Chapter Text
When he tells the story at their very lax, just-for-the-benefits-we-swear wedding, Nanami says that his feelings for Gojo were love at first sight. This, of course, is a lie, but he believes the real story is less compelling.
If he were honest, he’d tell people that he hated Satoru Gojo the minute he laid his eyes on him.
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The first time he met Satoru Gojo was at lunch a few days after he moved into his dorm at Jujustu High, and it was a nightmare.
“The second years are over there,” Haibara whispered, eyes wide and pointing behind Nanami, beckoning him to look with his eyebrows.
The real love at first sight for Nanami Kento was when Sensei Yaga showed him his new dorm, and he met Haibara Yu for the first time. It’s hard to explain, the way it felt like the world completely collapsed, the air ripped from his lungs in a way that made him only able to breathe when looking in his eyes. Nanami had never given much thought to other people, his sexuality, love, but he was willing to lay down his life right there if that boy had asked.
“Nanami, this is your roommate, Yu.” Haibara bowed and stuck out his hand to punctuate Yaga’s words with a handshake, and it made Nanami’s knees weak.
“Nice to meet you,” Haibara’s soft voice stuttered the words out, and Nanami’s stomach twisted and wrung inside out, and he couldn’t say anything himself, so instead, Yaga left the two of them to it, and they didn’t leave each other’s side for the rest of the year, including going to lunch together every single day that he was still alive.
And now, they sat together where they normally did, and Haibara’s attention was on a table that was loud with laughter and dirty jokes and cigarette smoke, and Nanami was supposed to look. Nanami almost didn’t want to turn around, but Haibara wouldn’t take his eyes off them, so for his sake, he turned, and it was just as annoying as he thought it would be.
The girl - Shoko Ieiri? - was smoking what looked like her fourth or fifth cigarette, leaning back so far in her chair that the back two legs looked ready to topple and throw her to the ground, but she was cool enough to find the center of gravity and keep herself upright. The other two seemed deeply enthralled with each other or the game they were playing. The white-haired one - Satoru Gojo - had his hand spread wide on the table, and the black-haired one - Suguru Geto - was holding a sharp knife in his fist, and he was stabbing the end in between Gojo’s fingers as fast as he could.
Every few jabs, Geto would slip, and the knife would bounce off Gojo’s infinity power, flying into the air which would make everyone duck and cover until Geto reached out and grabbed it with ease from mid-air to continue the game. Gojo didn’t even have a scratch on him.
“Absolute imbeciles,” Nanami muttered under his breath as he turned back to Haibara, his eyes glancing up to see his reaction. Haibara seemed too distracted by the game behind him to hear what he said, and it flared up a quick flame of anger in his chest to be ignored in favor of some glorified, overpowered children.
“You’ve got to admit the power is cool, Ken-kun.”
Nanami blushed at the nickname. Haibara had started using it just hours after they first met, and it made Nanami’s stomach flutter with butterflies because no one had ever given him a nickname before.
“Hey, first years! Heads up!” Gojo’s voice rang out to them, and Nanami had mere milliseconds to realize 1) Gojo had thrown the knife they were using in their direction 2) Haibara was frozen in place at the threat, eyes widening but not moving, and 3) Gojo aimed for Haibara.
Before all three of those thoughts clicked into place, Nanami held out his hand and batted the knife out of the air, gasping when he realized he had done it and letting out a low groan when he saw the deep slash mark in his palm.
“Gojo, be nice!” Shoko half scolded while holding back laughs, and Geto had to turn away because he couldn’t keep himself from chuckling at how pathetic the two of them looked, Nanami holding his wrist in his hand as the pain of the cut started to travel up his arm and Haibara not even blinking out of his absolute panic.
“That was terrifying,” Haibara mumbled softly, finally letting his eyes flit down to where Nananmi had started bleeding onto the table. As much as it hurt, he was much more concerned by how affected Haibara looked, and he decided that he wasn’t going to let them get away with making either of them feel dumb and small. The age difference was barely noticeable after all, and if they were expected to be civilized coworkers, they couldn’t be throwing knives at each other like that.
