You have class the next day. You don't speak with your mother as she sets the table for breakfast, but you do wave at her by the door. You wordlessly close the door behind you and make your way to school. You plug in your earphones and play a song on your phone as you walk over the snow-filled road, before the gates of your university come into view.
You match your footsteps to the notes of the music. It's not a happy song; it held no note of that. An unyielding song–deadly, flat shade of grey, a shade which was a negation of colour, an annihilation of any possibility of sentimentality, an ultimately dejected and miserable grey.
You hum mindlessly as you twirl your earphone wires. Someone grabs your arm.
"What?" You turn to look at the hand that was wrapped your upper arm and frown. "What do you want?"
"Let's go to the cafe," Sato implores. You shake off the hand and turn up the volume of the song. "(first name)–"
"You have no right to call me by my first name," You nearly shout over the music blaring in your ears, and turn away from him. "Leave me alone."
You walk towards class. Once in the classroom, you complete a quiz that was scheduled for, and when you are finished, you exit the classroom. Had this been the past, Sato would have been waiting for you by the entrance, with possibly a plushie or a bouquet of flowers. You begin to walk faster at the memory: it was just a memory, and that was what pained you. Your walk turns into a speed-walk, before it evolves into running, and then sprinting. You're sprinting with your bag thumping against your back, arms pumping and tears flying off your waterline. You're sprinting across campus to escape the pain of it all, the loveliness of what could have been. You're running, without any plans of stopping, with no one stopping you. But you know that even if you run a mile, a kilometre, you'll remain in the same place because it is the roots not the leaves that are grounded down in the soil.
Maybe loving Sato was the only proper thing you could do. Maybe that was why you were hurting so intensely; maybe that was why you couldn't face him for more than five seconds–you would find yourself forgiving him too easily. The charming, boyish smile would send you over the edge. You were like a house of cards. Destroying it would only prove its existence was fragile.
And Gojo didn't make it any easier. Truth be told, and scarily enough, you liked him. You would never write it in your diary because writing it down would set your feelings into stone. Your feelings are all over the place: all they can do now is fall, and break. You can't do this: please spare you from the pain that was love. Why do you love by yourself and always say goodbye all by yourself? Why do you need Gojo knowing you're going to get hurt?
You run straight out of university campus and into the arms of–
"Oomph," You collide with a solid, firm chest. You look up and you're met with,
"Ah, well if it isn't my favourite girl!" Gojo heartily chuckles as he wraps his arms around you, nestling you closer into him. "What're you doing, sprinting at the rate you were?"
"Let go of me," Your voice comes out as muffled. He smiles.
"Nah. I think I'll hold onto you for just a bit longer. It's not often I get to hold a pretty girl like yourself."
The warmth he exudes, in contrast with the chilly colds of winter makes you tear up. You couldn't remember a time where you felt so wholly held, so lovingly held. Even your mother kept a distance from you. As if you were some problem child, as if you were a reminder of what your father did to her: Knock her up and leave. Being held like this as if the hug could glue you back together had been proof that you were broken all along.
"Oh no, don't cry," Gojo says, wiping your tears to the side with his thumbs. "You're still pretty when you cry, you know that?"
"Don't say such things," You cry harder, hiding your face and harshly shoving him off of you. "Love is a fucking lie and you're just making it harder for me."
"What do you mean?"
"All of this!" You wildly gesture with a grand gesture. "You make my head run; why is it that I'm always having to suffer because of my own feelings? Stop playing with me like that–you're not interested in me like that, stop saying things that make me–"
He silences all your blabberings by leaning down and pressing his lips against yours. Your eyes widen as his flutter shut. He wore no blindfold this time, and his sunglasses were perched over his head.
His arms wrap around your waist and yours tentatively hang over his nape. Even when he is kissing you, does he look exponentially beautiful. He draws back and smiles at you.
"If that doesn't show how I feel about you, then I don't know what else," He puts a finger to his chin. "Unless we have se–"
"Uhh," You blurted out to stop him from completing his sentence. "No."
"Alright," He says, maintaining his smile. "Whatever you say."
"What are you doing here?" You ask, looking around. You realise that passersby were staring at you two, and your cheeks burn with embarrassment. You clamp a hand over your mouth. "Oh fuck."
"Don't mind," He waves them off. "I was looking for you."
You point a finger to yourself. "Me?"
"Yeah," He says. "I hear that your university has an issue with cursed spirits."
"Really?" You say. "You know, I just realised something."
"Hm?"
"Sato. Satoru," You say, with a small smile. "His name is a syllable off of your first name."
"Don't remind me of him," He says playfully, though it almost sounded like a warning. "I get the ick."
"The ick?"
"You know. When you feel disgusted with someone," He says. "I cringe whenever you mention his name."
"Sorry, then," You say, wiping the remnants of your tears away. "I won't mention him again."
Gojo looks behind you, at the sprawling gates of your university. "You know, your school is a breeding ground for cursed spirits."
"Really?"
"I'm not surprised it is. Schools and universities are often a place where cursed spirits are densely populated," He says, flicking his head down so that his sunglasses fell to the bridge of his nose. He looks at you through the tinted lens. "Don't bring one home, okay?"
"I'll try not to."
He walks you back home, and the walk home is sweet. It reminds you of better days, of days filled with unbridled laughter and heartfelt confessions. Days that could possibly be repeated faithfully by Gojo. Even though he kissed you, you still felt as if there was a possibility that he would abandon you just like everyone did in your life.
"Why were you crying earlier?" He finally addresses the elephant in the room, and you sigh.
"Nothing."
"Tell meeee!"
"No, really, it was about nothing."
"Tell me about this nothing, then."
You hum. "Memories of Sato were haunting me. Burying me alive. I wonder if you'll break my heart just like he did."
"Never."
You look up at him. "Hm?"
"Never," He says it again, with such firmness that you can't help but blink at his tone. "Never. You might as well get struck by lightning three times than have me break your heart."
You stare at him, speechless, and realise that you've gone soft on him–all this time you were fighting with yourself and trying to stay strong did he slip inside like a wintery breeze through the gap of a window. All in the name of love. And you're tempted to give into it; it was like a trance, or sleepwalking. Give yourself up. Give up. Blend in with love. You might as well. It was as if someone or something was whispering, enticing you into the darkness of love: Come in, come over here. Finish. It will be a relief. It will be completeness. It won't hurt like last time.
You wonder if that sort of whispering is beginning in the ears of some of the others. Hermits in the desert heard those voices, prisoners in the dungeons. But whatever it was, it was tempting.
"Man, now that I know you superficially through your diary, I want to know you deeper," He says. "In the name of love, of course. Getting to know you and understanding the real, total you."
"You couldn't get that information out of my diary?" You ask him.
"You stopped talking about emotional stuff after the breakup," He says. "You went from sentimental to a Franklinesque schedule. All you wrote was what you did that day. It was like the diary got a new owner."
"That's what heartbreak does to a girl," You say, turning your gaze to the road splayed out before you.
Gojo wants to explore your deeper depths, figuratively speaking. He wanted your lid off. But according to Greek myth, opening the Pandora's box released all the evil in the world. But hope remained in the box. He didn't want hope to escape you, at least not with him. And your history with Sato was something he was interested in for his own gain: to further distance you from him and into him.
"You know, you're the first person I'm really interested in to this extent."
"Really? I'm honoured." Your voice is hesitant, as if it were unwilling to give up its flatness, its protective barrier.
"Yep! Mostly it's the other way around," He says. "You know, people wanting to know the strongest."
"You are so humble."
"It's the truth!"
"Mhm."