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Gojo Satoru knew his own effect on a room. It was the only reason he could walk into the Tokyo campus infirmary – unannounced, unrepentant and, if anyone asked, unashamed – with a two-litre bottle of Ramune in one hand and a balloon animal in the other and still expect to get away with it.
Just a few gifts for Nanami.
He skated through the empty hall, whistling, already rehearsing the lines for maximum dramatic impact. “Nanamin! How’s the post-mission existential dread? One to ten, ten being a full Tolstoy?”
He swept the curtain aside in a flourish, bracing for a groan, or a glare, or a bored recitation of his own employee ID number.
What he got was: “Oh, Satoru. There you are.”
Gojo froze, one foot still hovering in the air, balloon poodle mid-wobble. Nanami Kento, mister Neutral Disdain himself, sat upright on the gurney, medical tape still bisecting one eyebrow as he fidgeted with the plaster on the back of his hand.
The look in his eyes was… not exactly blank, but soft, almost domestic. Like he’d just remembered the oven was preheating.
Gojo, whose idea of comfort was reverse psychology and unlicensed pyrotechnics, felt a twinge of genuine concern. “You’re awake! Good! How many fingers am I –”
Nanami reached out, closed his hand around Gojo’s wrist and said, “Darling, you’re bleeding.”
Gojo forgot how to speak.
There was no blood. He checked. There was, however, a light pressure where Nanami’s thumb rubbed a lazy circle over his pulse point. And his face – that was the real problem. No trace of sarcasm. No confusion. Nothing that would explain away the word “darling” as anything but exactly what it sounded like.
Gojo blinked. “Uh… Sorry, what?”
Nanami tilted his head slowly, as if this entire exchange was taking place at a PTA meeting rather than a trauma ward.
“Satoru. Your hand.” Nanami lifted Gojo’s palm, turned it over with care, and frowned at the faint pink line running across his middle knuckle – the result of an earlier run-in with an overzealous stapler. “You should have this cleaned. You’re always careless with the small wounds.”
Gojo had no script for this. He also did not have a heartbeat, as far as he could tell. “I – okay. Wow. Did Shoko hit you with the good stuff? Because you’re not even mad at me right now, and that’s making me –”
Nanami smiled, the kind of smile that cost him nothing and gave Gojo cardiac arrest. “I’m never really mad at you.”
Gojo wanted to say, “You called me a weaponised toddler last week,” but the words caught in his throat and melted into a noise best described as ‘emergency dial-up tone.’
“Okay.” Gojo sat on the gurney, cross-legged, ignoring the wet squeak of his shoe on the vinyl. There was no way this was the same man he talked to before the battle they had with those curses. “Level with me, Nanamin. Do you know who I am?”
Nanami’s brow furrowed, soft but definite. “You’re my husband.”
Gojo nearly fell off the bed.
He looked for the hidden camera. He looked for the sound of Yuji or Nobara snickering behind the curtain, or a flash of Shoko’s cigarette. Nothing. Just the two of them, and as if to make matters worse, Nanami wrapped his hand around Gojo’s own.
He tried to laugh it off. “Wow, that’s – that’s a plot twist. Not even I saw that coming.”
What was happening? Gojo was so confused, but he also wasn’t going to let this go so easily. “So, how did I propose then?”
Nanami considered. “You brought me lunch. In the rain. You stood outside the office with a dripping bag of onigiri and asked if I wanted to split the rent for the rest of our lives.”
Gojo’s entire skeleton vibrated. “That sounds like me,” he said weakly.
Nanami nodded. “You were very sincere.”
Gojo’s body made a noise so embarrassing that he prayed for a meteor to strike the city and end his suffering.
It was at that moment that Shoko strolled in, clipboard in one hand, cup of instant miso in the other, and took in the scene with her usual bored omniscience.
“He’s got a temporary memory curse,” she said. “Cursed object, class two. Should wear off by Monday morning.”
Gojo’s head snapped up. Monday? A whole weekend of Nanami thinking –
“Wait, so – he thinks we’re –” Gojo stuttered.
“Happily married, yes,” Shoko replied, sipping her soup. “No motor function issues, but he’ll be very… affectionate. Try not to exploit it.”
