Work Text:
The walk back from the sweet shop was supposed to be a five-minute mochi-filled stroll. But Geto, the traitor, had veered off for a smoke with Shoko, leaving Gojo holding the box, and a sense of betrayal. The universe, ever his biggest fan, decided to cue the rain the exact second his shoe touched the open street. Perfect. He could work with this. A little precipitation just added a cinematic quality to his afternoon. He mentally added a sorrowful violin soundtrack.
Halfway up the street, a familiar, hunched-over figure power-walked through the rain like a woman on a warpath. Utahime. He’d recognize that ‘the-world-is-an-idiot’ stomp anywhere. Today, however, the usual irritation was replaced by a protective hunch. She looked less like a jujutsu sorcerer and more like a soggy raccoon trying to shield its last meal from a flood.
Then he spotted the source of her panic: the book. She was guarding it with a multi-layered defense system that would put national security to shame - clamped in her arms, with her hair serving as a sad curtain against the downpour. She clutched it to her chest like it was the last cupcake on earth.
Her diary.
A brilliant grin split his face.
He’d always harbored a burning curiosity about that little book. Not because he cared about her poetry, but because she treated it like it contained the codes to launch all the world’s nuclear missiles. The urge to crack it open just to watch her head explode was a constant, delightful itch. But this live-action panic over its well-being? It was the cutest thing he’d seen all week.
She was drenched. Her hair was a dark mess against her skin, and her white uniform blouse was doing a frankly unfair and transparent job of clinging to every curve. He was a Special Grade sorcerer, a man of celebrated moral fibre. The thoughts that immediately hijacked his brain were wildly inappropriate, highly entertaining, and guaranteed to get him slapped.
His eyes darted to a glowing convenience store sign on the corner. He shoved the door open, the bell announcing his entrance. Two elderly shopkeepers looked up from their newspaper, startled by the sudden appearance of a six-foot-tall sorcerer dripping a small pond onto their linoleum.
He slapped a wad of yen on the counter that could probably buy the whole building. “Fast,” he commanded.
They fumbled, wide-eyed, and handed him the largest, blackest, most serious-looking umbrella on the rack.
He was back outside in three seconds flat, the umbrella snapping open with a satisfying thwump.
Utahime was still doing her tragic waddle, sacrificing her own dryness, and for some reason, it annoyed him. Why was she being so dumb about it?
He glided up beside her and simply… stopped the rain.
She froze, mid-squish through a puddle. Her head turned slowly, eyes wide with the shock of someone who just had their personal storm mysteriously vanish.
“…Gojo?” Her voice was a blend of suspicion and damp annoyance.
He tilted the umbrella, a grand gesture that generously directed all the water runoff directly onto his own shoulder. “Hey there, Utahime. Doing a bit of free laundry?”
She blinked at his smug face. “…You didn’t have that umbrella before.”
“Astute observation! Full marks.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The umbrella store,” he said, beaming.
“You bought it. Just now.”
“The lady at the counter gave me a sticker for my speedy transaction. Want to see it?”
“Why?”
He looked at her like she’d asked why the sky was blue. “You’re creating a puddle. It’s embarrassing for both of us.”
Her mouth did a wonderful little open-close-open goldfish impression. He watched the gears in her brain smoke and seize with delight. She instinctively yanked the diary tighter against her, as if he had X-ray vision and theft-ray hands.
His eyes flicked down to the corner of the book peeking out. So that’s the infamous treasure. The keeper of all her secret thoughts. Her grocery lists. Her angry doodles. Her… opinions on a certain special someone?
“Y’know,” he said, leaning into the shared space as the rain roared around them like nature’s own soundtrack, “there are easier ways to get my attention than performing a rain ritual. A simple ‘Hey, Satoru, read my diary’ would’ve worked.”
Instead of answering, she just intensified her power-walk, moving forward like an angry missile. He easily kept pace, holding the umbrella aloft like a loyal royal guardsman, which of course meant his other sleeve was now sacrificially baptized.
“Gojo,” she hissed, swiping wet hair from her eyes. The glare she shot him could have vaporized a curse. But she didn’t leave the shelter of the umbrella.
That’s when the most hilarious possibility struck him.
What if… and just hear him out… what if she actually wrote about him in there? What if all that bristling and blushing and shouting was just a cover? What if, in the secret pages of that waterlogged book, Utahime Iori confessed to finding him devilishly handsome and incredibly funny? The idea was so wonderful he almost laughed out loud.
He dipped his head, trying to get a better look at the cover. “So,” he began, his voice a masterclass in fake nonchalance. “Any hot gossip in today’s entry? Scandals? Secrets? Thoughts on handsome kouhais?”
