Before the Punchline Lands

Day 7 — Morning · Gojo's room — villa, morning

Gojo's room — pale morning light through the curtain, the villa already beginning to stir somewhere below

The room is warm and quiet and full of him — his breath, his hands, the specific weight of the night still sitting in the air between them. Rikki's fingers find him in the dark and she says his name again like it's the only word she knows, soft and wrecked, and his whole body answers before he does: a sharp breath, a tightening of the hand at her back, a sound low in his throat that he doesn't bother trying to swallow. Outside, somewhere distant, the villa is waking up — the faint clatter of the kitchen, a door somewhere down the hall — and neither of them moves toward it.

Gojo Satoru: "You're going to ruin me completely and you know it."

"I recall already doing that last night. But we can go again if you want." Rikki nuzzles herself into Gojo's side, eating up the feeling of lying next to him.

Rikki tucks herself against Gojo's side, her cheek finding the warm plane of his chest, and his arm comes around her without a beat of hesitation — automatic, like a thing he's been doing his whole life and just didn't have a name for until now. The morning light through the curtain gap has gone full and gold, falling in a stripe across the bed, across her shoulder, across the angle of his jaw as he looks down at her with an expression that has absolutely nothing performed in it. Downstairs, the villa is properly awake — a chair scraping the kitchen floor, the faint sound of someone's voice — and up here none of it exists yet.

Gojo Satoru: "Yeah. We can go again. We have literally nowhere to be."

Rikki giggles into his ear, whispering "Okay serious question though, how many girls have you had sex with before me? Because you performed last night like you've had some.... experience."

The question lands into the warm gold quiet of the morning and Gojo goes absolutely still for exactly one second — not defensive, not performative, just the particular stillness of a man who did not see that coming from the person tucked against his ribs. Then something helpless and genuine breaks across his face, a laugh he is actively failing to suppress, and he turns his head so his jaw rests against her hair. The morning light catches the line of his throat, the way it moves when he swallows the laugh and loses the battle entirely.

Gojo Satoru: "I genuinely cannot tell if you're complimenting me or doing an audit right now."

"You dont have to answer if you dont want to.... wait no, you absolutely have to answer. I am dying to know." Rikki wraps her arm around Gojo, burying her face into the nape of his neck, enjoying the physical contact more than she probably should

Gojo goes very, very quiet — the specific quiet of a man who is doing rapid internal calculations about how honest he actually wants to be. His chest rises under her cheek, the gold stripe of morning light shifting with it, and his hand finds her arm where it's wrapped around him and does that thing he always does: traces a slow arc with his thumb, automatic, like he doesn't fully know he's doing it. The villa sounds drift up from below — a cabinet closing, someone's voice, the ordinary machinery of a morning that has no idea what's happening in this room.

Gojo Satoru: "The number's not embarrassing. The context is."

"Im listening..." rikki pauses to give him time to answer, planting tiny kisses along his cheek and neck to pass the time.

Rikki presses a kiss just below his jaw, then another at the hinge of it, slow and unhurried, her lips mapping the warmth of his neck while she waits. The gold stripe of morning light has shifted a few degrees — longer now, pooling across the pillow between them — and Gojo's chest rises once, twice, the thumb tracing her arm going still mid-arc as he actually thinks about it, which is, by itself, remarkable. When he finally speaks, it isn't performed — there's no grin in it, no angle.

Gojo Satoru: "Eleven. But four of them were the same person at different points in my life, so draw your own conclusions about the math, and three of them probably shouldn't have happened, which is the context I was referring to."

"That's higher than my number. Tell me about these mystery girls - or guys, I don't want to assume."

The question lands and Gojo goes absolutely still — not from embarrassment, just from the particular shock of not having anticipated it. His thumb, which had been tracing its slow arc on her arm, stops completely. The morning light sits in a long stripe across the pillow between them, and he stares up at the ceiling for a long moment with the expression of a man doing quiet inventory of his own life choices.