Gojo opened his mouth to say “I would never,” but Nanami, with supernatural timing, squeezed his hand and said, “Satoru, are you hungry? You probably haven’t eaten anything yet today.”
Shoko rolled her eyes and left them to it.
Gojo stared at the retreating white coat, then at his own hand, then at Nanami, whose entire demeanour radiated “spouse who knows best.”
“Okay, okay. This is fine. I can do this,” Gojo whispered. He then met Nanami’s eyes and said, “So, what now, darling?”
Nanami seemed to ponder, then patted the edge of the bed beside him. “We should go home soon. You have work in the morning, and I promised to cook dinner tonight.”
Gojo swallowed. For all his bravado, the truth was he’d never seen Nanami this relaxed. No ironed-cement stoicism, no edge of impatience. Just quiet, and caring. He reached to fix Gojo’s cuff, dusted imaginary lint off his shoulder, and even poured him a cup of tea.
“This is so weird,” Gojo said, somewhere between a giggle and a sob. “You’re not even making fun of me. Are you sure you’re not concussed?”
Nanami sipped the tea instead. “You’re very easy to love, Satoru. It’s not complicated.”
Gojo’s vision whited out at the edges.
Nanami set his tea aside, reached up, and pressed the back of his hand to Gojo’s forehead. “You’re not warm,” he said gently. “But you’re always dramatic when you’re nervous.”
“Okay, well, uh – husband of mine. If you are ready we should probably go home.”
He thought this would push Nanami to the edge, maybe he’d snap out of whatever curse was holding his brain hostage, but no. Nanami got up, and offered his hand to Gojo again with a soft smile. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”
Gojo’s knees buckled a little as he got up. Sweetheart?
Nanami didn’t seem to notice the momentary slip of Gojo’s limbs. He just laced their fingers together and started rambling about their evening plans.
“We go home, I make you dinner, we watch television and you fall asleep on the couch and refuse to admit it.
Gojo’s brain staged a small coup and replaced all his higher reasoning with static. This was all too much for a Thursday evening.
“… Okay,” he said, in a voice he barely recognised. “That sounds nice.”
Nanami looked pleased. Satisfied even. “It is nice. I like being married to you.”
Gojo Satoru, who could single-handedly repel international assassins and outwit ancient sorcerers, sat in a puddle of his own ruined composure while Nanami Kento gathered his jacket and basically dragged him out of the infirmary.
He was not prepared for this. He was not going to recover.
But for the next thirty seconds, he let himself be the centre of Nanami’s universe, and almost – almost – believed it was real.
They arrived at home – Nanami’s apartment – and the plans unfolded just as Nanami predicted. The apartment smelled like miso and cedar and Nanami’s cologne. It was something ridiculously expensive Gojo had once gifted him as a joke that he now apparently wore nightly.
Gojo hovered in the doorway, shoes half-off, heart tap-dancing against his ribs. Nanami flicked on the kitchen light, did a quick inventory of the fridge, and started chopping vegetables at the counter like it was the most normal thing in the world for Gojo to be standing in his socks, watching him, heart doing the Macarena.
Gojo, a man who once spent three days on a dare refusing to blink, found himself unable to look away. Nanami, sleeves rolled up, knife flashing as he hummed under his breath while cutting. Every few minutes Nanami would glance back at Gojo, eyebrow raised, as if to say, “Well, aren’t you going to set the table?”
So, Gojo did. He lined up the plates, took out chopsticks, even found the little soy sauce dishes Nanami always used when he felt “fancy.” He accidentally put the glasses upside down, but Nanami just righted them with a smile, like he’d expected nothing less.
The meal itself was an out-of-body experience. Nanami served him first, made sure he had the crispiest piece of karaage, and poured his drink for him like some kind of domestic fever dream. Gojo kept waiting for the punchline, but the only punch was how weirdly nice it all was.
“I could get used to this,” Gojo said, then immediately wanted to swallow his tongue. Was he flirting? With a cursed Nanami? Was this a new low? Or a new high?
Nanami didn’t even flinch. “I hope you do. We’ve lived together for almost two years now,” he said so matter-of-factly Gojo nearly believed it.
“I must be a handful,” Gojo tossed back, grinning. “You sure you don’t want to file for annulment?”
Nanami shook his head, smiling. “Divorce is too much paperwork. I’d rather just keep you.”
