Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Satoru stared at the whiteboard, his hands clenched in tight fists, so tight that he nearly cracked the plastic encasing of the marker in his right. He’d been standing in this classroom for over three hours for brainstorming, but the board had only his handwriting and “ideas” filling it up.

He turned to the three people who were allegedly his group members, who, you know, were supposed to support him with ideas of their own and found them in unbelievable states of disinterest. Suguru was turning the page on a book, legs kicked up onto the desk in front of him. Shoko was texting and sucking on a lollipop (She hadn’t even offered Satoru one, the hag!) and Haibara was stealing glances at Suguru and pretending to think when Satoru knew the only thing on his mind was the dark-haired demon.

“Excuse me,” he began in as even a voice as he could manage before his voice went up three hundred octaves higher, “What the fuck you three are supposed to do again?”

Shoko dropped her phone to cover her ears with her hands. “Lower your tone, Satoru, that’s unbecoming of you.”

His eyes widened so much his eyeballs were threatening to roll out of their sockets. “EXCUSE ME?”

Haibara blanched, his brown eyes big and innocent. “Are you okay? You’re looking a little stressed.”

“Yeah, Satoru, you should relax,” Suguru added, his eyes still glued to his page before lazily looking up through his long lashes at him. “Chillax.”

“Do not fucking tell me to chillax,” Satoru began and ended in a low hiss that made him sound like a snake slithering about the floor. He was about to start climbing up the walls in his frustration. It peaked to unbelievable levels, so he started to gather his things, disorderly stuffing the paperwork in his satchel and announcing, “I’m fucking leaving, and you three ingrates can handle your portion of the assignment without me.”

He was still fuming and cursing their bloodlines by the time his feet automatically led him to his favorite spot on campus. The Chemistry Lab in Building 5. He’d trudged up the stairs, unaware of how his body assumed autopilot. After a quick glance through the small window in the door and confirming it was empty except for the blond bombshell in the white lab coat, he cracked it open. When that familiar head of blond lifted and warm brown eyes looked up at him through thick goggles, Satoru’s exhaustion and frustration melted off him like ice melting under a candle.

“Yuki-chan,” he wailed, rushing to hug her.

Yuki snorted and accepted the hug with one arm since she was holding a test tube with her other hand. “What’s up, Sato-chan?”

He nuzzled her shoulder. A few inches taller than him, she had the perfect broad shoulders onto which he could rest his head. He could already feel some of his anxiety dissipate. She had the magic.

She ran a hand through his hair. Probably messing it up into a fluffy cloud that not even mousse could tame. “I take it your third meeting with your group was fruitless.”

“So fruitless that this tree has officially torn its roots out of the ground and scuttled away,” he said, dejection lining his every word.

She put down the test tube then twisted and gave him a closer look. Her hands, now both free, flew to his face, and she squeezed his cheeks. “Oh no, your greatest asset is suffering. Have you been using the facial cleanser I recommended?”

Satoru lifted a hand to cup his cheek. “Is it really that bad?” He sighed, lowering his hand. “It’s probably due to how stressed I am. Never team up with your friends for an assignment. They are such assholes,” he said vehemently.

Yuki chuckled and gave his cheek a pat. “I get that. I see you had to learn it the hard way.”

Plopping his ass on a free stool, he twisted so he’d curl his arms on top of the table. “What’re you working on?”

She went on in a tangent of her own, about developing some sort of experiment to produce a cream that’d annihilate pimples as soon as they formed and Satoru closed his eyes and simply listened to Yuki’s sonorous voice. If god had made Yuki into a man, Satoru would have been the happiest person. Alas, she was already perfect as she was. Problem was Satoru felt no stirring when he held her or had her touch his face. His stupid heart didn’t tingle for her. It was such a shame.

Noticing Satoru watching her in that peculiar way, Yuki placed a hand on one hip and asked, “Are you imagining me as a boy again?”

He lifted his shoulders. “I can’t help it. You’re just so right for me.”

“Sorry, I’d like to keep my tits,” she said with a laugh. Her phone pinged with an incoming text and while she read it, he returned to his mental lamentations.

