Chapter Text
You don’t sleep a second until Ijichi and Akari arrive at just before noon the next morning, because you have a packed schedule consisting of lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and counting your throbbing pulse in every trembling limb. You sweat through the sheets like a woman in fever.
How could you ever have been so fucking stupid?
Is Gojo going to lose his job? Are you going to get kicked out of school? If you get kicked out of sorcery school, where’s left for you to go? Yaga-sensei’s disappointed face swims in and out of your mind’s eye like a grim omen.
It’s at least a reprieve from the relentless loop of reliving Gojo’s breath stirring against your lips. His tongue brushing yours. His hand cupping your heavy breast. You can’t believe how hot and ready you were after only some brief over-the-clothes action. How hot and ready and aching you are now at only the memory, with no hope of release.
Maybe either or both of you would get away with just a suspension. Maybe they’d give some leeway since you’re an adult and a nonconventional student and Gojo’s own age. But how would school admin find out? Not from him, and definitely not from you, and not from anyone else, because it’s never going to happen again.
It must not have been that great of a kiss.
By the time the thin, grey dawn light dribbles into your room like spilled dishwater, you’ve managed to sway the jury of your own mind around to the verdict that everything is completely and totally fine. You’re not going to get kicked out of sorcery school for getting to second base with your teacher, because no one is going to find out, because it’s never going to happen again. This is getting crumpled up and shoved to the back of that handy shelf in the closet of your mind.
You don’t even message Keiko about it, because that would make it a real thing that really happened, which it wasn’t, and it didn’t.
Gojo texts ride’s gonna be here in an hour, then ride’s almost here, then gives your door an uncharacteristically sedate knock and wheels you out to the parking lot. He looks fine. He doesn’t look like he’s spent the last twelve hours listening to his own heartbeat reverberating in his skull. He’s brought you a plain black coffee.
“You want me to get you transferred to Atsuya’s class with the second-years?” he asks as you wait in the parking lot.
“No! That’s fine,” you say. Even though that would be the sensible thing to do, and you really ought to consider it.
“You sure? That guy’s got a syllabus,” he says, without cracking a smile.
“No. But thank you.”
Three months ago, you would’ve leaped at the chance. And now, you don’t want anything less, because if you transferred classes you’d miss him.
It occurs to you that you might end up missing him anyway. He hasn’t called you by a single stupid nickname yet this morning. He hasn’t teased you about your drained, exhausted face. He isn’t twirling your chair in circles while you wait for the Jujutsu High sedan to pull up to the curb.
It’ll be fine, you tell yourself. You both just need some adjustment time to remember how to behave around each other in the post-kiss landscape.
He rides back to campus with Ijichi, and you ride with Akari. So you’re already both on the same page.
“You look totally wiped out!” says Akari as she merges onto the crowded expressway. “Hard time sleeping?”
You wince. “Yeah. Ankle’s killing me.”
Your first stop upon returning to campus is Dr. Ieiri’s office. She uses her cursed technique reversal on you, but it’s still a solid minute before your ankle is able to take your weight again.
“You’re a slow healer,” she observes with a snap of her disposable latex gloves. “Not very receptive to reverse cursed energy.”
Great. You can’t even hack being injured correctly.
Before you leave the infirmary, she asks you to get a drink with her sometime next week, just the two of you. Maybe your efforts to befriend her are finally paying off. At least one thing’s going right for you today.
You slump through the next week of lectures and practice sessions and missions. Gojo doesn’t so much as glance your way during classroom hours, and he’s absent for your one assigned mission, and he doesn’t show up to heckle your sparring matches with Maki, where you make dumb mistake after dumb mistake, to the point where she asks what the hell is wrong with you.
But you don’t have time to think about all that, because you still have to finalize the plans for the school fundraiser. You’re balancing spreadsheets and calling the caterers and stringing up crepe banners in the banquet hall until you black out at night from sheer exhaustion.
There’s no Sunday training session. Gojo’s off in Fukuoka.
With Ijichi’s dedicated help, you’ve just managed to get everything sorted, down to the last place setting, a few days before the big event. He begs to come along to your meeting with Dr. Ieiri, but when you text her to ask permission to bring him, she responds with a single, simple No. Ouch.
