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If you had asked Nobara if all it took to send her world crashing down in typical teenage girl fashion (because she wasn’t a typical teenage girl, obviously, not that there was anything wrong with being a “typical” teenage girl or that there was even a so-called “typical” teenage girl because, honestly, all of these stereotypes and jokes were perpetuated by adult men who wanted to make fun of girls for being girls, but that was besides the point —— what she meant was the typical teenage girl purported and upheld by those annoying men) was a singular sentence from Itadori, of all people, she would have laughed at you. Mostly because the idea that anything Itadori would say would cause her to have a panic of epic proportions was ridiculous, but also because Nobara kind of figured that all of her “typical” teenage girl meltdowns had already happened.
Turns out, that at 16 years old, there was still plenty of time for teenage meltdowns.
“Kugisaki, are you dating Maki-san?” Itadori said, as if that was the most normal and reasonable sentence that had ever left that weird mouth of his, and as if that wouldn’t send Nobara’s world careening on an insanely tilted axis.
It even took her several moments to register what he said.
And then a few more.
Enough that Itadori had the nerve to wave his hand in front of her face. “Hello? Nobara? Are you listening?”
It felt like something was building up in her throat. Something massive like a scream, bubbling up and reaching to a danger point, threatening to overflow a pot, but Nobara was a reasonable and prideful girl, and she could control herself.
“ WHAT?! ” Okay, maybe not, but yelling at Itadori was par for the course, especially when it made him practically fall backwards in shock, which would make her laugh at any other point in time, but at the moment she wasn’t finding anything especially funny.
“What do you mean what?!” Itadori shouted back at her, because when one of them started shouting then both of them were shouting, much to Fushiguro’s eternal annoyance.
“What do you mean what do I mean?!” her hands curled into the stupid hood of his uniform as she dragged him off of the floor so they were at eye level with each other. Which meant that Itadori’s legs and feet were at an awkward angle on the ground, which was what he deserved.
“What——?!”
“Please don’t keep echoing each other,” Fushiguro said, cutting Itadori off swiftly from where he was sitting and reading something or other. Something boring, surely.
Nobara was tempted to keep it going just to annoy him more, but there were more pressing matters at hand. “What do you mean am I dating Maki?” she shook Itadori by his collar to emphasize how ridiculous the question was, obviously.
“I kinda thought the question was clear!” Itadori shouted, eyes going slightly cross as he was jostled from side to side
“Make it clearer, Itadori,” she dragged him close so there were mere centimeters between their faces.
“How?!”
“Ask the question again!”
Fushiguro sighed.
“Are you,” Itadori said slowly, looking far more confused than he had any right to in this situation, and he tried to get his feet back under him again. Not that Nobara was about to allow that as she shook him again. “Dating Maki-san?”
Alright, hearing it the second time didn’t clarify anything. “What,” she said equally as slowly, voice dropping so that she was no longer yelling, “makes you think that?”
“You two spend a lot of time together.”
“That’s what friends do, dumbass.”
“And you always to go little events around Tokyo together.”
“ That’s what friends do, dumbass .”
“And you’re, like, always talking about her and texting her.”
“I respect her!”
“And you get this like, super happy look on your face when you are talking to or about her.”
“What?!”
“And Maki-san always seems happy to be around you, too.”
“Because we’re friends !” Nobara shouted, throwing him across the room bodily.
Itadori crashed against a desk and slid off of it to the floor with a quiet oof before popping back up immediately, because of course he did. “Yeah but you never do that stuff with Fushiguro and I,” he said, pointing between the two of them as if that clarified anything at all.
“Because you’re boys .”
“Yeah but have you ever asked us to go to an event with you?”
“Of course not!”
“Buuuut,” Itadori tilted his head to the side, as if he was truly curious, “why not?”
“Because,” her voice was rising again, but she had no actual reason, “… because!”
“Also I dunno,” Itadori scratched his cheek, steering very clear from the eyelid just beneath his own eyes the way he always did, “you two just act like… y’know… that .”
“What?” Nobara repeated, squinting at him. “That makes no sense .”
“No, it does,” Itadori said, waving his hands in the air, “it’s just hard to explain. Fushiguro, you know what I’m talking about, right?”
“Please leave me out of this,” Fushiguro said, lifting the book higher so it was covering his face completely.
“Figures you’re no help,” Itadori sighed loudly, “you’ve never even had a girlfriend.”
Fushiguro’s hand twitched, “Neither have you!”
“Well,” Itadori waved his hand as if to say whatever before turning his attention back to Nobara. “I just kinda got the impression that maybe you two were dating, but I guess not!”
