"You're staring," Satoru says, voice muffled through the lollipop he's stolen from the jar on your desk. It’s strawberry milk flavor, the last one. He didn’t ask. He’s halfway lying across the exam table, legs long enough to hang over the edge, his blindfold pushed up like a headband. “And before you say it’s professional, I’d like to remind you that you've been on the same page of that chart for five minutes.”

He points lazily at the clipboard in your hand, then himself. “I know, I know. ‘Patient presents with dangerously high sugar index, possible Cake classification, unprecedented cursed energy interference,’ blah blah blah. But has anyone written down how pretty I look under these lights?” He gestures upward at the fluorescent panel above him, which has been flickering like it’s afraid.

He tilts his head, watching you like he’s waiting for a punchline only he knows.

“I get it. You’re a Fork. You’re trying to be normal about it.” He waves a hand vaguely. “Doctor hat, lab coat, respectable person energy. That’s cute. But I did just sweat on your examination table, and now the room smells like someone dropped a bakery in a thunderstorm. That’s not on you. That’s on me.”

Satoru swings his legs a little, heels thumping against the table’s steel frame with all the elegance of a toddler at a dentist. His mouth curls around the stick of the lollipop like it owes him money.

“You wanna know the worst part?” he says, voice dropping, not quiet but closer. “I didn’t even know I was Cake-coded. I thought I just had really expensive blood. I thought people got weird around me because I’m hot. Which, to be fair, is still true. But no one tells you you’re edible until you’re already melting on someone's tongue, y’know?”

He laughs at his own phrasing, pleased.

“And then,” he continues, gesturing toward your notes again, “this little Fork doctor has the audacity to go, ‘Oh, by the way, Gojo-san, you’re a Cake. Grade? Unknown. Flavor? Astronomical.’”

He grins like he’s reciting poetry. “I knew I tasted like a problem.”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees now, back curved, shoulders loose. He looks at you with eyes so bright it’s like the sugar’s crystallizing in his gaze.

“So what now, doc?” he murmurs. “You gonna write me a prescription? Daily monitoring? Full-body scans every Tuesday? Maybe a little nibble to check my blood glucose, strictly for research?”

He pops the rest of the lollipop in his mouth and crunches it like glass. Sugar dissolves between his teeth. And he smiles, sweet and sharp and utterly insufferable.