Archive of Our Own

Shoko knows it's going to be one of those days when Gojo slams the door open, completely ignoring the multiple signs outside her door that say "Do Not Disturb" and "Autopsy in Progress."

Not that there's actually an autopsy in progress. It's just her and Kusakabe and Ijichi drinking and bitching at each other.

But still - she hammered into Gojo years ago the kinds of things it was acceptable for him to interrupt at various levels of crisis, and this drink-and-bitch (it was gonna be a stitch-and-bitch but none of them actually knit, and the one time Shoko tried to bring in a cadaver she was sewing back up, Ijichi and Kusakabe kicked her out) is one he's not allowed to interrupt unless it's actually something pretty fucking wild.

"We have," he says, the mania in his voice actually somewhat concerning, "Two new transfer students!"

"... Kyoto has sent over two students to try and assassinate Itadori again?" Ijichi guesses.

"Nope!"

Kusakabe actually looks almost hopeful, poor drunk fool. "Miwa wants to apprentice under me and Nitta wanted to be closer to his sister?"

"Nope! Don't know who those are!"

Oh, Gojo. "Todo decided he wanted to be closer to his new sworn brother and Mai decided she wants to just kill Maki herself instead of waiting for a curse to do it," Shoko deadpans. She knows it's not true, it's just the funniest thing she can think of on the spot.

"I should specify." The grin Gojo gives is the one where he's actually very close to falling apart at the seams. "These are not transfer students from Kyoto."

Silence.

Shoko and Kusakabe both turn to Ijichi, who's always the one nominated to be the butt of the joke and ask the questions nobody wants to ask because it's funny and also he's younger than them.

Ijichi sighs. "Then… where are they from…?" He sounds vaguely hopeful, like the answer is going to be America or some private apprenticeship or something normal.

"They're from…" Gojo does jazz hands. "The past!"

Silence, again.

"I don't get it," Kusakabe says. "You mean like… old students coming back, or something?"

"Ahahahaha," Gojo says. "You could say that!!"

Satoru pokes his head inside the room.

Satoru.

Pokes his head.

Past Gojo Satoru.

"Holy shit," he says, all of what, sixteen years old? "You all got old."

Ijichi makes some sort of embarrassingly high-pitched confused horrified noise that pretty much perfectly encapsulates Shoko's feelings on the matter.

"Oh," Kusakabe says. "No. Nope. Absolutely not. What the hell did you do." He doesn't wait for a reply, just turns and climbs up on the table, shoving the window open. "I am not dealing with this. Good fucking bye."

Which is also extremely relatable.

Shoko herself–

She can feel herself just standing there, staring at him. He's so young it almost sparkles , years lighter and without all the stress that Gojo's put on in the past decade or so. No blindfold, not even the bandages that he's needed for a while to keep out the migraines light can bring. Not even the full-on blackout glasses that he'd started wearing their last year or two at school, after he'd developed his reverse-curse technique - just a pair of normal person sunglasses for his sensitive eyes. No faint, barely-there scars. So this is before–

…

"Two transfer students," Shoko says slowly.

Kusakabe freezes, halfway out the window.

Ijichi sits down.

Please be Nanami. Please be Shoko herself. Please be, who knows, a fucking teenage Naoya if it has to be. Please just don't–

"Yes," Gojo says. Slowly. Deliberately. "Two transfer students." He takes one casual step to the side.

Behind him–

Dark hair up in a bun, one uneven lock hanging down. Purple gauges stretching out earlobes, matching narrow violet eyes. Pressing close to Satoru, to the younger one, like he doesn't trust anything - like his entire world's been upended, except of course Shoko's seen him be much more freaked out than he is right now. This is probably the most freaked out he's ever been, from his perspective.

"Are you all drunk," Geto Suguru, teenager, says with disbelief. "Is that why this school is always such a mess?"

Shoko closes her eyes. God, she needs a smoke. Or maybe to be more drunk. "Kid, you've got no idea."

"I'm not a kid," is a response she… yeah, she should've expected. Then a pause. " Shoko?"

"Hey, Suguru," she says, and gives him a little wave. Hey, he hasn't done anything wrong yet. He is such a kid. "You really need to stop Satoru from getting you into this kind of a mess, you know?"

"This was not my fault," Satoru snaps. 

Shoko eyes Gojo, who raises his hands defensively. "In my defense, this is a completely unprecedented situation and I have no idea how it happened."

Cursed spirit bullshit, probably. Half the special-grade missions Gojo gets sent on are summarized as 'Gojo showed up, kicked the spirit's ass, left.' The other half are more like 'we've never seen anything like this before, this spirit has some sort of power that bends the rules of reality as we know it, and we just have to live with the consequences.' So, this isn't that out of the ordinary. Except for how it is.

