Three Years Chapter Six

Gojo grabbed the bottle of mayonnaise on the shelf and ambled to the next aisle, where Utahime should be waiting for him with a scowl creasing her lovely face. Supermarket announcements blared from the speakers, followed by mild static, and then a ballad by a singer he hadn’t heard before.

It was a bleak day in Tokyo, marked by an overcast sky, changing temperatures, and a Christmas shopping frenzy that made the streets nearly impassable. Couples and families marched in and out of stores with arms packed with paper bags. Children shrieked and pointed at toys their guardians would never buy them. Massive, neon discount announcements and bright red SALE signs littered display windows—a silent call to eagle-eyed mothers desperate to make their budgets work.

The only shopping Gojo liked doing this season was grocery shopping, partly because he enjoyed assessing shelves packed with the sweetest treats, and partly because Utahime liked it. They had some of their most intimate conversations while picking out bread and weighing fruits in their hands. Sorcery, clan politics, childhood trauma—the vegetables and canned goods of Kyoto and Tokyo’s supermarkets had overheard too much.

Okay, if Gojo were to be honest with himself, he also liked grocery shopping because Utahime cooked his favorite dishes right after. She always rewarded him for going to the supermarket with her, and although he had an inkling that there was something Pavlovian about it, he didn’t mind. Not when his fiancé could make curry sweet enough for his taste without ruining the dish.

The only part he may contest was probably her loyalty to certain food brands. If he didn’t fetch her the brand she specifically requested, in the size and style she repeatedly instructed, they were always on the brink of warring in public. Not that he ever argued with her for real. He rather enjoyed putting up an act for people and making them think they were a married couple too far past their honeymoon phase to care about their reputations.

Riling her up was his favorite pastime, because nowadays, it could only result in one of two things: she could either hit him or make out with him, and Gojo was still holding out hope that he could bend her over in a public restroom.

Gojo turned the corner, tossing the mayonnaise bottle with one hand. He had just begun to announce his return when an unexpected sight stopped him in his tracks.

Utahime turned to him at the same time he saw her, and for a several moments, they just stood there, staring at each other in shock and confusion while she held an infant in her arms.

Gojo pointed at the baby with the mayonnaise bottle. “Utahime, you’re not supposed to skip the part where you’re pregnant for nine months. Put that back in you.”

Utahime kicked his calf, but only half-heartedly, as the baby was about to fall asleep. “Don’t be an asshole. This isn’t ours.”

“I thought so. My baby would’ve been cuter.” He bent on his waist to peer at the baby’s face. It was strangely round and wobbly, with smudges of pink at the cheeks and beneath the eyes. He found its shape and color quite endearing. “So, are you just kidnapping babies now? Are you retiring from sorcery and going into a life of crime? I’m down for it, but you could’ve at least given me a warning.”

“Oh, enough of you!” Utahime adjusted the baby’s head on the crook of her arm and scanned the aisles. “The mother chased after her little boy and just shoved her baby at me. They should be back soon.”

“So, a girl or a boy?”

Utahime pulled down the swaddle to peer at the baby’s onesie. It was pink with white polka dots. “Girl, I suppose.”

Gojo inspected the rest of the swaddle and turned the baby’s beanie upside down. “No identification.”

“She’s not a piece of luggage to have a travel tag just hanging on her.”

“That’s the least anyone can do if they plan to leave their infant to a complete stranger,” he said.

“Well, we were talking for a bit before it happened. She said she worked two jobs, and her husband recently passed away. Isn’t it our responsibility to help people like her? There’s a saying about that, but I can’t remember the words. Oh! It’s about a kid being raised by a village. What was that again?”

Gojo wasn’t listening anymore. Something about the sight of Utahime holding an infant and swaying side-to-side put him in a trance.

She had always been motherly, and teaching in Jujutsu High had heightened her instinct to nurture the next generation. Watching her berate her students and nurse them in the infirmary cheered him to no end; here was the woman he loved, sharing his passion for a better world for sorcerers without his prompting.

Seeing her with a baby, however, was another matter entirely.

It warmed his chest and washed him with a sense of contentment. If only he were capable of controlling time, he’d pause at this moment to appreciate it for as long as he wanted. Or maybe he would fast-forward, where they might possibly be parents, going through the supermarket with their own child.

“Gojo!” Utahime waved her free hand at his face. “Stop daydreaming when we have a serious dilemma on our hands.”

