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Yuuji opens the door of his dorm room and turns his head, coming face-to-face (but more accurately, face-to-chest) with the unexpected visitor who must have been lurking for a pretty long time outside while he was bundled up on his bed watching Dragon Ball Z.
“Ah, sensei!” he greets happily. “What are you doing? Did you come to visit?”
Gojo-sensei grins back and Yuuji kind of gets the feeling that his eyes are sparkling behind his sunglasses. “How did you know!”
“Well,” he rubs at his neck, a little sheepish. “I thought I heard your footsteps earlier but I was really into the episode, so I didn’t come and invite you in. You’ve been waiting outside, haven’t you?”
“I have!” The twinkling aura grows ever stronger. “Your hearing’s very good, Yuuji-kun.”
Yuuji huffs good-naturedly and steps fully out of his room, closing the door behind him. It gets cramped for a moment before Gojo moves out of the way and gives him space, but they’re pretty well-coordinated, and this time, nothing happens to the door hinges or the flickering overhead lights, so even though Yuuji accidentally bruises his forehead against Gojo-sensei’s collarbones (which really hurts, actually), it’s basically a win-win situation.
But as Yuuji recovers from the collision (and the emotional wound that is the older man’s blatant amusement) he notices that Gojo-sensei is holding something, his fingers curled around a small object hidden in the dip of his palm.
“Oh? Sensei? What’s that?” says Yuuji. He leans forward again (carefully!). He leans back. “Ah, sensei,” says Yuuji, keeping his voice politely level despite his very much overwhelming confusion. “Sensei, what’s that?”
He points at the man’s outstretched hand, the thing that's been caged under the man's long fingers.
“Oh,” says Gojo-sensei, his voice lilting, “oh dear, you can’t tell? It’s a curse, Yuuji-kun. I know you’re still learning, but I was sure you were good enough at identifying them by now. Does it so happen that you need remedial lessons?”
“Huh, no, I know that, sensei,” Yuuji frowns. “It’s just—it doesn’t look a lot like a curse, you know? Like, isn’t it too cute to be a manifestation of negative energy? Also, why do you have it?”
His teacher hums. “I didn’t think you were the kind of person to put so much stock into appearances,” he says as he reaches out with a long finger and pokes Yuuji’s cheek. “The sweetest face could be hiding the sharpest teeth, don’t you know?”
“I guess that’s true,” says Yuuji. After all, Inumaki-senpai looks like a sweet, nice guy, but only yesterday Yuuji had watched him print out ugly pictures of Maki-senpai and stick them around the common room, and only yesterday, Yuuji had watched Maki-senpai dropkick Inumaki-senpai out a window.
“Anyway!” Sensei pipes. “Isn’t it cute? I found it on the way home from my mission today and I thought, ”oh, isn’t this something my dear student Itadori Yuuji would love to see? He adores cute things!“ and so here I am! I’m such a thoughtful teacher~”
Yuuji looks at the curse. Its small and furry and looks almost like a Pokemon—that one called, ah, what was it?
“—Azurill!”
“Hm?”
“Ah,” Yuuji laughs. “It reminds me of Azurill, the pokemon! You know, ‘cause it’s blue and kind of blobby? The eyes are wrong, though.” The eyes are a little more than wrong. In fact, the curse does not have eyes at all, which is a little creepy, but it’s still a lot cuter than most of the things you see as a jujutsu sorceror, so he counts all his blessings and leaves it at that.
“So you do think it’s cute! Nice, nice!” Gojo-sensei chirrups happily.
He looks down at the curse in his hands and squishes it almost like a stress-ball, up-and-down, and Yuuji is so entranced by the scratchy squeaking of it, and the way that its strangely gelatinous body springs back into its original shape even after being squished to hell that he almost misses what Gojo-sensei says.
“H-hah?”
Gojo-sensei repeats. His tone is still light and airy. “Now kill it!”
“Wait,” says Yuuji, taken aback. “Why? I mean, like, why do I have to kill it?”
“You’re a sorceror, aren’t you, Yuuji-kun?” says Gojo-sensei. “Come on, come on~ It’s not that hard.” He crouches down and places the curse on the hardwood floor, peering up at Yuuji from behind his sunglasses. With one hand, he beckons Yuuji to move closer. With the other, he presses down on the curse, squishing it to the ground until its desperate squeaking quiets. Then he lets go, and its body springs back into shape once more.
“You don’t have to ask me to do it, though, sensei?” Yuuji wonders. “You’re way stronger than me—the strongest, after all—so it should be really easy for you?”
Sensei pouts at him. “I knooooww that. I could exorcise this thing just by looking at it. But I brought it here for you! Here—you look like you're having trouble, so I’ll help you out!” His hand snaps forward and wraps around Yuuji’s ankle, tugging it closer to him and Yuuji has to pinwheel for balance as the man takes and sticks his foot on top of the mini-Azurill. He can feel its terrified vibrations through the fabric of his socks.
