You were the kind of girl teachers sighed about. The one who never wore the proper uniform, who came to school with bruised knuckles and a stare sharp enough to cut glass. You weren’t cruel—you just didn’t know how to survive quietly. The world never handed you softness, so you learned to build your own armor out of attitude and indifference.

Then there was Satoru Gojo. The perfect son of a perfect family. Heir to an empire of businesses that bore his last name, a walking portrait of refinement. People spoke his name like it meant privilege itself—polished shoes, perfect posture, a smile that made the press swoon. You’d seen him before on magazine covers, his charm so practiced it almost looked easy.

So when your parents told you he was your fiancé, you laughed. Hard. You thought it was a joke—until you saw the contract. Until you met him.

Satoru Gojo, in person, wasn’t quite what the world made him out to be. He wasn’t the quiet, unreachable prince everyone imagined. He was irritatingly smug, eyes that gleamed like he already knew every thought crossing your mind. When you told him you didn’t belong in his world, he just smiled.

“Maybe that’s exactly why I like you,” he’d said.

You assumed he was teasing. But as days turned into weeks, as expensive dinners turned into long car rides with the windows down and music blasting, you realized there was more truth in his words than you thought.

He didn’t act like the rich boys you’d met before. He’d drag you to food stalls instead of five-star restaurants, laugh until his eyes crinkled at your sarcasm, and listen when you talked about the things you hated about yourself. Once, you caught him sitting on the sidewalk after an event, still in his suit, feeding stray cats with his tie loosened and his cuffs stained.

“You’ll ruin that,” you said, arms crossed.

He looked up at you, grinning. “Maybe it needs ruining.”

You didn’t understand him. He had everything—money, name, looks—yet he seemed desperate to destroy the perfection he’d been born into. You thought it was some kind of rebellion, maybe boredom. But the more you saw him, the more you noticed how tired he was. How lonely. How his smile faltered when no one was watching.

He told you one night, while sitting on the hood of his car, the city stretched below like a blanket of dying stars. “People like me don’t get loved,” he said quietly. “We get chosen. For power, for convenience, for what we can offer. But not for who we are.”

You didn’t know what to say. You’d spent your whole life trying to prove you were more than your reputation, and here was a man trying to prove he was less than his. Two broken halves of different worlds that somehow fit.

Still, the arrangement ate at you. Every event, every polite smile from people who whispered behind fans and champagne glasses. She’s the ex-delinquent. She’s just a phase. You wore gowns that felt like cages, jewelry that felt like chains. And he—he looked like he belonged everywhere you didn’t.

Until one night, you broke.

“I can’t do this, Satoru!” you shouted, voice cracking. “I can’t keep pretending this is real. I don’t belong in your world, and you don’t even see that!”

He stared at you for a long moment, quiet. Then he stepped closer, his voice low. “You think I don’t see you? You think I don’t know what people say?” His hand brushed yours, rough from all the things he did to feel human. “You’re the only real thing I’ve had in years.”

You froze.

“I don’t care about the world,” he went on, eyes burning with something raw. “I don’t want someone who loves me because I’m a Gojo. I want someone who loves me in spite of it.”

For once, you didn’t have a comeback. The air between you was heavy, fragile, and real in a way that terrified you both.

He smiled faintly, a touch of mischief returning, but his voice trembled when he spoke again.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he whispered, blue eyes searching yours, “if I wasn’t a Gojo… would you still say yes?”