Archive of Our Own

The party smells like sweat and tequila.

The bass is far too loud for the size of the living room, rattling through borrowed speakers with a kind of desperate bravado—like if the music hits hard enough, no one will notice how sticky the floor is or that the couch cushions are frayed and bleeding stuffing at the seams.

Yuuji breathes through his mouth, tugging at the sleeves of his too-big hoodie that he’d borrowed from Choso’s closet without asking, and tries not to look like someone who’s never been to a college party before. He’s pretty sure he’s failing—his smile might be too wide, his eyes too open. He might as well have his student ID stapled to his chest.

He came with Nobara, who had heard about the party from her not-girlfriend Maki—whatever that means. Yuuji isn’t really sure, but he thinks that’s just the label they use to avoid freaking Megumi out, because Maki’s like… his cousin? Or his aunt? Or something. Either way, it seems to work for all of them to deny, deny, deny.

Megumi had opted out entirely. Nobara called him a killjoy. Yuuji just thinks he probably made a good call—he can’t imagine anything about cheap LED lights or what tastes like rubbing alcohol sweating in plastic cups that would appeal to Megumi in the slightest.

Yuuji, on the other hand, is enjoying himself… well, mostly.

He feels a little like a zoo animal that’s just been rehabilitated into the wild—happy to be here, just not entirely sure how to navigate it yet.  The lights are too red, people are crammed in everywhere, and he’s three sips into something neon red and vaguely fruit-flavored, labeled with masking tape and Sharpie as “jungle juice.”

He loses Nobara almost immediately to a girl with blue hair and asymmetrical bangs who pulls her into a conversation with a bright smile. There’s a blonde girl with her too—smaller, sharper, eyes like razors—and whatever she says makes them all laugh. The three of them disappear into the crowd like a constellation.

Yuuji watches for a second, grinning to himself, then drifts.

He doesn’t know anyone else here, but that’s okay. The energy’s loud and fast and a little dizzying in a good way, like the edge of a roller coaster drop. He doesn’t feel like he belongs there, but no one is paying him enough mind to make him feel unwanted either.

He’s halfway through pretending to text someone when he sees him.  

At first, it’s just a shape across the room—tall, pale, outlined in static.

Then the shape becomes a person.

He’s lounging across a low couch like it was built specifically to showcase him. Legs stretched out, one wrist gangling over the side with a red plastic cup clutched loosely in his fingers. His hair is silver-white, catching every LED pulse like it was born under stage lights.

Yuuji has no idea who he is, but everyone around him seems to.

People hover—two girls on the floor in front of him, laughing at something he said that in all honesty wasn’t all that funny. A guy in a backwards hat sits on the armrest, angled in like he’s trying to fold himself into the same frame. Another is standing, fiddling with the aux cord, checking with him after every change like he’s the DJ and the bouncer and the headliner all at once.

He radiates the kind of self-assurance Yuuji associates with people who’ve already crashed and burned and decided to join the wreckage.

He’s wearing a crumpled button-down, open over a black tee. His collarbones are sharp. His mouth is a hell of a lot sharper.

Yuuji watches him for far too long.

It’s not like he’s doing it on purpose or anything. Just in that way where your eyes keep drifting back to the same place because something about it doesn’t feel real.

Yuuji lingers in the kitchen just to get a closer look. Pours himself another half-cup of jungle juice, downs it too fast. The sugar burns just as much as the vodka.

Nobara finds him a few minutes later and drags him into a game of beer pong.  When he misses his first shot by, like, a mile, she groans, grabs him by the face with both hands, and squishes his cheeks together like she’s trying to reset his calibration through sheer force.

“Focus,” she hisses. There’s something tacky on her fingers—lip gloss, alcohol, maybe both—and his cheeks are sticky when she lets go.  

He still misses every shot after. Nobara complains very loudly about carrying the team—shouting over the music about being shackled to mediocrity, bemoaning wasted potential, swearing she could have joined the Olympic circuit if not for the tragic burden of befriending Itadori Yuuji. She heckles the other team with equal enthusiasm, jeering at missed shots, sarcastically applauding when they land one.

Yuuji barely hears her.

Because somewhere in the noise, he learns the guy’s name.

Satoru.

The name floats through the party like perfume, always on someone’s lips. Satoru, who used to TA physics seminars. Satoru, who got published at twenty-one. Satoru, who got dumped, disappeared for half a year, then started showing up to parties like this.

He’s magnetic. Not loud—god, not even friendly by the looks of it—but something about him seems to draw attention like a riptide. People orbit it and call it conversation.

Yet—and maybe it’s just the alcohol hindering his judgement—Yuuji thinks he looks a little sad. It’s hard to tell, with people laughing at everything he says and pressing in from all sides—but there’s something about the way he’s smiling that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Yuuji has no real reason for this train of thought. He feels like a groupie with a very parasocial crush on a celebrity.

Yuuji watches. And watches. And watches.

So inevitably, he sees it when the commotion starts.

