@autumnleaveswrites - Tumblr Blog

Dec 7, 2025

Redamancy (Satoru Gojo x Reader)

Summary: Satoru prides himself on being independent most of the time, but then there’s you who loves to spoil him in many ways. (The five times you spoil Satoru throughout years of knowing him, and the one time he spoils you).

Warnings: Spoilers for Hidden Inventory, JJK 0, and season 1. There's also mentions of injury and blood during the third part.

Word Count: 27.7k words (oops)

For the sake of this piece, you, the reader, suddenly have cooking + baking + crocheting skills. There's the use of (Name) when characters talk about you too.

(Link for ao3 version here).

1. Birthday Surprise

He doesn’t understand what’s going on with him when it happens.

December 7, nearing the winter break for all Jujutsu Tech students. This day was any other day for first-year Satoru Gojo as he was walking around the school. He was about to grab a snack from a nearby vending machine to energize himself since he was a little hungry, leaning towards a sweeter snack.

“Hey, Satoru! Hold on!”

He turned around before he could put his money in the machine, confused as to who was calling him. Then he saw you and smiled instinctively, waiting for you to catch up before he could buy his sweet treat. He noticed you were holding something, but waited for you to get closer.

“Whatcha got there (Name)?” Satoru asked you, taking a closer look at what you had in your hands.

“Happy birthday, Satoru,” you breathed out, holding a tray up with snacks he recognized. “These are for you.”

He freezes, and his breath stops when he realizes what’s on the tray.

Not only did you somehow find out when his birthday was, and there you were, holding a tray with some kikufuku cakes on it.

“Where did you get these from, the nearby sweets store?” Satoru asked.

Homemade, you told him. You had baked those cakes for him.

He felt like he was going insane, but all he did was grin and mess up your hair. The noises you made in annoyance were like music to his ears, and you couldn’t really swat his hand away.

“For lil ol’ me? You shouldn’t have (Name)!” he teased you. “Well, you know how much I love sweets. I’ll eat all of this by tonight so your hard work won’t go to waste! You’re so cute, making me my favorite dessert! From scratch too!” he pinched your cheeks playfully.

“You’re right, I really shouldn’t have. I just did because I did it for everyone else’s birthdays,” you scoffed, really wanting to smack him. “If I knew you’d be this annoying about it, I wouldn’t have made you anything.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re embarrassed!”

“I can and will throw these cakes onto the ground.”

“You won’t,” Satoru felt kind of stupid with how much he was grinning, but he didn’t know how else to react to this. “You have a crush on me or something? Is that why you did this? Come on now, don’t be shy!”

“You are so, so insufferable. I’m trying to be nice since it’s your birthday!” you scowled. You handed him the tray, grumbling under your breath, “if this is how you react to the sweets, I don’t even know if I want to give you your gift.”

When heard the last bit (because nothing ever gets past him apparently), he was over the moon. He immediately put his arm over your shoulders and started whining about how cruel you were from withholding your present from him, from the birthday boy of all people! He went on about how it was such an injustice, that you need to make things right by giving him his presents,now!

You pinched his cheeks and laughed, making him huff and turn away with his arms crossed. You were making fun of him now, effectively turning the tables on him.

“I left your gift in one of the classrooms. Let’s go,” you started walking, albeit a little fast. You were also looking at your phone from time to time.

“You didn’t bring it with you? Why?” Satoru asked with a pout, trying to look over at your phone.

“Come on, be patient. You’d think a special grade like you would have more patience. Don’t you have to wait and gauge the curse before you attack?” you teased him, already walking inside Jujutsu Tech and pocketing your phone.

No one makes fun of him like that and gets away with it, even if the two of you were fellow classmates! “Hey! I don’t want to hear it from you, you’re not even a Grade 1!” He stuck his tongue out at you.

“Yet,” you bantered with your own grin, “you never know, maybe I’ll reach Grade 1 one of these days.”

“As if!” Satoru bristled, now being a little mean, “you have a lot to work on. Your height, for one.” He couldn’t help but feel comfortable with making that comment, especially with how your expression changed from a grin.

“How dare you,” you glared at him.

“Just saying,” Satoru beamed, happy to see you riled up aside from your usual behavior. This was a side of you he liked: fiery but not entirely hysterical.

“Yeah well I didn’t ask you, beanstalk. ”

Satoru guffawed at your response, his jaw dropping, “hey!” He would try to smack you, but now he was the one holding the tray.

“You can’t be offended, you called me short,” you promptly told him, back to grinning now that you were satisfied by the look on his face. “It’s not even true, I’m not short.”

Satoru wracked his brain for a response, “you are being mean to me. To the birthday boy. You’re terrible.”

“Okay,” you shrugged, then opened the door to one of the classrooms.

“What’s the light turned off for-”

“Surprise!”

He was promptly blinded by the light being turned on, and a few party poppers going off.

“Happy birthday!” Shoko grinned, missing her signature cigarette that would usually be propped in her mouth.

“Happy birthday, Satoru,” Suguru had a small smile on his face, then looked over at you, “thank you for distracting him.”

Satoru blinked. Repeatedly. Then he lowered his sunglasses to stare at all of his friends. He kept blinking, giving no response to the whole thing.

“You all gathered me here to say happy birthday?”

“Don’t you remember we did this for Suguru’s and Shoko’s birthdays?” you asked him, now a little confused. “Do you not like that we did this?”

He froze, still staring at all of you. Right, he had been the one to distract Suguru, but he had been confused on why. He never really asked what the point was, he thought it was stupid. Why not say happy birthday normally and move on? That’s what he was used to with his clan.

Except this actually felt nice, when he thought about it. His three friends, taking the time to throw a small party without him knowing, because…

“Why?” Satoru found himself asking before he could stop himself.

“Why?” Shoko echoed, confused.

“What do you mean why?” you raised an eyebrow, more confused.

“Because you’re our friend?” Shoko said simply, also mimicking your action of raising an eyebrow.

“Plus, you mentioned not having a proper birthday party. We planned this out so you would have one,” Suguru pat Satoru’s shoulder, smiling again, albeit more soft.

“It would also be rude to not throw you a surprise party after everyone else got one,” you pointed out, “we did this because we wanted to celebrate your birthday. We celebrated everyone else’s birthdays, you’re no exception.”

“We even made you a cake like we did for everyone else,” Suguru pointed out at the desks they had pushed together.

“What?” Satoru looked at where Suguru pointed, seeing the cake. You had taken the tray from him at some point and set it next to the cake. There were gifts and a box of pizza next to it too.

“Come on, make a wish!” Shoko joked, lighting the candles with her lighter.

“Shoko?” you stared at the lighter, the question very clearly written on your expression.

“It’s a new one, I promise,” Shoko said after, shrugging off your worry, “I wouldn’t do that, that’s mean. I only lit a cigarette on Suguru’s cake because I thought it was funny.”

“It really wasn’t,” Suguru sighed, but he did give a little laugh after.

“It was,” Shoko had a lazy smile on her face, “and you ate it anyway so you can’t comment.”

“After I cleaned it off,” you pointed out with an exasperated sigh.

Satoru was still in a bit of disbelief, but he raised his sunglasses up to cover his eyes again. All of you looked so comfortable, shining under the dim lights. The chatter slowly dissolved from his ears as he looked around at the classroom, decorated with some streamers and a small banner with a messy ‘Happy Birthday Satoru!’ on it. Even the cake had happy birthday written in icing, and it was all for him.

This was all for him, and he couldn’t fathom the idea of that.

Despite his thoughts, he stepped up to the cake, about to blow his candles out.

“Wait!” you stopped him by slapping your hand over his mouth, at which he let out a surprised squeak. “We need to sing happy birthday to you!”

“I need to start recording again, I paused it,” Shoko chuckled, holding up her flip phone.

“Are you ready to have your ears blessed?” Suguru smacked Satoru’s back with a laugh.

“You’re all going to sing? No, please, spare my ears,” Satoru managed to regain some of his whimsy, playfully covering his ears.

“Deal with it. Hold his hands down so he can suffer,” you said with no hesitation.

“What- guys! I’m the birthday boy-” Satoru protested when Suguru held his hands down. “I don’t-”

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Satoru, happy birthday to you!”

Satoru was laughing too hard by the time you guys had finished, all being out of tune and off pitch. He struggled to blow out all of his candles, wheezing, “you- you guys- hah-! You all suck at this!”

“That’s it. You’re getting your birthday punches,” Suguru immediately punched him repeatedly, making Satoru squawk as you and Shoko laughed.

Satoru, despite the absolute beatdown of birthday punches he was receiving from Suguru and Shoko once she joined in for fun, felt an odd warmth in his chest. The same warmth he felt from the flames that once adorned his candles, the warmth he felt on his cheeks as he laughed at all of you singing. And when he eventually looked up at everyone’s smiling faces, he felt that warmth then too.

The warmth was pleasant, even if it felt foreign.

_______________________________________________________

After all the chaos subsided and the food was all gone, Satoru had started opening his gifts. Suguru somehow knew what new game he wanted, Shoko got him something simple like a comfy sweater that was magically oversized on him, and you…

“What is this? Why are there so many things in here?” Satoru gasped, looking through what was in the gift box you put forward. “You didn’t accidentally put your trash or donations in here, right? Sorry, but I don’t think any of your clothes would fit me.”

“There’s only two things in there, anything else is to make sure the stuff inside doesn’t get damaged. Just take out one thing out first,” you sighed, tapping your foot against the ground. “And my stuff would fit you, you stick.”

“Hey, rude- woah! This is a huge blanket!” Satoru tried lifting it up and out of the box, but yelped as he ended up stumbling onto the ground.

“Satoru!” Suguru gasped, while Shoko laughed.

“Yeah, it’s a blanket,” you nodded, moving over to help Satoru stand back up.

“What for? Is this because I complained about my blanket being too small and itchy and destroying it out of protest? I can always buy a new one-”

“It’s a wool blanket,” you cut him off, “I bought because it reminded me of you. I know you can buy a new one, but I don’t think you took a look at the pattern on it.”

Satoru looked at the blanket properly after you said that, then gasped again, though this one is genuinely shaken. Said blanket had colorful characters as well as cute animalistic creatures. The fabric of the blanket, as he felt with his hands, was woolen like you had said.

“Wait, this is a Digimon blanket! How- how did you-” Satoru was dumbfounded, holding the blanket up to get a good look at the cast of characters on it.

“It’s not just a blanket, there’s another thing in there,” you smacked his arm to cut him off, not wanting him to get too excited.

Satoru pulled the blanket out, handing it over to you, who reluctantly began folding it as he peered into the box. He was dumbfounded, then he beamed. “Holy shit. No way! I didn’t know they made plushies for this guy!”

He raised an amigurumi Tentomon plush, one of his favorites, which perfectly fit in his hands. The material felt soft and fluffy as he squished the plush experimentally. He felt as though its big, green insectoid eyes were staring into his soul, though its ladybug-esque appearance was enough to dislodge that slightly eerie feeling, along with the slightly crooked long, yellow-orange antennas. Though the plush was soft, he could feel some bumps along the rows indicating they were slightly uneven, but not to a point where it would fall apart.

“They don’t,” you mumbled, scratching the back of your neck. “At least, not anywhere I went to look for it. Then anything I did find was a bit too expensive for me, and it was the same when I looked online.”

“Wait, so how…” Satoru stared at the plush, then back at you.

“Oh, you finally used the crochet kit I couldn’t be bothered to use?” Shoko asked you, chuckling.

“It was sweet of you to make that for him,” Suguru patted your shoulder, though the subtle teasing lilt in his voice was not lost on you.

Satoru processed for a moment, looking at the plush. The rows that seemed a little sloppy but careful the closer he looked at them, the crooked antennae, the lightweight feeling of the plush overall… no, this wasn’t something that came from a store. Sure the quality of the material was soft and definitely not something to look down on, but this was made with purpose, with good intent. He looked over at you, waiting for a confirmation of what he was thinking.

“Yeah. I made the plush,” you pinched the bridge of your nose, though the soft tone of your voice betrayed any kind of tough front you wanted to put on. “I put a lot of effort towards the other’s gifts too, and it was only fair I did the same for you too. So yeah.”

Yeah, this was starting to all get a bit too much for Satoru. He didn’t want to express how touched he was, not wanting to show any kind of vulnerability. To leave himself open.

He tried keeping a neutral expression on his face, but couldn’t hold back. Instead of using his words, he opened his arms wide in a showcase of silliness. “Come here, all of you!”

Before any of you could protest or try to get away, Satoru brought you all into a large hug with a large grin on his face. Though he relaxed his tight grip when he knew none of you would fight back, almost relaxing into the hug.

Then he froze, pulling away from the hug. “Wait,” Satoru paused, realizing something.

“What?” Shoko asked, staring at Satoru.

“What is it birthday boy?” Suguru asked with a fond smile.

“Yeah birthday boy, share with the class,” you chuckled.

He immediately turned to stare at you, lowering his sunglasses. Suguru’s birthday was in February, Shoko’s was in November, but yours just wasn’t coming to mind. “I remember we celebrated Suguru’s birthday earlier in the year, then Shoko’s last month. Why can’t I remember us celebrating yours, (Name)?”

You blinked, not expecting that question.

“Wait, he’s right,” Suguru frowned, now staring at you.

“We didn’t celebrate your birthday?” Shoko asked, tilting her head.

You whistled innocently, looking away.

“We didn’t forget, right?” Suguru sounded alarmed.

“You would’ve told us when your birthday is, right?” Shoko stared at you, trying to get you to make eye contact with her.

“Hey…” Satoru trailed off, trying to get your attention, “why aren’t you looking at us.”

“You would’ve told us, right? ” Suguru emphasized, also trying to make you stare at any of them. “With how you get everyone gifts and put so much time into it, you’d let us do the same for you, yeah?”

“It’s a secret,” you immediately said, hoping to end the topic there, “none of you get to know.”

They all blinked. Then they grinned, immediately making a run for it.

“Wh-?!” you ran after them as quick as you could, now panicking, “guys!”

“Yagaaaaaa!” Satoru yelled, laughing at the expression on your face.

“We have a question!” Suguru also shouted.

“It’s about a certain someone’s birthday!” Shoko called out.

While you were panicking when they all approached Yaga, you promptly denied them needing him for anything important. This caused a whole ruckus, with Suguru and Shoko trying to cover your mouth and you trying to cover theirs. They tried to push you to the ground and away, while you doubled their efforts to push back since you were one person short.

Satoru laughed at the absolute chaos as cursed techniques came into play, since Suguru made a curse of his chase after you. Though this backfired as you ran into all of them, even clinging onto Shoko.

Some property damage and a long lecture from Yaga later, you all collapsed on each other. The giggling had started with Satoru who had delved into the same laughter as earlier at everyone singing off-key, slowly being caught on by everyone else contagiously. Eventually none of you could contain your laughter, at the situation and what came of it.

Even with the clean-up they consequently had to do, Satoru couldn’t have asked for a better birthday than this.

2. Cooking Food for him

(“Suguru, should we kill these guys?” Satoru could barely remember seeing anything, only feeling the limp, warm, clothed body in his arms. All he felt was his shoulders raised, the endless clapping grating to his ears. “The way I feel right now, I doubt I’d feel anything about it,” his eyes bore into Suguru’s.

“No, there’s no point,” Suguru looked down.

The fact that Suguru couldn’t look into Satoru’s eyes while he said that was something he didn’t pay too much attention to at the time, caught up in the grief of holding Amanai’s body.)

Satoru was walking around Jujutsu Tech for a long time. A bunch of people had tried to pull him back, but he wouldn’t respond.

The mission was basically a failure, the Star Plasma Vessel was dead. Shot by Toji Fushiguro, though Satoru was quick to put his vengeance through. If only he had been able to activate that power sooner, when it mattered most, he wouldn’t be in this state right now.

Riko should’ve been alive and safe, she didn’t deserve to die. Not the way Suguru had told him, and what Suguru had to go through…

(‘Sorry, Amanai.’)

He hit the side of his head, not wanting to think about that moment further. What happened is what happened, he had to move on.

He had to move on.

He had to-

“Satoru?”

