Chapter Text
Gojo Satoru isn’t quite sure why he is here. He’s certain why he is wanted here, but not quite sure why he decided to show.
He sits at the stone table in your family's conservatory, the chill of the new year is kept at bay by the various fauna and the dense humidity, the late afternoon sun warming the glass. If the circumstances were different, it would almost be a refreshing break from his responsibilities.
The Jujutsu elders have long been up to bullshit in his eyes, but he's just now becoming aware of just how many pies their gnarled fingers have sampled. How truly tedious.
Evidently, you are late. The one instance he arrives on time, you are late. He debates offering an apology to Yaga for all the times he left him waiting. Perhaps not, better that he does not get Yaga’s hopes up. So he sits and waits. Elbows so disrespectfully on the table, head cradled in his hand, the other resting in his lap.
He and the two women across from him sit in near silence. The younger of the two has her shoulders tense in displeasure at your lack of arrival, quick huffs of air for every minute that passes without you showing. The elder sits in silence, withered eyes scanning him like he’s the blurb on the back of a New York Times bestseller, judging and taking him apart piece by piece.
None of them care to break the frigid silence that has settled over them like a blanket of moisture.
Amid the bored thrumming of his hand against his thigh, the piercing glare of the hag who he assumes is your clan matriarch, he tilts his head at the approaching presence. He hears your heavy thuds on the unyielding stone path, frustrated rambles, and huffs for air before he can even sense your cursed energy.
Glass doors slide open, a resounding thud as they are launched apart with excessive force, your face scrunches into a wince before it is swiftly masked into a placid expression. You approach the table, doing your best to act suave as if you weren’t rushing for dear life seconds earlier, perform a sloppy bow, and plop down between the two women across from him. Your sailor fuku is in disarray, he’s certain that he saw a run in your tights as well. You’re almost painful to look at. You steady yourself, a deep gulp of air, followed by a hasty introduction.
What a joke. The elders' punishment and a reminder of their control of him is some middle school girl, not yet even in a Jujutsu Tech uniform, from some “nobody” clan.
Gojo supposed this must be your punishment as well. The strongest and potential heir of a matriarchal clan. He is no stranger to the knowledge that only the women of your clan are capable of inheriting and practicing the family cursed technique. You and your family must truly be an eyesore to the elders. Female sorcerers are scorned enough as is, let alone a whole clan led by one and full of them.
Yes, he supposes, an arranged marriage is a fitting punishment for the would-be heir of a clan with a technique that blesses only the girls. Your clan loses their next leader and is made into a mockery, put into their place as women. Wives to those stronger than them.
He’s not proud to admit it, but he can’t take down the Jujutsu system by himself. He likes to think that he has been humbled by reaching this conclusion. He knows what he needs.
He needs comrades as strong as him, if not stronger. As he gazes into the enraged eyes of the girl several years his junior, struggling to hide her rage behind a visage of apathy. He smiles and introduces himself back, handheld out in greeting.
Perhaps he’s lucky that his first companion is a woman scorned, a victim of the very system he wanted to destroy.
It seems age has started to catch up to the esteemed, wise elders. Such a punishment, they will one day come to realize, was the first of many grave miscalculations.
Holy hell are you late. In your defense it was totally Yui’s fault, she had refused to accept her position as Yuri in the Gee cover and instead had tried to assert that she should have the role of Jessica instead of you. The other girls and you were forced to hear out her petty complaints of being sidelined. Naturally, you had to battle it out and defend your role as the center of the song, after all, you weren’t about to let anyone steal the opening from you. Perhaps a given, but you had won and retained your position, to put it simply Yui simply didn’t have the range to be Jessica. She should’ve been glad she was at least given a position with a focused solo.
The squabble had set you back about an hour.
You were definitely going to be strung by your toes, regardless of how this meeting went.
With the thrum of your loafers against the concrete of the sidewalk, entering the gate of your property, you begin to discard your sweater, hurling it as you pick up the pace. Approaching the conservatory, you do your best to fix your haphazard appearance and calm your breathing before you can be seen from inside.
Opening the doors with a little too much force, you attempt to ignore the mishap, instead taking a glance at the table. Your mother's eyes bore into you from the distance, her pretty face pinched in displeasure, lips downturned and eyebrows nearly in one line, at your time and state of arrival. Your grandmother, the clan head shows no such emotion, instead, she simply beckons her head for you to approach.
You bow, hoping to rectify the initial impression the elders and your soon-to-be betrothed must have of you, and take a seat.
Okay maybe just soon to be betrothed. He sits alone on his side of the table, face smug, eyes covered by dark, rounded glasses.
What an asshole.
To come alone without a representative, as if it is a leisurely lunch and not a meeting that will dictate the rest of your life, and his.
Even worse are those god-awful sunglasses, the January sun is barely strong enough to warrant them, maybe this douche is hungover, sure you were over an hour late but you showed up all there in the head.
Stifling your irritation, you introduce yourself. It's better to get this over with, maybe if you get through it quick enough you’ll have time to continue to practice your dance, you haven’t quite gotten the bridge down.
“Gojo Satoru” he responds, hand offered to you, a Cheshire grin spread across his handsome face. “Maybe we should all talk over some food, say, what kind of sweets do you guys have around here?”
You tense in irritation, gripping his hand a little too firmly, nails digging into his pliable flesh, you can imagine his eyes crinkled shut under those glasses with the impossible width his grin grows in reaction to your petty display of anger.
What a bastard.