Archive of Our Own

Shoko Ieiri’s head is finally in a comfortable position against Satoru Gojo’s bony knee, despite the way one of the legs of the sunglasses she’s wearing shifts out of place and presses against her cheek, misaligning the lenses framing her face. When she feels him move to answer the cell phone suddenly ringing in his pocket, she grunts, sitting upright as his knee moves, his leg straightening out. The three of them, Shoko, Gojo, and Geto, are sprawled out on one of the outdoor stone staircases at their school, lounging underneath the merciful shade of one of the clusters of older gradually yellowing ginkgo trees on campus. It’s been a sweltering day despite Autumn approaching, their thin black jackets discarded to the side, the sleeves of their white shirts rolled up to their shoulders, collars unbuttoned. Shoko’s short hair is tied up into a messy bun mimicking Geto’s, and a collection of popsicle sticks stained blue and red are gathered on the translucent discarded plastic casings by her feet. 

Gojo doesn’t even bother answering the phone. He groans, silences the ringtone, and when Shoko readjusts herself to look up at him, she sees him dump the phone onto Geto’s thigh. 

“Who is it?” Gojo asks. 

Geto sits up from his position, massaging the back of his neck as he picks up the phone before it slides off him.

“Yaga. You have a mission this weekend.”

“Alone?”

Geto passes the phone back to him and returns to his previous position, his face hidden from Shoko at the tilted back angle. A breeze passes through and sways the leaves above them, the sunlight trickling over them as flickering half-moons. 

“What do you think?”

“We were supposed to go out this weekend,” Gojo whines, and this time sits up in earnest. He stretches his arms above his head and twists his torso, and Shoko hears a trail of cracks pop along his spine. 

“It’s fine,” she says, feeling her own phone vibrate. She glances at it leisurely and sees Utahime’s sent her a message. “We can postpone.”

“I should get paid time off,” Gojo complains, and Geto snorts. 

“Yeah, bring that up with the school. I’m sure they’ll side with you.”

“It’s true,” Gojo protests. “If I have to do almost everything myself I should get some job benefits.”

“It isn’t a job,” Geto argues, and Shoko recognizes the edge of an incoming quarrel in his tone and sighs, plucking out her carton of cigarettes. She reaches over to her jacket to search for a lighter and frowns when she realizes she’s forgotten it in her dorm. 

“If we get paid,” Gojo starts, pushing himself up to stand and look at Geto, who was still sprawled out on the staircase, head perched on the edge of a step. Shoko couldn’t tell who was looking down at who from her position. “It’s a job, and I want some time off. Make some other people work for once.”

“What did you expect?” Geto says.  “ The Strongest gets most of the missions.”

“It feels like overkill,” Gojo replies.

Geto sits up, sees Shoko holding her carton, and motions for his own jacket. She searches through it and exhales when she feels the familiar weight and cold metal of a lighter. 

“Next weekend,” Gojo announces, and Shoko eyes him as she lights her cigarette. He wrinkles his nose as she blows out smoke towards him. 

“Is that a promise, I hear?” she teases, and Gojo pouts. 

“I’ll just drag you guys to whatever mission I get if I get one. They never take long, we can go out after.”

“What if we’re busy?” Shoko argues.

Gojo rolls his eyes, “Don’t be, then. I’m not a miracle worker.”

When Geto moves his foot to kick him and Gojo nearly falls as he grips his ankle to stop him, Shoko laughs before flicking the bottom of her cigarette, ash falling onto the stone steps.

She finds Geto the next day in one of the school’s outdoor training areas, his shoulders and exposed chest tinted red as he trains by himself, sweat beading on his skin. She stands by the entryway of the small field, watching him as he expertly moves around a training staff, his limbs extending and retracting in fluid, controlled movements. From here, it looks as if he’s in a dance, his partner the air he whirled and pivoted in. He notices her only when he turns on his heels sharply, nearly dropping his weapon, but his new audience doesn’t inhibit his rhythm.

Shoko doesn’t mind waiting, the truly unbearable afternoon heat lingering from the last few days of August still hours away. She leans against the fence post at the entryway, an arm draped over the warm metal while she digs the tip of her sneaker into the dry, red dirt. A plane flies above them, drowning out the sounds of Geto’s shoes scraping against the ground. When he finishes his dance he jerks his arm, the staff he was handling originally split into three chained parts coming together into one.

