Chapter Text
You’d assumed finally sleeping with Satoru would kick your raging lust down a few notches. You’d been delusional.
You’ve splashed water onto a stovetop fire, cranked the burner up to high, and then dropped a lit match in the center of the conflagration. When you’re not underneath him, you’re daydreaming about the next time you can get underneath him. When he’s not out on a mission, he’s knocking on your window or blowing up your phone or, inexplicably and hilariously, slipping you a folded-up note in the lounge that just contains a tiny drawing of a penis. You’re still laughing when he enters you, after distorting space to carry the two of you straight to his bed.
You feel like you’re losing your mind, like you’re burning alive from the inside. You’d say you feel like a horny teenager again, if only you hadn’t completely bypassed that phase of development in your own youth. You didn’t even know you had it in you to be this needy, this insatiable, and he’s right there blazing with you—bouncing you in his lap on his couch, bending you over the counter in his kitchen, fucking you up against the wall of his shower. When he’s through, he switches his infinity on and pelts you with water until you shriek with giggles.
The official rules of your arrangement are thus: you’re messing around for the next half-year until you graduate, a natural expiration date, or until either of you decides to call it off. You’re obviously keeping it private. You can see other people if you want to, as long as you give him a heads-up about it first.
You don’t want to see other people. You ask him if he’s planning on seeing other people, and he says, “Baby, when would I find the time?” To which, fair enough.
You ask him if you can tell Keiko about the two of you. He says, “You wanna brag about how good you’re gettin’ it, huh?” and you whack him with a cushion.
When you inform her about this new development in your personal life, you say, “You have to promise not to laugh at me.”
“I would never laugh at you,” she says. She’s silent for a solid minute, then she laughs at you for another straight three.
“Makkun!” She yells when she finally catches her breath. “Makkun, get in here, Ricchan’s screwing her professor!”
“Hi, Risa!” says Masahiro, then, ever-mellow: “It’s nice you’re seeing someone new!”
“It isn’t really that kind of relationship,” you say, pressing your free hand over your eyes. “It’s just a casual, temporary thing—“
“A casual thing? A temporary thing? You? Sorry, who the fuck is this? Is this a scammer with voice changing software?”
“Please stop laughing at me!”
“This is happy laughter! I can’t believe this! I’m so proud!”
You sag against your dorm room mattress, your limp, boneless legs dragging on the floor behind you. “This isn’t supposed to be the part where you congratulate me, it’s the part when you tell me how overwhelmingly stupid I’m being and about how I’m having a midlife crisis.”
“I would never say that! You’d say that! I don’t think you’re being fucking stupid,” she says, just as Haru shrieks in the background.
“Kei, we talked about this,” says Masahiro gently. This meaning swearing in front of Haru now that she’s begun to learn to speak.
“Oh shit! We did! I mean, uh… sorry.”
“Haru-tan, don’t grow up to be like me,” you groan, digging the heel of your hand into your forehead.
“Noooooo, Haru-tan, don’t listen to Auntie! She’s a role model!” Haru giggles. Keiko’s probably tickling her. “I don’t think you’re being stupid, Ricchan. Maybe you’re having a teeny, teeny, tiiiiiny little midlife crisis—“ You make an inarticulate noise into the receiver. “After years of being stuck in that sh—terrible job. And with your ex.”
You sit up. “I thought you liked Fumiya!”
“Fumiya was fine,” she says. “Wasn’t Fumiya fine, Makkun?”
“He was fine,” says Masahiro, loyally and just a little bit sadly. Masahiro and Fumiya had always gotten on well. They’d shack up in a corner and swap stock market tips whenever the four of you used to go out together.
“But he wasn’t a lot of fun. And he didn’t… put in a lot of effort.”
A boring guy with a dumb face. “Why didn’t you tell me that when we were together?”
“Girl, I did! You told me it was fine, that you liked him, that you were happy!” And that does sound maybe a little bit familiar. A few dropped hints over brunch. A quiet conversation at the back of your engagement party.
“But you’ve always, I guess, been so sure about what you wanted.” Boring had been aspirational for you. Until now. “You’ve had a lot of shhh—-stuff go down this year.” And does she only know the half of it. “It makes perfect sense you’d want to cut loose a little. Have some fun for a change. Are you having fun?”
