Author's note: So…this is supposed to be my idea of a rom com. But apparently my idea of a rom com is extremely fucked up, so we have this instead. My beta says it's a dark comedy, so let's go with that. Warnings: (particularly for the high school flashbacks) characters behaving badly, non graphic consensual underage sex, accidental under age drinking (what?), accidental voyeurism (double what?), tons of swearing, bullying, and probably some other shit I forgot to mention as well. Just remember: depiction is not endorsement. And also…this actually has a happy ending!
The Messy Science of Attraction and Repulsion
1. I Knew You Were Trouble
Nanami Kento had a deeply hardwired type A personality.
He didn't do humor. He didn't tolerate nonsense. And he didn't like people who weren't serious.
He also liked all of his things just so.
He liked having his ties organized on revolving metal hooks inside of his closet. He liked to have his suits dry cleaned and starched until the shoulders stood up on their own, like expensive fabric soldiers standing at attention. He liked a particular brand of French press coffee made in a particular brand of French press every morning. He liked having his books organized and placed in alignment on solid oak shelves, divided by subject and alphabetized by author.
Nanami Kento also liked to keep a very specific schedule.
He got up everyday at precisely six, showered, then made some of the aforementioned French press coffee in an aspirational, well appointed, steel brushed kitchen. His pots and pans hung in precise order over a stainless steel island. He also had a large cupboard that contained a dedicated wine rack. Nanami would sip his coffee in a little breakfast nook and go over the early stock market reports until exactly 6:45, at which time he would leave and go to the gym.
After his workout, he would shower again and get dressed for work in earnest. He carried an expensive leather duffle bag that was packed and organized for it. He would stop at a bakery to pick up a sandwich for work. After this he would make a separate run to his favorite coffee shop for a triple espresso. By this time it was 8:30, and he would have a half hour's leeway before having to go into the office.
A minor traffic accident occurred one morning that caused Nanami to be slightly off his schedule, right after he had gone to the bakery but before visiting the coffee shop. He considered skipping the coffee altogether, because the thought of being late annoyed him, but it annoyed him more to go without caffeine as the very pronounced bags under his eyes could attest. So he went for the espresso anyway, calculating he had maybe a ten minute window.
He found this deviation irritating but acceptable.
When he opened the heavy swinging door into the coffee shop the little silver bell sang out overhead like a bright and happy finch. He didn't bother looking around him, as he came to this same coffee shop everyday and was well familiar with its layout. He had all of the baristas' names memorized too, though his high strung demeanor and standoffish airs rarely ever led him to interact with them. The counter, which was usually alive and bustling with incessant activity this time of morning, was suspiciously empty. No one was waiting to take his order. Nanami frowned, perturbed by this slight change to his already slightly changed routine.
Several high pitched (and to Nanami's mind distinctly grating and unprofessional) giggles floated up from the drink pickup station at the end. All three baristas were crowded there and were apparently fawning over one particular customer. The cacophony got infinitely worse as a laugh rang out that stopped Nanami dead in his tracks.
Because Nanami knew that laugh. He knew it very well. Had been hearing it for years, in fact.
He also knew it was followed by nothing but trouble.
Nanami turned to see Gojo Satoru standing at the end of the bar with a coterie of college aged baristas hanging onto his every word. He was 6'3 with a hairstyle that Nanami could only describe as deliberately chaotic. He was wearing an expensive pair of round fuck boy sunglasses and a blue button down that was trying and completely failing to outdo the shivering and shifting lapis of his eyes. He was smiling and lapping up the attention like freshly frothed milk. Obviously there were some things that never changed.
The worry frown between Nanami's eyes crawled further upward as he narrowed his eyes. The last thing he needed was Gojo fucking Satoru invading his favorite coffee spot. He absolutely didn't need that.
Because Nanami liked his routine, he liked order, and he liked having espresso triple shots.
He liked his life just fine as it was.
He blamed the car accident and the ten minute delay for making this happen. It was a cruel galactic joke that the universe had apparently decided to play on him today.
Now Nanami was going to have to do without coffee. He was going to have to go into the office feeling cranky. He was going to have to deal with clients while uncaffeinated.
All because of Gojo fucking Satoru.
Nanami turned on his heel to leave. His hand was paused over the door when his name was loudly called out from the end of the bar:
"Nanami Kento! Are you just going to leave without even saying hello to me?"
Nanami risked a glance and found Gojo staring directly at him over the tops of his frames, vivid baby blues on full display.
