Archive of Our Own

Wounded creatures have always fascinated and frustrated Shoko in equal measure. It’s probably why she kisses Geto for the first time.

They're less than a month into their second year, and Geto’s already almost died out on a mission. He’s lucky that the curse missed his heart. It went straight through his lung, sure, but people can survive for hours, even days, with a punctured lung. 

Hearts, on the other hand… even she can't bring back the dead.

Shoko peels off the last blood-soaked bandage and peers at the injury in Geto’s bare chest, curious. The entry wound is perfectly circular, and the exit wound in his back is similar, just smaller. It’s a little annoying that the hole isn’t larger; if it was, she might be able to see inside and learn what it looks like inside someone who's still alive. She’ll get to see eventually, of course, when she goes to medical school after graduation, but it’s frustrating to have to wait that long. At this point she’s only seen the inside of living animals. The rest of her studies have been on cadavers—it’s not at all the same. 

Plus, it’d be something special to see the inside of someone she knows. Heart pumping, veins trembling, muscles twitching. She imagines it would be nice. Intimate, even. And fascinating. 

In the meantime, she'll have to make do with looking at Geto's injury from the outside. The edge is perfect, no tearing of the skin at all. It seems like the curse’s weapon, or leg, or whatever, was as sharp as a scalpel. She couldn't have made a neater cut herself. 

“Are you done staring?” Geto asks, breaking into Shoko’s daydream. His voice is rougher than usual, probably because he only has one fully functioning lung. Or it could be the pain, she supposes. “It hurts, you know.” 

Shoko straightens up. Does he mean the wound or her staring at him? She decides to take it at face value. “Fine,” she mutters, pouting. “But I’ve never seen an injury like this—it’s important for me to learn about it. You get hurt basically every day. Aren’t you used to it by now?” 

“It’s not every day,” Geto starts, but the words trail off into a painful looking coughing fit. Blood oozes from the wound’s open edge, trickling down the curve of Geto’s pectoral and over his stomach until it reaches the waistband of his pants. Shoko watches intensely how it absorbs into the fabric, follows the path it left behind upwards with her eyes. Geto's bare chest is a work of art, given human form. It reminds her of a medical textbook: each muscle is perfectly formed and symmetrical as it spasms. The smears and trails of blood only add to the artistry. 

Geto stops coughing, finally. Shoko comes around the medical table he’s seated on—a narrow, cold piece of metal that she’s more familiar with than her own bed—and splays her fingers over the open wound. Instinct kicks in: cursed energy multiplies itself into positive energy, then slips from her fingers into and under Geto's skin. Pale light coalesces around the bloody hole in his pectoral. Shoko watches carefully as the blood starts to clot.

Sometimes, when she heals sorcerers, their cursed energy reacts poorly. Like an immune system reacting poorly to a vaccine, their energy tries to reject hers. It seems, anecdotally at least, to depend on how well the person knows and trusts Shoko, and the issue usually disappears once she’s healed them a few times. In contrast, Geto’s cursed energy has always seemed warm, welcoming. 

At first, Gojo’s cursed energy was particularly problematic to push through—most likely some innate reaction stemming from Limitless, though sometimes Shoko thought it was just another way that Gojo managed to annoy her. Either way, it’s usually a fun challenge to try and heal him. Though it’s become easier, lately. She thinks she knows why, but it's not something she's willing to admit to herself quite yet.

She can feel RCT working, spreading through capillaries and veins and dermis and muscle as it searches out damaged tissue. The wound scabs over, and then the scab falls off as it closes completely, leaving behind pink new flesh. Geto’s lung reinflates—she can tell both from his relieved gasp and the abrupt decrease in the previously firehose-like flow of positive energy. The torn muscles and veins reknit themselves under the skin. 

Her energy slows to a trickle, then stops. Shoko forces one more wave of energy through Geto’s torso, just to make sure she didn't miss any injuries: superficial or otherwise. When she doesn't find anything, Shoko leaves her hand on Geto’s shoulder a moment longer than necessary and lets herself feel the flush of warm skin under her palm. 

Geto turns to look at her, his face ending up only a few inches above hers. His shampoo smells like oranges and cloves, distinct even through the blood, sweat, and antiseptic crowding her nostrils. His bang, usually hanging free—Gojo likes to tug on it, Shoko wishes sometimes that she could work up the courage to touch it—is plastered to the side of his face. His eyes are very dark.

Shoko pulls her hand away slowly and turns on her heel, hiding her face before it can give her away. She opens a drawer and paws through it for some kind of distraction. 

“Here, take this. You absorbed the cursed spirit, right?” Shoko hands Geto a piece of gum behind her back, eyes fixed on the countertop.

“Yeah,” Geto responds. “Seemed like it might be useful.” She hears him hop off the table and pop the gum into his mouth. “Hey, Shoko?”

“What?” Her cheeks seem less likely to catch flame than before, so she lets herself turn back around. Why hasn't he put on a shirt yet? 

“Thank you,” Geto says, bending forward a bit at the waist with a soft smile. He’s so sincere—so unlike anyone else she's ever met. His voice is kind, and there's a little bit of blood staining his lower lip. How is she supposed to resist?

Shoko pushes up onto her tiptoes and slots her lips against Geto’s.

At first his mouth and body are stiff against hers, but then he relaxes into the kiss, putting one arm around Shoko’s waist and pulling her snugly up against his body. She sneaks her tongue out and licks at his bottom lip; the metallic flavor of blood bursts on her taste buds. Geto’s mouth opens slightly, as if to let her in.  

Shoko jerks backwards and out of Geto's grip, their mouths separating with a small, wet smack.

Okay. Wow. 

Geto raises his eyebrows at her and starts to say something. Shoko talks over him. 

“You’re healed, so get out,” she says. The words come out terse, mean. She tries to offer an explanation. “I’m busy.” 

Shoko despairs internally—stupid, stupid—but keeps her face impassive. 

Geto laughs, a bit manically. What is he thinking? “Busy, huh? Alright.”

His fingers trail along Shoko’s forearm as he passes her, leaving tingling skin in their wake.

“See you later, Shoko.”

—

Shoko doesn't see Geto, or Gojo for that matter, for three days. Apparently there was a cursed spirit terrorizing a shopping mall or something. She doesn't pay much attention to that kind of thing unless it ends up with someone in the infirmary. Or the morgue.

The familiar sound of bickering cuts through the quiet droning of the common room’s television. Shoko cracks an eye open and extracts herself from the warm cocoon of her blanket. She must've fallen asleep on the couch while watching her favorite crime drama. 

“What the hell?” Shoko groans, peeking her head over the back of the couch and glaring. Moving is almost more effort than it's worth. 

Gojo and Geto push through the doorway and into the room in a reckless tumble of limbs. Gojo looks like nothing more than a drowned albino rat, dripping wet and streaked all over with an ambiguous brown substance. Even his hair, usually the color and texture of a dandelion puff, didn't escape the grime.

Geto seems to have fared better: clothes only slightly damp, hair frizzy but still up in its usual style, and a single scabby cut on his upper cheek. 

“Shoko!” Gojo announces with a wild grin, throwing his long arms wide. Drops of brown water fly off of him, like a dog shaking after rolling in the mud. “We exorcised the nastiest cursed spirit. It was awesome, you should've seen it! And then Suguru ate it, the freak.” 

Geto rubs his hand over his eyes. “You're the freak. Who's the one that ate a whole bag of candy on the drive back? That's way nastier than what I do.” He doesn't look at Shoko at all. Her heart drops, just a little. It was silly of her to hope for anything different. She'd brushed him off, after all. 

“It wasn't even that much candy,” Gojo whines, punching Geto in the shoulder hard enough that he stumbles sideways a step. “Shoko, tell him. After burning all those calories in the fight, I basically had to!” 

“I'm not getting involved,” Shoko says flatly. She turns and looks back at the television so she won't have to watch Geto watching Gojo instead of her. On screen, they begin an autopsy of the victim. They're doing it all wrong, but it's interesting in a kind of frustratingly enjoyable kind of way. 

“Shut up, loser,” she hears Geto say. “Go take a shower, you smell like the sewer.”

“If you'd been where I expected you to be when I expected you to be there, the curse wouldn't have been able to push me in!” Gojo protests loudly. 

The sounds of a brief scuffle. Geto must win, because Gojo blows a raspberry but then gives in. “Fine! I'm going, I'm going.” 

Geto slides down onto the couch next to Shoko. Up close, she can smell the sewer on him too. Silent, they both watch Gojo leave.

“You stink,” Shoko says, staring steadfastly at the screen. What else is she supposed to say? Welcome back? Good job not getting killed? Again? 

“Ah, sorry,” Geto responds sheepishly. Out of the corner of her eye, Shoko can see him scratching the back of his head like he always does when he's embarrassed. It's as cute as it always is. 

“How was it here?” Geto asks. 

Shoko shrugs. “Is that really what you want to talk about?” 

“Not really,” he admits, but doesn't go on. 

There's a long, awkward silence. Shoko shifts uncomfortably.

“I kissed you,” Shoko blurts. It comes out conversational, thank god. 

Geto hums in quiet agreement. 

“You kissed back,” she adds. This time it sounds a little accusing, which wasn't the plan but is probably for the best. 

“Yeah, I did,” Geto says. “Do you want to do it again?” 

Shoko turns to look at Geto. His face is sweet and open. Yes, she wants to do it again. She would have to be a bigger idiot than Gojo to actually go through with it. 

She buries her feelings deep down, and then further smothers them under a thick layer of forced nonchalance. “Nah,” Shoko says. “Thanks, though.” 

“Oh.” His face falls. Distantly, Shoko finds that she's pleased that he's disappointed. “Alright. That's okay.” 

“I know it's okay,” she says, and turns to look back at her show. It's difficult to pay attention to what's happening on the screen with Geto's warm weight next to her. Annoying.

“Are we…” Geto starts. “Are we good?”

Shoko scrunches her brow at him, keeps her voice light. “Why wouldn't we be?”

Geto chuckles. It seems forced. “Alright,” he says again. “I'll go take a shower too. Don't want to stink up the couch.”

“Good,” Shoko responds. She waits for him to get up and turn to go before she lets herself look at him.

Her chest feels weird as she watches him leave. Some of it’s pain, sure, but it's mostly relief.

—

A week passes, and Shoko is glad to find that she was right: she and Geto are good. They still team up to mess with Gojo when he's being more of a terror than usual; they still drink coffee together in the morning before class; they still do their math homework together even as Gojo complains about not needing to learn math to be a sorcerer—even though he can always finish his homework twice as fast as them, the asshole. And if they don't touch quite as often as they used to, or if Shoko catches herself looking at Geto’s lips more than usual—well, it's not a big deal. 

But something must have happened, because Gojo accosts Shoko one night while she's in the infirmary, dissecting a human heart. She'd asked for one a few weeks ago and Yaga-sensei had given it to her earlier today—probably a dead sorcerer’s, if she had to guess. She wonders if he’d tell her whose it was if she asks.

The door swings open with a bang, admitting Gojo. He immediately clocks the heart. “Gross,” he shouts, screwing his face up dramatically like a toddler that's been told he has to eat his least favorite vegetable.

Shoko glares. She doesn't want to deal with Gojo’s usual bullshit tonight. “Get out if you're going to be a dick.” 

Gojo replaces his grimace with a smirk and pointedly ignores her. He pulls himself up onto the countertop, swinging his long legs obnoxiously and banging them against the medical cabinets loudly. “What is that, anyways?” he asks, leaning forward and squinting at the organ on the table.

“Your heart, bitch.” 

Gojo barks a laugh and mimes stabbing himself in the chest. Shoko snorts despite herself.

She’d better keep going if she wants to get anything done tonight, so Shoko picks up her scalpel and neatly starts to cut into the layer of muscle covering the heart's right atrium. 

