The Strongest | ɢᴏᴊᴏ ꜱᴀᴛᴏʀᴜ

Chapter 17

"And what is your sister doing now?"

Gojo's question takes me by surprise. I don't even know how we got to this topic, but while we're eating, I've been telling him about growing up in my family of sorcerers. I have never mentioned to him that I have a sister. Not now, not ever.

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to her in five years," I reply with a frown. "How do you know about her? Did you ask around about me?"

The man shoves a piece of food into his mouth and takes his time chewing it just so he doesn't have to give me an answer straight away, but I stare him down until he swallows.

"You never told me things about yourself, so how else was I supposed to get to know you?"

"Not at all," I reply. "That's the whole point." I take a sip of wine and decide to calm down. It's not a big deal. So what, someone told him about my sister? It's not as if she's a secret. It's not as if anything about my life is a secret.

"As if you haven't asked around about me," Gojo assumes.

I shake my head. "There was really no need to. Everyone talks about you all the time. I had known everything there is to know about you even before I started my first day at work," I say, but I know that it's not true when I remember what Yaga said to Gojo before we left.

The silver-haired man raises an eyebrow and gives me a smirk. "I doubt that."

I only shrug. It's not important to me whether I know everything about him or not. The Gojo clan is legendary; every sorcerer knows them and the child born with the Six Eyes and Limitless. Truthfully, I know a lot about him. Sure, it might not be everything there is to him, and rather only what he gives away, but he also only knows what I give away. I don't know his inner self, and he doesn't know mine. The biggest gap in my knowledge about him is -

"So you know what happened with my best friend?"

Another question that takes me by surprise. I blink twice before I dare to look at him. I can't see his eyes, of course, but his lips are curved into an unfamiliar smile. It's soft and careful and... sad? Is he sad?

"No," I answer, and once I said it, I know that he is sad. I don't want him to be sad. I don't like this look on his face, this smile that looks as if he's thinking about a memory that he'd thought long forgotten. As much as it annoys me, I want to see him grin. "And you don't have to tell me," I add. "I don't want to know."

There's the slightest look of surprise on his face, and Gojo creases his brow just a little bit. "Yes, you do."

I shake my head. "No." My heart is beating so hard that I can hear it pounding against my eardrums. The entire room seems more silent now, as if no one exists around this table. "Not if it makes you look like this."

He leans back in his chair, taking in the words I just said. I want to think that this is weird. I want to feel uncomfortable. But I'm not. I shrug again, completely serious. Whatever happened while he was at school, I don't need to know.

"So tell me about your sister, then," Gojo changes the topic, and the smile on his lips relaxes again as he turns back to his food.

I empty my wine glass and fill both of ours again with the last bit of wine from the bottle. "There's not much to say." I eat a piece of vegetable. "She's four years older than me. She moved across the country five years ago to get away from our family and marry the love of her life."

"She's not a sorcerer?"

"She is," I tell him. "She just doesn't want to be."

My colleague raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't say anything. I smile a little and continue eating. "So... do you have any other siblings?"

I laugh at his question. "No. You'd know if I did. What's with the questions?"

"I don't know." Gojo shrugs. "Just making conversation."

"Mhm," I say. "Okay." There's silence for a few moments as we both eat. "My sister was my everything growing up," I tell him, and he looks up at me. "She didn't want to be a sorcerer, but she was always supportive of me. When she met the man she's now married to, she finally saw a way out, and they moved away as soon as he proposed to her. That's the last I've heard of her."

"She left you?" Gojo asks.

I draw back. Why does he keep going on about this? Yes, my sister left me. He left me. They'll all leave me eventually. "She left all of us," I snap.

Gojo apologizes for having asked, but I only shake my head. "You don't know anything about me or my sister," I snarl. "So stop making assumptions and act like a decent human being."

"I don't know anything about you because you don't want me to!" he fires back.

"Exactly!"

We've gotten loud again, and I can feel people around us starting to stare. My chest is rising and falling as I heave calming breaths. I pick up my chopsticks again and continue to eat, keeping my eyes down now. I don't know why he insists on making me angry. I don't know why he's suddenly so curious about my life. I mean, I guess I don't mind telling him about it, but it's just... I don't know what it is. Why am I so mad?

"I'm sorry," I mumble, slightly embarrassed.

Gojo looks up at me, his sunglasses firmly in place. Unfortunately. I'd love to see his eyes because they hold the most expression in them. They'd tell me what I want to know. "Why do you hate me?"

He keeps hitting me with those questions today. I'm speechless for about the tenth time this dinner. "I don't hate you," I say and quietly add, "Anymore."

A soft smile flickers across his lips, but it's gone too fast for me to enjoy. "Are you sure?"

I nod. "I am. I don't think I ever really hated you. I think I just... I wasn't ready to accept that I didn't hate you."

His grin is back, and my heart relaxes. "I know what you mean."

A chuckle escapes my lips, and I look down for a second, then reach for my wineglass. We're almost done eating, and our one and only bottle is empty, but it doesn't feel right to go to bed yet. I don't feel ready to say goodbye to this weekend yet. But the deal was: we go back on Monday. Maybe it's for the better. I shouldn't get attached to this version of Gojo Satoru. Who knows how long it'll last?