#i have a really good feeling we will get a really satisfying ending

[m4rs-ex3]

ok i'm so terribly sorry to be saying this but i'm kind of ok with sorvus not becoming canon canon

i know we were pretty much all expecting something but it doesn't feel like we were robbed; it doesn't feel like we were teased or led along or, ahem, baited. the show absolutely knows what it has but it's not a case where they choose to ignore it and it's incredibly frustrating. something tdp is very good about is not fully committing to something big (ie rayllum proposal) but gives you enough to satisfy + enough to allow for more future exploration (ie rayllum in episode 5 [sorry i have to make everything about rayllum jk im not sorry]). they take every opportunity to show how much soren and corvus care about each other and their chemistry is an unstoppable force.

in addition to the fact that it is by zero means not not canon even if they're not exactly canon, i think it works with the story. even being the world's biggest shipper who cares about a show's relationships pretty much more than anything else, i low-key hate it when a million couples are thrown in your face at once, especially in finales where it's like "ok the day is saved everyone's found love!!! isn't that so great!!!!!! happy ending!!!!!!!!!!!!!" this was part of the reason i was a little put off by terry's existence in the very beginning because it was just like.... do we really need another couple? even if i didn't dislike their relationship. and that's also why i'm so happy with the way they turned out because i love it when there are relationships that just don't work out (unless i have any sort of attachment to the ship in that case fuck you they should have been together forever [but then again if it feels like the only reason a relationship ends is because the writers said so then i kind of consider that bad writing anyway]). in the case of sorvus, i certainly wouldn't have been opposed if they'd gotten together near the end (especially since rayllum, yk, were already together so it wouldn't have felt they were fighting for attention), but it feels kinda right that they didn't. rayllum is the main event whether you like it or not and i'm very glad that they stuck with that. it wouldn't have exactly been fair to sorvus either, would it?

and, of course, this leaves so much more opportunity for them. especially if we get arc 3, but either way there's no way we won't get something of their quest. so this way they get their own spotlight, and they get way more time to develop to that point (which is another reason i don't believe they should've gotten together in s7 because there was just too much going on and even though their relationship has gotten lots of time it still would've been like "oh! ok! they're together! ok! what's happening!")

at the end of the day they are 110% in love - we know that, tdp knows that, and we don't need to see them make out for it to click (just like s5-early s6 rayllum to harken back to that unavoidable comparison), even if it might've been nice

[starsodd]

The End

(Lesson 60 spoilers and thoughts)

Well, I'm going to start off by saying I cried, not because of the ending itself, just because it is the end.

So we learn that apparently, not only are MC'S powers strong enough to cause disasters in all three realms (OG ref), but apparently also fucking strong enough that the fucking moon wants to get closer to em.

And these are the reaction options you can give

MC is so unserious sometimes I love it.

Oh gee I wonder why I came choose only one, wouldn't this type of thing require the combined power of all of them? I'll just go with Lucifer I guess...

So....that may have been a mistake.

Also giving Thirteen, Mephistopheles, and Raphael more screen time at the end was just so wrong T^T but I get it, thank you for feeding my Thirteen obsession

Playing All The Feels after that chapter was wrong.

RAHHHH

No real thought here...I just love them all

Yes, Solomon, I would love to.

Wait....did I accidentally choose the Lucifer route? Or is this a set thing? Hello?? I would've chosen someone else if I had known this D:

...

Overall, am I satisfied with the ending? Not really, it's very obvious how rushed it was at some points but it isn't even about that. No matter what I have loved this story for years now, and while the games might be over at least the franchise and fandom isn't completely dead, so here's to hoping we all last, and that the content they plan on giving us will be good!

~A sheep for the final time about lessons

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

arcane s2 - review

okay so now that i have given my two cents on caitvi and i've had enough time to digest s2 of arcane, what do i think about the rest of it?

overall, i have mixed feelings about it. i didn't hate it but i feel like a lot of the themes and ideas were poorly executed, especially compared to s1.

(huge spoilers to arcane below!)

but let me start with the positives:

the animation OBVIOUSLY. huge props to the animators, s1 was already phenomenonal and s2 lived up to the hype, animation-wise. the fight scenes especially were just *mwah* chef's kiss.

the character designs were great. caitlyn looks a lot prettier with the middle parting. vi's emo phase is really hot. jinx's designs in the alternate universe and the finale were iconic. jayce's beard and disheveled look was just chef's kiss. jesus viktor was hot as fuck.

the voice actors did an amazing job obviously, and i didn't expect anything less from them.

jayce's and viktor's relationship was so good despite not having all that much screentime when you think about it. they interact in the beginning when viktor wakes up from his hex-coma and then reunite and fight and make up in the final few episodes. but because of their relationship that was built up in the first season, it all worked out smoothly and made for a very natural progression in their relationship.

jinx's redemption was pretty good. not the BEST but it was carried out well enough, especially in just 9 episodes. i didn't feel like it was rushed or undeserved. her sacrifice in the end was heartbreaking but it felt natural and not shoehorned in for some added angst.

and now for the negatives:

1. the pacing was really bad, in my opinion. they had only 9 episodes but they stuffed in so many subplots into this season that it felt overwhelming.

maybe i'm just stupid but i couldn't keep up with half of the stuff that was going on and some parts of the finale didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

like the whole storyline with mel and ambessa and the black rose was a blur to me. i honestly don't know what happened in the end after ambessa dies.

the whole deal with singed and vander and whatnot was also really murky. like i get the overall premise but it was really hard for me to grasp every single detail.

maybe this is just a me problem and i'm too dumb to follow more than two storylines at the same time. but s1 already had a lot going on and it was still a tad bit easier to follow.

s2 was just crammed with a whole bunch of different characters pursuing different goals and facing different obstacles, 9 episodes weren't enough to give all of it a satisfying conclusion. and as a result, some of the arcs felt rushed and unfinished.

like what happened to the whole found family thing with sevika, jinx and isha? they were beginning to get closer and form a good relationship but then suddenly, sevika is pushed out of the image and we never see how she reacts to jinx and isha's death.

2. while i don't think that caitvi is abusive, i still don't think the ship was great. it was just super rushed and there is a grain of truth to what caitvi antis are saying.

like yeah, caitlyn being an enforcer and seeing nothing wrong with it was.. questionable. wasn't the whole point of s1 that enforcers were ruining the lives of the people in zaun? wasn't police brutality and classism the main theme of this series? how come vi's parents were killed by enforcers and she was unfairly imprisoned for years by enforcers, but somehow she ends up dating an enforcer?

before s2 came out, i expected caitlyn to give up her job after realizing how corrupt it was. i thought that would be the natural progression of her arc, especially since she's seen how much the people of the undercity has suffered at the hands of enforcers. but nope, she keeps her job and it's never addressed in the end.

i don't think that caitlyn hitting vi once out of frustration and once out of necessity makes her a domestic abuser. but i do think it's kind of icky for vi to end up in a relationship with an enforcer, and for the show to frame it in a semi-positive manner. it's not entirely romanticized but the problems with it aren't really addressed either.

3. i feel like the themes of classism wasn't as well addressed in this season as it was in the first one. the first season had a strong message and it stuck to it. the second season was all over the place and then suddenly, there's viktor and the whole glorious evolution or whatever, and the conflict between piltover and zaun is pushed aside.

i like that sevika becomes part of the council in the end but is she the only one representing the undercity? is one person enough to speak for all these people in zaun? at least it's true to real life, i guess.

overall, i felt like the message was a lot more murky in this season. this ties to my first complaint because while s1 had a lot of storylines too, they followed a common theme. war, classism, and how privilege and the lack thereof affects people. s2's storylines are just all over the place and none of them seem to follow a theme. at least some of them could have been discarded.

4. i briefly mentioned this before but the fact that jinx stops experiencing her hallucinations never made sense to me. especially after she accidentally killed silco, shouldn't they get worse? it is implied that she has schizophrenia and c-ptsd so i really don't understand how silco's death suddenly got rid of most of her symptoms.

she still sees and hears the hallucinations from time to time and her mental state is definitely far from stable, but it was still such a huge jump from her psychotic breakdown in the s1 finale.

so yeah, these are my thoughts about arcane s2. there were more pros than cons but the cons still outweigh the pros, simply because of how much impact they had on the plot.

i'm generally not one to demand more seasons or episodes out of a series where the writers have already told the story they wanted to tell, but arcane s2 was so rushed and so filled to the brim with different characters and storylines, i couldn't help but feel like it would have benefited from having more episodes to play everything out more slowly.

i still liked this series a lot and i enjoyed watching it, but i'm not blind to its flaws and i try not to be biased.

[rainparadefromhell]

Okay, I wasn't going to go in on this but I didn't expect people to be so sad over the spoilers, to be honest. I see people really disappointed in both Ben and Devi as I once again, completely understand both sides.

I will be talking about s4 spoilers so if you don't want to see that you should probably stop reading now.

First thing I'd like to say is that I am just another person on the internet with an opinion and I could be very wrong about all of this. This is just my personal view of things and it doesn't make anyone else's any less valid.

I think the biggest thing that confuses people is actually the one I'm most excited to see happen in season 4. I really disliked how they handled the cheating in season 2. Devi's apologies seemed like they were over a stolen pen, not cheating on someone. I did think the second apology was sincere, I just think it should have been a whole conversation.

I believe that season 4 will be focused on unravelling of all of Ben and Devi's traumas, which is a big task and will result in messy emotions, anger, lashing out and suffering. As much as I like the show's approach to trauma and Dr. Ryan scenes, we don't actually see the characters explore that with one another. It is all very internal. The confusion comes, I believe, from the well crafted pov episodes that allow us to know how Ben and Devi are feeling. We know so much about their inner struggles but here's the thing - they don't.

Yes, Devi knows that she hurt Ben in the past but she doesn't know how that feeds into his insecurites and abandonment issues. She doesn't know how much that has actually affected him.

Because she broke his heart.

She broke his heart and she doesn't know that.

And yeah, Ben knows that rejecting her in the way that he did wasn't the best way to deal with the situation but he doesn't know that the reason why Devi is so attached to him is because he accepts and wants all of her. It means comfort. It is a love language. All of this seems obvious to us, people that are more mature and grown. But not to two traumatized kids that are trying to understand relationship dynamics. Ben and Devi both have a pretty good understanding of their own feelings towards relationships - Devi in season 3 ("What if no one ever loves me because I am too much?") and Ben in season 2 ("But it isn't real. What you and I have is").

Because what if no one ever loves her and here is Ben Gross who likes her personality, who will miss her. What if no one ever loves her and here is Ben Gross saying that he needs something easier and simpler with another girl.

And what if what they have is real until Devi pulls back. And here is Devi Vishwakumar telling him that first times are always a bit weird and they can try again. She can be that for him.

Ugh, my children are really hard to defend sometimes.

Devi's season 2 is gonna be Ben's season 4 and i know some people will probably not like it but I think this is really important for him and I don't think it makes him regress as a character. I think it is good that he recognizes that they can both take things too far because they make each other feel so much. But I don't think that he actually wants something simpler and I have a feeling he will realize that later in the season.

I also thought that bringing Margot into all of this will just be a repeat of Aneesa's character but I don't think that anymore. Ben and Aneesa were fundamentally really different people who couldn't understand each other while Ben and Margot are much more in tune with one another. Margot was and is important for Ben's development because she helped him relax and try new things. I love Ben and Devi but sometimes they can really reinforce each other's bad behaviors.

This is just a repeat of what I said in my last post but just having love for someone is not enough. Strenghtening the positive effects they have on each other and building trust is what they need now. They need communication and time. They need friendship but also a certain perspective which requires space from one another. They need all of it, all of the messiness because they are complicated but ultimately extremely realistic characters.

Because what if what they have is real and what if a relationship you have with someone is so important you challenge everything you know about yourself. Over and over again until you get it right.

What if what they have is real?

[callixton]

i think the thing to understand abt martha jones is that even after she leaves she is five seconds away from dropping everything and traveling with the doctor at any given time. bc that itch to blow everything up and damn her personal duty to hell in search of a higher call never leaves her. but martha is smart. and rational. and has spent a long fucking time needing to keep herself safe. (bc he comes when she calls but never before.) and so she has gotten very good at keeping herself on the right side of those five seconds. but i do think if ten was a different person (if he could acknowledge how much he needed her instead of just how much he liked her) (if he didn’t feel this righteous martyrdom when it comes to being left alone) (if he cared enough about her to beg. if he cared enough about himself.) i think that her answer no would come crumbling down pretty quickly is all.

[clowningcrows]

lol i pregamed a tiny bit for agatha but now after finishing im just taking shots for coping reasons

[alternautxyz]

uuhhh in other new that lmk s5 trailer dropped and people are very

mixed

for context the new season is being partly animated by wildbrain i think. flying bark is still working on the show but probably due to all the other projects they've been working on like the atla movie the animation is off.

its understandable that people are upset. lmk has some of the most consistently dynamic and lively animation ive ever seen, and going from that to ok animation kinda sucks. as a culmination of a lot of what the series has been building up to people were inevitably going to be disappointed

at the same time people shouldnt harass animators. like ever. no amount of trying to petition or anything will change the s5, people are just trying to do their job and theres no probably no major changing to the finished product by now. and theres still a lot of that lmk charm in there, and we haven't even seen the whole season yet to judge it. flying bark is still working on it, and even if the animation never reaches the peak of the old seasons it still has the same writers so at least the writing has the chance to live up old standards. idk though we'll just have to wait and see

[dashiellqvverty]

my opinion on season 11 is that ian and mickey were all over the place from episode to episode and i ultimately wasn’t very happy with where it ended for them

[mainfaggot]

woah okay so i finished checkmate

[235uranium]

god I love third sem so much. it's insane how well done it is like I think it's some of the best writing in p5 and it's a fucking addition

[hoziersong]

do you mind if i ramble in the tags about my weird relationship with making art in fandom for a second

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

:((((((((( i ran out of tags . tumblr hates to see me thrive!!!!!!!

ok niku just . read the tags first and then come back here ok 🙏🙏 i have a lot i still need to say this is so important to me . this fic changed my life .

(WARNING this got long ….. really long ….. mysteriously. i got carried away 💔 PLS don’t feel the need to respond to any of this btw i mean that sincerely i know this is kind of a Lot i just need you to know much i adored this fic <3333)

BACK TO GOJO ok so his talk w reader…… it was just so satisfying to see them finally get to tell someone about their experience. it must’ve been such a great feeling for them !!!! to get some of it off their chest :((( … and to have Gojo Fucking Satoru our safe harbour of a man there to believe them and listen to them and reassure them. he’s so mature when it comes down to it and you captured that so well…… like as much as he acts childish and teasing this is exactly how i picture him interacting w someone he doesn’t know in a situation like this!! he’s flirty and unserious but he tells you he’ll protect you and means it. (i’m so down bad it physically hurts)

sorry i’m abt to go on a tangent i think BUT I JUST 😔😔 really… REALLY love their dynamic…. how it evolves so much even though he doesn’t even know reader exists for most loops!! and to them he’s just this beautiful Something that they can’t help but look at…… ”inhumanly attractive” is a great way to put it like he’s just….. this magnetic force……….. and i feel like even before they speak to him for the first time they probably find some kind of hope in him.

AND that’s so important bc to me that’s like . the main Theme of the fic? hope. reader has to find some kind of hope to make it through shibuya and more often than not they find it in gojo!!! in just seeing a familiar handsome face, in learning how to navigate the timeline through his actions, in talking to him and finally having him on their side. their choice to trust him fully at the end just made me soooo insane. and obv the hope theme continues even after that because gojo believes in them!!! believes that they’ll be okay in the prison realm….. more on that later actually bc i Still. have a lot to talk abt 😔👉👈 i’m just wildly flipping through my notes at this point i’m sorry to throw this at u when we’ve barely interacted but in my defense this fic reached into my actual skull and started rewiring my brain so!!!! yeah.

i got completely sidetracked there but . yes!! the conversation between them when gojo gets sent back in time is. so good!!!!! so wonderfully written!!!!! i haven’t mentioned it that much yet i think but i love your writing i devoured every line…… i struggle w the flow of my own writing SO much but this just flows so incredibly well??? it was sm fun to read????? and the rhythm of the paragraphs (that sounds. Insane but i hope u know what i mean 😭😭) is so distinct!!! and ofc there are SO many banger lines in this in general…. the gore descriptions and the lines abt reader and their fixation on hope. on gojo!! ”He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.” <- this is just one example but!! idk i’m just so enamored by ur writing style.

and the dialogue!!!!!!!! i cried!!!!!! it’s so consistently gojo…. him going all ”oh?” ”interesting…” but not explaining anything … the ”ding ding ding!” after making reader guess what he should just be telling them (it’s the teacher in him <33) AND AND AND these too!!!! :3

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.” 

THEY JUST FEEL SO CANON that’s our gojo…… that’s exactly what he would say…… he’s so unserious and so funny and so charming 😔😔 sigh.

ANDDDDD reader telling him good luck!!!! gojo beaming and squeezing their shoulder!!!!! the lil wave!!!!! 🥺🥺 that made me smile so wide niku he’s so infuriatingly cute . it felt so genuine!!!! pls know that this gojo will probably live in my brain forever like genuinely . i’ve been brainrotting over him all week and this was the final nail in the coffin. i’ll never be free.

ok but also !!!! extremely important !!!!!!! before i get to the ending i just need to tell u . how much i loved kenjaku in this ……….. kenjaku nation (me & six others) will never forget these crumbs of content like he just feels so real!!!!! and he’s so interesting!!!!! made me realize how truly down bad i am for him bc these lines made me so fucking happy 😭😭 brain started releasing serotonin like CRAZY i’m so ashamed.

“You can come out, you know.”

”How interesting.”

"I'll be nice, though. I'll make it painless."