There’s a girl arguing with him. She has long dark hair pulled back in a neat ribbon and an expression like she’s two seconds away from punching him or combusting. She’s clearly pissed. He’s clearly not. She moves in sharp, staccato bursts—gesturing wildly, voice spiking over the music—and he just stands there, loose-limbed and calm, sipping from his cup like she’s reading the side effects on a prescription bottle.

Then there’s a riot of motion. A sharp movement—liquid arcing through the air—and something hits the floor with a hollow, plastic clatter.

Satoru doesn’t flinch, but he does frown, lifting one hand to wipe some of the liquid from his cheek with the back of his wrist. He turns without a word and walks out of the room, heading toward a narrow door tucked between a hanging tapestry and a half-dead houseplant. Yuuji watches it swing closed behind him.

He’s still staring when Nobara snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Yuuji. You listening?”

“No—yeah. Sorry. I mean… I’ll be right back.”

Yuuji moves through the haze of sweat and colored lights, past someone doing shots off a windowsill and another girl crying near the punch bowl. He slips between conversations, cups brushing his elbow, a laugh too loud behind him. Every step feels weirdly sharp, like he’s moving through water that’s turned to glass. The tapestry scratches his arm as he slips out the door.

It opens to a balcony. Small, tucked between two ivy-choked brick walls, lit faintly by string lights overhead and the moon beyond. The music dulls behind him as the door clicks shut, replaced by the hum of city air and the blood rush in his ears.

Satoru is standing at the rail.

He doesn’t turn around. “You gonna hover, or join me?”

Yuuji freezes. “Uh—sorry. I didn’t mean to—"

Satoru shrugs, lifting something to his mouth. A slow inhale. The cherry of the joint glows red in the dark, a soft ember against the night.

“Relax,” he says, voice thick and drowsy. Satoru finally turns and the curve of his mouth catches the moonlight. Now that Yuuji’s seeing him up close, Satoru’s kind of ridiculous. He has the kind of face that probably coasted him through every formative experience without ever hearing the word no. “You don’t look like a narc.”

Yuuji blinks. “Thanks?”

Satoru holds out the joint. “You smoke?” It feels like he’s giving Yuuji a test that he knows he’s going to fail.

“I—” Yuuji doesn’t, not regularly. But the joint’s already in his hand, still warm from Satoru’s fingers, and he can’t back out now. “Yeah. Totally.”

“Uh huh.” Satoru leans back against the railing, watching him with a lidded gaze and something like quiet amusement tugging at his mouth.

Yuuji takes a drag. He coughs violently. The smoke claws up his throat like it knows he’s a fraud, and it wants Satoru to know too. His pride folds in on itself like a dying star.

Satoru laughs. “Cute.”

It’s the first real smile Yuuji’s seen from him all night. Not the polite kind. Not the smirky kind. This one shows teeth. It lights his whole face.

Yuuji, idiot that he is, smiles back. “I’m Itadori Yuuji.”

Satoru tilts his head. “That’s a name.”

“You got one too?” Yuuji asks as if it hasn’t been coalescing on his tongue waiting to take shape for the past hour.

“Satoru,” he says. It rolls out easy, like he’s used to handing it over to people who never get to keep it. “You here alone?”

“Uh—no. I mean, kinda.” Yuuji scratches the back of his neck. “I came with my friend. We, uh… snuck in.”

Satoru’s eyebrows lift. “Bold. You even old enough to be drinking?”

Yuuji shifts, the hand at the back of his neck tightening. Even when he’s not warm from alcohol, he’s honest to a fault—wired wrong for lying, especially when someone looks at him like that. Like they already know the answer. Like they’re waiting to see if he’ll flinch. “No.” Unhelpfully he adds, “I’m sixteen.”

Satoru takes the joint back, takes a slow drag, and this time his gaze flicks over Yuuji like he’s being re-evaluated. Like Satoru’s deciding what kind of story this might turn into.

“Ever gotten a blowjob?”

Yuuji chokes on air.

“I—what?” he splutters, eyes wide. “No! I mean—not—not yet? I mean—” He scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly hyperaware of how young he must look. “That’s not really something people ask, is it?”

Satoru shrugs, unbothered. “Sure it is.” He exhales through his nose, smoke curling lazily from between his teeth. “Just not usually with this much eye contact.”

Yuuji turns bright red.

Satoru watches him like he’s a particularly amusing bug on a microscope slide. His grin doesn’t fade—it sharpens, foxlike. “Relax. I’m just messing with you.”

Yuuji stares at him, brain short-circuiting under the pressure of coming up with something clever. His mouth works around a few syllables and settles on, “You’re really weird.”

Satoru tips his head back and laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all night. “God, aren’t you precious.”

Yuuji blinks at him, slow. He has no idea what to say to that. He just kind of… stands there, probably looking like a confused baby bird.

Satoru lifts the joint again, pinched between two fingers, and holds it out.

Yuuji hesitates. Then shakes his head. His throat still burns a little from the first attempt.

Satoru watches him for a moment longer. Then turns, flicks the joint over the balcony with practiced ease, and crushes the ember out against the edge of a rusted patio table with his thumb. Something about the motion, the angle of his wrist, the glow fading into smoke reminds Yuuji of those avant-garde noir films Megumi’s always trying to make him watch. The ones where everyone’s beautiful and doomed and speaks in riddles.

