She rolled her eyes at him, playfully swatting his hand away, "I have a feeling your student's get a headache when you teach." She teases lightly before throwing him a small smile before shutting the car door, "But, yea I promise I'll text you. I pinky swear, so you know it's true."
She waves bye to him as she heads into the subway, her pink backpack swinging behind her as she swipes her train pass at the gate.
He watches her disappear into the subway station with a soft smile on his face, shaking his head at her comment about his students. Eh, not like she's far off though. Once she's out of sight, he pulls back into traffic, heading toward her apartment complex.
The drive gives him time to think—about how quickly things have escalated, about the fact that he just asked a girl he's known for two days to move in with him, about how right it all feels despite the insanity of it.
When he arrives at her building, he notices the repair crews are already at work. He flashes them a charming smile and his Special Grade Sorcerer credentials, which gets him immediate access to the property. The outside building is a grey color with black doors for each tenant and little window's off to the side of some. He walks up the stairs to the second floor where she lives. Or rather, did live. Her door's plain except for a tiny dog sticker under the peephole. A small dog with triangle ears that looks like it's looking over it's paws. He laughs to himself, the small little decoration so out of place on the otherwise plain door but also incredibly her.
The apartment still shows signs of the battle—scorch marks on the walls, broken furniture, shattered glass. But more importantly, he can sense the faint traces of cursed energy lingering in the corners. Nothing dangerous, but enough to make his decision firm: she's definitely not coming back here. If she needs to come back for something, then she can come back with him.
He finds her lavender surfboard relatively unscathed, leaning against the wall in her bedroom closet. As he picks it up, he takes a moment to look around her space—at the photos on her dresser, the books on her shelf, the little details that make up who Noa is. There's a photo of her and a large group of people sitting on a beach, their toes in the sand, placed on one corner of her dresser. She's smiling in it, her arms wrapped around a blonde girl and a dark haired guy. Everyone in the picture was wearing wetsuits with boards behind them, her lavender board in the back as well. He goes to her bookshelf, his index finger tracing over the spines of the books. A Wolf Called Romeo, Under the Oak Tree, Solo Leveling The Novel and.....The Spiders Mate. He picks the last book up, eyebrows shooting up as he reads the description. She had interesting tastes for sure. He chuckles to himself, grabbing the books and deciding to take them with him for her. He looks around more, noticing the extra locks on the bedroom door, the folded sherpa blanket on the foot of the bed. Her bedcover that has pastel pink and blue flowers on it. His lips tug into a smile at the adorableness of it all.
His phone buzzes with a text, and he checks it, hoping it's her.
She's sitting at the library table, all her notes sprawled out on the table with Emi and Haru's as she scrolls through her phone, remembering her promise to him. She smirks as she adjust her feet on the edge of the table, Haru giving her an exasperated look as he flicks a pen at her.
She sends him 2 photos. One of her in front of a plaque that has her college's name & library in front of it with the text"I made it!📚Did you find my board? is it okay?" The other photo is of her shoes up on a table next to an architecture book, presumably inside the library, with someone's Cafe cup in the corner of the picture, & a boy in the other corner with glasses and dark black hair, Haruto, looking at the same book.
He's leaning the surfboard against his car and putting the her other items in the back of the car when his phone buzzes. The first photo makes him smile—she looks adorable in his oversized hoodie, and he automatically saves it to his phone. He shoots back a quick response.
"Found it. Your board is perfectly fine, lavender and all. You're apartment though? Definitely needs professional cleansing. Good thing you're staying with me 😏"
But then he opens the second photo and his expression shifts. His eyes narrow on the dark hair man with glasses in the corner, and something possessive flares in his chest. He zooms in on the image, studying the man's position relative to Noa.
"Who's glasses guy? And why is he sitting so close to you? Also, baby, your feet are on the table. What would the librarians say? 😏"
He's trying to keep his tone light and teasing, but there's a definite edge of jealousy creeping in. His fingers hit the keyboard harder than necessary as he types out another message.
"How long is this group project supposed to take? And remember, you promised to text me during. This counts, but I want regular updates. Missing you."
He glances at the time—he still had an hour or two before his evening class. Enough time to arrange for a professional cleansing of her apartment and maybe swing by the school to prep for his student's lessons. He sits in his car, messing with the keys for a moment as he goes over lesson plans in his head.
Emi and Noa where going over color scheme choices for one of the buildings in their community design group project for the end of the year. She was wanting to do gray brick with a red awning, but Emi was thinking that would be too harsh of a color palette for a community design. They were going back and forth on whether to ditch the gray brick or the red awning. The boys of the group were all huddled together at the other table, trying to figure out an electrical issue with one of the taller buildings. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, a smile unconsciously tugging at her lips. She pulled her phone out reading his text with an amused look.
She texts him back,"Ooo, I thought you wanted to keep me forever haha? Did my feet on the table do it for you?😂"after that another text followed shortly after, "That's Haruto. He's sitting next to me & Emi so the other two don't and have to sit on the next table. & Don't worry! I don't put my feet on the table when Daiki & Ren are here. I'll text you in about 30 minutes. Miss you & Have fun with your students!🩷"
He reads her texts while driving car, and despite his jealousy over Haruto, her playful tone makes him smile. The pink heart at the end does something stupid to his chest.