She needs to fully understand and internalize the structure of the human heart if she wants to get better at healing them. It's not quite that RCT requires anatomical knowledge, but Shoko has noticed over the years that her energy use is much more efficient if she knows enough to be able to target specific locations or issues. When she first came to Jujutsu High, fixing someone's broken arm wiped her out for a full day afterwards. Now, after studying and internalizing the structure of healthy bone, it barely takes her any effort at all. 

“What do you want, loser?” she asks Gojo, peeling apart the flesh to see the interior of the atrium. 

“Well…” 

Shoko frowns at him until he keeps going. 

“Do you want to make out with me?”

What.

She'd been cutting deeper into the muscle in order to reveal the atrium. Her scalpel stabs all the way through the heart and hits the dissection table with a loud clank of metal on metal. 

Gojo’s expression is completely sincere, not a hint of a joke in sight. His sunglasses are even off, though it's probably because he wanted to ‘dazzle’ her with his eyes rather than any real evidence of politeness. 

Shoko inspects him. Objectively, he's almost supernaturally attractive. Subjectively, he's the most obnoxious human being she's ever met. She’d kill for him of course, but still. She has standards.

“No,” she says. “Not interested.” 

She goes back to the heart. Damn, she hadn't wanted to cut all the way through yet. Could she seal it back up with a little bit of RCT? She sticks her finger between the flaps of wet muscle to try.  

“Come on, Shoko!” Gojo draws out the last syllable of her name, whining. “Why not?”

“Why would I?” she asks. Turns out positive energy doesn't work on already dead tissue. It was worth a try, at least. She pulls her finger free and wipes it on her lab coat. 

“I'm hot, you're hot.” Gojo gestures between them. “And you know I'll be good at it.”

“You think I'm hot?” Shoko asks idly. She spreads open a ventricle instead and peers inside. “That's nice.” 

“You kissed Suguru! Why not me?” 

Shoko cuts her eyes up to Gojo, then forces them back down to her work. “He told you that?”

Someone else might feel hurt or betrayed—at least according to the American shows Shoko likes to watch late at night—but she finds that she isn't upset. Geto’s never kept anything from Gojo before, that she knows of. And anyway, it was only one kiss. One kiss doesn’t mean anything. Obviously.

“Yeah, why? Was he lying?” Gojo muses, tapping his finger on his chin. He gives it a theatrical beat, then shakes his head. “Nah, he wouldn't,” he decides. “It wouldn't be moral to lie about kissing a girl.”

Shoko huffs a sigh and puts her scalpel down. She's not getting anywhere while Gojo is in here bothering her about this. 

“No, he wasn't lying. We kissed,” she admits. “But it wasn't a big deal.”

Gojo slips off the counter and leans in close to look at the heart. Pokes it with one finger and giggles at how it jiggles. “That's it, huh? Not a big deal?” 

“Yup.” Shoko leans back against the medical table and crosses her arms over her chest. “Don't touch that.” 

Gojo shrugs and stands up straight again, then wipes his bloody finger on Shoko’s lab coat. It leaves a long bloody streak on the crisp white fabric. “What about just one kiss, then? I'm at least as good at kissing as Suguru. You’ll like it.”

“Yeah?” Shoko asks, narrowing her eyes at him. “How do you know?”

Gojo's face momentarily registers shock, then it's quickly covered up with an exaggerated leer. “Wanna find out?”  

Again, Shoko considers it. And again she says, with a pop of her lips, “Nope.” 

“That's not fair,” Gojo says, but she can tell he's only complaining to complain. She doubts he even actually wanted to kiss her in the first place. It’s probably some kind of weird jealousy thing.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shoko says. She has more important things to worry about, like understanding the musculature of the human heart. “Now come here and use your bullshit technique to do something useful for once. Levitate this and spin it around in front of me. I want to see it from all angles.”

“My technique isn't bullshit!” Gojo cries, but he’s already lifting the heart up into the air. “I'll have you know that Limitless is the culmination of generations of effort!” 

More like generations of inbreeding. Shoko turns her attention back to the heart and gets to work, Gojo's chatter filling the air. All she has to contribute to keep him talking is a nod or a hum every so often.

They spend the rest of the evening that way. Afterwards, alone in her dorm and getting ready for bed, Shoko realizes—she’d had fun. Apparently Gojo can be good company even without Geto’s influence. If he tries. 

—

Yaga-sensei finally manages to wrangle a full day off for Geto and Gojo from the higher-ups. Skoko immediately takes full advantage, dragging them along with her on a day out. 

The sun beats down on the crowded streets of Harajuku, the bright shades of hair and clothing around them almost blinding. They pass under an archway topped with neon signs of different fruits—a peach, a strawberry, a melon, bright and blinking—and are immediately absorbed into the crowd. Inviting shops and restaurants surround them on all sides, anime girls and animals beckoning for them to enter. An elderly man ambles past them on the left, dressed head to toe in a pastel pink suit; a girl around their age in cat ears and huge chunky candy necklaces argues with a girl with neon orange hair and a dozen cute clips in her bangs; a man with a top hat, dark eyeliner, a leather mask, and glittering chains hanging from his baggy pants pushes past them. Three small children, dressed in identical cyan patterned outfits, all hold hands in a line as they tail their mother, a woman with towering boots and striped stockings, into a store.

Shoko’s wanted to come here since she was a little girl. Her mother used to tell her stories about it: the fashion, the people, the explosion of culture. It’s exactly like she imagined it would be.

“You jealous?” Shoko asks, spinning around to walk backwards and smirking as she dangles her new flip phone in front of Geto and Gojo. It’s silver, American, and has a spot to hang charms from. She’s obsessed.

Gojo sticks his tongue out at her. “No way, that thing’s ugly.”

“That’s what someone jealous would say!” Shoko crows. 

She opens her phone with a satisfying flick of the wrist and snaps a photo of Gojo and Geto. Geto’s arm is thrown over Gojo’s shoulder, and they’re both wearing casual clothes instead of their school uniforms. Geto is the only one that remotely fits in with the crowd, with his gauges and loose pants—though the all black look stands out starkly against the neon coloring of most of the other teenagers around. Gojo looks like a rich young master, which—well, it’s not the wrong impression. His white collared shirt is carefully cuffed around his forearms, and his sunglasses are low on his nose so he can look over top of them at the curious selection of people and shops around them. 

“I’m rich,” Gojo pouts. “I can get whatever I want, and I don’t want that.” He pulls out his own phone and waves it at her. It slides instead of flips open, and has a full keyboard. “Mine’s better anyways.” 

Geto pokes Gojo in the cheek. “Don’t brag, Satoru,” he admonishes. “Going around telling people that you’re rich is rude.” 

“I don’t care if you’re rich,” Shoko says, sticking her tongue out in return. “Take a photo of me and Geto!”

Shoko, for her part, is wearing low waisted jeans and a baggy button down she stole from Gojo over a cropped black tank top. Geto throws his arm over her shoulder for the photo, and she slips her arm around his back in return. She feels small next to him—it’s nice.

Gojo obligingly takes the photo and then demands that she take one with him too. Shoko snorts but agrees and is shocked Gojo puts his arm around her waist instead of behind her head for bunny ears or something equally silly. She throws up a peace sign and grins into the camera to cover her surprise, and gasps a little bit as Gojo pulls her in tighter against his side. 

Before she can fluster any further, Shoko extracts herself from Gojo’s grip and points at a store with a poster of a beckoning tanuki. “Oh, let’s go in there!” 

Inside, the shop is full of colorful accessories, plushies, and tourist junk. It’s not Shoko’s usual style, but she’s immediately drawn to a rack of phone charms. As she peruses the options, she can hear Gojo and Geto bickering in the background. When she looks back to check on them, they’re arguing over a stuffed pokemon—or is it a digimon? It’s hard to tell sometimes. She turns back to the rack, satisfied that they’re not going to start an actual fight in front of non-sorcerers. 

A tiny snow white rabbit with bright blue eyes catches her attention. It’s exactly like Gojo, if Gojo was a cute little bunny instead of an asshole. Bunnies can be assholes, she bets. They probably bite and leave their shit everywhere. Shoko carefully plucks two of the charms from the rack and puts them carefully on the counter where she can keep an eye on them.

Next she finds herself, a small brown tabby cat with a round grumpy face, hanging by the scruff of its neck from the end of the keychain. She takes two and puts them next to the Gojo bunny, then starts looking for Geto. 

At first she searches for another cat; she’s always thought of Geto as a cat, like her.

But then—she sees him. Shoko pulls little Geto off of the rack and holds him up to her face, unable to keep her expression from scrunching up. How cute ! A little black fox with golden eyes stares back, washing behind its ear with one paw. 

“What’re you looking at?” Geto’s voice comes from right behind her.

She spins on him and thrusts the charms up to his eye level. “It’s us!” 

Gojo sneers over Geto’s shoulder. “Eh?! Am I supposed to be the bunny?” 

“It fits you,” Geto says smugly, rolling his shoulder back to hit Gojo. “And I’m the fox, huh?”

Shoko nods, a huge smile spreading across her face. “It’s perfect. We can carry each other around.” Gojo’s face is scrunched up dubiously, so she adds, “I’m going to put you two on my phone. That way when you piss me off, I can look at a cuter version of you instead of your stupid faces!”

“I don’t have a spot on my phone to put a charm,” Geto says, shrugging. “Sorry, Shoko.” 

“That doesn’t matter,” she insists. “Put them in your room or something. We’re all getting them.”

Gojo and Geto make intense eye contact for a moment, then both turn to look at Shoko in unison. It makes her nervous, but she keeps her face in a serene smile.

“Only if you buy me whatever sweets I want at the next restaurant,” Gojo demands, voice saccharine.

“And I want to go up a size on my gauges,” Geto says, mouth pulled into a faux frown. “It takes forever to stretch to the next size, no matter how much oil I use. So…maybe some RCT to help it along?” He raises his eyebrows at her. 

Shoko flushes a little bit; covers it by throwing her arms up in triumph and over her boys’ shoulders. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, pulling them with her over to the counter. “Whatever you want.”   

Gojo demands that the next place they go is a dessert restaurant. They find one he approves of after a very long twenty minute walk up and down the street. Walking in is a pleasant reprieve from the noise and heat of the outdoors, the air cool and faintly smelling of sugar and coffee. 

The dessert case is full of cute confections, all decorated with some character or another; it’s a bit overwhelming, so Shoko just asks the girl behind the counter—dressed in a baby blue mini skirt and a lacy ribbed camisole—for two mochi. Some whining from Gojo later, and Suguru gives in enough to buy a small pouch of sesame cookies. Gojo orders a monstrous combination of fluffy pancakes topped with several scoops of ice cream. 

They snag a small booth up against the window for people watching purposes and all cram in. Geto slips into the booth next to Shoko and smiles down at her. She smiles back briefly before directing her attention to cutely checkered curtains, inspecting them as seriously as if they were her patient in the infirmary.

Then Gojo starts eating his dessert, and it’s like watching a car wreck happen in slow motion. Shoko can’t look away, equal parts horrified and kind of turned on. The noises he makes sound just like the porn Shoko watches sometimes, and one particular move with his tongue is blowjob-worthy. When Shoko cuts her eyes over to Geto, she sees that he’s transfixed as well, flushed bright red from the back of his neck all the way up to the tips of his ears. What would she see if she looked under the table at his lap? Slowly, she turns her eyes back to Gojo, who’s practically fellating the spoon at this point.

Eventually Gojo lets out a huge burp, finally breaking Shoko and Geto free of their respective horny trances. Before Gojo can start up again, Shoko wonders aloud about Yaga’s weird cursed dolls—did they see the tiny panda? She swears it’s gotten larger over the last few months. The following theorizing session is serious enough that neither she nor Geto have enough brain power to pay attention to any more of Gojo’s pornographic display.

They spend the rest of the afternoon shopping for clothes and gorging themselves on noodles. By the time they head back to Jujutsu High, they’re lethargic and sunburned and Shoko’s wallet is completely empty. It’s the best day she’s had in ages.

—

Manually transferring her contacts to her new phone only takes Shoko a few minutes. She doesn’t have that many people that she would want to contact anyways.

