Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yuuji feels dizzy. His vision swims like the effect Hollywood uses in its movies to show that it's terribly hot, and he has to close his eyes until the ripples disappear completely. It's only when he feels nauseous that he opens them again, staggers awkwardly out of bed and reaches the toilet in extremis, where he regurgitates the remains of last night's dinner. In his haste he slams his right flank against the desk but barely notices the pain between bile, saliva and food bowl.

Yuuji grips the cold edge of the toilet seat firmly until his stomach has nothing left to give, not even gastric juices, leaving his oesophagus burning and aching. He then flushes and sits down on the floor, exhausted. Is he sick? Yuuji doesn't get sick. With the exception of the chickenpox his grandfather forced him to catch by sending him to play with sick children on the pretext that "better now than later", Yuuji's strength extends to his immune system. Another reason why Ieiri wanted so bad to dissect him.

Is this what a cold feels like? Or the flu? It all feels too much, even with the bathroom light off. Yuuji sits for a long time, leaning against the toilet in the dark, watching the tap drip, clop clop clop, the cold tiles biting into his bare legs. The bathroom smells of... clean.

Not household products clean. More like emptiness clean. There's no familiar smell of sink cleaner or window cleaner or even face soap. True, there's no shower—communal showers are part of the student life experience, or so Gojo says—but Yuuji has always taken care to perfume the small room. Even the toothpaste smells almost of nothing, he notices after struggling to get up to get rid of the bitter taste of vomit in his mouth. And in a way this lack helps him pull himself together, enough to be able to drag himself to bed without bumping into the desk a second time.

A glance at the clock shows 4:32. Ugh. He still feels like shit, but at least his vision isn't playing tricks on him. He dives headfirst into his pillow— no, his pillows. How long has he had so many? Not counting the ones on the floor and the ones tangled up in his sheets. Yuuji closes his eyes, determined to make the most of the little sleep he has left, but no matter how much he tosses and turns, sleep just won't come. He ends up on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. There's this feeling of unease weighing on his chest like an anvil, preventing him from taking deep breaths no matter how much he puffs out his chest. Anxiety. He's anxious. Why is he anxious? Is it a symptom of the flu? The discomfort spreads to his stomach, which has already been through enough upheaval for one night, and it contracts— Yuuji sits up, panicked. What's wrong with him? What's missing?

As if magnetised, his eyes fix on the pillows on the floor. They're all of different sizes, some bigger than others, and unlike the bathroom they have a smell. Yuuji bends down to pick one up and impulsively buries his face in it. Deep breath. Then instantly pulls his face away. It smells like cake? What the hell? Yuuji takes another gulp of air for a second check and— yep, cake. Dumbfounded, he tries again and again until he can almost taste it on his tongue, the orange blossoms that Grandpa always used in his recipes, the lemon zest, the melted butter, less strong but still present, the brown sugar and even a hint of vanilla.

He's taking deep breaths and even rubbing his face against the pillow when—

"And they call me a narcissist," Sukuna sneers. The left cheek where he formed his mouth is smothered by the pillow, Yuuji becomes suddenly very aware of the sharp teeth dangerously close to the fabric. It wouldn't be the first time Sukuna damages his stuff for the sake of it. Which is why nothing, nothing, prepares him for the long lick that the curse applies to the pillow like one might do to an ice cream.

Yuuji yells, "Dude, what the hell!" He drops the pillow on the floor as if it burnt him and a sense of loss crashes into him like a tanker on a busy roadway. He looks around, disorientated, confused, what, just what, Sukuna laughing in his head doesn't help, and in a brief moment of lucidity dives for another pillow. Huh. Feels better. This one smells like cake too. They all do, Yuuji concludes after picking them all up except the one Sukuna licked because ew. Did he not change his clothes after baking something? It's quite possible. He's not known for often changing his sheets either.

Yuuji picks up and puts down pillows, places them one way and then the other, fluffs them up, rearranges them, only to end up not being satisfied and starting all over again. He's fussing. Which is weird because Yuuji is anything but strict or perfectionist. Among the first years he's the chill guy, the one who agrees with just about everything and doesn't get easily irritated.

But the more he applies himself to the task, the lighter the heaviness in his chest becomes until it completely disappears, leaving him serene before the mess his bed has become. A meticulously organised mess, that said. The pillow he's holding in his arms is the icing on the cake. Literally, as both pillows and sheets smell as if they've spent hours in the kitchens of a bakery alongside orange blossoms and vanilla pods.

He feels warm all over, as small as a chick under it's mother's feathers, content and calm and safe.

Sleep comes easily after all that but doesn't last long.

There's banging at his door. Yuuji curls up against the pillow in his arms, hoping to be forgotten and left to stew in his orange blossom soup in peace, to no avail. "Rise and shine, Yuuji-kun!" Gojo's voice is loud enough to cut through the wood of the door and echo around the room as if he were in it. "You're incredibly late!" Gojo continues while punctuating each word with a knock on the door. Yuuji is surprised not to see it in pieces already. "More than me by thirty minutes! Are you trying to steal my reputation?"

Yuuji tries to answer but it comes out as "aaggghhh", his throat excruciatingly dry from vomiting earlier in the night. He then resolves to wait for Gojo to make his entrance, either by teleportation as is often the case or when the door collapses because of his incessant knocking. And incessant they are: the minutes go by but the man doesn't seem ready to come in any time soon, just knocking and launching into a monologue as he so often does. Yuuji grunts. Wait a few more moments but no, Gojo has acquired respect for privacy between yesterday and today and has decided to apply it on the one day Yuuji is sick.

He reluctantly drags himself out of bed without letting go of the pillow in his arms. He's barely taken two steps when Sukuna shows up on his left cheek again, and Yuuji lets out a long sigh that rivals even Fushiguro's when he does something stupid.

"Cover yourself," Sukuna orders like the king he is.

Yuuji is but a confused subject. "What?"

Sukuna clicks his tongue, irritated and impatient, but when isn't he? "Don't make me repeat myself. You're not opening this door while naked as a worm. Though I suppose it is fitting for the likes of you."

The insult flies over Yuuji's head, but it takes him longer than usual to spot the essential information. He looks down at his bare legs and then his thighs; sleeping in boxers and old T-shirts is considered naked according to the thousand years old curse, huh. Well, he has a point, Yuuji can't appear in front of his teacher in such an outfit— even if said teacher has already seen him naked on a dissection table. But Yuuji is sick, so he simply wraps a sheet around his shoulders, the smell of cake bringing him instant comfort, and opens the door, ignoring Sukuna's silent protests about his method of covering up.

"Yuuji-kun!" Gojo exclaims, fist stopping mid-air, "you had sensei worried for you first thing in the morning!" Although he's wearing his usual blindfold Yuuji can see his eyelids, and therefore his gaze, dropping downwards for a brief moment before rising again and settling on Yuuji's forehead. Suddenly hyper-aware, he rubs his calves together. "Sensei, I'm sorry I missed class but I'm sick."

The fake smile that Gojo constantly wears falls away. He straightens up. "Sick?" he repeats. Yuuji nods and immediately regrets it when his vision shakes. "Yeah, threw up and all. I'm not feeling good overall."

Gojo tilts his head thoughtfully. "You don't seem in heat," he notes. He extends his arm towards Yuuji's face but stops just in front of it, as if to feel the warmth emanating from him with just his fingertips. Yuuji blinks. Heat? Oh. "I don't have a fever," he confirms, moving his face forward so that Gojo can touch his skin properly, no Infinity to stop him. His hand is big and cold and— is that cologne? He buries his cheek deeper into the man's palm and barely notices the way he stiffens, breath hitching like a poorly sealed air balloon.

The smell is wow. Like, it's known that Gojo is more than well off but Yuuji didn't know that money bought such quality products. It smells like Christmas. Not the hot chocolate ho ho ho Santa Claus part (he exists, Yuuji is sure of it) but more the down-to-earth side of Christmas. Yuuji inhales and suddenly it's snowing, there's a mint candy in his mouth and fir thorns stuck in the threads of his gloves. Mint, pine, snow, mud. The smell seems the strongest at Gojo's wrist, where people rub their perfume like he's seen Kugisaki do, and he stops himself from sniffing it like a dog.

So he settles for the palm that covers the whole of his cheek and more. "No fever," Yuuji repeats, returning his attention to Gojo's blindfold.

"No fever," his voice is tight, as is his jaw.

The fingers beneath Yuuji twitch momentarily. Then squeeze. Hard. Yuuji barely has time to react before the pressure is gone, as if it never happened.

Gojo's smile returns, although his teeth are showing a little too much. "Mmmh..." he turns Yuuji's head from left to right, to which he can do nothing but cling at the door's frame, thus dropping his pillow. The sheet slips from his shoulders. "It's not like Yuuji-kun to get sick. Also, I can't help but notice some cursed energy that is neither yours nor Sukuna's."

"Eh? Really?"

"Yep, let me just—" Two fingers rest on his forehead then poof. Yuuji blinks once, twice, as many times as it takes for his legs to respond. "Oh," he says. "Oh, I'm not sick anymore." The earth suddenly shakes, mighty and loud and deep, except it's not the earth but Gojo laughing out loud and Yuuji hearing everything with clear accuracy from where his ear is glued close to the man's chest after he caught him from his fall. Every jolt resonates through Yuuji like a shockwave. The snow and mint return, the fir trees tremble under his laughter, the pines bounce indefinitely until they land in the mud and stay there. Yuuji looks up, Gojo is already looking down. He's being observed from behind the fabric of that blindfold, Yuuji can tell, and suddenly regrets not obeying Sukuna's order to cover up.

With no illness, which was actually cursed energy, clouding his thoughts, Yuuji is very aware of the sheet lying at his feet. His bare feet. His bare calves. His bare knees, bare thighs, all the way up to his underwear. This is embarrassing, mortifying even because this isn't the morgue and he's not on a dissection table. He's standing at the threshold of his room, on tiptoe after Gojo fixed him, caught him, face pressed against a black uniform, a chest and there's—well, there are two arms around his waist, but there's more too. Yuuji knows his cheeks are reddening by the way Gojo's smile widens wickedly, teeth gleaming. Yuuji makes the mistake of lingering on them—they're long and sharp, since when—

There's a rumbling. Like a car engine. It resonates through Yuuji, just as his laughter did. He doesn't have time to process anything before a tremor seizes his chest. His throat scratches like never before, the sensation so unfamiliar that he almost lets a sound escape his lips. No, not a sound. Something else, a response to the earthquake taking place in Gojo's chest. Gojo, by the way, hasn't looked away, still fixed on him, and the arms around him tighten until a hand rests on his back and lowers—

"Than—" Yuuji tries, but whatever was building up in his chest tries to get out all at once, leaving him choking on his own spit. The big, cool hands on his back go to rest on his shoulders to steady him.

"Thank you," he tries again after a long cough. "Thanks for fixing me! Is, er, is class cancelled?" This is awkward, someone speed up his execution now.

Gojo remains silent for a moment before tapping Yuuji's nose. "Of course not! There's a test on cursed tools after all! Can't have you miss it."

His cheeks turn from bright red to white in a matter of seconds. "Is it today?" he asks doubtfully. Gojo just smiles. "Five bonus points if you're ready in ten minutes."

Yuuji scurries back to his room like a rabbit chased by a fox. "Aren't you forgetting something?" Gojo calls out from the corridor. For some reason, Yuuji blushes from head to toe at the sight of his teacher holding the pillow in one hand and the sheet in the other, and the amused expression does nothing to calm the wave of embarrassment-shy-shame that's about to sweep over him. "Right," he says as he retraces his steps. "Sorry about that."

Gojo chuckles, "All's good. However..." The cloth is draped over Yuuji's shoulders again. He can only blink at the man arranging the sheet so that it covers his entire body like a long cape. A draught passes and Gojo's nostrils twitch imperceptibly, the mint suddenly so much stronger that Yuuji runs his tongue over his molars to check if he doesn't have any pieces of candy stuck between his teeth. Gojo seems to notice the movement, six eyes and all working overtime it seems, but he doesn't comment on it except for a pressure on his shoulders.

"Don't open the door dressed so lightly. You don't know who you might run into." The pillow is then passed into his arms.

"What?" Yuuji looks back as Gojo pushes him into his room. "Not you too!"

Gojo tilts his head and the movement is so mechanical, like the tiny dolls Kugisaki trains with, it sends shivers of dread down his spine. "Now, what is that supposed to mean?" The snow swallows the mint whole, lowering the ambient temperature by several degrees.

Alarm bells rings loud and clear in Yuuji's mind. "Nothing!" he says hurriedly and shuts the door in Gojo's face. The corridor is silent for a few minutes, so Yuuji is sure the other has headed for the classroom where his classmates must have been waiting for them for quite a while but a humming proves him wrong. The sound is deliberately pensive, inoffensive, but the icy snow betrays this false facade. "Eh," Gojo trails off, "ten points off for every minute you're late."

Betrayed, Yuuji drops his pillow. "Sensei!" he protests from behind the door.

"No can do, Willy Wonka." Willy who? That old movie about sweets? "Think of Megumi and Nobara, they've been waiting for you for a while now."

"But you always keep us waiting!"

Humming once again. "Fair enough, but that's me!"

"Sensei!"

"About time," says Kugisaki as soon as he walks through the door nine minutes and forty-four seconds later. No shower, no breakfast, but at least he had time to put on his uniform and tie his shoes. "Sorry, sorry, some cursed energy messed me up," Yuuji hurries to sit down at his desk between Kugisaki and Fushiguro. He gives him a beaming good morning smile to which he simply nods.

Kugisaki narrows her eyes. "From yesterday's mission? I knew something was off, it was way too simple."

"You broke your hammer," Fushiguro helpfully reminds her.

"Whose fault was that, huh?" she growls. She growls? It was totally a growl. Yuuji furtively shifts his seat to the right to put some distance between them but she notices right away and grabs the red hood of his uniform. "And where do you think you're go— Huh? Where's your collar?"

Two pairs of eyes fix on him. "My collar?" Yuuji repeats confused. Kugisaki looks at him the way she looks at curses before crucifying them on a concrete wall, which makes Yuuji's neurons race to work out what he's got himself into again. Collar, collar... Wait, collar? The leather thing that was lying on his bedside table? Yuuji hadn't paid any attention to it in his haste to get dressed in time to collect the five bonus points promised by Gojo, but now that he's focusing, the thing looked well cared for and somewhat decorated with flowers engraved in the leather. Like a fashion accessory. Damn, Kugisaki must have given it to him (forced it on him) during one of the many shopping trips she takes him on to carry her bags. And he must have promised to wear it because she doesn't play around when it comes to where her money goes. And now he's forgot to wear it. Oh, he's so screwed.

He swallows loudly. "I forgot to wear it?" When all he gets in reply is an arched eyebrow Yuuji flounders to justify himself. "I woke up late, I just had time to put on my uniform before Gojo-sensei was already dragging me out!"

Fushiguro straightens from where he's been slumped over his desk. "He went in your room?" he asks, and though Yuuji can't see his face because of Kugisaki's iron grip on his hoodie, he can clearly hear the grimace in his irritated voice. He may be the quietest of the trio by far but there's always a hint of anger coloring his words whenever he speaks. Like an orca hiding under ice floes, its presence promises of rampage.

"No, he kept banging on the door until I opened it. Kinda weird if you ask me."

"As he should," Kugisaki finally releases him after a quick inspection of his neck. She takes with her the cloud of cinnamon and clove that had enveloped them both with her wrist so close to his nose. Huh, new perfume? She usually drown herself in vanilla mist.

"Try not to stink up the room, will you?"

Yuuji nearly falls off his chair. He may not have washed this morning but he did take a shower last night before going to sleep! Something inside him revolts at the mere insinuation that he doesn't smell good. "I don't stink!" he shouts in her direction but she's already ignoring him. Self-doubt crawling under his skin, Yuuji turns to Fushiguro. "Do I?"

His eyes widen at the question. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, like the carp in the pond near the training grounds, but no sound comes out. Yuuji frowns at his reaction before realization sinks in. "I do."

"No!" A blush creeps across his cheeks, their ghostly pallor working against him. Fushiguro clears his throat and lowers his gaze to the wood of his desk. "It's not... bad. Your scent." Then, as if to correct himself, "It's normal." Oh, Yuuji must stink like an expired carton of milk if Fushiguro can't even meet his eyes. Did he sweat a lot while sleeping? He was sick after all. Maybe the smell of vomit stuck on his skin or something, he is so taking a shower right after class.

Out of curiosity, Yuuji leans in close to Fushiguro, who still has his head down, to smell the air around him and compare it to his own scent— damn. Okay. Okay, no wonder he stinks according to him. He takes a second breath to be sure, deeper and longer, because he's almost certain Fushiguro has never smelled this good before. Is it the same brand as Gojo's cologne? Surely. Yuuji didn't really understand everything but what he has understood is that the man provides for both siblings. He just didn't know that extended to body odor.

Pear and cedar and thyme. Yuuji is firstly impressed by himself for discerning each note so easily and then by the cologne brand for concocting such a blend. Pears don't get enough praise; it's always apples who get all the fame. He'll have to ask Gojo the name of the brand to leave a positive review on their website.

Yuuji finally straightens up and meets Fushiguro's absolutely flabbergasted gaze. "Oops," he says, having been caught red-handed sniffing his classmate. "At least one of us smells good," he blurts out to lighten the mood, but it backfires because Fushiguro stiffens as if lightning struck him. His eyes widen comically, and Yuuji would have laughed his ass off if the red color flooding his face wasn't starting to worry him. "Man, you good?" he asks, hand outstretched, hesitant over what to do.

That's when Kugisaki decides to butt in. "What's this? I don't see you complimenting my scent." She jabs an accusing manicured finger into his cheek, which Yuuji struggles to brush away. "But you always smell good!" he protests, the finger becomes two, her nails stabbing his skin like dull knives. "And you know it."

"Obviously." She flicks her hair to the side with all the arrogance of a peacock, preening at the praise Yuuji knows she's fishing. The cinnamon thickens in the air so much so that he goes to ask her if she left her bottle open in her bag. He's cut off by Gojo arriving with a file under his arm. "Alright, we've wasted enough time! Everyone, back to your seats."

Kugisaki throws the small glass of ink she keeps on her desk for her fountain pen. It bounces off Infinity and lands effortlessly on the desk where Gojo is leaning, grinning. "We're already in our seats! And you were late too!"

"My, my, Nobara. Is it a good idea to throw ink at me when I'm carrying your tests? Also, what's wrong with Megumi?"

"Itadori broke him."

"I did not!"

It goes without saying that he fails the test even with the five bonus points.

Chapter Text

The train vibrates loudly as it gradually slows to a stop. Yuuji watches as the doors open, people first getting out and then the others entering the carriage. It's quite crowded but they've managed to find seats before rush hour hit and the train got flooded with people heading home.

The train starts moving again and Yuuji sways to the rythm of the metal wheels sliding over the rails. It's a nice feeling. He likes train rides even if they are often synonymous with jostling and bad smells. Although it seems that the Minister of Mobility has had a kind thought for them because Yuuji spots not one but four air purifiers in the carriage, making the air much more breathable. To think Gramps was complaining that his taxes weren't going anywhere useful.

A turn. His body leans to the right and presses against Fushiguro's until the rails are straight again. He doesn't seem to notice with the way he's immersed in his book, non-fiction again because he has old men's tastes according to Kugisaki. She's sitting next to Fushiguro with her phone in her hands, probably editing a picture to put on her Instagram story. Neither of them is talking but Yuuji doesn't mind. They've spent the morning and early afternoon clearing a teaching hospital of curses, albeit weak but numerous. And the hospital wasn't even abandoned! City curses are no joke.

He's spacing out, his eyes scanning the crowd without really focusing on anything, when something catches his eyes. He's sitting down so he can't see her face but there's no doubt it's a pregnant belly he's gazing at amidst all the people standing around. Carrying groceries, no less. "Excuse me," Yuuji calls out, "please take my seat." He stands up and gestures at the seat to make sure he doesn't get declined.

"Oh my, thank you," the stranger thanks him as she sits down next to Fushiguro who raises his head, intrigued by the movement. Yuuji smiles down at her, "No pro—" He nearly chokes on his spit. "—blem." The man smiles back before arranging his bags at his feet as to not block the way.

Yuuji holds onto the railing to avoid falling at the next jolt of the train. And from shock.

He gave his seat to a man. A pregnant man. Surely he didn't mistake him for someone with a slightly plump build? A glance down confirmes that nope, it's definitely a pregnant belly and maternity clothes covering it. Yuuji looks back at Fushiguro and Kugisaki to see if they share his incomprehension but both are absolutely indifferent to the newcomer. Fushiguro even shifts slightly towards Kugisaki to make more room for the man, who offers him a polite smile at that.

Is he tripping? Yuuji's eyes dart back and forth between the man's face and the round belly, trying and failing to find any feminine features. This is a man. Pregnant.

His look of disbelief must have been noticed, because when he looks up from the belly to double-check the man's face for the twelfth time, he's already turned towards Yuuji and their eyes meet. Panicked, Yuuji fixes his eyes on the window and hopes that the stranger won't call him out on his odd behaviour. But can you really blame him? Yuuji doesn't know about the other two, who are as calm as a lake on a hot summer day, but he's never seen a pregnant man before! Probably because men don't get pregnant! He knows that much. You need a womb for that, which men don't have. Most men don't.

Hang on a sec. Hold on, hold on. Technically speaking, trans men do, don't they? But... But don't they take medication like, uh, hormones? Won't that interfere with the pregnancy? If, say, trans men can get pregnant does that mean Yuuji has been staring at a stranger like kids when they see a disabled person? He must have looked so judgemental, shit. And rude, oh God.

A laugh snaps him out of his spiraling thoughts. Reflexively, he follows the sound and lowers his head to see the man he'd been rude to laughing softly with his hand covering his mouth. "I can hear the cogs turning in your head," he says, and Yuuji blushes so hard you could start a barbecue on his cheeks. He starts to stammer out an apology but the stranger shakes his head. "It's fine, it's fine." The laughter returns, catching the attention of both Kugisaki and Fushiguro, who put aside what they have in their hands to follow the exchange. Yuuji lowers his head in apology anyway.

When he straightens up, the man's gaze shifts from his black uniform to the collar around his neck, which Yuuji often wears now to please Kugisaki—he was initially a little embarrassed at the thought of wearing such an accessory but the feeling quickly faded away when he saw how popular it is. Even on the train several people are wearing one, including the pregnant man, each personalized in their own way.

The man seems pensive for a moment before making up his mind. "Do you want to feel her?"

"What?" replies Yuuji smartly.

"The baby," he clarifies, "do you want to feel her? I don't mind."

He glances at the other two, who just look curiously at them, then at the man, then at the people around them, and finally back at the round belly in front of him. He waits until the train reaches the next stop and starts moving again before hesitantly reaching for it. Encouraged by the man's gentle smile, Yuuji slowly places his hand flat just above his navel. The maternity sweater he's wearing is light and thin; the warmth of his skin easily passes through the threads to reach Yuuji's palm. He can't help but let out a little gasp when he feels something slightly move under his fingers. If he concentrates hard enough, straining his hearing as if he were hunting a curse, he can hear the movement of the amniotic fluid over the din of the train and the conversations of people nearby.

A warm sensation washes over him. It's as if he's plunged into a warm bath or taken a sip of hot, sweet tea, the liquid warming everything in its path. Yuuji barely notices the awed smile stretching his cheeks from ear to ear.

"How long till you give birth?" Kugisaki suddenly asks.

"Kugisaki!" Fushiguro scolds her.

"What?"

"They were having a moment."

The man only laughs as they bicker at a low volume. Yuuji discreetly withdraws his hand with a grateful smile, to which he receives a knowing wink.

"I'm seven months pregnant," he informs them. "My due date is in four weeks if all goes well."

"Will you be okay with all these bags?" Fushiguro asks, as thoughtful as ever. "Ah yes, my husband is waiting for me at the next stop." True to his words, he stands up once the train stops, assisted by a very eager Yuuji who offers him his arm to use as support. Up close he can smell notes of wild berries mixed with a strong milky scent that Yuuji assumes is characteristic of pregnancy for everyone. Grass is green, old people smell old and pregnant people smell pregnant.

Only once the doors close does he plop down next to Fushiguro. "That was awesome," he says, stars in his eyes and a wide smile on his face. He turns to them. "That was awesome!"

"I heard you the first time." Kugisaki has already moved on, tapping through several messages on her phone at breakneck speed. Yuuji pouts. "I felt the baby move! And float! And exist! It was... It was..."

"Awesome?"

"Yeah!"

"Right," she says, rolling her eyes. She takes out her pocket mirror that miraculously survived the mission, puts on some lip balm, then smooths down her skirt before standing up. "Where are you going?" Fushiguro asks without looking up from his book.

"I don't have time to listen to him having a baby fever, I have to use my Hada Labo coupons before they expire tomorrow."

"Eh?" Yuuji leans forward to meet her gaze through Fushiguro's wild spikes. "Can't I come?" She wrinkles her nose at that as if the very thought revolts her. "Stop being so clingy! It's exhausting. I want to smell some non-cake-scented air for once." Oops. He's since blamed the smell on the fabric softener he randomly throws into the washing machine on laundry days.

"That's so mean!" Yuuji complains like he's five years old. It comes out high-pitched and watery and plaintive, overall a bit too much even for him, making Fushiguro's head snap up in alarm. Kugisaki wrinkles her nose even more. "This doesn't work on me. Try something else," is all she says before disappearing at the next stop.

They fall into a comfortable silence after she leaves. Fushiguro returns to his book and Yuuji returns to staring into nothing. There are fewer and fewer people as they get closer to the school, and they'll soon get off too. As Yuuji floats through the mix of pears that Fushiguro seems to put on every day and cinnamon left behind by Kugisaki, he can't help but notice that it's been a while since he's heard a page turn. He turns his attention back to the boy next to him. Fushiguro is busy juggling between looking at his book, then at Yuuji, then at his book again and again, without really getting any reading done. Huh. Yuuji follows his line of sight. Huh.

"Are you imagining me pregnant?"

Fushiguro's book slips from his hands. "What?" he asks, bending down to pick it up. "No." His tone leaves no room for discussion, as neutral as ever. Yuuji watches him for a few moments longer. "Sure," he concedes. There's only one more stop before they get off, the train almost empty of people. Yuuji takes the opportunity to stretch his legs and stands up, eager to move after sitting down for so long. He then turns to Fushiguro. His ears are bright red. Yuuji explodes with laughter,

"Dude, you totally pictured me pregnant!" So he wasn't the only one confused at the sight of that man earlier, good to know.

"Don't be ridiculous," he growls but his grip tightening on the edges of the book gives him away. "You did," Yuuji taunts.

"I didn't."

"You did!"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know, man. Why would you?" His blue gaze drops to Yuuji's stomach again. "See! Caught you!"

"You're making a scene."

"We're the only ones here."

The back-and-forth goes on as they get off the train and all the way up to the stairs of the school. The sunset colors the streets orange and pink while the sky takes on a light purple color. It's pretty. He angles his face towards the sky to bask in the setting rays while Fushiguro vehemently denies the accusations he's thrown around as a joke. This is the most Yuuji has heard him talk since he met him. It's funny to mess with such a serious guy and watch his face crunches from frustration.

"Did I at least look good?"

Fushiguro lets out a long, suffering sigh before pushing past him and heading through the tori gate at the top of the stairs. Yuuji laughs genuinely. "Oh, come on! Tell me!" He speeds up to catch up but the other doesn't spare him a glance, walking through the dirt paths and then the training ground. He's heading toward the vending machines, Yuuji realises.

They find Gojo there. Since he's comically taller than the vending machine he has to bend his back to be able to properly see the different drinks available. He doesn't take off his eyes of his beloved strawberry milk even after they arrive. "Welcome back you two! Where's Nobara?"

"Shopping," Fushiguro replies simply, his legs already going in the opposite direction to get as far away from their teacher as possible.

Yuuji intercepts him from behind to stop him from going any further, both arms wrapped tightly around his chest in a back hug. It works because he stiffens and stops right where he is. It feels like hugging a wooden plank but Yuuji merely rolls his eyes and rests his chin on Fushiguro's shoulder so he can see Gojo. If he takes the opportunity to take a sniff or two, no one calls him out on it. It's not Yuuji's fault that Fushiguro woke up one morning and decided to smell good every day of the year! It makes him feel all warm and light inside so he can't help but indulge every now and then.

Even though he's drowning in thyme and cedar, Yuuji can still smell Christmas in full swing from where he's standing on tiptoe—it's fascinating what difference a few extra centimeters can make when they're pressed together. Gojo has moved away from the vending machine to stand at full height, hands in the pockets of his uniform and head cocked to one side. Watching them. The sunset behind him blurs his outline, making his hair stand even more, so white and pristine against the colorful sky. He looks like a mirage. Except that instead of appearing in the middle of the desert to trick thirsty people, he stands tall and imposing in a thick forest of fir trees, his feet firmly planted in December snow with mud staining his shoes.

An idea occurs to Yuuji.

"Gojo-sensei, would I look good pregnant?"

Fushiguro's hands fly out to clasp Yuuji's forearms. He digs his fingernails into the fabric of his sleeves as a warning, but Yuuji barely pays it any attention.

Gojo hums like he does every time he tears apart a piece of information in his head. "What could have possibly brought up such a topic?"

"So, Fushiguro was picturing me pregnant—"

"I was not."

"Was he, now?"

"I was not!" He's starting to sweat. Yuuji frowns down at him. It's just a joke, why is he so stressed over it? He doesn't know how but he kind of can tell that Fushiguro's beyond uncomfortable, like Yuuji bit into spoiled pears and now he can't get rid of the sweetly rotten taste at the back of his mouth. From where his arms are hugging him he can feel the thump thump thump of a fast beating heart. Ah, Yuuji feels bad now.

He releases Fushiguro. The hands gripping his forearms resist a little but ultimately let go. "Sorry, sorry. I was just joking," he laughs, raising his hand to run it over the back of his neck just to change his mind when his fingers meet the leather of his collar. Ugh. It's not unpleasant to wear, but not great either. "Eh," Gojo approaches them without removing his hands from his pockets, like an oversized delinquent. Fushiguro takes a few steps back. "But I'm sure Yuuji-kun would look lovely."

Yuuji narrows his eyes skeptically. "Really?" he asks, more to entertain whatever the man's saying than anything.

"Certainly!" Gojo chimes. "You'll be so round and soft and pink, and I'm not talking about your hair here." He punctuates his point by eyeing him up and down behind his blindfold. Yuuji just laughs at his silly behaviour.

Fushiguro doesn't look amused though. "You mean would. Not will," he says. Ah, he's pissed off. Frowning and all. That'll teach Yuuji for teasing him too much. He'll make it up to him by cooking dinner with more ginger than usual.

Gojo doesn't seem to be taking the jab to heart. "Of course," he smiles, a bland, cold thing, and says nothing else afterwards, just ruffles Yuuji's hair before wandering off towards the main building where Yaga's office is. Fushiguro's shoulders slump heavily in relief as Yuuji watches the long silhouette of their teacher walk away and tries not to mourn the loss of the mint and pines.

"So," he turns to Fushiguro, "what do you want to eat tonight?"

The other looks at him for a long, long moment; filled with frustration, tiredness and exhaustion. He walks towards the dormitories without a word. "Hey!" calls Yuuji. "Hey, wait for me!"

He makes shogayaki ginger pork that evening, to which Fushiguro raises an eyebrow but gladly eats his share and even the second one Yuuji serves him when Kugisaki attracts the attention of the second years by telling how her shopping went. He can't help but smile warmly into his glass of water when pears and cinnamon playfully tickles his nose.

It's only once he's full and clean from a long, hot shower (Yaga still thinks Kugisaki is the one making the water bill skyrocket) that Yuuji lets himself fall onto his bed of fluffy pillows. He curls up with one in his arms as usual, the one Gojo had picked up from the floor the other day. Yuuji is ashamed to admit he thanks the universe every night for making the man's cologne stick to the fabric.

It's kind of creepy to cuddle a pillow that smells like your teacher, but! Such a sense of calm washes over him when Yuuji buries his face in it, instantly erasing any shame as soon as the first hints of mint reaches his nostrils. Snow follows closely, then mud, and finally fir trees.

He's already drifting off to sleep when a notification pulls him from Morpheus' arms. Yuuji mutters intelligible complaints and tries to sink deeper into the bed, tries to fall back asleep, but curiosity eventually gets the better of him. He blindly pats the nightstand for the phone, knocks over his alarm clock and several knick-knacks before finding it.

The brightness nearly blinds him. Yuuji squints, blinks a few times to adjust his sight to the screen, and his scowl immediately disappears. "Hehe," he chuckles, staring at the message until he falls asleep again with the phone still in his hand.

[Fushiguro-kyun] 00:48
good night.

Chapter Text

"Am I being bullied?"

"Shut up and stay still."

A hanger is pressed against Yuuji's collarbone, the plastic digging uncomfortably into his skin. Kugisaki narrows her eyes in concentration with what can only be an expert gaze. "Nah," she pulls the dress off Yuuji's front just to press another one.

"This has to be bullying," Yuuji whines.

"I told you to shut up!"

Two girls glance at them curiously from where they're trying on earrings, to which Yuuji bows slightly his head in apology for the noise. A hand immediately grabs his cheeks. From this close, the brown color of Kugisaki's eyes is much lighter. "Move again and I'll break your spine."

"Scawy," he tries to retort as best he can with his mouth squished by her iron grip.

She gives him a warning look that silences him once and for all. Yuuji leaves her to her analysis, preferring to observe the umpteenth store she's dragged him to. It's Saturday, which means no mission (for once) or classes, which means going out for Kugisaki, which means Yuuji is back at his part-time job as a mule. An unpaid one at that. They're in a shopping mall in Harajuku, packed with people like every Saturday afternoon. Kugisaki loves it, blending into the crowd of young people shopping and looking as cool as they do, moderating her excitement at the sight of shops so as not to blow her cover. There's no shame in coming from the countryside, Yuuji tells her often, but she won't listen. "Not when this is coming from someone from Sendai," she says every time the subject comes up.

Yuuji looks at the numerous bags placed on the chairs near the rows of dresses. There are a lot of them. And Kugisaki hasn't even finished her shopping. This clearly shows that it's Gojo's credit card she's using and not her meager student savings. Yuuji wonders what expression he'll have when he'll see his bank statement full of pants and tops with no trace of polyester. Those are expensive! He shudders just thinking about the price he heard earlier at the cash register. Not to mention the Mary Janes she bought in the previous store.

"Are you done?" Yuuji asks when no more hangers are pressed against him. It's also part of their routine, once Kugisaki has gone through the whole women's section—he thinks? Oddly, the sections aren't divided as men and women but by strange letters that Yuuji is pretty sure he used in math—she heads to another with a weird symbol, like a circle cut in half, and spends twenty minutes there looking at what clothes would suit Yuuji. The thought touches him, truly, if it wasn't dresses and skirts she's trying to get him to wear.

He has nothing against them, okay? But he's never worn any, the thought never crossed his mind for the simple reason that he's a pants guy. A T-shirt and shorts guy. He has more hoodies than socks!

So far he's managed to escape by refusing every item because it's "not his colour", but he can see that Kugisaki's patience is hanging by a thread. "Here, try these on," she tells him, stuffing several items of clothing into his arms. All dresses.

"Kugisaki..." Yuuji starts, hesitating.

"What is it now? They're red! Everything you wear is red! Or yellow. Or orange." True, very true. But. "I don't think dresses suit me."

She crosses her arms. "That's for me to decide. Now shoo," Kugisaki blows in his direction like he's a leaf on a tree. For once Yuuji doesn't waver. "No, really," he insists, "I'm not going to look good in these, I know that." She immediately opens her mouth to retort but he beats her to it. "And even if I did, I wouldn't be comfortable. I appreciate what you're doing, I really do, but I have to say no this time."

Yuuji then waits. Reproaches, insults, nails thrown at his head, being pushed into the fitting room with a hammer. Nothing comes, though. To his surprise, Kugisaki just uncrosses her arms and looks him up and down in silence, thoughts simmering in her hazel eyes. He swallows nervously. "Kugisaki?" he finally asks when the silence has dragged on for far too long.

She blinks, snapping out of her thoughts. "You," she says.

Yuuji straightens his back. "Yes, ma'am."

"You like stirrup socks, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replies immediately.

"How do you like your clothes in general?"

Yuuji takes a few seconds to form a satisfactory answer. "Baggy and comfortable. Preferably warm colors." Unlike Fushiguro and his catalog of gray-blue-black. He'd wear shadows if that was possible.

Kugisaki places her hands on her hips, clearly thinking hard and fast. "What are your thoughts on shorts?"

Yuuji doesn't know where this is going. He replies nonetheless, "I like them."

"What about their length?"

"Um..."

"You're good if they stop above the knee?" she presses. He fiddles with the clothes in his arms. "How short are we talking about?"

