Chapter Text
It started with glances.
Nothing serious at first—just harmless looks across the training field, a pause in the hallway, the extra second or two his eyes lingered on Nanami when they passed each other between classes. Satoru told himself it was natural. Expected, even. Soulmate monitoring. Perfectly reasonable.
Then it became watching. More focused. He started showing up to training early, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, pretending to be mildly interested in everyone but in reality only tracking one person. The way Nanami moved—precise, mechanical—was weirdly fascinating.
And then… well... Somehow, it turned into light stalking.
Satoru wouldn’t call it stalking, obviously. That was such a harsh word. He preferred “gathering observational data under live conditions.” The noble pursuit of soulmate-related truth. Field research.
Shoko, however, did not agree.
“You’re being creepy,” she said flatly, arms crossed, one eyebrow arched as she stared down at him.
He was crouched behind a vending machine, peeking around the metal edge, one eye narrowed with dramatic intensity. “I’m not being creepy, ” he muttered defensively. “I’m just... keeping an eye out for my kouhai.”
“And that requires hiding behind a vending machine?”
“I’m planning on testing his reflexes,” he said with far too much conviction.
Shoko didn’t blink. “How? By jump-scaring him with canned coffee?”
Satoru grinned. “Exactly! You get it!”
“I don’t.” She lit a cigarette without ceremony. “I’m ninety percent sure this is the behavior that gets people put on watch lists.”
“Only if they’re sloppy and get caught,” he said, shifting slightly as he tracked Nanami’s movements across the courtyard. The first-year was walking alone, book in hand, his uniform perfectly pressed.
Shoko’s cigarette burned low between her fingers, the smoke curling lazily in the warm afternoon air. “I’m not really sure what you’re trying to achieve,” she said, tone dry as gravel, “but you should stop before he starts to actively avoid you.”
But Gojo couldn’t stop.
He didn’t mean to be like this. He really didn’t. He wasn’t a stalker, not technically, and he certainly didn’t think of himself as some lovesick Alpha circling his future bondmate like a wolf sniffing the wind for a trail. It wasn’t like that.
It was just that every time he looked at Nanami—every time that stiff, quiet, perfectly-creased presence passed through his line of sight—something in him twisted. Tight and electric. A visceral knot of want and suspicion.
He knew Nanami was hiding something. And it wasn’t just the usual flavor of trauma repression that came with being a sorcerer. No, this was intentional. Satoru could feel it, like a pressure point waiting to be touched. A secret that bristled just beneath the surface of Nanami’s blank Beta presentation. And yet…
No scent. No signs. No tells.
It was like staring at a magic trick he hadn’t figured out yet, and Satoru hated not knowing anything. So he started watching.
Nanami always wore long sleeves. Even during sparring matches when everyone else stripped down to sweat-drenched T-shirts or tied their uniforms around their waists. Even when it was hot enough to make everyone else stick to the mats like wet mochi. No glimpse of wrist glands. No peek at the back of his neck. And even with all the exertion that came from training Nanami never let off a single hint of a scent.
He kept his dorm locked. Always. Gojo had tried to do a surprise visit once—just to peek, obviously, not to do anything weird—but was met with an unyielding handle. When he knocked, Nanami told him he was busy and asked him to leave.
Whenever Nanami opened his door it was only by a tiny sliver. The barest minimum required to enter and exit. Never enough to allow anyone to peek in and spot a nest, or to let out the hint of a scent. Satoru’d also never seen him invite anyone in either.
Then there were the showers. Nanami was never there when anyone else was. Not during the morning rush, not after training, not at night before bed. The only time Satoru’d seen him near the showers was when Nanami was already leaving —hair damp, collar sharp, not a speck of bare skin in sight.
He never left a towel behind. Never dumped his laundry in the communal bin. No clutter. No personal scent trails. No signs of heats. No signs of anything.
it was all starting to drive him insane.
The not-knowing. The constant blank. The scentlessness that pressed against his instincts like static under the skin. He, Satoru Gojo: sorcery prodigy, wielder of the Six Eyes, was being outmaneuvered. It was maddening.
He’d tried everything short of dragging Nanami to a private med ward and running a full panel test on him. Stealth surveillance. Controlled environments. Casual teasing. Uncasual staring. None of it worked. And so, he’d resorted to what could only be described as the laziest of contact strategies.
A hallway bump.
