December 25th—Christmas Day. Red and green became the most vivid colors lining both sides of the streets.
Yet the snow of this winter stubbornly refused to fall.
Getou Suguru sat on a bench by the roadside, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, both hands propping up his forehead, looking utterly hollowed out, as though his soul had been scooped clean.
Because of Gojo Satoru's invitation, he had been forced into a nonstop, twenty-four-hour campaign across major shopping districts—sweeping through men's winter clothing, men's accessories, anime merchandise, and luxury boutiques. In a moment of heat-addled madness, he had even followed Gojo on the spot to place an order for a single-occupancy apartment in central Tokyo.
If he'd had more money, he might have even considered buying a car, just so he wouldn't have to wait for buses every time he went out.
Now, his wallet was empty, his HP bar was empty too, and he was saddled with a hefty housing loan.
If time could rewind, he would absolutely beat yesterday's self to death.
—Never go shopping districts with Gojo Satoru!
"Ugh…"
Getou Suguru's forehead was jolted by the warmth of a hot drink. The familiar sensation of cursed energy told him immediately that it was Asou Akiya.
He took the drink that had been bought for him. Asou Akiya, dressed in a black down jacket, sat down beside him. The tips of his fingers peeked out from his gloves as he cupped his own hot drink; faint white steam curled up from the straw, seeping warmth straight into the heart.
Asou Akiya gazed toward the road ahead. "Sorry. You looked exhausted—I thought this might help wake you up a bit."
Getou Suguru mirrored him, letting his gaze go unfocused. His dilated pupils caught fragments of the winter scenery, yet his awareness drifted outside the crowd, detached from it all.
They didn't need to speak, sitting quietly like that for a while.
"Getou," Asou Akiya said at last, "let's go back to Tokyo Jujutsu High."
He flagged down a taxi and smiled at Getou Suguru. "Perfect timing—we can drag Shoko out too."
Under normal circumstances, unless Gojo Satoru or Getou Suguru extended the invitation themselves, Ieiri Shoko would not leave the school grounds alone with Asou Akiya. And Getou Suguru, worn down as he was, had never been the type to trouble a female classmate over mere physical exhaustion.
They were all people who knew how to endure.
Loneliness, pain, fatigue—none of it came easily to their lips. They didn't know how to speak of such things to others.
When Asou Akiya found himself unable to untangle his own thoughts, he would go and untangle Getou Suguru's instead, as though the other's lightness could become his own.
The ride passed in near silence. Asou Akiya let Getou Suguru rest for a while; his head tilted against the edge of the window, the vibrations of the moving car making his sleep shallow and uncomfortable.
Then, without warning, Asou Akiya slipped off his down jacket. The car was heated, so there was no risk of catching a chill. He rolled the jacket into a bundle and tucked it beneath the edge of Getou Suguru's forehead.
Getou Suguru felt the softness ease the ache in his head. With his eyes still closed, he murmured a quiet thank-you.
Getou Suguru fell asleep. Asou Akiya, meanwhile, remained on high alert, watching for any sudden danger the taxi might encounter.
He valued the trust of his classmates deeply—it was something he had earned day by day, piece by piece, through consistent reliability.
He was not particularly strong, not someone who could face powerful enemies head-on.
But before danger ever reached them, he would be the first to wake those who were dozing.
At Tokyo Jujutsu High, Ieiri Shoko stepped out through the school gates the moment she received the call. Her steps were light, her skirt brushing against her thighs, the heels of her leather shoes tapping rhythmically against the stone pavement, as though whatever had been binding her had vanished without a trace.
She didn't need to inform anyone. She wove through the layers of steps and stopped at the rear door of the taxi waiting for her.
Asou Akiya raised a finger to his lips in a silent "shh."
Ieiri Shoko took in the rare sight of Getou Suguru curled up fast asleep. The tall boy had unconsciously drawn himself inward, as if lacking a sense of security, yet he was willing to fall into a deep, unguarded sleep inside an unfamiliar car, finally shedding the weight that pressed on his entire body.
Once again, Ieiri Shoko marveled at the sense of acceptance Asou Akiya brought with him—how he softened the rigid social distance so ingrained in people, twisting the four of them into a single, tightly bound rope.
She slipped into the car, carefully climbing over Asou Akiya's knees, and reached out with both hands to touch Getou Suguru's head.
Her focused, soothing movements looked to the taxi driver like someone petting a small animal.
Only Ieiri Shoko and Asou Akiya understood the truth: this was a dozing wild black fox, its teeth sharp, its claws retracted.
The lean muscles that could punch and kick cursed spirits into submission were hidden beneath everyday clothes.
Negative cursed energy was guided, reversed, transformed into something gentle and positive.
