

“We all are, Gojo.”

“No use staying here. Come on, I’m sure they’re having fun inside. Let’s go to the amusement park.”

—some flimsy manufactured reason,—

“You’ll be in Tokyo for the conference, right? I have tickets for the game that weekend.”

“You want to see your team lose badly, huh?”

“No way, I’m inviting you to see the lions topple down.”

—an obviously baseless proposition—

“This workshop is boring. I’d rather skip.”

“What’s this, Utahime, I never took you for a delinquent.” 

“I knew it’d be repetitive. It’s just that the Hokkaido campus-” 

“Want to tour Hokkaido instead? It’s my first time here too.”

—that leads to them spending time together.

"My friend needs someone to do a review for Ame Matsuri in Hanegi Park. Come with me.”

Ah. He remembers. It was his lamest excuse yet. 

“How will your friend get the feedback he needs?”

"Ah he doesn't need it anymore. You need a ride home?" 

Didn’t matter though. His excuses had only gotten lamer through the years. Whatever the excuse, no matter how obvious, she goes along with it anyway.

He finds himself smiling. He doesn’t really need assurance that she enjoyed that dat- eh, outing, but hearing her say it’s her favorite makes him feel a nice kind of warmth, to say the least, like a confirmation of an unsaid question.

When he gets back to their room, Suguru is belting out some K-pop song, probably to embarrass Shoko. He sees Satoru enter and uses the microphone to ask Shoko his question for truth and dare. The game is quickly back on.

“ Honeybunch , what do you really think of the Senbu lions?” Suguru points the mic to her lips, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Sorry, Hime. They’re horrible. I really prefer... uhh ... that other team.”

“You don’t know any of the team names, do you?” Satoru mutters while Utahime quickly takes the mic.  

“I’m so hurt, Shoko!” She sends a dramatic hand to her heart and Satoru chuckles.  

“Just kidding!” Utahime laughs into the microphone. Did she finish another glass while he was away? “You really think I don’t know? Gojo’s more interested in baseball than you ever were.”  

“Yosh!” Satoru takes the mic, easily joining the rhythm. “Suguru! What’s the worst gift you’ve ever gotten from your honeybunch?”  

“None, all her gifts are gre-” 

“No! Answer properly.” Satoru screams into the mic. 

“It’s true.” 

"I don't believe it!” More screams from Satoru. “Tell the truth!”  

“It is the truth.” Shoko and Geto answer at the same time, exasperated, hands on their ears. 

“This—” Utahime takes the mic from him. “This is why people hate you, Gojo!” She probably doesn’t notice but her voice is just as loud. Shoko takes the mic from her before she even gets to use it. Her next words are hard to understand through her drunkenness, but it’s a question for him so he listens to every word.  

“Ah!” She playfully lands a fist on her palm. “That’s my question, why does that blonde guy from Osaka campus hate you so much?” 

“I told him he was ugly.” He answers immediately.

His best friends, Suguru and Shoko react just as fast and at the same time. Shoko’s arms are in a cross and Suguru makes a wrong buzzer sound.  

“He’s lying, Hime.”  

“ Senpai, he beat that guy up for talking trash about your scar.” 

If Utahime found that surprising, she didn’t show it.  

"When did he? And when did you beat him up?" She asks Satoru. Her face is turned towards him and he notices how red her cheeks are. He can’t tell if she’s angry, embarrassed, or just alcohol-ed (yes, that’s a word he just invented).  

“Back in uni,” Shoko starts, “your graduatio-”

"No, no, no one was talking trash about your scar.” Not under his watch, he means to say. He softens his expression and rolls his endearment on his tongue. “ Love, I didn’t exactly beat him up. It was a little fight. That’s all. It’s because he was annoying more than anything." He looks straight into her eyes, a challenge to believe him. It was not a lie, not completely.  

Utahime stares right back at him, eyes uncharacteristically focused, whatever her expression is, it’s not puzzled. In fact, she looks more like she’s solved a puzzle. "Hmmm." 

She breaks their staring contest and looks at her glass of beer, contemplating, then drinks it. Shit. Is that her sixth? seventh? glass. 

"You know what?" She gives him a lopsided smile. 

"What?" He smiles back, tentatively, maybe he’ll get a thank you from her for once. But instead she picks up the mic, and screams - 

“Liars get a punishment dare!” 

“Eh? But love~ ” 

“No buts Satoru Gojo! You need to drink one glass of alcohol.” 

“But the alcohol you ordered tastes horrible.” 

“Fine! Then let’s order something new.”  

“What makes you think any of the other drinks are going to be good?” 

… 

He braces himself for another comeback but none came. He looks up to see Utahime’s disappointed, angry, and alcohol-ed face. Her silence is screaming: you can’t break the rules of the game.  

He folds.

“Satoru, stop being such a scaredy-cat.” Suguru comments. Shoko’s drinking another glass, exhausted at everything, but probably, mostly, at Satoru’s childish antics.  

“What?! I’m not! Suguru you-”  

“Choose.” Utahime throws the menu in his direction.

“As if choosing makes any difference?” He turns to face her and regrets it. 

“Shut up and close your eyes.” She’s too close, her eyes intense. Too intense. As if he’s been caught with more than one lie (he wasn’t even completely lying this time!), but he isn’t going to lose, he maintains his facade. 

“What’s this, love~?” He wiggles his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you wanted to kiss me that badly.”  

He gets a smack on the shoulder in response and he chuckles, this is typical Utahime behavior.  He relents and the last thing he sees is her glare before darkness behind his closed eyelids greets him. 

“My love~ you can just ask me for a kiss you know...” The last word dies in his mouth when he feels her take his hand. 

