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At three in the morning, Gojo calls Nanami for a single, selfish reason. The line rings three times before Nanami picks up. His voice is laced with a subtle sound of irritation (the kind of irritation that was born purely for Gojo, when they were still first and second years in school and Nanami had the luck to catch his eye only because he was tall and lanky and kept an expression on his pretty face that reminded Gojo of someone swallowing lemons for breakfast).
Gojo can tell that sleep is still heavy on Nanami’s tongue, roughing up his words, when he says, “Generally, people do not appreciate calls in the middle of the night.”
He grins even if Nanami can’t see it. “You still picked up though,” he points out, because Gojo knows he carries a special kind of privilege—the one that lets him exist as he is while knowing that Nanami will answer every text, every call, every conversation even if it was ridiculous and stupid. It’s a privilege he keeps close to his chest, one that he pierces his nails into to make sure it’ll stay.
“What is it?” Nanami asks after a moment.
(“What is it?” Nanami had asked, when they were younger by ten or so years and not yet overwhelmed by the pressure of what it meant to protect a city.
Gojo leaned against the doorframe into the empty classroom full of two first years—the only first years—and smiled something hubristic because he was older and experienced and knew the world was as awful as the teeth under his skin. “Just checking in on you guys,” he said, like there wasn’t an ulterior moment to him standing there, like he wasn’t checking in just to get a glimpse of Nanami again. “How’s the first week of classes?”
Haibara, from where he was sitting next to Nanami (and he had shoved his desk next to his as well, lining up the edges of wood so close together a new tree could grow if it wanted to) immediately spoke up, saying, “Amazing! There’s so much to learn and do. You’re our senior, right? I saw you in the courtyard!”
“That’s me,” Gojo replied. He dared to glance over towards Nanami only to feel disappointment sweep over his chest. He wasn’t even looking at Gojo, eyes trained on his desk. “I just—I’ll leave you both to whatever you’re doing?”
It’s Haibara who answered again, eyebrows pinched together in youthful confusion like he couldn’t understand why Gojo had decided to come in and out of a classroom out of his usual way. “Oh, okay. We’ll see you around?”
As Gojo turned on his heel, the clips of conversation followed him out: “He’s weird,” Nanami said.
Haibara had laughed, bird-like in its song, and replied, “I think he wanted to talk to you instead of me.”
Geto’s laughter greeted him first as soon as he rounded the corner, soft and smug in the way it wrapped around Gojo’s fingertips. “Just checking in on you guys,” he repeated mockingly around a smirk. “How’s the first week of classes? ”
“Shut the hell up,” Gojo said, slinging an arm around Geto’s shoulders if only to hide the way his face was burning up like the end of a supernova. “He didn’t even look at me.”
Geto arched an eyebrow before another laugh burst forth. “The tall blond one? The one you saw at the beginning of the week and said, ‘I’m gonna go talk to him ’ only to chicken out when someone else got to him first?”
“Yes, that one,” Gojo said. He sighed, dropping all his weight onto Geto who briefly struggled to hold him up before he decided on violence, and violence looked like Geto lowering his shoulder and stepping aside so Gojo dropped to the ground instead. “Ow, fuck you—just wait, alright. I’ll talk to him, and then before you know it we’ll be married with plant children from Muji.”
Geto hummed noncommittally. “You can’t even get him to look at you.”)
“I’m going to hang up if you’re not going say anything.”
Gojo blinks once. The bare walls of his living room swim into view, replacing the vibrant memory like spring giving way to summer. He pauses before putting on a saccharine display, saying, “Aw, don’t hang up on me. I had a genuine question to ask you.”
Nanami goes silent. It is a cue for Gojo to scramble for something genuine to ask.
Eventually, he settles for: “Are you packing extra underwear for Hokkaido?”
The other end crackles with static. If Gojo focused a little harder on something that wasn’t Nanami’s breathing, he could hear the way his heart thudded in his ears with the adrenaline of trying to find a topic to keep Nanami awake a little longer barely starting to ebb away.
“I’m ending the call,” Nanami says after a long moment, “so please find a different way to entertain yourself that doesn’t involve waking me up.”
The line clicks as it ends.
