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“I’ve been expecting someone like you.”
You didn’t look up when you said it. Your attention stayed on the tea leaves you’d measured too carefully, fingers steady despite the ache coiled between your shoulder blades.
If the most powerful sorcerer alive was standing in your living room, he could wait his turn like everyone else.
Gojo blinked at that. Once, then smiled.
He had expected fear. Because fear controlled the masses, whether he instilled it or not. His name alone elicited it, whether it was overt or disguised. He would have even accepted anger.
What he hadn’t anticipated was the way you folded him into your evening like an inconvenience rather than a threat. There was no spike of cursed energy or defensive posture, just a silent resignation sharpened into calm indifference.
Gojo’s eyes traced you instead of the room. You hadn’t rushed. You didn’t fidget. Instead, you moved a tea kettle with deliberate care, even though the water in it had probably already cooled. A habit meant to keep your hands busy, he realized. Not to soothe yourself, but to prevent yourself from reacting.
Yet, your indifference wasn’t ignorance. It was exhaustion.
Gojo could see it in the way you carried your weight, slightly forward, like someone used to bracing against impact. In the faint tension that never quite left your jaw. In how you positioned yourself between him and the hallway without seeming to notice you’d done it.
“I thought I’d have more time.” You spoke as if continuing a private thought, gaze flicking briefly toward the window instead of him. The street below was alive with noise, oblivious and cruel in its normalcy. “The school year just started.”
Running again made your stomach turn.
“You were hard to find.” Gojo settled onto the sofa without asking. He draped an arm across the back like he’d earned it, posture lazy and open. “I’ll give you that.”
The ease of him irritated you. The way he fit himself into your space without resistance, as though it had been waiting for him. You finally turned, eyes sharp.
“Kind of the point, right?”
Talking was a formality and you both knew it. There was no version of the conversation where you won by force. Still, the air between you remained unnervingly still with something deciding between heavy and hostile.
The tea sat untouched between you, mugs mismatched, chipped from years of use. It was a quiet testament to a household built on adaptation, not luxury. It was a prop displaying feigned hospitality, but Gojo looked wrong here. Too polished. Too expensive. His presence peeled back the illusion you’d worked so hard to maintain.
“So, my brother-in-law trusted you?” You were pointed, all too aware of his role in Toji’s fate.
“He helped me see clearly.” Gojo’s glasses slid lower on his nose as he met your gaze. This time, he didn’t smile.“I’m here to repay that debt.”
“By taking my nephew from me?” The smallest fracture appeared in your composure. A twitch at the corner of your mouth. You swallowed it down, refused to let it grow. “You’re not offering anything different than the Zenin Clan.”
“They’ll kill you,” Gojo said calmly. He was still measuring you, testing the edges of your resolve. “I won’t.”
“How kind.”
The bitterness tasted old. Familiar. Like adrenaline gone cold in your veins. It kept you moving, kept you upright, but it also whispered how easy it would be to stop fighting. To let yourself sink. Your life had already been traded, over and over. As long as Megumi and Tsumiki lived, the rest felt negotiable.
“I can help you.”
You shook your head immediately. “I won’t make this decision without Megumi—”
“No.” He cut you off, sudden and firm. Not cruel, just certain. “You. I can help you.”
You paused.
The realization of what he said made you nauseous; you had already erased yourself from the equation. A strange feeling returned to your chest, mimicking something like nostalgia. He reminded you of people you’d lost. Pieces of them in a way, but something else entirely. Loneliness stirred. Regret. Hope edged with impatience. You hated that it wasn’t simple.
So you bristled. “I don’t want your charity.”
“Good.” Gojo leaned forward then, elbows on his knees, glasses pushed up. For the first time since he’d arrived, his attention settled fully on you, not the situation or the technique. You. “Finally, a flaw.”
“I’ll bite.” The bait was obvious; you almost didn’t take it.
“If you’re going to lie,” He added lightly, head tilting as he studied your face, “you need to do better. Otherwise, they’ll really kill you.”
Your frown was unmistakable. Fushiguro through and through.
Gojo laughed softly, genuinely amused. “Are all Fushiguro’s this serious?”
