Chapter 2: Birthday
Exceptional people must be naturally attracted to other exceptional people. Naturally, someone like Gojou Satoru could never notice someone as mediocre as Miwa Kasumi. That's what she thinks as she hears Utahime's voice echoing on the temple walls. Probably exacerbated by some comment from their most recent guest.
Someone like Gojou-sensei could only be attracted to such an exceptional woman as Utahime.
But this fact doesn't disturb her too much, she knows it with the same certainty of exact sciences. It's only natural.
After taking a shower, she hardly dared to leave her room, fearing that he would find her again and that he would be so intrusive as to continue inquiring about that shameful dream she had.
The recurrence of those thoughts was overwhelming and intensified every time she knew he was about to arrive.
Which makes her feel like a top-notch pervert.
Her academic life has nothing outstanding about it, now her personal life had also reached a ridiculous point.
The best thing she could do for herself in this fateful moment was to have a hot drink, nothing would remedy the situation and her stash of sweets run out a while ago.
Once in the dining room she mets Mai and Momo, a few shopping bags surrounded them.
"Wow! How Cute!"
Miwa blushes just by seeing the skirts and tops the girls bought in her absence.
"You could have bought yourself something if you weren't so cheap," Mai says, pulling a small lollipop out of her mouth.
"I'm not cheap... I'm just saving."
Momo and Mai laugh, they laugh a lot actually. And although it bothers Miwa a little to be almost always the reason for the occasional tease, she forces a smile and lets it go. She makes a cup of tea and sits next to them. She listens to them talk about their afternoon and omits that shameful moment that she had just shared with Gojou Satoru. They don't seem to like her dear sensei either, and although they have been companions for a long time, they never shared intimacies. She finishes her hot drink and the three of them leave, the girls to arrange their new clothes and her to continue her studies.
This is the first time she actively seeks to avoid him. Walks cautiously through the hallways as she resumes her activities and, after a few hours, lets her guard down. Usually, he doesn't spend much time at the Academy so she feels almost relieved.
"Miwa!" Hears across the archery field she just arrived at. Utahime's voice comes from afar and when she turns around, she finds herself totally frozen. Her pulse stops when she sees him next to her again, smiling. Utahime-sensei raises a hand in her direction and she has no choice but to walk towards them, towards Gojou.
"Sensei!" She yells with strange conviction and gives them both a harsh bow from which she doesn't dare to rise, because she knows she would have to see him face to face.
"Gojou will stay with us for a couple of days. A student will come from Fukuoka and he'll wait for him here. Please walk him to the temple in the north wing and help him settle into a spare room. Assist him in whatever he needs."
"Huh? Utahime, are you trying to get rid of me?" Gojou interrupts in an amused tone but Miwa doesn't feel like laughing. Rather, she's on the verge of hyperventilating.
Miwa curses her nature while standing between the two of them. She might be useless but she was the most reliable one. For that reason, the director often came to her, she assists them and helps in whatever way she could.
This is what she gets for being so obedient, she thinks as she remains silently listening to her superiors.
"Ah? Do you think I have no other occupations? I have students and a lot of pending work to deal with in addition to a child trapped in the body of an adult."
"You're so boring, Utahime. You're getting old. I'm starting to see some wrinkles on your face," he says raising an accusing finger, but before he can point out Utahime's alleged wrinkles, she bellows with a passion that only Gojou Satoru can awaken in her.
"If I have any wrinkles, it's from putting up with your inappropriate comments! Behave Gojou Satoru! Besides..." she continues more calmly, "you are a liar, I haven't wrinkled."
"Ah…" Gojou sighs, "Well, let's go Miwa. Show me where I'm going to sleep."
Miwa bows down to Utahime again before she leaves them alone. Miwa walks with contracted muscles, tries to force a smile that results in an exaggeratedly awkward gesture, and mechanically walks in the direction her sensei indicated.
She is so extremely aware of Gojou's presence behind her that she can hardly breathe. She's afraid that he'll open his mouth and ask again about her dream. Luckily, he remains silent for the majority of the way. He walks around with his hands in his pockets so casually that he doesn't seem to notice Miwa's hermeticism. Suddenly he begins to whistle, perhaps in order to fill with something that silence that has been accompanying them for at least five minutes.
