Work Text:
You will fall in love with your friends.
You will create a second family with them,
a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable.
Sometimes our families can’t love us all the time.
Sometimes we’re born into families,
who don’t know how to love us properly.
They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends.
They can love you all the time, without judgement.
RYAN O'CONNELL
We'll dream of a longer summer
but this is the one we have:
I lay my sunburnt hand
on your table: this is the time we have.
ADRIENNE RICH
沖
"What do you mean you all went to Okinawa without me?" Shoko seethes.
Nanami pauses near the landing of the stairs, half a leg midway from taking that final step and debating whether it was too late to turn back. Picture this: it's a sunny Saturday morning, the pale-eye uguisu are early in serenading each other beneath the rustle of the forest, and the smell of fresh bread and coffee is tempting from the hallway. Tempting enough to reconsider the comfort of his bed over the comfort of caffeine in his system because God knows he’s going to need it.
Nanami already regrets coming down for breakfast.
He makes the step anyway, bracing himself as he rounds the corner to assess which wrath he was going to be subjected to again today. Gojo was dramatic, Getou had a penchant for self-flagellation, and Shoko was somehow a deadly combination of both: he’d learned all these the hard way.
But instead it's Haibara he sees sitting across from said melodramatic seniors, eyes darting up nervously between all three of them as a half-eaten bagel hung loose from the corner of his mouth. Nanami fixes himself a plate—generous with the bacon, because again, he needs it—before sitting down next to him. He nudges at him to close his mouth all the while trying not to roll his eyes at Gojo’s pathetic attempts at self-preservation at 8 o'clock in the morning.
“We were there for like three days,” insists Gojo, hand on his hips and sweat down his brow despite the AC on full blast. “Max. Promise.”
Lies, Nanami thinks but doesn’t say, enjoying their flailing as he munches on a tomato. They had to rebook their flights twice. Then another one because Gojo didn't like the in-flight meals.
"And it was a last-minute thing," adds Getou, placating. "You can even ask Haibara."
Well shit—
Shoko immediately whirls in on him. Haibara, in turn unprepared, still had his mouth full of bread and could only stare dumbly at her before directing a betrayed expression at Getou for ratting him out. "I w’snt—" Haibara starts, half-chewing, half-mumbling. "Idn’dnt—”
"Oh, leave the kid alone," interrupts Gojo, turning to face Shoko on his own. "I did it. I called them. For back-up. For the Star Vessel thing."
Shoko looks up towards the ceiling, breathing slowly through her nose. "And you didn't think to call the medic."
“Yaga said you were busy," defends Gojo, dumb.
"I'm always busy!" Shoko snaps at him. "Never too busy for Okinawa, however!"
"You hate out of town missions," Getou points out, dumber.
Good lord, Nanami thought. They were going to be here all day.
"I don't hate the beach," Shoko crosses her arms, glaring daggers at them both. “I don’t hate Okinawa.”
Did Nanami imagine it, or did they somehow shrink an inch? This was a common enough sight for them, he thinks: Shoko standing her ground, arms crossed, glowering at them for one thing or another. Their staring contests never lasted for an extended period of time to actually mean anything, could never stabilize itself any longer than a few seconds because aside from being pathetic, Gojo and Getou were also incapable of enduring eye contact with a seething Shoko. It's a toss-up between who breaks first.
Evidently, it's Gojo today.
"Alright, fine, okay," he relents, sighing into his shoulders. "...Sorry for excluding you."
Shoko was still eyeing him. "And?"
Gojo blinks, turns to Getou, who also looks just as unsure. Dumb and dumber. "...And?"
Shoko clicks her tongue impatiently. "And."
Getou hits the light bulb moment next. "And sorry for not bringing you back a souvenir?”
Shoko huffs, finally settling back down the table and rifling through some of Haibara's edamame. “Took you long enough.”
"...We didn't?" Gojo whispers lowly from the corner of his mouth when he sits down next to her, craning his neck back to get Getou’s attention. “Are you sure?”
Getou settles himself on her other side, also leaning back to cup a hand around his mouth, only to say in an intentionally loud voice that did piss poor of hiding his words, "You ate it all."
Haibara chokes on his food. Nanami stifles a laugh by offering him water.
Shoko stomps Gojo's foot from underneath them. His knee drives up to the table in turn and he curses out loud—shit fuck shit—and is just about to yell at her when she silences him with another glare.
"That's two," she warns. "I wouldn't get a third."
Nanami decides he doesn't wanna get a third either. He edges his plate of nori closer to her. Shoko shoots him a thankful glance, only to have it sharpen sideways again when Gojo nuzzles closer to her like a pathetic wet puppy.
"So mean," Gojo pouts, rubbing his cheek over her shoulder.
Shoko decides she doesn’t hear or see the leech clamped up all over her arm. “So anyway,” she nods at them. "Did you guys have fun at least?"
Nanami breathes out a collective sigh of relief along with everyone on the table, voices immediately talking over each other.
"Okinawa was amazing—" Getou starts.
"The beach is really something else—" Haibara gushes.
"We even got to choose the crab we—" Nanami piles on.
…Only for all their gushing to be effectively silenced by Shoko shriveling up her juice box in one hand. Gojo winces at the sight. Then she starts to laugh, a tiny one at first, really more of a dry chuckle. "The beach, huh?" She surveys them one by one, a glint in her eye and the devil in her smile. "And crabs, too? Wow. That’s — good. Really good. Just amazing." Then she starts clapping, Gojo becomes very still, and Getou thinks maybe staring down the barrel of a gun would feel less anxiety-inducing than predicting Shoko's erratic mood swings. "That's just so nice. I’m so happy for you guys. I really am. Nice tan, Nanami."
Nanami gulps, unused to being the center of attention much less her temper. From his peripheral, he sees Getou shake his head imperceptibly, the infinite turn of a head both ways that tells him not to do or say anything in return for his own good.
"And Haibara-kun, too," Shoko adds gleefully, gesturing at his chest. "Nice seashell necklace."
Nanami directs a look his way. If Haibara just listened to him and threw out that absolutely atrocious piece of child's craft he called jewelry—
"Cool cool cool," Shoko finishes, looking at them sweetly, the same saccharine smile plastered all over her face. "And what was I doing, you ask, while you were all getting tanned by the beach and swimming with the dolphins?"
Gojo lifts his head a little. "We weren't swi—"
Getou smacks his head from behind. "Shut up."
"...right here, in miserable raining Tokyo," Shoko continues, ignoring them, breaking off a piece of croissant Nanami traveled all the way to downtown Harajuku to get yesterday. She finishes it one bite and he has to bite back a mewl. "Cleaning up all the curses you brought my way the week before. Embalming. Filing autopsy reports. Excavating organs."
Haibara swallows. "A-And we thank you for it, I-Ieiri-senpai."
Shoko quirks a brow. Nanami sees Getou's hand flex in preparation for something, Gojo still just pathetically weeping into her shoulder for forgiveness. "You're thanking me for doing my job?"
Oh god, Nanami thinks. Haibara is going to die early.
Nanami knocks Haibara’s knee from under the table, a warning not to answer what was obviously a trick question. He sees Getou glaring daggers at him to do the same. But Haibara sometimes was just as clueless with social clues as Gojo was, and so says to his and everyone's absolute demise: "Well someone has to, right?"
Oh god, Nanami thinks. I’m gonna kill him myself.
But Shoko just blinks, then blinks again, her eyes clearing into something surprisingly somber and less the jilted outsider she assumed herself into a few moments ago. She clears her throat once, twice, before leveling both Gojo and Getou a look. "Hear that, boys?" she chides. "A thank you would be nice every once in a while."
Gojo sputters. "We thank you—"
"Sending me a gift basket of transfigured body parts because you think I enjoy mutilating them is not a thank you," she glares down at him, before getting to Getou. "And neither is getting me tickets to see a live organ transplant on a guinea pig.”
Getou is so close to pulling his hair out. “Well,” he starts. "What kind of thank you do you want then?"
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, thinks Nanami, watching both his seniors so easily fall hook, line, sinker where she was concerned. Because Shoko doesn’t even hesitate when she meets their challenge head on, looking straight into his eyes when she says:
"Okinawa."
