Chapter Text
“You shouldn’t be here, Itadori Yuuji.”
Yuuji’s head snaps toward the very familiar voice that also shouldn’t be here—and there she is.
Gojou Satoru, Yuuji’s physics teacher, looming over her just like how she does in class.
But there’re a few key differences that make Yuuji’s mouth run dry.
Gojou’s in a dress that’s nothing like the sharp suits she wears to school. Those are dark, sleek things, with edges poised to cut. Or maybe that’s just Gojou herself. It’s hard to tell. Yuuji’s looked, sometimes more than she should. She doesn’t know how anyone wouldn’t. Gojou’s stunning in the suits.
But they cover her from throat to toes, while the dress…definitely doesn’t.
It’s a vivid red, plain but with a satiny finish. Short and strapless. It starts halfway down Gojou’s bust and barely reaches mid-thigh, and the end result is a whole lot of skin.
And tits.
That’s a lot of tits spilling right out.
“My eyes are up here,” Gojou says drily.
Yuuji jolts a little, a rough little noise tearing free. Gojou probably can’t hear it over the din of the bar, but with Yuuji’s luck, she probably has. Not like she needs more rope to hang Yuuji with, with how she physically can’t tear her eyes off her teacher’s extremely generous cleavage.
Those suits show off Gojou’s figure just fine, but they apparently hide a lot too.
There’s movement—Gojou folding her arms across her chest. It’s not any kind of self-consciousness, seeing as it just shoves her breasts toward each other, creamy flesh bunching together till it looks like it’ll break free of the thin red fabric somehow clinging to the bulging—
“Yuuji.”
Yuuji’s spine snaps straight, and she forces herself to look at Gojou’s face. It’s a weird kind of familiarity. This song and dance has happened so many times before—Yuuji staring out the window and daydreaming, then the serrated lash of her name pulling her out of it and toward the woman staring down at her unimpressed from right next to her seat.
Gojou’s wearing the exact same expression now, but everything else is different.
“Sorry, sensei,” Yuuji says anyway.
Gojou’s eyes narrow further. They’re a bright, burning blue. That’s another thing. Gojou wears sunglasses at school, even indoors. Some guy needled her about it that first day, asking her if she was blind or something. Gojou said something very vague about sensitive eyes and then asked a barrage of questions that left Yuuji’s classmate sweating and red-faced in his seat.
Yuuji still remembers the way Gojou smiled through the whole thing—close-lipped, cutting, and utterly genuine.
Gojou’s not smiling now. That’s probably a good thing.
“Say that louder,” Gojou says finally, “and maybe they’ll kick you out before I have to drag you out.”
“Kick me…” It takes a moment for her to understand what Gojou means. “Oh. That’s fine, I guess. I’ll just find another spot.”
It’s Tokyo. There’s no shortage of bars and nightclubs and other dark, warm places Yuuji legally shouldn’t be in. There’s even a good number that’s for women who want women. Yuuji did do her research. A little dubious now and then, but she learned what she needed to, maybe more than she wanted to.
Besides, men are fine too. Some of them take a little longer to get with the program, looking at her hair and her face and making all sorts of wrong assumptions, but it works out most of the time, one way or the other. When it doesn’t, she hasn’t had to do more than twist an arm or break a few fingers.
But she’s learned that she prefers this—the women, the clothes, the scents.
“—happened before?”
Yuuji hears the tail end of the question, refocusing on the present to see Gojou’s arched eyebrow, and her brain decides to be helpful for once, filling in the blanks.
She shrugs. “Nah. I’ve always gotten away with it.”
Gojou’s other eyebrow joins the first. Yuuji’s a little jealous; she’s never been able to raise just one. Then Gojou’s gaze drops from Yuuji’s face, and the jealousy withers, replaced by a sweet, shuddering something that makes Yuuji sit even straighter, suddenly burningly aware of her body in a way she’s used to when it comes to this place and its patrons but not when facing this particular woman.
But the way Gojou’s looking at her—Yuuji knows that look. She recognizes the places that heat up under that heavy regard.
Yuuji’s thighs and chest are covered up, unlike Gojou’s, but those bright blue eyes wander over them anyway. Her legs are tucked under the table, so all that’s there for Gojou to see is the side of a thigh, covered in plain blue denim. Yuuji’s not packing much in the tits department either, and her tube top is a snug, comfortable fit. But the jeans are skin-tight, and the top shows off the firmness of her chest. Yuuji picked them carefully—something she bothers with only when coming to this place. And something tells her that Gojou’s the sort of woman who’ll notice every detail.
