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Chapter Text

The clock strikes half past nine when Gojo arrives at the club and makes his way to a designated space for the bar and drinks. There were some errands he had to finish before work, and one of them surprisingly included being summoned to a junior high's principal's office for a kid he was looking out for.

"He got into a fight, Mr Gojo."

"Eh, Megumi?"

"Yes, so I suppose-"

"Did he win?"

It's supposedly an extension of his job, but that's a long story to tell for another time.

"Sorry, I'm late!" Gojo loudly enters the scene, but what he assumed was his customer of the night didn't even bother to turn her head to greet him. She wears a ribbon on her hair which he kinda finds cute. He continues to let himself sit at the vacant chair next to her.

"You know, it's pretty stupid they kept that girl in first chair for years!" she slurs. "She's a damn nepo baby like c'mon, not even a talent there, and I would have been less hurt if she actually did!" She's loudly talking to whoever it is or maybe even to herself or the bartender. Who knows, and being exposed to clubs constantly, this isn't anything out of the norm for Gojo

Her eyes remain locked somewhere, squinting as if she's trying to read the labels of the alcoholic drinks on the walls. Then finally she looks at Gojo, who loudly adjusts himself on his seat and then yells, "a Shirley temple for this host!"

"A host who doesn't drink, huh?" The girl raises a brow, snickering, then continues to swig a gulpful of her beer mug. "What do you offer then? Talking a poor lady's ears off?"

Gojo smiles, surprised by his supposed customer. "Not all ladies like dunking a bottle of beer in one gulping, you know. Maybe some ladies like it sophisticated and-"

She bursts out laughing, the redness on her cheeks and in her eyes revealed as she faces Gojo.

The girl isn't too bad looking, actually, except for maybe the alluring scar on her cheek. Not gonna lie, but that only made her more intrigued by Gojo. Soft dark locks that fell past her shoulder with those brown eyes and pink lips. "No kidding," says Gojo. "I have all the other ladies lined up just to see my pretty face, and that includes-"

"So that's what you do!" she interrupts. "Sit there and just be boring..must be sophisticated with the ladies then." She laughs even more. "Never really get the appeal of hosts."

That only piques Gojo's interest. This girl must have been ten drinks in to forget the whole point why he's even here. "How about you?" And yet he decides to play along. "Besides Asahi beer, got any actually interesting things going on?"

"Violin," she answers with no hesitation as she slams her glass for another beer refill

"Oh," Gojo tips his sunglasses down his nose. "And you're not cooped at some corner and practising away?"

She glares at him, rolling her eyes, then she takes a mere sip of her beer and doesn't gulp it down like she hasn't been a blackhole of sucking in beer the past hour. "None of your business!"

"You paid for my service, so it is my business."

"Paid?" She narrows her eyes. "Pfft, no not happening, I'd rather be kicked out of my apartment from going broke than spending it on your face."

"Ah, so you're a starving artist?"

"I'm leaving!" She quickly turns away, but upon hopping off those damn tall chairs at the bar, her heels slips, and she yelps as she falls to her knees.

"Asahi's finally kicking in?" He can only smirk.

"Go away!"

Then Gojo turns to the bartender. "How many drinks did this have?"

The bartender pauses midway in wiping his shot glass. "That was her third."

Gojo grins, more amused than ever. "So Asahi's not exactly your best friend." He isn't even sure anymore if this is his supposed customer of the night, but this girl..is just too hilarious to let go.

She struggles to get on her feet as she tries to grab onto the high chairs at the bar, and all she feels is some kind of cold sweat on the metal bar, but she couldn't care for sanitation anymore, not when her head starts to spin.

Gojo crouches down to look at her. "Need a little help, miss?"

She continues to ignore him, looking away as she slowly gets up to her feet, her weight leaning on the chair that's threatening to fall back. "Y-you get away from me!" she lets out, still feisty.

"Well, that's a first," a voice suddenly comes in. "The girl is not into you."

Gojo turns around and sees his fellow hostess at the bar. Her signature braid always covers half of her face. "I don't think she's a customer," replies Gojo.

"Can't accept rejection that much?" teases Mei Mei as she continues to ask the bartender a bottle of vodka.

"I'm serious! There must have been some issues with the booking or something."

"Or it's probably just 'cause you're late most of the time."

"Well, they still pay me full anyways."

Mei Mei rolls her eyes. "Whatever it is, the girl's your responsibility now, keep her out of cat fights for tonight. It ruins business." She spins around, waving a hand to Gojo as she walks out.

He looks at her, who's suddenly leaning on the sticky counter now. Her hair covers the entirety of her face as she seems to be fighting for her life just maintaining that posture. Then all of a sudden, she swiftly lifts her head up. "Hey!" she called out the bartender. "Got any karaoke in here?"

The next hour isn't exactly the typical night Gojo experiences working as a host. He'll usually buy them gifts while walking around Shibuya but what Gojo did was watch this girl belt out onto a microphone, and damn, she rocked it. She might have even rocked Gojo's world for a bit there. The way she jumps when the chorus comes in or when she air guitars when the solo comes. Even the entire bar is giving her a round of applause too.

"You sing?" She suddenly asks as she's about to pour herself a shot that she's been concerningly taking in between songs.

Gojo stays impressed how it didn't seem to affect her singing at all. "Of course, why would I be a host when I'm not a man of many talents?" He answers.

She scoffs, readying to take the shot, but Gojo rushes to place a hand to cover the shot glass. He'd never have to deal with such a drunk customer, and part of that is not knowing when is the best time to think that maybe alcohol poisoning is maybe possible.

She gives him a death glare. "That's mine!"

"Actually," Gojo gulps, readying himself, "that will be mine."

"Pour your own!"

Gojo snatches the drink from her real quick and dumps that content down his throat. He gags.

She lets out a hyena laugh, even slamming her fists on the table and shaking the long abandoned beer bottles left on there. "Big..baby!" she only says in between the laughter. It's all fun until she starts gasping for air, choking, and almost vomits on him.

"Shit!" He begins to reevaluate his life choices on why he even stuck with this girl until now when he could have ditched her. It's crazy he's the one supposed to captivate his client, but when he's with her, it seems to be the other way around.

Then a few minutes later, she finally begins calming down, all drowsy as she lay down at the booth for a while now, trying to knock out right then and there.

He pulls her arm, and she isn't resisting, only groaning.

For one last time, Mei Mei catches him in his predicament when she's walking out with a client. "I didn't actually think you'd actually stick to her, Gojo," she comments then again disappears.

Gojo realizes he hasn't figured out her name yet.

"Alright, time to go home!" Gojo says.

"Hey, don't you hosts like to keep us all night and make us pay for stuff!" she snaps back as if she wasn't just trying to pass out minutes ago.

"Not when she's a bad drunk!"

"You calling me a bad drunk?!" She raises her voice.

Gojo holds onto her wrist when she's about to fall on her face the millionth time tonight, and still, she attempts to shake herself off from his grasp.

"Any problems here, ma'am?" A big guy approaches them, biceps bulging out in a tight black shirt.

"She's my client actually," Gojo says.

The big guy bouncers takes a long hard look at them while she still struggles to get her wrist away from someone a head taller than her. Gojo flashes a big grin, and he swears he's starting to break sweat from her stubbornness.

"Does this happen often with your customer?" asks the big guy.

"Well-"

"Get your hands off me!" She nudges hard on Gojo's chest, and he tries hard not to budge because all those hours of scrolling through that stupid Tik Tok on how-to-get-abs-in-a-week weren't for nothing.

Gojo swallows a groan. "She's lightweight! Gets a little feisty at times, you know." But the harder Gojo tries to pin down her wrist, she resorts into more action, swinging her head back, totally unbeknown to Gojo as he persuades the bouncer, and clashing her forehead onto Gojo's.

The bouncer might have needed more than one person to pull out from the bar tonight.

–

Nanami always pulls through when they need him, especially cases like these. He handles bar fights, yakuza showdowns, and even nasty work like gang bangs, but never in his career would it be equal to being summoned because the pretty boy host Gojo Satoru got banged up by a female client who's a smaller than his size.

"So why am I exactly here?" Nanami asks, pushing back his glasses.

"Because her tiny ass head is made out of concrete!" exclaims Gojo. The girl remained in the booth and unsurprisingly passed out.

"And you're being a big baby about it?" Nanami points out. "The short time that I've been here, I could have deescalated a Yakuza raid going down right now."

"Well then, I'm the Gojo Satoru, keeping this upfront and totally honest business running."

Nanami rolls his eyes. "Can't a grown man call himself a taxi and be done with it?"

"I got a client with me."

