The Messy Science of Attraction and Repulsion
4. I Get No Joy
10 Years Earlier
For the next several days Nanami lived in constant fear of violent retribution.
He had no idea when it would fall. This particular freight train had no obvious stops or scheduled time of arrival. He only knew it was going to flatten him when it eventually and invariably pulled into the station.
Geto Suguru scared the ever loving shit out of him. By his estimation he was waaaaaay more threatening a figure than Gojo ever could be. Geto's technique involved curse manipulation, an ominously dark and scary skill set that allowed him to do exactly what it said on the tin: he could obtain and control an unknown number of curses that were bound to do his bidding. Like a collection of hell's worst Pokémon. And Nanami lived in dread of it everyday, afraid that today would finally be the day he would wake up to find himself dragged into a bottomless well by some dead girl potential apparition with horror movie hair and no mouth with which to scream. Or maybe he'd be eaten alive or vivisected by some Lovecraftian tentacle monster that Geto had saved up to use for just such a special occasion.
And considering how well liked Geto was on campus, he probably wouldn't even get expelled for it.
Nanami's anxiety ratcheted up further and further with each passing day, like a roller coaster making the steady climb towards an inevitable, heart attack inducing plunge. He was often on the verge of hyperventilating, jumping every time Yu touched his shoulder or tried to talk to him. Sweeping his hair off to the side as he walked with Yu towards the gym he noticed a greater quantity of his hair coming out in his hand.
Great. Fear of Geto Suguru was now making his hair fall out. Premature baldness was such an unsightly thing.
Yu was as talkative and chipper as ever. His bottomless positivity made those little question marks etched between Nanami's brows twitch, climbing his face like nasty kudzu vines. Deepening frown lines and his apparent impending hair loss had to be aging him well beyond his lean sixteen years. Constant stress and angst was working to kill whatever meager looks he had, which was another concern that caused him yet more stress and more angst. It was so unfair. Turning into an old man in the middle of his tender years had definitely not been a part of his life plan. He found himself trapped in an ugly and endlessly anxious feedback loop.
"I can't wait for today's lesson!" enthused Yu. "I totally love physical training and sparring."
Nanami tried to block out Yu's incessant chattering. He had to be on the alert for threats, after all. Like headless ghosts. Zombie beasts. Scary hair loss curses.
Goddam it, what if he had been cursed already?
Nanami was in a complete mental spiral by the time he got inside the gym with Yu. Contrary to what his lean physique would have you believe, Nanami was actually no slouch in the physical training and exercise department. It was part of his philosophy of life, after all: A healthy mind required a healthy body, and it was imperative for an individual to train both. Simple, elegant logic. High school Nanami may not have been the imposing force of nature that adult Nanami would later be, but he was no wilting flower either.
"Ah, look! It's Geto-sama!" Yu chirped excitedly. To Nanami's extreme annoyance (and ongoing mental anguish), Yu had started an aggressive hero worshiping campaign centered around Geto Suguru, talking about him with a frequency that made Nanami want to gouge out his own ear drums with a cursed implement. It was bad enough his own obsessive lizard brain couldn't block out intrusive thoughts of Geto trying to curse him hourly, but now Yu had to go and bring him up at regular intervals, assuring Nanami had absolutely no respite from the incessant brooding about the guy.
"What's up, Nanewbie."
Oh god!
Nanami's head snapped up like a broken rubber band. Standing at the bottom of the bleachers was none other than Geto Suguru himself, with his hands shoved deep into his baggy pants pockets and a very cat-that-just-ate-the-canary smile on his face. About two rows up behind him sat both Gojo and Shoko, the girl with the bobbed hair who he had seen on his first day of school. She was a healer who used a reversed curse technique and was notorious for sneaking cigarettes behind the second year dorm building. Nanami often saw her in both Geto and Gojo's company, as they were all in the same year and had class together.
She was currently waving her hands around in circles and saying something that sounded like, "Schzoom!" Or "Huwoo!" Nanami didn't get any of it, and apparently neither did Gojo because he was just staring at her from behind his dark frames and shaking his head 'no' the entire time.
Yaga was standing in the center court and without preamble he started calling names:
"Geto, Nanami! You're up!"