He snapped out of his daze, slowly turning to look at you. You were frowning, your face sunken. It was different from your usual annoyance with him, making him feel sort of annoyed himself. What was with the pity from you? He didn’t need it, he was fine. He was going to tell you off, to leave him alone so he could walk around for the rest of the night.

You grabbed his forearm and started dragging him before he could even say anything to you.

This sort of sent him into another daze, except more confused. He could’ve sworn he had Infinity up. Maybe it was the lack of sleep catching up to him again. The words to say something to you weren’t coming out, so he let you drag him mindlessly.

As soon as you reached your room, you forced him to sit down on a chair. He didn’t say or do anything, just staring at the wall. There wasn’t much to say, nor was there anything he should say. You seemed to think the same thing, with how oddly silent you were. Usually you’d take the time to give him some kind of snippy comment, or try to make light of situations.

He didn’t notice you left him until he heard you muttering curses under your breath. At least you had some of your grumpiness, which managed to make him a little less tense.

Though he was majorly confused as to why he heard a sizzling sound.

He stood up, slowly moving over to the kitchen. He probably stared for a long time at the sight in front of him, completely in awe.

You were chopping up some tomatoes, while some patties were cooking on the stove. Then you swiftly moved onto chopping up onions, then lettuce. He was bewildered. “Uh, what is this?”

“Ah!” you jumped, terrified. “Where- where did you come from?!”

He also jumped after you yelped, “hey! You dragged me here! You knew I was here!”

“Yeah, you were originally sitting in a chair though! I didn’t realize you got up,” you scrunch your face up, though you couldn’t find it in yourself to be annoyed. “Uh. I figured burgers wouldn’t be a bad choice. For a meal. I made some for Shoko earlier, then for Nanami and Haibara, then Suguru, but it was really hard to convince Suguru to eat at all. Well, I get why, but it just- I just wanted to make sure he got something down. Shoko kind of joked that I didn’t need to put in so much effort for you guys, but it really wasn’t that much. The patties were already pre-made since I bought them and all I did was defrost and cook them, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

You were rambling, not meeting his eyes.

“I mean, I managed to get Suguru to eat. Which is a success in its own right. Besides, eating from outside all the time can’t be healthy for you, but I get eating something is better than nothing, so maybe if I tried to replicate what kind of food you guys like maybe it’ll be good for everyone involved-”

“You’re not making any sense, slow down,” Satoru cut you off, unable to keep up with what you were saying.

“...Do you want cheese?” you ended up asking him in a defeated tone.

“Yeah,” he nodded with a forced grin, then pinched your cheek, “you’re cute. Making a burger for lil ol’ me? You’re the sweetest.”

You paused once you saw him smile, swallowing stiffly as you made eye contact with him. The more you stared at him, the more he felt inclined to look away from the awkward staring contest that was starting to take place. He hated that you were staring at him so intently, as though you were waiting for him to slip up.

He kept his smile up, making sure there was no way he would be caught in whatever you were looking for. “What? Admiring my handsome face, (Name)?”

Once you looked away, Satoru felt like he could breathe again. You already caught him off guard by dragging him to your dorm, he wouldn’t let you catch him unaware again.

“Shut up, you’re being stupid. I made burgers for everyone and you’re no special case,” you huffed, then tried to bat his hand away. “Let me cook. Go sit back down.”

Your tone almost sounded exasperated by his behavior, but there was something else. You sounded a little relieved for some reason, as if him being stupid was something that eased you somewhat. It was clear there was something you weren’t saying, but for his peace of mind he decided not to dwell on it.

“Heard you loud and clear little chef,” Satoru gave you a cheeky salute, running away before you could yell or point the knife in his direction. To his surprise, you let out a little sigh and went back to cooking in silence. Which was weird. You would usually chase him to try and scare him, while he’d taunt you. He had joked you and Utahime had a similar fuse he could set off, almost leading to him getting thrown across a room by you.

This was weird. He didn’t like this. He frowned and sat back down on the chair, thinking about ways to complain about you acting off, or how you were probably pitying him. He didn’t need all of this, really. Running over to the closest fast food place would be easy for him, and eating the greasiest things alive sounded like a good idea.

Though when you came back with plates, his plate having three burgers and your own plate having one, the smell is what did him in. It smelled so good. He gave in, giving you puppy dog eyes as he held his hands out for the plate. “Please. Please give this to me (Name). You don’t know how good this looks to me.”

You gave him his plate without any prompting, handing him a ketchup bottle. “Go crazy.”

That was all he needed to hear, now ready to munch away.

_______________________________________________________

He ended up getting you to make more, acting like he hadn’t eaten in days. There was a bit of surprise on his end as you complied with his wishes, even giving him some chocolates that you conveniently had.

This was starting to get overwhelming as he ate everything without issue, though he had to know why you were doing this for him.

Once he finished his food, he looked over at you. You put your arm around his shoulders, looking awkward. He had tensed up a bit, but managed to get comfortable regardless. “What’s this about?” He asked you, trying to keep a level head about all of this. “Making food and basically feeding me a lot of it, it’s weird.”

That, unfortunately, set you off.

“It is so hard to get to you and Suguru, you know that?” you said in an exasperated tone, running your hand through your hair. “Neither of you will let anyone in. I’m doing my best, but I can tell that anything I do isn’t getting through Suguru’s head. That’s why I’m hoping you’re keeping him company at the very least. The way you two are processing your grief, I just don’t agree with it. I think it’s unhealthy to keep it all to yourselves, but I can understand the need for distance. I don’t want you guys to do anything stupid.”

You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath after getting all of what you wanted to say out.

“We’re guys, we’re going to do stupid things,” Satoru told you with the same grin.

“Is that all you got out of what I just said?” you gave him a disappointed look.

“Yep,” Satoru stuck his tongue out at you, overjoyed to see the disappointed look on your face. That was more like you, rather than you being so warm and awkward.

“Whatever. Don’t forget you can lean on us for help,” you told him with a sigh, “me, Shoko, Suguru- we want to help. I just wish you and Suguru would let us. We’re friends, we need to lean on each other in times of need.”

“Friends won’t get us far. We can’t get attached like this,” Satoru tried to argue, giving a little huff, “come on. We'll only get hurt.”

“You’ll end up dying alone with that mentality, won’t that hurt too?” you challenged him, still frowning.

He frowned too, “you didn’t seem to care that I basically said we can’t be friends.”

“Because you’re so, so stupid,” you scoffed as you sat up, then attempted to whack the side of his head.

“Missed me!” Satoru grinned as he turned on Infinity to prevent you from connecting the hit.

“It’s not a miss if you use Infinity to block an incoming attack!” you hissed at him, now holding up your fists, “I swear, it’s like you provoke me on purpose to fight you! Take down Infinity and fight me with your bare hands you coward!”

“Careful what you wish for,” Satoru teased, but let down his Infinity for a moment just to mess with you. As soon as he brought it back up before you could land another attack, he laughed as you shouted at him. He let it down again, but squawked when you tackled him unexpectedly, “wait, hold on-!”

You both fell onto the floor with a yelp, staring at each other once you both got your bearings. Then it delved into a cat fight, where you pulled at his hair and he scratched you, among many other things.

As the two of you fought, there was a stiffness in his shoulders. With the newfound knowledge of reversed curse technique, that definitely put him a level above everyone else in his class. Though that knowledge had come with a price, failing the mission along with Suguru even if he killed Toji in the end. There was more to failing than lives being lost.

Riko and Kuroi would never get the chance to live the life they deserved to, and neither would Satoru or Suguru get a chance to be a part of it.

His chest felt heavy, feeling almost suffocated from the realization. Grief was a feeling he never let himself get too familiar with, but he knew he had to start getting used to seeing grief around. In Jujutsu Tech, anything could happen at any time. There were high chances of any of his classmates being sent out to missions, and that any interaction could potentially be the last time he’d see someone, felt disorienting.

“Satoru, what’s up? You’re getting distracted,” you flicked his forehead to get a cheap shot in, keeping a cheeky grin on your face.

“Hey!” Satoru squawked, rubbing his forehead in pain. “That’s it, no more holding back!” He huffed, shoving you off of him to get the upper hand.

“Wait no no no hold on!” you shrieked, pushing at his face to keep him away.

He could see your lips slightly curving upwards as you fought back, making him more determined to win. Whatever winning meant in this instance anyways - a challenge was a challenge.

If you both ended up smiling and giggling despite everything, no one needed to know. He was happy to have a semblance of innocence back, to feel his body loosen up, even if it was for a small moment.

3. Giving him a Break

(“Two or three years from now, my kid will be sold off to the Zen’in clan. Do what you will with that.” Toji’s expression hadn’t betrayed him, even as he stood there with half of his body blown off.

Satoru couldn’t read the man very well, but when he thinks back on it, it was probably his way of asking for one last favor. Or maybe this was his way of repenting.)

Satoru was about to lose his mind as he sat on the couch, the golden hour slowly seeping its sunrays into their cozy home. There were missions needing his attention, and although Tsumiki and Megumi could be left alone, there was a nagging feeling that made him want to stay and watch them.

No, he was not being soft. He’d never be so soft on those brats- kids. Right. Kids.

He stared at Tsumiki and Megumi in the kitchen from where he was seated, ignoring the slight tug on his heartstrings as Tsumiki was about to start cooking dinner. How long had she assumed a pseudo-parent role for Megumi, especially at such a young age? Tsumiki was only in second grade for crying out loud, Megumi only a year behind her. Two kids, ages six and seven respectively, without their parents for who knows how long.

He wanted to step in and help, but the last time he tried Tsumiki had given him a patient smile anytime he accidentally got in her way. He wasn’t a bad cook, he got by all right. He would feed the kids every now and then, it’s just that sometimes he didn’t have enough time.

He needed to make more time. Maybe he could sacrifice a few hours of sleep.

(He thought of what happened the last time he didn’t get enough sleep and let his guard down, but pushed that aside. He doesn’t sleep much nowadays.)

He really wanted to be there for those kids, considering, well… he did kill their dad. Step-dad on Tsumiki’s end, but still.

Right. He needed to tell them that at some point.

He groaned loudly as he leaned back against his couch, putting his palms over his eyes. There was too much to do! How was he meant to deal with all of this? How did parents parent their children while doing their own jobs and school? Weren’t they ever exhausted having to handle everything at once?

He tried to think about his own parents and how they could have possibly raised him with their own responsibilities, but he was drawing a blank.

Oh.

Right. The clan’s elders had mostly tried to keep him contained even with how he constantly acted out, so he didn’t really keep much contact with his parents. His parents were actually pretty distant now that he really took the time to think about it. Actually, he had pretty much distanced himself from his clan as a whole. He can’t remember if he ever talked to them about anything casually, or if he visited for the sake of visiting.

Was he like that with these kids? Sure, he took Megumi with him for missions every now and then so he probably didn’t feel much of an emotional rift. Then again the kid had a hard time opening up to him, nor did he really emote much aside from the usual annoyance. Then there was Tsumiki. She was a non-sorcerer, there wasn’t much he could really do for her aside from helping her whenever she needed it. Had he been pushing Tsumiki away in favor of Megumi? Because he was a sorcerer and she wasn’t? Well, she probably would’ve expressed or made her feelings clear if she felt that way, right?

Satoru groaned quietly. This was all way too hard and he had too many questions he was too tired to try and find the answers himself. That was another thing, he was basically a single father of two children. Did other single parents struggle like this too? He may be the strongest sorcerer, but he felt completely out of his element when it came to parenting, especially as he was on his own.

How do you give children a proper childhood? A proper childhood that had been robbed from him?

Before he could ruminate further on his thoughts and probably internalize all of his panic as his eyes burned, the doorbell rang.

He was confused, staring at the door for a good minute. Then he stood up, stopping either kid from answering the door with a grin, “I got this one! Leave it to me!”

Megumi stared at him blankly while Tsumiki had shouted a brief, “thank you!” from the kitchen.

Satoru let out a sigh, looking at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall near the doorway. He readjusted his hair and straightened out his clothes to look more presentable. Maybe this was a delivery he forgot about and the person didn’t read the instructions to leave the package at the door. He answered the door, and was face to face with a delivery of- you?

“Oh! Um, hi Satoru!” you looked a bit sheepish. “Sorry, I probably should’ve sent you a message or gave you some kind of warning. I uh, I wanted to see you.”

He stared blankly for a good few seconds, wondering if he was actually seeing you at his door. Then he grinned again, absolutely thrilled with your presence. “(Name)! You wanted to see me? Oh, if I didn’t know better I’d think you wanted me!”

“It’s not like that!” You immediately tell him with a little laugh, waving your hands around frantically.

The relationship between you two had changed over time, with you being more lenient and less grumpy around him. Which was shocking to him back then, because you were all smiles and love from that point forward. When he had asked you about it, you had only been honest with him, expressing your fear of losing anyone else due to negligence and not being more expressive to show you really did care.

You spoke again, putting him back into focus, “I heard from Shoko you took in two kids and I really wanted to meet them. Honestly, I would’ve come sooner! It’s the fact I’ve been sent on a lot of missions lately, then I had to meet with the higher ups- but none of that is important right now. Let me in and introduce me to them! Please?”

He laughed at you saying ‘please?’ since it was so like you to keep your manners despite being somewhat demanding. If anything, he really needed the distraction from his own mind.

He stepped to the side, jokingly bowing to allow you in. “You can come in, if you dare. Do you agree to give your soul up to the two menaces?”

“They can’t be that bad,” you waved him off, stepping inside his place. You take your shoes off and set them down on the shoe rack. “Hell, I could use a bit of energy right now.”

“Hey, watch your language, none of the ‘hell’ stuff,” Satoru nudges you playfully. “If the kids learn anything from you, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Take your own advice sweetheart,” you smacked his arm in return, being just as playful as him.

“Sweetheart? You make me blush,” Satoru put his hands on his face, pretending to be a blushing mess to rile you up.

Though it didn’t work, you looked amused by his behavior, “uh huh, sure I do.”

He pouted at your nonchalance. He sort of missed you rising to the bait he’d put out. Before you used to get annoyed with him whenever he’d say some kind of smartass comment, shoving him or giving him a smack on the arm. Not to say your reactions now weren’t enjoyable though, he did like you responding in a reciprocal manner, almost throwing his own behavior in his face.

“Where are the two menaces as you call them? That’s not nice you know, they have names. Names you haven’t told me, by the way,” you asked him, trying to see where they were.

“Right, right! Come on, let's go to the kitchen!” Satoru grabbed your wrist with a grin, already dragging you over without giving you a chance to say no.

“Why are they in the kitchen-” you sounded confused, then paused in more confusion as you saw the scene in front of you.

The kitchen looked organized for the most part, aside from the counter next to the stove and the stove itself. The counter still had the cutting board, unwashed as it had pieces of onions left over. The closer you looked, some onions, peas, carrots, and corn were strewn in various parts of the board as well, most notably next to the pot on the stove.

Speaking of, the stove on the other hand had water away from the hot plates, most likely from the lid being taken off the pot over and over again. There were imprints of the rice left behind from the spoon being placed down from the counter to the stove.

Tsumiki was cooking while Megumi watched in absolute silence. He would step up onto the stool Tsumiki was on and help stir the food now and then, unblinking. Almost like the food would come alive when he wouldn’t expect it.

You turned to look at Satoru slowly, a look of disbelief, though you were impressed by the fact that the kitchen wasn’t messier when two children were in charge. “Why are the kids making food? Please don’t tell me you’re endorsing child labor, it’s enough that Jujutsu Tech makes us work so hard.”

“Hey, I think this teaches them to be independent! Besides, she insisted,” Satoru put his hands up, trying not to laugh at your expression. He knew you were annoyed, but you looked so adorable to him.

“And she is?” you gestured for Satoru to actually introduce you.

“Oh! That’s Tsumiki! And the other one is Megumi!” Satoru pointed out to each one respectively, trying not to laugh at the fact you were still in disbelief at the kids handling the stove.

“Okay. Tsumiki and Megumi,” you mumbled, making sure to remember their names.

“Don’t forget their names like you forgot mine,” Satoru jokes.