Yuuji definitely notices how her eyes dart to the parts Yuuji has bared—both of her arms, her entire midriff.
And Gojou’s gaze—it lingers.
Yuuji flexes instinctively. It’s a pretty new habit, developed only after she started coming here regularly. She’s found that the women who eye her muscles with naked hunger are the kind of women she likes in bed.
And there’s something very surreal about watching her movie-star pretty teacher, the brightest and scariest at her school, turn that look on her, but the heat that pools in Yuuji’s gut is only hotter and sweeter for it.
“My eyes,” Yuuji says softly, “are also up here, sensei.”
Gojou’s eyes fly to Yuuji’s face, and they’re still that impossibly bright blue, but there’s a darker edge to them that makes parts of Yuuji throb in anticipation.
Gojou raises a finger and taps the corner of her own mouth. “I’ve never seen you look like this.”
Yuuji blinks, tonguing her lips. The lipstick tastes like plastic nothing, as always. That’s another new habit.
“It makes me look older,” she says.
“It does,” Gojou says, her tone considering. “Surprisingly. Usually, it just makes it very clear that a girl like you is exactly as young as she’s trying not to be. But you know what you’re doing, don’t you?” She cocks her head, and her eyes are still locked on Yuuji’s own, but she gets the feeling that Gojou’s seeing the entire rest of her all at once. “Who taught you how to do that, Yuuji?”
That’s…not a question Yuuji was expecting, somehow. No one else has asked. Not even the other couple of women who sussed out her age before taking her home—and took her home anyway.
But none of them were Gojou Satoru.
It makes her honest. “My mother.”
Gojou hums. “I wonder if she knows what her daughter’s using that knowledge for.”
She probably does. But all Yuuji says is, “She won’t care.”
Gojou says nothing, but her eyes don’t waver. She barely seems to blink. Yuuji’s still acutely aware of her own body, but it’s a little less pleasant this time—an awareness that goes beyond the flesh to gnaw on ugly, buried things.
And then Gojou uncrosses her arms and slides smoothly into the seat opposite Yuuji. It’s a two-person booth, which has always felt perfect whether Yuuji’s alone or has company, but the moment Gojou sits down, space seems to shrink.
This place isn’t enough to contain this woman.
“You realize,” Gojou says casually, “that I won’t let you stay here?”
Yuuji blinks. “Does that mean you’re taking me home?”
Pure shock splinters Gojou’s features, the sight novel and thrilling. It doesn’t last though—wry amusement takes its place instead. “That’s quite the leap, Yuuji-chan.”
Yuuji makes a face at the honorific; Gojou only pulls that out when she really wants to needle Yuuji. And sure, Yuuji’s usually done something to earn it—a lackluster performance in Gojou’s class, mostly—but it still grates. And right now, she doesn’t think she’s done anything to deserve it. Gojou’s the one who came to her.
And it’s not really a leap anyway.
“I’m here because I don’t want to go home, sensei. If you want me to leave, you need to give me somewhere to go.”
“Need to, huh,” Gojou drawls, a corner of her mouth curling up. She’s not wearing lipstick. But her lips are glossy in that wet-looking way. That hasn’t changed. Gojou wears lip gloss to school too, and it never seems to fade no matter how much she talks. “And why don’t you want to go home?”
Yuuji shrugs. “No one’s there.”
Gojou’s smile turns into a frown, and then her expression blanks, except it doesn’t lose an iota of intensity as she stares at Yuuji.
Yuuji weathers it, forcing herself not to look away from that piercing blue.
She can guess the kind of assumptions Gojou’s making. Some of them are probably right too, given the sheer variety of Yuuji’s family situation. Her dad’s dead, her grandpa’s in the hospital, her mum’s off on one of her many world trips, and her aunt is—
Her aunt doesn’t count. It’s not like Sukuna lives with Yuuji and her mum.
There’s a soft sigh. Gojou’s shaking her head. “Fine. You can sleep off your illicit drinks in my guest room.”