Gojo Satoru, sixteen years old, Causer of Problems. Geto Suguru, sixteen years old, pre-Genocidal Maniac phase.

Yeah, this is going to be hilarious.

-

Of course the one morning Maki lets herself sleep in everything goes to shit.

And it's not even the good kind of sleeping in - it's because she was up late last night dealing with a stupid swarm of grade twos out in the south of the city that didn't even take that long, but they wouldn't come out until midnight and then on their way back the car had to stop for gas and there was a grade three lurking in the back of the gas station and she wasn't going to just leave it there, not when it was making faces at her, but it slimed everything up and so she had to stay up extra late to clean up all the slime–

Anyways.

Maki shambles out of bed and beelines towards the coffee machine.

Inumaki's already up, sitting at the kitchen table with Satoru for some reason. Maki puts all the effort she can manage into ignoring Satoru, as the coffee is brewing. She doesn't want to know. It's not her problem.

"Kelp. Spicy cod roe," Inumaki tells her.

"Yeah, working on it," she grumbles.

Satoru makes Satoru noises, which Maki blocks out.

"Salmon. Pickled plums. Miso," Inumaki says, the way he does when he's fucking with someone super hard.

Satoru makes more Satoru noises. Some of them sound like they're directed at her. Ugh.

"Nope," she says. "The rules are: no Sensei before coffee."

"Manila clam," Inumaki says smugly.

"Okay," says another voice that should absolutely not be there, "But can I ask questions?"

Up on the counter, positioned to launch anywhere if she needs to dodge – empty mug tossed in his direction, followed by a knife out of the knife block, not gonna do anything except distract. Frying pan's a decent bludgeon, then the bread knife held backhand to defend–

Geto is sitting, perched on the edge of the kitchen table, blinking at her in bewilderment. The mug and the knife she'd tossed are hovering in front of him, caught by Satoru's infinity. Satoru's grabbed onto Geto's arm, and is staring at her like she's a crazy person.

Inumaki is. Just sitting there.

"Spicy cod roe," he tells her.

"Oh, fuck off," she snaps. "What the fuck?"  

"Mustard leaf." He flaps a hand at her. "Tuna mayo spicy cod roe."

Maki takes a moment to parse that. "I should – yeah, okay, if this isn't going to be a fight for the next three minutes or so I do still need that coffee first."

"Salmon," Inumaki agrees.

Maki puts the frying pan back on the stove, but keeps the bread knife, just in case. Her mug - ugh. She stalks over to Geto, giving him her best death glare. He's sixteen, too. What a fucking disaster. There's some kind of weird look on his face as she grabs the mug (and the knife she'd thrown) out of Satoru's infinity and stalks back over to the coffee machine, intent on ignoring him until her brain can actually process more complicated thoughts than threat and not a threat.

Four minutes and a cup and a half of coffee later, the caffeine hits her brain.

Okay.

She turns, leaning on the counter, and actually looks at the kitchen table. "Time travel?"

"Uh. Yeah," Geto says, like he's a teenager and not an egomaniac racist cult leader slash corpse. "We're - second years?"

"Huh," Maki says. He's even talking to her like a normal person, though - he probably doesn't know about her, yet. Not if all he's had to talk to so far is Inumaki.

"What the fuck does any of this mean," Satoru half shrieks, waving at Inumaki.

"Wasabi," Inumaki pleads with her.

"No. Now you're just being a dick," Maki tells him. "This is Inumaki Toge. Cursed speech user. In order to keep from cursing people accidentally, he only speaks in onigiri ingredients." She takes another sip of coffee to fortify herself. "I'm Maki. We're two of the four second years."

"So he hasn't just been fucking with us this whole time?" Satoru demands.

"No, he's definitely also been fucking with you," Maki says.

Inumaki gives Satoru and Geto a thumbs up. "Salted pollock roe."

Satoru looks from Maki to Inumaki. "So, wait, what does that mean?"

Maki ignores him. He'll figure it out or he won't. "So are they, like, working on how to send you back?" In the interests of looking like she doesn't give a shit about them, she pulls out her phone and checks the groupchat.

Inumaki: 😱😱🤬🦹🕶️🍬

Inumaki: ⏳🕰️⁉️

Inumaki: 🤯🍙🍳

Okkotsu: toge I'm begging you please just write like a normal person

Inumaki: we need you to come blow up the school again

Okkotsu: 👍

So that's taken care of.

"They, uh."

Maki glances up; she's not sure she's ever heard Satoru sound hesitant before.

"They don't think they can?" Satoru clears his throat. "We, uh, it sounds like we might be stuck here! With you guys. As new classmates. Haha."