"Your feet on the table absolutely did NOT do it for me. I'm keeping you forever, feet on tables and all. And Haruto better keep his eyes on that architecture book and not on my girlfriend in my hoodie. 😤"
He pauses after hitting send, a grin taking over as he realizes he just called her his girlfriend without actually asking. He quickly follows up with another text.
"Yea, I called you my girlfriend. We can discuss the official terms later when I have you alone. 😏 Now go focus on your project. I'll be waiting for that 30-minute update. Be good, baby."
He makes a right turn, then pulls out his phone to make a call to a trusted cleansing specialist. As the phone rings, he can't help but glance at the photo of her at the library again—specifically at how the hoodie sleeves cover her hands and how she looks so small and comfortable in his clothes.
After arranging for the apartment cleansing, he heads toward Jujutsu High, though his mind is definitely still on Noa and whether this Haruto guy is keeping enough distance.
When he arrives to the classroom, the three first years are already in the room.
"Hey, Gojo-sensei!" Yuji greeted him, a cheerful grin plastered on his face as he hopped down from the chair he was standing on to sit in it, doing some sort of superman pose before hand. Nobara and Megumi were giving him equally annoyed looks. Gojo walked in casually, waving at them all as he stood in front of the black board.
"Hey, sorry I'm a bit late this morning guys. I had something going on at home." He tries to make it sound casual, but the corner of his mouth keeps wanting to tug into a grin. "Right! Today we're focusing on Practical Cursed Energy Control, right? Sooo lets start here.." He turns to the board and picks up some chalk, begining to draw a visual representation for them.
Yuji, Nobara, and Megumi give each other questioning looks, slightly suspicious of the difference in their sensei's mood, but decide not to question it.
After the girlfriend text she sent him some emojis "🫣😳☺️🩷". However, he doesn't receive another text from her for an hour and half, even with him sending texts throughout his student's class. When she finally does send a message back it's short & vague. "We ended early & I'm heading home on the subway now. I'm sorry I didn't to send it for a while.How do I get back in the apartment?"
He's in the middle of demonstrating a technique to Yuji when his phone buzzes. He immediately stops mid-sentence, reading the message with growing concern.
"Class dismissed early. Emergency,"he announces abruptly, already pulling out his car keys.
"What!?" All three of them shouted at once, various looks of confusion across their faces.
"Hey! If it's an actual emergency then take us with you so we at least get some learning in?" Nobara yelled him, standing up from the chair. "Especially if it's close to downtown Tokyo."
"Yea! Take us with you Gojo-sensei!" Yuji added, getting pumped up.
Gojo though was already out of the room, searching in his pocket for his car keys and phone.
"Nah, not that kind of emergency. I'll see you all tomorrow.'Kay Bye!" He called back over his shoulder.
He's texting her back while walking to his car, his fingers moving rapidly.
"What happened? Are you okay? Don't apologize, just tell me what's wrong. You can get in with the code—it's 060712. But baby, what happened?"
He's already in his car, breaking several traffic laws as he heads back to his apartment. His mind is racing through possibilities—did something happen with her group? Did someone say something to her? Hurt her?
He tries calling her phone, needing to hear her voice to confirm she's actually alright.
Noa's on the subway train, tapping her foot against the floor. She's still irritated about what happened at the group project earlier. Just even thinking about it and the argument everyone got into after gives her a headache. Her pocket is vibrating though, people around her giving her dirty looks at the loud sound. She apologizes, going towards a secluded area of the train and looking at the number. When she saw the name 'Gojo' pop up, a small smile fell over her face, momentarily pushing the exhaustion out of her mind for moment.
"Hey, I'm sorry, it's not you, it's my group. I'm sorry about not keeping my promise near the end of the day. Something happened & we ended up fighting about it with the boys for a half hour. I'm not trying to be distant, I'm just angry and don't wanna take it out on you. I'm about five minutes away from your apartment. I'm probably gonna take a shower when I get there just to help with this headache I have now. I'll see you when you get there, okay? Bye."
When she finally makes it to the building she breathes a sigh of relief, stepping onto the elevator and putting in the passcode for the penthouse floor. She walked through the hallway the elevator opened up into, putting her coat on one of the little hooks at the entrance. When she reached the bedroom she started stripping down, throwing the clothes where ever. She stepped naked into the bathroom, turning on the nozzle for the shower and stepping under it. As the hot water poured over her body she went through the days events, feeling a bit overwhelmed from everything happening over the last few days. She stayed in the shower longer than she normally would, getting out only when she felt ready.
When he finds he again, she's laying down on the couch, curled up in his softest blanket, wearing another one of his hoodies and just a pair of pastel green underwear. Her face was set in a frown and withdrawn as she watches the tv, her damp hair making a halo around her on the armrest. When she see's him come in, only her eyes move toward him.
"Hey." She greets him softly.