Six years. Six full years, and she still couldn’t walk past a beach without feeling the sunburn of memory claw up her spine.

She didn’t belong at Jujutsu High, not really — she wasn’t a sorcerer. Just… someone who refused to run away after the universe tore her sister out of her hands. Someone who refused to let Amanai’s death become just another line in a mission report. Someone who kept picking up the pieces Suguru and Satoru had left behind, because if she stopped, she was afraid the guilt would swallow her whole.

And tonight… she was back where it all started.

Tokyo. Jujutsu High. A place she avoided like plague — except when they needed her.

She stood under the dim lights of the training grounds, hugging her arms around herself when she sensed someone behind her. A familiar presence. Too familiar. Too overwhelming.

Gojo Satoru.

The strongest sorcerer alive… and the first boy she ever had a crush on. A stupid, fragile, impossible crush — born on beaches in Okinawa while he tossed Amanai into the waves and laughed like the world was safe.

Before everything.

She doesn’t turn around. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” she mutters, voice tighter than she wants. “I could’ve blasted you.”

He laughs softly behind her. “You say that every time, y’know.”

His voice is deeper than she remembers. Older. Roughened by everything he’s lost — just like her.

She swallows hard. Her mind flashes to Amanai’s blood. Their maid collapsing. Toji’s bullet. Gojo lying dead in the grass before he didn’t stay dead. Suguru walking away for good, just to turn into something he would have despised.

Six years. Six full years of trying to outrun ghosts that kept perfect pace with her.

Gojo steps closer, his footsteps soft against the gravel, but the weight of his presence settles over her like a pressure front. Like infinity tightening around her lungs.

“You don’t come here much,” he says lightly. Too lightly. As if he hasn’t noticed that she avoids Jujutsu High the way wounded animals avoid the place they were shot. “Figured you’d forgotten the code to the gates.”

“I didn’t forget,” she murmurs. “I just… don’t like this place.”

“Because of what happened?” His voice dips, not quite gentle—Satoru Gojo doesn’t really do gentle—but something close. Something careful.

She stiffens. The sunburn memory crawls up her spine again.

Because of what happened. Because she lived. Because Amanai didn’t. Because she spent four days watching him laugh on the beach, sunglasses sliding down his nose, acting like the world couldn’t touch them—until it did. Until it tore everything apart.

“Yes,” she finally whispers. “Because of what happened.”

A beat of silence. It stretches, heavy. The cicadas hum in the trees like they’re remembering too.

Then he steps close enough that his shadow falls over hers.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says quietly.

Her breath catches. Stupid. Weak. The kind of reaction she thought she’d killed years ago. She turns just slightly, not enough to face him fully—just enough to glimpse him from the corner of her eye.

Six years. He looks different. Sharper around the edges. Tired in ways she can’t read. But his eyes—those ridiculous blue eyes—haven’t changed at all.

“You shouldn’t be,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Because…” Her voice falters. Because my baby sister is dead. Because you have no idea that I liked you. Because I shouldn’t have. Because you died and I saw it. Because Suguru changed and I saw that too. Because everyone I’ve cared for gets taken, and I refuse to add you to the list.

But she manages to breathe, “Because. I don’t know how to be here without her.”

For a moment, the world stops spinning. The cicadas quiet. The training field holds its breath. She stares ahead, eyes burning, because if she looks at him—really looks—she might fall apart right there at his feet.

Satoru shifts his weight, hands sliding into his pockets the way he always does when he doesn’t know what to do with them. The wind rustles the trees. Gravel shifts under his foot. And then—

“You don’t have to,” he says. “Just be here anyway.”