tao ৎ୭

Every year on the night before his birthday, Gojo falls asleep before midnight.

He’s always got something planned for the day-of, so he has to go to bed early so he can enjoy the festivities to their fullest. He’s a bit like a child still in that way, having to so carefully monitor when he goes to sleep so he doesn’t bounce off the walls in excitement and exert his energy too early.

Besides, he knows that if he doesn’t sleep early enough, he’ll just put it off until it’s daylight and it’s too late to get a full night’s rest in, so he really can’t afford to stay up to watch the clock strike 12.

This year’s a little different, though. His birthday’s landed in the middle of the week, so most of his friends aren’t available to celebrate the day-of, and he can’t skip any of his classes today, so he’s got a pretty regular day ahead of him.

No big deal. He’ll see everyone soon anyway and he can celebrate with them later in his own way. He’s got plans to see Suguru and Shoko for lunch and to have dinner with you after Wind Ensemble anyway, so, still, he’s excited for the day, even if it is pretty regular, all things considered.

As Gojo pulls his blankets over himself and gets cozy in his bed, he smiles to himself just thinking about how much fun his birthdays have been in recent years.

In high school, he’d stay out too late with his friends at karaoke, and he’d have to sneak back into his house with bags of presents hanging off his arm at one in the morning. His parents very likely wouldn’t have cared if he just came in through the front door (if they were home in the first place), but Gojo had fun pretending to be irresponsible anyway, and by the time he’d be ready for bed afterwards, his phone would be chockfull of messages from his friends telling him to let them know he’s made it to his room safely.

He’d lay on his stomach, his phone too close to his face because he’s already taken his glasses off to go to bed, and text his friends to, per their requests, let them know that he’s made it inside safely and that he’s really appreciative of their time spent together. He lets himself get emotional as he types, seeing as him having friends at all is a relatively new thing and he didn’t celebrate his birthday growing up to begin with, and he gets emotional all over again when they all text back telling him to shut the fuck up and go to sleep because obviously they’re going to spend time with him, birthday or otherwise.

When he moved out for college, he’d take little day trips to attend anime conventions and winter street markets to celebrate by himself before coming back to join everyone else for dinner and dessert.

(Did he already have too much merch to begin with? 

Yes.

Did he have to buy the Calumon sticker to put on his overcrowded water bottle, even though he knew his friends were sure to gift him even more Digimon merch at dinner later that same night?

Also yes.)

It was still just as fun, even if a little different from what he did in his high school years.

Suguru still made the reservation and paid the bill at the end of dinner, Haibara and Shoko were still in charge of getting things like party hats and balloons for the group, Utahime was still in charge of making sure everyone’s schedule was clear for the day, and Nanami was still in charge of getting the cake (though, Gojo’s really not all that picky about his cake—all he needs is a few strawberries on top of it, and he’s happy).

Most recently, last year, he celebrated with you and all his friends at a nearby restaurant after a quiet afternoon at a manga café where he got to catch up on some series he’d been running behind on. After cutting his cake with everyone, he played DTCG with you in the back of Shoko’s car because it was too windy to play outside in the park you’d all gone to for Gojo to open his presents, and he fell asleep in your living room because he was too tired to make his way homeward after such a long day and your apartment was closer than his.

The gentle memory of himself waking up the morning after, bundled up in a Digitama blanket on your couch while you made waffles nearby over in the kitchen, puts him right to bed. 

He easily slips off into the Dream Dimension to dream of nothing, which is a blessing because then that means he won’t be upset when he wakes up to find that the dream has ended.

And, when Gojo wakes up a full eight hours later at the sound of his alarm, it’s December 7th.

His birthday!

Gojo rolls over onto his back and stretches longways, not bothering to turn off  his alarm clock because he wants to hear the little jingle it plays when Agumon goes off, and he keeps his eyes closed as he smiles in the dark.

Myotismon, what a good night’s rest! Not as good as it is when you’re there to pet his hair and lull him to sleep in your arms, but he feels perfectly energized and ready to start the day regardless.

(Almost makes him want to actually fix his sleep schedule, but he’s an overworked  college student addicted to sugar and videogames, so that obviously isn’t going to happen anytime soon.)

As is routine for him, he pats around his bed until he finds his phone, and he holds it directly in front of his face as he turns it on. He should probably put on his glasses and hold his phone a fair distance away from his eyes, but he’s too excited to wait and see what’s previewed on his lock screen.

He swipes and taps 0-1-0-8 on the keypad to unlock his phone, and the Digimon CS chime sounds off to let him know he’s gotten in successfully. All the while, he’s got a stupidly wide grin on his face, and he rolls over to lay on his stomach and kick his feet.

Odaiba Day (AKA Digimon Day) is August 1st. It is mentioned in chapter 7 that Gojo’s password was already 08-01 before this, but August 1st (01/08) is also the day he and the reader officially became a couple in chapter 6. The Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth beep is used in-game to signal a successful Connect Jump! (the game’s form of transportation/teleportation). It sounds similar enough to a typical notification that it wouldn’t be recognized as a Digimon reference unless someone were listening specifically for it.

It goes without saying that another benefit to falling asleep before midnight is getting to wake up to birthday messages from your loved ones, so that’s what’s got Gojo so excited this early winter morning. It’s one of his favorite parts of the occasion, and he’s ready to partake even though he’s only just opened his eyes a minute or two ago.

He ignores all the miscellaneous text alerts he’s gotten from bakery loyalty programs he’s signed up for from all over the city; he can look at those later (and promptly take advantage of whatever coupons they’re probably sending him to use for his birthday), but right now, he wants to get back to everyone who’s wished him well.

He’ll save the best for last, so he starts at the top with the most recent of the messages.

Nanami’s message is the most recent and is at the very top of his screen, sent only an hour ago.

No surprise there, the blonde wakes up early to feed Shoku, and even before he got his feline friend, Nanami would get up early to do stretches that help with some back pain he’s had trouble with since high school.

nanamin ₍^. .^₎⟆: Happy Birthday, Gojo. Wishing you a happy and healthy year

Very typical Nanami text, but every bit as special. It was sent right at seven, meaning that Nanami had sent it the second his alarm went off, and it makes Gojo happy to think that his friend’s first task for the day was wishing him a happy birthday.

Gojo texts back, humming to himself as he types.

THANK YOU NANAMINNNN 🥳🥳🥳🥳

Gojo gets a response almost immediately.

nanamin ₍^. .^₎⟆: Stop shouting, it’s eight in the morning

Hey, at least he let him call him “Nanamin!” The privileges of being the birthday boy!

Gojo laughs at that, and he responds with a thumbs-up kaomoji before moving on.

The next message is from Haibara, sent at 4 in the morning.

Again, it doesn't really surprise Gojo that the text was sent at the time it was. The brunette doesn’t have class on Wednesdays, so he usually uses the entire late night before to do all his homework for the week in one go. Nobody really understands how or why he does it like this, but it works for him and he’s managed to stay on top of his schoolwork anyway, so who are they to judge?

haibara!!!! (๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝*: Happy birthday gojo!!!! :) Have a great day today, and wishing you a happy year! haibara!!!! (๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝*: Sorry I cant hang out today :( We’ll see each other soon tho!

thank you haibara!!!! (´▽`) 彡┌iii┐ and no worries im w suguru shoko and my girl today :3c

Haibara’s probably dead asleep by now, so he moves to the next text, which is from Ino. His sleep schedule’s so random that Gojo can’t really tell if this is late or early for him, but nevertheless, he opens the message and laughs loudly at it.

ino!! ᕙ(  •̀ ᗜ •́  )ᕗ: HAPPY 😊 BIRTHDAY 🎂 BRO!!! 😎😜😩😆 Its time 🕦 to get LIT 🔥 for your special 👉😎👈 BIRTHDAY 🎊! You finna turn UP 👆🤯 and get DOWN 👇🤩 on this BEAUTIFUL day 😩💕 because you're 👀 a CHAMP🎖and a COOL 😎 DUDE 💪! Get all that 💰🤑 and 🤪🍹 and HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎊🎊🎊 don't forget 😤😤 to eat your cake 🍰😋 or your other cake 🍑😩👅💦 because today you the MAN 🤠😏🤤 ino!! ᕙ(  •̀ ᗜ •́  )ᕗ: LMAO but happy birthday dude!!!! cakes and candles B)

Now, this, Gojo isn’t surprised at in the slightest. Ino always sends copypastas like this for holidays and special occasions, and they always get circulated around the friend group a few times over because the text chain will usually end with “SEND THIS MESSAGE TO 10 SEXY SLUTS OR YOU’LL HAVE BAD LUCK FOR 69 YEARS,” and you’ve all watched too many horror movies together to ignore warning signs like that.

Gojo double taps to capitalize the beginning of his text back, and he’s still laughing as he sends it.

WWWWWWWWWWW thank you bro!!! ദ്ദി(⌐■w■)✧

Choso’s next, sent a bit after one in the morning. Gojo left game night a little early yesterday so he could go to sleep before midnight so he can’t know for sure, but he figures Choso texted him while waiting to hear back from everyone else that they’d made it home for the night.

choso (..◜ᴗ◝..): Happy Birthday Gojo! Have a good day today :)

thank you choso!! you too (๑>◡<๑)

After he hits “send,” Gojo realizes that saying “you too” to a birthday text is a little awkward, but he thinks it’s funny anyway, so he doesn’t bother correcting himself. If anything, he’ll get a laugh out of it later when he tells Suguru and Shoko about it at lunch this afternoon, so it’s fine if he comes off as a socially inept loser.

Riko’s next, and Gojo takes it that he was right to assume that Choso had texted him after everyone else had made their way home from his house.

riko!!! ৻(  •̀ ᗜ •́  ৻): happy birthday gojo! hope you have a bunch of yummy cake today!!! ^_^ riko!!! ৻(  •̀ ᗜ •́  ৻): misato’s driving rn but she says happy birthday too! yuki too i saw her earlier today and she told me to relayy

will do on the cake! ദ്ദി ˉ꒳ˉ )✧ and thank you girls for the birthday wishes!

