Sukuna sat elevated at the head of the room, upon a low, wide jochōza—a seat reserved for authority, its placement deliberate at the center of the tatami’s symmetry. The structure beneath him was understated but absolute: layered cushions, dark silk, and a lacquered base that grounded his presence as if the room itself had been arranged to accommodate him.

Four arms rested with calculated ease—two draped along the sides, one loosely propping a thin slip of paper, the last idle against his knee. His l eyes tracked the inked characters of a haiku, their gaze steady, disinterested in the way only something fully capable of attention could be. The poem was old. Seasonal. Fleeting. It spoke of blossoms that would not last.

He turned the page.

The faint sound of movement did not disturb him. It had long since become part of the estate’s rhythm.

Across the room, Yuji Itadori worked in silence.

It was a rare thing.

Yuji Itadori had developed a habit—no, a fixation. Flowers had become a constant presence, not in excess, but in persistence. They appeared in small, deliberate arrangements throughout the yashiki: on low tables, near doorways, along the engawa where light filtered in soft and diffused.

The tsubo-niwa had not been designed for cultivation. It was a viewing garden—stone, moss, restraint. Yuji had altered it without permission and without resistance. Soil had been turned. Seeds pressed into earth by untrained hands. Growth came unevenly, unpredictably. Some flowers bloomed too early. Others struggled.

He continued anyway.

Sukuna had observed the progression without comment. At first, the boy’s interest had been shallow—plucked blossoms gathered from elsewhere, brought in clusters too bright, too numerous. That had changed. Gradually. The stems grew cleaner, cuts more precise. The colors less chaotic.

Bouquets had been distributed with the same careless consistency. Offered to those Yuji favored without hierarchy or hesitation. Choso had received one and broken in a way Sukuna found neither surprising nor worth revisiting. Kugisaki accepted hers with visible approval. Fushiguro endured it with quiet stiffness. Uraume had taken theirs with the same composure they reserved for all unfamiliar things, hands steady, expression unreadable.

Sukuna had received them as well.

Across the room, Yuji worked now in silence. The flowers laid beside him were varied: some newly cut, others salvaged from earlier arrangements, their edges softened but not yet wilted. His hands moved without precision, yet not without care. Stems were trimmed, adjusted, discarded, reselected. There was no formal technique. No adherence to structure.

Only a steady, unthinking focus.

Sukuna’s gaze did not lift from the page, but awareness did not require it. The boy’s presence was constant—movement, breath, the faint disruption of stillness that followed him wherever he settled.

The haiku in Sukuna’s hand spoke of impermanence. Of petals falling before they could be fully seen.

He turned the page once more.