It was like staring straight down a loaded gun barrel.
Without even acknowledging the question Nanami turned and walked out, determined to forget that this whole little episode had ever even happened.
Because if there were two fundamental things in life that Nanami knew were true without question, they were these:
Jujutsu sorcerers were all shit.
And he did not respect Gojo Satoru.
2. It's Brutal Out Here
10 Years Earlier
There were a couple of very specific incidents that happened early on that helped to permanently shape the way Nanami Kento viewed Gojo Satoru.
Neither of these incidents were what one would call good. In fact, they were all fairly traumatizing.
In what could only be termed an extreme case of beginner's bad luck, the first one occurred on his very first day at Jujutsu High.
Nanami at that time was not the confident individual that he would grow up to be. He was, in fact, what could charitably be called a Sad Boy. An aura of depression hung around him like a permanently drawn curtain. He was anxious and often stressed out. This disposition often came across to other people as short tempered and humorless. He did not tolerate nonsense. He was very Serious with a capital S.
Nanami had a meticulous life plan in place to succeed as both a sorcerer and a productive member of society, and he did not intend to waver from his path. His aggressively stubborn and rigid nature was set in stone from the very beginning.
He entered the grounds of the school that very first day feeling nauseous. Nervous. Inside him raged a storm of anxiety and intrusive thoughts, tethered to his soul like a dark cloud. This registered on his face as a permanent scowl. Frown lines like grooved question marks creased the area between his eyebrows, even at such a young age. He came off as very intense. Not approachable. Not likable.
Probably not the best first impression to make, but young Nanami had zero control of his facial expressions. He was usually unaware of his off putting demeanor.
He entered the gates and walked the path leading to the first year dorms. His shoes clacked the decorative stonework as he marched underneath a canopy of trees, their crisscrossing cherry blossom branches blocking out the sun like a pink frilly blanket. Petals were fluttering down everywhere, like delicate tiny butterflies, annoying Nanami as they dared to stick to and besmirch his brand new uniform. He kept brushing them away in annoyance.
The end of the path came out next to the second year's classroom where Masamichi Yaga held sway. Nanami exited the tree lined walkway and directly into the glaring sun. His hand went up automatically to shield his eyes. He heard laughter coming from somewhere off to his right. His eye twitched in instant disapproval, because once again, Nanami was Serious.
Then he finally lowered his hand.
And he saw the most beautiful boy in the whole wide world.
This boy was the source of the laughter. He was standing next to a girl with bobbed brown hair who appeared to be smoking (?!) a cigarette right in the middle of the school grounds. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. Nanami's disapproving eye twitch went ballistic at the sheer audacity of it. The utter lack of respect.
And then there was the boy…
Up until this very moment, Nanami had never before laid eyes on anything half as beautiful as this person. He couldn't even believe that such a perfect looking creature existed, deigning to walk around amongst regular mortals, all of whom appeared to him to be scruffy and tired and ordinary.
This boy was not ordinary.
No, to Nanami Kento he looked like a romantic artist's creation brought to life, like a Caspar Friedrich painting he had once admired in a museum. A tall, long limbed figure dressed all in black, standing on a windswept cliff's edge, hair blowing like threads of light in the breeze. He called to mind Byron and Shelley and all those other gothic, romantic figures Nanami had loved to study in school. Nanami felt his mouth fall open, going slack in awe. He didn't realize he had been staring bald faced for almost two whole minutes until another figure walked right up next to him and casually draped an arm over his shoulder.
"Yo."
Still glassy eyed, Nanami turned to look at the person standing next to him: Long dark hair pulled up in a man bun with large gauges embedded in his ears. Dark, brooding eyes and a distinctly dangerous air. A menacing stare that could probably wilt flowers. He was smiling but the smile was exceptionally unpleasant. Then he leaned directly into Nanami's face and said in a threatening tone:
"Look, newbie…I don't know who the fuck you are and frankly I don't care, but if I catch you staring at him like that again…if you so much as cast a glance in his direction…I. Will. Fucking. Curse. You. Do you hear me? I will make you regret that you ever stepped foot onto this campus."
As if to drive this point home, the older boy then smacked Nanami in the back of the head so hard that his ears started ringing and caused his bag of gear to fall right off his shoulder.
Straight into a puddle of mud.