Nanami stood up and walked over to the upperclassmen’s table with purpose, holding the cut to mitigate some of the bleeding. Shoko and Geto seemed flushed with embarrassment, but Gojo was watching Nanami approach over the top of his sunglasses with a wide, open-mouthed smirk.
“Hello,” Nanami bowed slightly, politely before straightening his back and clearing his throat for confidence. “I would greatly appreciate it if you could control yourselves. Acting like absolute animals reflects poorly on the jujutsu institution, and we’ve sworn ourselves to be representatives, so if you could maybe keep it down, we’d all appreciate it.”
The three upperclassmen stared back, with disbelieving grins that asked if he was serious because it was probably the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Gojo was the first to break the silence.
“Sorry, you actually have something just right there,” Gojo pointed to a spot on Nanami’s nose that Nanami gently swiped at in confusion, “Yeah, just a little left over from the ass-kissing you just did.”
Nanami’s face dropped in annoyance as the other three erupted into strained guffaws of laughter, occasionally interrupted by a short “you’re awful!” or “he can’t be serious.”
It was all so frustrating, so infuriatingly ridiculous, that when Nanami turned back to return to his table and saw Haibara with such a sheepish, embarrassed look, he decided he wasn’t going to let these people win. He sat down at the table, across from Gojo, and placed his uninjured hand on the table, splaying out his fingers against the cold laminate. He slid the knife out of his grasp across the table for Gojo to have, and he watched the boy expectantly as the pieces clicked behind Gojo’s eyes.
“You wanna play?”
“I want to win.”
Gojo laughed again and held the knife in his hand slightly above the table in a tight, calculating grip.
“Be careful,” Geto reprimanded, watching Gojo’s fluttering eyes, and they matched each other’s stare for just a moment before Gojo swiped at Nanami’s hand without even breaking eye contact. However, instead of playing the game like Nanami was prepared for, Gojo quickly sliced another line on the top of his hand, a bright red river bubbling to his skin. It wasn’t deep enough to be a concern, but it stung to high heaven, and it shocked Nanami enough for him to pull away hard enough from the table that he almost fell backward off the chair he was sitting on, which just made the three upperclassmen laugh harder.
“Ken-kun!” Haibara shot up from his own chair, scared of Nanami’s reaction.
“That wasn’t the game!” Nanami complained, pressing his two cuts together to keep pressure on both.
“Yeah, well, not much is fair around here, newbie,” Gojo shrugged, tossing the knife in the air and letting it drop back down to bounce off his infinity and scatter somewhere behind him. “And no one ever wins, so you better get used to it.”
Nanami glared at the man, feeling such a fiery emotion deep in his core that he had never felt before, and he worried for a moment that the minuscule blood loss was seeping from some important organ in his body, and he was going to die any moment, but he wasn’t, and when he realized it was just anger, he mustered up all the anger in his body. But he had nowhere to put it, no cheesy comeback or cool parting remark, so instead he took all that anger, shoved it in a bottle, and put it towards the purpose of hating Satoru Gojo.
He turned on his heels, ready to stomp back to Haibara, but Gojo stopped him in his tracks with one last remark.
“Hey, freshie!” Nanami glared again over his shoulder, and he watched Gojo’s eyes flick from himself to Haibara, “Make sure you watch out for yourself.”
Nanami Kento hated Gojo more than he had ever hated anyone before in his life, and that was the last time he and Haibara ate lunch in the lunch room.
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But then, Satoru Gojo died. And then he came back. The honored one is what people started to call him, or maybe that’s what he called himself. And it became much, much harder for Nanami to hate him.
When Nanami tells this part of the story, he keeps out the fact that this is when Geto appears in the background of his memories, fading and withering into nothing until…until it happens. In fact, Nanami never mentions Geto’s name at all when he tells this story. But it’s stuck in his brain when he thinks about it because this is when it happens.
