Asou Akiya stepped out of the office, his footing unsteady, his thoughts drifting far from the matter of his promotion to semi–Grade Two.
Cradled in his arms was the white Mii-chan that Yaga Masamichi had given him.
"I need to apologize."
[The one who broke the sword was Gojo Satoru.]
"I did something wrong."
[The one who said the words that provoked Gojo Satoru into breaking the sword was me.]
"Bringing him sweets… he won't accept them, just as I myself would never accept a perfunctory apology."
[For the sake of my own feelings alone, I rejected Gojo Satoru's goodwill and refused the favor of the Gojo family. I have never been so clearly aware that I possess a pride utterly disproportionate to my strength.]
"Mii-chan—" Asou Akiya heard the soft, sweet cry and lowered his head in confusion.
The upgraded white Mii-chan was drawing in his cursed energy; sensing its instability, it stopped battering Akiya as it usually did and instead let out gentle mi-mi sounds, a wordless reminder—don't be sad, please keep your emotions steady.
Asou Akiya smiled bitterly. "If only I were a special-grade sorcerer."
{Note: For those here who expect him to become strong, don't worry, he WILL reach Special Grade level through his own means. As for how he achieves that… teehee, that will be a secret~! I will only say that he will walk through a mountain of knives and swim through a sea of fires to achieve it. ;) }
He buried his face in the white Mii-chan's chest.
Money, favors, status, position—if he had enough power, he could afford to care about none of it, and let the world revolve around him instead.
In the boys' dormitory, a sweet fragrance drifted from Asou's dorm kitchen.
In the end, Asou Akiya still made desserts—not as an apology, but as a meager form of compensation. Carrying a large bottle of milk tea and holding a tray of freshly baked egg tarts, he walked to the door of Gojo Satoru's dormitory.
He raised his hand and knocked.
The door wasn't closed. From inside came the intense clamor of a video game in full swing, followed by the sound of someone setting a controller down.
Getou Suguru hurried out and said, "Akiya, Gojo isn't angry anymore."
Asou Akiya had already steeled himself to apologize, yet hearing Getou Suguru's words still made bitterness well up in his chest.
In this matter, even Getou Suguru believed that he himself had been in the wrong.
Gojo Satoru had been willing to lend him and Yaga-sensei a Grade One cursed tool for free, without making a single fuss about it—an act of goodwill pure to the extreme—while he, the one facing that goodwill, had stubbornly refused to accept it, like some kind of aberration.
"…I understand."
Asou Akiya walked up to the white-haired boy sitting cross-legged in front of the television, absorbed in his game.
He set the desserts and milk tea aside and met those icy "Six Eyes," the sharpness of the gaze pricking him painfully.
It felt as though their relationship had snapped back to its very beginning.
One of them was a semi–special-grade sorcerer brimming with confidence; the other was a low-ranking sorcerer obsessed with weighing gains and losses. Though they were classmates and friends, they lacked any deeply forged bond of shared battles or mutual understanding.
Asou Akiya lowered his head and apologized, "I'm sorry, Gojo. I wasted your kindness."
Gojo Satoru withdrew his gaze and seemed ready to return to his game. "Getou, didn't you promise to play with me?"
"Gojo, you two should settle this first. Games can be played anytime—there's no rush," Getou Suguru said with a smile, leaning against the doorway and refusing to step in and involve himself further.
"Fine. I accept your apology. You're standing too high up—don't block the TV."
Gojo Satoru, unable to hold back his irritation at the two of them, slammed the controller down.
"..."
Too high up?
Asou Akiya suddenly had the absurd urge to imitate Hasaba Nanako and Hasaba Mimiko when they spoke to Ryoumen Sukuna—to just drop to his knees outright, scare Gojo Satoru into jumping up from the sofa, and then have all three of them laugh it off, letting the whole thing end in a joke.
But his knees were stiff, and the heavy weight of his pride pressed down on him, stopping that farce before it could even begin.
If he didn't want to laugh, then he wouldn't laugh.
If he didn't want to kneel, then he would never kneel.
Asou Akiya sorted through his tangled emotions and realized that, at its core, the problem was that he had overcomplicated everything, while the other party had always dealt with matters in the simplest way possible; they had been talking past each other, stuck on completely different wavelengths.