"Can't a grown man take responsibility and call a taxi for his customer?"

"Sorry, not specified in the job description."

"Jesus-fucking-Christ," whispers Nanami under his breath. "Poor lady doesn't deserve to be your host."

"That's the thing! She's not even supposed to be my customer."

"And yet, here you are now, a lawsuit waiting to happen if she wakes up with memories tomorrow."

"Hey, I did jackshit to her, alright! I'm not that lowly. Who knows she might be one of the undercover cops you deal with."

"You watch too much movies." Nanami spins around to check on her. She seems like she's breathing and still is drunkenly mumbling in her sleep. Her forehead was red with a slight bump on it, and there's this scar prominent across her check. Nanami somehow gets why Gojo took interest in her.

Meanwhile of course, there's big baby Gojo with the so-called bruise on his forehead, still moaning about it.

"C'mon, take her somewhere safe. Ijichi's gonna give you two a ride," Nanami says. "Do you even know her name?"

Gojo refuses to look at him. "Like I told you she isn't supposed to be my client so I know nothing about her."

"And the last 3 hours that you were together you couldn't figure that out?"

"She was so pissed out drunk that she did this!" Drama King Gojo points to his little boo-boo.

"Well, don't make me do your job, and figure it out!" snaps Nanami, and finally Gojo proceeds to do the right thing and goes through her sling bag that she held on tightly throughout the night despite being stupidly drunk.

She impressively manages to shove a hard folder into that tiny sling bag and when Gojo flips through them, guessing some boring office paper, it was instead covered in handwritten musical notes on a music sheet. He smiles. Right, she did mention being a violinist. After more digging through a concerning pile of bills-to-pay papers, Gojo finally finds her wallet and ID.

"Iori Utahime," her name slips out of his mouth. "What a pretty name." He smirks as he glances at her, now drooling on the booth couch. He takes a good look at her ID, and to his surprise, she is 2 years older than him (even closing in to 3 years) this old spunky Iori Utahime, his "supposed" client of the night.

"Ijichi's here," says Nanami. "Don't you ever call me again with this bullshit." When Gojo called him for help, he was acting all like he got shot and bleeding out in a god-knows-where alleyway. The real situation is more like him being in the verge of getting kicked out by the bouncer.

"I owe you one!" Gojo says as he picks up the now named Utahime and takes her to the car. She felt all that movement walking to the car that by the time they went, she slowly blinks open her eyes.

"Hey, Utahime, I'm taking you home,"Gojo assures her, but she only squints her eyes, furrowing her brows and groans.

"V-violin.." She chokes out a word as she coughs, like threatening to vomit on him again that Gojo is ready to jump back. Then she knocks out again onto his lap. Gojo breathes out a sigh of relief but a chuckle couldn't help escape his mouth.

What a nerd!

"Where are we heading, Gojo-san?" Ijichi asks, his spectacled eyeglasses flashing as he glances at the rear view mirror.

Gojo knows her home address from the ransacked ID. She lives right on the apartments of a busy street, not exactly too far in the downtown area where his shady business often goes down but in a humble area of the city. They got some good candy shops there though Gojo isn't gonna lie, and besides that…

"Take her to the hotel on 5th street," he says.

–

Utahime almost blasts the door into bits when she enters the hallway, and she's relieved to see that the line was still going. She didn't like the part though when everyone looked at her, especially the advils she took this morning to cure the hangover made her extra nauseous and anxious, a great combo you definitely needed before the biggest audition of your life. Plus, the scar on her face definitely didn't help either.

Utahime leans on the wall and observes the people in line for the audition. Of-fucking-course, she's pitted against nepo babies, offsprings who are already connected to the orchestra with whatever fucking relative or friend they had.

Crap, I probably shouldn't have drank that night. Utahime knocks her head on the wall. All the practicing she could have done in those hours, she mourns for it…

And being the true bad drunk she is, her memories are hazy, and only remembering a prominent white hair and round pair of sunglasses present throughout that night.

But what she's more thankful for is that she got home safe and wasn't drugged that night. She woke up in this hotel, suspiciously a block away from her place, with clothes intact and when she tries to track down the someone who took care of her, the hotel receptionist was left with the message that he's merely a generous host who did what could've done to his client and she should be glad he didn't charge her overworked fees or whatever the heck that means.

Okay, first off, never in Utahime's life would she even dare book a host and second of all, the dude sounded pretentious which Utahime believed to be a requirement for such the nature of the job.

Gosh, she hasn't even told a soul about that crazy night, not even her friend Shoko. The audition was coming up then that Utahime talking about it would have opened another cringefest that will take days for her to get over it.

"Iori Utahime, you're next!"

She takes one big breath as she beelines into the doors leading to the stage as if trying to run away from those eyes of the other candidates. It's a miracle Utahime didn't fall first on her face the moment she went up on stage. She even almost forgot the name of the piece she was about to perform that she froze up and stood there like an idiot for a solid few seconds.

"Please, tell us when you're ready Iori-san," one of the judges says.

Utahime was snapped off of her brain fart, and in that moment, all her brain cells seem to connect and do their thing. She straightens her posture and readies her bow. She takes one last look to the audience, more like the lack thereof, and then to her violin strings.

In these few minutes on stage, she's a rockstar.

–

"A client called, said you ditched her. Left a nasty review as a treat."

"Wha-"

"Your tardiness has been a problem lately, Gojo. It's bad for the business."

"Well, I'm the one who's technically losing money here."

"And our management is the one getting reviews and either losing or getting customers. Supply and Demand."

"So now what, Mei?"

"What happened to your client last night?"

"I'm telling you, she wasn't exactly my-!"

"Yet you still ended up paying for her tab using our company's money, and you also paid her a night at a high end hotel."

"Hey, I kept her out of trouble that night! Cut it off from my next check or something, jeez."

"The point is that client left a bad review which-"

"It's not the end of the world. Just book me another client, and I'll do juuuuuusst fine. Put it in my usual schedule. Peacing out." Gojo ends the call.

-

Utahime manages to get out of the concert hall alive when she feels the fresh wind greets her. There, the seaside port stands a few blocks from where Utahime is, so she decides to get a silly little walk to calm her adrenaline still going even post-performance..

She thinks her performance wasn't too bad, maybe a single mistake somewhere but maybe that's just her overconfidence from her adrenaline telling her she did juuust fine. Or maybe this is just the part of her overjoyed by the fact that the audition's finally over which her brain equals to basically saying 'you did good, buddy! :D'

There's a bunch of kids and a few vendors when she got closer to the port plus an ominous figure sitting on the rocky shore she caught in her peripheral vision. The sound of the waves crashing is what she needed to relax as she took her steps.

"Huh, Utahime?"

She stops.

She blinks, fist tightening and relaxing. The sun on her eyes blinds her for a second until her pupils finally settle to white haired locks, belonging to that ominous figure sitting by the rocky shore.

Like some reflex, he grins, a classic shit eating one, and when he does, it almost drops as his eyes lapses onto hers. The sunlight tinkers into her brown irises that make it look like autumn leaves. It was so dark at the bar back then that he couldn't see such beautiful irises.

His breath catches in his throat. It reminds him of honey that he often dumps on his pancakes.

Her eyes widens, and she takes a step back. "Who are you?"

He blinks but keeps his grin on his face. He wasn't so sure either actually, but he stares at her. She's prettier than the last time he saw her. Well, to be fair, she was drunk last time. Her four syllable name just seems to slip so naturally from his tongue, like he'd been saying it for forever now.

Her forehead knots, and her eyes narrow. Honey ones that he kept his gaze locked on. "I don't think I've met you before," she finally says. If ever she'd see such blue eyes, she's pretty sure it's the type she wouldn't easily forget. But that white hair seems familiar though.

Leaning back, he decides to play along. "It's Gojo," he speaks, "Gojo Satoru."

Maybe for a bit that itched a certain part of her brain. "I wouldn't exactly formally introduce myself to some guy who just by chance guessed my name right," she says.

To her surprise, he laughs, flashing his teeth. "Hey! I'm not some creep."

Clasping on the straps of her violin case, she starts walking away.

"Hey!" He goes after her like gravity, but her heels continue to click rapidly. "Hey, Utahime!" Then he says her name for the second time, maybe even a millionth time.

"Don't," she hastily spins on her heel. "Don't you even follow me." She furrows her brow.

His grin sticks to him, not peeling away from any moment now. "I'm not exactly the type the ladies easily resist my charms on." Then he dares to wink. "Even older ladies."

She pauses on her steps, which is what he wanted, making his heart almost skip a beat, but she only bursts out laughing at his face, her head slightly thrown back that she knocked her head on the violin case she wears on her back.