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At the start of Nanami’s second year, he was out in the courtyard, watching the new first years get a tour of the campus and the third years, Shoko and Geto, observing the skills of Gojo’s newly refined infinity technique. Haibara sat next to him, his head lolled on Nanami’s shoulder, and he was talking about how beautiful the cherry blossom flowers were on campus.
The way his voice sounded when describing the wilting petals of his village’s flowers is still ingrained in Nanami’s memory, but it’s another thing he kindly leaves out of his retelling.
“How does your village look in the springtime, Ken-kun?”
Nanami sighed softly, peeling his attention away from the other students to look at Haibara’s bright, big doe eyes and the smile turned upside down on his face. He gave Haibara a smile back, and his eyes warmed.
“Nothing like this. Nothing like your village.”
“Wow!” Haibara’s voice was dreamy, like a little kid learning about the moon and the stars and the sun. “Can we go after this semester is over? I know the winter won’t be the same, but I want to see where you grew up.”
“Course. Anything you want.”
Before Haibara could tack anything else onto his requests, the two boys were being summoned over by Sensei Yaga to where he stood with the third years. They dragged their feet, reluctant, but made it over there by the time Yaga was telling Gojo for the third time to stop asking people to throw things at him.
“I know what your infinity powers do, Gojo, but I am saying no for the safety of those around you-” Yaga’s speech was cut off when Nanami cleared his throat. “Perfect! We have a few things to set you all out on. You know it’s busy this time of year, coming out of winter. Shoko, you’re needed in the lab.”
“Got it.” She brought up two fingers to her forehead and saluted before blowing out a huge plume of smoke from her cigarette that Yaga waved away disapprovingly.
“And Gojo and Nanami, you’ve got a job a little outside the city to take.”
The assignment caused something in Nanami’s stomach to clench, but his feelings of fluttering anxiety were immediately overtaken by Gojo’s loud, obnoxious groan.
“The kid? Why can’t I go alone? I can handle it myself.” Gojo nearly stomped his foot like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
“They specifically requested two of you,” Yaga let the words sizzle out of his mouth with a warning glance at Gojo that was promptly ignored.
“Fine. Suguru and I will go.”
“They specifically requested you and Nanami.” Yaga was firm again, and Nanami was close to relenting because why go with someone who so deeply doesn’t want you?
“Satoru, you’re being rude,” Geto finally spoke up, his voice low and even, and Nanami felt the glare of his eyes on the side of his face, but he refused to look in Geto’s direction.
At this, Gojo finally backed down. “Sorry,” He muttered in Nanami’s direction, and finally Nanami pulled his eyes up to look at Geto. Geto’s eyes were shadowed with heavy bags, and his cheeks looked hollow and taut as he stared Nanami down. “C’mon,” Gojo commanded, and this is what broke their staring contest. With just a blink, Geto was already gone, ambling away back to his dorm, and Gojo stood above him, his eyebrows high in annoyance.
Nanami stood, shooting a glance back down at Haibara as he followed Gojo towards the entrance of the school.
“Good luck!” Haibara mouthed, offering little more than an apologetic grimace before Gojo pulled Nanami out of view.
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When they arrived at the old temple, it was abandoned, overgrown, and every sound made Nanami almost jump out of his skin, but he swore for a long time that was because Gojo was making him nervous and not because he was scared.
“Why did they specially request you?” Gojo asked, watching Nanami jump at another cobweb brushing down towards his nose, and the suggestion was rude, to say the least. Nanami blew air through his teeth.
“My family lived around here a long time ago. Probably recognized the name.”
“Ah, I love the smell of nepotism in the morning.”
“You’re literally from the Gojo clan.”
“At least I earned my reputation,” Gojo let his glasses slide down his nose as he waved another cloud of dust out of the way before Nanami could sneeze.
The temple creaked eerily with their steps, and as they checked each room in and out, the shadows from the slowly falling sun started to make his heart race a little faster, even as he kept shrugging it off every time Gojo would raise his eyebrows to ask if he was okay. Finally, as they were rounding the last room and leaving out the back, Gojo stopped in his tracks and tilted his head over his shoulder.
