[ Though a short segment of his shortened life (cut first when he decided to enroll at Jujutsu High School, cut again when he came back, cut when Gojo proved human, fallible, after all — but it isn't a matter of blame so much as Gojo's fall readying the scissors in wizened hands, the bounds of his own ability forcing the blades together), a handful of hours, it had been a lengthy enough recounting that his mouth's dry, even after that first sip. So he drinks again as Gojo keeps smiling, the direction of his face in the periphery confirming the weight of his eyes, even behind that blindfold.

Nanami glances sidelong, eyes shifting without his face, distracted by the stillness of that smile.

Digimon. The punch of breath caught in his nose resembles a snort, even as his next breath rattles then sags in his chest. Easy enough. Nanami had been not content, but adapting to what had to be an inevitability for him. There was talk of the possibility that time here wasn't fixed to time there, however relative to each person there was. But even if there was a way for those who didn't seem to have died to go back without losing time, they had evidence of nothing, and better not to think he could "go back" to anything but an obliterated corpse. Tired, listless, drifting for a month against the tension of obligation squeezing in his skull, of responsibility. But, what was the fucking point?

Here, now, a if not the fucking point: whether or not he could (irrational), Gojo had to go back. They couldn't take temporal stasis or flexibility for granted. Even as laying it out, frame by frame bad odds to worse odds to shit odds to no odds, ground him into the gravel of it, scraping compression, the queasy disconnect between remembering and feeling, phantom sensation in reverse,the bloodied gaping of his eye socket, the peeling, charring of how many layers of skin, the cursed energy that began first with his soul when it blew him to bits. None of it as striking, crushing, coring, as the knowledge of the inferno the kids had to keep pushing through, with diminishing assistance.

Were he alone, he might have sunk again, head thrown back, eyes draped by damp cloth, managing his breathing until he could again think only what he meant to think and feel only what he should feel. Because he isn't alone, though he does lean back, harder than intended, he also orients himself through external focus, through the beer in his mouth and down his throat, both fresh and musty, through the sworls of the table wood beneath his left hand, through Gojo's still fixed smile, and through — the air.

Not heavy, conversely, that low-pressure vacuum of sucked out before heavy, and maybe it wasn't the beer that was musty. Eyes narrowing slightly, he turns his head fully toward Gojo. Because he's never been all that important in the grand scheme of things, he doesn't even think to sugarcoat it. ]

No, because I'm now always off-the-clock. This means I'll never be in Overtime again.

[ Looking away for an opressive second, into what's now the bottom of his cup. Almost absently, almost clinically, the plain analysis of the situation: ]

If it comes to that, I guess I'll need to make a different Binding Vow.

[ Because he can really taste it in his next breath, too thin air rattling again in his lungs, Nanami gestures at the tart, the pudding. ]

Please eat. [ you're not you when you're hungry ] I've already paid for it.