A voice called out—soft, tender, like sunlight filtering through early spring blossoms.
"Ieiri."
Outside the girls' dormitory, Asou Akiya stood with quiet deference, offering his personal physician two small tokens of gratitude: sakura-mochi wrapped in edible cherry leaves, and plump, strawberry-flavored cat-paw gummies glistening with sugar.
These had been reserved for Gojo alone. Yet here they were, passed into another's hands without hesitation.
Asou rarely visited Ieiri Shoko's dorm in the evening. He never brought meals, never lingered too long—always careful, always measured, so as not to risk even the faintest misinterpretation. Shoko pinched a gummy between her thumb and forefinger, popped it into her mouth, and asked, her tone dry but not unkind, "Boys have their own festival today—why come to me?"
"Because," Asou replied, voice low and steady, "I still owe you a Hinamatsuri gift."
Shoko stopped chewing.
"Even count the years—before we knew each other?"
"Yes." The word carried weight. "Otherwise… it would feel incomplete. Like a page left blank in a story that should have been written."
When he first came to this world—at fourteen, adrift, powerless—he'd missed the chance to step into their lives at the right moment. To stand beside them, not behind, not apart.
She swallowed, folded the wrapper with deliberate care, and turned the page. "That alarm earlier—what was it? Did Geto release another unregistered cursed spirit and go spar with Gojo again?"
Asou gave a faint shrug, as if brushing away a stray leaf. "A misunderstanding. He was testing a new shikigami—casual training. Nothing more."
Shoko believed half of it. Her eyes, sharp and angled just so, caught the faint, mottled ring around his throat—darkening at the edges, unmistakably five fingers' worth of pressure. She'd likely just uncovered the real origin of the so-called "training accident."
He lowered his head, the picture of quiet contrition. "Sorry to trouble you."
*You almost never do,* she thought. *You're just afraid this red mark will deepen into purple by morning—and that Yaga-sensei will see it.*
To make the examination easier, Asou reached for the brass swirl-buttons of his uniform jacket. His fingers—pale, long, deliberate—brushed the gleaming discs. There was something quietly arresting in the motion: the metallic sheen against skin, the unhurried grace. Even now, bruised and winded, he carried himself with a composure that set him apart—not louder than Geto, not brighter than Gojo, but older, somehow. As though time had already brushed its fingers over him.
"Stop."
The word was soft, but firm.
No one was around. The woods stood silent, the path secluded—suddenly it felt less like a routine check-up, more like a secret meeting in the hush of a forgotten shrine.
"Come with me to the infirmary," she said, voice cool and practical. "I'd rather not be seen by the upperclassmen. Gossip spreads faster than curses in this school."
A flicker crossed Asou's face—thoughtful, searching. "Have you met both of them? Utahime-senpai… and Mei Mei-senpai?"
Shoko nodded. "They visit occasionally. Though neither lives on campus anymore."
The fourth- and fifth-years rarely stayed in the dorms; most preferred their own apartments in the city. Among third-years, only two senior girls remained: Utahime Iori and Mei Mei. The latter, in particular, was no ordinary sorcerer—a Grade 1, feared and respected, her technique Black Bird Manipulation turning the very air into a web of unseen eyes. As a result, the girls' dormitory echoed with emptiness—only three occupants in a building built for dozens.
Asou's gaze swept the tree line. Birds flitted between branches, their calls indistinguishable from nature's own chorus. He couldn't tell which—if any—were Mei Mei's silent scouts.
Shoko's caution was not paranoia. It was prudence.
Don't be misled by appearances: in canon, Mei Mei aided Gojo not out of loyalty, but because Gojo paid—and paid well. She came from a lineage that treated contracts like scripture, and profit as the highest virtue. In her world, kindness had a price tag and favors bore interest.
The infirmary door clicked open. Shoko moved with the ease of habit—flipping the light switch, stepping into the sterile space as if returning home. She knew every drawer, every shelf, every shadow in this room. The scent of antiseptic no longer stung; it settled, like the quiet hum of a well-tuned instrument. She had long since made peace with the weight of life and death—was, in truth, the backbone of the entire jujutsu world: the one who stood ready, always, when others fell.
Asou settled onto his usual perch—the edge of the examination table—and laid his folded uniform jacket across his lap, precise as a ritual offering.
Shoko pulled on a pair of plain white cotton gloves—not rubber, not latex. Fabric, soft and thick enough to preserve distance. A small dignity: no cold stickiness, no whisper-thin barrier that might betray the warmth beneath.
"You don't use rubber gloves?" Asou asked, a faint smile touching his lips.
"You wouldn't like them," she answered simply. She already knew: he disliked skin contact, and rubber was too thin—too honest.
"Maybe," he admitted, gaze drifting aside. Too awkward to explain the truth.
He tilted his head back, exposing the curve of his throat—the Adam's apple a subtle ridge, the bruise wrapping it like a cruel choker. Gojo's fingers had pressed hard, yes—but with terrifying precision: no crushed cartilage, no swelling beyond the dermis. A violence held in perfect check. A punishment that stopped just short of permanence.
One minute passed.
"The discoloration's gone," Shoko said.