"Mid-thigh." Eh. Hmm. "Sounds good to me," he agrees, and without further ado Kugisaki scampers off to the pants section, her heels echoing throughout the store with every step she takes. By the time Yuuji has replaced the dresses in their proper place she's already changed targets and is rummaging through the t-shirts like a woman on a mission. Five minutes later, she returns to Yuuji with a pair of shorts in one hand and a t-shirt and socks in the other. "Try these on," she orders, and this time Yuuji doesn't argue.

The shorts are shorter than expected, covering a third of his thighs rather than half, but they're in a nice red that match his shoes, while the t-shirt is in a creamy white with the kind of graphic writing he likes. It's wide without being long, edged with red stripes, and Yuuji tucks it into his shorts like he sees Kugisaki do when she wears pants. And finally the socks. Stirrups, white but brighter than the t-shirt, stopping above the knee so that only a strip of skin is visible.

He looks at himself in the dressing room mirror. Huh. Not bad? Red is Yuuji's colour after all. The t-shirt falls slightly over his shoulders, revealing his collarbones and highlighting the collar around his neck he's now used to wearing, the dark leather contrasting with his tanned skin. One last look in the mirror and Yuuji steps out to face the tough inspection waiting for him outside.

Kugisaki looks up from her phone. "Mmmh," she says, her eyes passing over his entire body. Yuuji feels like a bacteria under a microscope. "If only you wore sneackers instead of those ugly shoes."

"But they're my trademark!"

She rolls her eyes, "Yeah, yeah. Alright, let's go." Turning on her heels, she strides towards the exit. "Wait," Yuuji calls as he hurries to pick up all the bags left on the chairs to which Kugisaki doesn't spare a glance, knowing full well that he'll be carrying them. "I said wait! What about the clothes I'm wearing!"

"I ripped off the tags before passing them to you. Everything's already paid for." She's already stepped outside with her eyes searching for her next target. Arms laden with bags, Yuuji trots through the store under the amused gaze of the other customers. "Haven't you spent enough money for today? It's getting a bit late." The mall is still teeming with people even with the colour of the sky changing from light blue to salmon pink. "There's this movie scheduled for nine I don't want to miss."

"There's always a movie you don't want to miss. I, for one, am thirsty."

So they head to a café. Typical, Yuuji sighs. There's a line at the entrance, another one of those trendy cafés Kugisaki secretly keeps a list of so she can visit them all one day. The walls are painted light green with little red ladybugs here and there near the tables, painted brown to imitate tree stumps. It's cute. Yuuji can totally see why it's trendy.

He's busy looking at the ceiling to see if the lights are shaped like birds or flowers when he feels a pinch in the small of his back. Surprised, Yuuji turns to Kugisaki but she's got all her attention on the menu, which she's trying to decipher from where they're standing far away from it. He then looks around, in front of him, behind him. Everyone is busy in their own little bubbles, whether it's the waiters rushing between customers or the people in the line, most of them glued to their phones. Well, someone must have just brushed past him because of how crowded the place is.

Yuuji intercepts the next pinch before it even touches him. Turning around, he connects the wrist he's gripping tightly with the man his eyes had passed over not two minutes earlier. Man, well. Although he looks older than Yuuji, the high school uniform and school bag dangling from his shoulder betray his youth. Maybe a third year. He tries to pry his wrist from his grasp. "Hey," Yuuji says, low and grave, remains of his years as the Tiger of West Junior High, "what are you doing?"

"That's what I should be saying! Let me go!"

He struggles harder, making the bags that are now resting in the crook of Yuuji's elbow swing from side to side, and at that Yuuji squeezes his wrist tighter. "What were you trying to do?"

The guy lets out a pained gurgling cry at the pressure applied to his wrist. "The fuck's your problem? I didn't do anything!"

Yuuji frowns. "Then why am I holding your wrist?"

"You tell me! Let the fuck go!" he yells, baring his teeth. Literally. Like a dog. Yuuji had his share of beating wannabes delinquents during his middle school years so aggression is no stranger to him, but never in this... savage way. He looks at the wrist turning blue in his hand. The phantom sensation of being pinched hasn't left him. "Nah, man," he tries again, "you totally pinched me. Twice. What was that for?"

The guy's face turns red with anger and embarrassment at the attention the scene has drawn. The cafe is silent; even the waiters have stopped to take in what's going on.

"This is you bitches' problem," he snarls, baring his teeth again. His canines seem long enough to break skin and tear flesh. Yuuji's taken aback by the insult. He's been called a lof of things in his life, from idiot to humanity's doom. Never that one though. "A little nice weather and you go out dressed like this and then act all surprised when you get the attention you're begging for." He raises his other hand in an attacking motion that Yuuji tracks immediately, reflexes kicking in to counter whatever he's trying to pull off.

A fist connects violently with the guy's face. It's not Yuuji's.

The surprise is such that he lets go of the wrist. With nothing left keeping him on his feet, the guy's whole body is dragged along by the force of the blow and, before everyone's stunned eyes, crashes through the cafe window with a deafening noise. Yuuji's mouth falls wide open as Kugisaki climbs over the broken window without taking her eyes off the man now sprawled on the ground among the bits of glass and terrace tables he knocked over in his fall.

"And you fuckers' problem," she spits as she steps towards him, ignoring the sharp edges of the window ripping her denim skirt, "is that your whole existence is trash. Luckily for you, I kill trashes for a living."

Yuuji snaps out of his stupor just in time to see Kugisaki pick up a piece of glass and dive down on the guy like a falcon ready to rip its prey open. "Wait, wait, wait!" he shouts and climbs over the window too. The bags still on his arms are blocking him from moving and seeing properly so Yuuji has no idea what's going on except for the two arms he's holding tightly around Kugisaki's waist to stop her from committing murder.

People scream. Others call the police, a waiter call an ambulance, all the while the girl in his arms struggles like a demon that crawled out of hell. Kicking and screaming and wrestling. Yuuji's vision is nothing but patches of sky obscured by strands of dyed hair while his nose is overwhelmed by cinnamon and cloves as if he's plunged headfirst into a bag of spices.

The guy on the floor doesn't move. Unconscious. Probably with a broken nose. More than likely in need of several stitches.

Yuuji can't even take a moment to ask himself if he should feel bad about it or not with all the chaos going on. The final straw comes when sirens wail in the distance. "Shit," he curses under his breath. Police or ambulance, he doesn't want to know. In one swift move he lifts Kugisaki over his shoulder, one arm under her knees and one hand flat on her back, and takes off. The streets become blurry as he pushes his legs as fast as the bags hanging from his arms can take. He goes far enough to no longer hear the sirens or the insults Kugisaki utters like an old, angry sailor.

Yuuji stops at a park empty except for two children playing on the swings. "I'll kill him," Kugisaki growls once both feet are on the ground. What's with everyone growling today? Her chest rumbles like a thunderstorm, and Yuuji avoids pointing it out for fear of adding fuel to the fire. "Pretty sure he's half dead," he says, the image in his mind of the guy sprawled on the ground, face covered in blood.

Kugisaki grimaces severely. "Not dead enough." Yuuji sighs. Then looks down at her calves. He hadn't noticed that the glass from the cafe window had grazed her skin, now bleeding onto her white socks. Yuuji takes out his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling Ijichi-san. You can't walk like that and we need someone to cover all this up."

She arches a doubtful eyebrow. "And you think Ijichi-san is the man we need here?"

"It's either him or Gojo-sensei." Nanamin refused to give him his number no matter how many times Yuuji asked. So stubborn. "I don't think calling Gojo-sensei is a good idea." Kugisaki's face loses colour as soon as their teacher's name leaves his lips. She glups, "Call Ijichi-san."

It only takes a few words to convince Ijichi to come get them despite the late hour. Soon enough a black car pulls up to the park entrance, then the assistant gets out and waves at them. Yuuji puts the bags in the trunk first before climbing in the back while Kugisaki takes the front seat.

"So," the girl starts, "we need you to keep a secret."

"A secret?" Ijichi squeaks, already looking stressed. The car hasn't started yet so Yuuji doesn't put on his seatbelt. He leans forward to poke his head between the two front seats. "She punched a guy through a window."

"Eh?!"

"A pervy, disgusting one! He was feeling up Itadori."

Ijichi rearranges his glasses nervously. "Oh, that's not good... I hope you're alright, Itadori-kun." Yuuji smiles warmly at him. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you Ijichi-san."

"Ijichi-san!" Kugisaki yells.

"Yes?!"

"Gojo-sensei can't find out about this! Ever!"

"Or Nanamin!" Yuuji adds. "And Yaga! Even Kusakabe!" Better safe than sorry.

Kugisaki points a finger at Ijichi's stressed, tired face. "He'll torture him to the brink of death just to heal him and start all over again!"

"Yes! He'll— Wait, what? What are you talking about? Gojo-sensei would never!" She gives him a long, long look full of silent judgement before returning her attention to Ijichi. "So we need you to repay the café's window and shut up the police—"

"Don't just ignore me!"

"—without anyone noticing. You feeling up to it?" Ijichi looks on the verge of passing out. His eyes dart from Kugisaki to Yuuji to the road outside like he wants to run away and never come back. "It'll be our secret," he presses, looking right into his trembling eyes. "Just the three of us." When doubt still doesn't vanish from his face, Yuuji tries his last card. "Think of it as a favor. We'll help you out one day just like you're helping us now."

Kugisaki snorts. "You mean you."

"You're not helping."

"I helped plenty!"

"U-Um," Ijichi says. They both snap their heads toward him. It makes him cower for a few seconds before he regains his composure. "I can't garantee that Yaga-san won't know since it is the school funds that will repay the window and thus requesting auto—"

"Ijichi-san, you're the best!" Yuuji and Kugisaki let out at the same time. He snoops them both in a hug that makes her screech like he's thrown holy water at a demon. Ijichi just pats weakly his shoulder.

By the time they get back the movie has already begun. Fushiguro is on the couch with a bowl of untouched popcorn on his lap, scrolling on his phone while the movie plays on the TV. "You're late," he says when he hears them coming in the hallway. Kugisaki makes a beeline for her room with all the shopping bags while Yuuji plops down on the first chair he finds. He's exhausted.

"There was, uh... traffic," he settles for. Fushiguro senses his hesitation as soon as the words leave his mouth and raises his head to confront him, but his voice fails him when he lays eyes on Yuuji's slumped form.

Yuuji raises an eyebrow at his fish-out-of-water face. Fushiguro clears his throat in embarrassment. "I see the shopping went well." Huh. Yuuji follows his gaze, coming face to face with the red shorts and white stirrups he's wearing. Oh! He'd forgotten all about his outfit. With a sudden burst of energy he stands up so the other can see his new clothes better. "What do you think?" Yuuji asks as he twirls around for show, to which Fushiguro rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath. "Kugisaki picked them."

"They're nice."

Yuuji pouts playfully. "That's it?"

Fushiguro's eyes rake over his form, first the t-shirt revealing his arms and collarbones, then the shorts hugging his hips, pausing for a moment on the visible skin of his thighs before moving down his legs to the soles of his feet which the stirrups envelop. He doesn't blink the whole time. "Red suits you," he says after a long silence.

Knowing he won't elaborate any further, he sighs in defeat before heavily sitting back down. "Well, I need to change anyway."

Fushiguro looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "You'll miss the whole movie if you shower now."

Yuuji grunts, "Fair enough," then stands up to step over the distance separating him from the couch. A ringing stops him in his tracks. It's his phone. He apologises and then heads for the genkan where he'd left it on top of the shoe cupboard earlier. The bright screen displays Gojo-sensei's name. Huh. Yuuji has a bad feeling about this. "Hello?" he answers, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

"Good evening there!" comes Gojo's cheerful one. "How's my dear, sweet student doing?"

"I'm good, sensei! What about you?"

"Kicking like a goat! You know your teacher," he trails off, to which Yuuji laughs despite his nervousness. "Say, Yuuji-kun, do you want to hear something funny?"

Oh, this can't be good. "Y-Yeah?" his voice wavers even with his best efforts to stop it. Gojo chuckles. It's a cold sound. "So, I was bullying Ijichi to fill out my paperwork for me, you know as usual, and he let slip something very interesting!"

So much for keeping a secret. "I'm sure he didn't mean whatever he said," Yuuji tries to salvage the situation.

"Mmmh, maybe, maybe not. The important thing is that I now have before me not only a material damage report but also a police report. Do you want to know what it says?" This is taunting, Gojo knows that Yuuji knows what he's talking about. He wants to make him as uncomfortable as possible. He coughs to regain his composure.

"I don't think police matters has anything to do with me."

Gojo laughs a mirthless laugh. For someone so mightily beautiful it comes out ugly. "Oh, but it has everything to do with you. And everything that concerns you concerns me. I'm your teacher, after all." Cold sweat begins to roll down his back like a waterfall. "In fact, I'm thinking of paying a certain someone a visit at the hospi—"

Yuuji panics. He hangs up.

Crap. A heavy silence falls over the genkan, where only his breathing can be heard, until it is broken by the ringing of the phone in his hands. Crap. Yuuji drops it in the pocket of a random coat and returns to the common room without looking back even though the phone is still ringing loud and clear.

He sits down next to Fushiguro, who has started eating the popcorn while waiting for him. He looks at Yuuji suspiciously. "What's with you?"

"Nothing!" he answers too loudly and high-pitched. "Nothing. Let's watch this movie." The phone ringing in the distance finally stops. Then starts up again. "Turn up the volume," Yuuji asks.

"Your phone—"

"Turn it up."

Fushiguro turns it up.

Chapter Text

One does not simply avoid Gojo Satoru.

Yuuji's teacher is the strongest, the tallest, the flashiest, the smartest. The most objectively handsome, if beauty is anything to go by. In short, the world revolves around him and the sun, but mostly him. A radioactive star shining blue, blue, blue. Gojo resembles the angels illustrated in Christian renaissance paintings; divine and out of reach as well as creepy and all-seeing with more eyes than fingers, more wings than teeth.

He's just that guy. That doesn't stop Yuuji from avoiding him.

It's not that he wants to, okay? Yuuji is more than uncomfortable with the situation he's got himself into. He spent the whole of Saturday night with his eyes wide open and turned towards his bedroom door in dread of it opening to reveal the man Yuuji had been ignoring all evening. Thirteen missed calls. He doesn't know what scares him more, the sheer number of calls or the fact that Gojo has decided to stop right at this unlucky number, leaving him with a deep sense of unease seeping into his bones.

Hence his insomnia. It wasn't until the first light of day that his muscles finally relaxed to the timid chirping of early birds. Yuuji didn't even notice he fell asleep until warm rays gently pulled him from his slumber. Afternoon rays, they were, because Yuuji had slept until three in the afternoon. A record, for he's usually an early riser.

With slow, lazy steps, he makes his way to the common kitchen in the hope of finding some leftovers from this morning's breakfast, or even lunch at this point. After a bit of rummaging Yuuji finds some cooked rice, a bowl of miso in the fridge and two slices of salmon. Well, that'll do. He heats it all up, trying not to feel like the rats in Ratatouille digging through the bins for food, although his messy appearance does nothing to stop his brain from making the comparison.

No one passes through the kitchen while he's eating. This doesn't surprise him, Sundays are slow and devoted to self-care. Alone time, Kugisaki calls it. "More like your alone time," Fushiguro had said when she named it, to which he had to dodge the fork she threw at him. It's true that Sundays are a battlefield for Kugisaki; it's the day she reserves for the famous everything shower: hair, hair balm, mask, waxing, moisturising, cream and lots of other stuff that Yuuji didn't understand when she launched into a long explanation of the process. Plus her nails and hair dye if either needs renewing, then trying on all the clothes rotting in her closet.

And although he claims to have not approved of the name, Yuuji can see that Fushiguro likes his Sundays in the confines of his bedroom. Calm and silent, he sleeps all morning and most of the afternoon to fully enjoy the night like the nocturnal creature he is.

As for the second years, Yuuji only knows Panda spends quality time with Yaga, but that's all. Maybe Inumaki and Maki hang out together? Or do their own thing. Or even study, since second-year classes are busier. Huh, studying. Yuuji hasn't touched a notebook since he swallowed that cursed finger.

No wonder he fails all his tests. Perhaps that explains Fushiguro's exemplary grades given that he reads in his free time and non-free time.

Yuuji is hesitating between finishing his two new mangas or opening his dusty notebooks when emergency sirens go off in his mind. He lowers his chopsticks, the piece of salmon falling back onto the rice, and glances around the room, his senses on the alert. Nothing has changed between now and two seconds ago, yet Yuuji's heart rate accelerates in the familiar anticipation of a fight. No, not a fight. Yuuji's instincts are telling him to flee, to brace himself for imminent danger, to get away.

So Yuuji runs.

He doesn't even bother to clear the kitchen counter. The bowls of rice and miso are left behind as he strides out of the kitchen and across the dormitory towards his room. On the lookout, nothing escapes his ears; not the wooden planks creaking under his footsteps, not the ticking of the clock in the common room, not even Fushiguro's steady breathing asleep in his bedroom. It's only when he's safe and sound with the door closed behind his back that Yuuji allows himself to breathe and think about what he's just done.

He... ran away. Just like that, suddenly, for no particular reason. Well, Yuuji always thought of his instincts as infallible and that reacting according to what they told him was always the right thing to do, so why doubt what they always guided him to do when his brain was too slow to form thoughts? Until now.

Yuuji moves away from the door to stand in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest with a thoughtful look on his face. Is Sukuna messing with him? He's been quiet for a while now, only coming out occasionally, and even then he doesn't say much. It's a strange. And weird. The only other possibility would be that a curse was wandering around near the dormitories, but then again, this is literally a jujutsu school with lots of weird barriers that do, uh, stuff. Admittedly, Yuuji didn't listen in class, but that's not the point here. The point is that he can't imagine curses roaming freely around campus on a fine Sunday afternoon.

He gets the answer to his questions a few minutes later. The feeling returns, this danger, this apprehension, this need to flee far, far away. Yuuji can feel Sukuna straightening up on his macabre throne of bovine skulls, the curse's senses as alert as his own. Muscles tense, eyes wide as he stares at the door while one foot inches towards the window in case he needs to flee. It's not like Yuuji to just flee, he never runs before assessing the danger, so why—

The corridor floor creaks. Then comes the mint, the snow. The mud. The fir trees, the pines. Yuuji is done for.

The thirteen missed calls come flooding back into his mind with all the force of a plane hurtling down the runway. How, how could Yuuji forget the reason why he slept so late? Oh, Gojo must be so angry at having been ignored like that. Yuuji admits one hundred percent that it was disrespectful, not only from one person to another but also from a student to his teacher twice his age— somewhere in Tokyo, Nanami is probably proud of his self-awareness.

Nonetheless, notwithstanding, nevertheless, regardless—he's running out of synonyms— they screwed up big time with that café window and the whole thing with the police and even the hospital, from what he gathered of last night's brief call. Yuuji never had to answer to any adult for the way he handled the self-entitled delinquents on the streets of Sendai, not even his grandfather, for the very simple reason that he didn't cause any property damage or attract the attention of the police, as delinquents that land in the hospital keep their mouth shut out of pride and shame.

So, Yuuji may have reacted in a panic at the time but some nameless feeling, instinct or intuition, the same one that made him flee the kitchen, had taken hold of his guts with a single message to convey: no matter how unlikely it is, a mad Gojo is not a good thing. Which Yuuji is seriously beginning to believe; because every heavy footstep echoing down the corridor makes his blood freeze by three degrees to the point where, when the man stops right in front of his room, Yuuji is sure he has unlocked the deluxe edition of hypothermia.

Fight, flight, freeze or fawn. These are the four ways in which a body can respond instinctively to danger or fear. As a budding sorcerer, Yuuji has had plenty of opportunities to experience his muscles tensing up to fight a curse that has suddenly appeared or, like in the kitchen, to flee without having to think twice about it. Freeze tastes like the bad memory of his body refusing to move in the detention center because of the Special Grade's deadly aura that cut his hand like it was made of butter.

Fawn, however, is new to Yuuji. He knows what it is in theory, having seen it in several animal behaviours; whether it's a stray dog cowering in the face of a larger one or the big cats at the Yagiyama Zoological Park showing their bellies in submission to avoid conflict with their pride leader. To please, to submit, to avoid confrontation. Definitely not Yuuji's style, all hard muscles and sharp edges, and yet.

And yet, all he wants to do now is open that door and roll over on the floor, show his belly where all his vital organs are crammed together to submit to Gojo and hope to appease him. As if Gojo would enjoy seeing his student squirming like a worm on the dirty floor, ugh, maybe Sukuna's onto something when he insults him like that.

He doesn't make a fool of himself, thank goodness, but Yuuji still finds himself prey to his deranged instincts screaming at him to submit to the authority of... of... of someone superior to him.

The clash between the rational part of his brain and whatever the fuck the instinctive department is telling Yuuji to do is such that he goes from fawn to freeze due to his own confusion. His already stiff muscles tense even more and stretch like a bow ready to fire an arrow, so much so that he can feel the cramps it will cause the next day. He doesn't blink, doesn't move, barely breathes, all the while Gojo is still on the other side of the door. The smell Yuuji has come to recognize as Gojo's seeps from under the door as the seconds drag on, filling Yuuji's lungs with ice so cold he'd cough if his throat wasn't as tense as the rest of his body.

Gojo doesn't move either. Nor does he knock. He knows Yuuji knows he's there and is probably waiting for him to open the door like the other day when he was sick. Which Yuuji would gladly do if his body hadn't spectacularly failed him and decided that playing dead is the second best thing to do after rolling over on the floor like a needy cat.

Because that's what he's doing, right? Yuuji's body—he refuses to be associated with this behavior—plays dead, hoping Gojo will move on from him. Except! The rational side of his brain tells him that's the worst thing he can do! If Gojo was a little angry about the whole window thing and the missed calls, now he must be seething at this whole silent circus Yuuji is performing.

Even with the wood of the door separating them, Yuuji can feel the full intensity of the Six Eyes upon him, tracking his every move. Surely Gojo can tell that Yuuji hasn't moved an inch since he appeared in front of the door. He feels like he's in a horror game, the one released three years ago with those cannibalistic monsters that force players to remain motionless or risk being spotted. Yuuji couldn't have bought it back then, having only a Nintendo DS instead of a PlayStation 4, but he's seriously starting to wonder if he plugged in the VR version before going to sleep. He can almost see the don't move sign flashing on the door.

It's not very polite to compare Gojo to a cannibalistic monster (wendigo? something like that) and it would never have crossed Yuuji's mind if he wasn't acting so terrifying! Seriously, what's his problem? Sure, Yuuji here has some instinct-reasoning coordination issues, but that doesn't give Gojo the right to act like that. Why doesn't he say anything? Why doesn't he just open the damn door instead of standing there like a horseman of the Apocalypse and tormenting Yuuji even more?

Okay, okay. The café window? Not cool. The guy Kugisaki sent to the hospital? Problematic but deserved—he meditated on it during his insomnia. The missed calls? Disrespectful, Yuuji admits. Whatever he's doing right now? Not cool at all but—

Ah, Yuuji is totally at fault here. No wonder Gojo is waiting for him to open first.

The imaginary don't move remains written in glowing letters until Gojo's overwhelming presence fades after what seems like hours of apprehension. Yuuji was so sure the door would be broken down, Gojo isn't known for his patience after all, that he collapses once the last notes of pine trees disappear.

Oh, Lord.

Muscles relaxed, the flow of blood returns at high speed supplying oxygen to his whole body. Yuuji allows himself a deep breath of air before stretching out his limbs in a starfish position on the floor. Oh, Lord. He almost died. Maybe not by Gojo's hand but certainly from stress. And Ijichi lives under constant stress? How is that guy even alive. Yuuji frowns, the traitor. He didn't even last two hours before spilling the beans to Gojo the second he saw him. Although he can't really blame him with how Gojo can be when he wants information. Agh, now the situation is much worse than it was, is this the snowball effect?

Yuuji remains sprawled on the floor of his room, staring at the ceiling with his mind lost in spiralling thoughts until dinnertime where he drags his wobbly legs to the common kitchen. Most of the student body is there, minus Kugisaki and Panda for reasons Yuuji can't quite hear as Maki scolds him for not clearing his cutlery after eating earlier. Yuuji apologizes and promises to be more careful, never mentioning the scare their teacher gave him.

"By the way, Toge," Maki says between bites of rice, "you're good for tomorrow?"

"Salmon," replies Inumaki, sitting to Yuuji's right. To his left, Maki clicks her tongue. "If our overall grade suffers, I'll decapitate you." Woah, scary.

Across the table, Fushiguro delicately savors the chicken Yuuji has hastily prepared. "Maybe Inumaki-senpai's ankle will be less swollen by tomorrow."

"As if!" Maki huffs. She points her chopsticks at Inumaki accusingly. "Why did you have to injure yourself right before the start of the week! Kusakabe's already a pain to deal with, now he's going to penalize us for the extra paperwork the mission delay will have caused."

"Bonito flakes, tuna, tuna."

Yuuji doesn't quite understand what's going on. But. "Is Inumaki-senpai injured?" he asks, to which the person in question nods. "And you have a mission tomorrow?" Another nod. For someone in a predicament Inumaki doesn't look worried, happily munching on his dinner while Maki looks like she's about to break her chopsticks. An idea begins to form in Yuuji's head. "I can take on your mission," he offers Inumaki.

"Mustard leaf?" Eh, he's not yet fluent in the language of condiments. Yuuji launches into an explanation anyway, "If I take on your mission, Kusakabe won't have to reschedule it for another day. He'll just have to give you another one for when you're feeling better, so it'll save him paperwork!"

"And no penalty for us," Maki finishes.

She puts one arm around Yuuji's shoulders and ruffles his hair with the other. "At last, a kohai useful to his senpais." Yuuji can't help but laugh at the rough affection while Fushiguro murmurs that he's not useless. Maki is tough and super cool but, if he's honest, Yuuji prefers her most when she shows friendly camaraderie. Sure, she prefers high fives to hugs and he can barely smell her already very very light plum perfume, but he knows not to be ungrateful.

"Wait," Fushiguro interrupts, "when's the mission?"

"Tuna mayo."

"In the morning? He can't, we've got class." Leave it to Fushiguro to sabotage his carefully improvised plan. Yuuji almost swallows his tongue in his haste to get Inumaki's attention. "It's all good! I'm sure Gojo-sensei won't mind if it's for a good cause."

"Yeah," Maki backs him up, bless her soul, "he'll survive a few hours without Yuuji." Victory is declared when Inumaki passes half of his chicken portion onto Yuuji's plate as a thanks. It almost makes him feel bad for using his senpai's dire situation like this, but Yuuji has no choice. He can't just turn up at eight o'clock sharp on Monday morning in front of Gojo as if nothing had happened the day before. He needs time to think, to formulate a proper apology, an explanation for his odd behaviour other than you were so scary my body decided to either show you my belly or play dead.

Once again he barely sleeps even after a long, hot shower, his nerves on edge at the prospect of his primary mission: avoiding Gojo. The next day, Yuuji is ready at six o'clock, all clean from his shower and with a stomach full of the breakfast the others will find already prepared when they wake up. Yet he has to make at least three trips back and forth between the genkan and his room because he always forgets something in his mounting panic of running into Gojo as the hour ticks by.

His phone, his student ID, the keys to his room. He gives up on going back to put on the collar when he notices he forgot the damn thing too. Yuuji got too used to wearing it anyway.

To his great relief, the only person he sees is Maki outside the dormitories. "Off you go!" she sees him off with a heavy pat on the back as she starts her morning jog. Yuuji doesn't need to be told twice. He trots all the way to the black car waiting for him at the bottom of the school stairs. "Nitta-san, good morning!" he greets once he's in the car, seatbelt fastened.

"Morning," she replies less cheerfully, but hearing her accent still brings a smile to his face. "No more last-minute changes please, I've had to edit a lot of documents."

Yuuji holds up his little finger, "Promise!" She smiles at his silliness before handing him a tablet and then starting the car. Yuuji reads the contents of the mission as the scenery passes by on the other side of the windows. It doesn't look particularly complexe, even though it was supposed to be a solo mission for a second-year student.

Grade Two curse haunting the alleyways behind a casino, causing the regulars to behave so violently towards each other that fights break out every night. Meh, no problem. Yuuji got this.

Nitta parks at the east exit of Ikebukuro Station, which is already full of people given the early hour. "It's a bit tricky to get any further," she informs him, "but it's a five-minute walk from the station so you should easily find it. I'll wait for you on a quieter street, okay?" Yuuji thanks her, returns the tablet and then mingles with the crowd of people going in and out of the station. Indeed, it didn't take him more than three minutes to reach his destination. The casino is closed, as are most of the shops around it, but that's not what interests Yuuji. He enters the alleyway formed by the wall of the casino and that of the adjacent building, forever contaminated by the smell of cigarettes, vomit and rubbish. The smell of gambling and shaddy business.

Like all alleyways, it's dark in the middle, strangely silent compared to the busy streets just a few meters ahead. When his eyes don't spot anything unusual between trash bags and old cardboard boxes soaked by the rain, Yuuji focuses on his hearing.

Soon enough, the distinctive and now more than familiar sound of a curse reaches his ears, the miasma gurgling like the bubbles of an overheated soup, thick and dense. It's sickening, it's revolting, and it's coming from above.

Yuuji looks up. Yep, a curse is staring down at him with its multitude of eyes from its perch, a closed window of the casino. He doesn't even have time to debate whether it's better to climb to the roof for a clearer view before the curse dives headfirst toward Yuuji. An open mouth decorated with rows upon rows of teeth, like a shark, narrowly misses biting into his torso. He rolls out of the way but miscalculates how narrow the alley is, his shoulder scraping one of the walls. It reminds him of the times when, as a child, he scraped his knees and the palms of his hands at school or the playground, which Grandpa always patched up for him after much scolding.

Straightening up, Yuuji takes in the narrowness of the alley and the distance separating him from the curse. It's big, a sort of cross between a seahorse and an eel, slimy but fast, with too many eyes for Yuuji's comfort. Ugly, too, but he's not sure that's an useful information. Behind the curse that doesn't seem to want to move first, a high wall rises to at least six meters, high enough to qualify as a dead end. Okay, Yuuji can work with that.

He generates the blue flames of his cursed energy before slowly backing away, never taking his eyes off the curse.

The plan is simple but efficient: leaning on one of the walls to jump up high until he reaches the wall of the dead end and uses it to propel himself toward the back of the curse, thus avoiding its mouth full of sharp teeth. A good concentrated blow of cursed energy should be enough to exorcise it. Determined, Yuuji turns fast on his heels to use the few meters in front of him as run-up. He takes off, speed restrained but nonetheless fast, muscles tense, heart pounding from the brief effort, breathing controlled.

He sees Gojo.

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

Yuuji, absurdly, inconceivably, sees Gojo. His teacher is there, on the other side of the street leaning against the front of a shop that hasn't yet opened, his hands in his pockets as if there's nothing strange about his presence. For a brief moment Yuuji thinks he's hallucinating, unlikely, or confusing him with someone else, even less likely. No one other than Gojo Satoru walks around with a blindfold on his face in addition to the black uniform and gravity-defying white hair.

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. The wheel of fortune launches, turns and turns and turns. One spin, two spins, three spins, progressively slower until it comes to a complete stop.

The arrow lands on flight.

Yuuji brakes, digs the soles of his shoes into the ground to stifle his burst of speed, then turns around and runs. Away from Gojo and toward the curse.

It's stupid, unreasonable even, that his brain would recognise Gojo as a greater danger than the seahorse-eel monster opening its mouth wide at Yuuji's change of direction. But the accumulation of misunderstandings and mistakes upon mistakes has made this whole story, which started out as just a little problem to now Yuuji's body running away from Gojo, a little more complicated. Because he missed his morning class on purpose because Yuuji ignored him against his will on Sunday because he ignored Gojo's calls on Saturday because he dodged talking about the mess they caused earlier that day. Never run away from your problems or you'll end up like Yuuji right now.

And running does not get you very far. He's barely halfway down the alley when a big hand clamps down on the back of his neck like the claws of these arcade plushie games that's impossible to win on the first try. And then nothing.

Yuuji just... lets go. The ground shifts beneath his feet even though his eyes tell him otherwise, not unlike the unpleasant sensation of falling in a dream, your whole being sucked into the void. Except instead of waking up with a start, Yuuji's mind lands on a thick, fluffy cloud smelling of bitter December cold. He sees without seeing, hears without hearing. His mind is far away, his body barely responsive. Yuuji's eyes stare uncomprehendingly at the hand that Gojo raises towards the curse. He blinks, the seahorse disappears.

Yuuji blinks again and comes face to face with Gojo's nose just a few centimeters from his own. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, his jaw clenched, his eyebrows probably furrowed under that blindfold. From this close up, icy winds are wagging war against fir trees, gusts so violent their needles falls into the mud below.

"Yuuji-kun," Gojo says in flat voice devoid of emotions. The hand on the back of Yuuji's neck tightens. "Did you run from me?"

Yes, Yuuji wants to say. Yes, I did and I'm sorry, I should have rolled over on the floor when I had the chance instead of making the situation go from bad to worse. Yuuji wants to say a lot of things but neither his body nor his mind can keep up. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, pasty, while his legs almost give out. What's happening to him? Is this some manipulation of cursed energy like when he first met Gojo and got sent to sleep with two fingers on his forehead?

Gojo doesn't seem alarmed by his lack of answers. "Ignoring me is one thing, though I don't appreciate that either. But running away from me?" The tighter the grip on the back of Yuuji's neck the more confused his perception becomes. Gojo is scolding him, Gojo is not happy, oxygen is nothing but mint and mud and snow. Yuuji's lungs freeze as Gojo presses their foreheads together. "You don't run from me, for any reason. Not even if I order it." Yuuji falls, this time for real, but again he doesn't get far.

Hand still in a tight grip on his neck, Gojo tucks his other arm under his legs and lifts him as if he weighs nothing. They're in the alley until they're not, the sky clear, the asphalt reflecting the shy morning sun, the streets deserted, Nitta's frightened stare from the driver's seat of the car.

"Out," Gojo orders the assistant, who opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water at the sudden appearance of the man with a disoriented Yuuji in his arms. "G-Gojo-san—"

A growl. "Out."

She rushes out and almost falls on the sidewalk in her haste. Yuuji sees the sky turn from blue to black. They're in the car. Back seat, his slow mind notices long after Gojo has finished positioning Yuuji so that he's sitting sideways on his lap.

His shoes are resting on the seats. Yuuji tries to remove his legs so as not to dirty them but a growl makes him stop dead in his tracks. He doesn't need to look up to know it's coming from Gojo. Muscles tense and hands trembling, he can only hold his breath in the same apprehension he felt on Sunday afternoon, except this time he's sitting on Gojo's thighs instead of standing before a door.

Yuuji can't even bring himself to be embarrassed by this, not when the air in the car is this much saturated by the man's cologne. Yuuji inhales Gojo and exhales Gojo, again and again.

The seconds stretch into long, interminable minutes spent in dead silence with nothing to break it, the car's engine being switched off. Then Gojo sighs.

Without warning, the pressure on Yuuji's neck disappears, along with the sensation of floating underwater. Sounds and colours return, motor skills as well though the first thing Yuuji's freed body does is slump against Gojo's chest. He tilts his head so he can meet that blindfolded gaze. "Sensei," he manages to articulate despite the heaviness of the words, "sensei, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

When he receives no immediate response Yuuji begins to grow alarmed. "Are you mad? I know you are but I didn't mean to do all that." His fingers weakly grip the fabric of Gojo's uniform. "It's just— I didn't mean to run, my body just—" At a loss for words, Yuuji can only stare pleadingly into the black of Gojo's blindfold, hoping his Six Eyes will see the sincerity he can't convey through words.

Expression unchanged, Gojo tilts his head slightly. "Told you to do those things?" Yuuji nods as best he can with his cheek pressed against the other's broad chest. The steady heartbeat beneath his ear brings him comfort in the strangest way. "And what does your body tell you now?"

"Eh?"

"Your body," Gojo repeats, placing one hand flat against Yuuji's back while the other comes to rest under his jaw, swallowing it whole with his palm. "What's it telling you?"

Not only can he feel his cheeks heating up but also Gojo's gaze resting on them and carefully observing as they turn from beige to pink to red. Yuuji looks away, ashamed, but quickly changes his mind when the fingers cupping his jaw tighten in warning. Yuuji glups.

"To—" the embarrassment is such that he doesn't know where to look. Only Gojo's eyes are covered and yet Yuuji knows they are wide open, electric blue, radioactive, burning the fabric atom by atom.

"To bare my neck," Yuuji finally manages to reveal what his instincts have been screaming at him ever since Gojo removed his hand from the back of his neck. Fight was never an option, freeze just complicated the situation, flight made it worse than ever. Turns out fawn was the right choice to make from the very beginning, if only Yuuji hadn't avoided it until now.