…….. he’s just ….. yeah. yeahhhhh. 😔😔 i’ll never be normal abt him. i think it’s SUCH an interesting detail that he always makes reader’s death painless in every single loop…. he never lies about it. that feels so in character to me too!!! he’s kinda fascinated at first and when that interest disappears he kills them. but he doesn’t make it unecessarily cruel because there’s just. no need. kenjaku is a sicko but he’s oddly polite at times and i’m just……. yeah. gonna need you to take over for gege akutami actually 🙏🙏 get in the writer’s chair!!! the fandom needs u!!!!!

wait while we’re on this topic pls just know the entire confrontation between reader and kenjaku was one of my favorite moments in the entire fic <333 not JUST because i’m a kenny stan ok……… reader’s resignation and ”I appreciate it.” made my brain spin because it’s just . kinda chilling? kinda sick? that they aren’t even really afraid of death anymore… or more like they’re just so frighteningly used to it.

AND AND ANDDDD niku your writing in this scene 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 gutted me like a fish.

Time doesn't flow in the box. He didn't lie. You die again.

i exploded btw . ackkk i wish i could explain it better i just!!! :< adore your writing. these lines made me go completely batshit they’re just so good. and the ”time doesn’t flow in the box” line … how that ties in with the ending and reader’s choice. whewww.

segway time <3333 this is the final rant i promise!!! i just need to talk about the ending bc it was so perfect and like many other things in this fic it made me insane …. have i said that already …. probably at least a couple times 😔👉👈 it’s true ok!! it’s just sooo interesting to me and obviously so wellwritten and fitting and just. thematically ties everything together so well? i was FLOORED

hhhhh i don’t know where to begin so i’ll just start w the final convo between reader and gojo :> he asks for their name !!!!!!! i cried !!!!!!!!!! calling someone by their name or knowing their name as a form of like . Closeness or Affection is one of my greatest weaknesses and i also think it’s soooo telling that GOJO wants to know Your Name. he wants to know you. to hear that from someone who seems so inhumanly beautiful and violent….. for him to kind of extend a final olive branch and attempt to connect w you :((((( it just says so much without spelling it out and i. started chewing at my desk. it’s so good!!!!!!! such a genius way to tie everything together!!!! and reader’s final words to him…

“Thank you, Satoru Gojo.” You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.  And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black. 

first of all!!! so so sooooo pretty. wowow. second of all THE THANK YOU ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ that’s also such a perfect conclusion…….. reader finally put their trust in someone and had that faith returned. and they thank him!!!! i like to think it means something to gojo too…. likeeee how often do people really thank him for what he does? how often is his hard work to protect people acknowledged and appreciated? sorry to bring gojo back into the discussion all the time sadly i AM in love w him….. 😔😔 and this fic made it worse so technically it’s your fault. kind of.

okay so my brain is kinda spinning away again so i’ll get to the final final thing!!!! for real this time!!!!! reader’s decision to be imprisoned in gojo’s stead… that’s so . genius? i’m so in awe??????? it makes so much sense from a character perspective based on what they’ve been through — after being at the mercy of time for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to be free of it? completely? it’s almost kind of chilling and just the idea of it scares me LMAO but it makes sm sense that reader would be drawn to it.

AND like i mentioned before!!! how it leads to a deeper connection between them and gojo, and how at the very end of the fic he’s the one who has faith in them. faith that they’ll be alright, of sound mind.

…… and that brings me to the final final final thing because. it’s just like the opening poem!! reader is the cat in the box. nobody can say for sure if they’re alright, not to mention alive, until the box is opened. and we don’t get to know!!! you leave us on a cliffhanger and that’s so good bc it really is like the cat in the box…. we can only wonder but it also gives us the freedom to decide for ourselves if we think they come out okay or not and i’m just………….. in love. with this fic. and the ending and the reader and gojo and you.

hopefully you’ve noticed atp but i really did go completely insane reading this 😭😭 i said it at the beginning but just to reiterate!!: for SURE one of my all time favorite gojo fics . AND loopfics in general…. thank you sm for your hard work :’3 aaaa i can’t tell u how much i admire the time you spent working on this??? your storytelling and writing and characterization skills????? i genuinely feel sooo giddy and excited and happy rn bc. i just adored this fic!!!! i’m so lucky i got to read it!!!!! :33 pls pat your gojo on the head from me and let him know i love him…. it’ll boost his ego but that’s a risk i’m willing to take 😔😔 i hope you have theeeee loveliest day or night a human being can have bc you made mine <3333333

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

notes: it's finally here. the long awaited halloween fic. yes, i know it's march, but i did start working on it in september. haha. there's so much i could say, but i will leave it at that this fic is, in every sense, a fic that i would not normally write. and yet here we are.

contains: f!reader (no physical description or gendered language is used), no explicit romantic pairing (though you don't have to look hard to find the reader x gojo implications), major character death (played with), semi-graphic depictions of death, blood and violence, minor suicide ideation, canon retelling (lines of dialogue are pulled from the jjk english dub because i'm a dirty dub watcher). opening poem is from higurashi no naku koro ni (minagoroshi-hen). fic title is from giga's beyond the way.

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required)

Please tell me what happened in this night. It's like the cat inside the box.

Please tell me what happened in this night. You don't know if the cat in the box is dead or alive. Please tell me what happened in this night. The cat in the box was dead.

The first time, it is instant— you don’t even know what’s happening.

The second, it is by flame, but you barely realize it, barely feel it— a second of mind numbing heat before nothing.

The third time, it is something slicing across your throat; you see the blood spilling everywhere, then the pain follows— a moment of pure agony before nothing.

The fourth time you realize what’s going on; what’s really going on.

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because the subway platform is crowded, insanely so— there are hundreds of people shoved into this space alongside you, packed like sardines in a can. You’ve never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you live in Tokyo. For the most part, you’ve learned to accept it, but even this crowd is a little much and you wish you hadn’t listened to your friends when they said you should go party in Shibuya for Halloween; you don’t even like partying.

There’s a sharp pain in your temple followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone is screaming it at you through a megaphone positioned right next to your ear.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

For the eighth time.

Before you can even question the thought, images flash in your mind’s eye, blurry at first before they come into focus. The platform gates open. Chaos ensues. People dropping onto the subway tracks— spontaneously bursting into flame— their heads, necks sliced off, stomachs cut open—

Bile rapidly builds up in your throat, and you clamp your jaw shut, trying to force it down. Not here. Not now. You try to focus on something else, anything else happening outside of your brain. There’s a pair next to you musing about the people standing on the subway tracks, wondering what the two (the four?) of them are talking about. You blink back tears as you look. You can only see two: a freakishly tall man with white hair dressed in all black, and another man, dressed in strange, yet more traditional looking garb. Are those costumes too? You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as another image forces its way into your brain.

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

You can’t hold it in any more. Every fiber in your being screams at you to get away from the subway tracks, but instead you rush toward them, shoving people left and right as your hands desperately reach the stability of the gate. You grip it like a lifeline as you retch over the side of it, the contents of your stomach spilling all over the subway tracks.

There’s a quiet murmur of disgust behind you but you can’t be bothered to respond. You need to get out of here. You need to leave. You need to do it before—

The gates open and the crowd starts to move like a tidal wave, pushing and shoving their way through the gate. You’re swept away, vomit long forgotten as you and a few dozen others tumble onto the railway.

Alarm bells go off in your brain, loud and deafening. A voice in the back of your head screams for you to get off the track! Get off the track now before—

The platform erupts into a cacophony of screams, drenched in horror, saturated in fear. You are surrounded by people, by corpses— beheaded, sliced open, bursting into flames.

Your terror roots you to the ground as the carnage ensues around you. It’s only when another person, another corpse, dressed in a magical girl costume collides with your body that you can finally move. But it’s too late, you realize, despaired and helpless, as your bodies fall to the ground.

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because it’s so hard to breathe, frustratingly so— there are hundreds of people squeezed into this space alongside you, packed like cattle for slaughter. You've never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you’re in Shibuya. For the most part, you’ve come to accept it, but this crowd is way too much and you wish you had just stayed home and ordered a pizza; though honestly, the thought of pizza kind of makes you sick.

There’s a dull throbbing in your forehead, followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone’s hollering at you from a loudspeaker that’s been installed in your brain.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You think it's the ninth time now.

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

Before you can ruminate more on it, images— memories assault your mind’s eye with a clarity that is absolutely sickening. That woman colliding into you, your bodies slamming into the subway tracks before you both— Your stomach churns violently,

and you feel like you’re going to puke, but you force it down— can't afford to right now. Instead, you make your way over to the woman.

Her head is in her hands as she mutters over and over again about how everyone is going to die. People around her figure that being stuck in here with the crowd has probably gotten to her. You, however, know better.

“...hey,” you say softly.

Her muttering comes to an abrupt halt and slowly she raises her head to look at you. There’s a flash of recognition in her eyes and she grabs you violently by the shoulders. “You! You know, don’t you? That we’re going to die?”

If it weren’t for the fact that you have indeed experienced death here eight times already, then you would have thought she’s lost her mind. Slowly, you nod and she seems relieved by it, her grip on you loosening.

You can’t help but feel a little relieved too— glad to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this nightmare. There’s a voice in the back of your mind that’s confused though. Why is she only remembering now? But then again, it took you a few times before you realized yourself.

Around you people start to gasp, and you glance back toward the railway to see an abnormally tall man with white hair and dressed in all black jump down from the atrium onto the railway. He lands rather gracefully for someone who jumped at least one floor and starts to converse with the other three people (you think they're people— two of them are in some pretty wild costumes) on the track.

Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be just two people: the tall man and the one in the traditional clothes? Where did the other two come from?

“We have to get out of here,” the woman says. “Before they kill us.”

Her grip shifts from your shoulders to your arms and she starts to shove at everyone around you, trying to force her way through. She seems to know, just as well as you do, that any second now the gates will open and the crowd will start spilling onto the railway, littering the tracks with bodies and ash. Neither of you can let yourselves get swept up with the rest. If you do and you end up on those tracks, you’re as good as dead.

People move aside at a snail's pace, many of them too focused on trying to see what is going on on the subway tracks. This isn't good. You need to move faster or else—

The collective sound of the gates opening echoes in your head, a metallic hiss that makes your stomach fold into itself. Before either of you can stop yourselves, you both whip your heads back to look, to confirm, but it’s a mistake.

The briefest lapse in attention is enough to pull you both into the current of people, and try as you might to fight against it, the crowd splits you and the woman apart as it swallows you both whole. You’re both spat onto the tracks at the edge of the platform and your head collides with the metal rails of the track. It feels like your skull is about to crack in two, and it takes every fiber in your being to scramble to your feet. You're close enough to the platform that if you can just climb up it, then you'll be—

“Help! Help!”

It’s the woman’s voice. You turn to see that she ended up a couple meters away from you. She’s staring at you, eyes brimming with fear filled tears as she extends her hand in your direction. You take a step toward her, reaching out.

And then, her entire body is engulfed in flames, the skirt of her magical girl costume a ring of fiery death around her.

Her blood curdling scream is the only thing you can hear, her burning flesh, the only thing you can see. You don’t know what to do.

You can’t save her.

There's something touching your back. You can barely feel the pressure, but it's hot, scorching hot, mind numbingly hot, painfully hothothot.

You know this sensation. You have felt it before. The scent of burning cloth, burning hair, burning flesh clogs your nostrils. It's too late, you realize, helpless, despaired as the flames eat at your body— your soon to be corpse.

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the tenth time.

Your head hurts, but you ignore it. There’s something more important that you need to attend to. You immediately make your way to the woman you met during your last round, the one you watched burn to death. Her costume is still pristine, unmarred by fire and death.

For now.

She’s not screaming this time and while there’s a little voice in the back of your mind that’s concerned by this, you try to ignore it.

“Um, excuse me?” you say when she doesn’t acknowledge you as you approach.

The woman turns to look at you. You’re taken aback by the distinct lack of recognition and it feels almost as if the woman you encountered previously and the one before you now are two separate people. In a way, they technically are.

“Do I… know you?” she finally asks when you don’t say anything.

Your mouth is dry. How do you even answer that? You don’t know her. You just watched her die twice. You know her. She begged you for help. You couldn’t save her.

If you explain all of this you know she’s just going to think you’ve lost your mind. Maybe you already have— you’ve died nine times after all.

You give her a weak smile. “I… just wanted to tell you that you think your costume looks great.”

She blinks, taken aback by your words. There’s no doubt that she wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s the truth though, her costume is nice; she’s dressed up as a character from a magical girl anime that was popular a couple years ago.

“Thank you! I made it myself!” The woman breaks out into a genuine smile and your heart hurts. In a few moments she’ll die and the costume she worked so hard to make will be nothing but ash on the subway tracks.

“Sorry,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“For?”

For watching her die. For not being able to save her.“...I just kind of came up to you all of a sudden…”

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

You consider telling her that she should try to move. That if she stays here she will die. You don’t want her to die. Again. You can still hear her screaming in your ears as she burned to death. You want to tell her.

You don’t.

“Stay safe, okay?” you say. It almost sounds like you’re begging.

She gives you another smile, kind and gentle and you think you’re far too undeserving of it for not telling her what fate will soon befall her. “You too.”

“I’ll try,” you say and move away from the woman just as the gates open and the crowd surges toward the railway. You do not fight it as you are swept up into the crowd and despite what you said, you do not try, this time, to stay safe.

You die for the tenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the fourteenth time.

There’s a slight ache in your head, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it. The pain you feel lessens with each round and you think it’s a sign that your body no longer feels the need to remind you of the precarious situation that you’re in.

Or maybe you are just becoming numb to everything: your death, the death of the people around you, the death of the woman in the magical girl costume—

You try not to think about it too much as you reach into your bag to check the time on your phone: 8:37PM. There’s not a lot of time: you need to move.

At the very end of your last attempt to escape this nightmare you realized something. You need to know exactly what is going on around you so you can plan accordingly: where to not stand, where to not go. Up until now, you’ve relied almost solely on the knowledge gained from your previous failures to try and survive, but obviously it’s not enough to keep you alive. You’re not sure why you didn’t realize this earlier. The panic, maybe? The fear?

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

Unlike previous iterations, this time you elect to move closer to the gate, positioning yourself somewhere against it where you’re unlikely to be pushed off the platform in a couple minutes when they open. You take great care to place yourself where you can see the ones responsible for the slaughter very clearly. At the beginning, you could only see one, the one who looks the most human, but with each repetition, the other two have become more and more clear. You wonder why. You don’t have time to think about it.

Murmurs nearby alert you to the arrival of the fourth major player involved in the night’s events. You look up and see the white haired man dressed in all black descending upon the platform like an angel from the heavens. This is your first time really looking at him and you realize there’s something almost inhumanly attractive about him. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it occurs to you that you shouldn’t even try; you don’t have the time to be drooling over some handsome stranger.

You’ve naturally never taken the time to try and listen to whatever the conversation the man and his opponents have before all hell breaks loose on the platform, but you try and lean closer to listen. It’s hard to hear over the dozens of conversations going on behind you, but you try anyway. There might be a clue to what’s actually going on— or better yet, a clue on how to get out of it.

It’s obvious that you’re missing context from what bits of the conversation you do manage to hear, but honestly it all sounds like stuff out of a shounen battle manga. There is one part of the exchange that you manage to hear with a startling sort of clarity. It feels almost as if your heart stops beating as your blood turns ice cold in your veins.

“If I run away, you’re just gonna kill everyone here, right?” the man in black asks.

There’s a pause, and if your heart was still beating it’d be long enough for just four heartbeats.

“If you run away?” The monster with cane repeats, the sadistic grin spreading wide across its features, displaying its charcoal black teeth. The gravelly sound of its voice sets fire to the blood in your veins, your stilled heart thumping wildly, in fear, in anticipation. Soon. It’s happening soon. You brace yourself. “We’re going to do that even if you don’t!”

You die a fourteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the seventeenth time now.

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this. Every little victory is worth celebrating, but you have to remain vigilant. This is yet another information gathering loop, and while you know that maybe this time you’ll be lucky and live, there’s still a chance, a big one, at that, that you will die again.

You have to make the most of each and every death.

It’s such a morbid thought, but the ends justify the means, or so you tell yourself. If you have to die a few times to make it out of this unending nightmare, then so be it.

The spot you’re in is a good vantage point; it’s easier to see everything happening below you. It’s so good that it’s actually sickening. You watch as the monster with the cane and one with what looks like branches for eyes slaughter the people on the track, mowing them down, setting them aflame. In another life, in another many lives, that was you down there, and for what feels like the first time in forever, you feel like you’re going to be sick. You feel like, at some point, you likened the scene before you to some kind of shounen battle manga, but you think that was wrong.

This is borderline horror.

Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were just an extra on set, but you know the reality is that you’re just an extra to whatever phantasmal battle is taking place in front of you. The monsters and the strangely dressed man all try to attack the man in black, but he manages to block every hit effortlessly, as if he is protected by some sort of invisible barrier. When it seems the two monsters are about to hit him, he merely jumps out of the way and the two monsters seem to collide, the force of their combined strength sending a gust of air throughout the crowd. The man in black neatly lands on a nearby platform half wall and says something about curse users, whatever those are, to the monsters, before he starts to mock them, pulling down his strange blindfold in the process.

And this, you’ve found, is where you start to get in trouble.

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

He drops back down onto the tracks, antagonizing his opponents in an arrogant tone as he approaches. When he comes to a stop between the two monsters, the second round of their fight begins. They try to hit him, but he dodges still, gracefully, fluidly, like the three of them are embroiled in some sort of passionate, yet violent dance.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he cruelly rips off one of the arms of the one-eyed monster.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he brutally kicks the branch-eyed monster in the abdomen, sending them flying to the other side of the platform.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he effortlessly hurls the one-eyed, now one-armed monster in the same direction, sending them smashing into the wall.

Only when the man in black seems to fly to the other side is the spell over you seemingly broken. Still, your eyes give chase, and your body too, rushing from one side of the platform to the other. You can’t lose sight of this fight, you tell yourself, settling in a spot you recall being safe during your last round. Doing so could mean another death, another loop, another October 31.

You watch as the man in black acrobatically dodges what looks to be vines or roots that the monster with branches for eyes seems to have summoned from the depths of the Tokyo metro. He lands on the monster’s shoulders, balancing on them as he uses its branch-eyes for leverage. The look in the man’s eyes is so crazed that you can see it from where you’re standing. He says something to it and then—

With a feral and sadistic smile, he rips their eyes straight out of their skull.

Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest as you watch the fight unfold. It is horrifyingly, disgustingly violent, yet still you watch as people on the track are killed by the human-like person, blood raining down as their freshly beheaded skulls go flying into the air. He and the one-eyed monster launch their counter attacks against the man in black and the blowback is so intense the power goes out causing everyone to scream.

There’s a faint glow where the man in black is standing that starts to grow brighter and brighter. You can make out his form turning to face the wall, and it seems almost like he’s slammed the monster that had branches for eyes against it with some sort of telekinetic power. Despite the panic from the people around you, you manage to hear him, chuckling like a mad man as he draws closer and closer to the monster.

The one-eyed monster yells out a name, a name you think must belong to the man, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as he extends his hands out toward the eyeless monster, exerting some kind of force that you can’t really see. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as the eyeless monster’s entire body is vaporized in a flash of blue light. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster, as the lights flicker back on revealing a smoking crater stained with purple blood where the eyeless monster once stood.

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And this is the eighteenth time.

You watch as the man called Satoru Gojo stalks through the crowd of people on the subway tracks, chasing after the one-eyed fire monster. It throws people at him, in a clear attempt to slow him down.

It does not work.

Satoru Gojo climbs back onto the platform in a way that you can only describe as inhuman, and the people nearby shriek and move away from him, out of terror, out of fear. You, on the other hand, draw closer, refusing to lose sight of him.

He is relentless in his pursuit of the one-eyed monster. It continues to throw person after person at him, but he does not stop and the people float there, suspended in midair before they are gently lowered to the ground by some unseen force and scramble away.

No one dares get close to Satoru Gojo, everyone on the platform seems to know that doing so means certain death, yourself included. But you still feel the need to keep an eye on him. The monster and the strangely dressed man are focusing more on him than the crowd— anyone in between is just collateral damage.

But not you.

Especially since you’ve made it this far— you’ve never made it this far before.

A voice echoes throughout the platform; you realize it’s the automated announcement.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You can hear everyone’s relief coming from all sides. The train is coming! The train is coming! A ripple of hope makes its way throughout the crowd. With the train comes the chance to get off the platform and the senseless violence that’s been happening here. Some of the people around you are talking excitedly and others are running toward the gates, toeing the yellow line they’ve been instructed to wait behind. And you, you should be excited, you should be hopeful.

All you feel is dread.

It eats at your stomach, at your chest, at your mind. Clawing and gnawing at you in a way that leaves you paralyzed on the platform. There’s something wrong here. You can’t be sure because you’ve never made it this far, never survived long enough for the train to come, but something is just not right.

No.

You must be paranoid. The train coming is a good thing. It has to be a good thing. You are just paranoid. It’s normal. It’s natural. Dying seventeen times would do that to anyone— rob them of hope, condemn them to an existence full of fear.

It is not lost on you that the thought of dying more than once, much less, dying seventeen times is not normal or natural in the very slightest.

But you need hope, you crave it, wildly, desperately. The hope of freedom, of escape is the only thing getting you through this unending nightmare. Every time you die, every time you wake, it is with the hope that maybe, just maybe this iteration will be different, maybe this one will be the one where you make it out, make it back to your friends who must be waiting for you, make it back home where you can be safe and sound. You need the hope to keep going. Because without hope, what will you have left?

The train screeches as it pulls into the station and the people around you laugh in both disbelief and relief. They start to push and shove toward it, fighting to be able to board because there’s no way everyone here will be able to get on an eight car train and being left behind at this point is practically synonymous with death. Unable to decide if you believe in the train as a symbol of hope or a new layer of fear, you are pushed along with the crowd toward it.

The doors of the train cars slide open and the current passengers all rush off as they disembark. You as well as everyone else on the platform can see with a horrifying clarity that the train is filled to the brim with monsters. Monsters that reach out and grab anyone their hands can reach. The woman to your left. The person to your right.

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

If there is anything this entire ordeal has taught you, it is that you are resilient. Whether it is some innate trait that you never had any reason to uncover before or just a byproduct of being trapped in an unending cycle of being dead and not dead, you don't know. What you do know, though, is that even if you no longer have hope, you at least have your resilience.

Whether you want it or not.

You check the time. It’s 8:35PM. Something flickers in your chest, like a faint light in a sea of darkness, but you ignore it. You don’t have time right now.

With a nimbleness born from your previous failures, you weave your way through the crowd. You’ve done this enough times to know where the gaps are— who will yield and who won’t. Your destination is the escalator that leads off the platform and up to a higher part of the station. You’d noticed previously that the escalator along with every other entrance onto the platform will eventually be blocked by vines or roots of some sort (the work of the branch-eyed monster probably). It’s not a perfect plan because you don’t know what happens on the other side, but whatever it is has to be better than whatever is happening on the side that you’ve been on.

You’d tried to get to the stairs during your last two rounds, but you’d just missed it. You hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caged and slaughtered along with the rest. But this time, this time you have more time. It’s just one minute, but it’s enough. You know it is.

The flickering in your heart grows stronger. Hope. You try not to pay attention to it— you don’t want to be disappointed yet again. But you want to so badly. A voice in the back of your mind tells you to focus on the good, tells you that if there was truly no way out of this endless nightmare, then why would you get more and more time with each round to escape your fate?

With that thought in mind, you break out into a run, recklessly rushing through the crowd, shoving anyone who will not yield to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the stark white of Satoru Gojo’s hair as he descends upon the platform.

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

If you remember correctly, the roots and vines don’t close off the area the moment he touches down, but a little after they start talking, so you think there is probably some time, but you can’t leave it to chance.

The stairs are packed, and for some reason no one is moving. The escalator right next to it is just as full and the power doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t have time for this. You clamber onto the escalator’s rubber handrail, ignoring the weird feeling that passes through your body as you do so. You don’t have the time to worry about whatever that is. The people around you start exclaiming around you, but you don’t care, you don’t listen. You wobble as you try to balance yourself and when you think you’re steady you try to run.

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This marks the thirtieth time.

And you have, finally, finally made it up the escalator, up the stairs with barely a second to spare. You pause, glancing back as the roots or vines or whatever the hell they are seal off the entrance to the platform. You notice that the area where the plants come down is actually fairly clear, despite the crowd. It seems weird, but you don’t dwell on it.

A strange feeling envelops your entire body and your legs turn into jelly. As you sink to the floor, you realize what you’re feeling is relief as all the tension, maybe thirty iterations of Halloween 2018 worth, seeps from your being. You don't remember the last time you felt anything other than fear and dread; it’s weird, but not unwelcome.

That voice in the back of your mind tells you that you can't relax just yet: October 31st isn’t over. Even though you have repeated this night again and again, burning the events that play out on the platform into your memory, you do not know a single thing that happens over here. It would be smart to scope everything out.

Legs still shaky, you rise to your feet and start walking. You think it’s probably for the best to try and head up to the surface and you make your way up to the next floor.

It’s packed with people here too, but relatively peaceful, especially when you compare it to the pandemonium taking place beneath your feet. Still, you can make out the undeniable hum of displeasure resonating throughout the crowd. People complaining about how uncomfortable their costumes are, people complaining about how much they want to go home, people complaining about how much their nights have been ruined because they couldn’t meet up with their friends and—

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

That’s why you were on the platform in the first place— you were waiting for them to arrive, but then the trains stopped working, and people just started pouring into the station out of seemingly nowhere (you think you heard some people say they’d come from the crossing?). Soon after that is when everything went to shit.

You check your phone, though, for once it’s not to look at the time (8:56PM). Instead, you open LINE to check your friends’ group chat. There’s no signal here, for whatever reason, so if there are any new messages, you haven’t received them. The last one was from Kei, mentioning he was enroute, but as far as you know, you’re the only one who made it to Shibuya before the trains stopped.

Did one of them maybe make it here though? Surely, you would have run into them if—

The image of a woman in a magical girl costume fills your vision, burning to death before your very eyes as her screams echo in your ears. It is the first time in what feels like forever that you’ve thought about her and your stomach churns violently. You couldn’t help her, you can’t even help yourself, so how could you even expect to do the same for your friends if they were here? The mere thought of having to watch them die over and over is almost enough to send you over the edge. You don’t know if you could do it.

Would you even have a choice?

No. You can't think like that. You have choices. You've had choices. If you didn’t then, you would still be down below, among the fire and brimstone. Dying, if not dead already. However, instead, you are up here, where, for the moment, it is quiet and peaceful.

That thought, in of itself, is enough to give you a shred of solace, a glimmer of hope.

You take a deep breath and fiddle with your phone a little more, changing your lock screen to a picture you and your friends took at a photo booth not too long ago. The four of you are huddled together, faces squished as if you're all struggling to fit in the frame, despite there being plenty of room. You're mid-laugh because it's the first time you've been in a photo booth in years, Mio and Shin are grinning mischievously and finally, Kei is smiling, but only just slightly, the embarrassment clear on his face. It's probably only been a few months since you all took this picture, but the fact that it feels like it's been years makes your heart ache.

You press your forehead to the screen, like a prayer, like a promise.

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

A shrill scream yanks you from your thoughts and you are instantly on your feet, alert as your eyes flit around frantically to identify the source. It doesn't take long for you to find it and when you do, you think you might have stumbled upon a new layer of horror to this nightmare.

It’s not the corpse, dangling by a noose, that terrifies you— by now you’ve seen dozens upon dozens of dead bodies that the sight of just one more doesn’t faze you in the slightest. The thing that’s the most mortifying, that’s the most disturbing is that right next to where the body is tied are two girls, two teenage girls still dressed in their school uniforms.

You can accept monsters and weirdly dressed men being responsible for the carnage tonight, but children too? Both girls look like they’re barely in high school and try as you might to rationalize things, to chalk it up to coincidence, you cannot ignore the ominous energy radiating from them.

The very notion that these two children could have killed someone here is a hard pill to swallow, but so is the fact that you’ve died.

And you’ve had to swallow that pill thirty times now, so what’s once more?

“Listen up!” one of the girls yells over the crowd, but she is mostly ignored; you don’t think everyone here has noticed her and the corpse dangling from the rafters. She scowls and turns to the other girl and says something quietly to her. The other girl nods and almost instantly she’s stringing up another person, another example. You want to look away so badly, and yet you cannot bring yourself to and you watch the poor soul choke to death.

“I said listen, you dumb monkeys!” the girl shouts, and this time she’s caught most of the crowd’s attention. “If you don’t want to end up like these two, you’ll listen to what we have to say!”

There is clear dissent among the crowd, people dismissive as they utter their disbelief. Some seem to think it’s a prank, but you know better. It takes two more examples before the crowd goes silent before the two high schoolers.

“About damn time!” The girl roars and then points toward the atrium, which is currently covered by roots and branches. “All of you move over there!”

You have a bad feeling about this.

Still, you comply; the girls have made it abundantly clear that failure to do so will result in death, though, at this point, you're almost certain this iteration is a bust and death is all but imminent. You try to keep positive— thinking you can at least gather information or, who knows, maybe there's a chance that this one is the one.

Yet when you step onto the mound of vines and branches that cover the atrium it feels as if you've crossed the threshold into hell. Your footing is stable… but for how long?

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

It's faint, but you can hear the announcement from below. The liquid in your stomach curdles at the sound as you recall the train and, in particular, what is on board. Soon enough, those monsters will be swarming the platform, massacring everyone in reach, guzzling down their blood, feasting on their flesh—

It dawns on you that the people on the platform are the monsters' first course.

And you, and those around you here in the shrubbery, are the second.

As you realize this, the branches and vines disintegrate beneath your very feet and suddenly you are mid air— falling, falling into the abyss below.

You die for the thirtieth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

After countless failures, you've decided that you're just not going to go upstairs any more. No matter where you try to go, you still end up herded onto the death trap above the platform where you ultimately fall to your death. You've tried positioning yourself in the same spot, tried bracing yourself for the drop— but nothing seems to work: upon landing, assuming you manage to land without hurting yourself or dying in midair (which has happened a couple times) you get grabbed and killed by one of the monsters from the train. It's probably not impossible, you just don't have the physical prowess or reflexes for it.

If anything, you can try again later, but you sincerely hope you don't have to.

It's 8:32PM, and you have plenty of time to get to your chosen spot for this loop— it's close to the stairs, in the very center of the platform. Here, there's little risk of getting pushed off onto the tracks when the gates open. You'll probably have to move when the train comes, or even before (assuming you survive) to avoid the monsters, but you'll get to that when it's time.

You can't really see the fight once it breaks out after Satoru Gojo arrives, but you still try to keep track of it as best as you can. You see when he hurls both monsters across the platform and you're not sure if it's muscle memory or what but you have to fight the urge to move to the side and watch. It's been a while, yes, but you've seen the fight countless times before— it doesn't change. Satoru Gojo will give chase. He will rip the branches from the branch eyed monster's skull. He will use some kind of power to eviscerate them.

You don't need to watch, but there's something in you that wants to.

It doesn't make sense, you've seen it all before; if you're unlucky you'll see it all again.

The lights go out and people start screaming; Satoru Gojo is ending the life of that one monster. Soon enough he'll be back on the platform, in pursuit of the other. You think at that point it would be good to move, reposition yourself as far from the incoming train as possible.

When he rises from the tracks like a demon straight from hell, you realize it's the first time this loop that you've actually gotten a good look at him. You remind yourself, again, that this isn't the first time you've seen this man, this scene. You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. His expression is an eerie sort of calm that's at odds with the acts of violence you've seen him commit— his eyes an unnaturally bright blue.

He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

The sound of the announcement sends your heartbeat into a frenzy, snapping you out of your little trance. The train is coming and you need to get moving. As you dart to the edge of the platform, the thought occurs to you that even if you avoid the initial wave of monsters, it's likely you will inevitably be caught by them and killed. It wouldn't be impossible for Satoru Gojo to turn his attention to them instead of the two he's currently facing, but he's just one man— can he truly defeat all those monsters?

You can see the train pulling in and you brace yourself, praying that it'll work out somehow.

The doors hiss open and the screaming starts again as the monsters come bursting out of the train, biting and mauling anyone they can get their hands on. Those who were lucky enough to not be at the front start to scramble away and the monsters give chase. Your body is taut, ready to try and dodge any that come your way.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice something moving through the air. A person? With blue hair? You take the risk to look— they're attacking Satoru Gojo. He tries to punch them but they fly away from him to dodge— disappearing into the crowd.

You hear a loud cracking sound over the cacophony of the crowd and your stomach twists; you know what that sound is. The roots above the atrium disintegrate and bodies from above start to rain down onto the platform.

And then, you're not sure what happens— it's so quick that you only manage to see what looks like an explosion of blood surrounding Satoru Gojo. Corpses litter the ground around him and even from here you can tell he is shaken by the carnage.

The monsters have finally reached where you're standing, and you duck under one as it lunges at you. Although it's big and scary, you realize it's moving kind of slow. Right after it another one comes at you and you take a side step to avoid it; this monster is kind of slow too.

Maybe you can do this.

As soon as you think that a strange feeling courses through you. Every hair on your body feels like it's standing on edge and the voice in your head is telling you to look at Satoru Gojo. You don't understand why because you think he's the least of your worries right now, but you do it anyway.

He's in some sort of stance, one hand raised to his face, fingers bent in some kind of gesture. There's some sort of aura, oppressive and frightening emanating from his form.

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are utterly confused.

Barring your first few loops when you weren't fully aware of what was happening, you have very distinct memories of how each of your previous iterations of this night have gone— of each and every one of your deaths. But for your last round, the last thing you remember was feeling the immense power radiating from Satoru Gojo's body, but that's it.

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

And yet, here you are again, back at the start: it's 8:32PM and the monsters and strangely dressed man are standing on the subway tracks waiting for the arrival of Satoru Gojo.

You don't understand what's going on; you didn't die but you're still stuck in this damn loop. Up until now, your death has served as the trigger to restart the loop. It's not impossible that maybe you suffered a quick and painless death but you're almost certain that isn't the case.

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

You have to find out what. If you don't, you won't know how to avoid it, and if you can't do that, then you really might spend an eternity stuck in this nightmare. And so you take great care to repeat the steps of your last round. You need to make sure to survive to the same point you made it to last time.

Miraculously, you do.

The moment you feel that sensation again, a prickling sort of feeling that envelops your entire body, your eyes are on Satoru Gojo— trying to figure out what the hell he's doing. His eyes are crazed with a desperate kind of focus. You see his mouth move— he's saying something. A spell? A prayer? A curse?

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

Again.

You do not know how many times it's been the night of Halloween in Shibuya: you stopped counting around the hundredth loop. It feels like it's been a while since then. Or maybe it hasn't? You don't know any more.

What you do know is that this night ends up going one of two ways before you are forced to repeat it. Either you die, in some way, shape or form or something happens just after nine that forces you to reset. You still don't know what it is exactly; you only know that Satoru Gojo is responsible for it.

You do prefer it to dying— it's far less painful.

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

Unfortunately, you know better.

The only good thing you’ve noticed about all of this is that you really do seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier. The last time you checked, it was at around 8:30. It might take hundreds of thousands of loops, but eventually you’ll certainly wake up early enough to avoid this damn entire mess.

But by the time that happens… will your sanity still be intact? Will you really be able to go back to a normal day to day life after living the equivalent of hundreds of years, repeating the same night over and over again? You don’t even know how you’ve managed to stay sane all this time and as much as you want to believe you could do it…

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the latter first.

There’s a dull ache in your head that feels foreign yet familiar. Your mind is foggy, all your thoughts hazy as you try to recall what the word for this feeling is.

Groggy.

It feels as if you’ve woken up from a nap and you blink the sleepiness away from your eyes. When was the last time you took a nap? It’s been a while… You think you maybe tried once or twice, but you were too nervous, too on edge. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter because, either way, you were doomed to repeat this nightmare.

As you think this, you realize that something is different.

You’re used to how the start of each loop feels like waking up suddenly and abruptly and it becomes clear to you that you haven’t looped. This is completely uncharted territory.

You need to find out what’s going on.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quiet. Almost eerily so, especially when the last thing you remember was screaming and chaos. You glance around you and find that it looks like all the monsters from the train are dead, the ground littered in their bloodstains and corpses. There were so many of them, you don’t know how someone could have wiped them out so quickly… Could it possibly have been Satoru Gojo’s doing?