“Of course we aren’t, dumbass,” Nobara said, reaching over and squeezing Itadori’s head between her hands as he flailed and batted at her arms ineffectually, only to try to headbutt her in her face and somehow they ended up tussling standing up, sending another desk not exactly flying, but definitely crashing to the side, as well.
They did not pause when the door to the classroom they had commandeered open because no one, from Gojo to the principal to literally anyone in all the world, could have convinced Nobara and Itadori to ever stop wrestling with each other one they got started. But, when a familiar voice said, “Everything alright in here?” that did not stop Nobara from spinning around as she shoved Itadori into a deadlock to stare at where Maki had leaned into the room, slight amusement obvious on her face, Inumaki hovering just behind her.
Nobara was suddenly very aware of the way that her heart was racing. “Just fine!” she said sunnily, squeezing Itadori against her side until he wheezed, sounding like a deflating balloon. “Nothing to see here!”
“Uh huh,” Maki said, sounding extremely cool and bemused as she leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossing, uniform pulling across her shoulders and oh my god had she gotten even broader? Nobara knew that Maki trained almost constantly in their downtime, but still. “Try not to make the building crash down around us, this place is ancient .”
“Tuna mayo,” Inumaki said.
“Right, definitely avoid that floorboard,” Maki pointed to the one about a meter to their right, “we broke it last year and Yuta patched it up, so.”
“No prob,” Nobara said, still sounding far too cheerful, and she squeezed Itadori’s neck again when he seemed to want to say something, because this was all his fault, really, so he should be punished.
Maki stared at them for another few moments, eyebrows raising steadily before she seemed to glance over to Fushiguro, before she snickered a bit and pushed off of the doorframe, “Alright, have fun,” she said, starting to turn before pausing and glancing back at Nobara, a smile on her face that was so cute it made Nobara want to kill something. She settled for squeezing Itadori’s neck again, in spite of his wheezy protests. “Are we still on for that pop up tomorrow, Nobara?”
“Yes!” Nobara said way too quickly, and she wanted to be embarrassed about it but it was hard to feel embarrassed when the way Maki grinned at her and jauntily waved goodbye was making her heart race way more quickly than it should be.
When the door slid shut behind them they all stood (or sat, in Fushiguro’s case) in silence for a solid ten seconds before Nobara let out a frustrated yell and threw Itadori again, aiming for the wall but missing because Itadori was all corded muscle and Nobara was strong, but not quite strong enough to throw him several meters away.
“What was that for?!” Itadori demanded as he got up again, looking confused all over again when he had absolutely no right to.
“You know what for!”
“No, I don’t!?”
“Shut up!” Nobara stomped towards the door, needing to hit something that wasn’t Itadori for a few minutes, because while he was a perfectly viable punching bag he might start asking stupid, prying, unnecessary questions again.
Naturally, her foot crashed through the floorboard Maki and Inumaki had warned them about, and she got stuck.
It was only after Itadori had finished laughing for two minutes straight that he deigned to help her get her foot unstuck because these floorboards were little bitches who didn’t want to let her go free, and once he did she aimed a kick at him for his gall and stormed away after he dodged it deftly.
“What did I do?” she could hear Itadori asked confused as she slammed the sliding door shut behind her.
“I don’t know,” Fushiguro said, and she could imagine the way he shrugged.
Ugh, boys .
The problem was that Nobara hadn’t really thought about it, before, but now that Itadori put the idea in her mind she felt like she was having a full blown crisis and she wasn’t even sure what to do about it other than hit a few training dummies for an hour before stomping off to get dinner and eat alone to ruminate in her thoughts.
Like, okay. It wasn’t the girl thing that was bothering her, Nobara had figured that she liked girls by the time she hit adolescence, okay, it was just the whole her not noticing but somehow Itadori had noticed thing that was driving her absolutely insane . Since when was Itadori allowed to notice things that she wasn’t privy to or had caught onto? Also, she wasn’t even sure if he had noticed anything, or if he was just being a stupid teenage boy again. Well, Itadori was always a stupid teenage boy, and the stupidity only exponentially amplified when it came to Fushiguro, but extra stupid teenage boy-isms, or whatever.
Maki was cool and powerful and beautiful and cool (yes, again) and super strong and impressive and a great leader, alright, Nobara was aware of that. She liked hanging out with her because who wouldn’t like hanging out with Maki, honestly? Well her, sister, Nobara supposed, but that was a character flaw on Mai’s part not Maki’s.
Obviously.
