Chapter Text
“Hey, gorgeous.” The voice catches Maki off guard for a second, but she gathers herself quickly, and keeps her face neutral. Nobara smiles at her from where she sits on Maki’s bed, hair dyed in the colors of the sunset, smile bright and toothy. Her hands are flat against Maki’s bedspread, keeping her propped up while her legs cross at the ankles.
She’s beautiful, sunny, as brilliant as the day Maki first saw her laugh.
“Gorgeous, huh? You should know better than to try to butter me up with compliments like that.” Maki slips her spear case off her shoulder and leans it up against the side of her wardrobe. It knocks gently against the wood and she releases the strap once she’s certain the weapon won’t fall.
“Hey, I’m just telling it as it is,” Nobara says easily. She leans back on her palms and tilts her head to give Maki an appraising look. “A gorgeous girlfriend for a gorgeous girl.”
A smile tugs at Maki’s lips and she doesn’t fight it off. There’s no reason for her to hide these things from Nobara; there’s no fear of being judged.
That, and Maki is just really tired of fighting.
Nobara seems to notice this as Maki heads towards her, and her bright smile starts to slip off her face. She sits up, pushing off of her hands and reaching to take Maki’s. “Long day?” she asks.
“Long week.” Long months, Maki thinks to herself. Or, more likely, a long year. She takes Nobara’s hand and feels the tension ease off her shoulders.
Nobara’s grin comes back full force and she squeezes Maki’s fingers. “Great thing I’m here then! I know plenty of ways to blow off some steam.”
She tugs Maki closer towards her—towards her bed—and she’s so cute and eager that Maki can’t help but laugh. “Nobara,” she chides even as she steps into the space between her girlfriend’s legs. Her amber-eyed underclassman flutters her fingers across Maki’s belt, and Maki wrinkles her nose playfully at her. “No,” she says.
“Yes,” Nobara titters back. But she just laughs and leaves Maki’s belt alone, choosing instead to hook her fingers through her beltloops and tugs her even closer. She nuzzles her face into Maki’s navel, wearing a blissful smile on her face. “Mmm, you smell like sunshine.”
“I smell like sweat,” Maki corrects her. She’d spent the day sparring with Panda—she deserves a well-earned soak after being on the receiving end of his punches. “I should stink by now.”
“Hmph. It’s a nice, clean smell,” Nobara huffs. She tries to bury her nose deeper and earns a soft swat from Maki for her efforts. “You don’t stink. Girls don’t usually stink after they sweat.”
“I don’t stink nearly as much as Megumi does, but that doesn’t mean I don’t smell at all,” Maki drawls. She raps her knuckles gently on her girlfriend’s head. “Come on, let me go. I have to go wash up.”
“Nooo, don’t leave,” Nobara whines, throwing her arms around Maki’s waist.
Maki rolls her eyes, but it’s a fond gesture; it always is. “Nobara, come on.”
Nobara quiets, but doesn’t pull away. “Please,” she says.
Maki can’t see her face from this angle, but suddenly she feels like her bath can wait. She runs her hand over Nobara’s orange hair, bittersweet nostalgia aching in her bones. “Okay.”
Her amber-eyed underclassman squeezes her once before letting go. When she lifts her head, she’s grinning again and she looks calm, at peace. “So,” she says conversationally, placing her hands behind her. She leans on her palms and now she’s back in the same position Maki found her lounging in earlier. “How was your day?”
It cracks a smile on Maki’s face. “You make it sound like we’re newlyweds,” she notes.
“We could be. Are you thinking of proposing?” Nobara’s amber eyes dance with amusement and she cocks her head as she regards Maki. “I hope you’re at least planning to go down on one knee.”
“Who said I’m the one proposing? You’re the one who likes the elaborate stuff,” Maki chuckles fondly. She inches closer and Nobara frees up one of her hands to rest it on Maki’s waist. “Unless you want a boring, bare-bones proposal, you’re going to have to be the one who goes down on one knee.”
Nobara’s smile is wolfish when she responds. “Personally, I like being on both knees in front of you,” she purrs, fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly. “Or maybe you have me over your knees? I’m not that hard to please.”
“Uh-huh. Says the girl who tries to pick a fight with the barista when they mess up the swirl on her strawberry milk tea.”
“It’s strawberry mascarpone milk tea! And the cream is the best part!” Nobara argues.
“It’s way too sweet,” Maki tells her.
“It is! But that’s why it’s a rare treat, and that’s why it’s unforgiveable when they mess it up!” Nobara buries her face in Maki’s stomach again. “Maki-senpai, you have to understand…”
“I’m doing my best.” There’s no use in pretending that she did; Nobara always tells her that one of her most charming qualities is her stunted emotional intelligence. Maki doesn’t quite understand why she thinks a malformed empathy gland is a ‘charming’ thing to have, but Nobara’s own uniqueness is easily in a league of its own. “So, you’ll be the one proposing? What kind of ridiculous thing are you going to make everyone do?”
Nobara lifts her head and makes a face at Maki. It’s a cute face, but Maki’s pretty sure Nobara didn’t mean for it to be so endearing. “I might be becoming predictable. How did you know I was going to get the others involved?”
“You’ve always liked a big production. And a one-man show is hard to pull off, even for you.” Maki strokes her girlfriend’s hair again. It’s soft and fluffy, smelling sweetly of shampoo. “So? Who’s part of the big dance number you have planned?”
