The Strongest | ɢᴏᴊᴏ ꜱᴀᴛᴏʀᴜ

Chapter 10

While we're waiting for the elevator to take us upstairs, I glance at my watch and double-check when I can't believe that it's already almost eleven. We've been sitting in that dining room for five hours! Thinking back, I already can't remember all the things we talked about. It was a slow start, I'll admit that, but once we got to talking, it was hard to stop. We mostly bickered and argued, but at least we were quiet and discreet enough about it that we didn't get kicked out of the room, so I think that's progress.

The elevator gives the telltale ping to signal that it has arrived and the doors slide open. Gojo and I step inside, wordlessly. He leans his back and head against the mirror and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Because I can't see his eyes, I'm assuming he has them closed.

The lights in here are way too bright, so I squint and keep my head down. I think I'm really not that used to alcohol anymore. I haven't had a drink since I started working, and I never really were one to get drunk, but I did enjoy the occasional bottle of wine with my friends. Now my friends all moved across the country and I got a job working at a school for Jujutsu sorcerers, and I don't drink anymore.

"Anything planned for tomorrow?" I ask the man next to me.

He looks down at me for a moment, then shrugs. "Not that I know of," he replies.

I nod to myself. "I thought about going to the city."

Gojo shrugs again. "Sure. I could use a few new dress shirts."

My jaw almost drops, but I don't get to reply before the doors open and Gojo steps into the hallway on the third floor. I follow him. I didn't actually mean to imply that we could go shopping together, and I'm also not sure how well that would go, but if he's offering... I could need someone to carry my bags for me.

We stop at my door, and I turn around to look up at Gojo. I want to wish him a good night, but as soon as my eyes fall on him, I'm lost for words. He's so tall. The hallway is so silent that I can hear Gojo breathe. At night, the lights are dimmed, which only helps to increase my nervousness.

I'm standing with my back turned to the door, and I completely forgot that it's even there. Maybe it's the alcohol, or the fact that it's the middle of the night, or that I slept in his bed last night, or the long dinner we just had, or the dim lights, but something feels weird between us. Charged. Like there's an electric current connecting our bodies.

We stand like this for a while, or maybe it's just a few seconds. I can't tell because time and space seem to melt together in a way it usually only does when I look into his crystal blue eyes, but I can't even see them right now. And I'm glad about that. Who knows what I might do in the state I'm in right now? Who knows what I might do either way? Who knows what he might do?

My heart begins to race just as my brain runs through the possibilities. He could kiss me right now, and I don't think I'd object. I don't think I have the strength to object right now. He could also just kiss me to use it against me later. But he could kiss me, and I could taste the wine on his tongue and feel it against my own.

The corner of Gojo's lips tucks upward into a soft smirk, and once again, I'm scared he heard my thoughts. He smirks at me like he knows exactly what I'm thinking and like he's thinking the same. But then he sways backward just a little, catches his balance, and sways forward. The man holds onto the doorframe next to my head, and his grin widens. I catch him around the waist and damn myself for being impressed by the muscles I can feel beneath my palms.

"Come on, lightweight," I say with a laugh. "Let's get you to bed."

"I'm not a lightweight," Gojo argues, but he lets himself be guided down the hallway to his room.

I watch him as he tries three times to slide his hand into his pocket to fish out his keycard. I watch him fail three times, then groan and hold him more firmly with one hand on his waist. "Can I?" I ask because I really don't just want to go groping around dangerous areas without him consenting to it.

He gives me that wicked grin of his like he knows something I don't. "Yes, please," he replies.

Once again, I roll my eyes, but I carefully stick my index and middle finger into his pocket and pull out the card. "You're going to get slapped one of those days," I say.

Gojo laughs. "I've had my Infinity off the entire evening. You could have done it anytime you liked."

I narrow my eyes, open his door, and shove him inside the room, all while he laughs heartily at my loss for words. He's an asshole. I should have left him on the floor in front of his room. Instead, I stand in the hallway, my foot holding the door open, and make sure that he's okay. He's an asshole, but that doesn't mean that I have to be one, too. He's more drunk than I am because he thought he didn't need to drink any water, and now I should make sure he gets to bed okay.

Well, at least until he starts to take off his pants. I slam my hand in front of my eyes and groan. "Come on!" I hiss at him because I really want to shout but shouldn't. "Couldn't you at least wait until I'm gone?"

He laughs as I hear the bedsheets crinkle. "You could have left at any point."

Fair enough. Asshole. Slowly, I lower my hand to find him lying in bed, his body almost entirely covered with the blanket, but I can see his muscular shoulders and am assured that he's not wearing... well, anything.

"You made sure I got to bed last night," I say and shrug. "It's the least I can do."

He nods. "Well, I'm in bed now. You can go."

I nod back. I can go, yes. And I want to go. The less I have to do with him, the better. But my feet take a second to catch up with that. They seem to think that we're going to stay here in Gojo's doorframe. We're not.

"I'm taking your spare keycard," I say as I take a step in the wrong direction - into his room.

Gojo lifts his head off the pillow to look at me. He's still wearing his blindfold, and I wonder why. "Why?" is also his question.

"So I can check on you in the morning. Don't be a bitch about it," I snap at him. "No go to sleep."

I let the door fall shut behind me and let out a deep breath. I close my eyes for a second before finally walking down the hallway to my own room. I look down at the two keycards in my hand, one engraved with a 307 and the other one with a 313.

My bed is still unused and feels cold when I slide in for the first time, but the summer sun has heated up the rest of the room so much that a cold mattress is exactly what I want. I wonder what the hotel staff did to Gojo's bloody sheets and what they think happened there. It makes me smile to fantasize about what they might be speculating in the laundry room. Is that his blood or someone else's? Where is the other person now? Did he kill someone? My guess is that he took care of the sheets on his own.

As I drift off to sleep, my mind runs through all the things that happened today. I woke up in his bed, we had a really short breakfast together where we found out that we're supposed to stay here for another night, we had a fight in the hallway that was so loud that we had to spend the rest of the day separated, and the next time we saw each other, we had dinner for five hours. Maybe this day wasn't all that bad. I'll definitely need a massage first thing in the morning, though. I can already feel the tension coming back into my shoulders.