Chapter Text
It is only every other Monday that Gojo Satoru cares when he takes his lunch.
Usually, it’ll happen when it happens. Sometimes, if no one remembers to tell him that he needs to ingest something with more nutritional value than the candy he keeps in his pockets if he wants his brain to work, it won’t happen at all. He’s not big on breaks.
But every other Monday, he clocks out for his lunch break at exactly eleven-fifteen, arrives at the nearest convenience store at eleven-twenty, and, by eleven-twenty-five, is sitting in the little French café a few blocks from campus, where no one would ever think to look for him. He orders the same combination of croque monsieur and large hot chocolate as always, and before it comes, he spreads that week’s Shoujo Kiss out neatly on the table in front of him with a degree of diligence that he usually reserves for his research. He then scans the table of contents briefly to see if any new series might catch his eye, but that’s just a formality.
The main event is the moment he flips to the page that begins that week’s Harmony Boost.
Satoru has read exponentially more than an average physicist’s share of shoujo titles, and been partial to several, but none has ever been Harmony Boost, and none, likely, ever will be. Nothing – not even learning that the student who’d cried at his office hours last week aced her Quantum Mechanics test – is quite like the satisfaction of running his palm along the stiff spine of a brand-new Shoujo Kiss so that the pages containing teenage pop idol Mimi’s latest battle with the forces of evil will lie perfectly flat as he sips his hot chocolate. Nothing.
This is one such Monday, and it is a more special Monday than most every-other-Mondays, because the Monday before last, Harmony Boost was on break. Not that he’s been mired in misery since the last chapter, exactly, with all the things he has going on, but still, the post-break chapters are always more special for having taken longer to arrive. And the ending of the last chapter had been a good one. He’d felt personally affronted by the break, quite frankly, when he’d flipped to the last page and seen that the final panel featured the mysterious stalker who’d been following Mimi since chapter sixteen, veiled in shadow. Two weeks to wait for a resolution had felt unbearable in that moment.
Because, as any Harmony Boost fan would know, that’s how Iori Utahime always introduces the arc’s main villain.
Harmony Boost isn’t big on subtlety. Its piquant commentary on celebrity, obsession, and the challenges of womanhood in the public eye might be smart, but its plotting tends to keep things simple. It’s for teenagers, after all. No need to be devious with the plot twists when simply showing a figure lurking in the shadows is cliffhanger enough. So: villains are usually shown to be villains by appearing in a critical panel dramatically bathed in shadow.
So this tease of her stalker? An unfulfilling hint at the long-awaited reveal of the biggest mystery in the entire series? Satoru had just about thrown the magazine across the café.
Dimly, somewhere in the back of his mind, Satoru knows that a lot of people would probably think a lot less of him if they knew he was struggling to keep his hands from shaking with excitement over a new chapter of a magical girl manga. Most people would snort derisively if they heard him recite the chant that transforms Mimura Misaki from the cutesy teenage pop idol known as Mimi into a lightstick-wielding badass with a set of pipes that could shatter window glass at the top of a skyscraper. Or that he owns a replica of the lightstick that Mimi uses to transform. Or how much he paid for it.
Maybe that would hurt, but no one knows, so for now, he really doesn’t care.
After so long, it hardly even feels silly anymore. Magical girl logic makes perfect sense to him. Camp is a welcome respite from the cool composure of equations and models. It’s like his field, actually – it’s got rules it lives by, but it’s fluid. It allows room for creativity. Satoru loves that about both physics and shoujo manga. And besides, he has so little else to think about when he’s not working.
If he were ever honest, in his heart of hearts, Satoru would be forced to admit that he’d gotten into shoujo as a college student because reading about people almost felt like knowing them, and he didn’t really do much of that. He’s not someone who gets to know people much. So when he’s invested this much time in a story and gotten to know the people in it this well, it means to him what he thinks friends mean to others. He’s not worried enough about saving face to give that up.
Sadly, he still has enough pride left to know that the unholy sound that escapes his mouth when the stalker’s identity is finally revealed probably isn’t scoring him any points.
What feels like half the café visibly tries not to stare at him, and he quickly clears his throat and then fills it with hot chocolate so he’ll look like he wasn’t responsible. A flimsy defense, yes, but it’s all he’s got right now.