Oh god…
Oh god no…
Nanami watched Geto step to the edge of the center circle and immediately square up, sliding one foot back and putting both his hands up. It was a well known fact that Geto Suguru was currently the best hand to hand fighter in the entire school. Even better than Gojo, who at this stage in his life tended to allow his technique to do all the heavy lifting for him (literally, as Gojo always seemed to be floating various objects about. But this just may have been due to sheer laziness on his part). But Geto didn't rely solely on his technique. He had a "fuck it, we ball" type energy about him. He seemed to actually relish physical combat. Nanami had a suspicion he just really liked punching things.
And looking at the evil little smirk currently covering Geto's face, Nanami knew he was about to absolutely get his shit rocked.
He was going to get fucking annihilated.
Why did the universe hate him? Had he offended some vengeful eldritch deity somewhere? What had he done to deserve this?
All because he had gone and touched Gojo Satoru's pale perfect pretty boy head. Like some magpie unable to resist shiny objects, he'd been drawn right in by that shit.
And now he was going to pay for it. In spades.
"Alright, first one to step a foot outside of the circle loses! Let's keep it a clean fight. I don't want to see any serious injuries!"
The smirk on Geto's face got wider.
Ohgodohgodohgodofgodohgod!
Nanami stepped up to the circle and shakily raised both his hands. As if to add insult to injury, Yu started to yell, "Yey! Come on Geto-sama!"
That little fucking traitor.
The bell sounded and Nanami had zero chance to react before Geto was immediately at his throat. He came at him with a knifehand strike, then another, driving him backwards and to the edge of the painted circle. Then he aimed a violent roundhouse kick straight at his face. The impact was brutal. Nanami saw stars, and possibly whole galaxies, before he fell face first on the ground just outside the circle. When he tried to get up, he ended up spitting out his own tooth.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Yaga demanded angrily.
"That was fucking payback," Nanami heard Geto say darkly from behind him. There were various sounds coming from the bleachers. Nanami looked up to see Gojo doubled over, holding his stomach, shoulders shaking as if trying not to laugh. Shoko was shaking her head disapprovingly at him and punching him repeatedly in the arm for it. Yu had his mouth covered with both hands and a horrified expression in his eyes.
Geto got three days of detention for pulling a violent stunt that nearly gave Nanami a concussion.
Nanami got to go see an actual dentist, in an attempt to fix his now broken tooth.
6. Kinda I Want To
10 Years Earlier
After the very embarrassing and very public defeat Nanami suffered at Geto's hands—and feet—things seemingly went back to normal for a while. Nanami did not even deign to look in Gojo Satoru's direction, in fact, after the gym incident he made it a point to actively avoid him whenever possible. This state of affairs seemed to appease Geto and he mostly stopped menacing Nanami. Or at least he went back to ignoring his entire existence, which amounted to pretty much the same thing.
Geto and Gojo went back to terrorizing the campus and by extension, Yaga. Nanami had never seen a couple get into as many squabbles as these two. They fought constantly. And loudly. And destructively. The sheer number of times they could be found at each other's throats was frankly astonishing. Nanami had exactly zero points of reference for what a healthy relationship should look like, but he had a nagging suspicion in the back of his head that it should not, in fact, include sticking your significant other to the side of a three story building for two solid hours or setting a giant dragon loose to try and eat them.
Yet this was their dynamic. Nanami did not understand it at all. One day they would be fighting, apparently violently and almost to the death, and the next day they would be sitting and laughing with each other by the vending machines like none of it had ever happened.
From the outside this looked like madness. Nanami didn't know. He only knew that he found it all fascinating in a weirdly scientific and emotionally detached sort of way.
It had been three weeks since the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Geto incident, and Nanami found himself sitting alone on top of the bleachers, a book on English Romanticism open on his lap and a red ripe apple in his hand. It had actually been a pleasant afternoon so far. The sun was out, his hair was starting to grow back, and it was tolerably quiet.
Or at least it had been quiet. Because now there were some weird scratching sounds coming up from underneath the bleachers.
"Watch it, will you?"
"Shhhhh! I am watching it, what do you—Ow!"
Nanami froze like a French mime. Laughter was bubbling up from somewhere underneath him. A familiar laugh. A Gojo Satoru laugh.