“Yeah,” you say, flushing as you recall how Satoru teased you with his hand while taking you from behind last night. Afterwards he turned on an action movie and you helped him set up his Serene Valley Farming Life Mobile homestead, which looks like a natural disaster zone and yet is still somehow already turning a profit.
“Well, there you go. I’d tell you to be careful, but it’s you, so of course you’re being careful. Apart from the whole, y’know, sleeping with your professor part of it—“
“You mean the biggest part of it—“
“Is he handsome? What’s he like?”
“I’ll send you a picture, if he doesn’t mind.”
“What does he teach?” asks Masahiro.
“Applied physics,” you say, which is, technically speaking, not a lie.
You ask Satoru for a picture while you’re both warming up in one of the practice rooms. “Up and at ‘em!” he’d insisted after knocking on your window. “I’ve been neglectin’ your training!” Said with a huge, lascivious grin.
“Let me take it,” he orders. “You’re not gonna get my best angle.” He removes his sunglasses to smolder for the camera. Snorting, you send the picture off to Keiko.
Your phone rings and vibrates mere seconds after you send the picture, nearly leaping from your hand, and then it actually does jump from your grasp when Satoru twitches a finger. “Hey!” you say, flailing against the barrier of infinity as he answers the call.
“Ricchan, are you fucking kidding me?” Keiko shrieks. “That’s what he looks like?”
“Heyo, Keiko-chan!” Satoru announces, holding the phone at the limit of his ridiculous height and out of your grasping reach. “You’re talkin’ to him right now!”
“Give that back!”
“Oh, gosh, wow, hi! It’s really nice to meet you! Feels like I’m backstage at a concert!”
“Please don’t tell him that!” you say. “I already have to rearrange the furniture every time he walks into a room, to make space for his ego.”
“But I thought you love how big it is,” says Satoru, batting his eyes at you over the rims of his sunglasses. “My ego, I mean.”
“When you said your teacher, I was picturing, like, that dweeby guy you had the hots for in high school English. What was his name?”
She means Maeda-sensei. And he wasn’t dweeby. “I don’t remember! That was so long ago!”
“Makkun!” Keiko shouts. “Come over here and get a look at this guy!”
“That’s a very good-looking man, honey,” says Masahiro, slightly muffled. “Is he from one of your shows?”
Satoru cackles, finally allowing you to leap up and snatch back your phone. “Goodbye,” you snap.
“Byyyeeeeee! This explains everything, thanks for clearing it up—“ You end the call.
He’s still chortling as he finishes his lunges. He’s wearing a wrinkled old long-sleeved shirt that’s baggy around the neckline and exposes the long, graceful wings of his collarbones, and when he notices you ogling, the way he stretches his arm behind his head is entirely for your appreciation. “Am I allowed to call you Ricchan now, too? Since we’re, y’know…” He waggles his eyebrows.
“Yes,” you say, with a polite, formal bow and an extension of your cupped hands, as if you offer him a gift. “You may call me Ricchan.”
“Yesssssssssssss!” He pumps his fist. “Okay, my sweet, adorable, precious Ricchan…” You mime taking the gift back. “Since it’s been a minute since I’ve had you do anything but cardio—“ He snickers at his own innuendo. “Let’s get some sparring in.”
“Actually, I’ve got a special request today.”
“Really? Okay. Hit me.”
“I want to learn an anti-domain safeguard,” you say as you bend to touch your toes. “In case. You know, it happens again.” You’re still shaky at the thought of going back into the field, but it’ll be a huge reassurance to have even a single timestall in your back pocket. “I want to learn New Shadow Style’s simple domain.”
He shrugs. “Can’t teach you that.”
“Well, what good are you then?”
“Aww, really? Seemed like ya had plenty of uses for me last night,” he says with a grin and a wiggle of his fingers.
Undeterred, you say, “Okay, then I want to learn Falling Blossom Emotion.”
His brows shoot up. “Who told you about Falling Blossom Emotion?”
“Kusakabe-sensei,” you say. You’d run into him after sparring practice last week, while Satoru was out on a mission, and grilled him for pointers.
He pouts. “You’ve been cheating on me with another sensei?”
“I was not!” You cross your arms. “I was just asking him for ideas for lessons for us!”
“Hmph,” he says, puffing his cheeks. “Who told him about Falling Blossom Emotion? That one’s supposed to be a clan secret.”
