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What he can’t handle is her smile.
She never smiles at him like that. The kind of smile you’d offer to a stranger if they asked for your help. The kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. The kind that Gojo can see right through.
He wants to shout at her.
Say something.
Say anything.
Please.
But she only nods politely at the conversation, pretending to listen intently.
Gojo watches as the ping pong conversation continues between them, the words flow out of him without a thought, like he’s having an out of body experience. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, only listening to every inflection in her answers. Asking him courteous questions back, the small backchannels she inserts to let him know that she’s listening, the short release of breath to indicate amusement without a hearty laugh.
There’s no one else in the room. Only her at her neatly organised desk, her laptop open in front of her and the package Gojo came to deliver in her lap. She doesn’t have to put up this act for anyone, especially for him. He wants her to ignore him, to look the other way whenever he walks by, to spit in his face and tell him to go to hell. Anything to indicate she feels any sort of hatred towards him at all.
“That sounds nice.” She doesn’t try to continue the conversation, instead she puts away the package and her laptop back into a drawer. Replacing them with what looks like a pile of schoolwork that she wants to read over. “Sorry I just really need to get to these.”
She points at the papers with an apologetic expression. He tells her to do whatever she has to do and not to mind his presence.
There’s silence for a moment, as Gojo just watches Utahime do what she does. As if he isn’t there standing in the doorway, just staring at her like a stalker would. He wants to say something, but nothing seems to make sense at the moment. The jokes don’t come to him like they usually do.
He shuffles from one foot to the other for a moment, before deciding that he’ll play his final ace.
“I got this for you.”
Gojo holds out the paper bag that’s been hanging on his arm. It’s only snacks from the last place he went to for a mission. Something about it made him think of her. He places it on the top of her desk, to avoid any skin to skin contact. He doesn’t want her getting the wrong idea, he didn’t come here to win her back or to ask for forgiveness. Or maybe he did, but he’s just not letting himself admit it.
The snacks are sweet. The traditional kind, filled with smooth bean paste and a sweet outer bun. He is unsure what about it made him think of her. Or maybe he just always thinks of her and wanted an excuse to see her.
“Ah.” She accepts them, but her facade drops for a second. He sees something, it’s not disappointment or anger, it’s something he can’t pinpoint. Like she couldn’t hold something in any longer. But in mere seconds the smile is back plastered on her lips. “Thank you, Gojo.”
If he was anyone else, they wouldn’t think twice about her expression. Just polite enough. Just enough to tell him that she is surprised by it but also thankful for the souvenir.
He wonders how she can even act like this. Like he hadn’t broken her heart just five months ago. He’d ripped it out of her chest and left it to flail at her feet.
It was brutal, he would admit himself. But if he wasn’t, he probably wouldn’t be able to walk out of her apartment that night. He would’ve told her that it was all a joke and that he didn’t mean any of it. Just a prank he wanted to try, and he’d soothe the pain in her chest with a few thousand kisses.
That’s what he wanted to do.
That’s what his mind wants him to think happened.
Maybe if he hadn’t done it they’d be in her apartment right now, sharing tender kisses in the warmth of her bed. He’d outline her jaw with his tongue and drag it across her body, just the way she likes it. She’d hold him throughout the night and let him rest his head between her chest. Her heart would be the white noise to lull him to sleep.
He wishes for a time where he wouldn’t be plagued by the thoughts of that day.
He has to do it.
No matter how strong he was as a sorcerer, he wasn’t much when it came to dealing with emotions. Using his child-like demeanour to push thoughts out of his brain.
But this one is unavoidable.
They were holding her back on purpose. Not letting her get promoted and earn more money. Not allowing her to gain a higher status that could potentially help her grow in her career. He could kill them. He’s thought of it. Killing the heads until a replacement comes that will allow her to become a grade 1 sorcerer. But that won’t fix anything, just adding more fuel into the bloodstream of corruption. And as much as he loves Utahime, he still has a dream to change the way things are handled in their world.
Utahime claims that she doesn’t need the money or the title, that she’s living enough for herself to not care about it. But he can see it in her eyes, the need to show herself worthy. Whenever she’s around others, he can see the way she slightly reacts at the notion of fighting curses. It’s in their line of work and yet, her lack of qualifications has made her feel slightly inferior to those around her. Though nothing she’s too concerned about, it’s a thought that sticks around longer than she would like.
But they’re using her to get to him. They know he’ll break down at the hand of the elders eventually. And though it has yet to come to that point, Gojo watches as they start to move her around like a pawn. Hopeful that the six eyes will bend for them if his partner is put in dire situations. Everyone has a weakness and Gojo can’t deny that she is probably his Achilles' heel.
