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Nanami hadn’t had many expectations coming home this evening. He’d been toying with the idea of reheating leftovers instead of making a more elaborate dinner so that he could use the scant time before bed to catch up on a book he’d bought years ago and still not finished. The height of excitement for him lately was being in bed by 9:30. Thus, it was with surprise and a great deal of frustration that, upon turning on the lights in his apartment, he found his routine interrupted by one Gojo Satoru.
It wasn’t uncommon for the strongest sorcerer of the modern age to show up unannounced in Nanami’s home. Years ago when the habit first started Nanami had debated the merit of giving Gojo a key just to stop his neighbors from calling him about a “strange man breaking into his apartment” before deciding it would only be rewarding bad behavior. Clearly, this had not worked as intended.
Given that Gojo usually showed up only for ridiculous whims rather than actual emergencies, Nanami wasn’t so much concerned as he was irritated when he entered his bedroom to find his old classmate spread out on his bed like a starfish. A vein in his temple twitched, a familiar despair coming over him at the knowledge that he would not be getting to sleep at a reasonable time tonight.
“Gojo-san,” he said, voice clipped and heavy with frustration. Before he could begin a much-needed lecture on how not only was breaking and entering into a coworker’s apartment inappropriate, but that breaking into a coworker’s bedroom was even more so, he stopped. Instead of rolling over to grin carelessly up at him or sing out some obnoxious greeting, Gojo had not so much as twitched. In fact, he actually rolled deeper into the blankets with a muffled groan. Nanami couldn’t tell if he’d said any actual words, but the sound itself combined with the lackluster reaction were both enough to give him pause. It was then that he finally began putting together a series of observations since coming into his apartment that no longer seemed unconnected. All the lights were off when Nanami entered despite Gojo already being in his apartment; his curtains were tightly drawn despite him forgetting to do so before leaving for work. There was a complete absence of noise that prickled at his ears. He couldn’t even hear the electric hum of his old hand-me-down refrigerator from his grandmother. It must have been unplugged. The real key, though, was when Nanami really looked at Gojo and a blood red ratio appeared right over his eyes. Nanami’s irritation died on his lips. He shifted uncomfortably, blinking away the ratio that was typically useless on the impervious man.
Maybe if this was the first time he’d seen this, Nanami would be concerned. But a long dormant memory, very nearly forgotten, reminded him that it wasn’t.
“Satoru, come on,” Geto coaxed. He tried to pry the other boy off of him, but Gojo only clung harder, pressing his face into Geto’s chest with a desperation that seemed less and less like a stupid joke with each passing second.
“Fuckin’ lights,” Nanami made out, but the rest of Gojo’s mumble was lost to Geto’s shirt. Yu looked back and forth between their two upperclassmen with a worried frown.
“What’s going on? Is Gojo-senpai okay?”
Geto sighed and gave up on trying to dislodge Gojo, instead resting one hand on the small of the boy’s back.
“Satoru gets migraines sometimes when he overuses his cursed techniques,” Geto explained. Nanami blinked. Next to him, Yu’s eyes widened.
“Really?” he gasped, looking and sounding genuinely distressed. “That’s terrible!”
“Godda—Keep it down, Haibara,” Gojo hissed, pulling away from Geto just enough to make his words intelligible before retreating again with a groan. Yu’s hand clapped over his mouth, guilt written on every centimeter of his features.
“Oh!” he whispered. “Sorry! I mean—“ Nanami pulled his friend’s hand back down.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he murmured. “Just talk quietly. Loud noises make migraines worse.” Nanami may not like Gojo, but he wasn’t enough of an asshole to exacerbate an experience as excruciating as a migraine. His maternal grandmother had gotten them frequently towards the end of her life and always maintained that they were worse than the chemo. Yu nodded furiously. Geto cleared his throat.
“Sorry,” the special-grade said with an apologetic smile. “He gets whiny.”
Nanami frowned. He looked back down at Gojo, face still buried in Geto’s chest, hands crumpled into the dark-haired boy’s baggy uniform like a child clutching onto their parent for comfort. Geto’s teasing, which normally would have warranted a crude retort or spur of the moment roughhousing, went ignored. Nanami thought he might be shaking, too, but wasn’t close enough to be sure.
“…Right,” he grunted after a beat too long. Despite Geto’s reassurances, Nanami couldn’t tear his gaze away from the spattering of red on Gojo’s forehead. By now, he’d gotten better at handling his technique, but it still reared up when he wasn’t expecting it. Nanami had seen it projected onto Yu’s stomach that he left unguarded during sparring; Ieiri’s shoulder when it was tight from hunching over lab tables for hours; even Geto’s side after a hard mission one day. But he’d never seen it pop up on Gojo Satoru before. Maybe it should feel good to know the Strongest’s weakness, but instead it just made Nanami feel weirdly queasy.
“Aww, tell him we hope he feels better!” Yu said earnestly. Nanami wrinkled his nose.
“No.”
“Tell him I hope he feels better,” Yu amended, shooting Nanami a look of admonishment. Nanami rolled his eyes and looked away. He didn’t even like Gojo. What was the point of wishing him well when he didn’t actually mean it?
