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A miracle has happened. Gojo is early for class today.
When Toge walks in, he tuts from where he's leaning back against the wooden chair, perched dangerously on two legs. The chair lands with a loud thud as the tall man swerves to waggle his finger at him. "Being late to class isn't becoming of a jujutsu sorcerer, Toge."
"You're one to talk," Maki grumbles from her seat. Toge agrees. He's too accustomed to waking up a few minutes after his alarm, lazing around watching a few YouTube videos before getting up for breakfast and heading to school. The additional hour that Gojo isn't present makes up for his hatred of morning lessons.
He scowls at Gojo under his scarf as he takes his seat at his desk. His gaze falls onto the clear packet of suspicious-looking seeds placed neatly in the middle of his desk. His other classmates have the same thing too.
Gojo claps his hands. "Now that everyone is present, here's your summer holiday assignment! As jujutsu sorcerers, there are many times where you may come to a hard decision of doing the right thing, and as such, my students will learn how precious a life is, no matter how small."
"And that's why we're growing plants?"
"Yes! And you'll be submitting a report on it every week," Gojo says with a grin. "I'll be looking forward to the results. Oh, before I forget, if your plant grows well, I'll add it as extra credit to your grades."
Toge perks up at that. Studying isn't his strongest suit so if it’s anything to boost his grades that doesn't involve more studying, he'll take it. It'll be fine, he waters the school's flowers every other day, how hard could growing a plant be?
As it turns out, plants need more than just water to grow.
He's staring down the soil in his pot, frowning. It's been a couple of days since the first planting and nothing has sprouted. He enviously looks over into Maki's pot, where there's the first hint of something green poking past the soil. Even Panda's had a couple of seedlings already forming their initial few leaves.
The only other person joining in with his misery is Yuuta, who had been mostly absent thanks to special training with their teacher in preparation to go to Kyoto with the seniors. His flowerpot, with his name label stuck on in big, marker-written letters, sits next to Toge's. He'd asked Toge to look after it while he's not around, to which he agreed. Toge wonders if he had accidentally killed their seeds somehow. Was it too much water? Not enough sunlight? He doesn’t know. Google doesn’t tell him anything either.
He wonders if he could cheat by just telling the seeds to "germinate", but decides against it. Gojo will see the lingering curse energy and fail them.
"Inumaki-kun!"
Toge looks up to see Yuuta waving at him before bounding over, reminding Toge of a puppy wagging its tail excitedly. He's clutching at his katana bag and the sleeves of his white uniform are smeared with the remains of a curse. "Kelp," he greets, scrunching his nose at the smell when Yuuta squats down next to him. The boy deflates a little when he sees just empty soil.
"Not yet, huh…" Yuuta sighs. Toge pats his shoulder in apology, surprised when he feels how the other boy immediately stiffens under his touch. Wide blue eyes turn to him and he stares back. It’s a little awkward with this close-up staring match going on and nothing else, so he looks at the stray strands falling on Yuuta’s forehead and gives him a thumbs up gesture in reassurance.
"Tuna mayo," he says. Some grow slower than others. Kind of like someone he knows.
"Y-yeah?" Judging from how his answer goes into a trailing question, he still doesn’t fully understand what Toge is saying. But as he looks closer, he realises that Yuuta's ears are turning red. Curious at his reaction, Toge peeks at him. His eyes meet Toge’s, then darts away. Oh, Yuuta’s being shy.
He knows how unfamiliar Yuuta is with being close to other people. Their elbows are close enough to touch, and if he scoots over just a little closer, they will bump together. How much will the other boy's blush spread down his neck?
He feels his face warming at the thought, then shoves it in the recesses of his mind. Yes, the sun is
really
hot today.
The next day, whatever warm feelings he had felt before vanishes at the sight of an entire leafy army coming to stomp on their comradery. He can't believe that Yuuta's done this to him.
"Inumaki-kun, look! It grew!"
