HEART THIEF || JUJUTSU KAISEN

lie for me.

"NAOKO!!!!!"

One thing Naoko appreciated about Kai was that she announced herself with her voice.

It gave him plenty of time to flee for his life.

"I am not here. I am but a hallucination in your head. A hallucination that will punch you if you expose me." He quickly turned to Gojo, who sat on the counter peeling apples.

Taken aback by the sudden demand, Gojo nodded. "You are not here. You are but a hallucination in my head that will try and fail to punch me if I expose him."

With a raised eyebrow and a scoff to answer, he dropped backwards into his subspace, just as the door swung open and curious faces peeked into the kitchen.

"Good afternoon?" He addressed the two, eyeing them both up and down. What an odd couple.

Kai ignored Gojo and instead nodded to Makoto with her hands on her hips. The nervous young man held her gaze for a moment, sighed, and pointed towards the spot on the counter next to Gojo where another was supposed to have sat not two seconds ago.

"Miyazaki, please reveal yourself. We are on a rather tight schedule."

"Miyazaki?" Gojo chuckled awkwardly. "The director of Howl's Moving Castle?"

"No need. I know my little brother, he's always been difficult like this." Kai crossed her arms over her chest and sighed in sisterly disapproval. "Naoko, I'll buy you taiyaki later."

A pregnant pause.

"The ones with custard cream filling."

He appeared, grudgingly.

Instantly, Kai's face broke into a brilliant smile as she darted forwards, hooked one arm around his neck, and rubbed her knuckles into his hair to her heart's content.

"Quit it!" He snapped, swatting her hands away like she was a bothersome mosquito.

"Who're you guys?" Gojo pointed at them with the butt of his fruit knife.

"My name is Kai, and this is Makoto. We're registered sorcerers, no worries, none of Miyazaki's sort." She offered Gojo a fist bump, which he returned with a curious but friendly smile.

"She said you're her–" He glanced at Naoko, who cringed and stubbornly jerked his face in the opposite direction. "No. It's just a weird thing of hers. She calls everybody that."

"You grew." Makoto commented, and a small smile crept past his deadpan expression. "When Kai and I found you not one year, two months, and one and a half weeks ago, I could easily point out each of your ribs. It is delightful to see your living conditions are more pleasant now."

"We were baking apple pie." Gojo piped up, and showed them the mess of peeled apples, softening butter, and bags of sugar and cinnamon. "Well, Miya was gonna bake apple pie but the last one he made was gross so technically I'm the one baking it. Do you guys want a piece?"

Kai clasped her hands together and sighed wistfully. "Cute, but no, thank you."

"Not cute." Naoko insisted, and pointedly leaned away. Feeling their stares bore into the side of his head, he picked up an apple and examined its polished red surface. "I haven't seen either of you since Taichi's appearance a while back, it's weird for you to just pop up out of the blue like this."

Unless they had a mission.

"Your intuition is keen as ever, we are here for business." Makoto's voice was sombre, well, more sombre than usual, his flat, melancholic tone sent shivers down Naoko's spine. He sounded like he was in mourning.