Satoru Gojo

You were always… off.

Gojo knew that from the start.

It wasn’t the way you looked at him—though that was part of it. It was the stillness. The way your gaze didn’t flicker. You didn’t blink like normal people did. You didn’t laugh at the right parts of jokes. You were silent, too often, until suddenly you weren’t—and when you spoke, it was always something a little too direct. A little too personal.

Like you’d been watching him for a long, long time.

And maybe you had.

Gojo never took it seriously. People stared all the time. He was used to being noticed. Touched. Fawned over. That’s what came with power, with charm, with being the strongest. But you weren’t like the others. You didn’t flirt. You just… hovered. In corners. In silence. Breathing a little too quietly behind him.

And then there were the things that went missing.

A glove he left on the bench. A towel from the training room. A used straw from his favorite boba place—gone when he turned back around.

Weird.

Weirder still was when he caught you standing by the trash can outside the dorms. Not rummaging. Just standing. Still. Waiting. Like a shadow. His shadow.

He made jokes. That’s what Gojo did. He teased and laughed and pretended everything was fine. But something in the back of his mind never stopped turning—clicking.

The same way his locker sometimes smelled like the perfume you wore. The same way his spare shirts were wrinkled when he swore he’d folded them. The same way his dirty laundry pile looked… touched. Disturbed. Shifted ever so slightly from where he left it.

He found hair once. Long. Yours. Twisted in the fabric of his favorite hoodie.

And still, he didn’t say anything.

Because Gojo Satoru doesn’t get scared.

But you were never just some fan. You were something else. Something like a shadow that wouldn’t leave. Something sticky. Something that clung to his thoughts, wormed into the silence when he was alone.

He started locking his doors. Started checking them twice.

And yet… he kept seeing you. More and more. Waiting outside his windows. Sitting by his favorite tree. Laughing at jokes he hadn’t told yet.

He wanted to say it was fine.

---

You couldn’t even talk to him.

Not really.

Every time Gojo Satoru walked past, you’d freeze up—face flushed, palms sweaty, a twitch in your throat like you wanted to say something but couldn’t. Instead, you’d trip. Drop your phone. Knock your cup over. Once you walked straight into a wall. It would’ve been funny if it weren’t so… off.

At first, he thought you were just awkward. Maybe you had a crush. He was used to that—adoration was part of his daily life. But there was something different about you. Your eyes didn’t sparkle. They stared. Too long. Too still. Too intense.

You never spoke to him directly, but he could feel you watching him. Like a pulse on the back of his neck. Like something feral waiting in the wings.

And then the weird stuff started happening.

His hoodie went missing from the laundry room. His cologne bottle looked emptier every day, even though he hadn’t used it. One of his gloves vanished. Then reappeared—stiff, like it had been handled too much. Not washed. Just… touched.

And you? You kept showing up.

Awkward. Blushing. Almost trembling when he looked at you. You never said anything useful, never carried a normal conversation, but you were always there. Laughing too hard at jokes that weren’t yours. Hovering near his dorm. Pretending to check the vending machine when he walked by. Clutching a book upside-down just to have a reason to sit near him.

He once saw you pick a lollipop stick out of the trash. His lollipop. You thought he didn’t notice, but he did.

He didn’t say anything. Just walked away.

He told his students later, “I think I’ve got a fan. A weird one. Like… you ever feel like someone’s undressing you with their eyes and crying at the same time? Yeah, like that.”

He laughed. But he wasn’t really laughing.

Because it was starting to get under his skin.

He found long strands of your hair in his laundry. A pair of his boxers—clean, but folded wrong. Bottles in the fridge would be opened just slightly. Towels moved an inch out of place.

And you? You just kept getting weirder.

Red in the face. Stammering. Falling over yourself. Whispering his name under your breath when you thought he couldn’t hear.

---

You weren’t supposed to be here.

That much, Gojo was sure of.

You weren’t a teacher. He would’ve remembered that. You weren’t a student either—not with how awkward you were around the campus, how out of place you looked clinging to your bag, staring at him from down the hallway like he might disappear if you blinked.

At first, he assumed you were someone’s assistant. Or a weirdly nosy intern. But you didn’t carry files. You didn’t follow anyone but him. And the longer you lingered, the more he realized…

You didn’t do anything. You just existed. Too quiet. Too close. Always a little too far into his space.

Every time he saw you, you’d be blushing like you’d just seen him naked. Stammering, fumbling with your phone, pretending to check something that clearly wasn’t even turned on. Once, you dropped your drink and practically dove to pick up the straw before he could step on it.

You didn’t talk to him. Not really. You whispered near him. Made odd comments about the weather. Giggled nervously if he said “hi.” Walked into walls when he complimented your shoes. It was pitiful.

It was annoying.

He started asking around—who the hell are you?

Nobody knew.

You weren’t in the registry. You weren’t on staff. And yet, there you were again, at the vending machine, fingers shaking as you inserted a coin. There again, crouched behind a wall near the training field. There again, in the background of photos on his phone, barely in frame—just enough to make his stomach turn.

He caught you staring. Caught you sniffing the air when he walked by.

Once, he watched you press your cheek to a chair he had been sitting in.

“Okay, what the fuck,” he muttered to himself that day. Loud enough for his students to hear. “Is that girl possessed? Or just bugged out?”