That finally gets Gojo straightening up. “That’s it?” he says. “Easy fix then. Want me to plan everything?”
“We need permission from Yaga-sensei,” reminds Getou. “We can’t just go on another week-long trip so soon after that last tone.”
“We can and we will,” arches Gojo right back, not so subtly jabbing his head at Shoko who grew suspiciously quiet, hand on her chin as she contemplated something. “Listen, I’ll even pay for eve—”
Shoko shoots out a hand to stop him. Gojo shuts up right away.
“You know what?” Her eyes go over each of them, a lightbulb going off in her head as she smirks, wicked. “I have a better idea.”
𓇼
“Haibara-kun, your ass is in my face.”
“Sorry!”
“Whose knee is in my shoulder?”
“...Mine.”
“Move.”
“I will if Suguru would just stop hogging the space.”
“I am not—”
They hear a crash on the other side of the door.
Gojo blinks. “Did something just—”
Getou hushes him. “Be quiet!”
They all had their ears pressed against the door outside of Yaga's office, listening in on muffled sobs and well-timed wails for the past half hour. Nanami was perched uncomfortably low on the ground, trying to angle his ear to hear better with Gojo’s hands braced against his shoulders for balance. Haibara was crouched down with him, Getou knocking on their backs every so often to get better purchase with the wall.
On the other side, Shoko was putting on a goddamn show and they were hanging on to her every word. They hear the panic in Yaga's voice trying to still her growing rampage and have to bite down their laughs. It's pitiful, really, how fast Yaga caved. Barely five minutes into her hysterical crying his chair was already creaking backward, he was already stammering an apology he didn’t know what for, and was already profusely offering the tissue box on his desk no one ever uses because no one ever cries to Yaga of all people.
Evidently Shoko knew that.
Evidently she was going to take full advantage of the novelty.
"So mean, sensei!" she wails some more, adding a few strategic sniffles and hiccups here and there. "You’ve always liked the boys better than me!"
"That's—" they hear Yaga start nervously. "That's not true!"
Shoko pulls out the big guns. "I knew it!" she sniffles, wails, hiccups all in rapid succession. "You're just like him! You’re just like my dad! He said he always wanted a boy, too!"
"Oh god," Getou swears under his breath. "Not the daddy issue card."
Gojo clicks his tongue. "Low blow, Shoko. Just downright cruel."
Shoko keeps going. "...And then he—" Hiccup. "He stopped—" Another sniffle. "He stopped hanging out with me because—" She kept going, breaking and stopping, before finally crying out, "Because he said I developed early!"
Now it was Nanami's time to groan. "Jesus Christ," he actually says. "She's not actually going there is she?"
Getou looks down at him. "This is your Ieiri-senpai," he points out. "What do you think?"
Haibara shakes his head. "Bad day to be Yaga-sensei."
"Bad day to be around Shoko's time of the month, period," agrees Gojo, squishing himself closer to the door.
Shoko was still hysterical albeit a little muffled now, with Yaga's patient but so painfully awkward attempts at consolation the only thing they hear aside from her abating sniffles.
"T-There, there," Yaga tries. "I-I'm sure your dad is proud of you, nice guy, him..."
Getou winces. "Oh no, sensei," he says. "You don't side with the man. Ever."
Gojo nods along. "Right, right?" he says. "Even I know that!"
Nanami brings his ear closer just in time to hear Shoko steady herself, presumably after crying some more into the tissue, when she tells Yaga in a suddenly much clearer voice: "Then what will you give me for an apology?"
"Damn," Gojo whistles. "That's our girl."
They start talking in much lower tones that’s harder to hear from across from the door, and Nanami can only hold his squat for so long before his knee finally gives out, and Gojo leaning his entire weight on him certainly wasn’t helping either—
Then Getou senses the movement first. "Shit," he warns, tugging on the necks of Nanami's and Haibara's uniforms. "She's coming!"
The door opens to Shoko still visibly fake whimpering, slowly nodding along to whatever lingering words of support Yaga was rushing out to say to get her to just stop doing her emotions thing, before she closes it with a soft click but not before promising Yaga she’ll do her best to feel better. When the lock finally clicks in place, her face immediately sharpens into something less sad and more sinister. A grin slowly weaves its way into her face, teeth slipping at the corners and diamonds lighting up her eyes.
Shoko holds up a single plastic rectangle that looks suspiciously like Yaga's black card. "And that boys,” she declares, “is how it's done."
Nanami can only look dumbly on as Getou heaves her up on his shoulder, with Gojo’s cries of triumph and Shoko’s maniacal laughter following them down the hallway as they make a beeline for the dorms to start packing.
“Damn,” Haibara says next to him, equally starstruck. “That’s our seniors.”
𓇼
The first real problem starts with Gojo and Getou fighting over the window seat.
"But you got it last time," argues Getou, crossing his arms over his chest.
"I ended up standing up the entire time," reminds Gojo, not budging.
"No one asked you to," Getou points out.
“Uh, Amanai, Misato..” Gojo lists off. “The entire Star Vessel Group who literally commissioned us to take care of her?”
Nanami could only look in embarrassment as the two of them, mid-marital spat, effectively blocked the entire aisle and prevented any of the other passengers through. Shoko, in between them, must’ve been done counting to three in her head because in the next second she pushes them both back into the row all the while bowing her head low in apology as she lets the rest of the travelers pass. On the row across from them where Nanami was likewise dragged into, Haibara was doing the same.
When the rest of them finally filter through, Shoko swivels on her heel to glare at them both.
"Boys," she starts, bringing out her carry-on. "It is just a seat. There’s a hundred of them on this plane. Stop being so immature and just take turns."
"But he got to hoard the window one last time!" repeats Getou, uncharacteristically insistent for something so elementary. Nanami thinks he just likes going against everything Gojo believes in out of sheer principle.
“Like I said, you conveniently amnesiac person,” Gojo starts, charging at him again. “Last time I..”
Haibara was helping Shoko load her bag on the overhead bin, the rest of them making a valiant effort to drown out the rest of their ill-timed domestic dispute the moment they veered off topic. Gojo was bringing up old wounds of the past—Getou forgetting to buy him toothpaste on his last grocery run, Getou taking the last Pilkul from the communal fridge, Getou and how he never returns any of the clothes he borrows, Getou and—
Nanami decided that was the time to butt in if they actually wanted to get to Okinawa alive.
"Ieiri-senpai," Nanami suggests. "Maybe you should take it instead?"
Gojo and Getou snap their heads towards him, betrayed and wronged. He can feel Haibara's shaky hands tugging at the back of his shirt to drag him back to their safe demarcation line.
"Say what?" asks Gojo.
Shoko smothers a knowing grin, turning to them both with just a hint of thinly veiled amusement in her eyes as she blinks innocently up at them, "You guys don't mind, do you?"
It’s hilarious the way both their faces start crunching in distaste with the vibration of such thinly-contained restraint wanting to bleed through but knowing Shoko would have their heads if they even so much as refused her.
Gojo was still malfunctioning, but Getou finds his words first. "N...n..o.." he forces out. "I..I-It's f…fine."
A pause.
“...Now that was just painful,” mumbles Haibara, looking away from the sight of a fallen hero.
“Agreed,” whispers Nanami back, relishing in the sight of Getou being taken down a peg.
“Glad that’s settled then,” Shoko pats his shoulder on the way. “Now shall we?”
Nanami wakes up three hours later to the sun streaming in from the small window. Getou, who rallied for at least the middle seat, had a panda eye mask folded over his eye with his hands crossed neatly on his lap. His head hung back against the headrest, light snores coming out of his mouth. Shoko was asleep on his shoulder with Gojo’s jacket splayed out over her legs. He was the only one of them awake, staring idly at the clouds shifting beneath them; and belatedly, Nanami noticed a shift in the small space they occupied, the air in it somehow charged but familiar. It’s only when he sees Gojo discreetly flick his wrist just so, aiming it somewhere particular that had something in the light rays change, that he realizes Gojo put up an infinity barrier over them and positioned it exactly so that the beams don't assault Shoko's eyes or Haibara's on the other side of the aisle.
Damn, thinks Nanami. Maybe that is our seniors.
𓇼
Okinawa is freshly cut grass across the airport and watermelon stalls on every corner of the arrival hall as they land some time after lunch.