He circles to his folded up clothes and water bottle on the bleachers near him, picks his belongings up and drinks messily as he nears her, rivulets of water dripping down his chin. 

“Something up?” he asks, breathless. 

“Nah,” she says. “But you should get cleaned up, I’m going out shopping.” 

“And that involves me how?’

She places a hand on her hip, “You’re going with me. We were supposed to spend the day together, anyway. Just because Gojo is busy doesn’t mean I am.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Give me an hour to get ready.”

“Meet me at the main gates.”

When he rejoins her, his hair is still damp from the shower, loose and thrown over his shoulders. The sun has moved further into the almost cloudless sky, and Shoko is glad she chose a light outfit,  a crop top revealing her recent belly-button piercing. 

The borderline unbearable heat of the day gives way to chilly dusk as they wander through the city, finding themselves spending the day drifting from one errand to the next, jumping from department store to bakery to a small bookstore that caught Shoko’s eye. Eventually, she complains about the fact that the mini-fridge in her dorm is starting to lack adequate snacks, and Geto begrudgingly goes along with her when she drags him into a grocery store. She dumps a few bottles of pre-made smoothies and teas into their cart before pivoting into the frozen section and scooping out at least four boxes of microwavable meals. 

“I will never understand how you and Satoru manage to stay in shape.”

“Well, he’s a freak,” Shoko points out. “I just work out.”

As they leave, Geto silently reaches for the few bags of food he bought himself, although food would be stretching it; Shoko had only seen him pick out a bottle of tea and a few cans of nuts before they checked out. 

“Are you hungry?” 

He looks towards her as they pass through the sliding doors of the store, “Not really, no.”

“Well,” Shoko says. “I am. So, where do you want to eat?”

“Could we do take out? It’s getting late.”

Shoko laughs, “It’s 8 p.m.”

He averts his eyes away from her and stares straight ahead as they walk, the plastic bag hanging off his wrist crinkling against his hip. The heat from the day has died down, but humidity seeps out from underneath the earth, snaking its way through the cracks of the concrete they step on. 

“I’m just tired. Do you mind?” 

She eyes him for a moment, tilting her head towards him. She slides the bags from her left hand to her right, before looping her arm around Geto’s. He stiffens but doesn’t reject her, and Shoko treats it as a victory. 

“Alright, alright, we can stay in.”

The fridge in Shoko’s room is barely able to close with both her and Geto’s groceries cramped inside, and she presses her hand against it firmly while waiting for the microwave on top to finish reheating the noodles she had ordered over an hour ago. The food had arrived only ten minutes ago, and both their dishes were cold when they tore open the bag. Geto, unbothered, had plucked his box out of the bag and settled on the floor, his back resting against her bed. 

“What movie do you want to watch?” she asks, watching as the numbers on the microwave blinked from 3, 2, 1.

Beep.

“Nothing on our list with Satoru. I don’t want to deal with him whining.”

Shoko blows on her noodles as she migrates towards him, plopping down onto her mattress beside him. 

“That saves us from picking a crappy movie, alright.”

“What about this one?”

Shoko leans forward to see the movie Geto has pulled up on his phone and is affronted with a poster of a woman and a man standing back to back, eyeing each other over their shoulders. She reads over the summary quickly, barking out in laughter at the cheesy plotline: Barry is an advertising executive and lady's man who, to win a big campaign, bets that he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days.

“You want to see that one?”

“It came up when I looked up rom-com movies. Do you have better suggestions?”

It’s clearly a challenge, and Shoko takes the bait gladly, motioning for Geto to pass her the remote beside him with a wave of her hand. When posters start to illuminate her small television screen settled on two stacks of books across from them, she starts to point out faults in some and strengths in others as she scrolls through the selection. 

“This one is good,” she says as she pauses on one with a gender-bending lead but passes it regardless. “The guy is annoying in this one, this one gets boring fast, and I actually haven’t seen this one—”

“Just pick one, Shoko.”

She doesn’t comment on the rather rude interruption, nor Geto’s irritable tone, but she does pick a film she’s seen before and drops the remote onto his lap. She scoots back on her mattress as the movie studios’ logo appears on the black screen, resting her back against the wall. They watch the opening credits and introduction silently, Shoko struggling to hear the audio over her own chewing but refusing to ask for the other to raise the volume. 

