Chapter Text
Battered by the toils of daily bread, the weary maiden collapsed into the embrace of her modest bed, an island of quietude within a tempestuous world. The silence, gifted graciously by the ever-considerate neighbour and the subdued souls of the sleeping society, wrapped itself around her like a hymn. Beneath the alabaster quilt, warmth unfurled like a whispered embrace, like phantasmal arms of a lover unseen, cocooning her against the merciless chill of this rain-slicked dawn.
The sky, weeping its seasonal tears, had draped the morning in shivers. Rain tapped the glass like an anxious guest, and within, sleep had donned a second skin clinging to her like a lover unwilling to part. Her shift had ended at midnight, but another shift, the unseen labor of rest now pressed its claim.
Just as she succumbed once more to that drowsy descent, ready to twist upon the silken thread of dreams, the doorbell pierced the spell like a dagger. Sweet sleep, startled and scattering, left her blinking and betrayed.
A guttural groan escaped her throat as she shot upright, the violent movement making the bed creak in protest. "Who the hell is here??" she demanded of no one and everything.
The clock mocked her—8:00 AM. Morning had barely exhaled its first breath. She longed to launch her pillow into the realm of rebellion, but even the effort to dislodge the comforter felt Herculean. With the sluggish resolve of someone wading through molasses, she peeled herself from her sanctuary, scratching absently at her belly beneath the loose veil of her nightgown.
The doorbell rang again, more insistent now, a heartbeat of brass and impatience. "Comin'," she mumbled, tugging at the doorknob. The door gave way, revealing a silhouette tall enough to scrape the clouds.
Blinking against the crust of lingering dreams, she attempted to pierce the face of her dawn-interrupting foe, but instead, she was met with an offering: a packet of marshmallows obscuring the stranger's visage like some absurd, sugar-sweet shield.
Words eluded her elusive, slippery things none sufficient to capture the storm of ire rising like bile within her. He stood there, mute and immovable, as if expecting something. Applause? Redemption?
With a flourish of disdain, she channeled every ounce of annoyance into the hand still resting on the doorknob and slammed the door with a sonic thud that echoed down the hall a thunderclap so tremendous, one might imagine the universe was rehearsing its second Big Bang.
But satisfaction proved elusive.
She knew him. She knew his nature, a man not bound by the laws of locks and latches. Tiptoeing toward the door, she pressed an ear to the wood, cautious not to risk a glance through the peephole. She feared what she might see: perhaps he, too, peering back through the glass, a reflection of madness.
"Why did you shut the door on my face?"
Rich as midnight and deep as regret echoed not from beyond the threshold, but from within. Her eyes widened, snapping toward the sound.
He had teleported. Again.
Her back flattened against the door, hands splayed beside her as her now-alert eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. He stood there, solemn, the marshmallow packet now dangling at his side, as if even it were embarrassed by the scene.
His expression bore the gravity of a funeral. Rare, unless provoked by heated debates with her. It was not a look he wore lightly.
"My apartment, my door, I'd slam it whenever I want," she declared, voice blunt and sharp as chipped glass.
That provoked a step forward. He cornered her, arms braced on either side of her head, turning her sanctuary into a cage. His silhouette loomed, and the scent of his cologne, dangerous, swept over her like a sedative haze, seducing her back toward slumber.
"Well, you don't earned me. So you don't have the right to slam the door of yours on my face."
His voice measured, and infuriating dropped lower as he inclined his face toward hers, attempting to pierce her with a gaze obscured by the infamous blindfold. It was maddening, that fabric, a veil between them and the truth in their eyes.
She pushed against his chest with indignant fire, storming past him, arms crossing in fortress-like defiance. "Yeah? I'm not done talking. How many time did I tell you not to warp into my apartment when I don't open the door? Do you understand that I'm a girl? What if I was naked?"
Her anger was a whip, cracking through the quiet.
He clicked his tongue, hands finding solace in his pockets as he watched her plant herself onto the sofa like a monarch reclaiming her throne.
