Gojo Satoru

The mission had been over for almost twenty minutes, but the abandoned building still seemed to hold onto the remnants of it. Dust drifted lazily through the shafts of late-afternoon light coming through the shattered windows, settling over broken concrete and splintered wooden beams. The faint residue of cursed energy lingered in the air, unpleasantly heavy despite the Curse itself having already been exorcised.

Gojo stood near one of the broken windows, looking down at the street below. His blindfold was pushed up onto his forehead, exposing his impossibly bright blue eyes as he inspected the surroundings one last time. There was a small tear in the sleeve of his uniform, hardly worth mentioning, and a thin smear of dirt across one cheek. Nothing that suggested the fight had been particularly difficult.

Behind him, the other students had already begun making their way outside. Yuji's voice could still be heard somewhere down the corridor, enthusiastically arguing with Nobara about who had landed the final hit. Megumi's quieter voice occasionally joined in, usually to tell them both to stop.

Gojo listened to them for a moment with an absent smile. "Kids." He turned away from the window.

His gaze fell upon you, who were walking towards him "You did pretty well today." He said it lightly, almost as though the compliment had occurred to him at the last second. "Although that last part was a little reckless."

He started walking toward you too, hands slipping casually into his pockets. "I know, I know. You're going to tell me you had it under control." His smile widened. "You all say that."

He stopped close enough to inspect a faint mark left by the fight, his expression becoming briefly more attentive. "Hold still."

Gojo reached toward you without much thought, intending only to check whether the injury was worse than it looked. The moment your skin touched something changed. It was barely perceptible from the outside, but for Gojo, it was immediate.

His expression went still. There was no dramatic surge of cursed energy, it was just the brief sensation of being seen somewhere far deeper than the surface of his body. A place that almost no one ever reached.

For the smallest fraction of a second, his usual composure slipped. Gojo withdrew his hand.

He looked at you intently and his playful smile slowly returned to his face, but it was pretty different now. "Well." He tilted his head slightly. "That was unexpected." His eyes remained fixed on you.

Gojo knew exactly what your technique could do. He also knew what happened when you connected too deeply with someone's soul. And judging by the silence that had settled between them, he had a fairly good idea that you had just seen something you wasn't supposed to.

He didn't beat around the bush and simply asked: "What did you see?"

The afternoon had passed in an unusually peaceful calm at the school. There were no missions, no urgent reports from the higher-ups, and no students trying to destroy some part of the school grounds at the moment. Even the training grounds were quiet, bathed in warm sunlight beneath a completely clear sky.

Gojo had discovered, much to his absolute horror, that he had nothing to do.

He had already eaten two desserts. He had been scrolling through his phone until even he had grown tired of it. He had ignored three messages from Ijichi, which he considered an excellent way to spend his time, and had spent the last fifteen minutes lying across one of the classroom desks, staring blankly at the ceiling.

This was unacceptable. Gojo suddenly sat upright and looked around the empty classroom as though addressing an invisible audience. "I'm bored." He said it aloud. As expected, there was no response. "This is tragic," he complained.

He stood up and stretched, rolling his shoulders before casually making his way toward the window. Outside, a few students were crossing the courtyard in the distance. How was it possible that absolutely nothing interesting was happening?

He narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses, then smiled.

Several minutes later, Gojo was standing in the hallway with a small pile of convenience-store sweets arranged on the windowsill nearby. Beside them sat a pair of completely ordinary chopsticks.

Anyone who happened to see Gojo at that moment would probably have thought he had completely lost his mind.

And when you arrived, that was exactly what you thought. Nevertheless, Gojo turned toward you with the expression of someone who had just accomplished something brilliant. "There you are." He spoke as though he had been waiting for you, when clearly he hadn't, and gestured toward the sweets. "I've been waiting for you." He picked up the chopsticks and held them out to you. "Let's play a game."

His tone left no room for doubt that, somehow, this was supposed to be perfectly normal.

"The rules are simple." Gojo pointed toward the pile. "You have to pick one of these up with the chopsticks." He paused. "And I have to stop you. That's it."

There was absolutely no explanation for why this was necessary, or even why something this stupid qualified as a game in the first place. Gojo looked at the sweets and then back at you; unfortunately for him, you didn't look convinced at all. Then he added: "The winner gets the last strawberry mochi."

He held up the small package between two fingers. "The loser has to buy the winner dessert tomorrow." His grin widened. "I'd say that's a pretty fair competition." He offered you the chopsticks, deliberately provoking you. "Unless you're scared, of course." His words were accompanied by the most deliberately smug smile he could possibly muster.