“Be quiet! We’re going to choose your punishment drink.” She glides his finger up and down, repeatedly on the menu. Then more calmly (How? How is she calm?) she says, “Say stop.” 

He really didn’t want to—  

“Stop.”  

“Yosh! You're very special drink is Umeshu .” Utahime sings the last word and she lets go of his hand. 

By the time his eyes adjust to the light, his finger is on the drink Utahime is now saying repeatedly in singsong, “ umeshu, plum wine~, let's order some umeshu~”  

He glances up and meets Shoko’s scrutinizing gaze and Suguru’s smug smile. He raises a brow at them and does his best to keep from smiling. Utahime’s singing fades and he realizes she’s stepped out of the room to order the drink and probably head to the restroom.  

Her drunken stupor leaves the door open and the lights are spilling out of the room. 

“Truth or Truth. That’s the first time you ever held hands.” He hears the teasing in Suguru’s voice.  

He hasn’t drunk any alcohol but he feels the heat in his cheeks. He opens his mouth, ready to defend himself and tell his friends off, but his anger backs down, losing against the weight of how true the statement is. He ignores his loss and looks at the menu, fighting to stop any embarrassment or elatedness, he's not sure which it is he's feeling, from showing on his face. 

“Congratulations, dumbass.” Shoko’s tone is not congratulating. “Took you ten years.” 

“What’re you trying to say?” He glares at her, slamming the menu on the cushioned seat where Utahime was supposed to be. “I’m not trying to do any—” 

“Of course. And you didn’t take her out to… which park was that?”

It’s Hanegi park . But they didn’t need to be reminded of that. And it wasn’t a date. “What dates? We haven’t—” he stumbles but continues, “She’s not my girlfriend!”

Shoko and Suguru share a look and he immediately realizes his mistake.

“Did you say anything about a girlfriend, Suguru?” Her voice is flat, uninterested, but it’s a blade aimed at Satoru’s throat.

“No. Did you, Sho?” 

“Nope.” They both look at him now, eyes blazing, ready to roast. He groans inwardly. These two have always been too in sync, needing very little effort to be on the same page. Damn, if he and Suguru haven’t come straight from work, he bet even their clothes would look similar again. Shoko prompts—

“Truth or Truth. She’s your phone wallpaper.”

His face and feelings betray him and he smiles before he can stop himself. When he does stop himself, the two look at him with disbelief. He isn’t threatened by fire. He’s already consumed.

“I’m just teasing her!” He knows his explanation comes in leaps of logic, but he believes it with all his heart. “She’s embarrassed of that photo! I’m only making her mad. Like I always do.” He boasts, his pointer finger wagging in the air, mirth in his voice and features. “That’s what rivals do!”

“Rivals.” The two say together, contemplating, gazes meeting with a hidden intensity. The words they say next, though calm and serene, are a scalpel that knows exactly where to cut him up. The air is suddenly electrified.

“I love you, rival.” 

“I love you too, rival.”

Satoru’s jaw slacks and his ears turn red at what they insinuate about his relationship with Utahime. It hangs in the air and he short-circuits. 

“You guys,” he laughs a sorry fake laugh that fails to convince even him, his finger jerks up pointing to accuse but it languishes between the two, “have learned to be mushy, huh.”

“Well, we’ve been rivals for ten years,” Suguru shrugs, nonchalant and teasing at the same time. Shoko initiates a smug high five between them, obviously proud of the jab. 

A silence passes around the table and Satoru is saved from his defeat when Utahime strides back in, humming and obviously refreshed, cheeks red from —Satoru realizes with horror— seven glasses of alcohol. 

“Shoko, tell me about the same shirt incident,” Utahime slithers over to Shoko’s side, leaning her head on her shoulders and giving her a lethal dose of puppy eyes. “That’s the question from me.” 

Satoru eyes the interaction with earnest interest. Utahime’s playing with Shoko’s hair now. Regardless of the nonsense Suguru and Shoko dumped on him earlier, a good thing had come from tonight’s outing, after all. He has finally discovered what Utahime becomes after an eighth drink – an unfazed, obviously ineffective, and painfully embarrassing flirt. Seriously, she’s embarrassing.  

Shoko looks like she’s contemplating shaking off flirty Utahime from her, but instead she glues her eyes to an empty corner of the room. “Nope.” 

Satoru grabs his drink, but quickly remembers it’s alcohol. He takes a short, quick sip anyway. 

“Oh c’mooooon. Don’t you love me?” She drags her words and he tries his hardest not to focus on her glossed lip as she pouts. “You love me, right? Pleeeease.”  

Poor Utahime . This just isn’t working on Shoko, so he takes it upon himself to rescue her from the embarrassment.  

He clears his throat, his collar suddenly feeling stuffy around his neck, and motions for Utahime to come near him. “Come here, love. If Shoko won’t answer the question, she’ll have to do a dare. I have an idea.”  

Utahime gives him a blank stare, her eyes struggling to focus, her head still perched on Shoko’s shoulder. “But looooove~,” ahaha love. “Shoko’s shoulder is so soft. You’ll have to come and get me.” Wait, did she just call him love? Satoru’s eyes fixate on her for a moment: pretty, honey brown eyes, lethal, gloss, pout, wai— 

This is not typical Utahime behavior. Satoru gulps a big ball of nothing down his throat and his hands grip his glass tighter.  

Shoko eyes him and gives him a small smirk. It dawns on him that she isn’t surprised. She’s seen this Utahime before; and suddenly he has a lot of questions. How? What had Utahime done those times? With whom? When? Was she this beautiful?  