He doesn’t look up when he says, “So. You gonna tell me why you followed me out here?” There’s the barest smile in his voice when he adds, “You’ve been staring at me all night—figured you finally worked up the nerve.”

Yuuji startles. “I wasn’t—”

Satoru quirks a brow. Not accusing. Just… expectant. Like he’s giving Yuuji a chance to come clean or get creative with the lie.

Yuuji swallows. He feels like he’s just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar—except the cookie is six feet tall, devastatingly hot, and apparently very aware of the attention.

Well, honesty’s the best policy, he supposes.

“I saw you arguing with that girl.”

“So?”

Yuuji frowns. “So what?”

“Why do you care?”

Yuuji hesitates. Breathes in. Immediately regrets it. Satoru’s cologne is clinging to the air between them—heady, warm, something sweet layered over something expensive. It makes it very hard to think.

“I wanted to see if you were okay,” he says.

Satoru smiles, lazy and edged. “How sweet.”

Yuuji shrugs, suddenly awkward now that the words are out in the open. “I didn’t mean it in a weird way.” And when he says it like that, it definitely sounds weird.

Satoru hums. “What’s the weird way?”

“I dunno. Like—” Yuuji scrubs a hand through his hair. “Like I was trying to get in your business. I wasn’t. I just…” He trails off, realizing too late there’s no good ending to that sentence.

“You just,” Satoru repeats, like he’s offering Yuuji the rope and waiting to see if he’ll tie the noose himself.

“I just thought you looked kind of…” Yuuji hesitates. “Sad.”

Satoru laughs—but it’s barely sound, more of a breath forced through his teeth. “You get all that from one look across the room?”

Yuuji doesn’t answer. He’s too busy chewing the inside of his cheek, replaying every decision that brought him to this exact moment. He leans back against the railing like it might help him hold his shape.

Satoru’s eyes flick toward him. Something unreadable slips through the cracks in his expression—just for a second—before smoothing over again. “And what would you have done if I was sad?” he asks, voice light but curved at the edges, like he's holding it up just long enough not to drop it. “Pat my back? Offer me a drink? Tell me the world’s not as bad as it seems?”

Yuuji’s brows pull together. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Maybe just keep you company. That makes me feel better when I’m sad.”

Satoru’s grin falters for half a second, like he wasn’t expecting sincerity, like it’s something he doesn’t know what to do with. His posture shifts—arms still folded, but the pose isn’t so casual anymore. There’s tension in his shoulders now. Stillness in the wrong places.

“Shit,” he mutters, almost to himself. “You’re serious.”

Yuuji nods. Just once.

Satoru tilts his head, studying him like he’s some puzzle piece that doesn’t fit the rest of the night.

“Shit,” Satoru says again, but this time he huffs out a laugh—low and a little dry. There’s no malice in it, just something bordering on disbelief.

He shakes his head and bumps Yuuji lightly with one elbow, like that’s easier than saying anything real. “Stay golden, Itadori Yuuji.”

Yuuji isn’t sure what makes him ask the next question. It could be the weed. That soft, creeping buzz behind his eyes, making all his thoughts feel half-a-beat too slow and half-a-step too honest. Or maybe it’s the fact that Satoru didn’t brush him off. Didn’t roll his eyes or call him naïve or tell him to get lost. Maybe he’s not thinking at all.

“Are you? Sad I mean.”

“How philosophical,” Satoru murmurs in response.

He tilts his head back, eyes flicking upward like he’s checking to see if the sky’s still there. The soft glow of the string lights spills across his hair, washing it gold at the edges. For a second—just a second—Yuuji thinks he looks like something out of a painting in a museum. Something you’d walk past once and never forget.

“Probably,” Satoru adds, like it’s an afterthought.

Yuuji swallows. “Why?” He winces the second it’s out of his mouth. Wonders if he sounded too much like a kid just then—like someone who hasn’t yet learned how to let a conversation end without reason.

“Why not?” Satoru says, light at first—nearly flippant. But then he keeps going. “You live long enough, you start collecting disappointments like they’re souvenirs. People let you down. Time runs out. Nothing stays golden. And one day you wake up and realize you’re still going through the motions because quitting would take more energy than pretending.”

Yuuji blinks, trying to keep up. The words circle him, slow and thick, like they’re meant for someone older. Someone smarter. He knows they’re important. He knows they mean something. He just—can’t quite hold the shape of them. Mostly because he keeps getting distracted by the way Satoru’s mouth moves when he talks. It’s a really nice mouth. Unfairly so.

Satoru glances at him, something faint and wry in his expression. “Sorry. A little melodramatic, huh?”

“No, no,” Yuuji says quickly, shaking his head—maybe a little too fast. “I was just thinking.”

 “Thinking about what?”

Yuuji’s smoked weed before—kind of. Once. Maybe twice. Okay, once, and it was something he’d stolen from Choso’s sock drawer and smoked out of a soda can behind their apartment complex. This? This is not that. Whatever Satoru gave him is either significantly better quality, or Satoru’s presence has some kind of weird magnifying effect—like everything he says gets turned up to eleven just by existing near him.

