Two years before Beacon. Signal Academy, late afternoon.
The classroom had long since emptied of other students, afternoon light cutting warm angles across the desks. Kaito Gojo sat with his chin resting on one hand, dark-lensed glasses catching the glow, the picture of someone deeply considering whether the situation in front of him was worth his time.
Ruby Rose had her scroll tilted toward him and her best pleading expression deployed at full force.
"Come on, Kaito. Please. Just help me with the homework."
A long pause. He turned the request over with the same measured quiet he applied to most things.
"Mhm." Another pause. "I don't know should I?"
"Kaito."
"…Fine." He straightened slightly. "But in exchange, you watch all my matches at the Tournament." He pulled a face as he said it, somewhere between obligation and mild theatrical suffering.
Ruby groaned. "Oh, come on. I already know you're going to win every single one. Besides she pointed toward the doorway, where Yang Xiao Long was leaning against the frame with her arms folded and a deeply self-satisfied expression, it was Yang who signed you up, not me."
Yang raised a hand without a shred of apology. "Guilty. Because someone wouldn't stop going on about being the strongest person on Patch. It's a win-win scenario."
Kaito looked at her flatly. "All the students here are weak."
Ruby spun toward him. "Hey stop looking down on people. And by saying that, you're implying Yang and I are weak too, you know."
He was quiet for a moment, as though genuinely recalibrating.
"Ahh. Fine." He adjusted his glasses. "All students here are weak with the sole exception of Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long." A beat. "Better?"
Ruby considered it. "…Marginally."
"So." He pulled her scroll closer and glanced down at the homework. "Is that a yes, then?"
"Yes, yes, that's a yes — thank you, Kaito!" She lit up immediately, the frustration gone like it had never existed.
"You two owe me an obscene number of snacks after this."
Yang laughed, pushing off the doorframe. "Says the guy who could spend a thousand Lien on lunch and not feel it. Rich boy." She said it with easy affection, the kind of teasing that only lands between people who know each other well.
"I don't hear you complaining," Kaito said without looking up, "when it's me buying you outfits."
"I certainly don't complain," Ruby said cheerfully, "when it's a whole year's worth of cookies for my birthday." She reached over and patted his hair soft and white and slightly ridiculous in the afternoon light as he settled beside her.
Yang pointed. "See, that's what's unfair. You barely let anyone pat you on the back and she just
"I suppose," Kaito said, in the careful tone of someone arriving at a conclusion through genuine deliberation, "letting you two show a little affection wouldn't hurt so much." He paused. "When I'm with you. I'll drop my technique. How does that sound?"
He had approximately one second to register what was coming before Ruby hit his side like a small, enthusiastic missile, Yang arriving half a second later from the other direction.
"Oof ribs, you two
"See, Yang?" Ruby announced triumphantly from somewhere against his shoulder. "He does care."
Kaito said nothing for a moment. Beneath the dark glasses, something in his expression had gone quietly, unexpectedly soft not performed, not deliberate. Just real.
He found himself smiling. Properly. The kind he hadn't managed in a while.
Outside the windows, Patch spread golden and unhurried in the late light. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked back down at the homework.
"Alright," he said. "Let's get this done."
The afternoon sun cut long across the floorboards of Signal Academy's study hall, and Ruby Rose had exactly zero intention of finishing her homework without reinforcements.
"Kaito." She slid her notebook across the table toward the white haired boy beside her, nudging it against his elbow. "Come on. Please. Help me with the homework."
Kaito Gojo did not look up from the ceiling. He had been staring at it for approximately four minutes, dark lenses catching the light, one leg folded over the other with the particular effortlessness of someone who had genuinely never needed to try very hard at anything.
"Mhm." A pause. "I don't know. Should I…"
Ruby's silver eyes widened in anticipation.
"…fine." He tilted his head toward her at last. "But in exchange, you have to watch all of my matches at the tournament." He pulled a face something between resigned and deeply put upon. "Every single one."
Ruby let out a groan. "Oh, come on. I already know you're going to win all of them anyway. Besides " she gestured broadly toward the doorway where Yang was leaning, arms folded, grinning like she'd been waiting for this exact moment it was Yang who signed you up in the first place."
Yang shrugged, utterly unrepentant. "Guilty. Because somebody kept going around telling everyone he was the strongest student on Patch." She tilted her head. "Figured a tournament was the obvious next step. Win win scenario."
"Win win," Kaito repeated flatly.