And for him, it all makes sense it's this way. That she's laughing at him. He's not even offended actually.

"Charm? You call that charm?" she exclaims between breaths, her cheeks growing red.

This time, his grin slowly drops. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm sorry but the world doesn't exactly revolve around you," she says as she waves her hand. "You think you find it cute, but I don't."

"Don't you remember, Utahime," speaks Gojo like he's asking her to stay. "We met at the bar. I was your host for the night." Then he takes out his all-too-familiar round glasses.

Everything clicks to Utahime. "Are you playing with me?" she still asks.

"Nuh-uh." He grins wide, not that mischievous shit eating one, as he pushes back his glasses.

Utahime shakes her head. "How am I so sure you aren't some creep?"

"Well, the Utahime of that night told me that she loves to drink Asahi and sang Akina Nakamori's Forbidden Zone at least 30 times to the point of getting kicked out on stage."

Utahime's jaws drop but quickly recover as she takes a breath..

He laughs. "So, aren't you personally gonna thank your night and shining armour now, Utahime?"

"If he wasn't so pretentious, I probably would," she finds the words to answer. "And quit it with the first name basis. That's Iori-san for you."

"He was such a gentleman that night though! Maybe give him some credit?"

Oh, goodness, he's really pushing it, she thinks. "Well, thank you for being a decent human being to me that night. Goodbye now, Gojo."

"Wait, a coffee date would be nice too, you know!"

Her white bow flutters as she turns around, her coat shivering from the wind, and the shape of the violin case remains stagnant in his head, never letting go.

—

"Megumi, I'm enrolling you in violin classes."

The said Megumi squints his eyes, almost dropping the chopsticks mid way to his eating. "Since when did I-"

He shoves his phone into the boy's face.

"And the best you could find is a year old Craigslist ad?" he sighs in disappointment. "No, I'm not up for it and if you're trying to convince me, at least try to-"

"You're too smart for your own good sometimes, you know!" Gojo smacks his shoulders.

Megumi draws back. "Again, nope, not doing it. I don't know what grand mastermind plan you're trying to get me into, but I'm NOT entertaining any of those."

"I'm still mad about that call from school, so think about this as a-"

Megumi widens his eyes. "Seriously, mad? You asked the teacher if I won the fight!"

"And you did!"

"That's not the point here! The point is I'm not-"

"What point is being made here?" A voice suddenly popped into the kitchen.

Gojo turns around. "Oh, Tsumiki, great timing! I'm just proposing to Megumi here a life changing opportunity."

Megumi looks up to his sister, shaking his head at her as if a sign that's screaming for "help me!" But being the too good of a sister she is, she asks Gojo what's up.

"Violin classes?" Tsumiki says. "That sounds like fun! What do you think, Megumi?"

"No, not doing. You know him, he made me do Kumon once and started asking me if I can compute his taxes!"

"Correction," Gojo raises a finger. "It was actually so I can qualify for education tax credit. You know, get more tax refund for paying your education? But then, my good friend Nanami apparently said, "It's only for college."

"See what I mean," says Megumi as he glances at his sister then this Gojo. "Also, I'm pretty sure there were numerous times Nanami-san said he doesn't resp-"

"Well, to be fair though, that Kumon whatever did make you smarter," interrupts Gojo.

Megumi rolls his eyes. "Whatever, I'm out."

"Hang on, Megumi," her sister calls out. "The Kumon school did keep you busy though, so I'm thinking.."

"Please, don't tell me you're actually-"

"Maybe these lessons will keep you out of trouble," smiles Tsumiki. "You know, be some sort of outlet?"

"Right! You see what I mean Tsumiki," butts in Gojo.

"You gotta be kidding me." Megumi facepalms.

"That piling records of fights isn't doing you good at school," Tsumiki reasons.

Megumi knows that, and her big sister just never lets him see the end of it like that one time she chucks a strawberry milk cartoon at him once. Then he remembers how he says she's disgusting, and a part of him cringes inside. He takes another look at her sister, her soft encouraging smile, the same lips that wouldn't fail to also scold him, and then there's Gojo, holding a mischievous grin growing on his face.

"Fine, whatever," shrugs Megumi, finally walking out and heading out of the scene.

"Nice one, Tsumiki!" Exclaims Gojo, giving her a thumbs up. "So how's school?"

Tsumiki sighs. "Had to stay for a bit to clean up 'cause unfortunately, some idiots decided to ditch their cleaners days."

"Ah, cleaner's day, definitely didn't miss that."

"So, Gojo-san," She sternly stands to look into his eyes, "what exactly is your grand scheme for this violin lesson," says Tsumiki as she pours a glass of water. "My little brother is not exactly wrong in what he said."

"Darn, I thought you were on my side."

"Well, you have to fully explain your side first." She takes a drink.

"Welp, like you said, Megumi needs some outlet."

"That's what I said. What's your truth?"

"Jeez, you siblings are too damn smart for your own good sometimes." Gojo groans. "But fine, I met this girl, kinda felt bad for her 'cause she's kinda broke, so I figured might help just her out by doing her violin lessons."

"Oh, so you like this girl?" Tsumiki squints her eyes, a grin forming on her lips. "You could have enrolled yourself?"

"No, not like 'like' that! That wouldn't be too fun if it's me though, especially with how tight my schedule is."

"That's true." Tsumiki thinks about how even if the siblings are dependent on him, they rarely see Gojo as like their prime guardian who looks after them everyday. Of course, Tsumiki still remains thankful for all the financial support he provides. "Well, if it all works out with Megumi then he'll stay, and if he doesn't like it, then he's free to quit."

"That's the idea!"

"We got a deal. If you don't, I'll out you out real quick to whoever this girl is-"

"I swear! I don't like her that-"

A loud banging interrupts him. "Tsumiki!" yelled Megumi from the bathroom.

"Forgot the toilet paper again?" snickers Tsumiki.

"To be fair, Gojo didn't give us allowance for next month yet so-"

"Wait, I thought I had them install a bidet?" Gojo says

"Megumi said it shoots up his butt, and it's uncomfortable." Tsumiki shrugs.

"Well, that's not very eco-friendly of you, Megumi."

Megumi loudly groans, a resounding facepalm echoing from the bathroom walls. "Just please give me toilet paper!"

—

"Iori-sensei, Todo stuck bubble gum on Nishimiya's hair!"

Utahime sighs. She pauses her Candy Crush game on her phone that she is currently level 3410 on, thank you very much. Besides beer and baseball(plus music, of course), this is one of the few things that's genuinely keeping her ol' millennial brain entertained in today's economy.

The cram school she currently teaches is supposed to be doing a little assignment about Japanese literature that's relevant for their college entrance exams , and don't even try to ask Utahime why how such mundane activity escalated to someone sticking a gum on someone's hair. Still, Utahime gets up off her desk and continues to try to damage control this situation.

To summarize, apparently, Todo's tryna spit out his gum at the nearest trash bin when Nishimiya's tiny frame came into view and thus landed on her hair. Of course, accident or not, Nishimiya went ballistic over it.

"Alright, Todo and Nishimiya to the office with me – Don't worry, sweetie, I'll take care of the gum of your hair – and to the entire class, please turn in your assignment to Kamo until I'm gone." A side note that Kamo was the one who painstakingly alerts her on crazy shit going down in her class, and yes, that includes the gum on hair incident.

She works with mostly high school kids which explains the levels of crazy shit that can go down during class. But aside from being at the ripe age of still developing prefrontal cortex, who else wouldn't be quite losing their shit when they have to go through 3 hours of cram school after being in school jail for 8 hours. Her students may come from high end families who are paying money for their kids to be here, but goddamn, she can sympathize with them  'cause this is literally asking the start of a sleep deprivation issue and coffee addiction.

An hour later, after finishing up that trouble and cutting up the piece of gum left on Nishimiya's hair, that marks the end of her day and she's finally back on finishing that level on Candy Crush. She first scrolls through the notifications on her phone, and to her surprise, there's an email about a craigslist ad she posted like forever ago now.

Shit, she remembered she still had that violin lesson posted up there!

Hello!

I'm interested in enrolling this middle school kid to your violin lessons after school hours. Will pay your desired hourly rate! Please let me know if you're still up for it.

Ah, of course, a middle schooler, annnnnd surely she can handle that. The weird thing is it's been truly a year since she posted that ad. She stares at the email, wondering if she should be weirded out how they'd find this specific year old ad or just be grateful for an opportunity.

Well, she did have "one" student that reached out through that craigslist ad, and one thing about Craiglist is it can be pretty..sketchy.

