Failing For You - Gojo x Reader

Chapter 26

Yeah, this is rich boy behavior for sure.

"I heard your family is like...really wealthy," I hedge, swirling my coffee around in my cup.

"Who'd you hear that from?" Gojo laughs.

I raise an eyebrow. "Hmm...answering a question with a question...a very suspicious way to respond. It was some white-haired woman in the building your office is in. She seemed to know an awful lot about you. And she was super pretty..."

"Oh, must have been Meimei," Gojo nods. "Yeah, I've known her since undergrad too. If you're jealous of her, don't be. Let's just say...I don't agree with the way she conducts her life."

"I'm not jealous, I'm just teasing you," I correct him. "She, on the other hand, was jealous of your money."

"Sounds like her," he sighs. "My family is very wealthy, that's true. No, I didn't need the scholarship to pay for school here like Utahime might have. But the work that I did during my undergrad is what earned me that. It was because of merit, not some sort of financial aid deal. I worked hard so it's difficult for me to feel ashamed or weird about it."

"Smart and rich," I nod. 

"This is why I hate talking about my family," he sighs, leveling me with an unamused stare. "It becomes my entire identity."

I struggle to empathize with this. My family is absent, except for my brother. I never knew my dad and hate my mother. I try to understand the feeling of being self-conscious due to wealth and notoriety. I can't understand it.

But that's okay.

We come from different worlds, and I think that's okay.

"What're they like?" I ask. "Your family?"

Gojo take a sip of his drink. "They're...fine. I'm not close with them and really only see them for holidays when I go home. I don't have any siblings so it's just me and my parents. I think they're still pissed at me for deciding to study literature instead of business." He laughs tightly.

"What do they do?"

"They founded a big entertainment company when I was young. My dad was already rich from generational wealth and my mom was an actress. They sort of merged their knowledge and created the company together. Its success wasn't really luck though. They wouldn't have been successful if my dad didn't have the extensive resources to fund it at the beginning and if my mom didn't have her own set of social connections. They're very smart people...they're just not very...warm to most."

I frown, wondering what Gojo's childhood was like. Probably not terribly unhappy...but maybe a bit lonely.

"And you met Geto during undergrad?"

He nods. "Yeah, he was my roommate."

"Your roommate!" I exclaim, loving this scrap of information. 

"Yeah," he laughs. "Inseparable ever since. I've been living with him for six years. Sometimes I go to his house over breaks instead of going home. It's...nice there."

I smile. His expressions is always so soft when he talks about Geto and I'm obsessed with it. Men usually aren't like that. 

I think Geto might make up for his distant family. I think Geto is probably his real family. 

"He seems like a really amazing guy," I say.

"He is," Gojo agrees. "He's always been better than me."

Interesting. 

"In what ways?" I cock my head slightly to the side. 

Gojo shifts, crossing his arms loosely. "He's just...kind. Like genuinely kind. In a way that seems like he doesn't even have to try. I'm not like that."