“Satoru, get your love away from my honeybunch.” Geto wakes him up from his stupor, a playful smile on his lips. He takes Shoko’s other arm and leans down, placing his chin atop her head.  

“Geto! She’s mine!” Utahime clings to Shoko tighter. 

“Nope.” 

“Stay away!” 

“Nope.”

Shoko doesn’t mind the two arguing, choosing to mock Satoru instead. “Hime, your love doesn’t seem to want to come and get yo—” 

“Of course, he doesn’t. He doesn’t love me.” 

“Oi! After everything I’ve done for you!” 

The three of them don’t move an inch, but their replies come in quick succession - like a ball being passed around: Utahime to Shoko, Shoko to Suguru, and Suguru to him.  

“Everything he’s done for me, he says.” 

“So he does?”  

“So you do?”

So I do? And just like that, the ball is back and heavy in Satoru’s hands. He throws it away and it mingles with the lights bouncing across the room. 

“Anyway!” he shouts at the three of them, red in the face. “I was saying. Double dare for Suguru and Shoko! We’ll make them switch clothes!”  

“You idiot! At least let me say it!” Utahime removes her hands from Shoko and screams at him. She’s angry at him, but not about this. “Geto! Shoko! We dare you to switch clothes!” 

Suguru and Shoko exchange a look and Gojo just knows they’re up to something. 

“Okay, we’ll give you a show.”  

“Suguru, you start.” Shoko’s voice is in a tone Satoru never wants to hear from her again. Shoko and Suguru lock eyes and Suguru starts to slowly —excruciatingly— unbutton his shirt. Utahime mouths an oooh from beside him and Satoru loses it.

“Stop! What’re you doing!?” He throws the menu at Suguru. “Do that outside!”

Everyone but him laughs at his display. Suguru throws him back the menu.

“Okay, Satoru.” Shoko grabs Suguru by the collar and drags him out the room, but not before placing a glare Satoru’s way. “Just be ready for your own double dare.” 

The two leave and Satoru is stuck chastising himself for not thinking this through. 

“You’re too stiff, love~” Utahime turns to him, exposed shoulder and... all . “You should follow their example and just go with it.” 

He doesn’t say a word and she giggles. “Don’t worry, I’m just kidding around.”

Satoru isn’t sure if that makes him feel better or worse. 

“I mean, isn’t this your favorite game,” she moves closer and touches his bangs ever so lightly, “love?” 

There were a lot of things he wanted to say. Things like ‘You sure about that?’ and ‘You won’t take any responsibility for this at all?’ and ‘My insides are churning, I think I’m dying? But it’s just some silly game?’; but he says nothing because it is indeed a silly game and she’s drunk, very drunk. He scans her face —every captivating feature of it— and he unconsciously bites his lip.

He swears she looked at his lips for a second before she exudes a tired sigh and picks up her —Satoru groans inwardly— ninth glass. 

“Utahime, stop drinking.” His voice is serious and he takes the glass from her. “How many drinks did they give you when I stepped out?” 

“And who are you to tell me what to do? Eh?” She bops his nose, a cute gesture but there’s some hostility there, actual frustration. She takes her glass back. “Campus guy?”   

“Utahime…” Where would he start? It doesn’t matter who he is. He’s Gojo Satoru and he knows she’s reaching her limit. He knows if she drinks anymore, she’s going to feel beyond shitty in the morning. He knows she’ll regret flirting with him come tomorrow. He knows —and he hopes (maybe) that he’s not right about this— that she’s probably, possibly, could be, not kidding around. Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t. 

Utahime makes no gesture to take her drink back, instead she leans her head on his shoulder and she snakes her hands arounds his arm.

“Where’s our endearment, love?” she whines, but then looks up at him. Her words barely register. He’s busy processing her eyes, her closeness, her drunk smirk. “Don’t let them hear you or you’ll get a punishment dare.” 

He’s just— they’re just kidding around. He’s sure. 

In an attempt to do and feel something still in his control, he finishes Utahime’s glass of drink. Instantly, he feels better. Now she can’t drink that anymore. Now. He’s red in the face, yes. He’s feeling hot, yes. His heartbeat’s uncharacteristically fast, yes. The alcohol has that effect, so yes, of course he’s feeling things.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I can handle a punishment dare,” he says.

Suddenly, they hear Suguru and Shoko from the corridors; and Utahime stands up, excited to see them.

“My shirt is ruined and stretched. Satoru’ll pay for this.” She’s pissed. Good on her. 

Suguru is the first to walk through the door. Shoko’s shirt is too small for him and hangs on him like a crop top, the sleeves are beyond stretched.

Utahime giggles. “It looks good. The gray blends well with your white undershirt.” 

“Now, you really look like you’re ready to sing a Kpop song.” Satoru chimes in, he thanks the alcohol for his regained ability to speak despite Utahime’s.... games. The heaviness of his head is another matter.

In response to their comments, Suguru shrugs, both hands raised, and lets out a tongue. He looks like he’s ready to sing and dance, but Shoko distracts him.

Shoko’s black shorts had disappeared behind the length of Sugu’s polo. Of course, Suguru’s going to get distracted. Suguru eyes her with an interest only Satoru can understand. He lets his own gaze wander to Utahime and imagines her in his own—  

Satoru shakes his head. Nope, he doesn’t understand Suguru’s pregnant stares at all.

“Okay time for your double dare,” interjects Shoko, clearly pissed. “Satoru, Hime, hold hands.” 

“No way!”  

“Love, why? Don’t you want to hold my hand?”  

“Scared you’ll catch feelings?” teased Suguru. 

“No way. It means nothing.” 

“Absolutely. Which is why it’s fine, right?” Shoko mocks him. 