Just overnight, right after Yuuta took his pot back from him, they sprouted the next day. Maybe, just maybe, cursed energy is a plant fertiliser of some sort. It would explain everything, since Yuuta radiates a heck-ton of it everyday, even now when he moves closer to show Toge his pot, chatting and gesturing animatedly.
Yuuta's like a mini sun, Toge makes this sudden (not really) discovery from just looking at his face, flushing from happiness. That's how all these seedlings are growing up from the kindness and warmth of his person, even if he has his cursed childhood friend hanging about his person giving off murder vibes. Yuuta himself doesn’t think so, but Toge could argue otherwise. That’s why he has these feelings, these growing thoughts about his friend that some would classify as a growing crush.
He shakes his head to clear his thoughts. Not now. There’s more important business to take care of.
“Mustard leaf?” Are you going to name it?
Yuuta stares at him blankly. “I haven’t thought of anything. You named yours?”
Huffing, Toge gestures to his still empty pot that mocks him. “Bonito flakes.” I’ll name it when it decides to show its face.
At that, Yuuta laughs. “Sounds kind of like you, actually. Well, I mean, like, the hard to get out of bed aspect. Kind of.” His brow furrows as he tries to think hard. He’s kind of cute, looking like that, Toge thinks absentmindedly. “I really don’t have any idea for a name.”
He already has one in mind, even before he asked Yuuta about it. Toge pulls out a marker and taps Yuuta’s name label on the pot. He bites onto the cap of the marker and pops it open, adding the word ‘Jr.’ behind Yuuta’s name in bold letters. Leaning back to admire his handiwork, he grins at Yuuta. “Salmon,” he says. Easy to remember.
“Huh? Yuuta Jr.? …Inumaki-kun.”
That’s the only warning he gets before Yuuta launches himself at Toge, and they end up wrestling for the marker. Toge comes out victorious from their little scuffle, scrambles to his feet and dashes off with it before Yuuta could start giving weird names to his plant. The boy gives chase after, their laughter echoing through the training grounds.
Yuuta Jr. has flourished considerably in the next few weeks under Toge’s care and it makes him feel like a proud plant dad. The plant mostly lives with him due to Yuuta’s unpredictable special grade schedule and occasional forgetful moments, so it sits by his sunny window along with Maki (the plant). He named it after Maki (the person) in hopes that it’ll grow up strong like her. Sadly, it may be a while before Maki (the plant) reaches her level.
He doesn’t need Gojo’s knowing smirk when he brings both plants in for his weekly report. “This plant is dearly loved, you guys are great plant parents,” he chuckles, after just one look at Yuuta Jr.. “I hope Yuuta’s not being neglectful, he has to put in some effort for his own work too.”
He thinks about the way Gojo called them ‘plant parents’ for the rest of the weekend.
Yuuta Jr.'s with him again for the next week while Yuuta’s away in Kyoto. It must be nice, going off to another part of Japan to experience the culture there. He snickers when he remembers Maki and Panda demanding Yuuta to bring them back souvenirs in exchange for being the only first year allowed to go. Laying his face on the table, he stares at the leafy plant sullenly. It hasn’t even been three hours since he left and he already misses Yuuta. At least when Yuuta goes out for missions, he’ll always be back at dinner time to hang out, greeting him with a dazzling flash of his teeth and a loud ‘Inumaki-kun!’.
So he brings Yuuta Jr. to dinner with him to fill the gap that Yuuta left behind. His dinner table companions find it concerning.
“Stop moping,” Maki scolds. “It’s not like he’s gone for a year.”
“Bonito flakes,” he says, pouting. You don’t understand.
The look that Maki gives him is drier and crackles more than sandpaper. “I don’t want to understand a bunch of pining idiots,” she says, snorting. “Yuuta Jr., really?”
“Pollock roe? Mustard leaf…” I think it’s kind of cute? And it was a joke… He’s not going to tell Maki that sometimes he talks (not out loud) to the plant.