Asou Akiya said, "Gojo, I don't want to accept the Gojo family's goodwill."
Asou Akiya continued, "To you, this might look inexplicable, but to me it matters a great deal. You don't have to understand my way of thinking. I apologize for my unreasonable behavior, and I ask for your sincere forgiveness."
Asou Akiya redirected the negative emotions churning in his chest and released them in another form.
"You can punish me."
Those pitch-black eyes were filled with earnest resolve; he was not speaking against his own heart, and that sincerity stirred in Gojo Satoru an irrepressible itch to test him.
"So you should've said it earlier. It's not that complicated—you just don't like things from the Gojo family," Gojo Satoru said, finally grasping the reason behind Asou Akiya's resistance to the cursed tool. The little tangerine didn't want to stay a little tangerine, didn't want to owe the Gojo family anything—he only wanted to stand as an equal, as a classmate.
Getou Suguru tried to intervene, but a single look from Asou Akiya pinned him in place.
Gojo Satoru said coldly, "Don't blame me for this, Akiya. You're the one who asked for it."
He pointed at the things Asou Akiya had brought. "Eat all of it. Don't leave a single crumb behind."
Asou Akiya agreed without hesitation. "Alright."
Right in front of them, Asou Akiya stuffed the creamy, fragrant egg tarts into his mouth. By the time he started eating, the tarts had cooled to the perfect temperature—not hot at all. What proved far harder to finish in one go was the enormous jug of milk tea.
Asou Akiya poured the milk tea down his throat, forcing himself to swallow, taking a moment to suppress the wave of nausea.
It was far too sweet.
He had added extra sugar for Gojo Satoru's sake, while he himself had never had much of a sweet tooth.
After completing his "punishment," Asou Akiya gave the two of them a faint smile, signaling a return to normal. "I'll head back to brush my teeth and take a shower. I still haven't changed out of my mission clothes, so I won't disturb you two while you play."
Gojo Satoru watched Asou Akiya leave, lips parting slightly, yet no words of protest came out.
That milk tea… it should be pretty good, right…?
Getou Suguru, having stood there for a while, suddenly lowered his folded arms, casually stretching as if nothing were amiss, and said lightly, "You can play single-player by yourself. I'm going back to rest."
Gojo Satoru lunged forward with a sharp whoosh, stopping Getou Suguru from making his escape.
"Damn it—aren't you supposed to be on my side?" he snapped.
"Am I?" Getou replied mildly.
He deftly dodged Gojo Satoru's grasping hands and answered with infuriating sincerity. "One minute ago, you were right. One minute later, you were wrong. I'm going to check on Akiya now."
Gojo Satoru straightened up, bristling. "I'm not wrong! He's the one who refused to explain himself properly!"
Getou Suguru nodded perfunctorily, his tone flat and clearly insincere. "Yes, yes, you're not wrong. You're the world's greatest saint, Gojo Satoru."
Gojo Satoru: "..."
The last time a conversation like this had happened, Getou Suguru had flipped him clean over and slammed him into the floor, leaving him howling in pain.
"Snarky Getou is way too much," Gojo Satoru complained, his face twisting. "Just as bad as how Akiya was before." Since he had already decided to forgive Asou Akiya, he naturally didn't bring up old grievances again. Instead, he demanded, genuinely baffled, "Then tell me—what exactly did I do wrong?"
Getou Suguru was all too familiar with the reaction of someone forcing down food they disliked. Putting himself in Akiya's place, the nauseating revulsion of swallowing cursed spirit orbs welled up in his chest. Reason kept him from venting that discomfort at Gojo Satoru, and with conflicted emotions, he answered honestly, "The milk tea portion was huge. It probably made him feel awful while drinking it. He might throw up when he gets back."
Gojo Satoru instinctively turned to look in the direction of Asou Akiya's dormitory.
That red cord—he'd taken it off again.
"Shit!"
Gojo Satoru cursed under his breath and bolted toward Asou Akiya's dorm. Behind him followed Getou Suguru in a distinctly Zen, go-with-the-flow state, rolling his eyes at Gojo Satoru's sudden moment of enlightenment.