“We’ll even do it with you,” Suguru says as he promptly takes Shoko’s hands in his.

Satoru grits his teeth. He drinks the last of his umeshu then offers his hand to Utahime. The alcohol brings the heat up to his ears and coils his insides. Suddenly, he worries that Utahime won’t take his hand after all.  

She does though and more.

“Want a kiss to go with it?” Utahime winks at him as she intertwines her fingers with his and he thanks the high heavens he's seated, lest his legs give in.

Suguru whistles. “Which reminds me I want to kiss my honeybunch too. Excuse—”  

Shoko doesn’t let him finish though, she’s already on her feet and drags him out the door. 

Utahime giggles when they leave and leans her head on Satoru’s shoulder.

“Those two, so in love~” she almost sings. 

He gives no reply and again, as if a reflex to his silence, Utahime’s other hand makes a beeline for Shoko’s glass, the only one with any beer left. 

“Utahime.” He takes her other hand in his, voice serious and eyes pleading. “Stop drinking. You’ll regret this in the morning.”  

“Okay then,” she promptly intertwines their second set of fingers, locking their hands together as they face each other, “but you forgot to call me love~ So for a punishment dare, how about a kiss?” 

“Stop that.” Satoru hears his mouth say in reflex; but even he knows it’s a weak request. He could use some more alcohol —for courage (or stupidity), but both his hands are occupied and unable to reach for any more, so he leans closer to the smell of it on her instead. 

“Why?” Her gaze flutters between his lips and his eyes, and despite everything, she seems closer than just a second ago. “Didn’t you say I could just ask for one if I wanted to.” 

“I did say that,” he says in a defeated sigh. He lowers both their hands without breaking their hold, “and you can.”

“I’m asking now. Kiss me?” 

A lot of things go through Satoru’s mind. Does he want to kiss her? Yes. Here, like this when they’re both not thinking clearly? No. Would she forget it in the morning? If she does remember, will she regret it? Yes, likely. Should he stop it as the more sober one? Yes, yes, he definitely should.

His eyes scan her features. Their noses are almost touching, they’re practically breathing the same air, occupying the same small space, and it’s the first time and maybe it’s the buzzing in his head but he knows- he damn well knows he wants to kiss her despite everything and he feels and hopes she wants it just the same, that it's not a drunken mistake. Is it a mistake? Yes, hopefully no, ugh— yes.

His eyes dart to her lips.

But is he human and ultimately weak to any request —much less this , especially this — from the woman he loves? Yes, he very much is. 

Satoru closes the gap between them and he hopes they both forget it in the morning.

Utahime remembers in the morning. 

She remembers Gojo's mouth on hers, his hands sliding up her arms to her cheeks and down to her waist to pull her impossibly closer until she can't breathe, think or even exist as anything other than an extension of his being. She remembers the heat of his cheeks, the sweat on his back, the red dents on his skin where she had accidentally dug her nails too hard. 

What she doesn't remember is who pulled away first. 

She hopes it wasn't her.

She bolts upright at the thought. Now that she's sober (the splitting headache proves it), she sees the sheer stupidity of her actions. She asked him to kiss her. She asked him to kiss her. She asked him to kiss her romantic stylez. 

And she just wished she wasn't the one who pulled away first. 

Oh dear.

She falls back on her bed and buries her face in her pillow. She's amazingly stupid. Incredibly moronic. A witless dunce. She might as well just go ahead and quit her job, since she is clearly not emotionally intelligent enough to be working with students. Failing miserably at being a functional human being is the only thing they'll ever learn from her. 

Her phone rings on the nightstand next to her.

Oh no.

There's only one type of person who would call at eight in the morning on a Sunday after a night out. While everyone is hungover and trying to sleep off the consequences of alcohol, only a person who hadn't drunk (or at least hadn't drunk as much) would be calling so early.

Gojo.

She cannot face him, not even via phone call. She just can't. She'd rather die. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She refuses. He has no idea she's awake, right? If he asks, she can just say she didn't hear the call.

With this semblance of a good plan, she turns her back on the device and ignores it as best as she can. It rings for what feels like an eternity, until he finally gives up and hangs up. She sighs in relief, huddling in her comforter to try and get some more sleep. 

Except no.

The goddamn bastard calls again, and again, and again.

Groaning, she covers her head with her pillow, but her ringtone is set far too loud and it reaches her delicate, tired ears.

This shitshow lasts half an hour. She spends all of thirty minutes hiding away from the buzzing phone under the covers. And he doesn't give up. It's so infuriating that she's tempted to break her resolve to never see him again just to sock him right in the face. Can't he leave her alone? Doesn't he remember the absolute embarrassment they were last night? How is his face not melting with shame like hers is? Is he not utterly mortified? Why doesn't he—

"Iori Utahime, if you don't pick up my calls right this second, I will kick down this door and shove your phone down your throat," a familiar yet indisputably woman's voice booms in the hallway that leads to the front door of the small Tokyo apartment she crashes in when she comes to the city to hang out. 

Pick up...? Gojo is not the one calling?

She untangles herself from the sheets and scrambles for her phone. It rings the exact moment she reaches for it, and the caller ID doesn't say The Idiot.

You've got a call from Shoko ♡

She slides the small telephone in the bottom up. "Shoko? Did I just hear you yell or am I going crazy?" 

"You heard me," she sounds slightly less unbothered than usual, which is never a good sign, "I'm in front of your apartment." 

"Why are you in front of my apartment at eight in the morning?" 

"It's four pm?" 

She pulls her phone away from her ear to check the clock atop the screen. And indeed it is four eighteen in the afternoon. Just how hammered had she been last night to have kissed Gojo Satoru of all people and then proceed to sleep through the entire morning? She can't remember the exact number of drinks she had, but she must have beaten some sort of personal record. 

