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Geto walks up the long drive cautiously, though he's been assured his presence is expected. It is a mortal sin to come here uninvited.
A camera atop the first gate scans his face and the double doors swing inward automatically. For the second, a call box buzzes to life.
"Name?" An austere voice crackles over the line.
"Geto... Suguru," He provides. Though his expression is subtly schooled, he dries a clammy palm on the side of his pants. A muffled click and the whirring sound of machinery warns Geto the second gate will be opening shortly. Patiently waiting as the iron bars slip past, he tilts his head skyward, watching a heavy gray cloud make its way over the sun. The gate is fully open now, Geto's journey resumes, bangs blowing lazy across his eyeline with the gentle shift in winds.
Finally he arrives at a pair of ornate doors. Two impassive men in simple suits pull them open in a semblance of welcome.
The Gojo mansion swallows him whole.
"This way, sir." A pretty girl who couldn't have been much older than Geto himself materializes. She offers a brief lift of her lips as she appraises him, spinning on a heel and starting down the hall, the clack of her shoes resounding pleasantly against the wood.
Geto keeps pace behind his guide, winding around Gojo family members and workers and servants rushing here and there on the path around the courtyard. A well-oiled machine working perpetually towards some common goal. Geto suspects that no small part of this goal includes keeping the Six Eyes at bay.
The guide and her charge sojourn in front of a room set slightly apart from the others. Another pair of stoic men stand aside the door. Or perhaps it's the same men from before. Geto laughs inwardly at the thought. He pictures them running ahead on some hidden route to arrive before him. Absurd.
He thinks in this moment of his family's dim little apartment with its worn linoleum floors and the beat up kitchen table over which many conversations between parents and child transpire. Gojo's been over, his head brushes the low ceiling. He wishes they were meeting there now. But how many people are invited to the Gojo mansion as guests? He has the feeling he is being ungrateful.
"Satoru," the woman calls.
Oh, they're familiar, Geto thinks, an unwarranted pang of jealousy blooms and settles high in his throat. Not unlike the sensation of swallowing yet another curse.
"Come in!" A muffled exuberant reply. One of the men moves to slide the door open, gestures Geto inside.
"Thanks Mari!" Gojo trills.
Mari. He winces.
Gojo is hanging upside down, spilling over the foot of his large western-style bed, glasses askew, red licorice rope dangling from between his lips. Clutched in his hands is a video game controller.
