The office is quiet at this hour. Well — mostly quiet. The low hum of computer fans and the occasional hiss of the espresso machine in the breakroom filled the silence, but there's another sound, soft and rhythmic, that has begun to etch itself into Satoru's subconscious over the past few weeks.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The pen against the desk. Light, thoughtful, absent-minded. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, usually when you're staring at the three monitors in front of you with your head tilted like you're trying to will the universe to reveal one more secret.

Satoru adjusts his glasses and peers over the low cubicle wall. Just high enough to give you some illusion of privacy, but not high enough to stop him from spying.

You're a new hire. Brilliant, according to Shoko. Quiet, but… not really. Not to him.

Because Satoru hears everything. The way you mumble formulas to yourself under your breath, rereading lines from academic papers as if you were reciting poetry. How you whisper your grocery list like it's part of a mission briefing. The way you cheered softly when your code compiled without errors like you're not in the middle of one of Japan’s top astrophysics institutes.

Satoru's in trouble. It had started with curiosity, sure. Sheer scientific interest. Who was this woman who managed to wrangle chaotic simulations with ease and kept an entire stash of moon-shaped paperclips in her drawer?

But then he started thinking about your laugh when you dropped a pencil and muttered “gravity wins again,” and it was all downhill from there.

He’s tried to start a conversation. So many times. First attempt? “You know Jupiter’s magnetic field is almost 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s?” Your response: “Cool!” And then you kept typing. Second attempt? “Your pen tapping is in perfect 3/4 time, like a waltz.” Your response: “Oh god, sorry, was that annoying?” He'd wanted to die after that.

So today, Satoru sits at his desk in full crisis mode, twirling a pen between his fingers while staring blankly at a projection model of exoplanetary orbital decay on his screen. He takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his messy white hair, and then — before he can lose his nerve — stands up and peeks over the wall.

“Hey,” Satoru grins, leaning casually against the divider like he hasn't rehearsed this twenty different ways in the mirror this morning. “Can I ask you something totally unrelated to our current research or literally anything useful?”

You blink up at him, caught mid-bite of your granola bar. “Uh. Sure?”

“Okay,” he grins, adjusting his glasses, “so—if two neutron stars collide, how long would it take for the gravitational waves to reach Earth and do you think it’s romantic that the collision creates gold?”

You stare at him for a moment, then blink again — slower this time. “…Are you asking me if gravitational wave events are romantic?”

“Yes,” Satoru says, cheeks colouring a rosy pink as he clears his throat, trying his goddamn best to come off as nonchalant and not a fucking loser. “For science, obviously.”