“Gojo-?”
But before Nanami could fully ask his question, Gojo was lowering the veil over the temple and moving in closer in front of Nanami.
“It’s more cursed energy than I was expecting.” Gojo’s voice was low, and as he pushed his sunglasses into his hair, Nanami felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “First grade, I think.”
“Where?”
Gojo scoffed. “If I knew, we’d be going after him instead of standing here and getting hunted.”
“Can’t we go search for it?”
“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Gojo’s voice was exasperated, and Nanami decided to shut his mouth to let him concentrate.
The breeze of the wind changed, and a smell similar to rotting garbage blew through, making Nanami grimace in disgust and concern. And it is in that moment when both were distracted by the smell, that a hand snaked around Nanami’s ankle and yanked him into the air, suspended swinging above the horrifying curse’s open, gaping, probably mouth.
The curse was a barely contained floating mass of gray mush and groping hands - so, so many hands - dripping in disgusting-smelling slime. The black hole of an opening Nanami stared into had a long, winding, tongue-like appendage snaking up towards Nanami who cringed in preparation for what it could possibly feel like against his skin.
“Well this is cute,” Gojo called out, getting the curse to turn his attention just in time for Gojo’s foot to connect. There was a loud squelching sound as the curse collapsed in on itself, and Nanami flew from its grasp to fall on the ground, sputtering and blubbering and slipping on his way to his feet. Gojo helped him up, kicking the slime off his shoe. “We found him.”
“He found us.”
“Eh, either way,” Gojo shrugged as the curse slugged back up and into its form. Gojo took a fighting stance, positioning himself in front of Nanami between him and the curse. Nanami took this as a sign to back up and away, and soon, Gojo made the first attack, throwing a harsh punch that landed squarely in the center of the curse. The sound was wet, and the curse billowed around Gojo’s fist, blowing sour-smelling air like a deflating balloon. As Gojo tried to pull his fist away, the slime stuck to him, making it difficult for Gojo to pull away, and it was this that was the first sign of trouble.
The curse descended on Gojo in a flurry of wild attacks so fast that Nanami couldn’t perceive most of them with just his eyes. Gojo’s attacks slowly went from offensive to defensive, falling behind in speed as the fight went on and on. Even the strongest - the one who saw God and then came back - couldn’t keep up with a first-grade curse with that many hands.
Nanami’s feet stayed frozen in place, his body unable to move in the panic he felt at the scene unfolding, until he finally heard Gojo’s voice.
“Yo, Nanami, any day now would be nice!” And it defrosted Nanami because it wasn’t the signature calm, cool, collected asshole voice that announced when Gojo walked in the room.
He sounded scared.
Nanami let out a shaky breath, his feet dragging him towards the action in front of him faster and faster until he was sprinting madly across the field, cursed blunt blade raised high above his head and a war cry ripping from his throat. It seemed like he might actually really do something-
-until he stopped dead in his tracks just steps away from where Gojo and the curse were tumbling, destruction left in their path.
“Nanami!” Gojo yelled again, starting to sound irritated. “I’m admitting I need help; do the math thing and get this over with!”
“That’s a common misconception!” Nanami yelled back, just as frantic, as he began counting a rhythm in his head, bouncing a few practice swings of his blade in front of him to test the timing. “It’s not just math; it’s rhythm too!”
“Well, boogie oogie oogie and scoot your way over to killing this thing!” Gojo gripped one of the curse’s hands as it swung at him, and the air was still for milliseconds before either boy had realized what he’d done. The curse took this opportunity of minute incapacitation to grab for Gojo, entrapping him in his slimy, sluggish arms and slowly absorbing him into his skin.
“Gojo!” Nanami cried out, and it was watching Gojo slowly start to fall dizzy with unconsciousness that put him in time. Without thinking, Nanami swung down for real, the rhythm and the math coming together to execute his perfect 7/3 technique right at the first-grade curse.
And it missed.