A wash of white light passed through the car, brushing away the fatigue Getou Suguru had accumulated over two straight days outside.
His eyelashes were short, his eye sockets deep; without proper rest, dark circles would show clearly. When his eyes were closed, his brows appeared dark and finely drawn, his fox-like eyes neither seductive nor sharp, but quietly compassionate, like a boy with an inexplicable affinity for the Buddha.
That, too, was one of the reasons the driver remained silent in the front seat and agreed to wait where he was for another female student to get in.
When Getou Suguru woke, a trace of cool, clear confidence flashed in his eyes as he opened them.
"Thanks, Akiya. Shoko."
His spirits visibly lifted.
"No need to wait—I'm full of energy now. Fighting all day won't be a problem!"
The three squeezed in together, with Ieiri Shoko seated in the middle of the back row, effectively shielded on both sides by her male classmates. Asou Akiya adjusted his posture, retrieved his down jacket, and draped it over the hem of Ieiri Shoko's skirt, radiating an unmistakable, almost parental air of I think you're cold, so you should cover up.
Asou Akiya deliberately avoided looking at Ieri Shoko's conflicted expression and instead addressed the driver. "Sorry to trouble you. Please take us to Roppongi."
After all, Christmas would hardly be complete without sightseeing and photo check-ins in Roppongi, or catching a performance at Tokyo Dome.
In any case, Gojo Satoru's grand plan to work Getou Suguru to death had completely fallen through.
…
For the entire day, Gojo Satoru didn't call to harass anyone, which somehow made him seem just a little bit pitiful by comparison.
"We didn't exclude him—it's his own problem," Ieiri Shoko said, licking an enormous ice-cream cone. Eating ice cream in winter, she completely ignored Asou Akiya's disapproving look. "Gojo's probably waiting for us to send photos."
"As long as we don't send any, he won't know a thing," Getou Suguru added with a smile, casually stabbing another knife in.
"What did you do yesterday, Getou?" Asou Akiya asked. "Isn't your stamina better than Gojo's?"
"He was just too excited," Getou Suguru said, rubbing his temples. "I guess no one's ever invited him out before. He was curious about everything on Christmas Eve—if a mall had an event going on, he'd immediately want to rush over and join the crowd."
"Is that so?" Asou Akiya thought back to the first time he'd taken Gojo Satoru shopping. With the looks of a high-school model, Gojo was practically a walking clothes rack.
No matter what colors he wore, that face carried everything effortlessly. Yet when shopping, Gojo was far colder than expected, long accustomed to clerks' praise. But the moment he encountered cartoon designs, he would instantly turn into a big kid, clinging stubbornly to whatever caught his eye; if you tried to persuade him to give it up, he'd glare at you.
"Maybe he just enjoys it more when he's with friends," Asou Akiya said with a small smile, letting the topic drop.
The lively atmosphere of Roppongi soon washed away their teasing thoughts about their absent classmate.
At eight o'clock in the evening, Gojo Satoru called Getou Suguru as usual. Getou let out a sly grin, didn't pick up, and switched his phone to silent instead. Turning to the other two, he said, "Let him stew for a bit. He can't keep harassing me all the time."
Asou Akiya remarked thoughtfully, "He always bothers you at this hour?"
Getou Suguru nodded. "He says he's bored. My guess is that he had a fight with you, and when there's no one else to talk to, he comes running to me to vent."
Asou Akiya felt a dull, uncomfortable twist in his chest.
A minute later, Asou Akiya's phone began to ring.
He tapped the answer button and had only just lifted the phone to his ear when Gojou Satoru hung up instantly.
Asou Akiya: "..."
Getou Suguru said calmly, "I told you there was no need to pay him any attention."
Ieiri Shoko noticed Asou Akiya's phone light up again. On the screen, the caller ID read: [DK Gojo].
She let out a drawn-out Wooooow.
"So you call him Gojo to his face every day, but privately you've saved him as 'DK Gojo'?"
Asou Akiya smiled and turned his phone so they could see his contacts. "You're the same."
[JK Shoko], [DK Getou].
Asou Akiya answered the call for the second time, and Gojo Satoru hung up again.
After being toyed with like this three times in a row, Asou Akiya still answered every call, staying glued to his phone and not missing even a single second.
At last, Gojo Satoru's voice burst out from the speaker, full of grievance. "Why won't you take the initiative and call me first?"
Ieiri Shoko snickered quietly. Getou Suguru twitched at the corner of his mouth at Gojo Satoru's spectacular lack of emotional intelligence. "Next time I'm buying a book on the art of communication for Gojo. Is hanging up the phone really how this guy expresses closeness?"