More concerning than the complete eradication of the monsters is the fact that nearly everyone else on the platform is standing stock still, their mouths ajar with blank expressions on their faces. It’s almost as if their souls have completely vacated their bodies…

Were you like that too before you woke up?

You hear voices, and your body immediately goes tense as you turn your head in their direction. A little ways ahead of you, you see a man dressed as a monk conversing with the blue haired person from earlier and before them is—

Your heart nearly stops: it’s Satoru Gojo, restrained and on his knees.

Honestly, you can’t make heads or tails of the conversation they’re having; it’s more shounen battle manga nonsense. Satoru Gojo doesn’t seem to be enjoying their conversation either, and he interrupts them, clearly annoyed.

“Are we gonna do this or what?” he asks. “The view sucks and I’m just kinda bored.”

“I wanted to enjoy this sight for a little bit longer, but you are right,” the monk says. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen— gate, close.”

When he says that, Satoru Gojo’s restraints move, the weirdly shaped cubes at the ends of them closing in around him, trapping him in a giant red cube. It starts to shrink until it’s small enough to fit in the monk’s hand.

You gulp and hope they don’t notice that you’re awake. The fact that they haven’t slaughtered the rest of the people standing around you is a good sign, but you don’t want to find out what happens if they know you’re cognizant.

It’s not hard to play the part of a living statue, especially when you compare it to everything else you’ve had to suffer through on this night. You watch as the monk’s allies, the ones who had attacked everyone on the platform, wake up, but before they can do or say anything, the box holding Satoru Gojo slips through the monk’s fingers and makes a dent in the concrete. The look on the monk’s face makes it clear that it’s a problem he wasn’t expecting.

You don’t know a damn thing about Satoru Gojo, but you feel like this kind of thing is the norm for him.

The blue haired person suddenly looks in your direction and you nearly stop breathing. Have they noticed you? It takes everything in you to keep perfectly still, in hopes that maybe they didn't, that maybe they’re looking at something else. They raise their arm and it extends, their hand acting like some kind of projectile. You almost shut your eyes and brace yourself for impact, but their hand flies upwards and hits something on the ceiling, destroying it.

Inwardly, you breathe a sigh of relief— you’re still safe.

For now.

You listen to their following conversation and while you still don’t fully understand everything, it’s clear they’re talking about what to do next since they’ve taken care of Satoru Gojo. Something having to do with someone named Yuji Itadori? The group seems split on what to do about him but it’s clear he’s their next target.

Eventually, everyone but the monk (you heard the blue haired person, who is apparently named Mahito, call him Geto?) runs off, probably to find this Yuji Itadori person. Once they’re gone, Geto speaks and, at first, you think he’s talking to you, but it becomes clear he’s addressing someone else. “Those cursed spirits are actually smarter than the two of you.”

“Give him back!” a voice hidden among the crowd hisses. Your blood runs cold at the sound. You recognize it; it’s one of the high school girls from the upper floor.

“We cooperated with you fully and kept dropping monkeys for you,” says another voice; it must be the other girl that was with her, the one who hung all those people.

“Now give us back Master Geto’s body like you promised!”

“Don’t toy with Master Geto any further than you have!”

You blink in confusion. Isn’t the monk named Geto? The way the girls are talking it sounds like they’re talking about someone else… Is it possible that the body is ‘Geto’ but the person they’re talking to is someone else possessing it? It sounds kind of crazy, but then again, so is every single thing you’ve experienced tonight.

Your suspicions concerning this ‘Geto’ are confirmed only seconds later as he says, “Now begone, or is it your desire to be killed by this body?”

One of the girls vows her revenge and you hear shuffling somewhere else in the crowd as they scurry away. Now you think it’s just you and whoever it is that’s puppeting Geto’s body. You see him plop down in front of the box (the prison realm, you think he’d called it) that’s holding Satoru Gojo.

“You can come out, you know,” he says after a while.

You freeze. The rest of the platform is completely silent. This time you think he might actually be talking to you.

“I know you’re there,” ‘Geto’ adds, his voice casual. “If you’re insistent on hiding, you should know that I’m not afraid of using whatever means necessary to smoke you out.”

Given everything his allies have done, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s serious. You were hoping to hide out among the crowd until he decided to leave, but it looks like you won’t be able to now.

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

Your heart starts to race as you weave your way through the crowd. In every single one of your loops, you were always treated like a bit character, never noticed or singled out by any of the major players of the night. Although this is your first time encountering this ‘Geto’ it’s clear to you that he’s involved with everything that’s happened here and honestly, you get the feeling he might actually be the mastermind behind the massacre.

That makes you even more nervous.

You come to a stop in the place where Satoru Gojo was once kneeling before he was put in that box. Now that you’re out in the open, ‘Geto’ looks you over with some sort of nonchalant curiosity.

“You’re…” he starts, sounding thoughtful, "not a sorcerer, are you?”

Sorcerer. You heard that term thrown around by him and his group a few times. It’s what they’ve been referring to their enemies as. It probably wouldn’t be smart to lie and say you are one; you get the feeling he’d see through your lie anyway. “I’m not.”

He hums. “How interesting.”

“...what do you mean?” you ask before you can help yourself.

“It’s just you have an abnormally large amount of cursed energy for a non-sorcerer,” he explains. “Though, I suppose that all just sounds like gibberish to you."

You nod and look down at the box lodged in the floor. It has eyes, big creepy looking eyes. "...are you going to do the same thing to me as you did to that man?"

He laughs, "...fortunately for you, the prison realm only holds one person at a time and I need him sealed away more than you."

"...does that mean you're going to leave him in there forever?"

"If I'm feeling nice, I might unseal him in a hundred years or so."

One hundred years? At this point, you've probably lived roughly that amount of time through your loops alone, but for Satoru Gojo… "Won't he die first?"

"Only if he decides to," 'Geto' says, looking completely and wholly unbothered. "Time doesn't doesn't flow in the box, so when I unseal him, he'll be the same as he was just now. Physically anyway. Who knows how deteriorated his mind will be after all that."

Time doesn't flow in the box.

The words echo in your mind over and over. Time doesn't flow in the box. In other words, that means time has stopped in the box, and if that's the case then—

"Anyway, rather than worry about him, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

You look at 'Geto' and he's smiling at you, it's friendly, but ominous. There's no doubt what is going to happen next, though you had already resigned yourself to this iteration being a bust; it was only a matter of time.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I was thinking I might keep you around, even if you aren’t a sorcerer, your wealth of cursed energy would serve my plans well," he muses. "But… it would be too much trouble trying to teach you how to use it in time."

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

You're scared.

Even though you know that once he kills you, once you die, you'll just loop back to around 8:30 again. You'll be on the platform again. And you'll play out some sequence of events before you eventually die again. And again and again.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I'll be nice, though," 'Geto' says, raising a hand and another monster appears out of nowhere. You don’t even bother trying to figure out from where. It doesn’t matter, especially since this monster will surely be the one to end your life. "I'll make it painless."

"...I appreciate it," you say and close your eyes hoping that he's not lying about it.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you're trapped.

You don't know how and you don't know why, but you are stuck in a time loop— forced to suffer through the horrific events of the night before you die and begin it all again. It's been a long time since you stopped counting how many loops you've gone through, but if you had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the hundreds now.

You are so very tired.

But it doesn't stop. It won't stop no matter what you seem to do. You are stuck. You are trapped. You are doomed.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

Ever since that first loop where you heard whoever is possessing Geto's body say that, the words have been stuck in your head, playing on loop.

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

It's 8:25PM when you wake up; that should be plenty of time.

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

After hundreds of loops you've come to a singular conclusion: you need to prevent him being sealed in the prison realm. You've witnessed it enough to know that you won't be able to do it alone; you'll need his cooperation.

You rush upstairs as fast as you can, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine as you step onto the stairwell. According to your previous loops, Satoru Gojo arrives on the subway tracks at 8:40PM. With how crowded the upper floor is, you don’t know if you’ll have the time to intercept him and talk to him, but if you can at least figure out where to find him, then you can try and talk to him during a subsequent loop.

When you reach the fourth basement floor, however, you don’t know where you should even start. He’s pretty tall so you think you could spot him in the crowd, but… there are still so many people. It occurs to you that maybe it would be better to try and look from a higher vantage point so you head to the stairs that lead up to the third basement floor. You check your phone again. It’s 8:35PM; you need to hurry.

Luckily for you, you find him very easily on the third basement floor.

The only problem is that he’s in a hard to reach spot— squatting above a sign hanging over the crowd.

You check your phone again. It’s 8:38PM and he’s starting to move, presumably to meet with those waiting for him on the subway tracks. It’s good that you found him, but there’s no doubt about it.

You’re going to need more time.

The moment you wake up, you immediately bolt toward the stairs. It's taken many, many more loops, but you've finally brought the time you wake down to around 8:15. You're still not sure if it's enough time, but there's only one way to find out.

You barrel your way up to the next floor and zig zag through the crowd to get to the next flight of stairs. By the time you get to your destination, you're completely out of breath, your chest heaving as your lungs clamor for air. You’ve done this so many times, yet your body acts like it’s always the first. It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You slow to a brisk pace to catch your breath and check the time. It’s 8:27— a new record. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

The goal is to catch Satoru Gojo before he moves to his lookout point above the crowd. While not impossible, it would be difficult for you to follow him there. You eye the safety barricade that blocks off the area where he’ll be moving in just a few minutes warily.

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

You don’t want to think about it right now; you’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Especially since Satoru Gojo has now entered your field of vision.

Your heart starts to race at the sight of him and it feels like it’s beating a million times a second. There isn’t a lot of time. You need to talk to him, but your legs only wobble, your feet planted firmly to the ground. This is not good. You need to move. You need to move.

Finally, after what feels like both an instant and an eternity, your feet finally budge, propelling you in Satoru Gojo’s direction. The beating of your heart only grows louder as you make your way toward him, mingling with the single thought that’s echoing throughout your mind right now: will he even hear you out?

You need to make him.

“Excuse me!” The words nearly come out in a stutter as you realize that you are actually talking to Satoru Gojo. You have watched this man at a distance for so long that it almost felt like he wasn’t real, like he was just another fixture in this nightmare that you’ve been living for far too long. And yet, here he is, right in front of you, in the flesh.

And his attention is on you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming. Your mouth is dry and suddenly you don’t know what to say, but you need to say something. You need to say something before he thinks maybe you bumped into him by accident and just walks away without a word.

“I need to talk to you!” The words just burst out from your mouth and something about it is just absolutely embarrassing. You’re not sure if it's desperation or the fact that you haven’t really talked to anyone other than the existence occupying Suguru Geto’s body in nearly forever.

Satoru Gojo’s lips slowly start to form a smile, “Oh, yeah?”

The sound of his voice makes your mind go blank. There’s something different about it right now; more playful, amused even. Maybe it’s because he’s talking to you, a harmless human being and not a monster trying to kill him. It’s almost kind of jarring, but you know, with certainty, what Satoru Gojo’s voice sounds like. And the fact that he’s actually talking to you right now has you kind of excited. You nod, doing your best to not show how thrilled you are that he’s not ignoring you.

He hums thoughtfully, “Sorry… but unfortunately I kind of have some business to attend to right now.”

“I—” You start to say that you know that he’s headed down to the platform below to fight with…Choso and Jogo, you think their names are— you don’t know the name of the monster with the branches for eyes. “It’s— it’s really important!”

Gojo tilts his head a little, clearly thinking. You should probably say something else, something to try and convince him to stay a little longer and hear you out, but your mind is both full and blank. Where do you start? From the beginning? Or do you start with what is most important? Maybe you should say what you think will get his attention. You’re not sure, and you realize you really should have thought about this earlier because you’re running out of time right now.

“...mind handing me your phone?”

You stare at Gojo, completely and wholly confused, but he just holds out his hand expectantly. When you don’t move, he wiggles his fingers a little, a silent gesture telling you to hurry it up. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and unlock your phone before handing it to him.

“Kind of sucks that cell service isn’t working right now,” he remarks as he types something into your phone before handing it back. “But! Here's my number.”

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though?

“Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

He laughs, “Well, you said you had something really important to talk to me about, right? So just give me a call when you get home or some time tomorrow and we can talk then!”

You’re not going to make it home, or even to tomorrow, and neither will Satoru Gojo. As you start to tell him this, he steps past you. Desperate, you try to grab him, but somehow, for some reason, you can’t. You remember he did this with Jogo and the other monster, made himself untouchable.

This is not good.

He gives you a little wave, cheery as he says, “I’ll talk to you later!”

You watch, helpless as he hops over the barricade beyond your reach.

Gripping your phone tightly, you take a deep breath. It's fine, it's not like you didn’t expect things to go well anyway.

You'll just have to try again.

Every time you’ve tried to solicit help from Satoru Gojo, it has gone the same way. He just won’t give you the time of day, and in some ways you can’t blame him; he’s clearly here to deal with the monsters down on the platform. You’re fairly certain that he probably thinks that whatever is going on with you is a much lesser issue in comparison.

Plus, it probably doesn’t help that in the times that you’ve approached him, you haven’t been able to articulate yourself particularly well. Once you start talking to him, you just get hit with something akin to stage fright and the connection between your mind and your mouth just stops working. It’s gotten better with each attempt, but…

It’s just so frustrating.

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all. You’re not sure what kind of person you were expecting him to be, but after witnessing him literally and viciously rip monsters apart, you’d figured he’d be a little more somber. However, in the fragmented conversations you’ve had with him he’s come off as far more friendly and playful than you would have thought. Is he the type of person to get more serious when the situation calls for it? You can’t help but wonder, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that you’re able to convince him to help you.

You have to convince him.

“Excuse me!” you say, stepping in Satoru Gojo’s path. You don’t stutter this time, and your voice is more sure. This is good.

“Yes?”

His head turns in your direction and you gulp. Gojo’s gaze, despite that blindfold of his, still feels just as overwhelming as it did the very first time you approached him. You have no doubt that he’s sizing you up, but there’s just something about it that makes you feel like you’re being picked apart.

You take a deep breath and step closer to him, hoping your voice sounds firm enough as you say, “I need your help. I’m trapped.”

He chuckles a little, “I know, but yours truly is on his way to go beat up the bad guys keeping you all trapped here, so soon enough you’ll be all free to go on your merry little way.”

Right. You were so caught up in your own plight that you nearly forgot that technically you’re not the only one ‘trapped.’ Satoru Gojo obviously knows that everyone else is confined to this station, but you doubt he knows that you’re confined to this night alone.

“That’s not what I mean!” you sputter.

“Then what do you mean?” Gojo asks. Should you tell him that you mean that you’re trapped in a time loop? You’re honestly not sure— in the movies and manga you’ve read about time travel, revealing that sort of thing risks creating a time paradox which seems to be a bad thing. If you have to tell him, you will, but— “Oh, I get it.”

You stare, bewildered. Did you maybe just spew all of that aloud?

Gojo gives you a mischievous smile. “You’re hitting on me, aren’t you?”

“No!” The word comes flying out of your mouth. You can’t deny he’s attractive— you’ve thought it all this time, but that is not what’s happening here.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he continues, ignoring you. “I totally get it, so if you want, I’d be happy to give you my number!”

Again? You’ve received Satoru Gojo’s contact details in every loop you’ve talked to him, star symbol and all— you even have his number memorized. There’s something kind of odd about how he keeps giving you his number. Part of you wonders if he’s got some sort of ulterior motive, but you haven’t thought too deeply about it. There are way more important things going on.

“I don’t need your phone number,” you say. “I need to talk.”

Your response seems to give Gojo pause. Did you somehow manage to get through to him? No way. Your suspicions are all but confirmed when he gives you that familiar apologetic smile.

“Like, I said, I’m sort of in the middle of something, but…” Gojo reaches into his pockets and rummages around until one hand fishes out a folded up piece of paper. The other hand keeps digging around in his pocket and when Gojo seems to give up on whatever he’s looking for, he turns his attention back to you. “Got a pen?”

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

“I do, but…” You trail off, unsure why he’s asking.

He holds out his hand waiting for you to just hand him the pen. You still don’t get it, but you reach into your bag’s front pocket and pull out the pen and hand it to him. Gojo looks almost like an excited child when he takes it from you, quickly scribbling something onto his paper before shoving it and your pen back into your hand.

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

“If you change your mind later, just give me a call!” he tells you cheerily. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while!”

You gawk at him. He cannot be serious. You literally just told him that you didn’t need it and yet he still gave it to you. He must want you to contact him later, but you can’t even begin to understand why. It can’t have been something you said or did, right? Unless, he’s actually—

“Later!” Gojo’s voice cuts through your thoughts and you notice him walking off with a wave.

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

You crush the receipt in your hand and rush after him. Despite the crowd, Gojo seems to move through the people with ease and it almost seems like they are yielding to him naturally. It’s good for you. Makes him easier to chase.

“Wait!” you yell, but Gojo doesn’t even look back. Bastard. Your muscles strain as you try to run faster. You know you won’t be able to grab him if you get to him, but there has to still be something you can do to stop him. Circle around him? Cut him off before he—

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

“Wait!” you yell again. “Satoru Gojo, wait!”

He does not even acknowledge you.

You’re almost there though. Almost. If you reach out your hand, then maybe, maybe you can grab him. Something in your head tells you that it’s useless; you’ve never been able to touch him. But, you don’t care, you don’t care because you have to try. You stretch out your hand, desperate and hoping, but just as you do, Gojo effortlessly jumps over the barricade, moving to survey the crowd.

Due to your momentum, you almost collide into the barricade, but you manage to stop yourself. You stare at Satoru Gojo through the glass. He watches the crowd for at most three minutes. Is this just another bust? Is there really nothing you can do? There must be a way you can get his attention. Is it possible to climb over the barricade? No, it’s too high. There’s nothing you can grasp onto or use as footing either.

This fucking sucks.

Another minute or two and Gojo will be on the move again, and there will be no way you can follow, no way you can get his attention. You press your hands against the glass, pushing against it. Naturally, it doesn’t budge. Why would it? If only you could get it out of the way. If only you could break it. This stupid barricade is the only thing between you and Satoru Gojo and there’s no way you can climb it, but if only you could break it.

