SUMMER BREAK ENDED...
like a dream, for the students' freedom was now limited. though sukuna and chiyo had more time to spend together, it was not spent together.
"aoki-chan~ can you stay after to help us make the poster for the cultural festival please? we have to attend something", suzuki — one of the girl's classmates — asked.
"b-but...I'm the basketball manager. I have to—"
"aoki-san, since when did you become so uncooperative?", nakamura, another classmate of chiyo's chimed in.
"yeah yeah! just because you were chosen as the team manager doesn't mean you can neglect your normal duties!", mikan huffed, as chiyo gripped onto the strap of her bag.
"I'm not..."
"anyways, this poster needs to be done by tomorrow so that we can show gojō-sensei. thank you for your hard work!", nakamura giggled, skipping off with her friends, as chiyo took three deep breaths in and out.
heading towards the gym first, chiyo was greeted by the captain of the elite team: kamo noritoshi.
"ah, aoki-san, coach asked for the stats sheet on all of us. he said he needs it by tomorrow. and can you make sure that you and ozawa-san bring filming equipment to our game this weekend please?"
"of course, kamo-senpai. is there anything else you need us to do?", chiyo asked with a tired smile, jotting everything down in her phone's notes app.
"can you sew by any chance?", kamo asked.
the second-year simply nodded.
"I'm not super talented at it, but if it's something like fixing button or something, I think I can..."
"then would it be possible for you to fix inumaki and mahito's jacket? they said that their pockets or something have been bothering them for a week now", kamo explained.
"oh...sure! anything else?", chiyo politely asked.
'please don't say anything else...'
"that's all. thank you for your hard work", the dark-haired male stated.
"no, thank you", chiyo bowed, as she took a seat on the bleachers next to ozawa.
"chiyo-chan, what's your homeroom doing for the cultural festival?", the first-year questioned, as the boys were all stretching under kamo's instruction.
"ah, we're doing a maid café", chiyo answered.
"ehh? sounds fun! our class decided to combine with two other classrooms and do a haunted theme. sukuna was nominated to be one of the scare-actors", ozawa informed.
"I'll be sure to check it out if I have any time then", chiyo promised.
"same to you, chiyo-chan! I'm sure you'd look adorable as a maid", ozawa chirped.
chiyo actually wasn't too sure about dressing up as a maid for the school festival. however, every girl in her class had already agreed to, so she couldn't just be the outcast and say no.
"yeah, I'm excited too", the second-year softly responded.
"gojō-sensei, what do you think of the poster?", suzuki asked with a proud smile.
"yeah, we all worked really hard on it. are you pleased?", mikan added on with a slightly flirtatious tone.
the white-haired male hummed, as he observed the poster that's supposed to be put out in front of their classroom.
"I think chiyo-chan did a splendid job!", gojō praised.
the three girls froze up, as they glanced over at chiyo, who had shrunk into her seat from the sudden attention.
"w-we helped too, sensei!!", nakamura preached.
"class, it's important to not lie and force your other classmates to do all the work by themselves. now, please prepare for the festival that's being held this friday. class dismissed!", gojō announced, as everyone practically scurried out of the room.
the three girls clenched their teeth as they shot chiyo a nasty glare before exiting the classroom.
gojō quietly sighed as he made his way over towards the blonde second-year, who was preparing to head to the gym for basketball practice.
"chiyo-chan, I understand that it's hard for you to say no to people sometimes. however, you shouldn't let people step all over you. stick up for yourself next time, m'kay?"
"t-thanks, gojō-sensei. I'll keep it in mind", chiyo weakly smiled, as she didn't have the heart to tell him that she had already agreed to help make most of the maid costumes for her classmates.
gojō hummed a little, as he accompanied chiyo to the gym, claiming to have something to discuss with tōji.
the older fushiguro's mood immediately soured upon seeing the white-haired teacher, telling chiyo that she can always take shelter here since she has a walking mirage as an instructor.
"what're you doing here?", tōji grumbled.
"I need to borrow one of your players. it's important", gojō stated with a playful smile — though his tone was quite the opposite.
"who?", tōji asked, as gojō motioned for sukuna to come over.
sukuna raised a brow, as he jogged towards the two teachers.
"yeah, old geezer?"
"nice seeing you too", gojō sarcastically greeted.
"anyways, new side task for you—"
"then shouldn't chiyo be here too? usually we complete them together", sukuna interrupted.
"well not this time. anyways, I need you to make an extra effort to watch over chiyo during the cultural festival. I'm...a little concerned that she's being pushed around by her classmates. however, as a teacher, I can only see so much. understand?", gojō quietly explained.
sukuna huffed as he tried to play it off like he didn't care much.
"yeah sure, whatever. so can I go back to stretching now?"
"sure thing! thanks", gojō lightly chuckled, as tōji glanced over at chiyo, who was just holding a casual conversation with ozawa.
"I hope you're not overworking her, tōji-san. I'd hate to see one of my best students stressed", gojō lowly warned, before skipping off towards the teachers' lounge.
despite being seen as a carefree, easy-going educator, gojō genuinely cared about his students. that was evident.