Gojo’s face short-circuited. He dropped his chopsticks, fumbled them, and tried to play it off like it was an intentional piece of slapstick. Nanami reached over and picked them up, his fingers brushing Gojo’s wrist, lingering a half-second longer than necessary.
They ate in a silence that was comfortable for Nanami and catastrophic for Gojo. He couldn’t stop replaying every word, every casual touch, every time Nanami looked at him and saw nothing but affection. It was like watching himself in a movie with all the colour saturation turned up – everything vivid, too sharp.
After dinner, Nanami did the dishes with Gojo “helping,” which meant stacking clean plates in increasingly unstable towers while Nanami pretended not to notice. They moved around each other easily, like they’d done this a thousand times, like there was muscle memory for it. Gojo hated how good it felt.
When the kitchen was spotless, Nanami towelled off his hands and glanced at the clock. “You always stay up too late. But I’ll allow it tonight.”
Gojo laughed. “Permission from my husband? What a treat.”
Nanami just looked at him. Not an annoyed glance. Not even a sigh. Gojo squirmed and tried again, louder. “You’ve gone soft, Nanamin. The curse is eating your brain.”
Nanami tilted his head. “You’re projecting.”
Gojo’s mouth opened, but nothing came out except a strangled whine. His face burned so hot he could’ve sent satellite signals. “If you’re not careful, I’ll get used to this,” he mumbled.
“I hope so.”
Gojo fled. He did not physically run, but his soul scrambled for the fire escape. He pointed at the TV, already babbling about finding the remote, and managed to crash-land into the couch without tripping over his own feet (miracle). Nanami took the chair – his chair, the one with the neck pillow and lumbar support, because of course he did. Gojo pretended to channel surf, but his thoughts were a high-speed train wreck, all derailed cars and flying debris.
This was all too much for his brain to handle. What if Nanami wanted to sleep together since that was what a married pair would do? What if Nanami wanted to cuddle him? What if he wanted to cuddle Nanami? Or worse. What if Nanami wanted to kiss him?
The fact that he had thought about it was enough to make his bones vibrate in his skin. He could feel the room’s air pressure change every time Nanami looked over, like someone shifting the climate settings on his entire central nervous system. And the worst part – the absolute, soul-destroying part -was how much he wanted to crawl across the floor and wedge himself under Nanami’s arm like a pathetic, overgrown cat.
When the inevitable moment came where Nanami expected them both to sleep in the same bed, Gojo made up some excuse about a sudden mission report he needed to finalise. Nanami didn’t say anything, already aware that Gojo worked differently from how he did. That was how they ended up in a weird, emotionally charged standoff – Gojo hunched over a mission log on the living room floor, Nanami in the bathroom brushing his teeth, shuffling around in socked feet like a man who had no idea he wasn’t married after all.
Gojo’s hands hovered over the keyboard. He typed two lines. Deleted them. swore softly into the empty room; the words could barely be heard over the soft drone of the nature documentary playing in the background. He should have been relieved. He was the only one in this apartment with a full set of memories, which meant he could steer the ship, but Gojo was lost at sea.
He didn’t know if he would make it back to shore.
The good news was that Nanami fell asleep before him. The bad news was that by the next morning, after Gojo had “fallen asleep on the couch,” Nanami was still his loving, doting husband.
At 12:15, Gojo walked into the kitchen on campus and found Nanami waiting for him with a bento so perfectly symmetrical that Gojo’s inner child nearly wept.
“What is this?” Gojo asked, masking his delight with a yawn.
Nanami set the bento on the table, unwrapped it, and revealed an array of onigiri, fried chicken, and vegetables before offering Gojo a pair of chopsticks.
“Did you sleep?” Nanami asked.
Gojo, who had spent the night with his face mashed into a Gojo-shaped divot in the couch, shrugged. “What’s sleep?”
Nanami eyed the circles under Gojo’s blindfold. “I’ll make you tea.”
“I don’t need –” Gojo started, but Nanami was already at the hot water dispenser, brewing a mug.
It didn’t end there. That evening, they were sitting in Nanami’s apartment once again. A conversation was brought up that nearly made Gojo choke on his food.
“Where are we on the apartment shopping?” Nanami asked, as if it was perfectly reasonable to bring up their fictious real estate plans over dinner.
