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Gojo inhales deeply upon stepping outside, enjoying the fresh air more today than he would on any other day. He has a lax schedule—no missions, meetings, or annoying higher-ups to pester at the moment— and, as a plus, he’d be handing off the first years to Nanami for an hour to train.
He was honestly surprised when Nanami suggested the idea to him in the first place, reasoning that in the time Gojo would be out on a lengthy mission, someone from the school could be teaching the students in his stead. In the time Gojo had known him since he came back to jujutsu, Nanami had been vehemently against teaching, so it came as a shock to him when he realized Nanami wasn’t opposed to training them even when Gojo wasn’t swamped with work to do.
He supposes the curmudgeon is growing a soft spot for his kids. It seems to be infectious nowadays.
Speaking of the ex-salaryman, Gojo had come outside to bug the man himself. Luckily for him, he catches him and Shoko sitting at one of the tables outside the teacher’s lounge to enjoy the crisp air, the two chatting away and smiling at each other as they talk.
Sometimes, Gojo gets a bit jealous seeing Nanami smile for others so easily, whereas he wouldn’t spare him a glance on a good day. He’s already tarnished his reputation with him in high school, what with the constant bullying, but he’s determined to get on his good side as adults… one way or another.
And speaking of his good side… god, does he look especially attractive from this angle. The high noon sunlight hitting his impossibly angular cheekbones and gelled blonde hair, his smile putting his perfect teeth on display, the lenses of his reading glasses glinting… god, what a smokeshow.
A wistful sigh pierces Gojo’s ears. His unhinged horniness is put on pause as he tries to deduce where it came from.
He turns a bit and sees a young second-grade sorcerer by the name of Ino Takuma sitting on a bench close to him. He’s got his phone in his hand, but he’s not looking at it.
In fact, it seems that he was in the same boat as Gojo—gazing at the specimen that is Nanami Kento.
He’s always thought the kid was a bit of a dork, doing everything he possibly could to attract Nanami’s attention. Gojo knows it’s all in vain, as Nanami would never even entertain the idea of being romantically involved with his protégé, regardless of his not being terribly far in age from him.
Is it wrong to call Ino out on doing the same thing he was doing?
Yes. Yes, it is. But Gojo couldn’t give two shits.
“Ino-kun!” Gojo says loudly, enough for the young sorcerer to be jolted out of his daydream. Gojo bites the inside of his cheek to refrain from laughing as he sees him practically go white when he registers his presence. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Ino laughs, too high-pitched to be nonchalant. “Hey, Gojo-san.” His voice is wavering. “What’s up?”
Gojo snickers. “Your eyes, apparently. Whatever are you looking at?” He knows he’s being mean, but man, if it isn’t amusing as hell watching him blush profusely and start stammering up a storm.
“N-nothing! I wasn’t looking at anything!”
Poor guy.
Gojo hums and takes a seat next to him, draping his arm on the area of the bench behind him. “It wouldn’t happen to be tall, blonde, and handsome, would it?” he asks with a self-satisfied grin.
Unfortunately for Ino, he’s been caught in the act. He groans and pulls his beanie down as much as possible to hide his face, curling in on himself in shame. “Come on, please don’t do this…”
Alright, he’s done with the teasing. He sighs and pinches the top of Ino’s beanie, pulling it back up. “Hey, don’t worry. My lips are sealed. Ogle all you want.”
Ino’s brows furrow, a little pout coming to rest on his face. “Okay, ogling’s a strong wor–”
Even behind his blindfold, Ino can tell Gojo’s giving him a look, one that makes the words shrivel on his tongue. That’s the first and last time he’ll try gaslighting a person with six eyes as a witness.
The two sit quietly on the bench for a few moments.
Until Gojo, like the menace he is, gets a cruel idea in his head. What he said about not teasing anymore? Yeah, out the goddamn window.
He smiles, all charming and bad-intentioned.
“But, Ino-kun…” he says to break the silence. Ino turns his head to look at him. Gojo follows suit, putting a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“...you can’t lay a finger on him. I’ll know if you do.”
Ino’s eyes widen comically. “...w-what?”
The older man tilts his head in mock surprise. “Didn’t you know? Nanamin and I are dating.”
The chestnut-haired sorcerer looks bewildered beyond belief. Gojo should win a medal for keeping his composure.
“You are?”
