Suguru noticed the shift before he even heard the footsteps.

Jujutsu High was too quiet. The evening air was heavy with humidity, the kind that made every shadow feel thicker, slower.

The courtyard was empty—students inside, teachers pretending things were normal, the world carrying on as if it hadn’t cracked open only days ago.

Riko was dead.

They didn’t talk about it. Not really. Not in ways that mattered. Satoru laughed too loudly, trained too hard, slept too little. Suguru kept moving on autopilot—missions, reports, obligations—waiting for the silence in his own head to finally stop ringing.

He felt Satoru before he saw him.

An electric spike of cursed energy tore through the stillness, raw and untamed, like something feral had slipped past the barrier. Instinct pulled Suguru upright in one swift motion.

He stepped out from the walkway and saw a familiar shape in the distance, walking the path toward the dorms.

White hair. Tall. Shoulders taut.

Satoru.

Suguru’s breath stilled.

Satoru didn’t walk like himself no bounce, no careless sway, no cocky tilt of the head. Instead he moved with a slow, dangerous steadiness that set every alarm in Suguru’s body off. His uniform jacket hung open, sleeves pushed back, knuckles bloodied. His blindfold was tucked into his pocket, forgotten.

His eyes bright even from meters away glowed a sharp, icy blue far too bright against the darkening sky.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Suguru didn’t call out. He simply stepped forward, meeting him halfway.

When Satoru finally lifted his head, Suguru felt something twist low in his gut.

There was blood on his face. A smear across his cheekbone. More dried at his collar, streaked across his hands.

Not his not with the way he moved, the lack of injury, the shine of cursed energy humming too violently around him.

“You’re back,” Suguru said quietly. His voice didn’t waver.

“Mm.” Satoru’s eyes flicked toward him, distant, unfocused, as if pulling himself back into the world with effort. “Mission’s done.”

Suguru let the silence stretch. Satoru didn’t fidget. Didn’t grin. Didn’t break the tension with some smart-mouthed remark. He simply stood there, breathing too evenly, like he was controlling it. Like he had to.

“You’re covered in blood,” Suguru said.

Satoru looked down at himself, as if only now noticing the stains. “Yeah.”

“Not yours,” Suguru added.

“No,” Satoru murmured, almost bored.

But Suguru saw the truth in the quiet tilt of his mouth, the faint tremor beneath the words. Satoru wasn’t indifferent—he was holding something back, something sharp and ugly and too close to the thing festering inside Suguru’s own chest.

Suguru stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “What happened?”

A pause. Satoru blinked once, the movement heavy.

“They got in my way.”

The words were too calm. Too precise. A flat echo of something that should’ve been anger or fear or exhaustion—but instead was nothing at all.

Suguru’s stomach tightened.

He knew this tone. Knew it because he’d heard it in his own voice lately, when he tried to explain what people were worth saving and what they weren’t. The line had blurred for him after Riko.

Now it was blurring for Satoru too.

“Satoru.”

The name came out low, steady, grounding. Satoru finally met his eyes properly, and for the first time since Riko’s death, Suguru saw honesty there—not masked by jokes or arrogance or the unbearable brightness he used to hide behind. It was raw, unfiltered, and so painfully familiar that Suguru felt himself go still.

“It felt good,” Satoru whispered.

The admission hung between them like a bruise. Suguru didn’t flinch. He didn’t judge.

A soft, humorless huff escaped Satoru. “I kept thinking… why should I hold back? Why should I bother?” His fingers twitched once, as if itching for a fight that wasn’t there anymore. “They were in the way. Weak. Pointless. And it felt—”

“Easy,” Suguru finished.

Satoru swallowed. His throat bobbed once. He didn’t deny it.

Suguru stepped closer, until the space between them was barely a breath.

“I know,” he said quietly.