[shoko]
hi utahime-senpai!
this is shoko
I got a new phone and I wanted you to have my new number

[utahime-senpai]
shoko!!!!! 
thanks for telling me
i wouldnt want to miss ur texts
how are u? do u need me to come to tokyo and take out the trash?

[shoko]
lol no but ty
they haven’t been so bad this year

[utahime-senpai]
ill believe that when i see it

[shoko]
I doubt gojo will ever stop being a loser, but geto’s been ok
recently at least
idk

[utahime-senpai]
thats good i guess
hes always been less shitty than blue eyes white dragon 

[shoko]
is that a digimon
he’s pretty nice when we’re alone together at least

[utahime-senpai]
umm shoko
???

[shoko]
what

Utahime calls her. Out of spite, Shoko lets it ring twice before picking up.

“Shoko!” Utahime shouts as soon as the call connects. Normally she’s excited to yell Shoko’s name, but this time it sounds like she’s gearing up for a scolding. Shoko braces herself mentally.

“Yes?”

“What are you talking about? Why is Geto alone with you? What do you mean, pretty nice?” 

“Why wouldn’t he be alone with me? We’re classmates,” Shoko responds, but something in her voice must give her away, because Utahime squawks.

“Something happened, didn’t it? Shoko, answer me!”  

Shoko sighs and flops down backwards onto her bed with a bounce. “No… I mean, kind of.”

“Kind of?!” Utahime’s voice reaches a hysterical pitch.

“It’s nothing!” Shoko insists. “I kissed him, but it was only once and because I thought he was going to die.” She's only exaggerating a little bit. He could've died! Eventually!

Shoko has to pull her phone away from her ear so she won’t be deafened by Utahime’s shriek of denial.

“That’s worse, Shoko! It’s romantic to kiss someone on their deathbed!” 

“I dunno,” Shoko responds, covering her eyes with the back of her arm. “But I told him we weren’t going to do it again, so you don’t have to worry about it.” 

“So I guess he lived, ugh.” Utahime asks. “And you're definitely not going to do it again?” It’s not fair how suspicious she sounds. When has Shoko ever lied to her?

“Yeah. It’s not worth it to get in a relationship with a sorcerer.” Shoko says. Should she mention Gojo asked to kiss her too? No, probably not a good idea. She doesn’t actually want him to die. 

She doesn’t want to die either, which might happen if she has to hear Utahime’s shrieking again.

A sigh filters through the phone’s speaker. “That’s not what I meant. It’d be fine if you wanted to kiss someone else, like…” she trails off. “Well, I don’t know. Most sorcerers are awful. But those two are at the bottom of the trash heap!”

“Our first years aren’t so bad,” Shoko says, trying to placate her. “Nanami is respectful and polite, and Haibara is…sweet, I guess. Not that I’m going to kiss them! They’re literal infants.”

“You’re an infant!” Utahime rebuts, laughing a little bit. 

Shoko pouts, even though Utahime can't see it. “You’re not that much older than me!” 

“Seriously though,” Utahime says once she’s stopped laughing. “I want the best for you.”

Shoko squirms internally at the sincerity in Utahime’s voice. She doesn’t want to talk about this any more. “I know,” she says. “I want the best for you too, Utahime-senpai.” 

Utahime coos at her. “Look at my little kouhai, expressing her feelings.” 

“Did I tell you I got to go to Harajuku finally?” Shoko blurts, rather than responding to that. “Everyone looked so cute! Ah, I felt so boring in my outfit, but I don’t know if I could pull off any of the brighter looks. I bet you could though! The next time you’re in Tokyo we’ll have to go together.” 

“Yes, definitely!” Utahime says, excited. “Tell me about it!” 

The rest of the conversation passes in a pleasant chat about Harajuku, other places they want to go together some day, and gossip about Mei Mei and her finances. It’s nice to have someone other than Geto or Gojo to talk to, especially another girl. They end the call with a promise to talk again soon.

—

It’s a quiet evening at Jujutsu High. Geto and Haibara are out on a mission together and so are Gojo and Nanami, apparently so that the first years can learn something by tagging along on a more advanced mission. Nanami’s expression when Yaga-sensei told him he was going with Gojo was hilarious; every time it pops into Shoko’s mind, hours later, she has to stop doing her homework to snicker.

Shoko scratches the back of her neck as she stares at her essay. It’s supposed to be on how cursed techniques have changed from the Heian Era to now. She’d decided to focus on RCT, thinking that her research might uncover something useful, but she’s found very little in the school library. She might have to give in and ask Gojo for access to his clan library—she bets they have some primary sources that the school would never be allowed to get their hands on. There’s probably a Gojo somewhere in the bloodline that was a RCT user, and the big clans keep that kind of thing close to the vest.

She’s in the middle of writing some bullshit about a sorcerer from the Edo period who may or may not have used RCT to heal the shogun’s son from a deadly injury when the quiet peace is shattered by her phone ringing.

It’s Geto.

“Hello?”

“Shoko, thank god. Fuck,” Geto says, voice tinny but audibly frantic. “What do I do? Haibara’s bleeding—oh shit, it’s so much blood. What the hell do I do?” 

Shoko shoots out of her chair and starts power walking towards the infirmary. “Where’s he bleeding from?” She forces her voice to be calm and collected with the ease of long practice. 

“There’s so much—god, fuck, it’s his thigh. It’s fucking spurting, Shoko! Tell me what to do.” 

The thigh isn’t the worst, but it's not the best either. It must be the femoral artery. If Geto can stop the bleeding and get back to Jujutsu High in under a few hours, Haibara will probably survive. Even keep the leg, if he’s lucky. 

“Can you see the end of the artery? Where it was cut?” she asks as she swings the door to the infirmary open. Maybe he can pinch it shut. That’s what she would do, though with a clamp instead of her bare fingers like she's about to ask Geto to do. 

“What? How the hell am I supposed to see the end of an artery?” She’s never heard Geto sound like this: lost and scared and angry at his own fear. It hikes up her own heart rate, and she has to take a deep breath before answering.

“You’re right. Do you have a curse that you can use to make a tourniquet? What about that snake? The big one you left in my bed last year.” 

“Yeah—yeah, I have it.”

“Get it out and have it constrict above the injury. As tight as it can without breaking the femur. Wherever makes the most sense.” 

For a few moments, all Shoko can hear is Geto’s panicked breathing and the sounds of movement in the background. A cut off shriek—that must be Haibara.

“Okay,” Geto says. “It’s on. Now what?”

“Has the bleeding slowed down?” Shoko asks. She starts prepping the infirmary table.

Another long moment. “I think so,” Geto whispers. “It’s not going everywhere anymore.” His breath hitches.

“That’s good,” Shoko says. Fuck. What is she supposed to say to calm Geto down? She’s not good at this. “Is there anything else wrong with him?”

“I don’t think so,” Geto says. 

Shoko bites her lip. “Are you hurt?”

A stifled sob. It hits her like a gut punch. “I’m fine.” 

She'll have to believe him. “Okay, that’s good. Take your fastest curse back, okay?” Time is the most important factor at this point. 

“What if it jostles him? I don't want to hurt him.” Geto’s voice is very small. He's not supposed to sound small. It's not right. Her heart aches at the sound. 

“As long as the tourniquet doesn’t come off, he’ll be alright,” Shoko says, trying for low and soothing. Anything to stop Geto from sounding like that. She grinds her teeth together and pushes past the hurt in her chest. “Anything else that goes wrong, I can fix once you get here.” 

“Okay. Fuck. Fuck. Okay, we’re getting on my manta ray, I’m gonna put down the phone for a second.” The sounds of motion, heavy breathing, grunting. Shoko counts her breaths while she waits. 

“I’m back,” Geto says. “We’re in the air.” 

“Alright,” Shoko says. She grabs a rolling bed and pushes it out of the swinging infirmary doors. “I’ll be waiting out front when you get here. You can put him right on the bed.” Even though she knows she’ll get there long before Geto, she can’t stop herself from hurrying.

“Got it,” Geto says. Shoko can barely hear him over the sound of the wind whistling in the background. “We weren’t that far away and this is my fastest curse. We should be there in under an hour.” 

“I’ll be ready,” Shoko says. “I need to hang up and call—”

“Don't!” Geto interrupts with a shout. A long moment of silence; Shoko squeezes her eyes shut in dismay. “Fuck. Sorry. You can hang up.”

Shoko thinks for a second. “I’ll call you right back after, okay? You can keep me updated on Haibara. I just need to tell Yaga-sensei what’s going on. It’ll take less than a minute.”  

“Okay. Do it.”

Shoko lingers for a second, then, scolding herself internally for wasting time, hangs up and immediately dials Yaga. Luckily he picks up quickly, and she briefs him on the situation. As soon as he says that he’s on the way, she hangs up on him and calls Geto back.

“Shoko?” Geto’s voice is wrecked. Relief and fear mingle in Shoko’s veins. 

“I’m here,” Shoko says, hoping and hoping and hoping that it helps. “I’m here. How’s Haibara?”

They stay on the line until Shoko can make out the whites of the manta ray’s eyes. Geto has Haibara cradled in his lap, one arm curled protectively around his back and the other underneath his legs. They’re both coated in blood. Yaga-sensei squeezes Shoko’s arm bracingly.

Geto stumbles off of the manta ray as it comes to rest on the ground, and gently puts Haibara down on the waiting medical bed. The boa constrictor has done its job well, and while Haibara is unconscious, he’s breathing well and his pulse is steady under Shoko’s fingers.

Shoko gives herself one long second to look over Geto and check that he wasn’t lying about not being injured. Her gaze catches on his expression, and she has to wrench herself away to look back at Haibara. It’s strange, she realizes, even as she starts planning out her approach to Haibara’s injury. The patient always comes first, always dominates her attention—why was she so focused on Geto? Even during the call, it was—

That’s not important right now. Her patient is waiting for her. “I’ve got this,” Shoko tells Geto, turning away sharply and pushing the bed towards the waiting doors of the school. “He’ll be alright.” Behind her, she hears Yaga say something to Geto, but she’s already too deep into analyzing Haibara’s condition to make it out.

—

It takes two tense but exhilarating hours of careful work with forceps, clamps, and small, concentrated bursts of RCT, but Haibara makes it through without even a scar to show for his injury. Shoko will have to check his leg function when he wakes up tomorrow, but she doubts there will be any real issues. Geto got him back long before any tissue death would’ve started. She needs to remember to tell him that. 

Shoko leaves Haibara hooked up to a bag of saline and pain medicine and heads to her favorite courtyard. It’s where she always goes when she wants to smoke and not be bothered—none of the teachers ever seems to come here, and Shoko likes looking at the winding ivy clinging to the inner walls. It seems to have grown slightly since the last time she was here, she notes as sits on a bench and lights up. Hopefully it will have reached the top of the wall by the time they graduate.

It’s a chilly night, and the sky is completely clear of clouds. Tokyo’s light pollution prevents any but the brightest stars from being visible, but Shoko likes looking at them anyways. 

She’s halfway through her second cigarette by the time Geto finds her.

The sound of footsteps interrupts her musings. Geto is leaning up against the wall and looking down at her, head cocked. He’s dressed down, in loose black sweatpants and a matching black hoodie, the collar loose enough that Shoko can see the dip between his collarbones. His hair is down around his shoulders, a rare sight, and still damp from the shower.

Wordlessly, Shoko offers him a cigarette. Geto smiles wanly and pushes himself off the wall, then walks over to take it. She lights it for him, leaning in close and cupping her hand over her lighter as they wait for the cigarette to catch. Their eyes meet; Shoko looks away first. Geto sits down next to her on the bench as he takes his first drag, his lips pursed around the cigarette and his chest rising and falling in one smooth motion. Their arms are only a few inches apart. The urge to lean into Geto’s body heat rises, and Shoko smothers it. Takes another pull from her cigarette instead, blows the smoke out and watches it curl against the night sky.

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. Shoko spends the last inch of her cigarette studying Geto from out of the corner of her eye. He looks better than before, skin a healthier color and face calmer, his eyes closed and face raised to the sky. 

