Cracks

Suguru Geto opened his eyes, stacked the three reports together, and put them back where they belonged.

He already had enough information. What he needed now wasn't more material, but a plan-one that would save Yu Haibara without exposing the fact that he "knew the future."

He couldn't simply say, "I know there's a special grade cursed spirit there." No one would believe him. Satoru Gojo might trust his instincts, but Gojo would ask, "How do you know?" And Suguru Geto couldn't answer that question.

So he needed a reason.

A reasonable one that wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Suguru Geto stood up and returned the folder to its place. He was about to leave the Archives Room when he heard footsteps in the corridor.

Not one person. Two.

"Can't you walk a little slower?" said a low voice, tinged with impatience.

"You're too slow, Nanami! Geto and the others must've finished eating already!" The other voice was lively and loud, as though its owner never ran out of energy.

Yu Haibara and Kento Nanami.

Suguru Geto paused. Instead of stepping outside, he stayed behind the door and watched the two of them pass through the gap.

Yu Haibara walked ahead with a spring in his step, stuffing bread from a bag into his mouth as he went. Kento Nanami followed at a measured pace, a folder tucked in his arms and a slight crease between his brows, as though enduring some unspeakable agony.

"Haibara, could you stop talking while you're eating?"

"Why? Talking doesn't stop me from chewing!"

"You'll choke."

"No, I won't! I've been eating like this for sixteen years!"

"Then you've been testing the limits of survival for sixteen years."

The corner of Suguru Geto's mouth twitched despite himself.

That was Yu Haibara and Kento Nanami. One was the sun, the other the moon. One was always smiling, the other always frowning. But they were the best of partners, at least for now. In Suguru Geto's memories, Nanami had never formed a true partnership with anyone again after Haibara died.

"Geto?"

At some point, Yu Haibara had reached the Archives Room door and was peering inside. His mouth was still full of bread.

"What are you doing here?" Haibara asked indistinctly. "Gojo said you weren't going on any missions today."

"I was looking something up." Suguru Geto stepped out of the Archives Room and closed the door behind him.

Kento Nanami stood a few steps away, his gaze lingering on Suguru Geto's face for a moment. He said nothing, but Suguru Geto noticed his brow furrow further-not with impatience, but in thought.

"Haibara," Suguru Geto said, "do you have a mission in September?"

Haibara swallowed his bread and thought for a moment. "Yeah, out in Zama. Why?"

"I'm going with you."

Haibara blinked. "Huh? But that mission was assigned to me."

"I'll put in a request with the higher-ups." Suguru Geto's tone was calm but left no room for argument. "That area's been unsettled lately. It'll be safer with an extra person."

Haibara opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply smiled and nodded. "Sorry for the trouble, then!"

Kento Nanami's gaze shifted between Suguru Geto and Haibara. He didn't speak, but his eyes changed, growing deeper and more somber, as though he had something to say but wasn't sure he should.

Suguru Geto noticed.

"Nanami," he said, "is there something you want to say?"

Kento Nanami was silent for two seconds.

"Geto," he said, his voice very low, "is that mission really grade 2?"

The corridor fell quiet for a moment.

Yu Haibara's smile froze briefly, then quickly returned. "Nanami, you worry too much! Geto's already said he's coming with me. What could happen?"

Kento Nanami ignored him and kept looking at Suguru Geto, waiting for an answer.

Suguru Geto looked into Kento Nanami's pale, prematurely mature eyes. He remembered Kento Nanami ten years later, the taciturn man who wrapped himself in his work. He remembered something Nanami had once said: "Being a jujutsu sorcerer is shit."

"I'll tell you," Suguru Geto said, "when the time is right."

Kento Nanami stared at him for three seconds, then gave a slight nod. He didn't press further, because he had seen something in Suguru Geto's eyes that he didn't fully understand, but that left him vaguely uneasy.

Those weren't the eyes of a seventeen-year-old boy.

They were the eyes of someone who had known loss and sworn never to lose anyone again.