First lesson, they didn't even bother showing up. She texted and they did reply with the excuse of some sort of family emergency but when setting up for a second session, Utahime was left ghosted.

No reply. No answering calls. No whatsoever.

Utahime decides to just give up on the lessons because she got hired as a cram teacher anyway.

She stares at the email again, rethinking her decision. Then another email pops up on her phone, and of fucking course, a notification for the dont-ask-why amount of music sheet subscriptions she's paying yearly. Right! Bills are on her ass because it's indeed the end of the month. God, whatever, she'll think about this on the way back home.

Utahime knows for shit that she's zoning out the entire train ride home while Vivaldi's The Four Seasons plays full blast on her wired earphones.

Concerto movements later, she gets off to her stop, her phone beeps, alerting not another bills-to-pay email on her face but a message.

Shoko: Finishing my shift on time today! wanna get drinks?

Utahime checks her wristwatch. Maybe a can wouldn't hurt.

She totally forgets about the Craigslist dilemma for a minute here as she replied 'heck yes' to Shoko's invitation.

"So, let me get this straight," Shoko pours a shot. It's hours later after they entered the restobar, and Utahime has been sharing her whole Craiglists dilemma in full detail. "You're trying to tell me that its either playing safe because it could be just a creep trying to hit you on through Craigslist or just doing it because you need money to fund your piling music sheet subscriptions?"

"Look, Shoko, I gave up my Netflix subscription so I can get those. I just can't-"

"It's me who "I can't with you" like why don't you just pirate those music sheets like how you pirate your movies?"

"Heck, I can't do that! Musicians are already struggling in this economy just enough, and to be fair, it's a fair option. Those music sheets are so high quality I don't have to squint that bad when reading them during performance!"

"But like you said, musicians are struggling in this economy, that's you. Shouldn't the internet have a free type of situation with music sheets?"

"Well, yes, sure, it's pretty limited though, and the printing quality is…ass at times. Also! I forgot to mention that they fund independent musicians OG composition so-"

"Pssh, alright, I get it, music nerd," chuckles Shoko.

Utahime huffs in her seat, taking a gulp of her beer can while Shoko takes her shot.

"You know, I can just hide in your closet or something during your first session, and if the person turns out to be a creep, I'll just come out and pounce on him," Shoko suggests.

Utahime chuckles. "You'll do that for me?" And speaking of creeps, Utahime isn't too sure if she should even share her entire encounter with this Gojo Satoru guy, which is one of those type of stress she tries to shove in the back of her mind.

"Of course, babe. Anything to get my PTO be of any use, too."

"Welp, I guess I'm doing it then." Utahime holds onto her beer can.

"Cheers to you for funding your music nerdy shit." Shoko holds out her shot glass,smiling.

"In the name of preserving the musical arts!" Utahime exclaims, raising her beer can.

Chapter Text

The day arrives, and Gojo awaits the front door like a hawk. He even went ahead and picked up Megumi from school. As soon as they stepped into the house, Gojo inspects the entire home, panning his gaze slowly from left to right. There's no dishes in the kitchen, the pillows are properly placed on the couch, and it's decently clean as Tsumiki had probably enforced into the house.

"Megumi," Gojo says. "You got an air freshener at the bathroom, right?"

Megumi looks up to him, raising a brow from the not-the-usual-Gojo-Satoru behaviour. "Yes-"

Then that tall bastard comes sprinting to the bathroom door and exits out with the air freshener can in hand. He beelines across the room spraying to random corners in the house he can find.

Megumi sighs. He fears that her sister was probably right, and yet again, he's stuck to whatever grand scheme Gojo has for him, but this time Megumi could either ruin it or get this six feet loser a girlfriend. "Gojo, you do know we are supposed to meet up at her address, right?" Megumi finally speaks.

"What?" Gojo's arms drop to his side, the air freshener rolling to the ground as his head turns to the young boy. "And you didn't tell me?!"

–

"Are they there yet?" Shoko's voice stays muffled as she took her spot inside the closet at Utahime's living room.

Utahime checks her clock, and her supposed client is running…10 minutes late. "Nope," she sighs.

The ticking clocks get louder, tingling Utahime's senses, and she hears hurried footsteps on the wooden boards of the hallways outside.

Shoko stays silent for a second. "Maybe that's them." She can clearly tell from the paper thin walls of Japanese apartments that Utahime nerver fails to rant everyday.

"Hurry up, Megumi!" A voice was heard, and that voice…Utahime swears she recognizes it from somewhere. She freezes.

The expected knock comes in, rough and haste.

"Welp, that's them," Utahime says before she takes a deep breath and opens the door.

—

"Do I look good?" Asks Gojo as he fixes up his dress shirt and hair then lastly, pushing back his glasses.

Megumi squints his eyes. "You're indoors, you don't need glasses-"

Gojo shuts him up as he ruffles Megumi's sea urchin hair. "C'mon Megumi! I'm trying to-"

The door swings open.

Gojo looks at her. She had her hair up in a bun and still the same loose bangs. He finally gazes upon those honey eyes that's been taking over his mind lately like giving in to his sugar cravings

"You?!" exclaims Utahime, the very first word she spits out to his face.

Yup, there she is, the karaoke drunken diva he's been missing for a while now. Gojo merely chuckles. "Heya Utahime!" He says in his usual annoying high pitched tone. "Sheesh, not even a 'good afternoon.'"

"Good afternoon?" Utahime's face contorts, her eye twitching. "Why would I say that to someone who's possibly stalking me!"

"Woah, woah, chill out! This isn't about me. I'm here for the kid."

Utahime looks down to the boy standing next to him, and he has this spiky hair, growing out like a sea urchin. He remains nonchalant like he just wants to disappear from this situation.

"You must be Fushiguro-kun?" Suddenly, Utahime's tone has gone soft.

Megumi looks up to her, and he sees all the hostile nature she gave to Gojo completely gone as she looks at him and introduces herself as Iori Utahime, his violin teacher.

Then she looks back at Gojo, her eyes darker than ever. "You and me, will talk about this later, got that?" says Utahime, glaring at Gojo that might have weirdly made his heart beating fast in a good way.

"Yes ma'am," Gojo nods.

Utahime proceeds to open the door, letting Megumi come in but then blocks Gojo. "Hey, I never said you can come in."

"Pfft, I'm the kid's guardian. Gotta make sure he's at least safe in there."

"Oh." Utahime blinks. "You're the guardian?"

"Yep, don't worry, Utahime." Gojo winks. "I'm single and ready to mingle."

Utahime cringes. "Please stop talking. You're still the same person who possibly dug my year old craigslist ad just to be here."

"What? Heck, no-"

"Gojo, like I said, we'll talk about this later."

"You can't still bar me from accompanying Megumi."

"This isn't really proving you definitely did not come here just to stalk me."

"Fine, whatever, Utahime." Gojo waves his hands, and he notices her pinching the bridge of her nose. "Are you mad?"

Utahime sighs. "There's a bunch of vending machines down there to keep yourself entertained. We'll be finished in an hour."

"Heeeeeey," Gojo pouts, "you didn't answer my question?"

"Leave before I kick you out myself!" Utahime balls her fist.

"Yeesh, hysterics won't win men, ya know!"

—

As soon as they settle into the apartment and Utahime shows her makeshift music room (aka soundproofing her only one bedroom with egg trays), Utahime starts wanting to get to know her student first.

"Just so you know, I think Gojo likes you." Megumi randomly drops when he's in the middle of observing the vinyl collection displayed on her walls.

"Well," Utahime gathers herself, "I think it's just part of his theatrics working as a host." Annnnd his performative steak is giving her insane migraines every time she lays her eyes on him. "But enough about him, I want to get to know you Fushiguro-kun. What made you want to learn the violin?"

Megumi thoughtfully looks on the ground and then to Utahime. "My sister."

"Hmmm, does she play the violin?"

"No, she…" Megumi pauses, feeling his phone vibrating like crazy in his pocket, and of course, it's Gojo spamming him with messages. He pockets his phone and completely silences it. "She wants me to be 'busy,' I guess."

"She sounds like a caring sister."

There's a small smile that tug the corner of his lips. "She is."

Utahime smiles. "Well, let's move on to violin. We'll talk about the parts of the violin, and we'll start with postures."

Megumi proceeds to lay down the violin case Gojo had bought for him. Utahime proceeds to open it up, and as the case opens, the actual violin itself almost blinded her. Her jaw drops the longer she stares at the violin. It's shimmering wood is new and high quality because it was no other than a Lazzaro Zucchi violin.

"Iori-san, is everything okay?" asks Megumi, seeing his violin teacher frozen for a solid few seconds.

