PAS DE DEUX ┊ GOJO SATORU
tags: GN reader, no curse au (ballet), principal dancer gojo, reader is a photographer for his ballet company, fluff, flirting + casual touch, barre exercising, getting together, first kisses
wc: 2.4K
Gojo Satoru is just a man.
Albeit a coveted man, able to do anything on stage exactly as he would in rehearsal. High arabesques and tight pirouettes. Otherworldly form. Broad hands able to memorise another’s centre of gravity within the first twenty seconds. Swan-like and slender. All agile limbs, a body brazen with self-assurance and packed with strength, reflected in how effortlessly he can catch, spin, and dip his partners. Low, on perfect pointe.
A beautiful, talented, annoying man. That which has chosen to breathe down your neck as you fiddle with your camera, rather than occupy any other corner of the large studio.
“You’re distracting me, Satoru”.
“How am I distracting?” he asked, inclining his head. You gave him a look, and emphatically motioned at him from head to toe. Satoru cracks a grin, those piercing blue eyes gleaming, “By existing?”
“No, because you're all up in my space. I’ll show you the pictures in a second so back up,” you snap, your hand fluttering dismissively at him. “And put a shirt on!”
A low, vibrating hum, and a smile that holds a sincere gentleness to it that you wouldn’t have expected to find. He looks almost boyish. You turn from it and feel his presence move away like the sun being blocked out, steady warmth then the absence of it.
He does not put his shirt on. Instead Satoru takes position at the barre and walks his fingers along the top. Dawn filtered in through the small windows, casting a spotlight onto every dip and curve. You resolutely do not look at that narrow waist, nor how closely his tights clung to his hips, his thighs. Pulled over his soft soled slippers are a pair of grey stirrup leg warmers, bunched around his calves. He’s—
You draw a sharp inhale and refocus on the LCD screen, the neckstrap suddenly uncomfortably heavy.
Satoru is a bit older than most of the other dancers you photograph but no more mature for it. Granted he’s gentler in his discipline, more experienced, and always less eager for the practice to be over. He liked the day to drag on and on, especially if someone was watching him.
People said he was arrogant. Maybe that was a little true and with good reason. But your lense saw through the veneer that Satoru wore. Session after session, through rehearsals and classes and auditions, you saw pride for his craft, and how deeply he loved imbuing that love into his juniors.
You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying so, but watching him dance felt transcendent. Whoever the pair, he made every pas de deux seem seamless, like two halves of the same entity coming together. Solo he was in a league of his own. Sometimes he danced as if he loved beyond the scope of his skin. Sometimes he danced as if the whole world had betrayed him.
“How’d I do this time?” you hear him ask in that very cavalier way that betrayed his interest immediately, becoming antsy in your prolonged silence. “Pretty good, right?”
Today you managed to shoot him demonstrating a particularly heartbreaking variation of a grand jeté. He reached the peak and fell so gracefully that you’d felt the whole room hold its breath. Another beep and the camera screen flickers to that very photo. Right leg stretched anterior, his left posterior to his body, evenly split into a horizon as he soared through the air. Rather than poise to mimic an elegant wingspan he had curved an arm into an arc over his face, almost as if in anguish, while the other draped behind him.
“Why ask if you already know?” you deflected, switching to the next photograph. “You definitely have a flair for the dramatic”.
“Maybe I want to hear it from your mouth,” you can hear the layered petulance behind his words. It makes you restless to think your praise could hold any significance to him. “Tense today, aren’t we? You should do some barre exercises with me. Loosen you up a little,” he continues, clicking his tongue. “I could even teach you some steps”.
You snort lightly, “That’s a ridiculous idea”.
“I don’t think so,” Satoru disagrees, a contemplative tone to his voice. Intensity returns to his gaze as it roams over your form. “You’re the only person in the company I haven’t danced with yet. Can you blame me?”
“It wouldn’t be dancing, Satoru. You know I can’t dance,” you insist, or so you think, the weak response barely audible over the heartbeat flooding your ears. “I’d look like a fucked up marionette”.
A hand crosses your line of sight. You hadn’t even noticed his approach. Satoru plucks the camera from your slackened grasp and slips the neckstrap over your head in one swift movement. “Then let me pull your strings,” he teases, proffering his open palm. Your throat grows dry.
“That was awful,” you tell him, clutching to whatever dignity you have left. Then you take it. Long fingers enclose over your knuckles and he smiles.
Sometimes when you want something you’ll take it in whatever manner the universe is willing to give it.
“Ha. Worked though”.
As mercy would have it, Satoru guides you as he would a beginner. You’ve lived and worked amongst dancers for years. Your mind is familiar with the lifestyle, the lingo and the routine, but your muscles are not. “Another rep. Heels together with your toes turned out—that’s it, bend slightly,” your pulse rockets at the light touch to your hip, firm yet gentle in encouraging you to bend. The room is much hotter than you recall. “Place one foot in front of you. Point. Now sweep it around to the back in a C-shape,” warmth lingers where his fingertips had been as he steps back. “Point your feet,” he says, his lips suddenly close to your ear.
“What—?”
“As you circle,” Satoru repeats. “Point your feet.” You exhale and repeat. “Hm. Good at taking instructions, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to kill you,” comes your shaky response, already feeling clammy. It doesn’t escape you that he still hasn’t put a shirt on. Your inner thigh muscles are burning. Satoru laughs and the irritation ebbs away because he sounds happy. Giddy, even.
“This one will open your hips nicely,” Satoru finds your waist again and pivots you to face the barre. His body heat seeps through your t-shirt where he’s pressed against your back. Hands slide beneath your arms and down to your wrists, delicately placing them atop the barre. “Keep taking deep breaths for me. Bend your knees—hold,” the ache forces your eyes shut for the five seconds he keeps you inert, plunged into fleeting darkness with just his low, honeyed voice to guide you.