“It was one time!” you groaned, punching his arm, “you’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope,” Satoru snickered, “how you managed to forget my name back then despite me being such a big deal is hilarious. ”

“You’re so annoying sometimes Satoru,” you pinched the bridge of your nose in annoyance. “I didn’t pay much attention to jujutsu politics until I enrolled at Jujutsu Tech. And if I remember correctly you didn’t find it funny then, you were offended I didn’t know who you were and even more so when I forgot it the next day.”

“Hey! I was totally right to be offended the next day! Did I really mean so little to you back then?” Satoru pouted, putting his chin on your shoulder.

(It was the first day of classes for the students at Jujutsu Tech, aside from the arrival of the new first-years. You had gotten acquainted with Suguru and Shoko pretty fast, falling into easy conversation with both.

Satoru, though? That had been a different case entirely.

You had just come back from the bathroom and into the classroom when you saw Shoko and Suguru talking to a white-haired guy with circle frame glasses tinted black. He was wearing a student uniform, so you assumed he was in your class as well.

He stood out in comparison to the rest of you. Somehow, he seemed aware of that, and was all too happy about it as he yapped away to your classmates.

Once you walked back over to them, the conversation paused entirely. The white-haired guy stared at you, tilting his head in confusion. You offered your hand to him for a handshake, “I’m (Name), and your name is?”

Satoru gave you a cheeky yet cocky grin when he shook your hand in a civil manner, as if you had asked him something silly.“Oh come on, you have to know who I am! There’s no way you don’t!”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked,” you sighed, your eye twitching at his response.

“Don’t you know the Gojo clan? We’re pretty big in the jujutsu world,” Satoru gave you a look of doubt, still grinning. Clearly he didn’t believe you didn’t know him. “Listen, if you’re playing dumb-”

“All I’m doing is asking for your name,” you pulled your hand away and pinched the bridge of your nose with your fingers. “Just tell me your name. It’s not that hard. You mentioned the Gojo clan? Is that your name?”

“Gojo’s my last name,” Satoru was dumbfounded. “Are you really that stupid?”

The audacity of this man. “Look, just tell me your name. It’s not that hard.”

“It’s Satoru Gojo,” Satoru grumbled.

“Thank you, Satoru,” you sighed in exasperation. What a character this guy was, he seemed to be full of himself. This was the kind of person that annoyed you greatly, as he teetered towards the cocky and arrogant side of confidence.

It didn’t help that the next few days after your first interaction you kept forgetting his name, which stirred up a lot of arguments between the two of you.

“You remember my name?” Satoru asked you with a grin.

“...Uh,” you completely blanked.

“You’re joking, right?” Satoru asked, bewildered. “Wow, you really are stupid.”

“You-!”

That’s generally how the conversations with him went, until you learned his name out of annoyance. Back then you hoped he’d stop bothering you, but it was too late for that now.)

“No, but you were so annoying about it back then,” you sighed, noticing the two kids looking at you in confusion. Once Satoru noticed the kids staring, he patted their shoulders to change the direction of the conversation.

“Say hi, you two.”

Megumi was silent, staring up at you with a glare. “Hi.”

He wasn’t much for words, you guessed. You looked over at Tsumiki, waiting for her to speak up.

“Hello! Are you a friend of his?” Tsumiki asked with a smile, finally looking over at the two of you.

“Yes, I’m Satoru’s friend, (Name). It’s nice to meet both of you!” you promptly introduce yourself to the two kids, then stare at the rice with mixed vegetables Tsumiki was making. “Wow, you’re pretty good at this Tsumiki.”

“Thank you!” Tsumiki beamed, mixing everything in the pot again. Though she did it a bit roughly, struggling with the spoon.

“Careful,” you told her gently, turning the heat down on the stove, “you might burn it like that since there’s not a lot of water left.” Then you offered to take the spoon from her, “and if you mix it so harshly, the rice and veggies will turn into mush. Unless that’s how you want to eat it?”

“No…” Tsumiki frowned, handing you the spoon. “We usually eat it anyway, even though it has a weird texture and is a little burnt.”

Upon hearing Tsumiki’s response, you turned to Satoru with an irked expression. “Is that so?” You held the spoon like you were about to whack Satoru with it, “and you didn’t think to help her?”

Satoru gave a sheepish laugh, “she insists on learning on her own, I don’t want to meddle with kids wanting to be independent! And they eat it anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal, right?”

Despite the scolding you wanted to give Satoru, you decided not to get into it in front of the kids. Instead, you mixed the rice up with the vegetables for a moment to show Tsumiki what to do, “just like this. You have to be gentle for the best results and to not mush the rice into pudding. Think you can do it?” you handed her the spoon back with a smile. She nodded, mixing as you told her to.

Megumi had been staring, peering over his sister’s shoulder. He seemed to be focused, trying to take in your words too. Once you noticed Tsumiki had it down, you silently gestured for Tsumiki to hand the spoon over to Megumi. Tsumiki did as you had silently communicated, and Megumi blinked before trying to mix everything together as well.

Satoru watched your interactions with Tsumiki and Megumi, tilting his head curiously. He hadn’t known you were good with kids, though maybe it was too soon to jump to conclusions. It was only this one instance, maybe there would be a moment where he’d be proven wrong. Except nothing did happen, and the food was magically all right. Even your patience had stayed intact.

“See? We did it!” you told them with a smile, then patted their heads. “Good job you two!”

Satoru observed carefully as you praised the kids, smiling at their reactions. Megumi had scrunched his nose up while Tsumiki was still beaming. Maybe this was his chance to sneak away and let you just talk to the kids. There was a lot he needed to catch up on, though it didn’t feel right to leave you alone like that.

“Let’s eat, and then after we eat, we can go out somewhere!” you suggested to Megumi and Tsumiki, “only if you both want to and if Satoru’s okay with it.”

Tsumiki had turned to look at Satoru after that with puppy dog eyes, and Megumi glared, as if daring him to say no to Tsumiki.

Satoru raised an eyebrow in your direction, curious. What exactly were you plotting in that head of yours? Taking his kids out without his supervision and protection-

Dear god, he’s gotten attached. He’s getting overprotective, and before he knows it he’s going to start hovering over both of them like some kind of helicopter parent. This wasn’t the way he saw himself before, he used to just think kids were snot-nosed brats. He’s going soft and it wasn’t something he saw coming.

“Don’t worry guys, I’ll convince him. Just get everything set up and start eating,” you told the two kids with a little smile, patting their heads.

Megumi scowled at the headpat, crossing his arms in a defiant manner. His reaction was a contrast to Tsumiki’s, who had accepted it wholeheartedly. She dragged Megumi away despite his grunting and hissing, almost making Satoru snort. The moment the kids were distracted, you dragged Satoru away from the kitchen.

“Is the part where you kiss me now that the kids are gone? Where there’s no prying eyes?” Satoru snickered, letting you drag him away.

“You’re doing this thing where you completely fill up your schedule and leave no time for yourself. Which, I can understand, there’s a lot going on,” you looked like your usual grumpy self again, though this felt different. “But it’s going to get to a point where you’re going to fall behind and you’ll have to catch up to the rest of us.”

“Since when have I ever fallen behind?” Satoru huffed, amused by your words. That just wasn’t possible, him falling behind? He was practically skilled in everything, and it wouldn’t be hard for him to pull ahead of everyone else. He was already leagues ahead, so you were worrying for no reason.

“Those kids,” you vaguely gestured to Tsumiki and Megumi who were preparing the table, getting plates and everything down. “They’re not going to be kids forever. With being a jujutsu sorcerer, you’re guaranteed to miss certain things.”

Satoru knew being a jujutsu sorcerer meant sacrificing a lot of his personal life for the betterment of those who couldn’t see curses and couldn’t protect themselves. To risk his own life while doing so. And if he died the world would go on.

Except he was the strongest. If he did die now, he’d be doing so with a lot of regrets. Here he was risking his life for people who wouldn’t bat an eye or thank him for his efforts. There was that slight bitterness that rested in his mouth. Missing Tsumiki’s school events, not being able to attend many of their conferences or get involved in their schooling. Sure he wasn’t involved much now, but the Megumi and Tsumiki’s future seemed bright and open to a lot of opportunities. He couldn’t leave them alone at this stage, not permanently if he wanted them to succeed.

“I know that,” Satoru scoffed, then pinched your cheeks fondly, “as much as I want to be there for a lot of things they’re gonna do, I’m not an idealist. I know I’m gonna miss a bunch of stuff.”

Though when he thought on it more, it did break his heart to think about everything he’d have to miss.

“If you know that, then you need to realize you can’t afford to fall behind and miss on studying,” you told him sternly.

Satoru frowned at your point. What were you talking about? Falling behind and missing out on studying? Then it came to him, his mission reports and his upcoming exams for Jujutsu Tech. Why were you so worried about that? He had plenty of time to get all of that done.

“Hey, I didn’t study much for those previous exams and I still did pretty good,” Satoru then squished your face in his hands.

“Satoru, let go of my face-!” you hissed, moving his hands away. “There’s no harm in just reading over all your notes. Or you know, getting some time to yourself. Have you taken a break since you started taking care of these kids?”

“Pffft,” Satoru snorted, his eyes darting away after you mentioned a break. He was going to make fun of you, but the more he thought of the idea of getting a break, it seemed more appealing. Though indulging in rest was tempting, there was still a lot for him to do anyways. He could catch up on the mission reports he had been slacking on, and start studying for upcoming tests…

“Don’t laugh at me. And stop thinking so hard,” you poked his cheek, giving him an unamused look, “just let me do this for you. Please?”

Satoru let out a long sigh, as if letting you take the kids out was such a big deal to him. “You are so persistent.”

“I could say the same to you too. Besides, you saw how Tsumiki perked up when I offered to take them both out. Though I can’t say the same for Megumi, he seemed a bit broody,” you slightly hesitated, “is he always like that?”

“Oh yeah, the kid’s a buzzkill,” Satoru jokes, glancing at the two kids eating peacefully at the dining table. “Though since Tsumiki was pretty excited to go, he’ll tag along for her. They’re pretty connected, those two.”

(“What will happen to Tsumiki? If I do go there, do you think my sister will be able to find happiness? It all depends on that-” Megumi had started when Satoru asked him whether he wanted to go to the Zen’in clan.

“No. A hundred percent no. I can say that with certainty,” Satoru had abruptly cut him off, just thinking about how the man’s biological father had turned out. He wouldn’t give the kid any false hope, and for a non-sorcerer like Tsumiki, there was no chance.

Though seeing Megumi’s momentary shock shift into a defensive stance, Satoru couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh of amusement which showed his teeth. Maybe Megumi, with that spirit of his, could match up to his own strength one day.)

“If you say so,” you sighed, then pinched his cheek which snapped him back to reality. “So I’m taking them out somewhere. Probably for ice cream or something.”

“Megumi doesn’t like ice cream, or anything sweet,” he told you with a grin. Though Satoru had been absolutely gobsmacked when he first found that out, he was hoping for a similar reaction.

“...I’ll figure something out,” you said, sounding slightly stumped. Though you regained your energy and gave him a hopeful smile, “so is that a yes? I can take them both out for today?”

Satoru suddenly found it much harder to say no to you now, pressing his lips together. He tried to think of the cons of letting you take the kids out. There were definitely curses that could attack Megumi and Tsumiki, and they’d end up hurt. Except you would be there, and you could definitely hold your own just fine. Hell, you’d be able to protect the two just fine. There was still that coiling feeling in his chest, his mind scrambling to come up with the many ‘what ifs.’

You flicked his forehead, “Stop overthinking. I can handle two kids and protect them just fine.”

Satoru’s eyes widened a bit, “how did you…?”

“It’s written all over your face. You’re going to worry yourself into getting grey hair-” you paused, then amended, “okay well that doesn’t apply with your hair. You’re going to worry yourself bald.”

“No, anything but my hair!” Satoru whined.

“Then you’ll let me take them out?” you blinked repeatedly, giving him your best puppy dog eyes. “Please?”

“That’s not fair,” he mumbled, trying to look away from your face. Now he really couldn’t say no. Even when he looked away, your face, your expression, was burned into his mind.

He let out another long sigh, putting his hands on his hips. “Fine, fine. You can take them both out after we all eat. You can be such a handful sometimes.”

“I convinced him!” you quickly tell the two kids the good news, already dragging Satoru over to the kitchen. “We can go out after-”

“We already finished eating,” Megumi said in a deadpan tone, cleaning his and Tsumiki’s plates.

“I tried to tell him to wait since it’s rude to eat before everyone sat down, but we didn’t want the food to get cold,” Tsumiki explained, looking sheepishly at the two of you.

Both you and Satoru stared for a moment, before you both burst into snickers.

“Then just wait on me, I’ll finish eating and the three of us can go,” you tell Megumi and Tsumiki with a fond smile.

Megumi just gave a dismissive nod while Tsumiki brightened up and nodded eagerly.

The moment you and Satoru sat down together at the dining table, you had gotten into a comfortable conversation. The two joining in was barely noticeable to Satoru, as he only spoke every now and then to respond to some of your statements. Tsumiki’s chatter and Megumi’s minimal responses to your personable witty banter…

Maybe, just maybe, the domesticity of this was something Satoru could get used to.

He hadn’t noticed the food was finished and you had quickly cleaned up. In a matter of no time, he was at the door dropping a spare key in your hand, watching you leave with Tsumiki and Megumi.

“And hey, actually take this time to relax or prepare for our exams,” you told Satoru, squeezing his shoulder with your other hand. “Don’t think too hard, I’ll call you if anything comes up or if I need you.”

“Yeah yeah, I got it I got it,” Satoru brushed off your concerns, moving your hand off his shoulder to give your knuckles a cheeky kiss.

You rolled your eyes in response, pulling your hand away with a huff. Though you acted annoyed, he could see the corners of your lips curved upwards. That was good enough for him, even if a verbal confirmation would’ve been nice.

The four all exchanged their farewells, Satoru closing the door once you three were a fair distance away. He should probably do as you said, maybe get a headstart on reviewing…

_______________________________________________________

“Satoru? I’m home!” you called out softly, not wanting to wake up either Tsumiki or Megumi. The two kids had fallen asleep, one kid in each arm. Your arms were starting to get a little sore, carrying two kids was not for the weak. Locking the door and taking your shoes off was a struggle for you, but you managed.

You looked around in a bit of confusion as Satoru didn’t respond, frowning before you decided to carry the kids to what would be their own rooms. You had just guessed where their rooms were, based on the room decor. You could be wrong, but they couldn’t fault you for it when they woke up. If anything, they should blame Satoru. Speaking of, where was that man?

Once you peeked into another room, your confusion was replaced with a slight bit of relief.

There was Satoru, asleep on his chair. He had all his notes laid out in front of him, seemingly finished. What a nerd. Though you winced, he couldn’t possibly be comfortable sleeping like that.

With incredible strength and luck, you managed to move the man to his own bed without waking him up. It was a miracle, and by the end of it you sat down on the floor next to his bed, completely winded. You told yourself you’d leave or move to sleep on the couch once you weren’t so damn tired.

His hand grabbed your arm sleepily, making you freeze and stop breathing. Did you accidentally wake him up? Maybe if you left now, he’d be able to go back to sleep. As you were about to get up and leave, you felt his grip tighten just a little bit.

“Don’t leave,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed. “Please. Not you too. Don’t leave me behind.”

After hearing that, your shoulders slumped. You stayed sitting there on the floor, silently staring at Satoru’s face, praying that he wouldn’t wake up from his well-deserved rest. When you took a moment to process his words, you frowned.

‘Not you too,’ huh? That was a lot to unpack, and if he had been awake you would’ve tried to grill him for information. Except he wasn’t, and you decided to just forget about his words for now. Even though you knew who those words were about, the subject was still a fresh wound among your circle. You didn’t know when that wound would heal for any of you, but you knew well that it wouldn’t. That wound would scar, itch from time to time to show that it was still there, and burn to make you all remember who was lost.

He moved to cradle your arm in his sleep, his fingers interlocked with yours. With how firm his grip was, you figured he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon. That was fine, sleeping while sitting on the floor next to his bed was fine. Sure you’d get sore or aches when you’d wake up, but it would be fine. That’s what friends would do for each other.

