suckunadeeznut

Tonight, Satoru arrives late at your door. Doesn’t bother to knock, text you beforehand, he simply uses the double of the keys and enters your place heavily. His blindfold down his neck, shoes kicked, you rise from your bed to meet him in the hallway, halfway to the dream world.  

“Can’t believe they asked me to do this at 3 A.M, and then trying to display the decrease of the next generation in jujutsu society. They complain we don’t have enough sorcerers, when they don’t do anything when fifteen years old are sent to death. Can you believe it, y/n?”

He slowly turns towards you, coldness of his stare digging into your heart. A shiver runs down your spine. He’s waiting for your answer without any facial expression.

Honestly, you want to knock him off and tell him to text you beforehand instead of barging at your place in the middle of the night without even a “hello”. But with the way he’s acting right now, Satoru is in his angry-no empathy-mood. Maybe later… 

So, you sigh in a nod,  in a second he’s at your side, and you pat his back with understanding.

“It always has been like that, sadly… But your students have the chance to have you, because you’re not like them,” you answer.

A smile on his lips, Gojo lets his arms snake around your waist and brings you to his chest. Eyes half lidded, he gazes at your bed hair, down to the way you look at him.

“Hmm, and I have you.”

You snort.

“What does it have to do with anything you just said?”

His mouth stays stretched, but his eyes stop smiling. It’s a shift that is barely noticeable, almost, not to you. Up, his hand comes to your cheek, warm and invading. 

“It has to do a lot,” he whispers, before he lets silence swallow you all. You hear the tick of the clock, it’s three and a half a.m. You don’t answer, don’t know what.

Satoru stiffens his hold, his fingers slightly digging deeper in the plump of your skin, you see the pink corner of his eye. “Should I kill them all, y/n?”

This, right now, this is the type of sentence he drops like a bomb then and there, does it more often than you think, always manages to turn on an alarm in your brain that screams how much you are in a position to escape. 

A few seconds pass by, icy stare, heart in your throat. You can’t move, even if you wanted to, you can’t. Satoru has you locked in his arms in a way that is sinisterly strategic, trapped and unable to try to even shift a centimeter away. He knows it, it’s not a coincidence, it’s a reality.

Then, he suddenly releases you, steps back, and has back this goofy grin so characteristically like his. 

 “Just kidding! I’ll go shower, don’t mind me using hot water,” he announces, leaves towards your bathroom like nothing happened.

“Right,” you mutter, feeling the beating of your blood in your ears, before taking a breath and heading to the living room. You can’t sleep anymore, you’ll just watch something dumb on tv.

Satoru comes back from the shower, wearing nothing but one of your towels around his waist without a care in the world. Crosses by the living room, maybe to show off, you don’t know, goes to your bedroom, and comes back wearing the pajamas he left at your place a long time ago. 

Flipping next to you in a breath, he makes himself comfortable on the couch. 

“What are you watching?”

“Something dumb,” you answer in a shrug and a small tired laugh. 

Satoru stretches his arms on the back of the couch.

“Sign me in, I need to cool off,” he says.

“Didn’t you with the shower?”

He stares at the TV screen, unfazed.

“Nah. Not really.”

You notice it, sometimes. When he’s not wearing his blindfold, the way his eyes, a shade of blue so deep that you would drown in, dig holes in your soul. An intensity that breaks through, makes your skin crawl, goosebumps, shiver. 

“You’re staring again,” you spit as you glance at him.

Satoru is sprawling next to you, the faint glow of the movie illuminating a side of his face in the darkness of your apartment.

“Am I?” he asks in a lopsided grin. 

“Yes. Satoru, you’re supposed to look at the screen if you want to watch the movie.”

He tilts his head, puts his eyes on the screen, then back to you.

“Was totally watching the soldier jump into the sea, I got peripheral vision, y’know?”

“Whatever, snap out of it,” you murmur in a sigh.

Satoru pouts, crossing his arms over his chest dramatically. A way to make the mood funnier and less heavy.

“Can’t even admire my best friend, I see how it is!”

You would have laughed, if the pressure of his stare wasn’t so suffocating, so wrong. 

Your heart is beating wild, it takes a few minutes for you to manage to be back to enjoy the movie and be engrossed in the story. Until you feel it again, his stare. 

No smile, no facial expression, just Satoru looking at you with nothing giving away. If you didn’t know him, you would have thought he was secretly plotting to kill you, or something like that. 

This time, you manage to ignore it. Manage, yes. That’s just part of your routine, after all.

Time flies by, feeling the drowsiness take a toll on you, like hands grabbing you towards the void of sleep. You don't fight it, it’s too late to care, a win for your eyelids fluttering shut.

When your head tilts on the side, Satoru’s first reflex is to let his palm lay flat on it, and make you lean against his shoulder. The touch of his thumb is a lullaby, soothing you to fully let go, be limp. The faint sound of the movie, last rays of light, his caress, then darkness.

You’re finally asleep.

Satoru waited the exact second of it. With a skilful arm, he scoops you up against his chest, free hand turning off the TV, then carries you to your room. 

Gently, he rolls you on your bed, slides his bicep under your weight, and keeps you close while he lays down next to you. His pupils don’t leave you, not even for a second during the whole process, no blinking. 

Here, in the quietness of the end of the night, Gojo Satoru keeps you as close as possible. If he had the ability to open his chest and keep you locked behind his ribs, he would have done so by now. 

A brush of his fingers against your cheek, he doesn’t sleep. He won’t. He’ll naturally stay here, staring at you, until he eventually has to leave for work. 

Here, his Six Eyes are acting up. Glowing blue through black shadows, analyzing eerily every breath, heart beat, cursed energy, blood flow, hair, lash, skin of yours. It’s so fascinating, so reassuring, to have you here, real and alive, safe and sound, with him and only him. 

For now, he’ll let his thoughts shut down. The only moment he can not think, usual brain working too fast, too much, all the time. With you, it dies down. Like it did with Suguru. You’re his medicine. A cruel one. 

Because love is the most twisted curse of them all. 

And this time, he’ll gladly curse you too. 

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

There was no sound of displaced air, no shift in the wind. He simply occupied the space three inches from your nose, his massive frame cutting off the last bleeding gold of the sunset. His right hand snapped downward, his fingers curved into an institutional locking mechanism intended to clamp onto your collarbone. It wasn't an attack meant to break bone; it was a jurisdictional pin. He wanted you frozen, cataloged, and rendered inert before his new batch of students could realize the school’s security perimeter had just suffered a catastrophic internal error.

But you didn't freeze.

Your cursed energy didn't flash, spark, or explode outward in a theatrical display. It bled off your skin like a heavy, dark oil—thick, completely lightless, and cold enough to make the moisture in the air drop into instant condensation. You didn't waste a single millisecond trying to push against the passive barrier of his Limitless. You knew the math behind his infinity; you knew that fighting the distance between you was a statistical impossibility.

Instead, you targeted the precise structural space his hand was trying to occupy.

Using the raw weight of your presence, you forced the air molecules directly beneath his palm to densify, crystallizing the atmospheric wavelengths until they locked solid into a microscopic, diamond-hard dead zone.

Gojo’s fingers hit that invisible wall of your dark oil, stopping short by a single millimeter.

Before he could adjust his output or slip his infinity around the obstruction, your hand shot upward. Your fingers locked tightly around his bare wrist. The dark residue trailing off your skin hummed with a low, vicious vibration that transferred directly into his arm, bypassing the filtration of his technique by unbinding the very coordinates he was attempting to anchor himself to.

The force of the sudden, static impact didn't make a sound, but a web of clean, hair-thin cracks spiderwebbed through the stone path beneath your boots, the rock unweaving into fine white powder where your weight settled.

Gojo’s smirk dropped completely.

Even with the thick black blindfold obscuring his eyes, you could feel the absolute, rigid shock radiating through the bones of his arm. For the first time in his career as the Strongest Alive, someone had physically anchored him. Someone was holding him in place by twisting the fundamental reality beneath his fingers.

"Don't try to place me, Satoru," you said. Your voice was entirely level, flat, and pure ice. "I told Yaga I’d accept the assignment. I never said I’d let you touch me."

The narrow pocket of air between your palms began to boil. A heavy, distorted friction snapped violently against the transparent blue hum of his technique. He was too close; you could taste the dry ozone rolling off his uniform, could feel the terrifying, passive capability of his body pulsing right under his skin like an engine that never turned off.

"You've got to be kidding me," Gojo muttered.

The theatrical, sing-song cadence he used to mock the world was gone. His voice was quiet, dangerous, and laced with a toxic streak of buried anger that dated back a decade. "Years of radio silence. We find your paperwork filed under 'unrecoverable casualty' in the secondary archives. And now you show up on Yaga's leash flaring that energy?"

"It isn't Yaga's leash," a dry, measured voice cut in from the shadow of the doorway.

Kento Nanami stepped out onto the stone walkway. His posture was characteristically straight, his hand resting deliberately on the hilt of his wrapped, blunt blade. He didn't look at Gojo, and he didn't look at you. His covered gaze was fixed entirely on your dark fingers wrapped around Gojo's wrist—and the way the stone beneath your feet was continuing to slowly turn into dust.

"Release him," Nanami ordered calmly, though the muscles along his jaw were clamped tight enough to crack a tooth. "The calibration field is finished. You are under administrative protocol, not a personal interrogation. Satoru, step back."

Gojo didn't break the tension. His wrist remained locked in your grip, his muscles like iron beneath your palm. "Stay out of this, Nanami. This doesn't fall under the business hours of a Grade 1."

"It impacts the structural safety of this entire campus," Nanami shot back, his voice dropping an octave, becoming sharper and heavier. He took two deliberate steps forward, physically inserting his presence into the narrow, pressurized space between you and the Special Grade. He looked down at you, his eyes hidden behind those gold, rimless lenses, but his face was tight with a sharp, historical grief.

"We all remember what happens when her energy spikes without an external threshold," Nanami said, the words clipping cleanly through the cold evening air. "We all remember what happens when she loses her grip and things start unweaving. I will not have a repeat of that tragedy here. Not around these kids. Not again."

The mention of the past hit the courtyard like a physical drop in barometric pressure.

The ghost of a classmate you hadn't named in ten years—the memory of flesh and bone unweaving into fine gray ash under your own panicked teenage hands—made your dark residue flicker for a split second. The density of your hold wavered.

But you didn't flinch. You didn't pull away.

Instead, you tightened your fingers around Gojo's wrist for one final, bruising second, letting a microscopic spark of that same unbinding heat hum against his bare skin—just enough for the Strongest Alive to feel the raw, terrifying nature of the power that had dismantled a boy he used to call a friend.

Then, you let go. Your hand dropped smoothly back to your side.

"The monitors recorded minor fluctuations because I chose to let them, Nanami," you said, stepping back from both of them until the distance between you was clinical, professional, and cold.

You turned your back on the two strongest men at the school, your boots grinding the dust of the ruined stone path into the dirt as you walked toward the dormitory steps without asking for permission.

"Keep your protocols for the kids," you thrown over your shoulder, your dark energy dissolving into the twilight behind you. "If I were actually unstable, this mountain would already be a crater. Let’s not pretend either of you could stop a Special Grade like me if I decided to let it go."

Gojo didn't follow you. He stayed exactly where he was, his hand slowly dropping back into his high-collar pocket, his mouth drawn into a thin, grim line that his students had never seen before. Beside him, Nanami’s hand remained white-knuckled on the hilt of his blade, his eyes fixed on the micro-fractures left in the rock where you had stood.

The heavy silence of the courtyard lingered on your skin like frost long after you left Satoru and Nanami behind, the administrative tension of the campus following you like a shadow as you retreated into the old wood structures. It was only when the heavy cedar doors of the hidden dormitories clicked shut behind you that the cold air finally shifted, trading the sharp, ozone-heavy pressure of the Strongest Alive for the stagnant, hollow dark of the interior corridors.

The long, cedar-planked corridors of the hidden dormitories were dark, the shadows stretching thin and distorted under the pale moonlight filtering through the high, paper-screen windows. It felt less like a hallway and more like an old, hollow throat, swallowing you whole as you walked further away from the courtyard.

The air in this part of the campus was stagnant, smelling of old straw matting and the dry, paper-thin husks of wintering insects. Externally, your expression remained an impenetrable mask of stone. Internally, the name Nanami had dragged into the light—the historical stain they kept locked in the secondary archives—was clawing at the edges of your thoughts.

Special Grade.

In the modern bureau of jujutsu, that title meant you were a tactical independent variable—a baseline entity capable of overthrowing a nation if left unchecked. But ten years ago, before you vanished into the white noise of the provincial districts, it had just been a label they slapped onto a child whose biology was failing to contain its own output. They thought it was an unstable technique. They thought your emotional state was the variable that made the molecular bonds of physical objects dissolve whenever your energy spiked.

They didn't understand that the unweaving wasn't a failure of your control. It was the natural state of your cells trying to correct the artificial synthesis Kenjaku had performed on you before you were old enough to speak.

Your boots clicked against the floorboards in a steady, unhurried rhythm. You looked down at your hands as you walked, your skin completely clear in the gloom, yet you could still feel the phantom heat of that mission ten years ago—the way the world had felt like wet paper, tearing apart because you hadn't known how to hold the boundaries of your own energy.

"Hey! Wait up!"

The voice was entirely too loud for the suffocating atmosphere of the building.

You stopped, turning slowly as the pink-haired boy from the courtyard came jogging down the corridor toward you. He had completely ignored whatever orders Gojo or Nanami had given the students about returning to their quarters. He stopped a few feet away, rubbing the back of his neck, his amber eyes wide with a mix of raw curiosity and total awe.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," the boy said, giving you a genuine, goofy grin that looked entirely out of place in a school meant for executioners. "I just... man, I saw what you did out there with Gojo-sensei. I’ve never seen anyone actually grab his arm like that. The whole air went completely flat. Are you a new teacher? Or a Special Grade or something?"

You regarded him coolly. He was so intensely human. Fragile. Loud. Completely oblivious to the fact that he was currently housing a god of calamity inside his ribcage like a laboratory animal.

"I’m an anomaly, kid," you said, your tone flat and devoid of any welcoming warmth. "Go back to your room."

"Ah, don't worry about me, I'm tough!" The boy took a half-step closer, entirely unbothered by the warning. "But seriously, your energy felt really strange when you passed by us. It made my skin crawl, but not in a bad way—more like a shockwave right before lightning hits, or—"

The boy choked.

The transition happened in less than a microsecond, a sickening, violent hitch in reality.

His amber eyes instantly rolled into the back of his head, his body freezing mid-stride as his consciousness was forcibly snuffed out. The ambient moonlight filtering through the windows turned an oily, violent shade of crimson, the shadows on the walls twisting into jagged, predatory shapes.

Before the boy could hit the floorboards, his right hand flew up, completely independent of his own skeleton.

A jagged, wet slit tore open across the back of his palm, blood wells filling instantly as a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth split into a horrific, wide grin.

Sukuna didn't speak. He didn't waste time on dialogue. He lunged.

Using the boy's arm like a whip, the King of Curses snapped his hand forward, intending to sink those teeth straight into your wrist—to bite through the skin, to draw blood, to taste the exact biological composition of the person who had altered the atmosphere of the courtyard. He wanted a taste of the anomaly to verify what his thousand-year-old instincts had felt from inside his cage.

You didn't blink, and you didn't take a step back.

Your dark, heavy energy erupted from your palm. You didn't try to dodge the strike; instead, you targeted the physical matter of the boy's arm, instantly seizing the muscles and bone, forcing them into absolute, rigid stasis an inch from your face. Before the mouth could snap shut around your flesh, you slammed your bare palm down over its jaw, pinning the teeth together with a sickening crunch of cartilage.

"Get back in," you hissed.

You flared your cursed energy, driving a sharp, lethal pulse of your power directly through the wound. You targeted the spiritual layer with surgical precision, avoiding the boy's physical tissue to ensure you didn't tear his arm apart, and forced that unbinding, suffocating weight straight into the innate domain of the King of Curses.

For a fraction of a second, the wooden corridor vanished entirely.

Inside Sukuna's mind, a massive shockwave of black, dense energy flooded his mountain of skulls. The crimson sky of his domain cracked like glass, and the raw pressure physically shoved his four-armed spiritual manifestation backward, slamming him hard against the base of his throne. The dense weight burned his throat, fragmenting his aura as he was forced to swallow a lungful of your lightless residue.

In the physical hallway, the boy gasped violently, his eyes snapping open as consciousness flooded back into his body. The mouth on his hand was forced shut, pinned beneath the heavy pressure of your fingers until it completely dissolved back into his skin, leaving nothing behind but a faint, dark bruise across his knuckles.

He stumbled back, clutching his wrist, his chest heaving as if he had just run a miles-long sprint in total darkness. He looked down at his hand, then up at you, completely unaware of what had just transpired in the deep of his own soul.

"What... what just happened?" the boy muttered, his voice trembling slightly. "My arm went completely numb. It felt like... like it wasn't there anymore."

You stood over him, the last remnants of your dark residue trailing off your fingertips like liquid smoke before vanishing back into your skin. Your heart was pounding against your ribs, but your face remained an impenetrable mask.

"Go back to your dorm," you said, your voice carrying a heavy, cold authority that left no room for teenage curiosity. "And tell your landlord that if he tries to bite me again, I’ll dissolve his throne into ash."

You turned and walked away into the dark, leaving the boy shivering alone in the corridor.

Deep inside his domain, sitting among the bones, Ryomen Sukuna wiped a drop of imaginary fluid from the corner of his mouth. The crimson sky above him was still trembling, the mountain of skulls vibrating from the aftershocks of your intrusion.

A slow, terrifying, and deeply depraved smile stretched across his face.

A human woman whose energy could invade his domain and disrupt the fundamental bonds of reality without her body turning to mush. His primitive instincts didn't just recognize your strength; they registered the absolute impossibility of your biology. A body that could actually synthesize pure, volatile cursed energy without burning out.

"Kenjaku..." Sukuna whispered into the dark of his domain, his voice trembling with a sudden, awakening obsession. "What a magnificent, taboo little thing you’ve left behind for me."

Midnight arrived without stars.

You sat on the edge of the tatami mat in your temporary quarters, staring into the dark. You hadn't changed out of your uniform, and you hadn't turned on the small copper lamp by the door. The air in the room felt thick, heavy with the lingering scent of old wood and the faint, persistent vibration of Master Tengen’s barriers humming beneath the floorboards.

To anyone else, the room was a quiet sanctuary. To you, it was a containment cell with better aesthetics.

The wooden latch on the window clicked.

The frame slid open without a sound, the cold mountain air rushing into the small space. Satoru Gojo materialized on your windowsill, one boot dangling inside your room, his tall frame completely cutting off the pale moonlight. He had pushed his black blindfold up just enough for one brilliant, glowing blue eye to lock onto you through the dark. The Six Eyes were pulsing, the iris spinning slightly as it scanned the microscopic layout of your body, reading the chemical and cursed fluctuations like an open book.

"You have a very strange scent on you tonight," Gojo said. His voice was entirely stripped of his usual playful theater. It was quiet, steady, and terrifyingly cold. "It smells like copper. Like old blood. Like him."

You didn't stand up, and you didn't reach for your energy. "Are you tracking my scent now, Satoru? I didn't know the Strongest doubled as a hound."

Gojo leaned forward, his white hair falling over his forehead, his blue eye narrowing with an intensity that felt like a physical weight pressing against your chest. With the Six Eyes, he wasn't just looking at your cursed energy; he was looking at the faint, ancient friction of a deliberate design woven directly into your molecular bonds. He could see the biological impossibility—the way your cells handled energy like a curse rather than a human.

"I’m not playing," Gojo whispered, leaning closer until he was just inches outside the boundary of your face. "Something happened in that corridor with the kid. Sukuna flared, and then your energy spiked into something that shouldn't exist in a human body."

He reached his hand out, his fingers stopping a fraction of an inch from your cheek, held back by his passive infinity.

"If he takes an interest in you," Gojo said, his voice dropping into a dark, lethal register, "if your body becomes something that threatens the natural order of this world... I have to kill you. You know that, right? The higher-ups would demand your execution before sunrise, and I wouldn't have a reason to stop them."

He stared at you, a raw flash of buried grief and anger flickering in his uncovered eye—a remnant of the boy who had lost Shoko, Geto, and his youth to the choices made by monsters. "Tell me you didn't come back just to make me do that. Look me in the eye and tell me you aren't a ticking bomb."

You leaned forward, deliberately pressing your face close to his hand, your heavy, dark cursed energy flaring to life around your skin. The black residue met his blue Limitless, creating a sharp, low hum of friction that vibrated through the floorboards of the room.

"You can try, Satoru," you said, looking straight into his brilliant blue eye. "But we both know that if a Special Grade and the Strongest Alive actually go all out, there won't be a Jujutsu High left for you to protect. I am not the girl who broke years ago. I am the exception to your rules."

You leaned back, the dark pressure swirling lazily around your shoulders in the moonlight.

"So either sit down and talk to me like an equal, or get out of my room."

Gojo stayed frozen on the windowsill for a long, agonizing second, his breath shallow, his eye locked onto yours. Slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched into a sharp, dangerous line.

"...You really are a piece of work," he murmured.

The click of the wooden latch sliding back into place was the only sound that followed his departure. Gojo didn't use the door; he vanished back into the midnight air the same way he had entered, leaving the window slightly ajar. A thin, freezing draft cut across the floorboards, carrying the scent of cedar and old moss from the mountain woods outside.

You didn't move from the tatami mat for a long time.

The administrative pager on the low tatami table buzzed at 4:30 AM, its harsh electronic hum cutting through the remaining cold tension left in your quarters after Satoru’s departure.

When you answered, it wasn't Satoru's mocking cadence or Nanami's mechanical tone that came through the small speaker. It was the heavy, gravelly resonance of Principal Masamichi Yaga.