She's never drinking again.

"My head hurts," she mutters, rubbing her eyes and blindly probing the floor for her slippers. 

"Well, no shit," Shoko laughs, "you were so drunk you started making out with Satoru." 

Utahime whines, "Don't remind me."

"Oh, so you remember? That makes things more interesting." 

She finds her slippers and trudges out of her room. "Why are you like this?" 

"Because I love you and I want you to be less emotionally constipated." 

"You're mean." She opens the door and Shoko holds up a finger, telling her to hold on while she finishes her call.

"Sorry, I gotta go, my friend is here and she just realized she's kind of an idiot," she says to the phone as if she wasn't right there in front of her.

"I hate you," Utahime retorts via call as well, but she smiles.

Shoko hangs up and pockets her phone. "Well, you're an idiot." 

"If you're gonna insult me so much, at least make me a coffee while you're at it."

Her friend toes off her shoes and saunters to the kitchen. "I never thought I'd see you finally sucking face with Satoru. Honestly, about damn time." 

"Don't call it sucking face, it sounds gross and wrong," Utahime tails after her and drops on a chair while Shoko gathers the ingredients for her coffee.

"Then what should I call it? Snogging? Bonking? Bussing?" She raises an eyebrow. "Osculating?" 

"You should be banned from speaking." 

"And you should start speaking about last night." 

"No." 

"You have to." 

"Later?" 

"Fine." 

Shoko drops the subject, but Utahime knows she'll come back stronger once she hands her the coffee. She always tackles important conversations with a seizable cup of pure caffeine in between, and for that, bless her.

While she waits for her coffee, because Shoko says quality takes time or whatever, she scurries off to her room and gets changed. She belatedly realizes she is still wearing last night's clothes, and her bra strap is digging into her shoulder painfully. After slipping into a more comfortable shirt and sweatpants, she washes her face. The cool water trickling down her nose grounds her and offers her some much needed relaxation.

By the time she comes back, two steaming mugs are set on the coffee table and Shoko sits on the couch with her legs folded under her. "You ready to talk now?" 

Utahime flops on the couch. "No." 

"Too bad," Shoko hands her the mug, "because we're talking about it." 

She groans and takes a sip of the obviously superb coffee. How is her coffee always so good? It's not the recipe, she knows, because she's tried to follow it and the results weren't the same. Maybe she just had as good a hand to make coffee as she has to handle a scalpel.

"Issue on the table," her friend continues, "are you in love with Satoru?"

She chokes on her drink, and tries to clear her throat properly before speaking. "I am not." 

Shoko rests her chin on her hand. "Then why did you ask him to kiss you?"

"How do you know that?!" 

She fishes her phone out of her pocket and shows her the chat with Gojo. It's filled with dozens of voice messages, each over a minute long. Utahime feels her ears grow hotter as she imagines what the hell he could have said in that time. 

"I had to listen to all of them," Shoko sighs like a martyr. "And they all were a different wording of the fact that you asked him to kiss you." 

"Really?" 

"Do you want to hear them?" Her finger hovers over the play button.

"No!" Now she's definitely bright red. "Don't play them. It's fine, I believe you. Just please, don't play them." 

"Good, because I don't think you could stand hearing him say he loves you thirty six times in a row." 

If someone had told her that Sunday afternoon, at four forty eight, a magic wizard had waved his wand and frozen the entire world, she would have believed them, because she swears time stops around her. 

I don't think you could stand hearing him say he loves you.

Gojo loves her. Gojo loves her? Does he? The mere thought flips her entire existence on its head. Gojo. In love with her. No, not in love. Gojo loves her. As in romantic love. As in kissing and cuddling and getting married love. She might be getting ahead of herself, but it's essentially what it is, right? Gojo loves her. He loves her, her, her.

It doesn't make sense. He can't love her, can he? No, he can't. They're rivals, opposing forces, clashing at every opportunity. There's no place for love in a relationship like that, is there? By the nature of it, there can't be. There can be animosity, competitiveness, a little bit of resentment maybe, but not love.

But if Gojo loves her, they can't be rivals. And maybe they aren't, she realizes in dread. Rivals don't go to baseball games together, rivals don't skip boring workshops with each other, but they did. They still do. If she remembers correctly, the next day, Monday, is his day off. And instead of spending it at home resting, or having a picnic, or hanging out with Geto, he'd chosen to arrange with her to take a five-hour trip to Kyoto and go visit the abandoned warehouse she'd told him about a few weeks back. Would a rival really do that for someone they loathe?

And it's not the first time he's sacrificed personal time for her. Whenever she goes to Tokyo, or he goes to Kyoto, he always seeks her out, proposing different activities that for some reason that makes sense in her head at the moment and becomes impossibly ridiculous when she returns home. 

The logical conclusion is that he does love her. And it is absolutely absurd. He shouldn't love her. He shouldn't. It's not his right to love her. Does anyone ever have a right to love anyone? Yes? No? Maybe? 

With her, he feels like an eternal "maybe". Maybe he does love her. Maybe he is inventing excuses to spend time with her because he loves her. Maybe he doesn't see her as a rival. Maybe he does, but maybe he also sees something else. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

Shoko snaps her fingers under her nose. "I can see your brain fuming." 

"Gojo loves me?" She repeats meekly. 

The words heave on her tongue and clog her windpipe, leaving her gasping for air. Saying them aloud makes them feel all the more real. All the more inevitable.

Sighing, Shoko leaves her mug on the table and takes hers away from her grasp before she crushes the ceramic out of pure nerves. "Okay, babe, come here, you obviously need to lay down." 

