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Nanami has been in Malaysia for weeks now, with no intention of returning anytime soon. He supposes Itadori must be missing him, because his phone calls have become more and more frequent the longer Nanami is away. Until recently, he wouldn’t have admitted it, but Nanami misses the boy himself. He’s resolved to stop hiding his love for the people he cares about, so he invites Itadori to join him for a few days.
Itadori agrees enthusiastically, of course. Nanami smiles at his excitement over the phone and listens to his delighted ramblings for a few minutes before ending the call to make travel arrangements. Gojo will be paying, of course.
Itadori’s flight touches down two days later, and when he sees Nanami waiting at the terminal, he throws his bags to the side and runs forward to give him a rib-crushing hug.
“Nanamin!!!!” shouts Itadori, crashing into Nanami at full speed and throwing his arms around him. Nanami grunts from the impact, staggering back a step. “I missed you!”
“It’s nice to see you, too, Itadori-kun,” says Nanami, patting Itadori on the back.
Itadori releases his death grip on Nanami’s ribcage, allowing him to release a breath. He’s grateful for Itadori’s short attention span, because much as he enjoyed the hug, it’s difficult to breathe when he’s being squeezed that tightly.
“Wow, Nanamin! It’s so bright here!” he says, looking around and squinting towards the windows.
“We haven’t left the airport yet,” says Nanami. “Are your eyes going to be all right, Itadori-kun?”
“I’ll be alright,” Itadori chirps. “Where to first?”
“First,” says Nanami, “you’re going to pick up your luggage, because you left it lying on the floor over there.” Itadori looks behind him at his suitcase and backpack, flung across the terminal floor in opposite directions. Other passengers disembarking the plane are weaving around them with more than a little annoyance.
“Right,” says Itadori, rubbing the back of his neck. He dashes over to pick up his things at a speed that makes Nanami tired just watching, and reappears back in front of him with his chest puffed out proudly. “Okay! I’m ready to go!”
Nanami leads Itadori through the airport and out into the sunshine of another warm, bright day. Itadori looks up at the serene blue sky in wonder, then squints as the sunlight hits his eyes. “It really is bright out here,” he muses to himself. He looks down towards the ground only to be caught by the bright bursts of sun glinting off the cars in the airport parking lot.
“This way,” says Nanami, gesturing towards the car he’s renting for the duration of his trip. Itadori clumsily shoves his suitcase into the trunk, slams it shut, and has appeared in the front seat before Nanami’s even shut his door.
“So, Itadori-kun, what have you been up to?” Nanami asks as he starts the car.
“Lots of training, mostly,” says Itadori. “Gojo-sensei wants us to be prepared if anything like Shibuya happens in the future.” His expression darkens. “And if I ever see Mahito again, I wanna be able to tear his soul in half with one punch.”
Nanami frowns. “Shouldn’t you be recovering? All of you were seriously wounded and overexerted during the Shibuya Incident. More training isn’t necessary right now.”
“But I have to get stronger! My friends got hurt because I wasn’t able to protect them. You got hurt, Nanamin! If I had been three seconds later while you were fighting Mahito, it could’ve been even worse.” Itadori looks like he’s on the verge of tears. “Jogo’s already been exorcised, so I can’t get back at him for burning you, but Mahito’s still out there, and when I see him again, I’m going to destroy him for hurting you and everyone else.”
Nanami can’t even begin to express how moved he is by this. Perhaps there are words for this feeling, knowing that someone cares for you so deeply that they’re willing to throw away their life to protect you, but those are better left to writers or poets. It’s a waste of time to bother naming it, Nanami thinks. Having it is enough. Still…
“I’m incredibly grateful to know you care for me so much, Itadori-kun, but it’s not worth wasting your youth on a chance at revenge,” he says. “I am the adult, remember? It’s my job to protect you, not just from danger, but from the world forcing you to grow up too quickly. It’s a good thing you’re here, and make sure you let yourself relax when you return to Tokyo, alright?”
“But—”
“Yuji-kun, please trust me on this,” Nanami says. “I made the choice to throw away my childhood when I was a student, after I lost someone close to me, and it did nothing but cost me many opportunities for happiness. Waste time with your friends when you return home. I promise it’s worth it.”
“Okay,” Itadori nods. “I will. There’s actually a movie I’ve been meaning to take Fushiguro and Kugisaki to. Well, more like drag them. They don’t really want to see it, but I keep telling them it’ll be fun if we all go together! Maybe the second-years will want to come with us, too. I bet Maki will come if Kugisaki goes! And I think Inumaki is a fan of horror movies, and he’ll bring Okkotsu with him…”
Itadori chatters for the rest of the short drive back to Nanami’s hotel, planning an outing to the move theater and describing for Nanami the plot of The Grudge, which Nanami has actually seen because he doesn’t live under a rock. In fact, it came out while he was in middle school, and he vividly remembers seeing it in the theater, which Itadori is amazed and slightly jealous to learn.