"Your solo deployment to the Chiba prefecture has been put on hold for twenty-four hours," Yaga stated, his voice completely flat over the line. "The higher-ups reviewed the structural data from your intake calibration yesterday afternoon. They are deeply uncomfortable with a Special Grade's baseline density being unleashed in an unmonitored sector so soon after a ten-year absence. They want a final, definitive test to ensure your stability before you are cleared for independent field operations."

You leaned back against the wall, staring into the gray, pre-dawn shadows bleeding through the slightly ajar window. "A test. So they're sending me to a sandbox?"

"No," Yaga replied heavily. "They want to see how your technique behaves in close proximity to others. Satoru is taking the new first-years to an entry-level extermination in Roppongi this morning. You will accompany them as an additional observer. Consider it your final evaluation. If you pass today—if you can handle being around civilian structures and high-value students without your energy causing collateral unweaving—your clearance will be approved. You'll be on a train to your real mission by dawn tomorrow. Fail, and the higher-ups will reinstate your isolation protocol before sunset. Don't touch a curse unless Satoru gives the order. Show them you can handle a crowd without flattening the block."

The line clicked dead before you could answer.

By 8:00 AM, the morning rain over Tokyo didn't clear the heat; it just made the air thick, sticking your high-collared uniform to your skin. Yaga’s words from dawn still tasted like ash in your mouth. Babysitting. A Special Grade reduced to a shadow-watcher because the old men in the executive suites were terrified of what happens when you breathe too hard.

You didn't join the staff for breakfast, choosing instead to wait on the concrete steps overlooking the main training field. The heavy, dark oil of your cursed energy was completely retracted beneath your skin, but the grass near your boots still leaned away slightly, reacting to the passive, lightless pressure you couldn't fully turn off.

"Hey! There she is!"

A loud voice cut through the damp morning air before you could even turn your head. Jogging down the gravel path was the pink-haired boy from the corridor the night before, his bright red hoodie hood pulled up against the drizzle. He didn't look injured from the previous night's brief possession, but his amber eyes were wide with excitement.

Right behind him walked a boy with messy black hair, his hands jammed deep into his uniform pockets, his dark eyes fixed on you with a sharp, guarded intensity. Bringing up the rear was a girl aggressively twisting the strap of her leather tool belt, looking thoroughly annoyed by the weather.

"Sensei said we're doing a joint field exercise today because a 'heavy hitter' just rejoined the roster," the girl muttered, stopping at the base of the steps and sizing you up with a critical, uncompromising glare. "I thought he meant a Grade 1 who actually knows how to dress, not someone who looks like they just crawled out of an isolation ward."

"Hey, be nice!" the pink-haired boy hissed, giving you a frantic, apologetic wave. "She's the one from last night! The one who made the air go all flat!"

"I don't care about the air. I care about my hair," she snapped back, though her fingers moved instinctively closer to the nails lining her belt. She could feel it now—the same creeping, freezing sensation the boy had described. It was the atmospheric weight that always preceded a Special Grade.

"She’s not a Grade 1," the dark-haired boy spoke up, his voice quiet, steady, and entirely devoid of his classmates' casual chatter. He hadn't taken his eyes off the micro-fractures in the stone steps where your boots rested. "The administrative ledger listed her deployment clearance as an independent variable. That only applies to one tier."

Before the girl could process the implication, a massive, obnoxious hand clapped down onto the dark-haired boy’s shoulder.

"Correct as always!" Satoru Gojo materialized out of thin air, a bright blue shopping bag from a Ginza bakery dangling from his index finger. He was wearing his standard dark uniform and his blindfold was firmly in place, but the cheerful, sing-song cadence of his voice carried a sharp, underlying edge that was directed entirely at you.

"Since you've been playing ghost for the last ten years, you missed orientation," Gojo said, stepping past the teenagers and gesturing to them with a dramatic flourish of his hand. "Let's do a quick round of introductions so you know who you're babysitting today."

He pointed his thumb at the pink-haired boy first. "This loud one is Yuji Itadori. His current hobby is swallowing ancient fingers and trying not to die." Yuji gave you a goofy, half-apologetic grin.

Gojo shifted his hand to the dark-haired boy. "Megumi Fushiguro. A first-grade talent from the Zen'in bloodline, even if he hates admitting it. He plays with shadows." Megumi simply gave you a terse, respectful nod, his eyes remaining incredibly sharp.

"And finally," Gojo finished, gesturing to the girl, "Nobara Kugisaki. Our resident small-town critic. She uses a hammer to fix structural issues, mostly in people's faces." Nobara crossed her arms, huffing slightly but offering a defiant tilt of her chin.

Gojo stepped to the top of the stairs, his tall frame cutting off the gray morning light as he stopped right next to you, looking down through his blindfold.

"Today we’re taking the kids on a little field trip to the Roppongi district," Gojo announced, spinning the bakery bag around his wrist. "An abandoned apartment complex with a nasty infestation of localized Grade 2 curses. Standard protocol says I handle the oversight, but since our resident anomaly decided to accept an active roster slot... I figured we’d see if you still remember how to play well with others. Or if you’re just going to turn the whole neighborhood into dust before the kids can even draw their weapons."

You stood up slowly, your face an unreadable mask of stone as you looked past his blindfold.

"The kids won't be in any danger from me, Satoru," you said, your voice entirely level and pure ice. "You, on the other hand, should make sure your infinity is dialed in. I don't like people standing on my shadow."

The drive to Roppongi was packed into a standard administrative black minivan. Satoru sat in the front passenger seat, aggressively humming along to a pop song on the radio, while you were relegated to the back row, sandwiched between Nobara and Megumi. Yuji had claimed the middle seat, his head darting back and forth between the window and you like a tennis match.

The silence on your side of the car was thick, a dense physical buffer that kept the three teenagers pressed against their respective doors.

"So," Nobara finally broke the tension, her voice sharp as she leaned forward to look past Yuji. "You don't talk much, do you? Special Grade. I thought that meant you’d be carrying some massive cursed tool or covered in cool scars. You just look like you're going to a funeral."

"Nobara, don't be rude!" Yuji whispered loudly, his amber eyes darting to you with a mixture of awe and residual nerves from the previous night. "She's practicing her focus! Right?"

"She's keeping her baseline output from altering the vehicle's telemetry," Megumi muttered from your left, his hands steady on his lap. He didn't look at his classmates; his dark eyes were fixed entirely on the subtle way the leather of the seat beneath your thighs seemed to lose its sheen, the material dulling into a dry, brittle gray wherever your uniform brushed it. "Am I right? If you let your guard down, the engine blocks of the cars next to us on the highway would start unbinding."

You didn't look at any of them. Your gaze remained fixed on the neon signs of the entertainment district filtering through the rain-streaked glass. "Fushiguro is smart," you said, your voice low and level. "You two should listen to him. Curiosity is a quick way to lose a limb when you don't understand the physics of the person sitting next to you."

The car pulled to a sharp halt in an alleyway behind a massive, rotting concrete apartment complex. The building was an urban corpse—sixteen stories of stained stucco, shattered glass, and yellow police tape, completely out of place against the gleaming glass towers of modern Roppongi.

"We’re here!" Satoru announced, kicking his door open and stepping out into the drizzle with an exaggerated yawn.

The kids scrambled out behind him, grateful to escape the pressurized cabin of the minivan. You stepped out last, your boots clicking cleanly against the wet asphalt.

An auxiliary manager was already waiting by the entrance, his fingers locked in a ritual hand sign. "I will now erect the veil," he stated mechanically.

"Emerge from darkness, blacker than black. Purify that which is impure."

The sky above the complex unwove. A thick, viscous black fluid spilled across the morning light, cascading down an invisible dome until it locked out the sounds of the city. The drizzle became a heavy, suffocating weight, the ambient temperature inside the perimeter dropping instantly until your breath turned into pale white plumes.

Satoru turned around, his blindfold catching the faint, oily reflection of the veil. He pointed a long finger at Yuji and Nobara.

"Alright, kids! Itadori, Kugisaki, you two are up," Gojo said, his theatrical grin returning. "There’s a cluster of Grade 2 curses nesting on the upper floors, born from the misery of bankrupt residents. Go inside, clear the rooms, and don't break anything you can't afford to replace."

He then turned his blindfold toward you, his arms dropping into his pockets.

"Fushiguro and I will stay out here to keep our guest company," Gojo added, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register that was meant only for your ears. "The old men are watching through the perimeter tags. Remember the rules of your evaluation: you don't cross the threshold unless a student is about to become a corpse. Let's see how much restraint that Special Grade title actually buys you."

The concrete lobby of the building swallowed the two first-years, their footsteps fading into the stairwell until only the dripping of rainwater from the rusted gutters remained.

Outside, the silence under the black dome was clinical. Satoru leaned lazily against the hood of the black minivan, his ankles crossed, seemingly completely absorbed in checking his fingernails. Megumi stood five paces away, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the wet asphalt under the unnatural light of the veil.

You stood perfectly still in the center of the alleyway. The air inside the perimeter was shifting, the negative emotions of the city thickening into a foul, greasy pressure.

"They're taking too long," Megumi muttered after ten minutes, his hand instinctively rising to form the hand sign for his Divine Dog. His fingers were trembling slightly—not from fear of the curses inside, but from the sheer, suffocating density radiating off your skin.

"Relax, Megumi-chan," Satoru drawled, not moving an inch. "Nobara is just giving Itadori a lecture on urban shopping logistics. Let them work."

Suddenly, the glass windows on the fifth floor didn't just shatter; they erupted outward in a violent spray of crystalline dust.

A choked, wet roar echoed from the stairwell, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of something massive dropping down the center of the elevator shaft. The localized Grade 2 curses hadn't stayed separated. The negative energy inside the abandoned complex had experienced a sudden, unnatural spike, forcing the individual entities to synthesize into a singular, bloated, multi-limbed mass that was currently tearing through the internal concrete walls.

"Ah," Satoru murmured, his blindfold tilting toward the upper floors. "A fusion anomaly. That’s a bit heavy for an entry-level exercise."

Inside the lobby, a scream cut through the dark—Nobara’s voice, sharp and laced with sudden, genuine panic as a massive, translucent gray hand smashed through the front glass doors, pinning her tool belt against the concrete pillars. Yuji’s cursed energy flared instantly, a chaotic, blue-and-gold spark as he tried to punch through the creature's thick, calloused hide, but his fists were sinking into the blubber without causing structural damage.

Megumi snapped his hands together. "Divine—"

"Stay back, Fushiguro," you ordered.

Your voice wasn't loud, but it carried an administrative weight that physically froze Megumi’s hands mid-sign.

"Hey," Satoru’s voice dropped into a dangerous, warning growl, his frame straightening up from the car hood. "The rules of the evaluation were clear. You don't cross the threshold unless—"

"I’m not crossing the threshold," you said flatly.

You didn't take a single step toward the building. Instead, you reached down and took a deep, controlled breath, loosening the internal seals on your baseline technique.

Kūkan Kairi - Spatial Unbuilding

The dark, lightless oil of your cursed energy didn't flash or explode; it bled out from beneath your boots in a heavy, liquid wave that raced across the wet asphalt. It ignored Satoru, it ignored Megumi, and it flowed straight under the cracked foundation of the apartment complex, scaling the concrete stairs like a subterranean tide.

You didn't target the curse. You targeted the precise coordinate of the air surrounding the creature's core.

With a sharp, microscopic twitch of your index finger, you tightened the density of your lightless residue.

Inside the lobby, the air around the massive, fused curse instantly turned into a complete vacuum. The atomic glue holding the creature's synthesized cells together was violently uncoupled by the friction of your energy. There was no explosion, no theatrical spray of blood, and no impact.

Megumi watched, his eyes widening in absolute horror, as the massive, multi-limbed curse simply unwove in mid-air.

Its limbs, its eyes, and its heavy, gray hide instantly disintegrated into a weightless, fine gray ash that fell to the floorboards like a silent blanket of indoor snow. Nobara dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, her clothes completely clean. Yuji stood blinking in the dust, his fists still raised, looking around the empty lobby in total confusion.

The entire building stayed perfectly intact. Not a single pane of remaining glass broke. The structural integrity of the civilian architecture hadn't suffered a single micro-fracture—but the curse had been entirely erased from existence in less than a second, dismantled at a molecular level from twenty paces away.

The dark oil slid smoothly back across the asphalt, retreating into your skin until the air returned to its standard, humid morning temperature. Your face remained an unreadable mask of cold stone.

Megumi let his hands drop to his sides, his breath shallow as he looked at you. "What... what kind of technique is that?"

Beside him, Satoru stood entirely rigid. His hands were out of his pockets, his lips drawn into a thin, grim line. With the Six Eyes, he had seen the math behind what you had just done. You hadn't used a crude explosion of power; you had performed surgery on the fundamental layout of the space inside that lobby, filtering out the curse's specific biological frequency while leaving the students and the building completely untouched.

It was an absolute, flawless display of perfect control.

You turned your back on the building, your boots clicking cleanly against the wet pavement as you walked toward the perimeter edge without waiting for the kids to come out.

"Tell the higher-ups my evaluation is finished," you thrown over your shoulder, your voice cutting through the cold drizzle. "Have my train ticket to Chiba ready by dawn tomorrow, Satoru. I’m done babysitting."

Gojo didn't answer. He stayed exactly where he was, his blindfold fixed on your retreating figure as the black dome of the veil began to dissolve above, letting the cold morning light bleed back over the fractured streets of Roppongi.

The anomaly had passed the test. And the old men in the executive suites no longer had an excuse to keep you in a cage.

Taglist:

You just sat there in your oversized, faded blue hospital gown, looking small and fragile as your confused gaze met his. The man froze, roughly brushing a strand of pink hair out of his face. His clothes were covered in a layer of grey dust and dried grit, looking as though he had sprinted straight off a construction site the second he got the news.

"Fucking... God. Hey, princess... fuck, don't you ever scare me like that again" he breathed, his deep, gravelly voice cracking as he took two massive strides toward your bedside, staring down at you with a desperation that made the air feel heavy.

You shrank back into the pillows, your brow furrowing. Princess? Were you in some bizarre historical simulation? Did kings and horses still exist? No, the blinking medical monitors around you disproved that immediately.

"Mr. Sukuna, please. I need to speak with you in private for a moment" a woman in her mid forties interrupted, her expression incredibly grave as she stepped between you and the huge man. She glanced at the other people lingering by the door. There was a teenage boy, maybe sixteen, who had the exact same pink hair as the tattooed man, his face streaked with tears. Beside him stood another boy with unruly, spiky black hair and a dull, stoic expression that couldn't quite hide the anxiety in his eyes. At the doctor's quiet command, they all slowly filed out into the hallway.

Left alone for a moment, you stared at the stark white walls, the untouched glass of water on the bedside table, and the crushing, dull monotony of the room.

When the door clicked open again, the female physician returned, holding a thick medical chart. The tattooed man followed closely behind her. He tried to offer you a small, reassuring smile, but it looked incredibly strained on his rugged face. His crimson eyes locked onto you, tracking every breath you took as if you might literally vanish into thin air if he dared to look away for a single second.

"Hello, y/n. I am Dr. Jennifer" the woman said kindly, stepping up to the mattress. "Do you know why you were brought here today?"

You frowned, looking between her and the towering man. "No."

The syllable was short and hollow. Beside the doctor, Sukuna’s entire frame stiffened. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered violently beneath his tattoos, his knuckles turning white as he balled his hands into fists.

"Right. But you do remember your name?" she pressed gently.

"Yes... y/n I am Y/N." you answered firmly. You knew the name belonged to you, even if the history attached to it was completely gone.

"And do you know where you are right now?"

"A hospital?"

"Correct" Dr. Jennifer nodded, opening the document in her hands. "Look, I am going to explain exactly what happened, and I need you to listen very carefully, alright?" You gave a small, hesitant nod. "You were in a severe accident yesterday evening. You were walking home from the local market when a car veered off the road and hit you. It is a miracle you walked away with minor physical injuries, but the trauma to your head has caused a severe case of retrograde amnesia. Honestly, it's a surprise you even remember your name right now."

You let out a quiet hum, your eyes drifting down to your own hands resting on the thin blanket. That was when you noticed it a slender, platinum band set with a brilliant, flawlessly cut diamond resting securely on your left ring finger. It looked incredibly expensive, classy, and entirely foreign

So you were married.

"Y/n" Dr. Jennifer’s voice pulled you from your thoughts. You snapped your head up to look at her. "This man standing beside me... he is your husband."

The doctor tilted her head toward the giant. He was massive easily over six feet of raw, intimidating muscle, his tattooed face giving him a terrifying, dangerous aura. Your very first instinctual thought was that this man looked incredibly scary.

Sukuna didn't say a word. He just stood there, letting you analyze him, before he offered you a tiny, incredibly vulnerable nod. You tilted your head, staring into his intense red eyes, desperately searching for a single spark of familiarity. Did I really marry this giant?

"His name is Ryomen Sukuna, and he is going to take care of you" the doctor continued, closing her chart. "For the next few weeks, you need to let your brain rest, but you also need to gently stimulate it to try and regain those lost memories. Spending time in a familiar environment, in your own home with your husband, is going to be the best medicine for you."

You nodded mutely. You didn't exactly have a choice. You were being handed over to a complete stranger who happened to hold a legal claim to your entire life.

"Alright then. I wish you a safe and speedy recovery" Dr. Jennifer said with a final, empathetic smile before slipping out of the room.

The heavy silence that followed was suffocating. Sukuna cleared his throat roughly, taking a few slow, tentative steps toward the edge of your bed. He moved with an immense amount of caution, as if he genuinely believed a sudden movement might break you into pieces. He pulled up the small plastic chair, sinking into it.

"Hey" he said softly. Even in a whisper, his voice was incredibly manly, deep, and rough.

"Hello" you replied shortly, your eyes tracking his hands.

To your surprise, his large, scarred fingers were trembling slightly as he fidgeted with them, refusing to meet your eyes. When he finally looked up, you realized the piercing red of his irises was completely glossy, swimming with unshed tears.

"Yo... you're getting discharged today" he choked out, taking a deep, ragged breath as if the mere act of speaking was causing him physical pain. "I'm going to go sign the paperwork, and then I'm taking you to... our house. I'm going to do whatever the fuck it takes to help you remember, princess."

You stared at his rugged, tattooed face for a long moment before letting out a soft, distant hum.

An hour later, you were sitting in the passenger seat of a sleek, black Jeep, The man Sukuna kept his left hand firmly on the steering wheel while his eyes flicked toward you every sixty seconds, his intense gaze making a nervous flutter erupt in your stomach.

You stared out the window, watching the city buildings, sprawling neighborhoods, and vibrant green trees blur past. Intrigued by the warm breeze, you raised your hand, pressing your palm gently against the glass as if you wanted to touch the passing leaves. Instantly, the window smoothly rolled down. Startled, you turned your head to find Sukuna adjusting the master controls, his eyes locked onto you with an unreadable warmth.

"Can I ask you something-" you murmured softly.

"Yes." The answer came incredibly fast, almost desperate. He was hanging on your every word, practically begging for you to speak to him.

"How... how did we meet?" you asked, leaning your elbow on the door frame as the wind whipped through your hair.

"We met in high school" he answered quickly, navigating a sharp turn onto a quiet, "We've been married for seven years."

"High school?" You tilted your head, a faint smile touching your lips as you extended your hand just slightly out into the rushing air. "Were we friends back then?"

"Careful" he commanded firmly, though there was no real heat in his voice. You obediently pulled your hand back inside. A faint, nostalgic softness crept into his red eyes as he looked ahead. "Friends? no. You could say we didn't liked eachother each other when we first met. You thought I was a loud, arrogant mannerless jerk and I thought you were a stubborn, bossy brat."

He smoothly pulled the Jeep into a long brick driveway, coming to a stop in front of a breathtaking, modern two story house. It was painted a crisp, elegant white with sleek charcoal-grey accents, boasting massive, floor to ceiling windows that caught the afternoon sun.

"This is...our house" Sukuna murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "We've been living here for about four years."

He killed the engine, threw his door open, and practically sprinted around the hood of the car to open your door before you could even reach for the handle. He extended a massive, tattooed hand toward you, his palm open and waiting. You stared at his hand, your eyes traveling up the thick muscles of his forearm, before you deliberately stepped down onto the driveway without taking it.

Sukuna’s hand froze in mid-air. You watched his fingers slowly curl back into a fist before he pulled his arm away, a flash of pure, agonizing heartbreak crossing his features before he quickly masked it with a stoic expression.

As your feet hit the pavement, you looked up at the towering structure, desperately begging your brain to spark even a single ounce of familiarity. Nothing came. But as you turned around, you caught a glimpse of the man standing beside you. He was on the absolute verge of tears. His chest was tight, his jaw locked as he stared at you. You were his entire world, his beautiful wife, and yet you were looking at him like he was a total stranger. He suddenly felt a wave of profound hatred for every single time he had ever been mean or stubborn with you in the past, even in jest. He just wanted his girl back. His sweet innocent girl.

"The house is beautiful" you murmured gently, walking toward the porch.

'The house.' Not our house. The detached wording made Sukuna’s jaw clench painfully.

"Of course it is. I built the damn thing" he muttered, following closely behind you.

It was your exact dream house. Years ago, back when you were just broke college students dating in a cramped apartment, you had traced a clumsy design on a napkin, telling him you wanted a modern white house with endless windows, three bedrooms, and a kitchen large enough for the two of you to bake and slow-dance together while listening to old jazz records. Sukuna had kept that napkin. The moment he made his fortune, he hired a crew but did the vast majority of the heavy structural work with his own two hands. He had gifted you the keys on your third wedding anniversary, and he could still vividly remember the way you had wept tears of joy, throwing your arms around his neck and kissing him until you were both breathless. He wanted that smile back. He would give anything just to have you look at him the way you used to.

You stepped inside, ignoring the heavy emotion rolling off him. Sukuna quickly gathered your small hospital bags and followed you into the foyer, shutting the door behind him.

Your eyes immediately gravitated toward the kitchen. It was vast, open, and undeniably stunning, featuring a massive quartz island and a huge sliding glass door that opened directly into a manicured backyard garden. The entire layout felt strangely perfect.

