"Shit, shit, shit," Gojo sings to himself, pacing down the hall. "Hey there!" he calls out to an assistant passing by. "Nittaaaa, have you seen our troublesome new teacher?"

Nitta looks up from her papers, startled. "Uh, no, but… she's probably on her way back from talking to the students?"

Yep, that's what he thought. "Oh boy," Gojo mumbles to himself, ducking out of the building and scanning over the walkways. Thanks to Tengen and his ineffable campus design, sometimes there's a million ways to get from point A to point B. At this point he should probably just use the Six Eyes to track her down.

Ah, there she is. Shit.

—/—/—/—

"Yoshi. What a coincidence."

Yoshi halts in her tracks, hackles raised. Tokyo's campus is large. There are no other sorcerers in sight. There's just her, and Zenin Naoya, strolling towards her like he owns the whole school.

As usual he's wearing a dark kimono and hakama pants, but looking at him today is more irritating than usual. The Kyoto principal, the Kyoto teacher—even Noritoshi seemed to tailor his student uniform to look like traditional garb.

It's stupid. But she feels out of place.

Naoya stops in front of her. His sharp brown eyes flicker over her from head to toe, and an amused smile pulls at his lips. "You're slouching. Ain't a good look."

Yoshi briefly shuts her eyes, just to avoid looking at him for a little longer. "What are you doing here?" she asks, though she fears she already knows the answer.

"I was in the area, figured I'd watch this year's exchange event," he smirks. "Some of my dear cousins are competing, after all."

Naoya doesn't give a shit about Maki or Mai. "You're going to block Maki's promotion," Yoshi says flatly. "Can't your clan do that from home?"

"Oh, but it's been too long," he drawls. "Y'know, we all grew up together. I miss those days. Maki's so weak, but she was always beggin' for a spar…"

—/—/—/—

"There you are!" Gojo all but shouts, appearing next to the talisman sorcerer in an instant. "Stop dragging your feet, Yoshi-sensei!"

He throws one arm over her shoulders—and the other over Naoya's.

"Naoya-kun, you shouldn't wander off like that!" Gojo tsks, leaning heavily on the Zenin heir's shoulder. "You're expected to stay put when you're invited to my school."

As expected, Naoya immediately shoves himself away from Gojo. Yoshi does too, but she's slower and gentler about it. A marked improvement from trying to jump off the roof to avoid Gojo and Naoya.

"I was just headed there," Naoya says mildly, his eyes already on Yoshi again as he backs up. "I'm looking forward to it."

Yoshi's eyes are glued to him as well, blazing with contempt.

The farther Naoya gets, the angrier she looks. Gojo bumps her shoulder again, but she ignores him. Once Naoya's far enough, Gojo asks, "What did he say? Something obnoxious, right?"

"No."

She doesn't elaborate.

"Ah…" Gojo watches her closely. "What are you doing?"

It looks like she's rolling up her sleeves like a butcher heading to work. "Don't worry about it," she answers, brushing past him.

He chuckles, eyebrows shooting upward as he trails after her. "For the record, I would love to see you fight, but it's eleven o'clock in the morning, and I don't have popcorn… Yoshi?" She continues to stalk towards Naoya, stepping around Gojo when he blocks her path. "Sooo I think we should just—reschedule? Let's reschedule Fight Night for next week, how about that—?"

Yoshi hisses when he grabs her arm, stopping her midstep. "Do not—"

"Nope," Gojo chirps, coiling an arm around her waist. "Let's go somewhere more private, hm?" he suggests quietly, pressing his chest against her back.

Sensing what he's about to do, Yoshi squirms and whispers back, "No, fuck you, I'm—"

Now, Gojo can't claim to be an expert on Yoshi just yet, but if she really wasn't comfortable with him, she'd probably just slap him in the face. Naoya riled her up, not him. Even when Gojo does anger her, she forgives him, because he's not the same kind of asshole that Naoya is.

With that sound logic, Gojo casually tightens his grip around Yoshi and teleports them off-campus.

—/—/—/—

Yoshi really wishes she'd never come to Japan.

—/—/—/—

A blast of cold wind has her flinching backwards into Gojo's chest. "Stop doing that," Yoshi seethes, sucking in a sharp breath of surprise. She's squeezing his arm very tightly now. "Oh, you bitch," she swears in English, "Is this—? No, not Tokyo Tower, Skytree?"

"Oho, you haven't been here before!" Gojo catches on at once, laughing behind her. His feet are resting against the ledge, but there's very little room for Yoshi too, so she's kind of just dangling from his arm. "Nice view, huh?"

Yoshi lurches herself forward and tries to ram her elbow into his stomach.

He catches her arm instead, because she telegraphed the move too much. "Let go of me already!" she shouts, voice almost lost in the wind. "I'd rather jump!"

"Mmmm no," he decides, pinning her arms down. "Isn't it more fun when it's just you and me?"

"Shut up," Yoshi snaps, breathing hard. "He was—he was saying—" But she stops, and clenches her jaw rather than continue.

He waits a few seconds, in case she continues, but she keeps quiet. Yoshi seems less likely to jump off the tower at this point, so he moves aside and sets her down on the ledge next to him. This way he can actually look at her angry face instead of the back of her head.

The silence stretches, and the fight slowly drains out of her. Gojo figured a little distance would help with that—hence, Skytree.

