Monday—the start of another school week.
"Good morning, Shoko," Asou Akiya greeted her, noticing that after not seeing her for two days, Ieiri Shoko looked well-rested.
"Morning." Ieiri Shoko shoved her schoolbag into the desk drawer. "How was your weekend? Did you go out and have fun?"
"No," Geto Suguru replied while drinking water, shooting Asou Akiya a chilly sideways glance.
"I took Gojo out on my bicycle to buy supplies," Asou Akiya said calmly, delivering a remark that stabbed straight into a certain classmate's heart. "He was in such high spirits that he nearly caused me to get into a traffic accident. We were buying ingredients to make herbal cooling tea, and on the way we were fined twenty thousand yen by the traffic police. The reason was that bicycles aren't allowed to carry passengers, and we were also required to go to the 'Bicycle Theft Prevention Registration Office' to register the bike."
"There are way too many rules for bicycles," Gojo Satoru complained, recalling the string of unexpected incidents from yesterday.
All in all, though, it had still been a genuinely fun experience. Sitting on the back of the bicycle, Gojo Satoru felt a kind of joy that riding in a car could never provide—the wind slicing past his ears, the sense of ease as he stretched out his fingers and seemed to catch hold of the comfort drifting through the mountain forest.
Compared to how things had been a few months ago, Asou Akiya now had more than enough stamina to ride a bicycle with someone else on it.
After being fined, the two of them spent the rest of the trip sneaking around, nervously avoiding traffic police.
One moment Gojo Satoru played the obedient backseat passenger, the next he hopped off the bicycle and pretended to be an ordinary pedestrian by the roadside, wearing sunglasses, staring at the sky and the ground but pointedly not at the stern-faced officer nearby—so convincingly that he was nearly mistaken for a blind man.
Over the two-day weekend, Asou Akiya took meticulous care of Gojo Satoru, brewing a large batch of cooling herbal tea to reduce internal heat. Gojo Satoru complained that it wasn't sweet enough, but he still drank it whenever he was supposed to, with no intention whatsoever of leaving any for his other classmates.
Asou Akiya got up early again to make two more bottles of the tea, giving the sugar-free one to Geto Suguru and the lightly sweetened one to Ieiri Shoko.
[Is this still not over?]
Geto Suguru sighed, asked Gojo Satoru for two pieces of glucose candy meant for replenishing blood sugar, and manually sweetened his drink, unwilling to let himself suffer through the bitterness.
He could only borrow one of Asou Akiya's own lines for himself—life like this was simply impossible to endure.
Ieiri Shoko took two sips of her tea and said, "Asou, come out with me for a moment."
Asou Akiya paused to think. It was probably related to the money borrowed yesterday, but why hadn't she contacted him by phone? Was she worried Gojo Satoru might see the messages? Or had something unexpected happened in between?
He stole a quiet glance at Gojo Satoru. It didn't seem like anything was wrong.
"Alright," the black-haired boy agreed, following the short-haired girl out of the classroom, one after the other.
Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru both pricked up their ears, spreading cursed energy to heighten their hearing. Was there gossip to be had? It was rare for a female classmate to ask a male classmate out alone.
Geto Suguru thought he was the only one doing this and muttered, "Gojo, can't you see what's going on outside?"
Gojo Satoru complained, "I can't see anything—Akiya isn't wearing a red string."
Geto Suguru snorted. "So he finally learned some restraint?"
Gojo Satoru neither confirmed nor denied it. He jogged over to the window and craned his neck to look outside, but the two figures were already nowhere to be seen.
Geto Suguru slowly took a deep gulp of the cooling tea, forcing down the simmering irritation in his chest.
Then, all of a sudden, he asked, "Gojo, on September twenty-third, did Akiya take leave and leave campus like I did?"
"Who remembers things from last month," Gojo Satoru replied offhandedly, brushing it aside. "Though he did say he was giving up all his holidays this year."
Geto Suguru frowned. "Giving up all his holidays?"
"Yeah," Gojo Satoru answered.
Geto Suguru pressed the point with this utterly clueless guy. "Do you even know what September 23rd is?"
Gojo Satoru replied, "No idea."
"The Autumnal Equinox." Geto Suguru said.
Gojo Satoru dismissed it as soon as he heard it, his mind dredging up memories of that day—he and Geto had gone off to play games.
Geto Suguru chose his words carefully. "The tradition of the Autumnal Equinox is visiting ancestral graves. I went home that day to accompany my parents in paying respects to our elders. Logically speaking, Akiya should have gone back as well, but I don't recall him ever taking leave specifically for his own personal matters."
