Chapter Text
On a warm spring night at three-thirty-one and four seconds, squashed between reviewing the material for his advanced physics final and beating the latest chapter of his favorite gacha game on the hardest difficulty, Gojo Satoru only barely finds the will to answer the door to his apartment when the bell rings.
A heavy and intense knocking quickly follows, spurring him into action. Who could possibly be knocking at his door at 3AM?
Confusion furrows his brow as he peers through the peephole. The feeling only doubles the moment he swings the door open to confirm that he isn’t seeing things.
In an instant, everything he had been considering as important became almost entirely forgotten. Standing in the private hall to his flat is Fushiguro Toji—general menace to society, respectably good neighbor from three floors down, and, when date-night or errands required a couple of toddler-free hours, Satoru’s occasional employer.
It’s been weeks since he babysat for the Fushiguro’s, though. With all that he’s been doing to catch up in his classes at university it feels as if he hasn’t seen the family in what feels like an age.
It was also usually Mrs. Fushiguro ringing his doorbell for help, not her husband…
The confusion triples as Satoru takes in Toji’s bedraggled appearance.
Where Toji’s hair is typically styled messy on purpose, right now the man’s hair is just a mess. He also looks more upset than usual. Damn tired, too, the dark circles weighing under his usually clear eyes suggesting that he probably hasn’t slept in days.
“Old man?” Satoru croaks, beyond surprised. He clears his throat in an attempt to banish away the layer of disuse in his voice from being holed up and undisturbed all day. He blinks at Toji. Something is clearly not right here, but just as he opens his mouth again to ask if everything is okay, or if the man needed him to come down and “scare away the monsters” for Tsumiki again, the older man starts talking hurriedly.
“Hey kid,” comes the gruff greeting, “I know it’s late, so. Just listen up. Listen up good, alright?”
Satoru blinks owlishly. “Alright—?”
“Hitomi.” Toji says, and a month old image of his wife, all smiles and super, super pregnant surfaces in Satoru’s mind. “She’s sick. Really sick. Been sick for days since we brought Gumi home. S’bad, she can’t go near the kids—” and it’s then that Satoru suddenly notices the very asleep aforementioned toddler in Toji’s arm; the baby carrier dangling from his other hand. His eyes widen, but Toji only keeps talking. “I ain’t got time to send ‘em to her parents right now. You’re my only option. Hitomi always trusts you, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Only option? “I am?” Satoru blanches, mind whirring with the dump of information. “Me?”
Toji scowls at him. “You think I’m at your door at three in the morning handing off my kids ‘cause I wanna be?”
“But you don’t even like me!”
Tsumiki grumbles at the volume, shoving her face deeper into her dad’s shoulder.
Toji’s scowl turns into a total death glare.
Satoru’s mouth clicks shut.
“Like I said, my wife trusts you,” Toji holds up the baby carrier, his narrowed gaze just daring Satoru to refuse him, “and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
And that’s exactly how at four a.m. in the morning on a random Tuesday finds Satoru with an armful of crying infant. He’s pacing in the middle of his living room, the baby boy’s sister dead to the world in the safety of his bed down the hall.
After settling Tsumiki and leaving him with a hastily written page of instructions and a massive backpack full of supplies, Toji had beelined it back downstairs to his wife, saying that he would be back to check on them tomorrow morning while also threatening to destroy Satoru’s entire existence if he didn’t send a text at breakfast and call during lunch and dinner.
Seeing as how the baby—Megumi, Toji had told him fondly, looking for all the world that he didn’t want to leave the newborn behind—was already fast asleep in his carrier, Satoru had left him in his spot on the couch to take a moment for himself in the bathroom.
He was supposed to be beating his game. He was supposed to be studying for his final!
Oh, kami, his final! How in the hell is he supposed to explain to his professor that he can’t show up because he suddenly has a toddler and an infant to look after? This was already his third test attempt due to absence! There was no way that he would be afforded another!
He’s never even cared for a literal baby before..!
‘I can kiss my passing grade goodbye,’ he spirals. ‘What if I do something wrong? Oh god, Hitomi-san is never going to trust me with anything ever again. That grumpy old man is going to put my head on a goddamn stick…’
It couldn’t have been more than two minutes of staring at the panic on his own face before an eardrum busting wail had split the air of his apartment.
He has been cooing at Megumi for almost two hours now, “it’s alright, Tiny, Satoru’s got you, I promise you’re safe with me, okay? Shh, shh,” rocking him gently in his arms, trying anything and everything as he cries while hoping and praying that Tsumiki doesn’t wake up, too.
Megumi is not hungry, he does not want to be put down. He doesn’t need burping, he doesn’t want any of the toys Toji left or to play peek-a-boo. He doesn’t need a diaper change—though Satoru suspects that won’t be the case the next time he does a sniff check. Still, Megumi wails. Satoru has done everything he knows babies need to have done, and yet he doesn’t even have to try to see the back of the baby boy’s mouth.
Satoru sighs, defeated. Mrs. Fushiguro had once called him a saint for being so good with children. So much for that.
Rocking Megumi in one arm and picking up his phone with his other hand, Satoru seriously contemplates his options. He thinks about calling Shoko, skips over Yu and purses his lips at Suguru. The last time he and Suguru talked it hadn’t exactly ended well, and he’s not about to call him only for that idiot to come into his home, easily figure out what’s wrong, and then roll his eyes and call him an idiot for not knowing.
No. Instead, he calls the only person he can truly rely on in times like these.
He calls Kento.