The moment you took another look at Satoru, you felt fondness creeping in. You smiled, combing through his hair with your free hand. Now that he was resting and quiet, he was actually kind of pleasant to look at. Dare you say cute, especially with how he made noises of contentment in his sleep.

Your hand froze in his hair. You needed to catch up with that thought you had just now. Cute. You thought he looked cute like this. The man who used to annoy you endlessly with his childish antics was looking too relaxed in his sleep, and of all feelings you felt relieved he was taking a break? That he was holding onto your arm like you were some teddy bear, refusing to budge when you tried pulling away?

Your smile dropped, the heat on your face becoming apparent.

Oh.

Oh no.

When did you start catching feelings for Satoru Gojo of all people? You had to think on that for a while, sure you two always had your own little thing going on with bantering and messing with each other, but that’s all it was. At least, that was what you thought.

Before you could you stop yourself, your mind went back to earlier, how he couldn’t help but tease you affectionately. The nudging, joking about you kissing him, him squeezing your face, pinching your cheek-

Him kissing your hand.

You took a deep breath, then looked over at Satoru. He was definitely still asleep, if his soft snoring had anything to say about it. His fidgeting did concern you, he seemed to be distressed in his sleep.

You moved over, and gently planted a soft kiss on his forehead. Then you whispered to him, “you’re so, so stupid. I’m not leaving you behind. I wouldn’t dream of it, and you should stop worrying about it.”

It wasn’t much, but the comfort made him relax his grip on your arm, which would make it easy to pull away.

Except you didn’t, opting to stay there for the rest of the night.

(There was the unfounded fear he’d leave you all like Suguru did. The worst part is that you wouldn’t blame him if he did.)

4. Patching him up

Years had passed, and there was that strong shift in responsibilities and strength for everyone at Jujutsu Tech.

Satoru Gojo is the strongest. He’s the strongest sorcerer of today. He rarely ever messes up on missions, getting the job done with ease. He’s even a teacher now, with students of his own.

So why was he more battered up than usual, with cuts and grazes on his skin?

“These will heal on their own, we don’t need to bother Shoko with this,” he had tried reasoning with you with his usual lighthearted tone. He made a dramatic show of him bleeding, trying to gross you out so you’d forget about it in favor of annoyance.

Unfortunately, you only seemed more guilty anytime he made light of his injuries.

Right. You had been tasked to accompany him on a mission, (which really, he loved having you come along since you two hadn’t spent much time together in the many years, but he didn’t need any help), and almost ended up getting hurt.

Of course, he had pulled you in and activated his Infinity to prevent either of you being hit. Though he activated it a bit too late, as he still got damaged by the brunt of the hit. You hadn’t noticed him being hurt at the time, as he focused on you and made sure you weren’t hurt first and easily exorcised the curses. Then he had playfully scolded you for getting distracted and he would’ve never made that mistake, jokingly saying it was good for you he was there to help.

Then his blood had slipped onto your hands, and really it was just a small amount! Well, to Satoru anyways.

Though you weren’t having it. “Satoru, I don’t care if it’s a papercut or the smallest scratch. You’re bleeding! You need to make sure none of these cuts get infected!”

“Pssshhh, I’m the strongest, the strongest don’t get infections!” he had snickered at your stubbornness, trying to satiate you in some way. “Shoko will tell me to walk it off, come on, it’s really not that bad! I don’t need to get this treated!”

He tried protesting more as you dragged him into the infirmary. It was oddly quiet, and empty. “Shoko’s not even here, we walked all the way here for nothing! Come on, we can go back home and I can take care of these myself! I can use reversed curse technique for crying out loud-”

“Sit your ass down.”

He went quiet, absolutely stunned by your firm tone, then promptly sat down on the closest chair.

You opened up multiple cabinets in the infirmary before finally finding a full and usable first aid kit, then pulled up another chair to sit in front of him. You silently tended to his wounds, gently cleaning the blood off with a cotton pad doused in alcohol.

He winced at the first exposure to it, then bit his lip to stop himself from making any noise. He was unusually stiff, avoiding eye contact with you. The way you were being so gentle with him, taking your time with every cut, no matter how small.

He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. Not from anyone, not from you. He was the strongest, he was supposed to be protecting everyone else. He always took the hits for everyone else, he could handle it fine. That’s who he was supposed to be, the one who would handle things if they got too out of hand. Hell, that’s why he was a teacher. That’s why he had to take on everything on his own- for the safety of others.

Though there was you right now, who focused on him, even though he could deal with the injuries and shrug them off. You, who had dragged him here even though he had tried to convince him otherwise. You, who insisted and didn’t back down when he tried to downplay his injuries. You, the person currently wrapping bandages around his cuts. The fact that you took your time with it, making sure nothing was left to be exposed to the air, being careful and treating him with such kindness.

Had it been anyone else, he would’ve been miffed. He probably would’ve pushed away, maybe thrown on a smile that was slightly yet imperceptibly forced. Though he knows you would see right through it, because somehow you always do.

You knew him too well, and that made him feel, well, odd. Even though you two had been on and off with communication with anything personal, keeping your conversations more professional and related to jujutsu…

“I know you can use reversed curse technique to heal yourself and your injuries aren’t all that serious, it’s just…” you hesitate for a moment, then look away from him.

Your voice is what cuts him off from his thoughts, pushing them aside in favor of you. When he sees you look away, he studies your face. Your eyes are perfectly out of view, which makes him hesitate too. He still doesn’t really get it. He could use his RCT to heal himself, that’s what he’s been doing ever since he got a handle on it. He’s been doing it for years at this point, so why was it a problem now?

“It’s just what?” Satoru wanted you to continue, almost desperately. He was confused, his mind was going all over the place. “Just what? You don’t want to see me hurt? It’s all small cuts, and we both know it’ll heal. You’re being…” he hesitates, “silly. You’re being silly (Name).”

“Satoru.”

He winces, squeezing his eyes shut behind his bandages. You sounded hurt, even when he was trying to be lighthearted. He was trying to bring the mood up, but you weren’t having it.

You always did make things harder than it needed to be.

“Stop. Please. Give your body a rest and…” you hesitantly hovered your hands over his eyes, your fingers inches away from the wrapping. “Let me help. Please. I hate seeing you practically destroy yourself like this. Don’t you know you can lean on us when you need help? Or that you can talk to me?”

Who were you to make such a request of him? He was Satoru Gojo, he was the strongest sorcerer of today. He was stronger than you, and he could easily get out of this situation. All it would take was yelling at you, or pushing you aside and making a run for it. He could charm his way out of this, he knew what you liked and would fold for.

Yet he faltered when he finally made eye contact with you, seeing you squeeze your eyes shut. He sat there awkwardly, swallowing nervously. This felt wrong for him to see, for you to be so overly worried for him. He had half a mind to make a snarky comment, something about you acting like a mother hen. Though he couldn’t bring himself to speak, he nodded.

You stood up from your chair to get easier access to the wrapping over his eyes. Then you slowly unraveled the wrapping, wanting to see his eyes. It was a slow, agonizing process that he let you go through with. He almost relished in the slight warmth your hands brought him, how soft they were when it came to caring for him. The moment the wrapping had fallen to the floor, his hands gripped onto your shoulders. He had lowered his head in front of you, to avoid looking at you.

Instead of forcing him to look up like he expected, your hands had moved to cup his face.

“Losing him was hard on you,” you said simply, your thumbs caressing his cheeks.

He flinched. No one had brought Suguru up at all. Not since he had declared war, and not since the night Satoru had to… “It was hard on all of us,” Satoru mumbled.

“Sure it was, but not to the same degree.”

“He was our friend. Yours, Shoko’s-” he tried to counter your point.

“Don’t undermine your own pain because everyone else is hurting too, it’s not just Suguru we lost,” you tell him in a harsh tone. “I know Tsumiki getting cursed and falling into a coma was hard on all of us and harder on Megumi, but you have yet to confide in me about any of this!”

“Bringing up Tsumiki is hitting a sore spot and you know it (Name),” Satoru almost hissed, wincing. There wasn’t much to talk about when it came to Tsumiki getting cursed, nothing he wanted to bring up anyways. You, him and Megumi were hurt when Tsumiki fell into a coma due to her getting cursed. He couldn’t forget the guilt he saw on yours and Megumi’s faces, opting to try and cheer you both up at the time.

“Do you know how it feels to see someone you really care about push everyone away to mourn on their own? To not let anyone help them?” your voice was cracking again and your breath was a bit rushed, “Satoru, I don’t want to lose you too. You doing this? It hurts me too. Getting injured like this, in order to save me? I know those cuts are trivial to you, but when the small cuts turn into hundreds, thousands of them? When everything starts to pile up and you’re bleeding fast, what will you do? Especially when you refuse to let yourself be helped?”

You sounded desperate for an answer, though you never forced him to look up once. Satoru swallowed again, feeling his throat burn up. You really did care for him despite everything he did to make it seem like he was okay. If anyone saw him like this, he’d be mortified.

You always seemed to be an exception.

He finally looked up at you, the same moment you moved to look down into his eyes. Some tears had slipped out, blurring his vision. Regardless, he could very clearly see you were somewhat relieved.

“Satoru,” you sounded devastated seeing the tears fall, wiping them away with your thumbs, “don’t ever try to hide how you feel from me ever again. You can always cry in front of me.”

“You tell anyone I cried, you’ll never hear the end of it from me and I’ll never hear the end of it from anyone else,” Satoru weakly hit your arm, still trying to remain somewhat lighthearted. “I’ll never live it down.”

“You’re so, so stupid,” you smack his arm back a little harshly.

He whined, making no move to get away from you. “Ow! That really hurts you know!”

“Is it that hard to acknowledge we love you, you dumbass?” you whisper quietly as you expect your words to be lost to the air, not intending for him to hear you.

He tensed up after hearing your words, his lips going dry.

(“Love is the most twisted curse of them all,” was what he remembered telling Yuuta. Would he be a hypocrite if he accepted this kind of love from anyone? If he got attached despite suggesting otherwise?)

“I…” his throat burned. He didn’t know how to respond, or if he was supposed to respond. Maybe he misheard, or hallucinated you practically saying he was loved.

You tilted your head down to kiss the crown of his head. “I love you, you absolute idiot. Don’t ever forget that. You mean way too much to me, so don’t go doing anything that’ll get you killed.”

He melted. He was an absolute goner with your words and the warmth he could feel from you, practically preening, putty in your hands. It didn’t take his six eyes to figure out you were being genuine. He trusted you, he felt his heart thumping in his chest, he…

Oh. He…

“You don’t have to say it now. I don’t expect you to,” you placed a kiss on his forehead, giving him a fond smile. “I can wait for you, and you can take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”

He wanted to stand up, he wanted to take you into his arms, hold you close and pretend there was nothing else happening. To run away with you from everything, to stay with you, to experience all the things he never got to do with you by his side, to take his students with him, reform Jujutsu society and make it better.

He wanted it all, but there was no way he could ever hope to accomplish it on his own. He had to be smart and go about it slowly, but for now, he could wait with you.

He stood up, legs trembling, and in a rare show of vulnerability he wrapped his arms around you. He buried his face onto your shoulder, holding on tight. You hugged him back, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

The moment was nice, embracing each other in silence for a few minutes.

“Oh, by the way, I figured the bandages might be a pain to put on every morning, wrapping it around your eyes. I’m gonna buy you something that’ll be much easier on you,” you told him out of nowhere.

He blinked repeatedly, staring at you for a little bit with his teary, puffy red eyes. Then he snickered, “really? Is this the time to mention you’ll be spoiling me further?”

“Oh please, I’ve been spoiling you since we were teens. This isn’t anything new,” you ended up giggling, wiping away a stray tear from your own face.

He ended up laughing with you, feeling some weight lifted. “You can try, though it’ll be very hard to please me.”

“Liar, you love anything I do for you.”

Okay, maybe you were right, but he wouldn’t admit that. Not yet.

_______________________________________________________

When he rolled into class with his new blindfold, his students asked where it came from. In true Satoru Gojo fashion, he just laughed it off and said it was from a ‘special someone.’

Though with how you smiled from the sidelines, they could put the pieces together quickly.

(The reactions to you both announcing your relationship was pretty minimal and some congratulations were said. Though the more noticeable reactions…

“Of all people,” Utahime was dumbfounded and majorly annoyed, a true hater at heart, “it had to be Gojo!?”

“Finally!” Shoko said in exasperation to you, though she was smiling when she gave you a pat on the shoulder. “Took you way too long for my liking, but I guess I can’t complain since you two did end up getting together in the end. Props to you though, waiting years for Satoru? That’s stupidity and some serious dedication.”

“Shoko knew?!” Satoru asked you in shock, “and what does she mean years?!”

“Of course she knew, she’s my friend,” you sighed, “I told her I liked you. Years ago.”

Satoru’s jaw dropped, speechless.

“Now’s a good time for a smoke break,” Shoko said nonchalantly, making herself scarce and dragging an angry Utahime away, not offering any help to the predicament you were about to end up in.

Despite Satoru being speechless, he went off on a flustered tangent that was scolding you for not saying something sooner. You just accepted and listened to him with immense entertainment.)

5. Taking care of his Responsibilities

You stayed the night at Satoru’s place for old times sake, simply wanting to make sure he was taking care of himself properly.

You had helped him take care of his students when they all got sick, preparing soup, home remedies, and the like. The poor man had helped you try and make everything, making you sit down constantly so he could take over. He played it off as if he wasn’t exhausted either, saying your legs must’ve been aching by the amount you were standing. Then he joked, saying your back was probably sore by how much you had been working to carry all the weight of his responsibilities.

The two of you delivered the remedies and medicine to each student after Shoko gave proper checkups and assessments, wearing masks and gloves to ensure neither of you would get sick. There were a few thank yous, some grunts and grumbles, then sounds of misery.

As soon as you two were done, you asked him if you could sleep over at his place, and he readily agreed. In fact, he was ecstatic about the whole arrangement. It was a moment to spend some time with you, amidst all the chaos and busy schedules. It was something to look forward to, since this would be the first time in a while you’d be together as a couple-

Until both of you fell asleep on the same bed, way too tired to do anything else. In true, exhausted adult fashion. Which was fine, he had held you in his arms as you asked of him, ignoring the dryness in his throat and itchy nose. He was probably just tired, and he really wanted to sleep. It wouldn’t be the first time, though the fact he was sleeping earlier than usual probably should’ve been a big sign.

When he woke up the next morning, he realized yes, he should’ve been worried. He pulled away from you, rolling over onto his side. He scrunched up his face, squeezing his eyes shut. Before he could stop himself, he let out a sneeze.

“Achoo!”

The sickness fiasco wasn’t over.

You woke up abruptly, hearing the loud sneeze. When you looked over, you saw Satoru a distance away. Which was weird, because you had insisted on you two being close together during the night. You didn’t really want to separate yourself from him during the night; you wanted to keep him close. Like he could slip out of your grasp before you could even process it.

“Ughhh,” Satoru looked over at you, sniffling. He looked absolutely miserable, his eyes were puffy, his nose was running, his face pale aside from his rosy cheeks, and he sounded breathless. He hacked up more coughs, trying to keep them muffled so you wouldn’t hear.

“Satoru?” you groaned, rubbing at your eyes in a sleepy manner. “Are you okay?”

Before he could answer, he went into dry, violent coughs, making you much more alert. You jumped out of bed to grab him some water. As soon as you sat him up and gave him the glass, you put the back of your hand on his forehead. His forehead was hot as hell, making you yelp as you removed your hand.

“You’re burning up, Satoru,” you tell him quietly, rubbing your hand.

“I can’t get sick,” Satoru rasped out, wincing as his voice sounded dry. “It hurts to speak. How are you supposed to listen to my lovely voice now (Name)? How is anyone supposed to hear me talk when I sound like this? I have to teach my students-”

“Stop straining your voice so much so it’ll hurt a little less,” you sigh, giving him a stern look. Then you paused, and looked away. “Satoru. You’re gonna have to stay home today.”

He was going to protest, but promptly went into another coughing fit.

You put the glass in front of him with a frown. “Yeah, you’re definitely going to have to cancel your classes today. I don’t think you can teach in this condition.”

“I totally could, why should being a little sick stop me?” Satoru said stubbornly, glaring at you.