Gojo Satoru: "It was always girls. But the — okay, the fact that you left room for it is genuinely the nicest thing anyone has said to me in weeks, so. Thank you for that."

"Of course. Im not one to assume someone's sexuality." Rikki laughed a little before continuing,"Im really intrigued to know more about this one person, four times girl"

Gojo goes very quiet for a beat — the kind of quiet that has shape to it, like he's deciding exactly how honest he wants to be while Rikki's lips are still warm against his neck. His thumb resumes its slow arc on her arm, and when he finally exhales it's through his nose, slow and deliberate, the way a man releases a thing he's been holding for a while. The gold stripe of morning light hasn't moved; the villa below hasn't stopped; and up here something shifts in the temperature of the room.

Gojo Satoru: "Same person at eighteen, twenty, twenty-three, and twenty-six. Which is either very romantic or very embarrassing depending on how you look at it — I genuinely haven't decided."

Rikki laughed at the throwback comment, delighted that Gojo remembered what she said to him back when she gave him that massage. Her heart did drop a little at the idea of Gojo having a serious relationship with someone, which of course is a very silly and illogical thing to do because everyone has a past, but emotions aren't always logical. Rikki planted another kiss on Gojo before continuing, "Tell me more about her.... its obvious she meant something to you."

The laugh that breaks out of Rikki is warm and a little helpless — the kind that happens when you realize someone has been paying that close attention — and Gojo goes very, very quiet under her, the kind of quiet that means he caught it too. His thumb slows on her arm. The morning light sits long and gold across the pillow, and somewhere below in the villa a drawer slides shut, someone's voice carries and fades, and up here the world narrows to the particular weight of a thing about to be said out loud for the first time in a while. The small drop in her chest — at the idea of her, whoever she is, the one who got him four separate times — is illogical, and Rikki knows it, and it doesn't matter at all.

Gojo Satoru: "Her name was Shion. We met at eighteen. And then life kept — I don't know. Putting us in the same room at the wrong time, or maybe the right time, depending on which version of me you're asking."

Rikki gently starts to trace lines on Gojo's chest as they lay side by side, giving him the space to keep opening up if he wanted to.

Rikki's fingertips find his chest and start moving — slow, idle, no destination — the way you touch something you're not trying to hold onto, just feel. The morning light sits gold and unbothered across the pillow, and Gojo watches her hand for a moment the way he watches things he's trying to catalogue before they're gone. His exhale is the quietest version of him she's heard. When he speaks, it's at the ceiling, not at her, and his voice has that texture it only gets when he's not performing for anyone.

Gojo Satoru: "Last time was twenty-six. She called me and said she was getting married. Not — not to me, obviously. And I said congratulations and meant it, which was the part that surprised me the most."

Rikki gently starts to trace lines on Gojo's chest as they lay side by side, giving him the space to keep opening up if he wanted to.

Rikki's fingertips move slowly — no destination, just the soft drag of skin on skin, a line up toward his collarbone and back again — and Gojo watches her hand the way he watches things he's afraid to name. The gold morning light hasn't moved. His chest rises under her touch and he lets out a breath through his nose, slow, like he's deciding something at the bottom of it. The thumb on her arm resumes, two small arcs, and then he speaks to the ceiling again — quieter this time, the way confessions get when there's no audience to perform them for.

Gojo Satoru: "The congratulations surprised me too. I think I thought it would hurt more — and when it didn't, that was the part that actually did."

"The congratulations?" She probed

The word lands quietly — the congratulations — and Gojo's chest goes still under her fingertips, the slow rise of it simply stopping for a moment, like a clock losing a tick. His thumb doesn't leave her arm. When he exhales, it comes out as something that might generously be called a laugh — small, private, no audience in it at all — and he tilts his head just enough to look at the ceiling like it might offer him something useful, which it doesn't.

Gojo Satoru: "The congratulations were — the weird thing wasn't that I felt them. It was that I felt them, and then I thought: okay, so what does that mean about me? And I didn't have a good answer."