So what if they spent a lot of time together? And so what if Nobara liked talking to her and liked being around her? That was just normal shit, alright, Nobara had been just as excited and happy to be around Saori in her childhood amd had been just as insistent with her attention as she was with Maki, so that didn’t mean anything ——
Except.
Except…
Except. Well. Nobara had surmised by the time she was 14 that her obsession with being around Saori and going to her house and drinking the tea that she prepared for she and Fumi and wanting to constantly impress her and be praised by her was young Nobara having a raging baby crush on the older girl as a result of her being so pretty and different from everyone else, and that her despair at Saori moving away with her family had been the result of baby (extremely baby) heartbreak.
So.
She stared down at the straw doll that she had been crafting to add to her never ending collection and realized that she had clenched her hand around it so tightly that she might as well have added one of Itadori’s hair to the thing so that she could at least be strangling him, because this was all his fault. And then she realized that she could be stranging Itadori again, right at this second.
Itadori and Fushiguro were eating together, because of course they were, and Fushiguro spotted Nobara long before Itadori had and started to edge away from Itadori, because Fushiguro was leagues smarter than the dumbass.
The small squeak that Itadori let out when Nobara grabbed at him again and pulled him around to face her was only slightly satisfying. “Nobara,” he said, arms flailing as he was half falling out of his chair, but being suspended by Nobara’s hands at his stupid sweatshirt collar again. “Hi!”
“Explain it to me again,” she shook him slightly, a faint growl in her voice.
“Huh?”
What an idiot , “Explain it to me again!” she said louder, as if that would clarify the point to him. “Why did you think I was dating Maki?!”
“But I already explained it?” Itadori said, having the nerve to sound genuinely confused.
“Explain it to me again ,” she said, shaking him again, “slower. And like a normal person.”
“ Fine ,” Itadori said, prying Nobara’s hands off of him and sitting back down properly.
Nobara took one of the chairs and turned it so that she could sit with her chest against the back of the chair, glaring at Itadori directly.
“Okay, so,” Itadori said, drawing out the o way too much, “you two just give off that vibe? Y’know, of people who are dating. Like that lovey dovey vibe where you always seem to want to be around each other and are always talking about each other…” he trailed off, squinting a bit, “well I dunno if Maki talks about you all the time, but you definitely talk about her all the time, and you guys go places together constantly , like way more than you go places with me or Fushiguro even though we’d definitely go with you to events or whatever.”
“Speak for yourself,” Fushiguro muttered.
“Don’t lie, Fushiguro, you’d go with Kugisaki to things,” Itadori threw a bit of rice as Fushiguro, who sighed. “Anyways, it’s like what I saw in middle school when people would go out with each other or whatever. Like, the way you talk about her is very,” he trailed off, looking pensive, “affectionate.”
Oh, Nobara was going to die of embarrassment. “I need an example,” she gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Like, when you’re talking about how strong she is, you get this wide eyed look and a huge smile on your face, kinda like Todo when he talks about his favorite idols.”
She was definitely going to die of embarrassment. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Well it’s not exactly the same, but close enough,” Itadori shrugged.
“We aren’t dating,” Nobara said flatly.
“You sure about that?”
“What do you mean am I sure?! Of course I am!”
“I dunno, have you ever asked?”
“ No .”
“Then,” Itadori said simply, “just ask.”
“You’re a dumbass,” Nobara said, standing up from the chair she had commandeered and shoving it back into place with a satisfying thud that made the table shake a bit.
“You like her, don’t you?” Itadori had an extremely annoying tendency to be disarming at the most random times physically possible, and it always caught her off guard. Whether he was being freakishly perceptive or weirdly kind or nice or whatever , Nobara wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to it.
“What makes you think that?!”
“Well, you haven’t denied it,” Itadori picked up his rice ball and took a disgustingly huge bite of it, and spoke with his mouth full, rice flying everywhere with his voice muffled by the food, “so I figured you’ve gotta. If you didn’t you would’ve said so.”
What an idiot . A perceptive idiot, sure, but an idiot . “Whatever,” Nobara said, feeling thoroughly lame but not knowing what else to say to dumbass 1 and dumbass 2 (dumbass 2 was, clearly purposefully, not taking part in this conversation, but they were practically a set package, one that Nobara sometimes resented that she was part of, too) and instead stomping off again.
Whatever. What did Itadori know? Sure, Nobara probably had a crush on Maki (and she was desperately hoping it wasn’t as stupidly obvious as Itadori seemed to think it was) and she had accepted that in the, oh, 40 minutes since she had made the sudden realization, but Maki liking her was —— well. It wasn’t unreasonable, Nobara was a pretty girl and if Maki liked girls then sure, there may be some sort of passing interest, but Nobara was under the strict impression that if Maki liked her like that then she would’ve told her, or something.
