Chapter Text
The sign on the front window reads, in elegant, gold-leaf lettering: Patisserie du Ciel.
It is a quiet, sun-drenched sanctuary nestled in a quiet corner of Shibuya. The glass cases inside are immaculate, displaying row upon row of glossy framboise tarts, delicate matcha mille-feuille, and spun-sugar confections that look more like modern architecture than food.
And then, there is him.
"I’ll take three of the strawberry shortcakes," a towering voice drawls from the front of the counter. "No, make it four. Actually, you know what? Give me the whole tray. And two of those little chocolate things with the gold foil. Pretty please?"
You don't even need to look up from the espresso machine to know who it is.
Gojo Satoru leans heavily over the glass counter, his ridiculously tall frame draped in what looks like an oversized, absurdly expensive black jacket. His white hair, shockingly bright, like fresh snow under a midday sun, spikes out in every direction. And, as always, his eyes are completely obscured by a stark black blindfold tied tightly around his head.
You hand him his receipt with a polite, practiced look.
"Gojo-san," you say, keeping your voice professional despite the exasperation creeping in. "It is eleven in the morning. If you eat an entire tray of shortcakes right now, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack."
"Nonsense!" Gojo gasps dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest as if mortally wounded by your concern. "My body is a temple, my dear baker. A temple that runs purely on refined sugar and high-grade glucose. Besides, your shortcake is an essential service. It’s medicinal."
"It's a sugar rush, Gojo-san," you correct, wrapping the bakery box with a crisp blue ribbon. "And you're going to scare the other customers with that blindfold. I still don't understand how you walked in here without tripping over the doormat."
"Intuition," Gojo grins, leaning in closer. His smile is infuriatingly handsome, wide and utterly unabashed. "Plus, I have a second sense for where you keep the good pastries. And hey! What did I tell you about the 'Gojo-san' stuff? You sound like you're talking to my grandfather. Call me Satoru!"
"You're a customer, Gojo-san. Customer service dictates basic manners," you reply smoothly, though a small, traitorous smile tugs at the corner of your lips.
Gojo has been coming into your shop almost daily for the past three months. You know almost nothing about him, other than the fact that he seems to have a limitless supply of money, an absurdly sweet tooth, a job he vaguely describes as "teaching at a very private school," and an absolute refusal to let you maintain a professional distance.
He’s eccentric. He’s loud. He’s completely blind or at least acts like it yet somehow navigates the world with terrifying, effortless grace.
And, truth be told, despite your strict adherence to "Gojo-san," you’ve grown utterly fond of him.
"Here," you say, sliding the neatly packaged box across the counter. "That'll be four thousand yen."
"Put it on my tab," he chirps cheerfully.
"You don't have a tab, Gojo-san."
"I do now!" Gojo winks or at least, you assume he winks behind the fabric and pulls a black card from his pocket, tossing it casually onto the tray. "Keep the change. Buy yourself something nice. Like a date with a handsome regular."
"I'm keeping the change, but the date is non-refundable," you retort, swiping the card.
The bell above the door chimes quietly, but when you look up, no one steps inside. Instead, a strange, heavy draft sweeps through the patisserie.
Odd. The air suddenly feels thick. Stagnant. Like the pressure dropping right before a massive thunderstorm.
You adjust your apron, frowning at the front door. "Is the air conditioning acting up again?"
Gojo doesn't answer immediately. His head tilts slightly to the left. The easygoing, goofy posture he usually holds subtly shifts. It’s barely perceptible, a slight straightening of his shoulders, the faint tilt of his chin but suddenly, the air in the room feels even colder.
"Hey," Gojo says softly, his tone shifting from theatrical whine to something startlingly calm. "Stay behind the counter for a second, okay?"
"What? Why?"
"Just a feeling," he murmurs.
Suddenly, the large display windows at the front of the shop shatter.
The noise is deafening. Shards of glass explode inward like a rain of crystal daggers. You scream, instinctively throwing your arms over your head and ducking down behind the marble-topped counter.
A gas leak? An earthquake? A car crashing into the storefront?!
