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Nanami nods at the man leaving Gojo’s bedroom, receiving nothing but a startled stare and a muttered, “fuck, sorry,” as he practically flees the apartment.
Gojo himself follows soon after, looking like nothing short of a provocation; fucked out if not refreshed, a shirt hanging loose on his body, bare legs prickled with gooseflesh in the cold air. It is, apparently, how he likes it. But so is the entire place, from the pile of physics textbooks occupying the too-large coffee table whose drawers are crammed with candy, to the indecently expensive silk sheets in Gojo’s otherwise chaotic bedroom. Right down, even, to the people he invites into it.
This man was the same as all the others: Dark hair, long; narrow eyes, narrower waist. Tattoos, on this one, spanning the wings of his shoulderblades – not particularly nice work, though Nanami’s not a judge of such things. The only difference from the last one, presumably, is his name and a distinct lack of piercings.
“That was the worst response yet,” Nanami tells him, focusing on unpacking the groceries he’d bought on his way over.
“Give him a break, he probably thought you were my secret husband or something,” Gojo says, cheerful as usual. There’s something strained behind it, a joke that doesn’t quite land. Nanami notes it, but doesn’t understand it – doesn’t bother deducing, either. He’s ruthless in acknowledging truths about himself; he always has been, and it’d made his first few months of being Gojo’s companion bearable, if not pleasant, transforming from personal principle to hardened defense mechanism.
Nanami also knows when to push Gojo, and when to not.
And the difference between a truth that needs to be said, and one that’s better off remaining hidden.
“Who discovers that the person they slept with is married, and says, ‘fuck, sorry’, to the one they’re married to?” Nanami inquires. “I liked the last one better.”
Gojo nearly rolls his eyes. “Obviously. I’ve never heard you talk so much. I’m surprised he didn’t give you his number afterwards.”
Nanami just hums.
“Eh? Nanami? Wait, did he –?” Gojo straightens up as if he’s been electrocuted, jaw agape and index finger thrust out in accusation. “ Nanamin . You have to tell me.”
“Don’t call me that,” Nanami says reflexively. It’s been a losing battle since Gojo met Itadori.
“Nanamin! See, this is why I wait until you’re out to have someone over now. You’ll just steal them, like a thief, and I can’t even call you a sly dog for it like I would if you ever let me wingman you.” He sounds petulant now, almost childishly so; Nanami should find it less amusing, less endearing, than he actually does. “Don’t tell me you were with him last night.”
Nanami can feel his gaze intensify, go electric as it sweeps over his body. Not anything but assessing, lingering on his neck, his hands, the way he holds himself.
Sometimes, Nanami wonders if Gojo shares everything he deduces. He’s yet to come to a conclusion on that.
“He’s not my type, as you well know. So don’t tell me you care about that,” he says instead. “I told you that I’d be back today. We’re past the stage where I need to be with you constantly, don’t you think?”
“Long past it, and good riddance! Mostly. It took a while to get used to not having you around to annoy,” Gojo admits easily. “But talking to the wall is close enough sometimes!”
He pauses.
“You were out of town. So you weren’t with him, he’s local. Someone else, though? A secret boyfriend? I can’t believe that you’re committing adultery right under my nose, Nanamin, I’m going to cry.” Gojo even pushes his lower lip out, lets it wobble for effect.
“You’re insufferable when you’re bored,” Nanami tells him. It comes out fond, disgustingly so.
“Well, there’s no juicy murders around, and I finished going over my old cases again a week into this dry spell. Would it kill for someone to do a brutal murder? This place is dangerous, there should be something unsolvable. Or overlooked. But no, Yaga won’t call me, and the scanner doesn’t have the manners to pick up anything interesting. Mugging this, robbery that, blah, blah. It’s enough to make a man go insane, Nanami,” Gojo finishes, his pout more genuine.
“It’s a dry spell. It happens in most jobs,” Nanami says, cautious. “And the ones where it doesn’t are the ones where people are begging for one just so they can rest. Take my word for it.”
“Forgot you used to be slaving away in a high-rise in a fancy suit,” Gojo mutters. He rests his chin in one hand, his gaze a tangible thing as Nanami bends to put away the now-empty bags.
“It wasn’t interesting either,” Nanami admits.
“You hated it.”
“Again, not a brilliant deduction. You already knew that.”
“I know you chose this because of your dead friend.” Nanami doesn’t flinch, another near thing even though Gojo’d brought it up during their very first day together, tossing Haibara’s existence out like a knife aimed at Nanami’s heart. “But I still don’t understand why you don’t hate this.”
“You tell me, you’re the one who knows everything,” Nanami says, not quite with a smile. “Or pretends to, anyway.”
“Rude, I don’t pretend. I’m just not…totally accurate, all the time, when it comes to you. But you were out last night.” Gojo pivots back, oddly focused on this tidbit. No cases, Nanami reminds himself. He always gets erratic when there’s little to do, and separation, small as it may have been, is enough to make Nanami the new, shiny toy again.