“Well? Can you teach it to me?”
“It’s against clan rules,” he says, still pouting.
“Since when do you care about clan rules?”
“I don’t! Which is why I’m gonna teach it to ya!” He wags a finger in front of your nose. “Just don’t snitch and be careful where you whip it out!”
“You know I can keep a secret,” you say, noting how he eyes the way your breasts bounce when you bend over to stretch your arms behind your back. “And I would never whip anything out in public.”
“Good girl,” he says, and grins at the way your face colors. “Okay. Falling Blossom Emotion. Been a minute since I had to whip it out. Let’s see if I still got it!”
He shifts one foot forward into a shallow lunge and extends a hand, palm facing the ceiling. Even from your position a meter away, you can feel the cursed energy rolling off his body like you’ve just opened an oven door. “The idea is that you surround yourself in a shroud of your own cursed energy and automatically strike back at anything that enters your orbit with equal and opposite force. It’s got better utility than simple domain, ‘cause you can use it in a regular fight as a counter, but it’s tougher to learn.”
He straightens out of his stance and taps your nose. “This is kinda advanced for where you’re at now, but you asked, and I just can’t say no to that face.”
“I’ll do my best.” You have to live up to his trust and faith. You are going to get a good grade in Hidden Art: Falling Blossom Emotion if it kills you.
“Step one is being able to maintain the shroud. If you can manage that, I’ll show you how to set up the counter. Stance up now.”
You mimic his posture, one hand outstretched. “Don’t try to do your whole body at once on your first try. Just focus on one thing at a time. Start with your hand.”
Even with all the improvements you’ve made to your circulation, you still can’t quite manage to push your cursed energy outside your body. Satoru lets you struggle for a few minutes before he circles around you and holds his arms out alongside yours, taking your outstretched hands in his. Your skin tingles, and it’s not from the cursed energy rising off of him, rotating around the pair of you like a slow typhoon. “You feel what I’m doin’ here?”
You feel his firm chest against your shoulderblades, his thigh pressing against your ass, his big hands cupping your own. You’re at the perfect level with his bare collarbones when you turn your chin around.
“Mm-hmm,” you mumble as you press a soft kiss against one.
His breath quickens. “Focus, baby,” he says, closing his hands over yours, but there’s no way you can focus like this, and neither can he after you twist around in his arms to face him, your breasts pushed up against his chest. He bends down for a few slow kisses before he gives your ass a light, playful squeeze and pulls back.
“Okay, you horny little slut,” he says, and then snickers at the flush of ashamed arousal that flares across your face and neck. “Wo-oww, that really does it for ya, huh?”
Apparently, it does. You’re never too old to learn new things about yourself.
“Infinity’s goin’ back on until you can manage a partial shroud. Do it five times and sensei’ll give you a real nice reward later.” He winks at you over his shades, as if his tone of voice leaves any doubt as to what kind of reward it’ll be.
After an hour’s intense concentration, you are able to vent your cursed energy around yourself in a short-lived, intense burst that evaporates instantly, like steam though a sidewalk vent.
“I got an idea,” says Satoru, snapping his fingers before vanishing. You settle cross-legged on the tatami floor, open your mobile farm, and fret because your turnips have withered and died. Because the last time you tried to water them Satoru slipped his hand up your shirt and made you forget what you were doing. You’re going to have to buy an entirely new crop off the town marketboard.
“Ri! Sa! Chan!” exclaims a voice way too close to your ear. He’s now squatting beside you. You squeak and swat your phone at his nose.
“You still startle soooo easy!” he says, winding his arm around your neck and silencing your squeal with a quick kiss. “Got you a treat!”
He presents a pair of cotton candy tufts from behind his back. “I think you mean you got you a treat,” you say as you rise to your feet.
He cracks one open and gulps an enormous bite. “The stick is you,” he says around his full mouth, twirling it in one hand, “and the fluff is your cursed energy. Think about the guys who wind ‘em up at the stall. Too fast and it’s like a ball of yarn. Too slow and it doesn’t stick. Right now, you’re going wayyyyyy too slow. Make sense?”
“I think so,” you say.
He shakes the candy at you. “Eat it. It’ll help.”
And you know what? He’s right. It does help.
