Level 10

Level 2

"Nanamin," Yuuji called out to the older male as they walked, shoulders brushing ever the slightest whilst he assessed the distance they had left to cover. The curse had left a staggering amount of residuals.

"What is it, Itadori?" Nanami replied, lifting his wrist to glance at the time before he straightened his tie. There was a rustle in one of the bushes. The two of them walked past it nonchalantly.

"Gojo Sensei said that he'd help me get closer to someone I like," Yuuji started.

"Fushiguro, I presume?" Nanami inquired, brow raising ever the slightest as he motioned for Yuuji to stop.

"N-No!" Yuuji's rebuttal wasn't very convincing, what with the way he flushed and came to a stop just behind Nanami's outstretched hand.

There was another rustle, this time amongst the trees.

"Right." Nanami countered as a curse jumped out at them from the foliage, hand wrapped securely around the handle of his familiar bandaged knife. He worked quickly, and in a single smooth motion, cut it in half. "So what about Gojo would you like to ask?"

Yuuji was silent for a moment, letting the soft feeling of awe at Nanami's sharpness run through him a little more. "Well," he offered, "to be honest, I was curious... Sensei said he'd help me but, I don't know- he just doesn't seem like the type of person to know much about love." Yuuji aimed a punch at a weaker cursed spirit that had snuck up behind him, watching as it dissipated into the air. "Then again," he resumed, "Gojo Sensei's good at everything, I probably shouldn't doubt him."

Silence settled over them as Yuuji waited for Nanami to say something in reply — the atmosphere between them lax, as always. The two of them had never been uncomfortable with each other, not since the moment they met. They just clicked somehow, perhaps it was because for Yuuji, Nanami filled in the spot of the absent father-figure in his life, but even Nanami himself couldn't deny that the boy had grown on him over the course of their time together.

"He may seem like it," Nanami began after a while of soundless trekking, "but he isn't clueless when it comes to love."

"Sensei likes someone too?" Yuuji asked, faintly surprised.

"Liked," Nanami corrects. "He liked someone, they happen to be dead now."

"Oh."

Nanami watched as Yuuji went silent, a distant look in his eye. He sighed, clamping a hand on his shoulder and gesturing that the other follow him. "It really isn't my place to say anything about it, so Gojo's the one to ask, okay?" he said, "now, chin up, and concentrate, we'll be going overtime soon."

"Okay, Nanamin!" Yuuji replied, bouncing back from his prior haze, "let's do this!"

♧

"Hey, Fushiguro," Kugisaki began, hands busy at work packing for an overnight mission, "you ever wonder what exactly happened to Yuuji while he was 'dead'? Dunno why, but he seems kinda different now."

"No," the other countered. Lithe fingers skimming along the edge of his page as he turned it — he was reading a jarring non-fiction, though he was hardly invested. "We've all changed since then, if we think about him, we've gotta think about ourselves too," he said, blunt as always, "what exactly happened to us?"

"Good point," Kugisaki scratched behind her ear gently, "y'know, I've never been a fan of hard questions."

Fushiguro almost smiled, marking his page and putting the book aside — he'd come back to it later. "I know," he whispered, "me too."