Chapter Text
“Hit me.”
“Huh… sorry?”
A very confused Yuuji looked at her best friend, who was just in front of him, between the couch and the TV, not really sure about what he heard.
“Hit me like, for real, a slap here” Nobara just pointed to her cheek, utterly determined.
“What's gotten into you? I’m not gonna hit you Kugisaki!”
“Itadori, I did something terrible and stupid so I need you to slap me.”
Yuuji stood up and raised his hand slowly. Nobara closed her eyes waiting for the hit, but it never happened. All she felt was a warm hand resting on her left cheek, soft as a teddy bear.
“Geez, that was not a hit!” Nobara pushed Itadori back to the couch where he was sitting, clearly frustrated. “I’m gonna ask Fushiguro then”
“You know Fushiguro will not hit you either… Oi! Come back! What did you do! Kugisaki!”
Fushiguro was making dinner for them in the kitchen, a pink apron that belonged to Nobara tied to his slender waist, completely absorbed in his duty when he heard Yuuji’s voice calling for Nobara in the other room. He lifted his head from the chopping board and saw her, with a scowl coming towards him, and raised an eyebrow.
“Fushiguro, I need you to do something for me”
He left the knife at the counter, cleaned his hands in the apron and looked at her.
“What is it, Kugisaki?”
“Hit me here” and again, she pointed to her cheek.
Megumi stared at her quietly for a few seconds until he turned again to the counter to continue chopping vegetables. “I don’t know what did you do, but I’m not gonna hit you.”
“You two are the worst best friends ever” she said, crossing her arms.
“Told you! He wasn’t gonna hit you either. Anyway, are you gonna tell us what you did to make it so bad?” asked Yuuji, who was standing at the kitchen door.
Nobara sighed as she jumped to sit on the counter, her legs swaying.
“Let’s say I… canceled again the tattoo appointment… for the sixth time in a row…” she looked down.
“AGAIN? You’re gonna make every tattoo artist in town not want to give you a new tattoo date” Itadori now was in front of her friend. “Besides, I thought you already had the design ready, what was the reason now to cancel it again? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, I have the design, the roses all over my arm and my cheek but… I don’t know, if the tattoo doesn’t fit me? If then I’m still ugly as fuck? Or even more ugly? Or if it gets infected? Or if I get an allergic reaction to the ink? Or if...”
Yuuji grabbed her by her shoulders gently but firmly and looked in the eye, the right one, since the left was completely white, blind.
“Okay now I wanna hit you. First of all, you’re not ugly, you’re a beautiful woman, right Fushiguro?”
“You’re not ugly Kugisaki” said the taller man while still cutting onions.
“Don’t be so expressive…”
“You’re a beautiful woman with a beautiful face and personality, Kugisaki”
Itadori smiled. “Better. Second, the design you chose, if it is still the same as you showed me the other day, it’s so cool, the tattoo would suit you incredibly.”
Nobara nodded slightly.
“Third, you should be very unlucky to have an allergic reaction to the ink, but you can always do a test before getting a tattoo, just ask the tattoo artist. And about the infection, that will not happen because we will remember you every hour to put on the moisturizer or wash the area with soap, and the tattoo artist will tell us what are the hygienic measures to take, don’t worry, okay?” he smiled at her warmly.
“Fine… I should call the tattoo artist again to make the appointment, this time definitely.”
Nobara grabbed her phone and sent another message to the tattooer to make the appointment again, and waited a few minutes for his response. Meanwhile, both her and Yuuji observed Fushiguro cooking.
“I don’t like being observed when I cook, you both already know that” he said seriously.
“Don’t be so shy Fushiguro, besides, if we watch you cooking then we will learn how to do it”
“Is not like you don’t know how to cook, you only don’t like to get your hands dirty”
“I’m a pretty girl, pretty girls don’t get their hands dirty”
“Didn’t you say you were ugly five minutes ago…? OI!”
Now Nobara was the one who punched his arm. “I’m the only one who get to call me ugly, idiot.”
“And I’m the one with a knife here” he replied, lifting the knife.
“Oi oi, let’s calm down” Itadori raised his hands as he stood between both of his friends.
Nobara’s cell phone vibrated on the counter and she checked the message, letting out a cry of disbelief.
