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Nanami frowns down at his notebook, tapping his pen against the table. He’ll need to burn the page and then bury the ashes when he’s done, though it’s now a matter of spite rather than practicality.
He’s drawn up two lists, and the answers are clear as day. He knows exactly what he should be doing, and yet here he sits, with a list of reasons not to have a crush on Gojo Satoru spilling off the page – and a crush on Gojo Satoru that is frustratingly, embarrassingly present.
“Ieiri-senpai would be good,” he mutters to himself. “We get along. She's funny, shares her cigarettes, has actual common sense. I would even take Geto-senpai. That would make sense, too. Something must be severely and deeply wrong with me.”
This is getting ridiculous. Nanami knows that they say all sorcerers have something wrong with them – or, as Gojo likes to put it, are at least a little insane. Gojo also likes to prove that the others are only considered a little insane because everything is relative, and he is completely insane.
But that’s them. Nanami is himself.
He knows better, except for how he clearly doesn’t. Of all the people to develop a crush on, he had to pick the absolute worst one.
Nanami slumps forward until his forehead thuds against his desk, grateful for the solitude of the second-year wing of the dorms with Haibara off on a mission.
He needs to get over it. He will get over it. Gojo is – obnoxious, and horrible, and arrogant, and he won’t fuck off no matter how much Nanami tells him to. All he does is talk about himself, and poke and prod at Nanami, turn his stomach into a mess of butterflies and then laugh when Nanami's face turns red with what he desperately hopes Gojo can't see isn't anger. It even is anger, half the time. Nanami tries to cling to that as a sign that he hasn't gone off the deep end completely.
There's just something about having Gojo's attention that feels like standing on a knife's edge. Nanami is the last person that Gojo should notice, all things told; they're not in the same year, Nanami's not from any clan, major or minor. His technique is good, shows potential, but there's not more than that; he'll have to work hard if he wants to make it to Grade One, meanwhile Gojo and Geto are both special grades. It used to be that Gojo would only ever really look at Geto, even if Geto had always been kind to him and Haibara. And then Gojo noticed them - noticed Nanami - and didn't stop.
It was annoying at first. Now? It's intoxicating, knowing that someone with that much power is looking at you, seeing you. And then there's the fact that he'll start talking.
“Nanami! There you are – wow, are you moping already? You’re going to give yourself wrinkles, frowning like that all the time,” an unfortunately familiar voice says, too close to his ear for comfort.
Speak of the fucking devil.
Nanami jolts up, slams his notebook shut immediately and reaches for a weapon that's not at his side before he realizes who it is and that his technique would be no good anyway.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking, Gojo-senpai?” he snaps, willing the heat not to rise to his cheeks. He hopes that Gojo didn’t see anything written there. Or if so, dismissed it as – Nanami being strange, something easily joked about with Geto and then forgotten completely.
“Please! You weren’t doing anything important,” Gojo says with a smile, blinding and bright. His sunglasses are on, but sliding down the bridge of his nose, so Nanami is greeted with the full force of his eyes: Crystalline, cruel, and manically brilliant. It makes his stomach flip in a not entirely pleasant way.
“I could have been,” Nanami mutters. He immediately regrets how petulant he sounds.
“Well, I figured the worst I could walk in on was you jerking off or something, but then I thought – hm, it’s Nanami! There’s no way.” Gojo laughs as if he’s told the funniest joke ever and not given Nanami a new fear and fantasy all rolled into one. “Instead you were just scribbling away. Taking notes? Being a diligent student?”
“Yes,” Nanami says immediately. “There’s a test. Very important, since unlike some people, I actually need to pass my classes to stay enrolled.”
“Pfft. Like you’re getting taught anything useful. All you have to do is show up once and breathe, that’s enough,” Gojo scoffs. It’s not an inaccurate statement; Nanami thinks that it’s probably a good thing nobody comes here and goes back out into the real world. Jujutsu Tech would leave them utterly unprepared for almost anything a normal life requires.
