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It would be easier if Yuuta didn't hover.
Any time Maki shifted or moved or did anything, he was there. By her desk as soon as Gojo finished wrapping up whatever class he so rarely taught in the classroom, outside her dorm room every morning insisting on walking with her to and from class, popping up next to her in the cafeteria never mind there were literally at least hundreds more seats available and evenly spaced out.
The most annoying thing about it was that Yuuta wasn't even aware he was doing it.
He was like a dog with a bone that way. Only Maki never particularly considered herself a pet—much less a dog—person.
Panda tells her as much one day, when they're dispatched somewhere in Ikebukuro to get rid of a low-level curse. "It's actually really cute," he offers. "Yandere aside."
"He's literally the farthest from a yandere," Maki rebuts, eyes going over the purikura stalls and crepe stands. "I don't think he knows how to be normal."
Panda considers this as they navigate their way through a dozen maid cafes. "The chip on his shoulder is a literal demonic curse," he argues. "All things considered, Yuuta is ridiculously well-adjusted."
Maki gives him a look.
"I said considering!" defends Panda, rounding them on a corner. "How many special grades have you met that are still polite, don't have an inflated sense of ego and self-worth, and still somehow look halfway decent?"
“Damn,” Maki eyes him knowingly. "Someone has a crush."
"Anyone would," Panda rolls his eyes. "All things considered, again, he's kind of a catch. I don't see why you don't see it."
Maki feels the growing energy signature towards the end of the street, the single streetlight blinking on and off. "Whatever," she cuts their conversation off and sharpens herself into a sorcerer again. "I give him three months until he's sick of me."
Except Yuuta does not, in fact, get sick of her.
He grows even more relentless in trying to conjure up a million reasons why he should be spending more time with her than necessary. They eat lunch together. He asks her to tutor him. He puts a request in for her to be his backup on long haul missions.
It gets so bad even Gojo quirks an eyebrow one day when they stroll into class together, the crisp morning air just dousing her irritation even higher as Yuuta rambles on about whichever with the world's brightest grin plastered on his face.
Maki slants her eyes to a glare. What.
Gojo's grin just widens. Nothing.
Nobara is the first to bring it up.
"Are you sure you're not together?" she repeats, possibly for the nth time that evening alone, as they lay on Maki's bed and skimmed through the latest issue of Shonen Jump. Eren Jaeger was set to obliterate humanity in the next few chapters, but evidently Nobara had other more pressing concerns in need of confirmation. "Like really really not together?"
"Really really," Maki inhales deeply, leaning forward to paint her toenails red. "He just needs a guide to all this. Gojo-sensei told him to ask me for tips, being a clan kid and all."
"And he couldn't imprint on Inumaki instead?" Nobara uses the manga to fan her toes.
"They talk," Maki amends, taking extra care not to let the manicure bleed into her cuticles. "But I think their version of talking is mostly playing video games and bonding over Mikasa and Annie."
"Ew," Nobara makes a face. "I hate boys."
Maki agrees, and says as much, "Agreed."
Even Kamo brings it up. Kamo, of all people. Jesus Christ.
"So what's up with you and the special grade?" he saunters up to her, nodding at Yuuta who was somewhere across the room listening attentively to Gojo rattle on about daifuku mochi and dorayaki and whatnot. “You guys a thing or something?”
They were at another one of those bi-monthly reunions the elders liked to set up for the Tokyo and Kyoto chapters, arguing that the best jujutsu schools in Japan should be meeting and recalibrating far more often than they spent time apart. Gojo was all for it, using any chance he had to rally his students against Utahime in an intense bid to win her students over. He was a city boy through and through, and wanted everyone else to mutually agree on his and Tokyo's superiority. Utahime, more refined, more tactful; never took the bait. Half of them think that's what fuels Gojo's desperation even further.
It doesn't escape her that they've been in the event hall for less than an hour and already Yuuta was sneaking not-so-subtle glances their way. If Maki notices, Kamo definitely does.