“If you so much as look at this book, I will use it to reconstruct the fragments of your skeleton.”
“I would never!” he gasped. “Unless, of course, you wanted to show me the good parts.”
She stumbled on nothing.
Oh, yes. That landed even better than he’d hoped.
She quickly tightened her jaw and looked away, a portrait of someone trying very hard to pretend that his last comment hadn’t made her heart do a stutter.
He couldn’t help himself. He smirked at the wet pavement like an absolute idiot, because that one-second falter of hers was going to live in his head forever.
Deliberately, he angled the massive black umbrella even more toward her, a move that abandoned his right shoulder and half his back to the relentless downpour. The cold seeped through his uniform instantly. It was gloriously uncomfortable.
Her eyes flicked to his soaked sleeve. “…You’re getting wet,” she said with the annoyance of someone witnessing a completely avoidable stupidity.
He shrugged, the motion making more water run down his arm. “I won’t melt.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“No,” he said lightly, “but you might. And I like you solid.”
She blinked, her brain visibly trying to process whether that was an insult, a compliment, or nonsense.
They continued walking side-by-side without another word - Utahime marching stiffly under her dry dome, Gojo ambling beside her, letting the rain beat down on half his body like a shower he thoroughly deserved.
He could feel her glancing at him from the corner of her eye. The pressure built until she finally snapped.
“Why are you deliberately getting soaked? Just use Infinity.” She said it like she was explaining basic arithmetic to a toddler.
“Nope.”
“That’s literally what your technique is for. Making things not touch you.”
“Not today it isn’t.”
She stared at him. “…Are you ill? Did you get hit by a curse that affects common sense?”
“Maybe I’m just being chivalrous. Ever think of that?”
She snorted. “You? Chivalrous? The same man who once pegged me in the back of the head with a frozen snowball ‘for scientific purposes’?”
“You just didn’t understand the subtext.” he corrected smoothly.
“The subtext was a concussion! You hit me directly in the face!”
“And look at us now,” he said, gesturing with his free hand. “Walking together intimately under a single umbrella. That’s called character development, ‘Hime. A real journey.”
Utahime muttered something under her breath that sounded distinctly like ‘end my suffering,’ but she didn’t bolt from under the umbrella.
The rain was really coming down now, slapping against his side with a soaking persistence. His uniform was plastered to his skin, and a cold trickle of water ran from his hairline down his neck. He made no move to stop it.
Her frown deepened. “…Gojo.” Her voice came out softer this time, lacking its earlier edge. “You’re actually drenched. Just turn Infinity on. It’s not a complicated request.”
He ignored the warm prickling in his chest at her tone, almost… concerned. He grinned through the chill instead. “Nah. This is symbolic.”
“Of what? Your advanced and terminal stupidity?”
“Of my dedication,” he declared, tilting the umbrella so drastically that now she was in a perfect dry circle and he was fully exposed to the elements. “To being a gentleman.”
She actually stopped walking, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, just to stare at him in disbelief. A puddle splashed around his shoes as he halted a step ahead, waiting for her with patience.
He was being a gentleman. In fact, if anyone asked, this was the Gojo Satoru Masterclass in Courtship. He was nailing it.
His mind unhelpfully flashed to Geto casually stepping in front of the wind so Shoko could light her cigarette, moving without being asked. He thought of the two of them passing that single cigarette back and forth like some kind of intimate, disgusting token.
Vile. That was degenerate behavior. No class.
He and Utahime were clearly the superior and more elegant models. No shared germs or second-hand smoke, just one umbrella and a lot of saturated suffering. This was how mature adults built romance.
A shiver threatened to betray him as another stream of rainwater traced a path down his spine. Utahime watched it, her expression a masterpiece of conflicted irritation.
“You look miserable,” she stated.
“I look heroic,” he said, his teeth threatening to chatter but he’d be damned if he let them.
“You look like you lost a fight with a garden hose.”
“Just take the compliment. I’m conducting a wet shirt charity event, and you’re the beneficiary.”
“That is not remotely related to this conversation.”
“It’s spiritually related.”
Utahime rolled her eyes, but she started walking again. He fell into step beside her instantly, his squelching shoe a pathetic counterpoint to her firm steps.
“…Why did you even buy this umbrella?” she asked. “You could’ve just kept using Infinity and walked right past me unbothered.”
He opened his mouth, ready to deploy something about wanting to see her make that specific frustrated face, or claiming he needed a new parasol for his summer aesthetic. But the words died.