It was a Wednesday. The sun was bright, the air was thick with humidity and blooming hydrangeas, and Gojo had timed it perfectly. They were in the west corridor—narrow, quiet, mostly used by faculty. Nanami was walking toward him, book in hand, posture as rigid as always. Gojo moved to the left. Then subtly shifted right.
His arm brushed Nanami’s sleeve. Just the edge, just enough to count. Satoru exaggerated the stumble for flair, spinning halfway on his heel like he’d tripped on a phantom curse.
“Oh sorry!” he said, eyes wide, voice light. “Didn’t see you there.”
Nanami stopped dead in his tracks and stared at him.
“Crowded hallway, huh?”
“We made eye contact five seconds before you walked into me,” Nanami said flatly.
Gojo winced. “Did we? Wow. Guess I was... distracted.” He leaned in slightly, tilting his head as if catching a whiff of something. His nose crinkled. “You smell good today. Like… nothing.”
A pause.
A long, exasperated pause.
Nanami blinked slowly, as if trying to will himself into another dimension. “Surely,” he said, tone clipped, “you’ve passed some form of basic biology class, Gojo-san. Betas don’t have scent glands. We don’t produce distinctive pheromones.”
“Yes! Of course I know that!” Gojo said, a little too loudly. He coughed. “I just meant... your normal Beta smell is nice, you know?”
Nanami stared. “You just said that I smell like nothing.”
“Oh! I mean—no, no— I didn’t mean it like that!” Gojo continued, committed now to the spiral. “You smell like a... crisp file folder and…” Satoru leaned in for an awkward over dramatic sniff “...Peaches?”
Nanami’s expression didn’t change. “It’s shampoo,” he said bluntly.
“Oh! Right, yeah. Obviously. ” Gojo laughed. “Of course it’s shampoo. Totally normal.”
“Please don’t sniff me again, senpai.” Nanami didn’t wait for a response. He simply stepped around, and walked off.
Satoru stood there for a moment, alone in the hallway, watching Nanami’s retreating back like it held the answers to all the universe’s great mysteries.
He exhaled slowly. Then louder. Then dramatically.
..
That night, Satoru lay flat on his back in the dark, one arm flung dramatically over his eyes like some tragic, swooning romance heroine. His legs stuck halfway out of the sheets, his shirt was wrinkled from twisting too much, and his brain was chewing through the same three thoughts like a skipping record.
“This can’t be normal,” he muttered, voice muffled by his own elbow. “I’m literally going feral trying to find out if he has scent glands. Who gets obsessed over glands ?” He rolled over with a groan, pressing his head against the cool wall beside his bed. “Is this what yearning feels like?” he asked the darkness. “Because it sucks. It really sucks.”
It had been two months. Two months of side glances, subtle tailing, manufactured hallway encounters, and internal war crimes against his own dignity. Two full months of trying to solve a riddle that he made up himself.
Nanami was a Beta. he’d said so himself the day they met, and every bit of logic pointed back to that fact. There was no conspiracy to cover up his second gender, Nanami was simply a modest person who enjoyed privacy.
That explained his choice of outfits. That explained why he never let anyone in his room. That explained why he always chose to shower alone.
So tonight, he was officially calling it.
“I’m done,” he whispered aloud. “No more spying. No more hallway ambushes. No more strategic sweaty training matches.” He closed his eyes and flopped his hand dramatically onto his chest. “I’m choosing peace. Acceptance. Emotional maturity.”
But even as he said it, the word acceptance tasted like cardboard. He sighed and opened his eyes again, staring at the ceiling as the shadows of tree branches swayed against it in the moonlight.
It wasn’t like he didn’t believe in fate. The ritual had worked. He’d heard Nanami’s voice echo inside his chest like a heartbeat. The connection had snapped into place—swift, irrevocable, real. There was no mistake about it.
Kento Nanami was his soulmate and he was perfect. Appearance, personality, everything about him was wonderful. The rest—the designation, the gender, the glandless mystery of it all— shouldn’t matter.
Nanami was a Beta. He didn’t want to be touched. Didn’t want to be sniffed. Didn’t want to be watched like a cell under a microscope. And Satoru could respect that.
Eventually.
Probably.
Right after he figured out how the hell he was supposed to win him over.
The rituals didn’t guarantee love at first sight, just the potential for a perfect bond. And if Nanami wasn’t feeling it yet, that meant Gojo had to make him feel it. Had to earn it. No pheromone feedback loop. No scent-gland compatibility crutches. Just… charm. Good, old-fashioned charm.
