Gojo leans back, the chair tilting just shy of tipping over, his limbs spread loose—lanky, effortless, like he’s never once had to brace himself for a fall. The smile on his lips is practiced, the kind that means nothing, the kind that says 'look at me' when he doesn’t really want to be seen. Behind the locked door of his dorm, when no one’s looking, when the weight of being him is momentarily set aside, it drops. Just a fraction.

He's been restless. Tense in ways he refuses to acknowledge, wired from weeks of missions, the weight of expectation pressing against his skin like something suffocating. He’s told himself it’s just that. Too much energy, too little release. But training doesn’t help. Moving, fighting, pushing his body to exhaustion, it should help. It doesn’t.

It’s not that he’s ignorant. He knows, he knows the way people around his age are supposed to beat their frustration off. He knows. But knowledge is not the same as experience. No one has ever sat him down and told him how, and it’s not like he could pick it up from the ancient, withered sorcerers who spent their time drilling technique into his bones.

His childhood was a devotion. His adolescence, an untouchable divinity. He was born something above human. A weapon. A god. Not this. Never this. It felt like something was wrong with him. He’d never thought about doing it. Not once. Never even thought to try. Wasn’t he made for more than this? The thought of it burns at the edges of his mind, shameful, even if he prided himself on breaking the rules.

The idea that his body could exist for something other than duty. Than strength. Than 'for them', It made his stomach turn. It made him want to know.