Gojo sighs dramatically, clapping the kid on the back a bit harder than he was intending to. “Ino-kun, get with the program! That’s one of the first things you learn here.”
From there, he tells Ino an impromptu but believable fabrication of his and Nanami’s love story, not thinking anything of it but a silly little prank.
It’s more than that, isn’t it?
…nah, just a harmless white lie.
That’s all it is. Really.
“Alright, let’s pair up. Kugisaki-kun and Itadori-kun, you’re together. Fushiguro-kun, with me,” Nanami instructs, crossing his arms as he waits for the kids to get in position. They’ve just started their session out on the turf, while Gojo monitors the second years inside the training room.
They follow his instructions, albeit slowly, warily. Nanami’s brows furrow as he sees the looks they have fixed on him, ones of disdain and disbelief. He self-consciously looks down at himself, wondering if it’s his change in attire that’s bringing about their behavior. He’s opted for a fitted black T-shirt and grey slacks, deeming it appropriate for not being on the job at the moment.
Looking back up, he notices that they’re only looking at his face, so his clothing might not be the issue. Instead of speculating, he speaks up. “Is there a problem? Why are you three looking at me like that?”
Nobara shakes her head with what seems like pity. “It’s like he’s losing brain cells by the minute just being around him.”
“How could you not tell us, Nanamin?” Yuuji asks, sadness evident in his face and tone.
Nanami is taken aback. He tries to process the words coming out of their mouths. “Excuse me? Tell you what?”
“We thought you had standards, Nanami-san,” Megumi adds, scrutinizing him with cold eyes.
“Makes me wonder,” Nobara hums, hand on her chin in thought. “Is there some ulterior motive?”
The boys grunt in agreement and nod, deliberately ignoring the blonde sorcerer. Nanami’s eye twitches behind his glasses.
“Will someone give me a straight answer here? Tell you what?” he asks loudly, breaking them from their little pow-wow triangle.
The three of them look at each other in confusion before Yuuji responds hesitantly, “Sensei told Ino who told us that you and Sensei are dating.”
“That you got with him when you came back to jujutsu,” Megumi elaborates.
“And that you fell for him because of his ‘overwhelming sexiness.’ I mean, seriously, Nanami-san?” Nobara scoffs, placing her hands on her hips in a gesture of disappointment.
Megumi shakes his head. “Gojo definitely made that part up.”
“He'd better have. I’d lose my respect for you if he didn’t,” she quips exasperatedly at the blonde man.
“So what about him was it, Nanamin?” Yuuji asks with a curious tilt of his head.
“Please don’t tell me that his stupid pick-up lines worked on you. If so, we need to have a long talk about your taste in guys.”
Yuuji chuckles. “They’re not all bad, though. Don’t you think so, Nanam—”
The three of them immediately shut up upon seeing Nanami’s face.
Flared nostrils, tense muscles, all contorted in a look of pure, unfiltered rage. His lenses even look halfway to cracking from the pressure.
Leave it to Gojo to get the students to see a side of Nanami that he’s never let slip before.
“I’ll be back,” Nanami snarls lowly, turning around and walking a bit too calmly in the direction of the training room.
The first years watch on in fear and intrigue, thanking every divine entity that they aren’t on the business end of Nanami’s wrath. They trail behind him, curious to see if they’ll be witnessing a murder on school grounds.
Gojo leans against the wall as he watches Maki hold her own against Inumaki, her staff swinging with deliberate movements and her feet landing in the correct stance to wage the most efficient attacks. He feels like a proud father, though the same could be said about him for all of his students. And as a father to these kids, he’s obligated to never choose favorites.
…he thinks as he pictures a certain snarky, black-haired teen in his mind. Oh, that dorky little introvert.
His head perks up as he senses the cursed energy of his favorite person radiating from outside the door, a smile gracing his lips as Nanami opens it and comes in.
The blonde surveys Maki’s fighting as he walks towards Gojo, eyes locking on him afterward. Gojo lifts a side of his blindfold to properly check out Nanami’s outfit, a very pleasant difference from what he’s normally seen in.
“Jeez, is this what you wear when you’re training the kids? I should pop by more often,” he flirts shamelessly, uncaring if his students could hear him. In fact, he hears a groan from Maki as a result, which he tallies as a success.
Nanami doesn’t brush him off. Doesn’t sigh in annoyance at the obvious attempt to get under his skin.