But a thought lingered, uneasy and sharp in his chest.
‘Would a Beta even want an Alpha?’
Soulmates weren’t bound by the same rules as courtship. Fate didn’t care about societal norms or gender politics or mating instincts. But people did. Nanami did. Betas were usually left alone, seen as neutral ground. Not dominant. Not submissive. Not part of the dynamic most Alphas were trained from birth to want.
Satoru had no idea how Nanami felt about any of this. Would he even want to give someone like Gojo a chance in the first place?
Satoru flipped onto his stomach, face buried in his pillow, muffling a quiet scream of frustration into the cotton. This. Was. Torture.
But he had time, three school years at minimum. He'd make sure he’d take as much time as he needed.
That’s why he still hadn’t told the clan.
Hadn’t breathed a single word to them about who the ritual had revealed. Every time he tried to picture it—sitting down across from the elders, opening his mouth and saying, “I found them”—his stomach twisted up like a storm of cursed wire.
Because he knew exactly how they’d react.
At first, satisfaction. Smug nods. Predictable congratulations. Talk of legacy, power consolidation, breeding potential.
And then the question: “ What’s their designation?”
And when he told them?
“Beta. Male, Beta.”
Their smiles would curdle into something colder. Disappointed. Calculating. They wouldn’t care about Nanami. They wouldn’t see him as a person. He’d be a roadblock to the bloodline. A flaw in the system. A mistake to correct. They’d start whispering. Pushing. Manipulating. Maybe even threatening.
“Try the ritual again, Satoru. We’re not saying you have to choose him.”
“You’re young. You’ll get over these juvenile feelings.”
“A soulmate who can’t give you children isn’t your fate. They’re your lesson.”
“Let us help you find someone better.”
And if Gojo refused? He didn’t want to imagine what would happen to Nanami.
But that was nothing, nothing, compared to what they’d do if Nanami really was lying about his secondary gender. If he was an Omega, a hidden one. The clan wouldn’t just interfere. They’d descend.
Gojo could already hear the click of boots on old wood floors, the rustle of ceremonial robes, the crisp shuffle of paperwork being drawn up in offices thick with incense and ambition. Nanami wouldn’t be treated like a person anymore. Not a student. Not a sorcerer.
He’d be classified. Processed. Filed into some rigid category built around genetics and bloodlines. Viable or not viable. He’d be summoned to the estate in a day. Two at most. He’d be dissected through polite smiles and clinical interviews. “For compatibility,” they’d say. “To ensure your safety. To honor the traditions.”
And once they confirmed it, once they were sure, everything would move far too fast.
Questions about his family history. His medical background. Hormone patterns. Behavioral records. Stability markers. Potential for bonding. Omega ranking. Ideal mating windows. Pregnancy probability charts. Mating season tracking.
And after that? The plans.
Bonding rites.
Heir production.
A life in captivity, dressed up as ceremony.
They’d talk about him like a vessel. Like a reward. Like something Gojo had earned. They’d try to fix him, like a broken clock, until he ticked in time with what the clan wanted. Sweet. Docile. Receptive.
But Nanami wasn’t any of those things.
He was steel wrapped in wool. Dignity carved out of discomfort. And Satoru knew Nanami would hate every second of it. The scrutiny. The violation. The performance. He’d hate the binding clothes, the ritual speeches, the pressure to smile at strangers who thought his body was a favor they were owed.
He’d hate Gojo, too.
Because it would all lead back to him. The ritual. The bond. The eyes of the elders locking on Nanami with that slow, evaluative hunger. That cold, dangerous interest in turning a secret Omega into the perfect Gojo match. A breeding partner. A legacy factory.
The thought made Satoru’s chest feel tight and acidic.
He could already see the fallout in his head. Nanami wouldn’t yell or fight. He’d vanish. Cleanly. Precisely. One day he’d just… be gone. No scene. No explanation. Just a hollow space where he used to stand.
Satoru couldn’t let that happen.
The good thing—maybe the only good thing—about the soulmate ritual was that it was secret. Personal. The voice was only ever heard by the subject. There was no dramatic branding, no physical mark, no sudden shift in cursed energy that would give anything away. No one else would know unless he told them.
So he didn’t.
He told them nothing.
He walked beside Nanami to the training grounds and let their shoulders brush just slightly without saying why it made his breath catch in his throat.
He sat beside him during briefings, close enough to count the lashes on his lowered eyes, and tried not to memorize the shape of his mouth when he concentrated.