The Naha Airport is huge glass windows that begin from the floor all the way up to the skylights on the roof, dousing everything just a touch open and golden on a bright summer day. There’s surprisingly a lot of green than what they’re used to in sterile Narita or functional Haneda, and surprisingly so much more commercial space with bamboo kiosks selling visors or multiple boutiques displaying a variety of swimwear or floaties. Makeshift coconut trees sprout from just about every corner, it’s crown of leaves haloing over the staggering amount of tourists going to and from exits or entrances.
Gojo whistles, eyes going over the place. “Been a minute.”
“It has,” hums Getou.
As they stood in the center of it all, they hear automated doors opening and closing, names being called over the intercom, luggage wheels sliding across the floor. They've barely made it ten steps when Gojo starts unceremoniously dragging someone to one of the overpriced tourist gift shops.
"Look!" Gojo gushes. "It’s a plushie of Jinta-san!"
Shoko protests as she's being led away. "You already have like a million of those."
"Have I seriously taught you nothing? You can never have enough," Gojo loops an arm around her when she tries scurrying away. "Haibara-kun, come. You must meet Jinta-san. He’s only the most famous whale shark in Japan!"
Haibara sends Getou and Nanami an apologetic look before he, too, starts being pulled across the already cramped airport.
"Figures," Getou scoffs, yanking out a guide map from one of the nearby kiosks. "Of course Satoru would leave us to do the adulting."
Nanami agrees, spotting the line for the airport train. "What's new?"
𓇼
The Okinawa Yui Monorail isn't the smoothest and uncharacteristically bumpy for all of Japan is known for their trains, but it's what's going to get them to their rental with the copious amounts of luggage they brought that no taxi was prepared for. Shoko, ushered into the last remaining seat by Getou before Gojo stole it from her, is bobbing her head up and down as the sprawling trees of Okinawa pass by them. Haibara, who Getou also had shoved into the next seat that opened up right next to her before Gojo could even so much as protest, offers her his shoulder in turn. Shoko looks only too happy to take it.
Their luggages were spread out within the tiny bubble they sequestered themselves in on the spacious but tight train. Getou and Nanami each had at least two, Gojo had both his and Shoko's duffel bags heaved up on his shoulder, with Haibara’s carry-on sandwiched between his legs. Shoko, most notably, had not a single piece of luggage or bag or anything apart from the Jinta plushie held against her chest.
"Right then," Gojo says through a mouthful of sata andagi, the Okinawan equivalent of doughnuts. "Game plan for tonight, anyone?"
"Can we crash for a bit?" whines Shoko, still resting her head on Haibara's shoulder. "Ya girl is tired."
"Ya girl spent the entire flight asleep on my shoulder," Getou remarks, reaching down to shift her head upright. "And you're not doing the same to Haibara-kun. We need his farm hands."
"Farm hands?" Haibara perks up. "What for?"
"He didn't tell you?" Getou asks. “Yaga is treating us to barbecue night."
𓇼
"Shoko!" Gojo calls out from below the stairs. "Any time this century would be nice!”
"In a minute!" Shoko yells right back.
"Are you like sewing the clothes on yourself or something?" Getou adds on, craning his neck up the landing. "What is taking so long?"
The sound of a door banging open. "Come here!"
Gojo and Getou lock eyes for a second. They shoot their hands out in the next: Gojo with scissors and Getou with paper.
Getou sighs before begrudgingly making up the stairs, one displeased step at a time as Gojo plops himself down on the nearest loveseat, chucking to himself.
Nanami and Haibara were busy practicing their concealment charms all over the living room, with Gojo and Getou monitoring their progress and offering up the occasional feedback here and there. Apparently, they were at that point in their syllabus and were doing a piss poor job at it, if Yaga’s passive aggressive comments before they left were anything to go by. He required a full paper on his desk and a demonstration to follow as soon as they got back, and Gojo was only too happy to lord his seniorship status over them.
“Where are you guys even going?” asks Nanami, arms laid out over the window.
"Yaga threatened to debar our special grade status if we don't feed you brats," offers Gojo, snapping at Haibara to get his elbows straight. "So now we have to do some grocery."
“Oh! Oh!” Haibara pipes up from the veranda. “I want chocolate ice cream!”
“Anything for my lovely kouhai,” says Gojo, looking magnanimous and benevolent from his perch on the chair. “How ‘bout you, Nanami-kun?”
When they finalize a grocery list that’s somehow healthy and equal parts atrocious—who puts enoki mushrooms and brown sugar boba in the same inventory?—they hear loud footsteps and voices slowly bound down from the second floor.
"Shoko," Getou starts. "I know we're close and all, but can you please stop undressing in front of me?"
Gojo raises a brow. Haibara perks up. Nanami shoves his shoulders back down before any of them caught wind of it. Tilting his head at them, muses Gojo, "What's this now?"
Getou gestures vaguely to Shoko, busying herself with securing the last buttons of her sheer cover-up that barely covered anything by the mirror. "You know how she gets."
"What was it this time?" tries Gojo. "Bra clasp? Dress zipper?"
Getou closes his eyes and breathes through his nose slow. "Bikini."
Gojo whistles. "Nice."
Shoko smiles at herself in the mirror. "Thank you."
"But what if we were perverts?" Gojo fluffs the hem of her pale pink cover up that showed bare arms and an even barer stomach. "What if we secretly mentally catalog what you look like and—"
"Satoru," Getou interrupts. "I'd stop there. We're here for almost a week."
Shoko takes her time applying the last swipe of her cherry-colored lipbalm before looking up at them from the mirror. "Well, do you?"
Gojo blinks. Nanami swallows. Hell, Haibara even starts drooling.
“Christ,” Getou curses under his breath, collecting Shoko but not before hissing at her to stop playing with the emotions of vulnerable and hormonal teenage boys. Snapping at the rest of them, chides, “Now are we going or what?” he barks. “Everything in the city closes in like an hour.”
Gojo snaps out of it, smacks Haibara on the shoulder. “Yeah, Haibara-kun,” he admonishes. “Everything closes in half an hour, what’s wrong with you?”
“I—” Haibara stammers. “I-I don’t—”
Before Gojo can tease him further, Getou reaches out to yank him by his shirt and begins dragging him away.
"Guard the house," Gojo levels Haibara and Nanami with a look that trails menacing up until he finally disappears into the door, or more accurately, Getou shoves him out of it.
𓇼
"Wait. Stop."
Shoko curves a hand around Gojo's shoulder, balancing herself on one foot as she frowns at her shoes. "My laces—"
"Got it," offers Getou, already crouching down.
Gojo pawns off Shoko’s tote bag on his arm to shrug it on his shoulder before nodding in the general area. "What are we here for again?"
The Nanjo Weekend Market is a beachside tapestry of fairy lights hanging off coconut trees that combines elements of live music, vendor stalls, and a surprising amount of tourists for off-season August. Umbrella huts are scattered all over the place, with children scurrying off into the sand and locals trying to offer their own versions of The Authentic Okinawa Experience to every straggling foreigner they find. It’s lively and loud but not the oppressive kind Tokyo has: the air here is lighter, the sounds are whistles not sirens, and the laughs tug up at the corners of the mouths more easier.
"We need to get stuff for the barbecue," reminds Shoko. "Google says the best meat market is somewhere around here."
"Too tight?" Getou asks from below, fiddling around with the lace.
"A little," says Shoko, glancing down. "Loosen it up a bit?"
"Do any of you even know how to pick good meat?" Gojo frowns when he spots a butcher across the shore slice through the whole belly of a pig. "We’re all city kids. Should've brought Haibara."
Shoko holds out her phone. "Utahime said, and I quote, beef should be a deep red, pork a strong pink, and lamb a light red," she finishes, before tapping Getou on the shoulder. "All good.”
Shoko's hand on Gojo's shoulder falls to the crook of his elbow, looping around it and reaching over Getou to do the same when he rejoins them. "The more important question is,” she starts, nudging them forward again. “Do any of us know how to haggle?"
"Haggle?" asks Gojo.
"Bargain," translates Getou.
"Ah," Gojo eyes widen in realization. "That commoner thing."
Shoko squeezes his arm. "Not so loud, prince," she says. "You have peasants with you."
