Archive of Our Own

Leaning against the fence, Gojo’s looking at the kids train—though it’s more like the second-years beating up the first-years.

Snow softly falls from the sky, casting the world in a blanket of white. Little flakes are clinging to his blindfold, hair and attire. He could turn on Infinity, not deal with the cold, wet spots they leave behind, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to feel this—the nostalgic feeling.

It bubbles up somewhere behind his ribcage, that feeling of loneliness. It’s always worse in winter. The snow a cruel, harsh reminder of what happened twice, two decades apart.

The first one being when he was merely six years old, snowflakes never touching his fluffy snow-white hair. He’d been playing outside with you just the day before—you, his best friend, that first love that he didn’t know was love back then, mistaking it for the feeling of the two of you just being close to one another.

He didn’t have anyone else back then, completely hidden from the world because he was the Gojo heir who inherited the Six Eyes. Banished to a life behind locked doors, away from people who might’ve wanted to hurt him.

That is until he found you one day, at merely three years old. You were playing with dolls—ripping off their little limbs and beheading them, giggling at the sight of what you’d done.

When you noticed him, you extended one of your still intact dolls. Didn’t look at him like he was something forbidden to touch. Didn’t scurry away like most of the others in this place—both adults as children alike—just extended a doll because that seemed normal to do.

He didn’t know where your parents were, nor cared to know. He was but three years old himself, but banished to such a lonely life only months after he was born, this seemed normal for him.

So he sat with you and started to play with you. You kept ripping up your dolls, doodling on them with crayons you got from god knows where (there were obvious chunks missing out of the crayons, and he had no doubt you actually ate them), and generally being messy.

Gojo, however, took a completely different route. He brushed the hair of the little dolls with the provided brush. It kept tangling and tugging at the synthetic fibers that was the dolls hair. But he wanted her to look pretty again, so he kept huffing and puffing trying to smooth out the hair. His little tongue sticking out in concentration.

The contrast between the two of you was stark. You were all chaos while he was the calm itself. The dolls a perfect representation.

The playing together was moreso done separately but in close proximity — parallel play is what he found out when he was older, was a term that described it the most. It’s also something he sought after when he was a teenager. The feeling of being alone was absolutely suffocating for him, so he always wanted to be with someone, even if they were doing something else.

After he’d finally untangled the dolls’ hair, he felt something soft and gritty on his arm. Looking down you were drawing on him. Laying on your stomach, little feet swinging in the air, tongue poking out of your mouth—much like his had been doing just moments before.

He’d blinked down at you, his tiny brain not fully computing that you were touching him—well, technically the crayon was, but whatever.

You were in your own world, drawing… what even was that? You had a brown crayon in your hand—his caregiver had praised him to the sky when he was able to correctly identify his colors—and were drawing a circle with little lines around it.

“What’s that?” he’d asked, blue eyes wide. Genuine.

Blinking up at him, you smiled for the first time. Tiny teeth on full display. “‘s the sun, silly!” you’d giggled at him, as if it was funny that he didn’t know.

Gojo’s white brows furrowed together. Confusion written all over his face. “The sun is yellow.” You’d merely shrugged at that, as if it didn’t matter.

“Now it’s green,” you simply said, continuing doodling on his arm as if he was a blank canvas for you to put your art onto.

“It’s not green, it’s brown,” he pointed out, little finger pointing at the—very obvious—brown crayon in your fist. Yes your entire fist is around the crayon.

You’re scowling at him now, like you’re offended by the fact that you were wrong about the color — not about the fact that items are supposed to have set colors — and that he did know it.

“Nuhuh,” you shook your head at him. “Yuhuh,” he countered.

There was a silent stare-off. Then you sneezed. One of those open-mouthed not bringing your hand up to your face to shield it type of sneezes. Wiping your nose with your sleeve you looked at him once more before continuing to doodle on his arm. This time a brown flower.

Well, okay then. Gojo picked up one of the other crayons— a blue one that kind of looked like his eyes, though his eyes had multiple shades of blue swirling in them. Not that his little mind was able to grasp that just yet. He just knew that his eyes were blue and so was this crayon.

He started doodling on your arm, a little dog. (It did not look like a dog.) The room silent except for the heavy breathing of the two of you and the occasional sound of the crayon on skin.

That was, until his caregiver found him—and you—sitting there like that. The gasp that she let out startled the both of you, little crayons making a line on skin that ruined the doodles the two of you were making on each other.

Looking over with wide eyes, both you and Satoru are met with the woman that’s taking care of him—not that you know that—while he’s here at the estate. Her expression turns from shock to confusion to barely contained anger real quick.

Her eyes scanning the room—the ruined dolls, limbs strewn everywhere, the intact dolls, and lastly how both you and Gojo were covered in crayon marks.

She stomps over then, Gojo thinking she was there to drag him back. He did kind of sneak away after all. But instead of going to him, she goes straight to you.

Grabbing you by the arm, she hauls you up to your feet. “You cannot touch the Six Eyes, young lady,” she scolds you. Your eyes welling up with big, fat tears. It’s quite clear you had no idea who Gojo was.

As the lady tries to haul you out of the room—muttering something under her breath about unsupervised children—Gojo tried to stop her. Planting his tiny body in front of the door he crossed his arms. It took the caregiver by surprise.

“What is it, Gojo-sama?” she questions, hand still tightly gripping your arm so you don't run off. Gojo huffs at the sight. He had only known you for approximately fifteen minutes—though it felt like an eternity at that point—but he’d already told himself you were his friend.

“She’ll stay here,” he stubbornly says, his foot stomping onto the tatami floor once for emphasis. You’d looked up at him then, fat tears still streaming down your face, nose running. But your eyes were so hopeful then.

And that’s how the three years of friendship begun, just you offering up your dolls for a stranger.

The two of you were always seen together whenever Gojo didn’t have training. Out in the garden either looking at flowers or stomping into small puddles resulting in the two of you getting scolded for getting yourselves dirty.

He’d learned you weren’t someone from the Gojo clan, but rather from a different, smaller clan. The day the two of you met you were at one of the Gojo estates because your parents were negotiating, but to this day he still hasn’t found out what.

The first winter spent together felt like a fairytale. It was snowing outside, making the entire garden white. You’d giggled at him and told him it was as white as his hair! (Yes, you finally knew your colors. He’d beamed at you when you finally started differentiating them.)

And it did. Pulling you outside the two of you ran around in the garden, the snow crunching under tiny feet, leaving behind small footprints.

At one point you’d collapsed onto your bum, pants getting wet from the melting snow under it. Not that you cared. Breathing hard since you were laughing the entire time.

Gojo sat down next to you, knees pulled up to his chest, staring ahead of him. But when he turned back to you, you were laying on the ground, moving your arms and legs.

“What’re you doin?” he asked, because why would you flail around in the snow? Looking over at him you smiled, “making a snow angel. Mama told me how to.”

Gojo followed soon after—he always did. Wherever you went, he went. Whatever you did, he did. Not always in the same way you did, take the dolls for example, but it was always just being together.

That year he had a lot of firsts. Making his first friend, which became his best friend. Playing—with dolls, toy-cars, just drawing. And making his first snow angel.

Two winters later it was snowing once again. It was his sixth birthday, and at the time he claimed he was aaalll grown up now! (He wasn’t, but he liked to tease you because ‘grown ups are tall, dummy. And since I’m taller than you, that makes me a grown up.’)

The day was filled with sweets, cake, and, of course, making snow angels together. There wasn’t really a birthday party for him—only you, your parents and his caregiver were there—but that didn’t matter to him as long as you were by his side.

You’d given him a Digivice. Maybe not completely suited for a six-year-old but you were only six yourself. Smiling at him, one of your front teeth missing. And you’d never looked more beautiful, but that of course was only because you were his bestest friend—and only, but alas.

Digimon was something you’d introduced him to on one of the play-dates. It was a rare occasion, because he was over at your house. Normally the two of you were at the Gojo estate.

Going up to your room you just had to show him something so cool! It was an manga about little creatures. And oh boy, did Gojo immediately fall in love with Digimon. It’s not like he got to do these types of things back at the estate, for the estate was cold. Everything was focused on him training and keeping away from others.

So you’d gotten him a Digivice. ‘A pet!’ you’d told him when he looked at it quizzically. then you dug around in your own pocket and pulled out a similar looking one. ‘So we can match’ you grinned at him. He grinned right back, two of his own teeth missing.

And you explained to him that he had to keep the pet alive and all the other quirks your mom told you about the little virtual pet.

He’d been so happy. Going to sleep with a smile on his face and the little device tucked right against his chest. That smile, however, vanished the next day.

The two of you had a play-date scheduled, which, honestly, was a daily occurrence at this point. But you never showed up. No call. No letter. No nothing.

When his caregiver rang your mothers phone, it immediately went to voicemail. Though he had frowned and felt sad, he didn’t think anything of it, simply waving it off as a one-time occurrence.

But one day turned into two turned into three turned into weeks, until, eventually, it was months since the last time he saw you. Winter had turned into spring which gradually turned into summer, but he hadn’t seen you even once.

You’d simply… vanished from his life. From the earth, it seemed. He’d thrown a tantrum one evening, missing you greatly. And his caregiver had asked around to see if anyone knew something, but it’s like you simply packed up your life and left.

Your house sat abandoned, neighbors having heard nothing about where you moved to nor were given any other ways of contact.

The only thing Gojo still had from you were a few drawings of the two of you together and his Digivice. He never once let the little pet die. Nurturing it to keep it alive.

Blinking away the snow that have fallen on his lashes, he sees Yuji laughing about something while Nobara is scolding him. A small smile forms on Gojo’s face. At least his kids are happy, that’s all he could ask for.

Feeling around in his pocket, he finds the familiar plastic device. He’d never gotten rid of it; keeping a part of you close to him despite disappearing. It never fails to put a smile on his face.

Winter used to be his favorite season, but he hates it now. Having lost both his best friends in winter. The first one being you, of course. Just disappearing. The second. Well… he swallows once, his eyes flitting to the side of the school.

It’s been only a year. Just one. Where he had to kill his only other friend—best friend.

The thought weighs heavily on his mind. The way Geto’s body just sagged to the side after he… Gojo shakes his head once, he can’t afford to think about it again.

So yeah. Now winter is his least favorite season. He also doesn’t really like summer, because that’s when Riko lost her life to Toji. Just one bullet. One kid. Fated to him.

He should’ve seen it then—the change in Geto. The way he started talking about non-sorcerers after that. But he didn’t, not until it was too late.

Swallowing once, he looks back at the kids. A full-blown snowball fight is going on now. Nobara is targeting Yuji, who runs away with incredible speeds. Toge is cheating by telling Panda to stop. Maki pelts a snowball at Panda at light speed.

Gojo winces when he sees the way Panda’s body gets flung across the courtyard. And Megumi… well Megumi is sitting in the snow, both of his dogs summoned. The black one laying next to him, head on its paws, while the white one is rolling through the snow.

A small, almost indiscernible smile forms on Megumi’s face, though he would deny it if someone brought it up, of course.

Gojo smiles down at the sight. This is how it’s supposed to be, the kids having fun, letting them be kids. Something he didn’t really get after you were gone from his life.

Nobara throws a snowball at Yuji, who dodges. She’s yelling at him to just stand still, not that Yuji would. He’s having too much fun running in laps around her. The white Divine Dog runs after the snowball. An innocent little wolf thing.

It prances toward the treeline. The forest that spans most of the Jujutsu High school. There should be nothing there, the veil from Tengen supposed to reject curses. But right there, a little further into the forest, he sees it—cursed energy.

That doesn’t make sense, though. No one is there. He doesn’t see someone standing. But still, there’s cursed energy right there, in the ground. Blinking, he rubs his eyes once. Maybe the snow is fucking with his sight. Six Eyes malfunctioning or something.

But once he focuses his eyes, it’s still there. It almost looks like someone is in the shadows, looking at him. And as if they can sense his gaze, it darts away, further into the forest.

Pushing himself off the railing he was leaned against, he teleports himself into the forest. There are trees everywhere, ground not fully covered with snow. The branches on the trees blanketed with snow, making shadows everywhere.

Looking around, he sees it, about 200 meters away, someone is running away from him. Hood up, clothes fully black. He quickly closes in on the person, they aren’t that fast after all. (Or maybe it has to do with the fact that he is fast. Eh, whatever.)

Grabbing the person by the shoulder, he tugs them to a stop. They try to wriggle out of his grasp without succession.

“Y’know, unless there’s new faculty I’m not aware of, you are not supposed to be here,” he says, voice still playful, but underneath he’s already calculating the risks. Someone who snuck onto the Jujutsu High grounds without anyone knowing. Hell, if he didn’t have Six Eyes he probably wouldn’t have known there was someone there.

The person doesn’t speak, just tries to get away from his grasp. Tightening his hold on their arm he tugs them back. The stranger stumbles back with a squeak of surprise, arms flailing slightly. It’s then that the hood falls from their face slightly.

Gojo sucks in a breath, because there’s no way. This is just his mind playing tricks on him. It just isn’t possible. A name falls from his lips before his brain even processes it—yours.

It makes the person still, no longer tugging to get away, just standing there, still not looking at him.

Releasing your arm, Gojo takes a step back. He shakes his head. There’s no way. It just simply isn’t possible. He’d searched for you everywhere. Looked into registries, looked if your name or face was somewhere, anywhere.

But you were never admitted to Jujutsu High—neither Tokyo nor Kyoto. Though if you were in Tokyo he would’ve known, obviously. There was no trace of you in the sorcerer world. He’d one day strolled into the headquarters. No one stopped him physically, but there were shouts of confusion. Not that he cared.

Going through the database he sought for you, but it seemed like you never became a sorcerer. All of his searches leading to a dead end. And that’s exactly what he thought you were—dead. Though his heart never wanted to believe it, his mind constantly whispered at him that that was the only logical explanation.

So how are you here, twenty-two years later, standing in front of him?

Does that also mean you never searched for him? Everyone knew who he was, after all. His name a beacon in the sorcerer world. And even if you weren’t in it, you still knew his name. So why is it that you’re only here now, and not earlier—preferably years earlier.

There are so many thoughts running through his mind, but they get cut off when you whisper. “You weren’t supposed to see me.”

That gets a laugh out of him. Surprised. Bitter. Heartbroken. Angry. All these feelings tangling up inside of him to a point he doesn’t know how to differentiate them from one another.

“Weren’t supposed to see you, so what, you just—” he gestures with his hand wildly, “sneak up on people. Watch them from a distance and then leave again?”

You turn your face even further from him, to the point where he’s looking at the back of your head, half of your hair visible, the rest still covered by the hood that’s half up.

“Kinda,” you shrug at him, as if that isn’t weird. Creepy even. Because why would you just watch. God he missed you. Yearned for the moment you would just step back into his life. He would let you in without a second thought.

He remembers the way he would grip his Digivice in his hands at different stages in his life. Always wishing you could be there with him, like you were when the two of you were kids. He missed you in every stage of his life.

When he was a kid, lonely in the Gojo estate. He avoided the rooms the two of you frequently were in, the thought of you not being there with him hurt him too much. Despite that, he still peeked inside, just to see if you really weren’t there. Always clinging to a tiny bit of hope that he’d dreamed you leaving him. But the room always stayed empty.

When he was a teenager, he’d learned to accept that you simply were gone. That didn’t mean he didn’t look at empty places whenever he was with his friends—Geto, Shoko, Nanami and Haibara—just to imagine you were there with him. Laughing at the dumb jokes he made with Geto. Probably annoying the shit out of Nanami.

Because you were chaos. Beautifully destructive in the way only you seemed to be. And he knew that would push Nanami’s buttons.

You’d probably love Haibara in the way one does a little brother or sister. Naturally drawn to the innocent smiles of the guy, only to trip him up when he wasn’t looking. The way you sometimes did when Gojo did something you disliked.

But you were never there with them. In his mind you would always be six years old. A tiny thing compared to how tall he grew up to be. He really did look like an adult with the way he was towering over everyone.

And he’d tease you for your height, because surely you wouldn’t be taller than he was. You’d scowl at him, poke him in the chest. Probably eat all of his sweets just to spite him. He would let you, of course. He always shared his sweets with you when he was younger, even if they were the last ones.

He’d think about how you wouldn’t look at him like he was a god or a weapon, but simply just Gojo Satoru, the boy he was when he was with you. How you wouldn’t abandon him to shoulder all of the responsibilities of the Jujutsu world.

But that’s exactly what you did, didn’t you? You had abandoned him without even a second thought. Didn’t tell him anything, just simply vanished to the point he thought you were dead.

And now here you are, telling him you prefer to look at people from distances in a way that they didn’t even know they were being watched.

“You didn’t notice before—” you start, but he cuts you off.

“Look at me when you talk to me,” he demands. Voice low. No longer playful. And he’s refraining himself from shouting at you. You didn’t notice before. So you have done it before.

He can see you take in a deep breath before turning around. And this time, Gojo can see your entire face. Can see the way you’ve grown from how you looked when you were younger. How the years have shaped you. Sculpted you into who you are right now.

It knocks the breath right out of him. All your baby fat is gone—obviously it is. Still, you look like you. The little kid he remembers.

“You just… didn’t notice before,” you swallow your words at the end. His blue eyes piercing yours, the same ones as when you were younger. It almost seems like he’s trying to stare through your soul.

There are so many questions running rampant in his head. How many times have you spied on him. Why were you just looking at him? Trying to sell information? When did it start? Does this mean you didn’t miss him? Why not just walk up to him?

And he thinks back to all the times he had the feeling that he was being watched. But by the time he turned around, nothing was there. Just now it looked like you were underneath the ground. In the shadows.

…In the shadows. Surely not.

He can feel all the cursed energy signatures from the kids on the field. Can feel the way they’re shaped, when they get used. And more importantly, he can feel one particular Cursed Energy signature. Megumi’s.

The one that uses shadows. The one that produces shikigami from shadows, that can store things in shadows, that can hide in shadows.

But that can’t be. Ten Shadows is a hereditary technique from the Zen’in clan. Neither your mom nor dad are from the clan, so surely it can’t be that.