Utahime gulps and clears her throat. "This violin isn't what I really expected for beginners." The whole price tag of this thing can pay for her rent! She's supposed to be the professional musician here but is still stuck with her maestro violin for half a decade now.

"Oh, I can tell Gojo-san will get a best suited one-"

"No, no, it's perfect! A lot of pro violinists tend to own this actually." Utahime remembers to breathe. "Wait, so are you saying Gojo paid for this?"

"Yes."

That damn Gojo. It still pains her to think that his job as a host is paying him a fortune. She remembers that one night as she scrolls through Youtube watching videos of these rich host clubs. Gosh, watching Ouran High School Host Club in middle school definitely DID NOT prepare her to the sheer surprise that it involves a lot of alcohol poisoning but making LOTS of money from it.

"Iori-san?" Megumi calls her again.

"It's fine, it's fine," Utahime chuckles. "This violin is fine," she repeats, knowing damn well it takes her grinding her ass off for months, no day offs, living off cup noodles Maruchan, no eating out whatsoever, to even buy such a high calibre brand.

–

Gojo stays in limbo when waiting for an hour to pass feels like forever. He ends up going to the vending machine Utahime suggested to him too, and he couldn't believe gacha machines were also there! He tinkers with the machines for a while and wins a beyblade toy he shamelessly played. The people walking by aren't probably weirded seeing a six foot man crouched down as he gets his beyblade to work.

A set of footsteps interrupts his playtime when their crocs come into Gojo's view. He squints his eyes, refusing to move because he swears the beyblade is still spinning.

"Excuse me," The person clears her throat.

Gojo looks up, slightly annoyed.

"Wait a minute." The person widens her brown eyes. "Gojo?"

Gojo quickly stands up, blinking his eyes, the beyblade forgotten on the ground as it stops spinning. He recognizes that mole under her eye. "Shoko?"

"Yeah, yeah." Shoko gives him a nod. "Surprised to see ya here. It's been like what? A decade?" More like a decade of ghosting each other after being glued together in highschool.

Gojo observes how Shoko had way longer hair now past her shoulders and prominent eye bags growing. She's one of the few people he stuck with throughout highschool, her and this guy called-

"You're not looking too bad yourself," she says, turning to the bottle of drinks vending machine. "How've you been?" She asks.

"Alright, in the middle of babysitting, and you?"

"Middle of my med residency. The eyebags says it all, but I'm on my day off right now." Shoko tries to keep it lighthearted.

Gojo chuckles. "So you did end up with the med school route."

"Written in stone. My family nagged me all the time. It isn't too bad though, dissecting cadavers can be pretty fun."

Gojo smiles. Yes, he remembers how she spearheaded their biology lab in dissecting the frog that him and-

"You still talk to Geto?"

And his name is finally spilled in the air.

Gojo shakes his head. "Nah."

"Well, that's surprising. You two were attached at the hip back in high school."

Both he and Suguru messed around too much during bio lab to even seriously dissect that frog. If it weren't for Shoko, they probably got kicked out of the class and failed the class. All three of them stuck together ever since. All those shared lunches at the school rooftop they sneaked into.

Silence fills the air, and only the sounds of the vending machine beeps. Gojo doesn't want to elaborate.

"You babysitting anyone at the apartments?" Shoko changes the subject.

"Actually, I'm taking him for violin classes here since his teacher-"

"Holy shit." Shoko clutches her credit card that she was about to swipe on the vending machine. "Is it Utahime?"

"Ye- Wait, how'd you know her?"

"Meet through college," Shoko quickly answers. "You know, the entire time she thought she'd be meeting up with some creep who dug up her year old craigslist ad. I came in for back up."

"Sadly, I still gotta clear up those allegations."

"I don't blame her. Hitting up a craiglist year old is definitely a bit..creep."

It stings Gojo because she knew she was right. She's as brutally honest as always

"Want a drink?" Shoko asks.

"You don't have to-"

"For old times sakes."

"Suguru isn't here…."

"Pfft, same old you."

Gojo freezes for a second.

"You still like Melon soda?"

"Yes."

Shoko tosses him the drink, and both of them quietly take a sip of their drinks as they sat in the bench, a foot space between them.

Gojo looks back at their highschool memories and how the summer after graduation where all of them promised to go on a trip together to Okinawa which didn't come to fruition.

They eventually finish their drink without any word, maybe because both of them refuses to open their mouths about what happened, like it's all just a simple friend group that split up because they grew out of it.

Gojo crashes his can while Shoko simply tosses her bottle to the trash (the big blue bin with recycling signs on it, thank you very much).

"Welp, it was nice seeing you, Gojo. Their session is probably over soon," Shoko says walking away. "Don't mess with Utahime too much."

"Ha, what you mean?"

Shoko hastily turns around and disappears into the hallway leading to Utahime's apartment. Gojo.

—

Utahime looks at Gojo with the same frown on her face she's been consistently throwing at Gojo for now. "What gives?" she says.

"What?"

Her frowns grow deeper, and she crosses her arms. "Are you following me or not? Be honest."

"I just so happen to see your craigslist ad, and I wouldn't know it's you!"

"You mean my year old craigslist that happens to have my name on it?"

"I'm giving you a job!"

"Did you force that poor boy to take these lessons?"

"Well, maybe I did it to keep him out of trouble and his sister agreed too!" Gojo emphasizes, and he proceeds to grab cash from his wallet. "Here's your pay for the first session."

Utahime stares at him and is about to take the cash off his hand, but he suddenly lifts his hands over his head.

"Not if you go on a date with me first!"

"Gojo, why you-!"

"Leave her alone, Gojo," butts in Megumi after seeing this commotion making him cringe that's burning way too much into his retinas even when he watches them from a distance.

"Hey, just kidding! just kidding!" Gojo chuckles as he properly gives the cash to Utahime who snatches it off from him. "Thanks for taking care of Megumi," he says.

"Oh, look at that, you aren't being such a dick about it," Utahime replies, lowering her voice so Megumi wouldn't hear it (spoiler alert: he did).

"C'mon, I'm not that mean!"

Utahime sighs. "And I'll continue to teach Megumi if he wants to, even if I can't stand your ass," she says, glaring at him that might have just excited Gojo.

"We'll see about that." Gojo smirks and gives her a wink. He suddenly sees Shoko's long brown hair, past Utahime and the door, walking across the living room. "Bye, Shoko!" He says from a knee jerk reaction that he later regrets doing it.

Shoko only gives him a nod.

Utahime's eyes widens, bigger than ever before. "And you know my friend's name?! You creep!"

"I swear, we know each other from high school and we ran into each other while waiting for you!"

"He's right," Shoko yells from the couch as she nonchalantly flips through a magazine.

Before Utahime blows another fuse, she grips tight on the door now, ready to swing it shut to Gojo's face. "Our business here is done, Gojo. You can leave now," she says through gritted teeth.

"I'll still see you tomorrow!"

And Utahime finally shuts the door.

"Jeez, women sure are crazy! C'mon, Megumi, let's go pick up-" Gojo pauses when that sea urchined boy was nowhere to be found because in this sorts of situation, he indeed chose to disappear into thin air than put up with Gojo theatrics.

–

"She's not interested." Megumi brings up in the middle of their dinner and after digesting all that cringefest that happened an hour ago he was gagging to puke it out.

"Wha?" Gojo almost drops the barbequed steak he tries to pick from their table grill to his plate.

"Iori-san, she's not interested in you."

"So you're saying I have no chance?"

"Zero chances. She loves violin too much."

"Then I just had to outmatch Violin."

"Nope," Tsumiki chimes, placing more cooked meat onto Megumi's plate. She also adds kimchi for her baby bro's vegetable of the day. "I doubt it. You can't get between a woman and her passion."

Megumi nods. "Take "no" as an answer."

"She didn't exactly say "no" yet."

"Her hostile nature definitely screams otherwise. Plus, she still thinks you're stalking her."

Gojo hisses. "So aside from my violin opponent, I got to clear my stalker allegations?"

"Well, isn't she technically right?" Tsumiki says. "'Cause number one, YOU dug a year old craigslist ad about her and number two, you made Megumi here get into your agenda to get closer to her."

"To think that I'm sharing my lady troubles to middle schoolers."

"Just think of us like…" Tsumiki thoughtfully pauses, "that guy's sister from 500 days of Summer!"

"Right, anti-wingmen, you mean?" Gojo would say cockblocker, but that's not too PG-13 for them.

"Nope, we're just here to keep you grounded to reality," Tsumiki says with a smile. "Well, moving on, what do you think of violin, Megumi?"

"Shit!" Gojo yells from out of nowhere that almost all the heads of the restaurant turned to their table.