The movie drones on, and Shoko can’t get comfortable. She fidgets once she’s done eating her take-out, picking at the old, cracked nail polish clinging to her nails or leaning her neck left and then right, unable to ease the discomfort in her spine. The movie lulls, a hushed intimate moment between the main love interests, and Shoko decides she’s had enough of this awkward silence.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

“Yeah,” Geto responds without turning to look at her.

She frowns, “I want to ask Utahime out on a date.”

The statement unsurprisingly gets a reaction out of him, and he turns around, smirking. 

“Oh? It’s about time.”

She huffs, “And what is that supposed mean?”

He turns his body around fully, his arms resting on the edge of the mattress, his chin propped up on one of them.  

“Geto, look what Utahime bought me,” he starts, and Shoko has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing at the way his voice is higher-pitched in a half-assed attempt of mimicking her. “ Sorry I’m late, I stayed up talking to Utahime last night. Do you think she’d like this? She usually brings me a souvenir from her trips.”

“Okay, enough,” Shoko protests, shoving his elbow with her foot. “As if you’re any better.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what I mean. Are you and Gojo ever going to talk about it?”

Instantly, she sees the way his shoulders tense, and Shoko half regrets mentioning it, ready for him to turn around and reject her, but Geto just frowns, his eyes unfocused, observing something past her, something past both of them. 

Gradually, his frown recasts itself as a sad smile. 

“I like to think that he’s aware.”

Shoko huffs, “That’s bullshit. We don’t have room for delusions in our life, if you don’t tell him, nothing will change.”

His eyes dart up to stare at her, but Shoko doesn’t budge away from her blunt words. She returns the stare, and only when Geto turns away from her to return to looking at the movie, does she truly think about what she had just said. 

“Maybe that’s fine.”

Shoko Ieiri is friends with both Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo. She has been for the last tumultuous three years of her life, and she can’t imagine a life without one or the other. Yet a part of her has been preparing for that exact situation for the last year. Ever since a bloodied, ragged breathing, Geto had tumbled into the infirmary, incoherently trying to summarize what had happened to him, despite the way each of his sentences had cycled back to two, impossible words: Satoru’s dead. 

She doesn’t think that they’ll die any time soon. They defied death once, and out of anyone Shoko knows or can think of, she knows that Gojo and Geto could do it again, but something still bothers her when she looks at her friend in her room. The blue light from the television screen washes over him, and she scoots forward quietly, outstretching a hand to touch a strand of his hair, rubbing it in between her thumb and forefinger. When he doesn’t stop her, she treats it as consent and starts to separate his hair into three sections, brushing her hands through each gently, detangling any small knots her fingers snag on. Geto leans into the touch, and Shoko sees his stiff shoulders relax gradually as she begins to braid his hair. When he lowers the volume of the movie, to the point that if Shoko really had wanted to pay attention she’d have to read the subtitles, neither of them say a word. When a loose, short braid is finally formed, Shoko sighs. 

“Suguru, are you okay?”

“I’m tired, Shoko.”

She runs her hand through the loose interwoven formation of the braid, watching it fall apart into temporary, raven waves. 

“I’m tired, too.”

There are no cicadas this deep into the city, but the sounds of the shrill insects are replaced by the monotonous sounds of civilians walking past them, as well as the occasional car horn. Shoko doesn’t mind the city, but she definitely prefers fewer people than the crowds she and Geto are maneuvering through to reach the lesser-known shopping district she had found online. Originally, she had suggested that they should spend their Saturday at the beach, but Geto had adamantly rejected the idea. 

Which is how they found themselves now turning a corner to finally enter the hub of boutiques and family-owned stores, absent of tourist crowds. Shoko drags Geto along to one store in particular, a small clothing boutique with turquoise and white striped banners framing its entrance. Inside, the store was split into two by a series of tables cluttered with accessories and trinkets, one half dedicated to more feminine fashion, while the other offered masculine choices. They split as she begins to search through the circular racks and shelves, and when Shoko looks up to check where Geto is lingering, she’s surprised to see two garments folded over his shoulder to try on. 

There are only three dressing rooms, and Shoko picks the one beside Geto so she can speak to him through the thin paneling. 

“Are you going to buy something?” she asks. Her tongue peeks out of the corner of her mouth as she hops to slip into the leggings she’s trying on, huffing when she looks in the mirror and dislikes them. 

“Maybe,” he responds. 

She moves onto a dress she had picked out from one of the on-sale racks and is delighted to see that the short, lilac dress fits her well. She steps out of the dressing room to see Geto standing outside of his own, turning to the side and raising his arms as he looks at his reflection. A form-fitting black turtleneck sweater frames his shoulders, and Shoko laughs.