If only you could fucking break it.

Suddenly, the glass feels warm. Satoru Gojo’s image starts to look a little distorted as the warmth beneath your fingers grows. Something is happening. The glass starts to vibrate and shake. Violently. The tremors grow stronger and stronger. You should stop. You should back away.

You don’t.

The barricade starts to crack and fracture and soon the sound of shattering glass resounds throughout the entire room. Everyone starts screaming. No one knows what’s going on— not even you. But you don’t care. It’s gone. The barricade is gone.

You take a step forward, toward Satoru Gojo. He’s on a beam that’s about a two meter drop from where you’re standing. That’s fine. That’s okay. You can make it. You have to. Without a second thought, you jump—

And you land on the beam. You look up and Satoru Gojo’s attention is back on you. He’s finally, finally turned toward you, face twisted into an expression you can’t decipher or even comprehend, but—

Something’s wrong; your world is turning on its axis, but—

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are causing a commotion.

“Shit! Fuck!” you curse loudly. The people near you start to shift away but you barely notice; you don’t really care.

You were so close, so fucking close and yet… yet here you are again. It’s quarter past eight and you are back on the goddamn platform. You don’t know what happened; you remember falling and thinking you were going to die, but you are absolutely certain that, once again, this time, you didn’t die.

Is Satoru Gojo at fault again? Did he do something? Like he did all those other times you looped without dying? When you think about it more, you don’t think so. You don’t know what happened; all you know is that you tried to get to him, but you slipped.

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

You still don’t understand why you looped, but there’s not much you can do about it now; it’s not like you can go back anymore. It just sucks, because you think he might have actually listened if you’d talked to him.

Or he would have come after you for… whatever happened with the barricade. It could have been taken as an attack on the crowd… But if he thought you were doing that, then why would he catch you?

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

The only problem is that you don’t know how you managed to shatter the barricade. You think about it as you make your way up to where you’ll find Satoru Gojo. There is the possibility that it wasn’t you and something else happened to it instead, but that feels way too coincidental. It had to be you. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You just can’t figure out how you did it outside of wanting, wishing, praying for the barricade to break. It’s not like you have supernatural powers like Satoru Gojo and his enemies.

Despite your mind being completely and wholly occupied by trying to figure out how in the world you managed to break through that barricade, you still manage to make it to the second basement floor of Shibuya Hikarie by 8:25PM— a brand new record. Satoru Gojo doesn’t show up until around 8:34PM, so that gives you almost ten minutes to try and figure out what you need to do to try and replicate shattering the glass barricade again.

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

The thought that maybe you’re mistaken flashes in your mind before it’s quickly dismissed; there’s no way you’d mistake anyone else for him. There is absolutely no denying it: that is Satoru Gojo. Bewildered, you double check the time on your phone. Maybe you misread it and you’re actually late but sure enough you read it right— Satoru Gojo is here early.

What the hell is going on?

Of the thousands of times you have experienced this night, this hell, this sort of thing has never happened before. Everything happens at a specific time, as if adhering to an unseen schedule. It’s likely that what happened in your last iteration did delay Satoru Gojo’s arrival onto the platform, but other than that there has never been a deviation to the time table.

And yet, here Satoru Gojo is, nine minutes early now.

You realize that that’s not the only thing that’s strange: he’s not moving. In previous rounds, when you encounter Gojo here, he’s walking to the lookout spot beyond the barricade. But, right now, he’s just standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. It almost looks like he's waiting for something.

Or someone.

This unexpected turn of events has you rooted to the spot. You’re not sure what you should do. No. This shouldn’t change anything. You need to talk to him. As concerning as a change like this is, the extra time it gives you should be a good thing. Despite knowing that, your feet are still firmly planted to the ground.

The crowd shifts and you see Satoru Gojo start to move. Toward the barricade? No. He’s not heading in his usual direction, rather he’s—

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is absolutely mind numbing.

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

You try to answer but no words come out of your mouth. Are you dreaming? You have to be, right? There's no way that this is actually happening. Could it be that, after thousands of loops, you’ve finally lost it? Your mind shattering along with the glass of the barricade at the end of the last one?

Gojo tilts his head, indicating that he's still waiting for an answer. When you open your mouth, at first, nothing comes out, the words stuck in your throat. You force them out, your voice cracking, “...how did you know?”

He smiles, looking almost mischievous as he reaches up and lightly taps the side of his head. “I remembered, of course!”

All you can do is stare at Satoru Gojo. He remembered? How is that possible? From his perspective, this is the first time you’ve met and while it shouldn’t be possible for him to remember there’s something in your mind that’s keeping you from completely dismissing the possibility.

Gojo laughs, “I take it from the look on your face that you’re not used to this sort of thing happening. Is this the first time?”

“No.” The fact that the word is out of your mouth before you can even really think about it surprises you and you really have to think. Your face scrunches together as you try to remember. Is this really not the first time? Then, the memories assault you, overlapping as they replay simultaneously in your head— a woman in a yellow and white magical girl costume— begging you for help as she burns to death— smiling as she tells you she made her costume herself. “...it happened just once a long time ago.”

“‘A long time ago,’ huh. Sounds like you've been at this for a while now.”

“...unfortunately.”

Gojo hums. “So when you said you didn’t need my phone number…”

“You’d already given it to me a few times,” you say, figuring that’s where this conversation is going.

“Really now?”

Does he not believe you? Or is he just being an ass? You’re not sure, but since you had taken the liberty of memorizing Satoru Gojo’s phone number you recite it back to him to prove your point.

Just when you think you may have stunned Gojo into silence he starts to laugh, obviously finding something funny about the fact that you know his cell phone number. “Seems like you've got quite the fascinating technique there.”

Technique? What is he talking about? Your confusion must be plain on your face because he adds, elaborating, “The time travel.”

You continue to stare at him. You don't think you'd consider what you've been going through time travel, because traveling implies moving from point A to point B, but you've been stuck walking in circles at point A for a long time. What really gets you is… “What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“You mean you don’t— oh. I get it; no wonder you’re trapped.”

That does not answer your question in the slightest. “Can you please explain what you're talking about? What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“Right, right… So basically, a technique is like a special sort of power,” he finally explains. “Like I said, your technique seems to be a kind of time travel. Whenever you activate it, your mind is sent back in time.”

What he's saying makes sense, but… “How come you were sent back too?”

He laughs again. “Isn't it obvious? Think back to before— do you remember that I caught you as you were falling?”

You nod slowly. The memory of his arms around you is almost embarrassingly vivid. “...is it because we were touching?”

“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!”

Something about his tone annoys you, but you try to ignore it. He could have just told you rather than make you guess. “How do you know that for sure?”

“Well,” he continues. “You’ve done your little time loop a bunch of times, right? If your technique affected everyone, or even a few people in a select range you would have noticed for sure. And if it affected only just you then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, now would we?”

When you think about it, you do think that the woman in the magical girl costume might have bumped into you before the loop where she remembered.

“That’s honestly just conjecture, but I've got pretty good eyes, so I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Gojo gives you a grin and while you do think that his reasoning is sound enough his confidence is a little grating. More than that, though, you’re glad that this conversation is actually going really well.

“Either way,” he says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like you can control your technique. Usually a person’s technique manifests when they’re a kid, but you seem to be a special case… in fact, I bet your technique activated for the very first time tonight— probably under some pretty extreme circumstances, too.”

“...dying counts as an ‘extreme circumstance,’ right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Or legitimately thinking that you’re gonna die, but it seems like your body has been unconsciously activating your technique as a sort of defense mechanism. Which is why you’re trapped.”

“So, if I could control it I’d be able to make it out of this time loop.”

“Yeah, but in this case it probably wouldn’t end very well for you,” he points out with a chuckle. “It’s not like you actually want to die, right? I mean, if you did, then your technique wouldn’t even activate in the first place.”

You don’t; what you want is for this night to finally end. To be free from the endless cycle of dying over and over again and again. You don’t think death is quite the answer; even if you were to learn how to control this supposed technique of yours, there’s no guarantee that you would just unconsciously activate it when the grim reaper comes knocking on your door. No, the answer is…

“Anyway!” Gojo’s cheery voice cuts through your thoughts. “I highly doubt that you’re the type that makes a habit of jumping off ledges for the funsies, so the fact that you’ve been dying tells me that some pretty gruesome stuff is about to go down, so, tell me what happens tonight.”

The sudden drop of his voice sends a shiver running down your spine. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen how serious Gojo can get, the sudden shift in demeanor would probably freak you out a bit, but it doesn’t. This is the Satoru Gojo you’re familiar with.

You do have one concern though. “That… won’t create a time paradox or anything, will it?”

“Nah,” Gojo shrugs. “You wouldn’t cause one with the way your technique works, besides, if you’ve only been going back at most an hour or two in time it’s hard to believe you’d be making a really big impact… unless you really believe in the butterfly effect.”

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

“...okay.”

Anxiety is still gripping at you, but you try to dispel it, taking a deep breath before beginning your explanation. For the sake of brevity, it’s probably best that you’re as concise as possible. There isn’t much need to really get into the nitty gritty of things unless he asks specifically.

Naturally, you begin with his arrival onto the platform and how soon after a fight breaks out and how the crowd is unfortunate enough to be involved. Gojo’s expression is passive for the most part, but he does crack the faintest hint of a smile when you mention how he manages to eviscerate one of the monsters.

It disappears once you tell him about the arrival of the train. Between the dozens upon dozens of people being dropped onto the platform by those two high school girls and the hoard of monsters disembarking from the train, everything devolves into pandemonium.

“Wait,” Gojo holds a hand up and you pause. This is his first interruption since you started recounting the night’s events for him. “Everyone is able to see the monsters?”

You stare at him. What a weird question. “...yeah?”

His mouth twists and it looks like he’s thinking about something. You can’t even begin to imagine what. Finally, he comments, “Makes sense.”

It does not, but you don’t ask him to elaborate. Surely if it was important he would have just done so.

“Anyway, in the middle of all that, you… you do something.” Your brows bunch together as you remember the stance Gojo took, the crazed and desperate look in his eyes, the feeling of your head about to explode. “I don’t know how to describe it. At first, it would just force me to… activate my technique, I guess. But now, it just knocks me out for a few minutes.”

Gojo frowns and he rubs at his chin, obviously thinking about what you’ve said. Eventually, he raises a hand and bends his fingers into a familiar gesture. It’s the one that preludes whatever he does on the platform. “Do I do this?”

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

You wait to see if he’ll explain. He doesn’t. Great. Even if he doesn’t think you need to know, it certainly would be nice to. It’s annoying otherwise, but you ignore the feeling and continue. “I can’t tell you what happens when I’m knocked out, but when I come to everyone is basically a zombie and all the monsters from the train are gone. I think you kill them.”

“I probably do,” he says casually. “But what about Volcano Head?”

“...you don't…get a chance to kill him,” you say slowly. Gojo tilts his head, waiting for you to elaborate, but you hesitate. You have to tell him, you know you do, but…

You have seen the interaction so many times and though you don't know the exact nature of the relationship between them, you can tell that seeing Suguru Geto (or rather seeing his body) shook Satoru Gojo to his very core.

There's no doubt in your mind that he will not take this news well.

“Come on now,” Gojo's tone is light-hearted, unaware. “Don't keep me in suspense here.”

It's as if you're withholding the punchline to a joke. In a way, you suppose you are, but you don't think he's going to find it funny.

You take a deep breath. You need to tell him. The worst thing that could happen is that he doesn't believe you, but if that's the case… you'll probably just end up repeating this all again until you find a loop where he does.

Having made it this far, you'd like to avoid all that.

“Before you can get Volcano Head you get restrained by something called the prison realm,” you say slowly, “by someone calling themselves… Suguru Geto.”

The second the name leaves your mouth, there is a clear and obvious shift in the air. Gone is Gojo’s laid-back and frivolous demeanor, replaced with something more somber and almost frightening. The tension grows more and more palpable to the point that you think it might almost choke you.

You almost wish that it would.

“You can’t be serious,” Gojo finally says, once your words have fully sunk in.

“I—” You start to speak, but come to an abrupt stop when you see him shove his hand into his pocket to yank out his phone of all things.

The both of you know full well that there’s no reception here, but you don’t think that he’s planning on making any calls. Gojo scrolls and scrolls on his phone before he stops and shoves the screen in your face. It shows a picture of three people— a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth, a younger, happier version of Gojo sporting a pair of round sunglasses and—

“When you say ‘Geto’ is this who you’re referring to?” Gojo demands, using his other hand to point at the third person in the frame— a handsome young man with long dark hair pulled up into a bun.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s impossible. It can’t be him,” Gojo interrupts, his voice firm, cold even. “He’s dead.”

There’s a note of finality in his words that is definitely meant to leave no room for argument. It doesn’t stop you, though. Instead, you glare at Gojo’s stupid blindfold and say, “...being dead doesn’t mean a damn thing! I’ve died hundreds of times and yet I’m still fucking here, but—”

“Your situation is different,” he interjects, the temperature of his tone hiking up, his words like heated hissing. “I killed him almost a year ago. There's no way—”

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

The air between you both is silent as the grave. Though you can't see it, you can feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on you. He’s definitely having second thoughts about everything you’ve said so far. There’s a chance he might even think you’re his enemy now. You stare him down though, refusing to look away. You’ve made it this far, you can’t— you won’t back down.

“...you’re not lying, are you.” Gojo’s words are more of a statement than a question. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows the answer, and yet he’s still asking. You wonder if maybe he’s clinging onto some vain hope that maybe, just maybe this all a sick, cruel joke that’s gone way too far.

“I’m not.”

Gojo holds your gaze for a second longer before he lets out a curse. “Fuck!”

“...I’m sorry,” you say quietly, mostly because it feels like the most correct thing to say at this moment. You don’t know the whole story, but it seems like they were close. If so, then it must have hurt Gojo a lot to have killed him, and must hurt even more to know that someone is desecrating the body. You hate that you, a complete and utter stranger, happened to be the person to tell him, but…

It had to be done, for the sake of getting past this unending night, it had to be done.

Gojo runs a hand through his hair and lets out a ragged sigh. “Okay. What happens after that?”

You give him a rundown of what follows; he gets sealed, the monsters wake up and all but ‘Geto’ leave in search of their next target. When you mention the high school girls demanding the brain give Geto’s body back, Gojo snorts loudly.

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

You nod in agreement. It was clear to you that the brain parasite has no intent on giving it up any time soon. “After they leave, he… talks to me.”

“Probably couldn't ignore all that cursed energy you have,” Gojo remarks offhandedly.

You stare at him, expression twisted in a way that shows that you have absolutely no clue what that means. It should be fine for you to ask this one question; it actually concerns you after all. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, though… probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?”

You give him a pointed glare and all Gojo does is laugh.

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“...Like in a video game?”

“Exactly!” Then, Gojo tilts his head, clearly thinking. You don't bother asking; you don't feel like he'll explain.

“He does ask me if I'm a sorcerer, whatever that is. Is that why?”

“Probably. Ordinary people don't have even a fraction of the energy you're packing.”

‘Ordinary people’ he says as if you’re not an ordinary person who got caught up in all this supernatural sorcery bullshit. Or at least you were, but if the time loops are really a product of your own doing…

“Does he kill you when you answer?” Gojo asks to get the conversation back on track.

“Not right away. What happens next kind of varies,” you answer. “He usually lets me have a question or two before he kills me; I've asked him a couple different things.”

“Really taking advantage, aren’t you?” Gojo says and you're not sure what to make of his tone. Is he mocking you or is he easing back into that laid-back persona of his?

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

He’s definitely gone back to acting almost completely unserious— all signs of his earlier agitation are nearly gone.

“So what did you learn?”

“Well, the prison realm only holds one occupant. Once they’re sealed, time stops for them and the only way out is if the bearer unseals them or if they choose to kill themselves.”

“I see… And what about our body jacker?”

“He didn’t go into detail but he said something about… striving toward the evolution of mankind?” You frown a little at the memory. He didn’t explain further because he said that you wouldn’t understand.

“Huh. Interesting. Wonder how he was gonna go about doing that.”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine you'd like it since he goes out of his way to seal you into that box,” you say. “Said you’d get in the way because you’re too strong.”

Gojo shrugs his shoulders and grins a little. Cocky. “Well, I am the strongest sorcerer around, you know.”

You would think him overconfident if you hadn't seen the magnitude of his strength first hand.

“Anyway, that's as far as I ever go. When he's decided he’s done talking to me, he kills me and I loop back.”

“So, in short, what you want help with is getting past that point, right?”

“More or less.”

“And all I have to do is avoid getting caught by the prison realm?”

You nod.

“What’s it look like?” he asks. “A big cage with a bunch of metal bars?”

Now that you think about it, you haven’t woken up early enough to see it before it traps him, but you can’t imagine it looks that much different. “No.. It’s a small box with eyes… It gets big enough to fit you in it, though.”

“Huh.” He stretches his arms out above his head as if he’s trying to emphasize how large he actually is and shoots you a grin. “Should be easy enough then. I bet our body snatcher used the shock of seeing Suguru to trap me but since I'll see it coming, avoiding it'll be a piece of cake.”

Gojo makes it sound so easy, and maybe it really is as simple as that, but you can't help but be worried still.

“Don't tell me you don't think I can do it,” he says, tilting his head.

“It's not that,” you admit. “I'm just concerned I might die before we can get to that point.”

Truthfully, since you know that will just result in another loop you're less concerned with dying itself and more worried about losing the progress you've made in convincing Gojo to help you. Even though it's been clearly proven you can loop him as well, there's no guarantee you'll be able to make the physical contact needed to do it upon death.

“You've made it pretty far on your own, though, right?”

“Yeah, but… I’ve messed up plenty of times.” More than you can even count. “There's also the possibility that taking the time to talk to you might have thrown things out of whack.”

Speaking of time, you check your phone. It's 8:39PM. You curse.

Gojo leans over to check your phone. “Let me guess, I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.”

“Yeah, this is when you’re descending down onto the platform.”