Naturally, Megumi’s next on the list as another member of the ragtag group who meet at Choso and Yuuji’s house every week, though the initial text isn’t anything that Gojo would expect the young boy to text him.

megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOJO!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎊🎊🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💙💙💙💙💙😮😮😮😮😮🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎁🎁🎁🍰🍰🍰 WE LOVE YOU!!!!!! megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: bruh megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: sorry that was yuuji and nobara they stole my phone while we were waiting for my parents to pick me up megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: but happy birthday megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: mom and dad say happy birthday too

AWWW you kids are soooo cute thank you guys :3c and i’ll text your parents to let them know i got the message!

Gojo chooses to text Megumi’s mom because the thought of texting Toji at 8 in the morning sounds like a nightmare in and of itself, so he pulls up her contact to send her a quick message.

Thank you for the birthday wishes! Megumi let me know you and Toji said it :)

mamaguro ‎(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶): You’re welcome honey! Next time you come by the restaurant, your meal’s on us OK? 🥰

“Yes!” He cheers to himself, giggling as he rolls over onto his back now, yawning briefly before going back to reply.

Before he can though, he gets a text from Tsumiki, and he taps on the notification to open their chat.

tsumiki 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔: happy birthday gojo! :) have a good day today!

Ah, right! Tsumiki’s usually awake around this time in the morning too. He smiles as he types out his thanks.

AWW of course i will! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ thank you tsumiki! lmk how your lab goes when u get the chance!

She reacts with a salute emoji, and Gojo quickly replies to Megumi’s mom with another “thank you” for the meal before returning to his inbox.

Now he’s getting to the messages sent exactly at midnight, and in last place is Suguru, who sent his message closer to 12:00:59 than true midnight because his hands were probably preoccupied applying his biweekly hair oil right before bed.

suguru!!!!!! ◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ: Happy birthday Satoru 

Honestly, he and Suguru don’t really text much because they’ll pretty much always just call if they need anything or want to chat, so it’s a little awkward to even have their messages open at all. Gojo opts to record a short voice note to send instead of texting back.

TRANSCRIPTION: Suguru, thanks for the birthday wish! Means a lot, man, love you. Seriously. Oh! I forgot, am I meeting you and Shoko at the restaurant or am I picking you guys up for lunch? I don’t mind either way, just let me know. Also, I have something funny to tell you guys later, remind me when you see me because I’ll definitely forget about it. ‘Kay, bye, see you later!

Gojo makes sure it’s sent successfully, and he scrolls down to find a few messages from Shoko. As he’s reading them, Suguru replies and says Gojo can just meet them there, so he doesn’t ask Shoko the same question.

shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: happy birthday gojo, cant believe youre 22 now shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: ew that means ill be 22 soon too blegh

He cringes at the reminder that he’s 22 now—he still feels like he’s the same kid who stayed up until two in the morning  to play Digimon videogames (…probably because he still stays up until two in the morning to play Digimon videogames)—, but, either way, he responds with a bright smile on his face.

BOOOOOO don’t remind me (╥﹏╥) but thank you sho!!! now that i’m older than u u have to listen to me now B)

shoko (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: yeah no thx shoko (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: die

And, just like every year, Utahime’s message is just about at the end of the list. She makes it a point to try and be the first person to tell Gojo “happy birthday,” both so she can curse him with misfortune and so she can prove that her hatred is strong as ever.

It’s lost its bite over the years—Gojo knows she’s just competitive and wants the nonexistent bragging rights—, but it’s still just as funny as it was the first time.

utahime ⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾: Gojo. Unhappy birthday. Have the worst year ever. I hope ensemble goes over time today so you have to wait even longer in the freezing cold for us to get out.

And Gojo’s learned over the years that it’s much funnier to not give her the reaction she wants, so he replies as if she’s just gifted him her firstborn.

AWWW thank you so much utahime!!!! i really appreciate the kind words, looking 4ward 2 another year with you ༘⋆-ˋˏ ヽ( ^ᴗ^)ノ ·˚ ༘⋆ˎˊ˗

utahime ⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾: KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS

Gojo laughs and replies to the message with an oblivious smiling kaomoji, and he taps out to look at the very first message he received on his birthday.

my princess ৎ୭: happy birthday my satorumon <3

ৎ୭ is meant to look like the crest of love.

Gojo immediately buries his face in the plushie closest to him—this time, it’s the Koromon stuffie you’d sewn for him with spare fabric from your Anneleise costume—, and screams, extending his legs to exert his energy.

The short message probably should leave him wanting more, but he’s already so smitten with just the sweet nickname you’ve called him that he can barely function with just the simple birthday wish. You very likely knew this would happen and forewent sending a longer, more detailed message so he wouldn’t immediately melt like a newly digivolved Kumamon, so he’s grateful for that.

Kumamon is an ice bear digimon, and in their digivolution animation, they melt into the floor.

(That, and he saw what looked like a handmade birthday card in the corner of your cameraview when you called him the other night to play DTCG, so your words are very likely penned there instead of on your phone.)

When he remembers that he shares a wall with his neighbor, he shuts up and rolls over onto his stomach, now giggling and kicking his feet as he picks up his phone again and replies to you.

thank you princess <333333 I LOVE YOUU GOOD MORNING

He smiles when he sees you start to type back immediately, and he rests the side of his head on his pillow and props his phone up against the Koromon plushie.

my princess ৎ୭: good morning toruuu i love you too ^^

omg u said it back!!!!!!! >_<

my princess ৎ୭: im literally your girlfriend??????????

STILL CAN YOU SAY IT AGAIN

my princess ৎ୭: its too early 4 tihs pls my princess ৎ୭: but sure my princess ৎ୭: i love you

YAYYYYYYYY it’s never too early or too late or ever the wrong timing either way i  can’t wait to see you later I MISS YOU

my princess ৎ୭: i literally saw you last night loser

okay???? is this any way 2 talk 2 the birthday boy????

my princess ৎ୭: yes :p

yes ma’am whatever u say ma’am

my princess ৎ୭: youre so cute aw my princess ৎ୭: i gtg i’m busy all day today but i’ll see u l8r okay?

YES!!!! good luck on ur midterm btw!

my princess ৎ୭: oh ya THANK U!!! don’t forget to turn in ur p-set b4 noon

OH THX 4 REMINDING ME i will i’ll see you later KISSESSSS ( ˶˘ ³˘(⋆❛ ہ ❛⋆)!♡

my princess ৎ୭: dork my princess ৎ୭: BYEEEE (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc)♡ happy birthday again baby boy

“And you say I’m the loser,” he says dreamily, scrolling back up in your conversation to sigh some more about how cute the two of you are. A few other people reply to him now that they’ve gotten the time to properly wake up and read his messages, so Gojo chats with them for a bit to pass the time and enjoy the warmth of his bed in the early winter chill.

(Throughout the day, Gojo gets other birthday messages as well. A few classmates DM him on Instagram when they see that he’s reposted a photo collage of himself Haibara put on his story, your relatives send him short videos of their respective households wishing him a happy year, and there’s a few more loyalty programs that email him drink vouchers to use by the end of the month.)

(His parents text him something too, which reminds him that he should block them.

Will he actually do it?

Probably not, but it’s not worth the inconvenience of clicking their unsaved numbers and blocking them anyway when they only ever reach out on his birthday and whenever they want something from him, which is never.)

He eventually shuts off his phone and gets out of bed to get ready for the day ahead, yawning as he passes through and taps the top of the doorframe on the way into the bathroom. He brushes his teeth, flosses, does everything else a person needs to do in the bathroom at the start of their day, and he forgoes getting changed out of his pajamas to have breakfast first.

From the fridge, he grabs two onigiri he’d prepared earlier in the week, and he eats those while clicking through the channels on the TV. Just his luck, he lands on a rerun of the original Digimon Adventure movie on one of the channels, so he watches that intensely while he has his breakfast and sips the strawberry milk he probably shouldn’t be drinking so early in the morning.

After the movie finishes, Gojo goes back to his bedroom, slips on a coat, sweater, and slacks because it’s too cold for him to just put on his usual faded grey crest of light t-shirt and a pair of shorts. With practiced hands, he puts on his crest necklace, his Vital Bracelet, and the Tamagotchi Ringcolle! Shoko got for him when she dragged him and Choso to the arcade last month to look for the gashapon combs, and once he’s happy with his appearance, he grabs his backpack before saying goodbye to his apartment and locking the door behind him.

Looking out at the sky, clear and blue and so very ready for him, Gojo hikes up his backpack, deaf to the loud rattle of all the keychains and pins on his backpack, and he’s on his way to having the best birthday ever!

. . .

Which, incidentally, starts with him having the most boring day ever.

His first lecture of the day is painfully dull. It’s just a review session for the upcoming final (which Gojo most definitely doesn’t need—he’s already put in the hours to learn and retain this information during the active learning period), but attendance is mandatory, so he has to sit through the lesson anyway. It’s not awful—he doesn’t mind review, and it’s not like he’s paying much attention anyway—, but it’s certainly not the greatest use of his time. He would’ve loved to have been able to lounge around his apartment a bit longer this morning, watch cartoons on the kid’s network or admire his figurine collection.

His second (and thankfully, last) lecture of the day is also dreadfully monochrome. The material itself doesn’t phase him—the class is the last in a series, and he’s mastered the fundamentals enough for anything at this level to come naturally by now—, but the professor’s voice just drags like he’s the witness in an Ace Attorney third case, and Gojo forgot his earbuds at home so he can’t tune him out.

In the Ace Attorney game series, the third case of every game is considered to be the worst (either because of inappropriate/disturbing content or because it’s filler).

It’s not that bad, but he has to actually pay attention because the information is important and new, regardless of how dryly it’s being delivered, so Gojo just has to grin and bear it for the sake of his grade in this class.

His TA session is a nice start to a better day though. His students attend for the whole hour to ask for help with their last test review, and before they leave,  they present him with a birthday card they’d all signed. They came bearing gifts as well—gashapon coins to use at the spot near the subway station, snacks from the on-campus konbini, vouchers for the sweets shops he’s mentioned liking—, and though Gojo stutters out that they really didn’t have to do anything for him, they insist he’s the best TA they’ve ever had and that he deserves it.

When his TA hour is over, it’s two in the afternoon, and he’s finally done with all his responsibilities for the day. By now, he’s ready to just spend the rest of the day relaxing, eating good food, and spending time with his favorite people.