"Miwa..." he tells her suddenly when they are about to arrive and she starts to panic. She stops and turns to him, mentally pleading for him to be quiet. "Your uniform is very different from the others, did you choose that design yourself?"
Hearing him calms her down. She sighs with some relief and pauses for a second to look at the suit she's wearing.
"Well… I feel like it suits me better. I think it makes me look older, anyone who saw me would think that I work for a successful company and earn a lot of money."
"Um…" Gojou murmurs as if he wasn't satisfied with the answer. "You want to look older?"
"I suppose... I-I think it's not a matter of age, but of inspiring confidence."
"I see, you think you can trust older people."
Miwa nods enthusiastically.
"Well, you're wrong."
Neither Miwa nor Gojou smile. And although she can see an incomplete expression from him, she knows that what she answered doesn't please him. She's not very used to not seeing the curve of his lips forming a smile. He's serious about this, and that makes her feel like this mistake of hers is terrible.
"Sorry, sensei!" Miwa apologizes with another exaggerated bow and stands still, staring at the shiny tip of his shoes.
"Huh? Why?" Gojou asks, an eyebrow curves under the black bandage on his face, he's incredulous.
Miwa stands up, also confused and tries to think about why she's apologizing.
"For being wrong," she assumes after deliberating.
"Do you even know why I said you're wrong?" He watches her deny, her cheeks painted pink again. "The most useless, cowardly, and puny people I have ever met have turned out to be older than me. Respect is earned, you shouldn't give it away, much less for a quality as uninteresting as getting old. We all do, even the ineptest of humans beings."
"But you are older than me, Gojou-sensei. Does that mean I shouldn't respect you too?"
Gojou's serious appearance completely disappears and he smiles. Miwa observes the gesture, the aura around him is once again the one that is most familiar to her.
"Nah," he says as if she's taken him by surprise. "My case is different, I am respectable," he smiles and Miwa's heart beats again. Her chest feels warm.
Calmer, Miwa continues walking towards the temple where her sensei will be staying for the next few days until the arrival of the new student. She allows herself to smile again, putting aside that awkward encounter that had occurred earlier.
Upon reaching their destination, she opens the door and Gojou looks inside, not very impressed.
"I should have booked a hotel room." He says this as if Miwa isn't by his side, as if speaking to himself while he inspects his bedroom for the next few days.
"Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asks, always helpful. But he dismisses her with a wave of his hand and thanks her for her attention.
On the way back to her wing Miwa allows herself to take long strides, there is something growing on her chest, an intense emotion that attacks her young heart. Her stomach flutters, she can't even swallow her dinner and there are no sweet at hand. She sighs while the rest of her fellow students have dinner and Momo and Mai end up stealing pieces from her plate. But she doesn't care. Gojou Satoru is on campus and there are no more thoughts taking place within her mind. Neither in training, nor food, nor sleep. Miwa can do nothing but sigh for Gojou Satoru's close presence.
Days go by and she sees him from time to time wandering around. He talks to the senior students but they are all so introverted that they can't quite tolerate the sensei's bubbly personality. Miwa envies them, she envies the way they look at him and talk to him like he's not a fucking celebrity. She wants to be candid and eloquent around him, just like them, but her emotions get in the way of every interaction.
Miwa is satisfied with being able to see him go by, with hearing the sound of his laughter and being the one who greets from afar with a most friendly gesture.
She faces her next school assignments more optimistic than usual, the encouragement of being in the same place as him makes her ecstatic. And, although at times it's difficult to concentrate at all, she tries very hard to stand out… at least on paper.
Many times, she has pondered on the idea of requesting a transfer to the sister Academia in Japan, but she knows that the director will shout to heavens if she comes up with the application. Also, being further away from her siblings is not an option for her, so she dismisses it whenever the idea pops into her head. There are more important things in her life, more important than the fixation she is developing towards Gojou Satoru.
But he is just perfect, she thinks as she sees him on the other side of the field.