The thumb previously pressed into Yuuji's cheek releases a little pressure and begins to move up and down, gently caressing the skin from the cheekbone to jawbone. "What are you waiting for then?" Gojo asks, whispering, voice the velvet of a rug that Yuuji can only tangle his feet in. His eyes fly from the blindfold to the aquiline nose to the glossy lips to the pale cheeks to the white hair, looking for a single sign contradicting his words.

Unsurprisingly, he finds none.

After three days of running, Yuuji finally gives in. He leans forward, lowers his head and bares his neck to Gojo. It should be awkward, and it most certainly is; a student on his teacher's lap presenting his neck like a three-month-old puppy, but what's even weirder is that it feels right. It's the right thing to do, Yuuji is now sure of it. Even more so when he feels a cold nose brush against the skin of his neck, making him jump slightly. Gojo lets go of his jaw and wraps both arms around Yuuji's waist, his head lowering to his neck. The fine hairs on his arms stand up as Gojo nuzzles it, at first just a brush that deepens more and more until each skin-on-skin friction sends shivers running through his body.

"S-Sensei," Yuuji stammers, overcome by all sorts of new sensations. The red in his cheeks spreads to his ears and then down to his throat and neck. Gojo can probably see it if he weren't busy inhaling through his nose as if every breath wasn't enough. Yuuji's stomach tightens, flips, explodes, and implodes as the air becomes harder and harder to breathe. He can almost see frost forming on the windows of the car that started without Yuuji noticing. Except no, the deafening rumbling rattling Yuuji's bones isn't coming from the engine, it's coming from Gojo.

Yuuji's hands let go of the man's uniform to instead grip Gojo's arms around his waist. "Sensei, are you still mad?" he asks over the rumble his own chest tries to make in tandem with Gojo's. He coughs once, twice to silence it, to which Gojo tightens his grip even more. Yuuji grimaces. "I won't avoid you again sensei, I promise."

Gojo lets out a long sigh that makes Yuuji squirm as the hot breath lands on his neck. "I'm not mad," he says.

"Then—"

"But," Gojo interrupts him, "behave like that again and I won't stop at just a simple scruffing." Is that what it's called? Every word spoken sends warm air moistening his nape. Yuuji can feel Gojo's lips moving as he speaks. "Yuuji-kun is usually such a good boy, so imagine my surprise when I saw his desk empty this morning. You know the rest."

Yuuji tucks his head into his shoulders as best he can. "Sorry," he says again, feeling sternly scolded. Gojo hasn't finished, though. "And running away from me! Me! You broke my heart, Yuuji-kun."

Yuuji lets out a nervous laugh. "You were kind of scary," he admits.

Despite his previous anger, he can feel Gojo smiling against the back of his neck. "Only to misbeheaving boys."

They fall into a comfortable silence, although Yuuji's back starts to throb a little due to his bent position. Gojo seems to notice because he pulls his face away from his nape with one last inhale and straightens Yuuji on his lap. Yuuji looks up at him. "Um..."

Gojo grins with too many teeth, "Hmm?"

"So, do we go back?" Technically they both skipped class, one as a student and the other as a teacher. And given that the curse Yuuji was supposed to exorcise was pulverised by Gojo in less than two seconds, there's nothing left for them to do here. Gojo hums, falsely pensive. "Do you want to?"

Trick question. Or not. If he's honest, Yuuji doesn't want to go home yet, not when he's only just found comfort in Gojo's presence. Once the storm has passed, the car now seems like the safest place in the world, like an igloo in the middle of a dense pine forest.

Once again Yuuji's cheeks flush with embarrassment. "I guess we can stay a little longer. Until Nitta-san gets back." The poor girl ran for her life without even taking the car keys with her.

At this Gojo smiles, then unties his arms from Yuuji's waist. He squeaks at the loss of the warmth they provided and squeaks again when Gojo starts to open the jacket of his uniform. Wide-eyed, he watches as his teacher removes it completely before draping it over Yuuji's shoulders, his black t-shirt underneath revealing thick, pale arms. Yuuji does not look.

Gojo taps his nose to get his attention. "Put your arms through the sleeves," he says, which Yuuji does without thinking.

The sleeves are too long, the fabric too wide. He's swimming in it. It's strangely comforting, the jacket, him on Gojo's lap, the cologne he can almost taste on his tongue. Yuuji drops his head against Gojo's chest, suddenly tired from the rollercoaster of emotions he's been through. The lack of sleep of the last few days is starting to catch up with him. The thigh under his butt lifts slightly so that Yuuji is more snug against Gojo's solid but warm chest.

Cheek pressed against it, Yuuji looks up at Gojo. He finds him already looking down. "Sensei, isn't this kind of inappropriate?"

Gojo rests his own cheek on Yuuji's hair. "Is it?" he asks, both bare arms back around his waist.

"Stop answering my questions with questions, it throws me off."

Gojo laughs, "And we can't have that, can we?" Yuuji butts his chin with his head. "You didn't answer."

"Nah, it's not." A moment of silence, then, "Don't tell Nanami about this, though."

"Eh, Nanamin? Why?"

"Why, I wonder?"

"You're doing it again!"

Yuuji falls asleep long before Nitta returns. She's there when he wakes up, smiling nervously at him in the rear-view mirror as he blinks, confused as to why he can smell Gojo but can't feel his presence. The answer comes in the form of the much too big for him black jacket Yuuji's still wearing over his own uniform. He blinks at it.

Nitta takes pity on him. "I drove us back to the school and Gojo-san had to leave to attend a meeting." She seems reluctant to add more. "Oh," Yuuji says, his mind a little clearer, "oh, okay. Thanks Nitta-san! And sorry for the trouble." He gets off the car before he can hear her reply.

The sun is high in the sky as Yuuji makes his way back to the dorms, Gojo's jacket folded under his arm to avoid questions. He has to give it back, right? It's the next logical step to take when someone lends you clothes, because Gojo lent Yuuji his jacket, he didn't give it to him. Why would he give it to him? It's not his jacket after all. Yuuji is not short of jackets, he has at least three in his wardrobe. Yeah. Just lend it. He'll give it back. Just not today. Because he has to wash it first. Yeah.

Yuuji doesn't have time to wash it straight after he gets back. He takes a shower first then heads off to the training grounds for the one o'clock sparring session. After today he's skipped enough classes for a whole year.

There he finds Kugisaki and Fushiguro in their training clothes, new ones for her and the usual blue tracksuit for him. Kugisaki throws a bottle of water at him. "Where have you been?"

"I told you he replaced Inumaki-senpai this morning," Fushiguro reminds her.

"I don't listen to you until at least ten in the morning."

Fushiguro ignores her. "How did it go?" he asks Yuuji.

"Like a scoop of ice cream on a hot summer day!" replies Gojo for him, making Yuuji jump so hard that Fushiguro arches an eyebrow. Turning around, Yuuji sees Gojo slumped on the stone stairs, sunglasses on instead of his usual blindfold. He's wearing a new jacket identical to the one Yuuji has hidden under his bed sheets like a dirty secret.

Gojo sends him a knowing wink. Yuuji blushes.

Kugisaki squints. "I feel like I'm missing something."

Yuuji fiddles with the water bottle in his hands. "What? No."

"Suspicious."

"No!"

"Yeah, suspicious," she says, "don't you think so, Fushiguro?"

"Leave me alone."

Chapter Text

The second years are buzzing with anticipation at the breakfast table this morning. Yuuji can see them trying to contain it, but he can also see Maki's finger tapping impatiently on the table, the nervous twitch of Panda's leg (paw?), and the furtive glances Inumaki directs at his phone.

Breakfast is simple today: steamed rice, tamagoyaki and miso soup, enough to energize them for the hand-to-hand training session right afterward but without making them feel heavy. The choice of drinks differs: orange juice for Kugisaki and Inumaki, black tea for Maki and green tea with bamboo leaves for Panda, black coffee for Fushiguro (ew), and finally hot milk for Yuuji. Or juice. Or tea. It depends. But today it's hot milk, that he plans to drink last to keep the warmth of the drink inside him for as long as possible.

He stares at his glass, the ripples on the creamy surface caused by Maki's finger making the table vribate and probably the others' glasses. Yuuji glances at Fushiguro sitting across from him, who shrugs, having also noticed their strange behavior. Mmmh. Under the table, Yuuji gently taps Kugisaki's foot with the tip of his slipper. She looks up from her bowl of rice, her expression already frowning, but Yuuji quickly silences her comments with a comical widening of his eyes. She blinks at him, uncomprehending.

Yuuji wiggles his eyebrows at Maki and Inumaki, both seated to his right, then at Panda to his left. Kugisaki's gaze passes between their three senpais for a moment before realisation dawns on her.

She clears her throat, "Maki-san?"

"Mmh?"

"Is there an event today?" she asks with all the innocence she certainly doesn't possess. Fushiguro cringes into his coffee cup. Maki stabs the egg yolk on top of her rice with her chopsticks. "He's late," is all she says.

"Tuna mayo," Inumaki joins her. Yuuji glances at the clock by the fridge, which reads seven thirty. "Gojo-sensei?" he asks, even though their teacher doesn't appear until well after class has started.

"He said they'd be here in time for breakfast," Panda adds, both paws circling his teacup, "but we're nearly finished and still no news." Inumaki confirms this by showing them the screen of his phone empty of notifications. Yuuji sets his chopsticks down next to his now empty bowls while Kugisaki runs her gaze through Inumaki's texts. "Are we expecting someone?"

Maki snatches the phone from her classmate's hands, thus earning an annoyed salmon! that she pays no mind to. She starts typing furiously on the screen. "We were supposed to keep it a secret or whatever but there's no point in pleasing the idiot when he's always—"

"—right on time!" Gojo finishes for her, flinging open the door of the common kitchen. Yuuji and Inumaki jump in tandem as Maki whirls around. All smiles, Gojo enters with his hands in his pockets, followed by someone Yuuji doesn't recognize. Tall but not as tall as Gojo, with black hair and a white uniform that Yuuji would never have guessed was from their school if not for the swirly button. He waves at the table, "Hello."

Fushiguro nods. "Okkotsu-senpai," he says as a greeting. And then everything goes haywire.

Yuuji has to grip the edge of the table to keep from falling as Inumaki and Panda stand up simultaneously to greet what he assumes is their classmate. He catches in extremis Panda's cup of tea that nearly falls on the floor, then Inumaki's phone which Maki throws at Gojo's head in vain, bouncing off his Infinity. Just when he thinks he's avoided damage Kugisaki suddenly stands up and points at their new senpai. "You're the guy who made me miss my trip to Kyoto!" she exclaims, while Yuuji stops her miso soup from spilling on the table. Call him Spiderman.

Okkotsu points at himself. "Me?" he asks, surprised and a little nervous.

"Yes, you!"

"Now, now," Gojo interrupts, clapping his hands, "if you have any quarrels to settle, it'll be in the training ground in ten minutes."

"What about breakfast?" Yuuji asks, remembering Panda's words from earlier. He stands up too but without making anything fall, thank you very much. "I can heat up the miso soup for you guys, it won't take long."

From where he's surrounded by the second years and Kugisaki, Okkotsu turns his head in Yuuji's direction. "Oh, that's nice, but since sensei was late we ate pastries from one of the airport café."

"Meh, not sweet enough," Gojo complains, to which Fushiguro rolls his eyes. He's the only one still sitting in his seat, sipping his coffee peacefully. "Too sweet," Okkotsu grimaces.

Yuji heads nonetheless to the counter where the teapots rest on an oven mitt. "Something to drink then. Gojo-sensei, you can have my glass of milk, it's warm. There's honey in the top cupboard if you need it." He pulls out a cup similar to the one Panda left on the table before addressing Okkotsu. "Green or black tea?"

"Green, please," he says after a few seconds of hesitation. Yuuji smiles at him. He then sets about heating the pot of green tea while in the background Maki holds Kugisaki by the back of her uniform from jumping on Okkotsu.

Gojo rests both elbows on the counter so he's facing Yuuji, the glass of milk in one hand and his chin resting on the back of the other. "Trying to achieve an indirect kiss? How bold, Yuuji-kun." He looks at him over his rectangular black glasses, which Yuuji knows are opaque since the time he tried them on while they were lying around in the teachers' lounge.

Yuuji tilts his head, still staring at the teapot. "I didn't drink any though?"

"Huh?" Gojo lifts the glass to the sunlight streaming through the window and squints at the rim, searching for the trace of Yuuji's lips. As if he needed some kind of light to see with his radioactive eyes.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Shame," Gojo sighs before bringing the glass to his mouth. Yuuji watches him drink, his gaze wandering from his white locks to the navy shirt he's chosen to wear today. His mind can't help but think of the uniform jacket he hasn't washed or returned, even though it's been a week since The Incident. In fact, he sleeps with it every night. In fact, he's zipped the jacket around one of his many pillows so he can hug it in his sleep. Yuuji would never admit this last detail to anyone, even under torture. Now his bed is forever permeated with the scent of Gojo's cologne as well as the cakey smell of his laundry softener, strange and original but just as comforting.

He'll give it back. One day. Maybe after graduating Jujutsu High? If he lives that long.

The whistling of the teapot pulls him from his thoughts. Yuuji turns off the hotplate and then pours the tea into the cup, placing it on the counter. "Okkotsu-senpai," he calls.

"Thank you, Itadori-kun," he says once he's settled next to Gojo, sitting on a stool while their teacher remains standing with his glass of milk. "No worries," Yuuji replies.

From this close, and without three people and a panda surrounding him, Yuuji has a clear view of Okkotsu. He looks cool with his Korean singer haircut and stylish uniform, the brown leather collar around his neck showing he's even up to date with the latest trends, but mostly he looks tired. "You just came from the airport, right? It's not much but a hot drink— you know my name?"

Okkotsu laughs softly between sips. "Gojo-sensei showed me pictures of the first years. Although I already know Fushiguro-kun." His blue eyes are dark and heavy with eyebags but gentle, like his voice, like the way he leans against the counter. Yuuji likes his new senpai, he decides.

"Hey sensei, you didn't show him the picture of that time I burned my muffins."

Gojo winks at him. "No promises!"

They chat like this until Okkotsu's cup empties, with Gojo adding comments here and there and soon joined by Maki and Inumaki. Kugisaki sits back down at the table next to Fushiguro, arms crossed and a resentful glare never leaving Okkotsu's back. Panda pats her on the head. Then they head to the training grounds, Yuuji and Kugisaki racing each other while the second years catch up with Okkotsu. Fushiguro pulls up the collar of his uniform, embarrassed.

Kugisaki wins the race, but only because she jumped on his back two meters from the finish line. Cheater. They bicker until Fushiguro clears his throat to silence them. "So," he squints at where Gojo has chosen to sit on the stone stairs. It seems to be his favorite spot. "What's the plan?"

"Your call!" Gojo announces cheerfully. Fushiguro doesn't share his mirth. "We need to work on our fighting skills, how do we proceed?" He rephrases his question as if adding more words will change Gojo's answer. Well, that would have worked on Yuuji.

It doesn't work on Gojo. "Like I said, it's up to you guys. A little autonomy to wake you up! Don't you want to shine in front of your senpais?"

Kugisaki scoffs. "I always shine, senpais or not."

"That's the spirit, Nobara!"

"Bonito flakes."

"Right," Gojo says with finality, "now get to work!"

Yuuji certainly wants to shine under Okkotsu's curious gaze. The guy is strong, Special Grade and all from what Fushiguro told him when he met the second years. The world of jujutsu may be new to him but if there's one thing Yuuji can handle, it's close combat. He sits one step ahead of Gojo for the first two rounds; first Inumaki and Kugisaki against Panda, then Maki and Fushiguro against Okkotsu. He'd almost feel left out if not for Gojo's hand stroking his hair as he watches intently his students fighting each other.

"You next, Willy Wonka," Gojo tells him once Maki emerges victorious, and Yuuji tries to forget the feeling of long, thin fingers running through his hair as he gets into a fighting stance. It's him and Inumaki against Kugisaki and Panda, and from there, he doesn't sit down for three rounds in a row.

Then finally, Yuuji stands in front of Okkotsu with Fushiguro as his teammate. His palms and knees are sore from all the dodging and rolling he's done on the grass so far. Fushiguro doesn't look any better, his fists red from blows and his left forearm grazed from a bad fall. He stands straight, however, muscles tense, ready to attack. Okkotsu appraises them with a cold gaze so different from earlier that Yuuji briefly wonders if this is the same person he served tea to.

Fushiguro moves first, and Yuuji follows the pears and cedar closely like a Belgian Malinois on its first hunt. Okkotsu is fast and agile, much like Fushiguro, but more resilient. He blocks and counters blows without failing to land his own, even though Yuuji's punches hurt when he wants them to.

Fushiguro rolls on the ground after a particularly violent blow, then slides silently behind Okkotsu. Okkotsu notices, but not before Fushiguro lands a kick to the back of his knees. Unbalanced, Okkotsu's posture becomes slightly bent forward, which Yuuji takes advantage of by closing his legs around the other's neck in a flying triangle choke.

Okkotsu grunts, taken by surprise, and digs his fingers into Yuuji's calves, trying to pry them away from his neck. Yuuji squeezes harder at that, Okkotsu's collar pressing uncomfortably against the fabric of his pants.

Logically, he should keep squeezing until he completely deprives his opponent of oxygen and secures victory. Logically. But part of Yuuji wants to show off. Ever since he ate that cursed finger he's been going from surprise to surprise. He, who was once the strong boy breaking Olympic records on a daily basis, is now at the bottom of the ladder, using only his fists and feet to fight monsters.

Yeah, he can't control people with his voice or play with voodoo dolls or summon animals or whatever it is Gojo's eyes do, but Yuuji is strong. He's simply strong, and he intends to show it to this brand new senpai.

Determined, Yuuji puts all his weight on his hips to force Okkotsu's body as far forward as possible. He then places both hands on the ground, feels the grass and firm earth beneath his fingers before twisting his torso into a handstand. Okkotsu seems to understand what he's trying to do because he plants his feet firmly on the ground and lets go of his calves to grip the front of his uniform. Futile resistance. Yuuji clenches the muscles of his thighs, his calves, his toes curling into his shoes while his hands grasp tufts of grass.

He squeezes, twists his hips, and then sends Okkotsu flying across the training grounds.

Right towards Fushiguro.

Yuuji straightens up in time to see the collision: Okkotsu trying to control his fall while Fushiguro's eyes widen at the second year's form getting closer at high speed. A scream then boom, they're both sent rolling across the grass for several meters in a tangle of limbs.

Yuuji lets out a yelp. He gets up quickly. "Fushiguro! Senpai!" he shouts over the peals of laughter from Maki and Gojo. "Nice kill!" she cheers while Gojo snorts like a hyena.

"That's not funny!" Yuuji protests. He strides across the field and kneels beside Okkotsu and Fushiguro, the latter motionless while the other massages his head, sitting cross-legged.

"At least you didn't go easy on me," Okkotsu tells him, offering a reassuring smile. Ugh, did the whole showing off work? Yuuji can't tell. "I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to throw you at Fushiguro."

"It's alright, I already healed myself."

Yuuji's gaze roams Okkotsu's body from head to toe and indeed, he doesn't seem to have any injury. "Woah, that's so cool," he blurts out, then blushes slightly when Okkotsu laughs. Yuuji points at Fushiguro. "Can you heal him too? He probably has a concussion."

"Sure," Okkotsu nods, "I was going to." He moves closer to Fushiguro's unconscious body, and by extension Yuuji's, before placing a hand glowing with cursed energy on the other's forehead.

Yuuji watches intently as Fushiguro's features shift from smooth to sour, until he tentatively opens one eye only to close it at the sight of Yuuji roaming above him. "Fushiguro, you good?" he asks, gently cupping his cheeks. Okkotsu's hand still on his forehead brushes Yuuji's.

Okkotsu nods, "He should be feeling better now." He removes his hand but makes no move to stand, his shoulder a wall of warmth against Yuuji's arm. In his hands, Fushiguro groans.

"Cake..." he murmurs so quietly that Yuuji would have missed it if not for the blow of hot air that lands on his wrists. "Cake? Do you want cake?" he asks, dumbfounded.

Yuuji and Okkotsu lean their faces toward Fushiguro's mouth to hear him better, but he doesn't say anything else, going from unconscious to asleep in the space of a few seconds. Well. Yuuji turns his head toward Okkotsu to ask if this is normal and is met with very blue, very close eyes. It seems Okkotsu was already looking at him because he's not at all surprised by their proximity, even taking the opportunity to let his eyes wander over Yuuji's face.

They take in the scars under his eyes, the slight bump on his nose from a childhood fall, his dark eyebrows and pink eyelashes. The brown of his eyes. The pink of his lips. Yuuji's breath stutters in his chest. He has to suck in air to calm the frantic ping-pong game going on in his ribcage, thump thump thump, which only accelerates when the notes of Okkotsu's cologne invade his mouth.

It's weird to first taste a scent before smelling it. Jasmine brings back not-so-old memories of winter evenings watching the snow fall under the kotatsu, his grandfather scolding him for putting too much milk and sugar in his mug. Vanilla adds a melancholic sweetness, there but barely, fleeting, slipping between outstretched fingers.

Yuuji takes one, two more or less discreet breaths through his nose to try to capture this fleeting vanilla. There is, however, no discreet way to sniff someone, Yuuji should know that by now. Okkotsu smiles, small and knowing, and Yuuji begins to sweat under his disarming gaze but, to his surprise, Okkotsu inhales through his nose too, his nostrils flaring as he takes in Yuuji's scent. Except Yuuji, unlike everyone else here, doesn't wear cologne or perfume or mist or anything, the only thing Okkotsu could smell—

"Cake," Okkotsu confirms quietly, his face now dusted with pink but still so close. Yuuji swallows, jasmine flooding his throat.

That damn fabric softener.

He's so focused on the face inches from his own, pink cheeks, dark eyebags, pale skin, that he doesn't notice the hand raised toward him until a cold touch startles him. Okkotsu adjusts his palm to the curve of Yuuji's right cheek, his fingertips brushing against eyelashes that Yuuji keeps from fluttering by forcing his eyes wide open.

"U-Um—" The words die on his tongue as the unmistakable sensation of cursed energy replaces the cold feeling of Okkotsu's skin. It's the same unpleasantly sticky tingle Yuuji usually attributes to Ieiri the many times he needs to be patched up by her technique. It's gone as quickly as it came, Okkotsu's cold palm gradually warming thanks to Yuuji's burning cheeks.

Humming, Okkotsu strokes Yuuji's skin with his fingers. "It's all healed now."

"Huh?" is all Yuuji replies smartly. The hand leaves then, which Yuuji doesn't chase, no, no.

"Maki sure didn't spare you earlier. She hits hard." Right.

"Right."

"But you too!" Okkotsu adds, "I thought you were planning to break my neck with your thighs."

"Well, I could, but I would never—"

"Is Megumi still alive over there?" a voice interrupts them.

Yuuji looks up. Gojo looks down. He's moved from his spot at the stone stairs, now monopolized by Kugisaki and Inumaki sipping energy drinks from the vending machines, to stand right behind Yuuji and Okkotsu sitting on the grass, his shadow swallowing all three of them. Yuuji has to crane up his neck to meet Gojo's blue gaze. "He's asleep," he says, pointing at Fushiguro. "I think?"

"He is," Okkotsu affirms. Gojo's mint clashes with the jasmine, completely eclipsing it until vanilla is nothing more than a memory for Yuuji. Gojo gives them a toothy grin.

"Yuuta, be a good senpai and take Megumi to the infirmary, will you?"

Yuuji frowns. "Eh? But I'm the one who knocked him unconscious."

"Technically, it was Yuuta's body that sent Megumi flying into the dirt." Yuuji winces at the memory. "And I got you your favorite drink!" As if by magic, a bottle of peach tea materializes in Gojo's hand. "Come on, up, up."

They both stand up, Yuuta carrying Fushiguro and Yuuji hopping around trying to reach the drink that Gojo keeps out of reach with his long arms in addition to his long body.

"Sensei!" Yuuji whines. Even though he jumps at the right height, Gojo activates his Infinity to prevent him from touching the bottle. "Senpai, help!"

The peach tea lands in his hands before he even finishes his sentence. Gojo then places a large hand on Yuuji's hair. "Calling for your senpai when sensei is right there?"

"Well, my sensei is being a bully."

Gojo gasps, his expression scandalized. "How dare you! I'm such a good, caring teacher! Isn't that right, Yuuta-kun?"

With Fushiguro unconscious in his arms, Okkotsu watches them in silence. His gaze shifts from Gojo to Yuuji, then back to Gojo before understanding dawns in his dark eyes. He bows his head. "Of course." And then leaves to drop Fushiguro off at the infirmary.

They spar for four more rounds, two of which Yuuji takes part in. Okkotsu returns shortly after leaving Fushiguro in Ieiri's care, but he seems... distant. Pensive. Lost in thought, even when Yuuji tries to strike up a conversation on the rare occasions Gojo isn't hogging all his attention like a needy cat.

Then the morning draws to a close. The first-years have free time because Gojo has a mission in Hokkaido ("I'll bring you back souvenirs if you're good!"), and the second years have a mission debriefing with Kusakabe. Kugisaki and Yuuji hang around campus for a bit and then have the brilliant idea of ​​going for ramen at the almost always deserted restaurant ten minutes from the school. They stop at a conbini on the way back to stock up on snacks, with Kugisaki raising an eyebrow when Yuuji buys four packets of vanilla sugar.

"What are you making?" she asks as they climb the endless stairs leading up to the school. Unsurprisingly, Yuuji carries all the bags.

"You'll see," he replies.

"Here, say aaah."

Fushiguro dodges the fork for the third time. "Cut it off."

Yuuji sighs but doesn't let it get to him. With one hand, he secures the plate of cake while the other guides the fork back toward Fushiguro. "You said you wanted cake!"

Fushiguro frowns and pulls his face away like a four-year-old refusing to eat broccoli. "What the hell are you talking about?" He sits up straighter on the infirmary bed Ieiri has let him occupy since this morning. It's late afternoon now, around seven o'clock, the setting sun painting the white walls of the infirmary orange.

"When I knocked you out, you said you wanted cake, even Okkotsu-senpai heard you," Yuuji explains, careful not to let the piece fall off the fork.

Fushiguro blinks. "No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"No—even if I did, it's almost dinner time. And I don't like sweets." Yuuji shifts in the uncomfortable plastic chair he dragged next to the bed. "I know, that's why I made carrot cake!" He proudly holds the plate in the air so Fushiguro can admire the fruits of his labor. It seems to be working because his eyes soften despite the scowl on his face.

"You made it yourself?" he asks, eyeing the cake suspiciously.

"Yeah! Come on, have a bite. I know you always have room for dinner if there's ginger in it."

Fushiguro remains silent for a long moment, but Yuuji knows he's got him when he lets out a long, resigned sigh. "Okay. Just a bite." Yuuji tries and fails to suppress the wide grin spreading across his cheeks as he brings the fork to Fushiguro's mouth. Fushiguro dodges again.

"Stop moving."

"Stop trying to feed me, I can do that myself," Fushiguro retorts.

"You're bedridden!"

"I've been feeling fine since Okkotsu-senpai healed me. I just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of the infirmary." Is this guy serious? Yuuji rolls his eyes. "Let me make it up to you for knocking you out then," he tries another approach.

Fushiguro crosses his arms. "You already made the cake. That'll do." Losing patience, Yuuji places the plate on the bedside table before grabbing his cheeks with one hand while forcing the fork into his mouth with the other. "Stop being so stubborn!"

Fushiguro pushes the fork away by gripping Yuuji's forearm. "You're the one who's being stubborn!" A flash of white is the only warning he gets and then Fushiguro sinks his teeth, ladies and gentlemen, into Yuuji's hand. It doesn't hurt or go deep but the surprise is such that he lets go of the other's cheeks as if they had burned him. He looks at his hand, stunned, where two small, barely visible dots attest to the sharpness of Fushiguro's incisors. Which doesn't look the least bit guilty.

"It didn't hurt," he says with all the experience of someone who knows how much his teeth can hurt.

"You bit me," Yuuji says slowly, the sentence sounding unreal spoken aloud.

Fushiguro shrugs, "It didn't hurt."

"Right." Yuuji blinks, looks at his hand for a moment, blinks again, and then shrugs too. "Well, I guess you don't want the cake then."

"Not really," Fushiguro affirms. Huh. Well, Yuuji has more than one trick up his sleeve. He sinks into the plastic chair and lifts the fork to his own mouth. "More cake for me." Yuuji chews loudly as Fushiguro watches him out of the corner of his eye, his blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. Yuuji, for his part, pays him no attention, placing the plate on his lap.

"I think this is one of the best cakes I've ever made," he says between bites. "The carrots are fresh. I got them at that fruit and vegetable market in Aoyama. Do you think Nanamin would be interested in coming with me next weekend?" The fork scrapes against the slowly emptying plate. "Mmm, the cream is barely sweet! I was originally going to make just one layer, but it looked too sad to leave it like that so I added a second one even though it took me all afternoon." Yuuji chews, chews, chews.

"It's a shame this is the last slice, but hey, you know Kugisaki's stomach, and if I hadn't saved at least some for Gojo-sensei, he would have sulked for a whole week. Not to mention Inuma—"

Fushiguro groans, "Okay, I get it. Feed me the damn cake."

Yuuji looks up at the bed, where Fushiguro is staring at him in annoyance, arms crossed over his chest again. Yuuji doesn't take his eyes off him as he eat another bite, earning a long, exasperated sigh. He opens his mouth and blinks a few times for emphasis. Yuuji raises an eyebrow.

Fushiguro rolls his eyes, then makes his are you serious right now? face, followed by his you can't be serious one. When they are both met with silence, he resigns himself to his fate.

"Aaah," Fushiguro says with the most deadpan eyes Yuuji has ever seen, which makes him laugh so hard that tears nearly roll down his cheeks. Flushed with embarrassment, Fushiguro turns his head away and stares at a random spot on the wall. "Forget it," he blurts out through gritted teeth.

"Sorry, sorry," Yuuji apologizes, though his chest is still shaking with laughter. "Here, eat."

It takes a bit more coaxing for Fushiguro to finally close his lips around the fork. He chews silently, and Yuuji refrains from making any comments when he opens his mouth for a second bite. He's pushed enough of his butons for today. Yuuji feeds him until the plate is empty and placed back on the bedside table.

Yuuji watches Fushiguro chew the last bite of cake, juggling the fork in his hands. "Ah," he says, the memory of Gojo and the glass of milk suddenly surfacing. "Indirect kiss."

Fushiguro chokes on the cake.

The next time he runs into Okkotsu is two days after that training session. Between classes and missions, Yuuji doesn't see the second years that often outside of shared meals in the common kitchen. But even then, Gojo often takes the first-years out or they eat a simple conbini sandwich if a mission go well past dinner time.

That said, running into them in the hallways isn't surprising. What is surprising is Okkotsu standing in front of Yuuji's door, clearly hesitant to knock.

Yuuji makes the choice for him. "Okkotsu-senpai?" he calls, approaching him. Okkotsu doesn't jump but surprise nevertheless colors his face as he turns to Yuuji. "Itadori-kun. I thought you'd be inside," he points at the door.

"Just came back from the showers."

"I see."

They stare at each other in silence for a moment until Yuuji breaks it. "Uh, so..." he trails off and for once he can run his hand over the back of his neck, having left the collar in his room for his shower, "do you need anything?"

"Right." Okkotsu clears his throat and inhales as if he's about to launch into a long speech. Should Yuuji be worried? He's not going to get scolded, right?

"Itadori-kun, can I have a word with you?"

"Sure, senpai." Even though they're already talking.

Okkotsu's lips curve in that shy but charming smile of his. "I've been thinking for quite some time now, ever since Gojo-sensei told me about you when I was in Kenya." He did say that Gojo showed him pictures of the first years. "Only good things I hope," Yuuji jokes to which the other laughs softly, blue eyes half-closed.

"Of course. Especially about how we were alike in more than one way."

"Eh, really?" It's no secret that Okkotsu was also on death row, but Yuuji certainly didn't expect him to mention it so soon.

"Yes, and I thought— well, I was thinking maybe... maybe we can help each other?"

In the short time he's spent with him, Yuuji has gotten used to the cold sweetness of Okkotsu's voice, like eating ice cream in winter. That's why hearing the hesitation making his words tremble surprises him more than it should.

"Help?" he repeats.

"I-I— I'm sure people told you that I'm a Special Grade, just like people told me that you're strong and I could see that when we sparred. I'm always afraid of hurting others so having a partner never crossed my mind but..." Okkotsu grips the strap of what looks like a weapon resting on his back. "But then Gojo-sensei mentionned you."

"You want us to be partners," Yuuji blurts out.

Yuuji has always had impeccable control over his strength. He must, has had to work on it ever since his kindergarten teachers called his grandfather to tell him his grandson is way too rough when playing with other children. Yuuji holds back his strength against Fushiguro and Kugisaki during combat training, holds back his blows against the rare curse users he encounters on missions so as not to break something unhealable. So, Yuuji gets it.

Okkotsu-senpai is looking for a sparring partner strong enough to withstand him in all his Special Grade glory and Yuuji just so happens to have sent his body flying across the training grounds two days ago. The whole showing off did work, after all.

"You don't have to give me an answer right now, I just want you to consider it and—"

"Sure!" Yuuji agrees.

Taken aback, Okkotsu mouth falls slightly open. "Sure?"

"Yeah! In fact, I was gonna ask you the same! But you're always busy with people, senpai, I didn't want to disturb."

"Oh." Okkotsu says, gulping heavily. "Oh, I see. That's— That's great." He clears his throat as a hand comes up to scratch the edge of his collar. Jasmine hits Yuuji's nose so hard it almost makes him dizzy. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you to agree so fast. Um, you can give me your line or phone number and I'll text you in, say, two months?"

Yuuji frowns. "When do you get back to Kenya, senpai?"

"In two days, but I'll be in Japan more often to carry out missions."

"Then we don't have to wait two whole months!" he exclaims, bouncing on his tiptoes in excitement. "If you're back for a day or two we can just have a chill hang out."

Okkotsu's eyes widens. "Like... Like to grab a bite? Or to go to the movies?" He sounds hopeful, dreamy. Yuuji smiles wide and bright at him.

"Yeah! Get to know each other and all."

Okkotsu smiles back at him, not wide nor bright but small and smooth. Graceful, effortlessly so. Yuuji's cheeks redden. "Alright. I'd like that, yeah. Can I?" he takes out his phone for Yuuji to put his informations. He gives both his number and line and waits with bated breath as Okkotsu messages him.

The notification echoes through the closed door of his room. "I think you received it," Okkotsu remarks. Yuuji laughs. "Thanks, senpai."

Okkotsu raises his hand toward Yuuji, probably to cup his cheek like he did last time, but changes his mind at the last moment. He settles for simply stroking his cheek with his fingertip like he's afraid to touch him, taint him. As if Yuuji isn't flesh and bones and curse but pure, made of light. "Thank you," he says in a whisper before retreating to the second year floor.

Yuuji leans back against the door of his room. Then slides down to the floor, heart pounding wildly. His cheek smells of vanilla for the rest of the evening.

"Looks like you've got more competition, Megumi."

Megumi doesn't look up from his book. "I don't know what you're talking about." He turns a page.

Maki scoffs, crossing her legs on the side of the couch she claimed as hers. "Yuuta's bringing out the big guns while you're burying yourself in your books. He's made more progress than you have in months in the matter of days."

Megumi sighs, then marks his page with the bookmark Itadori bought him during one of his manga trips to Akihabara. He turns his gaze to Maki but she's not looking at Megumi.

Her eyes are directed towards the window of the common room overlooking the courtyard, traditionally decorated like the rest of the campus. Directly opposite are the dorms where a window in the hallway shows, if you squint through all the layers of glass, Itadori tapping on a phone and Okkotsu peering down at him. Most certainly exchanging phone numbers.

"Okkotsu-senpai is an omega. It's only normal that he looks after a younger omega," Megumi says matter of fact. Even from this distance he can see that Itadori's hair is slightly wet, proof that he's just come out of the showers. His bare neck and throat confirm that.

Megumi's teeth itch. He looks away from the window to meet Maki's aggravated gaze.

"My kohais are either clueless," she looks at Itadori, "naive," this time at Megumi, "or idiots." Kugisaki raises her head from her magazine at the feeling of Maki's eyes on her.

"What is that supposed to mean?" She looks more confused than offended.

"Salmon," supplies Inumaki helpfully. He tries to steal the magazine from her. She growls in warning.

Megumi doesn't like where this is going. "Again, Okkotsu-senpai is an omega."

"An omega that's into omegas."

Kugisaki's growl becomes deeper. "I knew he was bad news. As expected of city boys."