Yuuji snorts and takes a sip of her illicit drink. There’s not much to sleep off, at least not yet. This is her first glass of the night, and it’s pretty much full. It tastes good though, sweet and fruity. It’s as pink as her hair too. She gets this drink just for that. It’s kinda funny. And people pick up on it too. They crack jokes and ask questions—trite ones, sometimes, but Yuuji doesn’t mind. They’re all getting what they want in the end. They’re trying.
Gojou doesn’t ask questions or crack jokes. She watches with an unreadable expression as Yuuji lips at her drink.
Yuuji puts it back down after that first sip, tonguing the inside of her mouth as the sweetness of the cocktail gives way to the sharp, dry bite of alcohol.
Gojou continues to watch her. Yuuji returns the favor.
It’s not as easy as she’d like it to be. Gojou has made Yuuji’s eyes wander from the moment she stepped into the classroom the first time, but in those suits, she’s safe enough to look at. Still not easy—Gojou’s the kind of pretty that makes your eyes hurt, an endless devastation from the snow-white gleam of her hair to the chiseled edges of her cheekbones. But right now, Yuuji has to fight to keep her eyes off Gojou’s plunging neckline. No way is she going to get away with that again.
Gojou’s not making it easy. She’s leaning forward with her forearms braced on the table, practically an invitation to look. But Yuuji doesn’t think pointing that out is going to do anything except get her decked.
Yuuji presses her tongue to the back of her teeth, tasting phantom blood.
Gojou’s face is safer—or as safe as a face like that will ever be. Yuuji did get a little used to Gojou’s looks over the last six months or so, but the bared eyes are tripping her up. Seeing flashes of it around Gojou’s usual blackout sunglasses was one thing, but now, there’s just no barrier there at all, and all that blue threatens to swallow Yuuji whole.
It’s just a little hard to not want to be swallowed.
The only mercy is the hair falling into Gojou’s eyes, breaking up the blue. But even that’s a new kind of stunning that leaves Yuuji at risk of doing something stupid like reaching out to touch. Gojou’s piled it all up into an artfully messy updo, the kind that looks like it’ll tumble down her back at any moment but never will. Shorter, frailer strands are dangling from it, some on her face and some flirting with her bare shoulders.
Gojou’s never come to school like that. She wears her hair loose sometimes, a long waterfall of perfect white that whips in the air whenever she moves too fast. Most of the time, she keeps it in one long braid—one of the fancier types, all twisting and elegant. There was a ponytail, once or twice; Yuuji remembers being fascinated by what Gojou looked like without even a single stray strand kissing her face, her features all the more severe for it.
But nothing like this. It softens her in some ways, makes her look younger. But the end result is still Yuuji’s ribs squeezing around her heart and her lungs.
“Take a picture,” Gojou says.
“Okay,” Yuuji replies automatically, reaching for her phone.
Gojou’s mouth twitches violently—not quite a smile. “Yuuji.”
“Oh.” Yuuji puts her hand back on the table, her phone still safely in her pocket. “It was a joke.”
“Mmhm.” Gojou leans back, her shoulders flattening against the cushioned back of her seat; it doesn’t make her tits any less eye-catching. “You were staring pretty hard.”
“It’s weird seeing you like this,” Yuuji offers, half honest. “You look so different.”
“If I dressed like this while shaping impressionable young minds”—Gojou’s voice takes on a mocking lilt that doesn’t hide exactly what she thinks of those minds and how impressionable they are—“I’d get fired.”
Yuuji frowns. “I don’t know, sensei. You get away with a lot of things.”
Gojou laughs, her shoulders shaking. Other parts are…jiggling. “You’re not as oblivious as you act then.”
No, Yuuji’s pretty sure she is very oblivious. Everyone tells her that at least. Gojou just isn’t subtle.
She doesn’t say that out loud, but the way Gojou’s grin sharpens, maybe she can read it on Yuuji’s face.
Yuuji is also not subtle.
“Aren’t you getting a drink?” she asks Gojou.
“I’m not here to drink.”
“It’s a bar, sensei.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Gojou says, her tone bone-dry. “Is that what brings you here? I suppose underage drinking isn’t the worst you can do in a place like this.”
Yuuji blinks at Gojou and then eyes her nearly full pink drink. “It’s not.”
“It’s not the worst you can do or it’s not what brings you here?”
“Both, I guess.” Yuuji raises a hand, rubbing at her undercut, and she doesn’t even notice what she’s doing until she catches the way Gojou’s eyes snap to her bicep and stay. She palms her undercut a little more firmly, tensing the muscles of her entire arm. “The drinking is fun too. People are really interesting when they forget themselves a little.”