“HA???? FUCKING ASSHOLE! HE BLOCKED ME????”
The message said -Find yourself another tattoo artist, I can’t take another cancellation from you, you’re wasting my time and money, see you never *middle finger emoji”
Nobara was furious. She jumped from the counter and started walking in circles, her muscles tense as she continued ranting.
"How he dares to block me! fucking dickhead like, I'm his client! You can't block a client????"
Yuuji and Fushiguro shared a silent look while Nobara continued talking to no-one.
"Now I feel bad, I think I jinxed Kugisaki for saying that she was gonna make every tattoo artist in town not want to give her a new tattoo date..." Itadori whispered to Megumi.
"Well, it's kinda her fault, not yours. It was quite obvious this was gonna happen with all those cancellations”. Both boys looked at their friend. “Don't worry, let her rant".
Itadori looked down, as Nobara continued ranting non-stop.
"Hey, Itadori” Megumi called him as he finished cutting the vegetables and putting them in the pot with the rest of the ingredients. "Can you set the table? Just a few minutes and this will be ready, and take Kugisaki with you, please"
"Sir yes sir" with a military salute Itadori left the kitchen pushing Nobara on his way, who was still ranting about the tattoo artist.
"I can’t believe it! I mean, you can’t block me like that, that was so out of line! I’ll put bad reviews on his website I swear to God that son of a bitch will pay for this"
Frustrated, she sat on the couch and put her hands on her face and ran them through her hair. "Well, maybe it’s a sign from the universe about not getting tattooed."
"But there are plenty of other artists in the city, he is not the only one who can do your tattoo isn't he?" said Itadori while setting the table for the three of them.
"The thing is I liked his style, I mean I know there must be more tattoo artist who can make what I want but I really liked that asshole’s style, ugh"
"Well, I know you will find another one, don’t give up so easily"
"I'm just so tired of seeing these ugly scars every day and remember that fateful day... I just wish that never happened to me. I don’t even care about my blind eye to be honest; it seems I have heterochromia this way" she laughed dryly “but the skin…”
Yuuji stopped what he was doing and headed towards the couch, sat next to Nobara and crossed his arm around her shoulders. She just sighed and laid her head on his shoulder.
"We will figure out what to do, we are gonna look for every tattoo artist in town until we find another with the style that you want, I promise" he smiled at her, that bright smile that could light up an entire room.
She looked at him and gave him a poor smile back because she wasn't so convinced. She spent weeks until she found that tattooer on Instagram and now she was back again at the start. "Thanks, Itadori".
Her stomach made a noise. "God I’m so hungry. Fushiguro!” she screamed, “how long until dinner is ready? I'm starving!"
Suddenly Megumi appeared with the food ready, he had cooked the recipe for the meatballs that Yuuji had taught him along with sautéed vegetables. The smell flooded the room with a pleasant aroma and caused both Nobara and Yuuji to jump off the couch to run to the table and start eating.
"Oh my god, you made the recipe that I taught you!" said Itadori, overwhelmingly excited.
"How do you teach recipes to Fushiguro and not to me? I feel totally excluded” replied Nobara as she served herself a couple of meatballs on her plate, with an offended tone in her voice.
"I tried to teach you! But when you saw you had to touch the raw meat with your hands you said -ugh, gross- and left."
“Ah, right, I remember that, well… pretty girls-”
“Don’t get their hands dirty, we know…” the two boys said in unison.
“Pair of idiots” said Nobara with a smile on her face.
“But we are your pair of idiots.” Yuuji said.
“Yeah… you are”
She looked at them, feeling a deep sense of belonging and caring to be able to share these moments with Yuuji and Megumi.
Nobara arrived in Tokyo one year ago, when she was 18, from a village in the Tohoku region, 4 hours away because: first, she wanted to live in the city, and second: she wanted to dedicate herself to the study of fashion. Because of this, she convinced her grandmother, since she was living with her, to let her leave for the city to enter the university.
She managed to rent a small apartment not far from Shibuya in a modest building of 7 floors, which had two apartments per floor, thanks to her grandmother who agreed to pay her the rent and cover her services and food expenses only with the condition that she should enter the university and devote herself completely to study.
However, along with the village, she left behind Fumi, her best friend, the only person Nobara really cared about besides her grandmother. So, when she arrived in town, she felt utterly alone. She knew no one, had no one.