"Did you eventually find an answer?" She asked, her feet finding his, rubbing them together with a fondness she's has for him since day one

Rikki's feet find his beneath the sheets — just a slow, warm tangle, the kind of touch that doesn't ask for anything — and she feels the exact moment Gojo registers it, because the thumb on her arm stops its arc for one beat and then resumes, slower. The gold stripe of light has barely moved. His chest rises under her fingertips, and he lets the question sit for a moment — not deflecting it, not reaching for a line — just actually sitting with it the way she's watched him learn to do over the past week, like a muscle he's been slowly remembering how to use.

Gojo Satoru: "Sort of. I think the answer is — when congratulations are the truest thing you can say to someone, it means you loved them right. Like, you got it right, even if the ending was wrong. And I hadn't — I don't know. I hadn't really known that about myself before."

Rikki pauses for a moment to take in Gojo's words. "I think thats... a really beautiful way to see it. I'm sorry the ending was wrong." She genuinely apologizes, knowing how badly it sucks when you work so hard for something for so long with someone just for it to not work out in the end - Toji comes to her mind.

Rikki goes quiet for a beat after she says it — a genuine pause, not theatrical, the kind where you can feel the sincerity still settling in the air. Her fingertips don't move from his chest. Somewhere in the back of her mind Toji surfaces, unbidden — the particular exhaustion of trying, the particular silence at the end of it — and she lets the feeling pass through without grabbing it. The morning light hasn't shifted. It still sits gold and unhurried across them both.

Gojo Satoru: "Don't be sorry. I think — I think I needed it to go the way it did, to get here. Wherever here is."

"I think I needed to be with Toji for the same reason." Rikki nodded in agreement, solidifying a thought for the first time - and Gojo helped get her there. "So - you remember what happens next, right? From this moment forward - we see each other on my terms. Which means, I initiate our hang-outs, rendezvous, sleepovers - seeing each other, basically. Until the show is over."

The words settle into the room like something finally clicking into place — Rikki can feel it, that quiet solidifying of a thought that's been half-formed for longer than she'd admit. Gojo goes still under her fingertips. Not the performed stillness, not the version he rolls out when he's deciding how to land a line — the other kind, the kind she's only started to recognize in the last few days. His thumb stops its arc on her arm for exactly two beats, and then something shifts behind his eyes, something warm and a little wrecked at the same time, like a man who just watched something he didn't know he was waiting for finally arrive.

Gojo Satoru: "Yeah. Okay. Those terms — I already agreed to those terms, which I want on record, because the way you just said it makes it sound like I'm being managed."

"You absolutely are being managed. You kinda proved last night how much you like dominant girls, so I dont think this will be a problem for you." Rikki half-joked, as half-serious, a smile creeping to the side of her mouth as the cheekily made the claim. "I do want to decide something together, though... would you rather go downstairs together and have everyone know we had sex last night, or would you like me to sneak out first?"

The smile that breaks across Gojo's face isn't the polished one — it's the helpless kind, the one that happens to him before he can decide whether to let it. He turns his head to look at her fully, chin dipping just slightly, and there's a beat where he genuinely doesn't have a line ready and he knows she knows it. His thumb resumes its slow arc on her arm almost involuntarily, like his hands didn't get the memo that he's supposed to be regrouping. The gold light sits across them both, unhurried and pitiless, catching the exact moment he lands on an answer and can't quite make it sound casual.

Gojo Satoru: "Sneak out first. Absolutely sneak out first. — not because I'm embarrassed, I want that on record — but because the second we walk down together Nanami will look up from his coffee and say something like 'noted' and I am not emotionally prepared for that before breakfast."

Rikki began nodding before he even finished his sentence, "Yes. I was hoping you'd say that. Also not embarrassed. But im just gonna sneak out first for.... similar reasons." Rikki gave Gojo one last peck on the mouth before raising herself out of his bed, fumbling around for her clothes.