Utahime rests her head on her lap, breathing in slowly to pacify the stupid agglomerate of cardiac tissue racing in her ribcage. "Is he?" She whispers.

Shoko runs her hands through her hair, combing out the knots. "Isn't it a bit obvious?" 

"No?" 

"Wow, we're better off than I thought." 

"Answer me properly." 

"Hime, you're my best friend, but sometimes," she flicks her forehead, "you're too fucking dense for your own good." 

"So you're saying he does love me," Utahime looks away from her piercing gaze. 

"For years now." 

"Why didn't he say anything then?"

"Because he's just as much of an idiot as you are. You're practically made for each other." 

Utahime closes her eyes, exhausted. "And now we kissed." 

"And now you kissed. Rather passionately, might I add. It made me and Suguru uncomfortable. That's quite the feat." 

"What do I do now?" 

"Well, it depends," Shoko massages the webbing between her thumb and index finger, helping her ease some of the tension on her shoulders, "on whether or not you love him. So let me ask again: are you in love with Satoru?" 

Is she? Oh heavens, is she? Is she in love with him? Has she been all this time? For how long now? When did Gojo Satoru stop being just an annoying colleague and occasional hang-out buddy via association and become... What did he even become, really? What is he to her? 

The easy answer would be he's Campus Guy. But Campus Guy has come to mean so much. Campus Guy represents good times, fun, excitement, happiness even. Does Gojo evoke all of that? Well, he is Campus Guy, so by transitive property, he should. And even though she wants to say (she's dying to say) they don't feel the same, they do. Gojo Satoru is Campus Guy, and not only because that's the silly nickname she gave him. He's Campus Guy because he's also fun and exciting, but limiting him to just this one role feels restricting and unfair. So what is he?

He's also a maybe, a variable. He might be Campus Guy, but he is so much more too. He is the shoulder she cried on when half her face got ripped out during an accident, he's the friend (friend?) who surprised her with a cake from her favorite bakery, he's the hand she held when her stomach did a one eighty on the roller coaster. 

He is... If she had to choose, she'd say he's there. He's present when it matters, and when it doesn't too. He just is.

And what about her? Does she love him? The question befuddles her. Does she? 

In vino veritas. Under the influence of alcohol, a person tells the truth.

When she was drunk, she flirted with him, she called him love, and she asked him to kiss her. How real were any of those? Only drunks and children tell the truth, right? So again, by transitive property, she had flirted with him because she was interested, called him love and meant it, and asked him to kiss her because she wanted him to do it. 

When he leaned down and closed the gap between them, it felt... Well, like many things, but what struck her the most was how long overdue it felt. Like she'd been waiting for far too long, knew him for too many years without kissing him. 

But is it love?

Shoko pinches her arm. "It wasn't an invitation for you to go on another half-hour long mental meltdown." 

"I have to think." 

"No, you don't," she reprimands her. "You always think before you act." 

"Isn't that a good thing—?" 

"Not this time. You can't think with something like this," Shoko says, wagging a finger like a nagging mother. "You weren't thinking when you kissed Gojo, were you? And asking him to kiss you was the most honest thing you've ever told him. Feelings aren't meant to be thought about. They're supposed to be felt." 

"Well, no shit—" 

"Stop interrupting me, I'm imparting a life lesson," she covers Utahime's mouth with a hand. "Like I said, feel it out, Hime. Now I will ask one last time, and I want the truth. Are you in love with Satoru?" 

Utahime sighs. A clear image of his teasing smile while he offers her a hand to hold appears in her mind, and she knows there is no going back. 

"Yes."

Shoko drops Utahime off at the station at five forty five so she may take the six o'clock train back to Kyoto, and by six six, she's already squished in her tiny seat with her overnight bag as footrest. 

She's about to doze off against the window when a buzzing in her pocket shakes her out of her lethargy. Probably Shoko wanting to check if she got on the train alright. She yawns and accepts the call. "Hey, Sho—"

"I'm not Shoko." 

She bolts upright when she recognizes Gojo's voice on the other side of the line. An old lady eyes her suspiciously. She does her best to keep her legs from bouncing up and down on her backpack and forces herself to relax against the backrest. 

"What do you need, Gojo?" Her voice wavers and fails to convey the annoyed tone she usually uses with him.

"I just wanted to double check about tomorrow." 

"What's tomorrow?" 

"Uh, warehouse?" Something clatters to the ground where he is, and he shuffles to pick it up. "We were gonna raid it tomorrow, remember? Look for ghouls and shit?"  

Oh. 

Oh.

"Um, yeah," she stammers, "but I thought we were gonna cancel." 

There's no way they're going to hang out just like that after the previous night, right? Even he is not that shameless. He must be calling out of obligation, so he doesn't feel bad when he doesn't show up the next day, right? He can't possibly actually expect their plans to proceed unchanged, right?

"Why would we cancel?" Her stomach drops; he is actually confused. "Is there a problem with tomorrow?" 

She tries to answer but her mouth is dry and not a single sound comes out. Gojo doesn't remember. Of course, she realizes, he had been drinking, and he is a lightweight. Apparently, he's a blackout drunk as well, and last night's events had been completely erased from his mind. 

A weird mix of disappointment and relief bubbles in her gut, but she quickly shoves it down. This is perfect. The perfect opportunity to go back.  Now she gets to pretend she never realized she loves him and to ignore his feelings for her. It would be painful, it would hurt to have him so close and far away at the same time, but they would be okay. They would be back on their safety net, back to what they always were, comfortable and familiar. 

Besides, she is not going to risk a messy breakup and losing him for real.

"Utahime? Still there?" 

