Nice Guys Really Did Finish Last

That afternoon, textbooks were handed out in a classroom piled high with cardboard boxes.

The boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling, each bearing a subject label written in neat ink.

Yan Si couldn't quite understand why Jujutsu Sorcerers needed so many textbooks.

The distinctive smell of fresh printing ink hung in the air, mixed with the faint dampness of paper that hadn't fully dried.

Satoru Gojo held a stack of books piled so high in his arms that it threatened to topple.

He looked down at the cover of the topmost book, Introduction to Jujutsu Fundamentals, looking deeply displeased. "Why are there so many theory classes?"

He flipped to the table of contents, then immediately shut the book at the densely packed chapter titles.

Shoko leafed through her Introduction to Jujutsu Studies. Two pages in, she found a diagram showing the flow of Cursed Energy.

She tapped the diagram with a fingertip and said flatly, "Because schools generally hold classes."

Her tone was that of someone explaining basic common sense to a five-year-old attending school for the first time.

Hahaha. Actually, that wasn't far off.

"I thought Jujutsu High mostly handled fighting," Satoru Gojo said honestly.

He shifted the stack to his other arm and adjusted his balance.

Satoru Gojo had grown up in the Gojo Clan, where those old men or specially appointed teachers taught him. He had never attended school.

Suguru Geto took his textbooks out of the boxes one by one, checked the covers for bent corners, then stacked them neatly in order of size.

Every edge lined up perfectly, every spine facing the same way. "Theory matters, too."

He spoke seriously without looking up.

He had attended school, entering Jujutsu High after graduating from middle school.

Satoru Gojo leaned sideways to watch him organize his books. After three seconds, he offered his verdict. "Geto, you really seem like the type who studies ahead."

Suguru Geto's hands never stopped moving. Only the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. "I do."

Satoru Gojo fell silent for a second. Then he immediately turned, fixing his gaze on Yan Si. "Meat Bun, what about you?"

Yan Si was leafing through a textbook.

He leaned beside the window, sunlight falling from the side onto his open book and making the pages glow faintly.

He read fast.

This wasn't some exaggerated description of skimming ten lines at a glance. His fingers barely stopped: turn a page, sweep his eyes over it, turn another. With a rapid rustle, he was nearly halfway through a book in seconds.

His gaze lingered on each two-page spread for no more than two seconds, but it landed precisely, finding the chapter's key passages every time.

Satoru Gojo approached with his books in his arms, his white hair appearing above Yan Si's shoulder as he watched the rhythm of his page-turning curiously. "You can read Japanese?"

Yan Si turned another page without looking up. "I can."

Not only could he read it, but after learning standard Japanese intonation, he had deliberately learned the Kansai dialect too, just to annoy people when he spoke.

He said those words in Japanese, in a flawless Kansai dialect, right down to the rise and fall at the end.

It sounded a little rakish.

"Aren't you Chinese?" Satoru Gojo pressed.

"I'm not illiterate." Yan Si finally lifted his eyes, looking at him over the book with a resigned expression in his purple eyes that said, What a boring question.

Then he lowered his head again, never once stopping his hands.

"Then why are you reading so fast?"

Satoru Gojo stared at his page-turning fingers.

They were long and slender, their tips resting lightly on the edge of the paper before turning another page.

The dynamic vision of his Six Eyes could make out the contents of every page, but he noticed that Yan Si's gaze always paused on paragraphs containing key terms, never wasting time on illustrations or blank spaces.

"Because it's easy. Don't you guys understand books after reading them once?"

Yan Si turned another page, his tone as breezy as the motion.

Suguru Geto: ?

Shoko Ieiri: ?

Satoru Gojo nodded in agreement.

Suguru Geto glanced at the book in Yan Si's hands.

It was Cursed Energy Flow and Cursed Technique Structure, one of the harder theory textbooks in Jujutsu High's first-year curriculum. It contained a wealth of terminology specific to Jujutsu Society, with many terms that didn't even appear in standard Japanese dictionaries.

Yan Si flipped through it casually, but his gaze landed with precision, sweeping over the key formulas and passages on almost every page. Occasionally, he lingered on a line for an extra half second before continuing.

It didn't look like aimless flipping. It looked like someone quickly reviewing a book he had already read.

Suguru Geto remembered those few lines in his file.

"Skipped three grades." "Completed high school." "Accepted into a top university."