Megumi tucks his head down, wanting to shrink in existence. Tsumiki raises a brow. "What's up,now?" She asks.

His eyes widens as he held his phone that kept vibrating. He reads a text of that scheduled date with a client AND the very cherry on top is that he has to cover for a shift of a host who apparently had to get their stomach pumped at the hospital after some Alcohol poisoning situation.

"Work." Gojo said as he stands up and rushes to grab cash from his wallet. He harshly slams it on the table. "Tsumiki, here's to pay the bill. Tips already included." Seriously, those old Korean ladies were literally running around changing their grill every five minutes when it got greased up from all the meat!

"Oh yeah, and can you add extra cash for the toilet paper roll?" Tsumiki adds.

"That will be enough. I gotta go. Peace out!"

—

"You didn't tell me Gojo Satoru was your High School friend?!" Utahime's actual jaw almost drops after Shoko had just dropped an exclusive lore about herself.

"Well, I'm not really the type to revisit short lived high school friendships," shrugged Shoko. "You never even mentioned his name to me, to be fair."

"Right…" Utahime gulps, contemplating the first night he had with that Gojo. "Shoko, that's because I-" She takes a deep breath, "I met him at a b-bar." Utahime finally spills the beans.

"Hold the phone, Utahime," Shoko looks at her, trying to absorb the shockwaves she's getting from this information right now. "You had a one night stand?!" Shoko blurts out in one breath

"NO! HELL NO!" Utahime yells, shaking her head.

"Then why the heck are you just telling me this?"

Utahime looks at her friend and finally tells her. All the shame. All the cringe that Utahime wished she could scoop out of her brain.

Now this time, it's Shoko's turn to listen to a jaw dropping lore of the effects of Utahime's alcoholic tendencies.

—

"So, you got any hobbies, Gojo-san?"

Gojo zones back into reality he'd been going in and out from the past hour, actually. He looks at his client, all blonde and pretty, the supposed one he skipped because Iori Utahime just happened to come crashing into his world on that fateful night.

"Baseball," is all Gojo says. His mind flashes back to the time Utahime blatantly just says "Violin" to him.

"Don't all Japanese love baseball?" The blonde client scoots closer to him that Gojo had put an arm behind her as the standard part of his job. But all Gojo could think of again is Utahime's drunken breath and face drawing closer and closer until her head swung back, and she headbutts him. He chuckles from that memory.

"Something in your mind, Gojo-san?"

He shakes his head.

"Yeah, yeah, baseball! the one thing we actually loved from the West." Gojo pours a fruit punch to his glass as well as his client's. You see, the trick here is making your client pay for all the drinks! "You into baseball?" He puts up his working face, a touch of batting his blue eyes and smirking his lips, to earn his paycheck of the night.

It never seems to win over Utahime though.

Chapter Text

A letter-sized sheet of paper posted up on the hallway might as well determine the future of Utahime’s pride in the next few hours.

In those tiny fonts, she reads in bated breath as she searches for her name. Everyone around her as well are clamoring to take a look for the assigned orchestra seating arrangement. Whispers slithers within their group to see if they either stay stuck in the same row or find out their ass kissing to the conductor is worth it.

Iori. There it is,and her name is…..not on first chair but…on second chair.

AGAIN.

She might as well start ripping that letter sized and added to the fact that the first chair girl, aka nepo baby, is just hilariously giggling right behind her, Utahime could have shoved the ripped paper down to her throat for all of the fucks she had given.

“Nice one, Iori!” The first chair girl even had the nerve to say a thing to her as if that hasn’t been the case for every show they had to do where the seating arrangements gets switched.

Utahime dares not to even look at her face the whole time they rehearse. Instead, she counts the growing number of wrinkles their conductor has over and over again. The whole time she counts a round of wrinkles, her phone can’t also seem to stop vibrating on her pockets. She’s only able to pick it up when she heads out for a bathroom break.

Gojo: Utahime!

Gojo: Pick up the phone!

Gojo: I

Gojo: GOT

Gojo: SOMETHING

Gojo: TO

Gojo: TELL

Gojo: YOU

Then of-fucking-course, her phone starts blaring out loud. She almost pressed the decline red button until Gojo texts her a quick “It’s Megumi!” message.

“What do you want?” Utahime answers.

“It’s Megumi!” Gojo exclaims. “He won’t make it for violin practice.”

“Okay, you didn’t have to spam me with phone calls I’m in the middle of-“

“You see,” Gojo cuts her off, “Megumi’s missing! Apparently, he skipped school. I don’t know how it happened, but I can’t even track his phone when he’s supposed to be the Zoomer glued to them all the time-“

“You’re supposed to be his guardian.” Utahime shakes her head. “You should-“

“I don’t have Tsumiki around to help me with this because she’s been gone from a school trip all weekend!”

“And she hasn’t returned yet?”

“Nuh-uh. She hasn’t answered any of my calls.

“So, you’re saying you now have two children who don’t want to do anything with you under your belt?”

“Well, at least they’re not officially missing ‘cause it hasn’t been 48 hours yet!”

“Maybe Megumi might have wandered off with some of his friends around the city or something?”

“That’s the thing he barely has any friends!” Gojo screeches.

“Not helping, Gojo!” Utahime facepalms. “No wonder the kid disappears on you,” she murmurs under breath.

“What’s that, Utahime?”

“Nothing.”

“And actually, I was hoping we could-“

“Look Gojo, if you’re gonna ask me for a blasted date again, it’s a no-“

“Sheesh, I just wanted to ask if you can help me find Megumi, is all.”

Utahime froze, left dumbfounded even.

“Yoohoo, Utahime, you still there?”

“Yes! Of course, I’ll be on the lookout in my area.”

“You know, if you ever change your mind, the date offer still-“

She ends the call, not daring to take any more of his bullshit. Though, a part of her cringes for seeing his bullshit coming from miles away.

—

“And here I thought, you could do some hacking magic, Nanami!”

“I’m just some damage control guy here. I work on whatever shit is thrown at me and try to un-fuck the situation.” Nanami takes a swig of his whiskey as he painfully blinks his eyes to even look at the computer monitor for just another minute.

“So tracking a mere kid is an impossible thing compared to tracking yakuza heads?”

Nanami sighs. “One thing I know about handling kids is you can fuck it up easily.”

“This whole guardian thing was definitely more than I expected.” Gojo goes limp on his chair. “I’ve asked help from Utahime and she’s-”

“Hold on, who did you say? The poor girl you had as a client the other night?”

“Oh, right! Forgot to tell you, Nanami, but she’s Megumi’s violin teacher now and also figured that she’s friends with one of my old high school friends.”

“And you went after her? Gojo-san, you do know she’s not your client and you don’t have the reason to pursue her outside of-”

“Nah, I don’t think of her like that,” says Gojo. “Plus, it’s also for Megumi’s well being.” Gojo wiggles his brows.

“The same Megumi right now disappeared on you and is not answering your phone calls.”

Gojo hisses. “Fine, yes! I got zero clues wherever the heck he is. “

“Here,” Nanami says, squinting his eyes, as he straightens up on his chair. “I got something from Tsumiki.”

“Finally!” Gojo jumps up as he rushes towards Nanami’s side to check out the computer monitor. “What the hell?” He sets his eyes on the supposed last location Tsumiki’s phone was.

Nanami’s eyes grow wide open. “Any idea what she’s doing at Aokigahara?”

—

As soon as Utahime gets out of rehearsals, she walks around the city because definitely being on your ass for hours while part of your brain repeats the Nyan Cat song whenever your conductor is stuck with the same section, repeating the same music passage will at least leave your brain fried.

Her next agenda should have been the violin session with Megumi, but since he’s apparently ignoring Gojo and is allegedly missing, Utahime searches for parks or maybe even arcades in the city where you’ll see teens slacking off.

For a moment there, Utahime thinks about Megumi. He’s definitely a pretty reserved kid, but still gets into fights according to Gojo. She would not expect Megumi at first glance to even have such tendencies, but she does think Megumi cares a lot about her sister.

Welp that's kids for ya, you never knew what's underneath the surface even how different they present themselves.

She had her experience teaching middle and high school kids in her cram school. Judging with how little she knows Megumi, Utahime decides to go through city parks instead of arcades to see if she’ll find him sulking or probably jumping people in broad daylight.

Her phone starts ringing, and despite knowing it’s that overgrown manchild, she answers.

“Hey, Utahime!”

Utahime pulls the phone away for a bit. He always heightens the pitch of his voice when he says her name, and it drives her crazy all the time. “Got any updates?” She asks.