This man was so persistent. It would’ve been admirable if you weren’t trying to get him to stay in bed. He had always been perseverent, much to his own detriment, though you didn’t mind picking up the pieces to put him back together. You knew he wanted what was best for his students, to be strong, to be able to have confidence in their own unique abilities, and to change jujutsu society for the better.

Satoru did more than just teach the kids about the jujutsu world, he taught them about how to grow too. All while trying to protect their innocence for as long as he could.

(It was hard on you and Satoru when you found out Yuuji had died, and seeing Nobara and Megumi hurt from said mission. He remained in your arms for a while, neither of you saying a word.

He expressed his ideas of wanting to change the Jujutsu world through education, his voice raspy as he talked about each of his students and how talented they were in their own right.

He repeated his words later to Shoko and Ijichi in a more calm, eerie manner. As funny as it was to see Ijichi’s face pale considerably in fear, you couldn’t bring yourself to laugh.

You were, however, dumbfounded when Yuuji rose up from the dead like nothing happened. There was that feeling of dread, just how was Yuuji brought back to life?

Satoru’s smile upon seeing Yuuji alive had wiped away that feeling entirely, and well, Yuuji’s childlike personality had eased you as well.)

You blinked, then looked back at Satoru. As much as you loved how much he cared about the students, a line needed to be drawn.

“Doesn’t mean you should, and you’re more than a little sick,” you scoff, about to flick his forehead. You refrain, opting to poke his cheek instead. “You’re not working at all today. You’re going to stay in bed, and rest.”

“But I have to. No one can take my workload. I have a set schedule. It’s about to be seven and I have to get up and commute to Jujutsu Tech-” he started coughing, unable to finish his sentence. As soon as he finished his (third) coughing fit, he looked at you with teary eyes. “Please. I can’t just give myself a day off like this. It’s last minute and-”

“You let your students have the day off when they got sick,” you point out to him, cutting him off.

“Because they’re kids and they were sick-”

“And you are sick too . If you move out of bed, god help me, I’m going to…” you trail off, wondering how to threaten and intimidate Satoru into staying in bed. You can’t exactly restrain him to his bed, considering he’s pretty strong and would break out easily. Even if he was considerably weakened in his sick state, it wouldn’t work on him. “I’ll…”

“You sound very threatening,” Satoru smirked, though the man struggled to keep his eyes open.

“You can’t even be properly snarky with me, you can’t teach like this. You’ll get them all sick again if you go like this, do you know that? You don’t know if what you have is contagious or not!” You chide him, poking his cheek again, “unless you want to repeat that shit show? Because having a ton of teens sneezing, coughing, and being utterly miserable was so much fun before, right?”

“I’ll wear a mask-”

“Megumi fainted last time. I’m not risking you fainting too. Stay. In. Bed.”

He gave you a grumpy look, his lower lip out. “You’re so mean to me.”

“Cause I care about you. Now stay in bed, I’m gonna shower and make sure none of your sick germs got on me.”

“I moved before I sneezed on you! At least kiss me before you clean up after yourself (Name)!” Satoru whined, but accepted defeat as he laid on his bed without your warmth.

“With my morning breath and risk getting sick with your germs getting into my mouth? No,” you told him. The last thing you saw was him looking betrayed.

_______________________________________________________

You took a deep breath. You could do this. You’ve subbed in for teaching Satoru’s students before, helping them on their missions and sparring with them. This wouldn’t be any different.

“Are you all right?” Nanami gave you a look, making sure his concern was clear enough. “I can take over for you.”

“I’ve got this,” you mumble under your breath, unintentionally ignoring Nanami, “Satoru does this everyday. I can take his place for a day. Sure I’m not a Special Grade like he is, but I’m pretty strong. I can teach. Maybe not as well as him, but I can do it, I’ve done it before.”

There was always that feeling of your teaching being never enough. Maybe you got the concepts across to the students, but there was that lingering feeling of something being missing no matter how much you planned in advance.

Today was worse, considering you barely glanced at the lesson plans Satoru had given to you. You should’ve looked it over on the way to Jujutsu Tech, but all you could think about was how you had to leave Satoru behind.

This was for Satoru, you had to do this for him. You couldn’t let him worry about something like missing one day of work when he had his own health to be worried about.

“…I’ll stand by to make sure you have it handled,” Nanami sighed, now much more concerned for you.

“Thank you,” you told Nanami in a distressed and thankful tone. Support was definitely needed here, and you’d gladly take it even if your pride took a slight hit.

“It’s not like you to take over to teach Gojo’s class at the last minute,” Nanami said to you, crossing his arms. “Is he all right?”

“You’re very sweet for worrying about him with how much he troubles you,” you tell him with a little laugh, “he’s just got a lot to do today, so I offered to do this for him.”

“Be honest with me,” Nanami squinted at you, subtly calling you out.

“He’s sick,” you ended up telling him with a sigh, your shoulders slumping.

Nanami tilted his head in confusion, blinking repeatedly. He was in a little shock, and that was fair. Satoru wasn’t the type of person to ever get sick, and if this wasn’t coming from your mouth he would’ve thought it was a lie.

You fidgeted with your fingers, relaying to Nanami the events of this morning, “yes, I’m telling the truth. Satoru’s sick, he was burning up. I made him some home remedies I made for the students when they were sick, some chicken noodle soup, then I left him cold water in a bowl and a rag to cool his temperature, and right before I left I made him take medicine. Now I’m just waiting for a response from Satoru to see if he’s still fine or if I should go back to check on him.”

“Did you tell Shoko?” Nanami asked, walking with you to the training grounds, “she could probably do a quick check-up and see if she can do anything else for him.”

“Ah, that’s what I was forgetting!” you panicked, getting your phone out to send a text to Shoko as your pace quickened. “I swear, I worry about stuff so much that I forget to do the more important things,” you squeezed your eyes shut, walking in a distracted manner.

You should’ve contacted Shoko first thing after finding out Satoru was sick, she was a doctor for crying out loud. Hell, Satoru shouldn’t be alone with how ill he looked. Why did you leave him alone? Anyone else would’ve stayed at home to take care of their partner. Were you a bad partner?

“Stress is normal. I think you’re doing a good job, all things considered,” Nanami said quietly, then gently pulled you away by your shoulders to stop you from almost hitting a pole head-on. “Careful.”

You looked up and stared straight ahead after Nanami pulled you aside, staring at the pole you almost hit. “I’m losing it. I’m losing it, Nanami. If you weren’t here, I would’ve gotten a concussion from a pole of all things.”

“Gojo’s negatively influencing you,” Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a soft exhale at your behavior. “That’s something along the lines of something he’d say.”

“I have to summon Satoru’s energy today, I need to take his place today anyways,” you clenched your hands in and out of fists, trying to regain some semblance of normalcy. “If there’s a moment where I start lacking, we might get into some serious trouble.”

“Gojo’s sick. You don’t need to be Gojo, just do what you normally do when you take his students out on missions,” Nanami shook his head, frowning. “You’re overthinking this.”

“Right, right!” you took a deep breath, attempting to calm yourself down. “I can do this. It’s nothing I haven’t done before. I have you for support, so there’s nothing to worry about!”

(“Hey! (Name!)” Satoru called out to you, holding a manila file filled with papers in his hands.

“What’s up?” you asked, walking over to him. You half-expected him to hand you the file, but to your surprise he kept the file close to him.

“Can you pretty please watch over the students training with each other today?” Satoru asked you with a sheepish smile. “I kind of screwed myself over, and forgot I need to have this report finished as soon as possible. So please? Do this for me?”

“Is that all?” you raised an eyebrow at his request. “I guess I can since I’m not doing anything right now.”

“Great! I’m gonna go now, so if anyone asks I told you nothing! Bye!” Satoru waved, practically running away once you gave your confirmation.

Somehow this felt like a trick, but it also felt like a blessing in disguise once you went over to his students. There hadn’t been much to do or say to the then-first-years, aside from bringing down the high intensity that seemed to rise out of nowhere.

This became routine at some point. Every now and then Satoru would have something to do, so it would be up to you to watch over his students. Whether they were going on missions, training with their cursed energy or technique, or helping them review their academics. You found yourself giving them pointers, having Inumaki get more creative with where to attack, getting Panda to adapt to change to his other forms, adjusting Maki’s form to get a better and stronger hits in vital weak points, and getting Yuuta to be more confident and less hesitant in his strikes.

Even as they became second-years and the newer first-years came along, you were still in this routine with Satoru. It was enjoyable to say the least, and it was nice to do something to help Satoru out.

You liked helping out the students, but wouldn’t want the stress of doing this for the long-term. The students were lovely at times, sure, but they could also be mischievous troublemakers when they wanted to be.)

Nanami was a bit skeptical, considering you were still fidgeting with your fingers. Though he made no comment, gesturing to your phone, “did you message Shoko?”

“Yeah, I sent Shoko a text. She said she’ll go and check on him, then will come and see me,” you told him with a nod, not noticing you were on the training grounds in front of the first year students.

Nobara, Yuuji and Megumi all had varying looks on their faces. Nobara looked somewhat suspicious as he put her hands on her hips. Yuuji had a bright, oblivious smile on his face as he bounced in place upon seeing the both of you. Megumi had stared straight at you with a blank expression, then at Nanami with a look of curiosity.

“Who died?” Nobara asked with a huff once you and Nanami were close enough, taking in both of your expressions.

“No one died! Right? No one died?” Yuuji asked, also looking between the two of you.

“Where’s Gojo?” Megumi asked the more important question, looking at both of you with an inquiring look. “Don’t tell me he’s off on a mission again.”

“Without us?! I swear, he’s doing all the fun stuff on his own,” Yuuji pouted.

“No one’s dead, and no, Gojo isn’t out on a mission,” Nanami clarified.

You felt a little bad, you were sure Nanami would get early grey hairs at this rate if he didn’t have them already. You explained the situation to the three, and there were various reactions.

“I guess it makes sense, he was taking care of all of us along with you,” Nobara let out a long sigh, “though talk about inconvenient timing.”

“I hope Gojo gets better soon, tell him I said I hope he recovers fast!” Yuuji told you with a smile.

“Gojo doesn’t get sick that easily,” Megumi frowned, looking annoyed, “how sure are you he’s actually sick?”

“I’m not surprised, we were pretty badly sick,” Maki added, appearing out of nowhere.

You jumped, immediately turning around to see the second-year students, “Maki! What are you doing here?”

“We saw the faces you guys were making, we were hoping there wasn’t any bad news,” Maki rolled her eyes, looking to the side as she tapped her baton on her shoulder. She looked relatively disinterested overall.

“Kelp,” Inumaki waved, adjusting his collar accordingly.

“Is Gojo okay?” Panda asked curiously, peeking over Inumaki’s head.

“He’s- he’s fine. I checked on him this morning, and Shoko’s going to check on him now,” you tell all of them, almost stuttering.

“We’re already behind, we should get started,” Nanami promptly said, then he looked over at you, “since you’re filling in for Satoru today, you should know that you’ve got a lot of paperwork to do for him. Though I’ll lighten your load, I’ll take the upper-years.”

You were thanking any god that was out there for Nanami; the beginning of your day would’ve been an absolute trainwreck without him.

_______________________________________________________

After class, you ran over to Satoru’s office to look over anything he had to do and paled when you saw everything you had to organize, and the mission list. The amount of missions he took on as a Special Grade sorcerer had you staring for a long time. Yeah, no, those needed to be postponed, because no way in hell was anyone going to send Satoru in his condition. Not if you could help it, and that would be over your dead body.

As soon as you had a moment of free time after doing a lot of Satoru’s paperwork in his office, you calmly dialed the number of one of your close friends. Since you were in his office by yourself for the time being, you put the call on speaker as soon as she picked up.

After a few rings, she picked up.

“Hello?” Utahime’s voice rang out through the office.

“Utahimeeeeeee!” you whined loudly on the phone as soon as you heard her voice.

“Ow- what are you yelling for?! It hasn’t even been a minute into our call! You just hurt my ears!” Utahime shrieked, now concerned for your wellbeing. “Did that idiot do something? Did he break your heart? I’ll kill him-”

“How does Satoru do it?!” Your hand that wasn’t holding your phone, was waving around in the air in a distressed manner as you paced around his office. “He has too many things to do in a day! I can’t keep up with his workload!” You turned to look at the paperwork you did finish in comparison to what you had left to do, which did not help your stress. “I swear I finish one thing and there’s ten more things to do!”

“Wait, what? Why are you doing his work? Don’t tell me he put all his work on you!” Utahime scowled, then paused. “No, as much as I hate the guy, I know he wouldn’t do something like that to you on purpose out of everyone. What’s going on?”

“He’s sick, that’s why. He had a pretty bad fever and was coughing and sneezing, then I texted Shoko to go and check on him and all she sent me was a thumbs up and oh God I need to text her to give me an update-”

“You’re rambling, I need you to stop and catch your breath,” Utahime’s voice already sounded exasperated and uneasy.

You took a deep breath, moving to sit on Satoru’s very comfortable office chair. Somehow, despite it only being many hours, his office felt empty without him, without his bright yet fond smile, without his chatter to ease out of the silence, or the discreet yet sweet acts of service he’d do for you now and then. Whether it was pulling out a chair for you, handing you a drink of your choice, or slipping you some sweets.

You missed him. You missed him a lot. The thought of him was helping your body loosen up, much to your relief.

“I think I’m a little calmer now,” you told Utahime with another breath, “but yeah, Satoru’s sick.”

“Wait, you were texting me the other day about how the Tokyo students all caught some kind of sickness. He caught it from them then?” Utahime questioned.

“That’s pretty much what happened, I’m guessing,” you confirmed, now a little more calm. The pen was making sounds as you went back to writing out some plans for Satoru’s class tomorrow, jotting some simple notes but not going into much detail.

“What about you, you don’t feel sick at all? You were around him this morning and around all the other students,” Utahime asked, then continued, “how did you avoid getting sick?”

“I don’t know, I mean I feel fine. No fever, no weakness, no coughing, no sneezing, no dry or itchy throat, I think right now I’m the epitome of being healthy,” you tell her, checking your forehead to verify your own words, “I’m still a normal temperature, and I made sure to properly clean up after myself when I left Satoru’s place.”

“You stayed the night at his place?” she sounded disgusted.

“Utahime, I know you don’t like him, but be nice. That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about,” you snorted, not offended at all. Their relationship was kind of funny to you, considering Satoru was so oblivious to how Utahime did not take his teasing well. Then again, you should probably have a conversation with him on how his teasing could definitely be taken the wrong way. You were aware of that fact yourself, considering you and him had gotten into many arguments in your earlier years as students before reaching an understanding. It was a wonder you both ended up together, with the odd history you two shared.

“I’m trying to find something nice to say because I like you as a friend,” she still sounded disgusted, “just, him of all people? Is this because there weren’t a lot of options, or because your taste is bad?”

You let out a noise of amusement, “my taste is impeccable, thank you very much. He treats me very well. And I chose him Utahime, it wasn’t because of the fact I had limited options. I’m more surprised he was open to being in a relationship in the first place.”

“Offer still stands, I’ll kill him if he breaks your heart,” she blatantly ignores what you said.

You outright laugh in response, “okay, okay. Fine,” you know Satoru wouldn’t break your heart in the way Utahime is probably thinking of in her mind, but you affirm to appease her. “You get the first stab at him.”

“Yes!” she cheered, sounding way too happy about that much to your amusement.

“You have such high hopes for him,” you tell her sarcastically.

“I’ve never seen Gojo be vulnerable in any aspect whatsoever, but then again I can’t remember the last time you’ve ever asked for help either,” Utahime hummed, “you do know you can ask me or anyone else for help, right? I’d get a ride from Kyoto to Tokyo if you asked.”

You swallowed after hearing that. Right, you had wonderful friends who would be willing to do anything if you had just asked them, or if they forced their way in. Like they had once they learned when your birthday was from snooping through your personal information, something you neglected to inform them of back then.

For some reason, asking for help has always been hard. To be offered help like this was touching, though you were still hesitant. It had always been in your nature to help, to do anything that was needed of you to make others thrive. Taking the opportunity to be helped, well it sounded nice, but not at the moment.