His thoughts are slow and unfiltered, slippery in a way that makes everything seem like a good idea until it’s already been said.

“You’re really pretty.”

Satoru’s smile sharpens, the edges catching just a little more light. “You think so, huh?”

And that’s when Yuuji’s brain finally catches up to the decision his mouth just made without him. He can hear himself saying it again in his head, and somehow it sounds even dumber the second time. He needs to pivot. Immediately. Hard left.

“Was that your girlfriend you were arguing with?”

Satoru snorts. “Utahime? She wishes.”

He steps closer. Clearly he knows exactly what kind of effect he has on people, and he isn’t above leaning into it.

“Anyway.” He lifts a hand and taps Yuuji lightly on the forehead with one finger. A soft little boop. Like Yuuji’s a poorly behaved pet who’s gotten too bold and needs to be reminded who’s in charge. “Don’t change the topic. What’s pretty about me?”

So much for Yuuji’s smooth recovery.

“Uh—your… face?”

Satoru presses his lips together, unimpressed.

Yuuji does not like that. The faint note of disappointment twists something in his chest in a way he doesn’t fully understand. He has no idea why he wants Satoru’s approval so badly—he just knows he does. Knows it down to his stupid, stoned bones.

“I mean, obviously your face.” He’s rambling now, fumbling for traction. “But like—not just the symmetry thing. It’s your eyes. And the way you smile like you’ve got a secret. And your voice kind of sounds like a song, but, like, a really stupid song that gets stuck in your head.”

Satoru leans down, bending to meet him in the space between. “Is that it?”

Yuuji stares at him. Mouth parting. Breath catching. It’s incredibly hard to do anything except trace the shape of Satoru’s mouth and how obscenely close it is now.

“You have nice lips,” Yuuji says, soft and a little dazed. “Are you wearing lip gloss?”

“Yeah. It’s flavored.” Satoru drags his tongue slow across his lower lip, and Yuuji watches every second of it like he’s been hypnotized. His brain’s gone completely blank, all synapses rerouted to mouth, mouth, mouth.  

“You wanna taste it?”

“Um,” is Yuuji’s intelligent response.

His eyes must be saying a hell of a lot more because Satoru kisses him.

Yuuji’s kissed people before, sure. Sweet, polite things, hands by their sides, breath held like they were afraid to break something.

This isn’t that.

Satoru doesn’t just kiss with his mouth—he kisses with all of him. His whole body leans into it, into Yuuji, like he’s willing to fold himself around the moment if that’s what it takes. He tastes like lip gloss and smoke and maybe a little like jungle juice, but mostly he tastes like heat—the part of the dream you don’t want to wake up from.

The kiss is open and slow, not careful but intentional, like Satoru knows exactly what he’s doing and wants to make sure Yuuji feels every second of it. His lips are soft, wet, and a little sticky from the gloss. When his tongue pushes into Yuuji’s mouth, warm and slick, Yuuji lets out a sound he’s never made before—low and involuntary, punched out of him like breath.

Satoru’s hand finds his jaw, thumb brushing the edge of his cheek, and it shouldn’t be as good as it is—shouldn’t make his knees feel this wobbly, his thoughts this distant. They’re standing on a cold balcony. The air smells like weed and old beer. But Satoru licks into his mouth and cloud nine is a very real place because that’s where Yuuji is right now.

Satoru kisses like he’s sculpting something with his mouth—like he’s shaping Yuuji into something new. And maybe he is, because Yuuji’s not sure he’s ever going to be the same again.

When Satoru starts to pull back, Yuuji moves without thinking. He brings a hand up, fingers sliding into the back of Satoru’s hair, keeping him there. A little breathless ‘please don’t stop’ made flesh.

He feels Satoru’s mouth curve slightly against his own. A grin. Pleased? Possibly. Smug? Absolutely.

Yuuji doesn’t care. He leans in harder, mouth parting wider, chasing every inch of contact he can get. He kisses like he’s trying to learn something, like the answer to every question he’s never known how to ask might be buried somewhere behind Satoru’s teeth.

Satoru lets him take the lead—lets him kiss back open-mouthed and messy and eager. Yuuji tries to copy what Satoru did earlier, tongue sliding forward in a slow, uncertain press. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he knows how it felt, and he’s desperate to return it—to do it right, to make Satoru feel even a fraction of what Yuuji’s feeling now. The flicker of Satoru’s low, pleased hum makes him think he’s doing okay.

The rhythm shifts again—Satoru’s taking back the reins, turning the dial with slow confidence just to see how far Yuuji can be pushed. He kisses Yuuji like he’s dragging the heat up from the base of his spine. Doing it on purpose, just to watch him fall apart.

And Yuuji is falling apart. Piece by flushed, gasping piece.

Satoru bites at his lower lip, then soothes the spot with a lazy drag of his tongue. Yuuji shudders.

Satoru noses against his cheek, lips brushing the edge of his jaw. “You’re a good kisser.”