“Sorry! She just wants it to be a girls’ night!” you say, guilt-stricken over being forced to kill the wild hope shining in his eyes. “We’ll have to get everybody together after the fundraiser!”
When you arrive at the address she sent you, a hole-in-the-wall izakaya all the way in Asakusabashi, she’s already downed most of a mug of beer and started in on a round of appetizers. She looks as exhausted as always, the dark smears beneath her eyes deep enough to admit a cargo ship. You can relate.
“Hey,” she says, pushing some kinpira in your direction. “Get yourself a drink. My friend here needs a beer!” she hollers after your passing server.
The young woman waves. “You got it, Shoko.”
You’re as jittery as a transfer student joining a new club. Dr. Ieiri is, to be honest, way too cool for you. “Do you come here often?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m a regular at this place.” She downs the rest of her beer. “Do you eat skipjack entrails?”
“I’ll try them!”
She gives you a glimpse of her small, enigmatic smile. “It’s nice to come here with someone with an adult palate. Gojo turns his nose up at anything that isn’t sweet or fried.”
The memory of the taste of Gojo’s mouth, torched sugar and melon candy, sparks across your tongue. You’re not much of a beer drinker, but you take a strong glug of the glass she’s ordered for you. “Have you two been friends a long time?” you ask, hoping your voice comes out at a normal pitch.
“We were high school classmates together.” You wonder if they were ever together-together at any point in their long acquaintance. Dr. Ieiri is beautiful, talented, and, to reiterate, way cooler than you. You shrug off an unkind little stab of jealousy.
She twirls a strand of her hair around one finger. “I actually asked you here as a favor to him. He wanted me to talk to you.”
Your eyes round. “He did? About what?”
“School fundraiser next week.”
“Oh,” you say. Relieved. Disappointed. You gag yourself on another gulp of beer.
Her little smile quirks into the smallest, teasing little point. “Were you expecting something else?”
You shake your head, schooling your face into an expression of bland innocence. “Why the fundraiser?”
“To make sure you know what you’re in for. And he thought you’d take it better coming from me.” She flags your server down again. “Sake for both of us.”
“Better from you?” Ijichi’s red-cheeked ramble about sorcerer culture rises in your mind, just as your spirits sink.
“Woman to woman.” She snorts. “Most of the time he’s a brainless idiot, but he gets these random episodes of tact and good sense every couple of years.”
Your server pours you each a tall glass full of sake in a box atop a dish. The glass fills and overflows, then spills into the box, which then splashes into the waiting dish. It’s a comical amount of liquor. “This is why I keep coming back to this place. The double waterfall. Go on, drink up. You’re going to need it.”
The sake is crisp and almost sharp. Ieiri downs half her glass in her first long sip, then slaps it down. “So. Anyone else give you a warning yet?”
“Um.” You fiddle your folded hands on the tabletop. “Yaga-sensei said that the other sorcerers would be curious about me.”
“Oh, they’ll be curious all right. Expect to get a lot of attention. And at least a couple invitations for matchmaking meetings afterward.”
You choke out an awkward little laugh. She finishes off the glass and goes in on the box. “Not a joke.”
You shut the laugh off and polish off your own glass.
“Ijichi did say that sorcerer culture was a little, um, traditionalist?” You think you’d lowballed just how much. You had those veiled warnings from Yaga about the reserves and abilities you’d give your children—had assumed the higher-ups would be interested in any family you might have someday, to bolster their low numbers. And then there was Maki’s heads-up about the potential setup with her douchebag cousin.
But you were still too naive to solve the obvious equation and expect they’d get quite so… Edo era in their methods.
“You could say that. Most clan marriages are formally arranged. The hierarchy’s obsessed with preserving bloodlines and bringing in powerful new techniques.” Her fish entrails arrive and she gives them an emphatic poke of her chopsticks. “By their standards, you’re top-shelf material.”
You nod, cheeks burning, head spinning. You think about having to have this talk with Gojo and are overwhelmed with the urge to book a one-way international flight and live out the rest of your life as a beach hermit. No wonder he pawned this conversation off on someone else.