Gojo always knew that dating anyone seriously would come with some problems, but he always thought he would be able to defeat whatever comes his way. But Utahime is different, her position in the college circle meant more internal forces could cause problem that can’t be solved by force. He can’t have her in that position. And if they lay a finger on her, all logic would fly out the door. He’d kill every single one of them.
“I can handle it. What they want me to do I’ll just decline it.” She says when he tries to bring up the topic with her, her brows furrowing at the thought of him looking down at her. She is nowhere near the strongest but she trained enough to kill off any curses.
But this time it isn’t a curse. It’s the system trying to use her.
Gojo knows that if they opened up her promotion in exchange for something from him, he’d probably say yes.
“I’m an adult Gojo.” She takes a sip of her tea, “Don’t you trust me?”
“What if they offer you a promotion?”
She rolls her eyes, “For the last time, I don’t need a promotion.”
“A better job?”
“I love my job.”
“Better pay?”
She pauses at that one. It’s not that she isn’t getting paid enough or that she is that greedy for money, but Utahime wanted to move out of her apartment and buy a house of her own. Maybe one a little out of the city, somewhere where she can have a small garden to tend to and neighbours she knows by name. A little more money would definitely help with that.
“I have you to pay for me.” She shrugs.
But in reality she hates it when Gojo pays for everything. He sure is one of the richest sorcerers out there but it still doesn’t take away the feeling of guilt whenever he pulls out his wallet to pay something for her. She despises it. When he offered to buy her a house she refused to talk to him for 3 days straight. He them came to her apartment to apologise with 5 bouquets of flowers she didn’t know where to put.
She kisses the creases on his forehead, “Stop thinking so much. For some idiotic reason, I’m here with you whether you like it or not.”
He wraps his arms around her waist and scoops her into him. She feigns a shout and laughs into him. He swallows hard before holding her close against his chest. Never letting her out of his sight that night.
He doesn’t know what overcomes him when the words spill out of his mouth.
“Are you seeing someone?”
She only replies by saying his name in a disapproving tone, not even looking up from the papers she’s marking. A round 90 points on someone’s paper, which she circles in red pen and marks with a smiling emoji.
He knows what she means by it. She’s telling him to sop, that this is the line they should not cross, that they didn’t need to go there.
But they did need to.
He did need to.
“Who is he?”
“It doesn’t matter,” still she refuses to look at him, she files the paper away in her drawer.
“How many dates?”
He watches as she sighs, her shoulders falling, “Gojo, please stop.”
He doesn’t want to stop. He wants to ask her questions until she gives in and slips something to give him a little taste of information.
Who was she so willing to share her life with? It took him years to get to her, to let her hold his hand and smile at him. Though he might be guilty of going about it the wrong way.
He wants to ask her more. Ask her what she’s been doing. What she’s been up to. If the plants on her balcony are still alive. If her mother still calls her daily asking her when she’ll get married. If she managed to get that dark stain off the kitchen counter. If she ever thinks about him. If he’s ever on her mind. If she whispers his name hoping he’d come back to her.
Gojo shuts up when he realises his nails are digging into the centre of his palm a little too deep. He finds red marks once he unfurls them.
It’s two weeks after he decides that he’ll break up with her that he actually does it. The timing is never right and she smiles too wide for him to leave her. Kisses him too deep for him to let go. He didn’t let himself be selfish, constantly coming home with random gifts to shower her with. Washing her hair for her when they’re sharing the bath. Making sure she is taken care of first when they’re together in bed.
He wants this forever. Wants to hold her forever. But he knows that it’s just his selfishness that’s holding onto her.
It comes to him at dinner time, when she’s chewing on the tamagoyaki he’s made especially for her. It’s her favourite and surprisingly the one thing he’s confident in making. She praises him, telling him that this will be the only thing she’ll confess that he is good at. He makes a joke about how good he is in bed. She pretends to gag.
But when the smile on her face reaches her eyes, and the candour in her palpable, that’s when he knows he has to do it. The words come to him easier than he thinks.
“What are you saying, Gojo?”
“I don’t want to be with you anymore, Utahime.” He doesn’t look at her. He can’t look at her. He tries his best not to stutter on his words, “Maybe I’m done.”
“Are you serious?”
His jaw locks, not wanting to say the words. Her voice is but a whisper, somewhere in the middle of shock and disbelief.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
She only stares at him. Not a sliver of emotion written on her face, she only stares straight into his soul with daggers in place of her eyes. His throat goes dry and a physical pain bubbles in his chest.
“Say it again.”
“What?” He panics.
“Say it again.”
“Why?”
“Say it again, Gojo. Just say it again. Try it, say it again.”
“I don’t love you.” He manages to push out of himself, “I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
When he finally finds the courage to look at her face, Gojo can see the tears forming in her eyes. He can see how she’s trying her best to keep them in. Her hands balled up into fists. Her cheeks are starting to turn red. But before she can explode, she sighs. And all that energy disappears.