Gojou’s eyes narrow. Yuuji drops her arm.
“I really should worry,” Gojou murmurs, with a marked lack of real concern, “about the things you’ve learned in a place like this.”
“Good things, mostly.”
Gojou looks skeptical. “Well, I’ll leave the drinking to you and your interesting people. I’m a lightweight.”
Yuuji dubiously eyes Gojou’s frame. It’d be an understatement to say she’s not a small woman. She’s well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a very generous chest and legs that go for miles. And Yuuji doesn’t know what she’s packing under those clothes, but seeing Gojou’s arms and shoulders bared tells her that she’s probably more muscled than even Yuuji herself.
Not as much as Sukuna—but Sukuna’s built like a tank and acts like one too.
Gojou is still one of the most statuesque people Yuuji’s ever seen.
Aren’t bigger people supposed to have better alcohol tolerance?
Yuuji picks her drink up, stretching her arm out to place it in front of Gojou.
A single pale eyebrow creeps up again.
Yuuji shrugs. “It’s very light. Barely anything in it. Doesn’t even make me tipsy—I just like the taste. You can have it. I’ll get another drink.”
Gojou’s looking at the pink liquid like it’ll bite her. Long, graceful fingers pinch the stem, and Yuuji stares for a beat at a sharp, unpainted thumbnail.
Then she stands and walks off toward the bar. She really needs something stronger.
And she gets it after a few minutes—something dark and golden, with a frothy mass of cream at the top. The bartender knows her face and habits, and Yuuji’s come to trust whatever they put in her hand. They know better than she does anyway. She wasn’t lying to Gojou, earlier—Yuuji’s not much of a drinker, and even if she were, this wouldn’t be her choice of poison. It’s too expensive, and Yuuji has to be careful with her allowance and the pocket money she’s made from summer jobs and little deals with her mum.
Sometimes, the women here buy her drinks, but that’s always a prelude to something very different.
Gojou won’t be doing that—no more “illicit” drinks for Yuuji.
Anyway, if she wants to actually get drunk, it’s way more economical to get something cheap and guzzle it. But she’s only done that once or twice. The taste is shit, and the inevitable hangover isn’t worth the buzz.
And there are so many better ways to lose herself.
Gojou glances up at Yuuji when she nears their booth. The glass in front of her is only half full.
She looks back at Gojou and earns herself a one-shouldered shrug.
“It was sweet,” Gojou says, stroking a finger down the side of the glass. “I like sweet things.”
Yuuji slides back into her seat, her spine prickling like that finger is counting the knobs of her vertebrae.
They drink in silence. Gojou looks contemplative, with heavy-lidded eyes fixed mostly on her drink. Now and then, she lifts it to her lips—and swallows a generous mouthful. And she does grimace a few seconds later, probably because of the aftertaste, but she never pushes the glass back toward Yuuji, and after a while, she drinks a little more.
In no time at all, Gojou’s glass is nearly empty.
And Yuuji’s is pretty much full because she spent all that time staring at Gojou’s full lips and fuller chest.
She drains half the glass, humming happily at the taste. A little stronger than the last one, the flavor so much like coffee but with a fruitier, tangier bite. It’s new. Yuuji likes trying new things.
She licks her lips, looking up to see Gojou watching her.
Yuuji doesn’t look away as she drinks the rest.
Heat floods her in a great, heaving wave—the alcohol, the regard, who knows. It doesn’t matter.
“We can go,” she tells Gojou. “Unless you want to stay, sensei.”
Gojou lets out a huff, and despite the quirk of her lips, she doesn’t seem amused. “No. I shouldn’t be here in the first place. Come on.”
Gojou pays the bill before Yuuji can, and there’s a moment where Yuuji wonders if she’ll say something—expose Yuuji’s age to the staff and have her blacklisted. It’d be annoying, but she thinks she’ll forgive Gojou. She’d only be doing the right thing.
Gojou doesn’t do that though. She accepts her change back and ushers Yuuji out of the building, and outside, she gives Yuuji her tiny black purse to hold so that she can tap at her phone with both hands.
Yuuji just watches her for a moment. Standing side by side like this, she has to crane her neck to look at Gojou’s face. It’s a lot easier to sneak glances at her tits.
But she should probably make herself useful. “I’ll get a taxi?”