"Nothing," she tells him, honestly. "He's just — shy."
"He's already best friends with Todo," Kamo points out, crossing his arms. “Doesn’t seem like someone shy to me.”
"Everyone is best friends with Todo," Maki argues right back. "Man has the social skills of a seasoned politician."
"I'm not best friends with Todo."
"Yes, you are."
A beat of silence. "Yes, fine, alright," settles Kamo. "He does have a way of bringing us all together." Shaking his head, adds, "Anyway, that's not the point. Are you guys together or not?"
Maki makes a face. "Why are you so curious all of a sudden?"
Kamo shrugs. "Clan camaraderie."
"That's not a thing," Maki hisses.
Kamo's just about to rebut and express it was totally a thing, when a voice interrupts him from behind.
"What's not a thing?"
Now The Thing about Yuuta is that while he was ridiculously shy and just naturally jittery, he takes up a certain command of the space that is as effortless as the way he wields his techniques. With clean cut lines and so perfectly balanced and distributed outpour of energy that rivaled even a zen master. He is just as intimidating as his title suggests but you'd never know it if all you had to go by were his stammers and the way his eyes seemed permanently glued to the floor.
But when he wants it known, every single person in the room—even Gojo—knows.
Kamo turns around to regard him, looking him over and taking a pause. Recalibrating, thinks Maki, sizing him up the way anyone with half the critical thinking skills would if they were face to face with the only special grade student in the current generation. But before he can open his mouth to shove his foot down his throat, Maki moves past him to start dragging Yuuta along.
"Nothing," she says. "Ignore him."
Yuuta's eyes never leave Kamo's for the rest of the night. He also doesn't leave her side for just as long.
"I'm not going to be mad if you guys are," Gojo starts. "In fact, if I may offer a few tips myself—”
"Oh god," Maki groans, sinking further into her chair and hiding her head in her hands at the pure mortification she was being subjected to so early in the morning. "You are literally the last person any of us are listening to for love advice. And how many times have I told you and everyone else it's not like that? Like, at all?"
Gojo sends her a knowing look. "Does Yuuta know that?"
"Sensei," Maki fixes her glasses on her nose bridge. "You've met him. You've trained him. You've practically groomed him to be your successor. Does Yuuta really seem like the kind of person who'd know the ins and outs of stuff like this?"
"I think you'll be surprised to find Yuuta knows more than you think," Gojo offers, sliding over the mission packet she showed up to get and instead got an hour-long berating session scrutinizing the non-issue of whatever hypothetical relationship Gojo thought his students had. "He's a special grade, Maki. Give the guy some more credit."
It only really sinks in when a stranger calls them out on it.
"What a lovely couple you two make," the oba-san from the corner bakery offhandedly comments, right after Yuuta returned the rescued cat they caught from a tree.
"Oh," Maki flushes. "That's not— We're not—"
"And kind, too," the oba-san continues, oblivious to either of their growing beet faces, looking over Yuuta appraisingly. "Tall," she surmises, approvingly. Her gaze filters to Maki, then, "Pretty," she finishes, proudly.
Oh god, Maki thought. This is even worse than Gojo.
Maki turns an entirely new shade of red. "R-right," she says. "T-Thank you, but we're really not—"
The oba-san wasn't even listening to her, good lord. Having apparently gotten what she wanted out of the exchange, she swivels back on her sandal-clad heel as she started strolling back into her bakery. Before she completely disappears from view, she leaves them with a parting comment to take care of each other and to not believe in the death of young love as so much young people do these days.
Maki could only look on in horror as she sauntered farther and farther away from them.
But she quickly discovers it's a different kind of horror, too, when she finds Yuuta stepping forward to cup his hands over his mouth to yell: "Will do, oba-chan! And you're right," he sneaks a glance at her, such open mirth and light and maybe even teasing tugging at his lips as he grins wide, "She is beautiful!"