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Kento is blindly staring at a computer screen when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He looks towards the time at the bottom of the screen, only to be greeted by the numbers 12:01 am mocking him in white text. His boss and coworkers had all left hours ago by this point. There was no reason for anyone to be contacting him at this hour. It was surely morbid curiosity that led Kento to fish his phone out of his pocket to check the notification.
¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 🎀 𝐼𝓉'𝓈 𝒴❀𝓊𝓇 𝐹𝒶𝓋♡𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒮𝑒𝓃𝓅𝒶𝒾'𝓈 𝐵𝒾𝓇𝓉𝒽𝒹𝒶𝓎 🎀 ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸
Those five words greeted him as a calendar notification. It took Kento far too long to realize what the notification was about. Kento blamed it on his sleep-deprived state. Every year, Kento meant to delete the notification, yet he still had not gotten around to it. He justified the lapse to himself by saying he simply always forgot to delete the notification, so it popped up the next year. Though Kento knew, if he were honest with himself, that it was because he still remembered the night when Gojo originally set the calendar notification on his phone.
It was December 7th, 2008. The campus had steadily been getting busier lately. The only noise and excitement came from the first and second-year students. Kento was usually sent to spar with them as part of their training. Shoko was rarely around due to simultaneously working in the morgue and attending medical school; meanwhile, Gojo was even busier with the sheer amount of missions that were being assigned to him these days. Neither of them had technically graduated yet, but it was already known what their duties would be in sorcerer society.
Therefore, it fell on Kento to be the quintessential ‘senpai’. Kento felt like a fraud, though every time one of his classmates confided in him their desires to be stronger or their fears that they would never be strong enough, because all he wanted to do was shake them and tell them that none of them would ever be strong enough for the war that the elders wanted them to fight. He’d already made up his mind that he was leaving sorcerer society after he graduated. He would take his so-called ‘degree’ and attend a normal college. The only thing he could do for Haibara at this point was live on for both of them.
Due to his recent promotion to Grade 1, Kento was now usually sent out on missions on his own. He had been returning from one such solo mission only to see movement out of the corner of his eye. Even in his tired state, Kento knew to keep his guard up while on campus. The Star Plasma Vessel incident had taught them all that much, at least. A familiar shrill tone calling out to him let Kento’s body know that it could relax. Unfortunately, that was the moment when Gojo launched himself at him.
“Na-na-min, what are you up to? You’re free now, right?” Gojo had this strange glint in his eyes as he threw his arm around his shoulders. Kento was surprised to see that Gojo wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. It felt like it had been a long time since he had last seen Gojo without them.
“I just returned from my mission. I was planning to eat and then go to sleep.” Kento succinctly explained his plans for the evening, hoping Gojo would get the hint that he wanted to be alone and leave. Unfortunately, Gojo insisted on being ridiculously obtuse, given that he had Six Eyes at his disposal.
“Great! That means you’re free to eat, drink, and get merry with me.” Gojo said cheerfully as Kento’s eyebrow began to twitch in a way that was uniquely associated with exposure to Gojo.
“Neither of us is twenty.” Kento pointed that out abruptly as he pulled away from Gojo’s hold. He was further annoyed when Gojo grabbed onto his hand before he was able to get away completely.
“It’s just a saying. You know, I think that stuff is nasty. Besides, it’s my opinion that if we are old enough to die, then we are old enough to drink.” Gojo wore a small smirk on his face as he spoke. Kento was dismayed to discover that he didn’t have a defense to Gojo’s argument.
“Come on, it’s my treat. You never used to complain about free food.” Gojo commented nonchalantly, but Kento’s expression fell upon hearing it. Free food had been the quickest way to get Haibara to go somewhere, and Kento had usually wound up being dragged along anyway. It’d been a little over a year since Haibara died. Soon, Haibara will have been dead longer than they had known each other. That knowledge didn’t make any part of this easier.
Gojo either missed the way Kento had gone silent or he didn’t feel the need to comment on it. Regardless, Gojo tugged him forward to the steps that would take them back to regular society. Kento followed him even though he was the furthest thing from hungry at this point. He wanted to be anywhere else but on campus right now.
They wound up seeking out Yakiniku. Kento was grateful for the warmth of the cooked meats after standing out in the cold for hours on his mission. Gojo seemed content to have him do the cooking for them. Meanwhile, Gojo amused himself by discussing his day as well as seemingly every random thought that popped into his head. This all felt too normal after last year.
“Is there a reason for us going out like this? I would have assumed you were far too tired after your mission to want to visit a place like this.” Kento asked as Gojo finished what had to be his fifth milk pudding. His upperclassman had tried some kimchi earlier, and it seemed that Gojo was still trying to clear the spice from his mouth.
“Am I not allowed to celebrate with you?” Gojo asked, rudely gesturing with his spoon toward Kento.
“But what are we even supposed to be celebrating? We are not near Christmas nor your graduation.” Kento asked as he flipped the meat and pushed Gojo’s spoon away so it wouldn’t drip milk pudding onto the grill.
