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"Utahime, come to sleep! I'm getting lonely here without you, y'know!" Gojo shouted from the first floor of the house. Utahime rolled her eyes at that.
His former students were the ones who had come to visit but she was the one conversing with them late into the night. It was true she had only come into the guest room to wish them a good night sleep, but before she knew it, she found herself exchanging anecdotes—which included Gojo more often than not—with the only other girl in the house, Nobara. How did that happen? Utahime had no idea.
In fact, she was left absolutely drained with the exam period happening at the moment (plus the shock of having three people show up at her door uninvited at 9 PM), and he was too, supposedly, but they still were guests they—she at the moment—needed to attend to.
Gojo had already called it a day, and Utahime was about to do so too, but she couldn't simply tell Nobara to stop talking. The story of how they had lost Yuuji for half a day on their trip to Hokkaido last week didn't seem to be nearing its end soon, much to Utahime's chagrin.
Don't get her wrong, she did enjoy a good talk to reconnect with people she held close to her heart and hadn't seen in so long.
But she was tired, extremely tired.
And the thing she wanted the most now, was to sleep. Sink into that old couch, wrap as much blankets around her as possible and drift off to dreamland. Next to the giant warm body of her husband, if she might add.
"Utahime, your side it's going to grow cold if you stay up any longer! I already warmed it up for you!"
Inwardly grateful for the nice gesture, she smiled a little, a smile that got overtaken by a yawn. Utahime wasn't fast enough to cover it and Nobara caught up to her tiredness—letting out a yawn of her own, suggesting they put a pause to their talk.
Utahime happily agreed. Finally. Getting up from the bed she and Nobara were talking on, Utahime gave her a lazy smile. "Have a goodnight then, feel free to call me if anything happens."
"Will do Iori-san." Nobara got up as well, lightly hitting Yuuji's shoulder with the the tip of her shoe to try and get his attention. Said one was sprawled on the floor with Megumi at his side, eyes locked on their phones. "Let's not keep Gojo-sensei waiting for much longer. He can get pretty annoying at times."
Utahime agreed—who knew she would be grateful for that character trait of his now, whilst thinking about how cute it was she still called him sensei even after all the years that had gone by between then and now.
Well, to be fair, they didn't even hesitate to crash at their house without any prior notice, so the sense of trust between them was palpable...or maybe the modesty wasn't there anymore, who knows.
"Then I'll leave you to rest." Nodding to herself, Utahime walked towards the door, not tugging on the doorknoob until after bidding goodnight to the boys. "Goodnight to you too."
The three of them hummed in response, wishing her a goodnight in return. (So they were paying attention to her, sweet.) She heard Nobara saying something about 'dibs' and 'the bed' but decided against going to check on them even after a crashing sound was heard throughout the whole corridor. They must be playing, she thought.
Utahime switched off the lights and started to go down the stairs, using the handrail to avoid tripping in the dark. In all honesty, she felt a little guilty about not having more guest rooms for them to spend the night comfortably in. But not much could be done about it now, spending one uncomfortable night wasn't all that bad.
After reaching the end of the stairs, Utahime was tip-toing her way towards their couch when suddenly a hand pulled her from the wrist, making her momentarily lose balance and fall and land on top of a body. On top of him, to be precise. His quiet laughing could be felt from the movements of his chest—that Utahime conveniently had her hands on.
He was shirtless, was he insane?
"You are going to get sick, put something on Satoru."
He let go of her, and Utahime rolled off him, shifting to his side. Quickly getting under the blankets—the first floor of the house was always cold. And that's why he needed cover.
"I thought you would appreciate the view." There was a cheeky grin behind that, no need to see to know.
"I do appreciate it, when I can actually see it."
"But I can see you, what do you mean you can't see me?"
"My eyes are tired, that's probably it." He let out a sad whimper, getting under the blankets but leaving the most part for her. Utahime inched closer to him at that. Their toes brushed.
"You were the one who wouldn't stop asking for me to come to sleep and now you want to do something else. Tsk, you need to make up your mind Satoru."
He got ahold of her waist and pulled her even closer to him, leaving zero inches of space between them.
"I wasn't trying to do anything." His voice became more gentler, and somewhat crouching down to meet her ear, he spoke. "I just want to sleep beside you."
Warm pooled on Utahime's stomach. Heat rised on her cheeks. Dammit. They had been married for two years, dated for one and a half, and had known each other for more than ten and he could still manage to make her blush at the slightest thing. God, she liked him. A lot.
"Utahime, what are you thinking about? You're spacing out." She had unconsciously hid her face on his chest and he had seized the opportunity to poke her cheek repeatedly. Utahime groaned embarrassed. Ah, she felt like a highschool girl all over again. What was she feeling so shy about?
Admitting he liked him? They had gotten married, of course he was in her good books. (It had taken time but they got there.)
"Are you embarrased?"