He wants to reach out and tell her that he’s bluffing. That it’s all a lie. And that he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Whatever he just said were not his words. Would she understand? Would she laugh at it?
“Okay.”
“I’ve been seeing someone else.” Why is he lying? Why is he rubbing salt into the wounds that he has formed. His mouth won’t stop spouting lies, thinking that maybe it’s better if he goes out with a bang. Maybe that way she’ll get over him quicker and that she doesn’t have to cry for him. “I think I love her.”
“Okay.”
He wants her to react. He wants her to throw something at him. He wants her to hit him and curse at him. Anything to indicate that what he’s saying means something to her. But she just sits there, like the news is nothing new. Like he’s only telling her that a new convenient store opened up around the corner, or that a show she didn’t care about was getting a second season. She sits there with a no expression and it hurts Gojo more than he thought he could feel.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“Okay.”
Gojo doesn’t really remember much else after that night. Or at the very least he tries his best never to think about it. To dwell on it would only complicate the emotions already running amuck in his head. He only remembers leaving and telling her to just throw out anything of his that might still be at her place. She tells him to finish his dinner at least, that a growing man needed meat on his bones.
The joke would’ve made him cried right there if he wasn’t actively trying to stop himself.
As they eat dinner in silence, she tells him that she’ll do the washing up and that he can leave anytime. That he can keep the copy of her key if he wants, it’s not like he’ll be barging in anytime soon. She asks him if he’s going to the Kyoto school for the meeting they were holding in a week. She offers him the couch if he has nowhere to sleep.
He leaves with a simple goodbye and she only nods her head in politeness, not watching him walk out the door.
“Can you please leave Gojo?”
He doesn’t want to, even though he knows he should. He doesn’t say anything
“Gojo, it was your choice wasn’t it?” She crouching down over the last drawer, hiding her face from his sight. Her voice doesn’t waiver but she says her words carefully, like one hitch could turn her into a blubbering mess.
He knows that she’s talking about the breakup. That he was the one to initiate it. That he asked for her. That he is the one responsible for breaking her heart. But it’s a wound that still echoes in his chest.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at her.
“We can be friendly,” she finally sits up, turning around to face him head on. Utahime tries her best to say it like the conversation holds no meaning to her. “I don’t mind being friends.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you still here?”
He clicks his tongue
“I’m over it.”
He wishes he could be confident in saying that he knows she’s lying. But he doesn’t. He avoids her eyes when he looks at her. Her face as stoic as ever, there is no friendliness in the word friends.
“We’re adults Gojo. If you don’t want to see me ever again, that’s fine. Just use your words and tell me what you want from me.” She wears that smile again. It’s faker than ever and yet she could get away with it. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
He wants to tell her what he wants. That he wishes for nothing else in this world but to be able to hold her again with nothing but the warmth that she brings into his life. But he has to stop himself. Remind himself why he did it all in the first place. He notes how she hasn’t been sent off on ridiculously hard missions as of late, and that she sits comfortably in her teaching position just like she should.
“Utahime-“
“Stop Gojo.”
That’s when it happens. A tear finally escapes from her. She tries her best to wipe it off her cheek to hide the fact, but he catches her in the act.
“I’m not here to cry over you Gojo, I’ve done enough of that already.”
He steps forward to reach for her face, but she slaps his hand away before he can.
“Can’t you just leave me already? It’s hard enough having to see you at all the meetings.”
“No.”
“Leave me alone.”
She walks towards him, and he waits for the impact of a slap, turning off his infinity just to feel her hand on his cheek. But instead she tries to push him out of the doorway, escaping from the scene.
Luckily his body takes up the space and blocks her from leaving. She struggles as she tries to push through, the tears now uncontrollable, falling rapidly down her face.
Slowly Gojo gets a hold of her falling arms and puts them to her side. She falls onto him with the motion, her wet cheeks against his chest. She weakly tries to push herself off of him but his arms are now wrapped around her, holding on her back, pushing her into him. He runs his hand up and down her spine, hoping to bring her down from her rage.
She lets it out, whatever emotions that have been pent up. Her cries muffled against him. Gojo slowly lets go of her when she’s calmed down, snaking his arms back from around her and wiping her tears with both thumbs. Her swollen red face sitting perfectly between his large hands.
“Maybe I lied.”
He doesn’t know what he’ll get out of his confession. But it’s something he needs to get off his chest. At this point, he doesn’t hope for her to say anything, just needing her to know the truth.
He catches a stray piece of hair and tucks it behind her ear, focusing on that just for now to gain the courage to say what he wants to say.
But it’s her answer that surprises him.
“I know you did.”
He blinks a few times under his mask. Gojo stares at Utahime’s face, trying to catch something in her eyes. Maybe something to tell him that she’s confused this conversation with something else. Or that she’s about to pull a prank on him. Unsure of what to say next, he waits for her to continue.
