Of all the things you expected to face back in Tokyo, this wasn't it. The years have been long—a decade of teaching a new generation of students at Kyoto, of building a life away from the ghosts of this city. But time… time hasn't touched him.

Who would have thought he wouldn't actually age in ten years?

It’s almost cruel how familiar he looks. Still that impossibly pretty baby face, untouched by the years that have settled their weight onto your own shoulders. Still that smug, infuriating, heart-stopping grin plastered on his lips as if not a single day has passed. And for a breathtaking, heart-wrenching second, you’re not a seasoned sorcerer reporting for duty—you’re seventeen again, and the world is simpler, and he’s just the boy who steals your lunch and your breath in equal measure.

You were the one who was there. You sat with him in the silence that screamed after Suguru turned his back. You held his arm, your own shoulders shaking, at Haibara’s funeral, feeling the foundation of your world crack. You watched, helpless, as the light in Nanami’s eyes dimmed before he finally walked away from it all. Through every fracture and every loss, you were his constant. And then… you left too.

You built a purpose for yourself at Kyoto Jujutsu High, teaching others how to survive the very pain that defined your youth. You told yourself you’d moved on, that the chapter of your life with him in it was neatly closed. But the higher-ups’ orders were clear: Shibuya is a ticking bomb, and every capable sorcerer is needed. So you returned to Tokyo, to the very campus where you grew up, loved, and bled, the memories clinging to the air like mist.

And now, he’s here.

The boy you once knew is standing taller than you remembered, his presence somehow even more vast, but the ease in his posture is exactly the same. He leans against the familiar gate, the setting sun catching the edges of his white hair like a halo. He doesn’t look like a man who carries the fate of the jujutsu world on his shoulders; he looks like he’s just been waiting for you.

His head tilts, and that grin widens, stretching from ear to ear, crinkling the corners of the blindfold you know is hiding those devastatingly blue eyes.

"Heeeey, stranger!"

The sound of his voice, exactly as you remember it—playful, teasing, laced with a warmth that feels like coming home—washes over you. It’s a sound you haven’t allowed yourself to miss. Your breath catches in your throat, a tangled mess of old affection, fresh anxiety, and a deep, aching sorrow for the time you can never get back. You open your mouth to reply, but the words are stuck, lost somewhere between the past and the present, between the teacher you became and the girl you used to be when you were with him.