And thus he starts oversharing the whole spiel about where Tsumiki’s possible location is.

“Aokigahara?! You do know that’s the suicide forest, right?” Utahime blinks.

“Yes, that’s why I’m even concerned! I know she says she is going for a weekend trip at Mount. Fuji, but I do not ever remember that damned forest being part of the itinerary.”

“Well, you’re their guardian, Gojo. You know more about them than me. Why’d you think she would even go there?”

“I don’t know! Tsumiki’s never the suicidal type. She’s always on and on about caring for Megumi.”

“Hmmm…”

“Hey, look, I know this is supposed to be none of your business, all this Megumi thing. You’re just his violin teacher, and I’m-“

“I’m not just the violin teacher, Gojo,” Utahime cuts him off. “I’m also the adult here.”

There's silence at the end of the line.

“Gojo?”

A beat passes.

“Utahime, do you…uh,” Gojo clears his throat, “You know, w-wanna meet up to find Megumi? I swear, I’ll pay you even if-“

“Gojo, that’s not-!“ Utahime interrupts, shaking her head. “Fine, let’s meet up. No money involved, okay?”

“Right, right, sure, yeah.” Gojo clutches his neck, trying to contain his heart from exploding. “Let's meet up!”

“We can meet at..” Utahime spins on her heel, observing her surroundings and noting street signs she can see, “here, the park at the..”

There’s suddenly a rustling sound from Gojo’s end. They are fast and loud, his footsteps clicking at the same rhythm.

“Hey, Gojo! What’s going on?”

“Utahime!” Her phone speaker loudly announces, and she hears a voice from not too far away where she stands.

Utahime’s hands on her phone drops to her sides as she turns all around to look for him. Then she caught a sight of white locks, and Gojo stands right across the street from her, still holding the phone to his ear.

He smirks, his other hand pointing a finger to his phone.

Utahime raises a brow until she realizes what he’s asking from her.

She holds her phone next to ear, and Gojo lights up. “Found you, Utahime!” He grins, a wide toothy one that a dimple on his cheek shows up.

Utahime couldn’t help but tug a small smile on the corner of her lips.

Gojo begins giddily crossing the road once the pedestrian crossing starts beeping. He quickly rans towards Utahime and notices how she has her violin case on her back. She wore high waisted wide pants and a white blouse today.

“Listen, I can only help you for the next hour, got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Gojo nods, his gaze turning to her violin case. “Got violin practice tonight?“

“Cram school teaching.” Utahime slaps a hand on her mouth. “Darn it, I wished you never knew that.”

“Oh?”

“You know, I’m still creeped out by how exactly you dug out my year old craigslist ad.”

“Well, maybe our stars aligned just right this time, and I found you. Plus, your hourly rate is affordable.”

“Affordable?” Utahime narrows her eyes. “You’re the same guy who bought Megumi a fancy ass violin!”

“He needs a humbling teacher,” shrugs Gojo.

“I still can’t believe you even know Shoko.”

“What a small world, isn’t it?” He smirks.

“Just to be crystal clear, I’m just here to help you find Megumi.” Utahime crosses her arms. “Since you were able to track Tsumiki, how about Megumi?”

“I’m telling you, we got nothing, nada!”

“Ok, are there any places Megumi usually hangs around?”

“Uhhhhh, the public library? Checked them though but nothing.”

“And Tsumiki? School trips are usually lead by school teachers. Do you have any contact with them?”

“I didn’t get any contact info from any teachers.”

“You didn’t sign any form or anything?”

“Form for what?”

“The permission form to allow them for the trip, duh.”

“I..ah..never signed any. Hehe.”

”You-“ Utahime takes a breath, stopping herself from smacking the guy out of the stratosphere. “Calling the school is an option,” Utahime suggests instead. She starts to fire him more questions, like the whys and wheres of Megumi activity, but Utahime notices that it’s always something to do with Tsumiki, grocery shopping and sometimes walking to school. She doesn’t want to start thinking of a worst case scenario like them being kidnapped or some serious stuff.

“How about their parents? Maybe Megumi went-“

“They’re gone.”

Utahime raises a brow.

“Like as in, totally gone, out of the picture,” Gojo nonchalantly says.

“Oh.” She blinks. She isn’t sure if she should pry more, but that explains some stuff not gonna lie, so she ends up with one option. “Then let’s find Tsumiki for now. Who knows maybe Megumi went to follow her? He might have got worried. You said you haven’t contacted Tsumiki all weekend, right?”

“Yeah, I thought she’s probably busy with her Mount Fuji trip. Her phone location still says she’s at Aokigahara.”

“You can start there.”

“Me?”

“Well, duh, you’re their guardian.”

“You seem awfully good at this whole handling kids thingy.”

“I’m a teacher, so I got some experience.” Utahime smiles, looking back to her years of teaching, even though it was her hail mary job after her music career wasn’t paying her bills just enough. “How about you? How in the world did you even end up being their guardian?”

“Part of work.”

“Oh, right, so it’s part of working as a host in a club. I’m totally convinced, Gojo.”

“Nah. It’s not like that,” Gojo sternly answers. “I’ll tell you if you go with-”

“Woah, woah,” Utahime steps back. “You’re really good with being transactional, huh? And you know I can’t go with you, I got work after.”

“It’s just- it’s confidential info..”

“That's fine.”

“I promise, I’m not doing them any harm though! In fact, I’m helping them.”

“Well then, go look for them.” Utahime looks up to him, steadying her brown eyes at his blue ones. “Kids can be difficult, but… I try not to let them down.”

Gojo takes an audible deep breath. He sure does hope he isn’t letting them down.

LAST FRIDAY

“Crap!” Tsumiki stacks the last empty plate they ate on their table. “I completely forgot to ask Gojo about something.”

Megumi raises an eyebrow, placing all their used napkins on top of the stacked plates. “What’s it now?”

“You know the Mount Fuji school trip I have for this weekend? We are supposed to have a form signed by our guardian for full permission.”

“You can still ask him? He won’t show up for the weekend though.”

“Fine,” groans Tsumiki. “I’ll text him.”

An hour passed. They got out of the Korean barbecue restaurant and got home through the bus, but they still no reply from Gojo. Tsumiki tries calling him.

No answer.

“His work ends at midnight.” Megumi comes out of the bathroom, a toothbrush in hand.

“C’mon! He can have breaks and check his phone!” Tsumiki taps on her phone. Anything, even a ‘read’ sign is good enough. “Please, I really wanna go on this trip.” Tsumiki adds on her texts.

And finally a ‘read’ sign pops up in her messages. His reply gives her the greenlight.

“So, now what? You gonna ask him to come here at past midnight just to sign a paper?” Megumi says.

Tsumiki grins. “I have a better idea.” She runs towards their study desk, turning on the lamp. “Megumi, can you get the parchment paper please?”

“What are you doing?”

“Just go get the parchment paper, and you’ll find out.”

Megumi shrugs and goes to their kitchen for the parchment paper his sister usually uses for baking cookies.

Meanwhile, Tsumiki pulls out pages of paper, aka the enrollment papers they needed to get to school, that has Gojo’s signature somewhere.

–

Gojo was planning to nag Ijichi to give him an hour ride going from Tokyo all the way to Aokigahara Forest, but when he thinks about it, if he really wants to retrace Megumi’s steps, and hopefully find him bumming around one of the bus or train stops, he’ll just take the public transportation.

He asks around people to see if they see a sea urchin hair kid that has at least a permanent scowl on his face. At some point, one of the street vendors told him something when Gojo landed at Fuji Station.

“Oh, yeah! This spiky-haired kid, I thought it was some new lousy fashion trend, but he went up to me asking the way to Mount Fuji.”

Gojo once again tries calling Tsumiki.

It rings and rings, but no answers.

He resorts to calling the school and whoever the teacher was in charge of that trip (that he should have done in the very very first place), but it only sent straight to voicemail.

Fuck.

He sits in one of the benches. He observes a huddle of crowd, tourists with their cameras and a tour guide with a megaphone in their hand as they recite some old age script of Mount Fuji’s history.

An idea strikes Gojo like lightning. He moves with precision towards the crowd of tourists and was able to push himself towards the very front of their group where the tourist guide stands. Gojo slaps a hand on the guide’s shoulder, and for a moment he feels like he’s having his Mikasa Ackerman moment, her powers awakening and knowing what it’s supposed to be done.

The guide turns around, more annoyed than ever when he’s been sweating under the heat in the middle of this hay day.

“Do you mind?” Gojo asks, motioning the guide’s megaphone.

“I-”

Before a thought was even verbalized, the megaphone was snatched out of the guide’s sweaty grasp, and this six foot man, now with the megaphone, proceeded to step up at a bench nearby.