Maki stares at him. And at Geto, who's been uncharacteristically quiet since she maybe tossed a knife at him. He's watching her warily, but he seems confused, not hostile. It's weird seeing him without that stupid smug smirk on his face, without that confidence that he was right and he was going to genocide her and everyone like her. His hair is up in a bun, and he's wearing an unmodified school uniform, one that fits him. It's a bit ragged, like he'd been out on a mission and hadn't had time to change into a spare. Or - like he's in a new timeline and doesn't have any spares.

She chugs the rest of her coffee, slams the mug down on the table, and storms out of the room.

Satoru's office is locked, when she gets there.

Boo-fucking-hoo.

Maki slams the door open, the lock breaking away from the weak wood. It rebounds hard enough to jostle the hinges. She doesn't give a shit. "SATORU."

"Ah shit," Satoru says. Satoru-sensei, since now she has two of the idiots to deal with. "Kusakabe, your student, your problem."

"He's not even in this room," Maki snaps. "This is a you problem quite literally. Make them leave."

Satoru-sensei flaps a hand at his walls. "I would if I could!"

The tension in his voice makes her pause, and take a glance at his walls. The blackboard is covered with intricate diagrams she can only begin to parse, running over the edges onto sheets of paper pinned up and also covered in weird squiggles that probably actually mean something. There's bits of thread connecting some of them, heavy scribbles obscuring others. More papers are spread out on the floor, covered in notes, held down by old crackly tomes and scrolls and a few different calculators and tablets.

"Oh hey," says Satoru-kun - no, this one can be Gojo, he doesn't deserve the respect of his given name the same way her teacher doesn't deserve the respect of his clan name. Of course the idiots followed her. "That looks like a nightmare! Are those the actual Golden Stone Sutras? Can I see it? Where'd you find it? Is it helping you figure out time travel? Why–"

"Yes," Satoru says. "Yes. No. Doesn't matter. I thought it might but it didn't. Shut up. I am suddenly regretting putting all of this energy into intentionally being this annoying, holy shit."

"So it is on purpose," Geto murmurs. He's eeled into the room after Gojo, and is bent over inspecting one of the scribbled out diagrams that looks like someone might have drawn a bunch of dicks over it.

Satoru twitches, when Geto speaks. Well, at least it's not just Maki who's suffering.

"Are you sure you can't just Infinity them back into the past?" she asks desperately. "Or send them to Kyoto or something?"

"Ew, Kyoto," Satoru says reflexively, then presses his fist to his forehead the way he does when he has a genuinely pretty bad headache. "Yeah, I – firstly you know and I know that Infinity them back into the past is very much not a thing. Doubly and triply proven by exhibit A." He waves at the blackboard scribbles again. "Secondly, if I send them to Kyoto then everyone in the Jujutsu world will immediately know we've got an extra me and a mini-him running around and probably devolve into even more chaos than we've been in the past couple years."

"Shit," Maki says, because it's true.

"And," Satoru says–

There's suddenly a lot of quiet in the room, and the hairs on the back of Maki's neck stand on end. She's seen this a couple times before, but mostly when Satoru was talking to the other teachers.

A temporary extension of Limitless, wrapping the two of them in still air, unable to be heard by anyone else. Satoru calls it the Cone of Silence and tries to make them watch bad American TV shows whenever they ask for context, but it means only she can hear him, for the moment.

"You know I can't let him run around unsupervised," Satoru says flatly.

Maki swallows. "Inumaki's asked Okkotsu to come back."

Satoru frowns for a moment, then his shoulders slump. "Yeah, okay. Fair. I'll take care of it. Still, the event that would have caused - problems - they haven't experienced it yet. They were only a few weeks out, but it was - a specific event. Can't happen now, for several reasons. Doesn't mean the underlying problems aren't still there, but. Well, you'll see."

Before Maki can reply, sound snaps back into the room.

"–the fuck!!" Gojo is waving his hands through the air. "Did you invent a cone of silence???"

"Haha," Satoru says, and flashes them all a grin. "I did. Now get out of my office." He flicks his fingers, and Maki barely has time to ready herself to tuck and roll before the three of them are experiencing yet another form of Infinity chucking them out the door and back into the hallway. Geto and Gojo land in a heap on top of each other. Idiots - she’s made sure all of her boys know how to land properly.

Maki leaves them there and heads back to the kitchen. She needs more coffee after this hell of a morning.

-

The sun is almost fully set by the time Yuuta's uber pulls up to campus, and it makes it all look prettier than it is. Not that it isn't pretty, but - Yuuta's strongest associations with the school are blood, and broken buildings, and a lot of screaming. And Rika leaving. Not that she's gone, but still. For a bit he'd worried she'd be gone for good, and that had left its mark. Just like he'd left his mark. On a lot of the buildings, and the landscaping. Haha.

Looks like they've mostly repaired it, though! Mostly.