After checking his messages with Suguru to confirm their lunch plans, Gojo goes back to his car and drives over to meet with him and Shoko at their collective favorite restaurant. They’d found the spot while touring the city as high schoolers, and they come back every so often, just the three of them, to eat cheap food and reminisce when they’re too overwhelmed by change.

When Gojo arrives, he sees Suguru and Shoko already deep in conversation about something at their usual table by the windows, and he waves at them to get their attention.

“Yoo-hoo!”

Shoko notices him first, facing towards the door anyway, and she waves back before shoving Suguru’s shoulder from across the table to say “hi” too. No matter, Gojo reaches the table before Suguru can turn around, and he sits down next to the ravenette.

“Hope you guys didn’t have to wait too long!”

“Nah, you’re good,” Shoko waves him off. “Happy birthday, Gojo.”

“Happy birthday, Satoru,” Suguru greets him with a smile.

“Aw, thank you, guys!” Gojo throws an arm over Suguru’s shoulder and reaches across the table to also get an arm around Shoko, and because his best friends love him too much to not indulge him, they lean in towards him so he can reach them like this. Gojo giggles to himself and squeezes them tight for a second before letting go and sitting down properly again. “And thanks for making time to grab lunch with me!”

“Shut up, of course we’re here.”

“Yeah, someone’s gotta babysit you.”

Gojo sticks his tongue out at Shoko for that comment, but he knows it’s just meant to be a throwaway joke, so he doesn’t pay any mind to it even if Suguru glares at her for it.

Wonder what’s up with him today.

Before Gojo can prod and ask about it, a waiter comes out with drinks for everyone and asks if they’re ready to order. Because they’ve already been here countless times before, they don’t need to think over what they want, and after telling him, the waiter leaves and the three friends resume their friendly chatter.

There isn’t really much to talk about, considering they see each other so often that there isn’t much new to catch up on.

Suguru says he’s been rewatching the Castlevania anime in the background of him working on his final projects and papers, that he got dinner with Utahime, Yuki, Ino, and Nanami the other day and liked the soba noodles he tried there. Gojo already knew Suguru was rewatching Castlevania because he mooches off the Geto family’s Netflix account and saw his recent watch activity, and Shoko already knows about the dinner thing because Utahime complained about how bad that restaurant’s beer was when she got home that day.

Still, they tell Suguru to talk about it anyway—both of them already well-acquainted with his poorly-concealed Castlevania obsession and his love of traditional Japanese food—, and they poke and prod for him to talk more in general because he’s prone to keeping things to himself. He’s opened up a lot since they all first met years ago, but they still worry anyway.

But things are good. His not-serious-but-serious band with Choso and Ino is good, school’s good, his senior thesis project is good, and those soba noodles at the restaurant with the bad beer were so good that he’s going to force Gojo and Shoko to go with him the next time he gets the craving for them.

His parents are good too; Suguru says he’ll be visiting them soon for the holidays before they leave for a relaxation resort. Gojo’s never been to one of those before, but he imagines it’s like that waterpark the host club went to in episode 7, so he laughs thinking about the elder Getos spending the New Year in a place like that before coming back to the conversation.

In episode 7 of Ouran High School Host Club, the host club goes to a relaxation resort designed and managed by the Ootori Group.

Shoko’s next, and she says she hasn’t been up to much the last couple days and that Gojo can just go ahead and say his piece. Gojo’s quick to correct her because he knows there was a new Tamagotchi Uni update last week and that she’s been busy grinding that out, and Suguru’s just as fast to call bullshit because Utahime mentioned to him that Shoko’s been starting to scrapbook.

The boys demand that Shoko actually talk—not to be pushy, but because they want to know what she’s up to because they’re all each other’s closest friends—, and under absolutely no pressure at all, Shoko folds.

She sighs and puts her head down on the table to complain about how her supervisor at the clinic is on her ass for always stepping away to tend to her Tamas, how sticker sheets are so expensive but that she absolutely has to have the cute ones she sees at the overpriced stationary shop near her and Utahime’s favorite crêpe stand.

There isn’t much that either of them can do to help with Shoko’s Tamagotchi addiction (which is just as bad as, if not worse than, her smoking addiction was before she’d kicked it), but Suguru offers to ask his classmates that’re in the school’s beautification committee if they have any miscellaneous craft supplies they could part with, and Gojo says you, Riko, and Yuki have a shared journaling-supply-box that he’s sure you’d all be more than happy to include her in on, so Shoko’s sulking is halved, and she gets to talk about how much fun she’s been having with the update and her new glitter pens instead.

Their food arrives when it’s Gojo’s turn to talk, and since he doesn’t do well with food that’s too hot anyway, he updates his friends as they dig in. He hasn’t got much to say, apart from mentioning the ALYSION updates he saw on Twitter the other day…

And the text exchange between him and Choso in the morning…

And the recent sewing project he just started…

And the games he got for Steam’s annual winter sale…

And this, that, and the third…

(So, I guess they did have a lot to talk about, but they don’t ever feel that way about it.

Weird… it’s always like this whenever they go out.

They all insist they’ve got nothing new to say, that they’re all boring and already know everything there is to know about one another, and they still somehow always spend the entire time talking and talking and talking.

Guess some things never change.)

While Gojo’s eating to catch up to the other two, Suguru and Shoko go on their phones. He doesn’t pay any mind to them, especially because he’s so concentrated on his food and trying to figure out if he’ll still have room in his stomach for dessert after this—oh, who’s he kidding? He always has room for dessert, he’s Satoru Gojo—, but after a few minutes of comfortable silence, he decides he’s had enough anyway, eager to talk some more with his friends.

“People are so addicted to their phones these days, aren’t they?” Gojo says sarcastically to himself, sighing dramatically and swirling the ice in his glass before taking a sip of his drink.

He hadn’t meant for the joke to land anywhere sore—it’s just something he (and everyone else in the friend group, for that matter,) says when someone’s on their phone for a little too long, just to tease them for not being in the moment—, but Shoko and Suguru freeze up and look apologetic anyway, which is leagues more concerning than them laughing it off like they usually would.

They both rush to pocket their phones, and Suguru avoids eye contact as he clears his throat.

“Sorry, won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry.”

“Uh, okay…?”

This is a little weird, Gojo thinks to himself as he watches them with his heads low.

Maybe the joke just isn’t funny anymore. He’ll have to test it on Haibara next time he sees him, or see if Nanami says anything if Gojo purposefully goes on his phone for too long.

The awkwardness lingers in the air for just a second before the waiter comes back with the bill, which Suguru takes care of because he’s always quick to handle it. Gojo happily goes back to finish the last couple bites of his food, Shoko goes to the bathroom to reapply her lipliner—whatever that means, Gojo has no idea, but you do that too, so he figures it’s something only girls are allowed to understand—, and once Suguru’s done with payment and everyone’s done, he suggests the three of them go get something from the café down the road.

A bit of a surprise to Gojo, since he’s always the one to suggest they get dessert after (which is almost always met with protest because dessert can be expensive and you’re all underpaid, overworked, broke university students), but he’s not going to question it when Shoko also chimes in to say that she’ll pay for whatever he wants from there, so the three friends are swiftly on their way to that café down the road Suguru suggested.

And the day slows down in the best way, the wind chill enough to nip at the tips of his ears but not enough to ache and crack the skin on his knuckles.

The walk over is nice, the three friends comfortably fitting on the wider sidewalk. A group of junior high boys passes them by and runs back to compliment the keychain stack on Gojo’s backpack, another pair of girls swoon over Shoko’s aloof demeanor when they think she’s out of earshot, and a ragtag group of twenty-somethings recognize Suguru from a venue he played at recently and ask if there’s any new music on the way. Whenever one of the three get stopped, the other two make room for them to have the spotlight, chiming in as necessary to tell a joke or encourage their friend to open up, and when the interaction is over, they all smile at each other and bump shoulders in their own sign of affection.

The café is relatively empty now that the midday rush is over, so the line to the register is perfect—just short enough to not feel like an inconvenience, just long enough to give Gojo the perfect amount of time to decide what exactly he wants.

When it’s the trio’s turn to order, Gojo goes first and orders a slice of berry cheesecake and a melon cream soda for himself before stepping aside for the other two to order. To his surprise again, they both each get a slice of cake for themselves as well—black forest for Suguru, earl grey and lavender for Shoko—and a drink.

Shoko also adds an order of daifuku mochi, glancing at Gojo as she calls it, and after she’s handed a number stand for their table, Gojo thanks her brightly with a smile and a side hug.

“You’re the best, Sho! Thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she huffs, too aloof to be more affectionate than that.

They find a circle table to sit at near the back—perfect for peoplewatching—, and their orders come out soon after. They don’t talk much about anything important, instead just chatting about their respective dessert and drinks.

The strawberries in Gojo’s slice are a little too sour, so Suguru gives him one of the cherries on his and Shoko gives Suguru the white chocolate coin on hers to make up for the loss. Suguru’s drink is too sweet and Shoko’s is too bitter, so after taking sips to try the other person’s and liking it better anyway, they swap. The two of them also let Gojo have complete authority over the mochi, and while he’s absolutely going to indulge, he still tells them to have a piece too so they can enjoy it with him.

(And when they’re not actively talking, they eavesdrop on the group of high school friends sitting at the table just a few meters away from them. They’re loudly gossiping about a couple at their school who’ve been meeting in secret in the sports’ club equipment room, and Gojo’s particularly invested because one of the girls is using gaming terminology to describe the events in the story.

Suguru and Shoko chastise him for being so obvious about listening in, but they’re just as interested in what’s going on because… well, it’s drama, why wouldn’t they be interested? So Gojo just waves them off and continues leaning closer towards their stage whispers.

Because the high schoolers are so in their own world (and either completely oblivious to the fact that this entire shop can hear them or don’t care at all), Suguru, Shoko, and Gojo are able to give their own live commentary as they listen in in real time too, which is always fun as outsiders.)

Eventually though, the younger kids leave and the trio finish their treats, and Gojo yawns as he checks the time on his VB.

He hums curiously, but once he realizes how late it is, he gasps. “It’s already 6!? Why didn’t you guys say anything?! Suguru, don’t you have class soon? I can drive, we can still make it!”