Gojo pulls his phone away from his ear to stare at Nanami’s contact card, tracing the pixelated photo he had taken (it was Nanami. It was always Nanami, except this time his head is leaning against the window of a classroom seldom used. His eyes are closed, and he is asleep, and Gojo couldn’t resist taking the photo if it meant he had something to cherish when he couldn’t hold onto something tangible for himself). “Actually,” Gojo says to the ghost in the corner, to the walls that have swallowed up every word he’s ever spoken, to the man who wouldn’t hear him, “I wanted to hear your voice.”
But he figures that the privilege of hearing Nanami’s voice would offer him one more thing for the night.
**
It is almost four am when Gojo arrives at Nanami’s apartment, and the only reason he knows the other man is awake is because the door is unlocked and the hall light is crawling towards his shoes as if it was beckoning him home. He pushes into this house that isn’t his and lets it swallow him up as soon as he closes the front door with a click.
Nanami is standing in the kitchen to the left of the main hall, staring at his countertop or the seasoning rack on it. He looks up once when Gojo clicks his tongue impatiently, or maybe he looks up because he can feel the way Gojo is looking at him.
“I couldn’t sleep after you called,” Nanami says, and this time his eyes are back on the countertop. It’s clean and organized with things that are a testament to living; a far cry from Gojo’s countertop that sits clean and organized because there is nothing to be cleaned or organized. “Don’t you have better things to do than call me?”
Gojo shrugs. There is, in his opinion, nothing better than whatever Nanami can offer him—even if it is just a single piece of what he really wants. “No, not really,” he says. “It’s fun to bother you.”
Nanami’s expression pinches like he’s still deciding between glaring at Gojo in hopes it’ll turn him into dust or leaving the topic alone—but they both know what happens now. What happens next.
For Gojo, it’s like playing chess—except your opponent is simultaneously someone you’re in love with and the only person you’ve ever played against. The moves become repetitive, predictable: he knows how the entire game will play out only because it’s happened before, and it has happened every single time since he first decided to give up his piece titled king.
Nanami is the one who has a hold on this game, on every game—from the ones in the past to the ones in the future. Gojo has made sure of it.
He steps forward, crowding Nanami against that clean and organized countertop. He plays out his next steps, Nanami’s next steps until they fall into the kind of routine that only comes when it is dark:
- He bothers Nanami in the late night, and this is usually through a phone call or by knocking on the balcony extending from his bedroom.
- Nanami lets him in (he unlocks the door on these late nights. He opens the balcony). When they talk, it is mostly Nanami telling Gojo to stop bothering him. Except Nanami picks up every phone call and opens every door and Gojo calls when he wants and knocks when he’s seeking warmth he can’t find in his own chest.
- They fall into bed together.
They fall into bed together, and Gojo leaves Infinity and every defense he has ever built up to become a weapon and the forefront shield of the Jujutsu world in the hallway outside Nanami’s door.
As he pulls Nanami’s shirt off—the plain white one with a stretched collar, courtesy of Gojo on a night he drank too much—he accepts the fact that he will never have Nanami in the way he wants. That he may have the physical aspect: nails leaving scratches on his back, bruises sucked into the peach-like softness of thighs.
But he won’t have what he wants.
**
Exorcising the spirit ends up being easier than Gojo expected.
They stumble back to their hotel room after celebrating the successful mission at a small bar. Gojo had three beers despite Nanami telling him not to, reminding him of his lightweight nature—but Gojo was nothing if not stubborn, and he wanted to celebrate, and he wanted whatever liquid courage that could give him.
But whatever liquid courage was in the drink must have slipped right past his heart, settling instead for his stomach where it only warmed his insides enough that all he has the courage for is clutching Nanami’s shoulder to avoid falling when the entire hallway tips a little too far to the left.
But Gojo is still loose-limbed and laughing when Nanami struggles to open the door to their room.
“You know,” Gojo says, except it sounds like a single word instead, “you have very pretty hair.” He reaches up and touches a strand that sits out of place. Whatever product that had kept Nanami’s hair in place has left with the day’s sun. “And I like when you wear suits, even though you wear them everyday to work.” His head lolls forward and thumps against the solid line of Nanami’s shoulder. The lock beeps once and the door swings open, allowing them to stumble inside. Nanami is weighed down by Gojo who is weighed down by drinks.
Nanami unceremoniously drops him onto the bed.