Truly, Yuki was perfect for him except for that little pesky thing called sexual attraction. She checked all his boxes: tall, confident, smart as hell, and kind. He’d be on his knees for her if he batted for a different team. Sighing at his own misfortune, Satoru plucked at the fraying edge of his sleeve. He quite liked this jumper; blue like his eyes, it made his eyes pop but it was nearing the end of its life.

“You must be busy,” he murmured. “I’ll leave you to it.” He dragged his feet on the floor, but Yuki stopped him by grabbing his arm by the elbow.

She lifted her gaze from her phone and saw him pouting. With a grin, she reached over and squished his left cheek. “I’m not, really. You can stay but I’m leaving soon.”

Sighing heavily, he said, “Everyone’s got something more important than me.”

Her eyes danced at his dramatics. “You’re just very single, Satoru. Say, have you tried my other method of relieving stress?”

He didn’t blush as much as the blood forcefully swam to his head. He had no control over it. He surreptitiously fanned his face. “Yeah… about that…” He was looking anywhere but at her face.

But he didn’t need to look at Yuki to know she was grinning wide, like a Cheshire cat, but fonder. “Annnnd?” she prompted.

Under his breath, he muttered, “Pesky woman,” but aloud he said, “It didn’t work, okay? As you can see, I’m still fairly stressed out.”

She shrugged. “You must have done it wrong.”

“How can I masturbate wrong?” was Satoru’s rather loud exclamation, which he normally felt no shame at letting out, except that the door to the lab opened that very same second and the intruder clearly heard every word coming out of Satoru’s mouth.

Satoru could almost hear a pin drop; it was that quiet in the aftermath of his question.

Yuki’s mouth twisted, but she held back her laughter as her eyes took in Satoru’s burning face then flew to the brown eyes staring in horror at them.

He did the same, feeling mortified and unable to do anything but stare at the person standing at the door.

The man was tall, the top of his head almost brushing the door. He had to be over six foot. Speaking of his head, his hair shone a bright blond. It swooped gently to cover his forehead, the right side tucked neatly behind his ear. His wide eyes a soft, easy-going color except it was covered with shock.

Sweat rolled down Satoru’s back as his eyes met a pair of brown eyes warm enough to turn up his body temperature. The man’s lips parted and Satoru’s heart thumped loudly in his ears.

“…Are you ready to go?”

Satoru felt Yuki move next to him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off of the man at the door. His eyes took in his neat attire of a brown sweater with a white shirt underneath, pressed pants, and clean sneakers. In comparison, Satoru looked like a beggar with his oversized blue jumper, baggy jeans, and scuffed sneakers, an ensemble he’d put on quite carelessly that morning. He gingerly tugged the ends to cover his hands; he didn’t want those brown eyes to see how badly he’d bitten his nails.

“Sorry to leave you in your time of need, Sato-chan, but I’ve got dinner plans and a rumbling tummy,” Yuki sang, then pressed a kiss to Satoru’s cheek. “It’ll be okay. I believe in you.” And sashayed away.

He absently pressed a hand to his cheek and caught the very look in the man’s eyes—a narrowed perusal.

He wanted to open his mouth and say something, but words failed him completely as he experienced, for the first time in his life, a brutal case of speechlessness.

Long after Yuki had left with her mysterious blond, Satoru’s heart wouldn’t settle. His body throbbed, like it’d been scoured with a coarse brush. His cheeks seemed like they’d burn for the rest of eternity.

Uh-oh. He knew what this feeling was.

🧪

🧪

What Satoru meant by sleuthing was the ole fashioned method of online stalking. He first began by scouring Yuki’s account since she clearly was acquainted with the hot blond, but soon enough, Satoru wanted to gouge his eyeballs out from how futile his search was. Either Yuki didn’t care about updating her feed with anything besides food or he was bad at this. Then, as he scrolled down, he finally found him. In one singular picture, Satoru’s feelings were crushed.