"Pretty sure he's from Sendai," Maki says as she grabs the remote to flick through the chanels. Kugisaki grimaces, "They got too much in common. It's not looking good for you, Fushiguro."

"Because he's a coward."

Megumi lets their comments slide right past him. They won't get off his back if he reacts to their provocations. It wouldn't be the first time. He reopens his book, throwing one last glance at the window. The dorm hallway is empty.

"You know better than to directly assume that someone is attracted to another just because of their secondary gender," he simply replies. Kugisaki rolls her eyes, muttering about how boring he can be, but Maki is strangely silent.

"Well..." the beta begins, "Yuuta did say something about heat partners. But you didn't hear that from me."

Kugisaki screams loud enough for the both of them.

Chapter Text

Yuuji squints at the mirror. He tilts his head left and then right, as if his appearance would make more sense at a thirty-degree angle. When that doesn't change anything he straightens it and then moves closer to the mirror until the cold ceramic of the sink touches his hips. Yuuji yelps at the cold contact on his noticeably warm skin from waking up and jerks away. It's only when he brings his toothbrush to his mouth that he notices the toothpaste has fallen into the sink, wetly blue against the white ceramic. Sighing, Yuuji uncaps the tube and smears some more before resuming his brushing, gaze fixed on the mirror in front of him.

Yuuji's eyes rake over his shirtless form in the white light of the bathroom. Tanned skin, straight shoulders, strong arms, a flat stomach with defined abs, a six-pack he's quite proud of, and not a trace of fat.

And then there's his chest.

Yuuji spits the toothpaste into the sink, rinses his mouth, then resumes his examination of his torso, resting his hands on the sink to better lean forward. Unlike his hard, muscular stomach, his chest looks... soft. Round? Full. Has he gained weight? With puberty and the growth spurt that comes with it, Yuuji's weight steadily increased throughout his middle school years but stopped at eighty kilograms right before the start of high school. Eighty kilograms of muscle with zero kilograms of fat, although Yuuji is seriously beginning to doubt it at the sight of his chest. He takes a pectoral in his hand, weighs it like he would a fruit at the market, and gives it a tentative squeeze. Squishy too, huh.

Yuuji ends up cupping both. They're big enough to spill out of his palms even when he's not squeezing them, tender and plump and fat. He clenches and unclenches his fingers like some pervert from a fanservice-fueled anime, scratch that he can easily pass for the fanservice with a wig and a skirt. This is worrying, what the hell did he eat that made him gain so much weight?

Yuuji searches his memory for any trace of unhealthy meals.

There's the usual but inconsequential pre- or post-misson fast food, hamburger and fries quickly burnt off by a teenager's metabolism. Then there are the occasional sweets, candies given by the assistants or souvenirs brought back by Gojo or even the ones that Yuuji bakes himself. Nothing too bad, or at least nothing that could fatten him up like that, and the meals he prepares are usually a good balance of vegetables, starches, meat and dairy products.

Puzzled, Yuuji squeezes his pecs one last time then releases them at once and isn't even surprised to see them bounce in the mirror's reflection. Yuuji finally takes his eyes off his chest and concentrates on his morning bed hair, brushing it with his fingers to make it look presentable before class.

He meets Sukuna's gaze in the mirror. Yuuji arches an eyebrow. "What do you want so early in the morning?" he asks, returning his attention to his hair. The spikes are not spiking today and Yuuji is on the verge of just ruffling them and calling it a day. Sukuna doesn't deign to answer him, surprise, surprise. Nevertheless, he glances through the mirror at the left eyelid that the curse has decided to open. Sukuna's single red eye is also looking at Yuuji's reflection, albeit a little downwards. Towards his chest.

"What," Yuuji blurts out when he's sure that yes, Sukuna does seem interested in his pecs. "Stop it." A hand comes to cover the annoying eye but it only opens the other, just as red and riveted to his chest. A cruel mouth forms just below it. "Stop what? You're the one putting yourself on display."

Yuuji shoots him a glare through the mirror that Sukuna ignores like he ignores most of Yuuji's existence.

He's suddenly very aware of the rise and fall of his chest, up and down in time with his diaphragm. His lungs fill with air again and again under Sukuna's watchful eye, and Yuuji can feel the steady beat of his heart all the way to his fingertips, pumping blood as if it's never been ripped out and replaced.

Huh. His heart, between his lungs. Under his sternum, under his chest. So that's what this is about.

Yuuji sighs. "Stop staring. You're not going to rip my heart out a second time." Though not even a scar remains from the incident, he can still very clearly visualize his heart being tossed into the grass like a piece of spoiled meat.

Sukuna sneers like the mischievous hyena he is. "We both know I can," he says, his mouth uncomfortably stretching Yuuji's cheek. With the mirror in front of him, Yuuji has a front row seats to how Sukuna's eye crinkles in that awful way that shows he's disgustingly amused. "Although I'd have to dig through all this meat first." He grins. It's a wicked thing, because the King of Curses and Poisons is wicked. Who would have thought.

Grimacing, Yuuji crouches down to rummage in the cupboard under the sink. "Don't call it meat, you cannibal." It's a real mess of household products, spare bars of soap, first aid kits and dry towels. But Yuuji is sure he saw it somewhere when he moved into the dorm in June, in a grey box towards the back— "There it is!" he exclaims after getting his hands on the box in question. He remains crouched as he opens it and pulls out the scale he never thought he'd ever use. It's a simple black square with a small frame at the top displaying zeros once Yuuji has switched it on and checked that the batteries are still working.

Once on it he watches with interest as the numbers increase between his bare feet until they stop at eighty kilograms and a few grams. Yuuji blinks at the scale. His weight hasn't really changed? He hadn't paid much attention when Ieiri had given him a whole series of tests when he came back from the dead—height, weight, posture—because he was too distracted by the fact that he'd come back from the dead, but Yuuji remembers very well the medical check-up at the end of middle school. The nice nurses, the tetanus booster shot, the embarrassing talk about safe sex and then being weighed the same weight as the scale shows today, give or take a few grams.

So. It's not weight gain. Yuuji gets off the scales and turns back to the mirror. At first glance there's not much difference between Yuuji's body of a few months ago and the one of the last few weeks, but, but, but. But. Far be it from him to sound narcissistic, but he knows his body. He's always been muscular; whether it's his stomach, arms, thighs, calves, back, chest, and right now Yuuji's pecs doesn't feel muscle-plump. Well, yes, they do. Kind of. With some extra fat. Meat, as Sukuna would say. Has he lost muscle mass or something? Agh, this is getting complicated.

"I need a second opinion," Yuuji mutters to himself. He needs outside eyes and an objective, straight-to-the-point judgement. A sharp, analytical mind that's probably been up longer than Yuuji. Probably didn't sleep at all knowing him.

Without a moment's hesitation, Yuuji puts on his red hoodie, pants and uniform, which he doesn't bother to button, red shoes and collar before leaving his room. Seven steps to the left and he's standing in front of Fushiguro's room. Gojo was so right to put them side by side, it's like having a long-distance roommate with the distance being ten meters. Short-distance roommate? Ten-meters-away roommate.

He knocks twice to announce his presence and doesn't wait for an answer before entering the room. Surprisingly, the door isn't locked; Yuuji has always thought of Fushiguro as the type to lock himself in to avoid being disturbed. Although, on reflection, it might be useless against someone like Gojo who can simply teleport from room to room and country to country.

"Fushiguro! Rise and shine!" Yuuji says as he takes in the state of the room. It's been a while since he's been here, and at first glance nothing has really changed except for new books stacked on the shelf and oddly arranged sheets on the bed. Bed which is currently empty, as expected, because Fushiguro is sitting at his desk flipping through notes because of course he's the type to study before class starts.

Face frozen like a deer caught in headlights, Fushiguro struggles to recover from his surprise. "What?" he says, as if seeing Yuuji in his room is unreal.

"I know I could've waited until breakfast, but I really need a second opinion right now and you're, like, right here." Yuuji moves easily across the room as if it were his own, which is somewhat the case given how similar the layout is. Wardrobe on the left, desk on the right, coffee table in the middle, sliding door in the back leading to the garden overgrown with tall grass. He heads towards the bed pushed against the wall under Fushiguro's stunned gaze. "And we can walk to the kitchen together after."

"What?" he repeats like a defective cassette.

Yuuji ignores his odd reaction—it is early in the morning for everyone after all—and lies down on the bed with his back half against the wall while the rest of his body is slumped on the mattress. It hurts his neck and pelvis a little, but it's also strangely comfortable.

Not only are there three sheets under Yuuji, but they reek of cologne to such an extent that he almost chokes for a moment, pears, thyme and cedar invading larynx and pharynx alike. Not unpleasant, far from it, but just as unexpected.

"Did you spill your bottle?" Yuuji asks, his hands feeling the sheets to see if they're wet. They're dry, and his movements only stir up the scent of pears so Yuuji folds his hands over his stomach like a patient visiting the psychiatrist. He rivets his gaze towards the ceiling to keep with the theme.

"So," Yuuji begins, "it's been a few weeks since I noticed—"

"What." Again? Come on, he needs a sharp mind, not a slow one. And Fushiguro is anything but slow. Well, they say third time's a charm.

"I said it's been a few—"

"No! No, what— What are you doing?"

Fushiguro is on his feet now, clearly out of his previous stupor. It seems that third time really is the charm, and Yuuji regrets ever having doubted it. "Like I said, I need a second opinion on something and, like I said, you're the closest opinion. And the smartest."

The floor creaks as Fushiguro covers the short distance between desk and bed. His shadow spreads across Yuuji's slouched form, swallowing him from his chin down to his feet, which only the heels touch the floor.

"You need to get out," Fushiguro tells him through gritted teeth, but when doesn't he grit his teeth? Yuuji sighs before grabbing a pillow to have something other than his sadly empty stomach to hold. Unsurprisingly also smelling very strongly of pears, but he's getting used to it.

"Dude, you'd tell me if I gained weight right? Or if I look like I've gained weight. Or if—" He's cut off by Fushiguro snatching the pillow out of his hand like a purse snatcher on a scooter. Yuuji's gaze drops from the ceiling to blink at his empty palms, fingers now curled around nothing but air. Stunned, he straightens slightly before turning his head towards Fushiguro. His knuckles are white against the dark fabric of the pillowcase while his arms tremble imperceptibly. Yuuji eyes carefully the way his chest rises at irregular intervals, jaw clenched and eyes wide. Panicked.

"What's up with you?"

"What's up with you?" Fushiguro retorts with a vehemence that is certainly characteristic of him, but which Yuuji finds a bit exaggerated right now. "That's my den, you can't just—" he gestures at Yuuji with one hand while the other holds the pillow.

Den, really? Yuuji tries and fails to stop himself from laughing. "I knew it, you sleep with your dog." But to call his bed a den, if anything kennel is more appropriate. Then again, Divine Dogs are closer to wolves than domestic dogs so Yuuji kind of sees the logic here. Maybe.

Fushiguro frowns even more. "How did you— It doesn't matter, get out. At least get up."

That's... mean. And while Fushiguro's reluctant friendship includes jabs, stings and the likes that weirdly complete Kugisaki's explosive personnality, this is another kind of mean.

Gojo always tells anyone who will (and won't) listen that his first years are a package of sauces.

"We have Sweet," he would say by pinching Yuuji's cheeks, "Sour," while ruffling Fushiguro's hair, "and Spicy!" booping Kugisaki's nose, much to her annoyance.

Sweet and sour is a duo like sweet and spicy or sour and spicy, but with the difference that sweet serves to dampen the intensity of sour until reaching the perfect balance. Too sweet makes your teeth rot, too sour leaves an unpleasant taste on the tongue, and Yuuji is beginning to understand what Gojo was getting at.

"Alright, alright, I'm leaving," Yuuji concedes, leaning on his knees to get up as dramatically as possible. "Jeez, I didn't know I was so unwelcome." Then, more earnest, less loud, "Thought we were past this." You're not welcome in here was the first thing Fushiguro had said to him when he'd got a glimpse of his room all those months ago. Yuuji never thought he'd be back at square one. Shame.

He hears a "That's not it..." whispered long after he's closed the door behind him but it doesn't open again even after he's stood in front of it for ten minutes because ugh, Yuuji hates this kind of fight. It's not serious enough to be called an argument, nor benign enough to be completely forgotten. A greasy stain on the brand new white shirt that barely shows in the family photo but since you know it's there it becomes all you see.

Eventually Yuuji makes his way to the kitchen alone where he finds Kugisaki half asleep on the counter, scrolling through Instagram without even looking at her screen. "Finally," she says when she sees him roll up his sleeves, "make me something light and sweet but not too sweet."

"Make it yourself," Yuuji complains while still pulling out a cutting board and the bread knife. Kugisaki crosses her arms on the counter. "What are you making?"

"French toast."

She grimaces. "I said something light, you idiot. Are you trying to ruin my figure?"

Yuuji rolls his eyes. "You could eat the whole fridge and it still wouldn't show." He cuts four slices of bread then takes out a bowl where he cracks some eggs and adds milk and sugar.

"The toad's drool doesn't reach the white dove."

"What?"

She reaches for the strawberries Yuuji has taken out of the fridge but thinks better when he stops stirring the eggs in warning. She huffs, "You're jealous of my metabolism." Yuuji moves the strawberries away from the counter as a precaution. "I don't even know what that means," he says. Once the mixture is ready, he takes out a frying pan and melts some butter in it.

It's Kugisaki's turn to roll her eyes. "I don't gain weight easily, unlike some people here."

"What? You think I've gained weight?"

"And you think I'd have noticed? Maintaining my beauty is a full-time job."

Once the butter has melted and spread in the pan, Yuuji dips a slice of bread in the egg-milk-sugar mixture on both sides before placing it on the pan. He points the spatula at Kugisaki without taking his eyes off the toast. "Okay, but when you look at me now, do you see any difference?"

Yuuji doesn't even have to look up to know she's arching an eyebrow. "Is that insecurity I'm hearing?"

"It's curiosity."

"Huh-huh." Yuuji flips the slice of bread while feeling Kugisaki's piercing gaze slice him up and down, left and right, analysing him with the same intensity she usually reserves for her evening fashion shows.

"No," she declares after he's had time to make three pieces of toast, "I don't see any difference. Where did this come from?"

"I was just curious," Yuuji replies, and when she squints suspiciously, he distracts her by serving her plate of strawberry, blueberry, and honey French toast with orange juice, which does the job. They chat about anything and everything while eating. Yuuji learns that the second years don't have class this morning, which explains their absence, all still asleep. He also learns that Fushiguro is among the absentees because he has a mission with Ino and one of the guys from Kyoto and must have left while Yuuji was making the toasts. Huh.

It weighs on his mind for the rest of breakfast and throughout the morning. Gojo's jokes go over his head as Yuuji replays this morning's interaction over and over again. His class notes are littered with scribbles of sea urchins, dogs, snakes, owls, and frogs, so much so that Gojo pulls him aside at the end of class to ask Yuuji why drawing Noah's Ark is more interesting than listening to his explanations about domains.

Yuuji gets away with a hair ruffle, though he doesn't say the reason is that he feels a little guilty about this morning's little fight.

Like, Fushiguro didn't need to be so curt and mean, but Yuuji isn't without fault either. He knows what kind of person Fushiguro is: reserved, outspoken, and a stickler for personal space. He doesn't open up much—after all, it took Yuuji three months to learn he has a sister. Despite everything, Yuuji is quite intrusive with him, especially physically, so it's not surprising to see him getting too close to boundaries. Except that boundaries are boundaries, and Yuuji crossed one this morning that made Fushiguro react the way he did. Getting kicked out of your friend's room isn't cool, sure, but maybe showing up unannounced (he still knocked, though) and making yourself at home is even less so.

Yuuji's head hurts.

"Why isn't there any food ready?" Maki asks as she walks through the kitchen followed by Panda.

"You sound like an abusive husband," comments Panda. He takes a seat next to Yuuji, who's slumped over the counter like Kugisaki was at breakfast, and pats his head in greeting. "Hey, Itadori."

Maki opens the fridge and closes it several times as if food will miraculously appear the third time she checks its contents. "Shut up, I'll show you abuse."

"I'm an endangered species."

"I can see why." She abandons the fridge to lean on the counter, facing Yuuji and Panda, loose hair brushing the countertop. They look like they've just woken up. "Yuuji, make us something."

"Can't. I'm busy," he replies with his cheek pressed against the counter. Panda's paw on his head is a comfortable weight, heavy and fluffy.

She clicks her tongue. "Busy doing what?"

"Thinking."

"Not your strong suit."

Yuuji watches her return to the fridge to take out eggs and then the same pan he used earlier in the day. With this morning's toasts and the likely omelet she's planning to make, Yuuji might be going grocery shopping sooner than planned. Or he should just message to Kugisaki to buy eggs after her trip to the pharmacy. She's been complaining the entire short walk from the classroom to the dorms about having to sacrifice her lunch break to restock her hygiene supplies: pads, patches, cotton pads, wipes, and a bunch of other stuff that Yuuji hasn't listened to, too preoccupied with Fushiguro.

"Make Inumaki a plate too."

"Nah, that idiot won't wake up anytime soon. He spent the night sending me TV parody videos. Who watches that stuff?"

"Him. And Yuuta."

"Because he can't bring himself to say he doesn't find it funny. What a pushover, I bet he's been caught in tourist traps at least ten times."

"Maki-senpai, Panda-senpai," Yuuji demands their attention. The conversation between them falls silent as they turn their heads toward him. Yuuji gulps. "Am I clingy?"

"Yes," Maki replies.

"It depends," Panda replies.

Okay. Cool. Cool cool cool. "Is it annoying?"

"Yes," Maki replies.

"It depends," Panda replies, "and don't listen to her."

She places both hands on the counter, brows furrowed and shoulders squared. "Is the teddy bear trying to start something?"

"I don't know about a teddy bear, but I know a panda and he's smelling eggs burning." They are. Maki whirls around in time to see the smoke coming from the pan turn from gray to black. Yuuji could help her save her breakfast-lunch, but she just called him annoying, so. And Panda's paw is still resting on his head.

They watch together as Maki tries to detach the omelet from the pan with the spatula. Not enough sunflower oil, what a mistake. "So, what's wrong?" Panda asks in a conversional tone. Yuuji takes a deep breath before exhaling all the air from his lungs.

"I just feel like sometimes I'm too much," he confesses quietly. "And you guys don't like it."

Panda hums. His paw begins to stroke Yuuji's hair and, if he wasn't so down, he would have laughed at the idea of an animal petting a human instead of the other way round. "I don't know what's too much for you humans. To be honest, I don't understand most of your feelings, but what I do understand is that you're you, too much included, and that's how we like you."

Yuuji's lip begins to quiver. "Panda-senpai..."

"And you smell good," he adds as an afterthought. Maki reappears at the counter with three plates of half-burnt egg drowned in olive oil. "Everyone smells good next to your stinky fur," she says once seated next to Yuuji.

"I don't stink!"

"Maki-senpai, did you add the olive oil to mask the burning taste?"

She slaps his head, ow, dislodging Panda's paw. "It's protein. That's all that matters."

Yuuji eyes his steaming plate of yellow, brown and green. "I'm thinking of starting a diet."

"Eat your damn food."

Yuuji eats his damn food.

It's the first years' turn to have some free time. Yuuji retires to his room after washing the lunch dishes—the frying pan was a nightmare to save—and waking up Inumaki so that he doesn't miss Kusakabe's class. Kugisaki never came back from her pharmacy outing, which evolved into a pharmacy-café outing and then a pharmacy-café-shop outing, without, of course, stopping by the supermarket to buy the eggs Yuuji had asked for. Typical.

Thus, he's got some time to kill on his own that Yuuji refuses to spend thinking about actions, consequences, guilt and all that jazz, therefore leaving him with two options: training or reading. With Maki's omelette still weighing heavily in his stomach, Yuuji opts for reading. Mangas, of course. New chapters online that he had let pile up so he could read for more than ten minutes that wouldn't end on a cliffhanger.

However, he's barely settled into his bed overflowing with pillows when his phone rings, almost making him jump out of his skin. He smiles nonetheless at the name displayed on the screen.

Yuuji answers. "Okkotsu-senpai?"

"Itadori-kun, hi," Okkotsu's voice reaches him as clearly as fifteen thousand kilometres of distance can allow. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

Yuuji rolls onto his back into a more comfortable position. "Not at all, it's early afternoon here. What's up?"

"Oh, I thought why not hear from you before going to bed." The wonders of different time zones.

"Hmm," Yuuji hums. "Did Panda-senpai tell you to call me?" There's a gust of wind on the other end of the receiver that Yuuji interprets as Okkotsu laughing. "Well, that wasn't Panda but Maki." Now that's surprising. He wouldn't have thought she'd have noticed his mood drop.

"That's sweet of her."

"She cares more than she lets on. Although even if she hadn't told me, I would have called you anyway. Or at least tried," Okkotsu says with a hint of exasperation in his voice. Yuuji sighs. "Sorry about that, Gojo-sensei keeps blocking your number. Because, I quote, I'm glued to my screen." Yuuji uses the hand not holding the device to his ear to make quotation marks with his fingers. "That's not true! Sour and Spicy are the ones always on their phones while Sweet spends half his free time baking pastries for him!"

"I see," Okkotsu nods with all the understanding of someone who does not see. "Have you tried changing your phone's PIN?"

"Yes! My birthday, my address in Sendai, my birthday again, and a bunch of other things, but he guesses them all on the first try. How did he get my childhood fish pet's name right?"

Okkotsu sighs too. It's a tired, resigned sound. "I wonder..."

"But enough about me," Yuuji changes the subject. He kicks his feet and watches them bounce on the mattress. "How's Algeria?"

"Tunisia," he corrects. "It's great. Very warm but the food is delicious, if not a little too spicy for me."

"Is it hotter than in Kenya?"

There's a moment's silence as Okkotsu ponders the question. "I can't really tell if one is hotter than the other. The air here is definitely heavier because of the sea being so close." Yuuji's eyes sparkle. "Eh, senpai, you're near the sea?"

"Do you want to see it?"

The call becomes a video call which Yuuji accepts, curiously watching the pixels on his screen change from grey to the soft colours of a dimly lit hotel room. The back camera shows Yuuji a tiled floor with rectangular patterns and then a window with drawn curtains. A pale hand, Okkotsu's, opens the curtains and the window. Yuuji gasps at the sight of clear, turquoise water despite the night sky, lined along the coast by white cubic buildings with rounded roofs here and there.

"Woah," Yuuji blurts out, "this is incredible. Senpai, I'm so jealous of you right now." To which Okkotsu laughs heartily, the camera shaking slightly with it. He closes the window and the image becomes a little blurry from the large movements he's making until he appears, front camera this time, phone steady on the desk where he sits.

Yuuji lets his eyes wander over his tired face, as always, his cool hair, his arms revealed by the white t-shirt he's wearing.

"You've tanned a little," Yuuji remarks appreciatively.

Okkotsu tilts his head. With his large expressionless eyes, he resembles an owl. A barn owl with its pitch-black eyes and silent flight. Deadly. "You think so?"

"Yeah. You still look tired, though." Yuuji didn't know his dark circles could get even darker.

It's Okkotsu's turn to scrutinize his screen. "You don't look so well either."

Yuuji frowns. "Me? I'm fine."

"But Maki said—"

"Whatever she said, it's nothing that serious," he interrupts Okkotsu. Yuuji returns his gaze to the ceiling, then the desk where he's left his uniform jacket, then the sleeves of his red hoodie. "I just had a tiny fight with Fushiguro. Nothing serious."

"Oh," Okkotsu says. He rests both elbows on the desk and his chin on his clasped hands. "What happened?" Half of his face is dimly lit by a lamp hanging on the wall, the warm color turning some strands of his hair from charcoal black to coffee brown.

Yuuji puffs out his cheeks, reluctant to bother Okkotsu with such a silly story. But then again he kind of, really want to run his mouth. Sue him.

"So, this morning I went to his room."

"His room?" Okkotsu blinks owlishly again. "Yeah, yeah, I know, privacy, personal space, all that. I already reflected on that," Yuuji explains hurriedly as Okkotsu's features begin to morph into disapproval.

"Right."

"Right," Yuuji repeats. "I shouldn't have, I know that now, but I really needed a second... opinion..." Okkotsu patiently watches him finish his sentence more and more slowly, if not with a hint of worry in the curve of his semi-serene smile. Yuuji lifts the phone with both hands above his body so that his head and torso are visible to the other boy.

"Senpai, do you think I've gained weight?"

"Weight?"

"Lately I feel more... round? But my weight hasn't changed."

On the other side of the globe, Okkotsu leans closer to his phone, scrutinizing Yuuji's body the same way Kugisaki had, so serious in his task that he can't stop his lips from curving into a smile. "You look the same as when I left Japan."

Yuuji buries his head deeper into his pillow. "Yeah, I figured you'd say that. Guess I'm just imagining things."

"Sorry to disappoint," Okkotsu smiles apologetically. "Maybe it's a muscle thing?"

"Honestly, I don't know, like—" Holding the phone in one hand, Yuuji tucks the other under the hem of his hoodie. He struggles a little but manages to pull it up to his neck, revealing the full expanse of his torso to Okkotsu, who makes a sound somewhere between a creaking door and a cat getting its tail stepped on. After making sure the hoodie won't fall back, Yuuji turns his attention back to phone.

"See what I mean?"

"I— S-See, as in seeing? I mean— Yes?" Bewildered, Yuuji watches him on the screen avert his eyes then glance at Yuuji, then avert them again, cheeks flushing with each glance. Yuuji lowers his gaze to his chest. "Is it that bad?" he asks, a slight feeling of panic coming over him.

"It's great!" Okkotsu is quick to reassure him. "Unexpected but great. Healthy." His blue eyes linger on it, tanned skin, bulging muscles, pecs slightly apart because of his position on his back, making Yuuji aware of every breaths he takes. He doesn't know whether it's the contact of the air on his bare skin or Okkotsu's gaze that makes the fine hairs on his arms stand up. And his nipples harden. It shouldn't show on the other's phone, at least Yuuji hopes so.

"I don't see the problem," Okkotsu says. He sounds tense. He looks tense too, no more comfortably resting on his elbows but sitting up straight in his chair, arms at his sides. As for his face, it's carefully stoic with the pupil of his eyes swallowing the blue to leave only black behind.

"It's a bit fat here." Yuuji cups one of the pecs and gives it a squeeze before letting go. It jiggles before Okkotsu's astonished gaze. "But not there." This time he pokes his stomach, his abs an unmoveable stone wall. Yuuji spreads his hand over his navel and pushes and nudges the skin around it, even squeezes his ribs for good measure, but nothing moves. Hard as rock.

Okkotsu makes another dying sound. The blue of his eyes is no more, nothing but the black of his dilated pupils and his eyelashes whose shadow darkens his face. The prominent veins in his neck twitch when he swallows. "It's normal for us," he says after a moment's silence in which Yuuji begins to worry a little. "It's proportional to your build. Hard muscles, wide shoulders, soft chest. That goes for me too, although mine isn't as... generous."

Taken aback by finally getting the explanation he's been seeking since sunrise, Yuuji can only blink at his phone. "So it's normal?"

"Yes."

"And I was overthinking this?

"Yes."

"Huh." Yuuji feels a little silly now. All those neurons solicited for nothing. "By the way, senpai, you don't look so goo—"

"Would you mind if I take a screenshot?" Okkotsu suddenly asks. Both Yuuji's eyebrows raise in surprise. "Not really, no. But what will you do with that?" Okkotsu is already fiddling with his phone before he even finishes the question. "Ah, I wasn't ready!" Yuuji exclaims. "I don't look good on pictures when I'm not ready."

"You always look good, Itadori-kun." Which. Okay. Yuuji's cheeks redden in spite of himself, that Okkotsu notices right away but does nothing more than chuckle handsomely, dimples forming on his equally pink cheeks. There's a silence as they stare into each other's eyes, Yuuji basking in the sunlight while the shadows seem to become one with Okkotsu on his side of the Earth.

"I should go to bed," he finally says, much to Yuuji's regret. It seems to show on his face because Okkotsu gives him a small, fond smile. "I'll text you tomorrow morning. Or evening for you."

Yuuji laughs soft and quiet. "Good night, senpai."

"Good night."

And the call ends.

Yuuji eventually falls asleep as well, lulled by the calm that talking with Okkotsu has brought him. When he wakes up, the afternoon is approaching evening, the rays now no longer pale yellow but pinkish-orange.

Fushiguro should have finished his mission by now.

He's thought about it all day. Here's the plan: Yuuji stays away from his room and Fushiguro himself to give him space, cooks his favorite meal for dinner, and apologizes in the morning. Easy. Foolproof. Child's play.

Yuuji runs into Fushiguro as soon as he leaves his room.

He has one foot in the hallway and the other still in the room, while Fushiguro has his hand on the doorknob of his, still dressed in his uniform. He must have come home not long ago. In any case, Yuuji's plan falls through because ignoring Fushiguro now would be signing the death certificate of their friendship. Time to improvise.

"Hi," Yuuji greets him.

"Hi," Fushiguro replies. He's responsive, that's a good sign.

"How was the mission?"

"Same as usual."

"That's great." Yuuji is starting to sweat. He knows the other boy is naturally taciturn, but this is another level of social distancing. Yuuji does not know what to say here. Is this proof that he's used up all his luck at the pachinko machines and the one time he really needs it, it evaporates?

"I was going to train." Wrong, but Yuuji's improvising. "Want to join?" Don't let him improvise ever again. Surprisingly, Fushiguro nods without much thought. "Yeah, why not. Wait here." And he goes back to his room. Plan... changed? Saved? Yuuji's Plan A was the only one he had, he doesn't know what to do with this situation. He can't even think about it for long because Fushiguro reappears after five minutes, changed into more comfortable clothes and holding a plastic bag. Yuuji eyes it carefully.

"So," they both begin at the same time.

"Sorry," Yuuji says as Fushiguro shakes his head. "You go first."

Okay. Better get it over with. "I'm sorry about this morning. I was out of line and it upset you. Sorry." Yuuji does his best to keep his gaze from drifting to the floor. He looks at Fushiguro and Fushiguro looks back at him, blue on brown. Eventually, though, he looks away.

Fushiguro sighs. "It's fine. I wanted to apologize too. I could've been nicer."

Hope blooms in Yuuji's chest like daffodils in early spring. "So we're good?"

"We were always good, you idiot."

The urge to hug him is strong, very strong, but Yuuji resists it nonetheless. Personal space, personal space. He certainly doesn't expect his own personal space to be invaded, by a plastic bag no less. Yuuji looks at the arm holding out the bag, then at Fushiguro, who seems to refuse to meet his gaze.

"You can refuse," is all he says, his eyes fixed on the hallway floor, his ears and neck redder than red itself. Intrigued, Yuuji accepts the bag. It's heavy. Heavy with clothes. Clothes he recognizes as the ones Fushiguro often wears indoors, worn but well-loved.

"You're giving me your clothes?" Yuuji still checks that what he's holding is indeed mister Don't-Touch-My-Things stuff. "You can refuse," Fushiguro repeats, his blush spreading from cheeks to forehead. It wouldn't be surprising if he fainted. It certainly would be less surprising than what Yuuji is experiencing here. It's... It has to be symbolic, right? It's not a fancy gift, but it definitely means something to Fushiguro, if only from his reaction, a spark away from spontaneous combustion.

The clothes smell like him too, the pears, thyme, and cedar that Yuuji always finds himself gravitating towards at any given moment "Thank you, Fushiguro," he offers him his biggest smile, "I'll cherish them! And I'll give you some of mine too! There's always room in a closet for hoodies."

Fushiguro finally looks up from the floor, though he can't quite meet Yuuji's gaze. "That would be nice," he murmurs, running a hand through his hair. Embarrassed. Yuuji smiles even wider.

"Come on, let's make dinner with lots of ginger."

"Weren't you going to train?"

Ah. "Ah."

"You're terrible at improvisation."

Yuuji can't argue with that.

Chapter Text

Here's the thing: Jujutsu High doesn't make its students repeat a year. There are far too few of them to allow delaying their graduation even if they haven't mastered all the subjects taught during the year, regardless of the impact this may have on their learning in the years to come. That in itself should be good news, but here's another thing: Yuuji is way behind when it comes to sorcery. Which is to be expected from someone who was introduced to this world at the age of fifteen on a random June evening and not four when asking why is there a monster crawling under the couch. This gap could easily be made up for with evening or remedial classes, but this time there are not one but two things. One, Gojo's timetable is far too full for him to fit in basic sorcery lessons. Two, he categorically refuses to allow Yuuji to receive lessons from anyone that is not him.

"It's cheating," he had said while nodding, one hundred percent sure of himself.

"What about when I'm a second year?"

"I would exceptionally be in charge of the second years. Then the third years the year after that. Then the fourth years."

So they stick to homeworks. Gojo writes simplified summaries of subjects that Yuuji is only now discovering, whereas Fushiguro and Kugisaki have mastered perfectly, and fills in pages after pages of quizzes that Gojo then corrects and incorporates into his grades. Yuuji is... not a good student. He tries, albeit not very hard, but academics are not his forte. He's no scholar, that's for sure.

Fushiguro tried in vain to help him study, eventually giving up after three hours, saying that Yuuji makes up for his learning deficiencies with his high emotional intelligence. Yuuji carefully neglected to tell him that he has no idea what emotional intelligence is. As for Kugisaki, she simply patted him on the shoulder and advised him to use the fatal combination, he quotes, smile/hands behind the back/tilted head/tiptoe combination when Gojo writes down their points in his notebook.

Yuuji was pretty sceptical but gave it a go when he came across Gojo in the teachers' lounge, correcting tests with Kusakabe and Utahime on a visit to Tokyo. It strangely worked, so much so that Kusakabe banned Yuuji from the teachers' lounge after Gojo enthusiastically raised his mark from thirty-eight points to sixty-five on his last test under Utahime's disgusted gaze.

Homework due means deadlines to meet, and for someone who's often if not always, late, Gojo doesn't tolerate delays on assignments. This makes Yuuji's current situation even more dire because he had begged Gojo for an extra week to finish his essay on barriers, first by bowing at a perfect ninety-degree angle, ineffective, then by applying Kugisaki's technique, which this time proved inconclusive against Gojo's steely resistance. Yuuji then had to cling to the man until he agreed, both arms around his chest as his pleads became more and more desperate.

Fortunately, Gojo finally agreed. After continuing his morning with Yuuji clinging to him like an unbalanced koala, sure, but he's nothing if not tough and his arms barely felt the two hours spent clamped around Gojo's muscular torso as he moved around the campus.

At some point Gojo took pity of him and put an arm under Yuuji's thighs to allow him to sit instead of swinging like a keychain with his feet so far off the ground. It felt comfortable, natural, being carried like that, much like when he found himself sitting on Gojo's lap during the Incident, the only difference being that Gojo was carrying Yuuji with one arm as if he weighed nothing as he paced the corridors of the administrative building looking for assistants to whom he could relegate his workload.

They then came across Yaga. Arms crossed, a sullen expression, wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, visibly unhappy to see his former student carrying his former student's student. That's a lot of students. Anyway, Gojo had to put him down after much reprimanding that went ignored as usual, but Yuuji refused to let go the man until he was given more time to finish his essay. With Yaga as a witness, he was given three extra days to write it, which was as generous as it was hypocritical of Gojo, but Yuuji said nothing of it— not when Yaga did it instead— and left before he could change his mind, leaving former student and teacher to bicker.

That was Tuesday morning. He had three extra days, Tuesday included. It's now 8:18 PM on Thursday, and Yuuji still hasn't submitted shit.

In his defense, the paper was written, proofread, and corrected for errors by him. In his offense, he finished five minutes ago. Yuuji procrastinated, okay? The first day had given him a sense of calm after successfully earning those extra days, the second was spent shopping with Kugisaki with the promise of getting started on the third day.

The plan was to get up at the crack of dawn to write the essay in time to hand it in to Gojo for morning classes, except Yuuji slept through all four—four!—of the alarms he'd set. It was Fushiguro who dragged him out of Morpheus's arms, banging on his door to make sure he didn't miss breakfast. Plan A failed, giving way to Plan B: writing it during breakfast, which might have worked if Yuuji weren't responsible for feeding the first and second years three times a day like an overworked housewife. He's barely written two paragraphs between miso soup and rice and coffee and fish and eggs and Inumaki wanting waffles of all things because apparently they're no longer in Tokyo but in Brussels, and no, senpai, there's no speculoos paste to put on your waffles, please just use the chocolate.

Plan B failed.

But Yuuji isn't one to despair. After Plan B came Plan C: this time writing that damn essay during lunch break and handing it in just before Gojo leaves campus to prepare for a long mission. He'd pulled a face when Yuuji arrived empty-handed in the morning and warned him that if Yuuji didn't appear in his office by three in the afternoon, the essay would be considered unsubmitted and that will have consequences on his grades.