A whisper of Rika curls around his soul, and he soothes her back down. Despite Inumaki's panic, Gojo-sensei has said he's mostly here as backup, not as their first line of defense. That had also been true last time.

But no matter what's happening, he's okay on his own for the moment.

It's easy enough to find where everyone else has gathered, once he's dropped his luggage off in his dorm; Maki is stressed, which means she's training. Inumaki is stressed, which means he's sticking close to Maki. Panda is doing what he does best - namely being the chillest dude on campus. And probably keeping an eye on their two new arrivals.

Who are probably watching Maki train, stressing her and Inumaki out even more. Haha, good thing Panda's there.

And Yuuta, now. Just in case.

As predicted, there's a whole crowd out by the track, Inumaki high up on the bleachers and Panda being a good bro and sitting in the middling area, in front of Inumaki but not close enough to seem suspicious. There are a few rough-looking training dummies scattered around, courtesy of Maki, but she's standing still at the moment - or mostly still, arms crossed and glaring over at the pair of figures Yuuta's been warned about.

Teenage Gojo is the first one who notices him, of course - that'd be the six eyes. He can feel the pressure of them looking at him, even as Gojo's head doesn't turn at all, laughing at whatever's just been said like he doesn't have a care in the world. Like he doesn't have an unknown special grade sneaking up on him.

Not that Yuuta's sneaking! Mostly. He just wants to watch from a distance for a bit.

Teenage Geto looks… weird. Softer than Yuuta would have expected, but still sharp in the way he stands braced for combat, the way his grin arcs up. His smile is smaller, and more genuine. He turns to Gojo, pressing his shoulder against the other boy's, careless of Infinity.

Maki spots him second, and doesn't bother being subtle about it. "OKKOTSU! Get your ass over here so I can kick it!"

It's honestly a little embarrassing, how nice it feels to be wanted. Inumaki vaults off the bleachers to tackle him, and Panda sweeps the both of them up in a literal bear hug.

"Careful!"

"Kelp!"

"Look at you!"

"I can hardly breathe–"

"Salmon roe–"

"Forgot how spiky your elbows are–"

"C'mon!"

"Hey!" Maki barks. "Put the kid down, I gotta see if he's been staying in shape!"

Finally released from the fluffy prison, Yuuta endures a hair-ruffling from Panda and a gentle elbow from Inumaki before turning to greet Maki properly.

By blocking the punch she throws at him, of course, because this is how Maki shows affection. Through violence. It's okay! Yuuta's gotten pretty good at holding his own. Miguel's even shown him a few tricks.

Of course, thinking about Miguel makes him think about Geto makes him glance over at mini-Geto and mini-Gojo.

"Pfft." Maki socks him in the gut in his moment of distraction, but lightly enough that he only wheezes a bit. "Not too bad, Okkotsu. We can save the ass-kicking for tomorrow."

"Oh, good." Yuuta coughs a bit. "Afternoon, maybe? I'm going to be super jet-lagged once the caffeine wears off."

"We'll see," Maki says, then glances back at their time travelers.

Geto is eyeing him warily. Yuuta wonders how much he's heard about his future self's actions - if anyone's gotten over their freak-out for long enough to tell him, or if they've decided that telling him will only make him into a problem.

Gojo is almost frozen, except for some hidden aspect of him that's clearly vibrating with manic energy, looking Yuuta up and down, gauging his power, his threat level. Oh, boy. Yuuta's seen that look before.

Sure enough, Gojo is the one who wanders over, Geto trailing reluctantly in his wake.

"Okkotsu Yuuta," Gojo says, dipping his shades down to flash those weird blue eyes of his. "Look at you. If this is how strong the future is, I'm certainly excited to be here." The way he leans over Yuuta is a bit ruined by the fact that his older self is taller.

"It's nice to meet both of you," Yuuta says. Politeness is important. "I hope you've been settling in all right!"

"We have, thank you," Geto says, equally polite. "And I'd like to apologize; I understand my future self caused some… problems?"

Vague enough that probably nobody's actually told him anything yet and he's just fishing. "It's all right," Yuuta reassures him. "You haven't done anything - and everyone at this school is very big on present actions, anyways, not anything people have been in their past or might be in their future."

That earns him a bit of a sharp look. "I see. Still - please, feel free to call me Suguru. And call him Satoru. If both him and his future - present - self are Gojo, they'll make it confusing on purpose for everyone else."

"Hey!" Gojo - Satoru - elbows Geto. "We wouldn't do that!"

"Yes, you would," Yuuta says, in unison with Maki and Geto.

Geto snickers, elbows his friend, and keeps talking. “Maki’s calling him Gojo, and… his… the older one Satoru, but then again I get the sense that she's never had any respect for him no matter his age, and definitely isn't going to start being polite now."