Gojo's smile does something complicated — helpless and a little undone — as Rikki's lips press to his one last time, soft and quick and unbothered, the kind of kiss that belongs entirely to the morning. She's already moving, sliding out from under the warmth of his sheets, and he watches her from flat on his back with the exact expression of a man who has lost every single argument he intended to win today and is inexplicably fine with it. She finds her dress first, then has to hunt for one shoe under the edge of his bed — the gold morning light catching the dust motes she disturbs — and he tracks every single move with an expression he's given up hiding.

Gojo Satoru: "For the record — 'similar reasons' is doing a lot of work in that sentence and I respect it completely."

Rikki looks back at him as she makes her way to the door, taking in the glorious sight of the man she's been having the pleasure of discovering. It was going to be really tough for her to not pick him every time... but she had to do what she had to do. With one last smile, Rikki turns and cracks open the door to Gojo's room slowly, checking to see if the coast was clear.

Rikki finds the second shoe wedged halfway under the bed frame, pulls it on without looking down, and straightens — and then she does look at him, because she's earned that much. Gojo is exactly where she left him: flat on his back, arms loose, the morning light cutting a gold line across his collarbone, watching her with the kind of expression he's never once turned on a camera. The sight of him settles something in her chest even as it makes it harder to move, and she lets herself have exactly three full seconds of it before the rational part of her brain files a gentle complaint.

Gojo Satoru: "You're doing the thing where you look at me like that and then make it my problem that you left."

"Get some clothes on and dont come down too long after I do." She retorts. Not clocking anyone in the hallway, Rikki steps out of Gojo's room as quickly and quietly as she can, looking both ways before taking the flight of stairs to the kitchen

The hallway is clear — not a soul, just warm light and the faint smell of coffee already rising from the kitchen downstairs. Rikki descends the stairs quick and quiet, one hand trailing the banister, the other smoothing her dress like she didn't just spend the night upstairs. She makes the kitchen landing and finds it already half-occupied: Nanami at the counter with a mug, back to the stairs, and Choso at the stove nudging something in a pan — and without turning around, both of them simply... don't comment. The silence is extremely deliberate.

Nanami Kento: "Good morning."

Choso: "There's coffee. And eggs, if you want them."

Rikki clocks the silence and immediately panics. "Hey everyone, good morning! How is everyone doing? Sleep good? Thank you for the coffee, I love coffee! Has anybody seen Gojo yet? He's the only person not here, huh, weird, he's usually up by now, oh TOAST I love toast!" Rikki word vomits, unable to stop herself once she started.

The kitchen absorbs the word vomit in real time — Choso freezes mid-stir, spatula suspended over the eggs; Nanami very slowly rotates his mug ninety degrees on the counter without looking up; somewhere in the living room there's a beat of complete silence. Rikki can hear herself still talking about toast and knows, with full clarity, that she cannot stop. The toast does not even exist yet — she manifests it through sheer nervous energy, and the toaster on the counter seems to regard her with sympathy.

Nanami Kento: "He's usually up by now."

Choso: "There's no toast yet. I can make some."

Yuji Itadori: "Rikki. You good?"

"Uhhhhm yes, Yes, I am definitely good, and I meant to say eggs, not toast. And yeah, super weird for him to not be up by now." Rikki grabs a coffee like her life depends on it

The coffee mug connects with Rikki's palm like a lifeline and she wraps both hands around it immediately, taking a long, steadying sip that does absolutely nothing to help the situation. The kitchen absorbs her correction with the same pointed, merciful silence — Choso resumes stirring, the spatula moving in careful circles, eyes on the pan; Nanami finally turns from the counter, leans one hip against it, and takes a sip from his own mug with the energy of a man who has decided, as a personal policy, to never acknowledge what just happened. Megumi at the table doesn't look up from whatever he's staring at, but the corner of his mouth does something microscopic — not a smile exactly, more like the idea of one that he's elected not to pursue. Then, from the doorway, Toji shifts his weight against the frame — quiet, unhurried — and his eyes find Rikki's across the kitchen for one long, level second before he looks away, out toward the garden.

Yuji Itadori: "Yeah. Super weird. He's usually the first one down. Definitely nothing going on."