They laughed. He didn’t.

Because later that night, when he found his hoodie missing from the dorms, he didn’t even bother searching. He already knew where it had gone.

You were getting bolder.

He’d see your name scratched faintly into the sole of his shoe. He’d find your hair—your scent—inside his clean laundry. You once left something in his locker: a folded piece of paper that just said “I know your scent now.”

He nearly incinerated it on the spot.

And still, you kept showing up.

Always blushing. Always trembling. Always doing something wrong—falling, fumbling, getting in the way. Like your body didn’t quite know how to exist near him. Like your nervous system short-circuited in his presence. And as much as he hated to admit it…

He was starting to notice when you weren’t around.

Because the silence felt too normal. And Gojo Satoru hadn’t felt normal in a long time.

You were weird. Disgustingly awkward. Unexplainably present.

---

Then you tried.

You really tried.

After months—maybe even a year—of orbiting around him like a broken satellite, you decided today was the day you’d actually talk to Satoru Gojo. Like a normal person. Like someone who hadn’t sniffed his used gloves or memorized the sound of his laugh from down the hallway.

You thought about everything he liked. You knew what to say. He loved sweets. Sugar, syrup, mochi, milk candies, those stupid limited-edition fruit gummies they only sold in autumn—you knew it all.

You just had to act… casual.

So when you saw him by the vending machine, you forced yourself to step forward. Just a few steps. Just enough to catch his attention. You clutched your drink too hard, fingers sweaty. Your heartbeat was loud—it echoed in your ears. And then, with a voice three pitches too high and completely wrong for the moment, you blurted:

The words tumbled out fast, clumsy, tangled in your own nervousness. You asked if he liked cake. Your voice cracked on the word.

Your face flushed hot, but you kept going, rambling without control—sweets, sugar, mochi—you listed them off like a panicked trivia contestant trying to win affection. You laughed, awkward and thin, hoping it would make it sound less weird.

Gojo blinked.

Turned his head.

Tilted his sunglasses down just enough to stare at you with one sharp blue eye.

“…Huh?”

You swallowed. Your legs wanted to bolt but your mouth kept moving, on autopilot—just spewing fact after fact like a glitching fan wiki page.

You told him you thought he might like the new strawberry drink. Your voice cracked again when you added that it had condensed milk, and you said it too eagerly—like you were proud of remembering, like it meant something.

But then you hesitated.

Realization bloomed slow and terrible across your face. You tried to backpedal, fumbling over your words, tripping through a string of denials as your face flushed bright red.

Not that you watched him eat. Not in a weird way. You clarified that, quickly—too quickly. You laughed, the sound high and strained and mortifying, insisting you didn’t always watch him. That you had other things to do. That you weren’t a freak.

Gojo stared.

And stared.

Then—finally—he sighed. Loud. Dramatic. Eyelids heavy with the kind of exhaustion only you seemed to trigger in him.

“…Man,” he muttered, turning his back as he pressed a button on the machine. “I thought I was the annoying one. But you’re really trying to take the crown, huh?”

Your heart cracked.

Not all the way. Just enough to leak panic.

He didn’t even look at you when the can dropped. Just grabbed his drink, popped it open, and walked off without another word.

You stood there, still holding your unopened bottle. Eyes burning. Palms sticky. Face red.

God.

You should’ve just kept staring from a distance.

At least then, he never called you annoying.

---

You cried the whole night.

Not the pretty kind of crying—the soft, slow kind they show in movies. No. You were full-body sobbing, curled into a blanket on the floor, chest heaving, face puffy, your voice cracked from the sheer amount of begging you whispered to no one.

The next morning, you still had the remnants of tears in your lashes. Your face was puffy. Your stomach ached from how hard you’d cried. But somehow… you showed up again.

Back at the school.

Like nothing had happened.

Like he hadn’t called you annoying.

You told yourself it didn’t matter. That maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Maybe if you acted normal—cool, casual, confident—he’d talk to you again. Maybe he’d even like talking to you, if you could just stop being so weird.

So you practiced smiling in the reflection of the vending machine. Smiled until your face hurt.

Then he appeared.

Casual as ever, with his stupid smug walk, hands in his pockets, sunglasses pushed up, mouth moving around a lollipop stick like the world belonged to him. And of course it did. Everyone adored him. Everyone laughed at his jokes. Everyone… except you. You couldn’t even function in his presence.

But you tried anyway.

You took a breath. Took a step. And said—quiet, too quiet—“Hey.”

He stopped. Looked at you. Chewed the candy a little slower.

“Oh,” he said, like you were the last person he expected. “Still here?”

Your heart immediately sank. You kept your smile on anyway, twitchy and tight.

Your voice barely left your throat, a trembling mumble that clung to the space between you like fog. You said you were sorry. Said it quietly, as if louder would make it worse. That if you’d been weird—or talked too much—you hadn’t meant to. You hadn’t meant to bother him.

You paused, swallowing back the ache rising in your chest.

Then softer, even more fragile than before, you admitted the real reason. That you just thought—maybe—you could be friends.

Gojo’s mouth curled into something unreadable. Not a smile. Not a frown.

A pause.

Then: “You cry all night or something?”

He leaned in a little—barely. Still far enough to be casual. But something about the way he said it was too knowing.

“Your face looks puffy,” he added lazily.