"tsk, troublesome".
festival day couldn't arrive any sooner, and chiyo couldn't be any more exhausted.
the girl had pulled two all-nighters just to finish fixing mahito and inumaki's team jackets, while also constructing some of the maid aprons.
on top of that, she still had to update tōji on the players' stats, and complete her own homework — which thankfully wasn't a lot — upon getting home after practice.
with everything that she's been through this entire week, she hoped that next week would be a little less chaotic.
"good morning everyone! I've got the—"
"ah, aoki-chan, perfect timing! we actually all pitched in last night to buy all the girls new maid aprons. after all, you weren't even halfway done with them the day before, right?", suzuki fake pouted.
"mhm!! we just wanted to make sure that we had them in time, isn't that right, nakamura?"
"so what do you have in your bag?", nakamura grinned, as chiyo bit the bottom of her lip before lifting her head and displaying her regular smile.
"nothing important! I just bought extras in case anyone needed one", chiyo lied, as she headed to the bathroom to go change, meanwhile the three girls giggled to themselves.
whilst the majority of the school prepared for the cultural festival, mahito and kenjaku were roaming around the halls.
"should we go visit some of our teammates? I heard that sukuna's been the attention-gatherer for the past few hours", mahito grinned.
"sure", kenjaku shrugged, as the two sauntered towards the three-part haunted classrooms.
class 1-c and 1-b were mediocre, but when the two third-years had traversed through class 1-a, they were stunned.
mahito nearly choked on his saliva, as he saw sukuna laying upon a pile of skulls, looking as menacing as ever.
"whatcha lookin' at, fools?"
"are those tattoos press-ons??", mahito asked, snapping himself out of his trance.
"actually, someone hand painted them on me. pretty impressive, right?", sukuna answered, sitting upright as he maneuvered his way down the skull throne.
"so they just let you sit around all day insulting people who walk through? gotta say, they picked the perfect job for you", kenjaku snorted.
"anyways, you wanna take a break and visit aoki-chan with us? we're planning to bring ozawa-chan, your brother, and some of the others as well", mahito offered.
"hah? but—"
"I heard it's a maid café that they're doing", kenjaku slyly interrupted with a knowing smirk.
"well what the hell are you both waiting for? let's go", sukuna stated, already at the door, as the two third-years snickered to themselves.
bringing along most of their other teammates — minus muta, who decided to visit his girlfriend miwa — the group was greeted by girls squealing left and right.
"oh my tengen, is it actually fushiguro-kun?!"
"did you see sukuna?? he looks so hot with those tattoos!!"
"it's inumaki-kun and mahito-senpai!! they're all from the basketball team! could they be here for us?!", another squeaked.
"hey hey~ is aoki-chan here?", mahito nicely asked.
it was just then that water had "accidentally" spilled onto chiyo's costume, causing everyone to look over.
"oops~ sorry 'bout that, chiyo-san", mikan scornfully said.
"seriously, chiyo-chan, you should be more careful around—"
"you did that on purpose", panda intercepted.
noticing practically the entire basketball team there, the three girls instantly changed their attitudes.
"w-what do you mean?! i-it was an accident!!", nakamura claimed.
"y-yeah! we would never do something like that to chiyo-san", mikan denied.
ozawa hurried beside chiyo, who's head just dipped in shame. she couldn't even find the right words to say, for she has never been more humiliated.
"chiyo-chan worked so hard on the aprons and yet you guys didn't even wear them?", ozawa daringly accused, to which the three second-years had flinched.
"w-we never asked her to do so. she just decided to be extra and do it herself!", nakamura proclaimed.
"liar! she even told me how you three forced her to make the poster all by herself. have you three got no shame?!", ozawa blamed.
"who even are you?! you both have no right to talk! maybe if she didn't act so innocent all the time, then we wouldn't have an issue! I bet she slept with fushiguro-sensei just so that she could become team mana—"
sukuna has heard enough.
watching tears cascade down chiyo's sullen face, the first-year couldn't help but clench his fists and deliver a blow straight to suzuki's face.
"oi, sukuna!!", yūji called out, as chiyo lifted her head to see an irritated expression on said boy's face.
suzuki fell onto her bottom, as she pressed the side of her face in pain. tears were now brimming her eyes, as she shakily pointed at sukuna.
"y-you!!"
inumaki made sure to get a video of the three girls bullying chiyo in case the teachers needed evidence — slyly cutting out the part where sukuna had punched suzuki.
"for someone who's a year older, you'd think they'd be a little more mature", sukuna scoffed.
"seems like all you know is to spout out utter shit. watch what you say, would ya?"
grabbing chiyo's wrist, sukuna led the girl out of the classroom, meanwhile ozawa and the others followed after.
"your worst decision was to insult our manager. think before you speak next time", kenjaku lowly warned, his blue eyes slightly darkening.
"ah, and you all aren't any better!", mahito announced to the rest of chiyo's classmates with a fake chirpy tone.
"bystanders are just as bad".
AUTHOR'S NOTE: *manējā: manager
just wanted to let everyone know that bullying is not okay, and I understand that it can be frightening to stand up to others. however, your friends, teachers, parents, or any adult is here for you, so please don't feel alone.
worst case scenario, I'm here to talk <33
now, onto some more light-hearted stuff. sukuna actually joined the maid café and dressed like this:
again,, jk😔
credits: @waaanpan || tiktok