It was a sound that, for Nanami, was starting to have some very bad associations with it.
More scratches and general movement sounded from below. Nanami knew very well what happened when one chose to combine cats and curiosity, but that didn't stop him from compulsively leaning over to stare between the metal grooves in the seats. It was dusky beneath the bleachers, with the light making jailhouse stripes across the floor as it filtered down through the seating grates. There apparently was a small metal shelf situated against the back wall, just wide enough for a person to sit in, and it was on this shelf that Nanami spied both Geto and Gojo lounging, their legs dangling off the edge into the dimness. The meager strips of light only managed to reveal various pieces of them, but between Gojo's bright fluffy head and white uniform shirt, Nanami was able to easily identify the two of them. Gojo in particular stuck out like a thumb. His coloring made it impossible for him to blend in anywhere. It was like trying to camouflage or mute a peacock.
There was a loud metal clang! and more laughter as Gojo apparently pushed Geto off the shelf. Grumbling sounds filtered up through the seats, followed by another shhhhhh and Nanami found his forehead almost connecting with the cold hard metal of his bench as he impulsively leaned further in for a better look.
Another Ow! issued from Geto's end and Nanami convinced himself he had seen enough. He should stop eavesdropping. He should stop being such a creep. After all, he had seen the two of them fight a thousand times already.
Only…they weren't fighting this time.
This time they started making out.
Nanami almost fumbled his book at this sudden turn. The tips of his ears flared the same shade of red as the apple he was holding. Geto was on top of Gojo now and in the stillness, Nanami could actually hear them going at it. It was disturbing. Of course, Nanami knew on an intellectual level that they had to be doing this sort of thing. Had to. He wasn't that naive. Just because he was inexperienced didn't mean the rest of the world was. But knowing a thing and actually witnessing a thing were two very different things. And Nanami's face was going crimson as he shamelessly—and compulsively—peered back down through the grate.
The kissing abruptly stopped as Nanami watched Gojo push Geto off the shelf again. Nanami squirmed, mentally berating himself for having turned into an unrepentant voyeur over the last several minutes. He knew he shouldn't be watching this. He knew it. It wasn't right of him to make himself privy to these very intimate yet very revealing dynamics of the Geto/Gojo relationship. The only problem with this was, if Nanami moved now, it was definitely going to alert them to his presence. And he didn't want to do that.
Because he didn't want to take another roundhouse to the face.
"Ngh! Ahhh!" A strip of dust mote ridden light revealed Gojo lying flat on his back, with Geto busy somewhere off the shelf down below him. At some point in the proceedings he had lost several buttons from his shirt, and he lay all akimbo with his chest exposed from neck to navel. Nanami gawked. This was problematic. Extremely problematic. And for two very specific reasons:
The first reason being that Nanami was starting to feel certain things happening within his own body. Things he definitely didn't need happening right now.
The second reason was that because of Gojo's current splayed position, this meant he was looking straight up at the bleachers, which meant that Nanami was directly in his line of sight.
But Gojo didn't notice Nanami at all. Because whatever Geto was doing to his lower half had him writhing and twisting about like a pig on a spit roast. His eyes were squeezed shut. He was also getting noticeably louder. If another person were to walk into the gym right at this moment, then they were definitely going to overhear some shit. Some very audiotrack on a porno type of shit.
At this point Geto reached up and clamped a hand over Gojo's mouth, muffling him. This dynamic between them was getting weirder now. And instead of helping Nanami with his growing problem, the progression of events below him was only making it ten times worse.
Yet he kept on watching. And Gojo Satoru didn't know it, but this little bleacher scene of him was going to feature very prominently in Nanami's own personal spank bank for at least the next ten years.
Gojo arched his back like some sort of sexy feral cat, writhing around beneath Geto's hand, seemingly getting close to the end of whatever drawn out sexual torture Geto was performing on him. The muffled noises were getting throatier, taking on a more desperate guttural sound. It was also at this moment that Gojo's eyes snapped suddenly open, and to his horror Nanami found him staring directly at him.
Time froze for Nanami at that moment. He was mortified. He had been caught. Caught inadvertently being a sick and degenerate peeping pervert.