With her new keys she started walking from the train station to the avenue and took a taxi to her new building. Once she was there, she entered the elevator, pressed the button on the 4th floor and went up. As the doors opened, she observed the small hallway, which was well lit with a pair of warm lights on the ceiling and two facing doors, one on her left with a gold "A" badge and one on her right, with a "B" instead.
She was standing there, with her bags and a red backpack hanging on her shoulder, looking at her new door with the “B” in the upper middle. With a sigh, she entered the key into the lock and opened it. When she first entered her new apartment (luckily furnished) she was only greeted with silence.
It was a relatively small but nice apartment; it had a short corridor with two windows to the right that allowed to see the building in front. The kitchen was to the right at the end of the hall, the living room in the middle and a small square space with two doors on the left. The kitchen has no door, and was equipped with a refrigerator, an oven, a microwave and a couple of counters with drawers. It was connected to the living room through a bar that joined the right wall with a column to the left. Facing the entrance of the kitchen, at the left of the hallway, there was the square space with two doors, the first leading to a bathroom with bathtub and the second door to her room with a two-seater bed and a wardrobe. In the living room there was a black couch along with a matching mousetrap table and a furniture with a TV. Lastly, on the other side of the living room there were two windows that gave rise to a balcony overlooking the city.
After a couple of hours of putting her clothes in her new closet and checking for any previous breakage or damage to the apartment, Nobara felt someone knock on her door. Surprised, she shook the dust off her clothes, fixed her hair a little and went to look through the peephole in the door at the stranger. All she saw was pink hair and a big smile. When she opened the door, she saw a boy probably her age, dressed in wide blue pants and a red sweatshirt holding a tray of chocolate chip cookies.
"Hello new neighbor! The building manager notified us that the apartment in front of us had been rented by a student and wanted to welcome you because... well..." the boy scratched his neck nervous. "I just wanted to welcome you and give you these cookies I made so you can eat something while you settle..."
Nobara was quite surprised, not by the intrusion, but by the vitality that the boy in front of her emitted. She could feel how he radiated goodness and joy from every corner of his body, a whirlwind of energy contrasting with the semi-gloomy aura of the building. It even felt out of place, as if he did not belong to the sad and pitiful current society that inhabited this world.
Due to the lack of response of a very surprised Nobara, the boy felt a little embarrassment and clearing his throat spoke again: “I hope you don’t feel offended by my intrusion, I just know what it’s like to move to a new home and it’s always nice to have company” and spread the tray to her. “My name is Yuuji by the way.”
There in her village, which was quite small, Nobara was used to all citizens speaking ill of each other. She called it "small town, big hell" where everyone knew everyone and it was hard to go unnoticed. It was an environment that she really hated, the children used to be cruel and they messed with each other; the adults also used to be cruel and, when a new citizen arrived in the village, they made sure not to make them feel welcome.
That’s why Yuuji’s hospitality caught her by surprise, she really didn’t think people could be interested in a new neighbor in such a warm and loving way having witnessed newcomers fleeing her village because of the hostility of the townspeople.
That’s how Saori had to leave within months of moving...
The situation, common and normal for others, felt unreal to her.
Nobara blinked several times until she came back into herself and looked towards the cookie tray, and then towards Yuuji, and made a soft smile.
“I- I’m sorry, to be honest I didn’t expect anyone to come and welcome me…” she said shyly. “Thank you for that and… for the cookies, they look amazing” she grabbed the tray. “Wanna come in? I just arrived and everything is a mess but I can make some tea if you want, and we can eat the cookies, I don’t think I can eat all of them alone”
Nobara watched as Yuuji’s eyes lit up at the invitation, happiness spread across his face as if he had just won the lottery.
"I would love to! Can I invite my friend too? We live together, only he’s very shy and more withdrawn than I am and I couldn’t get him to come and welcome you with me, but he helped me to cook..."
“Oh, you have a roommate”
Yuuji’s ears became slightly red from that comment and Nobara noticed it.
She giggled. “Go get him, I’ll get the tea.”
“On my way.” Yuuji turned back but before entering his apartment he looked again at Nobara. “Can I ask your name, new neighbor?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. I’m Kugisaki Nobara”
Yuuji smiled. “Nice to meet you, Kugisaki Nobara” and then entered his apartment, just in front of Nobara’s, looking for Fushiguro .