For the next week, you live and breathe Falling Blossom Emotion. During downtime in the classroom, you’re twirling your cursed energy like a middle schooler who’s just learned a yo-yo trick. You’re weaving a shroud during the driving time to missions (thankfully easy, straightforward, and against actual grade threes). You’re venting cursed energy on your morning jogs, during sparring matches, while you’re standing at the stove. You’re never able to maintain it for more than a few seconds at a time.
To add to your frustration, Satoru laughs at your facial expressions during your practice sessions. “I don’t know how you think that’s going to help,” you grouse at him.
“You just make the cutest faces when you’re concentratin’, is all!” He ruffles your hair. “C’mon, take a break! Your face is gonna get stuck like that! Let’s go on a field trip tomorrow!”
“Really?” you ask, interest and spirits piqued. Maybe it’s to get snacks. “What kind of field trip?”
“It’s a secret surprise,” he says with his shit-eating grin. “Don’t wear your uniform.”
“What should I wear, then? How long will we be out?”
“Risacchi, what part of ‘surprise’ was confusing to ya?”
“Can I at least have a hint?”
“Okay, fine. It’s a day trip and it’s out in Tochigi. Wear whatever you want.”
You wrack your brain and several internet searches for any idea of what he might want to show you in Tochigi. Kegon Falls in Nikko Park? Maybe somewhere in the park is an important site for jujutsu culture. The botanical garden? The aquarium?
Either of those things might be too similar to a date. Best not to get your hopes up.
And it’s good you didn’t, because when you get off the train, he escorts you to a decrepit-looking parking garage.
You keep shooting him looks, but he’s whistling under his breath, unflappable and unconcerned. Even when an enormous man with the stature of a concrete pillar stops you with a gruff “Who the hell are you?” and you almost leap out of your beribboned straw hat.
“My name’s on the list!” he says cheerfully. “Gojo Satoru. Don’t be scared, baby,” he says as the two of you pass into the shadow beyond the rusted ticketing gate. “Just stay close to me.”
“This had better,” you say to him under your breath, “be some wacky avant-garde trendy new restaurant or club or something.”
It isn’t a restaurant, but it is a club, of sorts, by some definitions. It’s an honest-to-god fight club.
They’ve torn out the floor of the second level of the parking garage to make a central pit surrounded by a raised tier, like makeshift, secondhand stadium bleachers. No seats, no railings. If you plunge over the edge of the crumbling hole into the pit, that’s now your problem. In the center of the pit, two large, sweaty men are wailing on each other with bare fists and bursts of cursed energy.
Satoru beams at you and gestures to the pit like a game show host presenting a gift certficate. “Surprise!” he says in singsong.
You cross your arms. “I thought you said we were going on a field trip.”
“This is a field trip, baby!” He edges closer to the lip of the pit for a better look down at the fighters. “This’ll be good for you. You’re always holding back in combat. Thought I’d take you to see how some real crazies do it.”
One of the men in the pit smacks the other across the jaw with a brutal knockout of a punch. His opponent staggers, chin snapping back, but he whips his head around and charges his attacker, grappling him by the waist.
“Okay, fine, whatever, it’s educational! Why didn’t you tell me this is what we were doing? We’re at some underground fight club and I’m wearing a gingham sundress and a hat with a frilly ribbon on it!” You bat at his arm with the aforementioned straw hat. “I look like a complete idiot! People are staring!” At least you wore good shoes.
“Nooooo, you don’t! You look cute!”
“I thought we were going to Nikko Park,” you sigh, sagging over like a shrimp.
He chuckles. “How did you get that from what I said?”
“It’s Tochigi’s most beloved attraction!” You wave your sun hat underneath his nose. “You didn’t tell me because you thought it’d be hilarious to see the look on my face, didn’t you?”
He grins his shit-eating grin down at you. You suppress the urge to whack it off his face with your hat and instead swirl your palm in front of your own. “Well, get a good look. I hope it’s everything you wanted.”
“It is,” he says, with an appreciative look over his sunglasses, and you blush a little despite yourself. “How ‘bout this. I’ll take you to see the waterfall when we’re done. That make ya happy?”
“Maybe a little,” you say, clutching your hat in both hands by the brim.
