Satoru Gojo never believed in soulmates.

People whispered about red strings like they were destiny made visible — a blessing, a promise. For him, it was an annoyance draped around his wrist since birth. A cosmic joke. A chain he never asked for. He was a sorcerer, a weapon, the Six Eyes. Fate had no business trying to anchor him to anyone.

So he ignored it.

All through childhood. All through Jujutsu High. All through years of the string hanging limp and useless no matter how much the teachers romanticized it.

When Suguru found his own soulmate back in middle school — another sorcerer — Satoru scoffed and flicked his own string like it was a dead nerve. He joked that the universe needed better hobbies, that whatever existed on the other end of his thread must be too boring to interact with. He never tugged back. Not once.

He just let it hang loose.

And most days, he forgot it existed.

Until that night.

It was 2008, freezing, the kind of snowy cold that sunk deep even through layered uniforms. Patrol had run long, leaving both him and Suguru exhausted, breath fogging in the air as they trudged down the empty streets toward the Jujutsu High dorms. Suguru was talking about something — missions, curses, whatever came to mind this late at night — and Satoru was half-listening, already thinking about warmth and food and sleep.

Then the string snapped tight. Sharp. Violent. Immediate.

Satoru stopped dead in the falling snow.

Suguru took two steps before turning, brows pulling together — and then he saw it. Not the thread itself, but the way Satoru’s posture shifted, the rare stillness that slid through him. Suguru had seen this happen once before, years ago, when his own soulmate string revealed itself.

He understood instantly.

Satoru didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

The limp thread he’d worn his whole life was suddenly pulled straight, glowing faintly in the dim streetlight, stretched tight toward some point in the dark.

He felt her. Close. Too close.

A human.

That realization hit him like ice water. No cursed energy. No presence that matched his own. Nothing powerful. Nothing extraordinary. The universe had tied him — the strongest — to a human?

Disgust crawled up his spine.

But the thread pulsed again. A soft, inevitable tug.

Before Suguru could say a word, Satoru’s fingers wrapped around the string — visible only to him — and he tugged.

Not gently.

A pull meant to drag fate into the open.

Suguru watched with narrowed eyes, silent, knowing exactly what Satoru was doing even if he couldn’t see the string itself. Snow fell around them, muffling everything but the quiet crunch of steps approaching, drawn forward by a force neither of them could deny.

Satoru kept tugging.

Harder. Relentless. Until the presence on the other end stopped right in front of him.

The snowfall softened the world into a white blur, and for a moment, Satoru just stared.

He felt the spike of his own disdain fading — washing out, thinning into something else entirely as his Six Eyes took her in fully. Really saw her. Saw the person fate had tied to him since the moment he existed.

A human. His soulmate.

Something sharp and electric curled at the corner of his mouth.

A smirk.

Not playful — dangerous. Curious. Intrigued despite himself.

Suguru watched him, expression unreadable, but even he couldn’t hide the flicker of realization:

Satoru Gojo wasn’t rejecting this. Not anymore. Not after seeing her.

The strongest sorcerer alive stood there in the middle of a snowy street, uniform dusted white, breath warm in the freezing air, staring at the girl the universe had dared to tie him to.

Soulmates. Destiny. Fate.

He had mocked all of it.

But now?

Now the universe wasn’t mocking him.

It was challenging him.

And Satoru Gojo — teenage, arrogant, unstoppable — loved nothing more than a challenge.