"Let me show you... around" Sukuna offered quietly.

He spent the next half hour guiding you through the corridors of what was supposed to be your life. But as he showed you the grand master bedroompointing out the side of the bed where you used to curl into his chest every single night your face remained entirely blank. You felt a twinge of heavy guilt pooling in your stomach. He showed you the living room, drawing your attention to a collection of large, breathtaking canvas paintings hanging on the walls.

"You painted those" Sukuna noted, a faint trace of pride in his rough voice. "You're a brilliant artist, princess."

You blinked in genuine surprise, looking down at your hands. "I drew these?" You were suprised, you don't even remember touching a brush in your life. But this is your new life. New start.

"Yeah." Sukuna stopped at the edge of the hallway, looking down at you with completely bloodshot eyes. He hadn't slept a single second since the hospital called him about your accident. All he wanted to do was wrap his massive arms around your waist, pull you flush against his chest, and bury his face in your hair until the nightmare ended. But he couldn't. "Look... you can sleep in the guest bedroom down the hall, or you can take our bedroom and I'll stay in the guest room. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable you."

"Okay" you hummed softly.

His heart broke a little more at the compliant, distant tone. "I'll go start on some dinner, and then I'll get your medication ready. If you need a single damn thing, you just call out for me, alright? Your clothes are all in the dresser, undergarments in the top drawer, pajamas in the second..."

You nodded, offering him a polite murmur of thanks before retreating into the guest room. You changed into a simple, comfortable t-shirt and sweats. A little while later, his deep voice echoed up the stairs, announcing that dinner was ready. You walked down to the dining room, sitting at the large table like a polite houseguest waiting to be served.

"Do you need help?" Sukuna asked, carefully sliding a steaming bowl of homemade chicken soup and a large spoon toward you. You shook your head, grasping the utensil and taking a quiet sip. He sat across from you, his own bowl entirely untouched as he just stared at your face. "Y/n... you really don't remember a single damn thing about me?"

His voice cracked completely on the last word, the raw vulnerability of a ruthless man exposed right in front of you. You looked up, meeting his glossy red eyes.

"No... I don't. I'm really sorry" you whispered genuinely.

He let out a slow nod, swallowing the lump in his throat as he forced himself to look away. "Don't apologize. It's not your fault."

"Do I... do I have parents? Or friends?" you asked, a sudden curiosity about your own forgotten life bubbling up.

"Yeah. You have parents. Your father—"

"Where are they?" you interrupted quickly, leaning forward. "Do they know I was in an accident? Why aren't they here?"

"They haven't spoken to you in over seven years. Not since the day you married me" Sukuna said, his tone dropping into something cold and bitter.

"Why?"

"Your family is rich as fuck. Extremely strict, arrogant aristocrats" Sukuna explained, his red eyes locking back onto yours. "They completely forbade you from seeing me because I was just a rough, tattooed bastard from the wrong side of the tracks with a criminal record and a unstable future. They told you that if you walked out that door with me, you’d be cut off permanently."

You stared at him, a sudden spark of heat flaring in your chest. "Well, that's so stupid of them. It sounds like a good thing we don't talk to them then."

The sheer, unyielding loyalty in your voice made Sukuna’s lips twitch, a genuine, heartbreaking smile threatening to break through his stoic mask. Even with a wiped memory, his sweet wife still possessed that exact same fiery, protective spirit.

"Yeah" he chuckled hoarsely, letting out a long sigh. "You have an incredible best friend named Shoko. You two are both doctors. you work in the exact same surgical unit at the city hospital. We have a ton of mutual friends we met back in our high school days. And those kids at the hospital? The pink-haired teenager is my nephew, Yuji, and the dark-haired one is Megumi, our friend's kid. They practically worship the ground you walk on, princess. You love those brats to death."

"Can I see them?" you asked, a genuine smile finally breaking across your face.

"Of course. Whenever you want." he promised, his eyes tracking the way your lips curved.

"How old are you, anyway?"

"I'm thirty two. You're thirty" Sukuna answered smoothly.

"Wow. So we're getting old," you teased gently.

Sukuna let out a sudden, rough snort, a wicked glint flashing in his eyes. "Old or not, woman... you're still completely breathtaking."

A deep, violent blush instantly stained your cheeks. You hadn't been around an attractive man or any man, for that matter in your conscious memory, and having this giant, dangerously handsome individual throw such a raw compliment at you made your heart do a chaotic somersault. You quickly looked down at your soup, missing the way his eyes softened at your reaction.

Over the next three weeks, the fragments of a life began to surround you, even if the puzzle pieces wouldn't quite lock into place.

Yuji and Megumi came over to the house constantly. Yuji spent hours enthusiastically teaching you how to make his signature protein shakes and weird jello molds, his loud laughter filling the quiet house, while Megumi sat nearby with his usual serious expression. But the moment you offered Megumi a soft, encouraging smile, his sharp features would instantly melt into something deeply tender. Yet, beneath their smiles, you could see the underlying sadness in their eyes every time you failed to remember a shared inside joke.

When Shoko finally visited, she broke down completely, throwing her arms around your neck and sobbing into your shoulder. It was a bizarre maybe stupid too, overwhelming feeling being fiercely loved by people you couldn't even remember and a heavy weight of guilt began to settle deep in your chest. You even met Toji, Megumi's father, a tall, stoic man who didn't say much but looked at you with a quiet, profound pity that made you realize just how broken your situation truly was.

And then, there was Sukuna.

Your husband spent every single day patiently guiding you through your routines, driving you past your old university, cooking your favorite meals, and trying every gentle trigger possible. But your mind remained a stubborn, locked vault. Sukuna was growing desperate furious and completely fucked up by the stagnation.

To make matters worse, just one week before the accident, you had playfully taken down every single one of your framed marriage photographs to rearrange the living room gallery wall, hiding them away in a "genius spot" that Sukuna had completely forgotten more like you didn't even told him. He had spent hours frantically tearing the house apart while you were out, searching for a single modern photo of the two of you together.

He was completely unraveling. He couldn't sleep. The woman he loved was sleeping in the room next to him, yet she looked at him with the polite, distant eyes of a stranger. He felt like a ghost haunting his own home. One evening, he sat alone in the dark kitchen and wept the third time he had ever cried in his entire life. The first had been tears of pure joy on your wedding day when he saw you walking the aisle. the second had been out of terror when the ER doctor told him a car had struck you. and now, he was crying simply because he missed his wife so damn much

His phone offered no help either. his gallery was filled entirely with candid photos he had taken of you you stepping out of the shower with a towel wrapped around your head, you laughing in a department store dressing room, or a hilarious picture of you biting into a raw lemon and making a completely disgusted face. He had no photos of the two of you together on his device, you had always been the one insisted on keeping the physical, printed albums. The only joint photos he could find were a few faded, wrinkled prints from your high school days, showing a younger, wilder version of himself wrapping his arms around you from behind while you laughed into the camera. When he showed them to you, you just stared at them blankly. It was killing him.

At the end of the third week, Sukuna was sitting heavily on the living room sofa, completely exhausted after another failed search through the house. He was mindlessly scrolling through the candid photos of you on his phone, a faint, melancholy smile touching his lips. His fingers traced your face on the photo, your bright smile. your bubbly laughter at his most unfunniset jokes, now all of that are vanished.

The heavy front door clicked open. Shoko had taken you out for an afternoon of shopping to get you out of the house, and she had just dropped you off at the curb. You stepped into the foyer, balancing several shopping bags in your arms.

Sukuna instantly locked his phone, shoving it into his pocket as he stood up, his red eyes drinking in the sight of you. "Had fun, princess?"

"Yes, I did. And thank you... for letting me use your credit card" you said softly, walking over to the coffee table and gently sliding the black card back toward him.

"You bought dresses?" he asked, pointing toward the bags. Honestly, he didn't give a single fuck about the money. you could have emptied his entire bank account and he would have gladly signed it away just to see you happy.

"I bought a few things..." You cleared your throat nervously, your fingers twisting together. "But... I actually bought something for you, too."

The words hit his chest like a physical blow. Even with her mind completely wiped, your beautiful, kind soul was still looking out for him. "Really?" he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "Can I see it?"

You gave a small nod, walking over to the couch and tentatively sitting down right next to him. The close proximity made his heart start to hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"I don't know if it's really your style, or if you'll even like it..." you mumbled bashfully, reaching into a small velvet pouch and pulling out a heavy, intricately braided silver bracelet studded with raw, brilliant red stones. "The color... it just immediately reminded me of you. Of your eyes."

You gently reached out, grasping his massive, calloused wrist to drape the metal over his skin. Oh God, if you only knew how fast his heart was racing beneath his chest. Your soft, warm fingers lingering against his pulse point was pure, exquisite torture.

"It looks incredible, Y/n. Thank you." he whispered, a genuine, breathtakingly soft smile spreading across his tattooed face as he looked down at the crimson stones.

"Thank you... for being so incredibly patient with me" you said quietly, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

Sukuna let out a long, ragged sigh, his hand hovering over yours for a fraction of a second before he pulled back. "I will always be patient with you, princess. Always."

You looked directly into his burning red eyes, and for the first time in three weeks, a warm, genuine smile broke across your face. Sukuna felt his breath hitch. he was entirely certain he was about to pass out from the sheer weight of his love for you.

"Can you stay right here for a bit? I need to go jump in the shower real quick. I'll be fast" he muttered hoarsely, his hand instinctively reaching out to gently ruffle your hair a comforting, domestic habit he had carefully maintained. You let out a soft chuckle at the gesture.

The moment his heavy footsteps disappeared up the stairs and the sound of running water echoed through the pipes, you stood up, wandering aimlessly around the quiet main floor. Your feet pulled you toward the small, cozy library nestled just off the living room. The walls were lined with hundreds of books some ancient leather volumes, others modern art textbooks. You pulled one off the shelf, flipping through the pages before sliding it back into place.

As you stepped back, your eyes caught a glimpse of something hidden on the absolute highest shelf, shoved far back into the shadows near the ceiling. It looked like a massive, heavy frame leaning flat against the back wall, obscured by a decorative ceramic vase. Intrigued, you stood on your tiptoes, stretching your arms up as high as they could go, blindly reaching for the top edge of the wooden frame.

Your fingers caught the molding, but as you pulled, the heavy ceramic vase shifted, losing its balance.

Crash!

The vase shattered against the hardwood floor with a deafening, echoing smash. Startled, you let out a sharp cry, stumbling backward as the massive hidden frame came tumbling down from the top shelf, striking the edge of the desk before landing flat on the rug. The backing of the frame split completely open upon impact, and a massive cascade of loose, glossy photographs erupted across the floor hundreds of them, scattering like playing cards across the room.

You gasped, placing a hand over your racing heart as you looked away from the broken pottery, your eyes drifting down to the sea of images covering the floor.

You froze.

Right at your feet lay a massive, professionally printed portrait. In the photograph, you were sitting securely on Sukuna's lap. You were wearing a breathtaking, flowing white lace wedding dress, holding a vibrant bouquet of sunflowers, and laughing so brightly your eyes were crinkled shut. Sukuna was clad in a sharp, tailored black tuxedo, his massive arms wrapped fiercely around your waist from behind, an absolutely massive, unbothered, triumphant grin plastered across his face.

Your breath hitched violently. You stumbled forward, falling to your knees as your hands frantically snatched up another photo from the pile. In this one, you were hoisted high up on Sukuna's broad shoulders at a crowded, flashing outdoor music festival; your mouth was wide open in a breathless scream of laughter, while his large hands were clamped firmly around your thighs to keep you safe, both of your faces painted with pure, unadulterated euphoria.

You grabbed a third photo, and the entire world stopped spinning. It was a quiet, intimate shot taken right in the backyard garden outside. You were sitting cross-legged on the green grass, wearing a simple summer dress with a soft, shy smile, while Sukuna’s heavy head was resting completely in your lap. He was looking up at you with an expression of such pure, unconditional adoration it made your soul ache, while your fingers were woven gently through his soft pink hair.

Pink hair.

The backyard.

The jazz music.

The napkin.

A sudden, violent explosion of memories ripped through the barriers of your mind. It wasn't a trickle; it was a catastrophic, roaring tidal wave. Seven years of laughter, fierce arguments, passionate late-night apologies, the smell of his skin, the exact weight of his body pressing you into the master mattress, the sound of his deep voice whispering "I've got you, princess" into the dark. It all hit your brain at once with the force of a freight train.

The sheer, overwhelming velocity of the memories made the room spin violently. Your vision blurred into a vortex of white light and crimson eyes. You let out a choked gasp, your strength entirely giving out as your body collapsed sideways onto the hardwood floor with a loud, heavy thud, the scattered photographs of your life pooling around your unconscious form.

When you finally opened your eyes again, the harsh glare of the ceiling lights was gone, replaced by the warm, dim ambiance of the living room. You were laying flat on the soft fabric of the sofa.

"She's waking up! Sukuna, look, her eyes are moving!" Yuji’s panicked, loud voice cut through the quiet room.

You blinked heavily, your vision slowly focusing. Megumi was standing right beside his cousin, his dark eyes wide and completely swimming with anxiety. Shoko was hovering over you, a small medical flashlight in her hand, her face pale as she checked your vitals.

But your heart didn't care about any of them. Your eyes frantically scanned the tight circle of people, instantly landing on the massive, tattooed man standing frozen at the foot of the couch. His pastel pink hair was damp from the shower, his chest heaving under a plain black t-shirt, and his face was a mask of pure, absolute terror.

As your eyes met his, a single, heavy tear spilled over your eyelid, tracing a hot path down your cheek. The vast, terrifying void in your mind was completely gone, replaced by the roaring, beautiful fire of your reality.

"Ryo..." you choked out, your voice a broken, breathless sob.

Sukuna froze, his entire frame visibly violently shuddering at the sound of the nickname the private, intimate name only you were ever allowed to call him.

Before anyone else could even blink, you threw yourself forward off the sofa cushions, completely ignoring the dull ache in your muscles. You lunged straight into his space, your arms wrapping fiercely around his massive neck. You buried your face in the crook of his collarbone, gripping the fabric of his shirt with a desperate, white-knuckled intensity as you pressed a hard, crying kiss directly against his tattooed jaw.

"I remember... us" you sobbed violently into his skin, your entire body trembling as the tears flowed freely. "I remember everything, Ryo... I remember you."

Sukuna’s mind completely blanked. For a single, breathless second, he couldn't even process the words. And then, a raw, ragged sound escaped his throat a mixture of a sob and a laugh. His massive, powerful arms came crashing down around your frame, pulling you so close against his chest you could barely breathe, lifting your knees entirely off the floor as he buried his face into the crook of your neck.

And there, in the middle of his living room, surrounded by his family and the scattered photographs of your love, Ryomen Sukuna closed his eyes and wept for the fourth time in his life.

"I fucking love you" he whispers

Suguru was supposed to stop by tonight. However, he had to take care of his "nuisance," as he called his wife. A rather bitter claim, considering the way he'd held you against his chest earlier, his arms wound around you, gentle yet trapping all the same. Keeping you there as Satoru sat beneath your exposed slit. Panties had become a clothing option removed around year three or four, and he tentatively lapped at your juices while Suguru's fingers brushed through your hair. You could still hear his voice, soft and warm despite the cruelty hidden beneath. A thick finger had tilted your chin upward until your weary, blissed-out gaze met his half-lidded violet one.

"If I could stay here with you all day, I would, but duty calls, my dove."

You only wished you were the bird he claimed you to be. At least then you would have wings. The horizon would belong to you instead of them. A treat to imagine sometimes, usually on nights when sleep refused to come despite the drugs in your system fighting for your body to rest. Endless skies painted in baby blues and golden rays. Freedom so vast it hollowed your chest with longing. Anything would be better than a cage, even an endless sleep.

You supposed it was a mercy that Suguru wasn't here tonight. No risk of being dragged from your crate and into their bed in the dead hours of the morning. No Satoru burying his face against your throat, his voice dissolving into desperate little whimpers as he begged you not to leave him with his cock nestled deep inside you. Sometimes you wondered if he was searching for the woman he had once loved. Not you. Not the person you'd become after your wedding night, after discovering what kind of monster you had married.

You should have run. Should have thrown yourself from the hotel balcony and trusted the pavement more than the man waiting at the end of the aisle. Instead, you stayed. Or perhaps you were simply too pathetic to leap.

The beeping continued as your thoughts drifted through a haze of exhaustion. When you stirred again, your mouth felt stuffed with cotton. Satoru must have put too much in your kibble last night. Yet something felt off. After seven years of hell, one learned to recognize the smallest inconsistencies. You couldn't taste the lingering graininess. Nor the taste of the chalky bitterness of crushed multivitamins. All you could hear was that soft, rhythmic beep from a machine nearby.

For a moment, you wondered if you'd finally gone mad. Perhaps this was what happened when a bird spent too long in a cage.

Then other sounds emerged from the fog.

Voices. Footsteps. The distant murmur of nurses drifting through a hallway.

Your eyes fluttered open.

Fluorescent lights glared overhead, nothing like the perpetual twilight of the basement you'd come to know so intimately. Beneath you was not the cold metal flooring of the crate but the soft embrace of a mattress, swallowing you in warmth, like Suguru's waiting arms. The air smelled sterile and clean, yet beneath the antiseptic lingered the overwhelming fragrance of flowers. Bouquets crowded every available surface, vibrant bursts of life pressed into a room that felt strangely unreal.

A hospital.

Before you could fully process the realization, another sound reached you. Familiar footsteps.

"Visiting hours are over, Satoru!" a nurse called after him, irritation dripping off the tongue. You wished you could tell her not to waste the effort.

You could practically picture the careless shrug he'd offer in response. The charming smile. The complete disregard for rules that were never meant for men like him. Because knowing Satoru, he probably brushed right past her without a second glance. And knowing Satoru, he probably believed he owned the place.

Perhaps he did.

The Gojo family owned enough of the city to make the distinction meaningless. And Satoru Gojo sat comfortably at the center of it all.

You squeezed your eyes shut, counting sheep in an attempt to calm your racing heart. One. Two. Three. Anything to avoid confronting whatever strange dream this was. A hospital? Had you done something in your sleep?

The click of the door interrupted your counting. You stumbled somewhere between sheep twenty-three and twenty-seven. You'd have to start over. Ever the nuisance, Satoru somehow managed to invade even your sheep counting.

"Hey, baby."

Your ears perked at the softness in his voice. You'd grown so accustomed to his exaggerated baby-talk over the years that normal speech sounded almost foreign coming from him.

"I brought you more flowers. I don't want you to miss a year of us together. Happy year three."

You heard the quiet clack of a vase settling onto what little space remained. A moment later, the mattress dipped beside you. A careful gesture, as if the bed might break from his presence. Or you might too. An arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you close, mindful of IV lines and wires. You felt him shake. Once. Twice. Almost in time with your counting of sheep. Maybe he knew you were awake. Maybe he thought enough comfort might coax you back to him. A moment later, something warm dampened your hairline.

Tears.

You refused to process them. Satoru had cried before. Thrown tantrums. Pouted. Begged. Sulked when you forced yourself behind the couch, and he could no longer reach you, forcing him to call for Suguru to deal a punishment. This type of tear was different, far more raw than the version you've seen. As if you'd taken a beak to his ribs and pecked straight through his heart, splitting it open just for you.

"Suguru says it's time to move on. Says you and I were only arranged, that I shouldn't have gotten so attached."

Silence settled between you, and despite everything, your chest loosened.

You hated that it did.

Hated that hearing his voice still felt like coming home. How your body relaxed into him. As if some part of you recognized him as safety.

When he was the reason you needed saving.

You tried to remember the bites, the bruises, the cage, the crate, the years. You tried to remember every violation against your human rights disguised as affection, everything that should have filled you with disgust. Yet all you could feel was the way he clung to you now. Broken. Loving.

His face nuzzled against your temple. Wet kisses pressed against your skin, not heated and open-mouthed like usual, but damp from the tears spilling freely down his cheeks. You could almost picture those impossibly blue eyes glistening.

Maybe it had all been a nightmare.

A horrible, twisted nightmare.

"Suguru says we'll get rid of the crate," he whispered, his voice cracking as his lanky body trembled beside you. "If you come home with us."

The words shattered the fragile hope forming inside your chest.

If it had all been a nightmare, then why did he know about the crate?

And why would you trust a man like him?

The street outside the frat house was overall chill. Only a low and distant bass, and the occasional burst of laughter that spilled from an open window disrupted the silence of the evening. 

Gojo was on his new bike, pretending to adjust something that didn’t need adjusting anymore. He had been like that for 10 minutes, smiling from ear to ear at every small memory of the previous day. And also, because he genuinely liked this new motorbike. He had never thought he’d love one so much, that he’d be so thrilled and proud of it. Though he knew the reason why he liked it as much was because she had been a part of the whole buying it process.

He knew he had to go in at some point. But going upstairs meant sitting alone with his thoughts. And lately, all his thoughts somehow led back to her: the way she had frowned at the price tags, the way she had called him stupid for choosing a bike too heavy for a beginner, the way she still stayed for hours helping him anyway, how she laughed with him by the end of the day… His chest still felt embarrassingly warm from it.

Behind him, Sukuna leaned against the railing of the frat house, cigarette between his fingers.

“You downgraded already?” he finally spoke, walking down the entrance stairs and throwing his finished cigarette “Or did you finally crashed it?” he smirked a toothy grin as he walked towards his bike. But Gojo didn’t seem bothered, and Sukuna noticed. In fact, he even smiled, running his hand through the tank of his Yamaha. And the reason why he didn’t care was that:

“She helped me pick it,” 

The second the words left Gojo’s mouth, he regretted them. But he didn’t correct himself. 

“You’re really down bad, wow” Sukuna said, half amused, half sour. Gojo rolled his eyes automatically.

