Work Text:
Satoru Gojo’s a firm believer in the idea that everybody has their off days. Sometimes a shitty grade is a shitty morning. The kids tend to do better when they know they’ve got a second chance, so two or three or whatever is what the kids get.
Sure, there’s an argument to be made about preparing them for the real world of sorcery. There’s also an argument to be made against throwing them head-first into it. He likes to think this is a generous offer. None of his teachers were as forgiving. Yaga particularly would have been more than happy to fail him on something. He probably would have deserved it. With the first years, though, it’s less an offer and more of a shameless bribe. Maybe it’s the damn phones, but most kids these days are chock-full of anxiety.
That said, Maki’s just not biting, and she’s not like most kids, either. Her arms are folded across her chest and her scowl’s a bit deeper than usual. She’s refused to speak for a solid two minutes and thirty-one seconds. He hadn’t intended to turn a friendly chat into a staring contest, but hey, she started it.
“I don’t think this is that big of a deal,” he ventures. “It’s fine if you want to re-do the initial hand-to-hand trials.”
Maki’s upper lip curls, and the silence continues for another thirty-three seconds. He’d be lying if he said he could do this all day, but they’re a week into the year. The kids can’t possibly know him that well, not yet. He leans back in his chair, holding tight to his desk so as not to crack his skull, and toys with the bandages covering his face.
“I don’t think that was reflective of your abilities, and if I’m going to teach you, I’d like to have the full picture.”
She rolls her eyes. Gojo doesn’t chide her for it, but the temptation’s there.
Maki bites the inside of her lip. “And what if I just suck, and that’s it?”
He leans forward. The chair’s legs hit the floor with a loud thump. “Then we work on it, and we figure something out.”
“I don’t want a second chance. I’ll work on my hand-to-hand.” Her eyes don’t turn to look at him, but she’s set her jaw and her voice hasn’t wavered once.
“Zenin,” He starts. This earns him a head-on glare and hands balled into fists. Oops. Shit. Fuck. Gojo coughs. “Maki, the whole reason we have initial evaluations is to get a baseline of where you’re at.”
“Well, that’s where I’m at. Thank you for your time.”
He’ll have to hand it to her, she’s terrifying. He almost wants to believe her, if only to get her to stop giving him that look. It’s not fair to be scared of a fifteen year-old, but she’s the only current Zenin to have a Heavenly Restriction, and seeing how the last one went, he’s got reasons to be nervous.
Gojo lets her leave. In hindsight, maybe that wasn’t the right call, but she’s angry and upset for reasons he personally can’t fathom or draw out of her. Either she’ll stew on it, fix it herself, phone a friend, or ask for help. He hasn’t known the kid long, but she seems to favour more of the former than the latter options.He might kick himself for thinking it, but that makes her much easier than the rest. There’s no learning curve for self-reliance with that one. She knows her limits, likes to push them, and has no interest in bothering anyone in doing so. When Maki storms out, he doesn’t blink twice. She’s assured him she’ll take care of it.
Her next spar is worse than her last, which implies either she took care of it poorly, or she didn’t at all.
Toge Inumaki, a month shy of fifteen, has the kind of combat experience you’d expect from a clan kid. He’s quiet, which is a given; and keeps himself hidden behind a thick wool scarf. The remnants of summer heat have yet to let up. He’s got to be roasting in that. From his hesitancy in previous fights, to his insane agility, he’s clearly been trained as a long-range fighter (fair). His opponent, having shot down a make-up trial, is listed, on paper, as weaker.
(Grade three versus grade four. Not much of a gap, but there’s clearly a difference between Toji Fushiguro’s successor and Inumaki, who, despite his fancy-pants gymnastics, has yet to hit his latest growth spurt.)
Ergo, Gojo’s betting on Maki, and he’s about to be a slightly richer man for it.
She hits first. Of course she does. Inumaki seems allergic to taking the first step. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want to hit a girl. Maybe it’s that she’s much stronger than him, or that he hasn’t fought anyone beside an instructor, not for real, at least, and Maki’ll fight anyone who looks at her sideways.
