[Tokyo Jujutsu High Writing Trio]
[Getou Suguru: Satoru, have you made it home yet?]|
[Getou Suguru: Akiya said today's "snow" is especially beautiful — particularly in its defiled state.]
[Gojo Satoru: Pervert! Pervert! Both of you better remember this!]
[Getou Suguru: Understood. I'll write it into my next novel — help you keep the memory alive, Satoru.]
[Gojo Satoru: ...]
Five minutes earlier he had already stepped through the gates of the Gojo estate.
Gojo Satoru stared down at the screen of his phone while his foot came down hard — snapping a snow-laden dead branch with a sharp crack. The sole of his shoe ground the fragments into the powder, releasing a faint, crunching rustle.
The hot rush of embarrassment and irritation surged up violently — then just as swiftly receded, light as a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond, never able to linger long in the depths of his heart.
These ordinary, childish squabbles somehow made him feel — for a fleeting moment — that he possessed a life that was vividly, unmistakably alive.
Then he veered away from the path where the servants were moving, deliberately avoiding the route that would take him back to his own quarters to change out of the now-stained yukata. Instead he turned toward another, quieter wing of the sprawling Gojo residence. Without his dark glasses to shield him, he walked with eyes half-closed by long habit, lashes lowered against the world.
Every time he went out and passed through crowds, the burden on his eyes and his mind grew almost unbearable.
Only inside these walls did the pressure ease — even if only slightly.
Yet that small relief could never erase the deep, bone-deep aversion he felt toward the entire family.
Farther ahead, between the dark pillars of the trees, the faint outline of a temple appeared and disappeared like a half-remembered dream.
Because the temple had long been dedicated to Guanyin, wisps of incense smoke coiled lazily in the air above, lingering like pale ghosts refusing to ascend.
Gojo Satoru stood a short distance away, eyes closed as always within these grounds. His long lashes cast faint shadows across his cheeks, which still carried the flushed glow of someone who had sprinted the entire way home through the snow. He wore a pale yukata patterned with dragonflies — now thoroughly soiled, the obi hanging loose and sloppy around his hips. If any of the household servants caught sight of him in this state, they would immediately lower their gazes and murmur the most delicate, trembling suggestions that the young master really ought to go bathe and change at once.
He was not nearly as fastidious as the servants imagined.
At the very least, he did not require spotless perfection in order to face this world that had been cursed by human hearts.
Every year, the first heavy snowfall in Kyoto dragged him back to the moment of his birth — the metallic tang of blood thick in the air, soft flakes drifting outside the window, himself arriving in this mortal realm in a state of helpless ignorance while the membrane over his newborn eyes temporarily blocked the overwhelming flood of information.
No one could choose how they entered the world, and even Gojo Satoru was no exception; he could not alter the fact that he had been born with the Six Eyes.
If it had been possible, he would have chosen to open them just a little later.
Gojo Satoru spoke softly to the empty air, as though confessing to the drifting incense.
"Suguru has parents, but they never understood him."
"Akiya lost his parents, yet he refuses to feel grief for it — he deliberately avoids visiting their graves."
He turned the thoughts over and over in his mind, then murmured with a wry twist of his lips, "As expected, I'm the one who's truly different."
He had once received parental love. Those Six Eyes had recorded it perfectly — the faces of a man and woman gazing at their unborn child with pure, aching hope. What they had wished for was not the Six Eyes at all, but simply a healthy, utterly ordinary, yet outstanding sorcerer son.
Well — that had been before he was born.
A sudden notion flickered through Gojo Satoru's mind: if Akiya or Suguru had been the ones born into the Gojo family instead, they would probably have been far more suitable sons than he ever was.
True, a non-technique user would have a harder life in some ways, but they would never lack for money or connections, and besides — Cursed Spirit Manipulation was insanely cool. The entire Gojo clan arsenal of cursed spirits would be at a manipulator's disposal, more than enough to catapult any wielder straight to special-grade status.
He wavered for only a moment between stepping inside the temple or turning away — then, with genuine delight, he chose to follow his heart completely: screw it, I'm sneaking in.