This was Nanami Kento's first introduction to Geto Suguru, one of only two special grade sorcerers at Jujutsu High. The second one being Gojo Satoru, Geto's partner, and the object of Nanami's obvious blatant staring. The golden child of the Gojo clan, Gojo Satoru was the first in their line in over four hundred years to be born with the rare and coveted combination of the Six Eyes and Limitless technique. He was literally the boy with all the gifts, preternaturally beautiful and blessed with godlike powers and strength. Together, he and Geto Suguru made up the school's resident power couple. Good looking and exceptionally talented and completely unrivaled.
And Nanami Kento had just succeeded in permanently pissing off one half of this couple on his very first day.
3. Dead to Me
10 Years Earlier
The second incident that occurred was somehow even worse. It was a few weeks into the semester. The only real friend Nanami had managed to make in his first year was Yu Haibara, an overly chipper and exceptionally eager sorcerer who was the human version of a golden retriever. Happy, amiable, and a little dopey. Truth be told, Nanami didn't actually like Yu all that much. In fact, the other boy's energy and enthusiasm, combined with his sunny nature, annoyed Nanami in the extreme. But he was really the only other person he could talk to. Because after that disastrous first day at school, Nanami had refused to even consider glancing over at Gojo or Geto ever again.
Yet the two of them were always around campus. Their presence was an inescapable fact. And to add to Nanami's constant and ever increasing annoyance, they were always together, a seemingly package deal. They were never apart. Always laughing or fighting or causing some sort of disturbance on the grounds that would invariably draw Yaga's ire and earn both of them detention. The two always seemed to be in some sort of trouble.
But they mostly got away with it because they were the strongest sorcerers on campus. And not just on campus—anywhere. A fact which Nanami definitely did not like or approve of. Nanami liked having clear cut rules. He liked having order. And bending or changing the rules in order to show unwarranted favoritism to certain special grade sorcerers was not something he could overlook or condone.
Nanami was a natural rule follower you see.
Or at least he was up until the day he fibbed to cover up for Yu, who had slipped up during an assignment they had been sent out on together one day. They had shown up to exorcise some low level curses that were hanging around a hospital ward. Yu put down the veil to shield their actions from human eyes as procedure dictated, and all seemed to be going well, until they got to the elder care wing and realized they had in fact trapped some memory care patients inside with them. Patients who fortunately didn't come to any harm, but unfortunately saw a little too much of what was going on. Luckily, since they were in memory care it was easy to convince them that their minds were simply playing tricks on them. In the end no harm came to anyone.
But Yu agonized over the slip up and blew it all out of proportion. Despite Nanami's assurance of lack of wrongdoing, he obsessed over it, worrying at the issue like a dog chewing at an old shoe. And when Yaga found out about it, they were both called into his office. Nanami thought Yu was actually going to cry right there in front of him. And in a move that was completely irrational and devoid of logic, Nanami blurted out that it was actually he who had lowered the veil without first checking the perimeter.
He didn't know why he chose to do this. It was completely out of character for him. Maybe it was the sadness, the naked plea in Yu's eyes that made Nanami decide to take the blame in his stead. Maybe it was simply pity. Either way it was done and Nanami was awarded his first ever detention.
On the day of said detention, Nanami was sitting alone at a desk in a small classroom, patiently waiting for Yaga's arrival so he could get his mandated punishment over with. He was quietly reading a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations in order to relax himself when a sudden commotion sounded from the hall. The sound of stomping feet and a raised voice grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer to the classroom entrance. Then the door burst open with an unexpected bang! and Gojo Satoru walked into the class, very obviously and very loudly pissed off. But even more obvious was the fact that it was just him. He was alone.
Geto wasn't there.
Nanami's mind immediately flew into a panic.
"Can you believe that old geezer? If I have to hear about veils and 'darkness greater than darkness' and all that crap one more time, I'm going to lose my shit." Nanami stared, unsure if Gojo was actually addressing him or just complaining in general. When he realized that what he was doing was in fact staring—the thing he was expressly warned not to do—he dropped his eyes back down to his book. Sweat started creeping along his hairline like a trail of marching ants. He was certain the room's air conditioning must be broken.
There was an irritating screech! along the floor. The nails on a chalkboard sound caused Nanami's head to instantly snap up. Gojo was dragging a chair across the floor, headed straight for Nanami's desk. He plunked the chair down right in front of him and sat in it backwards, leaning over the chair back, craning over to get a look at the book Nanami was reading. This precipitated two things simultaneously:
Nanami flinched back, almost toppling over backwards in his own chair, and—
—Gojo reached out and grabbed both his arms to stop him from falling.