He snuck notes in his pockets sometimes—dumb jokes in sloppy handwriting—and laughed a little too loud when Nanami raised a slow, unimpressed brow at the punchline.
He asked about the books he read. Asked what kind of music he liked. Asked once, on a total whim, if he’d ever had one of those fancy multilayer sushi towers, and when Nanami muttered, “No,” Gojo swore on the spot he’d fix that.
And every time he watched him walk away—shoulders squared, expression unreadable—Satoru wanted to say stay.
He didn’t.
Because wanting him wasn’t the same as deserving him.
And when the clan elders called to check in, cool and clipped through the static of the old estate phone line, asking, “Any progress with the bond?” in that patient, patronizing way they did when they thought they were humoring him, Gojo smiled.
“Still waiting,” he said.
Not a lie. Not entirely. Because fate had chosen Nanami, yes. The stars and the cursed blood and the centuries-old rite had drawn a line from Gojo’s heart straight to his.
But love wasn’t about fate, love was about choice.
And Satoru was willing to wait as long as it took for Nanami to choose him. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
~~~
Nanami sat on the edge of his bed, the rigid frame creaking just slightly beneath his weight. His palms were flat against the mattress. His breathing was shallow, deliberate. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. A slow, silent cadence he’d practiced for years. He closed his eyes and counted to four.
The suppressants were kicking in. They always took a little while to settle, like sediment in water—slow to sink, reluctant to vanish. He’d just administered his bi-monthly dose, two injections and a dissolvable under the tongue, the dosage precisely calculated to keep his biology subdued for another sixty days.
Another two months of safety. Another two months of pretending.
Suppressants were never meant to be used this aggressively, not long-term. But then again, they weren’t designed for Omegas trying to live like Betas either. They dulled everything—his scent, his cycles, the flush of instinct that threatened to spike every time an Alpha walked too close or lingered too long.
Still, timing was everything. If he missed even a single dose, his body reacted like a debt collector had come knocking—merciless and immediate. Which was exactly what had nearly happened tonight.
He’d returned late from a mission, not terribly late just a few hours, but that window had been long enough to knock his schedule off balance. And after he got back, he still had to wait. Wait until the showers were clear, until the risk of being seen in a vulnerable state was low enough to take the gamble. By the time he was finished and safely back in his room, the early effects had already begun to set in.
A faint pulse behind his navel. That familiar ache between his ribs. A twitch of heat curling beneath his skin like static under pressure. His scent had spiked—only faintly, only for a moment—but it had been real. Unmistakable.
He’d ripped the scent patches off immediately, washed his skin with harsh astringent soap, reapplied his masking layers with the precision of a surgeon. The room still felt too warm. His pulse still beat a little too fast. But it was over. Contained. If he’d waited another hour, it would’ve been too late. A full heat, stacked up from years of chemical deferrals, would have torn him in half.
He hadn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. Not here. Not in a school dorm with paper-thin walls and three Alpha upperclassmen less than fifty feet away.
A drop of sweat slipped down his spine. Did anyone notice? He clenched his jaw. His scent was faint enough now to pass. He was sure of it. Still, he couldn’t stop his brain from working the equation, couldn’t stop the logic from cycling through worst-case scenarios.
“If someone caught even a whiff of it… who would be the worst?”
There was Ieiri. Observant, but not nosy. If she suspected anything, she'd ask directly, maybe even cover for him. She was pragmatic like that.
Then there was Geto. Calm, sharp. The kind of person who noticed things without needing to say them aloud. If he knew, he wouldn’t announce it, but he would start watching more carefully.
But it was Gojo who haunted the center of Nanami’s thoughts.
Gojo, with his stupid sunglasses and his stupid grin and his unrelenting attention. Gojo, who still sometimes stared too long, like he was trying to will the answer into existence. Gojo, who’d already asked too many questions, made too many observations, gotten too close with too little warning.
Nanami swallowed hard. Of all of them, Gojo would be the worst one to find out.
Not because he was cruel—though Nanami was never entirely sure where that line ended with him—but because he was careless. Too loud, too impulsive, too comfortable with crashing through boundaries without realizing they existed in the first place.
Nanami had only known him for two months, and already he’d catalogued more rule violations than he could count. Gojo said things without thinking. He blurted —half-jokes, half-truths—like his mouth was a muscle that refused to slow down for discretion.
Even if he didn’t mean to out Nanami, it wouldn’t take pressure. It wouldn’t take force. Just the wrong moment, the wrong person, the wrong comment. A stray, offhanded observation dropped at the wrong table.