The curse slugged out of the way, contorting its body to just barely miss the swing of Nanami’s blunt blade, and it puffed right back up into a balloon when the coast was clear. Nanami watched in horror. He couldn’t even do this right, and it was all because of him that The Honored One, special heir of the Gojo clan, was going to die on this random mission in this random village against this random first-grade curse that was way below him.
For just a split second, Nanami laments that if Geto were here, Gojo would be fine.
But before Nanami could tear himself up too bad, a burst of bright purple light exploded from a deep place within the curse, and the whole thing sludged to the ground into puddles of disgusting-smelling gray mucus. Gojo, disheveled and covered in the same goo, dropped to his knees just feet away from Nanami, panting and shaking just lightly enough to disturb the slick coating covering his skin.
It only felt natural for Nanami to run straight up to Gojo, dropping to his knees in front of him like he was a long-time friend and not a one-time mission partner.
“Are you okay?” Nanami asked, frantic, gripping Gojo’s shoulders with tight hands and biting his lip to keep painfully embarrassed and scared tears from springing to his eyes.
Then Gojo raised his head and looked at Nanami. And he had a smirk on his face. His breathing had stabilized, and he looked completely fine.
“Nice job there. Distracting him let me,” He held up his hand, his thumb holding back his middle finger as he stared down the length of his fingers with his bright blue eyes directly into Nanami’s pathetically normal brown ones. “Hollow purple the shit out of him.” Instead of flicking his fingers at him, Gojo tapped his long index finger against Nanami’s nose, then he clapped Nanami’s hands that still sat on his shoulders, “Thanks, partner!” Without even a hint of the same fear Nanami heard earlier, Gojo stood and left Nanami crouched, shaking in fear at what had just happened.
The ride home was back to normal, the coldness radiating off of Gojo’s body in waves like the Arctic Ocean. Nanami didn’t know if he was shivering at that or the feeling of having just watched Gojo almost die a second time
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When they got back on campus, Gojo was back to being business as usual, sliding out of his side of the car without even a glance back at Nanami, who was scrambling frantically after him so as to not be left alone in such a cold place.
A bubbling was building deep in Nanami’s stomach, and he couldn’t handle the embarrassment or the fees that would come with vomiting in the back of the school’s car like that.
Gojo’s long legs took him much further in a shorter amount of time and with considerably less effort than Nanami, and it was shaking Nanami’s gut to have to stumble after him so quickly, but how could he just leave Gojo alone to wander campus after he almost died. He was almost gone, and the thought alone brought a sour acid to the back of Nanami’s throat, so he followed with his head down like a lost puppy as Gojo strode through campus in search of his friends.
“You can go back to your room, Nanami. The mission is over,” Gojo finally said, barely sparing a glance, but at this point, Nanami had to keep breathing deep through his nose to settle his stomach.
“Gojo, we almost died-”
“-Okay, you almost died-”
“And you saved me!” Nanami stopped in his tracks, his words way louder than he meant them, but he couldn’t understand why this wasn’t blowing Gojo’s mind like it was blowing his own. He was stood at the doorstep of death, gulping the stench of his own decomposing body, when Gojo swooped in and scooped him up and back to the world of the living before the doorbell could ring. It was the most intimate thing, Nanami thought in that moment, to have saved someone, and Gojo was acting like he barely even knew him.
He brought a hand roughly down his face to try and calm himself, but all he did was feel the clammy perspiration that had claimed his skin in the cool early spring air.
“Yeah, you’re fucking welcome for that by the way,” Gojo waved Nanami off, sounding barely bothered by anything that was coming out of Nanami’s mouth.
“I saved you!”
“With your broken ass technique?” Gojo laughed, quirking an eyebrow at him in a way that wasn’t even mocking, and the fact that Gojo couldn’t even spare enough energy to properly make fun of him made Nanami’s skin burn bright like a cherry blossom petal, and the gurgling in his stomach churned and churned.