“It’s all good, I’m skipping today,” he shrugs. “Already turned in my stuff for the week anyway, don’t need to be there.”

“You should still go! School is important! And Shoko!”

“What?”

“You work on Wednesdays, right!? Your shift started, like, an hour ago!”

“Called out.”

Gojo’s thoroughly confused now, but the look that his dear friends give him tells him that he’s overthinking this, so he just slumps back in his chair and sighs. “I know it’s my birthday, but you guys didn’t have to make that much time for me, you know.”

“Idiot,” Suguru scoffs. “‘Course we do, you’re our best friend.”

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it. Besides,” Shoko reaches into her backpack to grab two lollipops, one for herself and one for Gojo. She slides the blue raspberry one across the table for Gojo while she pops the cherry one into her own mouth, holding it between her fingers like a cigarette. “My supervisor can kiss my ass anyway, talking down on me for caring about my Tamas.”

Gojo laughs at that and reaches for the lollipop, unwrapping it and putting it in his mouth too. “Yeah, guess you’re right.”

Suguru isn’t much of a sweet tooth, but Gojo keeps a few different types of candies in his backpack—ginger ones for Megumi, caramel chews for Nanami, lemon drops for Utahime—, so naturally, he also has a handful of guava ones for him too, and he holds out a few for his dear friend to take to join in on their sugar intake. Suguru takes them, their spiky wrapper scratching up the palm of Gojo’s hand a bit as they’re picked up, and he tosses one in his mouth before getting up to throw away everyone’s trash.

When Suguru comes back, he and Shoko people watch quietly, the evening rush starting to pick up this time around. Gojo partakes halfheartedly, smoothing out his lollipop wrapper against the edge of the table, and wordlessly, Shoko hands him her own candy wrapper too, already flattened by the weight of her phone. Suguru’d stuffed the receipt from lunch in his pocket, and he folds down the top corner to tear it into a square to give to Gojo as well.

As he folds paper cranes out of the three sheets—a habit he’s had since junior high—, a wave of nostalgia washes over Gojo, one that’s warm and bright as the sun starts to set. He gives the folded lunch receipt to Shoko, the blue raspberry wrapper to Suguru, and keeps the cherry wrapper for himself.

Well, neither Suguru nor Shoko seem all that concerned with getting a move on and Gojo’s got nothing to do until you’re done with wind ensemble, so when the café’s music switches from the trendier pop that played during the daylight to more calming classical pieces, he elects to put his head down, using his backpack as a pillow. The place isn’t all that crowded anyway and enough people are just lounging around, so he figures he’s good to take up space for a while.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” he mumbles, eyes barely open to look at Suguru and Shoko to make sure they’re good with that. “Wake me up in an hour?”

They both nod, and Shoko unravels her scarf for Gojo to put on top of his backpack to make it a little more comfortable to put his head on. Suguru similarly shrugs off his coat to drape over him because he knows he runs cold, and Gojo thanks them both before drifting off, making sure to put the Loader Leomon  in his Vital Bracelet to sleep too so his stats aren’t skewed.

Holding the SELECT and START buttons on a Vital Bracelet will put the digimon in the device to sleep, which preserves their health when idle. Loader Leomon is one of the digimon that can be obtained on the Nu Metal Empire DiM card, which Gojo receives during the Monday section of chapter 8 of this fic.

And it feels like only a few seconds pass before he’s tapped on the shoulder to wake up again, and he refuses to open his eyes.

“Ugh, five more minutes…” Gojo whines, holding on tighter to his backpack.

He feels pretty well rested, actually—not that he really needed the nap in the first place, considering all he did today was go to class, have lunch, and hang out with his friends—, and he’s just complaining to complain, so after a few slow blinks, Gojo yawns and stretches upwards.

Suguru was on his laptop, probably polishing up a draft of something, and Shoko was on her Tamagotchi, and with Gojo now back on this plane of existence, the three of them get up and get ready to part ways.

“Where are you headed, Gojo?” Shoko asks. Suguru nods as well, waiting for his answer.

“Uh,” Gojo checks the time on his VB. Yeah, he should have enough time. “Guess I’ll head home and tidy up a bit before picking up my girl to have dinner.”

“Huh? Why go home if you’re just going out again later?” Suguru scoffs.

“I mean, I’ve got, like, an hour? What else am I gonna do?”

Gojo supposes he could go to campus early and wait at the fountain near the practice halls—he doesn’t usually see you on Wednesdays, but he likes that area of campus, especially when the sounds of the music groups bleed out into the night—, but it’s too cold to be out there alone for too long.

There’s a coffee shop on the other end of campus he could also go to, but he’s too anxious to sit in there without buying anything, so he’d rather not.

The library’s also an option, but it’s his birthday! Why would he want to study on his birthday when he’s got the rest of the year to do that?

He might as well get a headstart on cleaning his place, no?

Well, apparently, it is a “no” because Suguru insists it’s a waste of gas for him to go home for practically no reason, and even though Gojo still comes up blank on something else to do, Shoko says she has to run an errand and that the boys are welcome to accompany her, so that’s how the three of them end up walking to a makeup store a little further down this street.

When they get inside, Shoko leads the group of them around the store, looking for something Utahime sent her to get. Gojo doesn’t quite understand what Shoko’s trying to find so he can’t be much help in looking for it, so he just follows her around listlessly, admiring all the different products on display.

After a couple laps around the store and seemingly no hope for finding the product on her own, Gojo looks around. “Hold on, guys, let me find a worker to ask for help.”

“Huh?”

“Wait, Gojo—”

Before either of them can stop him, Gojo spots an employee towards the register, and he approaches her. “Hi! My friend’s looking for something, could you help us find it?”

“Of course! What were you looking for?”

Gojo looks back towards his friends and gestures for them to come over, and though Shoko and Suguru seem to have some sort of silent struggle first—again, what’s up with them today?—. they come over, and Shoko tells the worker what Utahime sent her for. They’re all directed to the section housing it, and the worker leaves once Shoko says she can handle things from there.

And, well, Gojo’s not exactly the most well-versed person when it comes to makeup, but it seems pretty straightforward to just get the product Utahime asked for in the shade she wanted, isn’t it?

Instead, Shoko’s fussing over things like what kind of external packaging it’s in, what the serial number is on the barcode.

Which confuses Gojo greatly.

 It’s not like Shoko is much of a makeup person herself—Utahime does her makeup for her when she’s going out, and it’s not like she has any personal need to learn how to do it—, so where’s this new knowledge coming from?

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she’s stalling on purpose to keep him from going home.

Suguru doesn’t really seem to care though, just shrugging and going on his phone to pass the time, so Gojo takes it that maybe Shoko’s just a little high-strung off an argument with her girlfriend or something and that she just wants to take her time.

In the end, Shoko ends up not getting the thing—something about it being defective, even though it looks perfectly fine to Gojo—, and the friends finally split ways for the night after a brief hug in front of the station. Suguru and Shoko wish Gojo “happy birthday” again, letting him know that they’ll have their gifts for him soon, that they’re taking longer in the mail than they’d thought.

Pretty standard, especially when it comes to Digimon stuff (which he’s more than sure they’re getting for him), so he just waves them off and says he doesn’t mind, to just drop them off whenever works for them.

When Gojo reaches his car, he finds that there isn’t quite enough time to go anywhere or do anything before going to pick you up, so he just shrugs and makes his way over to campus. He parks closer to the area where you’ll be leaving, and he makes the short walk over to wait over by the fountain for a little while.

It’s nice to be out here in the cold, actually, with nothing but himself and the gentle brush of instruments coming from just beyond the building walls. His VB beeps disrupt the sound, sure, but it’s practically white noise to him at this point, so he doesn’t pay any real mind to it as he idly checks his stats and trophy count.

A few minutes later, a little after the clock strikes nine, Gojo feels a familiar set of arms wrap around him from behind, and he doesn’t hesitate to turn around and pick you up instead, resting his cheek on top of your head when he puts you back down.

“Hey, Toru!”

“Hi, Princess,” he greets you. “You smell good… Like strawberries and powdered sugar. New perfume?”

“Something like that,” you giggle, ticklish where his hands lay on your sides. “What’ve you been up to today, birthday boy?”

“Mmmh, you know, the usual…”

You roll your eyes at that, now holding his hand and swinging it back and forth. “No need to act so nonchalant, I know you got lunch with Sho and Geto. How was that?”

He smiles, squeezing your hand before leading the way back to the car. “It was good! I ended up spending the whole afternoon with them, which was a little unexpected, but it was fun!”

“Oh, really?”

He nods, and he talks a bit more about his time with them, tells you about his morning too. You nod along, still swinging your hand in his, and when you reach his car, loser as he is, he still opens it for you as if the lock’s broken.

(Not that it ever was broken in the first place, but you already knew that.)

After he’s gotten in on his side and clicked on his seatbelt, he puts his arm over the back of your carseat headrest with a sweet smile. “We’re still good to have dinner, yeah? Anywhere you have in mind?”

Gojo doesn’t mind yielding the decision for dinner to you since he trusts you. Though… (and don’t tell Toji he said this), he’s definitely hoping for you to say you want to go eat at Fushiguro’s because it’s been a while (like, two weeks) since he’s gone back.

Instead of answering with any number of the restaurants he’d expect you to name though, you seem to take a second to ponder.

“Actually, is it okay if we stop by your place first? I forgot my Lilithmon X deck the last time I came over.”

Gojo hums in confusion. “You did?”

“Yeah, it’s not in my backpack, and I haven’t had any luck finding it at my place.”

“Huh…”

Gojo can’t recall if there’s any out-of-place deck boxes lying around his apartment, and you didn’t even play Lilithmon X when you came over last Saturday—you and him went at it all night on Beelzemon ACE and Gallantmon X Antibody—, but maybe you just had that deck box on you and it fell out of your backpack somewhere in his bedroom?

That’s the only explanation that really makes sense. That, or your Lilithmon X isn’t there at all and you lost it somewhere else.

. . .

Eh, dinner can wait then.

You must be worried, not knowing for sure where your deck is, so he understands you wanting to find it immediately.