"Getou?" Gojo Satoru snapped. "Akiya, move farther away—don't let Getou listen in!"
"I'll talk for ten minutes. You two go browse around over there," Asou Akiya said decisively, abandoning the other two without hesitation as he walked toward a quieter corner. He continued from where they had left off earlier, his tone calm and direct. "I did call you. You were the one who didn't answer. Do you expect me to keep doing that? I respect your right to refuse a call. I don't want to become an annoying classmate during winter break."
Gojo Satoru went quiet for a moment. "Oh…"
Then he corrected himself. "No, i mean friends."
Asou Akiya replied softly, "Mm…"
Gojo Satoru asked, "Getou's exhausted, isn't he?"
Asou Akiya was well versed in the art of conversation; chatting meant steering things toward topics the other person liked to talk about. "How did you manage that?"
Gojo Satoru answered eagerly, clearly pleased with himself. "I dragged him all over town shopping, went through every store I wanted to visit. The internet says this is the most effective way to deal with men. Not long after, he started wearing that utterly dead-inside expression."
Asou Akiya told him frankly, "Good thing Shoko was there."
At the Gojo estate, Gojo Satoru—spending Christmas alone—sat perched atop the tallest tree, gazing out at the lively world beyond Kyoto. "Damn it! The three of you went out together? It's Christmas and you didn't invite me?!"
Asou Akiya looked in the direction of Kyoto and answered him plainly, "I was waiting for your call."
Gojo Satoru demanded, "Where are you?"
Asou Akiya replied, "Tokyo, Bunkyō Ward—near Tokyo Dome. We're getting ready to watch a performance."
"Wait for me, I want to go too!" Gojo Satoru decided on the spot, making his choice without the slightest hesitation. He rushed off to change clothes in a flurry of movement. "It's boring staying home alone. Let's all go out together—the four of us."
Asou Akiya let out a long, slow breath and agreed at once. "Sure. Then hurry over."
In winter, how could there be no snow?
If snow did not fall from the sky, then there would always be some other kind of "snow" to take its place.
After learning that Gojo Satoru was coming, Getou Suguru went to a scalper to buy one more ticket. Ieiri Shoko slipped into a cosmetics shop, happily testing product after product without the slightest sign of restraint, while Asou Akiya followed closely behind her the entire time, acting as a tireless praise machine.
Seeing that the two of them were young, not holding hands, and exchanging no ambiguous looks, the sales clerk quickly understood that they were not a couple.
"If there's a lipstick you like, young man, you could always buy it for your girlfriend."
"I don't have a partner," Asou Akiya replied with a smile.
Ieiri Shoko found this entirely unsurprising. If older women were not teasing Asou Akiya, then he would not be Asou Akiya.
Perhaps it was his strong domestic aura—Japan's most popular type of warm, gentle DK—that made anyone who saw Asou Akiya walk into a cosmetics store instinctively assume he must have a girlfriend.
"Gojo's here," Asou Akiya said after glancing down at his phone, turning to Shoko. "Be careful for a bit. I'll go to the entrance."
"OK," Ieiri Shoko replied, perfectly confident she could keep shopping on her own.
Not long after, the four of them regrouped.
Ieiri Shoko's lips were now coated with the newest lip gloss, clear and lustrous like jelly, reflecting fine sparkles infused with Christmas motifs. Even Gojo Satoru—who usually took good care of his lips—couldn't help glancing over again and again, unconsciously sending out his own peculiar signals.
Ieiri Shoko said bluntly, "Just say it—do you want it?"
Gojo Satoru put on an air of expertise. "Isn't that a women's shade? Guys can't wear it, right?"
"Liking pretty things isn't divided by gender," Ieiri Shoko replied. She took out the lip tint, then produced a cotton swab, and right there in front of everyone applied it to Gojo Satoru's lips. Gojo Satoru checked himself in the mirror and let out an exclamation. "Whoa, that's really bright."
Off to the side, Asou Akiya and Getou Suguru stood in perfect, synchronized agreement, pretending they hadn't seen a thing—this was simply too much for their eyes.
After that—
They watched the performance together, and they ate roast turkey and pizza together.
When it was time to part, Ieiri Shoko glanced at the three DKs, then casually pointed. "Getou, take me back."
Ieiri Shoko took Getou Suguru with her, deliberately leaving Asou Akiya alone with Gojo Satoru.
Asou Akiya: "..."
Just as Asou Akiya was about to suggest seeing Gojo Satoru off back to Kyoto, Gojo Satoru turned around and walked away on his own.
The instant he saw that retreating figure, a faint bitterness rose in Asou Akiya's chest. He thought that there was no need to see anyone home anyway—Gojo wasn't some young girl. Boys their age did as they pleased; once the fun was over, they simply went home. Why would they spare a thought for a classmate's feelings?