Maki… grins at him. Kind of sharp, but her friendly kind of sharp. "I'll respect him when he deserves it."

Huh. He never thought Maki would get along with Geto, of all people, but this younger version of him is… clearly very different.

"Satoru," Yuuta says. "And… Suguru." That one's gonna be weird. Oh well, not like anything has been normal since he met Rika. "And if you want, you can call me Yuuta."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Yuuta," Satoru says, leaning back in. "Do you–"

"Oh, ew," Maki interrupts. "Are you flirting?" Then she narrows her eyes. "I thought you two were together."

Satoru stiffens up. "And what's wrong with a little flirting?" he demands. "Is there no romance left in this world?"

Suguru makes some sort of expression Yuuta can't quite read. "It's an open relationship. Is that a problem?"

"What? No." Maki wrinkles her nose. "It's just… Gojo."

"Fair enough."

Yuuta tries not to laugh. "It's very sweet," he says, a practiced response because this does unfortunately happen about half the time when he meets strong new sorcerers around his age. "But unfortunately I'm spoken for. I've got a fiancee, you see."

Unfortunately the reason that usually works is because usually people know his reputation. Satoru just leans in closer, reaching out to brush some of Yuuta's hair aside. "That's adorable! So committed, at our age! You've never fooled around? Never played the field?"

It is weird and distracting feeling Gojo's actual hands on his face, without the tiny but endless infinity between the two of them. But Yuuta's not touch-starved any more, not without all the sparring he's been getting in with Miguel and all the Kenyan sorcerers, so he doesn't shiver like he would have a few months ago. "Never had the interest. I'm very devoted to my fiancee, I'm afraid."

"Are you?" Satoru rakes his eyes up and down Yuuta's face. "I see." He leans even closer, so close Yuuta can feel his breath on his skin. "Well, as many things as you can do with two people… I've heard you can do even more with three."

Yuuta gives Satoru his brightest smile. "Rika would be fascinated to hear that, I'm sure. Would you like to meet her?"

Satoru leans back a bit, at that. He can tell that something's up, but not what. But after just a split second he leans back in. "I'd love to," he says. "She must be special, to have attracted your attention…"

Yuuta brushes a quiet curl of energy against the heart he carries. Rika, love, a new friend wants to meet you…

A new friend? Her energy starts spiraling outwards, unfurling from the door between this world and the next, crossing back over. It's been a while since you had a new friend, Yuuta…

Their thoughts are in unison when they think, Let's give them a bit of a show. For old times' sake!

Pressure billows out from him, cursed energy manifesting physically as dark, smoky wisps that condense in ripples and waves. Rika's claws peel apart the walls of reality, coming to rest delicately on Yuuta's shoulders, looming back over Satoru the way he'd leaned over her Yuuta. Her once-cursed soul shrieks across everyone's senses like nails on a chalkboard, attenuated as Yuuta pulls back on her just a little bit, reminds her they just want to scare them, not actually hurt anyone. 

Yet.

Haha.

"New friends," Rika trills. "Not old enemies? Is he going to be mean, Yuuuuuuta?"

Satoru jerks backwards, tripping over his own feet and falling back flat on the grass, shrieking.

"I don't think he's going to be mean, Rika, I think he wants to be friends," Yuuta says, and glances over at Geto. At Suguru.

He and Maki have stepped - or been pushed - back a few yards. He's clearly tense, squared up for a fight, but Maki's hand is on his shoulder, keeping him from charging in. He's not as freaked out as some sorcerers have been, seeing Rika for the first time, but then again, he's a curse manipulator. This isn't totally unfamiliar ground, for him.

"You're engaged to a revenant," Suguru says, his tone mostly calm. The eyes give him away, though - they're a little too wide and shellshocked for a calm person. "That's. Interesting."

"Interesting's one word for it," Maki grumbles, letting go of Suguru's shoulder.

"That's way hotter than it should be," Satoru announces, still lying flat on his back.

"Do his survival instincts ever improve?" Yuuta hears Suguru murmur.

Maki sighs. "Unfortunately not."

Suguru rolls his eyes, then strolls back over to Yuuta. And Rika.

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Rika," he says, even bowing properly. "I do want to be friends. Do you like to play?"

Yuuta can't tell where this is going, but – the reason he's here is to watch Suguru, isn't it? So he'll watch.

Rika eyes him suspiciously, then swoops down around and up into his face, the way she likes to do to startle people. Suguru doesn't flinch, which she also likes.

"I like to play," she announces. "What sorts of games do you like to play?"

"Ah, I'm a little too tired to play right now," Suguru says. "But maybe you could play with my friend?" He gestures with a swell of cursed energy, which breaks off from him and flares, slowly bubbling into the solid form of a tall woman-shaped curse, with long dark hair covering her face.

