Koi No Yokan (gojo x oc)

23. Coincidence

I'm tired.

So, so... tired.

But there's a phone that won't stop ringing. It vibrates above the nightstand, making both of us stir.

I groan into his warm neck, "Is it yours or mine?"

"Who cares?" His voice is perfectly hoarse in the morning. His arms adjust against my back, firming their grasp. "Don't answer it."

I do as he says and the call passes. Only as I'm drifting off again, the phone begins vibrating once more.

Satoru's chin turns towards the nightstand, brushing the top of my head. "It's yours."

Reluctantly, I roll off of him, hugging the bed sheet to my bare upper body as I reach for the phone. "Son of a—Good morning," my tone turns pleasant.

"You always answer on the second try."

It's Yaga Sensei.

"How else would I know you're being serious?"

I rub the grogginess from my eyes. The clock in the corner reads eight o'clock, a perfectly reasonable time, but my body feels worn. My shoulders are heavy, my neck stiff. I want to stay curled up in this bed for at least another few hours.

"Okay." I hang up the phone.

"Mission?"

"A first grade downtown," I repeat from the call. There's hardly an inflection in the sentence. Being called on like this has come to hardly mean anything at all.

"When do you leave?"

"Chihiro will be ready for me in twenty minutes," I say.

Satoru moves beneath the sheets until he's on top of me, lips pressed into my neck. "Give me ten of them."

March 2007
One year later.

Chihiro and I break through the crowd of crying parents, dipping beneath the police tape as they all begin to complain.

"Wait!"

"Why are they letting those kids through?!"

"Let me see my daughter!"

Chihiro leans in, "Don't let them get to you. They've only been waiting a couple hours."

"Probably feels like a lifetime for them."

I place one earbud in after the other, plugging it into the MP3.

Chihiro's hazel eyes scan the seemingly normal building. "Are you sure you should play your music for this one?" She shivers a bit. "I'm getting a bad feeling."

"It's an innate domain."

"Another one?" she says in surprise, "How can you be sure?"

"You can smell it," I allude to the foul cursed stench oozing from the building. With that, "You can feel it in your shoes too."

Chihiro glances at her feet. "I don't feel anything."

"You're probably better off that way," I say, turning on the MP3. "You can put up the veil now."

If Chihiro responded I couldn't hear it. The music helps drown out the noise and other sensitivities I've developed. I can't possibly fathom how Satoru has lived with it his whole life. Noticing movement from miles away, catching sounds as small as a pin dropping, breathing in cursed energy like it were air.

The only thing that makes me stop is a small tug on my pant leg. One of the kids waiting with their parents seemed to have slipped past the crowd, and was now clinging to my knee.