Geto chuckled at their exchange. “I’ll tell him later,” he promised, then leaned down and ruffled Gojo’s hair. “Come on, Satoru,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Gojo made a tiny noise that could’ve been an affirmative or another moan of pain. Nanami stared at his two upperclassmen as Geto guided Gojo, face still buried in the black-haired boy’s shirt, down the hall and around a corner out of sight. The ratio continued to hover along the wall after them for a few seconds longer, then shimmered and disappeared.
“That sucks,” Yu said with feeling. “I mean, having all these cool powers but getting migraines all the time? I don’t know if I’d want them if that was the trade-off. What about you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nanami answered. “Gojo-senpai is the only one with the Rikugan.” Yu scoffed and bumped Nanami’s shoulder, drawing out a huff.
“You’re no fun,” Yu complained, but his eyes were crinkled at the corners. “Where’s your suspension of disbelief?”
Yu began to rattle off hypothetical superpowers and their drawbacks—the ability to fly, but only one meter off the ground; teleportation, but with a five percent chance of warping into a wall. Nanami half-listened to the increasingly ridiculous propositions, but the rest of his attention laid, annoyingly, with Gojo and Geto. He wondered if the ratio would still appear on Gojo’s forehead tomorrow. Maybe then Nanami could finally beat him in a spar.
The memory was old and worn, tinted in sepia and the warm overtones of youth. It had been at the start of Gojo’s second year—Nanami and Yu’s first—right before… Well, right before. Before Yu was butchered in front of him. Before Geto defected and left Ieiri and Gojo stranded and irreparably broken. Before.
Nanami pressed his lips together in a thin line as he looked down at Gojo, curled into the bed, soaked in sweat and trembling but not making a single sound. Nothing ever changes, does it?
Taking great care to keep his footsteps quiet, Nanami padded to the small adjoining hallway and flicked the lights back off. Then, for good measure, he did the same for all lights in his apartment save for the small reading lamp on his coffee table, which he kept on so he could see into the kitchen. He pulled open the freezer and retrieved a bag of frozen snap peas, then filled up a glass with water from the sink. After nudging the freezer drawer closed, he returned to the guest bedroom.
“Gojo-san,” he whispered. His words were barely audible to his own ears, but Gojo still winced like he had shouted. The older sorcerer started to turn his way, and Nanami stopped him with a gentle hand on his neck. Gojo felt hot and feverish under his touch, and he frowned at the sensation. “You don’t need to get up,” Nanami murmured. “But I got you water, and will go grab some medication for the pain from the bathroom. Do you know where your bandages are?” Gojo was silent for a moment, then raised a shaking arm and pointed behind him.
“There,” he croaked. His arm dropped back onto the bed with a dull thunk. Nanami felt something tug behind his rib cage at the disarming display of weakness. Gojo may look thin on account of his baggy clothes, but underneath his uniform he was just as well-muscled as anyone else in their field. He wasn’t considered the Strongest for his devastating cursed technique alone; his prowess in hand-to-hand combat was unparalleled. And yet here he was, barely able to lift his arm from the mattress he laid on. Nanami tried not to think of just how many sorcerers would kill for the chance to get the Six Eyes alone in this condition as he looked towards the direction Gojo had clumsily pointed to.
The man’s bandages were spooled in a small pile on the Western-style wooden floor. Nanami winced as he picked them up. They were looking worse for wear, and Nanami wasn’t even sure how to properly bind them over Gojo’s eyes. How that man kept his many layers of bandages from slipping even a centimeter in the heat of battle but was defeated by a tie would be forever baffling. Stepping over the raggedy bandages, Nanami pulled open his dresser drawer and picked out one of his few remaining black ties in the hopes that it would block out the most light. When he rejoined Gojo on the bed, he made sure to keep the mattress’ creaking to a minimum.
“I’m not sure how you like your bandages tied, and I don’t think you want to worry about that right now,” he told the teacher quietly, “so a tie will have to do. Is it alright if I wrap your eyes?”
Gojo made a muffled sound that sounded vaguely like a “please,” and lifted his head just above the pillow. As gently as possible, Nanami lowered his tie over Gojo’s eyes and brought each end of the fabric around to the back of Gojo’s head to tie a loose knot. He didn’t want the makeshift blindfold to slip, but he didn’t want to tie it too tight and exacerbate Gojo’s headache, either. Infinity buzzed around his fingertips like static electricity as he worked around strands of white hair. Nanami shivered, not just from the intimacy of the moment, but from the staggering weight of the trust the world’s strongest sorcerer was putting in him right now. How was it that Gojo identified Nanami, someone who had never even been particularly close with him until recently, as a person safe enough to be around like this? He wasn’t sure. He could only do his best to honor that trust placed in him.
“Thanks,” Gojo rasped after Nanami was done. His whole body seemed to loosen in relief as he sank into the mattress with a low sigh that made something knot peculiarly in Nanami’s stomach.
“I brought frozen peas,” he murmured lamely. Gojo rolled a little onto his side to allow the bag to sit evenly over his covered eyes. Another sigh of relief immediately followed, shaky and tugging at Nanami’s heartstrings.