Panda smiles down at him. “Humans can grow attached to the strangest things,” he says. “So weird.”
Ignoring the unhelpful and unsympathetic people he calls friends, he turns to Yuuta Jr., sighing. Toge prods a large leaf, hoping for any kind of response. Yuuta Jr. ignores him too.
Rude.
He’s almost scared shitless when he hears a knock at his door. It’s past two in the morning and Toge’s getting ready to sleep. Who the hell is out there?
It’s the last person he’s expecting to see. Maki, who heard from Panda, who heard from the Principal, told him that Yuuta would be delayed coming home, being caught up in Kyoto for whatever reason. Here he is, standing outside Toge’s door, dark circles darker than Toge remembers, dressed in his sleepwear. Yuuta’s holding something in his hands, a plastic bag.
“Kelp?” Good evening?
“Inumaki-kun, good evening,” he greets tiredly, yawning loudly. “I wanted to give you your souvenir, but it’s, uh… late now, isn’t it? Oh, should I go…?”
It is, but Toge offers to let him into his room anyway, mostly out of habit. Yuuta grins following him in. He holds out the bag to Toge. “It's a special grade fertiliser! I thought Maki might need some additional supplement. I was told this brand is good.”
At Toge’s mostly sleep-deprived and baffled look, Yuuta scratches the back of his head. “Maki, your plant,” he clarifies. “Not Maki-san. And thanks for taking care of mine while I’m away.”
“Salmon. Mustard leaf.” It’s all right. I named it, so it feels like part of my responsibility to care for it.
“Haha, sounds like we share a plant child. Do we? I don’t know. I don’t mind, though.”
His breath catches in his throat, though his brain feels too slow in processing the words spilling out of Yuuta’s mouth. Gojo’s annoying voice echoes the word ‘plant parents’ from the back of his head, Yuuta’s looking at him so intensely for someone lacking so much sleep, and there’s nowhere else to escape to, not when Yuuta’s so close to him like this.
When did he get this close? Toge’s panicking, because Yuuta’s leaning in more and more, his eyes fluttering shut. What is he supposed to do in this situation? Push him back? Shake him? Close his eyes and accept the–
Yuuta’s entire weight collapses on him as he passes out on Toge, finally reaching the limit of his exhaustion.
It takes Toge some effort to flip Yuuta so that he can move again. The other boy is heavy, especially when he’s sleeping so deeply like that. How much work did he do that made him this tired? He knows Yuuta usually has a hard time falling and staying asleep thanks to his terrible past memories. Running his hand through Yuuta's damp hair (he smells good), he considers his options.
Drag Yuuta halfway across the corridor and dump him on his own bed, or tuck him into Toge’s.
He picks the easier of the two. There’s no need for him to think so hard. He crawls into bed with the other boy, snuggling up to his warmth.
“I-Inumaki-kun!”
He’s being shaken awake, and blearily, he peers up at Yuuta. He follows Yuuta’s gestures to the red bloom that Yuuta Jr.'s sprouted out. It must have been some time last night, because he had not seen that before. Scrambling to his feet, he almost trips over his blanket on his way to take a look.
Toge has no clue what flower it is, but it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, right next to Yuuta’s glowing face in the morning sunlight.
“Tuna mayo!” Look, Yuuta Jr.’s all grown up now!
When he looks over at Yuuta, he’s caught by how soft Yuuta’s gaze is, not on the flower, but on… “Tuna?” Yuuta?
It feels like a continuation from the night before with their unspoken feelings between them, but this time, there’s no risk of Yuuta passing out on him. He’s known for a while now, always does. Yuuta’s not subtle about it at all, but he never acts upon it. Toge’s supposed to be patient, to wait until Yuuta’s ready to make the first move, but maybe, he’s tired of waiting.
Yuuta’s still blatantly staring at him with such affection, so Toge closes the distance between them first and kisses him.
Behind them on the table, Maki (the plant) blooms a pretty white flower.