Shoko thinks of how he sounds before she heals him, and after. How he looks after a long day of combat training, coated in sweat. 

She wants to see him like that again. In pain, desperate, sweaty—her core pulses with heat, and she looks away sharply. She wants to be the one to do it to him. To tell him to do it to himself. To make him that way. 

But she's already closed that door. 

Shoko stubs out her cigarette in the small ashtray next to her, then offers it to Geto. He ashes his cigarette in it, then brings it back to his mouth for another pull.

“I’m not going to heal you if you get lung cancer,” Shoko says. Teasing is easy.

Geto chuckles and looks out of the corner of his eye at her. Takes another drag, pointedly. “You gave it to me,” he comments.

“You would’ve begged me for one if I hadn’t.” He would have. She goes through almost twice as many cigarettes when Geto isn't out on a mission. “Why don’t you ever buy your own?”

Geto shrugs and blows smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Trying to quit, I guess.” 

Shoko elbows him in the side. He doesn’t even flinch. What does make him flinch, she wonders. Imagines it.

“You did good today,” Shoko tells him. “Haibara's going to be fine.”

“Thanks.” Geto lets out a long sigh and goes on. “I’d be fucked without you, you know that?” 

Geto stubs his cigarette out on the ground, his hair slipping forwards just enough that she can see the nape of his neck. “Satoru too, even though he’s too much of a dick to say so.”

Shoko snorts and leans back on her hands, looks up to the black sky, pretends that her chest hasn’t gone all warm and fuzzy. “Yeah, I know,” she says, voice as casual as she can manage. 

“Seriously, Shoko. I mean it,” Geto insists, leaning in close so she can't avoid seeing him. “You saved Haibara’s life today.”

Shoko nods. It’s true, but she still adds, “You did too. You got him back really quickly.”

Geto shrugs. “Yeah, but I would’ve been screwed if you hadn't been there to pick up, or here to heal him once we got here.” His face goes really serious. “If you think about it, you're responsible for almost every cursed spirit we exorcise. What if I get hurt again, let's say I don't die from it. Then what? Maybe there's some shitty RCT user from Kyoto that does a half-assed job fixing me. Maybe not. Either way, it's weeks of recovery.” 

“Months, more like,” Shoko interrupts. 

Geto nods and gestures into the air with his cigarette emphatically. “Exactly. Think of all the missions I couldn't go on in the meantime. Maybe the higher-ups send someone weaker than me and they get themselves killed. Maybe they don't send anyone, and a bunch of non-sorcerers get killed. It’s fucked.” 

Shoko’s chest feels tight. Her heart pounds in her ears as it sends hot, freshly oxygenated blood to her cheeks. “They'd just send Gojo,” she says. 

It's not that she wishes she could go out on missions like Geto or Gojo. She likes what she does, and she hates getting hurt or fighting. She’s the best RCT user in Japan, and probably has been since she was seven years old. Arguably, she’s more important to jujutsu society than any other sorcerer alive right now, even Gojo. Shoko genuinely believes that, most of the time. 

That doesn’t mean she likes watching Geto and Gojo go off on missions without her, often together. There's a connection they share that she'll never be a part of, no matter what she does. And what if they get hurt and are too far away to make it back to her in time? Or what if they both get hurt and can’t help each other?

“That’s not the point,” Geto says, taking her by the shoulders and trying to turn her to face him on the bench. 

Shoko resists the motion, doesn’t look at him. “Then what is the point?” she asks.

“I just—” Geto falters for a moment. He lets go of her shoulders, his hands slipping down her arms. “You’re important,” he says. Pauses again, and then adds, “To everyone, but also to me. You’re important to me.” 

“What are you saying?” Shoko whispers. She can barely hear herself over the sound of her heartbeat. It’s impossible to know what her face is doing.

“You don't have to do anything about it. Like—I’m not trying to get you to kiss me again, or whatever.” Geto looks at her for a long moment, expression indecipherable. Finally, he sits back. “I just wanted you to know,” he says, quiet. 

Shoko bunches her hands together in her lap. Fuck. 

“Did you know that my mom died fighting a cursed spirit?” she blurts out.  

“No,” Geto says. “I didn’t.” Shoko flicks her eyes at him. His face is really calm and encouraging in that way she’s seen him get, though never with her before. It's nice. It makes her feel safe. 

“Yeah. I was six,” she says. “It broke her spine. I found the medical records, later.” The wording of it is burnt indelibly into her mind: incomplete fracture of vertebrae T1-T3, complete fracture of C4-C7 with associated severed nerves. Quadriplegia was inevitable. Breathing would have been strongly impacted. Death most likely due to post-injury suffocation.

If there’d been someone around with RCT, maybe she would have survived. If Shoko had manifested her RCT sooner—

She’s not thinking about that.

“Shoko, I’m—” 

“Let me finish,” she interrupts. She’ll never get through this if she lets herself stop now. Geto nods and rubs his hand up and down her back.

“It really fucked up my dad. He knew the risks. Of course he did—he’s a sorcerer too. But still...” She trails off, and has to dig her fingernails into her thighs to keep going. 

There’s no point in telling Geto the rest of it. All of the shit her father put on her isn’t relevant right now; this is the important part. “Sorcerers, strong sorcerers… they all die young. We saw that today. I—” 

Her voice cuts out as Geto takes her hand, pulling it from her lap, and clasps it between his. His palms are warm against her chilled fingertips. 

She wants him. She's known it for a while.

Wanting is okay—she can live with the wanting. 

She could live through the having and the losing of him, too. She'd survive. But the thought of it scares her. Who would she turn into, after?

“Shoko,” Geto says, pulling her gently from her thoughts. His voice is achingly soft. It does things to her stomach, makes her feel all warm and tingly inside in a way she’s never felt before.  “I’m not going to die. Satoru isn’t going to die. We’re the strongest, and we’re only getting stronger. And even if we do screw up and let ourselves get hurt, we have you to save us. Like you did today, and last month, and probably hundreds of times before that.” 

Shoko squeezes his hand in hers, as tight as she can, and then finally turns to look him in the eyes. No more dithering—she’s literally touched Geto’s bloody insides. For him, she can open her heart up a little bit.

“I’m not going to make you promise, because I’m not an idiot,” she says. “But if you’re careless, or stupid, or let Gojo pull you into some bullshit, I’ll invent a new level of RCT just so I can bring you back to life and kill you myself.” 

Geto laughs, low and quiet and the nicest sound in the world, and squeezes back. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll do my best.” 

Maybe she is a fucking idiot, because she believes him. “Good,” she says, and then takes his face in her hands and kisses him.

—

Afterwards, they lay together in Shoko’s bed. It’s comfortable. 

Moonlight slips through the blinds, painting Geto’s face with a stroke of silver. The sight of him, comfortable and safe in her room, fills Shoko with possessive affection. When he turns his head to look back at her, one of the marks she left behind, just beneath his collarbone, becomes visible in the low-level glow from her window. 

Shoko pokes it curiously. It’s warm under her fingertip, blood pooling under the skin, leaking slowly from small blood vessels that she’d ruptured with only the pressure of her mouth. She stops herself from pressing down, from turning it from a love bite into a real bruise. What will it look like tomorrow? In three days? Will it heal easily or will it linger, purple and yellow and evidence of her touch?

She pulls herself away from the thought and sees Geto watching her.

The thought that's been on her mind finally slips out. “What about Gojo?” She can feel Geto tense under her finger; she sees goosebumps break out over his skin.

“What about him?”

Shoko removes her finger and flings her arm over her eyes. “Don’t play dumb, Geto.” 

“I’m in your bed. You should call me Suguru,” he says. The mattress creaks and shifts as he rolls over onto his back.

“Don’t try to change the subject, Suguru,” she responds.

He groans. “What, are you worried about telling him?” 

Shoko removes her arm from her eyes and flops her head over to look at Suguru. This time, he’s the one who avoids her gaze.

“No,” Shoko says. “I’m not worried about telling him. Are you? You told him we kissed.” 

Suguru heaves in a big breath and doesn’t respond.

“Are you going to tell him?” Shoko presses. It doesn't seem like a good idea, though she can't quite pinpoint why she feels that way. 

Suguru shrugs. “Eventually. It's not his business, right?”

That also seems wrong, but it's not the point she’s trying to make right now. She doesn’t often wish she were normal, but right now it seems like it might make it easier for her to find the right words to say. If only conversations worked like a human body: a sensible, clever machine where the sum of its parts work together in seamless harmony to do exactly as she asks of it.

“I see how you look at him.” Shoko tries to make her voice kind, but she’s not sure if she manages it. It’s not really a kind thing to say, though it’s probably necessary.

Suguru’s face crumples, just a little bit, before he catches himself and smooths it back out. It’s impressive how fast he does it, if more than a little sad. 

“He’s straight,” Suguru says. It would sound convincingly impassive if Shoko didn’t know better. “So there’s nothing for you to worry about.” 

“I’m not worried,” Shoko says. She’s not. Then, “Are you sure?” 

Suguru shoots her a flat look. “I’m sure.” 

There’s a story there. If she were a better friend, or a braver person, she’d push. 

She's not. “Alright.” 

They sit in silence for a moment. Suguru shifts, and the sheet slips slightly lower down on his waist, just enough that she can see where it starts to dip in. She was touching him there less than half an hour ago. “Was this your first time?” Shoko asks, suddenly deeply curious. 

This time the look Suguru gives her is amused. He huffs. “No, did you think it was?”

“Not really,” she admits, feeling shy. She pulls the sheets up to her chin, which has the unintended side effect of covering up more of Suguru. “It was mine. You knew that, right?” 

“Yeah,” he tells her. “I knew.” Shoko feels her face heat, even though she figured he’d had to have known. And she knows it doesn’t matter. The first time isn’t any different from any of the other times, minus the possible tearing of the hymen—she hadn’t felt anything like that, so hers must have torn earlier in her life, like many women. It’s not a big deal. 

“Only the penetration,” she clarifies regardless, not sure why she feels like she has to explain. “There were a few people back home, but… I wasn’t really into it.” 

“Yeah, I get that,” Suguru responds. “There was a girl last summer. She was new in town, didn't know me. And then lately there's been a few guys. I went to a gay bar when I had to spend the night in Osaka, remember? It was alright, I guess. I had a good enough time.” He turns and smiles at her, small and soft. “But it was better with you.” 

Shoko knocks her forehead into Suguru’s shoulder. “Yeah, me too.” 

The silence that falls between them this time is comfortable. Shoko turns onto her side so she can sleep, but she reaches out with her toes until they're touching Suguru’s calf under the sheets. The soothing sound of Suguru's breathing and his warm skin on hers slowly pulls Shoko into sleep.

—

[shoko]
don’t be mad

[utahime-senpai]
y
no tell me u didnt
shoko
SHOKO

[shoko]
he said i was really important to him
and that i didn’t have to do anything i didn’t want to
what else was i supposed to do

[utahime-senpai]
at least its not gojo
right???

[shoko]
don’t worry it’s suguru

[utahime-senpai]
ew dont call him that where i can hear

[shoko]
we’re texting you can’t hear anything

[utahime-senpai]
(￢_￢)

[shoko]
<(n_n)>

[utahime-senpai
dont let him fuck with u ok?

[shoko]
i won’t
tho…?

[utahime-senpai]
SHOKO

—

They spend the next two months stealing every moment they can together: quick kisses in the hallways between classes, fumbling encounters in closets, long nights together in bed. 

They don't tell Gojo, and they don't talk about why they don't tell Gojo. 

Every so often Shoko considers telling him and once or twice even thinks he's guessed. Surely his Six Eyes should have caught them by now—they're not particularly good at subtlety. He's definitely noticed something anyways, considering how weird and clingy he's gotten with both of them recently. 

Shoko takes advantage of the clinginess and asks Gojo to take her to his clan library. She still needs those resources for her essay, and is genuinely interested in the topic besides. Plus, regardless of growing up in a sorcerer family, she’s never been to one of the major clan estates. She’s always been curious.