Had he actually been betting, Gojo would be at least two thousand yen poorer. Colour him surprised. Inumaki has her in a headlock just past the five-minute mark. Inumaki grins, or at least, Gojo thinks he’s grinning, behind the scarf. Credit where credit’s due, he manages a respectful bow and offers his opponent help getting up. The kid was raised right. Sweet.
“Mustard leaf,” Inumaki says. He’s pretty sure that means thank you. He can’t really tell with that one.
Maki does the opposite in earning herself a pass in etiquette and slaps his outstretched hand away. Yikes. That’s just bad manners. It’s important to note that she doesn’t actually hit him, in fact, she’s off the mark by at least a foot, so her aim sucks worse than her combat. Inumaki flinches anyway.
“Fight’s over, you can’t hit him anymore,” he calls out, sticking his hands in his pockets. He would step forward, should, really, but her shoulders are trembling ever so slightly. The hand pressed to her forehead, the one she almost immediately snatches away, is indicator enough.
She won’t repeat that, he doesn’t need to piss her off more by telling her not to. Inumaki just kind of stands there, and Satoru is reminded of a very surprised penguin.
The boy blinks up at Gojo, signing something too fast to make out. He can see the concern in the tremor of his hands. His fingers scrunch, bend, and move in two circles. Gojo is well aware that his JSL is way rusty. Still, the sign for worry is very clear.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Maki grumbles. She doesn’t wait for the okay to get up, doesn’t take a second to grab her water bottle and her sweater before she all but stalks out of the room.
One of the many perks of being twice as tall as the average first-year is that it’s very easy to keep pace with them. “Class isn’t over.”
“I have a headache,” She hisses, speeding up. “You’re making it worse.”
“Then go to the infirmary.”
“I’m tired.”
There is a part of him that wants to (very gently) take her by the shoulders and steer her toward Shoko’s office himself. He fully would, except he’s read Utahime’s emails about her sister. Add that to something about professionalism, or whatever.
“That wasn’t a request. If you’d like, you could also go back and apologize. Take your pick.”
Turns out luck doesn’t have it out for him and Maki actually stops. He’s still thinking up something smart and slightly funny about accountability when her eyes start to water. Gojo swallows, opens his mouth to offer something nice or comforting or anything, really, and quickly shuts it. His Six Eyes catch it before it fully registers. The whole keeping his distance thing goes out the window when her hand, shaking, grips a nearby windowsill.
Gojo steps in front of her, directly in her field of vision. Slowly, deliberately, he puts a hand on her shoulder, if only to steady it, only for a second. “You sure you don’t wanna go see Ieiri?”
She hammers her fist into the wall. He’s surprised it doesn’t leave a dent. “Positive.”
“Got a cold or something?”
“No. I need to sleep.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
Through their sheen, her eyes narrow. “Can you can it with the third degree?”
He could. He so could. He could back off and take a breath and this could be the easiest sick call he’s ever made for a student. Yaga would be a total dick about coming to collect one of his kids, but it would work. That, however, would be boring, and he’s not particularly in the mood for a lecture.
“I’m a curious guy,” He shrugs. “That, and it’s kind of my job, so, tell me why you’re crying and I’ll back off.”
“I’m not crying.” To prove her point, she starts blinking furiously, tilting her chin slightly upward, and running a hand over the upper part of her face. Gojo has to remind himself that laughing at upset, potentially sick children is a rather mean thing to do.
“If your eyes are leaking, don’t you think that’s even more reason to go see the doctor?”
“Shut up.”
“If you go, I’m more than happy to. It’ll be fast, promise. Super efficient.” He’d promise her candy, a meal out, maybe slip her his credit card for a bit, but she’d made it very clear she has no intention of ever taking anybody’s charity.
Maki’s hands have migrated from her eyes, now pressed shut, to her ears. “You’re too damn loud.”
He winces, lowers his voice, and makes a mental note to kick himself once this is all over.
“And it’s too bright, yeah?” Hands dig around in his pockets, but it’s not much help. He’s stopped carrying the backup sunglasses.
Maki, still failing to hold back tears, gives him a miserable nod. Gojo bites the inside of his cheek. Inumaki had kept everything strictly below the neck. She hadn’t hit the floor hard enough, and when she did, it was knees-first.
