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Gojo had always been obsessed with the idea of wearing an apron. Not just wearing one, though. He wanted the full experience: working in a plain yet somehow breathtaking café, earning money, and radiating the effortless charm of someone who belonged behind a counter. Admittedly, the money mattered far less than the apron itself.
That morning, he got out of bed and stepped in front of the mirror. After wasting an unreasonable amount of time choosing between outfits, he finally left the house, crossed the large garden, and headed for his car.
As one might expect, Gojo had long possessed the means to acquire almost anything he desired. Whether it was a pair of outrageously expensive shoes, a “not for sale” sign he remained absurdly proud of purchasing, or even the chocolate ice cream of some unfortunate child. None of it had ever been difficult for him.
Still, there was one obstacle he kept stumbling over. Ironically, it was something entirely intangible.
A vibe could not be bought.
Well, except perhaps the vibe of smoking, which was easily achieved through one quick supermarket visit.
The same seemed to apply to love. Maybe.
Gojo was not entirely certain about that one, despite having spent countless nights crying to Shoko about the issue. He started the engine, checked his messy hair in the mirror one last time, and drove off.
Contrary to popular belief, Satoru Gojo should not be mistaken for a completely impassive egomaniac. He was, in fact, very capable of achieving his goals. Whether concerning the whole vibe issue or the matter of true love, he trusted himself entirely.
Which explained why he had decided to work at the lovely café around the corner, despite discovering the job offer by pure accident.
More specifically, he had been walking past a shop window that reflected his figure exceptionally well. Naturally, such a happy coincidence had to be appreciated. In the end, the glass presented him with not one but two breathtakingly attractive things: his own reflection and a job advertisement hanging beside it.
It had to be fate.
Gojo was fairly certain it was a personal gift sent directly from his favorite all powerful deity: fate itself.
He had already planned everything thoroughly, both in his head and during several dramatic rehearsals in the far corner of a park. Two goals achieved through one action. Killing two birds with one stone.
First, he aimed to cultivate the aura of an understated yet attractive man. An aura perfectly embodied by a waiter.
Therefore, he had to become one.
Ultimately, however, it all came down to his second objective: finding his soulmate.
Gojo was convinced he would meet true love in that café. It could be a customer, his boss, or even a coworker. He genuinely did not care.
With those ambitions in mind, Gojo opened the café door powered entirely by self confidence and a dangerous amount of megalomania, only to be immediately chastised for arriving five minutes late.
He looked up toward the voice. It belonged to an older man, presumably his boss.
“Good mornin’. I actually did not plan on arriving unpunctual, therefore it’s not my fault, right?” he chirped while stopping in front of him.
The man looked deeply exhausted already. Gojo assumed it was because he himself was about an inch taller.
“We do not have time for small talk. I need you working in three,” the man said before walking away with one last scrutinizing glance.
No further explanation followed.
Gojo looked around the busy café, then toward the window and the overcrowded park outside before returning his attention to his new workplace. After admiring the apron he had eagerly put on while walking to the car, he decided he was ready.
He confidently approached a table of customers waiting expectantly for him, only to realize that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing.
Maintaining a charming smile while internally reaching stage one of escalating panic, he quickly searched for his boss.
The man had vanished.
It was then that Gojo remembered checking the “experienced” box on his application.
At the time, the choice had seemed entirely reasonable. Gojo was, after all, an experienced man in many areas of life. Refusing to acknowledge such a quality would have been dishonest.
Unfortunately, he now realized that the question had specifically referred to gastronomy.
And in that regard, he did not know a single thing.
Naturally, he usually occupied the receiving end of that particular exchange.
“Nothing to worry about,” Gojo assured himself.
As smart and charming as he was, figuring out the café system would surely be easy.
He redirected his attention toward the customers he had now stared at for a deeply unsettling amount of time, his smile still frozen in place. Patting his apron quickly, he stepped toward the table.
“Heyy, what can I do for ya?”
Immediately, he was flooded with orders he had no chance of memorizing.
Gojo waited for them to finish, nodding exaggeratedly before quietly pressing out a deeply humiliated:
“…what?”
At that moment, a coworker noticed his suffering and intervened. Gojo was rather rudely pushed aside by a man who appeared roughly his age. He had messy grey hair, a bored expression, and the alarming competence of someone who clearly belonged there.
With terrifying efficiency, the man wrote down every order in seconds.
A moment later, Gojo found himself dragged toward the far corner of the café.
For the first time, he properly faced his coworker.
The grey haired man leaned lazily against the wall while studying him.
“Do you work here?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in faint mockery.
Gojo was genuinely offended by what he considered an extraordinarily stupid question.
Gesturing dramatically toward his apron, he answered with an indignant, “Yes.”
“Well, it surely did not seem like it,” the other man deadpanned.