"I’m not confident with the money or the meat," admits Getou. "Shoko?"
Shoko shakes her head. "Mom did all the groceries. Insomnia prevented me from getting up early enough to go with her."
"Satoru?" tries Getou.
Gojo scoffs. "Please," he says. "Have you guys seen me?"
"Yes," they both say in dry unison.
"Like seen me, seen me?"
"Yes," they both say in dry unison.
Gojo huffs. “You don’t get it.”
They both turn to look at him, placid faces and all. "Explain then," indulges Shoko.
Gojo gestures to himself incredulously. "My face!" he declares. "My face is all the negotiation we need!"
Getou waits a beat. "Nah," he shakes his head. "I still don't get it."
"Tch," Gojo clicks his tongue, directing them to a nearby tanghulu stall. "Watch and learn, peasants."
So they do.
They watch Gojo unceremoniously try to trial charm his way into a free tanghulu stick by laying the blue eyes on thick. It usually works, really it does, they think: on an audience of anyone less than 20 years old. It turns out the grumpy obaasans of Okinawa who've been awake since the early hours of dawn, working hard to earn their keep for the day in preparation, want absolutely nothing to do with Gojo's Prada sunglasses and Gucci slippers and YSL button-down. The lazy drawl of his Tokyo accent was doing nothing to skew the tides in his favor either. They watch him stammer his way through at least securing a mortifying discount and have to look away when he practically starts shoving money in their faces when they still don’t let up in the end.
Getou tilts his head, observant. "What do you think?"
"Hard to know for sure," Shoko notes, also angling her head this way and that. "Would it kill him to lose the glasses once in a while?"
"Think he's crying?" wonders Getou.
"If he is,” warns Shoko. “Do not give in. You know it's only crocodile tears."
Getou makes a face. "Not always—"
"Yes always," Shoko insists. "When was the last time he actually cried because he wanted to?"
"His parents forgot his birthday last year," Getou reminds her.
"Only to fly us all off to Bali for the whole week once they realized," Shoko dismisses. "Next."
"That time he broke his shoulder," Getou tries.
"Big woop. He just needed to ram his shoulder into a wall."
"Japan losing the World Cup."
"You cried too."
"Because Japan lost the World Cup!"
Shoko starts to wave him off only to grab his sleeve in alarm in the next second. “Shit,” she whispers lowly. "He's coming."
Getou looks on in warning. "Oh no. He's pouting."
"He's always pouting," Shoko says, before adding, more menacingly: "Do not give in."
"How do you wanna do this?" Getou straightens.
"Coddle?” Shoko also squares her shoulders. “He's sensitive but we need his money if we're short."
"Right," Getou nods. "Princess treatment it is."
Gojo makes his way back to them with empty hands, a pout on his face, and the world's greatest ego shattered.
"Aw," Getou pitches his voice higher, shrill to anyone else but leveled just right for a docile hypersensitive manchild. "Couldn’t find anyone to give in?”
"It's okay," Shoko loops her arm around his again, practically hanging off his side. "You're still pretty. He's still pretty, isn't he, Getou?"
"The prettiest," affirms Getou, tugging him close by the shoulder they were all practically skin to skin. "What do those old women know, anyway?"
Gojo huffs, pouting down at his empty hands. "They said either buy it wholesale or get out of their faces before they call the police."
A pause.
Then:
"Still sooo pretty though," Getou gushes, trying to catch his eye. "Even prettier than Shoko!"
Gojo looks at Shoko for confirmation, who just nods somberly along all the while patting his chest. "Yeah okay, I’ll give you this one.”
Gojo slides both his arms on their shoulders and starts mushing their faces together. "No, you guys are the prettiest!"
Getou and Shoko exchange a look of triumph under all the smothering. The success rate of the princess treatment has never failed them, and it wouldn't now.
𓇼
"Stop threatening them."
"Threatening who?" asks Gojo.
"The kids," says Shoko.
"I don't threaten the kids," Gojo turns to face Getou. "Suguru. Do I threaten the kids?"
Getou lets the question hang in the air two seconds before saying, "Yes."
They were finally neck deep in the busier part of the night market, where the dialect was so strong they're not even sure half of it was Japanese and the ojisans are louder with their drunken yelling. Gojo and Getou have been propositioned at least thrice, and Shoko was the constant victim of judgemental stares for her flimsy attire she just refused to cover up despite their many attempts to hand over their jackets. They make their way through the local grocery mart, Getou pushing past a cart as Shoko unceremoniously added whichever onto the pile. Gojo's black card was paying anyway.
“I do not bully children,” says Gojo. “I love children.”
“Megumi says otherwise,” rebutts Shoko.
"Megumi is ten and in a phase," explains Gojo, also adding whatever he liked. Getou looks down at the glaring differences of what they were putting in—Shoko with her off-brand cigarettes and Gojo with his sugars and sweets—and sighs. “I’m allowed to bully him. Nanami-kun and Haibara-kun, however, I do not. I love my kouhai."
"Loving them isn't the same thing as respecting them," Shoko singsongs.
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean, Ieiri-san?" Gojo turns to face her.
"She means we know you were raised by wolves and all," translates Getou, shoving a pack of greens into the mix because Lord knows someone has to. "But that doesn't mean the rest of us are. Some of us function perfectly fine without someone breathing down on our shoulder to get our kata form right."
Gojo looks appalled. "That was one time."
"For us, yes," Shoko agrees. "Otherwise we'll beat your ass for taking that tone with us again. But don't you have a standing Saturday session with Haibara in the dojo?"
Gojo still looks appalled. "Because he's too trusting!"
"Yes," Getou also agrees. "Kid has a heart of gold. Will be the death of him one day. Still no reason to threaten to slice him in half if he doesn't get Heian Yondan in one go."
"I do not threaten," says Gojo. "I simply strongly encourage."
"Encourage softer," appeases Getou. "Part of the whole senpai buddy system is so that they're never alone in any missions A-level or higher."
"There'll come a day they'll be alone though," insists Gojo, uncharacteristically somber and insistent about this. Lone wolf, he was, sometimes. "They need to be ready."
"They're still first years," Shoko points out gently, uncharacteristically so. "And we're not leaving for another year. We have time."
Getou gets the final word in. "So we'll cross that bridge when we get there."
Shoko nods, coming back to herself. "First — Okinawa!"
Gojo could only stare dumbly at their retreating forms, so languid and so at ease, so unlike they weren't the last lines of defense that separated the fabric of reality from anarchy and chaos. But they're right, thinks Gojo, listening in on the chatter of the busy grocery and the sudden mundane all around him that had nothing to do with all of it:
There's time for all that later.
𓇼
Dinner is the skillful hands of Getou and Haibara at the grill, Nanami and Shoko for ingredient prep, and Gojo for moral support.
They got back just in time to see the late afternoon sun shy of setting, hues of baby blue and pale pink basking their back garden a fresh tint of calm. The in-house grill, cleaned diligently by Nanami during their wake, was surprisingly functional and already had a few slabs of pork currently sizzling on its grates. Haibara moved around some of the backyard furniture to set up a small but fully functional barbecue station, complete with a butcher block and different sauces for garnish. They opened all the sliding doors in the house to let the air ventilate around the adjoining kitchen, the flames from the grill losing itself into the light summer wind as the day was finally starting to settle down.
Their home away from home for the next few days was in a quaint neighborhood just north of Minatogawa, the sound of humming bees darting through the air and the sight of well-kept ginkgo trees a welcome break from the neon lights and industrial buildings that served as backdrop to most of Tokyo. The stillness here feels a little more intentional, the bicycle tolls of children outside a little louder, the air in their lungs a little less heavy to breathe in. It's slow and lazy and exactly what they need.
"Nanami-kun," Shoko calls out from her stool in the kitchen, a Santoku knife in one hand and a ball of onion in the other. "How do I...?"
Nanami patters back to look over her work. "A Julienne."
Shoko blinks down at the cutting board. "A what."
"You square off the edges and cut it into planks and then strips," explains Nanami to a still just blinking Shoko. "Here. Let me show you."