"Miwa." The mechanical voice wakes her out of her reverie and turns around. Mecha-maru is there, standing in front of her and seeing him get closer is exciting. There is something about him that allows her to be herself, not like the rest of the boys who makes her feel forced to nod without saying her true thoughts.
"Hi! Mecha-maru, can I help you?" She asks naturally, since whenever someone approaches her, is only to ask for a favor to which she generally agrees, even if she doesn't want to.
He extends a small box without saying much and Miwa looks at it without understanding.
"It's April 4," he says, as if that explains the presence of what resides on the palm of his hand.
She has been so busy thinking about that crush that she still doesn't admit to herself that she has completely forgotten what day it is.
"Oh…" she says suddenly.
She feels disarmed by his gesture. No one had remembered it, not even her.
"It's your birthday, right?" He asks as if he's begun to doubt it himself.
"Y-yes!" Miwa cries out excitedly and takes the box with such emotion that she suddenly feels like a child.
It's a birthday present. And she opens it as if it were Christmas. Inside the box she finds a spiral dagger. The blade is lined with tiny spirals and looks so sharp that she takes it with ceremonial care. She lays it on the palm of her hand and gasps.
"It's damascus steel, double-edged. It is made of 512 layers of..."
Miwa melts onto Mecha-maru's cold chest, she suddenly screams out an effusive thank you and when she realizes her outburst, she lets go of him and stands with her cheeks tinted pink.
He says absolutely nothing. If Miwa could see him, the real him, she could have seen a slight smile curving his lips under a pile of bandages. Nothing satisfies him more than the expression of the girl who goes from hugging him to looking at the dagger from side to side, without managing to remove the embarrassment from her cheeks.
"It's someone's birthday?"
The recognizable voice of her favorite sensei forces her to widen a smile. He has just arrived with the senior group and is casually approaching. He's so tall that he bends down slightly to see what Miwa is holding and she proudly displays it for him.
"It's a gift from Mecha-maru," she says, trying to contain her enthusiastic gesture.
"Nice. It's your birthday, Miwa? That's great! We have to go out and party. Huh? Huh?"
Gojou turns around, but the students don't seem as excited as he is. Gojou frowns, he's annoyed. Had he been with Itadori and Nobara, he would surely have heard a couple of effusive screams.
"Wow..." he says resignedly. He glances at Miwa, who doesn't say a word. On the contrary, she seems to be more prepared for that answer than he expected. That bothers him. "Mechamaru? What do you say?"
He takes time to answer. Gojou is unaware of the gesture that Kokichi has now, far from where they are standing. He doesn't know that, through Mecha-maru's eyes, he is looking at Miwa's shy appearance and that he wishes with all his heart that he could spend that special day by her side.
"I have things to do," he lies and turns to leave.
One by one, the students withdrew with similar excuses. Gojou turns his face from side to side. They are all gone. They're alone again.
"Well, Miwa. I think it'll just be you and me. Sure, if you don't have other plans."
"Not at all!" She screams, more enthusiastic than she wishes. "I mean, I don't want to bother you, sensei. Surely you have many more important things to do..."
"Actually, I've been getting bored all week. Tomorrow the new student arrives and I'm dying to get out of here. What do you want to do? Karaoke? Pizza? A movie?"
Her heart is about to jump out of her chest. It beats so loud that she thinks it is audible to others. She couldn't have asked for a better birthday than this, a surprise gift from Mecha-maru, and a date with Gojou Satoru.
Miwa would like to say yes to all of his proposals, but she doesn't dare. She's not capable.
"Whatever you want, Gojou-sensei."
A/N: This is a translation of my original fic, but since there are not many Spanish-speaking stories I decided to give myself the opportunity to translate it. I did it with a lot of effort and I know that there must be mistakes, many things to improve. But, I still hope you like it.
According to the interviews with Gege, he doesn't imagine that Gojo can be faithful to any woman and neither can I. I can't tell you if this story will have a happy ending or a sad ending. It's the first time that I write about these characters and many times the stories change their course without one expecting it, despite me being the one who writes them. Nor can I give an approximate time between updates, sorry!
Hope you like the ship and the story! Thank you for reading!