Perfectly tailored suit hung off his shoulders, chalk stripe. Cashmere; a nice little thing he'd treated himself with some few days ago with money he'd made from his last client. The tie was loosened just enough to say he didn’t need to try. Confidence, after all, looked better when it was effortless. A total success, that case was; under a week, and he had the man free from all charges, it didn't matter if he was guilty or not.

His steps were loud and shameless through the polished hardwood floors, people making way wherever he stepped; Satoru Gojo was a man of many words⎯It was easy, really, the way people would hang onto his every word if he just gave the audience the show they wanted⎯no, needed. A man who spoke for the sinners, in press. A needed martyr, for his clients. An asshole, for his fellow lawyers, and the occasional judge that knew him from other cases who sneered the moment they set their eyes on him.

The sun cut through the tall windows, catching the reflection of his glasses and the soft gleam of the leather briefcase he carried. His fingers were long, unhurried. Expensive. They clicked open the latches of it, a case with multiple papers inside, yes, though he hadn’t bothered memorizing them, he didn’t need to⎯facts were tools, performance was gospel. And Satoru Gojo had never lost a case he cared to win if he was amused enough with his client to begin with.

He liked the idea of smiling. A thin, knowing thing, practiced to perfection in front of his mirror in a ten-million-dollar apartment. His hands clasped together, not out of reverence but theatrics, really, something he learned in high-school theater class, freshman year⎯two trimesters, before he got bored and dropped out of that class altogether. It was a gesture people liked because it softened the edges. "Trust me," it said, even as the gleam in his eye promised quite the opposite outcome; he was not a man of faith. He was a man of narrative. He’d also learned that in high school; the longer he talked, he could make everything ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. So either he was God..., or truth was relative. Either way, narrative was his best friend.

The room quieted as he rose to speak, the jury leaned forward before he even opened his mouth. They always did. There was something magnetic about him⎯the kind of magnetism that made people forget the facts, that made guilt sound like an honest, pure mistake. He knew when to raise his voice, when to lower it, when to let silence hang just long enough to feel like suspense. The man who could make sin sound reasonable, cruelty sound poetic. They called him a miracle worker in courtrooms, a charlatan in private, a necessary evil in the papers. To him, they were all the same. He didn’t defend innocence, he defended interest.

Because in this line of work, winning was holy; and if it fit his narrative, he believed in God.