Gojo regarded the infant for a second. “We can either hang around in this aisle until she comes back or surrender this baby to the police.”

“She’ll freak out if we’re not here,” Utahime said, so mortified by the suggestion that she paled. He may as well have suggested they sold the baby online with how much she detested his common sense.

Gojo held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, mama, let’s wait for her in the café out front.”

Utahime ignored their half-full shopping cart and marched to the nearest supermarket staff. “I’ll  inform them of the situation in case the mother asks.”

Sure, Utahime had taken care of babies before. By that, she meant she’d carried them for a few minutes and held a milk bottle to their mouths. Playing peek-a-boo was a staple with the infants and toddlers in her family during clan gatherings. While the parent held the baby up, Utahime would cover her face with her hands and part them to reveal a silly expression. She could sing them to sleep and feed them, make them laugh and distract them with toys, but she had never actually been responsible for one this way.

Utahime sat still in the corner booth of the quaint café adjacent to the supermarket. Thankfully, the baby had fallen asleep, and in the half-hour that had passed, she had neither vomited nor pooped. Now and then, Utahime would feel her nappy to check for heaviness.

“The baby should cry if her nappy’s full and needs changing.” Gojo scrolled on his phone to skim more information on nappies. “Hey, did you know a bag of medium-sized nappies cost more today by twenty per cent than it did a year ago? Look! They come in so many designs.”

Utahime shot him a look. “Why do you think I would know or care about nappies a year ago?”

Gojo continued scrolling and shrugged his left shoulder. “Oh, right. We weren’t banging a year ago.”

“Satoru fucking Gojo,” she hissed, stepping on his toes for good measure. She would’ve said more had the baby not stirred in her arms.

“Utahime!” Gojo slapped her thigh under the table. “Don’t cuss in front of a child!”

“Take this seriously, will you?”

“I am; that’s why I’m gathering intel on baby-making —I mean, caring. Caring for babies.” He cleared his throat and resumed fiddling with his phone.

Utahime nodded at the cake between them and opened her mouth. Gojo cut her a small slice and fed her. He swiped the icing from her lower lip and licked his thumb clean. He grinned.

Utahime could only sigh in resignation. She knew Gojo was telling the truth when he said this stressed him out. He usually dealt with heightened emotions through teasing and—sadly—perverted jokes. A part of her worried that it was seeing her with a baby that caused his discomfort. Yes, he’d joked about getting her pregnant, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be a father anytime soon, or at all.

Also, what if someone they knew spotted them? How could she explain each other’s company and the presence of this baby? Even the waitress earlier mistook them for husband and wife and complemented their child.

Utahime checked her wristwatch. One hour now. She wished the mother would return, but she also wanted to keep holding onto the baby. Something about it just felt right.

“Are your arms tired?” Gojo rounded the table and motioned to scoop the baby from her. “My turn.”

“Do you know how to hold her?”

“I’m guessing it’s not by the neck or the leg.”

Utahime rolled her eyes. Standing, she shrugged to emphasize the position of her arms. He promptly copied her pose, and she transferred the baby to him. The size difference between him and the baby was so significant that he could hold her comfortably in one arm. The baby shifted in her swaddle and scrunched up her face, but once she got used to him, she fell back into sleep.

Utahime was surprised to see Gojo flushed and pouting. “Are you okay?”

“What if the mother never comes back?” he asked.

“Of course, she will. What kind of mother abandons her child?”

“Tsumiki’s.”

Utahime made a choking noise and conceded. “Fair point.”

A family of four filed into the café with a stroller. A little boy pointed at them and screamed ‘BABY’ while the toddler in the stroller blabbered. The parents nodded at Gojo and Utahime as they took their seats, and they had no choice but to nod back.

Utahime turned around, her face hot and her hands clammy from the brief exchange. That nod felt like a secret code, an acknowledgement reserved only for parents, and they had unintentionally infiltrated their ranks.

Gojo bounced up and down by his knees a little. Ignorant of her anxieties. “She’s waking up. Help. Help.”

“Don’t panic,” she whispered. “She’s not crying. Awake is good.”

“What if she’s hungry?”

Utahime held her forefinger up to stop him from ranting and began rummaging through the bag the mother had left behind. It contained everything she hoped to see in a baby pack: nappies, wet wipes, bibs, a change of clothes, and, most importantly, formula. One of the bottles was still warm and half-full with milk, and she was so relieved that she fell back on her seat.