Not only Yuuji was screwed, but it was his own fault. He made onigiri for lunch and ignored the complaints about the simplicity of the food in favor of focusing on writing the essay. Not every meal is a succession of appetizers, main courses, salads, cheeses, and dessert. Yes, he watched a French cooking show on the first day but that's beside the point.

Yuuji's troubles obviously didn't end there. It turns out he had greatly underestimated the difficulty of the essay's topic. At first glance barriers seemed simple enough, but the more Yuuji wrote, the more he lost understanding, so much so that he reached a point where the white of his paper was branded onto his retina from staring at it for too long, hoping the words would fall from the sky right on his paper. He had to retreat to his room to dig out the books on barriers that Gojo had given him along with the essay but which Yuuji had deemed useless at the time. Reading them while writing draft after draft took much longer than expected. Three o'clock passed, then four o'clock, then all afternoon as Yuuji wrote, erased, read, rewrote, until finally seeing the end of it well after sunset. Plan C failed, sure, but the alphabet is long for a reason, and Yuuji is determined to succeed before reaching Z.

So, Plan D: check if Gojo is still in his office.

He takes off like a cheetah with the essay in a manila folder, crossing the dormitory and classroom building in the matter of seconds. Fushiguro's distant voice reaches him long after he's bumped into him but Yuuji can't afford to slow down so he simply shouts an apology over his shoulder and speeds up. Though when he arrives, Gojo's office is empty, as is the teachers' lounge. Okay. Don't panic. Well, maybe panic a little, but with moderation.

Yuuji leans against a classroom wall, crosses his arms and thinks. Gojo was adamant about Yuuji handing his work before three o'clock because of a long mission, however he didn't say he was leaving for the mission at three o'clock but rather that he had to prepare for it. There's a good chance it's taking place overseas and that Gojo has gone home to pack his suitcases, passport and all the other things people prepare before boarding a plane—Yuuji wouldn't know anything about that, having never taken more than a train. So Gojo is probably at home, if the flight is still a few hours away. And Yuuji knows where he lives after spending two months in his basement. It's ridiculously close to campus, probably for laughing right at the higher-ups' faces day and night.

There is of course the possibility that Gojo has simply teleported to the location of the mission, but hope springs eternal, and right now it's fuel for Yuuji as he races across campus a second time.

He hurtles down the thousand and one steps at top speed and, once at the bottom, drifts like a Formula 1 car towards the parking lot used by the school. Redbull gives you wings.

Plan D having failed, here's Plan E: borrow a bike from the parking lot, go to Gojo's house to give him the essay and save his schooling. For once the planets are aligned for Yuuji because although the parking is empty when he arrives he miraculously finds a bike padlocked to a power pole. With a silent apology and a promise to put it back exactly where he found it, Yuuji breaks the chain with his bare hands then gets on the bike, puts the folder in the basket hanging from the handlebars before setting off. He barely notices the second years descending the thousand and one steps as he passes by, except for Maki calling his name.

"Hey!" she shouts. "Where are you going at this hour?"

"Giving my homework to Gojo-sensei!" replies Yuuji through the wind whipping his face. He doesn't hear her answer nor Panda's or Inumaki's, already far from the school. He pedals and pedals, the muscles of his legs tensing as the density of vegetation surrounding Jujutsu High gradually diminishes to make way for less traditional, more modern facilities. He passes the station and then begins to accelerate as he sees the first houses in the residential area.

It's quiet, chic without being flashy, a bourgeois air emanating from the rows of houses perfectly aligned one after the other. Yuuji certainly stands out in this picture, bursting forward like Eddy Merckx at the finish line of the Tour de France in his red-hooded uniform.

The deeper he gets into the neighbourhood, the more familiar the streets become, until Yuuji recognises the houses of the neighbours that Gojo formally forbade him to befriend when he caught him baking cookies to introduce himself during the summer. Ate all the cookies right in front of Yuuji's astonished eyes to make his point.

Finally, finally, Yuuji arrives at Gojo's house. He slammes on the brakes, gets off the bike and leans it against the low wall next to the name Gojo written on the stone. Grabbing the manila folder, Yuuji suddenly stops in his tracks. None of the windows on the front are lit. They overlook the kitchen on the ground floor and the bathroom and study upstairs, so it shouldn't be all that surprising if the lights aren't on, but even the glass of the front door shows that the corridor is plunged into darkness. Has Gojo left already? Did he even come here in the first place?

Nevertheless, Yuuji moves towards the front door. He rings the bell. No answer. He rings a second time, no answer, then decides to knock, but still no answer and no sign of life inside. Well, there go his grades. Disappointed, Yuuji leans against the door to think of a new plan, although no letter of the alphabet can bring Gojo back to Japan. Maybe he'll accept the essay if he scans it and sends it by email? Nah, knowing him he doesn't like to stare at a screen for too long with his six eyes even with a blindfold.

Caught up in his thoughts, Yuuji is more than surprised when the door behind him opens under the weight of his body. Instead of sprawling like a pancake in the genkan, he catches himself at the last minute on the doorframe with the folder gripped between two fingers. Huh. Is Gojo the type to just leave his door open like that? Sure, the neighborhood probably doesn't have much crime, but not to lock his door while away overseas... Maybe he's still there? Or maybe not, and Yuuji can leave his work in the study so it'll be the first thing Gojo sees when he gets home. Plan F it is then

Yuuji closes the door behind him before walking into the house. It's surprisingly freezing inside like Christmas' Eve is just around the corner and Yuuji makes a note to check if Gojo let his freezer open before going back.

He takes off his shoes and puts them away as best he can in the dark, then walks a little blindly down the hallway while his eyes adjust to the darkness. Soon he sees the outlines of the furniture; the dresser, the plants, the sofa and the television from the half-open door of the living room, the beginning of the staircase. Yuuji goes upstairs slowly so as to not accidentally miss a step that will end with Gojo returning from his mission and finding his student lying in his house with a broken leg. Once upstairs safe and sound, Yuuji feels the wall for the light switch. If the ground floor was a little dark, then the first floor is completely plunged into darkness. Yuuji sees nothing except the glow of the nightlights at the end of the hallway.

If they're on a plug then the switch must be there too, right? Yuuji puts both hands on the wall and uses it to step forward into the darkness, one foot in front of the other. Although, strangely enough, the further down the hallway he goes, the heavier the air becomes. And cold. Unbreathable. Oppressive. Yuuji stops walking, uneasy. The house is quieter than a graveyard yet he feels a crushing gaze resting on him, as well as the sensation of suffocating under layers of snow, buried like an unfortunate skier caught in an avalanche. Even the nightlights bring him no comfort despite the way they glow in the distance, round headlights in the black of the night.

Which is odd, because although he's hardly ever been upstairs Yuuji remembers cleaning the whole house on the last day of his summer holiday playing dead, plugs included. And the nightlights he cleared of dust that day were rectangular, not circular.

It takes several minutes of contemplation for realisation to dawn on him. Yuuji's blood goes cold in his veins as his heart misses a beat, if not three.

Those aren't nightlights at the end of the hallway. Those are eyes. Gojo's eyes. Pupils so dilated that in the darkness they appear as two glowing blue rings that Yuuji has mistaken for nightlights. He doesn't know what to process first, that Gojo has been standing there all along or that he hasn't blinked once since Yuuji set foot on the first floor.

"Gojo-sensei?" Yuuji asks tentatively. He sees nothing but those two thin circles levitating in the dark no matter how many times he blinks, trying to see a strand of white hair or the outline of the man's silhouette. Seconds pass but nothing happens, just silence spreading its limbs like an afternoon shadow. Frozen in place, Yuuji tries to breathe through his mouth but all it does is introduce cold air to the walls of his throat. It's cold, terribly cold. There are no fir trees, no mud, no pine trees, no mint, just the cold of winter and Gojo standing motionless in the hail raining down on them both.

Just when Yuuji thinks he's mistaken and that they really are just nightlights he hadn't noticed the other day, the two circles begin to move closer to him. It's weird because he doesn't hear any footsteps or creaking floorboards, only the blue of Gojo's eyes at the end of the hallway getting closer.

Something's wrong. The closer Gojo gets, the more the air becomes stifling, going from Antarctic to Saturn with every step Yuuji can't see. Something's wrong. This is, and it isn't, the same situation he'd found himself in all those weeks before, the famous Incident where Gojo cornered him after days of avoiding him with a hand on the back of his neck. Except that here Yuuji hasn't done anything wrong, apart perhaps breaking into his house, but even then the door was open and he'd just planned to drop the essay in the study and then leave.

Something is terribly wrong and Yuuji can do nothing but watch as Gojo slowly strides towards him, wolf step by wolf step. Why isn't he saying anything? Why is he still here if he has a mission abroad? And above all, why can't Yuuji bring himself to move? This is Gojo-sensei, his favourite teacher, his saviour, his executioner, acting like a weeping angel who still moves even when looking him straight in the eyes, the only thing Yuuji can really see, and yet he's rooted to the spot. Despite the dread weighing down his stomach, the frantic beating of his heart, the cold sweat dampening his back, Yuuji is rooted to the spot.

"You don't run from me" Gojo had told him through clenched teeth in the alley near the casino. Yuuji wasn't sure he could even if he wanted to. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn but for once the arrow isn't pointing at either of them, broken in pieces and lying on the ground. Yuuji's instincts don't know what to do, Yuuji himself doesn't know what to do so he freezes in place watching Gojo cross the hallway, ice in his veins.

You don't run from me.

He doesn't. The eyes are already much closer now, halfway down the hallway, floating two heads higher than Yuuji, and he doesn't run. It's Gojo, he has no reason to run no matter how strange he acts. Strange and Gojo go hand in hand after all, although this is a whole new kind of strange that Yuuji isn't sure he likes.

You don't run from me—

He can't feel his fingertips any more. When he must have been between six and seven years old, Yuuji spent a whole morning in February building a snowman in the small garden behind his grandfather's house. The snow had made his gloves all wet and heavy and once the snowman was built and dressed in an old green cap Yuuji's fingers were as red as they were inert. It took a bath and two cups of hot milk tea to regain the feeling of his fingers.

Now though, no amount of hot tea could warm either Yuuji's hands or arms, not when the hallway is a butcher's cold storage room and he is nothing but a skinned carcass hanging upside down by a hook.

"Gojo-sensei?" he tries again because maybe he hadn't heard him, maybe Gojo is just tired, maybe he doesn't feel well and needs help, maybe he's cold too—

—even if I order you to.

"What are you doing? Move!" Sukuna's stormy voice suddenly snaps Yuuji out of his thoughts just in time to see those two blue circles descending on him as if the sky itself were falling on the earth. With the use of his legs regained thanks to Sukuna's intervention, Yuuji dodges Gojo as best he can in the dark and scampers toward the only exit in the hallway: the stairs. He could have opened one of the rooms and escaped through a window, but that would have meant running past Gojo, which is doomed to failure when Yuuji sees nothing while he sees everything with his Six Eyes.

He should know by now that there's no such thing as escaping Gojo Satoru.

No sooner does he reach the top of the stairs than a sturdy body collides with Yuuji's back. He tries his best to turn his torso to hold on blindly to the railing, but the force of the impact is such that the wood shatters with a jolt, sending chips flying through the air as Yuuji and Gojo fall down the stairs.

The fall is a disorientating experience. Yuuji sees nothing but feels everything, hears everything; Gojo's thick arms around his waist, the folder slipping out of his grasp, the decorative pictures hanging on the wall falling as they pass and their glass shattering on the steps, said steps Yuuji feels their impact on his back, legs, head, neck as they roll down like the very representation of the snowball effect. The landing is even more painful than the fall, as they crash straight into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and Yuuji is the one on top when they collide. He absorbs the impact with jaws and muscles clenched while Gojo barely makes a sound when his head hits the hard ground floor, no Infinity to cushion the fall.

Yuuji blinks for a second or two, temporarily confused as to why he's straddling his teacher, until the pain throughout his body registers and dissipates the momentary haze. He rises hastily and tries to rush toward the genkan but loses precious seconds when his feet, bruised by shards of glass and wood chips, come into contact with the ground, the sudden pain causing him to stumble.

That's all Gojo needs to make up for the little distance Yuuji had put between them. Two large hands grab hold of his uniform jacket and pull him back, away from the genkan and the exit. Panicked, Yuuji unzips his jacket, popping several buttons in the process, before pulling himself out without a backward glance.

This time he doesn't stumble when he runs.

The bits of glass sink deeper through socks and flesh as Yuuji dashes across the hallway. The distance between the bottom of the stairs and the genkan isn't even that long, and yet he feels like he's at the relay race of his middle school sports festival back in Sendai. He was the last to relay, because it's well known that the fastest must be the last to run to make up for any time the other teammates may have lost. He had led his team to victory three years in a row in middle school, crossing the finish line well before the opposing teams. Defeat and Yuuji do not exist in the same sentence.

And yet.

And yet just as he reaches the genkan, once again a hand grabs hold of him, his ankle this time, and pulls. Yuuji watches helplessly as his world tilts while he falls for the second time this evening. He cushions the impact with his forearms and tries, tries to resist Gojo's Herculean strength, tries to dig his ten fingers into the wood of the floor, tries to kick back. They land, of course they do, but it's like hitting a titanium wall. Concrete and steel Yuuji can knock down. Titanium is what makes rockets fly.

"Gojo-sensei!" he shouts once he's dragged far, far from the entrance, past the hallway and into the living room. He can barely feel the carpet beneath him as he struggles savagely against Gojo's grip. All notions of judo and taekwondo go right over Yuuji's head. There's no logic, no artistry in the way he thrashes and the same can be said of Gojo, straddling him with both hands on either side of Yuuji's head. Caging him.

Then Gojo speaks for the first time since Yuuji stepped foot inside the house. "Why," he says, his voice hoarse as if he hasn't drank water for days. "Why are you resisting? I caught you, why are you resisting? Why?" It's desperate. It's full of... hurt.

Yuuji stops struggling for a moment to look at the man above him. Even without the lights on, the living room is much less dark than the first floor, allowing him to see Gojo's face much better. He doesn't look well. In addition to the dilated pupils and the shards of glass and wood embedded in his bare forearms, the sickly pallor of his face contrasts with the feverish red of his cheeks. What little blue visible in his eyes is glassy, ​​and his chest heaves in short gasps. Not even Special Grades makes Gojo pant.

Gojo doesn't seem to notice that Yuuji has stopped struggling. "It's not fair," he accuses between clenched teeth, gaze going in and out of focus. "That's not fair, you're not fair to me, Yuuji. Yuuji. Yuuji."

Yuuji's heart aches.

He reaches out with both arms to cup Gojo's face. It's hot and glistening with sweat. "Gojo-sensei," he calls softly, "it's me, Yuuji. Can you recognize me?" He rubs soothing circles with his fingers on the man's temples, guessing he must be suffering from a splitting headache after falling down the stairs in such a state.

Gojo freezes, taken aback. It takes him a moment to process the information. "Of course. I wouldn't chase anyone else but Yuuji." He's not sure what that means, but then again he's also not sure how Gojo sees him while being both sick and the holder of the Six Eyes and Limitless.

Yuuji pushes back the strands of sweat-covered hair stuck to his forehead with one hand, and despite the fear and panic he felt no less than two minutes ago, he can't help but smile when Gojo closes his eyes in contentment through his pain. "You're not feeling well, sensei. Let's get you to bed, okay?"

At that, Gojo snaps his eyes back at Yuuji. "I caught you," he repeats, hands dangerously close to his neck. Yuuji gulps. "You did."

"I did."

"That's great," he praises, one hand cupping a cheek while the other runs through the white of his hair, gently stroking it, ignoring the sweat dampening his fingers. Yuuji caresses and murmurs and praises Gojo in a low voice until winter melts around them, icicles slowly disappearing with much coaxing from him.

Though still breathing in shallow pants, Gojo looks calmer now, blinking slowly with his burning cheek pressed against Yuuji's palm. He doesn't know how long they stay like this, Yuuji on his back and Gojo straddling him, but at some point the black in his pupils gradually shrinks. The circles go from thin to thick until there's more blue than black, though the pupils are still quite dilated.

Gojo frowns, more lucid than before. "Yuuji-kun?" he asks, first surprised by Yuuji's presence, then puzzled by their position on the ground. His eyes flick from his black t-shirt ruined by the glass to Yuuji's red hoodie missing its usual jacket. He seems to have come to a conclusion on his own. "You shouldn't be here, Yuuji-kun."

"Are you okay? Can I do something for you?"

Gojo sighs. It's long and tired. "No, Yuuji, no. You shouldn't be here." And yet he melts against the hand still cupping his cheek, rubbing against it like a very large cat retracting its claws after ransacking the house. Yuuji frowns.

"But you're not well at all, and you're alo—"

"Yuuji-kun," Gojo interrupts, the hot breath of his words making the hairs on his arms stand up. "Have I not scared you?"

"You have," Yuuji confesses because it's nothing but the truth, and he's not a good liar. "But I'm worried about you."

"You sweet thing," he purrs fondly, pecking at Yuuji's numb fingers before dragging his nose from the palm to the veins of his wrist. There, Gojo rubs the bridge of his nose affectionately under Yuuji's incredulous gaze—comparing him to a cat may not be that far off the mark. "So sweet," Gojo continues, unaware of Yuuji's thoughts, "so kind, so lovely, so good." After the wrist comes the forearm. This one gets the same treatment, except that Gojo rubs his entire cheek against his skin.

Yuuji squeals like a rubber duck. "Sensei!"

"You want to please, don't you? I know you do. You want to help, but you can't. Wouldn't that be wonderful? No, no, you can't, but you could—" He suddenly stops in his tirade. Yuuji watches the peaceful smile that had settled on Gojo's flushed face fade as he goes from affectionate cat to police dog, nostrils flaring along Yuuji's forearm. He has a bad feeling about this.

"Sensei, let's get you to bed," he tries once more to reason before things turn sour again. If there's one thing Yuuji has learnt tonight it's that a sick Gojo is an unstable Gojo. However, the man pays no attention to Yuuji's words, focusing on whatever it is he feels on his forearm.

"Pears..." Gojo mumbles so low that Yuuji can barely hear it.

"What?"

"Pears... Pears. Pears!" Gojo laughs. It's not a pretty sound. It's loud, hysterical and so full of fury. All of Yuuji's efforts to create a calming atmosphere collapse like a house of cards as the temperature suddenly drops ten degrees, followed by the dilation of Gojo's pupils. Back to square one. "You," Gojo says, face so close to his that he can feel the feverish heat emanating from his cheeks, "are not fair to me." But Yuuji can't for the life of him understand what he did wrong between now and ten seconds ago.

Pears he'd said. Pears? Sure, Yuuji had slept last night in one of the old sweaters Fushiguro had given him the other day, but he took a shower this very morning! How could Gojo smell Fushiguro's cologne through the scalding water and soap that had just washed it off? And even if he could, why should that be a problem now of all times?

"Sorry—"

"I caught you. I did. Not him, not anyone else." It's hard to look away from those eyes, even when they're more black than blue. But Yuuji needs to do so in order to look for a way out, anything to get him out of this situation, and that's why he doesn't notice Sukuna's mouth forming on his cheek until it's too late. "Get your filthy hands off my vessel," Sukuna snarls with too many teeth for such a small mouth.

The response is immediate. Yuuji only gets a rumble of thunder as warning before a jaw closes like a bear trap on the forearm he'd raised to protect his face, or at least the part of his face where Sukuna appeared.

Teeth break the skin through the sleeve of his hoodie and although it's already red Yuuji can feel the blood flowing where Gojo's incisors have sunk the deepest. It hurts like hell. He's never been bitten before, not by a human or an animal—if you don't count insects. Not even by a curse. And he's certainly not happy finding what it feels like to have thirty-two teeth embedded in his flesh.

Yuuji grunts in pain and tries to dislodge his arm from Gojo's jaws but it only makes him squeeze harder, literally growling like a dog with rabies the further he tries to pull away. "Gojo-sensei, please!" Yuuji tries to talk some sense into him, to no avail. Just when he's considering using his other arm to strangle the man, at least enough to get him to let go, his saviour comes in the form of a teddy bear bursting into the living room through one of the windows.

Gojo reacts instantly to the new threat, finally letting go of Yuuji and shredding the cursed corpse in the space of seconds. He rolls onto his stomach, ready to bolt out of here at the speed of light, and wouldn't even be in the neighbourhood by now if the surprise hadn't stopped him dead in his tracks. From the living room he sees nearly three cursed corpses occupying the hallway, ready to sacrifice themselves like cannon fodder, but even more surprising Yuuji sees Nanami standing in the entrance.

"Hurry up!" the man tells him, and that's all Yuuji needs to hear before he's running down that damned hallway for the third time, bleeding from arms and feet alike.

As before, he feels Gojo trying to catch up with him and drag him inside, but this time the cursed corpses force their way between them to give him enough time to escape. The last thing Yuuji hears before Nanami shoves him into Ijichi's car parked in front of the house is the sound of seams tearing like paper. It's only once the car is far from the neighborhood that Yuuji lets himself breathe. Oh God. He never wants to think about this again. At least not tonight.

Nanami doesn't seem to agree.

"What were you thinking?" he asks from the backseat right next to Yuuji. His voice is tight, a mixture of disappointment and anger making Ijichi tremble in the driver's seat.

Yuuji keeps his gaze lowered to his knees. "I just wanted to hand in a homework."

"And couldn't it wait another day?"

"It was the last day to return it, and I knew Gojo-sensei wouldn't be available for a long time so I thought I'd stop by his house."

Nanami sighs, running a hand over the hard features of his face. "Do you realize how irresponsible you've been? Naivety can't excuse everything, and in your case, I don't know if it was naivety, carelessness, or foolishness that drove you to act like this." Yuuji shrinks his head at the lecture he's receiving in front of witnesses, though Ijichi tries to make himself even smaller than usual like he's the one being scolded by the adult of adults. "You're lucky the second years saw you leave campus on their way to their mission and told Ijichi-kun here, who then called me."

"I didn't know!" he tries to defend himself anyway. "I worked all day on this essay and when I finally finished it Gojo-sensei had already gone home. Nobody told me anything about him being..." so sick you could cook eggs on his cheeks or at least try and end up torn to pieces like those poor cursed corpses, "...like that."

"Are we to believe you didn't smell nor feel anything in that house?"

"Yes!" It comes out louder than he intended. Yuuji cradles his arm with the other one that didn't suffer from Gojo's slightly too sharp teeth. "I didn't know." Then smaller, "I'm sorry."

The car is silent for a moment after that, a moment Yuuji spends trying to keep his blood-soaked socks from soiling Ijichi's car mats. "Are you hurt?" Nanami eventually asks at a red light.

"Not really."

"I smell blood." Since everyone is a fucking bloodhound tonight. "He bit me," Yuuji says simply. His gaze still fixed on his feet, he hears more than sees Nanami turn his head sharply towards him. "Where?" There's a hint of worry mixed with the anger and disappointment from earlier.

Yuuji shrugs. "It's not important."

"Itadori-kun." A warning. Whatever, Yuuji is tired. He rolls up the sleeve of his left arm where an arc of teeth is visible on each side of the forearm, inside and out. Blood still flows weakly from where the bite is deepest, canines but also incisors and premolars. Ijichi gives Yuuji a worried look from the rear-view mirror.

Nanami inspects the bite for a moment. "We'll take care of that once we get to the school. Your feet too."

The rest of the ride is uncomfortably silent with unspoken words and glances towards Yuuji, whether from Ijichi or Nanami. Fortunately, they soon arrive in front of the school's thousand and one steps. Ijichi wishes them a good evening, although good night is more appropriate here, and then it's just Yuuji and Nanami. He hadn't noticed it at Gojo's house in the heat of the action, but Nanami isn't wearing his usual glasses or two-piece suit. Instead he's in a simple white shirt and black pants, with his blond hair a little less styles. It must be his day off then. Ah, Yuuji feels bad.

"Well then," he says a little awkwardly, "good night Nanamin! Sorry to have bothered you." To which the man simply squints his eyes, resigned.

"And how are you planning on climbing all those stairs?"

"Huh... I guess Fushiguro can send me a shikiga—wah!" One minute he's a 170 centimeters, the next he's a 190 centimeters as Nanami carries his eighty kilos in one arm without a care in the world, a bit like Gojo-sensei the other day until Yaga told him to put Yuuji down.

Yuuji hesitates for a moment before wrapping his arms around Nanami's neck, then hesitates for another moment before resting his head on his shoulder. Thankfully he says nothing of it, just continues to climb the stairs at a steady pace while Yuuji watches his bloodied feet sway to the rhythm of his steps.

"Ah," he says once they've almost reached the top. "I forgot the bike."

"The bike?" Nanami inquires. Yuuji nods against his shoulder. "I borrowed a bike to go to Gojo-sensei's. You must have seen it, it was in front of the house."

"Was that essay that important?"

Yuuji smiles. "Kinda. It was supposed to save my grades. Or at least not make them worse than they already are." Nanami sighs, exasperated.

"You didn't think to call him before barging into his house?" he asks ten steps further. Which. Hmm. Huh.

"I didn't think of that."

Another sigh. "I see."

Nanami carries him up the stairs and across the campus to Ieiri's empty infirmary. Yuuji is placed on a bed as Nanami disappears for a moment, only to reappear with disinfectant, tweezers, and bandages. Yuuji watches him meticulously disinfect, first the bite wound, which doesn't really require more than a bandage, and then his bruised feet. Removing the socks is a painful process, as is the disinfectant, followed by the tweezers removing the bits of glass and wood that have lodged in the soles of his feet piece by piece.

Yuuji remains silent throughout, watching Nanami work both efficiently and gently, careful not to cause any unnecessary pain. Soon the tray is filled with glass while Yuuji's feet are empty, disinfected, and bandaged until Ieiri can work her magic on him.

Once all the tools and his hands are washed and put away, Nanami comes to stand one last time in front of the bed Yuuji intends to occupy for the night. "I'll be going now. I'll call Ieiri-san tomorrow morning so she won't be taken by surprise by your presence." And then he turns and walks towards the door.

Yuuji's throat tightens. "Nanamin?" he calls before the man can place his hand on the doorknob. He stops in his tracks and turns his head towards Yuuji, showing that he's listening. "I didn't know. Really. I promise."

Nanami studies him for a moment, strangely less tough in his simple white shirt instead of the beige suit and blue shirt. He's not a sorcerer here, just Nanamin. Well, he's always been just Nanamin to Yuuji, but in the moonlight that streams through the infirmary's large windows, he looks within reach. Perhaps it's the lack of glasses that reveals his gaze usually hidden.

Yuuji only notices that Nanami has moved back to the bed when a familiar hand appears in his field of vision. "May I?" he asks, and Yuuji doesn't know what he's talking about, having been lost in thought. "Sure," he replies because there isn't much Yuuji would deny him. Curious, he watches Nanami lift his wrist and tentatively rest it on the top of Yuuji's shoulder blades. He shivers at the touch of cold skin on his own and is honestly a little confused about what Nanami is doing until he begins to lightly rub the inside of his wrist against the skin revealed by the old t-shirt Yuuji found in the infirmary's change of clothes.

It's soothing. Worries and thoughts melt like butter in the sun, replaced by the smoke of baked chestnuts and the amber hues of maple syrup. Soft, warm, safe. Yuuji feels safe. Safe in someone's hold, someone's care.

Nanami continues to trace circles with his wrist on the skin just below his collar—he has to take that off before sleeping—for the most relaxing five minutes of Yuuji's life. He does stop though, much to his disappointment, but any complaint dies in his throat when a large hand clumsily pats Yuuji's hair.

"Good night, Itadori-kun," Nanami tells him. Then he leaves.

Yuuji flops heavily onto the infirmary's uncomfortable pillow. What a day. He thinks about the essay in the folder lying somewhere in Gojo's house. Did it survive the fall? The glass? The railing? The cursed corpses? Gojo himself? Probably not.

Plan F failed.

Chapter Text

The classroom ceilings are made of brown wood—painted or originally brown, who knows—to remain in harmony with the traditional sanctuary atmosphere of the campus. Although the gardens and buildings are maintained by volunteer monks and far less willing clan servants, classroom maintenance is often neglected under the pretext that it is the students' responsibility. As a result, although they are almost as clean as the rest of the school, some corners still remain dusty, a testament to the laziness that teenagers can exhibit.

Room 2-B, for example, has a sparkling clean floor as well as a whole collection of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, the work of a spider that strangely has only seven legs instead of eight. Though its disability doesn't stop it from weaving an entire empire above their heads or wrapping flies and gnats in its webs.

Yuuji knows all this because he's been staring at the ceiling for the last thirty minutes.

"Ugh," he sighs, leaning his head back even further, the wood of the chair digging uncomfortably into his back. Leaning like that the edge of the collar around his neck is starting to irritate his skin despite it not being that tight, but Yuuji feels too lazy to straighten up into a proper position. Huh. Lazy and Yuuji in the same sentence, who would have thought. Certainly not Yuuji, until he had to sit on a chair for more than ten minutes in total silence. With a blank sheet of paper in front of him. Again.

"This is too much. I didn't even know Jujutsu High had detention," he complains to the seven-legged spider. “What kind of Japanese school is this?"

It doesn't answer him, surprise, surprise, but Yuuji continues his tirade anyway. "I can't have a deep fryer because it's supposedly too western, but I have to endure two hours of detention? It's not fair!" He abandons the spider and turns his attention to the desk in front of him. "Did you hear me, sensei? It's not fair!" No answer. "Not fair at all!" Still not. Agh. Yuuji straightens his spine only to sprawl out this time on the desk, cheek pressed against the paper he's supposed to be filling out with another essay. As if one wasn't enough.

Gojo finally deigns to answer him. "That's what you get for being recklessly reckless. Did I forget to mention reckless? How reckless of me!" Sitting cross-legged at his desk like the teacher he is, he doesn't even look up from his philosophy book while Yuuji is dying of boredom just two meters away.

"But Gojo-sensei!"

"Ah-ah, no whining your way out of it, you sly tiger," he says while slowly turning a page, looking completely unbothered. How he can read through his odd opaque glasses, Yuuji doesn't know, but it has to be said that they go well with the grey wide collar sweatshirt Gojo has opted to wear instead of his usual uniform. He looks like a proper, serious adult for once, an adult who has decided to establish a certain distance between them since The Incident 2—it's starting to sound like the titles of old low-budget horror movies.

Yuuji had expected this to some extent, just as he had expected Gojo's reprimands from the moment he woke up on the infirmary bed, but none of his predictions were proved correct. When he woke up the day after his escapade at Gojo's house, only Nanami had sent him a message to check on him while Gojo was silent as a grave, even after Yuuji had sent message after message asking how Gojo was. If his fever had broken, if he was feeling better, if he had any wounds from the fall, if he needed any help. Yuuji ended up giving up when he was forced to realize that the man would do no more than leave him on read.

Which is kinda harsh of him honestly, especially when Yuuji was seriously worried even though he's the one who received a bite that made Ieiri of all people wince when she healed his wounds in the early hours.

Messages seen but not answered, no news, radio silence for three days that worried no one but Yuuji. It was only when he voiced his concerns about Gojo's absence that he realized everyone thought he was away on a mission abroad and not sick and aggressive in his own house fifteen minutes away from school. Yuuji then said nothing, just as he hadn't told Fushiguro and Kugisaki about his escapade turned horror movie, so as not to worry them but, above all, not to be scolded even more. He'd had enough scolding.

Bless Ieiri and her lack of interest in anything that doesn't involve nicotine or alcohol. She barely said a word as she tended Yuuji's feet, her eyes cloudy from lack of sleep and an unlit cigarette in her mouth. It's a bit sad though. Yuuji should cook her something, if only to see her tired eyes light up for once.

Anyway, he's rambling. The fact is that Yuuji was losing sleep over not having any news from Gojo and Nanami refused to say anything to him apart from don't even try knocking on his door every time Yuuji asked him. So imagine his surprise when Gojo appeared in the classroom on Monday morning, six minutes late as usual and as fresh as a Norwegian freshwater salmon. And above all behaving as if absolutely nothing had happened, laughing and joking with the other first years and teaching without a hitch after ignoring Yuuji for three days and four nights.

Have the tables turned? Well, maybe. But that was no reason to change the subject every time he tried to talk about The Incident 2. Or almost anything in general. Even without Infinity to keep him at bay Yuuji could see that Gojo wasn't as close as he used to be, not as tactile, not as playful. Kugisaki had joked one morning that Yuuji had lost his place as teacher's pet but, seeing that it had ruined his appetite, she didn't bring it up again.

To top it all off, just when Yuuji had come to terms with the fact that they'd never talk about that night and that, as the Arabs would say, li fet met, Gojo held him up one afternoon at the end of class to tell him he had detention.

Detention. What is this, Singapore? New Zealand? The United States?

And not only does he have two hours of detention, but Yuuji has to rewrite the damned essay that was ultimately the trigger for this whole situation.

It's not often that Gojo Satoru annoys Yuuji. The others yes, but Yuuji? No. Not often at all. It does happen, though, on the rare occasions when he can't find the man's eccentric, unpredictable behaviour endearing. Like here, for example, Gojo immersed in his philosophy book on Socrates or Epicurus or Al-Farabi or whatever and ignoring Yuuji like a king in front of a peasant when he had been biting his nails day and night with worry. Yuuji is frustrated. Angry. Sad, too. A little hurt, and not just physically. Very bored because yeah, he's not going to write this essay for a second time. Call it resistance, strike, insubordination. To hell with his grades.

His cheek still pressed against the desk, he brings to his mouth the empty carton of banana milk that Fushiguro gave him, along with a melon bread, when Yuuji told the other two about his detention. He's been extra generous lately. Not that Yuuji's complaining, he loves little inexpensive gifts like that. Or gifts at all. Fushiguro could give him an old eraser and he'd keep it until there was nothing left to erase with.

Chewing on the wet, worn straw, Yuuji tries once again to get Gojo's attention. If he's going to be stuck here for the next two hours he might as well try to talk. To communicate. A practice apparently unknown in the Gojo clan.

What's more, he's prepared a lethal weapon that Gojo won't be able to counter even with all the nonchalance in the world.

"Sensei," Yuuji calls, turning his neck so that the orange afternoon rays land on his profile. Should he take a nap? It's tempting, terribly so. "Sensei, sensei, sensei."

"Yuuji, Yuuji, Yuuji." Still not looking at him.

Let's test the waters. "Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"Then why haven't you replied to my texts?" That gets a reaction, albeit a short one. Gojo looks up from his book and Yuuji meets his gaze for the first time in too long, blue over the black of his glasses but soon enough it disappears, diving into the words and thoughts of people long dead while Yuuji's are recent and alive before him.

He turns a page. "I think you can guess for yourself," Gojo replies and Yuuji tries, tries, not to lose his temper. "You could have at least told me you were feeling better. Or if you needed anything. I was worried."

"So you could barge into my house again?"

Scolding, again and again. Is that all adults know how to do? "It's not like I did it on purpose!" Yuuji retorts for the umpteenth time. No one seems to believe him no matter how many times he repeats it, not Gojo, not Ijichi, not Nanami. "I didn't know..." he puffs out his cheeks, vexed. These words are beginning to taste like ashes in his mouth.

The silence that follows is heavy, interrupted only by the plastic crinkle of the melon bread wrapper that Yuuji is twisting between his fingers. The minutes pass, as slow as they are heavy, and the prospect of a nap becomes more and more likely. It's only when Gojo puts the book down on the desk with a long sigh that Yuuji notices he hasn't heard any pages turning in a while.

"Yuuji-kun," Gojo calls to him. Yuuji doesn't bother to answer. If Gojo can ignore him at will then so can he. He can be quite the brat when he puts his mind to it. Ugh, he sounds like Sukuna saying that. "Yuuji-kun," Gojo repeats, his voice calm and unusually serious. It doesn't suit him. "Yuuji-kun, look at me."

Determined to disobey, he closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep within seconds. His mind empties, limbs growing heavy, breathing slowing and just when he thinks he's broken a record a shadow appears before his eyelids. Huh. For someone so imposing Gojo can move with velvet steps. Not that this is a discovery.

The shadow grows until the sun is completely obscured by what can only be Gojo's body positioning itself directly in front of Yuuji. A rustle, movements in the air, then the creak of wood on the desk as two large hands rest on either side of Yuuji's head in a strange version of kabedon. Desk-don?

In any case, he only lasts ten meager seconds before opening his eyes. Indeed, Gojo is leaning over Yuuji, almost like a weeping angel slumped on a gravestone, his torso encompassing the entire desk and suspended by two arms as thick as tree trunks.

Yuuji is caged. Again.

He tries to look away but at that, Gojo lowers himself slightly so that no matter where Yuuji looks he'll only see the wall of ice that is this man.