Before crossing the threshold, however, Gojo Satoru raised a hand and summoned forth a swirl of snowflakes with Blue. At first he intended to simply gather them into a perfect snowball, but after a second's consideration he decided that would look far too plain. A mischievous spark lit his features as he began fine-tuning the shape with precise, playful adjustments — his fingers, guided by cursed energy, molded the drifting white into something far more interesting.
A small white cat.
He kept laughing softly to himself the entire time he worked, utterly absorbed in the simple, childish joy of creation, as though nothing in the world could be more entertaining than this quiet act of whimsy.
Inside the temple the floating motes of dust never reached him; Infinity held them all at a perfect, invisible distance.
A woman knelt upon the tatami before the altar in formal prayer. She gave no sign whatsoever that she had noticed his arrival — head bowed low, expression utterly serene and unchanging, her glossy black hair swept up into the traditional married woman's style, her kimono bound tightly around her body like armor. From her lips came the steady, measured recitation of passages from the sutra praising Guanyin's boundless compassion in saving all sentient beings.
In every line of her posture she resembled precisely the sort of wooden puppet from the old feudal clans that Gojo Satoru despised most deeply.
He strolled forward with exaggerated nonchalance until he stood directly in front of the Buddha statue. His half-closed eyes flickered faintly when he spotted black sesame mochi among the offerings on the tray. Without hesitation he reached out, picked one up, and carefully pressed it into place as the cat's eyes.
At last he set his little masterpiece down right in front of the praying woman. She did not so much as glance at it. The only thing that stirred even the slightest ripple across her composure was the muddy footprint left on the hem of his yukata.
Gojo Satoru's voice rang out bright and brimming with life.
"Today it snowed — I went out to meet some friends, and they got my clothes all filthy. When I came back I figured you'd definitely be here doing something boring as usual, so here — a gift for you."
The white-haired boy leaned down and gently placed the small white cat — which looked a little like himself yet crucially lacked the piercing glow of Six Eyes — directly onto the open pages of her sutra book.
"Do you want to leave the Gojo family?"
"Whenever it is, wherever it might be — just have one of the servants inform me, that's all."
"Don't worry about anyone else. Around here I'm the one who calls the shots. I can handle every single problem that comes up."
With those words the white-haired boy straightened, laced both hands behind his head in a lazy pillow, and sauntered back toward the entrance with deliberate slowness — pointedly refusing to look behind him. Through Six Eyes he could still see her clearly: the woman remained exactly as she had been, completely unmoved, as though every trace of vitality had long ago been drained from her, leaving behind nothing more than an empty female shell.
There is no Guanyin in this world.
So what exactly are the people who pray to Guanyin begging to protect?
The white-haired boy halted mid-step. He had finally learned one of the fundamental uses of a human mouth — to speak.
He turned around. There was neither irritation nor sorrow in his expression, only a calm statement of simple fact.
"If you don't want to leave, then at least try to live a little happier. I'll take care of you for the rest of your life."
This pale dragonfly-patterned yukata was one of Gojo Satoru's favorite pieces of clothing, even though the design itself was thoroughly childish.
It stood as a quiet symbol of his own childhood.
A childhood without father or mother — born beneath falling snow into a world that greeted him with cold silence.
Dragonflies are creatures of summer, yet he had entered the world in deepest winter. From that moment the clan had lifted him onto a divine pedestal. Up there the air held no scorching heat, no buzzing of insects, no clamor of ordinary life. For seven full years he had lived in seclusion — hidden from assassins lurking beyond the barrier, shielded within the Gojo family's protective domain, deliberately limiting the flood of information that poured into his senses so he could grow into the person he was today.
Gojo Satoru walked away. The willful little snow sculpture he had left behind slowly melted, soaking the pages of the open sutra. Black sesame seeds remained pressed into the cat's eye sockets like dark, unblinking pupils.
"..." The woman never reached out to touch it — just as she had never been able to truly reach him.