Breathe, he tells himself, but it doesn’t work very well when his brain is screaming at him that he was right, it was Karin from that rival girl group all along.
The chapter is a blur after that – Karin reveals herself, Mimi is appropriately shocked, gives Karin an earful about the need for solidarity in an industry like theirs, transforms into her magical girl persona, end chapter. Formulaic, Gojo thinks. This is not an insult. Like a physicist would ever be unhappy that something followed a formula.
If anything, he’d been hoping that it would be, because that would mean getting to see Mimi’s transformation, and that’s always his favorite part. Iori-sensei draws a different sequence every time Mimi transforms; it’s endlessly varied even within a formula and that kind of thing is music to his physicist’s ears. That is not, however, the best part, because actually, the best part of the chapter comes after, in Iori-sensei’s author’s note.
Some mangaka whose work Satoru has admired use their author’s notes to share things about themselves that he would rather not know. Iori Utahime, though, is pretty tame. She never says much about her life. Usually, her messages to the audience are a little generic. Not this one.
I got the sweetest letter from a fan in Australia today, she wrote. Getting fan mail is my favorite thing in the world!
And this makes Satoru pause, and then light up, because never in his life has it occurred to him that that’s a thing someone can just do, sending mail to someone like her. He could just…post a letter to her publicist? She would get it? She actually reads stuff like that?
And maybe it’s silly, and childish, and a little pathetic, but Satoru’s lunch break is a little long to accommodate a trip to a stationery store, and when he gets home, he gets right to work.
It’s only fair that if Harmony Boost is his favorite thing in the world, he should give the woman responsible for it hers.
**
“Half of it was junk.”
With her usual careless grace, Mei Mei drops a stack of envelopes on Utahime’s desk, then waits with crossed arms for a response. Utahime, who had been in the middle of inking a particularly tricky panel of Karin blocking Mimi’s signature Iron Pirouette kick with her gauntlet-covered forearm, makes a huffy, frustrated noise before she looks up. “What?”
“The mail,” she says. “It’s been coming in constantly since that stupid author’s note.”
Oh. Right. Mei Mei has been whining about handling Utahime’s mail for a week now.
She frowns. “You didn’t throw anything out this time, did you?”
“Just the junk.”
“Mei, what have I told you about throwing out fan mail?”
“That you’re grateful I weed out all the pervy ones for you?” Mei Mei raises her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, but I know you’re a little squeamish-“
“No,” she says, glaring at her over the tops of her falling glasses, “that you need to stop.”
“Honestly, Uta, I really did just weed out the creepy ones.”
Utahime can’t say she’s not grateful that she doesn’t even know what ‘the creepy ones’ contain, but still, she wouldn’t put it past Mei Mei to throw one out because it looked messy or the handwriting was illegible or something else just as petty. She’d easily toss a child’s letter aside in scorn, and to Utahime, those are the most precious ones of all.
It’s not just because the sincerity of those letters melts her heart. It’s the fact that there’s no ulterior motive when a child writes her a letter – not like there is when an adult fan with too many theories begs her to confirm them, or when a man with too much time on his hands waxes poetic about how badly he wishes she’d reveal her face. The children are writing to her because they love Harmony Boost, and on the days when even Utahime doubts it’s much good, those are the letters she always rereads.
“If I ever find out you’re tossing letters from kids because they ‘don’t look professional,’” she says coolly, turning back to her drawing pad, “I will murder you.”
“What kind of monster do you think I am?”
Utahime gives her a look. Mei Mei didn’t get here, publicist to the unsung stars, by being nice.
“I swear, Uta, just the pervs.” She taps the stack of letters with a pointy acrylic nail. “Look how much is left over.”
It is a tall stack. Utahime, who’s tired of being told she’s ‘gone too soft’ when Mei is around, tries not to smile at it. “Promise?”
“You’re impossible, Uta.”
“Promise?”
“Fine. Promise.”
With that, Mei Mei, who almost certainly has better things to be doing than sorting through Utahime’s fan mail, turns and closes the door behind her. The office, drenched in sunlight from the opposite window at this hour, is quiet again, and she leans back in her chair, tired hands rubbing at tired eyes.