“As if that’s news”

“No,” Sukuna replied calmly “I just didn’t think you were this pathetic about it” Gojo scoffed, but there wasn’t much bite behind it. And Sukuna kept going after a long second of inspecting the white-haired boy “She says your name now,”

That made Gojo snap his gaze to his side, to Sukuna.

“What?” He asked, his heart stupidly quickening even though he wasn’t even sure what he meant by that. Sukuna didn’t look at him, instead his eyes seemed lost somewhere ahead of him as he rested leisurely on his bike, arms on his helmet that rested on the tank. One foot on the footpeg, the other one on the asphalt. 

“She used to call you ‘that asshole’” Sukuna shrugged lightly “‘that idiot,” he added, imitating her tone almost mockingly. But that wasn’t his real intention.

And stupidly, warmth bloomed in Gojo’s chest for another second before he could stop it. A warmth that would no doubt travel to his cheeks and ears. And, of course, Sukuna noticed from the corner of his eyes.

“Bet she was all focused and bossy helping you pick the bike too”

Gojo frowned slightly, now realizing this was Sukuna, and thus becoming more wary.

“What’s that supposed to mean”

Sukuna’s mouth twitched faintly.

“You like that about her, don’t you?”

And Gojo hated that he was right, because he did. He liked the way she ordered him around, the way she rolled her eyes, the way she acted like she knew better than him. The way she’d smile at him like she had started to do lately, or the way she shook her head like he was a lost case but still stayed with him. He liked every awful second of it.

Then Sukuna spoke again, quietly and eyes still ahead of them as if he was contemplating something. Or from his next words, as if he was picturing it vividly.

“You’d lose your mind if you saw her embarrassed after sex,” And then silence, immediate and deafening. Gojo felt his stomach twist. Especially because Sukuna wasn’t smirking, he wasn’t bragging, that was the worst part. Instead, he sounded honest “It’s weird,” he continued casually “Sometimes she’s all mean and bossy” Then his eyes finally slid toward Gojo “And sometimes she’s begging and falling apart”

Gojo’s jaw tightened instantly, but his mind betrayed him immediately. And he hated it. He hated Sukuna for saying it and hated himself more for imagining it. But Sukuna just kept going like this conversation meant nothing, eyes set ahead of them again.

“She scratches a lot when she’s close” Gojo stared at him now, brows straightening more and more “She bites too.”

Something ugly coiled in Gojo’s chest. Jealousy, sharp, hot and humiliating. Because suddenly, after how difficult it had been to forget it, all he could think about was her, close to someone else, to him, touching him and letting him see versions of her he had spent months trying to earn scraps of. And Sukuna knew exactly what he was doing now.

“She doesn’t even notice she’s doing it half the time,” he added.

Gojo looked away, his stomach turning even more. It felt unfair, pathetic, even. But he managed to laugh. Dry and fake.

“Congrats on having sex, man” He said, inevitably weakly. And he knew it sounded weak.

Sukuna’s mouth curved slightly at the corner. Not even smug, just knowing. Then he removed the kickstand of his bike and put on his helmet. Gojo looked up instinctively, frown still present. Sukuna  turned on his bike but just a second, eyes looking at his through the tainted glass of his visor. Long enough to watch the damage settle, to make sure Gojo was really imagining it. And then, he left, just like that.

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If Sukuna were asked how he would describe his oh-so-lovely girlfriend, he’d say you were difficult to deal with—stubborn, mouthy, irritating. A pain in his ass.

The funny thing was that if someone asked you the same question about him, your answer would be nearly identical. In fact, more than once, when Sukuna had lazily mentioned he couldn’t believe it had taken him almost two months to get you to agree to a date, you’d look him dead in the eye and say:

“This relationship isn’t exactly rainbows and sunshine, you know. Neither are you.”

He would only snort and roll his eyes at that.

Still, there were things Sukuna liked about you—things he’d never admit out loud.

Like the fact that you didn’t take shit from anyone. Not coworkers, not strangers, and certainly not him. You didn’t bend yourself into something more agreeable, didn’t soften your opinions to spare feelings, didn’t smile when you were angry or pretend to agree when you didn’t.

However, the first thing he’d noticed about you—before you’d even properly spoken—was your ass. The curve of it in a pair of jeans that looked like they’d been designed by God himself, and the immediate, unhelpful thought that followed: how good you’d look bent over. Honestly, that alone was probably what made him approach you in the first place.

The second thing he learned, shortly after your brief introduction (which, in hindsight, barely counted as one), was that if something annoyed you, everyone knew about it. Most people learned that after one conversation and so did he, when you refused to entertain him for longer than three minutes.

A few months into the relationship—one he’d worked harder for than anything else in his life—Sukuna learned your warnings weren’t empty threats. When you said “don’t push me,” whether literally or metaphorically, you meant it. Unlike most people, you weren’t afraid of crossing lines.

You were perfectly willing to start a war over principle.

The first time he really understood that started with something stupid; something so small that absolutely should not have turned into a four-day argument.

At the time, you’d only been living together for about two weeks. The apartment still felt new—unpacked boxes shoved into corners, your books stacked on the floor because neither of you (mainly Sukuna, who had claimed the task) had bothered assembling the shelves. Half your clothes hung over chairs because putting them away required effort neither of you could be bothered to summon.

The day before, Sukuna had spent nearly twenty minutes talking about mochi.

Twenty. Entire. Minutes.

You hadn’t known a person could talk about mochi for that long. Apparently, they could, especially if that person was Sukuna.

“It was different,” he’d insisted, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Different how?” you asked.

“It just was.”

“Very descriptive,” you said dryly.

His eye twitched, but he kept going anyway. “The texture was perfect.”

“Fascinating,” you said, mock-gasping.

You were enjoying this far too much: for someone who claimed not to like sweets, Sukuna seemed oddly passionate about this specific dessert. That thought slipped out before you could stop it.

“You know, I didn’t realize you cared this much about mochi.”

His expression darkened immediately. “I don’t.”

“You’ve been talking about it for twenty minutes.”

You only grinned when the silence followed. Five full minutes of it because Sukuna knew that if he kept talking, he’d only prove your point.

Naturally, you couldn’t leave it alone.

“So they probably weren’t even that good.”

The reaction was instant. “What?”

You fought back a laugh. “I mean, they’re just mochi.”

“They were not just mochi.”

“Oh?” You smiled, victorious.

Sukuna narrowed his eyes, realizing you were doing this on purpose. You burst out laughing. His expression went flat.

He pushed off the counter, walked over, pressed a firm kiss to your temple, and mumbled a dry, “Goodnight,” before disappearing into the bedroom.

The next day, you decided to do something nice. Partly because you loved him. Partly because annoying him only worked when balanced with the occasional act of peace.

So you decided to make the famous mochi.

How hard could it be? The answer turned out to be: very. The dough stuck to everything. You nearly threw the entire batch into the trash twice. But somehow, after hours of trial and error, you managed to make it anyway.

By the time evening arrived, you had a container of mochi sitting proudly on the kitchen counter.

“Finally!” you beamed when Sukuna walked through the front door.

His gym bag hung from one shoulder, sweatpants riding low on his hips. A black compression shirt clung to his chest and arms, darkened with sweat from training. His pink hair was a mess, sticking out in different directions like he’d run a hand through it a dozen times on the way home.

The second he saw you, you practically bounced to your feet. Sukuna shot you a tired look.

“Miss me that much?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” The smile on your face completely ruined the insult.

He snorted and headed straight for the bedroom.

You rushed into the kitchen first, then followed him, slipping into the bathroom without thinking—where he was already halfway through pulling his shirt over his head. The sight caught you off guard. For a second, you just stood there, staring at the hard lines of his stomach before remembering why you were there in the first place.

“Look, ’Kuna.” You held out the container, excitement practically vibrating in your voice.

Sukuna glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to the sink.

Your smile faltered—just slightly. You waited.

Nothing.

No smirk. No teasing comment. Not even a proper look. Just a quiet grunt.

“…Well?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” You frowned. “The mochi.”

His eyes flicked to the container. “Looks fine.”

Just fine? You’d spent the entire day wrestling with sticky rice dough and nearly losing your sanity to powdered starch, and all he had to say was looks fine?

The excitement in your chest dimmed. Still, you swallowed the frustration down. Maybe he was exhausted, maybe training had been rough. Maybe he just needed five minutes to turn back into your annoyingly difficult but perfect boyfriend that loved you very much and liked paying attention to you.

“Try one after your shower.”

“Mm.”

You forced yourself not to roll your eyes—you hated how his communication sometimes reduced to random sounds, grunts, and half-finished sighs.

“It’s the same kind you wouldn’t shut up about.”

That finally got his attention. For a moment, it looked like he might actually try one right there and then. However, instead he frowned, eyebrows knitting together.

“Tsk. Can’t eat those. Cutting calories.”

Something in your chest snapped. You didn’t argue—didn’t raise your voice. You didn’t even give him the satisfaction of reacting. You’d already given him a chance to fix it. He didn’t.

So you stayed quiet.

He, on the other hand, decided you were done talking and stepped into the shower like nothing had happened.

Five minutes later, the mochi—and the entire container you hadn’t bothered taking them out of—hit the bottom of the trash with a dull thud.

You didn’t speak to him for four days afterward.

The second time Sukuna realized just how far you were willing to go when someone pushed your buttons came about a month later. By then, he’d already learned a few things about you. He knew that when you got quiet, he should probably start apologizing. He knew that when you crossed your arms and tilted your head, he was seconds away from hearing an opinion he wasn’t going to enjoy.

The problem was that Sukuna rarely listened when people told him what to do. Especially when annoying them was significantly more entertaining.

It started innocently enough. You were making dinner. Sukuna was being useless, which, in fairness, wasn’t unusual.

You stood at the counter, chopping vegetables, while he leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed over his chest, offering absolutely no assistance whatsoever.

“You’re cutting those uneven.”

“That one’s bigger than the others.”

“You should learn how to hold the knife better.”

You sighed, though it was clear you weren’t really mad. “Are you going to help, or are you going to stand there and criticize my cutting skills?”

“The second one.”

At first, the banter was pleasant. Easy. The kind of conversation that came from spending enough time around someone that silence never felt awkward. Then Sukuna spotted the bowl of freshly cut cucumber slices, and unfortunately for you, Sukuna possessed the emotional maturity of an overgrown child when he was bored.

A hand darted out. One slice disappeared.

Crunch.

You glanced over. He stared back innocently.

You narrowed your eyes, “Don’t.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

Another stolen slice, another crunch.

You pointed the knife at him. “Quit stealing.”

“No.” Sukuna smirked.

You exhaled slowly. Fine, whatever. You went back to chopping.

Thirty seconds later—crunch.

You turned your head to the side. Another cucumber slice was gone. You then moved your gaze to your boyfriend, who dared to grin at you like he’d done nothing wrong, like you hadn’t told him to stop already, several times.

You weren’t talking to him anymore, which should’ve been his first warning to quit. Instead, the smug bastard reached straight for the cutting board.

He only got away with it once more.

The next time his hand moved in, your head snapped toward him and the knife came down.

THUNK.

The blade embedded itself into the cutting board exactly where his fingertips had been less than a second earlier. He jerked his hand back instantly.

His red eyes flicked from the knife to his hand, then back to the knife. Slowly, then to you. He looked like he couldn’t believe you’d actually done it.

“…Are you insane?!”

You shrugged, “Told you to quit it.”

A lesser man wouldn’t have put up with you—not your temper, not your stubbornness, and certainly not your increasingly questionable methods of proving a point. Fortunately—or unfortunately—Sukuna wasn’t exactly normal either. If anything, he was just as bad. Maybe worse.

Like the time you gave him the silent treatment over something he considered completely insignificant. You considered it principle. He considered it stupid. The argument lasted all of ten minutes. Yet the aftermath lasted three days.

Normally, Sukuna would’ve waited you out. You were stubborn, but so was he. This time, though, he decided he was tired of being ignored. That should’ve worried you because whenever Sukuna got tired of something, he tended to fix it in the most ridiculous way possible.

It was late when he picked you up from a girls’ night out. You were still annoyed. Still refusing to speak to him. That didn’t stop you from getting into the car, though. After all, what else was a boyfriend you were actively ignoring supposed to be good for?

The first five minutes passed in silence.

The low hum of the engine filled the car. Streetlights flickered across the windows.

Sukuna drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Still mad?”

Not a word from you.

“That’s cute.”

You kept your gaze fixed out the window when he spoke again.

“You’re dragging this out.”

A quiet scoff was all he got in return.

He clicked his tongue. “Brat.”

Finally, you turned your head. Your eyes met his, sharp and unyielding. You held his gaze just long enough to make your point perfectly clear—you weren’t talking to him until he apologized properly. Then you looked away again.

The next time your eyes met, he didn’t look away.

The car kept moving. His hands stayed on the wheel. His foot remained on the gas. His eyes stayed entirely on you.

“I’m not looking away until you say something.”

Your gaze flicked briefly toward the windshield. The road ahead stretched dark and empty under scattered streetlights. Not another car in sight, but there was no way he was actually doing this.

He wasn’t that crazy. Right?

He had to be messing with you. Trying to provoke a reaction. Break your silence. You refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, you shrugged and looked back at him, silently daring him to follow through.

Sukuna’s stare didn’t waver, not even slightly. The bastard looked genuinely unhinged at this point—you weren’t even sure he was blinking.

Ten seconds passed.

Your lips pressed together harder.

A muscle ticked in his jaw.

His foot pressed a little further down on the gas.

The engine hummed louder.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel, keeping the car perfectly straight despite his complete refusal to look away.

You knew he knew this road. He drove it practically every day. You also knew he’d have to look away eventually. Nobody was stupid enough to keep this up forever. Then again—this was Sukuna. Stupidity fueled by spite was practically his specialty.

You weren’t scared in the slightest. The alcohol still buzzing pleasantly in your system dulled anything resembling self-preservation. But your heartbeat picked up anyway. However, not from fear. But from that sharp, familiar spark that always appeared when the two of you refused to yield. When neither of you was willing to lose. When common sense quietly left the room and stubbornness took over.

It was ridiculous.

Childish.

Dangerous.

Your legs pressed together almost unconsciously, and you shifted—subtly at first, then more deliberately. Sukuna noticed immediately when you started rubbing your thighs. His gaze dipped before it snapped back to your face, his mouth curling into a slow, infuriating grin—canines just barely showing.

He knew. Knew you were seconds away from breaking, whether that meant saying something first or doing something else entirely.

The tension in the car snapped like a wire pulled too tight. You couldn’t take it anymore. The air in the car felt thick, pressing against your skin, sticking your clothes to you in a way that suddenly felt unbearable, making you want to rip them off.

“Pull over,” you said. “Now.”

Sukuna didn’t need to be told twice.

The car jerked off the road, tires crunching over gravel as he brought it to a stop beneath a dim streetlight. The engine stayed running.

Neither of you moved. Just looked at each other. His smirk widened—barely contained, almost dangerous in how entertained he looked.

That was it.

You moved first.

Unbuckling your seatbelt in one sharp motion, you climbed over the center console and settled into his lap. His hands came to your waist immediately, like he’d been waiting for you to do exactly that; a low exhale left him, more amused than anything, as if you’d just confirmed every assumption he had about you.

Your skirt rode up as you shifted, straddling his thighs properly now, and Sukuna’s hands slid down without hesitation. Palms dragging along your bare legs before returning up, fingers digging into the soft flesh of your ass, tightening there like he was anchoring you in place.

You grabbed the back of his hair and pulled just enough to tilt his head toward you.

He didn’t resist.

The kiss came fast—impatient, heated, all lingering frustration and unresolved argument. When you pulled back slightly, you were still close enough to feel his warm breath against your mouth.

“You still owe me an apology,” you murmured.

Sukuna huffed a quiet laugh.

Your lips traveled down the side of his neck, teeth lightly sinking into the spot just above his collarbone that you knew made him squirm. You felt it— the slight shift in his grip. The way his fingers flexed like he was deciding whether to pull you closer or hold you still.

“Oh, don’t worry, brat,” he said, voice low as you moved your hips, grinding yourself against the tight stretch of his jeans. “You’ll get it.”

Your relationship with Sukuna was a constant push and pull.

Bad decisions layered over worse ones, like neither of you had ever learned what consequences were or maybe you just didn’t care enough to stop, because deep down there wasn’t much, if anything, that could make either of you walk away. You were head over heels for him, and he wasn’t much better—a man obsessed, because he’d found someone who could actually keep up with him.

It wasn’t healthy. Not even close. Any reasonable person would’ve packed their bags and disappeared a long time ago from a relationship like this. But nothing about the two of you had ever been reasonable or normal.

Somehow, every messed-up moment only seemed to pull you tighter together, like something neither of you could outrun even if you tried. Even when your plans—or his—backfired.

Like the time you got annoyed that he kept using your expensive hair products, so you replaced them with black dye. And when he realized you’d basically dyed his hair without permission? He didn’t get mad, didn’t even look annoyed. If anything, he looked pleased.

He ran a hand through his now black hair, checked himself in the mirror, then glanced at you with that same sharp, knowing look. He didn’t need to call you out. You both already knew you were responsible for this.

“Looks good.”

And, admittedly, it did. He looked good, but you missed the pink. Badly enough that you even offered to book him a salon appointment to fix it after a week of getting jumpscared every time he walked through the front door.

You still hadn’t fully adjusted to black hair being attached to your boyfriend.

He didn’t take you up on your salon suggestion. Instead, the moment his pink roots started growing in, he just buzzed it all off.

When you saw him come home that night, you were genuinely shocked. You weren’t the type to dictate how your boyfriend should look, but still—you told him that if he shaved his hair off again, you’d shave your eyebrows.

It was meant to sound like a threat. You were pretty sure you wouldn’t look great without them.

Sukuna looked at you for a second, then said you’d look “batshit insane.”

After a pause, added:

“Definitely hot, though.”

It was not often that Gojo Satoru had time to be bored.

Japan, unfortunately for him, was a thriving breeding ground for the very problems he was tasked with eradicating—like a wound that never quite closed, always reopening in new and unpleasant ways.

Autumn was the worst of season with the most work. The air turned damp and heavy, saturated with a quiet that clung to skin and seeped into bone. Curses bloomed like mould in forgotten corners, thriving where sunlight refused to linger.

The higher-ups issued assignments without pause, stacking them like cursed talismans on an altar that never stopped growing, never granting him even a moment to simply breathe. Meetings he was forced to attend dragged on interminably, though Satoru usually contributed nothing more than long legs stretched lazily across the table, a tilt of his head, theatrical sighs, and ill-timed commentary that earned him synchronized glares from every direction. . .

Gojo Satoru was constantly moving—whether from one mission to the next, or simply pacing from one side of a room to the other because stillness felt like a cage he refused to sit inside. He was everywhere he was needed, and nowhere he was wanted at the same time.

And yet, sometimes, between all of it—between exorcisms that left invisible stains of cursed energy, between paperwork he absolutely did not read and reports he absolutely did not write—silence settled.

Not the peaceful kind. Never the peaceful kind. It was a dangerous silence, the sort that did not soothe but sharpened. Because when Satoru was bored, his mind did not rest. It wandered. It prowled. It found loose threads and pulled until something unraveled.

Boredom, however fleeting, was always the birthplace of his worst ideas—the kind that arrived dressed as brilliance, glittering and certain, only to detonate spectacularly the moment he chose to act on them.

Ever since Itadori Yuji had stuffed one of Sukuna’s shrivelled fingers down his throat as though it were an expired protein bar rather than an ancient cursed relic, and subsequently enrolled at Jujutsu High, Satoru had been stretched thin in ways even he could not entirely ignore—though he would have insisted otherwise if asked.

He was constantly searching for the remaining fingers of Ryomen Sukuna—those ugly little relics of something that should have stayed dead and forgotten—so they could eventually be served to Yuji as his final “meal” before execution. Or rather, he pretended to search for them with the kind of theatrical diligence the higher-ups adored. They loved the illusion of effort.

And Gojo Satoru was nothing if not a performer.

Between that grand performance and the reports he never bothered to write after missions, he was regularly dispatched to exorcise Grade 1 and Special Grade curses, as though he were some divine exterminator on call. A god with a schedule. A weapon with appointment slots.

More than once, he considered not going—not out of fear, never that—but because the routine was beginning to feel like chewing the same flavorless candy until even the memory of sweetness had vanished.

It was not as though the higher-ups could truly punish him. What were they going to do—fire him? Execute him? The thought almost made him laugh out loud.

Sometimes, he entertained the idea of skipping missions purely to see how creative their threats might become. Or better yet, how desperately inventive they would grow when forced to reel him back in.

But he always went.

Because if he did not—if he refused the heavier assignments, the more dangerous ones—then they would simply be redirected elsewhere. Students like Megumi or Yuji would be sent in his place. It was no secret that, due to the chronic shortage of sorcerers, assignments were often mismatched in difficulty.

While Satoru was fond of his hands-on philosophy—throwing students into the fire and trusting they would learn not to burn—he was not heartless. His students were brilliant. They had him as a teacher, after all. But even brilliance could choke on something too large to swallow.

So he accepted every mission without much protest.

And it was after one of those last-minute “urgent” assignments in the city—where a curse tore through an abandoned bar like rot through wood—that Gojo Satoru encountered someone he had never expected to see again.

✧ ✧ ✧

The curse died the way all of them did when Satoru decided he was finished with it. One moment it was there—this swollen, half-aware mass of rotting limbs and stitched-together mouths—and the next, it simply wasn’t.

Satoru stepped out of the abandoned bar, hands buried in his pockets, posture loose enough to suggest he had just finished a casual errand rather than erasing something born from human despair.

Fresh air replaced the stench of rot.

The city carried on as if nothing had happened. Cars murmured in the distance. A vending machine clunked somewhere down the block. A drunk laughed too loudly outside a convenience store with a dying neon sign. Ordinary sounds, stitched together into an ordinary world that had no idea how close it had just come to being altered.

Satoru glanced around. He recognized this place. Too well, in fact. Megumi and Tsumiki used to live nearby. A lifetime ago, though it had not been nearly that long.