“Just step on it,” says Gojo-sensei. He grins. “It'll be quick and easy. Trust me!"
"So, like, is it just me?" Yuuji asks, one day, "or does Gojo-sensei like to lie down on your things too?"
The other students all turn to look at him. Panda-senpai stops in the middle of his training routine, leaving Kugisaki (who he'd been swinging around) swaying erratically in midair. In a rare turn of events, she actually does not start yelling. In fact, she hangs there limply, upside down, wide-eyed and staring.
"Just for clarification," says Maki-senpai. "What do you mean by that?"
Yuuji sighs. "Well, y'know. Sometimes I come back to my room and Gojo-sensei's just lying on my bed, or he's sprawled all over my pile of manga, or I've left my hoodie out in the common room and when I come back to get it, sensei's sitting on it. Just. Sitting. On my hoodie. Like, that happens to you guys too, right?"
Fushiguro purses his lips. "No."
"I keep finding white hairs everywhere. I think sensei's been shedding on my clothes. That seriously doesn't happen to you?"
"Yeah, nah," says Kugisaki. "Definitely not. That has never happened to me. I hope it never does. It better fucking not."
Panda-senpai, though, starts to tap his chin in thought. The side-effect of this is that he drops Kugisaki on the ground, but fortunately Maki-senpai is there to catch her. Kugisaki has a pleased smirk on her face. Both girls have pleased smirks on their faces, and they are also smirking at each other, and overall, Yuuji thinks they're having a great time.
"Since my fur is soft and I smell great," says Panda-senpai, "I'm very appealing to hold, so I've caught him hugging me sometimes." He says it with a lot of pride.
"Oh," says Yuuji. "I was talking about sensei flopping over all my belongings, but that's another thing I wanted to mention. He also flops down on me—that must be why. I'm soft and nice and give really good hugs."
The resulting round of nods in agreement make Yuuji feel very warm and in the mood for hugs, and he wades through the overwhelming wave of affection he is suddenly struck by to get back to the most important point, which is the issue of Gojo-sensei sprawling all over his bed, and his floor, and his desk, and his laundry basket, and Yuuji himself, because, well, even though it is very endearing, it's making it kinda hard for Yuuji to go anywhere without tripping over the man's long, lanky body, and also he feels really guilty for accidentally kicking him in the ribs so many times.
Sure, Gojo-sensei has Infinity and it's probably kept him safe so far, but it's the sentiment of the thing. Yuuji was not raised to kick people. Mostly he punches them. And then he kicks them. During fights, that is. He doesn't do it randomly. Ok. A correction. Yuuji was not raised to kick people outside of fights.
"Have you tried kicking him out?" says Fushiguro, and Inumaki-senpai murmurs his own agreement with the statement.
"Ah," says Yuuji. "About that—"
It's late and the kitchen is quiet.
By now, Yuuji knows the layout of it by heart. His feet lead him easily through the dimly-lit room, the only light being what trickles in from the hallway. First to the cupboard, then to the counter, to the fridge, and then finally to the stove. The routine is familar to him now.
Gojo-sensei watches him silently and the weight of his eyes feels heavy.
"Sometimes I have trouble sleeping," says Yuuji. He putters around at the counter, shuffling mugs and spoons and spice containers. They don't have whipped cream in the kitchens at Jujutsu Tech and it's an absolute crying shame; Yuuji makes a mental note to buy some the next time they go out. Maybe on the way back from a mission, or on one of his day trips with Kugisaki and Fushiguro. Or maybe Nanamin would buy some if he asked…
For now, though, they'll just have to do without the topping.
"How sweet do you want it?"
Sensei stretches his arms out on the table, leaning forward and resting his chin on the surface of it. He looks like some big fluffy white cat, languid and self-satisfied. "As sweet as you can make it," he chirps.
"That's gonna be a lot of sugar, you know."
"Mmmm, you sound like a nagging wife, Yuuji," sensei says, laughter in his voice. He tilts his head, resting his cheek on the inside of his upper arm on the table. "It'll be fine! We have Shoko after all!"
Yuuji shakes his head in exasperation. "I'm pretty sure that's not how reverse cursed techniques work. Having too much blood sugar is definitely different from getting your bones broken by a curse. Not that you've ever had your bones broken by a curse, of course."
"True, true. But I did get stabbed once!" Gojo-sensei says. "It was such a pain. I should be allowed to eat as many sweets as I want for dealing with that, don't you think? Won't you put in an extra spoonful, Yuuji-kun?"
Gojo-sensei's mug currently contains four spoonfuls of sugar. Yuuji hovers the spoon between the giant pile of sugar already in the mug and the large container. He takes a deep breath and puts it down. "Sorry sensei," he says apologetically. "But if I add more sugar, then you won't taste the spices properly."
