Sick Of You
by Lapiz Sagana
A/N: This was supposed to be a oneshot but it turned into a multi-chapter thing. Enjoy!
Utahime had a special ring tone for Satoru Gojo.
For the first year that she lived in Kyoto, she managed her interactions with him by simply blocking his number from six in the morning to eight in the evening. The peace of not hearing or reading his taunting made the effort worth it, and like clockwork, she blocked and unblocked his number on the dot.
Every now and then, however, she was still tempted to just block him altogether and make it so he could only contact her through the faculty room telephone. The only problem was that Gojo might try something worse if he figured she blocked him completely for the third time.
The first time she did it, he showed up at her doctor's appointment just to ask her if she needed to borrow money to buy a new phone.
"It's hard when you don't get the full payout because you can't exorcise the curse. Or have they only been assigning low-grade curses to you?" He turned to the doctor and said he'd pay his fees on her behalf.
She hit him in the face-or at least she tried.
When she blocked him again, he showed up unannounced in the middle of her third date with the realtor who was helping her find a new apartment. It wasn't an ideal situation, as the guy could always turn out to be a creep and she'd have to move again. Still, it had been so long since she was asked out, and even she couldn't resist a handsome man in a tailored suit.
She had dressed in a turtleneck dress and pair of black stilettos, for once feeling radiant and confident ever since incurring a scar on her face. His date had not once mentioned it, and she had never caught him staring at the scar like some of the guys she had dated before.
They were halfway through their dinner and making good conversation when she noticed, from the corner of her eye, a platinum blonde male being seated behind his date. All the blood left her face at the sight of Gojo in his sunglasses, wooing the waitress while he ordered steak and swirled the glass of wine in his hand.
She thought it must have been a coincidence. Gojo had expensive taste, and this was an expensive restaurant. Perhaps he was here on a date too?
Ever so slowly, Gojo turned to face Utahime with a grin and waved his fingers.
While he did not interrupt her date, he did dampen her mood. At the end of the night, she found herself standing beneath the restaurant's awning, shivering as she waited for her date to come around with his car. Gojo draped his jacket over her shoulders and stood beside her.
"Wearing such a thin coat in this weather. Tsk."
"What do you want?"
"I need assistance for work, but you'd know that already if you hadn't blocked me again."
She could see her date exiting the parking lot. "I wasn't informed by my superiors. Stop dragging me along where I'm not needed."
"You would really rather go with this loser than exorcise a special grade curse with me?"
Utahime watched his date pull over. She could imagine them having a mundane conversation in the car as she debated whether to invite him into her current apartment or not. It had been so long since her last kiss, and for once, she wanted a bite of normalcy in her life.
"So?" Gojo asked.
Her date apologized for the wait, noticed the jacket, and asked who Gojo was. Utahime knew that being seen next to him on a date-and with his jacket draped over her shoulders at that-meant the end of any romantic fling she had conjured for herself. Gojo may be a demon, but he did look like an angel, and her date wouldn't believe her now if she said they were just colleagues.
Besides, she wouldn't be able to lie to herself. She'd rather feel the rush of adrenaline in her veins after killing a special grade curse than have butterflies in her stomach while being kissed.
It was safe to say that while she did ruin her dress and chances of getting a boyfriend, she went home that night without any regrets. The sight of a special grade curse vanishing before her eyes was always worth it.
That was why blocking Gojo completely was not an option anymore, and Utahime settled for simply blocking him for most of the day.
It wasn't long after this experiment, however, that her plan backfired.
Gojo must have realized that he could only contact her at eight in the evening up to six in the morning, so at exactly nine-thirty, her phone would ring, and his name would flash on the caller ID to her annoyance.
She always picked up in the hopes that he'd want her to tag along in exorcising another special grade curse. He made the same offer thrice since, but most of his calls were just him bragging about his students and his latest accomplishments. She'd hang up on him half the time, but it was never enough to deter this man. He was like a leech slowly sucking the life out of her, but she clung on in the hopes of finding herself in another life-or-death battle. Each time, she hoped she'd finally prove herself strong enough to earn his respect.
Perhaps it was this routine conversation at the end of the day that led to Utahime initiating the call for once and regretting it soon after. She had just been on a bad date with a man who walked out because he "really couldn't stand that huge scar". It took several minutes of sitting in silence alone in her apartment for her to finally break down, and once the clock struck nine-thirty, she called Gojo.
He picked up on the third ring with his usual sing-song voice, but was silenced when he heard her sobbing. She knew he was the last person she should be reaching out to, but the alcohol in her system had impaired her judgement, and hearing his voice at this hour was routine at this point.
Utahime did not say anything embarrassing during this call. Her crying so openly to him was embarrassing enough. When Gojo asked if she had been severely injured in battle, she responded with a litany of curses and hung up.
To avoid drunk dialing Gojo in the future, Utahime decided to simply set a special ring tone for him. This way, he could contact her any time of the day, and she could decide based on the sound of her phone whether to ignore the notification or not.
Even then, however, there really was no getting rid of Gojo, especially when Utahime did get severely injured in battle several months later, and the news reached him in Tokyo.