He checked the time. One hour before he was supposed to meet Megumi and Yuji to pick up their new classmate. Plenty of time.

Nostalgia tugged at him. Boredom followed immediately after. Before he could properly dismiss either, his feet moved on their own, not toward the station or back to the school, butt down streets he had not walked in years.

The city grew quieter here. Laundry swayed from balconies. Somewhere nearby, dinner simmered—garlic and oil drifting through open windows. Cicadas hummed lazily.

And then when he turned the corner, he saw you, sitting on what barely qualified as a balcony, more narrow ledge than anything else. The railing pressed lightly against your shoulder, chipped paint flaking under your sleeve. One leg tucked beneath you, the other angled loosely, a cup of tea balanced in your hand. Steam rose in fragile spirals, dissolving into the afternoon light.

Your other hand held your phone.

Your brows were drawn together. Your lip was caught between your teeth. Your eyes narrowed at the screen.

Sunlight spilled over you, softening everything it touched. For a moment, Satoru felt like he had wandered into a romance film that was trying a little too hard. All that was missing was slow piano music and a dramatic gust of wind that existed purely for symbolism.

You looked different. Older. Still beautiful, though.

You did not notice him, which was not surprising.

He stood at the far edge of the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, black blindfold stark against white hair, watching. Even if you glanced in his direction, he doubted you would have made him out clearly.

Satoru wondered, absently, whether face-to-face would change anything, whether you would remember him at all. He would not have called you a friend. Acquaintance, maybe. Even that felt stretched thin because he could easily count the conversations he had with you on one hand and still have fingers left over.

The first time he heard your name, it had come from Tsumiki. It had meant nothing then. Just noise in a life already crowded with obligations. A passing mention in a warm kitchen that smelled faintly of something baked.

“She’s really nice,” Tsumiki had said, as if that explained everything worth knowing.

You helped carry groceries upstairs when her bags were too heavy. You came back the next day with cookies.

After that first interaction, your presence had started to accumulate quietly around them. Not dramatic, just persistent, like warmth that refused to leave a room once it had entered.

You always appeared at Tsumiki and Megumi's door without warning. Said you had cooked too much breakfast. Or ordered too much food. Or simply did not like waste. Excuses that never sounded rehearsed. You knocked just to say hello sometimes. Asked if they were alright. If they needed anything. If they had eaten.

And more than once, Tsumiki had told Satoru—with quiet fondness—you offered to stop by a shop on your way home, just in case they needed groceries.

Satoru had only seen you a handful of times back then. The first had been a Saturday morning when he stayed over.

Sunlight had spilled across the apartment floor in lazy stripes. He, Tsumiki, and Megumi had been sitting in the living room when the knock came.

Tsumiki had lit up immediately.

“She always brings something she baked on Saturdays!”

Even Megumi had straightened, betraying the smallest flicker of anticipation he would never admit to.

Satoru, self-appointed responsible adult in the room, had gotten up first. Not because he needed to, but because curiosity had a way of pulling him forward before caution could catch up.

He had opened the door and there you were. Warm plate of cinnamon rolls balanced carefully in your hands. The glaze gleamed. Steam curled upward, carrying butter and spice.

For a full thirty seconds, Satoru had stared at the plate instead of you—his fingers had actually twitched, itching to snatch one of the rolls, but instead he forced himself to raise his gaze.

His first thought was that you were younger than expected you to be. His second was that you were exactly his type. His third thought never got the chance to fully form because the situation immediately started collapsing under its own awkward gravity.

From your perspective, a stranger had opened the door to the apartment where two children you cared about lived. Tsumiki had mentioned a guardian, but you had imagined someone older. Not a young man with snow-white hair, an unreadable grin, and eyes like they had stolen color from the sky itself.

You had frozen, trying, rapidly, to determine whether he was family, or safe, or neither. There was no resemblance between him and the children.

Your grip on the plate had tightened. So much so that, for a brief and alarming moment, you had looked like you might actually swing it at him. And you would have, too—probably—if Tsumiki had not stepped in just in time to prevent what would have gone down in history as Satoru Gojo’s most undignified possible death: by pastry.

You did not stay for tea that day, even though you usually did. That time, embarrassment had won. Especially after Satoru, far too pleased with himself, teased you about attempted assault with baked goods as if it were a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation.

Before you left, he had given you his number.

Back then, Satoru avoided relationships. He was young, reckless, and allergic to commitment. More of a fuck-and-dip type of guy. He knew he would have treated you the same way, carelessly, and that definitely would have ruined the fragile connection between you and the kids. He did not want that. He liked knowing someone else watched over them too.

So he left everything—you—alone.

Now, years later, Satoru walked past your balcony without even pretending not to look. His footsteps, softened by Infinity, made no sound.

You still did not notice him. Of course you didn’t. You were absorbed in something ordinary—phone, tea, the quiet irritation of existing in a world that demanded attention in small, exhausting ways.

He could have called out your name and said hello. He could have started the conversation by asking if you remembered him and the time you nearly smashed a plate into his head. He could have asked you out on a date—he has not been on one in a while.

It would be nice to catch up,

Even if the date lead nowhere. Even if it was meaningless. Even if it would end up only being another way to pass time between exorcisms and obligations and the endless swallowing void of being Satoru Gojo.

He could have made this simple, but simplicity had never been his preference. It was too boring, and Gojo Satoru had never been good at boring things.

So he kept walking.

If he re-entered your life, it would not be quietly.

✧ ✧ ✧

A few days later, he sent the letter. Not a romantic confession. Certainly not a polite invitation to dinner either. Inside was one of Sukuna’s fingers, one that he had found a day or two ago.

Satoru calculated the outcome carefully.

It should attract a few low-level curses. Nothing dangerous—nothing that would reach you properly, not in a neighbourhood as quietly cursed as yours. Just enough to stir the air. Enough to make the windows tremble in their frames. Enough to leave you uneasy when the lights flickered at night or the hallway felt a fraction too long.

Enough, in other words, to create a reason. A reason for him to appear, a reason to “save the day.”

It would not hurt you.

It should not hurt you.

That distinction sat comfortably in his mind, like a rule that had never once been challenged. In his interpretation, it was simple mathematics: risk reduced, outcome controlled, Satoru Gojo inserted as necessary variable. A perfectly sane plan. Almost elegant, if he ignored the fact that it involved planting danger as a pretext for attention.

After all, who would refuse a date with a man who arrived just in time to save them from a curse?

Surely, you would not.

✧ ✧ ✧

When you came home that evening, shoulders aching and the faint smell of copier ink and stale office air still clinging stubbornly to your clothes, you nearly stepped on the envelope.

It sat perfectly centred on your doormat.

You paused mid-step, keys still pinched between your fingers. The hallway light hummed overhead with a tired, fluorescent buzz. Somewhere above you, old pipes groaned as water pushed through them like a reluctant sigh.

For a moment, you only looked at it. Then you nudged it with the toe of your shoe. No stamp. No address. No name. Just thick, expensive paper, the kind of material used for wedding invitations or legal documents.

The envelope barely bent when you picked it up.

You glanced down the empty corridor once more, as if expecting someone to still be standing there watching, before unlocking your door and stepping inside.

The lock clicked shut behind you.

You did not open the envelope immediately. Only later, when you were curled on the couch with your legs tucked beneath you, a rerun of a show you barely watched murmuring from the television, did you finally tear it open.

The tearing of paper sounded unnaturally loud in the apartment.

Paper split cleanly beneath your fingers before something small and weighted dropped into your lap. You flinched.

At first, you did not understand what you were looking at. A bundle, tightly wrapped in thick, yellowed bandages. Old-looking. The cloth the colour of aged parchment left too long in the dark. Dark ink crawled across its surface in patterns you did not recognise.

Your instincts recoiled before your thoughts caught up.

Cold pricked along your spine. You did not touch the small bundle. You only stared at it as the air in the room shifted, not temperature, but in a feeling, like the space itself had thickened around you.

You thought you saw something under the bandages—just for a second. A faint distortion, like heat rippling off asphalt in summer. Except darker.

Slowly, carefully, as if the bundle might unwrap itself if you were careless, you lifted it and placed it on the coffee table.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with your fear. You had work in the morning and you were more than ready to go to bed. So you did what you always did when something did not fit into your understanding of the world. You refused to engage with it.

You should have thrown the bundle away. Instead, you stood, walked to your bookshelf, and placed it on the highest shelf you had—behind a row of old novels you never reread but could not bring yourself to discard.

Out of sight, yet not out of mind.

By most standards, you were painfully normal.

You paid your bills on time. You filed your taxes. You complained, regularly and with conviction, about traffic lights that stayed red too long and grocery prices that seemed to climb out of spite. You rewatched the same shows until entire episodes lived in your head like second memories, until you could recite entire scenes without looking at the screen.

Yeah, you were pretty normal, except for one small, inconvenient detail.

You could see curses.

They lingered where light struggled to reach—corners of ceilings, the tight space beneath stairwells, the blind spots between streetlamps. They slid along alley walls, their shapes wrong in ways your mind tried and failed not to correct. Some were small and twichy things. Others were swollen, layered massses stitched together like an unfinshed crafts project.

You learned early not to stare too long because if you did, they seemed to notice.

For half of your life, you had convinced yourself it was stress caused hallucinations. When you got older, you blamed it all on trick of light and fatigue. That last belief lasted until your great-great-grandfather gripped your wrist from his hospital bed.

His skin had been paper-thin, translucent in places, stretched over bone. The monitors beside him beeped in a slow, indifferent rhythm. But his eyes—his eyes were sharp. Unnaturally so. Too awake for a man so close to leaving.

He was not looking at you. His gaze was fixed slightly to the side, past your shoulder, toward the corner of the room where something small and green and wrong clung to wall like a stain that refused to be scrubbed away.

His fingers tightened around your wrist with surprising strength when he realized you knew what he was looking at.

“I see them too.”

His voice was dry, he did not look at you when he spoke again.

“Always have.”

That was all he gave you. No explanation or comfort that might have softened the impact of it. Just inheritance of the disturbing knowledge that you were not insane.

He died before you could ask anything else.

The only other person who ever seemed to acknowledge that fractured layer of reality without flinching was Satoru Gojo, the strange guardian of the children who once lived across the hall.

You remembered the moment he found out you were like him.

The hallway had smelled of lemon cleaning solution. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered in uneven pulses, as you stepped outside with a trash bag and stopped so abruptly the plastic crinkled loud in your grip.

It was there.

A curse clung to the ceiling above your door like wet clay thrown and forgotten. Blackened. Glossy. One swollen eye rolled slowly in its socket. A thin mouth hung open beneath it, lipless, slack, dripping something viscous that evaporated before it ever reached the floor.

Your lungs locked. Your fingers tightened around the bag until plastic bit into skin. You had never seen one that close to your home before.

Then, behind you—

“You can see them too?”

The voice was casual, curious, as if he had asked whether you preferred tea or coffee and not whether you could see things that were not supposed to exist.

“…Yeah.”

That was the entire conversation with Gojo.

The next day, the hallway was empty. The curse was gone, as if it had never been there at all. The same evening, there was a knock at your door.

You opened it to find Gojo leaning against the frame, sunglasses balanced lazily on the bridge of his nose despite the sun having set hours ago. One hand in his pocket. The other reaching forward before you could fully register the movement.

His fingers wrapped around your wrist, he raised your hand and placed something into your palm.

A dagger.

Slim. Perfectly balanced. The metal cool and impossibly clean. Faint symbols ran along the blade.

“In case one gets too close,” he said.

You had stared at the dagger, then at him, questions starting to form on the tip of your tongue. But there was no small talk that coud transition into please explain the supernatural horrors I can see everyday.

Before you could ask anything, he left.

Eventually, Megumi and Tsumiki moved away without goodbye. The apartment across the hall went dark and stayed that way. Gojo disappeared from your life as abruptly as he had entered it.

You woke with your throat burning. Dry and scratchy, like you had swallowed dust in your sleep. For a moment, you lay still, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember what had pulled you from slumber. Nothing—just thirst.

You dragged yourself out of bed, half-awake, eyes barely open, the cool floor pressing against your bare feet. The hallway stretched longer than usual. Quieter. You didn’t notice the shadows pooling too thickly in the corners. Didn’t hear the soft creak of wood that wasn’t your own steps. Didn’t feel the weight of something watching.

In the kitchen, your hands moved on autopilot. You grabbed a glass, turned on the tap. Water sputtered, then flowed steady, washing down the scratch in your throat as you brought the glass up to your mouth. You leaned against the counter, taking small sips.

“Where is it?!” a shrill voice screeched.

It didn’t come from a single point. It sliced through the air—metallic, grating, like claws dragged across slate.

Before you could even blink, the world flipped. One second you were leaning on the counter; the next, you were slammed face-first into the kitchen tiles. Glass crashed somewhere nearby, shards scattering across the floor. Pain bloomed across your ribs from the impact. Your cheek scraped against cold tile as your body hit the ground.

Something heavy pressed into your back, pinning you. You struggled, palms sliding uselessly on slick tile. The pressure intensified, forcing the air from your lungs. Your heart hammered violently, as if it might tear itself free from your chest. Sweat slicked your hands.

“Tell me, human! I do not have time for this!” the voice screeched directly into your ear.

Your stomach compressed. Something cracked. You choked on a scream, fearing it had been your rib, only to realize it was a piece of glass beneath you.

“WHERE IS IT?”

Tears blurred your vision, hot and humiliating. Panic ripped through you. Sleep evaporated completely.

“I—I don’t know what you want!” you stammered, voice broken, not even thinking to lie because you truly didn’t know.

A fist tangled in your hair. You screamed again as you were yanked upright, your scalp igniting with pain, like thousands of needles driving into your skull at once. Your feet left the ground.

“Sukuna’s finger,” the voice hissed, close—too close. “I can feel it here…”

You were spun around.

The curse loomed before you—human-shaped, but grotesquely wrong. Limbs bent at impossible angles. A mouth slit filled with jagged, uneven teeth stretched unnaturally wide. Its eyes gleamed with sharp intelligence. You had never seen one like this. You had never heard one speak.

It snarled, then flung you sideways.

You crashed into the counter, the edge biting into your back, then collapsed to the floor. White-hot pain shot up your spine.

“FETCH IT.”

It stepped back slightly, granting space—permission for you to move.

Your brain barely functioned. Survival instincts took over. You scrambled upright and bolted toward your bedroom like it was a sanctuary, even though you knew it wasn’t. It would have been wiser to run out of the apartment entirely, but that thought only surfaced as you slammed the door behind you, fumbling for the lock, hands shaking violently.

You didn’t have any severed fingers stashed in the pantry. You didn’t—

The bookshelf.

The bandaged bundle.

Your stomach dropped.

But you didn’t run for the living room. No. You ripped open drawers, flinging clothes aside, tearing through your closet. Your heart pounded so loudly you could barely hear your own ragged breathing.

The dagger.

Where had you put it?

You hadn’t needed it in years.

Your eyes landed on your nightstand—your phone. You lunged. Fingers moved faster than they ever had. Contacts. Scroll. Gojo. You had thought about calling him before, sometimes—just to ask about Megumi and Tsumiki—but you always hesitated. Always locked your phone and didn’t do it.

This time, you didn’t hesitate.

You pressed call. You tried not to think about the possibility that he had changed his number, or that you were calling someone you hadn’t spoken to in years. He was your only option for survival because it wasn’t like you could call the police. What were you even supposed to say? Hello, a curse is attacking me? They would have taken it for a prank call.

The ringing barely began when the bedroom door exploded inward.

Wood splintered like brittle paper. Hinges tore free. The door shattered across the room.

You screamed as the shockwave threw you backward. The phone flew from your hand, skidding just out of reach.

“I don’t have time for games, human,” the curse growled, stepping through the wreckage. Its presence pressed into your lungs—thick, suffocating, smelling of rot and metal.

Your knees buckled. Even if they hadn’t, there was nowhere to go. You crawled backward until your shoulders hit the side of the bed. Your eyes darted frantically—no escape route, no opening large enough to slip past it without dying.

“I—I don’t have it! Please, just—”

You didn’t even know what you were begging for. Mercy?Understanding? Anything? But curses did not offer either.

It advanced slowly. Each step made the floor groan. Your thoughts fractured: run, scream, grab something—anything—but nothing would save you. You were going to die.

As its shadow swallowed the space between you, you squeezed your eyes shut. If this was it—if this was the end—you did not want this monstrosity to be the last thing you ever saw.

A flash—blinding white—erupted through your closed eyelids so violently it felt like the world had been set on fire behind your face. Heat followed a heartbeat later. Then a sharp, crackling sizzle, like live wires snapping apart. Red sparks fractured the darkness. A violent bzzz rattled the windows.

Silence.

You curled into yourself on instinct, knees pulled to your chest, forehead pressed hard down, fingers locked over the back of your head as if that alone could hold you together. Your whole body shook. Tears spilled without permission, soaking into your pajamas. Every breath came ragged, shallow.

You waited.

For claws. For teeth. For the end.

Nothing came.

Ten agonising seconds passed. Then thirty. Still nothing.

Slowly, you forced your fingers apart and blinked through the blur of tears. Satoru Gojo stood in the ruin of your bedroom like he had simply stepped in for tea. Hands in his pockets. Head tilted. That familiar grin—too easy, too bright for a room that looked like it had been torn open.

“You called?”

Your mind lagged as your gaze darted all over. Splintered door. Scorched air. The metallic tang of something burned out of existence still hanging faintly in the room.

The curse was gone.

You stayed half-folded against the bed, arms drawn tight around yourself.

Gojo looked… older, but familiar. His white hair still shone like silver. His smile was still there—still infuriatingly soft at the edges, like he hadn’t just erased something that had been seconds away from killing you. However, his uniform fit differently than you remembered. The fabric sat differently across him now, stretched over broader shoulders, shaped by muscle you didn’t remember being so defined.

The biggest in change his appereance was the blindfold. Gone were the round sunglasses he used to wear. In their place, a sleek strip of black cloth was wrapped around his eyes.

“Gojo?” you managed. His name cracked on your tongue—fragile in a way that made it feel dangerous to say too loudly, as if you were afraid he was just a part of your imagination.

He tilted his head slightly at the sound.

“That would be me,” he said lightly.

He stepped forward. Each step landed softly over the ruined floorboards, sound threading through the silence like a metronome trying to convince your heartbeat to slow down and follow it. He stopped just short of you, not wanting to crowd you.

His smile shifted, softening by a fraction.

“You know,” he started, voice slipping easily back into teasing, as if he were gently trying to stitch normality back into the air, “usually when someone calls me after maaany years, there’s a ‘hello’ first. Maybe a ‘how have you been.’ Basic courtesy.”

His head angled toward the wreckage behind you, then back to you again.

“…But I’ll let it slide,” he added, slower now. “I guess. If—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence because you moved.

There was no elegance to in your movements. Just a sudden collapse of everything you had been holding in place since the moment the curse had entered your home.

You launched yourself at him, clumsy and uncontrolled.

For a heartbeat, he didn’t react at all. Then his hand braced against the floor behind you, steadying both of you as your momentum forced him back just slightly.

Your arms locked around him and you buried your face into his chest. It was colder than you expected at first, like stepping into winter air too quickly. Then warmth bled through, slow and steady, spreading outward in quiet waves that made your shaking worse before it made it better.

“I—” your voice fractured completely. “Thank you.”

You didn’t realise you were crying again until you felt your tears soaking into his jacket.

He didn’t answer right away. He just lifted his hand slowly, resting it lightly against the back of your head. The other settled around your shoulders—careful again, as if he was handling something fragile he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold.

“Well,” he murmured at last, softer than before, almost reluctant to break the silence, “that’s one way to say hello.”

✧ ✧ ✧

It took you about an hour to really calm down.

An hour spent sitting on the floor in Gojo’s lap, your knees still weak, your body refusing to trust the fact that the world was no longer actively trying to kill you. Your fingers stayed twisted into the front of his uniform like a lifeline, knuckles pale.

At some point, your breathing evened out. The violent shaking faded. Tears dried stiff against your cheeks, leaving faint salt tracks you pretended not to feel.

Gojo didn’t rush you. He didn’t joke. Didn’t flirt. Didn’t fill the silence with anything that might crack it open too soon. One hand stayed steady against your back, warm and grounding, tracing slow, absent circles that anchored you more than any words could have.

Eventually, awareness returned in pieces rather than all at once. First came the embarrassment. Then the slow, creeping realization of proximity. Then the very human understanding that you were currently clinging to a man you hadn’t seen in years like your life depended on him, which, in a way, it had.

Slowly, carefully, you pulled back. Your hands lingered for half a second too long before releasing his jacket, reluctant in a way you immediately hated yourself for noticing. You avoided looking at his face as you stood.

You flicked on the light and immediately regretted it.

Your bedroom looked like a crime scene. The door was obliterated—splintered wood hanging like broken ribs. Clothes spilled from your closet in chaotic heaps. A lamp lay on its side, its shade cracked. Somehow, impossibly, the walls still stood, and the windows remained intact.

You stepped into the hallway half-expecting the rest of the apartment to mirror it But the living room was almost untouched. The kitchen, too, looked strangely ordinary.

Your front door was still locked.

The only thing that looked out of place was the living room window—cracked open just a finger’s width, letting in pale early-morning air that smelled faintly of rain and something clean enough to feel unreal after what had just happened.

Gojo followed quietly behind you as you began cleaning.

You moved on autopilot.

Smashed glass. Broken fragments. Shaky hands that refused to stop trembling no matter how carefully you tried to steady them. You told yourself it was practical. Necessary. Something to do with your body while your mind tried to stitch itself back together.

He tried to talk a few times.

You answered without really hearing yourself, your voice distant, like it belonged to someone else speaking through a wall.

When you retrieved the bandaged bundle from the bookshelf, his posture changed immediately.

“Is that what it was after?” he asked.

You nodded, unable to look at it for long now that you knew what it was supposed to be.

“I got it in a letter,” you said quickly, too quickly, like you needed to justify its presence in your life. “I didn’t—I didn’t know what it was. I just kept it.”