Still, looking at you, he can see the way your CE flows. Can deduct the way your CT works. And his Eyes don’t lie to him, never have.

His jaw sets before he grabs you by the arm once more. Sees the way your brows furrow. You open your mouth—probably to ask what he’s doing—when Gojo teleports the two of you away.

The room he teleports to is familiar to him, unfortunately. Dimly lit by multiple candles and thousands of talismans spanning the walls of the room. He pushes you onto the chair without a second thought.

“Wait, Satoru what—”

“You have no right to call me that,” he speaks in a low voice. He hates how his heart rate picks up. How it makes his heart skip a beat.

You always called him that when the two of you were younger. Not Gojo. Not Gojo-sama. Just… Satoru. And it had made him happy back then, because you were the only one who called him by his name. Though it was always more of a ‘S’toru’, he didn’t mind.

Oh, and lets not forget when you started calling him ‘Toru just before his sixth birthday. It made his chest constrict in a way it hadn’t before. Made his cheeks warm up—though they did that often when you were around—which made him turn away from you.

Tying the ropes around your arms, he steps back slightly. The snowflakes are now fully melted, dampening the fabrics of his jacket and pants. Walking to the other chair in the room, he hears you struggling against the bindings.

“Seriously, what is this,” you ask now, a bit more agitated. Gojo just hums, pulling the black blindfold out of his pocket and putting it on. A deliberate act on his part.

When the two of you were kids you loved his eyes. Not in the way most people loved it.

You didn’t look at them like they represented power. No you rather just looked at them with the innocence of a kid who likes a color. ‘It’s like watercolor spilled into your eyes!’ you’d giggled at him then, watching the different shades of blue swirl around in his irises.

Always fascinated with his eyes, you, beautifully chaotic you, just grabbed his face and tilted his head in this and that way just so you could examine the colors. Like he was a mere toy you were playing with.

You loved his eyes the way you loved all of him, from the way his hair was white—though most people’s hair was white within the Gojo clan. Not that you cared, you only had eyes for him—to the way his eyes were impossible shades of blue and the way he smiled, even when he started losing some of his baby teeth.

Sitting down onto the chair, Gojo leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. He watched you squirm around a bit.

“Sa— Gojo why did you bring me here?” you ask once again.

He sighs then. “Why are you here?" he asks. And he wants to ask more, of course he does, but that’s not something that’s going to happen right now.

“I- what?” you falter, sitting completely still now.

“Why are you here?” he repeats. And you blink up at him, the same way you did when you were younger. It makes his heart hurt so incredibly much.

“Just wanted to see you,” you mumble, eyes casting off to the side.

The words echo around in his mind. Just wanted to see you; Just wanted to see me??? You had twenty-two years to do so. Gojo scoffs, “sure you did. Just tell the truth. Who sent you?”

Your head whips back to where he’s sitting. “Sent me? No one sent me, Gojo. Why would anyone send me here?”

“Well, why don’t you tell me. You just told me you spy on people from a distance,” he replies, voice growing agitated.

You bite your cheek, swallow once before looking up at him again. “Not a great way to start the conversation, huh?” you whisper.

It isn’t. Definitely isn’t. That is something people who get sent out on missions say. Stalk the person, prey on them, learn their patterns before striking.

Rubbing a hand over his face he stifles a groan. He should let someone else examine you. Knows he’s too close to you to properly do ‘his job’. But what would he even say?

‘Hey my childhood bestfriend was watching me from the shadows. What— ah yeah, guess I never told you guys about her. Anyway I haven’t spoken to her in two decades so it’s shady as fuck that she infiltrated the school.’

Yeah, no, not happening.

So instead he continues, despite the way his heart wants to crawl out of his ribcage. Present itself to you in the way it has yearned to these past few years. Spilling onto the concrete floor along with the feelings he’s held for you for so long.

“Then why are you here now,” he asks once again, in hopes you’d give him a different answer. One that satiates the voice in his mind, whispering that this is all a setup. To lure him in.

“I already told you, I wanted to see you,” you struggle a bit against the ropes binding you to the chair once again. There’s faint desperation creeping into your voice. The same way it did when you were younger. When Gojo accidentally broke something—it happens, the two of you were kids after all—but somehow you always got blamed. No matter how much you tried to convince that it was Satoru who broke it.

“Sure. Okay lets go with that,” he starts, voice full of doubt and mistrust, “why now? Why more than two decades later?”

He sees the way you swallow. Sees the way you can’t quite look him in the eye—well, blindfold. Same thing, really.

“I heard what happened last year,” you whisper. And his heart that was previously beating so fast fucking stops in its tracks. Last year.

Vivid images burn through his retinas before he can stop them. The thousands of curses. The curse users. The people who got wounded. His ‘kids’ almost all dying. The face Geto made before… yeah.

His jaw sets. Grinding his molars together to keep from snapping. To bark out what about last year made you finally want to show up after twenty years. Twenty years of loss, grief, heartbreak and all other sorts of feelings he’s had.

“Just wanted to see if you were doing okay.” you finish. And that, more than anything, pisses him off. If he was doing okay? No, he wasn’t doing ‘okay’, he was far from okay as could be. Both his best friends disappeared out of his life. He’s been lonely for most of it, even if there were people around him.

People could just never understand what he went through. What gets expected of him for simply being born with a trait that gets praised as if he’s a god. They often forget that he’s a human being, with human feelings—that get neglected to hell and back.

He’s no god. He, too, needs sleep like normal people. But alas, the higher-ups send him to missions one after another like he doesn’t need rest. Like he isn’t some guy that sometimes yearns to be understood.

But he does what they ask of him anyway. Goes to every single mission. Loses out on sleep. Loses out on the fact that he doesn’t really have an identity of his own anymore. It’s just molded to fit into the expectations that were placed upon him.

That, however, doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to have something of his own. In a way he adapted your chaotic little self into himself, just a little. It made it easier, not letting people see the side of him that made him feel vulnerable. Stripped down to his bare self, where he looks out over the Tokyo skyline and wishes that he wasn’t Gojo Satoru, even for just a few minutes.

So no, he isn’t doing okay. He hasn’t been. Not since you left. And yes, sure, he thought he was okay when he met Geto. But that, just like everything else in his life, didn’t last long.

Now he just drowns himself in sweets whenever possible. What was once a love for him, back when the two of you were just kids, is now a coping mechanism.

He’d read once, somewhere on a forum, that eating sweets constantly could be due to psychological factors rather than him just having a sweet-tooth. He’d skimmed it briefly, but he remembers enough that counts; The brain craving sweetness because it’s stressed. The fact that foods, especially sugary ones, temporarily raise serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain can make you addicted… or something like that anyway.

“I haven’t been okay,” it comes out harsher than he meant to, a crack starting to form in his composure. You flinch at the tone slightly, eyes downcast.

“Right, yeah no, of course not,” you mumble, still not meeting his eye. He can see the way your fingers are fiddling with each other behind your back, the same, tiny movement you always did when you were younger.

The silence hangs awkwardly in the air. He doesn’t quite know how to continue, and neither do you by the way you sometimes open and close your mouth.

“You know I didn’t want to leave, right?” you whisper, and it sounds true. He wants it to be true, so fucking badly. But how can he believe you when you never reached out even once. You knew he was alive, he is The Strongest after all. His death would be a grand thing within the Jujutsu world. But then again, were you even in that world?

“Then why did you?” he asks, keeping his voice steady to not show any inner turmoil. You look up again, the candles casting soft amber lighting on your face. And you look so earnestly.

“I- where do I even begin?” your hands are still fiddling behind you. And it must be torture, because he know, he knows how expressive you are with them.

Whenever you told stories, you didn’t just tell them with your voice, you used your hands. Like, a lot. Sometimes they added things to the story, visual cues almost, while other times they were just flailing around because you were so happy.

Satoru had to always dodge your hands—having been smacked with them on multiple occasions before he learned that lesson.

“At the start,” he replies. And you laugh at that. A self-deprecating little thing. Swallowing you open your mouth once more.

“The day after your birthday I got woken up by dad,” you begin, and the images immediately flood your mind. You’d clutched your little matching Digivice to your chest when you went to bed. A small smile gracing your face, because ‘Toru was so happy with his gift.'

The dream you had was you and Satoru running around inside the Digimon universe. Little creatures left and right. It was like you were transported into the manga. And god, the smile on Satoru’s face was priceless. His gap showing from where his first baby-tooth had fallen out.

The dream was full of colors and little creatures. Which is why you woke up with a gasp when your father had shaken you awake, voice panicked. He told you that you guys ‘had to go’. There was no further explanation, just him and your mom running around the house, collecting essential items.

You’d gotten out of bed, rubbing your eye with one palm while the other still clutched the Digivice. Your pajama pants had ridden up, one pant leg above your knee while the other was shoved somewhere half over your shin.

“He was in a rush, like pulling me out of bed and telling me to get in the car.”

“What’s going on?” you asked your parents, but neither really had an answer. All you were met with was ‘we just gotta go somewhere else for a little while, sweetie’ and you didn’t understand. Didn’t understand why your dad picked you up and almost sprinted to the car. Didn’t understand why only the essentials were being grabbed.

All you knew was that you had a play-date with Satoru later that day. “Okay. But we’ll be back in time for Satoru, right?”

Your parents had shared a glance between each other. One that you now know said how are we going to explain to her that she won’t get to see her best friend anymore?

“After that we drove off to an airport. Got onto a plane to some foreign country in Europe and completely left behind the life we had built here.”

You’d fallen asleep in the car, the gentle rocking of the car lulling you to sleep quite quick. When you woke up, you were in your dads arms. But more importantly, you weren’t in the car anymore. No you were somewhere crowded.

Suitcases everywhere, overhead speakers crackling to life. Some people panicking while others were sitting and staring ahead of them. There were tiny shops everywhere.

“I didn’t understand at the time,” you smile bitterly thinking back on how child you sat on a plane, looking out the window in awe. You’d whispered to your parents how you wished one day Satoru was able to see the world from above the clouds as well. “That I wouldn’t see you for the next twenty-two years.”

The silence hangs in the air after that. Heavy. Awkward. And you wish you could just sink back into the darkness. Maybe you shouldn’t have come back. It was selfish on your part. While it wasn’t your decision to move away, it was to enter his life again— though obviously this wasn’t your intention.

Gojo looks at you. Really looks. Looks at the way you’re picking at your cuticles behind your back. Arms still tied. At your eyes. At the way you didn’t look away even once. And he doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t know if he should trust you or not.

“So why did you guys leave?” he asks, because that’s something you haven’t told him. Though he could probably guess.

You pull your knees up to your chest. The position is awkward. Knees pulled up to your chest, arms bound behind you. But you don’t care. Biting on your lip you finally look away from his face.

“They found out I was a Zen’in, I guess,” you shrug, as if it’s something normal to say. As if it doesn’t go against everything he believed in since he was three years old.

He remembers your house. It was a normal house. Not one from the Zen’in clan. Your mother and father never saying anything about being a Zen’in, either. He remembers them, too. Your mother with gentle eyes and careful hands while your father was more strict, but never around enough to really know him.

Gojo’s eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “A Zen’in, huh?”

You nod your head. “Yeah, uh… Dad apparently isn’t my biological dad. It was one of the Zen’in clan members. Mom never told me the whole story, but I do know dad killed the guy. So… yeah, I dunno, guess they found us or something.”

That, honestly, doesn’t tell him a lot. But at the same time it explains almost everything. “So that’s why you inherited the technique.”

Your head snaps back toward his, eyes wide with panic. “What?” you whisper, voice trembling slightly. It makes him snort. How do you not realise he knew. “Whole hiding in the shadows was a thing, but in case you forgot, I’m the Six Eyes bearer.”

It’s not a gloat. He’s merely stating a fact. Making you realise what you’re actually dealing with. And before you can even open your mouth, he’s already behind you. Fiddling with the ropes infused with hundreds of talisman.

Maybe he’ll regret this decision, because he still isn’t sure if he can completely trust you, but guess that’s something he’ll find out soon enough.

Letting the ropes fall, he steps back. You immediately begin rolling your wrists, bring them up to your face with a slight scowl. They’re red from where the ropes were cutting into your skin. Huffing you begin rubbing them, soothing motions to get rid of the irritation.

“Well then. c’mon, show me,” Gojo taps his foot against the foot of your chair. A bit of impatience shining through. Because, yeah, he is curious as to what you can do. Swiveling in your chair you look up at him. “Show you what?”

“One of the Shikigami, duh, you have the dogs right? Every user has the dogs,” he says while bringing his hands behind his head. He walks back over to where his chair stands—right across from yours.

You grumble something under your breath, before lifting your hands in that all-too-familiar motion Megumi always makes. Two dogs form from the shadows. One black, the other white. Almost identical to Megumi’s.

The black one sits down, tongue lolling out of its maw. It doesn’t move, just sits there. Golden eyes trained on him, probably to assess if he’s a threat or not. (He isn’t… not really.)

The white one, however, is the one that shocks Gojo a bit more. It immediately runs a lap around your chair. Chaos all around. You snap your fingers once and point toward a spot next to your chair. The dog immediately trots over and just lets itself fall onto the ground.

Then it shifts it’s eyes toward Gojo, and he has to blink. Once. Twice. Because he’s staring right into blue eyes. That isn’t something he’s seen before. Not that he has much experience with Ten Shadows shikigami from the past— he only has Megumi as an example.

Megumi’s divine dogs both had yellow eyes. Your black one does, too. But the white one is… different. The blue eyes almost seem… seem like they have watercolor spilled into them . Like he’s staring at himself in dog form.

“You noticed, huh?” you mumble, hand coming down to card through its fur. The wolf lets out a happy little noise before it rolls onto its side, paws in the air, presenting its tummy toward you. It pulls out a small laugh from you.

And the sound almost makes him want to wrap his arms around you and laugh with you. Or cry. He’s not sure which of the two. He does know you seem less… chaotic like this. Toned down. You were loud as a kid— chaotic, not afraid to express yourself.

“They came to me two weeks after we moved,” your hands are still rubbing the wolfs belly. Its tail making soft swishing sounds on the ground, completely content with how you’re petting it. “The black one just… sat there, as if it was keeping watch. But this little one over here—” you nod toward the white wolf “—trotted up to me and licked my face.”

That gets a small huff out of Gojo, because he can already see it. You sitting on your bed, wide-eyed because you got two wolves in your house, and one just licked your face.

You always had a thing for animals when you were younger. Chasing after butterflies, petting dogs, feeding stray kittens. You once pulled him toward one of the Koi ponds in the Gojo estate, completely happy that they even had one. You sat there for hours on end, just playing with the Koi.

The wolf suddenly stills. Sniffs the air, its black nose twitching and glistening under the amber lighting and then rolls back over, paws underneath it now.

It pushes itself up, stretching, shaking its fur—before walking over to where Gojo is sitting. He stays there, looking into the blue eyes that almost reflect his.

The wolf tilts its head at him, as if it recognizes him. It shouldn’t be able to, since Gojo has never met them before, but something in his chest pulls as the wolf stalks forward, head dipping lower, eyes narrowing in on him.

Gojo instinctively strengthens his infinity. It was already on, it always is, but he has to keep it up with you around. Years of separation apparently do nothing to his heart, whispering to his cursed technique that you’re not dangerous.

The wolf sniffs once more, before it walks back toward you, stands in front of you like some sort of guard dog. And technically it is. But it is clear that right now you’re not commanding the dogs, this is their own free will.

It lowers itself slightly before baring its fangs, glinting in the soft candlelight like a threat. Next comes the growl, a low thing. It comes deep from its chest. Why it decided that Gojo is something to growl at is something he himself questions.

He can see the way you stiffen on your chair, eyes widening in pure disbelief. As if the wolf has never done that before, or maybe it has. Whatever it is, it doesn’t prepare his heart for what comes next.

“Toru stop that,” you scold the wolf. The growl dying out as if you blew out all the candles in the room. The only sound left is breathing and the soft whisper of fire in the air.

Not that Satoru can focus on that. All his mind can focus on is what you just said. Toru stop that. Toru, toru, toru— it loops in his head like a broken record. And it makes his stomach churn, because there is no way you called your shikigami after him.

Not after everything. The twenty-two years of silence; ten years of thinking you were dead. And here you are, with the Ten Shadows technique, telling him your dad isn’t your bio dad, and letting it slip that your shikigami is named after him.

“You named him?” his voice feels thin, like his vocal cords were stretched taut, a moment before snapping. And that’s all he wants to do—snap at you. Tell you you can not do this to him.

He remembers all the times he sat in the dark, looking at his Digivice, and hoping you were thinking about him as well. The soft, blue glow illuminating his face in the dark, casting soft shadows across his face.

He remembers wishing to something—anything—to bring you back to him. To bring back his best friend, because you were his joy. His chaos. His.

You look up from where you’re scolding the dog, who is now looking at you with puppy eyes, whining slightly. The black dog presses its wet, shiny nose into your side. Maybe to stop you from scolding its sibling, maybe to calm you down.

“Not exactly,” you say sheepishly. There’s a faint flush on your cheekbones, as if you’re embarrassed about it. “I uhh, well.. I used to cry at night thinking about you, whispering to myself that I would one day come back to you, and well… I used your name. Like. A lot. I guess the dog heard because every time I whispered your name—just not to forget it—he responded. Well… not to ‘Satoru’ but he would listen to ‘Toru’.”

the entire story makes his chest ache. Makes him realise that you really did not want to leave him behind. And maybe, just maybe, you really are here for him. Not because someone sent you, but because you wanted to be. Because you missed him.

It makes his chest flutter, ascending toward the sky, and it almost feels like he has to grab it and pull it back. It feels like a high after having a low for so long.

“That’s… unusual,” he voices, as if you don’t know that already. As if they aren’t your dogs. Your technique. You nod at him, just once.

“I don’t understand one thing though,” the little thought keeps nagging at the back of his mind, like a little demon whispering in his ear. Do not trust her. She’s not the same. “Why only now if you missed me so much?”

Your eyes change, too many emotions running through them for him to decipher all of them. But there’s one that’s bright and clear. Sadness.