“Well originally, I was planning on being brought in on a palanquin by Panda-senpai and Itadori while Gojo-sensei announced my presence, but then I realized that it’d be a pain to have to climb off of the palanquin just to get down on one knee,” Nobara sighs. “So then I decided that it’d probably be easier to just ask Inumaki-senpai to help me choreograph something and spend the next few weeks teaching it to everyone. Itadori would probably pick it up pretty fast, but we’d have to find some time to make sure Okkotsu-senpai knows all the steps too…”
“Oh no, you’re going to make Yuuta be a part of your crazy plans too?” Maki laughs.
“Don’t act like you don’t want to see him dance! He looks like he’d be pretty good at it…unless he actually has two left feet! You can never quite tell with the pretty ones,” Nobara muses, pursing her lips thoughtfully.
“Pretty, huh? Should I be worried?” Maki jokes.
“Pfft, as if. What’s pretty next to downright gorgeous?” Nobara rests her temple against Maki’s chest and grins. “None of them come even close to holding a candle next to you.”
Maki rolls her eyes, but she can’t quite stop the fond smile that flits across her face. “Again with the compliments. And I didn’t say I was worried about him; I’m more worried about you.” She taps her girlfriend on the forehead. “Yuuta’s already been spoken for, you know? The last thing I want to see is you crying over a broken heart.”
“Well, if I’m crying over a broken heart, then you have the perfect excuse to fix it!”
Maki lets out a disbelieving chuckle. “I’m not becoming your rebound, Nobara.”
“Who said anything about a rebound? Maybe this is one of those drama series where I think I’m in love with a pretty boy, but then we have a fight and I realize it was you all along.” Nobara grins up at her, looking all too much like the cat who got the cream with her chest puffed high. “Romantic, isn’t it?”
Maki can feel her heart softening on the edges as she brushes a lock of Nobara’s hair behind her ear. “The proposal or the drama?”
“Both.”
“Hmm. Is the proposal the only thing you have planned? Or do you have our wedding all sorted out too?”
“Of course I do? Who do you think I am?” Nobara huffs.
“A girl who gets too ahead of herself and thinks I’m automatically going to say yes?” Maki teases her.
“Maki-senpai.” Nobara’s expression grows serious and Maki feels a strange chill settle in her spine. It’s as if the air around them has dropped several degrees, and the sobriety of the moment makes Maki’s stomach twist uneasily. Nobara stares up at her unflinchingly, amber eyes as somber as the day they met.
Then, she speaks.
“If you think you’d ever be able to find someone who’s better in this world for you, you’re wrong.” It takes Maki a few seconds to process the sudden shift in mood, but the unexpectedly whiny quality to Nobara’s voice makes it clear that her words are meant to be whimsical and non-threatening. Her amber-eyed girlfriend throws her arms around Maki’s waist and buries her face in her breasts, babbling incoherently into the front of her uniform. “I mean if you do ever find that person, I’ll do everything I can to prove that I’m better than them because no one could ever possibly love you as much as I can, and—”
Maki’s disbelief melts away into adoration and she laughs, deep-bellied and full as Nobara continues to ramble into her chest. “—none of them can use the cursed straw technique as well as I can—aside from my grandma of course, but there’s no way I’d let you marry her—so obviously I’m one of a kind and I’d probably cry hard enough to flood half the planet before I change my mind and go on my way.”
Maki wipes a tear from her eye as she gets the last of her chuckles out of her system. “You’d get over me eventually?” she asks, pulling back to meet Nobara’s eyes.
“Of course! I can’t spend all my time moping over you forever.” Her orange-haired underclassman stares up at her mulishly. “Just who do you think I am?”
That unshakeable resolve, that fearless confidence in who she was. “No wonder I fell in love with you,” Maki murmurs, cupping the side of Nobara’s face.
Her amber-eyed girlfriend lights up in a grin. It’s self-assured and cocky, just like Nobara Kugisaki is. “Right?”
“Mhmm.” Maki gazes at her for a little longer, but she can feel the warmth draining from her features. There’s an elephant in the room, a frustratingly obvious one, and Maki’s afraid she can’t ignore it any longer. “But I’m not as beautiful as you remember me to be.”
That brings a disgruntled frown onto Nobara’s face. “But you are?” she disagrees.
“No, I’m not.” Maki kneels so that her girlfriend can see. She doesn’t touch the bandages on the side of her face, and though she knows that Nobara has seen a lot worse, she doesn’t want to show any more of the burns that already paint her skin. It’s easier to forget about them when she’s going about her daily life, but she can’t ignore how they’ve become a part of her, with or against her will. Maki tilts her head to show Nobara the angry red marks that drip down her left temple and scar all the way down her neck. “See?”
Nobara sets her lips in a thin line. “No,” she presses, “you are. You’re stunning and beautiful and—” when she reaches out and cups Maki’s face in her hands, Maki’s stunned by how steady her fingers are. “—I want to spend the rest of my life at your side.”
Maki’s heart is beating a staccato rhythm in her chest. “What happened to moving on?” she whispers. “What about getting over me?”
“That’s only if you tell me no.” Nobara doesn’t tear her eyes away from the burns that decorate Maki’s face. She drinks in the sight of her so deeply that Maki almost feels like she’s naked, but there’s no feeling of shame, of shyness, of remorse. In Nobara’s eyes, she still feels like she’s whole. “I’ll never leave you if you tell me to stay.”
It’s in that moment that Maki realizes she’s on her knees. She raises one, and now she’s kneeling and taking both of Nobara’s hands in her own.
“Nobara,” she says, “Marry me.”
Nobara’s amber eyes widen for the briefest of seconds before the most brilliant, radiant smile spreads across her face.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
¤ ¤ ¤
When Maki opens her eyes the next morning, the bandages on the right side of her face are soaked in tears.