That’s all it is.
“I was,” he agrees. “I visited a friend, it was a few hours’ drive. We drank, I thought it best to spend the night and come back here in the morning.”
“Four isn’t a few hours,” Gojo says after a beat. “That must be some friend. Do you have a secret boyfriend, Nanami?”
If I did, it’d be you, Nanami almost thinks. Gojo comes closest.
But it’s hardly a secret; half the city’s seen them out and about together in one way or another, most of his remaining friends know about it. Of course, Nanami’s firmly characterized it as work to them, even if the boundaries have blurred.
They were always going to, he can acknowledge with hindsight. But when he’s in the thick of it all, it’s harder to be sanguine about.
“No, it’s a secret husband,” Nanami answers, deadpan.
Gojo plays along, gasping dramatically.
“Under my nose! Am I the mistress, then?”
“You’d make a terrible one.” The bags unpacked, Nanami sees about putting things away: Flour in the cupboard, four different types, since Gojo’s expressed an interest in baking, idly, and Nanami suspects that the intricacies of sourdough will keep him occupied for at least two weeks; three packets of cookies; the marshmallows; chocolate all follow it.
“I would not. Anyone would be lucky. I’ve got the smarts to stay discreet and hidden –,”
Nanami snorts, unable to help himself.
“Discreet? Gojo-san, everyone on the street notices you when you walk by.”
“ – Exceptionally beautiful, and very good at sex,” Gojo continues, as if Nanami hadn’t said anything, but that’s a point he can’t actually argue.
“I’ve practiced on the last one. The other two are just part of my immense natural talent,” he adds.
“You’ve practiced the first one plenty,” Nanami offers.
“What, no comment on the rest? That’s unlike you, Nanami. I thought you were putting your detective skills to good use.” Gojo’s voice has shifted now, into something a little dangerous. Nanami turns away to open the fridge; it’s easier, than the silent dare Gojo is aiming his way.
“Humble as they are,” he says, dry, to diffuse the tension.
“You wouldn’t have commented on him if you didn’t have thoughts you wanted to share. And you’re nothing if not honest, remember?” It’s almost a taunt. “I’m the liar of the two of us, let’s not forget it. You’ll get everything confused if you start mixing things up now.”
“I’ve got nothing against him. Or anyone else you invite over.” Not strictly true, but Nanami thinks that they’re too precarious, too settled, to risk by being yet another meaningless body in Gojo’s bed. He won’t be a replacement for that man Gojo’s been trying to find in bodies across the city; he can’t let himself get further entangled in this.
“Then?”
“What I think is simple. You want to forget someone. But you’re trying too hard,” Nanami says. He realizes that he sounds harsh, and so he gentles it by adding, “These things take time. You know that. You’ll find what it is you’re looking for, Gojo-san. I have faith in that. But there’s no need to rush.”
“Getting more astute,” Gojo says, a twist to his mouth. “But, you know, things, things, things. There’s no things , Nanami, how many times do I have to tell you?”
Evasion it is, though Nanami can tell from his tone that something’s struck a chord.
Things, no. One thing, one person, perhaps.
“Preferably no more, but you like to hear yourself talk too much.”
Gojo squawks at this, all bristling offense as he stalks into the kitchen and pointedly grabs at the bag of marshmallows Nanami’s left on the counter.
Equally pointed, Nanami pulls it out of his hands.
“Breakfast first,” he says, firm.
“It’s nearly noon, you have it out for me! I need a snack to tide me over before lunch,” Gojo whines, near folding himself over the counter. His shirt hangs open, exposes the slice of his collarbones, the telltale bruises on his neck and chest.
“There’s already leftovers in the fridge for lunch,” Nanami counters. “Don’t try and distract me with your disgusting eating habits. You’re forcing it. You have been. Don’t do that.”
“And if I say I have my reasons?” Gojo challenges him, the tilt to his chin arrogant despite the sulk in his voice, how he’s still sprawled out.
“Then I believe you,” Nanami says. “Everyone has a reason for what they do. They may not be rational, but they’re there.”
“Then what if I’m not trying to forget who you think I am? If it’s something else, is that rational?” This, still – Nanami was wrong earlier, not an evasion, but a misdirection, steering the conversation closer to what Gojo wants it to be.
“No, but you’ll still have your reasons. They can be about one specific person –,” and they have to be, given Gojo’s type hasn’t changed in the slightest in years, “ – or it can be about something as simple as wanting human connection. You didn’t fool me the first time you said sex was just sex, to clear your mind. There’s the intimacy that comes with it, that’s far harder to ask for in any other context.”
