Maki held her ground, but her smirk faltered just a millimeter as he stopped right in front of her.
He reached out, his fingers brushing feather-light against her collarbone as he gently tugged the collar of the oversized shirt to straighten it.
"I was just thinking," Ren murmured, looking directly into her amber eyes with a soft, entirely sincere smile, "that I'm definitely never getting this shirt back. And honestly? You make it look way too good for me to even mind."
Maki froze. For a split second, the fearsome, unshakeable Maki completely short-circuited.
A furious, bright crimson flush erupted across her cheeks, traveling with lightning speed all the way to the tips of her ears.
Her eyes widened, completely stripped of their teasing dominance. She quickly slapped his hand away, though there was absolutely zero force behind the strike.
"Idiot," she muttered, aggressively turning her head away to hide her face, though the deep red of her ears gave her away entirely. She cleared her throat, her voice suddenly an octave higher.
"Come on. Let's just make the damn food."
Ren hid a triumphant grin and followed her to the kitchen.
The tension easily melted into a comfortable, familiar rhythm. They moved around the small kitchen together, seamlessly working around each other. Ren handled the prep, slicing green onions, mushrooms, and pork, while Maki commandeered the stove.
She fiercely watched over a simmering pot of broth and noodles, arms crossed, glaring at the boiling water as if it were a curse trying to escape.
Her face was still dusted with a faint pink, but she barked out domestic orders with her usual bossy affection.
Once the steaming bowls were filled, they carried them over to the low wooden coffee table in the living room. They sat cross-legged on the floor, the scent of rich broth filling the air.
Before picking up his chopsticks, Ren reached over and grabbed the TV remote.
Maki practically growled around her chopstick. "Ren. Put it down. You know the rule—no screens while eating. Focus on your food."
"It's just background noise," Ren argued, smoothly dodging her attempt to swat his hand and hitting the power button anyway. "I need visual stimulation to fully appreciate your culinary genius."
"My cooking stands on its own, you brat—"
The TV flickered to life, cutting her off. The screen displayed a very serious-looking news anchor sitting at a desk.
"...authorities are still investigating the series of unexplained structural collapses near the Kawasaki district," the anchor reported grimly.
"Officials are currently ruling it as a massive, synchronized underground gas pipe failure, though the bizarre, twisted state of the steel beams has left many residents questioning the official statement..."
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly. A "gas leak." The universal Jujutsu cover-up. Given the timeline—right in the middle of the Tokyo students' two-month training block before the Goodwill Event, while Yuji Itadori was supposed to be "dead"—it was almost certainly a cursed spirit rampage. Maybe even one of Mahito's early, gruesome experiments in the city.
Maki's posture instantly stiffened. The warm, relaxed aura she had carefully built up over the last twenty minutes vanished.
She hated it when the morbid reality of Jujutsu sorcery followed her into Ren's apartment. This was supposed to be their safe haven.
"Give me that," she snapped, snatching the remote right out of his hand before he could protest. "I didn't come over to listen to depressing bureaucratic cover-ups."
Without looking at the screen, she aggressively mashed the 'Channel Up' button.
The screen flashed black for a second. The grim news anchor vanished.
Instead, the screen filled with a tight, high-definition close-up of two actors deeply entangled in a rain-soaked, incredibly passionate kiss.
The background music was a sweeping, dramatic orchestral swell. A very heavy, breathy sound echoed from the TV speakers as the male actor pinned the woman against a wall.
"Oh, Takeshi..." the actress on screen breathed heavily, her hands desperately pulling the man's shirt off his shoulders. "Don't stop... please..."
The silence in the living room was deafening.
Ren slowly lowered his chopsticks, his eyes locked on the screen as the actors practically swallowed each other whole.
Maki sat completely paralyzed. The remote slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly onto the wooden coffee table.
The bright red flush from earlier returned with an absolute vengeance, completely consuming her face, neck, and chest.