Dr. Ieiri is as relaxed and nonchalant as always, despite the subject matter. “It’s still a public school event, so it shouldn’t get too crazy. Gojo’s going to be there breathing down everyone’s necks. He just wanted to make sure someone spelled it out for you.”
And you’re desperately grateful she did. You blabber your flushed, flustered thanks while she orders a second double waterfall for the both of you.
“Okay, now that’s over with. Let’s have some fun! Try the nimono, you’ll love it!”
She doesn’t like to talk about herself—any questions about her personal life are met with a flat look and a monosyllabic answer—but she’s friendly with the waitstaff, who keep stopping by to make idle chat while you polish off another round of drinks, and she snorts into her sake when you try to address her as Ieiri. You sip your drink and smile through the revolving door of new faces, drifting on a warm, dreamy tide of alcohol.
You don’t often indulge this much, and you feel deceptively clearheaded until you try to stand at closing time and nearly buckle under a dizzy wave.
“Looks like we’re getting kicked out, and I’ve got places to be,” says Shoko, stretching her arms above her head. “You need a ride home?”
You’d thought you’d both walk to the station together. There’s a steady drizzle coming down outside, and it’s after midnight in a part of town you aren’t too familiar with. “Good idea,” you say, embarrassed even through the rosy shine of the liquor. “I’ll get a rideshare—“
“No, don’t bother. I can get you something better. And it’s free.” She turns her back to you, cell tucked between her ear and shoulder. “Hey. Yeah. She needs an escort home. How soon can you get—yeah, the usual place.”
When she turns back to you, she says, “Your ride’s here.”
You say, “That was so fas—“
Gojo ducks into the entrance, hands stuffed in his pockets, wearing his blindfold and his lopsided scowl.
It’s not too late to get on your phone right now and book that one-way international flight.
“I thought you were in Fukuoka,” you blurt.
“I was in Fukuoka! Barely off the train and Shoko’s already ridin’ my ass.”
“It’s after midnight, it’s raining, and she’s been drinking,” says Shoko, pointing at you with her cellphone. “Take her home, idiot.”
He sighs with a little psssssh, but gestures for you to follow him with a flick of his hand over his shoulder. Shoko gives you one of her small, cool little smiles, unfurls her umbrella, and strides out into the dark, the liquor she pounded not even denting her easy stride.
“She didn’t tell me she was calling you,” you mumble to Gojo after she’s left earshot. “It’s fine if you’re busy. I’ll just call a rideshare.”
“Hell nah. What kinda guy would I be if I abandoned you, drunk and alone at night?”
“Not that drunk,” you say. The doorway wavers before you. “It’ll be fine.”
“C’mon, crazy, let’s go home. Shoko hit you with the double waterfalls?”
“Yeah,” you mutter.
“Rookie mistake.”
You ride the night train in silence so thick you’d have to saw at it with a machete. Gojo plays his Digimon game. You watch the city lights slide past through your own ghostly reflection, too drunk and tired and wrung out even to tend to your pixel parsnips.
You’ve sobered up a fair bit by the time you hit the platform and are facing the winding walk up to Jujutsu High, the rain still falling in a hazy, billowing curtain, shining silver in the moonlight. Your foldout umbrella is waiting in your purse, because you’d checked the weather alerts before you went to meet Shoko, because you always check the weather alerts.
Gojo’s barehanded.
“Um… there’s… if you don’t want to get wet, you can…” You’re going to make such an amazing beach hermit. You can hand out shells and detritus to tourists.
“Don’t need it,” he says.
Right. Right, right. Of course. If you’d thought about it for more than two seconds, you’d obviously know he doesn’t need an umbrella.
The two of you trudge along through the rain and the muck, you hunkering beneath your plastic pink umbrella, Gojo striding untouched through the downpour. He must never have to worry about getting stains out of the laundry, you reflect glumly. There really is no justice in this world.
“Shoko give you the heads-up for this weekend?” he asks as you veer onto the path winding up to the school gate.
“Uh-huh,” you mumble, cheeks brighter than your umbrella.