Huffing out a self-deprecating laugh, you look away from him and start carding your fingers through both wolves mane, they lay their heads onto your lap, tails stilling, ears flat against their head. You mumble something under your breath. Something so soft, he can’t hear it.

“What was that?” he leans forward, tugs his blindfold up just a little, as if that can make him hear better. You mumble it again, a bit louder this time. While he still doesn’t catch all of it, he can make up most of it.

“Didn’t think you’d want me around.”

And that, more than anything, breaks his heart. You thought he didn’t want you around? Didn’t mourn his best friend leaving him all alone in that giant, mindless estate to grow up under the scrutiny of every gaze he received.

Of course he would want you around, keep you close to him, so close that you couldn’t leave him again. Couldn’t let his mind fester on all the nasty thoughts that run rampant through his mind once he’s alone—in his office, his apartment, on mission.

No he would keep you close. Pull you in, wanting to let his soul fuse with yours, to make sure you couldn’t leave him again. He’d set up his guest bedroom for you to stay in, just so he knows you’re there. Would talk to you about everything that went down from the moment you left.

He wants to lay his head in your lap, staring up at you while you tell your wild dreams to him the same way you used to—gesturing wildly, eyes bright and shining, carding your fingers through his hair absentmindedly.

Would finally bake sweets with you, the way you two promised to when you were younger. Set up a bakery; Is that still something you want to do?

He remembers it like it was yesterday. The two of you had stolen some sweets from the kitchen, cheeks full, laughs bubbling up in your throats while Satoru grabbed your hand with sticky, powdered fingers and began running.

You laughed at him, telling him to shhhhhh, your other hand coming up to your face, finger pressing over your lips, like you yourself weren’t full on giggling. It was the heist after all. The sweet, sweet promise of mochi was something the two of you couldn’t resist.

He’d overheard it from one of the estate maids, that there was an important meeting between clan-heads later that day. Not that he remembered that part, no his five-year-old self wasn’t quite interested in grown-up business.

His ears perked up when he heard about all the things that would get prepared for it. Most importantly, mochi. It was a delicacy you and Satoru enjoyed all too much, to a point where multiple grown-ups were scolding the two of you for eating so much, too much, of them in one sitting.

The sugar-high the two of you were on after that could only be described as destructive chaos. The maids looking on in horror as you and Satoru almost destroyed the playroom. So yeah, the two of you had been banned from eating sweets.

But when he heard the words self-made mochi fall from the servants lips, he instantly formed a thought in his head. One he was sure you also would enjoy.

So when you came over later that day, he told you about all the things he heard. That the chef would be making mochi along with other things. And the way your eyes lit up made it known to him that his plan was something you’d enjoy as well.

The two of you snuck into the giant kitchen, giggling, tiptoeing and telling the other to be quiet despite not being quiet themselves. And there, right on the counter, was a plate of what felt like a forbidden fruit.

Satoru and you looked around the kitchen once more before both grabbing multiple of the sweets, before stuffing your faces, cheeks bulging with how many the two of you ate at once. You’d pointed and laughed at him, garbling something incoherent.

He giggled as well, liking the way you looked so cute. Like you were a little hamster stuffing your cheeks with food before it burrows itself for the winter. Not that he would say that to you.

And then the two of you heard it—footsteps. They were coming down the corridor, slow and heavy. Not one of the caretakers, but it could very well be one of the chefs, coming to look for the sweets. The giggling instantly stopped. Looking at each other with wide eyes, Satoru grabbed your hand before pulling you with him.

Later, back in the playroom, when the sweets were finally fully eaten you’d flopped onto your back, staring up at the ceiling. Satoru was drawing on your arm again—just like he did the first time the two of you met.

You’d hummed then, head lolling to the side where he was sitting. Your hair falling like a curtain over your eyes. “Hey S’toru?” you asked. He’d hummed, tongue peeking slightly from between his lips while concentrating on the drawing.

“What if we became chefs when we’re older?” That certainly grabbed his attention, crayon stilling on your arm, his eyes finding yours. He thought it over a few times, becoming chefs means you could make aaaanything in the world!

So he quickly nodded his head, the idea sounding sweet in his mind. And you’d smiled at him, nose scrunching up slightly.

“And— and we could be like, chefs that only make sweets!” you exclaim, eyes lighting up at the idea. Because that’s something the both of you absolutely love. Having a sweet-tooth yourself, you always indulged into his cravings.

“I will buy us a house with a big kitchen,” Satoru adds, because that means the two of you could always be together. Not having time limits for playdates anymore, but rather making up your own time. Being able to be together wheneeeverrr he wanted?

That sounded like a dream come true to him. He can already imagine it, a big house with a big kitchen where the two of you are making sweets together, laughing. You’d probably get distracted, the kitchen messy, like a whirlwind went through it.

Blinking the memory away he looks at you. You’re still not looking at him, the flush on your cheeks now going down to your neck. “Of course I would still want you around,” he says, incredulous.

That’s when you finally look at him. Brows furrowing slightly, because you’re not sure if he really means that or if he just says that to be nice. Even though you know he doesn't have any reason to be nice to you. You left him behind twenty-two years ago.

“Really?” it’s barely above a whisper, your heart clinging onto that last small part of hope. Because you want to believe him, really you do, but it’s so hard when you’ve convinced yourself that he didn’t want you in his life. Didn’t need you.

When you were fourteen you begged your parents to go back to Japan. Asked them why you couldn’t just go to Jujutsu High, surely they wouldn’t kill a teenager. But they always told you that they couldn’t do that. Didn’t want to bet on the uncertainties that brought with them.

Because what if the Zen’in clan went after your father for killing a Zen’in. They’re revengeful people your mother had whispered one evening.
What if they didn’t just go after your father, but after your entire family?
What if, god forbid, they would drag you back to the Zen’in clan because you’d inherited the clans’ technique.

So they never went back to Japan, rather staying far, far away from that country. And it made your heart hurt so incredibly much. Because you just wanted to see Satoru, even if he didn’t want to have anything to do with you. You’d take the fact that you could just be close to him as a win.

That’s all you wanted, after all. Get your best friend back. Here, the place that’s now supposed to be home, you have no friends. Never bothered to make any. No one could replace that one boy that had hair like snow and eyes like sea glass.

So you spent your days in isolation, woke up, went to school, got home, did homework, went to sleep. And the cycle repeated. You of course had your dogs to keep you company. Didn’t mind that they drained your cursed energy—it’s not like you used it otherwise anyway.

That’s one thing your parents made very clear to you; under no circumstances would you ever become a sorcerer. While in Japan the sorcerer population was the highest, that didn’t mean that there weren’t any here. There were, just not as many.

That, however, didn’t mean you didn’t tame some more shikigami, even if you never used them. Just having them reassured you to no end. Because god forbid you came across a curse one day that was too high of a grade for your demon dogs to take out and you didn’t have anything else.

Yeah, no. So you tamed other Shikigami. You have almost all of them now, obviously aside from Mahoraga. But you don’t mind that too much, you wouldn’t be able to tame him anyway.

Once you were eighteen you were a legal adult. Moved out of your home, got a job, and started college. The thought of returning to Japan, alone, drifted through your mind more often than you were willing to admit.

But by the time you even had money to visit Japan, you were already twenty-two. And the thoughts started to plague you. What if he didn’t want to see you— or worse, didn’t remember who you were.

All this time you’d been hoping to reunite with your best friend, but what if said best friend didn’t even remember you. What if he would just walk right past you. He’s a busy man after all. Word travels, and even the name of Satoru Gojo was whispered here.

The Strongest. The Six Eyes bearer.

And suddenly you were afraid. What if he did remember you, but resented you for leaving him all those years ago. Condemned to an isolated life away from society just to keep him safe. One you yourself curated because you couldn’t bear the thought of spending your life with someone other than him.

It’s silly, it really is. Holding one to such high regard when the two of you were mere kids. Only knowing each other for 3 years. But you still remember the promises the two of you made. Broken. All of them.

“I pinky promise to never leave you behind.”
“Pinky promise to become chefs.”
“Pinky promise that you’ll always be my best friend!”

So you stayed. Never returned to Japan, even if you wanted to so badly. He was Satoru Gojo after all. You’re sure he has a good life, lots of people around him who cherish him, who didn’t go back on their promises.

Until that one fated night, just after Christmas. Word had somehow traveled in the sorcerer world that more than a thousand curses had been released. Something about a cult leader. And, of course, Gojo’s name falling from everyone's lips like they were praising him.

That’s when you decided to go to Japan, even if it was only for a month. But you didn’t have the necessary funds, so it had to postponed.

“Why wouldn’t I want you around?” he asks, genuinely confused. It makes you swallow, once, twice, before forcing the answer out. “I just thought you didn’t need me anymore. We were only kids back then—”

“So? That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you almost every day for the past twenty-two years,” he cuts you off.

And it hits you with full force. The fact that he did want you around. That you could’ve came back six years ago. Could’ve searched for him.

“Oh…” you whisper. Because what else can you say? How can you tell the guy that just told you he thought of you almost every day since you left that you wanted to come back earlier. That you had the funds to do so, but thought better of it. Thought he didn’t want you around anymore, so you didn’t come back.

How do you tell someone that it was your own insecurities that held you back from seeing him again.

You don’t have time to think about that, because the white divine dog —Toru—whines and nuzzles more into your palm. His nose wet against the palm of your hand. The cold, wetness snaps you out of your thoughts and make you look down at the two dogs.

Toru was always chaos incarnate. He would steal snacks from counter tops, eat food like he didn’t eat curses for a living—well he was supposed to, anyway. But maybe that was just it. Since you didn’t fight curses, it had an appetite of its own. One that involved sugary snacks and sugar highs a few minutes later.

You’d gotten loads of noise complaints from your neighbors about the dogs being loud—which was quite unfair to the black dog, Kuroo, as you named her. Kuroo was calm, almost lazy. Her golden eyes full of scrutiny, narrowing in on her brother when he, once again, was running around the tiny apartment.

Toru had a habit of knocking things over with its tail when he was running around. You can’t count the countless of items he’d knocked over over the years of living with him. He always looked apologetic when he did so, though, so you couldn’t be too mad at him.

Especially not when he looked at you with those eyes. They weren’t just the classic puppy dog eyes every dog seemed to master. No it was the fact that they were so incredibly blue, it made you think of a certain someone back in Japan. Someone you never seemed to be able to get mad at, no matter what he did.

So each time you sighed, told Toru it was okay and petted his head. Toru, in turn, barked at you, tail wildly swishing on the ground. It always made Kuroo huff out a breath through her nose as if scrutinizing you for once again not scolding her brother.

So yes, Toru was loud and chaos incarnate—and maybe an incarnation of your best friend in shikigami form—while Kuroo was the calm herself. Just laying around, soaking up the sun in her black fur while watching Toru sneak food from you when you weren’t watching.

The noise complaints never stopped. But every time the landlord came over to look at the said dogs, there weren’t any. And you were damn lucky he wasn’t a window, because how else would you explain the dogs that couldn’t be seen by others.

The landlord had told the residents that put in complaints to stop because clearly there weren’t any dogs in your apartment. It caused quite a tiff with you and some of the building residents, because they swear they could sometimes hear dogs bark or run around in your apartment. And it’s true, they did do that, just not normal dogs.

They have been with you all your life, summoned wherever you could; mostly at home. Your mom, at first, said you shouldn’t do that. Back then she hadn’t explained why you even moved to a different country—hell, to a different continent. So you shook your head and told her that you wanted to keep the puppies.

Because they were puppies back then. Small…well, for the dogs that they are now, for your child self they were quite big—yipping in a high pitch that lowered over the years, and tiny paws. They were, quite honestly, adorable.

Your mother told you that you couldn’t afford to raise the puppies. They would need food, and drinks, and to be walked outside every day, multiple times a day, even when you wanted to sleep. Puppies were very high demanding things, after all.

All of that was true, to an extent. If they were real puppies, all those things would’ve applied to them, but they weren’t ‘real’. Shadow constructs were just that. Shadows. Even though they yipped, played and felt real, they weren’t.

Which meant that they didn’t need actual food. Didn’t need to go outside to do their business. Didn’t need to play—though Toru did love to play, running around your room, stealing socks, pants, toys; anything he could get his paws on.

And your six year old self felt pretty smug once you found that out. Almost gloating to her how you didn’t need to do all of that, since the puppies didn’t need it.

You felt less smug a day later, when the puppies disappeared. You had no idea how you called the dogs on in the first place—didn’t even know it was you who summoned the dogs in the first place—so you were confused as to where they had gone.

That’s when your father finally stepped in and told you about a few things of the sorcerer world. Not everything, but just enough so that you didn’t have any more questions. He told you about the dogs, why they were there, and why they were gone.

Six year old you looked up at him with big eyes while he carefully explained the shadow puppies to you and cursed energy. That was something you apparently needed to summon the shadow puppies, which ran out the longer you had them summoned.

It made you quite sad. The puppies did kind of distract you from the fact that your best friend was currently thousands of kilometers away, even if only for a day. But you were happy when you could summon the puppies again a few days later.

So they were always with you, just like how they’re with you now. Toru’s wet nose pressed against your palm and Kuroo simply having her head on your lap.

Satoru is still staring at you like he expects you to say something—anything, probably. You haven’t said anything after your little whispered ‘oh’. So maybe you should say something.

“I thought of you too,” you reply, and it sounds fucking cheesy. It makes you wanna clamp your mouth shut, try to go back in time and say something different. Because what is he gonna do with that information. Probably nothing.

You can’t see his eyes—still hidden by the blindfold—but you can almost feel how his eyes are narrowed. He lets out a sigh and stands up, long limbs stretching out before he jerks his head to the side. “Well, c’mon then.”

Without a word he starts walking to a door—was that always there? He doesn’t look back at you. Doesn’t try to confirm that you’re walking after him. Doesn’t say anything else. Just puts his hands in his pockets, opens the door, fluorescent lights spilling into the room in harsh light that contrasts the soft amber lighting from the candles—the ones that are snuffed out in an instant after the door opened—and walks out.

Standing up you walk after him, dismissing your dogs with a final pat to their head.

After stepping out into the hallway, you have to blink a few times to get your sight adjusted to the harsh lighting. The hallway is a stark contrast to the buildings you saw from the forest. Jujutsu High seemed to have traditional Japanese buildings.

The walls are slightly damp and it’s cold. A shiver running up your spine. The only sounds down here are the footsteps and the buzzing noise from the overhead lights. Rubbing your arms you walk a bit faster, not beside Gojo—you know you don’t deserve to walk beside him as an equal—but two steps behind him.

“Where are we going?” you finally ask him. Gojo doesn’t reply, just walks ahead, up some stairs and finally opens a shoji screen to the outside. Snow blankets as far as the eye can see. Tree tops are white, the black shingles are now nowhere to be seen, the stone paths are buried beneath a thick layer of the powdery substance.

Okay, outside. Maybe he’ll escort you off the property. Send you home. Tell you not to come back. The thought hurts more than you’re willing to admit. Sure, you never meant for him to see you in the first place, but after finally reconnecting you’d hoped he would maybe want to keep you around.

Gojo walks on top of the snow. His feet don’t sink into it. He doesn’t leave behind any boot prints. It’s almost as if he’s hovering over it. You, however, aren’t as lucky. The first step you take almost makes you fall over. Snow is almost up to your knee.

Hearing you yelp, Gojo finally turns around, and the sight almost makes him smile. You’re trying to wade through the thick blanket of snow, having to pull up your legs to sink into the snow yet again. The sight is almost comical.

A huff pulls from his chest when you nearly wipe out, which makes you look up at him. Wrong choice. Because of the sharp movement, you fall straight onto your butt. Wetness starting to seep through your winter coat.

Closing your eyes, you breathe through your nose. Count to three, before pushing yourself up with a pout. “Seriously, why do you get to float like a fairy while I have to—” grunting you take your first step forward again “—tire out my legs like this. Why is there even so much snow to begin with?!”

You’re irritated. almost your entire backside is wet. Snow that wasn’t melted yet is starting to melt. You feel cold, and wet, and sad, and guilty—but mostly mad that the fucker is just standing there, on top of the snow, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

And before you even realise what you’re doing, you bend down and grab a handful of snow. Throwing it at Gojo, it merely bounces off him. Fuck him and his Infinity.

Throwing your hands up in the air you let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh come on,” you whine, the last syllables dragging on. “Lemme at least hit you with some snow if you’re going to be like that.”

Before you can even blink he’s in front of you. With just a little tap to your shoulder you fall backwards, straight onto your ass. Blinking up into the sky, a face comes into view. One blue eye peeking out from under the blindfold, an amused smile on his lips, white strands cascading down. “Oops.”

You glare at him from the snow, still sitting on it. He knows your ass is getting cold—and probably wet—but oh well. And then you reach for his arm, and for a second, just one, he forgets to keep up his infinity. Your hand clamps down on his forearm before you yank him into the snow next to you.

His face is obstructed by white. And he hears you laughing from beside him. And it puts him right back to when the two of you were five years old, playing in the snow, making snow angels and getting into snowball fights. He also remembers you eating a handful of snow and getting scolded for it.

He huffs a breath through his nose before pushing himself up and wiping his face. You’re still laughing, rolling around in the snow, clutching your stomach—not watching him. Which is good. He grabs some snow and throws it straight at you.

It stops you right in your tracks, laughter dying out immediately, replaced by a gasp. “You did not,” you accuse him, voice mock-serious. He only shrugs his shoulders before he’s hit with some snow—straight in the face.

You gasp out. “Shit, sorry I didn’t mean— no. wait! wait!! no please!” you’re scrambling back, hands sinking into the snow while Satoru sloooowly stands up and stalks over to you, a giant heap of white in his hands. You put a hand up while still apologising, “No— Gojo wait! I’m sorry! I didn— oompff.”

You’re cut off when he lets the snow fall—straight onto your face and upper chest. You’re completely buried. It makes him laugh, doubling over. And for just a moment he forgets he is Satoru Gojo and is just ‘S’toru’.

The little fight continues for a while, snow gets thrown around. The two of you keep tripping over in the snow, though you do more so than him—curse him and his long long legs. Until you stop giggling and gasp, eyes wide. “Stop. Stop— wait, just a sec.”