And then it’d be over.
Especially given who Gojo was. Heir to the strongest clan. Their golden child. The entire Gojo name held more political weight than most government departments. If he knew, even suspected, it was only a matter of time before the truth slipped free—and with it, Nanami’s freedom.
The thought made his stomach turn.
Nanami exhaled carefully, fingers tightening on the edge of the mattress. He’d been lucky tonight. Late, but lucky. But this couldn’t happen again. He’d have to adjust the timing of his doses, build a buffer, double-mask his scent for the next few days, and avoid Gojo at all costs until his skin stopped buzzing from residual heat static.
The possibility of being caught wasn’t just terrifying. It was unacceptable. He wasn’t going to end up on a leash, no matter how pretty the cage. No matter how blue the eyes of the Alpha who held it.
Nanami’s phone buzzed softly against his nightstand, its vibration barely audible over the quiet hum of the dorm room. He blinked at the screen. "Mom."
A flicker of anxiety passed through him. He sat up quickly, brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead and composing his voice before answering.
“Hello?”
“Ken,” came his mother’s voice, warm and gentle, but laced with concern. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” he said, tone as even as he could manage. “I just finished getting ready for bed.”
There was a pause. “How are you doing, sweetheart? Really, doing. You’ve been gone for two months and your messages are so short.” Her voice softened even further. “They’re not working you too hard, are they?”
Nanami closed his eyes and tried to force the tension from his shoulders. His throat still felt tight from earlier, the leftover strain of nearly tipping into a pre-heat spiral. “No,” he said quietly. “They’re... respectful of our limits. We’re being trained properly.”
“But you’re getting enough sleep?” she pressed. “And food? They’re not starving you like some monk, right? You’re eating, Ken?”
He allowed the smallest exhale of breath that might’ve passed for a laugh. “Yes. The dorms are clean, the beds are comfortable. There’s a kitchen attached. I’ve been cooking for myself. Practicing.”
“Oh,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “You’ve been cooking? Have you tried any of the family recipes?”
“I have, they’re still not perfect” he admitted, lips tugging at the edge, just barely. “But Haibara eats the burnt parts before I can throw them away.”
“That sweet boy,” she murmured. “I’m glad he’s there with you.”
Nanami nodded faintly, even though she couldn’t see. “Me too.”
There was a pause, long enough that he felt his breath catch just slightly. “How are things back home?” he asked. “With Dad? And Ann?”
“They’re both well,” she replied, chipper now. “Ann’s been practicing her kanji with your old workbooks, she says they smell like you. your father’s the same. I’m glad I can still reach you. It helps.”
He hesitated, then asked softly, “Have you been worrying?”
“You know I have,” she said. “It’s not just the curses I worry about. It’s... the other part.”
Nanami felt the tightness in his chest return. He knew this was coming. He kept his voice flat. Measured. “I’m managing. My suppressants arrived last week. I’ve got three months’ worth stored in a lockbox. I updated the dosage formula like the clinic suggested.”
There was a short silence on the other end of the line, and then her voice came, quiet but steady. “Ken... what’s the ratio like? Of second genders?”
He swallowed. “I’m the only Omega in the current cohort. My three upperclassmen are Alphas.”
A beat. “And you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” He forced the words out with precision. “I’ve adjusted. They’re loud sometimes, but not threatening. I don’t think anyone suspects anything. They treat me like a Beta.”
“I worry,” she said. “Even good people can lose control during a spike.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes, leaning slightly into the phone. “But it hasn’t happened. I’m careful. My regimen is airtight. I haven’t had a slip. Not once.”
She was quiet for a long time, and then murmured, “That’s my boy.”
The phrase made something fragile shift in his chest. He pushed it down. “I should get some rest,” he said gently. “Training starts early.”
“Of course. Goodnight, Ken. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
He ended the call.
Then, with a slow exhale, Nanami dropped his phone to the nightstand and let his body tip backward onto the mattress like a felled tree. The ceiling stared back at him in silence. This—this tightness, this lingering static beneath the skin—this was why he took the suppressants in the first place. Not just to hide. To breathe.
He lay there for a moment, motionless. Then forced himself upright again.
He crossed to the closet, feet silent against the floorboards, and opened it carefully. Inside, tucked behind a stack of uniform shirts and sealed inside a vacuum pack to preserve it, was his emergency comfort blanket. It was made of a specialized fabric—soft, breathable, dense enough to retain warmth but light enough not to suffocate. Woven in by hand, with scent-holding threads.
