Felt thought it over.
Wincing, she dug into her coin pouch and counted out five gold coins. She hesitated, then slid two back. Hesitated again. By the end, a single coin sat in her palm.
"This place can't fit all four of us. We need somewhere new.
We'll spend the next couple days fixing up a spot to live. This coin covers expenses until then."
"Yea..."
Gojo's cheer barely left his lips before Felt sprang up on her toes and clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Absolutely, positively, no sweets for you!"
Sweets were a luxury people at the bottom of the ladder couldn't dream of affording. Even commoners in the regular districts couldn't eat desserts the way Gojo did, treating them like actual meals. Once a month was considered doing well.
The math just didn't work. Sugar satisfied a craving and nothing else. The same money spent on real food stretched so much further.
"This has to cover household supplies, food, and we still need to scrounge up some secondhand clothes..."
Felt ticked items off on her fingers one by one.
She'd been living on her own long enough to know the price of every necessity down to the last copper. One gold coin was the number she'd arrived at after squeezing the budget until it couldn't squeeze any tighter.
"Quite the stingy employer," Gojo said, hands spread wide, shaking his head.
Subaru leaned in close. "Keep talking like that and I'm pretty sure you won't be eating tonight."
"Ha ha ha! Relax, Felt's got it handled," Old Man Rom said, beaming at her with undisguised pride. "Don't let her age fool you. She's sharper than most adults.
We're all in this together now. Let's make it work!"
He'd watched this girl grow up. Seeing her take charge, organizing everything with such precision, warmed something deep in his chest.
With the plan settled, Felt led them into the slums to hunt for a suitable base of operations.
"Base of operations" was generous. What they were really looking for was a ruin that hadn't quite finished collapsing.
Luckily, Felt had spent enough years navigating these streets to have a mental map of every abandoned building worth remembering.
It didn't take long before she found a passable candidate. The roof and walls had gaping holes, weeds had taken over the interior, and garbage littered the floor, but nothing a solid day's work couldn't fix.
"This is the one." Felt surveyed the surroundings and nodded, satisfied. "Let's try to get it livable by tonight."
She turned to Rom. "You and this guy handle the cleanup. Subaru and I will go buy food and supplies."
"Leave it to me." Rom flexed a massive arm and grinned. "These old bones still have some strength left."
Felt pulled Subaru to her side, then fixed Gojo with a look.
"No slacking off. Or you don't eat."
"Yeah, yeah, I know.
Wonder if the Knights would do something about an employer this unreasonable."
"They wouldn't. Give it up!"
With that, Felt dragged Subaru away.
Rom watched them go, then turned to Gojo with a warm laugh. "Shall we get started?"
Gojo stretched, arms reaching overhead, then wandered to a patch of ground where the sunlight fell just right. He settled in, soaking up the warmth, and spoke with all the urgency of a cat in a sunbeam.
"No need to go through all that trouble."
He raised one finger. A tiny blue sphere, no larger than a fingertip, flickered into existence at its tip.
Rom's expression stiffened.
He remembered this. Vividly. Last time, it had started exactly the same way. A blue sphere in Gojo's hand, shifting to red, and then...
"W-wait, hold on, Gojo."
"What are you planning? That old house can't survive anything rough."
"Relax. I'll be gentle."
Gojo smiled sweetly and flicked his finger. The blue sphere sailed forward, drifting into the building.
Rom watched it with every muscle taut, bracing for the same terrifying explosion of force as before.
He was overthinking it.
Under his gaze, the sphere glided through the rooms, and everywhere it passed, an invisible pull gathered the garbage, weeds, and debris, dragging it all into orbit around the glowing point of light. Within moments, the sphere was wrapped in a dense shell of refuse.
The entire interior, spotless.
Gojo pointed a finger toward an empty lot nearby, and the garbage-laden sphere floated obediently to the spot he'd indicated.
He hadn't moved a single step.
"Done."
"Come sit in the sun with me, Rom."
He waved the old man over with genuine enthusiasm.
Rom stared at the mound of garbage now sitting neatly in the vacant lot, then walked over with a complicated expression.
"You really are a genius, Gojo. Possessing that kind of power at your age, and controlling it with such precision..."
Gojo laughed and nodded without a shred of modesty.
"That's right. I am a genius.
But you've got a good eye yourself, Rom."
He tugged at his sunglasses. Deep within those ice-blue eyes, something shifted, a glint that carried more weight than the words suggested.
"Ha ha ha! When you get old, you start having all sorts of sentimental thoughts for no reason."
Rom rubbed his bald head and chuckled.
The conversation ended there. The two of them, one towering figure and one lean silhouette, sat in comfortable silence and let the sun do its work.
Felt and Subaru didn't return until close to noon.
Felt looked no different than when she'd left. Empty-handed, her steps light and quick.
Subaru was a different story entirely.
Bundles and bags were piled so high on his body that his entire upper half had vanished beneath the load. He swayed with every step like a pack animal about to tip over. Judging by the dust caked on his trousers, he'd already gone down a few times.
"Rom... I'm back."
In front of the little house, his strength finally gave out. He set everything down and collapsed flat on his back, not caring how filthy the ground was, chest heaving as he gulped air.
"Seriously? That's all it took?" Felt walked over and looked down at him, unimpressed. "You don't even look that scrawny. You wouldn't last a day hauling cargo for a trade caravan."
"I feel like..." Subaru raised a trembling hand to shield his eyes from the glare, staring at his shaking arm. "...my value as a person shouldn't be measured by stuff like this."
"I'm supposed to be a hero, you know."