You handed it over.

Gojo went still.

You couldn’t see his eyes beneath the blindfold, but the shift in the air was unmistakable. His shoulders tightened. His tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his cheek, like he was holding back a reaction he didn’t want to show.

For a moment, it looked like he might speak. He didn’t. He simply took the bundle and slipped it into his pocket.

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

“Do you… want tea?” you asked. A pause. “Or coffee?”

It sounded absurd the moment the question left your mouth.Yet it was a fragile attempt to hold the moment in place. To delay whatever came after this. To keep him here a little longer because you didn't want to be alone.

Gojo looked at you for a beat longer than necessary, then exhaled something almost like amusement.

“Tea sounds good.”

He watched you the entire time you worked in the kitchen, openly entertained now, like the concept of you boiling water had become unexpectedly fascinating.

Your apartment made him look bigger than you remembered him being—too tall for the space, shoulders nearly brushing doorframes as he moved through it. He ducked slightly out of habit when passing through narrow spaces, following you from room to room, not letting you out of his sight completely.

“—you’re a teacher?” you asked when he told you so, glancing at him over your shoulder with open skepticism.

He grinned instantly. “Don’t I look like one?”

“No,” you said without hesitation. “You look like someone who should not be trusted around children.”

He laughed—bright, unrestrained, too loud for the quiet that had settled back into your apartment—and despite everything, something in your chest loosened enough that you found yourself exhaling a reluctant laugh too.

When the tea was ready, you both settled in the living room on the couch. The cups warmed your hands. Dawn spilled slowly through the window, soft and bruised with early light.

Gojo talked. About Jujutsu High. About curses. About sorcerers.

He explained just enough that your exhausted mind could follow without breaking apart completely, though the words still felt like they belonged to a different world entirely. Curses. Cursed energy. Sorcerers. The fact that he was apparently the strongest of them al, which he repeated with confidence at least five times.

He mentioned Megumi more than once too, and something in his voice softened each time, pride threading through it in a way you didn’t remember hearing before. When you asked about Tsumiki, though, his answer thinned. He redirected the conversation gently but firmly, like closing a door without making it obvious it had been shut.

You didn’t push. You kept listening instead, hovering somewhere between shock and relief, as if your mind hadn’t decided yet whether to accept any of this as real.

Eventually, he asked about you and suddenly, your life felt small.

“I just… bounced around after graduating,” you said at last, eyes fixed on your tea. “Different jobs. Nothing really stuck.”

“I always figured you’d do something interesting,” he hummed.

You let out a quiet snort. “I work in an office.”

“Tragic,” he said gravely. “We’re going to have to rescue you from that immediately.”

You rolled your eyes, but warmth still crept into your chest anyway. Talking to him was easy in a way that unsettled you more than it should have. You had expected awkward silences, forced politeness, something brittle and unfamiliar. Instead, it felt like slipping back into a conversation that had never properly ended.

Sunlight spread further into the apartment, turning dust motes into drifting gold. Gojo stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders with an ease that made the movement look almost lazy. His gaze swept the room again, lingering briefly on the slightly open window before he exhaled and turned back to you.

You stood as well.

“You shouldn’t stay here alone tonight,” he said, still half-distracted by the space around him.

“Have to,” you replied dryly. “Not like I can afford to stay anywhere else.”

You didn’t add the rest. That the thought of being alone again made something tight coil in your chest. That silence, after everything that had happened, suddenly felt too large to exist in. Or that you were now painfully aware of how small your apartment really was and how vulnerable you were inside it.

Gojo turned his head slightly at your answer. Then, as if the thought had simply arrived fully formed and unbothered by consequences, he said, “Come with me, then.”

You remained quiet.

“There are empty rooms at the school,” he continued. “You can stay until I sort this out. Until it’s safe.”

You hesitated, your bottom lip caught between your teeth, because logically, it was absurd. Going with him—someone you had barely known properly, someone who had just torn a curse apart in your bedroom like it was nothing—to a place you had never even heard of before today should have set off every alarm in your body.

It should have felt like a mistake and yet it didn’t. Because the alternative was staying here alone, listening to your own heartbeat echo through empty rooms, waiting for something you couldn’t see but now knew existed.

You looked at him, at the ease in his posture, the absolute certainty that you would say yes.

“…Okay,” you said at last.

His smile widened immediately.

“Excellent decision,” he said brightly, clapping his hands once as if sealing the agreement. “Don’t worry. I promise only minimal life-threatening incidents.”

“That is not reassuring,” you muttered, though your mouth twitched despite yourself.

After changing into warmer clothes, you packed an overnight bag. Just essentials. A change of clothes. Toothbrush. Phone charger. The normal things people bring when they are absolutely, definitely not uprooting their lives.

As you locked your apartment door, Gojo lingering by your side. You kept reminding yourself that this was temorary, that you will stay at school only until things settle. Until it's safe to return.

✧ ✧ ✧

What was supposed to be a few days away from home somehow turned into nearly four weeks of living in the Jujutsu High dorms.

The first night had felt temporary. You kept your shoes by the door, your bag zipped, your mind insisting you would leave any moment. The second night had felt the same, as had the third. But by the end of the first week, your bag sat half-unpacked in the corner like it had always belonged there, clothes slowly migrating into drawers without you ever quite remembering deciding to stay.

Every morning, you woke tangled in sheets, sunlight filtering through the curtains, warm against your face. The air carried a faint mix of pine, old wood, and distant incense drifting in from somewhere deeper in the campus. And every morning, the same thought returned like a habit you couldn’t break: you should go home. You told yourself that while brushing your teeth. While tying your shoes. While standing too long in front of the courtyard windows.

There was always that lingering sense that you were occupying borrowed space—you weren’t a sorcerer, not a student, not anything that belonged in a place like this. And yet that thought dulled with time. The campus was quieter than you had expected, almost eerily so. You rarely saw more than a handful of students or teachers, and most days it felt less like a school and more like a half-forgotten shrine.

During the day, you wandered the grounds with a book tucked under your arm. Gravel crunched softly beneath your shoes. Leaves whispered overhead, shifting in slowly in the wind. Students passed occasionally, bowing politely or watching you with open curiosity. You sat beneath shaded trees, reading without really reading. No emails, no deadlines, no fluorescent office lights humming overhead.

You had taken unpaid leave after the attack, telling your boss you had a family emergency. Technically, that wasn’t a lie. But bills still existed. Your job still existed. Your apartment still existed, somewhere out there in a life you were increasingly detached from. You were supposed to go back. Yet every time you brought it up, Gojo already had a reason why you couldn't leave just yet.

At first, it wasn’t safe. The curse might not have acted alone. Someone might come looking for you.

Then your apartment was declared a disaster zone. Returning wasn’t possible until repairs were finished. You had no idea how you were supposed to afford any of it, but Gojo had waved the concern away with an easy, careless, “The school has funds for situations like this.”

Then he insisted you couldn’t leave until he identified whoever had sent you Sukuna’s finger—conveniently neglecting to mention he was the sender.

Eventually, the excuses began to wear thin.

You stood in the dorm room that had stopped feeling temporary and leaned against the desk, arms crossed.

“I have to go back,” you told him. “I can’t miss any more work. My boss is blowing up my phone. And you said my apartment’s fixed, so—”

Gojo sighed dramatically, just like he did everytime you decided to talk about this.

“Fiiiiine,” he groaned, flopping backward onto your bed. The mattress dipped under his weight as he sprawled out shamelessly, long limbs claiming far too much space.

“You learn how to fight,” he announced, pointing lazily at you from where he lay upside down across your pillows. “Properly. With the dagger I gave you. Then you can go.”

“I’m not a sorcerer,” you argued immediately. “I don’t need combat training. I’ve successfully avoided curses my entire life—until one broke into my bedroom because someone thought mailing me a cursed finger was a fun social experiment.”

Since arriving, you had been given a crash course in a world you had never asked to understand. Curses were manifestations of negative emotion. Sorcerers fought them. Jujutsu High trained them, and Satoru Gojo—apparently—was the strongest sorcerer alive, a fact he had repeated with alarming enthusiasm whenever the opportunity arose.

He had also, far too casually, suggested more than once that you might have potential to become a sorcerer since you could see the curses, but you refused to even entertain the thought.

“What if one attacks you again?” he asked more quietly when you still refused.

The humor in his voice thinned at the edges.

“I know I put myself on your speed dial,” he continued, scratching the back of his neck, a grin returning as if he could physically shrug off the seriousness of the question, “but I’m a very busy, responsible adult. I can’t always arrive dramatically to save you.”

Your gaze flicked away. The memory of claws and pressure and breathless panic lingered like a bruise under the skin.

“…Fine,” you said at last. “One week. You teach me whatever you think I need to know, and then I’m moving out.”

“Four weeks,” he replied instantly.

“Three.”

He tilted his head, pretending to consider it.

“Hm. I suppose I could turn you into a semi-competent fighter in three weeks,” he said. “After all, I am Gojo Satoru. The strongest. The most handsome. The most talented teacher to ever exist—”

You grabbed a pen from the desk and threw it at him.

He caught it midair without looking.

Show-off.

“You mean the most annoying person I’ve ever met,” you corrected, though your mouth betrayed you with a faint curve.

Gojo sat up slowly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, blindfold angled toward you as if he could see you anyway.

“Oh?” he said, voice dipping just slightly. “And yet you agreed to spend three more weeks with me.”

Your lips parted, but you didn't reply because he was right.

Never in your life had you wondered how high you could count before giving up. Yet by Friday morning, you'd discovered the answer—muttering every number aloud, perfectly enunciated, all the way to six hundred and eighty-nine.

You hadn't slept. Not really. There might have been an hour somewhere in the middle of the night when exhaustion finally dragged you under—a thin, fragile sort of sleep that shattered the moment you became aware of it. You woke soon after, restless and even more irritated, thrashing in bed and twisting from one side to the other. The sheets tangled around your legs until you had to kick free.

Every position felt wrong. The pillow was too soft. The air in the room too stale—too thick. Suffocating. Pressing on you like a heavy weight.

This wasn’t unusual—the restlessness. Neither were the nerves that piled up until all you wanted to do was slam your head into a wall hard enough to knock yourself unconscious. At least then your mind would finally shut the fuck up. Even if only for a little while.

Before difficult missions, sleep often came reluctantly. Your mind liked to rehearse—strategies, escape routes, every possible thing that could go wrong. You'd lie awake running through scenario after scenario until you were satisfied you could handle them all, until you'd convinced yourself there would be no surprises because you'd already imagined every possible outcome.

But for fuck's sake—tomorrow's mission wasn't difficult. Low-level curses. Grade Four. Nothing you couldn't handle. Nothing you hadn't faced before. So why did the thought of getting out of bed make your stomach twist?

It took the entire night to admit it.

It wasn't the mission.

It was them.

The realization tasted bitter.

You rolled it around in your mind, annoyance flaring as you finally acknowledged it. You even caught yourself wondering why you couldn't have been partnered with just Geto—assuming going alone wasn't an option. Even that would've been preferable to being forced to spend time around Gojo.

You were still tense around Geto, always careful to keep your distance, but he was... manageable. Controlled. Predictable in a way that made him easier to deal with, even if you couldn't quite read him. Easier to be around than Gojo, at least, who you knew would be unbearable today; especially considering you hadn't seen him for an entire day, which meant he'd had nearly twenty-four uninterrupted hours to come up with new ways to get under your skin.

Hours later, you finally gave up on pretending to sleep and dragged yourself out of bed.

With far too much time before departure, you moved slowly, trying to ignore the relentless ticking of the clock on the wall. You didn't rush. You took your time getting ready. Still, there were only so many times you could adjust your uniform, brush nonexistent dust from your shoulders, or straighten a collar that was already perfectly straight.

Eventually, with nothing left to stall over, you flopped back onto the bed fully dressed, staring at the ceiling—ready for the day to be over before it had even begun.

For a moment, your phone found its way into your hand, your thumb hovering over Utahime's contact. Back in Kyoto, she was the closest thing you had to a real friend. And she was probably the only person capable of talking you down when your thoughts started spiraling like this.

Whenever stress got the better of you—whether it was a legitimate problem or something completely ridiculous—Utahime always seemed to know exactly what to say. Somehow, she could untangle the knots in your head without making you feel stupid for having them in the first place.

Your thumb hovered over the call button.

Just do it.

A small part of you was already imagining her sleepy voice answering the phone.

Another part immediately reminded you what time it was.

Too early.

You shouldn't wake her up.

With a groan, you locked the screen and tossed the phone onto the mattress beside you. It bounced once before disappearing into the blankets.

✧ ✧ ✧

You didn't skip breakfast. Running on fumes and vending machine snacks wasn't an option today. Thankfully, the cafeteria was deserted when you wandered through the doors.

You claimed a table near the back and ate in silence, scrolling aimlessly through your phone, forcing yourself to focus on anything other than the thoughts that hadn't stopped spiraling since yesterday.

A painfully boring video played on repeat, but you were too tired—and too lazy—to bother finding something better.

The cafeteria doors swung open. You didn't hear them. Didn't notice the footsteps or the low, muffled whispers that followed. Not until two trays slammed down onto your table.

You jumped, your phone slipping from your hand and clattering against the surface.

“Fuck,” you hissed under your breath. Your heart slammed against your ribs as your head snapped up. “What is wrong with you?!”

Geto was already seated across from you, posture relaxed, expression as unreadable as ever. Gojo—predictably—dropped into the seat beside you, far too close for comfort. You immediately scooted away, dragging your tray with you.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Gojo clicked his tongue, wagging a finger before pointing it at you. “Someone's got their head in the clouds. That's how you get mauled by big, bad, ugly curses.”

You shot him a glare.

“But don't worry, little omega,” he continued, completely unbothered and clearly enjoying the way you tried—and failed—to hide your irritation. “You've got us to keep you safe. Won't even need to do anything. Just stick close and look pretty. Mission's gonna be easy peasy, yeah?”

“Don't call me that,” you snapped, hating the nickname and refusing to let it stick.

The moment the words left your mouth, you regretted them. It would've been smarter to ignore him. To let it pass. Because even through those ridiculous round glasses—the ones you'd never seen him without—you felt his attention sharpen instantly at the open disgust in your voice. Something darkened behind the lenses. A slow, knowing smile tugged at his mouth, and you just knew he'd spend the rest of the day looking for excuses to call you that again.

You decided you didn’t need to endure this. You still had an hour before departure. An hour you could spend literally anywhere else. You stood abruptly, snatching up your phone and shoving it into your pocket.

“Satoru,” Geto said mildly. His eyes followed you with far too much interest before shifting back to Gojo. A sigh escaped him. “Look what you did. I told you to play nice.”

Something about the comment rubbed you the wrong way. It wasn't just teasing—though it was definitely that, too. It felt deliberate. Like Geto's words carried a second meaning. Like he was testing something. Prodding. Waiting to see how Gojo would react.

And react he did.

“Aww, princess, cooome ooon.” Gojo pouted dramatically. His arm shot out, fingers closing loosely around your wrist—enough to stop you. “Don't leave.”

You froze.

Your gaze dropped to his hand. His fingers were wrapped around your wrist—but they weren't touching you. An invisible layer, roughly three centimeters thick, separated his grip from your skin.

Across the table, Geto leaned forward, unmistakably satisfied, like a theory had just been confirmed.

When neither of you spoke, Gojo followed your stare. He blinked. Realization dawned as he registered what he was holding—and the fact that he couldn't feel the warmth of your skin.

The silence that followed felt deafening. You swore you could hear a high-pitched ringing in your ears. Pressure built behind your eyes. Something heavy like a stone settled in your chest.

You knew you should say something. Or pull away. Instead, you stayed perfectly still. Your mind screamed at you to move, but your body refused to listen, locked in place by the insticts despite every frantic command you hurled at yourself to react. To do something. Anything.

Gojo squeezed tighter, testing his grip on your wrist.

The barrier didn't budge. It took everything you had to keep it that way. Your cursed energy buzzed violently beneath your skin, flaring in sharp response each time his fingers pressed against it.

Then he grew bolder.

His arms slid around your waist, wrapping around the barrier instead of you. Pulling you closer, he settled his hands at your hips. Even seated, his head was level with your chest, his presence crowding your space until it felt impossible to breathe.

“This is why it's so hard to sense your cursed energy,” Gojo muttered, more to himself than to you or Geto. His fingers pressed curiously against the invisible layer, as though it were the most interesting thing he'd encountered all week. “...Or you.”

That snapped you out of it.

Your muscles finally unlocked. You stepped back immediately. Heat rushed up your neck. Your cheeks burned as your mind caught up with what had just happened.

“Is this your innate technique?” Geto asked.

When you looked at him, he wore the expression of someone who already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” you said. Your voice came out quieter than intended, lacking its usual bite. “Something like that.”

“Then why do you never take it down?” Gojo asked.

Across the table, Geto raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” Gojo paused. Then the pieces clicked into place. “Right.”

The moment the gears visibly began turning in his head—the sharp smile curling across his lips, anything but friendly—your stomach sank.

[ Gojo's POV ]

Gojo Satoru—the Six Eyes, the strongest, someone who firmly believed he was the smartest person in any room and perceptive to an almost irritating degree—had somehow managed to completely overlook that—your barrier.

For the first time in a long while, he was quiet. Genuinely quiet. No commentary. No teasing. No half-baked jokes designed solely to get a reaction out of you. Nothing but the occasional tight-lipped mhm slipping past him whenever Suguru attempted to start a conversation.

He ate without really looking at his food, chewing out of habit rather than hunger, all while resisting the increasingly persistent urge to reach across the table and touch you again when you sat back down.

His mind replayed the past week on an endless loop. From early Monday morning, when he'd dragged Suguru out of bed at an ungodly hour because he had to see the new transfer student who might—or might not—be an omega, to now. To today. To the moment he'd been forced to confront something he absolutely should have noticed sooner.

It was almost embarrassing.

Almost.

Satoru could blame himself for the oversight. And maybe—maybe—he did, just a little. But most of the blame landed squarely on Suguru, who had obviously known. The bastard had clearly pieced things together long before today and decided not to share. Worse, he'd deliberately set up that little experiment and used Satoru to confirm his theory.

Logically, Satoru understood why you kept your barrier up. He wasn't stupid. That understanding, however, did absolutely nothing to stop it from irritating him.

The fact that he couldn't touch you was one thing. He'd already been keeping his distance. More or less. Sure, he constantly hovered around you. Constantly poked and prodded with comments designed to get under your skin. Constantly tested boundaries just to see where they were. But despite appearances, he wasn't completely clueless. There were lines that genuinely shouldn't be crossed and he knew that.

But hiding your scent?

That was something else entirely.

Yes, it was selfish to think he had any claim to it. Any unspoken right to know. He was aware of that; he wasn't an idiot. Just painfully arrogant. And perhaps a little possessive in ways he had absolutely no intention of unpacking.

Still, it had been a long time since he’d had a real break. Time in the city. Time away from missions, away from Jujutsu High, away from the suffocating stench of alphas who seemed incapable of existing without flooding every room they entered with their scent.

And yet you'd deliberately hidden yourself. Kept everything sealed away behind that barrier. Refused to give him even the smallest glimpse. A minute would've been enough. Two, maybe. Just long enough for him to indulge to indulge. Long enough to remember what it felt like when his senses weren't constantly assaulted by something unpleasant.

He wouldn't have even touched you. Not if you didn't want him to. Just being close would've been enough.

Satoru swallowed hard. His mouth had suddenly gone dry.

When he'd first heard about a transfer from Kyoto, he hadn't paid much attention. He'd assumed it was a beta. Nothing particularly interesting about that. Then he'd overheard a conversation he wasn't supposed to hear. He hadn't learned much, just fragments. Half-whispered speculation. Loose pieces of information that should've meant nothing. But they'd been enough. Enough to know Tokyo was getting an omega.

After that, Satoru had practically vibrated with excitement. And somehow—miraculously—he'd managed to keep it to himself. He hadn't even told Suguru, which was unusual: Suguru was normally subjected to every stray thought that entered Satoru's head, every piece of gossip, every pointless observation, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

Satoru still wasn't entirely sure why he'd stayed quiet. It hadn't mattered in the end. Suguru had figured it out on his own. He'd probably overheard the same rumors. The same conversations he wasn't supposed to hear.

And he'd been the one to say it out loud first, casual and knowing, like the possibility of omega wandering trough these halls hadn't been driving him insane, too.

Satoru had pretended to be surprised when Suguru shared the news. Though, Suguru hadn't looked convinced. But just as Suguru hadn't called him out for lying, Satoru had kept his mouth shut as well.

✧ ✧ ✧

The three of you stood outside, waiting for the car.

Satoru leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, noticeably lacking his usual energy. He watched you and Suguru smoke—watched you cough, then laugh when the first drag hit harder than expected. Watched the subtle rhythm of your conversation.

Suguru asked questions. You answered. Your answers precise, measured, revealing just enough without giving too much away. You were good at that. At talking while keeping everything at surface level.

You were talking about your barrier.

Suguru steered the conversation deliberately to the topic, nudging here and there, clearly probing.

You explained only the basics—how it functioned, how it interacted with your cursed energy. Something about metabolism, about how food intake affected how long you could maintain it. That was why you were constantly snacking because otherwise you’d need to drop it.

That—that was what caught Satoru’s attention. And that was when he decided he was going to be mean today. Just a little.

If Suguru had chosen today—of all days—to use him as a tool, to poke and test a theory, then Satoru decided he had every right to run an experiment of his own.

How far he could push you before that barrier showed even the smallest crack?

In Satoru’s mind, it wasn’t reckless. Today’s mission wasn’t difficult. Quite the opposite. Low-level curses, predictable patterns, confined space—the perfect environment. Even if you got overwhelmed, even if things went sideways, he and Suguru would be there.

Plus, he’d already promised you that the two of them would take care of you, hadn’t he? So you definitely had nothing to worry about.

And it wasn’t like he wanted to hurt you. Of course not.

