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“You know, I think anybody could be Gojo Satoru.”
Nanami stills. The night is quiet, the city lights of Tokyo blinking in the distance, the mosquitos buzzing that had become like background noise even seemed to stop, Gojo’s words cut through the stillness like a blade.
“That,” Nanami says slowly, turning his head so fast his neck protested, “is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said.”
Before this, they’d been laying in silence against a hill in the school grounds, enjoying each others companies in silence. A rare occurrence.
“I’m serious.”
Gojo doesn’t look at him as he says this. He’s lying back against the warmed grass, arms folded behind his head, round sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose as usual. But the mist hanging low over the school grounds makes it hard to tell if he’s actually watching the sky, or avoiding Nanami’s stubborn gaze entirely.
“I’m serious,” Gojo continues again, this time his voice is much quieter now. “Give the Six Eyes to anyone, and they could do what I do. Take away my technique, take away the clan name, what’s left? I’m just some guy.”
Nanami exhales sharply, half in frustration, half in disbelief.
“You’re not ‘just some guy,’ Gojo.” His voice firm, but not unkind. “Your technique doesn’t make you who you are.”
For the first time, since starting this bizarre conversation, Gojo turns his head. Nanami, expectant. Anticipates seeing his own face reflected in the tinted lenses, but Gojo has pulled his glasses down just enough to reveal his eyes, those unfathomably blues reflecting in the moons dimmed light, brimming with something unreadable.
“Then what does?”
Nanami doesn’t answer. He thinks carefully before he opens his mouth.
“The way you somehow find a way to pull yourself together again, or at least pretend to, despite your closest friend being labeled a homicidal maniac,” Nanami shuffles up on his elbows before he continues. He’ll regret this later when he’s scrubbing the grass stains out.
“The way that despite having the power to do anything, be anything, you still decide to protect people who are weaker than you. Even when you claim they’re beneath you.”
Gojo is silent. He doesn’t crack a joke, doesn’t deflect. Just watches Nanami, intently.
Nanami looks away, taking in the warm breeze with closed eyes. “That’s what makes you Gojo Satoru. Not the Six Eyes. Not Limitless. You.”
He doesn’t expect a response. He isn’t even sure Gojo is listening anymore, that wouldn’t surprise him. But then—
“…I don’t know if that’s enough anymore.”
The words are barely heard, swallowed almost instantly by the night.
Nanami inhales, steady, sure, and unmoving.
“It will be.” he shifts to his side, making sure to make eye contact with Gojo. “And if it isn’t… then I’ll be here to hold you up.”
—
Gojo runs a gentle thumb over a dust-coated picture, its Nanami’s graduation photo. A snapshot of a time that no longer existed.
“Liar.” The words tumble out before he could stop them, a quiet breath of confession.
The office he finds himself in is silent. Lonely.
Gojo expelled a heavy sigh, propping the picture up roughly in its rightful place on his desk.
Slipping his blindfold on, his last standing barrier from those outside his world, Gojo leaves.