Closing the door, Nobara left the cookies on the living room table and heated the water to make tea. She poured it into 3 cups and sat down to wait for Yuuji to return. Ten minutes passed and then the three of them met inside Nobara’s apartment.
Nobara learned the story of both of them. Yuuji and Megumi were best friends and high school classmates in Tokyo, and when they graduated, they decided to move in together to lower costs. Yuuji was a full-time basketball player, as he was part of the main team of Shibuya district after being selected by a headhunter who had gone to see a game in his senior year of high school; the headhunter was amazed by the dexterity and agility of Itadori who, at the end of the game, offered him a temporary contract to go to test the main team and, of course, was selected.
Fushiguro, on the other hand, studied veterinary medicine, since he said that he had more connection with animals than with people. In addition, he had 2 dogs he had rescued, and Nobara wondered how the owners of the apartment had allowed Megumi to keep them, since both were the size of a German shepherd...
It was fun for her to see the dynamics of both. Yuuji was much more outgoing and noisier than Megumi, who was more serious and reserved. Fushiguro was a tall, thin boy with pale skin and black hair with moss green eyes. Itadori was only 2 cm shorter than Megumi, with dyed pink hair, light brown eyes and an athletic body. While Yuuji only had his grandfather as his only relative, Megumi was an orphan of parents, and was supported by the money of his paternal family, of which he did not deepen anything at all (Nobara took a mental note not to inquire about it as Megumi became somewhat tense when she inquired about that). Yuuji liked to cook and take care of his plants and pots, while Megumi was more interested in spending time reading a book about police crimes or studying for his exams, even occasionally he used to draw, but he never showed his sketches to anyone (Nobara was sure that he was drawing Itadori when he didn’t see him). Yuuji went to the gym regularly, Megumi walked his dogs every day at night. Fushiguro liked alcohol, Yuuji did not tolerate it. Yuuji preferred milk chocolate, Fushiguro preferred bitter chocolate. And so endless data showed that they were opposite poles but that, as if they were electromagnetic forces, they attracted each other.
Such was the attraction that even Nobara noticed it that welcoming afternoon in her apartment while they drank tea and ate Yuuji's cookies. And, considering how blushing Yuuji got when she asked him if he had a roommate, her tongue betrayed her.
"So, how long have you two been a couple? Since high school?"
Fushiguro choked on a cookie and began coughing, while Yuuji nearly threw the tea out of his cup at the question.
"We... are not" continued coughing loudly as Yuuji hit his back, which was completely red with shame "we are not... a couple".
"No? Well, anyone would tell you both are" Nobara said, a smirk perched on her lips as she took a sip of her tea. "It’s funny you two don’t realize the sexual tension you have guys"
"Can you stop?!" Itadori didn’t know where to hide from shame.
Sweet, sweet denial, she thought with a smile.
That day, Nobara laughed so much that she felt her lungs ache. It had certainly been a long time since she had had so much fun, and she really appreciated Itadori knocking on her door. From that day on, the 3 became an inseparable trio.
After eating the meatballs Megumi cooked, they decided to put a movie on the TV. The three of them sat on the sofa, Fushiguro in the middle, Yuuji on his left with his head resting on his shoulder and Nobara on the right, with her legs hanging from the armrest of the sofa and her head on Megumi’s lap. She was on her cell phone instead of watching the movie, scrolling through the Instagram feed in search of a new tattoo artist.
“No… no, nope…” profile after profile, she was looking at her screen, visiting tattooer profiles all over Tokyo. “This one seems good… never mind, it's located in Taiwan, ugh!”
“My cousin is a tattooer, you should search her profile on Instagram, maybe she has a style you’d like” Megumi said, completely casual, still looking at the TV, as if he had revealed nothing important.
“DO YOU HAVE A COUSIN?” Itadori said with surprise, his head rising abruptly from his shoulder and looking at him as if he had confessed to killing someone.
“A FEMALE TATTOO ARTIST COUSIN?” Nobara yelled and went up with surprise too. “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY NOTHING BEFORE! WHAT’S HER PROFILE? WHAT’S HER NAME? IS SHE PRETTY? IS SHE SINGLE?”