To calm herself down, Yoshi fixes her gaze on the streets below. She does it with such intense focus, Gojo thinks she might be memorizing the entire layout of Sumida at once. It's one of Yoshi's little eccentricities, or maybe a side-effect of her constant teleporting—she really likes to map things out, and use it for navigation. Her spatial awareness is almost as good as his.

"Naoya just wants to get a rise out of you," Gojo reminds her eventually. Well, he's in Tokyo for other stuff too, but Yoshi doesn't need to know about all that.

Her brow furrows, but she keeps staring down at the city. "I know."

"You're usually better at ignoring him," he muses. "Same way you ignore me."

"This was different." Yoshi tips her head back, face scrunched up against the biting wind. "He talked about Maki. Their childhood in the clan."

…Meaning that Naoya talked about how he would beat his little cousin, often, and pass it off as sparring. For years. Maki was always too stubborn to keep her head down, and too unimportant to ever be protected.

Yoshi and her big soft spot for the kids. She didn't even want to work here, and yet she cares so much about the students, Gojo thinks to himself, unsure if it's charming or a cause for concern.

"Maki's not in that place anymore," he tells Yoshi firmly, squeezing her arms. "And she'd be soooo embarrassed if she saw you right now, crying over her," he adds, drawing out the words obnoxiously. Yoshi's just tearing up because of the cold air, but he has to tease her anyway.

"Tch," she scrubs a hand over her face. "Can't we go inside? It's freezing."

"That would be illegal, I didn't buy any tickets!" Gojo exclaims, gasping at the mere suggestion of crime. "We'll just have to cuddle for warmth. No other options here." (Because he has her trapped in scaffolding six hundred meters in the air.)

Yoshi groans, clumsily pushing her dark hair behind her ears even though it immediately comes undone in the wind. "Your pick-up lines are awful," she complains. "I don't see how anyone could like you."

"It's the eyes," Gojo murmurs. "Everyone's a sucker for the eyes. I don't have to say a thing." Ah, he should've worn glasses today. It's much easier to wink that way.

"Makes sense," Yoshi mutters, almost granting him a smile. "You ruin it once you open your mouth."

He barks out a laugh. "Don't be like that, my mouth can do wondrous things!"

Yoshi huffs. "Nobody asked, Gojo. This is exactly what I mean by ruining it." But at this point, there's not an ounce of hostility left in her tone.

"You're a bad liar, Yoshi," he grins. "The truth is all over your face."

Her cheeks and nose are flooded with color, and her hair's a lost cause because of the wind. This isn't the first time he's seen her in this state. Osterby, Bolivia—hell, she looked like this the day Gojo offered her a job, angry and ruffled like she'd gone through a spin cycle in the washer. Yet it's as though he's looking at a completely different person now.

Maybe it's because the way she looks back at him is completely different, too.

How selfish, Gojo thinks. To want more than I'll give.

"I can't do anything about Naoya attending the exchange event," he says abruptly, pulling away. "You know he just wants to antagonize you. His vow won't let him pick a real fight."

The tension creeps back into her, and Gojo wishes he could get rid of it. Yoshi sighs. "Maybe I should've kept that coin longer."

"Why didn't you?" he wonders. "I mean, your deal was pretty clever too—his clan thinks it was all a joke, but Naoya still knows you can seal away techniques, though he can't tell anyone. But with the coin, you could just extort him."

Yoshi shakes her head. "Every—Gojo, no, I'm not extorting anyone," she says, flabbergasted. "My goal is to not draw attention."

"Well you've done a terrible job. I'm telling ya, the coin would have kept him quiet," Gojo insists.

"No." She's exasperated now. "Every talisman has a drawback—what happens when restrictions are placed on cursed energy?" she asks rhetorically, clearly going into a talisman-related lecture. "You can go beyond your normal limits if you follow the rules. If I gave Naoya the time to figure it out, the coin would make him stronger."

Gojo reflects on it. A limiter like that could play out a lot like Nanami's Overtime vow. "I see. That's a huge fucking flaw."

"That's why I never mentioned it. I always intended to undo it."

"Oh my god," Gojo laughs, smacking his forehead against the metal beam. "I knew you were a gambler! You sly little fox, if Naoya knew the whole deal, he never would have made a vow with you!"

"No reason for me to show all my cards," she mumbles, looking away. "The event's gonna start soon. We need to head back."

"Just stick with me," he proposes. "If you say something rude to Naoya, Gakuganji will hold it against you. If I say something rude to Naoya, it's on me, and I'm too cool for the council's shit list."

"I'm already on the shit list," she says unhappily. Then she quietly explains her little dispute with Gakuganji.

"Oof. Not a great start," Gojo chuckles.

"I know."

"We'll handle it. For now—" This time when Gojo hugs her, they're nose-to-nose. Well, more like his-nose-to-her-forehead, or her-nose-to-his-chin. Yoshi huffs at him, blowing hot air at his neck like a pouty little dragon. "Shall we?"

"You don't have to get so close."

"It's cold up here!" Gojo exclaims. "Be grateful, I'm sharing body heat."

Yoshi pushes on his chest firmly. "Take us back."

"Say please, first."

"No."

"Yeah, I expected that. Wait! Say my name first?" Gojo asks.

But surprisingly, her face immediately falls. Huh. Gojo made sure to say it earlier today. Maybe there was too much going on for her to take notice. Lots of new faces to memorize, too.

"I…"

"You'll get there," he shrugs, untroubled. "It's Satoru."

He doesn't wait for her to say it back, but tugs her off the ledge and takes them back to the school.