Yuuji has no idea what he’s supposed to say to that—so he defaults to the only thing his scrambled brain can come up with. “Thank you.”

That must have been the correct and appropriate response, because Satoru says, “You’re welcome,” and kisses him again.

It’s a little less frantic this time, more indulgent. Satoru’s mouth drifts lower, lips pressed to the corner of Yuuji’s jaw, then down—tracing a line to the soft skin beneath his ear, then to the side of his neck.

Yuuji tips his head back. He’s halfway through the irrational thought that he might actually melt into a puddle if Satoru keeps this up when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

It cuts through the haze like a bucket of cold water, and his brain stutters back into gear. Nobara. He left her inside a college party surrounded by strangers. He really needs to—

“I should check that,” he says, voice rough.

“Go ahead,” Satoru murmurs into the side of his neck, still pressing slow kisses into his skin.

Yuuji swallows hard, fumbling his phone out of his pocket with a hand that’s not quite steady.

[nobara]

whrer r uu

Yuuji blinks at it. Then says, reluctantly, “I should probably go check on my friend.”

Satoru finally pulls back enough to look at him, eyebrows raised. His gaze drops. “You’re gonna go in like that?”

Yuuji follows his eyes down to the very obvious tent in his pants.

“God,” he mutters. “Fuck my life.”

Satoru’s already smiling. “Don’t worry,” he says, easy as anything. “I can take care of it for you.”

Yuuji barely has time to process the words before Satoru is folding himself with a surprising amount of grace onto his knees right in front of him. He looks obscene like that. All pale limbs and practiced ease, pretty as sin and twice as tempting.

Yuuji stares down at him, startled. “What—what are you doing?!”

Satoru glances up with a lift of his brows, all faux innocence and wicked calm. “Blowing you,” he says, like it’s obvious. “We just went over this.”

Yuuji shifts, thighs tightening, nerves firing in every direction. He’s caught in the middle of fight or flight or fold. His whole body feels electric—like he could bolt or collapse or both at once.

He almost wants to protest—should protest, probably—but he’s already half hard, and teenage, raging hormones are a hell of a drug. Stronger than any jungle juice or weed in his system. And besides—he can’t just go waltzing back in like this. No way. Not with a boner leading the charge. It doesn’t matter how much alcohol is in Nobara’s bloodstream at the moment. She’d never miss that, and he’d never hear the end of it. Ever.

Still, some tiny, stubborn part of Yuuji—muffled and far away, like it’s shouting from behind a wall—manages to push through the fog.

“What about my friend?”

“It won’t take very long.”

Yuuji can’t tell if that’s supposed to be reassuring or an insult. Maybe both.

“I told you how old I am, right?”

Satoru doesn’t even blink. “Yeah.”

Yuuji feels like he’s stepped off something high and gravity hasn’t quite caught up yet. The ground hasn’t rushed up to meet him, but he knows it’s coming.

Satoru’s fingers are still curled loose around the buckle of his belt, waiting for the coin to land.

“What if someone comes out?”

Satoru glances up at him, brows lifting like he’s the one being inconvenienced. “What’s with the twenty-one questions?” he asks, a touch incredulous. “You want me to blow you or not?”

Yuuji swallows. His heart’s thudding. His brain is goo. He wants to make some kind of responsible choice here. Really, he does. But it’s not like the hottest person he’s ever seen is going to drop to his knees and offer to suck him off again. Hell—this might be a once-in-a-lifetime situation. Nobara will forgive him. Probably.

“Okay,” he says. Then, weaker. “Shit. Yeah.”

Yuuji fires off a shaky be right there text while Satoru is already unbuttoning his jeans. Satoru eases his zipper down and his breath catches. Every muscle in his body locks up—except, apparently, the ones involved in staying hard, because that is definitely still happening. Satoru’s fingers tug at the waistband of his underwear and Yuuji exhales a sharp shaky puff.

His cock springs free, flushed and aching.

Satoru hums low in his throat like he’s pleased with what he sees. He wraps a hand around the base, warm and sure, and Yuuji flinches. Not because it hurts, but because it feels nothing like his own hand. It’s steadier, maybe a little rough in places that only make it better. It’s probably a million times better, and Satoru’s barely even touched him.

Yuuji stares down at him, heart pounding so loud he can feel it in his teeth.

Satoru strokes him once. Thumb sweeping over the head, smearing precome. Yuuji’s knees nearly buckle.

Satoru licks a stripe up the underside of his cock, tongue dragging from the base to the tip like he’s getting a feel for the shape of him. Then he does it again—slower this time. Yuuji whimpers—actually whimpers—and clamps a hand over his mouth in horror.

Satoru smirks against his skin.

And then he takes him in. Just the head at first. Then a little more. His lips are soft and slick, and his tongue does something obscene under the crown that sends sparks up Yuuji’s spine.

Satoru’s rhythm is practiced. Some part of Yuuji’s brain—a small, distant, barely functioning part—registers that Satoru’s done this before. Many times, probably. Obviously. And obviously he’s good at it.