“Don’t let any of those gross old idiots push you around, okay?” he says, glaring into the dark. “You don’t owe ‘em anything.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
Neither of you spend any more time on that subject.
He tilts his head back to examine the half moon through his blindfold, then says, “You sure you don’t want that transfer?”
“I don’t want the transfer.” You grip the umbrella handle like you’re going in for a strike. “Do you want me to take the transfer?”
“If that’ll make you happy! I’m only asking ‘cause you’re still pissed!”
“I’m not pissed! I wasn’t mad at you to begin with!”
“Yeah, you are! You’re doin’ that voice you do when you’re pissed!”
“I’m not doing a voice!” you say, your pitch and volume climbing.
He jabs a finger at you. “You’re doin’ it right now! Your bitch fit voice!”
“I’m not—,” you say, in your bitch fit voice.
“Look, I’m sorry I planted one on ya! It was my mistake!“
“You already said that last time!” You cut him off with a swipe of the umbrella, shaking droplets of cold rain all over your skirt.
“See? Freakin’ pissed!” He fiddles with the knot of his blindfold. “I’ll talk to Yaga tomorrow.”
“No! I don’t want you to do that!” You clasp the umbrella handle to your chest, shoulders curling in, instinctively protecting your raw, bruised heart.
He throws his arms out helplessly. “What do you want me to do if you don’t want the transfer? It was my bad, Hasegawa! It’s never gonna happen again!”
“I want you to stop saying that!” Before you met him, you never raised your voice at another person like this, not once in two decades. And now it happens once a week. “It wasn’t your bad! I came onto you first! It was both of our mistake! I was there too, I wanted it, and I didn’t want you to stop!”
That stops him in his tracks. He turns to face you, takes one long step towards you, nearly closing the distance between you. You can’t read his face, can’t meet his eyes, but you can see little dark blots speckling his jacket from where raindrops have begun to strike.
For a few heartbeats of helpless hope, you’re convinced he’s going to take your chin in his hands and do what he just said he’ll never do again, and plant one on you. You tilt back the umbrella and tip your chin to meet him partway. You wet your lips with the tip of your tongue.
“Risacchi,” he says finally, turning away to keep trudging up the mountain road, “I know I’m not the kinda guy who’s big on rules and regulations. But messing around with a student is…. even I know that’s outta line.”
This is responsible. This is sensible. The one, singular time in your twenty-eight years of life you want to feed the student handbook to a paper shredder, and he’s being sensible and responsible. It figures.
You pass beneath the shadow of the school gate.
“Thanks for taking me home,” you say before you part ways. “Please don’t put in the transfer. I want to stay in your class. If that’s okay.”
“If that’s how you want it,” he says.
“It is. I think Gojo Satoru is funny and charming and nice, and he’s my favorite teacher.” That gets a little smile out of him. “And besides. I’m going to be out of here in half a year anyway.”
You go back to the dorm. He goes back to the staff apartments. You wake up hungry, hungover, and alone.
Three days later, the annual Jujutsu High school fundraiser takes place.
It’s the culmination of weeks’ worth of work, and you wish you had more of a sense of triumph about it. But from your vantage point behind the bar, you’re all nerves.
Ijichi’s certainly in high spirits, giving you a thumbs up and a pat of his walkie-talkie from across the assembly hall. He even insisted on codenames. His is “Sparrowhawk.” The kids are on appetizer duty, milling around the hall in adorable little waitstaff outfits. The room is already beginning to churn with well—and eccentrically—dressed sorcerers, and several of them are, just as Shoko threatened, looking straight at you.
Shoko is your first patron at the bar. She orders a double scotch, neat, and sucks most of it down before she’s managed to move two meters away. You’d suspected he’d try to avoid you, but to your surprise and relief, Gojo is your second.
He’s looking heinously dapper in a tailored grey suit, blue bowtie dangling undone around his neck and sunglasses pushed down his nose. “Hey, Hasegawa,” he says. “You put yourself on bar duty?”
You tick off your fingers. “The kids can’t handle liquor, it was cheaper than hiring someone, I didn’t want to do it to Ijichi, and I used to bartend part-time in grad school.”
“Oh, really? Can you do any shaker tricks?”
