Chapter Text
"Is this thing on?"
The camera is blacked out, but the voice coming from the recording comes through loud and clear, their breathing calm. Apparently, the person speaking is having trouble with the image, but finally, after a few seconds, Panda's face takes up the entire screen, and when he realizes he's managed to get it working, all his teeth can be seen in a big, triumphant grin. The camera wobbles a bit on his big paw, so he readjusts his grip carefully and moves it a little away from his face before he continues speaking.
"Hello everyone! First of all, I'll introduce myself, I'm Panda" he comments animatedly, waving "If you're wondering where I got this camera from, Maki recently gave me this old thing that she no longer uses, and I decided to start making some videos that I would record daily and that would be totally harmless... But they haven't turned out to be as innocent as I had anticipated.
I've been recording for about three weeks now, and some of the things I've discovered are so interesting that I just had to compile them into a single video that Toge promised he would help edit. What can I say? I'm a very curious panda."
Panda smiles wickedly, and immediately after that the video cuts off to give way to another visual. As a short, animated melody plays; large, colorful letters light up the screen: Nobara's Valentine.
💌
'05:37 a.m.' marks the digital clock above the head of a frazzled-looking Inumaki. Him and Panda are sitting at a table in the school cafeteria, both devouring their breakfasts as Panda explains the mission they have for the day between bites. The camera is resting on the table in front of them, and they are the only ones seen in the shot.
At the same time that Inumaki lets out a yawn, a clatter is heard on the other side of the camera, and both students look at each other, confused as the sound of what appears to be a pot falling bounces off the walls.
"I thought we were the only ones on assignment today," Panda comments, scratching his side lazily. Inumaki merely shrugs his shoulders.
Panda stands up, picking up his plate and glass with one paw, and the camera with the other. "Let's take a look before we go" he says as he focuses on Inumaki, who is already standing, leading the way to the kitchen's door as he yawns again. He doesn't seem too worried about the possible intruder.
Inumaki opens the door, and holds it for Panda, and immediately the cause of the disturbance is caught red-handed by the camera lens.
Nobara tries to hide a huge bowl behind her back as soon as she hears the door, but when she sees it's them her shoulders relax "Oh, it's just you two" she says as she dips a ladle back into... whatever's in there.
The camera turns to Inumaki, who now seems a bit more awake and is looking at Nobara quizzically.
"...Tuna mayo" he says, pointing at the girl.
The camera turns back to Nobara, who is scowling and looking at Inumaki as if she could strangle him.
"You're right, this is probably the weirdest thing we'll see all day... Nobara getting up early" Panda whispers, as if Nobara isn't right there and can hear him just the same. Nobara's brow furrows even more, if that was even possible.
Either way, her appearance isn't very threatening other than that: she's still wearing her pajamas, which have a pink bunny print, matching her slippers; her face and clothes are stained with flour and chocolate, and her hair is tangled and matted.
Nobara seems about to say something, but then she sighs and places the bowl so that it's held between her forearm and hip. "Look, I don't have time for this right now, if I don't finish this soon Ma-" a pause "-someone might find me here, and I'm not supposed to use the kitchens since the pickle incident."
Panda and Inumaki look knowingly at each other, apparently remembering said incident.
"What are you doing, anyway?" Panda asks, being driven by curiosity, moving closer to look at what's in the bowl with the camera, to which Nobara moves the container as far away from him as she can. At the same time, Inumaki succesfully manages to stick his finger in the mixture by coming up behind the girl as she looks menacingly at Panda.
"Hey!" Nobara exclaims upon noticing, but it's too late, Inumaki has already stuck his finger in his mouth.
After a second, a visible shiver runs through the boy and his face seems to be turning a little green "...Tuna"
Panda takes advantage of the fact that Nobara has stopped looking at him to also stick his finger into the mixture.
"Stop sticking your dirty paws into my creation!" she shouts, turning around and covering the bowl as best as she can, now using her whole body as a shield.
"You're right Toge" Panda coughs, ignoring her "this tastes terrible."
Nobara relaxes her shoulders, turning around again, and she looks slightly worried "Is it that bad? Really?"
"Well, Maki doesn't have a very exquisite palate, so she'll eat it anyway."
"Oh, than-" suddenly, Nobara's face turns ten times redder "Hey, I never said it was for Maki!"