“Okay, maybe not, but-”
“Look, kid,” Gojo softened his voice, and it made Nanami flinch, “you’re cool. I appreciate you helping me out today. But-” And Gojo’s words were cut off by the sound of footsteps behind them. Well, Nanami would always say that it was the sound of footsteps behind them because that’s how he remembers them, but to be honest, he can’t remember how they sound now. It seemed more like Gojo could just sense the presence approach behind them, and he stopped because he stopped caring for the conversation. His whole world had shifted, tilted back to reality, and he turned.
Geto and Shoko stood at the top of the stairs behind them, staring down at the two.
“I gotta go, Nanami. I’ll see you in class.” Gojo started up the stairs, not even sparing a passing glance back down at Nanami because his eyes - his oddly beautiful bright blue eyes - were glued back on Geto.
And wasn’t that just so fucking stupid? They were having a conversation, Nanami thought, so wouldn’t it be at the very least the polite thing to do to hear Nanami out? Gojo was just so annoying with the way he acted and protected and laughed and smiled and always, always chose Geto above anyone and anything else. If Nanami didn’t know better, he’d think that the anger he felt prickling painfully at the skin on his face and neck and back was desperation, but watching Gojo saunter up those stairs lit a furious fire deep inside him, warming the cold that had settled between the two boys.
Bile tickled at the back of Nanami’s throat, but he swallowed it down, trying to stop the way his head was spinning uncontrollably.
They didn’t even know each other that well if he was being honest. Gojo was his senpai, and it made his whole body vibrate with…some…emotion to think about the way Gojo saw him as close to an equal as he could ever be the minute they stepped off campus. Being seen, being examined, under the mesmerizing bug eyes of his had burnt memories into Nanami’s delicate skin, and now all of those scars itched, and Nanami didn’t understand what was happening anymore, but he knew in that moment that he hated Gojo more than he ever had before. That he could absolutely swear to.
Then, Nanami couldn’t keep the vomit down anymore, and the churning in his stomach won.
“I think I’m in love with you!” Nanami blurted out, eyes wide and heart racing, and the confession stopped Gojo dead in his tracks up the stairs. Shoko and Geto, out of hearing range, watched in confusion as Gojo turned back to stare down at him.
Nanami rarely felt small, but in that moment, he was smaller than a mouse, looking up at Gojo like a downtown skyscraper towering above him.
His expression was completely unreadable, and Nanami wanted oh so dearly to make his mouth work to take back the frantic confession, regretting saying anything out loud, but he couldn’t get his jaw or tongue to work with him.
Instead, he stood at the mercy of a blank-faced Gojo, studying him closely with squinted eyes. It felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.
“How unfortunate.” Gojo’s voice was bored, unimpressed, barely more than a murmur with his response, and it was quiet enough to hear Nanami’s heart shatter into a million pieces.
“Satoru!” Geto called Gojo’s name with a warmth and grumble and sweetness that dug the knife deeper to Nanami’s core. Gojo moved in such a way at Geto’s voice that it was clear he forgot Nanami was even standing there. Gojo turned back to his friends, climbing the stairs in double time and greeting them fast. He slung an arm around Geto, burying his face into the side of his hair and shooting another glance down at the pained Nanami, before sauntering off. Shoko, eyes stuck to Nanami like flies to a trap, waited just a few moments before following the two.
Nanami was glued in place, the feeling of rejection stinging his whole body, and he doesn’t know how long he stood there, but it felt like the sun fell and rose and fell and rose again before he snapped back to life.
“Ken-kun!” Haibara’s excited voice rang out from across the field, and when Nanami turned, he saw Haibara’s waving form leaning out of the window of their shared dorm room, and he realized it had probably only been a few minutes.
It was shocking to Nanami because in those few moments with Gojo, he actually forgot about the rest of his world, his own version of the one person who understood him and loved him and touched his soul and still chose to stick around, but his face eased the pain to just a dull throb in his chest.
“I have something to show you! Sensei taught me a new technique while you were gone!”
Nanami smiled, and it wasn’t until Nanami only brought home half of Haibara Yu’s dead body just a few months later that he began to feel bad about confessing his love to Gojo.