He can stand to wait a few extra minutes, and he does want to play a different deck against you tonight anyway, so he can swap out his standard Magnamon X for something more niche when he stops by his place.

He shrugs and puts the car in reverse, and after kissing your cheek on his way back to facing forward, he heads on homeward.

The drive is quiet, at least by his standard of “quiet.” Gojo’s focused on the road since it’s sufficiently dark now, you don’t talk much at all—you’re probably just trying to recharge your social battery a bit after the long day you’ve had—, and the only sound in the car is the manual noise of you clicking through on your VB. At some point, you switch to doing something on your phone, but Gojo’s attention is on what’s directly ahead of him, so he doesn’t catch what you’re up to.

It’s not long before Gojo’s parked in front of his apartment complex, and after grabbing everything, you and him head up. You brought up the fact that it’ll probably be really late when you get back later so he might as well just bring up his backpack and everything else so he doesn’t have to deal with it later, so that’s how he finds himself back in front of his door as if he’s really turning in for the day. You’ve also brought all your things up, but he takes it that you’re just worried something might get stolen if you leave it in the car.

“One sec…” Gojo hums, reaching for his lanyard for his keys. He slots it in and turns it unlocked, but before he can put his hand on the doorknob to push inside, you exclaim next to him.

“Oh, shoot! Satoru!”

“Hm?”

“Did you lock the car?”

“…Did I?”

He did, didn’t he? He doesn’t exactly remember locking his car, but who consciously remembers things like that?

“I don’t think you did, you should check and make sure!”

“It’s alright, not too many people come through this area at night anyway.”

“Still! You should go lock it,” you insist. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to find my deck box, and I don’t want anything from your car to get stolen.”

He hums thoughtfully, feigning a “no,” before chuckling and taking his hand off the doorknob to playfully ruffle your hair. “I mean, if you don’t mind?”

“I don’t!”

“Right, right…” He laughs again, and he heads back down the stairs with his keys. When he gets to his car, he pulls at the handle—locked—, and he shakes his head with a self-righteous smile before heading back up again.

As he’s shaking out his keys so he can get the proper one in his hand again, he smiles to himself, heart tender at the thought of having such dear people in his life.

He got to wake up this morning to well wishes from his friends, both old and new, spend the morning getting an education he genuinely does not take for granted. Get a few presents from his students, grab lunch with the two people who’d really brought him out of his shell in high school.

And now, he’s about to have dinner with his sweetheart, and he’ll get to mark off this year as being yet another successful, happy birthday.

With a full heart, he opens the door to his apartment, and, immediately, he’s confused.

“Hey, why didn’t you turn the lights on?” Gojo shouts out into the darkness of his apartment. You know your way around and don’t exactly need the light, but he figured you would’ve turned them on anyway.

When he doesn’t get a response, he closes the door behind him, and after toeing off his shoes and putting everything he was carrying on the floor, he feels along the wall for the lightswitch.

And when he turns the lights on…

“Surprise!”

A symphony of voices cheer, and Gojo blinks in disbelief.

First, he blinks at the people jumping out from behind the kitchenette island, behind the couch, behind the wall.

He sees you…

And Suguru…

And Shoko…

And Nanami and Haibara and Shoku…

And Utahime and Yuki…

And Choso and Ino and Riko and Misato…

And Nobara and Yuuji and Megumi…

Everyone’s here.

Second, he blinks at the party decorations all throughout his apartment.

Above the couch, there’s a HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner strung up, each letter a separate piece of cardstock with a different interest of his represented. He sees soccer, he sees Digimon, he sees astronomy, he sees… the specific brand of instant ramen he likes?

There’s balloons all over the room, their iridescent strings glinting in the overhead light. Some are clear with confetti inside, others are opaque in his favorite colors, and a few are even in fun shapes.

Along every surface, there’s streamers hung up in all the tacky, gaudy colors typical of a birthday. Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple… His apartment looks like it’s been topped with funfetti sprinkles, sweet and bright and sweet again.

Third, he blinks at his dining table.

In the center, there’s a bouquet of flowers, already tended to and placed in the glass vase he keeps underneath the sink. They’re white—like snow and sugar and his hair and the sparkle in his eyes—, and they’re blue—what should look so unnatural, just belongs right there.

On top of the table, there’s a whole feast of food. Looking a bit more intentionally, he sees it’s catered from Fushiguro’s, Toji’s handwriting on the order ticket underneath one of the trays. All his favorites too, he notes.

There’s a variety of different drinks on the table, too—his favorite milk tea, a big bottle of his favorite fruit juice, every Ocean Bomb Digimon flavor—, and there’s Digimon-themed paper cups…

And there’s Digimon-themed plates…

And Digimon-themed napkins…

And Digimon-themed utensils…

He’s still in disbelief, and before he can really get back to the Real World, he blinks, and there’s something being put on his head.

. . .

Oh, right.

Everyone’s wearing party hats, all different patterns and colors with pom-poms on the top of them, and someone’s just put one on his head too.

And the next time he blinks, he’s crying.

“Are you okay?!”

Everyone rushes in towards him, wanting to comfort him but still stay a safe distance away in case he needs room to breathe.

But screw breathing, he thinks to himself.

Foolish fool that he is, Gojo dives forward with his arms open to hug as many people as he can, as tight as he can. He doesn’t manage to capture everyone the first time around, but even though he’s already stretched his arms as far out as they can go, he opens and closes his palms like a cat to demand affection anyway.

In Ace Attorney, Franziska von Karma says “fool” and other variations of the term when speaking in hyperbole.

Granted, fifteen people is a lot of people for a group hug, but Gojo’s determined to make it work, physics be damned.

Once he’s sure everyone’s been hugged and he’s cried out every ounce of joy in his heart, Gojo sniffles, using the Tentomon napkin Haibara’s handed him to blow his nose.

“You guys! A surprise party!? I had no idea!”

You all look around between yourselves before laughing, bright smiles all around. “Well, that’s the point of it being a surprise party, isn’t it?”

Gojo pouts, eliciting even more laughter—so much of it that he has no choice but to join in, tearing up all over again.

As soon as Gojo’s done crying (which takes another half hour or so—he’d gone around the room and personally thanked each and every person for coming and helping put together the surprise), the rest of you don’t waste any time in getting the party in motion.

While everyone’s getting food and drinks and the TV gets set up, you and Gojo play a single-death game of DTCG. Turns out, you definitely didn’t lose your Lilithmon X at his place because you had it in your coat pocket this whole time (and, obviously, that was a lie to get him back to his apartment for this party), so you play her against his Seraphimon. He wins, and he merrily gets up to grab himself and you food, just like he did the first time you met at the games shop.

Once everyone’s got their plates and cups—again, all of which are Digimon-themed—, you all gather up in Gojo’s very small living room to watch his movie of choice.

Which is, obviously, Digimon: The Movie.

Gojo doesn’t necessarily expect everyone to pay attention to the movie—after all, he himself isn’t paying too much mind to it, already occupied with conversations all around the room and with the delicious food in front of him—, but he’s very surprised that everyone entertains him when he pauses the movie as soon as the Angela Anaconda short is over to explain the greentext story associated with the clip.

Digimon: The Movie is a compilation of the first three Digimon movies: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure: Our War Game!, and Digimon Adventure 02: Hurricane Touchdown!!. The collection is about 90 minutes long.

For theatrical and home release, Digimon: The Movie starts with  a crossover clip with Angela Anaconda. Angela Anaconda is a Canadian kid’s television show from the early 2000s, so this was a very unexpected (and confusing) crossover. Audiences were also not made aware of this clip’s inclusion in theatre screenings. You can watch this clip on YouTube. There is a very popular greentext story on 4chan about a user’s parents getting divorced after Digimon: The Movie because the parents blamed each other for taking the family to the wrong movie. Link to the KnowYourMeme page about this story.)

Throughout the movie, more of the same happens.

He’ll occasionally pause parts of the movie to explain their pop culture relevance or something else he particularly likes about it, and everyone pays attention as if he’s giving commands at Hypnos. Shoko says she remembers that time he’d referenced the Parrotmon and Red Greymon fight a couple weeks ago when he’s narrating it now during the movie, and Ino expresses the same when Gojo lights up at the Ishida family’s missed connections.

Hypnos is the government organization in Digimon Tamers responsible for monitoring digimon activity in the Real World. The systems operators take commands from Yamaki, the head of Hypnos. The Parrotmon and Red Greymon fight is in Digimon Adventure. In Our War Game!, Matt and T.K. are on vacation at their grandma’s house (the Ishida residence), and they’re unable to participate in major plot happenings because their landline has poor signal (and because their grandma is comically bad at using any kind of technology).

Not so much on the movie anymore, but Ino and Riko note when he’s run out of food, scrambling to grab more for him or refill his Angemon cup whenever he’s low on whatever he’s drinking.

When he goes on side rambles and forgets to unpause the movie, the younger kids entertain him and encourage him to share more of his misadventures. Choso and Yuki do as well, and since Shoko and Suguru have heard all these stories before, they reenact what they can alongside Gojo, doing silly, dramatic voices as necessary and embellishing details to make it sound more fun than it actually was to live through.

When he accidentally drops his spoon on the floor, Utahime scolds him for getting his own floor dirty but still grabs a few napkins to wet under the sink for Haibara to wipe the spot clean anyway, and Misato grabs him a new utensil with the same emblem of light that’d been on the one that fell.

When he hugs himself as it starts to get colder, Nanami slips away to grab a blanket from the bedroom, and you follow after to get the thicker, cozy socks he likes to rub on the rug and shock people with. Even Shoku finds her way into his lap and lays on her back, offering her belly for him to warm his hands.

After the extended feature’s over, everyone repositions themselves to be facing Gojo now as he opens his gifts. Gojo’s not the most materialist person out there, but he really values the effort that goes into giftgiving, so he starts crying all over again as he unwraps his presents.

Riko, Ino, Choso, Yuki, and Misato pooled their money to get him an expensive Cendrillmon & Arisa figurine that’d been exclusively released overseas, as well as smaller charms from each of them that Gojo’ll most definitely be adding to his backpack’s extensive keychain stack.

Arisa is Cendrillmon’s tamer in Digimon Liberator.