“It looks bad?” he says with full sincerity, and Shoko shakes her head. She motions for him to step towards her and readjusts the folds of the turtleneck, puffing out the fabric by his neck.

“It looks good. Just unsurprised that out of the entire store, you’re able to find the one black sweater. But, what do you think about the dress?”

With that, she places her hands on her hips and turns her body to the side in an elongated pose.

“It looks nice, makes your legs look longer.”

Shoko huffs, “Listen, not everyone is as tall as you or Gojo.”

He chuckles, “What’s it for, anyway? You’re not one to splurge on clothes.”

“Well, if you must know,” she grins, before raising one of her shoulders and gazing at Geto over it. “I have a date.”

His eyes widen with amusement, and Shoko is relieved to hear him laugh.

“When did you tell her?”

“Last night, after you left.”

He whistles, and despite herself, Shoko blushes. 

“Where are you two going?”

“We agreed on karaoke. Maybe some dinner.”

Geto steps back into his dressing room, and Shoko into hers.

“I think I remember a time Satoru wanted us to go to karaoke, and a certain someone said they hated it.”

Shoko hummed, “I wonder who that was. I can’t seem to remember.”

Geto laughs, “Of course you don’t.”

She buys the dress and him the sweater, and the day passes. By dusk, the two are sitting on the railing of a park nestled on a curved hill, meters above the rest of the city. Their bags are on the ground behind them, an ocean of buildings breathing in front of them as street lamps flicker on, the sky darkening around them. Amber heavens bleed into dark orange, followed by red, purple, and finally, a bruised black curtain is draped over Tokyo, dotted with the faintest of stars. Shoko swirls the caffeinated iced drink in her hand as she nudges a rock off the edge they’re on with the tip of her shoe. 

“Hey, Geto.”

“Hm?” 

His drink is cradled in his hands as he hangs both his legs off the edge, resting them against the stone cliffside. 

“Things will change, you know. That’s how life is. We won’t be teenagers forever.”

She wants to say things will pass, but she nudges off another rock instead.

“I know that.”

She yawns and stretches her arms above her hand before resting her chin in one of her hands, peering over at him.

“But are you okay with that?” 

When he turns his face towards her, the streetlamp in the park behind them casts a harsh shadow over half of it, while washing over the other with a dull yellow. 

Plum shadows are cradling his eyes, and his cheeks are framed by the lines of his stark jaw, his face entirely absent of the pre-adolescent fat that clung to Geto’s cheeks when she had first met him. They aren’t adults, and yet they are far from the children they were their first day of class together. 

She thinks, with a somber realization, that he seems unfamiliar, and maybe she should tell Gojo after all. She sees how they look at one another, if she’s able to witness the stranger in front of her, then she knows he has, too. It’s truly bewildering how someone could see so much that they go blind. 

“I’ll have to be,” Geto finally answers. 

Shoko has nothing to say, can’t string together words that could reverse the strangely somber chasm Geto’s have carved in the air between them, but then he speaks again, filling it. 

“If you weren’t a sorcerer, what would you be?”

She’s surprised by the question, as Geto has never been one for hypotheticals, especially not when it came down to their livelihoods. She hasn’t considered another life in years, the simple question unearthing past ambitions and motivations that had evolved and morphed into something else without her conscious say so. 

“Is this one of those ‘when I grow up’ deals?” she asks.

“No,” he says. “Just thinking.”

“I think I’d still be working towards something medical.”

He huffs, the sound somewhere halfway between the pitch for disbelief and amusement. 

“Really? ”

“Yeah, it’s what I’m good at. Why go against that and make my life harder?”

He considers her for a moment before turning his gaze back to the lit-up city. The residential areas are splotches of dark space from where they sit, the skeletons of homes tinted blue by the surrounding light. 

“I don’t know what I would be.”

It’s surprising to them both how quickly she responds.

“You could be a teacher.”

Geto laughs, “You know how much patience that requires.”

Shoko reaches into her pocket for her carton of cigarettes, careful in handling them so they wouldn’t accidentally fall out of her reach. She flips over the lid and offers it to Geto, who easily takes one and slips it into his mouth, leaning in for Shoko to light him up. The sparks from the lighter are reflected in his dark eyes, his face enveloped in a sudden blazing yellow from the quick lick of a flame. Shoko has only seen Geto smoke twice in his life. Once, in their first year, after a phone call from home, and once, on the night Gojo had his first mission alone, the two of them cramped as they sat on her window sill, the half-dead plants she usually kept there moved haphazardly to clutter her desk. 