Sure, Maki paid for her most of the time when they went out because she was Nobara’s upperclassman or whatever, but that didn’t mean anything . If Maki had intended for their outings to be dates, then she would’ve told Nobara.
So no, they weren’t dating.
But… they could be dating, right?
The dumbest conversation in all of the universe was still ruminating in Nobara’s head when she woke up the next morning and got ready to head into Tokyo with Maki and she realized, after trying on four different outfits and hating all of them, that she was overthinking this way too much. Like, way too much, more thought than she typically put into getting dressed for going out with Maki, since she could at least be content with her choices after a solid three outfits as opposed to four when it came to going out with the older girl, but now she was overthinking .
It was annoying as hell.
By the time she finished getting ready she had the slightest inkling that she was running late. Not that they ever really set up times to meet, but Maki always tended to be ready to go immediately after breakfast, considering that she woke up at the crack of dawn to get training in before essentially everyone else woke up and she liked to get her day fully started after eating, and Nobara wasn’t sure when she had gained a rather intimate knowledge of Maki’s schedule and habits, but it seemed that she had one.
So when Maki was waiting for her nearby the gate, she wasn’t surprised. She did, however, break into a jog to meet up with her, feeling her heart rate tick up more than it ever did with a light jog at the sight of her.
Maki always dressed simply, but effectively. Hair pulled back, flattering pants, no jacket because it was still the late phases of summer and therefore hot as all hell outside, but a light, flowing shirt that complimented her arms that was half tucked into her trousers, the way that Westerners seemed to like tucking their shirts in, nowadays. Every piece of clothing she owned somehow seemed to complement her inherently, but Nobara supposed that was just what happened when it came to wardrobes, and she just really, really appreciated girls who dressed prettily and well.
Who didn’t?
Especially when those girls were Maki who had amazing shoulders and biceps that moved like that every time that her arms moved and Nobara should really stop staring so much while she was jogging, at this rate she’d end up tripping over something and embarrassing herself thoroughly and while she liked making Maki laugh, maybe getting dirt all over herself wasn’t the best way to start this not-date. It definitely wasn’t a date.
“Hey,” Maki said when she noticed Nobara jogging towards her, lifting her hand to wave oh so casually and coolly, her other hand still tucked into her pocket. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Nobara said, skidding to a stop besides her and catching her breath, because while that sort of jog didn’t usually wind her the way that her heart beat faster at the sight of Maki was something else entirely.
Itadori was such an annoying little shit. Putting these ideas in her head. (Never mind that Nobara really, truly should’ve already known, she was ignoring that for the time being because this was still all Itadori’s fault and she wasn’t changing her mind about that.)
“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said a beat later, straightening and grinning up at Maki, who had no right to be this tall but thank god she was, honestly.
“Nah,” Maki said with a laugh, throwing a casual arm over Nobara’s shoulders and pulling them along towards the school bikes that she had procured to get them down to the station to get into Tokyo proper. Clearly not caring much about Nobara’s heart health, as she could feel it absolutely racing at the feeling of Maki’s arm around her shoulders, the shift of her muscles against her neck making it feel like her heart was literally about to burst out of her chest.
Hm, would Ieiri even fix her if something that stupid happened?
Maybe Nobara should ask her. But also, the idea of asking the school doctor if she would bring Nobara back to life if she died via gay panic at the feeling of the very pretty girl who she realized she had a crush on literally 12 hours ago putting her arms around her shoulders and leading her along was mortifying. Also hilarious, because she could imagine the flat hint of amusement that would quirk at Ieiri’s mouth if she was asked such a stupid question.
Alright, maybe she’ll ask, but she’ll change up the subjects a bit.
Regardless, Nobara was a cool, capable, pretty girl, herself, and therefore had perfect control of herself as she took the bike that Maki offered her and climbed on, taking off just behind her to bike down the familiar lane that led up to and therefore down from the school. It was always hard to hold a conversation like this and Nobara hated it when Itadori would shout back at her insensible sentences as if she was able to understand him, though that didn’t stop her from yelling back, necessarily.
Maki, however, was way cooler than Itadori and didn’t yell back at Nobara, but she did laugh when Nobara pedaled faster to overtake her, and Nobara was thrilled when Maki sped up in return to get in front of her again, in return. A responsible person would probably say that they were going way too fast down the mountain, but there was a thrilled happiness filling Nobara that didn’t dull even as she took a turn too sharply and almost fell over. She only laughed as she dragged her foot along the ground, all the more thrilled at the impressed grin Maki sent her way as they continued down to the train station.