"Win win," Yang confirmed.
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "All the students here are weak."
Ruby turned to stare at him. "Hey. Stop looking down on people." She pointed between herself and her sister. "And saying that implies Yang and I are weak, so
"Ah." Kaito held up a hand, reconsidering with great ceremony. "Fine. All students here are weak." A beat. "With the sole exception of Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long." He glanced at Ruby. "Is that better?"
Ruby pressed her lips together, fighting a smile. "…So is that a yes to the homework?"
"Sure." He straightened up and pulled the notebook properly toward him, uncapping a pen. "Let's get it done."
"Yes." Ruby beamed, bouncing once in her seat. "Thank you, Kaito!"
"Hey!" Yang pushed off the doorframe. "Don't leave me hanging help me too, Kaitooooo
"You two owe me an enormous amount of snacks after this," he said, already writing.
Yang laughed. "Says the guy who could spend a thousand Lien without even checking his account. Rich boy." She dropped into the seat across from him, grinning. "Your words, not mine."
"I don't hear you complaining," he said mildly, "when I'm buying you outfits."
"I sure don't," Ruby agreed cheerfully, reaching up and patting his hair soft and white and endlessly satisfying to touch, apparently, because she did it every chance she got. He had stopped flinching about six months ago. "And I definitely don't complain when it's a whole year's worth of cookies for my birthday."
Yang pointed. "He barely even lets anyone pat him on the back, Ruby. You're the chosen one."
Kaito said nothing for a moment. His pen moved steadily across the page.
Then, quietly: "…I suppose letting you both show a little affection wouldn't hurt so much." He set the pen down just briefly, something in his expression shifting
When I'm with you two, I'll drop my technique. How does that sound?"
He had approximately one second to prepare before Ruby Rose hit him from the left and Yang Xiao Long hit him from the right, both at full force, because neither of them had ever once done anything at half speed.
"Oof ribs, you two
"See, Yang?" Ruby announced triumphantly, squeezing tighter. "He does care."
Kaito Gojo, the strongest student on Patch possessor of the Six Eyes, inheritor of Limitless, a boy who could fold space between his fingers sat wedged between two sisters and found, to his mild bewilderment, that he was smiling.
It had been a while since he'd done that.
That Night The Gojo Residence
The last light of evening had faded by the time Tai Xiao Long clapped a hand on the doorframe and looked at the boy pulling his jacket back on.
"You sure you don't want to stay tonight, kid? Door's always open."
Ruby hovered close, silver eyes hopeful. "Yeah. You don't have to go."
Kaito glanced between them the warmth of the kitchen behind them, the half-cleared dinner table, the way Ruby was already mentally calculating how to convince him.
"Nah." He adjusted his collar, easy as breathing. "I'm all good. Home's just one teleport away." He raised two fingers in a casual salute. "Ja ne."
The world folded.
He landed in front of the house with a soft exhale large, well lit by perimeter lights that turned on automatically, quiet in the way that expensive things tended to be. No noise from within. No lights in the upper windows.
"I'm home."
Silence answered him. He had expected that. He exhaled slowly through his nose, stepping inside, and stopped when he saw the note on the kitchen counter.
His eyes moved across it once.
Kaito
We can't raise you. Quite frankly, I saw better opportunities for myself without you in my life.
Goodbye. For good.
He stood there for a moment. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, somewhere distant, a night bird called.
"Tch." He set the note back down. "Figured as much."
He said it the same way he said most things level, unhurried, like the information was simply being filed away rather than absorbed through open wounds. He moved to the counter and poured himself a glass of water, drinking half of it in silence.
Plenty to survive on. The royalty checks from the singles alone would cover three months. The investment portfolio more than the rest. The Lien account practically laughed at the concept of empty.
He was fine. He had always known he would have to be fine.
He climbed the stairs, shrugged off his jacket, and lay back on his bed still dressed, staring up at the ceiling the same way he had stared at Signal's ceiling that afternoon, except without the deliberate boredom. This was something else. Something quieter.
The note. The silence. The house that was too large for one person.
He thought about Ruby's weight against his ribs. Yang's laugh. The way Ruby had patted his hair like it was the most natural thing in the world, and the way he had sat there and let it happen and not even minded.
At least I know my friends like me.
He closed his eyes.
Outside, the lights timed out one by one, and the house went dark, and Kaito Gojo the strongest in Patch, the boy with the Six Eyes, the boy with unlimited Lien and a note on his kitchen counter slept.