Similarly, Megumi, Yuuji, and Nobara put together their resources to get him a Gaia Red starter deck, which, despite it being prebuilt already, he’s been meaning to really try out playing red more seriously, so he’s more than excited to have just this. For now though, he settles for tackling all of them in another hug and gushing over their reluctant smiles.

Gaia Red (ST-1) is a DTCG starter deck featuring the WarGreymon digivolution line. It’s valued at ¥500 or $10.

Nanami and Suguru’d both gotten him new clothes, familiar with what sort of attire Gojo enjoys wearing (and his dire need for warmer clothes because he’s too stubborn to admit his modest coat isn’t enough when snowfall comes), as well as jewelry most befitting to a nerd like him. Nanami’d found a pair of cuff links modelled after the Holy Rings, and Suguru’d similarly gotten him Gatomon’s tail bracelet; Gojo promises to take the utmost care of all the pieces, and he wears the jewelry for the rest of the evening even if it’s impractical and a little childish of him.

Holy Rings are rings worn by Holy-species digimon. Gatomon wears a Holy Ring on her tail.

Shoko and Haibara scoured the entire city for every piece of Digimon merchandise they could find, and they’d made a little diorama for all the little mons to be displayed in as well. On their little day trip out looking for all the pieces, they also got several boxes of a new mochi flavor that’d been released by Gojo’s favorite shop, and Gojo munches on that while you get something from out of his bedroom.

You come back out in a more professional outfit (which makes the party hat on your head look even more ridiculous than it already did), and you roll in the wingspan-width whiteboard on wheels you’d gotten for him to scribe his ideas with convenience and ease, markers of every thickness and color already on the bottom edge.

It warms his heart already that you’d thought to get something so perfectly practical for him, but he’s set alight when you spin the board to reveal a detailed analysis you’d put together on his DTCG history, complete with all his competitive stats and listed decks. In layman’s terms—well, layman to himself and you—, you give a very serious presentation on his playstyle, his habits, his most significant tournament plays, and at the end of it, Gojo pulls you down and smothers your face in kisses.

And, last (but certainly not least), from behind her back, Utahime reveals Beelzenef the Curse Doll, and she laughs evilly as she uncaps a marker and dramatically writes Gojo’s name on the back of it. Gojo just about has a heart attack, watching his own soul leave his body as she seals his fate for eternity, and everyone gets a good laugh out of it when it’s revealed that Utahime never wrote his name at all and that she’s just messing with him; she got him a set of premium sewing needles and threads, but he can keep Beelzenef anyway and curse whomever he pleases with it when the time comes.

In Ouran High School Host Club, if you write the name of your enemy on the back of Beelzenef the Curse Doll, that person will “experience nothing but misfortune and sorrow.” In episode 5, it is promptly revealed that Kaoru wrote “BLANK” on the back as a prank, as the stunt was to garner sympathy and get an invitation to Haruhi’s house.

With the day coming to an end, Yuuji and Nobara clear up space on the dining table so Megumi can get the cake from the fridge. This year, instead of Nanami getting it from a bakery, you’d made it—a strawberry cream cake, decorated with piped DigiCrests all along the sides of it and a tiny frosting Agumon with a party hat and a tiny cake in front of him—, and it suddenly makes sense now why you said you’d be busy taking a midterm today even though finals start next week.

Shoko, who still carries a lighter around—not to smoke anymore; genuinely, she only carries it because it was a gift from Suguru when they were in high school—lights the candles, and she counts everyone down while Gojo sits at the head of the table, awkwardly smiling and unsure of what he’s really meant to be doing at the center of attention.

And as everyone’s singing Happy Birthday to him, the lights off and the candles lit, it surprises him—honestly, shakes him a fair amount, too—that you all care so much about him to be here on a random weeknight in December.

Everyone here has so much else they could be doing—Shoko could be at work, Choso and Ino and Suguru could be practicing, you and Utahime and Riko could be gossiping at the subway station about section drama, Nobara and Yuuji could be duo-queuing on their FPSs, Shoku could be sleeping on Nanami’s washing machine—, and, somehow, you’re all here instead?

Just because it’s his birthday?

(He knows, though, deep inside him, that he shouldn’t be surprised. Gojo knows the people in his life care about him, even if he’s in denial about it for whatever reason.

Maybe because he’s unused to feeling affection so deeply, maybe because his friends are too stubborn in their own right to be as forthcoming with their sentiments as they are right now, maybe because it’s just because he doesn’t know how else to name it.

Whatever it is doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

He’ll convince himself otherwise anyway, and in the only way they know how, they’ll continue to prove him wrong.)

. . .

Every year on his birthday, Gojo wishes for the same thing.

To be with the people dearest to him.

But maybe it isn’t worth it to keep wishing for the same thing, he thinks to himself, flame flickering in front of him.

If he has it all already, proven time and time again by the people in his overcrowded apartment, then he ought to use his birthday wish on something else, right?

So, instead, Gojo wishes for a pair of Agumon Hakase socks that actually fit him, and he blows out his candles with a shy smile.

His friends all cheer and the lights turn back on, and Gojo’s handed a knife to make the first cut into his cake. He spares Agumon and cuts himself a slice just shy of the middle, making sure his piece has the crest of light on it, and because he’s too emotional to yield the responsibility to someone else, he cuts slices for everyone else as well.

He pays extra care and attention to make sure everyone’s piece has the crest he associates most with them on it as well—friendship for Suguru, reliability for Nanami, sincerity for you, love for Shoko—, and once everyone’s got their share, Gojo takes a bite and realizes a little selfishly that maybe he should’ve cut smaller slices for everyone else so there’d be a little more leftover cake just for him.

Refer to these headcanons; otherwise, Gojo assigned his high school friends their own crests.

At the end of the night, while everyone else is busy putting their shoes on to leave, you pull him aside to give him that more personalized birthday card he saw on accident over call the other night. You’d made it yourself out of cardstock in the shape of a Digimon Analyzer, and he flips it open to reveal a lengthy declaration of your affection and, between Digimon references and inside jokes that mean nothing to anyone besides you two, a genuine wish for him to be happy.

He’s out of tears at this point, but make no mistake, he treasures it more than any material gift you could’ve ever gotten him.

He hugs everyone on their way out the door, a kiss for only you, and once he’s sure that everyone’s out of earshot, Gojo closes his door.

And with all the air in his lungs, he cheers as loud as he can, runs all over his apartment in joy, grabs his plushies off his bed and dances with them in the ballroom that is his bedroom—anything he can to get the sparks out of his stomach.

And after he’s showered, changed out of his clothes, and ready for bed, he’s added to the group chat that was used to plan his birthday, and he ends up reading through it for the rest of the night, laughing until his ribs hurt as he retroactively lives through the inconvenience, confusion, chaos, and joy of putting together his surprise birthday party.

Turns out, he really didn’t need to wish on candles to keep these people next to him—they want to be by his side, just as he does theirs.

The digimon primarily referenced in this section are red and are from the Gaia Red starter deck: Agumon, Red Greymon, WarGreymon.

✩

“Stop, stop!” Riko calls out over the music, looking up from her phone where she has a dance practice of Jump Into The New World on loop.

You and Ino are the only ones who’re able to stop as soon as she calls out the command, and the two of you glance at each other before quickly moving out of the formation and joining Riko at the front of the block.

The rest of you—Gojo, Haibara, Utahime, Yuki, Choso, Todo, Yuuji, Nobara—react in a ripple, but not quickly enough to get out of the way.

Gojo, easily the clumsiest out of all eleven of you, topples first, then Todo, then Choso, then Utahime, then the rest of them, and they all eventually end up in a pile on Haibara’s living room floor, groaning and grumbling. 

You and Ino wince at them before immediately rushing over to help them back up, and Riko blinks a couple times before nervously laughing.

“Sorry, guys, I got the counts wrong! It’s jump on 13, not 12!”

Todo groans, not bothering to get up yet because on top of being crushed by Yuuji, he’s too tired to bring himself back to standing. “You had us stop for that?”

Riko puts her hands on her hips and frowns. “Hey, the counts are important! It ruins the next set if we jump at the wrong time!”

You and Ino know not to argue with her over that—after all, you both have been subject to this sort of training since high school—, but the others apparently don’t, and they bicker amongst themselves while the two of you try to untangle everyone from the mountain they’ve formed. The formation reminds you of a pile of logs thrown on top of each other for a bonfire, and their half-hearted arguing sparks like coals that’re just barely hot to the touch.

(Meanwhile, Nanami, Shoko, Geto, and Megumi, all on the couch to simply observe this dance practice, don’t bother getting up. Instead, they simply roll their eyes at everyone’s lack of coordination before going back to the small game of poker they’re playing with konpeito that Haibara’s sisters gave them earlier.)

Before it can get too aggressive between the aching bodies on the floor and their faux choreographer though, the front door opens, and you all look over to see Haibara’s mom, a few grocery bags in her arms.

Everyone in the room greets  her, her arrival lifting everyone’s spirits even with half of you still on the floor.  “Hi, Mrs. Haibara!”

“Hi, kids!” She greets, toeing off her shoes before heading over to the kitchen to put down her things. “Could one of you dears help me bring in the groceries from the car?”

“Ooh, me, me!” Gojo shouts, raising his hand from underneath the dogpile on top of him to volunteer.

“You’re such a sweetheart, Gojo, thank you! Give me a second, I’ll be right there,“ she chirps from the kitchen.

In the meantime, Gojo wiggles his arm for someone to pull him up (which Ino does with significant trouble because, well, almost everyone else is still on top of him), and he jumps up onto his feet and goes to put on his shoes. He’s soon joined by Haibara’s mom, now back from the kitchen, and he waves over his shoulder as he leaves.

“We’ll be right back!” She shouts back over her shoulder, giggling as Gojo opens the door for them.

You all know that’s a lie—Haibara’s mom loves to chat—, but this is all according to plan (at least the whole “get Gojo out of the room!” thing is; nobody intended for the greater half of you to trip over yourselves while practicing Love Live! choreography), so as soon as they’re out of sight, Riko rushes over to the door and closes it, making sure it’s locked just in case they come back too soon.

“Okay, finally!”

And for the brief half-hour that Gojo spends outside at the car with Haibara’s mom chatting about this and that, the rest of you gather around closer together, space permitting, to whisper-shout and bounce ideas off each other.