“Y’know, we’re probably lucky we didn’t break them,” Maki said with a laugh as the locked their bikes into the bike racks, looking windswept and breathtakingly gorgeous, even with her ponytail a veritable disaster.
“Nah, we had that,” Nobara said, locking hers right besides Maki’s, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair to detangle it and coming to a sudden stop as she turned and caught Maki pulling her own hair out of its tie, shaking her head from side to side, and.
Okay, alright, Nobara knew that she was a teenage girl prone to some dramatics, alright, and she was very aware of the fact that the fact that it like she was seeing Maki’s hair move in slow motion right now as she shook it out and it fell neatly out from its mild tangles because it was straight and thick and perfect was a figment of her imagination. Nobara had some measure of self awareness unlike the two boys she spent a lot of her time with, okay?
That did not stop it from feeling like she was watching something that had been pulled from her gayest, most ridiculous dreams.
So, alright, yeah, she watched with slightly widened eyes and an ever so slack jaw, frozen even though she was in the middle of detangling her own hair.
“Ugh, hope I didn’t swallow a bug,” Maki said humorously as she leaned over and flipped her hair to tie it back up again, and Nobara was almost sad to see it being put back up. Maki definitely seemed to prefer her hair this way, but the length of her hair was so lovely —— which was so not the point, obviously.
“Extra protein for the day,” Nobara said smartly, gaze fixated stupidly on the nape of Maki’s neck before she forced herself to finish detangling her hair.
Maki laughed as she flipped her hair back, typing it with deft, practiced hands. “Eww,” she wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out, reaching over to kick gently at Nobara’s ankle, “I mean you’re right , but still.”
Nobara laughed and looped her arm into Maki’s in spite of the way it made her feel weirdly nervous to press close to her, because they always did this and realizing that she had a crush on Maki wasn’t going to get in the way of her acting like normal, “I should trick Itadori into eating a bug…” she said as they walked towards the station proper, “then again I think he’d just eat one anyways.”
“Well, he eats cursed fingers,” Maki said dryly, and Nobara snorted.
It made something inside Nobara perk up to know that Maki, though she was sometimes rather cold towards Nobara, was oftentimes warm and almost joking with her. Their first meeting had been a bit unfortunate, sure, and at first Nobara wasn’t sure if she was just going to be slightly intimidated by Maki as well as admire her for her strength and capabilities, but there was an amiable sense of camaraderie between them, now. Nobara was reasonably confident that Maki thought of her as a friend, since she highly doubted the girl would spend time around anyone she didn’t want to be around, the way that she was sure that if Maki had intended for anything to be a romantic date she would have said as much, but ——
Alright, Nobara was not going to think about that right at this moment, because she wasn’t even sure what she really thought about it at the moment other than the fact that the idea made it feel like something was fluttering in her stomach like butterflies, which was gross .
“This bakery is supposed to be really good,” Nobara said as the train pulled away from the station, trying not to be stupidly delighted at the way that they pressed close to each other on the train because it was full and the only spots available were standing spots. She could smell Maki’s shampoo and, she was pretty sure, perfume, both of which were clean, straightforward smells that put her in mind of a relaxing spa.
She did not wonder what Maki thought of her own, slightly more spiced, choice of fragrance.
“It’s Parisian inspired,” she continued as she pulled up the bakery’s page on her phone, tilting her phone to show it to Maki, “the croissants are supposed to be amazing ,” she sighed dreamily, tapping on a picture of their croissants excitedly to show it to the older girl too, “look, look, this is their almond croissant, ugh I can practically taste it.”
“Looks amazing,” Maki said, sounding both amused and a bit excited, which made sense because she loved any kind of junk food, and as fancy as a patisserie may be, pastries full of butter and stuff were junk food in their most elevated form. “ Ohh , let’s get that, too,” Maki leaned over and tapped one of the pictures of a very cute, very large looking specialty drink.
“We can get it to share,” Nobara said, her traitorous heart daring to skip a beat at the idea of sharing a drink this cutesy with Maki. Would they get separate straws? Share one? Did that count as an indirect kiss?
“Sure,” Maki said easily, smiling down at Nobara who couldn’t help but grin back, grip on the bar overhead of them loose, which was why when the train suddenly started to come to a stop Nobara wasn’t at all prepared and, embarrassingly and uncharacteristically, started to lurch forward and then back, totally losing her balance.
