The students get their time before their team event to plan things out. Satoru and I are early to the staff observation room. He's going to go check on the students in a minute, but for now he's sitting with me. Plus, we called Utahime in here for a meeting. Satoru and I have been discussing all the recent events and we believe we have an idea of what's going on. But we need to inform Utahime. There is risk, sure, but we're confident we can trust her.
I smile thinking about our bet earlier and turn to him. "Looks like I won." I say smugly.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. What do you want dork?" He asks.
I sigh and sit next to him grabbing his hand as I go down.
"I want to have this baby. I'm tired of being fat. I'm tired of not being able to sleep on my back or stomach. I'm tired of not being able to see my feet." I say complaining.
Satoru chuckles.
"But mostly I just want to hold him in my arms. I want our little family already." I say.
He smiles and leans over to me turning my head so I have to look at him. He has his blindfold on, but I know those eyes are piercing mine underneath. His gorgeous blue eyes. His smile with perfect teeth. His perfectly done hair, no matter if it's up or down. Everything about him is what I love the most.
"First of all, you aren't fat." He says grabbing my hand and kissing it.
"And second of all, we have to be patient. The baby is healthy and happy as far as we can tell, so now we just wait. Not much longer now. Only about a month or so left." He says encouragingly.
I sigh, "I know. I'm just excited."
He smiles warmly, "me too."
He leans over and kisses me softly on the lips grabbing my chin gently. His hands are kind of rough but strong. I grab his arm and smile into the kiss. What I wouldn't give to rip his clothes off right now...
"Ick, get a room." I hear Utahime say.
I roll my eyes and chuckle, "hey Utahime."
"Hey Naomi, so good to see you!" Utahime says happily.
She looks at Satoru and her demeanor instantly changes from happiness to irritation, "Gojo."
"Are you mad at me?" Satoru asks.
She groans, "when am I not you brat. What am I here for?"
"Well with the more recent appearances of special grade curses and attacks, along with the growing strength of younger sorcerers, we've been diving deep into the reason behind all of it." Satoru says.
"Yeah, and the recent attacks on us and our students are too frequent to call a coincidence." I add.
"We believe there's a mole among the students."Satoru says.
"What? How do you know for sure?" Utahime says confused.
"Well, it's hard to say for sure with no hard evidence." I say.
"And there's no telling if they're working alone or with other cursed users or with curses even. But I highly suspect some sort of cooperation." Satoru says.
"And how do you know it isn't me?" Utahime says.
"What you? No way, you're too weak." Satoru says smugly.
Utahime knocks the drink out of Satoru's hand with her cup and is groaning with anger.
"Whoa there, hysterics are a huge turn off for men y'know." He says.
"Satoru, be nice." I say.
"Anyways, the point i'm trying to make is to keep your eyes out for anything strange." Satoru says.
Utahime looks down and thinks for a moment. Satoru is right. We can't afford to be lazy. Whoever is working against us, we need to know. Who knows what they're after, or what it'll cost us.
———
The exchange event is about to start. Both principals arrived not long ago followed by mei mei who will be using her crows to give us a live feed of everything happening. Probably for a pretty penny too knowing her.
Satoru takes the microphone as I watch our students talk on the edge of the forest. The Kyoto students are displayed on two separate screens and the posters are on the wall to the right of us.
Satoru taps on the microphone and clears his throat. "We'll be starting the event in one minute. But before we begin let's hear some words of well appreciated encouragement from the always eloquent Utahime Iori!" He announces.
Utahime is caught off guard and stumbles as she takes the microphone. She hates giving speeches.
"I- uh well I guess during this event some degree of misery won't be avoidable, uh help each other out? If you can?" She says awkwardly.
"Okay, times up." Satoru says cutting her off.
I roll my eyes and shake my head.
"Ugh, Gojo you jerk, I wasn't done!" She complains.
Satoru ignores her, "Now let the sister school exchange event begiiiiin!" He yells.
We watch the students on the screen take off into the woods. We can't hear anything, we can only see what they're doing. I hold Satoru's hand as I watch. I am most excited and nervous for Maki and Itadori. I know Megumi will be okay, and I'm pretty sure about Kugisaki too. But since Itadori's return will make waves, and Maki's history with the Zenin clan being rocky, I hope the best for them.
Satoru squeezes my hand and I look to him. He smiles at me and I relax a bit. He is always here for me, no matter what. I take a breath and trust that they'll be okay. We did teach them all after all. And Satoru is the strongest sorcerer alive. They learned from the best. I smile with confidence, knowing our students will do just fine.