“You were struggling with that diary,” he said, his tone losing some of its performative edge. “Hunched over like a goblin. And you looked… really wet.”
Her head snapped up.
He cleared his throat, backpedaling into safer territory. “NOT like that. Well - okay, maybe a little like that - but mostly in the you’re-going-to-catch-a-cold-and-then-blame-me kind of wet. I’m avoiding future grievances.”
She pressed her lips together into a thin line, a futile attempt to suppress whatever reaction was trying to break through - a smile? A retort? He couldn’t tell, but he felt it. He needed to derail this immediately, before he said something genuinely sincere and ruined his perfect image.
“So!” he chirped, brightness returning like a switch had been flipped. “Back to the important stuff. What’s the theme of today’s diary entry? Angry haikus about your superiors? Detailed plans for world domination? A meticulously ranked list of your favorite mochi shops, with a certain one suspiciously at the top?”
Utahime’s entire body went rigid, her arms clamping around the book like a vice.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned.
Which was all the confirmation he needed. She had definitely written something in there that was spicy, secret, and it almost certainly involved him.
His heart did a little flip-flop in his chest.
Utahime shifted slightly, a stiff movement intended to put more space between them. The irony was that her attempt to avoid contact made her shoulder brush against his rain-soaked sleeve.
Every cold raindrop that traced a path from Gojo’s hairline, down his cheek, and onto his neck now felt like a brand. His imagination instantly translated each droplet into the soft touch of her fingers.
Bad. Terrible.
But his brain refused to comply.
Because she was close. Close enough that the chill in the air seemed to part around the warmth radiating from her body. Close enough that he could catch the scent of her shampoo - jasmine, and something clean and subtle that he really shouldn’t be trying to identify like a man starved of beauty.
She lifted her diary for a second, adjusting her grip. The simple motion revealed a fleeting glimpse of the elegant curve of her collarbone, still glistening with rain.
Oh, no.
His body was already in a sympathetic malfunction. His soul, somewhere in the background, was quietly drafting wedding invitations.
He was not okay.
A strangled sound escaped his throat.
Utahime glanced sideways at him. “Are you choking?”
“Yes,” he croaked immediately.
“No hesitation at all?”
“Nope. Definitely choking.”
“On what?”
“On you - I MEAN ON THE AIR.”
So smooth. A performance for the ages.
He tried to wrench his gaze away, to look at the trees or the grey sky - anything but her. His eyes, however, were mutineers. They remained locked on the way her soaked hair clung to the nape of her neck in dark tendrils; the individual droplets caught on her jawline, her rain-spiked eyelashes.
He sucked in a shaky breath. The shared space under the umbrella felt suddenly hot.
He was, to his own horror, actually starting to hyperventilate.
Utahime’s frown deepened to mild alarm. “Gojo, you’re - you’re panting. Are you running out of oxygen, or are you just being dramatic?”
“Both,” he wheezed. “It’s a multifaceted crisis.”
“Use Infinity, you idiot! The rain won’t stop if you just wish really hard!”
“That won’t help! This is… a separate meteorological event!”
“What kind of event?”
He made the catastrophic mistake of looking directly at her face for an answer. And she, perfectly on cue, gave a small blink, sending a captured bead of rainwater skittering from her lash.
That was it. The annihilating boss move.
His hand shot out and gripped the umbrella pole like a lifeline. “Utahime,” he pleaded. “You can’t. You cannot just look like that in public - ”
“Look like what?” she demanded, bewildered.
“Like - like - ” He made an all-encompassing gesture at her entire person. “THIS!”
Her eyebrows shot up towards her hairline. “That’s not even a description! That’s just a hand wave!”
“EXACTLY! IT’S INDESCRIBABLE!”
She groaned. “Gojo, for the love of all that’s - ”
They turned the final corner onto the path leading to the school gates.
There, standing like a monolithic statue carved from disappointment, arms crossed and expression thunderous beneath the downpour, was Yaga-sensei.
Every single one of Gojo’s romantic delusions evaporated instantly, like a soap bubble poked by a very stern finger. His internal monologue of thirst died a swift and silent death.
Utahime also froze beside him.
Yaga’s voice boomed across the courtyard, cutting through the drumming rain. “…What,” he said, “am I looking at?”
Gojo snapped upright so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. The umbrella jerked to a neutral position. “Nothing, sir!” he chirped, his voice several octaves too high.
Utahime drove a sharp elbow into his ribs.
Yaga’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. He took a step forward, his gaze sweeping over the scene of one perfectly dry sorceress, and one sorcerer who looked like he’d lost a wrestling match with a waterfall.