“It wasn’t that kind of establishment.” It was a mid-rate hotel bar in the center of Tokyo. Most of your patrons were harried salarymen on work trips who nodded off over their scotches.
“Weaksauce.” Gojo drapes himself across the bartop. “What you got for something non-alcoholic?”
“Coffee, tea, soda, and juice. Do you want a melon Fanta?” You hold up a can.
He squints. “What you got that’s exciting? Like a mocktail, or something?”
“Um, I could make you a Cinderella, or a ginger melon fizz?” He makes an unimpressed sound. “Or if neither of those sound good, I could just mix all the alcohol-free drinks together in the worst beverage known to man?”
He slaps the table. “Hell yes. I’ll take two of ‘em. I’m gonna go spill the other one on Principal Gakuganji.”
You swill all the sodas and juices together into a malevolent-looking potion while he mopes with his head in the crook of his folded arm. “You look miserable,” you say.
He gags. “I’m havin’ the wooooooorst time, Hasegawa. I hate these things.”
“I helped organize this, you know!” you protest good-naturedly as you pour two glasses of his cocktail.
“No burn on your party-plannin’ skills, but it’s a roomful of people I think about killing every few months.” That’s a joke. Maybe. Probably. You think.
You push two full glasses of opaque cocktail across the bar. “Well, maybe this’ll take the edge off. Two God’s Mistakes for the gentleman.”
He takes an experimental sip. “Y’know, that ain’t bad! Try one later if you’re bored.” He adjusts the hang of his loose tie before he picks up the drinks. “And listen. Anybody bother you, just give a shout. I’m right over there.”
“And I’ll be right here,” you say, “so everyone can get a good look at the world’s oldest high schooler.”
“That ain’t why anyone would want to stare at ya, Risacchi,” he says quietly.
You salute, ducking your burning face. He tips his glass at you and drifts off to be intercepted by a tall, statuesque woman with her face half-concealed by long, pale braids. You aren’t gripped by a hot surge of jealousy. You don’t follow their trajectory out of the corner of your eye as they swan across the room.
“Ms. Hasegawa!” Panda and Toge nearly crash into the bartop. “Problem! There’s a problem!”
“Bonito flakes,” says Toge grimly.
Panda leans in. “It’s Maki’s uncle! He’s here! He never comes to stuff like this!”
“He’s technically Megumi’s uncle, too, you know,” says Maki, stomping up behind them. This is news to you. You had no idea they were related. “Did I ask you to tell her?”
Panda says, “No, but—“
“Which one is he?” you ask.
“The mustache,” Panda whispers with his paws cupped around his snout.
He doesn’t need to specify any further. There’s an elderly gentleman with a pricy-looking formal kimono and a long, thin, sharp mustache that could split bamboo stalks veering straight towards the bar.
You say to Maki, “Do you want to go to the back? Be on plating duty?”
She crosses her arms and tosses her ponytail. “No. He can be the one to leave if he wants.”
You wish you’d been half as brave as she is when you were in high school. Hell, you wish you were half as brave now. Even though she doesn’t need it, you give the asshole who’s been blocking all her promotions your brightest, most distracting smile as he approaches the bar.
He orders sake and doesn’t look his niece’s way at all.
“Remember what I said earlier,” says Maki grimly before she heads back to appetizer duty with the other students.
Her uncle returns for several more visits during the social period before the program, but even he can’t keep up with Shoko. You may as well just hand her off the whole bottle and save time.
In between your two regulars, you make the acquaintance of a variety of other professional sorcerers. Cheerful young Ino Takuma wants the most complicated mixed cocktail on your limited menu, and then makes a face at the first sip. He’s accompanied by a handsome blonde man with a pair of pince-nez and a spotted tie, who orders neat whiskey. The woman with the pale braids who’d spoken to Gojo earlier stops by to ask you what your price to funnel information about him would be, worded as a plausibly deniable joke, and doesn’t order anything.
Halfway through your first round of visitors, a bearded elderly gentleman in the center of the hall gives a shout and blots at a dark stain blooming across his robe. Gojo shoots you a wink over his sunglasses.