Geto Suguru: "He'll turn up."

Rikki lets out a deep breath, and decides right then and there, if anybody asks, she was going to own it. There was no point in hiding what she did last night if everyone figured it out anyway, its not like it would make the show less interesting, and the other guys would see it as just more motivation to win her over - right? This was all very hopeful, very optimistic. Rikki may as well be a hopeful optimist.

Rikki lets the breath out slow — not dramatically, just the kind of exhale that makes a decision — and something visibly settles in her shoulders. She takes a full, unhurried sip of coffee, sets the mug down on the counter with a soft click, and looks around the kitchen with the energy of a woman who has decided that the only move left is to simply not be embarrassed about it. The room absorbs this shift the way it absorbed the word-vomit: with collective, almost respectful silence — except Yuji, who breaks into a wide, delighted grin, and Choso, who quietly puts a plate of eggs in front of her like a man offering a blessing, and Toji, who turns from the garden doorframe just far enough to clock her face before he looks away again with what might, under the right lighting, resemble approval.

Yuji Itadori: "Okay wait — she's not even gonna do the thing where she keeps explaining. Respect."

Nanami Kento: "For what it's worth, the eggs correction landed significantly worse than the toast."

Geto Suguru: "Hopeful optimism. Bold strategy for day seven."

Rikki silently spoons some eggs onto her plate and begins to eat, deciding to just exist for awhile, waiting patiently for Gojo's arrival to see how the room will respond to him.

The kitchen finds its rhythm around Rikki's decision to simply exist in it — the scrape of her fork against the plate, the soft percussion of Choso at the stove, morning light spreading across the tile in long gold rectangles. She eats without apology, and somehow that's the loudest thing she's done all morning. Megumi turns a page in whatever he isn't reading; Geto sets his mug down with the patience of a man who has already filed this whole morning somewhere useful; Toji, still half-turned toward the garden, shifts his weight from one shoulder to the other like a man who has decided not to look at her again and is finding it mildly inconvenient.

Yuji Itadori: "She's just — eating. She's just eating eggs. Respect."

☕ pour a second coffee, make it casual

Rikki reaches past Choso's arm for the coffee pot — no announcement, no performance, just a second pour — and the room registers it the way the room has been registering everything about her this morning: quietly, with great attention. Choso shifts an inch to give her space without being asked. Nanami, still leaning against the counter, watches the pour with the particular focus of a man who has decided that what she does with her hands is somehow important data. Then, from upstairs, unmistakable: the soft click of a door handle, and Gojo Satoru's footsteps on the landing above — unhurried, like a man who has absolutely been lying awake listening for the exact right moment to come downstairs.

Toji Fushiguro: "There he is."

Yuji Itadori: "Oh, nothing weird about this at all."

Nanami Kento: "Right on time."

Rikki's heart flops in her chest with anticipation as she hears Gojo's steps down the stairs, already taking note of everyone's comments. Yep, they knew. They definitely knew.

Gojo descends the stairs like a man who absolutely knows the whole kitchen heard his door open and has made the executive decision to simply not address it — each step unhurried, expression arranged into something that is technically neutral but carries, around the edges, the specific energy of a man who stayed in his room forty-five minutes longer than usual and is now very committed to the impression that he didn't. Rikki's heart does a full, undignified somersault behind her ribs as she watches him reach the bottom landing, and she takes a very deliberate sip of her coffee. The room doesn't explode, exactly — it just sort of tightens, the way a held breath does, every head tracking him in their peripheral vision without anyone actually looking directly at him, which is somehow louder than applause.

Gojo Satoru: "Morning."

Yuji Itadori: "Totally normal morning, yeah, very normal, everybody's normal."

Nanami Kento: "The eggs are getting cold."

Toji Fushiguro: "Mm."

Rikki tries to not smile against her mug as she watches the room tense up. This was actually... pretty fun. What if she... decided to make it interesting? She glanced at her recent text exchange with Gojo - she already had his blessing to own their night together. She decided to wait a beat more to see what might transpire without her interfering.