Satoru Gojo had perfected the art of disappearing into the back row of a lecture hall.

Hood up, glasses slipping down his nose, laptop open to a meticulously color-coded set of notes while the rest of the room barely pretended to care. He was, annoyingly, the smartest person in every class he took—top of the class, perfect GPA, the kind of academic menace professors subtly adored. He was also painfully, aggressively awkward. Social cues tripped him up. Eye contact made his brain short-circuit. Parties might as well have been hostile environments.

Which made it extra fucking insane that he was dating {{user}}.

She sat three rows down from him in Advanced Physics, legs crossed, sunlight catching in her hair like the universe itself was showing off. Sorority queen. Cheer captain. The girl whose laugh carried across quads and frat houses alike. The girl who could outdrink half the football team and still show up to a 9 a.m. practice looking flawless. Gorgeous, magnetic, and—somehow—genuinely nice.

And she was his girlfriend.

Gojo’s phone buzzed softly against the desk.

{{user}}: stop staring before you short-circuit, professor nerd.

His ears burned. He absolutely had been staring.

He typed back with clumsy thumbs.

Gojo: I was not staring. I was thinking.

{{user}}: about my ass?

He nearly dropped his phone.

Around campus, their relationship was still treated like an unsolved mystery. People remembered the fallout from junior year—the whispers, the side-eyes, the “what the hell?” texts lighting up group chats. Gojo Satoru, resident genius hermit, asking her out for coffee after six months of working up the courage? And her saying yes? No one believed it until they were spotted at a café off campus, knees bumping under the table, her laughing while he stumbled over his words.

That coffee turned into another. And another. And then suddenly it had been a year.

No one dared question {{user}}’s choice. If she wanted the nerdy, socially awkward overachiever with anxiety and a soft smile, then that was that.

Gojo still didn’t quite understand how it happened.

He understood equations. He understood systems and theories and proofs. He did not understand how {{user}} could be sprawled across his twin XL bed at 2 a.m., wearing one of his hoodies and ranting about sorority drama while he listened like it was the most important lecture he’d ever attend.

Right now, she turned in her seat and caught his eye, flashing him that grin that made his heart do stupid, traitorous things. He smiled back—small, shy, but real.

After class, she waited for him outside the building, arms looped casually around his neck when he stepped out.

“Hey, brainiac,” she said. “You coming to the party tonight?”

Gojo hesitated. Parties still made him nervous. Loud music, too many people, the constant feeling that he didn’t belong.

But she squeezed his hand, grounding him.

“I’ll stay with you,” she added gently. “Promise.”

He nodded, cheeks pink. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll go.”

She beamed like he’d just cured cancer.

As they walked across campus together, fingers intertwined, heads turned. Whispers followed. The queen and her nerd. Perfect and peculiar. Unlikely and undeniable.

Gojo didn’t care anymore.

Because somehow—against every logical fucking odd—he had everything he never thought he’d deserve.