Chapter Text
There were things about living in a new place that Utahime had been prepared to deal with. She’d expected to miss the bakery in her old neighborhood and the short commute to the train station. She’d said goodbye to her old friends and co-workers, believing full well that the hardest part was going to be learning to live without the family she had found for herself in Kyoto. She could prepare to mitigate those losses through phone calls, texts- maybe even the occasional wine night over Skype with the girlies.
Point being, Utahime thought she was prepared She thought she knew what the hardest parts about starting a new life in a new town and a new apartment would look like.
Which is why she found herself so confused, so taken aback when it was her laundry that finally did her in. Her bed was covered in clothing waiting to be sorted out for the new dressers and closet space. It wasn’t the mess that did her in or the fact that re-organizing her wardrobe was proving to be overwhelming. It was the hangers. At her old place, she always hung her shirts and dresses with the hook of the hanger facing to the left- it just made the most sense. But with the closet positioned in the opposite corner of the room in this apartment, hanging them to the right was the most practical.
Needless to say, the largest pile of clothing on Utahime’s bed consisted of a mountain of shirts laying flat on their hangers, each with the hook facing to the left- and suddenly Utahime realized that the most difficult parts of starting fresh were going to be found here in her day to day routine. The mindless chores she did each day were no longer going to be an opportunity for her to unwind and simply go brain dead. There would be no forgetting that she was somewhere new for a long, long time.
It wasn’t much easier at work, either. The new job did everything just slightly different from the way her old job had. Her computer was on the left side of the office now, not the right as it used to be. She took the elevator up to the parking garage, not down. Her co-workers were all relatively nice, so she didn’t have many complaints on that front. Sure, Naoya in accounting could be a bit big brained, pushy, touchy - even imposing on the mornings he came to work hungover. Other than that though, everyone was at least surface level kind to her. They’d all say hello, ask if she wanted anything when they ordered take out as a group for lunch. It wasn’t genuine, though. There was nobody she looked forward to seeing after the weekend, nobody she had let in like a real friend.
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Utahime stepped into her apartment late that Friday evening, having missed the usual train she took by just a minute after Naoya had accosted her in the hallway on the way out. He’d been stumbling, grasping at the wall next to her to brace himself as he asked about her plans for that night. I’m not having dinner with you, if that’s what you’re asking. She was sure she’d heard a conversation in passing between two other employees in the hall a few days ago- Something about Naoya being related to the company president, that he was slated to take over and was passed up at the last second for his cousin. It’d explain why he was so much more intolerable the last few days, at least. He must have been drinking.
Usually, she’d treat herself after a long day like this. She had a stash of dollar face masks that would burn her face in just the right way to distract herself from her new life. She couldn’t care about her hangers or Naoya or her office if her face was on fire. Sometimes, she’d go all out and have a glass of wine if she felt like it.
But today, more than anything else, she wanted to sleep. The thought of taking her makeup off alone seemed like a monumental task. At least here alone in this apartment, nobody had to know if she skipped the facewash for a night. She’d wake up with mascara creased under her eyes and nobody would be the wiser when she showed up Saturday morning at the grocery store for her shopping.
She laid down on the couch, her shoes abandoned by the coffee table and her scrunchy tossed half-haphazardly on the floor like a discarded tissue. She didn’t bother to turn the light off, instead hiding her face in the crevices of the couch cushions to shield out the artificial light. That’s how she stayed for hours, the sun long since set behind her thin curtains still dusty and creased from the cardboard boxes they’d been unpacked from.
She was fast asleep until she wasn’t.
There was someone there, she couldn’t tell who. Everything was black - not a foreboding black, not the kind that would threaten to swallow a woman up but the kind that would take her in and hold her in its warmth - the kind that would protect her. It was safe, welcoming welcomed. She hadn’t felt so at peace in a lifetime. Something here was so familiar that she did not have to hesitate to embrace it, like her own personal slice of quiet heaven.
Except she wasn’t alone. Not in the conventional sense, at least
“Uta.” The voice was so soft and she could not pinpoint the direction it came from. It nearly surrounded her. She couldn’t find herself, looking around as if she would find a mirror and be able to position herself in this dream. That’s what this was, of course - a dream. She knew that, could figure that much out without needing any other input.
“Uta. Over here.” She spun around, raising her arm for the first time in this place as she’d done so. She could see it and look down to place herself and understand that she was present as a character in this dream, not a bystander looking down at the world her consciousness created for the night. He was standing across from her when she finally spotted him, his clothes a quarter shade lighter than the rest of the black around her, his white bangs smoothed back against his hairline.