It could be replacing one addiction with another; the first coping mechanism that Nanami had noticed, and Gojo's favorite. Cases, sugar, his latest fixation that he gorges on until he's sick of. But it wouldn't be the right way to classify Gojo's scheduled encounters, though; this is too measured, like clockwork. It's not how Gojo works.
“I don’t need that either,” Gojo says, flat. “Connection is for other people. Boring people. What, are they going to be vulnerable when I can already tell half of their life story at a glance? More, sometimes? I don’t think so.”
He's lying, of course, but Nanami's not who he's lying to by anything other than coincidence. Gojo's been alone for long enough that even now, he clings to it.
“Is that so? The end result of knowing those things is the same, but the process of gaining their trust matters, don’t you think? Look at where we are.” Nanami raises an eyebrow; Gojo must take it as a challenge, because he crosses his arms, petulant.
“What, you know everything about me, now? I can read you like a book, Nanami! I know all your dirty secrets, I can guess them. Like the cheap wine you like.”
“You’ve seen me buy it. That’s no deduction,” Nanami scoffs. “And I know enough about you, Gojo-san, to know that you can connect with people. It just frightens you.”
Gojo scoffs harder, like he’s trying to show that he can.
“Going to the meetings doesn’t count as connection. You make me go, and I’m not speaking at one of those things.”
“I was going to offer myself as an example,” Nanami says mildly. “Like it or not, we are connected.”
“That doesn’t count either.” Gojo’s voice is sharp, dismissive. Nanami pretends that it doesn’t sting; he’s gotten good at that, when it comes to Gojo. His tongue is never so sharp as when he wants to deflect. “You literally give me drug tests every week.”
Nanami hasn’t in over six months, when things changed. Gojo knows it. He knows it.
He doesn’t point that out.
“You know me better than most,” he says instead. “And I’d say I know you better than most people who aren’t related to you. But you’re right. It’s just a side-effect of employment-related prolonged close contact, and no one has ever made a friend because of their work, especially not when their job requires something similar.”
“Work,” Gojo echoes. Mercurial today, his tone has changed again.
“It is, in fact, how we met,” Nanami reminds him. He shouldn’t have to, but he suspects he needs it himself. “Even if you’ve managed to erode more of my professional boundaries than I would like.”
Gojo seems buoyed by this; he beams, and it’s nearly blinding.
Like this, Nanami could, if he wanted, pretend that it was him in Gojo’s bed, that they stumbled out together for a normal meal the way couples with all the time in the world ahead of them do.
He doesn’t want.
That’s a dangerous path to go down.
This is something that he’d prefer to be real.
“You like me, you just won’t admit it.”
“I won’t inflate your ego further, you mean,” Nanami corrects him. “I’m sure you got more than sufficient praise last night.”
“It’s not the same if it’s not from you,” Gojo counters, and then, as if he feels he’s overstepped, he flails to overcompensate. “Nothing impresses you, Nanami. Most people ask if I’m psychic after meeting me, and you had me confessing to Googling you in the first fifteen minutes.”
“And learning you weren’t above cyber-stalking did a significant amount to temper any further awe,” Nanami agrees. He doesn’t let it go, though, feeling a little sly, a little like pushing his luck. “Should I praise you more, Gojo-san? You’ll have to work for it, though.”
Gojo’s cheeks color, pink bleeding into porcelain. This alone is enough for Nanami – to make him react, to eke out something genuine underneath ego and bluster and anger.
This is why he doesn’t want.
“Fine! Fine, you’ll see. Watch me solve four cases this week, cold ones at that,” Gojo warns him. He pushes himself away from the counter, newfound determination in his step. “At least one will be before you finish lunch. And it better not be more roast vegetables, Nanami, there’s such a thing as too much fibre.”
“There’s such a thing as a balanced diet,” Nanami retorts. “And you’ll have one if I have anything to say about it – which fortunately, I do.” He relents, though, adding, “Lunch is just sandwiches. Grilled cheese and bacon, for you.”
“With honey?”
“With honey,” Nanami agrees.
Seemingly satisfied, Gojo turns to go.
“And put on some pants,” Nanami tells him.
“To deprive you of this view? I don’t think so,” Gojo calls back as he wanders into the living room.
Nanami watches as he circles it, fingers trailing against the photos on the wall, the spines of his books, the glass of an experiment Nanami is completely banned from touching, even though it’s gone concerningly opaque with condensation. He stops before his violin, tossed carelessly onto the couch.
And then he picks it up.
He hasn’t played in a while, not during this dry spell of cases, not for months before, since Nanami’d come back under new terms, professional in a different way.
You’re serious about earning that praise , Nanami wants to say, but senses it’d be a step too far.
“Play something good,” Nanami suggests instead.
Gojo looks at him for a moment, across half the apartment, and sets the bow to his violin.
His expression is inscrutable as he turns away. Nanami bends to his own domestic tasks in response.
Gentle, mournful music fills the apartment, slipping into the silence between Nanami’s heartbeats.