The Strongest | ɢᴏᴊᴏ ꜱᴀᴛᴏʀᴜ

Chapter 33

"She was furious," Shoko tells me.

We've been scrubbing the room for the past fifteen minutes, and now it's smelling of chlorine and disinfectant. I can't believe she usually has to do this on her own, but when I asked her, she said she likes doing it because it's part of her job. I guess that for her is like getting hurt for me.

"Really?" I ask and pull my latex gloves higher up to my elbows. "I never thought Mei Mei to be the kind of person to get furious."

Shoko laughs. "Oh, no, she's a calm person until it gets to her salary." She walks over to the bucket of water and cleans the rag in her hand. "That's when she told him she won't work for him again unless he paid her double. Once before the job and once after."

"And did he do it?"

"Of course." We grin at each other. "She's too skilled to lose her. They've maintained a working relationship for years now. And he hasn't cheated her out of a cut of her money ever since."

I nod to myself with a smile. "What made him think he can do that in the first place?"

"Satoru."

Shoko's answer makes me look up at her and stop scrubbing the metal table. "Gojo?"

Shoko nods from the other side of the room, where she's kneeling on the floor to clean the tiles. "They were in it together, he and Mei Mei. She wanted more money, so Satoru told him he could give her less. Now, he receives a quarter of her pay every time she completes a job for that guy."

I laugh. Why does that not surprise me? In the time I've known Mei Mei, she's never been too afraid to say that she's only working for an appropriate amount of money, and it never even occurred to me to tell her otherwise. She's an incredibly competent sorcerer, and if paying her is what gets me her services, then so shall it be.

"It was a foul trick, but what was he supposed to do?" Shoko says, shrugging. "Accuse Gojo Satoru of cheating him out of money because he was cheating Mei Mei first?" I laugh while she shakes her head. "He's a smart enough man to understand that the odds were against him from the very start, and now he just plays along."

To be honest, I love this punishment. Shoko and I get to spend almost two hours every evening, just talking and exchanging stories, and it counts as working. Apart from that, cleaning seems to really help distract me from whatever is going on in my head at the moment. Whether it's my mother or the question of what Gojo wanted earlier, when I have the sponge in my hand and the smell of cleaning products in my nose, I can't think of anything else.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the sleeve on my upper arm after getting rid of a particular stubborn blood stain on the medical table. I'm done. Shoko seems to be, too, and she gets up, sighing. She raises her eyebrows at me before aiming at the bucket in the center of the room and throwing her rag. She scores, water splashes out of the bucket, and we both laugh.

"Don't do that!" I laugh and fake-complain, but Shoko is already fishing the rag out of the bucket and cleans the floor around it herself.

We bring everything back to where it belongs and then head to our rooms. I'm exhausted, and I can tell that Shoko is, too. "Today was a lot," I sigh.

She looks at me and nods. "You had a lot to do today," she agrees.

"Yeah..." I look off into the distance when I remember something. "By the way." I look at her. "Did you tell Gojo about Yaga sending me on missions alone?"

"Why? Did he say something?"

I frown. "No. I mean, yes, kind of. He texted me last night and said that no sorcerer should go on their own."

Shoko nods in agreement. "And he's right."

There. That shared secret the two of them have. That unspoken thing, which seems to hang like a glass wall between us whenever it comes up. I only sigh because I don't know what else to say. Whatever it is that they've experienced, I'm sure it makes their opinions on this matter perfectly reasonable, so I don't argue.

"Shouldn't I have?" Shoko asks, making me look at her again.

"Oh, no, it's fine." That's really not it. Then again, I'm not really sure what it is.

"Okay. I just mean... I don't tell him everything that's happening with you, if that's what you're wondering."

I frown and can't help but grin. "No, I know."

"Just sometimes when he asks."

That makes me frown even more, and my grin drops. "What do you mean? He asks about me?"

"No, I mean..." The answer comes too fast for me to believe it, but I don't comment. He asks about me?

"It's fine. I was just surprised that he knew all of a sudden."

Shoko seems relieved that I bought her lie or am at least pretending to. She gives me a soft smile, and it shows just how tired she looks. "Yeah, he knew from me. It won't happen again."

I know she's saying this because she probably doesn't want to baby me any more than I want her to, so I smile back at her and appreciate it. I'm not even mad at her for telling Gojo - after all, that got me a phone call with him.

Only when I'm dressed in my comfortable pajamas and under the blanket do I check my phone again and almost drop it in shock. Two missed phone calls and five messages. Is he absolutely insane? This better have been an emergency. When I open the chat, I'm disappointed and relieved at the same time. It wasn't an emergency; it was just him being insane.

Are you ignoring my
message?

I can tell that you're
ignoring my message

Do you think it's polite
to ignore someone?

(Y/n)

If I don't get a call back
from you, I'll show up
in your room when
you're sleeping and fart
in your face

I pull a face when I read the last message and look around my room to make entirely sure that he isn't in here somewhere in the dark, waiting for me to fall asleep. He's a grown man! There's no need for him to say such childish things sometimes. Tingly with nothing else but annoyance, I press the button to call him and put the phone to my ear. It beeps only twice before he picks up, starting me for a second before I regain composure.

"What do you want?" I grunt.

"Hello, sunshine."