“Why,” Yaga asked, “are you soaked exclusively on one side of your body?”
“…Symbolism?” Gojo tried.
Yaga took another step closer. The rain seemed to part around his aura of disapproval. “Were you two - ” He paused, his expression darkening as if he’d tasted something sour. “No. I don’t even want to know.”
Gojo attempted to arrange his features into something resembling innocence, a Herculean task given his brain was still a smoldering crater of recently incinerated fantasies.
“He bought an umbrella,” Utahime muttered.
Yaga blinked slowly. “…Just now? In this storm?”
“She was wet!” Gojo blurted out, as if this explained everything.
Utahime made a pained noise of humiliation.
Yaga simply shut his eyes, looking as though he wished the rain would wash him away to a student-free existence. “Both of you,” he commanded, his tone leaving no room for debate. “Inside. Now.”
He then turned and began marching toward the building, the rain pounding off his broad shoulders like it was afraid of him. Gojo felt the crushing weight of anti-climax. His epic, rain-drenched moment had been brutally assassinated by the looming specter of responsible adulthood.
He moved to follow, but not before his hand shot out, fingers closing gently around Utahime’s damp sleeve.
She turned. “What?”
“Before we go in and get sentenced to desk-duty for a week - you should honor the deal.”
“What deal?” she hissed, trying to tug her arm free.
He blinked. “…The deal, Utahime. The unspoken binding contract wherein I heroically save your precious book from a monsoon, and you show me what’s inside.”
“That wasn’t a deal! That was you being a nuisance!”
“You accepted my umbrella,” he countered. “It’s basically umbrella law.”
“That is not a real law!”
“Utahime,” he warned, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “Do not make me bring this before the umbrella council. The proceedings are brutal.”
She stared at him, her expression a perfect blend of exhaustion and the fervent desire to see him launched into the sun. “…Fine,” she sighed. “If it will make you shut up and move.”
She flipped open the cover of the book.
Gojo leaned in, his heart doing a hopeful, foolish flip. This was the reveal. He was braced for secret crushes, doodles in the margins, and a heart-stopping line about a certain white-haired sorcerer…
The page revealed:
Kyoto First-Year Attendance Register – Term 1
A meticulously neat grid of student names.
Columns of test scores.
Assignment grades.
Tiny red ticks and crosses.
Utahime flipped a page.
More grades. More attendance records. A scribbled note: ‘Kaito forgot uniform again - talk to mother.’ A reminder about parent-teacher consultations.
Gojo stared, his expression crumbling. It was like watching the curtain drop on a magic trick, only to find a bored accountant behind it.
“…What,” he said, “is this.”
“My mark register,” Utahime stated, snapping the book shut. “I’m an assistant teacher. This is my job.”
“No.” He shook his head slowly, as if trying to dislodge the horrible truth. “No, no, no. This is wrong. This is a trick.”
“This is paperwork.”
“This is administrative paperwork!” he cried. “I thought - I assumed - I was certain - ” He gestured wildly at the innocuous ledger. “I thought this was your personal diary! Your secret soul-journal!”
Utahime blinked at him, bafflement breaking through her irritation. “Why in the world would I bring my personal diary to school?!”
“Why would you not?!” he shot back. “You guard this thing like it contains the nuclear codes! You were cradling it like a baby in a typhoon!”
“It has the confidential academic records of minors!” she hissed, clutching it to her chest again. “Of course I guard it with my life!”
Gojo’s world view shattered and re-formed into something bleak and bureaucratic. All his dazzling fantasies dissolved, replaced by the crushing reality of… rubrics.
He had imagined blush-filled mentions of him, at least one appreciative note about his hair or sunglasses, perhaps a secret confession like ‘Gojo is infuriating but… his eyes are kind of pretty.’
Instead, he got:
Riku: Forgot homework again – 5pts.
He dragged a hand down his wet face, water spraying from his fingers. “I walked through a biblical flood… for a mark register.”
Utahime shrugged. “That’s your problem. I never asked for a personal rain cloud.”
“I FEEL SWINDLED!”
She tucked the register securely under her arm, already turning to leave. “Are we done here? I have actual work to do.”
“No,” he declared, trailing after her as she marched toward the school doors. “I need time to mourn. I require compensation. I demand at least one real diary entry. Preferably about me. Maybe two.”
Utahime didn’t even break stride. “Keep dreaming, Gojo.”
He stared at her retreating back, soaked to the bone, heart bruised by the mundane truth, but with a stubborn fire already rekindling in his chest.
Oh, he would. Trust him…