“HOW COME WE KNOW EACH OTHER SINCE HIGH SCHOOL AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT YOU COOL TATTOOER COUSIN?”
“How come you two are a couple and you don’t know how many relatives he has…” Nobara said, lifting an eyebrow.
Fushiguro pressed the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes I forget you’re a lesbian, Kugisaki. And Itadori, you never asked”
Yuuji lifted a finger to respond, but was suddenly silent. It was true that he had not asked before about whether Megumi had other relatives, but the reason had always been the same, and it was how reluctant her boyfriend was to talk about his family.
“Anyway, yes, I have a female tattooer cousin.” He looked at Nobara. “Now, do you want her professional profile or her personal one?”
“Huh, both? Duh!”
Megumi sighed.
“@ZeninstMaki is her personal one. @ShakukonTō.Studio is her professional profile”
“Zenins’t? like saying, -not Zenin-?”
“Better not asking about that”
“Oh… okay… let’s see her tattoos first”
Nobara searched first at her professional profile. Her feed was just photos of her tattoos, videos of their progress and photos of her clients posing with their newly tattooed skin, but there was no photo of her. The tattoo style was completely blackwork, except for some pieces in vibrant red. Clean and fine lines predominated, although there were also riskier tattoos with thicker lines, but in smaller numbers. There were flowers, Japanese dragon tattoos and Japanese waves, Koi fish, among others. In terms of size, they ranged from a few centimeters to full sleeves on arms or legs, tattooed breasts and chest, all covered backs. The level of detail put into each tattoo was incredible, a delicacy worthy of someone working with the most expensive porcelain.
Nobara felt her heart quicken a little when she observed some pieces, mainly a pair of sleeves consisting of Japanese dragons surrounded by roses, where the presence of scars could be seen on the skin without ink. Apparently, Maki worked with healthy skins and scarred skins, which was a ray of hope for her considering the large scars covering her left arm, part of her left side chest, left side of her neck and part of her left cheek to her eye.
“This is… amazing, her work is incredible” she said with a tiny voice.
Megumi looked at her. “Her studio is not far from the Shibuya Scramble Crossing, just a few blocks away”
“Good to know, now I’m gonna look at her personal profile” she searched @ZeninstMaki in the Instagram browser. “Fuck”
“What?”
“She’s private, I can’t see her pictures”
“Then follow her?” said Yuuji.
“I’m not gonna follow her. It would be strange! Fushiguro, give me your phone”
“Huh? I’m not gonna give you my phone”
“Why it would it be?” Itadori asked. “She will see that you have Megumi’s profile in common”
“Exactly, she would know Fushiguro told me about her, I won’t follow her-OI! GIVE ME THAT BACK YOU FUCKER!
Itadori stole Nobara’s cell phone from her hand quickly, as he jumped up from the couch as he ran through the house trying to dodge a VERY angry Nobara.
“Done!” he pressed the -follow- button in Maki’s profile. “Now we wait!”. A -pending acceptance- notice appeared on the screen.
“Oh, you’re so done, Itadori! YOU’RE SO FUCKING DONE”
Cushions and shoes were thrown all over the living room, unsuccessfully reaching Itadori who, with his reflexes, dodged each of Nobara’s attacks while laughing out loud. Megumi was still sitting on the couch trying to watch the movie.
“I SWEAR TO GOD YOU’RE DEAD! I’M GONNA KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS AND FUSHIGURO WILL BECOME A WIDOWER”
Suddenly, Nobara's cell phone screen lit up with a sound and the “request accepted” notification appeared on it.
“TIME OUT!” Itadori screamed and Nobara stopped right there with another cushion in her hand. “Eh, Kugisaki, she accepted the solitude” he lifted her friend’s phone and showed the notifications to her.
Nobara opened her eyes like plates, her profile was not private, so Maki could have seen her photos without problem. She felt a blush coming up her cheeks as fell on the couch.
“Oh… my…god”
“Don’t you have anything to say to me Kugisaki?” Itadori asked in a joking tone, his eyebrows dancing.
"Yes, today you’ll have to sleep with your eyes open. I swear I’ll smother you with your pillow, Itadori" she covered her face with her hands. "And she started following me too?"
"Not yet..." Itadori’s smile faded a little, perhaps he had gone too far.