Upon arriving at the motel, Nanami shows Itadori to his room, which is right next to Nanami’s own, and helps Itadori carry in his luggage, despite his insistence that he can do it himself.
“Okay! Let’s go to the beach!” says Itadori, throwing open his suitcase and rummaging through it until he finds a pair of swimming trunks and a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt.
“Aren’t you tired?” asks Nanami. “You just got off an airplane.” Nanami remembers how exhausting the eight-hour flight was. Still, stepping out of the airport to feel an ocean breeze on his face had made the whole journey worth it in an instant.
“Huh? No way! I wanna explore! Where’s the best beach near here? Or no, first, where’s the nearest ice cream shop? I’m starving.”
“Ice cream isn’t exactly a meal,” Nanami says, not even bothering to look stern. “We’ll have plenty of time for the beach and ice cream later, but are you sure you don’t want to rest for a while?”
“I’ve got tons of energy!” Itadori insists. Nanami doesn’t doubt this, but he’s equally sure that a good percentage of this is manic, sleep-deprived energy.
“I’m going to leave the room for ten minutes,” says Nanami. “If you’re still awake when I come back, I’ll be happy to take you to the beach. But at least sit down for a minute and see if you really feel like staying on your feet.”
“Deal!”
When Nanami returns to Itadori’s room, he’s passed out cold on top of the covers. Nanami smiles. The kid deserves a moment of rest.
_____________
Itadori bursts into Nanami’s room with his usually lively hair halfway flattened against his head from sleeping on one side for so long.
“You let me sleep for three hours!” he shouts, pointing an accusing finger at Nanami.
Nanami looks up from the telenovela he’s been watching and quickly shuts off the TV before Itadori can get a good look at the screen. “You clearly needed the rest,” Nanami says. “There’s plenty of time left in the day for us to enjoy ourselves without you falling asleep on your feet.”
“This is unbelievable,” Itadori huffs, crossing his arms. “We could’ve been out swimming this whole time, and I was asleep!”
Nanami hums. “Would you like to waste more time complaining, or would you like to go to the beach?”
“…I wanna go to the beach,” says Itadori after a short pause that Nanami imagines was meant to be a lot more dramatic than it really was.
Nanami stands up and goes to the shopping bag he’s left lying out on the desk. Itadori’s long nap gave him plenty of time to run to the store for some essentials he’s sure Itadori forgot. Nanami tosses him a bottle of sunscreen. Caught off-guard, Itadori jumps back, nearly drops it, and catches it only seconds before it hits the floor.
“I assume you didn’t bring any of this,” Nanami says calmly as Itadori recovers from his absurd fumble. “You’ll probably want a pair of these, too.” Suppressing a smirk, he throws a pair of sunglasses Itadori’s way.
“Hey!” Itadori shouts, diving after the sunglasses and hitting the wall with a loud thud. Somehow, he still managed to catch them by the tips of his fingers. “Ha!” he says, holding them aloft triumphantly.
“Nice catch,” says Nanami. Itadori beams. “Get changed and we’ll go.”
Itadori cheers and runs off back to his room, reappearing outside Nanami’s door seconds later, his Hawaiian shirt flying out behind him as he skids to a stop.
“I’m ready!”
“Do you have your sunscreen with you?”
Itadori frowns. “I put it on already.”
Nanami sighs. “Sunscreen wears off, Itadori-kun. Particularly if you’re swimming. If you don’t want to end up with a sunburn, I suggest you bring it with you.”
Itadori sighs back, an unconscious imitation of Nanami. “Okayyyy.”
With the sunscreen fetched and tucked into Itadori’s pocket, which Nanami is sure he’ll either lose or forget to reapply, they set off on the short walk to the beach. Itadori’s flip-flop falls off every few steps, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“The beach!” he shouts when the ocean and white sand come into view. He takes off running for the water, letting his sandals fly off his feet as he charges into the waves. Nanami picks them up as he follows, slower, behind Itadori. Itadori flings himself into the water at his usual superhuman pace, sending up a massive splash of water.
He emerges to meet Nanami at the edge of the water, completely soaked. “This is awesome! You should swim, Nanamin, it’s so nice!”
He jumps back into the ocean, catching a wave at its full height. It knocks him off his feet and carries him back to the shore, sprawled out on the sand as the thin trails of broken waves rush up around him.
“Oof,” he grumbles.
Nanami chuckles and extends a hand to help pull Itadori to his feet. “Well, you certainly make it look tempting.”
“It wasn’t my fault there was a wave right there!”
“No, but it was your fault that you jumped directly into it without looking.”
“Well, it was fun!” And just to prove it, Itadori does the exact same thing with the next wave that comes along, which doesn’t work nearly as well because he’s not as far into the water and hasn’t been caught off-guard.
“Nanamin, are you sure you don’t wanna go swimming?”
“I’m perfectly happy to stay on the beach.”
“Are you really sure? Just go in a little! It’s hot out here.”