“No,” Gojou says. Her phone screen goes dark. “Ijichi will be here in a moment.”
“Who’s—”
A black car, sleek and gleaming as if freshly polished, pulls up in front of the curb, a few feet away so that it’s not blocking the way to the bar. Yuuji looks at the plates—private car, not a taxi.
Gojou’s already walking toward it, and for a moment, Yuuji just stands there and stares—at the sway of Gojou’s hips, at the pale curves of her shoulders and legs, at the sweet slivers of a nape visible between the uneven strands dangling from the messy knot she’s twisted her hair into.
Gojou opens the door. But instead of getting in, she turns and looks at Yuuji, raising an arm in a beckoning gesture. Yuuji can’t tell whether it’s impatient or imperious, but she obeys anyway, jogging over.
She also realizes she’s still holding Gojou’s purse, but when she tries to hand it over, Gojou just waves it off, gesturing for Yuuji to get in the car.
Yuuji gets in the car.
And Gojou gets in on the same side, the heavy press of her body catching Yuuji off guard. She scoots to the side, and Gojou settles down properly, slamming the door shut. She tilts her head back and lets out a long breath like she ran to the car or something.
Yuuji blinks at her and then at the driver—a woman, with dark hair and glasses and a plain suit. Yuuji can see one side of a pallid face.
“You must be Ijichi-san,” she guesses.
The woman startles. “Uh, um—yes—”
“Don’t scare her, Yuuji,” Gojou says. She’s still got her eyes closed. “Ijichi’s delicate.”
“Right…” Yuuji says dubiously.
Ijichi doesn’t actually refute Gojou though. She just drives.
Warmth and weight bear down on Yuuji. She turns her head to see Gojou just…leaning against her. With their heights, it means her head is resting on top of Yuuji’s. Thin strands of hair tickle the side of Yuuji’s face, and every breath she takes floods her lungs with the scent of Gojou’s perfume.
It’s not strong, but it lingers, clinging to the insides of Yuuji’s nostrils and seeping down to her throat till her spit takes on a strange, serrated flavor.
There’s another scent under it, sharp and almost sterile—alcohol.
They did just come out of a bar, and they both drank. Barely anything, but the scent has a way of lingering, Yuuji’s found. And that alone doesn’t mean anything, but the way Gojou’s leaning on her, not exactly boneless but also not like someone worried about inconveniencing or even crushing the other person, it’s—
“Gojou-sensei,” Yuuji asks softly, incredulously, “are you drunk?”
There’s a high-pitched noise from the front seat.
Gojou just hums low in her throat. Her entire chest seems to rumble with it, as if Yuuji needed more reasons to be hyperaware of the heaving cleavage within licking distance.
“You barely had anything,” Yuuji says, still incredulous. “And you were fine a moment ago.”
“I am fine,” Gojou finally says. She sounds normal enough—no slurring or anything.
But there’s something off about the quality of her voice. It’s too light. Happy-sounding, but in a weird way. Not all the way natural. At least not normal.
“Wow,” Yuuji says, “you really are a lightweight.”
Gojou makes the verbal equivalent of a pout and sinks a little more into Yuuji.
It’s…nice.
Gojou’s solid all over. And she’s very warm. Yuuji always runs cold, and the weather right now isn’t so bad that she needs a jacket or anything with her current outfit, but it’s still nice to be pressed up so close against someone radiating so much body heat.
It helps that the whole thing is making Yuuji’s body generate some heat of its own.
Gojou rubs her cheek against Yuuji’s hair. Her arm snakes under Yuuji’s, and soft knuckles brush the underside of her wrist as Gojou’s hand makes its way to her knee, cupping it over the jeans. It’s big enough to swallow the entire knee. Gojou’s nails aren’t very long, just a few centimeters of what looks like manicured perfection, but they look sharp.
Yuuji’s back prickles with phantom pain.
Thing is, Yuuji would usually assume this is just someone using the alcohol as an excuse to get frisky. She never minds. She returns the favor too.
But right now, she keeps her hands and everything else to herself, barely daring to breathe. There’s a whole other person in the front. Gojou’s friend? Driver? Yuuji doesn’t really know people with personal chauffeurs. But then, she doesn’t know how Gojou comes to the school and leaves either. Maybe Ijichi is her driver. Maybe she just ferries Gojou to and from bars on weekends. Seeing—feeling—the state Gojou’s in, Yuuji can understand why. If drinking only most of such a light cocktail can reduce Gojou to this, having someone drive her around is definitely the better idea.