Nobara’s heart sank. “Just… give me my phone, please”
Yuuji went to sit on the couch as well and set the phone for her.
"Here you go..."
"Thank you," Nobara replied coldly. “Well, I still wanna get tattooed by her so… let’s stalk your cousin, Fushiguro”
“Okay, time to go for me, I don’t want to hear you thirsting over my relative.”
“Please, I’m not THAT desperate” Nobara felt offended and crossed her arms.
Fushiguro looked at her with a serious expression, is not like she was asking for both of her Instagram profiles 10 minutes ago.
“I want to see her too, since he never told me about her, I don’t know how she looks, wait me before you start stalking her”
“You already know I don’t like talking about my family…” a neutral expression appeared in Megumi’s face.
“True, true. I know, sorry” Yuuji put a quick and soft kiss on his cheek before changing seats. A very subtle smile appeared on Megumi.
Now, Yuuji was at Nobara’s right and Megumi was at her left.
Nobara pressed Maki’s profile and immediately her feed occupied the screen. She had about 1500 followers, but only followed about 30, including Fushiguro.
Now I don’t feel so bad that she didn’t follow me back, she seems very selective.
There were only 7 photos, where only 1 of them showed her face. Nobara felt her heart racing slightly as she scrolled through the photos, looking at each of them. It started with the last photo published (that is, the first of all), which was a full body photo. Maki was leaning on a banister of stairs in the center of Shibuya, dressed in black cargo pants, matching Dr. Martens as her shoes and a sleeveless white shirt. She was obviously taller than Nobara, and had her arms, certainly muscular, covered with tattoos in black ink. Nobara wasn’t able to see her face in that photo because Maki was looking away, but she noticed the dark green color of her short hair. She moved to the next photo. Maki was riding a black motorcycle, fully dressed in black and with a helmet on.
Okay, that’s quite hot.
“She has a motorcycle! Cool” said Itadori. “We should get a motorcycle too Fushiguro”
“We don’t have the space to keep it, this building doesn’t have a garage. Also, you don’t know how to ride one”
“And do you?” Nobara inquired, a funny tone in her voice.
A silence flooded the room.
“DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RIDE ONE?” Both Nobara and Yuuji screamed in unison.
Megumi sighed. “Maki taught me after she bought her motorcycle, before finishing high school…”
Nobara raised an eyebrow. "Was she able to buy a motorcycle while she was in high school?"
"Maki is 2 years older than me, she is 21. When she turned 18, she started tattooing people in the studio of her friend, Yuki, and started collecting her own money and her first big expense was that motorcycle. The day she got the motorcycle from the car dealership, she went to pick me up on the way out of high school and took me to a wasteland to learn how to use it since she told me that if she bought another one, she would give me that one..."
His two friends looked at him in amazement at the new information. Neither of them really imagined Megumi Fushiguro riding a motorcycle.
“You learned how to ride that thing when you were 16 years old?” Yuuji asked.
“…Yes” Megumi was a little bit uncomfortable with all the attention on him. “Continue stalking Maki so we can go back to our apartment for once, I need to feed Kuro and Shiro.”
“Fine, fine… but it’s amazing how there is always something new about you that even Itadori didn’t know…” Nobara said.
Fushiguro sank further into his seat.
She continued seeing the photos, moving on to the third. This was a portrait-like photo, which seemed to have been taken by someone, as Maki’s head was turned towards the camera, as if someone had called her to turn. She has her right ear pierced with 4 piercings: industrial, helix, orbital and lobe type. Her short hair was half messy, falling into tufts over her eyes. Tattoos covered both sides of her face in 2 stripes, a mixture of various flowers in black ink, from the birth of the hair to the edge of her sharp jaw, going down her neck. At the same time, round and thin metal glasses posed on the bridge of her nose, and behind them there were bright golden-amber eyes. Nobara could not define it, but there was something in her expression that aroused her absolute curiosity. Those eyes seemed lost, as if someone had taken their vitality; it was not sadness, but rather something similar to loneliness, to the lack of something or someone. They lacked brilliance, as if they were two pieces of gold that needed polishing, and Nobara could feel a lump in her throat in a fleeting manner.
"She is... really gorgeous... she has very definite features, and beautiful eyes…"
“Yep, we already lost her, Fushiguro…” Itadori giggled.