"It's not like I'm gonna drool over your body if I see you naked or force yourself with me. My standards aren't that low."
An eyebrow twitched, "You know what, get out of my house."
He grinned, a crescent of mischief carved upon lips accustomed to sin, and ambled toward her sofa, a throne of worn fabric and indolent afternoons where he deigned to lower himself beside her, the air thick with unspoken histories. She raised a solitary brow, arching like a question left unanswered beneath the moon’s pallid gaze.
"Hey, c’mon. Kicking me out just because I was holding the marshmallow packet over my face?" His voice, a whisper laced with the venom of jest, slithered closer, drawn to the precipice of her patience. He leaned, conspiratorial, and with a voice dipped in honeyed insolence added, "…or is it because I said you’re not my type?"
"None of them, you brat. It’s because I came from my night shift not a while ago and you just woke me up." Her voice, weary yet edged like a blade dulled from too many battles, all but rolled its eyes at the audacity of his inquiry that feverish itch of his to unearth irritation where only fatigue lay buried.
"Hm? It’s just uh… 8:12 am." He, that maddening jester, consulted the glowing oracle of his phone, as if the numerals might shield him from her wrath.
"Exactly!" Her voice rose, the echo of her exasperation threading through the morning’s fragile hush. "It’s 'just', only 8 in the morning, the fuck are you doing here?!" A whisper-yell, like a storm caged behind barred windows, trembling on the edge of escape but he, oblivious, let it wash over him like rain upon stone.
"Shut up, last night I was out on a mission too. Saw these marshmallows hanging on a shop, I thought I would share it with you. I came straight up to your house." He feigned a whine, pitiful as a stray pup nosing at a door it dare not enter, longing for the hand that might grant it solace.
"Now then, what do you want me to do?"
The silence that followed was heavy, like the pause before lightning cleaves the heavens. He offered her the packet, soft and sugared. She accepted it, the crinkling of plastic loud as thunder in the stillness, and tore the seal as a priestess might break open sacred offerings. The saccharine scent unfurled, tendrils of sweetness curling in the air, weaving a tapestry of childhood and forgotten comforts.
He watched, a man starved not of food, but of something unnamed, eyes tethered to the marshmallow that nestled in her palm. With a sigh like autumn wind through hollow trees, she lifted one, pressed it into his waiting grasp, and excused yourself, seeking refuge in cold water and the ritual of waking.
When she emerged, face damp, spirit scarcely restored, her gaze fell upon him, fingers dancing across his phone’s screen, lost to a world beyond her reach. The towel she held damp with her fatigue became her weapon. She cast it upon his grass-like hair, that wild thicket of his unrepentant crown. Startled, he turned to her, bewilderment fleeting across his features as her claimed the seat beside him. He dared sniff the fabric, audacious fool, before returning it, like a knight surrendering his blade.
"Where’s the marshmallows?"
"I ate it."
That ancient, bitter taste bloomed upon her tongue. Disbelief shrouded her face, a veil of wounded trust, as he uttered his treachery so carelessly, fingers still married to the cold light of his device. The towel trembled in her lap, itching to become a noose for his insolence.
"No sooner had I went to the washroom you ate all of it!? Didn’t you say you wanted to 'share'?"
"Didn’t you eat one?"
"Then what was my purpose for washing my face when I could just go back to sleep?"
"How should I know that? I was starving."
"Cunt."
"Hey, I don’t have that. If I’m being one then that’d be dick."
"Are you seri—"
"Anyways, I was kidding!" His voice broke through, desperate to mend the fraying thread of her tolerance. From hidden depths he conjured the packet, still burdened with marshmallow remnants. She swore the next jest would earn him a reckoning, a smacking worthy of the ages. "I wouldn’t disappoint my pretty Y/N."
Her eyes rolled, twin moons weary of orbiting his nonsense, as she seized the prize from his grasp and devoured her spoils with the fury of a storm long denied the sea.
Gojo Satoru, drifting through that mischievous sea as always.