On his screen, Yuki had wrapped an arm around the blond man’s shoulder and pressed a kiss to his cheek. The man in mention wore such a gentle smile, glancing up from a cake covered in lit candles. The caption underneath said: ((Favorite ❤️)). This was ample evidence that this man was Yuki’s boyfriend. Horror mixed with disgust, the first was pointed at how disappointed he felt, and the second was due to how, even though he could clearly deduce that the hot blond and Yuki were an item, Satoru still wanted him. He zoomed in on a picture of “Kento”—his username was tagged in the photo and sighed. His account was private and Satoru didn’t have the balls to request a follow.

Wasn’t he just wishing for a male version of Yuki? There he was. Perfection embodied. And with the loveliest smile—directed at the person wrapped around him: Yuki.

With a deeper sigh that sprung from the deepest part of his chest, Satoru let his phone drop to his pillow—beside his head, though he was tempted to let it drop onto his face in hope that it’d knock some sense into him—and willed himself to stop thinking of Kento.

🧪

Unfortunately, fate would have it that Satoru’s efforts would all be felled. Once glimpsed, Kento showed up at the most inopportune times and in the last places Satoru expected him.

For instance, as Satoru was just picking up his daily dose of cream with a splash of caffeine, Kento was right behind him in line, a furrow in his eyebrow letting Satoru know precisely what he thought of his order. He scampered away, his heart pounding in his ears before his mouth could open and let out a horrible string of words like hi I am in love with you.

Another instance was when Satoru was picking up a chip that had fallen onto his desk in the library and covertly shoving it into his mouth. Who did he detect walking by in that very second? The one and only: Kento. Whose face was twisted into a look of abject fright, having caught Satoru breaking at least two rules of decency: eating in the library and eating something that’d fallen onto a desk that hadn’t been sanitized since 1994.

His own disgust aside, Satoru wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Because at a glance, Kento must have thought he was a vile, disgusting human being.

The instance that truly made Satoru want to howl at the sky and ask “Why, God, why me?” was when Satoru was rushing to the bathroom, having underestimated his bladder’s ability to survive a three-hour lecture and a large lemonade, and was reduced to a panicked mess as he searched for a semi-clean stall. He opened the door and slammed it right into the wall.

Except it wasn’t a wall. It was a person. Specifically (you know it) a person that had Satoru’s body shiver from a simple gaze. A rather murderous gaze as he lifted a hand to touch his clearly bruised nose.

“I’m sor—” Satoru wasn’t even given the chance to apologize properly before his body forced him to scramble into the nearest stall and lock the door. His bladder ruled over him, giving him no chance to properly explain himself.

And tell him that? That you were about to piss yourself?

Ah. Right. It was good that he’d locked himself up.

The taste of that humiliation was stuck to the back of his throat all throughout that day, even when he made it to that familiar lab and found Yuki.

Because now, she wasn’t just his solace, she was the woman who’d unknowingly stolen the potential love of his life. It was illogical as hell because duh, Yuki saw him first. But still. He was bitter and petty, and it showed.

“Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?” she joked when he replied lukewarmly to her greeting.

“Or something,” he muttered, plopping his ass on his favorite stool and folding his arms on the desk.

Yuki was quite intuitive and knew exactly what Satoru needed when he was in one of his moods but to his chagrin, her leaving him alone only made him more upset.

With a rude sound of him clearing his throat, he asked, “How was your, um, dinner plans the other week?”

Yuki looked up from her work, a test tube dangling between her gloved fingers. “My dinner plans?”

Does she go on so many dates that she’s forgotten?

“Yeah, uh, remember? When I was, um,” he lowered his voice, “running my mouth.”

Understanding lit up her eyes. “Ahhhh, that dinner! Yeah! I remember now.” She sighed. “It was so good. Kento and I got so much pasta I think there’s still some in my stomach. Heck, it’s probably replaced all the water in my body.”

He gave her a smile, but he felt how fake it was. “And your,” he couldn’t force the word boyfriend or Kento’s name out of his mouth, “um, did he like the pasta?”

“Kento?” she asked. Then grinned. “He loved it. Then again, Kento likes all carbs.” With a faraway look and that same grin adorning her lips, she added, “I once joked that one could catch him by placing a basket of baked goods under a giant box.”

A smile spread over Satoru’s mouth, and this time, it was genuine. Kento didn’t look like he had a weakness for pastries. He looked all stern and serious with his glasses. “Yeah? Big into carbs, huh?”