"Bonito flakes"
"Yeah! Don't worry, we're not going to tell her" and before Nobara can say anything, both students turn around, the camera leaving Nobara out of the shot, though her stammering and attempts to create a coherent excuse can still be heard.
"Does it smell like something's burning to you, Toge?" Panda asks in a low voice, but apparently Nobara picks up on it, letting out a quiet 'Fuck!'.
Seconds later the fire alarm starts to sound, possibly waking up the entire building.
💌
The screen goes black, and a quirky transition exposes the next scene. Panda has his paw outstretched and the camera pointing at himself. Inumaki and Maki are walking to his right through what, judging by the colorful storefronts on either side, the artificial light, and the large number of people exiting and entering the shot, is a shopping mall.
"It's..." Panda starts, looking down at his wrist which is not holding the camera and definitely doesn't have a watch on it.
"Half past twelve" Maki finishes for him.
"Right, thanks Maki. We just finished the mission, and fortunately no one got hurt."
"Kelp" Inumaki comments in a hoarse voice.
"Gojo-sensei sure is going to 'get hurt' if he keeps sending us on missions that last more than six hours" Maki's gaze hardens, and her hand is dangerously close to the weapon secured behind her back.
Panda seems to decide that the wise thing to do is not to add anything, stepping almost imperceptibly away from the girl walking beside him.
"Anyway, we're exhausted, so we've decided to stop by this mall to grab something to eat before heading back."
The camera flickers for a moment, and then a sequence of images flashes by as a lively tune plays in the background: the first shows a confused worker looking at Inumaki, who is holding up three fingers as he speaks, and is completely oblivious to the blank stare of the poor woman, who is pretty sure her establishment has no onigiri options; in the second, Maki is tossing a wrapper into a bin while holding a huge sandwich with her other hand, which a dog passing by is eyeing with desire; the third is a bit blury, but Panda is clearly taking a big bite out of what looks like a hamburger; and in the fourth and final one Inumaki is on his knees on the floor, looking sadly at his spilled milkshake. The camera then goes back to the three students, who are now sitting contentedly on a mall bench.
"Hey, isn't that Nobara?" Panda asks, looking at some point out of the shot after burping so loud it makes Inumaki turn pale.
Maki takes a thousandth of a second to turn her neck in said direction at incredible speed. The camera now points to where Panda was looking and zooms in.
"What the hell is she wearing?" Maki asks, her tone amused.
It's Nobara, but it's not easy to inmediatly recognize her. She's wearing fuchsia sunglasses and a large pamela on her head that covers her hair, and between the two things half of her face is covered. The other half is covered by the high collar of a beige furry coat.
She is clutching a paper bag against her chest as if it were her most valuable possession, and is looking everywhere, as if paranoid.
"Do you think someone is following her?" Maki now sounds a bit worried, though she tries not to make this too obvious.
"I don't know, but I definitely think she doesn't want to be recognized."
"Mustard leaf."
"You're right, maybe we can help her" Panda agrees, and a second later he's shouting their friend's name to get her attention.
Nobara turns until she spots the source of the voice, and lifts her sunglasses as she squints in their direction. Despite the distance, it is clear that the girl's gaze is murderous.
"Oi, quit screaming you-" Maki then interjects. It is at that very instant that Nobara notices her. The girl looks like a cornered animal, and lets out a high-pitched, panicked sound that even the poor camera's microphone is able to pick up, before running off in the direction of the exit as if her life depended on it.
"Wow, that's the fastest I've ever seen Nobara run" Panda laughs as he points at his friends with the camera again. He hasn't zoomed out yet, which resulted in a comical close-up of Maki's face as the camera focuses on her and, with utter confusion apparent on her face, she blurts out "I was the one she was avoiding?".
💌
"One, two... one, two, three, and..."
Panda, from his kneeling position on the floor in the middle of a hallway, hits a button on a cassette to his right, and an upbeat k-pop song begins to play over the speaker. To Panda's left, Itadori and Inumaki are positioned in the same way. When a female voice starts singing, the three of them look at the camera with absolute seriousness, and they are all wearing matching sunglasses. Immediately afterwards they stand up, making totally uncoordinated movements, which can hardly be considered a choreography.
At some point the screen incorporates a filter that presumably belongs to the post-production done by Inumaki, and which resembles the lights of a club. On top of this, the image starts shaking and confetti comes out of the top. Everything is so saturated that barely anything can be seen, just three figures who seem to have just learned how to use their limbs.