Three o’clock, her watch says. One week, four days, and nine hours before her next chapter is due. Not enough time, but just enough to convince her that she has time to waste. With that thought, she reaches for a letter from the middle of the stack and carefully opens the seal as if Mei Mei hadn’t done it already.
The address label is nearly illegible, written in chicken-scratch of the highest order, but not like a little kid’s handwriting would be. It’s more like a doctor’s, she thinks, and that makes her pause, but Mei had said she’d weeded out all the creepy solicitations before she gave Utahime her mail, so it can’t be that bad. Nevertheless, she’s a little reluctant to open it.
Iori-sensei, it begins – unsentimental, no dear. Makes her smile, because she’s starting to get a feel for the writer.
I had never thought about writing to you before, but when you said you liked fan mail, I had to try it out. You probably don’t read all of these, so I doubt you’re ever going to read mine, but whatever, right? At least I can say I tried. Anyway. I really like Harmony Boost.
You’re not gonna read this, so I guess I can be honest. I’m not the kind of guy who has a lot of friends, let’s just say that. Not because I’m a creep or anything! I just don’t really talk to people that much. Except my students, I guess, and they don’t count. Other nerds (I’m a professor) don’t count. I didn’t even have stationery because I don’t really have anyone I ever need to send stuff to, and I had to go get some when I saw your author’s note. I’m glad you said that, because I wouldn’t have thought to write you a letter otherwise. Even if you’re not going to read this, I like that you said it makes you happy.
Harmony Boost makes me happy, so I guess it’s kind of a win-win.
I really love Harmony Boost, by the way. Mimi’s transformation choreography in the last chapter was definitely the best one yet. People on the Harmaniacs Discord server are saying that the choreography was from a k-pop dance – is this true? I don’t know anything about k-pop or dances (I’m a professor), but I’m curious. Mostly because @bunnychan113 thinks she knows everything, and she’s being really insufferable about it, and she keeps picking fights with this other user over which Red Velvet song the choreography is from, and I’m way too petty to tell them what the real answer is, but I still want to know.
Anyway.
Sorry if that makes it sound like all your fans are at each other’s throats. I know you’d hate that. It’s not really like that in real life, but there are always bad ones, you know how it is. I have that with my students too (I’m a professor). You get some really awesome ones and a bunch more who beg you to round them from a 61 to a 70 after they fail all your tests. And it’s not because of anything about Harmony Boost that there’s bad apples. I for one think it’s awesome. Also, it says really cool stuff about society, which I like because I kind of hate society. That chapter about Mika from the other band going on a diet was really thought-provoking. I sometimes think about whether or not my girl students feel like that too (I’m a professor), which I guess was the point. So that’s cool. You’re great at social commentary.
So I guess what I’m saying is – don’t listen to people who think Harmony Boost is ‘just another mid idol manga.’ One time I fought a guy on Twitter for saying that. It’s great. You’re doing really great. I guess I kinda forgot what I wanted to say now, but I love it.
I knew it was Karin, by the way. A lot of people thought it was that Tetsuo kid from her middle school, but I knew! You don’t foreshadow stuff and then not follow through. That isn’t how you write. I kept telling people that, but noooo, apparently the hints you gave about Karin just weren’t enough, and then it was Karin and I had to log out so I wouldn’t bully a 15-year-old on the internet. Because I really wanted to. @bunnychan113 is really insufferable about stuff like this. Anyway.
I kinda hope you don’t read this, but if you do, thank you. Harmony Boost means a lot to me.
Sincerely,
Satoru
(Professor)
Utahime puts the letter down and blinks at it a couple times.
Well.
She doesn’t quite know what to make of it, really. It’s not creepy, even though Satoru is clearly a grown man. It’s not from a child, but it’s almost alarmingly sincere. It reads every inch like it was written by a man with next to no social skills, and that should really worry her, not to mention that he isn’t doing himself any favors by mentioning his obvious beef with a 15-year-old online. But…
She knows somehow that he means every word, and that this is someone a little different and a little lonely who loves the world she’s created. And that, if she thinks about it, is what she kind of is, too. The only difference is that she can’t imagine pouring her heart out to a stranger like this.
