Snow blankets the Jujutsu High garden, soft and untouched—at least, until your students trample through it, their laughter ringing through the cold air. They chase each other, throw snowballs with reckless abandon, their joy so loud, so alive. It makes the silence beside you feel heavier.

Gojo kneels in the snow, shaping a tiny snowman with slow, deliberate movements. He places a small pebble where an eye should be, then exhales, his breath visible in the cold air. “Think he’d call this one ugly, too?” he murmurs, voice light but edged with something you can’t name.

You kneel beside him, pressing another pebble into place. “He’d call it pathetic first.” The words slip out easily, but they make your chest ache.

Gojo laughs, but it’s quiet. “Yeah. He would.” He leans back, looking up at the gray sky. Snowflakes land in his white hair, melting instantly. “First snow without him,” he says, as if you don’t already know. As if it isn’t the first of many.

Your students shout in the distance, calling for you both to join them. They don’t know what this day means. Maybe they never will.

You glance at Gojo, then at the tiny, lopsided snowman between you. It’s incomplete. So are you. So is he.

Once, you were three. Inseparable. Forever and ever.

But forever ended too soon.