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret,” Nanami says, his hands loosening the tie around his neck. “I won’t be held responsible, especially since I told you not to drink.”
But then Nanami makes the mistake of walking too close past Gojo, who sits up and reaches out for his wrist, pulling him close until Nanami’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he stumbles and falls forward. His hands reach out, steadying himself against the mattress, caging Gojo in.
Gojo can see the way Nanami’s fingers are digging into the mattress, a hand on either side of his head. A breath away from cradling his face.
“I don’t think—” Gojo reaches up, a hand coming close to Nanami’s cheek before faltering like he had Infinity around him “—I’ve ever said anything to you that I’ve regretted.”
Nanami’s eyes widen by a fraction.
“Can you tell me something?” Gojo asks, giving the question to Nanami with a grin despite the way his heart is falling apart at the seams, cracking like the downfall of an empire. He is stuck in place by the magnetism of the moon and Gojo can’t step away even if he wanted to. He’s committed to this now, to this question that’ll reveal so much of his garden heart.
Nanami doesn’t nod, but his eyes are telling him: “I can’t stop you from asking.”
“Can you tell me what I’m supposed to do,” Gojo says, except it sounds like a whisper and a yell all at once, punctuated by the stifling silence of the hotel room, “to get you to look at me? Even if it’s just once?”
A pin could drop on the edge of the universe and Gojo knows he would be able to hear it.
Nanami’s face, impressively void of emotion, doesn’t change with the query. He’s always been difficult to read but Gojo has reveled in the fact he has every minute change memorized like a favorite book. He knows every single one of Nanami’s expressions like he knows the limits of his abilities—but these changes, these lines, are new. Gojo commits what he can to memory only because he cannot read between the lines of Nanami’s eyebrows, his lips, his eyes.
For once, he doesn’t know what Nanami is thinking.
A heartbeat passes twice. Nanami pushes himself up off of the bed, silent in every step until that bubble of silence pops with the click of the bathroom door.
Gojo is left with an empty ceiling and unanswered questions.
**
“I know you’re only pretending,” Nanami says, exactly one hour after he had retreated into the bathroom after Gojo’s drunk confession-but-not-quite-a-real-confession.
The hotel room is dark—courtesy of Gojo who had sobered up after Nanami left and turned off the lights before crawling under the blanket, facing the wall. Knowing pretending wouldn’t lead him anywhere, Gojo turns until he catches Nanami in the corner of the room near the single table by the window. The curtains are open and the heart of the city spills onto Nanami’s skin; painting him silver, painting him blue. There is a splash of neon pink on his cheek, dipping into the hollowed bone.
“You’ve been watching me sleep?” Gojo sits up. He tucks his chin onto his palm, supporting that entire arm with a knee pulled up. He’s going for casual, unbothered. He wants to tell Nanami not to remember that drunken confession amongst other confessions in the shape of lingering hands and looks and kisses turned bruises. “How creepy.”
But oh, Nanami’s eyes narrow in a way all too familiar to Gojo. It’s all sharp lines, all stop joking around and I’m trying to be serious here . It is the antithesis to Gojo’s own eyes, hidden and closed off by a blindfold, by his inability to look at Nanami properly. He knows these lines, the in-betweens of Nanami’s eyes, lips, eyebrows that make up a countenance he’s known since they were younger and still learning how their edges would fit, and whether either of them would have to take a saw to what wouldn’t cooperate.
Gojo twists the fabric of his blanket between his fingers. Nanami’s features are softened by bottled evening light on his bedside table. He says, “You don’t need to do anything.” before the light goes out and they’re sitting in a see-through darkness. “At least,” Nanami begins again as the clock hand ticks by ten times, “nothing that you haven’t already been doing.”
It takes Gojo long enough for a star to experience dying four times, but he understands . He gets what Nanami is telling him—no, offering . He knows a hand extended when he sees one, and this is a hand and a whole just for him. Gojo grins to himself in the dark, sharp but awed.
He can have what he wants.
He just needs to ask.
“So can I sleep next to you?” Gojo asks, tentative and light in its cadence, words full to bursting with need, need, need. He can’t see what kind of expression Nanami is making in the dark but he has a good idea.
Nanami sighs. This sigh is quiet, a little heavy on the exhale. It isn’t sincere annoyance. “Don’t push it, Gojo.”