You’re feeling around in your coat pockets and pull out a little device—your Digivice. It makes his heart lurch to his stomach. Did you really keep it all those years—hell, did you keep it on you this entire time? His hand brushes his own pocket, his own Digivice snug in it.

He sees your hand sink into the ground, before you pull it out again, empty-handed. “Didn’t want it getting wet,” you say while looking up at him.

There is a small silence between the two of you, before he clears his throat. “Right, yeah. Okay, well…” he trails off, it suddenly setting in that he isn’t five years old running around in the gardens of the Gojo estate with you, but rather twenty-eight with responsibilities. (Not that he takes any of those seriously, but he does remind himself that the two of you aren’t suddenly best friends again… right?)

He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” With that he turns around and starts walking again—this time only after he hears you trail behind him. The walk takes wayyyy too long, what normally would’ve been a fifteen minute walk took you almost thirty. The snow not only making it difficult to navigate through, but also slippery

Satoru can only hope that the kids are still training. It has been some time since he left them to chase after you, after all. Turning the corner he sees Maki absolutely overpower Nobara before they let go. Panda and Inumaki are nowhere in sight, only the three first-years and their upperclassman left.

Clapping his hands once he grabs the attention of the kids. “I’m backkk~” he sing-songs. Megumi mutters a ‘didn’t even know you were gone’ under his breath that Gojo decides to ignore, while Yuji waves. “And I brought a little something with me.”

Stepping aside with a flourish, you come into view to the students. They immediately furrow their brows. Yuji’s hand immediately shoots up “Gojo-sensei, who is that?” Clicking his fingers, Gojo makes finger guns toward the cotton-haired boy.

“Great question, Itadori. This, over here, is your new teacher!” He hooks his arm around your shoulder and tugs you into his side. You look over at him with wide eyes. “Wait— wait wait wait, what? Gojo you can’t just decide that?!”

He pays you no mind, just looking at the three first-years while Maki walks away. She mutters something under her breath, but doesn’t look back. Pushing you to the front slightly, he claps his hands. “So, who wants to spar with her first?”

“She’s wet,” Megumi deadpans, looking over your form. And you are— well it’s more damp now. “And freezing,” Nobara adds, noticing how much you’re shivering.

For just a moment Gojo considers that maybe he should’ve gotten you—and himself—a change of clothes after the snowball fight. Ehhh oh well. Nothing to be done about now. “So spar her faster so she can go warm up inside.”

With a sigh Megumi is the first to take up on the offer, calling on his Divine Dog Totality. You don’t notice though, turning toward Gojo with a frown. “You can’t make me spar with them, look at them! They are teena— eekkk,” the dog lunges at you. Your make a quick hand sign. Hundreds of gray rabbits being summoned at once.

It takes the students aback slightly, all of them eyeing the swarm. Gojo only crosses his arms.

“Dude, Megumi, I thought you summoned your dog,” Yuji says, still in disbelief at the sight of the rabbits. The Divine Dog merely claws its way through the swarm, destroying rabbits at light speed. “I did,” Megumi mutters back, brows furrowed.

Half of the rabbits are gone when you suddenly emerge from behind Megumi. Putting him in a headlock, both Nobara and Yuji turn around, eyes wide. All three of them freeze in place.

Pointing your finger at Satoru you continue, “Like I said, they’re teenagers, you can’t just let them fight me. That’s mean.”

And Satoru? Satoru just smiles at that. Because Yuji and Nobara are whispering to each other, not really discreetly, but you don’t notice because you’re checking over Megumi to see if you hurt him in any way while still scolding Gojo.

And it brings him right back to when you were telling him how to ‘correctly’ play with the dolls. (Which you were wrong about, so, so wrong.)

He walks over to where you and the kids are standing and puts an arm around you—half because he wants to and half because he doesn’t want you to escape, were you planning on it. Ruffling your hair, which is absolutely freezing, he realises, he chuckles.

“Well then, kids meet your new teacher. Now say goodbye while she goes take a long, hot bath and hopefully doesn’t get sick.” Not letting the kids even say goodbye, he teleports the two of you straight to his apartment.

It shocks you a bit, the teleportation making you feel… floaty? for a few seconds, the room spinning slightly, before your feet touch the ground.

When the room stops spinning, and your balance is back, you take note of where you’re standing. The apartment in front of you is huge. It’s a big, open floor plan. The living room has a big L shaped couch, with a wall-mounted flatscreen in front of it.

There are floor to ceiling windows, overlooking the downtown of Tokyo, the city underneath blinking to life like fireflies behind glass.

But that’s not what catches your eye, no, your eyes wander to the massive kitchen. It really does look too big to have for just one person. It brings you right back twenty years, where you said you would become a baker which only made sweets.

While you didn’t become a confectioner, you did learn how to make most sweets you ate when younger. The most important one being mochi, of course.

Though the first time you made a successful batch, you cried. At first they were happy tears, but they turned sad really fast after that, because it made you miss Satoru even more.

Back in your cramped apartment, you didn’t really have the luxury to bake, so this kitchen really brings out something in you, and you wonder if Satoru ever uses it.

Following your gaze, he chuckles slightly. “I don’t really use it,” he says, as if he read your mind. Looking back at him, he’s still looking at the kitchen with a small smile on his face. Nodding your head you look back at the kitchen, and suddenly wonder what your world would’ve looked like if you stayed in Japan when you were younger.

Would you be in the kitchen with him, singing your heart out and yapping about everything and anything while making food together? Well, it’s not like you can go back in time, so that’s a question you don’t dwell too long on.

Gojo puts a hand on your shoulder and steers you to the other side of the apartment—hell, it’s a whole ass penthouse. Rich boy, huh.

“Spare bedroom is over here, there’s a connected bathroom as well. Go take a shower, you’re absolutely freezing,” he’s already turning away from you, presumably to go to his own shower. He did let go of his Infinity during the snowball fight, resulting in him getting wet and cold as well.

Nodding your head you open the door, and freeze for a heartbeat. The bedroom is almost as big as your entire apartment combined. A massive King sized bed stands at the far wall, there are floor to ceiling windows even in this room, and two doors at each side of the room.

Other than the bed, curtains and a nightstand, the room is rather bare. Walking over to the left door you open it, only to find a walk-in closet. Yeah okay, definitely your entire apartment combined.

Walking back out, you open the other door to the bathroom, and that, too, is massive. It has both a bathtub and shower, and your eyes light up at the sight. God, how long has it been since you last had a bath? Too long, that is.

Turning on the faucet, you let the tub fill up, and just pray Satoru wouldn’t mind it too much. You aren’t quite sure what he has in store for you, but given the fact that he just decided that you would be a teacher, you suppose you won’t go home for quite some time.

Stepping into the bath, you’re instantly met with the hot water, skin tingling because you haven’t properly warmed up yet. Ignoring that, you let yourself submerge in the water, let your head lean back against the edge of the tub, and close your eyes.

Maybe it was a mistake coming back after so long, but it’s something you’ll definitely find out along the way.

In the other bathroom, Satoru is standing under the spray of the shower. His head leaning against the tiles of the wall, water cascading down his back and dripping from his hair over the bridge of his nose.

You’re really here. Not an imagination, not a dream, just… really here. And he isn’t sure what to make of it. And maybe he acted too fast, telling the kids you would be their second teacher.

Maybe he shouldn’t have introduced you to the kids, he’s supposed to keep them safe after all. But his heart tugs against his sternum when he thinks back on how you were looking Megumi over after the supposed ‘spar’.

That didn’t seem fake, or maybe you’re just really good at pretending to care. Well, whatever it is, he’ll find out in the next few weeks.

He’s going to keep you close. Keep you in the spare room. Keep you close to him while teaching (though… he doesn’t really teach, so maybe it is smart that he ‘recruited’ you as a second teacher.)

All he can hope is that he didn’t make a mistake keeping you here instead of putting you on the next flight back to wherever you came from.

The first thing Satoru notices when he wakes up is the sound of pans clattering and the low hum of the furnace being turned on. There’s slight humming coming from the kitchen. Utensils scraping against pots, and the faint smell of food wafting through the apartment.

Walking out of his room, he scratches his stomach with one hand while trying to tame his bed hair with the other. Unruly tufts of white visible between the gap of his shirt and sweats.

The kitchen is a flurry of motion, the fridge being opened and closed constantly, the low rhythmic chop chop chop of someone cutting up ingredients on a chopping block. Sounds Satoru isn’t used to, considering he isn’t one to cook, nor has anyone over that does.

So when he walks into the kitchen, he freezes for a second. You’re there, chopping away, occasionally stirring the pot with a wooden ladle—he didn’t even know he owned one, let alone had enough food in the fridge to make something fulfilling—while humming under your breath.

But that isn’t what does him in—though it does slightly, he has dreamed of this many, many times before—no it’s the fact that your cursed energy feels off. It doesn’t feel like you, well rather, it feels like a copy of yours.

It doesn’t flow through you so much as it is you. Your shape is completely filled with cursed energy in a way that he’s never seen before. It’s unsettling, to say the least.

Calling out your name softly, you look up with a small smile on your face. “Goodmorning,” you hum, before resuming your task. The low sizzle of bacon in the pan snaps him out of his stupor.

He watches you for a beat longer. Watches the way you move—nothing out of the ordinary, though he only has yesterday to compare. Watches the way you hum under your breath. It looks correct, the gait, the motion, but there’s something off.

He can feel it in his soul. And his Six Eyes also tell something is wrong with your cursed energy. So he looks around the apartment, just because he can’t shake off this weird feeling of something being wrong.

And when his eyes go toward the hall of the guest room you were occupying, he can see it. Cursed Energy. It’s faint, but it doesn’t escape him.

Furrowing his brows he walks over to the door, steps cautious. Did you have someone over? Is there someone in your room that was supposed to take him out when he had his guard down?

Turning the knob, he opens the door. There in bed is you. Wait, what?

He looks back to the kitchen once more. Yep, definitely you, though that you feels off in a way. Looking back to the you in the bed, he lets his Six Eyes feed the information to him.

Your cursed energy flows like it’s supposed to, like it did yesterday. He can see the way it favors the side of the shadows, crawling back from where the light of the hallway hits the bedsheets in soft yellow light.

You’re asleep. Nose red and runny. Tossing and turning in your bed, sweat on your forehead, hairs plastered flat against your temples.

With a groan your lashes flutter open. Blinking a few times, you look over at the guy that’s standing in the doorway. “‘Mornin’,” you croak out, voice raw and nasally. You cough immediately after. That nasty, nasally type of cough.

Satoru just stands in the doorway for a few more seconds, words failing him in the first time since… well, last year, he supposes. When he finally speaks up, his voice is full of confusion. “You’re here…” he finally says, slowly, like he’s still trying to make sense of the world.

You hum, closing your eyes once more. Wiping some of the sweat from your brow, you cough once more. “Sure am, did you forget you took me home with you yesterday?” the words feel like sandpaper against your sore throat.

The lights spilling in from the hallway—though mostly blocked by the massive frame of Gojo—only hurt your eyes more. You want to tell him to at least close the door if he’s gonna talk to you like this, but then again, you’re a guest and it would be rude to tell him what to do in his house.

Hell, he probably doesn’t even appreciate it that you’re coughing and sweating all over his clean sheets.

“I- no, ‘was surprised, though,” he mumbles the last words under his breath before continuing, “What the hell is in my kitchen right now?”

You rack your brain, trying to find out what he’s talking about. In his kitchen? Did Toru come out without you calling him on again? He does that quite often, little brat that he is.

Then you finally remember. “Oh! ‘s a clone,” you say, as if it’s normal. As if having a literal shadow clone is just a normal Tuesday. Then again, for you it probably is. But Satoru isn’t you, so he stares at you for a few beats.

“A clone,” he starts slowly, “from your technique?” You laugh at that, then immediately cough again. “Yeah, what else would it be?”

Satoru stares at you for a few more seconds. Looks at the way you’re struggling to keep your eyes open, the sweat beating down your neck, the way you keep coughing.

And then he feels someone—or rather something—approach from behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he’s met with you, or well, rather, your shadow clone.

She looks exactly like you, the same little frown between your brows you’ve had since you were little kids and were focusing on something. Hair, eyes, lips, nose—it’s all the same. It’s quite unsettling, honestly.

Your clone is carrying a tray—seriously, where do these things keep popping up from? he didn’t even know he had half the things ‘you’ were using for cooking—with a bowl of soup. Stepping aside, he lets the clone inside the bedroom.

It sits down next to you, and you go to sit in an more upright position. It’s like you don’t even register just how weird all of this is, your own shadow clone is feeding you soup.

“Wait- wait wait wait. Let me get this straight,” he finally manages to gather his thoughts again. “You can make shadow clones, and command them to do what you want?”

You take one more sip of your soup, slightly burning your tongue because you were too impatient to just blow on the hot liquid a few seconds longer, before finally answering Gojo. “Mhmm, well… it’s more like they’re semi-sentient. I just have to tell them how to make soup, and they can get the steps in themselves.”

Gojo’s mouth slowly falls open. That’s… really fucking cool actually, not that he’s gonna voice that, though. He’s still wary of you. If you can just conjure shadow clones from cursed energy, he might actually be fucked.

It makes this so, so much harder. Because that means you can catch him off-guard. Or well, try to catch him off-guard. He can still sense when people are behind him. Six Eyes never lie to him, so he’ll have to rely on them way more than normal, now.

He thinks bout the Ten Shadows technique, tries to recall if there was anything mentioned about shadow clones, but he comes up empty. Megumi hasn’t said anything either about trying to clone himself. And in a way, Satoru is happy about that.

“That’s fucking scary. Kinda cool, but definitely scary,” he finally says, eyeing the two of you. If he didn’t have Six eyes, he would definitely have thought that it was your twin you never told him about. Not like you told him much about yourself, anyway.

Being a Zen’in for one. Though, you also didn’t know about that, so he can’t really blame you for that. But your mother definitely could’ve told him. He was the clan head of the Gojo clan after all! Nevermind the fact that he was a mere six years old back then.

He would’ve protected you whenever needed, told the rest of the members to protect you and him. And he would try to protect you, as well.

You, the chaos to his normal, boring life. The one who kept him sane those three years you were with him. Kept him from doing the mindless, affectionless clan. God he hated it there after you left.

Everyone kept ushering him to do things. Train with those huge dudes who told him ‘again’ and ‘again’ and ‘again’ and not to cry, because he was a Gojo after all. Something you would’ve never told him.

You would’ve probably cried with him, if you were there. Not because you were hurt, or anything of the sorts—though your feelings did get hurt quite easily. So you were a crybaby, buuuuttt then again, you got over it fairly quickly as well. Swiping those small fingers under your eyes and declaring you were ‘all done’ and going back to doing whatever task you were doing previously—but because you didn’t like seeing Satoru sad.

It was something he noticed. He wasn’t sad often in your presence, you were the highlight to his days, after all. But on the rare occasions he was sad, you always immediately tried cheering him up. Tried to tell him everything would be all-right, because you were there!

And it felt like his sadness was suddenly cured—or you were being… well, you. And distracted him from being sad—in your presence once more. Gummy smile returning to his face, only for you to fling your body towards his, tackling him in a happy hug that was more limbs clashing together than a real hug.

Blinking, he looks at you once more. Your bowl of soup slowly getting more empty by the second. Then your eyes find his. “There’s food for you in the kitchen, by the way,” you’re still blowing on the spoon when you tell him.

Furrowing his brows, he pushes himself from the doorpost and makes his way over to the kitchen, where one plate of bacon and an omelette sits. There’s a small ketchup smiley drawn on it, making him smile in turn.

Only for it to be wiped off his face the second after. His eyes flit towards the open bedroom once more. Grabbing another bowl, he quickly fills it. Walking back to the bedroom, he goes to sit down next to you.

You eye his bowl of soup, furrowing your brows slightly. Turning your head away from him, you cough in your elbow, before speaking up. “Omelette not to your liking?”

Gojo hums around the spoonful of soup. “Not a big fan of eggs,” he says dismissively. You just hum and close your eyes once more. The sweat has finally stopped beading down your forehead, though you still feel fucking hot. (ehhhh slayyyy)

Dismissing your clone with a wave of your hand, you grab the tray and put it on the bedside table. There’s still soup in the bowl, but you feel like you’re going to throw up if you eat any more right now, so you’ll keep it for later. There’s always a chance to heat it up again.

Going to lay down again, you burrow yourself under the blanket. “Will sleep a bit more. Wake me if needed,” you slur out slightly, before sleep finally takes you under once again.

Gojo stays seated next to you. Spoon in his bowl, not touched after he’d taken the first sip of soup. Once he confirms you’re asleep—your breathing getting heavy, the occasional snore slipping past your lips, lashes fluttering against your cheekbones—does he move.

Leaning over you, careful not to wake you, he swaps the two bowls around. Eating the rest of your soup, he hums in content. It was very good soup, even though it was made by a clone—something he still can’t wrap his head around.

Sure, he knows you’re sick. He isn’t stupid, he knows you can’t fake it like this. So eating out of your bowl—though he had swapped the spoons around, he’s not that stupid—might not be the smartest plan. But he’d rather get sick than get poisoned or something.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? You came back in his life, really came back in his life, after twenty-two years. Half of those were spent thinking you were dead. And now here you are—still—twenty-two years later with a dog that’s named after him and even looks like him, and a shadow clone that can make food and probably do many, many other things.

Leaning back against the headrest, he rubs a hand over his face and sighs out through his nose. This really is going to be harder than he thought would be.

With that, he gets out of the bed and goes to the kitchen. Cleaning the counter while scowling slightly. This is why he hates cooking—well, it’s part of it. He hates the cooking itself as well, though he loves eating.

It’s just something he could never get the hang of. Every time he tried, his thoughts would wander back to a girl that would forever be six years old in his mind, telling him the two of you would live together, making food together, because the two of you liked sweets.

Promising to live off off sweets alone. A true kids dream, if he ever heard one. But still one that wormed its way back into his mind even after all the years you were gone.

With that, he always burned the food because he would zone out trying to picture you next to him being a tornado of chaos. Probably having sugar all over you, even if the recipe didn’t call for sugar. Or eating the ingredients before they went into the dish, leaving the both of you with too little to cook with.