Suddenly, both boys move away as Panda crouches down to gather momentum and... does a cartwheel that ends disastrously, with one leg tipping over the camera with a kick, the other the cassette (causing the music to stop immediately), and with Panda rolling into a door, which opens under the sheer force of the impact.
The filter is removed, and the image remains sideways for a few seconds, the floor on the right and the ceiling on the left, until Inumaki hurries to pick up the camera from where it is and lifts it up. For a few moments, the angle is too close to the boy's face and it is slightly blurred, unable to focus. After this, Inumaki points the camera at the door that is wide open, a Panda who is painfully massaging his butt, and....
"Kugisaki?" Itadori says, confused. Inumaki zooms in on who, indeed, is Nobara, caught tiptoeing on a stool with her arm outstretched toward the top of a shelf, looking like someone who was in no way doing anything legal. "Isn't this Fushiguro's room?"
For a few brief seconds, Itadori and Nobara maintain eye contact. Nobara's eyes are wide, and her mouth seems to be forming the beginning of a excuse.
The absolute silence is broken when Nobara looks at the camera for a moment, and suddenly throws a book at Inumaki and another at Itadori at the same time, who only have time to shrink in on themselves.
"If you say anything about this to anyone, I'll kill you!" Nobara shouts, as Inumaki regains the camera's stability and records her running away with a book under her arm, skidding around the corner where the hallway ends.
The shot then returns to Itadori. "Huh" he blurts thoughtfully, looking curiously at the book that had just hit him and was now lying face up on the floor. "'Poetry of the nineteenth century'? I didn't know Kugisaki liked these type of books, I've never seen her read anything other than fashion magazines..."
Some suspenseful music begins to play before the screen goes completely black.
💌
"So." Itadori plops down next to Megumi, who is sitting on the stairs of the training ground drinking from a bottle. The sun is already low in the sky, an orange color tinting their faces and giving them a warm glow.
The cameraman stands in front of the boys. Megumi gives it a quick glance and lets out a sigh as he holds the bottle away from his mouth.
"So." Megumi returns, giving him a sideways glance, suspicion glinting in his eyes. "What did you do this time?"
"Me? Nothing!" Megumi looks deadpan at him, and Itadori looks at the camera with a nervous smile before looking back at Megumi.
"It wasn't me! We just wanted to ask you if you knew that Kugisaki-"
"-stole a poetry book from me?" Megumi finishes for him "I know, I saw her with it in the dining room, she was so focused on it I don't think she noticed I sat at the same table as her for twenty minutes."
Itadori blinks a couple of times, and Megumi goes back to drinking from his bottle slowly, not taking his eyes off the pink-haired "And you're not angry?"
Megumi wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, unbothered "It's not like she's never going to give it back, she doesn't even like poetry... I can take a guess as to why she wanted it today, though"
Itadori looks puzzled "Today? What happens today?"
Megumi looks at him with a raised eyebrow, showing the slightest reaction to Itadori's words for the first time since the conversation started "...You don't know what day tomorrow is?"
💌
"Valentine's Day, dear students!" is the first thing that's heard as the scene changes. It's the following day. Gojo is almost jumping up and down as he approaches the camera; he's holding a basket with one hand, from which he occasionally grabs a handful of rose petals. At that moment he throws some of them over Nanami, who was just passing by. The man lets out a weary sigh and decides to continue walking as if nothing had happened.
"And what might this be, Panda?" Gojo asks as he arrives in front of the second-years, looking directly into the camera and giving it a flirtatious smile, running a hand through his hair.
"Just documenting the day," Panda replies, out of frame.
"Well, I hope you recorded the decorations I put up all over the school! It's taken me all night."
"They're a little hard to miss, sensei" Maki then interjects, frowning. Panda records around and sure enough, the red and pink decorations all over the walls are extremely extravagant. "Besides, shouldn't we be in class right now?"
"Oh, someone's in a bad mood" Gojo croons. "Isn't Valentine's Day going well?"
Maki's ears are a little red as the shot focuses on her. "Shut up, it's just a day like any other."
Gojo shrugs, but a knowing smile graces his face "It might surprise you."