"Oh!!!" Rika leans towards the new curse. "I like your hair…"

The curse murmurs something quietly enough that Yuuta can't hear it, but Rika responds positively, twirling around like she's wearing a skirt.

"This is Kuchisake-onna," Suguru says. "You two can play for a while if you want, but not for too long - it's going to be dinnertime soon."

"Okayyy," Rika trills, then is off with her new curse friend, doing curse girl things.

"... Well that's fascinating," Panda says, watching Rika start to braid Kuchisake-onna's hair from the stands where he and Inumaki have retreated. "Impressive how she's managing it with those nails."

"Salmon."

"So is that a no on the threesome, then," Satoru says, sounding bewildered.

Yuuta, rather than reply to that, is busy thinking about Suguru, and his tone when talking to Rika. He has so much experience with cursed spirits, he can tell just by sight… "You can tell how old she is, then?"

Suguru wiggles his hand back and forth. "Roughly. Little kids form different spirits than older kids, who form different spirits from teenagers. She was… ten, when she died? Eleven? Not older than twelve - not a teenager yet."

"We were eleven," Yuuta says quietly, thinking of green days in the park, and lets the grief hit him and doesn't cling to it too much.

Suguru nods. "And it was quick. If it had been a more drawn-out or lingering death, there'd be–" he cuts himself off. "Um. She's aged since she died, but in the way a curse does, not the way a living person does. You can tell by how defined her tail is, the way she has the same number of knuckles on all her fingers - newer spirits aren't able to manifest as precisely. I bet her proportions were different, too. She's probably kept pace growing up with you in some aspects, and stayed the same as she was when she died in others. That's how it usually goes, at least."

"Huh." Yuuta takes a minute to absorb that. He got all of that just from looking at Rika, and a few sentences exchanged with her. It's… probably a little more touching than it should be, softens him a bit towards Suguru, the way he looks at Rika and can see, or sense the presence of, the girl she was.

Of all the adjectives he could have used to define the Geto Suguru who tried to start a war last year, compassionate would probably be at the bottom of the list. But with this Suguru… it's clearly one of the things that defines him. How can a person be so different from themself?

-

Satoru finds all of his precious little students (at least, all the ones at the school right now) hanging out together in one of the disused classrooms. Kind of funny considering how little actual school time gets spent in these classrooms. But the kids (including the two… extras) are in here for a reason, all sorts of words and sketches and flowcharts drawn over the blackboards, trying to sum up the last ten years of history for mini-him and Suguru.

It looks like someone tried to talk about actual events - there's a map of Japan with a bunch of cities labelled, some vaguely recognizable political names, and a sketch of the globe with a cloud of frowny faces drawn in the atmosphere - but the discussion has clearly devolved from there.

"So instead of releasing a normal third game," Panda explains, underlining the little squiggly drawings, "Like, everyone was expecting Pokemon Gray, they decided to re-release both games with altered story-lines, as Black 2 and White 2, set several years after the original two games–"

"As a total cash-grab," Maki interjects. "Because why make us buy three games when they can make us buy four."

"Salmon," Toge agrees. 

Mini-Satoru flaps his hands dismissively. "Whatever, cash grab, who cares. Were the games any good?"

"Bonito flakes."

"Yes," Maki says dramatically. "Inumaki just has no taste."

"Bonito flakes."

"Just because you don't like the battle animations–"

Inumaki starts drawing something on the blackboard. Two loops and a – oh, it's just a penis.

"Oh fuck you–"

Satoru can't help but snicker as Maki grabs Toge in a headlock, threatening extreme violence. Suguru's eyes immediately snap to him – that's probably never not going to be weird and stressful, haha – but he's as relaxed as he can be, leaning against the doorframe.

Yuuta, his most favorite of adorable little students, perks up. "Sensei! I got you souvenirs. They're in my bags, though."

Yes! Goodies!! Nobody ever gets him treats any more. "Nice! Anything good?" Normally he'd go give Yuuta a hug, pick him up and twirl him around like the sad wet little baby kitten he kind of resembles even in the best of moods, but. Haha. Well.

Yuuta shrugs a bit, which does nothing to dislodge the mini-Gojo Satoru who's draped all over him, arms crossed over his head, pointedly ignoring Satoru and watching Maki and Toge scuffle. "Nothing spectacular I guess?" No black rope. "But this one shop in Nairobi had some really weird candy so I picked some of that up for you."

"Sweet!" His phone pings, so instead of wandering over to annoy Satoru-chan, he checks to see if… yes!

Satoru: pls pls PLS come to campus I have a v special surprise for you

Satoru: you'll like it

Satoru: maybe

Nanamin: No.