Or he would be irrational with knives—Geto and Shoko having taken away knives waaayyy too often. Not that they could ever hurt him, but still. If he didn’t have Infinity, he would’ve lost all his fingers ten times over already.

So he never cooked, which also meant he never had to do the dishes, though he has a dishwasher, which he’s trying to figure out how to work right now. He mutters faint curses under his breath and things about ‘clones not being able to clean up after themselves’.

When he finally has the dishwasher loaded, he just… stares out over the living room. This really is his life now, huh? Him having to be on guard, even at home, moreso than usual. Normally he has Infinity to protect him against strangers, but you’re no stranger.

Well… his heart certainly doesn’t think so with the way his Infinity automatically gets lowered around you. He has to consciously put it up, because his technique, unfortunately, loses against his heart whispering that you’re no threat.

Yeah, this is going to take a long time before he can get used to this.

The next few days are spent at home. You’re still sick, so you let the clone do everything for you—cleaning, making food, and even doing the laundry. Gojo had asked why you wouldn’t just let him do those things, and with that he means people he hired to do the jobs.

He had to send away his cleaners after his place was spotless before they could even begin. Your clone having done everything already, so there was nothing left for them to do. He still paid them, of course.

And if it wasn’t your clone walking around the place, it would be your dogs. You’d asked him on the third day of you still being sick in bed. Something about letting the dogs ‘out’—when he asked what you meant with ‘out’ you meant out of the shadows because they were getting restless. Which confused him, because as far as he knew, Megumi never said anything about any of the Shikigami while they were not summoned.

He’d agreed. His apartment is big enough, after all. And it’s not like he used the space often. But he quickly came to regret that decision.

Toru is a heap of chaos that only reminds himself of you, only with his aesthetic. The white fur was something he was used to quite easily. But it were the eyes that still unsettled him.

Toru was just him in dog form. On one hand, it absolutely melted his heart, on the other hand it had sent a small pang through it. He thinks about how you probably only had Toru with you while hoping that you could have the actual human next to you that you named the dog after.

Kuroo was at least calm. Letting her body flop in front of the giant windows, soaking up the sun with her black fur, becoming a small furnace. She was judgemental as fuck, though. Always huffing through her nose when her brother did something stupid. Or when Satoru himself did something silly.

It had made him side-eye the dog a few times, checking to see if the dog really was huffing at him and not at her brother. And, yep, the dog was eyeing him again. Raising a brow at the dog, he murmurs a small ‘what?’ only for the dog to turn her back to him.

He’s not sure what he expected the dog to do, but it still sent a small spark of irritation through him when he got ignored by a dog, like helloooo??

Now you’re finally better, sitting next to him on the couch nursing a cup of tea, watching Toru play with one of the dog toys you grabbed from your shadow storage—yes that’s how you called it.

Satoru had laughed the first time you’d pulled out the toys, but the laughter quickly died out in his throat the more you kept pulling from what felt like infinite storage.

At first it was toys—squeaky toys, tug ropes, balls—but it quickly became dog beds, yes you heard that right, dog beds for shadow dogs. Shikigami. With dog beds. And not just one for each, noooo they had multiple.

“Seriously,” he had muttered, eyeing the dog beds that were in the living room now. He’d already spotted two in your room and another two in his home gym. Why they were there, he had no idea, but alas. You’d merely smiled at him, not even trying to defend yourself.

“He really is something,” you murmur, eyes still on the dog. “Sure is,” Gojo agreed, but with a bit more disdain in his voice. If you noticed, you don’t call him out on it, only sip on your tea once more.

“Soooo…” you begin, setting your cup down onto the table. Leaning back once more your eyes find Gojo’s. “What about the kids?”

Right, the kids. Satoru had to tell them he had to stay home to take care of something and that they shouldn’t expect him to be at the school often. Nobara had just walked off, Yuji had grinned and put his thumbs up. Megumi, however, side-eyed him. One that felt fully judgemental.

“She’s sick, isn’t she?” he had asked, not even naming you, but Satoru knew who he was talking about. He’d merely hummed, sticking his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on the ball of his feet. “Maaaybe.”

Megumi had sighed, muttering something about snow and being soaked to the bone in those cold temperatures, but never asked anything further. Just started walking back to the dorms without so much as another glance toward Gojo.

You’d asked Gojo if he didn’t need to be with the kids after he came home not long after that, and he had merely grinned towards you. “Naaahhhh, they can take care of themselves,” he had drawled towards you. Luckily you were too sick to really question it, having gone to bed after that once again.

It kinda fucked with him, though. He had to be on his toes at all times. Whenever you slept, your oh so lovely shadow clone was awake, making food or cleaning up, and it made him paranoid as shit. Constantly checking over what it did, while also checking if you were still asleep.

It’s not like he could tell you to stop doing it—he had done that already, well more like asked… okay fine, he told you you didn’t have to do it, since it was draining your cursed energy. You had just smiled at him and told him it was fine, since you didn’t use it anyway.

When he insisted that you should just let it rest, you’d stubbornly told him that this was the least you could do for being here, in his house. That is something he didn’t miss (he absolutely did), your stubbornness.

He’d honestly forgotten all about how stubborn you used to be. How you could hold onto things without fail, puffing out your cheeks, crossing your arms over your chest, not once looking him the eye, lips forming a small pout.

Yeah, you weren’t just chaos, you were stubborn chaos, which made it so much worse. So he let it go, knowing you weren’t gonna give up on it.

So now he was walking behind a clone for days on end, watching its every move. He was just so so tired. And only when you finally started feeling better did you dismiss the clone, muttering something about doing the chores yourself.

Which, once again, he wanted to argue about. He truly didn’t need you to do all that—plus he still doesn’t trust you, but what can you do about it?

You’re still looking at him, the question hanging in the air. The kids, right. Humming, Gojo leans further back into the couch, which groans under his weight. “Well, Yuji and Nobara have been asking about you. Megumi hasn’t voiced anything, but I know he’s curious as well.”

“I mean, you did tell them I was gonna be their teacher and then I just didn’t show up for a whole week,” you comment, looking him in the eye.

Yeah, that’s something he is regretting telling them. He should’ve just asked Yaga for you to be an assistant at the school—his personal assistant, so he can keep his eye on you, of course. No other reason at all.

But he did tell them, unfortunately. Which means you have to come with him to the school and interact with the kids. The same kids he’s vowed to keep safe ever since the beginning of the school year started.

“Don’t you worry your pretty lil head about it,” he assures you, playing with his blindfold slightly. (slut)

Scowling you look away from him. Reaching over to grab your tea, you down the last of your drink before abruptly standing up, making Toru pause where he was playing with one of the toys. “Well then, I’ll get ready and we can visit the school, I guess.”

You’re already walking away before he can say anything. Staring at your retreating figure, he looks over at Kuroo. “Your mom always like that?” he sighs out, and Kuroo huffs once through her nose, and he swears she rolls her eyes with it a little.

Thirty minutes later the two of you arrive at Jujutsu High. You’d dismissed the dogs with a quick pat on their head, and a belly rub for Toru, before leaving the apartment with Gojo.

The school honestly looks deserted with how massive it is. There’s no student or faculty in sight, though that isn’t that weird, considering it’s snowing outside.

Satoru walks two steps in front of you, deliberately slowing down his pace to match yours, but just a little too quick for you to comfortably stay right beside him.

Snow crunches beneath your boots and white plumes of smoke form in front of your mouth with each exhale. Burrowing your face further into your scarf, you finally speak up. “What are we gonna do today anyways?”

Gojo just hums, eyes hidden by his blindfold once more, hands in pockets. “I want you to spar with Megumi, give him some more tips on the technique.”

Furrowing your brows, you try to recall which of the two is Megumi. When you dub the spiky, black haired boy as Megumi, you hum slightly. “Why him?”

That makes Satoru stop in his tracks, just slightly. “You didn’t see?” When he sees you furrow your brows, he lets out one long, deep sigh. “He also has the Ten Shadows technique. I thought you realised when Totality attacked you—well tried to.”

“That thing was a part of the Ten Shadows technique?” you ask, thinking back that the giant beast that tried to claw your throat out last week. It was massive, even bigger than Kuroo and Toru. “Mhmm, Is when your two lil Demon Dogs get merged.”

“You mean to tell me he lost one of his demon dogs?” Your voice is small, kind of like you’re fearing the answer. Satoru only nods his head once, and a shudder trails up your spine.

Poor guy, being only… fifteen? Sixteen? and losing your first companion like that. You cannot imagine living your life without Kuroo or Toru. God, you would bawl your eyes out if anything happened to either of the two.

In a way you’re glad you never became a sorcerer, because there would be a big chance you would lose one of the dogs if you weren’t careful.

You don’t have much time to think about it, because Satoru steps into one of the buildings, opening the door for you. Bowing slightly—something that feels foreign to you, considering back ‘home’ people didn’t do that, nor did you ever bow towards Gojo whenever the two of you were younger—you walk inside.

Taking off your shoes, you look around the building. You’re met with a spacious common room. Multiple couches are in the space, along with some chairs and a few beanbags. A tall bookshelf spans the entirety of the wall, filled with different manga's.

There are a few students lounging around, some familiar—Yuji with his pink hair and Nobara with her bob—and others not. Your eyes trailing over the students when— hold the fuck up, is that a panda?!

Sure enough the panda waves at you. Nodding your head, you turn towards Satoru with questions written all over your face. Chuckling he leans in closer to you, voice low enough for only you to be heard. “That’s Panda. He’s a cursed corpse. Sentient. Kinda like your shadow clone, but even smarter.”

Right. Okay, sure. Sentient cursed corpses, because why the fuck not, it’s not like sorcery was weird enough already, just add in more bullshit to the mix.

Yuji is already on his feet the moment he spots you and Satoru, a beaming smile on his face. “Hey! You’re finally better. Gojo-sensei told us you got sick, but like— I had soooo many questions before he whisked you away the last time.”

Blinking, you’re looking at the boy. Right, okay, that energy wasn’t there the last time, but then again it was snowing, Gojo had told them to spar you and you had sunk into the ground and put Megumi in a headlock withing three seconds flat.

He kind of reminds you of younger you. You’ve since lost that spark, but it does ignite something in you that makes you want to bounce on the balls of your feet. “Of course you can ask!”

Gojo watches you get tugged into the common room by Yuji, who is already firing off questions, one after another, before you can even try to answer him. Nobara is scolding him for being too excited, and the three third-years are watching you with wary glances.

Exhaling, he lets his shoulders drop a little. Although this isn’t what he wanted, it is nice to see you interact with his kids. With that he walks towards the room he knows a grumpy teenager is in.

Opening the door with a flourish, he throws a thumbs up. “How’s my favorite student?” he all but teases, making Megumi groan into his pillow.

“What do you want,” he scowls over at Gojo, not even trying to hide the disdain in his voice. That’s nothing new,though. Having spent years with the boy, Gojo knows that Megumi loves him. Deeeep deep down. But it’s there …somewhere.

“Your new teach is here, come say hi,” he grins before turning around and walking back to the common room.

Walking back into the common room can only be described as chaos. Yuji is backflipping (why?), Nobara is showing off her nails—the steel ones she uses for her technique, not the keratin ones that are on fingertips—while Panda is punching the air.

Inumaki and Maki are just sitting there watching the chaos unfold while you are trying to divide your attention to all three of the kids that are begging for your attention.

What happened between him going to Megumi’s room and coming back, he’ll probably never know, but he’s here now.

The chaos continues for a while. Every student shows you their technique when you ask, even the second years, though you had some trouble understanding Inumaki at first.

Megumi finally has joined everyone, going to sit down where he deems safest—next to Maki. It’s definitely deliberate on his part, considering Maki is the most calm in this entire group of chaos.

Then questions start flying towards you, about your age, what you did before this, how you did that thing with Megumi last week. Until the final dreaded question comes from no other than Nobara: “So, you haven’t told us your technique yet.”

Swallowing you look over at Gojo, who nods at you. Wringing your hands together you look at the eager expressions of the students, even Megumi seems to perk up a bit at that. You never had to tell anyone your technique—apart from Gojo—and it was drilled into you that you should never reveal it.

But then again, that was because your mother was afraid they would simply kill you if they found out. That’s not gonna happen, you think. Plus Gojo is right beside you, surely he would protect you if something went wrong?

“Ah it’s the Ten Shadows technique.” Silence. Utter and absolute silence fills the room. A few students are blinking, like they’re buffering in real time. “Yeah right,” Maki scoffs, “that’s a hereditary technique, and if you were a Zen’in with the clan’s technique I would’ve known.”

That makes you pause, just a little. “Are you a Zen’in, Maki?”

She only narrows her eyes at you, not confirming nor denying the question. The rest of the group is silent, looking between you and Megumi.

Sighing you summon your demon dogs. Toru immediately licks your hand, while Kuroo just sits in her place, watching every student with a scrutinizing gaze.

There’s a blur of motion when suddenly the tip of a spear is right between your eyes. Maki’s. “Gojo, explain.”

And he does, as best as he can. You fill in some of the gaps, about leaving the country, never becoming a sorcerer, just living a normal, boring life. Neither of you brings up the fact that you and Gojo have known each other since the age of three.

The tension slowly dwindles, Maki lowering her spear while still looking at you with narrowed eyes. Yuji is petting Toru throughout all of it, hands sinking into the fur while Toru wags his tail, making the occasional swish sound on the floor.

You show the kids some of the things that can be achieved with the Ten Shadows technique, starting with the fact that you can completely sink into the shadows, since Yuji asked how you teleported last week. It’s clear that Megumi is taking mental notes of everything you do.

The rest of the day is spent like that, just chatting, occasionally showing off—not just you, the kids do as well—and getting to know one another. It’s quite sweet honestly.

While you didn’t get to spar with Megumi, like Gojo originally wanted you to do, you did show him important things that would definitely help him if ever needed.

The next few days are spent with the kids, sparring, telling them how to better themselves, just watching over them. And then there was the fact that Yaga found out Satoru had ‘hired’ someone without even telling him, let alone consult with him.

You had to watch Gojo get scolded by the principal, and honestly it was funny as fuck. How does a thirty year old let himself get scolded like that? You almost wanted to tell him to stand the fuck up for himself. Embarrassing, really, but then again, that is the Gojo you know.

Though he wasn’t the one that got scolded when the two of you were younger, that one was you. So maybe this is just karma. Ehhh, that isn’t fair on Gojo, though. He always tried to stick up for you, trying to tell the maids it was him that did said thing, but they just brushed him off.

Still a funny sight, and something you’ll probably tease him about until the two of you are all wrinkly and gray.

After that you got introduced to some of the other staff. Nanami was apparently a year younger than Gojo, and definitely over his shit, throwing out a quick ‘good luck’ when he heard that you would spend most of your days with Gojo here at school—no people didn’t know you also ‘lived’ with Gojo.

The next was Shoko, the school’s …nurse? healer? You’re not sure, all you know is that you learned yet another thing about sorcery: RCT. Apparently some people can heal themselves? You knew your deer could heal you, but you didn’t know that some people could also do that.

And lastly there was Ijichi. Nervous guy, eyes constantly flitting everywhere but Gojo while wringing his hands together and bowing a good ninety degrees when he first saw you. He’s an assistant at the school, mostly there to chauffeur people around and put up veils.

Yuji, at one point, had popped up out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of Ijichi. But when he finally saw who it was, he instantly seemed calmer?

You’re not sure what happened between Gojo and Ijichi for him to be so nervous around the guy, but you’re sure to find out one day. Or maybe you’re the anomaly, standing so casually beside The Strongest, but then again Nanami and Shoko weren’t nervous. At all.

After that it was just training the kids, constantly. Gojo would stand off to the side, watching everything go down, and snickering every time the kids would win. Yeah, you’re absolutely shit at hand to hand, never having been taught how to, while these kids train for things like these.

Like right now, you’re sparring with Megumi, who’s absolutely getting one in on you. Gojo can only smile at the sight. You might not be good at hand to hand, but you gave so much valuable information to not only Megumi but also Gojo about the Ten Shadows technique that’s surely handy to know.

There’s a small smile on Gojo’s lips when he sees your feet get sweeped out from under you, only for you to sink into the shadows before your back hits the ground. It’s smart, really. You might not be an experienced fighter, but you’re smart. Adapting to everything that gets thrown your way.

He isn’t sure when Yuji and Nobara creeped up on him—too occupied by watching the spar that just doesn’t seem to end—but they’re absolutely grinning while eyeing each other.

“Soooo,” Nobara begins, only for Yuji to cut her off completely. “How long have you had a crush on the new teacher?” Nobara elbows him with a scowl and mutters something only Yuji can hear.

Gojo blinks a few times behind his blindfold. A crush? On you? No way, he’s just watching you to make sure you’re not up to something. The feelings he had for you when he was younger surely have dwindled by now.

Putting his hands in his pockets he looks down at the two menaces that are still eyeing him with sweet smiles that don’t match their eyes. Fucking gossip vultures is what they are. “I don’t have a thing for your new teacher.”

“Bullshit! You’re always watching her,” Nobara scowls while folding her arms in front of her chest. “It’s been weeks, Gojo-sensei, and you’re always watching her. Even with the blindfold on, we can feel your gaze on her, like a compass trying to find north.”

That… was a weird thing to say, especially coming from Yuji. Gojo’s eyes flick towards the mat once more, just to make sure you can’t hear the three of them. You and Megumi have sat down, all three demon dogs—Toru, Kuroo and Megumi’s black demon dog—playing with each other while you and Megumi are talking.

“Duhhh, I have to make sure the three of you don’t absolutely destroy her in the hand to hand spars,” he retorts. Nobara is already getting her phone out of her pocket, “But you even look at her outside of the spars— here, see! In this picture you’re looking at her even though she’s just talkin—”

The brat really has taken pictures of him without him noticing. He tunes the two of them out, because he already knows that they aren’t gonna stop until he ‘confesses’, which isn’t gonna happen because he isn’t into you.

So why do his cheeks feel so warm when even thinking about nursing a crush on you?