"Yes, sorry," she clears her throat, "bad reception. Yeah, no, no problems with tomorrow. See you then." 

"At six?" 

"Why so late? We'll miss all the sun." 

"That's the fun part," she can almost see his eyes glinting with mischief. "In the warehouse... At night... Alone..." 

"Gojo." 

"With the ghosts..." 

"Stop talking nonsense, would you?" 

"Aww, are you scared, Utahime-senpai?" He mocks her with the honorific. "Don't worry, I'll protect you. You can even hold my hand." 

"I don't need your protection!" She blasts, and the old lady scowls at her. She offers her an apologetic wave. "And I don't want to hold your hand," she says. You know, like a liar.

"You'll think differently tomorrow when we find a bloody ghost lurking." 

"I'm hanging up." 

"Fine, sheesh, so touchy," he relents, blowing a raspberry. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

"Yeah, tomorrow." 

The line goes dead. She stares at her phone as the last rays of sunlight filter through her window. She knows it's not a date, but it sure feels pretty damn close to one.

Utahime faces a conundrum. Should she dress up? Should she not? It's not a date. It totally is. They're going to an abandoned, filthy building. She is going with him. Is this a shirt-and-pants event? Is it a dress event? Again, abandoned, filthy building. Again, with the man she is very much in love with.

She rummages through her closet as six o'clock ticks closer and closer and nothing fits. She conjures up a few outfits, but they're too date-y, or too inappropriate for sneaking into private property, or not date-y enough. It's making her lose her mind.

As she tries on a pair of jean shorts that live up to their name with an off the shoulder sweater, someone raps on her door three times, then once more.

She's run out of time. Only Gojo knocks like that.

With a deep breath, she accepts the fact that she will just have to go like this and let fate play its dirty tricks on them. 

The first trick is played just as soon as she opens the door, because Gojo is just standing there in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and it is so not fair on her and her poor heart. Damn him, damn him, damn him for being so hot, and damn her for loving him.

They are (or at least she is) trying to go back to being friends, goddamnit.

He smirks. "See something you like?" 

And of course, he notices her checking him out. Because things are already going so well. She dips her head so he can't notice her cheeks burning. "There's nothing about you that I like." 

That is a big fat lie, but a necessary one.

"Hm, sure," he winks and crouches down to pet Azuki's head as he carefully approaches to sniff him. "Hey there, little guy." 

The cat recoils from his touch with a hiss and tries to scratch his hand. She can't help but laugh at the way Gojo jumps back in terror.

"Good boy," she congratulates him when he hides behind her ankles.

"No one in this house appreciates me," Gojo whines. "Everyone is so mean to poor little me~"

"Oh, can't be because you're an asshole, right?" 

He snorts, and Utahime feels like they're back again. The banter is safe, controlled, a taste of what they had always been. But all it takes is one glance from him, one glance that's longing and adoring, and the spell of normalcy is broken. He loves her, and she loves him, and no amount of pretending will change that.

Her heart thuds painfully. She digs her nails into her palm to keep from asking him to kiss her again.

"Let me get my stuff and we can leave," she spins on her heel and dives back into the bedroom.

Her phone and keys lay forgotten on her nightstand. She grabs a purse off a hanger and stuffs them inside. One last look at the mirror reveals that she's pale and red at the same time and absolutely not ready for this at all.

She's about to turn the corner that leads to the entrance hallway when she hears Gojo murmuring to Azuki.

"I know you hate me because you have very bad taste in human men," the cat meows in aggravation, "but I really like Utahime, okay? Well, no, I don't just like her; I love her, and I think she might love me back," his voice is hopeful and confident, barely containing the excitement. "I'm putting together a super romantic declaration, so I'm not telling her yet. Can you keep this secret for me, bud? I'll bring you treats or whatever one uses to bribe cats." 

Utahime staggers back and falls on the bed. Her hands curl around the comforter, gripping it tightly. It had been one thing to learn of his feelings via Shoko and something very, very different to hear him say it out loud, to her fat pet nonetheless. 

How does he know she loves him back? Has she been so obvious, even before she herself realized it? Or is it just an assumption made out of arrogance? Or does he have proof—?

Oh.

He remembers.

He must have, it's the only reason he could believe she loves him as well so vehemently. She takes a sharp breath and her purse thuds to the ground.

"Utahime, you're taking so long~" Gojo whines as he lets himself into her bedroom. He stops dead on his tracks when he sees her halfway into a panic attack. "Hey, is everything okay?"

She gulps. "Yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" 

"You look like you saw a ghost." 

His gaze full of concern makes her squirm and she looks away from him. "I just got dizzy, it's fine," she lies as her brain scrambles to come up with a good excuse to maybe not hang out all day with him. 

She should have just cancelled instead of having him drive all the way here. What was she thinking when she thought going back to normal was an option? 

"Come here, let's get you some air," he delicately helps her get up, and she has to make a conscious effort not to flinch or melt into his touch. 

Both extremes, yeah.

Things are complicated right now.

He gently guides her to the balcony. Outside, it's started to get chilly and the sun is almost kissing the horizon. Six o'clock would have been an awful time to go to that warehouse. 

She leans over the handrail, inhaling deeply. The evening breeze washes over her and she finds out she's all sweaty. When did she start to sweat so much?

He pats her back sympathetically, making her shiver. "You okay?" 

"You love me?" 

Utahime clamps a hand over her mouth when she realizes what she just said and Gojo gapes in shock. He forces himself to snap his jaw shut and grips the railing until his knuckles turn white. "Why do you ask?" 

"Forget it," she tries to go back into the apartment and lock herself in the bathroom for the rest of time, but he stops her. 

