Mirror Eyes & Bright Blue Skies | Jujutsu Kaisen

Ⅵ. Midnight Shenanigans

"Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!"

Something was poking Ikuko's shoulder, that much she could tell, but groggy as she was, with her brain still very much fogged with sleep, she just mumbled incoherently and promptly rolled away from whatever was poking her.

The voice wasn't about to give up, though. Distantly, her brain registered a sudden dip in the bed next to her and a matching creak.

"Iiiiku-chaaan..." it said, lowly, whispering almost right in her ear.

Ikuko grumbled. She could almost feel her eyelids cracking as she pried them open, blinking slowly into the darkness. Her vision focused only to be filled with another person's cheekily smiling, blindfolded face.

It took her brain a few seconds to connect the proper dots, "Gojo... san?" she finally said, slowly rubbing her eyes, realizing how close he was, shouting a startled, "Gah!" and sitting up abruptly.

Gojo laughed under his breath and put a finger to his lips.

"S-sorry!" she said, slapping a hand to her mouth, "You startled me, is all..."

Her eyes narrowed, Wait, should I be the one apologizing? He literally snuck into my room and scared me half to death...

Ikuko opened her mouth to say as much, but then she noticed the tattered state of his clothes. Upon closer inspection, she saw that his hair was mussed up quite a bit... and was that a smear of blood on his cheek?

Shoving her covers down, she pursed her lips, face scrunching in concern, "What are you doing here looking like that? Are you okay?" Her hand reached out almost automatically toward the stain on his cheek.

"Hm?" Gojo said, and nonchalantly, as if he hadn't noticed her approaching hand, hopped off the bed in one graceful move and proceeded to look himself over with light curiosity.

"Oh yeah, whoopsies!" he laughed, tugging at his shirt, "I totally forgot about this." He turned his attention back towards her and waved off her concern, "No need to worry about me. It's no big deal, just a work thing. Honestly, you should see the other guy!"

Ikuko hummed in disbelief. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, slipping her feet into a pair of slippers gifted to her by Maki, before making her way over to the remains of her dinner from earlier, beside which sat an unused napkin. She felt Gojo's gaze follow her; he was probably curious as to what in the world she was doing.

She returned to the patiently waiting Gojo and held the napkin out for him, "There's blood on your cheek. If you're injured you should see Ieri-san first," she said, smiling uncertainly.

"Ah... it's not mine, but thank you." For a split second, he seemed a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck, but then he accepted the napkin with his usual cheery smile.

As he wiped at his face, Ikuko sat back onto the edge of her bed and asked again what he was doing here in the middle of the night. She crossed her arms together and rubbed them, already missing the warmth of her bed covers. Being very cold-natured, a t-shirt and pajama-bottoms usually weren't her first choice of sleep-wear, but Ieri had kindly lent them to her, and so she didn't want to be ungrateful.

"We're going on a little field trip, that's why!" he replied, pumping his fists in the air.

"In the middle of the night?"

"Yeap!"

"What about my head? I can barely step out to use the restroom without it hurting."

The worst pain was when she took trips to visit Ieri, Jujutsu Tech's equivalent of a school nurse, for check-ups. It always started fine, the outside air was even refreshing, but by the time Ikuko returned to her room, the pain would reduce her to a mute vegetable.