"Things could have gone very badly, Yuuji-kun," Gojo says to him in a barely audible whisper, but one he can hear perfectly well due to their proximity. It's said like a secret, and it certainly feels like one with the way he's looking at Yuuji. White hair hanging like stalactites over the desk, mint and snow enveloping him on all sides, he feels as if he's entered a cave whose stone has never felt the rays of the sun. How lonely. How cold.

"I know," Yuuji murmurs back because he can't bring himself to be a brat when Gojo looks at him like that. "I don't think you do." His hands are so large that they don't quite fit on the desk, brushing against the boy's head. Yuuji's teacher is a big, scary man.

Lifting his head to face him properly, Yuuji looks past the stalactites, toward the back of the cave where a lake glows blue with luminescent algae. "Yes, I do," he says, and doesn't flinch when Gojo's glasses slide down the bridge of his nose to reveal the Six Eyes in all their cursed splendor.

When he smiles, it's a cruel, bloodthirsty thing. "Oh? You do? You're so cute sometimes, Yuuji-kun, I wish I could take a bite out of you. Well," he glances down at Yuuji's forearms resting on the table, "already did that. No hard feelings, right?" Gojo winks. It's so fluid that it looks real, this animosity, this disdain, except Yuuji knows what Gojo's honest face looks like, and it's not made of lips that don't show enough teeth or a nose that crinkles too high.

Yuuji's gaze doesn't waver as he looks into Gojo's all-seeing eyes. "I don't know why you're trying to scare me, but it's not working."

With an unreadable expression, Gojo arches a white eyebrow. "Isn't it?"

"No," Yuuji says, and then to prove his point he raises both arms and wraps them around Gojo's neck without a thought for Infinity. If it was up, then it'd fall in a split second to allow him to latch onto the other's neck. "It's not," he repeats this time in Gojo's ear, his lips brushing against the cartilage. He doesn't even need to stand on tiptoe or rise from his seat with how far Gojo is leaning forward to loom over Yuuji. Doesn't his back hurt? His shoulders are pretty tense though, from what Yuuji can feel.

He lets his hand run along the expanse of his shoulders, palm mapping the contours of tense muscles and stopping briefly to feel the bone of a vertebra. A warning growl rumbles from Gojo's chest, loud, oppressive, and perhaps it would have confused Yuuji weeks ago, made him hesitant, uncertain. Yuuji's teacher is a big, scary man, but Yuuji is nothing if not adaptable.

Arms still around his neck, he leans back to meet Gojo's gaze again. There he finds a carefully blank face, stripped of the cruel facade he'd opted for earlier in favor of a cast snow as white and cold as ice. Perhaps that's why Gojo prefers the blindfold to glasses, Yuuji thinks, because despite everything, his eyes betray him. They're alive, moving, flickering over Yuuji's face, searching for an answer or a sign or whatever Gojo's mind is searching for. How to tell this man that Yuuji doesn't mind? That if this is what Gojo is, an unpredictable force of nature, an underwater volcano, a burning sandstorm, then so be it. Yuuji may run, will run, but at the end of the day he'll always come back to him.

There is no point in establishing boundaries, drawing lines in the sand or putting distance between them so late when Gojo means so much to him already. Yeah, he can be ridiculously terrifying at times, Yuuji just needs to get used to it like he got used to Fushiguro recording his breathing when he catches him napping in the common room or Kugisaki stealing a few strands of his hair to make bracelets or Okkotsu asking him to share his location multiple times a day. Sorcerers are a bit out of step with social norms, are they not?

And maybe Yuuji is finally one if he can accept all this so easily.

Emboldened, Yuuji presses his fingers into the muscle of Gojo's shoulder in a reassuring semi-massage. Actions speak louder than words, after all. As he does so, he accidentally brushes against the back of his neck, revealed by the loose collar of his sweatshirt, and freezes when he feels Gojo shiver against his hand. Huh. Without taking his eyes off his face Yuuji slowly traces the skin just above the collar. He only brushes against it and yet it burns the pads of his fingers like dry ice while Gojo's face tenses, not from discomfort as Yuuji would have thought, but rather to prevent any expression forming.

A wrist on the back of his neck, Nanami's brown eyes softened by the late hour, Yuuji's thoughts and worries evaporating a little more with each brush of skin against skin. Warm. Safe. Relaxed. Cared for.

Looks like the back of the neck is the gateway to relaxation. Surely he can massage Gojo like Nanami did?

Recalling Nanami's movements from that night, Yuuji first spreads his entire hand across Gojo's back and then slowly moves it up to the back of his neck, still watching his face for the slightest sign of discomfort. And he was right to take precautions because the second Yuuji's wrist makes contact with Gojo's bare skin, his pupils dilate so suddenly that Yuuji retracts his hand as if the contact had burned him. Gojo is faster though, grabbing his forearm with one hand before he can pull it back to his chest, the other the only pillar keeping him leaning over Yuuji. The wood of the desk groans slightly under the weight it supports at a single point.

"Don't stop," Gojo murmurs, eyes wide and unblinking, those two rings Yuuji had thought were nightlights once again riveted on him. Gojo leans even lower until his nose touches Yuuji's. Doesn't your back hurt? and you look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame are at the tip of his tongue, yet the words melt like cotton candy in his mouth with that ethereal, unhinged face so close to his own.

Slowly, Gojo lets go of his forearm without taking his eyes off him and waits. This time when Yuuji touches the skin with his wrist he doesn't retract it even though his heart rate races at the sight of black pupils engulfing the electric blue of the Six Eyes, a dozen neon lights flashing danger like a Christmas tree in his mind.

Despite the sudden apprehension Gojo doesn't pounce on him and they don't tumble down some stairs. No, instead he stands still as Yuuji starts rubbing little circles on the skin between his shoulder blades, at first just brushing against it and then, encouraged by the way the tension seems to drain from Gojo's shoulders, applying more pressure. It's almost amusing to see his eyes go from wide and alert to slow blinking like a feral cat thanking from afar the person who feeds it every day.

And a cat Gojo sure is. A spoiled one at that. "Higher," he orders after the skin has been diligently massaged. Yuuji obliges. "Here?" he asks after bringing his wrist up from the shoulder blades to the base of the neck, his other hand still clinging to it for support.

"Higher."

Yuuji goes up and up and— Gojo shivers.

It's odd. Instead of the hardness of vertebrae, the skin of his nape is strangely soft. Smooth. Yuuji pokes it with his finger experimentally, curious in spite of himself, and feels his eyebrows fly all te way up to his hairline when Gojo blushes at the touch.

He thinks he's dreaming but no, red blossoms on the man's cheeks as Yuuji rubs his fingertips over the almost squishy surface of the nape, first with the index finger then followed by the middle finger stretching and pinching the skin. It's a shame he can't see it, but at the same time, it would mean he'd miss out on the front row seats of Gojo's face flushing from the roots of his hair to his collarbones, also exposed by the sweatshirt. So close to Yuuji's face he can almost feel the heat radiating from his body. The back of his neck is certainly burning.

"Here?" Yuuji asks again to be sure, although that reaction alone is more than telling.

"Yea—" Gojo gulps. "Yeah, there. Rub it?" It's not like him to sound so uncertain; in another situation it would have worried Yuuji but here, with his thick eyelashes fluttering and his gaze going in and out of focus, he just looks... vulnerable. If he wanted to be pampered he just had to say so, Yuuji would happily oblige anytime. And he can't say his chest isn't warming at the sight of Gojo closing his eyes in contentment as he rubs his wrist against his nape.

The world is full of animals that like to be petted and humans that like to give pets. Yuuji's teacher likes to have his neck massaged and Yuuji has recently discovered that he likes to massage his teacher's neck. Stochiometric balance.

Though the more he rubs, the wetter it gets? So much so that Yuuji can hear the rubbing he's doing, but can't see it. He first thinks it's excessive perspiration, just as he sometimes notices at the end of a long day that the back of his neck under his collar is oily and sticky—nothing a shower can't clean—but then again, the more he rubs, the more pronounced the smell of Gojo's already rather strong cologne becomes. Isn't perfume applied to the sides of the neck rather than the back?

Perhaps drops of sweat have dripped down his neck and taken the cologne with them, so the mixt of the two is what makes his nape so damp. Yuuji isn't really disgusted to be smearing such a cocktail along his wrist, as he himself is sweating profusely under his uniform. It's a hot day.

Still, he should ask Gojo if he minds. Should being the key word here, because the man is completely out of it. Eyes open but hazy, unseeing and rolling up, face so red he looks feverish, mouth half-open—is he panting? Yuuji glances down at his chest, which he notices rising and falling at a rate too rapid to be considered normal.

Overall, he looks like a dog lost in the bliss of having its belly thoroughly rubbed.

So Yuuji applies himself to the task. He rubs and rubs Gojo's nape, twisting his wrist one way then the other and that, to his surprise, elicits a moan that the man quickly stifles, but which Yuuji hears as if it had echoed through the classroom.

A brief moment of clarity crashes into Gojo in the way his breathing stutters and self-conciousness briefly replaces the mist that had taken hold of his eyes.

Yuuji will have none of it.

He drags his wrist along the back of his neck even harder while his other hand, clinging to his neck, lets go and caresses his head instead. Gojo had seemed to enjoy it the other night just before he bit Yuuji, and he's right to think that because it doesn't take more than five fingers treading into white strands of hair for complacency to return to his blacker than blue eyes.

He even returns to his previous position with both hands resting on the creaking desk while Yuuji pets and rubs and hums. Hopes, too, that no one is passing in the corridor outside the classroom because the wet sounds of skin-on-skin frictions combined with the gasps and little moans that Gojo is no longer trying to contain and the creaks of the desk suffering under their combined weight, Gojo leaning on it and Yuuji clinging to Gojo, well. But he looks so relaxed for once, so at ease, maybe he can finally understand that Yuuji can help, that it's all he's ever wanted to do, that even big ferocious cats like to roll around on the floor and present their bellies for petting. Even if it sounds like—Like they're—

The desk shatters in two.

As they fell down the stairs, it was so dark that Yuuji couldn't tell the floor from the ceiling. Here, however, with the late afternoon light bathing the classroom in orange rays, he can see in 1080fps 4dx optimum brightness Gojo's body succumbing to gravity. He thinks; first about the likelihood of his teacher falling down on him twice in a row at such short intervals, and then about what Yaga will say when he'll discovers the desk broken in half like a bar of chocolate. And finally, Yuuji thinks about how to avoid fracturing his skull when the floor will inevitably come into contact with the back of his head.

Fortunately this doesn't happen as Gojo catches himself on his feet, though being uncharacteristically clumsy. Still with his back bent, he wraps both arms around Yuuji's waist even though there's no risk of him falling as he's still sitting in the chair. Nevertheless, the surprise of having their little bubble of relaxation so suddenly burst made him grab Gojo's shoulders reflexively.

For a moment nobody moves. The classroom fills with the sound of Gojo's gasping breathing, drowned out by Yuuji's frantic heartbeat. It takes him far too long to realise that the deafening gallop in his ears is not actually his own heart but Gojo's, which he can hear perfectly well with the way he's pressed against his chest.

"Gojo-sensei, are you all right?" Yuuji asks, a little disconcerted to see Gojo Satoru of all people lose his composure like that. He wanted to make him relaxed, not disoriented. The silence that follows is so long that he begins to doubt whether the man has even heard him, until a slightly damp forehead rests on his shoulder.

"Peachy," Gojo replies in a husky voice. "Just. Lost myself a bit there." The arms around Yuuji's waist tighten briefly before slowly loosening. Yuuji does the same, takes his hands off Gojo's shoulders and watches him rise to his full height. After holding him close for so long it's strange to see him move back to put some space between them. Gojo lets out a long, frustrated sigh. "See? Look what happens when you act recklessly and I loosen my restraints for a moment." He pushes one of the two pieces of the desk lying on the floor with his foot. "This was a bad idea."

Yuuji frowns. "What was? Indulging? Feeling good?"

"You don't understand, Yuuji-kun."

"Yes, I do!" he shouts, leaping up from his chair, which in turn topples over and joins the desk on the floor. "Or I don't! It doesn't matter! You can't just let me close then push me away the moment something happens!" His eyes don't moisten, no, not now, not when he needs to look bigger than the biggest man he's ever met.

Gojo runs a hand over his bare face. When did his glasses fall off?

"This could have been you right now." He's talking about the desk. Yuuji gives it a long look, lets his eyes trace the damage the wood has suffered, before meeting Gojo's gaze again. "But it wasn't."

"Yuuji-kun."

"It wasn't!" If this goes on much longer he might tear his hair out. "Is this about that night? I'm fine, sensei, see?" He rolls up the sleeve of his uniform to show him the smooth skin of his forearm, not a scar in sight. However Gojo grimaces as if he could see perfectly well the indentations he'd made all those nights ago. Yuuji doesn't let that put him off. "You didn't scare me— well, yes, you did and I ran away, but I would have come back anyway. If you'd answered my texts I'd have come back, even if Nanamin had forbidden it."

He takes a step forward, then a second and another one when he sees that Gojo makes no move to stay away. He just stares at Yuuji with his big blue eyes, motionless among the fir trees and mint plants wrapped around his ankles. Without a blindfold obscuring half his face he looks younger.

"Didn't it feel nice when you let me take care of you?"

"You're not being fair." No, he's not. Neither is Gojo though. "Maybe," Yuuji strides over the debris of the desk and doesn't stop moving until the tips of his shoes touch Gojo's. "But you know I'm right."

He weakly grabs the sweatshirt between his hands to give himself some kind of support. Gojo arches an eyebrow. "Where is this boldness coming from?"

"Where did yours go?" retorts Yuuji. He doesn't know what his expression looks like apart from the treacherous moisture in his eyes and the tightness in his jaw, but whatever Gojo sees makes him close his eyes in resignation.

"Don't make that face," he says once he's opened them again.

Yuuji puffs out his cheeks. "I'm not making any face." He tries to turn his head away but a large hand intercepts him before he manages to. "Yes, you are," Gojo says while cupping his cheek, "and I don't like it." Yuuji squints, suspicious.

"This is not funny."

"No, it's not."

"And I'm not joking. I'm being serious."

"So am I."

Seeing Yuuji sad is all it takes for Gojo to give in? That sounds way too easy. He feels like a child being allowed to win the argument so he doesn't get all worked up about it. "I'm still mad at you," he feels compelled to add to get the last word.

"Now that's where our opinions differ." What? Yuuji doesn't even have time to formulate a question that a finger is raised in front of his face while the hand on his cheek directs him to look straight into Gojo's eyes. He's never looked into Six Eyes as much as he has in the last hour. Is this how curses feel like? But then again, slim are the chances of Gojo looking tenderly at a curse.

"Why should you be angry with me when I should be?" the man asks rhetorically, but Yuuji opens his mouth anyway, ready to spill a thousand and one reasons. Gojo beats him to it. "You break into my house," he pokes his nose, "without telling me whatsoever," he pokes his left cheek, "without telling anyone at all—"

"I know!"

"—torments me only to run off like Cinderella in her pumpkin carriage," his right cheek this time, "and then harasses me with messages. Do you have any idea how much I had to resist teleporting myself back to campus and just whisk you away?" Poke, poke, poke. "Every time I managed to forget the taste of your blood in my mouth my phone would light up with a new notification from you asking are you okay sensei, do you need any food sensei, are you sleeping well sensei?" The hand on Yuuji's jaw twitches as if Gojo's forcibly stopping his fingers from digging into the plush of his cheek.

"Well, sensei was having an awful time and instead of finding on his return some apologies and something nice to make it up to him, he finds this sad, little kitten who's angry at him—"

"I did!"

Finally, finally, this is what stops Gojo in his tirade. The man blinks at Yuuji, clearly taken aback. "Come again?"

"I did... do something to make it up to you," Yuuji reluctantly admits. There goes his lethal weapon, which he planned to use much later on.

A spark of curiosity comes to life in Gojo's eyes. He leans forward slightly. "Which is?"

Somehow this feels like defeat. "White chocolate cookies."

"Yuuji-kun!" Gojo squeals, a light pink dusting his cheeks. "You should have said that from the start!" So now it's his fault? "You were avoiding me!"

"Now you know how it feels."

"Sensei!"

This earns him a small, sincere smile. "Sorry, sorry," he strokes Yuuji's hair with his other hand. "I shouldn't tease you when you made the effort to bake cookies for me." A moment's thought, then. "Only for me, right?"

Yuuji kind of expected that. "I ate some but yeah, only for you."

Seeing as Gojo seems to be back to his cheerful self he discreetly lets go of the front of his sweatshirt that he had grabbed earlier and— "Ah," Yuuji blinks at the same dark blue of the standard sorcerer uniform. "By the way, you can keep the jacket I left at your place." He'd completely forgotten it existed, his wardrobe containing several copies in case of damage during missions.

"Oh?" Gojo inquires.

"Yeah. Fair trade since I never gave yours back." What the fuck did Yuuji just say? Why is he mentioning this to the person he prays every day has forgotten the fact that he never gave that jacket back? "I-I wonder where it's—"

"Do you sleep with it?" asks Gojo abruptly, his gaze unreadable. Somehow the cologne sticking on Yuuji's wrist smells even stronger.

"Your jacket?" Duh.

"Yes." Double duh.

Yes. "No!" Not convincing, abort, abort. "Or yeah— I mean, not all the time. Just sometimes, when I... when I feel down." Wrong, all the time. "For, you know, emotional support and stuff."

Yuuji is shit at lying, that's why his grandfather told him at a very young age that he'd never be a good lawyer—which is odd because such a profession never occureted to five years old Yuuji's mind. The fact is, he was right. He can't lie. Gojo can probably see through him like a sieve, has perhaps already guessed that he sleeps with his jacket smelling of mint and snow every night in addition to Fushiguro's old clothes. If so, he doesn't say anything. He just stares at Yuuji unblinkingly for a few long seconds before breathing out deeply through his nose. He cupes his face with both hands.

"You have a knack for testing my patience," Gojo tells him. And then bites his cheek.

Bites his cheek? Bites his cheek. Yuuji is so taken aback that he can barely feel the teeth sinking into the flesh of his cheek, barely deep enough to leave more than a faint trace of their passage. But he can feel the warm lips that accompany them etching his skin just by resting innocently on it. And then, as if the biting wasn't enough, Gojo starts to chew.

"Sensei!" Yuuji fidgets in place. "Stop eating me!" He places his hands on Gojo's forearms, to which he pays no attention. "Oh? But I'm just eating a very pink-looking cake. With butter icing," he trails his tongue along Yuuji's cheek, "and strawberry stuffing," then bites deeply into the skin he just licked.

"Ew, sensei, this is too much even for you!" Yuuji loudly protests whatever Gojo is doing. This is truly an original experience. The man just chuckles against his face, his warm breath landing on Yuuji's now wet skin. It's uncomfortably pleasant. "You're the one who acted so straightforward first, it is only fair that I respond in kind."

Now he's just making up things. "I don't remember biting you!"

"Why don't you give it a try then?"

"You can't be serious."

"This is the most serious I've been in years."

Yuuji might have believed him if it wasn't for the slightly manic gleam drowing in the blue of his eyes. Gojo finally lets go of him and looks at him expectantly, hopefully, so much so that Yuuji doesn't have the heart to say no to him. Cats and owls neeble each other to show affection, surely they can borrow their behaviors for an afternoon. Hesitantly, he takes Gojo's face in palms. While the man's pale hands completely engulfed Yuuji's face, his much smaller hands don't even completely cover his cheeks. Yuuji feels himself blush under Gojo's watchful gaze as he brings his mouth to the skin just above his jaw and, hovering uncertainly for a few seconds, bites down. He does it more gently than Gojo, aware that his teeth are sharper than normal-he is, after all, Sukuna's vessel.

Gojo doesn't agree.

"Come on now, Yuuji-kun. A bit harder won't hurt, mmh?" he encourages as he runs his fingers through Yuuji's hair. So he bites harder and harder, squeezes his jaw until he's sure he'll taste blood if he listens to Gojo's complaints that I can barely feel it and all meows no bite. He licks the skin only once to make sure there's no blood before withdrawing from Gojo's face. Oddly, he looks particularly satisfied for someone who's had their cheek bitten. Although he did it first.

It's only when Yuuji sees the bite mark on Gojo's cheek that he realizes he's bitten his teacher. "Ah," he says, not knowing what else to say other than I bit him or I bit my teacher or my teacher bit me.

"The cookies," Yuuji settles for.

Gojo tilts his head. "The cookies?" Ugh, the bite looks so red against his pale skin. What has he done?

"Yes. Cookies. With milk, warm. I-I have to warm the milk so it'll be warm to drink with the cookies."

"Right."

"Right." Yuuji will combust.

For the first time in forever, Gojo takes his eyes of him to look at the floor where the desk and chair are still sadly in pieces, then at himself for a moment. "Well, why don't you warm some milk for us—just us, you and me, no one else—and I'll join you in the kitchen in a moment?"

Confused, Yuuji tilts his head. "Can't we go together?" To which the man smiles something that can't be truly called a smile.

"Gotta open up the windows. You go ahead." Oh, makes sense. It is a hot day after all. The air is heavy with both their sweats, Gojo might even smell like Yuuji's cake-scented detergent.

"Sorry about the smell," he apologies as he lets go of Gojo's face at last.

"Why, Yuuji-kun has nothing to be sorry about."

Chapter Text

The good thing about teamwork is that it increases productivity and creativity thanks to the synergy of skills and ideas, improves problem-solving through a broader perspective, strengthens team well-being and cohesion, and optimizes work organization. All this according to the PowerPoint presentation Nanami gave them on a Wednesday morning with the aim of introducing them to the world of work and business in case they ever decide that sorcery isn't for them.

("Keep in mind that both are shit."

"I got it the first time, Nanamin.")

They even each received a small booklet with a whole list of professions and the studies required to access them, highlighting in color those that might interest them. It was fun, even if Yuuji's one and only choice is to die as a vessel and taking Sukuna with him.

("Firefighters are cool and all, but I think I'd prefer a job involving children. Like a kindergarten teacher or a social worker."

"Yeah, no shit."

"What do you mean, no shit?"

"Kugisaki, that's stereotypical of you."

"What do you mean, stereotypical?")

What Nanamin's PowerPoint didn't mention is that if you make a mistake, no matter how small, the whole group will hold it against you.

And won't let it go for the rest of the evening.

"At the risk of repeating myself, I am formally and informally sorry," Yuuji repeats for the umpteenth time since the end of the mission.

Once again, it falls on deaf ears, and once again, Yuuji sighs in defeat. He drags his feet painfully along the sidewalk, following Kugisaki's mud-covered back, who in turn follows Fushiguro's equally mud-covered back. This single-file configuration would have been quite amusing, and Yuuji would have even sung some catchy song, if he hadn't sent his classmates, himself included, falling headfirst into a mud puddle. He's sorry, he really is, but they defeated a Grade 1! That calls for a celebration! A group hug! They can dodge three beheadings, poisonous darts, and an electric technique, but fall backward when Yuuji hugs them? Fatigue is no excuse, nor is surprise or Yuuji's weight; he's seen Kugisaki lift much heavier at their weekly gym session.

Does he tell them all this?

"Again, I'm so—"

"Shut up," Fushiguro growls.

Well. Yuuji shuts up and jots all these comments down so he can bring them up when this whole situation is just an amusing anecdote to tell the second years around a warm kotatsu and tangerine wedges. Right now nothing about the way their clothes stick uncomfortably to their damp skin and the squish squish of their footsteps is funny. And God, the smell. He's lucky Kugisaki didn't kill him, though she did try.

It's cold, he's hungry, they're in the middle of nowhere, the sun set hours ago, they're covered in mud and tired from their mission, and they still haven't arrived at the ryokan that the assistant showed on his phone when he saw them all dirty in front of his car. What kind of adult abandons three teenagers at the edge of a forest on the pretext that he doesn't want to dirty the seats of his car by taking them back in such a state? Ijichi would never. Nitta would never.

Although the road seems endless, they finally arrive in front of steps carved into the stone with a sign indicating the name of the ryokan that the assistant had pointed out. At least it really exists. Yuuji doesn't know what Kugisaki would do to him if they had to spend the night under the stars.

They climb the steps in silence, broken only by the sound of tired grunts. The forest is quite dense, but after walking for a while, Yuuji sees the warm lights of the inn waiting for them like the light at the end of a long, cold, painful tunnel. However, once at the top of the steps, it is clear that it is much smaller than the assistant had promised.

"Looks like it's family-run," Yuuji remarks at the entrance. "I bet the food is great! And look, there are hot springs!" Optimism is his only lifeline in this sea of ​​misfortunes.

Kugisaki walks past him without a glance. "You take care of the rooms," she says, to which Fushiguro nods wordlessly and follows her, leaving him alone at the entrance as they enter the ryokan.

Maybe the hot water will make them forget their anger. Yuuji sure hopes so.

Gathering his courage, he takes off his shoes and enters the establishment. The entrance is typical of any small ryokan, with creaking wooden walls and low ceilings, if you ignore the receptionist grimacing from behind her small desk at the muddy footprints left by Kugisaki and Fushiguro's socks. She looks young, maybe three or four years older than them, so Yuuji adopts his most apologetic smile before approaching, hoping it will mask his own mud stains on the floor.

"Good evening," he says, his voice low so as not to disturb the calm of the place. "Do you have room for three people?"

"Obviously, there's no one around this time of the year." She looks him up and down, her gaze lingering on his dirty clothes and hair that's more brown than pink. She narrows her eyes, oddly suspicious. "Are you with the other two here?"

Yuuji's smile widens a bit. "Is it that obvious?"

"You're the only ones here covered in mud," she says, shrugging. "And I think the girl was cursing you."

"I bet she was."

"Messy fight?"

"More like a muddy accident." She winces again at the reminder of their less-than-clean state and leans across the desk to assess the extent of the damage. "My little brother just finished cleaning, you know." Yuuji rushes to apologize and offer to polish the floor until it's shiny as new, but at that she only laughs, her long ponytail swaying from side to side as her shoulders tremble with laughter.

"My mother would kill me if she found out I let a customer do our work," she reassures him once she's recovered from her fit of giggles. The warm lighting of the ryokan accentuates the shadows on her face so that only her light brown eyes are visible. Yuuji finds them kind.

"Can we have two rooms, please?" he asks. They don't have a prepaid reservation, and the little money Yuuji had to his name was spent before the mission at a konbini on a box of strawberry-filled cookies. He plans to pay with the card Gojo gave him a few weeks ago for when, he quotes, "Yuuji-kun wants something fancy. Sensei's treat!" and which he obviously failed to mention to Kugisaki. He'll have to find a diversion during checkout tomorrow morning because Yuuji can't survive her anger twice in a row.

The girl hums, mulling over thoughts, her gaze shifting from Yuuji to the hallway where Kugisaki and Fushiguro disappeared. "Or..." she leans toward him, her tone strangely secretive, "I could give you one room so you can, you know..." Yuuji doesn't know.

In fact, he waits patiently for her to finish her sentence but, seeing that wiggling eyebrows are all he'll get, presses for a more articulate explanation.

"Why would you give us only one room?"

"So you can make up? I mean, the doors are literally paper thin but like I said there's barely any customers tonight. No one'll hear you."

Make up? The thought is nice and all, but... "By having a sleepover?" He can already see clearly as day Kugisaki shoving a pillow in his face and Fushiguro pretending not to hear his muffled screams. Yuuji is not safe, not until they're dry and clean and back at school. All scenarios are possible.

The girl at the front desk shrugs. "Whatever you call sex."

Abort, not all scenarios are possible.

His eyes widen so much they almost pop out of their sockets. "Come again?" It's late, late enough that even dinner service is no longer available; maybe, maybe, he misheard what came out of this lovely young lady's mouth.

"I said, whatever you call sex." Yuuji didn't mishear. "You're kind of slow," she comments after a short silence in which he tries and fails to find something to say. Ironically, this is what snaps him out of his stupor.

"It's not— We're not— Why would you—" he stammers, the words scrambling to come out, denying what seems so innocuous to her as if she were talking about the weather and the rain. He struggles to keep his cheeks from burning a bright red.

"Chill, I'm not judging. Throuple are not that uncommon," she shrugs again. Her gaze falls briefly on Yuuji's collar. "Especially ones with a two-one formation."

Does...

Does this lady think that Kugisaki is dating both Yuuji and Fushiguro? Oh boy. Oh God. This is the worst-case scenario is the history of worst-case scenarios. If she hears— he trembles at the mere thought that it could happen. If she hears about it Yuuji is done for. Game over. End of story. Curtain drop. He will die a painful death. He'll join Giordano Bruno and Jeanne d'Arc at the stake, share gallions of Socrates' hemlock and bleed to death right next to Caesar.

Soon the red in his cheeks fades away, replaced by a sickly pallor that only the looming threat of Kugisaki Nobara can bring out. "There's been a misunderstanding," he says, pleading, barely stopping himself from shaking her shoulders for fear of dirtying her striped yukata. "No one is going out with anyone, not me, not her, not him, especially not her. Or me. Or him."

At that she scans him meticulously from top to bottom, from his pale face to his dirty socks, pausing for a moment on the places where his wet uniform clings to his skin. "You certainly look the part." Her eyes sparkle with a knowledge that Yuuji doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand because it will lead to his downfall. Kugisaki can barely stand being the only girl in the year; if there are now rumors that they're dating the world will come to an end.

"What does that even mean?" Yuuji asks, both lost and exasperated. "You know what, it doesn't matter. Just don't tell the other two, please!"

"Are you guys, like, in a secret relationship?"

He's going to cry. "Ma'am, please focus."

"Sorry, sorry. So, one room it is?"

"As long as you don't say a word," he concedes. Coming up with an explanation for why they'll all be sleeping in the same room is one thing; admitting it's because they apparently give off throuple vibes is another. Yuuji breathes a sigh of relief when the girl mimes closing her mouth with a zipper, though he would have preferred the mime of the key being buried and then building a house over it, then locking the house as well, to be sure this assumption was born and dies in the ryokan's reception.

A striped yukata and a blue obi sash in his hands, he follows her through the ryokan's corridors and soon they arrive at the sliding door of their room. "I think your friends," she makes quotation marks with her fingers, to which Yuuji grimaces, "are already bathing and have received their yukata at the bath desk. Please leave your dirty clothes in the laundry basket of the changing room, you'll find them clean and dry in the morning with your breakfast."

"We're grateful," he bows slightly. Wasuke didn't raise no rude boy.

"It's our job," she replies simply. "It's too late for dinner service, but I can see if it's possible to bring you what's left in the kitchen." Wow, that's so nice. If you forget her wild imagination, she's super helpful.

He tells her. "That's so nice, thank you! It's not going to get you in trouble, right?"

She shakes her head. "No, Mom and Dad aren't strict about rules with the few customers we have." It makes sense, given how secluded it is and far from the traffic, it's nothing like the crowded tourist ryokans in Tokyo or Kyoto. Yuuji likes it, though. It's small but warmly family-friendly. And the staff is attentive!

"Would you like a pack of condoms in the tray along with the food?"

A little too attentive.

"No thank you," Yuuji declines as politely as possible. This surprises her, which in turn surprises Yuuji because what on earth is going on in her mind? He needs her far, far away from Kugisaki. She raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "Raw?" It sounds less like a question and more like an impressed statement, and Yuuji is so stunned he barely registers the sympathetic look she directs at his butt.

"What the hell?" he blurts out, lost for words. Six thousand years of evolution of languages and that's all he can come up with.

If his reaction bothers her she doesn't show it, her tone as professional as any hostess's. "Please be mindful of the futons," she tells him before finally leaving him alone outside the room, her ponytail swaying behind her.

Okay. "Okay," he says aloud. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Crisis averted? Probably. He really needs to distract Kugisaki at checkout if he wants to make it out of this place alive.

Yuuji doesn't enter the room so as not to dirty the tatami mat, just as he doesn't put on the slippers provided, and instead chooses to slide his phone inside the room so it's in the way once he's in the baths. The inn being small, he quickly finds the bath desk where boxes containing yukatas for guests who only come to bathe are stacked behind an empty table. As his yukata has already been provided to him, Yuuji continues on his way to the changing room and—

Stops.

There are two entrances, like in all onsen, leading to two separate rooms, like in all onsen, which in turn lead to two separate bathing areas for men and women, like in all onsen. What's not like in all onsen is the writing on the curtains obscuring the two entrances, which Yuuji doesn't recognize. He squints, tilting his head from side to side, but it still doesn't make sense at forty-five degrees. It doesn't look like complex calligraphy or anything close to the kanji for men and women. In fact, he's pretty sure it's not even Japanese.

The hell? What's up with this ryokan, first that lady trying to get him killed and then this? How is Yuuji supposed to know which door leads to the men's dressing room? The curtains aren't even blue and pink but the same pale green color with the strange writing in white. Is... Is that Latin? Was the Roman Empire so big that Japan was a part of it? Yuuji knows very well that it wasn't but he's seriously beginning to doubt it.

Standing before the two entrances, he ponders. He has a fifty-fifty chance of making a mistake and ending up stark naked in the women's hot springs, which is a direct ticket to getting kicked out of the ryokan and ending up sleeping in the woods. Obviously he must avoid that, he's had enough misadventures for tonight and all he wants is a hot bath and a dry futon. But, but, but. Fushiguro and Kugisaki didn't wait for him at the reception desk—which is rude and mean, but then again they're rude and mean, so that's not surprising— and went straight to the baths while he fought false accusations. Which means they're each on their respective sides. And since they didn't have a room yet, they must have left their phones in the changing rooms, which in turn means the one containing Fushiguro's phone is the men's.

And he knows they know which is which because if he searches his memory hard enough, those symbols are also used in the stores where Kugisaki drags them to carry her bags on her shopping sprees. Sure, Yuuji could have paid more attention, but why should he when he can always count on his classmates?

Man, he's so smart when he puts his mind to it.

He hesitates for a few seconds before heading left, pulling back the curtain with α β, whatever that means, written on it, and praying for the best. Once inside, he searches each box one by one until he comes across one containing a phone, a black leather wallet, and a striped yukata. Although Yuuji immediately recognizes the wallet, he turns on the phone anyway to be sure. The wallpaper on Kugisaki's is a photo of her taken by Yuuji in Shinjuku—narcissistic much?—which leaves little doubt as to who's the device's owner. But when the screen lights up it's not her in a purple dress with lace sleeves that he sees but rather himself, lying on the grass near the training grounds with Fushiguro's black Divine Dog relentlessly licking his face.

He knew it! Yuuji knew the other boy was a big, emotionally softy inside! His whole dark, irritable, indifferent façade may be fooling everyone else, but not him.

Grinning, Yuuji puts the phone back in the box. He found it on the first try, not bad. He then undresses with great difficulty, the mud having made his clothes stick to his skin. The jacket and the red hoodie are heavy as anvils while the pants seem glued to his legs. After an embarrassing battle with the stirrup socks, Yuuji is finally naked as a worm. He'll have to wear the same underwear, but hey, he doesn't really have a choice here.

He puts all his dirty clothes in the laundry basket except for the collar, which he leaves in the box next to Fushiguro's, then, towel around his waist, finally enters the men's bathing area.

Or so he thought.

"What are you doing here?" Yuuji accuses, incredulous.

"What are you doing here?" Kugisaki accuses him back, as if this isn't the men's side of the hot springs she's splashing around in, immersed up to her chin in water. The combination of the cold air and the steam from the hot water makes her cheeks and the tip of her nose pink, like the blush she dutifully applies every morning.

"Huh, that's my side, hello?"

"You mean that's my side." He looks around to check, maybe Fushiguro gave her his phone and wallet and it's truly the women's side that Yuuji has entered, but no, Fushiguro is in the flesh on this side too, sitting on a stool with his hands tangled in his hair and face covered in shampoo. Closing his eyes so as not to irritate them, he raises his head at Yuuji's voice. "Itadori?" he calls blindly. It's the first time he's told him anything other than to shut up since he made them fall into that mud puddle, and in another context Yuuji would have taken the opportunity to coax him out of his grudge if only he didn't have a bigger problem in front of him.

He points an accusing finger at Kugisaki. "No, it's not, get out!"

"You get out! I was here first!" she retorts like a five-year-old, and Yuuji, like a five-year-old, turns to the only responsible person present. "Fushiguro, talk some sense into her! Why did you let her in here?"

All their yelling in addition of his lack of vision must be disorienting him because he's struggling to comprehend what's going on, his head turning in Yuuji's general direction. "What— What are you doing—" He tries to open his eyes, big mistake, immediately the shampoo dripping from his hair seeps between his eyelids. He hisses in pain and reflexively brings his soapy hands to his face to wipe the liquid away, which only makes it worse.

"Keep your eyes closed, you idiot," Kugisaki scolds him from the water.

"Yeah, keep them closed, I'll deal with her," Yuuji reassures him. It instantly enrages her, not unlike a budding delinquent at the slightest remark about their uniform not in accordance with the school’s regulations. "Come over here, idiot number two, I'll be the one dealing with you!" she says, standing up, probably to get into a fighting stance, which Yuuji will never know because he turns his head away with lightning speed.