“You can either go get checked out with me—“
She scowls again. Flattering.
“—or you can go with Yaga.”
Maki starts walking. She doesn’t stop; has to be prompted to sit down and let Ieiri do her thing.
Shoko takes about fifteen seconds. She looks at the kid, a completely normal thermometer, and, God help them all, a teary-eyed Maki Zenin. She asks when Maki hit her head. Gojo hopes that when he dies, it will be very long and painful. He will, in fact, fully deserve it because Maki shrugs and says it was about a week and a half ago. The glare his beloved classmate and friend of many years fixes him with is a telltale sign that his death is oncoming, inevitable, and sure to be at her hands.
Concussion, declares the good doctor. RCT could fix it all, if the injury had been immediately treated, but some of the effects are residual, so either way, Maki gets bed rest in a dark room, with absolutely no phone and no noise, for a minimum of seventy-two hours.
She makes Maki hand over her phone. Privately, he thinks that’s overkill. Then, she hands it to him, which is entirely unfair. Forget Shoko, Maki might just kill him first.
When Shoko lifts her hands, the kid at least looks like she’s not going to keel over, which is a win. She also looks exhausted. This is further proven when she doesn’t argue about taking a nap and sets off toward the dorms without any needling.
He follows. Of course he does. There’s policies about this sort of thing.
Gojo stands in her doorway while she putters around closing the curtains and grabbing her pajamas. He doesn’t ask until she’s sitting curled on her bed, waiting for him to leave. Tough luck. He’s not going yet. With most of the other students, this is a casual conversation, but he’s got Maki’s cousin in an apartment back in Minato. Megumi always came back from weekend visitation trashed.
“Mind if I sit?” He asks, and when she nods her assent, he keeps a safe gap, leaves the door open, and starts by laying down the law. Her shoulders tense. She clutches at the folds of her sheets.
“You aren’t in any trouble and nobody’s upset with you.” This statement causes her to stare very intently at the ground. “I do, however, need to know when you get hurt.”
That’s putting it mildly. All of her initial evals are off, and he’s got no basis for anything related to planning out her training. It’s square one, which is great for her, and a bit of a pain for him. “So we can make sure you get help and all that, ‘kay?”
She fidgets with a loose thread. “I can take care of myself. I always do.”
Briefly, and only briefly, does Satoru Gojo consider forgoing his weekend plans to burn down the Zenin clan compound. This is an incredible show of self-restraint.
He could threaten mass murder, tell her something about how they’re all bastards and fuck anybody who would make a kid walk off a concussion, but he doesn’t. Kids like Maki don’t hear that. Satoru clicks his tongue. “You can, but you bounce back faster when you’ve got backup. You’ve got a team, now, and those people need you in top shape.”
All he gets is a short jerk of her chin. All he can do is hope and pray that she’s hearing him on this.
“So next time, you tell me and we fix it. Deal?”
“Deal,” Maki whispers. He doesn’t look on purpose, but there’s a wet spot on her skirt and she doesn’t move her head. She doesn’t say anything else, so he doesn’t either. The light switches off and Gojo, very slowly, shuts the door.
A deal does seem to be a deal, because when he checks in an hour later, she’s sound asleep, and when he does the same the next day, she is sprawled in almost exactly the same position. She spends the majority of those three days unconscious, which pleases Ieiri enough for light physical activity, to Maki’s delight, and classwork, to Maki’s dismay.
He’s not sure light physical activity entails wrenching open her teacher’s door and slamming her hands down on his desk, but whatever.
“I want a rematch,” Maki declares, shoulders squared. “For the preliminary thing.”
“Here’s what I think you mean,” He twirls a pen around between his fingers. The girl blinks, recoiling almost. “When you’re cleared, you want a rematch.”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. Let me know when Ieiri says.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She straightens up, draws a sharp breath, and nods. Maki takes a step, and freezes, stock-still. Her words are hushed, terse and hard to make out.
“Thank you.” She leaves before he can think of what to say back, but no matter. Gojo opens up the calendar app on his phone, cross-references his lesson plans, and considers becoming a betting man. Maybe raising the stakes a little higher, too. He’s about to get richer.