Ants and Suguru Geto

Yan Si glanced at page thirteen.

There was a short supplementary note along the edge of page thirteen, printed in tiny type and squeezed between the main text and the margin. It was a last-minute annotation from the editor, negligible in terms of layout.

It was crammed with words.

A normal person couldn't finish reading it.

But Yan Si pressed his finger against the page, ran his fingertip along the annotation, and turned the page.

"Oh, don't worry about me, sir. One read and I've got it~"

Yan Si waved a hand carelessly.

Masamichi Yaga: ...

Masamichi Yaga continued the lesson.

His teaching style was entirely in keeping with his personality.

He broke every concept down in meticulous detail, using progressively developed diagrams on the blackboard and the occasional physical sample to turn abstract jujutsu theory into easily understood structural units.

His voice was low and steady, echoing through the quiet classroom with a pressure that compelled everyone to concentrate.

At least, that was how it worked for Suguru Geto and Shoko.

Satoru Gojo listened beside them, bored out of his mind, his eyelids already drooping behind his sunglasses.

He propped his chin on one hand, his head bobbing, while he spun a pen beneath the desk with the other.

After two rotations, the pen flew out of his hand, traced an arc through the air, and clattered to the floor.

He bent down to retrieve it, folding his lanky body in half as he groped around on the floor.

As he picked it up, he took a look at Yan Si's textbook.

There were no notes in Yan Si's textbook. Not a single word.

But a small, folded slip of paper was tucked between the pages.

Satoru Gojo couldn't make out what was written on it.

Because Yan Si noticed his gaze, casually covered the page with his palm, and turned to smile at him.

That smile struck the exact balance between "friendly" and "keep out."

"White-Haired Cat, pay attention."

"You're not paying attention either."

"I am."

"Then tell me what the teacher just said."

"Cursed energy is, in essence, the concentration and manifestation of negative emotions. Negative emotions that ordinary people cannot dispel accumulate and settle, forming curses. Jujutsu sorcerers can actively control these energies." Yan Si repeated it word for word, speaking more than twice as fast as Masamichi Yaga. "Also, extreme emotional fluctuations can cause cursed energy to go out of control."

Satoru Gojo blinked.

"You remembered all that?"

"I'm not a goldfish."

"But you don't look like you're listening."

"There are plenty of things I don't look like I'm doing." Yan Si smiled at him, the daylight streaming through the window reflected in his purple eyes. "But that's how geniuses are. Can't help it~"

Satoru Gojo stared at him for two seconds, stunned by his sheer shamelessness.

Then he leaned back in his chair and started spinning his pen again.

The pen spun twice between his fingers before coming to a steady stop.

"You," he drawled, his tone carrying a fresh note of appraisal, "are a lot more interesting than you look."

Yan Si tilted his head. "Thanks for the compliment."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"Yes, it was."

Shoko glanced back at them from the front row. The mint-flavored lollipop stick in her mouth shifted, but she said nothing and turned away again.

Suguru Geto didn't turn around.

He faced forward the entire time, his eyes fixed on the blackboard and his back ramrod straight.

He wanted absolutely nothing to do with those two ridiculous desk mates.

Masamichi Yaga continued teaching as though he hadn't heard a thing.

He'd only just treated those two to a taste of his fists, and they still didn't care in the slightest.

Honestly...

His chalk snapped again.

It was already his third piece today.

When the first lesson ended, Satoru Gojo took a long, leisurely stretch.

He extended his arms upward as far as they would go, then spread them out and back. His joints cracked several times, making Shoko frown and duck away.

Otherwise, his fist would have been right in her face.

Scumbag.

"Finally over." He stood up and loosened his neck, rolling his head once clockwise and once counterclockwise. "Theory is so boring. When do we get practical lessons?"

Shoko pulled the lollipop stick out of her mouth and casually tucked it into her textbook as a bookmark, her tone as bland as plain water. "We haven't even finished chapter one, and you want practical lessons?"

"I already know everything in chapter one."

"Just because you know everything doesn't mean everyone else does."