“Who are you even?” Gojo demanded while looming over him in an attempt at intimidation.
It had absolutely no effect.
“I am Kakashi,” the man replied curtly, still looking profoundly unimpressed.
“Well then, Ka ka shi,” Gojo said while overemphasizing every syllable, “I will let you know that I just started in the café business. I apologize that I am not yet an expert.”
At the same time, a customer attempted to squeeze past them near the toilets.
Kakashi rolled his eyes, grabbed Gojo by the arm, and pulled him closer against the wall to make room.
“Oh, how nice,” Gojo whispered flirtatiously while winking at him.
Before he could continue the harassment, however, the bell above the café door rang.
A customer had entered.
And for one brief, almost sacred moment, everything stopped.
Kakashi closed his eyes. Not peacefully, but with resignation.
“Don’t,” he muttered, despite nobody having said anything yet.
Naturally, Gojo turned around immediately.
A girl stepped inside, followed by a man surrounded by an almost tangible aura of disdain and superiority.
“Who’s that?” Gojo stammered, staring openly.
“That’s the Table 7 incident,” Kakashi answered flatly. “We are understaffed for this.”
Gojo grinned.
“Sounds fun. I’ll go talk to them.”
Little did Satoru know that he was currently approaching an abyss fully capable of swallowing him whole.
“Their presence resembles a black hole,” Kakashi sighed. “It already sucked out my soul. While I genuinely do not care if yours is taken too, I suggest speaking to literally any other table.”
He reached out to stop him.
Too late.
Gojo was already gone.
Curiously, he observed the pair from afar. The girl had long brown hair, baggy jeans, and a slightly amused expression. Her companion was tall, dressed in dark, simple clothes that somehow still looked painfully deliberate. Soft pink hair framed his face while black tattoos stretched across his skin, beginning at his temples, crossing his cheeks, slipping over the bridge of his nose, and disappearing beneath his collar.
Gojo was immediately fascinated.
No, worse.
He needed to talk to them.
It was the call of the void. Completely irresistible.
Adjusting his apron one last time, he approached the table with his best smile.
“Heyjo,” he greeted brightly.
The girl grinned back at him. The tattooed man merely looked up from the menu with complete disinterest.
“That’s not a proper greeting,” he deadpanned.
Gojo’s smile twitched for half a second.
“And who are you to decide something like that?” he shot back with far more confidence than the comeback deserved.
“I am Sukuna, and this is Anna,” the man replied. “We come here regularly, and since you appear to be new, let me make something clear: I do not tolerate incompetence.”
“Do I look, in any way, like an incapable waiter to you?” Gojo asked while running a hand through his hair.
The silence that followed was devastating.
His smirk faltered.
Just slightly.
“Okay,” he exhaled quickly, smile snapping back into place, sharper this time. “Fantastic. Love the energy. What can I get you guys?”
For clarification, Gojo was currently fighting for his life emotionally.
Anna openly grinned now, visibly enjoying his suffering. It was one of the reasons she had started dating Sukuna in the first place. Watching fully grown men unravel in front of him never became boring.
Sukuna, meanwhile, specialized in it.
Not loudly. Not aggressively.
He simply existed in a way that made people question every life decision they had ever made.
“Two coffees,” he said at last.
“Black.”
Gojo nodded too fast.
“Right. Yes. Coffee. I know coffee. Generally.”
Anna laughed quietly.
“Go,” Sukuna ordered.
Gojo blinked.
“…go?”
“To the place where they make the coffee,” Sukuna clarified as though speaking to someone only marginally capable of understanding language.
Gojo turned around.
Took two steps.
Stopped.
Then turned back again, desperately searching for something clever to say that might restore even a fraction of his dignity.
Sukuna simply shook his head slowly.
Consequently, Satoru chose survival and fled toward the register instead.
Kakashi greeted him there with nothing but a slight raise of his eyebrow.
“What on earth…” Satoru began weakly, though he did not need to finish the sentence.
“I did warn you,” Kakashi replied calmly. “Then again, I figured it would not be the worst thing if they shaved off at least some of your excessively cheerful megalomania. Thinking about it now, that interaction may actually have made you a healthier person.”
With that, Kakashi pulled out a book that Gojo was fairly certain carried an explicit warning on the back cover and began walking toward the exit.
“I will now take my five minute break,” he announced over his shoulder before disappearing through the door.
Satoru did not even have time to process this act of total betrayal because he suddenly had to prepare two black coffees for Table 7.
After an embarrassingly long battle with the machine, he finally managed to produce something that resembled coffee and returned to the table.
Anna was currently barking at a small dog sitting nearby.
Not casually, either.
With alarming precision.
The imitation was so accurate that the poor animal had already retreated beneath its owner’s chair in visible distress.
Gojo was almost swept off his feet by this remarkable display of personality.
