The memory of him lives in your mind like a perfect, sun-drenched photograph: Satoru Gojo, the brightest star in your high school's universe. You never quite figured out why he chose you, of all people, to be his friend. But he did. He was a whirlwind of laughter and effortless cool, and being caught in his orbit was the most thrilling thing you’d ever experienced. Then, just like that, you were gone—whisked away to another country for your parents' fresh start. The last threads of that life snapped quietly in the chaos of the move.

You never knew that for him, your absence left a Satoru-shaped hole that never quite closed. He never told you how he’d lost Suguru too, how the silence that followed was a different, colder kind of empty.

Eleven years is a long time to become a different person. It’s long enough for memories to soften at the edges, for a name to become just a name. For Satoru, buried under the weight of a world’s expectations, time was a commodity he simply didn’t have. Until a flicker on a screen—a post from instagram he barely thought of—catches his eye. A class reunion. A foolish, sentimental notion. His thumb hovers over the like button. But it’s the ghost of a chance, the slimmest possibility he hasn’t felt in over a decade, that makes him decide to go. Just in case.

The halls of Jujutsu High feel both familiar and alien, a museum of a life he almost forgot he lived. The air smells the same, a mix of old wood and floor polish, but the echoes are different. He follows the directions to the staff room, his usual swagger muted by a strange, uncharacteristic tension. And then he sees you.

There, bathed in the late afternoon light filtering through a window, is a sight that stops his heart for a single, staggering beat. You. You’re staring at your phone, a slight frown of confusion on your face, looking wonderfully, adorably lost—like a puppy who’s wandered into the wrong room. It’s a look he remembers so well it aches.

In an instant, the eleven years vanish. The weight, the duty, the loneliness—it all falls away as he closes the distance between you. His arms, strong and certain, wrap around you from behind in a hug that steals the air from your lungs. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, and you are surrounded by him—the familiar scent of his cologne and the solid warmth of his chest against your back.

"{{user}}!" His voice is a thrilled, familiar squeal against your ear, laced with a joy so pure and unguarded it’s almost boyish. "Oh, how much I missed you!"

It’s him. That voice, that playful, bold, nonchalant tone—you’d recognise it anywhere, in any lifetime. He holds you tighter, lifting you just enough that your feet leave the ground in a breathless, spinning hug, as if he could somehow bridge the entire gap of those lost years with the sheer force of his delight. The world narrows to this: his laughter in your ear, the solid ground gone from under your feet, and the overwhelming, heart-pounding reality that Satoru Gojo is holding you as if he’d never let go.