Satoru pulls back, then slides down again—deeper this time. His hand tightens around what his mouth doesn’t cover, wrist flicking at the top of each stroke like he’s trying to ruin Yuuji on purpose. Spit gleams on Yuuji’s skin. The lip gloss is long gone, smeared away or swallowed, but the shine Satoru leaves behind is somehow even filthier.

And now Yuuji’s brain is gone. Entirely gone. He’s never felt anything like this. His hips twitch without his permission. His breath comes in short, pathetic bursts. Every time Satoru sinks down, Yuuji sees stars behind his eyelids. Every time he pulls back, Yuuji wants to beg for him to stay.

And through it all, Satoru stays perfectly composed.

His mouth works Yuuji’s cock with obscene, wet noises that Yuuji wants to forget and remember forever. His fingers stay steady. His eyes flick up just once—and god—the sight of that nearly finishes Yuuji on the spot.

He’s not going to last. Not even close.

He tries to say something. Tries to give a warning. But all he gets out is—

“Shit—Satoru, I—fuck—”

And Satoru hums low in his throat, like good, go ahead.

Yuuji comes with a sound that would’ve been embarrassing if he had any room for shame left. His whole body curls in on itself, legs locking, hips stuttering forward into Satoru’s mouth like instinct is the only thing left in charge. His fingers curl tight around the patio table. His vision whites out at the edges.

Satoru takes it. Every twitch. Every pulse. He swallows once, slow.

When he finally pulls off, Yuuji’s cock is shiny with spit. His lips are red and glossy. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Yuuji wonders, distantly, how many minutes that was. Five? Two? Thirty? Seconds maybe. Time doesn’t feel real anymore. He thinks about checking his phone, but the idea is mortifying. He knows the screen will betray him somehow—show him a laughably short window of time that’ll haunt him forever.

He stands there, with a warm humming nothingness behind his eyes where semi-coherent thought used to live, while Satoru tucks him back into his pants. He zips him up, pats him once on the hip, and grins up at him like he’s just finished helping Yuuji move a couch or fix a jammed printer.

“You’re good to go,” Satoru says cheerfully.

Yuuji considers whether or not he should say thank you. Is that a thing people say after blowjobs? He has no idea. It feels like the polite thing to do—but also maybe the weirdest? He’s still internally debating the etiquette of post-orgasm gratitude when the balcony door swings open behind them.

Yuuji freezes. His stomach drops so fast it’s a wonder it doesn’t drag him through the concrete floor.

It’s a girl—tall, loose-limbed, smoking-hot in a terrifying, I-will-absolutely-ruin-your-life-and-then-smoke-a-cigarette-over-the-wreckage kind of way. Yuuji recognizes her from earlier, when he’d been not-so-subtly watching Satoru from across the room.

She steps outside, squints into the dim lighting, and surveys the scene. Yuuji’s dick is back in his pants, thank fucking god, but Satoru is still on his knees in front of him, and that’s probably just as damning. Yuuji braces for impact, for disgust, for the kind of wide-eyed what the fuck that’ll make him want to jump off the balcony and sprint into traffic. Probably haunt him for the rest of his natural-born life, actually.

Luckily for Yuuji, Satoru’s questionable morals seem to rank pretty low on her list of concerns—he’s not sure if that says more about her or about Satoru.

“Did you steal my fucking weed?” she snaps, voice dry and sharp-edged with irritation.

Satoru doesn’t even flinch. “Seriously, Shoko?”

“Yeah, seriously, you asshole.” She stalks forward, arms crossed, clearly seconds away from violence.

Satoru rises, unceremonious and unaffected. “Jesus, calm down. I didn’t even smoke it all.” He plucks the half-burnt joint off the little metal table by the railing and holds it out to her between two fingers like it’s a peace offering.

She glares. “The fuck am I supposed to do with half a joint?”

“There’s more in your underwear drawer,” Satoru says, completely deadpan.

Shoko is already lighting up. “Why the fuck were you in my underwear drawer?”

“Because that’s where you keep the weed.”

She stares at him. Incredulous.

“Fucking creep,” she mutters, dragging deep.

Satoru, who clearly doesn’t know when to stop digging his own grave, continues, “If I was really looking for jack-off material, I’d go through your laundry basket. What kind of perv wants clean underwear?”

Yuuji—who has not moved this entire time—is reeling. This is the same guy who kissed him like a promise and waxed poetic about existential decay ten minutes ago?

“Stop fucking talking,” Shoko snaps. “Jesus Christ.”

“Um…” Yuuji says, because he’s a genius and very eloquent.

Her gaze snaps to him like a trap springing shut. He’s still standing there like an idiot, lips parted, synapses misfiring, high on weed and post-orgasm and pure existential crisis.

She narrows her eyes. “The fuck are you staring at?”

Satoru throws an arm around him, casual and smug, like he’s showing off a new car—or a stray he plans to keep. “Be nice. This is my new friend.”

Shoko looks at Yuuji. Then back at Satoru. “He looks twelve.”

“I’m not twelve,” Yuuji blurts, horrified.

She doesn’t even acknowledge it. Just turns to Satoru, all razor-sharp flatness. “No, seriously. How old is this fucking kid?”