“ Shit !’ Nobara shouted, arms flailing and definitely hitting several people in this crowded compartment, all of whom grumbled at her, but she didn’t really have it in her to care considering Maki had wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her, pulling her flush against her body and. Well.
Oh my god.
“You okay?” Maki asked practically against her hair.
Nobara’s brain had stopped working. Everything had come to a screeching halt. It was like there was nothing in her brain anymore but static noise and a distant sort of glee that made her want to jump for joy. Was this what Itadori felt like all the time? Man, this was almost relaxing.
“Nobara?”
“Huh?’ she squeaked and then quickly cleared her throat because she was not a squeaker, thank you very much, and when she tilted back to look back up at Maki a sense of vertigo threatened to descend because oh. Right. Maki was a solid 10 centimeters taller than her and she was extremely close. “Yep,” she said brightly, “I’m fine! Thanks for catching me,” was she speaking too quickly? She was probably speaking too quickly.
“Of course,” Maki said easily, hilarity clear on her face, and Nobara didn’t even care that she was laughing at her. “Hey, wanna dye your hair again?”
“Huh?” Nobara reached up to touch her hair, obviously not thinking about the fact that they were still pressed very close to each other, “Oh, are my roots showing again?”
“A bit,” Maki said, reaching up to brush a hair out of Nobara’s face, causing her heart to threaten to careen out of her chest again. The train lurched as it started up, and Nobara was soooo totally not aware of the way that Maki’s arm tightened around her waist. What would make you think that? “Wanna get stuff while we’re down here in Tokyo?”
“Yeah, might as well,” Nobara wasn’t at all sure what to do with her arms with Maki’s wrapped around her waist like this, other than still have one hold onto the bar overhead, so she opted to scroll on her phone again to avoid having it dangling stupidly at her side. “Sometimes it’s just not worth the upkeep,” she sighed to herself as she searched for a beauty supply store near the bakery pop up that they were going to.
“It looks nice, though,” Maki said.
It looks nice, Nobara repeated in her head giddily, even though she knew that it looked nice, because of course it did.
“I don’t think I could keep up with hair dye though,” Maki said, leaning closer to peer down at the map that Nobara had pulled up. “Seems like a lotta work, you need to touch up your roots like. Every month or something?”
“Yeah,” Nobara said, letting herself sway into Maki more as the train came to another stop. “Well sometimes I get a bit lazy, but when I do that Itadori won’t shut up about it, so I’d rather keep up with it to keep his mouth shut.”
“Naturally,” Maki said, and when Nobara looked up at her again she was grinning and looking so pretty that Nobara wondered that if other girls ever got this weird ever so slight haze to their vision when they were looking at someone so attractive. Like, as if the light had started to gather around her and make her look extra radiant.
Are you and Maki-san dating?
Well. No.
But… maybe…
Maki’s arm stayed around her waist the whole train ride into the heart of Tokyo and when they got off at Akihabara it lingered until they were out in the moderately less crowded streets, at which point Maki dropped her arm and Nobara was so disappointed she almost sighed. They made their way through the streets and Nobara almost fell over laughing as Maki told her about a time when she was a first year that Inumaki, Okkotsu, and Panda tried their very hardest to surprise Gojo for his birthday like the absolute fools they were and failed miserably, ending in a disaster that involved a poorly made cake, one of Gojo’s (apparently) favorite pair of shoes, and, somehow, fire. Honestly it was what the man deserved, as far as Nobara could tell, but that didn’t stop it from being funny.
“No way,” Maki snickered as they joined the line at the bakery popup, which was unsurprisingly ridiculously long , and Nobara was relieved that she had thought to bring small personal fans for both of them. Especially because the hair moved Maki’s bangs in a hypnotic way. “Megumi shoved that idiot’s stained shirt down his shirt and thought that acting casual was the way to go?”
“Yeah,” Nobara was laughing at the memory too, recalling how stiff and pissed off Fushiguro had looked, especially when Itadori dragged the shirt out of his uniform jacket, “I thought Fushiguro was going to drop dead he was so stuff!”
“Sounds like him to do something so ridiculous,” Maki’s laughter petered off slightly as she wiped her eye, “It was probably some stupid expensive thing, right, if Ijichi had been forced to drop off some dry cleaning.”
“Oh, yeah,” Nobara made a face, “it was, like. 250,000 yen.”
Maki exploded into laughter again, and Nobara grinned, “What did he even do?!”
“Literally fell on the floor laughing,” Nobara said with a snort, “and then said that the laugh we gave him lightened our punishment, and then we had to run like a million laps.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Ijichi had to join us at one pint.”