But Gojo couldn't actually say anything because of Geto's hand over his mouth. He was definitely looking right at Nanami though. Those sexy sea chipped eyes of his glowed like twin LED bulbs in the gloaming beneath the bleachers. Eyes that now had a clear question etched in them:
What the actual fuck?
Gojo started pounding on the back of Geto's head to get his attention. Which meant Nanami was now fucked. Because if Geto caught him spying on the two of them like this he was going to be dead for sure. He was definitely going to lose far more than a single tooth.
But in a small shining piece of karmic grace, Geto seemed to be completely ignoring Gojo banging on his head like a timpani. Nanami figured this was just another weird part of their messed up dynamic on display, but he used this moment to start grabbing his things together to bolt. It took Gojo finally viciously yanking on Geto's man bun to properly get his attention, with him yelling out, "OW! What the fuck, Satoru?" By that time Nanami was beating a hasty retreat down the bleachers, taking them two at a time, running like a wild fox from a pack of pursuing bloodhounds.
He heard muted snippets as he ran:
"There was someone up there watching us, you idiot."
"How was I supposed to know that?"
"Why did you think I was beating you on the head for?"
"Uh, because you were getting close? That's usually the reason?"
Nanami ran outside, slamming the metal gym door behind him. He didn't stop running until he made it all the way back to the first year dorms.
6. One More Cup of Coffee
Nanami Kento, being a man of mature tastes and a creature of unwavering habit, was happy when on the next day his routine seemed to return to its proper (and notably Gojoless) form.
He got up precisely at six. He had a shower. Then he got dressed and made himself some French press coffee in his luxurious kitchen. He sat and read the morning stock reports, savoring his morning libations, until it was time for him to leave for the gym at 6:45.
After the gym Nanami went to his favorite bakery to get a sandwich for work. The girl working the counter smiled and tried to engage him in small talk. Nanami gave her off putting monosyllabic answers. He then left and went to the coffee shop to pick up a triple espresso.
This was where Nanami started to feel a little out of sorts, a kind of disturbance in his normally clockwork machinations. He got to the shop door and hesitated, the almost encounter from yesterday making him falter, an uncharacteristically indecisiveness affecting his hands.
But then he remembered.
He remembered that he did not like or respect Gojo Satoru. And therefore it was irrelevant whether or not he wound up frequenting the same coffee shop as Nanami. His presence there was irrelevant. He was irrelevant.
Because this wasn't Jujutsu High.
And Nanami wasn't a jujutsu sorcerer. Not anymore.
No, he was a simple salary man with a simple nine to five job and a six figure salary that was going to allow him to eventually retire early to some faraway island with a low cost of living. This was the plan. This had been his decision. This was how he had chosen to live.
He refused to regret it.
The door to the coffee shop swung open, tinkling the little silver bell overhead, its sound peeling out like a happy finch. Just as he did every day at 8:30, he went to the counter and ordered a triple shot to go. He turned his head and silently scoured the shop. No sign of Gojo Satoru.
Good.
Everything was as it should be.
"Excuse me, sir." Nanami had turned to pick up his order at the end of the bar. He stopped as a barista named Emi brought over a handled paper bag. Then she said:
"This was left for you by the tall guy with the sunglasses yesterday," she told him, sighing dreamily, leaving no doubt to whom she was referring. There was a rather expectant little smile on her dewey freshman face as he took the bag from her hands.
Nanami looked inside the bag. In it were at least four bags of the French press coffee he made every morning. He immediately recognized the little familiar fox head logo that adorned all their packaging.
There was also a note attached. Nanami opened it and read it. It was short and to the point:
Sorry I made you miss out on your triple shot yesterday. Please accept this gift as a token of my apology.
And that was it. That was all the note said. But despite this, Nanami felt an all too familiar twitch of annoyance pulling at his brow. What Nanami would have referred to in the old days as the Gojo Satoru Induced Stress Response. Nanami found himself feeling flustered. Put out. He liked his life the way it was. He liked his routine. And screw Gojo Satoru for interfering with it. Nanami made a scoff of dismissal…
…and turned around and left, completely forgetting to pick up his order. Making it two days in a row now that he didn't get his coffee.
All because of Gojo fucking Satoru.
To be continued…