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

That earns Gojo a glare from you, but he just laughs it off. “I doubt being a few minutes late is going to make a big difference.”

You certainly hope so.

“Don't worry,” Gojo says and you notice he's using that tone from earlier. “You won't die.”

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can.

“I'll protect you.”

You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

That catches you a little off guard. You're willing to admit he's hot, but surely he must be joking. “How could you even think of something like that at a time like this?”

Gojo laughs again. “Well, since someone is so worried about their time table being all messed up, I better head down there; can’t keep Volcano Head and friends waiting, right?”

You blink. Is that it? “Wait, shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

“Isn’t the plan for me to not get caught in the prison realm?”

Yes, but… “But what about me? Is there anything I can do?”

Gojo stares at you, or at least you think he does. “...I don’t know, is there?”

You’ve seen the encounter between Satoru Gojo and those monsters so many times and you try to picture a version of it where you intervene and… all you can see is yourself getting in his way. You’re no fighter, no… sorcerer, or whatever he is, you’re just some ordinary person that was unfortunate enough to get all caught up in this mess. The most you can probably do is kick the prison realm out of the way when the time comes, but otherwise… “...no, I guess not.”

His expression turns sympathetic. “You’ve done plenty by telling me everything that happens. So just wait up here, and let me handle the monsters.”

You almost nod. Almost. But then you remember what transpires up here above the platform. You know it sounds safer up here where you’re less likely to get involved in the carnage, but… “Wait, no, if I stay up here then I’ll fall to my death when those girls—”

Gojo laughs, interrupting you. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

“I…” It’s hard to. After everything you’ve gone through it’s hard to trust in anything, to believe in anything. Even though you’ve made it this far this time, the worry that something will go wrong and that you’ll have to do it all again still lurks in the back of your mind.

Despite all that, you want to believe.

You want to believe that you can make it past this unending night, that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll no longer be October 31, 2018. And the first step towards that is trusting in Satoru Gojo.

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

Gojo chuckles then asks, “Anything else before I head off?”

You start to ask if there’s anything you should say, in case things don’t work out, but you stop yourself. You’re choosing to trust him, to believe in him— you can figure out that stuff later if things end up going south after all. So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

For a split second, Gojo looks almost surprised, but then he laughs again, beaming widely at you. He starts to move past you and reaches out to give you what you think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder and then he’s off. You turn to watch him go, the crowd, once again, parting almost naturally for him.

When he reaches the barricade, he pauses, raising his hand as if he’s giving you one last wave. Then he jumps over it onto his little perch and then less than a minute later he’s gone, descending to the platform below.

Now, all you can do is wait.

You check your phone again and it’s 8:44PM. If you remember correctly, the high school girls start threatening everyone right before 9PM. With Gojo’s arrival being shifted back almost five minutes, does that mean that they’ll be shifted back too? It would make sense, but you’re not too sure.

Out of habit, you keep checking your phone and at nearly 9PM, you hear the shrill voice of one of the girls over the crowd, commanding everyone to do what she says, her partner stringing up bodies until everyone listens. Everything plays out just as you remember it, which is mildly comforting, though you know that the events that happen up here are more or less independent from what happens below.

Surely, just as Gojo said, a few minutes aren’t going to change anything, but—

No.

You agreed to trust him. To trust that everything would be fine.

When the girls start to demand that as many people as possible climb onto the roots and vines covering the atrium your heart starts to hammer in your chest. In just a few minutes, all the foliage will disintegrate beneath you, and you and everyone else here will fall into the abyss below.

You are afraid.

There isn’t a single loop where you’ve really survived this fall. If you don’t die in midair, you die right after landing. It’s a death trap, and that’s why you’ve stopped coming up here. There’s a part of you, the part that knows what’s about to happen, that wants to try and run back onto stable footing. But you can’t, because you know if you do then the girls will kill you for sure; you have to stay.

It’ll be fine, you tell yourself, it’ll be okay.

You just have to trust Gojo.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You hear the announcement faintly below you. It’s almost time. You brace yourself and try to stay calm. Gojo said he would protect you, that you wouldn’t die. You don’t know how he intends to keep that promise, but all you can do is believe in his words.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

The vines and roots start to crack and the ground beneath you starts to give out. You squeeze your eyes shut as that sickening weightless feeling overtakes you. It occurs to you that this is actually quite literally a trust fall— will Satoru Gojo really be able to catch you?

As you fall, you realize almost instantly that something is different.

You’ve experienced this fall dozens of times and so, even though it has been a while since you’ve gone this route, you are very familiar with what it feels like. Something is different. You’re falling faster. The trajectory is changing. It’s like some force, other than gravity, is pulling at you.

Is this Gojo’s doing?

Just as your body collides with the ground you hear the sounds of mutilating flesh meld with the screams surrounding you. Blood and severed limbs litter the ground, but you try to ignore it. You need to focus on your own survival right now. Quickly, you scramble to your feet scan the area around you; you’re on the platform right now and right in front of you is—

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

His back is turned to you, his focus currently elsewhere. Looking at him you realize you recognize this scene, though it’s much closer and at a different angle. He’s about to do that thing, that thing that knocks you out.

Something in you tells you to move closer to him, after all, he used his mysterious powers to deliberately bring you closer to him, right? You rush toward him and as you do something he said earlier pops up in your mind.

Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!

Whatever he’s about to do… Is that his ‘technique?’ And if it is, would it work the same way as yours? If so, there’s only one way to find out: you need to touch him. You dodge monsters and other people as you run toward Satoru Gojo and—

A monster still manages to grab you, its large hands wrapping around your wrist. You try and yank it free, but it's much stronger than you are.

“Shit!” you hiss as the monster starts to pull you toward it and away from Gojo. What do you do? Your other hand is still free, should you try to punch it in the face? Or—

Before you can do anything, something blasts the monster’s head clean off. Shocked, you stare as the monster’s body slumps onto the ground, its grip loosening on you instantly. You whip your head around to find that while Gojo still has his back to you, his arm is bent back in your direction, his palm open as if he fired some invisible blast from it.

Then you feel it again, something pulling at you, but this time it's more forceful. Your body is yanked toward Gojo and the second you feel his hand press against you, you see him make that gesture with his other hand.

“Domain Expansion,” he whispers in a strained voice. “Infinite Void!”

Something happens and your vision flashes for a fraction of a second. And then—

The room is enveloped in an eerie stillness; all the violence and bloodshed coming to an abrupt stop. Monsters and humans alike stand like the living dead, unconscious with their eyes wide open as if they are staring into an infinite abyss. You recognize this scene, you’re familiar with it because it’s similar to the one you wake up to after being hit by Gojo’s ‘domain expansion.’ The only difference is the presence of the monsters, who are all but gone when you regain consciousness.

The pressure from Gojo’s hand is gone and he says to you, his voice still low. “If you’re squeamish when it comes to blood and gore, it might be best for you to close your eyes.”

And then he’s gone.

You do not take his advice. You do not close your eyes. How many loops were you unable to witness what’s about to unfold? A few hundred? A few thousand? And if all goes to plan, then you will never get another chance again: there’s no way you could possibly look away.

And what you see unfold before you is that Satoru Gojo was right.

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

It’s not as if you really had any doubt, after all, it seemed like the most logical conclusion to come to and yet…

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

All the violence resumes and the platform is engulfed in the sounds of carnage and slaughter once more. The lack of terrified screams makes everything more disconcerting— without them, all you can hear is the squelching echo of mangled flesh and blood splattering all over the place. You can’t really see him, but you can tell where Satoru Gojo is in the crowd as he leaves dozens upon dozens of decapitated heads soaring in his wake. Once or twice, he leaps out of the crowd and even from where you stand you can see the crazed glow of his inhumanly blue eyes as he massacres monster after monster.

Even though you don’t think you have anything to be scared of, you are still terrified: Satoru Gojo is no longer a man, but violence incarnate. You want to move closer to where Gojo gets trapped, but you’re afraid to. What if you get in his way? What if he kills you by accident?

Dying again when you’ve made it this far is definitely not ideal, but isn’t being killed by Gojo the best case scenario? Because then the two of you would probably loop together again and—

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

It’s hard to believe when he’s in the middle of a massacre, slaughtering monsters left and right, but you remind yourself yet again that you have to believe in him.

You take a deep breath and start moving, taking care to keep an eye on where Gojo is. You don’t know how long this is supposed to take, but you do know where he ends up when he’s just about done. The closer he gets to that spot, the sooner the prison realm will be unleashed upon him.

There’s a small group of zombified people nearby and you settle yourself among them. It’s not super close, but you think it's close enough that you'd be able to run over and kick the box away from Gojo if you have to. You do a quick survey to see if you can spot the body snatcher, but he's nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hasn't noticed you moving around, or, if he has, he's more concerned with Gojo than he is with you. Given that you always seem to be the last thing he acknowledges, you'd like to think that he doesn't consider you a threat.

Which you're not, not really anyway.

The sounds of slaughter start to die down and you look to see Gojo approaching the spot where he gets caught. He looks beat, his eyes unfocused and his breathing heavy. You do another quick scan around him and notice a small box a few meters away from him, wrapped in what looks like paper charms or seals or whatever they're called. That has to be the prison realm— though it looks different than what you saw before. Gojo seems to notice it right after you do, his gaze honing in on it, examining it with some measure of bewilderment. Then, some invisible force slices through all the paper seals covering the box and it expands, the corners of the box floating up in midair to reveal what looks like a large sheet of dark red flesh with a large bloodshot eye stapled to the middle.

Disgusting.

If Gojo didn’t realize before, he seems to now, because he takes a step back, away from the grotesque thing. Good, good—

“Hey! Satoru!” Your blood runs cold at the sound of the body snatcher’s voice. He emerges from the crowd, smiling widely as he gives Gojo a wave. “Long time no see!”

Satoru Gojo’s entire body goes rigid. Shit. You told him, you warned him about what was going to happen, who he was going to see, but was that not enough? It’s possible that no amount of warning would have been enough to mentally prepare Satoru Gojo for the sight of the man he said he killed a year ago. After all, you know that there’s a stark difference between knowing and seeing. Even then, if Gojo doesn’t gather his wits and move now then he’s going to get caught and you can’t let that happen.

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

You scramble out from your hiding spot in the crowd and throw yourself in between Satoru Gojo and the prison realm. There’s no way you can kick it away from him now, not when it’s in this form, but maybe, if you get between them you can at least keep it from capturing him.

The eye quivers erratically, as it flits from Gojo to you. Every hair on your body stands on end as it watches you, the pupil dilating and contracting uncontrollably. You can’t look away from it, your own gaze fixed to your image reflected in the black abyss of the pupil. Something in the back of your mind tells you to stop, to get away, it’s dangerous, but you keep your feet firmly planted to the ground.

A second, or maybe even a minute passes and the prison realm shifts, its fleshy form morphing to restrain you.

The body jacker looks at you, his frown tinged with disgust. “Don’t you think you’re being rather rude by butting into what could have been a touching reunion?”

You scowl. Is he still trying to play the role of Suguru Geto?

He sighs and looks past you at Gojo. “Satoru, I thought bringing lesser sorcerers to fight alongside you was more trouble than it was worth?”

You hear Gojo snort from behind you, “It is… but this person here isn’t a sorcerer… Just like you aren’t Suguru Geto.”

The faker almost pouts and presses his hand to his chest as if Gojo's words have wounded him. “Satoru, I’m hurt, how could you say such a thing to your best friend?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Gojo snarls. “You can’t fucking fool me. You might be in Suguru’s body but I know with all my heart and soul that you’re not him.”

The corpse snatcher stares at Gojo, expression blank before he sighs once more. Then, his gaze shifts back to you, his eyes narrowed as he looks at you with sheer disdain. It feels as if you’ve been drenched in ice cold water. There's no smile this time but you already know what's going to happen.

He’s going to kill you.

“I intended to deal with you later since you seemed harmless enough,” he says, raising a hand to summon a monster— the same one he always uses to end your life. “But you’re in the way. So, I think it’s for the best if I just get rid of you right now.”

Instinctively, you try to take a step back but the prison realm’s restraints keep you in place. Not that it would have mattered much, even in the loops where you’ve tried to escape the faker’s monster, it still kills you, too fast and too agile for an ordinary human like you to avoid. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the monster to kill you. At least, it’s always painless.

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

Before you is the monster, wiggling and writhing only mere centimeters from your face. It gurgles and snarls at you, desperate to fulfill its master’s wishes and kill you but it doesn’t move any closer. You stare at it with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.

Someone behind you clicks their tongue— Gojo. You try to turn your head to look at him, but your movements are too limited, the most you can do is turn your head to the side. The sounds the monster is making start to change, sounding more frenzied, almost as if it’s in pain, and you flit your eyes in its direction just in time to see its entire body explode. The monster's guts and bright purple blood fly off in every direction, getting on the floor, the ceiling, the zombified bodies of the people unfortunate enough to be nearby, but not on you.

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

He steps in front of you, half turned towards you as he moves in between you and the body snatcher. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he loudly says, “Did you really forget about me?”

You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the body snatcher.

Past him, the imposter scowls, raising his hand once more, probably to summon even more monsters, but Gojo’s quicker, and it almost looks like his eyes are glowing even brighter, the blue looking almost white as he whips his head in the faker’s direction. The sound of mangling flesh and breaking bones echoes throughout the room as Gojo, using that mysterious power of his, seems to break the faker’s arm.

The body snatcher hisses loudly and despite the fact that his face is twisted in very obvious pain, he tries to shoot Gojo a mocking smile. “Do you really think you can kill your best friend again?”

“I already told you,” Gojo turns to fully face the monster inhabiting Geto’s corpse. He tilts his head a little to the side and some force starts to squeeze at the faker’s neck. “You’re not Suguru.”

You hear a loud crack as Gojo telekinetically snaps his neck.

The head rolls onto the ground and you almost look away, but then you notice his eyes still moving, looking around. Is he still alive? Then you remember: the thing possessing Suguru Geto’s body was some kind of parasite. “Gojo! Wait! The brain!”

He reacts almost instantly, head turning and in an instant the skull is crushed and all that remains is red splotch on the ground.

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

Horrified, you watch as it quivers violently before falling to the ground. Then what looks like dozens of black spirits start to erupt from the corpse and the entire room is engulfed with a shrill howling.

What the hell is going on?

“Those must be all the cursed spirits he consumed,” Gojo explains uselessly, voice barely audible over the screaming. “Guess he was empty before.”

You don’t bother asking what he means. There are bigger problems right now. “What do we do?”

“No choice to exorcise them,” he answers plainly.

For him to exorcise them, he means. You both know that there’s not much that you can do. You still can’t move and honestly, you don’t even know if it’s possible to get out of the prison realm’s restraints. Not without dying. And if you die now…

Everything will have been for naught.

You’ll reset time and have to do this all over again— assuming you can even get to this point again.

There has to be something, you just have to think outside the box.

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

“You need to seal me in the prison realm!” you exclaim. He turns to face you fully, looking bewildered and you start to explain as fast as you can. “Those things are going to attack any minute right? I can’t move or try to hide and I can’t expect you to protect me the entire time and if I die then I’ll end up looping time again, but— but, if you seal me in the prison realm then that won’t happen.”

Gojo frowns, looking conflicted. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you didn’t have to?”

He tilts head and you think he’s conceding your point.

“Please,” you beg, staring at him desperately. “We don’t have much time. The other… cursed spirits will wake up soon too!”

You don’t have to explain that you mean Volcano Head and friends.

It takes only a second for Gojo to consider the very few options you have. “...how do you seal it? Do you know?”

“I think so,” you answer. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work but I think that if you say ‘prison realm, gate close’ it should seal me inside.”

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

Gojo nods. “Do you know how to break the seal?”

“I… don’t,” you confess. You never asked, and you don’t think the body snatcher would have told you even if you did. He only told you that it holds one and that…

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

“...you don’t have to break the seal.”

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

You don’t know for sure if it’ll be better, but right here, right now, it seems like the best option.

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

“...fine,” he agrees and you don’t quite know how to feel about it. The howling around you all grows louder. You wonder why the cursed spirits haven’t attacked yet. Maybe Gojo’s power is holding them at bay… for now anyway. You both know that he can’t ignore them forever.

“...before I do, though, mind if I ask you just one thing?”

You blink. “Not sure what I can do for you in this state…”

He laughs. “I just want to know your name.”

What an odd request. Though, now that you think about it, you don’t think that during this loop or any other loop really, you’ve ever told him your name. It only seems fair to tell him, since you’ve known his for longer than he’s known of your existence.

You tell him your name.

He nods, looking as if he’s committing to memory. Probably easier to remember than his phone number. “Any last words?”

You try to think of something. Nothing comes to mind and you just shake your head.

Gojo takes a deep breath, “Alrighty then… Prison realm, gate close.”

Just as it did the many times you’ve seen Satoru Gojo sealed away, the boxes and restraints around you vibrate a little before they start to close around you, growing large enough to fit your body as they approach.

You won’t see it, but once you’re inside the box will shrink and become small enough to fit in the palm of someone’s hand.

Will it be quiet inside?

In your final seconds, some words, some last words come to mind, and you say them, hoping that he hears them in time. “Thank you, Satoru Gojo.”

You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

It’s November 30, 2018— morning on the campus of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Satoru Gojo strides through the school grounds, casually tossing a small silver box with eerie blue eyes known as the prison realm up and down in his grasp. Walking at his side is Shoko Ieiri, a pretty woman who’s been unfortunate enough to have been Satoru’s friend since high school.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shoko asks, twirling a few strands of her long brown hair.

“What do you mean?” Satoru responds nonchalantly. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

Shoko hums in clear dissent, but doesn’t say anything more. Even she knows better than to try and waste her time trying to argue with Satoru. “I’m just worried about their mental state. Didn’t you say that time doesn’t flow in the box?”

“I’d be worried if it was some normal person,” Satoru says. “But after what they’ve gone through I think they’ll be fine.”

“...well, if you say so.”

The two arrive at their destination: the largest training area on the Jujutsu High grounds. Satoru places the prison realm at the center and takes a few steps back with Shoko standing behind him, in case anything happens.

He doesn’t think it will, but it’s always good to take at least a few precautions.