She inhales, the dry, bitter taste mingling with the lingering sweetness from the iced coffee. 

“You deal with Gojo already, can’t imagine a kid being worse.”

And this time, when Geto laughs, there’s an honesty in it that has been absent from his words for weeks, and Shoko watches him. She wonders if the same crinkles appearing at the ends of his eyes and the small dimples that emerged as he let out a joyous sound she sees now were part of the reason Gojo had fallen for their best friend. There’s an ache in her chest when his laughter dies down, and the cigarette meets his lips again, its end glowing as he inhaled. 

“You could quit if you wanted to. I’d support you.”

She almost says we, but there is nothing certain about Gojo. 

No, there isn’t anything certain about them at all, no nucleus or cause of illness Shoko could simply press her hands to and heal. 

“No. I can’t,” he says, and Shoko’s ready to argue, regardless if her argument would stand an hour from now, but Geto inhales once and nubs out his cigarette against the railing. He’s smiling, but Shoko finds it’s a joyless sight.

“This is where I’m needed. This is what I’m good at,” he explains. “Why make my life harder?”

She isn’t religious, but she wonders what the faithful sound like when doubt invades their faith, when hesitancy thickens around their ankles like tar. She thinks it might sound like Geto, and the way his words sound like he’s convincing himself, Shoko simply just a witness to the ordeal. 

“Besides,” he continues. “I can’t leave you to deal with Gojo by yourself. You’d kill him.”

She laughs, tightly and short, but neither comment. Neither address the misalignment between them that Shoko intentionally brought attention to, but left stagnant in its waters, unsure of how to reach Geto, who feels stranded despite his physical proximity. 

The world in Geto’s room is unfamiliar to Shoko as she’s woken up abruptly in the middle of the night. She curses, turning her head away from the intrusion of fluorescent white light from the hallway gradually pouring in as the room's door opens to reveal a tall, thin silhouette. Geto stirs beside her but remains asleep, tightening the sheets blanketed around him tighter around his head, mimicking a cacoon. 

There is one Satoru Gojo in Suguru Geto’s doorway, motionless and silent at 4:12 in the morning.

Something is birthed into existence in the space between them, the few feet from the tip of Gojo’s shoes to the back of Geto’s head, that makes her think she is an abnormality in this nocturnal reality of theirs. Gojo doesn’t say anything, but instead motions with a tilt of his head for Shoko to follow him outside, closing the door gingerly, darkness enveloping the room once more. She looks over to Geto, his dark, loose hair charcoal tendrils draped over his pillow. As she slipped off the bed, stepping on the back of her shoes to flatten them into makeshift sandals as she wandered out of the room, she wonders how this scene would play out differently if Geto had been alone.

Ultimately, it isn’t her script to know. 

Gojo is standing on the opposite side of the hallway, and Shoko assumes that he’ll follow as she heads to her own dorm. 

“You came back this late?” she asks, her last word disfigured into a yawn.

“Some would say it’s early.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Gojo rubs the back of his neck with a hand, the other in his pocket. 

“What day is it?”

“Sunday night, Monday morning,” she says. “Take your pick.”

“Friday night, then. Don’t tell me to sleep more.”

“I won’t.”

They stand next to each other as Shoko unlocks her dorm, Gojo immediately spinning around the rolling chair by her desk, dangling his arms over the backrest, his cheek pressed against them. She feels the lethargic wisps of sleep slowly unravel from her, and frowns, knowing that she won’t be able to sleep again that night. She sits opposite him on the edge of her mattress. 

“Do you always go to Suguru’s room when you come back late?”

“No. Not always,” he frowns. “It isn’t like that.”

Shoko looks at him expectantly, and Gojo turns his face away from her sheepishly.

“Only after some missions.”

She thinks of mornings in which Gojo isn’t in his room, in which Geto emerges from his dorm in a shirt far too tight for his shoulders smelling of a cologne that lingers in Gojo’s dorm, and Shoko feels the same strange, untouchable dread from her conversation with Geto the previous night resurface. 

“You should talk to him, I think. I’m worried.”

Gojo returns his attention to her, sitting upright in the chair. 

“About what?”