Gojo agrees easily, surprising considering how little he’s talked about his family. She’d figured he had some kind of issue with them like she does with her father. Suguru’s the only one who really brings up his family with any regularity, though it’s mostly vague comments on his childhood rather than any real detail about his parents or hometown. Neither she nor Gojo really know how to relate to growing up amongst non-sorcerers. 

“Do you want to spend the night?” Gojo asks, hanging from the bullet train’s handhold with only two fingers, his legs pulled up and crossed underneath him. He’s using Limitless to help; she can tell from the lack of tension in his bicep and hand. “I can tell the servants to set up a room. The library’s pretty big, so we wouldn’t make it back until really late tonight.” 

She should have expected servants. “Sure,” Shoko says, rearranging her backpack to sit more comfortably in her lap. “I want to spend as much time as I can. Do you know if there are any specific books on RCT?”

Gojo shrugs and starts a text with his free hand. “Dunno. They made me read so much shit about Limitless and Six Eyes when I was a kid that I haven’t been back since.” 

“What was that like?” Shoko asks. It would have been really useful to have any sort of guidance as she was learning how to use RCT. The best she’d been able to do was practice on baby birds that’d fallen from their nests—she gave them a lot of cancer before she figured out how much energy to use—and then later on herself. Or her father, sometimes.

“Eh,” Gojo slides his phone shut and slips it back in his pocket. “It’s useful, yeah, but it blew while I was doing it. I’m more of a practical learner, you know.” He smirks down at her, peering over his sunglasses.

Shoko snorts. “Yeah, I know. That’s how you blew that hole in the wall of the classroom last year, remember?”

“Suguru started it!” Gojo says, dropping to his feet and slumping into the seat across from Shoko. 

“Suguru’s never caused property damage in his life,” Shoko rebuts, then considers. “Unless he was on a mission, maybe. But even then it was probably your fault.”

“Aha!” Gojo shouts, finger shooting up into the air like he’s a detective making some kind of case-breaking deduction. “You called him Suguru!” 

“Yep,” Shoko responds, voice flat. 

Gojo leans forward onto his knees and narrows his eyes at her. “You didn’t call him Suguru before. Only I call him Suguru.” 

“His parents probably call him Suguru,” Shoko remarks, leaning back into her seat and sighing. Should she tell him? Probably not—it seems like Suguru should be the one to do it.

Gojo waves that away. “Don’t try to distract me! Why are you calling him that?”

“He asked,” Shoko responds. It’s not a lie. Why does she still feel guilty?

Apparently that had never occurred to Gojo, because he sits back in his seat looking perplexed. “Then will you call me Satoru?” he asks. 

“Nope,” Shoko says, popping her lips. “I don’t want to.” 

“Eh?! Why not?” 

They bicker good naturedly about it the rest of the train ride to Gojo’s home.

—

The compound is absolutely huge—this close to Tokyo, it’s an obscene use of space. Traditional buildings peek out of the greenery along winding stone pathways. On the way to drop off their things, Shoko and Gojo pass several artistically arranged ponds, each with their own beautiful gazebo or intricately detailed bridge.

They also pass half a dozen or so servants. They’re so beautifully dressed in traditional clothing that Shoko would have assumed they were family members if not for the way they stepped off the path and bowed as Gojo walked by. He pays them very little attention, so Shoko tries to awkwardly nod at each of them. Their heads are so low to the ground that she doubts they notice.

After what seems like at least a mile of walking in circles, they reach what must be the house of the main family. The paper sliding doors are designed with a complex wooden tessellation of stars instead of the typical square lattice, and they slide open in perfect synchronization as she and Gojo approach. 

A tall woman in a blue kimono almost exactly the color of Gojo’s eyes is waiting for them. She stands perfectly straight, and her white hair is up in a formal style. It’s hard to tell how old she is—Shoko can’t tell if the color of her hair is from age or if it’s a genetic trait in the clan. Her eyes are brown. “Satoru,” she says. “Welcome home.” 

Gojo scratches the back of his neck and flicks his eyes over to Shoko. It’s probably the first time she’s ever seen him look visibly uncomfortable. “Obasan,” he says. “This is my classmate, Ieiri Shoko. She’s the reverse cursed technique user I’ve mentioned before. Shoko, this is the Gojo clan head.” 

Shoko raises her eyebrows at Gojo. He’s talked about her before? But she bows politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gojo-sama,” she says.

The woman looks Shoko up and down, her eyes cold and penetrating. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well. Satoru tells me you wish to see our clan library.”

Straight to business, apparently. “Yes. I’m looking for primary records of other RCT users. I’ve exhausted the school’s library.” 

Gojo-sama scoffs. “I’m not surprised.” She turns her attention away from Shoko and back onto Gojo. “Satoru, we expect to see you and your guest at dinner tonight. I’ll see you in my office afterwards.” 

“Yes, obasan,” Satoru replies. 

The woman nods and glides away. A servant slips into view and closes the sliding door behind her.

Shoko lets Gojo guide her to her room before accosting him.

“This is you,” he says, opening the door and gesturing inside. It’s a beautifully appointed guest bedroom, with traditional paintings on the walls and a comfortable looking futon. Shoko pulls Gojo inside by the arm and shuts the door behind them.

“What the hell was that?” she demands. 

“What was what?” Gojo tries, but he must know what she’s talking about. She can’t see through his sunglasses, but she’d bet he’s not making any eye contact behind there.

“Why were you so polite to that woman? You’ve never been polite a day in your life.” 

Gojo shrugs and sticks one hand in his pocket. “She’s the clan head until I get old enough. I sort of have to be polite to her until then, at least. She has a pretty strong form of Limitless, so…” he trails off awkwardly.

“Is the clan head decided by who has the strongest version of your cursed techniques?” Shoko asks, flabbergasted. “That’s kind of stupid.” What about intelligence or political savvy? Or even good old fashioned family nepotism?

“It’s how we’ve done it for hundreds of years,” Gojo says, a little bit of his usual mischief coming back into his voice. “And obviously it's the right way, since I'm next in line!” 

Shoko lets it go. “Whatever,” she says, throwing her bag on the ground next to the futon. “Show me your room, and then you can take me to the library.” 

“Let’s go straight to the library,” Gojo says, leading her out of the room. “My room’s boring anyways. All my shit is at school.” 

Shoko frowns behind his back but lets Gojo get away with the deflection. “Fine.” She’s more interested in the library anyways.

—

The library is absolutely fascinating. Shoko could spend months here without reading everything she wants to, without even touching the ‘family-only’ section. It’s probably mostly books on controlling Limitless and Six Eyes anyways; she doubts she’d find anything useful there..

It takes her a few hours, but by the time a servant comes to collect her for dinner she’s found three different primary accounts of RCT users. One was a Gojo, so it makes sense they’d have his records, but the other two are from other families. One isn’t even Japanese!  It’s exactly what she needed for her report, but more importantly, she hopes it will help her better understand her own technique. She’s already learned some genuinely useful information from skimming the first few pages of the Gojo RCT user’s diary.

“Ieiri-san,” a servant calls quietly, pulling Shoko’s head out of her notebook. “May I escort you to dinner?”

Honestly she’s not very hungry and the research is extraordinarily tempting, but she’s morbidly curious to see more of Gojo around his family, so she follows the servant to the dining room. 

Shoko finds Gojo and several of what must be his family members—they all have the white hair, so that answers her question about genetics—waiting for her, all already seated around the low table. She joins them with a quick bow, sitting in the open seat left for her next to Gojo. Oddly, he isn’t wearing his sunglasses. When he doesn’t give her his usual goofy grin, she nudges him with her elbow. He elbows her back, at least, but then goes stiff. Shoko looks up and notices the clan head frowning at them.

Quiet conversation starts around the table as they eat. The old man next to Gojo starts to give him a lecture on appearances—apparently Gojo’s antics have gotten around—so Shoko sits in silence and enjoys her food. She’ll have to tell Suguru about this later. Not once has Gojo protested, or stuck out his tongue, or started to fidget. It’s bizarre.

The woman sitting across from Shoko, a wizened old lady with wrinkles so thick Shoko can barely see her eyes, gets her attention by poking her plate with her chopsticks. “You the curse manipulator?” she asks bluntly. 

Shoko opens her mouth to clarify, but the woman keeps talking. “The way Satoru talks about you, I knew we’d see you here someday soon. Maybe the next time we see you you’ll be sharing sake, ha!” 

Shoko’s eyebrows shoot upwards. When she glances at Gojo, she sees that the back of his neck has gone bright red, but he’s still respectfully nodding along with the man speaking to him. Apparently she’s going to have to handle this alone.

“I’m sorry, you must have confused me with our classmate,” Shoko says, carefully leaving out the gender of said classmate. “I use reverse cursed technique. My name is Ieiri Shoko.” 

“Ooooh,” the woman says, completely unrepentant. “We’ve heard a lot about you too, young lady! Little Satoru was so excited when he came back from his first year at school, he—”

“Mother .” The clan head cuts off the older woman, tone icy. “Let Satoru’s friend eat in peace.” Notably, she doesn’t try to shush the man that’s currently preventing Gojo from eating in peace.

The old woman waves her chopsticks in the air with a roll of her eyes, but obeys. Shoko likes her already. The rest of the meal passes relatively peacefully, all things considered. 

After dinner, Gojo is summoned to some kind of family meeting. Shoko is sent off, and the same servant that brought her to dinner delivers her back to the library. She’s only a few minutes back into her research when the elderly woman who’d confused her for Suguru hobbles into the library.

“Talk with me for a minute, young lady,” the woman says, arranging herself comfortably at Shoko’s table. 

Shoko nods, shutting her book and giving the woman her full attention. “Yes, obaasan?” 

“I’m glad Satoru brought you,” she says, reaching out and patting Shoko’s hand where it rests on the table. “I’ve worried about him for years. It’s good to see he has a friend like you.”

“Worried? Why?” Shoko asks, a bit confused. In her experience, people don’t worry about Gojo. They worry about the chaos he’ll inevitably cause, sometimes, but never for Gojo himself.

The woman hums. “Oh, this and that. He’s spoiled rotten by me and the servants, of course, but my daughter and some of the rest of the clan can be tough on him. It’s a lot of responsibility to put on a little boy, you know.” 

Shoko nods, thinking she’s beginning to know.

“But it seems like school and you and your curse manipulator friend are helping with that,” the woman says, a quiet smile on her face. “I’m glad.” 

“Me too,” Shoko responds, for a lack of anything better to say.

“Now tell me—what are you working on so seriously?” the woman asks. “I know this library like the back of my eyelids. Can I help you find anything? Hikaru there,” she gestures at the dour librarian furtively, “isn’t much of a reader, if we’re being honest with each other.”

Shoko brightens. “Yes! I’m looking for anything on reverse cursed technique.” 

The woman ends up being a great help, finding her a fourth source from the clan-only section. The librarian tries to protest, but the obaasan overrules him with a wave of her hand. Apparently being the clan leader’s mother comes with a few privileges. The woman pulls a book of her own from the shelves and settles in next to Shoko to read. 

Shoko works late into the night, only surfacing briefly to wish the woman a good night as she leaves. By the time she heads back to the guest room, it’s long past two in the morning.

She stumbles into the room, bleary eyed and exhausted, and then almost screams when she clocks the figure laying in her bed. Did she walk into the wrong room? No—that’s the same painting she saw earlier, and that’s her bag on the floor.

The figure groans and turns its head to look at her. 

“Gojo!” she whispers bitingly. “What the hell are you doing in here?” 

“Quiet,” he whispers. “Head hurts.” His eyes are squeezed tightly shut against even the dim lighting.

Shoko frowns and sits next to him on the bed. “Why weren’t you wearing your sunglasses at dinner? You know going too long without them gives you a headache.” She puts her palm on his forehead. Clammy.