As Nanami takes charge of Shoko's knife and demonstrates surprisingly professional knife-cutting skills, Gojo finds himself frowning down at the decidedly less sharper tool he was given and the decidedly shorter instructions he was barked at after much peddling to be given something to do: to cut open the can of corn and mix them in a bowl. Haibara was busy looking over the boiling sauce. Getou was wreaking havoc on a poor lamb. Shoko was being entrusted with culinary grade cutting directions, and he got the kid friendly scissors.
Gojo coughs. “I wanna do a julie too.”
“You can’t be trusted with it,” Nanami replies distractedly, carefully setting aside the bits of onion he’s chopped. “Now hurry up with the corn.”
Gojo looks at Shoko, pleading. She just shrugs, uncaring. “You heard him.”
"Now hold it like this so you have a firmer grip on the handle," Nanami positions the knife on her hand, moving around her grip this way and that. "Yes. Just like that. Show me."
Shoko is just about to try a careful slashing of her own, before stopping, seeming to remember something, turning her head slowly just so to look up at Nanami—
…who understands his mistake immediately.
"...Ieiri-senpai." Nanami flushes, immediately deferential, immediately bowing his head low. "I meant show me — Ieiri-senpai."
Behind him, they can hear Haibara suppressing a chuckle and Getou stifling a snicker, blaming it on the fumes of the grill. Even Gojo laughs into the can of corn he somehow manages to slice open every which way wrong.
𓇼
By the time they’re done, a brisk evening air settles over the compound like dusk unfurling from the earth. The fireflies have come out of their hiding, occasionally flittering past the already well-lit garden as yellow bursts of starlight hop to and from the trees.
Shoko is in someone’s sweater—Getou, they guess, black and oversized—as she ambles her way back to the table with five plastic cups and a bottle of Pepsi. Haibara helps her hold the glasses steady as she pours a drink for each of them. Gojo is busy taking a thousand pictures at every possible angle to post on Snapchat. Nanami and Getou were dividing up portions into plates.
Everything is good.
"You're sleeping by the way," Shoko says some minutes after they dig in, looking at Gojo who was ravishing a sparerib you’d think he was raised by wolves except he was. “No exceptions.”
Gojo sputters, meaty bits flying off him. "I was always—"
Getou stops him by shoving a paper tissue on his mouth. "Satoru," he levels. "You're sleeping. The concealment charms will hold. And please, manners, we have a lady and your kouhai on the table."
Nanami and Haibara must’ve looked as confused as they felt, because Shoko was quick to turn to them. “He stayed up all night guarding Amanai and you guys the last time,” she elaborates. “Practically slept like a log on my clinic for a week afterwards. Yaga was convinced he was comatose.”
"Besides,” Shoko turns back to Gojo. “There's five of us here at practically nowhere. We’ll be fine.”
"If not we can always just bargain Gojo," suggests Getou, drowning out his whimper through his mouthful of mashed potato. "Where are we at with the bounty now, Haibara-kun?"
Haibara checks something on his phone. "A billion yen."
“A billion yen,” parrots Shoko back, putting a hand up to her chin, contemplative. “If this jujutsu thing doesn’t pan out for us, we can split the money four ways and retire here. Hell, we can even buy this exact house. ”
𓇼
Soon enough night time rolls around and the debate about the sleeping arrangements goes exactly as apocalyptic as expected.
"Why should you have the solo room?" Getou challenges. "Just because you're a girl?"
"No," Shoko starts carefully. "I should get the solo room because you kick in your sleep and Gojo snores like a goddamn pig."
Gojo gasps, accosted. "I do not!"
"You don't wanna hear the recording," Shoko snaps at him. "You moan a lot, too. Christ."
"You recorded my snoring?" Gojo asks at the same time Getou points out, "We've all slept in the bed before.”
"We all start sleeping in the same bed," Shoko explains, ignoring Gojo’s mortified wails. "But in the morning, Gojo and I always find ourselves kissing the damn floor and shivering in the cold. You're not doing this to me. Not in Okinawa."
Getou turns to Gojo. “Wanna help me out here?”
Gojo puts his hands up. "Man, I just wanna sleep,” he resigns. “And apparently I’m a moaner, too, so one crisis to process at a time.”
Getou has no choice but to direct his glare at her. "This is not the end of this conversation."
“Oh shucks,” Shoko rolls her eyes before shutting the door on them. "I'm shaking in my fucking boots."
When they’ve been banished to the hallway, Gojo shoves him. "Why do you always try with her?" he asks. "We always give in anyway. Or else she makes us."
"Worth a shot," Getou rubs the back of his neck. "The bed looked nice and bouncy when I was there earlier. And plus, we can't have her think she can get away with anything."
"Except she can and she does," deadpans Gojo.
"Not so loud!" Getou brings a finger to his lips, manhandling him out of the eavesdropping zone. "Or else she'll start getting even more ideas."
𓇼
But the real apocalypse starts when, not even an hour into their self-mandated lights out time, Gojo screams.
It results in the rest of them spending the rest of the night following around a damn house rat that apparently got into his shirt that they now had to use every means possible—human and sorcerer—to put an end of it’s life to. It's another matter altogether once they do find it, scurrying away at the backyard, near the garbage can that was temporary lodging to their discarded meat bones and leftover sauces.
They all hid behind Shoko, Gojo and Getou clutching at each of her shoulder, all the good those special grade status and height gave them. In the end it's Shoko who finally makes that final pounce on the rat with an old, chipped wooden broom that sends it scampering across the garden and scurrying out into the streets.
They all end up sleeping in the her bedroom that night, all tangled limbs and elbows knocking uncomfortably into each other's ribs. All the while, Shoko slept soundly in the only bed in the room.
𓇼
The rest of the trip goes on just fine until:
𓇼
"Ieiri-senpai is kind of pretty isn't she?"
Until one day Haibara decided he had so little value for his life left.
Nanami isn't able to clamp a hand over his mouth in time. Oh god, he thought. To think they were doing so well.
Gojo was immediately on his heel, whirling around on him with his supernatural hearing, raising his glasses to rest on top of his head which in Gojo-language meant business. "What did you just say?"
A few feet ahead of them, Getou and Shoko were busy looking over a fruit display at the farmer’s market they spontaneously decided to check out on their way to the beach. Shoko was holding up a watermelon for Getou to inspect, checking over its belly and weight like what Utahime told them to. She was wearing a yellow, bare-shouldered sundress that weaved in with the wind. And Haibara, poor soul, unfortunately couldn't process much of anything else after that. All of that was fine for a growing boy, of course; the mistake really was in announcing his observation in a group with her overprotective best friends.
Really, Nanami wants to bang his head on the wall. They were just walking to the beach.
At least, that's what he was doing. Haibara, he thinks, was looking for the fastest way to end his life at the hands of the strongest sorcerer in modern history. It's a fifteen-minute walk at most, he couldn’t have just shut his mouth up, couldn’t have saved his thoughts for later. It’s fifteen minutes for crying out loud. But maybe that's what scares Nanami the most, he thinks: a lot can happen in fifteen minutes. You could so easily kill a man in less than that time. And he knows for a fact Gojo was known for his quick kills.
Haibara blinks, his hold on his beach bag tightening. "Ieiri-senpai is—" he starts. "I just said she's—"
"Pretty?" Gojo finishes for him, stepping closer to them and did Nanami imagine it, or was he seriously lording over his height over a sixteen-year-old boy. "Yes, you've said."
Haibara gulps. "She is," he reaffirms. "Gojo-senpai."
Gojo narrows his eyes at him. "Just kind of pretty, though?"
Nanami blinks, unsure where he's going with his, but wanting to end whatever it was now, right this instant, immediately. "What."
"You said she was "kind of" pretty," recalls Gojo, using air quotes. "You don't think she's beautiful?"
"What the fuck," Nanami swears under his breath, unable to stop himself. Before Haibara can get another word in and secure their early graves, they hear Getou calling out to them.
"Oi!" Getou yells from way ahead of them now, in the fish section where Shoko was making a valiant effort not to cover her mouth with a handkerchief he must’ve thrown her way out of respect for the sellers. "You guys want fish for dinner later?" Then Shoko tugs on his sleeve, bringing him back down to whisper something in his ear as he starts nodding along. He lifts his head to yell at them again, "Haibara-kun! We need you!"
Gojo didn’t like the sound of that and it shows. "Need him?" he shouts back. "For what?"