Satoru grins, unbothered. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Fucking creep,” she mutters, for the second time in as many minutes.

“Aww, c’mon, Shoko—” Satoru reaches for the joint still burning lazily between her fingers.

She jerks it out of reach. “Why would you bring some kid to my party? Are you really as stupid as you look?”

Then she starts smacking him—open-palmed, rapid-fire, not hard but definitely with intent. Satoru laughs like it’s a game, shielding himself with one arm while the other continues making futile grabs for the joint.

“He didn’t invite me,” Yuuji offers, which—if he’s being honest—isn’t really helpful to anyone.

Shoko rounds on him, exasperated. “I’m not talking to you.”

Satoru slides in between them with a grin. “I said be nice.”

“Satoru,” she snaps, dragging hard on the joint. Smoke curls from her mouth as she exhales through her nose. “Get him out of here.”

“I should go anyway,” Yuuji says quickly, stepping back. “My friend’s inside.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply. Doesn’t look at Satoru again, because he already knows he won’t be able to make sense of whatever expression he’s wearing. It’ll be something too sharp to be worry and too soft to be nothing, and Yuuji’s not sure he wants to find out which parts are for him and which parts aren’t. His chest already feels tight enough. No need to poke it and see what leaks out.

He ducks back inside. The lights feel harsher now, the crowd louder and somehow emptier.

He finds Nobara in the bathroom, one cheek pressed to the tile, arms wrapped around a toilet bowl like it’s her long-lost lover. She’s mumbling something incomprehensible, but her thumbs shoot up when she sees him.

“Shit,” he mutters, but he crouches anyway, hauls her up and over his shoulder with practiced ease.

She’s in a short skirt that she’d insisted on wearing to the party—something about how it would make her look older and more sophisticated. Yuuji had nodded along at the time, mostly because he couldn’t think of a single flaw in the logic. It’s a little harder to agree now, with her slung over his shoulder like a sack of laundry and the hem riding dangerously high.

Yuuji scrambles to use one hand to keep the hem from flipping up, awkwardly patting it into place as he adjusts her over his shoulder. “Okay, okay, hang on—modesty,” he mutters, more to himself than her. “Let’s preserve a little dignity here.”  Sure, he’d just had his dick out on the balcony, but hey—at least nobody saw that. Nobara certainly didn’t. So, it probably doesn’t count. And anyway, he’s really only equipped to handle one crisis at a time.

Nobara groans something that might be pervert or thank you—hard to tell, given how her face is currently smushed into the back of his hoodie.

He manages to keep the skirt mostly down, mostly decent, as they navigate through the thinning crowd.

Near the front door, he catches sight of Satoru across the room.

Yuuji offers a small, hesitant wave.

Satoru waves back.

*

Finding Satoru isn’t an obsession or anything.

Really, it’s not. Yuuji’s just… mildly invested in figuring out whether Satoru is even a real person or a particularly vivid hallucination.

He’s sprawled across his bed, phone clutched to his chest, screen brightness dimmed like that’ll somehow hide the shame.

Turns out, there are a lot of people named Satoru, and Google isn’t exactly optimized for tracking down mysterious party boys with god-tier bone structure and zero regard for age-appropriate boundaries. He scrolls through pages of LinkedIn profiles, niche judo tournament results, old newspaper clippings, and one deeply cursed blog.

Megumi is slouched in Yuuji’s desk chair, sketching something elaborate in a notebook with his headphones in. Nobara is beside Yuuji on the bed, upside down with her feet braced against the headboard, slowly peeling glitter polish off her nails.

She peeks over just as Yuuji tries to tilt his phone away from her with the subtlety of someone hiding a dead body in broad daylight.

“Are you still on this?” she asks, exasperated. “C’mon, get over it already.”

Yuuji, undeterred, keeps scrolling.

“Did getting a blowjob rewire your brain or something?”

Yuuji kind of regrets giving her the full play-by-play—but it’s not like he had a better excuse for ditching her at the party. He shrugs, half under his breath, “Duh. Have you ever had one?”

Nobara snorts. “Think about what you just asked me.”

Yuuji groans. “You know what I mean. The girl equivalent. Or whatever.”

She rolls her eyes so hard it’s a miracle they stay in her head. “You’re pathetic.”

Then, without warning, she snatches the phone straight out of his hands.

“Gimme ten minutes,” she says, typing in his passcode.

Yuuji blinks. He has no idea how she even knows his passcode. He’s never told her. Has she just… always known? He doesn’t have time to unpack the implications of that before she’s already scrolling.

“I’ll find him. You’re clearly too close to the situation.”

Yuuji does not doubt her capabilities in the slightest. This is the same girl who once tracked down a talent scout that told her she “wasn’t the right kind of pretty” to be a model by identifying the agency he worked for and sloughing through their entire staff directory until she found his headshot.

Still, after a few minutes of restless silence, the panic creeps in.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

Because now that he’s thinking about it—Satoru hadn’t left a way to contact him. No number. No hey, hit me up sometime. Not even a last name. And sure, maybe it had felt cinematic in the moment—ephemeral and strange and hot enough to reroute the blood in his veins directly south—but maybe that was the point. Maybe Satoru hadn’t meant for this to be followed up on.