It’s been four months since you came back to Japan. Four months of being back in Satoru’s life. Four months of him constantly hovering behind you, like he’s afraid you’ll leave again if he isn’t watching. You’re not sure if he knows you know he’s checking in on you, but it’s quite sweet, honestly.

The two of you are sitting on the couch, two bowls of strawberry ice cream in front of you, with a plate of mochi on the table—Satoru’s idea, of course.

Gojo had put on a show to watch while eating, but you’re not quite focused on that. The bowl of ice cream forgotten in your lap while you’re hunched over your phone, thumbs flying over the screen to send messages back.

You’re just about to send the text message when an incoming call comes through.

Mom

Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Why now.

Satoru looks over, spoon in his mouth, eyebrow raised while he looks over at your phone. You’re about to decline the call when Satoru reaches over and clicks on the accept call button. Looking over with wide eyes, you mouth a ‘what are you doing?’, and he only shrugs.

It’s then that you hear your mother’s voice come through the line, calling out your name. “Hello, are you there?”

The bastard had put it on speaker as well. Scowling you look back at your phone. “I- yeah. Hi, mom,” you awkwardly say.

Your mom immediately starts berating you, asking you how you could go to Japan without letting anyone know, and for four months at that!

Shoulders pulled up to your ears, cheeks red, you keep opening and closing your mouth, but before you can even get a word out your mother is already speaking again.

“Seriously, Japan? I’ve told you so many times not to go back to that place. And now I have to find out through your work that you’ve been gone for four months already? You said you were going on a two week vacation, not move to another country!”

Right, you did say that. Back when you first got here in December, you’d told your mother that you would take a small vacation to the Maldives—not Japan and definitely not for four months. She’s probably worried sick.

Swallowing you finally speak up. “Things just… didn’t go according to plan—”

“Are you still in Japan in hopes to find that boy? God, how many times have I told you to get over the guy. You two were friends when you were kids. It’s been twenty-two years for goodness sake! He probably doesn’t even remember who you are.”

Well fucking ouch. And how are you going to tell her he’s sitting right beside you? Yes, that’s right, you haven’t even told her that you found Gojo, but then again, you also didn’t tell her you were in Japan out of all places.

She continues her berating. “On that topic, you should start living your life. I found someone for you, he’s sweet, and tall, and a true gentleman—and before you say anything, I don’t care that the only guy you’re willing to marry is Gojo Satoru, that excuse is getting real old.”

You’re spluttering out replies, but all Gojo can focus on is that one sentence. The only guy you’re willing to marry is Gojo Satoru. Only guy. Willing to marry. Gojo Satoru. You. Marry. Him. You want to marry him?

And by your reaction it’s clear that you did say that and it wasn’t something your mother made up on the spot. You’ve talked about wanting to marry him? Despite the two of you not having seen each other for more than two decades?

The information just refuses to compute in his head. Why would you want to marry him? Was it because of the name or wealth that came with it? The protection from the Zen’in clan, maybe? Or was it because you just really liked him when the two of you were younger?

But then again, you haven’t seen him in ages, surely you would’ve found someone else you liked during all of those years.

It just doesn’t make sense in his head.

It would be one thing to not make any new best friends, reserving that spot for him somehow, but it’s a whole other thing to tell your mother you didn’t want to marry anyone other than him.

And from the discussion that’s still going on beside him, it’s clear you’ve talked about him. A lot. And not just when you were younger—that part you did tell him, the fact that you cried over him and manifested a Shikigami that looked like him, the same way he cried over you for all of those years—but also when you were older.

He doesn’t know what to do with the information he just got handed on a silver platter. Sure, he could tease you for it, but that would still not help with his questions that are floating around in his head.

Fuck, you just keep throwing curveballs. From coming back in his life after twenty-two years to showing him that you inherited the Zen’in clan’s technique—and subsequently telling him you’re of Zen’in lineage—to the fact that you manifested a dog that looked identical to him.

Never in his life would he have thought that you coming back into his life would lead to all of this.

But one thing he can say for certain now—and even before, but the logical part of his brain was still on edge. Plus he wasn’t quite ready to forgive you just yet for being gone for so long, and even admitting to the fact that you could’ve came back earlier—is that you’re not here to take him out.

You really came here just to see him. Even if you didn’t know if he would let you back in his life. It was a gamble you took because you missed him the same way he has missed you for all of those years.

Fuck.

He hasn’t even noticed that you hung up the phone. It’s only when you turn to him with wide eyes that he finally looks at you again.

“You shouldn’t believe everything she said, like— yeah, sure I didn’t tell her I was going to Japan, but that’s only because I knew she wouldn’t approve. I tried to when I was a teenager, but she shot that idea down every time, because she was too scared to be recognized by some random Zen’in clan member—”

“You wanted to marry me, huh?” he smirks down at you, because honestly it is adorable, even if it doesn’t make sense.

Putting your hands out in front of you, you wave them around. “It’s not what you think—stop looking at me like that, yes I can feel the way you’re looking at me, Gojo, It doesn’t matter you have a blindfold on. It’s not like I told my mom ‘Heyyyy mom, just so you know, I won’t ever marry someone except for my childhood best friend’, it was just that she kept trying to set me up for dates that I didn’t want to go on.”

Raising his eyebrows he lets the silence sit for a few seconds, just to watch you squirm a little, let it sink in what you’ve just told him, because he’s a dick like that. “So the first thing you came up with is that you wouldn’t date because you wanted to marry me?”

“I- well… I mean,” you trail off before huffing a breath through your nose and crossing your arms over your chest, not daring to look him into the eyes. “You were, like, my only friend ever, so it was the only excuse I had.”

That sends a small pang through his chest. He was your only friend, ever? That’s actually incredibly sad. In a way it reminds him of himself, of all the years he had to stay at the Gojo estate where he was spoken to like an adult and treated like one.

It was incredibly lonely, even if he was constantly surrounded by people. But it wasn’t like they were there to just let him be a child, no. He had to train, to be on his best behaviour, had to learn so many things a child shouldn’t have to learn, only because he was born with the Six Eyes.

Luckily he had Shoko and Geto back when he started high school. They were always there for him, though they weren’t quite you, they were absolute crackheads in their own way. And he loved them for it.

After high school it went quite different, obviously. Losing Geto to his ideals and Shoko being more reserved in nature—sure he could still go to her, but she also changed. A lot. And he just doesn’t want to burden her even further.

So it’s been just him since the second year, too. And yes he can still annoy people—such as Ijichi, Yaga and Nanami—but he never got quite close to anyone, either.

So the fact that you didn’t have any friends either sends a small pang through his chest. Trying to alleviate the mood, he chuckles a bit, “What, like, people didn’t wanna be friends with you because you stole their food and drew on them?”

“No I just… I mean in the beginning I was missing you so incredibly much, I was constantly crying, not even trying to make new friends because, y’know, you were my friend and I had just lost you in a way. After that I kinda became the ‘transfer who cried the whole time’ so people avoided me.”

If he didn’t feel bad before, he certainly does now. He can’t imagine how hard it is to have your life completely turned upside down at the bright age of six, only to not have any friends either.

“Not that it really mattered back then, it’s not like I spoke the language, so even any attempts of having a friend flew out of the window. And after that I just, I dunno, didn’t want any friends, I guess.” You shrug your shoulders, trying to be nonchalant about all of it.

Well that’s fucking sad, isn’t it? Here you are, trauma dumping onto the one person who has offered you a place to stay while you’re in japan—sure he kinda roped you into it by immediately giving you a teachers position, but still—being generous even while he didn’t have to.

“But don’t worry about it, I’m completely fine this way!” you quickly add, hoping that he didn’t feel too sorry for you. That’s not something you want.

Looking down, you see that your ice cream has melted into a sad puddle of pink goo. Standing up, you can see Gojo startle a bit, you reach over to pluck his bowl right out of his lap. He was almost done eating it, so there isn’t much melted ice cream left in his bowl.

“Well, this looks fucking sad, I’ll clean these up!” You practically sprint toward the kitchen to get away from the awkward tension that’s in the air.

Setting the bowls down in the sink with a clank! you close your eyes for just a second. Of course this would happen right where he could hear. He probably thinks you’re a freak for even being like this.

The days after are awkward to say the least. You’ve noticed Gojo hovering less and less around you, often times choosing to actually just do things for himself, instead of watching you.

He hasn’t made any comments on your excessive cleaning, either. You’ve cleaned the kitchen three times in the past two days, and even when you were on your hands and knees, scrubbing the floor, did he only look at you for a second or two before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and going back to whatever he was doing before.

Whenever the two of you go to the school, he also doesn’t watch you spar anymore. He either gets to sparring with one of the students himself, or he bounces off to his office, telling you that he has some paperwork to catch up to.

While you don’t doubt he has paperwork—he definitely has, a lot of it too—he has told you he absolutely hates doing it. Most of the times he would just tell Ijichi to do it for him while he did other stuff. So it’s glaringly obvious that he’s avoiding you.

Gojo, in the meanwhile, can’t get over the conversation the two of you had a few days ago. He really has been your only friend all of your life, and here he was mad at you for abandoning him, and only thinking you were back in his life to off him.

In a way he feels fucking guilty for it. Not trusting you for four months, despite you never giving him any reason not to. The only thing you ever did was move away, but that wasn’t your decision, so why was he so mad at you?

Sure, you could’ve came back earlier—much earlier—but you had been doubting he even wanted you back in his life, which he can understand.

So he has been giving you some space for yourself. Stopped hovering around you constantly, watching your every move. Stopped doubting that you were in his life for bad reasons.

And apparently the students noticed as well, because not ten minutes after he went to sit down in his office chair, the door slams open. A very irritated Nobara and a more enthusiastic Yuji standing beside her in the threshold.

“So you finally realised that you’re in love with her or something?” Nobara asks, while stalking over to claim the only other seat in the office—a big, luxurious chair that swallows her whole.

Yuji calmly closes the door and walks over to where his classmate is sitting. “You’ve been kinda avoiding her these past few days, sensei.”

Seems like his personal business can’t stay personal with these two. He should’ve expected as much, honestly, from the moment they asked if he had a thing for you. Though they never asked him anything about it afterward, he’s sure they still watched him like a hawk.

Rubbing his hands over his face, he lets out a long, suffering sigh. Because what the fuck is he even supposed to say to that? They don’t even know that the two of you are childhood best friends, by his choice, really.

“I’m just trying to find her a birthday gift,” is what he says instead. Which definitely was the wrong thing to say, seeing the way Nobara’s eyes light up. Shit.

“You could’ve just said so, now move—” she plucks the iPad right out of his hands, screen lighting up on the last tab he had open. “—what the fuck, Gojo?”

That certainly attracts Yuji’s attention, looking down at the screen, he furrows his brows. “Why are you trying to buy Tamagotchi’s?”

“It’s a joke gift, you guys wouldn’t understand— gimme it back,” Nobara holds the iPad out of reach, tapping things into the tablet without once looking at Gojo.

“Well, whatever, if you want her to be turned off by your gift, go for it. As for a normal gift, what about this?” She turns the screen back toward Gojo. Looking it over, he sees two dog beds for a ridiculous price, not that he cares much about that, he has more money than he can ever spend, but still.

It’s thoughtful, to be completely honest, and not something he would’ve came up with himself. With the way there are multiple dog beds that are strewn all over his apartment, he would’ve never thought to get you new ones. But when he thinks about the beds, they are quite old, torn in some places, stuffing flat.

“Oh, oh! And maybe you could get like a small gift basket filled with sweets. She likes those right? She’s always snacking on something,” Yuji adds, bouncing slightly in place, faded rose tufts moving with the motion.

Yeah that does sound good. And something you would absolutely love, considering you still have the same sweet-tooth you had when you were younger.

“Okay, okay. I’ll get her that, now go back to whatever the two of you were doing before coming here to lecture me on gifts,” he shoos them out of the door. Just before he closes it, he can hear Nobara yell a ‘Don’t fuck this up’ over her shoulder.

Closing the door, he lets his head rest against it for a few seconds. Yeah, this is absolutely going to be either a fail or an absolute win, and he has no idea which of the two it’s gonna be.

Two weeks later, he's anxiously sitting at the dining table—somewhere he never sits—fiddling with the plastic wrap around the gift basket, the sound of it crinkling is the only sound filling the room other than the dogs their breathing and occasionally shifting.

Toru had been trying to play with him earlier, dropping a ball in front of his feet, only for Satoru to not even notice it. He’s so nervous—and for what? It’s just your birthday. Twenty-nine. No big deal. Not your ‘milestone’ thirty everyone keeps talking about.

So why is he so nervous right now?Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first time he’s spending your birthday with you since you turned five. Yes, you were there on his sixth birthday, but you were only five—almost six—back then.

He’s done breathing exercises. Him. Gojo Satoru. The Strongest. Had done breathing exercises because he was nervous to give gifts to his best friend… childhood best friend? just friends? Whatever.

He’s never, and I mean never, been this nervous before. He’s had to face death when he was merely sixteen years old. He had to kill his best friend when he was twenty-eight. But none of those made him as nervous as he is right now.

Bouncing his knee while sitting, trying to sit still until you finally woke up. He’s been sitting here since the bright and early hour of five a.m. Getting the gifts ready for you, but right now he’s regretting that decision, because it means having to wait god knows how long for you to wake up.

It’s ridiculous, really. Trying to keep calm while he still has to actually give you the gifts, and what if you don’t like them? What if you laugh at him? Or maybe scold him?

He’s spiraling, but luckily not for long because a wet nose presses itself against his palm. Looking down, he sees Toru staring at him with narrowed eyes. Scratching him behind the ear, Satoru tries to focus himself on the dog.

He rolls the ball into the living room, the dog prancing after it, nails making soft click click click sounds against the hardwood floors. Coming back, he drops the saliva soaked ball in Satoru’s awaiting hand.

With a grimace he throws the ball once more, wiping his hand on his sweats. The fabric darkening where he wipes off the drool. You’d think for shadow constructs that they wouldn’t have any saliva, but they do, apparently. Which is interesting, because they don’t really have any other ‘normal’ dog things.

They don’t need to eat nor drink—though you insist on feeding them occasionally and putting out water bowls that just… sit there and never get used—nor do they have to be walked. Sure they love to run around, Toru moreso than Kuroo, but that’s something they already do in the apartment.

Speaking of, the black dog stands up, stretching herself, hairs raising slightly. “Oooohhh, biiigg stretch,” the words leave his mouth before he even realises it.

He has to blink a few times when he realises he said that. It’s something you tell the dogs when they stretch out, acting as if they’re actual dogs and not just Shikigami.

Looks like you’re rubbing off on him.

When Satoru finally hears your door open fifteen minutes later, he sits up straight. You’re walking out, one hand in your hair, scratching your scalp slightly while still yawning.

“G’morning,” you mumble, walking directly to the kitchen. But Gojo doesn’t even hear it, because all he can focus on is your pajamas, if you can even call them that.

A tank top that has ridden up dangerously high, so much so it’s bunched around your ribs—something you seem completely unaware of—and the shorts. God, can he even call them shorts? Your ass is nearly hanging out of the thing.

There’s so much skin, which definitely doesn’t help when you bend over to grab a pan from the cupboards. His entire brain just… shuts off. It only seems to turn back on when the pan clanks! onto the furnace.

Clearing his throat he stands up. “Morning. I- you- fucking hell, happy birthday to you!” he almost fucking cheers. You look over at him, eyebrows furrowed, still fiddling with the knob to turn on the furnace. “That’s today?”

That makes him sweat just slightly. Did he remember the date wrong? Fuck, is today even your birthday? He’s sweating over here, trying to figure out if it really is your birthday, while you’re whispering under your breath.

Did you really forget your own birthday? Surely not. Then again, you don’t really celebrate it. Your parents send you a text and come over whenever they can with some gifts, but other than that, you don’t really pay any mind to it.

Patting your shorts, you’re trying to allocate your phone, whichhhh is probably still under your pillow. Giving up on trying to get the furnace to work, you run to the bedroom, trying to find your phone, hand wildly patting underneath your pillow.

When you finally find the thing, you swipe it open, only to be met with two texts from your parents. It is your birthday!

Going back inside, you see Gojo stand a bit awkwardly in the middle of the room. Kuroo brushes her head against your bare leg, the soft strands of her fur tickling you slightly.

“Thank you, Gojo,” you thank him, though it’s slightly awkward after running out of the room after he congratulated you.

“I got you presents.” Stepping to the side, you finally see that there are a few boxes on the table—one massive one, a smaller one, and a basket wrapped in plastic wrap. Blinking, you’re trying to process the fact that Gojo had bought you presents.

Is this why he has been avoiding you? When the two of you were children he was terrible at keeping secrets. Whispering all excitedly to you about what he had gotten you, only to clasp a hand over his mouth, eyes widening, when he finally realised he shouldn’t have told you your present.

It always made you laugh to see those blues widening significantly. You didn’t care much for surprises, as long as you knew the gift came from Gojo, it would be all right.

“You didn’t have to,” you say softly, still eyeing the gifts on the table. Gojo just grins and walks behind you, nudging you slightly. “Go on, open them.”

Looking back at him, he gives you a small encouraging nod. Walking forward, you start with the big gift. Opening it, you’re met with two new, luxurious dog beds. The quality feels like it’s expensive. They’re big enough for the dogs to comfortably sleep in, and the bedding itself is soft as fuck.

Gojo sees you carefully lift one of the beds, turning it this and that way, inspecting it, before putting it on the ground. Toru, of course, prances over and sniffs the bed once before tilting its head your way. When you nod, he lets himself flop onto the bed, white fur splaying out against the gray fabric.

A small smile graces your face. Grabbing the other dog bed, you lay it down for Kuroo, who is a bit more careful. She steps onto the bed, makes a small circle, before finally going to lay down. She doesn’t huff when doing so, which Gojo considers as a win.

Then you go to grab the gift basket. There are multiple snacks in there, along with a few things he’s seen you buy over the months you’ve been living here or have been mentioning. A small bracelet you saw during one of the missions with the kids. Perfume you always wished to have, but never had the money for. Some scrubs he sees you buy from time to time.