According to the strict rules of the Gojo clan, the bearer of the Six Eyes was never anyone's child. He was a treasure bestowed upon the family by heaven itself — a being of singular physique and overwhelming cursed energy.
In order to preserve the absolute, unparalleled status of the Six Eyes within the clan, the biological parents of such a child were forbidden from having any more children, forbidden from divorcing, and forbidden from ever becoming a vulnerability that could be exploited against the heir.
In the wake of that upheaval the man had gradually let the matter go. He respected her feelings, chose to live separately, and carried on with life as normally as the circumstances allowed.
A man of the Gojo family could serve as clan head, could stand as a powerful sorcerer, could even — by virtue of his position — take concubines without reproach. To outsiders among the Great Three Families, such a life appeared dazzling beyond measure.
Yet the women who married into this ancient lineage from the outside world could never claim anything even remotely similar.
She had been bound and confined by the Gojo family forever — stripped permanently of the right to bear more children and the right to raise the one she had already given birth to.
The snow he had left behind melted very slowly in front of her, perhaps slowed by some profound and inscrutable cursed technique.
She gazed at the small white cat, and her heart remained trapped in that single winter long ago.
The bustling delivery room, the agonized cries of labor, the child torn away from her arms the instant it drew breath, and those piercing, startled exclamations that still rang in her ears.
"Satoru..."
Even his name had not been hers to choose. She possessed nothing — forgotten by everyone, pushed to the farthest corner of their minds. Yet the child she had borne had come to visit her today, and he had kept those terrifying blue eyes closed.
He had grown up. He had friends now. He was no longer the pure white infant who had seemed to descend from the heavens like a divine child.
The Gojo family had raised him well.
She remained kneeling before Guanyin, a faint trace of serenity finally softening her features. She stayed in that posture for a very long time, refusing to rise, silently apologizing to the bodhisattva for the fact that her son had taken one of the offerings.
Perhaps Guanyin did not mind. Perhaps Guanyin did not exist at all. What did it matter either way.
"I take refuge in the compassion of the Buddha."
By letting that boundless compassion soothe the injustice lodged deep within her own heart, by refusing to burden the rest of the world with her pain, she had at last found the small meaning she could still cling to in this life.
...
Starting from mid-January, Gojo Satoru's meal plan had quietly shifted to a strict muscle-building regimen.
Beef, eggs, milk, nuts, and bread arrived in an endless, generous stream. Under the guidance of professionals, Gojo Satoru steadily reshaped his physique — no longer the lanky frame where excessive height had come at the cost of diminished muscle mass.
Daily push-ups, pull-ups, and explosive short sprints became non-negotiable parts of his routine.
Gojo Satoru had never been fond of high-intensity physical exertion. He approached it the way one might fish for three days and then sun-dry the net for two — managing only sporadic bursts of effort before inevitably slacking off. Still, he forced himself to persist for a respectable stretch of time.
At last he truly understood just how hard-earned Suguru Getou's well-defined muscles really were.
[Tokyo Jujutsu High Writing Trio]
[Gojo Satoru: Suguru, you're seriously impressive!]
[Getou Suguru: ?]
[Gojo Satoru: Ah crap, wrong group chat — I was supposed to send you guys my latest photo!]
[Ieiri Shoko: Send it fast. I want to see.]
——
[Tokyo Jujutsu Same-Year Quartet]
[Gojo Satoru: [Photo] Behold the fresh muscle mass I've grown!]
[Getou Suguru: You're actually training your physical techniques? Rare sight. You should have patched up that weak point of yours ages ago.]
[Ieiri Shoko: Was this Asou's idea?]
[Gojo Satoru: Yeah, hehe.]
[Asou Akiya: Hey.]
[Gojo Satoru: Akiya, when exactly are you finishing training? Haven't you already mastered Simple Domain anyway?]
[Asou Akiya: Training ends on February fifth. There are plenty of people at the dojo who excel at swordsmanship, so I'm seizing every moment to sharpen my blade work.]
——
[Tokyo Jujutsu High Foodie Duo]
[Asou Akiya: Satoru, I'll wrap up training on February first.]