As the social period stretches on, tongues get looser, and the curious stares get a little more obvious. You get some nosy questions from the next batch of patrons to belly up to the bar—where you grew up, why you’re just now pursuing a formal sorcerer education, whether you’ve got someone waiting at home. You repeat “Sendai,” “Just felt like a career change!” and “Not at the moment!” with a smile tight enough to bounce coins off of.
“So you were the one responsible for that Aoyama incident, eh?” asks a middle-aged, ruddy-cheeked sorcerer. “I don’t believe it! You look way too sweet for that!” Across the hall, Yaga-sensei, who’s taken to the stage, gives you a firm, respectful nod.
Maybe you can finally leverage this into that staff apartment. All you have to do is just keep thinking of the closet.
You’re holding fast against the final wave when Maki’s uncle returns for another round. He can certainly hold his liquor, but from the way he’s starting to shuffle and slur his words, he’s approaching his limit.
“No ring, eh?” he asks as you pour. “You don’t have a husband?”
“Not yet!” you say, with brittle cheer.
“No fiance? No boyfriend?” You shake your head as he grips his cup and throws it back in one swallow. “Really? A pretty thing like you?”
Why didn’t you just lie? Just nodded and made up a long-distance boyfriend all the way in Okinawa. Or, hell, pretended you’re still engaged to Fumiya. “Oh, don’t look so afraid, girl. I’m not asking for myself. Although, if I were a younger man…”
He pushes his cup back across the bar. “Another.” You obediently oblige. “My favorite son is about your age. He’s my heir. He’ll be Zen’in clan head someday.” Your hand twitches as you empty out the last of a bottle. This has to be the douchebag cousin. “And if you ask me, it’s high time he welcomed a wife into the household. You two are past the age to be messing around, eh?”
Messing around. The memory of Gojo saying messing around with a student rattles between your ears like a capsule toy dispenser while Lord Zen’in accepts the cup and tosses it back, again, in one clean gulp. “Is your son here tonight, sir?”
“No. He’s on security detail back at the family estate, outside of Kyoto. We’d be happy to host you sometime. I could have my people arrange everything. It would involve a meeting, of course, but just to see where things go. What do you say to that? The gardens are beautiful this time of year.”
You buy time selecting another bottle of sake from your reserves while you wrack your brain for the politest possible method of refusal. “That’s a very flattering offer,” you begin as he presents his glass again.
You’re interrupted—or saved—by a pair of hard, loud claps. Gojo is bearing down on the bar with a wide, predatory grin. “Time’s up, old man! You’re cut off. Leave some for everyone else.”
Maki’s uncle lets out a scoffing chuckle. “I’m almost finished here anyway.” He pushes his cup across the bar again, and his movement is steady and sure. The drunk old man routine has to be at least partially an exaggeration. “Get me one more for the road, why don’t you?”
Gojo leans a casual arm on the bar and flicks his other hand. “Go on, Gramps. Go be someplace else. Ain’t there some other girl you can hit on for your creep son?”
His broad smile doesn’t drop a centimeter, but the temperature in your corner of the room certainly does. Lord Zen’in’s lips peel back from his teeth. “We’re only enjoying some conversation. Aren’t we, Miss Hasegawa?”
You bite your lip, glancing up at Yaga-sensei at the podium. “I—“
“Oh, really?” Gojo throws up his hands. “My bad! Looked to me like you were pervin’ on my student!”
“Your student, eh? I see how it is.”
He leans in and attempts to give Gojo an avuncular pat on the arm, only to swat empty air a full handspan away. “Don’t worry. I was a young man once, too. Can’t blame you for wanting to keep her all for yourself.”
You nearly splatter a full bottle of sake all over the bar.
Gojo’s eyes are blue slits behind his sunglasses, his smile still pinned to his face. “Your top speed still only mach two, Gramps?”
Lord Zen’in leers with a flick of invisible dust from his sleeve. “Speaking of your students, how have their promotion submissions been going? There’s a lot of talent in the current class. I’m eagerly following their progress.”
Bad. This is bad. The protective glare on Gojo’s face might be making your bruised heart stutter, but if the two of them get into it right here in the banquet hall, that’s going to be dire for profits and you’ll die of mortification. Not to mention the danger to your classmates’ promotions.