“I’ve asked you guys for help when I’ve needed it. Nanami helped me with teaching today, Shoko’s checking on Satoru for me, and Ijichi and Akari have been checking on me to make sure I’m all right with my workload,” you inform her, not wanting her to worry too much about you. “Besides, the train ticket is expensive and the trip is long.”

“I’d still do it for you if you needed me, don’t forget that,” Utahime said fondly.

“I know, thank you-”

Your attention was brought away by the knock on the office door. Shoko’s voice rang from outside. “Heyyyyy! I’ve got an update for you (Name)! Let me in!”

“Shoko’s at the door, I’ll call you back. Bye!”

“Wait, at least let me say hi to Shoko-!”

You hung up on her, almost wincing. You figured Utahime’s going to yell at you later, but that’s not on your mind right now. Your attention is on Shoko, watching her walk in. “Thank you for going to visit him, Shoko. How is he doing?” you immediately asked her.

“He’s still running a high fever. The idiot hasn’t eaten anything aside from whatever you gave him earlier, and I’m not going to try with how little ingredients he has at his place,” Shoko told you with a tired sigh, giving you a look of pity as she lowered her mask. “You’re still working on his stuff? How are you doing his work, don’t a lot of things need his signature? What about his missions or whatever he’s got going on for the student plans?”

“Shoko please. Don’t remind me. I’ll get to everything whenever I can-” you grimaced, then paused, processing her words, “Satoru didn’t eat anything?”

“He didn’t eat, no,” Shoko reconfirmed, raising an eyebrow, “what’s up? That’s normal for sick people. It isn’t healthy, but he refused when I offered to buy him something. He said he’d do it himself, but something tells me he’s not going to do that.”

“And you didn’t convince him otherwise, why?” you asked her, exasperated.

“You think I could?” Shoko gave you a deadpan look. “I think you’re one of the few people that could get through that thick head of his.”

You were slightly stunned by that last statement, because really, that was kind of jarring to think about. Sure, you were in a romantic relationship with him, but did you really mean that much to Satoru? The more you thought about it, the more warm you felt. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder.

Looking at the paperwork you had left to do brought you back to reality. There was too much to do, you couldn’t fit in a visit to him. “I can’t leave and get him anything if I hope to finish all this by today,” you looked conflicted, “but thanks for checking on Satoru for me Shoko. I’ll try and figure something out on the food front.”

“No problem, happy to help. Let me know if you need anything else,” Shoko waved it off, already moving to step out of the office.

“Catch up on whatever you missed, don’t worry so much about me!” you called out to her, watching her leave. The moment Shoko was gone, you let out a long breath.

Okay, of course Satoru would never take it easy even though he was really sick. You took out your phone, looking at your options. It was a quick decision on your part, quickly texting one of his students.

You frowned as minutes passed and you got no response, which was odd. Usually he’d message back right away, or at least call you. Though to your surprise, there was another knock on the door.

“You needed me to do something?” Megumi asked, opening the door to the office.

You blinked repeatedly, not expecting Megumi to just arrive at Satoru's office from one text alone, “you couldn’t have just typed a response…?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Megumi grunted, stepping inside, “What did you need?”

“As you know, Satoru’s sick,” you started, taking out the lunch you had made for yourself. “Shoko came back a little bit ago, and she told me he’s not eating.”

“And?” Megumi raised an eyebrow, “what does this have to do with me?”

“I can’t really leave right now unless I want to be swamped with more work,” you say sheepishly, handing him the thermos, “so can you please give this to him? All you’d have to do is heat it up-”

“No,” Megumi said quickly, bristling.

“Megumi, please? Please do this for me?” you asked him desperately, standing up to look him in the eyes. You knew the boy well enough since you had seen him grow alongside Satoru; he’d get to Satoru one way or another if he tried hard enough. “I know you don’t want to get sick again, but I can’t leave right now and I’ve bothered everyone else so much today. And don’t tell him the soup was my lunch, he won’t eat otherwise.”

Megumi’s eye twitched, but he relented.

“Whatever, fine. I’ll do it, but I’m not doing it for Gojo to get better,” Megumi scowled, taking all the stuff from you. “I’ll say Yuuji made it for him if you really don’t want him to know it was your lunch.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” you were shaking Megumi by his shoulders, about to cry out of happiness.

“Stop shaking me!” Megumi scowled, moving away from you. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Wait! Wear a mask!” you called out to Megumi, throwing a few masks at him before he could leave. Then you rushed over with a lot of other stuff.

“I know, I was going to. I’m not trying to get sick again,” Megumi caught the masks, then froze when he looked at what you were bringing over. “I’m not going to need all of that!”

You had gloves, some wipes, sanitizer, and the whole party of other various supplies. “Megumi, if you get sick again, I will cry.”

Megumi’s shoulders stiffened at your response, then he groaned, “you’re a grown adult, you can’t say you’ll cry if I get sick again.”

“I know you hate it when I cry because it gets annoying to listen to after a while,” you tell him bluntly.

Megumi winced, looking uncomfortable. That’s when you paused, realizing you may have taken this a little too far. The last time Megumi saw you cry outwardly had been when you visited Tsumiki, a day after Satoru had accommodated a room for her to rest while she remained in a coma.

(You sat down on the floor next to Tsumiki’s bed, still in denial. This was one of the kids you had helped Satoru raise, this was your little girl. Your hand slowly hovered over the cursed mark on her forehead, swallowing thickly.

She wouldn’t move, aside from her chest rising and falling. There was no more of her delightful yet polite chatter, no more of her smiles, and she wouldn’t wake up.

The tears fell from your eyes before you could stop them, placing your hands together and interlocking your fingers. With uncontrolled yet quiet gasps, you prayed to whatever being that this was either a nightmare, or temporary. That Tsumiki would wake up soon, and that everything would go back to the way it was.

The door opened with a click, but you didn’t turn around. You sat there, your breaths ragged as you took in Tsumiki’s frail form.

“What…?” Megumi’s voice sounded small, and confused.

Your head whipped over, your tear-stained face meeting his shocked expression. You looked away right after, wiping your tears as fast as you could. Though the damage was done, Megumi walked over to you with a hesitant look.

The silence was long and awkward, but between the two of you there was an understanding.)

“Listen. If you take the food for me and take all this stuff, I’ll buy something for you,” you tried to bargain with him, hoping to divert the topic of conversation.

Megumi put a hand on his neck awkwardly, “Gojo could buy me anything, he’s rich. It’s hard to convince him to not spoil me sometimes. I’m not a child anymore.”

Okay, clearly buying him something wouldn’t work when his guardian was rich. You hummed, tapping your foot as you tried to think of something that would convince Megumi. What could you offer to an introverted teenager that he couldn’t refuse?

That’s when an idea hit you so hard you almost got whiplash at how fast you turned to look at Megumi, “any time you want to be alone and away from everyone else, you can sit in the spare room at my dorm and I won’t tell anyone. I won’t ask you anything either and if anyone asks I wouldn’t know where you are. I’ll give you a spare key.”

His shoulders tensed up at your offer, and you knew it worked. Though he looked like he was considering, you knew you got him hook, line, and sinker. Just to add on, you offered him your prior deal, “I’ll buy you a book you want, and whatever food you want to keep at my place so no one could steal it either.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, taking everything from you reluctantly. “I’ll do it. Don’t forget what you promised me.”

“Thank you so much!” you almost cried out of joy.

“Don’t mention it,” Megumi looked away, but you noticed how his expression had softened up. Even after all those years of seeing Megumi’s broodiness evolve, he was pretty bad at hiding that he was secretly a softie. You knew that, and he definitely knew that, but you both acted otherwise to avoid the boy some embarrassment. Once Megumi was embarrassed, there was no getting him to do anything, he was just as stubborn as you and Satoru.

“Don’t you have work to catch up on?” Megumi asked you, waving his hand in front of your face to bring you back to reality.

“Shit! You’re right! Thanks again!” you quickly ran back to Satoru’s desk, getting back to Satoru’s workload.

This was going to be a long, long day.

_______________________________________________________

You walked back into Satoru’s place, practically dragging yourself in due to exhaustion.

You were going to kill Satoru, who did he think he was doing so much work every single day? It was a miracle you managed to finish everything for him, and prepared stuff for him tomorrow if he’d be healthy enough to start working again.

It doesn’t matter if he felt the need to put everything on himself because he was the strongest, if you were so exhausted after one day you couldn’t imagine how he felt after doing all his tasks for- for-

For how long? Years?

Feeling this immense rage and concern at the same time, you opened the door to his room, ready to scold him then offer your help for anything he would have to do in the future.

Only to see him bundled up in that Digimon blanket, cuddling the Tentomon plush.

“Shit, okay,” you mumbled to yourself, feeling the urge to cry. He really kept what you gave him all those years ago? He was holding onto them like it was a distant memory, and he didn’t look like he was going to let go anytime soon.

All annoyance went away, taking the cloth off of his head to check his temperature yourself. Still a little warm, but he wasn’t burning like he had been in the morning. You picked up the water bowl, grimacing at how warm it was. You quickly went over to dump it out, putting in cold water. After walking back, you sat down on the floor next to his bed, putting the cloth in the cold water. Once you did that, you waited for the water to stop dripping and put it on his head.

He shivered at the cold cloth, opening his eyes groggily, “huh…?”

“Go back to sleep, Satoru,” you say softly, combing your fingers through his hair.

“Don’t wanna, feels good,” Satoru whined quietly, leaning into your touch, “could use Infinity to stop you.”

“Please don’t,” you sighed, gently pressing into his scalp with your fingers, “I took care of all of your stuff for today, then passed on some things to the others as well as prepare stuff for you tomorrow if you feel better enough by then. Did any of your students come over?”

“You’re not slick, I know you sent Megumi over with how much protective stuff he had on. He said Yuuji made the soup but I know when he’s lying to me,” Satoru huffed, looking over at you with a pout. “I can take care of myself.”

“Well, you drank the honey and lemon water, right?” you gave him a look. “Plus the chicken noodle soup? And the medicine you were supposed to take for your throat, cough and fever?”

Satoru whined again like a child, “it’s too many things to do! I only did it because Megumi forced it down my throat. He’d never be able to do that if I wasn’t sick. I basically raised him, took care of him and the others when they were sick, be the best teacher there is, and he does this to me? And he was so annoyed with me the entire time too, what a way to show his appreciation!”

You laughed after hearing his experience with Megumi, so relieved. Yep, that was Megumi all right. You made an internal note to yourself to thank the boy later, he really could’ve put the task onto someone else but didn’t. He really did care afterall, even when he denied it to your face.

The reward you promised was in place, you were thinking of what book he’ll like or food of his choice. You’d also have to get him a spare key to your place since that was the main reason he agreed in the first place.

“Don’t reward his behavior!” Satoru immediately called you out as if he knew what you were thinking, but promptly went into a coughing fit before he could protest further.

“Okay, calm down, don’t wreck your throat,” you chuckled, rubbing his back soothingly. Then you removed the cloth from his forehead to put it in cold water again.

“You’re basically telling me to shut up,” Satoru glared at you. “You’re also mean.”

You snickered in response. He just looked so miserable in his condition that his glare had no effect on you. “You’re so, so stupid.”

Satoru scrunched his face up, “and now you’re calling me stupid! You’re way too mean to someone who is very vulnerable and sick!”

“If you say so.” You were entertained by his dramatics, he definitely seemed a lot better than the sorry state he was in the morning.

After a long silence, he moved your hand away from his forehead. He rubbed his thumb against yours in a soothing manner, then looked you in the eyes with a downcast look, a genuine curiosity shining through.

“Did you really do all my work for me?” he asked you. When you nodded, he gave an irked sigh, “you spoil me too much, I could’ve caught up with all of it tomorrow.”

“I did, yes,” you felt your eyebrows raise at his solemn look, which reminded you that you actually needed to scold him. “I will say, that’s a lot more work than anyone should be taking on in a day. The paperwork, teaching, more paperwork for putting off your missions, doing your missions…”

Satoru winced, then weakly asked, “did the higher ups bother you today?”

“When don’t they bother anyone?” you scoffed, placing the cold cloth back onto his forehead. “I had a few moments with them today, but I get closer to wanting to kill them every day.”

“You and me both, babe,” he said groggily, his eyes closing in relief.

“Did you just call me-” you stared at him in disbelief, unable to form words. When you two were friends and before then, the two of you had played around with pet names for fun. Though while you two were in a romantic relationship, he hadn’t called you anything aside from your name and a cheeky ‘sweetheart’ every now and then.

You prodded at him to make sure you heard him correctly, “Satoru? Did you just call me babe?”

He didn’t respond, falling asleep.

You let out a sigh, smiling at his sleeping form. You’ve been in this situation before, and you knew you’d make the same decision as last time.

You made yourself comfortable, letting your upper body rest on the mattress. Then you changed your mind, moving to get back up and lay down next to Satoru. Probably a bad idea since he’s sick and there is still a high chance you could get sick, but you couldn’t find it in you to care about the future scenarios.

It was just you, holding Satoru safely in your arms in the present, and that was all you could ever ask for.

6. (+1) Spoiling you with Affection and Care

It had been a relatively normal day at Jujutsu Tech. No wild curses of any grade, no sicknesses flying around, friendly banter, some mishaps here and there that quickly got solved, and a rare sense of overall peace.

Satoru Gojo was thrilled to slack off in his office, about to fall asleep in his chair with his blindfold over his eyes. Yeah, this was the kind of day he could get used to. Nothing could go wrong with such a peaceful time like this.

Then suddenly someone kicked his office door down, making him sit up straight in his chair.

“Gojo! Gojoooooooooo!” a shrill, panicked voice called out.

Oh. It was just Nobara. This was probably fine, maybe she’ll ask for him to take her shopping, or to take all three of them out somewhere, or for some advice. Though she did sound like she was panicking, so maybe he’ll need to calm her down-

Or not, based on how Yuuji and Megumi were suddenly in the picture, supporting you so you could stay standing. You looked pale, miserably tired, and- injured? You were injured.

You were injured.

Satoru immediately stood up, walking over. He stared at you, trying to process what he was seeing. You were injured, propped up by his students to stay on your feet. He could tell by the winces you gave any time you tried to readjust your stance, and the slight limp you had as you attempted to let go of the kids.

You didn’t get hurt, not like this. Usually you’d remain mostly unscathed, with some cuts every now and then if you got rough with a curse. He knew you never let yourself get hurt like this, you were the one to always help others, not the other way around.

He kept a calm expression on his face, not thinking too much of the situation at the moment. He couldn’t worry his students who already looked so guilty and concerned. “What happened?”

“The mission was supposed to be simple but then there was this big curse,” Yuuji began, looking panicked, “and it all happened really fast then the curse was gone but then-”

“I took a pretty bad hit,” you tell him weakly, giving a small smile.

“Which wasn’t necessary, we could’ve taken the hit,” Megumi grumbled, his eye twitching as he looked over at you. Though his grip on you tightened, making sure you were steady.

Satoru wanted to scream. That’s right, the mission was supposed to be simple enough for the three of them to handle. He even let you go since you offered to supervise the mission for him, knowing you could handle yourself.

He could tell his students all were taking this a little harder than they should. He laughed instead, though if you listened closely, the slightest strain could be heard. “Don’t worry you three, I’ll go to Shoko. She’ll know what to do, so leave it to us!”

Yuuji and Megumi were quick to hand you over to Satoru, and the man promptly held you in his arms. He cradled you close, his gaze lingering on your face for a moment too long. There were some bruises beginning to form, along with some scratches from what seemed to be claws. If the curse hadn’t been dealt with, he would’ve made sure that curse suffered.

He gave the three a toothy smile, “it’ll all be okay, don’t worry-!”

“Can you hurry it up?!” Megumi hissed, practically pushing Satoru out of his own office, “can’t you see the blood?!”

Blood? What blood? Satoru looked at you again, then blanched. Okay, yeah, you were bleeding quite a bit with the various cuts and scrapes on your body. How could he have missed that?

“Oh. Right. Well, see ya!” Satoru threw up a quick peace sign before hurriedly walking towards the infirmary.

“...We should follow him, shouldn’t we?” Yuuji said with a sheepish look.