Incidentally, it had also been the reason Sukuna first noticed Anna.
Their first encounter had involved her driving past him while screaming maniacally inside her car. Sukuna had immediately recognized in her a complete rejection of all social decorum and basic expectations of human behavior.
Naturally, he had fallen in love.
Gojo handed Anna her coffee with a slight blush before Sukuna forcibly removed the second cup from his hand.
“Thank you,” Anna chirped happily while patting Sukuna’s hand reassuringly.
“I will go then,” Satoru said quickly. “Or do you want something else? Anything else?”
He was visibly trembling.
The pair answered him with complete silence.
“…right. I’ll go.”
Gojo retreated.
Still, he could not deny that he was becoming increasingly obsessed with Table 7.
Every interaction with them filled him with an exhilarating combination of adrenaline and mild nausea.
How had they met?
Where did they live?
How old were they?
His head overflowed with questions he had absolutely no time to think about because there were customers everywhere.
Far too many of them.
And he was effectively the only waiter.
Two hours passed during which Gojo caused several accidents, confused countless customers, and lost at least a few attractiveness points. Orders appeared and vanished unpredictably. Cups materialized in places they logically should not have been. At one point, someone discovered a spoon inside the register.
Nobody questioned it anymore.
Least of all Kakashi, who had returned from his “five minute break” an entire hour late.
Meanwhile, Gojo had entered a state best described as operational confusion.
The shift was nearly over when disaster struck once again.
For one brief and deeply deceptive moment, the café became quiet.
Anna lazily stirred the remains of her coffee while Sukuna stared at his empty cup as though it had personally offended him.
Gojo approached the table carefully, armed with the kind of optimism that had already been destroyed multiple times that day but continued returning out of sheer habit.
“We are closing soon,” he said with a smile that had long since stopped looking genuine. “Would you mind paying now?”
Sukuna did not answer immediately.
Instead, he slowly examined the empty cup, then Gojo, then the café itself.
“This,” he began at last, “was not worth its price.”
Gojo blinked.
“…excuse me?”
Sukuna leaned back slightly.
“The experience was acceptable at best. The temperature inconsistent. The atmosphere tolerable only because of external company.” His eyes narrowed. “And yet you expect full payment.”
Anna nodded thoughtfully beside him.
“He has a point,” she added.
Gojo stared at her in disbelief.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” she replied simply.
From behind the counter, Kakashi slowly closed his eyes.
“We are not equipped for financial negotiations with them,” he stated without even turning around.
Gojo whipped his head toward him.
“What does that mean?!”
But Sukuna had already reached into his pocket. Calmly, he placed a few coins onto the table.
“This,” he declared, “reflects fair valuation.”
Gojo looked down.
Then back up.
“…that is not even close.”
“Then your pricing model is flawed,” Sukuna answered without hesitation.
Anna leaned forward, resting her chin against her hand.
“You know,” she said conversationally, “we have actually never paid full price here.”
Gojo froze completely.
“…what?”
She tilted her head innocently.
“Ever.”
Silence filled the café except for the espresso machine hissing faintly in the background.
Very slowly, Gojo turned toward Kakashi.
“…is that true?”
Kakashi finally looked up. By now, he seemed to have reached the final stage of complete emotional dissociation.
“Yes,” he answered shortly.
Gojo’s soul visibly left his body for a moment.
“…why?”
Kakashi sighed deeply.
“Because correcting them costs more than the coffee.”
Anna stood up. Sukuna followed immediately behind her. As they walked toward the exit, Anna waved cheerfully.
“See you next time!”
The bell above the door rang as they disappeared outside. Gojo remained frozen behind the counter, staring blankly at the coins.
“So this is organized crime,” he whispered faintly.
Kakashi picked up his coat.
“Yes,” he replied flatly. “Financially abusive regular customers.”
And with that, he left as well.
At this point, it might be important to explain how Anna and Sukuna had met in the first place.
It had been a warm summer night. The moon shone brightly overhead while stars glittered softly in the distance. Everything about it felt strangely poetic. Fate, perhaps. A happy coincidence.
Two strangers brought together through circumstances too absurdly romantic to be accidental.
They had been placed in the same room.
There was only one bed.
And both of them were guarded by the same police officer.
A long silence followed. Deep, contemplative, almost sacred in implication.
They had, in fact, been locked inside the same sobering up cell.
Anna had been arrested for vandalism.
Sukuna had been taken into custody in connection with a minor arson incident.
It was love at first sight.
In the end, they shared a bond nobody else could ever truly understand. A relationship strengthened beautifully through their mutual criminal record.
And on that very first day at the café, Gojo learned something important.
Organized crime, he realized, should never be underestimated.
It demanded passion. Loyalty. Absolute commitment.
In other words, it was love in its purest form.