30 April, Saturday. The boys' dormitory was eerily quiet all morning. Only Gojo Satoru remained sprawled across his bed.
The Six Eyes gathered information relentlessly. From the moment he surfaced from sleep, a torrent of data had already begun pouring in, forcing his brain into overdrive, sweeping the area like radar for every lingering trace of cursed energy. Only when he registered that both Geto Suguru and Asou Akiya had been gone for quite some time did he finally open his eyes.
Weird-bangs had gone off to hunt cursed spirits, and little tangerine… had actually followed through. No breakfast waiting for him.
A hollow sensation bloomed somewhere behind his ribs.
The chemicals his brain usually released to color emotion simply… stopped. His heart kept beating, but the rhythm felt mechanical, sustaining life and nothing more.
Satoru dragged himself out of the warm cocoon of blankets, shoulders slumped, head hanging forward. His snow-white hair stuck out in every direction, short strands rebelling against his scalp like frost-tipped feathers. His feet found the slippers at the bedside and slid inside with practiced ease. The plush lining brushed his skin, and he glanced down automatically.
A little too warm for the season.
They were white yeti slippers (officially classified as "winter edition").
He had accepted them without protest because they were ridiculously cute and because it was the first time anyone had ever bought him something like that. Little tangerine had swapped out his old pair while he watched, and he hadn't said a word.
Expression blank, he tilted his head.
The dormitory room, decorated by the Gojo clan in cold, impeccable taste, now bore unmistakable signs of an ordinary high-school boy: seasonal slippers that no longer matched the weather, a collection of pens shaped like animals and sweets, and a trash bin full of napkin balls he had crumpled yesterday out of sheer boredom.
One by one, these tiny, insignificant details painted life across his previously frozen face. The weekend student version of Gojo Satoru rebooted without fanfare.
Ice does not melt in a single morning, but once the first drop falls, the process cannot be stopped.
Ring-ring-ring.
A call from the Gojo estate arrived at precisely the right moment.
Satoru tapped speakerphone and began peeling off his sleep shirt while standing in front of the full-length mirror. The glass reflected a body in the full flush of adolescence: long-limbed, perfectly proportioned, radiating health—yet somehow the overall palette looked washed-out, as though someone had turned down the saturation on the world's strongest sorcerer.
"Young Master, shall we send a car to bring you home for the weekend?"
He pulled open the wardrobe. The hand that had been reaching for casual weekend clothes paused, then—almost of its own accord—moved toward the familiar black uniform hanging neatly on the left.
Even he was momentarily surprised by the choice.
Black.
He stared at the uniform for a long moment, remembering how much he used to despise stiff, formal clothing and how fiercely he had preferred anything trendy and loud. What on earth had changed him? Ignoring the rows of expensive casual outfits the clan had prepared, he deliberately pulled on piece after piece of his school attire.
"Are you changing, Young Master?" The faint rustle of fabric reached the speaker. The Gojo patriarch, hearing it, continued in his measured, unhurried tone, "Today's temperature in Tokyo is approximately twenty degrees Celsius; it would be unwise to dress too warmly. Later, the clan will deliver your summer belongings to Jujutsu High. For clothing and footwear, I have referred to the current styles favored by Japanese male high-school students. I hope they will not disappoint you."
Satoru hesitated, then smoothed the hem of his shirt with deliberate care.
Wearing a dress shirt beneath the black uniform jacket was something every student did; the cotton was gentler against the skin. Yet none of his classmates layered a sleeveless undershirt beneath that shirt; it trapped sweat and made movement uncomfortable after training.
For reasons he could not quite name (some stubborn, wordless resistance), Satoru still refused to abandon his three-layer system.
If the day turned hot, he could simply remove the jacket. Wearing only the spring-weight dress shirt would be far too revealing; sunlight would shine straight through the fabric. An undershirt was non-negotiable.
He told himself, mulish and defiant, that this had absolutely nothing to do with being old-fashioned.
"Old tangerine."
"Tell them to hand everything to Asou Akiya."
Territorial instinct ran deep in Satoru's blood, usually invisible but ironclad all the same. He rarely allowed anyone to set foot inside his dorm room.
The personal attendants assigned to serve him were rotated with brutal frequency.
The moment he felt even the slightest dislike or distrust, he would have the offender dismissed without ceremony. The Gojo clan treasured him above all else and never questioned his reasons; "distrust" alone was grounds for immediate replacement.
As a result, Satoru had grown up without a single childhood friend or familiar servant. His temper had worsened year by year, and the instant his rebellious phase arrived he had bolted for Jujutsu High without a backward glance.