“People are still staring,” you mumble mulishly as he turns his attention back to the fights, sliding his sunglasses down his nose. You’re one of maybe three women here, and the other two understood the assignment and showed up in dark suits. The audience of bored old men, bloodthirsty office workers, and leather-clad toughs are all goggling at you. Or maybe that’s just because you’re getting into it with your companion in public.
“They’re staring ‘cause you’re cute,” he says.
You throw up your hands. “Great! That makes me feel so much better!”
“I’m not gonna let anybody lay a finger on ya.” He drapes his arm over you, curling his hand protectively around your shoulder and tucking you against his side. “Happy now?” he murmurs as he strokes your bare arm with his thumb.
“Yes,” you admit. You can’t help but shiver at his touch. “But what about you? We’re in public. Somebody might see.”
“Here? Nah. The audience is all normies, and the sorcerers are a totally different crowd than the pros who pal around the school. No one’s gonna be like, ‘I saw Gojo Satoru and his girlfriend at the illegal underground jujutsu fight club!’ It’s like, what were you doing at the illegal underground jujutsu fight club? Y’know?”
His thumb continues its slow, lazy path, and your heart somersaults at the sound of his girlfriend.
You can’t get used to that, because you aren’t actually his girlfriend. And you won’t be his anything after your six months are up or after he gets bored, whichever happens first.
You lean into Satoru’s side as the fighters square up once more at the center of the pit. They put their all into one final pass and whack each other across the face and in the center of the chest, both crumpling onto the concrete. The first to struggle back to his feet raises his fists above his head and howls, and the crowd screams and stomps and jeers down at him, the din rattling the structure’s exposed, rusted old support struts.
Satoru tilts his head down towards you. “You payin’ attention?” His breath stirs your hair.
“It’s two guys pounding the crap out of each other in a parking garage. It’s kind of hard to look away.” As if you aren’t completely entranced by the trace of his fingertip over your bare skin.
“Maybe I’ll sign you up for a round!” he says.
“Try it and you’ll be sleeping on the couch. Metaphorically.” You never spend the night at his place, which is only for the best. No way he wants your hairdryer and lotion supply taking up high-value real estate on his cramped countertop. His bathroom’s messy enough as it is.
The winner limps offstage and the loser is carried off by a pair of heavies, replaced by an announcer in a headset, bowtie, and rumpled dress shirt. “Put your hands together for another heart-pounding match at our Gachinko Fighting Tournament! A great showing from Thunder Taizo, who’ll be moving on up in the bracket next week! Get your tickets now!”
Satoru jiggles your arm. “Wanna come back for the finale?”
“I think this’ll be enough for me, thanks.” You suppress the urge to rest your head against his shoulder.
“And now for our next match! In the left corner… a fan favorite and your favorite middle manager! He’s punching the clock and punching off the clock! Iiiiiiiiit’s… Taniguchi Gin!”
Taniguchi takes to the pit beneath a torrent of cheers and wails. He’s in a torn and tattered button-up shirt with a pocket protector and a dotted tie, and his mouth is a thin gash in his square chin. His quarterly performance reviews have got to be brutal.
“And on the other side, in his Gachinko debut, your underdog, your dark horse! He’s a rookie with everything to prove and everything to lose! Show some love forrrrrrr…… Sakurai “The Stomp” Shun!”
Sakurai is starting off on the back foot with a bandage across his bruised cheekbone and one black eye. You can’t resist the urge to root for the underdog. Is it because Taniguchi reminds you a little bit of your old manager Chiba? Maybe just a little.
You pay attention to your lesson and focus on the fighters as they close in for their first round of blows. Taniguchi gets Sakurai in his injured eye and shoves him into the nearest concrete pillar with a nauseating crack. Your hand flies to your mouth to cover your gasp.
Satoru chuckles at you, giving your shoulder a light tickle. “These’re all scripted! You know that, right?”
“How was I supposed to know that? This is my first time here! My first time at a fight club, ever!” You rest your chin on your fist and hooked thumb as Sakurai limps back into the fight, barreling Taniguchi with a series of piston-quick punches to the chest. “If it’s all fake, then what am I supposed to be learning here?”
“I didn’t say fake. I said scripted. When you think about it, all real fights are also kinda scripted, more or less.” You frown up at him, confused. “You got a limited set of reactions to draw from in any situation. So does your opponent. High-level fighting’s as much about predicting everyone’s next move as it is about skill.”