“Gojo, are you sure we should be doing this?” Shoko asks again. “Didn’t they want to remain in the box?”

“Of course I am,” Satoru says with his usual air of confidence before looking back at the prison realm nestled in the grass. He grins and then—

“Prison realm, gate open.”

if you made it this far. thank you. it's my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride. 3

[yuwuta]

friends with benefits with nanami wouldn’t work because he would think you deserve better. you think your arrangement is going well, kento has never complained before, and you’re certainly more than satisfied in bed. he’s handsome, strong, kind, generous with aftercare, and really fucking good with his mouth, so there are no complaints on your end. which is why it’s such a surprise to you when kento confesses that he doesn’t like the way he’s been treating you, and no matter how much you insist that it’s fine, and reassure him that he treats you more than well enough, he refuses. 

“but kento, i’m okay with this,” you attempt to convince him that hooking up is enough—he doesn’t need to feel like he has to do more for you, “you’re good to me, and not just in bed. please don’t feel like you owe me more.” 

“you deserve something proper,” he’s adamant, shaking his head, “you deserve more than convenient sex.” 

“but what if this is all i want?” you can’t help but to tease him. he looks awfully cute with his arms crossed, respectful refusal written all over his face, “i think eating me out on a weekly basis is quite enough, it would just be greedy for me to ask for more, don’t you think?” 

your jokes don’t amuse him, but his expression keeps you giggling. still, nanami sighs, and grumbles, “you should want more. it’s not greedy.”

“kento, if i didn’t know any better, i’d think you’re telling me to raise my standards.”

he blinks, cheeks pink with irritation and eyes hollow with tiredness. you push every single one of his buttons and he doesn’t know why, but he would never stop you. maybe that’s where this impeding guilt is coming from—kento likes you, and he doesn’t enjoy feeling like he’s using you, even if you get to use him in return. he doesn’t want your relationship to be transactional, and he doesn’t like that you think such a relationship is okay. 

because, guilt aside, kento knows he wants more of you; he wants all of you. and even if you don’t want him back, he thinks you should know that you’re worth having all of, and nothing less. 

“maybe i am,” he settles, “you are worth more than an occasional hookup. you should be treated better than this, and i am sorry that i have let it go on for this long.”

“this is ridiculous—you’re nothing but good to me! and i like having sex with you. if you don’t want to have sex with me anymore, that’s fine, but—”

“i didn’t say that,” he interrupts. 

“so… you do wanna keep sleeping with me?” 

“yes. but we should go on a date before we continue.” 

“but what if our date is terrible. do we still get to have post-first date sex?” 

he shakes his head, stepping closer to you and holding your forearms before leaning down to kiss your forehead, “i don’t put out on the first date.”

you scoff, taking a half-step closer, snaking your arms around his torso, and grinning up at him, “what a prude.”

at that he smiles, before bending his neck to indulge you in one last kiss. “i’ll pick you up at seven.” 

[blushedfemmes]

i wish people would stop making well-intentioned positivity posts for stone bottoms/pillow princesses that begin and end with scolding people for ‘not respecting our boundaries.’ like yeah it’s partly about boundaries but it’s way more about how sex- topping in particular- is viewed as labor, and therefore must be a reciprocal or somehow equal exchange. the same way one might talk about household chores. shit-talking pillow princesses is so common within sapphic spaces because it is perceived to be a MORAL stance. treating this problem as if it’s purely an interpersonal matter of respecting individual boundaries is not gonna get us anywhere.

sex is only work when it’s sex work. if you think topping is a chore, you shouldn’t be doing it. if a satisfying sexual encounter for you involves taking turns, or trading orgasms, or whatever, of course that’s completely fine and good! the problem arises when people assume that’s the default, natural, moral, correct or only way of having sex as a queer person. when people assume that it goes without saying. stone folks exist in defiance of that. and everyone benefits from shedding normative, restrictive ideas about sex. which, by the way, is a value-neutral 100% optional activity with infinite variations. we need to work on tearing down any moralizing about how it should be done, beyond risk-aware consent, which is really all that matters.

people feel justified in disregarding, mocking, belittling or shaming stone folks’ boundaries because they do not think those boundaries are morally or socially correct. i know these positivity posts mean well, but shouting ‘respect boundaries!!’ over and over is missing the bigger picture.

[star-anise]

I always feel kind of uneasy when people who are apologizing say, "I don't even know who the person who did that was. They feel like a totally different person from who I really am."

Sweetie, I'm sorry, but you have to get to know that person. If this person you apparently detest on every level just occasionally hijacks your body and does something awful, your understanding of how and when and why that happens is essential to your ability to promise anyone else that they won't be on the receiving end of that.

It might sound a little backward, that the key to avoiding destructive behaviour is not forcibly repressing that detestable energy inside yourself. You can deny those feelings and force them into exile, but they're going to come back and take over sometime in the future when your defences are down.

If self-loathing actually got shit done, I'd still be in favour of it. Unfortunately, it's only good at satisfying emotions in the short run, so you can really feel like you're putting in serious effort. It's not a winning strategy if you want to genuinely change your behaviour or thought patterns or emotional responses.

Self-reflection is not supposed to be a lesson in flagellating yourself. It is more brutal and gentler, because it rakes over the twisted shards of what happened in your mind with the dispassion of an engineer assessing a bridge collapse and says, "What really happened here? How can we prevent it from happening again in the future?"

It's possible to get to know your shadow, but not be consumed by it. You could eventually feel able to turn over the rocks in your brain, and catalogue and understand all the things squirming beneath. The shame won't kill you.

And being able to understand your triggers and tells, spotting your brain taking off before it's completely left atmosphere, is an incredibly important part of that.

[reiderwriter]

Little Angel

Pairing: Spencer Reid × virgin!fem reader

Genre: SMUT, some fluff, a little tiny smidge of angst. MINORS DNI 18+

Summary: As the youngest and most innocent member of the BAU, they all take care of their little angel. When they find out just how innocent you are, though, one member takes his possession to the next level. You're his little angel, and he's determined to have you.

Warnings: loss of virginity, loss of innocence, degradation, pet names, oral sex, thigh riding, fingering, cum marking, love bites, Spencer is territorial and possessive, Dom! Spencer Reid, PinV sex, mentions breeding, but he pulls out.

A/N: We've reached Day 8 of kinktober! It's our second "long" fic, meaning there's a bit more plot to this, and the smut scene is longer too (WC is almost 7k!) I hope you love this one just as much as I did... The kinktober masterlist can be found here, and my regular masterlist is here too! If you want something specific, my requests are open ❤️

Your first three months with the BAU were a blur, and for good reason. Endless cases, back-to-back, interrupted only by the slight hint of a weekend or the ever possible death row interview. You were tired, stressed, and afraid to walk home alone at night, and absolutely satisfied. As far as you were concerned, it was all worth it to get these monsters off the streets, to help save their victims and to find out what made them tick. There was nothing else you'd rather be doing. 

The team had helped you settle in well, too. You'd joined the team after Alex Blake had left - she'd recommended you actually from the college seminars you'd taken with her. You were obviously lacking a bit of experience, so they took on two team members, and you and Kate Callahan had the great opportunity of both being the newbie. But you had a slight disadvantage of age, coming in as the youngest member of the team. You thought that might be why you'd settled in so well, in all honesty. 

Hotch and Rossi were both protective in a fatherly way. Hotch pushed you and Rossi encouraged you and that was everything you needed from them. A strong pat on the back at the end of a case and a "you did good, kid," and whatever hell they'd pushed you through, it was worth it. Morgan's tough love was brotherly, but he did a great job at getting you to relax on and off the case, reminding you to not take the work home. JJ and Kate were great mentors. It wasn't easy being women in the FBI, let alone the unit that specifically looked into some of the most misogynistic killings, rapes and abductions in the world. They both gave you tips about how to handle condescending officers, and JJ had held your hair back after you'd puked your guts up on a particularly harrowing day in the field. With Penelope, friendship was easy, and you loved talking to her about whatever hyperfixation you were on that week, loving that there was someone on your team that had filled their life with genuine joy in the face of so much horror. 

And Spencer. Honestly, you were beginning to think that you'd used Spencer as a human stuffed toy a bit too much. 

You don't know how it happened at first, just that after one of your first few cases, you'd been so elated to find a victim alive, safe but traumatised, that you'd thrown yourself into his arms the minute you got back to the precinct. 

"We did it, I thought she was going to be dead, Spencer but she isn't." Your head was pressed into his chest, you were almost surprised he even heard them, muffled as they were. If you weren't so elated, you'd have noticed the way he'd stiffened at your touch, panicking slightly before awkwardly wrapping his arms around you, too. But you pulled away before you could notice that he wasn't really used to any physical comfort, bouncing off to write up your case report. 

Spencer noticed, though. Noticed how the heat of your body made him feel comforted, the way his heart rate increased to 125 BPM from it's base rate and didn't fall back to normal for another half hour. He noticed that you smelt like jasmine and patchouli, and more importantly, he noticed that he didn't really care if you touched him, and that was new. 

It became a kind of ritual for you, finding him after a case and folding into his arms to celebrate. They were friendly hugs, after all, a sign that you'd been through hell together, and you'd made it through like avenging angels. They only lingered longer when the cases went badly. You turned to crying in his arms after you'd discovered the body of a dead street girl, Veronica, in pieces in the house of an unsub who'd committed suicide by cop moments earlier. 

"I told her she'd be safe if she talked to us, Reid. I told her we'd protect her, that I'd protect her." You were so hurt by that failure that he'd had to drive you home that night, holding your hand the entire way so you didn't feel so alone, left to fester in your guilt. 

The rest of the team had begun teasing you about the hugs, but you'd brushed them off. You hugged everyone else too, and you knew for a fact that Penelope hugged every member of the team, so there was nothing special going on between you and Spencer. No one had deigned to inform you of Spencer's germophobia and aversion to touch. 

"Gonna tell me what that's all about?" Morgan asked Spencer as you bounced away from a hug one day, leaving to remove your FBI vest. 

"What what's all about?" He replied coldly, turning away to remove his own vest, replacing it with his blazer. 

"What, you don't have a statistic for how many germs are passed between people during a hug, Kid, come on, you were practically smelling her hair." The older man's eyebrows raised in a question again, but Spencer continued to blow him off. 

"I hug people all the time, it's not a big deal." He shrugged. 

"It took you four years to return one of Penelope's hugs, and you still only do that on special occasions. That's not all the time." 

"Derek, just drop it. There's nothing going on, she just… She just does it sometimes." 

It was when you'd hugged him in the middle of the office, without a case to use as an excuse, that you noticed an underlying tension in the office. You were all celebrating, of course, Callahan had just announced her pregnancy, and you were all so happy for her. You'd heard the happy news and instantly turned and thrown yourself into Spencer's arms. Even you weren't sure why, not even questioning it until you saw the awkward glances on the other profilers' faces. You brushed it off by rushing to give each of them hugs, and running out in a mad flush, needing air, or water or something to get you out of what was looking more and more like an interrogation room. 

A few cases later, the entire team headed to O'Keefe's to celebrate. 

"To another case successfully solved," Morgan toasted, and you all joined him, lifting your glasses in triumph. 

"To the wonders of non-alcoholic beer," chimed in Kate, leaving you all laughing together. The booth was small, and as usual, you'd found yourself sat right in the arms of Spencer Reid. You hadn't intended it, honestly, having slightly avoided him recently, but you'd followed Penelope into her side of the circular table, and Reid had followed you. You were sat squished between them, your arms resting awkwardly on your lap between drinks. 

"Okay, a night of drinking is slightly boring without some games to spice things up, what do you say, hot chocolate?" Penelope said, addressing Morgan who was on her other side. 

"I'm all ears, baby girl. What were you thinking?" 

"How about twenty questions? We already know a lot about each other, let's see what we don't know?" Kate suggested, thriving off of the knowledge that as the sole sober member present, she'd hold all the cards tomorrow. 

"What, how is asking questions a game?" Reid questioned jokingly from beside you. "That's just an interrogation or a therapy session, there's no winner or loser."  

Already slightly buzzing from your drink, you turned to him and out your fingers in his lips, shushing him. 

"No time for logic in matters of the bottle, Spencer. Let's play." He pulled your fingers off him, but nodded, holding them in his grip still as you turned back to the table. 

"I'll start! JJ, are you and Will thinking of having more baby LaMontagne's?" Penelope jumped at the chance to probe her teammate, and you laughed at her enthusiasm. 

"There have been discussions, but I'll not confirm or deny yet." JJ said, taking a sip of her drink as she slyly avoided a direct answer. 

"I always forget why you were so good with the press, Miss No Answers. Okay, your turn to ask a question." 

"Okay, Morgan. Are you thinking of popping the question to Savannah anytime soon?" 

"Did she send you?" He laughed and took a drink. "If I do, she'll be the first to know." 

The game went back and forth like this for a few rounds before Penelope turned the spotlight back to you. 

"Okay, Y/N. You were a college student recently, I know you've got some wild stories. Where's the craziest place you've ever done it?" You knew Penelope didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. She was just an open person. 

But you shifted in your seat nonetheless, trying to figure out if you could answer or even if you would. Your tongue was a bit looser than you expected though, because before you could even finish thinking you just blurted it out. 

"Nowhere." 

The others blinked at you slightly before Penelope dived in with another question. 

"Is that Nowhere, Oaklahoma, or you're just not having sex in crazy places?" 

"No. I'm not… I'm not having sex. Period. Never have." You felt yourself shrink as the other members of the team awkwardly apologised for probing you so much. Really it wasn't that big of a deal, and it wasn't as if you were saving it for religious or moral reasons. But you'd not been the most popular teenager, and you'd started studying serial killers and sociopaths so early that you really hadn't wanted to get so intimate with someone else like that. 

Unbeknownst to you, Spencer's grip on his own drink had tightened ever so slightly, his heart race had picked up again, and suddenly the hand that was holding yours suddenly let you go, quietly dropping your fingers like they were glowing cinders, and he was dripping in gasoline, waiting to ignite. 

Lust. He felt sick with himself for the images that were suddenly flashing through his mind now that he knew you'd never been held in that way, trying not to fantasise about you underneath him, holding him, begging him, feeling all of him. He took another swig of his drink and politely excused himself to get another as he let himself catch some air, as the sudden realization that he wanted you - and had wanted you for quite some time now - finally hit him.

The next couple of weeks were normal, and you were thankful to have that discussion behind you. No one treated you differently, acted like you were more of a child than before, asked you how your dating life was or set you up on blind dates, which was really refreshing actually. You'd let some friends know previously, and that's all they'd done, surprised that you could live ignorant to wonders of sex without shrivelling up and dying. 

The only thing that was different was Spencer. And that wasn't really difference so much as growing more comfortable with each other. He'd rest his hand on the small of your back now in support sometimes, or have a hand slung over the back of your chair when sitting together. He was constantly at your side, especially if you were around male suspects or officers who'd taken a bit of a ballsy approach. 

You liked it, probably a bit too much. You gravitated towards him in a room filled with people, and found yourself hugging him more often, when you left a room, when you entered one, when he looked like he needed it. Which, recently, was all the time. A month went by with this increased comfort level, and soon you found yourself feeling wrong if his hands weren't on you. 

He stood close to you all the time, and you noticed the stares you were getting from everyone else. A few officers who'd approach you would apologise to him when they noticed him at your back, hand on your hip as he pulled you away. 

After one case, you could even swear that you felt more than him than you were expecting. He'd moved away slightly in between one of your hugs, but you'd pulled his arms back around you and stepped closer, pressing your back against his chest, letting your head rest on his arms. Something hard and long wedged up against your ass, and in a split second he was pulling away before you could ask him about it. He excused himself, and you felt your body burn up. It was Spencer, it was just Spencer and that wasn't because of you, it was some other reason. 

Spencer didn't know what he was doing. He grew more possessive over you by the day, and he'd honestly nearly bitten the head off an officer who asked him for your number. 

"Sorry, she doesn't have a phone." 

"But I saw her with one earlier. Look I get it she's FBI, and you guys are-" 

"Okay, so she's not interested."

"Hey, why don't you let her decide that wise guy?" 

"Oh sure, get angry I'm sure she'd love that. She's not interested, she has me." He couldn't help himself from getting in the officers face at that, and Morgan had to pull him back from the edge. 

"Wow, wow, hey, calm down." The officer stormed out, and he felt triumphant for only a second before Morgan rounded on him. 

"Whatever this thing you've got going on, Spencer, you need to get it out of your system as soon as possible." His voice was low and stern, throwing a glance over his shoulder to where you were sitting, staring confusedly through the glass at Spencer, whose eyes refused to move from your own. 

" I just wanted him to back off, she doesn't like him like that."

"No, you wanted him to back off because you've marked her like some animal marking its territory. She's not your prey, Spencer, she's our team member, now you're gonna have to get your act together and leave her alone, because we've got work to do." 

Sighing and throwing his hands through his hair again, he finally looked away from you and gathered his breath. He wanted to stop this too, this horrible perverted feeling of needing his hands on you, wanting to possess you day and night. To protect you. He just wasn't sure if he was strong enough to do that. 

The next time you all went to O'Keefe's he certainly tried. You expected him to follow you into the booth again - he didn't, sitting opposite you next to JJ. You expected him to talk to you or look at you for more than a second at a time - he didn't, avoiding most conversations entirely and keeping his eyes fixed on the bar. You certainly expected him to still be sat at the table when you returned from the bathroom, ready to slip into the seat beside him, force him to talk to you. Instead he was gone, and you scanned the rest of the bar trying to locate him. 

Something green and vile jumped you when you finally locked onto him, stood at the bar, surrounded by other women. Surrounded was maybe an exaggeration, as there were really only two of them, but they were practically draping themselves over him, and for some reason that set something alight inside of you. 

You watched them for a moment, how one of them trailed a hand up his arm as he shuddered away from their touch, the other pressing herself against the bar so her chest pushed up dramatically. The green bile in your throat carried your feet forwards, and before you knew it, you were clearing it from your throat to grab their attentions. 

"Spencer, there you are!" You brightened your tone specifically, as you locked eyes with his panicked ones. The two girls looked you up and down as you moved closer, brushing past them to climb up right into his lap on the barstool, pulling his arm around you as you pressed your ass into his crotch. 