He had heard Yan Si brag about those things on the rooftop, his tone so light that he might have been telling a harmless joke.

But now, watching him race through the textbook, he suddenly realized that Yan Si really hadn't been making empty claims. He simply hid everything worth boasting about behind a casual attitude that said, It's no big deal.

Satoru Gojo had clearly noticed, too. His Six Eyes picked up more information than ordinary eyes.

The speed of Yan Si's pupil movements, how often his gaze focused, the fleeting expressions when he paused on a particular line.

He grinned, delighted-the delight of discovering another runner on the same track. "You really are a genius."

Yan Si closed the book and rested his chin in one hand, leaning lazily against the windowsill.

Sunlight shone from behind him, tracing a pale gold outline around his loose, long hair. He looked at Satoru Gojo and said lightly, "Thanks. So are you."

Satoru Gojo puffed out his chest. "Of course I am."

He looked like a cat whose fur had just been stroked the right way.

"So geniuses should be considerate of each other." Yan Si picked up the thread, his tone carrying a sense of shared understanding: Since we're both smart people.

Satoru Gojo was briefly thrown by that logic, but found nothing wrong with it. "For example?"

Yan Si shoved his stack of textbooks into Satoru Gojo's arms.

The motion was as smooth as if he'd rehearsed it. The books slid from Yan Si's hands into Satoru Gojo's arms without a single pause or any attempt to ask permission.

Satoru Gojo looked down at the textbooks that had suddenly doubled in his arms, which sank slightly under the weight.

A corner caught his shirt cuff, creasing it.

He slowly raised his head, his sunglasses sliding to the tip of his nose and revealing his azure eyes above the lenses. His gaze asked, Are you serious? But the corners of his mouth were already rising. "You're ordering me around?"

Yan Si smiled at him, his now-empty hands tucked into his pockets, utterly at ease.

His voice was so sweet it could have been spun into sugar threads. "Can't I?"

Satoru Gojo laughed too. Not out of irritation, but amusement, with the delighted surprise of someone thinking, Well, damn. Someone in this world actually dares treat me like this.

He dumped all the books-including his own stack-into Suguru Geto's arms beside him.

The movement was so natural that Suguru Geto's arms might as well have been a bookshelf made expressly for that purpose.

Suguru Geto looked down at the tower of books suddenly reaching his chin and fell silent. His arms sank slightly under the weight, and a corner of Introduction to Jujutsu Fundamentals at the top pointed straight at his nose, filling his nostrils with the smell of ink.

He stayed silent for a full three seconds. In those three seconds, many thoughts drifted through his mind.

From Which of the four of us is actually normal? to Why did I stand here? to Nice guys finish last.

Nice guys finish last.

That phrase surfaced in his mind again today.

That morning had marked the first time Yan Si and Satoru Gojo had reached an agreement. Now came their second, and both agreements had one thing in common-picking on him.

Shoko stood beside him and gave him a look.

The expression on Suguru Geto's face as he held that stack of books reminded her of an animal she'd seen in the hallway earlier.

A stray cat whose bread had been stolen by a flock of crows.

She stared at him for a good while before finally taking pity and removing two books from the top.

They happened to be her own textbooks.

"Thanks for the effort."

She said it in exactly the same tone she'd used at the training ground that morning, but this time there was an added implication: I've done all I can.

Suguru Geto: "...Thanks."

The word came out with some difficulty, because the books were still pressing against his chin.

Yan Si also pulled a book from the pile. With a light movement, he pinched its spine and gently slid it free. The tower swayed, but didn't fall.

Suguru Geto was just about to decide that he had a bit of a conscience after all when Yan Si opened the book, glanced at its cover, and declared, "This one's got a nice cover. I'll take it."

Suguru Geto swallowed whatever he'd been about to say and decided to stop trying to understand the logic behind Yan Si's actions.

Satoru Gojo was already laughing so hard he could barely stand straight. He braced one hand against a nearby bookshelf, shoulders shaking, his sunglasses nearly slipping off his nose.

His laughter bounced around the box-filled classroom, making the plastic wrapping on the top few books tremble faintly.

Then.

The three of them launched into a free-for-all.

Satoru Gojo took two punches to the head, both hammering down from above.

Yan Si didn't escape either.

[Points +2]

The two stacks of books returned to their respective owners' hands.