So Gojo slides in under the blanket, his hand crossing the plains of Nanami’s waist until he finds his hand. Their fingers come together like the sea to the sand, every grain swept away by the water as sleep drifts over them.
**
It is three weeks after Hokkaido when Gojo decides to finally do something with what Nanami has given him.
This time, he had hauled himself into Nanami’s apartment through the balcony, knocking on the glass door until Nanami had taken one look at him and then turned up the volume on his TV. Then, he knocked even louder before threatening to use the danish pastry he had bought as a window wiper.
Nanami had let him in with a sigh.
And Gojo makes himself at home. He takes this space filled from top to bottom with everything that would remind the world of Nanami and fits himself into the empty shelves in between as a reminder, a permanent record for any curious hands. He sprawls across the sofa with his legs thrown across Nanami’s lap and lifts up his blindfold. Gojo asks, “Did you mean it?”
“I’d appreciate a little detail.”
“That night in Hokkaido,” Gojo says. He catches Nanami’s eyes. Neither of them are committing to the secrecy of covering their eyes. “When you said I didn’t have to do anything—did you mean it? Because I’m about to say something that will probably change the way we know each other.”
The words land like they’re a joke; something that shouldn’t be taken seriously. His hands betray what it really is—the beginnings of a truth he’s learning how to divulge.
Nanami picks up the small plate holding the danish pastry Gojo had bought. Everything about the action is nothing but elegance, controlled and beautiful. It contrasts nicely against the way Gojo leaves behind an apocalypse in his wake.
“I meant it,” Nanami says. He takes a bite of the pastry before setting it down. In the respite, Gojo exhales. “I still mean it.”
But with that interlude comes the reality. Gojo has been sitting on these feelings for so long, cradling and tending and cutting off branches that threatened to bloom over Nanami’s head. The gates have opened but the water remains still. He’s entertained the idea of confessing, of casually letting slip that he likes Nanami (loves him, really) for years, playing every scenario over and over in his head with nothing but the city lights to criticize every decision.
But he knows now how Nanami might feel about him. But he also knows Nanami, and there’s no guarantee that anything will change. After all, he would hate to keep anyone, even someone like Gojo, guessing on whether he would come back home or not.
Gojo sits up and reaches for the pastry, sneaking in a bite of his own. For once, Nanami’s features are clear of irritation, annoyance, disapproval.
He realizes, too, that this isn’t something he has to think about. He swallows the pastry, feels home in the way he’s taking up space on this couch, across Nanami, and says, “I think I’m in love with you, Nanami. I think there’s nobody better than you.”
“‘I think,’” Nanami repeats, like he was searching to see whether he could cross the lines Gojo was inadvertently drawing, whether he could step across them.
“I know,” Gojo amends quickly. “I know I’m in love with you, and that I have been in love with you for a long time.” And then he grins, leaning forward to say, “I know there’s no one better than you.”
And Nanami cracks a smile. He lowers his head in defeat with a sigh that sounds more like a laugh, instead of something worn down. “So you’re calling an end to what we had?”
“Yes,” Gojo says, “but only if you want to.”
Nanami reaches out to Gojo, pulls him close until they fall back on the sofa. This time, it is Gojo hovering over Nanami, his hands bracketing his head. He becomes painfully aware, even more so now that he consciously sheds the shield named Infinity, of how Nanami reaches up and brushes away a strand of white hair.
Nanami says, in a voice so gentle Gojo feels his chest fill up with the need to hear it again, “I’ve been in love with you for a stupid amount of time, Gojo. Of course I want something to change.”
Gojo laughs, taking in what he could of Nanami—the Nanami who returned his feelings, the Nanami that loved him back. He leans forward, rests his forehead against his. “Couldn’t you have said something earlier?”
Nanami’s fingers brush across Gojo’s cheek, gentle in its travels. “I assumed you only wanted something physical.” His gaze is apologetic when his eyes meet Gojo’s. “My bad.”
“My bad—that should be my line.” But he can’t find a single vein inside him that wants to simmer with any shade of anger. There is nothing but relief flowing through him. “So I get to keep you by my side?”
Nanami lowers his head in a tiny nod. “You do,” he says. “And you get to stay by mine.”