Asou blinked. "That was… fast."
"It wasn't serious," she replied, voice flat, almost tired. "You just never come to me for surface injuries."
As he unbuttoned his cuffs and peeled away the old bandages himself, he added, thoughtful: "I trust your judgment of the human body completely. Once I've strengthened my pain tolerance—and if my natural recovery can catch up—I hope to burden you less."
Shoko paused.
"…Eh?"
"*Eh?*"
Ieiri Shoko broke the usual social distance, her gaze sharpening as she stared—not at his throat now, but lower—at Asou Akiya's wrists, where old and new scars crisscrossed like tangled threads of memory.
She pressed a fingertip lightly against one of the faded marks. "Does it hurt?"
Asou answered without flinching: "The body doesn't ache. But the mind… sometimes tricks itself into feeling pain anyway."
Shoko hadn't had a proper look last time. Now, her diagnosis was swift and unflinching: "Asou—you're acting like you've grown tired of living. I've seen sorcerers break under the strain of high-intensity combat. But you? You're the first one I've met who *chooses* to hurt himself."
Asou shook his head quickly, scrambling to salvage his image: "Please don't misunderstand! It's not like that at all—I love life, truly! These injuries have a completely different explanation. I'd be grateful if you'd help keep this quiet."
Of course, Shoko would never betray his secret. They were, after all, co-conspirators in the art of quiet observation—fellow connoisseurs of drama, united in their shared preference for popcorn over participation. Even when Utahime-senpai or Mei Mei-senpai had casually inquired about the first-years, Shoko had deflected with practiced vagueness: *I don't know them well. Not really my circle.* She never gossiped. Never played the chatty classmate.
Still, she offered a dry observation: "You might fool Geto. But you won't fool Gojo's *Six Eyes*."
Asou smiled faintly. "That doesn't matter."
It was this—this quiet certainty, this habit of dropping earthshaking truths in the tone of a weather report—that Shoko admired most in him.
"He trusts me," Asou continued, voice calm, almost detached, "but he doesn't *care* about me. The only thing in me that holds his attention is what the *Six Eyes* see."
Gojo's eyes paid Asou more heed than his own mind ever did.
"If Geto weren't here," Asou went on, "Gojo wouldn't stay at Tokyo Jujutsu High for long. He'd inevitably leave—not out of anger, but out of sheer boredom."
Asou understood, with crystalline clarity, the role Geto played in Gojo's life. "His gaze is always drawn to strength. What he wants isn't followers—it's *companions* on the path of the sorcerer. In the story of his youth, Geto is one of the protagonists. The rest of us? Supporting cast. And in this world, the only thing that can shatter the barriers between classes in a single stroke… is power."
Yet even among equals, few could return Gojo's regard with equal weight. Not even a Cursed Spirit Manipulator could keep pace with him forever—and those who fell behind would, in time, be the ones to turn away first.
At fifteen, Gojo hadn't yet grasped this truth. By twenty-eight, it would settle on him like dust on an abandoned shrine: the quiet, inescapable aura of solitude.
Asou gave his wrist a small, idle shake. "Of course, the future isn't set in stone. Protagonists don't stay center stage forever. And side characters? They don't vanish just because the spotlight moves on. I'll have plenty of chances to laugh at him later."
Who ever said you needed to be a Special Grade to stand beside Gojo Satoru—as a classmate, as a friend?
Asou believed that standard would erode, year by year, until the cruel, unrelenting reality finally pressed down on Gojo's shoulders and forged him into the kind of adult who understood responsibility.
One day, when the "Strongest" of the jujutsu world walked home alone down a rain-slicked street at midnight, exhausted from overtime… any sorcerer willing to answer a call at dawn, any voice offering simple kindness in the small hours—that person would be his friend.
In a way, it was pitiful. So pitiful Asou nearly smiled—not out of schadenfreude, but quiet anticipation. He didn't need to scheme. Didn't need to rush. He only needed to *live*… to endure… to be there, steady and present, until the day he became the first name in Gojo's contacts list.
Shoko: "…."
This is more dramatic than a taiga drama.
Could she admit she really didn't want to know the labyrinthine intricacies of these three boys' dynamics?
"Sugoi…" —slowly piecing it all together.jpg
"Asou?" she prompted, snapping back to the present. He was still waiting for treatment—and she'd been lost in the whirlwind of his monologue.
"Were you wondering why I zoned out? Are you about to ask why he choked me? Before you do—no, it's not schoolyard bullying. Gojo doesn't have a cruel bone in his body. He was simply startled when I blindfolded him—accidently triggered an instinctive reaction. His default response to surprise is to assert dominance. With force."
Shoko didn't pry further into Asou's occasional leaps into the absurd. She'd long since learned: he never truly lost. Never truly bled more than he intended.
"Less talking, Asou. Hands out. Both of them."
"Right, right—I'll be quiet." A pause. A touch of vulnerability slipped through. "Can they… still look good again?"
"It's difficult," she admitted. "But I'll try."
"If it's just the old scars making it hard…" He shrugged, voice light, almost careless. "Then even peeling the skin off wouldn't be a problem."