He points down at the arena, where Sakurai is going for a risky uppercut from a low crouch. It connects. Taniguchi’s head snaps back and he falls hard, and you wince in sympathy. “The guy who writes these has a great instinct for movesets and how they fit together. Sure, he’s caterin’ to an audience, but watch how he lines everything up. And it’ll also give you some moves you’ll never get from nice, polite practice sessions at school. Some ideas for when you really wanna get mean.”
It’s difficult for you to visualize a scenario where you might really want to get mean, but once you know what to look for, you think you understand what he meant about the scriptwriter having the right mind for this sort of thing. It doesn’t look, to your admittedly not very experienced eye, like a fake fight. It looks like two men in the throes of a desperate rage giving it their all, throwing their whole weight behind nasty right hooks, ugly grapples, and even a dick shot, which earns an echoing gasp even louder than your own from around the arena, followed by a series of raucous boos. Even Satoru lets out a little urk.
“I-it’s not against the rules, folks!” says the announcer, hooking a finger under his shirt collar.
Satoru nudges you. “In a serious fight, don’t forget you’re allowed to get nasty. No one’s gonna get on your case for goin’ below the belt.”
“But I thought I was supposed to tell you first if I was going below the belt,” you say, and he throws his head back and laughs. You lean into the sound.
At the end of the match, the underdog pulls through and Shun The Stomp earns his first victory. As he smiles a wide mouthful of blood to the crowd, a tall, slim man in a close-tailored suit approaches the two of you from behind. He tries to tap Satoru on the shoulder and fails.
“‘Scuse me,” he says, baffled but on the recovery. “Boss says he’s got some time during the break.”
“Oh, yeah. C’mon,” says Satoru, jostling your arm. “Let’s go see the bossman.”
“You know him?”
“Sure I do. He’s a student of mine.”
Your escort takes you up a set of crumbling old stairs to the roof of the garage and a small concrete brick of a building that must’ve once housed security. It’s now occupied by a bank of television screens and a plush-looking couch. On the couch is a young woman with a crop top, piercings, and partially dyed hair, practically draped across the lap of a stocky man of indeterminate, but presumably young, age, with a patchy peach-fuzz mustache, an enormous dark fur coat, and a mane of bleached hair.
You’d say the young man reminds you of your brother Daiki during his delinquent phase, but Daiki could never quite manage this level of brash, unfeigned confidence. This guy reminds you of the kind of guy Daiki would try to copy his entire personality off of.
“Hey, my man!” He leaps up to exchange a hard slap of a high-five with Satoru.
Satoru whistles. “You’ve really cleaned up since the last time I came around.”
“I know, right? We’re rakin’ it in!” The young man pumps his arms through the enormous coat. “How’s little man Yuta and the rest of the crew?”
If his time at school overlapped with Yuta, he has to be under twenty. His attention turns to you and an enormous, congratulatory grin splits his face. “Wow, Boss! You finally caught the fever, huh? She’s a hottie!”
You aren’t sure whether getting deemed a hottie by a teenage fight club manager is a boost, a hit, or a net zero to your self-esteem. “It’s, ah, not really like that!” you say with a wave of your hands. “I’m here for… educational purposes?”
The young man narrows his eyes at the two of you, then bursts out laughing. “Really? Two of you seemed pretty damn cozy out there!”
You eye the bank of television screens behind him, which are displaying footage from security cameras scattered all over the arena. And the premises.
And the audience.
“He was helping me stand out less,” you say. There’s no way Satoru and his magic eyes missed the cameras. If he was okay with letting this pair see his arm around you, he must not be worried. Still, you needle him with a glance that suggests he’d better pitch in, right now.
“Poor little Ricchan was beggin’ for my protection out there!” He clasps his hands under his chin. “She was soooooooo scared of the big tough audience.”
Maybe he can pitch in a little less.
He makes a broad gesture towards the couch. “Ricchan, meet Hakari Kinji and Hoshi Kirara.” He flops his arms back towards you. “Kin and Kira-chan, Risacchi.”
“Hasegawa Risa,” you correct with a bow. “It’s nice to meet you both.”
The young man—Hakari—barks out another laugh. “Where’d you pick her up, Boss?”
“Don’t be mean, Kin,” says the girl, with a little nudge of her elbow. You feel an immediate rush of affection for her.
“I’m not!” he protests.