“What are you, stupid? Of course we should follow him!” Nobara glared, already dragging Megumi and him along by their arms.

“I told you we should’ve gone straight to Shoko first,” Megumi mumbled, “Gojo’s doing the same thing.”

“But it’s different! Gojo should know his partner is hurt!” Nobara sighed, giving the two an unappreciative look, “you two don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”

“Hey!” Yuuji squawked.

“Going straight to Shoko was the better idea,” Megumi repeated, only to hiss when Nobara smacked him, “you know I’m right. Besides, we should just leave them be.”

“No way! I want to see them be all lovey dovey and take blackmail pictures!” Nobara huffed, already getting her phone out.

“No,” Megumi promptly covered her phone’s camera when she tried to take a photo.

“Well, I am worried about both of them…” Yuuji began.

“See, he’s on my side,” Nobara grinned.

“Though I think we should let them have some time to themselves before bothering them,” Yuuji said with an innocent smile.

“You were saying?” Megumi asked with a little smirk.

“Shut up,” Nobara put her hands on her hips, a disappointed look on her face. “Fine, fine. We’ll leave them alone for now. But I’m going to drag you guys to check on them later!”

Satoru wanted to entertain their train of thought, but he was too far for that now. Since Satoru was away from his students, his expression had shifted from a smile to outright panic as he carried you. Maybe he was worrying for no reason, you had been hurt before and remained relatively unscathed. Though this felt different for some reason, his chest felt tight and his heart pounding in his ears.

His eyes shifted downwards to your barely open eyes, “why do you do the things you do?” he asked you, exasperated. “You just have to make yourself look cool in front of the kids, you don’t even think about how they would feel about you getting hurt.”

“You know why I took the hit,” you tell him with a loopy smile, “hey, you look a lot more handsome than usual today.”

“Why thank you, but don’t think that’ll distract me,” Satoru chuckled, flattered by your compliment, “we’re almost there, just hold on for a little longer.”

“I can hear you two lovebirds from all the way-” Shoko paused as she saw the scene in front of her: you, injured, being carried in Satoru’s arms, “-over here. What happened?” Shoko asked, staring at your barely conscious form with slight concern. She squinted as she saw the bruises and scrapes on your face. “(Name)? It’s not like you to show up like this. Mission gone wrong?”

“Apparently my darling partner,” Satoru gave you a light bonk, “took a hit from a curse for my students while on a mission with them.”

“I’d do it again,” you mumble weakly.

“Wow,” Shoko chuckled, a bit dumbfounded. “I’ll do a quick checkup and patch up whatever injuries you have then. On the bed, please.”

Satoru let out an exasperated sigh, moving to lay you down on one of the empty beds. Before Shoko could even get started, your eyes closed and your form slumped suddenly. Shoko was alarmed, quickly checking your vitals.

“Hey! No- wake up!” Satoru quickly shook you.

“Step outside, I’ve got it from here,” Shoko told him.

“But-”

“I’ve got it,” Shoko said firmly, pushing Satoru out, “I’ll need to focus for this, so stay out here.”

“But Shoko-!” Satoru couldn’t even get another word out as Shoko closed the door on him.

He sat outside, pressing his lips together apprehensively. He had to think rationally about this. You probably only fainted. Considering you felt weak from the hit you took, and the blood loss that followed. When he thought further on it, yeah, it made sense. Nothing to worry about at all, you’d be up in no time.

Then he sat outside for what he felt like too long, so he stood up and started pacing around. This was exactly what he warned his students about, forming attachments in this field would only bring about pain in the end.

In a way, maybe this was the world letting him know that any attachment he did make was a mistake.

(All he could think about was Suguru, how his hand had been clutching his missing arm that had been bleeding out. The man, his best friend, dying in front of him, feeling his pulse gradually get slower-)

Shoko stepped out of the room after what felt like forever, making him jump up right away.

“Shoko-”

“(Name) is stable for now, just asleep,” Shoko quickly informed him of your condition, “it’s just over exertion, so make ‘em rest. I swear, (Name) is always doing everything for everyone else but never asks for anything in return,” Shoko mumbled under her breath, stepping aside so she could let Satoru back in.

Satoru rushed in, putting his hand to your forehead. You were still warm and your heartbeat was normal, which made his body relax.

His footsteps were heavy as he went to drag a chair over to sit next to your bed. As soon as he sat down, he winced when he saw the white sheet draped over your body. Though he relaxed again when he saw your face, able to discern from your nose that you were still breathing.

“You’re killing me here,” Satoru sighed, resting his elbows on the mattress, “why do you do the things that you do? You call me stupid, but here you are.”

“…Ngh…” your eyes slowly opened, trying to adjust to the light.

Satoru quickly dimmed the lights, then put his hand to shield some light from hurting your eyes. “You were pretty quick to wake up, did you miss me that much?” he said in a teasing tone.

“Yep. All to see your pretty face,” you said with a bit of strain in your voice. “I’m magically cured now.”

It still made Satoru laugh, all tension in his frame dropping. Though the more he thought about your situation, he felt as though you were being hypocritical. Being the one to take care of his injuries when Shoko had been out, letting him rest on you when he needed the mental break, tending to him when he had been ill and taking over his responsibilities for the day, did you ever take a break?

Have you ever given yourself any down time to sit down and think about what you wanted for yourself?

“You know, for someone who scolds me constantly about not taking care of myself and taking care of me all the time, you never let me do anything for you,” Satoru scoffed, running his hand through your hair. “Now you’re here, in Shoko’s capable hands because you didn’t take care of yourself.”

He seems almost happy to scold you.

“This isn’t the time,” you weakly protested as you leaned into his touch, squeezing his hand as a way to signal you were okay.

“This is the time,” Satoru grinned as he poked your cheek with his free hand, squeezing your hand with his other one to signal relief, “finally, my chance to pay you back.”

“I can take care of myself,” you tried to protest.

“Nope,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Satoru-”

“Hey, you have to let me do this. I’m not going to let you take care of yourself like this,” Satoru stuck his tongue out at you. “I’m gonna pay you back so hard, you’ll forget about spoiling me.”

“I’m terrified, truly,” you sighed, then looked over at Shoko, “so? Can I leave, or…”

“You can leave, but I suggest not doing anything strenuous for a while. Get your energy and strength back up. I’ll check up on you in a week and assess whether you can get back to your regular schedule,” Shoko informed you, the curves of her lips turning upwards. “You two are pretty adorable, you know that?”

“Heard you loud and clear,” you nodded, ignoring the second part. You moved to get out of the bed slowly to try and balance yourself.

“Nope, you’re not walking,” Satoru huffed, immediately sweeping you off of your feet.

You gasped, clinging onto Satoru instinctively. “What- why?! Satoru!”

“Oh wow,” Shoko snickered, taking out her clipboard to make a note, “I was going to say walking back would be pretty strenuous on your body, but I can see there’s a clear solution. Good thinking.”

“Why thank you, I always have good ideas,” Satoru grinned. “Anyways, I’m gonna take her back to my place. I’ll see ya later Shoko!”

“I hope not, I don’t need anyone else getting injured,” Shoko said dryly.

“Satoru! Put me down!” you hissed at him, feeling your face get hot. “I can walk fine on my own!”

“Nope,” Satoru popped the ‘p’ and kept walking, “you’re mine now!”

“Have fun you two!” Shoko called out with a snort. “Satoru, keep doing what you’re doing and make sure (Name) doesn’t do anything stupid. (Name), let him carry you. Doctor’s orders.”

“Yes ma’am!” Satoru gave Shoko a little salute.

“Shoko, don’t encourage him!” you shrieked, looking back at her for help.

“You brought this on yourself! Enjoy your forced break!” Shoko told you with a cheeky smile.

“Utahime wouldn’t treat me like this!” you get the last word in before Satoru closed the infirmary door behind him. “Satoru, please put me down.”

“Why, don’t want anyone see me carry you like royalty? Your majesty, I insist on letting me do this for you!” Satoru said dramatically, “why, the council will have me sentenced to death if I don’t!”

“Who is the council in this scenario?” you ask Satoru, exasperated.

“All of Jujutsu Tech.”

“Even the higher-ups?”

“Bleck,” Satoru made a disgusted face, “don’t even. Now hush and rest up, I’m sure my arms are warm and comfy enough for that.”

“You’re a grown ass man, don’t say comfy.”

“(Name)!” Satoru squawked, “you’re so lucky I have to make sure you don’t do anything demanding. Otherwise you’d be in a lot of trouble for that comment.”

“You know I love making fun of you,” you gave a little laugh, closing your eyes.

“Yeah yeah,” Satoru rolled his eyes from under his blindfold, but held you a little closer as his gaze went back to your scratched and bruised face. The images of you weakened, your eyes rolling back, and the sound of you slumping suddenly onto the infirmary bed flashed into his mind. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

“No promises,” you mumbled.

“Right…” Satoru gave a slightly bitter laugh.

“But I’ll do my best, I can at least say that much,” you squeezed his arm just the slightest bit.

Satoru closed his eyes, feeling his uneasiness be swept away. Though it was swept under the rug for now, he’d have to clean up later. “I guess that’s all I can ask for,” Satoru hummed, leaning over to kiss your forehead. “Get some more rest, I’ll wake you up when we get to your apartment.”

You copied his humming, slowly falling asleep in his arms.

_______________________________________________________

“Home sweet home!” Satoru called out as he locked your door.

You roused from your sleep, rubbing your eyes. Once you had processed his words you gave him a blank response, “this is not a home. This is my apartment near Jujutsu Tech. I only come here if I need a change of scenery or to be away from people.”

“Oh psshhh, whatever. You need to leave this place and move in with me, you’re just wasting money and time,” Satoru waved your comment off, gently placing you down on your couch, “now, what would you prefer? A nice soap opera? A musical? A movie?” he asked you, quickly turning on the TV and changing the channels rapidly.

You winced at the constant channel changes, the flashing lights about to give you a headache. “Satoru, anything’s fine.”

Satoru pouted, then beamed, “oh, I know! This one!” He changed the channel to one of your favorites, then changed the settings to make the TV less bright. “Now while I leave you here with this, I’ll be making you something that’ll make you swoon and want to marry me on the spot!”

“But I already want to-” you tried to speak but he was already gone, “-marry you.” After saying that outloud, you mumbled to yourself to drag yourself away from that line of thinking. “Okay then. He’s just being his theatrical self.”

Marrying him didn’t sound all too bad, but maybe it was too soon for that.

“I heard you!” Satoru called out, peeking out from your kitchen with a grin. “We could get married tomorrow if you want! Then we can get you out of here and move your stuff to my place!”

You groaned quietly, moving to lay down on your couch. “Oh my God, please stop asking me to move in with you. We can talk about that when we get there.”

If this whole day hadn’t been embarrassing, this would’ve been the cherry on top. It was kind of sweet though, that he had reacted so positively to the idea of getting married and moving in with him. Living with him didn’t sound bad, waking up with him every morning and doing freshly married couple things was appealing. You couldn’t help but get stuck in your thoughts, thinking of the ideal wedding. All of the students would come along with your mutual friends, ban certain people from the list, catering, your outfit… oh, and of course, Satoru in a suit.

“Ah, but food first!” Satoru went back to work in your kitchen, but in the next minute he brought you a cup of fruit juice, “this is to up your sugar since it’s really low. Drink it slowly!”

Before you could say thank you, he was already back in the kitchen.

What was this man going to cook in your kitchen? You assumed he wouldn’t burn your apartment complex down considering he had taken care of two children before and fed them adequately. Besides, this man was good at everything. Any hobby you had and made him try, he picked up the hobby fast and better than you. It did make you a little mad, considering it would take him so little time to get something you had taken time to practice.

Then again, you loved him regardless of that perfect image of himself that had been paraded around jujutsu society. You knew better than to believe what others said about him too. Seeing just how torn up Satoru could get behind closed doors, but never showing that to anyone else…

Even now, when you should’ve been worried about your own state of health, you were thinking about him. If he was holding up okay, or if he was tearing himself up internally. It wasn’t his fault you got hurt, but if he thought it was and let the guilt eat him up without saying anything-

“Mwah!”

“Ack!” you jumped, not expecting Satoru to give you the most exaggerated kiss on your cheek, “Satoru, when did you get here?”

“I could hear your thoughts going crazy from the kitchen,” Satoru snickered, poking your forehead with his index finger, “I’m supposed to be taking care of you right now, and that means turning whatever’s making you think so much off. If kissing you will do the trick, then so be it!”

This man was going to be the death of you one day. Physical affection was something he was no stranger to, it was rare for him to let go of you sometimes. Though it seemed like holding you was one of his favorites, you both knew better. He greatly enjoyed kissing you, and without fail, loved how any kind of kiss made you weak.

“I swear if you- Satoru- don’t you dare-!” you tried to move away from him.

Satoru promptly moved to the floor next to the couch, cupping your face with his hands. “Oh I dare.”

“Satoru-!” you yelped, then started giggling as he peppered your face with kisses. “Satoru! Hey! Wait!”

“Nope! Turn that thought switch down!” Satoru ended up giggling with you, planting more kisses on your face.

You opted to at least try to fight back, swatting at him lazily. Though it didn’t last long, letting yourself simply melt into his affectionate behaviour. It was like your brain had a switch flipped, turning the lights off to signal that no one was home. You hummed in satisfaction as he kept going, trying to sneak in retaliatory kisses.

The moment was ruined by the sound of the lock clicking, making you both freeze. You saw Satoru instinctively raise his hands, making you grab his hands and shake your head frantically.

When both of you looked, it was Megumi giving both of you an odd look, “What?”

Satoru gave Megumi a curious look. “What are you doing here? How did you even get in? The door was locked.”

“I have a key,” Megumi grumbled, showing the two keys before quickly pocketing them.

“Since when did you get a key?” Satoru pouted, then looked over at you, “how come ‘Gumi got a key? And two of them?”

“Don’t worry about it, and don’t pout, you’ve had a key longer than he did so I don’t see why that’s an issue,” you tell him with a sigh, putting the back of your hand over your eyes.

Megumi looked between the two of you with his usual glare.

“Aww, wait,” Satoru’s eyes gleamed with mischief, “did you want to see (Name)? Were you worried?”

“I wanted to get away from Yuuji and Nobara, they’re being annoying,” Megumi scoffed, his eyes still darting from Satoru to you.

You had noted his eye movement being quick, seeing his eyebrows narrow in your direction. You shrugged, you’d deal with whatever Megumi was feeling later if he wanted to talk about it.

“Well you know the deal, room and kitchen’s yours,” you gestured, though he didn’t move from his spot.

“Uh, ‘Gumi?” Satoru stared at Megumi in a bit of confusion, “you heard (Name), go on.”

“Hmph,” Megumi walked over to the spare room, closing the door behind him.

“He’s a weird one,” Satoru snickered, then ruffled your hair. “I’m going to go back to making your very healthy meal. Not only will it make you want to marry me, but you’ll get so strong so fast.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you tell him in an amused tone, this time giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“You better be!” Satoru grinned, then stood up to go back to the kitchen, “call out if you need anything, all right? Let me spoil you tonight.”

“Heard you loud and clear,” you murmured, closing your eyes again.

You probably only slept for about fifteen minutes until you heard a door click again. Your eyes had opened, and you looked over.

Megumi came out of the room, glaring at you. He moved to sit on the floor near the couch you were resting on. The silence was awkward but then he spoke quietly, having to strain your ears to hear him.

“That can’t be comfortable.”

“It’s more comfortable than the floor, that’s for sure,” you joked, though you frowned when you saw Megumi’s eyebrows crease slightly more than his usual. You recognized that look on his face. Megumi could act standoffish all he wanted, but you knew better, “I wish you’d be a little more straightforward with me. I can tell you’re worried about me.”

“I’m not worried about you,” Megumi mumbled, and while he may be a good liar to anyone else…

“Your shoulders are tense, your eyebrows are creased, you’re avoiding eye contact with me, and you’re messing with the loose strings of my couch right now,” you pointed out to him, “all that tells me you’re worried about me.”

Megumi sighed, looking away from you. “Don’t tell Gojo. He’d never let me live it down.”