He would just apply a little more pressure than necessary. Enough to make you slip. Enough to find out what you smelled like beneath all that cursed energy and restraint. Because now that he knew you were hiding your scent, the not-knowing gnawed at him, and it would keep gnawing until he satisfied that curiosity. So it was better to get it over with quickly—today, while he had the opportunity; he wasn’t sure when the next mission with you would come up.

He lingered in the thought briefly, weighing the easier option.

He could just ask. Suggest you drop your innate technique for the ride. Frame it as concern—tell you it would help preserve your cursed energy for the fight, make things safer. It wouldn’t even be a lie. It would be safer. At least ten times safer than slowly bleeding your stamina dry while curses chipped away at you.

But then… where was the fun in that?

Satoru’s mouth twitched, a faint smile threatening to surface as he pushed off the wall, spotting the car approaching.

No.

If he was going to do this, he wanted it instinctive—for you to be stripped bare by circumstance rather than persuasion. Something you didn’t have time to think over or prepare for. And if that meant being a little cruel? Well… he was fine with that.

✧ ✧ ✧

[ Reader's POV ]

The car ride was strange, to say the least.

You sat in the front passenger seat while Geto and Gojo were squeezed into the back. No one spoke. Geto stared out the window, fingers tapping lightly against his knee. Gojo, every so often, watched you through the rearview mirror—always with that same lazy smirk that widened the moment your eyes met.

So far, the day was nothing like you had expected. The energy was calm, the alphas unusually quiet. If you pretended for a moment that the whole incident—when they had finally confronted you about the barrier—hadn’t happened, you could almost convince yourself that maybe you’d been freaking out for nothing. Maybe you really shouldn’t have lost sleep over it.

Even after you arrived at the school—after the curtain was lowered and you suggested splitting up, one floor each—there was no pushback. No teasing from Gojo. No objections from Geto.

It was definitely weird. You weren’t used to this, but you figured that maybe Gojo and Geto were simply more focused on the mission, knowing when it was time to prioritize work rather than pester you.

The building was crawling with curses. You saw them before you even stepped inside—clinging to ceilings, slumped against walls like rotten growths. For the first time since Thursday, you were almost glad you weren’t alone. Not because you couldn’t handle it, but because you didn’t have to. With all three of you, this should be over in hours. Alone, it would’ve taken you the entire day to exorcise all of the curses.

You got the second floor entirely to yourself, Gojo claiming the third and leaving Geto to deal with the mess on the first and in the basement.

At first, it was easy. Most of the curses were sluggish, malformed things that barely reacted to your presence. Even when you drew their attention, they came at you in small numbers.

You preferred distance. Control. Not having to deal with surprises—attacks you didn’t see coming. So you relied on your cursed tools: silver throwing daggers, engraved with abstract patterns and imbued with cursed energy, dangling from the leather belt snug around your waist.

You worked cleanly.

You stood in the middle of the hallway near the stairs, repeating the same process: barriers snapping up around the curses, immobilising them, five daggers following in quick succession. Clean hits. You retrieved your tools, repositioned yourself, and started over.

Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

And when you dared to think it was a little dull. Boring. Too easy—it all went downhill.

Suddenly, you had to move faster. Barely enough time to retrieve your daggers before they were flying from your hands again. Distance became meaningless. Maintaining your barrier meant you couldn’t immobilize more than a handful at once, and the curses were swarming now.

You switched tactics, ignoring the way sweat made your clothing stick, the thickening air, the pressure building under your barrier that held it all in.

Two daggers clenched tightly in your hands, you charged. Slashing. Stabbing. Pulling free. Kicking curses away. Cutting their grabby limbs. Dodging, spinning, turning so fast your vision began to swim.

You couldn’t be touched—not really—but you could be crowded. You tried not to think about that. Tried not to acknowledge what it would mean: pulling back, leaving the rest to Gojo and Geto, just like you’d promised Yaga.

For fuck’s sake, you were a Grade Two sorcerer. What good were you if you couldn’t handle low-level curses like these, no matter how many there were? The question kept swirling in your mind, surfacing again and again, no matter how hard you tried to drown it out in the chaos of everything else.

What stung the most, however, what fueled your stubbornness to stay on that damn second floor, was the fact that you knew you could do it. You were good enough. You’d fought worse.

But your barrier was draining you faster than you wanted to admit. Too much cursed energy spent just to keep it intact. It slowed you down, tripped you up, stole your edge and power because it had to be divided between barrier and fighting.

When you were finally pushed into a corner, surrounded on all sides, you knew. You were done. No matter how badly it bruised your pride, this was it. Time to retreat. Except—it was already too late. There was no opening. No space to escape. Trying to squeeze through would only make it worse—trap you even more—if you slipped on the slick gore and fell to the ground.

Your pulse spiked—not with adrenaline, but with pure panic. Daggers flashed in your hands as you slashed blindly. Legs kicked. Elbows struck. You fought to breathe, to focus, to remember how to inhale. You tried to ignore the fear-fueled thought that you’d gotten in over your head—that after everything, you might be taken down by low-grade curses you could usually exorcise with your eyes closed.

You should have called for Gojo and Geto. Opened your mouth and screamed for help. But your jaw was locked tight, your mind empty—unable to grasp that help was even an option. The only thought that existed was your barrier. Dropping it. Reclaiming that cursed energy. Using it to fight.

There was a shift in the air. Instantaneous. Almost imperceptible.

One moment, your senses were dulled. The next, they sharpened violently. The stench of rot hit first—thick enough to turn your stomach. Instinct took over before thought.

Your mind went blank.

You moved faster than you could see, faster than you could think. By the time your mind tried to catch up, you were already in motion.

Daggers flew. Curses fell. The darkness that had enveloped you began to recede as the horde of curses circling you—from left to right, from the ceiling—slowly dwindled. Light crept back into the hallway.

When you blinked again, you were on the floor, on all fours, heaving.

You gulped the foul air, gagging because your barrier was gone. Without it, the filth clung to you. Your clothes were smeared, sticky. You lifted an arm to brush your hair back and nearly retched at the smell.

Something clamped around your arms, hauling you to your feet. Your knees buckled, hands shaking, but you reacted without hesitation. You turned sharply, driving the dagger you hadn’t even realized you were holding forward, certain it was a curse you’d missed.

It didn’t connect.

Gojo towered over you. He caught your wrist easily, twisting it just enough to force you to release the weapon. His grip was firm and unyielding, fingers digging into your arm as he held you in place. With his other hand, he pushed his glasses up onto his head.

His pupils were blown wide, eyes nearly black—only the thinnest ring of blue visible around the edges.

“Let me go,” you said, trying to wrench your arms free, your body still buzzing with adrenaline, not ready to be trapped again.

He let you go—but before you could take a step back, his hands clamped down on your shoulders, anchoring you in place so you couldnt move away. You instinctively tried to raise your barrier. It flared weakly, flickered—and collapsed. You had nothing left. Your cursed energy had been drained dry in the fight.

“I’m serious, Gojo.” Your voice wavered despite you trying to steady it. “GET. OFF.”

Gojo's lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze dragged slowly over your face, lingering too long, scrutinising every detail—the way your eyebrows pinched in confusion, the way you groaned, scrunching your nose. One hand slid from your shoulder to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair as he forced you closer. Before you could react, his face dipped, pressing into your neck—bare skin, right beneath your collarbone. His fingers tightened, holding you there.

The moment the tip of his nose brushed that sensitive patch of skin, shivers ran down your spine, your thighs squeezed together, and the panic that had simmered down before exploded through you again.

You thrashed against him, scratching at his arms, shoving at his chest, trying desperately to break free, but he didn’t budge an inch.

“Stop,” Gojo growled into your skin.

Your body stilled instantly, betraying you even as your mind screamed at you to fight, to get away—especially when his lips replaced the tip of his nose, hot and wet, pressing into your neck. His tongue swiped over your salty skin, stealing the air from your lungs.

“You smell so good,” he murmured, the words vibrating against you, muffled, but clear enough to make your stomach flip, your heart race.

This was too much. You needed to do something, but when your hands pressed against his broad chest, trying to push him away, he immediately caught on.

A low, dangerous growl rumbled from his chest as his teeth scraped along the hollow of your collarbone, up the side of your throat, retraced slowly by his tongue.

You needed tol get away from him. You couldn't let this contniue, what if he—

“Satoru, you need to step back,” Geto’s voice cut in—low, controlled—and relief flooded you so fast it nearly made you dizzy.

If anyone could control Gojo, make him snap out of whatever daze he was in, it definitely was his best friend, right?

“Can’t,” Gojo replied, not moving, pressing into you even closer, like he was expecting Geto to tried to peel him off of you and he refused to let that happen.

You heard Geto approach before you felt him. His footsteps were nearly silent. Then his chest pressed into your back, close enough that you were caged between them. Heat rose through your body as if standing between them was standing in blazing fire licking at your skin.

“Satoru,” Geto said, a hand coming down on your shoulder. “Move.”

There was an edge to his voice—sharp, threatening. When he tried to pull you away, Gojo’s head snapped up.

Gojo growled, teeth bared, lip curled. Pupils still blown wide. Both of his arms slid down to encircle your waist, yanking you back with possessive force.

You felt Geto stiffen behind you. Heard his teeth grind. His chest vibrated with a growl just as dangerous. You couldn’t see his face, but you felt his hot breath fan over the top of your head as he steadied you. His hand refusing to leave your shoulder.

“Actually,” Gojo said, tightening his grip around you, “I think you need to move your hand away from her, Suguru.”

Geto’s fingers only dug deeper into your skin, as if he feared Satoru would throw you over his shoulder and bolt.

This will not end well. You knew you needed to do something, but you were too afraid to move, to speak, even to breathe. It didn’t help that your instincts were fighting you, urging you to stay exactly where you were: between two alphas whose attention had locked onto you. The brief thought that slipped through your mind—that you might kind of enjoy it, the heat simmering in your abdomen—made you immediately grimace at yourself.

Desperate, you gathered the scraps of your cursed energy. Something. Anything.

It took all your focus, but your barrier flickered once. Twice. Then it pushed outward. The invisible layer forced Geto’s hand off your shoulder, peeled Gojo’s arms from your waist. The pressure eased just enough for you to break free. Yet you didn’t move.

The tension lingered. Thick. Suffocating. The feeling that they might rip into each other’s throats didn’t fade. Neither did the instinctive certainty that if you tried to run, their attention would turn on you instead—that their teeth might sink into you the moment you moved.

You didn’t budge until Gojo inhaled sharply, scrunching his nose at the stench of curses that now replaced your dulled scent beneath the barrier, his pupils contracting as he swept his gaze down the hallway.

Before fleeing, you caught one last glimpse of Geto—his eyes following you, wearing the same expression Gojo had when he first caught you. Hands in fists at his sides, fingers tightening as if he were about to block your path.

You didn’t stop.

You didn’t look back.

You bolted down the stairs, nearly tripping over your own feet, bursting outside, running across the courtyard, and didn’t slow down until you reached the playground. There, your legs finally gave out.

You collapsed to the ground, your body submitting to gravity as your barrier flickered one last time and went out completely.

[ Geto's POV ]

When Suguru and Satoru stepped outside, Suguru half-expected he’d have to physically restrain him. He was already braced for it—muscles coiled, cursed energy simmering just beneath his skin, ready to snap into place the second Satoru took a step toward you.

But Satoru didn’t move. He stood there, hands in his pockets, posture loose in a way that felt wrong on him—too still, too contained. His gaze flicked toward you once, then away, jaw set as though he’d locked something dangerous behind his teeth.

Suguru didn’t relax.

They watched you from across the courtyard.

You sat on one of the swings, elbows braced against your knees, head buried in your hands. The chains creaked faintly as you shifted your weight, the sound sharp in the quiet.

For a moment, Suguru thought you were crying. But you didn’t move. Didn’t shake. Didn’t make a sound. Too still, folded in on yourself like you were trying to disappear.

The sight twisted something ugly in his gut.

Instinct screamed at him to go to you—to close the distance, to put himself between you and everything else, even if that “everything else” was Satoru.

He forced the urge down.

Then you shifted. Just slightly. Your fingers curled into your sleeves. Your shoulders rose with a slow, shaky breath. When you finally lifted your head, there were no tears, but your gaze was dull and detached.

Suguru exhaled, realizing only then that he’d been holding his breath.

His emotions were a mess. His thoughts even harder to sort out.

On one hand, he was furious with Satoru.

There was no excusing what had happened. No clever reframing, no twisted logic that made it acceptable. Suguru understood the instinct—hell, he felt it himself, that pull toward you—but understanding didn’t make it forgivable. Especially when Satoru had ignored every warning sign, and Suguru knew damn well the Six Eyes weren’t that oblivious.

You had fought him. Pushed him away. Made your fear unmistakable. Your scent alone should have been enough to snap Satoru out of it. It had been saturated with panic, clawing its way into Suguru’s lungs, igniting something primal and violent he rarely allowed himself to feel.

For a split second, Suguru imagined tearing Satoru apart. Not metaphorically—hands around his throat, cursed spirits tearing into pale flesh, bones giving way under pressure. Yet, unlike Satoru, he forced his instincts to settle.

But then there was the other part. The part that made his anger feel dangerous rather than righteous.

Back in the hallway—beneath the panic, beneath the rot and decay of curses—there had been something else. Your scent. Sweet. Warm. Vanilla-soft, with a hint of fruit, rich enough to linger long after you’d fled.

Even now, outside in the harsh wind, with distance finally between you and them, it clung stubbornly to Satoru’s clothes, to his skin.

The realization made Suguru’s mouth go dry. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, teeth grinding so hard it might as well have shattered.

And the worst part—the part he hated most, the part he was truly angry with his friend for—was that Satoru had gotten there first, had gotten to you first. Close enough to touch you without that barrier Suguru had noticed the moment you arrived; the barrier Satoru hadn’t even realized was there until today.

When the car finally arrived, the crunch of tires over gravel pulled his attention back. Suguru watched your eyes flick between the vehicle and them, your shoulders tightening. It was obvious you didn’t want to get in the car with either of them.

“You stay here,” Suguru said.

Before Satoru could protest, he was already moving toward you.

He approached slowly, like you were an injured animal he was afraid might bolt at the slightest wrong step. He stopped well short of your space, careful not to crowd you.

“You take the car,” he said quietly. Gentle, controlled. “I’ll call for another one.”

You hugged your arms around yourself, gaze dropping to the ground. Your teeth worried at your bottom lip, hesitation written into every line of your posture—like you were trying to decide whether this was another trick, another trap meant to corner you again.

Suguru didn’t push. He just waited, didn’t rush you. Eventually, after a long pause, you gave a small, uncertain nod.

Relief washed over him, tempered by something bitter and heavy. He stayed where he was as you took a wide path around him—and an even wider one around Satoru—never lifting your eyes as you climbed into the car. Only when it disappeared from view did he pull out his phone and send a short text. No explanation, just a demand for someone to come pick them up—he wanted to get back to the campus fast.

Then he turned back to Satoru. His footsteps hit the ground harder than necessary as he stalked toward him, heels digging in with every step.

“Care to explain what the fuck you were thinking?”

Satoru only shrugged. It was infuriating how easily his smugness slid back into place—as if nothing had happened, as if he had nothing to answer for.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Satoru said lightly, rolling his eyes as if this were all some obvious joke Suguru was just too slow to understand. “You’re acting all moral, Suguru. . . I didn’t know you could be such a gentleman when you wanted.” His smile sharpened. “But we both know the truth. You’re not actually angry.”

Suguru exhaled sharply.

“You’re just jealous you didn’t get to her before me.”

The muscle in Suguru’s jaw ticked. His fists clenched at his sides. Being friends with someone who could read you like a book had its advantages. This was not one of them.

“But hey,” Satoru continued, entirely unbothered, hooking two fingers into the collar of his jacket and tugging it up as if presenting evidence, “you know me. I’m not greedy. I know how to share.”

Suguru was on the verge of punching him.

“Go on. Take a whiff—” Satoru brought the fabric slowly to his nose. “—so sweet.”

Suguru didn’t move, didn’t even dare to breathe. He knew if he did, this would turn into something neither of them could walk back from.

Satoru seemed to sense the tension. His gaze flicked over Suguru’s expression. Then he shrugged, slipping out of the jacket and tossing it over.

Suguru caught it without thinking. His grip tightened instantly, knuckles whitening as he stared at Satoru. After a beat, he lifted the fabric to his face and inhaled deeply—once. Twice. On the third breath, he held it, refusing to exhale until his lungs burned, until the air inside him was replaced with your scent.

Satoru only grinned as he watched his friend accept the peace offering.

”You can keep it.”

✧ ✧ ✧

When they returned to campus, they barely had time to step out of the car before Yaga intercepted them.

He stood at the edge of the lot, arms folded across his chest, posture relaxed in a way Suguru had long learned not to trust. His eyes swept over them once.

“Anything to share?” Yaga asked as he approached.

His tone was flat, but there was weight behind it. A hook baited and waiting.

“Nope,” Satoru answered immediately, rocking back on his heels. “Mission cleared. Real boring stuff.”

Yaga’s gaze shifted—not to Suguru’s face, but to his hands, to the jacket he still refused to let go of.

“Then why,” Yaga asked, far too calmly, “did two separate cars bring you back?”

Suguru exhaled through his nose, tipping his head back with an exaggerated sigh. “Why ask,” he said, “when you already know the answer?” This was a bluff—a dangerous one, but he didn’t want to say anything that would land either of them in trouble.

“So it’s true, then?” Yaga pressed. “What she said?”

Satoru let out a soft laugh, clearly unable—or unwilling—to keep his mouth shut.

“Oh?” he said, eyebrows shooting up. “What did the little omega say?”

There was a long pause.

“That she exhausted herself,” Yaga replied slowly, eyes flicking between the two of them. He waited, expecting either of them to slip up or offer a different version of the story, because he knew there was more to it. But neither young alpha cracked under the pressure. “And asked Suguru to call another car because she couldn’t maintain her barrier. She didn’t think it was wise for you all to return together.”

Suguru hadn’t even considered the possibility that you might lie about what had happened, but in that moment, he didn’t have time to wonder why you might have.

“Yeah,” Satoru said lightly, a faint grin still on his face. “Poor thing—”

“But she did well,” Suguru cut in sharply. “Handled herself. Cleared her floor. Didn’t even need our help.”

A muffled sound escaped Satoru.

Suguru shot him a warning glare.

Yaga’s expression didn’t change, but something unreadable flickered in his eyes. He opened his mouth, clearly intending to ask more questions—

“Excuse us,” Suguru said abruptly.

His hand shot out, clamping onto Satoru’s collar with enough force to crease the fabric. Without hesitation, he yanked him backward and started dragging him out of sight.

Satoru choked on a laugh as he stumbled along, barely catching his footing as they rounded the corner and Yaga vanished was out of view.

Transferring from Kyoto to Tokyo in your third year was never something you had imagined for yourself—certainly not something you wanted to do.

As the train rattled forward, your gaze remained fixed on the rain-streaked window, though you barely registered the scenery rushing past. The world outside was a watercolor of gray skies and blurred silhouettes, washed together by the relentless drizzle. It was early morning, yet the clouds hung low and heavy, smothering the horizon.

You watched a pair of raindrops race down the glass.

At first they zigzagged separately, weaving around one another. One seemed to gain speed, slipping lower while the other lagged behind. Then a third joined them, spiraling into their path. The three droplets twisted and collided, trying to avoid one another before finally merging into a single stream that disappeared over the edge of the window.

You sighed and the moment your attention drifted from the glass, settling on your lap, thoughts you had been trying to ignore all morning returned; no matter how many times you shoved them aside, they crept back in like poisonous ivy, winding through every corner of your mind and sinking their roots deeper.

In hindsight, you should have noticed something was happening a month ago. The signs had been there: the hushed conversations that stopped when you approached, the strange looks, and the sudden increase in assignments, training exercises, and missions. At the time, you'd assumed your teachers were simply pushing you harder. Eventually, you realized it was a test—and you passed.

The transfer notice arrived without ceremony. Not as a discussion, not as a request—a statement.

You were being transferred to Tokyo Jujutsu High.

You had only recently begun to think of Kyoto as home. The idea of leaving behind everything familiar twisted uncomfortably inside your chest. Yet arguing would have accomplished nothing. Orders like this came from people whose authority dwarfed your own. So, you hadn't protested and just tried to accept it.

You weren't in a position to demand explanations.

You certainly weren't in a position to refuse.

Either way, you kept reminding yourself, there were only two years left; twenty-four months.

You repeated the number like a mantra.

You could survive twenty-four months.

Adjusting would be difficult at first. Everything would be unfamiliar—the campus, the city, the people. Eventually, though, routine would settle in. Missions would pile up. Assignments would demand your attention.

Time would pass.

You were already halfway through your education. You hadn't come this far just to quit now, and quitting would have been the only way to avoid the transfer. That wasn't an option.

You intended to graduate.

You intended to become a full-fledged jujutsu sorcerer.

This transfer was nothing more than another obstacle standing between you and that goal.

At least, that was what you kept telling yourself.

You had never actually visited Tokyo Jujutsu High before, but you knew enough about it. That was unavoidable when you attended its sister school.

Despite serving the same purpose, Kyoto and Tokyo operated very differently. While Kyoto primarily trained omegas, Tokyo was known for its alpha students. Betas could attend either institution and often acted as a bridge between the two groups, though most eventually enrolled in Kyoto.

The separation wasn't tradition. It wasn't some outdated custom preserved out of habit. It was control—a deliberate system designed to force young sorcerers to prioritize discipline over instinct.

Personally, you preferred it that way.

The thought of spending your formative years surrounded by alpha pheromones and oversized egos sounded like a special kind of torture. Young alphas, in particular, had a tendency to carry themselves as though the world naturally revolved around them.

Unlike civilians, jujutsu sorcerers couldn't rely on suppressants, scent blockers, or other pharmaceutical shortcuts. Anything that interfered with instincts also interfered with cursed energy output, and a sorcerer with capped energy was a liability.