Panic surges through your veins as the sound of tearing metal and splintering wood fills the air. The heavy oak front doors are ripped entirely off their hinges, flying across the room and smashing into a display cabinet.
"Gojo-san!" you shout over the din, trying to peer over the edge of the counter through the cloud of dust and flying sugar. "Gojo-san, get down!"
Through the haze of dust, you expect to see a car hood, or maybe a fallen power line.
Instead, you see... nothing.
Or rather, you see the horrifying aftermath of an invisible force. The heavy tables are being crushed into splinters by something heavy, massive, and entirely unseen. Deep, ragged gouges tear themselves into the hardwood floor, traveling straight toward the counter.
To you, the room is simply destroying itself. The air is roaring with a bizarre, wet, guttural noise that makes your skin crawl, though you can't see the source.
What is happening?!
"Stay right there," Gojo's voice rings out. It isn't panicked. In fact, it sounds bored.
You look up, your heart hammering against your ribs.
Gojo is standing right in the middle of the destruction. He hasn't ducked. He hasn't run. He is literally standing in the path of the unseen destruction, holding his bakery box carefully in his left hand, tucked under his arm like a football.
"Gojo-san, move!" you shriek, reaching out toward him. "Something's coming—"
What you cannot see is the monstrosity that just tore through the front wall.
To Gojo’s Six Eyes, the space is occupied by a sprawling, nauseating Special-Grade Cursed Spirit; a grotesque mass of pulsating eyes, snapping jaws, and thick, slimy appendages born from the collective terror of urban claustrophobia. It roars, a deafening screech of raw cursed energy, flinging its massive, bladed arms directly at Gojo’s head.
Gojo doesn't even flinch.
The attack stops dead half an inch from his face, slamming into the invisible barrier of his Limitless. The force of the impact sends a shockwave through the room, blowing away the dust cloud, but Gojo's hair barely ruffles.
“Man,” Gojo sighs, tapping his chin with his free hand while the invisible demon thrashes helplessly against his Infinity. “You really had to pick this shop? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good pastry chef in this neighborhood?”
To your eyes, Gojo is literally standing in mid-air amidst flying debris, chatting casually to an empty room while dust swirls around him in a bizarre, perfect circle.
"Gojo-san, have you lost your mind?!" you cry out, scrambling to your feet behind the counter. You grab a heavy wooden rolling pin from the prep shelf, your knuckles white. "There's a hurricane in here or something! We need to run!"
Gojo glances back at you over his shoulder, his blindfold masking his eyes, but his grin is visible.
"Don't worry, sweet cheeks," he calls back smoothly. "Just a little pest control. Keep an eye on my shortcake, will you?"
Before you can process his insane words, Gojo raises his right hand. He casually forms a simple hand sign, snapping his middle finger over his index finger.
“Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.”
A tiny, microscopic point of absolute space collapses in the air directly behind the unseen monster.
You hear a strange, high-pitched pop—like the sound of air being sucked into a vacuum and suddenly, the invisible force destroying your shop is violently yanked backward. The tables, the shattered glass, and the flying wooden splinters all freeze in mid-air for a fraction of a second, before being crushed toward a single, swirling point in the center of the room.
The air pressure drops so fast your ears ring. A tremendous CRUNCH echoes through the patisserie as the invisible threat is instantly compressed into a microscopic specks of nothingness, eradicated from existence in the blink of an eye.
The wind violently cuts out.
Silence descends upon the bakery.
You stand frozen behind the counter, clutching your rolling pin like a club, your mouth hanging open.
The front wall of your bakery is completely gone. The tables are ruined. A neat, circular crater sits in the middle of your floorboards.
And standing in the center of the wreckage, completely unbothered, is Gojo. Not a single grain of dust has touched his black jacket. The blue ribbon on his bakery box is still tied in a perfect, pristine bow.
You blink once. Twice.
"What..." your voice squeaks, barely a whisper. You clear your throat, trying again. "What was that?! A gas explosion? A localized tornado?! What just happened?!"
Gojo slowly turns around. He raises a hand to scratch the back of his neck, letting out a soft, sheepish laugh.