Gojo coughed. “What?”
“You mentioned we should look for something with a balcony,” Nanami prompted. “For the dog.”
Gojo had to reboot his entire train of thought. “We have a dog now?”
Nanami looked at him. “We discussed it, remember? You wanted to name it ‘Megumi’. I vetoed it.”
Gojo wheezed. “That’s fair… I wouldn’t want to confuse the real one.”
Nanami nodded. He reached across the table, brushed a stray of rice from Gojo’s sleeve as well, and said, “You’re making a mess. I’ll clean it up later.”
Gojo’s brain whited out again. He could not remember the last time someone had fussed over him like this without a hidden agenda or the expectation of immediate repayment.
It was… nice. Unsettling, but nice.
***
Sunday morning, after Gojo spent yet another night sleeping on the couch, Nanami had made them breakfast before he ambushed Gojo before he was done with his meal.
“Take a walk with me?” Nanami asked in a way that left Gojo no room to refuse.
“Sure,” Gojo said, because he had no way of even saying no to this version of Nanami.
They walked in silence, Nanami half a step ahead, always guiding, always aware. When Gojo’s blindfold slipped, Nanami fixed it with a quick tug, like he’d done it a thousand times. Gojo tried not to read into it. He failed spectacularly.
After a while, Nanami steered them towards the campus, into the dorms, up the stairs, and into Gojo’s room. He didn’t hesitate, just walked in and immediately started straightening up – folding clothes, setting books back on shelves, aligning Gojo’s shoes with military precision.
“You don’t have to do that,” Gojo said, awkwardly.
“It makes you happy when things are neat. I like making you happy.”
What little Gojo had of defences was crumbling by the second.
Nanami finished tidying, then turned to Gojo. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Gojo blinked. “Talk about what?”
“About why you’re hiding from me.”
Gojo spluttered, “I’m not hiding –”
Nanami looked at him with a soft gaze, and Gojo felt his chest catch flames.
“Fine,” Gojo wilted. “Maybe I’m just… not used to this.”
“To what?”
“Being the one someone else wants,” Gojo blurted before he could stop himself.
There was a pause. Then Nanami closed the distance between them, close enough that Gojo could smell his aftershave. They’ve never been this close before.
He reached up slowly and adjusted Gojo’s blindfold, fingertips grazing the shell of his ear.
“Nanamin…”
But Nanami was already moving before Gojo could get a handle on his own heart rate, much less the situation. The hand that had just adjusted his blindfold hovered near his jaw, almost touching, waiting for some kind of permission Gojo didn’t realise he allowed to give.
He stood there, stupid and unblinking, a deer in a headlight made entirely of Nanami’s gentle attention.
“Is this okay?” Nanami asked, voice so low Gojo felt it in his ribs.
There were a thousand things Gojo could have said: a joke, a sarcastic comment about workplace relationships, an outright lie. But none of them reached his mouth. Instead, he nodded, once, twice, the motion so small it felt like a secret.
Nanami’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb brushing once, gentle as static. It didn’t feel real. His brain struggled to map the sensation, to file it under anything but wishful thinking. He half-expected to wake up on the couch – alone, drooling, mortified – but the warmth of Nanami’s palm was grounding.
“Do you remember the day you proposed to me?” Nanami asked suddenly. Gojo wanted to say yes; he wanted to ease Nanami’s mind, but he couldn’t because the day didn’t exist. So, instead, he said nothing. He tried to look away, but Nanami caught his chin and turned him gently back.
“Every time I remember, I say yes again,” Nanami said, his thumb tracing a line across Gojo’s cheek.
Gojo couldn’t breathe. He wanted to believe, so badly, that it hurt.
He leaned forward, just enough that their foreheads almost touched. Nanami met him there.
They stayed like that suspended, until the moment broke. Gojo pulled back, shaky and abrupt, desperate for a safe distance.
He needed to remember: this wasn’t real. It was a curse, a glitch, a temporary mercy. And the worst part was, even then, Nanami looked at him like he deserved it. It was so sincere that for one beautiful, impossible second, Gojo believed this would last. That he could keep Nanami’s hand on his cheek, his voice in his ear, forever.
But this universe – and Shoko’s estimated curse duration – had other plans.