“Besides!” Gojo adds, leaning in close. “I saw some names in there, and I know you’re not taking notes for me.” Nanami can smell the spiced notes of his cologne, probably a disgustingly expensive brand, layered under the scent of fruit and sugar on his breath. Conflicting urges to breathe in and savor it, and not breathe at all, rise in him. Both are idiotic.
“Maybe Shoko,” he allows. “Which is unfair! I should be your favorite, Nanami, c’mon. I’m prettier, after all.”
That had been nearly the only ‘pro’ in Gojo’s column, but Nanami would rather chew and swallow glass than admit it.
“Maybe to people who haven’t spoken to you for more than five consecutive seconds. Trust me, your bad personality more than outweighs it,” Nanami retorts. “And – are you calling Ieiri-senpai ugly? She isn’t.”
A brief frown mars his face, and Nanami is nearly too distracted to notice those slim fingers reaching for his notebook. He snatches it close to his chest instead, scowling.
“Nanami,” Gojo says slowly, a realization dawning on his face. Whatever it is, Nanami knows he’s going to hate it. “Do you have a crush on Shoko?”
He’s whispering it like she’s right outside the door. And god, does Nanami wish.
“That’s none of your business, Gojo-senpai,” he snaps before he can think better of it. “And it’s nothing like that, anyway. It’s just – notes. About reverse cursed energy. You and Ieiri-senpai are the only people I know who can use it, but you don’t use it in the same way.” Nanami pauses. He wants Gojo to leave and forget about this, and without Geto around to provide a distraction, the surest way to do that is to insult his pride. “For one, she can actually heal other people.”
This was not on Nanami’s pro list for Ieiri by any means, but Gojo’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.
“You – listen, I’m the strongest, and you know what that means? Not getting hurt in the first place, and I guess not letting the people around me get hurt. You know. If they’re close by. So they don’t need reverse cursed anything for healing.” Gojo crosses his arms over his chest, petulant and bratty like he always is. Nanami wants to kiss the pout off his mouth. It was much less complicated when all he wanted to do was punch it off, even if both are equally impossible. Gojo is untouchable. Nanami knows this. He would just rather Gojo be a little more untouchable, instead of vacillating between an arrogant pseudo-god and an obnoxious teenager. Nanami likes neither aspect of his personality; the marriage of both should be doubly abhorrent instead of appealing, but it’s not.
It always makes him feel like he’s earned something, when he gets a genuine reaction out of Gojo, and that’s a dangerous proposition.
“Preventing the need for a technique doesn’t count towards its efficacy,” Nanami counters.
“Don’t lecture me to try and get out of this!” Gojo jabs an accusing finger his way. He’s closer now, notebook forgotten as he leans right against Nanami’s desk. They’re close enough that Nanami could brush up against his Infinity, if he really wanted to. He wants to not want to.
Sometimes he thinks that he should, if only to feel the rejection. That would sort this out.
So would confessing, but Gojo would laugh, and he would never live it down, and then Nanami would still have to deal with him.
“I’m not trying to get out of anything,” Nanami tells him. “You’re the one who barged in here to annoy me. What did you even want?”
“Doesn’t matter! Now I want to hear about your C-R-U-S-H on Shoko,” Gojo shoots back. He’s oddly intent on this, even for Gojo.
“Is Geto-senpai on a mission?” Nanami asks, changing tacks.
Gojo’s eyes narrow.
“What does that have to do with anything?” There’s a note of irritation in his voice that suggests Nanami’s guess is spot on.
“You wouldn’t be breaking into my room -,”
“Nothing was broken! It doesn’t count.”
“ Breaking into my room ,” Nanami repeats, “if you had anything better to do. So, Geto-senpai must be gone and Ieiri-senpai must be busy.”
“Shoko’s not busy, so there.” Gojo slouches lower, somehow taking up more space as he does. “Which I’m sure you’re real happy to know, huh, Nanami?”
At this point, he’s half-tempted to say that he does have a crush on Ieiri just to end this.
“Yes, I am, because that means I can hang out with someone who isn’t you.” Nanami pushes his chair back and stands, an awkward proposition when he has to avoid Gojo’s long limbs sprawled everywhere.