That night, Suguru Geto didn't return to the dorms.

He sat beneath the old cherry tree on the hill behind Jujutsu High, his back against the trunk and his face tilted toward the sky.

It had been his favorite place during his time at Jujutsu High-a corner where he could briefly escape everyone, everything, and every responsibility. The old Suguru Geto had come here to relax, to think, to catch his breath away from that noisy genius, Satoru Gojo.

The Suguru Geto of now came here because he needed to be alone.

Because there was too much he couldn't say, too much emotion he couldn't show, too much of the future he couldn't reveal. He needed somewhere with no one around, where he could take those things out of his heart, look at them, then tuck them back inside.

"There you are."

Suguru Geto didn't turn around. He had already recognized those familiar footsteps.

Satoru Gojo came up the slope in a white T-shirt, carrying two cans of soda. Moonlight shone on his white hair, making him look like a glowing cloud. He wasn't wearing sunglasses, so his blue eyes were fully exposed beneath the starlight.

Satoru Gojo had changed a great deal after the Star Plasma Vessel Incident.

He no longer spent all day making a racket the way he used to. He fell silent more often, used his Six Eyes to observe more often, and more often said things Suguru Geto couldn't decipher. He was still "the strongest," but those words had grown heavier on him, as though what he carried wasn't power, but an inescapable responsibility.

Suguru Geto knew why he had changed.

Because of Riko Amanai. Because he hadn't been able to protect her. Because, for the first time, he had realized there were things even the strongest couldn't do.

"How did you find me here?" Suguru Geto asked.

"Six Eyes," Satoru Gojo said succinctly. He sat beside him and handed him a can. "Cola. Cold."

Suguru Geto took the cola and pulled the tab. Bubbles hissed up, forming a ring of white foam around the opening.

Satoru Gojo opened his own can, tipped his head back for a long drink, then let out a long breath.

"Geto," he said, "you went to the Archives Room today."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"What were you looking into?"

"The Zama mission."

"Haibara's?"

"Yes."

Satoru Gojo fell silent for a few seconds, turning the can twice in his hand. Then he said, "You think something's wrong."

Suguru Geto turned to glance at him. In the moonlight, Satoru Gojo's profile was sharply defined, young and keen-edged. His expression was calm-not his usual flippant calm, but something deep and still, like a lake in winter.

"Yes," Suguru Geto said. "I think something's wrong."

"What?"

"I can't quite say. Just a gut feeling."

"A gut feeling." Satoru Gojo repeated the words without mockery, only an emotion that was hard to name. "Your instincts have always been good."

Suguru Geto didn't respond.

They sat beneath the cherry tree like that, drinking cola and watching the stars. A few lights shone at Jujutsu High in the distance, making it look like a quiet island in the night.

"Gojo," Suguru Geto suddenly said, "do you believe people get second chances?"

Satoru Gojo tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"If someone did something wrong, went down the wrong path, could he start over?"

Satoru Gojo didn't answer immediately. He stared at his cola can for a few seconds, then said, "Depends on who it is."

"What if it were you?"

"Me?" Satoru Gojo laughed, a bitterness in his smile that Suguru Geto wasn't quite familiar with. "I've never done anything wrong. I'm the strongest. How could I screw up?"

Suguru Geto couldn't help laughing. "Narcissist."

"It's called confidence."

Silence settled over them again.

After a long time, Satoru Gojo said, "Geto, you haven't been yourself lately."

Suguru Geto didn't deny it. He just kept drinking his cola and looking at the stars.

"You never used to volunteer for the younger students' missions," Satoru Gojo said. "You never used to spend an entire afternoon in the Archives Room. You never used to look at people like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're looking at something that could shatter at any moment." Satoru Gojo turned his head, his blue eyes looking straight at Suguru Geto. "You look at me that way. Shoko, too. It's even more obvious with Haibara."

Suguru Geto's grip tightened around his cola can.

