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It takes ten attempts for Gojo to pick up.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end picks up, a song in his voice.
Nanami considers himself a pretty patient person, but surely there was a line. For a second he’s stunned out of replying, having spent literally the last hour of his shift trying to get this man to respond to any of the number of texts and emails and voicemails they’ve dropped him. If he didn’t pick up, he’s almost entirely sure Ijichi was more than ready to call Child Protective Services. He practically had the number ready on speed dial.
“Gojo-san?” says Nanami instead, righting himself with some effort. “Is this the correct number?”
He hears an amused chuckle on the other end of the line. “The one and only!”
Nanami doesn’t know how to take that in, the amusement, the easy dismissal of the last ten missed calls he so surely saw by now. Instead he schools his expression to something calmer.
“We have your child,” Nanami says.
A beat of silence.
“What are your demands?” Gojo asks, seriously.
A beat of silence, again, longer and more awkward this time.
Nanami blinks, looking down at Megumi clutched against him, who also blinks. “Sir,” he starts carefully. “This is the daycare center. We’re closing soon. You need to get him now.”
“The what?” he hears a shuffling of feet on the other end, a door being closed, and finally a clearer voice that repeats, “Sorry, come again?”
Nanami takes a calming breath.
“This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Daycare Center,” he says slowly, spelling it out for him. “We met earlier this morning. You dropped Fushiguro Megumi off with us at 9am, with instructions to look after him the whole day. Are you—” he stops, feeling his voice gaining steel unexpected. “Sir, please just get him soon.”
“Which one is this?” Gojo asks, a lilt to his voice Nanami can’t place.
“I’m sorry?” clarifies Nanami.
“Who am I speaking to?” Gojo says, in a clearer, more serious tone. Finally, thinks Nanami. “The blonde or the brunette?”
Nanami looks around the center, noting how most of the morning staff have already packed up. All that’s left were him and Ijichi, who was busy making googly eyes at Yuji and Nobara, whose parents were on their way and had the decency to at least let them know they were running late. As if on cue, he feels Megumi making grabby hands towards them, begging to be included in on the fun. Nanami carefully sets him down before turning back to his phone.
“The blonde, sir,” he says. “My name is—”
“Nanami,” Gojo finishes for him, something like amusement palpable in his tone. Nanami feels the ends of his skin prickle at the voice. “Nanami Kento.”
Nanami narrows his eyes. “Yes,” he confirms wrily, before adding, “Sir.”
This time the chuckle he hears on the other end was unmistakably directed at him.
“I’ll be there in ten,” is all Gojo says before the line goes dead.
Gojo arrives with the same fanfare he did this morning and all the mornings he’s dropped his child off: all bright, pearly white teeth and a loud, booming voice announcing his presence.
“Megumi-kun~!” he gushes, opening the door with about five bags of designer bags slung on each arm. “Did you miss me~!”
Megumi, on his part, clearly looks to be anything but. He takes one look at Gojo, giving him a slow and deliberate and obviously weighted once over, before turning his head in disgust and goes on his merry way to play with Yuji instead. The look of such open defeat and humiliation in Gojo’s face made even Ijichi snicker, hiding it with a cough and suddenly turning to find the cashier all that more interesting.
“Gojo-san,” Nanami breaks the silence, coming up from behind the counter. “Thank you for making it before closing time.”
He feels Gojo’s eyes drinking him in, from the pink bear slippers Nobara forced him into as soon as she saw him and demanded he carry her for an hour, to the panda ears Panda refused to let out of his head. She’s an overexcited child and needs a lot of emotional attention, Shoko had noted on Nobara’s application form when she and Utahime started making regular drop-offs. Just be patient with her. Yaga’s note on Panda had been much more curt: Don’t put him next to any plant or he’ll eat it. Real or fake. Nanami basically lives off patience. You don’t own and operate a daycare center for children under the ages of 8 if you didn’t exercise some modicum of saintly restraint.
But the unhurried, almost lazy, almost lewd way Gojo was looking him up and down made Nanami all but patient.
Nanami coughs. “Gojo-san.”
Gojo’s eyes snap back up to his face, a sliver of something glinting off his eyes. “Yes?”
Nanami gestures to the children behind him, beckoning Megumi over.
Gojo rights himself. “Oh, yes, right!” he grins. “Megumi!”