Smiling, you rip the plastic away. “This is so sweet, Gojo, thank you,” you smile all cute at him over your shoulder, before looking back down to the gifts. Opening the box with the bracelet, you fucking gasp.

“I can’t accept this, do you know how expensive that thing was?!” you turn around, box still open with the bracelet neatly laid out for you.

“Yes you can, c’mhere,” he murmurs, moving forward to pluck the box right out of your delicate fingers.

Grabbing the bracelet, he angles your wrist down a bit so he can put it on for you. The sunlight hitting the silver pendant just so that it glints. You touch the bracelet with reverent fingers. “Thank you,” you murmur, looking up at Gojo through your lashes.

His throat bobs when he swallows, looking down at you—having to keep his eyes from wandering lower, because he can look riiiight into your top from this angle—stepping back slightly. “You’re welcome.”

After a few more seconds of eye-contact, you sift through the basket again. All the sweets he got you were really what you liked, and not necessarily him. Fuck, it’s really thoughtful.

Opening a box of strawberry mochi, you hold one out for him to grab. His long fingers brushing yours in the process. “Sweets for breakfast?” it’s not like he cares much, shoving the sweet right into his mouth.

Laughing you take a bite for yourself. Dusting your fingers off, you grab some of the snacks and put them on the table. “Be right back.”

He sees you walk to your room, which makes him smile. Sure, you were chaos—and there are times where it shines through even nowadays—but if it’s one thing you did, it was cleaning up your gifts. Whenever you got a gift, you put it in its rightful place before continuing to open the rest of them.

It never made sense to his young mind, but then again, many things you did didn’t.

When you come back, you eye the small gift left on the table. Grabbing it you unbox it, only to be confused. In the box was a tiny egg-like device.

“You got me a Tamagotchi?” you ask him, turning the thing around around a few times to really confirm it is in fact a Tamagotchi. Gojo grins, putting his hands in the pockets of his sweats, rocking on his heels a little. “Mhmmm.”

“Why?” you ask, finally looking at him, and that grin on his face tells you he’s up to no good. “You remember when your mom called you?”

Of course you remember that, she had said some things you’d rather not have Gojo known, but alas, the damage was done already. Nodding your head he continues.

“Well, since you wanted to get married to me sooo bad, I just wanted to make your wish come true!” He pulls out a similar looking device from his pocket, dangling the little keychain from his finger, grin widening and eyes crinkling with the motion.

You stare at him for a few more seconds, completely dumbfounded. “Let me get this straight. You got me a Tamagotchi because you heard my mother say that I had told her that I would only ever marry you—so she would stop setting me up for blind dates—so our little Tamagotchi’s can get married?”

Gojo gins and nods his head, the hairs on his head bouncing with the motion. “Mhmmmm, I just wanted to make your dream come true.”

One second he’s grinning down at you, the next he gets a pillow to the face. When the fuck did you even get a pillow? And one from your bed nonetheless. Blinking disorientated, he looks at you for a few seconds. Then sees Kuroo sitting next to you, her tail wagging onto the ground.

Oh. Oh, it’s so on. A small chuckle escapes him, “Oh sweetheart, you have no idea what you’ve done.”

With that he moves towards you faster than you can even process. Wraps his arms around your waist and carries you to the couch. You keep hitting him with the pillow, over and over and over, squealing slightly while you kick your legs in his grip.

“Satoru Gojo, put me down right now!” you demand, still hitting him with the pillow.

“As you wish!” He all but throws you onto the couch. Bouncing slightly you blink up at him, questioning what he’s even gonna do, when you see his fingers start to creep towards your sides.

“Don’t you dare— Satoru I’m serious,” you warn him while pointing your finger at him.

He thinks it’s adorable, honestly; your little finger wagging in his face like that’s going to stop him from tickling you. It’s one of the weaknesses you’ve had since you were young. Ticklish as fuck, whereas Gojo could be tickled and he would not react. At all.

Your laughter echoes through the apartment, trying to squirm away from his fingers digging into your sides. Gojo chuckles at the fucking torture he’s putting you through, there are tears gathering in your eyes and your sides are starting to hurt.

“Ah- okay okay, enough,” when he still doesn’t stop, you call in for drastic measures. “Kuroo, Toru, attack!”

The dogs immediately ‘attack’ Satoru—Toru biting on the fabric of his sweats, trying to get him away while Kuroo tries to, delicately, grab ahold of Satoru’s wrist to get his hand off you.

The tickling finally stops. Taking greedy gulps of air, Satoru slumping over you, pulling a small groan from your chest. “That’s cheating,” he whines. Then looks over at the dogs and whispers: ‘betrayal, after all I did for you guys’.

Nudging the tall, white-haired guy that’s still half sprawled over your torso like a corpse, you smile at him. “Thanks, for the gifts. And remembering.”

“Always.”

You open Satoru’s bedroom door without knocking. It’s something you really should start learning to do, because if you did, you probably wouldn’t be met with this sight.

You’re not sure what reaches your brain faster, the way Satoru is laid out on his bed, all naked. Fist pumping his ridiculously large cock, with a pretty pink tip and multiple veins running along the shaft. Pre cum is beading out of the head, which he smears down with each pump of his hand. His head is thrown back slightly, teeth sunken into his plush bottom lip, eyes hooded and focused on his phone.

Or the way his phone is cradled in his free hand, screen facing him, the light illuminating everything you can see. The speakers letting the pornographic moans echo through the space.

Satoru looks over at you, still frozen in the doorway, mouth open—not sure if it’s because you’re shocked or because you were on the verge of saying something and the words never made it out.

His hand never stops stroking. up and down, up and down, up and down, up and— stop looking at it. You shake yourself out of your stupor, feeling your cheeks heat up completely.

“Sorry!” you squeak out, ready to turn on your heel and go back to your own room. You feel so stupid.

Should’ve knocked. Should’ve closed the door the moment you saw what was happening. Should’ve just waited until next morning.

You’ve taken one step back when Satoru call out. “Wait. Stay, please?” his voice is breathy, a groan tears from his throat next when he thumbs over his own slit. Looking over your shoulder, you try to keep your eyes on his face.

The way his mouth is slightly parted, chest heaving with every ragged breath he takes. The flush on his face continues all the way down to said chest. Eyebrows furrowed slightly.

Swallowing you take another step back. leave leave leave, just leave. You must’ve heard him wrong. just. leave. Reaching for the door handle, you want to shut the door behind you. Once again Satoru speaks up, eyes still completely fixed on you. “Please?” he pleads.

Chewing on your lip you contemplate it for a second before you step into the room. It feels wrong. It is wrong. This is your friend—your best friend. You shouldn’t do this, having read too many stories about people losing their best friends after hooking up with them.

But… are you hooking up with him? Technically you’re watching him, not that that’s any better. Watch the way his hand slides up and down his shaft, occasionally squeezing at the base. Watch the way his pupils are blown wide with lust.

“Good girl,” Satoru breathes out, and your thighs clench on instinct. Fuck. Never in your wildest dreams would you have thought this would actually happen.

Without realising your hand finds your clit over your sleeping shorts, a small gasp leaving your lips at the contact. Then you freeze, eyes blown wide.

Were you really about to touch yourself while looking at how your best friend is jerking himself off? Fuck you’re a perv.

Gojo groans at the sight, throwing his head back slightly. His hips lift from the matrass, meeting his hands with desperate thrusts. “Fuck, touch yourself for me,” he almost whines the words out, pausing the porn video he was previously watching and throwing his phone somewhere on the bed. He pats the bed next, inviting you in.

Gulping you walk over, tentatively putting a knee on the matrass. Then your other, before you’re seated on the bed on your knees. Feet under your butt, hands laying limp in your lap. Gnawing on your lower lip, you look at Satoru.

From here you can clearly see his face, illuminated by the sliver of moonlight the curtains let through. You can see his eyes fully now. See the way there’s only a small, thin ring of blue left. Pupils completely blown out and focused on you.

His eyes travel from your own face down to your pajamas—a small tank top and shorts that shouldn’t even be able to be classified as shorts—eyes lingering on the way your nipples poke through the top. He licks his lips at the sight, fucking his fist a bit faster. More pre spilling out.

Fuck, how he wishes he could just wrap his lips around them. Teeth grazing the sensitive nubs—have you cry out in pleasure. Another groan leaves his throat.

“C’mon, sweetheart, touch yourself for me,” he repeats. Because god, the way you were about to do it from watching him jerk off, it turned him on so incredibly much more than the amateur porn he was watching on his phone.

He had a bad habit of searching up videos where the girl resembled you. It was the only way he could cum after you came back in his life—he realised that after trying to search for one of his favorite videos, and just couldn’t get hard. At all.

Until he stumbled upon a video where the girl vaguely resembled you. His dick instantly twitched at the sight, reminding him of how embarrassingly hard he got whenever you bent over to grab something from the floor, or the lower cupboards. Or when you’d come out of your room in sleepwear that really shouldn’t be called sleepwear.

Seeing you hesitate makes him speak up again. “Want me to beg? I’ll do it— please touch yourself—fffuckk—for me,” he squeezes his tip, before returning to pumping his shaft. And that snaps you out of it.

You shyly put your legs in front of you, thighs slightly parted. And Gojo can see the small, wet patch starting to form on the crotch of your short’s fabric. Next you shimmy out of them and— “Not wearing any panties? Dirty girl.”

It makes your skin heat up even more, because you never thought that not wearing any panties would lead to this. Putting your middle finger on your clit, you apply slight pressure. Gasping out, your hips lift slightly.

Your finger drops down to your soaked entrance next. You circle it with the pad of your finger, not once daring to dip inside, just circling it, catching your slick on your finger before bringing it back up to your clit.

Circling the sensitive bundle of nerves, you suck in a shaky breath, chest stuttering with it. Your thighs close slightly, before you force them open again. Looking over you can see Gojo’s eyes transfixed on your fingers.

You can feel your hole clench around nothing, more slick gushing out of you. And how you wish it were his fingers on you—on your clit, on your thighs, inside of you. Your free hand travels up to your breast, pinching your nipple through the fabric.

Whining out you throw your head back, before your fingers glide from your clit to your entrance. Sinking one finger in, you bite on your lower lip. Gojo groans at the sight of your finger disappearing into your tiny hole.

How he wishes it was his finger being hugged by your tight, wet, warm, walls. He wishes he could feel them clench on his digits, wish he could scissor you open—make you cry out at how much thicker and longer his fingers were compared to yours.

His hand matches your rhythm, the way you’re thrusting in and out. In and out, in and out, in and out. He can feel his lower stomach starting to contract. Abs tensing up. But he wants to wait for you to cum as well. Wants to cum at the same time.

“Add another finger,” he groans out. And you do just that, adding a second finger with a small gasp falling from your lips. It almost tips him over the edge. The two of you work in tandem, hands and fingers moving in the same speed. Hoping—wishing you could feel the other.

The room fills with sounds—ragged breaths, the shlick shlick shlick from both your fingers plunging into your wet pussy, and from Gojo’s hand pumping its shaft. The knot in your stomach tightening with the seconds, getting warmer and warmer.

The hand that was pinching and rolling your nipple between your fingers falls down to your pussy, circling your clit. “Close,” you gasp out. Gojo doesn’t reply, just moves his hand a bit faster, until finally white spurts of cum dribble down his hands.

You follow him seconds after, eyes rolling to the back of your skull. The knot in your stomach finally snapping, sending you into an blinding orgasm. Legs snapping shut, trapping both your hands between them and your pussy. Thighs trembling.

Coming down from your high, you look over at Satoru, who looks utterly blissed out. There’s cum on his hand, thighs, abs, and even some on the matrass. He’s giving himself a few more strokes, cum dribbling down from his slit with some after spurts.

Removing your fingers from your heat, you look around awkwardly. There’s cum dribbling down your fingers, but you don’t want to just wipe them off on Satoru’s duvet.

Before you can even scoot off the bed to go clean yourself up, Satoru is suddenly in front of you— still in his full, naked glory. Skin flushed and shiny with sweat, still dragging in breaths like he sprinted a full marathon.

You open your mouth to ask him what he’s doing, but the words die out instantly. Satoru wraps his lips around your fingers and suuuucks your juices right off them. His tongue swirling around them. His eyes rolling to the back of his skull while he hums around your digits. You slightly jerk your hand back, before he grabs your wrist to keep them in place.

Once he’s done cleaning your fingers, he licks a broad stripe from your fingers all the way down to your wrist, where slick is dripping down.

You can feel your eyes go wide, mouth parting slightly. The sight is ungodly—or rather godly. The pale moonlight shining on Satoru makes his stark white hair stand out even more, his skin pale skin illuminated by the white light.

Satoru’s eyes find yours—pupils still blown wide, a bit hazy—while he licks one last stripe up your palm, collecting the last of your sweetness. The sight makes you feel parched, swallowing nervously you bite on your lip, unsure of what to do.

Pulling his head from your hand, he winks at you while his tongue swipes over his lips. Your eyes flitting to them like a moth to a flame. And you wonder—not for the first time—what it’s like to feel them on yours. What it would feel like kissing your best friend.

“You taste so sweet,” he rasps out, pulling you from your thoughts. Staring at him with wide eyes you open your mouth to say something—probably something stupid—when he beats you to it. “‘Wonder what it’s like straight from the source.”

You gasp at that, thighs clenching. You feel your pussy throb for him, as if it has a little heartbeat of its own. A fresh wave of sweetness dribbling out at his words. Gojo’s eyes immediately are drawn toward the action, a slow grin forming on his face.

“Oh? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweets,” he’s smug. His pearly whites catching the moonlight, making him even more attractive. Fuck. Yes, you would like that. Have him buried between your legs, staring up at you while he makes you feel good. Have your hands grip his hair. Thighs wrapped around his head.

He sees you nod your head, a shy, quick little thing. Your whole face is burning up from your cheeks to the tips of your ears down your neck toward your chest. It makes him wonder if it continues all the way to your tits, still covered in that damn tank top.

That wouldn’t do now, would it?

Leaning back, he goes to lay down onto his back, still looking at you. “What- what are you doing?” you ask him, voice fully confused. And god, if it doesn’t do things to him.

“Want you to ride my face,” he replies, looking over at you before grabbing your thighs and moving them for you.

You’re straddling his chest, thighs bracketing him, pussy dripping. The sight is absolutely filthy—something he could only ever dream of since you got back into his life.

The only thing that would be better was if that damn top was finally gone. Your pebbled nipples taunting him through the fabric.

Running his hands up and down your thighs, feeling you shiver, he runs his hands up to your waist, fingers brushing the hem. “Off,” he orders.

Gulping you comply with him, pulling it over your head and throwing it somewhere across the room. Your tits bounce with the motion, finally freed of the constricting fabric. A low, guttural groan pulls from Gojo’s throat at the sight. God, aren’t you beautiful. Fully naked on top of him, eyes blown wide looking into his own.

Yeah, he could get used to this. His hands travel up to your breasts, giving them a quick squeeze that has you gasping out, before they travel down and hook onto your thighs once more. He pulls you to hover over his face, your puffy, glistening lips right above his own. His eyes zeroing in on it, unconsciously licking his lips at the sight.

You grab the headboard behind his head, lowering yourself slightly when he nods at you—not fully seated, still hovering, thighs straining slightly. Which is apparently the wrong choice when a firm slap lands on your ass.

“Sit.” There’s no room for debate, no room for you to even stammer out a reply when Satoru pulls you down completely. You arch when you feel his tongue swipe one broad stripe from your fluttering hole all the way to your clit. “F-fuck, Satoru,” you mewl out, grip tightening on the headboard.

Both his hands grip your hips, keeping you slightly in place, before he begins to fully lap at your cunt. He wraps his lips around your bundle of nerves and suuucksss. Your thighs tightening around his head with a small gasp.

Satoru groans out, pressing his tongue into you. Your warm walls clamping down on the muscle immediately. Wriggling his tongue around, he starts slowly tongue-fucking you. The act so filthy, you can’t help but keen out.

One hand leaves the headboard, tangling into his moonlit white hair. It shimmers slightly in the light, making it all that more alluring to grab onto.

His own hand travels up from your hip to the underside of your boobs. His thumb resting there for a moment before continuing upward, fingers finding your hardened peak. Twisting and pulling at it, his tongue leaves your entrance, finding your clit again. He suckles and laps at the nub while still stimulating your nipple.

Your hips grind down onto his face, smearing more of your slick over the lower part of his face. A firm slap to your behind has you gasping out and tightening your hold in his locks. “That’s it, fuck yourself on my tongue. ‘S alll yours,” he mutters into your cunt, blue eyes finding yours.

The vibrations have you moan out. Hips resuming their grind on his face, your other hand joins his hair keeping his face in place for you. Your clit grazes his nose and fuckkkkk. Whimpering you throw your head back.

Closing his eyes, he savors the way you use him. Savors the way you grind down on his face. Savors the way you grip his hair, cock stirring where it’s resting on his stomach, pre beading out slowly, head fully flushed. Savors your taste, a forbidden type of nectar he already knows he won’t get enough of.

His hands grip your ass, encouraging the slow, filthy grinds on his face. So into it, he doesn’t notice one of your hands left his hair until it touches his abs lightly. Opening his eyes he sees you above him; breasts moving with the motion, lip swollen from biting down on it, eyes hazed over.

Then he feels your hand wrap around his cock, giving it a firm tug and he hisses into your mound. The grinds of your hips returning, timing it with the way you’re slowly starting to move your hand on his cock. “Fuck, baby,” he rasps out, hips thrusting up to meet your fist. “Wait—fuck—turn around.”

You still above him before letting go of his shaft and positioning yourself above him once again. Leaning forward you wrap your hand around him again while his tongue finds your clit once more.

Sticking out your tongue, you lick up the pre that’s slowly running down his shaft. From the base allll the way up to his slit. Wrapping your lips around the flushed head, you slowly begin to bob your head, up and down, up and down, fisting what you can’t reach.

Cheeks hollowed out his tip reaches the back of your throat, making you gag. Gojo’s hips lift at the feeling, making you take more of him in. Your throat constricts around him.

Pulling off him, a strand of saliva connects the two of you. Your hips grinding back against his tongue that worms itself into your heat once more. Moaning you go back to your own demonstrations, tongue slowly swirling around his tip, flicking against his frenulum, having him keen out into your cunt.