Satoru: depending on your definition of "like"

Satoru: and your definition of "it"

Satoru: and your definition of "you"

Satoru: and your definition of "will"

Nanamin: Absolutely not.

Satoru: PLEASE nanamin I'm begging you

Satoru: it'll be fun

Nanamin: I highly doubt that.

Satoru: PLEASE

Nanamin: where.

Satoru: YES you won't regret this much probably. don't ask shoko for spoilers

Satoru: disused classroom in the southeast corner, the one where you and shoko used to hide out and listen to your emo music together

Listen. If he has to suffer then so does everyone else.

Meanwhile, Maki and Toge's fight has settled down, with Toge lying down on the floor face-down and Maki sitting casually triumphant on his back. Yuuta, the only one actually sat in a chair, is of course being menaced by mini-him.

"You didn't get me candy from abroad," his teenage self accuses, poking Yuuta in the face. "Why don't I get treats???"

Yuuta bears this out patiently, only blushing a little bit. "I didn't even know you existed till I got here! How was I supposed to know?"

Mini-Satoru leans in even closer - a feat, considering how he's already almost completely wrapped around Yuuta. "I know how you can make it up to me…"

Satoru gives it even odds if his teenage self is trying to get a kiss or an all-out no-holds-barred jujutsu brawl. He glances over at Panda, the only sane person in this room. (Yeah, Satoru is counting himself in that, don't judge.) "Has he pulled out the Rika show yet?"

"Yeah," Panda says, looking away from the whiteboard, where he's been turning Toge's dick drawing into a Rayquaza. "Mini-you seems like he has pretty bad decision-making skills."

That doesn't actually answer his real question.

Almost automatically, unwillingly, Satoru glances over at Suguru and raises an eyebrow in question.

Suguru – Suguru-kun, Suguru-chan, looking lighter than he's been in a decade and younger than he's been in a decade and still somehow knowing twenty-eight-year-old Gojo Satoru like the back of his own hand, even when he shouldn't be able to see behind the blindfold – sighs. "Flirting, not fighting. So far."

Well. At least that's the option with the lower potential for property damage. Yaga always makes such a big deal about having to replace a building or five.

The extremely uncomfortable sensation of being looked at is a new one, for Satoru. This can't be how Six Eyes feels to everyone else - someone probably would have mentioned it being like all the worst parts of a mirror maze and a firework show. He doesn't drop his blindfold, but he does make sure the kid knows that he's looking back.

"I'm not stupid enough to fight someone without figuring out what bullshit you've been up to," mini-him snaps, startling Yuuta. "Not before you've explained whatever the fuck is going on with your energy outputs, or the loops you've got running, or–"

"All right, all right," Satoru says with a snicker. "We'll chat. See if we can't get your Reverse Cursed Technique up and running with a lot less trouble than we got mine." They're not going to. Satoru knows the breakthrough that triggers his RCT, and no way in hell is he putting this kid through that without a hell of a lot of safeguards and prep time, but it can't hurt to throw the kid at the wall and see what breaks. Or something.

Baby-Gojo tilts his sunglasses down to glare at Satoru with the full force of his impossible blue eyes, which is kind of adorable, in a way that makes Satoru want to beat him to a pulp. "Fine. Suguru too."

"Sure," Satoru agrees, since nothing is gonna come of it anyways. "It'll be a party." Speaking of it being a party, here comes his next bombshell! This situation is such a clusterfuck, he may as well get as much joy out of the one-by-one reveals as he can.

Nanami's footsteps, distinctive in their silly fancy businessman shoes, are coming down the hallway.

Something in his tone or his stance must alert Suguru – and Maki, since she's so clever – to his impending glee and chaos, because they both shift a bit and watch him carefully. 

"I have a surprise for you~" Satoru sing-songs, and now everyone's watching him warily. Except for Yuuta, who just looks tired. Aww.

"For me, or for them?" Nanami is slowing down the closer he gets to the classroom, eyeing him warily.

Satoru grins, leaning out of the doorway to see Nanami. "Can't it be both? Shoko didn't spoil the surprise, did she?"

Nanami's lips press together, which means that she didn't.

"Come take a look," he tempts him. "Come on. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Sensei, you're being mean on purpose again," Panda calls from inside the classroom.

Nanami takes one more step, and looks inside.

…

So, see, here's the thing about Nanami.

The thing about Nanami is, he grew up hot. Gojo took his eyes off his cute little emo kouhai for like, three years? And then suddenly there were all these muscles. And shoulders. And forearms. Satoru is - not interested, in any sort of relationship, but if he was, he knows who he'd ask. He wouldn't ask Nanami, of course not, too much baggage, but he wouldn't not ask Nanami.

Whatever that means doesn't need to matter, because the point is, Satoru knows his own type. That means Satoru knows his type – his, in this case, referring to the little twerp sharing his name.