She isn’t concerned about being wrong; she rather be overcautious than unsuspecting, but the concern and timid unease she’s felt swell suddenly feels absurd. What if she’s wrong? 

“I don’t know,” she begins, test-tasting the words in her mouth to see if they feel like truth. “Sometimes it feels like he isn’t there.”

The humidifier wedged between the shelves on her desk circulates from gentle lavender light to a calm blue, washing over them both. It blinks white twice, a warning that it’s running empty, and shuts off. 

“I wouldn’t know what to say,” Gojo says. It’s a confession, one that Shoko knows is a rarity, a debility in the impenetrable actuality her friend resided in. She doesn’t know how to quite cross the dark divide of her bedroom floor between them, but she tries. 

“Okay. When you get back, we can do it together.”

“You’re really worried, huh?” 

“You’ve seen him less than I have, Gojo. He—”

There is something in the attentive way Gojo is listening to her that makes her stop. Shoko is not a religious person, despite her attempts when she was younger. Any belief system she found herself reading over seemed like hypotheses presented by the desperate, by the greedy, and by the hopeful. There wasn't anything unpleasant about that, after all, people had to find some sort of comfort in this life, but the symptoms of their religions didn’t add up to the alleged outcomes, and Shoko found more comfort in them as myths and stories than actual ways of life. 

But the way Satoru Gojo sits across from her, his celestial blue eyes watching her, waiting for her next word regarding their friend, is something uncomfortably close to a pious man, unable to devote himself to what he wants to worship.

No, she thinks, that isn’t quite right. 

They are not men or women, they are still children barely 18, despite it all. 

 “It isn’t your fault,” she finds herself explaining. Gojo opens his mouth to dispute her claim, but she doesn’t allow him to interrupt her. “I’m not saying you think it is, or that other people do, or will.” 

Will, what a formidable verb. 

What will happen, what will he do, what will we say.

“What I’m saying is just, you’re the strongest, right? Anywhere you go now, you’re the strongest. And I’m the strongest in my own places, like the medical labs, healing people, shit like that. But, where is Geto the strongest now?” 

“We’re the—”

Shoko raises a finger, scowling. 

“Don’t just blurt it out, Gojo. Think about it. Things have changed, and they’ve changed quickly. I just think he feels homeless right now.”

“That’s stupid, his place is here.”

“Is it?”

He just stares at her, with an unreadable expression. Shoko wonders how helplessness appears as from his perspective, what hues do useless, impossible strength carry within the body, mind, and soul? 

“Okay,” he exhales. “Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”

An apparition is what leaves her room at almost five in the morning, the rolling chair by her desk slowly swirling on its own, coming to a stop when Shoko holds its backrest in her hands. She squeezes, hard enough that her short nails dig into the fabric, half-moon indents left behind when she lets go. 

Satoru Gojo is due for another mission Tuesday and is told so Monday morning, as Geto, he and Shoko groggily take up an entire metal lunch table outside, their breakfasts scattered across in front of them. Gojo’s sickenly sweet apple juice shakes when he groans and drops his arms onto the table, the translucent golden liquid nearly spilling over. 

“I just got back,” he complains. Shoko knows it’s pointless. In fact, they all do. 

“Out of my control,” their principal states. Shoko also knows it’s pointless to be aggravated with him, he serves his role as a messenger, and them the soldiers. 

“Suguru, you also have a mission.”

He doesn’t verbally answer him, but he peers up at him, chewing through the egg Shoko had seen him steal from Gojo’s plate. 

“Do I go with him?” she asks. 

Yaga shakes his head, “No. He can do this on his own. You’re needed here. Speaking of which, Suguru, when you’re done eating, meet with me for the details, it’ll be a few days.”

When Yaga is out of earshot, Shoko knocks her foot into his ankle underneath the table, and Geto turns his attention towards her. The bags under his eyes seem darker in the morning light. 

“When you get back, it’ll be after my date. I’ll tell you how it goes.”

Gojo nearly spits out his drink, nudging his elbow into her side unapologetically. 

“You have a date? Since when? with who?”

“You sound like a father, mind your business. ” Geto comments. 

“That’s not fair, why does Suguru know but I don’t?”

Shoko shoves his elbow away, despite his rapid-fire complaints of being left out and uninformed over “ such an important manner .” She leans forward across the table, careful not to touch her plate of food with her shirt, and raises a hand to the side of her face to hide her mouth from Satoru. 

