April 1st, 2005.
A black sedan traveled along a road in the suburbs of Tokyo.
Outside the car window was the Japanese countryside in April; the cherry blossoms were in bloom, and trees laden with pale pink flowers occasionally flashed past on both sides of the road.
There had been a light rain two days prior, and the air held the moisture and the scent of freshly turned earth unique to spring, drifting in through the gap in the half-open window.
Satoru Gojo had been restless for the entire ride in this car.
He was wearing his best outfit today.
It wasn’t a kimono, nor was it some bizarre costume, but a white shirt he had picked out himself, layered under a dark jacket.
His pants were in the trendiest cut of the moment, and he had a pair of expensive shoes on his feet.
He wore a pair of sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, the lenses a pure black, hiding his sky-blue eyes completely behind them.
At fifteen, Satoru Gojo had already begun a growth spurt.
His shoulders still retained the slight, spare frame of a youth, but sitting there, his presence was so immense it took up the space of two people.
He was constantly moving, as if he had fleas.
First, he adjusted the seat back to lie down, found it uncomfortable, and adjusted it back.
Then, he began inspecting the storage compartment on the car door, turning everything inside upside down.
A few Tokyo maps, a thin Jujutsu High freshman guide, a ballpoint pen, and a whole heap of dust.
He took the pen out, clicked it a few times, found it boring, and put it back.
Next, he started fidgeting with his seatbelt—pulling it out, letting it retract, pulling it out again, letting it retract again—playing with it for several rounds.
Then, he started squirming.
Not intentionally.
At least, not entirely intentionally.
He simply couldn’t sit still.
His body had to change posture every few moments; his long legs shifted back and forth in the limited space before the seat, his elbows brushed against the person next to him every now and then, and his knees wobbled along with them.
The backseat wasn’t exactly spacious to begin with.
He and Shoko Ieiri were sitting side-by-side with an armrest’s distance between them, but for Satoru Gojo, that distance might as well not have existed.
Shoko Ieiri leaned against the other side of the backseat, her eyes closed.
She had a lollipop between her lips, the sweetness very faint.
She didn’t like things that were too sweet.
This lollipop was green tea flavored; there was only a vague, ghostly hint of sweetness upon entering her mouth, with the subtle astringency and fresh fragrance unique to plants taking precedence.
She held the candy, feeling it slowly melt on the tip of her tongue, attempting to use this monotonous sensory experience to block out the source of the constant noise and vibration beside her.
Her hair was a standard, clean-cut girl’s bob, the length falling just at her chin.
The ends were cut very straight, lying smoothly against the side of her ears and neck.
Her hair color wasn’t pure black; in the sunlight filtering through the car window, it shimmered with a faint chestnut hue—the color of autumn.
A few loose strands slipped from behind her ears, swaying gently forward with the jolts of the car.
The black beauty mark at the corner of her eye was particularly prominent when she closed her eyes, looking as if someone had lightly dotted the end of the arc of her eyelid with a calligraphy brush, leaving a refined finishing touch on her indifferent face.
She wore the dark-colored Jujutsu High school uniform jacket with a white short-sleeved shirt underneath, the buttons fastened meticulously up to the second to last one.
Without any excessive decoration, she was as plain and pure as a glass of water.
Satoru Gojo, sitting next to her, was a carbonated drink spiked with way too much syrup and fizz, spluttering everywhere.
The car passed over a speed bump, and the body of the car jolted lightly.
Utilizing this jolt, Satoru Gojo leaned his entire body toward Shoko.
Shoko’s eyelids flickered.
Satoru Gojo snapped himself back.
Less than ten seconds later, he leaned over again.
Shoko opened her eyes.
Her eyes were a very deep brown—so deep that in places with insufficient light, they looked almost black.
At this moment, those eyes were calmly looking at Satoru Gojo without any extra emotion, but what she saw was a cat that hadn’t slept in the morning and was running around everywhere to torment its owner.
She didn’t turn her head, merely shifted her pupils, eyeing him askew.
“Need some insecticide?”
Her voice, like her, lacked any superfluous fluctuation, as if she were asking, “How’s the weather today?”