“Shoko told me it was all a lie.” She manages to say between sniffles, “She said you were never seeing anyone else.”
“And you trust her? What if she’s lying too?”
“She has no reason to lie about you. If you did something bad, she would promote it.”
Gojo smiles as he continues to wipe the tears off her face. He misses this, pressing her against him and hold her tight. In his mind he wishes this was all different. That they were meeting in her office to sneak in a quickie before meetings. That he would kiss her all day until she pushes him off her. That she would hold him back if he asked.
“Why did you do it Gojo?” She asks, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes. It’s word she’s been wanting to ask from the night it all happens, “Do you really hate me that much?”
His heart breaks. Just when he think he’s learnt to control the ache in his chest, the sharp stinging comes back. He wonders how the thought can even cross her mind. That he hated her, and needed her out of his life so badly that he’d lie about seeing someone else.
He wonders if he’ll let him press a kiss against her temple.
“Why would you think that?”
His voice comes out as a whisper as he tries not to look in her tearful eyes. It’s painful enough to hear her thinking that he has hated her all this time, and her expression only made him want to break down even more.
“Because you broke up with me, you moron”
“I could never hate you, Utahime.” He misses her name on his tongue. Not that he ever stopped saying it in the loneliest of nights.
“Then why did you do it?”
“Stupid reasons.”
“Tell me.” Her tears have stopped, but her voice still stutters, “Please.”
He leads her back to her chair, letting her sit comfortably while he pulls up another and brings it around to face hers. Gojo places her hands in his, feeling her soft, gentle skin against his. Her hands are cold, he notes, and he bends down to blow his warm breath against them.
And with her skin so close to his lips, he starts to cry. He makes no sound and yet the tears comes to him unexpectedly, and his head falls into her hands. It takes Utahime by surprise and yet, almost instinctually, she places her hands on his face. Letting his head slowly fall into her lap. Her fingers run through his hair, a calming motion that helps his heart settle.
“Why are you crying?” Utahime finally says, she continues to comb her hands against his scalp, “Shouldn’t I be the one crying, Gojo?”
When he doesn’t answer she slowly lifts him up, letting her look into his now red eyes.
“Tell me what happened, please Gojo?”
Her voice a symphony he didn’t think he’d ever get the chance to hear again.
“You’re safe now Utahime, that’s all I wanted.”
“Elaborate.”
“I could tell that the elders were using you to get to me. I couldn’t stand by and let it happen. I wanted to-“
“Why do you insist always that I’m so weak?”
Her voice cuts through like a knife. The emotion she carries in her face one of real concern. Like he has no control over his own body, Gojo reaches out and touches her face, caressing her cheek with his thumb. To his surprise she only leans into it, letting his other hand settle on the top of her thigh.
“I can take care of myself.” She says, “You can take care of me, can’t you?”
It’s something she’s never asked of him, but something he does without having to be asked. Her hand reaches for his that’s still on her cheek. Her hands are now warm, bringing warmth to his.
“Is that really why?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you lie?”
“You wouldn’t have accepted it if I told you the truth.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Do you hate me?” He asks her, almost hoping that she would say yes. That how he made her feel was enough for her to hate him. But she only hums. No confirmation or denial.
“Will you lie to me again?”
“I’ll try not to.” He says with surprising truthfulness.
She’s the one to lean in. Her kiss feeling like spring had finally come. Like the sunshine was finally peering through the dark clouds. He can’t help himself, scooping her up by the waist and settling her on top of his lap. She tastes like salt, he wonders how much of it is his own tears. Her arms find their way around his neck, pressing herself deeper into him. Their kiss is sloppy and desperate, they both feel their pent up emotions letting go in the moment.
When they part they’re both out of breath, ending in small pecks before they stop. He leans into her neck, making himself at home as he once had. She leans against him, resting where she feels most comfortable. Gojo’s fingers run up and down her back, as if to make sure that she really is there with him.
“I’m not seeing anyone.”
“So did Shoko lie to me?”
“Possibly.”
“If she didn’t say anything I probably wouldn’t have come here.”
“I haven’t been able to go on a date. I haven’t wanted to.”
He grins into her skin, “Neither have I.”
“What now?” She mutters, not truly thinking that he’d answer her.
There’s silence for a moment, just the two of them leaning into each other. Hoping the other will not disappear again.
“Will you let me stay with you tonight?”
“No. You need to earn back my trust.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” He knows that Utahime is squinting in suspicion, “I’ll sleep on the balcony.”
“The balcony.”
“The balcony, I promise.” He pulls away to face her. Her face still puffy and red, and yet she looks as beautiful as she’s ever been. “I’ll just be cold and lonely and-“
“I get it.”
“So the couch?”
“The floor.”
“I’ll take it.”