Yuuji is face-down in a pillow, wondering if it’s physically possible to suffocate from firsthand embarrassment and rejection anxiety, when—

“I think I found him,” Nobara says.

Yuuji shoots upright like he’s been tased.

She’s frowning at the phone, then back at him. “Okay. Are you sure you didn’t imagine that entire balcony scene? Like—some kind of alcohol-weed fever dream?”

She flips the phone toward him. “There’s no way this guy gave you a blowjob. He’s way too hot.”

“I’m positive,” Yuuji says, grabbing the phone. Then he blinks. “Wait—why wouldn’t he? Who wouldn’t want to give me a blowjob?”

“I wouldn’t,” Nobara says flatly.

“Me neither,” Megumi adds from the desk, not even looking up.

Yuuji gapes at them. “Okay—well, you’re gay,” he says, pointing at Nobara. Then turns to Megumi. “And you’re gay too, so I don’t know what your excuse is.”

“That’s because Megumi’s a monster-fucker,” Nobara says breezily, stretching her arms overhead.

“I am not.”

“Then what’s this?” She snatches the sketchbook off his desk and flips it around for Yuuji to see.

It’s a startlingly detailed drawing. The creature is tall, humanoid but wrong in ways Yuuji can’t quite name—like something divine that got caught in the middle of mutating. It has rings floating behind its head like a halo, a twisting segmented tail, and a face that looks equal parts ancient statue and nightmare fuel.

“You wanna fuck that guy?” Yuuji asks. A little impressed. Mostly concerned. 

Megumi scowls. “No, and it’s not a guy. It’s Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.”

“It’s a cry for help,” Nobara mutters.

They keep going—Megumi insisting it’s just an original character design, Nobara accusing him of secretly wanting to be railed by a Lovecraftian concept—and somewhere between I’m not a monster-fucker and then why does he have abs, Yuuji stops listening.

He tunes it out in favor of scrolling through Satoru’s Instagram. His eyes are glued to his phone, thumb flicking downward with the quiet reverence of someone leafing through sacred texts.

It’s exactly the kind of account you’d expect from someone who looks like that. Effortlessly photogenic. Every photo could double as a campaign ad—spontaneous, but suspiciously well-lit. Selfies, event shots, a few blurry candids that still manage to make him look like a model caught mid-laugh. There’s one of him holding a drink and grinning with his tongue between his teeth, another at a museum in round glasses that make him look disgustingly smart.

He’s hot in every single one. Like, offensively so.

Yuuji makes it to a carousel of shirtless vacation photos—Satoru on a beach in Okinawa, tan and glowing like a skincare ad—and his thumb slips.

The heart lights up red.

Yuuji stares at it in abject horror.

“Shit,” he blurts. “Shit, shit, shit—”

“What’d you do?” Nobara demands, whipping around mid-argument like she’s ready to add a second victim to her list.

“I liked a picture,” Yuuji hisses. “From, like, five years ago.”

“Are you serious?”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“This is why you’re supposed to stalk from your burner account.”

“What the fuck is a burner account?!”

“Un-like it!” she shrieks, lunging toward him like she’s about to perform a phone exorcism. “Hurry, before he sees it!”

“I’m trying!” Yuuji wails, mashing his thumb against the screen like he’s trying to rewind time.

Megumi, who now has the sketchbook Nobara snatched earlier protectively shielded in his lap, gives them a long, unimpressed look. “He’ll get a notification either way.”

Yuuji freezes. “Wait—seriously?”

His whole body deflates. He slumps forward into a dejected heap, muttering into his hands.

Nobara pats his shoulder like she’s at a funeral. “Maybe he won’t even remember you.”

Megumi eventually packs up his pencils and leaves without saying goodbye. Yuuji barely notices—he’s too busy melting down in real time. Nobara sticks around long enough to make herself a bowl of ramen, bully him for another five minutes, and steal one of his hoodies before declaring herself bored and vanishing too.

Which leaves Yuuji alone. With his phone. And his thoughts. And the irreversible knowledge that he accidentally liked a thirst trap posted five years ago by the hottest person to ever breathe the same air as him.

He spends the rest of the night stewing in low-grade mortification. He can’t sleep. Just lies on his back in the dark, hoodie pulled halfway up over his face, glaring at the ceiling like it personally betrayed him.

At 12:03 a.m., his phone buzzes.

He checks it with the tentative dread of someone opening a test they forgot to study for.

It’s a DM.

[@limitless.toru]

hi stalker 😉

Yuuji stares at it for a second, heart in his throat. Then, in a fit of panic and indecision, he types a response. He tries “hi” (too casual), then “hey uh sorry about that like” (what does that even mean?), then “i wasn’t stalking btw” (guilty as charged).

Eventually, he settles on: lol hi :D

He sends it before he can second-guess himself again.

The read receipt pops up immediately.

A new message appears.

[@limitless.toru]

look at you. persistent and cute.

wanna crash another party on Friday?