His fingers are red where they were pressed against the metal bar.

"No, tell me," he insists, "why do you ask?" 

She sighs and wraps her arms around herself. Gojo looks at her in expectation. "Shoko told me you told her and I wanted to know if it was true—" 

"No, that's not what I meant," he runs a hand through his hair and smiles. "Let me rephrase: do you really have to ask that?" 

Her mouth goes dry. "So you do?" 

"Yeah." 

There it is, the confession. It had not been grand nor poetic like movies and books made it out to be. It's a quiet confirmation, a simple yeah that left no place for doubt. Million thoughts swirl in her head, making it impossible for her to pick them apart. She hangs on the only one she hasn't found any sort of answer for yet.

"Why?" 

"You know, I've asked myself the same thing many times since the other night," he takes a step back and sweeps his gaze over her carefully, as if he wanted to commit her to memory and engrave her in his mind, "and the best conclusion I've reached is that it's because it's you, I guess." 

"That doesn't really answer my question." 

"Let me try and elaborate," he puts a hand on his chin and rests against the handrail. "I don't hate myself." 

"Good for you?" 

"Just give me a minute, it's a long thought process but it makes sense, sort of, I promise," he holds a finger up. "Like I said, I don't hate myself, but I don't exactly like me either." He picks a dead leaf off the stalk of one of her plants and starts twisting it. "Don't get me wrong, I do think I'm a blessing to this mortal realm, but I know I'm not the best person in the world. Maybe I'm not even a good person." 

She watches in silence as he rips the green bits off the midrib and lets them float down to the street below.

"But you are," he continues. "You might be the best person I know. Even when you don't like someone, you are always kind to them. But you take no shit from anyone. Not even from me," he smirks, "and everyone always takes shit from me. I have to tell you, when we met and you told me I was, and I quote, a punk ass bitch, it was pretty hot."

Utahime huffs, uncrossing and crossing her arms over her chest, as if that would unload the heat from her face. 

"And though you could barely see me, you were still nice to me, even when I did nothing to deserve it," he flicks the petiole away. "And I did absolutely nothing to deserve it, but you didn't care. I was a person and you were always nice to people, and that was enough.

"And I guess self-reflection hit a little hard, because when I realized how good you were, I realized how much of a trash bag I was. I wanted to be better," he locks eyes with her, "you made me want to be better. You still do." 

She feels naked, exposed, under his gaze, but she knows that in reality, it is him who is baring her heart to her, leaving himself vulnerable because he loves her. She takes a hesitant step closer, and then another. Her balcony is not very big, so that's all it takes for them to be chest to chest.

"So I tried to be better, at least with you," he whispers, bringing a hand to her cheek and caressing her with the tips of his fingers. "I don't know if it worked, but it must have had, because things changed." 

Her tongue feels heavy, but she speaks anyway. "Did they?" 

"Yeah," he chuckles, "it made me realize one big thing." 

"Oh?" 

"I like me better when I'm with you."

Utahime blinks up to him and laughs. "You're a dork." 

"As long as that sentence is followed by but you're my dork, I'll wear that title with pride," he pokes her cheek and she slaps his hand away. He snorts, but gets serious again. "Can you answer the same? I mean, I assume you can, since you asked me to kiss you—"

"You remember that?" 

"Kinda hard to forget," he winks, "but can you answer the same?" 

"You would have to ask." 

"You love me?" He asks, and his voice cracks a little with excitement.

It's so endearing, his eyes tracing her face with so much adoration, she can't help but smile again. 

Yes, she loves him. 

Standing on her tiptoes, she cups his face and pecks him lightly on the lips once, twice. By the third time, Gojo wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her closer, kissing her ferociously, like the only air he can breathe is the one in her lungs and he is trying to get it out. She feels herself bending backwards as he demands she get closer and closer and—

She yelps when one of his hands slides down to her thighs and takes her part of support away from underneath her. His fingers are hot against her cool skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake as they dig into the soft flesh of her leg. Suddenly, she's grateful that she chose to wear the shorts that day.

He tips his head to the side to let her get closer if possible, and she finds out everything is possible, because there's not a single atom of oxygen between them, she's certain. There's nothing, not even infinity, separating her from him. She feels him under her skin, in her ribcage, in her muscles and bones, and she is more than determined to make sure she's as embedded in his being as he is in hers.

Her mouth shifts and it's his turn to squirm when she lets herself in. She smiles into the kiss at the way he shivers before kissing her voraciously again. 

"Hey," he breaks away for a split second, "you didn't tell me you loved me." Another peck. "And I asked." One more. "No excuses this time."  

Utahime giggles, pressing her lips to the corner of his. "I love you, Gojo Satoru. Happy?" 

He gawks at her as if she'd revealed the ultimate truth. "Say it again?" 

"I love you," she complies immediately. "I love you, I love you, I love you." 

With a soft laugh, he makes his way down to below her jaw, right over her pulsepoint. "I'm never going to get tired of that," he mumbles, peppering her throat with barely defined kisses.

"That's okay," she reassures him and tugs on his shirt, "I'm never going to get tired of this either."

"So you did like what you saw." She doesn't need to see him to know he has the smuggest grin known to man plastered in his face. 

"Oh, shut it and kiss me again."

"Getting some pretty strong déjà vu right now~" He sing-songs. "Of you and me, alone in a dark karaoke booth…"

"Then I guess the question is are you gonna fulfill your dare now too?" She teases, tapping her fingers on his nape. "Or are you gonna chicken out?"

He gets back up with a dangerous smile. Leaning in until their noses are touching and their ragged breaths mash together, he whispers into her mouth. "Oh trust me, love, I can handle any dare."