"I am."
With her eyes still closed, Utahime waited for his retort. His teasing in return. But it never came, instead his hold on her softened. Weird. She opened her eyes and forced them to focus on his face. To no avail, his features were still well-hidden in the dark and the only thing she could distinguish was the contour of his face.
"Now you're the one spacing out."
"Am not." He instantly replied. "It just caught me off guard."
"What caught you off guard?"
"Your brutal honesty."
"Brutal honesty...?"
A low chuckle left his lips. "Yeah. I'm still not used to it. You used to deny my flattery had any effect on you." He shifted, and she could now feel him rubbing his cheek against her own. "I'm just relishing in the feeling of you liking me enough to not act all tsunder-ish around me."
Tsunder-ish?
Utahime arched her left eyebrow, confused by his choice of words. "Sometimes you say weird things, you know?"
The rubbing stopped. It was replaced by a warm kiss left on the top of her head she barely felt.
"I know." Utahime knew he was grinning, there was no shadow of a doubt he was. She let out a breathy laugh at that. It was kind of endearing.
It was nice. He, them, this—everything about this exact moment was nice. Being held by a pair of strong arms on a cold night was nice, the owner of that pair of arms being Gojo was even better.
Who would have thought that one day she would say that.
If her high school self saw her right now, well, young Utahime would probably pass out from the impression. Not that she blames her for it.
Nobody guessed they would end together, not even her, honestly.
To all this, her tiredness had evaporated from her being. Utahime didn't feel the need to sleep anymore. And as crazy as it sounds, her body felt energized.
How?
A soft murmur very similar to a purr woke her up from the little trance she was induced into. Making her realize the position she was in. Gojo's right cheek rested on top of her chest, arms around her waist—securing her like a pillow, and legs intertwined with hers. It should be added that her left hand was playing with the white strands of his hair, massaging his scalp through them.
It was the pure muscle memory acting up. Utahime should have been more absentminded than she thought, to not notice anything at all.
What she did notice, or rather got reminded of, was the lack of a shirt on his upper body. Feeling him—in the name of empathy, she confirmed her suspicions, he was getting cold. And how was he not supposed to, when the blankets didn't even cover a quarter of his body, and the position they were in, plus his height, forced him to leave his feet hanging out of the improvised bed.
The reclinable coach was somewhat big, but it wasn't big enough to fit both of them perfectly.
Utahime shook him lightly, but Gojo only groaned in return. To not disturb his sleep so abruptly, she opted to poke his cheek repeatedly as he had done with her earlier. Ten pokes later, he half-opened one eye, giving her a dirty look for waking him up.
"Turn around," She said.
He managed to let out a sleepy <<waaii?>>, to which she replied, "It's cold, turn around."
"'M okay."
"Satoru," The poking got more constant.
"Don't wanna."
"Satoru!" Utahime raised her voice while still keeping the tone in the spectrum of a whisper.
"Aw, you're so mean Hime!" Imitating her tone, he hastily distangled himself from her and turned around. Propping his body up until his head reached the pillow set out for him since the beginning. "There, hmph."
"It's for your own good, don't complain."
"Hmph."
Giving his back a knowing look and a barely contained eye-roll, Utahime wrapped her arms around his torso, sliding them all the way through his waist. Pulling herself closer to his broad and muscled back, cupping his rear with her front. Gojo didn't tense up but didn't exactly relax on the hold either. He was that petty. Utahime thought it was kind of amusing how her petite body tried to embrace his whole being from behind.
Truth to be told, that position wasn't made for people with a small physique to spoon people almost two time their size, but Utahime enjoyed hugging him from behind, so how ridiculous she looked at the moment didn't matter to her. Gojo definitely did not care either. Because when she pretended to remover her grip and establish some distance between them to elicit a reaction from him, he immediately holded her arms in place.
He even groaned at the minuscule loss of contact. "Leave them."
"So you like being held after all." Utahime rested her cheek on his back, feeling all the warm his body emanated.
"You know I do," Melting between her arms would be the appropiate word choice to describe Gojo at the moment, believe it or not. His skin surely felt hot enough to salvage that statement. "If it's you who's holding me." He added before Utahime could respond with an I do.
Rendering her spechless, Utahime bit her lip in contemplation. Being corny wasn't her signature trademark, but neither was blushing at him being smooth with words. And he had already said it, they were past the point of feeling ashamed.
"I love you."
"I love you too." Came his response, and the steady rhythm of her heart matching his made everything a little too pleasant.
Utahime giggled, girly giggled as she hadn't done in a while. She didn't know love could be this good, but that was a surprise she welcomed with open arms.
"Let's sleep more often like this." He mumbled, and she hummed in agreement.
"Let's."
Utahime still wasn't feeling tired enough to fall asleep, but feeling restless (surprisingly) with her hands full of a gentle warm didn't seem like such a bad idea as it should have been.