"Akiya! Akiya!" Gojo Satoru pounded on the door, the frame shaking with heavy thuds, panic leaking unmistakably into his voice.
The door was flung open almost immediately from the inside.
Asou Akiya rushed out of the bathroom, his attention scattered; all he managed to register was the alarm in Gojo Satoru's tone. Even more anxious than Gojo himself, he asked urgently, "What's wrong?"
Gojo Satoru was thrown off by Asou Akiya's reaction, so different from what he had imagined.
Asou Akiya pressed again, "What happened?"
Gojo Satoru hesitated and stammered for a long moment before finally grasping at a reason. "You weren't wearing the red cord again—you scared the hell out of me."
Asou Akiya finally let go of the tension in his chest. "I need my privacy too. I'll wear it when I want to."
Gojo Satoru's sharp eyes immediately caught sight of the cursed corpse, Mii-chan, inside the room.
A white cat?!
Gojo Satoru jumped in place. "What is this supposed to be? Akiya, are you not satisfied with just drawing cats on paper anymore?"
Asou Akiya's expression darkened as he explained that it was an upgraded version Yaga Masamichi had made for Multicolored Mii-chan.
Gojo Satoru immediately demanded that Akiya change it back. "No way. I hate it!"
Already exhausted from dealing with both cursed spirits and Gojo Satoru, Asou Akiya felt so drained he no longer knew what to do.
"Fine. I'll do it," Asou Akiya agreed. He returned to his room and picked up Mii-chan, but did not allow Gojo Satoru's fingers to touch it. Alone, he left the boys' dormitory with his head lowered, heading straight for Yaga Masamichi's office.
In the corridor of the boys' dormitory, Getou Suguru watched in amazement and sighed, "As expected of you—you always manage to refresh my impression of you."
Gojo Satoru had already sensed that something was about to go very wrong; his gaze drifted away as he muttered, "I didn't force him."
Getou Suguru said coldly, "I'll count to three. If you don't go and bring Akiya back, I'll release a cursed spirit to bite you. And if you dare block it with the Limitless technique, I can ambush you on campus for more than three days straight."
Getou Suguru continued, "One…"
Gojo Satoru shot off like the wind, only remembering at the doorway that he could teleport short distances, and vanished in an instant.
Ahead of him, Asou Akiya walked on in silence.
Suddenly, someone wrapped him up from behind. The bright blue cursed energy was achingly familiar, carrying a bone-deep chill and overwhelming power. A fluffy head buried itself into the hollow of his shoulder as the owner complained indignantly, "Akiya~, don't go any farther. Suguru says he's going to release a cursed spirit to bite me—he's seriously too much. Come back and help me scold him."
Asou Akiya replied calmly, his heart as still as water, "You two are best friends. I treat you equally, so I can't help with something like that."
The white-haired boy refused to let go and, looking utterly justified, voiced his doubt.
"Don't you favor me the most?"
"…"
"Don't tell me… that's not the case anymore? Just because of a cursed tool???"
Gojo Satoru reached out to turn Asou Akiya's face toward him. Because of the vomiting earlier, faint red marks still lingered at the corners of his eyes.
Clumsily and without experience, Gojo Satoru tried to wipe those corners, muttering all the while, "If you don't like cursed tools, just say so. If the milk tea tastes bad, then don't drink it. Why are you treating me like I'm the villain?"
Asou Akiya gently stroked Mii-chan in his arms.
Seeing this, Gojo Satoru struck a deliberately cool pose, removed his pitch-black, lightless sunglasses, and placed them over the eyes of the cursed corpse Mii-chan.
Thus, a white cat—neither chubby nor clumsy, skilled in close combat, and wearing sunglasses—was born.
Gojo Satoru's eyes narrowed into happy crescents as he flashed a brilliant smile. "This looks the best now, doesn't it?"
Asou Akiya looked at Mii-chan, whose face was full of displeasure, and then, almost as if he were looking at someone else entirely, at Gojo Satoru, whose face was brimming with delight.
"It's so-so."
The heaviness in his chest was pulled back to a normal, steady level.
In this world, there would never be anything that could replace you, never anyone more good-looking than you, never anyone more important than you.
Gojo Satoru.
Gojo… Satoru.