"What the hell?" he yells. "Don't stand up! I can see your tits!"

"I can see your tits!"

Now this is low. "Don't call them that!"

"Oh, sure. I can see your boobs!" Who raised this young lady? Yuuji crosses his arms over his chest, suddenly self-concious of its size.

"Don't call them that either! My chest's size is perfectly normal, I did research." His one and only source is Okkotsu, but a cool and collected senpai is a senpai who is often right or whatever is the saying.

"You did research?"

"Yeah! It's a normal, usual, average chest that everyone—" a quick glance at Fushiguro's pale, flat torso makes him hesitate for a moment, "—that pretty much everyone has."

"Heh, he just called you flat," Kugisaki sneers. She's shaming everyone tonight it seems.

He's still leaning over the stool, his hair plastered to his forehead, large drops of water falling and landing on the towel on his lap. "I'll drown you," he spits, literally, as the water enters his mouth, making him wince violently at the taste of soap on his tongue.

He's still trying to open his eyes.

"Dude," Yuuji calls out, "what are you doing?" Taking pity on him, he walks over to the stools, but instead of sitting on one and washing off the mud stuck to his skin, he positions himself behind Fushiguro. He first washes his hands with the bottle of shower gel before grabbing the ladle in the wooden bucket instead of the shower head and gently pouring the water over the top of his head.

"What—" Fushiguro, surprised, jumps as soon as the water seeps through his dark locks and, once again, tries to open his eyes. Yuuji briefly tugs on a handful of his hair. "How many times do we have to tell you to keep your eyes closed?" he nags, half-exasperated half-nostalgic at saying the exact phrase his grandfather used to repeat to him back when he was too young to wash his hair on his own.

"How many times do we have to tell you to get out?" Kugisaki interjects. Yuuji has half a mind to throw a handful of foam in her face. The only thing stopping him is the thought of contaminating the clear water of the hot springs. He ignores her in favor of focusing on his task; he carefully runs his fingers through Fushiguro's hair, rubbing the ends and massaging the base of his head until the shampoo turns into a white lather. This time, when he pours the water over his head, Yuuji places his hands on Fushiguro's forehead to make sure no soap will irritate his eyes. After two rinses, his hair is clean and silky, shiny the same black as Snow White's, and Yuuji takes his time stroking it up and down, proud of his work.

However, he doesn't immediately move away. Yuuji watches the water trickling from the back of Fushiguro's neck down the length of his pale back and thinks, might as well do the rest. Rather than sit on the nearby stool and tend to his own body, he grabs the washing cloth, pours some shower gel on it, and begins to scrub Fushiguro's back. The latter, lulled by the movement of Yuuji's fingers on his scalp, jumps at the touch of the damp cloth on his skin.

His shoulders tense. "What are you doing?" he asks, his voice tight and tinged with suspicion.

"Your back's all muddy," Yuuji replies. The mud, having soaked through the layers of his uniform and stuck to his back, contrasts with the vampiric pallor of his skin. Yuuji methodically rubs between his shoulder blades while behind him, Kugisaki clicks her tongue. "And whose fault is that, huh?"

"Yes, mine, I know," he says mechanically, wearily. Rather than rising to the obvious bait he applies himself to scrubbing Fushiguro's back, shoulders, shoulder blades, waist, hips, until the mud is nothing more than a distant memory washed away by the water down the drain. He hesitates for a moment whether or not to touch the neck, remembering Gojo's hazy look of pleasure from a few days ago, but decides to at least lightly pass over it anyway.

Yuuji's proved right in his hesitation when the mere feather-light swipe of the cloth on his neck elicits a full-body shiver from Fushiguro. That spot is sensitive for everyone, huh.

He's close enough to smell the pears and the thyme, so condensed it's almost as if it's not cologne applied but secreted by his body like a second perspiration. No matter how hard he scrubs the smell wouldn't go away so Yuuji gives up and rinses the soap off Fushiguro's tense back one last time.

The latter was as silent as the grave the entire time, except for the many glances he threw back, quickly redirected to the ground as soon as they met Yuuji's. More than once his mouth opened, a comment on the tip of his tongue, one not very warm if the furrow of his brows was anything to go by, only to quickly change his mind, thus remaining silent.

"If this is your way of apologizing, it's not working," Fushiguro tells him through gritted teeth once his back is as clean as his hair. Yuuji sighs. "Not even a little?" This isn't the first time the other boy has given him the silent treatment, as Yuuji is prone to bothering him, intentionally or not, but usually it doesn't last more than an hour if he apologizes sincerely. This time, though no amount of apologies seem to break Fushiguro's silence, peppered here and there with cutting remarks.

He's upset, about more than just a simple muddy accident. Yuuji has no idea why.

"Want me to do the front too?" he offers, eager to please and somehow earn his forgiveness.

"Kiss-up," Kugisaki comments. How is she still here? She, who dries heave at the mere sight of a man, apparently has no problem bathing with them.

Fushiguro snatches the cloth from him. "I'm fine, you should go now." Agh. At least he tried.

Dismissed without even a thank you, although he'd expected it, Yuuji sits down at the next stall to finally get rid of the dirt unpleasantly stuck to his skin. He starts with his hair and, closing his eyes, misses Fushiguro's furtive, confused glance, which he then turns to Kugisaki. She shrugs.

Unlike the way he handled Fushiguro's back and hair, Yuuji is less delicate and more mechanical with himself. He scrubs quickly and roughly, not lingering longer than necessary, until his skin is pink from friction but clean of mud and sweat, retaining only the cakey smell of detergent that never leaves him now. "Hey," he says, rinsing his hair, "would you mind washing my back—"

Splash.

Fushiguro is in the water before he even finishes his sentence. Well.

As he runs the washing cloth over his thighs, legs, calves, then back up to scrub his collarbones and between his shoulder blades, he can feel two laser-like gazes burning his back. Man, this is weird. Why is Fushiguro so okay with bathing with Kugisaki? He throws a fit when Yuuji lies down on his bed but willingly walks naked into a hot springs that already has their equally naked female classmate. What's with the double standards? And why did she choose the men's side over the women's side as if it were the most normal thing to do?

Yuuji is lost. And Fushiguro's silence treatment could not have a worst timing.

"Do you two have, like, baths together without invating me?" he asks them as he rinses off. The hot water from the bucket combined with the cold air makes the fine hairs on his arms stand up.

Even without turning around he can clearly imagine Kugisaki's features contorting into an expression of disgust. "How'd you even think of something like that?"

"I don't know! I'm trying to make sense of all this!"

"You're the only one here not making sense," she snaps.

"Quiet," Fushiguro mutters under his breath.

Technically, they've spent more time together than Yuuji has with either of them. Fushiguro was the only first year in April, then Yuuji joined him after swallowing Sukuna's finger in June. A week later Kugisaki appears and two weeks later Yuuji dies, comes back to life, and spends two long months with mostly only Gojo for company. It's only at the end of summer that he's reunited with the other two, who spent July and August together. He likes to think of them as a trio without a duo like the Totally Spies, the Powerpuff Girls, or the Benelux, but surely their bond is stronger than the one they have with Yuuji.

Which is fine. It makes sense. He only had to not die if he wanted to spend Golden Week with them and all summer, and do festival activities after missions, meet the second years together, and drag Fushiguro to the sea; applying sunscreen to Kugisaki's back and building sandcastles with Gojo and making watermelon smoothies with star-shaped ice cubes for everyone and setting off fireworks and—

But he died, so he watched movies in the dark, hidden in a basement like a dirty secret.

Once he's clean Yuuji gets in the water, placing his towel at the edge of the basin. It's large enough that the distance between the three of them is quite wide, each in a corner. Thankfully the water reaches Kugisaki's shoulders, and even with the lanterns lit, it's dark enough that it's difficult to make out a specific shape underwater.

She raises an eyebrow at the sight of Yuuji sitting down in the warm water. "For real?"

"If you're close enough to bathe together, then I'm sure you're fine with me intruding."

"I'm not fine with any—"

"I kind of feel left out," Yuuji confesses, the words leaving his mouth of their own accord. Taken aback, Kugisaki blinks her brown eyes. Her damp hair, too short to be tied in a bun, clings to her cheeks, curling around the curve of her jaw. Fushiguro glances at him for a split second from the corner of his eye from where he's sitting in the water before returning his gaze to the cloudy sky he's been observing since Yuuji reentered his field of vision. "Since I'm, you know..." weak enough to die and stay dead for two months. "And you two are closer because of that." It's still a sensitive subject, especially with Fushiguro who saw him die and had to carry his corpse. He doesn't dare put words to it and thus ruin the atmosphere.

An awkward silence falls. None of the three make eye contact, Yuuji cupping hot water in his hands to focus on something other than the pink rising in his cheeks, until Kugisaki sighs loudly. "What are you talking about, idiot. The three of us are always stuck together all day." She sinks deeper into the water, not unlike the way Fushiguro pulls up the collar of his uniform whenever he's embarrassed. "It's not like we hang out without you. This guy's shit at shopping," she points at Fushiguro with her chin.

He glares at her. "Glad to hear that."

"He's better at it when it comes to books!" Yuuji helpfully provides the information. "Though he's never interested in the shoujo mangas I buy." He puffs out his cheeks in a playfully pouty expression, which usually makes Fushiguro sigh in exasperation and gradually leads to an easy banter that dissipates the tension between them.

However, that's not the case. He remains silent as Yuuji fixes his gaze on the side of his face. He doesn't even want to look at him.

And that's his last straw.

"Oh, come on!" he protests, his voice shattering the calm of the ryokan. "I'm sorry! Really! Fushiguro!" He splashes him with large strokes in the water, the smooth surface of the basin curving into ripples. "You can't stay mad at me forever."

"Stop that, this is not a pool."

"I'll stop when you'll stop sulking."

"I'm not sulking. I don't sulk."

"Then why won't you look at me?"

At this, Fushiguro falls silent again. Yuuji waits, Kugisaki waits too, a faithful spectator of their quarrels, conflicts, and reconciliations. They wait and wait—thankfully hot springs don't cool down because they'd be wading in freezing water.

Fushiguro finally gives in at some point. "The other day," he begins.

"The other day?" Yuuji presses.

"You—" From what he can see of his profile, the back of his neck and ears are peony red while his cheekbones are beginning to turn a pink that has nothing to do with the steam from the hot water. He's embarrassed, Yuuji realizes. "You smelled like Gojo."

"Oh boy," Kugisaki whispers.

Confused, Yuuji tilts his head. "Gojo-sensei?"

"He came to me the other day and kept showing me his cheek where you supposedly bit him, how it was deep enough to stay there for days. How you rubbed your scent all over him." Now that's an odd way of describing a massage. He opens his mouth to refute Gojo's exaggerations, but Fushiguro continues, the words pouring out of him faster than Yuuji can register their meaning. "I don't care about what he does or tells me as long as he's not pressuring you into anything."

"He would never—"

"He's a threat I guess, but then again, everyone is one when it comes to you." Yuuji's not sure he's following. Is this about Sukuna and his execution? "I'm not mad at you," Fushiguro continues, his face no longer turned away from him but lowered towards his knees submerged in the water, his hair a black curtain preventing him from seeing his expression.

Yuuji perks up, hope blooming like tulips at the end of winter. "You're not?"

Fushiguro shakes his head. "I'm angry at myself. I thought I wasn't part of the stupid, brash, knothead club, but then you smelled like him, and I couldn't stand it."

"The smell?" That cologne is strong as hell.

"Everything!" he raises his voice, jerking his head up toward Yuuji, who jumps in surprise. Kugisaki gasps. Suddenly self-conscious, he lowers his head again, as if that would somehow erase his frustrated expression from Yuuji's mind, as if he'd soon forget the ache reflected in those green eyes.

Yuuji slowly walks towards Fushiguro's huddled form, the water tickling his waist as he gets closer. "I'm not sure what's going on, but you're definitely not part of a stupid, brash, knothead club."

"Stay away." Too bad for him because today is Yuuji cheat-boundaries day. He keeps moving forward even though Fushiguro starts to back away, until he finds himself backed up against the edge of the pool, his cheeks even redder than the hoodie of Yuuji's uniform. He places his hands on his bare, damp shoulders to keep him from looking away. His skin is warm under Yuuji's calloused palms.

"I had a small fight with Gojo-sensei, gave him a massage to make it up to him, and he got carried away. Well, I got carried away, which made him get carried away," Yuuji explains, looking Fushiguro straight in the eyes. The latter seems unsure where to look between Yuuji's face so close to his own, the pink hair plastered to his temples, and his collarbones and bare chest glistening with condensation that he carefully tries to avoid.

"Somehow it sounds worse."

"Kugisaki, can you please stop commenting on everything?"

"Not my style."

Yuuji maintains his light grip on Fushiguro's shoulders even after he begins to try to shake it off, to move away. "If the smell bothers you, I can always wash it off. I don't want you upset, Fushiguro, even for just a smell." It's hard to know if the message has gotten through when even this close he manages to avoid Yuuji's gaze.

Yeah, no, enough of that. Letting go of his shoulders, he carefully cups his face so that this time green meets brown properly. If his shoulders were hot, then his cheeks are like a stone oven, even hotter than the water they're all soaking in. "It's not that serious," Fushiguro says, swallowing hard. "I'm being stupid."

"That makes two of us then!"

His eyes manage to narrow despite their comical wideness. "You're not stupid, just not smart. There's a difference."

"Whatever you say," Yuuji concedes. He's not going to argue on such a topic. "It's funny 'cause Gojo-sensei almost mauled me for smelling like you. I'd say he's part of the brash thing club, not you."

"What?" Fushiguro and Kugisaki say in unison.

Oops. He wasn't supposed to reveal that. "Long story. Anyways... Am I forgiven?" Fushiguro being taller than him, he has to lean back to see his entire face and not just his two eyes, all the while without letting go of his face. It's not often that he lets Yuuji be so tactile so he takes advantage of it, even though it makes his biceps press against his pecs and his chest stick out considerably.

Fushiguro zooms in with the precision of an underwater torpedo locating an enemy ship. "I-I guess."

"Awesome!" Overwhelmed with relief—he wasn't going to sleep all night if both Fushiguro and Kugisaki weren't mad at him for some reason—Yuuji takes him in for a brief aquatic hug.

It's a messy, blurry thing; Yuuji's robust, curvy body colliding with Fushiguro's less sculpted but nonetheless muscular one, their chests pressed so flush together that not a drop of water is caught between them. The squish of Yuuji's breast swallows the pale expanse of Fushiguro's torso as their abs rub like flint on stone, erupting sparks the size of a forest fire, the kind that explode into the sky in a thousand and one colors at the end of a twelve-episodes shoujo anime from the 2010s.

He is careful, however, that nothing below their navel touches so as not to be torn to pieces by dogs and owls. As a result, Yuuji has to arch his back and slightly spread his thighs, which, to his brief but crushing mortification, makes his ass rise above the water.

Kugisaki whistles, appreciative of the view.

As quickly as he took him in his arms, Yuuji releases him with a wide, apologetic smile that in no way hides how unapologetic he is for initiating so much skin-on-skin contact—quick reminder that it's cheat-boundaries day. However, against all odds, Fushiguro doesn't leap at his throat once free of his embrace. No, he staggers in place, his knees wobbly like a newborn calf, the impressive if worrying redness of his face having spread all the way down to his sternum. Yuuji reaches out to support him, but he opts instead to grab the edge of the basin and then, incredibly, dives his head into the water.

"Fushiguro?!" Yuuji cries out as Kugisaki bursts out laughing behind them. The water shakes so much that he can't tell which ripples are caused by her laughter and which by Fushiguro's head rising to the surface.

With his black hair plastered against his forehead, he looks like a ghost from a horror movie. "Needed to cool down," he says when he sees the astonishment coloring Yuuji's face.

"Cool down? The water's hot!"

"Doesn't matter," he replies, dazed. For someone so intelligent, he can have the strangest behavior sometimes. And speaking of strange, "Why did the smell bother you, though? It's just a colo—"

The words die on his tongue at the sound of a stool scraping against the stone ground.

All the color drains from Yuuji's face.

His eyes widen in horror as he watches someone sit down in a stall and unwrap the towel around themselves, revealing the obvious curves of a woman's breasts, if the long brown hair trailing down her back wasn't proof enough.

This is a woman. Purposely sitting on the side Yuuji thought was reserved for men. But if a woman is there, and considering Kugisaki's loud protests about his presence, then—

"Oh my God," Yuuji almost trembles of dread. "I need to go." Discreetly, so as not to attract the attention of the woman washing herself, he places both hands on the edge to pull himself out of the water. He doesn't go far. A manicured hand clamps down on his shoulder with an iron grip, preventing him from going anywhere.

"Hey, what's wrong? I thought you said it was your side?" Kugisaki whispers in a sadistically honeyed voice.

Yuuji's scared. "And I was obviously wrong." He tries once again to get out, and once again, she holds him down, her nails digging uncomfortably into the skin of his shoulder.

"Sit your fat ass down."

"It's not—we can argue later, I have to go. We have to go." He throws a panicked glance at Fushiguro but he is completely disconnected from the frightening situation they find themselves in, his gaze dissociated somewhere around Yuuji's chest. Did the heat get to his head? Now is not the time!

A second hand lands heavily on his shoulder. "Face the consequences of your actions." Yeah, later, when he's not naked in the women's baths like a perverted exhibitionist. He struggles against her grip as best he can given their respective nakedness, Fushiguro uselessly motionless despite the numerous waves their movements have caused him to face.

"Stop moving, oh my God—"

Yuuji learns two things. The first is that hell is missing a demon and it's bullying him to death and beyond. The second is that the bottom of the basin is very slippery.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," he comments, gazing up at the cloudy sky where a bright spot stands out. He can feel the side of his head throbbing behind his eyes.

"That's a helicopter, dumbass." Huh. As on cue, the star blinks then flies away.

"How are they allowed to fly over a hot spring?"

"So now you care about people seeing you naked?"

He'd flip a table if there was one right now. Defeated, wounded, humiliated, Yuuji refuses to be hit when he's already down. "He doesn't seem to care but I don't see you saying anything to him!" he points at Fushiguro, still in the midst of his dissociation, simmering like a turnip in a stew set over low heat. How is it that he's also in the women's side? He always calls Yuuji uncultured and ignorant, but in the end, even his modern, city boy self didn't know what the symbols meant. If anything, this is all Fushiguro's fault since Yuuji based his choice on the other boy's own choice.

Kugisaki scoffs. "Of course he doesn't care, he's got nothing to show!"

"And I do?"

"Oh, certainly," says a voice that doesn't belong to Kugisaki. Yuuji looks down from the sky just in time to see the blurry movement of a body sinking into the water. He turns his head away so fast that his neck cracks. "I'm sincerely sorry to bother you with my presence, I'll leave immediately—"

"No, no, it's alright," the woman reassures him. "You're a pleasant surprise."

He's what now? "Me?" Yuuji glances at her riskily. Just like Kugisaki, she's shoulder-deep in the water, which negates his plan of gouging out his eyes if he accidentally sees something he shouldn't.

She giggles as if he's said something silly. "Who else, love?" He chokes on his own saliva at the nickname, recovers, then chokes a second time on the onslaught of perfume hitting him full in the nose. Even though the woman is sitting a certain distance away from him Yuuji is overwhelmed by the scent of mangoes as if he'd downed the bottle of whatever perfume she's using in one go.

His eyes water while, beside him, Kugisaki wrinkles her nose. "Do you need to stink up the place like that?"

"Kugisaki!" Yuuji hushes. She's right, but it's still rude to say it to her face like that. And she's one to talk, he can very well smell her usual cinnamon and clove perfume from his spot sitting in the water.

"First time smelling a real woman?" the woman retorts, hostile, nothing like the gentle tone she used with Yuuji. The contrast leaves him speechless.

It's not Kugisaki's case who responds immediately. "I don't know about a woman. A pallet of rotten fruits, maybe." Damn.

"That's maturity, though I'm not surprised you can't tell. It's still better than whatever spice market you got going on." Damn.

Kugisaki stares at her haughtily. "Isn't that just you adults' way of saying you're old? Go flaunt your wrinkles at someone your age." Woah, woah, woah. Yuuji appreciates her coming to his rescue but does she need to be this aggressive? The woman isn't even that old, maybe a little younger than Nanami. She's always so extreme with everything, even other women; she's either a devoted girl's girl or the meanest girl that has ever meaned.

He should end this aggressive tennis match. “She didn’t mean th—”

"You keep quiet when I speak,” Kugisaki cuts him off with an irritated growl. Ma'am, yes, ma'am. "And you,” this time she addresses Fushiguro, “stop checking Itadori out and back me up here.”

That explains his dreamy gaze fixed on Yuuji's chest. "Don't worry, with enough training you'll get the same abs as me," he says. His mind flashes back to their stomachs brushing against each other. Hmm. "Eventually."

"Huh?" is all Fushiguro says. Man, he's out of it. Even Gojo was more lucid when he snapped that desk in two. Yuuji tugs at his arm. "Come on, let's go while she's distracted." They're still exchanging coded insults that he's sure hurt like a wasp's sting—no wonder only females sting—while Yuuji drags Fushiguro as best he can out of the onsen and back into the changing room. He's conscious enough to wrap his towel around his waist, though a strangely high-pitched sound emanates from his mouth when Yuuji bends down to pick up his own towel.

Embarrassed, Fushiguro carefully avoids his gaze during the five long minutes it takes to change into their yukata. He doesn't take it personally; he's the reserved type, after all. They slip on their slippers and, finally, finally, leave the bathhouse without anyone else noticing. Turning around, Yuuji takes one last look at the curtain with the Latin symbols apparently designating women.

"This ryokan is so weird," he says aloud, trailing behind Fushiguro, who snapped out of his hazy state the second they got dressed. Despite all these misadventures, they're clean, dry and dressed, ready to sleep soundly until sunrise. All's well that ends well in the best of all possible worlds!

Though he can't help but feel like he's forgotten something.

"When were you going to tell us there's only one room for the three of us?"

Right. About that.

"I forgot?" He narrowly dodges the pillow being hurled at his face. "I'm sorry!"

Kugisaki tries to steal Fushiguro's pillow as new ammunition, but he clings to it tightly, pressing it against his chest. "How hard is it to say hello, two rooms please, thank you?" Seeing that Fushiguro isn't about to let go of his pillow, she jumps—jumps!—on him instead.

Yuuji rolls to the right, then gets up and brandishes his own pillow like a medieval shield. "I already told you, this was the only room available!" Which is a lie, of course, but he's willing to spill every possible combination of lies rather than confess the truth that will inevitably lead to his death by strangulation. Luckily for him they stayed in the bath too long, thus missing even the leftovers from dinner. They'll sleep hungry tonight, a small sacrifice he's willing to pay given the seriousness of the threat he averted.

If there had been condoms in the food tray she would have burned the whole place down and left Yuuji to choke on the smoke.

"Settle down, you two," Fushiguro chides them, sitting cross-legged on his futon. It's obvious the room is usually reserved for a group of two, but even then it's still small. With three of them they barely have enough space to stretch out their futons. It's a tight fit.

Tired, Yuuji abandons his defensive posture and slides under the futon. Even with the lights off he can make out the shape of Kugisaki's silhouette hesitating for a moment above him, weighing the pros and cons of murdering him now rather than tomorrow morning, before sliding under her own futon. Fushiguro is the last to settle down, and just like that, Yuuji lays down between his two friends in some awkward sleepover. He had to fight for this spot because Fushiguro didn't want to sleep next to someone who moves so much in their sleep—how ​​does he even know that?—and Kugisaki wanted the futon closest to the bathroom.

Yuuji, for his part, didn't feel comfortable sleeping anywhere but in the middle. He might have gotten a little too used to sleeping with all those pillows and sheets smelling like him: orange blossom, flour, yeast, lemon zest, eggs, sugar; the recipe for a warm, mouth-watering cake. The ryokan futons certainly don't smell of that specific fabric softener. It makes him restless, fidgety.

"Are you okay with this?" Fushiguro had asked him when they discovered the only room available for them. At the time, Yuuji had thought he was worried that Kugisaki would strangle him during the night and had reassured him that he'd manage, but looking back, perhaps he knew that the silence of the room and the futons' inconspicuous smell would make him uncomfortable.

Unable to fall asleep despite the heaviness in his limbs, he stares at the ceiling until the breaths beside him become slow and steady.

There, he asks, "Can we hold hands?"

"Ew." At least that was quick.

"No." Clear, concise. No ambiguity.

Well, it's not as if he wasn't expecting that. He resumes his observation of the ceiling and then, trying an age-old method, start counting sheep. Closing his eyes, he draws on the back of his eyelids an imaginary hedge, an imaginary farm, imaginary sheeps. Making them jump while counting them is much harder than expected. While numbers one to five jump without any problem, his concentration fails him from six onward, and from then on, the sheep float or do backflips or some other gymnastic feat that isn't written in the script.

So he's forced to start from scratch again and again. As sheep number eight begins to walk on its head instead of jumping over the damn hedge, Yuuji feels something brush his right hand under the futon. He brushes it off as his body starting to fall asleep, but then it happens again, this time on his left hand.

Could this be...?

The sheep are quickly forgotten as he holds his breath, hope serving as oxygen instead. For a moment nothing happens, so much so that Yuuji truly thinks he's imagined it all, until a timid little finger slips under his palm. Another moment passes, and then the little finger is followed by a full hand, large, slender, cold to the touch but warming Yuuji's heart like a bonfire on a windy beach. He intertwines their fingers before Fushiguro can change his mind and take back his offer, doing the same with the shy manicured hand brushing against his, whose palm is rough from rubbing against the handle of a hammer.

He squeezes hard. They silently squeeze in return, the three futons placed side by side absorbing a myriad of scents so different yet blending perfectly together. That night, Yuuji dreams of a walk in the middle of a cedar forest, of a pear and cinnamon pie enjoyed with a thyme infusion in the shade of clove trees, of a thousand and one different ways to use orange blossoms and flour and oil and sugar and eggs and yeast.

Though, as he falls asleep, he can't help but feel like he's forgotten something.

"Is that one of Gojo-sensei's cards you're paying with?"

Right.

Chapter Text

Yuuji chooses a hoodie.

"No."

He chooses another hoodie.

"No."

He chooses—"No."

"I haven't even touched it!" he protests, to which Kugisaki rolls her eyes. "All your choices are a hard no."

"Then why did you bring me here?" The shop's heating makes him sweat uncomfortably even though it's freezing outside. The bright lights from the ceiling and the background music mercilessly assault his senses, so much so that he starts to feel a little overstimulated. Yuuji needs some fresh, clean air, but wherever Kugisaki goes he must follow, valiant packing mule that he is.

"So I can choose something for you while letting you think you had free will," she says, glancing disdainfully at the various hoodies folded on the display rack.

Yuuji wrinkles his nose. "Witch."

"Says the one with pink hair," she retorts, grabbing him by the arm, "now that your free trial is over, we can finally get to work."

"Why do I even need new clothes for? My closet is full."

"Yeah, full of hoodies! I'd rather wear one myself than let you go on a date in a hoodie and, God forbid, sweatpants." Kugisaki shudders with fear as if she herself didn't own a comfortable pair of sweatpants that she wears during movie nights. Hypocritical country girl.

"Date? What date?" Yuuji asks, confused. But more importantly. "And what's wrong with sweatpants?"

At that Kugisaki stops dead in her tracks. She slowly, slowly, turns to face him. "What do you call a guy spending the day with you?"

"Huh, a hang-out? An outing?"

"Okkotsu didn't fly across half the world for a hang-out."

"Yeah, he did for his quarterly report to the highers-up and happens to have some free time!" He glares at her. "Why are you making it weird?"

"You're weird for not making it weird!" Kugisaki yells, spraying saliva all in Yuuji's face. Which, ew. "How many hang-outs have you been dressed like this?"

What's wrong with hoodies? "All of them? And stop with the quotation marks, they're not dates! I just tag along with Fushiguro when he goes to buy books—"

"Bookstore date," she cuts him off with a disdainful flick of her hand. "Let me guess, he bought you the mangas you wanted and you ate ice cream on the way back."

"Were you following us?"

Yuuji narrows his eyes suspiciously, to which she rolls hers, unimpressed. "Typical. Unoriginal. Disappointing but not unexpected. Domestic too, but that's kinda his kink." Kugisaki resumes her walk through the shop without looking back, knowing full well that Yuuji will follow her despite her scathing remarks. And she is quite right, but Yuuji makes a point of dragging his feet as loudly and socially acceptable as possible to show his displeasure.

"It's not unoriginal!" he defends Fushiguro's name once he has caught up with her by the sweats and turtlenecks. "It's not Gojo-sensei's fancy restaurant but it reflects his calm perso—"

"What did you say?" Kugisaki cuts him off, again.

"If you had let me finish you'd know that I said it reflec—"

"I don't give a damn about that poor excuse of a date, where did you say Gojo-sensei takes you?" She points a threatening finger at him, which Yuuji has unfortunately experienced more than once between his ribs.

"Restaurants," he repeats, if only to avoid being stabbed by the nail on her index finger which she has been trying to grow for several days, covered only with a sheen layer of healing oil. "Sometimes he appears out of nowhere and teleports us to some places he says he craves their cooking." Even though it takes months to get a reservation. The perks of being rich, perhaps? Yuuji wouldn't know. The food is amazing though so he never complains and eat his fill while Gojo stares at him behind his tinted glasses the whole timing, sipping his non-alcoholic drink.

"And..." Kugisaki looks nauseous. "And you go there in hoodies?"

He shrugs. "It's not like I have the time to put on something else. Gojo-sensei says it's fine though." Although the first time was mortifying. Picture this: a high ceiling painted with a fresco worthy of the Sistine Chapel, an imposing chandelier for every square meter, red carpets, tables lit by scented candles, stained-glass windows covering an entire wall, men and women dressed for the Met Gala, and amidst all this grandeur, Itadori Yuuji in a hoodie and slippers, about to go to bed early for once. He obviously received more than one outraged look from both the customers and the waiters, but a glance from Gojo silenced any complains before they could even be uttered.

("You usually don't care about that kind of stuff, Yuuji-kun."

"This is different, sensei. I feel like Cinderella if she went to the ball in her rags."

"Eh, is that so? Then I'm your charming prince wisking you away until midnight! Shall we dance?"

"I'm pretty sure they'll kick us out if we do that."

"Let them try."

They got kicked out.)

Kugisaki leans against a wall with one hand and fans herself with the other. "I'm gonna pass out," she says, her face as pale as someone who's been through an earthquake. Yuuji rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, ready to tell her to stop being so dramatic—he's used to flouting the dress code in these places by now, whether intentionally or not—but she raises her palm toward him, stopping him in his tracks.

"We have to restore your reputation. We must. I will not allow this to stick to your back and then my back by association." Acting like she'll ever set foot in those fancy restaurants. And she calls him delusional.

"In case you forgot, I'm Sukuna's vessel. My reputation's buried ten meters under hell," he reminds, because he is sure that this information, like his reputation, is buried ten meters under the latest trends and gossips of foreign celebrities. Though Spanish reality shows are on another level, he'll admit that.

"We'll dig it out then!"

"With turtlenecks?"

"Cashmere turtlenecks."

Yuuji shakes his head, exasperated. "Can't I just wear the clothes you choose last time? That red short and white socks." It's been quite some time since he wore those clothes but he remembers rocking that outfit pretty well. Ah, but it's too cold now to wear just shorts and a t-shirt. Maybe with a thick jacket over it? Fushiguro has a blue one that goes down to his hips, maybe he'd let Yuuji wear it just for a day. But then again, no one'll see his outfit at all if he zips it up, and if he doesn't zip it up, he'll still be cold...

Kugisaki resolves his internal conflict with an offended look. "And be known as an outfit repeater? I said we have to restore your reputation, not drag it in the mud! Do you ever listen to what I say or are those ears for decoration?"

Mean, mean, mean. "You're being dramatic," he points out in case she didn't notice.

"Get moving," she said, haughtily ignoring him. Or was it simply her selective hearing filtering out anything that wasn't a compliment? Who knows. "We don't have all day. We don't even have half a day."

Indeed, they don't. It's currently two in the afternoon, and Yuuji has to meet Okkotsu at half past three at Shinjuku Station. When he learned that the boy would be returning to Japan, he hastily requested to have at least a few hours of Special Grade Okkotsu Yuuta's busy schedule, and he was right to do so. As they juggle clothes, Okkotsu is renewing his Japanese passport at Tokyo's Municipal Office. Since the building is in Shinjuku, Yuuji suggested via messages that they meet there, which Okkotsu was more than happy to accept.

Although he's been there for four days already, neither the first nor second years students have seen him once, not even during meals, showing how busy he is juggling various administrative tasks and matters related to Jujutsu High.

Yuuji feels almost guilty about stealing an afternoon from him when he could be spending it sending his numerous reports in paper form—the higher-ups are, unsurprisingly, old-school and don't accept digitally submitted reports. But on the other hand, he hasn't seen Okkotsu since his brief return to Japan when he first met him. Sure, they video call each other and text often, but nothing beats a face-to-face meeting!

Then Kugisaki got herself involved.

"Come on, I'm gonna be late now!" Yuuji tugs at the sleeve of her black trench coat, trying to move her from where she seems to have taken root like a weed.

"Shut up, I'm thinking," she says, slapping his hand away and proving the rightful use of the comparison.

"Think fast—" Careful with what you wish for or you'll end up like Yuuji, caught in a whirlwind of trying on clothes after clothes, not even knowing how they look on him because as soon as he puts them on, Kugisaki analyzes the outfit at lightning speed and orders him to take them off and try on others. Yuuji is disconcerted, disoriented, more confused than ever, slightly humiliated—oh, he forgot to mention: she's in the changing room with him.

"No need for that," Kugisaki says to the shop assistant who had come to Yuuji's rescue when he noticed a girl and a boy in the same booth, his brows severely furrowed and his gaze shifting from his collar to Kugisaki's bare neck.

His nostrils flares as he glares at Kugisaki. "I'm afraid it's against the shop's policy, miss."

"I said there's no need for me to step out," his friend repeats, her tone hard and uncompromising. Yuuji swallows cloves and cinnamon. "I've seen everything there is to see of this guy."

"Hey!" Yuuji protests, annoyed. It sounds weird. It was certainly weirdly worded, but the shop assistant barely blinks as he takes a step back, bows slightly, and says in a voice so generic it sounds like it's coming straight out of a computer. "I see. I apologize for the misunderstanding."

He watches him walk away before turning to Kugisaki. "You could have said it differently!"

"Whatever," she brushes, rearranging the changing room curtain to hide Yuuji's half-naked body from everyone but her own eyes. "Keep the pants on but take off the sweater and put this one on." She hands him the last hanger of a long line of clothes hung on the wall to their left and right. It's a simple cream-colored sweater with a slightly raised collar that goes quite well with the brown jeans he's wearing and his white sneakers—the usual red shoes sent to the cobbler to have their soles reinforced.

"What was wrong with my pants? It's, like, the exact same fabric." Yuuji asks, eyeing the faded blue jeans hanging among the other clothes.

Kugisaki clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "This is polyester, you ignorant fool."

"It is?" Eh. Well, it was cheap when he bought it back in Sendai two years ago. Fair enough, the fabric on his legs feels much thicker and resistant. "But I like my pants baggy," he complains at how the jeans wrap around his thighs.

He narrowly dodges a kick from a thick, square-heeled boot. "The point is to sell you out!" Kugisaki looks as if she's about to bite him in frustration. "Make those curves shine! Not hide them under pants twice your size!" And then, to prove her point, she loudly, painfully smacks Yuuji's ass, making him yelp in surprise, indignation, and pain because ow, that small hand sure stings!

"Pervert!" Yuuji cries out.

"Don't call a lady a pervert!"

"What lady? I don't see one! Security!"

Eventually, they leave the changing room before attracting the attention of the sales assistant, and Yuuji's new outfit is quickly paid for, along with a matching short jacket for him and three pairs of lace tights for Kugisaki. He tries and fails not to grimace at the exorbitant price, sliding Gojo's card into the machine as quickly as possible to prevent any sneaky thief of a fox smelling of cinnamon from trying to grab it and misuse it. It wouldn't be the first time.

Once outside, he accompanies Kugisaki to the station and hands her the bag with his hoodie and jeans, which she will leave outside his room. She grumbles all the way there but ends up slinging the bag over her shoulder like a delinquent.

"Call Fushiguro if that guy tries anything weird," she says as the train pulls up, passengers pouring out onto the platform by the dozen.

Yuuji blinks. "What do you mean, anything weird? That's just Okkotsu-senpai I'm meeting. And, no offense, but what could Fushiguro do that I can't against a Special Grade?" She shakes her head, her short hair swinging with the movement.

"You need a city boy to protect you from a city boy, you silly boy."

He's pretty sure Okkotsu's from Sendai. "That's a lot of boys."