Shoko looks annoyed at the constant back and forth over the market place and decides to take matters in her own hands. "None of you city boys know the first thing about picking live fish produce," she declares. "Haibara," she points to him. "Come. Now."
Haibara was looking back and forth between her and Gojo, unsure how to proceed. Nanami was already picking out joint funeral plots for both of them in his head because surely, surely, dying a minor stipulates some form of discount?
When Haibara stays rooted in his spot just a second too long, Gojo's eyes immediately snap to him.
"Well?" he gestures ahead. "What are you waiting for? You heard her."
Nanami debates killing himself just to get it over with.
You just can't win with these two.
𓇼
They reach Furuzamami beach when the sun starts temporarily dipping low for it's midday nap, the lazy tug of the sea peaceful this time of the year as seagulls fly above them. The rest of the place is sprawling open shores and a glittering emerald green ocean that has pieces of sunlight glinting off the water, bouncing back on Gojo's glasses Shoko commandeered to shield her eyes from it. There were makeshift cabanas and bamboo huts set up around for tourists to lounge in, a variety of gift shops and rental places greeting them as they make their way closer to the coast. Gojo immediately zeroed in on a popsicle stand and dragged Haibara along with him as the rest of them set about to dropping their things on a nearby available hut.
Just as they're about to run for the beach, Shoko stops them all with a hand on her hip and all five foot nothing of her.
"Forgetting something boys?"
Gojo groans up at the straw roof. "She means sunscreen," he answers. "I hate medics."
"You'll hate yourself more when we're 30 and your fine lines start showing," Shoko rummages around the beach bag they brought. “I’m saving you a lifetime of botched botox.”
"I'll RCT it away," says Gojo, smug.
"Doesn't work that way but I love the optimism," says Shoko, gesturing at them by the hut opening. "Right then gentlemen. Single file please."
Gojo fusses every step of the way before settling himself in front of her, bending his knees. "How long do we have to wait this time?"
Shoko squirts a generous amount of Biore Aquarich into her palm before she starts lathering it onto his face. "Just ten minutes," she says. "You'll live."
"But I want to swim now."
"And you will."
"Now."
"Getou," Shoko ignores his whining, calling out to Getou who she’s glad didn’t need to be looked over like a child, as she works the sunscreen deeper into Gojo’s cheeks and forehead. "Make sure the kids are doing it properly. Nanami got sunburnt last time."
Getou looks over at Haibara who squeezed out way too much and had a thick film of white cream over his face he was practically a ghost, two big and brown blinking eyes the only thing visible on his face. Nanami doesn’t even try hiding his laugh. Haibara catches on his wrong application and all but smothers the excess sunscreen on his face as he yelps away and trips on the sand, all the while Getou was trailing after them like a mother hen rounding her chicks up.
Shoko sighs, uncaring that Gojo’s knees were wobbling from under her. “Boys.”
𓇼
Gojo tries to surf and almost drowns in the process.
Getou cackles—actually cackles—as he cruises along the waves gracefully on his longboard. Nanami and Haibara had both their feet planted firmly on their respective soft tops, also effortlessly gliding along with the shifting waters as the August heat beat down on their grins that lit up the sun of the earth. Shoko cheered on them from the shore, Gojo's glasses and Getou's bucket hat a black and brown smudge in the distance.
"Not getting in?" Getou yells out for her.
"No!" Shoko cups her mouth to reply, an echo on the water. "Or else who else is going to take a video of Gojo being a loser?"
Gojo, who had so far been paddling pathetically in the water with his arms flailing out and about, cries out in frustration even more as water ran its way up his nose. "A little help here would be nice," he gurgles through a mouthful of saltwater.
Getou turns to the first years. "Should we?"
Nanami looks contemplative. "Let him suffer for five more seconds?"
Getou makes an OK sign in the air. "Great thinking, Nanami-kun."
Haibara didn't look like he wanted that, but Getou's word was bible to him so there they were, staring down at Gojo who kept trying and failing to get back up his paddle board. He couldn't grab purchase for any longer than three seconds, his long legs putting him at a disadvantage as he kept trying to heave them up first only to have it slip and slide over its glossy finish.
"You're doing amazing sweetie!" yells Shoko, the sound of a camera flashing accompanying her jest.
"Yes, please do keep going for our amusement," Getou piles on.
Nanami chuckles. Haibara forces himself not to sprint to Gojo's aid right away. In the end it's Getou, because it's always Getou, who finally puts him out of his misery and hauls him back up in one strong, fluid motion that had Shoko catcalling and Haibara to start drooling—literally drooling—right into the ocean floor.
"Now," Getou says once he settles Gojo back on his board, who just looked flushed more than a fish out of water. "How's that for a swimming lesson?"
𓇼
By the time they get back to shore, Getou’s phone pings with a new message. "Yaga wants proof of life."
“A what?” Gojo looks up from shaking his hair dry with the towel Haibara passed him, Shoko helping Nanami get the sand out from his ears. “He wants a what?”
“Proof of life,” repeats Getou, frowning down at the text. “For the first years probably. He wants to make sure we haven’t set them on fire.”
“Set us on what now?” Haibara makes a face.
"Let’s take a picture!" Shoko perks up, dragging Nanami with her as she got her phone out. "Haibara-kun, do the thing with the settings on the camera thing.”
Haibara took her phone from her and together fiddled with it, finding angles and filters and what not. “Alright boys,” she waves a finger around. “Gather ‘round.”
Gojo was already making grabby hands at her. "Wait, no—"
But Shoko was quick to position herself in front of them, with Haibara crouched under her shoulder as Getou settled over the group, directing a glare at Gojo. "Real smooth, idiot," he whispers lowly under his breath. "There goes half of our day."
"You couldn't have stopped her," adds Nanami as he comes up next to them. "How long did we stand the last time?"
Getou's glare sharpens into menacing as he aims it all on Gojo. "You mean how long we spent kneeling and shaking?" he corrects. "For like, half an hour.”
"You guys say something?" Shoko turns around, Haibara turning with her, a pained smile on his face they knew exactly what for but valued self-preservation too much to bail him out on it.
"Nothing," they all said in unison.
Gojo eggs her on with a smile, hands carefully reaching out to subtly take her phone from her. "Shoko," he says carefully. "Maybe let me—"
But Shoko whirls back around and Gojo lets his hand drop immediately.
"Idiot," hisses Getou again, reaching behind them to pinch the flesh on his elbow. "Just fucking pathetic."
"Agreed," Nanami arches back, shoulders slumped in between them. Thank god Haibara was keeping Shoko occupied.
Gojo gestures wildly at them, whispering under his breath. "I don't see any of you doing anything!"
"And risk getting our balls chopped off at the next medical?" demands Getou back. "No, thank you. You have RCT and you're pathetic with women. You'll be fine. Just regenerate your shit right back."
Before Gojo can get a word in response, Haibara makes vague motions of urgency at the hand he had on his back.
"Alright! We got it!" Shoko announces suddenly, standing up straighter as they all bend low. "Big smiles now!”
It takes them the entire afternoon to get a single decent picture. Shoko kept getting their bodies cut off or angled the wrong way. Gojo kept trying to help her get her arm up to no avail. Getou was always just shy of yanking the phone from her and ending their misery. Nanami grumbled all the way through. Even Haibara's smile started to strain at the edges.
When they get the message back to Yaga, he replies back with:
"Where the hell is the rest of your heads?”
𓇼
“Oh my god.”
Getou looks on in the distance, at a distinct shape of bodies, two decidedly masculine ones helping along someone so much shorter, so much leaner, so much limper. “Oh my god,” he also says, standing up, squinting as the sun was going down. “Is that—”
Gojo beats him to it.
"We leave her alone with you for five minutes!" Gojo bristles, bridging the gap first to grab hold of Shoko and whisk her away. “And you come back with a fucking jellyfish sting?!”
Getou helps him settle her carefully down in their hut. “Are you okay?” he says to her pained face, at her breathing through her nose, at the sweat on her forehead. “Where does it hurt?”
Gojo rounds on them meanwhile. “Well?”
Nanami felt—more than saw—Haibara swallow. "Uh—” he stammers. "We— I—"
Behind him, they can hear Shoko telling Getou to stop fussing and just elevate her leg to get the swelling down. Gojo sidesteps to block them from view, crossing his arms over his chest.