If you hadn't possessed an innate technique, you might have fought the transfer harder.

Being an omega in an alpha-dominated environment sounded reckless on paper. Dangerous at worst. Especially when many students were still learning how to manage themselves.

But you did have an innate technique. That fact alone kept panic from consuming you entirely. Because it meant you weren't completely defenseless.

Your technique allowed you to create vacuum-like barriers—isolated spaces that severed outside influence and immobilized anything trapped within them.

On missions, you used it to restrain curses before exorcising them from a safe distance with a cursed tool.

Off the battlefield, however, it served a very different purpose. You could weave a thin barrier around your body. Almost invisible. A second skin made of cursed energy. It muted everything: your scent, your pheromones, and even the presence of your cursed energy.

Maintaining it for extended periods was exhausting. After receiving news of the transfer, however, you had thrown yourself into mastering it. The improvement had been significant. A month ago, you could barely sustain the barrier for a few hours before exhaustion forced it to collapse. Now, with enough concentration, you could maintain it for nearly an entire day. An achievement you should have been proud of. Instead, it only reminded you that soon you would need to maintain it constantly.

The thought made your shoulders sag.

Outside, another raindrop struck the window. Then another. Then another.

Tokyo drew closer with every passing mile, looming ahead like a storm waiting patiently on the horizon.

✧ ✧ ✧

The rest of the journey passed in a haze of half-sleep and drifting thoughts.

You dozed with your cheek pressed against the cool glass, waking intermittently as the train jolted over uneven tracks. Time blurred. Somewhere between stations, you ate the food you had packed—mechanically, without much taste—and drank from a can of something overly sweet and carbonated.

When you reached into your bag later and found a small bar of strawberry chocolate, you paused.

Utahime.

The realization softened something in your chest.

A folded note was tucked beneath the wrapper.

Call me when you get there <3

You stared at it for a moment longer than you meant to, then carefully slipped it into your pocket instead of throwing it away.

By the time the train finally pulled into Tokyo, your nerves felt frayed raw.

The station itself was overwhelming in a way you hadn't anticipated—not loud exactly, but dense. Too many people. Too many scents. Too much motion.

The drive from the station took longer than expected, and with every kilometer the knot in your chest tightened. You found yourself fidgeting without realizing it—picking at loose threads on your sleeve, tapping your fingers against your thigh, checking the time three separate times despite knowing only a few minutes had passed.

You told yourself you weren't nervous. That you had no reason to be. And yet your instincts disagreed.

Tokyo Jujutsu High appeared quietly, tucked away from the city in a way that made it feel almost unreal. Like it hadn't quite decided whether it belonged to the modern world or something older.

A staff member greeted you briefly. No ceremony. No fanfare. Just a nod and a direction. You followed.

The dormitory building was larger than Kyoto’s, though emptier in feeling. The halls stretched longer. The air smelled faintly of wood and cleaning oil.

You were shown to your floor. Only a few students lived there. A mix of betas and one other omega, you were told in passing.

Your new room itself was simple.

A bed with a nightstand. A desk and a chair whose wheels squeaked when you sat down. A wardrobe. Two sets of summer and winter uniforms.

After changing into dark blue, high-waisted slacks and a cropped jacket with a high collar, you decided it was time for a snack.

Maintaining your barrier already felt like holding something alive beneath your skin—constant, hungry, draining. The moment you stepped off the train, you'd reactivated it fully. Now it clung to you like a second pulse, steady but demanding.

You left your room.

The hallway was quiet. Almost suspiciously so. You passed the empty common area without incident, and soon you found yourself outside. The campus grounds here were far larger than Kyoto’s—wide paths branching between buildings, unfamiliar turns everywhere you looked.

You wandered longer than you intended.

Eventually, you found the vending machines.

Someone was already there.

You stopped. Not because they noticed you, but because your body reacted first. You were about to turn around and leave when your mind caught up and halted you.

A girl stood in front of the machine, studying the options with mild concentration. She was your height, maybe slightly shorter, with short brown hair that brushed her jaw. Her uniform was similar to yours, though instead of slacks she wore a skirt and tights.

You continued to linger several steps away when the sudden realization loosened something in your chest you hadn't realized was tight.

She was a beta.

You knew because there was no instinctive alarm. You didn't feel the urge to retreat. You felt awkward, but.. at ease.

She selected a drink and stepped aside. Only then did she notice you—or perhaps she simply acknowledged your presence. Her gaze flicked over you briefly.

“You’re new,” she said.

It wasn't a question.

“Yeah,” you replied because it seemed like a polite thing to do.

She didn't seem particularly interested beyond that.

You bought two things: something aggressively pink and a bag of sour worms.

The silence that settled between you wasn't uncomfortable. It simply existed. However, since she wasn't walking away, you decided to introduce yourself.

“Ieiri Shoko,” the girl replied, cracking open her can.

“Oh.” You glanced toward her; her name sounded familiar. “We're roommates. Sort of.”

“Figured.” The corners of her mouth twitched, though it never quite turned into a smile.

Somehow, you didn’t rush back to your room like you had planned after you acquired your snacks. You stayed and talked with Ieiri, even if the conversation moved at a snail’s pace. Maybe it was because you didn't feel threatened or maybe because every time you thought about leaving, she would casually say something that reeled you back into the conversation.

Ieiri told you she didn’t think there was much difference between Kyoto and Tokyo when it came to classes or training after you mentioned being worried about adjusting to Tokyo.

You offered her your sweets; she took two worms. In return, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, slipped one between her lips, and silently offered you one as well.

You weren’t really a smoker. You’d tried once or twice just for the sake of it, but the habit never stuck. Still, you took one. Maybe it would calm your nerves. And unlike in the past, the idea of smelling like tobacco didn’t seem as unappealing. If anything, it might help mask your already muted omega scent even further, in case your barrier flickered if you focused lessened, or worse collapsed competely.

“So,” she started, passing you the lighter—you made sure not to touch her hand, avoiding questions about the barrier coating your skin, “why transfer here?”

You shrugged, lighting the cigarette and inhaling. The smoke filled your lungs, strangely comforting. To your relief, the cough you expected didnt came, but it still took a few small inhales before you adjusted to the taste.

“Not really my choice,” you said, exhaling slowly, watching the smoke curl in the air.

“No?”

“I was told to come. . . I only have two years left anyway.”

Ieiri hummed softly, as if filing the information away rather than judging it.

More than once, you caught her watching you—not in a way that felt invasive, but observant. Noting things without commenting on them.

When your fingers lowered and the ash from your cigarette fell cleanly to the ground without touching you, her gaze lingered for a fraction longer.

✧ ✧ ✧

Together, you spent another hour outside.

One cigarette became two.The conversation came in pieces—short remarks, pauses, the occasional comment that didn't require a response.

The breeze moved through the courtyard, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant rain.

Eventually, you both headed back inside and into the classroom.

The moment you stepped inside, it hit you.

The scent—overwhelming. The air felt thick enough to chew. Alpha pheromones saturated every corner of the room, seeped into the desks, clung to the walls like smoke trapped beneath a ceiling. Your technique dulled the worst of it, filtering the scents through layers of cursed energy, but it didn't erase it.

You stepped to the nearest window and pushed it open without hesitation. Fresh air flooded inside. Only then did you notice the room properly.

Four desks near the front. A chalkboard with faint remnants of writing. Someone had drawn something crude in the corner—half erased. Another attempt at writing had been scratched out, leaving only a fragment: Yaga…

You sat down. Shoko took the desk beside yours. Conversation resumed easily between the two of you. Something about the city. Something about training. Something about nothing in particular. You listened more than you spoke.

Then—footsteps thundered outside. Someone laughed. Someone else scoffed.

The classroom door slid open. Your attention snapped toward it immediately, eyes narrowing as if you were assessing a threat, which in a way you were.

Gojo Satoru entered like he owned the room. His scent pressed forward even through your barrier. Sharp and electric, demanding attention whether you wanted to give it or not. His white hair stuck out in every direction, dark sunglasses perched on his nose. A bright pink lollipop rested between his lips, which he pulled out to twirl between his fingers, as his eyes lazily scanned the classroom.

Your body tensed, shoulders drawing inwards before you could stop yourself as his gaze stopped directly at you, the smirk widening as if he found what he was looking fo.r

Another figure followed behind him.

Where Gojo’s presence crashed into the room, this one settled. Heavy. Controlled. His friend's scent stayed coiled close to his body, contained but unmistakable. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, hair tied back in a messy bun. His gaze was just as curious as Gojo’s, though far more restrained.

“You’re both uncharacteristically early today,” Ieiri commented as they dropped into the empty chairs behind you and her. Like she, you turned slightly to the side so you could look at the two of them.

“Are we?” Gojo leaned forward, elbows on his desk, chin resting on his knuckles as he popped the lollipop back into his mouth. Despite the sunglasses shielding his eyes, you noticed them flick briefly to Ieiri before settling back on you.

You didn't like the attention, but you refrained from commenting or from saying anything at all.

“You’re usually late,” Ieiri said flatly.

“That’s slander.”

“Yesterday you were thirty minutes late.”

“I was busy. . . sleeping.” Gojo shrugged, twirling his lollipop.

His friend exhaled something that might have been a laugh. Ieiri rolled her eyes and made a disguisted expression.

“Aaaand usually I don't have the motivation to show up,” Gojo admitted shamelessly. “Especially for Yaga's booooring classes.”

Gojo, still looking at you, held out the lollipop, lips curling into a wolfish smirk.

“Want some?”

You shook your head and leaned back slightly, increasing the space between you. Your barrier tightened instinctively, as you spared a brief glance at his friend—who still hadn’t spoken—but like Gojo, he was watching you now. Even Ieiri's eyes were on you now.

The attention made your skin crawl.

The candy disappeared back into his mouth.

“Not the chatty type, huh,” Gojo mused, content to talk to himself as he leaned back, legs stretched out beneath the desk, one hand resting on his knee, fingers drumming.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Ieiri sighed, thankfully redirecting the conversation after a moment when she clearly saw your shoulders tensing, your spine locking straight. “Any trouble yesterday?”

“None. Obviously,” the other alpha replied, sighing and sinking even lower in his seat before straightening back up. “Though, I would’ve finished earlier if someone hadn’t been messing around.”

“I was not messing around,” Gojo scoffed dramatically, pretending to be offended.

Ieiri raised her eyebrows, obviously not believing him.

“Anyway,” Gojo turned back to you, determined to continue where he had been interrupted. “Do you have a name?”

You didn’t reply, only because he was too quick with yet another comment; however, this time he glanced at Ieiri.

“Is she mute or something? Haven’t heard her say a word yet.”

“I’m not,” you snapped, irritation slipping into your voice because you hated when people talked about you like you weren’t in the room. Despite everything you’d heard about Gojo Satoru—the prodigy, the strongest, multiple other praises—all you could think about right now was that he was loud. Too animated. Took up too much space. Completely incapable of shutting up and definitely fucking annoying.

“Well, then what is it? Your name?” he pressed, but before you could even open your mouth, he continued, yet again interrupting you before you could even part your lips. “No—wait, I’ll guess.”

You let him get through six increasingly ridiculous guesses. By the seventh, you cut him off and introduced yourself, giving only your first name.

“Ohhh, we’re on a first-name basis already? I like that,” his grin widened as he dipped his chin, sunglasses sliding down just enough to reveal a sliver of pale lashes and a hint of ridiculously blue eyes. “Obviously, you already know who I am.”

You scrunched your nose, briefly considering lying just to fuck with him, but decided against it, realizing that it would only spur him on—and he was already too much to deal with.

“And this is Geto,” Gojo added, pointing the lollipop at his friend. “Though I know he’d love it if you called him Suguru.”

Geto didn’t argue.

“You have too much energy this early in the morning,” Ieiri muttered, rubbing her temples before sinking in her seat, leaning all her weight on the back of her chair.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gojo tilted his head, a few strands of white hair falling into his face as he pouted, bottom lip jutting out.

“She means you’re talking too much,” Geto clarified.

You snorted before you could stop yourself, quickly swallowing the sound and forcing your expression back to blank. The corner of Geto’s lips twitched as your eyes locked for a moment.

Unlike Ieiri, or even Geto, who only occasionally made a comment as the conversation continued—well, it was more of a monologue from Gojo—Gojo obviously had no concept of boundaries. And despite Ieiri’s attempts to redirect attention away from you, whenever she noticed you shifting in your chair, the empty packet crinkling between your fingers as you tried to avoid a question, or when you outright glared at Gojo, he didn’t ease up.

“Are you really an omega?” he asked.

The room stilled.

Geto straightened, his attention sharpening. Even Ieiri froze, waiting for the answer to one of the questions she hadn’t dared ask back at the vending machines.

You knew what prompted the question—the absence, the wrongness of it. Your scent should have been obvious, should have soaked into the room. Instead, there was nothing, contained, suppressed, locked behind cursed energy, which was becoming harder to maintain considering your emotions were all over the place.

“Are you really an alpha,” you shot back, “or just annoying like that?”

Gojo burst out laughing. Geto exhaled sharply; it almost sounded like a low chuckle. Even Ieiri’s lips twitched.

Leaning forward again, Gojo inhaled deliberately, unconcerned with subtlety. His gaze traveled down your frame as if looking for something.

Your pulse spiked. The barrier strained but remained intact. You pressed yourself into your seat, chair legs scraping faintly as it slid an inch backward. Your arms instinctively wrapped around your waist.

You didn’t know why you were avoiding the answer. You thought about pretending to be a beta back on the train, but that thought was quickly dismissed. You were not nearly strong enough to keep the charade up, and the idea of maintaining your barrier all the time for two years straight sounded exhausting. Still, you neither confirmed nor denied it. It was bound that the truth about you being omega would eventually become known to everyone, but you wanted to keep that a secret for as long as you could—even if it was just another five minutes.

“Boundaries, Satoru,” Ieiri snapped, tossing her empty can at his shoulder.

Gojo’s infinity made it bounce off him. It rolled across the floor toward Geto’s desk, and he picked it up before tossing it into the bin near the door.

Gojo only slumped back in his chair when you gave him the answer he wanted—a clipped, quiet, thoroughly annoyed yes that made him smirk. And you only said it because he was clearly intent on glaring holes into your head until you caved and finally admitted it; it was the only way to maybe get rid of his attention and the scrutinizing gaze.

Before he could ask another question you didn’t want to answer, Yaga Masamichi walked in.

✧ ✧ ✧

The class started. Time dragged. Gojo remained loud throughout all of it. There wasn’t a stretch longer than five minutes without some running commentary, a complaint, or an observation nobody had asked for.

When Yaga finally dismissed everyone, relief unfurled inside your chest. Only for him to ask you to stay behind. Back in Kyoto, one-on-one conversations with your teacher had rarely meant anything good. Usually, they ended with criticism, additional assignments, or some variation of you need to do better. This time, however, you didn’t mind.

Staying behind meant not having to walk out into the hallway and risk Gojo picking up exactly where he’d left off.

The conversation itself was brief and largely inconsequential. Yaga asked a few questions. You gave neutral answers.

The only moment that caught you off guard came right before he dismissed you.

“You handled yourself well.”

When confusion washed over your face, he elaborated.

“Using your innate technique to shield yourself was smart.”

The praise settled awkwardly in your chest, unfamiliar enough that you didn’t know where to put it.

By the time you left the classroom, Yaga had already turned his attention back to paperwork.

That afternoon, you secluded yourself in your room after raiding the vending machines yet again, this time coming back with a bigger haul. Despite knowing better, you skipped lunch, needing a moment to yourself. By the time dinner rolled around, however, you knew you couldn’t avoid the cafeteria any longer.

To your surprise, you only found Ieiri and Geto there, the space otherwise empty. After grabbing your food, you carried your tray over and sat down with them.

“You skipped lunch today,” Geto remarked, tone casual, matter-of-fact.

“Needed a nap more than food,” you replied, a lie that came easily because it was already on the tip of your tongue.

Though Gojo’s presence was not missed in the slightest, you still noticed his absence, and as much as you didn’t want to ask, the question slipped out anyway. You reasoned with yourself that you needed to know where he was if you wanted to continue avoiding him.

“Where’s Gojo?”

A smirk tugged at Geto’s mouth. “Miss him already?”

You kept your eyes firmly on your tray.

“No,” you said dryly, continuing to push food around instead of eating. “I just want to know who to thank for keeping him busy.”

Ieiri snorted. You shot her a glance, a satisfied smile flickering across your lips before it faded—because the way you kept exchanging glances over the meal reminded you too much of Utahime, who you missed despite seeing her yesterday.

You definitely should call her later tonight.

“Yaga,” Geto answered. “Satoru forgot to put up a curtain during a mission. Again. He’s on cleaning duty. Scrubbing floors.”

“And is he really? Scrubbing floors?” you asked, rolling your eyes. There was no chance Gojo Satoru was using a broom for its intended purpose.

Geto’s chuckle rumbled low in his chest. “Probably not.”

Neither Geto nor Ieiri rushed you, waiting until you’d finished before standing. When the three of you stepped outside, Ieiri immediately reached into her pocket.

“A cigarette after a meal is mandatory.”

The evening air was cool, though the wind wasn’t harsh, even less so with your barrier up—only a slight breeze.

“Didn’t peg you as a smoker,” Geto commented as Ieiri pulled out two sticks and handed one to you.

“Occasionally,” you said with a shrug, though you had a strange feeling the habit might stick.

As Ieiri lit her cigarette, Geto flicked his lighter open. One hand shielded the flame from the breeze as he tipped his chin toward you. You leaned in without taking the lighter. Your muscles tensed when he leaned closer as well, the tips of your cigarettes brushing briefly as the flame caught.

Your gaze lifted. Your body froze. Up close, his eyes weren’t black like you’d thought earlier. They were a deep, dark shade of purple.

He tilted his head slightly, not pulling away when he realized you were looking at him. His bangs slipped to the side, eyes narrowing as if he noticed something interesting, though he said nothing. Neither did you, as if hypnotized.

When Geto still didn’t move, you forced yourself to step back instead. Straightening, you inhaled a long drag and deliberately ignored the way Ieiri was watching the two of you.

✧ ✧ ✧

The rest of the week was. . . a lot. You expected chaos, but it went beyond that, leaving you quietly questioning whether you could really endure the next two years like this.

Tuesday proved that Monday hadn't been a fluke.

Gojo was just as overbearing, just as relentless, and somehow even more irritating than before. His attention remained fixed on you no matter how thoroughly you demonstrated your complete lack of interest in entertaining him. It was like being stalked by an especially loud stray cat—one that never got tired, one that talked constantly.

Geto was quieter. Far quieter. Yet somehow, you were always aware of him. You’d catch him watching from across the classroom, listening whenever you spoke to Ieiri, leaning toward Gojo to whisper something whenever Yaga’s back was turned. You never managed to hear what was being said.

The fact that you wanted to know bothered you more than the fact that it was happening.

Thankfully, you had Ieiri. You found yourself sticking close to her throughout the week, and to your relief, she seemed to enjoy your company as much as you enjoyed hers.

Wednesday offered some relief during training when you and Ieiri were paired for hand-to-hand combat. You were stronger with your technique than she was, but she didn’t seem bothered by it—especially not when the two of you managed to sneak away for a few smoke breaks while Yaga focused his full attention on chewing out Gojo and Geto, who were doing everything but practicing the drills they needed to do.

Thursday was the worst. Although you didn’t see Gojo or Geto—they were away on a mission, as Ieiri told you when the two of you ate breakfast—Yaga summoned you and informed you that you would be sent out on a mission the following day.

Initially, you were excited. Despite how tough some missions could be, it was always a chance to improve, and you were determined to become the best damn sorcerer you could be.

“This will be your first mission here in Tokyo,” he said. “Nothing overly difficult.”

You nodded, standing in front of his desk, hands loosely clasped behind your back as you tried not to fidget too much.

“A public high school,” Yaga continued, sliding a thin file across the desk. “Grade Four curses.”

You stepped forward to glance at the paperwork. The relief was immediate. Grade Four meant nuisance-level—tedious, perhaps, but not dangerous. Basically a perfect first mission for you in Tokyo.

“As a Grade Two sorcerer,” Yaga went on, “you’re more than capable of handling this. However—”

Your stomach dropped, immediatly knowing you were not going to like what he said next.

“—the infestation is widespread. Multiple classrooms, hallways, and a basement. This means working alone would be inefficient.”

You clasped your hands behind your back again, nails digging into your palms.

Yaga suddenly leaned back in his seat and studied you longer than necessary. His gaze dropped to your posture, then the faint hum of cursed energy beneath your skin.

“You are still maintaining your technique,” he observed, abruptly changing the topic.

“Yes.”

“Constantly?”

You hesitated, not sure if you should be honest, but decided there was no point in lying. “I only drop it when I’m alone.”

Yaga nodded once. “Smart. But costly.”

You didn’t deny it, muttering something about it being manageable as long as you kept fueling your body and didn’t skip meals. He offered no comment, smoothly redirecting the conversation back to the mission.

“Gojo and Geto will accompany you.”

Your chest tightened, but you forced your expression to remain neutral. You’d only maintained your barrier on a mission a handful of times before, but being partnered with them meant you’d have to do it again. You wondered why you couldn’t be paired up with someone else, literally anyone else. . . but just like always, you refused to backtalk your teacher.

After a pause, Yaga added, “The school has three floors. It would be wise to split up.” Another pause, like he was expecting you to say something, like he expected a student to complain or fight about it. “But if at any point maintaining your barrier compromises your performance,” his voice hardened, “you do not drop it. You pull back instead and leave the rest to Gojo and Geto. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“For future missions,” Yaga continued, “I’ll try to pair you with a beta or send you solo when appropriate.”

The thought of being alone with Gojo and Geto—especially Gojo, who so openly ignored your boundaries and seemed to take pleasure in provoking you—made your stomach twist.

For the past week, Ieiri had been a buffer—a friend when the four of you were together, and a beta between omega and the two alphas.

Tomorrow, there would be nothing between you.