She pulses a little bit of RCT into his forehead and face, concentrating on where the optic nerve connects to the brain, like past experience with this exact issue has taught her. Gojo’s cursed energy reaches out as if to embrace her, which is a new but welcome development. Gojo himself sighs in relief and relaxes under her hand. “Dunno,” he responds. But apparently he does know, because then he adds, a little quieter, “They don’t like ‘em.” 

“They?” Shoko asks, slipping her hand upwards so she can run her fingers through his soft hair.

“Mhm,” Gojo answers, eyes half-lidded. “Y’know, the clan.” 

“Why not?”

“Gotta be the strongest,” he says, soft but matter of fact. 

Wearing sunglasses to avoid debilitating migraines doesn’t have anything to do with being the strongest, but Shoko doesn’t try and argue, not wanting to break the quiet companionship. They sit together for a long time, Shoko petting softly at Gojo’s hair and his knuckles pressed companionably up against the side of her thigh.

Eventually Shoko starts to nod off, so she slips into the attached bathroom to change into her pajamas and do her bathroom routine. When she comes back, she finds Gojo sitting up and looking at her. His eyes seem to glow in the darkness, almost neon bright like the signs in Harajuku.

“You going back to your room?” Shoko asks, edging around to the other side of the futon from Gojo. “You don’t have to,” she adds, encouraging.

He watches carefully as she slips under the blanket. “Nah,” he says finally, laying back down and curling up on his side. “I’m too tired to move.”

“Alright,” Shoko says, warm relief spreading through her body..

They look at each other across the expanse of the bed. 

“What did the clan head want to talk to you about?” Shoko asks finally. She’s been wondering about it, on and off, all night.

“The usual. Don’t fuck up, you represent the clan, if you die it’ll be humiliating, et cetera.” 

Shoko swallows down her immediate reaction, tries to modulate her voice. “You alright?” 

Gojo smiles at her, wide and bright, as if the sheer size of his smile will hide how bloodshot his eyes are, the blank look in them. “I’m always alright,” he says.

Shoko nods slowly, then reaches out and pokes him gently in the forehead. Follows it up with a small burst of RCT, just in case. “Thanks for letting me come,” she says. “It was really helpful.” 

“Any time,” he says. “The Gojo family resources are all yours. Once I’m the clan head, you can come here whenever you want.” 

“Good.” 

“...Thanks for coming,” Gojo says, turning away as he says it. Shoko stares at the back of his head. 

“No problem,” Shoko whispers, affection swelling in her chest.

They fall asleep like that. When Shoko wakes up, Gojo is gone, but she quickly finds him eating breakfast with the obaasan she’d spent so much time with last night. 

They head back to campus in a companionable silence. It lasts exactly as long as it takes for Suguru to show up, but that’s okay. It was nice.

—

A few afternoons later she finds Suguru in the dorm’s kitchen, glaring down at a bowl of broth as if it’s personally offended him. He’s dressed in his uniform, but his hair is down around his shoulders with just a bit of it pulled up into a bun on the back of his head. He’s been keeping it that way more often recently—Shoko likes to think it’s because of her influence. Running her fingers through his hair is one of her new favorite things.

“Taste bad?” Shoko asks wryly, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl and sitting with him at the table. She takes a noisy bite. 

“Nah,” Geto shrugs, then takes a sip of the soup as if to prove his point. “Just can’t get the taste of curse out of my mouth.” 

Shoko watches him struggle through another few spoonfuls before taking pity on him. “What kind of curse was it?” she asks, smiling. Distraction time. Suguru eats more if he can focus on something else instead of the taste. Gojo’s better at it than her, honestly, but he’s off on a mission until tomorrow morning.

“A big rat with a bunch of tails,” Suguru explains. “It can chew through almost anything. I bet it’ll be useful later.” 

Shoko screws up her face dramatically, doing her best to emulate Gojo. “Gross!” 

Incomprehension washes over Suguru’s face. “You touch dead bodies all the time…?”

“That’s not at all the same thing, and you know it. Rats carried the fleas that spread the black plague. They’re literally disease vectors.” Shoko takes another bite out of her apple, watches as Suguru takes a sip of his soup as if he can delay responding. “Did you have to swallow it?”

“It’s kind of an occupational hazard,” Suguru says, pouting at her with an expression she can tell he’s picked up from Gojo. “What do you want me to do about it?” 

“Have you considered being pickier? I kiss that mouth.”

Suguru narrows his eyes at her and takes another sip of his soup. “It’s my mouth.” 

Another bite of the apple. Another spoonful of soup. Neither Shoko or Suguru blinks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shoko says eventually, rolling her eyes and breaking the staring contest. 

“Let’s see how you like it,” Suguru says, the side of his mouth quirked in a way that foretells foolish behavior.

“Huh?” 

It’s impressive how fast Suguru can move when he wants to. He stands and slips around the table until he’s looming over Shoko, one hand on the back of her chair. His hair hangs in a thick curtain of black, hiding the rest of the room from view. It feels like they’re in their own little world.

Suguru plucks the apple core from Shoko’s fingers and puts it on the table, then rests his palm on the side of her face. It’s big and warm against her skin. Shoko leans into the pressure with a contented sigh—she wishes she could press even harder, feel his pulse beating against her skin—and Suguru kisses her.

Kissing Suguru has quickly become one of Shoko’s favorite pastimes. The boys (and one girl) back home were awful in comparison, all tongue and spit. They treated kissing like it was just a tedious prerequisite to getting their hand up her shirt or down her pants. Suguru kisses like it’s the most important task in the world, like it is the goal. His whole body gets involved when they kiss: he touches her hair, pulls her close to his chest, hooks their ankles together under the covers. 

This time his thumb rubs back and forth along her cheekbone as they kiss, lips coming together and separating with small noises each time. Shoko pulls him down into her by the back of his neck, asking for a deeper kiss. Suguru tastes like soup and the gum he probably chewed earlier and his mouth is hot and wet and inviting. She can never taste the curses—it’s probably not a real taste anyways, more a psychosomatic manifestation of his body forcing itself to absorb so much cursed energy. Shoko shivers as he licks inside her mouth, runs his tongue along her teeth and gently touches her hard palate. In revenge, she scratches gently at the nape of his neck the way she knows he likes best. 

“What the hell?” 

Suguru jerks away from Shoko abruptly, their lips parting noisily.

Gojo stands in the doorway, duffel slung over his shoulder, dirty and bruised. As she watches, his expression shifts from shock to hurt, then to anger. “What the actual fuck, guys?” he asks, half shouting. 

“Satoru…” Suguru says, taking a step towards him. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.” From the way Gojo flinches, Shoko can tell that wasn’t the right thing to say, but she has no clue what the right move actually is. Regret twinges in her chest. They should have told him instead of letting him figure it out like this. She should have told him while they were at his clan compound.

“Well, I came home early! To hang out with my friends!” Gojo spits. “Were you ever planning on telling me?” 

“I kind of thought you already knew,” Shoko tries. “Suguru told you we kissed…”

“Yeah, and then you told me it didn’t mean anything,” Gojo snaps back. Shoko wishes she could see his eyes over his glasses. 

Suguru glances back at Shoko as if to ask what to say. She shrugs at him. Over Suguru’s shoulder, she sees as Gojo clocks the interaction. His face goes completely flat.

“Never mind,” Gojo says, quiet and calm like she’s never heard from him before, even when talking to his clan head. “You two are clearly in the middle of something. I’ll leave you to it.” He almost sounds polite—it’s spooky as hell, especially directed at them.

“Satoru, wait—” Suguru tries, but Gojo is already turning to go. Shoko and Suguru watch in silence as he leaves. A few seconds later, they hear the sound of a door slamming shut.

“That didn’t go very well,” Shoko says mildly.

Suguru whirls on her, face wild. “You think?” He slams his hand on the table. The loud sound makes Shoko jump a little. “Damn it!” 

“Are you—”

“I’m going after him,” Suguru announces, and then stalks out of the room without another look at Shoko.

Shoko stands and leaves in the other direction, heading for her usual courtyard. She needs a cigarette.

—

Regardless of their respective emotional states, the next day comes. They go to class, where Gojo very successfully gives both Suguru and Shoko the silent treatment. Suguru is sort of giving Shoko the silent treatment too, but it’s mostly because he spends all day staring plaintively at Gojo. Apparently their ‘talk’ didn’t work out.

Yaga-sensei is obviously perplexed by the atmosphere, but he seems to take it as a win when the strange silence lets him get through more curriculum in a day than he’s ever managed before.

In the meantime, Shoko goes through half a pack of cigarettes: one per bathroom break. They help her think. 

After class ends, Gojo goes straight to his room and locks himself in. Suguru seems to be hyping himself up to go and knock on Gojo’s door, but Shoko catches him by the arm before he can try it.

“Let me talk to him,” she tells him. “I won’t get into a fight with him like you will.” 

Apparently logic isn’t enough to convince Suguru. When he goes to protest, Shoko smacks him on the arm. “Whatever you said before didn’t work. I’ve got this.” 

“Fucking—fine,” Suguru says, then sighs. “But be nice to him, okay? I think he’s actually messed up about this.” 

“Who do you think I am?” Shoko asks over her shoulder.

In response, Suguru barks out a laugh. Rude.

Shoko steels herself, then knocks gently on Gojo’s door. When he doesn’t answer, she tries again. “It’s me,” she says. “Suguru isn’t here.”

“I don’t want to talk to either of you,” Gojo says, voice muffled slightly as it comes through the door. Shoko thinks she can still tell that he sounds sad. 

“Too bad,” she says. “Let me in.”

“Go away.” 

Shoko knocks on the door again. “Let me in.” 

“I said fuck off !” Gojo shouts.

Shoko snorts. When has Gojo ever listened to someone telling him to fuck off? “I’m not leaving until you open the door.” 

It takes another two minutes of incessant knocking before Gojo finally gives in. The door swings inward and hits the wall with a slam.

“What the hell, Shoko?” Gojo asks, one hand up on the doorframe and glaring down at Shoko over his glasses. He looks like shit: his face and eyes are red and he’s wearing the rattiest sweats she’s ever seen on him. The sweater he’s wearing looks like Suguru’s—she doubts Gojo’s even heard of the band plastered across the front of it.

“Think of it as a taste of your own medicine,” she says with a shrug, then slips under Gojo’s arm and into his room.

“I could throw you out, you know,” Gojo says. But his usual pouty voice is back, so Shoko doesn’t pay him much attention. She throws herself on his unmade bed and pets the spot next to her.

Gojo shoots her a disgusted look but sits down next to her. “What do you want?” 

“Why are you so mad?” she asks, bulldozing straight into the issue. “You don’t like me, and I know you don’t like Suguru. You’re not gay.”

“I knew something was up when you started calling him Suguru,” Gojo mutters. He leans back onto his arms and glares up at his ceiling. “How was I supposed to react? My two best friends get together and don’t even bother to tell me. It’s messed up. You should trust me with that shit!”

Shoko considers that angle. “We trust you,” she says. It’s true.

“Sure you do,” Gojo bites back sarcastically.

“We do!” she insists. “Come on, you have to know that.” 

He cuts his eyes over to her. “Yeah, you trust me enough to let me kill cursed spirits for you, sure. Everyone and their mom trusts me enough for that.”

“That’s not it,” Shoko says, certain it’s true but not sure how to make him believe her.

“Then tell me the truth. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

She wishes she had a cigarette. Actually— “Can I smoke in here? I’ll open a window.” 

“No! You know I hate how it smells,” Gojo snaps. “Answer me.” 

“We… I… We didn’t want to hurt your feelings?” It feels true, at least. 

“Huh. Well, you didn’t,” Gojo says, crossing his arms. It’s so obviously a lie that Shoko ignores it.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Shoko tries. “It’s not like we really talked about it.” Shit, except they had, hadn’t they? That first night. “Except once, I guess.” 

“And in that one conversation you decided I wasn’t important enough to tell? How long has this been going on, anyways?” Gojo asks. He sounds angry.

“Uh—” Shoko thinks for a second. “Since that time you and Nanami went out on a mission together?” 

