Five-Spice Sunflower Seeds

The classroom went quiet again.

Suguru Geto noticed that this time, even the air was pressed down slightly.

Masamichi Yaga's cursed energy leaked out just a tiny bit during that exact moment-not much, but enough for everyone present to feel it.

It was not a threat, but a warning.

It was a teacher who had run out of all patience for the day, reminding them: I have a good temper, but even a good temper has its limits.

Yan Si slowly shut his mouth, pressing his lips into a straight line, but his eyes were still curved.

Quite interesting.

A two-dimensional character getting angry.

So much fun.

He slumped back onto his desk again, burying his face in the crook of his arm, leaving only one purple eye exposed to look at the podium through the gaps in his black hair.

Satoru Gojo leaned back into his chair, pushed his sunglasses back up, and whistled.

The whistle was neither long nor short, exactly three syllables, sounding like an "alright" translated into musical notes.

Suguru Geto sat up even straighter, realigning his upper body-which had crooked just now from turning his head-with the center axis of the desktop, as if this could prove he was not in the same gang as the other two next to him.

Yet his peripheral vision still couldn't help but glance at Yan Si-this guy had his face buried in his arms, and his shoulders were shaking slightly. He wasn't scared; he was laughing.

He laughed with great restraint, but he was indeed laughing.

A fifteen-year-old Suguru Geto didn't quite understand what his punchline was.

Of course, a twenty-seven-year-old Suguru Geto didn't understand what the punchline of this freak Yan Si was either.

Shoko raised a hand to rub her temples, her fingertips pressing in circles against the pressure points.

Then she opened the notebook she carried with her, writing a line of text on a blank page: "First day of school, nine-fifteen in the morning, and I already want to transfer."

After finishing, she stared at this line of text for two seconds, then added a set of parentheses: "(Too late)."

Despair.

She then began to seriously consider whether Tokyo Jujutsu High had a permanent position in the infirmary.

She felt that compared to going out on missions with this batch of classmates (the early Shoko Ieiri was able to go on missions with her classmates, but as she grew increasingly familiar with the Reverse Cursed Technique later on, she was left behind in the infirmary and no longer had to go on missions), staying in the infirmary to bandage the wounded might be much easier.

At least bandages didn't talk.

At least bandages didn't giggle for no reason.

Masamichi Yaga picked up the documents, rapping them twice against the lecture desk to align the edges of the pages.

This motion was crisp and decisive, carrying a declaration of "I'm calling the shots from here on": "To the training ground, now."

Satoru Gojo stood up immediately.

The movement was so fast that his chair slid back half a meter, the legs scraping a sharp sound against the wooden floorboards.

Yet he didn't care at all, striding toward the door with his long legs.

Yan Si stood up as well.

The way he stood was different from Satoru Gojo.

Unhurried, he first propped his hands on the tabletop, then slowly straightened his body, his jacket sliding off the back of the chair to drape over the crook of his arm. His movements were lazy, but his speed was not slow at all.

In reality, it was just low blood sugar.

The two of them reached the door almost simultaneously; when Satoru Gojo raised a hand to push it open, Yan Si happened to steady himself right at the doorframe.

Then they exchanged a glance and laughed at the same time.

That kind of laughter wasn't the greeting sort; it was the laughter of "You're this excited too, huh."

Both of their eyes were so bright they didn't look like they were headed for a basic test, but rather as if they had heard an announcement that an amusement park was opening.

Suguru Geto watched their backs, stood up, pushed his chair back to its original position, and neatly tucked his bookmark into his book.

He performed these actions very slowly and carefully, as if using everyday tidiness to hedge against a certain increasingly strong sense of foreboding.

Shoko rose unhurriedly, accurately tossing the stick of her finished lollipop into the trash can, picked up her school bag, and paused for a split second as she passed by Suguru Geto.

She glanced at him, speaking flatly with two very light words: "Thanks for the effort."

Suguru Geto: "...Thanks."

It wasn't effort, it was a hard life.

He felt those words didn't sound like polite pleasantries, but more like a premature condolence.

Not "Thanks for your hard work," but "You're going to have a hard time ahead."

A subtle nuance in tone, but in today's context, he was quite certain Shoko meant the latter.

The training ground was located behind the main academic building.

Passing through a path flanked by Chinese fir trees on both sides, the view suddenly opened up.

It was an expansive field enclosed by a barrier, the ground paved with smooth, fine sand that cast a pale golden sheen under the morning sun.

Stepping on the sand produced a soft crunch, and the texture offered a moderate resistance-enough to cushion the impact of a fall without compromising the stability of one's footing.

Several wooden stakes used for physical combat training stood at the edge of the field, their wooden surfaces beaten repeatedly countless times, leaving dense dents and cracks behind.

Further away lay a patch of woods; the April wind rustled through the canopy, the fresh green leaves whispering as the clean fragrance of spring vegetation mixed with the chilling residue of cursed energy, forming the kind of contradictory and familiar scent to which only a jujutsu sorcerer would be accustomed.

Masamichi Yaga stood in the center of the field with his arms crossed.

The sunlight struck from behind him, casting his tall, imposing figure into a wide and long shadow on the ground that happened to engulf the four newcomers walking onto the field.

"Physical combat test first."

He spoke. His tone carried the subtext of "Whoever talks nonsense again gets an iron fist of love."

Satoru Gojo stopped in his tracks.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, tilting his head with his sunglasses reflecting the color of the sky, looking utterly lacking in interest: "Just physical combat?"

The tone was a question, but the subtext was "This is way too boring."