"Are you going to introduce me to your new friends?" The smile didn't reach your eyes as you let your back rest against his chest comfortably, watching the women to see their reactions. The one touching him pulled her arm back instantly, and the other readjusted her dress before they both left silently, carrying their glasses back to wherever they came from. 

You watched them leave a little triumphantly before the green faded, and you realised what you had done. 

"Y/N…?" His voice was hesitant in your ear, and you shivered slightly before pushing off of him. 

"I'm so sorry, Spence, it just- it… looked like you were hard." You panicked again, pushing closer to him. "No, like you were in a hard situation, not that you were," your hand accidentally dropped to his crotch as you spoke your final words: "Hard."

He twitched beneath you as you finally looked down to where your hand was, as his mouth opened to say something. 

"Y/N…" was all you heard before you turned around, and fast walked to the entrance, picking your bag up quickly on the way, and then sprinted the second the cold air hit your face. 

You cursed yourself inwardly as you ran the three blocks more to your apartment, thankful that you were at least in walking (or apparently running) distance. What the hell had you been thinking? Practically sexually harassing one of your coworkers like that, grabbing his dick, albeit accidentally. 

You slammed your door shut behind you, leaning against it and sliding to the floor as you finally accepted that whatever this was with Reid, it wasn't friendship for you anymore. And you weren't sure if it had ever been. 

With your head between your legs, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, you started replaying each moment with him, each touch from the very first. How even the memory of a brush past you could excite a fire in your heart, a heat between your legs growing by the second. 

You wanted to crawl pathetically into bed and not think about him until the next morning at work,  but fate, or Doctor Spencer Reid, had other plans. 

The knock at your door was sudden and incessant, the banging starting loud, and staying consistent until you tentatively pulled it open. 

He was stood there, chest heaving, looking down at you, sweat coating his forehead. 

"Can I… Come in?" He asked, and you nodded, too stunned at his sudden appearance to tell if this was real or just your fantasy becoming a little too realistic. 

He thanked you for letting him inside, and you showed him inside, guiding him to he couch, where you took a seat opposite him. 

"I wanted to make sure you were okay, you left in a rush and…" He trailed off, eyes flicking down to your lips. His Adam's apple bobbed with his swallow, and you watched it yourself, trying to avoid meeting his eyes, as if you were a schoolgirl about to get in trouble with a disappointed teacher. 

"I'm okay." 

"Okay, that's great, that's… Great." His breaths caught up to him, and he took another deep breath and a swallow before continuing. "How about we continue that game from last time. Twenty questions?" 

You'd do anything to stop him walking out of that door, but you felt too shy to touch him again, even in the friendly ways you were used to, so you eagerly accepted. 

"Yes, that… That sounds fun, thank you." 

"Okay. Question one. Do you know why I'm here?" He asks as he shifts closer to you, still not touching, but at a proximity where it would be natural to accidentally brush against one another. 

"N-No. But I might have an idea." He nodded at your response before moving on to his next question. 

"Question two. Are you a virgin?" He didn't trip or stumble over the words, pushing them out slowly and delicately so as not to offend. 

"Yes." The lump in your throat was thick, almost as if he'd put something there that you couldn't help but choke on. 

"Question three. Do you want to remain a virgin?" 

You shook your head no, following it with your voice seconds later as he stood up from his seat, putting some distance between you. 

"Question four. Do you feel intoxicated or drunk right now?" He held himself still as you sat on the very edge of your chair, desperate to feel his hands on you now. 

"No, I only had one sip at the bar before…" He held up a hand to silence you, and you did. 

Question five. Answer me honestly. Do you like it when I touch you?" 

"Yes." Your breath was a whisper, but it was breathy, sounding almost pornographic in your neediness. 

"Question six. Do you like it when other people touch you?" 

"Do you?" His head snapped back to yours, and you froze under his gaze. "Not as much." You answered and relaxed again, pouting slightly at his lack of answer. 

"Question seven. Do you like me touching other people?" He took a step closer to you again with this question, but you continued pouting as you shook your head. 

"No. I don't." His lips quirked upwards before he could stop them, but he gathered himself together again. 

"Question eight. Do you want me to leave?" You met his eyes at that question, taking one good, hard, long look at him. You noted the tensed jaw, the clenched fists, his stiff body language, trailing your eyes over him before looking him directly in the eyes. 

"No." You let the word hang on your tongue, pulling it out a bit longer than was necessary as you watched him take in a shaky breath. 

"Question nine. Do you want me to come over there and kiss you?" 

"God, yes." He was on you in seconds, restraints gone, throwing himself back at you as his lips collided with your own. Virgin you may be, but you'd kissed men before, and it had been nothing like this. 

His hands trailed up to your hair, tipping your head back slightly so he could gain better access. He bit your lip and thrust his tongue into your mouth when you gasped, so eager to consume every part of you whole. 

You'd never felt like this before. 

He pulled away, and you tried desperately to chase his lips, even as your lungs begged you to stop. 

"Last question," he whispered in the space between you, holding the sides of your face at a distance so neither of you could be tempted to dive in for a second kiss, or a third, or fourth. "Do you want me to fuck you?" You whimpered at his words, nodding furiously as you tried to lunge at him again, but he held you firm. 

"I need you to say your answer, baby. I need to hear your consent, okay?" You nod again and open your mouth, eyes never leaving his lips as you moan out a definitive "yes."

Instead of letting your lips fall against his again, he lunges for you, grabbing your legs and hauling you up into his arms, carrying you bridal style all the way back to your bedroom. 

"Gonna do it right," he mutters to himself as he throws you down on the bed, pulling back to take off his jacket and unbutton the cuffs on his shirt, rolling the sleeves up meticulously. 

"I'm going to take care of you, Y/N, okay?" You nod at him and flush, suddenly feeling the strength of his need for you as he holds himself back. He puts his hands on you again, gently coaxing your legs apart, pushing your skirt up over your hips. Reflexively, you move your hands over yourself, covering your sensitive places with your hands. 

"Don't cover yourself." His voice is strong, deep, as he orders you, and you let your arms drop back to your side. He traces his hands up and down your legs, almost as if he were memorising every inch of your skin, how you felt under his hands. 

His hands make their way up to your panties, and you watch with baited breath as he moves you, pulling your hips up so he can let them fall down. The lace material tickles you as he pushes them past your thighs, over your knees and finally off your legs entirely, balling them up and putting them in his pocket. 

"I'm going to touch you now, okay?" He asks it like a question, but he doesn't wait for your answer, unable to hold himself back before diving straight between your legs, so desperate to taste you that he's deaf to everything else. 

His tongue connects with your sensitive area first, tracing up and down at a steady pace as his legs half-heartedly push your legs open. It's almost as if he's enjoying the pressure of your legs wrapped around him, suffocating between your thighs as he feels your pleasure build, and build. 

Eventually he pushes your hips further apart, letting himself push his face into even more of you, his tongue entering your hole as he begins fucking it in and out of you, fingers coming back up to your clit to keep up the pressure there. 

"Spencer, please, please, fuck." 

"I love it when you beg for me like a needy little slut," he whispers, holding your legs apart as he looked up at you, face slick with your arousal. Your mouth drops wide at his words, and he immediately begins to retract them. 

"I'm sorry, Y/N, if that was too far, I just got caught up -" 

"I liked it." You said, quieting him as you spread your legs a bit further apart, begging for him to continue. He smiled and dived right back in, bringing his other hand up under your dress, all the way to your chest as you kept your legs open yourself. 

He sucked your clit into his mouth, lapping up all the juices you were releasing as you moaned underneath him, bucking into his face at the memory of his degradation. 

You were a needy little slut, and you needed him to make you cum. He was more than happy to oblige. 

He kept you there for what felt like forever, drinking you in for as long as he could. You orgasmed twice before he finished, completely overstimulated by the way he was desperately fucking you with his mouth. 

He was obsessed with you, with your scent, your taste, with being the first ever person to ever touch you like this, to fuck you, to make you feel so good. Without him even realising, you're pushed to the brink for a second time, shuddering under the heat of his mouth as he drinks you in. 

He finally pulls his head up again, coming up for air as you're twitching under him. 

"Perfect, baby, so perfect for me." His lips fall down to your own, and suddenly you're tasting yourself on his tongue. It's hypnotising, and despite the pleasure you've just received, you need more, desperate to feel him on you again. 

When he pulls his mouth away, he replaces himself with his fingers, pushing them into your mouth. 

"Suck," he says and you listen, as he watches the way you lick yourself off of him. 

He unzips your dress with his free hand, carefully pulling your arms out of the sleeves and pushing your dress off your body. You trace your tongue around every ridge of his fingers, leaving no inch undiscovered. He moved you to pull the dress of, and you graciously followed, letting him do whatever he wanted to you. 

"Nice little slut, tasting herself on my fingers?" He whispered when you were finally bare, pulling his fingers from your mouth, letting the trail of spit hang between you as you moaned. 

He removed himself from over you, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. 

"Come here. Come and sit on my lap." 

You cautiously followed his directions. You'd thought that he'd fuck you then, after spending so long getting you ready, but apart from his tie, which he was in the middle of discarding as you crawled over to him, he hadn't derobed any further. 

"That's it baby, come and sit yourself down right here." He pat his thigh and you crawled over, lowering yourself down onto his clothed leg. 

"What now, Spencer?" You stuttered the words out, heart beating as you awaited his instructions. 

"Now, I want you to rock your hips back and forth. Just like this." He grabbed your hips and started moving you against his leg, pushing you down to grind into him. 

"Spencer, wait, I don't know-" 

"I do. I know you can do it, so please try. For me." You pulled you in for a kiss, and then removed his hands from you, leaving you to rock against his thigh. 

You were unsure of the movements at first, moving slowly as you dragged your aching cunt up and down the top of his pants, watching as you saw the wet patch you were making. You moaned with each movement, growing faster and more confident as you continued. 

"That's it baby, use me to get yourself off, okay? Let me see you." He whispered in your ears, pushing your sweat-slicked hair ou of your face, holding it up for you. 

"Spencer please," you don't even know what you're asking for as you beg him, feeling that familiar bubble in your stomach grow. 

"No, you can do it. You look so beautiful like this, Y/N, so desperate for my cock, huh?" You start trying to unbutton his shirt, desperate to see more of him, to feel more of his bare skin on your own. But he stops your hands and holds them against his chest. 

"You need to ask nicely first, before trying to undress me like a needy little whore." The words should sound violent, should humiliate you, but his voice is so soft you simply move faster, moaning and desperate to cum one more time. 

"Fuck, Spencer, I'm gonna… I'm gonna…" 

"No, you're not." Before you finish, he pulls you off his leg, hauling your body back onto the bed, and laying you back down on your back. You moan in disapproval, so frustrated with the lack of release that you feel tears prick the corners of your eyes. 

"Don't cry, baby. I'll give you what you want soon." He practically rips his clothes off, pulling his vest over his head, stumbling over each button and removing his belt and pants before climbing over to you. His cock finally free you take your first glance at it. 

You'd never entirely been sure how it was that the male appendage fit inside something as small as your pussy, and you were doubly unsure about how Spencer's was ever going to fit inside you. You stared at it wide eyed, as you took in the length, the girth, and the heat of it as he stroked it in one hands, pushing on top of you. 

He let go of it as soon as he was between your legs, letting it fall onto your stomach as he crawled between your legs. He trailed a finger over your lower abdomen just around where his cock was twitching against you as his other hand came up to stroke your hair. 

"You look worried, Y/N, what's wrong?" 

"Will it, um, will it fit?" You asked, knowing how cliché you sounded. 

"We've spent the last thirty-seven minutes loosening you up with foreplay. It should fit, but I can't promise it won't hurt."

"Right, if my hymen is still intact you have to…" 

"That's right. And then it's going to reach all the way in you to here," with each word, he stepped his fingers up from your clit to where the tip of his dick sat on your stomach, letting you come to terms with exactly how full you were about to be. 

"I'm going to fill you, and you're going to be mine, and I'm going to be yours. My sweet angel." He stroked your face, catching his thumb on your lips on the way down, tempted to thrust it into your mouth again, to see just how much of a whore you could be, given the chance. 

Instead, he lined himself up with your dripping core, and, making sure one last time that this is what you wanted, slowly pushed in. 

It was uncomfortable at first, having something so wholly alien inside of you, you weren't sure how to react. You wrapped your arms around him, digging your nails in, deep, as he pushed in further. 

"Y/N, I need to move more now, and it's going to hurt a little, you just have to trust me, okay?" He kissed the top of your head, but you were so lost in the sensations to answer. With one swift jerk of his hips, he pushed through your hymen, and fully sheathed himself inside of you. He pressed small kisses everywhere on your face, while whispering to you how beautiful you were. 

"You're doing so good for me angel, I'm going to take care of you. Going to make you feel so much better than this. You're so beautiful." His lips were distractingly sweet, as were his words, and soon you found yourself relaxing into him, the sharp pain of earlier fading to an electric buzz inside of you. 

You jerked your hips up to meet his, and with that, he knew you were ready. From his words, you'd assumed that he'd move slowly in you. But with one final lingering kiss to your lips, he lifted his chest up, pinned your legs tightly down, and started thrusting hard and fast. 

"Sorry, just couldn't help myself baby. Needed to see you looking ruined underneath me." Moans spilled out of your mouth with his every movement, and the orgasm you'd built up earlier hit you like a ton of bricks, blackness hazing over your eyes as they rolled back in your head. 

"Fuck, fuck, Spencer, don't stop!" You screamed at the top of your lungs, unable to control your pitch or volume as he slammed into you desperately. He was so turned on by the sight of you beneath him, so proud of having fucked away your virginity, to have given you your very first penetrative orgasm that he wouldn't have heard anything that came out of your mouth. 

His eyes were fixated at the place between you, where you joined, where he was entering you, defiling you, claiming you, using you, breeding you. 

He knew he wouldn't cum inside of you, not the first time, but it was tempting. Instead, he chose to move his lips back to your skin. He marked you with love bites and hickeys across your neck, chest and shoulders as you moaned with every roll of his hips, shuddering on his cock. He was close. And seeing you like this, displaying all the signs that you were his and his only, he finally lost it. 

Pulling his dick out of you, he stroked it through his release, spraying his seed over the parts of your skin he hadn't bruised with love. Your stomach, your breasts, hell, one spurt even landed dangerously close to your lips, he was everywhere. You. Were. His. 

He fell beside you, panting for a few moments as you finally cracked your eyes back open, realising what the two of you had just done. You wiped the cum from your face with a stray finger, staring at it for a second before licking it off your finger. 

"As hot as that was, I think we should get you cleaned up properly, angel." He spends forever cleaning you up, carrying you to the bathroom, washing your entire body with hot water and a fresh cloth, running you a hot bath to relax your muscles. You snuggle into his chest at some point in the bath, relaxing so much into him, that you drift off to sleep. 

You feel him carry you to bed, semi-conscious, tucking you in and climbing in next to you. He holds you through the night, the way he holds you after your bad cases. He holds you until he doesn't. 

You're blindsided by the cold bed the next morning. You knew he would be there, you'd felt him inside you and next to you, and you'd needed his warmth, but he was gone. You looked for him in every other part of your home, looked for a note or an explanation, but there wasn't one. 

Through tears, you got ready for work, ready to face him and make him answer why he was suddenly gone. You wanted him to apologise, especially since he'd marked you so badly the night before you looked like a car crash victim from the neck down. 

Dark lavender blossomed along your collar bones as you looked at yourself in the mirror, trailing a finger along every place that he touched the night before. 

"How could you be so stupid?" You cursed yourself. If you'd have listened to what he was saying last night, really listened, you'd have known he wasn't going to be here in the morning. He wanted to ruin you, to possess you, to take away your virginity, and he'd done just that. 

You almost wanted to keep the bruises on display going into work, to make him confront the pain he caused you by leaving. In the end, it was the inevitable stares from everyone else that convinced you otherwise. You wouldn't give him the satisfaction. 

You pushed through the doors to the bullpen and didn't bother putting your bag down before you started scanning the room for him. 

"Where's Spencer?" You practically shouted the words at Morgan, unable to hold back your anger. 

"Y/N, what's wrong?" 

"Where is he?" You demand, and there must be something in your eyes that speaks to your devastation because Morgan shuts up and just points to the top of the stairs, where Spencer is exiting Hotch's office without a care in the world. 

You don't realise that something is tears until you're beating a hand against his chest in frustration as they spill down your face. 

"Where were you?" You demand, sobbing into his chest, as he pulls your hands away. The entire office is watching your commotion, but you don't care, you're not letting him move you out of the way. 

"Y/N, I need you to sign this." His voice is calm, and you hate him for that. That he can stay so neutral when he's just broken your heart. 

"No, not until you tell me why you left." 

"Sign the papers, Y/N, trust me." He pulls your chin up so you can look him in the eye, and you catch a glimpse of the man who has been holding you, comforting you for the last four months. You snatch the pen from him and sign the papers, thrusting them back at him with a scowl. 

He smiles as he looks down at them, placing them back on his desk before pulling you in for a long, deep kiss. You're shocked at first, but you melt into it, pulling him closer so he can't leave again. 

"I'm sorry. I had to come into the office to declare our relationship, Morgan sometimes tells me I have a one track mind, and when I woke up this morning, the one thing I wanted to do was get it in writing that you were mine." 

Your push the tears out of his face, and attempt to pull him down for another kiss. You don't get the chance, as the sound of several throats clearing around you burst your bubble. 

"Public space, no canoodling." Rossi shouts down at you from the balcony, a soft smirk on his face. 

Penelope runs in from her office, and stares wide-eyed at the lack of space between the two of you. "You! And you! Security cameras….. You!"

"Now, I'm sure there's a story here, but from the state of our little angel's neck here, I'm sure I don't want to hear it." Derek laughs, smacking Spencer on the back in praise as he walks up the stairs to the meeting room. 

You slap a hand over your neck, trying to pull the turtleneck further up to hide the mark you evidently missed. 

"She's my angel, now." Spencer calls up to him. "I have the paperwork to prove it."