Taking him down down down, all the way until your lips hit the base, pubes scratching your chin slightly. Breathing through your nose, you keep yourself down there for one, two, three heartbeats before pulling back up again.

Spit gathers at the bottom of his shaft, slowly dribbling down his balls. It’s incredibly messy, your hand getting slicker by the second, jerking him all the way from his base up to his head, swirling your thumb around the slit a few times.

At the same time you feel two thick digits enter you, your hips bucking back on them, pulling a small chuckle from Gojo. “Oh fuckkkk,” you moan out once they start to move inside of you, reaching much further than your own had just minutes earlier.

Temporarily forgetting about the heavy weight in your hand, you begin to grind back, hips moving on their own accord. Never would you have thought you would feel this good from just having fingers inside of you—scissoring you open.

Your eyes roll back when he hits a particular spot inside of you. “There- there, please Gojo,” you all but moan out when he curls his fingers inside of you, trying to find the spot again. Your hips jump a bit when he finds it again, and his arm tightens on your waist draaagging you back down onto his face.

“Where are you going, baby? Can’t even give my cock any attention and you’re trying to run from my fingers?” He all but pulls you down on his face again, having you seated on there, nose nudging his fingers while his buttery soft tongue circles your clit once more, giving it a playful nip while lifting his hips.

It’s then that you remember to go back to your demonstrations, cock heavy and throbbing in your hand. Cheeks hollowing out while the tip prods the back of your throat once more. Your other hand coming down to fondle with his balls, slick with a mix of saliva and pre.

You can feel that familiar pressure start to build up in your lower stomach, chasing that feeling, you begin to suck harder, throating him completely.

“Fuck- oh fuck fuck fuck, thaaat’s it, take it all down that pretty throat of yours, letting me fuck you,” Gojo starts babbling into your cunt, vibrations sending you nearly over the edge.

You force yourself down here, saliva dripping down the sides of your mouth and chin with the effort. Your eyes starting to get all teary, and throat constricting around him.

You’re gushing around his fingers when they hit that spot inside of you once more, sending you over the edge, liquid spraying down his face—which he drinks up with greedy gulps, pulling his fingers out of you only to replace with his lips, catching everything he can.

Eyes rolling to the back of your head, you move your mouth back up until only the tip remains in your mouth, lips stretched around his girth.

And it sends him over the edge, too. Milky seed filling your mouth faster than you can swallow, dribbling down his shaft, in white streaks.

Pulling off him, you cough a few times, cheeks red, a few tears finally running down your cheeks.

Gojo finally removes his lips from your cunt with a pop!, slapping your clit lightly once. “Good girl, did so good for me, c’mhere.”

He turns you around, and his lips find yours, and you want to protest—try to—that there’s still cum on your lips, but it seems like he doesn’t mind—in fact, he’s lapping it all up, tongue tracing your lips.

Fuck, that’s hot.

Parting for air you look at him, look at the way his hair is all messed up from where your hands were tugging at it, the lower part of his face shiny with slick, lips pink and swollen and his eyes completely blown out.

Shifting slightly, you feel it then— “You’re hard again, already??” Gojo just grins, pearly whites catching the faint moonlight that’s bleeding through the curtains. “Can you blame me? Your pretty cunt is addicting, sweets.”

Your hips roll down onto it, once, twice, head catching your clit with each movement. Small gasps leaving your mouth every time it does.

Gojo’s hands move to your hips, not moving you in any way whatsoever, just holds onto them and lets you use him. Have your way with him the way you want to.

Then he turns the two of you around, the sudden movement making you gasp out. Eyes widening while you look up at him. Your hair splayed out on the pillow like a small halo, framing your face so prettily.

He moves his hips a few times, tip catching your entrance once, making you moan out. “You sure you want this?” he breathes out, staring at you. “Mhmmm, want you inside of me s’toru.”

Fuck, that does it for him. Wrapping his hand at the base, he glides his shaft through your puffy lips a few times, before finally starting to push in. The stretch is obscene, even after having him scissor you open. After two orgasms.

Pushing in slowly, he has to stop a few times, forehead dropping to your sternum, letting himself rest there a little. He’s not even all the way inside yet, but the way you keep clenching makes his hips stutter.

Your hands claw at his back, leaving behind angry red lines in their wake. It feels like you’re being split in half with how big he is. You had him in your hand, in your mouth, lips stretched around his girth, in your throat, but it still feels different.

“Are-are you all the way in yet?” you breathe out when he stills, soft strands tickling your throat while he peppers your skin with kisses. “Naaahhh, nowww—” He buries himself to the hilt, hips flush against yours. “—I am.”

Pulling them back, he thrusts forward again. Moans falling from your lips at the feeling. One of your legs wraps itself around his waist, pulling him in even further. Your eyes rolling to the back of your head with the new angle.

Your bracelet clinks softly with each thrust, pendant catching the moonlight. “You feel so good wrapped around my cock, letting me use you.” he groans out, leaning down to wrap his lip around your nipple.

Climax building, you can feel that familiar feeling tightening in your stomach. “Close,” you gasp out, fingers digging into his shoulders.

Without any warning, Satoru grabs both your thighs and presses them aaaalll the way downnn until they’re flushed against your chest. The new angle has you gasping out, his tip constantly hitting your cervix like this.

your hands claw at his arms, trying to find purchase onto something, and he hisses out at the small, red lines your nails leave behind, his grin returning tenfold. “Thaaat’s it, wifey, mark me up, show them I’m yours.”

You blink at him, opening your mouth to ask him what he means when he thrusts in, reaching impossible depths no one has ever explored before, making you moan out instead. Your nails dig into his biceps, forming angry little crescents.

“F-fuck, S’toru, you’re so deep!” you whine, tears springing to your eyes when he finds that spongy spot inside of you, your walls clamping down on him.

He notices, of course he does, his eyes trained on where the two of you are connected and— oh! Following his gaze you can see your belly start to bulge every time he bottoms out, the sight ever so sinful.

“Pretty wife, taking me so good,” every word is accentuated with a thrust, hitting your spongy spot over and over again, making you keen out, the first tears starting to roll down the apple of your cheeks. And it’s like a switch turned on in his head.

Leaning forward, he plants his arms right next to your head, his chest caging you in completely, your thighs are stuck between your bodies, trembling and twitching with each trust.

Sticking his tongue out, he liiiicks up the tears that are collecting just at your jaw. Groaning he speeds up, the sinful sound of skin slapping together mixed with moans and groans fills the room completely.

Without so much as a warning, you come around him when he bottoms out once again, his happy trail grazing your clit so sinfully. Throwing your head back you keen out at the sensation, that knot finally snapping inside of you.

Gojo groans out at the sensation. “Coming for me already? Fuck, you look so pretty like this. So mine.” he growls, never once stopping his demonstrations. It makes you dizzy in the best way possible. He leaves open-mouthed kisses all over the column of your throat before he bites down.

The sensation has you gasping out, walls tightening around him once more. Gojo’s eyes roll to the back of his head, thrusts growing more sloppy with the second, teetering on his own release. “My wife, my pretty wife, you look so good, mine, mine, my pretty wife—”

He’s officially lost it. Not that you’re registering his words any longer, the overstimulation has you keeping out, trying to grab at whatever you can—his arms, shoulders, back, leaving behind marks you’ll have to look at the following morning.

Nodding your head at his babbling, you moan out when his hand snakes between your bodies, pressing down on the bulge of where his cock is buried inside of you. “Feel me there? Gonna fill you up so good, aaallll the way down here.”

You’re barely aware of the fact that you’re once again cumming, toes curling, tummy tingling at the feeling. But Gojo is, of course he is, he’s aware of everything you do. Aware of the tears that are streaming down your face, aware of the way your thighs are trembling under his chest, aware of your cunt trying to milk him for all he’s worth.

“Fffuuuck, yeahhhh you want that dont’cha? Wanna be filled up by me, pumped so full it’s spilling out hours later,” he groans out.

Nodding your head, you loop your arms around his neck. “Yes, yes, please! Please S’toru, wanna be filled. Cum inside of me, please,” you whimper out.

That does it, the next second he’s spilling inside your velvety walls, coating them white. His, his, allll his. Leaning forward, he connects his mouth with yours, tongue invading your mouth. It’s all teeth and tongue.

His thrusts come to a halt, last few drops of cum beading out of him inside of your walls. It driiips out with the amount he’s filling you with, creating a white ring around the base of his shaft, slowly dripping down your bodies—coating his balls, bedsheets and your ass in white.

Coming down, he can feel you play with his undercut, rubbing soothing circles with the other hand. You smile up at him, eyes red-rimmed from the tears, angry red blotches forming on your neck. You look so pretty like this; so his.

He can feel his cock stirring to life inside of you, and from your reaction, you can too, looking down at where the two of you are connected with wide eyes.

“What, thought we were done?” he grins down at you while he slowly rolls his hips into yours. “Told you I was gonna fill you up, ‘ya think I’ll stop after just one?”

Within a second he has flipped you around, his cock leaving your cunt for a second. You yelp, disoriented. Your cheek finds the pillow, arms holding yourself up while he has grabbed your hips. Ass up face down.

For a second he doesn’t do anything, just watches your hole flutter around nothing while his cum bubbles out of you. Then he slaps your ass before lining himself up once more, bottoming out in one swift thrust that knocks the wind out of your lungs.

The pace he sets is brutal; deep, harsh thrusts that make your whole body inch forward thrust by thrust. Luckily Gojo’s holding onto your hips though, pulling them back to meet his hips every time.

“‘Gonna fill all of your holes, have you leaking all day and night,” he grunts out, watching the way your ass ripples with every thrust, your other hole winking up at him.

Hunching over you, he kisses all over your shoulders before nosing the side of your face. Turning around, your mouth finds his once more.

His balls slap your clit over and over, each powerful thrust having you moan out into his mouth.

Disconnecting his mouth from yours, he leans back, quickening his pace. Looking down at you, seeing the way your hair caught the moonlight that’s slipping through the gap in the curtains, leaving a pale streak across your back.

It makes your skin shimmer slightly when it catches your flushed, sweaty skin. Catches the small marks he left behind, almost as if highlighting them for him.

With a particular thrust you whimper out, “There, there. S’toru, fuckk,” you mewl out, hips moving back to meet his thrusts. He focuses his thrusts to keep hitting that spongy spot inside of you, making him groan out when your slick walls tighten around him.

His hand leaves your hip, snaking up to your throat. Grabbing it he lifts your body, your back flush against his chest, his other hand snaking to the front, rubbing your clit. Your back arches, his hips smack smack smacking yours.

“Gonna make you a mommy, have you all round and full,” he’s babbling now, coaxing you through another climax. Your eyes rooollinggg to the back of your skull, drool escaping from your lips in a small, sinful line.

Satoru groans at the way your walls are spasming around him, creaming down his cock, leaving a small white ring around his base. Thighs shaking.

Your entire body is pliant now, melting into him, into the way his beefy arm is still wrapped around your neck, supporting your entire weight while he keeps trusting, not once letting his pace falter.

“You can do one more for me, can’t you,” he growls, and you’re barely aware of what he’s saying. But you nod your head, a small jerky motion. “Yeaaahhh you can. Knew you could, that’s my wifey.”

His hand snakes up to your breasts, kneading and pulling on the hardened buds. “Just imagine these swelling up with milk. Pretty tits leaking.”

He’s completely gone now, babbling to himself. You’re nodding along with whatever he’s saying, not that you’re hearing it. All you can focus on is the way the overstimulation is creeping in, letting you feel every single thing.

A few more thrusts have you thrown over the edge for the fifth time tonight, and it’s dizzying in the best way possible. Your cunt convulsing around him, clear liquid spraying down the bed, and it has his lashes flutter.

“Fuck- oh fuck. That’s it, milk me wifey. Mine, all mine,” he thrusts a few more times before stilling completely. Hot seed spills inside of you, coating your walls white one last time.

He lets the two of you fall forward, his body swallowing yours whole. Every ridge of his abs could be felt on your back, sticky with sweat.

His thumbs find your sides, small kisses on your shoulder. “You okay, sweetheart?” he asks, voice full of adoration.

You hum, all sleepy and boneless beneath him. Hissing when he finally pulls out, he watches the way his cum seeps from your swollen folds. Entranced by it, two of his fingers scoop it up and push it back inside.

Yelping, you jerk away from his fingers, pulling a small chuckle from his. “Sorry sorry,” He flips the two of you around, pulling your head onto his chest. He rubs a few circles on your shoulder. There’s a small, awkward silence between the two of you.

“Soooo, wanna talk about… that?” your voice is scratchy by the time it comes out. And he only sighs before kissing your temple, then your cheek, then presses a soft peck onto your lips, before finally sitting up. “Mhmmm, but first…”

He scoops you up in his arms, going to stand, and your body reacts to him, completely boneless and melting into him. Even if you wanted to move, you know it isn’t happening. “Where ‘r we going?”

“To the bathroom to get us cleaned up,” opening the door to the bathroom, he turns on the lights before setting you down onto the cold granite of the sink. The contrast between your hot, sweaty skin and the cold granite makes you moan out.

When his body warmth leaves yours—presumably to either turn on the shower or fill up the bath—you make a noise of protest, pulling a small chuckle from his chest.

He comes back not soon after, bath still filling up behind him. His big hands palm your sore thighs, pulling a groan from your mouth, letting your head fall forward against his chest.

“I feel sticky ‘n gross,” you mumble, words getting muffled by his skin. He kisses the top of your head, not once stopping his thumbs from rubbing circles into your thighs that are coated in both your cum. “I know, baby, the bath is almost ready.”

When the two of you finally step in—well he carried you over and lowers you into the water with him—you fully relax against him. He’s seated behind you, thighs bracketing yours, chest pressed against your back.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then he finally starts working on cleaning you up, small cloth in his hand, dipping between the apex of your thighs, carefully brushing against your skin.

You tense up slightly at the feeling, and he immediately stops, peeking over your shoulder at your face. “You okay?”

“Mhmm, s just sensitive,” you whisper back, trying to get your muscles to relax again. “So, wanna talk about what happened?”

Satoru doesn’t respond for a second, just continues cleaning your skin with reverent touches, completely focused on you, on your skin, trying to get you clean in the most gentle way possible—hell, you didn’t even know he could be this soft.

“Technically I didn’t say anything untrue,” he says, still not looking you in the eye. His touch is starting to get a bit more nervous now, like it’s sinking in what he’s said. “We have been married since we were five years old.”

Your head lolls against his shoulder, so you can look up at him. The words are still processing in your mind. Been his wife since the two of you were five? Did he hit his head? Or maybe he’s still so pussydrunk he’s babbling nonsense.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Satoru,” you ask the white haired man behind you—though he looks more like a boy with the way his bottom lip is jutted out and his eyes, that are finally looking back at you, practically sparkling with the way he’s giving you puppy dog eyes.

“You don’t remember the ring pop?” the way he says it, not quite hurt, but not teasing, either, makes you stop for a second. Then a small chuckle pulls from your chest that soon morphs into full blown laughter, the one that makes your sides hurt. “You- you mean the time you ‘proposed’ to me back when we were kids?”

The two of you were only five years old, playing around in the summer sun, chasing each other. There were a few birds that had been chirping, and you and Satoru had been playing for houuuurs on end already.

Sweat was beading down your flushed skin, the summer rays hot and heavy casting down upon the Gojo estate, where the two of you had been running around. At first the two of you had been inside, but then you’d gasped and told him the two of you could go swim!

Satoru obviously agreed with you, nevermind the fact that there wasn’t a pool in the estate—which, honestly, how does one have such a big estate and not have a pool, but alas—he thought the idea sounded so sweet in his mind.

His body was overheating inside, sweating through his tiny shirt. So the two of you went outside with no particular plan in mind other than ‘we’re going to swim’.

Only to be rudely stopped by his caregiver. She told the two of you couldn’t go swimming—and reminded Satoru he didn’t even know how to swim—and to go play in the garden. Sulking the two of you went to play in the garden.

Half an hour later, the two of you were sitting in the shade, gulping down the cold water the caregiver set out for the two of you, with some candy on the table as well. It was one of the few times the two of you got candy after being banned from eating it.

Among the candy, were two ring pops. Your eyes skimmed over the candy, favoring others that were laid out for you, but Satoru’s eyes were attracted to it, remembering something about people who gave each other rings were married. And being married means staying together forever and ever, and that sounded like such a sweet future with you.

Grabbing the ring pop, he slid it around your finger, and you looked quizzically at it before looking over at him. “What’s this, S’toru?”

“It means we’ll get married when we’re older!” He grinned, big and bright and completely boyish. And you had tilted your head at that. “Married?”

Satoru had nodded his head furiously. “Mhmmm, like… like… Oh! like your parents! It means we would live together and— and we can eat all the candy in the world!”

That was the grasp little Satoru had on marriage, and it wasn’t quite wrong, though it wasn’t quite right either, but alas, the two of you had gotten ‘married’ that day—technically it was the promise to get married, but details details.

A laugh pulls from your chest, rippling the water that was starting to cool down. “I do remember. You put a ring pop on my finger and declared we would get married when we got older so we could live together and eat all the sweets we wanted.”

Satoru’s pout turns into a smile, soft and private. Just for you. His fingers are tracing along your body, no longer cleaning you up, just touching.

“Mhmmm. And our Tamagotchi’s got married as well,” he murmurs down at you. And they did get married. At first you’d scowled at him when he ‘proposed’ the idea of them actually getting married, but soon enough you gave into him.

“Most people get down on one knee with an actual ring to propose, y’know. Plus they have been dating for a while before even thinking of marriage,” you tease him, eyes crinkling with how wide your smile is now.

“You want another proposal? Greedy lil thing, aren’t you,” his lips trail down to capture your own for a moment. Returning the kiss, you shift slightly between his legs, trying to get better access to him, only for him to groan out in your mouth.

Disconnecting his lips from yours, he’s breathing heavily, eyes lidded. “Guess we’re gonna have to go ring shopping soon, but first—” his fingers dip between your folds, having you gasp out, eyes widening slightly. “—we have something to celebrate.”