Nanami’s about to protest again, but it is hot, and the soft blue water really does look inviting, now that Itadori mentions it. Besides, when was the last time Nanami went swimming? Middle school gym class, maybe? How is a tiled pit full of chlorinated water ever going to stack up to the endless expanse of the ocean?
He’s here for a beach vacation, after all. May as well make the most of it. Besides, Itadori clearly wants him to, and how can he resist the puppy-dog eyes Itadori is giving him?
“Well, alright,” he caves. “I’ll go in a little ways.”
Nanami’s discarded shirt and sandals join Itadori’s flip-flops on the beach as Nanami slowly makes his way into the water.
“Yay!” says Itadori. His grin turns demonic, and before Nanami has had time to react, Itadori splashes a curtain of water into his face.
“Hey!” Nanami splutters, wiping saltwater out of his eyes.
“Got you!”
“Itadori-kun—” Nanami never gets to finish his sentence, occupied with dodging another blast of water.
“I’m gonna get youuuuuu!” Itadori taunts.
“You’ll have to catch me first,” says Nanami. He dives into the water and swims off towards the horizon.
Obviously he can’t hope to swim faster than Itadori, not with his supernatural athletic talent. But he can count on Itadori getting distracted by playing in the waves and diving down to the seafloor to see what might be down there, which he does, exactly as Nanami expected. Before he knows it, Nanami has swum so far out that the beach is nothing but a sliver of sand along the horizon, and all around him is nothing but calm, glittering ocean.
His arms are starting to ache, and the swim back looks more than a little exhausting, but Nanami missed getting proper exercise more than he realized. It’s been several weeks since he’s done anything more than walking. He resolves to go swimming more often.
As he treads water, contemplating swimming back, Itadori surfaces next to him and hits him with another splash in the face. “HA!” he shouts with a ridiculous grin. “Got you again!”
“That you did,” Nanami agrees. “Well done.”
“Just going in a little ways, huh?” says Itadori, looking back at the distant shoreline.
“Maybe I got a little carried away.”
“I’ll race you back!”
Itadori wins the race, of course, although Nanami holds his own for the first few minutes, before his sore arms catch up to him and force him to slow down. Well, if Itadori comes back for another visit, Nanami will be ready to beat him next time.
“That was fun,” says Itadori as he climbs out of the water. He collapses to the ground next to their shoes, sending up a cloud of sand around him.
“It was. Congratulations on your win,” says Nanami. Itadori holds up his hand for a high-five. Nanami complies.
They have a full five seconds of quiet, watching the ocean, before Itadori sits up suddenly. “Hey Nanamin, can we get ice cream now?”
Taken aback, Nanami laughs. This kid.
“What’s so funny?”
Still chuckling, Nanami says, “Nothing, Yuji-kun. Of course we can get ice cream.”
Yuji’s baffled expression only makes Nanami want to laugh harder, but he holds it in for the sake of Yuji’s sanity. Even Nanami can’t explain what, exactly, is so funny to him about the way Yuji can switch between a dedicated sorcerer and a child playing on the beach. Or maybe it’s not so much funny as endearing.
And maybe it’s because the more the day goes on, the more Nanami feels like Yuji is treating him like the father he never had. If he doesn’t mind in the slightest, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.
______________
Yuji orders a massive tower of ice cream scoops that look like they’re about to topple off the cone, because there were too many flavors that looked good and he wanted to try all of them. He then has to badger Nanami into ordering anything at all, until he finally gives in and chooses cookie dough, at Yuji’s suggestion. And a double scoop. Why not. He’s on vacation.
It’s better than he expected. Actually, it’s delicious.
“I told you!” says Yuji. “I can’t believe you never tried it before.” He has ice cream on his nose.
“You are not going to tell Gojo about this,” says Nanami. He takes another bite. It really is so good. “He’ll hold it over my head for the rest of my life if he finds out I like sweets like every other human on this planet.”
“I solemnly swear,” says Yuji, managing to look serious for three or so seconds before he takes another lick of his ice cream, smearing chocolate across his face. “But in exchange, you have to take me and Fushiguro to the movies the next time you’re in Tokyo.”
“What about the rest of your friends? Didn’t you want to go with them?”
“There’s only so many horror movies I can take them to before they start to get sick of it,” Yuji shrugs. “Fushiguro only pretends he doesn’t like them. And you said you saw The Grudge in the theater, so I know you’re doing the same thing.” He laughs. “You guys can’t fool me!”
“This is why I don’t tell people about myself,” Nanami grumbles.
“I won’t tell anybody!”
“You already know too much.” He pauses. “Thank you for visiting me, Yuji-kun.”
“No problem!” says Yuji, looking startled. “I’m having such a good time! Why are you thanking me?”
“Because I’m having a good time,” says Nanami. “You’re a great kid. You’ve helped me have more fun that I have in a long time.”
“Well, I’ll just have to come back soon, then!” says Yuji with a bright grin.
Nanami grins back. He doesn’t know when the last he grinned was. Yuji is better for him than he ever realized. “I’ll look forward to it.”