“Gojo-sensei is teaching me sorcery this year,” you say.
“Dang, for real? Of course the school gets more cute girls after we get the boot.”
“Right in front of me, Kin?” asks Kirara, a little testily, but it sounds more like the well-worn material of a familiar dynamic than real annoyance.
“Speakin’ of,” says Satoru, “not that long until the crusty asshole ban lifts.”
Hakari scowls and throws his arms over the back of the couch. “The hell would I want to come back for? The club’s really taken off. Kira and I are rolling in it.” Kirara looks at him with a proud, catlike smile.
Satoru shrugs. “Somebody needs to come take Yuta down a few pegs. Got no one on his level to challenge him anymore.”
Hakari’s scowl deepends. “You can do that yourself. Whatever. I don’t want to talk about that shit right now. I’m burning hot today and I don’t want to bring down the vibe.”
Satoru shrugs again. “Why don’t ya show me your new rig?”
Hakari’s face brightens again as he shows off, with excitement and pride, how the surveillance system works, how much his employee roster’s grown, how he had to beat back the local crime family to stake out this territory, and his plans for his next series of matches.
You ask Kirara where she bought her frilly crop top. Not that you could pull it off, but it looks great on her. “I made it,” she says, striking a little pose. “That dress is cute, too.” You think you might be willing to die for her.
Hakari’s walkie-talkie system crackles as the next pair of fighters enter the pit. “Catch you next time!” he says, signing off with another ear-splitting smack of the hand with Satoru. “You better get off your ass and make a move on her, dude!” Your ears burn as you hurry back to your spot in the audience, where Satoru laughs at you when you shield your eyes during particularly brutal beatdowns.
Afterwards, you’re too tired to hike all the way to Kegon Falls. You’re happy enough to collapse on the train.
“So. What’d ya think of Kin and Kira-chan?” Satoru asks as the distant Tokyo suburbs flicker by.
Kira-chan seemed nice. Hakari seemed nice too, though you have a pamphlet’s worth of concerns about his welfare, both physical and psychological. “They’re very enterprising young people,” you say, after a moment of diplomatic thought.
Satoru throws his head back and laughs. “Kin’s got some screws loose! But he’s got a ton of potential. He’ll be great someday. And Kira-chan’s got a good head on her shoulders. Keeps him from goin’ off the deep end.”
“Why are they not in school now?” you ask, tilting your phone to show him the Digimon you just caught. “Is this one good? Should I keep it?”
“Wizardmon? Hell yeah. Put him in your starter lineup.” He taps a long finger against the edge of your screen. “Kin got suspended, Kira-chan dropped out to stay with him.”
Your eyes widen. “What happened?”
He waves a hand. “Typical crap. Kin caught some flack from some clan asshole during the Summer Exchange Event—that’s comin’ up this year, you’ll get to watch—and he didn’t take it lyin’ down. Beat the guy’s ass and got hit with a year suspension.” He grins. “Really wasted the dude, though. Did me proud.”
“I can see why he wouldn’t want to come back anytime soon.” Another new Digimon wanders across your screen. “Is this one good?”
“Nah. Ditch it.”
You delete the unfortunate little monster. “They seemed really happy to see you,” you say. “It’s nice you’re looking out for them a little.”
“It ain’t charity, baby. I’m not gonna not check in on the guy who’ll be a real powerhouse someday.”
“Right. Of course,” you say, glancing up at his furrowed brow with your own small smile, remembering what he’d said to you all those months ago, about having a dream. About wanting to change jujutsu society from the ground up. “You’re a really good teacher, you know that?”
He nudges you with his elbow. “You’re just butterin’ me up ‘cause you want that special grade dickdown when we get home.” You roll your eyes, still smiling.
Back at school, the usual demands on his time close in. He’s sent out on three missions back to back. You’re left practicing on your own, and the two of you barely have time to squeeze in an eager, frantic coupling on his couch before he has to turn right around and get back on a train, this time heading up to, of all places, Sendai.
“Don’t be sad, baby, but I’m takin’ Megumi-chan with me on this one,” he says.
“Why would I be sad? It’s for the best! There’s a non-zero chance we’d run into my mother or aunties at the train station, coming into the city to go shopping,” you say. And then forty years from now, on your deathbed, your mother, who will somehow outlive you due to the power of pure spite over your never giving her grandchildren, will be asking, Whatever happened to that Gojo fellow we met that one time? He was so handsome!
