The duped white-haired boy

Yan Si was still raising the stakes.

"I didn't know I shouldn't usually call you Dead Cat, or White Cat either. My fault. I'm sorry."

After speaking, he lowered his head again and brushed a tear hanging from his chin away with the back of his hand.

The movement was gentle, like wiping up a drop of water accidentally spilled, with no intention of drawing anyone's attention.

But everyone there saw it.

Satoru Gojo's lips moved.

As the Gojo Clan's Six Eyes, he had lived in a kind of vacuum since the day he was born. He had heard plenty of praise.

Every version of "heaven's chosen," "a genius seen once in centuries," and "the future of Jujutsu Society" had worn calluses on his ears.

He had heard some criticism too. The old fossils in his clan occasionally expressed their displeasure at his "insubordination" in roundabout ways, but he never took it to heart.

He met blunt attacks head-on. Subtle ones baffled him, but he took those too.

But this, today...

A classmate whose nose he had knocked bloody was looking at him through tears, putting himself down again and again, telling him "I'm sorry" over and over.

He had never seen this before.

There was no such page in Satoru Gojo's dictionary.

He looked down at the blood on his shoulder.

Yan Si had smeared it there while Gojo was carrying him earlier.

Then he looked back up at Yan Si's tear-soaked face. He was utterly bewildered.

Wait, we were having fun. What happened to you...?

Are we still playing?

Feels like he's about to stop being my friend.

Satoru Gojo discovered what it felt like to be roasted over a fire.

Simmered over low heat, flames licking the bottom of the pot, the water temperature creeping higher, while he couldn't even muster the strength to jump out.

Like a despairing toad.

Suguru Geto's expression had changed the moment Yan Si spoke his first sentence.

His eyebrows rose ever so slightly. He was certain that when they first met, Yan Si had casually dispatched four cursed spirits in an instant, including a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

A few slashes, and a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit was dead.

As if it were a joke. He usually treated missions like playtime too.

Now Yan Si was sitting there with tears swimming in his eyes, saying he had "poor cursed energy control" and was "weak."

At fifteen, the strongest opponents Suguru Geto had faced so far were Grade 1 Cursed Spirits.

He could win, but he needed time and strategy. He needed to calculate every shift between offense and defense, to use his Cursed Technique to release cursed spirits.

Yan Si needed none of that to fight a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

The guy who had laughed and stabbed back after a cursed spirit's tentacle lashed him hard enough to send blood spraying was now holding a handkerchief over his nose, tears falling one by one, his voice as soft as a cat apologizing after someone stepped on its tail.

Suguru Geto's mouth twitched.

He quickly controlled his expression, forcing the "what act are you putting on now?" about to surface back down his throat.

He decided not to expose him. Not because he didn't want to.

Because he wanted to see exactly what Yan Si was trying to do.

All right, he really just wanted to watch Satoru Gojo make a fool of himself.

Yan Si had no time to care what Suguru Geto was thinking.

Right now, he was wholly absorbed in teasing Satoru Gojo, not even in a hurry to stop his nosebleed.

He held back his Reverse Cursed Technique. This performance was such fun.

He wiped the last traces of blood from his face with the handkerchief and slowly raised his eyes.

Those tear-soaked purple eyes settled on Satoru Gojo. A faint flush still lingered at their corners, and the tears pooled in them trembled under the overhead lights.

He said, "Gojo, the blood on your clothes... my fault. I'll wash them..."

His voice was quiet and hoarse, his tone cautious and restrained, as though he were the one who owed an apology.

Satoru Gojo looked down at the dark red stain on his shoulder.

The blood had already seeped into his black uniform. Its edges were slowly drying, changing from bright red to dark brown.

It turned the black uniform a shade darker.

His clothes had been stained with plenty of things.

Cursed spirit remains, sweat after training, cream from dessert shops, muddy water on rainy days.

But never a classmate's blood.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say, "No need to wash it. It's just a shirt," wanting to say, "Don't cry," wanting to say, "I really didn't mean to."

He couldn't get the words out.

Seeing his expression, Yan Si's lips curved up ever so slightly.

He suppressed that curve almost as soon as it appeared, lowering his lashes to hide the laughter nearly overflowing from his eyes.

He asked softly, "Why aren't you saying anything, Gojo?"

Satoru Gojo's shoulders tensed slightly.

"Do you hate me?" Yan Si asked again.

His voice grew even softer, so soft that Satoru Gojo had to hold his breath to hear it clearly.