On top of all that, Yuuji called Gojou sensei a moment ago. Maybe she should’ve thought that through a little better.
“Do you know why they all believe you’re older, Yuuji?”
Every word is clear and separated—a little too much so, like Gojou’s putting real effort into talking.
Yuuji swallows; her throat is parched. “Sensei…”
There she goes, doing it again. Maybe the drink is getting to her too.
But Yuuji knows that’s not it. She’s sober as anything, and if her head isn’t clear, it’s not because of the drink.
It’s not like she can call Gojou anything else. She can’t just call her Gojou. And Satoru is unthinkable—even if it’s a very pretty name.
Beside her, Gojou shifts.
Soft, yielding warmth presses up against Yuuji’s arm.
Fuck, Yuuji thinks, her eyes falling helplessly to Gojou’s chest—and the cleavage now split around Yuuji’s arm.
Before she’s even processed that, there’s a touch on her stomach. She pries her eyes away from Gojou’s tits to blink down at the palm splayed over her bare belly. Gojou’s other hand is still gripping her knee, and it’s only with this new touch on her skin that Yuuji realizes just how much the denim is protecting her from the sheer heat Gojou’s emanating.
It’s scorching.
“It’s these,” Gojou whispers right into Yuuji’s ear, her fingers flexing like they’re groping Yuuji’s abs. “Girls your age don’t have muscles like these. Wouldn’t have thought you were hiding a six-pack under all those hoodies.”
Of everything Gojou just said, it’s her knowledge of Yuuji’s routine violation of the dress code that surprises Yuuji the most, even though it really shouldn’t. Her teacher is dangerously sharp in every conceivable way. Yuuji’s known that for months.
“Don’t you like it, sensei?” Yuuji hears herself ask.
A husky laugh breaks against Yuuji’s ear. It’s hot, and her flesh heats up under it.
“Oh, I like it quite a lot,” Gojou says, and drunk or not, this brand of mean amusement sounds the same on her tongue. “Surprised you do. You’re at that age where kids get the strangest ideas about what to do and how to look.” She rubs a slow circle on Yuuji’s stomach, her thumb digging into the stretch of skin just under the belly button. It’s not really sexual, Yuuji doesn’t think. But it’s still the kind of touch that drips heat past skin to sear the bones, and her entire body burns. “Don’t they bully you for it?”
Yuuji drags in a deep breath, trying to focus on the conversation. She can’t look away from where Gojou’s touching her.
“Not really,” she says honestly. “My friends don’t care, and I don’t care what anyone else says. Some people get weird about it, but they learn pretty fast not to bother me.”
“Very good,” Gojou purrs, and dirty heat zip-lines from Yuuji’s ear to her cunt. “Is your family also so well behaved? Or do you make them behave?”
Despite everything— Gojou, her touch, her voice—Yuuji can’t help snorting at the idea of anyone making Kenjaku or Sukuna behave.
Not even her grandpa could. And he’s no less stubborn anyway.
Yuuji wrenches her mind away from hospital tiles and wilted flowers and says, “The women in my family also look like this, sensei.”
Sukuna’s bulkier than Yuuji and Gojou combined, and Kenjaku’s softened a little these days, age and a quieter life sanding off some of her edges, but Yuuji’s not stupid enough to think that’s made her any less exquisitely lethal. She may dwarf her mother now, but with a mind like that, size doesn’t mean much.
“Fascinating girl,” Gojou murmurs. “You shouldn’t be so interesting, Yuuji. It’s dangerous.”
Yuuji digs her fingers into the edges of the seat, trying to ignore how one of her fists is trapped between their bodies—between rough denim and silken skin.
“Sensei—”
“What about the women you like?”
“Huh?”
Gojou digs her fingers into Yuuji’s stomach, and Yuuji tenses up instinctively. Impotent pressure bears down against her muscles, but Gojou’s nails dent skin as easy as anything.
A thin noise tears free of Yuuji’s throat.
There’s a sharp intake of breath against her ear—and then a long, slow exhale.
“The women you like, Yuuji,” Gojou says, her voice dangerously soft. “Do they also look like this?” More rough, groping pressure, breaking against her muscles but scoring red-hot trails on her skin. “Or do you like them all soft and…yielding?”