The clan was painfully aware of exactly how difficult their fifteen-year-old heir could be. They did not dare oppose his will.
Family knows its own, and every elder in the Gojo estate understood that Gojo Satoru's spine was forged entirely from defiance.
"Asou Akiya?" The patriarch heard the name of that Jujutsu High student again after many days. "If Young Master is certain there is no issue with him, then very well. Since he is taking care of you in every way, should the Gojo clan perhaps extend some thanks to this classmate?"
He deliberately chose the warmer, more intimate phrasing to describe their relationship.
"Are you blind? How is he 'taking care of me in every way'?"
The moment the words left the patriarch's mouth, Satoru exploded. "He won't even go out to buy sweets when I ask! He's the first person who ever dared reply to me with 'busy'! And now he's vanished somewhere without even making breakfast!"
The patriarch hesitated. "You said you wanted to be self-reliant, to enjoy the independent campus life…" Breakfast prepared by a classmate?
Satoru immediately assumed the clan had known all along and was deliberately mocking him.
Damn old tangerine.
They had purposely chosen an orphan sorcerer, planted him here to ruin his dreams of solitary living, and now they were calling to rub it in. Shameless.
"I'm heading out." Satoru changed the subject with stiff finality, sliding on his sunglasses with theatrical arrogance. "Don't send a car. I don't want to see your wrinkly face. I'm staying in the dorms this year. It's great here. I'll clear the Jujutsu High evaluation and be Special Grade within twelve months."
"May fortune favor your blade," the patriarch replied warmly. He himself looked nothing like the "wrinkly old tangerine" of Satoru's complaints; his appearance was that of a young man, perfectly inheriting the Gojo clan's legendary baby-faced bloodline.
Tokyo Jujutsu High: a private academy that embodied the phrase "vast land, few people."
It lacked a cafeteria, lacked students, lacked teachers, but it never lacked sorcerers with money to burn.
Which was why Asou Akiya had to wait for a timed email and position himself at five in the morning on a hill near the school gate, rented binoculars in hand, watching every approaching vehicle so he could intercept the postal service's delivery the instant it arrived.
The name "death mail" was not exaggeration.
Either social death, or a fate worse than death once Headquarters discovered it.
To this day, Akiya still admired his past self from a year ago for having the sheer guts to write such a thing.
In March of the previous year, desperate to awaken his cursed energy at any cost, he had prepared a timed email addressed to his future self on 1 May 2005. The contents were a completely fabricated love-triangle fanfiction in which the protagonist was named "Asou Akiya" and the romantic interests were "Gojo Satoru," "Geto Suguru," and the thousand-year-old schemer "Kenjaku" occupying Geto Suguru's corpse.
The melodrama level fused every ounce of experience Akiya had gained from reading fanfiction in his previous life. The plot had logic where logic was needed, punchlines where punchlines belonged, and enough unhinged insanity to fill an asylum.
Regardless, Akiya had to admit one undeniable truth: ever since he wrote it, his mental state had been extraordinarily, gloriously radiant.
The brush with death was now complete.
The raw terror was now complete.
In the grand cause of forcing his own cursed-energy awakening, it had performed miracles.
If he had failed to enter Jujutsu High this year, that single email would have ruined him beyond repair.
Akiya thought with dark, vicious pride:
[I forced myself this far, slipped past Headquarters' gauntlet—and that email deserves every ounce of credit. Which is exactly why… it has to be obliterated, reduced to ashes, scattered to the winds!]
From Saturday to Sunday, he would not leave campus for even a single step.
He wandered the grounds pretending to stroll, eyes locked on the front gate the entire time. Finally Suguru left the school. Several hours later Satoru departed too, though not before shooting what felt like a glare in Akiya's general direction.
Akiya could only laugh helplessly. He wasn't hiding from Satoru—he simply refused to be dragged out shopping.
On the bustling commercial street closest to Jujutsu High, Saturday crowds surged like a living thing. Gojo Satoru strode through them clutching a thick stack of dessert-shop membership cards, hunting for his next tasting target. Every movement drew stares from the girls passing by. The tall high-school boy was magnetic on his own—snow-white hair that looked professionally dyed, sunglasses hiding his eyes, and the lower half of his face handsome enough to spark endless daydreams.
"This is the place." He stepped inside and found the queue long, so he obediently joined the line.
For all his lawlessness at school—where only Yaga-sensei's iron fists could rein him in—once stripped of every halo and dropped into ordinary society, Satoru maintained the impeccable manners of a law-abiding citizen.
His turn arrived.
He slapped the entire stack of membership cards onto the counter, face cold, and dragged one finger down the menu page. "Everything on this page."