“FUSHIGURO MEGUMI-KUN!” Gojo belts out into the megaphone after he takes one big fat deep breath. Every head turns to see what a six foot man on top of a flimsy bench is trying to stir up. Even teens who're attached to their phones suddenly get unglued off their screen for a moment.

“IF YOU’RE OUT THERE,” Gojo continues, “COME TO THE CENTER. YOU MISSED VIOLIN LESSONS AND YOUR TEACHER IS EVEN WOR-”

“Sir, can I PLEASE have my megaphone back?” the tour guide finally butts in, poking him.

“Jeez, give me a minute!” Gojo waves his hand. “FUSHIGURO MEGUMI-KUN, I REPEAT, or YOUR BUTT is gonna be putt into time out if you don’t-”

“Um, excuse me, sir,” A man with his snazzy blue vests and big bold letters of “SECURITY” on his back comes up to Gojo, clearing his throat. “You're causing some disturbance onto the area, I’ll need you to get down the seat.”

“ALRIGHTIE, LAST CALL, MEGUMI, LAST CALL!”

Chatters of the crowds starts to get louder. Even the tourists joined in who got their tour guide’s poor megaphone snatched by some guy yapping at the crowd about some lost kid at this given moment.

“Who the hell is this Megumi dude?”

“Yeah, must be his fuckass kid or something.”

“PUH-LEASE,” Gojo continues, “IF YOU EVER SEE THIS KID WITH SEA URCHIN HAIR, I’LL GLADLY-“

“Yo, are you filming this shit?”

“Hell yeah! some Florida man behavior.”

“He’s not even American.”

“Well, you know how Japanese are polite and shit? This is their closest version of Florida man!”

“Riiight.”

“SIR, I WILL NEED YOU TO PLEASE STEP DOWN THE BENCH AND-”

“MEGUMI-KUN, COME OUT! YOUR SISTER MISSES-”

“Hold on a minute,” one of the security guys was hit with a realization. “Don’t we have a kid at the station named like that?”

—

It is time.

A time for the much needed 15 minute break for these 3 hours of cram school aka another hell they have to go through after they just clawed their way out of another pits of hell (high school).

Utahime’s students probably think of it that way.

As a teacher, it’s a much needed break for her as well because think about it as that much needed smoke break after a crazy restaurant rush (straight out from a The Bear episode) but except Utahime deals with cramming more knowledge into teens’ already half dead brains, and she doesn’t smoke for her breaks but actually rots by beating another level of Candy Crush.

Meanwhile, her students would usually walk around class, maybe even get out of the classroom to head to the vending machines or go to the toilet just to get circulation going on their legs. It definitely gets loud because at some weird corner of the class, people are exchanging pokemon cards, their gambling addiction in the making.

“Bros, you all saw that funny vid of a guy looking for his son?”

At times though, Utahime-sensei gets to hear the ‘tea’ (a vocab she gets to learn from eavesdropping these kids maybe too much) of whatever shit goes down in their pubescent life.

“The one at Mt Fuji?”

“Yeah, yeah, some guy with a megaphone told everyone and their mother about his sea urchin looking-“

Utahime’s thumb froze over her phone screen. The eyes of Candy Crush’s Bubblegum troll shone brighter than before as if begging for her to just end this goddamn level already.

No, no way. There’s no way he actually went there. Utahime's thoughts wants to do backflips in her head.

The students eventually played the video, and the audio pierced through Utahime’s ear like it wasn’t the same thing that’s causing her migraines these past few days.

“Hey, sensei, can we—ayo, you good?”

“You kids back there!” Utahime firmly stands up from her chair. Startled, her students quickly turned their heads. “Can I take a look at the video?”

“Uh, what video?” One of them laughs nervously.

“Jeez! Just give it to her, man,” the friend speaks up.

Utahime marches to the back. The student flashes the video, and there it is, unsurprisingly, that moron’s white tousled locks shows up.

A part of her wasn’t surprised.

“Ah, Iori-sensei,” her student calls. She still hasn't looked away from the phone. “Can I go now, please? I really need to use the bathroom.”

“Right, of course!” Utahime blinks, finally looking up. “Go ahead.”

She goes back to her phone and picks up her phone. Her thumb hovers on Gojo’s contact, and the longer that she stares at it, the longer she feels like just closing her phone and just letting that circus clown deal with his own bullshit.

Then she remembers Megumi. She let out a groan and her thumbs tapped on Gojo’s messages.

Utahime: “Any updates?”

A reply immediately appears.

Gojo: “Found him! He’s fine. Had to be sent to the police station tho (о´∀`о)”

Utahime: “What happened???”

Her phone began ringing loudly with his stupid contact showing up on her screen. All heads in her classroom turned to her.

Utahime: “NOPE not right now im at work.”

Gojo: “(￣^￣)”

Utahime rolls her eyes at all his ridiculous emoticons. She’s about to turn her phone off after knowing that at least Megumi is safe, but another notification pops up.

‘Gojo sent a photo.’

It’s Gojo and Megumi together with the manchild holding a bombasting post with his lips mouthed and a peace sign thrown between him and Megumi. Meanwhile, Megumi has his eyes half closed in the picture, not the slightest amusement in his face.

Gojo: Safe and sound! Hope u proud of me lol

Utahime let out a sigh of relief and left the conversation. The 15 minute break was over anyway. Thankfully, almost all her kids were back in the classroom, but upon doing her usual headcount, she realizes she’s missing four people.

“Kamo,” Utahime calls her type A student who, of course, sat at the very front. “Nothing went down during break time, right?”

The student raised his brow. “I’m confused. For what matter, sensei?”

“Well, you know-” Utahime holds on to a thought. This kid is always the one alerting her on every shit going down in her own classroom. “You-you pay attention to your peers,” Utahime let out. “Good job.” She awkwardly flashes him a thumbs up as she scans the classroom again. “You sure nothing really happened?”

“I, um, I think so, sensei..” Kamo awkwardly shrugs.

“Ok, class,” Utahime stands up. “Who are we missing?”

“It’s Nishimiya and her lackeys,” Todo cooly says who sat at the very back of the class. Believe it or not, he might look like a hunky meathead, as per Nishimiya’s words, but he’s actually one of the smart kids in her class who are at each other's throats with Kamo when it comes to debating about classic literature.

“Alright class, continue with your readings. I will be back shortly.” Utahime walks out of the classroom. Knowing Nishimiya, she probably got stuck in the bathroom, having a breakdown that her wing eyeliner look like adopted sisters instead of twins.

“C’mon, spit it out, who made you cry?”

Utahime hears as she almost went into the ladies restroom. She hears someone sobbing as Nishimiya talks to whoever that is. A part of Utahime wants to jump into the situation, but then she hears another voice.

“Yeah, Kasumi, who’s bullying you?” It’s Mai, a student that Utahime caught taking mico-naps during class multiple times.

“It’s alright. It wasn’t that serious!” The sobbing girl finally finds her voice, and it’s that bright eyed girl Miwa. Welp, that was unexpected. Utahime had always seen Miwa as this well-behaved girl in class, and she did not expect Miwa will get along with strong personalities like Mai and Nishimiya.

“Wait, don’t tell me it’s Kugisaki?” Mai exclaims. A wooden door suddenly bangs on the wall as if a stall opens in the bathroom. Utahime is merely listening but she feels the air thicken. She knows the situation with these girls in their class. Kugisaki is one of the new girls in the class who, for some reason, Nishimiya thinks was the mastermind of the bubblegum incident. Utahime doesn’t know how, but that's high school drama for you, something almost straight out of Mean Girls.

“Kugisaki!” Momo yelps.

“I don’t know why you're making fun of her. You smell like hotdog water boiled. You shouldn’t be talking about nobody. You’re ugly.” Of course, that came out from Mai’s mouth.

“I’ll beat you up and I’ll do it again.” Nishimiya backs her up.

“It’s not worth it beating you up skanks, anyways,” Kugisaki replies. A sound of faucet water turns on. “It ruins my nails.”

“Miwa, get up. Stop crying!” Nishimiya urges. “You gotta start defending yourself.”

“I got the feeling those nails are cheap press-ons you probably get from Daiso,” snaps Mai.

“You fucking b-”

“Alright girls, pack it up! Break is over.” Utahime finally steps into the scene. All the girls looked at her. Kugisaki’s fist stops in mid air while Mai, arms crossed, only glares at her. Nishimiya’s small frame stands right in front of Miwa whose eyes and nose are red.

“Sensei!”

“If you don’t want me calling your parents, I want you girls out of my sight at once.”