“It’s my birthday. Shoko is in Kyoto right now, but I still wanted to celebrate with you.” Nothing about Gojo’s smile faltered, but Kento swore for a second that he saw the other man’s lips twitch. The acknowledgement that Getou would be unable to celebrate with them went unsaid.
Kento’s guilt forced him into silence. He remembered that Gojo’s birthday was in the winter, as it always seemed to snow right around that time. Celebrating Gojo’s birthday was the last thing on anyone’s mind last year. Seemingly, the last time any of them had celebrated Gojo’s birthday had been in 2006. The five of them had watched movies and eaten fried chicken together. It was a surprisingly low-key affair, but Kento remembered how happy they had all been.
“I’m s-” “Don’t.” Kento had been about to apologize, but he went silent once more upon hearing Gojo’s command. Gojo’s smile still hadn’t dropped as he reached across the table to grab Kento’s phone.
“It’s okay. I’ll make sure that you never forget my birthday again, though.” Gojo’s fingers flew over the buttons as he seemingly furiously typed a message into his phone. Kento was rather nervous about who or what Gojo was texting.
“Ta-da!” Gojo declared triumphantly as he flipped the phone so that Kento could see the calendar reminder that he had seemingly typed into his calendar.
¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 🎀 𝐼𝓉'𝓈 𝒴❀𝓊𝓇 𝐹𝒶𝓋♡𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒮𝑒𝓃𝓅𝒶𝒾'𝓈 𝐵𝒾𝓇𝓉𝒽𝒹𝒶𝓎 🎀 ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸
“Now, I only need to hear two words from you to make my night perfect, and it isn’t ‘I’m sorry’, so don’t even think about it.” Gojo held his phone away from him, and Kento could only assume that it was now being held hostage in exchange for those two words.
“Happy Birthday, Gojo-senpai.” Gojo’s grin had never looked quite so wide to Kento as it did just then.
Kento was pulled out of his recollection by the sound of the fax machine processing. He looked down at the time at the bottom of the screen. The white number informed him it was now 12:11 am. His attention was pulled back to the phone in his hand. There was only one person that Kento would ever dare call this late at night.
He dialed the familiar digits and held his breath. Unsurprisingly, the phone only rang twice before someone answered.
“Is everything all right, Nanami?” Gojo sounded concerned, which Kento expected since the two of them hadn’t spoken since his college graduation when Gojo had presented him with a frankly outlandish tie and a promise to keep in touch.
“Everything is fine. I’m sorry for the late call. I simply wished to say Happy Birthday, Gojo.” There was no response on the other end of the line, and Kento would have said the call had disconnected if he hadn’t still heard Gojo breathing. Kento had seemingly done the one thing that everyone else struggled to do, which was to stun Satoru Gojo into silence.
Unfortunately, such silence never remained for long.
“You really know how to make a guy swoon, Na-na-min. I never would have expected a midnight message from someone like you. Have you always been a secret romantic?” Gojo spoke quickly, and Kento could imagine the sort of manic grin that the other man wore as he teased him.
“That was all I needed to say, so if you continue to tease me, I will be hanging up the phone immediately.” Kento’s tone was blunt as he hovered over the call disconnect button.
“No, no. This mission is awful. It feels like I am in the middle of the Arctic, and I’m freezing my balls off all for some local cursed spirit that has decided to play the world’s most annoying game of hide and seek with me. Stay on the phone with me, please?” Kento could practically feel Gojo pouting through the phone.
“Alright, I’ll stay on the call, but I need to work on my spreadsheet while doing so.” Kento set the phone against his ear and his shoulder as he turned his attention once more to his computer to get back to work.
“Great. You can tell me all about your job and how much better it is than chasing cursed spirits through the snow.” Gojo’s tone was cheerful, and Kento could tell based on the wind that he had indeed begun chasing after something. He rolled his eyes, yet Kento proceeded to explain what went into creating one of his finance reports.
Kento wasn’t certain when he had fallen asleep at his computer precisely. He blurrily blinked at one point only to realize that his face was smushed against the keyboard. The ensuing cacophony of mistyped text was the first thing to greet him when he looked at the computer. He looked down at the bottom of the screen only for those traitorous white numbers to show him that it was presently 3:17 am.
How long had the two of them actually talked on the phone for? No train would be running at this time. Kento’s best bet was to try to slip out of the office before anyone arrived for the day, before making his way home to change and shower. He spent several minutes searching for his phone before realizing it had fallen onto the floor beneath his desk.
There was only one notification. It was an unopened text message from Gojo.
【Ｔｈａｎｋ ｙｏｕ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ ｂｉｒｔｈｄａｙ ｗｉｓｈｅｓ！ Ｔａlｋ ｔｏ ｙｏｕ ｓｏｏｎ， Ｎａｎａｍｉｎ．】
Kento was smiling as he packed up his briefcase and slipped out into the streets of Tokyo. Maybe this time around, he could be the one to treat Gojo to Yakiniku.