Gojo glares at her, two spots of red high on his cheeks. “That was months ago.” 

Shoko reaches out to touch Gojo’s hand, trying to stop this from spiraling. She runs straight into Limitless. Damn it.

“Get out,” Gojo says lowly. Then, louder, “Get the hell out, Shoko!” Limitless starts to push at her back, forcing her to stumble to her feet and off of the bed.

Shoko goes.

When Suguru accosts her in the hallway, all she can do is shrug. “I tried,” she says, and goes to smoke a cigarette. She leaves Suguru knocking on Gojo’s door plaintively. 

—

[shoko]
i need your advice
help me, senpai 

[utahime-senpai]
ofc!
whats up?

[shoko]
what would you do if you accidentally hurt one of your friends feelings

[utahime-senpai]
uhhh apologize, probably
whos feelings

[shoko]
i'm not gonna say
you’ll be pissed

[utahime-senpai]
lol ok so its gojo

[shoko]
ya

[utahime-senpai]
i didnt no gojo had feelings to hurt
ask him you crying

[shoko]
i’m serious, i screwed up
i never told him about suguru and me and suguru didn’t either

[utahime-senpai]
hasnt that been a thing for like months?
shoko…
arent he and geto like bffs too? 

[shoko]
yeah

[utahime-senpai]
damn
well like i said probably apologize and promise not to do it again
idk how youd do it again but you get the idea
bring him a gift too i guess 

[shoko]
but i still don’t get why he’s so mad

[utahime-senpai]
for whatever weird reason ur his friend right?
id be pissed too if my friend kept something that big from me for so long
my two best friends especially
you literally told me before him

[shoko]
yeah you’re right
it seems like more than that, but he’s always dramatic so

[utahime-senpai]
its probably his huge crush on geto, duh
not only did u steal his man u did it without him knowing

[shoko]
suguru says gojo’s straight though

[utahime-senpai]
he sure?

[shoko]
┐(・～・)┌

[utahime-senpai]
maybe he has a crush on u instead idk
good luck
u need it
(ｏ・_・)ノ”(ノ_<、)

[shoko]
thanks

—

Shoko waits a few hours to try again, passing the time distracting Suguru and thinking carefully about what she’s planning to say. This time, she comes prepared with a bag of candy she snagged from Suguru’s weird ‘Gojo treat drawer’. 

“Gojo? You in there?” she asks, knocking gently on the door.

Nothing. When she tries the door, it’s unlocked. She peers inside and finds an empty room. The window’s open, though. Shoko sighs and goes to ask Suguru for a favor.

It takes another half an hour, but she finds Gojo sitting on the roof of the classroom building, leaning back on his hands and staring up at the sky. She rides Suguru’s manta ray down to him. She can tell he notices her. It’s probably a good sign that he doesn’t leave immediately, but he doesn’t look at her either.

She clambers awkwardly off the back of the cursed spirit and sits next to Gojo. Offers him the open bag of candy without speaking. The manta ray watches with judgemental eyes for a moment before dissolving into the inky aether of Suguru’s technique.

He takes one, unwraps it, and pops it into his mouth. Crunches down on it loudly. 

“I’m sorry,” Shoko says. “I’m really sorry. I should’ve told you.” She doesn’t try to speak for Suguru this time—he and Gojo probably need to work out their shit in their own way.

Gojo inclines his head. She gives him another piece of candy. 

“I do trust you,” she goes on. “It really was because I didn’t want to hurt you. I know that’s dumb, but…” She shrugs. “Even I can be dumb sometimes.” 

“It was dumb,” Gojo says. But he doesn’t sound so angry anymore, and the iron bands around Shoko’s chest loosen slightly. 

“Is something else going on, though?” Shoko asks, probing a little bit. “I guess I didn’t think you’d care that much. You’re not normally so emotional.” 

Gojo clicks his tongue. Doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “I don’t. Not like you,” he admits finally, still staring at the sky.

“Really?” Shoko’s brows shoot up. She had no idea. That changes her calculus a little bit—she was sure he was upset over Suguru.

“Why do you think I wanted to make out with you?” 

Shoko blinks in bewilderment. “For fun? Or because you’re an asshole.” 

Gojo snickers. It’s heartening to hear. “It was fun, but not because I didn’t mean it. And then you came home with me… You don’t know how much I had to hear from obaasan about you after, ah, it sucked.”

“Well, I am impressive,” Shoko says, tilting her head and smiling softly at Gojo. “I liked her too.” 

“You and Suguru are the first people—” Gojo stops, takes a deep breath. “Whatever. I like you, okay. You’re pretty and funny and mean as hell to me. It’s hot.”

Shoko doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t know what to say,” she says. 

Gojo snorts and knocks his shoulder into hers. “Then don’t say shit. I know you’re with Suguru now, so…” 

They sit in silence for a few moments while Shoko readjusts to this new reality. Gojo, for his part, is visibly working himself up to say something else. Shoko has a theory about what it’s going to be.

“I’m also not not gay,” he manages to spit out eventually, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he says it.

She knew it. “I figured,” Shoko says, patting him on the arm. Limitless lets her in, and the iron bands relax further.

“What?” Gojo finally looks at her, face open and shocked. “Why?”

Shoko shrugs. Just all the evidence. And someone else at this school is ‘pretty, funny, and mean as hell to Gojo’.

“Did Suguru tell you?” His voice comes out high and fast, his eyes flickering from side to side. 

“Tell me what?” She thinks for a moment. “Something happened, huh?” 

“He kissed me,” Gojo admits. “Last year.” 

“Then why aren’t you together?” Shoko asks. It seems like a straightforward solution to her.

Gojo looks away from her and back to the sky. In the moonlight, she can make out his abashed expression. Shoko considers what she knows about Gojo.

“You freaked the fuck out and ran away after,” Shoko concludes.

“Hey! It wasn’t like that!” 

“Oh? Then what was it like?" 

Gojo narrows his eyes at her and doesn’t respond.

“I bet you even told him you were straight,” Shoko prods. 

“Fuck you,” Gojo says without heat, then flops onto the roof on his back. 

Shoko cackles at him—thank god, this is more normal for them—then throws him a bone. “It’s alright, I freaked when we kissed too. Threw him out of the infirmary straight away. That’s why I told you it didn’t mean anything—it really didn’t, then.” 

Gojo chuckles under his breath. “So we both ran away like a little bitch.”

“Guess we’ve got that in common,” Shoko responds, lying back on the roof too, letting her arm brushing up against Gojo’s. The sky above them is dark and velvety, and the long droning of cicadas fills her ears. 

A realization washes over Shoko, starting from the tips of her toes and crashing upwards until she’s drowning in it. Drowning in sticky sweet affection for the boy next to her.

“Hey,” Gojo says. “Will you call me Satoru now?” She thinks she can hear a hint of tension in his voice. 

Shoko rolls over and wraps her arms around his middle, squeezing tight enough that he lets out a small grunt in protest. Gojo looks down at her, face warm and open, and Shoko smiles. “Sure, Satoru.” 

They stay there for a long time, watching the night sky in comfortable silence. 

Inevitably, the chilly evening air starts to nip at Shoko’s extremities, and she nudges Satoru. “Carry me down, huh? Suguru’s spirit abandoned me.” 

She’d planned on riding on Satoru’s back, but before she can start to climb on he snatches her under the legs and picks her up bridal style. She thumps her fist into his chest in protest, but internally she’s glowing. His arms are sturdy around her, and when he steps off the roof, she feels no fear.

Satoru leaves Shoko at the door to her room, but she grabs his wrist before he can walk away. “Figure things out with Suguru,” she tells him. “He’s really upset.” 

Satoru smiles, and this time it’s not wide and forced. He’s never looked prettier. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “We always do.” 

It takes a few days, one loud argument, a mission together, and a hushed conversation that Shoko desperately wishes she could eavesdrop on, but…

They do.

—

A plan has been forming in Shoko’s mind over the last few weeks. A good plan. There’s a six pack of beer in her mini-fridge, and a few two liters of shochu under the bed. That’s probably enough, right?

“Why would I?” Satoru asks, leaning on the frame of his door with his arms crossed and a hip cocked. 

“Just come,” Shoko demands. “Tonight, in my room. And put on something nicer than that.” She gestures to his plain white t-shirt and basketball shorts. “Suguru will be there too,” she adds.

Satoru squints his eyes and puts his hands on his hips, leans forwards until their faces are only a few inches apart. Shoko stays very still and keeps her expression placid.

“Fine!” he shouts, tossing his hands up in the air. “But it’d better be fun, or I’m leaving.” 

Shoko smirks and pushes him backwards into his room, thrills a little bit at the way he moves easily under her hand. Then she shuts the door in his face.

Suguru’s apparently been lying in wait like a freak. Shoko isn’t sure what Satoru’s told him, but it must have been something along the lines of what he told her, since Suguru’s been acting weirdly clingy. Especially if she and Satoru spend time together alone.

He tries to corner her in the hall, but she brushes past him. “Come to my room in an hour,” she tells him, walking briskly to her room and opening the door. “Satoru’s coming too. Do whatever you need to do to get ready.” 

“Get ready? For what?” Suguru asks suspiciously, following her into her bedroom. “What’s going on?”

Shoko smiles at him, and he furrows his brow at her in response. “Go paint your nails and put on something other than your uniform,” she says, considering. “You should wear that white shirt you got dashi on the other day. Is it clean?”

“Yes…” Suguru says. “Why?” Shoko gets down on her hands and knees and pulls out one of the bottles of shochu from under the bed, then waves it at him.

“Good. Wear it with your black zip-up.”

Shoko ushers Suguru out of her room, not bothering to answer any more of his questions. He’ll figure it out soon enough.

In the meantime, she sends Utahime-senpai a preemptive apology text and changes into one of her shorter dresses. This is definitely the best idea she’s ever had.

—

Suguru glares at Shoko over the beer bottle laying flat on the floor of her room. “Seriously?” 

Shoko smiles smugly back at him. “Why not? I’ve watched so many American movies, and they all agree: truth or dare is the best.” She’s exaggerating a little bit, but it’s not like Suguru ever watches anything other than shounen anime and documentaries.

Satoru is quiet for once, sitting back with one arm resting on his raised knee. He looks good; he listened to her and changed. She didn’t even know he owned any streetwear.

“If you don’t want to answer or do your dare, you have to drink,” Shoko explains, taking a big gulp of her beer to demonstrate.

Suguru takes a sip from his own beer and rolls his eyes. “Alright, whatever. Satoru?” He looks good too; his shirt is form fitting under his hoodie and his nails are freshly painted. Shoko kind of wants to bite him.

Satoru narrows his eyes at Suguru, but nods. “I’m in. Bitch.”

“You’re the bitch, bitch,” he grumbles back.

Progress. Good. Shoko takes a deep breath to calm her nerves. When that doesn’t work very well, she gulps at her beer. Maybe if she drinks enough, her nerves will go away altogether.

Without any more preamble, Shoko reaches in the middle and spins the bottle. It seems like it spins forever: so long that she starts to suspect that Satoru is manipulating it with Limitless. But finally it slows, and slows… and stops. It’s pointing at Suguru.

“Truth or dare?” she asks him.

“Dare,” Suguru says, unsurprisingly.

She knows exactly what dare she wants to give him. “Take your hair down.” 

“What?” Suguru asks. “Eh?! That’s lame!” Satoru protests at the same time. 

“Do it or drink,” Shoko tells Suguru, shrugging. “But you look good with your hair down. Doesn’t it look good like that, Satoru?” She stretches his name out in her mouth like taffy, the way she’s heard Suguru do so many times before, and leans over so she can press her shoulder to his firm arm.

Satoru glares at her, but when he turns to look at Suguru his face morphs into a sort of kicked puppy expression. It kind of works for him, if she’s being honest. “Yeah, it looks good,” he mutters. “You should wear it like that more often.”