Put that way, it’s actually kind of touching. Satoru may have thought that the possibility that she wouldn’t read his letter might protect him, but he’d still been honest in ways most people would be embarrassed to. That had taken courage, and Utahime, who loves the comfort of her shell more than almost anything, can’t help but admire it, even as it makes her raise her eyebrows.
She’s perfectly aware of the kinds of things lonely men will say to get a woman’s sympathy, but this just doesn’t feel like anything but the truth. And, though there’s a whole stack of letters on her desk still waiting to be opened and a half-finished first draft to complete, she can’t help but reach for a sheet of stationery.
Later, she’ll ask herself what made her do it. But in the moment, she grabs the pen she uses for inking and starts to write.
**
“Uh…sensei…?”
Gojo blinks twice to clear his vision, then looks at Yuuta, who’s peering down at him with concern that might be for his teacher but is more likely for his grade if said teacher doesn’t snap out of it and answer his questions. Gojo realizes this after a few seconds’ clarity and then swears under his breath, which makes Yuuta raise his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” he says. “I, uh. Distracted.”
“No problem,” Yuuta says, though actually, this is a massive problem. Gojo knows it must be. Still, his mind keeps wandering back to the letter in his briefcase, unopened, and that, unfortunately for Yuuta’s grade, makes it exceedingly hard to focus on quantum mechanics.
“Um. Couldja maybe say that again?”
Yuuta, nodding eagerly, produces a page of his notebook on which he’d tried to puzzle out the solution to a practice problem but never arrived at an answer. Get it together, Gojo tells himself. His student needs him, the whole line of other students waiting behind him probably need him even more, and a reply to a letter that embarrasses him to his core when he thinks about it in hindsight is the last thing he should be thinking about.
“This was where you messed up,” he says, pointing to a line of chicken scratch in which Yuuta had made a deceptively simple mistake in his calculations. He’s impressed, really. Another hour of sleep and he’d probably have been awake enough to catch that, and most of the students who’ve brought him this problem for help mangle it so badly that he doesn’t even know where to begin. Ugh. All those horrible calculations to course-correct before he can even think about the letter.
On a normal day, he’d love the challenge of troubleshooting like this, but today, he only has one thing on his mind, and it isn’t physics. For once.
“Yup,” he tells Yuuta, nodding, “that was it,” and tries not to think about it, but it doesn’t really work. There is a letter from Iori Utahime herself waiting for him when he’s done with his work, and this line of terrified twentysomethings in desperate need of his assistance is keeping him from it.
Get it together, he tells himself, but he knows it won’t work.
**
This isn’t a Harmony Boost week, but Satoru’s lunch break is exactly on time today. The only things that differentiate this lunch from his biweekly ritual are the date and the reading material. He takes the same window seat at the same café, orders the same croque monsieur and hot chocolate. His lunchtime still rises and sets on something he has been waiting to read for hours. But this time, when he spreads the letter out before him, he actually cares whether or not crumbs get on the paper, and he reads impossibly slowly, trying to savor every word.
Iori-sensei’s handwriting looks like a cute high school teacher’s would’ve, round and inviting. She writes kanji with an artist’s precision and yet somehow there’s not a sharp edge in her entire letter. It makes him bite his lip so he won’t look like he’s smiling at nothing.
Dear Professor Gojo, she starts, and his cheeks warm. He knew he’d said that one too many times.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. I’ve been so grateful for all the letters I’ve gotten since the last chapter was released, but I think you may have been the only one who actually went out and bought stationery for me. That was really sweet of you.
Aside from that, honestly, I’m not sure what to say to such sincere praise. Usually the only people who like my series that much are kids – and me, haha. So I guess we have that in common. You said that Harmony Boost makes you feel less alone, and I’m glad, because that’s how it is for me, too. When I’m bummed out, I think about what Mimi is going to do next. It’s not perfect, but it always gets my mind off real life for a little. I guess I’ve never had anybody tell me that before, so I’m really at a loss for words.
Actually, it doesn’t make any sense to say that, so maybe I’m just saying things that sound good at this point. Who knows?