Kugisaki laughs. "It is!" It's a nice, lovely sound, the tinkling of chimes against the humid summer breeze.

And off she goes.

After she leaves, Yuuji doesn't wait long. He leaves the platform, goes back up to the surface and leans against a bicycle rack in front of the station, hands in pockets, watching the crowd come and go incessantly like the waves of a tide. He does pull out his phone (new, courtesy of Gojo) at one point to take a few selfies to show off his new clothes (bought with Gojo's money) that coincidentally match his phone case, which was Yuuji's souvenir from Gojo's mission in Korea. No surprises here.

He sends them to his closest contacts and the responses are immediate.

[GTG-sensei] 15:20
Looking good Yuuji-kun~~

[GTG-sensei] 15:20
Finished shopping with Nobara? I see you don't hold back anymore with my credit card

[me] 15:20
sry sensei!!! one day ill earn my own salary and treat u every day of the week

[GTG-sensei] 15:21
Ehh how cute~ It's a promise then! As for now, need a ride back? I'll send you a car

[me] 15:22
its fine kugiski took the train and im not goin back yet

[GTG-sensei] 15:22
Oh? Is Yuuji-kun being naughty again and going to the pachinko parlor?

[me] 15:24
its just to pass the time >.< !!! im not, im hangin out with okkotsu-senpai

[GTG-sensei] 15:24
So it's today, huh.

[me] 15:24
yeah, thanks again for all those spots recs, cant wait to try them!!

[GTG-sensei] 15:25
Why, you're very welcome

It's tricky juggling three conversations at once, but he manages somehow.

[Kugisakill] 15:26
keep the damn jacket open u thoughtless idiot

[me] 15:26
its cold!

[Kugisakill] 15:26
gotta make sacrifices if u want those tiddies to show

[me] 15:27
im reporting you

Yuuji ends up silencing his phone after a businessman in a grey suit gave him a dirty look. Sorry about that! He's just that popular, hehe. (Ignore Kugisaki blowing up his phone with death threats.)

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:21
Wear a scarf, it's cold.

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:21
Why are you in Shinjuku.

[me] 15:22
meetin a frnd!! told u bout it yesterday

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:22
No, you didn't. Who? Do I know them?

[me] 15:23
of course u know him silly its okkotsu-senpai

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:29
Why.

[me] 15:29
why not?? wanna catch up with him and stuff

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:29
What stuff.

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:30
Answer my calls.

[Fushiguro-kyun] 15:31
Itadori.

He would have, if it weren't for the hand lightly tapping his shoulder. Yuuji looks up and finds himself face to face with large dark eyes that contrast sharply with the paleness of the skin surrounding them.

Okkotsu is standing very close to Yuuji and is strangely right on time.

"Okkotsu-senpai!" he exclaims, a little taken aback, pocketing his phone and thus not noticing the missed calls. "Why are you here?"

The boy tilts his head, confusion passing through his eyes which he keeps wide open and unblinking. "Is this not the place we agreed to meet in?" Creepy cursed energy aside, Yuuji forgot how unnerving his senpai can be.

"Yeah, but why are you here now?"

Okkotsu frowns. "Am I late?"

"That's the thing! People show up either late or early, not right on time," Yuuji explains, and Okkotsu finally blinks once, twice, looking like a barn owl with his head still tilted. "You're so weird, senpai!" Yuuji laughs, startling the boy, which makes him laugh even more.

They start walking through Shinjuku and, between tourists, middle and high schoolers, adults and old people, they have to squeeze together so as not to get swept away by the crowd. As a result, their hands brush against each other with every step, little finger against little finger, knuckles against knuckles, skin not quite touching skin but just enough for the warmth of Okkotsu's hand to leave a fleeting tingling sensation in its wake, disappearing and then returning with every sway of their hands.

Yuuji is a hugger, a tackler, a cuddler, a nuzzler, high fives and pets and such, but this simple, barely-there touch leaves him all flustered for reasons he cannot understand.

"You were early then," Okkotsu says as he heads towards one of the cafés Gojo recommended, which apparently serves tempura sandos to die for.

"Yup." For once. He's not annoyingly late like Gojo or fashionnably late like Mei Mei (missions with her are...something) but he may or may not have a hard time waking up in the morning when the weather starts to get more and more cold. Summer seems so far away now.

Okkotsu smiles, his eyes narrowed into two dark blue crescents, a light pink dusting his nose, strands of hair brushing his forehead. "Were you eager to see me?"

"Yeah!" Yuuji admits without hesitation. It's true, after all. The pink on Okkotsu's nose darkens to red and spreads across his cheeks with broad brushstrokes. "But I was also shopping earlier with Kugisaki, carrying her stuff and all. Got new clothes too! What do you think?" He waves his arms energetically, narrowly missing the unfortunate passers-by walking a little too close to him, which earns him dirty looks and whispered comments that he doesn't notice, focused as he is on the expression on Okkotsu's face.

That's why the disapproval weighing down his features dampens Yuuji's excitement like the coldest of showers. It's not obvious but it's still there, in the downturn of his lips, the narrowing of his eyes.

Yuuji lowers his gaze to his outfit. "Eh, you don't like it?" Even though they're Kugisaki-proofed? He grabs the bottom of his jumper tucked into his trousers and stretches it a little to see what's wrong. He can't find anything though, so maybe the style clashes with Yuuji as a whole. After all, it's a far cry from his hoodies and sweatpants.

"No, of course not," Okkotsu is quick to reassure. "You look lovely, but..." Yuuji blinks, taken aback. Lovely? That's certainly not an adjective he'd use to describe himself. He looks tough, according to his middle school classmates, perpetually unkept according to his grandfather, or endearing according to the elderly neighbors back in Sendai.

More recent opinions report that he, he quotes, "looks like he's been chewed and spat out by the My Little Pony universe"—Kugisaki a week after they met—and that he's "Jujutsu Tech's very own Disney princess!"—Gojo after catching him buying unsalted pecan nuts to feed Mei Mei's crows. The downside of using his card is that he's now aware of every single purchase Yuuji makes. Also, he seems to have a thing for princes and princesses.

But lovely, huh. That's a first. Yuuji's lovely through Okkotsu's eyes.

The thought makes him blush, then lower his gaze to his sneakers, embarrassed by his own thoughts, which means he only notices Okkotsu removing his fir-green scarf once it's wrapped around Yuuji's neck.

"Senpai?" he asks, raising his head.

"It's cold," Okkotsu explains, tucking the scarf under the jacket left open due to Kugisaki's threats. His movements are quick and methodical at first, then gradually become clumsy the closer his hands get to Yuuji's chest.

Unsurprisingly, the scarf smells strongly of the boy's cologne. Jasmine and vanilla infiltrate his senses as Yuuji takes a long, deep, unabashed breath. It's been a while since he's smelled this sweet aroma so strangely specific that he takes his time reacquainting himself with the scent, pulling the scarf up over his nose under Okkotsu's piercing gaze. He doesn't seem confused or even intrigued, just focused on Yuuji in such a disconcerting way that it makes the hairs on his arms stand up and sends shivers down his spine. Perhaps it's because he doesn't blink his large, dark eyes the whole time. And his closed face doesn't help. Neither do his dark circles.

But an Okkotsu who isn't disarming wouldn't really be Okkotsu, so Yuuji brushes it all off with an imaginary wave of his hand. "What about you?" Without his scarf, the other's neck is covered only by a thin grey turtleneck, which is in turn covered by a brown leather collar. It looks great on him, like those thick, expensive chokers that Kugisaki sends him on Instagram in the far-fetched hope that he'll buy one for her for her birthday.

Yuuji feels his own collar tight against his skin and, although it is now hidden under Okkotsu's scarf still warm from his body heat, pats himself on the back for deciding to wear the new one given to him by Fushiguro rather than his usual one, worn until the leather was flaking off. His initial idea was to simply stop wearing the accessory all together when yet another mission nearly tore it to shreds—his head included—and he went without it for a while, during which time Fushiguro declined every invitation to eat out. Yuuji was stunned to learn that he hadn't been to the literary convention where one of his favourite authors was holding a book signing, hadn't even bought their new book that had been out for a few days already. He was starting to get seriously worried about his friend's financial situation until a square box innocently placed on the kitchen table one fine morning provided all the answers to his questions.

Inside the expensive-looking box was a sturdy leather collar in a pretty saffron yellow colour with finely engraved arabesques around the edges. Underneath the box was a note signed by Fushiguro telling Yuuji to take good care of it.

He might have cried. He might have kept the note tucked into his phone case out of sentimentality. Many things might have happened, but only the condiments on the worktop bore witness.

Okkotsu shurgs. "I run hot." Liar, liar, pants on fire.

"My hand's warmer than yours, though."

The proof is that as soon as Yuuji takes the boy's hand in his, he shivers at the touch of Okkotsu's icy skin. Although his knuckles are strangely warm, his palm and fingers are so cold that Yuuji squeezes his hand tightly to try to speed up the transfer of heat between their palms. At this Okkotsu laughs, pleasure and light amusement in his voice as he interlaces their fingers together before putting both hands in his coat pocket. The material may be thin, but the soft lining of the pocket reminds Yuuji of the warm cocoon of his bed.

"Better?" Okkotsu asks, low and earnest and smooth just like Yuuji remembers.

"Yeah!" he beams, to which Okkotsu squeezes his hand so hard it hurts, bones grinding against bones making him wince for a second.

Thankfully, the walk is short even with the number of people per square metre increasing by the minute. Holding Okkotsu with one hand and his phone with the other, Yuuji follows the route mapped out by Google Maps until they reach their destination, the café's façade painted in rich autumn colours rising up before them, promising hot drinks and tasty meals.

If only the café wasn't closed.

"Closed on Wednesdays," Yuuji reads from the schedule taped to the window. "No way! Who closes on Wednesdays?"

Still with their hands in his pockets, Okkotsu looks over Yuuji's shoulder at the screen. "Google Maps didn't mention it?"

"Huh? I don't think so—Oh, it did." Now he feels dumb for not seeing the red closed on Wednesday two clicks before the route. "It's okay," Yuuji reassures him, "I have a whole list of places we can try."

Okkotsu squints at the screen. Looking down must be hurting his neck because he rests his head on Yuuji's shoulder. "You should check if they're open. It'll save us time."

"They can't all be closed!" Yuuji laughs.

They can. They damn well can.

The Indonesian restaurant with the fluffy pistachio-raspberry or strawberry-peach pancakes? Under renovation.

The food truck selling takoyaki the size of tennis balls? Moved.

The cat café with the blueberry French toast served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream? Went bankrupt. What about the cats then?

Yuuji's jaw almost hits the ground when the family-run ramen restaurant he was planning to try with Fushiguro next week turns out to be closed because the owners have suddenly gone on holiday. Horrified, he slowly turns to Okkotsu, who doesn't seem the least bit bothered by the situation, his cheek comfortably pressed against his shoulder.

"Senpai, are we cursed?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Right. King and Queen of Curses.

"But how come everything is closed today of all days?" Yuuji laments, half-dejected, half-impressed by the enormous coincidence.

Okkotsu runs his thumb over Yuuji's hand in the warm, narrow, cosy den that is his coat pocket. "How did you find out about these places?" he asks as Yuuji stumbles upon yet another café's closing notice, surprise, surprise.

"Gojo-sensei recommended these places when I told him I was looking for somewhere to try with you," Yuuji explains. "He knows a lot about sweets, so I trusted his knowledge. Maybe I shouldn't have... Maybe he went there a long time ago and doesn't remember the opening hours?"

"From Gojo-sensei, huh..." Okkotsu blinks slowly, his tone and face as neutral as the reflection of a frozen lake, revealing nothing of his thoughts. "I guess I should've seen it coming," he mutters against Yuuji's shoulder.

"Nah, that's on me, I should have checked the schedule before suggesting we go out."

Quickly but carefully, Okkotsu takes Yuuji's phone with his free hand and starts typing an address into the Google Maps search bar.

Yuuji peers down at his thumb, which is flying across the keyboard at lightning speed. "Okkotsu-senpai?"

"Do you like Korean food, Itadori-kun?"

"Yes?"

"I'm so coming back here," Yuuji says between sips of his water. He leans back in his chair and enjoys how the cushion beneath his bottom makes him feel like he's sinking into a cloud. Across from him Okkotsu smiles, pleased to see him enjoying the dishes laid out on the table they're sharing. Sweet and sour fried chicken with honey, hot japchae with prawns, extra spicy tteokbokki coloring the boy's pale cheeks pink, and kimchi and rice as side dishes.

A hand wipes the grains of rice stuck to the corner of Yuuji's mouth. "You like it?" Okkotsu asks him in a whisper loud enough to be heard above the ambient noise. They are not alone in the restaurant; although it is small, all the tables are occupied by various groups of people, alone or accompanied, which, added to the sounds of frying and pots and pans coming from the kitchens, makes for a warm and friendly atmosphere.

Yuuji likes it. Likes it a lot. He doesn't think twice when Okkotsu holds out the thumb he used to wipe his mouth, quickly licking off the grains of rice and then licking his fingertip to clean off the sauce. Oops. Reflex. He should do something about his tunnel vision when it comes to food. "Yeah! I can't believe Inumaki-senpai kept this place to himself for so long. Talk about gatekeeping."

Across the table, Okkotsu stares at his thumb for five long seconds before turning his attention back to Yuuji. Thankfully, he doesn't comment on the strangeness of the action. "You wouldn't think so but he has a hard time sharing. He and Panda-kun often fight over who gets to eat whose leftovers in the fridge." He rests his chin on his palm,thumb still slightly wet with saliva dangerously close to his mouth. Which is kind of making Yuuji sweat under his clothes. He's shared countless indirect kisses with Fushiguro, always eating after or before him with the same utensils or drinking from his bottle during practice sessions because it's funny to see him get so worked up over a bit of saliva, but he's always been the one to initiate them. Not the other way around.

Is this karma? Yuuji thinks as Okkotsu rubs the pad of his thumb along the length of his lower lip, smearing the saliva like the lip balm that Gojo religiously applies every day. He doesn't even seem to realise what his hand is doing, his distant gaze fixed on a memory that only he can see.

"One day Maki ate his mango pudding that he explicitly said was his. He was so angry that I made myself small that day even though I hadn't done anything," he says, his eyes dark as usual but reflecting mirth and fondness. Yuuji tries, tries, to pay attention to his story, but his gaze keeps falling on that damn lip with his damn saliva on it, heart pounding at the thought of— Oh, great, now Okkotsu is running his tongue over his lips to moisten them. Yuuji's saliva is officially in his mouth.

He feels like he owns Fushiguro an apology. Not that he'll stop teasing him, but still.

"Did Maki-senpai ever make it up to him?" he asks instead of continuing to think about his saliva currently mixing with Okkotsu's in his mouth.

"She ate all the puddings for three months to make him get over it." He mimics quotation marks with his fingers, which makes Yuuji laugh. Belly full, cheeks hurting from smiling, chest light from contentment, heart blooming with joy, he feels so warm all over.

"Yeah, sounds like her alright."

"What about you?"

Yuuji blinks. "Me?"

"You," Okkotsu repeats. "Tell me about you. Fun stories, weird anecdotes, I want to hear some."

"Just some?" Yuuji teases.

"As many as you'll share with me." He smiles, earnest, honest. "Truth is, I don't know much about you even with all our calls and texts. I thought it'd be nice to spend a few hours getting to know each other, like you suggested before." Then lower, shyer, pulling on the sleeve of his turtleneck. "I think of you as more than just a partner I meet once every few months."

"Me too," Yuuji admits, though it's not much of a revelation. After weeks of messages and calls he likes to think they're friends, maybe even close friends, the way Maki and Kugisaki are despite the obvious senpai-kouhai hierarchy. If anything Todo's more like a sparring partner—aside from the whole brother thing and odd memories that somehow includes him.

And speaking of sparring. "It'd be nice to let off some steam before dinner, though."

Okkotsu chokes on the kimchi he started to nervously eat. "T-Today?" He looks startled, like someone doused him in cold water.

Yuuji pours water in his glass. "Yeah, that's what I had in mind for today. Walk around Shinjuku, eat something nice, wait a bit to digest the food, then go at it until we pass out from exhaustion." Doubt starts to crawl inside him as he watches Okkotsu drink the whole glass in one go. "Unless you don't want to?" Maybe he's busy. It was difficult enough to get him to spend an afternoon with him, munching on his evening would be asking too much.

"Yes! No! I mean, yes!" Okkotsu hastens to contradict him. His cheeks red, he puts down the chopsticks he was waving frantically in the air. "Yes, I do. Want to. I want to, very much. I just thought we wouldn't do it outside of the set dates."

Yuuji frowns. "It seems too formal. I thought the point was to get closer?"

"Of course." Gaze averted, Okkotsu clears his throat, his Adam's apple rippling beneath his collar. "But isn't it better if we shower before?"

"Meh, we'll be sweating anyway," Yuuji shrugs while the other almost knocks over the bowl of japchae. Besides, given that every minute counts with his busy schedule, he'd rather avoid the risk of spending an eternity under the hot tap. He can hear Yaga's Goddamn! echoing through the walls of his office at the end of each month when the water bill arrives. This coincides with the lemon tart that the man finds once a month innocently placed on his desk because Yuuji made too much cream, and obviously not to ease his conscience or anything, none of that.

"I have very high stamina, so you'll probably struggle to keep up," he warns nonetheless despite the unwavering sword that is Okkotsu Yuuta; an infinite well of cursed energy, strength and speed worthy of a Special Grade, a domain mastered at barely sixteen years old. Yuuji is none of that, certainly, but he remains the last one standing during training and missions, a tireless beast facing the red flag urging him to charge.

As if someone had flipped a switch, Okkotsu's whole demeanour changes. The blush on his cheeks remains, but the embarrassment stretching his features is no more, as are his awkward smile and the tension in his shoulders. Instead, he moistens his lips once more before leaning over the narrow table to whisper in Yuuji's ear, all the while looking at him. "Yeah?" His gaze is no longer evasive but pinned on Yuuji, piercing his very being, the pins of an entomological display on which he has willingly laid himself bare under the light of a cold lamp.

"Then I'm sure you won't mind if I end up being too... rough with you." From this close, he can see Okkotsu's wide eyes become half-lidded, heavy, laden with something smelling of vanilla and jasmine, the icing on his cake, the meringue on his sponge, the steaming drink of his sugar-dusted slice of tart.

Yuuji smiles, emboldened by the familiarity of a competitive spirit. "Do your best," he murmurs, gently blowing on the boy's dark lock of hair that tickles the bridge of his nose. He can also feel his breath, spicy from the tteokbokki land, on his cheeks with each exhalation, and Yuuji swallows the excess saliva that the memory of the food sitting heavy his stomach brings, Okkotsu having a front-row seat to watch his throat ripple against his collar.

Slowly, leisurely, Okkotsu trails his gaze along Yuuji's throat, taking the time to trace the veins and arteries whose location he surely knows like the back of his hand, appreciating the curve of his jaw, the shape of his chin, before stopping his ascent at Yuuji's lips. Despite his eyelids obscuring half of his eyes, he can see the boy's black pupils dilate like those of a cat at the sight of their favourite person, swallowing the dark blue of his gaze. Once again, he moistens his lips and, with both hands flat on the table for support, Okkotsu leans forward even further.

Soon Yuuji's field of vision is filled with nothing but him; from the obsidian of his hair to the alabaster of his skin, the purple brushstrokes under his eyes to the shape of his eyebrows, the length of his lashes, the angle of his nose, the thinness of his lips—

"Man, this kimchi is way too spicy for me," says a loud voice, much too close to them, bursting the intimate bubble they had created with the sharp end of a stalactite. The sharp contrast makes Yuuji jump so violently that his forehead collides with Okkotsu's. They both yelp in pain, and by the time Yuuji stops seeing stars in his vision, Okkotsu is already leaning back in his seat, his gaze much less intense directed at the person who had so abruptly interrupted their moment.

Holding his sore forehead with one hand, Yuuji blinks at the man sitting on a chair who he could swear wasn't there five minutes ago. "Gojo-sensei?"

"In the flesh," Gojo replies between mouthfuls, having apparently abandoned the kimchi in favour of the plain rice. Either he is completely oblivious to his surroundings or he is well aware of how strange his presence is and couldn't care less. In any case, he ignores the stunned looks of the two boys and instead chews their meal noisily.

Okkotsu is the first to snap out of their shared stupor. "What are you doing here?" he asks, and Yuuji's eyes widen at the accusatory tone in the question. He has never heard him angry or even irritated before.

"Can't a man enjoy a nice plate of," a glance over his glasses at the partially eaten bowls, "tasty tteokbokki and japchae?"

"You don't like spicy food," Okkotsu points out.

"You sounded like I found you eloping with dear Yuuji-kun here yet did you hear me say anything about it?" Gojo dramatically snaps his chopsticks together in the air. "No. You traitorous, disloyal cousin of mine. I guess a Gojo is still a Gojo no matter how diluted the blood is."

"But you don't like spicy food?" Yuuji tries to make sense of his somewhat bitter words. It's no secret among the whole jujutsu society. "And where did you find the chair?" His long legs are bent in a way that cannot be comfortable under the table, knees occasionally shaking the glasses.

Gojo shrugs. "A nice lady kindly gave me her seat."

"Really?"

("Huh, excuse me but this is my chair."

"You're not sitting on it, are you?"

"Because I was in the bathroom? Can't you see my coat drapped on it?"

"Oh, right. Here, have it back."

"What on earth are you doing? Give me back my seat!"

"I need it more than you!"

"Am I supposed to eat while standing?"

"It's better than having your very own cousin steal your omega right under your nose! That brat just can't help it, can he?"

"I don't care! My chair!")

"Really," Gojo repeats.

"How generous," Okkotsu says a touch sarcastically.

Once again, Yuuji double-takes at the hostile undertone creeping into his voice. He takes his eyes off Gojo and instead lets them wander over Okkotsu's face as he had done earlier. With pursed lips, slightly furrowed brows, and puffed cheeks, Okkotsu is undeniably, incredibly, inconceivably sulking. Which shouldn't really shock him, they're teenagers, sulking is kinda their thing—something Fushiguro abuses every day—but Yuuji's image of Okkotsu is that of a calm, classy, reserved, collected guy, which makes it easy to forget that he's only a year older than him.

He tends to classify him in the same category as Nanami, i.e. the Tired But Cool Men In Suits, but then again, maybe he should make a subcategory called Tired Upperclassmen with a branch just for the Unhinged But Kind. Hmm. Something to think about.

"By the way, sensei," Yuuji draws his attention, "your recommendations were no good. Can you believe every one of them is closed today?"

Yuuji watches the smile usually reserved for the higher-ups appear for a quarter of a second on Gojo's glossy lips before giving way to a rueful look. "Oh my, what a shame. You should've just gone back to the school."

"Nah, Okkotsu-senpai apparently knew this place from Inumaki-senpai. And the food is amazing! I wonder if I can make it this good myself." Probably not. He's no chef after all, no matter what everyone back at the school says. They're just so used to instant noodles and konbini bentos that a simple homemade meal tastes like Olympus' ambrosia.

However, Nanami did compliment his bread-making skills, especially his garlic and cheese rolls, and Nanami never praises anyone for anything, so. Maybe they're onto something. And maybe Yuuji likes the praises. Lots of maybe's today, it seems.

Gojo does not share his opinion, his nose wrinkling as if the mere idea had offended him. "Ha? But this is so far away from the station. And the prices are too high for the quality they offer. Not only that but the heating also doesn't work, the lightning is atricious for my poor eyes, you can only pay in cash and the wifi barely works. Honestly, I could go on forever."

That's a lot of cons for a regular customer. "Why did you come here then if you don't like the place?" Yuuji inquires, confused but not entirely. As much as the man is known for his worringly sweet tooth, he's also known for his eccentric and unpredictable behavior, though sometimes even the strange can be guessed.

"It's almost like you were following us," Okkotsu jokes. Gone is his pouty expression, and Yuuji begins to think he must have hallucinated him. Instead he sports a calm, almost artificial smile that complements his two eyes, narrowed into crescent moons if the moon was heavy with tired, dark clouds. Gojo smiles back.

"Don't be silly, Yuuta. Despite their many flaws I love the food here, truly my favorite restaurant. The savours remind me of that one time I had to stay a whole month in Seoul to meet their own schoo—"

"You can finish our bowl then." Okkotsu interrupts him, pushing the bowl of tteokbokki towards him. He then turns to Yuuji. "It's a good thing we didn't eat it all, right?" A brief moment's thought. "I'd even say it's suprising."

"Senpai!" Yuuji didn't eat that much. Fushiguro always scolds him for his ravenous appetiate but good food should be appreciated, no? And while he loudly complains when Yuuji steals his food he always lets him finish his plate in his stead. If anything, it's Fushiguro who eats too little. How come he's taller than Yuuji?

("What if I tell you he likes to believe you have pregnancy craves and, by letting you eat his food, he thinks he's providing for both you and his imaginary baby?"

"Right, of course. How about we get you back to sleep? Hmm? Sounds nice, right, Kugisaki?"

"He's that delusional, Itadori, he is."

"Ieiri-san, how long until the anesthesia wears off? She's saying weird things again."

"I saw him look at baby onesies, I swear."

"I'm sure you did.")

Gojo doesn't touch the bowl. In fact, Gojo doesn't even lift his chopsticks from where he'd placed them on the table. His shoulders are stiff beneath the leather jacket he's wearing, and his large hands lie flat as if he's being interrogated by the police.

Nonplussed, Okkotsu tilts his head to try and see Gojo's eyes beneath his opaque glasses. "What's the hold up, sensei?" he asks.

"He doesn't like spicy food," Yuuji reminds.

"But every dishes here is spicy. Surely sensei got used to the taste if he fancies the place."

"Oh, true." Yuuji nods. He picks up his chopsticks he had set aside, picks up a thick rice cake that is slightly slippery due to the sauce, and brings it to Gojo's mouth, with one hand underneath to avoid dirtying his expensive-looking pants. "Here, sensei, don't be shy, say ah."

From this close, he can smell the pine trees caught in an icy rain that turns the mud below into quicksand. Deadly, dangerous, difficult to avoid. Gojo swallows loudly before opening his mouth so slowly that Yuuji's wrist begins to tremble. "Ah..."

Strangely focused, the two boys observe Gojo chew the food, watching for the slightest reaction, good or bad. Yuuji knows that there is a certain delay before the spiciness settles in the mouth and numbs the tongue, so he is not surprised to see the man chewing the rice cake with confidence. That confidence evaporates as a bright pink rises to Gojo's cheeks, spreading to his forehead and neck, contrasting with the whiteness of his hair sticking to his shiny forehead. Soon enough he's panting like a dog on a hot summer day, his tongue red and swollen, and Yuuji finds himself dabbing the sweat from his temples with paper napkins.

"How is it?" Okkotsu asks innocently from where he sits with his hands folded on his knees. 

"As delicious as I remember," Gojo growls. With his face so red and the forced smile he flashes at Okkotsu, he looks manic. "One of a ki—" he chokes on his own saliva. "Yuuji, be a dear and pour me a glass of water."

Yuuji would rather ask him why on earth he agreed to eat it if a single bite turns him into a runner at the end of a forty-two-kilometre marathon. However, he changes his mind; now is not the time for blame. "I think you should have some milk instead."

"There's no milk on the menu," Okkotsu points out.

"No shit you double-faced, evil homewre—" Another coughing fit, this time caused by swallowing saliva mixed with hot sauce, burning his pharynx and oesophagus in its wake.

"Gojo-sensei!" Yuuji can do nothing but press the glass of water to Gojo's lips and watch him drink it down in large gulps until the last drop. All this because of a single tteokbokki. 

With his hand on Gojo's hunched back, he turns to Okkotsu. "Should we call for Ijichi-san?"

"I think it's for the best."

"N-No need— Ahem. No need, I'll teleport," Gojo says through the roughness of his throat. He lifts his head from his empty glass and glares at Okkotsu, his glasses having slipped down his nose revealing the piercing blue of his eyes. And you are coming with me."

Okkotsu points a finger at himself. "Me? What for?"

"I thought he had the afternoon free?" 

"Oh, please," Gojo rolls his eyes. He has clearly quickly recovered from his spicy experience. Dramatic much? "There's no such thing as a free afternoon for a Special Grade."

"You slept in my lap for a whole afternoon though?" Yuuji reminds him. It was during those two long months spent underground watching movies. That afternoon, he'd binged all three Kung Fu Panda movies with Gojo's head comfortably settled on his lap, and by the time Po met his father, the panda one, he couldn't feel his thighs anymore.

"That was an important part of the training," the man says, waving his hand in the air as if to dismiss the subject.

Okkotsu doesn't seem thrilled by the news. "What am I to do then?" Suddenly his dark circles and paleness make Yuuji want to put him to bed and pat his belly until he falls asleep.

"You know, the usual. Fighting Special Grades and the likes."

"Special Grade curses?"

"What else, dear student of mine?" Gojo narrows his eyes in a cold smile, frost covering star-shaped petals with a white coat resembling icing sugar. 

Jasmine is a tropical or subtropical plant, so it is vulnerable to harsh winters, thus making it advisable to cover its aerial parts with a fleece and its base with mulch. However, winter jasmine, which is more hardy than its cousin white jasmine, can withstand temperatures as low as minus fifteen degrees Celsius. It resists the cold in the same way that Okkotsu maintains Gojo's gaze, Yuuji's confused one alternating between the two, until the man gets up with the promise of paying the bill, being the oldest of the three.

"Eh, for real?" And to think that Yuuji had a whole programme planned with his unattainable senpai. It's like he's friends with a celebrity or a firefighter, always needed here and there. Although maybe Special Grades sorcerers are celebrities with how rare they are. Three sorcerers, one of whom doesn't really do much, for one hundred and twenty-six million Japanese people. Is Yuuji being selfish for keeping Okkotsu away from duty? "Bummer..." he mutters into the fabric of the scarf he hasn't taken off—as Gojo so aptly pointed out, the heating doesn't work.

Seeing his crestfallen expression, Okkotsu placed a hand on Yuuji's as a gesture of comfort. "I'm sorry, Itadori-kun," he says, a vanilla aroma seaping into his words. "It was short but I enjoyed our time together." 

"Me too. Maybe next time we'll make it past dinner?" Is having a meal at four in the afternoon even dinner? It's nowhere near lunch though and the sun has already started to set, warming their table with orange rays.

"I hope so. What I said still stands, after all." A wink—a wink?—playful and full of mirth.

Yuuji beams. "I wouldn't have it any other way!"

"What about me?"

Once again, Gojo silently appears at their table, and if it weren't for the trail of mint between the cash register and them, Yuuji would think he'd simply teleported. Being right behind his seat, Yuuji has to tilt his head back just to see the tips of his white strands. 

"Hmm?"

"What about me," he presses.

Training with Gojo is great, albeit he hardly holds back when it comes to sparring. He sends him and his classmates flying across the training hall with a backhand, and even the second years on occasion. Fushiguro has thrown up more than once, Kugisaki is prone to losing consciousness, and even the powerhouse that is Yuuji has to visit Ieiri after a session with Gojo, with cracked ribs and such. Sure, he still loves to throw himself headfirst at Infinity, but Okkotsu, on the other hand, is rarely, if ever, on campus. 

"I'd rather do it with Okkotsu-senpai," Yuuji asserts. Special Grade or not, Gojo is often seen lounging in the teacher's lounge, while who knows when Okkotsu will next visit Japan.

A growl. "Oh?" Suddenly, a heavy weight settles on Yuuji's shoulders, long, long arms encircling them in a tight vice. A warm breath landing on the little exposed skin on his neck makes him shiver involuntarily. "You know, just last year this guy was scared of even the weakest Grade Four," Gojo whispers over the leather of his collar. Yuuji bites his lip, afraid of making a sound that his brain will file away in the Most Embarrassing Moments To This Day drawer and replay every night when he tries to fall asleep.

Okkotsu's face flushes red. "Sensei!" he sputters.

"What, it's true, Maki and Toge can testify."

"T-Then, last year he was covering his eyes with bandages and using accessible parking!"

"Try parking in Tokyo."

"You don't even have a license."

"That's it, off with you." As quickly as it had appeared, the comfortably heavy weight on Yuuji's shoulders disappears, leaving him momentarily off balance. He almost misses Gojo grabbing the arm of a livid Okkotsu with an iron grip. 

"Bye-bye Yuuji-kun!"

"See you la—"

Poof. One moment Gojo looms over Okkotsu like a tsunami from an apocalyptic film, the next moment the place where they stood is empty, not a trace of their presence except for the nearly empty bowls littering the table. 

"—ter."

That was...a lot? And he's alone now. Oh, well. Better get going.

He arranges the empty bowls and cutlery to make the waiters' job easier, then asks to take the leftovers away with him. It's enough for a meal, and given the price, Yuuji feels bad for not letting the lucky person who finds it in the communal kitchen enjoy it. He's betting on Inumaki.

By the time he arrives at the station, the platforms are already crowded with salarymen who have finished their day at five o'clock sharp, so he has to spend the journey pressed against the backs of strangers in various versions of two-piece suits. Yuuji can only breathe properly once he reaches the top of the stone steps leading up to the campus—why so many? His legs and lungs are burning as he finally enters the dormitory building and heads for the kitchen to put the leftovers aside. 

Yuuji hesitates for a moment in the genkan after hanging his new jacket on the coat rack. Okkotsu's scarf is still around his neck, the soft scarf smelling of that scent that warms Yuuji's whole being from the tip of his nose to the smallest of his toes. Parting with such comfort is difficult, and after a few seconds of staring into space, he decides to change his mind. It's not as if it's very warm in the common room, no one would bat an eye at the scarf he's wearing indoors.

No one except Kugisaki, of course. He found her sitting on a high chair at the worktop painting her nails a beautiful amethyst colour. Something Yuuji had told her time and time again not to do on the same surface where he cooks if she didn't want Thursday's loaves of bread to taste like acrylic.

"Kugisaki, not on the worktop please," he begs because that's the only thing that works with girl.

"Hello to you too," is all she replies, not ready to move anytime soon. She only looks up from her left hand at the sound of the paper bags he places next to the microwave. "I call dibs on whatever you brought."

Here goes his bet. "You don't even know what's in there."

"Doesn't matter."

Yuuji rolls his eyes before getting down to work, turning his back on her. He takes out the leftovers wrapped by the restaurant waiters one by one and starts making room for them in the fridge, which is already full to the brim. Gojo always buys everything and anything he can find in large quantities once a month and proudly waits for Yuuji to praise him on not letting them starve. Except that a) thank goodness he, the responsible adult, fills the fridge, because they wouldn't be able to pay for groceries with their meagre pocket money, and b) what the hell is Yuuji supposed to do with fifteen jars of date honey? Lost in his thoughts and his battle with the fridge's impossible-to-close vegetables drawer, he doesn't notice Kugisaki's hazel eyes zooming in on the scarf wrapped around his neck. 

"You've got to make up your mind, you know," she says while Yuuji is elbow-deep in celery leaves.

Who in their right might stored the celery vertically instead of horizontally? Now they won't move an inch no matter how hard he pulls on them! "About what?" he reponds absenmindedly. Should he break them in half? That can't be a good idea. And what is this lemon doing here?

Kugisaki snorts. "Don't act innocent, you can't fool me. Though I have to say you're bold for going around smelling like them both."

Yuuji feels pay more attention to what she's saying. "Again, what?"

"The idiots courting you!" she exclaims, her hands undoubtedly gesturing wildly behind his back. "You can't just switch between the two like some shoujo protagonist. It's either one or the other. And while I'd usually root for Fushiguro, Gojo-sensei is pretty loaded. Makes you forget the age gap and his shitty personnality. And don't get me started on that damn Okkotsu." A pause to blow on her nails. "Well, none of them can compare to me, of course. Not like you have a chance." The last sentence is uttered hastily, like an afterthought, which Yuuji would have noticed if his mind wasn't painfully blank. He looks at the juice and milk cartons in the fridge to, he doesn't know, check if they heard the same thing he did coming out of Kugisaki's mouth.

Slowly, he abandons the celery and turns back to her. "What makes you think they're... courting me?" The word tastes foreign on his tongue. It might as well be from a whole other language. Unfortunalty he's proved wrong when, unlike him, Kugisaki doesn't falter one bit.

She raises a doubtful eyebrow. "Because you're an omega exchanging gifts with alphas? Courting gifts?" It's the same tone she uses when Yuuji has trouble understanding a subject related to sorcery that seems abstract to him but makes perfect sense to her. And as always when this happens, Yuuji can only blink helplessly as irritation gives way to exasperation on her delicate features. Strangely, in this case, it is neither of these emotions that appear on Kugisaki's moisturised face, but rather concern.

"Itadori," she calls out with a shaky voice, "Itadori, you reek of them."

"What's— What's an omega?" Yuuji weakly asks.

In his head, Sukuna laughs very, very loudly.