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The next time he sees Utahime, she is imperceptibly taller; her pigtails are gone, and there is a distinct scar that starts from her right cheek and stretches across her nose.
Her eyes are softer now than they had been when Satoru last saw them two years ago, deep in the Cursed mansion. He had only been a second-year student then; now, going on eighteen, he thinks he understands, to some degree, the way a girl can change into a woman. But Utahime had already been a woman two years ago, and Satoru is only just beginning to grow into a man.
“Gojo Satoru.”
It’s a little strange to see someone like Utahime—someone whose resting face is a perpetual look of stoic resignation; someone who always carries herself with some regal bearing, very like her namesake—in a tiny, cramped kissaten like this. Clad in her usual miko outfit, Satoru thinks he ought to find her in a traditional chashitsu instead, a picture-perfect image of something like a princess, preparing for a proper tea ceremony.
It takes Satoru a moment to realise that her mouth is moving; his name taking shape on her lips, and it is soft—the edge that usually comes with it starkly absent. Very unlike two years ago. Her lips are as attractive as ever, pink and small and pretty. (Satoru has always known this, right from the moment they’d been introduced, when he’d paid a little too much attention to the way she first spoke his name, and he’d mentioned how nice it had sounded then, especially in her Kansai dialect, offhandedly once to Suguru—)
“It’s rude to stare, you know.” Utahime is frowning at him, and Satoru notices that the scar on her face is fresh, and the fine stitches dance along her skin as she speaks. “And here I thought Shoko would’ve taught you some manners by now.”
“Oh, please.” Satoru grins. “Shoko wouldn’t know what ‘manners’ means if you shoved a bunch of dictionaries in her face. She’s just nice to you because she’s not one to pick on the weak.”
Utahime scowls. Her eyes harden as she glares at him, and Satoru thinks, There’s the Utahime I know.
She doesn’t say anything to retort; as a force of habit, Satoru invites himself to sit across from her at the small table. It’s far too loud in the kissaten; there are large groups of office workers seizing the place with their laughter, and the smell of coffee is ripe in the air. The lights are dim indoors, but Satoru doesn’t feel particularly compelled to remove his sunglasses. Utahime doesn’t react to his joining her; she’s bent over the table, scribbling on something that looks like an application form.
“What’cha doing?” Satoru can make out the words ‘FULL-TIME’ on the paper. A job application, then. He snickers. “Oh no, Utahime, you’re not thinking of applying to work in a maid café, are you? ‘Cause I think you might be a little over the age limit…”
“I’m only twenty! And—and that’s senpai to you! When will you learn to respect your seniors?” Utahime snarls. “And it—it’s not anyway, you idiot! Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m applying to Jujutsu High.”
“Huh? For what position?”
“What the hell else do you think?” Utahime grits her teeth. “I’m going to be a teacher.”
Satoru tries—really, he tries—to stifle a laugh, but it escapes him anyway. Utahime does not take this lightly. She flings her ballpoint pen in his direction, but it bounces off him before it can hit him. She startles back.
“Wh—what was that?”
“Oh, Shoko didn’t mention it to you? I’m surprised,” Satoru says, making no attempt to disguise the self-satisfied smirk on his face. “And here I thought you’ve been asking about me all this time.”
“You wish,” Utahime snorts.
“Well, if you haven’t kept up yet, you should know that as of right now I’m the strongest.” Utahime is about to laugh, but her smile fades when Satoru does not smile back. “Long story short, I made some modifications to my Technique. Now, nothing can touch me.” Nothing can hurt me.
Utahime looks at him strangely, and it’s a little unnerving because by now his sunglasses have slipped a little ways down the bridge of his nose, and he feels exposed somehow, with the way she’s staring right into his eyes as if searching for something; some unknown answer. Her mouth opens and closes, and he can see some semblance of a question forming round those pretty, pink lips of hers.
Eventually, she settles for, “When did this happen?”
“Our last mission,” Satoru begins, but suddenly now finds it difficult to continue, “didn’t really end well.”
She studies his eyes again, and it makes Satoru feel downright naked and defenseless. In all the years he’d known Utahime, he’s never really known exactly what her Cursed Technique is—he’d always dismissed it, or assumed she was one of the less fortunate jujutsu sorcerers who’d been born without one—and for a moment, a cold horror washes over him as he considers if the way she’s looking at him so intently might have anything to do with it.
Don’t be ridiculous, Satoru thinks, as Utahime tears her gaze away from him to study the ballpoint pen that had bounced back onto the table before. There’s no such thing. She’s probably just in awe at how much I’ve grown in the past two years.
“I’m sorry,” Utahime mumbles, softly enough that anyone not paying attention would surely miss it, but Satoru’s ears are sharp, and the lilt of her voice has always had a certain pull on him that he has long given up on ignoring, “about… him.”
Satoru is both relieved and resentful at her choice of omitting Suguru’s name. He knows she’s only trying to be respectful for his sake, but it’s not like she and Suguru hadn’t known each other.
It feels a little stupid to act like Suguru is some third person, especially when Satoru had spent a good chunk of their friendship complaining about what a stick in the mud Utahime is, and how Utahime probably gets off on her trips to the library because she’s that dull, and ‘God, just look at how ridiculous those pigtails are on Utahime’; the day Satoru stopped was when Suguru had finally called him out and said, rather exasperatedly, “Satoru, from the way you can’t shut up about Utahime, I’m starting to think that maybe you’ve got little a crush on her.”
“We haven’t lost him just yet, Utahime,” Satoru says. “Not like that, anyway.”
The third time Utahime stares into his eyes for more than five seconds without hurling any insults, Satoru has had enough of the weirdness. He pushes his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, and Utahime finally looks away. Damn it, he thinks.
“Looks like we’ve both got scars of our own,” Utahime muses, and she offers a warm smile that takes him aback. “My last mission didn’t really go well, either, as you can clearly see.”
Utahime scrunches her nose and the red newness of her scar is discernible in the dimmed light, and something within Satoru’s chest rattles; something long dead, or something he hadn’t quite realised was there in the first place.
The question is already there on his tongue, at least several versions of it: What happened? Who did this to you? Why didn’t you go to Shoko in time? You’re still pretty—how are you still so pretty? The scar is badass, do you know that it makes you look powerful?
Thoughts are fleeting, and Satoru is barely eighteen, so what he says instead is, “You should’ve called for me, Utahime! I could’ve come to your rescue, just like I did last time. Looks like you haven’t improved much in the last two years, huh?”
“Gojo, you—!” Utahime’s voice rises above all others in the small kissaten, and as heads swiftly turn to look at her, she shrinks back into her seat. “You’re such an asshead!”
“Oh, is that a cute pet name for me?” Satoru drawls, and his grin grows wider the more irritated she gets. “And on our first date, too! I feel really special, Utahime…”
Without a word, Utahime gathers up the application form, her pen and things before hastily getting up from the seat. Despite the hysterics, she is ever so graceful, even in exit. Satoru gives her a small pout, which she deftly ignores as she brushes past him. She turns back once to look at him and, as if by instinct, his sunglasses slip down his nose again. He can feel her gaze burning into his own. Satoru thinks he sees a ghost of a smile lingering on her face as she regards him one last time.
“That’s senpai to you.” There’s hardly an edge in it now. “Take care, Gojo Satoru. Tell Shoko I miss her.”