“Totally,” she said, chuckling. “He once described his perfect day as one in which he eats nothing but croissants.”

Satoru hugged his arms tighter as his heart fluttered in his throat. He was opening his mouth to ask more until he realized what he was about to do. Asking about her boyfriend’s likes is a big no-no, he reprimanded himself. Instead, he simply hummed and took out his laptop, to busy himself with something resembling productivity and not totally pathetic like pining after a taken man.

They worked quietly on their own projects for a long time, so long that Satoru’s back was hurting when he finally stood.

“Wanna grab something to drink?” She nudged his shoulder. “My treat since you looked like a kicked puppy the whole time.”

“It’s not that…” Lying was futile, however, she knew him too well, but he hoped she never found out why he felt like something that’d been run over by a train.

He accepted her offer and they walked out to the vending machines in the hall. When she handed him his favorite can of strawberry lemonade, Satoru’s guilt doubled in size. Nay, it tripled in size. He held the cold can and gave her a long look.

“Yuki-chan, there’s something—”

“Kento!” she said, cutting him off.

How do you know I was going to bring him up, he thought before he caught the way she was waving at someone behind him. That someone being the one person Satoru didn’t want to see. Lie. He did want to see Kento, he just wished his stomach didn’t hurt so much at the prospect.

But there was nothing he could do while Kento approached—besides listening to the sound of Kento’s steady footsteps and wishing for an earthquake or some other natural disaster.

Yuki was none the wiser. She grabbed Kento by the arm—Satoru’s eyes fixed on the spot where her fingers wrapped around Kento, and his eyes almost watered from grief.

“I haven’t properly introduced you two!” she began. “Satoru, meet Kento. He’s my—”

Before she could say the cursed word, Satoru put his hand out and looked at his wrist. “Look at the time! It seems like I’ve totally forgotten about my group meeting!”

Yuki frowned.

“At 9.30 o’clock?” The question didn’t come from her, it came from him.

Shivers ran down Satoru’s spine upon hearing his voice—it wasn’t the first time, but after that horrible first meeting, hearing Kento’s voice now, so close and directed at him, had a special effect on him. Mainly the awful kind of special.

He broke out in cold sweat as he chuckled awkwardly. “I know, right? Terrible thing, these group assignments. If I could bestow any kind of wisdom, Kento-kun, do not team up with your friends.”

With that, he began walking backwards and shouted his apology to Yuki. “Sorry again, Yuki-chan, and thanks for the beverage, darling!”

He turned just in time for his wince to scrunch up his face. Bestow? When had he ever needed to use the word ‘bestow’ in his life? And ‘darling’? He was friendly with Yuki, but in front of her boyfriend? Who was probably thinking Satoru was some clingy bastard being overly familiar with his girlfriend.

🥐

Kento stared long and hard at the retreating back of one Gojo Satoru and only one thought repeated in his head. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you!” Yuki denied, slapping him on the arm.

He realized then that he’d said it aloud and sighed. He loosened her hold on his arm and said, “Maybe not hate, but dislike is definitely there.”

His sister sighed. “I don’t know where you get these ideas, Kento. Satoru is such a sweetie. Sure, he’s a little intense and can come off as rude, but trust me, under all of that is a heart of gold. Solid. Twenty-four carats.”

He didn’t need her to talk Satoru up—he knew.

🥐

A month ago, Kento was rushing to his bio class which had to be god’s special curse for him because it was at the worst time ever: 1 o’clock. Kento was part annoyed, part hassled because he had this bad habit of taking a nap after his 10 o’clock lecture and today, he’d totally ignored his alarm. Now, he was forced to speed-walk to make it to class on time.

Then he heard the sound of a soft mewl and he thought he was losing his mind. Until he lifted his head and saw a cat, tiny and terrified, stuck in a tree. On campus? The sight was odd enough. Then it grew odder as he saw a man scale that very same tree and make it to the branch onto which the cat had dug its claws.

The tiny thing growled with all its might, and Kento understood its fear—he hated heights, too. Until the man began speaking to it loud enough for Kento to hear. “It’s okay, darling, I won’t hurt you. Just come into my arms. I’ll catch you, don’t fret.”

