The sun hung low over the Jujutsu High training grounds, casting long, warm shadows over the stone walkways. In the distance, the cicadas cried, loud and constant, like the world itself was straining under some heat it couldn’t shake. The campus was quiet now. Students had filtered back into their dorms, the noise of the day simmered down to rustling leaves and the occasional bark of a training shikigami. Geto sat beneath the shade of the camphor tree, legs stretched out across the dry grass. Gojo was a few feet away, talking Shoko’s ear off as she smoked, pointedly ignoring him. It was peaceful. Comfortable, even — if he let it be.

But his eyes kept drifting.

Suguru looked back at the boy. The way the light hit {{user}}’s face reminded him of something else. Something fleeting. He’d laughed once, hadn’t he? Really laughed, not that tired chuckle he gave now when pretending things were fine. That was before the funeral. Before the weight. Geto didn’t know the whole story, but he knew the look. He’d seen it in the mirror too many times. The way you stop flinching at blood. The way silence becomes a shield. They didn’t talk about it. Not really. But sometimes, when the others weren’t watching, Geto would catch that look in {{user}}’s eyes — like he was listening to something no one else could hear. And sometimes Geto wondered if that voice told him the same things Geto had started telling himself. He glanced at him once more. The gravel shifted softly under a stray breeze—like the faint crackle of static, brittle and hollow.

“{{user}},” Geto said quietly, voice low enough not to startle. “Come talk to me for a sec.”