This really was a terrible idea.
“Rise to plié,” Satoru murmurs. “Up into demi-pointe. There you are, now hold again”.
Shadows pool into the studio space as the evening draws on. You’re rendered a sticky mess, and not in the manner you’d have liked. Wondrously, and despite the soreness that will no doubt wear in tomorrow, you had begun to feel you were working with your body and not against it.
Satoru had barely broken a sweat. You take comfort in the splotchy flush covering his cheeks and how his chest rises and falls, both signs of exertion. Equally as distracting. “You’re almost a natural,” he says, running a hand through his silky white hair.
Unsteady on your feet, you roll your eyes skyward while the burning in your lungs dwindles. “Sure. We’ll be onto our own pas de deux in no time,” you joke offhandedly. But Satoru’s expression wanes into something like longing in your periphery. Fondness, and then to amusement.
“Maybe not. Your pointe needs work,” he says.
“Well excuse me, big shot. I’m not even wearing the right shoes—”
“Want to try some lifts?”
A stone of dread drops into your stomach. The barre digs into your lower back as you lean against the wall, “We do some—some routine warmups and you think I’m ready for partnered lifts?!”
Satoru’s voice remains steady but his lips are starting to purse as he mirrors your posture, “I can take your weight”.
You didn’t doubt it. Satoru’s ability appeared to defy physics all together and that translated well with his counterparts too, whoever they may be. You’ve seen him lift people of every different shape and weight. Each one would become weightless in his embrace.
“No. No lifts,” you tell him, trying for a cadence that inspired authority. Satoru arched his brow and you got the sense that to him you were akin to a small disgruntled cat. Whether it’s the fatigue that lowers your inhibitions or plain pettiness, you hear yourself say, “I think you just want an excuse to touch me more”.
A pulse of magnetised desire rippled through the atmosphere. You don’t miss the way his breathing hitched, or how the hand absently rubbing the back of his neck stilled only for a moment before falling to his hip. Satoru swallows. Your eyes follow how his thumb strums the waistband of his tights—tights that leave very little to the imagination.
Anticipation prickles through your belly when he takes a step forward, then another, until his nose bumps your own. “You’re not supposed to say the quiet part out loud,” he murmurs, a little breathless. It ghosts across your lips. There’s trepidation in his gaze, searching your expression for rejection or discomfort, neither of which he will find.
You are reminded again that for all his apparent confidence and talent, Gojo Satoru was still very much human.
Your hands lingered in the narrow space between your bodies. Restlessly clenching, uncurling. Not knowing where to put them. The bare skin of his abdomen brushes your knuckles. “Satoru,” you begin.
He hums, palms coming to rest on your hips. He leans into you, emboldened by the invocation of his name, and echoes yours back.
“Did you seriously…” your thoughts drift as he dips lower, lingering. The blood rushes to your head. You could easily tip your head, align your mouths, and bring him into a kiss. Somehow the simplicity of that makes this whole charade even more laughable. “Don’t tell me you made me do a workout instead of just asking me on a date like a normal person”.
The response registers visibly on his face. He blinks, delicate pale lashes fanning over his cheeks, and in the next breath he’s lighting up, eyes first, glittering urainian blue. “That was hardly a workout,” he says, warmth bleeding into his voice. “It was a warmup”.
“Warmup my ass”.
“Can, if you want”.
Laughing, you cradle his jaw and say, “Stop being annoying and kiss me”.
Satoru’s hands have slipped beneath your shirt. He squeezes, smiles at the feel of soft flesh yielding under his thumbs, “Alright”.
Always has to have the last word, you think amusedly. Satoru pressed impossibly close. The barre has since become numb where it prods at your back. Your lips part as he tilts and your mouths brush, want knotted deep in your belly. It is slow at first, hesitant. But every movement of Satoru’s lips turns into sweet affirmation. Quick, then long, then greedy.
You wrap your arms around his neck and feel him shudder as you suck gently at his plush bottom lip. He paws at you with more fervour, languidly licking into your mouth. Soft wet sounds reach your ears and a contented hum reverberates through your skin that you can’t help returning. You feel his lips stretch thin into a smirk.
When you eventually part for breath your chest is pounding. He watches you closely. Half lidded and entirely too pleased. Something about the certainty and satisfaction stunned you then. Coloured the world around you in roseate. “You really do like me, don’t you?”
Satoru doesn’t falter. Quiet and deeply amused, he replies, “What gave it away? The constant pestering, the always staying behind after hours, the never wearing a shirt, the—?”
“Okay, okay. I get it,” you sighed, smoothing your palms down his bare chest simply because you can. “…I like you too, you know”.
“Yeah?”
You hummed. “What gave it away? The constant pestering?” you kissing the corner of his mouth, “The always staying after hours?” and then his cheek.
Satoru turns quickly to chase as you recline, nipping at your mouth. “Point taken,” he rumbles, pinching at the fabric of your shirt and lightly tugging it. “Pattern dictates this should go, next”.
“You know we need to lock up. If I let you start we’ll never stop,” you laughed, wriggling out from his embrace. The studio will be shrouded in complete darkness soon, and now you both need to shower. Satoru reluctantly lets you go, trailing after you as you collect your camera and pass it between your hands.
The screen flickers on, back to that incredible grand jeté. Satoru hooks his chin over your shoulder. “You really do photograph beautifully,” you think aloud. His jaw shifts and you can tell he’s smiling. “What were you thinking about, when you jumped?”
Satoru sniffed, not even pretending to think of something profound. “Mochi stuffed with whipped cream and zunda”.
You sigh fondly, eyes falling closed. Beautiful, talented, annoying man indeed.
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