Gojo Satoru countered, "He took a sudden leave on Friday afternoon and didn't come back until very late."
"That Friday we were made to stand as punishment," Geto Suguru said. "He probably just went out to clear his head and didn't want to deal with us."
Geto Suguru lowered his gaze. "But that day was the Autumnal Equinox."
Out of private curiosity, Geto Suguru wanted to understand Asou Akiya better, yet he had never expected that this orphaned classmate would seem utterly indifferent toward his deceased parents, a coldness so abnormal it was unsettling.
"Geto, there's no rule saying children must love their parents."
Gojo Satoru spoke a blunt truth that even the thick-skinned rarely articulated, a line sharp enough to wake people up. "Just like how parents treat their children—how much is blood kinship really worth? In the end, love or the lack of it depends on what each person needs."
Geto Suguru, who had grown up immersed in society's conventional ideals of family bonds, felt deeply uncomfortable with Gojo Satoru's words.
"Under normal circumstances, if parents don't love a child, why give birth to them in the first place?" Geto Suguru had his own logic, rooted in the belief that human nature is fundamentally good. "If they chose to give birth and raise the child, then there must be a bond of blood and affection—that's a debt of life and upbringing we are meant to repay."
"There was no love," Gojo Satoru said, turning his back and leaning against the window. "After I was born, the first thing I heard was, 'Thank goodness, it's the Six Eyes.' The woman who gave birth to me lay on the bed unattended, on the brink of death. Later, the family decided it would be inauspicious to have a death, so modern medicine was used at full force to save her. After that, she never came to see me even once."
"That was her good fortune—giving birth to the 'Six Eyes' without dying already broke the family's historical record."
"As for my biological father," Gojo Satoru continued, "he was a coward, pushed onto the position of clan head, granted a share of the Three Great Families' authority and prestige, but behind the scenes he was forbidden to remarry or have more children, allowed only the qualification of taking concubines."
"He didn't have the guts, his entire life, to call my name directly."
"Because he didn't need a son."
"What the entire Gojo clan needed was a 'Six Eyes' successor, a powerful wielder of the 'Limitless' technique."
Gojo Satoru turned around and said coldly, without a trace of warmth, "This is what Akiya wanted me to tell you. He said that whenever you brought up the topic of parents, I should share a little about the Gojo family's relationships with you."
Geto Suguru's impulse to lecture was cut off midstream, the chill sinking into his bones as he opened his mouth, then found no words.
Japan's feudal families were terrifying enough; the Three Great Families of the jujutsu world were even more so. He had always thought his own commoner background a weakness—who would have guessed that among the three of them, he was the only one who still cared about parental affection? The other two male classmates were both ruthless in their own way.
Geto Suguru said hoarsely, "You grew up in an environment like that? Didn't it hurt?"
Gojo Satoru replied, "There's nothing wrong with it."
"If I'd been born in the outside world, I probably would have died young. These eyes would have brought nothing but disaster to an ordinary family. In all of Japan, only the Three Great Families could protect me. I don't regret bearing the surname 'Gojo.'"
The white-haired boy's sky-blue eyes beneath the dark lenses were breathtakingly beautiful, yet he described them as a "disaster."
What parent wouldn't love a child so beautiful?
If it were him—if he were to marry and have children someday—he would surely give them all of his love.
Geto Suguru knew he shouldn't pity Gojo Satoru, yet after hearing all this, he couldn't stop the surge of compassion. Perhaps it was the realization that the past of the strong was not entirely made of fortune, that this rich young master had, in truth, grown up utterly alone—without father or mother.
He thought to himself that he should treat Gojo a little better from now on.
A dull ache welled up in his chest; all of this, too, had been anticipated by Akiya. The other boy understood him far too well.
The assistant supervisor who had just stepped into the classroom: ? ? ? ?
The newly assigned assistant supervisor, chosen by lottery to teach this class, retreated at lightning speed, dialing a colleague in a panic to ask what one was supposed to do when Asou Akiya was absent and only the other two problem children remained in the room.
The colleagues' reply was succinct: [Don't go in. Just play dead at the doorway.]
Twenty minutes later.
Asou Akiya returned after accompanying Ieiri Shoko to meet a third-year upperclassman.
There was no visible change in Akiya's expression as he took his seat smoothly, though his heart trembled at the thought of usurious interest.