“I—” Yuuji screws her eyes shut, trying to focus past the prickling sting on her stomach and the heat it’s stirring up underneath. “I like all kinds of girls.”
“How egalitarian. And boring.” The hand on her stomach vanishes. Fingers pinch Yuuji’s chin before she can react to the absence. Her face is tugged to the side, and her eyes fall open despite her better judgment screaming. “Be honest with me, Yuuji.”
“Tall women,” Yuuji gasps, drowning in blue. “I like tall women.”
The smile that spreads across Gojou’s face is a slow, devouring thing.
Someone clears their throat. “Um, Gojou-san, we’re here.”
Yuuji startles violently enough that she almost slams her skull into Gojou’s jaw, but drunk or not, Gojou’s reflexes are sharp—she sways back with boneless grace, taking her hands off Yuuji in the same motion. The next moment, she’s opening the car door and stepping out, though she doesn’t go far, just stands there stretching her arms up high, her back arching slightly with it.
Her ass is right there.
“Um, miss…”
Yuuji looks over at the driver’s seat. Ijichi is staring right ahead, and every inch of her that Yuuji can see is as stiff as a board. The thin fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel are borderline skeletal.
“It’s Itadori,” Yuuji tells her. “Itadori Yuuji. Nice to meet you, Ijichi-san.”
“Ah,” Ijichi says very quietly. “Yes. You too, Itadori-san. Can you—if you wouldn’t mind—I think—”
Yuuji waits a moment, but Ijichi seems to have run out of steam.
“Ijichi-san?” she prods.
“Please keep an eye on Gojou-san,” Ijichi says in a rush. “She gets careless when she’s drunk.”
Yuuji finds herself smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.”
“T-that’s not exactly—”
“Yuuji!”
Yuuji jumps again, head whipping back toward the door. Gojou’s turned around and bent over, and her hands are cupped around her mouth like she’s about to yell again. The alcohol clearly hasn’t done shit to her lung capacity.
“Just a moment, sensei,” Yuuji says, forcing herself to turn away before she gets hypnotized by Gojou’s tits again. In that position, they really look like they’ll spill right out of that skimpy dress and possibly suffocate Yuuji. “Excuse me, Ijichi-san.”
Ijichi makes a noise that could be anything from acknowledgment to another warning. Yuuji snatches Gojou’s purse from the backseat and steps out, using the other door. Less risk that way of running into Gojou’s chest with her whole face.
Gojou’s straightened up and moved a few feet away by the time Yuuji rounds the car, but the door on that side is still open. Yuuji closes it with one last glance at what she can see of Ijichi and goes to stand beside Gojou, finally taking in where they are.
They’re in front of one of those expensive high-rise apartments, with its own gate and security and everything. The car starts up behind her, and Yuuji cranes her neck to watch it progress along the perfectly maintained driveway, vanishing past the side of the building—to the parking lot, probably.
Beside her, Gojou is still and silent.
“Sensei?” Yuuji ventures. “Shouldn’t we go inside?”
Gojou makes a soft noise that sounds like agreement.
Yuuji waits. Nothing happens.
“You’re gonna have to lead the way,” she says, a little exasperated.
“Okay,” Gojou chirps, taking a long step forward—and stumbling.
Yuuji grabs her elbow, swinging herself in front of Gojou so that she can catch her if she needs to. A warm hand lands on her shoulder, gripping tight, and the arm Yuuji grabbed slots against her own, gripping her elbow right back.
Gojou blinks down at her with large, liquid eyes. Under them, her cheeks are delicately flushed.
Before Yuuji can say anything, Gojou smiles—wide and bright, like a full moon given flesh.
“Yuuji,” she says, soft and so strangely pleased but also a little like she’s seeing Yuuji for the first time.
It’s just the drink. Yuuji knows that.
It doesn’t stop the clench of her chest or the hotter, tighter ache further south.
“Gojou-sensei,” she rasps.
Gojou sways forward, and for a moment, Yuuji thinks she’ll kiss her, but Gojou just…grabs her, yanking Yuuji close and tucking her under her arm in a movement that seems too smooth and graceful for the same woman who tripped on air just a moment ago, but Gojou remains steady as she half guides, half drags Yuuji into the apartment building, striding past automatic glass doors and an unmanned reception desk, till they reach a pair of elevators.
Inside one, Gojou presses a button—twenty-two, the highest of the lot.