——
[Tokyo Jujutsu High Melon-Eating Duo]
[Asou Akiya: Shoko, get ready — I'm coming to find you on February first. February third is Suguru's birthday.]
——
[Tokyo Jujutsu High Same-Year Quartet]
[Getou Suguru: Why did everyone suddenly stop talking?]
When Getou Suguru heard that Akiya would only be free after February fifth, a quiet emptiness settled in his chest.
He comforted himself with the thought that everyone was simply busy — and besides, Satoru had thrown himself into physical training lately, seemingly determined to reclaim some ground in close-quarters combat.
Beneath that faint, nagging sense of crisis, Getou Suguru quietly extended his daily physical training hours. He doubled the intensity of his foundational drills, fully intent on outworking Gojo Satoru and defending his undisputed title as the student with the strongest hand-to-hand skills at Tokyo Jujutsu High.
All three of the boys burned with motivation — while the lone girl, after scrolling through the muscle-flexing photo, simply let her gaze go dull and fish-eyed with lazy indifference.
"Moderate exercise is fine, you know — you're all still high schoolers."
...
On the afternoon of 31st of January, Asou Akiya finally passed through a stretch of peaceful, undisturbed study days.
No further interruptions came to trouble him.
He brought his grueling training to an early close — less than a full month after it had begun.
During this period his height had remained utterly unchanged, completely unaffected by the relentless sword practice. Yet his overall bearing had sharpened noticeably — spirit and vitality lifted, and a bright, focused gleam now lived steadily in his eyes, the unmistakable mark of prolonged, intense concentration training.
When Yaga Masamichi arrived to pick him up by car, he could not hide his genuine surprise at the transformation.
"This month was worth every second."
Asou Akiya had already changed back into his ordinary clothes. The fabric of his pants legs and sleeves now pulled taut in places it once hung loose.
"Sensei?"
Stepping out from the monotonous isolation of single-minded training and seeing Yaga Masamichi again felt strangely like returning from another world entirely.
"Wait, Papa Yaga, you haven't shaved?"
His gaze settled fully on the older man.
Collecting information.
The mind that analyzed human hearts resumed its quiet work, picking up on details that had previously slipped past unnoticed.
"Haah..." Yaga Masamichi let out a long, weary sigh that carried a whole story behind it. After the New Year, the household had gained one extra person — and with that addition the inevitable frictions had surfaced at once. He maintained his lifelong habit of rising early to exercise the body, and he could not abide laziness in the young. At first the distant relative staying with them had been willing to humor him, jogging alongside out of respect for the elder's face. But that willingness had quickly crumbled into complete surrender.
That alone would have been bearable. Ieiri Shoko displayed exactly the same sort of attitude, after all. The real problem lay elsewhere: the otoshidama — the New Year's money — he had given the boy had vanished in almost no time at all. The culprit had promptly become addicted to the game shops scattered across Tokyo.
Yaga Masamichi was not short of money, nor did he lack time during the winter break. So he had simply taken it upon himself to supervise the boy's studies.
After all, he had at least earned his teaching license as a certified sorcerer.
The results, however, proved deeply disappointing.
The boy was neither particularly clever nor possessed of any lasting perseverance. He clearly recognized that he lagged behind the average Tokyo high school student, yet he could summon no real drive to catch up or improve.
Being an orphan had brought him no positive influence whatsoever. Instead it had only sharpened his tendencies toward suspicion and hypersensitivity — he could not tolerate even the slightest harsh word without flinching.
Yaga Masamichi had grown tired of the whole affair and wanted to wash his hands of it entirely, but his wife patiently persuaded him otherwise, so he forced himself to carry on with the thankless, exhausting task.
What truly made his blood boil, though, was discovering that the little brat had been mocking his handmade hobby behind his back.
A sorcerer's hearing is exceptionally keen.
He was a cursed corpse user!
Every single one of the dolls he crafted by hand could stand against and defeat cursed spirits!