That said, he signals his students to follow him as he starts walking with one hand in his pocket. For a while, the video is relatively uneventful; they arrive at their classroom with too many tables for only three people, they sit down, and Gojo begins to explain something regarding special curses as he paces in front of the blackboard. At some point the image changes, and now Gojo is sitting on the table, one leg over the other and gesturing with his hands, while Maki and Inumaki pass a paper airplane over the camera shot.
Suddenly the classroom door bursts open, and a very determined Nobara enters with firm footsteps and stands in front of everyone. The paper airplane swerves and hits Inumaki on the side of the head as everyone turns to look at her.
Gojo smiles sideways, seemingly not surprised at all by the intervention "Oh? To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?"
At the same time, discreetly, Megumi and Itadori poke their heads through the door. When Panda zooms in on them, Itadori looks in their direction and just shrugs, also not really sure what the whole thing is about.
"Maki-senpai!" Nobara shouts then, ignoring her teacher. Her face is completely red from her neck to the roots of her hair, and Maki sits straighter under the girl's intense gaze. "I... wrote you a poem."
There is a gasp from Itadori, who at some point had moved along with Megumi to the desks next to Maki. Megumi seems unimpressed, and Inumaki has pulled out a bag of popcorn from somewhere and is eating them one at a time discreetly, watching the scene as if it were a movie. Maki, meanwhile, now matches the red color of Nobara's face, and her cheeks are also on fire.
Nobara pulls out a folded sheet of paper from her jacket pocket, and unfolds it while clearing her throat. Everyone leans a little on their seats, expectantly.
She begins, her voice now almost a whisper. Around her, there's absolute silence.
"Sometimes I run
Sometimes I hide
Sometimes I'm scared of you
All I really want is to hold you tight
Treat you right, be with you day and night
All I really want is to hold you tight
Be with you day and night"
For a few seconds, no one says anything. Even Inumaki has stopped chewing.
And suddenly, Itadori whispers, almost inaudibly "Wait... isn't that a Britney Spears so-"
Megumi punches him to shut him up before he can finish, and Itadori releases a small, sore sound.
Very slowly, Maki gets up from her seat, and everyone looks at her. The camera only has an angle of her back, so her reaction is not very clear, but the tips of her ears are red. Nobara swallows, visibly nervous, as Maki walks firmly until she's in front of her.
"I was going to make you chocolates too, but let's just say it didn't go very well" Nobara starts to say, her voice a little shaky "Seriously! I almost burned down the kitchen agai-"
"Nobara."
"...Maki?"
"Shut up" she says, her tone clearly delighted, and then one of her hands is on Nobara's cheek and the other on her waist, and she pulls her to herself until their lips gently connect. Nobara's eyes close, and in a second she is wrapping her arms around the older girl's neck.
The room goes crazy, everyone is suddenly on their feet, some chairs have fallen, and shouts and laughter are a din that bounces off the classroom walls. Inumaki is throwing popcorn in the air and Itadori has jumped on a table and is cheering, while Megumi grabs his leg to keep him from falling, although he too has a smile on his face that is impossible to miss.
When the camera focuses on Gojo, it looks like his blindfold is a bit damp "Oh, to be young and in love" he says with a hand over his heart.
💌
"What's that?" Panda asks, focusing the shot on Maki's wrist, which is decorated by a delicate purple stone bracelet.
They are on the training field, and Maki stops the deadly swing of her weapon to look curiously at where Panda is pointing. When she looks at the bracelet, her gaze softens and a small smile creeps onto her face.
In the warm late afternoon sun, Maki looks directly into the camera "My girlfriend" she says, emphasising the word, savoring the novelty of it "gave it to me this morning when all the fuss was over."
"Oh, it's beautiful!"
"Yeah, she told me that purple suits me" she comments, shrugging her shoulders "The stones are shaped as forget-me-not flowers."
At that moment, Maki's gaze wanders. It settles on some distant point to the right of the camera. Her breathing is still a bit labored after training, but despite the fatigue, her gaze is more alive than ever and her eyes hold a special glint as she waves her hand in the air. The camera turns in that direction, and Nobara is there, leaning against a railing, the wind ruffling her hair and her arm stretched above her head, waving back.
💌
Forget-me-nots symbolize true love and respect. When you give someone these tiny blooms, it represents a promise that you will always remember them and will keep them in your thoughts. They are also considered a symbol of fidelity and faithfulness.