Masamichi Yaga stared at him coldly, his gaze as steady as a boulder, undisturbed by this breezy complaint to generate any superfluous reaction: "Got a problem?"

"Nope." Satoru Gojo raised both hands, palms facing outward in a posture of surrender, though the arc of his grin bore zero intention of yielding. He said with a cheeky smile, "Whatever the teacher says goes."

He didn't look sincere at all.

Shoko let out a soft "ha" from the side.

That "ha" carried zero amusement, pushed straight out from the back of her throat, dry as dust.

Satoru Gojo turned his head instantly, his white hair rendered almost transparent by the sunlight while his sunglasses reflected Shoko's indifferent face: "Shoko, you don't believe it?"

Shoko didn't even lift an eyelid: "I believe that you don't believe that I believe."

Satoru Gojo paused for a second, his eyes blinking twice behind his sunglasses as he earnestly pondered the grammatical structure of that sentence: "So twisted."

"Which proves your brain isn't running enough." Shoko shifted the lollipop to the other side of her mouth, her tone flat.

"Shoko, you're awfully aggressive." Satoru Gojo clutched his chest with one hand, striking an exaggerated pose as if struck, but his tone was brimming with the thrill of being thoroughly amused.

"Because your presence is awfully loud." Shoko finally threw him a glance, her gaze calm, yet its lethality diminished not a single bit.

Yan Si listened with immense relish from the side, his head turning from left to right and back from right to left.

He couldn't help but clap twice, the sound of his palms colliding ringing exceptionally crisp across the empty training ground: "So fun~"

Shoko's gaze shifted to him.

Her line of sight lingered on his pretty face for a beat, swept him up and down, and finally locked onto those sparkling purple eyes of his: "You're just as bad."

Yan Si pointed at himself, his expression innocent laced with a hint of wronged grievance: "I didn't even say anything." Indeed, he had only clapped just then, not uttering a single word.

"Your face looks loud enough on its own," Shoko stated. With that, she pulled the lollipop out from her mouth and used the plastic stick to gesture in his direction.

Yan Si blinked.

Then he grinned.

Yan Si spoke with total and utter naturalness: "This isn't loud, this is dazzling."

He pinched his own cheek as if troubled: "It's not my fault I look so good-looking... Hehe, right, Geto?"

Suguru Geto stared straight ahead at the wooden stakes of the training ground, his voice as calm as someone who had seen through the mortal world: "Don't drag me into this."

He maintained a flawless neutrality amid this chain-attack, much like a butcher who had slaughtered pigs for ten years, his heart long since devoid of ripples.

Masamichi Yaga felt his patience being sliced inch by inch by these four individuals using a dull knife.

Not chopped, but sawed.

Back and forth, slowly, sawing away with a teeth-grating sound.

Creeeak, creeeak, creeeak...

He closed his eyes for a split second, rapidly running through today's schedule in his head to discover it was only nine-thirty in the morning, leaving a full ten hours until dark. Then he opened his eyes, his voice hardening by another degree compared to before.

Creeeak, creeeak, creeeak...

Masamichi Yaga glared at Satoru Gojo: "Stop chewing on that damn lollipop of yours!"

Satoru Gojo yanked the plastic lollipop stick out of his mouth.

"Oh."

Yaga announced: "First group, Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto."

Satoru Gojo let out an elongated, upturned "Oh?"

He turned back around, pulled his sunglasses down a fraction, and peered at Suguru Geto from over the rims with those pale blue eyes, his gaze carrying an unmasked sense of appraisal.

His eyes overflowed with curiosity, the pure curiosity of someone wanting to solve an unfamiliar math problem upon first sight.

Suguru Geto gave a slight start.

It was only his first day meeting Satoru Gojo, but he had already heard the name "Satoru Gojo" countless times from Yan Si-to be precise, the Six Eyes of the Gojo Clan were known to all of jujutsu society, but Yan Si took a particular liking to tossing it around in jest.

Stuff like "boundlessly arrogant," "the honored one of heaven and earth," "a sweets addict," "needs to be disciplined," "Dead cat"...

He knew this person was strong.

Now he was going to verify it personally.

He nodded, his voice steady: "Understood."

Yan Si immediately sat cross-legged at the edge of the field with practiced ease.

The sandy ground yielded a small indentation beneath his weight.

He didn't even know where he fished out a bag of sunflower seeds.

Suguru Geto recognized the packaging; it was the brand Yan Si had spent ten full minutes picking out in front of the convenience store shelf last week.

Yan Si chewed happily and watched the show.

Shoko stood beside him, lowering her gaze to look at the crown of his head.

From this angle, she could see Yan Si's hair whorl and the red dot between his brows. She stood there for a moment in silence.

Yan Si sensed the gaze from above, lifted the bag of sunflower seeds upward, raised his head, and looked at her upside-down with his purple eyes while shaking the bag: "Want some?"

Shoko glanced at the characters printed on the packaging, her eyebrows twitching imperceptibly: "Five-spice?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that the flavor of braised dishes?"

"Braised meat is delicious, so braised sunflower seeds are delicious too~"

Yan Si offered a plausible argument with an earnest expression. He shook the bag again, causing the seeds to rustle inside, "They're really good, you know~"

Shoko fell silent for a second.

She lowered her gaze to look at the bag of seeds, then back at Yan Si's face which clearly shouted "I'm talking nonsense but I make total sense," and reached out to take a handful.

The five-spice and sunflower seed flavors burst across her tongue simultaneously, tasting unexpectedly decent.

Masamichi Yaga watched the two students sharing snacks by the side of the field and nodded.

Hmph, now that was what a normal classmate dynamic looked like.