It didn’t land. He didn’t care because everything was decided before he knocked. The money was transferred. The papers were signed. Still, he’d come anyway. And that mattered more than you wanted to admit.
“Okay.”
His brows lifted. “Okay?”
You nodded once. No flourish. No relief. Just acceptance, thin and sharp as a blade slid back into its sheath. Gojo waited for more. Conditions. Demands. A tremor of panic finally surfacing now that the shape of the future had been decided for you.
It never came.
Instead, you crossed the room with the same unhurried pace you’d kept all evening and reached for the cupboard above the sink. Your back was to him now, an intimate kind of disrespect, Gojo thought.
The cupboard creaked when you opened it. You rose onto your toes without thinking, fingers brushing the shelf. Gojo’s eyes followed the motion absently until something snagged his attention.
There it was. Not a flare, not even a pulse, just a pressure, faint and uneven, like heat trapped under skin. It was cursed energy, leaking in the way breath fogged glass in winter. Enough that the Six Eyes registered it and enough that it didn’t make sense.
His posture shifted without permission. Subtle, but alert. Something he filed away for later. He wasn’t even sure you knew, and for now preferred to leave it that way.
You retrieved a small tin and set it on the counter. Sweets. Your fingers lingered on the lid a second longer than necessary, as if deciding whether to offer them or throw them away.
“You’re awfully calm.” Gojo tilted his head.
The Six Eyes drank you in now, no longer content with surface impressions. He peeled back layers—muscle tension, breath cadence, the faint residue of cursed energy clinging to you like dust.
You slid the tin across the counter, not toward him, but to the space between you. A neutral offering. A line drawn, not crossed. Gojo didn’t reach for it.
“No point in excitement.” You glanced toward the hallway, toward Megumi’s room, toward the clock ticking down the minutes of the life you were about to leave behind. “The decision is already made.”
The answer was practiced. Worn smooth by repetition.
Gojo stood.
Again, the room shifted around him, space bending in that unconscious way it did when he moved. This time, you didn’t brace. Didn’t flinch. You simply stepped aside to give him room, an instinctive accommodation, like you’d done it before.
Like you’d done it often.
He stopped a few feet away. Not close enough to crowd, but close enough to test.
You leaned back against the counter, arms folding loosely, waiting.
“This is usually where people ask what happens next.” Gojo was clearly amused by your patience.
He finally reached for the tin, fingers brushing the lid before lifting it. A sweet disappeared between his teeth, unceremonious, thoughtless. He chewed slowly, eyes never leaving you.
“Go on.” You still held your indifference.
“Blah-blah-blah. Logistics.” Gojo swallowed, then waved a hand vaguely, as if brushing crumbs from the air. His tone dipped into something deliberately bored. “Some paperwork. Money’s already transferred. A lot of very serious people pretending they’re in control.”
You didn’t respond. You didn’t need to. He took your silence as permission.
“The higher-ups will make noise.” He leaned back against the counter like this was his kitchen too. A smirk tugged at his mouth. “They always do. Meetings. Committees. Long-winded speeches about balance and responsibility.”
You laughed despite yourself. It slipped out before you could stop it. Gojo noticed. Of course he did.
“They’ll hate it, which is usually how I know I’m doing the right thing.” His glasses tipped just enough to show the sharp glint of his eyes. “They won’t touch you. Or the kids. I’ve already made that very clear.”
Clear, in his case, meant catastrophic.
“Jujustu High frames it nicely,” Gojo continued, breezilyy. “Scholarships. Sponsorship. Protection. A better future. All very noble.”
He pushed off the counter and straightened, stretching like a man settling in for a long day rather than an attempt at dismantling a political structure.
Silence settled again, thinner now. Manageable. From down the hall came the soft sound of a door creaking, a floorboard complaining under a familiar, careful step. You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to.
Gojo’s words brushed something sore. You pushed the feeling down and exhaled slowly, unfolding your arms. The kettle clicked behind you, forgotten. Outside, the night pressed against the windows like it was listening for something you would never admit.
“Don’t think this is trust.” There was nothing else for you to offer. No plea or gratitude, just an introduction to a small truth laid bare, sharp as bone. “This is for him.”