Little baby Satoru's eyes go wide, and Satoru has the sheer joy of seeing both his and Suguru's jaws drop.

"Holy shit," Suguru says disbelievingly. "Nanami?"

Nanami spares the split-second he can to glare at Satoru, and Satoru sends back his most devilish grin because he knows exactly what he's done. And now he needs to slow down time a bit - or speed up himself, whatever - to save his favorite student from getting unceremoniously dumped on the ground. 

He half-warps-half-sprints across the room to scoop Yuuta up and spins the both of them around to see that Nanami has just barely managed to get a hand out in front of himself and stop Satoru's younger self from getting too close to him.

"No," Nanami snaps. "Absolutely not." Because, of course, after this many years, he also knows that he's grown up hot.

"But look at you," mini-Satoru says, "Holy shit you work out now, don't you, can I come watch? Please?" He reaches out and laces his fingers through the hand that Nanami's desperately trying to use to push him away.

Nanami looks like he wants to die.

This is honestly the best part of this whole time-travel mess, in Satoru's opinion. He's never ever going to let Nanami live it down. Sure, Satoru will get ragged on too, but hey that's why he makes himself the butt of the joke so often, so that anyone trying to make fun of him will just blend in with all the other nonsense!

"So," Yuuta says, a bit dazed from almost being dumped on the ground. "Uh. Sensei, will you please put me down?"

Satoru squeezes him a bit, just since it's been so long since he's had the chance, and Yuuta doesn't even squeak like a squeaky toy any more! And then drops him.

Hey, sorcerers need to learn how to phrase things right. Besides, Yuuta does a little twist-flip thing and lands mostly upright.

The other students have mostly recovered from the shock and hilarity - though Inumaki keeps snickering and typing on his phone in a way that's genuinely kind of concerning, knowing how much of a quiet force for chaos he is - and Suguru looks like he's just trying his best to ignore the mess happening near the doorway as Nanami keeps trying and failing to rebuff Satoru's younger self.

"So you've always been this fickle, huh, Sensei?" Maki says, narrowing her eyes at him like she's personally offended that mini-Satoru has dumped Yuuta over for his new shiny fixation.

Suguru snorts before Satoru can think up a funny enough response. "Oh, yeah. Whenever someone new shows up, Shoko and I make bets about how long he'll fixate for - usually ends up being a couple hours, max."

Maki snickers, and Satoru has never before been worried about Maki and Suguru teaming up to cause problems, but he is now, apparently. "He's that predictable, then?" 

"Of course," Suguru says, resting his head on his hands, that stupid little lock of hair just brushing the corner of his eye. "Satoru has three types. Nice boys who might just be able to break him in half. Extremely bad ideas. And daddies."

Unfortunately accurate; the problem was that all through school, everyone  thought that Suguru was a nice boy who stood a chance of breaking him in half. Not the bad idea that he turned out to be. 

"Hah! Yeah, I see it." She glances at the door, then shakes her head and clearly tries to block out the chaos happening there, where mini-Satoru looks like he's trying to climb on Nanami. "And what's your type? Hyper-manic idiots?" She's clearly just making conversation, maybe poking fun at Suguru for liking Satoru.

But.

Satoru has a moment of deep dread, as he sees with both his six eyes and his deep knowledge of Suguru's personality what's going to happen next. 

Suguru does that thing he does with his eyelashes and tilts his head. "I also like people who could break me in half." He leans in, just a bit closer. "I'm not so sold on the nice part, though." He waits a moment, making direct eye contact with her the whole time. Smiles, just a tiny bit.

Maki makes a noise like she tried to inhale and choked on her own spit, then wheezes out something incomprehensible that might or might not be actual words.

"Aaaaand that's officially too weird even for me," Satoru says, clapping his hands. "I'm out. Don't text me if you need anything. Nanami, Shoko and I voted that you were the best person to decide how much future information our two newest delinquents get right now. If he's bothering you too much, just remember you can toss him across the room - he'll bounce."

“Oh, yeah?” Mini-him’s too-blue eyes spark with a challenge. He really does have only two modes, fight and flirt, doesn’t he? Yikes.

Suguru, mini-Suguru, decides to fan the flames, of course. “So Nanami’s in charge, hm?”

It’s just a side comment, but mini-Satoru catches his drift.  "You look like you like telling people what to do, don't you?” He leans in even closer to Nanami. “How responsible. What if I've been very, very bad and need someone firm to keep me in line–"

Nanami catches Satoru’s eyes. The look he gives him promises murder.

Satoru just grins at him. "Have fun, stay safe, and don't do anything I wouldn't do," he says, just to be an asshole, and warps out, leaving his students - all five of them, ugh, but they are his students now - behind with Nanami.