Nanami steps aside, carefully disentangling Megumi’s fingers from where it clutched at his pant leg. Never underestimate the baby grip was his first real, practical lesson in daycare. “You can let go now, Fushiguro-kun.”
“Yeah, Fushiguro-kun,” says Gojo slowly, the smile on his face straining a little, before hissing, “Let go of the blonde man and come over here.”
Megumi just burrows his face closer to his pants and makes inaudible noises of contempt.
“What was that?” Nanami prods gently, leaning down to hear him better.
“Djnsndjajwanan,” Megumi mumbles. From his peripheral, he can see Gojo palming his forehead, swearing under his breath.
Nanami sighs. “What did we say about using our words to communicate, Fushiguro-kun?” he coos, crouching down to hold him by the shoulders. “Can you try that again for me?”
Megumi blinks at him once, twice. “I—” he starts, eyes flickering back and forth between him and Gojo. “Idunwanna.”
Nanami stills.
It’s then Gojo decides to haul him to his side, all while chuckling and heaving and not at all attempting to mask his embarrassment. “Ha!” He huffs in feigned amusement. “Children these days! So funny! Hahahaha!”
Nanami doesn’t look convinced. “Is everything okay?” He addresses Megumi directly. “Fushiguro-kun?”
Megumi was currently pinned down from under Gojo’s hands, hands that locked in place no matter his thrashing. Hands that only kept tightening the more he attempted to move. He didn’t look to be in any particular danger, more so just, Nanami guesses: annoyed.
“He’s fine,” Gojo waves him off easily. “He just hates it when I pick him up late.”
Nanami stands to his full height, noting Gojo was taller but not by much, before levelling him with what he hopes is a firm look.
“This is the third time this week, Gojo-san,” he reminds him. “We understand full-time working parents are extremely busy, but please also understand that for the sake of stability and routine for these children, it pays to keep and stick to a schedule.”
Gojo looks absolutely mortified at being schooled.
Megumi only looks too pleased to be an audience to his humiliation, and the shit-eating grin on his face as he peered up at him was proof enough.
Gojo covers his face with his hand and smothers his whimpers, trying to get his bearings, almost missing the disappointing look Nanami gives him as he makes to turn away, when:
“Then—” Gojo stammers.
Nanami turns around slightly. “Then?”
Gojo blinks, rapidly, in quick succession; trying to remember his words and not let Megumi’s obvious leering get to him from below. “Then would you mind—” he starts weakly. “Teaching me?”
Nanami arches a brow. “Teach you what?”
Gojo lets out a breath. “Everything,” he breathes out, gesturing to Megumi's mushed face and the daycare and the general area surrounding it. “He’s, uh, not my kid,” he explains, getting it out of the way. “I'm his godfather. But I still want to do right by him, and if it wasn’t obvious,” he stops, suddenly shy. “I—I’m kind of new. To all this.”
“It’s obvious,” deadpans Nanami.
Gojo flushes even more. “Right,” he rubs the back of his head, ears tinged red. “Yeah, I bet it is.”
It’s then Nanami takes a proper look at him, drinking him in in a fashion dissimilar to how Gojo did earlier: with clinical interest, much like how he vets parents who want an in on the daycare. Megumi was a legacy kid, the only thing sticking out of his application form the very hefty sum of donation promised if and when they took him in as a regular. But maybe if he had interviewed Gojo then, he’d have seen so much earlier—how wet he still was behind the ears, how impossibly young to parent such an emotionally resilient child that sometimes Nanami had half the mind to think Megumi was the one doing the parenting.
But all the same he sees that same sliver of determination, that same naked desperation he sees in most parents: this wanting to try their best and the willingness to move heaven and hell to get there.
Gojo is imperfect at it. But then who is, really?
“Fine,” Nanami concedes. “Pick him up earlier, then we’ll have time to talk.”
Just as he’s about to turn away for the second time, he hears Gojo call him back out again.
“Sorry?” Nanami strains his ears to hear.
Gojo looks absolutely sheepish now, but summons just enough confidence in his posture with such ease that Nanami is surprised a little, to see, how natural the transformation was. How coming into his own skin looked as easy as breathing. How, Nanami wonders, if there’s more to it.
“I was thinking,” Gojo starts, the small emblems of a grin blooming on his face. “That maybe we could do it over coffee?”
Megumi decides to throw up on the floor right then and there.