Still raising the stakes, still piling pressure on Satoru Gojo.

Satoru Gojo shook his head quickly.

"Do you think I did something else wrong...?"

Yan Si raised his eyes, his lashes fluttering once as another tear slid from the corner of his eye.

There was no grievance in his voice. Instead, he sounded as though he were earnestly reflecting on his own mistakes.

Satoru Gojo finally found his words.

He forced them through his teeth, stiff but instinctive: "You did nothing wrong."

Obviously. Of course it wasn't my fault.

The whole world could be wrong, but I couldn't possibly be.

Yan Si answered swiftly in his head, while keeping that meek, docile expression on his face. He buried the laughter in his eyes even deeper, hiding it completely behind his lashes.

Making sure Satoru Gojo couldn't see a thing from his angle.

He slowly straightened up.

Fine dust from the floor clung to his knees, but he didn't brush it off.

He walked up to Satoru Gojo. The blood on his face was almost entirely wiped away, but the blood on his hands and arms had dried into dark red patches embedded in the texture of his skin.

He stood before Satoru Gojo, neither too close nor too far, looking at the white-haired boy.

"Then it's your fault, Gojo?"

Yan Si tilted his head, his tone still weak, gentle, and timid.

The sudden turn left Satoru Gojo stuck for a moment.

His brain had still been trapped in an endless loop of "I don't know what to do."

Yan Si had suddenly switched tracks, and he couldn't keep up.

He looked at Yan Si's face.

The tear tracks remained, the redness at the corners of his eyes had yet to fade, and tears still lingered in those purple eyes.

His mind failed to catch up, and he nodded instinctively.

The next second, he felt a weight on his shoulder.

Yan Si had rested one hand on it.

"Then you're willing to atone, right, Gojo?"

Haha, his Limitless isn't on.

Before Satoru Gojo could react, Yan Si pushed himself up, his whole body rising lightly into the air.

One foot landed on Satoru Gojo's left shoulder, and the other followed onto his right.

Suddenly, all Satoru Gojo could see was a chin.

Yan Si's chin, and above it, his face looking down at him. A cheerful, laughing voice rang out:

"Fruity Robo, get in position!"

Yan Si stood upright, his feet planted firmly on Satoru Gojo's shoulders.

He bounced twice up there, adjusting his center of gravity, the soles of his feet pressing into Satoru Gojo's shoulder muscles as he felt the steady support beneath him.

He looked down.

Satoru Gojo's white-haired head was directly below him. From this angle, he could see the whorl at his crown.

Not bad.

I want to stand on his head.

Never mind. That would be pushing my luck.

He rose onto his toes, then pressed down again, as though testing a new piece of furniture's weight capacity.

Satoru Gojo's shoulders were broad, surprisingly steady to stand on.

He looked down at the crown of Satoru Gojo's head, his Kansai dialect drifting down from above with genuine delight. "Not bad. Guess you're useful for something~"

Satoru Gojo stood in the training grounds with a giggling classmate standing on his shoulders.

His brain finally broke out of its endless "I don't know what to do" loop and rebooted.

Then he realized something.

From the moment he hit Yan Si's nose until now, Yan Si hadn't activated his Reverse Cursed Technique.

He had Reverse Cursed Technique.

He could even output Reverse Cursed Technique to heal others. Healing himself would be simpler still.

His nose was still bleeding.

It hadn't stopped, not because he couldn't stop it, but because he hadn't stopped it at all.

Satoru Gojo replayed the last three minutes from beginning to end, including "I'm weak," "I'm sorry," "Gojo," and those tearful purple eyes.

The images played back frame by frame, every detail pointing to the same conclusion.

He had been played.

From the first shimmering, tearful look, from the first trembling "it hurts," from the second "Dead Cat" became "Gojo."

From beginning to end, he had been played.

Satoru Gojo tilted his head back. It wasn't easy, because Yan Si was still standing on his shoulders, and the top of his head nearly bumped into Yan Si's calf.

His pale blue eyes glared up at Yan Si, his white hair brushing Yan Si's trouser leg as he forced each word through his teeth: "You-tricked-me!"

Yan Si looked down at him. His purple eyes curved into two crescents, the tear tracks not yet completely wiped away, a faint flush still lingering at their corners.

But his smile was utterly radiant, the little red mark between his brows gleaming under the fluorescent lights.

"Hahaha..."

Yan Si laughed delightedly, casually healed his nose, and asked with a smile:

"Pretty good acting, huh? Want to praise me?"