[If I speed up now, I might still catch up to Getou and Shoko.]
Asou Akiya chose to walk in the opposite direction from Gojo Satoru.
He had only taken a few steps when a hand suddenly seized the back collar of his down jacket, yanking it tight around his neck.
"You're not walking me back? How can you not walk me back?" Gojo Satoru appeared behind him in a flash, staring at him in disbelief. "Shoko clearly left you behind so you could go back with me."
Asou Akiya felt a vein twitch. "You were walking so fast it didn't look like you wanted anyone to see you off at all."
Then he added, finishing his thought, "And besides, you're stronger than I am. If we ran into danger, wouldn't I just be dragging you down?"
Gojo Satoru argued confidently, full of righteous indignation. "But I saw that hardly anyone on the road was going home alone!"
"If they have someone walking them back, then I want that too!"
"Why should I come out all happy and then go back by myself?"
Asou Akiya had no desire to continue arguing. He raised his hands in surrender. "Fine, do whatever you want. Taxi or train? I'll take you to the gates of the Gojo estate, and then you can go in on your own. Once you're home, we'll message each other so we know we got back safely."
Gojo Satoru grew curious. "Where do you live? Did you buy an apartment off campus?"
Asou Akiya replied calmly, "Tokyo Jujutsu High is my home."
"So lame," Gojo Satoru said, releasing his grip and heading toward the station, planning to take the subway back to Kyoto. "Don't you want to buy an apartment? Getou and I each bought one already. We're thinking of knocking down the wall between them and using it as our off-campus base."
Asou Akiya shook his head and said nothing. He simply didn't feel any sense of security living off campus.
During the subway ride, Gojo Satoru chattered nonstop, constantly voicing opinions, overflowing with things to say and energy to spare.
Asou Akiya helped him look up interior design styles. The two of them sat extremely close, heads lowered together as they scrolled through images on the phone.
Gojo Satoru suddenly asked, "I just noticed—you're not talking much anymore?"
Asou Akiya replied softly, "I like listening to you talk."
Gojo Satoru immediately resumed his enthusiastic monologue, determined to design something completely different, already tired of traditional Japanese interiors.
At night, Kyoto's main roads were no longer choked with traffic. The route leading toward the Gojo estate gradually quieted down. Asou Akiya had never been to the Gojo residence before, so he walked a step behind Gojo Satoru, deliberately stepping on the shadow that moonlight stretched long across the ground behind him, as though he were playing some childish game.
Noticing that Asou Akiya was lagging behind, Gojo Satoru suddenly ran over and stomped on Akiya's shadow instead.
In Japanese urban legends, stepping on someone's shadow was said to invite misfortune.
Ghost stories were born from the fragility and malice hidden in human hearts—but neither of them possessed such thoughts. They were simply fooling around, nothing more.
Asou Akiya turned his head back, and the other man grinned at him without restraint.
After a brief moment of thought, Asou Akiya let go of his usual aloofness. A faint smile surfaced at the corners of his lips, an unguarded smile freely returned to the one offered to him.
"Gojo," he said, "could I ask you to do me a small favor, something convenient for you?"
"What is it."
"At the clan assembly of the Three Great Families at the beginning of the year, help me deliver a letter to Zenin Naoya."
"I don't want to see that guy. Not doing it."
"Don't reject it so quickly. There are benefits—you won't lose anything. If you help me… I'll…"
"??" Gojo Satoru's face was full of outright refusal, yet his ears were keenly attuned, catching every syllable of what Asou Akiya said next.
Say it already—why did you stop?
Asou Akiya seemed to wrestle with a difficult decision. After hesitating, he finally spoke, his tone uncertain. "February 3rd next year is Suguru's birthday. He's already chosen the theme, but the actual arrangements will be handled by me…"
Gojo Satoru's eyes lit up instantly, gleaming with excitement.
"And?"
Asou Akiya replied calmly, "I can help you scare him—so thoroughly that he'll remember it for the rest of his life."
Gojo Satoru sucked in a sharp breath. "Really?!"
At that very moment, the desire for revenge that surged up within Gojo Satoru completely overwhelmed his long-standing disgust toward that rotten tangerine of the Zenin family.
"Akiya!" he exclaimed, brimming with fervor. "I want him to experience exactly the same feeling!"
"Then the matter of delivering the letter…" Asou Akiya prompted.
"No problem!" Gojo Satoru answered without hesitation.
Gojo Satoru even swore to himself that if Zenin Naoya dared refuse to accept the letter, he would force it straight into the man's mouth regardless.
He was absolutely going to the clan assembly of the Three Great Families this year!