"Ah... well," he begins, walking toward you with casual, lazy strides. He steps right over the crater in the floor as if it's a minor puddle. "You know how Tokyo weather is! Super unpredictable. Microbursts! Very dangerous."
"A microburst?!" you yell, pointing frantically at the missing front wall. "A microburst didn't suck my mahogany tables into a black hole, Gojo-san!"
"Hey, science is wild these days," he says smoothly, leaning his elbows on the glass counter which, miraculously, is the only piece of furniture in the entire room that hasn't a single scratch on it.
He leans in close, his face just inches from yours. Up close, you can smell the faint, clean scent of peppermint and linen on him.
"More importantly," Gojo murmurs, his voice dropping an octave, rich and dangerously smooth. "You didn't run."
You blink, caught off guard by the sudden closeness. "What?"
"When the front window blew open," Gojo says, pointing a finger at you. "You didn't run out the back door. You grabbed a... rolling pin... and told me to get down."
"Well, yeah!" you huff, your cheeks flushing slightly as you lower the metal pin. "You were standing there like an idiot! I wasn't going to just let my favorite customer get blown away by... whatever that was!"
Gojo stares at you for a long moment. Behind the thick black cloth of his blindfold, his Six Eyes are taking in every single detail of your face.
He sees no trace of cursed energy in you. None. You are a complete, absolute zero; an ordinary human untouched by the dark, twisted world of Jujutsu. You couldn't see the hideous monster that had just tried to devour the building. You had no idea that a god of the modern world was standing right in front of you.
To you, he was just Gojo-san. A tall, weird guy who ate too much sugar, talked too much trash, and insisted on being called by his first name.
And yet, in the face of sheer, terrifying chaos, your instinct hadn't been fear; it had been to protect him.
A slow, genuine smile spreads across Gojo's lips. It’s not his usual arrogant smirk. It’s real. Warm.
"You're really something else, you know that?" he soft-spokenly hums, reaching out. His long, gloved fingers gently brush a speck of glass dust off your shoulder. His touch is warm, solid, and entirely real. "Still won't call me Satoru, though?"
"Not a chance," you huff softly, though your heart does a small, treacherous flutter. "I'm a baker who currently owes her landlord a very awkward explanation. My shop is ruined..."
"Nonsense!" Gojo chirps, instantly bouncing back to his hyperactive self. He pulls out a sleek, black phone from his pocket and begins furiously tapping the screen. "I’m calling my assistant, Ijichi. He’s great at handling sudden structural repairs. By tomorrow morning, this place will look brand new. Better than new! I'll buy you new tables. Italian marble!"
You raise your head, eyeing him suspiciously. "Gojo-san, how do you have the money for Italian marble?"
"I'm very, very rich," he says without a hint of modesty, flashing a brilliant, blinding smile. "Consider it my investment in my favorite sweet shop. But..."
He pauses, tucking his phone away and leaning over the counter again, resting his chin in his hand.
"...it comes with a condition."
You narrow your eyes. "Which is?"
"You have to let me help you clean up," Gojo says, tapping the bakery box under his arm. "And after that, you have to eat one of these shortcakes with me. Off the clock."
You look at the destroyed storefront. You look at the crater in your floor. Then, you look at the absurdly handsome, blindfolded man standing in front of you, holding a box of pastries as if nothing in the world could possibly break his mood.
You let out a long, defeated breath, dropping the rolling pin onto the counter with a dull clack.
"Fine," you sigh, unable to hide the smile slipping onto your face. "But if Ijichi-san doesn't fix my front door by tomorrow, you're paying for the whole display case."
"Deal!" Gojo beams, leaping over the counter with impossible, weightless agility to join you on your side. "Now, where do you keep the broom? I’m an expert sweeper. Truly, the strongest sweeper in history."
"Just don't break the dustpan, Gojo-san."
As you turn to grab the cleaning supplies from the back room, you miss the way Gojo’s head turns, his hidden gaze lingering on you with a quiet, lingering heat.
Zero cursed energy, he thinks to himself, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. And completely oblivious. Just wait... I'll get you to say my name eventually.
END OF CHAPTER I