The only apartment building Yuuji’s lived in is Sukuna’s. Her grandpa’s old house in Sendai was a small single-story one in a quiet neighborhood. Her mum’s house is bigger and newer, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the city but still in a pretty well-connected area. Sukuna lives in a large open studio, with a loft up high.
When Yuuji was a kid, Sukuna would dangle her from it till she cried, terrified that Sukuna would drop her and she’d die splattered on the floor. These days, it’s more like mutually assured destruction. If Yuuji’s falling, she’s taking her aunt down with her.
Gojou probably has a much more sensible setup.
The elevator ride lasts a while. Gojou doesn’t speak, and Yuuji can’t bring herself to break the silence either. A part of her is worried that Gojou will change her mind. It’s happened a few times—cold feet, unexpected visitors, the occasional unexpected husband—and Yuuji usually doesn’t mind. But this is different.
This is Gojou.
The way she’s standing so close to Yuuji, their arms pressed together on one side, doesn’t indicate a woman who wants to pull away, but that’s exactly why Yuuji’s afraid of opening her mouth and breaking the spell.
Finally, the elevator doors open.
Gojou slings her arm around Yuuji’s shoulders and guides her down a carpeted corridor—just a few feet to a glossy wooden door.
They take their shoes off, and then Gojou fishes a key out of her purse, opening the door and stepping through, still dragging Yuuji with her. An absent sweep of Gojou’s arm lights up the sprawling penthouse in an array of lights, revealing floor-to-ceiling windows and a living room that could have come straight out of some interior design magazine.
“Sensei,” Yuuji asks slowly, “are you rich?”
“Yep,” Gojou chirps—and promptly hauls Yuuji deeper into the apartment, navigating nimbly along a living room that seems to be eighty percent couches and cushions till they reach a darker, more ornate door. “This is the guest room. Be a good girl now, hm?”
Gojou hugs her.
Yuuji registers this after the fact, once the heat and the scent have retreated enough that she can think. Her face is still hot—half a blush, half the lingering warmth of Gojou’s skin.
She raises a hand to her face, touching her mouth. It was buried, briefly, in the swell of Gojou’s breasts.
When she licks her lips, the sweat she tastes isn’t her own.
Yuuji blinks away the last of that heat haze in time to see Gojou vanish past a similarly ornate door on the opposite side.
For a moment, Yuuji just stands there, taking in her surroundings. The living room is still all lit up. Half of the light fixtures are more decorative than anything, but the effect is very pretty. That’s probably the point. There’s a darker space beyond a waist-high partition off to the side, but enough light reaches it that Yuuji can tell it’s a kitchen. The windows are the kind that open, into a large balcony with more plush chairs scattered about.
It’s nothing like anywhere Yuuji’s been, and Gojou’s just…left her here.
Her bedroom door is half open.
Yuuji takes a step forward. Then another and another. Every single one feels illicit in a way the bars and the drinks and the women never have.
Her feet sink into the living room carpet, and Yuuji pads closer and closer to the dubious invitation on the other end.
She grabs the knob of the bedroom door, sucking in a deep breath.
She shoves it open and steps through.
The bedroom is dimly lit—a few golden lights set into the ceiling. Most of the space inside is taken up by the giant bed shoved up against the wall opposite the door. Gojou’s sitting at the foot of it, both hands gripping the edge of the mattress while she stares intently down at the floor.
“Gojou-sensei.”
Gojou’s head snaps up, the loose strands of her hair bouncing with the motion.
“Yuuji?” She squints, a comically puzzled expression. “What’re you doing here?”
Yuuji’s reminded of the way Gojou called her name outside, when she stumbled and Yuuji caught her—cheerful and shocked, like she was seeing Yuuji for the first time tonight but was so, so happy about it.
Yuuji smiles, suddenly, helplessly fond of this woman.
“You brought me here, sensei,” she says gently. “Remember?”
Gojou bites her lip. It’s devastating.
Yuuji walks slowly toward her, achingly aware of both the heavy weight of Gojou’s sharpening attention and the way her own body straightens up and pulls taut under it. Yuuji’s own wants are refreshingly uncomplicated, but whatever is dancing on Gojou’s face isn’t so simple.
But Yuuji knows desire when she sees it. She’s spent so much time learning to see it.
Gojou watches her with those hot, conflicted eyes all the way until Yuuji climbs onto her lap and kisses her full lips.