Sensei pouts. He seems to really enjoy it, though, in the end. Spiced milk and honey is something that Yuuji makes for himself a lot, when he has restless nights or trouble sleeping, or even when he wants something soothing and warm. It goes down his throat like a liquid embrace, cinnamon hot on his tongue and the milk creamy in the back of his throat, and Yuuji feels a swell of contentment in him at the way that Gojo-sensei's eyes flutter shut.
"Do you like it?" Yuuji asks. He knows the answer, but it's nice to hear the words themselves from the other's own smiling mouth.
"It's very good, Yuuji," says Gojo-sensei, looking at him through white lashes. "I might just ask you to make me some more."
"Hey, Fushiguro," says Yuuji thoughtfully. "Do you think my hair's messy?"
He inspects it carefully in the tinted window of some car that got tossed on its side (by Yuuji) in their most recent mission, and the longer he looks, the more mussed and untidy his hair seems to look. It's sticking up even more erratically than it usually does and Yuuji feels a bit like a hedgehog. Cursed energy sure does some really weird things.
"Does it matter?" says Fushiguro. He sounds tired and unamused, which is another pretty weird thing because only a few minutes ago he was inspecting his own hair in the car window. It wasn't very obvious, but Yuuji's got a good eye. "We finally finished the mission. God, that was shit."
"Hey!" Yuuji protests. "It's 'cause we're done that I can finally worry about this! I'm not stupid enough to check out my hair in the middle of a fight!"
Fushiguro lifts a hand and rests it on his shoulder. His eyes are solemn. "Keep it that way. Don't end up like Gojo-sensei."
"Awww," says Gojo-sensei, appearing rather spontaneously. "But why not?"
"Because you're terrible and vain," Fushiguro says, without any hesitation whatsoever. Gojo-sensei turns to Yuuji and wraps his arms around him like an octopus, just in time for Fushiguro to add, "and a pervert too. I really don't want to be associated with you." Then the other boy pinches the bridge of his nose and makes his way over to Kugisaki. She's crouched on the ground and looks sorta like a goblin as she scours the area for stray nails (I spent money on these, and I'm not leaving them to rust on the ground, she'd said scathingly) and Yuuji almost feels offended that Fushiguro thinks her better company than them.
"Do you think my hair's messy, sensei?" he says instead.
Sensei somehow twists his head so that he's peering up at Yuuji's face from somewhere around his waist. Even wrapped around Yuuji's bruised and bloody form, he looks very much immaculate. "Oh," he hums. "Oh, my dear student. You're all ruffled up!"
"Here, here, let me," says Gojo-sensei. He peels himself away and stands to his full height. "I'll help you out."
Yuuji watches sensei shake his arms out dramatically, as if preparing for an intense procedure—he unties his blindfold, blinking his icy eyes and shaking his white head.
"Are you alright?"
"All good!" says sensei. He starts stretching. Arms. Legs. Neck. He claps a couple times to pump himself up.
Yuuji watches him as he rolls his sleeves up, rolls his shoulders back, swipes his tongue over his lower lip and licks his hand, passing the saliva-wet palm over Yuuji's head and pressing the messy locks down.
When he's done, he steps back, looking very proud of himself.
"Ah," says Yuuji. He blinks. Cocks his head. "Ah. You fixed my hair. Thanks sensei."
"No problemo, Yuuji-kun!"
What do you do when a stray cat won't leave? Yuuji types into the search engine on his phone. A bunch of results pop up instantaneously, and he clicks on the first entry. The suggestions come up: advice for people seeking information about how to deal with Tokyo's stray cat populations, listed neatly—black characters on a sakura-patterned background.
- Call animal control, a cat rescue group or organisation, or an animal shelter in your area.
- Ask around in your neighbourhood if the cat belongs to someone.
- Ignore it. Don't feed it, or set out water, or it will continue to return to your household. It will eventually go away, especially if you cover your doors and windows so it can't see inside.
- Spray it with water when it comes near as a deterrent.
- Why not take the cat into your home?
Yuuji closes the tab. After a moment, he closes the window too. Then he switches his phone off.
He turns his eyes towards his bed, the sheets freshly made and smelling of scented fabric softener. Gojo-sensei—sprawled on top of the covers and rubbing his head all over Yuuji's pillow—smiles back at him, spread-eagle and clearly very content.
"It's 3am, sensei," says Yuuji.
"Ah," says Gojo-sensei happily. "So it's milk-and-honey time! Off to the kitchen, then!"
"I—it's—alright. Alright," says Yuuji. He runs a hand through his hair and does not bat an eye at the slight dampness of it. This time, sensei decided to just lick him outright. "Alright. It's milk-and-honey time. You can get off my bed now."