Nobara hit Itadori on the head. "Shut up.” Then, she took a deep breath, “I’m going to say something that goes completely against my principles about not classifying anyone based on social stereotypes about sexual orientation..." she turned to look at Megumi, "but please tell me that she’s into women, I mean, there’s no way she’s not a lesbian, or at least bi, I mean, motorcycle? muscles? piercings? short hair and tattoos all over the body? There’s no way she’s into men-"
“Weren’t you not so desperate?”
“I. Said. Shut. Up. Itadori, I’m still mad at you.”
Taking a deep breath, Megumi rested his head on the couch. “Yes, Kugisaki, she is a lesbian just like you. But…”
Nobara’s heart stopped. Yuuji frowned.
“You should know that Maki is… something else.”
“What do you mean?”
Megumi was looking at the ceiling.
“She’s cold and closed, especially with people she doesn’t know. She has a hard time getting into trust with someone and is not really someone who takes much initiative." He took a few seconds before continuing. "She went through a lot in her life, even at her 21 years, we don’t come from an easy or traditional family, and the truth is I’m not the one to talk about it for her... what I’m trying to say is, don’t take it personally if she’s not interested in you if you intend to try something with her.”
Nobara looked back at Maki’s photo. What she saw in those eyes was real. She was not wrong to feel that her eyes contained countless indescribable feelings, most of them far from being happy ones. A sense of anguish ran through her body for a brief second. For Fushiguro to say that someone had been through bad times in their life meant that it had indeed been terrible.
Damn it, Nobara, you don’t even know her, you can’t feel so sorry just by looking at a picture, calm down a little.
“I see…” her shoulders dropped a little. “Well, she didn’t follow me back so, clearly is not interested in me for now, but I still want to get tattooed by her, I really like her style.”
“Yeah, she has done amazing works,” added Itadori.
The rest of the photos were Maki riding her motorcycle or photos of her from the back. Her vision came back to the only picture of her face. Nobara stared at her for a long time, memorizing each of her features. The color of her eyes, the shape of her hair, the curve of her nose, the small mole in the middle of her neck that had not been reached by her tattoos, the shape of her lips...
Her daydream was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a pop-up notification on her screen. The three of them, who were sitting on the couch, looked at Nobara’s cell phone again.
“@ZeninstMaki started following you”
“AND THAT’S A WIN FOR THE LESBIAN COMMUNITY!” Yuuji cheered as he started dancing in front of them.
Nobara was pale. Her hands started shaking a little bit and Fushiguro stood up too.
“I just want to say, both of you are incredibly dramatic and impatient.” Fushiguro said, a little bit tired.
“Can you blame me after what your stupid boyfriend did with my phone? Besides, she took more than half an hour to follow me, and my profile is public, that is, she saw my photos surely. I have the right to be dramatic, thank you very much.”
“Hey, how am I an idiot? My plan worked just fine, it had just a little bit of delay, that's all.”
Another cushion flew to his face and landed perfectly.
“Okay, it’s very late now, Itadori, we’re leaving.”
"Are you both really going to leave me right now when she just followed me back? How am I supposed to continue now?"
"You can write to her professional profile about the tattoo shift just now, as she is clearly awake, or you can wait until tomorrow" Fushiguro said, shrugging.
“Fucking traitors.” Nobara muttered. "Anyway, thank you Fushiguro for the dinner, and give kisses from me to Kuro and Shiro, tomorrow I will visit them. Goodnight idiots.”
“Goodnight Kugisaki” Yuuji kissed her cheek affectively and then grabbed Megumi’s hand. The boys left her apartment and now she was alone.
Nobara stared at Maki’s photo for a while, until she felt ashamed of herself. Suddenly she saw the time. 00:34 at midnight.
Fuck, it is, in fact, very late. Thank God tomorrow is Saturday. I’ll text her tomorrow… Yeah, that’s better than a text from a complete stranger at midnight.
She put her phone in her pocket, got up from the couch and went to the bathroom to perform her night skin care routine before going to sleep. She brushed her teeth, turned off the lights in her apartment, put on her pajamas and checked her phone one last time before setting her alarm at 8 a.m. and getting into bed.
She dreamed with those amber-golden eyes that night.