“Ah, for leaving it with you guys, I assume.”
“Yep,” Nobara rolled her eyes, “he wasn’t even mad , I think that he just wanted to give us a punishment because he could.”
“Not like 250,000 yen is much off of the Gojo clan’s head’s back,” Maki said dismissively, “the guy’s never given a damn about money, so yeah, he probably just wanted to watch you guys sweat your faces off.”
“It was gross ,” Nobara said with an aggrieved sigh, grinning when Maki jokingly patted her on the head. From anyone else it would’ve felt condescending, but from Maki it just made her happy.
Oh, the power of a crush.
It took forever for their food to come out, but during that time they had managed to snag a solid two-person table from just beneath the nose of an annoyingly loud, PDA-ridden couple who would’ve probably gotten there in time if they hadn’t been sucking face. And also if Maki and Nobara weren’t highly athletic sorcerers in training.
Honestly it wasn’t even a competition, but Nobara did love the disappointed, annoyed looks on the strangers’ faces. Served them right for being annoying.
Nobara had been tempted to order one of literally everything that they were offering, but considering the fact that they were still students and didn’t have that much yen to their names, she displayed a remarkable sense of self control. Two specialty drinks to share and a few pastries definitely put a dent in both of their wallets (Maki had insisted on paying, but Nobara strongarmed her into going halfsies, though she had a feeling that Maki wasn’t so much convinced as she was amusedly going along with her) but given the way everything smelled and looked: worth it.
The moment they received their food they started to eat with gusto, and Nobara appreciated the way that Maki ate with unrestrained enthusiasm. It suited her perfectly well; Nobara hated people talking to her while she was in the middle of eating good food, besides casual comments about the food itself, and she couldn’t even find it in herself to be disappointed that their drinks came with two straws instead of one, it was all so good.
When all that was left were crumbs from their decimated pastries and Nobara and Maki had agreed that they both preferred one drink over the other, conveniently the opposite of each other, and they were left drinking in blissful quiet as people murmured and spoke around them, Nobara found herself caught up in how content Maki looked. The relaxed lines of her face and the fall of her hair and her elbows propped on the table as she almost idly drank the remainder of her drink, straw in her mouth, and did she wear lip balm? Lip gloss?
Maki didn’t really wear makeup, she didn’t like bothering with it from what she had told Nobara, which was fair enough since Nobara didn’t like dealing with it very much either, but her lips did somehow look extra glossy today.
Or maybe they didn’t.
Are you and Maki-san dating?
No, no they weren’t, but ——
“Maki-senpai,” Nobara said suddenly, straw falling from her mouth, obsessed with the way that Maki’s glasses sat on her nose and the way that her eyes caught onto a small curse that was drifting over head of a girl a few tables over and the way that Maki had, quickly and subtly, thrown a cursed dart at it that had come out of absolutely nowhere and hit it with unerring aim, exorcizing it without any effort whatsoever.
Maki looked at her, straw still in her mouth, eyebrows ever so slightly raised.
“Are we on a date?” Nobara asked, because she had always been extremely straightforward about everything to the point that it caused other people discomfort and because she had never really been one to beat around the bush or agonize over stuff that didn’t need to be agonized over. Maki was a pretty girl who she, apparently, had been nursing a crush on for a while, and Nobara was also a pretty girl, so if Maki was into girls at all it should follow that Maki would be into her, at least a little bit, right?
And if she wasn’t, that was fine and they would carry on.
Maki seemed surprised for a moment, eyes going wide as she took the straw out of her mouth, simply blinking at her for several moments. Nobara was, honestly, more nervous than she had anticipated, her heart threatening to lodge itself in her throat, fingers drumming against the table as she waited. Patiently. So, so patiently.
If Maki turned her down that would be fine and Nobara would be fine with it, but also she was going to blame Itadori until the day that he died. Or she died. Whichever came first.
After what felt like forever but was actually probably, like, 10 seconds, a smile started to pull at Maki’s mouth as she propped her chin atop her hand, and Nobara’s chest squeezed. “Sure,” Maki said, resting her hand oh so coolly and casually on the table between them, “if you want it to be.”
Nobara took both the invitation and Maki’s hand, feeling the callouses that she had attained through nothing less than sheer hard work and dedication, even though it felt like she was maybe about to vomit. “Well,” Nobara said, aiming to sound as cool as Maki did all the time, “I do like you, so.”
Maki’s ears turned pink and so did her cheeks and Nobara felt like she could jump all the way to the moon beneath nothing but her own sheer power, “Good,” Maki said after a moment, tangling their fingers together, “I like you, too.”