“Would now be a bad time to tell you what you just said sounds like something he’d say?” you asked Megumi with a snicker.

Megumi’s glare in response to your comment made you snicker more, before you let him off and gently pat his head. “I won’t tell him, your secret’s safe with me. So you were worried about me?”

“I was worried,” Megumi ended up mumbling, “I didn’t want to lose you and have been able to do nothing about it.”

“It wouldn’t have been anyone’s fault,” you tell Megumi with a sigh.

“It would’ve felt like mine. It always feels like mine,” Megumi whispered.

Despite the horror and heartbreak you felt hearing his comment, you calmly pat his shoulder to try and soothe him. It made sense why he felt like that, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

You knew Megumi went through a lot, even if you didn’t have a full grasp of what his childhood was like before Satoru had intervened. Sure, he seemed detached and broody as a child, and his disposition remained mostly constant as he grew. But he was still a child.

A child who, you had inferred, didn’t have all his emotional needs met early on due to abandonment. At the moment, along with your horror and heartbreak, was a sense of relief he could bring himself to open up to you.

“For the record, if anything happens to me, it’s never anyone’s fault. If something happens to me- and don’t look at me like that with your little angry kicked puppy look- I wouldn’t want you thinking you were to blame,” you scold him regardless of your relief. “I would never want you, the students, my friends, or for Satoru to think like that.”

Megumi huffed and crossed his arms, “of course you wouldn’t. It wouldn’t stop me from thinking that way though.”

“Then I would be disappointed in you from beyond the grave, I’ll be haunting and hovering over you,” you snorted, poking the side of his head, “I’m not joking, I will haunt you. Then I’ll haunt Satoru. No one would ever believe you two and there will be signs they’ll brush off.”

“Please don’t,” Megumi said in a deadpan tone.

“I’ll write things like, ‘I’m proud of you’ or ‘it wasn’t your fault’ or maybe even ‘I’ll find a way to leak all your childhood pictures to your friends if you keep being broody-’ ”

The look of horror on Megumi’s face after that last statement made you snort. What a funny kid. He could act like nothing bothered him and be nonchalant, but there were certain parts you knew you could pick at.

“I’ll get salt if you even try that,” Megumi muttered, “I’ll get the Divine Dogs to attack you.”

“Bold of you to assume salt will stop me,” you snickered, then pondered for a bit, “though maybe the Divine Dogs will stop me.”

Megumi didn’t respond to your statements, making you raise an eyebrow. His expression was downcast, you knew he was still holding back on you.

You laid the palm of your hand flat on his head, doing your best to appear stern. “Megumi Fushiguro, Satoru and I practically raised you, so we know you well. Tell me what you’re actually thinking.”

He scowled at the use of his full name, “I’m getting there, I’m trying to think of a way to say this.”

You nodded, leaving your hand on his head. He hesitated, but didn’t move away from the contact. You decided to stay quiet and not rush him, giving his head little pats.

Then he sighed, speaking up, “when I think about how you were fighting to stay awake when we brought you back to Gojo,” Megumi’s frown remained, “I thought you were going to go into a coma. Like Tsumiki.”

If your heart wasn’t broken before, it was shattered into little pieces now.

“It was a thought that crossed my mind, don’t make a big deal of it,” Megumi huffed when he saw your expression, “I’m… glad you’re doing better now, I guess.”

“You know,” you started, gently running your fingers through his spiky hair, “you and Satoru don’t really talk about Tsumiki unless we go to visit her. You know I gave you that other key so you could give it to her?”

Megumi flinched when you said that, then let out a shaky sigh.

“I miss her.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Oh, if that admission didn’t tear your heart out of your chest violently. You missed Tsumiki too, but for Megumi it was a different kind of grief.

“Of course you do. She’s your sister,” you told him softly. Not just that, but from what you gathered, at one point it was only the two of them. That sibling bond between both was strong, even if Megumi didn’t acknowledge it much.

“I want that idiot to wake up so I can say sorry. I want my sister back. And almost seeing you in the same way makes me miss her more,” Megumi squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment, looking away from you after he opened his eyes.

“I’m sorry I put you in a position that made you think you were going to lose me,” you ended up telling him quietly, “though I can’t promise I won’t protect you when I need to. Us jujutsu sorcerers, we need to be prepared for the worst and protect others.”

“I get that I should be prepared. I remember Gojo telling me that when we die, we’ll be alone. Anyone can die at any time and I’d have to stay strong and move on. Except that’s easier said than done, I couldn’t even let Yuuji get executed. Him dying in front of me and then coming back like nothing happened…” Megumi’s voice trailed off.

You put an arm around Megumi, giving him an awkward half-hug. He stiffened up but didn’t fight it, he leaned into the contact with an air of stubbornness.

“I told Satoru that keeping Yuuji being alive a secret from you guys was going to bite him in the ass later.”

“You knew?” Megumi asked in a betrayed tone.

“Uh, yeah. I didn’t want to lie to you guys to your face, so that’s why I went to Kyoto for a while and came back with Utahime and her students,” you told him sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“...Whatever,” Megumi grumbled, leaning further onto you. He closed his eyes as you massaged his scalp gently. “I’m just glad you’re okay I guess.”

“You said that already,” you told Megumi, though you figured it was a moot point when you felt him slump onto you.

Yeah, no, he was definitely asleep now.

You felt a sort of drowsiness take over, making your own eyes shut. Before you knew it, you dozed off alongside Megumi.

_______________________________________________________

“Okay, food’s done-!” Satoru quickly quieted down when he saw the scene in front of him, and cooed, “how cute…!”

Your arm was draped over Megumi, and Megumi’s head was tilted back onto your shoulder. Satoru took his phone out and snapped a quick picture of the two of you being all domestic and cute, acting like parent and child. He snickered to himself, sending the picture to you so you could laugh at it later. Then he sent it to Megumi so he could yell at him later, just to rile him up whenever he woke up.

Speaking of the kid, Satoru moved to sit on the ground next to him. He laid his head on you, then wrapped his arms around Megumi tightly, “Megumiiiiiiii! Wake uuuuuup! If you have such a long nap now, you’ll never be able to sleep at night!”

Megumi groaned as he was roused from sleep, pushing Satoru away weakly, “I’m not napping.”

“You were napping. On (Name) no less,” Satoru snorted, “I thought you grew out of falling asleep on us, glad to know there’s still a chance of that happening!”

“Let go of me!” Megumi hissed, now struggling more against him, “I swear if you don’t let go, I’ll summon-”

“Boys, boys,” your sleepy voice rang out, making them both freeze. Then you yawned, moving to sit up, “don’t summon Mahoraga or any of your shikigami in my room Megumi. Satoru, stop teasing Megumi.”

“Oh, all right,” Satoru sighed, letting go of Megumi.

“Fine,” Megumi grumbled, then stood up and dusted his clothes off. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Text me when you get there, I want you to be safe!” Satoru said with a grin, also standing up to ruffle Megumi’s hair and make it all messy.

“I don’t need to be coddled!” Megumi scowled, fixing his hair the best he could.

“Satoru, he’ll be fine,” you gave an exasperated sigh, giving Megumi a fond smile, “don’t let Nobara or Yuuji find you on the way out, who knows where they’ll drag you and what they’ll try to interrogate out of you.”

“That’s…” Megumi’s voice faltered at your point, “a good idea.”

“I’ll see you soon ‘Gumi,” you told Megumi fondly, knowing he’d be around if you needed him. He would only be a text or a call away, and would deny anything he did being out of care. That was the boy you raised with Satoru, and you knew him well enough.

“Sure,” Megumi said awkwardly, moving to leave your dorm room.

Once he was gone, Satoru ran back into the kitchen. You tilted your head in confusion at this, but then laughed when he came back with three plates, a bowl and a glass, somehow balancing them.

“For you, my love,” Satoru began in an exaggerated manner, “first, a chalice containing the finest drink that will be sure to cleanse your palate if need be.”

“Babe, that’s just water. Please don’t tell me you’re going to do this the entire time,” you giggled, taking the glass from him.

“The first platter has a meal with all the saltiest foods you could only ever dream of,” Satoru put down the first plate with some snacks. “The second has all the sugar you could only ever dream of,” he put down another plate with some cut up fruit, “and the third, oh the third!”

“What’s on the third?” you ask Satoru, still snickering.

“Burgers, but that’s for me,” Satoru snorted.

“Wow, okay, I see how it is!” you outright laughed, already plopping one of the salty snacks into your mouth. “What took you so long in the kitchen, little chef? Decorating your burgers?”

“I’m not the little chef, you are! And I was making you more food!” Satoru informed you, sitting down next to you. “That way you won’t have to make anything and can heat up whatever you want tomorrow.”

Oh. “That was sweet of you to do for me,” you look over at Satoru with a warm smile, “thank you.”

“Psshhh, it was nothing,” Satoru waved it off, but then whispered something in your ear, “I may or may not have made something you really like…”

“You’re lying,” you move away with a look of surprise, “I would’ve known if you did.”

“Nuh uh,” Satoru waved his index finger in front of your face, “you were sleeping pretty soundly with Megumi, our son. ”

You almost choked, swatting his arm, “Satoru!”

“I’m not wrong!” Satoru whined, his chin resting on your shoulder. “We raised those kids. They’re our kids.”

“Megumi just left, and you’re talking about him like you didn’t almost get him to summon Mahoraga in my apartment,” you snorted.

The fact that Satoru had made one of your favorite meals to eat later was nice of him, even if you felt a little bad he put in so much work for you. Being taken care of for once instead of being the one to take care of everyone else was a nice feeling.

“Thank you again, for everything,” you said to Satoru, looking at the man. You felt a smirk twitch on your lips seeing him pout.

“You’d do the same for me, but I guess you’re welcome,” Satoru let out a long, stretched out exhale, “so how was your experience today out of five stars? Would you leave me a tip for my brilliant service?”

“Five out of five. I will give you a tip, come here,” you grabbed Satoru’s face, peppering his face with kisses out of revenge.

“Hey!” Satoru squawked, then ended up giggling in the same manner as you, “this isn’t a cash tip! Stop it! I’m going to die over here (Name)! Stoooooop!”

You couldn’t even continue with the kisses, laughing along with him. You knew he could’ve stopped you at any time, he was strong enough to do so. Yet there he was, practically melting onto you the same way you had.

You loved this man, and it was clear he loved you too.

Before you could stop yourself, you planted a kiss on his lips. He let out a little noise as you did, frozen out of surprise. As soon as you felt him freeze, you pulled away with a worried look, “too much?”

“Hold on,” Satoru removed his blindfold, and yes, his eyes filled with adoration were in your sight now. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

You smiled, pulling him in for another kiss. This time he happily reciprocated, his hands moving to your waist. The hand placement was second-nature at this point, with how many times you two, in private, got a chance to indulge each other. Doing this kind of thing in public was a big no from both of you, but there would be moments that slipped everyone’s sights. Holding hands under a table, your hands fixing his hair up with your fingers lingering for a moment too long, his hands fixing up anything out of place with your outfit with a subtle yet playful pinch, there was just a lot to be desired out of the other.

He pulled away after some time, poking your cheek, “you can get another one after we finish eating, it’s important you get your nutrients in.”

“Ugh, fair enough,” you nodded, but gave him a poke on his arm to signal you were displeased with this turn of events.

He responded with a pat to your head before proceeding to eat his burgers. You decided to eat your food as well, letting the TV fill up the silence between the two of you.

Before you knew it, the food was finished, the dishes were washed, dried, then put back by Satoru. Once you were out of your bathroom, he was lifting you again.

“I am your taxi driver tonight, is your destination your bed?” Satoru jokingly asked you, closing the lights on the way to your bed.

“You’re so, so stupid,” you pinched the bridge of your nose.

“That’s not a no! And coincidentally, that’s where I’m going too!” Satoru gently placed you down on your bed, settling in next to you.

You put an arm around Satoru, making yourself comfortable. “I think I’ve had way too many naps to actually sleep right now.”

“That’s what you think, but I think you can manage to sleep if we talk for long enough,” Satoru hummed as he held you close. “Oh by the way, there’s no way I’m letting you go anywhere. You’re not going to do any work, or even think about anything related to curses, missions, whatever.”

The workload you’d have once you would recover sounded like hell, but then you thought about the usual workload Satoru had in comparison. If he had stayed the whole day here with you, then that meant he completely missed out on what he had to work on. “You’re going to have a lot to catch up on tomorrow,” you winced.

“Worth it,” Satoru mumbled, nuzzling his face into your neck, “let’s talk about something else though.”

“We should plan a Halloween party for the students,” you said, already coming up with some ideas, “we could do a couple’s costume or something.”

“Oh that sounds fun,” Satoru sounded mischievous, “we should set up a haunted house around the school. I’d love to scare the kids myself, could you imagine their faces if I scared them in some freaky costume?”

Yep, typical Satoru, “you are so evil. I suggested something cute and you immediately twisted my idea into something sinister.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that they give funny reactions!” Satoru said with amusement evident in his tone, “Halloween would be fun.”

You just sighed, thinking of something different.

Satoru looked up at you, taking your expression into consideration. He decided to ask instead of trying to guess in his head. “(Name)? What’s going on in that gorgeous head of yours?” he moved from your neck and booped your nose.

“I was thinking,” you hesitated, “we do gift giving for Christmas. Something like a white elephant involving everyone.”

“What’s with you planning for the holidays?” Satoru asked you.

“Just, planning ahead I guess,” you shrugged.

“Is this because we couldn’t do anything last year?” he asked you quietly.

“We both know 2017 was, well, for a lack of better words, a shit show,” you mumbled, meeting his eyes to see what his reaction would be.

“You can say that again,” Satoru sighed, leaning his head back against the couch.

There wasn’t much to be said about everything that had happened last year, aside from when you had forced Satoru to tell you how he had been feeling after Suguru’s passing. When you thought back on it, you really did miss him. Who he used to be, one of your friends. Suguru leaving back then had been hard, and him actually dying last year was hard to get past.

It’s not like he had been entirely blameless though, but you wonder if you were biased or short-sighted. Suguru was just as a little shit as Satoru had been, but him defecting and becoming a curse user? You were briefed on the details of the mission Suguru and Satoru had been sent on back then, but whatever was going through Suguru’s mind was something you couldn’t figure out. That was something you couldn’t have helped him through, despite how you tried to reach out to him by making him food, similar to Satoru.

In one moment he had been helping you and Shoko with preparing for Satoru’s surprise birthday party with barely restrained excitement, had gone through most of your second-year as classmates, and then he was gone. Now he wouldn’t come back, not ever.

Though Suguru had been your classmate and friend, someone you relied on back then, you knew what your priorities were. The same as Satoru’s, to keep the students safe. You couldn’t blame any of them for protecting themselves, nor would you let the grief weigh down on your heart. Especially now, when you thought of Suguru, the kids and how hurt they were flashed through your mind.

They deserved to have a redo, to be compensated for the loss of innocence.

“There were a lot of bad memories made for the second-year students- well everyone really- so maybe we should do something small for Christmas this year. You know, bring everyone together,” you sighed, your eyes getting heavy.

“I think that’s a good idea, though you better hope I don’t draw your name out of a hat,” Satoru smiled, moving the hair out of your face.

“You’re thinking of secret Santa you dork. White elephant is different,” you said tiredly.

“Okay, you’re the expert, I trust you,” Satoru chuckled at your lowered voice and droopy eyelids, “what did you say about taking too many naps and not being able to sleep?”

“I’d talk with you all night if I could,” you said flatly, “I love you, your voice, pretty much everything about you.”

Before you properly fell asleep, you heard him.

“I love you too,” he whispered, placing a loving kiss on the top of your head. “Goodnight, (Name). I’ll be here when you wake up tomorrow, so ask me for anything you need. I’ve got a pretty big debt of favors I owe you, and today doesn’t even cut half of it.”

If you were more awake, you would’ve been filled with absolute glee at him saying I love you. Though that would have to be a thought for the morning, for the future.

“Taking care of you isn’t a loan, I do it because I care about you. Nothing will stop me from giving you the love you deserve. Goodnight, Satoru.”

For now and in the present, you and Satoru were comfortable in each other’s arms, dozing off into the night.

[END]

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