Nanami didn’t bother announcing his departure as he padded over to the en suite bathroom. He simply kept his movements as quiet as possible, just as he had when he went to the kitchen, opening his mirrored cupboard to shake out a few Ibuprofen pills into his hand to bring to Gojo. When he returned, Gojo had already dragged the blankets up higher, slowly but surely cocooning himself as he was wont to do.
“Used to do it as a kid,” he’d once said as he bundled himself in the blankets strewn across Nanami’s couch. “Shut things out.”
“What things?” Nanami had asked. Gojo had chuckled in response.
“It took a while to get used to Six Eyes,” he’d said. “Even the Great Gojo Satoru wasn’t always perfect… Shocking, I know!”
At the time, Nanami had rolled his eyes at Gojo’s self-aggrandizing nature. In the present, though, he allowed himself to imagine a small boy with unruly white hair and wide blue eyes curled up in the corner of his bed, wrapping himself up in the blankets like a tiny living sushi roll. He wondered if the boy knew that his pains were supposed to be gifts; if that knowledge would have even done anything to comfort him. He wondered whether the boy was alone at times like these, and was surprised at how much the thought saddened him. He wondered if the boy ever got scared.
Looking down at the strongest man alive, Nanami found it hard to equate adult Gojo—tall, muscular, flippant and egotistical—with the child in his imagination. Despite this, the sorrow still remained. Gojo was no innocent child—he probably never had been—but that didn’t make it any more pleasant to watch Gojo, Nanami’s friend, suffer right now.
“I have the medicine,” Nanami said softly as he knelt back down by the bed. He tried and failed to contain his frown when Gojo once again winced at the slightest sound. “Can you manage drinking yourself, or would you like me to hold the glass for you?” Gojo’s face flushed red.
“Got it,” he muttered, his voice abnormally scratchy. Nanami waited patiently for shaking hands to take the offered glass and watched as Gojo placed the pills on the back of his tongue and drank them down with a healthy gulp. He kept drinking after, almost desperately, and when he was done Nanami wordlessly left to refill the glass. By the time he returned, Gojo had already retreated back into his blanket fortress. He set the glass down on the dresser as quietly as he could, then found himself hovering in place, staring down at the bundle of blankets that was Gojo. He hesitated for only a moment, a near-silent sigh puffing past his lips, before fighting his foolish instinct to stay and turning to the door.
“I’ll be in the living room,” Nanami murmured. “I will leave the door cracked open. If you need me, feel free to turn on the bedside lamp so I see. In the meantime, get some rest, Gojo-san.”
Nanami managed no more than a single step before cold Infinity wrapped around his wrist. He looked back, a question already forming on his lips, to find Gojo’s long, pale fingers clutching at him entreatingly. The vacuum of Infinity was like ice against his skin, and so it made little sense that instead of giving him chills, Gojo’s touch made his insides heat into molten amber.
“Nanami,” Gojo said, clearing his throat, and Nanami blinked at the bubble being popped. He had never heard Gojo speak so quietly before. “Stay.” The chills came, delayed but no less powerful.
“Are you sure?” Nanami muttered, half out of consideration for Gojo’s migraine and half out of a sudden unease. This was new. He wasn’t sure yet if it was the kind of newness that promised growth or ruin.
Gojo shifted slightly in his blanket burrito and mumbled something into the pillows. What, Nanami didn’t quite catch, but the insistent tug he gave Nanami’s wrist was answer enough. Forcing down his apprehension, Nanami cautiously lifted the bedding to join Gojo under the sheets. He wouldn’t have minded not having his share of the comforter—he was running unbearably warm tonight, it seemed—but Gojo was already unraveling a section of his cocoon and shoving it Nanami’s way, inviting him in. Nanami accepted on impulse, creating a tiny fort pulled up over their heads. It was ridiculously juvenile, and Nanami couldn’t help but feel oddly self-conscious despite being in the privacy of his own room. God help him if Gojo ever told Ieiri about this; he’d never live it down.
“Thanks,” Gojo suddenly breathed, barely even a whisper. Nanami swallowed down a sudden spike of emotion at the rare sincerity.
“Of course,” he returned after just long enough of a pause to feel awkward. This close, Nanami could now hear how labored Gojo’s breath was, could see the grimace crossing his face as he shuffled around in the blankets to find some position that wouldn’t hurt his head. The man was folded in on himself, curled in a near-fetal position even under the covers, the slowly thawing pack of snap peas threatening to slide right off. His jaw was clenched so tight that it promised a renewal of his headache come morning. Nanami longed to massage it into unclenching, but it wasn’t his place.
Whose place is it, then? a traitorous little voice whispered from the back of his mind. Who’s here right now, watching over him, if not you?
Nanami ignored the voice with a frown. With a barely audible sigh, he let his eyes slip shut and gave himself away to sleep. With any luck, the morning would see the departure of Gojo’s migraine. But even if this bout of illness was temporary, Nanami couldn’t help but feel that something was shifting, for better or for worse.