He was gorgeous, practically looked like a god- his eyes holding enough of the world to compensate a hundred times over for the blackness around her. In the real world, she would have ran as far as she could. She would have made sure her makeup was perfect, covered the scar on her face and curled the ends of her hair up with the straightener she’d held onto since her college days.
But here in her dream, she didn’t feel the need to run. She could already feel the edges of this world beginning to fade, in just a few hours she’d be unlikely to even remember who this man was, that this dream had occurred at all in the first place.
“It is Uta, right? Can’t you hear me, beautiful?” She stared directly at him, not used to the figures of her dreams interacting with her before she poked them herself. She stepped forward and nodded her head, reaching out to the man and feeling his sleeve. Usually she couldn’t feel in her dreams, her sensory input stopping usually just at the point where she could know that she was feeling, but not how. or what In that moment though, she was keenly aware of the stiff material of his sleeve, the light fuzz that had gathered along the seam through its wear making itself known against her fingertips.
“Utahime, yes.”
“I can’t call you Uta?”
“My name is Utahime.”
“Whatever. How was work today, Uta?”
Even in her dreams, the best man she could conjure up was still annoying. She could let it slide for him, though. He’d be gone soon, surely to be forgotten when her phone awakes her with a buzzing in an hour to let her know it is dead and powering off.
Utahime didn’t answer him, instead leaning into his chest as his arms encircled her waist. Formalities were for the real world, she didn’t need to entertain this man any more than she already had.
Only, he felt so real. She could feel his breath against her neck, the light callouses of his fingers as they slid under her blouse and felt for the clasps of her bra. He went about his work as slowly as she could tolerate, savoring her as if this was all he would ever have her. He pressed light kisses across her collarbone, each one lingering a tenth of a second longer than the last.
“My name’s Gojo, but call me Satoru.” He’d breathed the words out against her, a shiver running through her at the feeling. “Feels kinda weird if you don’t know my name and I know yours, you know?”
Utahime furrowed her eyebrows, lightly nudging Satoru off her. She felt herself on a bed, but when she looked around her all she saw was the blackness. She could feel the dip of the mattress and the press of cool sheets against her torso, but none of it was visible to her. From the way Satoru was positioned above her, she could tell that he was aware of the presence of the bed, too. She couldn’t remember how she got there, though.
”How did you know my name though, Gojo?” She asked, biting back a smile at the way he twitched at the name. To be honest, it all felt like typical dream behavior. Maybe her senses were just heightened for some reason tonight, the rest of this didn’t feel so out of place in a dream. There’d been others where she found herself in places or positions that would have made no sense in the real world and yet felt completely natural in the moment.
“Satoru. And I just did, I guess. I looked at you and I knew you were Utahime Iori. I can’t really explain it.” She was unsatisfied with that answer, but the edges of the dream were coming in closer and she knew she didn’t have much longer here.
She reached up and placed her hands against his shoulders with a nod, deciding to at least appear comfortable with that answer while she was in this place. She could feel him make his way down her stomach, leaving a pathway of kisses from her waist down to her thigh. He nudged her legs apart and wedged his way in between them, her breath hitching when she first felt him make contact. She fisted her hands in the sheets that she was so certain were probably there and let her back arch just a few inches off the bed, letting out hiccupping gasps as he licked at her. Satoru, Satoru Satoru.
She whined as he pulled away, her legs twitching as she reached down and tried to bring him back. She’d been so close and could see the edges of the dream pulling in closer, too. Satoru let out a breathy sigh, his cheeks flushed red and his white hair having fallen back down across his forehead. He shushed her, wrapping his arms underneath her and pulling her to his chest as he buried his nose in her hair - for the first time in her life a man had shushed her and it turned her on.
Satoru please. She tightened the grasp of her legs around his waist and rocked against him, trying to tell him what she needed - that he needed to speed things up, stop dragging this out.
“Sh, you’re doing great, baby girl. You’re doing such a great job, hang in a little longer for me. I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.” He assured her, a wave of heat coming over her as he spoke.
He was so caring, wanted to treat her like she was the most important woman in the whole world. She felt him gently lay her back down into the bed and she watched above her as he began to strip himself, both of their eyes focused intently on one another and nothing else. It didn’t even matter that there wasn’t anyone or anything else to see. It wouldn’t have mattered if anything was cloaked behind the blackness, all she would have wanted to see was Satoru against it all.
“Just promise me something.” He’d asked, leaning back down and cupping her cheek as she twitched underneath him, just waiting, waiting, waiting
“Anything, Satoru. I’m yours.”
“Don’t wake up yet.”
And just like that, the edge of the dream closed in, the vibration of her phone in her pocket as it died jolting her back to the real world once again.