"What are you afraid of, Geto?" Satoru Gojo's voice was soft, as though he were afraid of disturbing something. "Are you scared one of us is going to break?"

Suguru Geto opened his mouth. He wanted to say, "No," or, "You're overthinking it," or, "I've just been a little tired lately."

But he couldn't get the words out.

Because he knew Satoru Gojo was right. He really was looking at them that way, at the people he still had but had once lost. When he looked at Satoru Gojo, he saw not only a seventeen-year-old prodigy, but also the twenty-seven-year-old man who stood alone atop the words "the strongest." When he looked at Shoko, he saw not only a girl with a cigarette between her lips, but also the doctor who numbed herself with alcohol and smiled less and less. When he looked at Haibara, he didn't see a living person, but a corpse torn apart by a cursed spirit.

He looked at them like lamps that the wind might extinguish at any moment.

"Gojo," Suguru Geto said quietly, "if one day I became someone you didn't recognize, what would you do?"

Satoru Gojo stared at him for three seconds.

Then he set his cola can on the grass and turned to face Suguru Geto fully. Moonlight fell over his white hair and eyelashes, making him look like a being that didn't belong to this world.

"I'd beat some sense into you," he said, each word deliberate. "Then I'd ask why you became that way."

"What if I couldn't answer?"

"Then I'd keep asking until you could."

Suguru Geto looked into Satoru Gojo's eyes. In those blue Six Eyes that could see through everything, he saw his own reflection-a seventeen-year-old boy with black hair and black eyes, his uniform neatly worn, looking just like any ordinary Jujutsu High student.

But deep within those eyes, there was someone else.

A twenty-seven-year-old man whose hands were covered in blood, who had already died once.

Could Satoru Gojo see him?

Suguru Geto didn't know. Satoru Gojo's expression hadn't changed. He was simply smiling.

"Let's go." Satoru Gojo stood and brushed the bits of grass from his trousers. "We've got class tomorrow. If you're late again, Mr. Yaga's going to lose it."

Suguru Geto took his outstretched hand and stood.

They walked down the hill side by side. Moonlight stretched their shadows long across the grass, like two parallel strokes of ink.

When they reached the foot of the dormitory, Satoru Gojo suddenly stopped.

"Geto."

"Yeah?"

"I'm coming, too." Satoru Gojo didn't look at him, only tipped his head back to gaze at the dormitory windows.

Suguru Geto froze for a moment. "What?"

"That Zama mission. I'm coming, too." Satoru Gojo sounded as casual as if he were commenting on the weather. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."

"Gojo, that's Haibara's mission."

"So an extra person will make it safer." Satoru Gojo cut him off, then turned to look at him. "You said you had a gut feeling. So do I. Mine says that if I don't go, you're going to do something stupid."

Suguru Geto fell silent.

He didn't know what to say. Satoru Gojo was right. If only he and Haibara went, he might choose to shoulder all the danger himself when they faced that special grade cursed spirit. And Satoru Gojo's "gut feeling"-or rather, the perception of his Six Eyes-had already picked up on that tendency.

"All right," Suguru Geto said.

Satoru Gojo raised his eyebrows, apparently not expecting him to agree so readily. But he didn't press further. He simply nodded, turned, and headed up the stairs.

When he reached the turn in the staircase, his voice drifted down from above.

"Good night, Geto. No nightmares."

Suguru Geto stood at the foot of the stairs, watching Satoru Gojo disappear around the corner.

He lowered his head and looked at his hand.

It was trembling slightly.

Not from fear, but because an emotion he couldn't name churned in his chest with nowhere to escape.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Yu Haibara was still alive. There was still time.

Suguru Geto opened his eyes and started up the stairs.

His steps were steady.

But deep in his mind, among those shards of broken-glass memories, a voice said: You have time to save Haibara, but you can't save Riko Amanai. You can't save yourself. Sooner or later, you'll still become that curse user.

Suguru Geto forced that voice down.

He closed his dorm room door, lay down in the dark, and shut his eyes.