[Miss Mei Mei, you're wasting your talent as a jujutsu sorcerer!]
Ieiri Shoko had originally asked Mei Mei to help conceal the matter of the interest, but who was Asou Akiya? An anime enthusiast who had thoroughly studied the Jujutsu Kaisen guidebooks, he knew all too well that Miss Mei Mei was a Grade 1 sorcerer bold enough to extort the higher-ups themselves. Akiya was unwilling to let Ieiri Shoko shoulder such exorbitant interest on his behalf—no matter how rich the "support-type" was, money shouldn't be spent so recklessly!
Ieiri Shoko sagged. "Akiya, I was trying to help you, not add to your pressure."
"That's more than enough." Akiya met her gaze with gentle eyes.
"Shoko has always been helping me—she's my best friend," Akiya said without hesitation. "I may not be strong, not wealthy, not someone who can shield you from wind and rain, but having a friend like you is the luck of a lifetime."
Bang! Critical hit!
Ieiri Shoko flushed bright red and silently took a gulp of iced tea.
Up at the podium, the assistant supervisor's voice, prepared to begin the lesson, stuck in their throat as they looked on in horror—two male students' faces had gone visibly dark.
"Best… friend?" Gojo Satoru's sunglasses slid down slightly, and beneath them, his eyes gleamed with an inorganic, chilling light.
"A lifetime of luck?" Geto Suguru felt his teeth ache with sourness. "You two are really close."
So the greatest obstacle to male friendship turned out to be Shoko!
In such an already crowded bond, why did there have to be a girl added in—couldn't the boys just hang out together on their own?
Asou Akiya, you are truly and utterly a textbook double-standard hypocrite, a two-faced schemer, and an unapologetic spice addict!
As for that—
Having already confirmed that Gojo Satoru hadn't lent out any money, Aso Akiya's heart hardened into iron, cold and merciless, like a butcher who had spent ten years slaughtering fish.
He had been worrying about not having a good excuse to deal with the two of them; now that problem was solved—he could treat them both exactly the same.
In class, Akiya played with his phone, opening his photo gallery and drawing on all the skills he had honed in his previous life making reaction images, busily editing meme-worthy pictures of Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru—images guaranteed to sell like hotcakes in the jujutsu world's group chats.
His phone held the most photos of Gojo Satoru, followed by Geto Suguru; after all, it wasn't convenient to take pictures of a girl.
And as the number of times Gojo Satoru turned around to look at him increased, one after another…
The first batch of Aso Akiya's meme set was born.
[Jujutsu High's Melon-Eating Duo]
[Asou Akiya:[Gojo Satoru confident grin.jpg], [Gojo Satoru blank stare.jpg], [Gojo Satoru mentally shattered.jpg], [Gojo Satoru catified with airplane ears.jpg], [Geto Suguru furiously writing.jpg], [Geto Suguru squinty-eyed smile.jpg], [Geto Suguru cute fox-eared version.jpg], [Geto Suguru ominously eerie.jpg] ...]
[Ieiri Shoko: Wow, that's a lot! I'm saving them right now—can I share them with the senpai?]
[Asou Akiya: No problem. I asked them before taking the photos; they agreed to let me use their likenesses.]
[Asou Akiya: I'll send a set to the assistant supervisors as well.]
The circle of assistant supervisors had long suffered under the reign of terror known as the problem children of Tokyo Jujutsu High!
Up on the podium, the assistant supervisor—who had been trembling with nerves—received the group message and, for once in their life, burst into laughter, hastily covering their mouth.
Gojo Satoru: "…Geto, did we ever give him permission to randomly send out our photos?"
Geto Suguru: "Photos? What happened?"
Gojo Satoru said darkly, "One of those things that makes you flare up with anger even while drinking iced tea."
Geto Suguru took the moral high ground. "Gojo, you're not allowed to bully a classmate. Asou must have had his reasons for doing this, and besides, we're not even his friends yet."
Hearing Geto's opposition, Gojo Satoru looked as though he had just been betrayed by an ally.
"You'll regret this, Squinty-Eyed Fox Geto!"
"..."
Geto Suguru flew into a rage—weren't they agreed not to use nicknames?! Why did Gojo always insist on stomping all over his personal landmines!?
—
Author's Notes:
Gojo, Geto, Aso, and Shoko are all fifteen this year and can be considered the same age group; Shoko is the oldest, followed by Gojo, then Asou, and finally Geto.
The main story timeline in this chapter has reached October 1, 2005.