Ren swallowed hard, the dryness in his throat returning as his mind viciously betrayed him.
Neither of them moved to pick up the remote.
The dramatic, swelling string instruments from the TV filled the suffocating silence of the living room, punctuated by another breathy, scandalous gasp from the actress on screen.
Ren dragged his gaze away from the high-definition kissing. He swallowed hard, nervously shifting his weight on the floor cushions.
He risked a side-glance at Maki. She was still completely petrified, staring rigidly at the bowl of noodles in front of her as if trying to set the broth on fire with her mind.
The furious blush had reached the very tips of her ears and was rapidly migrating down her neck.
Ren cleared his throat, the sound barely audible over the TV. He shifted again, leaning just a fraction of an inch closer to her. Their shoulders were almost brushing.
"Hey," he muttered, his voice dropping low.
Maki jolted slightly, her posture going ramrod straight. "What?" she snapped, though her voice wavered dangerously, lacking its usual lethal edge. She adamantly refused to look at him, or the TV.
Ren leaned in just a little bit more, his dark eyes studying the side of her flushed face. "How long has it been, exactly?" he asked softly. "Since we actually... made this official?"
That finally got her to look at him. Maki turned her head, her amber eyes wide and completely bewildered. "Huh? How long since what? Why the hell are you asking that now?"
"Just thinking about it," Ren replied, a small, genuine smile breaking through his own nervousness.
His mind drifted back to the very beginning. It had been spring of last year. Maki had only been enrolled at Tokyo Jujutsu High for maybe a month or two.
She was younger, angrier, and constantly covered in fresh, ugly bruises from her brutal training sessions and her family's relentless prejudice.
She had stomped into the quiet little coffee shop near the station where Ren was working part-time, looking like she was ready to murder the first person who looked at her wrong.
She had practically slammed her money on the counter and demanded the strongest black coffee they had.
Anyone else would have been terrified. But Ren, protected by a mix of civilian ignorance and his own stubborn nature, hadn't flinched.
He had just looked at her battered knuckles, calmly brewed her drink, and slid a complimentary chocolate pastry across the counter with a completely straight face, telling her that sugar was better for healing.
She had glared at him like he was an alien. But a week later, she came back. Then again. And again. Their weird, abrasive interactions slowly turned into quiet conversations in the corner booth, which eventually snowballed into the bizarre, deeply protective love story they shared now.
"It's been... what, about a year and a half?" Ren asked, his voice pulling him out of the memory. He tilted his head, closing the distance between them just a little more. The scent of her shampoo completely overpowered the smell of the food.
"Sixteen months," Maki corrected automatically. As soon as the words left her mouth, she bit her lower lip, looking intensely frustrated that she had the exact timeline memorized. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest, trying to rebuild her tough exterior.
"I ask again, you idiot: why are you bringing up ancient history while..." She gestured vaguely and aggressively toward the TV, where the cinematic rain was now completely drenching the actors.
"...while that is happening?!"
"I don't know," Ren murmured, holding her gaze. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but he forced himself to stay perfectly still. "Just realized that sixteen months is a pretty long time."
Maki's breath hitched. She stared back at him, her amber eyes searching his face. The annoyance in her expression slowly melted away, replaced by something much softer, much more vulnerable, and incredibly dangerous for Ren's current state of mind.
The TV continued to play loudly in the background, but neither of them was paying attention to the broadcast anymore. The air between them suddenly felt infinitely heavier than it had a minute ago.
The air between them suddenly felt infinitely heavier than it had a minute ago, thick with unspoken questions and a sudden, electric tension.
Ren didn't pull back. Instead, he shifted his weight, moving his knees out from under the low table and fully bridging the small gap between them.
Maki instinctively leaned back as he approached, her hands dropping behind her for support. But Ren kept moving, his gaze completely tethered to hers.
Overwhelmed by the sudden, suffocating proximity, Maki's elbows gave out. She slumped backward, her spine hitting the soft floor cushions with a soft thud.