“Geto,” she says, hushed. 

“You’re just bullying me at this rate,” he mutters.

Geto leans in as well, mimicking her playful movement. Shoko hears Gojo kick him under the table, but Geto’s expression is unwavering. 

“What?” he whispers back. Gojo mumbles something to himself but returns to picking at his food.

“Don’t take too long, ok?”

He blinks, surprised.

“Okay.”

“Are you two done?” 

They sit upright again, and when Gojo tries to pester her about her date again, she pinches his side, Geto yelping as Gojo bumped against the table, spilling over the fated cup of apple juice over Geto’s plate. 

“I wish you would stop smoking.”

Utahime is bewitching in the glow of neon lights, cigarette smoking curling in the air between them before finally drifting away, sucked up by the air conditioner filter. A light denim jacket hugs her frame, a single pin of a rose Shoko had gifted her weeks ago adorning its lapels. The thin, satin black cami she wears underneath shimmers with refracted blue and red light as Shoko leans back against the plastic pink couch she’s seated on, cigarette dangling from her hand. The karaoke room they’ve paid for tonight is smoking inclusive, despite Utahime’s initial protests. 

“Maybe once I’m a doctor.”

“You want to be a doctor?”

“Might as well,” she says, before raising the cigarette to her lips. She doesn’t inhale but lets it rest between her mauve-stained lips. 

“That’s ambitious of you.”

Shoko eyes her from across the small space, watching as Utahime stood by the overly complicated television set up, remote in hand as she scrolls through different song options. The LED light strips behind the television transition from blue to purple when she swaps out to another genre. 

“Do you think I can’t do it?” 

Utahime glances at her from over her shoulder, a hint of a smile on her lips. 

“No. Out of everyone I know, I know you can.”

Shoko’s thankful for the bizarre lighting in the room when she feels her cheeks warm, and raises her shoulders in a dramatic shrug before snubbing out her cigarette. She sits forward, and Utahime greets the motion as the invite that it is and drifts towards her. When Shoko’s hands rest on her hips, Utahime tilts her head to the side, an infectious smile reflected on Shoko’s mouth. 

“Dr. Ieiri, huh?” 

Shoko laughs, “Please. Not for a few years.”

They linger by each other, their center of gravity churning somewhere within the short space between their bodies. Utahime sways faintly, and Shoko’s thumbs trace circles on her clothed hips. 

“I’m glad you finally asked me out. I’ve been waiting.”

Shoko hums, “I had someone motivate me.”

“Don’t tell me it was that idiot Gojo.” 

She snorts, “No. Geto.”

Utahime sighs, dropping her hands to wrap them around Shoko’s wrists, holding onto them tenderly as she moves to sit beside her. 

“If they ever ask to go on a double date, you have to say no. I don’t care if you have to lie.”

Yaga calls her at 11:12 am Wednesday. One minute before, and she thinks the bad news would have been more tolerable, but those 60 seconds prevented her from blaming destiny.

She isn’t surprised when she finds out, and she’s not sure if it makes it worse. 

She doesn’t cry, and a part of her is relieved because Shoko has not heard herself sob since she was a young girl, her beloved dog passing in its sleep. She can’t imagine weeping so childishly in her dorm now, not when the loss that has been inflicted onto her is not fatal. Suguru Geto is still alive somewhere, footsteps sullied by spilled blood.

 But she thinks. 

She thinks, and thinks, and she thinks it’ll be okay because things change, but then her cell phone lights up, vibrating against her desk rudely. Utahime’s name beckons her in static, bold text, and Shoko has to count to three to force her trembling hands to let go of her desk and answer the call. 

Where the fuck is Gojo? she thinks, has someone told him? 

“Hey.”

She isn’t crying. She swears she isn’t crying, but her eyes hurt.

“Hey,” Utahime responds. “Are you okay?”

She hears a traitor’s voice bleed into her own, “I’ll have to be.”

She hears laughter after, and for an instant, feels a flare of rage. How could Utahime laugh, how could she find humor in this betrayal?

But Utahime is silent, and Shoko presses the heel of her palm into one of her eyes as she shakes, incredulous laughter spawning from within her own ribs, stirred into creation from sheer disbelief. It aches, the harsh sound piercing her lungs and throat as it crawls its way out. It aches and Shoko doesn’t know which symptom she should treat first, or how. 

“I’m sorry,” Utahime says, “I'm sorry.”