I can barely keep up with my work as it is, so there’s no way I’d be writing to you if I didn’t have anything to say. I love my fan mail, but I don’t write back very much. And I’m not going to lie that I’m not a little worried you have bad intentions, seeing as most of the grown men who write me are perverts, so maybe this is stupid, but I guess even people whose work gets read all the time need someone to listen to them, you know?
Maybe that’s wrong, writing to a stranger so you’ll listen to me. I almost feel selfish for taking advantage of your sincerity like this. But something about your letter hit close to home. You’re a little odd, but it’s kind of nice to see that sometimes. Refreshing, I think. Anyone can be a pervert. Most people can’t be honest.
I guess I just wanted to say thanks. I’m glad I have a reader who gets the same things out of reading my series as I do out of writing it. Mimi-chan gives me a lot of hope, and sometimes, when I hate this job, I think about how I have to keep going because she still needs to figure out that the drummer from Ctrl+F is actually Hot Stuff’s civilian form, and how fun it’s going to be to watch the internet break when she does. I like to think I’m sharing that excitement with all of you, and her. After all this time, she’s my little buddy.
Thanks for saying she’s not mid, I guess. I know Harmony Boost is nothing special, and I should probably be a normal adult and maintain a safe distance from my characters, but at this point it sometimes feels like people are talking about my friend behind her back when they say that. I’m glad someone gets it.
And thanks for being a little weird, too. If you’ll open up to a stranger about stuff that would embarrass most people, I can do it, too, and sometimes it’s nice to be able to do that.
Over and Out,
Iori Utahime
(Mimi’s mom)
Gojo carefully cleans his hands, folds up the letter as neatly as it had been when he’d taken it out of the envelope, slips it back inside, and makes sure the envelope is well out of the danger zone before he shoves the remaining half of his croque monsieur into his mouth at once. It seems the only proper reaction to the awestruck bewilderment that he feels upon its completion.
He would never have guessed that she’d even read his letter, let alone write back – let alone get so personal about it. He couldn’t care less if she thinks it’s selfish of her when he’s so overwhelmed by the fact that she’s so willing to tell him things he gets the feeling she never tells anybody else.
Because if he’s honest, Satoru has never even thought about what Iori-sensei is like as a person.
He diligently reads her author’s notes, sure, and he knows what little about her is publicly available, but that isn’t saying much. He’s rarely been curious about her personal life when it’s obvious she doesn’t want it to become public knowledge. And he hasn’t given a whole lot of thought to how she feels about anything – her own manga, the things people say about it. To Satoru, she has only ever been the anonymous mind behind his favorite magical girl series of all time. But the woman whose letter is safely tucked into his backpack is someone.
She’s a person with wants and needs and wishes, someone who loves Mimi and her friends and maybe even her enemies as much as Satoru does. It’s silly to think he ever would have let that fact escape him, but he has, and now he feels stupid, but not as stupid as he feels flattered. Honored, even. His, out of hundreds of letters, had been the one she-
Don’t be stupid, he tells himself, downing the sandwich half with a swig of hot chocolate that drains half the glass. It was probably just a coincidence she found yours first.
He thinks about the stationery sitting in his desk, preparing to start collecting dust with the inevitable years of disuse it’s going to endure. He remembers that she had said it touched her and suddenly he itches not to let it go to waste. Even if she never picks up another of his letters, even if she was lying for his benefit – if she really is as lonely as he is, then there’s no way he’s going to ignore that.
They can be pals, he thinks. Keep up a mutual exchange of necessary things: company for him, encouragement for her. He can send her reviews of her new chapters. She can keep on writing her chapters even if it means that she never writes him again, and he will consider himself fed. It’s a handy little setup, he thinks, or – could be. It very well could be if he wanted, and she wanted, and things worked out.
It's childish to imagine a friendship where, in all likelihood, there had only been a polite attempt to go above and beyond in return for Satoru’s doing so first. Satoru, who considers himself quite the expert at acting childish, still knows this, and has the dignity to be a little bit embarrassed by it. But he’s never liked curbing his enthusiasm or concealing the truth, and in this instance, the truth is that he desperately wants to keep hoping that Iori Utahime meant what she wrote.
So, hours later when he finally makes it home, he goes right to his office, and the cabinet he’d shoved his stationery into.
At very least, he can dream.