“W-We were on the e-edge of the beach,” starts Haibara nervously. “And w-we wanted to show Ieiri-senpai t-this baby crab we saw. I-It was white and h-had the cutest eyes, r-right Nanami?”
Nanami doesn’t want to say anything in that moment, much less be complicit. But something about team camaraderie and not allowing themselves to be bullied by exploitative seniors who couldn’t see reason sometimes. “It was really pretty.”
“T-then one of the l-locals came and said t-there was a better spot to s-see them by t-the shallow end, where s-some fishermen were f-fishing,” Haibara, bless his soul, keeps going. “H-He even s-said w-we can c-catch one of the b-bigger ones for keep and cook them. N-Nanami said he knew a recipe but we needed Ieiri-senpai’s help for it.”
Nanami always knew they were kind of territorial. He just didn't expect they'd be territorial even with them.
"What do you mean you wanted Shoko's help?" Getou looks up from the first aid bag he was rooting around in. Shoko just rolled her eyes and yanked it from him, pulling out the hydrocortisone cream and other things out herself.
Nanami levels with them. "We needed someone who knows how to cook crabs.”
Gojo gets in his line of vision. "Why Shoko specifically?" he gestures behind him at Getou, who straightens, Shoko fending for herself with the cortisone cream. "We can cook too. Can probably handle a few crabs."
Nanami wants to say that no, you actually can't because the burnt taste in his tongue from Getou's piss-poor attempt at making onigiri still lingers at the back of his mouth. But the look Gojo was pressing on him was starting to grow apprehensive. "Uh," Nanami scrambles for an answer. "We, uh, wanted to try a homemade recipe from Kamakura?"
"Kamakura," parrots Getou back, drily.
Nanami horribly finds a sweat trickle down his neck. "Kamakura," he repeats. "Where Ieiri-senpai's mother is fro—"
"We know where her mother is from," Gojo interrupts. "What, think you know her better than us?"
Nanami did not think that at all. He didn't think that one bit and it's so like these two alpha-presenting territorial idiots to start jumping to conclusions where she was concerned. Really, he doesn't know how she's put up with them for so long.
Evidently Shoko was already at her breaking point too.
“Gojo, just shut up and heal me will you?” Shoko snaps her fingers at him, apparently done and frustrated fighting with the gauze by herself. “And leave them alone. You guys have literally made me work on a shattered knee that one time you forced me into one of your trampoline parks. This is nothing.”
𓇼
If Nanami thought Gojo was an intense hoverer, there was no beating Getou's brand of mother henning.
"Got your water?"
"Yes."
"Bug spray?"
"Right here."
"Allergy medicine?"
"I have RCT."
"You never know—"
"Getou," Shoko stops him. "I'm the medic, remember?"
They were getting ready for a hike at the ass crack of dawn the next day, the only people who enjoy waking up this early province boy Haibara and insomniac Gojo. The rest of them were grumpy and annoyed and operating on less than eight hours of sleep because someone—meaning both of them—got it inside each other’s heads to punish their already exhausted bodies by looking up mountain trails all the locals favored. It's day whichever of their trip and it's a miracle they haven't started killing each other. But maybe all that was going to change today.
"Be careful, Shoko," Getou says as he offers her a hand to anchor herself with, stepping over the murky terrain of the river rocks. "That one is slippery."
Gojo already had a hand poised at her back to steady her if she fell. “Remind me why we choose this route again?"
"You said you wanted a challenge," reminds Haibara a few steps behind them, looking far too preppy and eyebag-less for an early morning hike. “And this is apparently the hardest trail in Okinawa!”
A series of collective groans follow.
Nanami watches ahead of him as Gojo and Getou fumble over themselves to get Shoko safely across the river, being anything short of being a makeshift bridge for her to step into. She wasn't even saying anything, has never even so much as demanded such waiting on foot behavior. It was something they just readily offered.
Gojo turns back to extend a hand to Haibara, who blinks down at it. "If you guys crack your head on the rocks," he explains. "Yaga is kicking us out of the school. We're kind of responsible for your lives this week."
"You don't say," Nanami mumbles hotly next to him, carefully skipping over a boulder.
"I heard that!" Getou bellows ahead, fixing the pack on his shoulder. He really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed today. "Such ungratefulness! When we've been nothing but kind senpais to you!"
"Ieiri-senpai is," says Haibara.
“Agreed,” says Nanami.
Shoko gives them a thumbs up in the air. Gojo contemplates drowning them.
𓇼
"So," Gojo says once they hit the hour mark and reach the edge of a brook. "Anyone up for some good old-fashioned rock climbing?"
Nanami answers for everyone. "You can't be serious."
The rock wall in question towered over them some fifteen meters high, the distant sound of a hot spring nearby amping his excitement up higher. While the foundation of the rock landscape looked sturdy enough, some of them were jutting out of the wall in weird formations with interlocking rows of large rocks that looked weathered and slippery over time. Long vines were trailing down the slope, from the arch of the hill all the way down to dirt of the forest. The thought of climbing up it’s steep rim could make anyone’s stomach weak.
Evidently this doesn't faze Gojo. Not in the slightest.
"Cursed energy allowed," announces Gojo, unclipping his backpack to set it down on the ground. A fire was brewing in his eyes, a challenge. "You can even summon your cursed spirits, if you like, Suguru.”
“We don’t even have ropes,” tries Nanami.
“Did you not hear what I just said?” Gojo arches a brow at him, amused. “We don’t need ropes if we have cursed energy.”
“...A dangerous train of thought but alright,” comments Getou, taking a chug from his bottle before passing it on to Haibara. “Are you sure you don’t need to take a nap?”
“I don’t need a nap I need movement,” defends Gojo, fighting with the zipper of his jacket.
“OK, ADHD brain,” Shoko finds a nearby tree to perch in. “Go on then. We’ll watch your things.”
Gojo pauses in his fussing. “You’re not going with me?”
Nanami snorts. “Unprotected? In that suicide mountain hill of rocks?” he says. “No thank you. I wanna live past graduation unlike some people.”
“I’ll do your missions for a week.”
“I don’t mind missions.”
“I’ll cook for you.”
“I’d rather starve.”
“Then,” Gojo’s eyes light up. “If you win—whichever of you—I’ll leave you alone. For a week.”
𓇼
Nanami is the first to fall.
It's amazing, really, how long he lasted granted his aversion to inconveniencing himself any more if he can help it. Getou and Haibara were way up into the steeper parts of the cliff, their steady hands on the rocks and center of gravity nearly flawless. All of them had a healthy dose of innate athleticism made sharper by combat training, but: learning to fight curses is entirely different from knowing which goddamn rock was going to be your literal downfall. Nanami thought he got the hang of it, ten minutes in, when he was striding confidently across the stones and heaving his leg up in equal parts confidence and annoyance at actually being convinced to do it.
It took one suspicious-looking rock that looked sturdy but was anything but for him to cave in. Literally.
On his way down, he swears he saw Getou slip a 1,000 yen bill into Gojo's hand.
Nanami blinks his eyes open to Shoko peering down at him, a disapproving frown etched on her face.
"Thought you'd last longer."
Nanami slowly rights himself up with her help. "I thought I did, too."
“Valiant effort still,” Shoko says, dusting the grime off his shirt. He feels the familiar sensation of cursed energy gently probing against his muscles and knows she was checking for any lingering fractures.
"Thought you weren't healing anyone," Nanami comments.
"Thought you weren't joining," Shoko parrots back.
They lock eyes for a second, then break into a shared laugh.
"Oi! Shoko! Nanami!" Getou calls down from higher up than they anticipated he'd actually reach, the furthest any of them got. The clouds were a bright blue background against the portrait of his concerned eyes squinting down on them. "Everything okay down there?"
Shoko beats Nanami out of replying, cupping her hands around her mouth as she stands up to yell back, "Nanami broke an arm!"
Nanami did, in fact, break no such thing.
Gojo almost slips on a boulder. "What?!" he squeaks. "Like broken, broken?"
Haibara pauses midway to the top, not willing to compromise his gravity by looking down but it was evident in the line of his shoulders. He was listening. They all were. Nanami fights a grin.
"Only one way for bones to break last I read," Shoko wonders out loud.
