⊙﹏⊙ — chapter nineteen
"strawberry🍓"

      "I COULD KISS YOU RIGHT now!"

      Hiyori let a wild and rambunctious laugh ripple from her system. Although the nightclub was right about to be kicking all of their residents out and locking the doors behind them — the four first-years were determined to make the best of the final fifty-eight minutes of freedom Hiyori gave them by accomplishing the mission.

      "Nobara, shut up!" Hiyori practically facepalmed, the brunette girl had somehow managed to sneak quite a few drinks into her system starting from the mere second the mission had been completed. She had a tipsiness to her dancing body, with a gleeful expression.

      In all honesty, Hiyori still had a lingering thought that Satoru Gojo had let them win. Perhaps he felt some kind of pity for the young sorcerers, or he was just tired of playing such a nonsense-filled game. She wasn't sure — but the sensation of false victory still riddled her bones uncomfortably.

      "This is so much fun! We should do this again tomorrow night!" Yuji excitedly exclaimed, the occasion flashing light would scatter across his face. He had both arms in the air, his fist held high as he bobbed along with the song.

      "Megumi, your dancing sucks," Hiyori giggled while finally glancing towards the dark-haired man. He was basically just standing there awkwardly to the side of the three dancing adults, his body was swaying slightly to the music but more because of an unconscious thought and had no intention behind it.

      Fushiguro exhaled a heavy breath, "If you can't tell Yori, this is not exactly my type of scene."

      "Here," Hiyori took a few steps forward and hooked her fingers around Fushiguro's hands. Almost immediately the boy had a burning sensation clinging to his cheeks, and he tried to ignore how soothing Hiyori's touch actually felt. She warmly placing his palms on her waist — nothing too low or impeding near sexual. "Feel my hips? You move those, and not so stiff."

      Fushiguro cleared his throat while swallowing some nervous spit.

      Hiyori then placed her hands on both of Fushiguro's shoulders, she inched a little closer to his body. She could practically feel his heartbeat speed up as their close contact remained. The two began to understand the other's movements, guiding their bodies to move more in a unison motion.

      Within a minute, the two seemed to be dancing like they did this often.

      "Tonight has been full of surprises," Nobara commented while staring down the two dancing — the two dancing really didn't seem to be paying attention to their fellow first-years anymore. "Yuji, don't you dare try to do that with me."

      Yuji threw his arms up in absolute defense while yelling, "I DO NOT WANT TO."

      Hiyori's eyes were shifting from Fushiguro to everyone on the dance floor to being occasionally closed. However, for Fushiguro, his eyes never left that of Hiyori. He couldn't believe himself right now.

      Dancing.

      In a nightclub.

      With a girl.

      But Hiyori had begun to bring out a side of him that had been rarely shown to the world. He wasn't sure what it was about her presence, but it dig out some of his best parts to shine through. Even if he was a little bit hesitant.

      "You're a good dancer," Hiyori hummed, she had leaned forward closer to Fushiguro's ear to be able to actually say the statement in a somewhat normal voice compared to the booming music in the background.

      "Not really," Fushiguro replied, he seemed to mimick Hiyori's action of inching closer to her ears so he wouldn't have to be viciously loud. "But I appreciate the sentiment."

      "Give yourself credit, Megumi," Hiyori whispered, her lips were only an inch away from Fushiguro's by this point.

      Just as Hiyori began to back up a bit from Fushiguro, she had incidentally rammed into a body hidden behind her. I didn't think I moved that much. . .Instinctively, Hiyori muttered an apology as she swung on her heels.

      "It's okay."

And it felt like the entire world froze.

Hiyori's mind flash back to the night of the third-years Halloween party awhile ago. Mr. Ghostface — she never found out his identity. But somewhere buried deep inside her, a memory appeared. The drinking game. . .she was supposed to kiss Megumi. . .but the lights went out. . .and she bumped into Ghostface.

She apologized.

And he said, "It's okay."

Unknowingly, Hiyori's lips parted as the voice from the night of Halloween fluttered in her mind. And then the voice from the man standing behind her echoed again.

They were the same.

And they both belonged to Satoru Gojo.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

Hiyori Hinata was finally able to peel herself away from burrowing in her thoughts when Gojo spoke. She couldn't believe she hadn't remembered that until now, until she heard it for a second time. That meant. . .when he was looking at her during the party, it was Satoru Gojo staring at her? The one that seemed so interested?

Hiyori peeled back her lips — she was right about to rip him a new one. Why had he ended up going to the Halloween party? Why did he hide the fact that he did go? But then she slammed her teeth back together, now was not the time.

"Just realized what time it was," Hiyori let a breath seep out she didn't realize she was holding. "They're probably about to kick our asses out."

Gojo smirked while staring down the girl, "What did I say about that damn swearing, strawberry?"

"Strawberry?" Yuji knitted his eyebrows together, first he had examined Gojo — but then his vision switched to Hiyori, and she was in the middle of rolling her purple eyes.