Of course your breakthrough happens the evening after he leaves. You trot over to the training building, peach energy drink in hand, and tell yourself you’re not allowed to watch the new episode of the My Boss Is A Ghost anime adaptation until you can manage a fully-fledged shroud, even though Keiko is already texting you about the latest wild revelations.
When it happens, it’s almost by accident. You’re stretching your arms behind your head and thinking about what you’ll make for dinner. You’d gotten all the supplies to make the Mischievous Cupid pancakes as a special post-mission treat for Satoru and the kids, but that’ll have to wait now. You’ve still got some eggs left you ought to use up—and when you let your arms drop back to your sides, your cursed energy blooms around them and rises to surround you, twirling like a spring blossom falling from a high branch.
You call Satoru. He answers on the second ring. “I did it!” you say. “I’m doing it right now!”
“Hey, baby. Which assignment?” You can hear him grinning.
You press a hand to your blushing face and almost lose the shroud. He gave you two homework assignments while he’s gone: to practice Falling Blossom Emotion, and to touch yourself and think about him while you do it. “The first one! The first one,” you say. “I did the shroud.”
“Knew you could,” he says proudly, and you grin giddily at the empty room. “I’ll show you how to set up the counter when I get back.”
“Are you at the hotel right now?” You keep your cursed energy spinning. Now that you’ve gotten the hang of it, it’s almost kind of fun, like twirling a hoop on a stick.
“Nah. I’m out shoppin’. Megumi can handle this one himself. You want some Kikufuku mochi?”
“Of course I do! But are you just going to eat it all on the train again?”
“That was a one-time thing!” he huffs defensively. “Hey, if I bought you something cute, would you wear it for me?”
You drop into a lunge, triumphant in the way your cursed energy surges around your every movement. “Like a regular outfit, or like lingerie?”
“Like lingerie! Wanna see you in something really slutty.”
Your heart patters in your ears. “What, are my daisy panties not good enough for you anymore?”
“They’ll always be special to me!” he says. You can picture him clasping a hand to his heart. “But a guy likes a little variety!”
“I do already own some, you know.”
“Yeah, that that loser bought you! Bet his taste’s as boring as the rest of him!”
Actually, it’s some you’d bought yourself, which is probably even more boring by his standards. “Well, if that’s what you want to spend money on.”
“Yesssssssss!” He pauses. “And how ‘bout a maid outfit?”
“You’re really pushing your luck.”
“Not hearing a no-ooooo,” he says in singsong.
You hang up on him. He follows up with a text reading gonna need your measurements :p
You receive another text from him shortly after, addressed not only to you but the entire group chat of current and former first-years: HEYYYYY CHECK IT OUT MEGUMI GOT THE CRAP KICKED OUT OF HIM followed by a heart emoji and a picture of Fushiguro looking sweaty, bloody, and mean.
Is Fushiguro okay???? you type back. It’s another forty-five minutes before Fushiguro himself answers i’m fine, no elaboration. At least you know he’s all right.
They don’t return the next day as planned. Satoru texts, sorry baby still hung up back soon xoxoxo don’t forget the rest of ur homework!!!
You don’t hear from him again until later that night, when you’re brushing your teeth and about to settle in for a nice, long shojo marathon. RICCHAN, his text reads. got a surprise for u
You type back, it better not be another fight club.
S: noooooooo silly
S: guess!
R: is it fancy underwear?
S: maaaaaaybe. but also something else!
R: is it mochi?
S: maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe
S: and it’s also… your new classmate!
He sends you a grinning selfie beside a young man around Fushiguro’s age, with close-cut reddish hair, a baggy hoodie, and a bashful smile. That explains what’s been taking up all the extra time. You’re relieved it’s not bad news. what’s his name? you ask.
itadori yuji. you’ll like him! nice kid
You expect that you will. He’s got a friendly face.
S: bringing him round tomorrow. i’ll explain the vessel thing when we get there
the what? you reply, but he’s already signed off with see u soooooooon babes
Well, you can make him finish explaining tomorrow.
It’ll be good for Fushiguro to have some company his own age, and it’ll be nice for the classroom to be a little livelier. You’d kind of missed all the current second-years’ noise.
looking forward to meeting him, you say.