No, nothing of the sort. What he does instead… is laugh.
…laughs.
That smile, that perfect fucking smile that he’s only ever witnessed being directed at others, is now solely focused on him.
He had just made the Nanami Kento… laugh.
His cheeks are burning.
Nanami tilts his head at him when he’s finished, looking at him with something akin to… fondness?
No, that can’t be right. Gojo scans Nanami with all six of his eyes, trying to deduce if the man’s been cursed at all. It would be the only logical explanation as to why he’s behaving like this.
Nanami’s smile is absolutely beautiful on his face. “You’re ridiculous, Satoru.”
His eyes nearly bug out of his skull.
Satoru? Satoru?
Nanami’s smile melts slowly, his brown eyes looking at him innocently. God, that sentence sounds just as crazy as the situation he’s in.
“Am I not allowed to call you that?” Fantastic. He didn’t even realize he said his own name out loud in bewilderment. “The man whom I fell in love with because of his overwhelming sexiness?”
…oh, shit.
So that’s what this was about. He knew it was too good to be true.
Gojo tries to play it off, laughing weakly like he had been gut-punched. To make matters that much worse, his students are now staring and witnessing their teacher getting publicly humiliated.
Any excuse he tries to make is promptly rescinded back into his mind the second he sees Nanami’s playful demeanor melt away to reveal darkened brown eyes, a clenched jaw, and crossed arms that express utter, utter annoyance.
“What were you thinking, Gojo-san?” he begins in a barely restrained tone, the room watching raptly as Gojo gets the scolding he so desperately needed. “Spreading lies to everyone about the nature of our fake, less-than-professional relationship? A relationship that could cause irreparable damage to our reputations at this school, not only among the students who look to us for guidance and as a model for what it means to be a responsible adult, but also among our fellow staff and even our superiors, who will no doubt be questioning our fitness as professional sorcerers that don’t allow personal matters to get in the way of our jobs. Your juvenile methods to get my attention have become even more ridiculous than usual as of late. And for what? Just to mess with everyone? With me?”
Nanami huffs after his spiel, the rest of the room wide-eyed at how much passion was poured into it.
“Well, Gojo-san?” he asks expectantly, arms crossed over his chest. “Do you have anything to say for yourself? An apology, perhaps?”
The kids turn their attention to their sensei, who stands stock-still… with a dreamy smile on his face.
Even Nanami’s stern expression falters, looking a bit concerned.
Gojo gives a soft laugh, his focus solely on the man in front of him.
“I could listen to you say my name forever, Kento.”
Brown eyes widen at his sincere words. The kids’ mouths gape.
“Holy shit, he’s down bad,” Nobara mutters under her breath, the others slowly nodding in response.
“S- Gojo-san,” Nanami stutters, mentally slapping himself for the near-slip up, “did you even listen to anything I just spent the last two minutes lecturing you over?”
“Not really,” he replies truthfully, choosing that moment to pull his blindfold down to rest on his neck, his smile playful and his crystalline eyes twinkling. “Too distracted by how hot your voice sounds saying my name. Would you say it again?”
The blonde’s jaw clenches so hard he almost cracks a tooth.
“My office, now,” he snarls dangerously, grabbing him by the arm and full-on dragging him out of the room, Gojo’s delighted laughter ringing in the air long after the door is slid shut.
The kids look between each other for a moment, awkward and silent.
Maki looks down at the mats with her staff in hand, Megumi flattens down part of the mat with his foot, Nobara picks at her nails, Yuuji fixates on a particularly interesting scratch on the wall, and Inumaki gently coughs to clear his throat.
“...I heard there’s a new gelato place downtown.”
“Mm, it is pretty hot today.”
“Already pulled up directions.”
"What the fuck was that back there?” Nanami grits out the second he’s got the door to his office slammed shut, 190 centimeters of infuriatingly obnoxious shoved into the room with him.
Gojo bites his lip at the sound of his voice. “You should curse more often, Kento.”
“Satoru,” he hisses out, exasperated beyond belief, uncaring that he’s giving the older man what he wants from him.
Upon hearing how at-the-end-of-his-rope Nanami sounds, Gojo sighs and drops the act. He figures he’s given him enough wrinkles at this point.
“I just…” he starts, swallowing thickly, “...wanted to pretend for a bit, is all.”