"Well," Gojo glares at the rock he was face to face with. "Heal him then! Or something!"
Shoko hums. “What will you give me for it?”
“Oh my god, Shoko,” Getou groans into the air and glares daggers down at her. “His arm is broken. Can you please leave the haggling alone for one second.”
Gojo was already making his way down. “Don’t worry, Nanami-kun!” he yells, breathless. “Senpai is coming! I’ll heal you!”
𓇼
When he finally does, Gojo looks over Nanami suspiciously. "I don’t understand. He looks fine."
"Please," Shoko scoffs, gesturing to herself. "You think I'm actually letting my favorite kouhai go on with a fractured arm?"
Haibara arrives just in time to hear that. "Wait, what—" he blinks. "Favourite— Favourite what— But I thought—"
Getou steers him along, a hand on his shoulder and a gentle coddling voice. "I know, I know," he coos. "She's mean."
𓇼
By the time they got back down from the trail, the sun has set and the airborne chill of the evening was starting to slide its way in the breath of the forest.
"Should we set up camp?" suggests Getou, Shoko using one of his arms for support as she toed her shoes in where it got loose. "It'll be another two hours to get back to the entrance."
Gojo looks over the span of the trees. "Everyone brought sleeping bags right?"
"Oh shit," blurts Haibara, looking sheepish when they all turn to him. "I left mine in my other pack."
"I think mine is in XL," Getou offers. "We can share."
Gojo frowns. "I thought we were sharing."
"Share with Shoko," he suggests, nodding to her.
Gojo's hesitant eyes lock with Shoko's glare that left no room for negotiation as she just stared him down.
"Right," Gojo nods, more to himself, stalking away from her. "Nanami-kun it is then."
Nanami groans, tilting his head up to the dark sky, very oh woe is me.
"I'm a beloved roomie!" Gojo says.
"Said no one ever," mumbles Getou under his breath.
𓇼
They assign tasks. Shoko and Nanami get campfire duty, Haibara supplying the logs and Getou chopping them up. Gojo was busy casting safety charms all over the small clearing they've set up in, the purple glow of his cursed energy descending down on them in pulses until it withered away into the ether. A transparent film of contained energy permeated the space, but up close, it basically looked like nothing.
"Think that'll hold?" asks Nanami when Gojo settles back down with them, taking the stick Shoko was poking the fire with to start his own jabbing, for no other reason than he thought it looked cool and wanted to do it himself. "It's a big forest."
"Suguru," Gojo calls out. "Do you hear the nerve on this kid? Think that'll hold?" he scoffs. “Who do you think I am?”
Nanami's eyebrow twitches. "I was only making sure—"
"Nanami-kun," Gojo clicks his tongue at him. "You're with two special grades and the only active RCT user in Japan as we speak. You’re safer than the Prime Minister right now."
Getou and Shoko give him a thumbs up in turn.
Then Nanami remembers, exactly, who his seniors are.
Damn.
𓇼
Getou wakes up earlier than the rest.
The lazy drags of sunlight starting to pour in from the gaps in the pine trees is the first sight that greets him. He always preferred to be a slow riser to the day, meeting the sun just as the clouds shift to make way for her. This early in the morning the forest was crisp with mildew, the sound of hiyodoris in the distance trailing their songs all over the glade. He looks around the area and sees Gojo has somehow migrated to Nanami's side of the sleeping bag, all but using him as a glorified pillow. Shoko was curled in on herself with Haibara snoring peacefully not a few feet away from her, his side of their bed clean and the blanket they shared cocooning him all over.
It's a calm morning. A peaceful one he hasn’t had in awhile.
He almost doesn't wanna disrupt it by waking them up.
So he lets them sleep in.
After awhile it’s Nanami who stirs awake next, doing his best to shove the leech plastered to his side. Gojo just stumbles back on the other side of the bed like a log. His voice is groggy with sleep and rough when he mumbles a soft, "Good morning, Getou-senpai.”
"Fresh coffee is in the thermos,” Getou offers, palming the travel mug around his hands to warm himself. "Take your time. It's a long way back."
𓇼
When everyone finally rallies themselves awake, they make their slow descent back to the river.
Up ahead, Haibara was animatedly retelling a childhood story where he had to fish for keep in the waters of Lake Kawaguchiko, Shoko listening intently and Nanami nodding along to offer indulging questions. The sun has warmed the heart of the forest, now, with the rays gently shifting through the barks of the trees and the petals of the water lilies and touching their skin just a graze warmer. Nanami warns them of a rocky landform ahead, offering to hold Shoko's pack for her when she crosses the slope with Haibara waiting on the other side to act as a buffer.
"Think we did okay?" Gojo asks at his side.
Getou looks on in amusement at Haibara squealing when he spots a jungle snake hanging on a tree and Shoko dragging him along, telling him to cover his eyes, all the while Nanami was discreetly clutching at the strap of her bag too.
"All things considered," Getou says softly. "I think we did more than okay."
When he turns to look at him, Gojo has the ghost of a smile on his face.
𓇼
The flight back to Tokyo is decidedly less chaotic.
They don't kill each other over packing nor start being weirdly possessive about whose shirt that was or whose similar blue towel that belongs to. They don't insist on whose extra luggage space to dump their extra stuff in into because Gojo has the biggest Rimowa so it was only natural he got the excess, unplanned purchases that inevitably follow tourists on vacation. They don't argue in the morning of their flight, when the adrenaline from vacation inevitably wanes, and the crankiness sets in.
By now they know each other too well to get into any petty fights born out fo travel fatigue. Instead, they just let the other do their own thing as they take to each other's pre-flight processes:
Getou flosses his teeth. Gojo makes sure all his glasses are accounted for. Nanami budgets all the money he has left. Haibara counts the number of socks he packs lines up with the amount he brought. Shoko finishes the rest of her sci-fi novel in silence.
On the monorail back, they also don't fight over who gets to sit because Shoko always won anyway. The travel agency somehow mixes up their seats and gives them the choice to re-pick them if they wanted. Shoko decides to hunker down with the first years for a change, much to Gojo's dismay. What do they have that we don't? he pouted. The ability to shut up, supplied Shoko.
Not even ten minutes into the flight, a ball of white hair pops up from a few aisles over. Shoko was already fast asleep in the middle. Haibara was leaning against the window, dozing off. So when inevitably Gojo points to his eyes and then back to them, glaring, warning, heaving, the universal code for I’m watching you: only Nanami was awake to receive the warning. Nanami rolls his eyes just in time to see Getou yank him down and force a seatbelt and mouth guard on him.
𓇼
It’s late when they land in Haneda.
Gojo was struggling to get his eyes open, all his weight leaning on Shoko who also looked like she was ready to collapse onto the bed. The fact she wasn't even fighting him off was a clear indication of how tired she was. Haibara was trying in vain to stay awake, head bobbing as he stood guarding their luggages by the terminal gate. Only Getou was lucid enough to talk, talking in low tones with Yaga, asking how far the assistant was and could they send a six-seater?
The minivan finally arrives and they all but collapse into the seats. Gojo immediately snuggles up to the next closest person for warmth, which just happened to be Getou, who Shoko was also already taking up the other half of his shoulder. Haibara lands on the seat behind them with Nanami in tow, all but melting into it as he does.
It's a long ride back to the outskirts of Mount Takao and they sleep all the way through it.
𓇼
"So?" Yaga prompts. "How was the trip?"
It's their shared briefing period the next morning and Tokyo is unchanged. Yaga is currently sporting a decadent display of gifts he was only too proud to show off: the I♡OKINAWA t-shirt from Haibara, the knock-off Raybans from Gojo, the BEST TEACHER EVER! mug on his desk from Shoko, a handful of local delicacies from Nanami; and finally, an enamel pin showing a miniature Nirai Beach from Getou on the collar of his uniform. It glittered in the light of the classroom. He looked like an up-and-coming Youtube rapper who raided the dollar store for a fit, but his smile is genuine, as is his interest in their enjoyment.
"Wanna make this an annual thing?" Yaga asks through a mouthful of goya champuru.
Their eyes find each other somehow, in the warmth of sunlight in summer and an experience shared, in the knowing it was going to live inside them forever.
“Hell yes,” Gojo answers for everyone with a grin as wide as the sky.