The lollipop shifted from the left corner of her mouth to the right as she spoke, the stick tipping slightly to form a ‘V’.
Satoru Gojo, still holding that posture of encroaching on her space, froze upon hearing this.
The sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose slightly, revealing the sky-blue eyes beneath—bright and shining, full of that cocky anticipation a child has when caught red-handed doing something naughty.
“Huh?
What’s that mean?”
He was spirited, the curve of his grin not one bit sincere.
“Do you have fleas?”
Shoko took the lollipop out of her mouth and pointed the stick at his legs, which hadn’t stopped moving.
“From the moment you got in the car until now, you haven’t stopped.
If you’ve got fleas, just say so.
I brought some rubbing alcohol; I can feed you some.”
Satoru pushed his sunglasses back into place and snapped his whole body back against the seatback, kicking his two long legs forward.
His toes nearly bumped into the back of the front seat.
“Feed me some?!
Shoko, you’d die doing that!”
“Then you’ve got too much energy.
Need a sedative?” After saying that, Shoko stuffed the lollipop back into her mouth and closed her eyes again.
Silence for three seconds, then Satoru transformed back into his hyperactive state.
“Hey, Shoko.”
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Curious about what.”
“Tokyo!”
Satoru sprang up, bracing his hands on the backs of the two front seats, leaning his body forward until his head was squeezed almost into the gap between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat.
If he got stuck there, it would be hilarious.
Wearing that outfit, with that brace, his hem rode up, exposing a sliver of his lower back, but he didn’t care.
The light and shadows flashing past the car window hit his white hair, making the strands look almost transparent. Get faster updates on g.com.
He began to complain.
“That bunch of old fogeys in Kyoto, they’re one more wrinkled than the last, they talk so slow it’s painful, and their rules are so numerous they could crush a person flat.
Tokyo’s different, right?
I heard the principal and teachers at Tokyo Jujutsu High sew dolls.
That’s got to be more interesting than that old man in Kyoto who keeps a straight face all day, right?”
“Yeah, sewing dolls is definitely better than keeping a straight face,” Shoko said.
Her tone made it impossible to tell if she was genuinely agreeing or just humoring him.
Low-energy people really don’t like being around high-energy people.
Satoru didn’t care about her tone at all and continued, speaking rapidly: “And there are tons of Cursed Spirits in Tokyo, all kinds of them—stimulating, right?”
“Stimulating,” Shoko repeated the last word, eyes closed, the lollipop moving from her left cheek to her right.
“You’re not curious at all, are you,” Satoru finally caught on to her attitude.
“Nope.”
“Then why did you choose Tokyo?”
“Because you’re in Kyoto.”
Satoru paused.
He turned his head, slid his sunglasses down, revealing one sky-blue eye, and blinked twice: “What does that mean?
You came to Tokyo because I’m in Kyoto?
Hate me that much?”
Shoko opened her eyes, those deep brown pupils calmly meeting his gaze for a second.
Then she took the lollipop out, pointed the stick at Satoru, and spoke in a cold, calm tone: “Because you’re in Kyoto, Kyoto Jujutsu High would be too noisy.
I came to Tokyo because I wanted some peace and quiet.”
Being able to choose her school—that was the only bit of remaining right permitted to her as a user of Reverse Cursed Technique by the higher-ups.
She paused, stuffed the lollipop back into her mouth, and her lips moved slightly—a very small movement; it was hard to tell if it counted as a smile.
“Turns out you came too.”
Poor, wretched Shoko.
Satoru erupted into a roar of laughter that shook the entire backseat.
The Assistant Manager in the driver’s seat took one look at him in the rearview mirror, his expression highly restrained.
“Hahahaha!
Failed calculations!
Failed calculations, Shoko!
You think you can escape me!”
He laughed until he was doubling over, his white hair shaking back and forth in the sunlight.
His sunglasses nearly slid off the bridge of his nose, and he hurried to hold them in place with a finger.
“I was supposed to go to Kyoto.
The old men had it all arranged—the courses, the teachers, all that messy stuff was planned out.
They even cleared out a detached dorm room just for me, twice as big as the other students’.
Tch, who cares about that…”