His voice was low and melodious, cajoling the cat until its hackles lowered, and it detached its claws from the branch.

Even as the cat took tentative steps toward him, the man continued to coo at it. “Yes, good girl, sorry, you might not be a girl, but seeing how pretty you are, you have to be, right? Yes, yes, good girl, wonderful girl, come here. I’ll bring you down to safety and you can continue to do us the favor of brightening up this dreary campus.”

Kento couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. But the sound was muffled behind his scarf—the weather was chilly, and he’d wrapped it tightly around his neck and the lower half of his face.

The man, if he’d heard Kento, didn’t look away from the cat until the poor thing was safely within his reach. In a touch so gentle even Kento could tell it was, the man wrapped his long fingers around the cat’s body and brought it to his neck. He stuffed it in his blue hoodie and then began the slow climb down.

Somewhere along the way, a bird chirped and drove the cat to insanity. Prompting it to panic and scratch its rescuer, obviously, which resulted in a yelp and a howl from him.

Kento winced. That must have hurt.

Frozen in place, the man was used as a scratching post as the cat climbed down his body but still, he didn’t complain aloud. He simply let the cat hop off him like he was another tree and go on its merry way, chasing birds to its heart’s content.

Kento was going to approach him, and maybe commend him on his bravery, but his phone buzzed with an incoming text.

With a regretful sigh, Kento had to turn around and continue his speed walking.

Since then, he’d thought nonstop of the man in the tree and his valiant rescue of that cat. He wondered who he was. What kind person put himself in that uncomfortable situation for a stray campus cat? Until Kento walked into Yuki’s lab and heard that same man talking about masturbation. That should’ve dulled Kento’s curiosity—he wasn’t a fan of that kind of man, talking so rudely about such topics, especially in his sister’s company. But it didn’t. He’d find his thoughts going back to that snowy white hair and those sparkling eyes with fondness. His eyes were blue. Like the jumper he’d worn on his rescue mission.

Kento came to see those eyes again, gaping at him, those same hands that had gently wrapped around the cat’s body now clutching a sweet concoction that made Kento’s teeth hurt just by looking at it. He rushed off before Kento could even formulate a single word. But what could he have said? Good job on rescuing that cat? Too cheesy.

The man with the blue eyes wore that same jumper again in the library as he munched on chips. Now that should’ve made Kento write off any admiration he felt for the cat hero, but in all honesty, Kento was a bit jealous. He often got hungry while he studied but never had the guts to eat in the library; it was a sacred place.

Then fate would have it that Kento’s nose would be the victim of that man slamming the bathroom door open—yet even as his whole face ached, Kento couldn’t speak a word of reprimand. His tongue was tied, and his heart had filled his ears with its rapid beat. Then again, the man had locked himself up in a stall and eliminated any chance Kento would’ve had to speak to him. He’d been confused by his own heart, as it ached in an inexplicable reaction.

Which Yuki gladly informed him was apparently the result of him forming a crush on ‘Satoru’.

Satoru. So, his name is Satoru, he thought when she told him. He was a year younger than her, which made Satoru his direct senior.

Now, as he watched Satoru take his speedy leave, Kento couldn’t help the dejection that painted his heart a glum grey.

Seeing his face, his sister nudged his side. “You know, he was asking about you today.”

Hope bloomed in his chest. “He was?” he asked in a whisper.

She nodded, a sinister gleam in her eyes. “About whether you liked carbs.”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me you told him that stupid trap theory.”

“Yep,” she said with particular glee. “He looked fond!”

Fond, his ass. Yuki told anyone who’d listen about his eating habits, but Kento didn’t find the fact that he liked bread so interesting.

Still, he wasn’t able to fight the temptation to pry some more. “What else?”

Yuki hummed then clapped her hands. “He had this really pretty smile on while I was talking about you!”

A pretty smile, huh? Now that would be nice to see.

Still, all signs pointed to Satoru not being able to stand in Kento’s company for longer than five seconds, so he didn’t want to buy into Yuki’s theory that Satoru thought of him fondly so soon.