Satoru Gojo glanced at Yan Si.

Yan Si had his head lowered as he carefully pulled the little slip of paper from between the pages, folded it in half, then in half again, and slipped it into his shirt's breast pocket. His movements were gentle and natural. Once he was done, he even gave the pocket a pat to make sure it was secure.

"Meat Bun, do you know all of it?"

Yan Si thought for a moment. "Pretty much."

"How much is pretty much?"

"Ninety-nine percent of the book."

"What about the other one percent?"

"Gotta leave a little room for modesty~"

Satoru Gojo laughed aloud. His laughter reverberated through the empty classroom, stirring the chalk dust on an unoccupied desk in the front row. "You really are full of yourself."

Yan Si stood up and stretched.

His movements were a little more elegant than Satoru Gojo's. He raised both arms above his head, brought his fingertips together, arched his back slightly, then relaxed.

But he was every bit as languid as Satoru Gojo. Once he finished stretching, he slumped back into that boneless stance.

He glanced down into his desk drawer.

The break was ten minutes long.

In the hallway, sunlight streamed through the windows in broad swaths, casting bright squares across the wooden floor.

The air carried the crisp freshness unique to mountain forests and the scent of rice drifting from the distant cafeteria. The two mingled into the distinctive scent of Jujutsu High.

Satoru Gojo leaned beside a window, crunching away on a bag of chips he'd gotten from who knew where.

He offered the open bag to Shoko. She shook her head, so he withdrew it and went on eating by himself.

Shoko stood beside him with a fresh lollipop, grape-flavored, with a purple stick.

It was a little too sweet for her liking.

Suguru Geto leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway, leafing through the textbook for their next class to prepare in advance.

His back rested against the wall, his posture straight.

Yan Si squatted right in the middle of the hallway.

His squat was textbook-perfect: heels on the floor, knees bent, and weight firmly balanced.

With his head lowered, he stared intently at something on the floor.

Satoru Gojo chewed his chips and leaned over to look. "Meat Bun, what are you doing?"

"An ant," Yan Si replied.

In a gap between the hallway floorboards, an ant was carrying a cookie crumb.

The crumb was more than three times the size of the ant's body, swaying overhead as it struggled along the groove between the boards. Yan Si extended a finger and lightly drew a line on the floor ahead of it. The ant twitched its antennae twice, made a detour, and continued in its original direction.

"What are you watching an ant for?"

"Watching it carry stuff."

"What's so interesting about that?"

Yan Si didn't answer right away.

He drew another line in front of the ant with his finger, a little farther away this time. The ant traveled three times the distance before finding its way toward its destination again.

It never stopped walking, carrying something three times its own size as it navigated obstacles that seemed utterly meaningless to a human.

"Look at it," Yan Si said, his voice a little softer than usual, no longer carrying that flippant tone. "Such a tiny thing, carrying something three times its size, and it's so steady. It doesn't complain, doesn't stop, doesn't ask why it has to be the one carrying it."

If Suguru Geto couldn't think or question things, if he were like this ant, he wouldn't defect.

But if he really were like this ant, that would be pretty boring~

Satoru Gojo chewed his chips and lifted his chin slightly. "Since when did you start getting philosophical about ants?"

Yan Si stood and brushed the dust off his knees. Off the knees of his uniform trousers.

"I'm always thinking," he said. "You just haven't noticed."

Shoko glanced at him. "Were you thinking during class just now, too?"

"Yep."

"About what?"

About how things end for you lot, obviously.

Everyone dies except Shoko.

Not sure whether that counts as a bad ending or a happy ending.

Yan Si himself actually thought meeting again in the afterlife was a good thing, stripped of all their identities, responsibilities, and burdens.

All that remained between people were memories and beating hearts.

That was nice, wasn't it?

"About whether the cafeteria has chocolate stir-fried with tomatoes for lunch today."

Shoko moved her lollipop to the other corner of her mouth, her face expressionless as she delivered her verdict. "They wouldn't serve anything that disgusting."

"Really? What a shame..." Yan Si put on an expression of utter heartbreak.