Nothing quite gets decided—as nonchalant as they try to come off, Geto and Shoko are too picky and won’t settle for less; as well-meaning as they always are, Ino and Haibara are too ambitious and present a million different ideas; and as sweet as you are, you’re still a bit too scared of... everything—, but by the time Gojo and Haibara’s mom return (and yell for someone to open the door), you all manage to divide responsibilities, both for planning and day-of tasks, and everyone swears on their most prized possessions to not let word get back to Gojo about any of this.

After a brief scuffle where the lot of you argue over who should be the one to unlock the door after another five or so minutes of Gojo banging on the door and begging to be let back inside, Nanami goes to open it, and he’s spared of any yelling because Haibara’s mom loves him too much to let anyone speak to him that way, even if it is just lighthearted spat between friends over minor inconveniences like this.

Gojo huffs at the unfairness of it all, but you all know that it’s inevitable when the woman thinks of the blonde as practically her son.

(Son-in-law, more appropriately, but that’s something neither here nor there, especially considering the fact that Haibara and Nanami are still dancing around each other (and, even then, it’s more like the blonde is just standing haplessly in front of him and waiting for him to realize they’re doing this waltz in the first place).)

Regardless, Gojo finds a spot next to you on the floor, and he holds out his hands to you, showing off the faint red marks that’ve bloomed on his palms from carrying the heavy grocery bags inside. You take his hands and rub them between your fingers to warm them back up (and kiss them better after he washes them at the sink when Haibara’s mom calls all of you to the dining room to have lunch), and you spend the rest of the day with your friends, laughing at yourselves and tripping over yourselves in equal parts.

At the end of the early winter day, once you’ve made it back home and are in bed, muscles aching after a long day of dancing and a shorter starlit evening with Gojo in your kitchen to play DTCG, you turn over onto your side to blink at your nightstand. On it are many things, all neatly arranged for you to admire every morning when you wake for the day, every night before you dream.

Something old.

Your Biyomon alarm clock, its faceplate shining moonlight back at you in the dark.

Something new.

A set of hairclips you’d made with the backshield of the WarGreymon build kit you got when you went out shopping with Geto and Shoko last week.

For visual reference because I do not have these, here is a picture of the WarGreymon build kit, and I make hairclips for myself using different mecha parts and such, so here is a picture of that as well with Gundam Wing Zero parts. Imagine hairclips with WarGreymon’s backshield for this. yes i have an ex4 sakuyamon card in my phone case thank you for asking and yes thank you i know my hair is so so cute

Something borrowed.

The controller Misato lent you to trial before fully making the switch and getting a Gamecube one to play Melee.

And something blue.

Well, apart from Gojo’s eyes in a framed disposable camera picture you took of him in the summertime, smiling brightly with huge ice cream cones in both hands for the two of you, you haven’t got much, really.

(You can count on a blue party hat making its way into your little trinket collection, though, so you can go to sleep peacefully knowing you’ll finish off the rhyme properly in due time.)

☆

Every year on the night before his birthday, Gojo makes it a point to fall asleep before midnight.

He’s always got something planned for the day-of, so he has to go to bed early so he can enjoy the festivities to their fullest. He’s a bit like a child still in that way, having to so carefully monitor when he goes to sleep so he doesn’t bounce off the walls in excitement and exert his energy too early.

Besides, he knows that if he doesn’t sleep early enough, he’ll just put it off until it’s daylight and it’s too late to get a full night’s rest in, so he really can’t afford to stay up to watch the clock strike 12.

This year’s a little different, though. His birthday’s landed in the middle of the week, so most of his friends aren’t available to celebrate the day-of, and he’s got a pretty regular day ahead of him.

No big deal. They’re all  invited to the more laid-back get-together at his apartment on Friday, and he’ll get to celebrate with everyone then. He’s got plans to see Suguru and Shoko for lunch and to have dinner with you after Wind Ensemble anyway, so, still, he’s excited for the day, even if it is pretty regular, all things considered.

As Gojo pulls his blankets over himself and gets cozy in his bed, he smiles to himself just thinking about how much fun his birthdays have been in recent years.

In high school, he’d stay out too late with his friends at karaoke, and he’d have to sneak back into his house with bags of presents hanging off his arm at one in the morning. His parents very likely wouldn’t have cared if he just came in through the front door (if they were home in the first place), but Gojo had fun pretending to be irresponsible anyway, and by the time he’d be ready for bed afterwards, his phone would be chockfull of messages from his friends telling him to let them know he’s made it to his room safely.

When he moved out for college, he’d take little day trips to attend anime conventions and night markets to celebrate by himself before coming back to join everyone else for dinner and dessert.

Did he already have too much merch to begin with? 

Yes.

Did he have to buy the Calumon sticker to put on his overcrowded water bottle, even though he knew his friends were sure to gift him even more Digimon merch at dinner later that same night?

Also yes.

Most recently, last year, he celebrated with you and all his friends at a nearby restaurant after a quiet afternoon at a manga cafe where he got to catch up on some series he’d been running behind on. After cutting his cake with everyone, he played DTCG with you in the back of Shoko’s car because it was too windy to play outside in the park you’d all gone to for Gojo to open his presents, and he fell asleep in your living room because he was too tired to make his way homeward after such a long day and your apartment was closer than his.

The gentle memory of himself waking up the morning after, bundled up in a Digitama blanket on your couch while you made waffles nearby over in the kitchen, puts him right to bed. 

He easily slips off into the Dream Dimension to dream of nothing, which is a blessing because then that means he won’t be upset when he wakes up to find that the dream has ended.

And, when Gojo wakes up a full eight hours later at the sound of his alarm, it’s December 7th.

His birthday.

He rolls over onto his back and stretches longways, not bothering to turn off Agumon because he wants to hear the little jingle it plays when it goes off, and he keeps his eyes closed as he smiles in the dark.

Man, what a good night’s rest. Not as good as it is when you’re there to pet his hair and lull him to sleep in your arms, but he feels perfectly energized and ready to start the day regardless.

(Almost makes him want to actually fix his sleep schedule, but he’s an overworked  college student addicted to sugar and videogames, so that obviously isn’t going to happen anytime soon.)

As is routine for him, he pats around his bed until he finds his phone, and he holds it directly in front of his face as he turns it on. He should probably put on his glasses and hold his phone a fair distance away from his eyes, but he’s too excited to wait and see what’s previewed on his lock screen.

He swipes and taps 0-8-0-1 on the keypad to unlock his phone, and the Digimon CS chime sounds off to let him know he’s gotten in successfully. All the while, he’s got a stupidly wide grin on his face, and he rolls over to lay on his stomach and kick his feet.

Odaiba Day (AKA Digimon Day) is August 1st. It is mentioned in chapter 7 that Gojo’s password was already 08-01 before this, but August 1st is also the day he and the reader officially became a couple. The Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth beep is used in-game to signal a successful Connect Jump! (the game’s form of transportation/teleportation).

It goes without saying that another benefit to falling asleep before midnight is getting to wake up to birthday messages from his loved ones. It’s one of his favorite parts of the occasion, and he’s ready to partake even though he’s only just opened his eyes a minute or two ago.

He works his way down, ignoring all the miscellaneous text alerts he’s gotten from bakery loyalty programs he’s signed up for from all over the city. He can look at those later (and promptly take advantage of whatever coupons they’re probably sending him to use for his birthday), but first, he wants to get back to everyone who’s wished him well.

Nanami’s message is the most recent and is at the very top, sent only an hour ago. No surprise there, the blonde wakes up early to feed Shoku, and even before he got his feline friend, Nanami would get up before everyone else to do stretches that help with some back pain he’s had trouble with since high school.

nanamin! ₍^. .^₎⟆: Happy Birthday, Gojo. Wishing you a happy and healthy year 

Very typical Nanami text, but every bit as special. It was sent right at seven, meaning that Nanami had sent it the second his alarm went off, and it makes Gojo happy to think that his friend’s first task for the day was wishing him a happy birthday.

Gojo texts back, humming to himself as he types.

THANK YOU NANAMINNNN 🥳🥳🥳🥳

Gojo gets a response almost immediately.

nanamin! ₍^. .^₎⟆: Stop shouting, it’s nearly eight in the morning

Hey, at least he let him call him “Nanamin!” The privileges of being the birthday boy!

Gojo laughs at that, and he responds with a thumbs-down kaomoji before moving on.

The next message is from Haibara, sent at 4 in the morning.

Again, it doesn't really surprise Gojo that the text was sent so early. The brunette doesn’t have class on Wednesdays, so he typically uses the entire late night before to do all his homework for the week in one go. Nobody really understands how or why he does it like this, but it works for him and he’s managed to stay on top of his schoolwork anyway, so who are they to judge?

haibara!!!! (๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝*: Happy birthday gojo!!!! :) Have a great day today, and wishing you a happy year! haibara!!!! (๑'ᵕ'๑)⸝*: Sorry I cant hang out today :( Will be there on friday tho!!

thank you haibara!!!! 🥳and no worries im w suguru shoko and my girl today :3c

Haibara’s probably dead asleep by now, so he moves to the next text, which is from Ino. His sleep schedule’s so random that Gojo can’t really tell if this is late or early for him, but nevertheless, he opens the message and laughs loudly at it.

ino!! ᕙ(  •̀ ᗜ •́  )ᕗ: HAPPY 😊 BIRTHDAY 🎂 BRO!!! 😎😜😩😆 Its time 🕦 to get LIT 🔥 for your special 👉😎👈 BIRTHDAY 🎊! You finna turn UP 👆🤯 and get DOWN 👇🤩 on this BEAUTIFUL day 😩💕 because you're 👀 a CHAMP🎖and a COOL 😎 DUDE 💪! Get all that 💰🤑 and 🤪🍹 and HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎊🎊🎊 don't forget 😤😤 to eat your cake 🍰😋 or your other cake 🍑😩👅💦 because today you the MAN 🤠😏🤤 ino!! ᕙ(  •̀ ᗜ •́  )ᕗ: LMAO but happy birthday dude!!!! B)

Now, this, Gojo isn’t surprised at in the slightest. Ino always sends copypastas like this for holidays and special occasions, and they always get circulated around the friend group a few times over because the text chain will usually end with “SEND THIS MESSAGE TO 10 SEXY SLUTS OR YOU’LL HAVE BAD LUCK FOR 69 YEARS,” and you’ve all watched too many horror movies together to ignore warning signs like that.