     "He thinks it's funny," Hiyori didn't have to explain much more other than pointing her index finger at her flame-colored locks of hair.

      Nobara seemed to raise a suspicious eyebrow in a nonchalant way towards Fushiguro, who thought it was now his turn to roll his own blue eyes.

      In Fushiguro's mind, everything was starting to make a bit more sense.

<('o'<)

      "Nobara, I gotta tell you something."

      After the security guards started rounding everyone to exit the nightclub, the group of jujutsu sorcerers found themselves on the way back to their hotel. The walk wasn't long, but it was enjoyable. The crisp air of winter approaching nipped at Hiyori's skin, but with her drunken state it didn't seem to bother her too much. In fact, she found a bit of wistfulness in it.

      Nobara sighed softly, "Can't you tell me this in the morning? I need my beauty sleep."

      By now, everyone was supposed to be gleefully asleep. They had arrived back at their rooms about an hour ago, probably showered up and all crawled into bed at the first possibilities. Hiyori and Nobara themselves had shut the lights off well over twenty minutes ago, but the redhead couldn't find herself able to sleep.

       "I think Gojo was Ghostface."

      There was a pause in the darkened hotel room that belonged to the two women. All that could be heard were the small exhales of their breath. Hiyori suddenly felt like she should've beckoned to her friends request and mention it in the morning.

      But she felt it gnawing at her stomach.

      "What makes you think that?" Nobara questioned, and unlike her usual tone of playfulness — this time it was mostly written with seriousness. Because of the darkness littering the room, Hiyori couldn't even really make out Nobara's expression much.

      Hiyori burrowed her eyebrows in thought at the best way to describe her reasoning, "I recognized his voice. I didn't remember a ton from the Halloween party, but when Gojo said it's okay earlier, I remembered Ghostface saying that to me that night."

      "So. . .Gojo was Ghostface. You're sure of it?"

      Hiyori peeled the blanket that was sticking to her always-hot skin, she felt like she needed to go on a run to let all this energy evade her. "Absolutely, there's no doubting his stupid voice."

      "And his stupid voice likes to call you strawberry, what the heck is that about?" Nobara asked aimlessly through the darkness, she had the sudden urge to flick the lights back on to fully continue this conversation better.

      "Don't even ask me," Hiyori wanted to raise her arms in defense, but Nobara wouldn't even see it so it. "The first time he called me that was tonight."

      "Christ, you are so blind," Nobara practically snorted, and Hiyori glared in the direction of her voice.

"What does that mean?"

"That you're blind, duh."

"Arguing with you like this makes me feel like you're my stupid little sister."

"I am NOT SHORT."

       The two bickering girls then took a second to gather their breath after the short yelling match — they both pondered the possibility that both sides of the boys rooms were able to hear that. Nonetheless, Nobara was the first to muster her strength to speak.

      "You didn't see the way he was staring at you tonight," Nobara expressed the sentence in such a delicate way the unprepared Hiyori was taken aback. "Eyes have a language of their own, y'know?"

      The sentence made Hiyori shift her position in the bed, instead of laying on her side she switched to her back. Her eyes were wide open to the darkness, she could just barely make out the ceiling tiles above her.

      Eyes have a language of their own.

      And what language was Satoru Gojo's eyes speaking to her?

"I want to ask him about it," Hiyori stated through the silence, but as she focused on her hearing — Nobara's breath already sounded heavier. The few minutes Hiyori had pondered the brunette's sentence she had somehow managed to fall perfectly to sleep.

I want to ask him now.

Hiyori glanced to the digital alarm clock on the nightstand that was snugged in between both her and Nobara's beds — 2:37 am.

A sigh escaped her perfectly-shaped lips.

Hiyori tugged on the phone she plugged in on said nightstand, unplugging the charger as she slid the phone closer to her face. The bright screen flickered on Hiyori's skin, making her face well noticeable in the darkness now.

Reluctantly, Hiyori scrolled to her text messages. She saw her previous conversations — she and Yuji were talking about a movie they wanted to see together, Nobara sent her a link to a cute new matching pajama set, and Fushiguro sent a text about his final thoughts on a book Hiyori suggested.

When she swiped down to find Gojo's contact, she giggled to herself when she read the last text message she sent to Gojo earlier in the week.

BOOMER🕺 / strawberry🍓

strawberry🍓
damnit gojo it was a joke
not a dick don't take it so hard🙄
sent 4:47 pm

BOOMER🕺
🖕🖕
sent 4:52 pm

It would be ridiculous for me to text him right now.

But she couldn't help it.

strawberry🍓
any chance you're awake?
sending . . .

sending . . .

sent 2:41 am.

a/n: what do we think??? gojo still awake or no?? :o
also the BOOMER🕺/ strawberry🍓 just means who's in the text conversation and what they have as the others contact name (if that makes sense?)