Nobara couldn’t help but kick her feet a bit underneath the table out of sheer joy, even though that was such a deeply embarrassing thing to do, especially when she accidentally kicked Maki’s shin a bit. But it was worth it for the grin that Maki gave her.
By the time they left the pop up they had been gently and politely shooed away for taking up a table for too long, and Maki didn’t stop holding her hand. Nobara felt like she was floating on a damn cloud as they made their way through Akihabara and to the beauty shop that she had looked up on her phone. Finding her usual hair dye was easy enough, and she jokingly held up swatches to Maki’s deep black, inky hair.
“You’d look good with green,” Nobara said, still holding Maki’s hand because she was too stubborn to let go.
Maki rolled her eyes and brushed Nobara’s hand away, “That shade is barely different than my own hair.”
“Exactly,” Nobara said, decisively grabbing a bottle of the dark green dye and dropping it into her basket alongside her own ginger dye. “I bet if we put it over your hair as it is, it’ll barely change a thing, but your hair will look green in the light!”
Maki laughed, squeezing Nobara’s hand in hers. “Now you want to dye my hair? I thought we were just going to touch up your roots.”
“We can do it while the bleach is processing,” Nobara insisted, dragging Maki towards the counter.
They whiled away the rest of the afternoon in Akihabara, and Nobara almost screamed with joy when Maki bought them matching phone charms: a croissant for Nobara and a little macaron for Maki. They caught an evening train back to the school’s station after grabbing to-go meals from a nearby convenience store to the Akihabara station. The train was slightly less crowded than it had been earlier that day into Tokyo and they managed to snag seats next to each other, their hands still tangled between them as Nobara showed Maki a video that made them both slump in their seats laughing.
It was a shame that it was almost impossible to hold hands while riding separate bikes, but they managed to make it a race anyways, though Maki definitely one this one since Nobara’s stamina for biking up hill was crap in comparison, but Nobara took the defeat well enough, only pouting a little bit when she came to a stop next to Maki, who had been standing next to her bike with a victorious smile on her face, and who laughed at the sullen look on Nobara’s face.
They ran to the dorms together and shoveled down their rice balls and sandwiches before Maki set to work applying bleach to her roots, making faces at the smell but snorting every time Nobara pinched her side in retaliation. Nobara, for her part, ended up just smearing a humorously large glob of green dye on top of Maki’s head, almost wheezing with laughter when Maki shouted and pinched her side, as well.
Green was smeared on the counter by the time that she had finished applying it to Maki’s head, which was a shame but, whatever, it wasn’t like anyone but them used the girl’s bathroom in the dorms anyways.
And, anyways, Nobara didn’t really care about green staining old countertops when Maki was so close to her, face flushed with laughter and looking as relaxed and happy as she’d ever seen her. There was something that was almost like pride blooming in her chest at the sight, a fierce sort of adoration pulling at her heart, even when Maki looked at her again and they simply stared at each other for a while, smiles on their faces.
“Hey, Nobara,” Maki said suddenly, stepping closer to her.
“Maki-senpai,” Nobara said automatically, and that stupid fluttering sensation was back in her stomach.
“Hold still,” Maki said almost teasingly as she leaned down, one hand pressed against the green stained counter, the other lifting to brush against Nobara’s jaw as she kissed her.
The world could’ve exploded and Nobara wouldn’t have given a damn.
It was a light, gentle kiss. Something sweet and affectionate that caused Nobara’s eyes to shut slowly as she leaned up into it, returning the kiss just as gently. This felt like a perfect, encapsulated moment. One that reeked of bleach and hair dye, but a moment that Nobara wanted to keep tucked close to her chest forever, for the rest of time.
The kiss lingered and lingered and lingered until Maki leaned away, a soft smile on her face as she reached up and brushed something away from Nobara’s left eye, “Eyelash,” Maki said blowing it off of her thumb, “make a wish.”
Nobara laughed and leaned up to kiss Maki again, missing and instead getting her chin, before spinning away from her and turning on the sink, “Oh, damn,” she said around her laughter, “Maki-senpai, help, before my hair falls out from overprocessing!”
Maki’s laughter filled her up like she was a pot or a jar or something, threatening to spill over, but only serving to bolster the joy that she felt as the older girl struggled to pull gloves back on while Nobara stuck her head under the tap, laughter only intensifying as Nobara shrieked compulsively from how cold it was.
“Hold on, don’t be impatient!”
“It’s not your hair on the line,” Nobara said, spitting water out of her mouth and laughing.
“You’re the one that smeared green dye on it.”
“And it’ll look amazing .”