It happened mid-touch, in the soft, hesitant space where their foreheads had almost met. Nanami’s posture stilled, his eyelids flickered. A beat passed. Then, like a clock resetting, all the warmth bled from Nanami’s face, replaced by that calm, stony mask Gojo knew far too well.
He stepped back, as if surfacing from anaesthesia. His gaze flickered to the microwave clock, the window, then landed on Gojo – several degrees colder.
Gojo, who had been bracing for this, immediately launched a barrage of words to plug the silence.
“Wow, Nanamin, you really got me! I mean, A+ method acting. I almost believed you were going to let me get away with eating a piece of cake for breakfast every day, and – what was it, the dog? ‘Megumi?’ I mean, you know I’m more of a fish person – ”
He laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball. “Seriously, though. You okay? You remember who you are? You’re not going to, like, file a restraining order now, right?”
He risked a glance at Nanami, who had not moved, not even to blink. His expression was unreadable. In a voice quiet and annoyingly steady, he said, “Satoru. Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
Nanami stared, not accusing, just… seeing. “Like you’re about to be sick.”
Gojo’s impulse was to joke, to dodge, to brush it off with a quip about food poisoning or existential dread, but nothing came. His brain was empty except for the pounding, painful echo of what Nanami had said to him – what he’d wanted to believe so badly it made him ache.
“I’m fine,” Gojo lied. “Just – you know. Curse aftermath. Not my first rodeo.”
Nanami kept looking. Between them, the quiet pulled taut like a thread neither dared to cut.
Gojo tried again. “You don’t remember any of it, right? The proposal, the dog, the ‘husband’ thing… You called me darling. I almost died. Seriously, Shoko owes me hazard pay.”
“I remember all of it.”
“I remember everything. I just didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable? No, no. Kento. The part that angers me is the way you made me believe every word you said meant something. But now we’re here – exactly where I knew we would end up with you cold and distant once more, and I am left with a chasm deep in my chest and nowhere to file paperwork for it.”
He stopped, breath shuddering. He’d lost the script, lost the thread, lost every last inch of safety. Nanami watched him, the way a cliff looked at the sea: unmoved, and waiting for the next tide.
“I’m not cold,” Nanami said, voice tighter than before. Gojo hated the sound. It made him want to punch something, or kiss something, or both at once.
“It was a joke. Just forget about it,” Gojo laughed. Except it wasn’t funny. He turned to leave, but Nanami’s words caught him before he could open the door.
“I never said anything I didn’t mean. The curse didn’t make me lie. It just made me say things I wouldn’t normally allow myself to say.”
Gojo looked back, startled. “So… what? You… like me?”
Nanami made a strangled sound, half exasperation, half fondness. “What are we, fifteen? I never ‘tolerated’ you, Satoru. I care about you. Deeply. I always have.”
“Why?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Nanami blinked, confused.
Gojo shook his head, unable to articulate the thousand reasons – because he was too much, too loud, too impossible, because everyone eventually got tired and left.
Instead, he said, “You don’t have to say that. You can just go back to normal. We can forget all this ever happened.”
Nanami stepped close, close enough that Gojo could feel the heat radiating from him. he reached up and slid Gojo’s blindfold off. Gojo blinked a few times and caught himself nearly leaning into Nanami’s touch again.
“I don’t want to forget,” Nanami said. “Do you?”
Gojo opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head, helpless.
Nanami’s thumb brushed Gojo’s cheek, and this time he did lean into the touch, into the warmth that was Nanami. “If you proposed to me in the rain, I would say yes. Every time.”
Gojo closed the distance. It was fast, it had no grace, but he couldn’t care less. He pressed his lips to Nanami’s in a kiss so brief and tentative it barely counted. But when he pulled away, Nanami followed, catching him by the collar and kissing him back. It was softer, and Gojo melted.
They broke apart, breathing the same air, and Gojo laughed. “I guess you’re stuck with me, huh?”
Nanami smiled, small, but Gojo caught it. “I always was.”
“Don’t tell Shoko.”
“She already knows,” Nanami replied. “She always knows.”
“So, what now?” Gojo grinned. “Apartment hunting? Dog shopping? More rain proposals?”
Nanami squeezed his hand. “Finish your reports first.”
“Yes, darling.”
At least, the world felt a little less impossible.