His wife had always accepted — even adored — his peculiar passion, finding the creations endearing in their own way. Yet an outsider could never comprehend it.
"I suppose," Yaga Masamichi murmured wearily, laying bare the truth at last, "being a sorcerer has made it impossible for me to accept an ordinary child anymore."
"Fortunately... I still have no children of my own by blood."
The only ordinary person he could ever truly accept in this lifetime was his wife — the woman who gave him love, who gave him a home.
When he reflected on his own state of mind, a faint thread of fear stirred within him. He even came to feel that never having children of his own had been a blessing in disguise. After all, he was not born into a major sorcerer lineage; the chances that any offspring of his would inherit a technique or even a meaningful amount of cursed energy were pitifully low.
"Most sorcerers probably carry these same psychological barriers," Asou Akiya murmured with a quiet sigh, lamenting the utter lack of proper mental health support in the jujutsu world and the fact that he had somehow been forced into filling that void himself. "You are far from the only one. There has always been an insurmountable wall standing between sorcerers and ordinary people."
The first barrier was the strict prohibition against revealing the existence of the jujutsu world to the public.
The second barrier arose from the sorcerers themselves — they refused to let ordinary people live in terror of cursed spirits, which in turn would only feed the birth of more cursed spirits through collective fear.
"You can only choose to accept it fully, or to distance yourself completely and maintain that separation."
Asou Akiya quietly admired Fushiguro Toji for managing to entangle himself so deeply in the storms of the jujutsu world yet still raise a son who believed his father was nothing more than a worthless failure.
"I choose to distance myself."
Yaga Masamichi spoke the weathered words with an expression as blank and unreadable as stone.
"So right now I'm taking you straight to my house instead. The rest is up to you from here, Akiya!" Yaga Masamichi abruptly changed course — no longer heading toward Tokyo Jujutsu High but steering directly toward his own residence. "Put that sharp mind of yours to work. Make him realize it's impossible for him to stay — drive him to give up and leave my home. Consider this your winter break assignment!"
Asou Akiya: "..." This assignment sounds like a real hassle.
Asou Akiya muttered under his breath, "Good thing I showered and changed before meeting you — otherwise it would have been terribly rude."
He sat in the back seat, quietly studying his own reflection in the car window's glass.
A clean-cut, gentle-looking boy stared back at him.
How exactly does one make an orphan realize the situation is hopeless and abandon the prospect of a comfortable family life? Send him straight back to the children's welfare institution?
[No. As long as I makes him feel inferior and drives him to despair — that will be enough.]
"How truly cruel." Asou Akiya propped his cheek against his hand and spoke in a tone so casual it might as well have been a comment on the weather.
"Sorcerers are a profession that demands cruelty — be kind to yourself, be kind to your comrades, but there is no need to waste too much emotion on strangers who mean nothing." Yaga Masamichi had actually caught the unspoken implication beneath the words and responded with cold precision.
"Papa, I have to say — you've really improved." Asou Akiya could not resist the jab.
"I was forced into it!" Yaga Masamichi growled low in his throat.
He slammed the accelerator to the floor. The car surged forward as Yaga Masamichi sped toward home with single-minded urgency — desperate to reclaim the peace that had existed before the New Year.
Yaga residence.
In front of the garage a business van pulled up and came to a smooth stop. The door slid open.
A black-haired boy stepped down from the passenger seat and fell into step beside the burly middle-aged man. Smiles played easily across both their faces as they talked. There was no overt display of hierarchy between them — yet one could still sense the subtle deference and consideration the black-haired boy extended toward the older man.
Sunlight poured over the boy's fair complexion, lending his refined features an almost luminous distinction. His dark pupils drank in the light until they seemed to generate a soft radiance of their own.
All at once the black-haired boy lifted his head — sensitive to something unseen. His gaze snapped toward a bedroom window on the second floor.
Behind the curtain someone hastily drew back out of sight.
...
Asou Akiya smiled softly.
"Ah — today I get to play the villain."
I'm sorry, stranger. Your mistake was never understanding that happiness must be fought for.