Chapter Text
Knock-Knock
So.
Newly-refurbished!Satoru knocks now.
“Hey,” he says, poking his head into Shoko’s office. “I…” His gaze flickers to where Shoko’s hands are paused in the middle of closing her laptop. “So it’s Friday,” he says.
It’s been almost a month since that day in the crater. He’s been busy of course, missions and teaching—actual classroom teaching, Yaga’s blood pressure would drop to reasonable levels if he were here—with trips up the mountain in between to check on the rebuild. Business as usual for the formerly strongest sorcerer, and in Shoko’s experience, “business as usual” often involves forgetting her existence altogether unless he wants something.
Which is all to say, he’s right on time.
Shoko, I need a favour.
No one will ever be alone again.
I want to foster a new generation of sorcerers.
No one will ever be alone again.
Shoko closes her laptop a lot more forcefully than she intends.
Satoru’s eyes widen but conviction returns in a flash, and he stands a little straighter, battle-ready once more.
Definitely wants something, Shoko thinks. To Satoru’s credit, his timing suits her for once: things have been downright glacial this past month in the Infirmary and Morgue, and she was starting to chafe at not having an interesting case to sink her teeth in.
“So it is,” Shoko says at last.
“I thought we could hang out at our old spot, do dinner, like old times,” he goes.
When too much silence passes because Shoko’s still trying to work out the angle, whether she imagined him leering at her those many weeks ago, he inches into her office and holds up a bottle of wine like a peace offering.
“Tuscany,” he adds, because he knows she’s that much of a snob about wine to know the place has currency with her.
“Okay,” Shoko says.
Satoru’s face splits into a smile, pleased and dazzling as always, but also incredibly smug, which annoys her, and because she’s her, and because men with the powers of gods always need a good humbling, she retrieves her phone from her bag and calls Ijichi to invite him.
She catches the flash of irritation on Satoru’s face before it smooths over just as quickly, one corner of his mouth curling upwards.
“Old times, right?” She tells Satoru innocently afterwards. “You and me and Ijichi.”
“Right," he says, and she preens at the sarcastic undercurrent in his tone, knowing he doesn't mean it in the slightest.