Before he left for school, his mother and sister had spent an entire evening scenting it for him. Warm cinnamon. Cardamom. The faintest whiff of his family’s home laundry soap. He pressed it to his face. Relief cracked something open in him.
He undressed slowly, stripping off everything except his underwear. The layers felt like they were suffocating him, sticking to his skin in all the wrong places. His nerves itched. His body was still wrong, still teetering just past regulation. He climbed back into bed with the blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, tucking the edges beneath himself like a shell. The fabric clung to his skin and his scent alike, familiar and grounding.
Tomorrow would be better. He just had to make it until morning. And hope, with everything he had, that the suppressants would be in full effect before breakfast.
..
Nanami woke to stillness. For a moment, there was only the softness of his blanket curled around his body, the dim light bleeding in from the narrow dorm window, and the comforting hush of early morning before the rest of the building stirred.
Then he moved. Immediately, discomfort flared—a clinging sort of stickiness between his thighs, a fine layer of dried sweat along his hairline and chest, the unpleasant tackiness of skin that had tried and failed to stay regulated through chemical suppression.
He grimaced.
The suppressants had kicked in just in time to stop a full-blown heat from igniting, but the early symptoms had still left their mark. His whole body felt like it had been left on simmer overnight. Too warm, too raw, too aware. Every nerve felt one layer closer to the surface than it should’ve been.
Half an hour. That’s all it took—less than thirty minutes of chemical delay, and his body had still jumped at the chance to misfire.
He pushed himself upright, one slow motion at a time. His sleep clothes lay in a crumpled pile by the foot of the bed—soft cotton, breathable, now uncomfortably clingy. He pulled them back on anyway, too exhausted to care, and crossed the room to retrieve his comfort blanket.
Carefully, reverently, he folded it back into thirds and sealed it in its scent-retaining pouch before sliding it onto the upper shelf of his closet. Then, without wasting another second, he stepped into his slippers and slipped out of his room.
The hall was mercifully quiet.
Good. That meant he still had time.
Nanami made his way to the showers with quick, efficient strides, eyes scanning the corridor as if someone might materialize mid-step. The sooner he cleaned up, the sooner his body would feel like it belonged to him again. But as he reached the threshold of the communal showers, he felt a sudden jostle.
A tall figure brushing past.
“Oh, Nanami!” Gojo blinked, already halfway through the doorway. His hair was still damp from a recent rinse, pushed back and slightly tousled, like he’d barely towel-dried it. “Sorry about that, didn’t see you.”
Nanami blinked at him, startled for only a second. “Gojo-san, you’re here early. Is something wrong? You’re not usually awake at this hour.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Got a mission.” Gojo stretched, long limbs loose and languid like a cat that had just woken from a nap. “I’ll be gone for the next couple days. Try not to pine in my absence.”
“I won’t,” Nanami said flatly.
Gojo grinned and walked off with a careless wave, whistling faintly as he turned the corner. Nanami watched him go for a beat longer than necessary, then slipped inside. The door clicked shut behind him.
He padded over to the towel rack and set his things down with methodical care, already reaching for the hem of his shirt—but paused. Something in the air felt off. He inhaled, cautious.
Gojo’s scent still lingered—fresh, unfiltered, recent. Sweet and woodsy, oddly nostalgic for something that didn’t exist. Like vanilla bark and caramelized pine. Normally, Nanami tuned these things out with ease. A lifetime of training had taught him to ignore scent trails, to control his reactions, to strip instinct out of every breath. But today… his body hadn’t fully stabilized yet.
And Gojo hadn’t just showered. He’d felt something, and left the proof behind.
Nanami’s nose twitched.
Annoyance.
Frustration.
Arousal.
The last one hit like a slap of steam. He frowned, jaw tightening. Exactly what kind of morning had that idiot been having? And why was Nanami now stuck standing in the haze of it like some unwilling participant in a scent crime?
His fingers curled at his sides.
He couldn’t wait for it to fade—not unless he wanted to risk Geto or Haibara walking in and ruining his window of opportunity. Worse, if he waited too long, he’d have to choose between skipping breakfast or skipping hygiene.
Neither option was acceptable.
Nanami drew in a careful, shallow breath through his mouth and reached again for the hem of his shirt, yanking it off in a single practiced motion. “Power through,” he muttered.
And he would. He always did.