Only it didn't stop him from falling, because when Nanami got a good look at Gojo's eyes peering down at him over the top of those rounded shades, he fell hard. Really hard. First crush hard. Seeing Gojo this close up made him think of Botticelli angels and Caravaggios and bonafide Greek statues. He was Greek god gorgeous. It seemed impossible that such a ridiculously good looking person could even exist, let alone be sitting in front of him and touching him.
Oh god, he was actually touching him!
Nanami yanked his arms away like they had mistakenly wandered into an open oven.
Gojo seemed to either not notice or care. "Your name's Nanami, right? And Yaga busted you over some barrier shit, too, right? Personally I just don't see the point in it. I mean who cares what normies see? Now Yaga is out there spinning some 'unfortunate gas leak' bullshit that's his usual go to in these situations. All because I dismantled one tiny abandoned building. Full of fucking curses, by the way." Nanami watched, mesmerized, as Gojo took off his glasses and started to vigorously rub at his eyes. "That man is running me ragged. I am super fucking exhausted right now. He does not appreciate that I've been at this for two straight days."
Nanami was barely aware of half of what Gojo was saying. He was too busy watching his mouth move as he said it. Nanami, at this youthful stage of his life, had never kissed anyone before. Man or woman. He honestly hadn't given it much thought. But watching Gojo's mouth move as he continued to skewer and verbally abuse Yaga's entire character, he found himself meditating very intensely on the actual possibility of kissing another person. Very intensely indeed.
He was also pretty sure that this was not the kind of meditation Marcus Aurelius had in mind.
Gojo was still viciously rubbing his eyeballs and complaining. "I also failed at manifesting red again. Now my head is killing me. It fritzes out every single time I do it. I don't know why it's so damn hard."
"I'm sorry but what is red?" Nanami's voice sounded strained to his own ears as he finally managed to get a word in.
Gojo perked up a bit and began to give a labyrinthine explanation of his cursed technique. Nanami caught something about a turtle, an imaginary apple, and some other colors, but found the whole speech was absolutely impossible to follow. Apparently Gojo realized this as well and summed it up by saying, "The basic foundation of it is attraction and repulsion. I've mastered attraction, but I haven't been able to do the reverse of it yet."
Well, Nanami agreed that he'd definitely mastered attracting him, so he had that down at least.
Gojo was practically flailing at his own head by this point, causing his hair to stick out wildly in every direction like a sea anemone. Instead of detracting from his beauty in the slightest this made him even more attractive in Nanami's estimation, if that were at all humanly possible.
"You should really stop rubbing your eyes like that," Nanami advised with growing concern.
"I just have the worst fucking headache right now!" Gojo gritted out before going back to tearing into Yaga's allegedly cruel, horrible and unfair treatment towards him. Another well defined list of character assassinations followed.
"It's probably just a tension headache. I get those all the time. Look." Without thinking, Nanami pulled Gojo's hands away from his face. He then put two fingers on each of his temples and started massaging the nerves there, moving in a concentric motion.
He had clearly lost his damn mind for even doing this.
He glared at his own grubby, traitorous hands as they continued to methodically work circles around Gojo's throbbing temples. As if he could scold them with a look into behaving, into not touching people he definitely shouldn't be touching.
Stupid, dumb traitor hands.
"Oh damn, that feels fantastic," Gojo breathed a happy sigh and closed his eyes, leaning into Nanami's touch. This was both better and worse for Nanami. Better because Nanami didn't have Gojo's cobalt colored kaleidoscopic Sex Eyes staring right at him, mesmerizing him like some fucking cobra. Worse because with his eyes closed, Nanami was able to admire Gojo's amazing looking face at his leisure for as long as he liked without any repercussions. And admire him he did. Their faces were mere inches apart now, close enough for Nanami to see that Gojo's eyelashes were as pale as shimmering snow, like frost flaking a windowpane in winter. Thick yet translucent. He started thinking about what it would feel like to kiss another person again, or maybe even one very specific person, as Gojo hummed with obvious pleasure underneath his touch.
A sudden loud tapping noise at the classroom window shattered all these lovely thoughts. Nanami looked up to see Geto Suguru peering into the room, eyes all a glare, pointing at him and silently scream-mouthing words at him through the glass:
I'm going to fucking kill you!
Nanami knew right then and there that he was a dead man.
To be continued…