Young Master Gojo, who had skipped breakfast, was starving.
The cashier's eyes widened. So many membership cards from different shops? The total value had to be in the hundreds of thousands of yen at least.
"Is this card actually yours?" she asked, holding up the one belonging to their store.
"My classmate's. His stuff is my stuff." Satoru declared it like obvious truth.
The cashier insisted on verifying the registered phone number. Without hesitation he rattled off Akiya's digits—numbers the Six Eyes had seen once and would never forget.
The call was made. Akiya, on the other end, gave permission.
Flustered apologies followed, and the cashier escorted the honored guest to a private booth.
In that moment, Satoru officially broke his own sulky vow of "no contact with Akiya."
[Jujutsu High Foodie Duo]
[Gojo Satoru: [photo][photo] See that? All of this is mine. You don't get a single bite!]
[Asou Akiya: I saw the photos. They look delicious. Eat happily and feel free to burn through every yen on those cards.]
[Gojo Satoru: You only have dessert cards?]
[Asou Akiya: Yep, Gojo-kun. Every yen I own went into dessert cards. No budget left for anything else.]
[Gojo Satoru: Get out here. I'm taking you to a proper restaurant.]
[Asou Akiya: Oh no, I'm up on the mountain right now… signal's terrible… talk later!]
Satoru actually believed him and grumbled about Jujutsu High's garbage reception.
"Asou-kun, there's a delivery for you."
At Tokyo Jujutsu High, the campus courier's call made Akiya's heart lurch. He had been watching the postal trucks like a hawk for hours—how had the post office managed to sneak the mail onto a completely different delivery van?
He sprinted to the designated spot in blind panic, terrified someone might open the package first, only to freeze dead in his tracks.
[What… is this entire truckload of stuff?]
[I definitely didn't order any of this!]
A Gojo clan servant pulled out a photograph of Akiya, confirmed his face (easy enough to recognise), and bowed with perfect deference. "Mr Asou, this is the first shipment of Young Master's summer belongings from the Gojo estate. Please sign here."
It clicked instantly. Akiya accepted without hesitation. "Hello. Please store everything in the campus warehouse for now."
It must have been Satoru's instruction.
Because he hadn't been warned in advance, a thread of unease coiled in his chest, yet he remained outwardly calm, directing the servant to unload while never once laying a finger on the items himself. He merely flipped through the inventory list and quietly marvelled at the sheer extravagance of Gojo Satoru's spending.
[Asou Akiya: Your family's stuff just arrived. Come look. [photo]]
[Asou Akiya: Next time please come collect it yourself.]
[Gojo Satoru: Handle it however you want. Throw out anything useless. I'm not dealing with that crap.]
[Asou Akiya: …]
Akiya pressed a hand to his chest until the frantic heartbeat slowed, and a helpless, almost tender smile rose to his face.
[You trusted the wrong person, Satoru, but I swear I'll never give you reason to regret it. Thank you for trusting a "family member" without asking for logic or proof.]
Saturday passed under Akiya's tireless vigilance. He owned stacks of dessert cards, yet handed them all to Satoru without keeping a single one for himself. He now held the Gojo clan's black card, yet refused to spend even one yen of it on anything personal, clinging stubbornly to his own principles. He would not touch a single coin that belonged to Gojo Satoru.
Still, the email he was waiting for (the one that could end him) remained somewhere on the road, silent.
Evening fell. Satoru returned to campus hauling an enormous bag of sweets, chin high, ignoring both Akiya and Suguru as he swept past them like conquering royalty. He flung open the door to his room, yanked wide the doors of his dedicated dessert refrigerator, and crammed every shelf until the thing groaned.
A triumphant harvest.
Deep into the night, Akiya's phone began to vibrate without pause.
[Gojo Satoru: Little tangerine, still busy tomorrow?]
[Gojo Satoru: Eating sweets alone is annoying. Every table of girls keeps asking to share. There's no space left, so what? Not my problem.]
[Gojo Satoru: Are you coming or not? Come on, nobody else is asking you out anyway, and I'm actually inviting you!]
What is going on?
He had already refused. Normally this guy was the embodiment of icy indifference.
Akiya's mind spun into chaos. He could almost see a tiny white-haired puppy pawing at his trouser cuff, big blue eyes pleading. The death-email deadline loomed in his head like a guillotine. Ruthlessly, he chose to become the villain who leaves messages on read, and (while the notifications kept pouring in) powered the phone completely off.
So cute.
But cuteness changes nothing!
Tomorrow is May, 1st. Even wild horses couldn't drag me half a step off campus!!