“You’d rather hang out with Shoko and get lung cancer from secondhand smoke?” Gojo somehow manages to sound utterly, inauthentically stung. “Well! Apparently there really is no accounting for taste.”
“It’ll be firsthand smoke,” Nanami says. He’d – probably better take his notebook with him, else Gojo will just look through it. “She shares when she’s in a good mood.”
Gojo blinks.
“Forget a crush – are you two dating?”
“What?”
“You! And Shoko!” His hands flail for a second before landing on another accusing point at Nanami. “Dating! How long? When did it start? Do you actually like girls? Has she deflowered you?”
None of these are questions Nanami wants to answer, let alone think of, for a relationship that does not fucking exist.
“Nobody says the word ‘deflowered’ outside historical romance novels,” Nanami says instead. He clutches his notebook tightly with one hand as he puts his shoes on. “I’m impressed you know it, I didn’t think that you could read.”
Gojo would usually whine here, come over and drape himself over Nanami like a particularly clingy octopus, and let go only when Nanami has tried to shove him off three times because he can’t stand being touched and not at the same time.
Instead, his brow is furrowed and he looks pensive. Gojo thinking isn’t a good thing, Nanami is fairly sure. Especially not for him.
“...Gojo-senpai, you need to go so I can go,” Nanami tries. “We can both visit Ieiri-senpai if you want, but I’m not leaving you alone in my room to ransack it.”
Gojo visibly shakes himself off and straightens up, his usual careless smile pasted back onto his face like nothing.
“Lame! I’d only make it better and you know it. Your room’s so boring, Nanami, you’ve gotta spruce it up if you’re going to be bringing girls back around. Even if it’s Shoko, and half the time she doesn’t really count – but don’t tell her I said that.” Gojo adds, sauntering past him and out into the hall. Nanami follows him, locking the door.
“I will, because I’m not bringing her back to my room to – to seduce her.” Nanami nearly stumbles over the words. “I’m not seducing anyone in there.”
“Not with it looking like that,” Gojo agrees. “Honestly, half the time I don’t want to show up in there. It’s depressing! Like a hotel room.”
“I’ve never once invited you in,” Nanami replies. “So you’re free to respect my privacy for once and stay out.”
“Ah, Nanami. But where’d the fun in that be?” Gojo sighs, head tipping up to reveal the pale column of his throat, all unmarred, soft skin. Nanami looks away.
“Maybe I should, though. Wouldn’t want to walk in on anything too saucy.” Gojo’s voice is smooth as he says that, placid as a pond.
Nanami wishes he could believe it.
“ Thank you.” He’s not sure Gojo will actually keep his word – probably the promise of peace will last until Gojo gets bored, or has some stupid video he wants to show Nanami, or just wants to be a nuisance, which is almost always. But it’s more of a concession than Nanami has ever gotten before, and it leaves him off-kilter.
It’s quiet as they leave the building, Nanami aiming for the third year dorms next door where he can see Ieiri’s window cracked open, a light on in her room. A faint stream of smoke wisps out.
Gojo pauses, though, and Nanami nearly does too.
“I see you’re taking your promise to leave me alone seriously for once,” he says, painfully flat.
Gojo’s looking at him – more through him, his expression oddly distant.
“I can always annoy Shoko later,” he shrugs. “Right now – the weather’s perfect for boba, don’t you think? And there’s this new creme brulee flavor I want to try.” He opens his mouth and then closes it again, lets it curl into a lazy smirk as he flashes Nanami a peace sign. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, hm?”
And then he’s gone, and Nanami feels his shoulders relax.
“I wouldn’t do half the things you would do,” he says to the thin air anyway.
Already out, Nanami decides he may as well visit Shoko.
He stops to shred the page in his notebook first, making sure the pieces are small enough to be rendered illegible.
It’s fine.
He’ll get over it, and Gojo will – probably not stop being downright bizarre, but at least find something else to occupy himself with.
Nanami resolutely doesn’t think about how the concept feels more like loss than relief.