"You care that much about looks?"
"Absolutely."
Since awakening his cursed energy, Asou had become fiercely protective of his own body—not out of vanity alone, but as if it were a finely tuned instrument, the last sanctuary he could truly control.
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he added, softly, with unshakable sincerity: "After all… my face and this body are the only things about me that are genuinely extraordinary."
Shoko took his wrists—slender, marked, undeniably elegant—in her gloved hands. She activated *Reverse Cursed Technique* to its fullest, channeling healing energy with quiet focus, her tone as level as ever: "Narcissism is also a disorder. Let's hope you don't end up like Gojo—so handsome even his face can't disguise his personality flaws."
Asou froze.
Miscalculation.
Shoko was the one girl in school who genuinely didn't care about looks.
Heaven wouldn't stir for anyone's sake—but Shoko's miracles came from relentless practice since enrollment, from her mastery of Reverse Cursed Technique, and, above all, from the simple, stubborn refusal to ever cut when healing could suffice.
Beneath her hands, the damaged skin knit itself back together—smooth, unblemished, as though time itself had rewound.
Asou's eyes brightened, moment by moment, as the restoration progressed.
He was happy.
And Ieiri Shoko, for her part, felt a quiet satisfaction—the kind only a physician knows—when her patient met healing not with resignation, but with genuine joy.
As always, she washed her hands thoroughly afterward. Then, drying them on a clean towel, she added, tone calm but firm: "Superficial cuts and bruises? No problem. But avoid burns—those leave permanent scars. Even Reverse Cursed Technique can't fully erase them."
Asou Akiya, ever the wordsmith, heaped her with gratitude—polished phrases, elegant compliments, promises of future favors—until five minutes later, he vanished down the corridor like smoke on the wind.
Alone again, Shoko exhaled slowly, pulled a cigarette from her pocket, and lit it with practiced ease.
Tch.
On her way back to the dorm, she ran into a silver-haired upperclassman—tall, poised, her smile bright but edged with unmistakable intent.
"How exhausting for you," Mei Mei said, voice honeyed, eyes sharp. "Still working at the infirmary at this hour, Ieiri?"
Shoko leaned back against the wall, languid, unimpressed. "Yeah. It's a nuisance. Honestly, I wish fewer people would get hurt."
At that exact moment, a crow glided overhead—its flight path seamless with Mei Mei's field of vision, its eyes a fleeting extension of her own.
A beautiful black-haired boy disappeared around the bend.
Interesting.
Not the Six Eyes. Not the Cursed Spirit Manipulator. Just a first-year—low-ranked in cursed energy, unremarkable on paper.
Yet the sole inheritor of Reverse Cursed Technique was treating him like a close friend.
Given the jujutsu world's cutthroat power struggles, Shoko's eventual marriage would almost certainly be a political arrangement—not a choice, but a transaction. This detail? Valuable intelligence.
Then again—hesitation flickered. They were all students of the same school. Selling out a classmate carried risk. And Shoko? She wasn't someone you crossed lightly.
After a swift internal calculus—the worth of the intel versus the worth of Shoko herself—Mei Mei discarded the idea without a second thought.
"I'll pretend I saw nothing," she said breezily, already turning to leave. Her voice lingered, rich with the effortless charm of a seasoned manipulator: "As your senpai, my advice? Suffer more while you're young. Build your capital now—so later, you'll have the leverage to choose your future."
Her departure was a study in elegance—hips swaying, coat fluttering, the very air seeming to part for her.
Shoko clicked her tongue.
So this is the collateral damage of Asou's good looks?
One glance, and even a passing crow's observation becomes a misinterpretation.
Compared to Mei Mei's formidable, almost predatory aura, Shoko far preferred Utahime Iori—warm, approachable, the kind of senpai who remembered your coffee order. Pity she was away on a mission.
Shoko spared herself one second of pity. Four first-years. Three boys. And me—the only girl. She, who should've been the flower in the garden, found herself playing the role of… greenery. Background foliage. The supporting color in a painting dominated by vibrant, chaotic primaries.
"Honestly," she muttered, pushing open the dormitory door with a shrug, "who could possibly keep up with them?"
This year's first-year cohort at Tokyo Jujutsu High numbered four.
And among them? Only one normal person.
The rest—stunning to look at, brilliant in flashes, utterly unhinged in execution.
Back in the sanctuary of her room—her truest home—Shoko placed the sakura-mochi in the refrigerator. Breakfast, tomorrow.
As for the cat-paw gummies?
She popped another into her mouth.
…Delicious.
—
Author's Note:
Happy Hinamatsuri, everyone—Girls' Day, the festival of peach blossoms and wishes for health and happiness.
The author only got home at 10:30 p.m. tonight and plans to turn in early. Good night.
***
If you're curious about Akiya's appearance, check the cover illustration of the neighboring work, "Right from the Start, I Slapped a Green Hat on Verlaine."
Asou Akiya has black hair and black eyes—short, neat, and effortlessly elegant. His features are classically East Asian: gentle, refined, with the quiet grace of ink-wash painting—neither sharp nor bold, but deeply, enduringly harmonious.