Gojo double taps to capitalize the beginning of his text back, and he’s still laughing as he sends it.

WWWWWWWWWWW thank you bro!!! B)

Choso’s next, sent a bit after one in the morning. Gojo left game night a little early yesterday so he could go to sleep before midnight so he can’t know for sure, but he figures he texted him while waiting to hear back from everyone else that they’d made it home for the night.

choso (..◜ᴗ◝..): Happy Birthday Gojo! Have a good day today :)

thank you choso!! you too (๑>◡<๑)

After he hits “send,” Gojo realizes that saying “you too” to a birthday text is a little awkward, but he thinks it’s funny anyway, so he doesn’t bother correcting himself. If anything, he’ll get a laugh out of it later when he tells Suguru about it at lunch this afternoon.

Riko’s next, and Gojo takes it that he was right to assume that Choso had texted him after everyone else had made their way home from their house.

riko!!! ৻(  •̀ ᗜ •́  ৻): happy birthday gojo! hope you have a bunch of yummy cake today!!! ^_^ riko!!! ৻(  •̀ ᗜ •́  ৻): misato’s driving rn but she says happy birthday too! yuki too i saw her earlier today and she told me to relayyy

will do on the cake! ദ്ദി ˉ꒳ˉ )✧ and thank you girls for the birthday wishes!

Naturally, Megumi’s next on the list as another member of the ragtag group who meet at Choso and Yuuji’s house every week for miscellaneous video games, though the initial text isn’t anything that Gojo would expect the young boy to text him.

megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOJO!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎊🎊🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💙💙💙💙💙😮😮😮😮😮🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎁🎁🎁🍰🍰🍰 WE LOVE YOU!!!!!! megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: sorry that was yuuji and nobara they stole my phone while we were waiting for my parents to pick me up megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: but happy birthday megumi!!!! ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅: mom and dad say happy birthday too

AWWW you kids are soooo cute thank you guys :3c and i’ll text your parents to let them know i got the message!

Gojo chooses to text Megumi’s mom because the thought of texting Toji at 8 in the morning sounds like a nightmare in and of itself.

Thank you for the birthday wishes! Megumi let me know you and Toji said it :)

mamaguro ‎(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶): You’re welcome honey! Next time you come by the restaurant, your meal’s on us OK? 🥰

“Yes!” He cheers to himself, giggling as he rolls over onto his back now, yawning briefly before going back to reply.

Before he can though, he gets a text from Tsumiki, and he taps on the notification to open their chat.

tsumiki 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔: happy birthday gojo! :) have a good day today!

Ah, right, Tsumiki’s usually awake around this time in the morning too.

AWW of course i will! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ thank you tsumiki! lmk how your lab goes whenever u get the chance!

She reacts with a salute emoji, and Gojo quickly replies to Megumi’s mom with another “thank you” for the meal before returning to his inbox.

Now he’s getting to the messages sent exactly at midnight, and in last place is Suguru, who probably sent his message closer to 12:00:59 because his hands were probably preoccupied applying his biweekly hair oil right before bed.

suguru!!!!!! ◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ: Happy birthday Satoru 

Honestly, he and Suguru don’t really text much because they’ll pretty much always just call if they need anything or want to chat, so it’s a little awkward to even have their messages open at all. Gojo opts to record a short voice note to send instead of texting back.

TRANSCRIPTION: Suguru, thanks for the birthday wish! Means a lot, man, love you. Seriously. Oh! I forgot, am I meeting you at the restaurant or am I picking you up for lunch? I don’t mind either way, just let me know. Also, I have something funny to tell you later, remind me when you see me because I’ll definitely forget about it. . . . ‘Kay, bye, see you later!

Gojo makes sure it’s sent successfully, and he scrolls down to find a few messages from Shoko. As he’s reading them, Suguru replies and says Gojo can just meet them there, so he doesn’t need to ask Shoko the same question.

shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: happy birthday gojo, cant believe youre 22 now shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: ew that means ill be 22 soon too blegh

He cringes at the reminder that he’s 22 now—he still feels like he’s the same kid who stayed up until two in the morning  to play Digimon videogames ( …because he still stays up until two in the morning to play Digimon videogames)—, but either way, he responds with a bright smile on his face.

BOOOOOO don’t remind me (╥﹏╥) but thank you sho!!! now that i’m older than u u have to listen to me now B)

shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: yeah no thx shokooooo (ᴗ˳ᴗ)ᶻ𝗓𐰁: die

And, just like every year, Utahime’s message is just about at the end of the list. She makes it a point to try and be the first person to tell Gojo “happy birthday,” both so she can curse him with misfortune and so she can prove that her hatred is strong as ever.

It’s lost its bite over the years—Gojo knows she’s just competitive and wants the nonexistent bragging rights—, but it’s still just as funny as it was the first time.

utahime ⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾: Gojo. Unhappy birthday. Have the worst year ever. I hope ensemble goes over time today so you have to wait even longer in the freezing cold for us to get out.

And Gojo’s learned over the years that it’s much funnier to not give her the reaction she wants, so he replies as if she’s just gifted him her firstborn.

AWWW thank you so much utahime!!!! i really appreciate the kind words, looking 4ward 2 another year with you ༘⋆-ˋˏ ヽ( ^ᴗ^)ノ ·˚ ༘⋆ˎˊ˗

And he promptly gets the response he expects in a few short seconds.

utahime ⁽⁽(੭ꐦ •̀Д•́ )੭*⁾⁾: KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS KYS

Gojo laughs and reacts to the message with an oblivious smiling emoji, and he taps out to look at the very first message he received on his birthday.

my princess ৎ୭: happy birthday my satorumon <3

ৎ୭ is meant to look like the crest of love.

Gojo immediately buries his face in the plushie closest to him—this time, it’s the Koromon stuffie you’d sewn for him with spare fabric from your Anneliese costume—, and screams, extending his legs to exert his energy.

The short message probably should leave him wanting more, but he’s already so smitten with just the sweet nickname you’ve called him that he can barely function with just the simple birthday wish. You very likely knew this would happen and forewent sending a longer, more detailed message so he wouldn’t immediately melt like a newly digivolved Kumamon, so he’s grateful for that.

Kumamon is an ice bear digimon, and in their digivolution animation, they melt into the floor.

(That, and he saw what looked like a handmade birthday card in the corner of your cameraview when you called him the other night to play DTCG, so your words are very likely penned there instead of on your phone.)

When he remembers that he shares a wall with his neighbor, he shuts up and rolls over onto his stomach, now giggling and kicking his feet as he picks up his phone again and replies to you.

thank you princess <333333 I LOVE YOUU GOOD MORNING

He smiles when he sees you start to type back immediately, and he rests the side of his head on his pillow and props his phone up against the Koromon plushie.

my princess ৎ୭: good morning toruuu i love you too ^^

omg u said it back!!!!!!! >_<

my princess ৎ୭: im literally your girlfriend??????????

STILL CAN YOU SAY IT AGAIN

my princess ৎ୭: its too early 4 tihs pls my princess ৎ୭: but sure my princess ৎ୭: i love you

YAYYYYYYYY it’s never too early or too late or ever the wrong timing either way i  can’t wait to see you later I MISS YOU

my princess ৎ୭: i literally saw you last night loser

is this any way 2 talk 2 the birthday boy????

my princess ৎ୭: yes :p

okie!!!!

my princess ৎ୭: youre so cute aw my princess ৎ୭: i need to get ready for class and use the bathroom and stuff but ill see u l8r okay?

YES!!!! i’ll see you later KISSESSSS ( ˶˘ ³˘(⋆❛ ہ ❛⋆)!♡

my princess ৎ୭: dork my princess ৎ୭: BYEEEE (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc)♡

“And you say I’m the loser,” he says dreamily, scrolling back up in your conversation to sigh some more about how cute the two of you are. A few other people reply to him now that they’ve gotten the time to properly wake up and read his messages, so Gojo chats with them for a bit to pass the time and enjoy the warmth of his bed in the early winter chill.

(Throughout the day, Gojo gets other birthday messages as well. A few classmates DM him on Instagram when they see that he reposts a photo collage Haibara put on his story of him (and another candid picture of Gojo Ino posted with Birthday Sex playing in the background), your relatives send him short videos of their respective households wishing him a happy birthday, and there’s a few more loyalty programs that email him drink vouchers to use by the end of the month.)

(His parents text him something too, which reminds him that he should block them.

Will he actually do it?

Probably not, but it’s not worth the inconvenience of clicking their unsaved numbers and blocking them when they only ever reach out on his birthday and whenever they want something from him anyway, which is never.)

He eventually shuts off his phone and gets out of bed to get ready for the day ahead, yawning as he passes through and taps the top of the doorframe on his way into the bathroom. He brushes his teeth, flosses, does everything else a person needs to do in the bathroom at the start of their day, and he forgoes getting changed out of his pajamas to have breakfast first.

From the fridge, he grabs two onigiri he’d prepared earlier in the week, and he eats those while clicking through the channels on the TV. Just his luck, he lands on a rerun of the original Digimon Adventure movie on one of the animation channels, so he watches that intensely while he has his breakfast and sips the strawberry milk he probably shouldn’t be drinking so early in the morning.

It’s every bit as intense and dramatic and heartfelt as it was when he watched it for the first time in primary school, and by the end of it, he’s completely energized and ready to start the day.

He goes back to his bedroom, slides on a coat, sweater, and slacks because it’s too cold for him to just slip into his faded grey crest of light t-shirt and a pair of shorts, puts on his crest necklace, his Vital Bracelet, and the Tamagotchi Ringcolle! Shoko got for him when she dragged him and Choso to the arcade last week to look for the gashapon combs, and packs up all the things he needs for class before saying goodbye to his apartment and locking the door behind him.

Looking out at the sky, clear and blue and so very ready for him, Gojo hikes up his backpack, deaf to the loud rattle of all the keychains and pins on his backpack, and he’s on his way to having his best birthday yet!