“She’ll tell us if she’s hungry,” Utahime said, suddenly confident. Her mother had let her feed Haruki a few times when he was four months old. Tomoe had tried to produce breast milk, but she had run dry by then, probably due to stress and her advanced age, and they had to rely on formula moving forward. Utahime’s formula-mixing skills were rusty, but she could still remember how to go about it.

Gojo made cooing sounds at the baby, making her laugh. He grinned in return. “Utahime, I’m going to ask a question, but it’s hypothetical, okay? And remember, you can’t hit me while I’m holding a child. That’s domestic abuse, and in public, too.”

“The mother’s going to return, Gojo. And if not, then we give her to the police.”

“What would you name your baby?” he asked.

Utahime paused to take in his phrasing—your baby. Did he not want one with her after all, or was he trying not to pressure her? She took a sip of her coffee and tried to act as casually as possible. “Why do you think I’d have a name ready?”

“You’re a girl. Hanabi made a list when she was ten, and Mother—well, she named me after her imaginary albino cat—but the point is that you must have thought about it.”

Utahime let out a deep sigh and stared up at the popcorn ceiling. “When I was in elementary school, a fortune teller told me that I would have a daughter, so I guess I have only thought of names for girls since.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious. Is your taste in baby names as bad as your taste in curtains?”

Utahime peered at the other customers to see that none were looking their way before discreetly flipping him off. Gojo pretended to be struck by her violent response and made a dramatic but steady descent to his chair.

“Yoko,” Utahime mumbled.

Gojo inclined his ear towards her. “What?”

Utahime glared at him and flicked her eyes down to her lap. “Yoko.”

“Yoko Gojo sounds like the next Yoko Ono. Pass.”

Utahime inhaled through her nose and held it. She was not expecting him to be auditioning names for their future child. “Well, what do you have in mind, genius?”

“Murasaki.”

“Murasaki Gojo?”

He nuzzled the baby’s cheek to make her laugh. Her giggles reverberated throughout the café. “Yeah, for purple. Hollow purple. Also, Murasaki Shikibu. She might turn into a scholar or something.”

Utahime sneered at him. “It would be nice if she’s carrying only your gene.”

“We all know our children will likely have my looks.”

“Oh, do we?”

“Do I look like Satoshi at all? I have his build, but I’m practically the male version of my mother. People used to think Akira was my father, and Satoshi would make a scene about being neglected. But hey, I could be wrong, and yours might be the genes that finally subdue mine.”

She held out her hands to ask for the baby. The talk about genes was making her dizzy. “Give me.”

Gojo angled his body away from her. “Five more minutes.”

“Check her nappies.”

He held the baby out to her. “You do it.”

She leaned forward to accept the baby, making sure to be extra careful with her head. When she started squirming and puckering her lips towards Utahime’s chest, she snatched the bottle to feed her. The baby suckled greedily with eyes wide open and her pupils roaming the café. Utahime patted her nappies. Still dry. Once this little one finished her meal, the real challenge would start.

“Here.” Gojo offered her another slice of cake. “This is more tiring than I expected.”

Utahime didn’t want more cake, but she did want his affection. Gojo sharing his dessert was almost as intimate to him as making her cry out in the bedroom—according to him, at least.

Utahime was just about to take a bite when the chimes at the café entrance rang, and a woman stumbled in, screaming for her baby. As if on cue, the baby girl cried, and the milk bottle toppled to the floor. Utahime surrendered the baby to the mother, who was dragging behind her a boy no older than four, and assured her that everything was fine.

Utahime had to sit while the mother dried her tears and expressed her gratitude with repeated bowing and sobbing. Her knees numbed, and her arms succumbed to the strain of holding up a child to her chest for over an hour.

Thankfully, Gojo noticed her state and took the initiative to pack the bag for the mother.

“I wouldn’t know what to do if I had given her to the wrong couple,” the mother said, smiling at them with fresh tears streaming down her face. “I cannot thank you enough. When Himiko is older, I’ll let her know about this beautiful couple in the supermarket who took care of her.”

Neither Gojo nor Utahime spoke as they watched the mother carry her children away.

Amidst the growing chatter in the café and the traffic noise beyond, something clicked, and they turned to each other at the same time.

They would never say it aloud. Instead, they would tuck it in the corner of their minds for future reference, storing it there until the situation necessitated that they verbalize it.

Himiko Gojo.

What a beautiful name.