Nanami says nothing to that, his brown eyes flitting between his blue ones as a silent imploration to continue. The other man steels his nerves as he explains, eyes falling to the floor.
“I mean, I had people asking who asked the other out first, how our first date went, what ‘couple-y’ things we do together, what our first kiss was like, and it felt… real. For a second, at least.”
He looks back up at Nanami, exhaling softly and shrugging with a skittish smile. “...embarrassing, right?”
Dark brows furrow a bit at the dejection in his tone, his heart doing a funny little beat in his chest.
He thinks this is the most vulnerable he’s seen him in a long time. Why does that draw him in so much?
“No,” he finally says, voice low and surprisingly gentle. “The way you went about it, absolutely, but the principle…”
Nanami shakes his head, eyes soft. “...not at all, Satoru.”
Gojo’s pale brows knit with his words of understanding. He really is such a good man.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves.
And the blonde sorcerer nods, the silence blissfully comfortable between them.
…Nanami’s the one to ruin it this time.
“Ask me out, Satoru,” he says quietly, stepping closer to the taller man.
Said taller man blushes immediately at the request. “Wha– I… do you know how long I’ve been doing that for? Just the other day, I told you about–”
“That’s precisely it. You tell me to go out with you,” Nanami gives him a hint of a smile. “Never ask.”
He steps even closer, the space between them dwindling.
“Ask me.”
Gojo almost whines. Sometimes he wishes Nanami would sound like a high-pitched seagull or something, so he could at least have a chance of keeping his sanity intact. He hates that deep, silken voices always do it for him.
“...will you go out with me, Kento?” he asks him for the first time, hope shining behind his pretty eyes.
Nanami huffs out a small laugh. Genuine this time. It warms Gojo to his core.
“Yes, I will,” he answers him. Holy fuck, he did it. Was it seriously that easy the whole time?
Before Gojo can rejoice in an undoubtedly cartoonish way, Nanami makes his mind come to a screeching halt as he says, “That’s your first question down.”
Question? “Question?”
The blonde puts four fingers up, folding his pinky down. “You said you were asked who asked the other out first. You did, just now.”
His ring finger goes down next. “Next was what our first date was like. I suppose we’ll find out, perhaps tonight at 8?”
Gojo can hardly think anymore. “I–”
“How does hibachi sound?” Nanami knows full well what he’s doing, head tilting just slightly and eyes twinkling with mirth.
The older man laughs softly, breathlessly. “It sounds amazing, Kento.”
Nanami hums, taking one last step until Gojo is against the mahogany desk behind him. A pen holder scrapes against the wood as Gojo scrambles to put his hands on the edge of the desk for purchase.
“Next was what ‘couple-y’ things we do together, correct?” he asks lowly, putting his middle finger down.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Gojo responds like a goner.
Nanami snorts at the immediate reply. He never knew he had such an effect on him.
“I guess we’ll see where tonight takes us, then,” he tells him with a slight cheekiness to his tone.
God. God, he wants tonight to already fucking be here already.
“And as for that last question…” he drawls mischievously, holding only his pointer finger up.
Gojo actually does whine this time. “Kento,” he breathes out.
That breath is sharply inhaled once Nanami hooks his remaining finger into the blindfold pooled around his neck, tugging his face to be millimeters away from his own. He nearly melts into the ground.
“Our first kiss,” he purrs out, dipping his head so his lips faintly graze the shell of his reddening ear. “I think the answer entirely depends on whether you get on my nerves tonight or not, Satoru.”
“Oh my god,” Gojo gushes out, unable to hold his own head up anymore as he rests his forehead on Nanami’s sturdy shoulder. “Kento, what the fuck.”
A deep chuckle rumbles through his chest, even in Gojo’s own. Unreal. Nanami Kento is un-fucking- real.
“It’s a date, then,” Nanami tells him, fondly resting his head on his. “I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay,” Gojo tries to say without giggling like a schoolgirl. He fails.
That blissful silence returns, Gojo’s nerves nowhere to be seen. Nanami smells nice. Warm and heady.
Until:
“I overheard the kids earlier mentioning a gelato place that opened up downtown,” Nanami informs him with a knowing smile. “Shall we go and reprimand them for skipping class?”
“Nah, let them have their fun,” Gojo sighs softly against his shoulder, eyes closed with a content smile on his lips. “I’ll have a pop quiz ready for them when they get back.”