Your hand shakes as you push a full cup back across the bar and bow. “Here’s your drink! Thank you very much for coming tonight, Lord Zen’in. Principal Yaga is about to begin the program, so you may want to find your way to your seat, but I’d be happy to speak with you again another time.”
By the time you reach the end of this screed, it’s all one slurred word, but to your relief, Lord Zen’in clasps the glass and moves on, though not without a final sidelong, slit-eyed glance at Gojo. “What a well-mannered young lady you are. You and Naoya would suit each other very well.”
Gojo glowers at his back as he departs. You busy your trembling hands with tossing juices together in another tall glass and offer it to him. “What, for me?” he asks as you set it by his elbow.
“For you to spill on him,” you say, face burning as you study your clasped hands on the bar. Could Lord Zen’in have known? No, that’s not possible. There’s no way. He was just aiming for a low blow. “Thanks for, um. For that.”
Lord Zen’in was wrong. It’s not because Gojo’s jealous.
It’s definitely not because he wants to keep you all for himself.
Gojo picks up the glass and rolls it in his long fingers. “Listen, Hasegawa. It ain’t really any of my business who you pal around with.” You flinch, chin still tucked in to your chest like a boxer on defense. “But I can tell ya you’d be better off taking a long stroll on a bullet train track than gettin’ involved with Zen’in Naoya.”
“Maki already warned me,” you say to your clenched hands.
Up on the podium at the far end of the hall, Yaga taps his microphone, making the entire room echo with a piercing ring. “He’s about to start the slide deck. You’d better get to your seat.”
Gojo slips in near the front of the room, next to the handsome bespectacled blonde, with a couple light jabs of his elbow to the other man’s shoulder. The blonde adopts a long-suffering expression.
You sag against the bar, fan your heated cheeks with a program, and listen to Yaga-sensei’s speech. He’s sharing the numbers Ijichi ran about successful exorcisms performed by students over the past decade (high), number of grade two or higher sorcerers produced by the school (low), and total number of graduates (shockingly low, even lower than you’d expect considering the miniscule class size).
In the end, the school rakes in enough yen to finally replace the building that had been leveled in the creation of the giant hole that recently occupied the center of campus, and you receive two formal invitations for matchmaking interviews: one on behalf of a nephew of the Kamo clan, and one from, as expected, the Zen’in clan, on behalf of their heir apparent.
Ijichi has to deliver them, and does so looking like he’s contemplating his own career swap to beach hermitdom. It’s a good thing they weren’t sent to your parents, or your mother would be calling you ten times a day.
“Let’s see ‘em!” Akari insists with a teasing smile over your promised celebratory round of drinks.
“I’m not carrying them around with me!” They’re facedown in your desk where you don’t have to look at them.
Both included photographs. Maki’s (and Fushiguro’s) cousin isn’t bad-looking, with his elevated cheekbones and long-lashed eyes. But his bleach-blonde hair and abundance of earrings give him the air of a boy-band B-lister, and it’s obvious from the smarmy way he’s eyeing up the camera that he is, fact, a total douchebag.
“Two for three on the great clans!” Akari elbows you. “If you’d just had someone from the Gojo clan, you could’ve gone for the full sweep.”
You choke briefly on your glass of yuzu sake.
“I expected more, honestly,” says Shoko with a sip of her double waterfall.
“Hey!” you protest.
“It’s because the Great Clans have shown their hand. A working sorcerer wouldn’t try to compete on their level.”
“The Zen’in are crazy rich!” says Akari. “You could go live it up in their huge estate. Never lift a finger again.”
“And never leave the estate again, either.” Shoko takes another emphatic swig of her liquor. “They don’t like to let their women outside.”
“Really?” You glance at her, thinking about Maki and what she said about her mother. Shoko gives you a nod. That gives you a little more context for Gojo’s comment about a long stroll on the bullet train track.
You invited him along for drinks tonight too, but he’s out on another mission.
Afterward, you break out your best stationary for your gentle refusals. No point in entertaining anything, even under better circumstances and for non-douchebags.
After all, you’re going to be out of here in half a year.