Suguru’s eyebrows shoot up, and Shoko can see the gears turning behind his eyes as he lets his hair out of its usual bun. It falls around his shoulders, shiny and straight except for a small kink in the middle from the hair elastic. It does look good. She wants to pet it—oh, that’s an idea. She reaches out—has to lean on the floor to get close enough—and runs her fingers through it, savoring the silky feeling. She raises her eyebrows at Satoru, goading. He narrows his eyes back at her and Shoko sits back on her butt in satisfaction.

Suguru scratches the back of his head, but just spins the bottle. It lands on Shoko, which is annoying. Maybe Satoru is manipulating it. Shoko flicks his knee just in case. “Ow!” Satoru complains. She and Suguru ignore him.

“Truth or dare?"

“Truth,” she says, easy.

Suguru thinks, looking very serious for a moment, and then asks, “What’re we doing here?” Ah, he’s such a spoilsport sometimes.

Shoko laughs and drinks. “Not telling.” She winks at Satoru, just to tease.

This time the bottle lands on Satoru. 

“Dare,” he demands.

Boys. “I dare you to leave off your glasses for the rest of tonight,” Shoko says. Satoru pouts but acquiesces, putting his sunglasses on her nightstand. She’ll never tell him so, but Shoko loves his eyes. Who wouldn’t? Though, maybe, after tonight…

She catches Suguru peeking at them too, and has to hold in a laugh.

Satoru spins the bottle. It stops on Suguru. 

“Truth or dare?” Satoru finally asks, drawing it out.

Suguru snorts. “Dare, obviously.” 

This is going to either be very entertaining or very stupid. Satoru taps his chin with his finger, pretending to be thinking very hard. 

“Get out your freaky kissing curse and kiss it back like it’s always asking for!” Satoru says, pointing at Suguru dramatically. “Each mouth, or you’re a little bitch.”

“Gross,” Shoko says. Stupid it is. “Really? Other people might want to kiss Suguru later, you know.” She tries to give Satoru a pointed look, but he misses it because he’s staring so intently at Suguru.

“No way, man,” Suguru says, laughing awkwardly over Shoko’s comment about kissing. “That thing eats your cursed energy when it kisses you, and I need all of mine to keep up with you.” He puts his beer to his mouth a little too quickly, as if to stop himself from saying anything else, and drinks.

“Boo,” Satoru complains. “You’re strong! You’ve got lots of cursed energy, you’d be fine.”

Good thing Suguru isn’t a complete idiot. Instead of responding, he spins the bottle again, and it lands back on Shoko. “Truth or dare?” 

“Truth,” Shoko says mildly, curious what he’ll come up with this time. 

“Why did you tell me to wear this shirt?” he asks, plucking at his collar.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shoko asks, tilting her head to the side a little bit. “Satoru, why do you think I told him to wear it?” 

“Hey, that’s not—” Suguru starts.

Satoru cuts him off. “It’s too small.” 

Shoko nods in agreement. “See, he gets it!” 

“I do not,” Satoru mutters under his breath. Shoko leans and pats him on the head for a moment. He takes a sip of his beer and grimaces, sticks his tongue out. “This is disgusting, blech.” 

Suguru and Shoko dissolve into helpless laughter. Whenever one of them manages to stop, the other just has to make Satoru’s disgusted face and it sets them off again. Satoru watches for a little while, pouting, before he joins in on the laughter.

Finally, they all control themselves. Time to move things along!

“My turn!” Shoko says brightly, clapping her hands together and then chugging the rest of her beer. It goes down easily, the fizz a nice burn on the back of her throat. Both boys stare at her: Suguru in fascination and Satoru in a kind of exaggerated horror. 

When she’s done, Shoko pulls the beer bottle from her lips with an exaggerated smack. Then she puts it on the ground and points it at Satoru. The other, she turns to point at Suguru.

“I’m going to give you both a dare, since you’re both too scared to pick truth.” 

“Hey—” 

“That’s not—”

She drowns out their immediate protests by talking over them. “You both have to come and sit next to me for the dare,” she says, patting the ground on either side of her. Satoru stares at Suguru for a long moment, then says, “Bet I’ll do it and you won’t.”

Suguru scowls at Satoru. “Oh yeah?!” 

Satoru crawls over at lightning speed and sits his ass right on top of Shoko’s hand. Shoko pulls it free with a fake frown and nudges his shoulder aggressively with hers. Suguru, on the other hand, takes his time coming over, face twisted up suspiciously. Shoko just smiles back at him until he gives in and sits down next to her too. It’s all nice and cozy, surrounded on both sides by the warm bodies of her two favorite people in the world. 

“What’s the dare?” Suguru asks, basically right into her ear. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

The moment of truth. Her chest fizzes with nerves, adrenaline pumping hot from her heart into her arteries, her veins, until it has nowhere else to go but out. Shoko breathes in deep, fills her lungs to capacity, then takes both hands and points at her own cheeks. Squeezes her eyes shut tight, so she doesn’t have to see. 

“Dare you.” 

Suguru gets it right away, his lips touching her cheek gently, almost polite. There’s a moment when Shoko starts to panic: she read this all wrong, she fucked up, Satoru’s going to hate her—but then she feels Satoru’s lips on her other cheek.

Liquid heat fills Shoko’s core. She reaches up and takes both Suguru and Satoru by the back of the neck, and—

Turns her face into Satoru’s and kisses him. He jerks under her hand—she’s pretty sure he knocks his beer over onto her rug, the asshole—so she gentles him, rubbing her thumb up and down over the nape of his neck and tilting her head to get a better angle on his mouth. She keeps her other hand on Suguru to make sure he knows he’s not meant to go anywhere.

Satoru is charmingly eager and biddable, letting her take control of the kiss. She shifts her hand to his jaw and takes hold of it to slow him down, licking inside and biting at his lower lip until he makes a small noise into her mouth. Shoko pulls back, leaving him with a final little peck, then turns her head and kisses Suguru.

He dives into the kiss, mouth wet and soft as he toys with the hem of her dress where it sits on her upper thigh. He tastes like the shitty beer they’ve been drinking. Behind her, she can feel Satoru touching the small of her back gently. Shoko hums appreciatively and shifts into both points of contact, shivering at the feeling and at the building pleasure.

She turns back to Satoru, pulling Suguru into her neck as she goes. He sucks at the spot right under her ear that he knows she likes, so she scratches at the back of his head in appreciation even as she dives back into Satoru’s plush mouth. She grins into the kiss and cups Satoru’s cheek in her palm, sliding her thumb gently beneath his eye. It’s a little unfair that Satoru wasn’t lying and is actually a good kisser, but whatever. At least she gets to reap the benefits. And hopefully, soon—

Shoko pulls her lips free of Satoru’s. “Yeah,” she mutters to him as he chases after her mouth, and she indulges him for a moment with another kiss before separating again. She pulls his face into her neck too, and then tilts her head back to just enjoy the sensation. And the goddamn power rush of having the special-grade sorcerers Geto Suguru and Gojo Satoru underneath her thumb. Doing exactly what she tells them to do.

Satoru’s mouth on her neck is different from Suguru’s. He’s a little nicer to her, more likely to nibble than bite. The contrast of pleasure and pain is so good. Suguru’s kneading at her upper thigh; she wants to move his hand higher but it’s not time for that yet.

“C’mere,” Shoko mumbles, pulling Suguru by his hair so he’s kissing along the line of her jaw up to her chin. At the same time she pushes Satoru’s face up from her neck to her cheek. Slowly, slowly, she moves them how she wants them, and then she’s pulling her head back and away and—yes.

Both Satoru and Suguru make an adorable little surprised noise when their mouths meet, but they don’t pull away from one another. Shoko encourages the kiss, pressing them gently into one another until Suguru moans a little bit and takes over, opening his mouth into Satoru’s and probing at his lips with his tongue.

It’s fucking hot. Shoko feels like she's on fire; she can’t help but lean in and kiss Satoru’s jaw, feeling it shifting under her lips as he kisses Suguru. Suguru’s grip on her thigh has turned almost painful, and Shoko pets at the top of his hand with her fingertips until he notices and loosens up. 

Suguru stops kissing Satoru so that he can kiss Shoko, and Satoru slips his fingers under her dress so he can squeeze her ass, and Shoko scratches and pets at both of their chests until they peel off their shirts, and they kiss and touch and grab and—

They end up in bed together, Satoru sandwiched between Shoko and Suguru, all of them down to their underwear and panting for it.

They’re all sitting up, Satoru between Suguru’s spread legs, pressed back against him, and Shoko kneeling in front of both of them. She traces her hand over Satoru and enjoys the way it makes him squirm, the cascading reaction from Suguru behind him. 

Shoko pulls Satoru’s face in for another kiss and climbs on top of him, grinds up and down against him, her panties soaked through, his boxers a little bit damp right at the tip of him.

Shoko leaves her mark on both of them, relishing in the way they moan and tense under the grip of her teeth. Satoru pants wildly, hands roaming, overstimulated and gorgeous. And Suguru works his hand between the two of them, groans at the hot slick feel of them on his fingers, and comes in his briefs, grinding up against Satoru’s ass. Shoko comes next, a wet messy type of thing, grinding down and chasing her pleasure wildly as she bites Suguru’s lip, head hooked over Satoru’s shoulder.

And then, finally, she and Suguru work in tandem, hands and mouths and bodies all set to the task of seeing the great Gojo Satoru fall apart underneath them. And he does.

They wash up together, quiet but satiated, and then fall back into Shoko’s bed together.

The next morning Satoru and Shoko wake up before Suguru, but they get so lost in kissing over top of him that they end up waking him up anyways, and then they’re all kissing and giggling at each other. They use their mouths on each other, exploring what makes Satoru squirm. Satoru joyfully explores his way around Shoko and Suguru’s bodies, his bright eyes taking in every moment.

They’re late for class, but it doesn’t matter. The only one who seems disappointed by the change in atmosphere is Yaga-sensei, who mournfully tells them that he misses the silent and “respectful” attitude of before. 

A few days later, Suguru has to spend the night away on a mission, so Shoko spends the evening getting destroyed by Satoru at video games. Later that night, she takes her revenge on him in the bedroom. Other days Shoko needs her alone time to study or relax or watch one of her shows, and Suguru and Satoru hang out just the two of them. Pretty soon it becomes the new normal, and most evenings find all three of them on the couch together, heads in laps. Shoko’s favorite position is Satoru on the couch, her on the floor between his legs, and then Suguru on the floor in front of her. That way Satoru can play with her hair while she practices all sorts of new braids and hairstyles on Suguru. He’s growing it out even longer now. 

Nights usually end with all three of them tangled in one bed or another, but they still have nights where they don’t hook up. They’re still them. Satoru and Suguru get into stupid arguments over morals or Digimon and they go into Tokyo and buy Satoru the newest disgusting sweets and Shoko and Suguru do their homework together while Satoru stays outside, training late into the night trying to finally make Red work for him. 

And when they do hook up—wow. Shoko didn’t know sex could feel this good. It was good with Suguru, of course it was, but it’s even better now that Satoru’s involved. He’s sensitive to touch in a way that neither Shoko nor Suguru are, and watching him and Suguru together is like watching porn that was made just for Shoko. It’s insane. They try a ton of new things together too, some that work and some that don’t. Spanking, yes. Ropes, no. Leaving bite marks all over and not healing them until he begs for it? Hard yes. Anal? Only if Suguru or Satoru is taking it. Deepthroating? Suguru’s the only one who can manage it, though Satoru is terrific at holding his breath while Shoko rides his face. 

It’s the best few months of Shoko’s life. Her heart—the one her father denies ever existed, the one she never thought would thaw again—goes warm and sweet like a piece of Satoru's candy, left on the windowsill on a sunny day. Like three pieces of candy, melting together, all the bright colors running and swirling together to make a kaleidoscope of love and trust and joy. 

It’s not until later that she realizes it’s less like candy and more like stained glass—brittle, easy to shatter under impact. But that summer, the best of her life, still lives in her heart, a perfect shining moment.

She knows it’s in Satoru too, somewhere. 

And Suguru—well, she doesn’t know. But she bets she can find out.